figure was small, her face
not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered to withdraw
quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to observe all that
passed. Her nearest relations were aware that she had good sense, but
seem not to have suspected that, under her demure and bashful
deportment, were concealed a fertile invention and a keen sense of the
ridiculous. She had not, it is true, an eye for the fine shades of
character. But every marked peculiarity instantly caught her notice and
remained engraven on her imagination. Thus while still a girl, she had
laid up such a store of materials for fiction as few of those who mix
much in the world are able to accumulate during a long life. She had
watched and listened to people of every class, from princes and great
officers of state down to artists living in garrets, and poets familiar
with subterranean cookshops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed
in review before her, English, French, German, Italian, lords and
fiddlers, deans of cathedrals and managers of theatres, travellers
leading about newly caught savages, and singing women escorted by deputy
husbands.

So strong was the impression made on the mind of Frances by the society
which she was in the habit of seeing and hearing, that she began to
write little fictitious narratives as soon as she could use her pen with
ease, which, as we have said, was not very early. Her sisters were
amused by her stories; but Dr. Burney knew nothing of their existence;
and in another quarter her literary propensities met with serious
discouragement. When she was fifteen, her father took a second wife. The
new Mrs. Burney soon found out that her stepdaughter was fond of
scribbling, and delivered several good-natured lectures on the subject.
The advice no doubt was well meant, and might have been given by the
most judicious friend; for at that time, from causes to which we may
hereafter advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young lady
than to be known as a novel-writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her
favorite pursuit, and made a bonfire of all her manuscripts.[8]

She now hemmed and stitched from breakfast to dinner with scrupulous
regularity. But the dinners of that time were early; and the afternoon
was her own. Though she had given up novel-writing she was still fond of
using her pen. She began to keep a diary, and she corresponded largely
with a person who seems to have had the chief share in t