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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30435-0.txt b/30435-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0237ffa --- /dev/null +++ b/30435-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5511 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30435 *** + +A BOOK OF SIBYLS + + + MRS BARBAULD MISS EDGEWORTH + + MRS OPIE MISS AUSTEN + + +BY + +MISS THACKERAY +(MRS RICHMOND RITCHIE) + + +LONDON +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE +1883 + +[_All rights reserved_] + +[_Reprinted from the Cornhill Magazine_] + + + + +_TO_ + +_MRS OLIPHANT_ + +_My little record would not seem to me in any way complete without your +name, dear Sibyl of our own, and as I write it here, I am grateful to +know that to mine and me it is not only the name of a Sibyl with deep +visions, but of a friend to us all._ +_A. T. R._ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Not long ago, a party of friends were sitting at luncheon in a suburb +of London, when one of them happened to make some reference to Maple +Grove and Selina, and to ask in what county of England Maple Grove was +situated. Everybody immediately had a theory. Only one of the company (a +French gentleman, not well acquainted with English) did not recognise +the allusion. A lady sitting by the master of the house (she will, I +hope, forgive me for quoting her words, for no one else has a better +right to speak them) said, 'What a curious sign it is of Jane Austen's +increasing popularity! Here are five out of six people sitting round a +table, nearly a hundred years after her death, who all recognise at once +a chance allusion to an obscure character in one of her books.' + +It seemed impossible to leave out Jane Austen's dear household name +from a volume which concerned women writing in the early part of this +century, and although the essay which is called by her name has already +been reprinted, it is added with some alteration in its place with the +others. + +Putting together this little book has been a great pleasure and interest +to the compiler, and she wishes once more to thank those who have so +kindly sheltered her during her work, and lent her books and papers +and letters concerning the four writers whose works and manner of being +she has attempted to describe; and she wishes specially to express +her thanks to the Baron and Baroness VON HÃœGEL, to the ladies of Miss +Edgeworth's family, to Mr. HARRISON, of the London Library, to the Miss +REIDS, of Hampstead, to Mrs. FIELD and her daughters, of Squire's Mount, +Hampstead, to Lady BUXTON, Mrs. BROOKFIELD, Miss ALDERSON, and Miss +SHIRREFF. + + + + + CONTENTS. + PAGE + + MRS. BARBAULD [1743-1825] 1 + MARIA EDGEWORTH [1767-1849] 51 + MRS. OPIE [1769-1853] 149 + JANE AUSTEN [1775-1817] 197 + + + + +A BOOK OF SIBYLS. + + + + +_MRS. BARBAULD._ + + 1743-1825. + + 'I've heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.' + _Measure for Measure._ + + +I. + +'The first poetess I can recollect is Mrs. Barbauld, with whose works I +became acquainted--before those of any other author, male or female--when +I was learning to spell words of one syllable in her story-books for +children.' So says Hazlitt in his lectures on living poets. He goes on +to call her a very pretty poetess, strewing flowers of poesy as she +goes. + +The writer must needs, from the same point of view as Hazlitt, look upon +Mrs. Barbauld with a special interest, having also first learnt to read +out of her little yellow books, of which the syllables rise up one by +one again with a remembrance of the hand patiently pointing to each in +turn; all this recalled and revived after a lifetime by the sight of a +rusty iron gateway, behind which Mrs. Barbauld once lived, of some old +letters closely covered with a wavery writing, of a wide prospect that +she once delighted to look upon. Mrs. Barbauld, who loved to share her +pleasures, used to bring her friends to see the great view from the +Hampstead hill-top, and thus records their impressions:-- + +'I dragged Mrs. A. up as I did you, my dear, to our Prospect Walk, from +whence we have so extensive a view. + +'Yes,' said she, 'it is a very fine view indeed for a flat country.' + +'While, on the other hand, Mrs. B. gave us such a dismal account of the +precipices, mountains, and deserts she encountered, that you would have +thought she had been on the wildest part of the Alps.' + +The old Hampstead highroad, starting from the plain, winds its way +resolutely up the steep, and brings you past red-brick houses and +walled-in gardens to this noble outlook; to the heath, with its fresh, +inspiriting breezes, its lovely distances of far-off waters and gorsy +hollows. At whatever season, at whatever hour you come, you are pretty +sure to find one or two votaries--poets like Mrs. Barbauld, or commonplace +people such as her friends--watching before this great altar of nature; +whether by early morning rays, or in the blazing sunset, or when the +evening veils and mists with stars come falling, while the lights of +London shine far away in the valley. Years after Mrs. Barbauld wrote, +one man, pre-eminent amongst poets, used to stand upon this hill-top, +and lo! as Turner gazed, a whole generation gazed with him. For him +Italy gleamed from behind the crimson stems of the fir-trees; the spirit +of loveliest mythology floated upon the clouds, upon the many changing +tints of the plains; and, as the painter watched the lights upon the +distant hills, they sank into his soul, and he painted them down for us, +and poured his dreams into our awakening hearts. + +He was one of that race of giants, mighty men of humble heart, who have +looked from Hampstead and Highgate Hills. Here Wordsworth trod; here +sang Keats's nightingale; here mused Coleridge; and here came Carlyle, +only yesterday, tramping wearily, in search of some sign of his old +companions. Here, too, stood kind Walter Scott, under the elms of the +Judges' Walk, and perhaps Joanna Baillie was by his side, coming out +from her pretty old house beyond the trees. Besides all these, were a +whole company of lesser stars following and surrounding the brighter +planets--muses, memoirs, critics, poets, nymphs, authoresses--coming to +drink tea and to admire the pleasant suburban beauties of this modern +Parnassus. A record of many of their names is still to be found, +appropriately enough, in the catalogue of the little Hampstead library +which still exists, which was founded at a time when the very hands +that wrote the books may have placed the old volumes upon the shelves. +Present readers can study them at their leisure, to the clanking of the +horses' feet in the courtyard outside, and the splashing of buckets. +A few newspapers lie on the table--stray sheets of to-day that have +fluttered up the hill, bringing news of this bustling now into a past +serenity. The librarian sits stitching quietly in a window. An old lady +comes in to read the news; but she has forgotten her spectacles, and +soon goes away. Here, instead of asking for 'Vice Versâ,' or Ouida's +last novel, you instinctively mention 'Plays of the Passions,' Miss +Burney's 'Evelina,' or some such novels; and Mrs. Barbauld's works are +also in their place. When I asked for them, two pretty old Quaker +volumes were put into my hands, with shabby grey bindings, with fine +paper and broad margins, such as Mr. Ruskin would approve. Of all +the inhabitants of this bookshelf Mrs. Barbauld is one of the most +appropriate. It is but a few minutes' walk from the library in Heath +Street to the old corner house in Church Row where she lived for a time, +near a hundred years ago, and all round about are the scenes of much of +her life, of her friendships and interests. Here lived her friends and +neighbours; here to Church Row came her pupils and admirers, and, later +still, to the pretty old house on Rosslyn Hill. As for Church Row, as +most people know, it is an avenue of Dutch red-faced houses, leading +demurely to the old church tower, that stands guarding its graves in the +flowery churchyard. As we came up the quiet place, the sweet windy drone +of the organ swelled across the blossoms of the spring, which were +lighting up every shabby corner and hillside garden. Through this +pleasant confusion of past and present, of spring-time scattering +blossoms upon the graves, of old ivy walks and iron bars imprisoning +past memories, with fragrant fumes of lilac and of elder, one could +picture to oneself, as in a waking dream, two figures advancing from the +corner house with the ivy walls--distinct, sedate--passing under the old +doorway. I could almost see the lady, carefully dressed in many fine +muslin folds and frills with hooped silk skirts, indeed, but slight +and graceful in her quick advance, with blue eyes, with delicate sharp +features, and a dazzling skin. As for the gentleman, I pictured him a +dapper figure, with dark eyes, dressed in black, as befitted a minister +even of dissenting views. The lady came forward, looking amused by my +scrutiny, somewhat shy I thought--was she going to speak? And by the +same token it seemed to me the gentleman was about to interrupt her. But +Margaret, my young companion, laughed and opened an umbrella, or a cock +crew, or some door banged, and the fleeting visions of fancy +disappeared. + +Many well-authenticated ghost stories describe the apparition of bygone +persons, and lo! when the figure vanishes, a letter is left behind! Some +such experience seemed to be mine when, on my return, I found a packet +of letters on the hall table--letters not addressed to me, but to some +unknown Miss Belsham, and signed and sealed by Mrs. Barbauld's hand. +They had been sent for me to read by the kindness of some ladies now +living at Hampstead, who afterwards showed me the portrait of the lady, +who began the world as Miss Betsy Belsham and who ended her career as +Mrs. Kenrick. It is an oval miniature, belonging to the times of powder +and of puff, representing not a handsome, but an animated countenance, +with laughter and spirit in the expression; the mouth is large, the eyes +are dark, the nose is short. This was the _confidante_ of Mrs. Barbauld's +early days, the faithful friend of her latter sorrows. The letters, kept +by 'Betsy' with faithful conscientious care for many years, give the +story of a whole lifetime with unconscious fidelity. The gaiety of +youth, its impatience, its exuberance, and sometimes bad taste; the +wider, quieter feelings of later life; the courage of sorrowful times; +long friendship deepening the tender and faithful memories of age, when +there is so little left to say, so much to feel--all these things are +there. + + +II. + +Mrs. Barbauld was a schoolmistress, and a schoolmaster's wife and +daughter. Her father was Dr. John Aikin, D.D.; her mother was Miss Jane +Jennings, of a good Northamptonshire family--scholastic also. Dr. Aikin +brought his wife home to Knibworth, in Leicestershire, where he opened a +school which became very successful in time. Mrs. Barbauld, their eldest +child, was born here in 1743, and was christened Anna Lætitia, after +some lady of high degree belonging to her mother's family. Two or three +years later came a son. It was a quiet home, deep hidden in the secluded +rural place; and the little household lived its own tranquil life far +away from the storms and battles and great events that were stirring +the world. Dr. Aikin kept school; Mrs. Aikin ruled her household with +capacity, and not without some sternness, according to the custom of the +time. It appears that late in life the good lady was distressed by the +backwardness of her grandchildren at four or five years old. 'I once, +indeed, knew a little girl,' so wrote Mrs. Aikin of her daughter, 'who +was as eager to learn as her instructor could be to teach her, and who +at two years old could read sentences and little stories, in her _wise_ +book, roundly and without spelling, and in half a year or more could +read as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and I believe +I never shall.' It was fortunate that no great harm came of this premature +forcing, although it is difficult to say what its absence might not +have done for Mrs. Barbauld. One can fancy the little assiduous girl, +industrious, impulsive, interested in everything--in all life and +all nature--drinking in, on every side, learning, eagerly wondering, +listening to all around with bright and ready wit. There is a pretty +little story told by Mrs. Ellis in her book about Mrs. Barbauld, how +one day, when Dr. Aikin and a friend 'were conversing on the passions,' +the Doctor observes that joy cannot have place in a state of perfect +felicity, since it supposes an accession of happiness. + +'I think you are mistaken, papa,' says a little voice from the opposite +side of the table. + +'Why so, my child?' says the Doctor. + +'Because in the chapter I read to you this morning, in the Testament, it +is said that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth +than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance."' + +Besides her English Testament and her early reading, the little girl was +taught by her mother to do as little daughters did in those days, to +obey a somewhat austere rule, to drop curtsies in the right place, to +make beds, to preserve fruits. The father, after demur, but surely +not without some paternal pride in her proficiency, taught the child +Latin and French and Italian, and something of Greek, and gave her an +acquaintance with English literature. One can imagine little Nancy with +her fair head bending over her lessons, or, when playing time had come, +perhaps a little lonely and listening to the distant voices of the +schoolboys at their games. The mother, fearing she might acquire rough +and boisterous manners, strictly forbade any communication with the +schoolboys. Sometimes in after days, speaking of these early times and +of the constraint of many bygone rules and regulations, Mrs. Barbauld +used to attribute to this early formal training something of the +hesitation and shyness which troubled her and never entirely wore off. +She does not seem to have been in any great harmony with her mother. One +could imagine a fanciful and high-spirited child, timid and dutiful, +and yet strong-willed, secretly rebelling against the rigid order of her +home, and feeling lonely for want of liberty and companionship. It was +true she had birds and beasts and plants for her playfellows, but she +was of a gregarious and sociable nature, and she was unconsciously +longing for something more, and perhaps feeling a want in her early +life which no silent company can supply. + +She was about fifteen when a great event took place. Her father was +appointed classical tutor to the Warrington Academy, and thither +the little family removed. We read that the Warrington Academy was a +Dissenting college started by very eminent and periwigged personages, +whose silhouettes Mrs. Barbauld herself afterwards cut out in +sticking-plaster, and whose names are to this day remembered and held in +just esteem. They were people of simple living and high thinking, they +belonged to a class holding then a higher place than now in the world's +esteem, that of Dissenting ministers. The Dissenting ministers were +fairly well paid and faithfully followed by their congregations. The +college was started under the auspices of distinguished members of the +community, Lord Willoughby of Parham, the last Presbyterian lord, being +patron. Among the masters were to be found the well-known names of Dr. +Doddridge; of Gilbert Wakefield, the reformer and uncompromising martyr; +of Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, the Hebrew scholar; of Dr. Priestley, the +chemical analyst and patriot, and enterprising theologian, who left +England and settled in America for conscience and liberty's sake. + +Many other people, neither students nor professors, used to come to +Warrington, and chief among them in later years good John Howard with +MSS. for his friend Dr. Aikin to correct for the press. Now for the +first time Mrs. Barbauld (Miss Aikin she was then) saw something of real +life, of men and manners. It was not likely that she looked back with +any lingering regret to Knibworth, or would have willingly returned +thither. A story in one of her memoirs gives an amusing picture of the +manners of a young country lady of that day. Mr. Haines, a rich farmer +from Knibworth, who had been greatly struck by Miss Aikin, followed her +to Warrington, and 'obtained a private audience of her father and begged +his consent to be allowed to make her his wife.' The father answered +'that his daughter was there walking in the garden, and he might go +and ask her himself.' 'With what grace the farmer pleaded his cause I +know not,' says her biographer and niece. 'Out of all patience at his +unwelcome importunities, my aunt ran nimbly up a tree which grew by the +garden wall, and let herself down into the lane beyond.' + +The next few years must have been perhaps the happiest of Mrs. Barbauld's +life. Once when it was nearly over she said to her niece, Mrs. Le +Breton, from whose interesting account I have been quoting, that she had +never been placed in a situation which really suited her. As one reads +her sketches and poems, one is struck by some sense of this detracting +influence of which she complains: there is a certain incompleteness and +slightness which speaks of intermittent work, of interrupted trains of +thought. At the same time there is a natural buoyant quality in much of +her writing which seems like a pleasant landscape view seen through the +bars of a window. There may be wider prospects, but her eyes are bright, +and this peep of nature is undoubtedly delightful. + + +III. + +The letters to Miss Belsham begin somewhere about 1768. The young lady +has been paying a visit to Miss Aikin at Warrington, and is interested +in everyone and everything belonging to the place. Miss Aikin is no less +eager to describe than Miss Belsham to listen, and accordingly a whole +stream of characters and details of gossip and descriptions in faded +ink come flowing across their pages, together with many expressions of +affection and interest. 'My dear Betsy, I love you for discarding the +word Miss from your vocabulary,' so the packet begins, and it continues +in the same strain of pleasant girlish chatter, alternating with the +history of many bygone festivities, and stories of friends, neighbours, +of beaux and partners; of the latter genus, and of Miss Aikin's efforts +to make herself agreeable, here is a sample:--'I talked to him, smiled +upon him, gave him my fan to play with,' says the lively young lady. +'Nothing would do; he was grave as a philosopher. I tried to raise +a conversation: "'Twas fine weather for dancing." He agreed to my +observation. "We had a tolerable set this time." Neither did he contradict +that. Then we were both silent--stupid mortal thought I! but unreasonable +as he appeared to the advances that I made him, there was one object in +the room, a sparkling object which seemed to attract all his attention, +on which he seemed to gaze with transport, and which indeed he hardly +took his eyes off the whole time.... The object that I mean was his +shoebuckle.' + +One could imagine Miss Elizabeth Bennett writing in some such strain to +her friend Miss Charlotte Lucas after one of the evenings at Bingley's +hospitable mansion. And yet Miss Aikin is more impulsive, more romantic +than Elizabeth. 'Wherever you are, fly letter on the wings of the wind,' +she cries, 'and tell my dear Betsy what?--only that I love her dearly.' + +Miss Nancy Aikin (she seems to have been Nancy in these letters, and to +have assumed the more dignified Lætitia upon her marriage) pours out +her lively heart, laughs, jokes, interests herself in the sentimental +affairs of the whole neighbourhood as well as in her own. Perhaps few +young ladies now-a-days would write to their _confidantes_ with the +announcement that for some time past a young sprig had been teasing them +to have him. This, however, is among Miss Nancy's confidences. She also +writes poems and _jeux d'esprit_, and receives poetry in return from +Betsy, who calls herself Camilla, and pays her friend many compliments, +for Miss Aikin in her reply quotes the well-known lines:-- + + Who for another's brow entwines the bays, + And where she well might rival stoops to Praise. + +Miss Aikin by this time has attained to all the dignity of a full-blown +authoress, and is publishing a successful book of poems in conjunction +with her brother, which little book created much attention at the time. +One day the Muse thus apostrophises Betsy: 'Shall we ever see her +amongst us again?' says my sister (Mrs. Aikin). My brother (saucy +fellow) says, 'I want to see this girl, I think (stroking his chin as he +walks backwards and forwards in the room with great gravity). I think we +should admire one another.' + +'When you come among us,' continues the warm-hearted friend, 'we shall +set the bells a-ringing, bid adieu to care and gravity, and sing "O be +joyful."' And finally, after some apologies for her remiss correspondence, +'I left my brother writing to you instead of Patty, poor soul. Well, it +is a clever thing too, to have a husband to write one's letters for one. +If I had one I would be a much better correspondent to you. I would +order him to write every week.' + +And, indeed, Mrs. Barbauld was as good as her word, and did not forget +the resolutions made by Miss Aikin in 1773. In 1774 comes some eventful +news: 'I should have written to you sooner had it not been for the +uncertainty and suspense in which for a long time I have been involved; +and since my lot has been fixed for many busy engagements which have +left me few moments of leisure. They hurry me out of my life. It is +hardly a month that I have certainly known I should fix on Norfolk, and +now next Thursday they say I am to be finally, irrevocably married. Pity +me, dear Betsy; for on the day I fancy when you will read this letter, +will the event take place which is to make so great an era in my life. I +feel depressed, and my courage almost fails me. Yet upon the whole I +have the greatest reason to think I shall be happy. I shall possess the +entire affection of a worthy man, whom my father and mother now entirely +and heartily approve. The people where we are going, though strangers, +have behaved with the greatest zeal and affection; and I think we have +a fair prospect of being useful and living comfortably in that state of +middling life to which I have been accustomed, and which I love.' + +And then comes a word which must interest all who have ever cared and +felt grateful admiration for the works of one devoted human being and +true Christian hero. Speaking of her father's friend, John Howard, she +says with an almost audible sigh: 'It was too late, as you say, or I +believe I should have been in love with Mr. Howard. Seriously, I looked +upon him with that sort of reverence and love which one should have for +a guardian angel. God bless him and preserve his health for the health's +sake of thousands. And now farewell,' she writes in conclusion: 'I shall +write to you no more under this name; but under any name, in every +situation, at any distance of time or place, I shall love you equally +and be always affectionately yours, tho' _not_ always, A. AIKIN.' + + * * * * * + +Poor lady! The future held, indeed, many a sad and unsuspected hour for +her, many a cruel pang, many a dark and heavy season, that must have +seemed intolerably weary to one of her sprightly and yet somewhat +indolent nature, more easily accepting evil than devising escape from +it. But it also held many blessings of constancy, friendship, kindly +deeds, and useful doings. She had not devotion to give such as that of +the good Howard whom she revered, but the equable help and sympathy for +others of an open-minded and kindly woman was hers. Her marriage would +seem to have been brought about by a romantic fancy rather than by a +tender affection. Mr. Barbauld's mind had been once unhinged; his +protestations were passionate and somewhat dramatic. We are told that +when she was warned by a friend, she only said, 'But surely, if I throw +him over, he will become crazy again;' and from a high-minded sense of +pity, she was faithful, and married him against the wish of her brother +and parents, and not without some misgivings herself. He was a man +perfectly sincere and honourable; but, from his nervous want of +equilibrium, subject all his life to frantic outbursts of ill-temper. +Nobody ever knew what his wife had to endure in secret; her calm and +restrained manner must have effectually hidden the constant anxiety of +her life; nor had she children to warm her heart, and brighten up her +monotonous existence. Little Charles, of the Reading-book, who is bid to +come hither, who counted so nicely, who stroked the pussy cat, and who +deserved to listen to the delightful stories he was told, was not her +own son but her brother's child. When he was born, she wrote to entreat +that he might be given over to her for her own, imploring her brother to +spare him to her, in a pretty and pathetic letter. This was a mother +yearning for a child, not a schoolmistress asking for a pupil, though +perhaps in after times the two were somewhat combined in her. There is a +pretty little description of Charles making great progress in 'climbing +trees and talking nonsense:' 'I have the honour to tell you that our +Charles is the sweetest boy in the world. He is perfectly naturalised in +his new situation; and if I should make any blunders in my letter, I +must beg you to impute it to his standing by me and chattering all the +time.' And how pleasant a record exists of Charles's chatter in that +most charming little book written for him and for the babies of babies +to come! There is a sweet instructive grace in it and appreciation of +childhood which cannot fail to strike those who have to do with children +and with Mrs. Barbauld's books for them: children themselves, those best +critics of all, delight in it. + +'Where's Charles?' says a little scholar every morning to the writer of +these few notes. + + +IV. + +Soon after the marriage, there had been some thought of a college for +young ladies, of which Mrs. Barbauld was to be the principal; but she +shrank from the idea, and in a letter to Mrs. Montagu she objects to +the scheme of higher education for women away from their natural homes. +'I should have little hope of cultivating a love of knowledge in a young +lady of fifteen who came to me ignorant and uncultivated. It is too late +then to begin to learn. The empire of the passions is coming on. Those +attachments begin to be formed which influence the happiness of future +life. The care of a mother alone can give suitable attention to this +important period.' It is true that the rigidness of her own home had not +prevented her from making a hasty and unsuitable marriage. But it is not +this which is weighing on her mind. 'Perhaps you may think,' she says, +'that having myself stepped out of the bounds of female reserve in +becoming an author, it is with an ill grace that I offer these +statements.' + +Her arguments seem to have been thought conclusive in those days, and +the young ladies' college was finally transmuted into a school for +little boys at Palgrave, in Norfolk, and thither the worthy couple +transported themselves. + +One of the letters to Miss Belsham is thus dated:--'_The 14th of July, +in the village of Palgrave (the pleasantest village in all England), at +ten o'clock, all alone in my great parlour, Mr. Barbauld being studying +a sermon, do I begin a letter to my dear Betsy._' + +When she first married, and travelled into Norfolk to keep school at +Palgrave, nothing could have seemed more tranquil, more contented, more +matter-of-fact than her life as it appears from her letters. Dreams, and +fancies, and gay illusions and excitements have made way for the +somewhat disappointing realisation of Mr. Barbauld with his neatly +turned and friendly postscripts--a husband, polite, devoted, it is +true, but somewhat disappointing all the same. The next few years +seem like years in a hive--storing honey for the future, and putting +away--industrious, punctual, monotonous. There are children's lessons to +be heard, and school-treats to be devised. She sets them to act plays +and cuts out paper collars for Henry IV.; she always takes a class of +babies entirely her own. (One of these babies, who always loved her, +became Lord Chancellor Denman; most of the others took less brilliant, +but equally respectable places, in after life.) She has also household +matters and correspondence not to be neglected. In the holidays, they +make excursions to Norwich, to London, and revisit their old haunts at +Warrington. In one of her early letters, soon after her marriage, she +describes her return to Warrington. + +'Dr. Enfield's face,' she declares, 'is grown half a foot longer since I +saw him, with studying mathematics, and for want of a game of romps; for +there are positively none now at Warrington but grave matrons. I who +have but half assumed the character, was ashamed of the levity of my +behaviour.' + +It says well indeed for the natural brightness of the lady's disposition +that with sixteen boarders and a satisfactory usher to look after, she +should be prepared for a game of romps with Dr. Enfield. + +On another occasion, in 1777, she takes little Charles away with her. +'He has indeed been an excellent traveller,' she says; 'and though, like +his great ancestor, some natural tears he shed, like him, too, he wiped +them soon. He had a long sound sleep last night, and has been very busy +to-day hunting the puss and the chickens. And now, my dear brother and +sister, let me again thank you for this precious gift, the value of which +we are both more and more sensible of as we become better acquainted with +his sweet disposition and winning manners.' + +She winds up this letter with a postscript:-- + +'Everybody here asks, "Pray, is Dr. Dodd really to be executed?" as if +we knew the more for having been at Warrington.' + +Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld's brother, the father of little Charles and of +Lucy Aikin, whose name is well known in literature, was himself a man of +great parts, industry, and ability, working hard to support his family. +He alternated between medicine and literature all his life. When his +health failed he gave up medicine, and settled at Stoke Newington, and +busied himself with periodic literature; meanwhile, whatever his own +pursuits may have been, he never ceased to take an interest in his +sister's work and to encourage her in every way. + +It is noteworthy that few of Mrs. Barbauld's earlier productions +equalled what she wrote at the very end of her life. She seems to have +been one of those who ripen with age, growing wider in spirit with +increasing years. Perhaps, too, she may have been influenced by the +change of manners, the reaction against formalism, which was growing up +as her own days were ending. Prim she may have been in manner, but she +was not a formalist by nature; and even at eighty was ready to learn to +submit to accept the new gospel that Wordsworth and his disciples had +given to the world, and to shake off the stiffness of early training. + +It is idle to speculate on what might have been if things had happened +otherwise; if the daily stress of anxiety and perplexity which haunted +her home had been removed--difficulties and anxieties which may well +have absorbed all the spare energy and interest that under happier +circumstances might have added to the treasury of English literature. +But if it were only for one ode written when the distracting cares of +over seventy years were ending, when nothing remained to her but the +essence of a long past, and the inspirations of a still glowing, still +hopeful, and most tender spirit, if it were only for the ode called +'Life,' which has brought a sense of ease and comfort to so many, Mrs. +Barbauld has indeed deserved well of her country-people and should be +held in remembrance by them. + +Her literary works are, after all, not very voluminous. She is best +known by her hymns for children and her early lessons, than which +nothing more childlike has ever been devised; and we can agree with her +brother, Dr. Aikin, when he says that it requires true genius to enter +so completely into a child's mind. + +After their first volume of verse, the brother and sister had published +a second in prose, called 'Miscellaneous Pieces,' about which there is +an amusing little anecdote in Rogers's 'Memoirs.' Fox met Dr. Aikin at +dinner. + +'"I am greatly pleased with your 'Miscellaneous Pieces,'" said Fox. +Aikin bowed. "I particularly admire," continued Fox, "your essay +'Against Inconsistency in our Expectations.'" + +'"That," replied Aikin, "is my sister's." + +'"I like much," returned Fox, "your essay 'On Monastic Institutions.'" + +'"That," answered Aikin, "is also my sister's." + +'Fox thought it best to say no more about the book.' + +These essays were followed by various of the visions and Eastern pieces +then so much in vogue; also by political verses and pamphlets, which +seemed to have made a great sensation at the time. But Mrs. Barbauld's +turn was on the whole more for domestic than for literary life, although +literary people always seem to have had a great interest for her. + +During one Christmas which they spent in London, the worthy couple go +to see Mrs. Siddons; and Mrs. Chapone introduces Mrs. Barbauld to Miss +Burney. 'A very unaffected, modest, sweet, and pleasing young lady,' +says Mrs. Barbauld, who is always kind in her descriptions. Mrs. +Barbauld's one complaint in London is of the fatigue from hairdressers, +and the bewildering hurry of the great city, where she had, notwithstanding +her quiet country life, many ties, and friendships, and acquaintances. +Her poem on 'Corsica' had brought her into some relations with Boswell; +she also knew Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. Here is her description of the +'Great Bear:'-- + +'I do not mean that one which shines in the sky over your head; but the +Bear that shines in London--a great rough, surly animal. His Christian +name is Dr. Johnson. 'Tis a singular creature; but if you stroke him he +will not bite, and though he growls sometimes he is not ill-humoured.' + +Johnson describes Mrs. Barbauld as suckling fools and chronicling small +beer. There was not much sympathy between the two. Characters such as +Johnson's harmonise best with the enthusiastic and easily influenced. +Mrs. Barbauld did not belong to this class; she trusted to her own +judgment, rarely tried to influence others, and took a matter-of-fact +rather than a passionate view of life. She is as severe to him in her +criticism as he was in his judgment of her: they neither of them did the +other justice. 'A Christian and a man-about-town, a philosopher, and a +bigot acknowledging life to be miserable, and making it more miserable +through fear of death.' So she writes of him, and all this was true; but +how much more was also true of the great and hypochondriacal old man! +Some years afterwards, when she had been reading Boswell's long-expected +'Life of Johnson,' she wrote of the book:--'It is like going to Ranelagh; +you meet all your acquaintances; but it is a base and mean thing to +bring thus every idle word into judgment.' In our own day we too have +our Boswell and our Johnson to arouse discussion and indignation. + +'Have you seen Boswell's "Life of Johnson?" He calls it a Flemish +portrait, and so it is--two quartos of a man's conversation and petty +habits. Then the treachery and meanness of watching a man for years +in order to set down every unguarded and idle word he uttered, is +inconceivable. Yet with all this one cannot help reading a good deal +of it.' This is addressed to the faithful Betsy, who was also keeping +school by that time, and assuming brevet rank in consequence. + +Mrs. Barbauld might well complain of the fatigue from hairdressers in +London. In one of her letters to her friend she thus describes a lady's +dress of the period:-- + +'Do you know how to dress yourself in Dublin? If you do not, I will tell +you. Your waist must be the circumference of two oranges, no more. You +must erect a structure on your head gradually ascending to a foot high, +exclusive of feathers, and stretching to a penthouse of most horrible +projection behind, the breadth from wing to wing considerably broader +than your shoulder, and as many different things in your cap as in +Noah's ark. Verily, I never did see such monsters as the heads now in +vogue. I am a monster, too, but a moderate one.' + +She must have been glad to get back to her home, to her daily work, to +Charles, climbing his trees and talking his nonsense. + +In the winter of 1784 her mother died at Palgrave. It was Christmas +week; the old lady had come travelling four days through the snow in a +postchaise with her maid and her little grandchildren, while her son +rode on horseback. But the cold and the fatigue of the journey, and the +discomfort of the inns, proved too much for Mrs. Aikin, who reached her +daughter's house only to die. Just that time three years before Mrs. +Barbauld had lost her father, whom she dearly loved. There is a striking +letter from the widowed mother to her daughter recording the event. It +is almost Spartan in its calmness, but nevertheless deeply touching. Now +she, too, was at rest, and after Mrs. Aikin's death a cloud of sadness +and depression seems to have fallen upon the household. Mr. Barbauld was +ailing; he was suffering from a nervous irritability which occasionally +quite unfitted him for his work as a schoolmaster. Already his wife must +have had many things to bear, and very much to try her courage and +cheerfulness; and now her health was also failing. It was in 1775 that +they gave up the academy, which, on the whole, had greatly flourished. +It had been established eleven years; they were both of them in need of +rest and change. Nevertheless, it was not without reluctance that they +brought themselves to leave their home at Palgrave. A successor was +found only too quickly for Mrs. Barbauld's wishes; they handed over +their pupils to his care, and went abroad for a year's sunshine and +distraction. + + +V. + +What a contrast to prim, starched scholastic life at Palgrave must have +been the smiling world, and the land flowing with oil and wine, in which +they found themselves basking! The vintage was so abundant that year +that the country people could not find vessels to contain it. 'The roads +covered with teams of casks, empty or full according as they were going +out or returning, and drawn by oxen whose strong necks seemed to be +bowed unwillingly under the yoke. Men, women, and children were abroad; +some cutting with a short sickle the bunches of grapes, some breaking +them with a wooden instrument, some carrying them on their backs from +the gatherers to those who pressed the juice; and, as in our harvest, +the gleaners followed.' + +From the vintage they travel to the Alps, 'a sight so majestic, so +totally different from anything I had seen before, that I am ready to +sing _nunc dimittis_,' she writes. They travel back by the south of +France and reach Paris in June, where the case of the Diamond Necklace +is being tried. Then they return to England, waiting a day at Boulogne +for a vessel, but crossing from thence in less than four hours. How +pretty is her description of England as it strikes them after their +absence! 'And not without pleasing emotion did we view again the green +swelling hills covered with large sheep, and the winding road bordered +with the hawthorn hedge, and the English vine twirled round the tall +poles, and the broad Medway covered with vessels, and at last the gentle +yet majestic Thames.' + +There were Dissenters at Hampstead in those days, as there are still, +and it was a call from a little Unitarian congregation on the hillside +who invited Mr. Barbauld to become their minister, which decided the +worthy couple to retire to this pleasant suburb. The place seemed +promising enough; they were within reach of Mrs. Barbauld's brother, Dr. +Aikin, now settled in London, and to whom she was tenderly attached. +There were congenial people settled all about. On the high hill-top were +pleasant old houses to live in. There was occupation for him and +literary interest for her. + +They are a sociable and friendly pair, hospitable, glad to welcome their +friends, and the acquaintance, and critics, and the former pupils who +come toiling up the hill to visit them. Rogers comes to dinner 'at half +after three.' They have another poet for a neighbour, Miss Joanna +Baillie; they are made welcome by all, and in their turn make others +welcome; they do acts of social charity and kindness wherever they see +the occasion. They have a young Spanish gentleman to board who conceals +a taste for 'seguars.' They also go up to town from time to time. On +one occasion Mr. Barbauld repairs to London to choose a wedding present +for Miss Belsham, who is about to be married to Mr. Kenrick, a widower +with daughters. He chose two slim Wedgwood pots of some late classic +model, which still stand, after many dangers, safely on either side of +Mrs. Kenrick's portrait in Miss Reid's drawing-room at Hampstead. +Wedgwood must have been a personal friend: he has modelled a lovely head +of Mrs. Barbauld, simple and nymph-like. + +Hampstead was no further from London in those days than it is now, and +they seem to have kept up a constant communication with their friends +and relations in the great city. They go to the play occasionally. 'I +have not indeed seen Mrs. Siddons often, but I think I never saw her to +more advantage,' she writes. 'It is not, however, seeing a play, it is +only seeing one character, for they have nobody to act with her.' + +Another expedition is to Westminster Hall, where Warren Hastings was +then being tried for his life. + +'The trial has attracted the notice of most people who are within reach +of it. I have been, and was very much struck with all the apparatus and +pomp of justice, with the splendour of the assembly which contained +everything distinguished in the nation, with the grand idea that the +equity of the English was to pursue crimes committed at the other side +of the globe, and oppressions exercised towards the poor Indians who had +come to plead their cause; but all these fine ideas vanish and fade away +as one observes the progress of the cause, and sees it fall into the +summer amusements, and take the place of a rehearsal of music or an +evening at Vauxhall.' + +Mrs. Barbauld was a Liberal in feeling and conviction; she was never +afraid to speak her mind, and when the French Revolution first began, +she, in common with many others, hoped that it was but the dawning of +happier times. She was always keen about public events; she wrote an +address on the opposition to the repeal of the Test Act in 1791, and she +published her poem to Wilberforce on the rejection of his great bill for +abolishing slavery:-- + + Friends of the friendless, hail, ye generous band! + +she cries, in warm enthusiasm for the devoted cause. + +Horace Walpole nicknamed her Deborah, called her the Virago Barbauld, +and speaks of her with utter rudeness and intolerant spite. But whether +or not Horace Walpole approved, it is certain that Mrs. Barbauld +possessed to a full and generous degree a quality which is now less +common than it was in her day. + +Not very many years ago I was struck on one occasion when a noble old +lady, now gone to her rest, exclaimed in my hearing that people of this +generation had all sorts of merits and charitable intentions, but that +there was one thing she missed which had certainly existed in her youth, +and which no longer seemed to be of the same account: that public spirit +which used to animate the young as well as the old. + +It is possible that philanthropy, and the love of the beautiful, and the +gratuitous diffusion of wall-papers may be the modern rendering of the +good old-fashioned sentiment. Mrs. Barbauld lived in very stirring days, +when private people shared in the excitements and catastrophes of public +affairs. To her the fortunes of England, its loyalty, its success, were +a part of her daily bread. By her early associations she belonged to a +party representing opposition, and for that very reason she was the more +keenly struck by the differences of the conduct of affairs and the +opinions of those she trusted. Her friend Dr. Priestley had emigrated to +America for his convictions' sake; Howard was giving his noble life for +his work; Wakefield had gone to prison. Now the very questions are +forgotten for which they struggled and suffered, or the answers have +come while the questions are forgotten, in this their future which is +our present, and to which some unborn historian may point back with a +moral finger. + +Dr. Aikin, whose estimate of his sister was very different from Horace +Walpole's, occasionally reproached her for not writing more constantly. +He wrote a copy of verses on this theme:-- + + Thus speaks the Muse, and bends her brows severe: + Did I, Lætitia, lend my choicest lays, + And crown thy youthful head with freshest bays, + That all the expectance of thy full-grown year, + Should lie inert and fruitless? O revere + Those sacred gifts whose meed is deathless praise, + Whose potent charm the enraptured soul can raise + Far from the vapours of this earthly sphere, + Seize, seize the lyre, resume the lofty strain. + +She seems to have willingly left the lyre for Dr. Aikin's use. A few +hymns, some graceful odes, and stanzas, and _jeux d'esprit_, a certain +number of well-written and original essays, and several political +pamphlets, represent the best of her work. Her more ambitious poems +are those by which she is the least remembered. It was at Hampstead +that Mrs. Barbauld wrote her contributions to her brother's volume of +'Evenings at Home,' among which the transmigrations of Indur may be +quoted as a model of style and delightful matter. One of the best of her +_jeux d'esprit_ is the 'Groans of the Tankard,' which was written in +early days, with much spirit and real humour. It begins with a classic +incantation, and then goes on:-- + + 'Twas at the solemn silent noontide hour + When hunger rages with despotic power, + When the lean student quits his Hebrew roots + For the gross nourishment of English fruits, + And throws unfinished airy systems by + For solid pudding and substantial pie. + +The tankard now, + + Replenished to the brink, + With the cool beverage blue-eyed maidens drink, + +but, accustomed to very different libations, is endowed with voice and +utters its bitter reproaches:-- + + Unblest the day, and luckless was the hour + Which doomed me to a Presbyterian's power, + Fated to serve a Puritanic race, + Whose slender meal is shorter than their grace. + + +VI. + +Thumbkin, of fairy celebrity, used to mark his way by flinging crumbs of +bread and scattering stones as he went along; and in like manner authors +trace the course of their life's peregrinations by the pamphlets and +articles they cast down as they go. Sometimes they throw stones, +sometimes they throw bread. In '92 and '93 Mrs. Barbauld must have been +occupied with party polemics and with the political miseries of the +time. A pamphlet on Gilbert Wakefield's views, and another on 'Sins +of the Government and Sins of the People,' show in what direction her +thoughts were bent. Then came a period of comparative calm again and of +literary work and interest. She seems to have turned to Akenside and +Collins, and each had an essay to himself. These were followed by +certain selections from the _Spectator_, _Tatler_, &c., preceded by one +of those admirable essays for which she is really remarkable. She also +published a memoir of Richardson prefixed to his correspondence. Sir +James Mackintosh, writing at a later and sadder time of her life, says +of her observations on the moral of Clarissa that they are as fine a +piece of mitigated and rational stoicism as our language can boast of. + +In 1802 another congregation seems to have made signs from Stoke +Newington, and Mrs. Barbauld persuaded her husband to leave his flock at +Hampstead and to buy a house near her brother's at Stoke Newington. This +was her last migration, and here she remained until her death in 1825. +One of her letters to Mrs. Kenrick gives a description of what might +have been a happy home:--'We have a pretty little back parlour that +looks into our little spot of a garden,' she says, 'and catches every +gleam of sunshine. We have pulled down the ivy, except what covers the +coach-house We have planted a vine and a passion-flower, with abundance +of jessamine against the window, and we have scattered roses and +honeysuckle all over the garden. You may smile at me for parading so +over my house and domains.' In May she writes a pleasant letter, in good +spirits, comparing her correspondence with her friend to the flower of +an aloe, which sleeps for a hundred years, and on a sudden pushes out +when least expected. 'But take notice, the life is in the aloe all the +while, and sorry should I be if the life were not in our friendship all +the while, though it so rarely diffuses itself over a sheet of paper.' + +She seems to have been no less sociable and friendly at Stoke Newington +than at Hampstead. People used to come up to see her from London. Her +letters, quiet and intimate as they are, give glimpses of most of the +literary people of the day, not in memoirs then, but alive and drinking +tea at one another's houses, or walking all the way to Stoke Newington +to pay their respects to the old lady. + +Charles Lamb used to talk of his two _bald_ authoresses, Mrs. Barbauld +being one and Mrs. Inchbald being the other. Crabb Robinson and Rogers +were two faithful links with the outer world. 'Crabb Robinson corresponds +with Madame de Staël, is quite intimate,' she writes, 'has received +I don't know how many letters,' she adds, not without some slight +amusement. Miss Lucy Aikin tells a pretty story of Scott meeting Mrs. +Barbauld at dinner, and telling her that it was to her that he owed his +poetic gift. Some translations of Bürger by Mr. Taylor, of Norwich, +which she had read out at Edinburgh, had struck him so much that they +had determined him to try his own powers in that line. + +She often had inmates under her roof. One of them was a beautiful and +charming young girl, the daughter of Mrs. Fletcher, of Edinburgh, whose +early death is recorded in her mother's life. Besides company at home, +Mrs. Barbauld went to visit her friends from time to time--the Estlins +at Bristol, the Edgeworths, whose acquaintance Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld +made about this time, and who seem to have been invaluable friends, +bringing as they did a bright new element of interest and cheerful +friendship into her sad and dimming life. A man must have extraordinarily +good spirits to embark upon four matrimonial ventures as Mr. Edgeworth +did; and as for Miss Edgeworth, appreciative, effusive, and warm-hearted, +she seems to have more than returned Mrs. Barbauld's sympathy. + +Miss Lucy Aikin, Dr. Aikin's daughter, was now also making her own mark +in the literary world, and had inherited the bright intelligence and +interest for which her family was so remarkable. Much of Miss Aikin's +work is more sustained than her aunt's desultory productions, but it +lacks that touch of nature which has preserved Mrs. Barbauld's memory +where more important people are forgotten. + +Our authoress seems to have had a natural affection for sister +authoresses. Hannah More and Mrs. Montague were both her friends, so +were Madame d'Arblay and Mrs. Chapone in a different degree; she must +have known Mrs. Opie; she loved Joanna Baillie. The latter is described +by her as the young lady at Hampstead who came to Mr. Barbauld's meeting +with as demure a face as if she had never written a line. And Miss Aikin, +in her memoirs, describes in Johnsonian language how the two Miss +Baillies came to call one morning upon Mrs. Barbauld:--'My aunt +immediately introduced the topic of the anonymous tragedies, and +gave utterance to her admiration with the generous delight in the +manifestation of kindred genius which distinguished her.' But it seems +that Miss Baillie sat, nothing moved, and did not betray herself. Mrs. +Barbauld herself gives a pretty description of the sisters in their +home, in that old house on Windmill Hill, which stands untouched, with +its green windows looking out upon so much of sky and heath and sun, +with the wainscoted parlours where Walter Scott used to come, and the +low wooden staircase leading to the old rooms above. It is in one of her +letters to Mrs. Kenrick that Mrs. Barbauld gives a pleasant glimpse of +the poetess Walter Scott admired. 'I have not been abroad since I was at +Norwich, except a day or two at Hampstead with the Miss Baillies. One +should be, as I was, beneath their roof to know all their merit. Their +house is one of the best ordered I know. They have all manner of +attentions for their friends, and not only Miss B., but Joanna, is as +clever in furnishing a room or in arranging a party as in writing plays, +of which, by the way, she has a volume ready for the press, but she will +not give it to the public till next winter. The subject is to be the +passion of fear. I do not know what sort of a hero that passion can +afford!' Fear was, indeed, a passion alien to her nature, and she did +not know the meaning of the word. + +Mrs. Barbauld's description of Hannah More and her sisters living on +their special hill-top was written after Mr. Barbauld's death, and +thirty years after Miss More's verses which are quoted by Mrs. Ellis in +her excellent memoir of Mrs. Barbauld:-- + + Nor, Barbauld, shall my glowing heart refuse + A tribute to thy virtues or thy muse; + This humble merit shall at least be mine, + The poet's chaplet for thy brows to twine; + My verse thy talents to the world shall teach, + And praise the graces it despairs to reach. + +Then, after philosophically questioning the power of genius to confer +true happiness, she concludes:-- + + Can all the boasted powers of wit and song + Of life one pang remove, one hour prolong? + Fallacious hope which daily truths deride-- + For you, alas! have wept and Garrick died. + +Meanwhile, whatever genius might not be able to achieve, the five Miss +Mores had been living on peacefully together in the very comfortable +cottage which had been raised and thatched by the poetess's earnings. + +'Barley Wood is equally the seat of taste and hospitality,' says Mrs. +Barbauld to a friend. + +'Nothing could be more friendly than their reception,' she writes to her +brother, 'and nothing more charming than their situation. An extensive +view over the Mendip Hills is in front of their house, with a pretty +view of Wrington. Their home--cottage, because it is thatched--stands on +the declivity of a rising ground, which they have planted and made quite +a little paradise. The five sisters, all good old maids, have lived +together these fifty years. Hannah More is a good deal broken, but +possesses fully her powers of conversation, and her vivacity. We +exchanged riddles like the wise men of old; I was given to understand +she was writing something.' + +There is another allusion to Mrs. Hannah More in a sensible letter from +Mrs. Barbauld, written to Miss Edgeworth about this time, declining to +join in an alarming enterprise suggested by the vivacious Mr. Edgeworth, +'a _Feminiad_, a literary paper to be entirely contributed to by ladies, +and where all articles are to be accepted.' 'There is no bond of union,' +Mrs. Barbauld says, 'among literary women any more than among literary +men; different sentiments and connections separate them much more than +the joint interest of their sex would unite them. Mrs. Hannah More would +not write along with you or me, and we should possibly hesitate at +joining Miss Hays or--if she were living--Mrs. Godwin.' Then she +suggests the names of Miss Baillie, Mrs. Opie, her own niece Miss Lucy +Aikin, and Mr. S. Rogers, who would not, she thinks, be averse to +joining the scheme. + + +VII. + +How strangely unnatural it seems when Fate's heavy hand falls upon quiet +and common-place lives, changing the tranquil routine of every day into +the solemnities and excitements of terror and tragedy! It was after +their removal to Stoke Newington that the saddest of all blows fell +upon this true-hearted woman. Her husband's hypochondria deepened and +changed, and the attacks became so serious that her brother and his +family urged her anxiously to leave him to other care than her own. It +was no longer safe for poor Mr. Barbauld to remain alone with his wife, +and her life, says Mrs. Le Breton, was more than once in peril. But, at +first, she would not hear of leaving him; although on more than one +occasion she had to fly for protection to her brother close by. + +There is something very touching in the patient fidelity with which Mrs. +Barbauld tried to soothe the later sad disastrous years of her husband's +life. She must have been a woman of singular nerve and courage to endure +as she did the excitement and cruel aberrations of her once gentle and +devoted companion. She only gave in after long resistance. + +'An alienation from me has taken possession of his mind,' she says, in a +letter to Mrs. Kenrick; 'my presence seems to irritate him, and I must +resign myself to a separation from him who has been for thirty years the +partner of my heart, my faithful friend, my inseparable companion.' With +her habitual reticence, she dwells no more on that painful topic, but +goes on to make plans for them both, asks her old friend to come and +cheer her in her loneliness; and the faithful Betsy, now a widow with +grown-up step-children, ill herself, troubled by deafness and other +infirmities, responds with a warm heart, and promises to come, bringing +the comfort with her of old companionship and familiar sympathy. There +is something very affecting in the loyalty of the two aged women +stretching out their hands to each other across a whole lifetime. After +her visit Mrs. Barbauld writes again:-- + +'He is now at Norwich, and I hear very favourable accounts of his health +and spirits; he seems to enjoy himself very much amongst his old friends +there, and converses among them with his usual animation. There are no +symptoms of violence or of depression; so far is favourable; but this +cruel alienation from me, in which my brother is included, still remains +deep-rooted, and whether he will ever change in this point Heaven only +knows. The medical men fear he will not: if so, my dear friend, what +remains for me but to resign myself to the will of Heaven, and to think +with pleasure that every day brings me nearer a period which naturally +cannot be very far off, and at which this as well as every temporal +affliction must terminate? + +'"Anything but this!" is the cry of weak mortals when afflicted; and +sometimes I own I am inclined to make it mine; but I will check myself.' + +But while she was hoping still, a fresh outbreak of the malady occurred. +He, poor soul, weary of his existence, put an end to his sufferings: he +was found lifeless in the New River. Lucy Aikin quotes a Dirge found +among her aunt's papers after her death:-- + + Pure Spirit, O where art thou now? + O whisper to my soul, + O let some soothening thought of thee + This bitter grief control. + + 'Tis not for thee the tears I shed, + Thy sufferings now are o'er. + The sea is calm, the tempest past, + On that eternal shore. + + No more the storms that wrecked thy peace + Shall tear that gentle breast, + Nor summer's rage, nor winter's cold + That poor, poor frame molest. + + * * * * * + + Farewell! With honour, peace, and love, + Be that dear memory blest, + Thou hast no tears for me to shed, + When I too am at rest. + + +But her time of rest was not yet come, and she lived for seventeen years +after her husband. She was very brave, she did not turn from the +sympathy of her friends, she endured her loneliness with courage, she +worked to distract her mind. Here is a touching letter addressed to Mrs. +Taylor, of Norwich, in which she says:--'A thousand thanks for your kind +letter, still more for the very short visit that preceded it. Though +short--too short--it has left indelible impressions on my mind. My +heart has truly had communion with yours; your sympathy has been balm to +it; and I feel that there is _now_ no one on earth to whom I could pour +out that heart more readily.... I am now sitting alone again, and feel +like a person who has been sitting by a cheerful fire, not sensible at +the time of the temperature of the air; but the fire removed, he finds +the season is still winter. Day after day passes, and I do not know what +to do with my time; my mind has no energy nor power of application.' + +How much she felt her loneliness appears again and again from one +passage and another. Then she struggled against discouragement; she +took to her pen again. To Mrs. Kenrick she writes:--'I intend to pay my +letter debts; not much troubling my head whether I have anything to say +or not; yet to you my heart has always something to say: it always +recognises you as among the dearest of its friends; and while it feels +that new impressions are made with difficulty and early effaced, +retains, and ever will retain, I trust beyond this world, those of our +early and long-tried affection.' + +She set to work again, trying to forget her heavy trials. It was during +the first years of her widowhood that she published her edition of the +British novelists in some fifty volumes. There is an opening chapter to +this edition upon novels and novel-writing, which is an admirable and +most interesting essay upon fiction, beginning from the very earliest +times. + +In 1811 she wrote her poem on the King's illness, and also the longer +poem which provoked such indignant comments at the time. It describes +Britain's rise and luxury, warns her of the dangers of her unbounded +ambition and unjustifiable wars:-- + + Arts, arms, and wealth destroy the fruits they bring; + Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring. + +Her ingenuous youth from Ontario's shore who visits the ruins of London +is one of the many claimants to the honour of having suggested Lord +Macaulay's celebrated New Zealander:-- + + Pensive and thoughtful shall the wanderers greet + Each splendid square and still untrodden street, + Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time, + The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb, + Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round, + By scattered hamlets trace its ancient bound, + And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey + Through reeds and sedge pursue his idle way. + +It is impossible not to admire the poem, though it is stilted and not to +the present taste. The description of Britain as it now is and as it +once was is very ingenious:-- + + Where once Bonduca whirled the scythèd car, + And the fierce matrons raised the shriek of war, + Light forms beneath transparent muslin float, + And tutor'd voices swell the artful note; + Light-leaved acacias, and the shady plane, + And spreading cedars grace the woodland reign. + +The poem is forgotten now, though it was scouted at the time and +violently attacked, Southey himself falling upon the poor old lady, and +devouring her, spectacles and all. She felt these attacks very much, and +could not be consoled, though Miss Edgeworth wrote a warm-hearted letter +of indignant sympathy. But Mrs. Barbauld had something in her too genuine +to be crushed, even by sarcastic criticism. She published no more, but +it was after her poem of '1811' that she wrote the beautiful ode by +which she is best known and best remembered,--the ode that Wordsworth +used to repeat and say he envied, that Tennyson has called 'sweet +verses,' of which the lines ring their tender hopeful chime like sweet +church bells on a summer evening. + +Madame d'Arblay, in her old age, told Crabb Robinson that every night +she said the verses over to herself as she went to her rest. To the +writer they are almost sacred. The hand that patiently pointed out to +her, one by one, the syllables of Mrs. Barbauld's hymns for children, +that tended our childhood, as it had tended our father's, marked these +verses one night, when it blessed us for the last time. + + Life, we've been long together, + Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; + 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; + Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh or tear, + Then steal away, give little warning, + Choose thine own time. + Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime, + Bid me 'Good morning.' + +Mrs. Barbauld was over seventy when she wrote this ode. A poem, called +'Octogenary Reflections,' is also very touching:-- + + Say ye, who through this round of eighty years + Have proved its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears; + Say what is life, ye veterans who have trod, + Step following steps, its flowery thorny road? + Enough of good to kindle strong desire; + Enough of ill to damp the rising fire; + Enough of love and fancy, joy and hope, + To fan desire and give the passions scope; + Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain, + To seal the wise man's sentence--'All is vain.' + +There is another fragment of hers in which she likens herself to a +schoolboy left of all the train, who hears no sound of wheels to bear +him to his father's bosom home. 'Thus I look to the hour when I shall +follow those that are at rest before me.' And then at last the time came +for which she longed. Her brother died, her faithful Mrs. Kenrick died, +and Mrs. Taylor, whom she loved most of all. She had consented to give +up her solitary home to spend the remaining years of her life in the +home of her adopted son Charles, now married, and a father; but it was +while she was on a little visit to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Aikin, that +the summons came, very swiftly and peacefully, as she sat in her chair +one day. Her nephew transcribed these, the last lines she ever wrote:-- + +'Who are you?' + +'Do you not know me? have you not expected me?' + +'Whither do you carry me?' + +'Come with me and you shall know.' + +'The way is dark.' + +'It is well trodden.' + +'Yes, in the forward track.' + +'Come along.' + +'Oh! shall I there see my beloved ones? Will they welcome me, and will +they know me? Oh, tell me, tell me; thou canst tell me.' + +'Yes, but thou must come first.' + +'Stop a little; keep thy hand off till thou hast told me.' + +'I never wait.' + +'Oh! shall I see the warm sun again in my cold grave?' + +'Nothing is there that can feel the sun.' + +'Oh, where then?' + +'Come, I say.' + +One may acknowledge the great progress which people have made since Mrs. +Barbauld's day in the practice of writing prose and poetry, in the art +of expressing upon paper the thoughts which are in most people's minds. +It is (to use a friend's simile) like playing upon the piano--everybody +now learns to play upon the piano, and it is certain that the modest +performances of the ladies of Mrs. Barbauld's time would scarcely meet +with the attention now, which they then received. But all the same, the +stock of true feeling, of real poetry, is not increased by the increased +volubility of our pens; and so when something comes to us that is real, +that is complete in pathos or in wisdom, we still acknowledge the gift, +and are grateful for it. + + + + +_MISS EDGEWORTH._ + + 1767-1849. + + 'Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading.'--_Hen. VIII._ + +EARLY DAYS. + + +I. + +Few authoresses in these days can have enjoyed the ovations and +attentions which seem to have been considered the due of many of the +ladies distinguished at the end of the last century and the beginning of +this one. To read the accounts of the receptions and compliments which +fell to their lot may well fill later and lesser luminaries with envy. +Crowds opened to admit them, banquets spread themselves out before them, +lights were lighted up and flowers were scattered at their feet. Dukes, +editors, prime ministers, waited their convenience on their staircases; +whole theatres rose up _en masse_ to greet the gifted creatures of this +and that immortal tragedy. The authoresses themselves, to do them justice, +seem to have been very little dazzled by all this excitement. Hannah +More contentedly retires with her maiden sisters to the Parnassus on +the Mendip Hills, where they sew and chat and make tea, and teach the +village children. Dear Joanna Baillie, modest and beloved, lives on to +peaceful age in her pretty old house at Hampstead, looking through +tree-tops and sunshine and clouds towards distant London. 'Out there +where all the storms are,' I heard the children saying yesterday as +they watched the overhanging gloom of smoke which, veils the city of +metropolitan thunders and lightning. Maria Edgeworth's apparitions as +a literary lioness in the rush of London and of Paris society were but +interludes in her existence, and her real life was one of constant +exertion and industry spent far away in an Irish home among her own +kindred and occupations and interests. We may realise what these were +when we read that Mr. Edgeworth had no less than four wives, who all +left children, and that Maria was the eldest daughter of the whole +family. Besides this, we must also remember that the father whom she +idolised was himself a man of extraordinary powers, brilliant in +conversation (so I have been told), full of animation, of interest, of +plans for his country, his family, for education and literature, for +mechanics and scientific discoveries; that he was a gentleman widely +connected, hospitably inclined, with a large estate and many tenants to +overlook, with correspondence and acquaintances all over the world; and +besides all this, with various schemes in his brain, to be eventually +realised by others of which velocipedes, tramways, and telegraphs were +but a few of the items. + +One could imagine that under these circumstances the hurry and +excitement of London life must have sometimes seemed tranquillity itself +compared with the many and absorbing interests of such a family. What +these interests were may be gathered from the pages of a very interesting +memoir from which the writer of this essay has been allowed to quote. It +is a book privately printed and written for the use of her children by +the widow of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and is a record, among other +things, of a faithful and most touching friendship between Maria and her +father's wife--'a friendship lasting for over fifty years, and unbroken +by a single cloud of difference or mistrust.' Mrs. Edgeworth, who was +Miss Beaufort before her marriage, and about the same age as Miss +Edgeworth, unconsciously reveals her own most charming and unselfish +nature as she tells her stepdaughter's story. + +When the writer looks back upon her own childhood, it seems to her that +she lived in company with a delightful host of little playmates, bright, +busy, clever children, whose cheerful presence remains more vividly in +her mind than that of many of the real little boys and girls who used to +appear and disappear disconnectedly as children do in childhood, when +friendship and companionship depend almost entirely upon the convenience +of grown-up people. Now and again came little cousins or friends to +share our games, but day by day, constant and unchanging, ever to be +relied upon, smiled our most lovable and friendly companions--simple +Susan, lame Jervas, Talbot, the dear Little Merchants, Jem the widow's +son with his arms round old Lightfoot's neck, the generous Ben, with his +whipcord and his useful proverb of 'waste not, want not'--all of these +were there in the window corner waiting our pleasure. After Parents' +Assistant, to which familiar words we attached no meaning whatever, came +Popular Tales in big brown volumes off a shelf in the lumber-room of an +apartment in an old house in Paris, and as we opened the books, lo! +creation widened to our view. England, Ireland, America, Turkey, +the mines of Golconda, the streets of Bagdad, thieves, travellers, +governesses, natural philosophy, and fashionable life, were all laid +under contribution, and brought interest and adventure to our humdrum +nursery corner. All Mr. Edgeworth's varied teaching and experience, all +his daughter's genius of observation, came to interest and delight our +play-time, and that of a thousand other little children in different +parts of the world. People justly praise Miss Edgeworth's admirable +stories and novels, but from prejudice and early association these +beloved childish histories seem unequalled still, and it is chiefly as +a writer for children that we venture to consider her here. Some of the +stories are indeed little idylls in their way. Walter Scott, who best +knew how to write for the young so as to charm grandfathers as well as +Hugh Littlejohn, Esq., and all the grandchildren, is said to have wiped +his kind eyes as he put down 'Simple Susan.' A child's book, says a +reviewer of those days defining in the 'Quarterly Review,' should be +'not merely less dry, less difficult, than a book for grown-up people; +but more rich in interest, more true to nature, more exquisite in art, +more abundant in every quality that replies to childhood's keener +and fresher perception.' Children like facts, they like short vivid +sentences that tell the story: as they listen intently, so they read; +every word has its value for them. It has been a real surprise to the +writer to find, on re-reading some of these descriptions of scenery and +adventure which she had not looked at since her childhood, that the +details which she had imagined spread over much space are contained in a +few sentences at the beginning of a page. These sentences, however, show +the true art of the writer. + +It would be difficult to imagine anything better suited to the mind +of a very young person than these pleasant stories, so complete in +themselves, so interesting, so varied. The description of Jervas's +escape from the mine where the miners had plotted his destruction, +almost rises to poetry in its simple diction. Lame Jervas has warned his +master of the miners' plot, and showed him the vein of ore which they +have concealed. The miners have sworn vengeance against him, and his +life is in danger. His master helps him to get away, and comes into the +room before daybreak, bidding him rise and put on the clothes which he +has brought. 'I followed him out of the house before anybody else was +awake, and he took me across the fields towards the high road. At this +place we waited till we heard the tinkling of the bells of a team of +horses. "Here comes the waggon," said he, "in which you are to go. So +fare you well, Jervas. I shall hear how you go on; and I only hope you +will serve your next master, whoever he may be, as faithfully as you +have served me." "I shall never find so good a master," was all I could +say for the soul of me; I was quite overcome by his goodness and sorrow +at parting with him, as I then thought, for ever.' The description of +the journey is very pretty. 'The morning clouds began to clear away; I +could see my master at some distance, and I kept looking after him as +the waggon went on slowly, and he walked fast away over the fields.' +Then the sun begins to rise. The waggoner goes on whistling, but lame +Jervas, to whom the rising sun was a spectacle wholly surprising, +starts up, exclaiming in wonder and admiration. The waggoner bursts into +a loud laugh. 'Lud a marcy,' says he, 'to hear un' and look at un' a +body would think the oaf had never seen the sun rise afore;' upon which +Jervas remembers that he is still in Cornwall, and must not betray +himself, and prudently hides behind some parcels, only just in time, for +they meet a party of miners, and he hears his enemies' voice hailing the +waggoner. All the rest of the day he sits within, and amuses himself by +listening to the bells of the team, which jingle continually. 'On our +second day's journey, however, I ventured out of my hiding-place. I +walked with the waggoner up and down the hills, enjoying the fresh air, +the singing of the birds, and the delightful smell of the honeysuckles +and the dog-roses in the hedges. All the wild flowers and even the weeds +on the banks by the wayside were to me matters of wonder and admiration. +At almost every step I paused to observe something that was new to me, +and I could not help feeling surprised at the insensibility of my +fellow-traveller, who plodded along, and seldom interrupted his +whistling except to cry 'Gee, Blackbird, aw woa,' or 'How now, Smiler?' +Then Jervas is lost in admiration before a plant 'whose stem was about +two feet high, and which had a round shining purple beautiful flower,' +and the waggoner with a look of scorn exclaims, 'Help thee, lad, dost +not thou know 'tis a common thistle?' After this he looks upon Jervas as +very nearly an idiot. 'In truth I believe I was a droll figure, for my +hat was stuck full of weeds and of all sorts of wild flowers, and both +my coat and waistcoat pockets were stuffed out with pebbles and +funguses.' Then comes Plymouth Harbour: Jervas ventures to ask some +questions about the vessels, to which the waggoner answers 'They be +nothing in life but the boats and ships, man;' so he turned away and +went on chewing a straw, and seemed not a whit more moved to admiration +than he had been at the sight of the thistle. 'I conceived a high +admiration of a man who had seen so much that he could admire nothing,' +says Jervas, with a touch of real humour. + +Another most charming little idyll is that of Simple Susan, who was a +real maiden living in the neighbourhood of Edgeworthstown. The story +seems to have been mislaid for a time in the stirring events of the +first Irish rebellion, and overlooked, like some little daisy by a +battlefield. Few among us will not have shared Mr. Edgeworth's partiality +for the charming little tale. The children fling their garlands and tie +up their violets. Susan bakes her cottage loaves and gathers marigolds +for broth, and tends her mother to the distant tune of Philip's pipe +coming across the fields. As we read the story again it seems as if +we could almost scent the fragrance of the primroses and the double +violets, and hear the music sounding above the children's voices, and +the bleatings of the lamb, so simply and delightfully is the whole story +constructed. Among all Miss Edgeworth's characters few are more familiar +to the world than that of Susan's pretty pet lamb. + + +II. + +No sketch of Maria Edgeworth's life, however slight, would be complete +without a few words about certain persons coming a generation before her +(and belonging still to the age of periwigs), who were her father's +associates and her own earliest friends. Notwithstanding all that has +been said of Mr. Edgeworth's bewildering versatility of nature, he seems +to have been singularly faithful in his friendships. He might take up +new ties, but he clung pertinaciously to those which had once existed. +His daughter inherited that same steadiness of affection. In his life of +Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, Mr. Charles Darwin, writing of these +very people, has said, 'There is, perhaps, no safer test of a man's real +character than that of his long-continued friendship with good and +able men.' He then goes on to quote an instance of a long-continued +affection and intimacy only broken by death between a certain set of +distinguished friends, giving the names of Keir, Day, Small, Boulton, +Watt, Wedgwood, and Darwin, and adding to them the names of Edgeworth +himself and of the Galtons. + +Mr. Edgeworth first came to Lichfield to make Dr. Darwin's acquaintance. +His second visit was to his friend Mr. Day, the author of 'Sandford and +Merton,' who had taken a house in the valley of Stow, and who invited +him one Christmas on a visit. 'About the year 1765,' says Miss Seward, +'came to Lichfield, from the neighbourhood of Reading, the young and gay +philosopher, Mr. Edgeworth; a man of fortune, and recently married to a +Miss Elers, of Oxfordshire. The fame of Dr. Darwin's various talents +allured Mr. E. to the city they graced.' And the lady goes on to describe +Mr. Edgeworth himself:--'Scarcely two-and-twenty, with an exterior yet +more juvenile, having mathematic science, mechanic ingenuity, and a +competent portion of classical learning, with the possession of the +modern languages.... He danced, he fenced, he winged his arrows with +more than philosophic skill,' continues the lady, herself a person of no +little celebrity in her time and place. Mr. Edgeworth, in his Memoirs, +pays a respectful tribute to Miss Seward's charms, to her agreeable +conversation, her beauty, her flowing tresses, her sprightliness and +address. Such moderate expressions fail, however, to do justice to this +lady's powers, to her enthusiasm, her poetry, her partisanship. The +portrait prefixed to her letters is that of a dignified person with an +oval face and dark eyes, the thick brown tresses are twined with pearls, +her graceful figure is robed in the softest furs and draperies of the +period. In her very first letter she thus poetically describes her +surroundings:--'The autumnal glory of this day puts to shame the summer's +sullenness. I sit writing upon this dear green terrace, feeding at +intervals my little golden-breasted songsters. The embosomed vale of +Stow glows sunny through the Claude-Lorraine tint which is spread over +the scene like the blue mist over a plum.' + +In this Claude-Lorraine-plum-tinted valley stood the house which Mr. Day +had taken, and where Mr. Edgeworth had come on an eventful visit. Miss +Seward herself lived with her parents in the Bishop's palace at Lichfield. +There was also a younger sister, 'Miss Sally,' who died as a girl, and +another very beautiful young lady their friend, by name Honora Sneyd, +placed under Mrs. Seward's care. She was the heroine of Major André's +unhappy romance. He too lived at Lichfield with his mother, and his +hopeless love gives a tragic reality to this by-gone holiday of youth +and merry-making. As one reads the old letters and memoirs the echoes +of laughter reach us. One can almost see the young folks all coming +together out of the Cathedral Close, where so much of their time was +passed; the beautiful Honora, surrounded by friends and adorers, +chaperoned by the graceful Muse her senior, also much admired, and much +made of. Thomas Day is perhaps striding after them in silence with keen +critical glances; his long black locks flow unpowdered down his back. In +contrast to him comes his brilliant and dressy companion, Mr. Edgeworth, +who talks so agreeably. I can imagine little Sabrina, Day's adopted +foundling, of whom so many stories have been told, following shyly at +her guardian's side in her simple dress and childish beauty, and André's +young handsome face turned towards Miss Sneyd. So they pass on happy and +contented in each other's company, Honora in the midst, beautiful, +stately, reserved: she too was one of those not destined to be old. + +Miss Seward seems to have loved this friend with a very sincere and +admiring affection, and to have bitterly mourned her early death. Her +letters abound in apostrophes to the lost Honora. But perhaps the poor +Muse expected almost too much from friendship, too much from life. +She expected, as we all do at times, that her friends should be not +themselves but her, that they should lead not their lives but her own. +So much at least one may gather from the various phases of her style +and correspondence, and her complaints of Honora's estrangement and +subsequent coldness. Perhaps, also, Miss Seward's many vagaries and +sentiments may have frozen Honora's sympathies. Miss Seward was all +asterisks and notes of exclamation. Honora seems to have forced feeling +down to its most scrupulous expression. She never lived to be softened +by experience, to suit herself to others by degrees: with great love she +also inspired awe and a sort of surprise. One can imagine her pointing +the moral of the purple jar, as it was told long afterwards by her +stepdaughter, then a little girl playing at her own mother's knee in her +nursery by the river. + +People in the days of shilling postage were better correspondents than +they are now when we have to be content with pennyworths of news and of +affectionate intercourse. Their descriptions and many details bring all +the chief characters vividly before us, and carry us into the hearts and +the pocket-books of the little society at Lichfield as it then was. The +town must have been an agreeable sojourn in those days for people of +some pretension and small performance. The inhabitants of Lichfield seem +actually to have read each other's verses, and having done so to have +taken the trouble to sit down and write out their raptures. They were a +pleasant lively company living round about the old cathedral towers, +meeting in the Close or the adjacent gardens or the hospitable Palace +itself. Here the company would sip tea, talk mild literature of their +own and good criticism at second hand, quoting Dr. Johnson to one +another with the familiarity of townsfolk. From Erasmus Darwin, too, +they must have gained something of vigour and originality. + +With all her absurdities Miss Seward had some real critical power and +appreciation; and some of her lines are very pretty.[1] An 'Ode to the +Sun' is only what might have been expected from this Lichfield Corinne. +Her best known productions are an 'Elegy on Captain Cook,' a 'Monody on +Major André,' whom she had known from her early youth; and there is a +poem, 'Louisa,' of which she herself speaks very highly. But even more +than her poetry did she pique herself upon her epistolary correspondence. +It must have been well worth while writing letters when they were not +only prized by the writer and the recipients, but commented on by their +friends in after years. 'Court Dewes, Esq.,' writes, after five years, +for copies of Miss Seward's epistles to Miss Rogers and Miss Weston, of +which the latter begins:--'Soothing and welcome to me, dear Sophia, is +the regret you express for our separation! Pleasant were the weeks we +have recently passed together in this ancient and embowered mansion! I +had strongly felt the silence and vacancy of the depriving day on which +you vanished. How prone are our hearts perversely to quarrel with the +friendly coercion of employment at the very instant in which it is +clearing the torpid and injurious mists of unavailing melancholy!' Then +follows a sprightly attack before which Johnson may have quailed indeed. +'Is the Fe-fa-fum of literature that snuffs afar the fame of his brother +authors, and thirsts for its destruction, to be allowed to gallop +unmolested over the fields of criticism? A few pebbles from the +well-springs of truth and eloquence are all that is wanted to bring the +might of his envy low.' This celebrated letter, which may stand as +a specimen of the whole six volumes, concludes with the following +apostrophe:--'Virtuous friendship, how pure, how sacred are thy +delights! Sophia, thy mind is capable of tasting them in all their +poignance: against how many of life's incidents may that capacity be +considered as a counterpoise!' + + Footnote 1: In a notice of Miss Seward in the _Annual Register_, just + after her death in 1809, the writer, who seems to have known her, + says:--'Conscious of ability, she freely displayed herself in a manner + equally remote from annoyance and affectation.... Her errors arose from + a glowing imagination joined to an excessive sensibility, cherished + instead of repressed by early habits. It is understood that she has left + the whole of her works to Mr. Scott, the northern poet, with a view to + their publication with her life and posthumous pieces.' + +There were constant rubs, which are not to be wondered at, between Miss +Seward and Dr. Darwin, who, though a poet, was also a singularly witty, +downright man, outspoken and humorous. The lady admires his genius, +bitterly resents his sarcasms; of his celebrated work, the 'Botanic +Garden,' she says, 'It is a string of poetic brilliants, and they are of +the first water, but the eye will be apt to want the intersticial black +velvet to give effect to their lustre.' In later days, notwithstanding +her 'elegant language,' as Mr. Charles Darwin calls it, she said several +spiteful things of her old friend, but they seem more prompted by +private pique than malice. + +If Miss Seward was the Minerva and Dr. Darwin the Jupiter of the +Lichfield society, its philosopher was Thomas Day, of whom Miss Seward's +description is so good that I cannot help one more quotation:-- + +'Powder and fine clothes were at that time the appendages of gentlemen; +Mr. Day wore not either. He was tall and stooped in the shoulders, full +made but not corpulent, and in his meditative and melancholy air a +degree of awkwardness and dignity were blended.' She then compares +him with his guest, Mr. Edgeworth. 'Less graceful, less amusing, less +brilliant than Mr. E., but more highly imaginative, more classical, and +a deeper reasoner; strict integrity, energetic friendship, open-handed +generosity, and diffusive charity, greatly overbalanced on the side of +virtue, the tincture of misanthropic gloom and proud contempt of common +life society.' Wright, of Derby, painted a full-length picture of Mr. +Day in 1770. 'Mr. Day looks upward enthusiastically, meditating on +the contents of a book held in his dropped right hand ... a flash of +lightning plays in his hair and illuminates the contents of the volume.' +'Dr. Darwin,' adds Miss Seward, 'sat to Mr. Wright about the same +period--_that_ was a simply contemplative portrait of the most perfect +resemblance.' + + +III. + +Maria must have been three years old this eventful Christmas time when +her father, leaving his wife in Berkshire, came to stay with Mr. Day at +Lichfield, and first made the acquaintance of Miss Seward and her poetic +circle. Mr. Day, who had once already been disappointed in love, and +whose romantic scheme of adopting his foundlings and of educating one of +them to be his wife, has often been described, had brought one of the +maidens to the house he had taken at Lichfield. This was Sabrina, as he +had called her. Lucretia, having been found troublesome, had been sent +off with a dowry to be apprenticed to a milliner. Sabrina was a charming +little girl of thirteen; everybody liked her, especially the friendly +ladies at the Palace, who received her with constant kindness, as they +did Mr. Day himself and his visitor. What Miss Seward thought of Sabrina's +education I do not know. The poor child was to be taught to despise +luxury, to ignore fear, to be superior to pain. She appears, however, to +have been very fond of her benefactor, but to have constantly provoked +him by starting and screaming whenever he fired uncharged pistols at +her skirts, or dropped hot melted sealing-wax on her bare arms. She +is described as lovely and artless, not fond of books, incapable of +understanding scientific problems, or of keeping the imaginary and +terrible secrets with which her guardian used to try her nerves. I do +not know when it first occurred to him that Honora Sneyd was all that +his dreams could have imagined. One day he left Sabrina under many +restrictions, and returning unexpectedly found her wearing some garment +or handkerchief of which he did not approve, and discarded her on the +spot and for ever. Poor Sabrina was evidently not meant to mate and soar +with philosophical eagles. After this episode, she too was despatched, +to board with an old lady, in peace for a time, let us hope, and in +tranquil mediocrity. + +Mr. Edgeworth approved of this arrangement; he had never considered that +Sabrina was suited to his friend. But being taken in due time to call at +the Palace, he was charmed with Miss Seward, and still more by all he +saw of Honora; comparing her, alas! in his mind 'with all other women, +and secretly acknowledging her superiority.' At first, he says, Miss +Seward's brilliance overshadowed Honora, but very soon her merits grew +upon the bystanders. + +Mr. Edgeworth carefully concealed his feelings except from his host, who +was beginning himself to contemplate a marriage with Miss Sneyd. Mr. +Day presently proposed formally in writing for the hand of the lovely +Honora, and Mr. Edgeworth was to take the packet and to bring back the +answer; and being married himself, and out of the running, he appears to +have been unselfishly anxious for his friend's success. In the packet +Mr. Day had written down the conditions to which he should expect his +wife to subscribe. She would have to begin at once by giving up all +luxuries, amenities, and intercourse with the world, and promise to +continue to seclude herself entirely in his company. Miss Sneyd does not +seem to have kept Mr. Edgeworth waiting long while she wrote her answer +decidedly saying that she could not admit the unqualified control of a +husband over all her actions, nor the necessity for 'seclusion from +society to preserve female virtue.' Finding that Honora absolutely +refused to change her way of life, Mr. Day went into a fever, for which +Dr. Darwin bled him. Nor did he recover until another Miss Sneyd, +Elizabeth by name, made her appearance in the Close. + +Mr. Edgeworth, who was of a lively and active disposition, had +introduced archery among the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and he +describes a fine summer evening's entertainment passed in agreeable +sports, followed by dancing and music, in the course of which Honora's +sister, Miss Elizabeth, appeared for the first time on the Lichfield +scene, and immediately joined in the country dance. There is a vivid +description of the two sisters in Mr. Edgeworth's memoirs, of the +beautiful and distinguished Honora, loving science, serious, eager, +reserved; of the more lovely but less graceful Elizabeth, with less of +energy, more of humour and of social gifts than her sister. Elizabeth +Sneyd was, says Edgeworth, struck by Day's eloquence, by his unbounded +generosity, by his scorn of wealth. His educating a young girl for his +wife seemed to her romantic and extraordinary; and she seems to have +thought it possible to yield to the evident admiration she had aroused +in him. But, whether in fun or in seriousness, she represented to him +that he could not with justice decry accomplishments and graces that he +had not acquired. She wished him to go abroad for a time to study to +perfect himself in all that was wanting; on her own part she promised +not to go to Bath, London, or any public place of amusement until his +return, and to read certain books which he recommended. + +Meanwhile Mr. Edgeworth had made no secret of his own feeling for Honora +to Mr. Day, 'who with all the eloquence of virtue and of friendship' +urged him to fly, to accompany him abroad, and to shun dangers he could +not hope to overcome. Edgeworth consented to this proposal, and the two +friends started for Paris, visiting Rousseau on their way. They spent +the winter at Lyons, as it was a place where excellent masters of all +sorts were to be found; and here Mr. Day, with excess of zeal-- + + put himself (says his friend) to every species of torture, + ordinary and extraordinary, to compel his Antigallican limbs, in + spite of their natural rigidity, to dance and fence, and manage + the _great horse_. To perform his promise to Miss E. Sneyd + honourably, he gave up seven or eight hours of the day to these + exercises, for which he had not the slightest taste, and for + which, except horsemanship, he manifested the most sovereign + contempt. It was astonishing to behold the energy with which he + persevered in these pursuits. I have seen him stand between two + boards which reached from the ground higher than his knees: these + boards were adjusted with screws so as barely to permit him to + bend his knees, and to rise up and sink down. By these means Mr. + Huise proposed to force Mr. Day's knees outwards; but screwing was + in vain. He succeeded in torturing his patient; but original + formation and inveterate habit resisted all his endeavours at + personal improvement. I could not help pitying my philosophic + friend, pent up in durance vile for hours together, with his feet + in the stocks, a book in his hand, and contempt in his heart. + +Mr. Edgeworth meanwhile lodged himself 'in excellent and agreeable +apartments,' and occupied himself with engineering. He is certainly +curiously outspoken in his memoirs; and explains that the first Mrs. +Edgeworth, Maria's mother, with many merits, was of a complaining +disposition, and did not make him so happy at home as a woman of a more +lively temper might have succeeded in doing. He was tempted, he said, to +look for happiness elsewhere than in his home. Perhaps domestic affairs +may have been complicated by a warm-hearted but troublesome little son, +who at Day's suggestion had been brought up upon the Rousseau system, +and was in consequence quite unmanageable, and a worry to everybody. +Poor Mrs. Edgeworth's complainings were not to last very long. She +joined her husband at Lyons, and after a time, having a dread of +lying-in abroad, returned home to die in her confinement, leaving four +little children. Maria could remember being taken into her mother's room +to see her for the last time. + +Mr. Edgeworth hurried back to England, and was met by his friend Thomas +Day, who had preceded him, and whose own suit does not seem to have +prospered meanwhile. But though notwithstanding all his efforts Thomas +Day had not been fortunate in securing Elizabeth Sneyd's affections, he +could still feel for his friend. His first words were to tell Edgeworth +that Honora was still free, more beautiful than ever; while Virtue and +Honour commanded it, he had done all he could to divide them; now he +wished to be the first to promote their meeting. The meeting resulted in +an engagement, and Mr. Edgeworth and Miss Sneyd were married within four +months by the benevolent old canon in the Lady Chapel of Lichfield +Cathedral. + +Mrs. Seward wept; Miss Seward, 'notwithstanding some imaginary +dissatisfaction about a bridesmaid,' was really glad of the marriage, we +are told; and the young couple immediately went over to Ireland. + + +IV. + +Though her life was so short, Honora Edgeworth seems to have made the +deepest impression on all those she came across. Over little Maria she +had the greatest influence. There is a pretty description of the child +standing lost in wondering admiration of her stepmother's beauty, as she +watched her soon after her marriage dressing at her toilet-table. Little +Maria's feeling for her stepmother was very deep and real, and the +influence of those few years lasted for a lifetime. Her own exquisite +carefulness she always ascribed to it, and to this example may also be +attributed her habits of order and self-government, her life of reason +and deliberate judgment. + +The seven years of Honora's married life seem to have been very peaceful +and happy. She shared her husband's pursuits, and wished for nothing +outside her own home. She began with him to write those little books +which were afterwards published. It is just a century ago since she and +Mr. Edgeworth planned the early histories of Harry and Lucy and Frank; +while Mr. Day began his 'Sandford and Merton,' which at first was +intended to appear at the same time, though eventually the third part +was not published till 1789. + +As a girl of seventeen Honora Sneyd had once been threatened with +consumption. After seven years of married life the cruel malady again +declared itself; and though Dr. Darwin did all that human resource could +do, and though every tender care surrounded her, the poor young lady +rapidly sank. There is a sad, prim, most affecting letter, addressed to +little Maria by the dying woman shortly before the end; and then comes +that one written by the father, which is to tell her that all is over. + +If Mr. Edgeworth was certainly unfortunate in losing again and again the +happiness of his home, he was more fortunate than most people in being +able to rally from his grief. He does not appear to have been unfaithful +in feeling. Years after, Edgeworth, writing to console Mrs. Day upon her +husband's death, speaks in the most touching way of all he had suffered +when Honora died, and of the struggle he had made to regain his hold of +life. This letter is in curious contrast to that one written at the +time, as he sits by poor Honora's deathbed; it reads strangely cold and +irrelevant in these days when people are not ashamed of feeling or of +describing what they feel. 'Continue, my dear daughter'--he writes to +Maria, who was then thirteen years old--'the desire which you feel of +becoming amiable, prudent, and of use. The ornamental parts of a +character, with such an understanding as yours, necessarily ensue; but +true judgment and sagacity in the choice of friends, and the regulation +of your behaviour, can be only had from reflection, and from being +thoroughly convinced of what experience in general teaches too late, +that to be happy we must be good.' + +'Such a letter, written at such a time,' says the kind biographer, 'made +the impression it was intended to convey; and the wish to act up to the +high opinion her father had formed of her character became an exciting +and controlling power over the whole of Maria's future life.' On her +deathbed, Honora urged her husband to marry again, and assured him that +the woman to suit him was her sister Elizabeth. Her influence was so +great upon them both that, although Elizabeth was attached to some one +else, and Mr. Edgeworth believed her to be little suited to himself, +they were presently engaged and married, not without many difficulties. +The result proved how rightly Honora had judged. + +It was to her father that Maria owed the suggestion of her first start +in literature. Immediately after Honora's death he tells her to write a +tale about the length of a 'Spectator,' on the subject of generosity. +'It must be taken from history or romance, must be sent the day +se'nnight after you receive this; and I beg you will take some pains +about it.' A young gentleman from Oxford was also set to work to try his +powers on the same subject, and Mr. William Sneyd, at Lichfield, was to +be judge between the two performances. He gave his verdict for Maria: +'An excellent story and very well written: but where's the generosity?' +This, we are told, became a sort of proverb in the Edgeworth family. + +The little girl meanwhile had been sent to school to a certain Mrs. +Lataffiere, where she was taught to use her fingers, to write a lovely +delicate hand, to work white satin waistcoats for her papa. She was then +removed to a fashionable establishment in Upper Wimpole Street, where, +says her stepmother, 'she underwent all the usual tortures of +backboards, iron collars, and dumb-bells, with the unusual one of being +hung by the neck to draw out the muscles and increase the growth,--a +signal failure in her case.' (Miss Edgeworth was always a very tiny +person.) There is a description given of Maria at this school of hers of +the little maiden absorbed in her book with all the other children at +play, while she sits in her favourite place in front of a carved oak +cabinet, quite unconscious of the presence of the romping girls all +about her. + +Hers was a very interesting character as it appears in the +Memoirs--sincere, intelligent, self-contained, and yet dependent; +methodical, observant. Sometimes as one reads of her in early life one +is reminded of some of the personal characteristics of the writer who +perhaps of all writers least resembles Miss Edgeworth in her art--of +Charlotte Brontë, whose books are essentially of the modern and +passionate school, but whose strangely mixed character seemed rather to +belong to the orderly and neatly ruled existence of Queen Charlotte's +reign. People's lives as they really are don't perhaps vary very much, +but people's lives as they seem to be assuredly change with the fashions. +Miss Edgeworth and Miss Brontë were both Irishwomen, who have often, +with all their outcome, the timidity which arises from quick and +sensitive feeling. But the likeness does not go very deep. Maria, +whose diffidence and timidity were personal, but who had a firm and +unalterable belief in family traditions, may have been saved from some +danger of prejudice and limitation by a most fortunate though trying +illness which affected her eyesight, and which caused her to be removed +from her school with its monstrous elegancies to the care of Mr. Day, +that kindest and sternest of friends. + +This philosopher in love had been bitterly mortified when the lively +Elizabeth Sneyd, instead of welcoming his return, could not conceal her +laughter at his uncouth elegancies, and confessed that, on the whole, +she had liked him better as he was before. He forswore Lichfield and +marriage, and went abroad to forget. He turned his thoughts to politics; +he wrote pamphlets on public subjects and letters upon slavery. His poem +of the 'Dying Negro' had been very much admired. Miss Hannah More speaks +of it in her Memoirs. The subject of slavery was much before people's +minds, and Day's influence had not a little to do with the rising +indignation. + +Among Day's readers and admirers was one person who was destined to have +a most important influence upon his life. By a strange chance his +extraordinary ideal was destined to be realised; and a young lady, good, +accomplished, rich, devoted, who had read his books, and sympathised +with his generous dreams, was ready not only to consent to his strange +conditions, but to give him her whole heart and find her best happiness +in his society and in carrying out his experiments and fancies. She was +Miss Esther Milnes, of Yorkshire, an heiress; and though at first Day +hesitated and could not believe in the reality of her feeling, her +constancy and singleness of mind were not to be resisted, and they were +married at Bath in 1778. We hear of Mr. and Mrs. Day spending the first +winter of their married life at Hampstead, and of Mrs. Day, thickly +shodden, walking with him in a snowstorm on the common, and ascribing +her renewed vigour to her husband's Spartan advice. + +Day and his wife eventually established themselves at Anningsley, near +Chobham. He had insisted upon settling her fortune upon herself, but +Mrs. Day assisted him in every way, and sympathised in his many schemes +and benevolent ventures. When he neglected to make a window to the +dressing-room he built for her, we hear of her uncomplainingly lighting +her candles; to please him she worked as a servant in the house, and all +their large means were bestowed in philanthropic and charitable schemes. +Mr. Edgeworth quotes his friend's reproof to Mrs. Day, who was fond of +music: 'Shall we beguile the time with the strains of a lute while our +fellow-creatures are starving?' 'I am out of pocket every year about +300_l._ by the farm I keep,' Day writes his to his friend Edgeworth. +'The soil I have taken in hand, I am convinced, is one of the most +completely barren in England.' He then goes on to explain his reasons +for what he is about. 'It enables me to employ the poor, and the result +of all my speculations about humanity is that the only way of benefiting +mankind is to give them employment and make them earn their money.' +There is a pretty description of the worthy couple in their home +dispensing help and benefits all round about, draining, planting, +teaching, doctoring--nothing came amiss to them. Their chief friend and +neighbour was Samuel Cobbett, who understood their plans, and +sympathised in their efforts, which, naturally enough, were viewed with +doubt and mistrust by most of the people round about. It was at +Anningsley that Mr. Day finished 'Sandford and Merton,' begun many years +before. His death was very sudden, and was brought about by one of his +own benevolent theories. He used to maintain that kindness alone could +tame animals; and he was killed by a fall from a favourite colt which he +was breaking in. Mrs. Day never recovered the shock. She lived two years +hidden in her home, absolutely inconsolable, and then died and was laid +by her husband's side in the churchyard at Wargrave by the river. + +It was to the care of these worthy people that little Maria was sent +when she was ill, and she was doctored by them both physically and +morally. 'Bishop Berkeley's tar-water was still considered a specific +for all complaints,' says Mrs. Edgeworth. 'Mr. Day thought it would be +of use to Maria's inflamed eyes, and he used to bring a large tumbler +full of it to her every morning. She dreaded his "Now, Miss Maria, drink +this." But there was, in spite of his stern voice, something of pity and +sympathy in his countenance. His excellent library was open to her, and +he directed her studies. His severe reasoning and uncompromising truth +of mind awakened all her powers, and the questions he put to her and the +working out of the answers, the necessity of perfect accuracy in all her +words, suited the natural truth of her mind; and though such strictness +was not agreeable, she even then perceived its advantage, and in after +life was grateful for it.' + + +V. + +We have seen how Miss Elizabeth Sneyd, who could not make up her mind to +marry Mr. Day notwithstanding all he had gone through for her sake, had +eventually consented to become Mr. Edgeworth's third wife. With this +stepmother for many years to come Maria lived in an affectionate +intimacy, only to be exceeded by that most faithful companionship which +existed for fifty years between her and the lady from whose memoirs I +quote. + +It was about 1782 that Maria went home to live at Edgeworthtown with +her father and his wife, with the many young brothers and sisters. The +family was a large one, and already consisted of her own sisters, of +Honora the daughter of Mrs. Honora, and Lovell her son. To these +succeeded many others of the third generation; and two sisters of Mrs. +Edgeworth's, who also made their home at Edgeworthtown. + + Maria had once before been there, "very young, but she was now old + enough to be struck with the difference then so striking between + Ireland and England." The tones and looks, the melancholy and the + gaiety of the people, were so new and extraordinary to her that + the delineations she long afterwards made of Irish character + probably owe their life and truth to the impression made on her + mind at this time as a stranger. Though it was June when they + landed, there was snow on the roses she ran out to gather, and she + felt altogether in a new and unfamiliar country. + +She herself describes the feelings of the master of a family returning +to an Irish home:-- + + Wherever he turned his eyes, in or out of his home, damp + dilapidation, waste appeared. Painting, glazing, roofing, fencing, + finishing--all were wanting. The backyard and even the front + lawn round the windows of the house were filled with loungers, + followers, and petitioners; tenants, undertenants, drivers, + sub-agent and agent were to have audience; and they all had + grievances and secret informations, accusations, reciprocations, + and quarrels each under each interminable. + +Her account of her father's dealings with them is admirable:-- + + I was with him constantly, and I was amused and interested in + seeing how he made his way through their complaints, petitions, + and grievances with decision and despatch, he all the time in good + humour with the people and they delighted with him, though he + often rated them roundly when they stood before him perverse in + litigation, helpless in procrastination, detected in cunning or + convicted of falsehood. They saw into his character almost as soon + as he understood theirs. + +Mr. Edgeworth had in a very remarkable degree that power of ruling and +administering which is one of the rarest of gifts. He seems to have +shown great firmness and good sense in his conduct in the troubled times +in which he lived. He saw to his own affairs, administered justice, put +down middlemen as far as possible, reorganised the letting out of the +estate. Unlike many of his neighbours, he was careful not to sacrifice +the future to present ease of mind and of pocket. He put down rack-rents +and bribes of every sort, and did his best to establish things upon a +firm and lasting basis. + +But if it was not possible even for Mr. Edgeworth to make such things +all they should have been outside the house, the sketch given of the +family life at home is very pleasant. The father lives in perfect +confidence with his children, admitting them to his confidence, +interesting them in his experiments, spending his days with them, +consulting them. There are no reservations; he does his business in the +great sitting-room, surrounded by his family. I have heard it described +as a large ground-floor room, with windows to the garden and with two +columns supporting the further end, by one of which Maria's writing-desk +used to be placed--a desk which her father had devised for her, which +used to be drawn out to the fireside when she worked. Does not Mr. +Edgeworth also mention in one of his letters a picture of Thomas Day +hanging over a sofa against the wall? Books in plenty there were, +we may be sure, and perhaps models of ingenious machines and different +appliances for scientific work. Sir Henry Holland and Mr. Ticknor give a +curious description of Mr. Edgeworth's many ingenious inventions. There +were strange locks to the rooms and telegraphic despatches to the +kitchen; clocks at the one side of the house were wound up by simply +opening certain doors at the other end. It has been remarked that all +Miss Edgeworth's heroes had a smattering of science. Several of her +brothers inherited her father's turn for it. We hear of them raising +steeples and establishing telegraphs in partnership with him. Maria +shared of the family labours and used to help her father in the business +connected with the estate, to assist him, also, to keep the accounts. +She had a special turn for accounts, and she was pleased with her +exquisitely neat columns and by the accuracy with which her figures fell +into their proper places. Long after her father's death this knowledge +and experience enabled her to manage the estate for her eldest stepbrother, +Mr. Lovell Edgeworth. She was able, at a time of great national +difficulty and anxious crisis, to meet a storm in which many a larger +fortune was wrecked. + +But in 1782 she was a young girl only beginning life. Storms were not +yet, and she was putting out her wings in the sunshine. Her father set +her to translate 'Adèle et Théodore,' by Madame de Genlis (she had a +great facility for languages, and her French was really remarkable). +Holcroft's version of the book, however, appeared, and the Edgeworth +translation was never completed. Mr. Day wrote a letter to congratulate +Mr. Edgeworth on the occasion. It seemed horrible to Mr. Day that a +woman should appear in print. + +It is possible that the Edgeworth family was no exception to the rule by +which large and clever and animated families are apt to live in a +certain atmosphere of their own. But, notwithstanding this strong family +bias, few people can have seen more of the world, felt its temper more +justly, or appreciated more fully the interesting varieties of people to +be found in it than Maria Edgeworth. Within easy reach of Edgeworthtown +were different agreeable and cultivated houses. There was Pakenham Hall +with Lord Longford for its master; one of its daughters was the future +Duchess of Wellington, 'who was always Kitty Pakenham for her old +friends.' There at Castle Forbes also lived, I take it, more than one +of the well-bred and delightful persons, out of 'Patronage,' and the +'Absentee,' who may, in real life, have borne the names of Lady Moira +and Lady Granard. Besides, there were cousins and relations without +number--Foxes, Ruxtons, marriages and intermarriages; and when the time +came for occasional absences and expeditions from home, the circles seem +to have spread incalculably in every direction. The Edgeworths appear to +have been a genuinely sociable clan, interested in others and certainly +interesting to them. + + +VI. + +The first letter given in the Memoirs from Maria to her favourite aunt +Ruxton is a very sad one, which tells of the early death of her sister +Honora, a beautiful girl of fifteen, the only daughter of Mrs. Honora +Edgeworth, who died of consumption, as her mother had died. This letter, +written in the dry phraseology of the time, is nevertheless full of +feeling, above all for her father who was, as Maria says elsewhere, +ever since she could think or feel, the first object and motive of her +mind. + +Mrs. Edgeworth describes her sister-in-law as follows:-- + + Mrs. Ruxton resembled her brother in the wit and vivacity of her + mind and strong affections; her grace and charm of manner were + such that a gentleman once said of her; 'If I were to see Mrs. + Ruxton in rags as a beggar woman sitting on the doorstep, I should + say "Madam" to her.' 'To write to her Aunt Ruxton was, as long as + she lived, Maria's greatest pleasure while away from her,' says + Mrs. Edgeworth, 'and to be with her was a happiness she enjoyed + with never flagging and supreme delight. Blackcastle was within a + few hours' drive of Edgeworthtown, and to go to Blackcastle was + the holiday of her life.' + +Mrs. Edgeworth tells a story of Maria once staying at Blackcastle and +tearing out the title page of 'Belinda,' so that her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, +read the book without any suspicion of the author. She was so delighted +with it that she insisted on Maria listening to page after page, +exclaiming 'Is not that admirably written?' 'Admirably read, I think,' +said Maria; until her aunt, quite provoked by her faint acquiescence, +says, 'I am sorry to see my little Maria unable to bear the praises of a +rival author;' at which poor Maria burst into tears, and Mrs. Ruxton +could never bear the book mentioned afterwards. + +It was with Mrs. Ruxton that a little boy, born just after the death +of the author of 'Sandford and Merton,' was left on the occasion of +the departure of the Edgeworth family for Clifton, in 1792, where Mr. +Edgeworth spent a couple of years for the health of one of his sons. In +July the poor little brother dies in Ireland. 'There does not, now that +little Thomas is gone, exist even a person of the same name as Mr. Day,' +says Mr. Edgeworth, who concludes his letter philosophically, as the +father of twenty children may be allowed to do, by expressing a hope +that to his nurses, Mrs. Ruxton and her daughter, 'the remembrance of +their own goodness will soon obliterate the painful impression of his +miserable end.' During their stay at Clifton Richard Edgeworth, the +eldest son, who had been brought up upon Rousseau's system, and who +seems to have found the Old World too restricted a sphere for his +energies, after going to sea and disappearing for some years, suddenly +paid them a visit from South Carolina, where he had settled and married. +The young man was gladly welcomed by them all. He had been long separated +from home, and he eventually died very young in America; but his sister +always clung to him with fond affection, and when he left them to return +home she seems to have felt his departure very much. 'Last Saturday my +poor brother Richard took leave of us to return to America. He has gone +up to London with my father and mother, and is to sail from thence. We +could not part from him without great pain and regret, for he made us +all extremely fond of him.' + +Notwithstanding these melancholy events, Maria Edgeworth seems to have +led a happy busy life all this time among her friends, her relations, +her many interests, her many fancies and facts, making much of the +children, of whom she writes pleasant descriptions to her aunt. +'Charlotte is very engaging and promises to be handsome. Sneyd is, and +promises everything. Henry will, I think, through life always do more +than he promises. Little Honora is a sprightly blue-eyed child at nurse +with a woman who is the picture of health and simplicity. Lovell is +perfectly well. Doctor Darwin has paid him very handsome compliments on +his lines on the Barbarini Vase in the first part of the "Botanic +Garden."' + +Mr. Edgeworth, however, found the time long at Clifton, though, as +usual, he at once improved his opportunities, paid visits to his friends +in London and elsewhere, and renewed many former intimacies and +correspondences. + +Maria also paid a visit to London, but the time had not come for her to +enjoy society, and the extreme shyness of which Mrs. Edgeworth speaks +made it pain to her to be in society in those early days. 'Since I have +been away from home,' she writes, 'I have missed the society of my +father, mother, and sisters more than I can express, and more than +beforehand I could have thought possible. I long to see them all again. +Even when I am most amused I feel a void, and now I understand what an +aching void is perfectly.' Very soon we hear of her at home again, +'scratching away at the Freeman family.' Mr. Edgeworth is reading aloud +Gay's 'Trivia' among other things, which she recommends to her aunt. 'I +had much rather make a bargain with any one I loved to read the same +books with them at the same hour than to look at the moon like +Rousseau's famous lovers.' There is another book, a new book for the +children, mentioned about this time, 'Evenings at Home,' which they all +admire immensely. + +Miss Edgeworth was now about twenty-six, at an age when a woman's powers +have fully ripened; a change comes over her style; there is a fulness of +description in her letters and a security of expression which show +maturity. Her habit of writing was now established, and she describes +the constant interest her father took and his share in all she did. Some +of the slighter stories she first wrote upon a slate and read out to her +brothers and sisters; others she sketched for her father's approval, and +arranged and altered as he suggested. The letters for literary ladies +were with the publishers by this time, and these were followed by +various stories and early lessons, portions of 'Parents' Assistant,' +and of popular tales, all of which were sent out in packets and lent +from one member of the family to another before finally reaching Mr. +Johnson, the publisher's, hands. Maria Edgeworth in some of her letters +from Clifton alludes with some indignation to the story of Mrs. Hannah +More's ungrateful _protégée_ Lactilla, the literary milkwoman, whose +poems Hannah More was at such pains to bring before the world, and for +whom, with her kind preface and warm commendations and subscription +list, she was able to obtain the large sum of 500_l._ The ungrateful +Lactilla, who had been starving when Mrs. More found her out, seems to +have lost her head in this sudden prosperity, and to have accused her +benefactress of wishing to steal a portion of the money. Maria Edgeworth +must have been also interested in some family marriages which took place +about this time. Her own sister Anna became engaged to Dr. Beddoes, of +Clifton, whose name appears as prescribing for the authors of various +memoirs of that day. He is 'a man of ability, of a great name in the +scientific world,' says Mr. Edgeworth, who favoured the Doctor's +'declared passion,' as a proposal was then called, and the marriage +accordingly took place on their return to Ireland. Emmeline, another +sister, was soon after married to Mr. King, a surgeon, also living at +Bristol, and Maria was now left the only remaining daughter of the +first marriage, to be good aunt, sister, friend to all the younger +members of the party. She was all this, but she herself expressly states +that her father would never allow her to be turned into a nursery drudge; +her share of the family was limited to one special little boy. Meanwhile +her pen-and-ink children are growing up, and starting out in the world +on their own merits. + +'I beg, dear Sophy,' she writes to her cousin, 'that you will not call +my little stories by the sublime name of my works; I shall else be +ashamed when the little mouse comes forth. The stories are printed and +bound the same size as 'Evenings at Home,' but I am afraid you will +dislike the title. My father had sent the 'Parents' Friend,' but Mr. +Johnson has degraded it into 'Parents' Assistant.' + +In 1797, says Miss Beaufort, who was to be so soon more intimately +connected with the Edgeworth family, Johnson wished to publish more +volumes of the 'Parents' Assistant' on fine paper, with prints, and Mrs. +Ruxton asked me to make some designs for them. These designs seem to +have given great satisfaction to the Edgeworth party, and especially to +a little boy called William, Mrs. Edgeworth's youngest boy, who grew up +to be a fine young man, but who died young of the cruel family complaint. +Mrs. Edgeworth's health was also failing all this time--'Though she +makes epigrams she is far from well,' says Maria; but they, none of them +seem seriously alarmed. Mr. Edgeworth, in the intervals of politics, is +absorbed in a telegraph, which, with the help of his sons, he is trying +to establish. It is one which will act by night as well as by day. + +It was a time of change and stir for Ireland, disaffection growing and +put down for a time by the soldiers; armed bands going about 'defending' +the country and breaking its windows. In 1794 threats of a French +invasion had alarmed everybody, and now again in 1796 came rumours of +every description, and Mr. Edgeworth was very much disappointed that his +proposal for establishing a telegraph across the water to England was +rejected by Government. He also writes to Dr. Darwin that he had offered +himself as a candidate for the county, and been obliged to relinquish +at the last moment; but these minor disappointments were lost in the +trouble which fell upon the household in the following year--the death +of the mother of the family, who sank rapidly and died of consumption in +1797. + + +VII. + +When Mr. Edgeworth himself died (not, as we may be sure, without many +active post-mortem wishes and directions) he left his entertaining +Memoirs half finished, and he desired his daughter Maria in the most +emphatic way to complete them, and to publish them without changing +or altering anything that he had written. People reading them were +surprised by the contents; many blamed Miss Edgeworth for making them +public, not knowing how solemn and binding these dying commands of her +father's had been, says Mrs. Leadbeater, writing at the time to Mrs. +Trench. Many severe and wounding reviews appeared, and this may have +influenced Miss Edgeworth in her own objection to having her Memoirs +published by her family. + +Mr. Edgeworth's life was most extraordinary, comprising in fact three or +four lives in the place of that one usually allowed to most people, some +of us having to be moderately content with a half or three-quarters of +existence. But his versatility of mind was no less remarkable than his +tenacity of purpose and strength of affection, though some measure of +sentiment must have certainly been wanting, and his fourth marriage +must have taken most people by surprise. The writer once expressed her +surprise at the extraordinary influence that Mr. Edgeworth seems to have +had over women and over the many members of his family who continued to +reside in his home after all the various changes which had taken place +there. Lady S---- to whom she spoke is one who has seen more of life +than most of us, who has for years past carried help to the far-away +and mysterious East, but whose natural place is at home in the more +prosperous and unattainable West End. This lady said, 'You do not in the +least understand what my Uncle Edgeworth was. I never knew anything +like him. Brilliant, full of energy and charm, he was something quite +extraordinary and irresistible. If you had known him you would not have +wondered at anything.' + + 'I had in the spring of that year (1797) paid my first visit to + Edgeworthtown with my mother and sister,' writes Miss Beaufort, + afterwards Mrs. Edgeworth, the author of the Memoirs. 'My father + had long before been there, and had frequently met Mr. Edgeworth + at Mrs. Ruxton's. In 1795 my father was presented to the living of + Collon, in the county of Louth, where he resided from that time. + His vicarage was within five minutes' walk of the residence of Mr. + Foster, then Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, the dear + friend of Mr. Edgeworth, who came to Collon in the spring of 1798 + several times, and at last offered me his hand, which I accepted.' + +Maria, who was at first very much opposed to the match, would not have +been herself the most devoted and faithful of daughters if she had not +eventually agreed to her father's wishes, and, as daughters do, come by +degrees to feel with him and to see with his eyes. The influence of a +father over a daughter where real sympathy exists is one of the very +deepest and strongest that can be imagined. Miss Beaufort herself seems +also to have had some special attraction for Maria. She was about her +own age. She must have been a person of singularly sweet character and +gentle liberality of mind. 'You will come into a new family, but you +will not come as a stranger, dear Miss Beaufort,' writes generous Maria. +'You will not lead a new life, but only continue to lead the life you +have been used to in your own happy cultivated family.' And her +stepmother in a few feeling words describes all that Maria was to her +from the very first when she came as a bride to the home where the +sisters and the children of the lately lost wife were all assembled to +meet her. + +It gives an unpleasant thrill to read of the newly-married lady coming +along to her home in a postchaise, and seeing something odd on the +side of the road. 'Look to the other side; don't look at it,' says Mr. +Edgeworth; and when they had passed he tells his bride that it was the +body of a man hung by the rebels between the shafts of a car. + +The family at Edgeworthtown consisted of two ladies, sisters of the late +Mrs. Edgeworth, who made it their home, and of Maria, the last of the +first family. Lovell, now the eldest son, was away; but there were also +four daughters and three sons at home. + + All agreed in making me feel at once at home and part of the + family; all received me with the most unaffected cordiality; but + from Maria it was something more. She more than fulfilled the + promise of her letter; she made me at once her most intimate + friend, and in every trifle of the day treated me with the most + generous confidence. + +Those times were even more serious than they are now; we hear of Mr. +Bond, the High Sheriff, paying 'a pale visit' to Edgeworthtown. 'I am +going on in the old way, writing stories,' says Maria Edgeworth, writing +in 1798. 'I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and sitting with my hands +before me would not make any one of us one degree safer.... Simple +Susan went to Foxhall a few days ago for Lady Anne to carry her to +England.'... 'My father has made our little rooms so nice for us,' she +continues; 'they are all fresh painted and papered. Oh! rebels, oh! +French spare them. We have never injured you, and all we wish is to see +everybody as happy as ourselves.' + +On August 29 we find from Miss Edgeworth's letter to her cousin that +the French have got to Castlebar. 'The Lord-Lieutenant is now at +Athlone, and it is supposed it will be their next object of attack. My +father's corps of yeomanry are extremely attached to him and seem fully +in earnest; but, alas! by some strange negligence, their arms have not +yet arrived from Dublin.... We, who are so near the scene of action, +cannot by any means discover what _number_ of the French actually +landed; some say 800, some 1,800, some 18,000.' + +The family had a narrow escape that day, for two officers, who were in +charge of some ammunition, offered to take them under their protection +as far as Longford. Mr. Edgeworth most fortunately detained them. 'Half +an hour afterwards, as we were quietly sitting in the portico, we heard, +as we thought close to us, the report of a pistol or a clap of thunder +which shook the house. The officer soon after returned almost speechless; +he could hardly explain what had happened. The ammunition cart, +containing nearly three barrels of gunpowder, took fire, and burnt +half-way on the road to Longford. The man who drove the cart was blown +to atoms. Nothing of him could be found. Two of the horses were killed; +others were blown to pieces, and their limbs scattered to a distance. +The head and body of a man were found a hundred and twenty yards from +the spot.... If we had gone with this ammunition cart, we must have +been killed. An hour or two afterwards we were obliged to fly from +Edgeworthtown. The pikemen, 300 in number, were within a mile of the +town; my mother and Charlotte and I rode; passed the trunk of the dead +man, bloody limbs of horses, and two dead horses, by the help of men +who pulled on our steeds--all safely lodged now in Mrs. Fallon's inn.' +'Before we had reached the place where the cart had been blown up,' says +Mrs. Edgeworth, 'Mr. Edgeworth suddenly recollected that he had left on +the table in his study a list of the yeomanry corps which he feared +might endanger the poor fellows and their families if it fell into the +hands of the rebels. He galloped back for it. It was at the hazard of +his life; but the rebels had not yet appeared. He burned the paper, and +rejoined us safely.' The Memoirs give a most interesting and spirited +account of the next few days. The rebels spared Mr. Edgeworth's house, +although they broke into it. After a time the family were told that all +was safe for their return, and the account of their coming home, as it +is given in the second volume of Mr. Edgeworth's life by his daughter, +is a model of style and admirable description. + +In 1799 Mr. Edgeworth came into Parliament for the borough of St. +Johnstown. He was a Unionist by conviction, but he did not think the +times were yet ripe for the Union, and he therefore voted against it. +In some of his letters to Dr. Darwin written at this time, he says that +he was offered 3,000 guineas for his seat for the few remaining weeks of +the session, which, needless to say, he refused, not thinking it well, +as he says, '_to quarrel with myself_.' He also adds that Maria continues +writing for children under the persuasion that she cannot be more +serviceably employed; and he sends (with his usual perspicuity) +affectionate messages to the Doctor's 'good amiable lady and _his giant +brood_.' But this long friendly correspondence was coming to an end. The +Doctor's letters, so quietly humorous and to the point, Mr. Edgeworth's +answers with all their characteristic and lively variety, were nearly at +an end. + +It was in 1800 that Maria had achieved her great success, and published +'Castle Rackrent,' a book--not for children this time--which made +everybody talk who read, and those read who had only talked before. This +work was published anonymously, and so great was its reputation that +some one was at the pains to copy out the whole of the story with +erasures and different signs of authenticity, and assume the authorship. + +One very distinctive mark of Maria Edgeworth's mind is the honest +candour and genuine critical faculty which is hers. Her appreciation of +her own work and that of others is unaffected and really discriminating, +whether it is 'Corinne' or a simple story which she is reading, or +Scott's new novel the 'Pirate,' or one of her own manuscripts which she +estimates justly and reasonably. 'I have read "Corinne" with my father, +and I like it better than he does. In one word, I am dazzled by the +genius, provoked by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste and +critical judgment of Italian literature displayed throughout the whole +work: but I will not dilate upon it in a letter. I could talk for three +hours to you and my aunt.' + +Elsewhere she speaks with the warmest admiration of a 'Simple Story.' +Jane Austen's books were not yet published; but another writer, for whom +Mr. Edgeworth and his daughter had a very great regard and admiration, +was Mrs. Barbauld, who in all the heavy trials and sorrows of her later +life found no little help and comfort in the friendship and constancy of +Maria Edgeworth. Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld, upon Mr. Edgeworth's invitation, +paid him a visit at Clifton, where he was again staying in 1799, and +where the last Mrs. Edgeworth's eldest child was born. There is a little +anecdote of domestic life at this time in the Memoirs which gives +one a glimpse, not of an authoress, but of a very sympathising and +impressionable person. 'Maria took her little sister to bring down to +her father, but when she had descended a few steps a panic seized her, +and she was afraid to go either backwards or forwards. She sat down on +the stairs afraid she should drop the child, afraid that its head would +come off, and afraid that her father would find her sitting there and +laugh at her, till seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in a +terrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards down the stairs +till she safely reached the sitting-room.' For all these younger +children Maria seems to have had a most tender and motherly regard, as +indeed for all her young brothers and sisters of the different families. +Many of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few heroines +are more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. Rosamund is said by +some to have been Maria herself, impulsive, warm-hearted, timid, and yet +full of spirit and animation. + +In his last letter to Mr. Edgeworth Dr. Darwin writes kindly of the +authoress, and sends her a message. The letter is dated April 17, 1802. +'I am glad to find you still amuse yourself with mechanism in spite of +the troubles of Ireland;' and the Doctor goes on to ask his friend to +come and pay a visit to the Priory, and describes the pleasant house +with the garden, the ponds full of fish, the deep umbrageous valley, +with the talkative stream running down it, and Derby tower in the +distance. The letter, so kind, so playful in its tone, was never +finished. Dr. Darwin was writing as he was seized with what seemed a +fainting fit, and he died within an hour. Miss Edgeworth writes of the +shock her father felt when the sad news reached him; a shock, she says, +which must in some degree be experienced by every person who reads this +letter of Dr. Darwin's. + +No wonder this generous outspoken man was esteemed in his own time. To +us, in ours, it has been given still more to know the noble son of 'that +giant brood,' whose name will be loved and held in honour as long as +people live to honour nobleness, simplicity, and genius; those things +which give life to life itself. + + +VIII. + +'Calais after a rough passage; Brussels, flat country, tiled houses, +trees and ditches, the window shutters turned out to the street; +fishwives' legs, Dunkirk, and the people looking like wooden toys set in +motion; Bruges and its mingled spires, shipping, and windmills.' These +notes of travel read as if Miss Edgeworth had been writing down only +yesterday a pleasant list of the things which are to be seen two hours +off, to-day no less plainly than a century ago. She jots it all down +from her corner in the postchaise, where she is propped up with a +father, brother, stepmother, and sister for travelling companions, and +a new book to beguile the way. She is charmed with her new book. It is +the story of 'Mademoiselle de Clermont,' by Madame de Genlis, and only +just out. The Edgeworths (with many other English people) rejoiced in +the long-looked-for millennium, which had been signed only the previous +autumn, and they now came abroad to bask in the sunshine of the Continent, +which had been so long denied to our mist-bound islanders. We hear of +the enthusiastic and somewhat premature joy with which this peace was +received by all ranks of people. Not only did the English rush over to +France; foreigners crossed to England, and one of them, an old friend of +Mr. Edgeworth's, had already reached Edgeworthtown, and inspired its +enterprising master with a desire to see those places and things once +more which he heard described. Mr. Edgeworth was anxious also to show +his young wife the treasures in the Louvre, and to help her to develop +her taste for art. He had had many troubles of late, lost friends and +children by death and by marriage. One can imagine that the change must +have been welcome to them all. Besides Maria and Lovell, his eldest +son, he took with him a lovely young daughter, Charlotte Edgeworth, the +daughter of Elizabeth Sneyd. They travelled by Belgium, stopping on +their way at Bruges, at Ghent, and visiting pictures and churches along +the road, as travellers still like to do. Mrs. Edgeworth was, as we have +said, the artistic member of the party. We do not know what modern +rhapsodists would say to Miss Edgeworth's very subdued criticisms and +descriptions of feeling on this occasion. 'It is extremely agreeable to +me,' she writes, 'to see paintings with those who have excellent taste +and no affectation.' And this remark might perhaps be thought even more +to the point now than in the pre-æsthetic age in which it was innocently +made. The travellers are finally landed in Paris in a magnificent hotel +in a fine square, 'formerly Place Louis-Quinze, afterwards Place de la +Révolution, now Place de la Concorde.' And Place de la Concorde it +remains, wars and revolutions notwithstanding, whether lighted by the +flames of the desperate Commune or by the peaceful sunsets which stream +their evening glory across the blood-stained stones. + +The Edgeworths did not come as strangers to Paris; they brought letters +and introductions with them, and bygone associations and friendships +which had only now to be resumed. The well-known Abbé Morellet, their +old acquaintance, 'answered for them,' says Miss Edgeworth, and besides +all this Mr Edgeworth's name was well known in scientific circles. +Bréguet, Montgolfier, and others all made him welcome. Lord Henry +Petty, as Maria's friend Lord Lansdowne was then called, was in Paris, +and Rogers the poet, and Kosciusko, cured of his wounds. For the first +time they now made the acquaintance of M. Dumont, a lifelong friend and +correspondent. There were many others--the Delesserts, of the French +Protestant faction, Madame Suard, to whom the romantic Thomas Day had +paid court some thirty years before, and Madame Campan, and Madame +Récamier, and Madame de Rémusat, and Madame de Houdetot, now seventy-two +years of age, but Rousseau's Julie still, and Camille Jordan, and the +Chevalier Edelcrantz, from the Court of the King of Sweden. + +The names alone of the Edgeworths' entertainers represent a delightful +and interesting section of the history of the time. One can imagine +that besides all these pleasant and talkative persons the Faubourg +Saint-Germain itself threw open its great swinging doors to the +relations of the Abbé Edgeworth who risked his life to stand by his +master upon the scaffold and to speak those noble warm-hearted words, +the last that Louis ever heard. One can picture the family party as +it must have appeared with its pleasant British looks--the agreeable +'ruddy-faced' father, the gentle Mrs. Edgeworth, who is somewhere +described by her stepdaughter as so orderly, so clean, so freshly +dressed, the child of fifteen, only too beautiful and delicately +lovely, and last of all Maria herself, the nice little unassuming, +Jeannie-Deans-looking body Lord Byron described, small, homely, perhaps, +but with her gift of French, of charming intercourse, her fresh laurels +of authorship (for 'Belinda' was lately published), her bright animation, +her cultivated mind and power of interesting all those in her company, +to say nothing of her own kindling interest in every one and every thing +round about her. + +Her keen delights and vivid descriptions of all these new things, faces, +voices, ideas, are all to be read in some long and most charming letters +to Ireland, which also contain the account of a most eventful crisis +which this Paris journey brought about. The letter is dated March 1803, +and it concludes as follows:-- + + Here, my dear aunt, I was interrupted in a manner that will + surprise you as much as it surprised me--by the coming of M. + Edelcrantz, a Swedish gentleman whom we have mentioned to you, of + superior understanding and mild manners. He came to offer me his + hand and heart! My heart, you may suppose, cannot return his + attachment, for I have seen but very little of him, and have not + had time to have formed any judgment except that I think nothing + could tempt me to leave my own dear friends and my own country to + live in Sweden. + +Maria Edgeworth was now about thirty years of age, at a time of life +when people are apt to realise perhaps almost more deeply than in early +youth the influence of feeling, its importance, and strange power over +events. Hitherto there are no records in her memoirs of any sentimental +episodes, but it does not follow that a young lady has not had her own +phase of experience because she does not write it out at length to her +various aunts and correspondents. Miss Edgeworth was not a sentimental +person. She was warmly devoted to her own family, and she seems to have +had a strong idea of her own want of beauty; perhaps her admiration for +her lovely young sisters may have caused this feeling to be exaggerated +by her. But no romantic, lovely heroine could have inspired a deeper or +more touching admiration than this one which M. Edelcrantz felt for his +English friend; the mild and superior Swede seems to have been +thoroughly in earnest. + +So indeed was Miss Edgeworth, but she was not carried away by the +natural impulse of the moment. She realised the many difficulties and +dangers of the unknown; she looked to the future; she turned to her own +home, and with an affection all the more felt because of the trial +to which it was now exposed. The many lessons of self-control and +self-restraint which she had learnt returned with instinctive force. +Sometimes it happens that people miss what is perhaps the best for +the sake of the next best, and we see convenience and old habit and +expediency, and a hundred small and insignificant circumstances, +gathering like some avalanche to divide hearts that might give and +receive very much from each. But sentiment is not the only thing in +life. Other duties, ties, and realities there are; and it is difficult +to judge for others in such matters. Sincerity of heart and truth to +themselves are pretty sure in the end to lead people in the right +direction for their own and for other people's happiness. Only, in the +experience of many women there is the danger that fixed ideas, and other +people's opinion, and the force of custom may limit lives which might +have been complete in greater things, though perhaps less perfect in the +lesser. People in the abstract are sincere enough in wishing fulness of +experience and of happiness to those dearest and nearest to them; but we +are only human beings, and when the time comes and the horrible necessity +for parting approaches, our courage goes, our hearts fail, and we think +we are preaching reason and good sense while it is only a most natural +instinct which leads us to cling to that to which we are used and to +those we love. + +Mr. Edgeworth did not attempt to influence Maria. Mrs. Edgeworth +evidently had some misgivings, and certainly much sympathy for the +Chevalier and for her friend and stepdaughter. She says:-- + + Maria was mistaken as to her own feelings. She refused M. + Edelcrantz, but she felt much more for him than esteem and + admiration; she was extremely in love with him. Mr. Edgeworth left + her to decide for herself; but she saw too plainly what it would + be to us to lose her and what she would feel at parting with us. + She decided rightly for her own future happiness and for that of + her family, but she suffered much at the time and long afterwards. + While we were at Paris I remember that in a shop, where Charlotte + and I were making purchases, Maria sat apart absorbed in thought, + and so deep in reverie that when her father came in and stood + opposite to her she did not see him till he spoke to her, when she + started and burst into tears.... I do not think she repented of + her refusal or regretted her decision. She was well aware that she + could not have made M. Edelcrantz happy, that she would not have + suited his position at the Court of Stockholm, and that her want + of beauty might have diminished his attachment. It was perhaps + better she should think so, for it calmed her mind; but from what + I saw of M. Edelcrantz I think he was a man capable of really + valuing her. I believe he was much attached to her, and deeply + mortified at her refusal. He continued to reside in Sweden after + the abdication of his master, and was always distinguished for his + high character and great abilities. He never married. He was, + except for his very fine eyes, remarkably plain. + +So ends the romance of the romancer. There are, however, many +happinesses in life, as there are many troubles. + +Mrs. Edgeworth tells us that after her stepdaughter's return to +Edgeworthtown she occupied herself with various literary works, +correcting some of her former MSS. for the press, and writing 'Madame de +Fleury,' 'Emilie de Coulanges,' and 'Leonora.' But the high-flown and +romantic style did suit her gift, and she wrote best when her genuine +interest and unaffected glances shone with bright understanding sympathy +upon her immediate surroundings. When we are told that 'Leonora' was +written in the style the Chevalier Edelcrantz preferred, and that the +idea of what he would think of it was present to Maria in every page, we +begin to realise that for us at all events it was a most fortunate thing +that she decided as she did. It would have been a loss indeed to the +world if this kindling and delightful spirit of hers had been choked by +the polite thorns, fictions, and platitudes of an artificial, courtly +life and by the well-ordered narrowness of a limited standard. She never +heard what the Chevalier thought of the book; she never knew that he +ever read it even. It is a satisfaction to hear that he married no one +else, and while she sat writing and not forgetting in the pleasant +library at home, one can imagine the romantic Chevalier in his distant +Court faithful to the sudden and romantic devotion by which he is now +remembered. Romantic and chivalrous friendship seems to belong to his +country and to his countrymen. + + +IX. + +There are one or two other episodes less sentimental than this one +recorded of this visit to Paris, not the least interesting of these +being the account given of a call upon Madame de Genlis. The younger +author from her own standpoint having resolutely turned away from the +voice of the charmer for the sake of that which she is convinced to be +duty and good sense, now somewhat sternly takes the measure of her elder +sister, who has failed in the struggle, who is alone and friendless, and +who has made her fate. + +The story is too long to quote at full length. An isolated page without +its setting loses very much; the previous description of the darkness +and uncertainty through which Maria and her father go wandering, and +asking their way in vain, adds immensely to the sense of the gloom and +isolation which are hiding the close of a long and brilliant career. At +last, after wandering for a long time seeking for Madame de Genlis, the +travellers compel a reluctant porter to show them the staircase in the +Arsenal, where she is living, and to point out the door before he goes +off with the light. + +They wait in darkness. The account of what happens when the door is +opened is so interesting that I cannot refrain from quoting it at +length:-- + + After ringing the bell we presently heard doors open and little + footsteps approaching nigh. The door was opened by a girl of about + Honora's size, holding an ill set-up, wavering candle in her hand, + the light of which fell full upon her face and figure. Her face + was remarkably intelligent--dark sparkling eyes, dark hair curled + in the most fashionable long corkscrew ringlets over her eyes and + cheeks. She parted the ringlets to take a full view of us. The + dress of her figure by no means suited the head and elegance of + her attitude. What her nether weeds might be we could not + distinctly see, but they seemed a coarse short petticoat like what + Molly Bristow's children would wear. After surveying us and + hearing our name was Edgeworth she smiled graciously and bid us + follow her, saying, 'Maman est chez elle.' She led the way with + the grace of a young lady who has been taught to dance across two + ante-chambers, miserable-looking; but, miserable or not, no home + in Paris can be without them. The girl, or young lady, for we were + still in doubt which to think her, led into a small room in which + the candles were so well screened by a green tin screen that we + could scarcely distinguish the tall form of a lady in black who + rose from her chair by the fireside; as the door opened a great + puff of smoke came from the huge fireplace at the same moment. She + came forward, and we made our way towards her as well as we could + through a confusion of tables, chairs, and work-baskets, china, + writing-desks and inkstands, and birdcages, and a harp. She did + not speak, and as her back was now turned to both fire and candle + I could not see her face or anything but the outline of her form + and her attitude. Her form was the remains of a fine form, her + attitude that of a woman used to a better drawing-room. + + I being foremost, and she silent, was compelled to speak to the + figure in darkness. 'Madame de Genlis nous a fait l'honneur de + nous mander qu'elle voulait bien nous permettre de lui rendre + visite,' said I, or words to that effect, to which she replied by + taking my hand and saying something in which 'charmée' was the + most intelligible word. While she spoke she looked over my + shoulder at my father, whose bow, I presume, told her he was a + gentleman, for she spoke to him immediately as if she wished to + please and seated us in _fauteuils_ near the fire. + + I then had a full view of her face--figure very thin and + melancholy dark eyes, long sallow cheeks, compressed thin lips, + two or three black ringlets on a high forehead, a cap that Mrs. + Grier might wear--altogether in appearance of fallen fortunes, + worn-out health, and excessive but guarded irritability. To me + there was nothing of that engaging, captivating manner which I had + been taught to expect. She seemed to me to be alive only to + literary quarrels and jealousies. The muscles of her face as she + spoke, or as my father spoke to her, quickly and too easily + expressed hatred and anger.... She is now, you know, _dévote + acharnée_.... Madame de Genlis seems to have been so much used to + being attacked that she has defence and apologies ready prepared. + She spoke of Madame de Staël's 'Delphine' with detestation.... + Forgive me, my dear Aunt Mary; you begged me to see her with + favourable eyes, and I went, after seeing her 'Rosière de + Salency,' with the most favourable disposition, but I could not + like her.... And from time to time I saw, or thought I saw, + through the gloom of her countenance a gleam of coquetry. But my + father judges of her much more favourably than I do. She evidently + took pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person + over whose mind he could gain great ascendency. + +The 'young and gay philosopher' at fifty is not unchanged since we knew +him first. Maria adds a postscript: + + I had almost forgotten to tell you that the little girl who showed + us in is a girl whom she is educating. 'Elle m'appelle maman, mais + elle n'est pas ma fille.' The manner in which this little girl + spoke to Madame de Genlis and looked at her appeared to me more in + her favour than anything else. I went to look at what the child + was writing; she was translating Darwin's _Zoonomia_. + +Every description one reads by Miss Edgeworth of actual things and +people makes one wish that she had written more of them. This one is the +more interesting from the contrast of the two women, both so remarkable +and coming to so different a result in their experience of life. + +This eventful visit to Paris is brought to an eventful termination by +several gendarmes, who appear early one morning in Mr. Edgeworth's +bedroom with orders that he is to get up and to leave Paris immediately. +Mr. Edgeworth had been accused of being brother to the Abbé de Fermont. +When the mitigated circumstances of his being only a first cousin were +put forward by Lord Whitworth, the English Ambassador, the Edgeworths +received permission to return from the suburb to which they had retired; +but private news hurried their departure, and they were only in time to +escape the general blockade and detention of English prisoners. After +little more than a year of peace, once more war was declared on May 20, +1803. Lovell, the eldest son, who was absent at the time and travelling +from Switzerland, was not able to escape in time; nor for twelve years +to come was the young man able to return to his own home and family. + + +X. + +'Belinda,' 'Castle Rackrent,' the 'Parents' Assistant,' the 'Essays on +Practical Education,' had all made their mark. The new series of popular +tales was also welcomed. There were other books on the way; Miss Edgeworth +had several MSS. in hand in various stages, stories to correct for the +press. There was also a long novel, first begun by her father and taken +up and carried on by her. The 'Essays on Practical Education,' which +were first published in 1798, continued to be read. M. Pictet had +translated the book into French the year before; a third edition was +published some ten years later, in 1811, in the preface of which the +authors say, 'It is due to the public to state that twelve years' +additional experience in a numerous family, and careful attention to the +results of other modes of education, have given the authors no reason to +retract what they have advanced in these volumes.' + +In Mr. Edgeworth's Memoirs, however, his daughter states that he +modified his opinions in one or two particulars; allowing more and +more liberty to the children, and at the same time conceding greater +importance to the habit of early though mechanical efforts of memory. +The essays seem in every way in advance of their time; many of the hints +contained in them most certainly apply to the little children of to-day +no less than to their small grandparents. A lady whose own name is high +in the annals of education was telling me that she had been greatly +struck by the resemblance between the Edgeworth system and that of +Froebel's Kindergarten method, which is now gaining more and more ground +in people's estimation, the object of both being not so much to cram +instruction into early youth as to draw out each child's powers of +observation and attention. + +The first series of tales of fashionable life came out in 1809, and +contained among other stories 'Ennui,' one of the most remarkable of +Miss Edgeworth's works. The second series included the 'Absentee,' that +delightful story of which the lesson should be impressed upon us even +more than in the year 1812. The 'Absentee' was at first only an episode +in the longer novel of 'Patronage;' but the public was impatient, so +were the publishers, and fortunately for every one the 'Absentee' was +printed as a separate tale. + +'Patronage' had been begun by Mr. Edgeworth to amuse his wife, who was +recovering from illness; it was originally called the 'Fortunes of the +Freeman Family,' and it is a history with a moral. Morals were more +in fashion then than they are now, but this one is obvious without +any commentary upon it. It is tolerably certain that clever, industrious, +well-conducted people will succeed, where idle, scheming, and untrustworthy +persons will eventually fail to get on, even with powerful friends to +back them. But the novel has yet to be written that will prove that, +where merits are more equal, a little patronage is not of a great deal +of use, or that people's positions in life are exactly proportioned to +their merit. Mrs. Barbauld's pretty essay on the 'Inconsistency of Human +Expectations' contains the best possible answer to the problem of what +people's deserts should be. Let us hope that personal advancement is +only one of the many things people try for in life, and that there are +other prizes as well worth having. Miss Edgeworth herself somewhere +speaks with warm admiration of this very essay. Of the novel itself she +says (writing to Mrs. Barbauld), 'It is so vast a subject that it +flounders about in my hands and quite overpowers me.' + +It is in this same letter that Miss Edgeworth mentions another +circumstance which interested her at this time, and which was one of +those events occurring now and again which do equal credit to all +concerned. + + I have written a preface and notes [she says]--for I too would be + an editor--for a little book which a very worthy countrywoman of + mine is going to publish: Mrs. Leadbeater, granddaughter to + Burke's first preceptor. She is poor. She has behaved most + handsomely about some letters of Burke's to her grandfather and + herself. It would have been advantageous to her to publish them; + but, as Mrs. Burke[2]--Heaven knows why--objected, she desisted. + +Mrs. Leadbeater was an Irish Quaker lady whose simple and spirited +annals of Ballitore delighted Carlyle in his later days, and whose +'Cottage Dialogues' greatly struck Mr. Edgeworth at the time; and the +kind Edgeworths, finding her quite unused to public transactions, +exerted themselves in every way to help her. Mr. Edgeworth took the +MSS. out of the hands of an Irish publisher, and, says Maria, 'our +excellent friend's worthy successor in St. Paul's Churchyard has, on +our recommendation, agreed to publish it for her.' Mr. Edgeworth's own +letter to Mrs. Leadbeater gives the history of his good-natured offices +and their satisfactory results. + + Footnote 2: Mrs. Burke, hearing more of the circumstances, afterwards + sent permission; but Mrs. Leadbeater being a Quakeress, and having once + _promised_ not to publish, could not take it upon herself to break her + covenant. + + From R. L. Edgeworth, July 5, 1810. + + Miss Edgeworth desires me as a man of business to write to Mrs. + Leadbeater relative to the publication of 'Cottage Dialogues.' + Miss Edgeworth has written an advertisement, and will, with Mrs. + Leadbeater's permission, write notes for an English edition. The + scheme which I propose is of two parts--to sell the English + copyright to the house of Johnson in London, where we dispose of + our own works, and to publish a very large and cheap edition for + Ireland for schools.... I can probably introduce the book into + many places. Our family takes 300 copies, Lady Longford 50, Dr. + Beaufort 20, &c.... I think Johnson & Co. will give 50_l._ for the + English copyright. + +After the transaction Mr. Edgeworth wrote to the publishers as +follows:-- + + May 31, 1811: Edgeworthtown. + My sixty-eighth birthday. + + My dear Gentlemen,--I have just heard your letter to Mrs. + Leadbeater read by one who dropped tears of pleasure from a sense + of your generous and handsome conduct. I take great pleasure in + speaking of you to the rest of the world as you deserve, and I + cannot refrain from expressing to yourselves the genuine esteem + that I feel for you. I know that this direct praise is scarcely + allowable, but my advanced age and my close connection with you + must be my excuse.--Yours sincerely, + R. L. E. + +Tears seem equivalent to something more than the estimated value of Mrs. +Leadbeater's labours. The charming and well-known Mrs. Trench who was +also Mary Leadbeater's friend, writes warmly praising the notes. 'Miss +Edgeworth's notes on your Dialogues have as much spirit and originality +as if she had never before explored the mine which many thought she had +exhausted.' + +All these are pleasant specimens of the Edgeworth correspondence, which, +however (following the course of most correspondence), does not seem to +have been always equally agreeable. There are some letters (among others +which I have been allowed to see) written by Maria about this time to an +unfortunate young man who seems to have annoyed her greatly by his +excited importunities. + + I thank you [she says] for your friendly zeal in defence of my + powers of pathos and sublimity; but I think it carries you much + too far when it leads you to imagine that I refrain, from + principle or virtue, from displaying powers that I really do not + possess. I assure you that I am not in the least capable of + writing a dithyrambic ode, or any other kind of ode. + + +One is reminded by this suggestion of Jane Austen also declining to +write 'an historical novel illustrative of the august House of Coburg.' + +The young man himself seems to have had some wild aspirations after +authorship, but to have feared criticism. + + The advantage of the art of printing [says his friendly Minerva] + is that the mistakes of individuals in reasoning and writing will + be corrected in time by the public, so that the cause of truth + cannot suffer; and I presume you are too much of a philosopher to + mind the trifling mortification that the detection of a mistake + might occasion. You know that some sensible person has observed + that acknowledging a mistake is saying, only in other words, that + we are wiser to-day than we were yesterday. + +He seems at last to have passed the bounds of reasonable correspondence, +and she writes as follows:-- + + Your last letter, dated in June, was many months before it reached + me. In answer to all your reproaches at my silence I can only + assure you that it was not caused by any change in my opinions or + good wishes; but I do not carry on what is called a regular + correspondence with anybody except with one or two of my very + nearest relations; and it is best to tell the plain truth that my + father particularly dislikes my writing letters, so I write as few + as I possibly can. + + +XI. + +While Maria Edgeworth was at work in her Irish home, successfully +producing her admirable delineations, another woman, born some eight +years later, and living in the quiet Hampshire village where the elm +trees spread so greenly, was also at work, also writing books that +were destined to influence many a generation, but which were meanwhile +waiting unknown, unnoticed. Do we not all know the story of the brown +paper parcel lying unopened for years on the publisher's shelf and +containing Henry Tilney and all his capes, Catherine Morland and all +her romance, and the great John Thorpe himself, uttering those valuable +literary criticisms which Lord Macaulay, writing to his little sisters +at home, used to quote to them? 'Oh, Lord!' says John Thorpe, 'I never +read novels; I have other things to do.' + +A friend reminds us of Miss Austen's own indignant outburst. 'Only a +novel! only "Cecilia," or "Camilla," or "Belinda;" or, in short, only +some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, the +most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its +varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to +the world in the best-chosen language.' If the great historian, who +loved novels himself, had not assured us that we owe Miss Austen and +Miss Edgeworth to the early influence of the author of 'Evelina,' one +might grudge 'Belinda' to such company as that of 'Cecilia' and +'Camilla.' + +'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published about the +same time as 'Patronage' and 'Tales of Fashionable Life.' Their two +authors illustrate, curiously enough, the difference between the national +characteristics of English and Irish--the breadth, the versatility, the +innate wit and gaiety of an Irish mind; the comparative narrowness of +range of an English nature; where, however, we are more likely to get +humour and its never-failing charm. Long afterwards Jane Austen sent one +of her novels to Miss Edgeworth, who appreciated it indeed, as such a +mind as hers could not fail to do, but it was with no such enthusiasm +as that which she felt for other more ambitious works, with more of +incident, power, knowledge of the world, in the place of that one subtle +quality of humour which for some persons outweighs almost every other. +Something, some indefinite sentiment, tells people where they amalgamate +and with whom they are intellectually akin; and by some such process of +criticism the writer feels that in this little memoir of Miss Edgeworth +she has but sketched the outer likeness of this remarkable woman's life +and genius; and that she has scarcely done justice to very much in Miss +Edgeworth, which so many of the foremost men of her day could +appreciate--a power, a versatility, an interest in subjects for their +own sakes, not for the sakes of those who are interested in them, which +was essentially hers. + +It is always characteristic to watch a writer's progress in the +estimation of critics and reviewers. In 1809 Miss Edgeworth is +moderately and respectfully noticed. 'As a writer of novels and tales +she has a marked peculiarity, that of venturing to dispense common sense +to her readers and to bring them within the precincts of real life. +Without excluding love from her pages she knows how to assign to it its +true limits.' In 1812 the reviewer, more used to hear the author's +praises on all sides, now starts from a higher key, and, as far as truth +to nature and delineation of character are concerned, does not allow a +rival except 'Don Quixote' and 'Gil Blas.' The following criticism is +just and more to the point:-- + + To this power of masterly and minute delineation of character Miss + Edgeworth adds another which has rarely been combined with the + former, that of interweaving the peculiarities of her persons with + the conduct of her piece, and making them, without forgetting + for a moment their personal consistency, conduce to the general + lesson.... Her virtue and vice, though copied exactly from nature, + lead with perfect ease to a moral conclusion, and are finally + punished or rewarded by means which (rare as a retribution in this + world is) appear for the most part neither inconsistent nor + unnatural. + +Then follows a review of 'Vivian' and of the 'Absentee,' which is +perhaps the most admirable of her works. We may all remember how +Macaulay once pronounced that the scene in the 'Absentee' where Lord +Colambre discovers himself to his tenantry was the best thing of the +sort since the opening of the twenty-second book of the 'Odyssey.' + +An article by Lord Dudley, which is still to be quoted, appeared in the +'Quarterly Review' in 1814. What he says of her works applies no less to +Miss Edgeworth's own life than to the principles which she inculcates. + + The old rule was for heroes and heroines to fall suddenly and + irretrievably in love. If they fell in love with the right person + so much the better; if not, it could not be helped, and the novel + ended unhappily. And, above all, it was held quite irregular for + the most reasonable people to make any use whatever of their + reason on the most important occasion of their lives. Miss + Edgeworth has presumed to treat this mighty power with far less + reverence. She has analysed it and found it does not consist of + one simple element, but that several common ingredients enter into + its composition--habit, esteem, a belief of some corresponding + sentiment and of suitableness in the character and circumstances + of the party. She has pronounced that reason, timely and vigorously + applied, is almost a specific, and, following up this bold empirical + line of practice, she has actually produced cases of the entire + cure of persons who had laboured under its operation. Her favourite + qualities are prudence, firmness, temper, and that active, vigilant + good sense which, without checking the course of our kind + affections, exercises its influence at every moment and surveys + deliberately the motives and consequences of every action. Utility + is her object, reason and experience her means. + + +XII. + +This review of Lord Dudley's must have come out after a visit from the +Edgeworth family to London in 1813, which seems to have been a most +brilliant and amusing campaign. 'I know the homage that was paid you,' +wrote Mrs. Barbauld, speaking of the event, 'and I exulted in it for +your sake and for my sex's sake.' Miss Edgeworth was at the height of +her popularity, in good spirits and good health. Mr. Edgeworth was +seventy, but he looked years younger, and was still in undiminished +health and vigour. The party was welcomed, fêted, sought after +everywhere. Except that they miss seeing Madame d'Arblay and leave +London before the arrival of Madame de Staël, they seem to have come in +for everything that was brilliant, fashionable, and entertaining. They +breakfast with poets, they sup with marquises, they call upon duchesses +and scientific men. Maria's old friend the Duchess of Wellington is not +less her friend than she was in County Longford. Every one likes them +and comes knocking at their lodging-house door, while Maria upstairs is +writing a letter, standing at a chest of drawers. 'Miss Edgeworth is +delightful,' says Tom Moore, 'not from display, but from repose and +unaffectedness, the least pretending person.' Even Lord Byron writes +warmly of the authoress whose company is so grateful, and who goes her +simple, pleasant way cheerful and bringing kind cheer, and making +friends with the children as well as with the elders. Many of these +children in their lives fully justified her interest, children whom we +in turn have known and looked up to as distinguished greyheaded men. + +Some one asked Miss Edgeworth how she came to understand children as she +did, what charm she used to win them. 'I don't know,' she said kindly; +'I lie down and let them crawl over me.' She was greatly pleased on one +occasion when at a crowded party a little girl suddenly started forth, +looked at her hard, and said, 'I like simple Susan best,' and rushed +away overwhelmed at her own audacity. The same lady who was present on +this occasion asked her a question which we must all be grateful to have +solved for us--how it happened that the respective places of Laura and +Rosamond came to be transposed in 'Patronage,' Laura having been the +wiser elder sister in the 'Purple Jar,' and appearing suddenly as the +younger in the novel. Miss Edgeworth laughed and said that Laura had +been so preternaturally wise and thoughtful as a child, she could never +have kept her up to the mark, and so she thought it best to change the +character altogether. + +During one of her visits to London Miss Edgeworth went to dine at the +house of Mr. Marshall; and his daughter, Lady Monteagle, tells a little +story which gives an impression, and a kind one, of the celebrated +guest. Everything had been prepared in her honour, the lights lighted, +the viands were cooked. Dinner was announced, and some important person +was brought forward to hand Miss Edgeworth down, when it was discovered +that she had vanished. For a moment the company and the dinner were all +at a standstill. She was a small person, but diligent search was made. +Miss Edgeworth had last been seen with the children of the house, and +she was eventually found in the back kitchen, escorted by the said +children, who, having confided their private affairs to her sympathetic +ear, had finally invited her to come with them and see some rabbits +which they were rearing down below. A lady who used to live at Clifton +as a little girl, and to be sometimes prescribed for by Dr. King, was +once brought up as a child to Miss Edgeworth, and she told me how very +much puzzled she felt when the bright old lady, taking her by the +hand, said, 'Well, my dear, how do you do, and how is my excellent +brother-in-law?' One can imagine what a vague sort of being an +'excellent brother-in-law' would seem to a very young child. + +We read in Miss Edgeworth's memoir of her father that Mr. Edgeworth +recovered from his serious illness in 1814 to enjoy a few more years of +life among his friends, his children, and his experiments. His good +humour and good spirits were undiminished, and he used to quote an old +friend's praise of 'the privileges and convenience of old age.' He was +past seventy, but he seems to have continued his own education to the +end of life. 'Without affecting to be young, he exerted himself to +prevent any of his faculties from sinking into the indolent state which +portends their decay,' and his daughter says that he went on learning to +the last, correcting his faults and practising his memory by various +devices, so that it even improved with age. + +In one of his last letters to Mrs. Beaufort, his wife's mother, he +speaks with no little paternal pleasure of his home and his children: +'Such excellent principles, such just views of human life and manners, +such cultivated understandings, such charming tempers make a little +Paradise about me;' while with regard to his daughter's works he adds +concerning the book which was about to appear, 'If Maria's tales fail +with the public, you will hear of my hanging myself.' + +Mr. Edgeworth died in the summer of 1817, at home, surrounded by his +family, grateful, as he says, to Providence for allowing his body to +perish before his mind. + + During the melancholy months which succeeded her father's death + Maria hardly wrote any letters; her sight was in a most alarming + state. The tears, she said, felt in her eyes like the cutting of a + knife. She had overworked them all the previous winter, sitting up + at night and struggling with her grief as she wrote 'Ormond.' She + was now unable to use them without pain.... Edgeworthtown now + belonged to Lovell, the eldest surviving brother, but he wished it + to continue the home of the family. Maria set to work to complete + her father's memoirs and to fulfil his last wish. + +It was not without great hesitation and anxiety that she determined to +finish writing her father's Life. There is a touching appeal in a letter +to her aunt Ruxton. 'I felt the happiness of my life was at stake. +Even if all the rest of the world had praised it and you had been +dissatisfied, how miserable should I have been!' And there is another +sentence written at Bowood, very sad and full of remembrance: 'I feel as +if I had lived a hundred years and was left alive after everybody else.' +The book came out, and many things were said about it, not all praise. +The 'Quarterly' was so spiteful and intolerant that it seemed almost +personal in its violence. It certainly would have been a great loss to +the world had this curious and interesting memoir never been published, +but at the time the absence of certain phrases and expressions of +opinions which Mr. Edgeworth had never specially professed seemed +greatly to offend the reviewers. + +The worst of these attacks Miss Edgeworth never read, and the task +finished, the sad months over, the poor eyes recovered, she crossed to +England. + + +XIII. + +One is glad to hear of her away and at Bowood reviving in good company, +in all senses of the word. Her old friend Lord Henry Petty, now Lord +Lansdowne, was still her friend and full of kindness. Outside the house +spread a green deer-park to rest her tired eyes, within were pleasant +and delightful companions to cheer her soul. Sir Samuel Romilly was +there, of whom she speaks with affectionate admiration, as she does of +her kind host and hostess. 'I much enjoy the sight of Lady Lansdowne's +happiness with her husband and her children. Beauty, fortune, cultivated +society all united--in short, everything that the most reasonable or +unreasonable could wish. She is so amiable and desirous to make others +happy.' + +Miss Edgeworth's power of making other people see things as she does +is very remarkable in all these letters; with a little imagination one +could almost feel as if one might be able to travel back into the +pleasant society in which she lived. When she goes abroad soon after +with her two younger sisters (Fanny, the baby whose head so nearly came +off in her arms, and Harriet, who have both grown up by this time +to be pretty and elegant young ladies), the sisters are made welcome +everywhere. In Paris, as in London, troops of acquaintance came forward +to receive 'Madame Maria et mesdemoiselles ses soeurs,' as they used +to be announced. Most of their old friends were there still; only the +children had grown up and were now new friends to be greeted. It is a +confusion of names in visionary succession, comprising English people no +less than French. Miss Edgeworth notes it all with a sure hand and true +pen; it is as one of the sketch-books of a great painter, where whole +pictures are indicated in a few just lines. Here is a peep at the +Abbaye aux Bois in 1820:-- + + We went to Madame Récamier in her convent, l'Abbaye aux Bois, up + seventy-eight steps. All came in with asthma. Elegant room; she as + elegant as ever. Matthieu de Montmorenci, the ex-Queen of Sweden, + Madame de Boigne, a charming woman, and Madame la Maréchale + de ----, a battered beauty, smelling of garlic and screeching in + vain to pass as a wit.... Madame Récamier has no more taken the + veil than I have, and is as little likely to do it. She is quite + beautiful; she dresses herself and her little room with elegant + simplicity, and lives in a convent only because it is cheap and + respectable. + +One sees it all, the convent, the company, the last refrain of former +triumphs, the faithful romantic Matthieu de Montmorenci, and above all +the poor Maréchale, who will screech for ever in her garlic. Let us turn +the page, we find another picture from these not long past days:-- + + Breakfast at Camille Jordan's; it was half-past twelve before the + company assembled, and we had an hour's delightful conversation + with Camille Jordan and his wife in her spotless white muslin and + little cap, sitting at her husband's feet as he lay on the sofa; + as clean, as nice, as fresh, as thoughtless of herself as my + mother. At this breakfast we saw three of the most distinguished + of that party who call themselves 'les Doctrinaires' and say they + are more attached to measures than to men. + +Here is another portrait of a portrait and its painter:-- + + Princess Potemkin is a Russian, but she has all the grace, + softness, winning manner of the Polish ladies. Oval face, pale, + with the finest, softest, most expressive chestnut dark eyes. She + has a sort of politeness which pleases peculiarly, a mixture of + the ease of high rank and early habit with something that is + sentimental without affectation. Madame le Brun is painting her + picture. Madame le Brun is sixty-six, with great vivacity as well + as genius, and better worth seeing than her pictures, for though + they are speaking she speaks. + +Another visit the sisters paid, which will interest the readers of +Madame de la Rochejaquelin's memoirs of the war in the Vendée:-- + +In a small bedroom, well furnished, with a fire just lighted, we found +Madame de la Rochejaquelin on the sofa; her two daughters at work, one +spinning with a distaff, the other embroidering muslin. Madame is a fat +woman with a broad, round, fair face and a most benevolent expression, +her hair cut short and perfectly grey as seen under her cap; the rest of +the face much too young for such grey locks; and though her face and +bundled form all squashed on to a sofa did not at first promise much of +gentility, you could not hear her speak or hear her for three minutes +without perceiving that she was well-born and well-bred. + +Madame de la Rochejaquelin seems to have confided in Miss Edgeworth. + + 'I am always sorry when any stranger sees me, _parce que je sais + que je détruis toute illusion. Je sais que je devrais avoir l'air + d'une héroïne._' She is much better than a heroine; she is + benevolence and truth itself. + +We must not forget the scientific world where Madame Maria was no less +at home than in fashionable literary cliques. The sisters saw something +of Cuvier at Paris; in Switzerland they travelled with the Aragos. They +were on their way to the Marcets at Geneva when they stopped at Coppet, +where Miss Edgeworth was always specially happy in the society of Madame +Auguste de Staël and Madame de Broglie. But Switzerland is not one +of the places where human beings only are in the ascendant; other +influences there are almost stronger than human ones. 'I did not +conceive it possible that I should feel so much pleasure from the +beauties of nature as I have done since I came to this country. The +first moment when I saw Mont Blanc will remain an era in my life--a +new idea, a new feeling standing alone in the mind.' Miss Edgeworth +presently comes down from her mountain heights and, full of interest, +throws herself into the talk of her friends at Coppet and Geneva, from +which she quotes as it occurs to her. Here is Rocca's indignant speech +to Lord Byron, who was abusing the stupidity of the Genevese. 'Eh! +milord, pourquoi venir vous fourrer parmi ces honnêtes gens?' There is +Arago's curious anecdote of Napoleon, who sent for him after the battle +of Waterloo, offering him a large sum of money to accompany him to +America. The Emperor had formed a project for founding a scientific +colony in the New World. Arago was so indignant with him for abandoning +his troops that he would have nothing to say to the plan. A far more +touching story is Dr. Marcet's account of Josephine. 'Poor Josephine! Do +you remember Dr. Marcet's telling us that when he breakfasted with her +she said, pointing to her flowers, "These are my subjects. I try to make +them happy"?' + +Among other expeditions they made a pilgrimage to the home of the +author of a work for which Miss Edgeworth seems to have entertained a +mysterious enthusiasm. The novel was called 'Caroline de Lichfield,' and +was so much admired at the time that Miss Seward mentions a gentleman +who wrote from abroad to propose for the hand of the authoress, and who, +more fortunate than the poor Chevalier Edelcrantz, was not refused by +the lady. Perhaps some similarity of experience may have led Maria +Edgeworth to wish for her acquaintance. Happily the time was past for +Miss Edgeworth to look back; her life was now shaped and moulded in +its own groove; the consideration, the variety, the difficulties of +unmarried life were hers, its agreeable change, its monotony of feeling +and of unselfish happiness, compared with the necessary regularity, the +more personal felicity, the less liberal interests of the married. Her +life seems to have been full to overflowing of practical occupation +and consideration for others. What changing scenes and colours, what a +number of voices, what a crowd of outstretched hands, what interesting +processions of people pass across her path! There is something of her +father's optimism and simplicity of nature in her unceasing brightness +and activity, in her resolutions to improve as time goes on. Her young +brothers and sisters grow to be men and women; with her sisters' +marriages new interests touch her warm heart. Between her and the +brothers of the younger generation who did not turn to her as a sort +of mother there may have been too great a difference of age for that +companionship to continue which often exists between a child and a +grown-up person. So at least one is led to believe was the case as +regards one of them, mentioned in a memoir which has recently appeared. +But to her sisters she could be friend, protector, chaperon, sympathising +companion, and elder sister to the end of her days. We hear of them all +at Bowood again on their way back to Ireland, and then we find them all +at home settling down to the old life, 'Maria reading Sévigné,' of whom +she never tires. + + +XIV. + +One of the prettiest and most sympathetic incidents in Maria Edgeworth's +life was a subsequent expedition to Abbotsford and the pleasure she gave +to its master. They first met in Edinburgh, and her short account +conjures up the whole scene before us:-- + + Ten o'clock struck as I read this note. We were tired, we were not + fit to be seen, but I thought it right to accept Walter Scott's + cordial invitation, sent for a hackney coach, and just as we were, + without dressing, we went. As the coach stopped we saw the hall + lighted, and the moment the door opened heard the joyous sounds + of loud singing. Three servants' 'The Miss Edgeworths!' sounded + from hall to landing-place, and as I paused for a moment in the + anteroom I heard the first sound of Walter Scott's voice--'The + Miss Edgeworths _come_!' The room was lighted by only one globe + lamp; a circle were singing loud and beating time: all stopped in + an instant. + +Is not this picture complete? Scott himself she describes as 'full of +genius without the slightest effort at expression, delightfully natural, +more lame but not so unwieldy as she expected.' Lady Scott she goes on +to sketch in some half-dozen words--'French, large dark eyes, civil and +good-natured.' + + When we wakened the next morning the whole scene of the preceding + night seemed like a dream [she continues]; however at twelve came + the real Lady Scott, and we called for Scott at the Parliament + House, who came out of the Courts with joyous face, as if he had + nothing on earth to do or to think of but to show us Edinburgh. + +In her quick, discriminating way she looks round and notes them all one +by one. + + Mr. Lockhart is reserved and silent, but he appears to have much + sensibility under this reserve. Mrs. Lockhart is very pleasing--a + slight, elegant figure and graceful simplicity of manner, perfectly + natural. There is something most winning in her affectionate manner + to her father. He dotes upon her. + +A serious illness intervened for poor Maria before she and her devoted +young nurses could reach Abbotsford itself. There she began to recover, +and Lady Scott watched over her and prescribed for her with the most +tender care and kindness. 'Lady Scott felt the attention and respect +Maria showed to her, perceiving that she valued her and treated her as a +friend,' says Mrs. Edgeworth; 'not, as too many of Sir Walter's guests +did, with neglect.' This is Miss Edgeworth's description of the +Abbotsford family life:-- + + It is quite delightful to see Scott and his family in the country; + breakfast, dinner, supper, the same flow of kindness, fondness, + and genius, far, far surpassing his works, his letters, and all my + hopes and imagination. His Castle of Abbotsford is magnificent, + but I forget it in thinking of him. + +The return visit, when Scotland visited Ireland, was no less successful. +Mrs. Edgeworth writes:-- + +Maria and my daughter Harriet accompanied Sir Walter and Miss Scott, Mr. +Lockhart, and Captain and Mrs. Scott to Killarney. They travelled in an +open calèche of Sir Walter's.... + +Sir Walter was, like Maria, never put out by discomforts on a journey, +but always ready to make the best of everything and to find amusement in +every incident. He was delighted with Maria's eagerness for everybody's +comfort, and diverted himself with her admiration of a green +baize-covered door at the inn at Killarney. 'Miss Edgeworth, you are so +mightily pleased with that door, I think you will carry it away with you +to Edgeworthtown.' + +Miss Edgeworth's friendships were certainly very remarkable, and comprise +almost all the interesting people of her day in France as well as in +England.[3] She was liked, trusted, surrounded, and she appears to have +had the art of winning to her all the great men. We know the Duke of +Wellington addressed verses to her; there are pleasant intimations of +her acquaintance with Sir James Mackintosh, Romilly, Moore, and Rogers, +and that most delightful of human beings, Sydney Smith, whom she +thoroughly appreciated and admired. Describing her brother Frank, she +says, somewhere, 'I am much inclined to think that he has a natural +genius for happiness; in other words, as Sydney Smith would say, _great +hereditary constitutional joy_.' 'To attempt to Boswell Sydney Smith's +conversation would be to outboswell Boswell,' she writes in another +letter home; but in Lady Holland's memoir of her father there is a +pleasant little account of Miss Edgeworth herself, 'delightful, clever, +and sensible,' listening to Sydney Smith. She seems to have gone the +round of his parish with him while he scolded, doctored, joked his poor +people according to their needs. + + Footnote 3: A touching illustration of her abiding influence is to be + found cited in an article in the _Daily News_ of September 7, 1883, + published as these proofs are going to press, by 'One Who Knew' Ivan + Turguéneff, that great Russian whom we might almost claim if love and + admiration gave one a right to count citizenship with the great men of + our time. An elder brother of his knew Miss Edgeworth, perhaps at + Abbotsford, for he visited Walter Scott there, or at Coppet with Madame + de Staël. This man, wise and cultivated in all European literature, + 'came to the conclusion that Maria Edgeworth had struck on a vein from + which most of the great novelists of the future would exclusively work. + She took the world as she found it, and selected from it the materials + that she thought would be interesting to write about, in a clear and + natural style. It was Ivan Turguéneff himself who told me this, says the + writer of the article, and he modestly said that he was an unconscious + disciple of Miss Edgeworth in setting out on his literary career. He had + not the advantage of knowing English; but as a youth he used to hear his + brother translate to visitors at his country house in the Uralian Hills + passages from _Irish Tales and Sketches_, which he thought superior to + her three-volume novels. Turguéneff also said to me, "It is possible, nay + probable, that if Maria Edgeworth had not written about the poor Irish + of the co. Longford and the squires and squirees, that it would not have + occurred to me to give a literary form to my impressions about the + classes parallel to them in Russia. My brother used, in pointing out the + beauties of her unambitious works, to call attention to their extreme + simplicity and to the distinction with which she treated the simple ones + of the earth."' + +'During her visit she saw much of my father,' says Lady Holland; 'and +her talents as well as her thorough knowledge and love of Ireland made +her conversation peculiarly agreeable to him.' On her side Maria writes +warmly desiring that some Irish bishopric might be forced upon Sydney +Smith, which 'his own sense of natural charity and humanity would forbid +him refuse.... In the twinkling of an eye--such an eye as his--he would +see all our manifold grievances up and down the country. One word, one +_bon mot_ of his, would do more for us, I guess, than ----'s four +hundred pages and all the like with which we have been bored.' + +The two knew how to make good company for one another; the +quiet-Jeanie-Deans body could listen as well as give out. We are told +that it was not so much that she said brilliant things, but that a +general perfume of wit ran through her conversation, and she most +certainly had the gift of appreciating the good things of others. +Whether in that 'scene of simplicity, truth, and nature' a London rout, +or in some quiet Hampstead parlour talking to an old friend, or in her +own home among books and relations and interests of every sort, Miss +Edgeworth seems to have been constantly the same, with presence of mind +and presence of heart too, ready to respond to everything. I think her +warmth of heart shines even brighter than her wit at times. 'I could not +bear the idea that you suspected me of being so weak, so vain, so +senseless,' she once wrote to Mrs. Barbauld, 'as to have my head turned +by a little fashionable flattery.' If her head was not turned it must +have been because her spirit was stout enough to withstand the world's +almost irresistible influence. + +Not only the great men but the women too are among her friends. She +writes prettily of Mrs. Somerville, with her smiling eyes and pink +colour, her soft voice, strong, well-bred Scotch accent, timid, not +disqualifying timid, but naturally modest. 'While her head is among the +stars her feet are firm upon the earth.' She is 'delighted' with a +criticism of Madame de Staël's upon herself, in a letter to M. Dumont. +'Vraiment elle était digne de l'enthousiasme, mais elle se perd dans +votre triste utilité.' It is difficult to understand why this should +have given Miss Edgeworth so much pleasure; and here finally is a little +vision conjured up for us of her meeting with Mrs. Fry among her +prisoners:-- + + Little doors, and thick doors, and doors of all sorts were + unbolted and unlocked, and on we went through dreary but clean + passages till we came to a room where rows of empty benches + fronted us, a table on which lay a large Bible. Several ladies and + gentlemen entered, took their seats on benches at either side of + the table in silence. Enter Mrs. Fry in a drab-coloured silk cloak + and a plain, borderless Quaker cap, a most benevolent countenance, + calm, benign. 'I must make an inquiry. Is Maria Edgeworth here?' + And when I went forward she bade me come and sit beside her. Her + first smile as she looked upon me I can never forget. The + prisoners came in in an orderly manner and ranged themselves upon + the benches. + + +XV. + +'In this my sixtieth year, to commence in a few days,' says Miss +Edgeworth, writing to her cousin Margaret Ruxton, 'I am resolved to make +great progress.' 'Rosamond at sixty,' says Miss Ruxton, touched and +amused. Her resolutions were not idle. + +'The universal difficulties of the money market in the year 1826 were +felt by us,' says Mrs. Edgeworth in her memoir, 'and Maria, who since +her father's death had given up rent-receiving, now resumed it; +undertook the management of her brother Lovell's affairs, which she +conducted with consummate skill and perseverance, and weathered the +storm that swamped so many in this financial crisis.' We also hear of an +opportune windfall in the shape of some valuable diamonds, which an old +lady, a distant relation, left in her will to Miss Edgeworth, who sold +them and built a market-house for Edgeworthtown with the proceeds. + + _April_ 8, 1827.--I am quite well and in high good humour and good + spirits, in consequence of having received the whole of Lovell's + half-year's rents in full, with pleasure to the tenants and without + the least fatigue or anxiety to myself. + +It was about this time her novel of 'Helen' was written, the last of her +books, the only one that her father had not revised. There is a vivid +account given by one of her brothers of the family assembled in the +library to hear the manuscript read out, of their anxiety and their +pleasure as they realised how good it was, how spirited, how well equal +to her standard. Tickner, in his account of Miss Edgeworth, says that +the talk of Lady Davenant in 'Helen' is very like Miss Edgeworth's own +manner. His visit to Edgeworthtown was not long after the publication of +the book. His description, if only for her mention of her father, is +worth quoting:-- + + As we drove to the door Miss Edgeworth came out to meet us, a + small, short, spare body of about sixty-seven, with extremely + frank and kind manners, but who always looks straight into your + face with a pair of mild deep grey eyes whenever she speaks to + you. With characteristic directness she did not take us into the + library until she had told us that we should find there Mrs. + Alison, of Edinburgh, and her aunt, Miss Sneyd, a person very old + and infirm, and that the only other persons constituting the + family were Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Honora Edgeworth, and Dr. Alison, + a physician.... Miss Edgeworth's conversation was always ready, as + full of vivacity and variety as I can imagine.... She was disposed + to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as far as she could. And + in her intercourse with her family she was quite delightful, + referring constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, who seems to be the + authority in all matters of fact, and most kindly repeating + jokes to her infirm aunt, Miss Sneyd, who cannot hear them, + and who seems to have for her the most unbounded affection and + admiration.... About herself as an author she seems to have no + reserve or secrets. She spoke with great kindness and pleasure + of a letter I brought to her from Mr. Peabody, explaining some + passage in his review of 'Helen' which had troubled her from its + allusion to her father. 'But,' she added, 'no one can know what + I owe to my father. He advised and directed me in everything. I + never could have done anything without him. There are things I + cannot be mistaken about, though other people can. I know them.' + As she said this the tears stood in her eyes, and her whole person + was moved.... It was, therefore, something of a trial to talk so + brilliantly and variously as she did from nine in the morning to + past eleven at night. + +She was unfeignedly glad to see good company. Here is her account of +another visitor:-- + + _Sept_. 26.--The day before yesterday we were amusing ourselves by + telling who among literary and scientific people we should wish + to come here next. Francis said Coleridge; I said Herschell. + Yesterday morning, as I was returning from my morning walk at + half-past eight, I saw a bonnetless maid in the walk, with a + letter in her hand, in search of me. When I opened the letter I + found it was from Mr. Herschell, and that he was waiting for an + answer at Mr. Briggs's inn. I have seldom been so agreeably + surprised, and now that he is gone and that he has spent + twenty-four hours here, if the fairy were to ask me the question + again I should still more eagerly say, 'Mr. Herschell, ma'am, if + you please.' + +She still came over to England from time to time, visiting at her +sisters' houses. Honora was now Lady Beaufort; another sister, Fanny, +the object of her closest and most tender affection, was Mrs. Lestock +Wilson. Age brought no change in her mode of life. Time passes with +tranquil steps, for her not hasting unduly. 'I am perfect,' she writes +at the age of seventy-three to her stepmother of seventy-two, 'so no +more about it, and thank you from my heart and every component part of +my precious self for all the care, and successful care, you have taken +of me, your old petted nurseling.' + +Alas! it is sad to realise that quite late in life fresh sorrows fell +upon this warm-hearted woman. Troubles gather; young sisters fade away +in their beauty and happiness. But in sad times and good times the old +home is still unchanged, and remains for those that are left to turn to +for shelter, for help, and consolation. To the very last Miss Edgeworth +kept up her reading, her correspondence, her energy. All along we have +heard of her active habits--out in the early morning in her garden, +coming in to the nine o'clock breakfast with her hands full of roses, +sitting by and talking and reading her letters while the others ate. Her +last letter to her old friend Sir Henry Holland was after reading the +first volume of Lord Macaulay's History. Sir Henry took the letter to +Lord Macaulay, who was so much struck by its discrimination that he +asked leave to keep it. + +She was now eighty-two years of age, and we find her laughing kindly +at the anxiety of her sister and brother-in-law, who had heard of her +climbing a ladder to wind up an old clock at Edgeworthtown. 'I am +heartily obliged and delighted by your being such a goose and Richard +such a gander,' she says 'as to be frightened out of your wits by my +climbing a ladder to take off the top of the clock.' She had not felt +that there was anything to fear as once again she set the time that was +so nearly at an end for her. Her share of life's hours had been well +spent and well enjoyed; with a peaceful and steady hand and tranquil +heart she might mark the dial for others whose hours were still to come. + +Mrs. Edgeworth's own words tell all that remains to be told. + + It was on the morning of May 22, 1849, that she was taken suddenly + ill with pain in the region of the heart, and after a few hours + breathed her last in my arms. She had always wished to die + quickly, at home, and that I should be with her. All her wishes + were fulfilled. She was gone, and nothing like her again can we + see in this world. + + + + +_MRS OPIE._ + + 1769-1853. + + 'Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to + gentleness.'--_As You Like It_. + + +I. + +It is not very long since some articles appeared in the 'Cornhill +Magazine' which were begun under the influence of certain ancient +bookshelves with so pleasant a flavour of the old world that it seemed +at the time as if yesterday not to-day was the all-important hour, and +one gladly submitted to the subtle charm of the past--its silent veils, +its quiet incantations of dust and healing cobweb. The phase is but a +passing one with most of us, and we must soon feel that to dwell at +length upon each one of the pretty old fancies and folios of the writers +and explorers who were born towards the end of the last century would be +an impossible affectation; and yet a postscript seems wanting to the +sketches which have already appeared of Mrs. Barbauld and Miss +Edgeworth, and the names of their contemporaries should not be quite +passed over. + +In a hundred charming types and prints and portraits we recognise the +well-known names as they used to appear in the garb of life. Grand +ladies in broad loops and feathers, or graceful and charming as nymphs +in muslin folds, with hanging clouds of hair; or again, in modest +coiffes such as dear Jane Austen loved and wore even in her youth. +Hannah More only took to coiffes and wimples in later life; in early +days she was fond of splendour, and, as we read, had herself painted in +emerald earrings. How many others besides her are there to admire! Who +does not know the prim, sweet, amply frilled portraits of Mrs. Trimmer +and Joanna Baillie? Only yesterday a friend showed me a sprightly, +dark-eyed miniature of Felicia Hemans. Perhaps most beautiful among all +her sister muses smiles the lovely head of Amelia Opie, as she was +represented by her husband with luxuriant chestnut hair piled up Romney +fashion in careless loops, with the radiant yet dreaming eyes which are +an inheritance for some members of her family. + +The authoresses of that day had the pre-eminence in looks, in gracious +dress and bearing; but they were rather literary women than anything +else, and had but little in common with the noble and brilliant writers +who were to follow them in our own more natural and outspoken times; +whose wise, sweet, passionate voices are already passing away into the +distance; of whom so few remain to us.[4] The secret of being real is no +very profound one, and yet how rare it is, how long it was before the +readers and writers of this century found it out! It is like the secret +of singing in perfect tune, or of playing the violin as Joachim can play +upon it. In literature, as in music, there is at times a certain +indescribable tone of absolute reality which carries the reader away and +for the moment absorbs him into the mind of the writer. Some +metempsychosis takes place. It is no longer a man or a woman turning the +pages of a book, it is a human being suddenly absorbed by the book +itself, living the very life which it records, breathing the spirit and +soul of the writer. Such books are events, not books to us, new +conditions of existence, new selves suddenly revealed through the +experience of other more vivid personalities than our own. The actual +experience of other lives is not for us, but this link of simple reality +of feeling is one all independent of events; it is like the miracle of +the loaves and fishes repeated and multiplied--one man comes with his +fishes and lo! the multitude is filled. + + Footnote 4: And yet as I write I remember one indeed who is among us, + whose portrait a Reynolds or an Opie might have been glad to paint for + the generations who will love her works. + +But this simple discovery, that of reality, that of speaking from the +heart, was one of the last to be made by women. In France Madame de +Sévigné and Madame de La Fayette were not afraid to be themselves, but +in England the majority of authoresses kept their readers carefully at +pen's length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious of their +surprising achievements in the way of literature as never to forget for +a single instant that they were in print. With the exception of Jane +Austen and Maria Edgeworth, the women writers of the early part of this +century were, as I have just said, rather literary women than actual +creators of literature. It is still a mystery how they attained to their +great successes. Frances Burney charms great Burke and mighty Johnson +and wise Macaulay in later times. Mrs. Opie draws compliments from +Mackintosh, and compliments from the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, and Sydney +Smith, and above all tears from Walter Scott. + +Perhaps many of the flattering things addressed to Mrs. Opie may have +said not less for her own charm and sweetness of nature than for the +merit of her unassuming productions; she must have been a bright, merry, +and fascinating person, and compliments were certainly more in her line +than the tributes of tears which she records. + +The authoresses of heroines are often more interesting than the heroines +themselves, and Amelia Opie was certainly no exception to this somewhat +general statement. A pleasant, sprightly authoress, beaming bright +glances on her friends, confident, intelligent, full of interest in +life, carried along in turn by one and by another influence, she comes +before us a young and charming figure, with all the spires of Norwich +for a background, and the sound of its bells, and the stir of its +assizes, as she issues from her peaceful home in her father's tranquil +old house, where the good physician lives widowed, tending his poor and +his sick, and devotedly spoiling his only child. + + +II. + +Amelia Opie was born in 1769 in the old city of Norwich, within reach of +the invigorating breezes of the great North Sea. Her youth must have +been somewhat solitary; she was the only child of a kind and cultivated +physician, Doctor James Alderson, whose younger brother, a barrister, +also living in Norwich, became the father of Baron Alderson. Her mother +died in her early youth. From her father, however, little Amelia seems +to have had the love and indulgence of over half a century, a tender and +admiring love which she returned with all her heart's devotion. She was +the pride and darling of his home, and throughout her long life her +father's approbation was the one chief motive of her existence. Spoiling +is a vexed question, but as a rule people get so much stern justice from +all the rest of the world that it seems well that their parents should +love and comfort them in youth for the many disgraces and difficulties +yet to come. + +Her mother is described as a delicate, high-minded woman, 'somewhat of a +disciplinarian,' says Mrs. Opie's excellent biographer, Miss Brightwell, +but she died too soon to carry her theories into practice. Miss Brightwell +suggests that 'Mrs. Opie might have been more demure and decorous had +her mother lived, but perhaps less charming.' There are some verses +addressed to her mother in Mrs. Opie's papers in which it must be +confessed that the remembrance of her admonition plays a most important +part-- + + Hark! clearer still thy voice I hear. + Again reproof in accents mild, + Seems whispering in my conscious ear, + +and so on. + +Some of Mrs. Alderson's attempts at discipline seemed unusual and +experimental; the little girl was timid, afraid of black people, of +black beetles, and of human skeletons. She was given the skeleton to +play with, and the beetles to hold in her hand. One feels more sympathy +with the way in which she was gently reconciled to the poor negro with +the frightening black face--by being told the story of his wrongs. But +with the poor mother's untimely death all this maternal supervision +came to an end. 'Amelia, your mother is gone; may you never have reason +to blush when you remember her!' her father said as he clasped his +little orphan to his heart; and all her life long Amelia remembered +those words. + +There is a pretty reminiscence of her childhood from a beginning of the +memoir which was never written:--'One of my earliest recollections is of +gazing on the bright blue sky as I lay in my little bed before my hour +of rising came, listening with delighted attention to the ringing of a +peal of bells. I had heard that heaven was beyond those blue skies, and +I had been taught that _there_ was the home of the good, and I fancied +that those sweet bells were ringing in heaven.' The bells were ringing +for the Norwich Assizes, which played an important part in our little +heroine's life, and which must have been associated with many of her +early memories. + +The little girl seems to have been allowed more liberty than is usually +given to children. 'As soon as I was old enough to enjoy a procession,' +she says, 'I was taken to see the Judges come in. Youthful pages in +pretty dresses ran by the side of the High Sheriff's carriage, in which +the Judges sat, while the coaches drove slowly and with a solemnity +becoming the high and awful office of those whom they contained.... With +reverence ever did I behold the Judges' wigs, the scarlet robes they +wore, and even the white wand of the Sheriff.' + +There is a description which in after years might have made a pretty +picture for her husband's pencil of the little maiden wandering into the +court one day, and called by a kind old Judge to sit beside him upon the +bench. She goes on to recount how next day she was there again; and when +some attendant of the court wanted her to leave the place, saying not +unnaturally, 'Go, Miss, this is no place for you; be advised,' the Judge +again interfered, and ordered the enterprising little girl to be brought +to her old place upon the cushion by his side. The story gives one a +curious impression of a child's life and education. She seems to have +come and gone alone, capable, intelligent, unabashed, interested in all +the events and humours of the place. + +Children have among other things a very vivid sense of citizenship +and public spirit, somewhat put out in later life by the rush of +personal feeling, but in childhood the personal events are so few and +so irresponsible that public affairs become an actual part of life and +of experience. While their elders are still discussing the news and +weighing its importance, it is already a part of the children's life. +Little Amelia Alderson must have been a happy child, free, affectionate, +independent; grateful, as a child should be, towards those who befriended +her. One of her teachers was a French dancing-master called Christian, +for whom she had a warm regard. She relates that long afterwards she +came with her husband and a friend to visit the Dutch church at Norwich. +'The two gentlemen were engaged in looking round and making their +observations, and I, finding myself somewhat cold, began to hop and +dance upon the spot where I stood, when my eyes chanced to fall upon +the pavement below, and I started at beholding the well-known name of +Christian graved upon the slab; I stopped in dismay, shocked to find +that I had actually been dancing upon the grave of my old master--he who +first taught me to dance.' + + +III. + +After her mother's death, Amelia Alderson, who was barely fifteen at the +time, began to take her place in society. She kept her father's house, +received his friends, made his home bright with her presence. The lawyers +came round in due season: Sir James Mackintosh came, the town was full +of life, of talk, of music, and poetry, and prejudice. + +Harriet Martineau, in her memoir of Mrs. Opie, gives a delightful and +humorous account of the Norwich of that day--rivalling Lichfield and its +literary coterie, only with less sentimentality and some additional +peculiarities of its own. One can almost see the Tory gentlemen, as Miss +Martineau describes them, setting a watch upon the Cathedral, lest the +Dissenters should burn it as a beacon for Boney; whereas good Bishop +Bathurst, with more faith in human nature, goes on resolutely touching +his hat to the leading Nonconformists. 'The French taught in schools,' +says Miss Martineau, 'was found to be unintelligible when the peace +at length arrived, taught as it was by an aged powdered Monsieur +and an elderly flowered Madame, who had taught their pupils' Norfolk +pronunciation. But it was beginning to be known,' she continues, 'that +there was such a language as German, and in due time there was a young +man who had actually been in Germany, and was translating "Nathan the +Wise." When William Taylor became eminent as almost the only German +scholar in England, old Norwich was very proud and grew, to say the +truth, excessively conceited. She was (and she might be) proud of her +Sayers, she boasted of her intellectual supper-parties, and finally +called herself the "Athens of England."' + +In this wholesome, cheerful Athens, blown by the invigorating Northern +breezes, little Amelia bloomed and developed into a lovely and happy +girl. She was fortunate, indeed, in her friends. One near at hand must +have been an invaluable adviser for a motherless, impressionable girl. +Mrs. John Taylor was so loved that she is still remembered. Mrs. Barbauld +prized and valued her affection beyond all others. 'I know the value +of your letters,' says Sir James Mackintosh, writing from Bombay; +'they rouse my mind on subjects which interest us in common--children, +literature, and life. I ought to be made permanently better by +contemplating a mind like yours.' And he still has Mrs. Taylor in +his mind when he concludes with a little disquisition on the contrast +between the barren sensibility, the indolent folly of some, the useful +kindness of others, 'the industrious benevolence which requires a +vigorous understanding and a decisive character.' + +Some of Mrs. Opie's family have shown me a photograph of her in her +Quaker dress, in old age, dim, and changed, and sunken, from which it is +very difficult to realise all the brightness, and life, and animation +which must have belonged to the earlier part of her life. The delightful +portrait of her engraved in the 'Mirror' shows the animated beaming +countenance, the soft expressive eyes, the abundant auburn waves of +hair, of which we read. The picture is more like some charming allegorical +being than a real live young lady--some Belinda of the 'Rape of the +Lock' (and one would as soon have expected Belinda to turn Quakeress). +Music, poetry, dancing, elves, graces and flirtations, cupids, seem to +attend her steps. She delights in admiration, friendship, companionship, +and gaiety, and yet with it all we realise a warm-hearted sincerity, and +appreciation of good and high-minded things, a truth of feeling passing +out of the realms of fancy altogether into one of the best realities of +life. She had a thousand links with life: she was musical, artistic; she +was literary; she had a certain amount of social influence; she had a +voice, a harp, a charming person, mind and manner. Admiring monarchs in +later days applauded her performance; devoted subjects were her friends +and correspondents, and her sphere in due time extended beyond the +approving Norwich-Athenian coterie of old friends who had known her from +her childhood, to London itself, where she seems to have been made +welcome by many, and to have captivated more than her share of victims. + +In some letters of hers written to Mrs. Taylor and quoted by her +biographer we get glimpses of some of these early experiences. The +bright and happy excitable girl comes up from Norwich to London to be +made more happy still, and more satisfied with the delight of life as +it unfolds. Besides her fancy for lawyers, literary people had a great +attraction for Amelia, and Godwin seems to have played an important part +in her earlier experience. A saying of Mrs. Inchbald's is quoted by +her on her return home as to the report of the world being that Mr. +Holcroft was in love with Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Inchbald with Mr. Godwin, +Mr. Godwin with Miss Alderson, and Miss Alderson with Mr. Holcroft! + +The following account of Somers Town, and a philosopher's costume in +those days, is written to her father in 1794:-- + + After a most delightful ride through some of the richest country I + ever beheld, we arrived about one o'clock at the philosopher's + house; we found him with his hair _bien poudré_, and in a pair of + new sharp-toed red morocco slippers, not to mention his green coat + and crimson under-waistcoat. + +From Godwin's by the city they come to Marlborough Street, and find Mrs. +Siddons nursing her little baby, and as handsome and charming as ever. +They see Charles Kemble there, and they wind up their day by calling on +Mrs. Inchbald in her pleasant lodgings, with two hundred pounds just +come in from Sheridan for a farce of sixty pages. Godwin's attentions +seem to have amused and pleased the fair, merry Amelia, who is not a +little proud of her arch influence over various rugged and apparently +inaccessible persons. Mrs. Inchbald seems to have been as jealous of +Miss Alderson at the time as she afterwards was of Mary Wollstonecraft. +'Will you give me nothing to keep for your sake?' says Godwin, parting +from Amelia. 'Not even your slipper? I had it once in my possession.' +'This was true,' adds Miss Amelia; 'my shoe had come off and he picked +it up and put it in his pocket.' Elsewhere she tells her friend Mrs. +Taylor that Mr. Holcroft would like to come forward, but that he had no +chance. + +That some one person had a chance, and a very good one, is plain enough +from the context of a letter, but there is nothing in Mrs. Opie's life +to show why fate was contrary in this, while yielding so bountiful a +share of all other good things to the happy country girl. + +Among other people, she seems to have charmed various French refugees, +one of whom was the Duc d'Aiguillon, come over to England with some +seven thousand others, waiting here for happier times, and hiding their +sorrows among our friendly mists. Godwin was married when Miss Alderson +revisited her London friends and admirers in 1797--an eventful visit, +when she met Opie for the first time. + +The account of their first meeting is amusingly given in Miss +Brightwell's memoirs. It was at an evening party. Some of those present +were eagerly expecting the arrival of Miss Alderson, but the evening was +wearing away and still she did not appear; 'at length the door was flung +open, and she entered bright and smiling, dressed in a robe of blue, her +neck and arms bare, and on her head a small bonnet placed in somewhat +coquettish style sideways and surmounted by a plume of three white +feathers. Her beautiful hair hung in waving tresses over her shoulders; +her face was kindling with pleasure at the sight of her old friends, and +her whole appearance was animated and glowing. At the time she came in +Mr. Opie was sitting on a sofa beside Mr. F., who had been saying from +time to time, 'Amelia is coming; Amelia will surely come. Why is she not +here?' and whose eyes were turned in her direction. He was interrupted +by his companion eagerly exclaiming, 'Who is that--who is that?' and +hastily rising Opie pressed forward to be introduced to the fair object +whose sudden appearance had so impressed him.' With all her love of +excitement, of change, of variety, one cannot but feel, as I have said, +that there was also in Amelia Alderson's cheerful life a vein of deep +and very serious feeling, and the bracing influence of the upright and +high-minded people among whom she had been brought up did not count for +nothing in her nature. She could show her genuine respect for what was +generous and good and true, even though she did not always find strength +to carry out the dream of an excitable and warm-hearted nature. + + +IV. + +There is something very interesting in the impression one receives of +the 'Inspired Peasant,' as Alan Cunningham calls John Opie--the man +who did not paint to live so much as live to paint. He was a simple, +high-minded Cornishman, whose natural directness and honesty were +unspoiled by favour, unembittered by failure. Opie's gift, like some +deep-rooted seed living buried in arid soil, ever aspired upwards towards +the light. His ideal was high; his performance fell far short of his +life-long dream, and he knew it. But his heart never turned from its +life's aim, and he loved beauty and Art with that true and unfailing +devotion which makes a man great, even though his achievements do not +show all he should have been. + +The old village carpenter, his father, who meant him to succeed to +the business, was often angry, and loudly railed at the boy when good +white-washed walls and clean boards were spoiled by scrawls of +lamp-black and charcoal. John worked in the shop and obeyed his father, +but when his day's task was over he turned again to his darling +pursuits. At twelve years old he had mastered Euclid, and could also +rival 'Mark Oaks,' the village phenomenon, in painting a butterfly; by +the time John was sixteen he could earn as much as 7_s._ 6_d._ for a +portrait. It was in this year that there came to Truro an accomplished +and various man Dr. Wolcott--sometimes a parson, sometimes a doctor of +medicine, sometimes as Peter Pindar, a critic and literary man. This +gentleman was interested by young Opie and his performances, and +he asked him on one occasion how he liked painting. 'Better than +bread-and-butter,' says the boy. Wolcott finally brought his _protégé_ +to London, where the Doctor's influence and Opie's own undoubted merit +brought him success; and to Opie's own amazement he suddenly found +himself the fashion. His street was crowded with carriages; long +processions of ladies and gentlemen came to sit to him; he was able to +furnish a house 'in Orange Court, by Leicester Fields;' he was beginning +to put by money when, as suddenly as he had been taken up, he was +forgotten again. The carriages drove off in some other direction, and +Opie found himself abandoned by the odd, fanciful world of fashions, +which would not be fashions if they did not change day by day. It might +have proved a heart-breaking phase of life for a man whose aim had been +less single. But Opie was of too generous a nature to value popularity +beyond achievement. He seems to have borne this freak of fortune with +great equanimity, and when he was sometimes overwhelmed, it was not by +the praise or dispraise of others, but by his own consciousness of +failure, of inadequate performance. Troubles even more serious than loss +of patronage and employment befell him later. He had married, unhappily +for himself, a beautiful, unworthy woman, whose picture he has painted +many times. She was a faithless as well as a weak and erring wife, +and finally abandoned him. When Opie was free to marry again he was +thirty-six, a serious, downright man of undoubted power and influence, +of sincerity and tenderness of feeling, of rugged and unusual manners. +He had not many friends, nor did he wish for many, but those who knew +him valued him at his worth. His second wife showed what was in her by +her appreciation of his noble qualities, though one can hardly realise a +greater contrast than that of these two, so unlike in character, in +training, and disposition. They were married in London, at Marylebone +Church, in that dismal year of '98, which is still remembered. Opie +loved his wife deeply and passionately; he did not charm her, though she +charmed him, but for his qualities she had true respect and admiration. + + +V. + +Opie must be forgiven if he was one-idead, if he erred from too +much zeal. All his wife's bright gaiety of nature, her love for her +fellow-creatures, her interest in the world, her many-sidedness, this +uncompromising husband would gladly have kept for himself. For him his +wife and his home were the whole world; his Art was his whole life. + +The young couple settled down in London after their marriage, where, +notwithstanding fogs and smoke and dull monotony of brick and smut, so +many beautiful things are created; where Turner's rainbow lights were +first reflected, where Tennyson's 'Princess' sprang from the fog. It +was a modest and quiet installation, but among the pretty things which +Amelia brought to brighten her new home we read of blue feathers and +gold gauze bonnets, tiaras, and spencers, scarlet ribbons, buff net, and +cambric flounces, all of which give one a pleasant impression of her +intention to amuse herself, and to enjoy the society of her fellows, and +to bring her own pleasant contributions to their enjoyment. + +Opie sat working at his easel, painting portraits to earn money for his +wife's use and comfort, and encouraging her to write, for he had faith +in work. He himself would never intermit his work for a single day. He +would have gladly kept her always in his sight. 'If I would stay at home +for ever, I believe my husband would be merry from morning to night--a +lover more than a husband,' Amelia writes to Mrs. Taylor. He seemed to +have some feeling that time for him was not to be long--that life was +passing quickly by, almost too quickly to give him time to realise his +new home happiness, to give him strength to grasp his work. He was no +rapid painter, instinctively feeling his light and colour and action, +and seizing the moment's suggestion, but anxious, laborious, and +involved in that sad struggle in which some people pass their lives, for +ever disappointed. Opie's portraits seem to have been superior to his +compositions, which were well painted, 'but unimaginative and +commonplace,' says a painter of our own time, whose own work quickens +with that mysterious soul which some pictures (as indeed some human +beings) seem to be entirely without. + +'During the nine years that I was his wife,' says Mrs. Opie, 'I never +saw him satisfied with any one of his productions. Often, very often, he +has entered my sitting-room, and, throwing himself down in an agony of +despondence upon the sofa, exclaimed, "I shall never be a painter!"' + +He was a wise and feeling critic, however great his shortcomings as a +painter may have been. His lectures are admirable; full of real thought +and good judgment. Sir James Mackintosh places them beyond Reynolds's in +some ways. + +'If there were no difficulties every one would be a painter,' says Opie, +and he goes on to point out what a painter's object should be--'the +discovery or conception of perfect ideas of things; nature in its +purest and most essential form rising from the species to the genus, the +highest and ultimate exertion of human genius.' For him it was no +grievance that a painter's life should be one long and serious effort. +'If you are wanting to yourselves, rule may be multiplied upon rule and +precept upon precept in vain.' Some of his remarks might be thought +still to apply in many cases, no less than they did a hundred years ago, +when he complained of those green-sick lovers of chalk, brick-dust, +charcoal and old tapestry, who are so ready to decry the merits of +colouring and to set it down as a kind of superfluity. It is curious to +contrast Opie's style in literature with that of his wife, who belongs +to the entirely past generation which she reflected, whereas he wrote +from his own original impressions, saying those things which struck him +as forcibly then as they strike us now. 'Father and Daughter' was Mrs. +Opie's first acknowledged book. It was published in 1801, and the author +writes modestly of all her apprehensions. 'Mr. Opie has no patience with +me; he consoles me by averring that fear makes me overrate others and +underrate myself.' The book was reviewed in the 'Edinburgh.' We hear of +one gentleman who lies awake all night after reading it; and Mrs. +Inchbald promises a candid opinion, which, however, we do not get. +Besides stories and novels, Mrs. Opie was the author of several poems +and verses which were much admired. There was an impromptu to Sir James +Mackintosh, which brought a long letter in return, and one of her songs +was quoted by Sydney Smith in a lecture at the Royal Institution. Mrs. +Opie was present, and she used to tell in after times 'how unexpectedly +the compliment came upon her, and how she shrunk down upon her seat in +order to screen herself from observation.' + +The lines are indeed charming:-- + + Go, youth, beloved in distant glades, + New friends, new hopes, new joys to find, + Yet sometimes deign 'midst fairer maids + To think on her thou leav'st behind. + Thy love, thy fate, dear youth to share + Must never be my happy lot; + But thou may'st grant this humble prayer, + Forget me not, forget me not. + + Yet should the thought of my distress + Too painful to thy feelings be, + Heed not the wish I now express, + Nor ever deign to think of me; + But oh! if grief thy steps attend, + If want, if sickness be thy lot, + And thou require a soothing friend, + Forget me not, forget me not. + + +VI. + +The little household was a modest one, but we read of a certain amount +of friendly hospitality. Country neighbours from Norfolk appear upon the +scene; we find Northcote dining and praising the toasted cheese. Mrs. +Opie's heart never for an instant ceased to warm to her old friends and +companions. She writes an amusing account to Mrs. Taylor of her London +home, her interests and visitors, 'her happy and delightful life.' She +worked, she amused herself, she received her friends at home and went to +look for them abroad. Among other visits, Mrs. Opie speaks of one to an +old friend who has 'grown plump,' and of a second to 'Betsy Fry' who, +notwithstanding her comfortable home and prosperous circumstances, has +grown lean. It would be difficult to recognise under this familiar +cognomen and description the noble and dignified woman whose name and +work are still remembered with affectionate respect and wonder by a not +less hard-working, but less convinced and convincing generation. This +friendship was of great moment to Amelia Opie in after days, at a +time when her heart was low and her life very sad and solitary; but +meanwhile, as I have said, there were happy times for her; youth and +youthful spirits and faithful companionship were all hers, and troubles +had not yet come. + +One day Mrs. Opie gives a characteristic account of a visit from Mrs. +Taylor's two sons. '"John," said I, "will you take a letter from me to +your mother?" "Certainly," replied John, "for then I shall be sure of +being welcome." "Fy," returned I. "Mr. Courtier, you know you want +nothing to add to the heartiness of the welcome you will receive at +home." "No, indeed," said Richard, "and if Mrs. Opie sends her letter by +you it will be one way of making it less valued and attended to than it +would otherwise be." To the truth of this speech I subscribed and wrote +not. I have heard in later days a pretty description of the simple home +in which all these handsome, cultivated, and remarkable young people +grew up round their noble-minded mother.' One of Mrs. John Taylor's +daughters became Mrs. Reeve, the mother of Mr. Henry Reeve, another was +Mrs. Austin, the mother of Lady Duff Gordon. + +Those lean kine we read of in the Bible are not peculiar to Egypt and to +the days of Joseph and his brethren. The unwelcome creatures are apt to +make their appearance in many a country and many a household, and in +default of their natural food to devour all sorts of long-cherished +fancies, hopes, and schemes. Some time after his marriage, Opie +suddenly, and for no reason, found himself without employment, and the +severest trial they experienced during their married life, says his +wife, was during this period of anxiety. She, however, cheered him +womanfully, would not acknowledge her own dismay, and Opie, gloomy and +desponding though he was, continued to paint as regularly as before. +Presently orders began to flow in again, and did not cease until his +death. + + +VII. + +Their affairs being once more prosperous, a long-hoped-for dream became +a reality, and they started on an expedition to Paris, a solemn event in +those days and not lightly to be passed over by a biographer. One long +war was ended, another had not yet begun. The Continent was a promised +land, fondly dreamt of though unknown. 'At last in Paris; at last in the +city which she had so longed to see!' Mrs. Opie's description of her +arrival reads a comment upon history. As they drive into the town, +everywhere chalked up upon the walls and the houses are inscriptions +concerning 'L'Indivisibilité de la République.' How many subsequent +writings upon the wall did Mrs. Opie live to see! The English party find +rooms at a hotel facing the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine, +that token of order and tranquillity, was then perpetually standing. +The young wife's feelings may be imagined when within an hour of their +arrival Opie, who had rushed off straight to the Louvre, returned with a +face of consternation to say that they must leave Paris at once. The +Louvre was shut; and, moreover, the whiteness of everything, the houses, +the ground they stood on, all dazzled and blinded him. He was a lost man +if he remained! By some happy interposition they succeed in getting +admission to the Louvre, and as the painter wonders and admires his +nervous terrors leave him. The picture left by Miss Edgeworth of Paris +Society in the early years of the century is more brilliant, but not +more interesting than Mrs. Opie's reminiscences of the fleeting scene, +gaining so much in brilliancy from the shadows all round about. There is +the shadow of the ghastly guillotine upon the Place de la Concorde, the +shadows of wars but lately over and yet to come, the echo in the air of +arms and discord; meanwhile a brilliant, agreeable, flashing Paris +streams with sunlight, is piled with treasures and trophies of victory, +and crowded with well-known characters. We read of Kosciusko's nut-brown +wig concealing his honourable scars; Masséna's earrings flash in the +sun; one can picture it all, and the animated inrush of tourists, and +the eager life stirring round about the walls of the old Louvre. + +It was at this time that they saw Talma perform, and years after, in her +little rooms in Lady's Field at Norwich, Mrs. Opie, in her Quaker dress, +used to give an imitation of the great actor and utter a deep 'Cain, +Cain, where art thou?' To which Cain replies in sepulchral tones. + +We get among other things an interesting glimpse of Fox standing in the +Louvre Gallery opposite the picture of St. Jerome by Domenichino, a +picture which, as it is said, he enthusiastically admired. Opie, who +happened to be introduced to him, then and there dissented from this +opinion. 'You must be a better judge on such points than I am,' says +Fox; and Mrs. Opie proudly writes of the two passing on together +discussing and comparing the pictures. She describes them next standing +before the 'Transfiguration' of Raphael. The Louvre in those days must +have been for a painter a wonder palace indeed. The 'Venus de' Medici' +was on her way; it was a time of miracles, as Fox said. Meanwhile Mrs. +Opie hears someone saying that the First Consul is on his way from the +Senate, and she hurries to a window to look out. 'Bonaparte seems very +fond of state and show for a Republican,' says Mrs. Fox. Fox himself +half turns to the window, then looks back to the pictures again. As for +Opie, one may be sure his attention never wandered for one instant. + +They saw the First Consul more than once. The Pacificator, as he was +then called, was at the height of his popularity; on one occasion +they met Fox with his wife on his arm crossing the Carrousel to the +Tuìlerìes, where they are also admitted to a ground-floor room, from +whence they look upon a marble staircase and see several officers +ascending, 'one of whom, with a helmet which seemed entirely of gold, +was Eugène de Beauharnais. A few minutes afterwards,' she says, 'there +was a rush of officers down the stairs, and among them I saw a short +pale man with his hat in his hand, who, as I thought, resembled Lord +Erskine in profile....' This of course is Bonaparte, unadorned amidst +all this studied splendour, and wearing only a little tricoloured +cockade. Maria Cosway, the painter, who was also in Paris at the time, +took them to call at the house of Madame Bonaparte _mère_, where they +were received by 'a blooming, courteous ecclesiastic, powdered and with +purple stockings and gold buckles, and a costly crucifix. This is +Cardinal Fesch, the uncle of Bonaparte. It is said that when Fox was +introduced to the First Consul he was warmly welcomed by him, and was +made to listen to a grand harangue upon the advantages of peace, to +which he answered scarcely a word; though he was charmed to talk with +Madame Bonaparte, and to discuss with her the flowers of which she was +so fond.' The Opies met Fox again in England some years after, when he +sat to Opie for one of his finest portraits. It is now at Holker, and +there is a characteristic description of poor Opie, made nervous by the +criticism of the many friends, and Fox, impatient but encouraging, and +again whispering, 'Don't attend to them; you must know best.' + + +VIII. + +'Adeline Mowbray; or, Mother and Daughter,' was published by Mrs. Opie +after this visit to the Continent. It is a melancholy and curious +story, which seems to have been partly suggested by that of poor Mary +Wollstonecraft, whose prejudices the heroine shares and expiates by a +fate hardly less pathetic than that of Mary herself. The book reminds +one of a very touching letter from Godwin's wife to Amelia Alderson, +written a few weeks before her death, in which she speaks of her +'contempt for the forms of a world she should have bade a long +good-night to had she not been a mother.' Justice has at length been +done to this mistaken but noble and devoted woman, and her story has +lately been written from a wider point of view than Mrs. Opie's, though +she indeed was no ungenerous advocate. Her novel seems to have given +satisfaction; 'a beautiful story, the most natural in its pathos of any +fictitious narrative in the language,' says the 'Edinburgh,' writing +with more leniency than authors now expect. Another reviewer, speaking +with discriminating criticism, says of Mrs. Opie: 'She does not reason +well, but she has, like most accomplished women, the talent of perceiving +truth without the process of reasoning. Her language is often inaccurate, +but it is always graceful and harmonious. She can do nothing well that +requires to be done with formality; to make amends, however, she +represents admirably everything that is amiable, generous, and gentle.' + +Adeline Mowbray dies of a broken heart, with the following somewhat +discursive farewell to her child: 'There are two ways in which a mother +can be of use to her daughter; the one is by instilling into her mind +virtuous principles, and by setting her a virtuous example, the other is +by being to her, in her own person, an awful warning!' + + * * * * * + +One or two of Opie's letters to his wife are given in the memoir. They +ring with truth and tender feeling. The two went to Norwich together on +one occasion, when Opie painted Dr. Sayers, the scholar, who, in return +for his portrait, applied an elegant Greek distich to the painter. Mrs. +Opie remained with her father, and her husband soon returned to his +studio in London. When she delayed, he wrote to complain. 'My dearest +Life, I cannot be sorry that you do not stay longer, though, as I said, +on your father's account, I would consent to it. Pray, Love, forgive +me, and make yourself easy. I did not suspect, till my last letter was +posted, that it might be too strong. I had been counting almost the +hours till your arrival for some time. As to coming down again I cannot +think of it, for though I could perhaps better spare the time at present +from painting than I could at any part of the last month, I find I must +now go hard to work to finish my lectures, as the law says they must be +delivered the second year after the election.' + +The Academy had appointed Opie Professor of Painting in the place of +Fuseli, and he was now trying his hand at a new form of composition, and +not without well-deserved success. But the strain was too great for +this eager mind. Opie painted all day; of an evening he worked at his +lectures on painting. From September to February he allowed himself no +rest. He was not a man who worked with ease; all he did cost him much +effort and struggle. After delivering his first lecture, he complained +that he could not sleep. It had been a great success; his colleagues +had complimented him, and accompanied him to his house. He was able to +complete the course, but immediately afterwards he sickened. No one +could discover what was amiss; the languor and fever increased day by +day. + +His wife nursed him devotedly, and a favourite sister of his came to +help her. Afterwards it was of consolation to the widow to remember that +no hired nurse had been by his bedside, and that they had been able to +do everything for him themselves. One thing troubled him as he lay +dying; it was the thought of a picture which he had not been able to +complete in time for the exhibition. A friend and former pupil finished +it, and brought it to his bedside. He said with a smile, 'Take it away, +it will do now.' + +To the last he imagined that he was painting upon this picture, and he +moved his arms as though he were at work. His illness was inflammation +of the brain. He was only forty-five when he died, and he was buried in +St. Paul's, and laid by Sir Joshua, his great master. + +The portrait of Opie, as it is engraved in Alan Cunningham's Life, is +that of a simple, noble-looking man, with a good thoughtful face and a +fine head. Northcote, Nollekens, Horne Tooke, all his friends spoke +warmly of him. 'A man of powerful understanding and ready apprehension,' +says one. 'Mr. Opie crowds more wisdom into a few words than almost +anybody I ever saw,' says another. 'I do not say that he was always +right,' says Northcote; 'but he always put your thoughts into a new +track that was worth following.' Some two years after his death the +lectures which had cost so much were published, with a memoir by Mrs. +Opie. Sir James Mackintosh has written one of his delightful criticisms +upon the book:-- + + The cultivation of every science and the practice of every art are + in fact a species of action, and require ardent zeal and unshaken + courage.... Originality can hardly exist without vigour of + character.... The discoverer or inventor may indeed be most + eminently wanting in decision in the general concerns of life, but + he must possess it in those pursuits in which he is successful. + Opie is a remarkable instance of the natural union of these + superior qualities, both of which he possesses in a high + degree.... He is inferior in elegance to Sir Joshua, but he is + superior in strength; he strikes more, though he charms less.... + Opie is by turns an advocate, a controvertist, a panegyrist, a + critic; Sir Joshua more uniformly fixes his mind on general and + permanent principles, and certainly approaches more nearly to the + elevation and tranquillity which seem to characterise the + philosophic teacher of an elegant art. + + +IX. + +Mrs. Opie went back, soon after her husband's death, to Norwich, to her +early home, her father's house; nor was she a widow indeed while she +still had this tender love and protection. + +That which strikes one most as one reads the accounts of Mrs. Opie +is the artlessness and perfect simplicity of her nature. The deepest +feeling of her life was her tender love for her father, and if she +remained younger than most women do, it may have been partly from the +great blessing which was hers so long, that of a father's home. Time +passed, and by degrees she resumed her old life, and came out and about +among her friends. Sorrow does not change a nature, it expresses certain +qualities which have been there all along. + +So Mrs. Opie came up to London once more, and welcomed and was made +welcome by many interesting people. Lord Erskine is her friend always; +she visits Madame de Staël; she is constantly in company with Sydney +Smith, the ever-welcome as she calls him. Lord Byron, Sheridan, Lord +Dudley, all appear upon her scene. There is a pretty story of her +singing her best to Lady Sarah Napier, old, blind, and saddened, but +still happy in that she had her sons to guide and to protect her steps. +Among her many entertainments, Mrs. Opie amusingly describes a dinner at +Sir James Mackintosh's, to which most of the guests had been asked at +different hours, varying from six to half-past seven, when Baron +William von Humboldt arrives. He writes to her next day, calling her +Mademoiselle Opie, 'no doubt from my juvenile appearance,' she adds, +writing to her father. It is indeed remarkable to read of her spirits +long after middle life, her interest and capacity for amusement. She +pays 4_l._ for a ticket to a ball given to the Duke of Wellington; she +describes this and many other masquerades and gaieties, and the blue +ball, and the pink ball, and the twenty-seven carriages at her door, and +her sight of the Emperor of Russia in her hotel. When the rest of the +ladies crowd round, eager to touch his clothes, Mrs. Opie, carried away +by the general craze, encircles his wrist with her finger and thumb. +Apart from these passing fancies, she is in delightful society. + +Baron Alderson, her cousin and friend, was always kind and affectionate +to her. The pretty little story is well known of his taking her home in +her Quaker dress in the Judges' state-coach at Norwich, saying, 'Come, +Brother Opie,' as he offered her his arm to lead her to the carriage. +She used to stay at his house in London, and almost the last visit she +ever paid was to him. + +One of the most interesting of her descriptions is that of her meeting +with Sir Walter Scott and with Wordsworth at a breakfast in Mount +Street, and of Sir Walter's delightful talk and animated stories. One +can imagine him laughing and describing a Cockney's terrors in the +Highlands, when the whole hunt goes galloping down the crags, as is +their North-country fashion. 'The gifted man,' says Mrs. Opie, with her +old-fashioned adjectives, 'condescended to speak to me of my "Father and +Daughter." He then went on faithfully to praise his old friend Joanna +Baillie and her tragedies, and to describe a tragedy he once thought of +writing himself. He should have had no love in it. His hero should have +been the uncle of his heroine, a sort of misanthrope, with only one +affection in his heart, love for his niece, like a solitary gleam of +sunshine lighting the dark tower of some ruined and lonely dwelling.' + +'It might perhaps be a weakness,' says the Friend, long after recalling +this event, 'but I must confess how greatly I was pleased at the time.' +No wonder she was pleased that the great wizard should have liked her +novel. + +It would be impossible to attempt a serious critique of Mrs. Opie's +stories. They are artless, graceful, written with an innocent good faith +which disarms criticism. That Southey, Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh +should also have read them and praised them may, as I have said, prove +as much for the personal charm of the writer, and her warm sunshine of +pleasant companionship, as for the books themselves. They seem to have +run through many editions, and to have received no little encouragement. +Morality and sensation alternate in her pages. Monsters abound there. +They hire young men to act base parts, to hold villainous conversations +which the husbands are intended to overhear. They plot and scheme to +ruin the fair fame and domestic happiness of the charming heroines, but +they are justly punished, and their plots are defeated. One villain, on +his way to an appointment with a married woman, receives so severe a +blow upon the head from her brother, that he dies in agonies of fruitless +remorse. Another, who incautiously boasts aloud his deep-laid scheme +against Constantia's reputation in the dark recesses of a stage-coach, +is unexpectedly seized by the arm. A stranger in the corner, whom he had +not noticed, was no other than the baronet whom Constantia has loved all +along. The dawn breaks in brightly, shining on the stranger's face: +baffled, disgraced, the wicked schemer leaves the coach at the very next +stage, and Constantia's happiness is ensured by a brilliant marriage +with the man she loves. 'Lucy is the dark sky,' cries another lovely +heroine, 'but you, my lord, and my smiling children, these are the +rainbow that illumines it; and who would look at the gloom that see the +many tinted Iris? not I, indeed.' 'Valentine's Eve,' from which this is +quoted, was published after John Opie's death. So was a novel called +'Temper,' and the 'Tales of Real Life.' Mrs. Opie, however, gave up +writing novels when she joined the Society of Friends. + +For some years past, Mrs. Opie had been thrown more and more in the +company of a very noble and remarkable race of men and women living +quietly in their beautiful homes in the neighbourhood of Norwich, but +of an influence daily growing--handsome people, prosperous, generous, +with a sort of natural Priesthood belonging to them. Scorning to live +for themselves alone, the Gurneys were the dispensers and originators of +a hundred useful and benevolent enterprises in Norwich and elsewhere. +They were Quakers, and merchants, and bankers. How much of their strength +lay in their wealth and prosperity, how much in their enthusiasm, their +high spirits, voluntarily curbed, their natural instinct both to lead +and to protect, it would be idle to discuss. It is always difficult for +people who believe in the all-importance of the present to judge of +others, whose firm creed is that the present is nothing as compared to +the future. Chief among this remarkable family was Elizabeth Gurney, +the wife of Josiah Fry, the mother of many children, and the good angel, +indeed, of the unhappy captives of those barbarous days, prisoners, to +whose utter gloom and misery she brought some rays of hope. There are +few figures more striking than that of the noble Quaker lady starting on +her generous mission, comforting the children, easing the chains of the +captives. No domineering Jellyby, but a motherly, deep-hearted woman; +shy, and yet from her very timidity gaining an influence, which less +sensitive natures often fail to win. One likes to imagine the dignified +sweet face coming in--the comforting Friend in the quiet garb of the +Quaker woman standing at the gates of those terrible places, bidding the +despairing prisoners be of good hope. + +Elizabeth Fry's whole life was a mission of love and help to others; her +brothers and her many relations heartily joined and assisted her in many +plans and efforts. + +For Joseph John Gurney, the head of the Norwich family, Mrs. Opie is +said to have had a feeling amounting to more than friendship. Be this as +it may, it is no wonder that so warm-hearted and impressionable a woman +should have been influenced by the calm goodness of the friends with +whom she was now thrown. It is evident enough, nor does she attempt to +conceal the fact, that the admiration and interest she feels for John +Joseph Gurney are very deep motive powers. There comes a time in most +lives, especially in the lives of women, when all the habits and +certainties of youth have passed away, when life has to be built up +again upon the foundations indeed of the past, the friendships, the +memories, the habits of early life, but with new places and things to +absorb and to interest, new hearts to love. And one day people wake up +to find that the friends of their choice have become their home. People +are stranded perhaps seeking their share in life's allowance, and +suddenly they come upon something, with all the charm which belongs to +deliberate choice, as well as that of natural affinity. How well one +can realise the extraordinary comfort that Amelia Opie must have found +in the kind friends and neighbours with whom she was now thrown! Her +father was a very old man, dying slowly by inches. Her own life of +struggle, animation, intelligence, was over, as she imagined, for ever. +No wonder if for a time she was carried away, if she forgot her own +nature, her own imperative necessities, in sympathy with this new +revelation. Here was a new existence, here was a Living Church ready to +draw her within its saving walls. John Joseph Gurney must have been a +man of extraordinary personal influence. For a long time past he had +been writing to her seriously. At last, to the surprise of the world, +though not without long deliberation and her father's full approval, she +joined the Society of Friends, put on their dress, and adopted their +peculiar phraseology. People were surprised at the time, but I think it +would have been still more surprising if she had not joined them. J. J. +Gurney, in one of his letters, somewhat magnificently describes Mrs. +Opie as offering up her many talents and accomplishments a brilliant +sacrifice to her new-found persuasions. 'Illustrations of Lying,' +moral anecdotes on the borderland of imagination, are all that she is +henceforth allowed. 'I am bound in a degree not to invent a story, +because when I became a Friend it was required of me not to do so,' she +writes to Miss Mitford, who had asked her to contribute to an annual. +Miss Mitford's description of Mrs. Opie, 'Quakerised all over, and +calling Mr. Haydon 'Friend Benjamin,' is amusing enough; and so also +is the account of the visiting card she had printed after she became +a Quaker, with 'Amelia Opie,' without any prefix, as is the Quaker +way; also, as is not their way, with a wreath of embossed pink roses +surrounding the name. There is an account of Mrs. Opie published in the +'Edinburgh Review,' in a delightful article entitled the 'Worthies of +Norwich,' which brings one almost into her very presence. + + Amelia Opie at the end of the last century and Amelia Opie in the + garb and with the speech of a member of the Society of Friends + sounds like two separate personages, but no one who recollects the + gay little songs which at seventy she used to sing with lively + gesture, the fragments of drama to which, with the zest of an + innate actress, she occasionally treated her young friends, or the + elaborate faultlessness of her appearance--the shining folds and + long train of her pale satin draperies, the high, transparent cap, + the crisp fichu crossed over the breast, which set off to + advantage the charming little plump figure with its rounded + lines--could fail to recognise the same characteristics which + sparkled about the wearer of the pink calico domino in which she + frolicked incognito 'till she was tired' at a ball given by the + Duke of Wellington in 1814, or of the eight blue feathers which + crowned the waving tresses of her flaxen hair as a bride. + +Doctor Alderson died in October 1825, and Mrs. Opie was left alone. She +was very forlorn when her father died. She had no close ties to carry +her on peacefully from middle age to the end of life. The great break +had come; she was miserable, and, as mourners do, she falls upon herself +and beats her breast. All through these sad years her friends at Northrepps +and at Earlham were her chief help and consolation. As time passed her +deep sorrow was calmed, when peaceful memories had succeeded to the keen +anguish of her good old father's loss. She must have suffered deeply; +she tried hard to be brave, but her courage failed her at times: she +tried hard to do her duty; and her kindness and charity were unfailing, +for she was herself still, although so unhappy. Her journals are +pathetic in their humility and self-reproaches for imaginary omissions. +She is lonely; out of heart, out of hope. 'I am so dissatisfied with +myself that I hardly dare ask or expect a blessing upon my labours,' she +says; and long lists of kind and fatiguing offices, of visits to sick +people and poor people, to workhouses and prisons, are interspersed with +expressions of self-blame. + + * * * * * + +The writer can remember as a child speculating as she watched the +straight-cut figure of a Quaker lady standing in the deep window of an +old mansion that overlooked the Luxembourg Gardens at Paris, with all +their perfume and blooming scent of lilac and sweet echoes of children, +while the quiet figure stood looking down upon it all from--to a +child--such an immeasurable distance. As one grows older one becomes +more used to garbs of different fashions and cut, and one can believe in +present sunlight and the scent of flowering trees and the happy sound of +children's voices going straight to living hearts beneath their several +disguises, and Mrs. Opie, notwithstanding her Quaker dress, loved bright +colours and gay sunlight. She was one of those who gladly made life +happy for others, who naturally turned to bright and happy things +herself. When at last she began to recover from the blow which had +fallen so heavily upon her she went from Norwich to the Lakes and Fells +for refreshment, and then to Cornwall, and among its green seas and +softly clothed cliffs she found good friends (as most people do who go +to that kind and hospitable county), and her husband's relations, who +welcomed her kindly. As she recovered by degrees she began to see +something of her old companions. She went to London to attend the May +meetings of the Society, and I heard an anecdote not long ago which must +have occurred on some one of these later visits there. + +One day when some people were sitting at breakfast at Samuel Rogers's, +and talking as people do who belong to the agreeable classes, the +conversation happened to turn upon the affection of a father for his +only child, when an elderly lady who had been sitting at the table, and +who was remarkable for her Quaker dress, her frills and spotless folds, +her calm and striking appearance, started up suddenly, burst into a +passion of tears, and had to be led sobbing out of the room. She did not +return, and the lady who remembers the incident, herself a young bride +at the time, told me it made all the more impression upon her at the +time because she was told that the Quaker lady was Mrs. Opie. My friend +was just beginning her life. Mrs. Opie must have been ending hers. +It is not often that women, when youth is long past, shed sudden and +passionate tears of mere emotion, nor perhaps would a Quaker, trained +from early childhood to calm moods and calm expressions, have been so +suddenly overpoweringly affected; but Mrs. Opie was no born daughter of +the community, she was excitable and impulsive to the last. I have heard +a lady who knew her well describe her, late in life, laughing heartily +and impetuously thrusting a somewhat starched-up Friend into a deep +arm-chair exclaiming, 'I will hurl thee into the bottomless pit.' + + +X. + + At sight of thee, O Tricolor, + I seem to feel youth's hours return, + The loved, the lost! + +So writes Mrs. Opie at the age of sixty, reviving, delighting, as she +catches sight of her beloved Paris once more, and breathes its clear +and life-giving air, and looks out across its gardens and glittering +gables and spires, and again meets her French acquaintances, and throws +herself into their arms and into their interests with all her old warmth +and excitability. The little grey bonnet only gives certain incongruous +piquancy to her pleasant, kind-hearted exuberance. She returns to +England, but far-away echoes reach her soon of changes and revolutions +concerning all the people for whom her regard is so warm. In August, +1830, came the news of a new revolution--'The Chamber of Deputies +dissolved for ever; the liberty of the press abolished; king, ministers, +court, and ambassadors flying from Paris to Vincennes; cannon planted +against the city; 5,000 people killed, and the Rue de Rivoli running +with blood.' No wonder such rumours stirred and overwhelmed the staunch +but excitable lady. 'You will readily believe how anxious, interested, +and excited I feel,' she says; and then she goes on to speak of +Lafayette, 'miraculously preserved through two revolutions, and in +chains and in a dungeon, now the leading mind in another conflict, and +lifting not only an armed but a restraining hand in a third revolution.' + +Her heart was with her French friends and intimates, and though she kept +silence she was not the less determined to follow its leading, and, +without announcing her intention, she started off from Norwich and, +after travelling without intermission, once more arrived in her beloved +city. But what was become of the Revolution? 'Paris seemed as bright and +peaceful as I had seen it thirteen months ago! The people, the busy +people passing to and fro, and soldiers, omnibuses, cabriolets, citadenes, +carts, horsemen hurrying along the Rue de Rivoli, while foot passengers +were crossing the gardens, or loungers were sitting on its benches to +enjoy the beauty of the May-November.' She describes two men crossing +the Place Royale singing a national song, the result of the +Revolution:-- + + Pour briser leurs masses profondes, + Qui conduit nos drapeaux sanglants, + C'est la Liberté de deux mondes, + C'est Lafayette en cheveux blancs. + +Mrs. Opie was full of enthusiasm for noble Lafayette surveying his court +of turbulent intrigue and shifting politics; for Cuvier in his own +realm, among more tranquil laws, less mutable decrees. She should have +been born a Frenchwoman, to play a real and brilliant part among all +these scenes and people, instead of only looking on. Something stirred +in her veins too eager and bubbling for an Englishwoman's scant share +of life and outward events. No wonder that her friends at Norwich were +anxious, and urged her to return. They heard of her living in the midst +of excitement, of admiration, and with persons of a different religion +and way of thinking to themselves. Their warning admonitions carried +their weight; that little Quaker bonnet which she took so much care of +was a talisman, drawing the most friendly of Friends away from the place +of her adoption. But she came back unchanged to her home, to her quiet +associations; she had lost none of her spirits, none, of her cheerful +interest in her natural surroundings. As life burnt on her kind soul +seemed to shine more and more brightly. Every one came to see her, to +be cheered and warmed by her genial spirit. She loved flowers, of which +her room was full. She had a sort of passion for prisms, says her +biographer; she had several set in a frame and mounted like a screen, +and the colour flew about the little room. She kept up a great +correspondence; she was never tired of writing, though the letters on +other people's business were apt to prove a serious burden at times. +But she lives on only to be of use. 'Take care of indulging in little +selfishnesses,' she writes in her diary; 'learn to consider others +in trifles: the mind so disciplined will find it easier to fulfil +the greater duties, and the character will not exhibit that trying +inconsistency which one sees in great and often in pious persons.' Her +health fails, but not her courage. She goes up to London for the last +time to her cousin's house. She is interested in all the people she +meets, in their wants and necessities, in the events of the time. She +returns home, contented with all; with the house which she feels so +'desirable to die in,' with her window through which she can view the +woods and rising ground of Thorpe. 'My prisms to-day are quite in their +glory,' she writes; 'the atmosphere must be very clear, for the radiance +is brighter than ever I saw it before;' and then she wonders whether the +mansions in heaven will be draped in such brightness; and so to the last +the gentle, bright, _rainbow_ lady remained surrounded by kind and +smiling faces, by pictures, by flowers, and with the light of her +favourite prismatic colours shining round about the couch on which she +lay. + + + + +_JANE AUSTEN._ + + 1775-1817. + + 'A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes + originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de différence entre + les hommes.'--PASCAL. + + +'I did not know that you were a studier of character,' says Bingley to +Elizabeth. 'It must be an amusing study.' + +'Yes, but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least +that advantage.' + +'The country,' said Darcy, 'can in general supply but few subjects for +such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and +unvarying society.' + +'But people themselves alter so much,' Elizabeth answers, 'that there is +something new to be observed in them for ever.' + +'Yes, indeed,' cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by Darcy's manner of +mentioning a country neighbourhood; 'I assure you that we have quite as +much of _that_ going on in the country as in town.' + +'Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, +turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a +complete victory over him, continued her triumph.' + +These people belong to a whole world of familiar acquaintances, who are, +notwithstanding their old-fashioned dresses and quaint expressions, more +alive to us than a great many of the people among whom we live. We +know so much more about them to begin with. Notwithstanding a certain +reticence and self-control which seems to belong to their age, and with +all their quaint dresses, and ceremonies, and manners, the ladies and +gentlemen in 'Pride and Prejudice' and its companion novels seem like +living people out of our own acquaintance transported bodily into a +bygone age, represented in the half-dozen books that contain Jane +Austen's works. Dear books! bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in +which the homely heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores +are enchanting. + +Could we but study our own bores as Miss Austen must have studied hers +in her country village, what a delightful world this might be!--a world +of Norris's economical great walkers, with dining-room tables to dispose +of; of Lady Bertrams on sofas, with their placid 'Do not act anything +improper, my dears; Sir Thomas would not like it;' of Bennets, Goddards, +Bates's; of Mr. Collins's; of Rushbrooks, with two-and-forty speeches +apiece--a world of Mrs. Eltons.... Inimitable woman! she must be alive +at this very moment, if we but knew where to find her, her basket on her +arm, her nods and all-importance, with Maple Grove and the Sucklings in +the background. She would be much excited were she aware how she is +esteemed by a late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is well acquainted +with Maple Grove and Selina too. It might console her for Mr. Knightly's +shabby marriage. + +All these people nearly start out of the pages, so natural and +unaffected are they, and yet they never lived except in the imagination +of one lady with bright eyes, who sat down some seventy years ago to an +old mahogany desk in a quiet country parlour, and evoked them for us. +One seems to see the picture of the unknown friend who has charmed us so +long--charmed away dull hours, created neighbours and companions for +us in lonely places, conferring happiness and harmless mirth upon +generations to come. One can picture her as she sits erect, with her +long and graceful figure, her full round face, her bright eyes cast +down,--Jane Austen, 'the woman of whom England is justly proud'--whose +method generous Macaulay has placed near Shakespeare. She is writing +in secret, putting away her work when visitors come in, unconscious, +modest, hidden at home in heart, as she was in her sweet and womanly +life, with the wisdom of the serpent indeed and the harmlessness of a +dove. + +Some one said just now that many people seem to be so proud of seeing +a joke at all, that they impress it upon you until you are perfectly +wearied by it. Jane Austen was not of these; her humour flows gentle and +spontaneous; it is no elaborate mechanism nor artificial fountain, but +a bright natural stream, rippling and trickling over every stone and +sparkling in the sunshine. We should be surprised now-a-days to hear a +young lady announce herself as a studier of character. From her quiet +home in the country lane this one reads to us a real page from the +absorbing pathetic humorous book of human nature--a book that we can +most of us understand when it is translated into plain English; but +of which the quaint and illegible characters are often difficult to +decipher for ourselves. It is a study which, with all respect for Darcy's +opinion, must require something of country-like calm and concentration +and freedom of mind. It is difficult, for instance, for a too impulsive +student not to attribute something of his own moods to his specimens +instead of dispassionately contemplating them from a critical distance. + +Besides the natural fun and wit and life of her characters, 'all +perfectly discriminated,' as Macaulay says, Jane Austen has the gift of +telling a story in a way that has never been surpassed. She rules her +places, times, characters, and marshals them with unerring precision. +In her special gift for organisation she seems almost unequalled. Her +picnics are models for all future and past picnics; her combinations of +feelings, of conversation, of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and +lifelike that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us--the +scene carries us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is +recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselves +so vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginary +scenes, we seem not only to read them, but to live them, to see the +people coming and going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the +ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them talking to one +another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life days and +events follow one another. Last Tuesday does not suddenly start into +existence all out of place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when we +are well on in '21. Countries and continents do not fly from hero to +hero, nor do long and divergent adventures happen to unimportant members +of the company. With Jane Austen days, hours, minutes succeed each other +like clockwork, one central figure is always present on the scene, that +figure is always prepared for company. Miss Edwards's curl-papers are +almost the only approach to dishabille in her stories. There are +postchaises in readiness to convey the characters from Bath or Lyme to +Uppercross, to Fullerton, from Gracechurch Street to Meryton, as their +business takes them. Mr. Knightly rides from Brunswick Square to +Hartfield, by a road that Miss Austen herself must have travelled in the +curricle with her brother, driving to London on a summer's day. It was +a wet ride for Mr. Knightly, followed by that never-to-be-forgotten +afternoon in the shrubbery, when the wind had changed into a softer +quarter, the clouds were carried off, and Emma, walking in the sunshine, +with spirits freshened and thoughts a little relieved, and thinking of +Mr. Knightly as sixteen miles away, meets him at the garden door; and +everybody, I think, must be the happier, for the happiness and certainty +that one half-hour gave to Emma and her 'indifferent' lover. + +There is a little extract from one of Miss Austen's letters to a niece, +which shows that all this successful organisation was not brought about +by chance alone, but came from careful workmanship. + +'Your aunt C.,' she says, 'does not like desultory novels, and is rather +fearful that yours will be too much so--that there will be too frequent +a change from one set of people to another, and that circumstances will +be sometimes introduced of apparent consequence, which will lead to +nothing. It will not be so great an objection to me. I allow much more +latitude than she does, and think nature and spirit cover many sins of a +wandering story....' + +But, though the sins of a wandering story may be covered, the virtues of +a well-told one make themselves felt unconsciously, and without an +effort. Some books and people are delightful, we can scarce tell why; +they are not so clever as others that weary and fatigue us. It is a +certain effort to read a story, however touching, that is disconnected +and badly related. It is like an ill-drawn picture, of which the +colouring is good. Jane Austen possessed both gifts of colour and of +drawing. She could see human nature as it was; with near-sighted eyes, +it is true; but having seen, she could combine her picture by her art, +and colour it from life. How delightful the people are who play at +cards, and pay their addresses to one another, and sup, and discuss each +other's affairs! Take Mr. Bennet's reception of his sons-in-law. Take +Sir Walter Elliot compassionating the navy and Admiral Baldwin--'nine +grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top--a wretched +example of what a seafaring life can do, for men who are exposed to +every climate and weather until they are not fit to be seen. It is a +pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral +Baldwin's age....' Or shall we quote the scene of Fanny Price's return +when she comes to visit her family at Portsmouth; in all daughterly +agitation and excitement, and the brother's and father's and sister's +reception of her.... 'A stare or two at Fanny was all the voluntary +notice that her brother bestowed, but he made no objection to her kissing +him, though still entirely engaged in detailing further particulars of +the "Thrush's" going out of harbour, in which he had a strong right of +interest, being about to commence his career of seamanship in her at +this very time. After the mother and daughter have received her, Fanny's +seafaring father comes in, and does not notice her at first in his +excitement. "Captain Walsh thinks you will certainly have a cruise to +the westward with the 'Elephant' by ---- I wish you may. But old Scholey +was saying just now that he thought you would be sent first to the +'Texel.' Well, well, we are ready whatever happens. But by ---- you lost +a fine sight by not being here in the morning to see the 'Thrush' go out +of harbour. I would not have been out of the way for a thousand pounds. +Old Scholey ran in at breakfast time to say she had slipped her moorings +and was coming out. I jumped up and made but two steps to the platform. +If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat she is one; and there she lies +at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an +eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform for two hours this afternoon +looking at her. She lies close to the 'Endymion,' between her and the +'Cleopatra,' just to the eastward of the sheer hulk."' + +'"Ha!" cried William, "_that's_ just where I should have put her myself. +It's the best berth in Spithead. But here is my sister, sir; here is +Fanny, turning and leading her forward--it is so dark you do not see +her."' + +'With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot her, Mr. Price now +received his daughter, and having given her a cordial hug and observed +that she was grown into a woman and he supposed would be wanting a +husband soon, seemed very much inclined to forget her again.' + +How admirably it is all told! how we hear them all talking! + +From her own brothers Jane Austen learned her accurate knowledge of +ships and seafaring things, from her own observation she must have +gathered her delightful droll science of men and women and their ways +and various destinations. Who will not recognise Mrs. Norris in that +master-touch by which she removes the curtain to save Sir Thomas's +feelings, that curtain which had been prepared for the private +theatricals he so greatly disapproved of? Mrs. Norris thoughtfully +carries it off to her cottage, where she happened to be particularly in +want of green baize. + + +II. + +The charm of friends of pen-and-ink is their unchangeableness. We go to +them when we want them. We know where to seek them; we know what to +expect from them. They are never preoccupied; they are always 'at home;' +they never turn their backs nor walk away as people do in real life, nor +let their houses and leave the neighbourhood, and disappear for weeks +together; they are never taken up with strange people, nor suddenly +absorbed into some more genteel society, or by some nearer fancy. Even +the most volatile among them is to be counted upon. We may have +neglected them, and yet when we meet again there are the familiar old +friends, and we seem to find our own old selves again in their company. +For us time has, perhaps, passed away; feelings have swept by, leaving +interests and recollections in their place; but at all ages there must +be days that belong to our youth, hours that will recur so long as men +forbear and women remember, and life itself exists. Perhaps the most +fashionable marriage on the _tapis_ no longer excites us very much, but +the sentiment of an Emma or an Anne Elliot comes home to some of us as +vividly as ever. It is something to have such old friends who are so +young. An Emma, blooming, without a wrinkle or a grey hair, after +twenty years' acquaintance; an Elizabeth Bennet, sprightly and charming +ever.... + +In the 'Roundabout Papers' there is a passage about the pen-and-ink +friends my father loved:-- + +'They used to call the good Sir Walter the "Wizard of the North." What +if some writer should appear who can write so _enchantingly_ that he +shall be able to call into actual life the people whom he invents? What +if Mignon, and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are alive now +(though I don't say they are visible), and Dugald Dalgetty and Ivanhoe +were to step in at that open window by the little garden yonder? Suppose +Uncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to glide in silent? +Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis should enter, with a noiseless +swagger, curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle +Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse with his hair dyed green; and all the +Crummles company of comedians, with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Roger +de Coverley; and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La +Mancha, with his blessed squire? I say to you, I look rather wistfully +towards the window, musing upon these people. Were any of them to enter, +I think I should not be very much frightened....' + +Are not such friends as these, and others unnamed here, but who will +come unannounced to join the goodly company, creations that, like some +people, do actually make part of our existence, and make us the better +for theirs? To express some vague feelings is to stamp them. Have we any +one of us a friend in a Knight of La Mancha, a Colonel Newcome, a Sir +Roger de Coverley? They live for us even though they may have never +lived. They are, and do actually make part of our lives, one of the best +and noblest parts. To love them is like a direct communication with the +great and generous minds that conceived them. + + * * * * * + +It is difficult, reading the novels of succeeding generations, to +determine how much each book reflects of the time in which it was +written; how much of its character depends upon the mind and the mood of +the writer. The greatest minds, the most original, have the least stamp +of the age, the most of that dominant natural reality which belongs to +all great minds. We know how a landscape changes as the day goes on, +and how the scene brightens and gains in beauty as the shadows begin to +lengthen. The clearest eyes must see by the light of their own hour. +Jane Austen's literary hour must have been a midday hour: bright, +unsuggestive, with objects standing clear, without much shadow or +elaborate artistic effect. Our own age is more essentially an age of +strained emotion, little remains to us of starch, or powder, or courtly +reserve. What we have lost in calm, in happiness, in tranquillity, we +have gained in emphasis. Our danger is now, not of expressing and +feeling too little, but of expressing more than we feel. + +The living writers of to-day lead us into distant realms and worlds +undreamt of in the placid and easily contented gigot age. Our characters +travel by rail and are no longer confined to postchaises. There is +certainly a wide difference between Miss Austen's heroines and, let us +say, a Maggie Tulliver. One would be curious to know whether, between +the human beings who read Jane Austen's books to-day and those who read +them fifty years ago, there is as great a contrast. One reason may be, +perhaps, that characters in novels are certainly more intimate with us +and on less ceremonious terms than in Jane Austen's days, when heroines +never gave up a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hardness of +heart in which some modern types are a little wanting. Whatever happens +they could for the most part speak of quietly and without bitterness. +Love with them does not mean a passion so much as an interest, deep, +silent, not quite incompatible with a secondary flirtation. Marianne +Dashwood's tears are evidently meant to be dried. Jane Bennet smiles, +sighs and makes excuses for Bingley's neglect. Emma passes one +disagreeable morning making up her mind to the unnatural alliance +between Mr. Knightly and Harriet Smith. It was the spirit of the age, +and, perhaps, one not to be unenvied. It was not that Jane Austen +herself was incapable of understanding a deeper feeling. In the last +written page of her last written book, there is an expression of the +deepest and truest experience. Annie Elliot's talk with Captain Benfield +is the touching utterance of a good woman's feelings. They are speaking +of men and of women's affections. 'You are always labouring and +toiling,' she says, 'exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, +country, friends, all united; neither time nor life to be called your +own. It would be too hard, indeed (with a faltering voice), if a woman's +feelings were to be added to all this.' + +Further on she says, eagerly: 'I hope I do justice to all that is +felt by you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should +undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. +I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment +and constancy were known only by woman. No! I believe you capable of +everything good and great in your married lives. I believe you equal +to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance so long +as--if I may be allowed the expression--so long as you have an object; +I mean while the woman you love lives and lives for you. _All the +privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you +need not court it) is that of loving longest when existence or when hope +is gone._' + +She could not immediately have uttered another sentence--her heart was +too full, her breath too much oppressed. + +Dear Anne Elliot!--sweet, impulsive, womanly, tender-hearted--one can +almost hear her voice, pleading the cause of all true women. In those +days when, perhaps, people's nerves were stronger than they are now, +sentiment may have existed in a less degree, or have been more ruled by +judgment, it may have been calmer and more matter-of-fact; and yet Jane +Austen, at the very end of her life, wrote thus. Her words seem to ring +in our ears after they have been spoken. Anne Elliot must have been Jane +Austen herself, speaking for the last time. There is something so true, +so womanly about her, that it is impossible not to love her most of all. +She is the bright-eyed heroine of the earlier novels, matured, softened, +cultivated, to whom fidelity has brought only greater depth and +sweetness instead of bitterness and pain. + +What a difficult thing it would be to sit down and try to enumerate the +different influences by which our lives have been affected--influences +of other lives, of art, of nature, of place and circumstance,--of +beautiful sights passing before our eyes, or painful ones: seasons +following in their course--hills rising on our horizons--scenes of ruin +and desolation--crowded thoroughfares--sounds in our ears, jarring or +harmonious--the voices of friends, calling, warning, encouraging--of +preachers preaching--of people in the street below, complaining, and +asking our pity! What long processions of human beings are passing +before us! What trains of thought go sweeping through our brains! Man +seems a strange and ill-kept record of many and bewildering experiences. +Looking at oneself--not as oneself, but as an abstract human being--one +is lost in wonder at the vast complexities which have been brought to +bear upon it; lost in wonder, and in disappointment perhaps, at the +discordant result of so great a harmony. Only we know that the whole +diapason is beyond our grasp: one man cannot hear the note of the +grasshoppers, another is deaf when the cannon sounds. Waiting among +these many echoes and mysteries of every kind, and light and darkness, +and life and death, we seize a note or two of the great symphony, and +try to sing; and because these notes happen to jar, we think all is +discordant hopelessness. Then come pressing onward in the crowd of +life, voices with some of the notes that are wanting to our own +part--voices tuned to the same key as our own, or to an accordant one; +making harmony for us as they pass us by. Perhaps this is in life the +happiest of all experience, and to few of us there exists any more +complete ideal. + +And so now and then in our lives, when we learn to love a sweet and +noble character, we all feel happier and better for the goodness and +charity which is not ours, and yet which seems to belong to us while +we are near it. Just as some people and states of mind affect us +uncomfortably, so we seem to be true to ourselves with a truthful +person, generous-minded with a generous nature; life seems less +disappointing and self-seeking when we think of the just and sweet and +unselfish spirits, moving untroubled among dinning and distracting +influences. These are our friends in the best and noblest sense. We are +the happier for their existence,--it is so much gain to us. They may +have lived at some distant time, we may never have met face to face, or +we may have known them and been blessed by their love; but their light +shines from afar, their life is for us and with us in its generous +example; their song is for our ears, and we hear it and love it still, +though the singer may be lying dead. + + +III. + +A little book, written by one of Jane Austen's nephews, tells with a +touching directness and simplicity the story of this good and gifted +woman, whose name has long been a household word among us, but of whose +history nothing was known until this little volume appeared. It is but +the story of a country lady, of quiet days following quiet days of +seasons in their course of common events; and yet the history is deeply +interesting to those who loved the writer of whom it is written; and as +we turn from the story of Jane Austen's life to her books again, we feel +more than ever that she, too, was one of those true friends who belong +to us inalienably--simple, wise, contented, living in others, one of +those whom we seem to have a right to love. Such people belong to all +humankind by the very right of their wide and generous sympathies, of +their gentle wisdom and loveableness. Jane Austen's life, as it is told +by Mr. Austen Legh, is very touching, sweet, and peaceful. It is a +country landscape, where the cattle are grazing, the boughs of the great +elm-tree rocking in the wind: sometimes, as we read, they come falling +with a crash into the sweep; birds are flying about the old house, +homely in its simple rule. The rafters cross the whitewashed ceilings, +the beams project into the room below. We can see it all: the parlour +with the horsehair sofa, the scant, quaint furniture, the old-fashioned +garden outside, with its flowers and vegetables combined, and along the +south side of the garden the green terrace sloping away. + +There is a pretty description of the sisters' devotion to one another +(when Cassandra went to school little Jane accompanied her, the sisters +could not be parted), of the family party, of the old place, 'where +there are hedgerows winding, with green shady footpaths within the +copse; where the earliest primroses and hyacinths are found.' There +is the wood-walk, with its rustic seats, leading to the meadows; the +church-walk leading to the church, 'which is far from the hum of the +village, and within sight of no habitation, except a glimpse of the grey +manor-house through its circling screen of sycamores. Sweet violets, +both purple and white, grow in abundance beneath its south wall. Large +elms protrude their rough branches, old hawthorns shed their blossoms +over the graves, and the hollow yew-tree must be at least coëval with +the church.' + +One may read the account of Catherine Morland's home with new interest, +from the hint which is given of its likeness to the old house at +Steventon, where dwelt the unknown friend whose voice we seem to hear +at last, and whose face we seem to recognise, her bright eyes and brown +curly hair, her quick and graceful figure. One can picture the children +who are playing at the door of the old parsonage, and calling for Aunt +Jane. One can imagine her pretty ways with them, her sympathy for the +active, their games and imaginations. There is Cassandra. She is older +than her sister, more critical, more beautiful, more reserved. There is +the mother of the family, with her keen wit and clear mind; the handsome +father--'the handsome proctor,' as he was called; the five brothers, +driving up the lane. Tranquil summer passes by, the winter days go by; +the young lady still sits writing at the old mahogany desk, and smiling, +perhaps, at her own fancies, and hiding them away with her papers at the +sound of coming steps. Now, the modest papers, printed and reprinted, +lie in every hand, the fancies disport themselves at their will in the +wisest brains and the most foolish. + +It must have been at Steventon--Jane Austen's earliest home--that Mr. +Collins first made his appearance (Lady Catherine not objecting, as we +know, to his occasional absence on a Sunday, provided another clergyman +was engaged to do the duty of the day), and here, conversing with Miss +Jane, that he must have made many of his profoundest observations upon +human nature; remarking, among other things, that resignation is never +so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its +value in our estimation, and propounding his celebrated theory about the +usual practice of elegant females. It must have been here, too, that poor +Mrs. Bennet declared, with some justice, that once estates are entailed, +one can never tell how they will go; here, too, that Mrs. Allen's sprigged +muslin and John Thorpe's rodomontades were woven; that his gig was built, +'curricle-hung lamps, seat, trunk, sword-case, splashboard, silver +moulding, all, you see, complete. The ironwork as good as new, or +better. He asked fifty guineas.... I closed with him directly, threw +down the money, and the carriage was mine.' + +'And I am sure,' said Catherine, 'I know so little of such things, that +I cannot judge whether it was cheap or dear.' + +'Neither the one nor the other,' says John Thorpe. + +Mrs. Palmer was also born at Steventon--that good-humoured lady in +'Sense and Sensibility,' who thinks it so ridiculous that her husband +never hears her when she speaks to him. We are told that Marianne and +Ellinor have been supposed to represent Cassandra and Jane Austen; but +Mr. Austen Legh says that he can trace no resemblance. Jane Austen is +not twenty when this book is written, and only twenty-one when 'Pride +and Prejudice' is first devised. + +Cousins presently come on the scene, and amongst them the romantic +figure of a young, widowed Comtesse de Feuillade, flying from the +Revolution to her uncle's home. She is described as a clever and +accomplished woman, interested in her young cousins, teaching them +French (both Jane and Cassandra knew French), helping in their various +schemes, in their theatricals in the barn. She eventually marries her +cousin, Henry Austen. The simple family annals are not without their +romance; but there is a cruel one for poor Cassandra, whose lover dies +abroad, and his death saddens the whole family-party. Jane, too, +'receives the addresses' (do such things as addresses exist nowadays?) +'of a gentleman possessed of good character and fortune, and of +everything, in short, except the subtle power of touching her heart.' +One cannot help wondering whether this was a Henry Crawford or an Elton +or a Mr. Elliot, or had Jane already seen the person that even Cassandra +thought good enough for her sister? + +Here, too, is another sorrowful story. The sisters' fate (there is a sad +coincidence and similarity in it) was to be undivided; their life, their +experience was the same. Some one without a name takes leave of Jane one +day, promising to come back. He never comes back: long afterwards they +hear of his death. The story seems even sadder than Cassandra's in its +silence and uncertainty, for silence and uncertainty are death in life +to some people.... + +There is little trace of such a tragedy in Jane Austen's books--not one +morbid word is to be found, not one vain regret. Hers was not a nature +to fall crushed by the overthrow of one phase of her manifold life. She +seems to have had a natural genius for life, if I may so speak; too +vivid and genuinely unselfish to fail her in her need. She could gather +every flower, every brightness along her road. Good spirit, content, all +the interests of a happy and observant nature were hers. Her gentle +humour and wit and interest cannot have failed. + +It is impossible to calculate the difference of the grasp by which one +or another human being realises existence and the things relating to it, +nor how much more vivid life seems to some than to others. Jane Austen, +while her existence lasted, realised it, and made the best use of the +gifts that were hers. Yet, when her life was ending, then it was given +to her to understand the change that was at hand; as willingly as she +had lived, she died. Some people seem scarcely to rise up to their own +work, to their own ideal. Jane Austen's life, as it is told by her +nephew, is beyond her work, which only contained one phase of that +sweet and wise nature--the creative, observant, outward phase. For her +home, for her sister, for her friends, she kept the depth and tenderness +of her bright and gentle sympathy. She is described as busy with her +neat and clever fingers sewing for the poor, working fanciful keepsakes +for her friends. There is the cup and ball that she never failed to +catch; the spillikens lie in an even ring where she had thrown them; +there are her letters, straightly and neatly folded, and fitting +smoothly in their creases. There is something sweet, orderly, and +consistent in her character and all her tastes--in her fondness for +Crabbe and Cowper, in her little joke that she ought to be a Mrs. +Crabbe. She sings of an evening old ballads to old-fashioned tunes with +a low sweet voice. + +Further on we have a glimpse of Jane and her sister in their mobcaps, +young still, but dressed soberly beyond their years. One can imagine +'Aunt Jane,' with her brother's children round her knee, telling her +delightful stories or listening to theirs, with never-failing sympathy. +One can fancy Cassandra, who does not like desultory novels, more +prudent and more reserved, and somewhat less of a playfellow, looking +down upon the group with elder sister's eyes. + +Here is an extract from a letter written at Steventon in 1800:-- + +'I have two messages: let me get rid of them, and then my paper will be +my own. Mary fully intended writing by Mr. Charles's frank, and only +happened entirely to forget it, but will write soon; and my father +wishes Edward to send him a memorandum of the price of hops. + + '_Sunday Evening._ +'We have had a dreadful storm of wind in the forepart of the day, which +has done a great deal of mischief among our trees. I was sitting alone +in the drawing-room when an odd kind of crash startled me. In a moment +afterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window. I reached it just +in time to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend into the +sweep!!! + +'The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first crash, and which +was nearest to the pond, taking a more easterly direction, sank among +our screen of chestnuts and firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, breaking +off the head of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts of +several branches in its fall. This is not all: the maple bearing the +weathercock was broken in two, and what I regret more than all the rest +is, that all the three elms that grew in Hall's Meadow, and gave such +ornament to it, are gone.' + +A certain Mrs. Stent comes into one of these letters 'ejaculating some +wonder about the cocks and hens.' Mrs. Stent seems to have tried their +patience, and will be known henceforward as having bored Jane Austen. + +They leave Steventon when Jane is about twenty-five years of age and go +to Bath, from whence a couple of pleasant letters are given us. Jane is +writing to her sister. She has visited Miss A., who, like all other +young ladies, is considerably genteeler than her parents. She is +heartily glad that Cassandra speaks so comfortably of her health and +looks: could travelling fifty miles produce such an immediate change? +'You were looking poorly when you were here, and everybody seemed +sensible of it.' Is there any charm in a hack postchaise? But if there +were, Mrs. Craven's carriage might have undone it all. Then Mrs. Stent +appears again. 'Poor Mrs. Stent, it has been her lot to be always in the +way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. +Stents ourselves, unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody.' +Elsewhere she writes, upon Mrs. ----'s mentioning that she had sent the +'Rejected Addresses' to Mr. H., 'I began talking to her a little about +them, and expressed my hope of their having amused her. Her answer was, +"Oh dear, yes, very much; very droll indeed; the opening of the house +and the striking up of the fiddles!" What she meant, poor woman, who +shall say?' + +But there is no malice in Jane Austen. Hers is the charity of all clear +minds, it is only the muddled who are intolerant. All who love Emma and +Mr. Knightly must remember the touching little scene in which he +reproves her for her thoughtless impatience of poor Miss Bates's +volubility. + +'You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from +a period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless +spirits and in the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her.... +This is not pleasant to you, Emma, and it is very far from pleasant to +me, but I must, I will, I will tell you truths while I am satisfied with +proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that +you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do me +now.' + +'While they talked they were advancing towards the carriage: it was +ready, and before she could speak again he had handed her in. He had +misinterpreted the feeling which kept her face averted and her tongue +motionless.' Mr. Knightly's little sermon, in its old-fashioned English, +is as applicable now as it was when it was spoken. We know that he was +an especial favourite with Jane Austen. + + +IV. + +Mr. Austen died at Bath, and his family removed to Southampton. In 1811, +Mrs. Austen, her daughters, and her niece, settled finally at Chawton, +a house belonging to Jane's brother, Mr. Knight (he was adopted by an +uncle, whose name he took), and from Chawton all her literary work was +given to the world. 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Pride and Prejudice,' were +already written; but in the next five years, from thirty-five to forty, +she set to work seriously, and wrote 'Mansfield Park,' 'Emma,' and +'Persuasion.' Any one who has written a book will know what an amount of +labour this represents.... One can picture to oneself the little family +scene which Jane describes to Cassandra. 'Pride and Prejudice' just come +down in a parcel from town; the unsuspicious Miss B. to dinner; and Jane +and her mother setting to in the evening and reading aloud half the +first volume of a new novel sent down by the brother. Unsuspicious Miss +B. is delighted. Jane complains of her mother's too rapid way of getting +on; 'though she perfectly understands the characters herself, she cannot +speak as they ought. Upon the whole, however,' she says, 'I am quite +vain enough and well-satisfied enough.' This is her own criticism of +'Pride and Prejudice':--'The work is rather too light, and bright, and +sparkling. It wants shade. It wants to be stretched out here and there +with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn +specious nonsense about something unconnected with the story--an essay +on writing, a critique on Walter Scott or the "History of Bonaparte."' + +And so Jane Austen lives quietly working at her labour of love, +interested in her 'own darling children's' success; 'the light of the +home,' one of the real living children says afterwards, speaking in the +days when she was no longer there. She goes to London once or twice. +Once she lives for some months in Hans Place, nursing a brother through +an illness. Here it was that she received some little compliments and +messages from the Prince Regent, to whom she dedicated 'Emma.' He thanks +her and acknowledges the handsome volumes, and she laughs and tells her +publisher that at all events his share of the offering is appreciated, +whatever hers may be! We are also favoured with some valuable suggestions +from Mr. Clarke, the Royal librarian, respecting a very remarkable +clergyman. He is anxious that Miss Austen should delineate one who +'should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, something +like Beattie's minstrel, entirely engaged in literature, and no man's +enemy but his own.' Failing to impress this character upon the authoress, +he makes a fresh suggestion, and proposes that she should write a +romance illustrative of the august house of Coburg. 'It would be +interesting,' he says, 'and very properly dedicated to Prince Leopold.' + +To which the authoress replies: 'I could no more write a romance than an +epic poem. I could not seriously sit down to write a romance under any +other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me +to keep it up, and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, +I am sure I should be hung before the first chapter.' + +There is a delightful collection of friends' suggestions which she has +put together, but which is too long to be quoted here. She calls it, +'Plan of a Novel, as suggested by various Friends.' + +All this time, while her fame is slowly growing, life passes in the same +way as in the old cottage at Chawton. Aunt Jane, with her young face and +her mob-cap, makes play-houses for the children, helps them to dress up, +invents imaginary conversations for them, supposing that they are all +grown up, the day after a ball. One can imagine how delightful a game +that must have seemed to the little girls. She built her nest, did this +good woman, happily weaving it out of shreds, and ends, and scraps of +daily duty, patiently put together; and it was from this nest that she +sang the song, bright and brilliant, with quaint thrills and unexpected +cadences, that reaches us even here through near a century. The lesson +her life seems to teach us is this: Don't let us despise our nests--life +is as much made of minutes as of years; let us complete the daily +duties; let us patiently gather the twigs and the little scraps of moss, +of dried grass together, and see the result!--a whole, completed and +coherent, beautiful even without the song. + +We come too soon to the story of her death. And yet did it come too +soon? A sweet life is not the sweeter for being long. Jane Austen lived +years enough to fulfil her mission. She lived long enough to write six +books that were masterpieces in their way--to make a world the happier +for her industry. + +One cannot read the story of her latter days, of her patience, her +sweetness, and gratitude, without emotion. There is family trouble, we +are not told of what nature. She falls ill. Her nieces find her in her +dressing-gown, like an invalid, in an arm-chair in her bedroom; but she +gets up and greets them, and, pointing to seats which had been arranged +for them by the fire, says: 'There is a chair for the married lady, and +a little stool for you, Caroline.' But she is too weak to talk, and +Cassandra takes them away. + +At last they persuade her to go to Winchester, to a well-known doctor +there. + +'It distressed me,' she says, in one of her last, dying letters, 'to see +Uncle Henry and William Knight, who kindly attended us, riding in the +rain almost the whole way. We expect a visit from them to-morrow, and +hope they will stay the night; and on Thursday, which is a confirmation +and a holiday, we hope to get Charles out to breakfast. We have had but +one visit from _him_, poor fellow, as he is in the sick room.... God +bless you, dear E.; if ever you are ill, may you be as tenderly nursed +as I have been....' + +But nursing does not cure her, nor can the doctor save her to them all, +and she sinks from day to day. To the end she is full of concern for +others. + +'As for my dearest sister, my tender, watchful, indefatigable nurse has +not been made ill by her exertions,' she writes. 'As to what I owe her, +and the anxious affection of all my beloved family on this occasion, I +can only cry over it, and pray God to bless them more and more.' + +One can hardly read this last sentence with dry eyes. It is her parting +blessing and farewell to those she had blessed all her life by her +presence and her love--that love which is beyond death; and of which the +benediction remains, not only spoken in words, but by the ever-present +signs and the tokens of those lifetimes which do not end for us as long +as we ourselves exist. + +They asked her when she was near her end if there was anything she +wanted. + +'Nothing but death,' she said. Those were her last words. She died on +the 18th of July, 1817, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral, where +she lies not unremembered. + + +LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., +NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET + + + + +TRANSCRIBER's NOTE + +Two instances of Bryon for _Byron_ have been corrected. The following +additional changes have been made: + + A. I. R. (in dedication) A. _T._ R. + + her sad and dimning life her sad and _dimming_ life + + it was to her father hat it was to her father _that_ + + who invited Mrs. Barbauld to who invited _Mr._ Barbauld + become their minister become their minister + + He was interrupted by her He was interrupted by _his_ + companion companion + + Mrs. Opie's description of her Mrs. Opie's description of her + arrival reads a comment upon arrival reads _like_ a comment + history. upon history. + + + + +MISS THACKERAY'S WORKS. + +A New and Uniform Edition; each Volume Illustrated with a Vignette +Title-page drawn by ARTHUR HUGHES, and Engraved by J. COOPER. + +Large crown 8vo. 6_s._ + + 1. OLD KENSINGTON. + 2. THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. + 3. FIVE OLD FRIENDS AND A YOUNG PRINCE. + 4. TO ESTHER; and other Sketches. + 5. BLUEBEARD'S KEYS; and other Stories. + 6. THE STORY OF ELIZABETH; TWO HOURS; FROM AN ISLAND. + 7. TOILERS AND SPINSTERS; and other Essays. + 8. MISS ANGEL; FULHAM LAWN. + 9. MISS WILLIAMSON'S DIVAGATIONS. + + +NEW AND UNIFORM EDITION OF MRS. GASKELL'S NOVELS AND TALES. + +In Seven Volumes, each containing Four Illustrations. + +_Price 3s. 6d. each, bound in cloth; or in Sets of Seven Volumes, +handsomely bound in half-morocco, price £2. 10s._ + +CONTENTS OF THE VOLUMES:-- + + VOL. I. WIVES AND DAUGHTERS. + VOL. II. NORTH AND SOUTH. + VOL. III. SYLVIA'S LOVERS. + + VOL. IV. CRANFORD. + Company Manners--The Well of Pen-Morpha--The Heart of John + Middleton--Traits and Stories of the Huguenots--Six Weeks at + Heppenheim--The Squire's Story--Libbie Marsh's Three Eras--Curious if + True--The Moorland Cottage--The Sexton's Hero--Disappearances--Right at + Last--The Manchester Marriage--Lois the Witch--The Crooked Branch. + + VOL. V. MARY BARTON. + Cousin Phillis--My French Master--The Old Nurse's Story--Bessy's + Troubles at Home--Christmas Storms and Sunshine. + + VOL. VI. RUTH. + The Grey Woman--Morton Hall--Mr. Harrison's Confessions--Hand and Heart. + + VOL. VII. LIZZIE LEIGH. + A Dark Night's Work--Round the Sofa--My Lady Ludlow--An Accursed + Race--The Doom of the Griffiths--Half a Lifetime Ago--The Poor + Clare--The Half-Brothers. + + +ILLUSTRATED EDITIONS OF POPULAR WORKS + +Handsomely bound in cloth gilt, each volume containing Four Illustrations. + +Crown 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._ + + THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. + FRAMLEY PARSONAGE. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. + THE CLAVERINGS. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. + TRANSFORMATION: a Romance. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. + ROMANTIC TALES. By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' + DOMESTIC STORIES. By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' + NO NAME. By WILKIE COLLINS. + ARMADALE. By WILKIE COLLINS. + AFTER DARK. By WILKIE COLLINS. + MAUD TALBOT. By HOLME LEE. + THE MOORS AND THE FENS. By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. + WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. + CARITÀ. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. + FOR PERCIVAL. By MARGARET VELEY. + +London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place. + + +SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S ANNOUNCEMENTS, + +_NEW WORK by LIEUT.-COL. R. L. PLAYFAIR._ + +The SCOURGE of CHRISTENDOM: Annals of British Relations with Algiers +prior to the French Conquest. With Illustrations of Ancient Algiers from +1578 to 1824. By Lieut.-Col. R. L. PLAYFAIR, H.B.M.'s Consul at Algiers. +Demy 8vo. + +_NEW WORK by JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS._ + +SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS in the ENGLISH DRAMA. +By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, Author of 'The Renaissance in Italy' &c. Demy +8vo. + +The MATTHEW ARNOLD BIRTHDAY BOOK. +Arranged by his Daughter, ELEANOR ARNOLD. +Handsomely printed and bound in cloth, gilt edges. With Photograph. +Small 4to. 10_s._ 6_d._ + +_NEW VOLUME by MISS THACKERAY (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)._ + +A BOOK of SIBYLS: MRS. BARBAULD--MISS EDGEWORTH--MRS. OPIE--MISS AUSTEN. +By Miss THACKERAY (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie). +Essays reprinted from the 'Cornhill Magazine.' +Large crown 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._ + +MERV: a Story of Adventures and Captivity. +Epitomised from 'The Merv Oasis.' +By EDMUND O'DONOVAN, Special Correspondent of the _Daily News_. +With a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 6_s._ + +MEMOIRS of LIFE and WORK. By CHARLES J. B. WILLIAMS, M.D., F.R.S., +Physician Extraordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. +With Original Portraits. 8vo. + +The FIRST BOOK of EUCLID MADE EASY for BEGINNERS. +Arranged from 'The Elements of Euclid,' by ROBERT SIMSON, M.D. +By WILLIAM HOWARD. With Unlettered Diagrams with Coloured Lines. +Crown 8vo. + +_NEW EDITION of HARE'S 'CITIES of NORTHERN and CENTRAL ITALY.'_ + +CITIES of CENTRAL ITALY. With Illustrations. 2 vols. crown 8vo. + +CITIES of NORTHERN ITALY. With Illustrations. 2 vols. crown 8vo. +By AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE, Author of 'Cities of Southern Italy and +Sicily' &c. + +_NEW AND REVISED EDITION in ONE VOLUME._ + +MEMORIES of OLD FRIENDS. Being Extracts from the +Journals and Letters of Caroline Fox, of Penjerrick, Cornwall, from 1835 +to 1871, to which are added Fourteen Original Letters from J. S. Mill, +never before published. Edited by HORACE N. PYM. With Portrait. Crown +8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._ + +_POPULAR EDITION, ABRIDGED, with a NEW PREFACE._ + +LITERATURE and DOGMA. An Essay towards a Better Comprehension of the Bible. +By MATTHEW ARNOLD. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ + +The LIFE of LORD LAWRENCE. By R. BOSWORTH SMITH, M.A., +late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, Assistant Master at Harrow +School, Author of 'Mohammed and Mohammedanism,' 'Carthage and the +Carthaginians,' &c. Fifth Edition, 2 vols. 8vo. with 2 Portraits and 2 +Maps, 36_s._ + +ANATOMY for ARTISTS. By JOHN MARSHALL, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., +Professor of Anatomy, Royal Academy of Arts; late Lecturer on Anatomy at +the Government School of Design, South Kensington; Professor of Surgery +in University College. Illustrated by 220 Original Drawings on Wood by +J. S. Cuthbert, engraved by George Nicholls & Co. Second Edition. Imp. +8vo. 31_s._ 6_d._ + + +London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book of Sibyls, by +Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie) + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30435 *** diff --git a/30435-h/30435-h.htm b/30435-h/30435-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c4bc4b --- /dev/null +++ b/30435-h/30435-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6845 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sybils, by Anne Thackeray Ritchie.</title> +<style type="text/css"> + body {background:#fdfdfd; + color:black; + font-size: large; + margin-top:100px; + margin-left:15%; + margin-right:15%; + text-align:justify; } + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {text-align: center; } + hr.narrow { width: 40%; + text-align: center; } + hr.minimal { width: 25%; + text-align: center; } + hr { width: 100%; } + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 3px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + blockquote { font-size: medium; margin-left: 4%; margin-right: 4% } + table {font-size: large; } + table.sm {font-size: medium; } + table.j {font-size: small; + text-align: justify; } + td.j {text-align: justify; } + td.w50 { width: 50%; } + p {text-indent: 3%; } + p.noindent { text-indent: 0%; } + .center { text-align: center; } + .ind1 { margin-left: 1em; } + .ind2 { margin-left: 2em; } + .ind3 { margin-left: 3em; } + ins { text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + .nowrap { white-space: nowrap; } + .revind { margin-left: 0em; text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em; } + .right { text-align: right; } + .signature { text-align: right; margin-right:4%} + .small { font-size: 70%; } + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red; + text-decoration: underline; } + pre {font-size: 70%; } +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30435 ***</div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<h1>A BOOK OF SIBYLS</h1> + +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" summary="title"> +<tr><td align="left">MRS BARBAULD</td><td> </td><td align="right">MISS EDGEWORTH</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">MRS OPIE</td><td> </td><td align="right">MISS AUSTEN</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>MISS THACKERAY</h3> +<h5>(MRS RICHMOND RITCHIE)</h5> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h4>LONDON<br /> +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE<br /> +1883</h4> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"><p class="noindent"><small>[<i>All rights reserved</i>]<br /> +[<i>Reprinted from the Cornhill Magazine</i>]</small> +</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><i>TO<br /><br /> +MRS OLIPHANT</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>My little record would not seem to me in any way complete without your +name, dear Sibyl of our own, and as I write it here, I am grateful to +know that to mine and me it is not only the name of a Sibyl with deep +visions, but of a friend to us all</i></p> +<p class="right"> +<i>A. <ins title="original has I.">T.</ins> R.</i></p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> +<p> </p> + +<p>Not long ago, a party of friends were sitting at luncheon in a suburb of +London, when one of them happened to make some reference to Maple Grove +and Selina, and to ask in what county of England Maple Grove was +situated. Everybody immediately had a theory. Only one of the company (a +French gentleman, not well acquainted with English) did not recognise +the allusion. A lady sitting by the master of the house (she will, I +hope, forgive me for quoting her words, for no one else has a better +right to speak them) said, 'What a curious sign it is of Jane Austen's +increasing popularity! Here are five out of six people sitting round a +table, nearly a hundred years after her death, who all recognise at once +a chance allusion to an obscure character in one of her books.'</p> + +<p>It seemed impossible to leave out Jane Austen's dear household name from +a volume which concerned women writing in the early part of this +century, and although the essay which is called by her name has already +been reprinted, it is added with some alteration in its place with the +others.</p> + +<p>Putting together this little book has been a great pleasure and interest +to the compiler, and she wishes once more to thank those who have so +kindly sheltered her during her work, and lent her books and papers and +letters concerning the four writers whose works and manner of being she +has attempted to describe; and she wishes specially to express her +thanks to the Baron and Baroness <span class="smallcaps">von Hügel</span>, to the ladies of Miss +Edgeworth's family, to Mr. <span class="smallcaps">Harrison</span>, of the London Library, to the Miss +<span class="smallcaps">Reids</span>, of Hampstead, to Mrs. <span class="smallcaps">Field</span> and her daughters, of Squire's Mount, +Hampstead, to Lady <span class="smallcaps">Buxton</span>, Mrs. <span class="smallcaps">Brookfield</span>, Miss <span class="smallcaps">Alderson</span>, and Miss +<span class="smallcaps">Shirreff</span>.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<p> </p> +<h3><i>CONTENTS</i></h3> + +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#MRS_BARBAULD"><i>MRS. BARBAULD.</i></a></td><td>[1743-1825]</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#MISS_EDGEWORTH"><i>MISS EDGEWORTH.</i></a></td><td>[1767-1849]</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#MRS_OPIE"><i>MRS OPIE.</i></a></td><td>[1769-1853]</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#JANE_AUSTEN"><i>JANE AUSTEN.</i></a></td><td>[1775-1817]</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>A BOOK OF SIBYLS.</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="MRS_BARBAULD" id="MRS_BARBAULD"></a><i>MRS. BARBAULD.</i></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent">1743-1825.<br /> +</p> +</div> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="quote"> +<tr><td align="left"><small>'I've heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.'</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><i><small>Measure for Measure.</small></i></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I.</b></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>'The first poetess I can recollect is Mrs. Barbauld, with +whose works I became acquainted—before those of any +other author, male or female—when I was learning to +spell words of one syllable in her story-books for children.' +So says Hazlitt in his lectures on living poets. He goes +on to call her a very pretty poetess, strewing flowers of +poesy as she goes.</p> + +<p>The writer must needs, from the same point of view as +Hazlitt, look upon Mrs. Barbauld with a special interest, +having also first learnt to read out of her little yellow +books, of which the syllables rise up one by one again with +a remembrance of the hand patiently pointing to each in +turn; all this recalled and revived after a lifetime by the +sight of a rusty iron gateway, behind which Mrs. Barbauld +once lived, of some old letters closely covered with a wavery +writing, of a wide prospect that she once delighted to look +upon. Mrs. Barbauld, who loved to share her pleasures, +used to bring her friends to see the great view from the +Hampstead hill-top, and thus records their impressions:—</p> + +<p>'I dragged Mrs. A. up as I did you, my dear, to our +Prospect Walk, from whence we have so extensive a view.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said she, 'it is a very fine view indeed for a +flat country.'</p> + +<p>'While, on the other hand, Mrs. B. gave us such a +dismal account of the precipices, mountains, and deserts +she encountered, that you would have thought she had +been on the wildest part of the Alps.'</p> + +<p>The old Hampstead highroad, starting from the plain, +winds its way resolutely up the steep, and brings you past +red-brick houses and walled-in gardens to this noble outlook; +to the heath, with its fresh, inspiriting breezes, its +lovely distances of far-off waters and gorsy hollows. At +whatever season, at whatever hour you come, you are +pretty sure to find one or two votaries—poets like Mrs. +Barbauld, or commonplace people such as her friends—watching +before this great altar of nature; whether by early +morning rays, or in the blazing sunset, or when the evening +veils and mists with stars come falling, while the lights +of London shine far away in the valley. Years after Mrs. +Barbauld wrote, one man, pre-eminent amongst poets, used +to stand upon this hill-top, and lo! as Turner gazed, a +whole generation gazed with him. For him Italy gleamed +from behind the crimson stems of the fir-trees; the spirit +of loveliest mythology floated upon the clouds, upon the +many changing tints of the plains; and, as the painter +watched the lights upon the distant hills, they sank into +his soul, and he painted them down for us, and poured +his dreams into our awakening hearts.</p> + +<p>He was one of that race of giants, mighty men of +humble heart, who have looked from Hampstead and +Highgate Hills. Here Wordsworth trod; here sang +Keats's nightingale; here mused Coleridge; and here came +Carlyle, only yesterday, tramping wearily, in search of +some sign of his old companions. Here, too, stood kind +Walter Scott, under the elms of the Judges' Walk, and +perhaps Joanna Baillie was by his side, coming out from +her pretty old house beyond the trees. Besides all these, +were a whole company of lesser stars following and surrounding +the brighter planets—muses, memoirs, critics, +poets, nymphs, authoresses—coming to drink tea and +to admire the pleasant suburban beauties of this modern +Parnassus. A record of many of their names is still +to be found, appropriately enough, in the catalogue +of the little Hampstead library which still exists, which +was founded at a time when the very hands that wrote the +books may have placed the old volumes upon the shelves. +Present readers can study them at their leisure, to the +clanking of the horses' feet in the courtyard outside, and +the splashing of buckets. A few newspapers lie on the +table—stray sheets of to-day that have fluttered up the +hill, bringing news of this bustling now into a past +serenity. The librarian sits stitching quietly in a window. +An old lady comes in to read the news; but she has forgotten +her spectacles, and soon goes away. Here, instead of +asking for 'Vice Versâ,' or Ouida's last novel, you instinctively +mention 'Plays of the Passions,' Miss Burney's +'Evelina,' or some such novels; and Mrs. Barbauld's works +are also in their place. When I asked for them, two +pretty old Quaker volumes were put into my hands, with +shabby grey bindings, with fine paper and broad margins, +such as Mr. Ruskin would approve. Of all the inhabitants +of this bookshelf Mrs. Barbauld is one of the most appropriate. +It is but a few minutes' walk from the library in +Heath Street to the old corner house in Church Row where +she lived for a time, near a hundred years ago, and all +round about are the scenes of much of her life, of her +friendships and interests. Here lived her friends and +neighbours; here to Church Row came her pupils and +admirers, and, later still, to the pretty old house on Rosslyn +Hill. As for Church Row, as most people know, it is an +avenue of Dutch red-faced houses, leading demurely to the +old church tower, that stands guarding its graves in the +flowery churchyard. As we came up the quiet place, the +sweet windy drone of the organ swelled across the blossoms +of the spring, which were lighting up every shabby corner +and hillside garden. Through this pleasant confusion of +past and present, of spring-time scattering blossoms upon +the graves, of old ivy walks and iron bars imprisoning +past memories, with fragrant fumes of lilac and of elder, +one could picture to oneself, as in a waking dream, two +figures advancing from the corner house with the ivy +walls—distinct, sedate—passing under the old doorway. I +could almost see the lady, carefully dressed in many fine +muslin folds and frills with hooped silk skirts, indeed, but +slight and graceful in her quick advance, with blue eyes, +with delicate sharp features, and a dazzling skin. As for +the gentleman, I pictured him a dapper figure, with dark +eyes, dressed in black, as befitted a minister even of dissenting +views. The lady came forward, looking amused +by my scrutiny, somewhat shy I thought—was she going to +speak? And by the same token it seemed to me the +gentleman was about to interrupt her. But Margaret, my +young companion, laughed and opened an umbrella, or a +cock crew, or some door banged, and the fleeting visions +of fancy disappeared.</p> + +<p>Many well-authenticated ghost stories describe the +apparition of bygone persons, and lo! when the figure +vanishes, a letter is left behind! Some such experience +seemed to be mine when, on my return, I found a packet +of letters on the hall table—letters not addressed to me, +but to some unknown Miss Belsham, and signed and sealed +by Mrs. Barbauld's hand. They had been sent for me to +read by the kindness of some ladies now living at Hampstead, +who afterwards showed me the portrait of the lady, +who began the world as Miss Betsy Belsham and who +ended her career as Mrs. Kenrick. It is an oval miniature, +belonging to the times of powder and of puff, representing +not a handsome, but an animated countenance, with +laughter and spirit in the expression; the mouth is large, +the eyes are dark, the nose is short. This was the <i>confidante</i> +of Mrs. Barbauld's early days, the faithful friend of +her latter sorrows. The letters, kept by 'Betsy' with +faithful conscientious care for many years, give the story +of a whole lifetime with unconscious fidelity. The gaiety +of youth, its impatience, its exuberance, and sometimes +bad taste; the wider, quieter feelings of later life; the +courage of sorrowful times; long friendship deepening the +tender and faithful memories of age, when there is so +little left to say, so much to feel—all these things are +there.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>II.</b> + </p> +</div> +<p>Mrs. Barbauld was a schoolmistress, and a schoolmaster's +wife and daughter. Her father was Dr. John Aikin, D.D.; +her mother was Miss Jane Jennings, of a good Northamptonshire +family—scholastic also. Dr. Aikin brought his wife +home to Knibworth, in Leicestershire, where he opened a +school which became very successful in time. Mrs. Barbauld, +their eldest child, was born here in 1743, and was +christened Anna Lætitia, after some lady of high degree +belonging to her mother's family. Two or three years +later came a son. It was a quiet home, deep hidden in +the secluded rural place; and the little household lived its +own tranquil life far away from the storms and battles and +great events that were stirring the world. Dr. Aikin kept +school; Mrs. Aikin ruled her household with capacity, and +not without some sternness, according to the custom of the +time. It appears that late in life the good lady was distressed +by the backwardness of her grandchildren at four +or five years old. 'I once, indeed, knew a little girl,' so +wrote Mrs. Aikin of her daughter, 'who was as eager to +learn as her instructor could be to teach her, and who at +two years old could read sentences and little stories, in her +<i>wise</i> book, roundly and without spelling, and in half a +year or more could read as well as most women; but I +never knew such another, and I believe I never shall.' It +was fortunate that no great harm came of this premature +forcing, although it is difficult to say what its absence +might not have done for Mrs. Barbauld. One can fancy +the little assiduous girl, industrious, impulsive, interested +in everything—in all life and all nature—drinking in, on +every side, learning, eagerly wondering, listening to all +around with bright and ready wit. There is a pretty +little story told by Mrs. Ellis in her book about Mrs. +Barbauld, how one day, when Dr. Aikin and a friend 'were +conversing on the passions,' the Doctor observes that joy +cannot have place in a state of perfect felicity, since it +supposes an accession of happiness.</p> + +<p>'I think you are mistaken, papa,' says a little voice +from the opposite side of the table.</p> + +<p>'Why so, my child?' says the Doctor.</p> + +<p>'Because in the chapter I read to you this morning, +in the Testament, it is said that "there is more joy in +heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety +and nine just persons that need no repentance."'</p> + +<p>Besides her English Testament and her early reading, +the little girl was taught by her mother to do as little +daughters did in those days, to obey a somewhat austere +rule, to drop curtsies in the right place, to make beds, to +preserve fruits. The father, after demur, but surely not +without some paternal pride in her proficiency, taught the +child Latin and French and Italian, and something of +Greek, and gave her an acquaintance with English literature. +One can imagine little Nancy with her fair head +bending over her lessons, or, when playing time had come, +perhaps a little lonely and listening to the distant voices +of the schoolboys at their games. The mother, fearing +she might acquire rough and boisterous manners, strictly +forbade any communication with the schoolboys. Sometimes +in after days, speaking of these early times and of +the constraint of many bygone rules and regulations, Mrs. +Barbauld used to attribute to this early formal training +something of the hesitation and shyness which troubled +her and never entirely wore off. She does not seem to +have been in any great harmony with her mother. One +could imagine a fanciful and high-spirited child, timid +and dutiful, and yet strong-willed, secretly rebelling against +the rigid order of her home, and feeling lonely for want of +liberty and companionship. It was true she had birds +and beasts and plants for her playfellows, but she was of a +gregarious and sociable nature, and she was unconsciously +longing for something more, and perhaps feeling a +want in her early life which no silent company can +supply.</p> + +<p>She was about fifteen when a great event took place. +Her father was appointed classical tutor to the Warrington +Academy, and thither the little family removed. We +read that the Warrington Academy was a Dissenting +college started by very eminent and periwigged personages, +whose silhouettes Mrs. Barbauld herself afterwards +cut out in sticking-plaster, and whose names are to this +day remembered and held in just esteem. They were +people of simple living and high thinking, they belonged +to a class holding then a higher place than now in the +world's esteem, that of Dissenting ministers. The Dissenting +ministers were fairly well paid and faithfully +followed by their congregations. The college was started +under the auspices of distinguished members of the +community, Lord Willoughby of Parham, the last +Presbyterian lord, being patron. Among the masters +were to be found the well-known names of Dr. Doddridge; +of Gilbert Wakefield, the reformer and uncompromising +martyr; of Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, the Hebrew scholar; +of Dr. Priestley, the chemical analyst and patriot, and +enterprising theologian, who left England and settled in +America for conscience and liberty's sake.</p> + +<p>Many other people, neither students nor professors, +used to come to Warrington, and chief among them +in later years good John Howard with MSS. for his friend +Dr. Aikin to correct for the press. Now for the first time +Mrs. Barbauld (Miss Aikin she was then) saw something +of real life, of men and manners. It was not likely that +she looked back with any lingering regret to Knibworth, +or would have willingly returned thither. A story in one of +her memoirs gives an amusing picture of the manners of +a young country lady of that day. Mr. Haines, a rich +farmer from Knibworth, who had been greatly struck by +Miss Aikin, followed her to Warrington, and 'obtained a +private audience of her father and begged his consent to +be allowed to make her his wife.' The father answered +'that his daughter was there walking in the garden, and +he might go and ask her himself.' 'With what grace the +farmer pleaded his cause I know not,' says her biographer +and niece. 'Out of all patience at his unwelcome importunities, +my aunt ran nimbly up a tree which grew by the +garden wall, and let herself down into the lane beyond.'</p> + +<p>The next few years must have been perhaps the +happiest of Mrs. Barbauld's life. Once when it was +nearly over she said to her niece, Mrs. Le Breton, from +whose interesting account I have been quoting, that she +had never been placed in a situation which really suited +her. As one reads her sketches and poems, one is struck +by some sense of this detracting influence of which she +complains: there is a certain incompleteness and slightness +which speaks of intermittent work, of interrupted +trains of thought. At the same time there is a natural +buoyant quality in much of her writing which seems like +a pleasant landscape view seen through the bars of a +window. There may be wider prospects, but her eyes are +bright, and this peep of nature is undoubtedly delightful.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>III.</b> + </p> +</div> + +<p>The letters to Miss Belsham begin somewhere about +1768. The young lady has been paying a visit to Miss +Aikin at Warrington, and is interested in everyone and +everything belonging to the place. Miss Aikin is no less +eager to describe than Miss Belsham to listen, and +accordingly a whole stream of characters and details of +gossip and descriptions in faded ink come flowing across +their pages, together with many expressions of affection +and interest. 'My dear Betsy, I love you for discarding +the word Miss from your vocabulary,' so the packet begins, +and it continues in the same strain of pleasant girlish +chatter, alternating with the history of many bygone +festivities, and stories of friends, neighbours, of beaux and +partners; of the latter genus, and of Miss Aikin's efforts +to make herself agreeable, here is a sample:—'I talked +to him, smiled upon him, gave him my fan to play with,' +says the lively young lady. 'Nothing would do; he was +grave as a philosopher. I tried to raise a conversation: +"'Twas fine weather for dancing." He agreed to my +observation. "We had a tolerable set this time." +Neither did he contradict that. Then we were both +silent—stupid mortal thought I! but unreasonable as he +appeared to the advances that I made him, there was one +object in the room, a sparkling object which seemed to +attract all his attention, on which he seemed to gaze with +transport, and which indeed he hardly took his eyes off +the whole time…. The object that I mean was his +shoebuckle.'</p> + +<p>One could imagine Miss Elizabeth Bennett writing in +some such strain to her friend Miss Charlotte Lucas after +one of the evenings at Bingley's hospitable mansion. +And yet Miss Aikin is more impulsive, more romantic +than Elizabeth. 'Wherever you are, fly letter on the +wings of the wind,' she cries, 'and tell my dear Betsy +what?—only that I love her dearly.'</p> + +<p>Miss Nancy Aikin (she seems to have been Nancy in +these letters, and to have assumed the more dignified +Lætitia upon her marriage) pours out her lively heart, +laughs, jokes, interests herself in the sentimental affairs +of the whole neighbourhood as well as in her own. +Perhaps few young ladies now-a-days would write to their +<i>confidantes</i> with the announcement that for some time +past a young sprig had been teasing them to have him. +This, however, is among Miss Nancy's confidences. She +also writes poems and <i>jeux d'esprit</i>, and receives poetry +in return from Betsy, who calls herself Camilla, and +pays her friend many compliments, for Miss Aikin in her +reply quotes the well-known lines:—</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">Who for another's brow entwines the bays,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And where she well might rival stoops to Praise.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Miss Aikin by this time has attained to all the dignity of +a full-blown authoress, and is publishing a successful book +of poems in conjunction with her brother, which little +book created much attention at the time. One day the +Muse thus apostrophises Betsy: 'Shall we ever see her +amongst us again?' says my sister (Mrs. Aikin). My +brother (saucy fellow) says, 'I want to see this girl, I think +(stroking his chin as he walks backwards and forwards in +the room with great gravity). I think we should admire +one another.'</p> + +<p>'When you come among us,' continues the warm-hearted +friend, 'we shall set the bells a-ringing, bid adieu +to care and gravity, and sing "O be joyful."' And finally, +after some apologies for her remiss correspondence, 'I left +my brother writing to you instead of Patty, poor soul. +Well, it is a clever thing too, to have a husband to write +one's letters for one. If I had one I would be a much +better correspondent to you. I would order him to write +every week.'</p> + +<p>And, indeed, Mrs. Barbauld was as good as her word, +and did not forget the resolutions made by Miss Aikin in +1773. In 1774 comes some eventful news: 'I should +have written to you sooner had it not been for the uncertainty +and suspense in which for a long time I have been +involved; and since my lot has been fixed for many busy +engagements which have left me few moments of leisure. +They hurry me out of my life. It is hardly a month that +I have certainly known I should fix on Norfolk, and now +next Thursday they say I am to be finally, irrevocably +married. Pity me, dear Betsy; for on the day I fancy +when you will read this letter, will the event take place +which is to make so great an era in my life. I feel depressed, +and my courage almost fails me. Yet upon the +whole I have the greatest reason to think I shall be happy. +I shall possess the entire affection of a worthy man, whom +my father and mother now entirely and heartily approve. +The people where we are going, though strangers, have +behaved with the greatest zeal and affection; and I think +we have a fair prospect of being useful and living comfortably +in that state of middling life to which I have been +accustomed, and which I love.'</p> + +<p>And then comes a word which must interest all who +have ever cared and felt grateful admiration for the works +of one devoted human being and true Christian hero. +Speaking of her father's friend, John Howard, she says +with an almost audible sigh: 'It was too late, as you say, +or I believe I should have been in love with Mr. Howard. +Seriously, I looked upon him with that sort of reverence and +love which one should have for a guardian angel. God bless +him and preserve his health for the health's sake of thousands. +And now farewell,' she writes in conclusion: 'I +shall write to you no more under this name; but under any +name, in every situation, at any distance of time or place, +I shall love you equally and be always affectionately yours, +tho' <i>not</i> always, <span class="smallcaps">A. Aikin</span>.'</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Poor lady! The future held, indeed, many a sad and +unsuspected hour for her, many a cruel pang, many a dark +and heavy season, that must have seemed intolerably +weary to one of her sprightly and yet somewhat indolent +nature, more easily accepting evil than devising escape +from it. But it also held many blessings of constancy, +friendship, kindly deeds, and useful doings. She had not +devotion to give such as that of the good Howard whom +she revered, but the equable help and sympathy for +others of an open-minded and kindly woman was hers. +Her marriage would seem to have been brought about +by a romantic fancy rather than by a tender affection. +Mr. Barbauld's mind had been once unhinged; his protestations +were passionate and somewhat dramatic. We +are told that when she was warned by a friend, she only +said, 'But surely, if I throw him over, he will become +crazy again;' and from a high-minded sense of pity, she +was faithful, and married him against the wish of her +brother and parents, and not without some misgivings herself. +He was a man perfectly sincere and honourable; +but, from his nervous want of equilibrium, subject all his +life to frantic outbursts of ill-temper. Nobody ever knew +what his wife had to endure in secret; her calm and +restrained manner must have effectually hidden the constant +anxiety of her life; nor had she children to warm +her heart, and brighten up her monotonous existence. +Little Charles, of the Reading-book, who is bid to come +hither, who counted so nicely, who stroked the pussy cat, +and who deserved to listen to the delightful stories he was +told, was not her own son but her brother's child. When +he was born, she wrote to entreat that he might be given +over to her for her own, imploring her brother to spare him +to her, in a pretty and pathetic letter. This was a mother +yearning for a child, not a schoolmistress asking for a +pupil, though perhaps in after times the two were somewhat +combined in her. There is a pretty little description of +Charles making great progress in 'climbing trees and +talking nonsense:' 'I have the honour to tell you that our +Charles is the sweetest boy in the world. He is perfectly +naturalised in his new situation; and if I should make any +blunders in my letter, I must beg you to impute it to his +standing by me and chattering all the time.' And how +pleasant a record exists of Charles's chatter in that most +charming little book written for him and for the babies of +babies to come! There is a sweet instructive grace in it +and appreciation of childhood which cannot fail to strike +those who have to do with children and with Mrs. Barbauld's +books for them: children themselves, those best critics of +all, delight in it.</p> + +<p>'Where's Charles?' says a little scholar every morning +to the writer of these few notes.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>IV.</b> + </p> +</div> + +<p>Soon after the marriage, there had been some thought +of a college for young ladies, of which Mrs. Barbauld was +to be the principal; but she shrank from the idea, and in a +letter to Mrs. Montagu she objects to the scheme of higher +education for women away from their natural homes. 'I +should have little hope of cultivating a love of knowledge +in a young lady of fifteen who came to me ignorant and +uncultivated. It is too late then to begin to learn. The +empire of the passions is coming on. Those attachments +begin to be formed which influence the happiness of future +life. The care of a mother alone can give suitable attention +to this important period.' It is true that the rigidness +of her own home had not prevented her from making +a hasty and unsuitable marriage. But it is not this which +is weighing on her mind. 'Perhaps you may think,' she +says, 'that having myself stepped out of the bounds of +female reserve in becoming an author, it is with an ill +grace that I offer these statements.'</p> + +<p>Her arguments seem to have been thought conclusive +in those days, and the young ladies' college was finally transmuted +into a school for little boys at Palgrave, in Norfolk, +and thither the worthy couple transported themselves.</p> + +<p>One of the letters to Miss Belsham is thus dated:—<i>'The +14th of July, in the village of Palgrave (the +pleasantest village in all England), at ten o'clock, all +alone in my great parlour, Mr. Barbauld being studying +a sermon, do I begin a letter to my dear Betsy.'</i></p> + +<p>When she first married, and travelled into Norfolk to +keep school at Palgrave, nothing could have seemed more +tranquil, more contented, more matter-of-fact than her life +as it appears from her letters. Dreams, and fancies, and +gay illusions and excitements have made way for the +somewhat disappointing realisation of Mr. Barbauld with +his neatly turned and friendly postscripts—a husband, +polite, devoted, it is true, but somewhat disappointing all +the same. The next few years seem like years in a hive—storing +honey for the future, and putting away—industrious, +punctual, monotonous. There are children's +lessons to be heard, and school-treats to be devised. She +sets them to act plays and cuts out paper collars for +Henry IV.; she always takes a class of babies entirely her +own. (One of these babies, who always loved her, became +Lord Chancellor Denman; most of the others took less +brilliant, but equally respectable places, in after life.) +She has also household matters and correspondence not to +be neglected. In the holidays, they make excursions to +Norwich, to London, and revisit their old haunts at +Warrington. In one of her early letters, soon after her +marriage, she describes her return to Warrington.</p> + +<p>'Dr. Enfield's face,' she declares, 'is grown half a foot +longer since I saw him, with studying mathematics, and +for want of a game of romps; for there are positively +none now at Warrington but grave matrons. I who +have but half assumed the character, was ashamed of the +levity of my behaviour.'</p> + +<p>It says well indeed for the natural brightness of the +lady's disposition that with sixteen boarders and a satisfactory +usher to look after, she should be prepared for +a game of romps with Dr. Enfield.</p> + +<p>On another occasion, in 1777, she takes little Charles +away with her. 'He has indeed been an excellent traveller,' +she says; 'and though, like his great ancestor, some +natural tears he shed, like him, too, he wiped them soon. +He had a long sound sleep last night, and has been very +busy to-day hunting the puss and the chickens. And +now, my dear brother and sister, let me again thank you +for this precious gift, the value of which we are both more +and more sensible of as we become better acquainted with +his sweet disposition and winning manners.'</p> + +<p>She winds up this letter with a postscript:—</p> + +<p>'Everybody here asks, "Pray, is Dr. Dodd really to be +executed?" as if we knew the more for having been at +Warrington.'</p> + +<p>Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld's brother, the father of +little Charles and of Lucy Aikin, whose name is well +known in literature, was himself a man of great parts, +industry, and ability, working hard to support his family. +He alternated between medicine and literature all his life. +When his health failed he gave up medicine, and settled +at Stoke Newington, and busied himself with periodic +literature; meanwhile, whatever his own pursuits may +have been, he never ceased to take an interest in his +sister's work and to encourage her in every way.</p> + +<p>It is noteworthy that few of Mrs. Barbauld's earlier +productions equalled what she wrote at the very end of +her life. She seems to have been one of those who ripen +with age, growing wider in spirit with increasing years. +Perhaps, too, she may have been influenced by the change +of manners, the reaction against formalism, which was +growing up as her own days were ending. Prim she may +have been in manner, but she was not a formalist by nature; +and even at eighty was ready to learn to submit to accept +the new gospel that Wordsworth and his disciples had +given to the world, and to shake off the stiffness of early +training.</p> + +<p>It is idle to speculate on what might have been if +things had happened otherwise; if the daily stress of +anxiety and perplexity which haunted her home had been +removed—difficulties and anxieties which may well have +absorbed all the spare energy and interest that under +happier circumstances might have added to the treasury +of English literature. But if it were only for one ode +written when the distracting cares of over seventy years +were ending, when nothing remained to her but the +essence of a long past, and the inspirations of a still +glowing, still hopeful, and most tender spirit, if it were +only for the ode called 'Life,' which has brought a sense +of ease and comfort to so many, Mrs. Barbauld has indeed +deserved well of her country-people and should be held in +remembrance by them.</p> + +<p>Her literary works are, after all, not very voluminous. +She is best known by her hymns for children and her +early lessons, than which nothing more childlike has ever +been devised; and we can agree with her brother, Dr. +Aikin, when he says that it requires true genius to enter +so completely into a child's mind.</p> + +<p>After their first volume of verse, the brother and sister +had published a second in prose, called 'Miscellaneous +Pieces,' about which there is an amusing little anecdote in +Rogers's 'Memoirs.' Fox met Dr. Aikin at dinner.</p> + +<p>'"I am greatly pleased with your 'Miscellaneous +Pieces,'" said Fox. Aikin bowed. "I particularly admire," +continued Fox, "your essay 'Against Inconsistency in our +Expectations.'"</p> + +<p>'"That," replied Aikin, "is my sister's."</p> + +<p>'"I like much," returned Fox, "your essay 'On Monastic +Institutions.'"</p> + +<p>'"That," answered Aikin, "is also my sister's."</p> + +<p>'Fox thought it best to say no more about the +book.'</p> + +<p>These essays were followed by various of the visions +and Eastern pieces then so much in vogue; also by +political verses and pamphlets, which seemed to have +made a great sensation at the time. But Mrs. Barbauld's +turn was on the whole more for domestic than for literary +life, although literary people always seem to have had a +great interest for her.</p> + +<p>During one Christmas which they spent in London, +the worthy couple go to see Mrs. Siddons; and Mrs. +Chapone introduces Mrs. Barbauld to Miss Burney. 'A +very unaffected, modest, sweet, and pleasing young lady,' +says Mrs. Barbauld, who is always kind in her descriptions. +Mrs. Barbauld's one complaint in London is of the fatigue +from hairdressers, and the bewildering hurry of the great +city, where she had, notwithstanding her quiet country +life, many ties, and friendships, and acquaintances. Her +poem on 'Corsica' had brought her into some relations +with Boswell; she also knew Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. +Here is her description of the 'Great Bear:'—</p> + +<p>'I do not mean that one which shines in the sky over +your head; but the Bear that shines in London—a great +rough, surly animal. His Christian name is Dr. Johnson. +'Tis a singular creature; but if you stroke him he will +not bite, and though he growls sometimes he is not ill-humoured.'</p> + +<p>Johnson describes Mrs. Barbauld as suckling fools and +chronicling small beer. There was not much sympathy +between the two. Characters such as Johnson's harmonise +best with the enthusiastic and easily influenced. Mrs. +Barbauld did not belong to this class; she trusted to her +own judgment, rarely tried to influence others, and took a +matter-of-fact rather than a passionate view of life. She +is as severe to him in her criticism as he was in his judgment +of her: they neither of them did the other justice. +'A Christian and a man-about-town, a philosopher, and a +bigot acknowledging life to be miserable, and making it +more miserable through fear of death.' So she writes of +him, and all this was true; but how much more was also +true of the great and hypochondriacal old man! Some +years afterwards, when she had been reading Boswell's +long-expected 'Life of Johnson,' she wrote of the book:—'It +is like going to Ranelagh; you meet all your acquaintances; +but it is a base and mean thing to bring thus +every idle word into judgment.' In our own day we too +have our Boswell and our Johnson to arouse discussion and +indignation.</p> + +<p>'Have you seen Boswell's "Life of Johnson?" He calls +it a Flemish portrait, and so it is—two quartos of a man's +conversation and petty habits. Then the treachery and +meanness of watching a man for years in order to set +down every unguarded and idle word he uttered, is inconceivable. +Yet with all this one cannot help reading a +good deal of it.' This is addressed to the faithful Betsy, +who was also keeping school by that time, and assuming +brevet rank in consequence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barbauld might well complain of the fatigue from +hairdressers in London. In one of her letters to her +friend she thus describes a lady's dress of the period:—</p> + +<p>'Do you know how to dress yourself in Dublin? If +you do not, I will tell you. Your waist must be the circumference +of two oranges, no more. You must erect a +structure on your head gradually ascending to a foot high, +exclusive of feathers, and stretching to a penthouse of most +horrible projection behind, the breadth from wing to +wing considerably broader than your shoulder, and as many +different things in your cap as in Noah's ark. Verily, I +never did see such monsters as the heads now in vogue. +I am a monster, too, but a moderate one.'</p> + +<p>She must have been glad to get back to her home, to +her daily work, to Charles, climbing his trees and talking +his nonsense.</p> + +<p>In the winter of 1784 her mother died at Palgrave. +It was Christmas week; the old lady had come travelling +four days through the snow in a postchaise with her +maid and her little grandchildren, while her son rode on +horseback. But the cold and the fatigue of the journey, +and the discomfort of the inns, proved too much for Mrs. +Aikin, who reached her daughter's house only to die. Just +that time three years before Mrs. Barbauld had lost her +father, whom she dearly loved. There is a striking letter +from the widowed mother to her daughter recording the +event. It is almost Spartan in its calmness, but nevertheless +deeply touching. Now she, too, was at rest, and after +Mrs. Aikin's death a cloud of sadness and depression seems +to have fallen upon the household. Mr. Barbauld was +ailing; he was suffering from a nervous irritability +which occasionally quite unfitted him for his work as a +schoolmaster. Already his wife must have had many +things to bear, and very much to try her courage and +cheerfulness; and now her health was also failing. It was +in 1775 that they gave up the academy, which, on the +whole, had greatly flourished. It had been established +eleven years; they were both of them in need of rest and +change. Nevertheless, it was not without reluctance that +they brought themselves to leave their home at Palgrave. +A successor was found only too quickly for Mrs. Barbauld's +wishes; they handed over their pupils to his care, and +went abroad for a year's sunshine and distraction.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>V.</b> + </p> +</div> + +<p>What a contrast to prim, starched scholastic life at +Palgrave must have been the smiling world, and the land +flowing with oil and wine, in which they found themselves +basking! The vintage was so abundant that year that the +country people could not find vessels to contain it. 'The +roads covered with teams of casks, empty or full according +as they were going out or returning, and drawn by oxen +whose strong necks seemed to be bowed unwillingly under +the yoke. Men, women, and children were abroad; some +cutting with a short sickle the bunches of grapes, some +breaking them with a wooden instrument, some carrying +them on their backs from the gatherers to those who +pressed the juice; and, as in our harvest, the gleaners +followed.'</p> + +<p>From the vintage they travel to the Alps, 'a sight so +majestic, so totally different from anything I had seen +before, that I am ready to sing <i>nunc dimittis</i>,' she writes. +They travel back by the south of France and reach Paris +in June, where the case of the Diamond Necklace is being +tried. Then they return to England, waiting a day at +Boulogne for a vessel, but crossing from thence in less than +four hours. How pretty is her description of England as +it strikes them after their absence! 'And not without +pleasing emotion did we view again the green swelling +hills covered with large sheep, and the winding road +bordered with the hawthorn hedge, and the English vine +twirled round the tall poles, and the broad Medway covered +with vessels, and at last the gentle yet majestic Thames.'</p> + +<p>There were Dissenters at Hampstead in those days, as +there are still, and it was a call from a little Unitarian +congregation on the hillside who invited <ins title="original has Mrs.">Mr.</ins> Barbauld to +become their minister, which decided the worthy couple to +retire to this pleasant suburb. The place seemed promising +enough; they were within reach of Mrs. Barbauld's brother, +Dr. Aikin, now settled in London, and to whom she was +tenderly attached. There were congenial people settled +all about. On the high hill-top were pleasant old houses +to live in. There was occupation for him and literary +interest for her.</p> + +<p>They are a sociable and friendly pair, hospitable, glad +to welcome their friends, and the acquaintance, and critics, +and the former pupils who come toiling up the hill to visit +them. Rogers comes to dinner 'at half after three.' They +have another poet for a neighbour, Miss Joanna Baillie; +they are made welcome by all, and in their turn make +others welcome; they do acts of social charity and kindness +wherever they see the occasion. They have a young +Spanish gentleman to board who conceals a taste for +'seguars.' They also go up to town from time to time. +On one occasion Mr. Barbauld repairs to London to choose +a wedding present for Miss Belsham, who is about to be +married to Mr. Kenrick, a widower with daughters. He +chose two slim Wedgwood pots of some late classic +model, which still stand, after many dangers, safely on +either side of Mrs. Kenrick's portrait in Miss Reid's drawing-room +at Hampstead. Wedgwood must have been a +personal friend: he has modelled a lovely head of Mrs. +Barbauld, simple and nymph-like.</p> + +<p>Hampstead was no further from London in those days +than it is now, and they seem to have kept up a constant +communication with their friends and relations in the +great city. They go to the play occasionally. 'I have +not indeed seen Mrs. Siddons often, but I think I never saw +her to more advantage,' she writes. 'It is not, however, +seeing a play, it is only seeing one character, for they have +nobody to act with her.'</p> + +<p>Another expedition is to Westminster Hall, where +Warren Hastings was then being tried for his life.</p> + +<p>'The trial has attracted the notice of most people who +are within reach of it. I have been, and was very much +struck with all the apparatus and pomp of justice, with +the splendour of the assembly which contained everything +distinguished in the nation, with the grand idea that the +equity of the English was to pursue crimes committed at +the other side of the globe, and oppressions exercised +towards the poor Indians who had come to plead their +cause; but all these fine ideas vanish and fade away as one +observes the progress of the cause, and sees it fall into the +summer amusements, and take the place of a rehearsal of +music or an evening at Vauxhall.'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barbauld was a Liberal in feeling and conviction; +she was never afraid to speak her mind, and when the +French Revolution first began, she, in common with many +others, hoped that it was but the dawning of happier +times. She was always keen about public events; she +wrote an address on the opposition to the repeal of the +Test Act in 1791, and she published her poem to Wilberforce +on the rejection of his great bill for abolishing +slavery:—</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">Friends of the friendless, hail, ye generous band!</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">she cries, in warm enthusiasm for the devoted cause.</p> + +<p>Horace Walpole nicknamed her Deborah, called her +the Virago Barbauld, and speaks of her with utter rudeness +and intolerant spite. But whether or not Horace +Walpole approved, it is certain that Mrs. Barbauld possessed +to a full and generous degree a quality which is now less +common than it was in her day.</p> + +<p>Not very many years ago I was struck on one occasion +when a noble old lady, now gone to her rest, exclaimed in +my hearing that people of this generation had all sorts of +merits and charitable intentions, but that there was one +thing she missed which had certainly existed in her youth, +and which no longer seemed to be of the same account: +that public spirit which used to animate the young as well +as the old.</p> + +<p>It is possible that philanthropy, and the love of the +beautiful, and the gratuitous diffusion of wall-papers may +be the modern rendering of the good old-fashioned sentiment. +Mrs. Barbauld lived in very stirring days, when +private people shared in the excitements and catastrophes +of public affairs. To her the fortunes of England, its +loyalty, its success, were a part of her daily bread. By +her early associations she belonged to a party representing +opposition, and for that very reason she was the more +keenly struck by the differences of the conduct of affairs +and the opinions of those she trusted. Her friend Dr. +Priestley had emigrated to America for his convictions' +sake; Howard was giving his noble life for his work; +Wakefield had gone to prison. Now the very questions +are forgotten for which they struggled and suffered, or the +answers have come while the questions are forgotten, +in this their future which is our present, and to which +some unborn historian may point back with a moral +finger.</p> + +<p>Dr. Aikin, whose estimate of his sister was very different +from Horace Walpole's, occasionally reproached her for not +writing more constantly. He wrote a copy of verses on +this theme:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Thus speaks the Muse, and bends her brows severe:</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Did I, Lætitia, lend my choicest lays,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And crown thy youthful head with freshest bays,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">That all the expectance of thy full-grown year,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Should lie inert and fruitless? O revere</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Those sacred gifts whose meed is deathless praise,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Whose potent charm the enraptured soul can raise</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Far from the vapours of this earthly sphere,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Seize, seize the lyre, resume the lofty strain.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>She seems to have willingly left the lyre for Dr. Aikin's +use. A few hymns, some graceful odes, and stanzas, and +<i>jeux d'esprit</i>, a certain number of well-written and original +essays, and several political pamphlets, represent the best +of her work. Her more ambitious poems are those by +which she is the least remembered. It was at Hampstead +that Mrs. Barbauld wrote her contributions to her brother's +volume of 'Evenings at Home,' among which the transmigrations +of Indur may be quoted as a model of style +and delightful matter. One of the best of her <i>jeux d'esprit</i> +is the 'Groans of the Tankard,' which was written in early +days, with much spirit and real humour. It begins with +a classic incantation, and then goes on:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">'Twas at the solemn silent noontide hour</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">When hunger rages with despotic power,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">When the lean student quits his Hebrew roots</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">For the gross nourishment of English fruits,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And throws unfinished airy systems by</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">For solid pudding and substantial pie.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">The tankard now,</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="right">Replenished to the brink,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">With the cool beverage blue-eyed maidens drink,</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">but, accustomed to very different libations, is endowed with +voice and utters its bitter reproaches:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Unblest the day, and luckless was the hour</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Which doomed me to a Presbyterian's power,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Fated to serve a Puritanic race,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Whose slender meal is shorter than their grace.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VI.</b> + </p> +</div> + +<p>Thumbkin, of fairy celebrity, used to mark his way by +flinging crumbs of bread and scattering stones as he went +along; and in like manner authors trace the course of their +life's peregrinations by the pamphlets and articles they cast +down as they go. Sometimes they throw stones, sometimes +they throw bread. In '92 and '93 Mrs. Barbauld must +have been occupied with party polemics and with the political +miseries of the time. A pamphlet on Gilbert Wakefield's +views, and another on 'Sins of the Government and +Sins of the People,' show in what direction her thoughts +were bent. Then came a period of comparative calm again +and of literary work and interest. She seems to have +turned to Akenside and Collins, and each had an essay to +himself. These were followed by certain selections from +the <i>Spectator</i>, <i>Tatler</i>, &c., preceded by one of those +admirable essays for which she is really remarkable. She +also published a memoir of Richardson prefixed to his +correspondence. Sir James Mackintosh, writing at a later +and sadder time of her life, says of her observations on the +moral of Clarissa that they are as fine a piece of mitigated +and rational stoicism as our language can boast of.</p> + +<p>In 1802 another congregation seems to have made signs +from Stoke Newington, and Mrs. Barbauld persuaded her +husband to leave his flock at Hampstead and to buy a house +near her brother's at Stoke Newington. This was her last +migration, and here she remained until her death in 1825. +One of her letters to Mrs. Kenrick gives a description of +what might have been a happy home:—'We have a pretty +little back parlour that looks into our little spot of a garden,' +she says, 'and catches every gleam of sunshine. We have +pulled down the ivy, except what covers the coach-house +We have planted a vine and a passion-flower, with abundance +of jessamine against the window, and we have scattered +roses and honeysuckle all over the garden. You may +smile at me for parading so over my house and domains.' +In May she writes a pleasant letter, in good spirits, comparing +her correspondence with her friend to the flower of +an aloe, which sleeps for a hundred years, and on a sudden +pushes out when least expected. 'But take notice, the life +is in the aloe all the while, and sorry should I be if the life +were not in our friendship all the while, though it so rarely +diffuses itself over a sheet of paper.'</p> + +<p>She seems to have been no less sociable and friendly at +Stoke Newington than at Hampstead. People used to come +up to see her from London. Her letters, quiet and intimate +as they are, give glimpses of most of the literary people of +the day, not in memoirs then, but alive and drinking tea +at one another's houses, or walking all the way to Stoke +Newington to pay their respects to the old lady.</p> + +<p>Charles Lamb used to talk of his two <i>bald</i> authoresses, +Mrs. Barbauld being one and Mrs. Inchbald being the other. +Crabb Robinson and Rogers were two faithful links with the +outer world. 'Crabb Robinson corresponds with Madame +de Staël, is quite intimate,' she writes, 'has received I +don't know how many letters,' she adds, not without some +slight amusement. Miss Lucy Aikin tells a pretty story +of Scott meeting Mrs. Barbauld at dinner, and telling her +that it was to her that he owed his poetic gift. Some +translations of Bürger by Mr. Taylor, of Norwich, which +she had read out at Edinburgh, had struck him so much +that they had determined him to try his own powers in +that line.</p> + +<p>She often had inmates under her roof. One of them +was a beautiful and charming young girl, the daughter of +Mrs. Fletcher, of Edinburgh, whose early death is recorded +in her mother's life. Besides company at home, Mrs. Barbauld +went to visit her friends from time to time—the +Estlins at Bristol, the Edgeworths, whose acquaintance Mr. +and Mrs. Barbauld made about this time, and who seem to +have been invaluable friends, bringing as they did a bright +new element of interest and cheerful friendship into her +sad and <ins title="original has dimning">dimming</ins> life. A man must have extraordinarily +good spirits to embark upon four matrimonial ventures as +Mr. Edgeworth did; and as for Miss Edgeworth, appreciative, +effusive, and warm-hearted, she seems to have +more than returned Mrs. Barbauld's sympathy.</p> + +<p>Miss Lucy Aikin, Dr. Aikin's daughter, was now also +making her own mark in the literary world, and had +inherited the bright intelligence and interest for which +her family was so remarkable. Much of Miss Aikin's +work is more sustained than her aunt's desultory productions, +but it lacks that touch of nature which has +preserved Mrs. Barbauld's memory where more important +people are forgotten.</p> + +<p>Our authoress seems to have had a natural affection +for sister authoresses. Hannah More and Mrs. Montague +were both her friends, so were Madame d'Arblay and Mrs. +Chapone in a different degree; she must have known Mrs. +Opie; she loved Joanna Baillie. The latter is described +by her as the young lady at Hampstead who came to Mr. +Barbauld's meeting with as demure a face as if she had +never written a line. And Miss Aikin, in her memoirs, +describes in Johnsonian language how the two Miss Baillies +came to call one morning upon Mrs. Barbauld:—'My +aunt immediately introduced the topic of the anonymous +tragedies, and gave utterance to her admiration with the +generous delight in the manifestation of kindred genius +which distinguished her.' But it seems that Miss Baillie +sat, nothing moved, and did not betray herself. Mrs. +Barbauld herself gives a pretty description of the sisters +in their home, in that old house on Windmill Hill, which +stands untouched, with its green windows looking out upon +so much of sky and heath and sun, with the wainscoted +parlours where Walter Scott used to come, and the low +wooden staircase leading to the old rooms above. It is in +one of her letters to Mrs. Kenrick that Mrs. Barbauld gives +a pleasant glimpse of the poetess Walter Scott admired. +'I have not been abroad since I was at Norwich, except a +day or two at Hampstead with the Miss Baillies. One +should be, as I was, beneath their roof to know all their +merit. Their house is one of the best ordered I know. +They have all manner of attentions for their friends, and +not only Miss B., but Joanna, is as clever in furnishing a +room or in arranging a party as in writing plays, of which, +by the way, she has a volume ready for the press, but she +will not give it to the public till next winter. The subject +is to be the passion of fear. I do not know what sort of +a hero that passion can afford!' Fear was, indeed, a passion +alien to her nature, and she did not know the meaning of +the word.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barbauld's description of Hannah More and her +sisters living on their special hill-top was written after +Mr. Barbauld's death, and thirty years after Miss More's +verses which are quoted by Mrs. Ellis in her excellent +memoir of Mrs. Barbauld:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Nor, Barbauld, shall my glowing heart refuse</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">A tribute to thy virtues or thy muse;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">This humble merit shall at least be mine,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">The poet's chaplet for thy brows to twine;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">My verse thy talents to the world shall teach,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And praise the graces it despairs to reach.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Then, after philosophically questioning the power of genius +to confer true happiness, she concludes:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Can all the boasted powers of wit and song</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Of life one pang remove, one hour prolong?</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Fallacious hope which daily truths deride—</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">For you, alas! have wept and Garrick died.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Meanwhile, whatever genius might not be able to +achieve, the five Miss Mores had been living on peacefully +together in the very comfortable cottage which had been +raised and thatched by the poetess's earnings.</p> + +<p>'Barley Wood is equally the seat of taste and hospitality,' +says Mrs. Barbauld to a friend.</p> + +<p>'Nothing could be more friendly than their reception,' +she writes to her brother, 'and nothing more charming +than their situation. An extensive view over the Mendip +Hills is in front of their house, with a pretty view of +Wrington. Their home—cottage, because it is thatched—stands +on the declivity of a rising ground, which they +have planted and made quite a little paradise. The five +sisters, all good old maids, have lived together these fifty +years. Hannah More is a good deal broken, but possesses +fully her powers of conversation, and her vivacity. We +exchanged riddles like the wise men of old; I was given +to understand she was writing something.'</p> + +<p>There is another allusion to Mrs. Hannah More in a +sensible letter from Mrs. Barbauld, written to Miss +Edgeworth about this time, declining to join in an alarming +enterprise suggested by the vivacious Mr. Edgeworth, +'a <i>Feminiad</i>, a literary paper to be entirely contributed +to by ladies, and where all articles are to be accepted.' +'There is no bond of union,' Mrs. Barbauld says, 'among +literary women any more than among literary men; +different sentiments and connections separate them much +more than the joint interest of their sex would unite +them. Mrs. Hannah More would not write along with +you or me, and we should possibly hesitate at joining +Miss Hays or—if she were living—Mrs. Godwin.' Then +she suggests the names of Miss Baillie, Mrs. Opie, her +own niece Miss Lucy Aikin, and Mr. S. Rogers, who would +not, she thinks, be averse to joining the scheme.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>How strangely unnatural it seems when Fate's heavy +hand falls upon quiet and common-place lives, changing +the tranquil routine of every day into the solemnities and +excitements of terror and tragedy! It was after their +removal to Stoke Newington that the saddest of all blows +fell upon this true-hearted woman. Her husband's hypochondria +deepened and changed, and the attacks became +so serious that her brother and his family urged her +anxiously to leave him to other care than her own. It +was no longer safe for poor Mr. Barbauld to remain alone +with his wife, and her life, says Mrs. Le Breton, was more +than once in peril. But, at first, she would not hear of +leaving him; although on more than one occasion she had +to fly for protection to her brother close by.</p> + +<p>There is something very touching in the patient +fidelity with which Mrs. Barbauld tried to soothe the later +sad disastrous years of her husband's life. She must have +been a woman of singular nerve and courage to endure as +she did the excitement and cruel aberrations of her once +gentle and devoted companion. She only gave in after +long resistance.</p> + +<p>'An alienation from me has taken possession of his +mind,' she says, in a letter to Mrs. Kenrick; 'my presence +seems to irritate him, and I must resign myself to a separation +from him who has been for thirty years the partner +of my heart, my faithful friend, my inseparable companion.' +With her habitual reticence, she dwells no +more on that painful topic, but goes on to make plans for +them both, asks her old friend to come and cheer her in +her loneliness; and the faithful Betsy, now a widow with +grown-up step-children, ill herself, troubled by deafness +and other infirmities, responds with a warm heart, and +promises to come, bringing the comfort with her of old +companionship and familiar sympathy. There is something +very affecting in the loyalty of the two aged women +stretching out their hands to each other across a whole +lifetime. After her visit Mrs. Barbauld writes again:—</p> + +<p>'He is now at Norwich, and I hear very favourable +accounts of his health and spirits; he seems to enjoy himself +very much amongst his old friends there, and converses +among them with his usual animation. There are no +symptoms of violence or of depression; so far is favourable; +but this cruel alienation from me, in which my +brother is included, still remains deep-rooted, and whether +he will ever change in this point Heaven only knows. +The medical men fear he will not: if so, my dear friend, +what remains for me but to resign myself to the will of +Heaven, and to think with pleasure that every day brings +me nearer a period which naturally cannot be very far off, +and at which this as well as every temporal affliction must +terminate?</p> + +<p>'"Anything but this!" is the cry of weak mortals +when afflicted; and sometimes I own I am inclined to +make it mine; but I will check myself.'</p> + +<p>But while she was hoping still, a fresh outbreak of the +malady occurred. He, poor soul, weary of his existence, +put an end to his sufferings: he was found lifeless in the +New River. Lucy Aikin quotes a Dirge found among her +aunt's papers after her death:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Pure Spirit, O where art thou now?</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> O whisper to my soul,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">O let some soothening thought of thee</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> This bitter grief control.</td></tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">'Tis not for thee the tears I shed,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Thy sufferings now are o'er.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">The sea is calm, the tempest past,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> On that eternal shore.</td></tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">No more the storms that wrecked thy peace</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Shall tear that gentle breast,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Nor summer's rage, nor winter's cold</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> That poor, poor frame molest.</td></tr> + <tr><td>*<span class="ind3">*</span><span class="ind3">*</span><span class="ind3">*</span></td></tr> + + <tr><td align="left">Farewell! With honour, peace, and love,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Be that dear memory blest,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Thou hast no tears for me to shed,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> When I too am at rest.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>But her time of rest was not yet come, and she lived for +seventeen years after her husband. She was very brave, +she did not turn from the sympathy of her friends, she +endured her loneliness with courage, she worked to distract +her mind. Here is a touching letter addressed to +Mrs. Taylor, of Norwich, in which she says:—'A thousand +thanks for your kind letter, still more for the very short +visit that preceded it. Though short—too short—it +has left indelible impressions on my mind. My +heart has truly had communion with yours; your +sympathy has been balm to it; and I feel that there is +<i>now</i> no one on earth to whom I could pour out that heart +more readily…. I am now sitting alone again, and feel +like a person who has been sitting by a cheerful fire, not +sensible at the time of the temperature of the air; but +the fire removed, he finds the season is still winter. Day +after day passes, and I do not know what to do with my +time; my mind has no energy nor power of application.'</p> + +<p>How much she felt her loneliness appears again and +again from one passage and another. Then she struggled +against discouragement; she took to her pen again. To +Mrs. Kenrick she writes:—'I intend to pay my letter +debts; not much troubling my head whether I have anything +to say or not; yet to you my heart has always +something to say: it always recognises you as among the +dearest of its friends; and while it feels that new impressions +are made with difficulty and early effaced, retains, +and ever will retain, I trust beyond this world, those of our +early and long-tried affection.'</p> + +<p>She set to work again, trying to forget her heavy +trials. It was during the first years of her widowhood +that she published her edition of the British novelists in +some fifty volumes. There is an opening chapter to this +edition upon novels and novel-writing, which is an admirable +and most interesting essay upon fiction, beginning +from the very earliest times.</p> + +<p>In 1811 she wrote her poem on the King's illness, and +also the longer poem which provoked such indignant comments +at the time. It describes Britain's rise and luxury, +warns her of the dangers of her unbounded ambition and +unjustifiable wars:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Arts, arms, and wealth destroy the fruits they bring;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Her ingenuous youth from Ontario's shore who visits the +ruins of London is one of the many claimants to the +honour of having suggested Lord Macaulay's celebrated +New Zealander:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Pensive and thoughtful shall the wanderers greet</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Each splendid square and still untrodden street,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">By scattered hamlets trace its ancient bound,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Through reeds and sedge pursue his idle way.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>It is impossible not to admire the poem, though it is +stilted and not to the present taste. The description +of Britain as it now is and as it once was is very +ingenious:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Where once Bonduca whirled the scythèd car,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And the fierce matrons raised the shriek of war,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Light forms beneath transparent muslin float,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And tutor'd voices swell the artful note;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Light-leaved acacias, and the shady plane,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And spreading cedars grace the woodland reign.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>The poem is forgotten now, though it was scouted +at the time and violently attacked, Southey himself falling +upon the poor old lady, and devouring her, spectacles and +all. She felt these attacks very much, and could not be +consoled, though Miss Edgeworth wrote a warm-hearted +letter of indignant sympathy. But Mrs. Barbauld had +something in her too genuine to be crushed, even by sarcastic +criticism. She published no more, but it was after +her poem of '1811' that she wrote the beautiful ode by +which she is best known and best remembered,—the ode +that Wordsworth used to repeat and say he envied, that +Tennyson has called 'sweet verses,' of which the lines ring +their tender hopeful chime like sweet church bells on a +summer evening.</p> + +<p>Madame d'Arblay, in her old age, told Crabb Robinson +that every night she said the verses over to herself as she +went to her rest. To the writer they are almost sacred. +The hand that patiently pointed out to her, one by one, +the syllables of Mrs. Barbauld's hymns for children, that +tended our childhood, as it had tended our father's, +marked these verses one night, when it blessed us for the +last time.</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Life, we've been long together,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh or tear,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Then steal away, give little warning,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Choose thine own time.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Bid me 'Good morning.'</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Mrs. Barbauld was over seventy when she wrote this +ode. A poem, called 'Octogenary Reflections,' is also very +touching:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Say ye, who through this round of eighty years</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Have proved its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Say what is life, ye veterans who have trod,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Step following steps, its flowery thorny road?</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Enough of good to kindle strong desire;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Enough of ill to damp the rising fire;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Enough of love and fancy, joy and hope,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">To fan desire and give the passions scope;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">To seal the wise man's sentence—'All is vain.'</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>There is another fragment of hers in which she likens +herself to a schoolboy left of all the train, who hears no +sound of wheels to bear him to his father's bosom home. +'Thus I look to the hour when I shall follow those that +are at rest before me.' And then at last the time came +for which she longed. Her brother died, her faithful Mrs. +Kenrick died, and Mrs. Taylor, whom she loved most of +all. She had consented to give up her solitary home to +spend the remaining years of her life in the home of her +adopted son Charles, now married, and a father; but it was +while she was on a little visit to her sister-in-law, Mrs. +Aikin, that the summons came, very swiftly and peacefully, +as she sat in her chair one day. Her nephew transcribed +these, the last lines she ever wrote:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="noindent"><span class="ind2">'Who are you?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Do you not know me? have you not expected me?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Whither do you carry me?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Come with me and you shall know.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'The way is dark.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'It is well trodden.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Yes, in the forward track.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Come along.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Oh! shall I there see my beloved ones? Will they welcome +me, and will they know me? Oh, tell me, tell me; thou +canst tell me.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Yes, but thou must come first.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Stop a little; keep thy hand off till thou hast told me.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'I never wait.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Oh! shall I see the warm sun again in my cold grave?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Nothing is there that can feel the sun.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Oh, where then?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Come, I say.'</span> +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>One may acknowledge the great progress which people +have made since Mrs. Barbauld's day in the practice of +writing prose and poetry, in the art of expressing upon +paper the thoughts which are in most people's minds. It +is (to use a friend's simile) like playing upon the piano—everybody +now learns to play upon the piano, and it is +certain that the modest performances of the ladies of Mrs. +Barbauld's time would scarcely meet with the attention +now, which they then received. But all the same, the +stock of true feeling, of real poetry, is not increased by +the increased volubility of our pens; and so when something +comes to us that is real, that is complete in pathos +or in wisdom, we still acknowledge the gift, and are +grateful for it.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="MISS_EDGEWORTH" id="MISS_EDGEWORTH"></a><i>MISS EDGEWORTH.</i></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent">1767-1849.<br /> +</p> +</div> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="quote"> +<tr><td align="left"><small>'Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading.'—<i>Hen. VIII.</i></small></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smallcaps">Early Days.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I.</b></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Few authoresses in these days can have enjoyed the +ovations and attentions which seem to have been considered +the due of many of the ladies distinguished at the +end of the last century and the beginning of this one. +To read the accounts of the receptions and compliments +which fell to their lot may well fill later and lesser luminaries +with envy. Crowds opened to admit them, banquets +spread themselves out before them, lights were lighted up +and flowers were scattered at their feet. Dukes, editors, +prime ministers, waited their convenience on their staircases; +whole theatres rose up <i>en masse</i> to greet the gifted +creatures of this and that immortal tragedy. The authoresses +themselves, to do them justice, seem to have been +very little dazzled by all this excitement. Hannah More +contentedly retires with her maiden sisters to the Parnassus +on the Mendip Hills, where they sew and chat and make +tea, and teach the village children. Dear Joanna Baillie, +modest and beloved, lives on to peaceful age in her pretty +old house at Hampstead, looking through tree-tops and +sunshine and clouds towards distant London. 'Out there +where all the storms are,' I heard the children saying +yesterday as they watched the overhanging gloom of smoke +which, veils the city of metropolitan thunders and lightning. +Maria Edgeworth's apparitions as a literary lioness +in the rush of London and of Paris society were but interludes +in her existence, and her real life was one of constant +exertion and industry spent far away in an Irish +home among her own kindred and occupations and interests. +We may realise what these were when we read that Mr. +Edgeworth had no less than four wives, who all left +children, and that Maria was the eldest daughter of the +whole family. Besides this, we must also remember that +the father whom she idolised was himself a man of extraordinary +powers, brilliant in conversation (so I have been +told), full of animation, of interest, of plans for his country, +his family, for education and literature, for mechanics and +scientific discoveries; that he was a gentleman widely connected, +hospitably inclined, with a large estate and many +tenants to overlook, with correspondence and acquaintances +all over the world; and besides all this, with various +schemes in his brain, to be eventually realised by others of +which velocipedes, tramways, and telegraphs were but a +few of the items.</p> + +<p>One could imagine that under these circumstances the +hurry and excitement of London life must have sometimes +seemed tranquillity itself compared with the many and +absorbing interests of such a family. What these interests +were may be gathered from the pages of a very interesting +memoir from which the writer of this essay has been +allowed to quote. It is a book privately printed and +written for the use of her children by the widow of +Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and is a record, among other +things, of a faithful and most touching friendship between +Maria and her father's wife—'a friendship lasting for over +fifty years, and unbroken by a single cloud of difference +or mistrust.' Mrs. Edgeworth, who was Miss Beaufort +before her marriage, and about the same age as Miss +Edgeworth, unconsciously reveals her own most charming +and unselfish nature as she tells her stepdaughter's story.</p> + +<p>When the writer looks back upon her own childhood, +it seems to her that she lived in company with a delightful +host of little playmates, bright, busy, clever children, +whose cheerful presence remains more vividly in her mind +than that of many of the real little boys and girls who +used to appear and disappear disconnectedly as children +do in childhood, when friendship and companionship +depend almost entirely upon the convenience of grown-up +people. Now and again came little cousins or friends to +share our games, but day by day, constant and unchanging, +ever to be relied upon, smiled our most lovable and +friendly companions—simple Susan, lame Jervas, Talbot, +the dear Little Merchants, Jem the widow's son with his +arms round old Lightfoot's neck, the generous Ben, with +his whipcord and his useful proverb of 'waste not, want +not'—all of these were there in the window corner waiting +our pleasure. After Parents' Assistant, to which +familiar words we attached no meaning whatever, came +Popular Tales in big brown volumes off a shelf in the +lumber-room of an apartment in an old house in Paris, +and as we opened the books, lo! creation widened to our +view. England, Ireland, America, Turkey, the mines of +Golconda, the streets of Bagdad, thieves, travellers, +governesses, natural philosophy, and fashionable life, were +all laid under contribution, and brought interest and +adventure to our humdrum nursery corner. All Mr. +Edgeworth's varied teaching and experience, all his +daughter's genius of observation, came to interest and +delight our play-time, and that of a thousand other little +children in different parts of the world. People justly +praise Miss Edgeworth's admirable stories and novels, but +from prejudice and early association these beloved childish +histories seem unequalled still, and it is chiefly as a writer +for children that we venture to consider her here. Some +of the stories are indeed little idylls in their way. Walter +Scott, who best knew how to write for the young so as to +charm grandfathers as well as Hugh Littlejohn, Esq., and +all the grandchildren, is said to have wiped his kind eyes +as he put down 'Simple Susan.' A child's book, says a +reviewer of those days defining in the 'Quarterly Review,' +should be 'not merely less dry, less difficult, than a book +for grown-up people; but more rich in interest, more true +to nature, more exquisite in art, more abundant in every +quality that replies to childhood's keener and fresher perception.' +Children like facts, they like short vivid +sentences that tell the story: as they listen intently, so +they read; every word has its value for them. It has +been a real surprise to the writer to find, on re-reading +some of these descriptions of scenery and adventure +which she had not looked at since her childhood, that the +details which she had imagined spread over much space +are contained in a few sentences at the beginning of a +page. These sentences, however, show the true art of the +writer.</p> + +<p>It would be difficult to imagine anything better suited +to the mind of a very young person than these pleasant +stories, so complete in themselves, so interesting, so varied. +The description of Jervas's escape from the mine where +the miners had plotted his destruction, almost rises to +poetry in its simple diction. Lame Jervas has warned his +master of the miners' plot, and showed him the vein of +ore which they have concealed. The miners have sworn +vengeance against him, and his life is in danger. His +master helps him to get away, and comes into the room +before daybreak, bidding him rise and put on the clothes +which he has brought. 'I followed him out of the house +before anybody else was awake, and he took me across the +fields towards the high road. At this place we waited till +we heard the tinkling of the bells of a team of horses. +"Here comes the waggon," said he, "in which you are to +go. So fare you well, Jervas. I shall hear how you go +on; and I only hope you will serve your next master, +whoever he may be, as faithfully as you have served me." +"I shall never find so good a master," was all I could say +for the soul of me; I was quite overcome by his goodness +and sorrow at parting with him, as I then thought, for +ever.' The description of the journey is very pretty. +'The morning clouds began to clear away; I could see +my master at some distance, and I kept looking after him +as the waggon went on slowly, and he walked fast away +over the fields.' Then the sun begins to rise. The +waggoner goes on whistling, but lame Jervas, to whom +the rising sun was a spectacle wholly surprising, starts up, +exclaiming in wonder and admiration. The waggoner +bursts into a loud laugh. 'Lud a marcy,' says he, 'to +hear un' and look at un' a body would think the oaf had +never seen the sun rise afore;' upon which Jervas +remembers that he is still in Cornwall, and must not +betray himself, and prudently hides behind some parcels, +only just in time, for they meet a party of miners, and he +hears his enemies' voice hailing the waggoner. All the +rest of the day he sits within, and amuses himself by +listening to the bells of the team, which jingle continually. +'On our second day's journey, however, I ventured out of +my hiding-place. I walked with the waggoner up and +down the hills, enjoying the fresh air, the singing of the +birds, and the delightful smell of the honeysuckles and +the dog-roses in the hedges. All the wild flowers and +even the weeds on the banks by the wayside were to me +matters of wonder and admiration. At almost every step +I paused to observe something that was new to me, and I +could not help feeling surprised at the insensibility of my +fellow-traveller, who plodded along, and seldom interrupted +his whistling except to cry 'Gee, Blackbird, aw +woa,' or 'How now, Smiler?' Then Jervas is lost in +admiration before a plant 'whose stem was about two feet +high, and which had a round shining purple beautiful +flower,' and the waggoner with a look of scorn exclaims, +'Help thee, lad, dost not thou know 'tis a common thistle?' +After this he looks upon Jervas as very nearly an idiot. +'In truth I believe I was a droll figure, for my hat was +stuck full of weeds and of all sorts of wild flowers, and +both my coat and waistcoat pockets were stuffed out with +pebbles and funguses.' Then comes Plymouth Harbour: +Jervas ventures to ask some questions about the vessels, to +which the waggoner answers 'They be nothing in life but +the boats and ships, man;' so he turned away and went +on chewing a straw, and seemed not a whit more moved +to admiration than he had been at the sight of the thistle. +'I conceived a high admiration of a man who had seen so +much that he could admire nothing,' says Jervas, with a +touch of real humour.</p> + +<p>Another most charming little idyll is that of Simple +Susan, who was a real maiden living in the neighbourhood +of Edgeworthstown. The story seems to have been mislaid +for a time in the stirring events of the first Irish rebellion, +and overlooked, like some little daisy by a battlefield. +Few among us will not have shared Mr. Edgeworth's partiality +for the charming little tale. The children fling their +garlands and tie up their violets. Susan bakes her cottage +loaves and gathers marigolds for broth, and tends her +mother to the distant tune of Philip's pipe coming across +the fields. As we read the story again it seems as if we +could almost scent the fragrance of the primroses and the +double violets, and hear the music sounding above the +children's voices, and the bleatings of the lamb, so simply +and delightfully is the whole story constructed. Among +all Miss Edgeworth's characters few are more familiar to the +world than that of Susan's pretty pet lamb.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>II.</b></p> +</div> +<p>No sketch of Maria Edgeworth's life, however slight, +would be complete without a few words about certain persons +coming a generation before her (and belonging still to +the age of periwigs), who were her father's associates and +her own earliest friends. Notwithstanding all that has +been said of Mr. Edgeworth's bewildering versatility of +nature, he seems to have been singularly faithful in his +friendships. He might take up new ties, but he clung +pertinaciously to those which had once existed. His +daughter inherited that same steadiness of affection. In his +life of Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, Mr. Charles Darwin, +writing of these very people, has said, 'There is, perhaps, +no safer test of a man's real character than that of his long-continued +friendship with good and able men.' He then +goes on to quote an instance of a long-continued affection +and intimacy only broken by death between a certain set +of distinguished friends, giving the names of Keir, Day, +Small, Boulton, Watt, Wedgwood, and Darwin, and adding +to them the names of Edgeworth himself and of the Galtons.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth first came to Lichfield to make Dr. +Darwin's acquaintance. His second visit was to his friend +Mr. Day, the author of 'Sandford and Merton,' who had +taken a house in the valley of Stow, and who invited him +one Christmas on a visit. 'About the year 1765,' says Miss +Seward, 'came to Lichfield, from the neighbourhood of +Reading, the young and gay philosopher, Mr. Edgeworth; +a man of fortune, and recently married to a Miss Elers, of +Oxfordshire. The fame of Dr. Darwin's various talents +allured Mr. E. to the city they graced.' And the lady goes +on to describe Mr. Edgeworth himself:—'Scarcely two-and-twenty, +with an exterior yet more juvenile, having +mathematic science, mechanic ingenuity, and a competent +portion of classical learning, with the possession of the +modern languages…. He danced, he fenced, he winged +his arrows with more than philosophic skill,' continues the +lady, herself a person of no little celebrity in her time and +place. Mr. Edgeworth, in his Memoirs, pays a respectful +tribute to Miss Seward's charms, to her agreeable conversation, +her beauty, her flowing tresses, her sprightliness and +address. Such moderate expressions fail, however, to do +justice to this lady's powers, to her enthusiasm, her poetry, +her partisanship. The portrait prefixed to her letters is +that of a dignified person with an oval face and dark eyes, +the thick brown tresses are twined with pearls, her graceful +figure is robed in the softest furs and draperies of the +period. In her very first letter she thus poetically describes +her surroundings:—'The autumnal glory of this day puts +to shame the summer's sullenness. I sit writing upon this +dear green terrace, feeding at intervals my little golden-breasted +songsters. The embosomed vale of Stow glows +sunny through the Claude-Lorraine tint which is spread +over the scene like the blue mist over a plum.'</p> + +<p>In this Claude-Lorraine-plum-tinted valley stood the +house which Mr. Day had taken, and where Mr. Edgeworth +had come on an eventful visit. Miss Seward herself lived +with her parents in the Bishop's palace at Lichfield. There +was also a younger sister, 'Miss Sally,' who died as a girl, +and another very beautiful young lady their friend, by name +Honora Sneyd, placed under Mrs. Seward's care. She was +the heroine of Major André's unhappy romance. He too +lived at Lichfield with his mother, and his hopeless love +gives a tragic reality to this by-gone holiday of youth and +merry-making. As one reads the old letters and memoirs +the echoes of laughter reach us. One can almost see the +young folks all coming together out of the Cathedral Close, +where so much of their time was passed; the beautiful +Honora, surrounded by friends and adorers, chaperoned by +the graceful Muse her senior, also much admired, and much +made of. Thomas Day is perhaps striding after them in +silence with keen critical glances; his long black locks flow +unpowdered down his back. In contrast to him comes his +brilliant and dressy companion, Mr. Edgeworth, who talks +so agreeably. I can imagine little Sabrina, Day's adopted +foundling, of whom so many stories have been told, following +shyly at her guardian's side in her simple dress +and childish beauty, and André's young handsome face +turned towards Miss Sneyd. So they pass on happy and +contented in each other's company, Honora in the midst, +beautiful, stately, reserved: she too was one of those not +destined to be old.</p> + +<p>Miss Seward seems to have loved this friend with a +very sincere and admiring affection, and to have bitterly +mourned her early death. Her letters abound in +apostrophes to the lost Honora. But perhaps the poor +Muse expected almost too much from friendship, too +much from life. She expected, as we all do at times, that +her friends should be not themselves but her, that they +should lead not their lives but her own. So much at +least one may gather from the various phases of her style +and correspondence, and her complaints of Honora's +estrangement and subsequent coldness. Perhaps, also, +Miss Seward's many vagaries and sentiments may have +frozen Honora's sympathies. Miss Seward was all +asterisks and notes of exclamation. Honora seems to +have forced feeling down to its most scrupulous expression. +She never lived to be softened by experience, to +suit herself to others by degrees: with great love she also +inspired awe and a sort of surprise. One can imagine her +pointing the moral of the purple jar, as it was told long +afterwards by her stepdaughter, then a little girl playing +at her own mother's knee in her nursery by the river.</p> + +<p>People in the days of shilling postage were better +correspondents than they are now when we have to be +content with pennyworths of news and of affectionate intercourse. +Their descriptions and many details bring all +the chief characters vividly before us, and carry us into the +hearts and the pocket-books of the little society at Lichfield +as it then was. The town must have been an agreeable +sojourn in those days for people of some pretension +and small performance. The inhabitants of Lichfield +seem actually to have read each other's verses, and having +done so to have taken the trouble to sit down and write +out their raptures. They were a pleasant lively company +living round about the old cathedral towers, meeting in the +Close or the adjacent gardens or the hospitable Palace +itself. Here the company would sip tea, talk mild literature +of their own and good criticism at second hand, +quoting Dr. Johnson to one another with the familiarity +of townsfolk. From Erasmus Darwin, too, they must +have gained something of vigour and originality.</p> + +<p>With all her absurdities Miss Seward had some real +critical power and appreciation; and some of her lines +are very pretty.<a href="#fn1"><sup><small>1</small></sup></a><a name="fn1r" id="fn1r"></a> An 'Ode to the Sun' is only what +might have been expected from this Lichfield Corinne. +Her best known productions are an 'Elegy on Captain +Cook,' a 'Monody on Major André,' whom she had known +from her early youth; and there is a poem, 'Louisa,' of +which she herself speaks very highly. But even more +than her poetry did she pique herself upon her epistolary +correspondence. It must have been well worth while +writing letters when they were not only prized by the +writer and the recipients, but commented on by their +friends in after years. 'Court Dewes, Esq.,' writes, after +five years, for copies of Miss Seward's epistles to Miss +Rogers and Miss Weston, of which the latter begins:—'Soothing +and welcome to me, dear Sophia, is the regret +you express for our separation! Pleasant were the weeks +we have recently passed together in this ancient and embowered +mansion! I had strongly felt the silence and +vacancy of the depriving day on which you vanished. +How prone are our hearts perversely to quarrel with the +friendly coercion of employment at the very instant in +which it is clearing the torpid and injurious mists of unavailing +melancholy!' Then follows a sprightly attack +before which Johnson may have quailed indeed. 'Is the +Fe-fa-fum of literature that snuffs afar the fame of his +brother authors, and thirsts for its destruction, to be +allowed to gallop unmolested over the fields of criticism? +A few pebbles from the well-springs of truth and eloquence +are all that is wanted to bring the might of his +envy low.' This celebrated letter, which may stand as +a specimen of the whole six volumes, concludes with the +following apostrophe:—'Virtuous friendship, how pure, how +sacred are thy delights! Sophia, thy mind is capable of +tasting them in all their poignance: against how many of +life's incidents may that capacity be considered as a +counterpoise!'</p> + +<p>There were constant rubs, which are not to be +wondered at, between Miss Seward and Dr. Darwin, who, +though a poet, was also a singularly witty, downright man, +outspoken and humorous. The lady admires his genius, +bitterly resents his sarcasms; of his celebrated work, the +'Botanic Garden,' she says, 'It is a string of poetic +brilliants, and they are of the first water, but the eye will +be apt to want the intersticial black velvet to give effect +to their lustre.' In later days, notwithstanding her +'elegant language,' as Mr. Charles Darwin calls it, she said +several spiteful things of her old friend, but they seem +more prompted by private pique than malice.</p> + +<p>If Miss Seward was the Minerva and Dr. Darwin the +Jupiter of the Lichfield society, its philosopher was +Thomas Day, of whom Miss Seward's description is so +good that I cannot help one more quotation:—</p> + +<p>'Powder and fine clothes were at that time the appendages +of gentlemen; Mr. Day wore not either. He was +tall and stooped in the shoulders, full made but not corpulent, +and in his meditative and melancholy air a degree +of awkwardness and dignity were blended.' She then +compares him with his guest, Mr. Edgeworth. 'Less +graceful, less amusing, less brilliant than Mr. E., but more +highly imaginative, more classical, and a deeper reasoner; +strict integrity, energetic friendship, open-handed generosity, +and diffusive charity, greatly overbalanced on the +side of virtue, the tincture of misanthropic gloom and proud +contempt of common life society.' Wright, of Derby, painted +a full-length picture of Mr. Day in 1770. 'Mr. Day +looks upward enthusiastically, meditating on the contents +of a book held in his dropped right hand … a flash of +lightning plays in his hair and illuminates the contents +of the volume.' 'Dr. Darwin,' adds Miss Seward, 'sat to +Mr. Wright about the same period—<i>that</i> was a simply +contemplative portrait of the most perfect resemblance.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>III.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Maria must have been three years old this eventful +Christmas time when her father, leaving his wife in Berkshire, +came to stay with Mr. Day at Lichfield, and first +made the acquaintance of Miss Seward and her poetic +circle. Mr. Day, who had once already been disappointed +in love, and whose romantic scheme of adopting his foundlings +and of educating one of them to be his wife, has +often been described, had brought one of the maidens to +the house he had taken at Lichfield. This was Sabrina, as +he had called her. Lucretia, having been found troublesome, +had been sent off with a dowry to be apprenticed to +a milliner. Sabrina was a charming little girl of thirteen; +everybody liked her, especially the friendly ladies at the +Palace, who received her with constant kindness, as they +did Mr. Day himself and his visitor. What Miss Seward +thought of Sabrina's education I do not know. The poor +child was to be taught to despise luxury, to ignore fear, to +be superior to pain. She appears, however, to have been +very fond of her benefactor, but to have constantly provoked +him by starting and screaming whenever he fired +uncharged pistols at her skirts, or dropped hot melted +sealing-wax on her bare arms. She is described as lovely +and artless, not fond of books, incapable of understanding +scientific problems, or of keeping the imaginary and terrible +secrets with which her guardian used to try her nerves. +I do not know when it first occurred to him that Honora +Sneyd was all that his dreams could have imagined. One +day he left Sabrina under many restrictions, and returning +unexpectedly found her wearing some garment or handkerchief +of which he did not approve, and discarded her on +the spot and for ever. Poor Sabrina was evidently not meant +to mate and soar with philosophical eagles. After this +episode, she too was despatched, to board with an old lady, +in peace for a time, let us hope, and in tranquil mediocrity.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth approved of this arrangement; he had +never considered that Sabrina was suited to his friend. +But being taken in due time to call at the Palace, he was +charmed with Miss Seward, and still more by all he +saw of Honora; comparing her, alas! in his mind 'with all +other women, and secretly acknowledging her superiority.' +At first, he says, Miss Seward's brilliance overshadowed +Honora, but very soon her merits grew upon the bystanders.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth carefully concealed his feelings except +from his host, who was beginning himself to contemplate a +marriage with Miss Sneyd. Mr. Day presently proposed +formally in writing for the hand of the lovely Honora, and +Mr. Edgeworth was to take the packet and to bring back +the answer; and being married himself, and out of the running, +he appears to have been unselfishly anxious for his +friend's success. In the packet Mr. Day had written down +the conditions to which he should expect his wife to subscribe. +She would have to begin at once by giving up all +luxuries, amenities, and intercourse with the world, and +promise to continue to seclude herself entirely in his company. +Miss Sneyd does not seem to have kept Mr. Edgeworth +waiting long while she wrote her answer decidedly saying +that she could not admit the unqualified control of a husband +over all her actions, nor the necessity for 'seclusion from +society to preserve female virtue.' Finding that Honora +absolutely refused to change her way of life, Mr. Day went +into a fever, for which Dr. Darwin bled him. Nor did he +recover until another Miss Sneyd, Elizabeth by name, made +her appearance in the Close.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth, who was of a lively and active disposition, +had introduced archery among the gentlemen of the +neighbourhood, and he describes a fine summer evening's +entertainment passed in agreeable sports, followed by +dancing and music, in the course of which Honora's sister, +Miss Elizabeth, appeared for the first time on the Lichfield +scene, and immediately joined in the country dance. +There is a vivid description of the two sisters in Mr. +Edgeworth's memoirs, of the beautiful and distinguished +Honora, loving science, serious, eager, reserved; of the +more lovely but less graceful Elizabeth, with less of energy, +more of humour and of social gifts than her sister. Elizabeth +Sneyd was, says Edgeworth, struck by Day's eloquence, +by his unbounded generosity, by his scorn of wealth. His +educating a young girl for his wife seemed to her romantic +and extraordinary; and she seems to have thought it possible +to yield to the evident admiration she had aroused in +him. But, whether in fun or in seriousness, she represented +to him that he could not with justice decry accomplishments +and graces that he had not acquired. She wished +him to go abroad for a time to study to perfect himself in +all that was wanting; on her own part she promised not to +go to Bath, London, or any public place of amusement +until his return, and to read certain books which he +recommended.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Mr. Edgeworth had made no secret of his +own feeling for Honora to Mr. Day, 'who with all the +eloquence of virtue and of friendship' urged him to fly, to +accompany him abroad, and to shun dangers he could not +hope to overcome. Edgeworth consented to this proposal, +and the two friends started for Paris, visiting Rousseau on +their way. They spent the winter at Lyons, as it was a +place where excellent masters of all sorts were to be found; +and here Mr. Day, with excess of zeal—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="noindent">put himself (says his friend) to every species of torture, ordinary +and extraordinary, to compel his Antigallican limbs, in spite of +their natural rigidity, to dance and fence, and manage the <i>great +horse</i>. To perform his promise to Miss E. Sneyd honourably, +he gave up seven or eight hours of the day to these exercises, +for which he had not the slightest taste, and for which, except +horsemanship, he manifested the most sovereign contempt. It +was astonishing to behold the energy with which he persevered +in these pursuits. I have seen him stand between two boards +which reached from the ground higher than his knees: these +boards were adjusted with screws so as barely to permit him to +bend his knees, and to rise up and sink down. By these means +Mr. Huise proposed to force Mr. Day's knees outwards; but +screwing was in vain. He succeeded in torturing his patient; +but original formation and inveterate habit resisted all his +endeavours at personal improvement. I could not help pitying +my philosophic friend, pent up in durance vile for hours +together, with his feet in the stocks, a book in his hand, and +contempt in his heart.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth meanwhile lodged himself 'in excellent +and agreeable apartments,' and occupied himself with engineering. +He is certainly curiously outspoken in his +memoirs; and explains that the first Mrs. Edgeworth, +Maria's mother, with many merits, was of a complaining +disposition, and did not make him so happy at home as +a woman of a more lively temper might have succeeded in +doing. He was tempted, he said, to look for happiness +elsewhere than in his home. Perhaps domestic affairs +may have been complicated by a warm-hearted but troublesome +little son, who at Day's suggestion had been brought +up upon the Rousseau system, and was in consequence +quite unmanageable, and a worry to everybody. Poor +Mrs. Edgeworth's complainings were not to last very long. +She joined her husband at Lyons, and after a time, having +a dread of lying-in abroad, returned home to die in her +confinement, leaving four little children. Maria could +remember being taken into her mother's room to see her +for the last time.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth hurried back to England, and was met +by his friend Thomas Day, who had preceded him, and +whose own suit does not seem to have prospered meanwhile. +But though notwithstanding all his efforts Thomas Day +had not been fortunate in securing Elizabeth Sneyd's affections, +he could still feel for his friend. His first words were +to tell Edgeworth that Honora was still free, more beautiful +than ever; while Virtue and Honour commanded it, he +had done all he could to divide them; now he wished to be +the first to promote their meeting. The meeting resulted +in an engagement, and Mr. Edgeworth and Miss Sneyd +were married within four months by the benevolent old +canon in the Lady Chapel of Lichfield Cathedral.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Seward wept; Miss Seward, 'notwithstanding +some imaginary dissatisfaction about a bridesmaid,' was +really glad of the marriage, we are told; and the young +couple immediately went over to Ireland.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>IV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Though her life was so short, Honora Edgeworth seems +to have made the deepest impression on all those she +came across. Over little Maria she had the greatest +influence. There is a pretty description of the child +standing lost in wondering admiration of her stepmother's +beauty, as she watched her soon after her marriage dressing +at her toilet-table. Little Maria's feeling for her stepmother +was very deep and real, and the influence of those +few years lasted for a lifetime. Her own exquisite carefulness +she always ascribed to it, and to this example may +also be attributed her habits of order and self-government, +her life of reason and deliberate judgment.</p> + +<p>The seven years of Honora's married life seem to have +been very peaceful and happy. She shared her husband's +pursuits, and wished for nothing outside her own home. +She began with him to write those little books which were +afterwards published. It is just a century ago since she +and Mr. Edgeworth planned the early histories of Harry +and Lucy and Frank; while Mr. Day began his 'Sandford +and Merton,' which at first was intended to appear at the +same time, though eventually the third part was not +published till 1789.</p> + +<p>As a girl of seventeen Honora Sneyd had once been +threatened with consumption. After seven years of +married life the cruel malady again declared itself; and +though Dr. Darwin did all that human resource could do, +and though every tender care surrounded her, the poor +young lady rapidly sank. There is a sad, prim, most +affecting letter, addressed to little Maria by the dying +woman shortly before the end; and then comes that one +written by the father, which is to tell her that all is over.</p> + +<p>If Mr. Edgeworth was certainly unfortunate in losing +again and again the happiness of his home, he was more +fortunate than most people in being able to rally from his +grief. He does not appear to have been unfaithful in feeling. +Years after, Edgeworth, writing to console Mrs. Day +upon her husband's death, speaks in the most touching way +of all he had suffered when Honora died, and of the struggle +he had made to regain his hold of life. This letter is in +curious contrast to that one written at the time, as he sits +by poor Honora's deathbed; it reads strangely cold and +irrelevant in these days when people are not ashamed of +feeling or of describing what they feel. 'Continue, my +dear daughter'—he writes to Maria, who was then thirteen +years old—'the desire which you feel of becoming amiable, +prudent, and of use. The ornamental parts of a character, +with such an understanding as yours, necessarily ensue; +but true judgment and sagacity in the choice of friends, +and the regulation of your behaviour, can be only had +from reflection, and from being thoroughly convinced of +what experience in general teaches too late, that to be +happy we must be good.'</p> + +<p>'Such a letter, written at such a time,' says the kind +biographer, 'made the impression it was intended to +convey; and the wish to act up to the high opinion her +father had formed of her character became an exciting +and controlling power over the whole of Maria's future +life.' On her deathbed, Honora urged her husband to +marry again, and assured him that the woman to suit +him was her sister Elizabeth. Her influence was so great +upon them both that, although Elizabeth was attached to +some one else, and Mr. Edgeworth believed her to be +little suited to himself, they were presently engaged and +married, not without many difficulties. The result proved +how rightly Honora had judged.</p> + +<p>It was to her father <ins title="original has hat">that</ins> Maria owed the suggestion of +her first start in literature. Immediately after Honora's +death he tells her to write a tale about the length of a +'Spectator,' on the subject of generosity. 'It must be +taken from history or romance, must be sent the day +se'nnight after you receive this; and I beg you will take +some pains about it.' A young gentleman from Oxford +was also set to work to try his powers on the same subject, +and Mr. William Sneyd, at Lichfield, was to be judge +between the two performances. He gave his verdict for +Maria: 'An excellent story and very well written: but +where's the generosity?' This, we are told, became a +sort of proverb in the Edgeworth family.</p> + +<p>The little girl meanwhile had been sent to school to a +certain Mrs. Lataffiere, where she was taught to use her +fingers, to write a lovely delicate hand, to work white satin +waistcoats for her papa. She was then removed to a fashionable +establishment in Upper Wimpole Street, where, says +her stepmother, 'she underwent all the usual tortures of +backboards, iron collars, and dumb-bells, with the unusual +one of being hung by the neck to draw out the muscles and +increase the growth,—a signal failure in her case.' (Miss +Edgeworth was always a very tiny person.) There is a +description given of Maria at this school of hers of the +little maiden absorbed in her book with all the other +children at play, while she sits in her favourite place in +front of a carved oak cabinet, quite unconscious of the +presence of the romping girls all about her.</p> + +<p>Hers was a very interesting character as it appears in +the Memoirs—sincere, intelligent, self-contained, and yet +dependent; methodical, observant. Sometimes as one +reads of her in early life one is reminded of some of the +personal characteristics of the writer who perhaps of all +writers least resembles Miss Edgeworth in her art—of +Charlotte Brontë, whose books are essentially of the +modern and passionate school, but whose strangely mixed +character seemed rather to belong to the orderly and +neatly ruled existence of Queen Charlotte's reign. People's +lives as they really are don't perhaps vary very much, but +people's lives as they seem to be assuredly change with +the fashions. Miss Edgeworth and Miss Brontë were +both Irishwomen, who have often, with all their outcome, +the timidity which arises from quick and sensitive feeling. +But the likeness does not go very deep. Maria, whose +diffidence and timidity were personal, but who had a firm +and unalterable belief in family traditions, may have been +saved from some danger of prejudice and limitation by a +most fortunate though trying illness which affected her +eyesight, and which caused her to be removed from her +school with its monstrous elegancies to the care of Mr. +Day, that kindest and sternest of friends.</p> + +<p>This philosopher in love had been bitterly mortified +when the lively Elizabeth Sneyd, instead of welcoming +his return, could not conceal her laughter at his uncouth +elegancies, and confessed that, on the whole, she had +liked him better as he was before. He forswore Lichfield +and marriage, and went abroad to forget. He +turned his thoughts to politics; he wrote pamphlets on +public subjects and letters upon slavery. His poem of +the 'Dying Negro' had been very much admired. Miss +Hannah More speaks of it in her Memoirs. The subject +of slavery was much before people's minds, and Day's +influence had not a little to do with the rising indignation.</p> + +<p>Among Day's readers and admirers was one person +who was destined to have a most important influence +upon his life. By a strange chance his extraordinary +ideal was destined to be realised; and a young lady, good, +accomplished, rich, devoted, who had read his books, and +sympathised with his generous dreams, was ready not only +to consent to his strange conditions, but to give him her +whole heart and find her best happiness in his society and +in carrying out his experiments and fancies. She was Miss +Esther Milnes, of Yorkshire, an heiress; and though at +first Day hesitated and could not believe in the reality of +her feeling, her constancy and singleness of mind were not +to be resisted, and they were married at Bath in 1778. +We hear of Mr. and Mrs. Day spending the first winter +of their married life at Hampstead, and of Mrs. Day, +thickly shodden, walking with him in a snowstorm on the +common, and ascribing her renewed vigour to her husband's +Spartan advice.</p> + +<p>Day and his wife eventually established themselves at +Anningsley, near Chobham. He had insisted upon settling +her fortune upon herself, but Mrs. Day assisted him in +every way, and sympathised in his many schemes and +benevolent ventures. When he neglected to make a +window to the dressing-room he built for her, we hear of her +uncomplainingly lighting her candles; to please him she +worked as a servant in the house, and all their large means +were bestowed in philanthropic and charitable schemes. +Mr. Edgeworth quotes his friend's reproof to Mrs. Day, +who was fond of music: 'Shall we beguile the time with +the strains of a lute while our fellow-creatures are +starving?' 'I am out of pocket every year about 300<i>l</i>. +by the farm I keep,' Day writes his to his friend Edgeworth. +'The soil I have taken in hand, I am convinced, is one of +the most completely barren in England.' He then goes +on to explain his reasons for what he is about. 'It enables +me to employ the poor, and the result of all my speculations +about humanity is that the only way of benefiting +mankind is to give them employment and make them earn +their money.' There is a pretty description of the worthy +couple in their home dispensing help and benefits all +round about, draining, planting, teaching, doctoring—nothing +came amiss to them. Their chief friend and +neighbour was Samuel Cobbett, who understood their +plans, and sympathised in their efforts, which, naturally +enough, were viewed with doubt and mistrust by most of +the people round about. It was at Anningsley that Mr. +Day finished 'Sandford and Merton,' begun many years +before. His death was very sudden, and was brought about +by one of his own benevolent theories. He used to maintain +that kindness alone could tame animals; and he was +killed by a fall from a favourite colt which he was breaking +in. Mrs. Day never recovered the shock. She lived two +years hidden in her home, absolutely inconsolable, and +then died and was laid by her husband's side in the churchyard +at Wargrave by the river.</p> + +<p>It was to the care of these worthy people that little +Maria was sent when she was ill, and she was doctored by +them both physically and morally. 'Bishop Berkeley's +tar-water was still considered a specific for all complaints,' +says Mrs. Edgeworth. 'Mr. Day thought it would be of +use to Maria's inflamed eyes, and he used to bring a large +tumbler full of it to her every morning. She dreaded his +"Now, Miss Maria, drink this." But there was, in spite of +his stern voice, something of pity and sympathy in his +countenance. His excellent library was open to her, and +he directed her studies. His severe reasoning and uncompromising +truth of mind awakened all her powers, and the +questions he put to her and the working out of the +answers, the necessity of perfect accuracy in all her words, +suited the natural truth of her mind; and though such +strictness was not agreeable, she even then perceived its +advantage, and in after life was grateful for it.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>V.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>We have seen how Miss Elizabeth Sneyd, who could +not make up her mind to marry Mr. Day notwithstanding +all he had gone through for her sake, had eventually consented +to become Mr. Edgeworth's third wife. With this +stepmother for many years to come Maria lived in an +affectionate intimacy, only to be exceeded by that most +faithful companionship which existed for fifty years between +her and the lady from whose memoirs I quote.</p> + +<p>It was about 1782 that Maria went home to live at +Edgeworthtown with her father and his wife, with the +many young brothers and sisters. The family was a large +one, and already consisted of her own sisters, of Honora +the daughter of Mrs. Honora, and Lovell her son. To +these succeeded many others of the third generation; and +two sisters of Mrs. Edgeworth's, who also made their home +at Edgeworthtown.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Maria had once before been there, "very young, but she was +now old enough to be struck with the difference then so striking +between Ireland and England." The tones and looks, the +melancholy and the gaiety of the people, were so new and extraordinary +to her that the delineations she long afterwards made +of Irish character probably owe their life and truth to the impression +made on her mind at this time as a stranger. Though +it was June when they landed, there was snow on the roses +she ran out to gather, and she felt altogether in a new and +unfamiliar country.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>She herself describes the feelings of the master of a family +returning to an Irish home:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Wherever he turned his eyes, in or out of his home, damp +dilapidation, waste appeared. Painting, glazing, roofing, fencing, +finishing—all were wanting. The backyard and even the front +lawn round the windows of the house were filled with loungers, +followers, and petitioners; tenants, undertenants, drivers, sub-agent +and agent were to have audience; and they all had +grievances and secret informations, accusations, reciprocations, +and quarrels each under each interminable.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Her account of her father's dealings with them is +admirable:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I was with him constantly, and I was amused and interested +in seeing how he made his way through their complaints, +petitions, and grievances with decision and despatch, he all the +time in good humour with the people and they delighted with +him, though he often rated them roundly when they stood before +him perverse in litigation, helpless in procrastination, detected +in cunning or convicted of falsehood. They saw into his +character almost as soon as he understood theirs.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth had in a very remarkable degree that +power of ruling and administering which is one of the +rarest of gifts. He seems to have shown great firmness and +good sense in his conduct in the troubled times in which +he lived. He saw to his own affairs, administered justice, +put down middlemen as far as possible, reorganised the +letting out of the estate. Unlike many of his neighbours, +he was careful not to sacrifice the future to present ease of +mind and of pocket. He put down rack-rents and bribes +of every sort, and did his best to establish things upon a +firm and lasting basis.</p> + +<p>But if it was not possible even for Mr. Edgeworth to make +such things all they should have been outside the house, +the sketch given of the family life at home is very pleasant. +The father lives in perfect confidence with his children, +admitting them to his confidence, interesting them in his +experiments, spending his days with them, consulting them. +There are no reservations; he does his business in the +great sitting-room, surrounded by his family. I have +heard it described as a large ground-floor room, with +windows to the garden and with two columns supporting +the further end, by one of which Maria's writing-desk +used to be placed—a desk which her father had devised +for her, which used to be drawn out to the fireside when +she worked. Does not Mr. Edgeworth also mention in +one of his letters a picture of Thomas Day hanging over +a sofa against the wall? Books in plenty there were, we +may be sure, and perhaps models of ingenious machines +and different appliances for scientific work. Sir Henry +Holland and Mr. Ticknor give a curious description of +Mr. Edgeworth's many ingenious inventions. There were +strange locks to the rooms and telegraphic despatches to +the kitchen; clocks at the one side of the house were +wound up by simply opening certain doors at the other +end. It has been remarked that all Miss Edgeworth's +heroes had a smattering of science. Several of her brothers +inherited her father's turn for it. We hear of them raising +steeples and establishing telegraphs in partnership with +him. Maria shared of the family labours and used to +help her father in the business connected with the estate, +to assist him, also, to keep the accounts. She had a special +turn for accounts, and she was pleased with her exquisitely +neat columns and by the accuracy with which her figures +fell into their proper places. Long after her father's death +this knowledge and experience enabled her to manage the +estate for her eldest stepbrother, Mr. Lovell Edgeworth. +She was able, at a time of great national difficulty and +anxious crisis, to meet a storm in which many a larger +fortune was wrecked.</p> + +<p>But in 1782 she was a young girl only beginning life. +Storms were not yet, and she was putting out her wings +in the sunshine. Her father set her to translate 'Adèle et +Théodore,' by Madame de Genlis (she had a great facility +for languages, and her French was really remarkable). +Holcroft's version of the book, however, appeared, and the +Edgeworth translation was never completed. Mr. Day +wrote a letter to congratulate Mr. Edgeworth on the +occasion. It seemed horrible to Mr. Day that a woman +should appear in print.</p> + +<p>It is possible that the Edgeworth family was no exception +to the rule by which large and clever and animated +families are apt to live in a certain atmosphere of their +own. But, notwithstanding this strong family bias, few +people can have seen more of the world, felt its temper +more justly, or appreciated more fully the interesting +varieties of people to be found in it than Maria Edgeworth. +Within easy reach of Edgeworthtown were different +agreeable and cultivated houses. There was Pakenham +Hall with Lord Longford for its master; one of its +daughters was the future Duchess of Wellington, 'who was +always Kitty Pakenham for her old friends.' There at +Castle Forbes also lived, I take it, more than one of the +well-bred and delightful persons, out of 'Patronage,' and +the 'Absentee,' who may, in real life, have borne the +names of Lady Moira and Lady Granard. Besides, there +were cousins and relations without number—Foxes, +Ruxtons, marriages and intermarriages; and when the +time came for occasional absences and expeditions from +home, the circles seem to have spread incalculably in every +direction. The Edgeworths appear to have been a genuinely +sociable clan, interested in others and certainly interesting +to them.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VI.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>The first letter given in the Memoirs from Maria to +her favourite aunt Ruxton is a very sad one, which tells +of the early death of her sister Honora, a beautiful girl of +fifteen, the only daughter of Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, who +died of consumption, as her mother had died. This letter, +written in the dry phraseology of the time, is nevertheless +full of feeling, above all for her father who was, as Maria +says elsewhere, ever since she could think or feel, the first +object and motive of her mind.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edgeworth describes her sister-in-law as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Mrs. Ruxton resembled her brother in the wit and vivacity +of her mind and strong affections; her grace and charm of +manner were such that a gentleman once said of her; 'If I +were to see Mrs. Ruxton in rags as a beggar woman sitting on +the doorstep, I should say "Madam" to her.' 'To write to her +Aunt Ruxton was, as long as she lived, Maria's greatest pleasure +while away from her,' says Mrs. Edgeworth, 'and to be with her +was a happiness she enjoyed with never flagging and supreme +delight. Blackcastle was within a few hours' drive of Edgeworthtown, +and to go to Blackcastle was the holiday of her life.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Edgeworth tells a story of Maria once staying at +Blackcastle and tearing out the title page of 'Belinda,' so +that her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, read the book without any +suspicion of the author. She was so delighted with it that +she insisted on Maria listening to page after page, exclaiming +'Is not that admirably written?' 'Admirably read, +I think,' said Maria; until her aunt, quite provoked by her +faint acquiescence, says, 'I am sorry to see my little Maria +unable to bear the praises of a rival author;' at which +poor Maria burst into tears, and Mrs. Ruxton could never +bear the book mentioned afterwards.</p> + +<p>It was with Mrs. Ruxton that a little boy, born just +after the death of the author of 'Sandford and Merton,' +was left on the occasion of the departure of the Edgeworth +family for Clifton, in 1792, where Mr. Edgeworth spent a +couple of years for the health of one of his sons. In July +the poor little brother dies in Ireland. 'There does +not, now that little Thomas is gone, exist even a person +of the same name as Mr. Day,' says Mr. Edgeworth, +who concludes his letter philosophically, as the father of +twenty children may be allowed to do, by expressing a +hope that to his nurses, Mrs. Ruxton and her daughter, +'the remembrance of their own goodness will soon +obliterate the painful impression of his miserable end.' +During their stay at Clifton Richard Edgeworth, the +eldest son, who had been brought up upon Rousseau's +system, and who seems to have found the Old World too +restricted a sphere for his energies, after going to sea and +disappearing for some years, suddenly paid them a visit +from South Carolina, where he had settled and married. +The young man was gladly welcomed by them all. He +had been long separated from home, and he eventually +died very young in America; but his sister always clung +to him with fond affection, and when he left them to +return home she seems to have felt his departure very +much. 'Last Saturday my poor brother Richard took +leave of us to return to America. He has gone up to +London with my father and mother, and is to sail from +thence. We could not part from him without great pain +and regret, for he made us all extremely fond of him.'</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding these melancholy events, Maria Edgeworth +seems to have led a happy busy life all this time +among her friends, her relations, her many interests, her +many fancies and facts, making much of the children, of +whom she writes pleasant descriptions to her aunt. +'Charlotte is very engaging and promises to be handsome. +Sneyd is, and promises everything. Henry will, I think, +through life always do more than he promises. Little +Honora is a sprightly blue-eyed child at nurse with a +woman who is the picture of health and simplicity. +Lovell is perfectly well. Doctor Darwin has paid him +very handsome compliments on his lines on the Barbarini +Vase in the first part of the "Botanic Garden."'</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth, however, found the time long at +Clifton, though, as usual, he at once improved his +opportunities, paid visits to his friends in London and +elsewhere, and renewed many former intimacies and correspondences.</p> + +<p>Maria also paid a visit to London, but the time had +not come for her to enjoy society, and the extreme shyness +of which Mrs. Edgeworth speaks made it pain to her to +be in society in those early days. 'Since I have been +away from home,' she writes, 'I have missed the society of +my father, mother, and sisters more than I can express, and +more than beforehand I could have thought possible. I +long to see them all again. Even when I am most amused +I feel a void, and now I understand what an aching void +is perfectly.' Very soon we hear of her at home again, +'scratching away at the Freeman family.' Mr. Edgeworth +is reading aloud Gay's 'Trivia' among other things, which +she recommends to her aunt. 'I had much rather make +a bargain with any one I loved to read the same books with +them at the same hour than to look at the moon like +Rousseau's famous lovers.' There is another book, a new +book for the children, mentioned about this time, 'Evenings +at Home,' which they all admire immensely.</p> + +<p>Miss Edgeworth was now about twenty-six, at an age +when a woman's powers have fully ripened; a change comes +over her style; there is a fulness of description in her letters +and a security of expression which show maturity. Her +habit of writing was now established, and she describes +the constant interest her father took and his share in all +she did. Some of the slighter stories she first wrote upon +a slate and read out to her brothers and sisters; others she +sketched for her father's approval, and arranged and altered +as he suggested. The letters for literary ladies were with +the publishers by this time, and these were followed by +various stories and early lessons, portions of 'Parents' +Assistant,' and of popular tales, all of which were sent out +in packets and lent from one member of the family to +another before finally reaching Mr. Johnson, the publisher's, +hands. Maria Edgeworth in some of her letters from +Clifton alludes with some indignation to the story of +Mrs. Hannah More's ungrateful <i>protégée</i> Lactilla, the +literary milkwoman, whose poems Hannah More was at +such pains to bring before the world, and for whom, with +her kind preface and warm commendations and subscription +list, she was able to obtain the large sum of 500<i>l</i>. +The ungrateful Lactilla, who had been starving when +Mrs. More found her out, seems to have lost her head in +this sudden prosperity, and to have accused her benefactress +of wishing to steal a portion of the money. Maria +Edgeworth must have been also interested in some family +marriages which took place about this time. Her own +sister Anna became engaged to Dr. Beddoes, of Clifton, +whose name appears as prescribing for the authors of various +memoirs of that day. He is 'a man of ability, of a great +name in the scientific world,' says Mr. Edgeworth, who +favoured the Doctor's 'declared passion,' as a proposal was +then called, and the marriage accordingly took place on +their return to Ireland. Emmeline, another sister, was +soon after married to Mr. King, a surgeon, also living at +Bristol, and Maria was now left the only remaining +daughter of the first marriage, to be good aunt, sister, +friend to all the younger members of the party. She was +all this, but she herself expressly states that her father would +never allow her to be turned into a nursery drudge; her +share of the family was limited to one special little boy. +Meanwhile her pen-and-ink children are growing up, and +starting out in the world on their own merits.</p> + +<p>'I beg, dear Sophy,' she writes to her cousin, 'that +you will not call my little stories by the sublime name of +my works; I shall else be ashamed when the little mouse +comes forth. The stories are printed and bound the same +size as 'Evenings at Home,' but I am afraid you will +dislike the title. My father had sent the 'Parents' +Friend,' but Mr. Johnson has degraded it into 'Parents' +Assistant.'</p> + +<p>In 1797, says Miss Beaufort, who was to be so soon +more intimately connected with the Edgeworth family, +Johnson wished to publish more volumes of the 'Parents' +Assistant' on fine paper, with prints, and Mrs. Ruxton +asked me to make some designs for them. These +designs seem to have given great satisfaction to the +Edgeworth party, and especially to a little boy called +William, Mrs. Edgeworth's youngest boy, who grew up to +be a fine young man, but who died young of the cruel +family complaint. Mrs. Edgeworth's health was also +failing all this time—'Though she makes epigrams she is +far from well,' says Maria; but they, none of them seem +seriously alarmed. Mr. Edgeworth, in the intervals of +politics, is absorbed in a telegraph, which, with the help +of his sons, he is trying to establish. It is one which will +act by night as well as by day.</p> + +<p>It was a time of change and stir for Ireland, disaffection +growing and put down for a time by the soldiers; +armed bands going about 'defending' the country and +breaking its windows. In 1794 threats of a French invasion +had alarmed everybody, and now again in 1796 +came rumours of every description, and Mr. Edgeworth +was very much disappointed that his proposal for establishing +a telegraph across the water to England was rejected +by Government. He also writes to Dr. Darwin +that he had offered himself as a candidate for the county, +and been obliged to relinquish at the last moment; but +these minor disappointments were lost in the trouble +which fell upon the household in the following year—the +death of the mother of the family, who sank rapidly and +died of consumption in 1797.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>When Mr. Edgeworth himself died (not, as we may +be sure, without many active post-mortem wishes and +directions) he left his entertaining Memoirs half finished, +and he desired his daughter Maria in the most emphatic +way to complete them, and to publish them without +changing or altering anything that he had written. +People reading them were surprised by the contents; many +blamed Miss Edgeworth for making them public, not +knowing how solemn and binding these dying commands +of her father's had been, says Mrs. Leadbeater, writing at +the time to Mrs. Trench. Many severe and wounding +reviews appeared, and this may have influenced Miss +Edgeworth in her own objection to having her Memoirs +published by her family.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth's life was most extraordinary, comprising +in fact three or four lives in the place of that one +usually allowed to most people, some of us having to be +moderately content with a half or three-quarters of existence. +But his versatility of mind was no less remarkable than +his tenacity of purpose and strength of affection, though +some measure of sentiment must have certainly been +wanting, and his fourth marriage must have taken most +people by surprise. The writer once expressed her surprise +at the extraordinary influence that Mr. Edgeworth +seems to have had over women and over the many +members of his family who continued to reside in his +home after all the various changes which had taken place +there. Lady S—— to whom she spoke is one who has +seen more of life than most of us, who has for years +past carried help to the far-away and mysterious East, but +whose natural place is at home in the more prosperous and +unattainable West End. This lady said, 'You do not in +the least understand what my Uncle Edgeworth was. I +never knew anything like him. Brilliant, full of energy +and charm, he was something quite extraordinary and +irresistible. If you had known him you would not have +wondered at anything.'</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>'I had in the spring of that year (1797) paid my first visit +to Edgeworthtown with my mother and sister,' writes Miss +Beaufort, afterwards Mrs. Edgeworth, the author of the Memoirs. +'My father had long before been there, and had frequently met +Mr. Edgeworth at Mrs. Ruxton's. In 1795 my father was +presented to the living of Collon, in the county of Louth, +where he resided from that time. His vicarage was within five +minutes' walk of the residence of Mr. Foster, then Speaker of +the Irish House of Commons, the dear friend of Mr. Edgeworth, +who came to Collon in the spring of 1798 several times, and at +last offered me his hand, which I accepted.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Maria, who was at first very much opposed to the match, +would not have been herself the most devoted and faithful +of daughters if she had not eventually agreed to her +father's wishes, and, as daughters do, come by degrees to +feel with him and to see with his eyes. The influence of +a father over a daughter where real sympathy exists is one +of the very deepest and strongest that can be imagined. +Miss Beaufort herself seems also to have had some special +attraction for Maria. She was about her own age. She +must have been a person of singularly sweet character and +gentle liberality of mind. 'You will come into a new +family, but you will not come as a stranger, dear Miss +Beaufort,' writes generous Maria. 'You will not lead a +new life, but only continue to lead the life you have been +used to in your own happy cultivated family.' And her +stepmother in a few feeling words describes all that Maria +was to her from the very first when she came as a bride to +the home where the sisters and the children of the lately +lost wife were all assembled to meet her.</p> + +<p>It gives an unpleasant thrill to read of the newly-married +lady coming along to her home in a postchaise, and +seeing something odd on the side of the road. 'Look to +the other side; don't look at it,' says Mr. Edgeworth; and +when they had passed he tells his bride that it was the +body of a man hung by the rebels between the shafts of a +car.</p> + +<p>The family at Edgeworthtown consisted of two ladies, +sisters of the late Mrs. Edgeworth, who made it their +home, and of Maria, the last of the first family. Lovell, +now the eldest son, was away; but there were also four +daughters and three sons at home.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>All agreed in making me feel at once at home and part of +the family; all received me with the most unaffected cordiality; +but from Maria it was something more. She more than fulfilled +the promise of her letter; she made me at once her most +intimate friend, and in every trifle of the day treated me with +the most generous confidence.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Those times were even more serious than they are +now; we hear of Mr. Bond, the High Sheriff, paying 'a +pale visit' to Edgeworthtown. 'I am going on in the old +way, writing stories,' says Maria Edgeworth, writing in +1798. 'I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and sitting +with my hands before me would not make any one of us +one degree safer…. Simple Susan went to Foxhall a few +days ago for Lady Anne to carry her to England.'… 'My +father has made our little rooms so nice for us,' she continues; +'they are all fresh painted and papered. Oh! +rebels, oh! French spare them. We have never injured +you, and all we wish is to see everybody as happy as ourselves.'</p> + +<p>On August 29 we find from Miss Edgeworth's letter to +her cousin that the French have got to Castlebar. 'The +Lord-Lieutenant is now at Athlone, and it is supposed it +will be their next object of attack. My father's corps of +yeomanry are extremely attached to him and seem fully in +earnest; but, alas! by some strange negligence, their arms +have not yet arrived from Dublin…. We, who are so +near the scene of action, cannot by any means discover +what <i>number</i> of the French actually landed; some say 800, +some 1,800, some 18,000.'</p> + +<p>The family had a narrow escape that day, for two +officers, who were in charge of some ammunition, offered to +take them under their protection as far as Longford. Mr. +Edgeworth most fortunately detained them. 'Half an +hour afterwards, as we were quietly sitting in the portico, +we heard, as we thought close to us, the report of a pistol +or a clap of thunder which shook the house. The officer +soon after returned almost speechless; he could hardly explain +what had happened. The ammunition cart, containing +nearly three barrels of gunpowder, took fire, and burnt +half-way on the road to Longford. The man who drove +the cart was blown to atoms. Nothing of him could be +found. Two of the horses were killed; others were blown +to pieces, and their limbs scattered to a distance. The +head and body of a man were found a hundred and twenty +yards from the spot…. If we had gone with this +ammunition cart, we must have been killed. An hour or +two afterwards we were obliged to fly from Edgeworthtown. +The pikemen, 300 in number, were within a mile +of the town; my mother and Charlotte and I rode; passed +the trunk of the dead man, bloody limbs of horses, and two +dead horses, by the help of men who pulled on our steeds—all +safely lodged now in Mrs. Fallon's inn.' 'Before we +had reached the place where the cart had been blown up,' +says Mrs. Edgeworth, 'Mr. Edgeworth suddenly recollected +that he had left on the table in his study a list of the +yeomanry corps which he feared might endanger the poor +fellows and their families if it fell into the hands of the +rebels. He galloped back for it. It was at the hazard of +his life; but the rebels had not yet appeared. He burned +the paper, and rejoined us safely.' The Memoirs give a +most interesting and spirited account of the next few days. +The rebels spared Mr. Edgeworth's house, although they +broke into it. After a time the family were told that all +was safe for their return, and the account of their coming +home, as it is given in the second volume of Mr. Edgeworth's +life by his daughter, is a model of style and +admirable description.</p> + +<p>In 1799 Mr. Edgeworth came into Parliament for the +borough of St. Johnstown. He was a Unionist by conviction, +but he did not think the times were yet ripe for +the Union, and he therefore voted against it. In some of +his letters to Dr. Darwin written at this time, he says that +he was offered 3,000 guineas for his seat for the few +remaining weeks of the session, which, needless to say, he +refused, not thinking it well, as he says, '<i>to quarrel with +myself</i>.' He also adds that Maria continues writing for +children under the persuasion that she cannot be more +serviceably employed; and he sends (with his usual perspicuity) +affectionate messages to the Doctor's 'good +amiable lady and <i>his giant brood</i>.' But this long friendly +correspondence was coming to an end. The Doctor's +letters, so quietly humorous and to the point, Mr. Edgeworth's +answers with all their characteristic and lively +variety, were nearly at an end.</p> + +<p>It was in 1800 that Maria had achieved her great +success, and published 'Castle Rackrent,' a book—not for +children this time—which made everybody talk who read, +and those read who had only talked before. This work +was published anonymously, and so great was its reputation +that some one was at the pains to copy out the whole of +the story with erasures and different signs of authenticity, +and assume the authorship.</p> + +<p>One very distinctive mark of Maria Edgeworth's mind +is the honest candour and genuine critical faculty which is +hers. Her appreciation of her own work and that of +others is unaffected and really discriminating, whether it +is 'Corinne' or a simple story which she is reading, or +Scott's new novel the 'Pirate,' or one of her own manuscripts +which she estimates justly and reasonably. 'I have +read "Corinne" with my father, and I like it better than he +does. In one word, I am dazzled by the genius, provoked +by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste and +critical judgment of Italian literature displayed throughout +the whole work: but I will not dilate upon it in a +letter. I could talk for three hours to you and my aunt.'</p> + +<p>Elsewhere she speaks with the warmest admiration of +a 'Simple Story.' Jane Austen's books were not yet published; +but another writer, for whom Mr. Edgeworth and +his daughter had a very great regard and admiration, was +Mrs. Barbauld, who in all the heavy trials and sorrows of +her later life found no little help and comfort in the +friendship and constancy of Maria Edgeworth. Mr. and +Mrs. Barbauld, upon Mr. Edgeworth's invitation, paid him +a visit at Clifton, where he was again staying in 1799, and +where the last Mrs. Edgeworth's eldest child was born. +There is a little anecdote of domestic life at this time in +the Memoirs which gives one a glimpse, not of an authoress, +but of a very sympathising and impressionable person. +'Maria took her little sister to bring down to her father, +but when she had descended a few steps a panic seized her, +and she was afraid to go either backwards or forwards. +She sat down on the stairs afraid she should drop the child, +afraid that its head would come off, and afraid that her +father would find her sitting there and laugh at her, till +seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in a +terrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards +down the stairs till she safely reached the sitting-room.' +For all these younger children Maria seems to have had a +most tender and motherly regard, as indeed for all her +young brothers and sisters of the different families. Many +of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few +heroines are more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. +Rosamund is said by some to have been Maria herself, +impulsive, warm-hearted, timid, and yet full of spirit +and animation.</p> + +<p>In his last letter to Mr. Edgeworth Dr. Darwin writes +kindly of the authoress, and sends her a message. The +letter is dated April 17, 1802. 'I am glad to find you +still amuse yourself with mechanism in spite of the troubles +of Ireland;' and the Doctor goes on to ask his friend to +come and pay a visit to the Priory, and describes the +pleasant house with the garden, the ponds full of fish, the +deep umbrageous valley, with the talkative stream running +down it, and Derby tower in the distance. The letter, so +kind, so playful in its tone, was never finished. Dr. Darwin +was writing as he was seized with what seemed a fainting +fit, and he died within an hour. Miss Edgeworth writes +of the shock her father felt when the sad news reached +him; a shock, she says, which must in some degree be +experienced by every person who reads this letter of Dr. +Darwin's.</p> + +<p>No wonder this generous outspoken man was esteemed +in his own time. To us, in ours, it has been given still +more to know the noble son of 'that giant brood,' whose +name will be loved and held in honour as long as people +live to honour nobleness, simplicity, and genius; those +things which give life to life itself.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VIII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>'Calais after a rough passage; Brussels, flat country, +tiled houses, trees and ditches, the window shutters +turned out to the street; fishwives' legs, Dunkirk, and +the people looking like wooden toys set in motion; +Bruges and its mingled spires, shipping, and windmills.' +These notes of travel read as if Miss Edgeworth had been +writing down only yesterday a pleasant list of the things +which are to be seen two hours off, to-day no less plainly +than a century ago. She jots it all down from her corner +in the postchaise, where she is propped up with a father, +brother, stepmother, and sister for travelling companions, +and a new book to beguile the way. She is charmed with +her new book. It is the story of 'Mademoiselle de +Clermont,' by Madame de Genlis, and only just out. The +Edgeworths (with many other English people) rejoiced in +the long-looked-for millennium, which had been signed +only the previous autumn, and they now came abroad to +bask in the sunshine of the Continent, which had been so +long denied to our mist-bound islanders. We hear of the +enthusiastic and somewhat premature joy with which this +peace was received by all ranks of people. Not only did +the English rush over to France; foreigners crossed to +England, and one of them, an old friend of Mr. Edgeworth's, +had already reached Edgeworthtown, and inspired +its enterprising master with a desire to see those places and +things once more which he heard described. Mr. Edgeworth +was anxious also to show his young wife the +treasures in the Louvre, and to help her to develop her +taste for art. He had had many troubles of late, lost +friends and children by death and by marriage. One can +imagine that the change must have been welcome to them +all. Besides Maria and Lovell, his eldest son, he took with +him a lovely young daughter, Charlotte Edgeworth, the +daughter of Elizabeth Sneyd. They travelled by Belgium, +stopping on their way at Bruges, at Ghent, and visiting +pictures and churches along the road, as travellers still +like to do. Mrs. Edgeworth was, as we have said, the +artistic member of the party. We do not know what +modern rhapsodists would say to Miss Edgeworth's very +subdued criticisms and descriptions of feeling on this +occasion. 'It is extremely agreeable to me,' she writes, +'to see paintings with those who have excellent taste and +no affectation.' And this remark might perhaps be +thought even more to the point now than in the pre-æsthetic +age in which it was innocently made. The +travellers are finally landed in Paris in a magnificent +hotel in a fine square, 'formerly Place Louis-Quinze, +afterwards Place de la Révolution, now Place de la +Concorde.' And Place de la Concorde it remains, wars +and revolutions notwithstanding, whether lighted by the +flames of the desperate Commune or by the peaceful +sunsets which stream their evening glory across the blood-stained +stones.</p> + +<p>The Edgeworths did not come as strangers to Paris; +they brought letters and introductions with them, and +bygone associations and friendships which had only now +to be resumed. The well-known Abbé Morellet, their old +acquaintance, 'answered for them,' says Miss Edgeworth, +and besides all this Mr Edgeworth's name was well known +in scientific circles. Bréguet, Montgolfier, and others +all made him welcome. Lord Henry Petty, as Maria's +friend Lord Lansdowne was then called, was in Paris, and +Rogers the poet, and Kosciusko, cured of his wounds. For +the first time they now made the acquaintance of M. +Dumont, a lifelong friend and correspondent. There were +many others—the Delesserts, of the French Protestant +faction, Madame Suard, to whom the romantic Thomas +Day had paid court some thirty years before, and Madame +Campan, and Madame Récamier, and Madame de Rémusat, +and Madame de Houdetot, now seventy-two years of age, +but Rousseau's Julie still, and Camille Jordan, and the +Chevalier Edelcrantz, from the Court of the King of +Sweden.</p> + +<p>The names alone of the Edgeworths' entertainers represent +a delightful and interesting section of the history +of the time. One can imagine that besides all these +pleasant and talkative persons the Faubourg Saint-Germain +itself threw open its great swinging doors to the relations +of the Abbé Edgeworth who risked his life to stand by +his master upon the scaffold and to speak those noble +warm-hearted words, the last that Louis ever heard. One +can picture the family party as it must have appeared +with its pleasant British looks—the agreeable 'ruddy-faced' +father, the gentle Mrs. Edgeworth, who is somewhere +described by her stepdaughter as so orderly, so clean, so +freshly dressed, the child of fifteen, only too beautiful +and delicately lovely, and last of all Maria herself, the +nice little unassuming, Jeannie-Deans-looking body Lord +Byron described, small, homely, perhaps, but with her +gift of French, of charming intercourse, her fresh laurels +of authorship (for 'Belinda' was lately published), her +bright animation, her cultivated mind and power of interesting +all those in her company, to say nothing of her own +kindling interest in every one and every thing round about +her.</p> + +<p>Her keen delights and vivid descriptions of all these +new things, faces, voices, ideas, are all to be read in some +long and most charming letters to Ireland, which also +contain the account of a most eventful crisis which this +Paris journey brought about. The letter is dated March +1803, and it concludes as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Here, my dear aunt, I was interrupted in a manner that will +surprise you as much as it surprised me—by the coming of M. +Edelcrantz, a Swedish gentleman whom we have mentioned to +you, of superior understanding and mild manners. He came to +offer me his hand and heart! My heart, you may suppose, +cannot return his attachment, for I have seen but very little of +him, and have not had time to have formed any judgment except +that I think nothing could tempt me to leave my own dear +friends and my own country to live in Sweden.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Maria Edgeworth was now about thirty years of age, at +a time of life when people are apt to realise perhaps almost +more deeply than in early youth the influence of feeling, its +importance, and strange power over events. Hitherto +there are no records in her memoirs of any sentimental +episodes, but it does not follow that a young lady has not +had her own phase of experience because she does not +write it out at length to her various aunts and correspondents. +Miss Edgeworth was not a sentimental person. +She was warmly devoted to her own family, and she seems +to have had a strong idea of her own want of beauty; +perhaps her admiration for her lovely young sisters may +have caused this feeling to be exaggerated by her. But +no romantic, lovely heroine could have inspired a deeper +or more touching admiration than this one which M. +Edelcrantz felt for his English friend; the mild and +superior Swede seems to have been thoroughly in earnest.</p> + +<p>So indeed was Miss Edgeworth, but she was not carried +away by the natural impulse of the moment. She realised +the many difficulties and dangers of the unknown; she +looked to the future; she turned to her own home, and +with an affection all the more felt because of the trial to +which it was now exposed. The many lessons of self-control +and self-restraint which she had learnt returned +with instinctive force. Sometimes it happens that people +miss what is perhaps the best for the sake of the next +best, and we see convenience and old habit and expediency, +and a hundred small and insignificant circumstances, +gathering like some avalanche to divide hearts that might +give and receive very much from each. But sentiment is +not the only thing in life. Other duties, ties, and realities +there are; and it is difficult to judge for others in such +matters. Sincerity of heart and truth to themselves are +pretty sure in the end to lead people in the right direction +for their own and for other people's happiness. Only, in +the experience of many women there is the danger that +fixed ideas, and other people's opinion, and the force of +custom may limit lives which might have been complete +in greater things, though perhaps less perfect in the lesser. +People in the abstract are sincere enough in wishing fulness +of experience and of happiness to those dearest and nearest +to them; but we are only human beings, and when the time +comes and the horrible necessity for parting approaches, +our courage goes, our hearts fail, and we think we are +preaching reason and good sense while it is only a most +natural instinct which leads us to cling to that to which +we are used and to those we love.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth did not attempt to influence Maria. +Mrs. Edgeworth evidently had some misgivings, and certainly +much sympathy for the Chevalier and for her friend +and stepdaughter. She says:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Maria was mistaken as to her own feelings. She refused M. +Edelcrantz, but she felt much more for him than esteem and +admiration; she was extremely in love with him. Mr. Edgeworth +left her to decide for herself; but she saw too plainly +what it would be to us to lose her and what she would feel at +parting with us. She decided rightly for her own future +happiness and for that of her family, but she suffered much +at the time and long afterwards. While we were at Paris I +remember that in a shop, where Charlotte and I were making +purchases, Maria sat apart absorbed in thought, and so deep in +reverie that when her father came in and stood opposite to her +she did not see him till he spoke to her, when she started +and burst into tears…. I do not think she repented of her +refusal or regretted her decision. She was well aware that she +could not have made M. Edelcrantz happy, that she would not +have suited his position at the Court of Stockholm, and that her +want of beauty might have diminished his attachment. It was +perhaps better she should think so, for it calmed her mind; +but from what I saw of M. Edelcrantz I think he was a man +capable of really valuing her. I believe he was much attached +to her, and deeply mortified at her refusal. He continued to +reside in Sweden after the abdication of his master, and was +always distinguished for his high character and great abilities. +He never married. He was, except for his very fine eyes, +remarkably plain.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>So ends the romance of the romancer. There are, +however, many happinesses in life, as there are many +troubles.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edgeworth tells us that after her stepdaughter's +return to Edgeworthtown she occupied herself with various +literary works, correcting some of her former MSS. for +the press, and writing 'Madame de Fleury,' 'Emilie de +Coulanges,' and 'Leonora.' But the high-flown and +romantic style did suit her gift, and she wrote best when +her genuine interest and unaffected glances shone with +bright understanding sympathy upon her immediate surroundings. +When we are told that 'Leonora' was written +in the style the Chevalier Edelcrantz preferred, and that +the idea of what he would think of it was present to +Maria in every page, we begin to realise that for us at all +events it was a most fortunate thing that she decided as +she did. It would have been a loss indeed to the world if +this kindling and delightful spirit of hers had been +choked by the polite thorns, fictions, and platitudes of an +artificial, courtly life and by the well-ordered narrowness +of a limited standard. She never heard what the +Chevalier thought of the book; she never knew that he +ever read it even. It is a satisfaction to hear that he +married no one else, and while she sat writing and not +forgetting in the pleasant library at home, one can +imagine the romantic Chevalier in his distant Court +faithful to the sudden and romantic devotion by which he +is now remembered. Romantic and chivalrous friendship +seems to belong to his country and to his countrymen.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>IX.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>There are one or two other episodes less sentimental +than this one recorded of this visit to Paris, not the least +interesting of these being the account given of a call +upon Madame de Genlis. The younger author from her +own standpoint having resolutely turned away from the voice +of the charmer for the sake of that which she is convinced +to be duty and good sense, now somewhat sternly takes the +measure of her elder sister, who has failed in the struggle, +who is alone and friendless, and who has made her fate.</p> + +<p>The story is too long to quote at full length. An +isolated page without its setting loses very much; the +previous description of the darkness and uncertainty +through which Maria and her father go wandering, and +asking their way in vain, adds immensely to the sense of +the gloom and isolation which are hiding the close of a +long and brilliant career. At last, after wandering for a +long time seeking for Madame de Genlis, the travellers +compel a reluctant porter to show them the staircase in +the Arsenal, where she is living, and to point out the door +before he goes off with the light.</p> + +<p>They wait in darkness. The account of what happens +when the door is opened is so interesting that I cannot +refrain from quoting it at length:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>After ringing the bell we presently heard doors open and +little footsteps approaching nigh. The door was opened by a +girl of about Honora's size, holding an ill set-up, wavering +candle in her hand, the light of which fell full upon her face +and figure. Her face was remarkably intelligent—dark sparkling +eyes, dark hair curled in the most fashionable long corkscrew +ringlets over her eyes and cheeks. She parted the +ringlets to take a full view of us. The dress of her figure by +no means suited the head and elegance of her attitude. What +her nether weeds might be we could not distinctly see, but +they seemed a coarse short petticoat like what Molly Bristow's +children would wear. After surveying us and hearing our +name was Edgeworth she smiled graciously and bid us follow +her, saying, 'Maman est chez elle.' She led the way with the +grace of a young lady who has been taught to dance across two +ante-chambers, miserable-looking; but, miserable or not, no +home in Paris can be without them. The girl, or young lady, +for we were still in doubt which to think her, led into a small +room in which the candles were so well screened by a green tin +screen that we could scarcely distinguish the tall form of a lady +in black who rose from her chair by the fireside; as the door +opened a great puff of smoke came from the huge fireplace at +the same moment. She came forward, and we made our way +towards her as well as we could through a confusion of tables, +chairs, and work-baskets, china, writing-desks and inkstands, +and birdcages, and a harp. She did not speak, and as her back +was now turned to both fire and candle I could not see her face +or anything but the outline of her form and her attitude. Her +form was the remains of a fine form, her attitude that of a +woman used to a better drawing-room.</p> + +<p>I being foremost, and she silent, was compelled to speak to +the figure in darkness. 'Madame de Genlis nous a fait l'honneur +de nous mander qu'elle voulait bien nous permettre de lui rendre +visite,' said I, or words to that effect, to which she replied by +taking my hand and saying something in which 'charmée' was +the most intelligible word. While she spoke she looked over +my shoulder at my father, whose bow, I presume, told her he +was a gentleman, for she spoke to him immediately as if she +wished to please and seated us in <i>fauteuils</i> near the fire.</p> + +<p>I then had a full view of her face—figure very thin and +melancholy dark eyes, long sallow cheeks, compressed thin lips, +two or three black ringlets on a high forehead, a cap that Mrs. +Grier might wear—altogether in appearance of fallen fortunes, +worn-out health, and excessive but guarded irritability. To +me there was nothing of that engaging, captivating manner +which I had been taught to expect. She seemed to me to be +alive only to literary quarrels and jealousies. The muscles of +her face as she spoke, or as my father spoke to her, quickly and +too easily expressed hatred and anger…. She is now, you +know, <i>dévote acharnée</i>…. Madame de Genlis seems to have +been so much used to being attacked that she has defence and +apologies ready prepared. She spoke of Madame de Staël's +'Delphine' with detestation…. Forgive me, my dear Aunt +Mary; you begged me to see her with favourable eyes, and I +went, after seeing her 'Rosière de Salency,' with the most favourable +disposition, but I could not like her…. And from time +to time I saw, or thought I saw, through the gloom of her +countenance a gleam of coquetry. But my father judges of +her much more favourably than I do. She evidently took +pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person over +whose mind he could gain great ascendency.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The 'young and gay philosopher' at fifty is not +unchanged since we knew him first. Maria adds a postscript:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I had almost forgotten to tell you that the little girl who +showed us in is a girl whom she is educating. 'Elle m'appelle +maman, mais elle n'est pas ma fille.' The manner in which +this little girl spoke to Madame de Genlis and looked at her +appeared to me more in her favour than anything else. I +went to look at what the child was writing; she was translating +Darwin's <i>Zoonomia</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Every description one reads by Miss Edgeworth of +actual things and people makes one wish that she had +written more of them. This one is the more interesting +from the contrast of the two women, both so remarkable +and coming to so different a result in their experience of +life.</p> + +<p>This eventful visit to Paris is brought to an eventful +termination by several gendarmes, who appear early one +morning in Mr. Edgeworth's bedroom with orders that he +is to get up and to leave Paris immediately. Mr. Edgeworth +had been accused of being brother to the Abbé de +Fermont. When the mitigated circumstances of his being +only a first cousin were put forward by Lord Whitworth, +the English Ambassador, the Edgeworths received permission +to return from the suburb to which they had +retired; but private news hurried their departure, and +they were only in time to escape the general blockade and +detention of English prisoners. After little more than a +year of peace, once more war was declared on May 20, 1803. +Lovell, the eldest son, who was absent at the time and +travelling from Switzerland, was not able to escape in time; +nor for twelve years to come was the young man able to +return to his own home and family.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>X.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>'Belinda,' 'Castle Rackrent,' the 'Parents' Assistant,' +the 'Essays on Practical Education,' had all made their +mark. The new series of popular tales was also welcomed. +There were other books on the way; Miss Edgeworth had +several MSS. in hand in various stages, stories to correct +for the press. There was also a long novel, first begun by her +father and taken up and carried on by her. The 'Essays +on Practical Education,' which were first published in 1798, +continued to be read. M. Pictet had translated the book +into French the year before; a third edition was published +some ten years later, in 1811, in the preface of which the +authors say, 'It is due to the public to state that twelve +years' additional experience in a numerous family, and +careful attention to the results of other modes of education, +have given the authors no reason to retract what they have +advanced in these volumes.'</p> + +<p>In Mr. Edgeworth's Memoirs, however, his daughter +states that he modified his opinions in one or two particulars; +allowing more and more liberty to the children, +and at the same time conceding greater importance to the +habit of early though mechanical efforts of memory. The +essays seem in every way in advance of their time; many +of the hints contained in them most certainly apply to +the little children of to-day no less than to their small +grandparents. A lady whose own name is high in +the annals of education was telling me that she had +been greatly struck by the resemblance between the +Edgeworth system and that of Froebel's Kindergarten +method, which is now gaining more and more ground in +people's estimation, the object of both being not so +much to cram instruction into early youth as to +draw out each child's powers of observation and attention.</p> + +<p>The first series of tales of fashionable life came out in +1809, and contained among other stories 'Ennui,' one of +the most remarkable of Miss Edgeworth's works. The +second series included the 'Absentee,' that delightful +story of which the lesson should be impressed upon us even +more than in the year 1812. The 'Absentee' was at first +only an episode in the longer novel of 'Patronage;' but +the public was impatient, so were the publishers, and +fortunately for every one the 'Absentee' was printed as a +separate tale.</p> + +<p>'Patronage' had been begun by Mr. Edgeworth to +amuse his wife, who was recovering from illness; it was +originally called the 'Fortunes of the Freeman Family,' +and it is a history with a moral. Morals were more in +fashion then than they are now, but this one is obvious +without any commentary upon it. It is tolerably certain +that clever, industrious, well-conducted people will +succeed, where idle, scheming, and untrustworthy persons +will eventually fail to get on, even with powerful friends +to back them. But the novel has yet to be written that +will prove that, where merits are more equal, a little +patronage is not of a great deal of use, or that people's +positions in life are exactly proportioned to their merit. +Mrs. Barbauld's pretty essay on the 'Inconsistency of Human +Expectations' contains the best possible answer to the +problem of what people's deserts should be. Let us hope +that personal advancement is only one of the many things +people try for in life, and that there are other prizes as +well worth having. Miss Edgeworth herself somewhere +speaks with warm admiration of this very essay. Of the +novel itself she says (writing to Mrs. Barbauld), 'It is so +vast a subject that it flounders about in my hands and +quite overpowers me.'</p> + +<p>It is in this same letter that Miss Edgeworth mentions +another circumstance which interested her at this time, and +which was one of those events occurring now and again +which do equal credit to all concerned.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I have written a preface and notes [she says]—for I too +would be an editor—for a little book which a very worthy +countrywoman of mine is going to publish: Mrs. Leadbeater, +granddaughter to Burke's first preceptor. She is poor. She +has behaved most handsomely about some letters of Burke's to +her grandfather and herself. It would have been advantageous +to her to publish them; but, as Mrs. Burke<a href="#fn2"><sup><small>2</small></sup></a><a name="fn2r" id="fn2r"></a>—Heaven knows +why—objected, she desisted.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Leadbeater was an Irish Quaker lady whose +simple and spirited annals of Ballitore delighted Carlyle +in his later days, and whose 'Cottage Dialogues' greatly +struck Mr. Edgeworth at the time; and the kind +Edgeworths, finding her quite unused to public transactions, +exerted themselves in every way to help her. Mr. +Edgeworth took the MSS. out of the hands of an Irish +publisher, and, says Maria, 'our excellent friend's worthy +successor in St. Paul's Churchyard has, on our recommendation, +agreed to publish it for her.' Mr. Edgeworth's +own letter to Mrs. Leadbeater gives the history of his +good-natured offices and their satisfactory results.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +From R. L. Edgeworth, July 5, 1810.<br /> +Miss Edgeworth desires me as a man of business to write +to Mrs. Leadbeater relative to the publication of 'Cottage +Dialogues.' Miss Edgeworth has written an advertisement, and +will, with Mrs. Leadbeater's permission, write notes for an +English edition. The scheme which I propose is of two parts—to +sell the English copyright to the house of Johnson in +London, where we dispose of our own works, and to publish a +very large and cheap edition for Ireland for schools…. I can +probably introduce the book into many places. Our family +takes 300 copies, Lady Longford 50, Dr. Beaufort 20, &c…. +I think Johnson & Co. will give 50<i>l</i>. for the English copyright.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>After the transaction Mr. Edgeworth wrote to the +publishers as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="right">May 31, 1811: Edgeworthtown.<br /> +My sixty-eighth birthday.</p> +<p>My dear Gentlemen,—I have just heard your letter to +Mrs. Leadbeater read by one who dropped tears of pleasure +from a sense of your generous and handsome conduct. I take +great pleasure in speaking of you to the rest of the world as +you deserve, and I cannot refrain from expressing to yourselves +the genuine esteem that I feel for you. I know that this direct +praise is scarcely allowable, but my advanced age and my close +connection with you must be my excuse.—Yours sincerely,</p> +<p class="signature">R. L. E.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Tears seem equivalent to something more than the +estimated value of Mrs. Leadbeater's labours. The +charming and well-known Mrs. Trench who was also Mary +Leadbeater's friend, writes warmly praising the notes. +'Miss Edgeworth's notes on your Dialogues have as much +spirit and originality as if she had never before explored +the mine which many thought she had exhausted.'</p> + +<p>All these are pleasant specimens of the Edgeworth +correspondence, which, however (following the course of +most correspondence), does not seem to have been always +equally agreeable. There are some letters (among others +which I have been allowed to see) written by Maria about +this time to an unfortunate young man who seems to have +annoyed her greatly by his excited importunities.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I thank you [she says] for your friendly zeal in defence of +my powers of pathos and sublimity; but I think it carries you +much too far when it leads you to imagine that I refrain, from +principle or virtue, from displaying powers that I really do not +possess. I assure you that I am not in the least capable of +writing a dithyrambic ode, or any other kind of ode.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>One is reminded by this suggestion of Jane Austen also +declining to write 'an historical novel illustrative of the +august House of Coburg.'</p> + +<p>The young man himself seems to have had some wild +aspirations after authorship, but to have feared criticism.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The advantage of the art of printing [says his friendly +Minerva] is that the mistakes of individuals in reasoning and +writing will be corrected in time by the public, so that the +cause of truth cannot suffer; and I presume you are too much +of a philosopher to mind the trifling mortification that the +detection of a mistake might occasion. You know that some +sensible person has observed that acknowledging a mistake is +saying, only in other words, that we are wiser to-day than we +were yesterday.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>He seems at last to have passed the bounds of reasonable +correspondence, and she writes as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Your last letter, dated in June, was many months before it +reached me. In answer to all your reproaches at my silence I +can only assure you that it was not caused by any change in +my opinions or good wishes; but I do not carry on what is +called a regular correspondence with anybody except with one +or two of my very nearest relations; and it is best to tell the +plain truth that my father particularly dislikes my writing +letters, so I write as few as I possibly can.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XI.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>While Maria Edgeworth was at work in her Irish +home, successfully producing her admirable delineations, +another woman, born some eight years later, and living in +the quiet Hampshire village where the elm trees spread so +greenly, was also at work, also writing books that were +destined to influence many a generation, but which were +meanwhile waiting unknown, unnoticed. Do we not all +know the story of the brown paper parcel lying unopened +for years on the publisher's shelf and containing Henry +Tilney and all his capes, Catherine Morland and all her +romance, and the great John Thorpe himself, uttering those +valuable literary criticisms which Lord Macaulay, writing +to his little sisters at home, used to quote to them? 'Oh, +Lord!' says John Thorpe, 'I never read novels; I have other +things to do.'</p> + +<p>A friend reminds us of Miss Austen's own indignant +outburst. 'Only a novel! only "Cecilia," or "Camilla," +or "Belinda;" or, in short, only some work in which the +greatest powers of the mind are displayed, the most +thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest +delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit +and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen +language.' If the great historian, who loved novels himself, +had not assured us that we owe Miss Austen and Miss +Edgeworth to the early influence of the author of +'Evelina,' one might grudge 'Belinda' to such company +as that of 'Cecilia' and 'Camilla.'</p> + +<p>'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Northanger Abbey' were +published about the same time as 'Patronage' and 'Tales +of Fashionable Life.' Their two authors illustrate, curiously +enough, the difference between the national characteristics +of English and Irish—the breadth, the versatility, the +innate wit and gaiety of an Irish mind; the comparative +narrowness of range of an English nature; where, however, +we are more likely to get humour and its never-failing +charm. Long afterwards Jane Austen sent one of her +novels to Miss Edgeworth, who appreciated it indeed, as +such a mind as hers could not fail to do, but it was with no +such enthusiasm as that which she felt for other more +ambitious works, with more of incident, power, knowledge +of the world, in the place of that one subtle quality +of humour which for some persons outweighs almost every +other. Something, some indefinite sentiment, tells people +where they amalgamate and with whom they are intellectually +akin; and by some such process of criticism the +writer feels that in this little memoir of Miss Edgeworth +she has but sketched the outer likeness of this remarkable +woman's life and genius; and that she has scarcely done +justice to very much in Miss Edgeworth, which so many +of the foremost men of her day could appreciate—a power, +a versatility, an interest in subjects for their own sakes, +not for the sakes of those who are interested in them, +which was essentially hers.</p> + +<p>It is always characteristic to watch a writer's progress +in the estimation of critics and reviewers. In 1809 Miss +Edgeworth is moderately and respectfully noticed. 'As a +writer of novels and tales she has a marked peculiarity, +that of venturing to dispense common sense to her readers +and to bring them within the precincts of real life. Without +excluding love from her pages she knows how to assign +to it its true limits.' In 1812 the reviewer, more used to +hear the author's praises on all sides, now starts from a +higher key, and, as far as truth to nature and delineation +of character are concerned, does not allow a rival except +'Don Quixote' and 'Gil Blas.' The following criticism +is just and more to the point:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>To this power of masterly and minute delineation of character +Miss Edgeworth adds another which has rarely been +combined with the former, that of interweaving the peculiarities +of her persons with the conduct of her piece, and making them, +without forgetting for a moment their personal consistency, +conduce to the general lesson…. Her virtue and vice, +though copied exactly from nature, lead with perfect ease to a +moral conclusion, and are finally punished or rewarded by +means which (rare as a retribution in this world is) appear for +the most part neither inconsistent nor unnatural.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Then follows a review of 'Vivian' and of the 'Absentee,' +which is perhaps the most admirable of her works. We +may all remember how Macaulay once pronounced that +the scene in the 'Absentee' where Lord Colambre discovers +himself to his tenantry was the best thing of the +sort since the opening of the twenty-second book of the +'Odyssey.'</p> + +<p>An article by Lord Dudley, which is still to be quoted, +appeared in the 'Quarterly Review' in 1814. What he +says of her works applies no less to Miss Edgeworth's own +life than to the principles which she inculcates.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The old rule was for heroes and heroines to fall suddenly +and irretrievably in love. If they fell in love with the right +person so much the better; if not, it could not be helped, and +the novel ended unhappily. And, above all, it was held quite +irregular for the most reasonable people to make any use whatever +of their reason on the most important occasion of their +lives. Miss Edgeworth has presumed to treat this mighty +power with far less reverence. She has analysed it and found +it does not consist of one simple element, but that several +common ingredients enter into its composition—habit, esteem, +a belief of some corresponding sentiment and of suitableness in +the character and circumstances of the party. She has pronounced +that reason, timely and vigorously applied, is almost a +specific, and, following up this bold empirical line of practice, +she has actually produced cases of the entire cure of persons +who had laboured under its operation. Her favourite qualities +are prudence, firmness, temper, and that active, vigilant good +sense which, without checking the course of our kind affections, +exercises its influence at every moment and surveys deliberately +the motives and consequences of every action. Utility is her +object, reason and experience her means.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>This review of Lord Dudley's must have come out +after a visit from the Edgeworth family to London in +1813, which seems to have been a most brilliant and +amusing campaign. 'I know the homage that was paid +you,' wrote Mrs. Barbauld, speaking of the event, 'and I +exulted in it for your sake and for my sex's sake.' Miss +Edgeworth was at the height of her popularity, in good +spirits and good health. Mr. Edgeworth was seventy, but +he looked years younger, and was still in undiminished +health and vigour. The party was welcomed, fêted, +sought after everywhere. Except that they miss seeing +Madame d'Arblay and leave London before the arrival of +Madame de Staël, they seem to have come in for everything +that was brilliant, fashionable, and entertaining. +They breakfast with poets, they sup with marquises, they +call upon duchesses and scientific men. Maria's old friend +the Duchess of Wellington is not less her friend than she +was in County Longford. Every one likes them and comes +knocking at their lodging-house door, while Maria upstairs +is writing a letter, standing at a chest of drawers. +'Miss Edgeworth is delightful,' says Tom Moore, 'not +from display, but from repose and unaffectedness, the +least pretending person.' Even Lord <ins title="original has Bryon">Byron</ins> writes warmly +of the authoress whose company is so grateful, and who +goes her simple, pleasant way cheerful and bringing kind +cheer, and making friends with the children as well as +with the elders. Many of these children in their lives +fully justified her interest, children whom we in turn have +known and looked up to as distinguished greyheaded men.</p> + +<p>Some one asked Miss Edgeworth how she came to +understand children as she did, what charm she used to +win them. 'I don't know,' she said kindly; 'I lie down +and let them crawl over me.' She was greatly pleased on +one occasion when at a crowded party a little girl suddenly +started forth, looked at her hard, and said, 'I like simple +Susan best,' and rushed away overwhelmed at her own +audacity. The same lady who was present on this occasion +asked her a question which we must all be grateful to have +solved for us—how it happened that the respective places +of Laura and Rosamond came to be transposed in +'Patronage,' Laura having been the wiser elder sister in +the 'Purple Jar,' and appearing suddenly as the younger +in the novel. Miss Edgeworth laughed and said that +Laura had been so preternaturally wise and thoughtful as +a child, she could never have kept her up to the mark, and +so she thought it best to change the character altogether.</p> + +<p>During one of her visits to London Miss Edgeworth +went to dine at the house of Mr. Marshall; and his +daughter, Lady Monteagle, tells a little story which gives +an impression, and a kind one, of the celebrated guest. +Everything had been prepared in her honour, the lights +lighted, the viands were cooked. Dinner was announced, +and some important person was brought forward to hand +Miss Edgeworth down, when it was discovered that she +had vanished. For a moment the company and the dinner +were all at a standstill. She was a small person, but +diligent search was made. Miss Edgeworth had last been +seen with the children of the house, and she was eventually +found in the back kitchen, escorted by the said children, +who, having confided their private affairs to her sympathetic +ear, had finally invited her to come with them +and see some rabbits which they were rearing down below. +A lady who used to live at Clifton as a little girl, and to +be sometimes prescribed for by Dr. King, was once brought +up as a child to Miss Edgeworth, and she told me how very +much puzzled she felt when the bright old lady, taking her +by the hand, said, 'Well, my dear, how do you do, and how +is my excellent brother-in-law?' One can imagine what a +vague sort of being an 'excellent brother-in-law' would +seem to a very young child.</p> + +<p>We read in Miss Edgeworth's memoir of her father +that Mr. Edgeworth recovered from his serious illness in +1814 to enjoy a few more years of life among his friends, +his children, and his experiments. His good humour and +good spirits were undiminished, and he used to quote an +old friend's praise of 'the privileges and convenience of +old age.' He was past seventy, but he seems to have +continued his own education to the end of life. 'Without +affecting to be young, he exerted himself to prevent any of +his faculties from sinking into the indolent state which +portends their decay,' and his daughter says that he went +on learning to the last, correcting his faults and practising +his memory by various devices, so that it even improved +with age.</p> + +<p>In one of his last letters to Mrs. Beaufort, his wife's +mother, he speaks with no little paternal pleasure of his +home and his children: 'Such excellent principles, such +just views of human life and manners, such cultivated +understandings, such charming tempers make a little +Paradise about me;' while with regard to his daughter's +works he adds concerning the book which was about to +appear, 'If Maria's tales fail with the public, you will hear +of my hanging myself.'</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth died in the summer of 1817, at home, +surrounded by his family, grateful, as he says, to Providence +for allowing his body to perish before his mind.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>During the melancholy months which succeeded her father's +death Maria hardly wrote any letters; her sight was in a most +alarming state. The tears, she said, felt in her eyes like the +cutting of a knife. She had overworked them all the previous +winter, sitting up at night and struggling with her grief as she +wrote 'Ormond.' She was now unable to use them without +pain…. Edgeworthtown now belonged to Lovell, the eldest +surviving brother, but he wished it to continue the home of the +family. Maria set to work to complete her father's memoirs +and to fulfil his last wish.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was not without great hesitation and anxiety that +she determined to finish writing her father's Life. There is +a touching appeal in a letter to her aunt Ruxton. 'I felt +the happiness of my life was at stake. Even if all the rest +of the world had praised it and you had been dissatisfied, +how miserable should I have been!' And there is another +sentence written at Bowood, very sad and full of remembrance: +'I feel as if I had lived a hundred years and +was left alive after everybody else.' The book came out, +and many things were said about it, not all praise. The +'Quarterly' was so spiteful and intolerant that it seemed +almost personal in its violence. It certainly would have +been a great loss to the world had this curious and +interesting memoir never been published, but at the +time the absence of certain phrases and expressions of +opinions which Mr. Edgeworth had never specially professed +seemed greatly to offend the reviewers.</p> + +<p>The worst of these attacks Miss Edgeworth never read, +and the task finished, the sad months over, the poor eyes +recovered, she crossed to England.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XIII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>One is glad to hear of her away and at Bowood reviving +in good company, in all senses of the word. Her old friend +Lord Henry Petty, now Lord Lansdowne, was still her +friend and full of kindness. Outside the house spread a +green deer-park to rest her tired eyes, within were pleasant +and delightful companions to cheer her soul. Sir Samuel +Romilly was there, of whom she speaks with affectionate +admiration, as she does of her kind host and hostess. 'I +much enjoy the sight of Lady Lansdowne's happiness with +her husband and her children. Beauty, fortune, cultivated +society all united—in short, everything that the most +reasonable or unreasonable could wish. She is so amiable +and desirous to make others happy.'</p> + +<p>Miss Edgeworth's power of making other people see +things as she does is very remarkable in all these letters; +with a little imagination one could almost feel as if one +might be able to travel back into the pleasant society in +which she lived. When she goes abroad soon after with +her two younger sisters (Fanny, the baby whose head so +nearly came off in her arms, and Harriet, who have both +grown up by this time to be pretty and elegant young +ladies), the sisters are made welcome everywhere. In +Paris, as in London, troops of acquaintance came forward +to receive 'Madame Maria et mesdemoiselles ses sœurs,' +as they used to be announced. Most of their old friends +were there still; only the children had grown up and were +now new friends to be greeted. It is a confusion of names +in visionary succession, comprising English people no less +than French. Miss Edgeworth notes it all with a sure +hand and true pen; it is as one of the sketch-books of a +great painter, where whole pictures are indicated in a few +just lines. Here is a peep at the Abbaye aux Bois in +1820:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>We went to Madame Récamier in her convent, l'Abbaye +aux Bois, up seventy-eight steps. All came in with asthma. +Elegant room; she as elegant as ever. Matthieu de Montmorenci, +the ex-Queen of Sweden, Madame de Boigne, a charming +woman, and Madame la Maréchale de ——, a battered +beauty, smelling of garlic and screeching in vain to pass as a +wit…. Madame Récamier has no more taken the veil than +I have, and is as little likely to do it. She is quite beautiful; +she dresses herself and her little room with elegant simplicity, +and lives in a convent only because it is cheap and respectable.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>One sees it all, the convent, the company, the last +refrain of former triumphs, the faithful romantic Matthieu +de Montmorenci, and above all the poor Maréchale, who +will screech for ever in her garlic. Let us turn the page, +we find another picture from these not long past days:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Breakfast at Camille Jordan's; it was half-past twelve +before the company assembled, and we had an hour's delightful +conversation with Camille Jordan and his wife in her spotless +white muslin and little cap, sitting at her husband's feet as he +lay on the sofa; as clean, as nice, as fresh, as thoughtless of +herself as my mother. At this breakfast we saw three of the +most distinguished of that party who call themselves 'les +Doctrinaires' and say they are more attached to measures than +to men.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Here is another portrait of a portrait and its painter:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Princess Potemkin is a Russian, but she has all the grace, +softness, winning manner of the Polish ladies. Oval face, pale, +with the finest, softest, most expressive chestnut dark eyes. +She has a sort of politeness which pleases peculiarly, a mixture +of the ease of high rank and early habit with something that is +sentimental without affectation. Madame le Brun is painting +her picture. Madame le Brun is sixty-six, with great vivacity +as well as genius, and better worth seeing than her pictures, +for though they are speaking she speaks. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Another visit the sisters paid, which will interest the +readers of Madame de la Rochejaquelin's memoirs of the +war in the Vendée:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>In a small bedroom, well furnished, with a fire just lighted, +we found Madame de la Rochejaquelin on the sofa; her two +daughters at work, one spinning with a distaff, the other +embroidering muslin. Madame is a fat woman with a broad, +round, fair face and a most benevolent expression, her hair cut +short and perfectly grey as seen under her cap; the rest of the +face much too young for such grey locks; and though her face +and bundled form all squashed on to a sofa did not at first +promise much of gentility, you could not hear her speak or +hear her for three minutes without perceiving that she was +well-born and well-bred. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Madame de la Rochejaquelin seems to have confided in +Miss Edgeworth.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>'I am always sorry when any stranger sees me, <i>parce que +je sais que je détruis toute illusion. Je sais que je devrais +avoir l'air d'une héroïne.</i>' She is much better than a heroine; +she is benevolence and truth itself.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>We must not forget the scientific world where Madame +Maria was no less at home than in fashionable literary +cliques. The sisters saw something of Cuvier at Paris; in +Switzerland they travelled with the Aragos. They were on +their way to the Marcets at Geneva when they stopped at +Coppet, where Miss Edgeworth was always specially happy +in the society of Madame Auguste de Staël and Madame +de Broglie. But Switzerland is not one of the places +where human beings only are in the ascendant; other +influences there are almost stronger than human ones. 'I +did not conceive it possible that I should feel so much +pleasure from the beauties of nature as I have done since I +came to this country. The first moment when I saw Mont +Blanc will remain an era in my life—a new idea, a new +feeling standing alone in the mind.' Miss Edgeworth presently +comes down from her mountain heights and, full of +interest, throws herself into the talk of her friends at +Coppet and Geneva, from which she quotes as it occurs to +her. Here is Rocca's indignant speech to Lord Byron, who +was abusing the stupidity of the Genevese. 'Eh! milord, +pourquoi venir vous fourrer parmi ces honnêtes gens?' +There is Arago's curious anecdote of Napoleon, who sent +for him after the battle of Waterloo, offering him a large +sum of money to accompany him to America. The +Emperor had formed a project for founding a scientific +colony in the New World. Arago was so indignant with +him for abandoning his troops that he would have nothing +to say to the plan. A far more touching story is Dr. +Marcet's account of Josephine. 'Poor Josephine! Do you +remember Dr. Marcet's telling us that when he breakfasted +with her she said, pointing to her flowers, "These are my +subjects. I try to make them happy"?'</p> + +<p>Among other expeditions they made a pilgrimage to the +home of the author of a work for which Miss Edgeworth +seems to have entertained a mysterious enthusiasm. The +novel was called 'Caroline de Lichfield,' and was so much +admired at the time that Miss Seward mentions a gentleman +who wrote from abroad to propose for the hand of the +authoress, and who, more fortunate than the poor Chevalier +Edelcrantz, was not refused by the lady. Perhaps some +similarity of experience may have led Maria Edgeworth to +wish for her acquaintance. Happily the time was past for +Miss Edgeworth to look back; her life was now shaped and +moulded in its own groove; the consideration, the variety, +the difficulties of unmarried life were hers, its agreeable +change, its monotony of feeling and of unselfish happiness, +compared with the necessary regularity, the more personal +felicity, the less liberal interests of the married. Her life +seems to have been full to overflowing of practical occupation +and consideration for others. What changing scenes +and colours, what a number of voices, what a crowd of outstretched +hands, what interesting processions of people pass +across her path! There is something of her father's +optimism and simplicity of nature in her unceasing brightness +and activity, in her resolutions to improve as time goes +on. Her young brothers and sisters grow to be men and +women; with her sisters' marriages new interests touch her +warm heart. Between her and the brothers of the younger +generation who did not turn to her as a sort of mother +there may have been too great a difference of age for that +companionship to continue which often exists between a +child and a grown-up person. So at least one is led to +believe was the case as regards one of them, mentioned in a +memoir which has recently appeared. But to her sisters +she could be friend, protector, chaperon, sympathising +companion, and elder sister to the end of her days. We +hear of them all at Bowood again on their way back to +Ireland, and then we find them all at home settling down +to the old life, 'Maria reading Sévigné,' of whom she +never tires.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XIV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>One of the prettiest and most sympathetic incidents +in Maria Edgeworth's life was a subsequent expedition to +Abbotsford and the pleasure she gave to its master. They +first met in Edinburgh, and her short account conjures up +the whole scene before us:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Ten o'clock struck as I read this note. We were tired, we +were not fit to be seen, but I thought it right to accept Walter +Scott's cordial invitation, sent for a hackney coach, and just as +we were, without dressing, we went. As the coach stopped we +saw the hall lighted, and the moment the door opened heard the +joyous sounds of loud singing. Three servants' 'The Miss +Edgeworths!' sounded from hall to landing-place, and as I +paused for a moment in the anteroom I heard the first sound of +Walter Scott's voice—'The Miss Edgeworths <i>come</i>!' The +room was lighted by only one globe lamp; a circle were singing +loud and beating time: all stopped in an instant.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Is not this picture complete? Scott himself she +describes as 'full of genius without the slightest effort at +expression, delightfully natural, more lame but not so +unwieldy as she expected.' Lady Scott she goes on to +sketch in some half-dozen words—'French, large dark +eyes, civil and good-natured.'</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>When we wakened the next morning the whole scene of the +preceding night seemed like a dream [she continues]; however +at twelve came the real Lady Scott, and we called for Scott at +the Parliament House, who came out of the Courts with joyous +face, as if he had nothing on earth to do or to think of but to +show us Edinburgh.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In her quick, discriminating way she looks round and +notes them all one by one.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Mr. Lockhart is reserved and silent, but he appears to have +much sensibility under this reserve. Mrs. Lockhart is very +pleasing—a slight, elegant figure and graceful simplicity of +manner, perfectly natural. There is something most winning +in her affectionate manner to her father. He dotes upon her.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>A serious illness intervened for poor Maria before she +and her devoted young nurses could reach Abbotsford +itself. There she began to recover, and Lady Scott +watched over her and prescribed for her with the most +tender care and kindness. 'Lady Scott felt the attention +and respect Maria showed to her, perceiving that she +valued her and treated her as a friend,' says Mrs. Edgeworth; +'not, as too many of Sir Walter's guests did, with +neglect.' This is Miss Edgeworth's description of the +Abbotsford family life:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>It is quite delightful to see Scott and his family in the +country; breakfast, dinner, supper, the same flow of kindness, +fondness, and genius, far, far surpassing his works, his letters, +and all my hopes and imagination. His Castle of Abbotsford +is magnificent, but I forget it in thinking of him.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The return visit, when Scotland visited Ireland, was +no less successful. Mrs. Edgeworth writes:—</p> + +<p>Maria and my daughter Harriet accompanied Sir Walter +and Miss Scott, Mr. Lockhart, and Captain and Mrs. Scott +to Killarney. They travelled in an open calèche of Sir +Walter's….</p> + +<p>Sir Walter was, like Maria, never put out by discomforts on +a journey, but always ready to make the best of everything and +to find amusement in every incident. He was delighted with +Maria's eagerness for everybody's comfort, and diverted himself +with her admiration of a green baize-covered door at the inn at +Killarney. 'Miss Edgeworth, you are so mightily pleased with +that door, I think you will carry it away with you to Edgeworthtown.'</p> + +<p>Miss Edgeworth's friendships were certainly very remarkable, +and comprise almost all the interesting people +of her day in France as well as in England.<a href="#fn3"><sup><small>3</small></sup></a><a name="fn3r" id="fn3r"></a> She was +liked, trusted, surrounded, and she appears to have had +the art of winning to her all the great men. We know +the Duke of Wellington addressed verses to her; there +are pleasant intimations of her acquaintance with Sir +James Mackintosh, Romilly, Moore, and Rogers, and that +most delightful of human beings, Sydney Smith, whom +she thoroughly appreciated and admired. Describing her +brother Frank, she says, somewhere, 'I am much inclined +to think that he has a natural genius for happiness; in +other words, as Sydney Smith would say, <i>great hereditary +constitutional joy</i>.' 'To attempt to Boswell Sydney +Smith's conversation would be to outboswell Boswell,' she +writes in another letter home; but in Lady Holland's +memoir of her father there is a pleasant little account of +Miss Edgeworth herself, 'delightful, clever, and sensible,' +listening to Sydney Smith. She seems to have gone the +round of his parish with him while he scolded, doctored, +joked his poor people according to their needs.</p> + +<p>'During her visit she saw much of my father,' says +Lady Holland; 'and her talents as well as her thorough +knowledge and love of Ireland made her conversation +peculiarly agreeable to him.' On her side Maria writes +warmly desiring that some Irish bishopric might be forced +upon Sydney Smith, which 'his own sense of natural +charity and humanity would forbid him refuse…. In +the twinkling of an eye—such an eye as his—he would +see all our manifold grievances up and down the country. +One word, one <i>bon mot</i> of his, would do more for us, I +guess, than ——'s four hundred pages and all the like +with which we have been bored.'</p> + +<p>The two knew how to make good company for one +another; the quiet-Jeanie-Deans body could listen as well +as give out. We are told that it was not so much that +she said brilliant things, but that a general perfume of +wit ran through her conversation, and she most certainly +had the gift of appreciating the good things of others. +Whether in that 'scene of simplicity, truth, and nature' +a London rout, or in some quiet Hampstead parlour talking +to an old friend, or in her own home among books and +relations and interests of every sort, Miss Edgeworth +seems to have been constantly the same, with presence of +mind and presence of heart too, ready to respond to everything. +I think her warmth of heart shines even brighter +than her wit at times. 'I could not bear the idea that +you suspected me of being so weak, so vain, so senseless,' +she once wrote to Mrs. Barbauld, 'as to have my head +turned by a little fashionable flattery.' If her head was +not turned it must have been because her spirit was stout +enough to withstand the world's almost irresistible +influence.</p> + +<p>Not only the great men but the women too are among +her friends. She writes prettily of Mrs. Somerville, with +her smiling eyes and pink colour, her soft voice, strong, +well-bred Scotch accent, timid, not disqualifying timid, +but naturally modest. 'While her head is among the +stars her feet are firm upon the earth.' She is 'delighted' +with a criticism of Madame de Staël's upon herself, in a +letter to M. Dumont. 'Vraiment elle était digne de l'enthousiasme, +mais elle se perd dans votre triste utilité.' It +is difficult to understand why this should have given Miss +Edgeworth so much pleasure; and here finally is a little +vision conjured up for us of her meeting with Mrs. Fry +among her prisoners:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Little doors, and thick doors, and doors of all sorts were +unbolted and unlocked, and on we went through dreary but +clean passages till we came to a room where rows of empty +benches fronted us, a table on which lay a large Bible. Several +ladies and gentlemen entered, took their seats on benches at +either side of the table in silence. Enter Mrs. Fry in a drab-coloured +silk cloak and a plain, borderless Quaker cap, a most +benevolent countenance, calm, benign. 'I must make an +inquiry. Is Maria Edgeworth here?' And when I went +forward she bade me come and sit beside her. Her first smile +as she looked upon me I can never forget. The prisoners came +in in an orderly manner and ranged themselves upon the +benches.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>'In this my sixtieth year, to commence in a few days,' +says Miss Edgeworth, writing to her cousin Margaret +Ruxton, 'I am resolved to make great progress.' 'Rosamond +at sixty,' says Miss Ruxton, touched and amused. +Her resolutions were not idle.</p> + +<p>'The universal difficulties of the money market in the +year 1826 were felt by us,' says Mrs. Edgeworth in her +memoir, 'and Maria, who since her father's death had +given up rent-receiving, now resumed it; undertook the +management of her brother Lovell's affairs, which she conducted +with consummate skill and perseverance, and +weathered the storm that swamped so many in this financial +crisis.' We also hear of an opportune windfall in the +shape of some valuable diamonds, which an old lady, a +distant relation, left in her will to Miss Edgeworth, who +sold them and built a market-house for Edgeworthtown +with the proceeds.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>April</i> 8, 1827.—I am quite well and in high good humour +and good spirits, in consequence of having received the whole of +Lovell's half-year's rents in full, with pleasure to the tenants and +without the least fatigue or anxiety to myself.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was about this time her novel of 'Helen' was written, +the last of her books, the only one that her father had not +revised. There is a vivid account given by one of her +brothers of the family assembled in the library to hear the +manuscript read out, of their anxiety and their pleasure as +they realised how good it was, how spirited, how well +equal to her standard. Tickner, in his account of Miss +Edgeworth, says that the talk of Lady Davenant in +'Helen' is very like Miss Edgeworth's own manner. His +visit to Edgeworthtown was not long after the publication +of the book. His description, if only for her mention of +her father, is worth quoting:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>As we drove to the door Miss Edgeworth came out to meet +us, a small, short, spare body of about sixty-seven, with extremely +frank and kind manners, but who always looks straight into +your face with a pair of mild deep grey eyes whenever she speaks +to you. With characteristic directness she did not take us into +the library until she had told us that we should find there Mrs. +Alison, of Edinburgh, and her aunt, Miss Sneyd, a person very +old and infirm, and that the only other persons constituting the +family were Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Honora Edgeworth, and Dr. +Alison, a physician…. Miss Edgeworth's conversation was +always ready, as full of vivacity and variety as I can imagine…. +She was disposed to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as +far as she could. And in her intercourse with her family she +was quite delightful, referring constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, +who seems to be the authority in all matters of fact, and most +kindly repeating jokes to her infirm aunt, Miss Sneyd, who +cannot hear them, and who seems to have for her the most unbounded +affection and admiration…. About herself as an +author she seems to have no reserve or secrets. She spoke with +great kindness and pleasure of a letter I brought to her from +Mr. Peabody, explaining some passage in his review of 'Helen' +which had troubled her from its allusion to her father. 'But,' +she added, 'no one can know what I owe to my father. He +advised and directed me in everything. I never could have +done anything without him. There are things I cannot be mistaken +about, though other people can. I know them.' As she +said this the tears stood in her eyes, and her whole person was +moved…. It was, therefore, something of a trial to talk so +brilliantly and variously as she did from nine in the morning +to past eleven at night.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>She was unfeignedly glad to see good company. Here +is her account of another visitor:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>Sept</i>. 26.—The day before yesterday we were amusing ourselves +by telling who among literary and scientific people we +should wish to come here next. Francis said Coleridge; I said +Herschell. Yesterday morning, as I was returning from my +morning walk at half-past eight, I saw a bonnetless maid in the +walk, with a letter in her hand, in search of me. When I +opened the letter I found it was from Mr. Herschell, and that +he was waiting for an answer at Mr. Briggs's inn. I have +seldom been so agreeably surprised, and now that he is gone and +that he has spent twenty-four hours here, if the fairy were to +ask me the question again I should still more eagerly say, 'Mr. +Herschell, ma'am, if you please.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>She still came over to England from time to time, +visiting at her sisters' houses. Honora was now Lady +Beaufort; another sister, Fanny, the object of her closest +and most tender affection, was Mrs. Lestock Wilson. Age +brought no change in her mode of life. Time passes with +tranquil steps, for her not hasting unduly. 'I am perfect,' +she writes at the age of seventy-three to her stepmother +of seventy-two, 'so no more about it, and thank you from +my heart and every component part of my precious self +for all the care, and successful care, you have taken of me, +your old petted nurseling.'</p> + +<p>Alas! it is sad to realise that quite late in life fresh +sorrows fell upon this warm-hearted woman. Troubles +gather; young sisters fade away in their beauty and +happiness. But in sad times and good times the old +home is still unchanged, and remains for those that are +left to turn to for shelter, for help, and consolation. To +the very last Miss Edgeworth kept up her reading, her +correspondence, her energy. All along we have heard of +her active habits—out in the early morning in her +garden, coming in to the nine o'clock breakfast with her +hands full of roses, sitting by and talking and reading her +letters while the others ate. Her last letter to her old +friend Sir Henry Holland was after reading the first +volume of Lord Macaulay's History. Sir Henry took the +letter to Lord Macaulay, who was so much struck by its +discrimination that he asked leave to keep it.</p> + +<p>She was now eighty-two years of age, and we find her +laughing kindly at the anxiety of her sister and brother-in-law, +who had heard of her climbing a ladder to wind up +an old clock at Edgeworthtown. 'I am heartily obliged +and delighted by your being such a goose and Richard +such a gander,' she says 'as to be frightened out of your +wits by my climbing a ladder to take off the top of the +clock.' She had not felt that there was anything to fear +as once again she set the time that was so nearly at an +end for her. Her share of life's hours had been well spent +and well enjoyed; with a peaceful and steady hand and +tranquil heart she might mark the dial for others whose +hours were still to come.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edgeworth's own words tell all that remains to be +told.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>It was on the morning of May 22, 1849, that she was +taken suddenly ill with pain in the region of the heart, and +after a few hours breathed her last in my arms. She had +always wished to die quickly, at home, and that I should be +with her. All her wishes were fulfilled. She was gone, and +nothing like her again can we see in this world.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="MRS_OPIE" id="MRS_OPIE"></a><i>MRS OPIE.</i></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent">1769-1853.<br /> +</p> +</div> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="quote"> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>'Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness.'</small></i>—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><i><small>As You Like It</small></i>.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I.</b></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>It is not very long since some articles appeared in the +'Cornhill Magazine' which were begun under the influence +of certain ancient bookshelves with so pleasant a flavour +of the old world that it seemed at the time as if yesterday +not to-day was the all-important hour, and one gladly submitted +to the subtle charm of the past—its silent veils, its +quiet incantations of dust and healing cobweb. The phase +is but a passing one with most of us, and we must soon +feel that to dwell at length upon each one of the pretty +old fancies and folios of the writers and explorers who were +born towards the end of the last century would be an impossible +affectation; and yet a postscript seems wanting to +the sketches which have already appeared of Mrs. Barbauld +and Miss Edgeworth, and the names of their contemporaries +should not be quite passed over.</p> + +<p>In a hundred charming types and prints and portraits +we recognise the well-known names as they used to appear +in the garb of life. Grand ladies in broad loops and +feathers, or graceful and charming as nymphs in muslin +folds, with hanging clouds of hair; or again, in modest +coiffes such as dear Jane Austen loved and wore even in her +youth. Hannah More only took to coiffes and wimples in +later life; in early days she was fond of splendour, and, +as we read, had herself painted in emerald earrings. How +many others besides her are there to admire! Who does +not know the prim, sweet, amply frilled portraits of Mrs. +Trimmer and Joanna Baillie? Only yesterday a friend +showed me a sprightly, dark-eyed miniature of Felicia +Hemans. Perhaps most beautiful among all her sister +muses smiles the lovely head of Amelia Opie, as she was +represented by her husband with luxuriant chestnut hair +piled up Romney fashion in careless loops, with the radiant +yet dreaming eyes which are an inheritance for some +members of her family.</p> + +<p>The authoresses of that day had the pre-eminence in +looks, in gracious dress and bearing; but they were rather +literary women than anything else, and had but little in common +with the noble and brilliant writers who were to follow +them in our own more natural and outspoken times; whose +wise, sweet, passionate voices are already passing away into +the distance; of whom so few remain to us.<a href="#fn4"><sup><small>4</small></sup></a><a name="fn4r" id="fn4r"></a> The secret +of being real is no very profound one, and yet how rare it +is, how long it was before the readers and writers of this +century found it out! It is like the secret of singing in +perfect tune, or of playing the violin as Joachim can play +upon it. In literature, as in music, there is at times a +certain indescribable tone of absolute reality which carries +the reader away and for the moment absorbs him into the +mind of the writer. Some metempsychosis takes place. +It is no longer a man or a woman turning the pages of a +book, it is a human being suddenly absorbed by the book +itself, living the very life which it records, breathing the +spirit and soul of the writer. Such books are events, not +books to us, new conditions of existence, new selves suddenly +revealed through the experience of other more vivid +personalities than our own. The actual experience of other +lives is not for us, but this link of simple reality of feeling +is one all independent of events; it is like the miracle of +the loaves and fishes repeated and multiplied—one man +comes with his fishes and lo! the multitude is filled.</p> + +<p>But this simple discovery, that of reality, that of +speaking from the heart, was one of the last to be made +by women. In France Madame de Sévigné and Madame de +La Fayette were not afraid to be themselves, but in England +the majority of authoresses kept their readers carefully at +pen's length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious +of their surprising achievements in the way of literature +as never to forget for a single instant that they were +in print. With the exception of Jane Austen and Maria +Edgeworth, the women writers of the early part of this +century were, as I have just said, rather literary women +than actual creators of literature. It is still a mystery how +they attained to their great successes. Frances Burney +charms great Burke and mighty Johnson and wise Macaulay +in later times. Mrs. Opie draws compliments from Mackintosh, +and compliments from the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, +and Sydney Smith, and above all tears from Walter Scott.</p> + +<p>Perhaps many of the flattering things addressed to Mrs. +Opie may have said not less for her own charm and sweetness +of nature than for the merit of her unassuming productions; +she must have been a bright, merry, and fascinating +person, and compliments were certainly more in her +line than the tributes of tears which she records.</p> + +<p>The authoresses of heroines are often more interesting +than the heroines themselves, and Amelia Opie was +certainly no exception to this somewhat general statement. +A pleasant, sprightly authoress, beaming bright +glances on her friends, confident, intelligent, full of interest +in life, carried along in turn by one and by another +influence, she comes before us a young and charming +figure, with all the spires of Norwich for a background, +and the sound of its bells, and the stir of its assizes, as she +issues from her peaceful home in her father's tranquil old +house, where the good physician lives widowed, tending his +poor and his sick, and devotedly spoiling his only child.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>II.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Amelia Opie was born in 1769 in the old city of +Norwich, within reach of the invigorating breezes of the +great North Sea. Her youth must have been somewhat +solitary; she was the only child of a kind and cultivated +physician, Doctor James Alderson, whose younger brother, +a barrister, also living in Norwich, became the father of +Baron Alderson. Her mother died in her early youth. +From her father, however, little Amelia seems to have +had the love and indulgence of over half a century, a +tender and admiring love which she returned with all her +heart's devotion. She was the pride and darling of his +home, and throughout her long life her father's approbation +was the one chief motive of her existence. Spoiling +is a vexed question, but as a rule people get so much +stern justice from all the rest of the world that it seems +well that their parents should love and comfort them in +youth for the many disgraces and difficulties yet to come.</p> + +<p>Her mother is described as a delicate, high-minded +woman, 'somewhat of a disciplinarian,' says Mrs. Opie's +excellent biographer, Miss Brightwell, but she died too +soon to carry her theories into practice. Miss Brightwell +suggests that 'Mrs. Opie might have been more demure +and decorous had her mother lived, but perhaps less +charming.' There are some verses addressed to her +mother in Mrs. Opie's papers in which it must be confessed +that the remembrance of her admonition plays a +most important part—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Hark! clearer still thy voice I hear.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Again reproof in accents mild,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Seems whispering in my conscious ear,</td></tr> + </table> +</div> +<p class="noindent">and so on.</p> + +<p>Some of Mrs. Alderson's attempts at discipline seemed +unusual and experimental; the little girl was timid, +afraid of black people, of black beetles, and of human +skeletons. She was given the skeleton to play with, and +the beetles to hold in her hand. One feels more sympathy +with the way in which she was gently reconciled to +the poor negro with the frightening black face—by being +told the story of his wrongs. But with the poor mother's +untimely death all this maternal supervision came to an +end. 'Amelia, your mother is gone; may you never have +reason to blush when you remember her!' her father said +as he clasped his little orphan to his heart; and all her +life long Amelia remembered those words.</p> + +<p>There is a pretty reminiscence of her childhood from a +beginning of the memoir which was never written:—'One +of my earliest recollections is of gazing on the +bright blue sky as I lay in my little bed before my hour +of rising came, listening with delighted attention to the +ringing of a peal of bells. I had heard that heaven was +beyond those blue skies, and I had been taught that <i>there</i> +was the home of the good, and I fancied that those sweet +bells were ringing in heaven.' The bells were ringing for +the Norwich Assizes, which played an important part in +our little heroine's life, and which must have been associated +with many of her early memories.</p> + +<p>The little girl seems to have been allowed more liberty +than is usually given to children. 'As soon as I was old +enough to enjoy a procession,' she says, 'I was taken to +see the Judges come in. Youthful pages in pretty dresses +ran by the side of the High Sheriff's carriage, in which the +Judges sat, while the coaches drove slowly and with a +solemnity becoming the high and awful office of those +whom they contained…. With reverence ever did I +behold the Judges' wigs, the scarlet robes they wore, and +even the white wand of the Sheriff.'</p> + +<p>There is a description which in after years might have +made a pretty picture for her husband's pencil of the little +maiden wandering into the court one day, and called by a +kind old Judge to sit beside him upon the bench. She goes +on to recount how next day she was there again; and when +some attendant of the court wanted her to leave the place, +saying not unnaturally, 'Go, Miss, this is no place for +you; be advised,' the Judge again interfered, and ordered +the enterprising little girl to be brought to her old place +upon the cushion by his side. The story gives one a +curious impression of a child's life and education. She +seems to have come and gone alone, capable, intelligent, +unabashed, interested in all the events and humours of +the place.</p> + +<p>Children have among other things a very vivid sense of +citizenship and public spirit, somewhat put out in later +life by the rush of personal feeling, but in childhood the +personal events are so few and so irresponsible that public +affairs become an actual part of life and of experience. +While their elders are still discussing the news and weighing +its importance, it is already a part of the children's +life. Little Amelia Alderson must have been a happy +child, free, affectionate, independent; grateful, as a child +should be, towards those who befriended her. One of her +teachers was a French dancing-master called Christian, for +whom she had a warm regard. She relates that long afterwards +she came with her husband and a friend to visit the +Dutch church at Norwich. 'The two gentlemen were +engaged in looking round and making their observations, +and I, finding myself somewhat cold, began to hop and +dance upon the spot where I stood, when my eyes chanced +to fall upon the pavement below, and I started at beholding +the well-known name of Christian graved upon the slab; I +stopped in dismay, shocked to find that I had actually +been dancing upon the grave of my old master—he who +first taught me to dance.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>III.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>After her mother's death, Amelia Alderson, who was +barely fifteen at the time, began to take her place in +society. She kept her father's house, received his friends, +made his home bright with her presence. The lawyers +came round in due season: Sir James Mackintosh came, +the town was full of life, of talk, of music, and poetry, and +prejudice.</p> + +<p>Harriet Martineau, in her memoir of Mrs. Opie, gives +a delightful and humorous account of the Norwich of that +day—rivalling Lichfield and its literary coterie, only with +less sentimentality and some additional peculiarities of its +own. One can almost see the Tory gentlemen, as Miss +Martineau describes them, setting a watch upon the Cathedral, +lest the Dissenters should burn it as a beacon for +Boney; whereas good Bishop Bathurst, with more faith in +human nature, goes on resolutely touching his hat to the +leading Nonconformists. 'The French taught in schools,' +says Miss Martineau, 'was found to be unintelligible when +the peace at length arrived, taught as it was by an aged +powdered Monsieur and an elderly flowered Madame, who +had taught their pupils' Norfolk pronunciation. But it was +beginning to be known,' she continues, 'that there was such +a language as German, and in due time there was a young +man who had actually been in Germany, and was translating +"Nathan the Wise." When William Taylor became +eminent as almost the only German scholar in England, +old Norwich was very proud and grew, to say the truth, +excessively conceited. She was (and she might be) proud +of her Sayers, she boasted of her intellectual supper-parties, +and finally called herself the "Athens of England."'</p> + +<p>In this wholesome, cheerful Athens, blown by the +invigorating Northern breezes, little Amelia bloomed and +developed into a lovely and happy girl. She was fortunate, +indeed, in her friends. One near at hand must have been +an invaluable adviser for a motherless, impressionable girl. +Mrs. John Taylor was so loved that she is still remembered. +Mrs. Barbauld prized and valued her affection +beyond all others. 'I know the value of your letters,' +says Sir James Mackintosh, writing from Bombay; 'they +rouse my mind on subjects which interest us in common—children, +literature, and life. I ought to be made permanently +better by contemplating a mind like yours.' And +he still has Mrs. Taylor in his mind when he concludes with +a little disquisition on the contrast between the barren +sensibility, the indolent folly of some, the useful kindness +of others, 'the industrious benevolence which requires a +vigorous understanding and a decisive character.'</p> + +<p>Some of Mrs. Opie's family have shown me a photograph +of her in her Quaker dress, in old age, dim, and +changed, and sunken, from which it is very difficult to +realise all the brightness, and life, and animation which +must have belonged to the earlier part of her life. The +delightful portrait of her engraved in the 'Mirror' shows +the animated beaming countenance, the soft expressive eyes, +the abundant auburn waves of hair, of which we read. The +picture is more like some charming allegorical being than +a real live young lady—some Belinda of the 'Rape of the +Lock' (and one would as soon have expected Belinda to +turn Quakeress). Music, poetry, dancing, elves, graces and +flirtations, cupids, seem to attend her steps. She delights +in admiration, friendship, companionship, and gaiety, and +yet with it all we realise a warm-hearted sincerity, and +appreciation of good and high-minded things, a truth of +feeling passing out of the realms of fancy altogether into +one of the best realities of life. She had a thousand links +with life: she was musical, artistic; she was literary; she +had a certain amount of social influence; she had a voice, +a harp, a charming person, mind and manner. Admiring +monarchs in later days applauded her performance; devoted +subjects were her friends and correspondents, and her sphere +in due time extended beyond the approving Norwich-Athenian +coterie of old friends who had known her from +her childhood, to London itself, where she seems to have +been made welcome by many, and to have captivated more +than her share of victims.</p> + +<p>In some letters of hers written to Mrs. Taylor and +quoted by her biographer we get glimpses of some of +these early experiences. The bright and happy excitable +girl comes up from Norwich to London to be made more +happy still, and more satisfied with the delight of life +as it unfolds. Besides her fancy for lawyers, literary +people had a great attraction for Amelia, and Godwin +seems to have played an important part in her earlier +experience. A saying of Mrs. Inchbald's is quoted by her +on her return home as to the report of the world being +that Mr. Holcroft was in love with Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. +Inchbald with Mr. Godwin, Mr. Godwin with Miss +Alderson, and Miss Alderson with Mr. Holcroft!</p> + +<p>The following account of Somers Town, and a +philosopher's costume in those days, is written to her +father in 1794:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>After a most delightful ride through some of the richest +country I ever beheld, we arrived about one o'clock at the +philosopher's house; we found him with his hair <i>bien poudré</i>, +and in a pair of new sharp-toed red morocco slippers, not to +mention his green coat and crimson under-waistcoat.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>From Godwin's by the city they come to Marlborough +Street, and find Mrs. Siddons nursing her little baby, and +as handsome and charming as ever. They see Charles +Kemble there, and they wind up their day by calling on +Mrs. Inchbald in her pleasant lodgings, with two hundred +pounds just come in from Sheridan for a farce of sixty +pages. Godwin's attentions seem to have amused and +pleased the fair, merry Amelia, who is not a little proud +of her arch influence over various rugged and apparently +inaccessible persons. Mrs. Inchbald seems to have been +as jealous of Miss Alderson at the time as she afterwards +was of Mary Wollstonecraft. 'Will you give me nothing +to keep for your sake?' says Godwin, parting from Amelia. +'Not even your slipper? I had it once in my possession.' +'This was true,' adds Miss Amelia; 'my shoe had come +off and he picked it up and put it in his pocket.' Elsewhere +she tells her friend Mrs. Taylor that Mr. Holcroft +would like to come forward, but that he had no chance.</p> + +<p>That some one person had a chance, and a very good +one, is plain enough from the context of a letter, but +there is nothing in Mrs. Opie's life to show why fate was +contrary in this, while yielding so bountiful a share of all +other good things to the happy country girl.</p> + +<p>Among other people, she seems to have charmed +various French refugees, one of whom was the Duc +d'Aiguillon, come over to England with some seven +thousand others, waiting here for happier times, and +hiding their sorrows among our friendly mists. Godwin +was married when Miss Alderson revisited her London +friends and admirers in 1797—an eventful visit, when she +met Opie for the first time.</p> + +<p>The account of their first meeting is amusingly given +in Miss Brightwell's memoirs. It was at an evening +party. Some of those present were eagerly expecting +the arrival of Miss Alderson, but the evening was wearing +away and still she did not appear; 'at length the door was +flung open, and she entered bright and smiling, dressed +in a robe of blue, her neck and arms bare, and on her +head a small bonnet placed in somewhat coquettish style +sideways and surmounted by a plume of three white +feathers. Her beautiful hair hung in waving tresses over +her shoulders; her face was kindling with pleasure at the +sight of her old friends, and her whole appearance was +animated and glowing. At the time she came in Mr. +Opie was sitting on a sofa beside Mr. F., who had been +saying from time to time, 'Amelia is coming; Amelia will +surely come. Why is she not here?' and whose eyes were +turned in her direction. He was interrupted by <ins title="original has her">his</ins> companion +eagerly exclaiming, 'Who is that—who is that?' +and hastily rising Opie pressed forward to be introduced +to the fair object whose sudden appearance had so +impressed him.' With all her love of excitement, of +change, of variety, one cannot but feel, as I have said, +that there was also in Amelia Alderson's cheerful life a +vein of deep and very serious feeling, and the bracing +influence of the upright and high-minded people among +whom she had been brought up did not count for nothing +in her nature. She could show her genuine respect for +what was generous and good and true, even though she +did not always find strength to carry out the dream of an +excitable and warm-hearted nature.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>IV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>There is something very interesting in the impression +one receives of the 'Inspired Peasant,' as Alan Cunningham +calls John Opie—the man who did not paint to live so +much as live to paint. He was a simple, high-minded +Cornishman, whose natural directness and honesty were +unspoiled by favour, unembittered by failure. Opie's gift, +like some deep-rooted seed living buried in arid soil, ever +aspired upwards towards the light. His ideal was high; +his performance fell far short of his life-long dream, and +he knew it. But his heart never turned from its life's +aim, and he loved beauty and Art with that true and unfailing +devotion which makes a man great, even though his +achievements do not show all he should have been.</p> + +<p>The old village carpenter, his father, who meant him +to succeed to the business, was often angry, and loudly +railed at the boy when good white-washed walls and clean +boards were spoiled by scrawls of lamp-black and charcoal. +John worked in the shop and obeyed his father, but when his +day's task was over he turned again to his darling pursuits. +At twelve years old he had mastered Euclid, and could also +rival 'Mark Oaks,' the village phenomenon, in painting a +butterfly; by the time John was sixteen he could earn as +much as 7<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. for a portrait. It was in this year that +there came to Truro an accomplished and various man +Dr. Wolcott—sometimes a parson, sometimes a doctor of +medicine, sometimes as Peter Pindar, a critic and literary +man. This gentleman was interested by young Opie and +his performances, and he asked him on one occasion how +he liked painting. 'Better than bread-and-butter,' says +the boy. Wolcott finally brought his <i>protégé</i> to London, +where the Doctor's influence and Opie's own undoubted +merit brought him success; and to Opie's own amazement +he suddenly found himself the fashion. His street was +crowded with carriages; long processions of ladies and +gentlemen came to sit to him; he was able to furnish a +house 'in Orange Court, by Leicester Fields;' he was +beginning to put by money when, as suddenly as he had +been taken up, he was forgotten again. The carriages +drove off in some other direction, and Opie found himself +abandoned by the odd, fanciful world of fashions, which +would not be fashions if they did not change day by day. +It might have proved a heart-breaking phase of life for a +man whose aim had been less single. But Opie was of too +generous a nature to value popularity beyond achievement. +He seems to have borne this freak of fortune with great +equanimity, and when he was sometimes overwhelmed, it +was not by the praise or dispraise of others, but by his own +consciousness of failure, of inadequate performance. +Troubles even more serious than loss of patronage and employment +befell him later. He had married, unhappily for +himself, a beautiful, unworthy woman, whose picture he +has painted many times. She was a faithless as well as a +weak and erring wife, and finally abandoned him. When +Opie was free to marry again he was thirty-six, a serious, +downright man of undoubted power and influence, of +sincerity and tenderness of feeling, of rugged and unusual +manners. He had not many friends, nor did he wish for +many, but those who knew him valued him at his worth. +His second wife showed what was in her by her appreciation +of his noble qualities, though one can hardly realise +a greater contrast than that of these two, so unlike in +character, in training, and disposition. They were married +in London, at Marylebone Church, in that dismal year of +'98, which is still remembered. Opie loved his wife deeply +and passionately; he did not charm her, though she +charmed him, but for his qualities she had true respect +and admiration.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>V.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Opie must be forgiven if he was one-idead, if he erred +from too much zeal. All his wife's bright gaiety of nature, +her love for her fellow-creatures, her interest in the world, +her many-sidedness, this uncompromising husband would +gladly have kept for himself. For him his wife and his +home were the whole world; his Art was his whole life.</p> + +<p>The young couple settled down in London after their +marriage, where, notwithstanding fogs and smoke and dull +monotony of brick and smut, so many beautiful things are +created; where Turner's rainbow lights were first reflected, +where Tennyson's 'Princess' sprang from the fog. It was +a modest and quiet installation, but among the pretty things +which Amelia brought to brighten her new home we read +of blue feathers and gold gauze bonnets, tiaras, and spencers, +scarlet ribbons, buff net, and cambric flounces, all of which +give one a pleasant impression of her intention to amuse +herself, and to enjoy the society of her fellows, and to bring +her own pleasant contributions to their enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Opie sat working at his easel, painting portraits to +earn money for his wife's use and comfort, and encouraging +her to write, for he had faith in work. He himself would +never intermit his work for a single day. He would have +gladly kept her always in his sight. 'If I would stay at +home for ever, I believe my husband would be merry from +morning to night—a lover more than a husband,' Amelia +writes to Mrs. Taylor. He seemed to have some feeling +that time for him was not to be long—that life was passing +quickly by, almost too quickly to give him time to realise +his new home happiness, to give him strength to grasp +his work. He was no rapid painter, instinctively feeling +his light and colour and action, and seizing the moment's +suggestion, but anxious, laborious, and involved in that +sad struggle in which some people pass their lives, for +ever disappointed. Opie's portraits seem to have been +superior to his compositions, which were well painted, +'but unimaginative and commonplace,' says a painter of +our own time, whose own work quickens with that +mysterious soul which some pictures (as indeed some +human beings) seem to be entirely without.</p> + +<p>'During the nine years that I was his wife,' says Mrs. +Opie, 'I never saw him satisfied with any one of his productions. +Often, very often, he has entered my sitting-room, +and, throwing himself down in an agony of despondence +upon the sofa, exclaimed, "I shall never be a +painter!"'</p> + +<p>He was a wise and feeling critic, however great his +shortcomings as a painter may have been. His lectures +are admirable; full of real thought and good judgment. +Sir James Mackintosh places them beyond Reynolds's in +some ways.</p> + +<p>'If there were no difficulties every one would be a +painter,' says Opie, and he goes on to point out what a +painter's object should be—'the discovery or conception +of perfect ideas of things; nature in its purest and most +essential form rising from the species to the genus, the +highest and ultimate exertion of human genius.' For +him it was no grievance that a painter's life should be one +long and serious effort. 'If you are wanting to yourselves, +rule may be multiplied upon rule and precept upon +precept in vain.' Some of his remarks might be thought +still to apply in many cases, no less than they did a +hundred years ago, when he complained of those green-sick +lovers of chalk, brick-dust, charcoal and old tapestry, +who are so ready to decry the merits of colouring and to +set it down as a kind of superfluity. It is curious to +contrast Opie's style in literature with that of his wife, +who belongs to the entirely past generation which she +reflected, whereas he wrote from his own original impressions, +saying those things which struck him as forcibly +then as they strike us now. 'Father and Daughter' was +Mrs. Opie's first acknowledged book. It was published in +1801, and the author writes modestly of all her apprehensions. +'Mr. Opie has no patience with me; he consoles +me by averring that fear makes me overrate others and +underrate myself.' The book was reviewed in the 'Edinburgh.' +We hear of one gentleman who lies awake all +night after reading it; and Mrs. Inchbald promises a +candid opinion, which, however, we do not get. Besides +stories and novels, Mrs. Opie was the author of several +poems and verses which were much admired. There was +an impromptu to Sir James Mackintosh, which brought a +long letter in return, and one of her songs was quoted by +Sydney Smith in a lecture at the Royal Institution. Mrs. +Opie was present, and she used to tell in after times 'how +unexpectedly the compliment came upon her, and how she +shrunk down upon her seat in order to screen herself from +observation.'</p> + +<p>The lines are indeed charming:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Go, youth, beloved in distant glades,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> New friends, new hopes, new joys to find,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Yet sometimes deign 'midst fairer maids</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> To think on her thou leav'st behind.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Thy love, thy fate, dear youth to share</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Must never be my happy lot;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">But thou may'st grant this humble prayer,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Forget me not, forget me not.</td></tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Yet should the thought of my distress</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Too painful to thy feelings be,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Heed not the wish I now express,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Nor ever deign to think of me;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">But oh! if grief thy steps attend,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> If want, if sickness be thy lot,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And thou require a soothing friend,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Forget me not, forget me not.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>VI.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>The little household was a modest one, but we read of +a certain amount of friendly hospitality. Country neighbours +from Norfolk appear upon the scene; we find +Northcote dining and praising the toasted cheese. Mrs. +Opie's heart never for an instant ceased to warm to her +old friends and companions. She writes an amusing +account to Mrs. Taylor of her London home, her interests +and visitors, 'her happy and delightful life.' She worked, +she amused herself, she received her friends at home and +went to look for them abroad. Among other visits, Mrs. +Opie speaks of one to an old friend who has 'grown +plump,' and of a second to 'Betsy Fry' who, notwithstanding +her comfortable home and prosperous circumstances, has +grown lean. It would be difficult to recognise under this +familiar cognomen and description the noble and dignified +woman whose name and work are still remembered with +affectionate respect and wonder by a not less hard-working, +but less convinced and convincing generation. This +friendship was of great moment to Amelia Opie in after +days, at a time when her heart was low and her life very +sad and solitary; but meanwhile, as I have said, there +were happy times for her; youth and youthful spirits and +faithful companionship were all hers, and troubles had +not yet come.</p> + +<p>One day Mrs. Opie gives a characteristic account of a +visit from Mrs. Taylor's two sons. '"John," said I, "will +you take a letter from me to your mother?" "Certainly," +replied John, "for then I shall be sure of being welcome." +"Fy," returned I. "Mr. Courtier, you know you want +nothing to add to the heartiness of the welcome you will +receive at home." "No, indeed," said Richard, "and if Mrs. +Opie sends her letter by you it will be one way of making +it less valued and attended to than it would otherwise be." +To the truth of this speech I subscribed and wrote not. +I have heard in later days a pretty description of the +simple home in which all these handsome, cultivated, and +remarkable young people grew up round their noble-minded +mother.' One of Mrs. John Taylor's daughters +became Mrs. Reeve, the mother of Mr. Henry Reeve, +another was Mrs. Austin, the mother of Lady Duff Gordon.</p> + +<p>Those lean kine we read of in the Bible are not +peculiar to Egypt and to the days of Joseph and his +brethren. The unwelcome creatures are apt to make +their appearance in many a country and many a household, +and in default of their natural food to devour +all sorts of long-cherished fancies, hopes, and schemes. +Some time after his marriage, Opie suddenly, and for no +reason, found himself without employment, and the severest +trial they experienced during their married life, says his +wife, was during this period of anxiety. She, however, +cheered him womanfully, would not acknowledge her own +dismay, and Opie, gloomy and desponding though he was, +continued to paint as regularly as before. Presently +orders began to flow in again, and did not cease until his +death.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>VII.</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Their affairs being once more prosperous, a long-hoped-for +dream became a reality, and they started on an expedition +to Paris, a solemn event in those days and not +lightly to be passed over by a biographer. One long war +was ended, another had not yet begun. The Continent +was a promised land, fondly dreamt of though unknown. +'At last in Paris; at last in the city which she had so +longed to see!' Mrs. Opie's description of her arrival +reads <ins title="original lacks like">like</ins> a comment upon history. As they drive into the +town, everywhere chalked up upon the walls and the +houses are inscriptions concerning 'L'Indivisibilité de la +République.' How many subsequent writings upon the +wall did Mrs. Opie live to see! The English party find +rooms at a hotel facing the Place de la Concorde, where the +guillotine, that token of order and tranquillity, was then +perpetually standing. The young wife's feelings may be +imagined when within an hour of their arrival Opie, who +had rushed off straight to the Louvre, returned with a +face of consternation to say that they must leave Paris at +once. The Louvre was shut; and, moreover, the whiteness +of everything, the houses, the ground they stood on, all +dazzled and blinded him. He was a lost man if he remained! +By some happy interposition they succeed in +getting admission to the Louvre, and as the painter +wonders and admires his nervous terrors leave him. The +picture left by Miss Edgeworth of Paris Society in the +early years of the century is more brilliant, but not more +interesting than Mrs. Opie's reminiscences of the fleeting +scene, gaining so much in brilliancy from the shadows all +round about. There is the shadow of the ghastly +guillotine upon the Place de la Concorde, the shadows of +wars but lately over and yet to come, the echo in the air +of arms and discord; meanwhile a brilliant, agreeable, +flashing Paris streams with sunlight, is piled with treasures +and trophies of victory, and crowded with well-known +characters. We read of Kosciusko's nut-brown wig concealing +his honourable scars; Masséna's earrings flash in +the sun; one can picture it all, and the animated inrush +of tourists, and the eager life stirring round about the +walls of the old Louvre.</p> + +<p>It was at this time that they saw Talma perform, and +years after, in her little rooms in Lady's Field at Norwich, +Mrs. Opie, in her Quaker dress, used to give an imitation +of the great actor and utter a deep 'Cain, Cain, where art +thou?' To which Cain replies in sepulchral tones.</p> + +<p>We get among other things an interesting glimpse of +Fox standing in the Louvre Gallery opposite the picture +of St. Jerome by Domenichino, a picture which, as it is +said, he enthusiastically admired. Opie, who happened to +be introduced to him, then and there dissented from this +opinion. 'You must be a better judge on such points +than I am,' says Fox; and Mrs. Opie proudly writes of +the two passing on together discussing and comparing the +pictures. She describes them next standing before the +'Transfiguration' of Raphael. The Louvre in those days +must have been for a painter a wonder palace indeed. The +'Venus de' Medici' was on her way; it was a time of +miracles, as Fox said. Meanwhile Mrs. Opie hears someone +saying that the First Consul is on his way from the +Senate, and she hurries to a window to look out. 'Bonaparte +seems very fond of state and show for a Republican,' says +Mrs. Fox. Fox himself half turns to the window, then +looks back to the pictures again. As for Opie, one may be +sure his attention never wandered for one instant.</p> + +<p>They saw the First Consul more than once. The +Pacificator, as he was then called, was at the height of his +popularity; on one occasion they met Fox with his wife on +his arm crossing the Carrousel to the Tuìlerìes, where they +are also admitted to a ground-floor room, from whence they +look upon a marble staircase and see several officers ascending, +'one of whom, with a helmet which seemed entirely +of gold, was Eugène de Beauharnais. A few minutes +afterwards,' she says, 'there was a rush of officers down +the stairs, and among them I saw a short pale man with +his hat in his hand, who, as I thought, resembled Lord +Erskine in profile….' This of course is Bonaparte, +unadorned amidst all this studied splendour, and wearing +only a little tricoloured cockade. Maria Cosway, the +painter, who was also in Paris at the time, took them to +call at the house of Madame Bonaparte <i>mère</i>, where they +were received by 'a blooming, courteous ecclesiastic, +powdered and with purple stockings and gold buckles, and +a costly crucifix. This is Cardinal Fesch, the uncle of +Bonaparte. It is said that when Fox was introduced to +the First Consul he was warmly welcomed by him, and +was made to listen to a grand harangue upon the advantages +of peace, to which he answered scarcely a word; +though he was charmed to talk with Madame Bonaparte, +and to discuss with her the flowers of which she was so +fond.' The Opies met Fox again in England some years +after, when he sat to Opie for one of his finest portraits. +It is now at Holker, and there is a characteristic description +of poor Opie, made nervous by the criticism of the many +friends, and Fox, impatient but encouraging, and again +whispering, 'Don't attend to them; you must know best.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>VIII.</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p>'Adeline Mowbray; or, Mother and Daughter,' was +published by Mrs. Opie after this visit to the Continent. +It is a melancholy and curious story, which seems to have +been partly suggested by that of poor Mary Wollstonecraft, +whose prejudices the heroine shares and expiates by a fate +hardly less pathetic than that of Mary herself. The book +reminds one of a very touching letter from Godwin's wife +to Amelia Alderson, written a few weeks before her death, +in which she speaks of her 'contempt for the forms of a +world she should have bade a long good-night to had she +not been a mother.' Justice has at length been done to +this mistaken but noble and devoted woman, and her story +has lately been written from a wider point of view than +Mrs. Opie's, though she indeed was no ungenerous advocate. +Her novel seems to have given satisfaction; 'a beautiful +story, the most natural in its pathos of any fictitious +narrative in the language,' says the 'Edinburgh,' writing +with more leniency than authors now expect. Another +reviewer, speaking with discriminating criticism, says of +Mrs. Opie: 'She does not reason well, but she has, like +most accomplished women, the talent of perceiving truth +without the process of reasoning. Her language is often +inaccurate, but it is always graceful and harmonious. She +can do nothing well that requires to be done with formality; +to make amends, however, she represents admirably everything +that is amiable, generous, and gentle.'</p> + +<p>Adeline Mowbray dies of a broken heart, with the following +somewhat discursive farewell to her child: 'There +are two ways in which a mother can be of use to her +daughter; the one is by instilling into her mind virtuous +principles, and by setting her a virtuous example, the other +is by being to her, in her own person, an awful warning!'</p> + +<p> </p> +<p>One or two of Opie's letters to his wife are given in +the memoir. They ring with truth and tender feeling. +The two went to Norwich together on one occasion, when +Opie painted Dr. Sayers, the scholar, who, in return for +his portrait, applied an elegant Greek distich to the +painter. Mrs. Opie remained with her father, and her +husband soon returned to his studio in London. When +she delayed, he wrote to complain. 'My dearest Life, I +cannot be sorry that you do not stay longer, though, as I +said, on your father's account, I would consent to it. +Pray, Love, forgive me, and make yourself easy. I did +not suspect, till my last letter was posted, that it might +be too strong. I had been counting almost the hours till +your arrival for some time. As to coming down again +I cannot think of it, for though I could perhaps better +spare the time at present from painting than I could at +any part of the last month, I find I must now go hard to +work to finish my lectures, as the law says they must be +delivered the second year after the election.'</p> + +<p>The Academy had appointed Opie Professor of Painting +in the place of Fuseli, and he was now trying his hand +at a new form of composition, and not without well-deserved +success. But the strain was too great for this +eager mind. Opie painted all day; of an evening he +worked at his lectures on painting. From September to +February he allowed himself no rest. He was not a man +who worked with ease; all he did cost him much effort +and struggle. After delivering his first lecture, he complained +that he could not sleep. It had been a great +success; his colleagues had complimented him, and accompanied +him to his house. He was able to complete the +course, but immediately afterwards he sickened. No one +could discover what was amiss; the languor and fever +increased day by day.</p> + +<p>His wife nursed him devotedly, and a favourite sister +of his came to help her. Afterwards it was of consolation +to the widow to remember that no hired nurse had been by +his bedside, and that they had been able to do everything +for him themselves. One thing troubled him as he lay +dying; it was the thought of a picture which he had not +been able to complete in time for the exhibition. A friend +and former pupil finished it, and brought it to his bedside. +He said with a smile, 'Take it away, it will do now.'</p> + +<p>To the last he imagined that he was painting upon +this picture, and he moved his arms as though he were at +work. His illness was inflammation of the brain. He +was only forty-five when he died, and he was buried in +St. Paul's, and laid by Sir Joshua, his great master.</p> + +<p>The portrait of Opie, as it is engraved in Alan +Cunningham's Life, is that of a simple, noble-looking +man, with a good thoughtful face and a fine head. Northcote, +Nollekens, Horne Tooke, all his friends spoke warmly +of him. 'A man of powerful understanding and ready +apprehension,' says one. 'Mr. Opie crowds more wisdom +into a few words than almost anybody I ever saw,' says +another. 'I do not say that he was always right,' says +Northcote; 'but he always put your thoughts into a new +track that was worth following.' Some two years after +his death the lectures which had cost so much were +published, with a memoir by Mrs. Opie. Sir James +Mackintosh has written one of his delightful criticisms +upon the book:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The cultivation of every science and the practice of every +art are in fact a species of action, and require ardent zeal and +unshaken courage…. Originality can hardly exist without +vigour of character…. The discoverer or inventor may +indeed be most eminently wanting in decision in the general +concerns of life, but he must possess it in those pursuits in +which he is successful. Opie is a remarkable instance of the +natural union of these superior qualities, both of which he +possesses in a high degree…. He is inferior in elegance to +Sir Joshua, but he is superior in strength; he strikes more, +though he charms less…. Opie is by turns an advocate, a +controvertist, a panegyrist, a critic; Sir Joshua more uniformly +fixes his mind on general and permanent principles, and certainly +approaches more nearly to the elevation and tranquillity +which seem to characterise the philosophic teacher of an elegant +art.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>IX.</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Mrs. Opie went back, soon after her husband's death, +to Norwich, to her early home, her father's house; nor +was she a widow indeed while she still had this tender +love and protection.</p> + +<p>That which strikes one most as one reads the accounts +of Mrs. Opie is the artlessness and perfect simplicity of +her nature. The deepest feeling of her life was her +tender love for her father, and if she remained younger +than most women do, it may have been partly from the +great blessing which was hers so long, that of a father's +home. Time passed, and by degrees she resumed her old +life, and came out and about among her friends. Sorrow +does not change a nature, it expresses certain qualities which +have been there all along.</p> + +<p>So Mrs. Opie came up to London once more, and +welcomed and was made welcome by many interesting +people. Lord Erskine is her friend always; she visits +Madame de Staël; she is constantly in company with +Sydney Smith, the ever-welcome as she calls him. Lord +<ins title="original has Bryon">Byron</ins>, Sheridan, Lord Dudley, all appear upon her scene. +There is a pretty story of her singing her best to Lady +Sarah Napier, old, blind, and saddened, but still happy in +that she had her sons to guide and to protect her steps. +Among her many entertainments, Mrs. Opie amusingly +describes a dinner at Sir James Mackintosh's, to which +most of the guests had been asked at different hours, +varying from six to half-past seven, when Baron William +von Humboldt arrives. He writes to her next day, calling +her Mademoiselle Opie, 'no doubt from my juvenile +appearance,' she adds, writing to her father. It is indeed +remarkable to read of her spirits long after middle life, her +interest and capacity for amusement. She pays 4<i>l</i>. for +a ticket to a ball given to the Duke of Wellington; she +describes this and many other masquerades and gaieties, +and the blue ball, and the pink ball, and the twenty-seven +carriages at her door, and her sight of the Emperor of +Russia in her hotel. When the rest of the ladies crowd +round, eager to touch his clothes, Mrs. Opie, carried away +by the general craze, encircles his wrist with her finger +and thumb. Apart from these passing fancies, she is in +delightful society.</p> + +<p>Baron Alderson, her cousin and friend, was always kind +and affectionate to her. The pretty little story is well +known of his taking her home in her Quaker dress in the +Judges' state-coach at Norwich, saying, 'Come, Brother +Opie,' as he offered her his arm to lead her to the carriage. +She used to stay at his house in London, and almost the +last visit she ever paid was to him.</p> + +<p>One of the most interesting of her descriptions is that +of her meeting with Sir Walter Scott and with Wordsworth +at a breakfast in Mount Street, and of Sir Walter's delightful +talk and animated stories. One can imagine him +laughing and describing a Cockney's terrors in the Highlands, +when the whole hunt goes galloping down the crags, +as is their North-country fashion. 'The gifted man,' +says Mrs. Opie, with her old-fashioned adjectives, 'condescended +to speak to me of my "Father and Daughter." +He then went on faithfully to praise his old friend Joanna +Baillie and her tragedies, and to describe a tragedy he +once thought of writing himself. He should have had +no love in it. His hero should have been the uncle +of his heroine, a sort of misanthrope, with only one +affection in his heart, love for his niece, like a solitary +gleam of sunshine lighting the dark tower of some ruined +and lonely dwelling.'</p> + +<p>'It might perhaps be a weakness,' says the Friend, +long after recalling this event, 'but I must confess how +greatly I was pleased at the time.' No wonder she was +pleased that the great wizard should have liked her novel.</p> + +<p>It would be impossible to attempt a serious critique of +Mrs. Opie's stories. They are artless, graceful, written +with an innocent good faith which disarms criticism. +That Southey, Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh should also +have read them and praised them may, as I have said, +prove as much for the personal charm of the writer, and +her warm sunshine of pleasant companionship, as for the +books themselves. They seem to have run through many +editions, and to have received no little encouragement. +Morality and sensation alternate in her pages. Monsters +abound there. They hire young men to act base parts, to +hold villainous conversations which the husbands are +intended to overhear. They plot and scheme to ruin the +fair fame and domestic happiness of the charming heroines, +but they are justly punished, and their plots are defeated. +One villain, on his way to an appointment with a married +woman, receives so severe a blow upon the head from her +brother, that he dies in agonies of fruitless remorse. +Another, who incautiously boasts aloud his deep-laid +scheme against Constantia's reputation in the dark recesses +of a stage-coach, is unexpectedly seized by the arm. A +stranger in the corner, whom he had not noticed, was no +other than the baronet whom Constantia has loved all +along. The dawn breaks in brightly, shining on the +stranger's face: baffled, disgraced, the wicked schemer +leaves the coach at the very next stage, and Constantia's +happiness is ensured by a brilliant marriage with the man +she loves. 'Lucy is the dark sky,' cries another lovely +heroine, 'but you, my lord, and my smiling children, +these are the rainbow that illumines it; and who would +look at the gloom that see the many tinted Iris? not I, +indeed.' 'Valentine's Eve,' from which this is quoted, +was published after John Opie's death. So was a novel +called 'Temper,' and the 'Tales of Real Life.' Mrs. Opie, +however, gave up writing novels when she joined the +Society of Friends.</p> + +<p>For some years past, Mrs. Opie had been thrown more +and more in the company of a very noble and remarkable +race of men and women living quietly in their beautiful +homes in the neighbourhood of Norwich, but of an influence +daily growing—handsome people, prosperous, generous, +with a sort of natural Priesthood belonging to them. +Scorning to live for themselves alone, the Gurneys were +the dispensers and originators of a hundred useful and +benevolent enterprises in Norwich and elsewhere. They +were Quakers, and merchants, and bankers. How much +of their strength lay in their wealth and prosperity, how +much in their enthusiasm, their high spirits, voluntarily +curbed, their natural instinct both to lead and to protect, +it would be idle to discuss. It is always difficult for +people who believe in the all-importance of the present to +judge of others, whose firm creed is that the present is +nothing as compared to the future. Chief among this +remarkable family was Elizabeth Gurney, the wife of +Josiah Fry, the mother of many children, and the good +angel, indeed, of the unhappy captives of those barbarous +days, prisoners, to whose utter gloom and misery she brought +some rays of hope. There are few figures more striking than +that of the noble Quaker lady starting on her generous +mission, comforting the children, easing the chains of the +captives. No domineering Jellyby, but a motherly, deep-hearted +woman; shy, and yet from her very timidity gaining +an influence, which less sensitive natures often fail to +win. One likes to imagine the dignified sweet face coming +in—the comforting Friend in the quiet garb of the Quaker +woman standing at the gates of those terrible places, bidding +the despairing prisoners be of good hope.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth Fry's whole life was a mission of love and +help to others; her brothers and her many relations +heartily joined and assisted her in many plans and efforts.</p> + +<p>For Joseph John Gurney, the head of the Norwich +family, Mrs. Opie is said to have had a feeling amounting +to more than friendship. Be this as it may, it is no wonder +that so warm-hearted and impressionable a woman should +have been influenced by the calm goodness of the friends +with whom she was now thrown. It is evident enough, +nor does she attempt to conceal the fact, that the admiration +and interest she feels for John Joseph Gurney are very +deep motive powers. There comes a time in most lives, +especially in the lives of women, when all the habits and +certainties of youth have passed away, when life has to be +built up again upon the foundations indeed of the past, the +friendships, the memories, the habits of early life, but with +new places and things to absorb and to interest, new hearts +to love. And one day people wake up to find that the +friends of their choice have become their home. People +are stranded perhaps seeking their share in life's allowance, +and suddenly they come upon something, with all the +charm which belongs to deliberate choice, as well as that of +natural affinity. How well one can realise the extraordinary +comfort that Amelia Opie must have found in the kind +friends and neighbours with whom she was now thrown! +Her father was a very old man, dying slowly by inches. +Her own life of struggle, animation, intelligence, was +over, as she imagined, for ever. No wonder if for a time +she was carried away, if she forgot her own nature, her +own imperative necessities, in sympathy with this new +revelation. Here was a new existence, here was a Living +Church ready to draw her within its saving walls. John +Joseph Gurney must have been a man of extraordinary +personal influence. For a long time past he had been +writing to her seriously. At last, to the surprise of the +world, though not without long deliberation and her +father's full approval, she joined the Society of Friends, +put on their dress, and adopted their peculiar phraseology. +People were surprised at the time, but I think it would +have been still more surprising if she had not joined them. +J. J. Gurney, in one of his letters, somewhat magnificently +describes Mrs. Opie as offering up her many talents and +accomplishments a brilliant sacrifice to her new-found persuasions. +'Illustrations of Lying,' moral anecdotes on the +borderland of imagination, are all that she is henceforth +allowed. 'I am bound in a degree not to invent a story, +because when I became a Friend it was required of me not +to do so,' she writes to Miss Mitford, who had asked her to +contribute to an annual. Miss Mitford's description of +Mrs. Opie, 'Quakerised all over, and calling Mr. Haydon +'Friend Benjamin,' is amusing enough; and so also is the +account of the visiting card she had printed after she became +a Quaker, with 'Amelia Opie,' without any prefix, as is the +Quaker way; also, as is not their way, with a wreath of +embossed pink roses surrounding the name. There is +an account of Mrs. Opie published in the 'Edinburgh +Review,' in a delightful article entitled the 'Worthies of +Norwich,' which brings one almost into her very presence.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Amelia Opie at the end of the last century and Amelia +Opie in the garb and with the speech of a member of the +Society of Friends sounds like two separate personages, but no +one who recollects the gay little songs which at seventy she +used to sing with lively gesture, the fragments of drama to +which, with the zest of an innate actress, she occasionally +treated her young friends, or the elaborate faultlessness of her +appearance—the shining folds and long train of her pale satin +draperies, the high, transparent cap, the crisp fichu crossed +over the breast, which set off to advantage the charming little +plump figure with its rounded lines—could fail to recognise the +same characteristics which sparkled about the wearer of the +pink calico domino in which she frolicked incognito 'till she +was tired' at a ball given by the Duke of Wellington in 1814, +or of the eight blue feathers which crowned the waving tresses +of her flaxen hair as a bride.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Doctor Alderson died in October 1825, and Mrs. Opie was +left alone. She was very forlorn when her father died. +She had no close ties to carry her on peacefully from middle +age to the end of life. The great break had come; she was +miserable, and, as mourners do, she falls upon herself and +beats her breast. All through these sad years her friends +at Northrepps and at Earlham were her chief help and +consolation. As time passed her deep sorrow was calmed, +when peaceful memories had succeeded to the keen anguish +of her good old father's loss. She must have suffered +deeply; she tried hard to be brave, but her courage failed +her at times: she tried hard to do her duty; and her +kindness and charity were unfailing, for she was herself +still, although so unhappy. Her journals are pathetic in +their humility and self-reproaches for imaginary omissions. +She is lonely; out of heart, out of hope. 'I am so dissatisfied +with myself that I hardly dare ask or expect a +blessing upon my labours,' she says; and long lists of kind +and fatiguing offices, of visits to sick people and poor people, +to workhouses and prisons, are interspersed with expressions +of self-blame.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>The writer can remember as a child speculating as she +watched the straight-cut figure of a Quaker lady standing +in the deep window of an old mansion that overlooked the +Luxembourg Gardens at Paris, with all their perfume and +blooming scent of lilac and sweet echoes of children, while +the quiet figure stood looking down upon it all from—to a +child—such an immeasurable distance. As one grows older +one becomes more used to garbs of different fashions and +cut, and one can believe in present sunlight and the scent +of flowering trees and the happy sound of children's voices +going straight to living hearts beneath their several disguises, +and Mrs. Opie, notwithstanding her Quaker dress, +loved bright colours and gay sunlight. She was one of those +who gladly made life happy for others, who naturally turned +to bright and happy things herself. When at last she began +to recover from the blow which had fallen so heavily upon +her she went from Norwich to the Lakes and Fells for refreshment, +and then to Cornwall, and among its green seas +and softly clothed cliffs she found good friends (as most +people do who go to that kind and hospitable county), and +her husband's relations, who welcomed her kindly. As she +recovered by degrees she began to see something of her old +companions. She went to London to attend the May meetings +of the Society, and I heard an anecdote not long ago +which must have occurred on some one of these later visits +there.</p> + +<p>One day when some people were sitting at breakfast at +Samuel Rogers's, and talking as people do who belong to +the agreeable classes, the conversation happened to turn +upon the affection of a father for his only child, when an +elderly lady who had been sitting at the table, and who +was remarkable for her Quaker dress, her frills and spotless +folds, her calm and striking appearance, started up suddenly, +burst into a passion of tears, and had to be led sobbing +out of the room. She did not return, and the lady who +remembers the incident, herself a young bride at the time, +told me it made all the more impression upon her at the time +because she was told that the Quaker lady was Mrs. Opie. +My friend was just beginning her life. Mrs. Opie must +have been ending hers. It is not often that women, when +youth is long past, shed sudden and passionate tears of mere +emotion, nor perhaps would a Quaker, trained from early +childhood to calm moods and calm expressions, have been +so suddenly overpoweringly affected; but Mrs. Opie was no +born daughter of the community, she was excitable and +impulsive to the last. I have heard a lady who knew her +well describe her, late in life, laughing heartily and impetuously +thrusting a somewhat starched-up Friend into a deep +arm-chair exclaiming, 'I will hurl thee into the bottomless +pit.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>X.</b> +</p> +</div> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">At sight of thee, O Tricolor,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">I seem to feel youth's hours return,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">The loved, the lost!</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>So writes Mrs. Opie at the age of sixty, reviving, +delighting, as she catches sight of her beloved Paris once +more, and breathes its clear and life-giving air, and looks +out across its gardens and glittering gables and spires, and +again meets her French acquaintances, and throws herself +into their arms and into their interests with all her old +warmth and excitability. The little grey bonnet only gives +certain incongruous piquancy to her pleasant, kind-hearted +exuberance. She returns to England, but far-away echoes +reach her soon of changes and revolutions concerning all +the people for whom her regard is so warm. In August, +1830, came the news of a new revolution—'The Chamber +of Deputies dissolved for ever; the liberty of the press +abolished; king, ministers, court, and ambassadors flying +from Paris to Vincennes; cannon planted against the city; +5,000 people killed, and the Rue de Rivoli running with +blood.' No wonder such rumours stirred and overwhelmed +the staunch but excitable lady. 'You will readily believe +how anxious, interested, and excited I feel,' she says; and +then she goes on to speak of Lafayette, 'miraculously preserved +through two revolutions, and in chains and in a +dungeon, now the leading mind in another conflict, and +lifting not only an armed but a restraining hand in a third +revolution.'</p> + +<p>Her heart was with her French friends and intimates, +and though she kept silence she was not the less determined +to follow its leading, and, without announcing her +intention, she started off from Norwich and, after travelling +without intermission, once more arrived in her +beloved city. But what was become of the Revolution? +'Paris seemed as bright and peaceful as I had seen it +thirteen months ago! The people, the busy people +passing to and fro, and soldiers, omnibuses, cabriolets, +citadenes, carts, horsemen hurrying along the Rue de +Rivoli, while foot passengers were crossing the gardens, or +loungers were sitting on its benches to enjoy the beauty +of the May-November.' She describes two men crossing +the Place Royale singing a national song, the result of the +Revolution:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Pour briser leurs masses profondes,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Qui conduit nos drapeaux sanglants,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">C'est la Liberté de deux mondes,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">C'est Lafayette en cheveux blancs.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Mrs. Opie was full of enthusiasm for noble Lafayette +surveying his court of turbulent intrigue and shifting +politics; for Cuvier in his own realm, among more +tranquil laws, less mutable decrees. She should have +been born a Frenchwoman, to play a real and brilliant +part among all these scenes and people, instead of only +looking on. Something stirred in her veins too eager and +bubbling for an Englishwoman's scant share of life and +outward events. No wonder that her friends at Norwich +were anxious, and urged her to return. They heard of +her living in the midst of excitement, of admiration, and +with persons of a different religion and way of thinking to +themselves. Their warning admonitions carried their +weight; that little Quaker bonnet which she took so much +care of was a talisman, drawing the most friendly of +Friends away from the place of her adoption. But she +came back unchanged to her home, to her quiet associations; +she had lost none of her spirits, none, of her cheerful +interest in her natural surroundings. As life burnt on +her kind soul seemed to shine more and more brightly. +Every one came to see her, to be cheered and warmed by +her genial spirit. She loved flowers, of which her room +was full. She had a sort of passion for prisms, says her +biographer; she had several set in a frame and mounted +like a screen, and the colour flew about the little room. +She kept up a great correspondence; she was never tired +of writing, though the letters on other people's business +were apt to prove a serious burden at times. But she lives +on only to be of use. 'Take care of indulging in little +selfishnesses,' she writes in her diary; 'learn to consider +others in trifles: the mind so disciplined will find it easier +to fulfil the greater duties, and the character will not +exhibit that trying inconsistency which one sees in great +and often in pious persons.' Her health fails, but not her +courage. She goes up to London for the last time to her +cousin's house. She is interested in all the people she +meets, in their wants and necessities, in the events of the +time. She returns home, contented with all; with the +house which she feels so 'desirable to die in,' with her +window through which she can view the woods and rising +ground of Thorpe. 'My prisms to-day are quite in their +glory,' she writes; 'the atmosphere must be very clear, +for the radiance is brighter than ever I saw it before;' and +then she wonders whether the mansions in heaven will be +draped in such brightness; and so to the last the gentle, +bright, <i>rainbow </i>lady remained surrounded by kind and +smiling faces, by pictures, by flowers, and with the light +of her favourite prismatic colours shining round about the +couch on which she lay.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="JANE_AUSTEN" id="JANE_AUSTEN"></a><i>JANE AUSTEN.</i></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent">1775-1817.<br /> +</p> +</div> +<blockquote> +<p>'A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes +originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de différence entre +les hommes.'—<span class="smallcaps">Pascal.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>I.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>'I did not know that you were a studier of character,' +says Bingley to Elizabeth. 'It must be an amusing study.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, but intricate characters are the most amusing. +They have at least that advantage.'</p> + +<p>'The country,' said Darcy, 'can in general supply but +few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood +you move in a very confined and unvarying society.'</p> + +<p>'But people themselves alter so much,' Elizabeth +answers, 'that there is something new to be observed in +them for ever.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, indeed,' cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by Darcy's +manner of mentioning a country neighbourhood; 'I assure +you that we have quite as much of <i>that</i> going on in the +country as in town.'</p> + +<p>'Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at +her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who +fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued +her triumph.'</p> + +<p>These people belong to a whole world of familiar +acquaintances, who are, notwithstanding their old-fashioned +dresses and quaint expressions, more alive to us than +a great many of the people among whom we live. We +know so much more about them to begin with. Notwithstanding +a certain reticence and self-control which seems +to belong to their age, and with all their quaint dresses, +and ceremonies, and manners, the ladies and gentlemen in +'Pride and Prejudice' and its companion novels seem like +living people out of our own acquaintance transported +bodily into a bygone age, represented in the half-dozen +books that contain Jane Austen's works. Dear books! +bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in which the +homely heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very +bores are enchanting.</p> + +<p>Could we but study our own bores as Miss Austen must +have studied hers in her country village, what a delightful +world this might be!—a world of Norris's economical great +walkers, with dining-room tables to dispose of; of Lady +Bertrams on sofas, with their placid 'Do not act anything +improper, my dears; Sir Thomas would not like it;' of +Bennets, Goddards, Bates's; of Mr. Collins's; of Rushbrooks, +with two-and-forty speeches apiece—a world of +Mrs. Eltons…. Inimitable woman! she must be alive +at this very moment, if we but knew where to find her, +her basket on her arm, her nods and all-importance, with +Maple Grove and the Sucklings in the background. She +would be much excited were she aware how she is esteemed +by a late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is well acquainted +with Maple Grove and Selina too. It might +console her for Mr. Knightly's shabby marriage.</p> + +<p>All these people nearly start out of the pages, so natural +and unaffected are they, and yet they never lived except in +the imagination of one lady with bright eyes, who sat +down some seventy years ago to an old mahogany desk in +a quiet country parlour, and evoked them for us. One +seems to see the picture of the unknown friend who has +charmed us so long—charmed away dull hours, created +neighbours and companions for us in lonely places, conferring +happiness and harmless mirth upon generations +to come. One can picture her as she sits erect, with her +long and graceful figure, her full round face, her bright +eyes cast down,—Jane Austen, 'the woman of whom +England is justly proud'—whose method generous +Macaulay has placed near Shakespeare. She is writing +in secret, putting away her work when visitors come +in, unconscious, modest, hidden at home in heart, as +she was in her sweet and womanly life, with the wisdom +of the serpent indeed and the harmlessness of a +dove.</p> + +<p>Some one said just now that many people seem to be so +proud of seeing a joke at all, that they impress it upon you +until you are perfectly wearied by it. Jane Austen was not +of these; her humour flows gentle and spontaneous; it is +no elaborate mechanism nor artificial fountain, but a bright +natural stream, rippling and trickling over every stone and +sparkling in the sunshine. We should be surprised now-a-days +to hear a young lady announce herself as a studier of +character. From her quiet home in the country lane this +one reads to us a real page from the absorbing pathetic +humorous book of human nature—a book that we can +most of us understand when it is translated into plain +English; but of which the quaint and illegible characters +are often difficult to decipher for ourselves. It is a study +which, with all respect for Darcy's opinion, must require +something of country-like calm and concentration and +freedom of mind. It is difficult, for instance, for a too +impulsive student not to attribute something of his own +moods to his specimens instead of dispassionately contemplating +them from a critical distance.</p> + +<p>Besides the natural fun and wit and life of her +characters, 'all perfectly discriminated,' as Macaulay says, +Jane Austen has the gift of telling a story in a way that +has never been surpassed. She rules her places, times, +characters, and marshals them with unerring precision. +In her special gift for organisation she seems almost unequalled. +Her picnics are models for all future and past +picnics; her combinations of feelings, of conversation, of +gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and lifelike that reading +to criticise is impossible to some of us—the scene carries +us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is +recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events +group themselves so vividly and naturally in her mind +that, in describing imaginary scenes, we seem not only to +read them, but to live them, to see the people coming and +going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the +ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them +talking to one another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; +as in real life days and events follow one another. Last +Tuesday does not suddenly start into existence all out of +place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when we are +well on in '21. Countries and continents do not fly from +hero to hero, nor do long and divergent adventures happen +to unimportant members of the company. With Jane +Austen days, hours, minutes succeed each other like clockwork, +one central figure is always present on the scene, that +figure is always prepared for company. Miss Edwards's +curl-papers are almost the only approach to dishabille in +her stories. There are postchaises in readiness to convey +the characters from Bath or Lyme to Uppercross, to +Fullerton, from Gracechurch Street to Meryton, as their +business takes them. Mr. Knightly rides from Brunswick +Square to Hartfield, by a road that Miss Austen herself +must have travelled in the curricle with her brother, driving +to London on a summer's day. It was a wet ride for Mr. +Knightly, followed by that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon +in the shrubbery, when the wind had changed into a +softer quarter, the clouds were carried off, and Emma, +walking in the sunshine, with spirits freshened and +thoughts a little relieved, and thinking of Mr. Knightly +as sixteen miles away, meets him at the garden door; and +everybody, I think, must be the happier, for the happiness +and certainty that one half-hour gave to Emma and her +'indifferent' lover.</p> + +<p>There is a little extract from one of Miss Austen's +letters to a niece, which shows that all this successful +organisation was not brought about by chance alone, but +came from careful workmanship.</p> + +<p>'Your aunt C.,' she says, 'does not like desultory +novels, and is rather fearful that yours will be too much +so—that there will be too frequent a change from one set +of people to another, and that circumstances will be sometimes +introduced of apparent consequence, which will lead +to nothing. It will not be so great an objection to me. +I allow much more latitude than she does, and think nature +and spirit cover many sins of a wandering story….'</p> + +<p>But, though the sins of a wandering story may be +covered, the virtues of a well-told one make themselves +felt unconsciously, and without an effort. Some books +and people are delightful, we can scarce tell why; they are +not so clever as others that weary and fatigue us. It is a +certain effort to read a story, however touching, that is +disconnected and badly related. It is like an ill-drawn +picture, of which the colouring is good. Jane Austen +possessed both gifts of colour and of drawing. She could +see human nature as it was; with near-sighted eyes, it is +true; but having seen, she could combine her picture by +her art, and colour it from life. How delightful the people +are who play at cards, and pay their addresses to one +another, and sup, and discuss each other's affairs! Take +Mr. Bennet's reception of his sons-in-law. Take Sir +Walter Elliot compassionating the navy and Admiral +Baldwin—'nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a +dab of powder at top—a wretched example of what a seafaring +life can do, for men who are exposed to every climate +and weather until they are not fit to be seen. It is a pity +they are not knocked on the head at once, before they +reach Admiral Baldwin's age….' Or shall we quote the +scene of Fanny Price's return when she comes to visit +her family at Portsmouth; in all daughterly agitation and +excitement, and the brother's and father's and sister's reception +of her…. 'A stare or two at Fanny was all the +voluntary notice that her brother bestowed, but he made +no objection to her kissing him, though still entirely +engaged in detailing further particulars of the "Thrush's" +going out of harbour, in which he had a strong right of +interest, being about to commence his career of seamanship +in her at this very time. After the mother and daughter +have received her, Fanny's seafaring father comes in, and +does not notice her at first in his excitement. "Captain +Walsh thinks you will certainly have a cruise to the westward +with the 'Elephant' by —— I wish you may. But +old Scholey was saying just now that he thought you would +be sent first to the 'Texel.' Well, well, we are ready whatever +happens. But by —— you lost a fine sight by not +being here in the morning to see the 'Thrush' go out of +harbour. I would not have been out of the way for a +thousand pounds. Old Scholey ran in at breakfast time to +say she had slipped her moorings and was coming out. I +jumped up and made but two steps to the platform. If +ever there was a perfect beauty afloat she is one; and +there she lies at Spithead, and anybody in England would +take her for an eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform +for two hours this afternoon looking at her. She lies +close to the 'Endymion,' between her and the 'Cleopatra,' +just to the eastward of the sheer hulk."'</p> + +<p>'"Ha!" cried William, "<i>that's</i> just where I should +have put her myself. It's the best berth in Spithead. But +here is my sister, sir; here is Fanny, turning and leading +her forward—it is so dark you do not see her."'</p> + +<p>'With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot +her, Mr. Price now received his daughter, and having given +her a cordial hug and observed that she was grown into a +woman and he supposed would be wanting a husband soon, +seemed very much inclined to forget her again.'</p> + +<p>How admirably it is all told! how we hear them all +talking!</p> + +<p>From her own brothers Jane Austen learned her +accurate knowledge of ships and seafaring things, from +her own observation she must have gathered her delightful +droll science of men and women and their ways and various +destinations. Who will not recognise Mrs. Norris in that +master-touch by which she removes the curtain to save Sir +Thomas's feelings, that curtain which had been prepared +for the private theatricals he so greatly disapproved of? +Mrs. Norris thoughtfully carries it off to her cottage, where +she happened to be particularly in want of green baize.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>II.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>The charm of friends of pen-and-ink is their unchangeableness. +We go to them when we want them. We +know where to seek them; we know what to expect from +them. They are never preoccupied; they are always +'at home;' they never turn their backs nor walk away as +people do in real life, nor let their houses and leave the +neighbourhood, and disappear for weeks together; they +are never taken up with strange people, nor suddenly +absorbed into some more genteel society, or by some +nearer fancy. Even the most volatile among them is to +be counted upon. We may have neglected them, and yet +when we meet again there are the familiar old friends, +and we seem to find our own old selves again in their +company. For us time has, perhaps, passed away; feelings +have swept by, leaving interests and recollections in their +place; but at all ages there must be days that belong to +our youth, hours that will recur so long as men forbear +and women remember, and life itself exists. Perhaps the +most fashionable marriage on the <i>tapis</i> no longer excites +us very much, but the sentiment of an Emma or an Anne +Elliot comes home to some of us as vividly as ever. It is +something to have such old friends who are so young. An +Emma, blooming, without a wrinkle or a grey hair, after +twenty years' acquaintance; an Elizabeth Bennet, sprightly +and charming ever….</p> + +<p>In the 'Roundabout Papers' there is a passage about +the pen-and-ink friends my father loved:—</p> + +<p>'They used to call the good Sir Walter the "Wizard of +the North." What if some writer should appear who can +write so <i>enchantingly</i> that he shall be able to call into +actual life the people whom he invents? What if Mignon, +and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are alive now +(though I don't say they are visible), and Dugald Dalgetty +and Ivanhoe were to step in at that open window by the +little garden yonder? Suppose Uncas and our noble old +Leather Stocking were to glide in silent? Suppose Athos, +Porthos, and Aramis should enter, with a noiseless swagger, +curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on +Uncle Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse with his hair +dyed green; and all the Crummles company of comedians, +with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Roger de Coverley; and +the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La +Mancha, with his blessed squire? I say to you, I look +rather wistfully towards the window, musing upon these +people. Were any of them to enter, I think I should not +be very much frightened….'</p> + +<p>Are not such friends as these, and others unnamed here, +but who will come unannounced to join the goodly company, +creations that, like some people, do actually make part of +our existence, and make us the better for theirs? To +express some vague feelings is to stamp them. Have we +any one of us a friend in a Knight of La Mancha, a +Colonel Newcome, a Sir Roger de Coverley? They live +for us even though they may have never lived. They are, +and do actually make part of our lives, one of the best and +noblest parts. To love them is like a direct communication +with the great and generous minds that conceived +them.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p>It is difficult, reading the novels of succeeding generations, +to determine how much each book reflects of the +time in which it was written; how much of its character +depends upon the mind and the mood of the writer. The +greatest minds, the most original, have the least stamp of +the age, the most of that dominant natural reality which +belongs to all great minds. We know how a landscape +changes as the day goes on, and how the scene brightens +and gains in beauty as the shadows begin to lengthen. +The clearest eyes must see by the light of their own hour. +Jane Austen's literary hour must have been a midday hour: +bright, unsuggestive, with objects standing clear, without +much shadow or elaborate artistic effect. Our own age +is more essentially an age of strained emotion, little +remains to us of starch, or powder, or courtly reserve. +What we have lost in calm, in happiness, in tranquillity, +we have gained in emphasis. Our danger is now, not of +expressing and feeling too little, but of expressing more +than we feel.</p> + +<p>The living writers of to-day lead us into distant realms +and worlds undreamt of in the placid and easily contented +gigot age. Our characters travel by rail and are no longer +confined to postchaises. There is certainly a wide difference +between Miss Austen's heroines and, let us say, a +Maggie Tulliver. One would be curious to know whether, +between the human beings who read Jane Austen's books +to-day and those who read them fifty years ago, there is as +great a contrast. One reason may be, perhaps, that characters +in novels are certainly more intimate with us and +on less ceremonious terms than in Jane Austen's days, +when heroines never gave up a certain gentle self-respect +and humour and hardness of heart in which some modern +types are a little wanting. Whatever happens they +could for the most part speak of quietly and without +bitterness. Love with them does not mean a passion so +much as an interest, deep, silent, not quite incompatible +with a secondary flirtation. Marianne Dashwood's tears +are evidently meant to be dried. Jane Bennet smiles, sighs +and makes excuses for Bingley's neglect. Emma passes +one disagreeable morning making up her mind to the +unnatural alliance between Mr. Knightly and Harriet +Smith. It was the spirit of the age, and, perhaps, one +not to be unenvied. It was not that Jane Austen herself +was incapable of understanding a deeper feeling. In the +last written page of her last written book, there is an +expression of the deepest and truest experience. Annie +Elliot's talk with Captain Benfield is the touching utterance +of a good woman's feelings. They are speaking of +men and of women's affections. 'You are always labouring +and toiling,' she says, 'exposed to every risk and hardship. +Your home, country, friends, all united; neither +time nor life to be called your own. It would be too hard, +indeed (with a faltering voice), if a woman's feelings were +to be added to all this.'</p> + +<p>Further on she says, eagerly: 'I hope I do justice to +all that is felt by you, and by those who resemble you. +God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful +feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. I should +deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true +attachment and constancy were known only by woman. +No! I believe you capable of everything good and great +in your married lives. I believe you equal to every +important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance so +long as—if I may be allowed the expression—so long as you +have an object; I mean while the woman you love lives +and lives for you. <i>All the privilege I claim for my own +sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not court it) +is that of loving longest when existence or when hope is +gone.</i>'</p> + +<p>She could not immediately have uttered another +sentence—her heart was too full, her breath too much +oppressed.</p> + +<p>Dear Anne Elliot!—sweet, impulsive, womanly, tender-hearted—one +can almost hear her voice, pleading the +cause of all true women. In those days when, perhaps, +people's nerves were stronger than they are now, sentiment +may have existed in a less degree, or have been more ruled +by judgment, it may have been calmer and more matter-of-fact; +and yet Jane Austen, at the very end of her life, +wrote thus. Her words seem to ring in our ears after +they have been spoken. Anne Elliot must have been +Jane Austen herself, speaking for the last time. There is +something so true, so womanly about her, that it is impossible +not to love her most of all. She is the bright-eyed +heroine of the earlier novels, matured, softened, +cultivated, to whom fidelity has brought only greater depth +and sweetness instead of bitterness and pain.</p> + +<p>What a difficult thing it would be to sit down and try to +enumerate the different influences by which our lives have +been affected—influences of other lives, of art, of nature, of +place and circumstance,—of beautiful sights passing before +our eyes, or painful ones: seasons following in their +course—hills rising on our horizons—scenes of ruin and +desolation—crowded thoroughfares—sounds in our ears, +jarring or harmonious—the voices of friends, calling, +warning, encouraging—of preachers preaching—of people +in the street below, complaining, and asking our pity! +What long processions of human beings are passing before +us! What trains of thought go sweeping through our +brains! Man seems a strange and ill-kept record of many +and bewildering experiences. Looking at oneself—not as +oneself, but as an abstract human being—one is lost in +wonder at the vast complexities which have been brought +to bear upon it; lost in wonder, and in disappointment +perhaps, at the discordant result of so great a harmony. +Only we know that the whole diapason is beyond our +grasp: one man cannot hear the note of the grasshoppers, +another is deaf when the cannon sounds. Waiting among +these many echoes and mysteries of every kind, and light +and darkness, and life and death, we seize a note or two of +the great symphony, and try to sing; and because these +notes happen to jar, we think all is discordant hopelessness. +Then come pressing onward in the crowd of life, +voices with some of the notes that are wanting to our +own part—voices tuned to the same key as our own, or to +an accordant one; making harmony for us as they pass us +by. Perhaps this is in life the happiest of all experience, +and to few of us there exists any more complete +ideal.</p> + +<p>And so now and then in our lives, when we learn to +love a sweet and noble character, we all feel happier and +better for the goodness and charity which is not ours, and +yet which seems to belong to us while we are near it. +Just as some people and states of mind affect us uncomfortably, +so we seem to be true to ourselves with a +truthful person, generous-minded with a generous nature; +life seems less disappointing and self-seeking when we +think of the just and sweet and unselfish spirits, moving +untroubled among dinning and distracting influences. +These are our friends in the best and noblest sense. We +are the happier for their existence,—it is so much gain +to us. They may have lived at some distant time, we +may never have met face to face, or we may have known +them and been blessed by their love; but their light +shines from afar, their life is for us and with us in +its generous example; their song is for our ears, and we +hear it and love it still, though the singer may be lying +dead.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>III.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>A little book, written by one of Jane Austen's nephews, +tells with a touching directness and simplicity the story +of this good and gifted woman, whose name has long +been a household word among us, but of whose history +nothing was known until this little volume appeared. +It is but the story of a country lady, of quiet days following +quiet days of seasons in their course of common events; +and yet the history is deeply interesting to those who +loved the writer of whom it is written; and as we turn +from the story of Jane Austen's life to her books again, we +feel more than ever that she, too, was one of those true +friends who belong to us inalienably—simple, wise, contented, +living in others, one of those whom we seem to +have a right to love. Such people belong to all humankind +by the very right of their wide and generous sympathies, +of their gentle wisdom and loveableness. Jane +Austen's life, as it is told by Mr. Austen Legh, is very +touching, sweet, and peaceful. It is a country landscape, +where the cattle are grazing, the boughs of the great elm-tree +rocking in the wind: sometimes, as we read, they +come falling with a crash into the sweep; birds are flying +about the old house, homely in its simple rule. The +rafters cross the whitewashed ceilings, the beams project +into the room below. We can see it all: the parlour with +the horsehair sofa, the scant, quaint furniture, the old-fashioned +garden outside, with its flowers and vegetables +combined, and along the south side of the garden the +green terrace sloping away.</p> + +<p>There is a pretty description of the sisters' devotion to +one another (when Cassandra went to school little Jane +accompanied her, the sisters could not be parted), of the +family party, of the old place, 'where there are hedgerows +winding, with green shady footpaths within the copse; +where the earliest primroses and hyacinths are found.' +There is the wood-walk, with its rustic seats, leading to +the meadows; the church-walk leading to the church, +'which is far from the hum of the village, and within +sight of no habitation, except a glimpse of the grey manor-house +through its circling screen of sycamores. Sweet +violets, both purple and white, grow in abundance beneath +its south wall. Large elms protrude their rough branches, +old hawthorns shed their blossoms over the graves, and +the hollow yew-tree must be at least coëval with the +church.'</p> + +<p>One may read the account of Catherine Morland's +home with new interest, from the hint which is given of +its likeness to the old house at Steventon, where dwelt the +unknown friend whose voice we seem to hear at last, and +whose face we seem to recognise, her bright eyes and +brown curly hair, her quick and graceful figure. One can +picture the children who are playing at the door of the +old parsonage, and calling for Aunt Jane. One can +imagine her pretty ways with them, her sympathy for the +active, their games and imaginations. There is Cassandra. +She is older than her sister, more critical, more beautiful, +more reserved. There is the mother of the family, with +her keen wit and clear mind; the handsome father—'the +handsome proctor,' as he was called; the five brothers, +driving up the lane. Tranquil summer passes by, the +winter days go by; the young lady still sits writing at +the old mahogany desk, and smiling, perhaps, at her own +fancies, and hiding them away with her papers at the +sound of coming steps. Now, the modest papers, printed +and reprinted, lie in every hand, the fancies disport +themselves at their will in the wisest brains and the most +foolish.</p> + +<p>It must have been at Steventon—Jane Austen's earliest +home—that Mr. Collins first made his appearance (Lady +Catherine not objecting, as we know, to his occasional +absence on a Sunday, provided another clergyman was +engaged to do the duty of the day), and here, conversing +with Miss Jane, that he must have made many of his profoundest +observations upon human nature; remarking, +among other things, that resignation is never so perfect +as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its +value in our estimation, and propounding his celebrated +theory about the usual practice of elegant females. It +must have been here, too, that poor Mrs. Bennet declared, +with some justice, that once estates are entailed, one can +never tell how they will go; here, too, that Mrs. Allen's +sprigged muslin and John Thorpe's rodomontades were +woven; that his gig was built, 'curricle-hung lamps, +seat, trunk, sword-case, splashboard, silver moulding, all, +you see, complete. The ironwork as good as new, or +better. He asked fifty guineas…. I closed with +him directly, threw down the money, and the carriage was +mine.'</p> + +<p>'And I am sure,' said Catherine, 'I know so little of +such things, that I cannot judge whether it was cheap or +dear.'</p> + +<p>'Neither the one nor the other,' says John Thorpe.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Palmer was also born at Steventon—that good-humoured +lady in 'Sense and Sensibility,' who thinks it +so ridiculous that her husband never hears her when she +speaks to him. We are told that Marianne and Ellinor +have been supposed to represent Cassandra and Jane +Austen; but Mr. Austen Legh says that he can trace no +resemblance. Jane Austen is not twenty when this book +is written, and only twenty-one when 'Pride and Prejudice' +is first devised.</p> + +<p>Cousins presently come on the scene, and amongst +them the romantic figure of a young, widowed Comtesse +de Feuillade, flying from the Revolution to her uncle's +home. She is described as a clever and accomplished +woman, interested in her young cousins, teaching them +French (both Jane and Cassandra knew French), helping +in their various schemes, in their theatricals in the barn. +She eventually marries her cousin, Henry Austen. The +simple family annals are not without their romance; but +there is a cruel one for poor Cassandra, whose lover dies +abroad, and his death saddens the whole family-party. Jane, +too, 'receives the addresses' (do such things as addresses +exist nowadays?) 'of a gentleman possessed of good character +and fortune, and of everything, in short, except the +subtle power of touching her heart.' One cannot help +wondering whether this was a Henry Crawford or an Elton +or a Mr. Elliot, or had Jane already seen the person +that even Cassandra thought good enough for her sister?</p> + +<p>Here, too, is another sorrowful story. The sisters' fate +(there is a sad coincidence and similarity in it) was to be +undivided; their life, their experience was the same. Some +one without a name takes leave of Jane one day, promising +to come back. He never comes back: long afterwards +they hear of his death. The story seems even sadder than +Cassandra's in its silence and uncertainty, for silence and +uncertainty are death in life to some people….</p> + +<p>There is little trace of such a tragedy in Jane Austen's +books—not one morbid word is to be found, not one vain +regret. Hers was not a nature to fall crushed by the +overthrow of one phase of her manifold life. She seems +to have had a natural genius for life, if I may so speak; +too vivid and genuinely unselfish to fail her in her need. +She could gather every flower, every brightness along her +road. Good spirit, content, all the interests of a happy +and observant nature were hers. Her gentle humour and +wit and interest cannot have failed.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to calculate the difference of the grasp +by which one or another human being realises existence +and the things relating to it, nor how much more vivid life +seems to some than to others. Jane Austen, while her +existence lasted, realised it, and made the best use of the +gifts that were hers. Yet, when her life was ending, then +it was given to her to understand the change that was at +hand; as willingly as she had lived, she died. Some +people seem scarcely to rise up to their own work, to their +own ideal. Jane Austen's life, as it is told by her nephew, +is beyond her work, which only contained one phase of +that sweet and wise nature—the creative, observant, outward +phase. For her home, for her sister, for her friends, +she kept the depth and tenderness of her bright and +gentle sympathy. She is described as busy with her neat +and clever fingers sewing for the poor, working fanciful +keepsakes for her friends. There is the cup and ball that +she never failed to catch; the spillikens lie in an even +ring where she had thrown them; there are her letters, +straightly and neatly folded, and fitting smoothly in their +creases. There is something sweet, orderly, and consistent +in her character and all her tastes—in her fondness for +Crabbe and Cowper, in her little joke that she ought to +be a Mrs. Crabbe. She sings of an evening old ballads to +old-fashioned tunes with a low sweet voice.</p> + +<p>Further on we have a glimpse of Jane and her sister in +their mobcaps, young still, but dressed soberly beyond +their years. One can imagine 'Aunt Jane,' with her +brother's children round her knee, telling her delightful +stories or listening to theirs, with never-failing sympathy. +One can fancy Cassandra, who does not like desultory +novels, more prudent and more reserved, and somewhat +less of a playfellow, looking down upon the group with +elder sister's eyes.</p> + +<p>Here is an extract from a letter written at Steventon +in 1800:—</p> + +<p>'I have two messages: let me get rid of them, and +then my paper will be my own. Mary fully intended +writing by Mr. Charles's frank, and only happened entirely +to forget it, but will write soon; and my father wishes +Edward to send him a memorandum of the price of hops.</p> + +<p class="right"><i>Sunday Evening.</i></p> + +<p>'We have had a dreadful storm of wind in the forepart +of the day, which has done a great deal of mischief +among our trees. I was sitting alone in the drawing-room +when an odd kind of crash startled me. In a moment +afterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window. +I reached it just in time to see the last of our two highly +valued elms descend into the sweep!!!</p> + +<p>'The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first +crash, and which was nearest to the pond, taking a more +easterly direction, sank among our screen of chestnuts and +firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, breaking off the head +of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts of +several branches in its fall. This is not all: the maple +bearing the weathercock was broken in two, and what I +regret more than all the rest is, that all the three elms that +grew in Hall's Meadow, and gave such ornament to it, are +gone.'</p> + +<p>A certain Mrs. Stent comes into one of these letters +'ejaculating some wonder about the cocks and hens.' Mrs. +Stent seems to have tried their patience, and will be known +henceforward as having bored Jane Austen.</p> + +<p>They leave Steventon when Jane is about twenty-five +years of age and go to Bath, from whence a couple of +pleasant letters are given us. Jane is writing to her sister. +She has visited Miss A., who, like all other young ladies, +is considerably genteeler than her parents. She is heartily +glad that Cassandra speaks so comfortably of her health +and looks: could travelling fifty miles produce such an +immediate change? 'You were looking poorly when you +were here, and everybody seemed sensible of it.' Is there +any charm in a hack postchaise? But if there were, Mrs. +Craven's carriage might have undone it all. Then Mrs. +Stent appears again. 'Poor Mrs. Stent, it has been her +lot to be always in the way; but we must be merciful, for +perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, +unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody.' Elsewhere +she writes, upon Mrs. ——'s mentioning that she +had sent the 'Rejected Addresses' to Mr. H., 'I began +talking to her a little about them, and expressed my hope +of their having amused her. Her answer was, "Oh dear, +yes, very much; very droll indeed; the opening of the +house and the striking up of the fiddles!" What she +meant, poor woman, who shall say?'</p> + +<p>But there is no malice in Jane Austen. Hers is the +charity of all clear minds, it is only the muddled who are +intolerant. All who love Emma and Mr. Knightly must +remember the touching little scene in which he reproves +her for her thoughtless impatience of poor Miss Bates's +volubility.</p> + +<p>'You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she +had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an +honour, to have you now, in thoughtless spirits and in the +pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her…. This +is not pleasant to you, Emma, and it is very far from +pleasant to me, but I must, I will, I will tell you truths +while I am satisfied with proving myself your friend by +very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time +or other do me greater justice than you can do me +now.'</p> + +<p>'While they talked they were advancing towards the +carriage: it was ready, and before she could speak again +he had handed her in. He had misinterpreted the feeling +which kept her face averted and her tongue motionless.' +Mr. Knightly's little sermon, in its old-fashioned English, +is as applicable now as it was when it was spoken. We +know that he was an especial favourite with Jane Austen.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>IV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Austen died at Bath, and his family removed to +Southampton. In 1811, Mrs. Austen, her daughters, and +her niece, settled finally at Chawton, a house belonging to +Jane's brother, Mr. Knight (he was adopted by an uncle, +whose name he took), and from Chawton all her literary +work was given to the world. 'Sense and Sensibility,' +'Pride and Prejudice,' were already written; but in the +next five years, from thirty-five to forty, she set to work +seriously, and wrote 'Mansfield Park,' 'Emma,' and 'Persuasion.' +Any one who has written a book will know what +an amount of labour this represents…. One can picture +to oneself the little family scene which Jane describes +to Cassandra. 'Pride and Prejudice' just come down in a +parcel from town; the unsuspicious Miss B. to dinner; +and Jane and her mother setting to in the evening and +reading aloud half the first volume of a new novel sent down +by the brother. Unsuspicious Miss B. is delighted. Jane +complains of her mother's too rapid way of getting on; +'though she perfectly understands the characters herself, +she cannot speak as they ought. Upon the whole, however,' +she says, 'I am quite vain enough and well-satisfied +enough.' This is her own criticism of 'Pride and Prejudice':—'The +work is rather too light, and bright, and +sparkling. It wants shade. It wants to be stretched out +here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be +had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense about something +unconnected with the story—an essay on writing, a critique +on Walter Scott or the "History of Bonaparte."'</p> + +<p>And so Jane Austen lives quietly working at her labour +of love, interested in her 'own darling children's' success; +'the light of the home,' one of the real living children +says afterwards, speaking in the days when she was no +longer there. She goes to London once or twice. Once +she lives for some months in Hans Place, nursing a brother +through an illness. Here it was that she received some +little compliments and messages from the Prince Regent, +to whom she dedicated 'Emma.' He thanks her and acknowledges +the handsome volumes, and she laughs and +tells her publisher that at all events his share of the +offering is appreciated, whatever hers may be! We are +also favoured with some valuable suggestions from Mr. +Clarke, the Royal librarian, respecting a very remarkable +clergyman. He is anxious that Miss Austen should delineate +one who 'should pass his time between the metropolis +and the country, something like Beattie's minstrel, +entirely engaged in literature, and no man's enemy but +his own.' Failing to impress this character upon the +authoress, he makes a fresh suggestion, and proposes that +she should write a romance illustrative of the august house +of Coburg. 'It would be interesting,' he says, 'and very +properly dedicated to Prince Leopold.'</p> + +<p>To which the authoress replies: 'I could no more +write a romance than an epic poem. I could not seriously +sit down to write a romance under any other motive than +to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to +keep it up, and never relax into laughing at myself or +other people, I am sure I should be hung before the first +chapter.'</p> + +<p>There is a delightful collection of friends' suggestions +which she has put together, but which is too long to be +quoted here. She calls it, 'Plan of a Novel, as suggested +by various Friends.'</p> + +<p>All this time, while her fame is slowly growing, life +passes in the same way as in the old cottage at Chawton. +Aunt Jane, with her young face and her mob-cap, makes +play-houses for the children, helps them to dress up, +invents imaginary conversations for them, supposing that +they are all grown up, the day after a ball. One can +imagine how delightful a game that must have seemed to +the little girls. She built her nest, did this good woman, +happily weaving it out of shreds, and ends, and scraps of +daily duty, patiently put together; and it was from this +nest that she sang the song, bright and brilliant, with +quaint thrills and unexpected cadences, that reaches us +even here through near a century. The lesson her life +seems to teach us is this: Don't let us despise our nests—life +is as much made of minutes as of years; let us +complete the daily duties; let us patiently gather the +twigs and the little scraps of moss, of dried grass together, +and see the result!—a whole, completed and coherent, +beautiful even without the song.</p> + +<p>We come too soon to the story of her death. And yet +did it come too soon? A sweet life is not the sweeter for +being long. Jane Austen lived years enough to fulfil her +mission. She lived long enough to write six books that +were masterpieces in their way—to make a world the +happier for her industry.</p> + +<p>One cannot read the story of her latter days, of her +patience, her sweetness, and gratitude, without emotion. +There is family trouble, we are not told of what nature. +She falls ill. Her nieces find her in her dressing-gown, +like an invalid, in an arm-chair in her bedroom; but she +gets up and greets them, and, pointing to seats which had +been arranged for them by the fire, says: 'There is a +chair for the married lady, and a little stool for you, +Caroline.' But she is too weak to talk, and Cassandra +takes them away.</p> + +<p>At last they persuade her to go to Winchester, to a +well-known doctor there.</p> + +<p>'It distressed me,' she says, in one of her last, dying +letters, 'to see Uncle Henry and William Knight, who +kindly attended us, riding in the rain almost the whole +way. We expect a visit from them to-morrow, and hope +they will stay the night; and on Thursday, which is a +confirmation and a holiday, we hope to get Charles out to +breakfast. We have had but one visit from <i>him</i>, poor +fellow, as he is in the sick room…. God bless you, +dear E.; if ever you are ill, may you be as tenderly nursed +as I have been….'</p> + +<p>But nursing does not cure her, nor can the doctor save +her to them all, and she sinks from day to day. To the +end she is full of concern for others.</p> + +<p>'As for my dearest sister, my tender, watchful, indefatigable +nurse has not been made ill by her exertions,' +she writes. 'As to what I owe her, and the anxious +affection of all my beloved family on this occasion, I can +only cry over it, and pray God to bless them more and +more.'</p> + +<p>One can hardly read this last sentence with dry eyes. +It is her parting blessing and farewell to those she had +blessed all her life by her presence and her love—that +love which is beyond death; and of which the benediction +remains, not only spoken in words, but by the ever-present +signs and the tokens of those lifetimes which do not end +for us as long as we ourselves exist.</p> + +<p>They asked her when she was near her end if there +was anything she wanted.</p> + +<p>'Nothing but death,' she said. Those were her last +words. She died on the 18th of July, 1817, and was +buried in Winchester Cathedral, where she lies not unremembered.</p> +<p> </p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<p class="revind"><a name="fn1" id="fn1"></a><a href="#fn1r">1</a>: In a notice of Miss Seward in the <i>Annual Register</i>, just after her +death in 1809, the writer, who seems to have known her, says:—'Conscious +of ability, she freely displayed herself in a manner equally remote from +annoyance and affectation…. Her errors arose from a glowing +imagination joined to an excessive sensibility, cherished instead of +repressed by early habits. It is understood that she has left the whole +of her works to Mr. Scott, the northern poet, with a view to their publication +with her life and posthumous pieces.'</p> + +<p class="revind"><a name="fn2" id="fn2"></a><a href="#fn2r">2</a>: Mrs. Burke, hearing more of the circumstances, afterwards sent +permission; but Mrs. Leadbeater being a Quakeress, and having once +<i>promised</i> not to publish, could not take it upon herself to break her +covenant.</p> + +<p class="revind"><a name="fn3" id="fn3"></a><a href="#fn3r">3</a>: A touching illustration of her abiding influence is to be found cited +in an article in the <i>Daily News</i> of September 7, 1883, published as these +proofs are going to press, by 'One Who Knew' Ivan Turguéneff, that +great Russian whom we might almost claim if love and admiration gave +one a right to count citizenship with the great men of our time. An +elder brother of his knew Miss Edgeworth, perhaps at Abbotsford, for +he visited Walter Scott there, or at Coppet with Madame de Staël. +This man, wise and cultivated in all European literature, 'came to the +conclusion that Maria Edgeworth had struck on a vein from which +most of the great novelists of the future would exclusively work. She +took the world as she found it, and selected from it the materials that +she thought would be interesting to write about, in a clear and natural +style. It was Ivan Turguéneff himself who told me this, says the writer of +the article, and he modestly said that he was an unconscious disciple of +Miss Edgeworth in setting out on his literary career. He had not the +advantage of knowing English; but as a youth he used to hear his +brother translate to visitors at his country house in the Uralian Hills +passages from <i>Irish Tales and Sketches</i>, which he thought superior to +her three-volume novels. Turguéneff also said to me,"It is possible, nay +probable, that if Maria Edgeworth had not written about the poor Irish +of the co. Longford and the squires and squirees, that it would not have +occurred to me to give a literary form to my impressions about the classes +parallel to them in Russia. My brother used, in pointing out the +beauties of her unambitious works, to call attention to their extreme +simplicity and to the distinction with which she treated the simple +ones of the earth."'</p> + +<p class="revind"><a name="fn4" id="fn4"></a><a href="#fn4r">4</a>: And yet as I write I remember one indeed who is among us, whose +portrait a Reynolds or an Opie might have been glad to paint for the +generations who will love her works.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<table class="sm" border="0" style="background-color: #E6F6FA; margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="10" summary="NOTES"> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> + <div class="center">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE</div> + +<p class="noindent" style="background-color: #E6F6FA"> +Two instances of Bryon for <i>Byron</i> have been corrected. +The following additional changes have been made and can be identified +in the body of the text by a grey dotted underline:</p> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">A. I. R. (in dedication)</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">A. <i>T.</i> R.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">her sad and dimning life</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">her sad and <i>dimming</i> life</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">it was to her father hat</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">it was to her father <i>that</i></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">who invited Mrs. Barbauld to become their minister</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">who invited <i>Mr.</i> Barbauld to become their minister</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">He was interrupted by her companion</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">He was interrupted by <i>his</i> companion</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">Mrs. Opie's description of her arrival reads a comment upon history.</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">Mrs. Opie's description of her arrival reads <i>like</i> a comment upon history.</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<h6>LONDON: PRINTED BY<br /> +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br /> +AND PARLIAMENT STREET</h6> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>MISS THACKERAY'S WORKS.</h2> + +<p class="center">A New and Uniform Edition; each Volume Illustrated with a Vignette Title-page +drawn by <span class="smallcaps">Arthur Hughes</span>, and Engraved by <span class="smallcaps">J. 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MARY BARTON.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="left">Cousin Phillis—My French Master—The Old Nurse's Story—Bessy's Troubles at Home—Christmas +Storms and Sunshine.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="center"><span class="smallcaps">Vol.</span> VI. RUTH.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="left">The Grey Woman—Morton Hall—Mr. Harrison's Confessions—Hand and Heart.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="center"><span class="smallcaps">Vol.</span> VII. LIZZIE LEIGH.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="left">A Dark Night's Work—Round the Sofa—My Lady Ludlow—An Accursed Race—The Doom +of the Griffiths—Half a Lifetime Ago—The Poor Clare—The Half-Brothers.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<h5>ILLUSTRATED EDITIONS OF</h5> +<h2>POPULAR WORKS</h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><small>Handsomely bound in cloth gilt, each volume containing Four Illustrations.<br /> +Crown 8vo. 3<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i></small>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="list"> + <tr><td align="left">THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Anthony Trollope</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">FRAMLEY PARSONAGE.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Anthony Trollope</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">THE CLAVERINGS.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Anthony Trollope</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">TRANSFORMATION: a Romance.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Nathaniel Hawthorne</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">ROMANTIC TALES.</td><td align="left">By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.'</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">DOMESTIC STORIES.</td><td align="left">By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.'</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">NO NAME.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Wilkie Collins</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">ARMADALE.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Wilkie Collins</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">AFTER DARK.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Wilkie Collins</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">MAUD TALBOT.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Holme Lee</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">THE MOORS AND THE FENS.</td><td align="left">By Mrs. J. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..133efc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #30435 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30435) diff --git a/old/30435-8.txt b/old/30435-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..490f8be --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30435-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5909 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book of Sibyls, by +Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Book of Sibyls + Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen + +Author: Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie) + +Release Date: November 9, 2009 [EBook #30435] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF SIBYLS *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + +A BOOK OF SIBYLS + + + MRS BARBAULD MISS EDGEWORTH + + MRS OPIE MISS AUSTEN + + +BY + +MISS THACKERAY +(MRS RICHMOND RITCHIE) + + +LONDON +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE +1883 + +[_All rights reserved_] + +[_Reprinted from the Cornhill Magazine_] + + + + +_TO_ + +_MRS OLIPHANT_ + +_My little record would not seem to me in any way complete without your +name, dear Sibyl of our own, and as I write it here, I am grateful to +know that to mine and me it is not only the name of a Sibyl with deep +visions, but of a friend to us all._ +_A. T. R._ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Not long ago, a party of friends were sitting at luncheon in a suburb +of London, when one of them happened to make some reference to Maple +Grove and Selina, and to ask in what county of England Maple Grove was +situated. Everybody immediately had a theory. Only one of the company (a +French gentleman, not well acquainted with English) did not recognise +the allusion. A lady sitting by the master of the house (she will, I +hope, forgive me for quoting her words, for no one else has a better +right to speak them) said, 'What a curious sign it is of Jane Austen's +increasing popularity! Here are five out of six people sitting round a +table, nearly a hundred years after her death, who all recognise at once +a chance allusion to an obscure character in one of her books.' + +It seemed impossible to leave out Jane Austen's dear household name +from a volume which concerned women writing in the early part of this +century, and although the essay which is called by her name has already +been reprinted, it is added with some alteration in its place with the +others. + +Putting together this little book has been a great pleasure and interest +to the compiler, and she wishes once more to thank those who have so +kindly sheltered her during her work, and lent her books and papers +and letters concerning the four writers whose works and manner of being +she has attempted to describe; and she wishes specially to express +her thanks to the Baron and Baroness VON HÜGEL, to the ladies of Miss +Edgeworth's family, to Mr. HARRISON, of the London Library, to the Miss +REIDS, of Hampstead, to Mrs. FIELD and her daughters, of Squire's Mount, +Hampstead, to Lady BUXTON, Mrs. BROOKFIELD, Miss ALDERSON, and Miss +SHIRREFF. + + + + + CONTENTS. + PAGE + + MRS. BARBAULD [1743-1825] 1 + MARIA EDGEWORTH [1767-1849] 51 + MRS. OPIE [1769-1853] 149 + JANE AUSTEN [1775-1817] 197 + + + + +A BOOK OF SIBYLS. + + + + +_MRS. BARBAULD._ + + 1743-1825. + + 'I've heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.' + _Measure for Measure._ + + +I. + +'The first poetess I can recollect is Mrs. Barbauld, with whose works I +became acquainted--before those of any other author, male or female--when +I was learning to spell words of one syllable in her story-books for +children.' So says Hazlitt in his lectures on living poets. He goes on +to call her a very pretty poetess, strewing flowers of poesy as she +goes. + +The writer must needs, from the same point of view as Hazlitt, look upon +Mrs. Barbauld with a special interest, having also first learnt to read +out of her little yellow books, of which the syllables rise up one by +one again with a remembrance of the hand patiently pointing to each in +turn; all this recalled and revived after a lifetime by the sight of a +rusty iron gateway, behind which Mrs. Barbauld once lived, of some old +letters closely covered with a wavery writing, of a wide prospect that +she once delighted to look upon. Mrs. Barbauld, who loved to share her +pleasures, used to bring her friends to see the great view from the +Hampstead hill-top, and thus records their impressions:-- + +'I dragged Mrs. A. up as I did you, my dear, to our Prospect Walk, from +whence we have so extensive a view. + +'Yes,' said she, 'it is a very fine view indeed for a flat country.' + +'While, on the other hand, Mrs. B. gave us such a dismal account of the +precipices, mountains, and deserts she encountered, that you would have +thought she had been on the wildest part of the Alps.' + +The old Hampstead highroad, starting from the plain, winds its way +resolutely up the steep, and brings you past red-brick houses and +walled-in gardens to this noble outlook; to the heath, with its fresh, +inspiriting breezes, its lovely distances of far-off waters and gorsy +hollows. At whatever season, at whatever hour you come, you are pretty +sure to find one or two votaries--poets like Mrs. Barbauld, or commonplace +people such as her friends--watching before this great altar of nature; +whether by early morning rays, or in the blazing sunset, or when the +evening veils and mists with stars come falling, while the lights of +London shine far away in the valley. Years after Mrs. Barbauld wrote, +one man, pre-eminent amongst poets, used to stand upon this hill-top, +and lo! as Turner gazed, a whole generation gazed with him. For him +Italy gleamed from behind the crimson stems of the fir-trees; the spirit +of loveliest mythology floated upon the clouds, upon the many changing +tints of the plains; and, as the painter watched the lights upon the +distant hills, they sank into his soul, and he painted them down for us, +and poured his dreams into our awakening hearts. + +He was one of that race of giants, mighty men of humble heart, who have +looked from Hampstead and Highgate Hills. Here Wordsworth trod; here +sang Keats's nightingale; here mused Coleridge; and here came Carlyle, +only yesterday, tramping wearily, in search of some sign of his old +companions. Here, too, stood kind Walter Scott, under the elms of the +Judges' Walk, and perhaps Joanna Baillie was by his side, coming out +from her pretty old house beyond the trees. Besides all these, were a +whole company of lesser stars following and surrounding the brighter +planets--muses, memoirs, critics, poets, nymphs, authoresses--coming to +drink tea and to admire the pleasant suburban beauties of this modern +Parnassus. A record of many of their names is still to be found, +appropriately enough, in the catalogue of the little Hampstead library +which still exists, which was founded at a time when the very hands +that wrote the books may have placed the old volumes upon the shelves. +Present readers can study them at their leisure, to the clanking of the +horses' feet in the courtyard outside, and the splashing of buckets. +A few newspapers lie on the table--stray sheets of to-day that have +fluttered up the hill, bringing news of this bustling now into a past +serenity. The librarian sits stitching quietly in a window. An old lady +comes in to read the news; but she has forgotten her spectacles, and +soon goes away. Here, instead of asking for 'Vice Versâ,' or Ouida's +last novel, you instinctively mention 'Plays of the Passions,' Miss +Burney's 'Evelina,' or some such novels; and Mrs. Barbauld's works are +also in their place. When I asked for them, two pretty old Quaker +volumes were put into my hands, with shabby grey bindings, with fine +paper and broad margins, such as Mr. Ruskin would approve. Of all +the inhabitants of this bookshelf Mrs. Barbauld is one of the most +appropriate. It is but a few minutes' walk from the library in Heath +Street to the old corner house in Church Row where she lived for a time, +near a hundred years ago, and all round about are the scenes of much of +her life, of her friendships and interests. Here lived her friends and +neighbours; here to Church Row came her pupils and admirers, and, later +still, to the pretty old house on Rosslyn Hill. As for Church Row, as +most people know, it is an avenue of Dutch red-faced houses, leading +demurely to the old church tower, that stands guarding its graves in the +flowery churchyard. As we came up the quiet place, the sweet windy drone +of the organ swelled across the blossoms of the spring, which were +lighting up every shabby corner and hillside garden. Through this +pleasant confusion of past and present, of spring-time scattering +blossoms upon the graves, of old ivy walks and iron bars imprisoning +past memories, with fragrant fumes of lilac and of elder, one could +picture to oneself, as in a waking dream, two figures advancing from the +corner house with the ivy walls--distinct, sedate--passing under the old +doorway. I could almost see the lady, carefully dressed in many fine +muslin folds and frills with hooped silk skirts, indeed, but slight +and graceful in her quick advance, with blue eyes, with delicate sharp +features, and a dazzling skin. As for the gentleman, I pictured him a +dapper figure, with dark eyes, dressed in black, as befitted a minister +even of dissenting views. The lady came forward, looking amused by my +scrutiny, somewhat shy I thought--was she going to speak? And by the +same token it seemed to me the gentleman was about to interrupt her. But +Margaret, my young companion, laughed and opened an umbrella, or a cock +crew, or some door banged, and the fleeting visions of fancy +disappeared. + +Many well-authenticated ghost stories describe the apparition of bygone +persons, and lo! when the figure vanishes, a letter is left behind! Some +such experience seemed to be mine when, on my return, I found a packet +of letters on the hall table--letters not addressed to me, but to some +unknown Miss Belsham, and signed and sealed by Mrs. Barbauld's hand. +They had been sent for me to read by the kindness of some ladies now +living at Hampstead, who afterwards showed me the portrait of the lady, +who began the world as Miss Betsy Belsham and who ended her career as +Mrs. Kenrick. It is an oval miniature, belonging to the times of powder +and of puff, representing not a handsome, but an animated countenance, +with laughter and spirit in the expression; the mouth is large, the eyes +are dark, the nose is short. This was the _confidante_ of Mrs. Barbauld's +early days, the faithful friend of her latter sorrows. The letters, kept +by 'Betsy' with faithful conscientious care for many years, give the +story of a whole lifetime with unconscious fidelity. The gaiety of +youth, its impatience, its exuberance, and sometimes bad taste; the +wider, quieter feelings of later life; the courage of sorrowful times; +long friendship deepening the tender and faithful memories of age, when +there is so little left to say, so much to feel--all these things are +there. + + +II. + +Mrs. Barbauld was a schoolmistress, and a schoolmaster's wife and +daughter. Her father was Dr. John Aikin, D.D.; her mother was Miss Jane +Jennings, of a good Northamptonshire family--scholastic also. Dr. Aikin +brought his wife home to Knibworth, in Leicestershire, where he opened a +school which became very successful in time. Mrs. Barbauld, their eldest +child, was born here in 1743, and was christened Anna Lætitia, after +some lady of high degree belonging to her mother's family. Two or three +years later came a son. It was a quiet home, deep hidden in the secluded +rural place; and the little household lived its own tranquil life far +away from the storms and battles and great events that were stirring +the world. Dr. Aikin kept school; Mrs. Aikin ruled her household with +capacity, and not without some sternness, according to the custom of the +time. It appears that late in life the good lady was distressed by the +backwardness of her grandchildren at four or five years old. 'I once, +indeed, knew a little girl,' so wrote Mrs. Aikin of her daughter, 'who +was as eager to learn as her instructor could be to teach her, and who +at two years old could read sentences and little stories, in her _wise_ +book, roundly and without spelling, and in half a year or more could +read as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and I believe +I never shall.' It was fortunate that no great harm came of this premature +forcing, although it is difficult to say what its absence might not +have done for Mrs. Barbauld. One can fancy the little assiduous girl, +industrious, impulsive, interested in everything--in all life and +all nature--drinking in, on every side, learning, eagerly wondering, +listening to all around with bright and ready wit. There is a pretty +little story told by Mrs. Ellis in her book about Mrs. Barbauld, how +one day, when Dr. Aikin and a friend 'were conversing on the passions,' +the Doctor observes that joy cannot have place in a state of perfect +felicity, since it supposes an accession of happiness. + +'I think you are mistaken, papa,' says a little voice from the opposite +side of the table. + +'Why so, my child?' says the Doctor. + +'Because in the chapter I read to you this morning, in the Testament, it +is said that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth +than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance."' + +Besides her English Testament and her early reading, the little girl was +taught by her mother to do as little daughters did in those days, to +obey a somewhat austere rule, to drop curtsies in the right place, to +make beds, to preserve fruits. The father, after demur, but surely +not without some paternal pride in her proficiency, taught the child +Latin and French and Italian, and something of Greek, and gave her an +acquaintance with English literature. One can imagine little Nancy with +her fair head bending over her lessons, or, when playing time had come, +perhaps a little lonely and listening to the distant voices of the +schoolboys at their games. The mother, fearing she might acquire rough +and boisterous manners, strictly forbade any communication with the +schoolboys. Sometimes in after days, speaking of these early times and +of the constraint of many bygone rules and regulations, Mrs. Barbauld +used to attribute to this early formal training something of the +hesitation and shyness which troubled her and never entirely wore off. +She does not seem to have been in any great harmony with her mother. One +could imagine a fanciful and high-spirited child, timid and dutiful, +and yet strong-willed, secretly rebelling against the rigid order of her +home, and feeling lonely for want of liberty and companionship. It was +true she had birds and beasts and plants for her playfellows, but she +was of a gregarious and sociable nature, and she was unconsciously +longing for something more, and perhaps feeling a want in her early +life which no silent company can supply. + +She was about fifteen when a great event took place. Her father was +appointed classical tutor to the Warrington Academy, and thither +the little family removed. We read that the Warrington Academy was a +Dissenting college started by very eminent and periwigged personages, +whose silhouettes Mrs. Barbauld herself afterwards cut out in +sticking-plaster, and whose names are to this day remembered and held in +just esteem. They were people of simple living and high thinking, they +belonged to a class holding then a higher place than now in the world's +esteem, that of Dissenting ministers. The Dissenting ministers were +fairly well paid and faithfully followed by their congregations. The +college was started under the auspices of distinguished members of the +community, Lord Willoughby of Parham, the last Presbyterian lord, being +patron. Among the masters were to be found the well-known names of Dr. +Doddridge; of Gilbert Wakefield, the reformer and uncompromising martyr; +of Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, the Hebrew scholar; of Dr. Priestley, the +chemical analyst and patriot, and enterprising theologian, who left +England and settled in America for conscience and liberty's sake. + +Many other people, neither students nor professors, used to come to +Warrington, and chief among them in later years good John Howard with +MSS. for his friend Dr. Aikin to correct for the press. Now for the +first time Mrs. Barbauld (Miss Aikin she was then) saw something of real +life, of men and manners. It was not likely that she looked back with +any lingering regret to Knibworth, or would have willingly returned +thither. A story in one of her memoirs gives an amusing picture of the +manners of a young country lady of that day. Mr. Haines, a rich farmer +from Knibworth, who had been greatly struck by Miss Aikin, followed her +to Warrington, and 'obtained a private audience of her father and begged +his consent to be allowed to make her his wife.' The father answered +'that his daughter was there walking in the garden, and he might go +and ask her himself.' 'With what grace the farmer pleaded his cause I +know not,' says her biographer and niece. 'Out of all patience at his +unwelcome importunities, my aunt ran nimbly up a tree which grew by the +garden wall, and let herself down into the lane beyond.' + +The next few years must have been perhaps the happiest of Mrs. Barbauld's +life. Once when it was nearly over she said to her niece, Mrs. Le +Breton, from whose interesting account I have been quoting, that she had +never been placed in a situation which really suited her. As one reads +her sketches and poems, one is struck by some sense of this detracting +influence of which she complains: there is a certain incompleteness and +slightness which speaks of intermittent work, of interrupted trains of +thought. At the same time there is a natural buoyant quality in much of +her writing which seems like a pleasant landscape view seen through the +bars of a window. There may be wider prospects, but her eyes are bright, +and this peep of nature is undoubtedly delightful. + + +III. + +The letters to Miss Belsham begin somewhere about 1768. The young lady +has been paying a visit to Miss Aikin at Warrington, and is interested +in everyone and everything belonging to the place. Miss Aikin is no less +eager to describe than Miss Belsham to listen, and accordingly a whole +stream of characters and details of gossip and descriptions in faded +ink come flowing across their pages, together with many expressions of +affection and interest. 'My dear Betsy, I love you for discarding the +word Miss from your vocabulary,' so the packet begins, and it continues +in the same strain of pleasant girlish chatter, alternating with the +history of many bygone festivities, and stories of friends, neighbours, +of beaux and partners; of the latter genus, and of Miss Aikin's efforts +to make herself agreeable, here is a sample:--'I talked to him, smiled +upon him, gave him my fan to play with,' says the lively young lady. +'Nothing would do; he was grave as a philosopher. I tried to raise +a conversation: "'Twas fine weather for dancing." He agreed to my +observation. "We had a tolerable set this time." Neither did he contradict +that. Then we were both silent--stupid mortal thought I! but unreasonable +as he appeared to the advances that I made him, there was one object in +the room, a sparkling object which seemed to attract all his attention, +on which he seemed to gaze with transport, and which indeed he hardly +took his eyes off the whole time.... The object that I mean was his +shoebuckle.' + +One could imagine Miss Elizabeth Bennett writing in some such strain to +her friend Miss Charlotte Lucas after one of the evenings at Bingley's +hospitable mansion. And yet Miss Aikin is more impulsive, more romantic +than Elizabeth. 'Wherever you are, fly letter on the wings of the wind,' +she cries, 'and tell my dear Betsy what?--only that I love her dearly.' + +Miss Nancy Aikin (she seems to have been Nancy in these letters, and to +have assumed the more dignified Lætitia upon her marriage) pours out +her lively heart, laughs, jokes, interests herself in the sentimental +affairs of the whole neighbourhood as well as in her own. Perhaps few +young ladies now-a-days would write to their _confidantes_ with the +announcement that for some time past a young sprig had been teasing them +to have him. This, however, is among Miss Nancy's confidences. She also +writes poems and _jeux d'esprit_, and receives poetry in return from +Betsy, who calls herself Camilla, and pays her friend many compliments, +for Miss Aikin in her reply quotes the well-known lines:-- + + Who for another's brow entwines the bays, + And where she well might rival stoops to Praise. + +Miss Aikin by this time has attained to all the dignity of a full-blown +authoress, and is publishing a successful book of poems in conjunction +with her brother, which little book created much attention at the time. +One day the Muse thus apostrophises Betsy: 'Shall we ever see her +amongst us again?' says my sister (Mrs. Aikin). My brother (saucy +fellow) says, 'I want to see this girl, I think (stroking his chin as he +walks backwards and forwards in the room with great gravity). I think we +should admire one another.' + +'When you come among us,' continues the warm-hearted friend, 'we shall +set the bells a-ringing, bid adieu to care and gravity, and sing "O be +joyful."' And finally, after some apologies for her remiss correspondence, +'I left my brother writing to you instead of Patty, poor soul. Well, it +is a clever thing too, to have a husband to write one's letters for one. +If I had one I would be a much better correspondent to you. I would +order him to write every week.' + +And, indeed, Mrs. Barbauld was as good as her word, and did not forget +the resolutions made by Miss Aikin in 1773. In 1774 comes some eventful +news: 'I should have written to you sooner had it not been for the +uncertainty and suspense in which for a long time I have been involved; +and since my lot has been fixed for many busy engagements which have +left me few moments of leisure. They hurry me out of my life. It is +hardly a month that I have certainly known I should fix on Norfolk, and +now next Thursday they say I am to be finally, irrevocably married. Pity +me, dear Betsy; for on the day I fancy when you will read this letter, +will the event take place which is to make so great an era in my life. I +feel depressed, and my courage almost fails me. Yet upon the whole I +have the greatest reason to think I shall be happy. I shall possess the +entire affection of a worthy man, whom my father and mother now entirely +and heartily approve. The people where we are going, though strangers, +have behaved with the greatest zeal and affection; and I think we have +a fair prospect of being useful and living comfortably in that state of +middling life to which I have been accustomed, and which I love.' + +And then comes a word which must interest all who have ever cared and +felt grateful admiration for the works of one devoted human being and +true Christian hero. Speaking of her father's friend, John Howard, she +says with an almost audible sigh: 'It was too late, as you say, or I +believe I should have been in love with Mr. Howard. Seriously, I looked +upon him with that sort of reverence and love which one should have for +a guardian angel. God bless him and preserve his health for the health's +sake of thousands. And now farewell,' she writes in conclusion: 'I shall +write to you no more under this name; but under any name, in every +situation, at any distance of time or place, I shall love you equally +and be always affectionately yours, tho' _not_ always, A. AIKIN.' + + * * * * * + +Poor lady! The future held, indeed, many a sad and unsuspected hour for +her, many a cruel pang, many a dark and heavy season, that must have +seemed intolerably weary to one of her sprightly and yet somewhat +indolent nature, more easily accepting evil than devising escape from +it. But it also held many blessings of constancy, friendship, kindly +deeds, and useful doings. She had not devotion to give such as that of +the good Howard whom she revered, but the equable help and sympathy for +others of an open-minded and kindly woman was hers. Her marriage would +seem to have been brought about by a romantic fancy rather than by a +tender affection. Mr. Barbauld's mind had been once unhinged; his +protestations were passionate and somewhat dramatic. We are told that +when she was warned by a friend, she only said, 'But surely, if I throw +him over, he will become crazy again;' and from a high-minded sense of +pity, she was faithful, and married him against the wish of her brother +and parents, and not without some misgivings herself. He was a man +perfectly sincere and honourable; but, from his nervous want of +equilibrium, subject all his life to frantic outbursts of ill-temper. +Nobody ever knew what his wife had to endure in secret; her calm and +restrained manner must have effectually hidden the constant anxiety of +her life; nor had she children to warm her heart, and brighten up her +monotonous existence. Little Charles, of the Reading-book, who is bid to +come hither, who counted so nicely, who stroked the pussy cat, and who +deserved to listen to the delightful stories he was told, was not her +own son but her brother's child. When he was born, she wrote to entreat +that he might be given over to her for her own, imploring her brother to +spare him to her, in a pretty and pathetic letter. This was a mother +yearning for a child, not a schoolmistress asking for a pupil, though +perhaps in after times the two were somewhat combined in her. There is a +pretty little description of Charles making great progress in 'climbing +trees and talking nonsense:' 'I have the honour to tell you that our +Charles is the sweetest boy in the world. He is perfectly naturalised in +his new situation; and if I should make any blunders in my letter, I +must beg you to impute it to his standing by me and chattering all the +time.' And how pleasant a record exists of Charles's chatter in that +most charming little book written for him and for the babies of babies +to come! There is a sweet instructive grace in it and appreciation of +childhood which cannot fail to strike those who have to do with children +and with Mrs. Barbauld's books for them: children themselves, those best +critics of all, delight in it. + +'Where's Charles?' says a little scholar every morning to the writer of +these few notes. + + +IV. + +Soon after the marriage, there had been some thought of a college for +young ladies, of which Mrs. Barbauld was to be the principal; but she +shrank from the idea, and in a letter to Mrs. Montagu she objects to +the scheme of higher education for women away from their natural homes. +'I should have little hope of cultivating a love of knowledge in a young +lady of fifteen who came to me ignorant and uncultivated. It is too late +then to begin to learn. The empire of the passions is coming on. Those +attachments begin to be formed which influence the happiness of future +life. The care of a mother alone can give suitable attention to this +important period.' It is true that the rigidness of her own home had not +prevented her from making a hasty and unsuitable marriage. But it is not +this which is weighing on her mind. 'Perhaps you may think,' she says, +'that having myself stepped out of the bounds of female reserve in +becoming an author, it is with an ill grace that I offer these +statements.' + +Her arguments seem to have been thought conclusive in those days, and +the young ladies' college was finally transmuted into a school for +little boys at Palgrave, in Norfolk, and thither the worthy couple +transported themselves. + +One of the letters to Miss Belsham is thus dated:--'_The 14th of July, +in the village of Palgrave (the pleasantest village in all England), at +ten o'clock, all alone in my great parlour, Mr. Barbauld being studying +a sermon, do I begin a letter to my dear Betsy._' + +When she first married, and travelled into Norfolk to keep school at +Palgrave, nothing could have seemed more tranquil, more contented, more +matter-of-fact than her life as it appears from her letters. Dreams, and +fancies, and gay illusions and excitements have made way for the +somewhat disappointing realisation of Mr. Barbauld with his neatly +turned and friendly postscripts--a husband, polite, devoted, it is +true, but somewhat disappointing all the same. The next few years +seem like years in a hive--storing honey for the future, and putting +away--industrious, punctual, monotonous. There are children's lessons to +be heard, and school-treats to be devised. She sets them to act plays +and cuts out paper collars for Henry IV.; she always takes a class of +babies entirely her own. (One of these babies, who always loved her, +became Lord Chancellor Denman; most of the others took less brilliant, +but equally respectable places, in after life.) She has also household +matters and correspondence not to be neglected. In the holidays, they +make excursions to Norwich, to London, and revisit their old haunts at +Warrington. In one of her early letters, soon after her marriage, she +describes her return to Warrington. + +'Dr. Enfield's face,' she declares, 'is grown half a foot longer since I +saw him, with studying mathematics, and for want of a game of romps; for +there are positively none now at Warrington but grave matrons. I who +have but half assumed the character, was ashamed of the levity of my +behaviour.' + +It says well indeed for the natural brightness of the lady's disposition +that with sixteen boarders and a satisfactory usher to look after, she +should be prepared for a game of romps with Dr. Enfield. + +On another occasion, in 1777, she takes little Charles away with her. +'He has indeed been an excellent traveller,' she says; 'and though, like +his great ancestor, some natural tears he shed, like him, too, he wiped +them soon. He had a long sound sleep last night, and has been very busy +to-day hunting the puss and the chickens. And now, my dear brother and +sister, let me again thank you for this precious gift, the value of which +we are both more and more sensible of as we become better acquainted with +his sweet disposition and winning manners.' + +She winds up this letter with a postscript:-- + +'Everybody here asks, "Pray, is Dr. Dodd really to be executed?" as if +we knew the more for having been at Warrington.' + +Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld's brother, the father of little Charles and of +Lucy Aikin, whose name is well known in literature, was himself a man of +great parts, industry, and ability, working hard to support his family. +He alternated between medicine and literature all his life. When his +health failed he gave up medicine, and settled at Stoke Newington, and +busied himself with periodic literature; meanwhile, whatever his own +pursuits may have been, he never ceased to take an interest in his +sister's work and to encourage her in every way. + +It is noteworthy that few of Mrs. Barbauld's earlier productions +equalled what she wrote at the very end of her life. She seems to have +been one of those who ripen with age, growing wider in spirit with +increasing years. Perhaps, too, she may have been influenced by the +change of manners, the reaction against formalism, which was growing up +as her own days were ending. Prim she may have been in manner, but she +was not a formalist by nature; and even at eighty was ready to learn to +submit to accept the new gospel that Wordsworth and his disciples had +given to the world, and to shake off the stiffness of early training. + +It is idle to speculate on what might have been if things had happened +otherwise; if the daily stress of anxiety and perplexity which haunted +her home had been removed--difficulties and anxieties which may well +have absorbed all the spare energy and interest that under happier +circumstances might have added to the treasury of English literature. +But if it were only for one ode written when the distracting cares of +over seventy years were ending, when nothing remained to her but the +essence of a long past, and the inspirations of a still glowing, still +hopeful, and most tender spirit, if it were only for the ode called +'Life,' which has brought a sense of ease and comfort to so many, Mrs. +Barbauld has indeed deserved well of her country-people and should be +held in remembrance by them. + +Her literary works are, after all, not very voluminous. She is best +known by her hymns for children and her early lessons, than which +nothing more childlike has ever been devised; and we can agree with her +brother, Dr. Aikin, when he says that it requires true genius to enter +so completely into a child's mind. + +After their first volume of verse, the brother and sister had published +a second in prose, called 'Miscellaneous Pieces,' about which there is +an amusing little anecdote in Rogers's 'Memoirs.' Fox met Dr. Aikin at +dinner. + +'"I am greatly pleased with your 'Miscellaneous Pieces,'" said Fox. +Aikin bowed. "I particularly admire," continued Fox, "your essay +'Against Inconsistency in our Expectations.'" + +'"That," replied Aikin, "is my sister's." + +'"I like much," returned Fox, "your essay 'On Monastic Institutions.'" + +'"That," answered Aikin, "is also my sister's." + +'Fox thought it best to say no more about the book.' + +These essays were followed by various of the visions and Eastern pieces +then so much in vogue; also by political verses and pamphlets, which +seemed to have made a great sensation at the time. But Mrs. Barbauld's +turn was on the whole more for domestic than for literary life, although +literary people always seem to have had a great interest for her. + +During one Christmas which they spent in London, the worthy couple go +to see Mrs. Siddons; and Mrs. Chapone introduces Mrs. Barbauld to Miss +Burney. 'A very unaffected, modest, sweet, and pleasing young lady,' +says Mrs. Barbauld, who is always kind in her descriptions. Mrs. +Barbauld's one complaint in London is of the fatigue from hairdressers, +and the bewildering hurry of the great city, where she had, notwithstanding +her quiet country life, many ties, and friendships, and acquaintances. +Her poem on 'Corsica' had brought her into some relations with Boswell; +she also knew Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. Here is her description of the +'Great Bear:'-- + +'I do not mean that one which shines in the sky over your head; but the +Bear that shines in London--a great rough, surly animal. His Christian +name is Dr. Johnson. 'Tis a singular creature; but if you stroke him he +will not bite, and though he growls sometimes he is not ill-humoured.' + +Johnson describes Mrs. Barbauld as suckling fools and chronicling small +beer. There was not much sympathy between the two. Characters such as +Johnson's harmonise best with the enthusiastic and easily influenced. +Mrs. Barbauld did not belong to this class; she trusted to her own +judgment, rarely tried to influence others, and took a matter-of-fact +rather than a passionate view of life. She is as severe to him in her +criticism as he was in his judgment of her: they neither of them did the +other justice. 'A Christian and a man-about-town, a philosopher, and a +bigot acknowledging life to be miserable, and making it more miserable +through fear of death.' So she writes of him, and all this was true; but +how much more was also true of the great and hypochondriacal old man! +Some years afterwards, when she had been reading Boswell's long-expected +'Life of Johnson,' she wrote of the book:--'It is like going to Ranelagh; +you meet all your acquaintances; but it is a base and mean thing to +bring thus every idle word into judgment.' In our own day we too have +our Boswell and our Johnson to arouse discussion and indignation. + +'Have you seen Boswell's "Life of Johnson?" He calls it a Flemish +portrait, and so it is--two quartos of a man's conversation and petty +habits. Then the treachery and meanness of watching a man for years +in order to set down every unguarded and idle word he uttered, is +inconceivable. Yet with all this one cannot help reading a good deal +of it.' This is addressed to the faithful Betsy, who was also keeping +school by that time, and assuming brevet rank in consequence. + +Mrs. Barbauld might well complain of the fatigue from hairdressers in +London. In one of her letters to her friend she thus describes a lady's +dress of the period:-- + +'Do you know how to dress yourself in Dublin? If you do not, I will tell +you. Your waist must be the circumference of two oranges, no more. You +must erect a structure on your head gradually ascending to a foot high, +exclusive of feathers, and stretching to a penthouse of most horrible +projection behind, the breadth from wing to wing considerably broader +than your shoulder, and as many different things in your cap as in +Noah's ark. Verily, I never did see such monsters as the heads now in +vogue. I am a monster, too, but a moderate one.' + +She must have been glad to get back to her home, to her daily work, to +Charles, climbing his trees and talking his nonsense. + +In the winter of 1784 her mother died at Palgrave. It was Christmas +week; the old lady had come travelling four days through the snow in a +postchaise with her maid and her little grandchildren, while her son +rode on horseback. But the cold and the fatigue of the journey, and the +discomfort of the inns, proved too much for Mrs. Aikin, who reached her +daughter's house only to die. Just that time three years before Mrs. +Barbauld had lost her father, whom she dearly loved. There is a striking +letter from the widowed mother to her daughter recording the event. It +is almost Spartan in its calmness, but nevertheless deeply touching. Now +she, too, was at rest, and after Mrs. Aikin's death a cloud of sadness +and depression seems to have fallen upon the household. Mr. Barbauld was +ailing; he was suffering from a nervous irritability which occasionally +quite unfitted him for his work as a schoolmaster. Already his wife must +have had many things to bear, and very much to try her courage and +cheerfulness; and now her health was also failing. It was in 1775 that +they gave up the academy, which, on the whole, had greatly flourished. +It had been established eleven years; they were both of them in need of +rest and change. Nevertheless, it was not without reluctance that they +brought themselves to leave their home at Palgrave. A successor was +found only too quickly for Mrs. Barbauld's wishes; they handed over +their pupils to his care, and went abroad for a year's sunshine and +distraction. + + +V. + +What a contrast to prim, starched scholastic life at Palgrave must have +been the smiling world, and the land flowing with oil and wine, in which +they found themselves basking! The vintage was so abundant that year +that the country people could not find vessels to contain it. 'The roads +covered with teams of casks, empty or full according as they were going +out or returning, and drawn by oxen whose strong necks seemed to be +bowed unwillingly under the yoke. Men, women, and children were abroad; +some cutting with a short sickle the bunches of grapes, some breaking +them with a wooden instrument, some carrying them on their backs from +the gatherers to those who pressed the juice; and, as in our harvest, +the gleaners followed.' + +From the vintage they travel to the Alps, 'a sight so majestic, so +totally different from anything I had seen before, that I am ready to +sing _nunc dimittis_,' she writes. They travel back by the south of +France and reach Paris in June, where the case of the Diamond Necklace +is being tried. Then they return to England, waiting a day at Boulogne +for a vessel, but crossing from thence in less than four hours. How +pretty is her description of England as it strikes them after their +absence! 'And not without pleasing emotion did we view again the green +swelling hills covered with large sheep, and the winding road bordered +with the hawthorn hedge, and the English vine twirled round the tall +poles, and the broad Medway covered with vessels, and at last the gentle +yet majestic Thames.' + +There were Dissenters at Hampstead in those days, as there are still, +and it was a call from a little Unitarian congregation on the hillside +who invited Mr. Barbauld to become their minister, which decided the +worthy couple to retire to this pleasant suburb. The place seemed +promising enough; they were within reach of Mrs. Barbauld's brother, Dr. +Aikin, now settled in London, and to whom she was tenderly attached. +There were congenial people settled all about. On the high hill-top were +pleasant old houses to live in. There was occupation for him and +literary interest for her. + +They are a sociable and friendly pair, hospitable, glad to welcome their +friends, and the acquaintance, and critics, and the former pupils who +come toiling up the hill to visit them. Rogers comes to dinner 'at half +after three.' They have another poet for a neighbour, Miss Joanna +Baillie; they are made welcome by all, and in their turn make others +welcome; they do acts of social charity and kindness wherever they see +the occasion. They have a young Spanish gentleman to board who conceals +a taste for 'seguars.' They also go up to town from time to time. On +one occasion Mr. Barbauld repairs to London to choose a wedding present +for Miss Belsham, who is about to be married to Mr. Kenrick, a widower +with daughters. He chose two slim Wedgwood pots of some late classic +model, which still stand, after many dangers, safely on either side of +Mrs. Kenrick's portrait in Miss Reid's drawing-room at Hampstead. +Wedgwood must have been a personal friend: he has modelled a lovely head +of Mrs. Barbauld, simple and nymph-like. + +Hampstead was no further from London in those days than it is now, and +they seem to have kept up a constant communication with their friends +and relations in the great city. They go to the play occasionally. 'I +have not indeed seen Mrs. Siddons often, but I think I never saw her to +more advantage,' she writes. 'It is not, however, seeing a play, it is +only seeing one character, for they have nobody to act with her.' + +Another expedition is to Westminster Hall, where Warren Hastings was +then being tried for his life. + +'The trial has attracted the notice of most people who are within reach +of it. I have been, and was very much struck with all the apparatus and +pomp of justice, with the splendour of the assembly which contained +everything distinguished in the nation, with the grand idea that the +equity of the English was to pursue crimes committed at the other side +of the globe, and oppressions exercised towards the poor Indians who had +come to plead their cause; but all these fine ideas vanish and fade away +as one observes the progress of the cause, and sees it fall into the +summer amusements, and take the place of a rehearsal of music or an +evening at Vauxhall.' + +Mrs. Barbauld was a Liberal in feeling and conviction; she was never +afraid to speak her mind, and when the French Revolution first began, +she, in common with many others, hoped that it was but the dawning of +happier times. She was always keen about public events; she wrote an +address on the opposition to the repeal of the Test Act in 1791, and she +published her poem to Wilberforce on the rejection of his great bill for +abolishing slavery:-- + + Friends of the friendless, hail, ye generous band! + +she cries, in warm enthusiasm for the devoted cause. + +Horace Walpole nicknamed her Deborah, called her the Virago Barbauld, +and speaks of her with utter rudeness and intolerant spite. But whether +or not Horace Walpole approved, it is certain that Mrs. Barbauld +possessed to a full and generous degree a quality which is now less +common than it was in her day. + +Not very many years ago I was struck on one occasion when a noble old +lady, now gone to her rest, exclaimed in my hearing that people of this +generation had all sorts of merits and charitable intentions, but that +there was one thing she missed which had certainly existed in her youth, +and which no longer seemed to be of the same account: that public spirit +which used to animate the young as well as the old. + +It is possible that philanthropy, and the love of the beautiful, and the +gratuitous diffusion of wall-papers may be the modern rendering of the +good old-fashioned sentiment. Mrs. Barbauld lived in very stirring days, +when private people shared in the excitements and catastrophes of public +affairs. To her the fortunes of England, its loyalty, its success, were +a part of her daily bread. By her early associations she belonged to a +party representing opposition, and for that very reason she was the more +keenly struck by the differences of the conduct of affairs and the +opinions of those she trusted. Her friend Dr. Priestley had emigrated to +America for his convictions' sake; Howard was giving his noble life for +his work; Wakefield had gone to prison. Now the very questions are +forgotten for which they struggled and suffered, or the answers have +come while the questions are forgotten, in this their future which is +our present, and to which some unborn historian may point back with a +moral finger. + +Dr. Aikin, whose estimate of his sister was very different from Horace +Walpole's, occasionally reproached her for not writing more constantly. +He wrote a copy of verses on this theme:-- + + Thus speaks the Muse, and bends her brows severe: + Did I, Lætitia, lend my choicest lays, + And crown thy youthful head with freshest bays, + That all the expectance of thy full-grown year, + Should lie inert and fruitless? O revere + Those sacred gifts whose meed is deathless praise, + Whose potent charm the enraptured soul can raise + Far from the vapours of this earthly sphere, + Seize, seize the lyre, resume the lofty strain. + +She seems to have willingly left the lyre for Dr. Aikin's use. A few +hymns, some graceful odes, and stanzas, and _jeux d'esprit_, a certain +number of well-written and original essays, and several political +pamphlets, represent the best of her work. Her more ambitious poems +are those by which she is the least remembered. It was at Hampstead +that Mrs. Barbauld wrote her contributions to her brother's volume of +'Evenings at Home,' among which the transmigrations of Indur may be +quoted as a model of style and delightful matter. One of the best of her +_jeux d'esprit_ is the 'Groans of the Tankard,' which was written in +early days, with much spirit and real humour. It begins with a classic +incantation, and then goes on:-- + + 'Twas at the solemn silent noontide hour + When hunger rages with despotic power, + When the lean student quits his Hebrew roots + For the gross nourishment of English fruits, + And throws unfinished airy systems by + For solid pudding and substantial pie. + +The tankard now, + + Replenished to the brink, + With the cool beverage blue-eyed maidens drink, + +but, accustomed to very different libations, is endowed with voice and +utters its bitter reproaches:-- + + Unblest the day, and luckless was the hour + Which doomed me to a Presbyterian's power, + Fated to serve a Puritanic race, + Whose slender meal is shorter than their grace. + + +VI. + +Thumbkin, of fairy celebrity, used to mark his way by flinging crumbs of +bread and scattering stones as he went along; and in like manner authors +trace the course of their life's peregrinations by the pamphlets and +articles they cast down as they go. Sometimes they throw stones, +sometimes they throw bread. In '92 and '93 Mrs. Barbauld must have been +occupied with party polemics and with the political miseries of the +time. A pamphlet on Gilbert Wakefield's views, and another on 'Sins +of the Government and Sins of the People,' show in what direction her +thoughts were bent. Then came a period of comparative calm again and of +literary work and interest. She seems to have turned to Akenside and +Collins, and each had an essay to himself. These were followed by +certain selections from the _Spectator_, _Tatler_, &c., preceded by one +of those admirable essays for which she is really remarkable. She also +published a memoir of Richardson prefixed to his correspondence. Sir +James Mackintosh, writing at a later and sadder time of her life, says +of her observations on the moral of Clarissa that they are as fine a +piece of mitigated and rational stoicism as our language can boast of. + +In 1802 another congregation seems to have made signs from Stoke +Newington, and Mrs. Barbauld persuaded her husband to leave his flock at +Hampstead and to buy a house near her brother's at Stoke Newington. This +was her last migration, and here she remained until her death in 1825. +One of her letters to Mrs. Kenrick gives a description of what might +have been a happy home:--'We have a pretty little back parlour that +looks into our little spot of a garden,' she says, 'and catches every +gleam of sunshine. We have pulled down the ivy, except what covers the +coach-house We have planted a vine and a passion-flower, with abundance +of jessamine against the window, and we have scattered roses and +honeysuckle all over the garden. You may smile at me for parading so +over my house and domains.' In May she writes a pleasant letter, in good +spirits, comparing her correspondence with her friend to the flower of +an aloe, which sleeps for a hundred years, and on a sudden pushes out +when least expected. 'But take notice, the life is in the aloe all the +while, and sorry should I be if the life were not in our friendship all +the while, though it so rarely diffuses itself over a sheet of paper.' + +She seems to have been no less sociable and friendly at Stoke Newington +than at Hampstead. People used to come up to see her from London. Her +letters, quiet and intimate as they are, give glimpses of most of the +literary people of the day, not in memoirs then, but alive and drinking +tea at one another's houses, or walking all the way to Stoke Newington +to pay their respects to the old lady. + +Charles Lamb used to talk of his two _bald_ authoresses, Mrs. Barbauld +being one and Mrs. Inchbald being the other. Crabb Robinson and Rogers +were two faithful links with the outer world. 'Crabb Robinson corresponds +with Madame de Staël, is quite intimate,' she writes, 'has received +I don't know how many letters,' she adds, not without some slight +amusement. Miss Lucy Aikin tells a pretty story of Scott meeting Mrs. +Barbauld at dinner, and telling her that it was to her that he owed his +poetic gift. Some translations of Bürger by Mr. Taylor, of Norwich, +which she had read out at Edinburgh, had struck him so much that they +had determined him to try his own powers in that line. + +She often had inmates under her roof. One of them was a beautiful and +charming young girl, the daughter of Mrs. Fletcher, of Edinburgh, whose +early death is recorded in her mother's life. Besides company at home, +Mrs. Barbauld went to visit her friends from time to time--the Estlins +at Bristol, the Edgeworths, whose acquaintance Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld +made about this time, and who seem to have been invaluable friends, +bringing as they did a bright new element of interest and cheerful +friendship into her sad and dimming life. A man must have extraordinarily +good spirits to embark upon four matrimonial ventures as Mr. Edgeworth +did; and as for Miss Edgeworth, appreciative, effusive, and warm-hearted, +she seems to have more than returned Mrs. Barbauld's sympathy. + +Miss Lucy Aikin, Dr. Aikin's daughter, was now also making her own mark +in the literary world, and had inherited the bright intelligence and +interest for which her family was so remarkable. Much of Miss Aikin's +work is more sustained than her aunt's desultory productions, but it +lacks that touch of nature which has preserved Mrs. Barbauld's memory +where more important people are forgotten. + +Our authoress seems to have had a natural affection for sister +authoresses. Hannah More and Mrs. Montague were both her friends, so +were Madame d'Arblay and Mrs. Chapone in a different degree; she must +have known Mrs. Opie; she loved Joanna Baillie. The latter is described +by her as the young lady at Hampstead who came to Mr. Barbauld's meeting +with as demure a face as if she had never written a line. And Miss Aikin, +in her memoirs, describes in Johnsonian language how the two Miss +Baillies came to call one morning upon Mrs. Barbauld:--'My aunt +immediately introduced the topic of the anonymous tragedies, and +gave utterance to her admiration with the generous delight in the +manifestation of kindred genius which distinguished her.' But it seems +that Miss Baillie sat, nothing moved, and did not betray herself. Mrs. +Barbauld herself gives a pretty description of the sisters in their +home, in that old house on Windmill Hill, which stands untouched, with +its green windows looking out upon so much of sky and heath and sun, +with the wainscoted parlours where Walter Scott used to come, and the +low wooden staircase leading to the old rooms above. It is in one of her +letters to Mrs. Kenrick that Mrs. Barbauld gives a pleasant glimpse of +the poetess Walter Scott admired. 'I have not been abroad since I was at +Norwich, except a day or two at Hampstead with the Miss Baillies. One +should be, as I was, beneath their roof to know all their merit. Their +house is one of the best ordered I know. They have all manner of +attentions for their friends, and not only Miss B., but Joanna, is as +clever in furnishing a room or in arranging a party as in writing plays, +of which, by the way, she has a volume ready for the press, but she will +not give it to the public till next winter. The subject is to be the +passion of fear. I do not know what sort of a hero that passion can +afford!' Fear was, indeed, a passion alien to her nature, and she did +not know the meaning of the word. + +Mrs. Barbauld's description of Hannah More and her sisters living on +their special hill-top was written after Mr. Barbauld's death, and +thirty years after Miss More's verses which are quoted by Mrs. Ellis in +her excellent memoir of Mrs. Barbauld:-- + + Nor, Barbauld, shall my glowing heart refuse + A tribute to thy virtues or thy muse; + This humble merit shall at least be mine, + The poet's chaplet for thy brows to twine; + My verse thy talents to the world shall teach, + And praise the graces it despairs to reach. + +Then, after philosophically questioning the power of genius to confer +true happiness, she concludes:-- + + Can all the boasted powers of wit and song + Of life one pang remove, one hour prolong? + Fallacious hope which daily truths deride-- + For you, alas! have wept and Garrick died. + +Meanwhile, whatever genius might not be able to achieve, the five Miss +Mores had been living on peacefully together in the very comfortable +cottage which had been raised and thatched by the poetess's earnings. + +'Barley Wood is equally the seat of taste and hospitality,' says Mrs. +Barbauld to a friend. + +'Nothing could be more friendly than their reception,' she writes to her +brother, 'and nothing more charming than their situation. An extensive +view over the Mendip Hills is in front of their house, with a pretty +view of Wrington. Their home--cottage, because it is thatched--stands on +the declivity of a rising ground, which they have planted and made quite +a little paradise. The five sisters, all good old maids, have lived +together these fifty years. Hannah More is a good deal broken, but +possesses fully her powers of conversation, and her vivacity. We +exchanged riddles like the wise men of old; I was given to understand +she was writing something.' + +There is another allusion to Mrs. Hannah More in a sensible letter from +Mrs. Barbauld, written to Miss Edgeworth about this time, declining to +join in an alarming enterprise suggested by the vivacious Mr. Edgeworth, +'a _Feminiad_, a literary paper to be entirely contributed to by ladies, +and where all articles are to be accepted.' 'There is no bond of union,' +Mrs. Barbauld says, 'among literary women any more than among literary +men; different sentiments and connections separate them much more than +the joint interest of their sex would unite them. Mrs. Hannah More would +not write along with you or me, and we should possibly hesitate at +joining Miss Hays or--if she were living--Mrs. Godwin.' Then she +suggests the names of Miss Baillie, Mrs. Opie, her own niece Miss Lucy +Aikin, and Mr. S. Rogers, who would not, she thinks, be averse to +joining the scheme. + + +VII. + +How strangely unnatural it seems when Fate's heavy hand falls upon quiet +and common-place lives, changing the tranquil routine of every day into +the solemnities and excitements of terror and tragedy! It was after +their removal to Stoke Newington that the saddest of all blows fell +upon this true-hearted woman. Her husband's hypochondria deepened and +changed, and the attacks became so serious that her brother and his +family urged her anxiously to leave him to other care than her own. It +was no longer safe for poor Mr. Barbauld to remain alone with his wife, +and her life, says Mrs. Le Breton, was more than once in peril. But, at +first, she would not hear of leaving him; although on more than one +occasion she had to fly for protection to her brother close by. + +There is something very touching in the patient fidelity with which Mrs. +Barbauld tried to soothe the later sad disastrous years of her husband's +life. She must have been a woman of singular nerve and courage to endure +as she did the excitement and cruel aberrations of her once gentle and +devoted companion. She only gave in after long resistance. + +'An alienation from me has taken possession of his mind,' she says, in a +letter to Mrs. Kenrick; 'my presence seems to irritate him, and I must +resign myself to a separation from him who has been for thirty years the +partner of my heart, my faithful friend, my inseparable companion.' With +her habitual reticence, she dwells no more on that painful topic, but +goes on to make plans for them both, asks her old friend to come and +cheer her in her loneliness; and the faithful Betsy, now a widow with +grown-up step-children, ill herself, troubled by deafness and other +infirmities, responds with a warm heart, and promises to come, bringing +the comfort with her of old companionship and familiar sympathy. There +is something very affecting in the loyalty of the two aged women +stretching out their hands to each other across a whole lifetime. After +her visit Mrs. Barbauld writes again:-- + +'He is now at Norwich, and I hear very favourable accounts of his health +and spirits; he seems to enjoy himself very much amongst his old friends +there, and converses among them with his usual animation. There are no +symptoms of violence or of depression; so far is favourable; but this +cruel alienation from me, in which my brother is included, still remains +deep-rooted, and whether he will ever change in this point Heaven only +knows. The medical men fear he will not: if so, my dear friend, what +remains for me but to resign myself to the will of Heaven, and to think +with pleasure that every day brings me nearer a period which naturally +cannot be very far off, and at which this as well as every temporal +affliction must terminate? + +'"Anything but this!" is the cry of weak mortals when afflicted; and +sometimes I own I am inclined to make it mine; but I will check myself.' + +But while she was hoping still, a fresh outbreak of the malady occurred. +He, poor soul, weary of his existence, put an end to his sufferings: he +was found lifeless in the New River. Lucy Aikin quotes a Dirge found +among her aunt's papers after her death:-- + + Pure Spirit, O where art thou now? + O whisper to my soul, + O let some soothening thought of thee + This bitter grief control. + + 'Tis not for thee the tears I shed, + Thy sufferings now are o'er. + The sea is calm, the tempest past, + On that eternal shore. + + No more the storms that wrecked thy peace + Shall tear that gentle breast, + Nor summer's rage, nor winter's cold + That poor, poor frame molest. + + * * * * * + + Farewell! With honour, peace, and love, + Be that dear memory blest, + Thou hast no tears for me to shed, + When I too am at rest. + + +But her time of rest was not yet come, and she lived for seventeen years +after her husband. She was very brave, she did not turn from the +sympathy of her friends, she endured her loneliness with courage, she +worked to distract her mind. Here is a touching letter addressed to Mrs. +Taylor, of Norwich, in which she says:--'A thousand thanks for your kind +letter, still more for the very short visit that preceded it. Though +short--too short--it has left indelible impressions on my mind. My +heart has truly had communion with yours; your sympathy has been balm to +it; and I feel that there is _now_ no one on earth to whom I could pour +out that heart more readily.... I am now sitting alone again, and feel +like a person who has been sitting by a cheerful fire, not sensible at +the time of the temperature of the air; but the fire removed, he finds +the season is still winter. Day after day passes, and I do not know what +to do with my time; my mind has no energy nor power of application.' + +How much she felt her loneliness appears again and again from one +passage and another. Then she struggled against discouragement; she +took to her pen again. To Mrs. Kenrick she writes:--'I intend to pay my +letter debts; not much troubling my head whether I have anything to say +or not; yet to you my heart has always something to say: it always +recognises you as among the dearest of its friends; and while it feels +that new impressions are made with difficulty and early effaced, +retains, and ever will retain, I trust beyond this world, those of our +early and long-tried affection.' + +She set to work again, trying to forget her heavy trials. It was during +the first years of her widowhood that she published her edition of the +British novelists in some fifty volumes. There is an opening chapter to +this edition upon novels and novel-writing, which is an admirable and +most interesting essay upon fiction, beginning from the very earliest +times. + +In 1811 she wrote her poem on the King's illness, and also the longer +poem which provoked such indignant comments at the time. It describes +Britain's rise and luxury, warns her of the dangers of her unbounded +ambition and unjustifiable wars:-- + + Arts, arms, and wealth destroy the fruits they bring; + Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring. + +Her ingenuous youth from Ontario's shore who visits the ruins of London +is one of the many claimants to the honour of having suggested Lord +Macaulay's celebrated New Zealander:-- + + Pensive and thoughtful shall the wanderers greet + Each splendid square and still untrodden street, + Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time, + The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb, + Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round, + By scattered hamlets trace its ancient bound, + And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey + Through reeds and sedge pursue his idle way. + +It is impossible not to admire the poem, though it is stilted and not to +the present taste. The description of Britain as it now is and as it +once was is very ingenious:-- + + Where once Bonduca whirled the scythèd car, + And the fierce matrons raised the shriek of war, + Light forms beneath transparent muslin float, + And tutor'd voices swell the artful note; + Light-leaved acacias, and the shady plane, + And spreading cedars grace the woodland reign. + +The poem is forgotten now, though it was scouted at the time and +violently attacked, Southey himself falling upon the poor old lady, and +devouring her, spectacles and all. She felt these attacks very much, and +could not be consoled, though Miss Edgeworth wrote a warm-hearted letter +of indignant sympathy. But Mrs. Barbauld had something in her too genuine +to be crushed, even by sarcastic criticism. She published no more, but +it was after her poem of '1811' that she wrote the beautiful ode by +which she is best known and best remembered,--the ode that Wordsworth +used to repeat and say he envied, that Tennyson has called 'sweet +verses,' of which the lines ring their tender hopeful chime like sweet +church bells on a summer evening. + +Madame d'Arblay, in her old age, told Crabb Robinson that every night +she said the verses over to herself as she went to her rest. To the +writer they are almost sacred. The hand that patiently pointed out to +her, one by one, the syllables of Mrs. Barbauld's hymns for children, +that tended our childhood, as it had tended our father's, marked these +verses one night, when it blessed us for the last time. + + Life, we've been long together, + Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; + 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; + Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh or tear, + Then steal away, give little warning, + Choose thine own time. + Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime, + Bid me 'Good morning.' + +Mrs. Barbauld was over seventy when she wrote this ode. A poem, called +'Octogenary Reflections,' is also very touching:-- + + Say ye, who through this round of eighty years + Have proved its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears; + Say what is life, ye veterans who have trod, + Step following steps, its flowery thorny road? + Enough of good to kindle strong desire; + Enough of ill to damp the rising fire; + Enough of love and fancy, joy and hope, + To fan desire and give the passions scope; + Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain, + To seal the wise man's sentence--'All is vain.' + +There is another fragment of hers in which she likens herself to a +schoolboy left of all the train, who hears no sound of wheels to bear +him to his father's bosom home. 'Thus I look to the hour when I shall +follow those that are at rest before me.' And then at last the time came +for which she longed. Her brother died, her faithful Mrs. Kenrick died, +and Mrs. Taylor, whom she loved most of all. She had consented to give +up her solitary home to spend the remaining years of her life in the +home of her adopted son Charles, now married, and a father; but it was +while she was on a little visit to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Aikin, that +the summons came, very swiftly and peacefully, as she sat in her chair +one day. Her nephew transcribed these, the last lines she ever wrote:-- + +'Who are you?' + +'Do you not know me? have you not expected me?' + +'Whither do you carry me?' + +'Come with me and you shall know.' + +'The way is dark.' + +'It is well trodden.' + +'Yes, in the forward track.' + +'Come along.' + +'Oh! shall I there see my beloved ones? Will they welcome me, and will +they know me? Oh, tell me, tell me; thou canst tell me.' + +'Yes, but thou must come first.' + +'Stop a little; keep thy hand off till thou hast told me.' + +'I never wait.' + +'Oh! shall I see the warm sun again in my cold grave?' + +'Nothing is there that can feel the sun.' + +'Oh, where then?' + +'Come, I say.' + +One may acknowledge the great progress which people have made since Mrs. +Barbauld's day in the practice of writing prose and poetry, in the art +of expressing upon paper the thoughts which are in most people's minds. +It is (to use a friend's simile) like playing upon the piano--everybody +now learns to play upon the piano, and it is certain that the modest +performances of the ladies of Mrs. Barbauld's time would scarcely meet +with the attention now, which they then received. But all the same, the +stock of true feeling, of real poetry, is not increased by the increased +volubility of our pens; and so when something comes to us that is real, +that is complete in pathos or in wisdom, we still acknowledge the gift, +and are grateful for it. + + + + +_MISS EDGEWORTH._ + + 1767-1849. + + 'Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading.'--_Hen. VIII._ + +EARLY DAYS. + + +I. + +Few authoresses in these days can have enjoyed the ovations and +attentions which seem to have been considered the due of many of the +ladies distinguished at the end of the last century and the beginning of +this one. To read the accounts of the receptions and compliments which +fell to their lot may well fill later and lesser luminaries with envy. +Crowds opened to admit them, banquets spread themselves out before them, +lights were lighted up and flowers were scattered at their feet. Dukes, +editors, prime ministers, waited their convenience on their staircases; +whole theatres rose up _en masse_ to greet the gifted creatures of this +and that immortal tragedy. The authoresses themselves, to do them justice, +seem to have been very little dazzled by all this excitement. Hannah +More contentedly retires with her maiden sisters to the Parnassus on +the Mendip Hills, where they sew and chat and make tea, and teach the +village children. Dear Joanna Baillie, modest and beloved, lives on to +peaceful age in her pretty old house at Hampstead, looking through +tree-tops and sunshine and clouds towards distant London. 'Out there +where all the storms are,' I heard the children saying yesterday as +they watched the overhanging gloom of smoke which, veils the city of +metropolitan thunders and lightning. Maria Edgeworth's apparitions as +a literary lioness in the rush of London and of Paris society were but +interludes in her existence, and her real life was one of constant +exertion and industry spent far away in an Irish home among her own +kindred and occupations and interests. We may realise what these were +when we read that Mr. Edgeworth had no less than four wives, who all +left children, and that Maria was the eldest daughter of the whole +family. Besides this, we must also remember that the father whom she +idolised was himself a man of extraordinary powers, brilliant in +conversation (so I have been told), full of animation, of interest, of +plans for his country, his family, for education and literature, for +mechanics and scientific discoveries; that he was a gentleman widely +connected, hospitably inclined, with a large estate and many tenants to +overlook, with correspondence and acquaintances all over the world; and +besides all this, with various schemes in his brain, to be eventually +realised by others of which velocipedes, tramways, and telegraphs were +but a few of the items. + +One could imagine that under these circumstances the hurry and +excitement of London life must have sometimes seemed tranquillity itself +compared with the many and absorbing interests of such a family. What +these interests were may be gathered from the pages of a very interesting +memoir from which the writer of this essay has been allowed to quote. It +is a book privately printed and written for the use of her children by +the widow of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and is a record, among other +things, of a faithful and most touching friendship between Maria and her +father's wife--'a friendship lasting for over fifty years, and unbroken +by a single cloud of difference or mistrust.' Mrs. Edgeworth, who was +Miss Beaufort before her marriage, and about the same age as Miss +Edgeworth, unconsciously reveals her own most charming and unselfish +nature as she tells her stepdaughter's story. + +When the writer looks back upon her own childhood, it seems to her that +she lived in company with a delightful host of little playmates, bright, +busy, clever children, whose cheerful presence remains more vividly in +her mind than that of many of the real little boys and girls who used to +appear and disappear disconnectedly as children do in childhood, when +friendship and companionship depend almost entirely upon the convenience +of grown-up people. Now and again came little cousins or friends to +share our games, but day by day, constant and unchanging, ever to be +relied upon, smiled our most lovable and friendly companions--simple +Susan, lame Jervas, Talbot, the dear Little Merchants, Jem the widow's +son with his arms round old Lightfoot's neck, the generous Ben, with his +whipcord and his useful proverb of 'waste not, want not'--all of these +were there in the window corner waiting our pleasure. After Parents' +Assistant, to which familiar words we attached no meaning whatever, came +Popular Tales in big brown volumes off a shelf in the lumber-room of an +apartment in an old house in Paris, and as we opened the books, lo! +creation widened to our view. England, Ireland, America, Turkey, +the mines of Golconda, the streets of Bagdad, thieves, travellers, +governesses, natural philosophy, and fashionable life, were all laid +under contribution, and brought interest and adventure to our humdrum +nursery corner. All Mr. Edgeworth's varied teaching and experience, all +his daughter's genius of observation, came to interest and delight our +play-time, and that of a thousand other little children in different +parts of the world. People justly praise Miss Edgeworth's admirable +stories and novels, but from prejudice and early association these +beloved childish histories seem unequalled still, and it is chiefly as +a writer for children that we venture to consider her here. Some of the +stories are indeed little idylls in their way. Walter Scott, who best +knew how to write for the young so as to charm grandfathers as well as +Hugh Littlejohn, Esq., and all the grandchildren, is said to have wiped +his kind eyes as he put down 'Simple Susan.' A child's book, says a +reviewer of those days defining in the 'Quarterly Review,' should be +'not merely less dry, less difficult, than a book for grown-up people; +but more rich in interest, more true to nature, more exquisite in art, +more abundant in every quality that replies to childhood's keener +and fresher perception.' Children like facts, they like short vivid +sentences that tell the story: as they listen intently, so they read; +every word has its value for them. It has been a real surprise to the +writer to find, on re-reading some of these descriptions of scenery and +adventure which she had not looked at since her childhood, that the +details which she had imagined spread over much space are contained in a +few sentences at the beginning of a page. These sentences, however, show +the true art of the writer. + +It would be difficult to imagine anything better suited to the mind +of a very young person than these pleasant stories, so complete in +themselves, so interesting, so varied. The description of Jervas's +escape from the mine where the miners had plotted his destruction, +almost rises to poetry in its simple diction. Lame Jervas has warned his +master of the miners' plot, and showed him the vein of ore which they +have concealed. The miners have sworn vengeance against him, and his +life is in danger. His master helps him to get away, and comes into the +room before daybreak, bidding him rise and put on the clothes which he +has brought. 'I followed him out of the house before anybody else was +awake, and he took me across the fields towards the high road. At this +place we waited till we heard the tinkling of the bells of a team of +horses. "Here comes the waggon," said he, "in which you are to go. So +fare you well, Jervas. I shall hear how you go on; and I only hope you +will serve your next master, whoever he may be, as faithfully as you +have served me." "I shall never find so good a master," was all I could +say for the soul of me; I was quite overcome by his goodness and sorrow +at parting with him, as I then thought, for ever.' The description of +the journey is very pretty. 'The morning clouds began to clear away; I +could see my master at some distance, and I kept looking after him as +the waggon went on slowly, and he walked fast away over the fields.' +Then the sun begins to rise. The waggoner goes on whistling, but lame +Jervas, to whom the rising sun was a spectacle wholly surprising, +starts up, exclaiming in wonder and admiration. The waggoner bursts into +a loud laugh. 'Lud a marcy,' says he, 'to hear un' and look at un' a +body would think the oaf had never seen the sun rise afore;' upon which +Jervas remembers that he is still in Cornwall, and must not betray +himself, and prudently hides behind some parcels, only just in time, for +they meet a party of miners, and he hears his enemies' voice hailing the +waggoner. All the rest of the day he sits within, and amuses himself by +listening to the bells of the team, which jingle continually. 'On our +second day's journey, however, I ventured out of my hiding-place. I +walked with the waggoner up and down the hills, enjoying the fresh air, +the singing of the birds, and the delightful smell of the honeysuckles +and the dog-roses in the hedges. All the wild flowers and even the weeds +on the banks by the wayside were to me matters of wonder and admiration. +At almost every step I paused to observe something that was new to me, +and I could not help feeling surprised at the insensibility of my +fellow-traveller, who plodded along, and seldom interrupted his +whistling except to cry 'Gee, Blackbird, aw woa,' or 'How now, Smiler?' +Then Jervas is lost in admiration before a plant 'whose stem was about +two feet high, and which had a round shining purple beautiful flower,' +and the waggoner with a look of scorn exclaims, 'Help thee, lad, dost +not thou know 'tis a common thistle?' After this he looks upon Jervas as +very nearly an idiot. 'In truth I believe I was a droll figure, for my +hat was stuck full of weeds and of all sorts of wild flowers, and both +my coat and waistcoat pockets were stuffed out with pebbles and +funguses.' Then comes Plymouth Harbour: Jervas ventures to ask some +questions about the vessels, to which the waggoner answers 'They be +nothing in life but the boats and ships, man;' so he turned away and +went on chewing a straw, and seemed not a whit more moved to admiration +than he had been at the sight of the thistle. 'I conceived a high +admiration of a man who had seen so much that he could admire nothing,' +says Jervas, with a touch of real humour. + +Another most charming little idyll is that of Simple Susan, who was a +real maiden living in the neighbourhood of Edgeworthstown. The story +seems to have been mislaid for a time in the stirring events of the +first Irish rebellion, and overlooked, like some little daisy by a +battlefield. Few among us will not have shared Mr. Edgeworth's partiality +for the charming little tale. The children fling their garlands and tie +up their violets. Susan bakes her cottage loaves and gathers marigolds +for broth, and tends her mother to the distant tune of Philip's pipe +coming across the fields. As we read the story again it seems as if +we could almost scent the fragrance of the primroses and the double +violets, and hear the music sounding above the children's voices, and +the bleatings of the lamb, so simply and delightfully is the whole story +constructed. Among all Miss Edgeworth's characters few are more familiar +to the world than that of Susan's pretty pet lamb. + + +II. + +No sketch of Maria Edgeworth's life, however slight, would be complete +without a few words about certain persons coming a generation before her +(and belonging still to the age of periwigs), who were her father's +associates and her own earliest friends. Notwithstanding all that has +been said of Mr. Edgeworth's bewildering versatility of nature, he seems +to have been singularly faithful in his friendships. He might take up +new ties, but he clung pertinaciously to those which had once existed. +His daughter inherited that same steadiness of affection. In his life of +Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, Mr. Charles Darwin, writing of these +very people, has said, 'There is, perhaps, no safer test of a man's real +character than that of his long-continued friendship with good and +able men.' He then goes on to quote an instance of a long-continued +affection and intimacy only broken by death between a certain set of +distinguished friends, giving the names of Keir, Day, Small, Boulton, +Watt, Wedgwood, and Darwin, and adding to them the names of Edgeworth +himself and of the Galtons. + +Mr. Edgeworth first came to Lichfield to make Dr. Darwin's acquaintance. +His second visit was to his friend Mr. Day, the author of 'Sandford and +Merton,' who had taken a house in the valley of Stow, and who invited +him one Christmas on a visit. 'About the year 1765,' says Miss Seward, +'came to Lichfield, from the neighbourhood of Reading, the young and gay +philosopher, Mr. Edgeworth; a man of fortune, and recently married to a +Miss Elers, of Oxfordshire. The fame of Dr. Darwin's various talents +allured Mr. E. to the city they graced.' And the lady goes on to describe +Mr. Edgeworth himself:--'Scarcely two-and-twenty, with an exterior yet +more juvenile, having mathematic science, mechanic ingenuity, and a +competent portion of classical learning, with the possession of the +modern languages.... He danced, he fenced, he winged his arrows with +more than philosophic skill,' continues the lady, herself a person of no +little celebrity in her time and place. Mr. Edgeworth, in his Memoirs, +pays a respectful tribute to Miss Seward's charms, to her agreeable +conversation, her beauty, her flowing tresses, her sprightliness and +address. Such moderate expressions fail, however, to do justice to this +lady's powers, to her enthusiasm, her poetry, her partisanship. The +portrait prefixed to her letters is that of a dignified person with an +oval face and dark eyes, the thick brown tresses are twined with pearls, +her graceful figure is robed in the softest furs and draperies of the +period. In her very first letter she thus poetically describes her +surroundings:--'The autumnal glory of this day puts to shame the summer's +sullenness. I sit writing upon this dear green terrace, feeding at +intervals my little golden-breasted songsters. The embosomed vale of +Stow glows sunny through the Claude-Lorraine tint which is spread over +the scene like the blue mist over a plum.' + +In this Claude-Lorraine-plum-tinted valley stood the house which Mr. Day +had taken, and where Mr. Edgeworth had come on an eventful visit. Miss +Seward herself lived with her parents in the Bishop's palace at Lichfield. +There was also a younger sister, 'Miss Sally,' who died as a girl, and +another very beautiful young lady their friend, by name Honora Sneyd, +placed under Mrs. Seward's care. She was the heroine of Major André's +unhappy romance. He too lived at Lichfield with his mother, and his +hopeless love gives a tragic reality to this by-gone holiday of youth +and merry-making. As one reads the old letters and memoirs the echoes +of laughter reach us. One can almost see the young folks all coming +together out of the Cathedral Close, where so much of their time was +passed; the beautiful Honora, surrounded by friends and adorers, +chaperoned by the graceful Muse her senior, also much admired, and much +made of. Thomas Day is perhaps striding after them in silence with keen +critical glances; his long black locks flow unpowdered down his back. In +contrast to him comes his brilliant and dressy companion, Mr. Edgeworth, +who talks so agreeably. I can imagine little Sabrina, Day's adopted +foundling, of whom so many stories have been told, following shyly at +her guardian's side in her simple dress and childish beauty, and André's +young handsome face turned towards Miss Sneyd. So they pass on happy and +contented in each other's company, Honora in the midst, beautiful, +stately, reserved: she too was one of those not destined to be old. + +Miss Seward seems to have loved this friend with a very sincere and +admiring affection, and to have bitterly mourned her early death. Her +letters abound in apostrophes to the lost Honora. But perhaps the poor +Muse expected almost too much from friendship, too much from life. +She expected, as we all do at times, that her friends should be not +themselves but her, that they should lead not their lives but her own. +So much at least one may gather from the various phases of her style +and correspondence, and her complaints of Honora's estrangement and +subsequent coldness. Perhaps, also, Miss Seward's many vagaries and +sentiments may have frozen Honora's sympathies. Miss Seward was all +asterisks and notes of exclamation. Honora seems to have forced feeling +down to its most scrupulous expression. She never lived to be softened +by experience, to suit herself to others by degrees: with great love she +also inspired awe and a sort of surprise. One can imagine her pointing +the moral of the purple jar, as it was told long afterwards by her +stepdaughter, then a little girl playing at her own mother's knee in her +nursery by the river. + +People in the days of shilling postage were better correspondents than +they are now when we have to be content with pennyworths of news and of +affectionate intercourse. Their descriptions and many details bring all +the chief characters vividly before us, and carry us into the hearts and +the pocket-books of the little society at Lichfield as it then was. The +town must have been an agreeable sojourn in those days for people of +some pretension and small performance. The inhabitants of Lichfield seem +actually to have read each other's verses, and having done so to have +taken the trouble to sit down and write out their raptures. They were a +pleasant lively company living round about the old cathedral towers, +meeting in the Close or the adjacent gardens or the hospitable Palace +itself. Here the company would sip tea, talk mild literature of their +own and good criticism at second hand, quoting Dr. Johnson to one +another with the familiarity of townsfolk. From Erasmus Darwin, too, +they must have gained something of vigour and originality. + +With all her absurdities Miss Seward had some real critical power and +appreciation; and some of her lines are very pretty.[1] An 'Ode to the +Sun' is only what might have been expected from this Lichfield Corinne. +Her best known productions are an 'Elegy on Captain Cook,' a 'Monody on +Major André,' whom she had known from her early youth; and there is a +poem, 'Louisa,' of which she herself speaks very highly. But even more +than her poetry did she pique herself upon her epistolary correspondence. +It must have been well worth while writing letters when they were not +only prized by the writer and the recipients, but commented on by their +friends in after years. 'Court Dewes, Esq.,' writes, after five years, +for copies of Miss Seward's epistles to Miss Rogers and Miss Weston, of +which the latter begins:--'Soothing and welcome to me, dear Sophia, is +the regret you express for our separation! Pleasant were the weeks we +have recently passed together in this ancient and embowered mansion! I +had strongly felt the silence and vacancy of the depriving day on which +you vanished. How prone are our hearts perversely to quarrel with the +friendly coercion of employment at the very instant in which it is +clearing the torpid and injurious mists of unavailing melancholy!' Then +follows a sprightly attack before which Johnson may have quailed indeed. +'Is the Fe-fa-fum of literature that snuffs afar the fame of his brother +authors, and thirsts for its destruction, to be allowed to gallop +unmolested over the fields of criticism? A few pebbles from the +well-springs of truth and eloquence are all that is wanted to bring the +might of his envy low.' This celebrated letter, which may stand as +a specimen of the whole six volumes, concludes with the following +apostrophe:--'Virtuous friendship, how pure, how sacred are thy +delights! Sophia, thy mind is capable of tasting them in all their +poignance: against how many of life's incidents may that capacity be +considered as a counterpoise!' + + Footnote 1: In a notice of Miss Seward in the _Annual Register_, just + after her death in 1809, the writer, who seems to have known her, + says:--'Conscious of ability, she freely displayed herself in a manner + equally remote from annoyance and affectation.... Her errors arose from + a glowing imagination joined to an excessive sensibility, cherished + instead of repressed by early habits. It is understood that she has left + the whole of her works to Mr. Scott, the northern poet, with a view to + their publication with her life and posthumous pieces.' + +There were constant rubs, which are not to be wondered at, between Miss +Seward and Dr. Darwin, who, though a poet, was also a singularly witty, +downright man, outspoken and humorous. The lady admires his genius, +bitterly resents his sarcasms; of his celebrated work, the 'Botanic +Garden,' she says, 'It is a string of poetic brilliants, and they are of +the first water, but the eye will be apt to want the intersticial black +velvet to give effect to their lustre.' In later days, notwithstanding +her 'elegant language,' as Mr. Charles Darwin calls it, she said several +spiteful things of her old friend, but they seem more prompted by +private pique than malice. + +If Miss Seward was the Minerva and Dr. Darwin the Jupiter of the +Lichfield society, its philosopher was Thomas Day, of whom Miss Seward's +description is so good that I cannot help one more quotation:-- + +'Powder and fine clothes were at that time the appendages of gentlemen; +Mr. Day wore not either. He was tall and stooped in the shoulders, full +made but not corpulent, and in his meditative and melancholy air a +degree of awkwardness and dignity were blended.' She then compares +him with his guest, Mr. Edgeworth. 'Less graceful, less amusing, less +brilliant than Mr. E., but more highly imaginative, more classical, and +a deeper reasoner; strict integrity, energetic friendship, open-handed +generosity, and diffusive charity, greatly overbalanced on the side of +virtue, the tincture of misanthropic gloom and proud contempt of common +life society.' Wright, of Derby, painted a full-length picture of Mr. +Day in 1770. 'Mr. Day looks upward enthusiastically, meditating on +the contents of a book held in his dropped right hand ... a flash of +lightning plays in his hair and illuminates the contents of the volume.' +'Dr. Darwin,' adds Miss Seward, 'sat to Mr. Wright about the same +period--_that_ was a simply contemplative portrait of the most perfect +resemblance.' + + +III. + +Maria must have been three years old this eventful Christmas time when +her father, leaving his wife in Berkshire, came to stay with Mr. Day at +Lichfield, and first made the acquaintance of Miss Seward and her poetic +circle. Mr. Day, who had once already been disappointed in love, and +whose romantic scheme of adopting his foundlings and of educating one of +them to be his wife, has often been described, had brought one of the +maidens to the house he had taken at Lichfield. This was Sabrina, as he +had called her. Lucretia, having been found troublesome, had been sent +off with a dowry to be apprenticed to a milliner. Sabrina was a charming +little girl of thirteen; everybody liked her, especially the friendly +ladies at the Palace, who received her with constant kindness, as they +did Mr. Day himself and his visitor. What Miss Seward thought of Sabrina's +education I do not know. The poor child was to be taught to despise +luxury, to ignore fear, to be superior to pain. She appears, however, to +have been very fond of her benefactor, but to have constantly provoked +him by starting and screaming whenever he fired uncharged pistols at +her skirts, or dropped hot melted sealing-wax on her bare arms. She +is described as lovely and artless, not fond of books, incapable of +understanding scientific problems, or of keeping the imaginary and +terrible secrets with which her guardian used to try her nerves. I do +not know when it first occurred to him that Honora Sneyd was all that +his dreams could have imagined. One day he left Sabrina under many +restrictions, and returning unexpectedly found her wearing some garment +or handkerchief of which he did not approve, and discarded her on the +spot and for ever. Poor Sabrina was evidently not meant to mate and soar +with philosophical eagles. After this episode, she too was despatched, +to board with an old lady, in peace for a time, let us hope, and in +tranquil mediocrity. + +Mr. Edgeworth approved of this arrangement; he had never considered that +Sabrina was suited to his friend. But being taken in due time to call at +the Palace, he was charmed with Miss Seward, and still more by all he +saw of Honora; comparing her, alas! in his mind 'with all other women, +and secretly acknowledging her superiority.' At first, he says, Miss +Seward's brilliance overshadowed Honora, but very soon her merits grew +upon the bystanders. + +Mr. Edgeworth carefully concealed his feelings except from his host, who +was beginning himself to contemplate a marriage with Miss Sneyd. Mr. +Day presently proposed formally in writing for the hand of the lovely +Honora, and Mr. Edgeworth was to take the packet and to bring back the +answer; and being married himself, and out of the running, he appears to +have been unselfishly anxious for his friend's success. In the packet +Mr. Day had written down the conditions to which he should expect his +wife to subscribe. She would have to begin at once by giving up all +luxuries, amenities, and intercourse with the world, and promise to +continue to seclude herself entirely in his company. Miss Sneyd does not +seem to have kept Mr. Edgeworth waiting long while she wrote her answer +decidedly saying that she could not admit the unqualified control of a +husband over all her actions, nor the necessity for 'seclusion from +society to preserve female virtue.' Finding that Honora absolutely +refused to change her way of life, Mr. Day went into a fever, for which +Dr. Darwin bled him. Nor did he recover until another Miss Sneyd, +Elizabeth by name, made her appearance in the Close. + +Mr. Edgeworth, who was of a lively and active disposition, had +introduced archery among the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and he +describes a fine summer evening's entertainment passed in agreeable +sports, followed by dancing and music, in the course of which Honora's +sister, Miss Elizabeth, appeared for the first time on the Lichfield +scene, and immediately joined in the country dance. There is a vivid +description of the two sisters in Mr. Edgeworth's memoirs, of the +beautiful and distinguished Honora, loving science, serious, eager, +reserved; of the more lovely but less graceful Elizabeth, with less of +energy, more of humour and of social gifts than her sister. Elizabeth +Sneyd was, says Edgeworth, struck by Day's eloquence, by his unbounded +generosity, by his scorn of wealth. His educating a young girl for his +wife seemed to her romantic and extraordinary; and she seems to have +thought it possible to yield to the evident admiration she had aroused +in him. But, whether in fun or in seriousness, she represented to him +that he could not with justice decry accomplishments and graces that he +had not acquired. She wished him to go abroad for a time to study to +perfect himself in all that was wanting; on her own part she promised +not to go to Bath, London, or any public place of amusement until his +return, and to read certain books which he recommended. + +Meanwhile Mr. Edgeworth had made no secret of his own feeling for Honora +to Mr. Day, 'who with all the eloquence of virtue and of friendship' +urged him to fly, to accompany him abroad, and to shun dangers he could +not hope to overcome. Edgeworth consented to this proposal, and the two +friends started for Paris, visiting Rousseau on their way. They spent +the winter at Lyons, as it was a place where excellent masters of all +sorts were to be found; and here Mr. Day, with excess of zeal-- + + put himself (says his friend) to every species of torture, + ordinary and extraordinary, to compel his Antigallican limbs, in + spite of their natural rigidity, to dance and fence, and manage + the _great horse_. To perform his promise to Miss E. Sneyd + honourably, he gave up seven or eight hours of the day to these + exercises, for which he had not the slightest taste, and for + which, except horsemanship, he manifested the most sovereign + contempt. It was astonishing to behold the energy with which he + persevered in these pursuits. I have seen him stand between two + boards which reached from the ground higher than his knees: these + boards were adjusted with screws so as barely to permit him to + bend his knees, and to rise up and sink down. By these means Mr. + Huise proposed to force Mr. Day's knees outwards; but screwing was + in vain. He succeeded in torturing his patient; but original + formation and inveterate habit resisted all his endeavours at + personal improvement. I could not help pitying my philosophic + friend, pent up in durance vile for hours together, with his feet + in the stocks, a book in his hand, and contempt in his heart. + +Mr. Edgeworth meanwhile lodged himself 'in excellent and agreeable +apartments,' and occupied himself with engineering. He is certainly +curiously outspoken in his memoirs; and explains that the first Mrs. +Edgeworth, Maria's mother, with many merits, was of a complaining +disposition, and did not make him so happy at home as a woman of a more +lively temper might have succeeded in doing. He was tempted, he said, to +look for happiness elsewhere than in his home. Perhaps domestic affairs +may have been complicated by a warm-hearted but troublesome little son, +who at Day's suggestion had been brought up upon the Rousseau system, +and was in consequence quite unmanageable, and a worry to everybody. +Poor Mrs. Edgeworth's complainings were not to last very long. She +joined her husband at Lyons, and after a time, having a dread of +lying-in abroad, returned home to die in her confinement, leaving four +little children. Maria could remember being taken into her mother's room +to see her for the last time. + +Mr. Edgeworth hurried back to England, and was met by his friend Thomas +Day, who had preceded him, and whose own suit does not seem to have +prospered meanwhile. But though notwithstanding all his efforts Thomas +Day had not been fortunate in securing Elizabeth Sneyd's affections, he +could still feel for his friend. His first words were to tell Edgeworth +that Honora was still free, more beautiful than ever; while Virtue and +Honour commanded it, he had done all he could to divide them; now he +wished to be the first to promote their meeting. The meeting resulted in +an engagement, and Mr. Edgeworth and Miss Sneyd were married within four +months by the benevolent old canon in the Lady Chapel of Lichfield +Cathedral. + +Mrs. Seward wept; Miss Seward, 'notwithstanding some imaginary +dissatisfaction about a bridesmaid,' was really glad of the marriage, we +are told; and the young couple immediately went over to Ireland. + + +IV. + +Though her life was so short, Honora Edgeworth seems to have made the +deepest impression on all those she came across. Over little Maria she +had the greatest influence. There is a pretty description of the child +standing lost in wondering admiration of her stepmother's beauty, as she +watched her soon after her marriage dressing at her toilet-table. Little +Maria's feeling for her stepmother was very deep and real, and the +influence of those few years lasted for a lifetime. Her own exquisite +carefulness she always ascribed to it, and to this example may also be +attributed her habits of order and self-government, her life of reason +and deliberate judgment. + +The seven years of Honora's married life seem to have been very peaceful +and happy. She shared her husband's pursuits, and wished for nothing +outside her own home. She began with him to write those little books +which were afterwards published. It is just a century ago since she and +Mr. Edgeworth planned the early histories of Harry and Lucy and Frank; +while Mr. Day began his 'Sandford and Merton,' which at first was +intended to appear at the same time, though eventually the third part +was not published till 1789. + +As a girl of seventeen Honora Sneyd had once been threatened with +consumption. After seven years of married life the cruel malady again +declared itself; and though Dr. Darwin did all that human resource could +do, and though every tender care surrounded her, the poor young lady +rapidly sank. There is a sad, prim, most affecting letter, addressed to +little Maria by the dying woman shortly before the end; and then comes +that one written by the father, which is to tell her that all is over. + +If Mr. Edgeworth was certainly unfortunate in losing again and again the +happiness of his home, he was more fortunate than most people in being +able to rally from his grief. He does not appear to have been unfaithful +in feeling. Years after, Edgeworth, writing to console Mrs. Day upon her +husband's death, speaks in the most touching way of all he had suffered +when Honora died, and of the struggle he had made to regain his hold of +life. This letter is in curious contrast to that one written at the +time, as he sits by poor Honora's deathbed; it reads strangely cold and +irrelevant in these days when people are not ashamed of feeling or of +describing what they feel. 'Continue, my dear daughter'--he writes to +Maria, who was then thirteen years old--'the desire which you feel of +becoming amiable, prudent, and of use. The ornamental parts of a +character, with such an understanding as yours, necessarily ensue; but +true judgment and sagacity in the choice of friends, and the regulation +of your behaviour, can be only had from reflection, and from being +thoroughly convinced of what experience in general teaches too late, +that to be happy we must be good.' + +'Such a letter, written at such a time,' says the kind biographer, 'made +the impression it was intended to convey; and the wish to act up to the +high opinion her father had formed of her character became an exciting +and controlling power over the whole of Maria's future life.' On her +deathbed, Honora urged her husband to marry again, and assured him that +the woman to suit him was her sister Elizabeth. Her influence was so +great upon them both that, although Elizabeth was attached to some one +else, and Mr. Edgeworth believed her to be little suited to himself, +they were presently engaged and married, not without many difficulties. +The result proved how rightly Honora had judged. + +It was to her father that Maria owed the suggestion of her first start +in literature. Immediately after Honora's death he tells her to write a +tale about the length of a 'Spectator,' on the subject of generosity. +'It must be taken from history or romance, must be sent the day +se'nnight after you receive this; and I beg you will take some pains +about it.' A young gentleman from Oxford was also set to work to try his +powers on the same subject, and Mr. William Sneyd, at Lichfield, was to +be judge between the two performances. He gave his verdict for Maria: +'An excellent story and very well written: but where's the generosity?' +This, we are told, became a sort of proverb in the Edgeworth family. + +The little girl meanwhile had been sent to school to a certain Mrs. +Lataffiere, where she was taught to use her fingers, to write a lovely +delicate hand, to work white satin waistcoats for her papa. She was then +removed to a fashionable establishment in Upper Wimpole Street, where, +says her stepmother, 'she underwent all the usual tortures of +backboards, iron collars, and dumb-bells, with the unusual one of being +hung by the neck to draw out the muscles and increase the growth,--a +signal failure in her case.' (Miss Edgeworth was always a very tiny +person.) There is a description given of Maria at this school of hers of +the little maiden absorbed in her book with all the other children at +play, while she sits in her favourite place in front of a carved oak +cabinet, quite unconscious of the presence of the romping girls all +about her. + +Hers was a very interesting character as it appears in the +Memoirs--sincere, intelligent, self-contained, and yet dependent; +methodical, observant. Sometimes as one reads of her in early life one +is reminded of some of the personal characteristics of the writer who +perhaps of all writers least resembles Miss Edgeworth in her art--of +Charlotte Brontë, whose books are essentially of the modern and +passionate school, but whose strangely mixed character seemed rather to +belong to the orderly and neatly ruled existence of Queen Charlotte's +reign. People's lives as they really are don't perhaps vary very much, +but people's lives as they seem to be assuredly change with the fashions. +Miss Edgeworth and Miss Brontë were both Irishwomen, who have often, +with all their outcome, the timidity which arises from quick and +sensitive feeling. But the likeness does not go very deep. Maria, +whose diffidence and timidity were personal, but who had a firm and +unalterable belief in family traditions, may have been saved from some +danger of prejudice and limitation by a most fortunate though trying +illness which affected her eyesight, and which caused her to be removed +from her school with its monstrous elegancies to the care of Mr. Day, +that kindest and sternest of friends. + +This philosopher in love had been bitterly mortified when the lively +Elizabeth Sneyd, instead of welcoming his return, could not conceal her +laughter at his uncouth elegancies, and confessed that, on the whole, +she had liked him better as he was before. He forswore Lichfield and +marriage, and went abroad to forget. He turned his thoughts to politics; +he wrote pamphlets on public subjects and letters upon slavery. His poem +of the 'Dying Negro' had been very much admired. Miss Hannah More speaks +of it in her Memoirs. The subject of slavery was much before people's +minds, and Day's influence had not a little to do with the rising +indignation. + +Among Day's readers and admirers was one person who was destined to have +a most important influence upon his life. By a strange chance his +extraordinary ideal was destined to be realised; and a young lady, good, +accomplished, rich, devoted, who had read his books, and sympathised +with his generous dreams, was ready not only to consent to his strange +conditions, but to give him her whole heart and find her best happiness +in his society and in carrying out his experiments and fancies. She was +Miss Esther Milnes, of Yorkshire, an heiress; and though at first Day +hesitated and could not believe in the reality of her feeling, her +constancy and singleness of mind were not to be resisted, and they were +married at Bath in 1778. We hear of Mr. and Mrs. Day spending the first +winter of their married life at Hampstead, and of Mrs. Day, thickly +shodden, walking with him in a snowstorm on the common, and ascribing +her renewed vigour to her husband's Spartan advice. + +Day and his wife eventually established themselves at Anningsley, near +Chobham. He had insisted upon settling her fortune upon herself, but +Mrs. Day assisted him in every way, and sympathised in his many schemes +and benevolent ventures. When he neglected to make a window to the +dressing-room he built for her, we hear of her uncomplainingly lighting +her candles; to please him she worked as a servant in the house, and all +their large means were bestowed in philanthropic and charitable schemes. +Mr. Edgeworth quotes his friend's reproof to Mrs. Day, who was fond of +music: 'Shall we beguile the time with the strains of a lute while our +fellow-creatures are starving?' 'I am out of pocket every year about +300_l._ by the farm I keep,' Day writes his to his friend Edgeworth. +'The soil I have taken in hand, I am convinced, is one of the most +completely barren in England.' He then goes on to explain his reasons +for what he is about. 'It enables me to employ the poor, and the result +of all my speculations about humanity is that the only way of benefiting +mankind is to give them employment and make them earn their money.' +There is a pretty description of the worthy couple in their home +dispensing help and benefits all round about, draining, planting, +teaching, doctoring--nothing came amiss to them. Their chief friend and +neighbour was Samuel Cobbett, who understood their plans, and +sympathised in their efforts, which, naturally enough, were viewed with +doubt and mistrust by most of the people round about. It was at +Anningsley that Mr. Day finished 'Sandford and Merton,' begun many years +before. His death was very sudden, and was brought about by one of his +own benevolent theories. He used to maintain that kindness alone could +tame animals; and he was killed by a fall from a favourite colt which he +was breaking in. Mrs. Day never recovered the shock. She lived two years +hidden in her home, absolutely inconsolable, and then died and was laid +by her husband's side in the churchyard at Wargrave by the river. + +It was to the care of these worthy people that little Maria was sent +when she was ill, and she was doctored by them both physically and +morally. 'Bishop Berkeley's tar-water was still considered a specific +for all complaints,' says Mrs. Edgeworth. 'Mr. Day thought it would be +of use to Maria's inflamed eyes, and he used to bring a large tumbler +full of it to her every morning. She dreaded his "Now, Miss Maria, drink +this." But there was, in spite of his stern voice, something of pity and +sympathy in his countenance. His excellent library was open to her, and +he directed her studies. His severe reasoning and uncompromising truth +of mind awakened all her powers, and the questions he put to her and the +working out of the answers, the necessity of perfect accuracy in all her +words, suited the natural truth of her mind; and though such strictness +was not agreeable, she even then perceived its advantage, and in after +life was grateful for it.' + + +V. + +We have seen how Miss Elizabeth Sneyd, who could not make up her mind to +marry Mr. Day notwithstanding all he had gone through for her sake, had +eventually consented to become Mr. Edgeworth's third wife. With this +stepmother for many years to come Maria lived in an affectionate +intimacy, only to be exceeded by that most faithful companionship which +existed for fifty years between her and the lady from whose memoirs I +quote. + +It was about 1782 that Maria went home to live at Edgeworthtown with +her father and his wife, with the many young brothers and sisters. The +family was a large one, and already consisted of her own sisters, of +Honora the daughter of Mrs. Honora, and Lovell her son. To these +succeeded many others of the third generation; and two sisters of Mrs. +Edgeworth's, who also made their home at Edgeworthtown. + + Maria had once before been there, "very young, but she was now old + enough to be struck with the difference then so striking between + Ireland and England." The tones and looks, the melancholy and the + gaiety of the people, were so new and extraordinary to her that + the delineations she long afterwards made of Irish character + probably owe their life and truth to the impression made on her + mind at this time as a stranger. Though it was June when they + landed, there was snow on the roses she ran out to gather, and she + felt altogether in a new and unfamiliar country. + +She herself describes the feelings of the master of a family returning +to an Irish home:-- + + Wherever he turned his eyes, in or out of his home, damp + dilapidation, waste appeared. Painting, glazing, roofing, fencing, + finishing--all were wanting. The backyard and even the front + lawn round the windows of the house were filled with loungers, + followers, and petitioners; tenants, undertenants, drivers, + sub-agent and agent were to have audience; and they all had + grievances and secret informations, accusations, reciprocations, + and quarrels each under each interminable. + +Her account of her father's dealings with them is admirable:-- + + I was with him constantly, and I was amused and interested in + seeing how he made his way through their complaints, petitions, + and grievances with decision and despatch, he all the time in good + humour with the people and they delighted with him, though he + often rated them roundly when they stood before him perverse in + litigation, helpless in procrastination, detected in cunning or + convicted of falsehood. They saw into his character almost as soon + as he understood theirs. + +Mr. Edgeworth had in a very remarkable degree that power of ruling and +administering which is one of the rarest of gifts. He seems to have +shown great firmness and good sense in his conduct in the troubled times +in which he lived. He saw to his own affairs, administered justice, put +down middlemen as far as possible, reorganised the letting out of the +estate. Unlike many of his neighbours, he was careful not to sacrifice +the future to present ease of mind and of pocket. He put down rack-rents +and bribes of every sort, and did his best to establish things upon a +firm and lasting basis. + +But if it was not possible even for Mr. Edgeworth to make such things +all they should have been outside the house, the sketch given of the +family life at home is very pleasant. The father lives in perfect +confidence with his children, admitting them to his confidence, +interesting them in his experiments, spending his days with them, +consulting them. There are no reservations; he does his business in the +great sitting-room, surrounded by his family. I have heard it described +as a large ground-floor room, with windows to the garden and with two +columns supporting the further end, by one of which Maria's writing-desk +used to be placed--a desk which her father had devised for her, which +used to be drawn out to the fireside when she worked. Does not Mr. +Edgeworth also mention in one of his letters a picture of Thomas Day +hanging over a sofa against the wall? Books in plenty there were, +we may be sure, and perhaps models of ingenious machines and different +appliances for scientific work. Sir Henry Holland and Mr. Ticknor give a +curious description of Mr. Edgeworth's many ingenious inventions. There +were strange locks to the rooms and telegraphic despatches to the +kitchen; clocks at the one side of the house were wound up by simply +opening certain doors at the other end. It has been remarked that all +Miss Edgeworth's heroes had a smattering of science. Several of her +brothers inherited her father's turn for it. We hear of them raising +steeples and establishing telegraphs in partnership with him. Maria +shared of the family labours and used to help her father in the business +connected with the estate, to assist him, also, to keep the accounts. +She had a special turn for accounts, and she was pleased with her +exquisitely neat columns and by the accuracy with which her figures fell +into their proper places. Long after her father's death this knowledge +and experience enabled her to manage the estate for her eldest stepbrother, +Mr. Lovell Edgeworth. She was able, at a time of great national +difficulty and anxious crisis, to meet a storm in which many a larger +fortune was wrecked. + +But in 1782 she was a young girl only beginning life. Storms were not +yet, and she was putting out her wings in the sunshine. Her father set +her to translate 'Adèle et Théodore,' by Madame de Genlis (she had a +great facility for languages, and her French was really remarkable). +Holcroft's version of the book, however, appeared, and the Edgeworth +translation was never completed. Mr. Day wrote a letter to congratulate +Mr. Edgeworth on the occasion. It seemed horrible to Mr. Day that a +woman should appear in print. + +It is possible that the Edgeworth family was no exception to the rule by +which large and clever and animated families are apt to live in a +certain atmosphere of their own. But, notwithstanding this strong family +bias, few people can have seen more of the world, felt its temper more +justly, or appreciated more fully the interesting varieties of people to +be found in it than Maria Edgeworth. Within easy reach of Edgeworthtown +were different agreeable and cultivated houses. There was Pakenham Hall +with Lord Longford for its master; one of its daughters was the future +Duchess of Wellington, 'who was always Kitty Pakenham for her old +friends.' There at Castle Forbes also lived, I take it, more than one +of the well-bred and delightful persons, out of 'Patronage,' and the +'Absentee,' who may, in real life, have borne the names of Lady Moira +and Lady Granard. Besides, there were cousins and relations without +number--Foxes, Ruxtons, marriages and intermarriages; and when the time +came for occasional absences and expeditions from home, the circles seem +to have spread incalculably in every direction. The Edgeworths appear to +have been a genuinely sociable clan, interested in others and certainly +interesting to them. + + +VI. + +The first letter given in the Memoirs from Maria to her favourite aunt +Ruxton is a very sad one, which tells of the early death of her sister +Honora, a beautiful girl of fifteen, the only daughter of Mrs. Honora +Edgeworth, who died of consumption, as her mother had died. This letter, +written in the dry phraseology of the time, is nevertheless full of +feeling, above all for her father who was, as Maria says elsewhere, +ever since she could think or feel, the first object and motive of her +mind. + +Mrs. Edgeworth describes her sister-in-law as follows:-- + + Mrs. Ruxton resembled her brother in the wit and vivacity of her + mind and strong affections; her grace and charm of manner were + such that a gentleman once said of her; 'If I were to see Mrs. + Ruxton in rags as a beggar woman sitting on the doorstep, I should + say "Madam" to her.' 'To write to her Aunt Ruxton was, as long as + she lived, Maria's greatest pleasure while away from her,' says + Mrs. Edgeworth, 'and to be with her was a happiness she enjoyed + with never flagging and supreme delight. Blackcastle was within a + few hours' drive of Edgeworthtown, and to go to Blackcastle was + the holiday of her life.' + +Mrs. Edgeworth tells a story of Maria once staying at Blackcastle and +tearing out the title page of 'Belinda,' so that her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, +read the book without any suspicion of the author. She was so delighted +with it that she insisted on Maria listening to page after page, +exclaiming 'Is not that admirably written?' 'Admirably read, I think,' +said Maria; until her aunt, quite provoked by her faint acquiescence, +says, 'I am sorry to see my little Maria unable to bear the praises of a +rival author;' at which poor Maria burst into tears, and Mrs. Ruxton +could never bear the book mentioned afterwards. + +It was with Mrs. Ruxton that a little boy, born just after the death +of the author of 'Sandford and Merton,' was left on the occasion of +the departure of the Edgeworth family for Clifton, in 1792, where Mr. +Edgeworth spent a couple of years for the health of one of his sons. In +July the poor little brother dies in Ireland. 'There does not, now that +little Thomas is gone, exist even a person of the same name as Mr. Day,' +says Mr. Edgeworth, who concludes his letter philosophically, as the +father of twenty children may be allowed to do, by expressing a hope +that to his nurses, Mrs. Ruxton and her daughter, 'the remembrance of +their own goodness will soon obliterate the painful impression of his +miserable end.' During their stay at Clifton Richard Edgeworth, the +eldest son, who had been brought up upon Rousseau's system, and who +seems to have found the Old World too restricted a sphere for his +energies, after going to sea and disappearing for some years, suddenly +paid them a visit from South Carolina, where he had settled and married. +The young man was gladly welcomed by them all. He had been long separated +from home, and he eventually died very young in America; but his sister +always clung to him with fond affection, and when he left them to return +home she seems to have felt his departure very much. 'Last Saturday my +poor brother Richard took leave of us to return to America. He has gone +up to London with my father and mother, and is to sail from thence. We +could not part from him without great pain and regret, for he made us +all extremely fond of him.' + +Notwithstanding these melancholy events, Maria Edgeworth seems to have +led a happy busy life all this time among her friends, her relations, +her many interests, her many fancies and facts, making much of the +children, of whom she writes pleasant descriptions to her aunt. +'Charlotte is very engaging and promises to be handsome. Sneyd is, and +promises everything. Henry will, I think, through life always do more +than he promises. Little Honora is a sprightly blue-eyed child at nurse +with a woman who is the picture of health and simplicity. Lovell is +perfectly well. Doctor Darwin has paid him very handsome compliments on +his lines on the Barbarini Vase in the first part of the "Botanic +Garden."' + +Mr. Edgeworth, however, found the time long at Clifton, though, as +usual, he at once improved his opportunities, paid visits to his friends +in London and elsewhere, and renewed many former intimacies and +correspondences. + +Maria also paid a visit to London, but the time had not come for her to +enjoy society, and the extreme shyness of which Mrs. Edgeworth speaks +made it pain to her to be in society in those early days. 'Since I have +been away from home,' she writes, 'I have missed the society of my +father, mother, and sisters more than I can express, and more than +beforehand I could have thought possible. I long to see them all again. +Even when I am most amused I feel a void, and now I understand what an +aching void is perfectly.' Very soon we hear of her at home again, +'scratching away at the Freeman family.' Mr. Edgeworth is reading aloud +Gay's 'Trivia' among other things, which she recommends to her aunt. 'I +had much rather make a bargain with any one I loved to read the same +books with them at the same hour than to look at the moon like +Rousseau's famous lovers.' There is another book, a new book for the +children, mentioned about this time, 'Evenings at Home,' which they all +admire immensely. + +Miss Edgeworth was now about twenty-six, at an age when a woman's powers +have fully ripened; a change comes over her style; there is a fulness of +description in her letters and a security of expression which show +maturity. Her habit of writing was now established, and she describes +the constant interest her father took and his share in all she did. Some +of the slighter stories she first wrote upon a slate and read out to her +brothers and sisters; others she sketched for her father's approval, and +arranged and altered as he suggested. The letters for literary ladies +were with the publishers by this time, and these were followed by +various stories and early lessons, portions of 'Parents' Assistant,' +and of popular tales, all of which were sent out in packets and lent +from one member of the family to another before finally reaching Mr. +Johnson, the publisher's, hands. Maria Edgeworth in some of her letters +from Clifton alludes with some indignation to the story of Mrs. Hannah +More's ungrateful _protégée_ Lactilla, the literary milkwoman, whose +poems Hannah More was at such pains to bring before the world, and for +whom, with her kind preface and warm commendations and subscription +list, she was able to obtain the large sum of 500_l._ The ungrateful +Lactilla, who had been starving when Mrs. More found her out, seems to +have lost her head in this sudden prosperity, and to have accused her +benefactress of wishing to steal a portion of the money. Maria Edgeworth +must have been also interested in some family marriages which took place +about this time. Her own sister Anna became engaged to Dr. Beddoes, of +Clifton, whose name appears as prescribing for the authors of various +memoirs of that day. He is 'a man of ability, of a great name in the +scientific world,' says Mr. Edgeworth, who favoured the Doctor's +'declared passion,' as a proposal was then called, and the marriage +accordingly took place on their return to Ireland. Emmeline, another +sister, was soon after married to Mr. King, a surgeon, also living at +Bristol, and Maria was now left the only remaining daughter of the +first marriage, to be good aunt, sister, friend to all the younger +members of the party. She was all this, but she herself expressly states +that her father would never allow her to be turned into a nursery drudge; +her share of the family was limited to one special little boy. Meanwhile +her pen-and-ink children are growing up, and starting out in the world +on their own merits. + +'I beg, dear Sophy,' she writes to her cousin, 'that you will not call +my little stories by the sublime name of my works; I shall else be +ashamed when the little mouse comes forth. The stories are printed and +bound the same size as 'Evenings at Home,' but I am afraid you will +dislike the title. My father had sent the 'Parents' Friend,' but Mr. +Johnson has degraded it into 'Parents' Assistant.' + +In 1797, says Miss Beaufort, who was to be so soon more intimately +connected with the Edgeworth family, Johnson wished to publish more +volumes of the 'Parents' Assistant' on fine paper, with prints, and Mrs. +Ruxton asked me to make some designs for them. These designs seem to +have given great satisfaction to the Edgeworth party, and especially to +a little boy called William, Mrs. Edgeworth's youngest boy, who grew up +to be a fine young man, but who died young of the cruel family complaint. +Mrs. Edgeworth's health was also failing all this time--'Though she +makes epigrams she is far from well,' says Maria; but they, none of them +seem seriously alarmed. Mr. Edgeworth, in the intervals of politics, is +absorbed in a telegraph, which, with the help of his sons, he is trying +to establish. It is one which will act by night as well as by day. + +It was a time of change and stir for Ireland, disaffection growing and +put down for a time by the soldiers; armed bands going about 'defending' +the country and breaking its windows. In 1794 threats of a French +invasion had alarmed everybody, and now again in 1796 came rumours of +every description, and Mr. Edgeworth was very much disappointed that his +proposal for establishing a telegraph across the water to England was +rejected by Government. He also writes to Dr. Darwin that he had offered +himself as a candidate for the county, and been obliged to relinquish +at the last moment; but these minor disappointments were lost in the +trouble which fell upon the household in the following year--the death +of the mother of the family, who sank rapidly and died of consumption in +1797. + + +VII. + +When Mr. Edgeworth himself died (not, as we may be sure, without many +active post-mortem wishes and directions) he left his entertaining +Memoirs half finished, and he desired his daughter Maria in the most +emphatic way to complete them, and to publish them without changing +or altering anything that he had written. People reading them were +surprised by the contents; many blamed Miss Edgeworth for making them +public, not knowing how solemn and binding these dying commands of her +father's had been, says Mrs. Leadbeater, writing at the time to Mrs. +Trench. Many severe and wounding reviews appeared, and this may have +influenced Miss Edgeworth in her own objection to having her Memoirs +published by her family. + +Mr. Edgeworth's life was most extraordinary, comprising in fact three or +four lives in the place of that one usually allowed to most people, some +of us having to be moderately content with a half or three-quarters of +existence. But his versatility of mind was no less remarkable than his +tenacity of purpose and strength of affection, though some measure of +sentiment must have certainly been wanting, and his fourth marriage +must have taken most people by surprise. The writer once expressed her +surprise at the extraordinary influence that Mr. Edgeworth seems to have +had over women and over the many members of his family who continued to +reside in his home after all the various changes which had taken place +there. Lady S---- to whom she spoke is one who has seen more of life +than most of us, who has for years past carried help to the far-away +and mysterious East, but whose natural place is at home in the more +prosperous and unattainable West End. This lady said, 'You do not in the +least understand what my Uncle Edgeworth was. I never knew anything +like him. Brilliant, full of energy and charm, he was something quite +extraordinary and irresistible. If you had known him you would not have +wondered at anything.' + + 'I had in the spring of that year (1797) paid my first visit to + Edgeworthtown with my mother and sister,' writes Miss Beaufort, + afterwards Mrs. Edgeworth, the author of the Memoirs. 'My father + had long before been there, and had frequently met Mr. Edgeworth + at Mrs. Ruxton's. In 1795 my father was presented to the living of + Collon, in the county of Louth, where he resided from that time. + His vicarage was within five minutes' walk of the residence of Mr. + Foster, then Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, the dear + friend of Mr. Edgeworth, who came to Collon in the spring of 1798 + several times, and at last offered me his hand, which I accepted.' + +Maria, who was at first very much opposed to the match, would not have +been herself the most devoted and faithful of daughters if she had not +eventually agreed to her father's wishes, and, as daughters do, come by +degrees to feel with him and to see with his eyes. The influence of a +father over a daughter where real sympathy exists is one of the very +deepest and strongest that can be imagined. Miss Beaufort herself seems +also to have had some special attraction for Maria. She was about her +own age. She must have been a person of singularly sweet character and +gentle liberality of mind. 'You will come into a new family, but you +will not come as a stranger, dear Miss Beaufort,' writes generous Maria. +'You will not lead a new life, but only continue to lead the life you +have been used to in your own happy cultivated family.' And her +stepmother in a few feeling words describes all that Maria was to her +from the very first when she came as a bride to the home where the +sisters and the children of the lately lost wife were all assembled to +meet her. + +It gives an unpleasant thrill to read of the newly-married lady coming +along to her home in a postchaise, and seeing something odd on the +side of the road. 'Look to the other side; don't look at it,' says Mr. +Edgeworth; and when they had passed he tells his bride that it was the +body of a man hung by the rebels between the shafts of a car. + +The family at Edgeworthtown consisted of two ladies, sisters of the late +Mrs. Edgeworth, who made it their home, and of Maria, the last of the +first family. Lovell, now the eldest son, was away; but there were also +four daughters and three sons at home. + + All agreed in making me feel at once at home and part of the + family; all received me with the most unaffected cordiality; but + from Maria it was something more. She more than fulfilled the + promise of her letter; she made me at once her most intimate + friend, and in every trifle of the day treated me with the most + generous confidence. + +Those times were even more serious than they are now; we hear of Mr. +Bond, the High Sheriff, paying 'a pale visit' to Edgeworthtown. 'I am +going on in the old way, writing stories,' says Maria Edgeworth, writing +in 1798. 'I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and sitting with my hands +before me would not make any one of us one degree safer.... Simple +Susan went to Foxhall a few days ago for Lady Anne to carry her to +England.'... 'My father has made our little rooms so nice for us,' she +continues; 'they are all fresh painted and papered. Oh! rebels, oh! +French spare them. We have never injured you, and all we wish is to see +everybody as happy as ourselves.' + +On August 29 we find from Miss Edgeworth's letter to her cousin that +the French have got to Castlebar. 'The Lord-Lieutenant is now at +Athlone, and it is supposed it will be their next object of attack. My +father's corps of yeomanry are extremely attached to him and seem fully +in earnest; but, alas! by some strange negligence, their arms have not +yet arrived from Dublin.... We, who are so near the scene of action, +cannot by any means discover what _number_ of the French actually +landed; some say 800, some 1,800, some 18,000.' + +The family had a narrow escape that day, for two officers, who were in +charge of some ammunition, offered to take them under their protection +as far as Longford. Mr. Edgeworth most fortunately detained them. 'Half +an hour afterwards, as we were quietly sitting in the portico, we heard, +as we thought close to us, the report of a pistol or a clap of thunder +which shook the house. The officer soon after returned almost speechless; +he could hardly explain what had happened. The ammunition cart, +containing nearly three barrels of gunpowder, took fire, and burnt +half-way on the road to Longford. The man who drove the cart was blown +to atoms. Nothing of him could be found. Two of the horses were killed; +others were blown to pieces, and their limbs scattered to a distance. +The head and body of a man were found a hundred and twenty yards from +the spot.... If we had gone with this ammunition cart, we must have +been killed. An hour or two afterwards we were obliged to fly from +Edgeworthtown. The pikemen, 300 in number, were within a mile of the +town; my mother and Charlotte and I rode; passed the trunk of the dead +man, bloody limbs of horses, and two dead horses, by the help of men +who pulled on our steeds--all safely lodged now in Mrs. Fallon's inn.' +'Before we had reached the place where the cart had been blown up,' says +Mrs. Edgeworth, 'Mr. Edgeworth suddenly recollected that he had left on +the table in his study a list of the yeomanry corps which he feared +might endanger the poor fellows and their families if it fell into the +hands of the rebels. He galloped back for it. It was at the hazard of +his life; but the rebels had not yet appeared. He burned the paper, and +rejoined us safely.' The Memoirs give a most interesting and spirited +account of the next few days. The rebels spared Mr. Edgeworth's house, +although they broke into it. After a time the family were told that all +was safe for their return, and the account of their coming home, as it +is given in the second volume of Mr. Edgeworth's life by his daughter, +is a model of style and admirable description. + +In 1799 Mr. Edgeworth came into Parliament for the borough of St. +Johnstown. He was a Unionist by conviction, but he did not think the +times were yet ripe for the Union, and he therefore voted against it. +In some of his letters to Dr. Darwin written at this time, he says that +he was offered 3,000 guineas for his seat for the few remaining weeks of +the session, which, needless to say, he refused, not thinking it well, +as he says, '_to quarrel with myself_.' He also adds that Maria continues +writing for children under the persuasion that she cannot be more +serviceably employed; and he sends (with his usual perspicuity) +affectionate messages to the Doctor's 'good amiable lady and _his giant +brood_.' But this long friendly correspondence was coming to an end. The +Doctor's letters, so quietly humorous and to the point, Mr. Edgeworth's +answers with all their characteristic and lively variety, were nearly at +an end. + +It was in 1800 that Maria had achieved her great success, and published +'Castle Rackrent,' a book--not for children this time--which made +everybody talk who read, and those read who had only talked before. This +work was published anonymously, and so great was its reputation that +some one was at the pains to copy out the whole of the story with +erasures and different signs of authenticity, and assume the authorship. + +One very distinctive mark of Maria Edgeworth's mind is the honest +candour and genuine critical faculty which is hers. Her appreciation of +her own work and that of others is unaffected and really discriminating, +whether it is 'Corinne' or a simple story which she is reading, or +Scott's new novel the 'Pirate,' or one of her own manuscripts which she +estimates justly and reasonably. 'I have read "Corinne" with my father, +and I like it better than he does. In one word, I am dazzled by the +genius, provoked by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste and +critical judgment of Italian literature displayed throughout the whole +work: but I will not dilate upon it in a letter. I could talk for three +hours to you and my aunt.' + +Elsewhere she speaks with the warmest admiration of a 'Simple Story.' +Jane Austen's books were not yet published; but another writer, for whom +Mr. Edgeworth and his daughter had a very great regard and admiration, +was Mrs. Barbauld, who in all the heavy trials and sorrows of her later +life found no little help and comfort in the friendship and constancy of +Maria Edgeworth. Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld, upon Mr. Edgeworth's invitation, +paid him a visit at Clifton, where he was again staying in 1799, and +where the last Mrs. Edgeworth's eldest child was born. There is a little +anecdote of domestic life at this time in the Memoirs which gives +one a glimpse, not of an authoress, but of a very sympathising and +impressionable person. 'Maria took her little sister to bring down to +her father, but when she had descended a few steps a panic seized her, +and she was afraid to go either backwards or forwards. She sat down on +the stairs afraid she should drop the child, afraid that its head would +come off, and afraid that her father would find her sitting there and +laugh at her, till seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in a +terrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards down the stairs +till she safely reached the sitting-room.' For all these younger +children Maria seems to have had a most tender and motherly regard, as +indeed for all her young brothers and sisters of the different families. +Many of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few heroines +are more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. Rosamund is said by +some to have been Maria herself, impulsive, warm-hearted, timid, and yet +full of spirit and animation. + +In his last letter to Mr. Edgeworth Dr. Darwin writes kindly of the +authoress, and sends her a message. The letter is dated April 17, 1802. +'I am glad to find you still amuse yourself with mechanism in spite of +the troubles of Ireland;' and the Doctor goes on to ask his friend to +come and pay a visit to the Priory, and describes the pleasant house +with the garden, the ponds full of fish, the deep umbrageous valley, +with the talkative stream running down it, and Derby tower in the +distance. The letter, so kind, so playful in its tone, was never +finished. Dr. Darwin was writing as he was seized with what seemed a +fainting fit, and he died within an hour. Miss Edgeworth writes of the +shock her father felt when the sad news reached him; a shock, she says, +which must in some degree be experienced by every person who reads this +letter of Dr. Darwin's. + +No wonder this generous outspoken man was esteemed in his own time. To +us, in ours, it has been given still more to know the noble son of 'that +giant brood,' whose name will be loved and held in honour as long as +people live to honour nobleness, simplicity, and genius; those things +which give life to life itself. + + +VIII. + +'Calais after a rough passage; Brussels, flat country, tiled houses, +trees and ditches, the window shutters turned out to the street; +fishwives' legs, Dunkirk, and the people looking like wooden toys set in +motion; Bruges and its mingled spires, shipping, and windmills.' These +notes of travel read as if Miss Edgeworth had been writing down only +yesterday a pleasant list of the things which are to be seen two hours +off, to-day no less plainly than a century ago. She jots it all down +from her corner in the postchaise, where she is propped up with a +father, brother, stepmother, and sister for travelling companions, and +a new book to beguile the way. She is charmed with her new book. It is +the story of 'Mademoiselle de Clermont,' by Madame de Genlis, and only +just out. The Edgeworths (with many other English people) rejoiced in +the long-looked-for millennium, which had been signed only the previous +autumn, and they now came abroad to bask in the sunshine of the Continent, +which had been so long denied to our mist-bound islanders. We hear of +the enthusiastic and somewhat premature joy with which this peace was +received by all ranks of people. Not only did the English rush over to +France; foreigners crossed to England, and one of them, an old friend of +Mr. Edgeworth's, had already reached Edgeworthtown, and inspired its +enterprising master with a desire to see those places and things once +more which he heard described. Mr. Edgeworth was anxious also to show +his young wife the treasures in the Louvre, and to help her to develop +her taste for art. He had had many troubles of late, lost friends and +children by death and by marriage. One can imagine that the change must +have been welcome to them all. Besides Maria and Lovell, his eldest +son, he took with him a lovely young daughter, Charlotte Edgeworth, the +daughter of Elizabeth Sneyd. They travelled by Belgium, stopping on +their way at Bruges, at Ghent, and visiting pictures and churches along +the road, as travellers still like to do. Mrs. Edgeworth was, as we have +said, the artistic member of the party. We do not know what modern +rhapsodists would say to Miss Edgeworth's very subdued criticisms and +descriptions of feeling on this occasion. 'It is extremely agreeable to +me,' she writes, 'to see paintings with those who have excellent taste +and no affectation.' And this remark might perhaps be thought even more +to the point now than in the pre-æsthetic age in which it was innocently +made. The travellers are finally landed in Paris in a magnificent hotel +in a fine square, 'formerly Place Louis-Quinze, afterwards Place de la +Révolution, now Place de la Concorde.' And Place de la Concorde it +remains, wars and revolutions notwithstanding, whether lighted by the +flames of the desperate Commune or by the peaceful sunsets which stream +their evening glory across the blood-stained stones. + +The Edgeworths did not come as strangers to Paris; they brought letters +and introductions with them, and bygone associations and friendships +which had only now to be resumed. The well-known Abbé Morellet, their +old acquaintance, 'answered for them,' says Miss Edgeworth, and besides +all this Mr Edgeworth's name was well known in scientific circles. +Bréguet, Montgolfier, and others all made him welcome. Lord Henry +Petty, as Maria's friend Lord Lansdowne was then called, was in Paris, +and Rogers the poet, and Kosciusko, cured of his wounds. For the first +time they now made the acquaintance of M. Dumont, a lifelong friend and +correspondent. There were many others--the Delesserts, of the French +Protestant faction, Madame Suard, to whom the romantic Thomas Day had +paid court some thirty years before, and Madame Campan, and Madame +Récamier, and Madame de Rémusat, and Madame de Houdetot, now seventy-two +years of age, but Rousseau's Julie still, and Camille Jordan, and the +Chevalier Edelcrantz, from the Court of the King of Sweden. + +The names alone of the Edgeworths' entertainers represent a delightful +and interesting section of the history of the time. One can imagine +that besides all these pleasant and talkative persons the Faubourg +Saint-Germain itself threw open its great swinging doors to the +relations of the Abbé Edgeworth who risked his life to stand by his +master upon the scaffold and to speak those noble warm-hearted words, +the last that Louis ever heard. One can picture the family party as +it must have appeared with its pleasant British looks--the agreeable +'ruddy-faced' father, the gentle Mrs. Edgeworth, who is somewhere +described by her stepdaughter as so orderly, so clean, so freshly +dressed, the child of fifteen, only too beautiful and delicately +lovely, and last of all Maria herself, the nice little unassuming, +Jeannie-Deans-looking body Lord Byron described, small, homely, perhaps, +but with her gift of French, of charming intercourse, her fresh laurels +of authorship (for 'Belinda' was lately published), her bright animation, +her cultivated mind and power of interesting all those in her company, +to say nothing of her own kindling interest in every one and every thing +round about her. + +Her keen delights and vivid descriptions of all these new things, faces, +voices, ideas, are all to be read in some long and most charming letters +to Ireland, which also contain the account of a most eventful crisis +which this Paris journey brought about. The letter is dated March 1803, +and it concludes as follows:-- + + Here, my dear aunt, I was interrupted in a manner that will + surprise you as much as it surprised me--by the coming of M. + Edelcrantz, a Swedish gentleman whom we have mentioned to you, of + superior understanding and mild manners. He came to offer me his + hand and heart! My heart, you may suppose, cannot return his + attachment, for I have seen but very little of him, and have not + had time to have formed any judgment except that I think nothing + could tempt me to leave my own dear friends and my own country to + live in Sweden. + +Maria Edgeworth was now about thirty years of age, at a time of life +when people are apt to realise perhaps almost more deeply than in early +youth the influence of feeling, its importance, and strange power over +events. Hitherto there are no records in her memoirs of any sentimental +episodes, but it does not follow that a young lady has not had her own +phase of experience because she does not write it out at length to her +various aunts and correspondents. Miss Edgeworth was not a sentimental +person. She was warmly devoted to her own family, and she seems to have +had a strong idea of her own want of beauty; perhaps her admiration for +her lovely young sisters may have caused this feeling to be exaggerated +by her. But no romantic, lovely heroine could have inspired a deeper or +more touching admiration than this one which M. Edelcrantz felt for his +English friend; the mild and superior Swede seems to have been +thoroughly in earnest. + +So indeed was Miss Edgeworth, but she was not carried away by the +natural impulse of the moment. She realised the many difficulties and +dangers of the unknown; she looked to the future; she turned to her own +home, and with an affection all the more felt because of the trial +to which it was now exposed. The many lessons of self-control and +self-restraint which she had learnt returned with instinctive force. +Sometimes it happens that people miss what is perhaps the best for +the sake of the next best, and we see convenience and old habit and +expediency, and a hundred small and insignificant circumstances, +gathering like some avalanche to divide hearts that might give and +receive very much from each. But sentiment is not the only thing in +life. Other duties, ties, and realities there are; and it is difficult +to judge for others in such matters. Sincerity of heart and truth to +themselves are pretty sure in the end to lead people in the right +direction for their own and for other people's happiness. Only, in the +experience of many women there is the danger that fixed ideas, and other +people's opinion, and the force of custom may limit lives which might +have been complete in greater things, though perhaps less perfect in the +lesser. People in the abstract are sincere enough in wishing fulness of +experience and of happiness to those dearest and nearest to them; but we +are only human beings, and when the time comes and the horrible necessity +for parting approaches, our courage goes, our hearts fail, and we think +we are preaching reason and good sense while it is only a most natural +instinct which leads us to cling to that to which we are used and to +those we love. + +Mr. Edgeworth did not attempt to influence Maria. Mrs. Edgeworth +evidently had some misgivings, and certainly much sympathy for the +Chevalier and for her friend and stepdaughter. She says:-- + + Maria was mistaken as to her own feelings. She refused M. + Edelcrantz, but she felt much more for him than esteem and + admiration; she was extremely in love with him. Mr. Edgeworth left + her to decide for herself; but she saw too plainly what it would + be to us to lose her and what she would feel at parting with us. + She decided rightly for her own future happiness and for that of + her family, but she suffered much at the time and long afterwards. + While we were at Paris I remember that in a shop, where Charlotte + and I were making purchases, Maria sat apart absorbed in thought, + and so deep in reverie that when her father came in and stood + opposite to her she did not see him till he spoke to her, when she + started and burst into tears.... I do not think she repented of + her refusal or regretted her decision. She was well aware that she + could not have made M. Edelcrantz happy, that she would not have + suited his position at the Court of Stockholm, and that her want + of beauty might have diminished his attachment. It was perhaps + better she should think so, for it calmed her mind; but from what + I saw of M. Edelcrantz I think he was a man capable of really + valuing her. I believe he was much attached to her, and deeply + mortified at her refusal. He continued to reside in Sweden after + the abdication of his master, and was always distinguished for his + high character and great abilities. He never married. He was, + except for his very fine eyes, remarkably plain. + +So ends the romance of the romancer. There are, however, many +happinesses in life, as there are many troubles. + +Mrs. Edgeworth tells us that after her stepdaughter's return to +Edgeworthtown she occupied herself with various literary works, +correcting some of her former MSS. for the press, and writing 'Madame de +Fleury,' 'Emilie de Coulanges,' and 'Leonora.' But the high-flown and +romantic style did suit her gift, and she wrote best when her genuine +interest and unaffected glances shone with bright understanding sympathy +upon her immediate surroundings. When we are told that 'Leonora' was +written in the style the Chevalier Edelcrantz preferred, and that the +idea of what he would think of it was present to Maria in every page, we +begin to realise that for us at all events it was a most fortunate thing +that she decided as she did. It would have been a loss indeed to the +world if this kindling and delightful spirit of hers had been choked by +the polite thorns, fictions, and platitudes of an artificial, courtly +life and by the well-ordered narrowness of a limited standard. She never +heard what the Chevalier thought of the book; she never knew that he +ever read it even. It is a satisfaction to hear that he married no one +else, and while she sat writing and not forgetting in the pleasant +library at home, one can imagine the romantic Chevalier in his distant +Court faithful to the sudden and romantic devotion by which he is now +remembered. Romantic and chivalrous friendship seems to belong to his +country and to his countrymen. + + +IX. + +There are one or two other episodes less sentimental than this one +recorded of this visit to Paris, not the least interesting of these +being the account given of a call upon Madame de Genlis. The younger +author from her own standpoint having resolutely turned away from the +voice of the charmer for the sake of that which she is convinced to be +duty and good sense, now somewhat sternly takes the measure of her elder +sister, who has failed in the struggle, who is alone and friendless, and +who has made her fate. + +The story is too long to quote at full length. An isolated page without +its setting loses very much; the previous description of the darkness +and uncertainty through which Maria and her father go wandering, and +asking their way in vain, adds immensely to the sense of the gloom and +isolation which are hiding the close of a long and brilliant career. At +last, after wandering for a long time seeking for Madame de Genlis, the +travellers compel a reluctant porter to show them the staircase in the +Arsenal, where she is living, and to point out the door before he goes +off with the light. + +They wait in darkness. The account of what happens when the door is +opened is so interesting that I cannot refrain from quoting it at +length:-- + + After ringing the bell we presently heard doors open and little + footsteps approaching nigh. The door was opened by a girl of about + Honora's size, holding an ill set-up, wavering candle in her hand, + the light of which fell full upon her face and figure. Her face + was remarkably intelligent--dark sparkling eyes, dark hair curled + in the most fashionable long corkscrew ringlets over her eyes and + cheeks. She parted the ringlets to take a full view of us. The + dress of her figure by no means suited the head and elegance of + her attitude. What her nether weeds might be we could not + distinctly see, but they seemed a coarse short petticoat like what + Molly Bristow's children would wear. After surveying us and + hearing our name was Edgeworth she smiled graciously and bid us + follow her, saying, 'Maman est chez elle.' She led the way with + the grace of a young lady who has been taught to dance across two + ante-chambers, miserable-looking; but, miserable or not, no home + in Paris can be without them. The girl, or young lady, for we were + still in doubt which to think her, led into a small room in which + the candles were so well screened by a green tin screen that we + could scarcely distinguish the tall form of a lady in black who + rose from her chair by the fireside; as the door opened a great + puff of smoke came from the huge fireplace at the same moment. She + came forward, and we made our way towards her as well as we could + through a confusion of tables, chairs, and work-baskets, china, + writing-desks and inkstands, and birdcages, and a harp. She did + not speak, and as her back was now turned to both fire and candle + I could not see her face or anything but the outline of her form + and her attitude. Her form was the remains of a fine form, her + attitude that of a woman used to a better drawing-room. + + I being foremost, and she silent, was compelled to speak to the + figure in darkness. 'Madame de Genlis nous a fait l'honneur de + nous mander qu'elle voulait bien nous permettre de lui rendre + visite,' said I, or words to that effect, to which she replied by + taking my hand and saying something in which 'charmée' was the + most intelligible word. While she spoke she looked over my + shoulder at my father, whose bow, I presume, told her he was a + gentleman, for she spoke to him immediately as if she wished to + please and seated us in _fauteuils_ near the fire. + + I then had a full view of her face--figure very thin and + melancholy dark eyes, long sallow cheeks, compressed thin lips, + two or three black ringlets on a high forehead, a cap that Mrs. + Grier might wear--altogether in appearance of fallen fortunes, + worn-out health, and excessive but guarded irritability. To me + there was nothing of that engaging, captivating manner which I had + been taught to expect. She seemed to me to be alive only to + literary quarrels and jealousies. The muscles of her face as she + spoke, or as my father spoke to her, quickly and too easily + expressed hatred and anger.... She is now, you know, _dévote + acharnée_.... Madame de Genlis seems to have been so much used to + being attacked that she has defence and apologies ready prepared. + She spoke of Madame de Staël's 'Delphine' with detestation.... + Forgive me, my dear Aunt Mary; you begged me to see her with + favourable eyes, and I went, after seeing her 'Rosière de + Salency,' with the most favourable disposition, but I could not + like her.... And from time to time I saw, or thought I saw, + through the gloom of her countenance a gleam of coquetry. But my + father judges of her much more favourably than I do. She evidently + took pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person + over whose mind he could gain great ascendency. + +The 'young and gay philosopher' at fifty is not unchanged since we knew +him first. Maria adds a postscript: + + I had almost forgotten to tell you that the little girl who showed + us in is a girl whom she is educating. 'Elle m'appelle maman, mais + elle n'est pas ma fille.' The manner in which this little girl + spoke to Madame de Genlis and looked at her appeared to me more in + her favour than anything else. I went to look at what the child + was writing; she was translating Darwin's _Zoonomia_. + +Every description one reads by Miss Edgeworth of actual things and +people makes one wish that she had written more of them. This one is the +more interesting from the contrast of the two women, both so remarkable +and coming to so different a result in their experience of life. + +This eventful visit to Paris is brought to an eventful termination by +several gendarmes, who appear early one morning in Mr. Edgeworth's +bedroom with orders that he is to get up and to leave Paris immediately. +Mr. Edgeworth had been accused of being brother to the Abbé de Fermont. +When the mitigated circumstances of his being only a first cousin were +put forward by Lord Whitworth, the English Ambassador, the Edgeworths +received permission to return from the suburb to which they had retired; +but private news hurried their departure, and they were only in time to +escape the general blockade and detention of English prisoners. After +little more than a year of peace, once more war was declared on May 20, +1803. Lovell, the eldest son, who was absent at the time and travelling +from Switzerland, was not able to escape in time; nor for twelve years +to come was the young man able to return to his own home and family. + + +X. + +'Belinda,' 'Castle Rackrent,' the 'Parents' Assistant,' the 'Essays on +Practical Education,' had all made their mark. The new series of popular +tales was also welcomed. There were other books on the way; Miss Edgeworth +had several MSS. in hand in various stages, stories to correct for the +press. There was also a long novel, first begun by her father and taken +up and carried on by her. The 'Essays on Practical Education,' which +were first published in 1798, continued to be read. M. Pictet had +translated the book into French the year before; a third edition was +published some ten years later, in 1811, in the preface of which the +authors say, 'It is due to the public to state that twelve years' +additional experience in a numerous family, and careful attention to the +results of other modes of education, have given the authors no reason to +retract what they have advanced in these volumes.' + +In Mr. Edgeworth's Memoirs, however, his daughter states that he +modified his opinions in one or two particulars; allowing more and +more liberty to the children, and at the same time conceding greater +importance to the habit of early though mechanical efforts of memory. +The essays seem in every way in advance of their time; many of the hints +contained in them most certainly apply to the little children of to-day +no less than to their small grandparents. A lady whose own name is high +in the annals of education was telling me that she had been greatly +struck by the resemblance between the Edgeworth system and that of +Froebel's Kindergarten method, which is now gaining more and more ground +in people's estimation, the object of both being not so much to cram +instruction into early youth as to draw out each child's powers of +observation and attention. + +The first series of tales of fashionable life came out in 1809, and +contained among other stories 'Ennui,' one of the most remarkable of +Miss Edgeworth's works. The second series included the 'Absentee,' that +delightful story of which the lesson should be impressed upon us even +more than in the year 1812. The 'Absentee' was at first only an episode +in the longer novel of 'Patronage;' but the public was impatient, so +were the publishers, and fortunately for every one the 'Absentee' was +printed as a separate tale. + +'Patronage' had been begun by Mr. Edgeworth to amuse his wife, who was +recovering from illness; it was originally called the 'Fortunes of the +Freeman Family,' and it is a history with a moral. Morals were more +in fashion then than they are now, but this one is obvious without +any commentary upon it. It is tolerably certain that clever, industrious, +well-conducted people will succeed, where idle, scheming, and untrustworthy +persons will eventually fail to get on, even with powerful friends to +back them. But the novel has yet to be written that will prove that, +where merits are more equal, a little patronage is not of a great deal +of use, or that people's positions in life are exactly proportioned to +their merit. Mrs. Barbauld's pretty essay on the 'Inconsistency of Human +Expectations' contains the best possible answer to the problem of what +people's deserts should be. Let us hope that personal advancement is +only one of the many things people try for in life, and that there are +other prizes as well worth having. Miss Edgeworth herself somewhere +speaks with warm admiration of this very essay. Of the novel itself she +says (writing to Mrs. Barbauld), 'It is so vast a subject that it +flounders about in my hands and quite overpowers me.' + +It is in this same letter that Miss Edgeworth mentions another +circumstance which interested her at this time, and which was one of +those events occurring now and again which do equal credit to all +concerned. + + I have written a preface and notes [she says]--for I too would be + an editor--for a little book which a very worthy countrywoman of + mine is going to publish: Mrs. Leadbeater, granddaughter to + Burke's first preceptor. She is poor. She has behaved most + handsomely about some letters of Burke's to her grandfather and + herself. It would have been advantageous to her to publish them; + but, as Mrs. Burke[2]--Heaven knows why--objected, she desisted. + +Mrs. Leadbeater was an Irish Quaker lady whose simple and spirited +annals of Ballitore delighted Carlyle in his later days, and whose +'Cottage Dialogues' greatly struck Mr. Edgeworth at the time; and the +kind Edgeworths, finding her quite unused to public transactions, +exerted themselves in every way to help her. Mr. Edgeworth took the +MSS. out of the hands of an Irish publisher, and, says Maria, 'our +excellent friend's worthy successor in St. Paul's Churchyard has, on +our recommendation, agreed to publish it for her.' Mr. Edgeworth's own +letter to Mrs. Leadbeater gives the history of his good-natured offices +and their satisfactory results. + + Footnote 2: Mrs. Burke, hearing more of the circumstances, afterwards + sent permission; but Mrs. Leadbeater being a Quakeress, and having once + _promised_ not to publish, could not take it upon herself to break her + covenant. + + From R. L. Edgeworth, July 5, 1810. + + Miss Edgeworth desires me as a man of business to write to Mrs. + Leadbeater relative to the publication of 'Cottage Dialogues.' + Miss Edgeworth has written an advertisement, and will, with Mrs. + Leadbeater's permission, write notes for an English edition. The + scheme which I propose is of two parts--to sell the English + copyright to the house of Johnson in London, where we dispose of + our own works, and to publish a very large and cheap edition for + Ireland for schools.... I can probably introduce the book into + many places. Our family takes 300 copies, Lady Longford 50, Dr. + Beaufort 20, &c.... I think Johnson & Co. will give 50_l._ for the + English copyright. + +After the transaction Mr. Edgeworth wrote to the publishers as +follows:-- + + May 31, 1811: Edgeworthtown. + My sixty-eighth birthday. + + My dear Gentlemen,--I have just heard your letter to Mrs. + Leadbeater read by one who dropped tears of pleasure from a sense + of your generous and handsome conduct. I take great pleasure in + speaking of you to the rest of the world as you deserve, and I + cannot refrain from expressing to yourselves the genuine esteem + that I feel for you. I know that this direct praise is scarcely + allowable, but my advanced age and my close connection with you + must be my excuse.--Yours sincerely, + R. L. E. + +Tears seem equivalent to something more than the estimated value of Mrs. +Leadbeater's labours. The charming and well-known Mrs. Trench who was +also Mary Leadbeater's friend, writes warmly praising the notes. 'Miss +Edgeworth's notes on your Dialogues have as much spirit and originality +as if she had never before explored the mine which many thought she had +exhausted.' + +All these are pleasant specimens of the Edgeworth correspondence, which, +however (following the course of most correspondence), does not seem to +have been always equally agreeable. There are some letters (among others +which I have been allowed to see) written by Maria about this time to an +unfortunate young man who seems to have annoyed her greatly by his +excited importunities. + + I thank you [she says] for your friendly zeal in defence of my + powers of pathos and sublimity; but I think it carries you much + too far when it leads you to imagine that I refrain, from + principle or virtue, from displaying powers that I really do not + possess. I assure you that I am not in the least capable of + writing a dithyrambic ode, or any other kind of ode. + + +One is reminded by this suggestion of Jane Austen also declining to +write 'an historical novel illustrative of the august House of Coburg.' + +The young man himself seems to have had some wild aspirations after +authorship, but to have feared criticism. + + The advantage of the art of printing [says his friendly Minerva] + is that the mistakes of individuals in reasoning and writing will + be corrected in time by the public, so that the cause of truth + cannot suffer; and I presume you are too much of a philosopher to + mind the trifling mortification that the detection of a mistake + might occasion. You know that some sensible person has observed + that acknowledging a mistake is saying, only in other words, that + we are wiser to-day than we were yesterday. + +He seems at last to have passed the bounds of reasonable correspondence, +and she writes as follows:-- + + Your last letter, dated in June, was many months before it reached + me. In answer to all your reproaches at my silence I can only + assure you that it was not caused by any change in my opinions or + good wishes; but I do not carry on what is called a regular + correspondence with anybody except with one or two of my very + nearest relations; and it is best to tell the plain truth that my + father particularly dislikes my writing letters, so I write as few + as I possibly can. + + +XI. + +While Maria Edgeworth was at work in her Irish home, successfully +producing her admirable delineations, another woman, born some eight +years later, and living in the quiet Hampshire village where the elm +trees spread so greenly, was also at work, also writing books that +were destined to influence many a generation, but which were meanwhile +waiting unknown, unnoticed. Do we not all know the story of the brown +paper parcel lying unopened for years on the publisher's shelf and +containing Henry Tilney and all his capes, Catherine Morland and all +her romance, and the great John Thorpe himself, uttering those valuable +literary criticisms which Lord Macaulay, writing to his little sisters +at home, used to quote to them? 'Oh, Lord!' says John Thorpe, 'I never +read novels; I have other things to do.' + +A friend reminds us of Miss Austen's own indignant outburst. 'Only a +novel! only "Cecilia," or "Camilla," or "Belinda;" or, in short, only +some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, the +most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its +varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to +the world in the best-chosen language.' If the great historian, who +loved novels himself, had not assured us that we owe Miss Austen and +Miss Edgeworth to the early influence of the author of 'Evelina,' one +might grudge 'Belinda' to such company as that of 'Cecilia' and +'Camilla.' + +'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published about the +same time as 'Patronage' and 'Tales of Fashionable Life.' Their two +authors illustrate, curiously enough, the difference between the national +characteristics of English and Irish--the breadth, the versatility, the +innate wit and gaiety of an Irish mind; the comparative narrowness of +range of an English nature; where, however, we are more likely to get +humour and its never-failing charm. Long afterwards Jane Austen sent one +of her novels to Miss Edgeworth, who appreciated it indeed, as such a +mind as hers could not fail to do, but it was with no such enthusiasm +as that which she felt for other more ambitious works, with more of +incident, power, knowledge of the world, in the place of that one subtle +quality of humour which for some persons outweighs almost every other. +Something, some indefinite sentiment, tells people where they amalgamate +and with whom they are intellectually akin; and by some such process of +criticism the writer feels that in this little memoir of Miss Edgeworth +she has but sketched the outer likeness of this remarkable woman's life +and genius; and that she has scarcely done justice to very much in Miss +Edgeworth, which so many of the foremost men of her day could +appreciate--a power, a versatility, an interest in subjects for their +own sakes, not for the sakes of those who are interested in them, which +was essentially hers. + +It is always characteristic to watch a writer's progress in the +estimation of critics and reviewers. In 1809 Miss Edgeworth is +moderately and respectfully noticed. 'As a writer of novels and tales +she has a marked peculiarity, that of venturing to dispense common sense +to her readers and to bring them within the precincts of real life. +Without excluding love from her pages she knows how to assign to it its +true limits.' In 1812 the reviewer, more used to hear the author's +praises on all sides, now starts from a higher key, and, as far as truth +to nature and delineation of character are concerned, does not allow a +rival except 'Don Quixote' and 'Gil Blas.' The following criticism is +just and more to the point:-- + + To this power of masterly and minute delineation of character Miss + Edgeworth adds another which has rarely been combined with the + former, that of interweaving the peculiarities of her persons with + the conduct of her piece, and making them, without forgetting + for a moment their personal consistency, conduce to the general + lesson.... Her virtue and vice, though copied exactly from nature, + lead with perfect ease to a moral conclusion, and are finally + punished or rewarded by means which (rare as a retribution in this + world is) appear for the most part neither inconsistent nor + unnatural. + +Then follows a review of 'Vivian' and of the 'Absentee,' which is +perhaps the most admirable of her works. We may all remember how +Macaulay once pronounced that the scene in the 'Absentee' where Lord +Colambre discovers himself to his tenantry was the best thing of the +sort since the opening of the twenty-second book of the 'Odyssey.' + +An article by Lord Dudley, which is still to be quoted, appeared in the +'Quarterly Review' in 1814. What he says of her works applies no less to +Miss Edgeworth's own life than to the principles which she inculcates. + + The old rule was for heroes and heroines to fall suddenly and + irretrievably in love. If they fell in love with the right person + so much the better; if not, it could not be helped, and the novel + ended unhappily. And, above all, it was held quite irregular for + the most reasonable people to make any use whatever of their + reason on the most important occasion of their lives. Miss + Edgeworth has presumed to treat this mighty power with far less + reverence. She has analysed it and found it does not consist of + one simple element, but that several common ingredients enter into + its composition--habit, esteem, a belief of some corresponding + sentiment and of suitableness in the character and circumstances + of the party. She has pronounced that reason, timely and vigorously + applied, is almost a specific, and, following up this bold empirical + line of practice, she has actually produced cases of the entire + cure of persons who had laboured under its operation. Her favourite + qualities are prudence, firmness, temper, and that active, vigilant + good sense which, without checking the course of our kind + affections, exercises its influence at every moment and surveys + deliberately the motives and consequences of every action. Utility + is her object, reason and experience her means. + + +XII. + +This review of Lord Dudley's must have come out after a visit from the +Edgeworth family to London in 1813, which seems to have been a most +brilliant and amusing campaign. 'I know the homage that was paid you,' +wrote Mrs. Barbauld, speaking of the event, 'and I exulted in it for +your sake and for my sex's sake.' Miss Edgeworth was at the height of +her popularity, in good spirits and good health. Mr. Edgeworth was +seventy, but he looked years younger, and was still in undiminished +health and vigour. The party was welcomed, fêted, sought after +everywhere. Except that they miss seeing Madame d'Arblay and leave +London before the arrival of Madame de Staël, they seem to have come in +for everything that was brilliant, fashionable, and entertaining. They +breakfast with poets, they sup with marquises, they call upon duchesses +and scientific men. Maria's old friend the Duchess of Wellington is not +less her friend than she was in County Longford. Every one likes them +and comes knocking at their lodging-house door, while Maria upstairs is +writing a letter, standing at a chest of drawers. 'Miss Edgeworth is +delightful,' says Tom Moore, 'not from display, but from repose and +unaffectedness, the least pretending person.' Even Lord Byron writes +warmly of the authoress whose company is so grateful, and who goes her +simple, pleasant way cheerful and bringing kind cheer, and making +friends with the children as well as with the elders. Many of these +children in their lives fully justified her interest, children whom we +in turn have known and looked up to as distinguished greyheaded men. + +Some one asked Miss Edgeworth how she came to understand children as she +did, what charm she used to win them. 'I don't know,' she said kindly; +'I lie down and let them crawl over me.' She was greatly pleased on one +occasion when at a crowded party a little girl suddenly started forth, +looked at her hard, and said, 'I like simple Susan best,' and rushed +away overwhelmed at her own audacity. The same lady who was present on +this occasion asked her a question which we must all be grateful to have +solved for us--how it happened that the respective places of Laura and +Rosamond came to be transposed in 'Patronage,' Laura having been the +wiser elder sister in the 'Purple Jar,' and appearing suddenly as the +younger in the novel. Miss Edgeworth laughed and said that Laura had +been so preternaturally wise and thoughtful as a child, she could never +have kept her up to the mark, and so she thought it best to change the +character altogether. + +During one of her visits to London Miss Edgeworth went to dine at the +house of Mr. Marshall; and his daughter, Lady Monteagle, tells a little +story which gives an impression, and a kind one, of the celebrated +guest. Everything had been prepared in her honour, the lights lighted, +the viands were cooked. Dinner was announced, and some important person +was brought forward to hand Miss Edgeworth down, when it was discovered +that she had vanished. For a moment the company and the dinner were all +at a standstill. She was a small person, but diligent search was made. +Miss Edgeworth had last been seen with the children of the house, and +she was eventually found in the back kitchen, escorted by the said +children, who, having confided their private affairs to her sympathetic +ear, had finally invited her to come with them and see some rabbits +which they were rearing down below. A lady who used to live at Clifton +as a little girl, and to be sometimes prescribed for by Dr. King, was +once brought up as a child to Miss Edgeworth, and she told me how very +much puzzled she felt when the bright old lady, taking her by the +hand, said, 'Well, my dear, how do you do, and how is my excellent +brother-in-law?' One can imagine what a vague sort of being an +'excellent brother-in-law' would seem to a very young child. + +We read in Miss Edgeworth's memoir of her father that Mr. Edgeworth +recovered from his serious illness in 1814 to enjoy a few more years of +life among his friends, his children, and his experiments. His good +humour and good spirits were undiminished, and he used to quote an old +friend's praise of 'the privileges and convenience of old age.' He was +past seventy, but he seems to have continued his own education to the +end of life. 'Without affecting to be young, he exerted himself to +prevent any of his faculties from sinking into the indolent state which +portends their decay,' and his daughter says that he went on learning to +the last, correcting his faults and practising his memory by various +devices, so that it even improved with age. + +In one of his last letters to Mrs. Beaufort, his wife's mother, he +speaks with no little paternal pleasure of his home and his children: +'Such excellent principles, such just views of human life and manners, +such cultivated understandings, such charming tempers make a little +Paradise about me;' while with regard to his daughter's works he adds +concerning the book which was about to appear, 'If Maria's tales fail +with the public, you will hear of my hanging myself.' + +Mr. Edgeworth died in the summer of 1817, at home, surrounded by his +family, grateful, as he says, to Providence for allowing his body to +perish before his mind. + + During the melancholy months which succeeded her father's death + Maria hardly wrote any letters; her sight was in a most alarming + state. The tears, she said, felt in her eyes like the cutting of a + knife. She had overworked them all the previous winter, sitting up + at night and struggling with her grief as she wrote 'Ormond.' She + was now unable to use them without pain.... Edgeworthtown now + belonged to Lovell, the eldest surviving brother, but he wished it + to continue the home of the family. Maria set to work to complete + her father's memoirs and to fulfil his last wish. + +It was not without great hesitation and anxiety that she determined to +finish writing her father's Life. There is a touching appeal in a letter +to her aunt Ruxton. 'I felt the happiness of my life was at stake. +Even if all the rest of the world had praised it and you had been +dissatisfied, how miserable should I have been!' And there is another +sentence written at Bowood, very sad and full of remembrance: 'I feel as +if I had lived a hundred years and was left alive after everybody else.' +The book came out, and many things were said about it, not all praise. +The 'Quarterly' was so spiteful and intolerant that it seemed almost +personal in its violence. It certainly would have been a great loss to +the world had this curious and interesting memoir never been published, +but at the time the absence of certain phrases and expressions of +opinions which Mr. Edgeworth had never specially professed seemed +greatly to offend the reviewers. + +The worst of these attacks Miss Edgeworth never read, and the task +finished, the sad months over, the poor eyes recovered, she crossed to +England. + + +XIII. + +One is glad to hear of her away and at Bowood reviving in good company, +in all senses of the word. Her old friend Lord Henry Petty, now Lord +Lansdowne, was still her friend and full of kindness. Outside the house +spread a green deer-park to rest her tired eyes, within were pleasant +and delightful companions to cheer her soul. Sir Samuel Romilly was +there, of whom she speaks with affectionate admiration, as she does of +her kind host and hostess. 'I much enjoy the sight of Lady Lansdowne's +happiness with her husband and her children. Beauty, fortune, cultivated +society all united--in short, everything that the most reasonable or +unreasonable could wish. She is so amiable and desirous to make others +happy.' + +Miss Edgeworth's power of making other people see things as she does +is very remarkable in all these letters; with a little imagination one +could almost feel as if one might be able to travel back into the +pleasant society in which she lived. When she goes abroad soon after +with her two younger sisters (Fanny, the baby whose head so nearly came +off in her arms, and Harriet, who have both grown up by this time +to be pretty and elegant young ladies), the sisters are made welcome +everywhere. In Paris, as in London, troops of acquaintance came forward +to receive 'Madame Maria et mesdemoiselles ses soeurs,' as they used +to be announced. Most of their old friends were there still; only the +children had grown up and were now new friends to be greeted. It is a +confusion of names in visionary succession, comprising English people no +less than French. Miss Edgeworth notes it all with a sure hand and true +pen; it is as one of the sketch-books of a great painter, where whole +pictures are indicated in a few just lines. Here is a peep at the +Abbaye aux Bois in 1820:-- + + We went to Madame Récamier in her convent, l'Abbaye aux Bois, up + seventy-eight steps. All came in with asthma. Elegant room; she as + elegant as ever. Matthieu de Montmorenci, the ex-Queen of Sweden, + Madame de Boigne, a charming woman, and Madame la Maréchale + de ----, a battered beauty, smelling of garlic and screeching in + vain to pass as a wit.... Madame Récamier has no more taken the + veil than I have, and is as little likely to do it. She is quite + beautiful; she dresses herself and her little room with elegant + simplicity, and lives in a convent only because it is cheap and + respectable. + +One sees it all, the convent, the company, the last refrain of former +triumphs, the faithful romantic Matthieu de Montmorenci, and above all +the poor Maréchale, who will screech for ever in her garlic. Let us turn +the page, we find another picture from these not long past days:-- + + Breakfast at Camille Jordan's; it was half-past twelve before the + company assembled, and we had an hour's delightful conversation + with Camille Jordan and his wife in her spotless white muslin and + little cap, sitting at her husband's feet as he lay on the sofa; + as clean, as nice, as fresh, as thoughtless of herself as my + mother. At this breakfast we saw three of the most distinguished + of that party who call themselves 'les Doctrinaires' and say they + are more attached to measures than to men. + +Here is another portrait of a portrait and its painter:-- + + Princess Potemkin is a Russian, but she has all the grace, + softness, winning manner of the Polish ladies. Oval face, pale, + with the finest, softest, most expressive chestnut dark eyes. She + has a sort of politeness which pleases peculiarly, a mixture of + the ease of high rank and early habit with something that is + sentimental without affectation. Madame le Brun is painting her + picture. Madame le Brun is sixty-six, with great vivacity as well + as genius, and better worth seeing than her pictures, for though + they are speaking she speaks. + +Another visit the sisters paid, which will interest the readers of +Madame de la Rochejaquelin's memoirs of the war in the Vendée:-- + +In a small bedroom, well furnished, with a fire just lighted, we found +Madame de la Rochejaquelin on the sofa; her two daughters at work, one +spinning with a distaff, the other embroidering muslin. Madame is a fat +woman with a broad, round, fair face and a most benevolent expression, +her hair cut short and perfectly grey as seen under her cap; the rest of +the face much too young for such grey locks; and though her face and +bundled form all squashed on to a sofa did not at first promise much of +gentility, you could not hear her speak or hear her for three minutes +without perceiving that she was well-born and well-bred. + +Madame de la Rochejaquelin seems to have confided in Miss Edgeworth. + + 'I am always sorry when any stranger sees me, _parce que je sais + que je détruis toute illusion. Je sais que je devrais avoir l'air + d'une héroïne._' She is much better than a heroine; she is + benevolence and truth itself. + +We must not forget the scientific world where Madame Maria was no less +at home than in fashionable literary cliques. The sisters saw something +of Cuvier at Paris; in Switzerland they travelled with the Aragos. They +were on their way to the Marcets at Geneva when they stopped at Coppet, +where Miss Edgeworth was always specially happy in the society of Madame +Auguste de Staël and Madame de Broglie. But Switzerland is not one +of the places where human beings only are in the ascendant; other +influences there are almost stronger than human ones. 'I did not +conceive it possible that I should feel so much pleasure from the +beauties of nature as I have done since I came to this country. The +first moment when I saw Mont Blanc will remain an era in my life--a +new idea, a new feeling standing alone in the mind.' Miss Edgeworth +presently comes down from her mountain heights and, full of interest, +throws herself into the talk of her friends at Coppet and Geneva, from +which she quotes as it occurs to her. Here is Rocca's indignant speech +to Lord Byron, who was abusing the stupidity of the Genevese. 'Eh! +milord, pourquoi venir vous fourrer parmi ces honnêtes gens?' There is +Arago's curious anecdote of Napoleon, who sent for him after the battle +of Waterloo, offering him a large sum of money to accompany him to +America. The Emperor had formed a project for founding a scientific +colony in the New World. Arago was so indignant with him for abandoning +his troops that he would have nothing to say to the plan. A far more +touching story is Dr. Marcet's account of Josephine. 'Poor Josephine! Do +you remember Dr. Marcet's telling us that when he breakfasted with her +she said, pointing to her flowers, "These are my subjects. I try to make +them happy"?' + +Among other expeditions they made a pilgrimage to the home of the +author of a work for which Miss Edgeworth seems to have entertained a +mysterious enthusiasm. The novel was called 'Caroline de Lichfield,' and +was so much admired at the time that Miss Seward mentions a gentleman +who wrote from abroad to propose for the hand of the authoress, and who, +more fortunate than the poor Chevalier Edelcrantz, was not refused by +the lady. Perhaps some similarity of experience may have led Maria +Edgeworth to wish for her acquaintance. Happily the time was past for +Miss Edgeworth to look back; her life was now shaped and moulded in +its own groove; the consideration, the variety, the difficulties of +unmarried life were hers, its agreeable change, its monotony of feeling +and of unselfish happiness, compared with the necessary regularity, the +more personal felicity, the less liberal interests of the married. Her +life seems to have been full to overflowing of practical occupation +and consideration for others. What changing scenes and colours, what a +number of voices, what a crowd of outstretched hands, what interesting +processions of people pass across her path! There is something of her +father's optimism and simplicity of nature in her unceasing brightness +and activity, in her resolutions to improve as time goes on. Her young +brothers and sisters grow to be men and women; with her sisters' +marriages new interests touch her warm heart. Between her and the +brothers of the younger generation who did not turn to her as a sort +of mother there may have been too great a difference of age for that +companionship to continue which often exists between a child and a +grown-up person. So at least one is led to believe was the case as +regards one of them, mentioned in a memoir which has recently appeared. +But to her sisters she could be friend, protector, chaperon, sympathising +companion, and elder sister to the end of her days. We hear of them all +at Bowood again on their way back to Ireland, and then we find them all +at home settling down to the old life, 'Maria reading Sévigné,' of whom +she never tires. + + +XIV. + +One of the prettiest and most sympathetic incidents in Maria Edgeworth's +life was a subsequent expedition to Abbotsford and the pleasure she gave +to its master. They first met in Edinburgh, and her short account +conjures up the whole scene before us:-- + + Ten o'clock struck as I read this note. We were tired, we were not + fit to be seen, but I thought it right to accept Walter Scott's + cordial invitation, sent for a hackney coach, and just as we were, + without dressing, we went. As the coach stopped we saw the hall + lighted, and the moment the door opened heard the joyous sounds + of loud singing. Three servants' 'The Miss Edgeworths!' sounded + from hall to landing-place, and as I paused for a moment in the + anteroom I heard the first sound of Walter Scott's voice--'The + Miss Edgeworths _come_!' The room was lighted by only one globe + lamp; a circle were singing loud and beating time: all stopped in + an instant. + +Is not this picture complete? Scott himself she describes as 'full of +genius without the slightest effort at expression, delightfully natural, +more lame but not so unwieldy as she expected.' Lady Scott she goes on +to sketch in some half-dozen words--'French, large dark eyes, civil and +good-natured.' + + When we wakened the next morning the whole scene of the preceding + night seemed like a dream [she continues]; however at twelve came + the real Lady Scott, and we called for Scott at the Parliament + House, who came out of the Courts with joyous face, as if he had + nothing on earth to do or to think of but to show us Edinburgh. + +In her quick, discriminating way she looks round and notes them all one +by one. + + Mr. Lockhart is reserved and silent, but he appears to have much + sensibility under this reserve. Mrs. Lockhart is very pleasing--a + slight, elegant figure and graceful simplicity of manner, perfectly + natural. There is something most winning in her affectionate manner + to her father. He dotes upon her. + +A serious illness intervened for poor Maria before she and her devoted +young nurses could reach Abbotsford itself. There she began to recover, +and Lady Scott watched over her and prescribed for her with the most +tender care and kindness. 'Lady Scott felt the attention and respect +Maria showed to her, perceiving that she valued her and treated her as a +friend,' says Mrs. Edgeworth; 'not, as too many of Sir Walter's guests +did, with neglect.' This is Miss Edgeworth's description of the +Abbotsford family life:-- + + It is quite delightful to see Scott and his family in the country; + breakfast, dinner, supper, the same flow of kindness, fondness, + and genius, far, far surpassing his works, his letters, and all my + hopes and imagination. His Castle of Abbotsford is magnificent, + but I forget it in thinking of him. + +The return visit, when Scotland visited Ireland, was no less successful. +Mrs. Edgeworth writes:-- + +Maria and my daughter Harriet accompanied Sir Walter and Miss Scott, Mr. +Lockhart, and Captain and Mrs. Scott to Killarney. They travelled in an +open calèche of Sir Walter's.... + +Sir Walter was, like Maria, never put out by discomforts on a journey, +but always ready to make the best of everything and to find amusement in +every incident. He was delighted with Maria's eagerness for everybody's +comfort, and diverted himself with her admiration of a green +baize-covered door at the inn at Killarney. 'Miss Edgeworth, you are so +mightily pleased with that door, I think you will carry it away with you +to Edgeworthtown.' + +Miss Edgeworth's friendships were certainly very remarkable, and comprise +almost all the interesting people of her day in France as well as in +England.[3] She was liked, trusted, surrounded, and she appears to have +had the art of winning to her all the great men. We know the Duke of +Wellington addressed verses to her; there are pleasant intimations of +her acquaintance with Sir James Mackintosh, Romilly, Moore, and Rogers, +and that most delightful of human beings, Sydney Smith, whom she +thoroughly appreciated and admired. Describing her brother Frank, she +says, somewhere, 'I am much inclined to think that he has a natural +genius for happiness; in other words, as Sydney Smith would say, _great +hereditary constitutional joy_.' 'To attempt to Boswell Sydney Smith's +conversation would be to outboswell Boswell,' she writes in another +letter home; but in Lady Holland's memoir of her father there is a +pleasant little account of Miss Edgeworth herself, 'delightful, clever, +and sensible,' listening to Sydney Smith. She seems to have gone the +round of his parish with him while he scolded, doctored, joked his poor +people according to their needs. + + Footnote 3: A touching illustration of her abiding influence is to be + found cited in an article in the _Daily News_ of September 7, 1883, + published as these proofs are going to press, by 'One Who Knew' Ivan + Turguéneff, that great Russian whom we might almost claim if love and + admiration gave one a right to count citizenship with the great men of + our time. An elder brother of his knew Miss Edgeworth, perhaps at + Abbotsford, for he visited Walter Scott there, or at Coppet with Madame + de Staël. This man, wise and cultivated in all European literature, + 'came to the conclusion that Maria Edgeworth had struck on a vein from + which most of the great novelists of the future would exclusively work. + She took the world as she found it, and selected from it the materials + that she thought would be interesting to write about, in a clear and + natural style. It was Ivan Turguéneff himself who told me this, says the + writer of the article, and he modestly said that he was an unconscious + disciple of Miss Edgeworth in setting out on his literary career. He had + not the advantage of knowing English; but as a youth he used to hear his + brother translate to visitors at his country house in the Uralian Hills + passages from _Irish Tales and Sketches_, which he thought superior to + her three-volume novels. Turguéneff also said to me, "It is possible, nay + probable, that if Maria Edgeworth had not written about the poor Irish + of the co. Longford and the squires and squirees, that it would not have + occurred to me to give a literary form to my impressions about the + classes parallel to them in Russia. My brother used, in pointing out the + beauties of her unambitious works, to call attention to their extreme + simplicity and to the distinction with which she treated the simple ones + of the earth."' + +'During her visit she saw much of my father,' says Lady Holland; 'and +her talents as well as her thorough knowledge and love of Ireland made +her conversation peculiarly agreeable to him.' On her side Maria writes +warmly desiring that some Irish bishopric might be forced upon Sydney +Smith, which 'his own sense of natural charity and humanity would forbid +him refuse.... In the twinkling of an eye--such an eye as his--he would +see all our manifold grievances up and down the country. One word, one +_bon mot_ of his, would do more for us, I guess, than ----'s four +hundred pages and all the like with which we have been bored.' + +The two knew how to make good company for one another; the +quiet-Jeanie-Deans body could listen as well as give out. We are told +that it was not so much that she said brilliant things, but that a +general perfume of wit ran through her conversation, and she most +certainly had the gift of appreciating the good things of others. +Whether in that 'scene of simplicity, truth, and nature' a London rout, +or in some quiet Hampstead parlour talking to an old friend, or in her +own home among books and relations and interests of every sort, Miss +Edgeworth seems to have been constantly the same, with presence of mind +and presence of heart too, ready to respond to everything. I think her +warmth of heart shines even brighter than her wit at times. 'I could not +bear the idea that you suspected me of being so weak, so vain, so +senseless,' she once wrote to Mrs. Barbauld, 'as to have my head turned +by a little fashionable flattery.' If her head was not turned it must +have been because her spirit was stout enough to withstand the world's +almost irresistible influence. + +Not only the great men but the women too are among her friends. She +writes prettily of Mrs. Somerville, with her smiling eyes and pink +colour, her soft voice, strong, well-bred Scotch accent, timid, not +disqualifying timid, but naturally modest. 'While her head is among the +stars her feet are firm upon the earth.' She is 'delighted' with a +criticism of Madame de Staël's upon herself, in a letter to M. Dumont. +'Vraiment elle était digne de l'enthousiasme, mais elle se perd dans +votre triste utilité.' It is difficult to understand why this should +have given Miss Edgeworth so much pleasure; and here finally is a little +vision conjured up for us of her meeting with Mrs. Fry among her +prisoners:-- + + Little doors, and thick doors, and doors of all sorts were + unbolted and unlocked, and on we went through dreary but clean + passages till we came to a room where rows of empty benches + fronted us, a table on which lay a large Bible. Several ladies and + gentlemen entered, took their seats on benches at either side of + the table in silence. Enter Mrs. Fry in a drab-coloured silk cloak + and a plain, borderless Quaker cap, a most benevolent countenance, + calm, benign. 'I must make an inquiry. Is Maria Edgeworth here?' + And when I went forward she bade me come and sit beside her. Her + first smile as she looked upon me I can never forget. The + prisoners came in in an orderly manner and ranged themselves upon + the benches. + + +XV. + +'In this my sixtieth year, to commence in a few days,' says Miss +Edgeworth, writing to her cousin Margaret Ruxton, 'I am resolved to make +great progress.' 'Rosamond at sixty,' says Miss Ruxton, touched and +amused. Her resolutions were not idle. + +'The universal difficulties of the money market in the year 1826 were +felt by us,' says Mrs. Edgeworth in her memoir, 'and Maria, who since +her father's death had given up rent-receiving, now resumed it; +undertook the management of her brother Lovell's affairs, which she +conducted with consummate skill and perseverance, and weathered the +storm that swamped so many in this financial crisis.' We also hear of an +opportune windfall in the shape of some valuable diamonds, which an old +lady, a distant relation, left in her will to Miss Edgeworth, who sold +them and built a market-house for Edgeworthtown with the proceeds. + + _April_ 8, 1827.--I am quite well and in high good humour and good + spirits, in consequence of having received the whole of Lovell's + half-year's rents in full, with pleasure to the tenants and without + the least fatigue or anxiety to myself. + +It was about this time her novel of 'Helen' was written, the last of her +books, the only one that her father had not revised. There is a vivid +account given by one of her brothers of the family assembled in the +library to hear the manuscript read out, of their anxiety and their +pleasure as they realised how good it was, how spirited, how well equal +to her standard. Tickner, in his account of Miss Edgeworth, says that +the talk of Lady Davenant in 'Helen' is very like Miss Edgeworth's own +manner. His visit to Edgeworthtown was not long after the publication of +the book. His description, if only for her mention of her father, is +worth quoting:-- + + As we drove to the door Miss Edgeworth came out to meet us, a + small, short, spare body of about sixty-seven, with extremely + frank and kind manners, but who always looks straight into your + face with a pair of mild deep grey eyes whenever she speaks to + you. With characteristic directness she did not take us into the + library until she had told us that we should find there Mrs. + Alison, of Edinburgh, and her aunt, Miss Sneyd, a person very old + and infirm, and that the only other persons constituting the + family were Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Honora Edgeworth, and Dr. Alison, + a physician.... Miss Edgeworth's conversation was always ready, as + full of vivacity and variety as I can imagine.... She was disposed + to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as far as she could. And + in her intercourse with her family she was quite delightful, + referring constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, who seems to be the + authority in all matters of fact, and most kindly repeating + jokes to her infirm aunt, Miss Sneyd, who cannot hear them, + and who seems to have for her the most unbounded affection and + admiration.... About herself as an author she seems to have no + reserve or secrets. She spoke with great kindness and pleasure + of a letter I brought to her from Mr. Peabody, explaining some + passage in his review of 'Helen' which had troubled her from its + allusion to her father. 'But,' she added, 'no one can know what + I owe to my father. He advised and directed me in everything. I + never could have done anything without him. There are things I + cannot be mistaken about, though other people can. I know them.' + As she said this the tears stood in her eyes, and her whole person + was moved.... It was, therefore, something of a trial to talk so + brilliantly and variously as she did from nine in the morning to + past eleven at night. + +She was unfeignedly glad to see good company. Here is her account of +another visitor:-- + + _Sept_. 26.--The day before yesterday we were amusing ourselves by + telling who among literary and scientific people we should wish + to come here next. Francis said Coleridge; I said Herschell. + Yesterday morning, as I was returning from my morning walk at + half-past eight, I saw a bonnetless maid in the walk, with a + letter in her hand, in search of me. When I opened the letter I + found it was from Mr. Herschell, and that he was waiting for an + answer at Mr. Briggs's inn. I have seldom been so agreeably + surprised, and now that he is gone and that he has spent + twenty-four hours here, if the fairy were to ask me the question + again I should still more eagerly say, 'Mr. Herschell, ma'am, if + you please.' + +She still came over to England from time to time, visiting at her +sisters' houses. Honora was now Lady Beaufort; another sister, Fanny, +the object of her closest and most tender affection, was Mrs. Lestock +Wilson. Age brought no change in her mode of life. Time passes with +tranquil steps, for her not hasting unduly. 'I am perfect,' she writes +at the age of seventy-three to her stepmother of seventy-two, 'so no +more about it, and thank you from my heart and every component part of +my precious self for all the care, and successful care, you have taken +of me, your old petted nurseling.' + +Alas! it is sad to realise that quite late in life fresh sorrows fell +upon this warm-hearted woman. Troubles gather; young sisters fade away +in their beauty and happiness. But in sad times and good times the old +home is still unchanged, and remains for those that are left to turn to +for shelter, for help, and consolation. To the very last Miss Edgeworth +kept up her reading, her correspondence, her energy. All along we have +heard of her active habits--out in the early morning in her garden, +coming in to the nine o'clock breakfast with her hands full of roses, +sitting by and talking and reading her letters while the others ate. Her +last letter to her old friend Sir Henry Holland was after reading the +first volume of Lord Macaulay's History. Sir Henry took the letter to +Lord Macaulay, who was so much struck by its discrimination that he +asked leave to keep it. + +She was now eighty-two years of age, and we find her laughing kindly +at the anxiety of her sister and brother-in-law, who had heard of her +climbing a ladder to wind up an old clock at Edgeworthtown. 'I am +heartily obliged and delighted by your being such a goose and Richard +such a gander,' she says 'as to be frightened out of your wits by my +climbing a ladder to take off the top of the clock.' She had not felt +that there was anything to fear as once again she set the time that was +so nearly at an end for her. Her share of life's hours had been well +spent and well enjoyed; with a peaceful and steady hand and tranquil +heart she might mark the dial for others whose hours were still to come. + +Mrs. Edgeworth's own words tell all that remains to be told. + + It was on the morning of May 22, 1849, that she was taken suddenly + ill with pain in the region of the heart, and after a few hours + breathed her last in my arms. She had always wished to die + quickly, at home, and that I should be with her. All her wishes + were fulfilled. She was gone, and nothing like her again can we + see in this world. + + + + +_MRS OPIE._ + + 1769-1853. + + 'Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to + gentleness.'--_As You Like It_. + + +I. + +It is not very long since some articles appeared in the 'Cornhill +Magazine' which were begun under the influence of certain ancient +bookshelves with so pleasant a flavour of the old world that it seemed +at the time as if yesterday not to-day was the all-important hour, and +one gladly submitted to the subtle charm of the past--its silent veils, +its quiet incantations of dust and healing cobweb. The phase is but a +passing one with most of us, and we must soon feel that to dwell at +length upon each one of the pretty old fancies and folios of the writers +and explorers who were born towards the end of the last century would be +an impossible affectation; and yet a postscript seems wanting to the +sketches which have already appeared of Mrs. Barbauld and Miss +Edgeworth, and the names of their contemporaries should not be quite +passed over. + +In a hundred charming types and prints and portraits we recognise the +well-known names as they used to appear in the garb of life. Grand +ladies in broad loops and feathers, or graceful and charming as nymphs +in muslin folds, with hanging clouds of hair; or again, in modest +coiffes such as dear Jane Austen loved and wore even in her youth. +Hannah More only took to coiffes and wimples in later life; in early +days she was fond of splendour, and, as we read, had herself painted in +emerald earrings. How many others besides her are there to admire! Who +does not know the prim, sweet, amply frilled portraits of Mrs. Trimmer +and Joanna Baillie? Only yesterday a friend showed me a sprightly, +dark-eyed miniature of Felicia Hemans. Perhaps most beautiful among all +her sister muses smiles the lovely head of Amelia Opie, as she was +represented by her husband with luxuriant chestnut hair piled up Romney +fashion in careless loops, with the radiant yet dreaming eyes which are +an inheritance for some members of her family. + +The authoresses of that day had the pre-eminence in looks, in gracious +dress and bearing; but they were rather literary women than anything +else, and had but little in common with the noble and brilliant writers +who were to follow them in our own more natural and outspoken times; +whose wise, sweet, passionate voices are already passing away into the +distance; of whom so few remain to us.[4] The secret of being real is no +very profound one, and yet how rare it is, how long it was before the +readers and writers of this century found it out! It is like the secret +of singing in perfect tune, or of playing the violin as Joachim can play +upon it. In literature, as in music, there is at times a certain +indescribable tone of absolute reality which carries the reader away and +for the moment absorbs him into the mind of the writer. Some +metempsychosis takes place. It is no longer a man or a woman turning the +pages of a book, it is a human being suddenly absorbed by the book +itself, living the very life which it records, breathing the spirit and +soul of the writer. Such books are events, not books to us, new +conditions of existence, new selves suddenly revealed through the +experience of other more vivid personalities than our own. The actual +experience of other lives is not for us, but this link of simple reality +of feeling is one all independent of events; it is like the miracle of +the loaves and fishes repeated and multiplied--one man comes with his +fishes and lo! the multitude is filled. + + Footnote 4: And yet as I write I remember one indeed who is among us, + whose portrait a Reynolds or an Opie might have been glad to paint for + the generations who will love her works. + +But this simple discovery, that of reality, that of speaking from the +heart, was one of the last to be made by women. In France Madame de +Sévigné and Madame de La Fayette were not afraid to be themselves, but +in England the majority of authoresses kept their readers carefully at +pen's length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious of their +surprising achievements in the way of literature as never to forget for +a single instant that they were in print. With the exception of Jane +Austen and Maria Edgeworth, the women writers of the early part of this +century were, as I have just said, rather literary women than actual +creators of literature. It is still a mystery how they attained to their +great successes. Frances Burney charms great Burke and mighty Johnson +and wise Macaulay in later times. Mrs. Opie draws compliments from +Mackintosh, and compliments from the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, and Sydney +Smith, and above all tears from Walter Scott. + +Perhaps many of the flattering things addressed to Mrs. Opie may have +said not less for her own charm and sweetness of nature than for the +merit of her unassuming productions; she must have been a bright, merry, +and fascinating person, and compliments were certainly more in her line +than the tributes of tears which she records. + +The authoresses of heroines are often more interesting than the heroines +themselves, and Amelia Opie was certainly no exception to this somewhat +general statement. A pleasant, sprightly authoress, beaming bright +glances on her friends, confident, intelligent, full of interest in +life, carried along in turn by one and by another influence, she comes +before us a young and charming figure, with all the spires of Norwich +for a background, and the sound of its bells, and the stir of its +assizes, as she issues from her peaceful home in her father's tranquil +old house, where the good physician lives widowed, tending his poor and +his sick, and devotedly spoiling his only child. + + +II. + +Amelia Opie was born in 1769 in the old city of Norwich, within reach of +the invigorating breezes of the great North Sea. Her youth must have +been somewhat solitary; she was the only child of a kind and cultivated +physician, Doctor James Alderson, whose younger brother, a barrister, +also living in Norwich, became the father of Baron Alderson. Her mother +died in her early youth. From her father, however, little Amelia seems +to have had the love and indulgence of over half a century, a tender and +admiring love which she returned with all her heart's devotion. She was +the pride and darling of his home, and throughout her long life her +father's approbation was the one chief motive of her existence. Spoiling +is a vexed question, but as a rule people get so much stern justice from +all the rest of the world that it seems well that their parents should +love and comfort them in youth for the many disgraces and difficulties +yet to come. + +Her mother is described as a delicate, high-minded woman, 'somewhat of a +disciplinarian,' says Mrs. Opie's excellent biographer, Miss Brightwell, +but she died too soon to carry her theories into practice. Miss Brightwell +suggests that 'Mrs. Opie might have been more demure and decorous had +her mother lived, but perhaps less charming.' There are some verses +addressed to her mother in Mrs. Opie's papers in which it must be +confessed that the remembrance of her admonition plays a most important +part-- + + Hark! clearer still thy voice I hear. + Again reproof in accents mild, + Seems whispering in my conscious ear, + +and so on. + +Some of Mrs. Alderson's attempts at discipline seemed unusual and +experimental; the little girl was timid, afraid of black people, of +black beetles, and of human skeletons. She was given the skeleton to +play with, and the beetles to hold in her hand. One feels more sympathy +with the way in which she was gently reconciled to the poor negro with +the frightening black face--by being told the story of his wrongs. But +with the poor mother's untimely death all this maternal supervision +came to an end. 'Amelia, your mother is gone; may you never have reason +to blush when you remember her!' her father said as he clasped his +little orphan to his heart; and all her life long Amelia remembered +those words. + +There is a pretty reminiscence of her childhood from a beginning of the +memoir which was never written:--'One of my earliest recollections is of +gazing on the bright blue sky as I lay in my little bed before my hour +of rising came, listening with delighted attention to the ringing of a +peal of bells. I had heard that heaven was beyond those blue skies, and +I had been taught that _there_ was the home of the good, and I fancied +that those sweet bells were ringing in heaven.' The bells were ringing +for the Norwich Assizes, which played an important part in our little +heroine's life, and which must have been associated with many of her +early memories. + +The little girl seems to have been allowed more liberty than is usually +given to children. 'As soon as I was old enough to enjoy a procession,' +she says, 'I was taken to see the Judges come in. Youthful pages in +pretty dresses ran by the side of the High Sheriff's carriage, in which +the Judges sat, while the coaches drove slowly and with a solemnity +becoming the high and awful office of those whom they contained.... With +reverence ever did I behold the Judges' wigs, the scarlet robes they +wore, and even the white wand of the Sheriff.' + +There is a description which in after years might have made a pretty +picture for her husband's pencil of the little maiden wandering into the +court one day, and called by a kind old Judge to sit beside him upon the +bench. She goes on to recount how next day she was there again; and when +some attendant of the court wanted her to leave the place, saying not +unnaturally, 'Go, Miss, this is no place for you; be advised,' the Judge +again interfered, and ordered the enterprising little girl to be brought +to her old place upon the cushion by his side. The story gives one a +curious impression of a child's life and education. She seems to have +come and gone alone, capable, intelligent, unabashed, interested in all +the events and humours of the place. + +Children have among other things a very vivid sense of citizenship +and public spirit, somewhat put out in later life by the rush of +personal feeling, but in childhood the personal events are so few and +so irresponsible that public affairs become an actual part of life and +of experience. While their elders are still discussing the news and +weighing its importance, it is already a part of the children's life. +Little Amelia Alderson must have been a happy child, free, affectionate, +independent; grateful, as a child should be, towards those who befriended +her. One of her teachers was a French dancing-master called Christian, +for whom she had a warm regard. She relates that long afterwards she +came with her husband and a friend to visit the Dutch church at Norwich. +'The two gentlemen were engaged in looking round and making their +observations, and I, finding myself somewhat cold, began to hop and +dance upon the spot where I stood, when my eyes chanced to fall upon +the pavement below, and I started at beholding the well-known name of +Christian graved upon the slab; I stopped in dismay, shocked to find +that I had actually been dancing upon the grave of my old master--he who +first taught me to dance.' + + +III. + +After her mother's death, Amelia Alderson, who was barely fifteen at the +time, began to take her place in society. She kept her father's house, +received his friends, made his home bright with her presence. The lawyers +came round in due season: Sir James Mackintosh came, the town was full +of life, of talk, of music, and poetry, and prejudice. + +Harriet Martineau, in her memoir of Mrs. Opie, gives a delightful and +humorous account of the Norwich of that day--rivalling Lichfield and its +literary coterie, only with less sentimentality and some additional +peculiarities of its own. One can almost see the Tory gentlemen, as Miss +Martineau describes them, setting a watch upon the Cathedral, lest the +Dissenters should burn it as a beacon for Boney; whereas good Bishop +Bathurst, with more faith in human nature, goes on resolutely touching +his hat to the leading Nonconformists. 'The French taught in schools,' +says Miss Martineau, 'was found to be unintelligible when the peace +at length arrived, taught as it was by an aged powdered Monsieur +and an elderly flowered Madame, who had taught their pupils' Norfolk +pronunciation. But it was beginning to be known,' she continues, 'that +there was such a language as German, and in due time there was a young +man who had actually been in Germany, and was translating "Nathan the +Wise." When William Taylor became eminent as almost the only German +scholar in England, old Norwich was very proud and grew, to say the +truth, excessively conceited. She was (and she might be) proud of her +Sayers, she boasted of her intellectual supper-parties, and finally +called herself the "Athens of England."' + +In this wholesome, cheerful Athens, blown by the invigorating Northern +breezes, little Amelia bloomed and developed into a lovely and happy +girl. She was fortunate, indeed, in her friends. One near at hand must +have been an invaluable adviser for a motherless, impressionable girl. +Mrs. John Taylor was so loved that she is still remembered. Mrs. Barbauld +prized and valued her affection beyond all others. 'I know the value +of your letters,' says Sir James Mackintosh, writing from Bombay; +'they rouse my mind on subjects which interest us in common--children, +literature, and life. I ought to be made permanently better by +contemplating a mind like yours.' And he still has Mrs. Taylor in +his mind when he concludes with a little disquisition on the contrast +between the barren sensibility, the indolent folly of some, the useful +kindness of others, 'the industrious benevolence which requires a +vigorous understanding and a decisive character.' + +Some of Mrs. Opie's family have shown me a photograph of her in her +Quaker dress, in old age, dim, and changed, and sunken, from which it is +very difficult to realise all the brightness, and life, and animation +which must have belonged to the earlier part of her life. The delightful +portrait of her engraved in the 'Mirror' shows the animated beaming +countenance, the soft expressive eyes, the abundant auburn waves of +hair, of which we read. The picture is more like some charming allegorical +being than a real live young lady--some Belinda of the 'Rape of the +Lock' (and one would as soon have expected Belinda to turn Quakeress). +Music, poetry, dancing, elves, graces and flirtations, cupids, seem to +attend her steps. She delights in admiration, friendship, companionship, +and gaiety, and yet with it all we realise a warm-hearted sincerity, and +appreciation of good and high-minded things, a truth of feeling passing +out of the realms of fancy altogether into one of the best realities of +life. She had a thousand links with life: she was musical, artistic; she +was literary; she had a certain amount of social influence; she had a +voice, a harp, a charming person, mind and manner. Admiring monarchs in +later days applauded her performance; devoted subjects were her friends +and correspondents, and her sphere in due time extended beyond the +approving Norwich-Athenian coterie of old friends who had known her from +her childhood, to London itself, where she seems to have been made +welcome by many, and to have captivated more than her share of victims. + +In some letters of hers written to Mrs. Taylor and quoted by her +biographer we get glimpses of some of these early experiences. The +bright and happy excitable girl comes up from Norwich to London to be +made more happy still, and more satisfied with the delight of life as +it unfolds. Besides her fancy for lawyers, literary people had a great +attraction for Amelia, and Godwin seems to have played an important part +in her earlier experience. A saying of Mrs. Inchbald's is quoted by +her on her return home as to the report of the world being that Mr. +Holcroft was in love with Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Inchbald with Mr. Godwin, +Mr. Godwin with Miss Alderson, and Miss Alderson with Mr. Holcroft! + +The following account of Somers Town, and a philosopher's costume in +those days, is written to her father in 1794:-- + + After a most delightful ride through some of the richest country I + ever beheld, we arrived about one o'clock at the philosopher's + house; we found him with his hair _bien poudré_, and in a pair of + new sharp-toed red morocco slippers, not to mention his green coat + and crimson under-waistcoat. + +From Godwin's by the city they come to Marlborough Street, and find Mrs. +Siddons nursing her little baby, and as handsome and charming as ever. +They see Charles Kemble there, and they wind up their day by calling on +Mrs. Inchbald in her pleasant lodgings, with two hundred pounds just +come in from Sheridan for a farce of sixty pages. Godwin's attentions +seem to have amused and pleased the fair, merry Amelia, who is not a +little proud of her arch influence over various rugged and apparently +inaccessible persons. Mrs. Inchbald seems to have been as jealous of +Miss Alderson at the time as she afterwards was of Mary Wollstonecraft. +'Will you give me nothing to keep for your sake?' says Godwin, parting +from Amelia. 'Not even your slipper? I had it once in my possession.' +'This was true,' adds Miss Amelia; 'my shoe had come off and he picked +it up and put it in his pocket.' Elsewhere she tells her friend Mrs. +Taylor that Mr. Holcroft would like to come forward, but that he had no +chance. + +That some one person had a chance, and a very good one, is plain enough +from the context of a letter, but there is nothing in Mrs. Opie's life +to show why fate was contrary in this, while yielding so bountiful a +share of all other good things to the happy country girl. + +Among other people, she seems to have charmed various French refugees, +one of whom was the Duc d'Aiguillon, come over to England with some +seven thousand others, waiting here for happier times, and hiding their +sorrows among our friendly mists. Godwin was married when Miss Alderson +revisited her London friends and admirers in 1797--an eventful visit, +when she met Opie for the first time. + +The account of their first meeting is amusingly given in Miss +Brightwell's memoirs. It was at an evening party. Some of those present +were eagerly expecting the arrival of Miss Alderson, but the evening was +wearing away and still she did not appear; 'at length the door was flung +open, and she entered bright and smiling, dressed in a robe of blue, her +neck and arms bare, and on her head a small bonnet placed in somewhat +coquettish style sideways and surmounted by a plume of three white +feathers. Her beautiful hair hung in waving tresses over her shoulders; +her face was kindling with pleasure at the sight of her old friends, and +her whole appearance was animated and glowing. At the time she came in +Mr. Opie was sitting on a sofa beside Mr. F., who had been saying from +time to time, 'Amelia is coming; Amelia will surely come. Why is she not +here?' and whose eyes were turned in her direction. He was interrupted +by his companion eagerly exclaiming, 'Who is that--who is that?' and +hastily rising Opie pressed forward to be introduced to the fair object +whose sudden appearance had so impressed him.' With all her love of +excitement, of change, of variety, one cannot but feel, as I have said, +that there was also in Amelia Alderson's cheerful life a vein of deep +and very serious feeling, and the bracing influence of the upright and +high-minded people among whom she had been brought up did not count for +nothing in her nature. She could show her genuine respect for what was +generous and good and true, even though she did not always find strength +to carry out the dream of an excitable and warm-hearted nature. + + +IV. + +There is something very interesting in the impression one receives of +the 'Inspired Peasant,' as Alan Cunningham calls John Opie--the man +who did not paint to live so much as live to paint. He was a simple, +high-minded Cornishman, whose natural directness and honesty were +unspoiled by favour, unembittered by failure. Opie's gift, like some +deep-rooted seed living buried in arid soil, ever aspired upwards towards +the light. His ideal was high; his performance fell far short of his +life-long dream, and he knew it. But his heart never turned from its +life's aim, and he loved beauty and Art with that true and unfailing +devotion which makes a man great, even though his achievements do not +show all he should have been. + +The old village carpenter, his father, who meant him to succeed to +the business, was often angry, and loudly railed at the boy when good +white-washed walls and clean boards were spoiled by scrawls of +lamp-black and charcoal. John worked in the shop and obeyed his father, +but when his day's task was over he turned again to his darling +pursuits. At twelve years old he had mastered Euclid, and could also +rival 'Mark Oaks,' the village phenomenon, in painting a butterfly; by +the time John was sixteen he could earn as much as 7_s._ 6_d._ for a +portrait. It was in this year that there came to Truro an accomplished +and various man Dr. Wolcott--sometimes a parson, sometimes a doctor of +medicine, sometimes as Peter Pindar, a critic and literary man. This +gentleman was interested by young Opie and his performances, and +he asked him on one occasion how he liked painting. 'Better than +bread-and-butter,' says the boy. Wolcott finally brought his _protégé_ +to London, where the Doctor's influence and Opie's own undoubted merit +brought him success; and to Opie's own amazement he suddenly found +himself the fashion. His street was crowded with carriages; long +processions of ladies and gentlemen came to sit to him; he was able to +furnish a house 'in Orange Court, by Leicester Fields;' he was beginning +to put by money when, as suddenly as he had been taken up, he was +forgotten again. The carriages drove off in some other direction, and +Opie found himself abandoned by the odd, fanciful world of fashions, +which would not be fashions if they did not change day by day. It might +have proved a heart-breaking phase of life for a man whose aim had been +less single. But Opie was of too generous a nature to value popularity +beyond achievement. He seems to have borne this freak of fortune with +great equanimity, and when he was sometimes overwhelmed, it was not by +the praise or dispraise of others, but by his own consciousness of +failure, of inadequate performance. Troubles even more serious than loss +of patronage and employment befell him later. He had married, unhappily +for himself, a beautiful, unworthy woman, whose picture he has painted +many times. She was a faithless as well as a weak and erring wife, +and finally abandoned him. When Opie was free to marry again he was +thirty-six, a serious, downright man of undoubted power and influence, +of sincerity and tenderness of feeling, of rugged and unusual manners. +He had not many friends, nor did he wish for many, but those who knew +him valued him at his worth. His second wife showed what was in her by +her appreciation of his noble qualities, though one can hardly realise a +greater contrast than that of these two, so unlike in character, in +training, and disposition. They were married in London, at Marylebone +Church, in that dismal year of '98, which is still remembered. Opie +loved his wife deeply and passionately; he did not charm her, though she +charmed him, but for his qualities she had true respect and admiration. + + +V. + +Opie must be forgiven if he was one-idead, if he erred from too +much zeal. All his wife's bright gaiety of nature, her love for her +fellow-creatures, her interest in the world, her many-sidedness, this +uncompromising husband would gladly have kept for himself. For him his +wife and his home were the whole world; his Art was his whole life. + +The young couple settled down in London after their marriage, where, +notwithstanding fogs and smoke and dull monotony of brick and smut, so +many beautiful things are created; where Turner's rainbow lights were +first reflected, where Tennyson's 'Princess' sprang from the fog. It +was a modest and quiet installation, but among the pretty things which +Amelia brought to brighten her new home we read of blue feathers and +gold gauze bonnets, tiaras, and spencers, scarlet ribbons, buff net, and +cambric flounces, all of which give one a pleasant impression of her +intention to amuse herself, and to enjoy the society of her fellows, and +to bring her own pleasant contributions to their enjoyment. + +Opie sat working at his easel, painting portraits to earn money for his +wife's use and comfort, and encouraging her to write, for he had faith +in work. He himself would never intermit his work for a single day. He +would have gladly kept her always in his sight. 'If I would stay at home +for ever, I believe my husband would be merry from morning to night--a +lover more than a husband,' Amelia writes to Mrs. Taylor. He seemed to +have some feeling that time for him was not to be long--that life was +passing quickly by, almost too quickly to give him time to realise his +new home happiness, to give him strength to grasp his work. He was no +rapid painter, instinctively feeling his light and colour and action, +and seizing the moment's suggestion, but anxious, laborious, and +involved in that sad struggle in which some people pass their lives, for +ever disappointed. Opie's portraits seem to have been superior to his +compositions, which were well painted, 'but unimaginative and +commonplace,' says a painter of our own time, whose own work quickens +with that mysterious soul which some pictures (as indeed some human +beings) seem to be entirely without. + +'During the nine years that I was his wife,' says Mrs. Opie, 'I never +saw him satisfied with any one of his productions. Often, very often, he +has entered my sitting-room, and, throwing himself down in an agony of +despondence upon the sofa, exclaimed, "I shall never be a painter!"' + +He was a wise and feeling critic, however great his shortcomings as a +painter may have been. His lectures are admirable; full of real thought +and good judgment. Sir James Mackintosh places them beyond Reynolds's in +some ways. + +'If there were no difficulties every one would be a painter,' says Opie, +and he goes on to point out what a painter's object should be--'the +discovery or conception of perfect ideas of things; nature in its +purest and most essential form rising from the species to the genus, the +highest and ultimate exertion of human genius.' For him it was no +grievance that a painter's life should be one long and serious effort. +'If you are wanting to yourselves, rule may be multiplied upon rule and +precept upon precept in vain.' Some of his remarks might be thought +still to apply in many cases, no less than they did a hundred years ago, +when he complained of those green-sick lovers of chalk, brick-dust, +charcoal and old tapestry, who are so ready to decry the merits of +colouring and to set it down as a kind of superfluity. It is curious to +contrast Opie's style in literature with that of his wife, who belongs +to the entirely past generation which she reflected, whereas he wrote +from his own original impressions, saying those things which struck him +as forcibly then as they strike us now. 'Father and Daughter' was Mrs. +Opie's first acknowledged book. It was published in 1801, and the author +writes modestly of all her apprehensions. 'Mr. Opie has no patience with +me; he consoles me by averring that fear makes me overrate others and +underrate myself.' The book was reviewed in the 'Edinburgh.' We hear of +one gentleman who lies awake all night after reading it; and Mrs. +Inchbald promises a candid opinion, which, however, we do not get. +Besides stories and novels, Mrs. Opie was the author of several poems +and verses which were much admired. There was an impromptu to Sir James +Mackintosh, which brought a long letter in return, and one of her songs +was quoted by Sydney Smith in a lecture at the Royal Institution. Mrs. +Opie was present, and she used to tell in after times 'how unexpectedly +the compliment came upon her, and how she shrunk down upon her seat in +order to screen herself from observation.' + +The lines are indeed charming:-- + + Go, youth, beloved in distant glades, + New friends, new hopes, new joys to find, + Yet sometimes deign 'midst fairer maids + To think on her thou leav'st behind. + Thy love, thy fate, dear youth to share + Must never be my happy lot; + But thou may'st grant this humble prayer, + Forget me not, forget me not. + + Yet should the thought of my distress + Too painful to thy feelings be, + Heed not the wish I now express, + Nor ever deign to think of me; + But oh! if grief thy steps attend, + If want, if sickness be thy lot, + And thou require a soothing friend, + Forget me not, forget me not. + + +VI. + +The little household was a modest one, but we read of a certain amount +of friendly hospitality. Country neighbours from Norfolk appear upon the +scene; we find Northcote dining and praising the toasted cheese. Mrs. +Opie's heart never for an instant ceased to warm to her old friends and +companions. She writes an amusing account to Mrs. Taylor of her London +home, her interests and visitors, 'her happy and delightful life.' She +worked, she amused herself, she received her friends at home and went to +look for them abroad. Among other visits, Mrs. Opie speaks of one to an +old friend who has 'grown plump,' and of a second to 'Betsy Fry' who, +notwithstanding her comfortable home and prosperous circumstances, has +grown lean. It would be difficult to recognise under this familiar +cognomen and description the noble and dignified woman whose name and +work are still remembered with affectionate respect and wonder by a not +less hard-working, but less convinced and convincing generation. This +friendship was of great moment to Amelia Opie in after days, at a +time when her heart was low and her life very sad and solitary; but +meanwhile, as I have said, there were happy times for her; youth and +youthful spirits and faithful companionship were all hers, and troubles +had not yet come. + +One day Mrs. Opie gives a characteristic account of a visit from Mrs. +Taylor's two sons. '"John," said I, "will you take a letter from me to +your mother?" "Certainly," replied John, "for then I shall be sure of +being welcome." "Fy," returned I. "Mr. Courtier, you know you want +nothing to add to the heartiness of the welcome you will receive at +home." "No, indeed," said Richard, "and if Mrs. Opie sends her letter by +you it will be one way of making it less valued and attended to than it +would otherwise be." To the truth of this speech I subscribed and wrote +not. I have heard in later days a pretty description of the simple home +in which all these handsome, cultivated, and remarkable young people +grew up round their noble-minded mother.' One of Mrs. John Taylor's +daughters became Mrs. Reeve, the mother of Mr. Henry Reeve, another was +Mrs. Austin, the mother of Lady Duff Gordon. + +Those lean kine we read of in the Bible are not peculiar to Egypt and to +the days of Joseph and his brethren. The unwelcome creatures are apt to +make their appearance in many a country and many a household, and in +default of their natural food to devour all sorts of long-cherished +fancies, hopes, and schemes. Some time after his marriage, Opie +suddenly, and for no reason, found himself without employment, and the +severest trial they experienced during their married life, says his +wife, was during this period of anxiety. She, however, cheered him +womanfully, would not acknowledge her own dismay, and Opie, gloomy and +desponding though he was, continued to paint as regularly as before. +Presently orders began to flow in again, and did not cease until his +death. + + +VII. + +Their affairs being once more prosperous, a long-hoped-for dream became +a reality, and they started on an expedition to Paris, a solemn event in +those days and not lightly to be passed over by a biographer. One long +war was ended, another had not yet begun. The Continent was a promised +land, fondly dreamt of though unknown. 'At last in Paris; at last in the +city which she had so longed to see!' Mrs. Opie's description of her +arrival reads a comment upon history. As they drive into the town, +everywhere chalked up upon the walls and the houses are inscriptions +concerning 'L'Indivisibilité de la République.' How many subsequent +writings upon the wall did Mrs. Opie live to see! The English party find +rooms at a hotel facing the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine, +that token of order and tranquillity, was then perpetually standing. +The young wife's feelings may be imagined when within an hour of their +arrival Opie, who had rushed off straight to the Louvre, returned with a +face of consternation to say that they must leave Paris at once. The +Louvre was shut; and, moreover, the whiteness of everything, the houses, +the ground they stood on, all dazzled and blinded him. He was a lost man +if he remained! By some happy interposition they succeed in getting +admission to the Louvre, and as the painter wonders and admires his +nervous terrors leave him. The picture left by Miss Edgeworth of Paris +Society in the early years of the century is more brilliant, but not +more interesting than Mrs. Opie's reminiscences of the fleeting scene, +gaining so much in brilliancy from the shadows all round about. There is +the shadow of the ghastly guillotine upon the Place de la Concorde, the +shadows of wars but lately over and yet to come, the echo in the air of +arms and discord; meanwhile a brilliant, agreeable, flashing Paris +streams with sunlight, is piled with treasures and trophies of victory, +and crowded with well-known characters. We read of Kosciusko's nut-brown +wig concealing his honourable scars; Masséna's earrings flash in the +sun; one can picture it all, and the animated inrush of tourists, and +the eager life stirring round about the walls of the old Louvre. + +It was at this time that they saw Talma perform, and years after, in her +little rooms in Lady's Field at Norwich, Mrs. Opie, in her Quaker dress, +used to give an imitation of the great actor and utter a deep 'Cain, +Cain, where art thou?' To which Cain replies in sepulchral tones. + +We get among other things an interesting glimpse of Fox standing in the +Louvre Gallery opposite the picture of St. Jerome by Domenichino, a +picture which, as it is said, he enthusiastically admired. Opie, who +happened to be introduced to him, then and there dissented from this +opinion. 'You must be a better judge on such points than I am,' says +Fox; and Mrs. Opie proudly writes of the two passing on together +discussing and comparing the pictures. She describes them next standing +before the 'Transfiguration' of Raphael. The Louvre in those days must +have been for a painter a wonder palace indeed. The 'Venus de' Medici' +was on her way; it was a time of miracles, as Fox said. Meanwhile Mrs. +Opie hears someone saying that the First Consul is on his way from the +Senate, and she hurries to a window to look out. 'Bonaparte seems very +fond of state and show for a Republican,' says Mrs. Fox. Fox himself +half turns to the window, then looks back to the pictures again. As for +Opie, one may be sure his attention never wandered for one instant. + +They saw the First Consul more than once. The Pacificator, as he was +then called, was at the height of his popularity; on one occasion +they met Fox with his wife on his arm crossing the Carrousel to the +Tuìlerìes, where they are also admitted to a ground-floor room, from +whence they look upon a marble staircase and see several officers +ascending, 'one of whom, with a helmet which seemed entirely of gold, +was Eugène de Beauharnais. A few minutes afterwards,' she says, 'there +was a rush of officers down the stairs, and among them I saw a short +pale man with his hat in his hand, who, as I thought, resembled Lord +Erskine in profile....' This of course is Bonaparte, unadorned amidst +all this studied splendour, and wearing only a little tricoloured +cockade. Maria Cosway, the painter, who was also in Paris at the time, +took them to call at the house of Madame Bonaparte _mère_, where they +were received by 'a blooming, courteous ecclesiastic, powdered and with +purple stockings and gold buckles, and a costly crucifix. This is +Cardinal Fesch, the uncle of Bonaparte. It is said that when Fox was +introduced to the First Consul he was warmly welcomed by him, and was +made to listen to a grand harangue upon the advantages of peace, to +which he answered scarcely a word; though he was charmed to talk with +Madame Bonaparte, and to discuss with her the flowers of which she was +so fond.' The Opies met Fox again in England some years after, when he +sat to Opie for one of his finest portraits. It is now at Holker, and +there is a characteristic description of poor Opie, made nervous by the +criticism of the many friends, and Fox, impatient but encouraging, and +again whispering, 'Don't attend to them; you must know best.' + + +VIII. + +'Adeline Mowbray; or, Mother and Daughter,' was published by Mrs. Opie +after this visit to the Continent. It is a melancholy and curious +story, which seems to have been partly suggested by that of poor Mary +Wollstonecraft, whose prejudices the heroine shares and expiates by a +fate hardly less pathetic than that of Mary herself. The book reminds +one of a very touching letter from Godwin's wife to Amelia Alderson, +written a few weeks before her death, in which she speaks of her +'contempt for the forms of a world she should have bade a long +good-night to had she not been a mother.' Justice has at length been +done to this mistaken but noble and devoted woman, and her story has +lately been written from a wider point of view than Mrs. Opie's, though +she indeed was no ungenerous advocate. Her novel seems to have given +satisfaction; 'a beautiful story, the most natural in its pathos of any +fictitious narrative in the language,' says the 'Edinburgh,' writing +with more leniency than authors now expect. Another reviewer, speaking +with discriminating criticism, says of Mrs. Opie: 'She does not reason +well, but she has, like most accomplished women, the talent of perceiving +truth without the process of reasoning. Her language is often inaccurate, +but it is always graceful and harmonious. She can do nothing well that +requires to be done with formality; to make amends, however, she +represents admirably everything that is amiable, generous, and gentle.' + +Adeline Mowbray dies of a broken heart, with the following somewhat +discursive farewell to her child: 'There are two ways in which a mother +can be of use to her daughter; the one is by instilling into her mind +virtuous principles, and by setting her a virtuous example, the other is +by being to her, in her own person, an awful warning!' + + * * * * * + +One or two of Opie's letters to his wife are given in the memoir. They +ring with truth and tender feeling. The two went to Norwich together on +one occasion, when Opie painted Dr. Sayers, the scholar, who, in return +for his portrait, applied an elegant Greek distich to the painter. Mrs. +Opie remained with her father, and her husband soon returned to his +studio in London. When she delayed, he wrote to complain. 'My dearest +Life, I cannot be sorry that you do not stay longer, though, as I said, +on your father's account, I would consent to it. Pray, Love, forgive +me, and make yourself easy. I did not suspect, till my last letter was +posted, that it might be too strong. I had been counting almost the +hours till your arrival for some time. As to coming down again I cannot +think of it, for though I could perhaps better spare the time at present +from painting than I could at any part of the last month, I find I must +now go hard to work to finish my lectures, as the law says they must be +delivered the second year after the election.' + +The Academy had appointed Opie Professor of Painting in the place of +Fuseli, and he was now trying his hand at a new form of composition, and +not without well-deserved success. But the strain was too great for +this eager mind. Opie painted all day; of an evening he worked at his +lectures on painting. From September to February he allowed himself no +rest. He was not a man who worked with ease; all he did cost him much +effort and struggle. After delivering his first lecture, he complained +that he could not sleep. It had been a great success; his colleagues +had complimented him, and accompanied him to his house. He was able to +complete the course, but immediately afterwards he sickened. No one +could discover what was amiss; the languor and fever increased day by +day. + +His wife nursed him devotedly, and a favourite sister of his came to +help her. Afterwards it was of consolation to the widow to remember that +no hired nurse had been by his bedside, and that they had been able to +do everything for him themselves. One thing troubled him as he lay +dying; it was the thought of a picture which he had not been able to +complete in time for the exhibition. A friend and former pupil finished +it, and brought it to his bedside. He said with a smile, 'Take it away, +it will do now.' + +To the last he imagined that he was painting upon this picture, and he +moved his arms as though he were at work. His illness was inflammation +of the brain. He was only forty-five when he died, and he was buried in +St. Paul's, and laid by Sir Joshua, his great master. + +The portrait of Opie, as it is engraved in Alan Cunningham's Life, is +that of a simple, noble-looking man, with a good thoughtful face and a +fine head. Northcote, Nollekens, Horne Tooke, all his friends spoke +warmly of him. 'A man of powerful understanding and ready apprehension,' +says one. 'Mr. Opie crowds more wisdom into a few words than almost +anybody I ever saw,' says another. 'I do not say that he was always +right,' says Northcote; 'but he always put your thoughts into a new +track that was worth following.' Some two years after his death the +lectures which had cost so much were published, with a memoir by Mrs. +Opie. Sir James Mackintosh has written one of his delightful criticisms +upon the book:-- + + The cultivation of every science and the practice of every art are + in fact a species of action, and require ardent zeal and unshaken + courage.... Originality can hardly exist without vigour of + character.... The discoverer or inventor may indeed be most + eminently wanting in decision in the general concerns of life, but + he must possess it in those pursuits in which he is successful. + Opie is a remarkable instance of the natural union of these + superior qualities, both of which he possesses in a high + degree.... He is inferior in elegance to Sir Joshua, but he is + superior in strength; he strikes more, though he charms less.... + Opie is by turns an advocate, a controvertist, a panegyrist, a + critic; Sir Joshua more uniformly fixes his mind on general and + permanent principles, and certainly approaches more nearly to the + elevation and tranquillity which seem to characterise the + philosophic teacher of an elegant art. + + +IX. + +Mrs. Opie went back, soon after her husband's death, to Norwich, to her +early home, her father's house; nor was she a widow indeed while she +still had this tender love and protection. + +That which strikes one most as one reads the accounts of Mrs. Opie +is the artlessness and perfect simplicity of her nature. The deepest +feeling of her life was her tender love for her father, and if she +remained younger than most women do, it may have been partly from the +great blessing which was hers so long, that of a father's home. Time +passed, and by degrees she resumed her old life, and came out and about +among her friends. Sorrow does not change a nature, it expresses certain +qualities which have been there all along. + +So Mrs. Opie came up to London once more, and welcomed and was made +welcome by many interesting people. Lord Erskine is her friend always; +she visits Madame de Staël; she is constantly in company with Sydney +Smith, the ever-welcome as she calls him. Lord Byron, Sheridan, Lord +Dudley, all appear upon her scene. There is a pretty story of her +singing her best to Lady Sarah Napier, old, blind, and saddened, but +still happy in that she had her sons to guide and to protect her steps. +Among her many entertainments, Mrs. Opie amusingly describes a dinner at +Sir James Mackintosh's, to which most of the guests had been asked at +different hours, varying from six to half-past seven, when Baron +William von Humboldt arrives. He writes to her next day, calling her +Mademoiselle Opie, 'no doubt from my juvenile appearance,' she adds, +writing to her father. It is indeed remarkable to read of her spirits +long after middle life, her interest and capacity for amusement. She +pays 4_l._ for a ticket to a ball given to the Duke of Wellington; she +describes this and many other masquerades and gaieties, and the blue +ball, and the pink ball, and the twenty-seven carriages at her door, and +her sight of the Emperor of Russia in her hotel. When the rest of the +ladies crowd round, eager to touch his clothes, Mrs. Opie, carried away +by the general craze, encircles his wrist with her finger and thumb. +Apart from these passing fancies, she is in delightful society. + +Baron Alderson, her cousin and friend, was always kind and affectionate +to her. The pretty little story is well known of his taking her home in +her Quaker dress in the Judges' state-coach at Norwich, saying, 'Come, +Brother Opie,' as he offered her his arm to lead her to the carriage. +She used to stay at his house in London, and almost the last visit she +ever paid was to him. + +One of the most interesting of her descriptions is that of her meeting +with Sir Walter Scott and with Wordsworth at a breakfast in Mount +Street, and of Sir Walter's delightful talk and animated stories. One +can imagine him laughing and describing a Cockney's terrors in the +Highlands, when the whole hunt goes galloping down the crags, as is +their North-country fashion. 'The gifted man,' says Mrs. Opie, with her +old-fashioned adjectives, 'condescended to speak to me of my "Father and +Daughter." He then went on faithfully to praise his old friend Joanna +Baillie and her tragedies, and to describe a tragedy he once thought of +writing himself. He should have had no love in it. His hero should have +been the uncle of his heroine, a sort of misanthrope, with only one +affection in his heart, love for his niece, like a solitary gleam of +sunshine lighting the dark tower of some ruined and lonely dwelling.' + +'It might perhaps be a weakness,' says the Friend, long after recalling +this event, 'but I must confess how greatly I was pleased at the time.' +No wonder she was pleased that the great wizard should have liked her +novel. + +It would be impossible to attempt a serious critique of Mrs. Opie's +stories. They are artless, graceful, written with an innocent good faith +which disarms criticism. That Southey, Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh +should also have read them and praised them may, as I have said, prove +as much for the personal charm of the writer, and her warm sunshine of +pleasant companionship, as for the books themselves. They seem to have +run through many editions, and to have received no little encouragement. +Morality and sensation alternate in her pages. Monsters abound there. +They hire young men to act base parts, to hold villainous conversations +which the husbands are intended to overhear. They plot and scheme to +ruin the fair fame and domestic happiness of the charming heroines, but +they are justly punished, and their plots are defeated. One villain, on +his way to an appointment with a married woman, receives so severe a +blow upon the head from her brother, that he dies in agonies of fruitless +remorse. Another, who incautiously boasts aloud his deep-laid scheme +against Constantia's reputation in the dark recesses of a stage-coach, +is unexpectedly seized by the arm. A stranger in the corner, whom he had +not noticed, was no other than the baronet whom Constantia has loved all +along. The dawn breaks in brightly, shining on the stranger's face: +baffled, disgraced, the wicked schemer leaves the coach at the very next +stage, and Constantia's happiness is ensured by a brilliant marriage +with the man she loves. 'Lucy is the dark sky,' cries another lovely +heroine, 'but you, my lord, and my smiling children, these are the +rainbow that illumines it; and who would look at the gloom that see the +many tinted Iris? not I, indeed.' 'Valentine's Eve,' from which this is +quoted, was published after John Opie's death. So was a novel called +'Temper,' and the 'Tales of Real Life.' Mrs. Opie, however, gave up +writing novels when she joined the Society of Friends. + +For some years past, Mrs. Opie had been thrown more and more in the +company of a very noble and remarkable race of men and women living +quietly in their beautiful homes in the neighbourhood of Norwich, but +of an influence daily growing--handsome people, prosperous, generous, +with a sort of natural Priesthood belonging to them. Scorning to live +for themselves alone, the Gurneys were the dispensers and originators of +a hundred useful and benevolent enterprises in Norwich and elsewhere. +They were Quakers, and merchants, and bankers. How much of their strength +lay in their wealth and prosperity, how much in their enthusiasm, their +high spirits, voluntarily curbed, their natural instinct both to lead +and to protect, it would be idle to discuss. It is always difficult for +people who believe in the all-importance of the present to judge of +others, whose firm creed is that the present is nothing as compared to +the future. Chief among this remarkable family was Elizabeth Gurney, +the wife of Josiah Fry, the mother of many children, and the good angel, +indeed, of the unhappy captives of those barbarous days, prisoners, to +whose utter gloom and misery she brought some rays of hope. There are +few figures more striking than that of the noble Quaker lady starting on +her generous mission, comforting the children, easing the chains of the +captives. No domineering Jellyby, but a motherly, deep-hearted woman; +shy, and yet from her very timidity gaining an influence, which less +sensitive natures often fail to win. One likes to imagine the dignified +sweet face coming in--the comforting Friend in the quiet garb of the +Quaker woman standing at the gates of those terrible places, bidding the +despairing prisoners be of good hope. + +Elizabeth Fry's whole life was a mission of love and help to others; her +brothers and her many relations heartily joined and assisted her in many +plans and efforts. + +For Joseph John Gurney, the head of the Norwich family, Mrs. Opie is +said to have had a feeling amounting to more than friendship. Be this as +it may, it is no wonder that so warm-hearted and impressionable a woman +should have been influenced by the calm goodness of the friends with +whom she was now thrown. It is evident enough, nor does she attempt to +conceal the fact, that the admiration and interest she feels for John +Joseph Gurney are very deep motive powers. There comes a time in most +lives, especially in the lives of women, when all the habits and +certainties of youth have passed away, when life has to be built up +again upon the foundations indeed of the past, the friendships, the +memories, the habits of early life, but with new places and things to +absorb and to interest, new hearts to love. And one day people wake up +to find that the friends of their choice have become their home. People +are stranded perhaps seeking their share in life's allowance, and +suddenly they come upon something, with all the charm which belongs to +deliberate choice, as well as that of natural affinity. How well one +can realise the extraordinary comfort that Amelia Opie must have found +in the kind friends and neighbours with whom she was now thrown! Her +father was a very old man, dying slowly by inches. Her own life of +struggle, animation, intelligence, was over, as she imagined, for ever. +No wonder if for a time she was carried away, if she forgot her own +nature, her own imperative necessities, in sympathy with this new +revelation. Here was a new existence, here was a Living Church ready to +draw her within its saving walls. John Joseph Gurney must have been a +man of extraordinary personal influence. For a long time past he had +been writing to her seriously. At last, to the surprise of the world, +though not without long deliberation and her father's full approval, she +joined the Society of Friends, put on their dress, and adopted their +peculiar phraseology. People were surprised at the time, but I think it +would have been still more surprising if she had not joined them. J. J. +Gurney, in one of his letters, somewhat magnificently describes Mrs. +Opie as offering up her many talents and accomplishments a brilliant +sacrifice to her new-found persuasions. 'Illustrations of Lying,' +moral anecdotes on the borderland of imagination, are all that she is +henceforth allowed. 'I am bound in a degree not to invent a story, +because when I became a Friend it was required of me not to do so,' she +writes to Miss Mitford, who had asked her to contribute to an annual. +Miss Mitford's description of Mrs. Opie, 'Quakerised all over, and +calling Mr. Haydon 'Friend Benjamin,' is amusing enough; and so also +is the account of the visiting card she had printed after she became +a Quaker, with 'Amelia Opie,' without any prefix, as is the Quaker +way; also, as is not their way, with a wreath of embossed pink roses +surrounding the name. There is an account of Mrs. Opie published in the +'Edinburgh Review,' in a delightful article entitled the 'Worthies of +Norwich,' which brings one almost into her very presence. + + Amelia Opie at the end of the last century and Amelia Opie in the + garb and with the speech of a member of the Society of Friends + sounds like two separate personages, but no one who recollects the + gay little songs which at seventy she used to sing with lively + gesture, the fragments of drama to which, with the zest of an + innate actress, she occasionally treated her young friends, or the + elaborate faultlessness of her appearance--the shining folds and + long train of her pale satin draperies, the high, transparent cap, + the crisp fichu crossed over the breast, which set off to + advantage the charming little plump figure with its rounded + lines--could fail to recognise the same characteristics which + sparkled about the wearer of the pink calico domino in which she + frolicked incognito 'till she was tired' at a ball given by the + Duke of Wellington in 1814, or of the eight blue feathers which + crowned the waving tresses of her flaxen hair as a bride. + +Doctor Alderson died in October 1825, and Mrs. Opie was left alone. She +was very forlorn when her father died. She had no close ties to carry +her on peacefully from middle age to the end of life. The great break +had come; she was miserable, and, as mourners do, she falls upon herself +and beats her breast. All through these sad years her friends at Northrepps +and at Earlham were her chief help and consolation. As time passed her +deep sorrow was calmed, when peaceful memories had succeeded to the keen +anguish of her good old father's loss. She must have suffered deeply; +she tried hard to be brave, but her courage failed her at times: she +tried hard to do her duty; and her kindness and charity were unfailing, +for she was herself still, although so unhappy. Her journals are +pathetic in their humility and self-reproaches for imaginary omissions. +She is lonely; out of heart, out of hope. 'I am so dissatisfied with +myself that I hardly dare ask or expect a blessing upon my labours,' she +says; and long lists of kind and fatiguing offices, of visits to sick +people and poor people, to workhouses and prisons, are interspersed with +expressions of self-blame. + + * * * * * + +The writer can remember as a child speculating as she watched the +straight-cut figure of a Quaker lady standing in the deep window of an +old mansion that overlooked the Luxembourg Gardens at Paris, with all +their perfume and blooming scent of lilac and sweet echoes of children, +while the quiet figure stood looking down upon it all from--to a +child--such an immeasurable distance. As one grows older one becomes +more used to garbs of different fashions and cut, and one can believe in +present sunlight and the scent of flowering trees and the happy sound of +children's voices going straight to living hearts beneath their several +disguises, and Mrs. Opie, notwithstanding her Quaker dress, loved bright +colours and gay sunlight. She was one of those who gladly made life +happy for others, who naturally turned to bright and happy things +herself. When at last she began to recover from the blow which had +fallen so heavily upon her she went from Norwich to the Lakes and Fells +for refreshment, and then to Cornwall, and among its green seas and +softly clothed cliffs she found good friends (as most people do who go +to that kind and hospitable county), and her husband's relations, who +welcomed her kindly. As she recovered by degrees she began to see +something of her old companions. She went to London to attend the May +meetings of the Society, and I heard an anecdote not long ago which must +have occurred on some one of these later visits there. + +One day when some people were sitting at breakfast at Samuel Rogers's, +and talking as people do who belong to the agreeable classes, the +conversation happened to turn upon the affection of a father for his +only child, when an elderly lady who had been sitting at the table, and +who was remarkable for her Quaker dress, her frills and spotless folds, +her calm and striking appearance, started up suddenly, burst into a +passion of tears, and had to be led sobbing out of the room. She did not +return, and the lady who remembers the incident, herself a young bride +at the time, told me it made all the more impression upon her at the +time because she was told that the Quaker lady was Mrs. Opie. My friend +was just beginning her life. Mrs. Opie must have been ending hers. +It is not often that women, when youth is long past, shed sudden and +passionate tears of mere emotion, nor perhaps would a Quaker, trained +from early childhood to calm moods and calm expressions, have been so +suddenly overpoweringly affected; but Mrs. Opie was no born daughter of +the community, she was excitable and impulsive to the last. I have heard +a lady who knew her well describe her, late in life, laughing heartily +and impetuously thrusting a somewhat starched-up Friend into a deep +arm-chair exclaiming, 'I will hurl thee into the bottomless pit.' + + +X. + + At sight of thee, O Tricolor, + I seem to feel youth's hours return, + The loved, the lost! + +So writes Mrs. Opie at the age of sixty, reviving, delighting, as she +catches sight of her beloved Paris once more, and breathes its clear +and life-giving air, and looks out across its gardens and glittering +gables and spires, and again meets her French acquaintances, and throws +herself into their arms and into their interests with all her old warmth +and excitability. The little grey bonnet only gives certain incongruous +piquancy to her pleasant, kind-hearted exuberance. She returns to +England, but far-away echoes reach her soon of changes and revolutions +concerning all the people for whom her regard is so warm. In August, +1830, came the news of a new revolution--'The Chamber of Deputies +dissolved for ever; the liberty of the press abolished; king, ministers, +court, and ambassadors flying from Paris to Vincennes; cannon planted +against the city; 5,000 people killed, and the Rue de Rivoli running +with blood.' No wonder such rumours stirred and overwhelmed the staunch +but excitable lady. 'You will readily believe how anxious, interested, +and excited I feel,' she says; and then she goes on to speak of +Lafayette, 'miraculously preserved through two revolutions, and in +chains and in a dungeon, now the leading mind in another conflict, and +lifting not only an armed but a restraining hand in a third revolution.' + +Her heart was with her French friends and intimates, and though she kept +silence she was not the less determined to follow its leading, and, +without announcing her intention, she started off from Norwich and, +after travelling without intermission, once more arrived in her beloved +city. But what was become of the Revolution? 'Paris seemed as bright and +peaceful as I had seen it thirteen months ago! The people, the busy +people passing to and fro, and soldiers, omnibuses, cabriolets, citadenes, +carts, horsemen hurrying along the Rue de Rivoli, while foot passengers +were crossing the gardens, or loungers were sitting on its benches to +enjoy the beauty of the May-November.' She describes two men crossing +the Place Royale singing a national song, the result of the +Revolution:-- + + Pour briser leurs masses profondes, + Qui conduit nos drapeaux sanglants, + C'est la Liberté de deux mondes, + C'est Lafayette en cheveux blancs. + +Mrs. Opie was full of enthusiasm for noble Lafayette surveying his court +of turbulent intrigue and shifting politics; for Cuvier in his own +realm, among more tranquil laws, less mutable decrees. She should have +been born a Frenchwoman, to play a real and brilliant part among all +these scenes and people, instead of only looking on. Something stirred +in her veins too eager and bubbling for an Englishwoman's scant share +of life and outward events. No wonder that her friends at Norwich were +anxious, and urged her to return. They heard of her living in the midst +of excitement, of admiration, and with persons of a different religion +and way of thinking to themselves. Their warning admonitions carried +their weight; that little Quaker bonnet which she took so much care of +was a talisman, drawing the most friendly of Friends away from the place +of her adoption. But she came back unchanged to her home, to her quiet +associations; she had lost none of her spirits, none, of her cheerful +interest in her natural surroundings. As life burnt on her kind soul +seemed to shine more and more brightly. Every one came to see her, to +be cheered and warmed by her genial spirit. She loved flowers, of which +her room was full. She had a sort of passion for prisms, says her +biographer; she had several set in a frame and mounted like a screen, +and the colour flew about the little room. She kept up a great +correspondence; she was never tired of writing, though the letters on +other people's business were apt to prove a serious burden at times. +But she lives on only to be of use. 'Take care of indulging in little +selfishnesses,' she writes in her diary; 'learn to consider others +in trifles: the mind so disciplined will find it easier to fulfil +the greater duties, and the character will not exhibit that trying +inconsistency which one sees in great and often in pious persons.' Her +health fails, but not her courage. She goes up to London for the last +time to her cousin's house. She is interested in all the people she +meets, in their wants and necessities, in the events of the time. She +returns home, contented with all; with the house which she feels so +'desirable to die in,' with her window through which she can view the +woods and rising ground of Thorpe. 'My prisms to-day are quite in their +glory,' she writes; 'the atmosphere must be very clear, for the radiance +is brighter than ever I saw it before;' and then she wonders whether the +mansions in heaven will be draped in such brightness; and so to the last +the gentle, bright, _rainbow_ lady remained surrounded by kind and +smiling faces, by pictures, by flowers, and with the light of her +favourite prismatic colours shining round about the couch on which she +lay. + + + + +_JANE AUSTEN._ + + 1775-1817. + + 'A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes + originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de différence entre + les hommes.'--PASCAL. + + +'I did not know that you were a studier of character,' says Bingley to +Elizabeth. 'It must be an amusing study.' + +'Yes, but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least +that advantage.' + +'The country,' said Darcy, 'can in general supply but few subjects for +such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and +unvarying society.' + +'But people themselves alter so much,' Elizabeth answers, 'that there is +something new to be observed in them for ever.' + +'Yes, indeed,' cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by Darcy's manner of +mentioning a country neighbourhood; 'I assure you that we have quite as +much of _that_ going on in the country as in town.' + +'Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, +turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a +complete victory over him, continued her triumph.' + +These people belong to a whole world of familiar acquaintances, who are, +notwithstanding their old-fashioned dresses and quaint expressions, more +alive to us than a great many of the people among whom we live. We +know so much more about them to begin with. Notwithstanding a certain +reticence and self-control which seems to belong to their age, and with +all their quaint dresses, and ceremonies, and manners, the ladies and +gentlemen in 'Pride and Prejudice' and its companion novels seem like +living people out of our own acquaintance transported bodily into a +bygone age, represented in the half-dozen books that contain Jane +Austen's works. Dear books! bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in +which the homely heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores +are enchanting. + +Could we but study our own bores as Miss Austen must have studied hers +in her country village, what a delightful world this might be!--a world +of Norris's economical great walkers, with dining-room tables to dispose +of; of Lady Bertrams on sofas, with their placid 'Do not act anything +improper, my dears; Sir Thomas would not like it;' of Bennets, Goddards, +Bates's; of Mr. Collins's; of Rushbrooks, with two-and-forty speeches +apiece--a world of Mrs. Eltons.... Inimitable woman! she must be alive +at this very moment, if we but knew where to find her, her basket on her +arm, her nods and all-importance, with Maple Grove and the Sucklings in +the background. She would be much excited were she aware how she is +esteemed by a late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is well acquainted +with Maple Grove and Selina too. It might console her for Mr. Knightly's +shabby marriage. + +All these people nearly start out of the pages, so natural and +unaffected are they, and yet they never lived except in the imagination +of one lady with bright eyes, who sat down some seventy years ago to an +old mahogany desk in a quiet country parlour, and evoked them for us. +One seems to see the picture of the unknown friend who has charmed us so +long--charmed away dull hours, created neighbours and companions for +us in lonely places, conferring happiness and harmless mirth upon +generations to come. One can picture her as she sits erect, with her +long and graceful figure, her full round face, her bright eyes cast +down,--Jane Austen, 'the woman of whom England is justly proud'--whose +method generous Macaulay has placed near Shakespeare. She is writing +in secret, putting away her work when visitors come in, unconscious, +modest, hidden at home in heart, as she was in her sweet and womanly +life, with the wisdom of the serpent indeed and the harmlessness of a +dove. + +Some one said just now that many people seem to be so proud of seeing +a joke at all, that they impress it upon you until you are perfectly +wearied by it. Jane Austen was not of these; her humour flows gentle and +spontaneous; it is no elaborate mechanism nor artificial fountain, but +a bright natural stream, rippling and trickling over every stone and +sparkling in the sunshine. We should be surprised now-a-days to hear a +young lady announce herself as a studier of character. From her quiet +home in the country lane this one reads to us a real page from the +absorbing pathetic humorous book of human nature--a book that we can +most of us understand when it is translated into plain English; but +of which the quaint and illegible characters are often difficult to +decipher for ourselves. It is a study which, with all respect for Darcy's +opinion, must require something of country-like calm and concentration +and freedom of mind. It is difficult, for instance, for a too impulsive +student not to attribute something of his own moods to his specimens +instead of dispassionately contemplating them from a critical distance. + +Besides the natural fun and wit and life of her characters, 'all +perfectly discriminated,' as Macaulay says, Jane Austen has the gift of +telling a story in a way that has never been surpassed. She rules her +places, times, characters, and marshals them with unerring precision. +In her special gift for organisation she seems almost unequalled. Her +picnics are models for all future and past picnics; her combinations of +feelings, of conversation, of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and +lifelike that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us--the +scene carries us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is +recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselves +so vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginary +scenes, we seem not only to read them, but to live them, to see the +people coming and going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the +ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them talking to one +another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life days and +events follow one another. Last Tuesday does not suddenly start into +existence all out of place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when we +are well on in '21. Countries and continents do not fly from hero to +hero, nor do long and divergent adventures happen to unimportant members +of the company. With Jane Austen days, hours, minutes succeed each other +like clockwork, one central figure is always present on the scene, that +figure is always prepared for company. Miss Edwards's curl-papers are +almost the only approach to dishabille in her stories. There are +postchaises in readiness to convey the characters from Bath or Lyme to +Uppercross, to Fullerton, from Gracechurch Street to Meryton, as their +business takes them. Mr. Knightly rides from Brunswick Square to +Hartfield, by a road that Miss Austen herself must have travelled in the +curricle with her brother, driving to London on a summer's day. It was +a wet ride for Mr. Knightly, followed by that never-to-be-forgotten +afternoon in the shrubbery, when the wind had changed into a softer +quarter, the clouds were carried off, and Emma, walking in the sunshine, +with spirits freshened and thoughts a little relieved, and thinking of +Mr. Knightly as sixteen miles away, meets him at the garden door; and +everybody, I think, must be the happier, for the happiness and certainty +that one half-hour gave to Emma and her 'indifferent' lover. + +There is a little extract from one of Miss Austen's letters to a niece, +which shows that all this successful organisation was not brought about +by chance alone, but came from careful workmanship. + +'Your aunt C.,' she says, 'does not like desultory novels, and is rather +fearful that yours will be too much so--that there will be too frequent +a change from one set of people to another, and that circumstances will +be sometimes introduced of apparent consequence, which will lead to +nothing. It will not be so great an objection to me. I allow much more +latitude than she does, and think nature and spirit cover many sins of a +wandering story....' + +But, though the sins of a wandering story may be covered, the virtues of +a well-told one make themselves felt unconsciously, and without an +effort. Some books and people are delightful, we can scarce tell why; +they are not so clever as others that weary and fatigue us. It is a +certain effort to read a story, however touching, that is disconnected +and badly related. It is like an ill-drawn picture, of which the +colouring is good. Jane Austen possessed both gifts of colour and of +drawing. She could see human nature as it was; with near-sighted eyes, +it is true; but having seen, she could combine her picture by her art, +and colour it from life. How delightful the people are who play at +cards, and pay their addresses to one another, and sup, and discuss each +other's affairs! Take Mr. Bennet's reception of his sons-in-law. Take +Sir Walter Elliot compassionating the navy and Admiral Baldwin--'nine +grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top--a wretched +example of what a seafaring life can do, for men who are exposed to +every climate and weather until they are not fit to be seen. It is a +pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral +Baldwin's age....' Or shall we quote the scene of Fanny Price's return +when she comes to visit her family at Portsmouth; in all daughterly +agitation and excitement, and the brother's and father's and sister's +reception of her.... 'A stare or two at Fanny was all the voluntary +notice that her brother bestowed, but he made no objection to her kissing +him, though still entirely engaged in detailing further particulars of +the "Thrush's" going out of harbour, in which he had a strong right of +interest, being about to commence his career of seamanship in her at +this very time. After the mother and daughter have received her, Fanny's +seafaring father comes in, and does not notice her at first in his +excitement. "Captain Walsh thinks you will certainly have a cruise to +the westward with the 'Elephant' by ---- I wish you may. But old Scholey +was saying just now that he thought you would be sent first to the +'Texel.' Well, well, we are ready whatever happens. But by ---- you lost +a fine sight by not being here in the morning to see the 'Thrush' go out +of harbour. I would not have been out of the way for a thousand pounds. +Old Scholey ran in at breakfast time to say she had slipped her moorings +and was coming out. I jumped up and made but two steps to the platform. +If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat she is one; and there she lies +at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an +eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform for two hours this afternoon +looking at her. She lies close to the 'Endymion,' between her and the +'Cleopatra,' just to the eastward of the sheer hulk."' + +'"Ha!" cried William, "_that's_ just where I should have put her myself. +It's the best berth in Spithead. But here is my sister, sir; here is +Fanny, turning and leading her forward--it is so dark you do not see +her."' + +'With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot her, Mr. Price now +received his daughter, and having given her a cordial hug and observed +that she was grown into a woman and he supposed would be wanting a +husband soon, seemed very much inclined to forget her again.' + +How admirably it is all told! how we hear them all talking! + +From her own brothers Jane Austen learned her accurate knowledge of +ships and seafaring things, from her own observation she must have +gathered her delightful droll science of men and women and their ways +and various destinations. Who will not recognise Mrs. Norris in that +master-touch by which she removes the curtain to save Sir Thomas's +feelings, that curtain which had been prepared for the private +theatricals he so greatly disapproved of? Mrs. Norris thoughtfully +carries it off to her cottage, where she happened to be particularly in +want of green baize. + + +II. + +The charm of friends of pen-and-ink is their unchangeableness. We go to +them when we want them. We know where to seek them; we know what to +expect from them. They are never preoccupied; they are always 'at home;' +they never turn their backs nor walk away as people do in real life, nor +let their houses and leave the neighbourhood, and disappear for weeks +together; they are never taken up with strange people, nor suddenly +absorbed into some more genteel society, or by some nearer fancy. Even +the most volatile among them is to be counted upon. We may have +neglected them, and yet when we meet again there are the familiar old +friends, and we seem to find our own old selves again in their company. +For us time has, perhaps, passed away; feelings have swept by, leaving +interests and recollections in their place; but at all ages there must +be days that belong to our youth, hours that will recur so long as men +forbear and women remember, and life itself exists. Perhaps the most +fashionable marriage on the _tapis_ no longer excites us very much, but +the sentiment of an Emma or an Anne Elliot comes home to some of us as +vividly as ever. It is something to have such old friends who are so +young. An Emma, blooming, without a wrinkle or a grey hair, after +twenty years' acquaintance; an Elizabeth Bennet, sprightly and charming +ever.... + +In the 'Roundabout Papers' there is a passage about the pen-and-ink +friends my father loved:-- + +'They used to call the good Sir Walter the "Wizard of the North." What +if some writer should appear who can write so _enchantingly_ that he +shall be able to call into actual life the people whom he invents? What +if Mignon, and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are alive now +(though I don't say they are visible), and Dugald Dalgetty and Ivanhoe +were to step in at that open window by the little garden yonder? Suppose +Uncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to glide in silent? +Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis should enter, with a noiseless +swagger, curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle +Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse with his hair dyed green; and all the +Crummles company of comedians, with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Roger +de Coverley; and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La +Mancha, with his blessed squire? I say to you, I look rather wistfully +towards the window, musing upon these people. Were any of them to enter, +I think I should not be very much frightened....' + +Are not such friends as these, and others unnamed here, but who will +come unannounced to join the goodly company, creations that, like some +people, do actually make part of our existence, and make us the better +for theirs? To express some vague feelings is to stamp them. Have we any +one of us a friend in a Knight of La Mancha, a Colonel Newcome, a Sir +Roger de Coverley? They live for us even though they may have never +lived. They are, and do actually make part of our lives, one of the best +and noblest parts. To love them is like a direct communication with the +great and generous minds that conceived them. + + * * * * * + +It is difficult, reading the novels of succeeding generations, to +determine how much each book reflects of the time in which it was +written; how much of its character depends upon the mind and the mood of +the writer. The greatest minds, the most original, have the least stamp +of the age, the most of that dominant natural reality which belongs to +all great minds. We know how a landscape changes as the day goes on, +and how the scene brightens and gains in beauty as the shadows begin to +lengthen. The clearest eyes must see by the light of their own hour. +Jane Austen's literary hour must have been a midday hour: bright, +unsuggestive, with objects standing clear, without much shadow or +elaborate artistic effect. Our own age is more essentially an age of +strained emotion, little remains to us of starch, or powder, or courtly +reserve. What we have lost in calm, in happiness, in tranquillity, we +have gained in emphasis. Our danger is now, not of expressing and +feeling too little, but of expressing more than we feel. + +The living writers of to-day lead us into distant realms and worlds +undreamt of in the placid and easily contented gigot age. Our characters +travel by rail and are no longer confined to postchaises. There is +certainly a wide difference between Miss Austen's heroines and, let us +say, a Maggie Tulliver. One would be curious to know whether, between +the human beings who read Jane Austen's books to-day and those who read +them fifty years ago, there is as great a contrast. One reason may be, +perhaps, that characters in novels are certainly more intimate with us +and on less ceremonious terms than in Jane Austen's days, when heroines +never gave up a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hardness of +heart in which some modern types are a little wanting. Whatever happens +they could for the most part speak of quietly and without bitterness. +Love with them does not mean a passion so much as an interest, deep, +silent, not quite incompatible with a secondary flirtation. Marianne +Dashwood's tears are evidently meant to be dried. Jane Bennet smiles, +sighs and makes excuses for Bingley's neglect. Emma passes one +disagreeable morning making up her mind to the unnatural alliance +between Mr. Knightly and Harriet Smith. It was the spirit of the age, +and, perhaps, one not to be unenvied. It was not that Jane Austen +herself was incapable of understanding a deeper feeling. In the last +written page of her last written book, there is an expression of the +deepest and truest experience. Annie Elliot's talk with Captain Benfield +is the touching utterance of a good woman's feelings. They are speaking +of men and of women's affections. 'You are always labouring and +toiling,' she says, 'exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, +country, friends, all united; neither time nor life to be called your +own. It would be too hard, indeed (with a faltering voice), if a woman's +feelings were to be added to all this.' + +Further on she says, eagerly: 'I hope I do justice to all that is +felt by you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should +undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. +I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment +and constancy were known only by woman. No! I believe you capable of +everything good and great in your married lives. I believe you equal +to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance so long +as--if I may be allowed the expression--so long as you have an object; +I mean while the woman you love lives and lives for you. _All the +privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you +need not court it) is that of loving longest when existence or when hope +is gone._' + +She could not immediately have uttered another sentence--her heart was +too full, her breath too much oppressed. + +Dear Anne Elliot!--sweet, impulsive, womanly, tender-hearted--one can +almost hear her voice, pleading the cause of all true women. In those +days when, perhaps, people's nerves were stronger than they are now, +sentiment may have existed in a less degree, or have been more ruled by +judgment, it may have been calmer and more matter-of-fact; and yet Jane +Austen, at the very end of her life, wrote thus. Her words seem to ring +in our ears after they have been spoken. Anne Elliot must have been Jane +Austen herself, speaking for the last time. There is something so true, +so womanly about her, that it is impossible not to love her most of all. +She is the bright-eyed heroine of the earlier novels, matured, softened, +cultivated, to whom fidelity has brought only greater depth and +sweetness instead of bitterness and pain. + +What a difficult thing it would be to sit down and try to enumerate the +different influences by which our lives have been affected--influences +of other lives, of art, of nature, of place and circumstance,--of +beautiful sights passing before our eyes, or painful ones: seasons +following in their course--hills rising on our horizons--scenes of ruin +and desolation--crowded thoroughfares--sounds in our ears, jarring or +harmonious--the voices of friends, calling, warning, encouraging--of +preachers preaching--of people in the street below, complaining, and +asking our pity! What long processions of human beings are passing +before us! What trains of thought go sweeping through our brains! Man +seems a strange and ill-kept record of many and bewildering experiences. +Looking at oneself--not as oneself, but as an abstract human being--one +is lost in wonder at the vast complexities which have been brought to +bear upon it; lost in wonder, and in disappointment perhaps, at the +discordant result of so great a harmony. Only we know that the whole +diapason is beyond our grasp: one man cannot hear the note of the +grasshoppers, another is deaf when the cannon sounds. Waiting among +these many echoes and mysteries of every kind, and light and darkness, +and life and death, we seize a note or two of the great symphony, and +try to sing; and because these notes happen to jar, we think all is +discordant hopelessness. Then come pressing onward in the crowd of +life, voices with some of the notes that are wanting to our own +part--voices tuned to the same key as our own, or to an accordant one; +making harmony for us as they pass us by. Perhaps this is in life the +happiest of all experience, and to few of us there exists any more +complete ideal. + +And so now and then in our lives, when we learn to love a sweet and +noble character, we all feel happier and better for the goodness and +charity which is not ours, and yet which seems to belong to us while +we are near it. Just as some people and states of mind affect us +uncomfortably, so we seem to be true to ourselves with a truthful +person, generous-minded with a generous nature; life seems less +disappointing and self-seeking when we think of the just and sweet and +unselfish spirits, moving untroubled among dinning and distracting +influences. These are our friends in the best and noblest sense. We are +the happier for their existence,--it is so much gain to us. They may +have lived at some distant time, we may never have met face to face, or +we may have known them and been blessed by their love; but their light +shines from afar, their life is for us and with us in its generous +example; their song is for our ears, and we hear it and love it still, +though the singer may be lying dead. + + +III. + +A little book, written by one of Jane Austen's nephews, tells with a +touching directness and simplicity the story of this good and gifted +woman, whose name has long been a household word among us, but of whose +history nothing was known until this little volume appeared. It is but +the story of a country lady, of quiet days following quiet days of +seasons in their course of common events; and yet the history is deeply +interesting to those who loved the writer of whom it is written; and as +we turn from the story of Jane Austen's life to her books again, we feel +more than ever that she, too, was one of those true friends who belong +to us inalienably--simple, wise, contented, living in others, one of +those whom we seem to have a right to love. Such people belong to all +humankind by the very right of their wide and generous sympathies, of +their gentle wisdom and loveableness. Jane Austen's life, as it is told +by Mr. Austen Legh, is very touching, sweet, and peaceful. It is a +country landscape, where the cattle are grazing, the boughs of the great +elm-tree rocking in the wind: sometimes, as we read, they come falling +with a crash into the sweep; birds are flying about the old house, +homely in its simple rule. The rafters cross the whitewashed ceilings, +the beams project into the room below. We can see it all: the parlour +with the horsehair sofa, the scant, quaint furniture, the old-fashioned +garden outside, with its flowers and vegetables combined, and along the +south side of the garden the green terrace sloping away. + +There is a pretty description of the sisters' devotion to one another +(when Cassandra went to school little Jane accompanied her, the sisters +could not be parted), of the family party, of the old place, 'where +there are hedgerows winding, with green shady footpaths within the +copse; where the earliest primroses and hyacinths are found.' There +is the wood-walk, with its rustic seats, leading to the meadows; the +church-walk leading to the church, 'which is far from the hum of the +village, and within sight of no habitation, except a glimpse of the grey +manor-house through its circling screen of sycamores. Sweet violets, +both purple and white, grow in abundance beneath its south wall. Large +elms protrude their rough branches, old hawthorns shed their blossoms +over the graves, and the hollow yew-tree must be at least coëval with +the church.' + +One may read the account of Catherine Morland's home with new interest, +from the hint which is given of its likeness to the old house at +Steventon, where dwelt the unknown friend whose voice we seem to hear +at last, and whose face we seem to recognise, her bright eyes and brown +curly hair, her quick and graceful figure. One can picture the children +who are playing at the door of the old parsonage, and calling for Aunt +Jane. One can imagine her pretty ways with them, her sympathy for the +active, their games and imaginations. There is Cassandra. She is older +than her sister, more critical, more beautiful, more reserved. There is +the mother of the family, with her keen wit and clear mind; the handsome +father--'the handsome proctor,' as he was called; the five brothers, +driving up the lane. Tranquil summer passes by, the winter days go by; +the young lady still sits writing at the old mahogany desk, and smiling, +perhaps, at her own fancies, and hiding them away with her papers at the +sound of coming steps. Now, the modest papers, printed and reprinted, +lie in every hand, the fancies disport themselves at their will in the +wisest brains and the most foolish. + +It must have been at Steventon--Jane Austen's earliest home--that Mr. +Collins first made his appearance (Lady Catherine not objecting, as we +know, to his occasional absence on a Sunday, provided another clergyman +was engaged to do the duty of the day), and here, conversing with Miss +Jane, that he must have made many of his profoundest observations upon +human nature; remarking, among other things, that resignation is never +so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its +value in our estimation, and propounding his celebrated theory about the +usual practice of elegant females. It must have been here, too, that poor +Mrs. Bennet declared, with some justice, that once estates are entailed, +one can never tell how they will go; here, too, that Mrs. Allen's sprigged +muslin and John Thorpe's rodomontades were woven; that his gig was built, +'curricle-hung lamps, seat, trunk, sword-case, splashboard, silver +moulding, all, you see, complete. The ironwork as good as new, or +better. He asked fifty guineas.... I closed with him directly, threw +down the money, and the carriage was mine.' + +'And I am sure,' said Catherine, 'I know so little of such things, that +I cannot judge whether it was cheap or dear.' + +'Neither the one nor the other,' says John Thorpe. + +Mrs. Palmer was also born at Steventon--that good-humoured lady in +'Sense and Sensibility,' who thinks it so ridiculous that her husband +never hears her when she speaks to him. We are told that Marianne and +Ellinor have been supposed to represent Cassandra and Jane Austen; but +Mr. Austen Legh says that he can trace no resemblance. Jane Austen is +not twenty when this book is written, and only twenty-one when 'Pride +and Prejudice' is first devised. + +Cousins presently come on the scene, and amongst them the romantic +figure of a young, widowed Comtesse de Feuillade, flying from the +Revolution to her uncle's home. She is described as a clever and +accomplished woman, interested in her young cousins, teaching them +French (both Jane and Cassandra knew French), helping in their various +schemes, in their theatricals in the barn. She eventually marries her +cousin, Henry Austen. The simple family annals are not without their +romance; but there is a cruel one for poor Cassandra, whose lover dies +abroad, and his death saddens the whole family-party. Jane, too, +'receives the addresses' (do such things as addresses exist nowadays?) +'of a gentleman possessed of good character and fortune, and of +everything, in short, except the subtle power of touching her heart.' +One cannot help wondering whether this was a Henry Crawford or an Elton +or a Mr. Elliot, or had Jane already seen the person that even Cassandra +thought good enough for her sister? + +Here, too, is another sorrowful story. The sisters' fate (there is a sad +coincidence and similarity in it) was to be undivided; their life, their +experience was the same. Some one without a name takes leave of Jane one +day, promising to come back. He never comes back: long afterwards they +hear of his death. The story seems even sadder than Cassandra's in its +silence and uncertainty, for silence and uncertainty are death in life +to some people.... + +There is little trace of such a tragedy in Jane Austen's books--not one +morbid word is to be found, not one vain regret. Hers was not a nature +to fall crushed by the overthrow of one phase of her manifold life. She +seems to have had a natural genius for life, if I may so speak; too +vivid and genuinely unselfish to fail her in her need. She could gather +every flower, every brightness along her road. Good spirit, content, all +the interests of a happy and observant nature were hers. Her gentle +humour and wit and interest cannot have failed. + +It is impossible to calculate the difference of the grasp by which one +or another human being realises existence and the things relating to it, +nor how much more vivid life seems to some than to others. Jane Austen, +while her existence lasted, realised it, and made the best use of the +gifts that were hers. Yet, when her life was ending, then it was given +to her to understand the change that was at hand; as willingly as she +had lived, she died. Some people seem scarcely to rise up to their own +work, to their own ideal. Jane Austen's life, as it is told by her +nephew, is beyond her work, which only contained one phase of that +sweet and wise nature--the creative, observant, outward phase. For her +home, for her sister, for her friends, she kept the depth and tenderness +of her bright and gentle sympathy. She is described as busy with her +neat and clever fingers sewing for the poor, working fanciful keepsakes +for her friends. There is the cup and ball that she never failed to +catch; the spillikens lie in an even ring where she had thrown them; +there are her letters, straightly and neatly folded, and fitting +smoothly in their creases. There is something sweet, orderly, and +consistent in her character and all her tastes--in her fondness for +Crabbe and Cowper, in her little joke that she ought to be a Mrs. +Crabbe. She sings of an evening old ballads to old-fashioned tunes with +a low sweet voice. + +Further on we have a glimpse of Jane and her sister in their mobcaps, +young still, but dressed soberly beyond their years. One can imagine +'Aunt Jane,' with her brother's children round her knee, telling her +delightful stories or listening to theirs, with never-failing sympathy. +One can fancy Cassandra, who does not like desultory novels, more +prudent and more reserved, and somewhat less of a playfellow, looking +down upon the group with elder sister's eyes. + +Here is an extract from a letter written at Steventon in 1800:-- + +'I have two messages: let me get rid of them, and then my paper will be +my own. Mary fully intended writing by Mr. Charles's frank, and only +happened entirely to forget it, but will write soon; and my father +wishes Edward to send him a memorandum of the price of hops. + + '_Sunday Evening._ +'We have had a dreadful storm of wind in the forepart of the day, which +has done a great deal of mischief among our trees. I was sitting alone +in the drawing-room when an odd kind of crash startled me. In a moment +afterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window. I reached it just +in time to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend into the +sweep!!! + +'The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first crash, and which +was nearest to the pond, taking a more easterly direction, sank among +our screen of chestnuts and firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, breaking +off the head of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts of +several branches in its fall. This is not all: the maple bearing the +weathercock was broken in two, and what I regret more than all the rest +is, that all the three elms that grew in Hall's Meadow, and gave such +ornament to it, are gone.' + +A certain Mrs. Stent comes into one of these letters 'ejaculating some +wonder about the cocks and hens.' Mrs. Stent seems to have tried their +patience, and will be known henceforward as having bored Jane Austen. + +They leave Steventon when Jane is about twenty-five years of age and go +to Bath, from whence a couple of pleasant letters are given us. Jane is +writing to her sister. She has visited Miss A., who, like all other +young ladies, is considerably genteeler than her parents. She is +heartily glad that Cassandra speaks so comfortably of her health and +looks: could travelling fifty miles produce such an immediate change? +'You were looking poorly when you were here, and everybody seemed +sensible of it.' Is there any charm in a hack postchaise? But if there +were, Mrs. Craven's carriage might have undone it all. Then Mrs. Stent +appears again. 'Poor Mrs. Stent, it has been her lot to be always in the +way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. +Stents ourselves, unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody.' +Elsewhere she writes, upon Mrs. ----'s mentioning that she had sent the +'Rejected Addresses' to Mr. H., 'I began talking to her a little about +them, and expressed my hope of their having amused her. Her answer was, +"Oh dear, yes, very much; very droll indeed; the opening of the house +and the striking up of the fiddles!" What she meant, poor woman, who +shall say?' + +But there is no malice in Jane Austen. Hers is the charity of all clear +minds, it is only the muddled who are intolerant. All who love Emma and +Mr. Knightly must remember the touching little scene in which he +reproves her for her thoughtless impatience of poor Miss Bates's +volubility. + +'You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from +a period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless +spirits and in the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her.... +This is not pleasant to you, Emma, and it is very far from pleasant to +me, but I must, I will, I will tell you truths while I am satisfied with +proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that +you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do me +now.' + +'While they talked they were advancing towards the carriage: it was +ready, and before she could speak again he had handed her in. He had +misinterpreted the feeling which kept her face averted and her tongue +motionless.' Mr. Knightly's little sermon, in its old-fashioned English, +is as applicable now as it was when it was spoken. We know that he was +an especial favourite with Jane Austen. + + +IV. + +Mr. Austen died at Bath, and his family removed to Southampton. In 1811, +Mrs. Austen, her daughters, and her niece, settled finally at Chawton, +a house belonging to Jane's brother, Mr. Knight (he was adopted by an +uncle, whose name he took), and from Chawton all her literary work was +given to the world. 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Pride and Prejudice,' were +already written; but in the next five years, from thirty-five to forty, +she set to work seriously, and wrote 'Mansfield Park,' 'Emma,' and +'Persuasion.' Any one who has written a book will know what an amount of +labour this represents.... One can picture to oneself the little family +scene which Jane describes to Cassandra. 'Pride and Prejudice' just come +down in a parcel from town; the unsuspicious Miss B. to dinner; and Jane +and her mother setting to in the evening and reading aloud half the +first volume of a new novel sent down by the brother. Unsuspicious Miss +B. is delighted. Jane complains of her mother's too rapid way of getting +on; 'though she perfectly understands the characters herself, she cannot +speak as they ought. Upon the whole, however,' she says, 'I am quite +vain enough and well-satisfied enough.' This is her own criticism of +'Pride and Prejudice':--'The work is rather too light, and bright, and +sparkling. It wants shade. It wants to be stretched out here and there +with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn +specious nonsense about something unconnected with the story--an essay +on writing, a critique on Walter Scott or the "History of Bonaparte."' + +And so Jane Austen lives quietly working at her labour of love, +interested in her 'own darling children's' success; 'the light of the +home,' one of the real living children says afterwards, speaking in the +days when she was no longer there. She goes to London once or twice. +Once she lives for some months in Hans Place, nursing a brother through +an illness. Here it was that she received some little compliments and +messages from the Prince Regent, to whom she dedicated 'Emma.' He thanks +her and acknowledges the handsome volumes, and she laughs and tells her +publisher that at all events his share of the offering is appreciated, +whatever hers may be! We are also favoured with some valuable suggestions +from Mr. Clarke, the Royal librarian, respecting a very remarkable +clergyman. He is anxious that Miss Austen should delineate one who +'should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, something +like Beattie's minstrel, entirely engaged in literature, and no man's +enemy but his own.' Failing to impress this character upon the authoress, +he makes a fresh suggestion, and proposes that she should write a +romance illustrative of the august house of Coburg. 'It would be +interesting,' he says, 'and very properly dedicated to Prince Leopold.' + +To which the authoress replies: 'I could no more write a romance than an +epic poem. I could not seriously sit down to write a romance under any +other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me +to keep it up, and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, +I am sure I should be hung before the first chapter.' + +There is a delightful collection of friends' suggestions which she has +put together, but which is too long to be quoted here. She calls it, +'Plan of a Novel, as suggested by various Friends.' + +All this time, while her fame is slowly growing, life passes in the same +way as in the old cottage at Chawton. Aunt Jane, with her young face and +her mob-cap, makes play-houses for the children, helps them to dress up, +invents imaginary conversations for them, supposing that they are all +grown up, the day after a ball. One can imagine how delightful a game +that must have seemed to the little girls. She built her nest, did this +good woman, happily weaving it out of shreds, and ends, and scraps of +daily duty, patiently put together; and it was from this nest that she +sang the song, bright and brilliant, with quaint thrills and unexpected +cadences, that reaches us even here through near a century. The lesson +her life seems to teach us is this: Don't let us despise our nests--life +is as much made of minutes as of years; let us complete the daily +duties; let us patiently gather the twigs and the little scraps of moss, +of dried grass together, and see the result!--a whole, completed and +coherent, beautiful even without the song. + +We come too soon to the story of her death. And yet did it come too +soon? A sweet life is not the sweeter for being long. Jane Austen lived +years enough to fulfil her mission. She lived long enough to write six +books that were masterpieces in their way--to make a world the happier +for her industry. + +One cannot read the story of her latter days, of her patience, her +sweetness, and gratitude, without emotion. There is family trouble, we +are not told of what nature. She falls ill. Her nieces find her in her +dressing-gown, like an invalid, in an arm-chair in her bedroom; but she +gets up and greets them, and, pointing to seats which had been arranged +for them by the fire, says: 'There is a chair for the married lady, and +a little stool for you, Caroline.' But she is too weak to talk, and +Cassandra takes them away. + +At last they persuade her to go to Winchester, to a well-known doctor +there. + +'It distressed me,' she says, in one of her last, dying letters, 'to see +Uncle Henry and William Knight, who kindly attended us, riding in the +rain almost the whole way. We expect a visit from them to-morrow, and +hope they will stay the night; and on Thursday, which is a confirmation +and a holiday, we hope to get Charles out to breakfast. We have had but +one visit from _him_, poor fellow, as he is in the sick room.... God +bless you, dear E.; if ever you are ill, may you be as tenderly nursed +as I have been....' + +But nursing does not cure her, nor can the doctor save her to them all, +and she sinks from day to day. To the end she is full of concern for +others. + +'As for my dearest sister, my tender, watchful, indefatigable nurse has +not been made ill by her exertions,' she writes. 'As to what I owe her, +and the anxious affection of all my beloved family on this occasion, I +can only cry over it, and pray God to bless them more and more.' + +One can hardly read this last sentence with dry eyes. It is her parting +blessing and farewell to those she had blessed all her life by her +presence and her love--that love which is beyond death; and of which the +benediction remains, not only spoken in words, but by the ever-present +signs and the tokens of those lifetimes which do not end for us as long +as we ourselves exist. + +They asked her when she was near her end if there was anything she +wanted. + +'Nothing but death,' she said. Those were her last words. She died on +the 18th of July, 1817, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral, where +she lies not unremembered. + + +LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., +NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET + + + + +TRANSCRIBER's NOTE + +Two instances of Bryon for _Byron_ have been corrected. The following +additional changes have been made: + + A. I. R. (in dedication) A. _T._ R. + + her sad and dimning life her sad and _dimming_ life + + it was to her father hat it was to her father _that_ + + who invited Mrs. Barbauld to who invited _Mr._ Barbauld + become their minister become their minister + + He was interrupted by her He was interrupted by _his_ + companion companion + + Mrs. Opie's description of her Mrs. Opie's description of her + arrival reads a comment upon arrival reads _like_ a comment + history. upon history. + + + + +MISS THACKERAY'S WORKS. + +A New and Uniform Edition; each Volume Illustrated with a Vignette +Title-page drawn by ARTHUR HUGHES, and Engraved by J. COOPER. + +Large crown 8vo. 6_s._ + + 1. OLD KENSINGTON. + 2. THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. + 3. FIVE OLD FRIENDS AND A YOUNG PRINCE. + 4. TO ESTHER; and other Sketches. + 5. BLUEBEARD'S KEYS; and other Stories. + 6. THE STORY OF ELIZABETH; TWO HOURS; FROM AN ISLAND. + 7. TOILERS AND SPINSTERS; and other Essays. + 8. MISS ANGEL; FULHAM LAWN. + 9. MISS WILLIAMSON'S DIVAGATIONS. + + +NEW AND UNIFORM EDITION OF MRS. GASKELL'S NOVELS AND TALES. + +In Seven Volumes, each containing Four Illustrations. + +_Price 3s. 6d. each, bound in cloth; or in Sets of Seven Volumes, +handsomely bound in half-morocco, price £2. 10s._ + +CONTENTS OF THE VOLUMES:-- + + VOL. I. WIVES AND DAUGHTERS. + VOL. II. NORTH AND SOUTH. + VOL. III. SYLVIA'S LOVERS. + + VOL. IV. CRANFORD. + Company Manners--The Well of Pen-Morpha--The Heart of John + Middleton--Traits and Stories of the Huguenots--Six Weeks at + Heppenheim--The Squire's Story--Libbie Marsh's Three Eras--Curious if + True--The Moorland Cottage--The Sexton's Hero--Disappearances--Right at + Last--The Manchester Marriage--Lois the Witch--The Crooked Branch. + + VOL. V. MARY BARTON. + Cousin Phillis--My French Master--The Old Nurse's Story--Bessy's + Troubles at Home--Christmas Storms and Sunshine. + + VOL. VI. RUTH. + The Grey Woman--Morton Hall--Mr. Harrison's Confessions--Hand and Heart. + + VOL. VII. LIZZIE LEIGH. + A Dark Night's Work--Round the Sofa--My Lady Ludlow--An Accursed + Race--The Doom of the Griffiths--Half a Lifetime Ago--The Poor + Clare--The Half-Brothers. + + +ILLUSTRATED EDITIONS OF POPULAR WORKS + +Handsomely bound in cloth gilt, each volume containing Four Illustrations. + +Crown 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._ + + THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. + FRAMLEY PARSONAGE. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. + THE CLAVERINGS. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. + TRANSFORMATION: a Romance. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. + ROMANTIC TALES. By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' + DOMESTIC STORIES. By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' + NO NAME. By WILKIE COLLINS. + ARMADALE. By WILKIE COLLINS. + AFTER DARK. By WILKIE COLLINS. + MAUD TALBOT. By HOLME LEE. + THE MOORS AND THE FENS. By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. + WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. + CARITÀ. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. + FOR PERCIVAL. By MARGARET VELEY. + +London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place. + + +SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S ANNOUNCEMENTS, + +_NEW WORK by LIEUT.-COL. R. L. PLAYFAIR._ + +The SCOURGE of CHRISTENDOM: Annals of British Relations with Algiers +prior to the French Conquest. With Illustrations of Ancient Algiers from +1578 to 1824. By Lieut.-Col. R. L. PLAYFAIR, H.B.M.'s Consul at Algiers. +Demy 8vo. + +_NEW WORK by JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS._ + +SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS in the ENGLISH DRAMA. +By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, Author of 'The Renaissance in Italy' &c. Demy +8vo. + +The MATTHEW ARNOLD BIRTHDAY BOOK. +Arranged by his Daughter, ELEANOR ARNOLD. +Handsomely printed and bound in cloth, gilt edges. With Photograph. +Small 4to. 10_s._ 6_d._ + +_NEW VOLUME by MISS THACKERAY (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)._ + +A BOOK of SIBYLS: MRS. BARBAULD--MISS EDGEWORTH--MRS. OPIE--MISS AUSTEN. +By Miss THACKERAY (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie). +Essays reprinted from the 'Cornhill Magazine.' +Large crown 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._ + +MERV: a Story of Adventures and Captivity. +Epitomised from 'The Merv Oasis.' +By EDMUND O'DONOVAN, Special Correspondent of the _Daily News_. +With a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 6_s._ + +MEMOIRS of LIFE and WORK. By CHARLES J. B. WILLIAMS, M.D., F.R.S., +Physician Extraordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. +With Original Portraits. 8vo. + +The FIRST BOOK of EUCLID MADE EASY for BEGINNERS. +Arranged from 'The Elements of Euclid,' by ROBERT SIMSON, M.D. +By WILLIAM HOWARD. With Unlettered Diagrams with Coloured Lines. +Crown 8vo. + +_NEW EDITION of HARE'S 'CITIES of NORTHERN and CENTRAL ITALY.'_ + +CITIES of CENTRAL ITALY. With Illustrations. 2 vols. crown 8vo. + +CITIES of NORTHERN ITALY. With Illustrations. 2 vols. crown 8vo. +By AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE, Author of 'Cities of Southern Italy and +Sicily' &c. + +_NEW AND REVISED EDITION in ONE VOLUME._ + +MEMORIES of OLD FRIENDS. Being Extracts from the +Journals and Letters of Caroline Fox, of Penjerrick, Cornwall, from 1835 +to 1871, to which are added Fourteen Original Letters from J. S. Mill, +never before published. Edited by HORACE N. PYM. With Portrait. Crown +8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._ + +_POPULAR EDITION, ABRIDGED, with a NEW PREFACE._ + +LITERATURE and DOGMA. An Essay towards a Better Comprehension of the Bible. +By MATTHEW ARNOLD. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ + +The LIFE of LORD LAWRENCE. By R. BOSWORTH SMITH, M.A., +late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, Assistant Master at Harrow +School, Author of 'Mohammed and Mohammedanism,' 'Carthage and the +Carthaginians,' &c. Fifth Edition, 2 vols. 8vo. with 2 Portraits and 2 +Maps, 36_s._ + +ANATOMY for ARTISTS. By JOHN MARSHALL, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., +Professor of Anatomy, Royal Academy of Arts; late Lecturer on Anatomy at +the Government School of Design, South Kensington; Professor of Surgery +in University College. Illustrated by 220 Original Drawings on Wood by +J. S. Cuthbert, engraved by George Nicholls & Co. Second Edition. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Book of Sibyls + Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen + +Author: Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie) + +Release Date: November 9, 2009 [EBook #30435] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF SIBYLS *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<h1>A BOOK OF SIBYLS</h1> + +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" summary="title"> +<tr><td align="left">MRS BARBAULD</td><td> </td><td align="right">MISS EDGEWORTH</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">MRS OPIE</td><td> </td><td align="right">MISS AUSTEN</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>MISS THACKERAY</h3> +<h5>(MRS RICHMOND RITCHIE)</h5> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h4>LONDON<br /> +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE<br /> +1883</h4> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"><p class="noindent"><small>[<i>All rights reserved</i>]<br /> +[<i>Reprinted from the Cornhill Magazine</i>]</small> +</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><i>TO<br /><br /> +MRS OLIPHANT</i></p> +</div> + +<p><i>My little record would not seem to me in any way complete without your +name, dear Sibyl of our own, and as I write it here, I am grateful to +know that to mine and me it is not only the name of a Sibyl with deep +visions, but of a friend to us all</i></p> +<p class="right"> +<i>A. <ins title="original has I.">T.</ins> R.</i></p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> +<p> </p> + +<p>Not long ago, a party of friends were sitting at luncheon in a suburb of +London, when one of them happened to make some reference to Maple Grove +and Selina, and to ask in what county of England Maple Grove was +situated. Everybody immediately had a theory. Only one of the company (a +French gentleman, not well acquainted with English) did not recognise +the allusion. A lady sitting by the master of the house (she will, I +hope, forgive me for quoting her words, for no one else has a better +right to speak them) said, 'What a curious sign it is of Jane Austen's +increasing popularity! Here are five out of six people sitting round a +table, nearly a hundred years after her death, who all recognise at once +a chance allusion to an obscure character in one of her books.'</p> + +<p>It seemed impossible to leave out Jane Austen's dear household name from +a volume which concerned women writing in the early part of this +century, and although the essay which is called by her name has already +been reprinted, it is added with some alteration in its place with the +others.</p> + +<p>Putting together this little book has been a great pleasure and interest +to the compiler, and she wishes once more to thank those who have so +kindly sheltered her during her work, and lent her books and papers and +letters concerning the four writers whose works and manner of being she +has attempted to describe; and she wishes specially to express her +thanks to the Baron and Baroness <span class="smallcaps">von Hügel</span>, to the ladies of Miss +Edgeworth's family, to Mr. <span class="smallcaps">Harrison</span>, of the London Library, to the Miss +<span class="smallcaps">Reids</span>, of Hampstead, to Mrs. <span class="smallcaps">Field</span> and her daughters, of Squire's Mount, +Hampstead, to Lady <span class="smallcaps">Buxton</span>, Mrs. <span class="smallcaps">Brookfield</span>, Miss <span class="smallcaps">Alderson</span>, and Miss +<span class="smallcaps">Shirreff</span>.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<p> </p> +<h3><i>CONTENTS</i></h3> + +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#MRS_BARBAULD"><i>MRS. BARBAULD.</i></a></td><td>[1743-1825]</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#MISS_EDGEWORTH"><i>MISS EDGEWORTH.</i></a></td><td>[1767-1849]</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#MRS_OPIE"><i>MRS OPIE.</i></a></td><td>[1769-1853]</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#JANE_AUSTEN"><i>JANE AUSTEN.</i></a></td><td>[1775-1817]</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>A BOOK OF SIBYLS.</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="MRS_BARBAULD" id="MRS_BARBAULD"></a><i>MRS. BARBAULD.</i></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent">1743-1825.<br /> +</p> +</div> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="quote"> +<tr><td align="left"><small>'I've heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.'</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><i><small>Measure for Measure.</small></i></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I.</b></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>'The first poetess I can recollect is Mrs. Barbauld, with +whose works I became acquainted—before those of any +other author, male or female—when I was learning to +spell words of one syllable in her story-books for children.' +So says Hazlitt in his lectures on living poets. He goes +on to call her a very pretty poetess, strewing flowers of +poesy as she goes.</p> + +<p>The writer must needs, from the same point of view as +Hazlitt, look upon Mrs. Barbauld with a special interest, +having also first learnt to read out of her little yellow +books, of which the syllables rise up one by one again with +a remembrance of the hand patiently pointing to each in +turn; all this recalled and revived after a lifetime by the +sight of a rusty iron gateway, behind which Mrs. Barbauld +once lived, of some old letters closely covered with a wavery +writing, of a wide prospect that she once delighted to look +upon. Mrs. Barbauld, who loved to share her pleasures, +used to bring her friends to see the great view from the +Hampstead hill-top, and thus records their impressions:—</p> + +<p>'I dragged Mrs. A. up as I did you, my dear, to our +Prospect Walk, from whence we have so extensive a view.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said she, 'it is a very fine view indeed for a +flat country.'</p> + +<p>'While, on the other hand, Mrs. B. gave us such a +dismal account of the precipices, mountains, and deserts +she encountered, that you would have thought she had +been on the wildest part of the Alps.'</p> + +<p>The old Hampstead highroad, starting from the plain, +winds its way resolutely up the steep, and brings you past +red-brick houses and walled-in gardens to this noble outlook; +to the heath, with its fresh, inspiriting breezes, its +lovely distances of far-off waters and gorsy hollows. At +whatever season, at whatever hour you come, you are +pretty sure to find one or two votaries—poets like Mrs. +Barbauld, or commonplace people such as her friends—watching +before this great altar of nature; whether by early +morning rays, or in the blazing sunset, or when the evening +veils and mists with stars come falling, while the lights +of London shine far away in the valley. Years after Mrs. +Barbauld wrote, one man, pre-eminent amongst poets, used +to stand upon this hill-top, and lo! as Turner gazed, a +whole generation gazed with him. For him Italy gleamed +from behind the crimson stems of the fir-trees; the spirit +of loveliest mythology floated upon the clouds, upon the +many changing tints of the plains; and, as the painter +watched the lights upon the distant hills, they sank into +his soul, and he painted them down for us, and poured +his dreams into our awakening hearts.</p> + +<p>He was one of that race of giants, mighty men of +humble heart, who have looked from Hampstead and +Highgate Hills. Here Wordsworth trod; here sang +Keats's nightingale; here mused Coleridge; and here came +Carlyle, only yesterday, tramping wearily, in search of +some sign of his old companions. Here, too, stood kind +Walter Scott, under the elms of the Judges' Walk, and +perhaps Joanna Baillie was by his side, coming out from +her pretty old house beyond the trees. Besides all these, +were a whole company of lesser stars following and surrounding +the brighter planets—muses, memoirs, critics, +poets, nymphs, authoresses—coming to drink tea and +to admire the pleasant suburban beauties of this modern +Parnassus. A record of many of their names is still +to be found, appropriately enough, in the catalogue +of the little Hampstead library which still exists, which +was founded at a time when the very hands that wrote the +books may have placed the old volumes upon the shelves. +Present readers can study them at their leisure, to the +clanking of the horses' feet in the courtyard outside, and +the splashing of buckets. A few newspapers lie on the +table—stray sheets of to-day that have fluttered up the +hill, bringing news of this bustling now into a past +serenity. The librarian sits stitching quietly in a window. +An old lady comes in to read the news; but she has forgotten +her spectacles, and soon goes away. Here, instead of +asking for 'Vice Versâ,' or Ouida's last novel, you instinctively +mention 'Plays of the Passions,' Miss Burney's +'Evelina,' or some such novels; and Mrs. Barbauld's works +are also in their place. When I asked for them, two +pretty old Quaker volumes were put into my hands, with +shabby grey bindings, with fine paper and broad margins, +such as Mr. Ruskin would approve. Of all the inhabitants +of this bookshelf Mrs. Barbauld is one of the most appropriate. +It is but a few minutes' walk from the library in +Heath Street to the old corner house in Church Row where +she lived for a time, near a hundred years ago, and all +round about are the scenes of much of her life, of her +friendships and interests. Here lived her friends and +neighbours; here to Church Row came her pupils and +admirers, and, later still, to the pretty old house on Rosslyn +Hill. As for Church Row, as most people know, it is an +avenue of Dutch red-faced houses, leading demurely to the +old church tower, that stands guarding its graves in the +flowery churchyard. As we came up the quiet place, the +sweet windy drone of the organ swelled across the blossoms +of the spring, which were lighting up every shabby corner +and hillside garden. Through this pleasant confusion of +past and present, of spring-time scattering blossoms upon +the graves, of old ivy walks and iron bars imprisoning +past memories, with fragrant fumes of lilac and of elder, +one could picture to oneself, as in a waking dream, two +figures advancing from the corner house with the ivy +walls—distinct, sedate—passing under the old doorway. I +could almost see the lady, carefully dressed in many fine +muslin folds and frills with hooped silk skirts, indeed, but +slight and graceful in her quick advance, with blue eyes, +with delicate sharp features, and a dazzling skin. As for +the gentleman, I pictured him a dapper figure, with dark +eyes, dressed in black, as befitted a minister even of dissenting +views. The lady came forward, looking amused +by my scrutiny, somewhat shy I thought—was she going to +speak? And by the same token it seemed to me the +gentleman was about to interrupt her. But Margaret, my +young companion, laughed and opened an umbrella, or a +cock crew, or some door banged, and the fleeting visions +of fancy disappeared.</p> + +<p>Many well-authenticated ghost stories describe the +apparition of bygone persons, and lo! when the figure +vanishes, a letter is left behind! Some such experience +seemed to be mine when, on my return, I found a packet +of letters on the hall table—letters not addressed to me, +but to some unknown Miss Belsham, and signed and sealed +by Mrs. Barbauld's hand. They had been sent for me to +read by the kindness of some ladies now living at Hampstead, +who afterwards showed me the portrait of the lady, +who began the world as Miss Betsy Belsham and who +ended her career as Mrs. Kenrick. It is an oval miniature, +belonging to the times of powder and of puff, representing +not a handsome, but an animated countenance, with +laughter and spirit in the expression; the mouth is large, +the eyes are dark, the nose is short. This was the <i>confidante</i> +of Mrs. Barbauld's early days, the faithful friend of +her latter sorrows. The letters, kept by 'Betsy' with +faithful conscientious care for many years, give the story +of a whole lifetime with unconscious fidelity. The gaiety +of youth, its impatience, its exuberance, and sometimes +bad taste; the wider, quieter feelings of later life; the +courage of sorrowful times; long friendship deepening the +tender and faithful memories of age, when there is so +little left to say, so much to feel—all these things are +there.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>II.</b> + </p> +</div> +<p>Mrs. Barbauld was a schoolmistress, and a schoolmaster's +wife and daughter. Her father was Dr. John Aikin, D.D.; +her mother was Miss Jane Jennings, of a good Northamptonshire +family—scholastic also. Dr. Aikin brought his wife +home to Knibworth, in Leicestershire, where he opened a +school which became very successful in time. Mrs. Barbauld, +their eldest child, was born here in 1743, and was +christened Anna Lætitia, after some lady of high degree +belonging to her mother's family. Two or three years +later came a son. It was a quiet home, deep hidden in +the secluded rural place; and the little household lived its +own tranquil life far away from the storms and battles and +great events that were stirring the world. Dr. Aikin kept +school; Mrs. Aikin ruled her household with capacity, and +not without some sternness, according to the custom of the +time. It appears that late in life the good lady was distressed +by the backwardness of her grandchildren at four +or five years old. 'I once, indeed, knew a little girl,' so +wrote Mrs. Aikin of her daughter, 'who was as eager to +learn as her instructor could be to teach her, and who at +two years old could read sentences and little stories, in her +<i>wise</i> book, roundly and without spelling, and in half a +year or more could read as well as most women; but I +never knew such another, and I believe I never shall.' It +was fortunate that no great harm came of this premature +forcing, although it is difficult to say what its absence +might not have done for Mrs. Barbauld. One can fancy +the little assiduous girl, industrious, impulsive, interested +in everything—in all life and all nature—drinking in, on +every side, learning, eagerly wondering, listening to all +around with bright and ready wit. There is a pretty +little story told by Mrs. Ellis in her book about Mrs. +Barbauld, how one day, when Dr. Aikin and a friend 'were +conversing on the passions,' the Doctor observes that joy +cannot have place in a state of perfect felicity, since it +supposes an accession of happiness.</p> + +<p>'I think you are mistaken, papa,' says a little voice +from the opposite side of the table.</p> + +<p>'Why so, my child?' says the Doctor.</p> + +<p>'Because in the chapter I read to you this morning, +in the Testament, it is said that "there is more joy in +heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety +and nine just persons that need no repentance."'</p> + +<p>Besides her English Testament and her early reading, +the little girl was taught by her mother to do as little +daughters did in those days, to obey a somewhat austere +rule, to drop curtsies in the right place, to make beds, to +preserve fruits. The father, after demur, but surely not +without some paternal pride in her proficiency, taught the +child Latin and French and Italian, and something of +Greek, and gave her an acquaintance with English literature. +One can imagine little Nancy with her fair head +bending over her lessons, or, when playing time had come, +perhaps a little lonely and listening to the distant voices +of the schoolboys at their games. The mother, fearing +she might acquire rough and boisterous manners, strictly +forbade any communication with the schoolboys. Sometimes +in after days, speaking of these early times and of +the constraint of many bygone rules and regulations, Mrs. +Barbauld used to attribute to this early formal training +something of the hesitation and shyness which troubled +her and never entirely wore off. She does not seem to +have been in any great harmony with her mother. One +could imagine a fanciful and high-spirited child, timid +and dutiful, and yet strong-willed, secretly rebelling against +the rigid order of her home, and feeling lonely for want of +liberty and companionship. It was true she had birds +and beasts and plants for her playfellows, but she was of a +gregarious and sociable nature, and she was unconsciously +longing for something more, and perhaps feeling a +want in her early life which no silent company can +supply.</p> + +<p>She was about fifteen when a great event took place. +Her father was appointed classical tutor to the Warrington +Academy, and thither the little family removed. We +read that the Warrington Academy was a Dissenting +college started by very eminent and periwigged personages, +whose silhouettes Mrs. Barbauld herself afterwards +cut out in sticking-plaster, and whose names are to this +day remembered and held in just esteem. They were +people of simple living and high thinking, they belonged +to a class holding then a higher place than now in the +world's esteem, that of Dissenting ministers. The Dissenting +ministers were fairly well paid and faithfully +followed by their congregations. The college was started +under the auspices of distinguished members of the +community, Lord Willoughby of Parham, the last +Presbyterian lord, being patron. Among the masters +were to be found the well-known names of Dr. Doddridge; +of Gilbert Wakefield, the reformer and uncompromising +martyr; of Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, the Hebrew scholar; +of Dr. Priestley, the chemical analyst and patriot, and +enterprising theologian, who left England and settled in +America for conscience and liberty's sake.</p> + +<p>Many other people, neither students nor professors, +used to come to Warrington, and chief among them +in later years good John Howard with MSS. for his friend +Dr. Aikin to correct for the press. Now for the first time +Mrs. Barbauld (Miss Aikin she was then) saw something +of real life, of men and manners. It was not likely that +she looked back with any lingering regret to Knibworth, +or would have willingly returned thither. A story in one of +her memoirs gives an amusing picture of the manners of +a young country lady of that day. Mr. Haines, a rich +farmer from Knibworth, who had been greatly struck by +Miss Aikin, followed her to Warrington, and 'obtained a +private audience of her father and begged his consent to +be allowed to make her his wife.' The father answered +'that his daughter was there walking in the garden, and +he might go and ask her himself.' 'With what grace the +farmer pleaded his cause I know not,' says her biographer +and niece. 'Out of all patience at his unwelcome importunities, +my aunt ran nimbly up a tree which grew by the +garden wall, and let herself down into the lane beyond.'</p> + +<p>The next few years must have been perhaps the +happiest of Mrs. Barbauld's life. Once when it was +nearly over she said to her niece, Mrs. Le Breton, from +whose interesting account I have been quoting, that she +had never been placed in a situation which really suited +her. As one reads her sketches and poems, one is struck +by some sense of this detracting influence of which she +complains: there is a certain incompleteness and slightness +which speaks of intermittent work, of interrupted +trains of thought. At the same time there is a natural +buoyant quality in much of her writing which seems like +a pleasant landscape view seen through the bars of a +window. There may be wider prospects, but her eyes are +bright, and this peep of nature is undoubtedly delightful.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>III.</b> + </p> +</div> + +<p>The letters to Miss Belsham begin somewhere about +1768. The young lady has been paying a visit to Miss +Aikin at Warrington, and is interested in everyone and +everything belonging to the place. Miss Aikin is no less +eager to describe than Miss Belsham to listen, and +accordingly a whole stream of characters and details of +gossip and descriptions in faded ink come flowing across +their pages, together with many expressions of affection +and interest. 'My dear Betsy, I love you for discarding +the word Miss from your vocabulary,' so the packet begins, +and it continues in the same strain of pleasant girlish +chatter, alternating with the history of many bygone +festivities, and stories of friends, neighbours, of beaux and +partners; of the latter genus, and of Miss Aikin's efforts +to make herself agreeable, here is a sample:—'I talked +to him, smiled upon him, gave him my fan to play with,' +says the lively young lady. 'Nothing would do; he was +grave as a philosopher. I tried to raise a conversation: +"'Twas fine weather for dancing." He agreed to my +observation. "We had a tolerable set this time." +Neither did he contradict that. Then we were both +silent—stupid mortal thought I! but unreasonable as he +appeared to the advances that I made him, there was one +object in the room, a sparkling object which seemed to +attract all his attention, on which he seemed to gaze with +transport, and which indeed he hardly took his eyes off +the whole time…. The object that I mean was his +shoebuckle.'</p> + +<p>One could imagine Miss Elizabeth Bennett writing in +some such strain to her friend Miss Charlotte Lucas after +one of the evenings at Bingley's hospitable mansion. +And yet Miss Aikin is more impulsive, more romantic +than Elizabeth. 'Wherever you are, fly letter on the +wings of the wind,' she cries, 'and tell my dear Betsy +what?—only that I love her dearly.'</p> + +<p>Miss Nancy Aikin (she seems to have been Nancy in +these letters, and to have assumed the more dignified +Lætitia upon her marriage) pours out her lively heart, +laughs, jokes, interests herself in the sentimental affairs +of the whole neighbourhood as well as in her own. +Perhaps few young ladies now-a-days would write to their +<i>confidantes</i> with the announcement that for some time +past a young sprig had been teasing them to have him. +This, however, is among Miss Nancy's confidences. She +also writes poems and <i>jeux d'esprit</i>, and receives poetry +in return from Betsy, who calls herself Camilla, and +pays her friend many compliments, for Miss Aikin in her +reply quotes the well-known lines:—</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">Who for another's brow entwines the bays,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And where she well might rival stoops to Praise.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Miss Aikin by this time has attained to all the dignity of +a full-blown authoress, and is publishing a successful book +of poems in conjunction with her brother, which little +book created much attention at the time. One day the +Muse thus apostrophises Betsy: 'Shall we ever see her +amongst us again?' says my sister (Mrs. Aikin). My +brother (saucy fellow) says, 'I want to see this girl, I think +(stroking his chin as he walks backwards and forwards in +the room with great gravity). I think we should admire +one another.'</p> + +<p>'When you come among us,' continues the warm-hearted +friend, 'we shall set the bells a-ringing, bid adieu +to care and gravity, and sing "O be joyful."' And finally, +after some apologies for her remiss correspondence, 'I left +my brother writing to you instead of Patty, poor soul. +Well, it is a clever thing too, to have a husband to write +one's letters for one. If I had one I would be a much +better correspondent to you. I would order him to write +every week.'</p> + +<p>And, indeed, Mrs. Barbauld was as good as her word, +and did not forget the resolutions made by Miss Aikin in +1773. In 1774 comes some eventful news: 'I should +have written to you sooner had it not been for the uncertainty +and suspense in which for a long time I have been +involved; and since my lot has been fixed for many busy +engagements which have left me few moments of leisure. +They hurry me out of my life. It is hardly a month that +I have certainly known I should fix on Norfolk, and now +next Thursday they say I am to be finally, irrevocably +married. Pity me, dear Betsy; for on the day I fancy +when you will read this letter, will the event take place +which is to make so great an era in my life. I feel depressed, +and my courage almost fails me. Yet upon the +whole I have the greatest reason to think I shall be happy. +I shall possess the entire affection of a worthy man, whom +my father and mother now entirely and heartily approve. +The people where we are going, though strangers, have +behaved with the greatest zeal and affection; and I think +we have a fair prospect of being useful and living comfortably +in that state of middling life to which I have been +accustomed, and which I love.'</p> + +<p>And then comes a word which must interest all who +have ever cared and felt grateful admiration for the works +of one devoted human being and true Christian hero. +Speaking of her father's friend, John Howard, she says +with an almost audible sigh: 'It was too late, as you say, +or I believe I should have been in love with Mr. Howard. +Seriously, I looked upon him with that sort of reverence and +love which one should have for a guardian angel. God bless +him and preserve his health for the health's sake of thousands. +And now farewell,' she writes in conclusion: 'I +shall write to you no more under this name; but under any +name, in every situation, at any distance of time or place, +I shall love you equally and be always affectionately yours, +tho' <i>not</i> always, <span class="smallcaps">A. Aikin</span>.'</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Poor lady! The future held, indeed, many a sad and +unsuspected hour for her, many a cruel pang, many a dark +and heavy season, that must have seemed intolerably +weary to one of her sprightly and yet somewhat indolent +nature, more easily accepting evil than devising escape +from it. But it also held many blessings of constancy, +friendship, kindly deeds, and useful doings. She had not +devotion to give such as that of the good Howard whom +she revered, but the equable help and sympathy for +others of an open-minded and kindly woman was hers. +Her marriage would seem to have been brought about +by a romantic fancy rather than by a tender affection. +Mr. Barbauld's mind had been once unhinged; his protestations +were passionate and somewhat dramatic. We +are told that when she was warned by a friend, she only +said, 'But surely, if I throw him over, he will become +crazy again;' and from a high-minded sense of pity, she +was faithful, and married him against the wish of her +brother and parents, and not without some misgivings herself. +He was a man perfectly sincere and honourable; +but, from his nervous want of equilibrium, subject all his +life to frantic outbursts of ill-temper. Nobody ever knew +what his wife had to endure in secret; her calm and +restrained manner must have effectually hidden the constant +anxiety of her life; nor had she children to warm +her heart, and brighten up her monotonous existence. +Little Charles, of the Reading-book, who is bid to come +hither, who counted so nicely, who stroked the pussy cat, +and who deserved to listen to the delightful stories he was +told, was not her own son but her brother's child. When +he was born, she wrote to entreat that he might be given +over to her for her own, imploring her brother to spare him +to her, in a pretty and pathetic letter. This was a mother +yearning for a child, not a schoolmistress asking for a +pupil, though perhaps in after times the two were somewhat +combined in her. There is a pretty little description of +Charles making great progress in 'climbing trees and +talking nonsense:' 'I have the honour to tell you that our +Charles is the sweetest boy in the world. He is perfectly +naturalised in his new situation; and if I should make any +blunders in my letter, I must beg you to impute it to his +standing by me and chattering all the time.' And how +pleasant a record exists of Charles's chatter in that most +charming little book written for him and for the babies of +babies to come! There is a sweet instructive grace in it +and appreciation of childhood which cannot fail to strike +those who have to do with children and with Mrs. Barbauld's +books for them: children themselves, those best critics of +all, delight in it.</p> + +<p>'Where's Charles?' says a little scholar every morning +to the writer of these few notes.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>IV.</b> + </p> +</div> + +<p>Soon after the marriage, there had been some thought +of a college for young ladies, of which Mrs. Barbauld was +to be the principal; but she shrank from the idea, and in a +letter to Mrs. Montagu she objects to the scheme of higher +education for women away from their natural homes. 'I +should have little hope of cultivating a love of knowledge +in a young lady of fifteen who came to me ignorant and +uncultivated. It is too late then to begin to learn. The +empire of the passions is coming on. Those attachments +begin to be formed which influence the happiness of future +life. The care of a mother alone can give suitable attention +to this important period.' It is true that the rigidness +of her own home had not prevented her from making +a hasty and unsuitable marriage. But it is not this which +is weighing on her mind. 'Perhaps you may think,' she +says, 'that having myself stepped out of the bounds of +female reserve in becoming an author, it is with an ill +grace that I offer these statements.'</p> + +<p>Her arguments seem to have been thought conclusive +in those days, and the young ladies' college was finally transmuted +into a school for little boys at Palgrave, in Norfolk, +and thither the worthy couple transported themselves.</p> + +<p>One of the letters to Miss Belsham is thus dated:—<i>'The +14th of July, in the village of Palgrave (the +pleasantest village in all England), at ten o'clock, all +alone in my great parlour, Mr. Barbauld being studying +a sermon, do I begin a letter to my dear Betsy.'</i></p> + +<p>When she first married, and travelled into Norfolk to +keep school at Palgrave, nothing could have seemed more +tranquil, more contented, more matter-of-fact than her life +as it appears from her letters. Dreams, and fancies, and +gay illusions and excitements have made way for the +somewhat disappointing realisation of Mr. Barbauld with +his neatly turned and friendly postscripts—a husband, +polite, devoted, it is true, but somewhat disappointing all +the same. The next few years seem like years in a hive—storing +honey for the future, and putting away—industrious, +punctual, monotonous. There are children's +lessons to be heard, and school-treats to be devised. She +sets them to act plays and cuts out paper collars for +Henry IV.; she always takes a class of babies entirely her +own. (One of these babies, who always loved her, became +Lord Chancellor Denman; most of the others took less +brilliant, but equally respectable places, in after life.) +She has also household matters and correspondence not to +be neglected. In the holidays, they make excursions to +Norwich, to London, and revisit their old haunts at +Warrington. In one of her early letters, soon after her +marriage, she describes her return to Warrington.</p> + +<p>'Dr. Enfield's face,' she declares, 'is grown half a foot +longer since I saw him, with studying mathematics, and +for want of a game of romps; for there are positively +none now at Warrington but grave matrons. I who +have but half assumed the character, was ashamed of the +levity of my behaviour.'</p> + +<p>It says well indeed for the natural brightness of the +lady's disposition that with sixteen boarders and a satisfactory +usher to look after, she should be prepared for +a game of romps with Dr. Enfield.</p> + +<p>On another occasion, in 1777, she takes little Charles +away with her. 'He has indeed been an excellent traveller,' +she says; 'and though, like his great ancestor, some +natural tears he shed, like him, too, he wiped them soon. +He had a long sound sleep last night, and has been very +busy to-day hunting the puss and the chickens. And +now, my dear brother and sister, let me again thank you +for this precious gift, the value of which we are both more +and more sensible of as we become better acquainted with +his sweet disposition and winning manners.'</p> + +<p>She winds up this letter with a postscript:—</p> + +<p>'Everybody here asks, "Pray, is Dr. Dodd really to be +executed?" as if we knew the more for having been at +Warrington.'</p> + +<p>Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld's brother, the father of +little Charles and of Lucy Aikin, whose name is well +known in literature, was himself a man of great parts, +industry, and ability, working hard to support his family. +He alternated between medicine and literature all his life. +When his health failed he gave up medicine, and settled +at Stoke Newington, and busied himself with periodic +literature; meanwhile, whatever his own pursuits may +have been, he never ceased to take an interest in his +sister's work and to encourage her in every way.</p> + +<p>It is noteworthy that few of Mrs. Barbauld's earlier +productions equalled what she wrote at the very end of +her life. She seems to have been one of those who ripen +with age, growing wider in spirit with increasing years. +Perhaps, too, she may have been influenced by the change +of manners, the reaction against formalism, which was +growing up as her own days were ending. Prim she may +have been in manner, but she was not a formalist by nature; +and even at eighty was ready to learn to submit to accept +the new gospel that Wordsworth and his disciples had +given to the world, and to shake off the stiffness of early +training.</p> + +<p>It is idle to speculate on what might have been if +things had happened otherwise; if the daily stress of +anxiety and perplexity which haunted her home had been +removed—difficulties and anxieties which may well have +absorbed all the spare energy and interest that under +happier circumstances might have added to the treasury +of English literature. But if it were only for one ode +written when the distracting cares of over seventy years +were ending, when nothing remained to her but the +essence of a long past, and the inspirations of a still +glowing, still hopeful, and most tender spirit, if it were +only for the ode called 'Life,' which has brought a sense +of ease and comfort to so many, Mrs. Barbauld has indeed +deserved well of her country-people and should be held in +remembrance by them.</p> + +<p>Her literary works are, after all, not very voluminous. +She is best known by her hymns for children and her +early lessons, than which nothing more childlike has ever +been devised; and we can agree with her brother, Dr. +Aikin, when he says that it requires true genius to enter +so completely into a child's mind.</p> + +<p>After their first volume of verse, the brother and sister +had published a second in prose, called 'Miscellaneous +Pieces,' about which there is an amusing little anecdote in +Rogers's 'Memoirs.' Fox met Dr. Aikin at dinner.</p> + +<p>'"I am greatly pleased with your 'Miscellaneous +Pieces,'" said Fox. Aikin bowed. "I particularly admire," +continued Fox, "your essay 'Against Inconsistency in our +Expectations.'"</p> + +<p>'"That," replied Aikin, "is my sister's."</p> + +<p>'"I like much," returned Fox, "your essay 'On Monastic +Institutions.'"</p> + +<p>'"That," answered Aikin, "is also my sister's."</p> + +<p>'Fox thought it best to say no more about the +book.'</p> + +<p>These essays were followed by various of the visions +and Eastern pieces then so much in vogue; also by +political verses and pamphlets, which seemed to have +made a great sensation at the time. But Mrs. Barbauld's +turn was on the whole more for domestic than for literary +life, although literary people always seem to have had a +great interest for her.</p> + +<p>During one Christmas which they spent in London, +the worthy couple go to see Mrs. Siddons; and Mrs. +Chapone introduces Mrs. Barbauld to Miss Burney. 'A +very unaffected, modest, sweet, and pleasing young lady,' +says Mrs. Barbauld, who is always kind in her descriptions. +Mrs. Barbauld's one complaint in London is of the fatigue +from hairdressers, and the bewildering hurry of the great +city, where she had, notwithstanding her quiet country +life, many ties, and friendships, and acquaintances. Her +poem on 'Corsica' had brought her into some relations +with Boswell; she also knew Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. +Here is her description of the 'Great Bear:'—</p> + +<p>'I do not mean that one which shines in the sky over +your head; but the Bear that shines in London—a great +rough, surly animal. His Christian name is Dr. Johnson. +'Tis a singular creature; but if you stroke him he will +not bite, and though he growls sometimes he is not ill-humoured.'</p> + +<p>Johnson describes Mrs. Barbauld as suckling fools and +chronicling small beer. There was not much sympathy +between the two. Characters such as Johnson's harmonise +best with the enthusiastic and easily influenced. Mrs. +Barbauld did not belong to this class; she trusted to her +own judgment, rarely tried to influence others, and took a +matter-of-fact rather than a passionate view of life. She +is as severe to him in her criticism as he was in his judgment +of her: they neither of them did the other justice. +'A Christian and a man-about-town, a philosopher, and a +bigot acknowledging life to be miserable, and making it +more miserable through fear of death.' So she writes of +him, and all this was true; but how much more was also +true of the great and hypochondriacal old man! Some +years afterwards, when she had been reading Boswell's +long-expected 'Life of Johnson,' she wrote of the book:—'It +is like going to Ranelagh; you meet all your acquaintances; +but it is a base and mean thing to bring thus +every idle word into judgment.' In our own day we too +have our Boswell and our Johnson to arouse discussion and +indignation.</p> + +<p>'Have you seen Boswell's "Life of Johnson?" He calls +it a Flemish portrait, and so it is—two quartos of a man's +conversation and petty habits. Then the treachery and +meanness of watching a man for years in order to set +down every unguarded and idle word he uttered, is inconceivable. +Yet with all this one cannot help reading a +good deal of it.' This is addressed to the faithful Betsy, +who was also keeping school by that time, and assuming +brevet rank in consequence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barbauld might well complain of the fatigue from +hairdressers in London. In one of her letters to her +friend she thus describes a lady's dress of the period:—</p> + +<p>'Do you know how to dress yourself in Dublin? If +you do not, I will tell you. Your waist must be the circumference +of two oranges, no more. You must erect a +structure on your head gradually ascending to a foot high, +exclusive of feathers, and stretching to a penthouse of most +horrible projection behind, the breadth from wing to +wing considerably broader than your shoulder, and as many +different things in your cap as in Noah's ark. Verily, I +never did see such monsters as the heads now in vogue. +I am a monster, too, but a moderate one.'</p> + +<p>She must have been glad to get back to her home, to +her daily work, to Charles, climbing his trees and talking +his nonsense.</p> + +<p>In the winter of 1784 her mother died at Palgrave. +It was Christmas week; the old lady had come travelling +four days through the snow in a postchaise with her +maid and her little grandchildren, while her son rode on +horseback. But the cold and the fatigue of the journey, +and the discomfort of the inns, proved too much for Mrs. +Aikin, who reached her daughter's house only to die. Just +that time three years before Mrs. Barbauld had lost her +father, whom she dearly loved. There is a striking letter +from the widowed mother to her daughter recording the +event. It is almost Spartan in its calmness, but nevertheless +deeply touching. Now she, too, was at rest, and after +Mrs. Aikin's death a cloud of sadness and depression seems +to have fallen upon the household. Mr. Barbauld was +ailing; he was suffering from a nervous irritability +which occasionally quite unfitted him for his work as a +schoolmaster. Already his wife must have had many +things to bear, and very much to try her courage and +cheerfulness; and now her health was also failing. It was +in 1775 that they gave up the academy, which, on the +whole, had greatly flourished. It had been established +eleven years; they were both of them in need of rest and +change. Nevertheless, it was not without reluctance that +they brought themselves to leave their home at Palgrave. +A successor was found only too quickly for Mrs. Barbauld's +wishes; they handed over their pupils to his care, and +went abroad for a year's sunshine and distraction.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>V.</b> + </p> +</div> + +<p>What a contrast to prim, starched scholastic life at +Palgrave must have been the smiling world, and the land +flowing with oil and wine, in which they found themselves +basking! The vintage was so abundant that year that the +country people could not find vessels to contain it. 'The +roads covered with teams of casks, empty or full according +as they were going out or returning, and drawn by oxen +whose strong necks seemed to be bowed unwillingly under +the yoke. Men, women, and children were abroad; some +cutting with a short sickle the bunches of grapes, some +breaking them with a wooden instrument, some carrying +them on their backs from the gatherers to those who +pressed the juice; and, as in our harvest, the gleaners +followed.'</p> + +<p>From the vintage they travel to the Alps, 'a sight so +majestic, so totally different from anything I had seen +before, that I am ready to sing <i>nunc dimittis</i>,' she writes. +They travel back by the south of France and reach Paris +in June, where the case of the Diamond Necklace is being +tried. Then they return to England, waiting a day at +Boulogne for a vessel, but crossing from thence in less than +four hours. How pretty is her description of England as +it strikes them after their absence! 'And not without +pleasing emotion did we view again the green swelling +hills covered with large sheep, and the winding road +bordered with the hawthorn hedge, and the English vine +twirled round the tall poles, and the broad Medway covered +with vessels, and at last the gentle yet majestic Thames.'</p> + +<p>There were Dissenters at Hampstead in those days, as +there are still, and it was a call from a little Unitarian +congregation on the hillside who invited <ins title="original has Mrs.">Mr.</ins> Barbauld to +become their minister, which decided the worthy couple to +retire to this pleasant suburb. The place seemed promising +enough; they were within reach of Mrs. Barbauld's brother, +Dr. Aikin, now settled in London, and to whom she was +tenderly attached. There were congenial people settled +all about. On the high hill-top were pleasant old houses +to live in. There was occupation for him and literary +interest for her.</p> + +<p>They are a sociable and friendly pair, hospitable, glad +to welcome their friends, and the acquaintance, and critics, +and the former pupils who come toiling up the hill to visit +them. Rogers comes to dinner 'at half after three.' They +have another poet for a neighbour, Miss Joanna Baillie; +they are made welcome by all, and in their turn make +others welcome; they do acts of social charity and kindness +wherever they see the occasion. They have a young +Spanish gentleman to board who conceals a taste for +'seguars.' They also go up to town from time to time. +On one occasion Mr. Barbauld repairs to London to choose +a wedding present for Miss Belsham, who is about to be +married to Mr. Kenrick, a widower with daughters. He +chose two slim Wedgwood pots of some late classic +model, which still stand, after many dangers, safely on +either side of Mrs. Kenrick's portrait in Miss Reid's drawing-room +at Hampstead. Wedgwood must have been a +personal friend: he has modelled a lovely head of Mrs. +Barbauld, simple and nymph-like.</p> + +<p>Hampstead was no further from London in those days +than it is now, and they seem to have kept up a constant +communication with their friends and relations in the +great city. They go to the play occasionally. 'I have +not indeed seen Mrs. Siddons often, but I think I never saw +her to more advantage,' she writes. 'It is not, however, +seeing a play, it is only seeing one character, for they have +nobody to act with her.'</p> + +<p>Another expedition is to Westminster Hall, where +Warren Hastings was then being tried for his life.</p> + +<p>'The trial has attracted the notice of most people who +are within reach of it. I have been, and was very much +struck with all the apparatus and pomp of justice, with +the splendour of the assembly which contained everything +distinguished in the nation, with the grand idea that the +equity of the English was to pursue crimes committed at +the other side of the globe, and oppressions exercised +towards the poor Indians who had come to plead their +cause; but all these fine ideas vanish and fade away as one +observes the progress of the cause, and sees it fall into the +summer amusements, and take the place of a rehearsal of +music or an evening at Vauxhall.'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barbauld was a Liberal in feeling and conviction; +she was never afraid to speak her mind, and when the +French Revolution first began, she, in common with many +others, hoped that it was but the dawning of happier +times. She was always keen about public events; she +wrote an address on the opposition to the repeal of the +Test Act in 1791, and she published her poem to Wilberforce +on the rejection of his great bill for abolishing +slavery:—</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">Friends of the friendless, hail, ye generous band!</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">she cries, in warm enthusiasm for the devoted cause.</p> + +<p>Horace Walpole nicknamed her Deborah, called her +the Virago Barbauld, and speaks of her with utter rudeness +and intolerant spite. But whether or not Horace +Walpole approved, it is certain that Mrs. Barbauld possessed +to a full and generous degree a quality which is now less +common than it was in her day.</p> + +<p>Not very many years ago I was struck on one occasion +when a noble old lady, now gone to her rest, exclaimed in +my hearing that people of this generation had all sorts of +merits and charitable intentions, but that there was one +thing she missed which had certainly existed in her youth, +and which no longer seemed to be of the same account: +that public spirit which used to animate the young as well +as the old.</p> + +<p>It is possible that philanthropy, and the love of the +beautiful, and the gratuitous diffusion of wall-papers may +be the modern rendering of the good old-fashioned sentiment. +Mrs. Barbauld lived in very stirring days, when +private people shared in the excitements and catastrophes +of public affairs. To her the fortunes of England, its +loyalty, its success, were a part of her daily bread. By +her early associations she belonged to a party representing +opposition, and for that very reason she was the more +keenly struck by the differences of the conduct of affairs +and the opinions of those she trusted. Her friend Dr. +Priestley had emigrated to America for his convictions' +sake; Howard was giving his noble life for his work; +Wakefield had gone to prison. Now the very questions +are forgotten for which they struggled and suffered, or the +answers have come while the questions are forgotten, +in this their future which is our present, and to which +some unborn historian may point back with a moral +finger.</p> + +<p>Dr. Aikin, whose estimate of his sister was very different +from Horace Walpole's, occasionally reproached her for not +writing more constantly. He wrote a copy of verses on +this theme:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Thus speaks the Muse, and bends her brows severe:</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Did I, Lætitia, lend my choicest lays,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And crown thy youthful head with freshest bays,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">That all the expectance of thy full-grown year,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Should lie inert and fruitless? O revere</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Those sacred gifts whose meed is deathless praise,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Whose potent charm the enraptured soul can raise</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Far from the vapours of this earthly sphere,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Seize, seize the lyre, resume the lofty strain.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>She seems to have willingly left the lyre for Dr. Aikin's +use. A few hymns, some graceful odes, and stanzas, and +<i>jeux d'esprit</i>, a certain number of well-written and original +essays, and several political pamphlets, represent the best +of her work. Her more ambitious poems are those by +which she is the least remembered. It was at Hampstead +that Mrs. Barbauld wrote her contributions to her brother's +volume of 'Evenings at Home,' among which the transmigrations +of Indur may be quoted as a model of style +and delightful matter. One of the best of her <i>jeux d'esprit</i> +is the 'Groans of the Tankard,' which was written in early +days, with much spirit and real humour. It begins with +a classic incantation, and then goes on:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">'Twas at the solemn silent noontide hour</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">When hunger rages with despotic power,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">When the lean student quits his Hebrew roots</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">For the gross nourishment of English fruits,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And throws unfinished airy systems by</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">For solid pudding and substantial pie.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">The tankard now,</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="right">Replenished to the brink,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">With the cool beverage blue-eyed maidens drink,</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">but, accustomed to very different libations, is endowed with +voice and utters its bitter reproaches:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Unblest the day, and luckless was the hour</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Which doomed me to a Presbyterian's power,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Fated to serve a Puritanic race,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Whose slender meal is shorter than their grace.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VI.</b> + </p> +</div> + +<p>Thumbkin, of fairy celebrity, used to mark his way by +flinging crumbs of bread and scattering stones as he went +along; and in like manner authors trace the course of their +life's peregrinations by the pamphlets and articles they cast +down as they go. Sometimes they throw stones, sometimes +they throw bread. In '92 and '93 Mrs. Barbauld must +have been occupied with party polemics and with the political +miseries of the time. A pamphlet on Gilbert Wakefield's +views, and another on 'Sins of the Government and +Sins of the People,' show in what direction her thoughts +were bent. Then came a period of comparative calm again +and of literary work and interest. She seems to have +turned to Akenside and Collins, and each had an essay to +himself. These were followed by certain selections from +the <i>Spectator</i>, <i>Tatler</i>, &c., preceded by one of those +admirable essays for which she is really remarkable. She +also published a memoir of Richardson prefixed to his +correspondence. Sir James Mackintosh, writing at a later +and sadder time of her life, says of her observations on the +moral of Clarissa that they are as fine a piece of mitigated +and rational stoicism as our language can boast of.</p> + +<p>In 1802 another congregation seems to have made signs +from Stoke Newington, and Mrs. Barbauld persuaded her +husband to leave his flock at Hampstead and to buy a house +near her brother's at Stoke Newington. This was her last +migration, and here she remained until her death in 1825. +One of her letters to Mrs. Kenrick gives a description of +what might have been a happy home:—'We have a pretty +little back parlour that looks into our little spot of a garden,' +she says, 'and catches every gleam of sunshine. We have +pulled down the ivy, except what covers the coach-house +We have planted a vine and a passion-flower, with abundance +of jessamine against the window, and we have scattered +roses and honeysuckle all over the garden. You may +smile at me for parading so over my house and domains.' +In May she writes a pleasant letter, in good spirits, comparing +her correspondence with her friend to the flower of +an aloe, which sleeps for a hundred years, and on a sudden +pushes out when least expected. 'But take notice, the life +is in the aloe all the while, and sorry should I be if the life +were not in our friendship all the while, though it so rarely +diffuses itself over a sheet of paper.'</p> + +<p>She seems to have been no less sociable and friendly at +Stoke Newington than at Hampstead. People used to come +up to see her from London. Her letters, quiet and intimate +as they are, give glimpses of most of the literary people of +the day, not in memoirs then, but alive and drinking tea +at one another's houses, or walking all the way to Stoke +Newington to pay their respects to the old lady.</p> + +<p>Charles Lamb used to talk of his two <i>bald</i> authoresses, +Mrs. Barbauld being one and Mrs. Inchbald being the other. +Crabb Robinson and Rogers were two faithful links with the +outer world. 'Crabb Robinson corresponds with Madame +de Staël, is quite intimate,' she writes, 'has received I +don't know how many letters,' she adds, not without some +slight amusement. Miss Lucy Aikin tells a pretty story +of Scott meeting Mrs. Barbauld at dinner, and telling her +that it was to her that he owed his poetic gift. Some +translations of Bürger by Mr. Taylor, of Norwich, which +she had read out at Edinburgh, had struck him so much +that they had determined him to try his own powers in +that line.</p> + +<p>She often had inmates under her roof. One of them +was a beautiful and charming young girl, the daughter of +Mrs. Fletcher, of Edinburgh, whose early death is recorded +in her mother's life. Besides company at home, Mrs. Barbauld +went to visit her friends from time to time—the +Estlins at Bristol, the Edgeworths, whose acquaintance Mr. +and Mrs. Barbauld made about this time, and who seem to +have been invaluable friends, bringing as they did a bright +new element of interest and cheerful friendship into her +sad and <ins title="original has dimning">dimming</ins> life. A man must have extraordinarily +good spirits to embark upon four matrimonial ventures as +Mr. Edgeworth did; and as for Miss Edgeworth, appreciative, +effusive, and warm-hearted, she seems to have +more than returned Mrs. Barbauld's sympathy.</p> + +<p>Miss Lucy Aikin, Dr. Aikin's daughter, was now also +making her own mark in the literary world, and had +inherited the bright intelligence and interest for which +her family was so remarkable. Much of Miss Aikin's +work is more sustained than her aunt's desultory productions, +but it lacks that touch of nature which has +preserved Mrs. Barbauld's memory where more important +people are forgotten.</p> + +<p>Our authoress seems to have had a natural affection +for sister authoresses. Hannah More and Mrs. Montague +were both her friends, so were Madame d'Arblay and Mrs. +Chapone in a different degree; she must have known Mrs. +Opie; she loved Joanna Baillie. The latter is described +by her as the young lady at Hampstead who came to Mr. +Barbauld's meeting with as demure a face as if she had +never written a line. And Miss Aikin, in her memoirs, +describes in Johnsonian language how the two Miss Baillies +came to call one morning upon Mrs. Barbauld:—'My +aunt immediately introduced the topic of the anonymous +tragedies, and gave utterance to her admiration with the +generous delight in the manifestation of kindred genius +which distinguished her.' But it seems that Miss Baillie +sat, nothing moved, and did not betray herself. Mrs. +Barbauld herself gives a pretty description of the sisters +in their home, in that old house on Windmill Hill, which +stands untouched, with its green windows looking out upon +so much of sky and heath and sun, with the wainscoted +parlours where Walter Scott used to come, and the low +wooden staircase leading to the old rooms above. It is in +one of her letters to Mrs. Kenrick that Mrs. Barbauld gives +a pleasant glimpse of the poetess Walter Scott admired. +'I have not been abroad since I was at Norwich, except a +day or two at Hampstead with the Miss Baillies. One +should be, as I was, beneath their roof to know all their +merit. Their house is one of the best ordered I know. +They have all manner of attentions for their friends, and +not only Miss B., but Joanna, is as clever in furnishing a +room or in arranging a party as in writing plays, of which, +by the way, she has a volume ready for the press, but she +will not give it to the public till next winter. The subject +is to be the passion of fear. I do not know what sort of +a hero that passion can afford!' Fear was, indeed, a passion +alien to her nature, and she did not know the meaning of +the word.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barbauld's description of Hannah More and her +sisters living on their special hill-top was written after +Mr. Barbauld's death, and thirty years after Miss More's +verses which are quoted by Mrs. Ellis in her excellent +memoir of Mrs. Barbauld:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Nor, Barbauld, shall my glowing heart refuse</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">A tribute to thy virtues or thy muse;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">This humble merit shall at least be mine,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">The poet's chaplet for thy brows to twine;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">My verse thy talents to the world shall teach,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And praise the graces it despairs to reach.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Then, after philosophically questioning the power of genius +to confer true happiness, she concludes:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Can all the boasted powers of wit and song</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Of life one pang remove, one hour prolong?</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Fallacious hope which daily truths deride—</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">For you, alas! have wept and Garrick died.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Meanwhile, whatever genius might not be able to +achieve, the five Miss Mores had been living on peacefully +together in the very comfortable cottage which had been +raised and thatched by the poetess's earnings.</p> + +<p>'Barley Wood is equally the seat of taste and hospitality,' +says Mrs. Barbauld to a friend.</p> + +<p>'Nothing could be more friendly than their reception,' +she writes to her brother, 'and nothing more charming +than their situation. An extensive view over the Mendip +Hills is in front of their house, with a pretty view of +Wrington. Their home—cottage, because it is thatched—stands +on the declivity of a rising ground, which they +have planted and made quite a little paradise. The five +sisters, all good old maids, have lived together these fifty +years. Hannah More is a good deal broken, but possesses +fully her powers of conversation, and her vivacity. We +exchanged riddles like the wise men of old; I was given +to understand she was writing something.'</p> + +<p>There is another allusion to Mrs. Hannah More in a +sensible letter from Mrs. Barbauld, written to Miss +Edgeworth about this time, declining to join in an alarming +enterprise suggested by the vivacious Mr. Edgeworth, +'a <i>Feminiad</i>, a literary paper to be entirely contributed +to by ladies, and where all articles are to be accepted.' +'There is no bond of union,' Mrs. Barbauld says, 'among +literary women any more than among literary men; +different sentiments and connections separate them much +more than the joint interest of their sex would unite +them. Mrs. Hannah More would not write along with +you or me, and we should possibly hesitate at joining +Miss Hays or—if she were living—Mrs. Godwin.' Then +she suggests the names of Miss Baillie, Mrs. Opie, her +own niece Miss Lucy Aikin, and Mr. S. Rogers, who would +not, she thinks, be averse to joining the scheme.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>How strangely unnatural it seems when Fate's heavy +hand falls upon quiet and common-place lives, changing +the tranquil routine of every day into the solemnities and +excitements of terror and tragedy! It was after their +removal to Stoke Newington that the saddest of all blows +fell upon this true-hearted woman. Her husband's hypochondria +deepened and changed, and the attacks became +so serious that her brother and his family urged her +anxiously to leave him to other care than her own. It +was no longer safe for poor Mr. Barbauld to remain alone +with his wife, and her life, says Mrs. Le Breton, was more +than once in peril. But, at first, she would not hear of +leaving him; although on more than one occasion she had +to fly for protection to her brother close by.</p> + +<p>There is something very touching in the patient +fidelity with which Mrs. Barbauld tried to soothe the later +sad disastrous years of her husband's life. She must have +been a woman of singular nerve and courage to endure as +she did the excitement and cruel aberrations of her once +gentle and devoted companion. She only gave in after +long resistance.</p> + +<p>'An alienation from me has taken possession of his +mind,' she says, in a letter to Mrs. Kenrick; 'my presence +seems to irritate him, and I must resign myself to a separation +from him who has been for thirty years the partner +of my heart, my faithful friend, my inseparable companion.' +With her habitual reticence, she dwells no +more on that painful topic, but goes on to make plans for +them both, asks her old friend to come and cheer her in +her loneliness; and the faithful Betsy, now a widow with +grown-up step-children, ill herself, troubled by deafness +and other infirmities, responds with a warm heart, and +promises to come, bringing the comfort with her of old +companionship and familiar sympathy. There is something +very affecting in the loyalty of the two aged women +stretching out their hands to each other across a whole +lifetime. After her visit Mrs. Barbauld writes again:—</p> + +<p>'He is now at Norwich, and I hear very favourable +accounts of his health and spirits; he seems to enjoy himself +very much amongst his old friends there, and converses +among them with his usual animation. There are no +symptoms of violence or of depression; so far is favourable; +but this cruel alienation from me, in which my +brother is included, still remains deep-rooted, and whether +he will ever change in this point Heaven only knows. +The medical men fear he will not: if so, my dear friend, +what remains for me but to resign myself to the will of +Heaven, and to think with pleasure that every day brings +me nearer a period which naturally cannot be very far off, +and at which this as well as every temporal affliction must +terminate?</p> + +<p>'"Anything but this!" is the cry of weak mortals +when afflicted; and sometimes I own I am inclined to +make it mine; but I will check myself.'</p> + +<p>But while she was hoping still, a fresh outbreak of the +malady occurred. He, poor soul, weary of his existence, +put an end to his sufferings: he was found lifeless in the +New River. Lucy Aikin quotes a Dirge found among her +aunt's papers after her death:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Pure Spirit, O where art thou now?</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> O whisper to my soul,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">O let some soothening thought of thee</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> This bitter grief control.</td></tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">'Tis not for thee the tears I shed,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Thy sufferings now are o'er.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">The sea is calm, the tempest past,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> On that eternal shore.</td></tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">No more the storms that wrecked thy peace</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Shall tear that gentle breast,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Nor summer's rage, nor winter's cold</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> That poor, poor frame molest.</td></tr> + <tr><td>*<span class="ind3">*</span><span class="ind3">*</span><span class="ind3">*</span></td></tr> + + <tr><td align="left">Farewell! With honour, peace, and love,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Be that dear memory blest,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Thou hast no tears for me to shed,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> When I too am at rest.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>But her time of rest was not yet come, and she lived for +seventeen years after her husband. She was very brave, +she did not turn from the sympathy of her friends, she +endured her loneliness with courage, she worked to distract +her mind. Here is a touching letter addressed to +Mrs. Taylor, of Norwich, in which she says:—'A thousand +thanks for your kind letter, still more for the very short +visit that preceded it. Though short—too short—it +has left indelible impressions on my mind. My +heart has truly had communion with yours; your +sympathy has been balm to it; and I feel that there is +<i>now</i> no one on earth to whom I could pour out that heart +more readily…. I am now sitting alone again, and feel +like a person who has been sitting by a cheerful fire, not +sensible at the time of the temperature of the air; but +the fire removed, he finds the season is still winter. Day +after day passes, and I do not know what to do with my +time; my mind has no energy nor power of application.'</p> + +<p>How much she felt her loneliness appears again and +again from one passage and another. Then she struggled +against discouragement; she took to her pen again. To +Mrs. Kenrick she writes:—'I intend to pay my letter +debts; not much troubling my head whether I have anything +to say or not; yet to you my heart has always +something to say: it always recognises you as among the +dearest of its friends; and while it feels that new impressions +are made with difficulty and early effaced, retains, +and ever will retain, I trust beyond this world, those of our +early and long-tried affection.'</p> + +<p>She set to work again, trying to forget her heavy +trials. It was during the first years of her widowhood +that she published her edition of the British novelists in +some fifty volumes. There is an opening chapter to this +edition upon novels and novel-writing, which is an admirable +and most interesting essay upon fiction, beginning +from the very earliest times.</p> + +<p>In 1811 she wrote her poem on the King's illness, and +also the longer poem which provoked such indignant comments +at the time. It describes Britain's rise and luxury, +warns her of the dangers of her unbounded ambition and +unjustifiable wars:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Arts, arms, and wealth destroy the fruits they bring;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Her ingenuous youth from Ontario's shore who visits the +ruins of London is one of the many claimants to the +honour of having suggested Lord Macaulay's celebrated +New Zealander:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Pensive and thoughtful shall the wanderers greet</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Each splendid square and still untrodden street,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">By scattered hamlets trace its ancient bound,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Through reeds and sedge pursue his idle way.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>It is impossible not to admire the poem, though it is +stilted and not to the present taste. The description +of Britain as it now is and as it once was is very +ingenious:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Where once Bonduca whirled the scythèd car,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And the fierce matrons raised the shriek of war,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Light forms beneath transparent muslin float,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And tutor'd voices swell the artful note;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Light-leaved acacias, and the shady plane,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And spreading cedars grace the woodland reign.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>The poem is forgotten now, though it was scouted +at the time and violently attacked, Southey himself falling +upon the poor old lady, and devouring her, spectacles and +all. She felt these attacks very much, and could not be +consoled, though Miss Edgeworth wrote a warm-hearted +letter of indignant sympathy. But Mrs. Barbauld had +something in her too genuine to be crushed, even by sarcastic +criticism. She published no more, but it was after +her poem of '1811' that she wrote the beautiful ode by +which she is best known and best remembered,—the ode +that Wordsworth used to repeat and say he envied, that +Tennyson has called 'sweet verses,' of which the lines ring +their tender hopeful chime like sweet church bells on a +summer evening.</p> + +<p>Madame d'Arblay, in her old age, told Crabb Robinson +that every night she said the verses over to herself as she +went to her rest. To the writer they are almost sacred. +The hand that patiently pointed out to her, one by one, +the syllables of Mrs. Barbauld's hymns for children, that +tended our childhood, as it had tended our father's, +marked these verses one night, when it blessed us for the +last time.</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Life, we've been long together,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh or tear,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Then steal away, give little warning,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Choose thine own time.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Bid me 'Good morning.'</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Mrs. Barbauld was over seventy when she wrote this +ode. A poem, called 'Octogenary Reflections,' is also very +touching:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Say ye, who through this round of eighty years</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Have proved its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Say what is life, ye veterans who have trod,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Step following steps, its flowery thorny road?</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Enough of good to kindle strong desire;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Enough of ill to damp the rising fire;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Enough of love and fancy, joy and hope,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">To fan desire and give the passions scope;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">To seal the wise man's sentence—'All is vain.'</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>There is another fragment of hers in which she likens +herself to a schoolboy left of all the train, who hears no +sound of wheels to bear him to his father's bosom home. +'Thus I look to the hour when I shall follow those that +are at rest before me.' And then at last the time came +for which she longed. Her brother died, her faithful Mrs. +Kenrick died, and Mrs. Taylor, whom she loved most of +all. She had consented to give up her solitary home to +spend the remaining years of her life in the home of her +adopted son Charles, now married, and a father; but it was +while she was on a little visit to her sister-in-law, Mrs. +Aikin, that the summons came, very swiftly and peacefully, +as she sat in her chair one day. Her nephew transcribed +these, the last lines she ever wrote:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="noindent"><span class="ind2">'Who are you?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Do you not know me? have you not expected me?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Whither do you carry me?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Come with me and you shall know.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'The way is dark.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'It is well trodden.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Yes, in the forward track.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Come along.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Oh! shall I there see my beloved ones? Will they welcome +me, and will they know me? Oh, tell me, tell me; thou +canst tell me.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Yes, but thou must come first.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Stop a little; keep thy hand off till thou hast told me.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'I never wait.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Oh! shall I see the warm sun again in my cold grave?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Nothing is there that can feel the sun.'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Oh, where then?'</span><br /> +<span class="ind2">'Come, I say.'</span> +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>One may acknowledge the great progress which people +have made since Mrs. Barbauld's day in the practice of +writing prose and poetry, in the art of expressing upon +paper the thoughts which are in most people's minds. It +is (to use a friend's simile) like playing upon the piano—everybody +now learns to play upon the piano, and it is +certain that the modest performances of the ladies of Mrs. +Barbauld's time would scarcely meet with the attention +now, which they then received. But all the same, the +stock of true feeling, of real poetry, is not increased by +the increased volubility of our pens; and so when something +comes to us that is real, that is complete in pathos +or in wisdom, we still acknowledge the gift, and are +grateful for it.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="MISS_EDGEWORTH" id="MISS_EDGEWORTH"></a><i>MISS EDGEWORTH.</i></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent">1767-1849.<br /> +</p> +</div> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="quote"> +<tr><td align="left"><small>'Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading.'—<i>Hen. VIII.</i></small></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="smallcaps">Early Days.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I.</b></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Few authoresses in these days can have enjoyed the +ovations and attentions which seem to have been considered +the due of many of the ladies distinguished at the +end of the last century and the beginning of this one. +To read the accounts of the receptions and compliments +which fell to their lot may well fill later and lesser luminaries +with envy. Crowds opened to admit them, banquets +spread themselves out before them, lights were lighted up +and flowers were scattered at their feet. Dukes, editors, +prime ministers, waited their convenience on their staircases; +whole theatres rose up <i>en masse</i> to greet the gifted +creatures of this and that immortal tragedy. The authoresses +themselves, to do them justice, seem to have been +very little dazzled by all this excitement. Hannah More +contentedly retires with her maiden sisters to the Parnassus +on the Mendip Hills, where they sew and chat and make +tea, and teach the village children. Dear Joanna Baillie, +modest and beloved, lives on to peaceful age in her pretty +old house at Hampstead, looking through tree-tops and +sunshine and clouds towards distant London. 'Out there +where all the storms are,' I heard the children saying +yesterday as they watched the overhanging gloom of smoke +which, veils the city of metropolitan thunders and lightning. +Maria Edgeworth's apparitions as a literary lioness +in the rush of London and of Paris society were but interludes +in her existence, and her real life was one of constant +exertion and industry spent far away in an Irish +home among her own kindred and occupations and interests. +We may realise what these were when we read that Mr. +Edgeworth had no less than four wives, who all left +children, and that Maria was the eldest daughter of the +whole family. Besides this, we must also remember that +the father whom she idolised was himself a man of extraordinary +powers, brilliant in conversation (so I have been +told), full of animation, of interest, of plans for his country, +his family, for education and literature, for mechanics and +scientific discoveries; that he was a gentleman widely connected, +hospitably inclined, with a large estate and many +tenants to overlook, with correspondence and acquaintances +all over the world; and besides all this, with various +schemes in his brain, to be eventually realised by others of +which velocipedes, tramways, and telegraphs were but a +few of the items.</p> + +<p>One could imagine that under these circumstances the +hurry and excitement of London life must have sometimes +seemed tranquillity itself compared with the many and +absorbing interests of such a family. What these interests +were may be gathered from the pages of a very interesting +memoir from which the writer of this essay has been +allowed to quote. It is a book privately printed and +written for the use of her children by the widow of +Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and is a record, among other +things, of a faithful and most touching friendship between +Maria and her father's wife—'a friendship lasting for over +fifty years, and unbroken by a single cloud of difference +or mistrust.' Mrs. Edgeworth, who was Miss Beaufort +before her marriage, and about the same age as Miss +Edgeworth, unconsciously reveals her own most charming +and unselfish nature as she tells her stepdaughter's story.</p> + +<p>When the writer looks back upon her own childhood, +it seems to her that she lived in company with a delightful +host of little playmates, bright, busy, clever children, +whose cheerful presence remains more vividly in her mind +than that of many of the real little boys and girls who +used to appear and disappear disconnectedly as children +do in childhood, when friendship and companionship +depend almost entirely upon the convenience of grown-up +people. Now and again came little cousins or friends to +share our games, but day by day, constant and unchanging, +ever to be relied upon, smiled our most lovable and +friendly companions—simple Susan, lame Jervas, Talbot, +the dear Little Merchants, Jem the widow's son with his +arms round old Lightfoot's neck, the generous Ben, with +his whipcord and his useful proverb of 'waste not, want +not'—all of these were there in the window corner waiting +our pleasure. After Parents' Assistant, to which +familiar words we attached no meaning whatever, came +Popular Tales in big brown volumes off a shelf in the +lumber-room of an apartment in an old house in Paris, +and as we opened the books, lo! creation widened to our +view. England, Ireland, America, Turkey, the mines of +Golconda, the streets of Bagdad, thieves, travellers, +governesses, natural philosophy, and fashionable life, were +all laid under contribution, and brought interest and +adventure to our humdrum nursery corner. All Mr. +Edgeworth's varied teaching and experience, all his +daughter's genius of observation, came to interest and +delight our play-time, and that of a thousand other little +children in different parts of the world. People justly +praise Miss Edgeworth's admirable stories and novels, but +from prejudice and early association these beloved childish +histories seem unequalled still, and it is chiefly as a writer +for children that we venture to consider her here. Some +of the stories are indeed little idylls in their way. Walter +Scott, who best knew how to write for the young so as to +charm grandfathers as well as Hugh Littlejohn, Esq., and +all the grandchildren, is said to have wiped his kind eyes +as he put down 'Simple Susan.' A child's book, says a +reviewer of those days defining in the 'Quarterly Review,' +should be 'not merely less dry, less difficult, than a book +for grown-up people; but more rich in interest, more true +to nature, more exquisite in art, more abundant in every +quality that replies to childhood's keener and fresher perception.' +Children like facts, they like short vivid +sentences that tell the story: as they listen intently, so +they read; every word has its value for them. It has +been a real surprise to the writer to find, on re-reading +some of these descriptions of scenery and adventure +which she had not looked at since her childhood, that the +details which she had imagined spread over much space +are contained in a few sentences at the beginning of a +page. These sentences, however, show the true art of the +writer.</p> + +<p>It would be difficult to imagine anything better suited +to the mind of a very young person than these pleasant +stories, so complete in themselves, so interesting, so varied. +The description of Jervas's escape from the mine where +the miners had plotted his destruction, almost rises to +poetry in its simple diction. Lame Jervas has warned his +master of the miners' plot, and showed him the vein of +ore which they have concealed. The miners have sworn +vengeance against him, and his life is in danger. His +master helps him to get away, and comes into the room +before daybreak, bidding him rise and put on the clothes +which he has brought. 'I followed him out of the house +before anybody else was awake, and he took me across the +fields towards the high road. At this place we waited till +we heard the tinkling of the bells of a team of horses. +"Here comes the waggon," said he, "in which you are to +go. So fare you well, Jervas. I shall hear how you go +on; and I only hope you will serve your next master, +whoever he may be, as faithfully as you have served me." +"I shall never find so good a master," was all I could say +for the soul of me; I was quite overcome by his goodness +and sorrow at parting with him, as I then thought, for +ever.' The description of the journey is very pretty. +'The morning clouds began to clear away; I could see +my master at some distance, and I kept looking after him +as the waggon went on slowly, and he walked fast away +over the fields.' Then the sun begins to rise. The +waggoner goes on whistling, but lame Jervas, to whom +the rising sun was a spectacle wholly surprising, starts up, +exclaiming in wonder and admiration. The waggoner +bursts into a loud laugh. 'Lud a marcy,' says he, 'to +hear un' and look at un' a body would think the oaf had +never seen the sun rise afore;' upon which Jervas +remembers that he is still in Cornwall, and must not +betray himself, and prudently hides behind some parcels, +only just in time, for they meet a party of miners, and he +hears his enemies' voice hailing the waggoner. All the +rest of the day he sits within, and amuses himself by +listening to the bells of the team, which jingle continually. +'On our second day's journey, however, I ventured out of +my hiding-place. I walked with the waggoner up and +down the hills, enjoying the fresh air, the singing of the +birds, and the delightful smell of the honeysuckles and +the dog-roses in the hedges. All the wild flowers and +even the weeds on the banks by the wayside were to me +matters of wonder and admiration. At almost every step +I paused to observe something that was new to me, and I +could not help feeling surprised at the insensibility of my +fellow-traveller, who plodded along, and seldom interrupted +his whistling except to cry 'Gee, Blackbird, aw +woa,' or 'How now, Smiler?' Then Jervas is lost in +admiration before a plant 'whose stem was about two feet +high, and which had a round shining purple beautiful +flower,' and the waggoner with a look of scorn exclaims, +'Help thee, lad, dost not thou know 'tis a common thistle?' +After this he looks upon Jervas as very nearly an idiot. +'In truth I believe I was a droll figure, for my hat was +stuck full of weeds and of all sorts of wild flowers, and +both my coat and waistcoat pockets were stuffed out with +pebbles and funguses.' Then comes Plymouth Harbour: +Jervas ventures to ask some questions about the vessels, to +which the waggoner answers 'They be nothing in life but +the boats and ships, man;' so he turned away and went +on chewing a straw, and seemed not a whit more moved +to admiration than he had been at the sight of the thistle. +'I conceived a high admiration of a man who had seen so +much that he could admire nothing,' says Jervas, with a +touch of real humour.</p> + +<p>Another most charming little idyll is that of Simple +Susan, who was a real maiden living in the neighbourhood +of Edgeworthstown. The story seems to have been mislaid +for a time in the stirring events of the first Irish rebellion, +and overlooked, like some little daisy by a battlefield. +Few among us will not have shared Mr. Edgeworth's partiality +for the charming little tale. The children fling their +garlands and tie up their violets. Susan bakes her cottage +loaves and gathers marigolds for broth, and tends her +mother to the distant tune of Philip's pipe coming across +the fields. As we read the story again it seems as if we +could almost scent the fragrance of the primroses and the +double violets, and hear the music sounding above the +children's voices, and the bleatings of the lamb, so simply +and delightfully is the whole story constructed. Among +all Miss Edgeworth's characters few are more familiar to the +world than that of Susan's pretty pet lamb.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>II.</b></p> +</div> +<p>No sketch of Maria Edgeworth's life, however slight, +would be complete without a few words about certain persons +coming a generation before her (and belonging still to +the age of periwigs), who were her father's associates and +her own earliest friends. Notwithstanding all that has +been said of Mr. Edgeworth's bewildering versatility of +nature, he seems to have been singularly faithful in his +friendships. He might take up new ties, but he clung +pertinaciously to those which had once existed. His +daughter inherited that same steadiness of affection. In his +life of Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, Mr. Charles Darwin, +writing of these very people, has said, 'There is, perhaps, +no safer test of a man's real character than that of his long-continued +friendship with good and able men.' He then +goes on to quote an instance of a long-continued affection +and intimacy only broken by death between a certain set +of distinguished friends, giving the names of Keir, Day, +Small, Boulton, Watt, Wedgwood, and Darwin, and adding +to them the names of Edgeworth himself and of the Galtons.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth first came to Lichfield to make Dr. +Darwin's acquaintance. His second visit was to his friend +Mr. Day, the author of 'Sandford and Merton,' who had +taken a house in the valley of Stow, and who invited him +one Christmas on a visit. 'About the year 1765,' says Miss +Seward, 'came to Lichfield, from the neighbourhood of +Reading, the young and gay philosopher, Mr. Edgeworth; +a man of fortune, and recently married to a Miss Elers, of +Oxfordshire. The fame of Dr. Darwin's various talents +allured Mr. E. to the city they graced.' And the lady goes +on to describe Mr. Edgeworth himself:—'Scarcely two-and-twenty, +with an exterior yet more juvenile, having +mathematic science, mechanic ingenuity, and a competent +portion of classical learning, with the possession of the +modern languages…. He danced, he fenced, he winged +his arrows with more than philosophic skill,' continues the +lady, herself a person of no little celebrity in her time and +place. Mr. Edgeworth, in his Memoirs, pays a respectful +tribute to Miss Seward's charms, to her agreeable conversation, +her beauty, her flowing tresses, her sprightliness and +address. Such moderate expressions fail, however, to do +justice to this lady's powers, to her enthusiasm, her poetry, +her partisanship. The portrait prefixed to her letters is +that of a dignified person with an oval face and dark eyes, +the thick brown tresses are twined with pearls, her graceful +figure is robed in the softest furs and draperies of the +period. In her very first letter she thus poetically describes +her surroundings:—'The autumnal glory of this day puts +to shame the summer's sullenness. I sit writing upon this +dear green terrace, feeding at intervals my little golden-breasted +songsters. The embosomed vale of Stow glows +sunny through the Claude-Lorraine tint which is spread +over the scene like the blue mist over a plum.'</p> + +<p>In this Claude-Lorraine-plum-tinted valley stood the +house which Mr. Day had taken, and where Mr. Edgeworth +had come on an eventful visit. Miss Seward herself lived +with her parents in the Bishop's palace at Lichfield. There +was also a younger sister, 'Miss Sally,' who died as a girl, +and another very beautiful young lady their friend, by name +Honora Sneyd, placed under Mrs. Seward's care. She was +the heroine of Major André's unhappy romance. He too +lived at Lichfield with his mother, and his hopeless love +gives a tragic reality to this by-gone holiday of youth and +merry-making. As one reads the old letters and memoirs +the echoes of laughter reach us. One can almost see the +young folks all coming together out of the Cathedral Close, +where so much of their time was passed; the beautiful +Honora, surrounded by friends and adorers, chaperoned by +the graceful Muse her senior, also much admired, and much +made of. Thomas Day is perhaps striding after them in +silence with keen critical glances; his long black locks flow +unpowdered down his back. In contrast to him comes his +brilliant and dressy companion, Mr. Edgeworth, who talks +so agreeably. I can imagine little Sabrina, Day's adopted +foundling, of whom so many stories have been told, following +shyly at her guardian's side in her simple dress +and childish beauty, and André's young handsome face +turned towards Miss Sneyd. So they pass on happy and +contented in each other's company, Honora in the midst, +beautiful, stately, reserved: she too was one of those not +destined to be old.</p> + +<p>Miss Seward seems to have loved this friend with a +very sincere and admiring affection, and to have bitterly +mourned her early death. Her letters abound in +apostrophes to the lost Honora. But perhaps the poor +Muse expected almost too much from friendship, too +much from life. She expected, as we all do at times, that +her friends should be not themselves but her, that they +should lead not their lives but her own. So much at +least one may gather from the various phases of her style +and correspondence, and her complaints of Honora's +estrangement and subsequent coldness. Perhaps, also, +Miss Seward's many vagaries and sentiments may have +frozen Honora's sympathies. Miss Seward was all +asterisks and notes of exclamation. Honora seems to +have forced feeling down to its most scrupulous expression. +She never lived to be softened by experience, to +suit herself to others by degrees: with great love she also +inspired awe and a sort of surprise. One can imagine her +pointing the moral of the purple jar, as it was told long +afterwards by her stepdaughter, then a little girl playing +at her own mother's knee in her nursery by the river.</p> + +<p>People in the days of shilling postage were better +correspondents than they are now when we have to be +content with pennyworths of news and of affectionate intercourse. +Their descriptions and many details bring all +the chief characters vividly before us, and carry us into the +hearts and the pocket-books of the little society at Lichfield +as it then was. The town must have been an agreeable +sojourn in those days for people of some pretension +and small performance. The inhabitants of Lichfield +seem actually to have read each other's verses, and having +done so to have taken the trouble to sit down and write +out their raptures. They were a pleasant lively company +living round about the old cathedral towers, meeting in the +Close or the adjacent gardens or the hospitable Palace +itself. Here the company would sip tea, talk mild literature +of their own and good criticism at second hand, +quoting Dr. Johnson to one another with the familiarity +of townsfolk. From Erasmus Darwin, too, they must +have gained something of vigour and originality.</p> + +<p>With all her absurdities Miss Seward had some real +critical power and appreciation; and some of her lines +are very pretty.<a href="#fn1"><sup><small>1</small></sup></a><a name="fn1r" id="fn1r"></a> An 'Ode to the Sun' is only what +might have been expected from this Lichfield Corinne. +Her best known productions are an 'Elegy on Captain +Cook,' a 'Monody on Major André,' whom she had known +from her early youth; and there is a poem, 'Louisa,' of +which she herself speaks very highly. But even more +than her poetry did she pique herself upon her epistolary +correspondence. It must have been well worth while +writing letters when they were not only prized by the +writer and the recipients, but commented on by their +friends in after years. 'Court Dewes, Esq.,' writes, after +five years, for copies of Miss Seward's epistles to Miss +Rogers and Miss Weston, of which the latter begins:—'Soothing +and welcome to me, dear Sophia, is the regret +you express for our separation! Pleasant were the weeks +we have recently passed together in this ancient and embowered +mansion! I had strongly felt the silence and +vacancy of the depriving day on which you vanished. +How prone are our hearts perversely to quarrel with the +friendly coercion of employment at the very instant in +which it is clearing the torpid and injurious mists of unavailing +melancholy!' Then follows a sprightly attack +before which Johnson may have quailed indeed. 'Is the +Fe-fa-fum of literature that snuffs afar the fame of his +brother authors, and thirsts for its destruction, to be +allowed to gallop unmolested over the fields of criticism? +A few pebbles from the well-springs of truth and eloquence +are all that is wanted to bring the might of his +envy low.' This celebrated letter, which may stand as +a specimen of the whole six volumes, concludes with the +following apostrophe:—'Virtuous friendship, how pure, how +sacred are thy delights! Sophia, thy mind is capable of +tasting them in all their poignance: against how many of +life's incidents may that capacity be considered as a +counterpoise!'</p> + +<p>There were constant rubs, which are not to be +wondered at, between Miss Seward and Dr. Darwin, who, +though a poet, was also a singularly witty, downright man, +outspoken and humorous. The lady admires his genius, +bitterly resents his sarcasms; of his celebrated work, the +'Botanic Garden,' she says, 'It is a string of poetic +brilliants, and they are of the first water, but the eye will +be apt to want the intersticial black velvet to give effect +to their lustre.' In later days, notwithstanding her +'elegant language,' as Mr. Charles Darwin calls it, she said +several spiteful things of her old friend, but they seem +more prompted by private pique than malice.</p> + +<p>If Miss Seward was the Minerva and Dr. Darwin the +Jupiter of the Lichfield society, its philosopher was +Thomas Day, of whom Miss Seward's description is so +good that I cannot help one more quotation:—</p> + +<p>'Powder and fine clothes were at that time the appendages +of gentlemen; Mr. Day wore not either. He was +tall and stooped in the shoulders, full made but not corpulent, +and in his meditative and melancholy air a degree +of awkwardness and dignity were blended.' She then +compares him with his guest, Mr. Edgeworth. 'Less +graceful, less amusing, less brilliant than Mr. E., but more +highly imaginative, more classical, and a deeper reasoner; +strict integrity, energetic friendship, open-handed generosity, +and diffusive charity, greatly overbalanced on the +side of virtue, the tincture of misanthropic gloom and proud +contempt of common life society.' Wright, of Derby, painted +a full-length picture of Mr. Day in 1770. 'Mr. Day +looks upward enthusiastically, meditating on the contents +of a book held in his dropped right hand … a flash of +lightning plays in his hair and illuminates the contents +of the volume.' 'Dr. Darwin,' adds Miss Seward, 'sat to +Mr. Wright about the same period—<i>that</i> was a simply +contemplative portrait of the most perfect resemblance.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>III.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Maria must have been three years old this eventful +Christmas time when her father, leaving his wife in Berkshire, +came to stay with Mr. Day at Lichfield, and first +made the acquaintance of Miss Seward and her poetic +circle. Mr. Day, who had once already been disappointed +in love, and whose romantic scheme of adopting his foundlings +and of educating one of them to be his wife, has +often been described, had brought one of the maidens to +the house he had taken at Lichfield. This was Sabrina, as +he had called her. Lucretia, having been found troublesome, +had been sent off with a dowry to be apprenticed to +a milliner. Sabrina was a charming little girl of thirteen; +everybody liked her, especially the friendly ladies at the +Palace, who received her with constant kindness, as they +did Mr. Day himself and his visitor. What Miss Seward +thought of Sabrina's education I do not know. The poor +child was to be taught to despise luxury, to ignore fear, to +be superior to pain. She appears, however, to have been +very fond of her benefactor, but to have constantly provoked +him by starting and screaming whenever he fired +uncharged pistols at her skirts, or dropped hot melted +sealing-wax on her bare arms. She is described as lovely +and artless, not fond of books, incapable of understanding +scientific problems, or of keeping the imaginary and terrible +secrets with which her guardian used to try her nerves. +I do not know when it first occurred to him that Honora +Sneyd was all that his dreams could have imagined. One +day he left Sabrina under many restrictions, and returning +unexpectedly found her wearing some garment or handkerchief +of which he did not approve, and discarded her on +the spot and for ever. Poor Sabrina was evidently not meant +to mate and soar with philosophical eagles. After this +episode, she too was despatched, to board with an old lady, +in peace for a time, let us hope, and in tranquil mediocrity.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth approved of this arrangement; he had +never considered that Sabrina was suited to his friend. +But being taken in due time to call at the Palace, he was +charmed with Miss Seward, and still more by all he +saw of Honora; comparing her, alas! in his mind 'with all +other women, and secretly acknowledging her superiority.' +At first, he says, Miss Seward's brilliance overshadowed +Honora, but very soon her merits grew upon the bystanders.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth carefully concealed his feelings except +from his host, who was beginning himself to contemplate a +marriage with Miss Sneyd. Mr. Day presently proposed +formally in writing for the hand of the lovely Honora, and +Mr. Edgeworth was to take the packet and to bring back +the answer; and being married himself, and out of the running, +he appears to have been unselfishly anxious for his +friend's success. In the packet Mr. Day had written down +the conditions to which he should expect his wife to subscribe. +She would have to begin at once by giving up all +luxuries, amenities, and intercourse with the world, and +promise to continue to seclude herself entirely in his company. +Miss Sneyd does not seem to have kept Mr. Edgeworth +waiting long while she wrote her answer decidedly saying +that she could not admit the unqualified control of a husband +over all her actions, nor the necessity for 'seclusion from +society to preserve female virtue.' Finding that Honora +absolutely refused to change her way of life, Mr. Day went +into a fever, for which Dr. Darwin bled him. Nor did he +recover until another Miss Sneyd, Elizabeth by name, made +her appearance in the Close.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth, who was of a lively and active disposition, +had introduced archery among the gentlemen of the +neighbourhood, and he describes a fine summer evening's +entertainment passed in agreeable sports, followed by +dancing and music, in the course of which Honora's sister, +Miss Elizabeth, appeared for the first time on the Lichfield +scene, and immediately joined in the country dance. +There is a vivid description of the two sisters in Mr. +Edgeworth's memoirs, of the beautiful and distinguished +Honora, loving science, serious, eager, reserved; of the +more lovely but less graceful Elizabeth, with less of energy, +more of humour and of social gifts than her sister. Elizabeth +Sneyd was, says Edgeworth, struck by Day's eloquence, +by his unbounded generosity, by his scorn of wealth. His +educating a young girl for his wife seemed to her romantic +and extraordinary; and she seems to have thought it possible +to yield to the evident admiration she had aroused in +him. But, whether in fun or in seriousness, she represented +to him that he could not with justice decry accomplishments +and graces that he had not acquired. She wished +him to go abroad for a time to study to perfect himself in +all that was wanting; on her own part she promised not to +go to Bath, London, or any public place of amusement +until his return, and to read certain books which he +recommended.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Mr. Edgeworth had made no secret of his +own feeling for Honora to Mr. Day, 'who with all the +eloquence of virtue and of friendship' urged him to fly, to +accompany him abroad, and to shun dangers he could not +hope to overcome. Edgeworth consented to this proposal, +and the two friends started for Paris, visiting Rousseau on +their way. They spent the winter at Lyons, as it was a +place where excellent masters of all sorts were to be found; +and here Mr. Day, with excess of zeal—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="noindent">put himself (says his friend) to every species of torture, ordinary +and extraordinary, to compel his Antigallican limbs, in spite of +their natural rigidity, to dance and fence, and manage the <i>great +horse</i>. To perform his promise to Miss E. Sneyd honourably, +he gave up seven or eight hours of the day to these exercises, +for which he had not the slightest taste, and for which, except +horsemanship, he manifested the most sovereign contempt. It +was astonishing to behold the energy with which he persevered +in these pursuits. I have seen him stand between two boards +which reached from the ground higher than his knees: these +boards were adjusted with screws so as barely to permit him to +bend his knees, and to rise up and sink down. By these means +Mr. Huise proposed to force Mr. Day's knees outwards; but +screwing was in vain. He succeeded in torturing his patient; +but original formation and inveterate habit resisted all his +endeavours at personal improvement. I could not help pitying +my philosophic friend, pent up in durance vile for hours +together, with his feet in the stocks, a book in his hand, and +contempt in his heart.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth meanwhile lodged himself 'in excellent +and agreeable apartments,' and occupied himself with engineering. +He is certainly curiously outspoken in his +memoirs; and explains that the first Mrs. Edgeworth, +Maria's mother, with many merits, was of a complaining +disposition, and did not make him so happy at home as +a woman of a more lively temper might have succeeded in +doing. He was tempted, he said, to look for happiness +elsewhere than in his home. Perhaps domestic affairs +may have been complicated by a warm-hearted but troublesome +little son, who at Day's suggestion had been brought +up upon the Rousseau system, and was in consequence +quite unmanageable, and a worry to everybody. Poor +Mrs. Edgeworth's complainings were not to last very long. +She joined her husband at Lyons, and after a time, having +a dread of lying-in abroad, returned home to die in her +confinement, leaving four little children. Maria could +remember being taken into her mother's room to see her +for the last time.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth hurried back to England, and was met +by his friend Thomas Day, who had preceded him, and +whose own suit does not seem to have prospered meanwhile. +But though notwithstanding all his efforts Thomas Day +had not been fortunate in securing Elizabeth Sneyd's affections, +he could still feel for his friend. His first words were +to tell Edgeworth that Honora was still free, more beautiful +than ever; while Virtue and Honour commanded it, he +had done all he could to divide them; now he wished to be +the first to promote their meeting. The meeting resulted +in an engagement, and Mr. Edgeworth and Miss Sneyd +were married within four months by the benevolent old +canon in the Lady Chapel of Lichfield Cathedral.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Seward wept; Miss Seward, 'notwithstanding +some imaginary dissatisfaction about a bridesmaid,' was +really glad of the marriage, we are told; and the young +couple immediately went over to Ireland.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>IV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Though her life was so short, Honora Edgeworth seems +to have made the deepest impression on all those she +came across. Over little Maria she had the greatest +influence. There is a pretty description of the child +standing lost in wondering admiration of her stepmother's +beauty, as she watched her soon after her marriage dressing +at her toilet-table. Little Maria's feeling for her stepmother +was very deep and real, and the influence of those +few years lasted for a lifetime. Her own exquisite carefulness +she always ascribed to it, and to this example may +also be attributed her habits of order and self-government, +her life of reason and deliberate judgment.</p> + +<p>The seven years of Honora's married life seem to have +been very peaceful and happy. She shared her husband's +pursuits, and wished for nothing outside her own home. +She began with him to write those little books which were +afterwards published. It is just a century ago since she +and Mr. Edgeworth planned the early histories of Harry +and Lucy and Frank; while Mr. Day began his 'Sandford +and Merton,' which at first was intended to appear at the +same time, though eventually the third part was not +published till 1789.</p> + +<p>As a girl of seventeen Honora Sneyd had once been +threatened with consumption. After seven years of +married life the cruel malady again declared itself; and +though Dr. Darwin did all that human resource could do, +and though every tender care surrounded her, the poor +young lady rapidly sank. There is a sad, prim, most +affecting letter, addressed to little Maria by the dying +woman shortly before the end; and then comes that one +written by the father, which is to tell her that all is over.</p> + +<p>If Mr. Edgeworth was certainly unfortunate in losing +again and again the happiness of his home, he was more +fortunate than most people in being able to rally from his +grief. He does not appear to have been unfaithful in feeling. +Years after, Edgeworth, writing to console Mrs. Day +upon her husband's death, speaks in the most touching way +of all he had suffered when Honora died, and of the struggle +he had made to regain his hold of life. This letter is in +curious contrast to that one written at the time, as he sits +by poor Honora's deathbed; it reads strangely cold and +irrelevant in these days when people are not ashamed of +feeling or of describing what they feel. 'Continue, my +dear daughter'—he writes to Maria, who was then thirteen +years old—'the desire which you feel of becoming amiable, +prudent, and of use. The ornamental parts of a character, +with such an understanding as yours, necessarily ensue; +but true judgment and sagacity in the choice of friends, +and the regulation of your behaviour, can be only had +from reflection, and from being thoroughly convinced of +what experience in general teaches too late, that to be +happy we must be good.'</p> + +<p>'Such a letter, written at such a time,' says the kind +biographer, 'made the impression it was intended to +convey; and the wish to act up to the high opinion her +father had formed of her character became an exciting +and controlling power over the whole of Maria's future +life.' On her deathbed, Honora urged her husband to +marry again, and assured him that the woman to suit +him was her sister Elizabeth. Her influence was so great +upon them both that, although Elizabeth was attached to +some one else, and Mr. Edgeworth believed her to be +little suited to himself, they were presently engaged and +married, not without many difficulties. The result proved +how rightly Honora had judged.</p> + +<p>It was to her father <ins title="original has hat">that</ins> Maria owed the suggestion of +her first start in literature. Immediately after Honora's +death he tells her to write a tale about the length of a +'Spectator,' on the subject of generosity. 'It must be +taken from history or romance, must be sent the day +se'nnight after you receive this; and I beg you will take +some pains about it.' A young gentleman from Oxford +was also set to work to try his powers on the same subject, +and Mr. William Sneyd, at Lichfield, was to be judge +between the two performances. He gave his verdict for +Maria: 'An excellent story and very well written: but +where's the generosity?' This, we are told, became a +sort of proverb in the Edgeworth family.</p> + +<p>The little girl meanwhile had been sent to school to a +certain Mrs. Lataffiere, where she was taught to use her +fingers, to write a lovely delicate hand, to work white satin +waistcoats for her papa. She was then removed to a fashionable +establishment in Upper Wimpole Street, where, says +her stepmother, 'she underwent all the usual tortures of +backboards, iron collars, and dumb-bells, with the unusual +one of being hung by the neck to draw out the muscles and +increase the growth,—a signal failure in her case.' (Miss +Edgeworth was always a very tiny person.) There is a +description given of Maria at this school of hers of the +little maiden absorbed in her book with all the other +children at play, while she sits in her favourite place in +front of a carved oak cabinet, quite unconscious of the +presence of the romping girls all about her.</p> + +<p>Hers was a very interesting character as it appears in +the Memoirs—sincere, intelligent, self-contained, and yet +dependent; methodical, observant. Sometimes as one +reads of her in early life one is reminded of some of the +personal characteristics of the writer who perhaps of all +writers least resembles Miss Edgeworth in her art—of +Charlotte Brontë, whose books are essentially of the +modern and passionate school, but whose strangely mixed +character seemed rather to belong to the orderly and +neatly ruled existence of Queen Charlotte's reign. People's +lives as they really are don't perhaps vary very much, but +people's lives as they seem to be assuredly change with +the fashions. Miss Edgeworth and Miss Brontë were +both Irishwomen, who have often, with all their outcome, +the timidity which arises from quick and sensitive feeling. +But the likeness does not go very deep. Maria, whose +diffidence and timidity were personal, but who had a firm +and unalterable belief in family traditions, may have been +saved from some danger of prejudice and limitation by a +most fortunate though trying illness which affected her +eyesight, and which caused her to be removed from her +school with its monstrous elegancies to the care of Mr. +Day, that kindest and sternest of friends.</p> + +<p>This philosopher in love had been bitterly mortified +when the lively Elizabeth Sneyd, instead of welcoming +his return, could not conceal her laughter at his uncouth +elegancies, and confessed that, on the whole, she had +liked him better as he was before. He forswore Lichfield +and marriage, and went abroad to forget. He +turned his thoughts to politics; he wrote pamphlets on +public subjects and letters upon slavery. His poem of +the 'Dying Negro' had been very much admired. Miss +Hannah More speaks of it in her Memoirs. The subject +of slavery was much before people's minds, and Day's +influence had not a little to do with the rising indignation.</p> + +<p>Among Day's readers and admirers was one person +who was destined to have a most important influence +upon his life. By a strange chance his extraordinary +ideal was destined to be realised; and a young lady, good, +accomplished, rich, devoted, who had read his books, and +sympathised with his generous dreams, was ready not only +to consent to his strange conditions, but to give him her +whole heart and find her best happiness in his society and +in carrying out his experiments and fancies. She was Miss +Esther Milnes, of Yorkshire, an heiress; and though at +first Day hesitated and could not believe in the reality of +her feeling, her constancy and singleness of mind were not +to be resisted, and they were married at Bath in 1778. +We hear of Mr. and Mrs. Day spending the first winter +of their married life at Hampstead, and of Mrs. Day, +thickly shodden, walking with him in a snowstorm on the +common, and ascribing her renewed vigour to her husband's +Spartan advice.</p> + +<p>Day and his wife eventually established themselves at +Anningsley, near Chobham. He had insisted upon settling +her fortune upon herself, but Mrs. Day assisted him in +every way, and sympathised in his many schemes and +benevolent ventures. When he neglected to make a +window to the dressing-room he built for her, we hear of her +uncomplainingly lighting her candles; to please him she +worked as a servant in the house, and all their large means +were bestowed in philanthropic and charitable schemes. +Mr. Edgeworth quotes his friend's reproof to Mrs. Day, +who was fond of music: 'Shall we beguile the time with +the strains of a lute while our fellow-creatures are +starving?' 'I am out of pocket every year about 300<i>l</i>. +by the farm I keep,' Day writes his to his friend Edgeworth. +'The soil I have taken in hand, I am convinced, is one of +the most completely barren in England.' He then goes +on to explain his reasons for what he is about. 'It enables +me to employ the poor, and the result of all my speculations +about humanity is that the only way of benefiting +mankind is to give them employment and make them earn +their money.' There is a pretty description of the worthy +couple in their home dispensing help and benefits all +round about, draining, planting, teaching, doctoring—nothing +came amiss to them. Their chief friend and +neighbour was Samuel Cobbett, who understood their +plans, and sympathised in their efforts, which, naturally +enough, were viewed with doubt and mistrust by most of +the people round about. It was at Anningsley that Mr. +Day finished 'Sandford and Merton,' begun many years +before. His death was very sudden, and was brought about +by one of his own benevolent theories. He used to maintain +that kindness alone could tame animals; and he was +killed by a fall from a favourite colt which he was breaking +in. Mrs. Day never recovered the shock. She lived two +years hidden in her home, absolutely inconsolable, and +then died and was laid by her husband's side in the churchyard +at Wargrave by the river.</p> + +<p>It was to the care of these worthy people that little +Maria was sent when she was ill, and she was doctored by +them both physically and morally. 'Bishop Berkeley's +tar-water was still considered a specific for all complaints,' +says Mrs. Edgeworth. 'Mr. Day thought it would be of +use to Maria's inflamed eyes, and he used to bring a large +tumbler full of it to her every morning. She dreaded his +"Now, Miss Maria, drink this." But there was, in spite of +his stern voice, something of pity and sympathy in his +countenance. His excellent library was open to her, and +he directed her studies. His severe reasoning and uncompromising +truth of mind awakened all her powers, and the +questions he put to her and the working out of the +answers, the necessity of perfect accuracy in all her words, +suited the natural truth of her mind; and though such +strictness was not agreeable, she even then perceived its +advantage, and in after life was grateful for it.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>V.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>We have seen how Miss Elizabeth Sneyd, who could +not make up her mind to marry Mr. Day notwithstanding +all he had gone through for her sake, had eventually consented +to become Mr. Edgeworth's third wife. With this +stepmother for many years to come Maria lived in an +affectionate intimacy, only to be exceeded by that most +faithful companionship which existed for fifty years between +her and the lady from whose memoirs I quote.</p> + +<p>It was about 1782 that Maria went home to live at +Edgeworthtown with her father and his wife, with the +many young brothers and sisters. The family was a large +one, and already consisted of her own sisters, of Honora +the daughter of Mrs. Honora, and Lovell her son. To +these succeeded many others of the third generation; and +two sisters of Mrs. Edgeworth's, who also made their home +at Edgeworthtown.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Maria had once before been there, "very young, but she was +now old enough to be struck with the difference then so striking +between Ireland and England." The tones and looks, the +melancholy and the gaiety of the people, were so new and extraordinary +to her that the delineations she long afterwards made +of Irish character probably owe their life and truth to the impression +made on her mind at this time as a stranger. Though +it was June when they landed, there was snow on the roses +she ran out to gather, and she felt altogether in a new and +unfamiliar country.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>She herself describes the feelings of the master of a family +returning to an Irish home:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Wherever he turned his eyes, in or out of his home, damp +dilapidation, waste appeared. Painting, glazing, roofing, fencing, +finishing—all were wanting. The backyard and even the front +lawn round the windows of the house were filled with loungers, +followers, and petitioners; tenants, undertenants, drivers, sub-agent +and agent were to have audience; and they all had +grievances and secret informations, accusations, reciprocations, +and quarrels each under each interminable.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Her account of her father's dealings with them is +admirable:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I was with him constantly, and I was amused and interested +in seeing how he made his way through their complaints, +petitions, and grievances with decision and despatch, he all the +time in good humour with the people and they delighted with +him, though he often rated them roundly when they stood before +him perverse in litigation, helpless in procrastination, detected +in cunning or convicted of falsehood. They saw into his +character almost as soon as he understood theirs.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth had in a very remarkable degree that +power of ruling and administering which is one of the +rarest of gifts. He seems to have shown great firmness and +good sense in his conduct in the troubled times in which +he lived. He saw to his own affairs, administered justice, +put down middlemen as far as possible, reorganised the +letting out of the estate. Unlike many of his neighbours, +he was careful not to sacrifice the future to present ease of +mind and of pocket. He put down rack-rents and bribes +of every sort, and did his best to establish things upon a +firm and lasting basis.</p> + +<p>But if it was not possible even for Mr. Edgeworth to make +such things all they should have been outside the house, +the sketch given of the family life at home is very pleasant. +The father lives in perfect confidence with his children, +admitting them to his confidence, interesting them in his +experiments, spending his days with them, consulting them. +There are no reservations; he does his business in the +great sitting-room, surrounded by his family. I have +heard it described as a large ground-floor room, with +windows to the garden and with two columns supporting +the further end, by one of which Maria's writing-desk +used to be placed—a desk which her father had devised +for her, which used to be drawn out to the fireside when +she worked. Does not Mr. Edgeworth also mention in +one of his letters a picture of Thomas Day hanging over +a sofa against the wall? Books in plenty there were, we +may be sure, and perhaps models of ingenious machines +and different appliances for scientific work. Sir Henry +Holland and Mr. Ticknor give a curious description of +Mr. Edgeworth's many ingenious inventions. There were +strange locks to the rooms and telegraphic despatches to +the kitchen; clocks at the one side of the house were +wound up by simply opening certain doors at the other +end. It has been remarked that all Miss Edgeworth's +heroes had a smattering of science. Several of her brothers +inherited her father's turn for it. We hear of them raising +steeples and establishing telegraphs in partnership with +him. Maria shared of the family labours and used to +help her father in the business connected with the estate, +to assist him, also, to keep the accounts. She had a special +turn for accounts, and she was pleased with her exquisitely +neat columns and by the accuracy with which her figures +fell into their proper places. Long after her father's death +this knowledge and experience enabled her to manage the +estate for her eldest stepbrother, Mr. Lovell Edgeworth. +She was able, at a time of great national difficulty and +anxious crisis, to meet a storm in which many a larger +fortune was wrecked.</p> + +<p>But in 1782 she was a young girl only beginning life. +Storms were not yet, and she was putting out her wings +in the sunshine. Her father set her to translate 'Adèle et +Théodore,' by Madame de Genlis (she had a great facility +for languages, and her French was really remarkable). +Holcroft's version of the book, however, appeared, and the +Edgeworth translation was never completed. Mr. Day +wrote a letter to congratulate Mr. Edgeworth on the +occasion. It seemed horrible to Mr. Day that a woman +should appear in print.</p> + +<p>It is possible that the Edgeworth family was no exception +to the rule by which large and clever and animated +families are apt to live in a certain atmosphere of their +own. But, notwithstanding this strong family bias, few +people can have seen more of the world, felt its temper +more justly, or appreciated more fully the interesting +varieties of people to be found in it than Maria Edgeworth. +Within easy reach of Edgeworthtown were different +agreeable and cultivated houses. There was Pakenham +Hall with Lord Longford for its master; one of its +daughters was the future Duchess of Wellington, 'who was +always Kitty Pakenham for her old friends.' There at +Castle Forbes also lived, I take it, more than one of the +well-bred and delightful persons, out of 'Patronage,' and +the 'Absentee,' who may, in real life, have borne the +names of Lady Moira and Lady Granard. Besides, there +were cousins and relations without number—Foxes, +Ruxtons, marriages and intermarriages; and when the +time came for occasional absences and expeditions from +home, the circles seem to have spread incalculably in every +direction. The Edgeworths appear to have been a genuinely +sociable clan, interested in others and certainly interesting +to them.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VI.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>The first letter given in the Memoirs from Maria to +her favourite aunt Ruxton is a very sad one, which tells +of the early death of her sister Honora, a beautiful girl of +fifteen, the only daughter of Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, who +died of consumption, as her mother had died. This letter, +written in the dry phraseology of the time, is nevertheless +full of feeling, above all for her father who was, as Maria +says elsewhere, ever since she could think or feel, the first +object and motive of her mind.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edgeworth describes her sister-in-law as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Mrs. Ruxton resembled her brother in the wit and vivacity +of her mind and strong affections; her grace and charm of +manner were such that a gentleman once said of her; 'If I +were to see Mrs. Ruxton in rags as a beggar woman sitting on +the doorstep, I should say "Madam" to her.' 'To write to her +Aunt Ruxton was, as long as she lived, Maria's greatest pleasure +while away from her,' says Mrs. Edgeworth, 'and to be with her +was a happiness she enjoyed with never flagging and supreme +delight. Blackcastle was within a few hours' drive of Edgeworthtown, +and to go to Blackcastle was the holiday of her life.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Edgeworth tells a story of Maria once staying at +Blackcastle and tearing out the title page of 'Belinda,' so +that her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, read the book without any +suspicion of the author. She was so delighted with it that +she insisted on Maria listening to page after page, exclaiming +'Is not that admirably written?' 'Admirably read, +I think,' said Maria; until her aunt, quite provoked by her +faint acquiescence, says, 'I am sorry to see my little Maria +unable to bear the praises of a rival author;' at which +poor Maria burst into tears, and Mrs. Ruxton could never +bear the book mentioned afterwards.</p> + +<p>It was with Mrs. Ruxton that a little boy, born just +after the death of the author of 'Sandford and Merton,' +was left on the occasion of the departure of the Edgeworth +family for Clifton, in 1792, where Mr. Edgeworth spent a +couple of years for the health of one of his sons. In July +the poor little brother dies in Ireland. 'There does +not, now that little Thomas is gone, exist even a person +of the same name as Mr. Day,' says Mr. Edgeworth, +who concludes his letter philosophically, as the father of +twenty children may be allowed to do, by expressing a +hope that to his nurses, Mrs. Ruxton and her daughter, +'the remembrance of their own goodness will soon +obliterate the painful impression of his miserable end.' +During their stay at Clifton Richard Edgeworth, the +eldest son, who had been brought up upon Rousseau's +system, and who seems to have found the Old World too +restricted a sphere for his energies, after going to sea and +disappearing for some years, suddenly paid them a visit +from South Carolina, where he had settled and married. +The young man was gladly welcomed by them all. He +had been long separated from home, and he eventually +died very young in America; but his sister always clung +to him with fond affection, and when he left them to +return home she seems to have felt his departure very +much. 'Last Saturday my poor brother Richard took +leave of us to return to America. He has gone up to +London with my father and mother, and is to sail from +thence. We could not part from him without great pain +and regret, for he made us all extremely fond of him.'</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding these melancholy events, Maria Edgeworth +seems to have led a happy busy life all this time +among her friends, her relations, her many interests, her +many fancies and facts, making much of the children, of +whom she writes pleasant descriptions to her aunt. +'Charlotte is very engaging and promises to be handsome. +Sneyd is, and promises everything. Henry will, I think, +through life always do more than he promises. Little +Honora is a sprightly blue-eyed child at nurse with a +woman who is the picture of health and simplicity. +Lovell is perfectly well. Doctor Darwin has paid him +very handsome compliments on his lines on the Barbarini +Vase in the first part of the "Botanic Garden."'</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth, however, found the time long at +Clifton, though, as usual, he at once improved his +opportunities, paid visits to his friends in London and +elsewhere, and renewed many former intimacies and correspondences.</p> + +<p>Maria also paid a visit to London, but the time had +not come for her to enjoy society, and the extreme shyness +of which Mrs. Edgeworth speaks made it pain to her to +be in society in those early days. 'Since I have been +away from home,' she writes, 'I have missed the society of +my father, mother, and sisters more than I can express, and +more than beforehand I could have thought possible. I +long to see them all again. Even when I am most amused +I feel a void, and now I understand what an aching void +is perfectly.' Very soon we hear of her at home again, +'scratching away at the Freeman family.' Mr. Edgeworth +is reading aloud Gay's 'Trivia' among other things, which +she recommends to her aunt. 'I had much rather make +a bargain with any one I loved to read the same books with +them at the same hour than to look at the moon like +Rousseau's famous lovers.' There is another book, a new +book for the children, mentioned about this time, 'Evenings +at Home,' which they all admire immensely.</p> + +<p>Miss Edgeworth was now about twenty-six, at an age +when a woman's powers have fully ripened; a change comes +over her style; there is a fulness of description in her letters +and a security of expression which show maturity. Her +habit of writing was now established, and she describes +the constant interest her father took and his share in all +she did. Some of the slighter stories she first wrote upon +a slate and read out to her brothers and sisters; others she +sketched for her father's approval, and arranged and altered +as he suggested. The letters for literary ladies were with +the publishers by this time, and these were followed by +various stories and early lessons, portions of 'Parents' +Assistant,' and of popular tales, all of which were sent out +in packets and lent from one member of the family to +another before finally reaching Mr. Johnson, the publisher's, +hands. Maria Edgeworth in some of her letters from +Clifton alludes with some indignation to the story of +Mrs. Hannah More's ungrateful <i>protégée</i> Lactilla, the +literary milkwoman, whose poems Hannah More was at +such pains to bring before the world, and for whom, with +her kind preface and warm commendations and subscription +list, she was able to obtain the large sum of 500<i>l</i>. +The ungrateful Lactilla, who had been starving when +Mrs. More found her out, seems to have lost her head in +this sudden prosperity, and to have accused her benefactress +of wishing to steal a portion of the money. Maria +Edgeworth must have been also interested in some family +marriages which took place about this time. Her own +sister Anna became engaged to Dr. Beddoes, of Clifton, +whose name appears as prescribing for the authors of various +memoirs of that day. He is 'a man of ability, of a great +name in the scientific world,' says Mr. Edgeworth, who +favoured the Doctor's 'declared passion,' as a proposal was +then called, and the marriage accordingly took place on +their return to Ireland. Emmeline, another sister, was +soon after married to Mr. King, a surgeon, also living at +Bristol, and Maria was now left the only remaining +daughter of the first marriage, to be good aunt, sister, +friend to all the younger members of the party. She was +all this, but she herself expressly states that her father would +never allow her to be turned into a nursery drudge; her +share of the family was limited to one special little boy. +Meanwhile her pen-and-ink children are growing up, and +starting out in the world on their own merits.</p> + +<p>'I beg, dear Sophy,' she writes to her cousin, 'that +you will not call my little stories by the sublime name of +my works; I shall else be ashamed when the little mouse +comes forth. The stories are printed and bound the same +size as 'Evenings at Home,' but I am afraid you will +dislike the title. My father had sent the 'Parents' +Friend,' but Mr. Johnson has degraded it into 'Parents' +Assistant.'</p> + +<p>In 1797, says Miss Beaufort, who was to be so soon +more intimately connected with the Edgeworth family, +Johnson wished to publish more volumes of the 'Parents' +Assistant' on fine paper, with prints, and Mrs. Ruxton +asked me to make some designs for them. These +designs seem to have given great satisfaction to the +Edgeworth party, and especially to a little boy called +William, Mrs. Edgeworth's youngest boy, who grew up to +be a fine young man, but who died young of the cruel +family complaint. Mrs. Edgeworth's health was also +failing all this time—'Though she makes epigrams she is +far from well,' says Maria; but they, none of them seem +seriously alarmed. Mr. Edgeworth, in the intervals of +politics, is absorbed in a telegraph, which, with the help +of his sons, he is trying to establish. It is one which will +act by night as well as by day.</p> + +<p>It was a time of change and stir for Ireland, disaffection +growing and put down for a time by the soldiers; +armed bands going about 'defending' the country and +breaking its windows. In 1794 threats of a French invasion +had alarmed everybody, and now again in 1796 +came rumours of every description, and Mr. Edgeworth +was very much disappointed that his proposal for establishing +a telegraph across the water to England was rejected +by Government. He also writes to Dr. Darwin +that he had offered himself as a candidate for the county, +and been obliged to relinquish at the last moment; but +these minor disappointments were lost in the trouble +which fell upon the household in the following year—the +death of the mother of the family, who sank rapidly and +died of consumption in 1797.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>When Mr. Edgeworth himself died (not, as we may +be sure, without many active post-mortem wishes and +directions) he left his entertaining Memoirs half finished, +and he desired his daughter Maria in the most emphatic +way to complete them, and to publish them without +changing or altering anything that he had written. +People reading them were surprised by the contents; many +blamed Miss Edgeworth for making them public, not +knowing how solemn and binding these dying commands +of her father's had been, says Mrs. Leadbeater, writing at +the time to Mrs. Trench. Many severe and wounding +reviews appeared, and this may have influenced Miss +Edgeworth in her own objection to having her Memoirs +published by her family.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth's life was most extraordinary, comprising +in fact three or four lives in the place of that one +usually allowed to most people, some of us having to be +moderately content with a half or three-quarters of existence. +But his versatility of mind was no less remarkable than +his tenacity of purpose and strength of affection, though +some measure of sentiment must have certainly been +wanting, and his fourth marriage must have taken most +people by surprise. The writer once expressed her surprise +at the extraordinary influence that Mr. Edgeworth +seems to have had over women and over the many +members of his family who continued to reside in his +home after all the various changes which had taken place +there. Lady S—— to whom she spoke is one who has +seen more of life than most of us, who has for years +past carried help to the far-away and mysterious East, but +whose natural place is at home in the more prosperous and +unattainable West End. This lady said, 'You do not in +the least understand what my Uncle Edgeworth was. I +never knew anything like him. Brilliant, full of energy +and charm, he was something quite extraordinary and +irresistible. If you had known him you would not have +wondered at anything.'</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>'I had in the spring of that year (1797) paid my first visit +to Edgeworthtown with my mother and sister,' writes Miss +Beaufort, afterwards Mrs. Edgeworth, the author of the Memoirs. +'My father had long before been there, and had frequently met +Mr. Edgeworth at Mrs. Ruxton's. In 1795 my father was +presented to the living of Collon, in the county of Louth, +where he resided from that time. His vicarage was within five +minutes' walk of the residence of Mr. Foster, then Speaker of +the Irish House of Commons, the dear friend of Mr. Edgeworth, +who came to Collon in the spring of 1798 several times, and at +last offered me his hand, which I accepted.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Maria, who was at first very much opposed to the match, +would not have been herself the most devoted and faithful +of daughters if she had not eventually agreed to her +father's wishes, and, as daughters do, come by degrees to +feel with him and to see with his eyes. The influence of +a father over a daughter where real sympathy exists is one +of the very deepest and strongest that can be imagined. +Miss Beaufort herself seems also to have had some special +attraction for Maria. She was about her own age. She +must have been a person of singularly sweet character and +gentle liberality of mind. 'You will come into a new +family, but you will not come as a stranger, dear Miss +Beaufort,' writes generous Maria. 'You will not lead a +new life, but only continue to lead the life you have been +used to in your own happy cultivated family.' And her +stepmother in a few feeling words describes all that Maria +was to her from the very first when she came as a bride to +the home where the sisters and the children of the lately +lost wife were all assembled to meet her.</p> + +<p>It gives an unpleasant thrill to read of the newly-married +lady coming along to her home in a postchaise, and +seeing something odd on the side of the road. 'Look to +the other side; don't look at it,' says Mr. Edgeworth; and +when they had passed he tells his bride that it was the +body of a man hung by the rebels between the shafts of a +car.</p> + +<p>The family at Edgeworthtown consisted of two ladies, +sisters of the late Mrs. Edgeworth, who made it their +home, and of Maria, the last of the first family. Lovell, +now the eldest son, was away; but there were also four +daughters and three sons at home.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>All agreed in making me feel at once at home and part of +the family; all received me with the most unaffected cordiality; +but from Maria it was something more. She more than fulfilled +the promise of her letter; she made me at once her most +intimate friend, and in every trifle of the day treated me with +the most generous confidence.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Those times were even more serious than they are +now; we hear of Mr. Bond, the High Sheriff, paying 'a +pale visit' to Edgeworthtown. 'I am going on in the old +way, writing stories,' says Maria Edgeworth, writing in +1798. 'I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and sitting +with my hands before me would not make any one of us +one degree safer…. Simple Susan went to Foxhall a few +days ago for Lady Anne to carry her to England.'… 'My +father has made our little rooms so nice for us,' she continues; +'they are all fresh painted and papered. Oh! +rebels, oh! French spare them. We have never injured +you, and all we wish is to see everybody as happy as ourselves.'</p> + +<p>On August 29 we find from Miss Edgeworth's letter to +her cousin that the French have got to Castlebar. 'The +Lord-Lieutenant is now at Athlone, and it is supposed it +will be their next object of attack. My father's corps of +yeomanry are extremely attached to him and seem fully in +earnest; but, alas! by some strange negligence, their arms +have not yet arrived from Dublin…. We, who are so +near the scene of action, cannot by any means discover +what <i>number</i> of the French actually landed; some say 800, +some 1,800, some 18,000.'</p> + +<p>The family had a narrow escape that day, for two +officers, who were in charge of some ammunition, offered to +take them under their protection as far as Longford. Mr. +Edgeworth most fortunately detained them. 'Half an +hour afterwards, as we were quietly sitting in the portico, +we heard, as we thought close to us, the report of a pistol +or a clap of thunder which shook the house. The officer +soon after returned almost speechless; he could hardly explain +what had happened. The ammunition cart, containing +nearly three barrels of gunpowder, took fire, and burnt +half-way on the road to Longford. The man who drove +the cart was blown to atoms. Nothing of him could be +found. Two of the horses were killed; others were blown +to pieces, and their limbs scattered to a distance. The +head and body of a man were found a hundred and twenty +yards from the spot…. If we had gone with this +ammunition cart, we must have been killed. An hour or +two afterwards we were obliged to fly from Edgeworthtown. +The pikemen, 300 in number, were within a mile +of the town; my mother and Charlotte and I rode; passed +the trunk of the dead man, bloody limbs of horses, and two +dead horses, by the help of men who pulled on our steeds—all +safely lodged now in Mrs. Fallon's inn.' 'Before we +had reached the place where the cart had been blown up,' +says Mrs. Edgeworth, 'Mr. Edgeworth suddenly recollected +that he had left on the table in his study a list of the +yeomanry corps which he feared might endanger the poor +fellows and their families if it fell into the hands of the +rebels. He galloped back for it. It was at the hazard of +his life; but the rebels had not yet appeared. He burned +the paper, and rejoined us safely.' The Memoirs give a +most interesting and spirited account of the next few days. +The rebels spared Mr. Edgeworth's house, although they +broke into it. After a time the family were told that all +was safe for their return, and the account of their coming +home, as it is given in the second volume of Mr. Edgeworth's +life by his daughter, is a model of style and +admirable description.</p> + +<p>In 1799 Mr. Edgeworth came into Parliament for the +borough of St. Johnstown. He was a Unionist by conviction, +but he did not think the times were yet ripe for +the Union, and he therefore voted against it. In some of +his letters to Dr. Darwin written at this time, he says that +he was offered 3,000 guineas for his seat for the few +remaining weeks of the session, which, needless to say, he +refused, not thinking it well, as he says, '<i>to quarrel with +myself</i>.' He also adds that Maria continues writing for +children under the persuasion that she cannot be more +serviceably employed; and he sends (with his usual perspicuity) +affectionate messages to the Doctor's 'good +amiable lady and <i>his giant brood</i>.' But this long friendly +correspondence was coming to an end. The Doctor's +letters, so quietly humorous and to the point, Mr. Edgeworth's +answers with all their characteristic and lively +variety, were nearly at an end.</p> + +<p>It was in 1800 that Maria had achieved her great +success, and published 'Castle Rackrent,' a book—not for +children this time—which made everybody talk who read, +and those read who had only talked before. This work +was published anonymously, and so great was its reputation +that some one was at the pains to copy out the whole of +the story with erasures and different signs of authenticity, +and assume the authorship.</p> + +<p>One very distinctive mark of Maria Edgeworth's mind +is the honest candour and genuine critical faculty which is +hers. Her appreciation of her own work and that of +others is unaffected and really discriminating, whether it +is 'Corinne' or a simple story which she is reading, or +Scott's new novel the 'Pirate,' or one of her own manuscripts +which she estimates justly and reasonably. 'I have +read "Corinne" with my father, and I like it better than he +does. In one word, I am dazzled by the genius, provoked +by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste and +critical judgment of Italian literature displayed throughout +the whole work: but I will not dilate upon it in a +letter. I could talk for three hours to you and my aunt.'</p> + +<p>Elsewhere she speaks with the warmest admiration of +a 'Simple Story.' Jane Austen's books were not yet published; +but another writer, for whom Mr. Edgeworth and +his daughter had a very great regard and admiration, was +Mrs. Barbauld, who in all the heavy trials and sorrows of +her later life found no little help and comfort in the +friendship and constancy of Maria Edgeworth. Mr. and +Mrs. Barbauld, upon Mr. Edgeworth's invitation, paid him +a visit at Clifton, where he was again staying in 1799, and +where the last Mrs. Edgeworth's eldest child was born. +There is a little anecdote of domestic life at this time in +the Memoirs which gives one a glimpse, not of an authoress, +but of a very sympathising and impressionable person. +'Maria took her little sister to bring down to her father, +but when she had descended a few steps a panic seized her, +and she was afraid to go either backwards or forwards. +She sat down on the stairs afraid she should drop the child, +afraid that its head would come off, and afraid that her +father would find her sitting there and laugh at her, till +seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in a +terrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards +down the stairs till she safely reached the sitting-room.' +For all these younger children Maria seems to have had a +most tender and motherly regard, as indeed for all her +young brothers and sisters of the different families. Many +of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few +heroines are more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. +Rosamund is said by some to have been Maria herself, +impulsive, warm-hearted, timid, and yet full of spirit +and animation.</p> + +<p>In his last letter to Mr. Edgeworth Dr. Darwin writes +kindly of the authoress, and sends her a message. The +letter is dated April 17, 1802. 'I am glad to find you +still amuse yourself with mechanism in spite of the troubles +of Ireland;' and the Doctor goes on to ask his friend to +come and pay a visit to the Priory, and describes the +pleasant house with the garden, the ponds full of fish, the +deep umbrageous valley, with the talkative stream running +down it, and Derby tower in the distance. The letter, so +kind, so playful in its tone, was never finished. Dr. Darwin +was writing as he was seized with what seemed a fainting +fit, and he died within an hour. Miss Edgeworth writes +of the shock her father felt when the sad news reached +him; a shock, she says, which must in some degree be +experienced by every person who reads this letter of Dr. +Darwin's.</p> + +<p>No wonder this generous outspoken man was esteemed +in his own time. To us, in ours, it has been given still +more to know the noble son of 'that giant brood,' whose +name will be loved and held in honour as long as people +live to honour nobleness, simplicity, and genius; those +things which give life to life itself.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>VIII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>'Calais after a rough passage; Brussels, flat country, +tiled houses, trees and ditches, the window shutters +turned out to the street; fishwives' legs, Dunkirk, and +the people looking like wooden toys set in motion; +Bruges and its mingled spires, shipping, and windmills.' +These notes of travel read as if Miss Edgeworth had been +writing down only yesterday a pleasant list of the things +which are to be seen two hours off, to-day no less plainly +than a century ago. She jots it all down from her corner +in the postchaise, where she is propped up with a father, +brother, stepmother, and sister for travelling companions, +and a new book to beguile the way. She is charmed with +her new book. It is the story of 'Mademoiselle de +Clermont,' by Madame de Genlis, and only just out. The +Edgeworths (with many other English people) rejoiced in +the long-looked-for millennium, which had been signed +only the previous autumn, and they now came abroad to +bask in the sunshine of the Continent, which had been so +long denied to our mist-bound islanders. We hear of the +enthusiastic and somewhat premature joy with which this +peace was received by all ranks of people. Not only did +the English rush over to France; foreigners crossed to +England, and one of them, an old friend of Mr. Edgeworth's, +had already reached Edgeworthtown, and inspired +its enterprising master with a desire to see those places and +things once more which he heard described. Mr. Edgeworth +was anxious also to show his young wife the +treasures in the Louvre, and to help her to develop her +taste for art. He had had many troubles of late, lost +friends and children by death and by marriage. One can +imagine that the change must have been welcome to them +all. Besides Maria and Lovell, his eldest son, he took with +him a lovely young daughter, Charlotte Edgeworth, the +daughter of Elizabeth Sneyd. They travelled by Belgium, +stopping on their way at Bruges, at Ghent, and visiting +pictures and churches along the road, as travellers still +like to do. Mrs. Edgeworth was, as we have said, the +artistic member of the party. We do not know what +modern rhapsodists would say to Miss Edgeworth's very +subdued criticisms and descriptions of feeling on this +occasion. 'It is extremely agreeable to me,' she writes, +'to see paintings with those who have excellent taste and +no affectation.' And this remark might perhaps be +thought even more to the point now than in the pre-æsthetic +age in which it was innocently made. The +travellers are finally landed in Paris in a magnificent +hotel in a fine square, 'formerly Place Louis-Quinze, +afterwards Place de la Révolution, now Place de la +Concorde.' And Place de la Concorde it remains, wars +and revolutions notwithstanding, whether lighted by the +flames of the desperate Commune or by the peaceful +sunsets which stream their evening glory across the blood-stained +stones.</p> + +<p>The Edgeworths did not come as strangers to Paris; +they brought letters and introductions with them, and +bygone associations and friendships which had only now +to be resumed. The well-known Abbé Morellet, their old +acquaintance, 'answered for them,' says Miss Edgeworth, +and besides all this Mr Edgeworth's name was well known +in scientific circles. Bréguet, Montgolfier, and others +all made him welcome. Lord Henry Petty, as Maria's +friend Lord Lansdowne was then called, was in Paris, and +Rogers the poet, and Kosciusko, cured of his wounds. For +the first time they now made the acquaintance of M. +Dumont, a lifelong friend and correspondent. There were +many others—the Delesserts, of the French Protestant +faction, Madame Suard, to whom the romantic Thomas +Day had paid court some thirty years before, and Madame +Campan, and Madame Récamier, and Madame de Rémusat, +and Madame de Houdetot, now seventy-two years of age, +but Rousseau's Julie still, and Camille Jordan, and the +Chevalier Edelcrantz, from the Court of the King of +Sweden.</p> + +<p>The names alone of the Edgeworths' entertainers represent +a delightful and interesting section of the history +of the time. One can imagine that besides all these +pleasant and talkative persons the Faubourg Saint-Germain +itself threw open its great swinging doors to the relations +of the Abbé Edgeworth who risked his life to stand by +his master upon the scaffold and to speak those noble +warm-hearted words, the last that Louis ever heard. One +can picture the family party as it must have appeared +with its pleasant British looks—the agreeable 'ruddy-faced' +father, the gentle Mrs. Edgeworth, who is somewhere +described by her stepdaughter as so orderly, so clean, so +freshly dressed, the child of fifteen, only too beautiful +and delicately lovely, and last of all Maria herself, the +nice little unassuming, Jeannie-Deans-looking body Lord +Byron described, small, homely, perhaps, but with her +gift of French, of charming intercourse, her fresh laurels +of authorship (for 'Belinda' was lately published), her +bright animation, her cultivated mind and power of interesting +all those in her company, to say nothing of her own +kindling interest in every one and every thing round about +her.</p> + +<p>Her keen delights and vivid descriptions of all these +new things, faces, voices, ideas, are all to be read in some +long and most charming letters to Ireland, which also +contain the account of a most eventful crisis which this +Paris journey brought about. The letter is dated March +1803, and it concludes as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Here, my dear aunt, I was interrupted in a manner that will +surprise you as much as it surprised me—by the coming of M. +Edelcrantz, a Swedish gentleman whom we have mentioned to +you, of superior understanding and mild manners. He came to +offer me his hand and heart! My heart, you may suppose, +cannot return his attachment, for I have seen but very little of +him, and have not had time to have formed any judgment except +that I think nothing could tempt me to leave my own dear +friends and my own country to live in Sweden.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Maria Edgeworth was now about thirty years of age, at +a time of life when people are apt to realise perhaps almost +more deeply than in early youth the influence of feeling, its +importance, and strange power over events. Hitherto +there are no records in her memoirs of any sentimental +episodes, but it does not follow that a young lady has not +had her own phase of experience because she does not +write it out at length to her various aunts and correspondents. +Miss Edgeworth was not a sentimental person. +She was warmly devoted to her own family, and she seems +to have had a strong idea of her own want of beauty; +perhaps her admiration for her lovely young sisters may +have caused this feeling to be exaggerated by her. But +no romantic, lovely heroine could have inspired a deeper +or more touching admiration than this one which M. +Edelcrantz felt for his English friend; the mild and +superior Swede seems to have been thoroughly in earnest.</p> + +<p>So indeed was Miss Edgeworth, but she was not carried +away by the natural impulse of the moment. She realised +the many difficulties and dangers of the unknown; she +looked to the future; she turned to her own home, and +with an affection all the more felt because of the trial to +which it was now exposed. The many lessons of self-control +and self-restraint which she had learnt returned +with instinctive force. Sometimes it happens that people +miss what is perhaps the best for the sake of the next +best, and we see convenience and old habit and expediency, +and a hundred small and insignificant circumstances, +gathering like some avalanche to divide hearts that might +give and receive very much from each. But sentiment is +not the only thing in life. Other duties, ties, and realities +there are; and it is difficult to judge for others in such +matters. Sincerity of heart and truth to themselves are +pretty sure in the end to lead people in the right direction +for their own and for other people's happiness. Only, in +the experience of many women there is the danger that +fixed ideas, and other people's opinion, and the force of +custom may limit lives which might have been complete +in greater things, though perhaps less perfect in the lesser. +People in the abstract are sincere enough in wishing fulness +of experience and of happiness to those dearest and nearest +to them; but we are only human beings, and when the time +comes and the horrible necessity for parting approaches, +our courage goes, our hearts fail, and we think we are +preaching reason and good sense while it is only a most +natural instinct which leads us to cling to that to which +we are used and to those we love.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth did not attempt to influence Maria. +Mrs. Edgeworth evidently had some misgivings, and certainly +much sympathy for the Chevalier and for her friend +and stepdaughter. She says:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Maria was mistaken as to her own feelings. She refused M. +Edelcrantz, but she felt much more for him than esteem and +admiration; she was extremely in love with him. Mr. Edgeworth +left her to decide for herself; but she saw too plainly +what it would be to us to lose her and what she would feel at +parting with us. She decided rightly for her own future +happiness and for that of her family, but she suffered much +at the time and long afterwards. While we were at Paris I +remember that in a shop, where Charlotte and I were making +purchases, Maria sat apart absorbed in thought, and so deep in +reverie that when her father came in and stood opposite to her +she did not see him till he spoke to her, when she started +and burst into tears…. I do not think she repented of her +refusal or regretted her decision. She was well aware that she +could not have made M. Edelcrantz happy, that she would not +have suited his position at the Court of Stockholm, and that her +want of beauty might have diminished his attachment. It was +perhaps better she should think so, for it calmed her mind; +but from what I saw of M. Edelcrantz I think he was a man +capable of really valuing her. I believe he was much attached +to her, and deeply mortified at her refusal. He continued to +reside in Sweden after the abdication of his master, and was +always distinguished for his high character and great abilities. +He never married. He was, except for his very fine eyes, +remarkably plain.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>So ends the romance of the romancer. There are, +however, many happinesses in life, as there are many +troubles.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edgeworth tells us that after her stepdaughter's +return to Edgeworthtown she occupied herself with various +literary works, correcting some of her former MSS. for +the press, and writing 'Madame de Fleury,' 'Emilie de +Coulanges,' and 'Leonora.' But the high-flown and +romantic style did suit her gift, and she wrote best when +her genuine interest and unaffected glances shone with +bright understanding sympathy upon her immediate surroundings. +When we are told that 'Leonora' was written +in the style the Chevalier Edelcrantz preferred, and that +the idea of what he would think of it was present to +Maria in every page, we begin to realise that for us at all +events it was a most fortunate thing that she decided as +she did. It would have been a loss indeed to the world if +this kindling and delightful spirit of hers had been +choked by the polite thorns, fictions, and platitudes of an +artificial, courtly life and by the well-ordered narrowness +of a limited standard. She never heard what the +Chevalier thought of the book; she never knew that he +ever read it even. It is a satisfaction to hear that he +married no one else, and while she sat writing and not +forgetting in the pleasant library at home, one can +imagine the romantic Chevalier in his distant Court +faithful to the sudden and romantic devotion by which he +is now remembered. Romantic and chivalrous friendship +seems to belong to his country and to his countrymen.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>IX.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>There are one or two other episodes less sentimental +than this one recorded of this visit to Paris, not the least +interesting of these being the account given of a call +upon Madame de Genlis. The younger author from her +own standpoint having resolutely turned away from the voice +of the charmer for the sake of that which she is convinced +to be duty and good sense, now somewhat sternly takes the +measure of her elder sister, who has failed in the struggle, +who is alone and friendless, and who has made her fate.</p> + +<p>The story is too long to quote at full length. An +isolated page without its setting loses very much; the +previous description of the darkness and uncertainty +through which Maria and her father go wandering, and +asking their way in vain, adds immensely to the sense of +the gloom and isolation which are hiding the close of a +long and brilliant career. At last, after wandering for a +long time seeking for Madame de Genlis, the travellers +compel a reluctant porter to show them the staircase in +the Arsenal, where she is living, and to point out the door +before he goes off with the light.</p> + +<p>They wait in darkness. The account of what happens +when the door is opened is so interesting that I cannot +refrain from quoting it at length:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>After ringing the bell we presently heard doors open and +little footsteps approaching nigh. The door was opened by a +girl of about Honora's size, holding an ill set-up, wavering +candle in her hand, the light of which fell full upon her face +and figure. Her face was remarkably intelligent—dark sparkling +eyes, dark hair curled in the most fashionable long corkscrew +ringlets over her eyes and cheeks. She parted the +ringlets to take a full view of us. The dress of her figure by +no means suited the head and elegance of her attitude. What +her nether weeds might be we could not distinctly see, but +they seemed a coarse short petticoat like what Molly Bristow's +children would wear. After surveying us and hearing our +name was Edgeworth she smiled graciously and bid us follow +her, saying, 'Maman est chez elle.' She led the way with the +grace of a young lady who has been taught to dance across two +ante-chambers, miserable-looking; but, miserable or not, no +home in Paris can be without them. The girl, or young lady, +for we were still in doubt which to think her, led into a small +room in which the candles were so well screened by a green tin +screen that we could scarcely distinguish the tall form of a lady +in black who rose from her chair by the fireside; as the door +opened a great puff of smoke came from the huge fireplace at +the same moment. She came forward, and we made our way +towards her as well as we could through a confusion of tables, +chairs, and work-baskets, china, writing-desks and inkstands, +and birdcages, and a harp. She did not speak, and as her back +was now turned to both fire and candle I could not see her face +or anything but the outline of her form and her attitude. Her +form was the remains of a fine form, her attitude that of a +woman used to a better drawing-room.</p> + +<p>I being foremost, and she silent, was compelled to speak to +the figure in darkness. 'Madame de Genlis nous a fait l'honneur +de nous mander qu'elle voulait bien nous permettre de lui rendre +visite,' said I, or words to that effect, to which she replied by +taking my hand and saying something in which 'charmée' was +the most intelligible word. While she spoke she looked over +my shoulder at my father, whose bow, I presume, told her he +was a gentleman, for she spoke to him immediately as if she +wished to please and seated us in <i>fauteuils</i> near the fire.</p> + +<p>I then had a full view of her face—figure very thin and +melancholy dark eyes, long sallow cheeks, compressed thin lips, +two or three black ringlets on a high forehead, a cap that Mrs. +Grier might wear—altogether in appearance of fallen fortunes, +worn-out health, and excessive but guarded irritability. To +me there was nothing of that engaging, captivating manner +which I had been taught to expect. She seemed to me to be +alive only to literary quarrels and jealousies. The muscles of +her face as she spoke, or as my father spoke to her, quickly and +too easily expressed hatred and anger…. She is now, you +know, <i>dévote acharnée</i>…. Madame de Genlis seems to have +been so much used to being attacked that she has defence and +apologies ready prepared. She spoke of Madame de Staël's +'Delphine' with detestation…. Forgive me, my dear Aunt +Mary; you begged me to see her with favourable eyes, and I +went, after seeing her 'Rosière de Salency,' with the most favourable +disposition, but I could not like her…. And from time +to time I saw, or thought I saw, through the gloom of her +countenance a gleam of coquetry. But my father judges of +her much more favourably than I do. She evidently took +pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person over +whose mind he could gain great ascendency.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The 'young and gay philosopher' at fifty is not +unchanged since we knew him first. Maria adds a postscript:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I had almost forgotten to tell you that the little girl who +showed us in is a girl whom she is educating. 'Elle m'appelle +maman, mais elle n'est pas ma fille.' The manner in which +this little girl spoke to Madame de Genlis and looked at her +appeared to me more in her favour than anything else. I +went to look at what the child was writing; she was translating +Darwin's <i>Zoonomia</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Every description one reads by Miss Edgeworth of +actual things and people makes one wish that she had +written more of them. This one is the more interesting +from the contrast of the two women, both so remarkable +and coming to so different a result in their experience of +life.</p> + +<p>This eventful visit to Paris is brought to an eventful +termination by several gendarmes, who appear early one +morning in Mr. Edgeworth's bedroom with orders that he +is to get up and to leave Paris immediately. Mr. Edgeworth +had been accused of being brother to the Abbé de +Fermont. When the mitigated circumstances of his being +only a first cousin were put forward by Lord Whitworth, +the English Ambassador, the Edgeworths received permission +to return from the suburb to which they had +retired; but private news hurried their departure, and +they were only in time to escape the general blockade and +detention of English prisoners. After little more than a +year of peace, once more war was declared on May 20, 1803. +Lovell, the eldest son, who was absent at the time and +travelling from Switzerland, was not able to escape in time; +nor for twelve years to come was the young man able to +return to his own home and family.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> + <p class="noindent"><b>X.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>'Belinda,' 'Castle Rackrent,' the 'Parents' Assistant,' +the 'Essays on Practical Education,' had all made their +mark. The new series of popular tales was also welcomed. +There were other books on the way; Miss Edgeworth had +several MSS. in hand in various stages, stories to correct +for the press. There was also a long novel, first begun by her +father and taken up and carried on by her. The 'Essays +on Practical Education,' which were first published in 1798, +continued to be read. M. Pictet had translated the book +into French the year before; a third edition was published +some ten years later, in 1811, in the preface of which the +authors say, 'It is due to the public to state that twelve +years' additional experience in a numerous family, and +careful attention to the results of other modes of education, +have given the authors no reason to retract what they have +advanced in these volumes.'</p> + +<p>In Mr. Edgeworth's Memoirs, however, his daughter +states that he modified his opinions in one or two particulars; +allowing more and more liberty to the children, +and at the same time conceding greater importance to the +habit of early though mechanical efforts of memory. The +essays seem in every way in advance of their time; many +of the hints contained in them most certainly apply to +the little children of to-day no less than to their small +grandparents. A lady whose own name is high in +the annals of education was telling me that she had +been greatly struck by the resemblance between the +Edgeworth system and that of Froebel's Kindergarten +method, which is now gaining more and more ground in +people's estimation, the object of both being not so +much to cram instruction into early youth as to +draw out each child's powers of observation and attention.</p> + +<p>The first series of tales of fashionable life came out in +1809, and contained among other stories 'Ennui,' one of +the most remarkable of Miss Edgeworth's works. The +second series included the 'Absentee,' that delightful +story of which the lesson should be impressed upon us even +more than in the year 1812. The 'Absentee' was at first +only an episode in the longer novel of 'Patronage;' but +the public was impatient, so were the publishers, and +fortunately for every one the 'Absentee' was printed as a +separate tale.</p> + +<p>'Patronage' had been begun by Mr. Edgeworth to +amuse his wife, who was recovering from illness; it was +originally called the 'Fortunes of the Freeman Family,' +and it is a history with a moral. Morals were more in +fashion then than they are now, but this one is obvious +without any commentary upon it. It is tolerably certain +that clever, industrious, well-conducted people will +succeed, where idle, scheming, and untrustworthy persons +will eventually fail to get on, even with powerful friends +to back them. But the novel has yet to be written that +will prove that, where merits are more equal, a little +patronage is not of a great deal of use, or that people's +positions in life are exactly proportioned to their merit. +Mrs. Barbauld's pretty essay on the 'Inconsistency of Human +Expectations' contains the best possible answer to the +problem of what people's deserts should be. Let us hope +that personal advancement is only one of the many things +people try for in life, and that there are other prizes as +well worth having. Miss Edgeworth herself somewhere +speaks with warm admiration of this very essay. Of the +novel itself she says (writing to Mrs. Barbauld), 'It is so +vast a subject that it flounders about in my hands and +quite overpowers me.'</p> + +<p>It is in this same letter that Miss Edgeworth mentions +another circumstance which interested her at this time, and +which was one of those events occurring now and again +which do equal credit to all concerned.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I have written a preface and notes [she says]—for I too +would be an editor—for a little book which a very worthy +countrywoman of mine is going to publish: Mrs. Leadbeater, +granddaughter to Burke's first preceptor. She is poor. She +has behaved most handsomely about some letters of Burke's to +her grandfather and herself. It would have been advantageous +to her to publish them; but, as Mrs. Burke<a href="#fn2"><sup><small>2</small></sup></a><a name="fn2r" id="fn2r"></a>—Heaven knows +why—objected, she desisted.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Leadbeater was an Irish Quaker lady whose +simple and spirited annals of Ballitore delighted Carlyle +in his later days, and whose 'Cottage Dialogues' greatly +struck Mr. Edgeworth at the time; and the kind +Edgeworths, finding her quite unused to public transactions, +exerted themselves in every way to help her. Mr. +Edgeworth took the MSS. out of the hands of an Irish +publisher, and, says Maria, 'our excellent friend's worthy +successor in St. Paul's Churchyard has, on our recommendation, +agreed to publish it for her.' Mr. Edgeworth's +own letter to Mrs. Leadbeater gives the history of his +good-natured offices and their satisfactory results.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +From R. L. Edgeworth, July 5, 1810.<br /> +Miss Edgeworth desires me as a man of business to write +to Mrs. Leadbeater relative to the publication of 'Cottage +Dialogues.' Miss Edgeworth has written an advertisement, and +will, with Mrs. Leadbeater's permission, write notes for an +English edition. The scheme which I propose is of two parts—to +sell the English copyright to the house of Johnson in +London, where we dispose of our own works, and to publish a +very large and cheap edition for Ireland for schools…. I can +probably introduce the book into many places. Our family +takes 300 copies, Lady Longford 50, Dr. Beaufort 20, &c…. +I think Johnson & Co. will give 50<i>l</i>. for the English copyright.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>After the transaction Mr. Edgeworth wrote to the +publishers as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="right">May 31, 1811: Edgeworthtown.<br /> +My sixty-eighth birthday.</p> +<p>My dear Gentlemen,—I have just heard your letter to +Mrs. Leadbeater read by one who dropped tears of pleasure +from a sense of your generous and handsome conduct. I take +great pleasure in speaking of you to the rest of the world as +you deserve, and I cannot refrain from expressing to yourselves +the genuine esteem that I feel for you. I know that this direct +praise is scarcely allowable, but my advanced age and my close +connection with you must be my excuse.—Yours sincerely,</p> +<p class="signature">R. L. E.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Tears seem equivalent to something more than the +estimated value of Mrs. Leadbeater's labours. The +charming and well-known Mrs. Trench who was also Mary +Leadbeater's friend, writes warmly praising the notes. +'Miss Edgeworth's notes on your Dialogues have as much +spirit and originality as if she had never before explored +the mine which many thought she had exhausted.'</p> + +<p>All these are pleasant specimens of the Edgeworth +correspondence, which, however (following the course of +most correspondence), does not seem to have been always +equally agreeable. There are some letters (among others +which I have been allowed to see) written by Maria about +this time to an unfortunate young man who seems to have +annoyed her greatly by his excited importunities.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I thank you [she says] for your friendly zeal in defence of +my powers of pathos and sublimity; but I think it carries you +much too far when it leads you to imagine that I refrain, from +principle or virtue, from displaying powers that I really do not +possess. I assure you that I am not in the least capable of +writing a dithyrambic ode, or any other kind of ode.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>One is reminded by this suggestion of Jane Austen also +declining to write 'an historical novel illustrative of the +august House of Coburg.'</p> + +<p>The young man himself seems to have had some wild +aspirations after authorship, but to have feared criticism.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The advantage of the art of printing [says his friendly +Minerva] is that the mistakes of individuals in reasoning and +writing will be corrected in time by the public, so that the +cause of truth cannot suffer; and I presume you are too much +of a philosopher to mind the trifling mortification that the +detection of a mistake might occasion. You know that some +sensible person has observed that acknowledging a mistake is +saying, only in other words, that we are wiser to-day than we +were yesterday.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>He seems at last to have passed the bounds of reasonable +correspondence, and she writes as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Your last letter, dated in June, was many months before it +reached me. In answer to all your reproaches at my silence I +can only assure you that it was not caused by any change in +my opinions or good wishes; but I do not carry on what is +called a regular correspondence with anybody except with one +or two of my very nearest relations; and it is best to tell the +plain truth that my father particularly dislikes my writing +letters, so I write as few as I possibly can.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XI.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>While Maria Edgeworth was at work in her Irish +home, successfully producing her admirable delineations, +another woman, born some eight years later, and living in +the quiet Hampshire village where the elm trees spread so +greenly, was also at work, also writing books that were +destined to influence many a generation, but which were +meanwhile waiting unknown, unnoticed. Do we not all +know the story of the brown paper parcel lying unopened +for years on the publisher's shelf and containing Henry +Tilney and all his capes, Catherine Morland and all her +romance, and the great John Thorpe himself, uttering those +valuable literary criticisms which Lord Macaulay, writing +to his little sisters at home, used to quote to them? 'Oh, +Lord!' says John Thorpe, 'I never read novels; I have other +things to do.'</p> + +<p>A friend reminds us of Miss Austen's own indignant +outburst. 'Only a novel! only "Cecilia," or "Camilla," +or "Belinda;" or, in short, only some work in which the +greatest powers of the mind are displayed, the most +thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest +delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit +and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen +language.' If the great historian, who loved novels himself, +had not assured us that we owe Miss Austen and Miss +Edgeworth to the early influence of the author of +'Evelina,' one might grudge 'Belinda' to such company +as that of 'Cecilia' and 'Camilla.'</p> + +<p>'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Northanger Abbey' were +published about the same time as 'Patronage' and 'Tales +of Fashionable Life.' Their two authors illustrate, curiously +enough, the difference between the national characteristics +of English and Irish—the breadth, the versatility, the +innate wit and gaiety of an Irish mind; the comparative +narrowness of range of an English nature; where, however, +we are more likely to get humour and its never-failing +charm. Long afterwards Jane Austen sent one of her +novels to Miss Edgeworth, who appreciated it indeed, as +such a mind as hers could not fail to do, but it was with no +such enthusiasm as that which she felt for other more +ambitious works, with more of incident, power, knowledge +of the world, in the place of that one subtle quality +of humour which for some persons outweighs almost every +other. Something, some indefinite sentiment, tells people +where they amalgamate and with whom they are intellectually +akin; and by some such process of criticism the +writer feels that in this little memoir of Miss Edgeworth +she has but sketched the outer likeness of this remarkable +woman's life and genius; and that she has scarcely done +justice to very much in Miss Edgeworth, which so many +of the foremost men of her day could appreciate—a power, +a versatility, an interest in subjects for their own sakes, +not for the sakes of those who are interested in them, +which was essentially hers.</p> + +<p>It is always characteristic to watch a writer's progress +in the estimation of critics and reviewers. In 1809 Miss +Edgeworth is moderately and respectfully noticed. 'As a +writer of novels and tales she has a marked peculiarity, +that of venturing to dispense common sense to her readers +and to bring them within the precincts of real life. Without +excluding love from her pages she knows how to assign +to it its true limits.' In 1812 the reviewer, more used to +hear the author's praises on all sides, now starts from a +higher key, and, as far as truth to nature and delineation +of character are concerned, does not allow a rival except +'Don Quixote' and 'Gil Blas.' The following criticism +is just and more to the point:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>To this power of masterly and minute delineation of character +Miss Edgeworth adds another which has rarely been +combined with the former, that of interweaving the peculiarities +of her persons with the conduct of her piece, and making them, +without forgetting for a moment their personal consistency, +conduce to the general lesson…. Her virtue and vice, +though copied exactly from nature, lead with perfect ease to a +moral conclusion, and are finally punished or rewarded by +means which (rare as a retribution in this world is) appear for +the most part neither inconsistent nor unnatural.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Then follows a review of 'Vivian' and of the 'Absentee,' +which is perhaps the most admirable of her works. We +may all remember how Macaulay once pronounced that +the scene in the 'Absentee' where Lord Colambre discovers +himself to his tenantry was the best thing of the +sort since the opening of the twenty-second book of the +'Odyssey.'</p> + +<p>An article by Lord Dudley, which is still to be quoted, +appeared in the 'Quarterly Review' in 1814. What he +says of her works applies no less to Miss Edgeworth's own +life than to the principles which she inculcates.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The old rule was for heroes and heroines to fall suddenly +and irretrievably in love. If they fell in love with the right +person so much the better; if not, it could not be helped, and +the novel ended unhappily. And, above all, it was held quite +irregular for the most reasonable people to make any use whatever +of their reason on the most important occasion of their +lives. Miss Edgeworth has presumed to treat this mighty +power with far less reverence. She has analysed it and found +it does not consist of one simple element, but that several +common ingredients enter into its composition—habit, esteem, +a belief of some corresponding sentiment and of suitableness in +the character and circumstances of the party. She has pronounced +that reason, timely and vigorously applied, is almost a +specific, and, following up this bold empirical line of practice, +she has actually produced cases of the entire cure of persons +who had laboured under its operation. Her favourite qualities +are prudence, firmness, temper, and that active, vigilant good +sense which, without checking the course of our kind affections, +exercises its influence at every moment and surveys deliberately +the motives and consequences of every action. Utility is her +object, reason and experience her means.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>This review of Lord Dudley's must have come out +after a visit from the Edgeworth family to London in +1813, which seems to have been a most brilliant and +amusing campaign. 'I know the homage that was paid +you,' wrote Mrs. Barbauld, speaking of the event, 'and I +exulted in it for your sake and for my sex's sake.' Miss +Edgeworth was at the height of her popularity, in good +spirits and good health. Mr. Edgeworth was seventy, but +he looked years younger, and was still in undiminished +health and vigour. The party was welcomed, fêted, +sought after everywhere. Except that they miss seeing +Madame d'Arblay and leave London before the arrival of +Madame de Staël, they seem to have come in for everything +that was brilliant, fashionable, and entertaining. +They breakfast with poets, they sup with marquises, they +call upon duchesses and scientific men. Maria's old friend +the Duchess of Wellington is not less her friend than she +was in County Longford. Every one likes them and comes +knocking at their lodging-house door, while Maria upstairs +is writing a letter, standing at a chest of drawers. +'Miss Edgeworth is delightful,' says Tom Moore, 'not +from display, but from repose and unaffectedness, the +least pretending person.' Even Lord <ins title="original has Bryon">Byron</ins> writes warmly +of the authoress whose company is so grateful, and who +goes her simple, pleasant way cheerful and bringing kind +cheer, and making friends with the children as well as +with the elders. Many of these children in their lives +fully justified her interest, children whom we in turn have +known and looked up to as distinguished greyheaded men.</p> + +<p>Some one asked Miss Edgeworth how she came to +understand children as she did, what charm she used to +win them. 'I don't know,' she said kindly; 'I lie down +and let them crawl over me.' She was greatly pleased on +one occasion when at a crowded party a little girl suddenly +started forth, looked at her hard, and said, 'I like simple +Susan best,' and rushed away overwhelmed at her own +audacity. The same lady who was present on this occasion +asked her a question which we must all be grateful to have +solved for us—how it happened that the respective places +of Laura and Rosamond came to be transposed in +'Patronage,' Laura having been the wiser elder sister in +the 'Purple Jar,' and appearing suddenly as the younger +in the novel. Miss Edgeworth laughed and said that +Laura had been so preternaturally wise and thoughtful as +a child, she could never have kept her up to the mark, and +so she thought it best to change the character altogether.</p> + +<p>During one of her visits to London Miss Edgeworth +went to dine at the house of Mr. Marshall; and his +daughter, Lady Monteagle, tells a little story which gives +an impression, and a kind one, of the celebrated guest. +Everything had been prepared in her honour, the lights +lighted, the viands were cooked. Dinner was announced, +and some important person was brought forward to hand +Miss Edgeworth down, when it was discovered that she +had vanished. For a moment the company and the dinner +were all at a standstill. She was a small person, but +diligent search was made. Miss Edgeworth had last been +seen with the children of the house, and she was eventually +found in the back kitchen, escorted by the said children, +who, having confided their private affairs to her sympathetic +ear, had finally invited her to come with them +and see some rabbits which they were rearing down below. +A lady who used to live at Clifton as a little girl, and to +be sometimes prescribed for by Dr. King, was once brought +up as a child to Miss Edgeworth, and she told me how very +much puzzled she felt when the bright old lady, taking her +by the hand, said, 'Well, my dear, how do you do, and how +is my excellent brother-in-law?' One can imagine what a +vague sort of being an 'excellent brother-in-law' would +seem to a very young child.</p> + +<p>We read in Miss Edgeworth's memoir of her father +that Mr. Edgeworth recovered from his serious illness in +1814 to enjoy a few more years of life among his friends, +his children, and his experiments. His good humour and +good spirits were undiminished, and he used to quote an +old friend's praise of 'the privileges and convenience of +old age.' He was past seventy, but he seems to have +continued his own education to the end of life. 'Without +affecting to be young, he exerted himself to prevent any of +his faculties from sinking into the indolent state which +portends their decay,' and his daughter says that he went +on learning to the last, correcting his faults and practising +his memory by various devices, so that it even improved +with age.</p> + +<p>In one of his last letters to Mrs. Beaufort, his wife's +mother, he speaks with no little paternal pleasure of his +home and his children: 'Such excellent principles, such +just views of human life and manners, such cultivated +understandings, such charming tempers make a little +Paradise about me;' while with regard to his daughter's +works he adds concerning the book which was about to +appear, 'If Maria's tales fail with the public, you will hear +of my hanging myself.'</p> + +<p>Mr. Edgeworth died in the summer of 1817, at home, +surrounded by his family, grateful, as he says, to Providence +for allowing his body to perish before his mind.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>During the melancholy months which succeeded her father's +death Maria hardly wrote any letters; her sight was in a most +alarming state. The tears, she said, felt in her eyes like the +cutting of a knife. She had overworked them all the previous +winter, sitting up at night and struggling with her grief as she +wrote 'Ormond.' She was now unable to use them without +pain…. Edgeworthtown now belonged to Lovell, the eldest +surviving brother, but he wished it to continue the home of the +family. Maria set to work to complete her father's memoirs +and to fulfil his last wish.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was not without great hesitation and anxiety that +she determined to finish writing her father's Life. There is +a touching appeal in a letter to her aunt Ruxton. 'I felt +the happiness of my life was at stake. Even if all the rest +of the world had praised it and you had been dissatisfied, +how miserable should I have been!' And there is another +sentence written at Bowood, very sad and full of remembrance: +'I feel as if I had lived a hundred years and +was left alive after everybody else.' The book came out, +and many things were said about it, not all praise. The +'Quarterly' was so spiteful and intolerant that it seemed +almost personal in its violence. It certainly would have +been a great loss to the world had this curious and +interesting memoir never been published, but at the +time the absence of certain phrases and expressions of +opinions which Mr. Edgeworth had never specially professed +seemed greatly to offend the reviewers.</p> + +<p>The worst of these attacks Miss Edgeworth never read, +and the task finished, the sad months over, the poor eyes +recovered, she crossed to England.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XIII.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>One is glad to hear of her away and at Bowood reviving +in good company, in all senses of the word. Her old friend +Lord Henry Petty, now Lord Lansdowne, was still her +friend and full of kindness. Outside the house spread a +green deer-park to rest her tired eyes, within were pleasant +and delightful companions to cheer her soul. Sir Samuel +Romilly was there, of whom she speaks with affectionate +admiration, as she does of her kind host and hostess. 'I +much enjoy the sight of Lady Lansdowne's happiness with +her husband and her children. Beauty, fortune, cultivated +society all united—in short, everything that the most +reasonable or unreasonable could wish. She is so amiable +and desirous to make others happy.'</p> + +<p>Miss Edgeworth's power of making other people see +things as she does is very remarkable in all these letters; +with a little imagination one could almost feel as if one +might be able to travel back into the pleasant society in +which she lived. When she goes abroad soon after with +her two younger sisters (Fanny, the baby whose head so +nearly came off in her arms, and Harriet, who have both +grown up by this time to be pretty and elegant young +ladies), the sisters are made welcome everywhere. In +Paris, as in London, troops of acquaintance came forward +to receive 'Madame Maria et mesdemoiselles ses sœurs,' +as they used to be announced. Most of their old friends +were there still; only the children had grown up and were +now new friends to be greeted. It is a confusion of names +in visionary succession, comprising English people no less +than French. Miss Edgeworth notes it all with a sure +hand and true pen; it is as one of the sketch-books of a +great painter, where whole pictures are indicated in a few +just lines. Here is a peep at the Abbaye aux Bois in +1820:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>We went to Madame Récamier in her convent, l'Abbaye +aux Bois, up seventy-eight steps. All came in with asthma. +Elegant room; she as elegant as ever. Matthieu de Montmorenci, +the ex-Queen of Sweden, Madame de Boigne, a charming +woman, and Madame la Maréchale de ——, a battered +beauty, smelling of garlic and screeching in vain to pass as a +wit…. Madame Récamier has no more taken the veil than +I have, and is as little likely to do it. She is quite beautiful; +she dresses herself and her little room with elegant simplicity, +and lives in a convent only because it is cheap and respectable.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>One sees it all, the convent, the company, the last +refrain of former triumphs, the faithful romantic Matthieu +de Montmorenci, and above all the poor Maréchale, who +will screech for ever in her garlic. Let us turn the page, +we find another picture from these not long past days:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Breakfast at Camille Jordan's; it was half-past twelve +before the company assembled, and we had an hour's delightful +conversation with Camille Jordan and his wife in her spotless +white muslin and little cap, sitting at her husband's feet as he +lay on the sofa; as clean, as nice, as fresh, as thoughtless of +herself as my mother. At this breakfast we saw three of the +most distinguished of that party who call themselves 'les +Doctrinaires' and say they are more attached to measures than +to men.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Here is another portrait of a portrait and its painter:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Princess Potemkin is a Russian, but she has all the grace, +softness, winning manner of the Polish ladies. Oval face, pale, +with the finest, softest, most expressive chestnut dark eyes. +She has a sort of politeness which pleases peculiarly, a mixture +of the ease of high rank and early habit with something that is +sentimental without affectation. Madame le Brun is painting +her picture. Madame le Brun is sixty-six, with great vivacity +as well as genius, and better worth seeing than her pictures, +for though they are speaking she speaks. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Another visit the sisters paid, which will interest the +readers of Madame de la Rochejaquelin's memoirs of the +war in the Vendée:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>In a small bedroom, well furnished, with a fire just lighted, +we found Madame de la Rochejaquelin on the sofa; her two +daughters at work, one spinning with a distaff, the other +embroidering muslin. Madame is a fat woman with a broad, +round, fair face and a most benevolent expression, her hair cut +short and perfectly grey as seen under her cap; the rest of the +face much too young for such grey locks; and though her face +and bundled form all squashed on to a sofa did not at first +promise much of gentility, you could not hear her speak or +hear her for three minutes without perceiving that she was +well-born and well-bred. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Madame de la Rochejaquelin seems to have confided in +Miss Edgeworth.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>'I am always sorry when any stranger sees me, <i>parce que +je sais que je détruis toute illusion. Je sais que je devrais +avoir l'air d'une héroïne.</i>' She is much better than a heroine; +she is benevolence and truth itself.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>We must not forget the scientific world where Madame +Maria was no less at home than in fashionable literary +cliques. The sisters saw something of Cuvier at Paris; in +Switzerland they travelled with the Aragos. They were on +their way to the Marcets at Geneva when they stopped at +Coppet, where Miss Edgeworth was always specially happy +in the society of Madame Auguste de Staël and Madame +de Broglie. But Switzerland is not one of the places +where human beings only are in the ascendant; other +influences there are almost stronger than human ones. 'I +did not conceive it possible that I should feel so much +pleasure from the beauties of nature as I have done since I +came to this country. The first moment when I saw Mont +Blanc will remain an era in my life—a new idea, a new +feeling standing alone in the mind.' Miss Edgeworth presently +comes down from her mountain heights and, full of +interest, throws herself into the talk of her friends at +Coppet and Geneva, from which she quotes as it occurs to +her. Here is Rocca's indignant speech to Lord Byron, who +was abusing the stupidity of the Genevese. 'Eh! milord, +pourquoi venir vous fourrer parmi ces honnêtes gens?' +There is Arago's curious anecdote of Napoleon, who sent +for him after the battle of Waterloo, offering him a large +sum of money to accompany him to America. The +Emperor had formed a project for founding a scientific +colony in the New World. Arago was so indignant with +him for abandoning his troops that he would have nothing +to say to the plan. A far more touching story is Dr. +Marcet's account of Josephine. 'Poor Josephine! Do you +remember Dr. Marcet's telling us that when he breakfasted +with her she said, pointing to her flowers, "These are my +subjects. I try to make them happy"?'</p> + +<p>Among other expeditions they made a pilgrimage to the +home of the author of a work for which Miss Edgeworth +seems to have entertained a mysterious enthusiasm. The +novel was called 'Caroline de Lichfield,' and was so much +admired at the time that Miss Seward mentions a gentleman +who wrote from abroad to propose for the hand of the +authoress, and who, more fortunate than the poor Chevalier +Edelcrantz, was not refused by the lady. Perhaps some +similarity of experience may have led Maria Edgeworth to +wish for her acquaintance. Happily the time was past for +Miss Edgeworth to look back; her life was now shaped and +moulded in its own groove; the consideration, the variety, +the difficulties of unmarried life were hers, its agreeable +change, its monotony of feeling and of unselfish happiness, +compared with the necessary regularity, the more personal +felicity, the less liberal interests of the married. Her life +seems to have been full to overflowing of practical occupation +and consideration for others. What changing scenes +and colours, what a number of voices, what a crowd of outstretched +hands, what interesting processions of people pass +across her path! There is something of her father's +optimism and simplicity of nature in her unceasing brightness +and activity, in her resolutions to improve as time goes +on. Her young brothers and sisters grow to be men and +women; with her sisters' marriages new interests touch her +warm heart. Between her and the brothers of the younger +generation who did not turn to her as a sort of mother +there may have been too great a difference of age for that +companionship to continue which often exists between a +child and a grown-up person. So at least one is led to +believe was the case as regards one of them, mentioned in a +memoir which has recently appeared. But to her sisters +she could be friend, protector, chaperon, sympathising +companion, and elder sister to the end of her days. We +hear of them all at Bowood again on their way back to +Ireland, and then we find them all at home settling down +to the old life, 'Maria reading Sévigné,' of whom she +never tires.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XIV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>One of the prettiest and most sympathetic incidents +in Maria Edgeworth's life was a subsequent expedition to +Abbotsford and the pleasure she gave to its master. They +first met in Edinburgh, and her short account conjures up +the whole scene before us:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Ten o'clock struck as I read this note. We were tired, we +were not fit to be seen, but I thought it right to accept Walter +Scott's cordial invitation, sent for a hackney coach, and just as +we were, without dressing, we went. As the coach stopped we +saw the hall lighted, and the moment the door opened heard the +joyous sounds of loud singing. Three servants' 'The Miss +Edgeworths!' sounded from hall to landing-place, and as I +paused for a moment in the anteroom I heard the first sound of +Walter Scott's voice—'The Miss Edgeworths <i>come</i>!' The +room was lighted by only one globe lamp; a circle were singing +loud and beating time: all stopped in an instant.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Is not this picture complete? Scott himself she +describes as 'full of genius without the slightest effort at +expression, delightfully natural, more lame but not so +unwieldy as she expected.' Lady Scott she goes on to +sketch in some half-dozen words—'French, large dark +eyes, civil and good-natured.'</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>When we wakened the next morning the whole scene of the +preceding night seemed like a dream [she continues]; however +at twelve came the real Lady Scott, and we called for Scott at +the Parliament House, who came out of the Courts with joyous +face, as if he had nothing on earth to do or to think of but to +show us Edinburgh.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In her quick, discriminating way she looks round and +notes them all one by one.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Mr. Lockhart is reserved and silent, but he appears to have +much sensibility under this reserve. Mrs. Lockhart is very +pleasing—a slight, elegant figure and graceful simplicity of +manner, perfectly natural. There is something most winning +in her affectionate manner to her father. He dotes upon her.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>A serious illness intervened for poor Maria before she +and her devoted young nurses could reach Abbotsford +itself. There she began to recover, and Lady Scott +watched over her and prescribed for her with the most +tender care and kindness. 'Lady Scott felt the attention +and respect Maria showed to her, perceiving that she +valued her and treated her as a friend,' says Mrs. Edgeworth; +'not, as too many of Sir Walter's guests did, with +neglect.' This is Miss Edgeworth's description of the +Abbotsford family life:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>It is quite delightful to see Scott and his family in the +country; breakfast, dinner, supper, the same flow of kindness, +fondness, and genius, far, far surpassing his works, his letters, +and all my hopes and imagination. His Castle of Abbotsford +is magnificent, but I forget it in thinking of him.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The return visit, when Scotland visited Ireland, was +no less successful. Mrs. Edgeworth writes:—</p> + +<p>Maria and my daughter Harriet accompanied Sir Walter +and Miss Scott, Mr. Lockhart, and Captain and Mrs. Scott +to Killarney. They travelled in an open calèche of Sir +Walter's….</p> + +<p>Sir Walter was, like Maria, never put out by discomforts on +a journey, but always ready to make the best of everything and +to find amusement in every incident. He was delighted with +Maria's eagerness for everybody's comfort, and diverted himself +with her admiration of a green baize-covered door at the inn at +Killarney. 'Miss Edgeworth, you are so mightily pleased with +that door, I think you will carry it away with you to Edgeworthtown.'</p> + +<p>Miss Edgeworth's friendships were certainly very remarkable, +and comprise almost all the interesting people +of her day in France as well as in England.<a href="#fn3"><sup><small>3</small></sup></a><a name="fn3r" id="fn3r"></a> She was +liked, trusted, surrounded, and she appears to have had +the art of winning to her all the great men. We know +the Duke of Wellington addressed verses to her; there +are pleasant intimations of her acquaintance with Sir +James Mackintosh, Romilly, Moore, and Rogers, and that +most delightful of human beings, Sydney Smith, whom +she thoroughly appreciated and admired. Describing her +brother Frank, she says, somewhere, 'I am much inclined +to think that he has a natural genius for happiness; in +other words, as Sydney Smith would say, <i>great hereditary +constitutional joy</i>.' 'To attempt to Boswell Sydney +Smith's conversation would be to outboswell Boswell,' she +writes in another letter home; but in Lady Holland's +memoir of her father there is a pleasant little account of +Miss Edgeworth herself, 'delightful, clever, and sensible,' +listening to Sydney Smith. She seems to have gone the +round of his parish with him while he scolded, doctored, +joked his poor people according to their needs.</p> + +<p>'During her visit she saw much of my father,' says +Lady Holland; 'and her talents as well as her thorough +knowledge and love of Ireland made her conversation +peculiarly agreeable to him.' On her side Maria writes +warmly desiring that some Irish bishopric might be forced +upon Sydney Smith, which 'his own sense of natural +charity and humanity would forbid him refuse…. In +the twinkling of an eye—such an eye as his—he would +see all our manifold grievances up and down the country. +One word, one <i>bon mot</i> of his, would do more for us, I +guess, than ——'s four hundred pages and all the like +with which we have been bored.'</p> + +<p>The two knew how to make good company for one +another; the quiet-Jeanie-Deans body could listen as well +as give out. We are told that it was not so much that +she said brilliant things, but that a general perfume of +wit ran through her conversation, and she most certainly +had the gift of appreciating the good things of others. +Whether in that 'scene of simplicity, truth, and nature' +a London rout, or in some quiet Hampstead parlour talking +to an old friend, or in her own home among books and +relations and interests of every sort, Miss Edgeworth +seems to have been constantly the same, with presence of +mind and presence of heart too, ready to respond to everything. +I think her warmth of heart shines even brighter +than her wit at times. 'I could not bear the idea that +you suspected me of being so weak, so vain, so senseless,' +she once wrote to Mrs. Barbauld, 'as to have my head +turned by a little fashionable flattery.' If her head was +not turned it must have been because her spirit was stout +enough to withstand the world's almost irresistible +influence.</p> + +<p>Not only the great men but the women too are among +her friends. She writes prettily of Mrs. Somerville, with +her smiling eyes and pink colour, her soft voice, strong, +well-bred Scotch accent, timid, not disqualifying timid, +but naturally modest. 'While her head is among the +stars her feet are firm upon the earth.' She is 'delighted' +with a criticism of Madame de Staël's upon herself, in a +letter to M. Dumont. 'Vraiment elle était digne de l'enthousiasme, +mais elle se perd dans votre triste utilité.' It +is difficult to understand why this should have given Miss +Edgeworth so much pleasure; and here finally is a little +vision conjured up for us of her meeting with Mrs. Fry +among her prisoners:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Little doors, and thick doors, and doors of all sorts were +unbolted and unlocked, and on we went through dreary but +clean passages till we came to a room where rows of empty +benches fronted us, a table on which lay a large Bible. Several +ladies and gentlemen entered, took their seats on benches at +either side of the table in silence. Enter Mrs. Fry in a drab-coloured +silk cloak and a plain, borderless Quaker cap, a most +benevolent countenance, calm, benign. 'I must make an +inquiry. Is Maria Edgeworth here?' And when I went +forward she bade me come and sit beside her. Her first smile +as she looked upon me I can never forget. The prisoners came +in in an orderly manner and ranged themselves upon the +benches.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>XV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>'In this my sixtieth year, to commence in a few days,' +says Miss Edgeworth, writing to her cousin Margaret +Ruxton, 'I am resolved to make great progress.' 'Rosamond +at sixty,' says Miss Ruxton, touched and amused. +Her resolutions were not idle.</p> + +<p>'The universal difficulties of the money market in the +year 1826 were felt by us,' says Mrs. Edgeworth in her +memoir, 'and Maria, who since her father's death had +given up rent-receiving, now resumed it; undertook the +management of her brother Lovell's affairs, which she conducted +with consummate skill and perseverance, and +weathered the storm that swamped so many in this financial +crisis.' We also hear of an opportune windfall in the +shape of some valuable diamonds, which an old lady, a +distant relation, left in her will to Miss Edgeworth, who +sold them and built a market-house for Edgeworthtown +with the proceeds.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>April</i> 8, 1827.—I am quite well and in high good humour +and good spirits, in consequence of having received the whole of +Lovell's half-year's rents in full, with pleasure to the tenants and +without the least fatigue or anxiety to myself.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was about this time her novel of 'Helen' was written, +the last of her books, the only one that her father had not +revised. There is a vivid account given by one of her +brothers of the family assembled in the library to hear the +manuscript read out, of their anxiety and their pleasure as +they realised how good it was, how spirited, how well +equal to her standard. Tickner, in his account of Miss +Edgeworth, says that the talk of Lady Davenant in +'Helen' is very like Miss Edgeworth's own manner. His +visit to Edgeworthtown was not long after the publication +of the book. His description, if only for her mention of +her father, is worth quoting:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>As we drove to the door Miss Edgeworth came out to meet +us, a small, short, spare body of about sixty-seven, with extremely +frank and kind manners, but who always looks straight into +your face with a pair of mild deep grey eyes whenever she speaks +to you. With characteristic directness she did not take us into +the library until she had told us that we should find there Mrs. +Alison, of Edinburgh, and her aunt, Miss Sneyd, a person very +old and infirm, and that the only other persons constituting the +family were Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Honora Edgeworth, and Dr. +Alison, a physician…. Miss Edgeworth's conversation was +always ready, as full of vivacity and variety as I can imagine…. +She was disposed to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as +far as she could. And in her intercourse with her family she +was quite delightful, referring constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, +who seems to be the authority in all matters of fact, and most +kindly repeating jokes to her infirm aunt, Miss Sneyd, who +cannot hear them, and who seems to have for her the most unbounded +affection and admiration…. About herself as an +author she seems to have no reserve or secrets. She spoke with +great kindness and pleasure of a letter I brought to her from +Mr. Peabody, explaining some passage in his review of 'Helen' +which had troubled her from its allusion to her father. 'But,' +she added, 'no one can know what I owe to my father. He +advised and directed me in everything. I never could have +done anything without him. There are things I cannot be mistaken +about, though other people can. I know them.' As she +said this the tears stood in her eyes, and her whole person was +moved…. It was, therefore, something of a trial to talk so +brilliantly and variously as she did from nine in the morning +to past eleven at night.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>She was unfeignedly glad to see good company. Here +is her account of another visitor:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>Sept</i>. 26.—The day before yesterday we were amusing ourselves +by telling who among literary and scientific people we +should wish to come here next. Francis said Coleridge; I said +Herschell. Yesterday morning, as I was returning from my +morning walk at half-past eight, I saw a bonnetless maid in the +walk, with a letter in her hand, in search of me. When I +opened the letter I found it was from Mr. Herschell, and that +he was waiting for an answer at Mr. Briggs's inn. I have +seldom been so agreeably surprised, and now that he is gone and +that he has spent twenty-four hours here, if the fairy were to +ask me the question again I should still more eagerly say, 'Mr. +Herschell, ma'am, if you please.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>She still came over to England from time to time, +visiting at her sisters' houses. Honora was now Lady +Beaufort; another sister, Fanny, the object of her closest +and most tender affection, was Mrs. Lestock Wilson. Age +brought no change in her mode of life. Time passes with +tranquil steps, for her not hasting unduly. 'I am perfect,' +she writes at the age of seventy-three to her stepmother +of seventy-two, 'so no more about it, and thank you from +my heart and every component part of my precious self +for all the care, and successful care, you have taken of me, +your old petted nurseling.'</p> + +<p>Alas! it is sad to realise that quite late in life fresh +sorrows fell upon this warm-hearted woman. Troubles +gather; young sisters fade away in their beauty and +happiness. But in sad times and good times the old +home is still unchanged, and remains for those that are +left to turn to for shelter, for help, and consolation. To +the very last Miss Edgeworth kept up her reading, her +correspondence, her energy. All along we have heard of +her active habits—out in the early morning in her +garden, coming in to the nine o'clock breakfast with her +hands full of roses, sitting by and talking and reading her +letters while the others ate. Her last letter to her old +friend Sir Henry Holland was after reading the first +volume of Lord Macaulay's History. Sir Henry took the +letter to Lord Macaulay, who was so much struck by its +discrimination that he asked leave to keep it.</p> + +<p>She was now eighty-two years of age, and we find her +laughing kindly at the anxiety of her sister and brother-in-law, +who had heard of her climbing a ladder to wind up +an old clock at Edgeworthtown. 'I am heartily obliged +and delighted by your being such a goose and Richard +such a gander,' she says 'as to be frightened out of your +wits by my climbing a ladder to take off the top of the +clock.' She had not felt that there was anything to fear +as once again she set the time that was so nearly at an +end for her. Her share of life's hours had been well spent +and well enjoyed; with a peaceful and steady hand and +tranquil heart she might mark the dial for others whose +hours were still to come.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edgeworth's own words tell all that remains to be +told.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>It was on the morning of May 22, 1849, that she was +taken suddenly ill with pain in the region of the heart, and +after a few hours breathed her last in my arms. She had +always wished to die quickly, at home, and that I should be +with her. All her wishes were fulfilled. She was gone, and +nothing like her again can we see in this world.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="MRS_OPIE" id="MRS_OPIE"></a><i>MRS OPIE.</i></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent">1769-1853.<br /> +</p> +</div> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="quote"> +<tr><td align="left"><i><small>'Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness.'</small></i>—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><i><small>As You Like It</small></i>.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I.</b></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>It is not very long since some articles appeared in the +'Cornhill Magazine' which were begun under the influence +of certain ancient bookshelves with so pleasant a flavour +of the old world that it seemed at the time as if yesterday +not to-day was the all-important hour, and one gladly submitted +to the subtle charm of the past—its silent veils, its +quiet incantations of dust and healing cobweb. The phase +is but a passing one with most of us, and we must soon +feel that to dwell at length upon each one of the pretty +old fancies and folios of the writers and explorers who were +born towards the end of the last century would be an impossible +affectation; and yet a postscript seems wanting to +the sketches which have already appeared of Mrs. Barbauld +and Miss Edgeworth, and the names of their contemporaries +should not be quite passed over.</p> + +<p>In a hundred charming types and prints and portraits +we recognise the well-known names as they used to appear +in the garb of life. Grand ladies in broad loops and +feathers, or graceful and charming as nymphs in muslin +folds, with hanging clouds of hair; or again, in modest +coiffes such as dear Jane Austen loved and wore even in her +youth. Hannah More only took to coiffes and wimples in +later life; in early days she was fond of splendour, and, +as we read, had herself painted in emerald earrings. How +many others besides her are there to admire! Who does +not know the prim, sweet, amply frilled portraits of Mrs. +Trimmer and Joanna Baillie? Only yesterday a friend +showed me a sprightly, dark-eyed miniature of Felicia +Hemans. Perhaps most beautiful among all her sister +muses smiles the lovely head of Amelia Opie, as she was +represented by her husband with luxuriant chestnut hair +piled up Romney fashion in careless loops, with the radiant +yet dreaming eyes which are an inheritance for some +members of her family.</p> + +<p>The authoresses of that day had the pre-eminence in +looks, in gracious dress and bearing; but they were rather +literary women than anything else, and had but little in common +with the noble and brilliant writers who were to follow +them in our own more natural and outspoken times; whose +wise, sweet, passionate voices are already passing away into +the distance; of whom so few remain to us.<a href="#fn4"><sup><small>4</small></sup></a><a name="fn4r" id="fn4r"></a> The secret +of being real is no very profound one, and yet how rare it +is, how long it was before the readers and writers of this +century found it out! It is like the secret of singing in +perfect tune, or of playing the violin as Joachim can play +upon it. In literature, as in music, there is at times a +certain indescribable tone of absolute reality which carries +the reader away and for the moment absorbs him into the +mind of the writer. Some metempsychosis takes place. +It is no longer a man or a woman turning the pages of a +book, it is a human being suddenly absorbed by the book +itself, living the very life which it records, breathing the +spirit and soul of the writer. Such books are events, not +books to us, new conditions of existence, new selves suddenly +revealed through the experience of other more vivid +personalities than our own. The actual experience of other +lives is not for us, but this link of simple reality of feeling +is one all independent of events; it is like the miracle of +the loaves and fishes repeated and multiplied—one man +comes with his fishes and lo! the multitude is filled.</p> + +<p>But this simple discovery, that of reality, that of +speaking from the heart, was one of the last to be made +by women. In France Madame de Sévigné and Madame de +La Fayette were not afraid to be themselves, but in England +the majority of authoresses kept their readers carefully at +pen's length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious +of their surprising achievements in the way of literature +as never to forget for a single instant that they were +in print. With the exception of Jane Austen and Maria +Edgeworth, the women writers of the early part of this +century were, as I have just said, rather literary women +than actual creators of literature. It is still a mystery how +they attained to their great successes. Frances Burney +charms great Burke and mighty Johnson and wise Macaulay +in later times. Mrs. Opie draws compliments from Mackintosh, +and compliments from the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, +and Sydney Smith, and above all tears from Walter Scott.</p> + +<p>Perhaps many of the flattering things addressed to Mrs. +Opie may have said not less for her own charm and sweetness +of nature than for the merit of her unassuming productions; +she must have been a bright, merry, and fascinating +person, and compliments were certainly more in her +line than the tributes of tears which she records.</p> + +<p>The authoresses of heroines are often more interesting +than the heroines themselves, and Amelia Opie was +certainly no exception to this somewhat general statement. +A pleasant, sprightly authoress, beaming bright +glances on her friends, confident, intelligent, full of interest +in life, carried along in turn by one and by another +influence, she comes before us a young and charming +figure, with all the spires of Norwich for a background, +and the sound of its bells, and the stir of its assizes, as she +issues from her peaceful home in her father's tranquil old +house, where the good physician lives widowed, tending his +poor and his sick, and devotedly spoiling his only child.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>II.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Amelia Opie was born in 1769 in the old city of +Norwich, within reach of the invigorating breezes of the +great North Sea. Her youth must have been somewhat +solitary; she was the only child of a kind and cultivated +physician, Doctor James Alderson, whose younger brother, +a barrister, also living in Norwich, became the father of +Baron Alderson. Her mother died in her early youth. +From her father, however, little Amelia seems to have +had the love and indulgence of over half a century, a +tender and admiring love which she returned with all her +heart's devotion. She was the pride and darling of his +home, and throughout her long life her father's approbation +was the one chief motive of her existence. Spoiling +is a vexed question, but as a rule people get so much +stern justice from all the rest of the world that it seems +well that their parents should love and comfort them in +youth for the many disgraces and difficulties yet to come.</p> + +<p>Her mother is described as a delicate, high-minded +woman, 'somewhat of a disciplinarian,' says Mrs. Opie's +excellent biographer, Miss Brightwell, but she died too +soon to carry her theories into practice. Miss Brightwell +suggests that 'Mrs. Opie might have been more demure +and decorous had her mother lived, but perhaps less +charming.' There are some verses addressed to her +mother in Mrs. Opie's papers in which it must be confessed +that the remembrance of her admonition plays a +most important part—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Hark! clearer still thy voice I hear.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Again reproof in accents mild,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Seems whispering in my conscious ear,</td></tr> + </table> +</div> +<p class="noindent">and so on.</p> + +<p>Some of Mrs. Alderson's attempts at discipline seemed +unusual and experimental; the little girl was timid, +afraid of black people, of black beetles, and of human +skeletons. She was given the skeleton to play with, and +the beetles to hold in her hand. One feels more sympathy +with the way in which she was gently reconciled to +the poor negro with the frightening black face—by being +told the story of his wrongs. But with the poor mother's +untimely death all this maternal supervision came to an +end. 'Amelia, your mother is gone; may you never have +reason to blush when you remember her!' her father said +as he clasped his little orphan to his heart; and all her +life long Amelia remembered those words.</p> + +<p>There is a pretty reminiscence of her childhood from a +beginning of the memoir which was never written:—'One +of my earliest recollections is of gazing on the +bright blue sky as I lay in my little bed before my hour +of rising came, listening with delighted attention to the +ringing of a peal of bells. I had heard that heaven was +beyond those blue skies, and I had been taught that <i>there</i> +was the home of the good, and I fancied that those sweet +bells were ringing in heaven.' The bells were ringing for +the Norwich Assizes, which played an important part in +our little heroine's life, and which must have been associated +with many of her early memories.</p> + +<p>The little girl seems to have been allowed more liberty +than is usually given to children. 'As soon as I was old +enough to enjoy a procession,' she says, 'I was taken to +see the Judges come in. Youthful pages in pretty dresses +ran by the side of the High Sheriff's carriage, in which the +Judges sat, while the coaches drove slowly and with a +solemnity becoming the high and awful office of those +whom they contained…. With reverence ever did I +behold the Judges' wigs, the scarlet robes they wore, and +even the white wand of the Sheriff.'</p> + +<p>There is a description which in after years might have +made a pretty picture for her husband's pencil of the little +maiden wandering into the court one day, and called by a +kind old Judge to sit beside him upon the bench. She goes +on to recount how next day she was there again; and when +some attendant of the court wanted her to leave the place, +saying not unnaturally, 'Go, Miss, this is no place for +you; be advised,' the Judge again interfered, and ordered +the enterprising little girl to be brought to her old place +upon the cushion by his side. The story gives one a +curious impression of a child's life and education. She +seems to have come and gone alone, capable, intelligent, +unabashed, interested in all the events and humours of +the place.</p> + +<p>Children have among other things a very vivid sense of +citizenship and public spirit, somewhat put out in later +life by the rush of personal feeling, but in childhood the +personal events are so few and so irresponsible that public +affairs become an actual part of life and of experience. +While their elders are still discussing the news and weighing +its importance, it is already a part of the children's +life. Little Amelia Alderson must have been a happy +child, free, affectionate, independent; grateful, as a child +should be, towards those who befriended her. One of her +teachers was a French dancing-master called Christian, for +whom she had a warm regard. She relates that long afterwards +she came with her husband and a friend to visit the +Dutch church at Norwich. 'The two gentlemen were +engaged in looking round and making their observations, +and I, finding myself somewhat cold, began to hop and +dance upon the spot where I stood, when my eyes chanced +to fall upon the pavement below, and I started at beholding +the well-known name of Christian graved upon the slab; I +stopped in dismay, shocked to find that I had actually +been dancing upon the grave of my old master—he who +first taught me to dance.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>III.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>After her mother's death, Amelia Alderson, who was +barely fifteen at the time, began to take her place in +society. She kept her father's house, received his friends, +made his home bright with her presence. The lawyers +came round in due season: Sir James Mackintosh came, +the town was full of life, of talk, of music, and poetry, and +prejudice.</p> + +<p>Harriet Martineau, in her memoir of Mrs. Opie, gives +a delightful and humorous account of the Norwich of that +day—rivalling Lichfield and its literary coterie, only with +less sentimentality and some additional peculiarities of its +own. One can almost see the Tory gentlemen, as Miss +Martineau describes them, setting a watch upon the Cathedral, +lest the Dissenters should burn it as a beacon for +Boney; whereas good Bishop Bathurst, with more faith in +human nature, goes on resolutely touching his hat to the +leading Nonconformists. 'The French taught in schools,' +says Miss Martineau, 'was found to be unintelligible when +the peace at length arrived, taught as it was by an aged +powdered Monsieur and an elderly flowered Madame, who +had taught their pupils' Norfolk pronunciation. But it was +beginning to be known,' she continues, 'that there was such +a language as German, and in due time there was a young +man who had actually been in Germany, and was translating +"Nathan the Wise." When William Taylor became +eminent as almost the only German scholar in England, +old Norwich was very proud and grew, to say the truth, +excessively conceited. She was (and she might be) proud +of her Sayers, she boasted of her intellectual supper-parties, +and finally called herself the "Athens of England."'</p> + +<p>In this wholesome, cheerful Athens, blown by the +invigorating Northern breezes, little Amelia bloomed and +developed into a lovely and happy girl. She was fortunate, +indeed, in her friends. One near at hand must have been +an invaluable adviser for a motherless, impressionable girl. +Mrs. John Taylor was so loved that she is still remembered. +Mrs. Barbauld prized and valued her affection +beyond all others. 'I know the value of your letters,' +says Sir James Mackintosh, writing from Bombay; 'they +rouse my mind on subjects which interest us in common—children, +literature, and life. I ought to be made permanently +better by contemplating a mind like yours.' And +he still has Mrs. Taylor in his mind when he concludes with +a little disquisition on the contrast between the barren +sensibility, the indolent folly of some, the useful kindness +of others, 'the industrious benevolence which requires a +vigorous understanding and a decisive character.'</p> + +<p>Some of Mrs. Opie's family have shown me a photograph +of her in her Quaker dress, in old age, dim, and +changed, and sunken, from which it is very difficult to +realise all the brightness, and life, and animation which +must have belonged to the earlier part of her life. The +delightful portrait of her engraved in the 'Mirror' shows +the animated beaming countenance, the soft expressive eyes, +the abundant auburn waves of hair, of which we read. The +picture is more like some charming allegorical being than +a real live young lady—some Belinda of the 'Rape of the +Lock' (and one would as soon have expected Belinda to +turn Quakeress). Music, poetry, dancing, elves, graces and +flirtations, cupids, seem to attend her steps. She delights +in admiration, friendship, companionship, and gaiety, and +yet with it all we realise a warm-hearted sincerity, and +appreciation of good and high-minded things, a truth of +feeling passing out of the realms of fancy altogether into +one of the best realities of life. She had a thousand links +with life: she was musical, artistic; she was literary; she +had a certain amount of social influence; she had a voice, +a harp, a charming person, mind and manner. Admiring +monarchs in later days applauded her performance; devoted +subjects were her friends and correspondents, and her sphere +in due time extended beyond the approving Norwich-Athenian +coterie of old friends who had known her from +her childhood, to London itself, where she seems to have +been made welcome by many, and to have captivated more +than her share of victims.</p> + +<p>In some letters of hers written to Mrs. Taylor and +quoted by her biographer we get glimpses of some of +these early experiences. The bright and happy excitable +girl comes up from Norwich to London to be made more +happy still, and more satisfied with the delight of life +as it unfolds. Besides her fancy for lawyers, literary +people had a great attraction for Amelia, and Godwin +seems to have played an important part in her earlier +experience. A saying of Mrs. Inchbald's is quoted by her +on her return home as to the report of the world being +that Mr. Holcroft was in love with Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. +Inchbald with Mr. Godwin, Mr. Godwin with Miss +Alderson, and Miss Alderson with Mr. Holcroft!</p> + +<p>The following account of Somers Town, and a +philosopher's costume in those days, is written to her +father in 1794:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>After a most delightful ride through some of the richest +country I ever beheld, we arrived about one o'clock at the +philosopher's house; we found him with his hair <i>bien poudré</i>, +and in a pair of new sharp-toed red morocco slippers, not to +mention his green coat and crimson under-waistcoat.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>From Godwin's by the city they come to Marlborough +Street, and find Mrs. Siddons nursing her little baby, and +as handsome and charming as ever. They see Charles +Kemble there, and they wind up their day by calling on +Mrs. Inchbald in her pleasant lodgings, with two hundred +pounds just come in from Sheridan for a farce of sixty +pages. Godwin's attentions seem to have amused and +pleased the fair, merry Amelia, who is not a little proud +of her arch influence over various rugged and apparently +inaccessible persons. Mrs. Inchbald seems to have been +as jealous of Miss Alderson at the time as she afterwards +was of Mary Wollstonecraft. 'Will you give me nothing +to keep for your sake?' says Godwin, parting from Amelia. +'Not even your slipper? I had it once in my possession.' +'This was true,' adds Miss Amelia; 'my shoe had come +off and he picked it up and put it in his pocket.' Elsewhere +she tells her friend Mrs. Taylor that Mr. Holcroft +would like to come forward, but that he had no chance.</p> + +<p>That some one person had a chance, and a very good +one, is plain enough from the context of a letter, but +there is nothing in Mrs. Opie's life to show why fate was +contrary in this, while yielding so bountiful a share of all +other good things to the happy country girl.</p> + +<p>Among other people, she seems to have charmed +various French refugees, one of whom was the Duc +d'Aiguillon, come over to England with some seven +thousand others, waiting here for happier times, and +hiding their sorrows among our friendly mists. Godwin +was married when Miss Alderson revisited her London +friends and admirers in 1797—an eventful visit, when she +met Opie for the first time.</p> + +<p>The account of their first meeting is amusingly given +in Miss Brightwell's memoirs. It was at an evening +party. Some of those present were eagerly expecting +the arrival of Miss Alderson, but the evening was wearing +away and still she did not appear; 'at length the door was +flung open, and she entered bright and smiling, dressed +in a robe of blue, her neck and arms bare, and on her +head a small bonnet placed in somewhat coquettish style +sideways and surmounted by a plume of three white +feathers. Her beautiful hair hung in waving tresses over +her shoulders; her face was kindling with pleasure at the +sight of her old friends, and her whole appearance was +animated and glowing. At the time she came in Mr. +Opie was sitting on a sofa beside Mr. F., who had been +saying from time to time, 'Amelia is coming; Amelia will +surely come. Why is she not here?' and whose eyes were +turned in her direction. He was interrupted by <ins title="original has her">his</ins> companion +eagerly exclaiming, 'Who is that—who is that?' +and hastily rising Opie pressed forward to be introduced +to the fair object whose sudden appearance had so +impressed him.' With all her love of excitement, of +change, of variety, one cannot but feel, as I have said, +that there was also in Amelia Alderson's cheerful life a +vein of deep and very serious feeling, and the bracing +influence of the upright and high-minded people among +whom she had been brought up did not count for nothing +in her nature. She could show her genuine respect for +what was generous and good and true, even though she +did not always find strength to carry out the dream of an +excitable and warm-hearted nature.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>IV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>There is something very interesting in the impression +one receives of the 'Inspired Peasant,' as Alan Cunningham +calls John Opie—the man who did not paint to live so +much as live to paint. He was a simple, high-minded +Cornishman, whose natural directness and honesty were +unspoiled by favour, unembittered by failure. Opie's gift, +like some deep-rooted seed living buried in arid soil, ever +aspired upwards towards the light. His ideal was high; +his performance fell far short of his life-long dream, and +he knew it. But his heart never turned from its life's +aim, and he loved beauty and Art with that true and unfailing +devotion which makes a man great, even though his +achievements do not show all he should have been.</p> + +<p>The old village carpenter, his father, who meant him +to succeed to the business, was often angry, and loudly +railed at the boy when good white-washed walls and clean +boards were spoiled by scrawls of lamp-black and charcoal. +John worked in the shop and obeyed his father, but when his +day's task was over he turned again to his darling pursuits. +At twelve years old he had mastered Euclid, and could also +rival 'Mark Oaks,' the village phenomenon, in painting a +butterfly; by the time John was sixteen he could earn as +much as 7<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. for a portrait. It was in this year that +there came to Truro an accomplished and various man +Dr. Wolcott—sometimes a parson, sometimes a doctor of +medicine, sometimes as Peter Pindar, a critic and literary +man. This gentleman was interested by young Opie and +his performances, and he asked him on one occasion how +he liked painting. 'Better than bread-and-butter,' says +the boy. Wolcott finally brought his <i>protégé</i> to London, +where the Doctor's influence and Opie's own undoubted +merit brought him success; and to Opie's own amazement +he suddenly found himself the fashion. His street was +crowded with carriages; long processions of ladies and +gentlemen came to sit to him; he was able to furnish a +house 'in Orange Court, by Leicester Fields;' he was +beginning to put by money when, as suddenly as he had +been taken up, he was forgotten again. The carriages +drove off in some other direction, and Opie found himself +abandoned by the odd, fanciful world of fashions, which +would not be fashions if they did not change day by day. +It might have proved a heart-breaking phase of life for a +man whose aim had been less single. But Opie was of too +generous a nature to value popularity beyond achievement. +He seems to have borne this freak of fortune with great +equanimity, and when he was sometimes overwhelmed, it +was not by the praise or dispraise of others, but by his own +consciousness of failure, of inadequate performance. +Troubles even more serious than loss of patronage and employment +befell him later. He had married, unhappily for +himself, a beautiful, unworthy woman, whose picture he +has painted many times. She was a faithless as well as a +weak and erring wife, and finally abandoned him. When +Opie was free to marry again he was thirty-six, a serious, +downright man of undoubted power and influence, of +sincerity and tenderness of feeling, of rugged and unusual +manners. He had not many friends, nor did he wish for +many, but those who knew him valued him at his worth. +His second wife showed what was in her by her appreciation +of his noble qualities, though one can hardly realise +a greater contrast than that of these two, so unlike in +character, in training, and disposition. They were married +in London, at Marylebone Church, in that dismal year of +'98, which is still remembered. Opie loved his wife deeply +and passionately; he did not charm her, though she +charmed him, but for his qualities she had true respect +and admiration.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>V.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Opie must be forgiven if he was one-idead, if he erred +from too much zeal. All his wife's bright gaiety of nature, +her love for her fellow-creatures, her interest in the world, +her many-sidedness, this uncompromising husband would +gladly have kept for himself. For him his wife and his +home were the whole world; his Art was his whole life.</p> + +<p>The young couple settled down in London after their +marriage, where, notwithstanding fogs and smoke and dull +monotony of brick and smut, so many beautiful things are +created; where Turner's rainbow lights were first reflected, +where Tennyson's 'Princess' sprang from the fog. It was +a modest and quiet installation, but among the pretty things +which Amelia brought to brighten her new home we read +of blue feathers and gold gauze bonnets, tiaras, and spencers, +scarlet ribbons, buff net, and cambric flounces, all of which +give one a pleasant impression of her intention to amuse +herself, and to enjoy the society of her fellows, and to bring +her own pleasant contributions to their enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Opie sat working at his easel, painting portraits to +earn money for his wife's use and comfort, and encouraging +her to write, for he had faith in work. He himself would +never intermit his work for a single day. He would have +gladly kept her always in his sight. 'If I would stay at +home for ever, I believe my husband would be merry from +morning to night—a lover more than a husband,' Amelia +writes to Mrs. Taylor. He seemed to have some feeling +that time for him was not to be long—that life was passing +quickly by, almost too quickly to give him time to realise +his new home happiness, to give him strength to grasp +his work. He was no rapid painter, instinctively feeling +his light and colour and action, and seizing the moment's +suggestion, but anxious, laborious, and involved in that +sad struggle in which some people pass their lives, for +ever disappointed. Opie's portraits seem to have been +superior to his compositions, which were well painted, +'but unimaginative and commonplace,' says a painter of +our own time, whose own work quickens with that +mysterious soul which some pictures (as indeed some +human beings) seem to be entirely without.</p> + +<p>'During the nine years that I was his wife,' says Mrs. +Opie, 'I never saw him satisfied with any one of his productions. +Often, very often, he has entered my sitting-room, +and, throwing himself down in an agony of despondence +upon the sofa, exclaimed, "I shall never be a +painter!"'</p> + +<p>He was a wise and feeling critic, however great his +shortcomings as a painter may have been. His lectures +are admirable; full of real thought and good judgment. +Sir James Mackintosh places them beyond Reynolds's in +some ways.</p> + +<p>'If there were no difficulties every one would be a +painter,' says Opie, and he goes on to point out what a +painter's object should be—'the discovery or conception +of perfect ideas of things; nature in its purest and most +essential form rising from the species to the genus, the +highest and ultimate exertion of human genius.' For +him it was no grievance that a painter's life should be one +long and serious effort. 'If you are wanting to yourselves, +rule may be multiplied upon rule and precept upon +precept in vain.' Some of his remarks might be thought +still to apply in many cases, no less than they did a +hundred years ago, when he complained of those green-sick +lovers of chalk, brick-dust, charcoal and old tapestry, +who are so ready to decry the merits of colouring and to +set it down as a kind of superfluity. It is curious to +contrast Opie's style in literature with that of his wife, +who belongs to the entirely past generation which she +reflected, whereas he wrote from his own original impressions, +saying those things which struck him as forcibly +then as they strike us now. 'Father and Daughter' was +Mrs. Opie's first acknowledged book. It was published in +1801, and the author writes modestly of all her apprehensions. +'Mr. Opie has no patience with me; he consoles +me by averring that fear makes me overrate others and +underrate myself.' The book was reviewed in the 'Edinburgh.' +We hear of one gentleman who lies awake all +night after reading it; and Mrs. Inchbald promises a +candid opinion, which, however, we do not get. Besides +stories and novels, Mrs. Opie was the author of several +poems and verses which were much admired. There was +an impromptu to Sir James Mackintosh, which brought a +long letter in return, and one of her songs was quoted by +Sydney Smith in a lecture at the Royal Institution. Mrs. +Opie was present, and she used to tell in after times 'how +unexpectedly the compliment came upon her, and how she +shrunk down upon her seat in order to screen herself from +observation.'</p> + +<p>The lines are indeed charming:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Go, youth, beloved in distant glades,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> New friends, new hopes, new joys to find,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Yet sometimes deign 'midst fairer maids</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> To think on her thou leav'st behind.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Thy love, thy fate, dear youth to share</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Must never be my happy lot;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">But thou may'st grant this humble prayer,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Forget me not, forget me not.</td></tr> + <tr><td> </td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Yet should the thought of my distress</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Too painful to thy feelings be,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Heed not the wish I now express,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Nor ever deign to think of me;</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">But oh! if grief thy steps attend,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> If want, if sickness be thy lot,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">And thou require a soothing friend,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left"> Forget me not, forget me not.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>VI.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>The little household was a modest one, but we read of +a certain amount of friendly hospitality. Country neighbours +from Norfolk appear upon the scene; we find +Northcote dining and praising the toasted cheese. Mrs. +Opie's heart never for an instant ceased to warm to her +old friends and companions. She writes an amusing +account to Mrs. Taylor of her London home, her interests +and visitors, 'her happy and delightful life.' She worked, +she amused herself, she received her friends at home and +went to look for them abroad. Among other visits, Mrs. +Opie speaks of one to an old friend who has 'grown +plump,' and of a second to 'Betsy Fry' who, notwithstanding +her comfortable home and prosperous circumstances, has +grown lean. It would be difficult to recognise under this +familiar cognomen and description the noble and dignified +woman whose name and work are still remembered with +affectionate respect and wonder by a not less hard-working, +but less convinced and convincing generation. This +friendship was of great moment to Amelia Opie in after +days, at a time when her heart was low and her life very +sad and solitary; but meanwhile, as I have said, there +were happy times for her; youth and youthful spirits and +faithful companionship were all hers, and troubles had +not yet come.</p> + +<p>One day Mrs. Opie gives a characteristic account of a +visit from Mrs. Taylor's two sons. '"John," said I, "will +you take a letter from me to your mother?" "Certainly," +replied John, "for then I shall be sure of being welcome." +"Fy," returned I. "Mr. Courtier, you know you want +nothing to add to the heartiness of the welcome you will +receive at home." "No, indeed," said Richard, "and if Mrs. +Opie sends her letter by you it will be one way of making +it less valued and attended to than it would otherwise be." +To the truth of this speech I subscribed and wrote not. +I have heard in later days a pretty description of the +simple home in which all these handsome, cultivated, and +remarkable young people grew up round their noble-minded +mother.' One of Mrs. John Taylor's daughters +became Mrs. Reeve, the mother of Mr. Henry Reeve, +another was Mrs. Austin, the mother of Lady Duff Gordon.</p> + +<p>Those lean kine we read of in the Bible are not +peculiar to Egypt and to the days of Joseph and his +brethren. The unwelcome creatures are apt to make +their appearance in many a country and many a household, +and in default of their natural food to devour +all sorts of long-cherished fancies, hopes, and schemes. +Some time after his marriage, Opie suddenly, and for no +reason, found himself without employment, and the severest +trial they experienced during their married life, says his +wife, was during this period of anxiety. She, however, +cheered him womanfully, would not acknowledge her own +dismay, and Opie, gloomy and desponding though he was, +continued to paint as regularly as before. Presently +orders began to flow in again, and did not cease until his +death.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>VII.</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Their affairs being once more prosperous, a long-hoped-for +dream became a reality, and they started on an expedition +to Paris, a solemn event in those days and not +lightly to be passed over by a biographer. One long war +was ended, another had not yet begun. The Continent +was a promised land, fondly dreamt of though unknown. +'At last in Paris; at last in the city which she had so +longed to see!' Mrs. Opie's description of her arrival +reads <ins title="original lacks like">like</ins> a comment upon history. As they drive into the +town, everywhere chalked up upon the walls and the +houses are inscriptions concerning 'L'Indivisibilité de la +République.' How many subsequent writings upon the +wall did Mrs. Opie live to see! The English party find +rooms at a hotel facing the Place de la Concorde, where the +guillotine, that token of order and tranquillity, was then +perpetually standing. The young wife's feelings may be +imagined when within an hour of their arrival Opie, who +had rushed off straight to the Louvre, returned with a +face of consternation to say that they must leave Paris at +once. The Louvre was shut; and, moreover, the whiteness +of everything, the houses, the ground they stood on, all +dazzled and blinded him. He was a lost man if he remained! +By some happy interposition they succeed in +getting admission to the Louvre, and as the painter +wonders and admires his nervous terrors leave him. The +picture left by Miss Edgeworth of Paris Society in the +early years of the century is more brilliant, but not more +interesting than Mrs. Opie's reminiscences of the fleeting +scene, gaining so much in brilliancy from the shadows all +round about. There is the shadow of the ghastly +guillotine upon the Place de la Concorde, the shadows of +wars but lately over and yet to come, the echo in the air +of arms and discord; meanwhile a brilliant, agreeable, +flashing Paris streams with sunlight, is piled with treasures +and trophies of victory, and crowded with well-known +characters. We read of Kosciusko's nut-brown wig concealing +his honourable scars; Masséna's earrings flash in +the sun; one can picture it all, and the animated inrush +of tourists, and the eager life stirring round about the +walls of the old Louvre.</p> + +<p>It was at this time that they saw Talma perform, and +years after, in her little rooms in Lady's Field at Norwich, +Mrs. Opie, in her Quaker dress, used to give an imitation +of the great actor and utter a deep 'Cain, Cain, where art +thou?' To which Cain replies in sepulchral tones.</p> + +<p>We get among other things an interesting glimpse of +Fox standing in the Louvre Gallery opposite the picture +of St. Jerome by Domenichino, a picture which, as it is +said, he enthusiastically admired. Opie, who happened to +be introduced to him, then and there dissented from this +opinion. 'You must be a better judge on such points +than I am,' says Fox; and Mrs. Opie proudly writes of +the two passing on together discussing and comparing the +pictures. She describes them next standing before the +'Transfiguration' of Raphael. The Louvre in those days +must have been for a painter a wonder palace indeed. The +'Venus de' Medici' was on her way; it was a time of +miracles, as Fox said. Meanwhile Mrs. Opie hears someone +saying that the First Consul is on his way from the +Senate, and she hurries to a window to look out. 'Bonaparte +seems very fond of state and show for a Republican,' says +Mrs. Fox. Fox himself half turns to the window, then +looks back to the pictures again. As for Opie, one may be +sure his attention never wandered for one instant.</p> + +<p>They saw the First Consul more than once. The +Pacificator, as he was then called, was at the height of his +popularity; on one occasion they met Fox with his wife on +his arm crossing the Carrousel to the Tuìlerìes, where they +are also admitted to a ground-floor room, from whence they +look upon a marble staircase and see several officers ascending, +'one of whom, with a helmet which seemed entirely +of gold, was Eugène de Beauharnais. A few minutes +afterwards,' she says, 'there was a rush of officers down +the stairs, and among them I saw a short pale man with +his hat in his hand, who, as I thought, resembled Lord +Erskine in profile….' This of course is Bonaparte, +unadorned amidst all this studied splendour, and wearing +only a little tricoloured cockade. Maria Cosway, the +painter, who was also in Paris at the time, took them to +call at the house of Madame Bonaparte <i>mère</i>, where they +were received by 'a blooming, courteous ecclesiastic, +powdered and with purple stockings and gold buckles, and +a costly crucifix. This is Cardinal Fesch, the uncle of +Bonaparte. It is said that when Fox was introduced to +the First Consul he was warmly welcomed by him, and +was made to listen to a grand harangue upon the advantages +of peace, to which he answered scarcely a word; +though he was charmed to talk with Madame Bonaparte, +and to discuss with her the flowers of which she was so +fond.' The Opies met Fox again in England some years +after, when he sat to Opie for one of his finest portraits. +It is now at Holker, and there is a characteristic description +of poor Opie, made nervous by the criticism of the many +friends, and Fox, impatient but encouraging, and again +whispering, 'Don't attend to them; you must know best.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>VIII.</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p>'Adeline Mowbray; or, Mother and Daughter,' was +published by Mrs. Opie after this visit to the Continent. +It is a melancholy and curious story, which seems to have +been partly suggested by that of poor Mary Wollstonecraft, +whose prejudices the heroine shares and expiates by a fate +hardly less pathetic than that of Mary herself. The book +reminds one of a very touching letter from Godwin's wife +to Amelia Alderson, written a few weeks before her death, +in which she speaks of her 'contempt for the forms of a +world she should have bade a long good-night to had she +not been a mother.' Justice has at length been done to +this mistaken but noble and devoted woman, and her story +has lately been written from a wider point of view than +Mrs. Opie's, though she indeed was no ungenerous advocate. +Her novel seems to have given satisfaction; 'a beautiful +story, the most natural in its pathos of any fictitious +narrative in the language,' says the 'Edinburgh,' writing +with more leniency than authors now expect. Another +reviewer, speaking with discriminating criticism, says of +Mrs. Opie: 'She does not reason well, but she has, like +most accomplished women, the talent of perceiving truth +without the process of reasoning. Her language is often +inaccurate, but it is always graceful and harmonious. She +can do nothing well that requires to be done with formality; +to make amends, however, she represents admirably everything +that is amiable, generous, and gentle.'</p> + +<p>Adeline Mowbray dies of a broken heart, with the following +somewhat discursive farewell to her child: 'There +are two ways in which a mother can be of use to her +daughter; the one is by instilling into her mind virtuous +principles, and by setting her a virtuous example, the other +is by being to her, in her own person, an awful warning!'</p> + +<p> </p> +<p>One or two of Opie's letters to his wife are given in +the memoir. They ring with truth and tender feeling. +The two went to Norwich together on one occasion, when +Opie painted Dr. Sayers, the scholar, who, in return for +his portrait, applied an elegant Greek distich to the +painter. Mrs. Opie remained with her father, and her +husband soon returned to his studio in London. When +she delayed, he wrote to complain. 'My dearest Life, I +cannot be sorry that you do not stay longer, though, as I +said, on your father's account, I would consent to it. +Pray, Love, forgive me, and make yourself easy. I did +not suspect, till my last letter was posted, that it might +be too strong. I had been counting almost the hours till +your arrival for some time. As to coming down again +I cannot think of it, for though I could perhaps better +spare the time at present from painting than I could at +any part of the last month, I find I must now go hard to +work to finish my lectures, as the law says they must be +delivered the second year after the election.'</p> + +<p>The Academy had appointed Opie Professor of Painting +in the place of Fuseli, and he was now trying his hand +at a new form of composition, and not without well-deserved +success. But the strain was too great for this +eager mind. Opie painted all day; of an evening he +worked at his lectures on painting. From September to +February he allowed himself no rest. He was not a man +who worked with ease; all he did cost him much effort +and struggle. After delivering his first lecture, he complained +that he could not sleep. It had been a great +success; his colleagues had complimented him, and accompanied +him to his house. He was able to complete the +course, but immediately afterwards he sickened. No one +could discover what was amiss; the languor and fever +increased day by day.</p> + +<p>His wife nursed him devotedly, and a favourite sister +of his came to help her. Afterwards it was of consolation +to the widow to remember that no hired nurse had been by +his bedside, and that they had been able to do everything +for him themselves. One thing troubled him as he lay +dying; it was the thought of a picture which he had not +been able to complete in time for the exhibition. A friend +and former pupil finished it, and brought it to his bedside. +He said with a smile, 'Take it away, it will do now.'</p> + +<p>To the last he imagined that he was painting upon +this picture, and he moved his arms as though he were at +work. His illness was inflammation of the brain. He +was only forty-five when he died, and he was buried in +St. Paul's, and laid by Sir Joshua, his great master.</p> + +<p>The portrait of Opie, as it is engraved in Alan +Cunningham's Life, is that of a simple, noble-looking +man, with a good thoughtful face and a fine head. Northcote, +Nollekens, Horne Tooke, all his friends spoke warmly +of him. 'A man of powerful understanding and ready +apprehension,' says one. 'Mr. Opie crowds more wisdom +into a few words than almost anybody I ever saw,' says +another. 'I do not say that he was always right,' says +Northcote; 'but he always put your thoughts into a new +track that was worth following.' Some two years after +his death the lectures which had cost so much were +published, with a memoir by Mrs. Opie. Sir James +Mackintosh has written one of his delightful criticisms +upon the book:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The cultivation of every science and the practice of every +art are in fact a species of action, and require ardent zeal and +unshaken courage…. Originality can hardly exist without +vigour of character…. The discoverer or inventor may +indeed be most eminently wanting in decision in the general +concerns of life, but he must possess it in those pursuits in +which he is successful. Opie is a remarkable instance of the +natural union of these superior qualities, both of which he +possesses in a high degree…. He is inferior in elegance to +Sir Joshua, but he is superior in strength; he strikes more, +though he charms less…. Opie is by turns an advocate, a +controvertist, a panegyrist, a critic; Sir Joshua more uniformly +fixes his mind on general and permanent principles, and certainly +approaches more nearly to the elevation and tranquillity +which seem to characterise the philosophic teacher of an elegant +art.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>IX.</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Mrs. Opie went back, soon after her husband's death, +to Norwich, to her early home, her father's house; nor +was she a widow indeed while she still had this tender +love and protection.</p> + +<p>That which strikes one most as one reads the accounts +of Mrs. Opie is the artlessness and perfect simplicity of +her nature. The deepest feeling of her life was her +tender love for her father, and if she remained younger +than most women do, it may have been partly from the +great blessing which was hers so long, that of a father's +home. Time passed, and by degrees she resumed her old +life, and came out and about among her friends. Sorrow +does not change a nature, it expresses certain qualities which +have been there all along.</p> + +<p>So Mrs. Opie came up to London once more, and +welcomed and was made welcome by many interesting +people. Lord Erskine is her friend always; she visits +Madame de Staël; she is constantly in company with +Sydney Smith, the ever-welcome as she calls him. Lord +<ins title="original has Bryon">Byron</ins>, Sheridan, Lord Dudley, all appear upon her scene. +There is a pretty story of her singing her best to Lady +Sarah Napier, old, blind, and saddened, but still happy in +that she had her sons to guide and to protect her steps. +Among her many entertainments, Mrs. Opie amusingly +describes a dinner at Sir James Mackintosh's, to which +most of the guests had been asked at different hours, +varying from six to half-past seven, when Baron William +von Humboldt arrives. He writes to her next day, calling +her Mademoiselle Opie, 'no doubt from my juvenile +appearance,' she adds, writing to her father. It is indeed +remarkable to read of her spirits long after middle life, her +interest and capacity for amusement. She pays 4<i>l</i>. for +a ticket to a ball given to the Duke of Wellington; she +describes this and many other masquerades and gaieties, +and the blue ball, and the pink ball, and the twenty-seven +carriages at her door, and her sight of the Emperor of +Russia in her hotel. When the rest of the ladies crowd +round, eager to touch his clothes, Mrs. Opie, carried away +by the general craze, encircles his wrist with her finger +and thumb. Apart from these passing fancies, she is in +delightful society.</p> + +<p>Baron Alderson, her cousin and friend, was always kind +and affectionate to her. The pretty little story is well +known of his taking her home in her Quaker dress in the +Judges' state-coach at Norwich, saying, 'Come, Brother +Opie,' as he offered her his arm to lead her to the carriage. +She used to stay at his house in London, and almost the +last visit she ever paid was to him.</p> + +<p>One of the most interesting of her descriptions is that +of her meeting with Sir Walter Scott and with Wordsworth +at a breakfast in Mount Street, and of Sir Walter's delightful +talk and animated stories. One can imagine him +laughing and describing a Cockney's terrors in the Highlands, +when the whole hunt goes galloping down the crags, +as is their North-country fashion. 'The gifted man,' +says Mrs. Opie, with her old-fashioned adjectives, 'condescended +to speak to me of my "Father and Daughter." +He then went on faithfully to praise his old friend Joanna +Baillie and her tragedies, and to describe a tragedy he +once thought of writing himself. He should have had +no love in it. His hero should have been the uncle +of his heroine, a sort of misanthrope, with only one +affection in his heart, love for his niece, like a solitary +gleam of sunshine lighting the dark tower of some ruined +and lonely dwelling.'</p> + +<p>'It might perhaps be a weakness,' says the Friend, +long after recalling this event, 'but I must confess how +greatly I was pleased at the time.' No wonder she was +pleased that the great wizard should have liked her novel.</p> + +<p>It would be impossible to attempt a serious critique of +Mrs. Opie's stories. They are artless, graceful, written +with an innocent good faith which disarms criticism. +That Southey, Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh should also +have read them and praised them may, as I have said, +prove as much for the personal charm of the writer, and +her warm sunshine of pleasant companionship, as for the +books themselves. They seem to have run through many +editions, and to have received no little encouragement. +Morality and sensation alternate in her pages. Monsters +abound there. They hire young men to act base parts, to +hold villainous conversations which the husbands are +intended to overhear. They plot and scheme to ruin the +fair fame and domestic happiness of the charming heroines, +but they are justly punished, and their plots are defeated. +One villain, on his way to an appointment with a married +woman, receives so severe a blow upon the head from her +brother, that he dies in agonies of fruitless remorse. +Another, who incautiously boasts aloud his deep-laid +scheme against Constantia's reputation in the dark recesses +of a stage-coach, is unexpectedly seized by the arm. A +stranger in the corner, whom he had not noticed, was no +other than the baronet whom Constantia has loved all +along. The dawn breaks in brightly, shining on the +stranger's face: baffled, disgraced, the wicked schemer +leaves the coach at the very next stage, and Constantia's +happiness is ensured by a brilliant marriage with the man +she loves. 'Lucy is the dark sky,' cries another lovely +heroine, 'but you, my lord, and my smiling children, +these are the rainbow that illumines it; and who would +look at the gloom that see the many tinted Iris? not I, +indeed.' 'Valentine's Eve,' from which this is quoted, +was published after John Opie's death. So was a novel +called 'Temper,' and the 'Tales of Real Life.' Mrs. Opie, +however, gave up writing novels when she joined the +Society of Friends.</p> + +<p>For some years past, Mrs. Opie had been thrown more +and more in the company of a very noble and remarkable +race of men and women living quietly in their beautiful +homes in the neighbourhood of Norwich, but of an influence +daily growing—handsome people, prosperous, generous, +with a sort of natural Priesthood belonging to them. +Scorning to live for themselves alone, the Gurneys were +the dispensers and originators of a hundred useful and +benevolent enterprises in Norwich and elsewhere. They +were Quakers, and merchants, and bankers. How much +of their strength lay in their wealth and prosperity, how +much in their enthusiasm, their high spirits, voluntarily +curbed, their natural instinct both to lead and to protect, +it would be idle to discuss. It is always difficult for +people who believe in the all-importance of the present to +judge of others, whose firm creed is that the present is +nothing as compared to the future. Chief among this +remarkable family was Elizabeth Gurney, the wife of +Josiah Fry, the mother of many children, and the good +angel, indeed, of the unhappy captives of those barbarous +days, prisoners, to whose utter gloom and misery she brought +some rays of hope. There are few figures more striking than +that of the noble Quaker lady starting on her generous +mission, comforting the children, easing the chains of the +captives. No domineering Jellyby, but a motherly, deep-hearted +woman; shy, and yet from her very timidity gaining +an influence, which less sensitive natures often fail to +win. One likes to imagine the dignified sweet face coming +in—the comforting Friend in the quiet garb of the Quaker +woman standing at the gates of those terrible places, bidding +the despairing prisoners be of good hope.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth Fry's whole life was a mission of love and +help to others; her brothers and her many relations +heartily joined and assisted her in many plans and efforts.</p> + +<p>For Joseph John Gurney, the head of the Norwich +family, Mrs. Opie is said to have had a feeling amounting +to more than friendship. Be this as it may, it is no wonder +that so warm-hearted and impressionable a woman should +have been influenced by the calm goodness of the friends +with whom she was now thrown. It is evident enough, +nor does she attempt to conceal the fact, that the admiration +and interest she feels for John Joseph Gurney are very +deep motive powers. There comes a time in most lives, +especially in the lives of women, when all the habits and +certainties of youth have passed away, when life has to be +built up again upon the foundations indeed of the past, the +friendships, the memories, the habits of early life, but with +new places and things to absorb and to interest, new hearts +to love. And one day people wake up to find that the +friends of their choice have become their home. People +are stranded perhaps seeking their share in life's allowance, +and suddenly they come upon something, with all the +charm which belongs to deliberate choice, as well as that of +natural affinity. How well one can realise the extraordinary +comfort that Amelia Opie must have found in the kind +friends and neighbours with whom she was now thrown! +Her father was a very old man, dying slowly by inches. +Her own life of struggle, animation, intelligence, was +over, as she imagined, for ever. No wonder if for a time +she was carried away, if she forgot her own nature, her +own imperative necessities, in sympathy with this new +revelation. Here was a new existence, here was a Living +Church ready to draw her within its saving walls. John +Joseph Gurney must have been a man of extraordinary +personal influence. For a long time past he had been +writing to her seriously. At last, to the surprise of the +world, though not without long deliberation and her +father's full approval, she joined the Society of Friends, +put on their dress, and adopted their peculiar phraseology. +People were surprised at the time, but I think it would +have been still more surprising if she had not joined them. +J. J. Gurney, in one of his letters, somewhat magnificently +describes Mrs. Opie as offering up her many talents and +accomplishments a brilliant sacrifice to her new-found persuasions. +'Illustrations of Lying,' moral anecdotes on the +borderland of imagination, are all that she is henceforth +allowed. 'I am bound in a degree not to invent a story, +because when I became a Friend it was required of me not +to do so,' she writes to Miss Mitford, who had asked her to +contribute to an annual. Miss Mitford's description of +Mrs. Opie, 'Quakerised all over, and calling Mr. Haydon +'Friend Benjamin,' is amusing enough; and so also is the +account of the visiting card she had printed after she became +a Quaker, with 'Amelia Opie,' without any prefix, as is the +Quaker way; also, as is not their way, with a wreath of +embossed pink roses surrounding the name. There is +an account of Mrs. Opie published in the 'Edinburgh +Review,' in a delightful article entitled the 'Worthies of +Norwich,' which brings one almost into her very presence.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Amelia Opie at the end of the last century and Amelia +Opie in the garb and with the speech of a member of the +Society of Friends sounds like two separate personages, but no +one who recollects the gay little songs which at seventy she +used to sing with lively gesture, the fragments of drama to +which, with the zest of an innate actress, she occasionally +treated her young friends, or the elaborate faultlessness of her +appearance—the shining folds and long train of her pale satin +draperies, the high, transparent cap, the crisp fichu crossed +over the breast, which set off to advantage the charming little +plump figure with its rounded lines—could fail to recognise the +same characteristics which sparkled about the wearer of the +pink calico domino in which she frolicked incognito 'till she +was tired' at a ball given by the Duke of Wellington in 1814, +or of the eight blue feathers which crowned the waving tresses +of her flaxen hair as a bride.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Doctor Alderson died in October 1825, and Mrs. Opie was +left alone. She was very forlorn when her father died. +She had no close ties to carry her on peacefully from middle +age to the end of life. The great break had come; she was +miserable, and, as mourners do, she falls upon herself and +beats her breast. All through these sad years her friends +at Northrepps and at Earlham were her chief help and +consolation. As time passed her deep sorrow was calmed, +when peaceful memories had succeeded to the keen anguish +of her good old father's loss. She must have suffered +deeply; she tried hard to be brave, but her courage failed +her at times: she tried hard to do her duty; and her +kindness and charity were unfailing, for she was herself +still, although so unhappy. Her journals are pathetic in +their humility and self-reproaches for imaginary omissions. +She is lonely; out of heart, out of hope. 'I am so dissatisfied +with myself that I hardly dare ask or expect a +blessing upon my labours,' she says; and long lists of kind +and fatiguing offices, of visits to sick people and poor people, +to workhouses and prisons, are interspersed with expressions +of self-blame.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>The writer can remember as a child speculating as she +watched the straight-cut figure of a Quaker lady standing +in the deep window of an old mansion that overlooked the +Luxembourg Gardens at Paris, with all their perfume and +blooming scent of lilac and sweet echoes of children, while +the quiet figure stood looking down upon it all from—to a +child—such an immeasurable distance. As one grows older +one becomes more used to garbs of different fashions and +cut, and one can believe in present sunlight and the scent +of flowering trees and the happy sound of children's voices +going straight to living hearts beneath their several disguises, +and Mrs. Opie, notwithstanding her Quaker dress, +loved bright colours and gay sunlight. She was one of those +who gladly made life happy for others, who naturally turned +to bright and happy things herself. When at last she began +to recover from the blow which had fallen so heavily upon +her she went from Norwich to the Lakes and Fells for refreshment, +and then to Cornwall, and among its green seas +and softly clothed cliffs she found good friends (as most +people do who go to that kind and hospitable county), and +her husband's relations, who welcomed her kindly. As she +recovered by degrees she began to see something of her old +companions. She went to London to attend the May meetings +of the Society, and I heard an anecdote not long ago +which must have occurred on some one of these later visits +there.</p> + +<p>One day when some people were sitting at breakfast at +Samuel Rogers's, and talking as people do who belong to +the agreeable classes, the conversation happened to turn +upon the affection of a father for his only child, when an +elderly lady who had been sitting at the table, and who +was remarkable for her Quaker dress, her frills and spotless +folds, her calm and striking appearance, started up suddenly, +burst into a passion of tears, and had to be led sobbing +out of the room. She did not return, and the lady who +remembers the incident, herself a young bride at the time, +told me it made all the more impression upon her at the time +because she was told that the Quaker lady was Mrs. Opie. +My friend was just beginning her life. Mrs. Opie must +have been ending hers. It is not often that women, when +youth is long past, shed sudden and passionate tears of mere +emotion, nor perhaps would a Quaker, trained from early +childhood to calm moods and calm expressions, have been +so suddenly overpoweringly affected; but Mrs. Opie was no +born daughter of the community, she was excitable and +impulsive to the last. I have heard a lady who knew her +well describe her, late in life, laughing heartily and impetuously +thrusting a somewhat starched-up Friend into a deep +arm-chair exclaiming, 'I will hurl thee into the bottomless +pit.'</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>X.</b> +</p> +</div> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">At sight of thee, O Tricolor,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">I seem to feel youth's hours return,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">The loved, the lost!</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>So writes Mrs. Opie at the age of sixty, reviving, +delighting, as she catches sight of her beloved Paris once +more, and breathes its clear and life-giving air, and looks +out across its gardens and glittering gables and spires, and +again meets her French acquaintances, and throws herself +into their arms and into their interests with all her old +warmth and excitability. The little grey bonnet only gives +certain incongruous piquancy to her pleasant, kind-hearted +exuberance. She returns to England, but far-away echoes +reach her soon of changes and revolutions concerning all +the people for whom her regard is so warm. In August, +1830, came the news of a new revolution—'The Chamber +of Deputies dissolved for ever; the liberty of the press +abolished; king, ministers, court, and ambassadors flying +from Paris to Vincennes; cannon planted against the city; +5,000 people killed, and the Rue de Rivoli running with +blood.' No wonder such rumours stirred and overwhelmed +the staunch but excitable lady. 'You will readily believe +how anxious, interested, and excited I feel,' she says; and +then she goes on to speak of Lafayette, 'miraculously preserved +through two revolutions, and in chains and in a +dungeon, now the leading mind in another conflict, and +lifting not only an armed but a restraining hand in a third +revolution.'</p> + +<p>Her heart was with her French friends and intimates, +and though she kept silence she was not the less determined +to follow its leading, and, without announcing her +intention, she started off from Norwich and, after travelling +without intermission, once more arrived in her +beloved city. But what was become of the Revolution? +'Paris seemed as bright and peaceful as I had seen it +thirteen months ago! The people, the busy people +passing to and fro, and soldiers, omnibuses, cabriolets, +citadenes, carts, horsemen hurrying along the Rue de +Rivoli, while foot passengers were crossing the gardens, or +loungers were sitting on its benches to enjoy the beauty +of the May-November.' She describes two men crossing +the Place Royale singing a national song, the result of the +Revolution:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="left">Pour briser leurs masses profondes,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">Qui conduit nos drapeaux sanglants,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">C'est la Liberté de deux mondes,</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">C'est Lafayette en cheveux blancs.</td></tr> + </table> +</div> + +<p>Mrs. Opie was full of enthusiasm for noble Lafayette +surveying his court of turbulent intrigue and shifting +politics; for Cuvier in his own realm, among more +tranquil laws, less mutable decrees. She should have +been born a Frenchwoman, to play a real and brilliant +part among all these scenes and people, instead of only +looking on. Something stirred in her veins too eager and +bubbling for an Englishwoman's scant share of life and +outward events. No wonder that her friends at Norwich +were anxious, and urged her to return. They heard of +her living in the midst of excitement, of admiration, and +with persons of a different religion and way of thinking to +themselves. Their warning admonitions carried their +weight; that little Quaker bonnet which she took so much +care of was a talisman, drawing the most friendly of +Friends away from the place of her adoption. But she +came back unchanged to her home, to her quiet associations; +she had lost none of her spirits, none, of her cheerful +interest in her natural surroundings. As life burnt on +her kind soul seemed to shine more and more brightly. +Every one came to see her, to be cheered and warmed by +her genial spirit. She loved flowers, of which her room +was full. She had a sort of passion for prisms, says her +biographer; she had several set in a frame and mounted +like a screen, and the colour flew about the little room. +She kept up a great correspondence; she was never tired +of writing, though the letters on other people's business +were apt to prove a serious burden at times. But she lives +on only to be of use. 'Take care of indulging in little +selfishnesses,' she writes in her diary; 'learn to consider +others in trifles: the mind so disciplined will find it easier +to fulfil the greater duties, and the character will not +exhibit that trying inconsistency which one sees in great +and often in pious persons.' Her health fails, but not her +courage. She goes up to London for the last time to her +cousin's house. She is interested in all the people she +meets, in their wants and necessities, in the events of the +time. She returns home, contented with all; with the +house which she feels so 'desirable to die in,' with her +window through which she can view the woods and rising +ground of Thorpe. 'My prisms to-day are quite in their +glory,' she writes; 'the atmosphere must be very clear, +for the radiance is brighter than ever I saw it before;' and +then she wonders whether the mansions in heaven will be +draped in such brightness; and so to the last the gentle, +bright, <i>rainbow </i>lady remained surrounded by kind and +smiling faces, by pictures, by flowers, and with the light +of her favourite prismatic colours shining round about the +couch on which she lay.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="JANE_AUSTEN" id="JANE_AUSTEN"></a><i>JANE AUSTEN.</i></h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent">1775-1817.<br /> +</p> +</div> +<blockquote> +<p>'A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes +originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de différence entre +les hommes.'—<span class="smallcaps">Pascal.</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>I.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>'I did not know that you were a studier of character,' +says Bingley to Elizabeth. 'It must be an amusing study.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, but intricate characters are the most amusing. +They have at least that advantage.'</p> + +<p>'The country,' said Darcy, 'can in general supply but +few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood +you move in a very confined and unvarying society.'</p> + +<p>'But people themselves alter so much,' Elizabeth +answers, 'that there is something new to be observed in +them for ever.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, indeed,' cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by Darcy's +manner of mentioning a country neighbourhood; 'I assure +you that we have quite as much of <i>that</i> going on in the +country as in town.'</p> + +<p>'Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at +her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who +fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued +her triumph.'</p> + +<p>These people belong to a whole world of familiar +acquaintances, who are, notwithstanding their old-fashioned +dresses and quaint expressions, more alive to us than +a great many of the people among whom we live. We +know so much more about them to begin with. Notwithstanding +a certain reticence and self-control which seems +to belong to their age, and with all their quaint dresses, +and ceremonies, and manners, the ladies and gentlemen in +'Pride and Prejudice' and its companion novels seem like +living people out of our own acquaintance transported +bodily into a bygone age, represented in the half-dozen +books that contain Jane Austen's works. Dear books! +bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in which the +homely heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very +bores are enchanting.</p> + +<p>Could we but study our own bores as Miss Austen must +have studied hers in her country village, what a delightful +world this might be!—a world of Norris's economical great +walkers, with dining-room tables to dispose of; of Lady +Bertrams on sofas, with their placid 'Do not act anything +improper, my dears; Sir Thomas would not like it;' of +Bennets, Goddards, Bates's; of Mr. Collins's; of Rushbrooks, +with two-and-forty speeches apiece—a world of +Mrs. Eltons…. Inimitable woman! she must be alive +at this very moment, if we but knew where to find her, +her basket on her arm, her nods and all-importance, with +Maple Grove and the Sucklings in the background. She +would be much excited were she aware how she is esteemed +by a late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is well acquainted +with Maple Grove and Selina too. It might +console her for Mr. Knightly's shabby marriage.</p> + +<p>All these people nearly start out of the pages, so natural +and unaffected are they, and yet they never lived except in +the imagination of one lady with bright eyes, who sat +down some seventy years ago to an old mahogany desk in +a quiet country parlour, and evoked them for us. One +seems to see the picture of the unknown friend who has +charmed us so long—charmed away dull hours, created +neighbours and companions for us in lonely places, conferring +happiness and harmless mirth upon generations +to come. One can picture her as she sits erect, with her +long and graceful figure, her full round face, her bright +eyes cast down,—Jane Austen, 'the woman of whom +England is justly proud'—whose method generous +Macaulay has placed near Shakespeare. She is writing +in secret, putting away her work when visitors come +in, unconscious, modest, hidden at home in heart, as +she was in her sweet and womanly life, with the wisdom +of the serpent indeed and the harmlessness of a +dove.</p> + +<p>Some one said just now that many people seem to be so +proud of seeing a joke at all, that they impress it upon you +until you are perfectly wearied by it. Jane Austen was not +of these; her humour flows gentle and spontaneous; it is +no elaborate mechanism nor artificial fountain, but a bright +natural stream, rippling and trickling over every stone and +sparkling in the sunshine. We should be surprised now-a-days +to hear a young lady announce herself as a studier of +character. From her quiet home in the country lane this +one reads to us a real page from the absorbing pathetic +humorous book of human nature—a book that we can +most of us understand when it is translated into plain +English; but of which the quaint and illegible characters +are often difficult to decipher for ourselves. It is a study +which, with all respect for Darcy's opinion, must require +something of country-like calm and concentration and +freedom of mind. It is difficult, for instance, for a too +impulsive student not to attribute something of his own +moods to his specimens instead of dispassionately contemplating +them from a critical distance.</p> + +<p>Besides the natural fun and wit and life of her +characters, 'all perfectly discriminated,' as Macaulay says, +Jane Austen has the gift of telling a story in a way that +has never been surpassed. She rules her places, times, +characters, and marshals them with unerring precision. +In her special gift for organisation she seems almost unequalled. +Her picnics are models for all future and past +picnics; her combinations of feelings, of conversation, of +gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and lifelike that reading +to criticise is impossible to some of us—the scene carries +us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is +recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events +group themselves so vividly and naturally in her mind +that, in describing imaginary scenes, we seem not only to +read them, but to live them, to see the people coming and +going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the +ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them +talking to one another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; +as in real life days and events follow one another. Last +Tuesday does not suddenly start into existence all out of +place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when we are +well on in '21. Countries and continents do not fly from +hero to hero, nor do long and divergent adventures happen +to unimportant members of the company. With Jane +Austen days, hours, minutes succeed each other like clockwork, +one central figure is always present on the scene, that +figure is always prepared for company. Miss Edwards's +curl-papers are almost the only approach to dishabille in +her stories. There are postchaises in readiness to convey +the characters from Bath or Lyme to Uppercross, to +Fullerton, from Gracechurch Street to Meryton, as their +business takes them. Mr. Knightly rides from Brunswick +Square to Hartfield, by a road that Miss Austen herself +must have travelled in the curricle with her brother, driving +to London on a summer's day. It was a wet ride for Mr. +Knightly, followed by that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon +in the shrubbery, when the wind had changed into a +softer quarter, the clouds were carried off, and Emma, +walking in the sunshine, with spirits freshened and +thoughts a little relieved, and thinking of Mr. Knightly +as sixteen miles away, meets him at the garden door; and +everybody, I think, must be the happier, for the happiness +and certainty that one half-hour gave to Emma and her +'indifferent' lover.</p> + +<p>There is a little extract from one of Miss Austen's +letters to a niece, which shows that all this successful +organisation was not brought about by chance alone, but +came from careful workmanship.</p> + +<p>'Your aunt C.,' she says, 'does not like desultory +novels, and is rather fearful that yours will be too much +so—that there will be too frequent a change from one set +of people to another, and that circumstances will be sometimes +introduced of apparent consequence, which will lead +to nothing. It will not be so great an objection to me. +I allow much more latitude than she does, and think nature +and spirit cover many sins of a wandering story….'</p> + +<p>But, though the sins of a wandering story may be +covered, the virtues of a well-told one make themselves +felt unconsciously, and without an effort. Some books +and people are delightful, we can scarce tell why; they are +not so clever as others that weary and fatigue us. It is a +certain effort to read a story, however touching, that is +disconnected and badly related. It is like an ill-drawn +picture, of which the colouring is good. Jane Austen +possessed both gifts of colour and of drawing. She could +see human nature as it was; with near-sighted eyes, it is +true; but having seen, she could combine her picture by +her art, and colour it from life. How delightful the people +are who play at cards, and pay their addresses to one +another, and sup, and discuss each other's affairs! Take +Mr. Bennet's reception of his sons-in-law. Take Sir +Walter Elliot compassionating the navy and Admiral +Baldwin—'nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a +dab of powder at top—a wretched example of what a seafaring +life can do, for men who are exposed to every climate +and weather until they are not fit to be seen. It is a pity +they are not knocked on the head at once, before they +reach Admiral Baldwin's age….' Or shall we quote the +scene of Fanny Price's return when she comes to visit +her family at Portsmouth; in all daughterly agitation and +excitement, and the brother's and father's and sister's reception +of her…. 'A stare or two at Fanny was all the +voluntary notice that her brother bestowed, but he made +no objection to her kissing him, though still entirely +engaged in detailing further particulars of the "Thrush's" +going out of harbour, in which he had a strong right of +interest, being about to commence his career of seamanship +in her at this very time. After the mother and daughter +have received her, Fanny's seafaring father comes in, and +does not notice her at first in his excitement. "Captain +Walsh thinks you will certainly have a cruise to the westward +with the 'Elephant' by —— I wish you may. But +old Scholey was saying just now that he thought you would +be sent first to the 'Texel.' Well, well, we are ready whatever +happens. But by —— you lost a fine sight by not +being here in the morning to see the 'Thrush' go out of +harbour. I would not have been out of the way for a +thousand pounds. Old Scholey ran in at breakfast time to +say she had slipped her moorings and was coming out. I +jumped up and made but two steps to the platform. If +ever there was a perfect beauty afloat she is one; and +there she lies at Spithead, and anybody in England would +take her for an eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform +for two hours this afternoon looking at her. She lies +close to the 'Endymion,' between her and the 'Cleopatra,' +just to the eastward of the sheer hulk."'</p> + +<p>'"Ha!" cried William, "<i>that's</i> just where I should +have put her myself. It's the best berth in Spithead. But +here is my sister, sir; here is Fanny, turning and leading +her forward—it is so dark you do not see her."'</p> + +<p>'With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot +her, Mr. Price now received his daughter, and having given +her a cordial hug and observed that she was grown into a +woman and he supposed would be wanting a husband soon, +seemed very much inclined to forget her again.'</p> + +<p>How admirably it is all told! how we hear them all +talking!</p> + +<p>From her own brothers Jane Austen learned her +accurate knowledge of ships and seafaring things, from +her own observation she must have gathered her delightful +droll science of men and women and their ways and various +destinations. Who will not recognise Mrs. Norris in that +master-touch by which she removes the curtain to save Sir +Thomas's feelings, that curtain which had been prepared +for the private theatricals he so greatly disapproved of? +Mrs. Norris thoughtfully carries it off to her cottage, where +she happened to be particularly in want of green baize.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>II.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>The charm of friends of pen-and-ink is their unchangeableness. +We go to them when we want them. We +know where to seek them; we know what to expect from +them. They are never preoccupied; they are always +'at home;' they never turn their backs nor walk away as +people do in real life, nor let their houses and leave the +neighbourhood, and disappear for weeks together; they +are never taken up with strange people, nor suddenly +absorbed into some more genteel society, or by some +nearer fancy. Even the most volatile among them is to +be counted upon. We may have neglected them, and yet +when we meet again there are the familiar old friends, +and we seem to find our own old selves again in their +company. For us time has, perhaps, passed away; feelings +have swept by, leaving interests and recollections in their +place; but at all ages there must be days that belong to +our youth, hours that will recur so long as men forbear +and women remember, and life itself exists. Perhaps the +most fashionable marriage on the <i>tapis</i> no longer excites +us very much, but the sentiment of an Emma or an Anne +Elliot comes home to some of us as vividly as ever. It is +something to have such old friends who are so young. An +Emma, blooming, without a wrinkle or a grey hair, after +twenty years' acquaintance; an Elizabeth Bennet, sprightly +and charming ever….</p> + +<p>In the 'Roundabout Papers' there is a passage about +the pen-and-ink friends my father loved:—</p> + +<p>'They used to call the good Sir Walter the "Wizard of +the North." What if some writer should appear who can +write so <i>enchantingly</i> that he shall be able to call into +actual life the people whom he invents? What if Mignon, +and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are alive now +(though I don't say they are visible), and Dugald Dalgetty +and Ivanhoe were to step in at that open window by the +little garden yonder? Suppose Uncas and our noble old +Leather Stocking were to glide in silent? Suppose Athos, +Porthos, and Aramis should enter, with a noiseless swagger, +curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on +Uncle Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse with his hair +dyed green; and all the Crummles company of comedians, +with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Roger de Coverley; and +the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La +Mancha, with his blessed squire? I say to you, I look +rather wistfully towards the window, musing upon these +people. Were any of them to enter, I think I should not +be very much frightened….'</p> + +<p>Are not such friends as these, and others unnamed here, +but who will come unannounced to join the goodly company, +creations that, like some people, do actually make part of +our existence, and make us the better for theirs? To +express some vague feelings is to stamp them. Have we +any one of us a friend in a Knight of La Mancha, a +Colonel Newcome, a Sir Roger de Coverley? They live +for us even though they may have never lived. They are, +and do actually make part of our lives, one of the best and +noblest parts. To love them is like a direct communication +with the great and generous minds that conceived +them.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p>It is difficult, reading the novels of succeeding generations, +to determine how much each book reflects of the +time in which it was written; how much of its character +depends upon the mind and the mood of the writer. The +greatest minds, the most original, have the least stamp of +the age, the most of that dominant natural reality which +belongs to all great minds. We know how a landscape +changes as the day goes on, and how the scene brightens +and gains in beauty as the shadows begin to lengthen. +The clearest eyes must see by the light of their own hour. +Jane Austen's literary hour must have been a midday hour: +bright, unsuggestive, with objects standing clear, without +much shadow or elaborate artistic effect. Our own age +is more essentially an age of strained emotion, little +remains to us of starch, or powder, or courtly reserve. +What we have lost in calm, in happiness, in tranquillity, +we have gained in emphasis. Our danger is now, not of +expressing and feeling too little, but of expressing more +than we feel.</p> + +<p>The living writers of to-day lead us into distant realms +and worlds undreamt of in the placid and easily contented +gigot age. Our characters travel by rail and are no longer +confined to postchaises. There is certainly a wide difference +between Miss Austen's heroines and, let us say, a +Maggie Tulliver. One would be curious to know whether, +between the human beings who read Jane Austen's books +to-day and those who read them fifty years ago, there is as +great a contrast. One reason may be, perhaps, that characters +in novels are certainly more intimate with us and +on less ceremonious terms than in Jane Austen's days, +when heroines never gave up a certain gentle self-respect +and humour and hardness of heart in which some modern +types are a little wanting. Whatever happens they +could for the most part speak of quietly and without +bitterness. Love with them does not mean a passion so +much as an interest, deep, silent, not quite incompatible +with a secondary flirtation. Marianne Dashwood's tears +are evidently meant to be dried. Jane Bennet smiles, sighs +and makes excuses for Bingley's neglect. Emma passes +one disagreeable morning making up her mind to the +unnatural alliance between Mr. Knightly and Harriet +Smith. It was the spirit of the age, and, perhaps, one +not to be unenvied. It was not that Jane Austen herself +was incapable of understanding a deeper feeling. In the +last written page of her last written book, there is an +expression of the deepest and truest experience. Annie +Elliot's talk with Captain Benfield is the touching utterance +of a good woman's feelings. They are speaking of +men and of women's affections. 'You are always labouring +and toiling,' she says, 'exposed to every risk and hardship. +Your home, country, friends, all united; neither +time nor life to be called your own. It would be too hard, +indeed (with a faltering voice), if a woman's feelings were +to be added to all this.'</p> + +<p>Further on she says, eagerly: 'I hope I do justice to +all that is felt by you, and by those who resemble you. +God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful +feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. I should +deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true +attachment and constancy were known only by woman. +No! I believe you capable of everything good and great +in your married lives. I believe you equal to every +important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance so +long as—if I may be allowed the expression—so long as you +have an object; I mean while the woman you love lives +and lives for you. <i>All the privilege I claim for my own +sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not court it) +is that of loving longest when existence or when hope is +gone.</i>'</p> + +<p>She could not immediately have uttered another +sentence—her heart was too full, her breath too much +oppressed.</p> + +<p>Dear Anne Elliot!—sweet, impulsive, womanly, tender-hearted—one +can almost hear her voice, pleading the +cause of all true women. In those days when, perhaps, +people's nerves were stronger than they are now, sentiment +may have existed in a less degree, or have been more ruled +by judgment, it may have been calmer and more matter-of-fact; +and yet Jane Austen, at the very end of her life, +wrote thus. Her words seem to ring in our ears after +they have been spoken. Anne Elliot must have been +Jane Austen herself, speaking for the last time. There is +something so true, so womanly about her, that it is impossible +not to love her most of all. She is the bright-eyed +heroine of the earlier novels, matured, softened, +cultivated, to whom fidelity has brought only greater depth +and sweetness instead of bitterness and pain.</p> + +<p>What a difficult thing it would be to sit down and try to +enumerate the different influences by which our lives have +been affected—influences of other lives, of art, of nature, of +place and circumstance,—of beautiful sights passing before +our eyes, or painful ones: seasons following in their +course—hills rising on our horizons—scenes of ruin and +desolation—crowded thoroughfares—sounds in our ears, +jarring or harmonious—the voices of friends, calling, +warning, encouraging—of preachers preaching—of people +in the street below, complaining, and asking our pity! +What long processions of human beings are passing before +us! What trains of thought go sweeping through our +brains! Man seems a strange and ill-kept record of many +and bewildering experiences. Looking at oneself—not as +oneself, but as an abstract human being—one is lost in +wonder at the vast complexities which have been brought +to bear upon it; lost in wonder, and in disappointment +perhaps, at the discordant result of so great a harmony. +Only we know that the whole diapason is beyond our +grasp: one man cannot hear the note of the grasshoppers, +another is deaf when the cannon sounds. Waiting among +these many echoes and mysteries of every kind, and light +and darkness, and life and death, we seize a note or two of +the great symphony, and try to sing; and because these +notes happen to jar, we think all is discordant hopelessness. +Then come pressing onward in the crowd of life, +voices with some of the notes that are wanting to our +own part—voices tuned to the same key as our own, or to +an accordant one; making harmony for us as they pass us +by. Perhaps this is in life the happiest of all experience, +and to few of us there exists any more complete +ideal.</p> + +<p>And so now and then in our lives, when we learn to +love a sweet and noble character, we all feel happier and +better for the goodness and charity which is not ours, and +yet which seems to belong to us while we are near it. +Just as some people and states of mind affect us uncomfortably, +so we seem to be true to ourselves with a +truthful person, generous-minded with a generous nature; +life seems less disappointing and self-seeking when we +think of the just and sweet and unselfish spirits, moving +untroubled among dinning and distracting influences. +These are our friends in the best and noblest sense. We +are the happier for their existence,—it is so much gain +to us. They may have lived at some distant time, we +may never have met face to face, or we may have known +them and been blessed by their love; but their light +shines from afar, their life is for us and with us in +its generous example; their song is for our ears, and we +hear it and love it still, though the singer may be lying +dead.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>III.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>A little book, written by one of Jane Austen's nephews, +tells with a touching directness and simplicity the story +of this good and gifted woman, whose name has long +been a household word among us, but of whose history +nothing was known until this little volume appeared. +It is but the story of a country lady, of quiet days following +quiet days of seasons in their course of common events; +and yet the history is deeply interesting to those who +loved the writer of whom it is written; and as we turn +from the story of Jane Austen's life to her books again, we +feel more than ever that she, too, was one of those true +friends who belong to us inalienably—simple, wise, contented, +living in others, one of those whom we seem to +have a right to love. Such people belong to all humankind +by the very right of their wide and generous sympathies, +of their gentle wisdom and loveableness. Jane +Austen's life, as it is told by Mr. Austen Legh, is very +touching, sweet, and peaceful. It is a country landscape, +where the cattle are grazing, the boughs of the great elm-tree +rocking in the wind: sometimes, as we read, they +come falling with a crash into the sweep; birds are flying +about the old house, homely in its simple rule. The +rafters cross the whitewashed ceilings, the beams project +into the room below. We can see it all: the parlour with +the horsehair sofa, the scant, quaint furniture, the old-fashioned +garden outside, with its flowers and vegetables +combined, and along the south side of the garden the +green terrace sloping away.</p> + +<p>There is a pretty description of the sisters' devotion to +one another (when Cassandra went to school little Jane +accompanied her, the sisters could not be parted), of the +family party, of the old place, 'where there are hedgerows +winding, with green shady footpaths within the copse; +where the earliest primroses and hyacinths are found.' +There is the wood-walk, with its rustic seats, leading to +the meadows; the church-walk leading to the church, +'which is far from the hum of the village, and within +sight of no habitation, except a glimpse of the grey manor-house +through its circling screen of sycamores. Sweet +violets, both purple and white, grow in abundance beneath +its south wall. Large elms protrude their rough branches, +old hawthorns shed their blossoms over the graves, and +the hollow yew-tree must be at least coëval with the +church.'</p> + +<p>One may read the account of Catherine Morland's +home with new interest, from the hint which is given of +its likeness to the old house at Steventon, where dwelt the +unknown friend whose voice we seem to hear at last, and +whose face we seem to recognise, her bright eyes and +brown curly hair, her quick and graceful figure. One can +picture the children who are playing at the door of the +old parsonage, and calling for Aunt Jane. One can +imagine her pretty ways with them, her sympathy for the +active, their games and imaginations. There is Cassandra. +She is older than her sister, more critical, more beautiful, +more reserved. There is the mother of the family, with +her keen wit and clear mind; the handsome father—'the +handsome proctor,' as he was called; the five brothers, +driving up the lane. Tranquil summer passes by, the +winter days go by; the young lady still sits writing at +the old mahogany desk, and smiling, perhaps, at her own +fancies, and hiding them away with her papers at the +sound of coming steps. Now, the modest papers, printed +and reprinted, lie in every hand, the fancies disport +themselves at their will in the wisest brains and the most +foolish.</p> + +<p>It must have been at Steventon—Jane Austen's earliest +home—that Mr. Collins first made his appearance (Lady +Catherine not objecting, as we know, to his occasional +absence on a Sunday, provided another clergyman was +engaged to do the duty of the day), and here, conversing +with Miss Jane, that he must have made many of his profoundest +observations upon human nature; remarking, +among other things, that resignation is never so perfect +as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its +value in our estimation, and propounding his celebrated +theory about the usual practice of elegant females. It +must have been here, too, that poor Mrs. Bennet declared, +with some justice, that once estates are entailed, one can +never tell how they will go; here, too, that Mrs. Allen's +sprigged muslin and John Thorpe's rodomontades were +woven; that his gig was built, 'curricle-hung lamps, +seat, trunk, sword-case, splashboard, silver moulding, all, +you see, complete. The ironwork as good as new, or +better. He asked fifty guineas…. I closed with +him directly, threw down the money, and the carriage was +mine.'</p> + +<p>'And I am sure,' said Catherine, 'I know so little of +such things, that I cannot judge whether it was cheap or +dear.'</p> + +<p>'Neither the one nor the other,' says John Thorpe.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Palmer was also born at Steventon—that good-humoured +lady in 'Sense and Sensibility,' who thinks it +so ridiculous that her husband never hears her when she +speaks to him. We are told that Marianne and Ellinor +have been supposed to represent Cassandra and Jane +Austen; but Mr. Austen Legh says that he can trace no +resemblance. Jane Austen is not twenty when this book +is written, and only twenty-one when 'Pride and Prejudice' +is first devised.</p> + +<p>Cousins presently come on the scene, and amongst +them the romantic figure of a young, widowed Comtesse +de Feuillade, flying from the Revolution to her uncle's +home. She is described as a clever and accomplished +woman, interested in her young cousins, teaching them +French (both Jane and Cassandra knew French), helping +in their various schemes, in their theatricals in the barn. +She eventually marries her cousin, Henry Austen. The +simple family annals are not without their romance; but +there is a cruel one for poor Cassandra, whose lover dies +abroad, and his death saddens the whole family-party. Jane, +too, 'receives the addresses' (do such things as addresses +exist nowadays?) 'of a gentleman possessed of good character +and fortune, and of everything, in short, except the +subtle power of touching her heart.' One cannot help +wondering whether this was a Henry Crawford or an Elton +or a Mr. Elliot, or had Jane already seen the person +that even Cassandra thought good enough for her sister?</p> + +<p>Here, too, is another sorrowful story. The sisters' fate +(there is a sad coincidence and similarity in it) was to be +undivided; their life, their experience was the same. Some +one without a name takes leave of Jane one day, promising +to come back. He never comes back: long afterwards +they hear of his death. The story seems even sadder than +Cassandra's in its silence and uncertainty, for silence and +uncertainty are death in life to some people….</p> + +<p>There is little trace of such a tragedy in Jane Austen's +books—not one morbid word is to be found, not one vain +regret. Hers was not a nature to fall crushed by the +overthrow of one phase of her manifold life. She seems +to have had a natural genius for life, if I may so speak; +too vivid and genuinely unselfish to fail her in her need. +She could gather every flower, every brightness along her +road. Good spirit, content, all the interests of a happy +and observant nature were hers. Her gentle humour and +wit and interest cannot have failed.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to calculate the difference of the grasp +by which one or another human being realises existence +and the things relating to it, nor how much more vivid life +seems to some than to others. Jane Austen, while her +existence lasted, realised it, and made the best use of the +gifts that were hers. Yet, when her life was ending, then +it was given to her to understand the change that was at +hand; as willingly as she had lived, she died. Some +people seem scarcely to rise up to their own work, to their +own ideal. Jane Austen's life, as it is told by her nephew, +is beyond her work, which only contained one phase of +that sweet and wise nature—the creative, observant, outward +phase. For her home, for her sister, for her friends, +she kept the depth and tenderness of her bright and +gentle sympathy. She is described as busy with her neat +and clever fingers sewing for the poor, working fanciful +keepsakes for her friends. There is the cup and ball that +she never failed to catch; the spillikens lie in an even +ring where she had thrown them; there are her letters, +straightly and neatly folded, and fitting smoothly in their +creases. There is something sweet, orderly, and consistent +in her character and all her tastes—in her fondness for +Crabbe and Cowper, in her little joke that she ought to +be a Mrs. Crabbe. She sings of an evening old ballads to +old-fashioned tunes with a low sweet voice.</p> + +<p>Further on we have a glimpse of Jane and her sister in +their mobcaps, young still, but dressed soberly beyond +their years. One can imagine 'Aunt Jane,' with her +brother's children round her knee, telling her delightful +stories or listening to theirs, with never-failing sympathy. +One can fancy Cassandra, who does not like desultory +novels, more prudent and more reserved, and somewhat +less of a playfellow, looking down upon the group with +elder sister's eyes.</p> + +<p>Here is an extract from a letter written at Steventon +in 1800:—</p> + +<p>'I have two messages: let me get rid of them, and +then my paper will be my own. Mary fully intended +writing by Mr. Charles's frank, and only happened entirely +to forget it, but will write soon; and my father wishes +Edward to send him a memorandum of the price of hops.</p> + +<p class="right"><i>Sunday Evening.</i></p> + +<p>'We have had a dreadful storm of wind in the forepart +of the day, which has done a great deal of mischief +among our trees. I was sitting alone in the drawing-room +when an odd kind of crash startled me. In a moment +afterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window. +I reached it just in time to see the last of our two highly +valued elms descend into the sweep!!!</p> + +<p>'The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first +crash, and which was nearest to the pond, taking a more +easterly direction, sank among our screen of chestnuts and +firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, breaking off the head +of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts of +several branches in its fall. This is not all: the maple +bearing the weathercock was broken in two, and what I +regret more than all the rest is, that all the three elms that +grew in Hall's Meadow, and gave such ornament to it, are +gone.'</p> + +<p>A certain Mrs. Stent comes into one of these letters +'ejaculating some wonder about the cocks and hens.' Mrs. +Stent seems to have tried their patience, and will be known +henceforward as having bored Jane Austen.</p> + +<p>They leave Steventon when Jane is about twenty-five +years of age and go to Bath, from whence a couple of +pleasant letters are given us. Jane is writing to her sister. +She has visited Miss A., who, like all other young ladies, +is considerably genteeler than her parents. She is heartily +glad that Cassandra speaks so comfortably of her health +and looks: could travelling fifty miles produce such an +immediate change? 'You were looking poorly when you +were here, and everybody seemed sensible of it.' Is there +any charm in a hack postchaise? But if there were, Mrs. +Craven's carriage might have undone it all. Then Mrs. +Stent appears again. 'Poor Mrs. Stent, it has been her +lot to be always in the way; but we must be merciful, for +perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, +unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody.' Elsewhere +she writes, upon Mrs. ——'s mentioning that she +had sent the 'Rejected Addresses' to Mr. H., 'I began +talking to her a little about them, and expressed my hope +of their having amused her. Her answer was, "Oh dear, +yes, very much; very droll indeed; the opening of the +house and the striking up of the fiddles!" What she +meant, poor woman, who shall say?'</p> + +<p>But there is no malice in Jane Austen. Hers is the +charity of all clear minds, it is only the muddled who are +intolerant. All who love Emma and Mr. Knightly must +remember the touching little scene in which he reproves +her for her thoughtless impatience of poor Miss Bates's +volubility.</p> + +<p>'You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she +had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an +honour, to have you now, in thoughtless spirits and in the +pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her…. This +is not pleasant to you, Emma, and it is very far from +pleasant to me, but I must, I will, I will tell you truths +while I am satisfied with proving myself your friend by +very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time +or other do me greater justice than you can do me +now.'</p> + +<p>'While they talked they were advancing towards the +carriage: it was ready, and before she could speak again +he had handed her in. He had misinterpreted the feeling +which kept her face averted and her tongue motionless.' +Mr. Knightly's little sermon, in its old-fashioned English, +is as applicable now as it was when it was spoken. We +know that he was an especial favourite with Jane Austen.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><b>IV.</b></p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Austen died at Bath, and his family removed to +Southampton. In 1811, Mrs. Austen, her daughters, and +her niece, settled finally at Chawton, a house belonging to +Jane's brother, Mr. Knight (he was adopted by an uncle, +whose name he took), and from Chawton all her literary +work was given to the world. 'Sense and Sensibility,' +'Pride and Prejudice,' were already written; but in the +next five years, from thirty-five to forty, she set to work +seriously, and wrote 'Mansfield Park,' 'Emma,' and 'Persuasion.' +Any one who has written a book will know what +an amount of labour this represents…. One can picture +to oneself the little family scene which Jane describes +to Cassandra. 'Pride and Prejudice' just come down in a +parcel from town; the unsuspicious Miss B. to dinner; +and Jane and her mother setting to in the evening and +reading aloud half the first volume of a new novel sent down +by the brother. Unsuspicious Miss B. is delighted. Jane +complains of her mother's too rapid way of getting on; +'though she perfectly understands the characters herself, +she cannot speak as they ought. Upon the whole, however,' +she says, 'I am quite vain enough and well-satisfied +enough.' This is her own criticism of 'Pride and Prejudice':—'The +work is rather too light, and bright, and +sparkling. It wants shade. It wants to be stretched out +here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be +had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense about something +unconnected with the story—an essay on writing, a critique +on Walter Scott or the "History of Bonaparte."'</p> + +<p>And so Jane Austen lives quietly working at her labour +of love, interested in her 'own darling children's' success; +'the light of the home,' one of the real living children +says afterwards, speaking in the days when she was no +longer there. She goes to London once or twice. Once +she lives for some months in Hans Place, nursing a brother +through an illness. Here it was that she received some +little compliments and messages from the Prince Regent, +to whom she dedicated 'Emma.' He thanks her and acknowledges +the handsome volumes, and she laughs and +tells her publisher that at all events his share of the +offering is appreciated, whatever hers may be! We are +also favoured with some valuable suggestions from Mr. +Clarke, the Royal librarian, respecting a very remarkable +clergyman. He is anxious that Miss Austen should delineate +one who 'should pass his time between the metropolis +and the country, something like Beattie's minstrel, +entirely engaged in literature, and no man's enemy but +his own.' Failing to impress this character upon the +authoress, he makes a fresh suggestion, and proposes that +she should write a romance illustrative of the august house +of Coburg. 'It would be interesting,' he says, 'and very +properly dedicated to Prince Leopold.'</p> + +<p>To which the authoress replies: 'I could no more +write a romance than an epic poem. I could not seriously +sit down to write a romance under any other motive than +to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to +keep it up, and never relax into laughing at myself or +other people, I am sure I should be hung before the first +chapter.'</p> + +<p>There is a delightful collection of friends' suggestions +which she has put together, but which is too long to be +quoted here. She calls it, 'Plan of a Novel, as suggested +by various Friends.'</p> + +<p>All this time, while her fame is slowly growing, life +passes in the same way as in the old cottage at Chawton. +Aunt Jane, with her young face and her mob-cap, makes +play-houses for the children, helps them to dress up, +invents imaginary conversations for them, supposing that +they are all grown up, the day after a ball. One can +imagine how delightful a game that must have seemed to +the little girls. She built her nest, did this good woman, +happily weaving it out of shreds, and ends, and scraps of +daily duty, patiently put together; and it was from this +nest that she sang the song, bright and brilliant, with +quaint thrills and unexpected cadences, that reaches us +even here through near a century. The lesson her life +seems to teach us is this: Don't let us despise our nests—life +is as much made of minutes as of years; let us +complete the daily duties; let us patiently gather the +twigs and the little scraps of moss, of dried grass together, +and see the result!—a whole, completed and coherent, +beautiful even without the song.</p> + +<p>We come too soon to the story of her death. And yet +did it come too soon? A sweet life is not the sweeter for +being long. Jane Austen lived years enough to fulfil her +mission. She lived long enough to write six books that +were masterpieces in their way—to make a world the +happier for her industry.</p> + +<p>One cannot read the story of her latter days, of her +patience, her sweetness, and gratitude, without emotion. +There is family trouble, we are not told of what nature. +She falls ill. Her nieces find her in her dressing-gown, +like an invalid, in an arm-chair in her bedroom; but she +gets up and greets them, and, pointing to seats which had +been arranged for them by the fire, says: 'There is a +chair for the married lady, and a little stool for you, +Caroline.' But she is too weak to talk, and Cassandra +takes them away.</p> + +<p>At last they persuade her to go to Winchester, to a +well-known doctor there.</p> + +<p>'It distressed me,' she says, in one of her last, dying +letters, 'to see Uncle Henry and William Knight, who +kindly attended us, riding in the rain almost the whole +way. We expect a visit from them to-morrow, and hope +they will stay the night; and on Thursday, which is a +confirmation and a holiday, we hope to get Charles out to +breakfast. We have had but one visit from <i>him</i>, poor +fellow, as he is in the sick room…. God bless you, +dear E.; if ever you are ill, may you be as tenderly nursed +as I have been….'</p> + +<p>But nursing does not cure her, nor can the doctor save +her to them all, and she sinks from day to day. To the +end she is full of concern for others.</p> + +<p>'As for my dearest sister, my tender, watchful, indefatigable +nurse has not been made ill by her exertions,' +she writes. 'As to what I owe her, and the anxious +affection of all my beloved family on this occasion, I can +only cry over it, and pray God to bless them more and +more.'</p> + +<p>One can hardly read this last sentence with dry eyes. +It is her parting blessing and farewell to those she had +blessed all her life by her presence and her love—that +love which is beyond death; and of which the benediction +remains, not only spoken in words, but by the ever-present +signs and the tokens of those lifetimes which do not end +for us as long as we ourselves exist.</p> + +<p>They asked her when she was near her end if there +was anything she wanted.</p> + +<p>'Nothing but death,' she said. Those were her last +words. She died on the 18th of July, 1817, and was +buried in Winchester Cathedral, where she lies not unremembered.</p> +<p> </p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<p class="revind"><a name="fn1" id="fn1"></a><a href="#fn1r">1</a>: In a notice of Miss Seward in the <i>Annual Register</i>, just after her +death in 1809, the writer, who seems to have known her, says:—'Conscious +of ability, she freely displayed herself in a manner equally remote from +annoyance and affectation…. Her errors arose from a glowing +imagination joined to an excessive sensibility, cherished instead of +repressed by early habits. It is understood that she has left the whole +of her works to Mr. Scott, the northern poet, with a view to their publication +with her life and posthumous pieces.'</p> + +<p class="revind"><a name="fn2" id="fn2"></a><a href="#fn2r">2</a>: Mrs. Burke, hearing more of the circumstances, afterwards sent +permission; but Mrs. Leadbeater being a Quakeress, and having once +<i>promised</i> not to publish, could not take it upon herself to break her +covenant.</p> + +<p class="revind"><a name="fn3" id="fn3"></a><a href="#fn3r">3</a>: A touching illustration of her abiding influence is to be found cited +in an article in the <i>Daily News</i> of September 7, 1883, published as these +proofs are going to press, by 'One Who Knew' Ivan Turguéneff, that +great Russian whom we might almost claim if love and admiration gave +one a right to count citizenship with the great men of our time. An +elder brother of his knew Miss Edgeworth, perhaps at Abbotsford, for +he visited Walter Scott there, or at Coppet with Madame de Staël. +This man, wise and cultivated in all European literature, 'came to the +conclusion that Maria Edgeworth had struck on a vein from which +most of the great novelists of the future would exclusively work. She +took the world as she found it, and selected from it the materials that +she thought would be interesting to write about, in a clear and natural +style. It was Ivan Turguéneff himself who told me this, says the writer of +the article, and he modestly said that he was an unconscious disciple of +Miss Edgeworth in setting out on his literary career. He had not the +advantage of knowing English; but as a youth he used to hear his +brother translate to visitors at his country house in the Uralian Hills +passages from <i>Irish Tales and Sketches</i>, which he thought superior to +her three-volume novels. Turguéneff also said to me,"It is possible, nay +probable, that if Maria Edgeworth had not written about the poor Irish +of the co. Longford and the squires and squirees, that it would not have +occurred to me to give a literary form to my impressions about the classes +parallel to them in Russia. My brother used, in pointing out the +beauties of her unambitious works, to call attention to their extreme +simplicity and to the distinction with which she treated the simple +ones of the earth."'</p> + +<p class="revind"><a name="fn4" id="fn4"></a><a href="#fn4r">4</a>: And yet as I write I remember one indeed who is among us, whose +portrait a Reynolds or an Opie might have been glad to paint for the +generations who will love her works.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<table class="sm" border="0" style="background-color: #E6F6FA; margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="10" summary="NOTES"> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> + <div class="center">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE</div> + +<p class="noindent" style="background-color: #E6F6FA"> +Two instances of Bryon for <i>Byron</i> have been corrected. +The following additional changes have been made and can be identified +in the body of the text by a grey dotted underline:</p> +</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">A. I. R. (in dedication)</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">A. <i>T.</i> R.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">her sad and dimning life</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">her sad and <i>dimming</i> life</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">it was to her father hat</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">it was to her father <i>that</i></td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">who invited Mrs. Barbauld to become their minister</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">who invited <i>Mr.</i> Barbauld to become their minister</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">He was interrupted by her companion</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">He was interrupted by <i>his</i> companion</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">Mrs. Opie's description of her arrival reads a comment upon history.</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">Mrs. Opie's description of her arrival reads <i>like</i> a comment upon history.</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<h6>LONDON: PRINTED BY<br /> +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE<br /> +AND PARLIAMENT STREET</h6> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>MISS THACKERAY'S WORKS.</h2> + +<p class="center">A New and Uniform Edition; each Volume Illustrated with a Vignette Title-page +drawn by <span class="smallcaps">Arthur Hughes</span>, and Engraved by <span class="smallcaps">J. Cooper</span>.<br /> +<br /> +<small>Large crown 8vo. 6<i>s</i>.</small></p> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="list"> + <tr><td align="left">1.</td><td align="left">OLD KENSINGTON.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">2.</td><td align="left">THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">3.</td><td align="left">FIVE OLD FRIENDS AND A YOUNG PRINCE</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">4.</td><td align="left">TO ESTHER; and other Sketches.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">5.</td><td align="left">BLUEBEARD'S KEYS; and other Stories.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">6.</td><td align="left">THE STORY OF ELIZABETH; TWO HOURS; FROM AN ISLAND.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">7.</td><td align="left">TOILERS AND SPINSTERS; and other Essays.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">8.</td><td align="left">MISS ANGEL; FULHAM LAWN.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">9.</td><td align="left">MISS WILLIAMSON'S DIVAGATIONS.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<h5>NEW AND UNIFORM EDITION OF</h5> +<h2>MRS. 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MARY BARTON.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="left">Cousin Phillis—My French Master—The Old Nurse's Story—Bessy's Troubles at Home—Christmas +Storms and Sunshine.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="center"><span class="smallcaps">Vol.</span> VI. RUTH.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="left">The Grey Woman—Morton Hall—Mr. Harrison's Confessions—Hand and Heart.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="center"><span class="smallcaps">Vol.</span> VII. LIZZIE LEIGH.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="4" align="left">A Dark Night's Work—Round the Sofa—My Lady Ludlow—An Accursed Race—The Doom +of the Griffiths—Half a Lifetime Ago—The Poor Clare—The Half-Brothers.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<h5>ILLUSTRATED EDITIONS OF</h5> +<h2>POPULAR WORKS</h2> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><small>Handsomely bound in cloth gilt, each volume containing Four Illustrations.<br /> +Crown 8vo. 3<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i></small>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="list"> + <tr><td align="left">THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Anthony Trollope</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">FRAMLEY PARSONAGE.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Anthony Trollope</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">THE CLAVERINGS.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Anthony Trollope</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">TRANSFORMATION: a Romance.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Nathaniel Hawthorne</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">ROMANTIC TALES.</td><td align="left">By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.'</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">DOMESTIC STORIES.</td><td align="left">By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.'</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">NO NAME.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Wilkie Collins</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">ARMADALE.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Wilkie Collins</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">AFTER DARK.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Wilkie Collins</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">MAUD TALBOT.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Holme Lee</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">THE MOORS AND THE FENS.</td><td align="left">By Mrs. J. H. <span class="smallcaps">Riddell</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">WITHIN THE PRECINCTS.</td><td align="left">By Mrs.<span class="smallcaps">Oliphant</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">CARITÀ.</td><td align="left">By Mrs. <span class="smallcaps">Oliphant</span>.</td></tr> + <tr><td align="left">FOR PERCIVAL.</td><td align="left">By <span class="smallcaps">Margaret Veley</span>.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3>SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S ANNOUNCEMENTS,</h3> +<p> </p> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><i><small>NEW WORK by LIEUT.-COL. R. L. PLAYFAIR.</small></i></p> +</div> + +<p class="revind">The SCOURGE of CHRISTENDOM: Annals of British +Relations with Algiers prior to the French Conquest. With Illustrations of Ancient +Algiers from 1578 to 1824. By Lieut.-Col. R. L. <span class="smallcaps">Playfair</span>, H.B.M.'s Consul at +Algiers. Demy 8vo.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><i><small>NEW WORK by JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.</small></i></p> +</div> + +<p class="revind">SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS in the ENGLISH +DRAMA. By <span class="smallcaps">John Addington Symonds</span>, Author of 'The Renaissance in Italy' &c. +Demy 8vo.</p> + +<p class="revind">The MATTHEW ARNOLD BIRTHDAY BOOK. Arranged +by his Daughter, <span class="smallcaps">Eleanor Arnold</span>. Handsomely printed and bound in cloth, gilt +edges. With Photograph. Small 4to. 10<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><i><small>NEW VOLUME by MISS THACKERAY (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)</small>.</i> +</p> +</div> + +<p class="revind">A BOOK of SIBYLS: <span class="smallcaps">Mrs. Barbauld</span>—<span class="smallcaps">Miss Edgeworth</span>—<span class="smallcaps">Mrs. +Opie</span>—<span class="smallcaps">Miss Austen</span>. By Miss <span class="smallcaps">Thackeray</span> (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie). Essays +reprinted from the 'Cornhill Magazine.' Large crown 8vo. 7<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.</p> + +<p class="revind">MERV: a Story of Adventures and Captivity. Epitomised +from 'The Merv Oasis.' By <span class="smallcaps">Edmund O'Donovan</span>, Special Correspondent of the <i>Daily +News</i>. With a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 6<i>s</i>.</p> + +<p class="revind">MEMOIRS of LIFE and WORK. By <span class="smallcaps">Charles J. B. Williams</span>, +M.D., F.R.S., Physician Extraordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. With Original +Portraits. 8vo.</p> + +<p class="revind">The FIRST BOOK of EUCLID MADE EASY for +BEGINNERS. Arranged from 'The Elements of Euclid,' by <span class="smallcaps">Robert Simson</span>, M.D. +By <span class="smallcaps">William Howard</span>. With Unlettered Diagrams with Coloured Lines. 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Crown 8vo. 7<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><i><small>POPULAR EDITION, ABRIDGED, with a NEW PREFACE.</small></i> +</p> +</div> + +<p class="revind">LITERATURE and DOGMA. An Essay towards a Better +Comprehension of the Bible. By <span class="smallcaps">Matthew Arnold</span>. Crown 8vo. 2<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.</p> + +<p class="revind">The LIFE of LORD LAWRENCE. By R. <span class="smallcaps">Bosworth Smith</span>, +M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, Assistant Master at Harrow School, +Author of 'Mohammed and Mohammedanism,' 'Carthage and the Carthaginians,' &c. +Fifth Edition, 2 vols. 8vo. with 2 Portraits and 2 Maps, 36<i>s</i>.</p> + +<p class="revind">ANATOMY for ARTISTS. By <span class="smallcaps">John Marshall</span>, F.R.S., +F.R.C.S., Professor of Anatomy, Royal Academy of Arts; late Lecturer on Anatomy +at the Government School of Design, South Kensington; Professor of Surgery in +University College. Illustrated by 220 Original Drawings on Wood by J. S. Cuthbert, +engraved by George Nicholls & Co. Second Edition. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Book of Sibyls + Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen + +Author: Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie) + +Release Date: November 9, 2009 [EBook #30435] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF SIBYLS *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + +A BOOK OF SIBYLS + + + MRS BARBAULD MISS EDGEWORTH + + MRS OPIE MISS AUSTEN + + +BY + +MISS THACKERAY +(MRS RICHMOND RITCHIE) + + +LONDON +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE +1883 + +[_All rights reserved_] + +[_Reprinted from the Cornhill Magazine_] + + + + +_TO_ + +_MRS OLIPHANT_ + +_My little record would not seem to me in any way complete without your +name, dear Sibyl of our own, and as I write it here, I am grateful to +know that to mine and me it is not only the name of a Sibyl with deep +visions, but of a friend to us all._ +_A. T. R._ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Not long ago, a party of friends were sitting at luncheon in a suburb +of London, when one of them happened to make some reference to Maple +Grove and Selina, and to ask in what county of England Maple Grove was +situated. Everybody immediately had a theory. Only one of the company (a +French gentleman, not well acquainted with English) did not recognise +the allusion. A lady sitting by the master of the house (she will, I +hope, forgive me for quoting her words, for no one else has a better +right to speak them) said, 'What a curious sign it is of Jane Austen's +increasing popularity! Here are five out of six people sitting round a +table, nearly a hundred years after her death, who all recognise at once +a chance allusion to an obscure character in one of her books.' + +It seemed impossible to leave out Jane Austen's dear household name +from a volume which concerned women writing in the early part of this +century, and although the essay which is called by her name has already +been reprinted, it is added with some alteration in its place with the +others. + +Putting together this little book has been a great pleasure and interest +to the compiler, and she wishes once more to thank those who have so +kindly sheltered her during her work, and lent her books and papers +and letters concerning the four writers whose works and manner of being +she has attempted to describe; and she wishes specially to express +her thanks to the Baron and Baroness VON HUeGEL, to the ladies of Miss +Edgeworth's family, to Mr. HARRISON, of the London Library, to the Miss +REIDS, of Hampstead, to Mrs. FIELD and her daughters, of Squire's Mount, +Hampstead, to Lady BUXTON, Mrs. BROOKFIELD, Miss ALDERSON, and Miss +SHIRREFF. + + + + + CONTENTS. + PAGE + + MRS. BARBAULD [1743-1825] 1 + MARIA EDGEWORTH [1767-1849] 51 + MRS. OPIE [1769-1853] 149 + JANE AUSTEN [1775-1817] 197 + + + + +A BOOK OF SIBYLS. + + + + +_MRS. BARBAULD._ + + 1743-1825. + + 'I've heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.' + _Measure for Measure._ + + +I. + +'The first poetess I can recollect is Mrs. Barbauld, with whose works I +became acquainted--before those of any other author, male or female--when +I was learning to spell words of one syllable in her story-books for +children.' So says Hazlitt in his lectures on living poets. He goes on +to call her a very pretty poetess, strewing flowers of poesy as she +goes. + +The writer must needs, from the same point of view as Hazlitt, look upon +Mrs. Barbauld with a special interest, having also first learnt to read +out of her little yellow books, of which the syllables rise up one by +one again with a remembrance of the hand patiently pointing to each in +turn; all this recalled and revived after a lifetime by the sight of a +rusty iron gateway, behind which Mrs. Barbauld once lived, of some old +letters closely covered with a wavery writing, of a wide prospect that +she once delighted to look upon. Mrs. Barbauld, who loved to share her +pleasures, used to bring her friends to see the great view from the +Hampstead hill-top, and thus records their impressions:-- + +'I dragged Mrs. A. up as I did you, my dear, to our Prospect Walk, from +whence we have so extensive a view. + +'Yes,' said she, 'it is a very fine view indeed for a flat country.' + +'While, on the other hand, Mrs. B. gave us such a dismal account of the +precipices, mountains, and deserts she encountered, that you would have +thought she had been on the wildest part of the Alps.' + +The old Hampstead highroad, starting from the plain, winds its way +resolutely up the steep, and brings you past red-brick houses and +walled-in gardens to this noble outlook; to the heath, with its fresh, +inspiriting breezes, its lovely distances of far-off waters and gorsy +hollows. At whatever season, at whatever hour you come, you are pretty +sure to find one or two votaries--poets like Mrs. Barbauld, or commonplace +people such as her friends--watching before this great altar of nature; +whether by early morning rays, or in the blazing sunset, or when the +evening veils and mists with stars come falling, while the lights of +London shine far away in the valley. Years after Mrs. Barbauld wrote, +one man, pre-eminent amongst poets, used to stand upon this hill-top, +and lo! as Turner gazed, a whole generation gazed with him. For him +Italy gleamed from behind the crimson stems of the fir-trees; the spirit +of loveliest mythology floated upon the clouds, upon the many changing +tints of the plains; and, as the painter watched the lights upon the +distant hills, they sank into his soul, and he painted them down for us, +and poured his dreams into our awakening hearts. + +He was one of that race of giants, mighty men of humble heart, who have +looked from Hampstead and Highgate Hills. Here Wordsworth trod; here +sang Keats's nightingale; here mused Coleridge; and here came Carlyle, +only yesterday, tramping wearily, in search of some sign of his old +companions. Here, too, stood kind Walter Scott, under the elms of the +Judges' Walk, and perhaps Joanna Baillie was by his side, coming out +from her pretty old house beyond the trees. Besides all these, were a +whole company of lesser stars following and surrounding the brighter +planets--muses, memoirs, critics, poets, nymphs, authoresses--coming to +drink tea and to admire the pleasant suburban beauties of this modern +Parnassus. A record of many of their names is still to be found, +appropriately enough, in the catalogue of the little Hampstead library +which still exists, which was founded at a time when the very hands +that wrote the books may have placed the old volumes upon the shelves. +Present readers can study them at their leisure, to the clanking of the +horses' feet in the courtyard outside, and the splashing of buckets. +A few newspapers lie on the table--stray sheets of to-day that have +fluttered up the hill, bringing news of this bustling now into a past +serenity. The librarian sits stitching quietly in a window. An old lady +comes in to read the news; but she has forgotten her spectacles, and +soon goes away. Here, instead of asking for 'Vice Versa,' or Ouida's +last novel, you instinctively mention 'Plays of the Passions,' Miss +Burney's 'Evelina,' or some such novels; and Mrs. Barbauld's works are +also in their place. When I asked for them, two pretty old Quaker +volumes were put into my hands, with shabby grey bindings, with fine +paper and broad margins, such as Mr. Ruskin would approve. Of all +the inhabitants of this bookshelf Mrs. Barbauld is one of the most +appropriate. It is but a few minutes' walk from the library in Heath +Street to the old corner house in Church Row where she lived for a time, +near a hundred years ago, and all round about are the scenes of much of +her life, of her friendships and interests. Here lived her friends and +neighbours; here to Church Row came her pupils and admirers, and, later +still, to the pretty old house on Rosslyn Hill. As for Church Row, as +most people know, it is an avenue of Dutch red-faced houses, leading +demurely to the old church tower, that stands guarding its graves in the +flowery churchyard. As we came up the quiet place, the sweet windy drone +of the organ swelled across the blossoms of the spring, which were +lighting up every shabby corner and hillside garden. Through this +pleasant confusion of past and present, of spring-time scattering +blossoms upon the graves, of old ivy walks and iron bars imprisoning +past memories, with fragrant fumes of lilac and of elder, one could +picture to oneself, as in a waking dream, two figures advancing from the +corner house with the ivy walls--distinct, sedate--passing under the old +doorway. I could almost see the lady, carefully dressed in many fine +muslin folds and frills with hooped silk skirts, indeed, but slight +and graceful in her quick advance, with blue eyes, with delicate sharp +features, and a dazzling skin. As for the gentleman, I pictured him a +dapper figure, with dark eyes, dressed in black, as befitted a minister +even of dissenting views. The lady came forward, looking amused by my +scrutiny, somewhat shy I thought--was she going to speak? And by the +same token it seemed to me the gentleman was about to interrupt her. But +Margaret, my young companion, laughed and opened an umbrella, or a cock +crew, or some door banged, and the fleeting visions of fancy +disappeared. + +Many well-authenticated ghost stories describe the apparition of bygone +persons, and lo! when the figure vanishes, a letter is left behind! Some +such experience seemed to be mine when, on my return, I found a packet +of letters on the hall table--letters not addressed to me, but to some +unknown Miss Belsham, and signed and sealed by Mrs. Barbauld's hand. +They had been sent for me to read by the kindness of some ladies now +living at Hampstead, who afterwards showed me the portrait of the lady, +who began the world as Miss Betsy Belsham and who ended her career as +Mrs. Kenrick. It is an oval miniature, belonging to the times of powder +and of puff, representing not a handsome, but an animated countenance, +with laughter and spirit in the expression; the mouth is large, the eyes +are dark, the nose is short. This was the _confidante_ of Mrs. Barbauld's +early days, the faithful friend of her latter sorrows. The letters, kept +by 'Betsy' with faithful conscientious care for many years, give the +story of a whole lifetime with unconscious fidelity. The gaiety of +youth, its impatience, its exuberance, and sometimes bad taste; the +wider, quieter feelings of later life; the courage of sorrowful times; +long friendship deepening the tender and faithful memories of age, when +there is so little left to say, so much to feel--all these things are +there. + + +II. + +Mrs. Barbauld was a schoolmistress, and a schoolmaster's wife and +daughter. Her father was Dr. John Aikin, D.D.; her mother was Miss Jane +Jennings, of a good Northamptonshire family--scholastic also. Dr. Aikin +brought his wife home to Knibworth, in Leicestershire, where he opened a +school which became very successful in time. Mrs. Barbauld, their eldest +child, was born here in 1743, and was christened Anna Laetitia, after +some lady of high degree belonging to her mother's family. Two or three +years later came a son. It was a quiet home, deep hidden in the secluded +rural place; and the little household lived its own tranquil life far +away from the storms and battles and great events that were stirring +the world. Dr. Aikin kept school; Mrs. Aikin ruled her household with +capacity, and not without some sternness, according to the custom of the +time. It appears that late in life the good lady was distressed by the +backwardness of her grandchildren at four or five years old. 'I once, +indeed, knew a little girl,' so wrote Mrs. Aikin of her daughter, 'who +was as eager to learn as her instructor could be to teach her, and who +at two years old could read sentences and little stories, in her _wise_ +book, roundly and without spelling, and in half a year or more could +read as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and I believe +I never shall.' It was fortunate that no great harm came of this premature +forcing, although it is difficult to say what its absence might not +have done for Mrs. Barbauld. One can fancy the little assiduous girl, +industrious, impulsive, interested in everything--in all life and +all nature--drinking in, on every side, learning, eagerly wondering, +listening to all around with bright and ready wit. There is a pretty +little story told by Mrs. Ellis in her book about Mrs. Barbauld, how +one day, when Dr. Aikin and a friend 'were conversing on the passions,' +the Doctor observes that joy cannot have place in a state of perfect +felicity, since it supposes an accession of happiness. + +'I think you are mistaken, papa,' says a little voice from the opposite +side of the table. + +'Why so, my child?' says the Doctor. + +'Because in the chapter I read to you this morning, in the Testament, it +is said that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth +than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance."' + +Besides her English Testament and her early reading, the little girl was +taught by her mother to do as little daughters did in those days, to +obey a somewhat austere rule, to drop curtsies in the right place, to +make beds, to preserve fruits. The father, after demur, but surely +not without some paternal pride in her proficiency, taught the child +Latin and French and Italian, and something of Greek, and gave her an +acquaintance with English literature. One can imagine little Nancy with +her fair head bending over her lessons, or, when playing time had come, +perhaps a little lonely and listening to the distant voices of the +schoolboys at their games. The mother, fearing she might acquire rough +and boisterous manners, strictly forbade any communication with the +schoolboys. Sometimes in after days, speaking of these early times and +of the constraint of many bygone rules and regulations, Mrs. Barbauld +used to attribute to this early formal training something of the +hesitation and shyness which troubled her and never entirely wore off. +She does not seem to have been in any great harmony with her mother. One +could imagine a fanciful and high-spirited child, timid and dutiful, +and yet strong-willed, secretly rebelling against the rigid order of her +home, and feeling lonely for want of liberty and companionship. It was +true she had birds and beasts and plants for her playfellows, but she +was of a gregarious and sociable nature, and she was unconsciously +longing for something more, and perhaps feeling a want in her early +life which no silent company can supply. + +She was about fifteen when a great event took place. Her father was +appointed classical tutor to the Warrington Academy, and thither +the little family removed. We read that the Warrington Academy was a +Dissenting college started by very eminent and periwigged personages, +whose silhouettes Mrs. Barbauld herself afterwards cut out in +sticking-plaster, and whose names are to this day remembered and held in +just esteem. They were people of simple living and high thinking, they +belonged to a class holding then a higher place than now in the world's +esteem, that of Dissenting ministers. The Dissenting ministers were +fairly well paid and faithfully followed by their congregations. The +college was started under the auspices of distinguished members of the +community, Lord Willoughby of Parham, the last Presbyterian lord, being +patron. Among the masters were to be found the well-known names of Dr. +Doddridge; of Gilbert Wakefield, the reformer and uncompromising martyr; +of Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, the Hebrew scholar; of Dr. Priestley, the +chemical analyst and patriot, and enterprising theologian, who left +England and settled in America for conscience and liberty's sake. + +Many other people, neither students nor professors, used to come to +Warrington, and chief among them in later years good John Howard with +MSS. for his friend Dr. Aikin to correct for the press. Now for the +first time Mrs. Barbauld (Miss Aikin she was then) saw something of real +life, of men and manners. It was not likely that she looked back with +any lingering regret to Knibworth, or would have willingly returned +thither. A story in one of her memoirs gives an amusing picture of the +manners of a young country lady of that day. Mr. Haines, a rich farmer +from Knibworth, who had been greatly struck by Miss Aikin, followed her +to Warrington, and 'obtained a private audience of her father and begged +his consent to be allowed to make her his wife.' The father answered +'that his daughter was there walking in the garden, and he might go +and ask her himself.' 'With what grace the farmer pleaded his cause I +know not,' says her biographer and niece. 'Out of all patience at his +unwelcome importunities, my aunt ran nimbly up a tree which grew by the +garden wall, and let herself down into the lane beyond.' + +The next few years must have been perhaps the happiest of Mrs. Barbauld's +life. Once when it was nearly over she said to her niece, Mrs. Le +Breton, from whose interesting account I have been quoting, that she had +never been placed in a situation which really suited her. As one reads +her sketches and poems, one is struck by some sense of this detracting +influence of which she complains: there is a certain incompleteness and +slightness which speaks of intermittent work, of interrupted trains of +thought. At the same time there is a natural buoyant quality in much of +her writing which seems like a pleasant landscape view seen through the +bars of a window. There may be wider prospects, but her eyes are bright, +and this peep of nature is undoubtedly delightful. + + +III. + +The letters to Miss Belsham begin somewhere about 1768. The young lady +has been paying a visit to Miss Aikin at Warrington, and is interested +in everyone and everything belonging to the place. Miss Aikin is no less +eager to describe than Miss Belsham to listen, and accordingly a whole +stream of characters and details of gossip and descriptions in faded +ink come flowing across their pages, together with many expressions of +affection and interest. 'My dear Betsy, I love you for discarding the +word Miss from your vocabulary,' so the packet begins, and it continues +in the same strain of pleasant girlish chatter, alternating with the +history of many bygone festivities, and stories of friends, neighbours, +of beaux and partners; of the latter genus, and of Miss Aikin's efforts +to make herself agreeable, here is a sample:--'I talked to him, smiled +upon him, gave him my fan to play with,' says the lively young lady. +'Nothing would do; he was grave as a philosopher. I tried to raise +a conversation: "'Twas fine weather for dancing." He agreed to my +observation. "We had a tolerable set this time." Neither did he contradict +that. Then we were both silent--stupid mortal thought I! but unreasonable +as he appeared to the advances that I made him, there was one object in +the room, a sparkling object which seemed to attract all his attention, +on which he seemed to gaze with transport, and which indeed he hardly +took his eyes off the whole time.... The object that I mean was his +shoebuckle.' + +One could imagine Miss Elizabeth Bennett writing in some such strain to +her friend Miss Charlotte Lucas after one of the evenings at Bingley's +hospitable mansion. And yet Miss Aikin is more impulsive, more romantic +than Elizabeth. 'Wherever you are, fly letter on the wings of the wind,' +she cries, 'and tell my dear Betsy what?--only that I love her dearly.' + +Miss Nancy Aikin (she seems to have been Nancy in these letters, and to +have assumed the more dignified Laetitia upon her marriage) pours out +her lively heart, laughs, jokes, interests herself in the sentimental +affairs of the whole neighbourhood as well as in her own. Perhaps few +young ladies now-a-days would write to their _confidantes_ with the +announcement that for some time past a young sprig had been teasing them +to have him. This, however, is among Miss Nancy's confidences. She also +writes poems and _jeux d'esprit_, and receives poetry in return from +Betsy, who calls herself Camilla, and pays her friend many compliments, +for Miss Aikin in her reply quotes the well-known lines:-- + + Who for another's brow entwines the bays, + And where she well might rival stoops to Praise. + +Miss Aikin by this time has attained to all the dignity of a full-blown +authoress, and is publishing a successful book of poems in conjunction +with her brother, which little book created much attention at the time. +One day the Muse thus apostrophises Betsy: 'Shall we ever see her +amongst us again?' says my sister (Mrs. Aikin). My brother (saucy +fellow) says, 'I want to see this girl, I think (stroking his chin as he +walks backwards and forwards in the room with great gravity). I think we +should admire one another.' + +'When you come among us,' continues the warm-hearted friend, 'we shall +set the bells a-ringing, bid adieu to care and gravity, and sing "O be +joyful."' And finally, after some apologies for her remiss correspondence, +'I left my brother writing to you instead of Patty, poor soul. Well, it +is a clever thing too, to have a husband to write one's letters for one. +If I had one I would be a much better correspondent to you. I would +order him to write every week.' + +And, indeed, Mrs. Barbauld was as good as her word, and did not forget +the resolutions made by Miss Aikin in 1773. In 1774 comes some eventful +news: 'I should have written to you sooner had it not been for the +uncertainty and suspense in which for a long time I have been involved; +and since my lot has been fixed for many busy engagements which have +left me few moments of leisure. They hurry me out of my life. It is +hardly a month that I have certainly known I should fix on Norfolk, and +now next Thursday they say I am to be finally, irrevocably married. Pity +me, dear Betsy; for on the day I fancy when you will read this letter, +will the event take place which is to make so great an era in my life. I +feel depressed, and my courage almost fails me. Yet upon the whole I +have the greatest reason to think I shall be happy. I shall possess the +entire affection of a worthy man, whom my father and mother now entirely +and heartily approve. The people where we are going, though strangers, +have behaved with the greatest zeal and affection; and I think we have +a fair prospect of being useful and living comfortably in that state of +middling life to which I have been accustomed, and which I love.' + +And then comes a word which must interest all who have ever cared and +felt grateful admiration for the works of one devoted human being and +true Christian hero. Speaking of her father's friend, John Howard, she +says with an almost audible sigh: 'It was too late, as you say, or I +believe I should have been in love with Mr. Howard. Seriously, I looked +upon him with that sort of reverence and love which one should have for +a guardian angel. God bless him and preserve his health for the health's +sake of thousands. And now farewell,' she writes in conclusion: 'I shall +write to you no more under this name; but under any name, in every +situation, at any distance of time or place, I shall love you equally +and be always affectionately yours, tho' _not_ always, A. AIKIN.' + + * * * * * + +Poor lady! The future held, indeed, many a sad and unsuspected hour for +her, many a cruel pang, many a dark and heavy season, that must have +seemed intolerably weary to one of her sprightly and yet somewhat +indolent nature, more easily accepting evil than devising escape from +it. But it also held many blessings of constancy, friendship, kindly +deeds, and useful doings. She had not devotion to give such as that of +the good Howard whom she revered, but the equable help and sympathy for +others of an open-minded and kindly woman was hers. Her marriage would +seem to have been brought about by a romantic fancy rather than by a +tender affection. Mr. Barbauld's mind had been once unhinged; his +protestations were passionate and somewhat dramatic. We are told that +when she was warned by a friend, she only said, 'But surely, if I throw +him over, he will become crazy again;' and from a high-minded sense of +pity, she was faithful, and married him against the wish of her brother +and parents, and not without some misgivings herself. He was a man +perfectly sincere and honourable; but, from his nervous want of +equilibrium, subject all his life to frantic outbursts of ill-temper. +Nobody ever knew what his wife had to endure in secret; her calm and +restrained manner must have effectually hidden the constant anxiety of +her life; nor had she children to warm her heart, and brighten up her +monotonous existence. Little Charles, of the Reading-book, who is bid to +come hither, who counted so nicely, who stroked the pussy cat, and who +deserved to listen to the delightful stories he was told, was not her +own son but her brother's child. When he was born, she wrote to entreat +that he might be given over to her for her own, imploring her brother to +spare him to her, in a pretty and pathetic letter. This was a mother +yearning for a child, not a schoolmistress asking for a pupil, though +perhaps in after times the two were somewhat combined in her. There is a +pretty little description of Charles making great progress in 'climbing +trees and talking nonsense:' 'I have the honour to tell you that our +Charles is the sweetest boy in the world. He is perfectly naturalised in +his new situation; and if I should make any blunders in my letter, I +must beg you to impute it to his standing by me and chattering all the +time.' And how pleasant a record exists of Charles's chatter in that +most charming little book written for him and for the babies of babies +to come! There is a sweet instructive grace in it and appreciation of +childhood which cannot fail to strike those who have to do with children +and with Mrs. Barbauld's books for them: children themselves, those best +critics of all, delight in it. + +'Where's Charles?' says a little scholar every morning to the writer of +these few notes. + + +IV. + +Soon after the marriage, there had been some thought of a college for +young ladies, of which Mrs. Barbauld was to be the principal; but she +shrank from the idea, and in a letter to Mrs. Montagu she objects to +the scheme of higher education for women away from their natural homes. +'I should have little hope of cultivating a love of knowledge in a young +lady of fifteen who came to me ignorant and uncultivated. It is too late +then to begin to learn. The empire of the passions is coming on. Those +attachments begin to be formed which influence the happiness of future +life. The care of a mother alone can give suitable attention to this +important period.' It is true that the rigidness of her own home had not +prevented her from making a hasty and unsuitable marriage. But it is not +this which is weighing on her mind. 'Perhaps you may think,' she says, +'that having myself stepped out of the bounds of female reserve in +becoming an author, it is with an ill grace that I offer these +statements.' + +Her arguments seem to have been thought conclusive in those days, and +the young ladies' college was finally transmuted into a school for +little boys at Palgrave, in Norfolk, and thither the worthy couple +transported themselves. + +One of the letters to Miss Belsham is thus dated:--'_The 14th of July, +in the village of Palgrave (the pleasantest village in all England), at +ten o'clock, all alone in my great parlour, Mr. Barbauld being studying +a sermon, do I begin a letter to my dear Betsy._' + +When she first married, and travelled into Norfolk to keep school at +Palgrave, nothing could have seemed more tranquil, more contented, more +matter-of-fact than her life as it appears from her letters. Dreams, and +fancies, and gay illusions and excitements have made way for the +somewhat disappointing realisation of Mr. Barbauld with his neatly +turned and friendly postscripts--a husband, polite, devoted, it is +true, but somewhat disappointing all the same. The next few years +seem like years in a hive--storing honey for the future, and putting +away--industrious, punctual, monotonous. There are children's lessons to +be heard, and school-treats to be devised. She sets them to act plays +and cuts out paper collars for Henry IV.; she always takes a class of +babies entirely her own. (One of these babies, who always loved her, +became Lord Chancellor Denman; most of the others took less brilliant, +but equally respectable places, in after life.) She has also household +matters and correspondence not to be neglected. In the holidays, they +make excursions to Norwich, to London, and revisit their old haunts at +Warrington. In one of her early letters, soon after her marriage, she +describes her return to Warrington. + +'Dr. Enfield's face,' she declares, 'is grown half a foot longer since I +saw him, with studying mathematics, and for want of a game of romps; for +there are positively none now at Warrington but grave matrons. I who +have but half assumed the character, was ashamed of the levity of my +behaviour.' + +It says well indeed for the natural brightness of the lady's disposition +that with sixteen boarders and a satisfactory usher to look after, she +should be prepared for a game of romps with Dr. Enfield. + +On another occasion, in 1777, she takes little Charles away with her. +'He has indeed been an excellent traveller,' she says; 'and though, like +his great ancestor, some natural tears he shed, like him, too, he wiped +them soon. He had a long sound sleep last night, and has been very busy +to-day hunting the puss and the chickens. And now, my dear brother and +sister, let me again thank you for this precious gift, the value of which +we are both more and more sensible of as we become better acquainted with +his sweet disposition and winning manners.' + +She winds up this letter with a postscript:-- + +'Everybody here asks, "Pray, is Dr. Dodd really to be executed?" as if +we knew the more for having been at Warrington.' + +Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld's brother, the father of little Charles and of +Lucy Aikin, whose name is well known in literature, was himself a man of +great parts, industry, and ability, working hard to support his family. +He alternated between medicine and literature all his life. When his +health failed he gave up medicine, and settled at Stoke Newington, and +busied himself with periodic literature; meanwhile, whatever his own +pursuits may have been, he never ceased to take an interest in his +sister's work and to encourage her in every way. + +It is noteworthy that few of Mrs. Barbauld's earlier productions +equalled what she wrote at the very end of her life. She seems to have +been one of those who ripen with age, growing wider in spirit with +increasing years. Perhaps, too, she may have been influenced by the +change of manners, the reaction against formalism, which was growing up +as her own days were ending. Prim she may have been in manner, but she +was not a formalist by nature; and even at eighty was ready to learn to +submit to accept the new gospel that Wordsworth and his disciples had +given to the world, and to shake off the stiffness of early training. + +It is idle to speculate on what might have been if things had happened +otherwise; if the daily stress of anxiety and perplexity which haunted +her home had been removed--difficulties and anxieties which may well +have absorbed all the spare energy and interest that under happier +circumstances might have added to the treasury of English literature. +But if it were only for one ode written when the distracting cares of +over seventy years were ending, when nothing remained to her but the +essence of a long past, and the inspirations of a still glowing, still +hopeful, and most tender spirit, if it were only for the ode called +'Life,' which has brought a sense of ease and comfort to so many, Mrs. +Barbauld has indeed deserved well of her country-people and should be +held in remembrance by them. + +Her literary works are, after all, not very voluminous. She is best +known by her hymns for children and her early lessons, than which +nothing more childlike has ever been devised; and we can agree with her +brother, Dr. Aikin, when he says that it requires true genius to enter +so completely into a child's mind. + +After their first volume of verse, the brother and sister had published +a second in prose, called 'Miscellaneous Pieces,' about which there is +an amusing little anecdote in Rogers's 'Memoirs.' Fox met Dr. Aikin at +dinner. + +'"I am greatly pleased with your 'Miscellaneous Pieces,'" said Fox. +Aikin bowed. "I particularly admire," continued Fox, "your essay +'Against Inconsistency in our Expectations.'" + +'"That," replied Aikin, "is my sister's." + +'"I like much," returned Fox, "your essay 'On Monastic Institutions.'" + +'"That," answered Aikin, "is also my sister's." + +'Fox thought it best to say no more about the book.' + +These essays were followed by various of the visions and Eastern pieces +then so much in vogue; also by political verses and pamphlets, which +seemed to have made a great sensation at the time. But Mrs. Barbauld's +turn was on the whole more for domestic than for literary life, although +literary people always seem to have had a great interest for her. + +During one Christmas which they spent in London, the worthy couple go +to see Mrs. Siddons; and Mrs. Chapone introduces Mrs. Barbauld to Miss +Burney. 'A very unaffected, modest, sweet, and pleasing young lady,' +says Mrs. Barbauld, who is always kind in her descriptions. Mrs. +Barbauld's one complaint in London is of the fatigue from hairdressers, +and the bewildering hurry of the great city, where she had, notwithstanding +her quiet country life, many ties, and friendships, and acquaintances. +Her poem on 'Corsica' had brought her into some relations with Boswell; +she also knew Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. Here is her description of the +'Great Bear:'-- + +'I do not mean that one which shines in the sky over your head; but the +Bear that shines in London--a great rough, surly animal. His Christian +name is Dr. Johnson. 'Tis a singular creature; but if you stroke him he +will not bite, and though he growls sometimes he is not ill-humoured.' + +Johnson describes Mrs. Barbauld as suckling fools and chronicling small +beer. There was not much sympathy between the two. Characters such as +Johnson's harmonise best with the enthusiastic and easily influenced. +Mrs. Barbauld did not belong to this class; she trusted to her own +judgment, rarely tried to influence others, and took a matter-of-fact +rather than a passionate view of life. She is as severe to him in her +criticism as he was in his judgment of her: they neither of them did the +other justice. 'A Christian and a man-about-town, a philosopher, and a +bigot acknowledging life to be miserable, and making it more miserable +through fear of death.' So she writes of him, and all this was true; but +how much more was also true of the great and hypochondriacal old man! +Some years afterwards, when she had been reading Boswell's long-expected +'Life of Johnson,' she wrote of the book:--'It is like going to Ranelagh; +you meet all your acquaintances; but it is a base and mean thing to +bring thus every idle word into judgment.' In our own day we too have +our Boswell and our Johnson to arouse discussion and indignation. + +'Have you seen Boswell's "Life of Johnson?" He calls it a Flemish +portrait, and so it is--two quartos of a man's conversation and petty +habits. Then the treachery and meanness of watching a man for years +in order to set down every unguarded and idle word he uttered, is +inconceivable. Yet with all this one cannot help reading a good deal +of it.' This is addressed to the faithful Betsy, who was also keeping +school by that time, and assuming brevet rank in consequence. + +Mrs. Barbauld might well complain of the fatigue from hairdressers in +London. In one of her letters to her friend she thus describes a lady's +dress of the period:-- + +'Do you know how to dress yourself in Dublin? If you do not, I will tell +you. Your waist must be the circumference of two oranges, no more. You +must erect a structure on your head gradually ascending to a foot high, +exclusive of feathers, and stretching to a penthouse of most horrible +projection behind, the breadth from wing to wing considerably broader +than your shoulder, and as many different things in your cap as in +Noah's ark. Verily, I never did see such monsters as the heads now in +vogue. I am a monster, too, but a moderate one.' + +She must have been glad to get back to her home, to her daily work, to +Charles, climbing his trees and talking his nonsense. + +In the winter of 1784 her mother died at Palgrave. It was Christmas +week; the old lady had come travelling four days through the snow in a +postchaise with her maid and her little grandchildren, while her son +rode on horseback. But the cold and the fatigue of the journey, and the +discomfort of the inns, proved too much for Mrs. Aikin, who reached her +daughter's house only to die. Just that time three years before Mrs. +Barbauld had lost her father, whom she dearly loved. There is a striking +letter from the widowed mother to her daughter recording the event. It +is almost Spartan in its calmness, but nevertheless deeply touching. Now +she, too, was at rest, and after Mrs. Aikin's death a cloud of sadness +and depression seems to have fallen upon the household. Mr. Barbauld was +ailing; he was suffering from a nervous irritability which occasionally +quite unfitted him for his work as a schoolmaster. Already his wife must +have had many things to bear, and very much to try her courage and +cheerfulness; and now her health was also failing. It was in 1775 that +they gave up the academy, which, on the whole, had greatly flourished. +It had been established eleven years; they were both of them in need of +rest and change. Nevertheless, it was not without reluctance that they +brought themselves to leave their home at Palgrave. A successor was +found only too quickly for Mrs. Barbauld's wishes; they handed over +their pupils to his care, and went abroad for a year's sunshine and +distraction. + + +V. + +What a contrast to prim, starched scholastic life at Palgrave must have +been the smiling world, and the land flowing with oil and wine, in which +they found themselves basking! The vintage was so abundant that year +that the country people could not find vessels to contain it. 'The roads +covered with teams of casks, empty or full according as they were going +out or returning, and drawn by oxen whose strong necks seemed to be +bowed unwillingly under the yoke. Men, women, and children were abroad; +some cutting with a short sickle the bunches of grapes, some breaking +them with a wooden instrument, some carrying them on their backs from +the gatherers to those who pressed the juice; and, as in our harvest, +the gleaners followed.' + +From the vintage they travel to the Alps, 'a sight so majestic, so +totally different from anything I had seen before, that I am ready to +sing _nunc dimittis_,' she writes. They travel back by the south of +France and reach Paris in June, where the case of the Diamond Necklace +is being tried. Then they return to England, waiting a day at Boulogne +for a vessel, but crossing from thence in less than four hours. How +pretty is her description of England as it strikes them after their +absence! 'And not without pleasing emotion did we view again the green +swelling hills covered with large sheep, and the winding road bordered +with the hawthorn hedge, and the English vine twirled round the tall +poles, and the broad Medway covered with vessels, and at last the gentle +yet majestic Thames.' + +There were Dissenters at Hampstead in those days, as there are still, +and it was a call from a little Unitarian congregation on the hillside +who invited Mr. Barbauld to become their minister, which decided the +worthy couple to retire to this pleasant suburb. The place seemed +promising enough; they were within reach of Mrs. Barbauld's brother, Dr. +Aikin, now settled in London, and to whom she was tenderly attached. +There were congenial people settled all about. On the high hill-top were +pleasant old houses to live in. There was occupation for him and +literary interest for her. + +They are a sociable and friendly pair, hospitable, glad to welcome their +friends, and the acquaintance, and critics, and the former pupils who +come toiling up the hill to visit them. Rogers comes to dinner 'at half +after three.' They have another poet for a neighbour, Miss Joanna +Baillie; they are made welcome by all, and in their turn make others +welcome; they do acts of social charity and kindness wherever they see +the occasion. They have a young Spanish gentleman to board who conceals +a taste for 'seguars.' They also go up to town from time to time. On +one occasion Mr. Barbauld repairs to London to choose a wedding present +for Miss Belsham, who is about to be married to Mr. Kenrick, a widower +with daughters. He chose two slim Wedgwood pots of some late classic +model, which still stand, after many dangers, safely on either side of +Mrs. Kenrick's portrait in Miss Reid's drawing-room at Hampstead. +Wedgwood must have been a personal friend: he has modelled a lovely head +of Mrs. Barbauld, simple and nymph-like. + +Hampstead was no further from London in those days than it is now, and +they seem to have kept up a constant communication with their friends +and relations in the great city. They go to the play occasionally. 'I +have not indeed seen Mrs. Siddons often, but I think I never saw her to +more advantage,' she writes. 'It is not, however, seeing a play, it is +only seeing one character, for they have nobody to act with her.' + +Another expedition is to Westminster Hall, where Warren Hastings was +then being tried for his life. + +'The trial has attracted the notice of most people who are within reach +of it. I have been, and was very much struck with all the apparatus and +pomp of justice, with the splendour of the assembly which contained +everything distinguished in the nation, with the grand idea that the +equity of the English was to pursue crimes committed at the other side +of the globe, and oppressions exercised towards the poor Indians who had +come to plead their cause; but all these fine ideas vanish and fade away +as one observes the progress of the cause, and sees it fall into the +summer amusements, and take the place of a rehearsal of music or an +evening at Vauxhall.' + +Mrs. Barbauld was a Liberal in feeling and conviction; she was never +afraid to speak her mind, and when the French Revolution first began, +she, in common with many others, hoped that it was but the dawning of +happier times. She was always keen about public events; she wrote an +address on the opposition to the repeal of the Test Act in 1791, and she +published her poem to Wilberforce on the rejection of his great bill for +abolishing slavery:-- + + Friends of the friendless, hail, ye generous band! + +she cries, in warm enthusiasm for the devoted cause. + +Horace Walpole nicknamed her Deborah, called her the Virago Barbauld, +and speaks of her with utter rudeness and intolerant spite. But whether +or not Horace Walpole approved, it is certain that Mrs. Barbauld +possessed to a full and generous degree a quality which is now less +common than it was in her day. + +Not very many years ago I was struck on one occasion when a noble old +lady, now gone to her rest, exclaimed in my hearing that people of this +generation had all sorts of merits and charitable intentions, but that +there was one thing she missed which had certainly existed in her youth, +and which no longer seemed to be of the same account: that public spirit +which used to animate the young as well as the old. + +It is possible that philanthropy, and the love of the beautiful, and the +gratuitous diffusion of wall-papers may be the modern rendering of the +good old-fashioned sentiment. Mrs. Barbauld lived in very stirring days, +when private people shared in the excitements and catastrophes of public +affairs. To her the fortunes of England, its loyalty, its success, were +a part of her daily bread. By her early associations she belonged to a +party representing opposition, and for that very reason she was the more +keenly struck by the differences of the conduct of affairs and the +opinions of those she trusted. Her friend Dr. Priestley had emigrated to +America for his convictions' sake; Howard was giving his noble life for +his work; Wakefield had gone to prison. Now the very questions are +forgotten for which they struggled and suffered, or the answers have +come while the questions are forgotten, in this their future which is +our present, and to which some unborn historian may point back with a +moral finger. + +Dr. Aikin, whose estimate of his sister was very different from Horace +Walpole's, occasionally reproached her for not writing more constantly. +He wrote a copy of verses on this theme:-- + + Thus speaks the Muse, and bends her brows severe: + Did I, Laetitia, lend my choicest lays, + And crown thy youthful head with freshest bays, + That all the expectance of thy full-grown year, + Should lie inert and fruitless? O revere + Those sacred gifts whose meed is deathless praise, + Whose potent charm the enraptured soul can raise + Far from the vapours of this earthly sphere, + Seize, seize the lyre, resume the lofty strain. + +She seems to have willingly left the lyre for Dr. Aikin's use. A few +hymns, some graceful odes, and stanzas, and _jeux d'esprit_, a certain +number of well-written and original essays, and several political +pamphlets, represent the best of her work. Her more ambitious poems +are those by which she is the least remembered. It was at Hampstead +that Mrs. Barbauld wrote her contributions to her brother's volume of +'Evenings at Home,' among which the transmigrations of Indur may be +quoted as a model of style and delightful matter. One of the best of her +_jeux d'esprit_ is the 'Groans of the Tankard,' which was written in +early days, with much spirit and real humour. It begins with a classic +incantation, and then goes on:-- + + 'Twas at the solemn silent noontide hour + When hunger rages with despotic power, + When the lean student quits his Hebrew roots + For the gross nourishment of English fruits, + And throws unfinished airy systems by + For solid pudding and substantial pie. + +The tankard now, + + Replenished to the brink, + With the cool beverage blue-eyed maidens drink, + +but, accustomed to very different libations, is endowed with voice and +utters its bitter reproaches:-- + + Unblest the day, and luckless was the hour + Which doomed me to a Presbyterian's power, + Fated to serve a Puritanic race, + Whose slender meal is shorter than their grace. + + +VI. + +Thumbkin, of fairy celebrity, used to mark his way by flinging crumbs of +bread and scattering stones as he went along; and in like manner authors +trace the course of their life's peregrinations by the pamphlets and +articles they cast down as they go. Sometimes they throw stones, +sometimes they throw bread. In '92 and '93 Mrs. Barbauld must have been +occupied with party polemics and with the political miseries of the +time. A pamphlet on Gilbert Wakefield's views, and another on 'Sins +of the Government and Sins of the People,' show in what direction her +thoughts were bent. Then came a period of comparative calm again and of +literary work and interest. She seems to have turned to Akenside and +Collins, and each had an essay to himself. These were followed by +certain selections from the _Spectator_, _Tatler_, &c., preceded by one +of those admirable essays for which she is really remarkable. She also +published a memoir of Richardson prefixed to his correspondence. Sir +James Mackintosh, writing at a later and sadder time of her life, says +of her observations on the moral of Clarissa that they are as fine a +piece of mitigated and rational stoicism as our language can boast of. + +In 1802 another congregation seems to have made signs from Stoke +Newington, and Mrs. Barbauld persuaded her husband to leave his flock at +Hampstead and to buy a house near her brother's at Stoke Newington. This +was her last migration, and here she remained until her death in 1825. +One of her letters to Mrs. Kenrick gives a description of what might +have been a happy home:--'We have a pretty little back parlour that +looks into our little spot of a garden,' she says, 'and catches every +gleam of sunshine. We have pulled down the ivy, except what covers the +coach-house We have planted a vine and a passion-flower, with abundance +of jessamine against the window, and we have scattered roses and +honeysuckle all over the garden. You may smile at me for parading so +over my house and domains.' In May she writes a pleasant letter, in good +spirits, comparing her correspondence with her friend to the flower of +an aloe, which sleeps for a hundred years, and on a sudden pushes out +when least expected. 'But take notice, the life is in the aloe all the +while, and sorry should I be if the life were not in our friendship all +the while, though it so rarely diffuses itself over a sheet of paper.' + +She seems to have been no less sociable and friendly at Stoke Newington +than at Hampstead. People used to come up to see her from London. Her +letters, quiet and intimate as they are, give glimpses of most of the +literary people of the day, not in memoirs then, but alive and drinking +tea at one another's houses, or walking all the way to Stoke Newington +to pay their respects to the old lady. + +Charles Lamb used to talk of his two _bald_ authoresses, Mrs. Barbauld +being one and Mrs. Inchbald being the other. Crabb Robinson and Rogers +were two faithful links with the outer world. 'Crabb Robinson corresponds +with Madame de Stael, is quite intimate,' she writes, 'has received +I don't know how many letters,' she adds, not without some slight +amusement. Miss Lucy Aikin tells a pretty story of Scott meeting Mrs. +Barbauld at dinner, and telling her that it was to her that he owed his +poetic gift. Some translations of Buerger by Mr. Taylor, of Norwich, +which she had read out at Edinburgh, had struck him so much that they +had determined him to try his own powers in that line. + +She often had inmates under her roof. One of them was a beautiful and +charming young girl, the daughter of Mrs. Fletcher, of Edinburgh, whose +early death is recorded in her mother's life. Besides company at home, +Mrs. Barbauld went to visit her friends from time to time--the Estlins +at Bristol, the Edgeworths, whose acquaintance Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld +made about this time, and who seem to have been invaluable friends, +bringing as they did a bright new element of interest and cheerful +friendship into her sad and dimming life. A man must have extraordinarily +good spirits to embark upon four matrimonial ventures as Mr. Edgeworth +did; and as for Miss Edgeworth, appreciative, effusive, and warm-hearted, +she seems to have more than returned Mrs. Barbauld's sympathy. + +Miss Lucy Aikin, Dr. Aikin's daughter, was now also making her own mark +in the literary world, and had inherited the bright intelligence and +interest for which her family was so remarkable. Much of Miss Aikin's +work is more sustained than her aunt's desultory productions, but it +lacks that touch of nature which has preserved Mrs. Barbauld's memory +where more important people are forgotten. + +Our authoress seems to have had a natural affection for sister +authoresses. Hannah More and Mrs. Montague were both her friends, so +were Madame d'Arblay and Mrs. Chapone in a different degree; she must +have known Mrs. Opie; she loved Joanna Baillie. The latter is described +by her as the young lady at Hampstead who came to Mr. Barbauld's meeting +with as demure a face as if she had never written a line. And Miss Aikin, +in her memoirs, describes in Johnsonian language how the two Miss +Baillies came to call one morning upon Mrs. Barbauld:--'My aunt +immediately introduced the topic of the anonymous tragedies, and +gave utterance to her admiration with the generous delight in the +manifestation of kindred genius which distinguished her.' But it seems +that Miss Baillie sat, nothing moved, and did not betray herself. Mrs. +Barbauld herself gives a pretty description of the sisters in their +home, in that old house on Windmill Hill, which stands untouched, with +its green windows looking out upon so much of sky and heath and sun, +with the wainscoted parlours where Walter Scott used to come, and the +low wooden staircase leading to the old rooms above. It is in one of her +letters to Mrs. Kenrick that Mrs. Barbauld gives a pleasant glimpse of +the poetess Walter Scott admired. 'I have not been abroad since I was at +Norwich, except a day or two at Hampstead with the Miss Baillies. One +should be, as I was, beneath their roof to know all their merit. Their +house is one of the best ordered I know. They have all manner of +attentions for their friends, and not only Miss B., but Joanna, is as +clever in furnishing a room or in arranging a party as in writing plays, +of which, by the way, she has a volume ready for the press, but she will +not give it to the public till next winter. The subject is to be the +passion of fear. I do not know what sort of a hero that passion can +afford!' Fear was, indeed, a passion alien to her nature, and she did +not know the meaning of the word. + +Mrs. Barbauld's description of Hannah More and her sisters living on +their special hill-top was written after Mr. Barbauld's death, and +thirty years after Miss More's verses which are quoted by Mrs. Ellis in +her excellent memoir of Mrs. Barbauld:-- + + Nor, Barbauld, shall my glowing heart refuse + A tribute to thy virtues or thy muse; + This humble merit shall at least be mine, + The poet's chaplet for thy brows to twine; + My verse thy talents to the world shall teach, + And praise the graces it despairs to reach. + +Then, after philosophically questioning the power of genius to confer +true happiness, she concludes:-- + + Can all the boasted powers of wit and song + Of life one pang remove, one hour prolong? + Fallacious hope which daily truths deride-- + For you, alas! have wept and Garrick died. + +Meanwhile, whatever genius might not be able to achieve, the five Miss +Mores had been living on peacefully together in the very comfortable +cottage which had been raised and thatched by the poetess's earnings. + +'Barley Wood is equally the seat of taste and hospitality,' says Mrs. +Barbauld to a friend. + +'Nothing could be more friendly than their reception,' she writes to her +brother, 'and nothing more charming than their situation. An extensive +view over the Mendip Hills is in front of their house, with a pretty +view of Wrington. Their home--cottage, because it is thatched--stands on +the declivity of a rising ground, which they have planted and made quite +a little paradise. The five sisters, all good old maids, have lived +together these fifty years. Hannah More is a good deal broken, but +possesses fully her powers of conversation, and her vivacity. We +exchanged riddles like the wise men of old; I was given to understand +she was writing something.' + +There is another allusion to Mrs. Hannah More in a sensible letter from +Mrs. Barbauld, written to Miss Edgeworth about this time, declining to +join in an alarming enterprise suggested by the vivacious Mr. Edgeworth, +'a _Feminiad_, a literary paper to be entirely contributed to by ladies, +and where all articles are to be accepted.' 'There is no bond of union,' +Mrs. Barbauld says, 'among literary women any more than among literary +men; different sentiments and connections separate them much more than +the joint interest of their sex would unite them. Mrs. Hannah More would +not write along with you or me, and we should possibly hesitate at +joining Miss Hays or--if she were living--Mrs. Godwin.' Then she +suggests the names of Miss Baillie, Mrs. Opie, her own niece Miss Lucy +Aikin, and Mr. S. Rogers, who would not, she thinks, be averse to +joining the scheme. + + +VII. + +How strangely unnatural it seems when Fate's heavy hand falls upon quiet +and common-place lives, changing the tranquil routine of every day into +the solemnities and excitements of terror and tragedy! It was after +their removal to Stoke Newington that the saddest of all blows fell +upon this true-hearted woman. Her husband's hypochondria deepened and +changed, and the attacks became so serious that her brother and his +family urged her anxiously to leave him to other care than her own. It +was no longer safe for poor Mr. Barbauld to remain alone with his wife, +and her life, says Mrs. Le Breton, was more than once in peril. But, at +first, she would not hear of leaving him; although on more than one +occasion she had to fly for protection to her brother close by. + +There is something very touching in the patient fidelity with which Mrs. +Barbauld tried to soothe the later sad disastrous years of her husband's +life. She must have been a woman of singular nerve and courage to endure +as she did the excitement and cruel aberrations of her once gentle and +devoted companion. She only gave in after long resistance. + +'An alienation from me has taken possession of his mind,' she says, in a +letter to Mrs. Kenrick; 'my presence seems to irritate him, and I must +resign myself to a separation from him who has been for thirty years the +partner of my heart, my faithful friend, my inseparable companion.' With +her habitual reticence, she dwells no more on that painful topic, but +goes on to make plans for them both, asks her old friend to come and +cheer her in her loneliness; and the faithful Betsy, now a widow with +grown-up step-children, ill herself, troubled by deafness and other +infirmities, responds with a warm heart, and promises to come, bringing +the comfort with her of old companionship and familiar sympathy. There +is something very affecting in the loyalty of the two aged women +stretching out their hands to each other across a whole lifetime. After +her visit Mrs. Barbauld writes again:-- + +'He is now at Norwich, and I hear very favourable accounts of his health +and spirits; he seems to enjoy himself very much amongst his old friends +there, and converses among them with his usual animation. There are no +symptoms of violence or of depression; so far is favourable; but this +cruel alienation from me, in which my brother is included, still remains +deep-rooted, and whether he will ever change in this point Heaven only +knows. The medical men fear he will not: if so, my dear friend, what +remains for me but to resign myself to the will of Heaven, and to think +with pleasure that every day brings me nearer a period which naturally +cannot be very far off, and at which this as well as every temporal +affliction must terminate? + +'"Anything but this!" is the cry of weak mortals when afflicted; and +sometimes I own I am inclined to make it mine; but I will check myself.' + +But while she was hoping still, a fresh outbreak of the malady occurred. +He, poor soul, weary of his existence, put an end to his sufferings: he +was found lifeless in the New River. Lucy Aikin quotes a Dirge found +among her aunt's papers after her death:-- + + Pure Spirit, O where art thou now? + O whisper to my soul, + O let some soothening thought of thee + This bitter grief control. + + 'Tis not for thee the tears I shed, + Thy sufferings now are o'er. + The sea is calm, the tempest past, + On that eternal shore. + + No more the storms that wrecked thy peace + Shall tear that gentle breast, + Nor summer's rage, nor winter's cold + That poor, poor frame molest. + + * * * * * + + Farewell! With honour, peace, and love, + Be that dear memory blest, + Thou hast no tears for me to shed, + When I too am at rest. + + +But her time of rest was not yet come, and she lived for seventeen years +after her husband. She was very brave, she did not turn from the +sympathy of her friends, she endured her loneliness with courage, she +worked to distract her mind. Here is a touching letter addressed to Mrs. +Taylor, of Norwich, in which she says:--'A thousand thanks for your kind +letter, still more for the very short visit that preceded it. Though +short--too short--it has left indelible impressions on my mind. My +heart has truly had communion with yours; your sympathy has been balm to +it; and I feel that there is _now_ no one on earth to whom I could pour +out that heart more readily.... I am now sitting alone again, and feel +like a person who has been sitting by a cheerful fire, not sensible at +the time of the temperature of the air; but the fire removed, he finds +the season is still winter. Day after day passes, and I do not know what +to do with my time; my mind has no energy nor power of application.' + +How much she felt her loneliness appears again and again from one +passage and another. Then she struggled against discouragement; she +took to her pen again. To Mrs. Kenrick she writes:--'I intend to pay my +letter debts; not much troubling my head whether I have anything to say +or not; yet to you my heart has always something to say: it always +recognises you as among the dearest of its friends; and while it feels +that new impressions are made with difficulty and early effaced, +retains, and ever will retain, I trust beyond this world, those of our +early and long-tried affection.' + +She set to work again, trying to forget her heavy trials. It was during +the first years of her widowhood that she published her edition of the +British novelists in some fifty volumes. There is an opening chapter to +this edition upon novels and novel-writing, which is an admirable and +most interesting essay upon fiction, beginning from the very earliest +times. + +In 1811 she wrote her poem on the King's illness, and also the longer +poem which provoked such indignant comments at the time. It describes +Britain's rise and luxury, warns her of the dangers of her unbounded +ambition and unjustifiable wars:-- + + Arts, arms, and wealth destroy the fruits they bring; + Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring. + +Her ingenuous youth from Ontario's shore who visits the ruins of London +is one of the many claimants to the honour of having suggested Lord +Macaulay's celebrated New Zealander:-- + + Pensive and thoughtful shall the wanderers greet + Each splendid square and still untrodden street, + Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time, + The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb, + Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round, + By scattered hamlets trace its ancient bound, + And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey + Through reeds and sedge pursue his idle way. + +It is impossible not to admire the poem, though it is stilted and not to +the present taste. The description of Britain as it now is and as it +once was is very ingenious:-- + + Where once Bonduca whirled the scythed car, + And the fierce matrons raised the shriek of war, + Light forms beneath transparent muslin float, + And tutor'd voices swell the artful note; + Light-leaved acacias, and the shady plane, + And spreading cedars grace the woodland reign. + +The poem is forgotten now, though it was scouted at the time and +violently attacked, Southey himself falling upon the poor old lady, and +devouring her, spectacles and all. She felt these attacks very much, and +could not be consoled, though Miss Edgeworth wrote a warm-hearted letter +of indignant sympathy. But Mrs. Barbauld had something in her too genuine +to be crushed, even by sarcastic criticism. She published no more, but +it was after her poem of '1811' that she wrote the beautiful ode by +which she is best known and best remembered,--the ode that Wordsworth +used to repeat and say he envied, that Tennyson has called 'sweet +verses,' of which the lines ring their tender hopeful chime like sweet +church bells on a summer evening. + +Madame d'Arblay, in her old age, told Crabb Robinson that every night +she said the verses over to herself as she went to her rest. To the +writer they are almost sacred. The hand that patiently pointed out to +her, one by one, the syllables of Mrs. Barbauld's hymns for children, +that tended our childhood, as it had tended our father's, marked these +verses one night, when it blessed us for the last time. + + Life, we've been long together, + Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; + 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; + Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh or tear, + Then steal away, give little warning, + Choose thine own time. + Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime, + Bid me 'Good morning.' + +Mrs. Barbauld was over seventy when she wrote this ode. A poem, called +'Octogenary Reflections,' is also very touching:-- + + Say ye, who through this round of eighty years + Have proved its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears; + Say what is life, ye veterans who have trod, + Step following steps, its flowery thorny road? + Enough of good to kindle strong desire; + Enough of ill to damp the rising fire; + Enough of love and fancy, joy and hope, + To fan desire and give the passions scope; + Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain, + To seal the wise man's sentence--'All is vain.' + +There is another fragment of hers in which she likens herself to a +schoolboy left of all the train, who hears no sound of wheels to bear +him to his father's bosom home. 'Thus I look to the hour when I shall +follow those that are at rest before me.' And then at last the time came +for which she longed. Her brother died, her faithful Mrs. Kenrick died, +and Mrs. Taylor, whom she loved most of all. She had consented to give +up her solitary home to spend the remaining years of her life in the +home of her adopted son Charles, now married, and a father; but it was +while she was on a little visit to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Aikin, that +the summons came, very swiftly and peacefully, as she sat in her chair +one day. Her nephew transcribed these, the last lines she ever wrote:-- + +'Who are you?' + +'Do you not know me? have you not expected me?' + +'Whither do you carry me?' + +'Come with me and you shall know.' + +'The way is dark.' + +'It is well trodden.' + +'Yes, in the forward track.' + +'Come along.' + +'Oh! shall I there see my beloved ones? Will they welcome me, and will +they know me? Oh, tell me, tell me; thou canst tell me.' + +'Yes, but thou must come first.' + +'Stop a little; keep thy hand off till thou hast told me.' + +'I never wait.' + +'Oh! shall I see the warm sun again in my cold grave?' + +'Nothing is there that can feel the sun.' + +'Oh, where then?' + +'Come, I say.' + +One may acknowledge the great progress which people have made since Mrs. +Barbauld's day in the practice of writing prose and poetry, in the art +of expressing upon paper the thoughts which are in most people's minds. +It is (to use a friend's simile) like playing upon the piano--everybody +now learns to play upon the piano, and it is certain that the modest +performances of the ladies of Mrs. Barbauld's time would scarcely meet +with the attention now, which they then received. But all the same, the +stock of true feeling, of real poetry, is not increased by the increased +volubility of our pens; and so when something comes to us that is real, +that is complete in pathos or in wisdom, we still acknowledge the gift, +and are grateful for it. + + + + +_MISS EDGEWORTH._ + + 1767-1849. + + 'Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading.'--_Hen. VIII._ + +EARLY DAYS. + + +I. + +Few authoresses in these days can have enjoyed the ovations and +attentions which seem to have been considered the due of many of the +ladies distinguished at the end of the last century and the beginning of +this one. To read the accounts of the receptions and compliments which +fell to their lot may well fill later and lesser luminaries with envy. +Crowds opened to admit them, banquets spread themselves out before them, +lights were lighted up and flowers were scattered at their feet. Dukes, +editors, prime ministers, waited their convenience on their staircases; +whole theatres rose up _en masse_ to greet the gifted creatures of this +and that immortal tragedy. The authoresses themselves, to do them justice, +seem to have been very little dazzled by all this excitement. Hannah +More contentedly retires with her maiden sisters to the Parnassus on +the Mendip Hills, where they sew and chat and make tea, and teach the +village children. Dear Joanna Baillie, modest and beloved, lives on to +peaceful age in her pretty old house at Hampstead, looking through +tree-tops and sunshine and clouds towards distant London. 'Out there +where all the storms are,' I heard the children saying yesterday as +they watched the overhanging gloom of smoke which, veils the city of +metropolitan thunders and lightning. Maria Edgeworth's apparitions as +a literary lioness in the rush of London and of Paris society were but +interludes in her existence, and her real life was one of constant +exertion and industry spent far away in an Irish home among her own +kindred and occupations and interests. We may realise what these were +when we read that Mr. Edgeworth had no less than four wives, who all +left children, and that Maria was the eldest daughter of the whole +family. Besides this, we must also remember that the father whom she +idolised was himself a man of extraordinary powers, brilliant in +conversation (so I have been told), full of animation, of interest, of +plans for his country, his family, for education and literature, for +mechanics and scientific discoveries; that he was a gentleman widely +connected, hospitably inclined, with a large estate and many tenants to +overlook, with correspondence and acquaintances all over the world; and +besides all this, with various schemes in his brain, to be eventually +realised by others of which velocipedes, tramways, and telegraphs were +but a few of the items. + +One could imagine that under these circumstances the hurry and +excitement of London life must have sometimes seemed tranquillity itself +compared with the many and absorbing interests of such a family. What +these interests were may be gathered from the pages of a very interesting +memoir from which the writer of this essay has been allowed to quote. It +is a book privately printed and written for the use of her children by +the widow of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and is a record, among other +things, of a faithful and most touching friendship between Maria and her +father's wife--'a friendship lasting for over fifty years, and unbroken +by a single cloud of difference or mistrust.' Mrs. Edgeworth, who was +Miss Beaufort before her marriage, and about the same age as Miss +Edgeworth, unconsciously reveals her own most charming and unselfish +nature as she tells her stepdaughter's story. + +When the writer looks back upon her own childhood, it seems to her that +she lived in company with a delightful host of little playmates, bright, +busy, clever children, whose cheerful presence remains more vividly in +her mind than that of many of the real little boys and girls who used to +appear and disappear disconnectedly as children do in childhood, when +friendship and companionship depend almost entirely upon the convenience +of grown-up people. Now and again came little cousins or friends to +share our games, but day by day, constant and unchanging, ever to be +relied upon, smiled our most lovable and friendly companions--simple +Susan, lame Jervas, Talbot, the dear Little Merchants, Jem the widow's +son with his arms round old Lightfoot's neck, the generous Ben, with his +whipcord and his useful proverb of 'waste not, want not'--all of these +were there in the window corner waiting our pleasure. After Parents' +Assistant, to which familiar words we attached no meaning whatever, came +Popular Tales in big brown volumes off a shelf in the lumber-room of an +apartment in an old house in Paris, and as we opened the books, lo! +creation widened to our view. England, Ireland, America, Turkey, +the mines of Golconda, the streets of Bagdad, thieves, travellers, +governesses, natural philosophy, and fashionable life, were all laid +under contribution, and brought interest and adventure to our humdrum +nursery corner. All Mr. Edgeworth's varied teaching and experience, all +his daughter's genius of observation, came to interest and delight our +play-time, and that of a thousand other little children in different +parts of the world. People justly praise Miss Edgeworth's admirable +stories and novels, but from prejudice and early association these +beloved childish histories seem unequalled still, and it is chiefly as +a writer for children that we venture to consider her here. Some of the +stories are indeed little idylls in their way. Walter Scott, who best +knew how to write for the young so as to charm grandfathers as well as +Hugh Littlejohn, Esq., and all the grandchildren, is said to have wiped +his kind eyes as he put down 'Simple Susan.' A child's book, says a +reviewer of those days defining in the 'Quarterly Review,' should be +'not merely less dry, less difficult, than a book for grown-up people; +but more rich in interest, more true to nature, more exquisite in art, +more abundant in every quality that replies to childhood's keener +and fresher perception.' Children like facts, they like short vivid +sentences that tell the story: as they listen intently, so they read; +every word has its value for them. It has been a real surprise to the +writer to find, on re-reading some of these descriptions of scenery and +adventure which she had not looked at since her childhood, that the +details which she had imagined spread over much space are contained in a +few sentences at the beginning of a page. These sentences, however, show +the true art of the writer. + +It would be difficult to imagine anything better suited to the mind +of a very young person than these pleasant stories, so complete in +themselves, so interesting, so varied. The description of Jervas's +escape from the mine where the miners had plotted his destruction, +almost rises to poetry in its simple diction. Lame Jervas has warned his +master of the miners' plot, and showed him the vein of ore which they +have concealed. The miners have sworn vengeance against him, and his +life is in danger. His master helps him to get away, and comes into the +room before daybreak, bidding him rise and put on the clothes which he +has brought. 'I followed him out of the house before anybody else was +awake, and he took me across the fields towards the high road. At this +place we waited till we heard the tinkling of the bells of a team of +horses. "Here comes the waggon," said he, "in which you are to go. So +fare you well, Jervas. I shall hear how you go on; and I only hope you +will serve your next master, whoever he may be, as faithfully as you +have served me." "I shall never find so good a master," was all I could +say for the soul of me; I was quite overcome by his goodness and sorrow +at parting with him, as I then thought, for ever.' The description of +the journey is very pretty. 'The morning clouds began to clear away; I +could see my master at some distance, and I kept looking after him as +the waggon went on slowly, and he walked fast away over the fields.' +Then the sun begins to rise. The waggoner goes on whistling, but lame +Jervas, to whom the rising sun was a spectacle wholly surprising, +starts up, exclaiming in wonder and admiration. The waggoner bursts into +a loud laugh. 'Lud a marcy,' says he, 'to hear un' and look at un' a +body would think the oaf had never seen the sun rise afore;' upon which +Jervas remembers that he is still in Cornwall, and must not betray +himself, and prudently hides behind some parcels, only just in time, for +they meet a party of miners, and he hears his enemies' voice hailing the +waggoner. All the rest of the day he sits within, and amuses himself by +listening to the bells of the team, which jingle continually. 'On our +second day's journey, however, I ventured out of my hiding-place. I +walked with the waggoner up and down the hills, enjoying the fresh air, +the singing of the birds, and the delightful smell of the honeysuckles +and the dog-roses in the hedges. All the wild flowers and even the weeds +on the banks by the wayside were to me matters of wonder and admiration. +At almost every step I paused to observe something that was new to me, +and I could not help feeling surprised at the insensibility of my +fellow-traveller, who plodded along, and seldom interrupted his +whistling except to cry 'Gee, Blackbird, aw woa,' or 'How now, Smiler?' +Then Jervas is lost in admiration before a plant 'whose stem was about +two feet high, and which had a round shining purple beautiful flower,' +and the waggoner with a look of scorn exclaims, 'Help thee, lad, dost +not thou know 'tis a common thistle?' After this he looks upon Jervas as +very nearly an idiot. 'In truth I believe I was a droll figure, for my +hat was stuck full of weeds and of all sorts of wild flowers, and both +my coat and waistcoat pockets were stuffed out with pebbles and +funguses.' Then comes Plymouth Harbour: Jervas ventures to ask some +questions about the vessels, to which the waggoner answers 'They be +nothing in life but the boats and ships, man;' so he turned away and +went on chewing a straw, and seemed not a whit more moved to admiration +than he had been at the sight of the thistle. 'I conceived a high +admiration of a man who had seen so much that he could admire nothing,' +says Jervas, with a touch of real humour. + +Another most charming little idyll is that of Simple Susan, who was a +real maiden living in the neighbourhood of Edgeworthstown. The story +seems to have been mislaid for a time in the stirring events of the +first Irish rebellion, and overlooked, like some little daisy by a +battlefield. Few among us will not have shared Mr. Edgeworth's partiality +for the charming little tale. The children fling their garlands and tie +up their violets. Susan bakes her cottage loaves and gathers marigolds +for broth, and tends her mother to the distant tune of Philip's pipe +coming across the fields. As we read the story again it seems as if +we could almost scent the fragrance of the primroses and the double +violets, and hear the music sounding above the children's voices, and +the bleatings of the lamb, so simply and delightfully is the whole story +constructed. Among all Miss Edgeworth's characters few are more familiar +to the world than that of Susan's pretty pet lamb. + + +II. + +No sketch of Maria Edgeworth's life, however slight, would be complete +without a few words about certain persons coming a generation before her +(and belonging still to the age of periwigs), who were her father's +associates and her own earliest friends. Notwithstanding all that has +been said of Mr. Edgeworth's bewildering versatility of nature, he seems +to have been singularly faithful in his friendships. He might take up +new ties, but he clung pertinaciously to those which had once existed. +His daughter inherited that same steadiness of affection. In his life of +Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, Mr. Charles Darwin, writing of these +very people, has said, 'There is, perhaps, no safer test of a man's real +character than that of his long-continued friendship with good and +able men.' He then goes on to quote an instance of a long-continued +affection and intimacy only broken by death between a certain set of +distinguished friends, giving the names of Keir, Day, Small, Boulton, +Watt, Wedgwood, and Darwin, and adding to them the names of Edgeworth +himself and of the Galtons. + +Mr. Edgeworth first came to Lichfield to make Dr. Darwin's acquaintance. +His second visit was to his friend Mr. Day, the author of 'Sandford and +Merton,' who had taken a house in the valley of Stow, and who invited +him one Christmas on a visit. 'About the year 1765,' says Miss Seward, +'came to Lichfield, from the neighbourhood of Reading, the young and gay +philosopher, Mr. Edgeworth; a man of fortune, and recently married to a +Miss Elers, of Oxfordshire. The fame of Dr. Darwin's various talents +allured Mr. E. to the city they graced.' And the lady goes on to describe +Mr. Edgeworth himself:--'Scarcely two-and-twenty, with an exterior yet +more juvenile, having mathematic science, mechanic ingenuity, and a +competent portion of classical learning, with the possession of the +modern languages.... He danced, he fenced, he winged his arrows with +more than philosophic skill,' continues the lady, herself a person of no +little celebrity in her time and place. Mr. Edgeworth, in his Memoirs, +pays a respectful tribute to Miss Seward's charms, to her agreeable +conversation, her beauty, her flowing tresses, her sprightliness and +address. Such moderate expressions fail, however, to do justice to this +lady's powers, to her enthusiasm, her poetry, her partisanship. The +portrait prefixed to her letters is that of a dignified person with an +oval face and dark eyes, the thick brown tresses are twined with pearls, +her graceful figure is robed in the softest furs and draperies of the +period. In her very first letter she thus poetically describes her +surroundings:--'The autumnal glory of this day puts to shame the summer's +sullenness. I sit writing upon this dear green terrace, feeding at +intervals my little golden-breasted songsters. The embosomed vale of +Stow glows sunny through the Claude-Lorraine tint which is spread over +the scene like the blue mist over a plum.' + +In this Claude-Lorraine-plum-tinted valley stood the house which Mr. Day +had taken, and where Mr. Edgeworth had come on an eventful visit. Miss +Seward herself lived with her parents in the Bishop's palace at Lichfield. +There was also a younger sister, 'Miss Sally,' who died as a girl, and +another very beautiful young lady their friend, by name Honora Sneyd, +placed under Mrs. Seward's care. She was the heroine of Major Andre's +unhappy romance. He too lived at Lichfield with his mother, and his +hopeless love gives a tragic reality to this by-gone holiday of youth +and merry-making. As one reads the old letters and memoirs the echoes +of laughter reach us. One can almost see the young folks all coming +together out of the Cathedral Close, where so much of their time was +passed; the beautiful Honora, surrounded by friends and adorers, +chaperoned by the graceful Muse her senior, also much admired, and much +made of. Thomas Day is perhaps striding after them in silence with keen +critical glances; his long black locks flow unpowdered down his back. In +contrast to him comes his brilliant and dressy companion, Mr. Edgeworth, +who talks so agreeably. I can imagine little Sabrina, Day's adopted +foundling, of whom so many stories have been told, following shyly at +her guardian's side in her simple dress and childish beauty, and Andre's +young handsome face turned towards Miss Sneyd. So they pass on happy and +contented in each other's company, Honora in the midst, beautiful, +stately, reserved: she too was one of those not destined to be old. + +Miss Seward seems to have loved this friend with a very sincere and +admiring affection, and to have bitterly mourned her early death. Her +letters abound in apostrophes to the lost Honora. But perhaps the poor +Muse expected almost too much from friendship, too much from life. +She expected, as we all do at times, that her friends should be not +themselves but her, that they should lead not their lives but her own. +So much at least one may gather from the various phases of her style +and correspondence, and her complaints of Honora's estrangement and +subsequent coldness. Perhaps, also, Miss Seward's many vagaries and +sentiments may have frozen Honora's sympathies. Miss Seward was all +asterisks and notes of exclamation. Honora seems to have forced feeling +down to its most scrupulous expression. She never lived to be softened +by experience, to suit herself to others by degrees: with great love she +also inspired awe and a sort of surprise. One can imagine her pointing +the moral of the purple jar, as it was told long afterwards by her +stepdaughter, then a little girl playing at her own mother's knee in her +nursery by the river. + +People in the days of shilling postage were better correspondents than +they are now when we have to be content with pennyworths of news and of +affectionate intercourse. Their descriptions and many details bring all +the chief characters vividly before us, and carry us into the hearts and +the pocket-books of the little society at Lichfield as it then was. The +town must have been an agreeable sojourn in those days for people of +some pretension and small performance. The inhabitants of Lichfield seem +actually to have read each other's verses, and having done so to have +taken the trouble to sit down and write out their raptures. They were a +pleasant lively company living round about the old cathedral towers, +meeting in the Close or the adjacent gardens or the hospitable Palace +itself. Here the company would sip tea, talk mild literature of their +own and good criticism at second hand, quoting Dr. Johnson to one +another with the familiarity of townsfolk. From Erasmus Darwin, too, +they must have gained something of vigour and originality. + +With all her absurdities Miss Seward had some real critical power and +appreciation; and some of her lines are very pretty.[1] An 'Ode to the +Sun' is only what might have been expected from this Lichfield Corinne. +Her best known productions are an 'Elegy on Captain Cook,' a 'Monody on +Major Andre,' whom she had known from her early youth; and there is a +poem, 'Louisa,' of which she herself speaks very highly. But even more +than her poetry did she pique herself upon her epistolary correspondence. +It must have been well worth while writing letters when they were not +only prized by the writer and the recipients, but commented on by their +friends in after years. 'Court Dewes, Esq.,' writes, after five years, +for copies of Miss Seward's epistles to Miss Rogers and Miss Weston, of +which the latter begins:--'Soothing and welcome to me, dear Sophia, is +the regret you express for our separation! Pleasant were the weeks we +have recently passed together in this ancient and embowered mansion! I +had strongly felt the silence and vacancy of the depriving day on which +you vanished. How prone are our hearts perversely to quarrel with the +friendly coercion of employment at the very instant in which it is +clearing the torpid and injurious mists of unavailing melancholy!' Then +follows a sprightly attack before which Johnson may have quailed indeed. +'Is the Fe-fa-fum of literature that snuffs afar the fame of his brother +authors, and thirsts for its destruction, to be allowed to gallop +unmolested over the fields of criticism? A few pebbles from the +well-springs of truth and eloquence are all that is wanted to bring the +might of his envy low.' This celebrated letter, which may stand as +a specimen of the whole six volumes, concludes with the following +apostrophe:--'Virtuous friendship, how pure, how sacred are thy +delights! Sophia, thy mind is capable of tasting them in all their +poignance: against how many of life's incidents may that capacity be +considered as a counterpoise!' + + Footnote 1: In a notice of Miss Seward in the _Annual Register_, just + after her death in 1809, the writer, who seems to have known her, + says:--'Conscious of ability, she freely displayed herself in a manner + equally remote from annoyance and affectation.... Her errors arose from + a glowing imagination joined to an excessive sensibility, cherished + instead of repressed by early habits. It is understood that she has left + the whole of her works to Mr. Scott, the northern poet, with a view to + their publication with her life and posthumous pieces.' + +There were constant rubs, which are not to be wondered at, between Miss +Seward and Dr. Darwin, who, though a poet, was also a singularly witty, +downright man, outspoken and humorous. The lady admires his genius, +bitterly resents his sarcasms; of his celebrated work, the 'Botanic +Garden,' she says, 'It is a string of poetic brilliants, and they are of +the first water, but the eye will be apt to want the intersticial black +velvet to give effect to their lustre.' In later days, notwithstanding +her 'elegant language,' as Mr. Charles Darwin calls it, she said several +spiteful things of her old friend, but they seem more prompted by +private pique than malice. + +If Miss Seward was the Minerva and Dr. Darwin the Jupiter of the +Lichfield society, its philosopher was Thomas Day, of whom Miss Seward's +description is so good that I cannot help one more quotation:-- + +'Powder and fine clothes were at that time the appendages of gentlemen; +Mr. Day wore not either. He was tall and stooped in the shoulders, full +made but not corpulent, and in his meditative and melancholy air a +degree of awkwardness and dignity were blended.' She then compares +him with his guest, Mr. Edgeworth. 'Less graceful, less amusing, less +brilliant than Mr. E., but more highly imaginative, more classical, and +a deeper reasoner; strict integrity, energetic friendship, open-handed +generosity, and diffusive charity, greatly overbalanced on the side of +virtue, the tincture of misanthropic gloom and proud contempt of common +life society.' Wright, of Derby, painted a full-length picture of Mr. +Day in 1770. 'Mr. Day looks upward enthusiastically, meditating on +the contents of a book held in his dropped right hand ... a flash of +lightning plays in his hair and illuminates the contents of the volume.' +'Dr. Darwin,' adds Miss Seward, 'sat to Mr. Wright about the same +period--_that_ was a simply contemplative portrait of the most perfect +resemblance.' + + +III. + +Maria must have been three years old this eventful Christmas time when +her father, leaving his wife in Berkshire, came to stay with Mr. Day at +Lichfield, and first made the acquaintance of Miss Seward and her poetic +circle. Mr. Day, who had once already been disappointed in love, and +whose romantic scheme of adopting his foundlings and of educating one of +them to be his wife, has often been described, had brought one of the +maidens to the house he had taken at Lichfield. This was Sabrina, as he +had called her. Lucretia, having been found troublesome, had been sent +off with a dowry to be apprenticed to a milliner. Sabrina was a charming +little girl of thirteen; everybody liked her, especially the friendly +ladies at the Palace, who received her with constant kindness, as they +did Mr. Day himself and his visitor. What Miss Seward thought of Sabrina's +education I do not know. The poor child was to be taught to despise +luxury, to ignore fear, to be superior to pain. She appears, however, to +have been very fond of her benefactor, but to have constantly provoked +him by starting and screaming whenever he fired uncharged pistols at +her skirts, or dropped hot melted sealing-wax on her bare arms. She +is described as lovely and artless, not fond of books, incapable of +understanding scientific problems, or of keeping the imaginary and +terrible secrets with which her guardian used to try her nerves. I do +not know when it first occurred to him that Honora Sneyd was all that +his dreams could have imagined. One day he left Sabrina under many +restrictions, and returning unexpectedly found her wearing some garment +or handkerchief of which he did not approve, and discarded her on the +spot and for ever. Poor Sabrina was evidently not meant to mate and soar +with philosophical eagles. After this episode, she too was despatched, +to board with an old lady, in peace for a time, let us hope, and in +tranquil mediocrity. + +Mr. Edgeworth approved of this arrangement; he had never considered that +Sabrina was suited to his friend. But being taken in due time to call at +the Palace, he was charmed with Miss Seward, and still more by all he +saw of Honora; comparing her, alas! in his mind 'with all other women, +and secretly acknowledging her superiority.' At first, he says, Miss +Seward's brilliance overshadowed Honora, but very soon her merits grew +upon the bystanders. + +Mr. Edgeworth carefully concealed his feelings except from his host, who +was beginning himself to contemplate a marriage with Miss Sneyd. Mr. +Day presently proposed formally in writing for the hand of the lovely +Honora, and Mr. Edgeworth was to take the packet and to bring back the +answer; and being married himself, and out of the running, he appears to +have been unselfishly anxious for his friend's success. In the packet +Mr. Day had written down the conditions to which he should expect his +wife to subscribe. She would have to begin at once by giving up all +luxuries, amenities, and intercourse with the world, and promise to +continue to seclude herself entirely in his company. Miss Sneyd does not +seem to have kept Mr. Edgeworth waiting long while she wrote her answer +decidedly saying that she could not admit the unqualified control of a +husband over all her actions, nor the necessity for 'seclusion from +society to preserve female virtue.' Finding that Honora absolutely +refused to change her way of life, Mr. Day went into a fever, for which +Dr. Darwin bled him. Nor did he recover until another Miss Sneyd, +Elizabeth by name, made her appearance in the Close. + +Mr. Edgeworth, who was of a lively and active disposition, had +introduced archery among the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and he +describes a fine summer evening's entertainment passed in agreeable +sports, followed by dancing and music, in the course of which Honora's +sister, Miss Elizabeth, appeared for the first time on the Lichfield +scene, and immediately joined in the country dance. There is a vivid +description of the two sisters in Mr. Edgeworth's memoirs, of the +beautiful and distinguished Honora, loving science, serious, eager, +reserved; of the more lovely but less graceful Elizabeth, with less of +energy, more of humour and of social gifts than her sister. Elizabeth +Sneyd was, says Edgeworth, struck by Day's eloquence, by his unbounded +generosity, by his scorn of wealth. His educating a young girl for his +wife seemed to her romantic and extraordinary; and she seems to have +thought it possible to yield to the evident admiration she had aroused +in him. But, whether in fun or in seriousness, she represented to him +that he could not with justice decry accomplishments and graces that he +had not acquired. She wished him to go abroad for a time to study to +perfect himself in all that was wanting; on her own part she promised +not to go to Bath, London, or any public place of amusement until his +return, and to read certain books which he recommended. + +Meanwhile Mr. Edgeworth had made no secret of his own feeling for Honora +to Mr. Day, 'who with all the eloquence of virtue and of friendship' +urged him to fly, to accompany him abroad, and to shun dangers he could +not hope to overcome. Edgeworth consented to this proposal, and the two +friends started for Paris, visiting Rousseau on their way. They spent +the winter at Lyons, as it was a place where excellent masters of all +sorts were to be found; and here Mr. Day, with excess of zeal-- + + put himself (says his friend) to every species of torture, + ordinary and extraordinary, to compel his Antigallican limbs, in + spite of their natural rigidity, to dance and fence, and manage + the _great horse_. To perform his promise to Miss E. Sneyd + honourably, he gave up seven or eight hours of the day to these + exercises, for which he had not the slightest taste, and for + which, except horsemanship, he manifested the most sovereign + contempt. It was astonishing to behold the energy with which he + persevered in these pursuits. I have seen him stand between two + boards which reached from the ground higher than his knees: these + boards were adjusted with screws so as barely to permit him to + bend his knees, and to rise up and sink down. By these means Mr. + Huise proposed to force Mr. Day's knees outwards; but screwing was + in vain. He succeeded in torturing his patient; but original + formation and inveterate habit resisted all his endeavours at + personal improvement. I could not help pitying my philosophic + friend, pent up in durance vile for hours together, with his feet + in the stocks, a book in his hand, and contempt in his heart. + +Mr. Edgeworth meanwhile lodged himself 'in excellent and agreeable +apartments,' and occupied himself with engineering. He is certainly +curiously outspoken in his memoirs; and explains that the first Mrs. +Edgeworth, Maria's mother, with many merits, was of a complaining +disposition, and did not make him so happy at home as a woman of a more +lively temper might have succeeded in doing. He was tempted, he said, to +look for happiness elsewhere than in his home. Perhaps domestic affairs +may have been complicated by a warm-hearted but troublesome little son, +who at Day's suggestion had been brought up upon the Rousseau system, +and was in consequence quite unmanageable, and a worry to everybody. +Poor Mrs. Edgeworth's complainings were not to last very long. She +joined her husband at Lyons, and after a time, having a dread of +lying-in abroad, returned home to die in her confinement, leaving four +little children. Maria could remember being taken into her mother's room +to see her for the last time. + +Mr. Edgeworth hurried back to England, and was met by his friend Thomas +Day, who had preceded him, and whose own suit does not seem to have +prospered meanwhile. But though notwithstanding all his efforts Thomas +Day had not been fortunate in securing Elizabeth Sneyd's affections, he +could still feel for his friend. His first words were to tell Edgeworth +that Honora was still free, more beautiful than ever; while Virtue and +Honour commanded it, he had done all he could to divide them; now he +wished to be the first to promote their meeting. The meeting resulted in +an engagement, and Mr. Edgeworth and Miss Sneyd were married within four +months by the benevolent old canon in the Lady Chapel of Lichfield +Cathedral. + +Mrs. Seward wept; Miss Seward, 'notwithstanding some imaginary +dissatisfaction about a bridesmaid,' was really glad of the marriage, we +are told; and the young couple immediately went over to Ireland. + + +IV. + +Though her life was so short, Honora Edgeworth seems to have made the +deepest impression on all those she came across. Over little Maria she +had the greatest influence. There is a pretty description of the child +standing lost in wondering admiration of her stepmother's beauty, as she +watched her soon after her marriage dressing at her toilet-table. Little +Maria's feeling for her stepmother was very deep and real, and the +influence of those few years lasted for a lifetime. Her own exquisite +carefulness she always ascribed to it, and to this example may also be +attributed her habits of order and self-government, her life of reason +and deliberate judgment. + +The seven years of Honora's married life seem to have been very peaceful +and happy. She shared her husband's pursuits, and wished for nothing +outside her own home. She began with him to write those little books +which were afterwards published. It is just a century ago since she and +Mr. Edgeworth planned the early histories of Harry and Lucy and Frank; +while Mr. Day began his 'Sandford and Merton,' which at first was +intended to appear at the same time, though eventually the third part +was not published till 1789. + +As a girl of seventeen Honora Sneyd had once been threatened with +consumption. After seven years of married life the cruel malady again +declared itself; and though Dr. Darwin did all that human resource could +do, and though every tender care surrounded her, the poor young lady +rapidly sank. There is a sad, prim, most affecting letter, addressed to +little Maria by the dying woman shortly before the end; and then comes +that one written by the father, which is to tell her that all is over. + +If Mr. Edgeworth was certainly unfortunate in losing again and again the +happiness of his home, he was more fortunate than most people in being +able to rally from his grief. He does not appear to have been unfaithful +in feeling. Years after, Edgeworth, writing to console Mrs. Day upon her +husband's death, speaks in the most touching way of all he had suffered +when Honora died, and of the struggle he had made to regain his hold of +life. This letter is in curious contrast to that one written at the +time, as he sits by poor Honora's deathbed; it reads strangely cold and +irrelevant in these days when people are not ashamed of feeling or of +describing what they feel. 'Continue, my dear daughter'--he writes to +Maria, who was then thirteen years old--'the desire which you feel of +becoming amiable, prudent, and of use. The ornamental parts of a +character, with such an understanding as yours, necessarily ensue; but +true judgment and sagacity in the choice of friends, and the regulation +of your behaviour, can be only had from reflection, and from being +thoroughly convinced of what experience in general teaches too late, +that to be happy we must be good.' + +'Such a letter, written at such a time,' says the kind biographer, 'made +the impression it was intended to convey; and the wish to act up to the +high opinion her father had formed of her character became an exciting +and controlling power over the whole of Maria's future life.' On her +deathbed, Honora urged her husband to marry again, and assured him that +the woman to suit him was her sister Elizabeth. Her influence was so +great upon them both that, although Elizabeth was attached to some one +else, and Mr. Edgeworth believed her to be little suited to himself, +they were presently engaged and married, not without many difficulties. +The result proved how rightly Honora had judged. + +It was to her father that Maria owed the suggestion of her first start +in literature. Immediately after Honora's death he tells her to write a +tale about the length of a 'Spectator,' on the subject of generosity. +'It must be taken from history or romance, must be sent the day +se'nnight after you receive this; and I beg you will take some pains +about it.' A young gentleman from Oxford was also set to work to try his +powers on the same subject, and Mr. William Sneyd, at Lichfield, was to +be judge between the two performances. He gave his verdict for Maria: +'An excellent story and very well written: but where's the generosity?' +This, we are told, became a sort of proverb in the Edgeworth family. + +The little girl meanwhile had been sent to school to a certain Mrs. +Lataffiere, where she was taught to use her fingers, to write a lovely +delicate hand, to work white satin waistcoats for her papa. She was then +removed to a fashionable establishment in Upper Wimpole Street, where, +says her stepmother, 'she underwent all the usual tortures of +backboards, iron collars, and dumb-bells, with the unusual one of being +hung by the neck to draw out the muscles and increase the growth,--a +signal failure in her case.' (Miss Edgeworth was always a very tiny +person.) There is a description given of Maria at this school of hers of +the little maiden absorbed in her book with all the other children at +play, while she sits in her favourite place in front of a carved oak +cabinet, quite unconscious of the presence of the romping girls all +about her. + +Hers was a very interesting character as it appears in the +Memoirs--sincere, intelligent, self-contained, and yet dependent; +methodical, observant. Sometimes as one reads of her in early life one +is reminded of some of the personal characteristics of the writer who +perhaps of all writers least resembles Miss Edgeworth in her art--of +Charlotte Bronte, whose books are essentially of the modern and +passionate school, but whose strangely mixed character seemed rather to +belong to the orderly and neatly ruled existence of Queen Charlotte's +reign. People's lives as they really are don't perhaps vary very much, +but people's lives as they seem to be assuredly change with the fashions. +Miss Edgeworth and Miss Bronte were both Irishwomen, who have often, +with all their outcome, the timidity which arises from quick and +sensitive feeling. But the likeness does not go very deep. Maria, +whose diffidence and timidity were personal, but who had a firm and +unalterable belief in family traditions, may have been saved from some +danger of prejudice and limitation by a most fortunate though trying +illness which affected her eyesight, and which caused her to be removed +from her school with its monstrous elegancies to the care of Mr. Day, +that kindest and sternest of friends. + +This philosopher in love had been bitterly mortified when the lively +Elizabeth Sneyd, instead of welcoming his return, could not conceal her +laughter at his uncouth elegancies, and confessed that, on the whole, +she had liked him better as he was before. He forswore Lichfield and +marriage, and went abroad to forget. He turned his thoughts to politics; +he wrote pamphlets on public subjects and letters upon slavery. His poem +of the 'Dying Negro' had been very much admired. Miss Hannah More speaks +of it in her Memoirs. The subject of slavery was much before people's +minds, and Day's influence had not a little to do with the rising +indignation. + +Among Day's readers and admirers was one person who was destined to have +a most important influence upon his life. By a strange chance his +extraordinary ideal was destined to be realised; and a young lady, good, +accomplished, rich, devoted, who had read his books, and sympathised +with his generous dreams, was ready not only to consent to his strange +conditions, but to give him her whole heart and find her best happiness +in his society and in carrying out his experiments and fancies. She was +Miss Esther Milnes, of Yorkshire, an heiress; and though at first Day +hesitated and could not believe in the reality of her feeling, her +constancy and singleness of mind were not to be resisted, and they were +married at Bath in 1778. We hear of Mr. and Mrs. Day spending the first +winter of their married life at Hampstead, and of Mrs. Day, thickly +shodden, walking with him in a snowstorm on the common, and ascribing +her renewed vigour to her husband's Spartan advice. + +Day and his wife eventually established themselves at Anningsley, near +Chobham. He had insisted upon settling her fortune upon herself, but +Mrs. Day assisted him in every way, and sympathised in his many schemes +and benevolent ventures. When he neglected to make a window to the +dressing-room he built for her, we hear of her uncomplainingly lighting +her candles; to please him she worked as a servant in the house, and all +their large means were bestowed in philanthropic and charitable schemes. +Mr. Edgeworth quotes his friend's reproof to Mrs. Day, who was fond of +music: 'Shall we beguile the time with the strains of a lute while our +fellow-creatures are starving?' 'I am out of pocket every year about +300_l._ by the farm I keep,' Day writes his to his friend Edgeworth. +'The soil I have taken in hand, I am convinced, is one of the most +completely barren in England.' He then goes on to explain his reasons +for what he is about. 'It enables me to employ the poor, and the result +of all my speculations about humanity is that the only way of benefiting +mankind is to give them employment and make them earn their money.' +There is a pretty description of the worthy couple in their home +dispensing help and benefits all round about, draining, planting, +teaching, doctoring--nothing came amiss to them. Their chief friend and +neighbour was Samuel Cobbett, who understood their plans, and +sympathised in their efforts, which, naturally enough, were viewed with +doubt and mistrust by most of the people round about. It was at +Anningsley that Mr. Day finished 'Sandford and Merton,' begun many years +before. His death was very sudden, and was brought about by one of his +own benevolent theories. He used to maintain that kindness alone could +tame animals; and he was killed by a fall from a favourite colt which he +was breaking in. Mrs. Day never recovered the shock. She lived two years +hidden in her home, absolutely inconsolable, and then died and was laid +by her husband's side in the churchyard at Wargrave by the river. + +It was to the care of these worthy people that little Maria was sent +when she was ill, and she was doctored by them both physically and +morally. 'Bishop Berkeley's tar-water was still considered a specific +for all complaints,' says Mrs. Edgeworth. 'Mr. Day thought it would be +of use to Maria's inflamed eyes, and he used to bring a large tumbler +full of it to her every morning. She dreaded his "Now, Miss Maria, drink +this." But there was, in spite of his stern voice, something of pity and +sympathy in his countenance. His excellent library was open to her, and +he directed her studies. His severe reasoning and uncompromising truth +of mind awakened all her powers, and the questions he put to her and the +working out of the answers, the necessity of perfect accuracy in all her +words, suited the natural truth of her mind; and though such strictness +was not agreeable, she even then perceived its advantage, and in after +life was grateful for it.' + + +V. + +We have seen how Miss Elizabeth Sneyd, who could not make up her mind to +marry Mr. Day notwithstanding all he had gone through for her sake, had +eventually consented to become Mr. Edgeworth's third wife. With this +stepmother for many years to come Maria lived in an affectionate +intimacy, only to be exceeded by that most faithful companionship which +existed for fifty years between her and the lady from whose memoirs I +quote. + +It was about 1782 that Maria went home to live at Edgeworthtown with +her father and his wife, with the many young brothers and sisters. The +family was a large one, and already consisted of her own sisters, of +Honora the daughter of Mrs. Honora, and Lovell her son. To these +succeeded many others of the third generation; and two sisters of Mrs. +Edgeworth's, who also made their home at Edgeworthtown. + + Maria had once before been there, "very young, but she was now old + enough to be struck with the difference then so striking between + Ireland and England." The tones and looks, the melancholy and the + gaiety of the people, were so new and extraordinary to her that + the delineations she long afterwards made of Irish character + probably owe their life and truth to the impression made on her + mind at this time as a stranger. Though it was June when they + landed, there was snow on the roses she ran out to gather, and she + felt altogether in a new and unfamiliar country. + +She herself describes the feelings of the master of a family returning +to an Irish home:-- + + Wherever he turned his eyes, in or out of his home, damp + dilapidation, waste appeared. Painting, glazing, roofing, fencing, + finishing--all were wanting. The backyard and even the front + lawn round the windows of the house were filled with loungers, + followers, and petitioners; tenants, undertenants, drivers, + sub-agent and agent were to have audience; and they all had + grievances and secret informations, accusations, reciprocations, + and quarrels each under each interminable. + +Her account of her father's dealings with them is admirable:-- + + I was with him constantly, and I was amused and interested in + seeing how he made his way through their complaints, petitions, + and grievances with decision and despatch, he all the time in good + humour with the people and they delighted with him, though he + often rated them roundly when they stood before him perverse in + litigation, helpless in procrastination, detected in cunning or + convicted of falsehood. They saw into his character almost as soon + as he understood theirs. + +Mr. Edgeworth had in a very remarkable degree that power of ruling and +administering which is one of the rarest of gifts. He seems to have +shown great firmness and good sense in his conduct in the troubled times +in which he lived. He saw to his own affairs, administered justice, put +down middlemen as far as possible, reorganised the letting out of the +estate. Unlike many of his neighbours, he was careful not to sacrifice +the future to present ease of mind and of pocket. He put down rack-rents +and bribes of every sort, and did his best to establish things upon a +firm and lasting basis. + +But if it was not possible even for Mr. Edgeworth to make such things +all they should have been outside the house, the sketch given of the +family life at home is very pleasant. The father lives in perfect +confidence with his children, admitting them to his confidence, +interesting them in his experiments, spending his days with them, +consulting them. There are no reservations; he does his business in the +great sitting-room, surrounded by his family. I have heard it described +as a large ground-floor room, with windows to the garden and with two +columns supporting the further end, by one of which Maria's writing-desk +used to be placed--a desk which her father had devised for her, which +used to be drawn out to the fireside when she worked. Does not Mr. +Edgeworth also mention in one of his letters a picture of Thomas Day +hanging over a sofa against the wall? Books in plenty there were, +we may be sure, and perhaps models of ingenious machines and different +appliances for scientific work. Sir Henry Holland and Mr. Ticknor give a +curious description of Mr. Edgeworth's many ingenious inventions. There +were strange locks to the rooms and telegraphic despatches to the +kitchen; clocks at the one side of the house were wound up by simply +opening certain doors at the other end. It has been remarked that all +Miss Edgeworth's heroes had a smattering of science. Several of her +brothers inherited her father's turn for it. We hear of them raising +steeples and establishing telegraphs in partnership with him. Maria +shared of the family labours and used to help her father in the business +connected with the estate, to assist him, also, to keep the accounts. +She had a special turn for accounts, and she was pleased with her +exquisitely neat columns and by the accuracy with which her figures fell +into their proper places. Long after her father's death this knowledge +and experience enabled her to manage the estate for her eldest stepbrother, +Mr. Lovell Edgeworth. She was able, at a time of great national +difficulty and anxious crisis, to meet a storm in which many a larger +fortune was wrecked. + +But in 1782 she was a young girl only beginning life. Storms were not +yet, and she was putting out her wings in the sunshine. Her father set +her to translate 'Adele et Theodore,' by Madame de Genlis (she had a +great facility for languages, and her French was really remarkable). +Holcroft's version of the book, however, appeared, and the Edgeworth +translation was never completed. Mr. Day wrote a letter to congratulate +Mr. Edgeworth on the occasion. It seemed horrible to Mr. Day that a +woman should appear in print. + +It is possible that the Edgeworth family was no exception to the rule by +which large and clever and animated families are apt to live in a +certain atmosphere of their own. But, notwithstanding this strong family +bias, few people can have seen more of the world, felt its temper more +justly, or appreciated more fully the interesting varieties of people to +be found in it than Maria Edgeworth. Within easy reach of Edgeworthtown +were different agreeable and cultivated houses. There was Pakenham Hall +with Lord Longford for its master; one of its daughters was the future +Duchess of Wellington, 'who was always Kitty Pakenham for her old +friends.' There at Castle Forbes also lived, I take it, more than one +of the well-bred and delightful persons, out of 'Patronage,' and the +'Absentee,' who may, in real life, have borne the names of Lady Moira +and Lady Granard. Besides, there were cousins and relations without +number--Foxes, Ruxtons, marriages and intermarriages; and when the time +came for occasional absences and expeditions from home, the circles seem +to have spread incalculably in every direction. The Edgeworths appear to +have been a genuinely sociable clan, interested in others and certainly +interesting to them. + + +VI. + +The first letter given in the Memoirs from Maria to her favourite aunt +Ruxton is a very sad one, which tells of the early death of her sister +Honora, a beautiful girl of fifteen, the only daughter of Mrs. Honora +Edgeworth, who died of consumption, as her mother had died. This letter, +written in the dry phraseology of the time, is nevertheless full of +feeling, above all for her father who was, as Maria says elsewhere, +ever since she could think or feel, the first object and motive of her +mind. + +Mrs. Edgeworth describes her sister-in-law as follows:-- + + Mrs. Ruxton resembled her brother in the wit and vivacity of her + mind and strong affections; her grace and charm of manner were + such that a gentleman once said of her; 'If I were to see Mrs. + Ruxton in rags as a beggar woman sitting on the doorstep, I should + say "Madam" to her.' 'To write to her Aunt Ruxton was, as long as + she lived, Maria's greatest pleasure while away from her,' says + Mrs. Edgeworth, 'and to be with her was a happiness she enjoyed + with never flagging and supreme delight. Blackcastle was within a + few hours' drive of Edgeworthtown, and to go to Blackcastle was + the holiday of her life.' + +Mrs. Edgeworth tells a story of Maria once staying at Blackcastle and +tearing out the title page of 'Belinda,' so that her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, +read the book without any suspicion of the author. She was so delighted +with it that she insisted on Maria listening to page after page, +exclaiming 'Is not that admirably written?' 'Admirably read, I think,' +said Maria; until her aunt, quite provoked by her faint acquiescence, +says, 'I am sorry to see my little Maria unable to bear the praises of a +rival author;' at which poor Maria burst into tears, and Mrs. Ruxton +could never bear the book mentioned afterwards. + +It was with Mrs. Ruxton that a little boy, born just after the death +of the author of 'Sandford and Merton,' was left on the occasion of +the departure of the Edgeworth family for Clifton, in 1792, where Mr. +Edgeworth spent a couple of years for the health of one of his sons. In +July the poor little brother dies in Ireland. 'There does not, now that +little Thomas is gone, exist even a person of the same name as Mr. Day,' +says Mr. Edgeworth, who concludes his letter philosophically, as the +father of twenty children may be allowed to do, by expressing a hope +that to his nurses, Mrs. Ruxton and her daughter, 'the remembrance of +their own goodness will soon obliterate the painful impression of his +miserable end.' During their stay at Clifton Richard Edgeworth, the +eldest son, who had been brought up upon Rousseau's system, and who +seems to have found the Old World too restricted a sphere for his +energies, after going to sea and disappearing for some years, suddenly +paid them a visit from South Carolina, where he had settled and married. +The young man was gladly welcomed by them all. He had been long separated +from home, and he eventually died very young in America; but his sister +always clung to him with fond affection, and when he left them to return +home she seems to have felt his departure very much. 'Last Saturday my +poor brother Richard took leave of us to return to America. He has gone +up to London with my father and mother, and is to sail from thence. We +could not part from him without great pain and regret, for he made us +all extremely fond of him.' + +Notwithstanding these melancholy events, Maria Edgeworth seems to have +led a happy busy life all this time among her friends, her relations, +her many interests, her many fancies and facts, making much of the +children, of whom she writes pleasant descriptions to her aunt. +'Charlotte is very engaging and promises to be handsome. Sneyd is, and +promises everything. Henry will, I think, through life always do more +than he promises. Little Honora is a sprightly blue-eyed child at nurse +with a woman who is the picture of health and simplicity. Lovell is +perfectly well. Doctor Darwin has paid him very handsome compliments on +his lines on the Barbarini Vase in the first part of the "Botanic +Garden."' + +Mr. Edgeworth, however, found the time long at Clifton, though, as +usual, he at once improved his opportunities, paid visits to his friends +in London and elsewhere, and renewed many former intimacies and +correspondences. + +Maria also paid a visit to London, but the time had not come for her to +enjoy society, and the extreme shyness of which Mrs. Edgeworth speaks +made it pain to her to be in society in those early days. 'Since I have +been away from home,' she writes, 'I have missed the society of my +father, mother, and sisters more than I can express, and more than +beforehand I could have thought possible. I long to see them all again. +Even when I am most amused I feel a void, and now I understand what an +aching void is perfectly.' Very soon we hear of her at home again, +'scratching away at the Freeman family.' Mr. Edgeworth is reading aloud +Gay's 'Trivia' among other things, which she recommends to her aunt. 'I +had much rather make a bargain with any one I loved to read the same +books with them at the same hour than to look at the moon like +Rousseau's famous lovers.' There is another book, a new book for the +children, mentioned about this time, 'Evenings at Home,' which they all +admire immensely. + +Miss Edgeworth was now about twenty-six, at an age when a woman's powers +have fully ripened; a change comes over her style; there is a fulness of +description in her letters and a security of expression which show +maturity. Her habit of writing was now established, and she describes +the constant interest her father took and his share in all she did. Some +of the slighter stories she first wrote upon a slate and read out to her +brothers and sisters; others she sketched for her father's approval, and +arranged and altered as he suggested. The letters for literary ladies +were with the publishers by this time, and these were followed by +various stories and early lessons, portions of 'Parents' Assistant,' +and of popular tales, all of which were sent out in packets and lent +from one member of the family to another before finally reaching Mr. +Johnson, the publisher's, hands. Maria Edgeworth in some of her letters +from Clifton alludes with some indignation to the story of Mrs. Hannah +More's ungrateful _protegee_ Lactilla, the literary milkwoman, whose +poems Hannah More was at such pains to bring before the world, and for +whom, with her kind preface and warm commendations and subscription +list, she was able to obtain the large sum of 500_l._ The ungrateful +Lactilla, who had been starving when Mrs. More found her out, seems to +have lost her head in this sudden prosperity, and to have accused her +benefactress of wishing to steal a portion of the money. Maria Edgeworth +must have been also interested in some family marriages which took place +about this time. Her own sister Anna became engaged to Dr. Beddoes, of +Clifton, whose name appears as prescribing for the authors of various +memoirs of that day. He is 'a man of ability, of a great name in the +scientific world,' says Mr. Edgeworth, who favoured the Doctor's +'declared passion,' as a proposal was then called, and the marriage +accordingly took place on their return to Ireland. Emmeline, another +sister, was soon after married to Mr. King, a surgeon, also living at +Bristol, and Maria was now left the only remaining daughter of the +first marriage, to be good aunt, sister, friend to all the younger +members of the party. She was all this, but she herself expressly states +that her father would never allow her to be turned into a nursery drudge; +her share of the family was limited to one special little boy. Meanwhile +her pen-and-ink children are growing up, and starting out in the world +on their own merits. + +'I beg, dear Sophy,' she writes to her cousin, 'that you will not call +my little stories by the sublime name of my works; I shall else be +ashamed when the little mouse comes forth. The stories are printed and +bound the same size as 'Evenings at Home,' but I am afraid you will +dislike the title. My father had sent the 'Parents' Friend,' but Mr. +Johnson has degraded it into 'Parents' Assistant.' + +In 1797, says Miss Beaufort, who was to be so soon more intimately +connected with the Edgeworth family, Johnson wished to publish more +volumes of the 'Parents' Assistant' on fine paper, with prints, and Mrs. +Ruxton asked me to make some designs for them. These designs seem to +have given great satisfaction to the Edgeworth party, and especially to +a little boy called William, Mrs. Edgeworth's youngest boy, who grew up +to be a fine young man, but who died young of the cruel family complaint. +Mrs. Edgeworth's health was also failing all this time--'Though she +makes epigrams she is far from well,' says Maria; but they, none of them +seem seriously alarmed. Mr. Edgeworth, in the intervals of politics, is +absorbed in a telegraph, which, with the help of his sons, he is trying +to establish. It is one which will act by night as well as by day. + +It was a time of change and stir for Ireland, disaffection growing and +put down for a time by the soldiers; armed bands going about 'defending' +the country and breaking its windows. In 1794 threats of a French +invasion had alarmed everybody, and now again in 1796 came rumours of +every description, and Mr. Edgeworth was very much disappointed that his +proposal for establishing a telegraph across the water to England was +rejected by Government. He also writes to Dr. Darwin that he had offered +himself as a candidate for the county, and been obliged to relinquish +at the last moment; but these minor disappointments were lost in the +trouble which fell upon the household in the following year--the death +of the mother of the family, who sank rapidly and died of consumption in +1797. + + +VII. + +When Mr. Edgeworth himself died (not, as we may be sure, without many +active post-mortem wishes and directions) he left his entertaining +Memoirs half finished, and he desired his daughter Maria in the most +emphatic way to complete them, and to publish them without changing +or altering anything that he had written. People reading them were +surprised by the contents; many blamed Miss Edgeworth for making them +public, not knowing how solemn and binding these dying commands of her +father's had been, says Mrs. Leadbeater, writing at the time to Mrs. +Trench. Many severe and wounding reviews appeared, and this may have +influenced Miss Edgeworth in her own objection to having her Memoirs +published by her family. + +Mr. Edgeworth's life was most extraordinary, comprising in fact three or +four lives in the place of that one usually allowed to most people, some +of us having to be moderately content with a half or three-quarters of +existence. But his versatility of mind was no less remarkable than his +tenacity of purpose and strength of affection, though some measure of +sentiment must have certainly been wanting, and his fourth marriage +must have taken most people by surprise. The writer once expressed her +surprise at the extraordinary influence that Mr. Edgeworth seems to have +had over women and over the many members of his family who continued to +reside in his home after all the various changes which had taken place +there. Lady S---- to whom she spoke is one who has seen more of life +than most of us, who has for years past carried help to the far-away +and mysterious East, but whose natural place is at home in the more +prosperous and unattainable West End. This lady said, 'You do not in the +least understand what my Uncle Edgeworth was. I never knew anything +like him. Brilliant, full of energy and charm, he was something quite +extraordinary and irresistible. If you had known him you would not have +wondered at anything.' + + 'I had in the spring of that year (1797) paid my first visit to + Edgeworthtown with my mother and sister,' writes Miss Beaufort, + afterwards Mrs. Edgeworth, the author of the Memoirs. 'My father + had long before been there, and had frequently met Mr. Edgeworth + at Mrs. Ruxton's. In 1795 my father was presented to the living of + Collon, in the county of Louth, where he resided from that time. + His vicarage was within five minutes' walk of the residence of Mr. + Foster, then Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, the dear + friend of Mr. Edgeworth, who came to Collon in the spring of 1798 + several times, and at last offered me his hand, which I accepted.' + +Maria, who was at first very much opposed to the match, would not have +been herself the most devoted and faithful of daughters if she had not +eventually agreed to her father's wishes, and, as daughters do, come by +degrees to feel with him and to see with his eyes. The influence of a +father over a daughter where real sympathy exists is one of the very +deepest and strongest that can be imagined. Miss Beaufort herself seems +also to have had some special attraction for Maria. She was about her +own age. She must have been a person of singularly sweet character and +gentle liberality of mind. 'You will come into a new family, but you +will not come as a stranger, dear Miss Beaufort,' writes generous Maria. +'You will not lead a new life, but only continue to lead the life you +have been used to in your own happy cultivated family.' And her +stepmother in a few feeling words describes all that Maria was to her +from the very first when she came as a bride to the home where the +sisters and the children of the lately lost wife were all assembled to +meet her. + +It gives an unpleasant thrill to read of the newly-married lady coming +along to her home in a postchaise, and seeing something odd on the +side of the road. 'Look to the other side; don't look at it,' says Mr. +Edgeworth; and when they had passed he tells his bride that it was the +body of a man hung by the rebels between the shafts of a car. + +The family at Edgeworthtown consisted of two ladies, sisters of the late +Mrs. Edgeworth, who made it their home, and of Maria, the last of the +first family. Lovell, now the eldest son, was away; but there were also +four daughters and three sons at home. + + All agreed in making me feel at once at home and part of the + family; all received me with the most unaffected cordiality; but + from Maria it was something more. She more than fulfilled the + promise of her letter; she made me at once her most intimate + friend, and in every trifle of the day treated me with the most + generous confidence. + +Those times were even more serious than they are now; we hear of Mr. +Bond, the High Sheriff, paying 'a pale visit' to Edgeworthtown. 'I am +going on in the old way, writing stories,' says Maria Edgeworth, writing +in 1798. 'I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and sitting with my hands +before me would not make any one of us one degree safer.... Simple +Susan went to Foxhall a few days ago for Lady Anne to carry her to +England.'... 'My father has made our little rooms so nice for us,' she +continues; 'they are all fresh painted and papered. Oh! rebels, oh! +French spare them. We have never injured you, and all we wish is to see +everybody as happy as ourselves.' + +On August 29 we find from Miss Edgeworth's letter to her cousin that +the French have got to Castlebar. 'The Lord-Lieutenant is now at +Athlone, and it is supposed it will be their next object of attack. My +father's corps of yeomanry are extremely attached to him and seem fully +in earnest; but, alas! by some strange negligence, their arms have not +yet arrived from Dublin.... We, who are so near the scene of action, +cannot by any means discover what _number_ of the French actually +landed; some say 800, some 1,800, some 18,000.' + +The family had a narrow escape that day, for two officers, who were in +charge of some ammunition, offered to take them under their protection +as far as Longford. Mr. Edgeworth most fortunately detained them. 'Half +an hour afterwards, as we were quietly sitting in the portico, we heard, +as we thought close to us, the report of a pistol or a clap of thunder +which shook the house. The officer soon after returned almost speechless; +he could hardly explain what had happened. The ammunition cart, +containing nearly three barrels of gunpowder, took fire, and burnt +half-way on the road to Longford. The man who drove the cart was blown +to atoms. Nothing of him could be found. Two of the horses were killed; +others were blown to pieces, and their limbs scattered to a distance. +The head and body of a man were found a hundred and twenty yards from +the spot.... If we had gone with this ammunition cart, we must have +been killed. An hour or two afterwards we were obliged to fly from +Edgeworthtown. The pikemen, 300 in number, were within a mile of the +town; my mother and Charlotte and I rode; passed the trunk of the dead +man, bloody limbs of horses, and two dead horses, by the help of men +who pulled on our steeds--all safely lodged now in Mrs. Fallon's inn.' +'Before we had reached the place where the cart had been blown up,' says +Mrs. Edgeworth, 'Mr. Edgeworth suddenly recollected that he had left on +the table in his study a list of the yeomanry corps which he feared +might endanger the poor fellows and their families if it fell into the +hands of the rebels. He galloped back for it. It was at the hazard of +his life; but the rebels had not yet appeared. He burned the paper, and +rejoined us safely.' The Memoirs give a most interesting and spirited +account of the next few days. The rebels spared Mr. Edgeworth's house, +although they broke into it. After a time the family were told that all +was safe for their return, and the account of their coming home, as it +is given in the second volume of Mr. Edgeworth's life by his daughter, +is a model of style and admirable description. + +In 1799 Mr. Edgeworth came into Parliament for the borough of St. +Johnstown. He was a Unionist by conviction, but he did not think the +times were yet ripe for the Union, and he therefore voted against it. +In some of his letters to Dr. Darwin written at this time, he says that +he was offered 3,000 guineas for his seat for the few remaining weeks of +the session, which, needless to say, he refused, not thinking it well, +as he says, '_to quarrel with myself_.' He also adds that Maria continues +writing for children under the persuasion that she cannot be more +serviceably employed; and he sends (with his usual perspicuity) +affectionate messages to the Doctor's 'good amiable lady and _his giant +brood_.' But this long friendly correspondence was coming to an end. The +Doctor's letters, so quietly humorous and to the point, Mr. Edgeworth's +answers with all their characteristic and lively variety, were nearly at +an end. + +It was in 1800 that Maria had achieved her great success, and published +'Castle Rackrent,' a book--not for children this time--which made +everybody talk who read, and those read who had only talked before. This +work was published anonymously, and so great was its reputation that +some one was at the pains to copy out the whole of the story with +erasures and different signs of authenticity, and assume the authorship. + +One very distinctive mark of Maria Edgeworth's mind is the honest +candour and genuine critical faculty which is hers. Her appreciation of +her own work and that of others is unaffected and really discriminating, +whether it is 'Corinne' or a simple story which she is reading, or +Scott's new novel the 'Pirate,' or one of her own manuscripts which she +estimates justly and reasonably. 'I have read "Corinne" with my father, +and I like it better than he does. In one word, I am dazzled by the +genius, provoked by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste and +critical judgment of Italian literature displayed throughout the whole +work: but I will not dilate upon it in a letter. I could talk for three +hours to you and my aunt.' + +Elsewhere she speaks with the warmest admiration of a 'Simple Story.' +Jane Austen's books were not yet published; but another writer, for whom +Mr. Edgeworth and his daughter had a very great regard and admiration, +was Mrs. Barbauld, who in all the heavy trials and sorrows of her later +life found no little help and comfort in the friendship and constancy of +Maria Edgeworth. Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld, upon Mr. Edgeworth's invitation, +paid him a visit at Clifton, where he was again staying in 1799, and +where the last Mrs. Edgeworth's eldest child was born. There is a little +anecdote of domestic life at this time in the Memoirs which gives +one a glimpse, not of an authoress, but of a very sympathising and +impressionable person. 'Maria took her little sister to bring down to +her father, but when she had descended a few steps a panic seized her, +and she was afraid to go either backwards or forwards. She sat down on +the stairs afraid she should drop the child, afraid that its head would +come off, and afraid that her father would find her sitting there and +laugh at her, till seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in a +terrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards down the stairs +till she safely reached the sitting-room.' For all these younger +children Maria seems to have had a most tender and motherly regard, as +indeed for all her young brothers and sisters of the different families. +Many of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few heroines +are more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. Rosamund is said by +some to have been Maria herself, impulsive, warm-hearted, timid, and yet +full of spirit and animation. + +In his last letter to Mr. Edgeworth Dr. Darwin writes kindly of the +authoress, and sends her a message. The letter is dated April 17, 1802. +'I am glad to find you still amuse yourself with mechanism in spite of +the troubles of Ireland;' and the Doctor goes on to ask his friend to +come and pay a visit to the Priory, and describes the pleasant house +with the garden, the ponds full of fish, the deep umbrageous valley, +with the talkative stream running down it, and Derby tower in the +distance. The letter, so kind, so playful in its tone, was never +finished. Dr. Darwin was writing as he was seized with what seemed a +fainting fit, and he died within an hour. Miss Edgeworth writes of the +shock her father felt when the sad news reached him; a shock, she says, +which must in some degree be experienced by every person who reads this +letter of Dr. Darwin's. + +No wonder this generous outspoken man was esteemed in his own time. To +us, in ours, it has been given still more to know the noble son of 'that +giant brood,' whose name will be loved and held in honour as long as +people live to honour nobleness, simplicity, and genius; those things +which give life to life itself. + + +VIII. + +'Calais after a rough passage; Brussels, flat country, tiled houses, +trees and ditches, the window shutters turned out to the street; +fishwives' legs, Dunkirk, and the people looking like wooden toys set in +motion; Bruges and its mingled spires, shipping, and windmills.' These +notes of travel read as if Miss Edgeworth had been writing down only +yesterday a pleasant list of the things which are to be seen two hours +off, to-day no less plainly than a century ago. She jots it all down +from her corner in the postchaise, where she is propped up with a +father, brother, stepmother, and sister for travelling companions, and +a new book to beguile the way. She is charmed with her new book. It is +the story of 'Mademoiselle de Clermont,' by Madame de Genlis, and only +just out. The Edgeworths (with many other English people) rejoiced in +the long-looked-for millennium, which had been signed only the previous +autumn, and they now came abroad to bask in the sunshine of the Continent, +which had been so long denied to our mist-bound islanders. We hear of +the enthusiastic and somewhat premature joy with which this peace was +received by all ranks of people. Not only did the English rush over to +France; foreigners crossed to England, and one of them, an old friend of +Mr. Edgeworth's, had already reached Edgeworthtown, and inspired its +enterprising master with a desire to see those places and things once +more which he heard described. Mr. Edgeworth was anxious also to show +his young wife the treasures in the Louvre, and to help her to develop +her taste for art. He had had many troubles of late, lost friends and +children by death and by marriage. One can imagine that the change must +have been welcome to them all. Besides Maria and Lovell, his eldest +son, he took with him a lovely young daughter, Charlotte Edgeworth, the +daughter of Elizabeth Sneyd. They travelled by Belgium, stopping on +their way at Bruges, at Ghent, and visiting pictures and churches along +the road, as travellers still like to do. Mrs. Edgeworth was, as we have +said, the artistic member of the party. We do not know what modern +rhapsodists would say to Miss Edgeworth's very subdued criticisms and +descriptions of feeling on this occasion. 'It is extremely agreeable to +me,' she writes, 'to see paintings with those who have excellent taste +and no affectation.' And this remark might perhaps be thought even more +to the point now than in the pre-aesthetic age in which it was innocently +made. The travellers are finally landed in Paris in a magnificent hotel +in a fine square, 'formerly Place Louis-Quinze, afterwards Place de la +Revolution, now Place de la Concorde.' And Place de la Concorde it +remains, wars and revolutions notwithstanding, whether lighted by the +flames of the desperate Commune or by the peaceful sunsets which stream +their evening glory across the blood-stained stones. + +The Edgeworths did not come as strangers to Paris; they brought letters +and introductions with them, and bygone associations and friendships +which had only now to be resumed. The well-known Abbe Morellet, their +old acquaintance, 'answered for them,' says Miss Edgeworth, and besides +all this Mr Edgeworth's name was well known in scientific circles. +Breguet, Montgolfier, and others all made him welcome. Lord Henry +Petty, as Maria's friend Lord Lansdowne was then called, was in Paris, +and Rogers the poet, and Kosciusko, cured of his wounds. For the first +time they now made the acquaintance of M. Dumont, a lifelong friend and +correspondent. There were many others--the Delesserts, of the French +Protestant faction, Madame Suard, to whom the romantic Thomas Day had +paid court some thirty years before, and Madame Campan, and Madame +Recamier, and Madame de Remusat, and Madame de Houdetot, now seventy-two +years of age, but Rousseau's Julie still, and Camille Jordan, and the +Chevalier Edelcrantz, from the Court of the King of Sweden. + +The names alone of the Edgeworths' entertainers represent a delightful +and interesting section of the history of the time. One can imagine +that besides all these pleasant and talkative persons the Faubourg +Saint-Germain itself threw open its great swinging doors to the +relations of the Abbe Edgeworth who risked his life to stand by his +master upon the scaffold and to speak those noble warm-hearted words, +the last that Louis ever heard. One can picture the family party as +it must have appeared with its pleasant British looks--the agreeable +'ruddy-faced' father, the gentle Mrs. Edgeworth, who is somewhere +described by her stepdaughter as so orderly, so clean, so freshly +dressed, the child of fifteen, only too beautiful and delicately +lovely, and last of all Maria herself, the nice little unassuming, +Jeannie-Deans-looking body Lord Byron described, small, homely, perhaps, +but with her gift of French, of charming intercourse, her fresh laurels +of authorship (for 'Belinda' was lately published), her bright animation, +her cultivated mind and power of interesting all those in her company, +to say nothing of her own kindling interest in every one and every thing +round about her. + +Her keen delights and vivid descriptions of all these new things, faces, +voices, ideas, are all to be read in some long and most charming letters +to Ireland, which also contain the account of a most eventful crisis +which this Paris journey brought about. The letter is dated March 1803, +and it concludes as follows:-- + + Here, my dear aunt, I was interrupted in a manner that will + surprise you as much as it surprised me--by the coming of M. + Edelcrantz, a Swedish gentleman whom we have mentioned to you, of + superior understanding and mild manners. He came to offer me his + hand and heart! My heart, you may suppose, cannot return his + attachment, for I have seen but very little of him, and have not + had time to have formed any judgment except that I think nothing + could tempt me to leave my own dear friends and my own country to + live in Sweden. + +Maria Edgeworth was now about thirty years of age, at a time of life +when people are apt to realise perhaps almost more deeply than in early +youth the influence of feeling, its importance, and strange power over +events. Hitherto there are no records in her memoirs of any sentimental +episodes, but it does not follow that a young lady has not had her own +phase of experience because she does not write it out at length to her +various aunts and correspondents. Miss Edgeworth was not a sentimental +person. She was warmly devoted to her own family, and she seems to have +had a strong idea of her own want of beauty; perhaps her admiration for +her lovely young sisters may have caused this feeling to be exaggerated +by her. But no romantic, lovely heroine could have inspired a deeper or +more touching admiration than this one which M. Edelcrantz felt for his +English friend; the mild and superior Swede seems to have been +thoroughly in earnest. + +So indeed was Miss Edgeworth, but she was not carried away by the +natural impulse of the moment. She realised the many difficulties and +dangers of the unknown; she looked to the future; she turned to her own +home, and with an affection all the more felt because of the trial +to which it was now exposed. The many lessons of self-control and +self-restraint which she had learnt returned with instinctive force. +Sometimes it happens that people miss what is perhaps the best for +the sake of the next best, and we see convenience and old habit and +expediency, and a hundred small and insignificant circumstances, +gathering like some avalanche to divide hearts that might give and +receive very much from each. But sentiment is not the only thing in +life. Other duties, ties, and realities there are; and it is difficult +to judge for others in such matters. Sincerity of heart and truth to +themselves are pretty sure in the end to lead people in the right +direction for their own and for other people's happiness. Only, in the +experience of many women there is the danger that fixed ideas, and other +people's opinion, and the force of custom may limit lives which might +have been complete in greater things, though perhaps less perfect in the +lesser. People in the abstract are sincere enough in wishing fulness of +experience and of happiness to those dearest and nearest to them; but we +are only human beings, and when the time comes and the horrible necessity +for parting approaches, our courage goes, our hearts fail, and we think +we are preaching reason and good sense while it is only a most natural +instinct which leads us to cling to that to which we are used and to +those we love. + +Mr. Edgeworth did not attempt to influence Maria. Mrs. Edgeworth +evidently had some misgivings, and certainly much sympathy for the +Chevalier and for her friend and stepdaughter. She says:-- + + Maria was mistaken as to her own feelings. She refused M. + Edelcrantz, but she felt much more for him than esteem and + admiration; she was extremely in love with him. Mr. Edgeworth left + her to decide for herself; but she saw too plainly what it would + be to us to lose her and what she would feel at parting with us. + She decided rightly for her own future happiness and for that of + her family, but she suffered much at the time and long afterwards. + While we were at Paris I remember that in a shop, where Charlotte + and I were making purchases, Maria sat apart absorbed in thought, + and so deep in reverie that when her father came in and stood + opposite to her she did not see him till he spoke to her, when she + started and burst into tears.... I do not think she repented of + her refusal or regretted her decision. She was well aware that she + could not have made M. Edelcrantz happy, that she would not have + suited his position at the Court of Stockholm, and that her want + of beauty might have diminished his attachment. It was perhaps + better she should think so, for it calmed her mind; but from what + I saw of M. Edelcrantz I think he was a man capable of really + valuing her. I believe he was much attached to her, and deeply + mortified at her refusal. He continued to reside in Sweden after + the abdication of his master, and was always distinguished for his + high character and great abilities. He never married. He was, + except for his very fine eyes, remarkably plain. + +So ends the romance of the romancer. There are, however, many +happinesses in life, as there are many troubles. + +Mrs. Edgeworth tells us that after her stepdaughter's return to +Edgeworthtown she occupied herself with various literary works, +correcting some of her former MSS. for the press, and writing 'Madame de +Fleury,' 'Emilie de Coulanges,' and 'Leonora.' But the high-flown and +romantic style did suit her gift, and she wrote best when her genuine +interest and unaffected glances shone with bright understanding sympathy +upon her immediate surroundings. When we are told that 'Leonora' was +written in the style the Chevalier Edelcrantz preferred, and that the +idea of what he would think of it was present to Maria in every page, we +begin to realise that for us at all events it was a most fortunate thing +that she decided as she did. It would have been a loss indeed to the +world if this kindling and delightful spirit of hers had been choked by +the polite thorns, fictions, and platitudes of an artificial, courtly +life and by the well-ordered narrowness of a limited standard. She never +heard what the Chevalier thought of the book; she never knew that he +ever read it even. It is a satisfaction to hear that he married no one +else, and while she sat writing and not forgetting in the pleasant +library at home, one can imagine the romantic Chevalier in his distant +Court faithful to the sudden and romantic devotion by which he is now +remembered. Romantic and chivalrous friendship seems to belong to his +country and to his countrymen. + + +IX. + +There are one or two other episodes less sentimental than this one +recorded of this visit to Paris, not the least interesting of these +being the account given of a call upon Madame de Genlis. The younger +author from her own standpoint having resolutely turned away from the +voice of the charmer for the sake of that which she is convinced to be +duty and good sense, now somewhat sternly takes the measure of her elder +sister, who has failed in the struggle, who is alone and friendless, and +who has made her fate. + +The story is too long to quote at full length. An isolated page without +its setting loses very much; the previous description of the darkness +and uncertainty through which Maria and her father go wandering, and +asking their way in vain, adds immensely to the sense of the gloom and +isolation which are hiding the close of a long and brilliant career. At +last, after wandering for a long time seeking for Madame de Genlis, the +travellers compel a reluctant porter to show them the staircase in the +Arsenal, where she is living, and to point out the door before he goes +off with the light. + +They wait in darkness. The account of what happens when the door is +opened is so interesting that I cannot refrain from quoting it at +length:-- + + After ringing the bell we presently heard doors open and little + footsteps approaching nigh. The door was opened by a girl of about + Honora's size, holding an ill set-up, wavering candle in her hand, + the light of which fell full upon her face and figure. Her face + was remarkably intelligent--dark sparkling eyes, dark hair curled + in the most fashionable long corkscrew ringlets over her eyes and + cheeks. She parted the ringlets to take a full view of us. The + dress of her figure by no means suited the head and elegance of + her attitude. What her nether weeds might be we could not + distinctly see, but they seemed a coarse short petticoat like what + Molly Bristow's children would wear. After surveying us and + hearing our name was Edgeworth she smiled graciously and bid us + follow her, saying, 'Maman est chez elle.' She led the way with + the grace of a young lady who has been taught to dance across two + ante-chambers, miserable-looking; but, miserable or not, no home + in Paris can be without them. The girl, or young lady, for we were + still in doubt which to think her, led into a small room in which + the candles were so well screened by a green tin screen that we + could scarcely distinguish the tall form of a lady in black who + rose from her chair by the fireside; as the door opened a great + puff of smoke came from the huge fireplace at the same moment. She + came forward, and we made our way towards her as well as we could + through a confusion of tables, chairs, and work-baskets, china, + writing-desks and inkstands, and birdcages, and a harp. She did + not speak, and as her back was now turned to both fire and candle + I could not see her face or anything but the outline of her form + and her attitude. Her form was the remains of a fine form, her + attitude that of a woman used to a better drawing-room. + + I being foremost, and she silent, was compelled to speak to the + figure in darkness. 'Madame de Genlis nous a fait l'honneur de + nous mander qu'elle voulait bien nous permettre de lui rendre + visite,' said I, or words to that effect, to which she replied by + taking my hand and saying something in which 'charmee' was the + most intelligible word. While she spoke she looked over my + shoulder at my father, whose bow, I presume, told her he was a + gentleman, for she spoke to him immediately as if she wished to + please and seated us in _fauteuils_ near the fire. + + I then had a full view of her face--figure very thin and + melancholy dark eyes, long sallow cheeks, compressed thin lips, + two or three black ringlets on a high forehead, a cap that Mrs. + Grier might wear--altogether in appearance of fallen fortunes, + worn-out health, and excessive but guarded irritability. To me + there was nothing of that engaging, captivating manner which I had + been taught to expect. She seemed to me to be alive only to + literary quarrels and jealousies. The muscles of her face as she + spoke, or as my father spoke to her, quickly and too easily + expressed hatred and anger.... She is now, you know, _devote + acharnee_.... Madame de Genlis seems to have been so much used to + being attacked that she has defence and apologies ready prepared. + She spoke of Madame de Stael's 'Delphine' with detestation.... + Forgive me, my dear Aunt Mary; you begged me to see her with + favourable eyes, and I went, after seeing her 'Rosiere de + Salency,' with the most favourable disposition, but I could not + like her.... And from time to time I saw, or thought I saw, + through the gloom of her countenance a gleam of coquetry. But my + father judges of her much more favourably than I do. She evidently + took pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person + over whose mind he could gain great ascendency. + +The 'young and gay philosopher' at fifty is not unchanged since we knew +him first. Maria adds a postscript: + + I had almost forgotten to tell you that the little girl who showed + us in is a girl whom she is educating. 'Elle m'appelle maman, mais + elle n'est pas ma fille.' The manner in which this little girl + spoke to Madame de Genlis and looked at her appeared to me more in + her favour than anything else. I went to look at what the child + was writing; she was translating Darwin's _Zoonomia_. + +Every description one reads by Miss Edgeworth of actual things and +people makes one wish that she had written more of them. This one is the +more interesting from the contrast of the two women, both so remarkable +and coming to so different a result in their experience of life. + +This eventful visit to Paris is brought to an eventful termination by +several gendarmes, who appear early one morning in Mr. Edgeworth's +bedroom with orders that he is to get up and to leave Paris immediately. +Mr. Edgeworth had been accused of being brother to the Abbe de Fermont. +When the mitigated circumstances of his being only a first cousin were +put forward by Lord Whitworth, the English Ambassador, the Edgeworths +received permission to return from the suburb to which they had retired; +but private news hurried their departure, and they were only in time to +escape the general blockade and detention of English prisoners. After +little more than a year of peace, once more war was declared on May 20, +1803. Lovell, the eldest son, who was absent at the time and travelling +from Switzerland, was not able to escape in time; nor for twelve years +to come was the young man able to return to his own home and family. + + +X. + +'Belinda,' 'Castle Rackrent,' the 'Parents' Assistant,' the 'Essays on +Practical Education,' had all made their mark. The new series of popular +tales was also welcomed. There were other books on the way; Miss Edgeworth +had several MSS. in hand in various stages, stories to correct for the +press. There was also a long novel, first begun by her father and taken +up and carried on by her. The 'Essays on Practical Education,' which +were first published in 1798, continued to be read. M. Pictet had +translated the book into French the year before; a third edition was +published some ten years later, in 1811, in the preface of which the +authors say, 'It is due to the public to state that twelve years' +additional experience in a numerous family, and careful attention to the +results of other modes of education, have given the authors no reason to +retract what they have advanced in these volumes.' + +In Mr. Edgeworth's Memoirs, however, his daughter states that he +modified his opinions in one or two particulars; allowing more and +more liberty to the children, and at the same time conceding greater +importance to the habit of early though mechanical efforts of memory. +The essays seem in every way in advance of their time; many of the hints +contained in them most certainly apply to the little children of to-day +no less than to their small grandparents. A lady whose own name is high +in the annals of education was telling me that she had been greatly +struck by the resemblance between the Edgeworth system and that of +Froebel's Kindergarten method, which is now gaining more and more ground +in people's estimation, the object of both being not so much to cram +instruction into early youth as to draw out each child's powers of +observation and attention. + +The first series of tales of fashionable life came out in 1809, and +contained among other stories 'Ennui,' one of the most remarkable of +Miss Edgeworth's works. The second series included the 'Absentee,' that +delightful story of which the lesson should be impressed upon us even +more than in the year 1812. The 'Absentee' was at first only an episode +in the longer novel of 'Patronage;' but the public was impatient, so +were the publishers, and fortunately for every one the 'Absentee' was +printed as a separate tale. + +'Patronage' had been begun by Mr. Edgeworth to amuse his wife, who was +recovering from illness; it was originally called the 'Fortunes of the +Freeman Family,' and it is a history with a moral. Morals were more +in fashion then than they are now, but this one is obvious without +any commentary upon it. It is tolerably certain that clever, industrious, +well-conducted people will succeed, where idle, scheming, and untrustworthy +persons will eventually fail to get on, even with powerful friends to +back them. But the novel has yet to be written that will prove that, +where merits are more equal, a little patronage is not of a great deal +of use, or that people's positions in life are exactly proportioned to +their merit. Mrs. Barbauld's pretty essay on the 'Inconsistency of Human +Expectations' contains the best possible answer to the problem of what +people's deserts should be. Let us hope that personal advancement is +only one of the many things people try for in life, and that there are +other prizes as well worth having. Miss Edgeworth herself somewhere +speaks with warm admiration of this very essay. Of the novel itself she +says (writing to Mrs. Barbauld), 'It is so vast a subject that it +flounders about in my hands and quite overpowers me.' + +It is in this same letter that Miss Edgeworth mentions another +circumstance which interested her at this time, and which was one of +those events occurring now and again which do equal credit to all +concerned. + + I have written a preface and notes [she says]--for I too would be + an editor--for a little book which a very worthy countrywoman of + mine is going to publish: Mrs. Leadbeater, granddaughter to + Burke's first preceptor. She is poor. She has behaved most + handsomely about some letters of Burke's to her grandfather and + herself. It would have been advantageous to her to publish them; + but, as Mrs. Burke[2]--Heaven knows why--objected, she desisted. + +Mrs. Leadbeater was an Irish Quaker lady whose simple and spirited +annals of Ballitore delighted Carlyle in his later days, and whose +'Cottage Dialogues' greatly struck Mr. Edgeworth at the time; and the +kind Edgeworths, finding her quite unused to public transactions, +exerted themselves in every way to help her. Mr. Edgeworth took the +MSS. out of the hands of an Irish publisher, and, says Maria, 'our +excellent friend's worthy successor in St. Paul's Churchyard has, on +our recommendation, agreed to publish it for her.' Mr. Edgeworth's own +letter to Mrs. Leadbeater gives the history of his good-natured offices +and their satisfactory results. + + Footnote 2: Mrs. Burke, hearing more of the circumstances, afterwards + sent permission; but Mrs. Leadbeater being a Quakeress, and having once + _promised_ not to publish, could not take it upon herself to break her + covenant. + + From R. L. Edgeworth, July 5, 1810. + + Miss Edgeworth desires me as a man of business to write to Mrs. + Leadbeater relative to the publication of 'Cottage Dialogues.' + Miss Edgeworth has written an advertisement, and will, with Mrs. + Leadbeater's permission, write notes for an English edition. The + scheme which I propose is of two parts--to sell the English + copyright to the house of Johnson in London, where we dispose of + our own works, and to publish a very large and cheap edition for + Ireland for schools.... I can probably introduce the book into + many places. Our family takes 300 copies, Lady Longford 50, Dr. + Beaufort 20, &c.... I think Johnson & Co. will give 50_l._ for the + English copyright. + +After the transaction Mr. Edgeworth wrote to the publishers as +follows:-- + + May 31, 1811: Edgeworthtown. + My sixty-eighth birthday. + + My dear Gentlemen,--I have just heard your letter to Mrs. + Leadbeater read by one who dropped tears of pleasure from a sense + of your generous and handsome conduct. I take great pleasure in + speaking of you to the rest of the world as you deserve, and I + cannot refrain from expressing to yourselves the genuine esteem + that I feel for you. I know that this direct praise is scarcely + allowable, but my advanced age and my close connection with you + must be my excuse.--Yours sincerely, + R. L. E. + +Tears seem equivalent to something more than the estimated value of Mrs. +Leadbeater's labours. The charming and well-known Mrs. Trench who was +also Mary Leadbeater's friend, writes warmly praising the notes. 'Miss +Edgeworth's notes on your Dialogues have as much spirit and originality +as if she had never before explored the mine which many thought she had +exhausted.' + +All these are pleasant specimens of the Edgeworth correspondence, which, +however (following the course of most correspondence), does not seem to +have been always equally agreeable. There are some letters (among others +which I have been allowed to see) written by Maria about this time to an +unfortunate young man who seems to have annoyed her greatly by his +excited importunities. + + I thank you [she says] for your friendly zeal in defence of my + powers of pathos and sublimity; but I think it carries you much + too far when it leads you to imagine that I refrain, from + principle or virtue, from displaying powers that I really do not + possess. I assure you that I am not in the least capable of + writing a dithyrambic ode, or any other kind of ode. + + +One is reminded by this suggestion of Jane Austen also declining to +write 'an historical novel illustrative of the august House of Coburg.' + +The young man himself seems to have had some wild aspirations after +authorship, but to have feared criticism. + + The advantage of the art of printing [says his friendly Minerva] + is that the mistakes of individuals in reasoning and writing will + be corrected in time by the public, so that the cause of truth + cannot suffer; and I presume you are too much of a philosopher to + mind the trifling mortification that the detection of a mistake + might occasion. You know that some sensible person has observed + that acknowledging a mistake is saying, only in other words, that + we are wiser to-day than we were yesterday. + +He seems at last to have passed the bounds of reasonable correspondence, +and she writes as follows:-- + + Your last letter, dated in June, was many months before it reached + me. In answer to all your reproaches at my silence I can only + assure you that it was not caused by any change in my opinions or + good wishes; but I do not carry on what is called a regular + correspondence with anybody except with one or two of my very + nearest relations; and it is best to tell the plain truth that my + father particularly dislikes my writing letters, so I write as few + as I possibly can. + + +XI. + +While Maria Edgeworth was at work in her Irish home, successfully +producing her admirable delineations, another woman, born some eight +years later, and living in the quiet Hampshire village where the elm +trees spread so greenly, was also at work, also writing books that +were destined to influence many a generation, but which were meanwhile +waiting unknown, unnoticed. Do we not all know the story of the brown +paper parcel lying unopened for years on the publisher's shelf and +containing Henry Tilney and all his capes, Catherine Morland and all +her romance, and the great John Thorpe himself, uttering those valuable +literary criticisms which Lord Macaulay, writing to his little sisters +at home, used to quote to them? 'Oh, Lord!' says John Thorpe, 'I never +read novels; I have other things to do.' + +A friend reminds us of Miss Austen's own indignant outburst. 'Only a +novel! only "Cecilia," or "Camilla," or "Belinda;" or, in short, only +some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, the +most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its +varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to +the world in the best-chosen language.' If the great historian, who +loved novels himself, had not assured us that we owe Miss Austen and +Miss Edgeworth to the early influence of the author of 'Evelina,' one +might grudge 'Belinda' to such company as that of 'Cecilia' and +'Camilla.' + +'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published about the +same time as 'Patronage' and 'Tales of Fashionable Life.' Their two +authors illustrate, curiously enough, the difference between the national +characteristics of English and Irish--the breadth, the versatility, the +innate wit and gaiety of an Irish mind; the comparative narrowness of +range of an English nature; where, however, we are more likely to get +humour and its never-failing charm. Long afterwards Jane Austen sent one +of her novels to Miss Edgeworth, who appreciated it indeed, as such a +mind as hers could not fail to do, but it was with no such enthusiasm +as that which she felt for other more ambitious works, with more of +incident, power, knowledge of the world, in the place of that one subtle +quality of humour which for some persons outweighs almost every other. +Something, some indefinite sentiment, tells people where they amalgamate +and with whom they are intellectually akin; and by some such process of +criticism the writer feels that in this little memoir of Miss Edgeworth +she has but sketched the outer likeness of this remarkable woman's life +and genius; and that she has scarcely done justice to very much in Miss +Edgeworth, which so many of the foremost men of her day could +appreciate--a power, a versatility, an interest in subjects for their +own sakes, not for the sakes of those who are interested in them, which +was essentially hers. + +It is always characteristic to watch a writer's progress in the +estimation of critics and reviewers. In 1809 Miss Edgeworth is +moderately and respectfully noticed. 'As a writer of novels and tales +she has a marked peculiarity, that of venturing to dispense common sense +to her readers and to bring them within the precincts of real life. +Without excluding love from her pages she knows how to assign to it its +true limits.' In 1812 the reviewer, more used to hear the author's +praises on all sides, now starts from a higher key, and, as far as truth +to nature and delineation of character are concerned, does not allow a +rival except 'Don Quixote' and 'Gil Blas.' The following criticism is +just and more to the point:-- + + To this power of masterly and minute delineation of character Miss + Edgeworth adds another which has rarely been combined with the + former, that of interweaving the peculiarities of her persons with + the conduct of her piece, and making them, without forgetting + for a moment their personal consistency, conduce to the general + lesson.... Her virtue and vice, though copied exactly from nature, + lead with perfect ease to a moral conclusion, and are finally + punished or rewarded by means which (rare as a retribution in this + world is) appear for the most part neither inconsistent nor + unnatural. + +Then follows a review of 'Vivian' and of the 'Absentee,' which is +perhaps the most admirable of her works. We may all remember how +Macaulay once pronounced that the scene in the 'Absentee' where Lord +Colambre discovers himself to his tenantry was the best thing of the +sort since the opening of the twenty-second book of the 'Odyssey.' + +An article by Lord Dudley, which is still to be quoted, appeared in the +'Quarterly Review' in 1814. What he says of her works applies no less to +Miss Edgeworth's own life than to the principles which she inculcates. + + The old rule was for heroes and heroines to fall suddenly and + irretrievably in love. If they fell in love with the right person + so much the better; if not, it could not be helped, and the novel + ended unhappily. And, above all, it was held quite irregular for + the most reasonable people to make any use whatever of their + reason on the most important occasion of their lives. Miss + Edgeworth has presumed to treat this mighty power with far less + reverence. She has analysed it and found it does not consist of + one simple element, but that several common ingredients enter into + its composition--habit, esteem, a belief of some corresponding + sentiment and of suitableness in the character and circumstances + of the party. She has pronounced that reason, timely and vigorously + applied, is almost a specific, and, following up this bold empirical + line of practice, she has actually produced cases of the entire + cure of persons who had laboured under its operation. Her favourite + qualities are prudence, firmness, temper, and that active, vigilant + good sense which, without checking the course of our kind + affections, exercises its influence at every moment and surveys + deliberately the motives and consequences of every action. Utility + is her object, reason and experience her means. + + +XII. + +This review of Lord Dudley's must have come out after a visit from the +Edgeworth family to London in 1813, which seems to have been a most +brilliant and amusing campaign. 'I know the homage that was paid you,' +wrote Mrs. Barbauld, speaking of the event, 'and I exulted in it for +your sake and for my sex's sake.' Miss Edgeworth was at the height of +her popularity, in good spirits and good health. Mr. Edgeworth was +seventy, but he looked years younger, and was still in undiminished +health and vigour. The party was welcomed, feted, sought after +everywhere. Except that they miss seeing Madame d'Arblay and leave +London before the arrival of Madame de Stael, they seem to have come in +for everything that was brilliant, fashionable, and entertaining. They +breakfast with poets, they sup with marquises, they call upon duchesses +and scientific men. Maria's old friend the Duchess of Wellington is not +less her friend than she was in County Longford. Every one likes them +and comes knocking at their lodging-house door, while Maria upstairs is +writing a letter, standing at a chest of drawers. 'Miss Edgeworth is +delightful,' says Tom Moore, 'not from display, but from repose and +unaffectedness, the least pretending person.' Even Lord Byron writes +warmly of the authoress whose company is so grateful, and who goes her +simple, pleasant way cheerful and bringing kind cheer, and making +friends with the children as well as with the elders. Many of these +children in their lives fully justified her interest, children whom we +in turn have known and looked up to as distinguished greyheaded men. + +Some one asked Miss Edgeworth how she came to understand children as she +did, what charm she used to win them. 'I don't know,' she said kindly; +'I lie down and let them crawl over me.' She was greatly pleased on one +occasion when at a crowded party a little girl suddenly started forth, +looked at her hard, and said, 'I like simple Susan best,' and rushed +away overwhelmed at her own audacity. The same lady who was present on +this occasion asked her a question which we must all be grateful to have +solved for us--how it happened that the respective places of Laura and +Rosamond came to be transposed in 'Patronage,' Laura having been the +wiser elder sister in the 'Purple Jar,' and appearing suddenly as the +younger in the novel. Miss Edgeworth laughed and said that Laura had +been so preternaturally wise and thoughtful as a child, she could never +have kept her up to the mark, and so she thought it best to change the +character altogether. + +During one of her visits to London Miss Edgeworth went to dine at the +house of Mr. Marshall; and his daughter, Lady Monteagle, tells a little +story which gives an impression, and a kind one, of the celebrated +guest. Everything had been prepared in her honour, the lights lighted, +the viands were cooked. Dinner was announced, and some important person +was brought forward to hand Miss Edgeworth down, when it was discovered +that she had vanished. For a moment the company and the dinner were all +at a standstill. She was a small person, but diligent search was made. +Miss Edgeworth had last been seen with the children of the house, and +she was eventually found in the back kitchen, escorted by the said +children, who, having confided their private affairs to her sympathetic +ear, had finally invited her to come with them and see some rabbits +which they were rearing down below. A lady who used to live at Clifton +as a little girl, and to be sometimes prescribed for by Dr. King, was +once brought up as a child to Miss Edgeworth, and she told me how very +much puzzled she felt when the bright old lady, taking her by the +hand, said, 'Well, my dear, how do you do, and how is my excellent +brother-in-law?' One can imagine what a vague sort of being an +'excellent brother-in-law' would seem to a very young child. + +We read in Miss Edgeworth's memoir of her father that Mr. Edgeworth +recovered from his serious illness in 1814 to enjoy a few more years of +life among his friends, his children, and his experiments. His good +humour and good spirits were undiminished, and he used to quote an old +friend's praise of 'the privileges and convenience of old age.' He was +past seventy, but he seems to have continued his own education to the +end of life. 'Without affecting to be young, he exerted himself to +prevent any of his faculties from sinking into the indolent state which +portends their decay,' and his daughter says that he went on learning to +the last, correcting his faults and practising his memory by various +devices, so that it even improved with age. + +In one of his last letters to Mrs. Beaufort, his wife's mother, he +speaks with no little paternal pleasure of his home and his children: +'Such excellent principles, such just views of human life and manners, +such cultivated understandings, such charming tempers make a little +Paradise about me;' while with regard to his daughter's works he adds +concerning the book which was about to appear, 'If Maria's tales fail +with the public, you will hear of my hanging myself.' + +Mr. Edgeworth died in the summer of 1817, at home, surrounded by his +family, grateful, as he says, to Providence for allowing his body to +perish before his mind. + + During the melancholy months which succeeded her father's death + Maria hardly wrote any letters; her sight was in a most alarming + state. The tears, she said, felt in her eyes like the cutting of a + knife. She had overworked them all the previous winter, sitting up + at night and struggling with her grief as she wrote 'Ormond.' She + was now unable to use them without pain.... Edgeworthtown now + belonged to Lovell, the eldest surviving brother, but he wished it + to continue the home of the family. Maria set to work to complete + her father's memoirs and to fulfil his last wish. + +It was not without great hesitation and anxiety that she determined to +finish writing her father's Life. There is a touching appeal in a letter +to her aunt Ruxton. 'I felt the happiness of my life was at stake. +Even if all the rest of the world had praised it and you had been +dissatisfied, how miserable should I have been!' And there is another +sentence written at Bowood, very sad and full of remembrance: 'I feel as +if I had lived a hundred years and was left alive after everybody else.' +The book came out, and many things were said about it, not all praise. +The 'Quarterly' was so spiteful and intolerant that it seemed almost +personal in its violence. It certainly would have been a great loss to +the world had this curious and interesting memoir never been published, +but at the time the absence of certain phrases and expressions of +opinions which Mr. Edgeworth had never specially professed seemed +greatly to offend the reviewers. + +The worst of these attacks Miss Edgeworth never read, and the task +finished, the sad months over, the poor eyes recovered, she crossed to +England. + + +XIII. + +One is glad to hear of her away and at Bowood reviving in good company, +in all senses of the word. Her old friend Lord Henry Petty, now Lord +Lansdowne, was still her friend and full of kindness. Outside the house +spread a green deer-park to rest her tired eyes, within were pleasant +and delightful companions to cheer her soul. Sir Samuel Romilly was +there, of whom she speaks with affectionate admiration, as she does of +her kind host and hostess. 'I much enjoy the sight of Lady Lansdowne's +happiness with her husband and her children. Beauty, fortune, cultivated +society all united--in short, everything that the most reasonable or +unreasonable could wish. She is so amiable and desirous to make others +happy.' + +Miss Edgeworth's power of making other people see things as she does +is very remarkable in all these letters; with a little imagination one +could almost feel as if one might be able to travel back into the +pleasant society in which she lived. When she goes abroad soon after +with her two younger sisters (Fanny, the baby whose head so nearly came +off in her arms, and Harriet, who have both grown up by this time +to be pretty and elegant young ladies), the sisters are made welcome +everywhere. In Paris, as in London, troops of acquaintance came forward +to receive 'Madame Maria et mesdemoiselles ses soeurs,' as they used +to be announced. Most of their old friends were there still; only the +children had grown up and were now new friends to be greeted. It is a +confusion of names in visionary succession, comprising English people no +less than French. Miss Edgeworth notes it all with a sure hand and true +pen; it is as one of the sketch-books of a great painter, where whole +pictures are indicated in a few just lines. Here is a peep at the +Abbaye aux Bois in 1820:-- + + We went to Madame Recamier in her convent, l'Abbaye aux Bois, up + seventy-eight steps. All came in with asthma. Elegant room; she as + elegant as ever. Matthieu de Montmorenci, the ex-Queen of Sweden, + Madame de Boigne, a charming woman, and Madame la Marechale + de ----, a battered beauty, smelling of garlic and screeching in + vain to pass as a wit.... Madame Recamier has no more taken the + veil than I have, and is as little likely to do it. She is quite + beautiful; she dresses herself and her little room with elegant + simplicity, and lives in a convent only because it is cheap and + respectable. + +One sees it all, the convent, the company, the last refrain of former +triumphs, the faithful romantic Matthieu de Montmorenci, and above all +the poor Marechale, who will screech for ever in her garlic. Let us turn +the page, we find another picture from these not long past days:-- + + Breakfast at Camille Jordan's; it was half-past twelve before the + company assembled, and we had an hour's delightful conversation + with Camille Jordan and his wife in her spotless white muslin and + little cap, sitting at her husband's feet as he lay on the sofa; + as clean, as nice, as fresh, as thoughtless of herself as my + mother. At this breakfast we saw three of the most distinguished + of that party who call themselves 'les Doctrinaires' and say they + are more attached to measures than to men. + +Here is another portrait of a portrait and its painter:-- + + Princess Potemkin is a Russian, but she has all the grace, + softness, winning manner of the Polish ladies. Oval face, pale, + with the finest, softest, most expressive chestnut dark eyes. She + has a sort of politeness which pleases peculiarly, a mixture of + the ease of high rank and early habit with something that is + sentimental without affectation. Madame le Brun is painting her + picture. Madame le Brun is sixty-six, with great vivacity as well + as genius, and better worth seeing than her pictures, for though + they are speaking she speaks. + +Another visit the sisters paid, which will interest the readers of +Madame de la Rochejaquelin's memoirs of the war in the Vendee:-- + +In a small bedroom, well furnished, with a fire just lighted, we found +Madame de la Rochejaquelin on the sofa; her two daughters at work, one +spinning with a distaff, the other embroidering muslin. Madame is a fat +woman with a broad, round, fair face and a most benevolent expression, +her hair cut short and perfectly grey as seen under her cap; the rest of +the face much too young for such grey locks; and though her face and +bundled form all squashed on to a sofa did not at first promise much of +gentility, you could not hear her speak or hear her for three minutes +without perceiving that she was well-born and well-bred. + +Madame de la Rochejaquelin seems to have confided in Miss Edgeworth. + + 'I am always sorry when any stranger sees me, _parce que je sais + que je detruis toute illusion. Je sais que je devrais avoir l'air + d'une heroine._' She is much better than a heroine; she is + benevolence and truth itself. + +We must not forget the scientific world where Madame Maria was no less +at home than in fashionable literary cliques. The sisters saw something +of Cuvier at Paris; in Switzerland they travelled with the Aragos. They +were on their way to the Marcets at Geneva when they stopped at Coppet, +where Miss Edgeworth was always specially happy in the society of Madame +Auguste de Stael and Madame de Broglie. But Switzerland is not one +of the places where human beings only are in the ascendant; other +influences there are almost stronger than human ones. 'I did not +conceive it possible that I should feel so much pleasure from the +beauties of nature as I have done since I came to this country. The +first moment when I saw Mont Blanc will remain an era in my life--a +new idea, a new feeling standing alone in the mind.' Miss Edgeworth +presently comes down from her mountain heights and, full of interest, +throws herself into the talk of her friends at Coppet and Geneva, from +which she quotes as it occurs to her. Here is Rocca's indignant speech +to Lord Byron, who was abusing the stupidity of the Genevese. 'Eh! +milord, pourquoi venir vous fourrer parmi ces honnetes gens?' There is +Arago's curious anecdote of Napoleon, who sent for him after the battle +of Waterloo, offering him a large sum of money to accompany him to +America. The Emperor had formed a project for founding a scientific +colony in the New World. Arago was so indignant with him for abandoning +his troops that he would have nothing to say to the plan. A far more +touching story is Dr. Marcet's account of Josephine. 'Poor Josephine! Do +you remember Dr. Marcet's telling us that when he breakfasted with her +she said, pointing to her flowers, "These are my subjects. I try to make +them happy"?' + +Among other expeditions they made a pilgrimage to the home of the +author of a work for which Miss Edgeworth seems to have entertained a +mysterious enthusiasm. The novel was called 'Caroline de Lichfield,' and +was so much admired at the time that Miss Seward mentions a gentleman +who wrote from abroad to propose for the hand of the authoress, and who, +more fortunate than the poor Chevalier Edelcrantz, was not refused by +the lady. Perhaps some similarity of experience may have led Maria +Edgeworth to wish for her acquaintance. Happily the time was past for +Miss Edgeworth to look back; her life was now shaped and moulded in +its own groove; the consideration, the variety, the difficulties of +unmarried life were hers, its agreeable change, its monotony of feeling +and of unselfish happiness, compared with the necessary regularity, the +more personal felicity, the less liberal interests of the married. Her +life seems to have been full to overflowing of practical occupation +and consideration for others. What changing scenes and colours, what a +number of voices, what a crowd of outstretched hands, what interesting +processions of people pass across her path! There is something of her +father's optimism and simplicity of nature in her unceasing brightness +and activity, in her resolutions to improve as time goes on. Her young +brothers and sisters grow to be men and women; with her sisters' +marriages new interests touch her warm heart. Between her and the +brothers of the younger generation who did not turn to her as a sort +of mother there may have been too great a difference of age for that +companionship to continue which often exists between a child and a +grown-up person. So at least one is led to believe was the case as +regards one of them, mentioned in a memoir which has recently appeared. +But to her sisters she could be friend, protector, chaperon, sympathising +companion, and elder sister to the end of her days. We hear of them all +at Bowood again on their way back to Ireland, and then we find them all +at home settling down to the old life, 'Maria reading Sevigne,' of whom +she never tires. + + +XIV. + +One of the prettiest and most sympathetic incidents in Maria Edgeworth's +life was a subsequent expedition to Abbotsford and the pleasure she gave +to its master. They first met in Edinburgh, and her short account +conjures up the whole scene before us:-- + + Ten o'clock struck as I read this note. We were tired, we were not + fit to be seen, but I thought it right to accept Walter Scott's + cordial invitation, sent for a hackney coach, and just as we were, + without dressing, we went. As the coach stopped we saw the hall + lighted, and the moment the door opened heard the joyous sounds + of loud singing. Three servants' 'The Miss Edgeworths!' sounded + from hall to landing-place, and as I paused for a moment in the + anteroom I heard the first sound of Walter Scott's voice--'The + Miss Edgeworths _come_!' The room was lighted by only one globe + lamp; a circle were singing loud and beating time: all stopped in + an instant. + +Is not this picture complete? Scott himself she describes as 'full of +genius without the slightest effort at expression, delightfully natural, +more lame but not so unwieldy as she expected.' Lady Scott she goes on +to sketch in some half-dozen words--'French, large dark eyes, civil and +good-natured.' + + When we wakened the next morning the whole scene of the preceding + night seemed like a dream [she continues]; however at twelve came + the real Lady Scott, and we called for Scott at the Parliament + House, who came out of the Courts with joyous face, as if he had + nothing on earth to do or to think of but to show us Edinburgh. + +In her quick, discriminating way she looks round and notes them all one +by one. + + Mr. Lockhart is reserved and silent, but he appears to have much + sensibility under this reserve. Mrs. Lockhart is very pleasing--a + slight, elegant figure and graceful simplicity of manner, perfectly + natural. There is something most winning in her affectionate manner + to her father. He dotes upon her. + +A serious illness intervened for poor Maria before she and her devoted +young nurses could reach Abbotsford itself. There she began to recover, +and Lady Scott watched over her and prescribed for her with the most +tender care and kindness. 'Lady Scott felt the attention and respect +Maria showed to her, perceiving that she valued her and treated her as a +friend,' says Mrs. Edgeworth; 'not, as too many of Sir Walter's guests +did, with neglect.' This is Miss Edgeworth's description of the +Abbotsford family life:-- + + It is quite delightful to see Scott and his family in the country; + breakfast, dinner, supper, the same flow of kindness, fondness, + and genius, far, far surpassing his works, his letters, and all my + hopes and imagination. His Castle of Abbotsford is magnificent, + but I forget it in thinking of him. + +The return visit, when Scotland visited Ireland, was no less successful. +Mrs. Edgeworth writes:-- + +Maria and my daughter Harriet accompanied Sir Walter and Miss Scott, Mr. +Lockhart, and Captain and Mrs. Scott to Killarney. They travelled in an +open caleche of Sir Walter's.... + +Sir Walter was, like Maria, never put out by discomforts on a journey, +but always ready to make the best of everything and to find amusement in +every incident. He was delighted with Maria's eagerness for everybody's +comfort, and diverted himself with her admiration of a green +baize-covered door at the inn at Killarney. 'Miss Edgeworth, you are so +mightily pleased with that door, I think you will carry it away with you +to Edgeworthtown.' + +Miss Edgeworth's friendships were certainly very remarkable, and comprise +almost all the interesting people of her day in France as well as in +England.[3] She was liked, trusted, surrounded, and she appears to have +had the art of winning to her all the great men. We know the Duke of +Wellington addressed verses to her; there are pleasant intimations of +her acquaintance with Sir James Mackintosh, Romilly, Moore, and Rogers, +and that most delightful of human beings, Sydney Smith, whom she +thoroughly appreciated and admired. Describing her brother Frank, she +says, somewhere, 'I am much inclined to think that he has a natural +genius for happiness; in other words, as Sydney Smith would say, _great +hereditary constitutional joy_.' 'To attempt to Boswell Sydney Smith's +conversation would be to outboswell Boswell,' she writes in another +letter home; but in Lady Holland's memoir of her father there is a +pleasant little account of Miss Edgeworth herself, 'delightful, clever, +and sensible,' listening to Sydney Smith. She seems to have gone the +round of his parish with him while he scolded, doctored, joked his poor +people according to their needs. + + Footnote 3: A touching illustration of her abiding influence is to be + found cited in an article in the _Daily News_ of September 7, 1883, + published as these proofs are going to press, by 'One Who Knew' Ivan + Turgueneff, that great Russian whom we might almost claim if love and + admiration gave one a right to count citizenship with the great men of + our time. An elder brother of his knew Miss Edgeworth, perhaps at + Abbotsford, for he visited Walter Scott there, or at Coppet with Madame + de Stael. This man, wise and cultivated in all European literature, + 'came to the conclusion that Maria Edgeworth had struck on a vein from + which most of the great novelists of the future would exclusively work. + She took the world as she found it, and selected from it the materials + that she thought would be interesting to write about, in a clear and + natural style. It was Ivan Turgueneff himself who told me this, says the + writer of the article, and he modestly said that he was an unconscious + disciple of Miss Edgeworth in setting out on his literary career. He had + not the advantage of knowing English; but as a youth he used to hear his + brother translate to visitors at his country house in the Uralian Hills + passages from _Irish Tales and Sketches_, which he thought superior to + her three-volume novels. Turgueneff also said to me, "It is possible, nay + probable, that if Maria Edgeworth had not written about the poor Irish + of the co. Longford and the squires and squirees, that it would not have + occurred to me to give a literary form to my impressions about the + classes parallel to them in Russia. My brother used, in pointing out the + beauties of her unambitious works, to call attention to their extreme + simplicity and to the distinction with which she treated the simple ones + of the earth."' + +'During her visit she saw much of my father,' says Lady Holland; 'and +her talents as well as her thorough knowledge and love of Ireland made +her conversation peculiarly agreeable to him.' On her side Maria writes +warmly desiring that some Irish bishopric might be forced upon Sydney +Smith, which 'his own sense of natural charity and humanity would forbid +him refuse.... In the twinkling of an eye--such an eye as his--he would +see all our manifold grievances up and down the country. One word, one +_bon mot_ of his, would do more for us, I guess, than ----'s four +hundred pages and all the like with which we have been bored.' + +The two knew how to make good company for one another; the +quiet-Jeanie-Deans body could listen as well as give out. We are told +that it was not so much that she said brilliant things, but that a +general perfume of wit ran through her conversation, and she most +certainly had the gift of appreciating the good things of others. +Whether in that 'scene of simplicity, truth, and nature' a London rout, +or in some quiet Hampstead parlour talking to an old friend, or in her +own home among books and relations and interests of every sort, Miss +Edgeworth seems to have been constantly the same, with presence of mind +and presence of heart too, ready to respond to everything. I think her +warmth of heart shines even brighter than her wit at times. 'I could not +bear the idea that you suspected me of being so weak, so vain, so +senseless,' she once wrote to Mrs. Barbauld, 'as to have my head turned +by a little fashionable flattery.' If her head was not turned it must +have been because her spirit was stout enough to withstand the world's +almost irresistible influence. + +Not only the great men but the women too are among her friends. She +writes prettily of Mrs. Somerville, with her smiling eyes and pink +colour, her soft voice, strong, well-bred Scotch accent, timid, not +disqualifying timid, but naturally modest. 'While her head is among the +stars her feet are firm upon the earth.' She is 'delighted' with a +criticism of Madame de Stael's upon herself, in a letter to M. Dumont. +'Vraiment elle etait digne de l'enthousiasme, mais elle se perd dans +votre triste utilite.' It is difficult to understand why this should +have given Miss Edgeworth so much pleasure; and here finally is a little +vision conjured up for us of her meeting with Mrs. Fry among her +prisoners:-- + + Little doors, and thick doors, and doors of all sorts were + unbolted and unlocked, and on we went through dreary but clean + passages till we came to a room where rows of empty benches + fronted us, a table on which lay a large Bible. Several ladies and + gentlemen entered, took their seats on benches at either side of + the table in silence. Enter Mrs. Fry in a drab-coloured silk cloak + and a plain, borderless Quaker cap, a most benevolent countenance, + calm, benign. 'I must make an inquiry. Is Maria Edgeworth here?' + And when I went forward she bade me come and sit beside her. Her + first smile as she looked upon me I can never forget. The + prisoners came in in an orderly manner and ranged themselves upon + the benches. + + +XV. + +'In this my sixtieth year, to commence in a few days,' says Miss +Edgeworth, writing to her cousin Margaret Ruxton, 'I am resolved to make +great progress.' 'Rosamond at sixty,' says Miss Ruxton, touched and +amused. Her resolutions were not idle. + +'The universal difficulties of the money market in the year 1826 were +felt by us,' says Mrs. Edgeworth in her memoir, 'and Maria, who since +her father's death had given up rent-receiving, now resumed it; +undertook the management of her brother Lovell's affairs, which she +conducted with consummate skill and perseverance, and weathered the +storm that swamped so many in this financial crisis.' We also hear of an +opportune windfall in the shape of some valuable diamonds, which an old +lady, a distant relation, left in her will to Miss Edgeworth, who sold +them and built a market-house for Edgeworthtown with the proceeds. + + _April_ 8, 1827.--I am quite well and in high good humour and good + spirits, in consequence of having received the whole of Lovell's + half-year's rents in full, with pleasure to the tenants and without + the least fatigue or anxiety to myself. + +It was about this time her novel of 'Helen' was written, the last of her +books, the only one that her father had not revised. There is a vivid +account given by one of her brothers of the family assembled in the +library to hear the manuscript read out, of their anxiety and their +pleasure as they realised how good it was, how spirited, how well equal +to her standard. Tickner, in his account of Miss Edgeworth, says that +the talk of Lady Davenant in 'Helen' is very like Miss Edgeworth's own +manner. His visit to Edgeworthtown was not long after the publication of +the book. His description, if only for her mention of her father, is +worth quoting:-- + + As we drove to the door Miss Edgeworth came out to meet us, a + small, short, spare body of about sixty-seven, with extremely + frank and kind manners, but who always looks straight into your + face with a pair of mild deep grey eyes whenever she speaks to + you. With characteristic directness she did not take us into the + library until she had told us that we should find there Mrs. + Alison, of Edinburgh, and her aunt, Miss Sneyd, a person very old + and infirm, and that the only other persons constituting the + family were Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Honora Edgeworth, and Dr. Alison, + a physician.... Miss Edgeworth's conversation was always ready, as + full of vivacity and variety as I can imagine.... She was disposed + to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as far as she could. And + in her intercourse with her family she was quite delightful, + referring constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, who seems to be the + authority in all matters of fact, and most kindly repeating + jokes to her infirm aunt, Miss Sneyd, who cannot hear them, + and who seems to have for her the most unbounded affection and + admiration.... About herself as an author she seems to have no + reserve or secrets. She spoke with great kindness and pleasure + of a letter I brought to her from Mr. Peabody, explaining some + passage in his review of 'Helen' which had troubled her from its + allusion to her father. 'But,' she added, 'no one can know what + I owe to my father. He advised and directed me in everything. I + never could have done anything without him. There are things I + cannot be mistaken about, though other people can. I know them.' + As she said this the tears stood in her eyes, and her whole person + was moved.... It was, therefore, something of a trial to talk so + brilliantly and variously as she did from nine in the morning to + past eleven at night. + +She was unfeignedly glad to see good company. Here is her account of +another visitor:-- + + _Sept_. 26.--The day before yesterday we were amusing ourselves by + telling who among literary and scientific people we should wish + to come here next. Francis said Coleridge; I said Herschell. + Yesterday morning, as I was returning from my morning walk at + half-past eight, I saw a bonnetless maid in the walk, with a + letter in her hand, in search of me. When I opened the letter I + found it was from Mr. Herschell, and that he was waiting for an + answer at Mr. Briggs's inn. I have seldom been so agreeably + surprised, and now that he is gone and that he has spent + twenty-four hours here, if the fairy were to ask me the question + again I should still more eagerly say, 'Mr. Herschell, ma'am, if + you please.' + +She still came over to England from time to time, visiting at her +sisters' houses. Honora was now Lady Beaufort; another sister, Fanny, +the object of her closest and most tender affection, was Mrs. Lestock +Wilson. Age brought no change in her mode of life. Time passes with +tranquil steps, for her not hasting unduly. 'I am perfect,' she writes +at the age of seventy-three to her stepmother of seventy-two, 'so no +more about it, and thank you from my heart and every component part of +my precious self for all the care, and successful care, you have taken +of me, your old petted nurseling.' + +Alas! it is sad to realise that quite late in life fresh sorrows fell +upon this warm-hearted woman. Troubles gather; young sisters fade away +in their beauty and happiness. But in sad times and good times the old +home is still unchanged, and remains for those that are left to turn to +for shelter, for help, and consolation. To the very last Miss Edgeworth +kept up her reading, her correspondence, her energy. All along we have +heard of her active habits--out in the early morning in her garden, +coming in to the nine o'clock breakfast with her hands full of roses, +sitting by and talking and reading her letters while the others ate. Her +last letter to her old friend Sir Henry Holland was after reading the +first volume of Lord Macaulay's History. Sir Henry took the letter to +Lord Macaulay, who was so much struck by its discrimination that he +asked leave to keep it. + +She was now eighty-two years of age, and we find her laughing kindly +at the anxiety of her sister and brother-in-law, who had heard of her +climbing a ladder to wind up an old clock at Edgeworthtown. 'I am +heartily obliged and delighted by your being such a goose and Richard +such a gander,' she says 'as to be frightened out of your wits by my +climbing a ladder to take off the top of the clock.' She had not felt +that there was anything to fear as once again she set the time that was +so nearly at an end for her. Her share of life's hours had been well +spent and well enjoyed; with a peaceful and steady hand and tranquil +heart she might mark the dial for others whose hours were still to come. + +Mrs. Edgeworth's own words tell all that remains to be told. + + It was on the morning of May 22, 1849, that she was taken suddenly + ill with pain in the region of the heart, and after a few hours + breathed her last in my arms. She had always wished to die + quickly, at home, and that I should be with her. All her wishes + were fulfilled. She was gone, and nothing like her again can we + see in this world. + + + + +_MRS OPIE._ + + 1769-1853. + + 'Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to + gentleness.'--_As You Like It_. + + +I. + +It is not very long since some articles appeared in the 'Cornhill +Magazine' which were begun under the influence of certain ancient +bookshelves with so pleasant a flavour of the old world that it seemed +at the time as if yesterday not to-day was the all-important hour, and +one gladly submitted to the subtle charm of the past--its silent veils, +its quiet incantations of dust and healing cobweb. The phase is but a +passing one with most of us, and we must soon feel that to dwell at +length upon each one of the pretty old fancies and folios of the writers +and explorers who were born towards the end of the last century would be +an impossible affectation; and yet a postscript seems wanting to the +sketches which have already appeared of Mrs. Barbauld and Miss +Edgeworth, and the names of their contemporaries should not be quite +passed over. + +In a hundred charming types and prints and portraits we recognise the +well-known names as they used to appear in the garb of life. Grand +ladies in broad loops and feathers, or graceful and charming as nymphs +in muslin folds, with hanging clouds of hair; or again, in modest +coiffes such as dear Jane Austen loved and wore even in her youth. +Hannah More only took to coiffes and wimples in later life; in early +days she was fond of splendour, and, as we read, had herself painted in +emerald earrings. How many others besides her are there to admire! Who +does not know the prim, sweet, amply frilled portraits of Mrs. Trimmer +and Joanna Baillie? Only yesterday a friend showed me a sprightly, +dark-eyed miniature of Felicia Hemans. Perhaps most beautiful among all +her sister muses smiles the lovely head of Amelia Opie, as she was +represented by her husband with luxuriant chestnut hair piled up Romney +fashion in careless loops, with the radiant yet dreaming eyes which are +an inheritance for some members of her family. + +The authoresses of that day had the pre-eminence in looks, in gracious +dress and bearing; but they were rather literary women than anything +else, and had but little in common with the noble and brilliant writers +who were to follow them in our own more natural and outspoken times; +whose wise, sweet, passionate voices are already passing away into the +distance; of whom so few remain to us.[4] The secret of being real is no +very profound one, and yet how rare it is, how long it was before the +readers and writers of this century found it out! It is like the secret +of singing in perfect tune, or of playing the violin as Joachim can play +upon it. In literature, as in music, there is at times a certain +indescribable tone of absolute reality which carries the reader away and +for the moment absorbs him into the mind of the writer. Some +metempsychosis takes place. It is no longer a man or a woman turning the +pages of a book, it is a human being suddenly absorbed by the book +itself, living the very life which it records, breathing the spirit and +soul of the writer. Such books are events, not books to us, new +conditions of existence, new selves suddenly revealed through the +experience of other more vivid personalities than our own. The actual +experience of other lives is not for us, but this link of simple reality +of feeling is one all independent of events; it is like the miracle of +the loaves and fishes repeated and multiplied--one man comes with his +fishes and lo! the multitude is filled. + + Footnote 4: And yet as I write I remember one indeed who is among us, + whose portrait a Reynolds or an Opie might have been glad to paint for + the generations who will love her works. + +But this simple discovery, that of reality, that of speaking from the +heart, was one of the last to be made by women. In France Madame de +Sevigne and Madame de La Fayette were not afraid to be themselves, but +in England the majority of authoresses kept their readers carefully at +pen's length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious of their +surprising achievements in the way of literature as never to forget for +a single instant that they were in print. With the exception of Jane +Austen and Maria Edgeworth, the women writers of the early part of this +century were, as I have just said, rather literary women than actual +creators of literature. It is still a mystery how they attained to their +great successes. Frances Burney charms great Burke and mighty Johnson +and wise Macaulay in later times. Mrs. Opie draws compliments from +Mackintosh, and compliments from the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, and Sydney +Smith, and above all tears from Walter Scott. + +Perhaps many of the flattering things addressed to Mrs. Opie may have +said not less for her own charm and sweetness of nature than for the +merit of her unassuming productions; she must have been a bright, merry, +and fascinating person, and compliments were certainly more in her line +than the tributes of tears which she records. + +The authoresses of heroines are often more interesting than the heroines +themselves, and Amelia Opie was certainly no exception to this somewhat +general statement. A pleasant, sprightly authoress, beaming bright +glances on her friends, confident, intelligent, full of interest in +life, carried along in turn by one and by another influence, she comes +before us a young and charming figure, with all the spires of Norwich +for a background, and the sound of its bells, and the stir of its +assizes, as she issues from her peaceful home in her father's tranquil +old house, where the good physician lives widowed, tending his poor and +his sick, and devotedly spoiling his only child. + + +II. + +Amelia Opie was born in 1769 in the old city of Norwich, within reach of +the invigorating breezes of the great North Sea. Her youth must have +been somewhat solitary; she was the only child of a kind and cultivated +physician, Doctor James Alderson, whose younger brother, a barrister, +also living in Norwich, became the father of Baron Alderson. Her mother +died in her early youth. From her father, however, little Amelia seems +to have had the love and indulgence of over half a century, a tender and +admiring love which she returned with all her heart's devotion. She was +the pride and darling of his home, and throughout her long life her +father's approbation was the one chief motive of her existence. Spoiling +is a vexed question, but as a rule people get so much stern justice from +all the rest of the world that it seems well that their parents should +love and comfort them in youth for the many disgraces and difficulties +yet to come. + +Her mother is described as a delicate, high-minded woman, 'somewhat of a +disciplinarian,' says Mrs. Opie's excellent biographer, Miss Brightwell, +but she died too soon to carry her theories into practice. Miss Brightwell +suggests that 'Mrs. Opie might have been more demure and decorous had +her mother lived, but perhaps less charming.' There are some verses +addressed to her mother in Mrs. Opie's papers in which it must be +confessed that the remembrance of her admonition plays a most important +part-- + + Hark! clearer still thy voice I hear. + Again reproof in accents mild, + Seems whispering in my conscious ear, + +and so on. + +Some of Mrs. Alderson's attempts at discipline seemed unusual and +experimental; the little girl was timid, afraid of black people, of +black beetles, and of human skeletons. She was given the skeleton to +play with, and the beetles to hold in her hand. One feels more sympathy +with the way in which she was gently reconciled to the poor negro with +the frightening black face--by being told the story of his wrongs. But +with the poor mother's untimely death all this maternal supervision +came to an end. 'Amelia, your mother is gone; may you never have reason +to blush when you remember her!' her father said as he clasped his +little orphan to his heart; and all her life long Amelia remembered +those words. + +There is a pretty reminiscence of her childhood from a beginning of the +memoir which was never written:--'One of my earliest recollections is of +gazing on the bright blue sky as I lay in my little bed before my hour +of rising came, listening with delighted attention to the ringing of a +peal of bells. I had heard that heaven was beyond those blue skies, and +I had been taught that _there_ was the home of the good, and I fancied +that those sweet bells were ringing in heaven.' The bells were ringing +for the Norwich Assizes, which played an important part in our little +heroine's life, and which must have been associated with many of her +early memories. + +The little girl seems to have been allowed more liberty than is usually +given to children. 'As soon as I was old enough to enjoy a procession,' +she says, 'I was taken to see the Judges come in. Youthful pages in +pretty dresses ran by the side of the High Sheriff's carriage, in which +the Judges sat, while the coaches drove slowly and with a solemnity +becoming the high and awful office of those whom they contained.... With +reverence ever did I behold the Judges' wigs, the scarlet robes they +wore, and even the white wand of the Sheriff.' + +There is a description which in after years might have made a pretty +picture for her husband's pencil of the little maiden wandering into the +court one day, and called by a kind old Judge to sit beside him upon the +bench. She goes on to recount how next day she was there again; and when +some attendant of the court wanted her to leave the place, saying not +unnaturally, 'Go, Miss, this is no place for you; be advised,' the Judge +again interfered, and ordered the enterprising little girl to be brought +to her old place upon the cushion by his side. The story gives one a +curious impression of a child's life and education. She seems to have +come and gone alone, capable, intelligent, unabashed, interested in all +the events and humours of the place. + +Children have among other things a very vivid sense of citizenship +and public spirit, somewhat put out in later life by the rush of +personal feeling, but in childhood the personal events are so few and +so irresponsible that public affairs become an actual part of life and +of experience. While their elders are still discussing the news and +weighing its importance, it is already a part of the children's life. +Little Amelia Alderson must have been a happy child, free, affectionate, +independent; grateful, as a child should be, towards those who befriended +her. One of her teachers was a French dancing-master called Christian, +for whom she had a warm regard. She relates that long afterwards she +came with her husband and a friend to visit the Dutch church at Norwich. +'The two gentlemen were engaged in looking round and making their +observations, and I, finding myself somewhat cold, began to hop and +dance upon the spot where I stood, when my eyes chanced to fall upon +the pavement below, and I started at beholding the well-known name of +Christian graved upon the slab; I stopped in dismay, shocked to find +that I had actually been dancing upon the grave of my old master--he who +first taught me to dance.' + + +III. + +After her mother's death, Amelia Alderson, who was barely fifteen at the +time, began to take her place in society. She kept her father's house, +received his friends, made his home bright with her presence. The lawyers +came round in due season: Sir James Mackintosh came, the town was full +of life, of talk, of music, and poetry, and prejudice. + +Harriet Martineau, in her memoir of Mrs. Opie, gives a delightful and +humorous account of the Norwich of that day--rivalling Lichfield and its +literary coterie, only with less sentimentality and some additional +peculiarities of its own. One can almost see the Tory gentlemen, as Miss +Martineau describes them, setting a watch upon the Cathedral, lest the +Dissenters should burn it as a beacon for Boney; whereas good Bishop +Bathurst, with more faith in human nature, goes on resolutely touching +his hat to the leading Nonconformists. 'The French taught in schools,' +says Miss Martineau, 'was found to be unintelligible when the peace +at length arrived, taught as it was by an aged powdered Monsieur +and an elderly flowered Madame, who had taught their pupils' Norfolk +pronunciation. But it was beginning to be known,' she continues, 'that +there was such a language as German, and in due time there was a young +man who had actually been in Germany, and was translating "Nathan the +Wise." When William Taylor became eminent as almost the only German +scholar in England, old Norwich was very proud and grew, to say the +truth, excessively conceited. She was (and she might be) proud of her +Sayers, she boasted of her intellectual supper-parties, and finally +called herself the "Athens of England."' + +In this wholesome, cheerful Athens, blown by the invigorating Northern +breezes, little Amelia bloomed and developed into a lovely and happy +girl. She was fortunate, indeed, in her friends. One near at hand must +have been an invaluable adviser for a motherless, impressionable girl. +Mrs. John Taylor was so loved that she is still remembered. Mrs. Barbauld +prized and valued her affection beyond all others. 'I know the value +of your letters,' says Sir James Mackintosh, writing from Bombay; +'they rouse my mind on subjects which interest us in common--children, +literature, and life. I ought to be made permanently better by +contemplating a mind like yours.' And he still has Mrs. Taylor in +his mind when he concludes with a little disquisition on the contrast +between the barren sensibility, the indolent folly of some, the useful +kindness of others, 'the industrious benevolence which requires a +vigorous understanding and a decisive character.' + +Some of Mrs. Opie's family have shown me a photograph of her in her +Quaker dress, in old age, dim, and changed, and sunken, from which it is +very difficult to realise all the brightness, and life, and animation +which must have belonged to the earlier part of her life. The delightful +portrait of her engraved in the 'Mirror' shows the animated beaming +countenance, the soft expressive eyes, the abundant auburn waves of +hair, of which we read. The picture is more like some charming allegorical +being than a real live young lady--some Belinda of the 'Rape of the +Lock' (and one would as soon have expected Belinda to turn Quakeress). +Music, poetry, dancing, elves, graces and flirtations, cupids, seem to +attend her steps. She delights in admiration, friendship, companionship, +and gaiety, and yet with it all we realise a warm-hearted sincerity, and +appreciation of good and high-minded things, a truth of feeling passing +out of the realms of fancy altogether into one of the best realities of +life. She had a thousand links with life: she was musical, artistic; she +was literary; she had a certain amount of social influence; she had a +voice, a harp, a charming person, mind and manner. Admiring monarchs in +later days applauded her performance; devoted subjects were her friends +and correspondents, and her sphere in due time extended beyond the +approving Norwich-Athenian coterie of old friends who had known her from +her childhood, to London itself, where she seems to have been made +welcome by many, and to have captivated more than her share of victims. + +In some letters of hers written to Mrs. Taylor and quoted by her +biographer we get glimpses of some of these early experiences. The +bright and happy excitable girl comes up from Norwich to London to be +made more happy still, and more satisfied with the delight of life as +it unfolds. Besides her fancy for lawyers, literary people had a great +attraction for Amelia, and Godwin seems to have played an important part +in her earlier experience. A saying of Mrs. Inchbald's is quoted by +her on her return home as to the report of the world being that Mr. +Holcroft was in love with Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Inchbald with Mr. Godwin, +Mr. Godwin with Miss Alderson, and Miss Alderson with Mr. Holcroft! + +The following account of Somers Town, and a philosopher's costume in +those days, is written to her father in 1794:-- + + After a most delightful ride through some of the richest country I + ever beheld, we arrived about one o'clock at the philosopher's + house; we found him with his hair _bien poudre_, and in a pair of + new sharp-toed red morocco slippers, not to mention his green coat + and crimson under-waistcoat. + +From Godwin's by the city they come to Marlborough Street, and find Mrs. +Siddons nursing her little baby, and as handsome and charming as ever. +They see Charles Kemble there, and they wind up their day by calling on +Mrs. Inchbald in her pleasant lodgings, with two hundred pounds just +come in from Sheridan for a farce of sixty pages. Godwin's attentions +seem to have amused and pleased the fair, merry Amelia, who is not a +little proud of her arch influence over various rugged and apparently +inaccessible persons. Mrs. Inchbald seems to have been as jealous of +Miss Alderson at the time as she afterwards was of Mary Wollstonecraft. +'Will you give me nothing to keep for your sake?' says Godwin, parting +from Amelia. 'Not even your slipper? I had it once in my possession.' +'This was true,' adds Miss Amelia; 'my shoe had come off and he picked +it up and put it in his pocket.' Elsewhere she tells her friend Mrs. +Taylor that Mr. Holcroft would like to come forward, but that he had no +chance. + +That some one person had a chance, and a very good one, is plain enough +from the context of a letter, but there is nothing in Mrs. Opie's life +to show why fate was contrary in this, while yielding so bountiful a +share of all other good things to the happy country girl. + +Among other people, she seems to have charmed various French refugees, +one of whom was the Duc d'Aiguillon, come over to England with some +seven thousand others, waiting here for happier times, and hiding their +sorrows among our friendly mists. Godwin was married when Miss Alderson +revisited her London friends and admirers in 1797--an eventful visit, +when she met Opie for the first time. + +The account of their first meeting is amusingly given in Miss +Brightwell's memoirs. It was at an evening party. Some of those present +were eagerly expecting the arrival of Miss Alderson, but the evening was +wearing away and still she did not appear; 'at length the door was flung +open, and she entered bright and smiling, dressed in a robe of blue, her +neck and arms bare, and on her head a small bonnet placed in somewhat +coquettish style sideways and surmounted by a plume of three white +feathers. Her beautiful hair hung in waving tresses over her shoulders; +her face was kindling with pleasure at the sight of her old friends, and +her whole appearance was animated and glowing. At the time she came in +Mr. Opie was sitting on a sofa beside Mr. F., who had been saying from +time to time, 'Amelia is coming; Amelia will surely come. Why is she not +here?' and whose eyes were turned in her direction. He was interrupted +by his companion eagerly exclaiming, 'Who is that--who is that?' and +hastily rising Opie pressed forward to be introduced to the fair object +whose sudden appearance had so impressed him.' With all her love of +excitement, of change, of variety, one cannot but feel, as I have said, +that there was also in Amelia Alderson's cheerful life a vein of deep +and very serious feeling, and the bracing influence of the upright and +high-minded people among whom she had been brought up did not count for +nothing in her nature. She could show her genuine respect for what was +generous and good and true, even though she did not always find strength +to carry out the dream of an excitable and warm-hearted nature. + + +IV. + +There is something very interesting in the impression one receives of +the 'Inspired Peasant,' as Alan Cunningham calls John Opie--the man +who did not paint to live so much as live to paint. He was a simple, +high-minded Cornishman, whose natural directness and honesty were +unspoiled by favour, unembittered by failure. Opie's gift, like some +deep-rooted seed living buried in arid soil, ever aspired upwards towards +the light. His ideal was high; his performance fell far short of his +life-long dream, and he knew it. But his heart never turned from its +life's aim, and he loved beauty and Art with that true and unfailing +devotion which makes a man great, even though his achievements do not +show all he should have been. + +The old village carpenter, his father, who meant him to succeed to +the business, was often angry, and loudly railed at the boy when good +white-washed walls and clean boards were spoiled by scrawls of +lamp-black and charcoal. John worked in the shop and obeyed his father, +but when his day's task was over he turned again to his darling +pursuits. At twelve years old he had mastered Euclid, and could also +rival 'Mark Oaks,' the village phenomenon, in painting a butterfly; by +the time John was sixteen he could earn as much as 7_s._ 6_d._ for a +portrait. It was in this year that there came to Truro an accomplished +and various man Dr. Wolcott--sometimes a parson, sometimes a doctor of +medicine, sometimes as Peter Pindar, a critic and literary man. This +gentleman was interested by young Opie and his performances, and +he asked him on one occasion how he liked painting. 'Better than +bread-and-butter,' says the boy. Wolcott finally brought his _protege_ +to London, where the Doctor's influence and Opie's own undoubted merit +brought him success; and to Opie's own amazement he suddenly found +himself the fashion. His street was crowded with carriages; long +processions of ladies and gentlemen came to sit to him; he was able to +furnish a house 'in Orange Court, by Leicester Fields;' he was beginning +to put by money when, as suddenly as he had been taken up, he was +forgotten again. The carriages drove off in some other direction, and +Opie found himself abandoned by the odd, fanciful world of fashions, +which would not be fashions if they did not change day by day. It might +have proved a heart-breaking phase of life for a man whose aim had been +less single. But Opie was of too generous a nature to value popularity +beyond achievement. He seems to have borne this freak of fortune with +great equanimity, and when he was sometimes overwhelmed, it was not by +the praise or dispraise of others, but by his own consciousness of +failure, of inadequate performance. Troubles even more serious than loss +of patronage and employment befell him later. He had married, unhappily +for himself, a beautiful, unworthy woman, whose picture he has painted +many times. She was a faithless as well as a weak and erring wife, +and finally abandoned him. When Opie was free to marry again he was +thirty-six, a serious, downright man of undoubted power and influence, +of sincerity and tenderness of feeling, of rugged and unusual manners. +He had not many friends, nor did he wish for many, but those who knew +him valued him at his worth. His second wife showed what was in her by +her appreciation of his noble qualities, though one can hardly realise a +greater contrast than that of these two, so unlike in character, in +training, and disposition. They were married in London, at Marylebone +Church, in that dismal year of '98, which is still remembered. Opie +loved his wife deeply and passionately; he did not charm her, though she +charmed him, but for his qualities she had true respect and admiration. + + +V. + +Opie must be forgiven if he was one-idead, if he erred from too +much zeal. All his wife's bright gaiety of nature, her love for her +fellow-creatures, her interest in the world, her many-sidedness, this +uncompromising husband would gladly have kept for himself. For him his +wife and his home were the whole world; his Art was his whole life. + +The young couple settled down in London after their marriage, where, +notwithstanding fogs and smoke and dull monotony of brick and smut, so +many beautiful things are created; where Turner's rainbow lights were +first reflected, where Tennyson's 'Princess' sprang from the fog. It +was a modest and quiet installation, but among the pretty things which +Amelia brought to brighten her new home we read of blue feathers and +gold gauze bonnets, tiaras, and spencers, scarlet ribbons, buff net, and +cambric flounces, all of which give one a pleasant impression of her +intention to amuse herself, and to enjoy the society of her fellows, and +to bring her own pleasant contributions to their enjoyment. + +Opie sat working at his easel, painting portraits to earn money for his +wife's use and comfort, and encouraging her to write, for he had faith +in work. He himself would never intermit his work for a single day. He +would have gladly kept her always in his sight. 'If I would stay at home +for ever, I believe my husband would be merry from morning to night--a +lover more than a husband,' Amelia writes to Mrs. Taylor. He seemed to +have some feeling that time for him was not to be long--that life was +passing quickly by, almost too quickly to give him time to realise his +new home happiness, to give him strength to grasp his work. He was no +rapid painter, instinctively feeling his light and colour and action, +and seizing the moment's suggestion, but anxious, laborious, and +involved in that sad struggle in which some people pass their lives, for +ever disappointed. Opie's portraits seem to have been superior to his +compositions, which were well painted, 'but unimaginative and +commonplace,' says a painter of our own time, whose own work quickens +with that mysterious soul which some pictures (as indeed some human +beings) seem to be entirely without. + +'During the nine years that I was his wife,' says Mrs. Opie, 'I never +saw him satisfied with any one of his productions. Often, very often, he +has entered my sitting-room, and, throwing himself down in an agony of +despondence upon the sofa, exclaimed, "I shall never be a painter!"' + +He was a wise and feeling critic, however great his shortcomings as a +painter may have been. His lectures are admirable; full of real thought +and good judgment. Sir James Mackintosh places them beyond Reynolds's in +some ways. + +'If there were no difficulties every one would be a painter,' says Opie, +and he goes on to point out what a painter's object should be--'the +discovery or conception of perfect ideas of things; nature in its +purest and most essential form rising from the species to the genus, the +highest and ultimate exertion of human genius.' For him it was no +grievance that a painter's life should be one long and serious effort. +'If you are wanting to yourselves, rule may be multiplied upon rule and +precept upon precept in vain.' Some of his remarks might be thought +still to apply in many cases, no less than they did a hundred years ago, +when he complained of those green-sick lovers of chalk, brick-dust, +charcoal and old tapestry, who are so ready to decry the merits of +colouring and to set it down as a kind of superfluity. It is curious to +contrast Opie's style in literature with that of his wife, who belongs +to the entirely past generation which she reflected, whereas he wrote +from his own original impressions, saying those things which struck him +as forcibly then as they strike us now. 'Father and Daughter' was Mrs. +Opie's first acknowledged book. It was published in 1801, and the author +writes modestly of all her apprehensions. 'Mr. Opie has no patience with +me; he consoles me by averring that fear makes me overrate others and +underrate myself.' The book was reviewed in the 'Edinburgh.' We hear of +one gentleman who lies awake all night after reading it; and Mrs. +Inchbald promises a candid opinion, which, however, we do not get. +Besides stories and novels, Mrs. Opie was the author of several poems +and verses which were much admired. There was an impromptu to Sir James +Mackintosh, which brought a long letter in return, and one of her songs +was quoted by Sydney Smith in a lecture at the Royal Institution. Mrs. +Opie was present, and she used to tell in after times 'how unexpectedly +the compliment came upon her, and how she shrunk down upon her seat in +order to screen herself from observation.' + +The lines are indeed charming:-- + + Go, youth, beloved in distant glades, + New friends, new hopes, new joys to find, + Yet sometimes deign 'midst fairer maids + To think on her thou leav'st behind. + Thy love, thy fate, dear youth to share + Must never be my happy lot; + But thou may'st grant this humble prayer, + Forget me not, forget me not. + + Yet should the thought of my distress + Too painful to thy feelings be, + Heed not the wish I now express, + Nor ever deign to think of me; + But oh! if grief thy steps attend, + If want, if sickness be thy lot, + And thou require a soothing friend, + Forget me not, forget me not. + + +VI. + +The little household was a modest one, but we read of a certain amount +of friendly hospitality. Country neighbours from Norfolk appear upon the +scene; we find Northcote dining and praising the toasted cheese. Mrs. +Opie's heart never for an instant ceased to warm to her old friends and +companions. She writes an amusing account to Mrs. Taylor of her London +home, her interests and visitors, 'her happy and delightful life.' She +worked, she amused herself, she received her friends at home and went to +look for them abroad. Among other visits, Mrs. Opie speaks of one to an +old friend who has 'grown plump,' and of a second to 'Betsy Fry' who, +notwithstanding her comfortable home and prosperous circumstances, has +grown lean. It would be difficult to recognise under this familiar +cognomen and description the noble and dignified woman whose name and +work are still remembered with affectionate respect and wonder by a not +less hard-working, but less convinced and convincing generation. This +friendship was of great moment to Amelia Opie in after days, at a +time when her heart was low and her life very sad and solitary; but +meanwhile, as I have said, there were happy times for her; youth and +youthful spirits and faithful companionship were all hers, and troubles +had not yet come. + +One day Mrs. Opie gives a characteristic account of a visit from Mrs. +Taylor's two sons. '"John," said I, "will you take a letter from me to +your mother?" "Certainly," replied John, "for then I shall be sure of +being welcome." "Fy," returned I. "Mr. Courtier, you know you want +nothing to add to the heartiness of the welcome you will receive at +home." "No, indeed," said Richard, "and if Mrs. Opie sends her letter by +you it will be one way of making it less valued and attended to than it +would otherwise be." To the truth of this speech I subscribed and wrote +not. I have heard in later days a pretty description of the simple home +in which all these handsome, cultivated, and remarkable young people +grew up round their noble-minded mother.' One of Mrs. John Taylor's +daughters became Mrs. Reeve, the mother of Mr. Henry Reeve, another was +Mrs. Austin, the mother of Lady Duff Gordon. + +Those lean kine we read of in the Bible are not peculiar to Egypt and to +the days of Joseph and his brethren. The unwelcome creatures are apt to +make their appearance in many a country and many a household, and in +default of their natural food to devour all sorts of long-cherished +fancies, hopes, and schemes. Some time after his marriage, Opie +suddenly, and for no reason, found himself without employment, and the +severest trial they experienced during their married life, says his +wife, was during this period of anxiety. She, however, cheered him +womanfully, would not acknowledge her own dismay, and Opie, gloomy and +desponding though he was, continued to paint as regularly as before. +Presently orders began to flow in again, and did not cease until his +death. + + +VII. + +Their affairs being once more prosperous, a long-hoped-for dream became +a reality, and they started on an expedition to Paris, a solemn event in +those days and not lightly to be passed over by a biographer. One long +war was ended, another had not yet begun. The Continent was a promised +land, fondly dreamt of though unknown. 'At last in Paris; at last in the +city which she had so longed to see!' Mrs. Opie's description of her +arrival reads a comment upon history. As they drive into the town, +everywhere chalked up upon the walls and the houses are inscriptions +concerning 'L'Indivisibilite de la Republique.' How many subsequent +writings upon the wall did Mrs. Opie live to see! The English party find +rooms at a hotel facing the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine, +that token of order and tranquillity, was then perpetually standing. +The young wife's feelings may be imagined when within an hour of their +arrival Opie, who had rushed off straight to the Louvre, returned with a +face of consternation to say that they must leave Paris at once. The +Louvre was shut; and, moreover, the whiteness of everything, the houses, +the ground they stood on, all dazzled and blinded him. He was a lost man +if he remained! By some happy interposition they succeed in getting +admission to the Louvre, and as the painter wonders and admires his +nervous terrors leave him. The picture left by Miss Edgeworth of Paris +Society in the early years of the century is more brilliant, but not +more interesting than Mrs. Opie's reminiscences of the fleeting scene, +gaining so much in brilliancy from the shadows all round about. There is +the shadow of the ghastly guillotine upon the Place de la Concorde, the +shadows of wars but lately over and yet to come, the echo in the air of +arms and discord; meanwhile a brilliant, agreeable, flashing Paris +streams with sunlight, is piled with treasures and trophies of victory, +and crowded with well-known characters. We read of Kosciusko's nut-brown +wig concealing his honourable scars; Massena's earrings flash in the +sun; one can picture it all, and the animated inrush of tourists, and +the eager life stirring round about the walls of the old Louvre. + +It was at this time that they saw Talma perform, and years after, in her +little rooms in Lady's Field at Norwich, Mrs. Opie, in her Quaker dress, +used to give an imitation of the great actor and utter a deep 'Cain, +Cain, where art thou?' To which Cain replies in sepulchral tones. + +We get among other things an interesting glimpse of Fox standing in the +Louvre Gallery opposite the picture of St. Jerome by Domenichino, a +picture which, as it is said, he enthusiastically admired. Opie, who +happened to be introduced to him, then and there dissented from this +opinion. 'You must be a better judge on such points than I am,' says +Fox; and Mrs. Opie proudly writes of the two passing on together +discussing and comparing the pictures. She describes them next standing +before the 'Transfiguration' of Raphael. The Louvre in those days must +have been for a painter a wonder palace indeed. The 'Venus de' Medici' +was on her way; it was a time of miracles, as Fox said. Meanwhile Mrs. +Opie hears someone saying that the First Consul is on his way from the +Senate, and she hurries to a window to look out. 'Bonaparte seems very +fond of state and show for a Republican,' says Mrs. Fox. Fox himself +half turns to the window, then looks back to the pictures again. As for +Opie, one may be sure his attention never wandered for one instant. + +They saw the First Consul more than once. The Pacificator, as he was +then called, was at the height of his popularity; on one occasion +they met Fox with his wife on his arm crossing the Carrousel to the +Tuileries, where they are also admitted to a ground-floor room, from +whence they look upon a marble staircase and see several officers +ascending, 'one of whom, with a helmet which seemed entirely of gold, +was Eugene de Beauharnais. A few minutes afterwards,' she says, 'there +was a rush of officers down the stairs, and among them I saw a short +pale man with his hat in his hand, who, as I thought, resembled Lord +Erskine in profile....' This of course is Bonaparte, unadorned amidst +all this studied splendour, and wearing only a little tricoloured +cockade. Maria Cosway, the painter, who was also in Paris at the time, +took them to call at the house of Madame Bonaparte _mere_, where they +were received by 'a blooming, courteous ecclesiastic, powdered and with +purple stockings and gold buckles, and a costly crucifix. This is +Cardinal Fesch, the uncle of Bonaparte. It is said that when Fox was +introduced to the First Consul he was warmly welcomed by him, and was +made to listen to a grand harangue upon the advantages of peace, to +which he answered scarcely a word; though he was charmed to talk with +Madame Bonaparte, and to discuss with her the flowers of which she was +so fond.' The Opies met Fox again in England some years after, when he +sat to Opie for one of his finest portraits. It is now at Holker, and +there is a characteristic description of poor Opie, made nervous by the +criticism of the many friends, and Fox, impatient but encouraging, and +again whispering, 'Don't attend to them; you must know best.' + + +VIII. + +'Adeline Mowbray; or, Mother and Daughter,' was published by Mrs. Opie +after this visit to the Continent. It is a melancholy and curious +story, which seems to have been partly suggested by that of poor Mary +Wollstonecraft, whose prejudices the heroine shares and expiates by a +fate hardly less pathetic than that of Mary herself. The book reminds +one of a very touching letter from Godwin's wife to Amelia Alderson, +written a few weeks before her death, in which she speaks of her +'contempt for the forms of a world she should have bade a long +good-night to had she not been a mother.' Justice has at length been +done to this mistaken but noble and devoted woman, and her story has +lately been written from a wider point of view than Mrs. Opie's, though +she indeed was no ungenerous advocate. Her novel seems to have given +satisfaction; 'a beautiful story, the most natural in its pathos of any +fictitious narrative in the language,' says the 'Edinburgh,' writing +with more leniency than authors now expect. Another reviewer, speaking +with discriminating criticism, says of Mrs. Opie: 'She does not reason +well, but she has, like most accomplished women, the talent of perceiving +truth without the process of reasoning. Her language is often inaccurate, +but it is always graceful and harmonious. She can do nothing well that +requires to be done with formality; to make amends, however, she +represents admirably everything that is amiable, generous, and gentle.' + +Adeline Mowbray dies of a broken heart, with the following somewhat +discursive farewell to her child: 'There are two ways in which a mother +can be of use to her daughter; the one is by instilling into her mind +virtuous principles, and by setting her a virtuous example, the other is +by being to her, in her own person, an awful warning!' + + * * * * * + +One or two of Opie's letters to his wife are given in the memoir. They +ring with truth and tender feeling. The two went to Norwich together on +one occasion, when Opie painted Dr. Sayers, the scholar, who, in return +for his portrait, applied an elegant Greek distich to the painter. Mrs. +Opie remained with her father, and her husband soon returned to his +studio in London. When she delayed, he wrote to complain. 'My dearest +Life, I cannot be sorry that you do not stay longer, though, as I said, +on your father's account, I would consent to it. Pray, Love, forgive +me, and make yourself easy. I did not suspect, till my last letter was +posted, that it might be too strong. I had been counting almost the +hours till your arrival for some time. As to coming down again I cannot +think of it, for though I could perhaps better spare the time at present +from painting than I could at any part of the last month, I find I must +now go hard to work to finish my lectures, as the law says they must be +delivered the second year after the election.' + +The Academy had appointed Opie Professor of Painting in the place of +Fuseli, and he was now trying his hand at a new form of composition, and +not without well-deserved success. But the strain was too great for +this eager mind. Opie painted all day; of an evening he worked at his +lectures on painting. From September to February he allowed himself no +rest. He was not a man who worked with ease; all he did cost him much +effort and struggle. After delivering his first lecture, he complained +that he could not sleep. It had been a great success; his colleagues +had complimented him, and accompanied him to his house. He was able to +complete the course, but immediately afterwards he sickened. No one +could discover what was amiss; the languor and fever increased day by +day. + +His wife nursed him devotedly, and a favourite sister of his came to +help her. Afterwards it was of consolation to the widow to remember that +no hired nurse had been by his bedside, and that they had been able to +do everything for him themselves. One thing troubled him as he lay +dying; it was the thought of a picture which he had not been able to +complete in time for the exhibition. A friend and former pupil finished +it, and brought it to his bedside. He said with a smile, 'Take it away, +it will do now.' + +To the last he imagined that he was painting upon this picture, and he +moved his arms as though he were at work. His illness was inflammation +of the brain. He was only forty-five when he died, and he was buried in +St. Paul's, and laid by Sir Joshua, his great master. + +The portrait of Opie, as it is engraved in Alan Cunningham's Life, is +that of a simple, noble-looking man, with a good thoughtful face and a +fine head. Northcote, Nollekens, Horne Tooke, all his friends spoke +warmly of him. 'A man of powerful understanding and ready apprehension,' +says one. 'Mr. Opie crowds more wisdom into a few words than almost +anybody I ever saw,' says another. 'I do not say that he was always +right,' says Northcote; 'but he always put your thoughts into a new +track that was worth following.' Some two years after his death the +lectures which had cost so much were published, with a memoir by Mrs. +Opie. Sir James Mackintosh has written one of his delightful criticisms +upon the book:-- + + The cultivation of every science and the practice of every art are + in fact a species of action, and require ardent zeal and unshaken + courage.... Originality can hardly exist without vigour of + character.... The discoverer or inventor may indeed be most + eminently wanting in decision in the general concerns of life, but + he must possess it in those pursuits in which he is successful. + Opie is a remarkable instance of the natural union of these + superior qualities, both of which he possesses in a high + degree.... He is inferior in elegance to Sir Joshua, but he is + superior in strength; he strikes more, though he charms less.... + Opie is by turns an advocate, a controvertist, a panegyrist, a + critic; Sir Joshua more uniformly fixes his mind on general and + permanent principles, and certainly approaches more nearly to the + elevation and tranquillity which seem to characterise the + philosophic teacher of an elegant art. + + +IX. + +Mrs. Opie went back, soon after her husband's death, to Norwich, to her +early home, her father's house; nor was she a widow indeed while she +still had this tender love and protection. + +That which strikes one most as one reads the accounts of Mrs. Opie +is the artlessness and perfect simplicity of her nature. The deepest +feeling of her life was her tender love for her father, and if she +remained younger than most women do, it may have been partly from the +great blessing which was hers so long, that of a father's home. Time +passed, and by degrees she resumed her old life, and came out and about +among her friends. Sorrow does not change a nature, it expresses certain +qualities which have been there all along. + +So Mrs. Opie came up to London once more, and welcomed and was made +welcome by many interesting people. Lord Erskine is her friend always; +she visits Madame de Stael; she is constantly in company with Sydney +Smith, the ever-welcome as she calls him. Lord Byron, Sheridan, Lord +Dudley, all appear upon her scene. There is a pretty story of her +singing her best to Lady Sarah Napier, old, blind, and saddened, but +still happy in that she had her sons to guide and to protect her steps. +Among her many entertainments, Mrs. Opie amusingly describes a dinner at +Sir James Mackintosh's, to which most of the guests had been asked at +different hours, varying from six to half-past seven, when Baron +William von Humboldt arrives. He writes to her next day, calling her +Mademoiselle Opie, 'no doubt from my juvenile appearance,' she adds, +writing to her father. It is indeed remarkable to read of her spirits +long after middle life, her interest and capacity for amusement. She +pays 4_l._ for a ticket to a ball given to the Duke of Wellington; she +describes this and many other masquerades and gaieties, and the blue +ball, and the pink ball, and the twenty-seven carriages at her door, and +her sight of the Emperor of Russia in her hotel. When the rest of the +ladies crowd round, eager to touch his clothes, Mrs. Opie, carried away +by the general craze, encircles his wrist with her finger and thumb. +Apart from these passing fancies, she is in delightful society. + +Baron Alderson, her cousin and friend, was always kind and affectionate +to her. The pretty little story is well known of his taking her home in +her Quaker dress in the Judges' state-coach at Norwich, saying, 'Come, +Brother Opie,' as he offered her his arm to lead her to the carriage. +She used to stay at his house in London, and almost the last visit she +ever paid was to him. + +One of the most interesting of her descriptions is that of her meeting +with Sir Walter Scott and with Wordsworth at a breakfast in Mount +Street, and of Sir Walter's delightful talk and animated stories. One +can imagine him laughing and describing a Cockney's terrors in the +Highlands, when the whole hunt goes galloping down the crags, as is +their North-country fashion. 'The gifted man,' says Mrs. Opie, with her +old-fashioned adjectives, 'condescended to speak to me of my "Father and +Daughter." He then went on faithfully to praise his old friend Joanna +Baillie and her tragedies, and to describe a tragedy he once thought of +writing himself. He should have had no love in it. His hero should have +been the uncle of his heroine, a sort of misanthrope, with only one +affection in his heart, love for his niece, like a solitary gleam of +sunshine lighting the dark tower of some ruined and lonely dwelling.' + +'It might perhaps be a weakness,' says the Friend, long after recalling +this event, 'but I must confess how greatly I was pleased at the time.' +No wonder she was pleased that the great wizard should have liked her +novel. + +It would be impossible to attempt a serious critique of Mrs. Opie's +stories. They are artless, graceful, written with an innocent good faith +which disarms criticism. That Southey, Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh +should also have read them and praised them may, as I have said, prove +as much for the personal charm of the writer, and her warm sunshine of +pleasant companionship, as for the books themselves. They seem to have +run through many editions, and to have received no little encouragement. +Morality and sensation alternate in her pages. Monsters abound there. +They hire young men to act base parts, to hold villainous conversations +which the husbands are intended to overhear. They plot and scheme to +ruin the fair fame and domestic happiness of the charming heroines, but +they are justly punished, and their plots are defeated. One villain, on +his way to an appointment with a married woman, receives so severe a +blow upon the head from her brother, that he dies in agonies of fruitless +remorse. Another, who incautiously boasts aloud his deep-laid scheme +against Constantia's reputation in the dark recesses of a stage-coach, +is unexpectedly seized by the arm. A stranger in the corner, whom he had +not noticed, was no other than the baronet whom Constantia has loved all +along. The dawn breaks in brightly, shining on the stranger's face: +baffled, disgraced, the wicked schemer leaves the coach at the very next +stage, and Constantia's happiness is ensured by a brilliant marriage +with the man she loves. 'Lucy is the dark sky,' cries another lovely +heroine, 'but you, my lord, and my smiling children, these are the +rainbow that illumines it; and who would look at the gloom that see the +many tinted Iris? not I, indeed.' 'Valentine's Eve,' from which this is +quoted, was published after John Opie's death. So was a novel called +'Temper,' and the 'Tales of Real Life.' Mrs. Opie, however, gave up +writing novels when she joined the Society of Friends. + +For some years past, Mrs. Opie had been thrown more and more in the +company of a very noble and remarkable race of men and women living +quietly in their beautiful homes in the neighbourhood of Norwich, but +of an influence daily growing--handsome people, prosperous, generous, +with a sort of natural Priesthood belonging to them. Scorning to live +for themselves alone, the Gurneys were the dispensers and originators of +a hundred useful and benevolent enterprises in Norwich and elsewhere. +They were Quakers, and merchants, and bankers. How much of their strength +lay in their wealth and prosperity, how much in their enthusiasm, their +high spirits, voluntarily curbed, their natural instinct both to lead +and to protect, it would be idle to discuss. It is always difficult for +people who believe in the all-importance of the present to judge of +others, whose firm creed is that the present is nothing as compared to +the future. Chief among this remarkable family was Elizabeth Gurney, +the wife of Josiah Fry, the mother of many children, and the good angel, +indeed, of the unhappy captives of those barbarous days, prisoners, to +whose utter gloom and misery she brought some rays of hope. There are +few figures more striking than that of the noble Quaker lady starting on +her generous mission, comforting the children, easing the chains of the +captives. No domineering Jellyby, but a motherly, deep-hearted woman; +shy, and yet from her very timidity gaining an influence, which less +sensitive natures often fail to win. One likes to imagine the dignified +sweet face coming in--the comforting Friend in the quiet garb of the +Quaker woman standing at the gates of those terrible places, bidding the +despairing prisoners be of good hope. + +Elizabeth Fry's whole life was a mission of love and help to others; her +brothers and her many relations heartily joined and assisted her in many +plans and efforts. + +For Joseph John Gurney, the head of the Norwich family, Mrs. Opie is +said to have had a feeling amounting to more than friendship. Be this as +it may, it is no wonder that so warm-hearted and impressionable a woman +should have been influenced by the calm goodness of the friends with +whom she was now thrown. It is evident enough, nor does she attempt to +conceal the fact, that the admiration and interest she feels for John +Joseph Gurney are very deep motive powers. There comes a time in most +lives, especially in the lives of women, when all the habits and +certainties of youth have passed away, when life has to be built up +again upon the foundations indeed of the past, the friendships, the +memories, the habits of early life, but with new places and things to +absorb and to interest, new hearts to love. And one day people wake up +to find that the friends of their choice have become their home. People +are stranded perhaps seeking their share in life's allowance, and +suddenly they come upon something, with all the charm which belongs to +deliberate choice, as well as that of natural affinity. How well one +can realise the extraordinary comfort that Amelia Opie must have found +in the kind friends and neighbours with whom she was now thrown! Her +father was a very old man, dying slowly by inches. Her own life of +struggle, animation, intelligence, was over, as she imagined, for ever. +No wonder if for a time she was carried away, if she forgot her own +nature, her own imperative necessities, in sympathy with this new +revelation. Here was a new existence, here was a Living Church ready to +draw her within its saving walls. John Joseph Gurney must have been a +man of extraordinary personal influence. For a long time past he had +been writing to her seriously. At last, to the surprise of the world, +though not without long deliberation and her father's full approval, she +joined the Society of Friends, put on their dress, and adopted their +peculiar phraseology. People were surprised at the time, but I think it +would have been still more surprising if she had not joined them. J. J. +Gurney, in one of his letters, somewhat magnificently describes Mrs. +Opie as offering up her many talents and accomplishments a brilliant +sacrifice to her new-found persuasions. 'Illustrations of Lying,' +moral anecdotes on the borderland of imagination, are all that she is +henceforth allowed. 'I am bound in a degree not to invent a story, +because when I became a Friend it was required of me not to do so,' she +writes to Miss Mitford, who had asked her to contribute to an annual. +Miss Mitford's description of Mrs. Opie, 'Quakerised all over, and +calling Mr. Haydon 'Friend Benjamin,' is amusing enough; and so also +is the account of the visiting card she had printed after she became +a Quaker, with 'Amelia Opie,' without any prefix, as is the Quaker +way; also, as is not their way, with a wreath of embossed pink roses +surrounding the name. There is an account of Mrs. Opie published in the +'Edinburgh Review,' in a delightful article entitled the 'Worthies of +Norwich,' which brings one almost into her very presence. + + Amelia Opie at the end of the last century and Amelia Opie in the + garb and with the speech of a member of the Society of Friends + sounds like two separate personages, but no one who recollects the + gay little songs which at seventy she used to sing with lively + gesture, the fragments of drama to which, with the zest of an + innate actress, she occasionally treated her young friends, or the + elaborate faultlessness of her appearance--the shining folds and + long train of her pale satin draperies, the high, transparent cap, + the crisp fichu crossed over the breast, which set off to + advantage the charming little plump figure with its rounded + lines--could fail to recognise the same characteristics which + sparkled about the wearer of the pink calico domino in which she + frolicked incognito 'till she was tired' at a ball given by the + Duke of Wellington in 1814, or of the eight blue feathers which + crowned the waving tresses of her flaxen hair as a bride. + +Doctor Alderson died in October 1825, and Mrs. Opie was left alone. She +was very forlorn when her father died. She had no close ties to carry +her on peacefully from middle age to the end of life. The great break +had come; she was miserable, and, as mourners do, she falls upon herself +and beats her breast. All through these sad years her friends at Northrepps +and at Earlham were her chief help and consolation. As time passed her +deep sorrow was calmed, when peaceful memories had succeeded to the keen +anguish of her good old father's loss. She must have suffered deeply; +she tried hard to be brave, but her courage failed her at times: she +tried hard to do her duty; and her kindness and charity were unfailing, +for she was herself still, although so unhappy. Her journals are +pathetic in their humility and self-reproaches for imaginary omissions. +She is lonely; out of heart, out of hope. 'I am so dissatisfied with +myself that I hardly dare ask or expect a blessing upon my labours,' she +says; and long lists of kind and fatiguing offices, of visits to sick +people and poor people, to workhouses and prisons, are interspersed with +expressions of self-blame. + + * * * * * + +The writer can remember as a child speculating as she watched the +straight-cut figure of a Quaker lady standing in the deep window of an +old mansion that overlooked the Luxembourg Gardens at Paris, with all +their perfume and blooming scent of lilac and sweet echoes of children, +while the quiet figure stood looking down upon it all from--to a +child--such an immeasurable distance. As one grows older one becomes +more used to garbs of different fashions and cut, and one can believe in +present sunlight and the scent of flowering trees and the happy sound of +children's voices going straight to living hearts beneath their several +disguises, and Mrs. Opie, notwithstanding her Quaker dress, loved bright +colours and gay sunlight. She was one of those who gladly made life +happy for others, who naturally turned to bright and happy things +herself. When at last she began to recover from the blow which had +fallen so heavily upon her she went from Norwich to the Lakes and Fells +for refreshment, and then to Cornwall, and among its green seas and +softly clothed cliffs she found good friends (as most people do who go +to that kind and hospitable county), and her husband's relations, who +welcomed her kindly. As she recovered by degrees she began to see +something of her old companions. She went to London to attend the May +meetings of the Society, and I heard an anecdote not long ago which must +have occurred on some one of these later visits there. + +One day when some people were sitting at breakfast at Samuel Rogers's, +and talking as people do who belong to the agreeable classes, the +conversation happened to turn upon the affection of a father for his +only child, when an elderly lady who had been sitting at the table, and +who was remarkable for her Quaker dress, her frills and spotless folds, +her calm and striking appearance, started up suddenly, burst into a +passion of tears, and had to be led sobbing out of the room. She did not +return, and the lady who remembers the incident, herself a young bride +at the time, told me it made all the more impression upon her at the +time because she was told that the Quaker lady was Mrs. Opie. My friend +was just beginning her life. Mrs. Opie must have been ending hers. +It is not often that women, when youth is long past, shed sudden and +passionate tears of mere emotion, nor perhaps would a Quaker, trained +from early childhood to calm moods and calm expressions, have been so +suddenly overpoweringly affected; but Mrs. Opie was no born daughter of +the community, she was excitable and impulsive to the last. I have heard +a lady who knew her well describe her, late in life, laughing heartily +and impetuously thrusting a somewhat starched-up Friend into a deep +arm-chair exclaiming, 'I will hurl thee into the bottomless pit.' + + +X. + + At sight of thee, O Tricolor, + I seem to feel youth's hours return, + The loved, the lost! + +So writes Mrs. Opie at the age of sixty, reviving, delighting, as she +catches sight of her beloved Paris once more, and breathes its clear +and life-giving air, and looks out across its gardens and glittering +gables and spires, and again meets her French acquaintances, and throws +herself into their arms and into their interests with all her old warmth +and excitability. The little grey bonnet only gives certain incongruous +piquancy to her pleasant, kind-hearted exuberance. She returns to +England, but far-away echoes reach her soon of changes and revolutions +concerning all the people for whom her regard is so warm. In August, +1830, came the news of a new revolution--'The Chamber of Deputies +dissolved for ever; the liberty of the press abolished; king, ministers, +court, and ambassadors flying from Paris to Vincennes; cannon planted +against the city; 5,000 people killed, and the Rue de Rivoli running +with blood.' No wonder such rumours stirred and overwhelmed the staunch +but excitable lady. 'You will readily believe how anxious, interested, +and excited I feel,' she says; and then she goes on to speak of +Lafayette, 'miraculously preserved through two revolutions, and in +chains and in a dungeon, now the leading mind in another conflict, and +lifting not only an armed but a restraining hand in a third revolution.' + +Her heart was with her French friends and intimates, and though she kept +silence she was not the less determined to follow its leading, and, +without announcing her intention, she started off from Norwich and, +after travelling without intermission, once more arrived in her beloved +city. But what was become of the Revolution? 'Paris seemed as bright and +peaceful as I had seen it thirteen months ago! The people, the busy +people passing to and fro, and soldiers, omnibuses, cabriolets, citadenes, +carts, horsemen hurrying along the Rue de Rivoli, while foot passengers +were crossing the gardens, or loungers were sitting on its benches to +enjoy the beauty of the May-November.' She describes two men crossing +the Place Royale singing a national song, the result of the +Revolution:-- + + Pour briser leurs masses profondes, + Qui conduit nos drapeaux sanglants, + C'est la Liberte de deux mondes, + C'est Lafayette en cheveux blancs. + +Mrs. Opie was full of enthusiasm for noble Lafayette surveying his court +of turbulent intrigue and shifting politics; for Cuvier in his own +realm, among more tranquil laws, less mutable decrees. She should have +been born a Frenchwoman, to play a real and brilliant part among all +these scenes and people, instead of only looking on. Something stirred +in her veins too eager and bubbling for an Englishwoman's scant share +of life and outward events. No wonder that her friends at Norwich were +anxious, and urged her to return. They heard of her living in the midst +of excitement, of admiration, and with persons of a different religion +and way of thinking to themselves. Their warning admonitions carried +their weight; that little Quaker bonnet which she took so much care of +was a talisman, drawing the most friendly of Friends away from the place +of her adoption. But she came back unchanged to her home, to her quiet +associations; she had lost none of her spirits, none, of her cheerful +interest in her natural surroundings. As life burnt on her kind soul +seemed to shine more and more brightly. Every one came to see her, to +be cheered and warmed by her genial spirit. She loved flowers, of which +her room was full. She had a sort of passion for prisms, says her +biographer; she had several set in a frame and mounted like a screen, +and the colour flew about the little room. She kept up a great +correspondence; she was never tired of writing, though the letters on +other people's business were apt to prove a serious burden at times. +But she lives on only to be of use. 'Take care of indulging in little +selfishnesses,' she writes in her diary; 'learn to consider others +in trifles: the mind so disciplined will find it easier to fulfil +the greater duties, and the character will not exhibit that trying +inconsistency which one sees in great and often in pious persons.' Her +health fails, but not her courage. She goes up to London for the last +time to her cousin's house. She is interested in all the people she +meets, in their wants and necessities, in the events of the time. She +returns home, contented with all; with the house which she feels so +'desirable to die in,' with her window through which she can view the +woods and rising ground of Thorpe. 'My prisms to-day are quite in their +glory,' she writes; 'the atmosphere must be very clear, for the radiance +is brighter than ever I saw it before;' and then she wonders whether the +mansions in heaven will be draped in such brightness; and so to the last +the gentle, bright, _rainbow_ lady remained surrounded by kind and +smiling faces, by pictures, by flowers, and with the light of her +favourite prismatic colours shining round about the couch on which she +lay. + + + + +_JANE AUSTEN._ + + 1775-1817. + + 'A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes + originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de difference entre + les hommes.'--PASCAL. + + +'I did not know that you were a studier of character,' says Bingley to +Elizabeth. 'It must be an amusing study.' + +'Yes, but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least +that advantage.' + +'The country,' said Darcy, 'can in general supply but few subjects for +such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and +unvarying society.' + +'But people themselves alter so much,' Elizabeth answers, 'that there is +something new to be observed in them for ever.' + +'Yes, indeed,' cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by Darcy's manner of +mentioning a country neighbourhood; 'I assure you that we have quite as +much of _that_ going on in the country as in town.' + +'Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, +turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a +complete victory over him, continued her triumph.' + +These people belong to a whole world of familiar acquaintances, who are, +notwithstanding their old-fashioned dresses and quaint expressions, more +alive to us than a great many of the people among whom we live. We +know so much more about them to begin with. Notwithstanding a certain +reticence and self-control which seems to belong to their age, and with +all their quaint dresses, and ceremonies, and manners, the ladies and +gentlemen in 'Pride and Prejudice' and its companion novels seem like +living people out of our own acquaintance transported bodily into a +bygone age, represented in the half-dozen books that contain Jane +Austen's works. Dear books! bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in +which the homely heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores +are enchanting. + +Could we but study our own bores as Miss Austen must have studied hers +in her country village, what a delightful world this might be!--a world +of Norris's economical great walkers, with dining-room tables to dispose +of; of Lady Bertrams on sofas, with their placid 'Do not act anything +improper, my dears; Sir Thomas would not like it;' of Bennets, Goddards, +Bates's; of Mr. Collins's; of Rushbrooks, with two-and-forty speeches +apiece--a world of Mrs. Eltons.... Inimitable woman! she must be alive +at this very moment, if we but knew where to find her, her basket on her +arm, her nods and all-importance, with Maple Grove and the Sucklings in +the background. She would be much excited were she aware how she is +esteemed by a late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is well acquainted +with Maple Grove and Selina too. It might console her for Mr. Knightly's +shabby marriage. + +All these people nearly start out of the pages, so natural and +unaffected are they, and yet they never lived except in the imagination +of one lady with bright eyes, who sat down some seventy years ago to an +old mahogany desk in a quiet country parlour, and evoked them for us. +One seems to see the picture of the unknown friend who has charmed us so +long--charmed away dull hours, created neighbours and companions for +us in lonely places, conferring happiness and harmless mirth upon +generations to come. One can picture her as she sits erect, with her +long and graceful figure, her full round face, her bright eyes cast +down,--Jane Austen, 'the woman of whom England is justly proud'--whose +method generous Macaulay has placed near Shakespeare. She is writing +in secret, putting away her work when visitors come in, unconscious, +modest, hidden at home in heart, as she was in her sweet and womanly +life, with the wisdom of the serpent indeed and the harmlessness of a +dove. + +Some one said just now that many people seem to be so proud of seeing +a joke at all, that they impress it upon you until you are perfectly +wearied by it. Jane Austen was not of these; her humour flows gentle and +spontaneous; it is no elaborate mechanism nor artificial fountain, but +a bright natural stream, rippling and trickling over every stone and +sparkling in the sunshine. We should be surprised now-a-days to hear a +young lady announce herself as a studier of character. From her quiet +home in the country lane this one reads to us a real page from the +absorbing pathetic humorous book of human nature--a book that we can +most of us understand when it is translated into plain English; but +of which the quaint and illegible characters are often difficult to +decipher for ourselves. It is a study which, with all respect for Darcy's +opinion, must require something of country-like calm and concentration +and freedom of mind. It is difficult, for instance, for a too impulsive +student not to attribute something of his own moods to his specimens +instead of dispassionately contemplating them from a critical distance. + +Besides the natural fun and wit and life of her characters, 'all +perfectly discriminated,' as Macaulay says, Jane Austen has the gift of +telling a story in a way that has never been surpassed. She rules her +places, times, characters, and marshals them with unerring precision. +In her special gift for organisation she seems almost unequalled. Her +picnics are models for all future and past picnics; her combinations of +feelings, of conversation, of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and +lifelike that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us--the +scene carries us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is +recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselves +so vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginary +scenes, we seem not only to read them, but to live them, to see the +people coming and going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the +ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them talking to one +another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life days and +events follow one another. Last Tuesday does not suddenly start into +existence all out of place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when we +are well on in '21. Countries and continents do not fly from hero to +hero, nor do long and divergent adventures happen to unimportant members +of the company. With Jane Austen days, hours, minutes succeed each other +like clockwork, one central figure is always present on the scene, that +figure is always prepared for company. Miss Edwards's curl-papers are +almost the only approach to dishabille in her stories. There are +postchaises in readiness to convey the characters from Bath or Lyme to +Uppercross, to Fullerton, from Gracechurch Street to Meryton, as their +business takes them. Mr. Knightly rides from Brunswick Square to +Hartfield, by a road that Miss Austen herself must have travelled in the +curricle with her brother, driving to London on a summer's day. It was +a wet ride for Mr. Knightly, followed by that never-to-be-forgotten +afternoon in the shrubbery, when the wind had changed into a softer +quarter, the clouds were carried off, and Emma, walking in the sunshine, +with spirits freshened and thoughts a little relieved, and thinking of +Mr. Knightly as sixteen miles away, meets him at the garden door; and +everybody, I think, must be the happier, for the happiness and certainty +that one half-hour gave to Emma and her 'indifferent' lover. + +There is a little extract from one of Miss Austen's letters to a niece, +which shows that all this successful organisation was not brought about +by chance alone, but came from careful workmanship. + +'Your aunt C.,' she says, 'does not like desultory novels, and is rather +fearful that yours will be too much so--that there will be too frequent +a change from one set of people to another, and that circumstances will +be sometimes introduced of apparent consequence, which will lead to +nothing. It will not be so great an objection to me. I allow much more +latitude than she does, and think nature and spirit cover many sins of a +wandering story....' + +But, though the sins of a wandering story may be covered, the virtues of +a well-told one make themselves felt unconsciously, and without an +effort. Some books and people are delightful, we can scarce tell why; +they are not so clever as others that weary and fatigue us. It is a +certain effort to read a story, however touching, that is disconnected +and badly related. It is like an ill-drawn picture, of which the +colouring is good. Jane Austen possessed both gifts of colour and of +drawing. She could see human nature as it was; with near-sighted eyes, +it is true; but having seen, she could combine her picture by her art, +and colour it from life. How delightful the people are who play at +cards, and pay their addresses to one another, and sup, and discuss each +other's affairs! Take Mr. Bennet's reception of his sons-in-law. Take +Sir Walter Elliot compassionating the navy and Admiral Baldwin--'nine +grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top--a wretched +example of what a seafaring life can do, for men who are exposed to +every climate and weather until they are not fit to be seen. It is a +pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral +Baldwin's age....' Or shall we quote the scene of Fanny Price's return +when she comes to visit her family at Portsmouth; in all daughterly +agitation and excitement, and the brother's and father's and sister's +reception of her.... 'A stare or two at Fanny was all the voluntary +notice that her brother bestowed, but he made no objection to her kissing +him, though still entirely engaged in detailing further particulars of +the "Thrush's" going out of harbour, in which he had a strong right of +interest, being about to commence his career of seamanship in her at +this very time. After the mother and daughter have received her, Fanny's +seafaring father comes in, and does not notice her at first in his +excitement. "Captain Walsh thinks you will certainly have a cruise to +the westward with the 'Elephant' by ---- I wish you may. But old Scholey +was saying just now that he thought you would be sent first to the +'Texel.' Well, well, we are ready whatever happens. But by ---- you lost +a fine sight by not being here in the morning to see the 'Thrush' go out +of harbour. I would not have been out of the way for a thousand pounds. +Old Scholey ran in at breakfast time to say she had slipped her moorings +and was coming out. I jumped up and made but two steps to the platform. +If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat she is one; and there she lies +at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an +eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform for two hours this afternoon +looking at her. She lies close to the 'Endymion,' between her and the +'Cleopatra,' just to the eastward of the sheer hulk."' + +'"Ha!" cried William, "_that's_ just where I should have put her myself. +It's the best berth in Spithead. But here is my sister, sir; here is +Fanny, turning and leading her forward--it is so dark you do not see +her."' + +'With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot her, Mr. Price now +received his daughter, and having given her a cordial hug and observed +that she was grown into a woman and he supposed would be wanting a +husband soon, seemed very much inclined to forget her again.' + +How admirably it is all told! how we hear them all talking! + +From her own brothers Jane Austen learned her accurate knowledge of +ships and seafaring things, from her own observation she must have +gathered her delightful droll science of men and women and their ways +and various destinations. Who will not recognise Mrs. Norris in that +master-touch by which she removes the curtain to save Sir Thomas's +feelings, that curtain which had been prepared for the private +theatricals he so greatly disapproved of? Mrs. Norris thoughtfully +carries it off to her cottage, where she happened to be particularly in +want of green baize. + + +II. + +The charm of friends of pen-and-ink is their unchangeableness. We go to +them when we want them. We know where to seek them; we know what to +expect from them. They are never preoccupied; they are always 'at home;' +they never turn their backs nor walk away as people do in real life, nor +let their houses and leave the neighbourhood, and disappear for weeks +together; they are never taken up with strange people, nor suddenly +absorbed into some more genteel society, or by some nearer fancy. Even +the most volatile among them is to be counted upon. We may have +neglected them, and yet when we meet again there are the familiar old +friends, and we seem to find our own old selves again in their company. +For us time has, perhaps, passed away; feelings have swept by, leaving +interests and recollections in their place; but at all ages there must +be days that belong to our youth, hours that will recur so long as men +forbear and women remember, and life itself exists. Perhaps the most +fashionable marriage on the _tapis_ no longer excites us very much, but +the sentiment of an Emma or an Anne Elliot comes home to some of us as +vividly as ever. It is something to have such old friends who are so +young. An Emma, blooming, without a wrinkle or a grey hair, after +twenty years' acquaintance; an Elizabeth Bennet, sprightly and charming +ever.... + +In the 'Roundabout Papers' there is a passage about the pen-and-ink +friends my father loved:-- + +'They used to call the good Sir Walter the "Wizard of the North." What +if some writer should appear who can write so _enchantingly_ that he +shall be able to call into actual life the people whom he invents? What +if Mignon, and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are alive now +(though I don't say they are visible), and Dugald Dalgetty and Ivanhoe +were to step in at that open window by the little garden yonder? Suppose +Uncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to glide in silent? +Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis should enter, with a noiseless +swagger, curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle +Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse with his hair dyed green; and all the +Crummles company of comedians, with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Roger +de Coverley; and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La +Mancha, with his blessed squire? I say to you, I look rather wistfully +towards the window, musing upon these people. Were any of them to enter, +I think I should not be very much frightened....' + +Are not such friends as these, and others unnamed here, but who will +come unannounced to join the goodly company, creations that, like some +people, do actually make part of our existence, and make us the better +for theirs? To express some vague feelings is to stamp them. Have we any +one of us a friend in a Knight of La Mancha, a Colonel Newcome, a Sir +Roger de Coverley? They live for us even though they may have never +lived. They are, and do actually make part of our lives, one of the best +and noblest parts. To love them is like a direct communication with the +great and generous minds that conceived them. + + * * * * * + +It is difficult, reading the novels of succeeding generations, to +determine how much each book reflects of the time in which it was +written; how much of its character depends upon the mind and the mood of +the writer. The greatest minds, the most original, have the least stamp +of the age, the most of that dominant natural reality which belongs to +all great minds. We know how a landscape changes as the day goes on, +and how the scene brightens and gains in beauty as the shadows begin to +lengthen. The clearest eyes must see by the light of their own hour. +Jane Austen's literary hour must have been a midday hour: bright, +unsuggestive, with objects standing clear, without much shadow or +elaborate artistic effect. Our own age is more essentially an age of +strained emotion, little remains to us of starch, or powder, or courtly +reserve. What we have lost in calm, in happiness, in tranquillity, we +have gained in emphasis. Our danger is now, not of expressing and +feeling too little, but of expressing more than we feel. + +The living writers of to-day lead us into distant realms and worlds +undreamt of in the placid and easily contented gigot age. Our characters +travel by rail and are no longer confined to postchaises. There is +certainly a wide difference between Miss Austen's heroines and, let us +say, a Maggie Tulliver. One would be curious to know whether, between +the human beings who read Jane Austen's books to-day and those who read +them fifty years ago, there is as great a contrast. One reason may be, +perhaps, that characters in novels are certainly more intimate with us +and on less ceremonious terms than in Jane Austen's days, when heroines +never gave up a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hardness of +heart in which some modern types are a little wanting. Whatever happens +they could for the most part speak of quietly and without bitterness. +Love with them does not mean a passion so much as an interest, deep, +silent, not quite incompatible with a secondary flirtation. Marianne +Dashwood's tears are evidently meant to be dried. Jane Bennet smiles, +sighs and makes excuses for Bingley's neglect. Emma passes one +disagreeable morning making up her mind to the unnatural alliance +between Mr. Knightly and Harriet Smith. It was the spirit of the age, +and, perhaps, one not to be unenvied. It was not that Jane Austen +herself was incapable of understanding a deeper feeling. In the last +written page of her last written book, there is an expression of the +deepest and truest experience. Annie Elliot's talk with Captain Benfield +is the touching utterance of a good woman's feelings. They are speaking +of men and of women's affections. 'You are always labouring and +toiling,' she says, 'exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, +country, friends, all united; neither time nor life to be called your +own. It would be too hard, indeed (with a faltering voice), if a woman's +feelings were to be added to all this.' + +Further on she says, eagerly: 'I hope I do justice to all that is +felt by you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should +undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. +I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment +and constancy were known only by woman. No! I believe you capable of +everything good and great in your married lives. I believe you equal +to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance so long +as--if I may be allowed the expression--so long as you have an object; +I mean while the woman you love lives and lives for you. _All the +privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you +need not court it) is that of loving longest when existence or when hope +is gone._' + +She could not immediately have uttered another sentence--her heart was +too full, her breath too much oppressed. + +Dear Anne Elliot!--sweet, impulsive, womanly, tender-hearted--one can +almost hear her voice, pleading the cause of all true women. In those +days when, perhaps, people's nerves were stronger than they are now, +sentiment may have existed in a less degree, or have been more ruled by +judgment, it may have been calmer and more matter-of-fact; and yet Jane +Austen, at the very end of her life, wrote thus. Her words seem to ring +in our ears after they have been spoken. Anne Elliot must have been Jane +Austen herself, speaking for the last time. There is something so true, +so womanly about her, that it is impossible not to love her most of all. +She is the bright-eyed heroine of the earlier novels, matured, softened, +cultivated, to whom fidelity has brought only greater depth and +sweetness instead of bitterness and pain. + +What a difficult thing it would be to sit down and try to enumerate the +different influences by which our lives have been affected--influences +of other lives, of art, of nature, of place and circumstance,--of +beautiful sights passing before our eyes, or painful ones: seasons +following in their course--hills rising on our horizons--scenes of ruin +and desolation--crowded thoroughfares--sounds in our ears, jarring or +harmonious--the voices of friends, calling, warning, encouraging--of +preachers preaching--of people in the street below, complaining, and +asking our pity! What long processions of human beings are passing +before us! What trains of thought go sweeping through our brains! Man +seems a strange and ill-kept record of many and bewildering experiences. +Looking at oneself--not as oneself, but as an abstract human being--one +is lost in wonder at the vast complexities which have been brought to +bear upon it; lost in wonder, and in disappointment perhaps, at the +discordant result of so great a harmony. Only we know that the whole +diapason is beyond our grasp: one man cannot hear the note of the +grasshoppers, another is deaf when the cannon sounds. Waiting among +these many echoes and mysteries of every kind, and light and darkness, +and life and death, we seize a note or two of the great symphony, and +try to sing; and because these notes happen to jar, we think all is +discordant hopelessness. Then come pressing onward in the crowd of +life, voices with some of the notes that are wanting to our own +part--voices tuned to the same key as our own, or to an accordant one; +making harmony for us as they pass us by. Perhaps this is in life the +happiest of all experience, and to few of us there exists any more +complete ideal. + +And so now and then in our lives, when we learn to love a sweet and +noble character, we all feel happier and better for the goodness and +charity which is not ours, and yet which seems to belong to us while +we are near it. Just as some people and states of mind affect us +uncomfortably, so we seem to be true to ourselves with a truthful +person, generous-minded with a generous nature; life seems less +disappointing and self-seeking when we think of the just and sweet and +unselfish spirits, moving untroubled among dinning and distracting +influences. These are our friends in the best and noblest sense. We are +the happier for their existence,--it is so much gain to us. They may +have lived at some distant time, we may never have met face to face, or +we may have known them and been blessed by their love; but their light +shines from afar, their life is for us and with us in its generous +example; their song is for our ears, and we hear it and love it still, +though the singer may be lying dead. + + +III. + +A little book, written by one of Jane Austen's nephews, tells with a +touching directness and simplicity the story of this good and gifted +woman, whose name has long been a household word among us, but of whose +history nothing was known until this little volume appeared. It is but +the story of a country lady, of quiet days following quiet days of +seasons in their course of common events; and yet the history is deeply +interesting to those who loved the writer of whom it is written; and as +we turn from the story of Jane Austen's life to her books again, we feel +more than ever that she, too, was one of those true friends who belong +to us inalienably--simple, wise, contented, living in others, one of +those whom we seem to have a right to love. Such people belong to all +humankind by the very right of their wide and generous sympathies, of +their gentle wisdom and loveableness. Jane Austen's life, as it is told +by Mr. Austen Legh, is very touching, sweet, and peaceful. It is a +country landscape, where the cattle are grazing, the boughs of the great +elm-tree rocking in the wind: sometimes, as we read, they come falling +with a crash into the sweep; birds are flying about the old house, +homely in its simple rule. The rafters cross the whitewashed ceilings, +the beams project into the room below. We can see it all: the parlour +with the horsehair sofa, the scant, quaint furniture, the old-fashioned +garden outside, with its flowers and vegetables combined, and along the +south side of the garden the green terrace sloping away. + +There is a pretty description of the sisters' devotion to one another +(when Cassandra went to school little Jane accompanied her, the sisters +could not be parted), of the family party, of the old place, 'where +there are hedgerows winding, with green shady footpaths within the +copse; where the earliest primroses and hyacinths are found.' There +is the wood-walk, with its rustic seats, leading to the meadows; the +church-walk leading to the church, 'which is far from the hum of the +village, and within sight of no habitation, except a glimpse of the grey +manor-house through its circling screen of sycamores. Sweet violets, +both purple and white, grow in abundance beneath its south wall. Large +elms protrude their rough branches, old hawthorns shed their blossoms +over the graves, and the hollow yew-tree must be at least coeval with +the church.' + +One may read the account of Catherine Morland's home with new interest, +from the hint which is given of its likeness to the old house at +Steventon, where dwelt the unknown friend whose voice we seem to hear +at last, and whose face we seem to recognise, her bright eyes and brown +curly hair, her quick and graceful figure. One can picture the children +who are playing at the door of the old parsonage, and calling for Aunt +Jane. One can imagine her pretty ways with them, her sympathy for the +active, their games and imaginations. There is Cassandra. She is older +than her sister, more critical, more beautiful, more reserved. There is +the mother of the family, with her keen wit and clear mind; the handsome +father--'the handsome proctor,' as he was called; the five brothers, +driving up the lane. Tranquil summer passes by, the winter days go by; +the young lady still sits writing at the old mahogany desk, and smiling, +perhaps, at her own fancies, and hiding them away with her papers at the +sound of coming steps. Now, the modest papers, printed and reprinted, +lie in every hand, the fancies disport themselves at their will in the +wisest brains and the most foolish. + +It must have been at Steventon--Jane Austen's earliest home--that Mr. +Collins first made his appearance (Lady Catherine not objecting, as we +know, to his occasional absence on a Sunday, provided another clergyman +was engaged to do the duty of the day), and here, conversing with Miss +Jane, that he must have made many of his profoundest observations upon +human nature; remarking, among other things, that resignation is never +so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its +value in our estimation, and propounding his celebrated theory about the +usual practice of elegant females. It must have been here, too, that poor +Mrs. Bennet declared, with some justice, that once estates are entailed, +one can never tell how they will go; here, too, that Mrs. Allen's sprigged +muslin and John Thorpe's rodomontades were woven; that his gig was built, +'curricle-hung lamps, seat, trunk, sword-case, splashboard, silver +moulding, all, you see, complete. The ironwork as good as new, or +better. He asked fifty guineas.... I closed with him directly, threw +down the money, and the carriage was mine.' + +'And I am sure,' said Catherine, 'I know so little of such things, that +I cannot judge whether it was cheap or dear.' + +'Neither the one nor the other,' says John Thorpe. + +Mrs. Palmer was also born at Steventon--that good-humoured lady in +'Sense and Sensibility,' who thinks it so ridiculous that her husband +never hears her when she speaks to him. We are told that Marianne and +Ellinor have been supposed to represent Cassandra and Jane Austen; but +Mr. Austen Legh says that he can trace no resemblance. Jane Austen is +not twenty when this book is written, and only twenty-one when 'Pride +and Prejudice' is first devised. + +Cousins presently come on the scene, and amongst them the romantic +figure of a young, widowed Comtesse de Feuillade, flying from the +Revolution to her uncle's home. She is described as a clever and +accomplished woman, interested in her young cousins, teaching them +French (both Jane and Cassandra knew French), helping in their various +schemes, in their theatricals in the barn. She eventually marries her +cousin, Henry Austen. The simple family annals are not without their +romance; but there is a cruel one for poor Cassandra, whose lover dies +abroad, and his death saddens the whole family-party. Jane, too, +'receives the addresses' (do such things as addresses exist nowadays?) +'of a gentleman possessed of good character and fortune, and of +everything, in short, except the subtle power of touching her heart.' +One cannot help wondering whether this was a Henry Crawford or an Elton +or a Mr. Elliot, or had Jane already seen the person that even Cassandra +thought good enough for her sister? + +Here, too, is another sorrowful story. The sisters' fate (there is a sad +coincidence and similarity in it) was to be undivided; their life, their +experience was the same. Some one without a name takes leave of Jane one +day, promising to come back. He never comes back: long afterwards they +hear of his death. The story seems even sadder than Cassandra's in its +silence and uncertainty, for silence and uncertainty are death in life +to some people.... + +There is little trace of such a tragedy in Jane Austen's books--not one +morbid word is to be found, not one vain regret. Hers was not a nature +to fall crushed by the overthrow of one phase of her manifold life. She +seems to have had a natural genius for life, if I may so speak; too +vivid and genuinely unselfish to fail her in her need. She could gather +every flower, every brightness along her road. Good spirit, content, all +the interests of a happy and observant nature were hers. Her gentle +humour and wit and interest cannot have failed. + +It is impossible to calculate the difference of the grasp by which one +or another human being realises existence and the things relating to it, +nor how much more vivid life seems to some than to others. Jane Austen, +while her existence lasted, realised it, and made the best use of the +gifts that were hers. Yet, when her life was ending, then it was given +to her to understand the change that was at hand; as willingly as she +had lived, she died. Some people seem scarcely to rise up to their own +work, to their own ideal. Jane Austen's life, as it is told by her +nephew, is beyond her work, which only contained one phase of that +sweet and wise nature--the creative, observant, outward phase. For her +home, for her sister, for her friends, she kept the depth and tenderness +of her bright and gentle sympathy. She is described as busy with her +neat and clever fingers sewing for the poor, working fanciful keepsakes +for her friends. There is the cup and ball that she never failed to +catch; the spillikens lie in an even ring where she had thrown them; +there are her letters, straightly and neatly folded, and fitting +smoothly in their creases. There is something sweet, orderly, and +consistent in her character and all her tastes--in her fondness for +Crabbe and Cowper, in her little joke that she ought to be a Mrs. +Crabbe. She sings of an evening old ballads to old-fashioned tunes with +a low sweet voice. + +Further on we have a glimpse of Jane and her sister in their mobcaps, +young still, but dressed soberly beyond their years. One can imagine +'Aunt Jane,' with her brother's children round her knee, telling her +delightful stories or listening to theirs, with never-failing sympathy. +One can fancy Cassandra, who does not like desultory novels, more +prudent and more reserved, and somewhat less of a playfellow, looking +down upon the group with elder sister's eyes. + +Here is an extract from a letter written at Steventon in 1800:-- + +'I have two messages: let me get rid of them, and then my paper will be +my own. Mary fully intended writing by Mr. Charles's frank, and only +happened entirely to forget it, but will write soon; and my father +wishes Edward to send him a memorandum of the price of hops. + + '_Sunday Evening._ +'We have had a dreadful storm of wind in the forepart of the day, which +has done a great deal of mischief among our trees. I was sitting alone +in the drawing-room when an odd kind of crash startled me. In a moment +afterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window. I reached it just +in time to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend into the +sweep!!! + +'The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first crash, and which +was nearest to the pond, taking a more easterly direction, sank among +our screen of chestnuts and firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, breaking +off the head of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts of +several branches in its fall. This is not all: the maple bearing the +weathercock was broken in two, and what I regret more than all the rest +is, that all the three elms that grew in Hall's Meadow, and gave such +ornament to it, are gone.' + +A certain Mrs. Stent comes into one of these letters 'ejaculating some +wonder about the cocks and hens.' Mrs. Stent seems to have tried their +patience, and will be known henceforward as having bored Jane Austen. + +They leave Steventon when Jane is about twenty-five years of age and go +to Bath, from whence a couple of pleasant letters are given us. Jane is +writing to her sister. She has visited Miss A., who, like all other +young ladies, is considerably genteeler than her parents. She is +heartily glad that Cassandra speaks so comfortably of her health and +looks: could travelling fifty miles produce such an immediate change? +'You were looking poorly when you were here, and everybody seemed +sensible of it.' Is there any charm in a hack postchaise? But if there +were, Mrs. Craven's carriage might have undone it all. Then Mrs. Stent +appears again. 'Poor Mrs. Stent, it has been her lot to be always in the +way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. +Stents ourselves, unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody.' +Elsewhere she writes, upon Mrs. ----'s mentioning that she had sent the +'Rejected Addresses' to Mr. H., 'I began talking to her a little about +them, and expressed my hope of their having amused her. Her answer was, +"Oh dear, yes, very much; very droll indeed; the opening of the house +and the striking up of the fiddles!" What she meant, poor woman, who +shall say?' + +But there is no malice in Jane Austen. Hers is the charity of all clear +minds, it is only the muddled who are intolerant. All who love Emma and +Mr. Knightly must remember the touching little scene in which he +reproves her for her thoughtless impatience of poor Miss Bates's +volubility. + +'You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from +a period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless +spirits and in the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her.... +This is not pleasant to you, Emma, and it is very far from pleasant to +me, but I must, I will, I will tell you truths while I am satisfied with +proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that +you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do me +now.' + +'While they talked they were advancing towards the carriage: it was +ready, and before she could speak again he had handed her in. He had +misinterpreted the feeling which kept her face averted and her tongue +motionless.' Mr. Knightly's little sermon, in its old-fashioned English, +is as applicable now as it was when it was spoken. We know that he was +an especial favourite with Jane Austen. + + +IV. + +Mr. Austen died at Bath, and his family removed to Southampton. In 1811, +Mrs. Austen, her daughters, and her niece, settled finally at Chawton, +a house belonging to Jane's brother, Mr. Knight (he was adopted by an +uncle, whose name he took), and from Chawton all her literary work was +given to the world. 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Pride and Prejudice,' were +already written; but in the next five years, from thirty-five to forty, +she set to work seriously, and wrote 'Mansfield Park,' 'Emma,' and +'Persuasion.' Any one who has written a book will know what an amount of +labour this represents.... One can picture to oneself the little family +scene which Jane describes to Cassandra. 'Pride and Prejudice' just come +down in a parcel from town; the unsuspicious Miss B. to dinner; and Jane +and her mother setting to in the evening and reading aloud half the +first volume of a new novel sent down by the brother. Unsuspicious Miss +B. is delighted. Jane complains of her mother's too rapid way of getting +on; 'though she perfectly understands the characters herself, she cannot +speak as they ought. Upon the whole, however,' she says, 'I am quite +vain enough and well-satisfied enough.' This is her own criticism of +'Pride and Prejudice':--'The work is rather too light, and bright, and +sparkling. It wants shade. It wants to be stretched out here and there +with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn +specious nonsense about something unconnected with the story--an essay +on writing, a critique on Walter Scott or the "History of Bonaparte."' + +And so Jane Austen lives quietly working at her labour of love, +interested in her 'own darling children's' success; 'the light of the +home,' one of the real living children says afterwards, speaking in the +days when she was no longer there. She goes to London once or twice. +Once she lives for some months in Hans Place, nursing a brother through +an illness. Here it was that she received some little compliments and +messages from the Prince Regent, to whom she dedicated 'Emma.' He thanks +her and acknowledges the handsome volumes, and she laughs and tells her +publisher that at all events his share of the offering is appreciated, +whatever hers may be! We are also favoured with some valuable suggestions +from Mr. Clarke, the Royal librarian, respecting a very remarkable +clergyman. He is anxious that Miss Austen should delineate one who +'should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, something +like Beattie's minstrel, entirely engaged in literature, and no man's +enemy but his own.' Failing to impress this character upon the authoress, +he makes a fresh suggestion, and proposes that she should write a +romance illustrative of the august house of Coburg. 'It would be +interesting,' he says, 'and very properly dedicated to Prince Leopold.' + +To which the authoress replies: 'I could no more write a romance than an +epic poem. I could not seriously sit down to write a romance under any +other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me +to keep it up, and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, +I am sure I should be hung before the first chapter.' + +There is a delightful collection of friends' suggestions which she has +put together, but which is too long to be quoted here. She calls it, +'Plan of a Novel, as suggested by various Friends.' + +All this time, while her fame is slowly growing, life passes in the same +way as in the old cottage at Chawton. Aunt Jane, with her young face and +her mob-cap, makes play-houses for the children, helps them to dress up, +invents imaginary conversations for them, supposing that they are all +grown up, the day after a ball. One can imagine how delightful a game +that must have seemed to the little girls. She built her nest, did this +good woman, happily weaving it out of shreds, and ends, and scraps of +daily duty, patiently put together; and it was from this nest that she +sang the song, bright and brilliant, with quaint thrills and unexpected +cadences, that reaches us even here through near a century. The lesson +her life seems to teach us is this: Don't let us despise our nests--life +is as much made of minutes as of years; let us complete the daily +duties; let us patiently gather the twigs and the little scraps of moss, +of dried grass together, and see the result!--a whole, completed and +coherent, beautiful even without the song. + +We come too soon to the story of her death. And yet did it come too +soon? A sweet life is not the sweeter for being long. Jane Austen lived +years enough to fulfil her mission. She lived long enough to write six +books that were masterpieces in their way--to make a world the happier +for her industry. + +One cannot read the story of her latter days, of her patience, her +sweetness, and gratitude, without emotion. There is family trouble, we +are not told of what nature. She falls ill. Her nieces find her in her +dressing-gown, like an invalid, in an arm-chair in her bedroom; but she +gets up and greets them, and, pointing to seats which had been arranged +for them by the fire, says: 'There is a chair for the married lady, and +a little stool for you, Caroline.' But she is too weak to talk, and +Cassandra takes them away. + +At last they persuade her to go to Winchester, to a well-known doctor +there. + +'It distressed me,' she says, in one of her last, dying letters, 'to see +Uncle Henry and William Knight, who kindly attended us, riding in the +rain almost the whole way. We expect a visit from them to-morrow, and +hope they will stay the night; and on Thursday, which is a confirmation +and a holiday, we hope to get Charles out to breakfast. We have had but +one visit from _him_, poor fellow, as he is in the sick room.... God +bless you, dear E.; if ever you are ill, may you be as tenderly nursed +as I have been....' + +But nursing does not cure her, nor can the doctor save her to them all, +and she sinks from day to day. To the end she is full of concern for +others. + +'As for my dearest sister, my tender, watchful, indefatigable nurse has +not been made ill by her exertions,' she writes. 'As to what I owe her, +and the anxious affection of all my beloved family on this occasion, I +can only cry over it, and pray God to bless them more and more.' + +One can hardly read this last sentence with dry eyes. It is her parting +blessing and farewell to those she had blessed all her life by her +presence and her love--that love which is beyond death; and of which the +benediction remains, not only spoken in words, but by the ever-present +signs and the tokens of those lifetimes which do not end for us as long +as we ourselves exist. + +They asked her when she was near her end if there was anything she +wanted. + +'Nothing but death,' she said. Those were her last words. She died on +the 18th of July, 1817, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral, where +she lies not unremembered. + + +LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., +NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET + + + + +TRANSCRIBER's NOTE + +Two instances of Bryon for _Byron_ have been corrected. The following +additional changes have been made: + + A. I. R. (in dedication) A. _T._ R. + + her sad and dimning life her sad and _dimming_ life + + it was to her father hat it was to her father _that_ + + who invited Mrs. Barbauld to who invited _Mr._ Barbauld + become their minister become their minister + + He was interrupted by her He was interrupted by _his_ + companion companion + + Mrs. Opie's description of her Mrs. Opie's description of her + arrival reads a comment upon arrival reads _like_ a comment + history. upon history. + + + + +MISS THACKERAY'S WORKS. + +A New and Uniform Edition; each Volume Illustrated with a Vignette +Title-page drawn by ARTHUR HUGHES, and Engraved by J. COOPER. + +Large crown 8vo. 6_s._ + + 1. OLD KENSINGTON. + 2. THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF. + 3. FIVE OLD FRIENDS AND A YOUNG PRINCE. + 4. TO ESTHER; and other Sketches. + 5. BLUEBEARD'S KEYS; and other Stories. + 6. THE STORY OF ELIZABETH; TWO HOURS; FROM AN ISLAND. + 7. TOILERS AND SPINSTERS; and other Essays. + 8. MISS ANGEL; FULHAM LAWN. + 9. 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