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.