Page:Lady Anne Granard 2.pdf/299

Rh was intended to be the amanuensis, should she be found capable of forming sentences out of disjointed hints, and of wrapping foul facts in clean composition. "There will be some anecdotes I had better tell myself, and I must find the smartness and the pathos, but there may be sheet after sheet of prosiness that Georgiana may do fast enough; the essence of the work will be in the title-page—'Records of People of Rank,' by Lady Anne Granard; or, 'Facts known to few,' by the Right Honourable Lady; or, 'Annals of High Life:' but I had better write the book first, and give it a title afterwards." "But I thought you were going to write a novel, mamma, like Mrs." "Then you thought wrong. I shall not write like Mistress Anybody. I shall write like what I am—a woman of rank. Did Lady Mary Wortley Montague write like Miss Emma Roberts and Miss Pardoe, who were merely modest young ladies in private life, and could not see or relate what an ambassador's lady did?" "May I read her book, mamma? It is locked up in your bookcase." "No; you may see quite enough of Turkey in the old copy of Guthrie's grammar. I wish you to study stile and composition, in order to assist me in the relation of anecdotes; and you may do that effectually by reading Johnson's Rambler and Hawksworth's