A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the Year 1741 to 1770

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

169-170

text excerpt

I have no leisure to think of either painting or poetry, but I jog on as stupidly as I can, and if I pass a day without some ingenious fright, or entertaining my companions with a musical squall, I think myself both happy and wise. And do we not most of us jog through life much in the same way as I have described my ride? […]

Vous me plaignez fort charitablement de n'être pas folle de la musique, mais je puis vous assurer que je le suis, et même que je l'ai été de toutes les manieres. You may not perhaps apprehend that there is more than one way of loving music, but I think I can prove from my own experience, as unmusical as you think me, that there are half a dozen. One may be quite fond of it for it's own sake, for one's own sake, or for the sake of other people; out of taste, fashion, melancholy, gaieté de cœur, complaisance, reason, and partiality. In all these ways have I at times been musically mad; I think at present I am reduced to a simple natural taste in it; I enjoy the melody of birds with great cheerfulness; but solemn music of all others is the joy of my heart, and if I hear a fine anthem well sung, it raises me above the world, and gives me a pleasure there is no describing. Lighter music, and especially the Italian, affects me when it is good, but not in so agreeable a way as it does you. It fills me with thoughts and recollections, but they have generally a melancholy turn, and soften my mind into sadness that I do not love to indulge. En vérité, Mademoiselle, vous êtes admirable avec votre compassion, je trouve que j'ai l'ame fort harmonieuse, a tel point qu'il ne vient jamais a la porte aucun de ces Orphées errants qui jouent du violon, ou même du bagpipe qui ne se ressent de ma liberalité. Même je crois, quoique vous en parlez avec assez d'humilité, que si votre epinette etoit portable, et vous vinsiez jouer à la porte quelque jour de fête, je ne vour renverrois pas sans une pièce de six sols.

I have followed your rule very exactly of talking nothing but nonsense in French. C’est la seule langue au monde pour badiner.

excerpt from 'A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the Year 1741 to 1770' pp. 169-170 (403 words)

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