There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an opinion of others, than having an excellent one of ourselves at the very same time.Miss Stubbs had indeed summoned up every assistance which art could afford to beauty; but, alas!
hoop, patches, frizzled locks, and a new mantua of genuine French silk, were lost upon a young officer of dragoons, who wore, for the first time, his gold-laced hat, jack-boots, and broadsword.I know not whether, like the champion of an old ballad, His heart was all on honour bent, He could not stoop to love;No lady in the land had power His frozen heart to move;or whether the deep and flaming bars of embroidered gold, which now fenced his breast, defied the artillery of Cecilia's eyes; but every arrow was launched at him in vain.
Yet did I mark where Cupid's shaft did light;It lighted not on little western flower, But on bold yeoman, flower of all the west, Hight Jonas Culbertfield, the steward's son.
Craving pardon for my heroics (which I am unable in certain cases to resist giving way to), it is a melancholy fact, that my history must here take leave of the fair Cecilia, who, like many a daughter of Eve, after the departure of Edward, and the dissipation of certain idle visions which she had adopted, quietly contented herself with a _pis-aller,_ and gave her hand, at the distance of six months, to the aforesaid Jonas, son of the Baronet's steward, and heir (no unfertile prospect) to a steward's fortune; besides the snug probability of succeeding to his father's office.All these advantages moved Squire Stubbs, as much as the ruddy brow and manly form of the suitor influenced his daughter, to abate somewhat in the article of their gentry; and so the match was concluded.None seemed more gratified than Aunt Rachel, who had hitherto looked rather askance upon the presumptuous damsel (as much so, peradventure, as her nature would permit), but who, on the first appearance of the new-married pair at church, honoured the bride with a smile and a profound courtesy, in presence of the rector, the curate, the clerk, and the whole congregation of the united parishes of Waverley cum Beverley.
I beg pardon, once and for all, of those readers who take up novels merely for amusement, for plaguing them so long with old-fashioned politics, and Whig and Tory, and Hanoverians and Jacobites.The truth is, I cannot promise them that this story shall be intelligible, not to say probable, without it.My plan requires that I should explain the motives on which its action proceeded; and these motives necessarily arose from the feelings, prejudices, and parties of the times.I do not invite my fair readers, whose sex and impatience give them the greatest right to complain of these circumstances, into a flying chariot drawn by hippogriffs, or moved by enchantment.Mine is an humble English post-chaise, drawn upon four wheels, and keeping his Majesty's highway.Such as dislike the vehicle may leave it at the next halt, and wait for the conveyance of Prince Hussein's tapestry, or Malek the Weaver's flying sentry-box.
Those who are contented to remain with me will be occasionally exposed to the dulness inseparable from heavy roads, steep hills, sloughs, and other terrestrial retardations; but, with tolerable horses and a civil driver (as the advertisements have it), I engage to get as soon as possible into a more picturesque and romantic country, if my passengers incline to have some patience with me during my first stages.<*>
* These Introductory Chapters have been a good deal censured as tedious * and unnecessary.Yet there are circumstances recorded in them which the * author has not been able to persuade himself to retract or cancel.