| Citation |
SCGCJ.769.016
2 May 1769:11, 12, 13 (178)
The Fatal Indifference: or the Interesting History of Mrs.
Matilda Markham. Printed from her own manuscript.
I was the only daughter of a gentleman, who held an
employment under the Government, that amounted to 500l. a
year; yet though this employment was his principal
dependence, and though he was always under a necessity of
appearing rather elegantly in the world, still no care was
omitted to give his favourite Matilda a finished education.
I was therefore instructed at an early period in French and
Italian, was taught all the fashionable needleworks that
keep a young woman regularly employed, without answering any
one purpose of real ability, and made such of mistress of
the harpsichord before I attained my fourteenth year, that I
was considered by the connoisseurs on this instrument, as a
kind of musical miracle: Add to all these accomplishments,
that I sung with some voice and much taste, danced with
remarkable grace, and possessed a person which was the
incessant object of general adulation. . . [12 lines,
narrative suggesting these talents were useless] [My
father] fancied that the knowledge of a language or two,
would necessarily give me good sense, and believed the turn
of my disposition must be right, because I sung prettily,
and made a figure at my harpsichord. -- Alas! how severely
has experience convinced me, that a single scruple of
discretion outweighs all the benefits to be reaped from the
French or the Italian; and how heartily do I wish that the
hours which have been so prodigally lavished in the
attainment of mere embellishments, had been wisely employed
in the less fashionable studies of regulating a family. . .
. . . [8 paragraphs of her history squandering her husband's
fortune]
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