but I should really like to know what excuse Lord A. could offer for his primosity[1] to us, when he was riding with such a Jezebel as Lady———.'
"Yet it might have been very natural for Mr. Pitt to do so.[2] How many people used to come and ask me impertinent questions, in order to get out his state secrets: but I very soon set them down. 'What, you are come to give me a lesson of impertinence,' I used to say, laughing in their faces. One day, one of them, of rather a first-rate class, began with―'Now, my dear Lady Hester, you know our long friendship, and the esteem I have for you―now do just tell me, who is to go out ambassador to Russia?' So I was resolved to try him; and, with a very serious air, I said, 'Why, if I had to choose, there are only three persons whom I think fit for the
- ↑ A friend has suggested that primosity is not in Johnson's dictionary; it was however a word of frequent recurrence in Lady Hester's vocabulary; and it scarcely, I think need be said, that it means prudery:
"What is prudery? 'Tis a beldam,
Seen with wit and beauty seldom."
Pope. - ↑ (This footnote was orphaned in the original; its intended placement is here estimated.) (Wikisource contributor note) "In 1800, Mr. Pitt, for the third time, contemplated renewing his attempts to make peace with France, and he offered the mission again to Lord Malmesbury. Lord Grenville wished
