Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/43

 me: but it was no merit of mine if I deserved it: I was born so. There was a man one day at table with Mr. Pitt, an old friend of his—Canning told me the story—who, speaking of me, observed that he supposed I should soon marry, and, after some conversation on the subject, concluded by saying, 'I suppose she waits till she can get a man as clever as herself.' 'Then,' answered Mr. Pitt, 'she will never marry at all.'

"In like manner, in the troublesome times of his political career, Mr. Pitt would say, 'I have plenty of good diplomatists, but they are none of them military men: and I have plenty of good officers, but not one of them is worth sixpence in the cabinet. If you were a man, Hester, I would send you on the Continent with 60,000 men, and give you carte blanche; and I am sure that not one of my plans would fail, and not one soldier would go with his shoes unblacked; meaning, that my attention would embrace every duty that belongs to a general and a corporal—and so it would, doctor."

After musing a little while, Lady Hester Stanhope went on. "Did you ever read the life of General Moore that I have seen advertised, written by his brother? I wonder which brother it was. If it was the surgeon, he was hard-headed, with great knowledge of men, but