CHAPTER XXI 298
She told me one evening , when more disposed to be communicative than usual , that John ' s conduct , and the threatened ruin of the family , had been a source of profound affliction to her : but she had now , she said , settled her mind , and formed her resolution . Her own fortune she had taken care to secure ; and when her mother died -- and it was wholly improbable , she tranquilly remarked , that she should either recover or linger long -- she would execute a long-cherished project : seek a retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured from disturbance , and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous world . I asked if Georgiana would accompany her .
" Of course not . Georgiana and she had nothing in common : they never had had . She would not be burdened with her society for any consideration . Georgiana should take her own course ; and she , Eliza , would take hers ."
Georgiana , when not unburdening her heart to me , spent most of her time in lying on the sofa , fretting about the dulness of the house , and wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her an invitation up to town . " It would be so much better ," she said , " if she could only get out of the way for a month or two , till all was over ." I did not ask what she meant by " all being over ," but I suppose she referred to the expected decease of her mother and the gloomy sequel of funeral rites . Eliza generally took no more notice of her sister ' s indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring , lounging object had been before her . One day , however , as she put away her account-book and unfolded her embroidery , she suddenly took her up thus -
" Georgiana , a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth . You had no right to be born , for you make no use of life . Instead of living for , in , and with yourself , as a reasonable being ought , you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person ' s strength : if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat , weak , puffy , useless thing , you cry out that you are ill-treated , neglected , miserable . Then , too , existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement , or else the world is a dungeon : you must be admired , you must be courted , you must be flattered -- you must have