Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 44

[cahn]

Not only are these posts still going, there is now (more) original research going on in them deciphering and translating letters in archives that apparently no one has bothered to look at before?? (Which has now conclusively exonerated Fritz's valet/chamberlain Fredersdorf from the charge that he was dismissed because of financial irregularities and died shortly thereafter "ashamed of his lost honor," as Wikipedia would have it. I'M JUST SAYING.)

Comments

Re: A Character of Lady Mary Hervey drawn by herself

[selenak]

Wow, that is fascinating. cahn, for the record, because we're talking about so many Herveys and Marys: this lady is Molly, wife of Hervey the memoirist, mother of (among others) Augustus the Seaman and Fred the Bishop, grandmother of Bess Foster. Mildred actually tracked down the manuscript from which the quote in Lucy Worsley's book about Georgian courtiers hails from.

With the caveat that we're just guessing after two centuries anyway, but: this comes across as a ruthlessly honest self portrait. I'm also glad we have an exact date, because 1744 means Lord Hervey the memoirist is dead, her older male kids are off to sea (Augustus) and school (Frederick), and she's living with her father-in-law when she's not in Paris.

I am naturally gay and delighted with everything, unless I have something to afflict me, in which case I have no moderation, and believe there is no person so unhappy as myself.

I daresay this is true for many people without them being aware of the second part.

I love people of spirit. Raillery is a very great pleasure to me, but I don't love those who slander every body and every thing that is done. I like better that they ridicule in general, than particular persons, to' the latter diverts me very much, at the same time that I feel some remorse for being so much pleased with it, and yet would not silence them if I could, nor be silent myself.

Ah yes. It's clear why she fell in love with Hervey and why Voltaire went to the trouble of writing a poem in English for her.

I shall find it a great misfortune to be so ambitious as I am, as there is no likelyhood I shall ever be able to satisfy it (it not being easy so to do) if it is not that I value myself for having such high thoughts, and sometimes I think myself almost worthy to be what I desire, because I cannot be satisfied with less.

Okay, that's a bit of an intrigiuing puzzle. Ambitious how, in 1744? Because if she said this as a young girl in the 1720s, when she had Alexander Pope and most of the court sighing over her before marrying the guy declared the most handsome and witty courtier, who himself definitely wanted to the confidant of Fritz of Wales and was already Caroline's, that would be one thing. (Plus there's the short lived episode where old G1 flirts with her.) I'd say she is ambitious in that she wants to make a brilliant match and move in the highest circles. But in 1744, she's no longer at court, she's an excentric widow who professes Jacobite loyalties, and is financially completely dependent on her father-in-law, so what is she ambitious for, regarding herself?

I mortally hate children and am uneasy when they are in the room and they also hate me in their turn.

That was the Lucy Worsley quoted passage which got us the entire text via Mildred, and which makes Hervey looking for another guardian for at least one of his daughters in his last will slightly better. For a woman who has had, what, eight children, it's even in an age where you're not supposed to do the hands-on raising of toddlers as a member of the nobility a very rare admission, I'd say. Now I'm assuming she means literally "children", i.e. the fondness expressed in her letters for grown up Augustus, say, isn't faked but another matter and she was one of those types who gets interested once the offspring have made it to the teenage stage. But still, I'd say between Lord Hervey showing zero interest in his children (last will aside) that we know of and Molly disliking hers when they're still in the children stage, that explains something about Fred the Bishop's deadbeat Dad parenting style...

Re: A Character of Lady Mary Hervey drawn by herself

[cahn]

haha omg thank you mildred_of_midgard for tracking this down and selenak for orienting me, I'd totally forgotten which Hervey we were talking about and why (but now I remember) :D

With the caveat that we're just guessing after two centuries anyway, but: this comes across as a ruthlessly honest self portrait.

There were quite a few places where I was rather impressed by her self-awareness! Like this one:

I am naturally gay and delighted with everything, unless I have something to afflict me, in which case I have no moderation, and believe there is no person so unhappy as myself.

I daresay this is true for many people without them being aware of the second part.

ahahaha I cannot disagree with you. (I daresay it's true of myself, for that matter.)

I am too apt to believe the professions of friendship that are made to me, which makes me inclinable to love than hate, this proceeds not from a good heart but a weak mind.

This part, too. (Both the "this seems very self-aware to me" and "probably true of me too, honestly" :) )

For a woman who has had, what, eight children, it's even in an age where you're not supposed to do the hands-on raising of toddlers as a member of the nobility a very rare admission, I'd say. Now I'm assuming she means literally "children", i.e. the fondness expressed in her letters for grown up Augustus, say, isn't faked but another matter and she was one of those types who gets interested once the offspring have made it to the teenage stage.

Yeah, I definitely think she literally means children. Before you reminded me who she was, I had also thought she might have meant "children who aren't mine" -- I wouldn't say I mortally hate toddlers (although it was super not my favorite kid stage), but I see a bunch of them at church and quite a few of them don't like me to hold them, for whatever reason, so I've definitely said things like "Most toddlers don't like me!" (Every so often one will decide to like me, so it's not everyone!) but that of course excepts my own children! But then again, to say she mortally hates children after having had eight of them without any caveats, in an otherwise self-aware sort of document... she probably does mean her own as well, I guess.

But still, I'd say between Lord Hervey showing zero interest in his children (last will aside) that we know of and Molly disliking hers when they're still in the children stage, that explains something about Fred the Bishop's deadbeat Dad parenting style...

Heh, that is fair.