Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

A Sicilian Romance

London

Printed for T. Hookham

1790

"Here fancy flourishes,--the sensibilities expand---and wit, guided by delicacy and embellished by taste--points to the heart."

Conversation may be divided into two classes--the familiar and the sentimental. It is the province of the familiar, to diffuse chearfulness and ease--to open the heart of man to man, and to beam a temperate sunshine upon the mind.--Nature and art must conspire to render us susceptible of the charms, and to qualify us for the practice of the second class of conversation, here termed sentimental, and in which madame de Menon particularly excelled. To good sense, lively feeling, and natural delicacy of taste, must be united an expansion of mind, and a refinement of thought, which is the result of high cultivation. To render this sort of conversation irresistibly attractive, a knowledge of the world is requisite, and that enchanting ease, that elegance of manner, which is to be acquired only by frequenting the higher circles of polished life. In sentimental conversation, subjects interesting to the heart, and to the imagination, are brought forward; they are discussed in a kind of sportive way, with animation and refinement, and are never continued longer than politeness allows. Here fancy flourishes,--the sensibilities expand--and wit, guided by delicacy and embellished by taste--points to the heart.
(I.i, pp. 15-6; p. 7 in OUP edition)

Uncategorized

Reading

At least 6 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1790, 1791, 1792, 1795, 1796).

Text from A Sicilian Romance. By The Authoress of The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne 2 vols. (London: Printed for T. Hookham, 1790). <Link to volume I, 2nd edition in Google Books><Volume II>

Reading in A Sicilian Romance, ed. Alison Milbank (Oxford and New York: OUP, 1993).

05/31/2013