Maria Edgeworth. Lady Morgan
"My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the family I have always been
known by no other than 'honest Thady'; afterward, in the time of Sir
Murtagh, diseased, I remember to hear them calling me 'old Thady,' and
now I'm come to 'poor Thady.'" Thus the faithful servant of the Rackrent
family introduces himself, before relating the history of the lords of
the castle, where he and his had lived rent-free time out of mind. And
what consummate art Maria Edgeworth showed in her first novel, _Castle
Rackrent_, in letting "poor Thady" ramble with all the garrulity of old
age. To him, who had never been farther than a day's tramp from the
castle, there was nothing in the world's history but it and its owners.
No servant but an Irish servant could have told the story as he did,
judging the characters of his masters with shrewd wit and relating their
worst failings with a "God bless them."
And where out of Ireland could Thady have found such masters, ready to
spend all they had and another man's too, happy and free, and dying as
merrily as they had lived! There was Sir Patrick, who, as Thady tells
us, "could sit out the best man in Ireland, let alone the three
kingdoms"; Sir Kit, who married a Jewess for her money; and Sir Condy,
who signed away the estate rather than be bothered to look into his
steward's accounts, and then feigned that he was dead that he might hear
what his friends said of him at the wake. But he soon came to life, and
a merry time they had of it. "But to my mind," says Thady, "Sir Condy
was rather upon the sad order in the midst of it all, not finding there
was such a great talk about himself after his death, as he had expected
to hear." But Thady loved his master, and it is with genuine grief that
he records his ultimate death, and with simple and unconscious wit he
adds, "He had but a very poor funeral after all."
In _The Absentee_, the manners and customs of the Irish peasants are
more broadly delineated than in _Castle Rackrent_. _The Absentee_ was
written to call the attention of the Irish landlords who were living in
England to the wretched condition of their tenants left in the power of
unscrupulous stewards. Lord Colambre, the son of Lord Clonbrony, an
absentee, visits his father's estates, which he has not seen for many
years, in disguise, and goes among the peasants, many of whom are in
abject poverty. But the quick generosity of the nation speaks in the
poor Widow O'Neil's "Kindly welcome, sir," with which she opens the door
to the unknown lord, and its enthusiastic loyalty in the joyful
acclamations of the peasants when he reveals himself to them,--a scene
which Macaulay has pronounced the finest in literature since the
twenty-second book of the _Odyssey_.
_Ennui_ is another of her stories of Irish life, in which the supposed
Earl of Glenthorn, after a long residence in England, returns to his
Irish estates. The heroine of this tale is the old nurse, Ellinor
O'Donoghoe. As the nurses of many stories are said to have done, she had
substituted her own child for the rightful heir, and was frantic with
joy when she saw him the master of Glenthorn Castle. Her devotion to the
earl is pathetic, and her secret fears of the deception she had
practised on the old earl may have prompted her strange speech that, if
it pleased God, she would like to die on Christmas Day, of all days,
"because the gates of heaven will be open all that day; and who knows
but a body might slip in unbeknownst?" Ellinor is a woman of many
virtues and many failings, but she is always pure Celt.
How well contrasted are the two cousins, friends of Ormond, Sir Ulick
O'Shane, a wily politician and a member of Parliament, and Mr.
Cornelius O'Shane, King of the Black Islands, called by his dependents
King Corny. The latter, bluff, generous, brave, open as the day, is yet
a match for his crafty kinsman. Sir Ulick's visit to King Corny is a
masterpiece. He has a purpose in his visit and a secret to guard, which
King Corny is watching to discover. Sir Ulick has been bantering his
kinsman on the old-fashioned customs observed on his estate and
ridicules his method of ploughing:
"'Your team, I see, is worthy of your tackle,' pursued Sir Ulick. 'A
mule, a bull, and two lean horses. I pity the foremost poor devil of a
horse, who must starve in the midst of plenty, while the horse, bull,
and even mule, in a string behind him, are all plucking and munging away
at their hay ropes.'
"Cornelius joined in Sir Ulick's laugh, which shortened its duration.
"''Tis comical ploughing, I grant,' said he, 'but still, to my fancy,
anything's better and more profitable nor the tragi-comic ploughing you
practise every sason in Dublin.'
"'I?' said Sir Ulick.
"'Ay, you and all your courtiers, ploughing the half-acre, continually
pacing up and down that castle-yard, while you're waiting in attendance
there. Every one to his own taste, but,
"'If there's a man on earth I hate,
Attendance and dependence be his fate.'"
King Corny has been studying his diplomatic kinsman carefully to learn
his secret, until the wily politician, by unnecessary caution in
guarding it, overreaches himself, when King Corny exclaims to himself:
"Woodcocked! That he has, as I foresaw he would."
While the trained diplomat murmurs as he takes his leave, "All's safe."
Native wit had got the better of artful cunning.
And when Sir Ulick dies in disgrace, how pithy is the remark of one of
the men, as he is filling in the grave:
"There lies the making of an excellent gentleman--but the cunning of his
head spoiled the goodness of his heart."
In the same book, how generous and how Irish is Moriarty, lying on the
brink of death, as he thinks of Ormond, who had shot him in a fit of
passion but bitterly repented his rash deed:
"I'd live through all, if possible, for his sake, let alone my
mudther's, or shister's or my own--'t would be too bad, after all the
trouble he got these two nights, to be dying at last, and hanting him,
maybe, whether I would or no."
The quick kindness which so often twists an Irishman's tongue is
humorously illustrated in the _Essay on Irish Bulls_, which Maria
Edgeworth and her father wrote together. Mr. Phelim O'Mooney, disguised
as Sir John Bull, accepts his brother's wager that he cannot remain four
days in England without the country of his birth being discovered eight
times. Whenever his speech betrays him, it is the result of his
emotions. When he sees Bourke, a pugilist of his own country, overcome
by an Englishman, he cries to him excitedly: "How are you, my gay
fellow? Can you see at all with the eye that is knocked out?" A little
later, in discussing a certain impost duty, he grows angry and exclaims:
"If I had been the English minister, I would have laid the dog-tax upon
cats." The humour of his situation increases to a climax, so that the
fun never flags. Such stories as this in which the wit is simply
sparkling good-nature, with no attempt to use it as a weapon against
frail humanity as did Fielding and Thackeray, or to produce a smile by
exaggeration as did Dickens, but simply bubbling fun, as free from guile
as the sun's laughter on Killarney, show that Miss Edgeworth was a
comedian of the first rank. Like all true comedians, she is also strong
in the pathetic, but it is the Irish pathos, in which there is ever a
smile amid the tears. This is found in the story of the return of Lady
Clonbrony to her own country; the fall of Castle Rackrent; and the ruin
by their sudden splendour of the family of Christy O'Donoghoe.
Whenever Miss Edgeworth writes of Ireland and its people, her pages glow
with the inspiration of genius. There is no exaggeration, no caricature;
all is told with simple truth. It has often been the fate of novelists
whose aim has been to depict the manners and customs of a locality to
win the ill-will of the obscure people they have brought into
prominence. But not so with Maria Edgeworth. Her family, although
originally English, had been settled for two hundred years in Ireland.
She loved the country and always wrote of it with a loving pen. Before
_Castle Rackrent_ was written, Ireland had been for many centuries an
outcast in literature, known only for her blunders and bulls. But, as
one of her characters says, "An Irish bull is always of the head, never
of the heart." Even though her characters are humorous, they are never
clowns. All the men have dignity, and all the women grace. She gave them
a respectable place in literature.
But her influence was felt outside of Ireland. Old Thady, in his
garrulous description of the masters of Castle Rackrent, had introduced
the first national novel, in which the avowed object is to represent
traits of national character. Patriotic writers in other countries
learned through her how to serve their own land, and she was one of the
many influences which led to the writing of the Waverley novels. Scott
says in the preface of these books:
"Without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate the rich humour,
pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact which pervade the work of my
accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own
country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately
achieved for Ireland--something which might introduce her natives to
those of the sister kingdom in a more favourable light than they had
been placed hitherto, and tend to procure sympathy for their virtues and
indulgence for their foibles."
As the reader realises the power of Maria Edgeworth's mind, her ability
to describe manners and customs, to read character, and to depict comic
and tragic scenes, he wishes that her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth,
had not so constantly interfered in her work, and insisted that every
book she wrote must illustrate some principle of education. He was not
singular in this respect. Rousseau, whom he greatly admired at one time,
had taught educational methods by a novel. Madame de Genlis, the teacher
of Louis Philippe, was writing novels that were celebrated throughout
Europe, in which she expounded rules for the training of the young.
Maria Edgeworth, with her father at her elbow, never lost sight of the
moral of her tale. Vivian, in the story of that name, was so weak that
he was always at the mercy of the artful. Ormond's passions led him into
trouble. Beauclerc was almost ruined by his foolish generosity. Lady
Delacour, with no object in life but pleasure, cast aside her own
happiness that she might outshine the woman she hated. Lady Clonbrony
squandered her fortune and health that she might be snubbed by her
social superiors. Mrs. Beaumont played a deep diplomatic game in her
small circle of friends, and finally overreached herself. Lady Cecilia,
the friend of Helen, brought sorrow to her and infamy upon herself by
her duplicity. In the analysis of motive, and the growth of Cecilia's
wrong-doing from a small beginning, the book resembles the novels of
George Eliot. But Maria Edgeworth could not know her own characters as
she otherwise would, because the moral was always uppermost. When Mrs.
Inchbald criticised her novel _Patronage_, she replied: "Please to
recollect, we had our moral to work out." Mr. Edgeworth, in his preface
to _Tales of Fashionable Life_, thus sets forth his daughter's purpose:
"It has been my daughter's aim to promote by all her works the progress
of education from the cradle to the grave. All the parts of this series
of moral fiction bear upon the faults and excellencies of different
ages and classes; and they have all risen from that view of society
which we have laid before the public in more didactic works on
education."
Such a method of writing tended to kill emotion, yet emotion breaks out
at times with genuine force, and always has a true ring. This is
especially true in the _Tales of Fashionable Life_. There society women
appear cold and heartless in the drawing-room, and so they have
generally been represented in fiction. So Thackeray regarded them. But
Maria Edgeworth followed them to the boudoir, and there reveals beneath
the laces and jewels many beautiful womanly traits. As we see in tale
after tale true feeling welling to the surface, and then choked up by
the moral, we recognise the pathetic truth that Mr. Edgeworth's
educational methods were fatal to genius.
But strong emotion sways only a small part of the lives of most men and
women. Were it otherwise, like the great lyric poets, we should all die
young. And she has written about the common, everyday, prosaic life with
a truthfulness rarely excelled.
One of the most interesting studies in a novel is to observe the
author's view of life. With the exception of those of Mademoiselle De
Scuderi nearly all the novels of French women considered love as the
ruling passion for happiness or woe, and all of the characters were
under its sway. Even Mademoiselle De Scuderi in the preface to _Ibrahim_
announced it as her distinct purpose that all her heroes were to be
ruled by the two most sublime passions, love and ambition; but she was a
humorist and unconsciously interested her readers more by her witty
descriptions of people than by the loves of Cyrus and Mandane. But this
passion has seldom held such an exaggerated place in the stories of
English women. Maria Edgeworth in particular noticed that men and women
were actuated by many motives or passions. A large income or a title was
often capable of inspiring a feeling so akin to love that even the bosom
that felt its glow was unable to distinguish the difference. Loss of
respect could kill the strongest passion, and some of her heroines have
even remained single, or else married men whom at first they had
regarded with indifference, rather than marry the object of their first
love after he had forfeited their esteem. Sometimes the tameness of her
heroines shocked their author. While correcting _Belinda_ for Mrs.
Barbauld's "Novelists' Library," Miss Edgeworth wrote to a friend:
"I really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone
Belinda, that I could have torn the pages out."
Propinquity, opportunity, almost a mental suggestion are quite enough
to produce a long chain of events affecting a lifetime. "Ask half the
men you are acquainted with why they are married, and their answer, if
they speak the truth, will be, 'Because I met Miss Such-a-One at such a
place, and we were continually together.' 'Propinquity, propinquity,' as
my father used to say, and he was married five times, and twice to
heiresses." So speaks Mrs. Broadhurst, a match-making mother in _The
Absentee_. And this is the reason why most of Miss Edgeworth's heroes
and heroines love. But the advances of a designing woman are quite
sufficient, as in _Vivian_, to make a fond lover forget his plighted
troth to another, and the flattery of an unscrupulous man makes him
suspicious of his real friends. Character is destiny, if the character
is strong, but circumstances are destiny, if the character is weak. It
is the aim of her novels to show how certain traits of character, as
indecision, pride, love of luxury, indolence, lead to misfortune, and
how these dangerous traits may be overcome.
* * * * *
Notwithstanding her moral, her plots are never hackneyed and never
repeated. They are drawn from life and have the variety of life. In the
story of _Ennui_, there is the twice-told tale of the nurse's son
substituted for the real heir; but when he learns the true story of his
birth, and resigns the castle, the title, and all its wealth to the
rightful Earl of Glenthorn, who has been living in the village working
at the forge, there is a great change from the usual story. The heir of
the ancient family of Glenthorn accepts the earldom for his son, but
with reluctance. The manners of the peasant remain with the earl, and
the poor man, at last, begs the one who has been educated for the
position to accept the title and the estates. In this she emphasised
again what she constantly taught, that education and environment are
more powerful than heredity.
As she taught that reason should be the guide of life, so she lived. Her
fourscore years and three were spent largely at her ancestral home of
Edgeworthstown. She assisted her father in making improvements to better
the condition of the tenantry, and to promote their happiness. When in
Paris, she met a Mr. Edelcrantz, a gentleman in the service of the king
of Sweden. Admiration was succeeded by love. But he could not leave the
court at Stockholm, and Miss Edgeworth felt that neither duty nor
inclination would permit her to leave her quiet life in Ireland. Reason
was stronger than love. So they parted like her own heroes and heroines.
All that history records of him is that he never married. She resumed
her responsibilities at home, and if the thought of this separation
sometimes brought the tears to her eyes, as her stepmother once wrote
to a friend, she was as cheerful, gay, and light-hearted in the home
circle as she had always been.
* * * * *
Besides her moral tales for adults, which were read throughout Europe,
Maria Edgeworth was always interested in the education of boys and
girls. The eldest sister in a family of twenty-one children, the
offspring of four marriages, she taught her younger brothers and
sisters, and thus grew to know intimately the needs of childhood and
what stories would appeal to them. As her father wrote, it was her "aim
to promote by all her works the progress of education from the cradle to
the grave." In her stories for children she inculcated lessons of
industry, economy, thoughtfulness, and unselfishness.
If she helped to eradicate from the novel its false, highly colored
sentimental pictures of life, still greater was her work in producing
literature for young people. Hers were among the first wholesome stories
written for children. Before this the chapman had carried about with him
in his pack small paper-covered books which warned boys and girls of the
dangers of a life of crime. One book was named _An hundred godly lessons
which a mother on her death-bed gave to her children_. Another book of
religious and moral Sunday reading was called _The Afflicted Parent, or
the Undutiful Child Punished_. This gives the sad history of the two
children of a gentleman in Chester, a son and a daughter. The daughter
chided her brother for his wickedness, upon which he struck her and
killed her. He was hanged for this, but even then his punishment was not
completed. He came back to life, told the minister several wicked deeds
which he had committed, and was hanged a second time. In most of these
tales the gallows loomed dark and threatening.
* * * * *
In contrast to these morbid tales are the wholesome stories of Maria
Edgeworth. The boys and girls about whom she writes are drawn from life.
If they are bad, their crimes are never enormous, but simply a yielding
to the common temptations of childhood. Hal, in _Waste Not, Want Not_,
thinks economy beneath a gentleman's notice, and at last loses a prize
in an archery contest for lack of a piece of string which he had
destroyed. Fisher in _The Barring Out_, a cowardly boy, buys twelve buns
for himself with a half-crown which belonged to his friend, and then
gives a false account of the money. His punishment is expulsion from the
school. Lazy Lawrence has a worse fate. He will not work, plays pitch
farthing, is led by bad companions to steal, and is sent to Bridewell.
But he is not left in a hopeless condition. After he had served his term
of imprisonment he became remarkable for his industry.
But there are more good boys and girls than bad ones in her stories. The
love of children for their parents, and the sacrifices they will make
for those they love, are beautifully told. In the story of _The
Orphans_, Mary, a girl of twelve, finds a home for her brothers and
sisters, after her father and mother die, in the ruins of Rossmore
Castle, where they support themselves by their labour. Mary finds that
she can make shoes of cloth with soles of platted hemp, and by this
industry the children earn enough for all their needs. As directions are
given for making these shoes, any little girl reading the story would
know how to follow the example of Mary. Jem in the story of _Lazy
Lawrence_ finds that there are many ways by which he can earn the two
guineas without which his horse Lightfoot must be sold. He works early
and late, and at last accomplishes his purpose.
Mrs. Ritchie says of this story: "Lightfoot deserves to take his humble
place among the immortal winged steeds of mythology along with Pegasus,
or with Black Bess, or Balaam's Ass, or any other celebrated steeds."
The story of _Simple Susan_ with its pictures of village life has the
charm of an idyl. The children by the hawthorn bush choosing their May
Queen; Susan with true heroism refusing this honour, in order that she
may care for her sick mother; the incident of the guinea-hen; Rose's
love for Susan; the old harper, playing tunes to the children grouped
about him--are all simply told. Susan's love for her pet lamb reminds
one of Wordsworth's poem of that name.
And yet these children are not unusual. Most boys and girls have days
when they are as good as Mary, or Jem, or Susan. Maria Edgeworth is not
inculcating virtues which are impossible of attainment.
A hundred years ago, these stories, as they came from the pen of Maria
Edgeworth, delighted boys and girls, and for at least fifty years were
read by parents and children. Then for a time they were hidden in
libraries, but a collection of them has lately been edited by Mr.
Charles Welsh under the appropriate title _Tales that never Die_, which
have proved as interesting to the children of to-day as to those of
by-gone generations.
Whether Maria Edgeworth is writing for old or young, there is one marked
trait in all her stories, her kind feeling for all humanity. The vices
of her villains are recorded in a tone of sorrow. She seldom uses
satire; never "makes fun" of her characters. Her attitude towards them
is that of the lady of Edgeworthstown towards her dependents, or rather
that of the elder sister towards the younger members of the family. Such
broad and loving sympathy is found in Shakespeare and Scott, but seldom
among lesser writers.
* * * * *
In Sydney Owenson, better known by her married name of Lady Morgan,
Ireland found at this time another warm but less judicious friend. Her
life was more interesting than her books. Her father, an Irish actor,
introduced his daughter, while yet a child, to his associates, so that
she appeared in society at an early age. But Mr. Owenson was
improvident; debts accumulated, and Sydney at the age of fourteen began
to earn her own living. The position of a governess, which she filled
for a time, being unsuited to her gay, independent disposition, she
began to write. Like Johnson a half century or more earlier, with a play
in manuscript as her most valuable possession, she went alone to London.
She did not wait so long as he did for recognition. New books by new
authors were eagerly read. She earned money, a social position, fame,
and with it some disagreeable notoriety. An independent, witty Irish
woman of great charm, fearless in expressing her opinions, who had
introduced herself into society and for whom nobody stood as sponsor,
was looked upon by the old-fashioned English aristocracy as an
adventuress; and later, when she came forth as the champion of Irish
liberties, and upbraided England for tyranny, she was maliciously
denounced by the Tory party.
She entered upon life with three purposes, to each of which she adhered:
to advocate the interest of Ireland by her writings; to pay her father's
debts; and to provide for his old age. All of these purposes she
accomplished.
Besides plays and poems, and two or three insignificant stories, she
wrote four novels upon Irish subjects: _The Wild Irish Girl_,
_O'Donnel_, _Florence Macarthy_, and _The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys_.
In all these books the beauty of Irish scenery is depicted as
background; the fashionable life of Dublin is described, as well as the
peasant life in remote hamlets; while the natural resources of the land
and the native gaiety of the Celtic temperament are feelingly contrasted
with the poverty and misery brought about by unjust laws.
She thus feelingly describes the condition of Ireland in the novel
_O'Donnel_. Its sincerity must excuse its overwrought style: "Silence
and oblivion hung upon her destiny, and in the memory of other nations
she seemed to hold no place; but the first bolt which was knocked off
her chain roused her from paralysis, and, as link fell after link, her
faculties strengthened, her powers revived; she gradually rose upon the
political horizon of Europe, like her own star brightening in the west,
and lifting its light above the fogs, vapours, and clouds, which
obscured its lustre. The traveller now beheld her from afar, and her
shores, once so devoutly pressed by the learned, the pious, and the
brave, again exhibited the welcome track of the stranger's foot. The
natural beauties of the land were again explored and discovered, and
taste and science found the reward of their enterprise and labours in a
country long depicted as savage, because it had long been exposed to
desolation and neglect."
In this book a party of travellers visits the Giant's Causeway and its
scenery is described as an almost unfrequented place.
The new interest in Ireland of which she writes was very largely due to
the novels of Maria Edgeworth, and partly to those of Lady Morgan
herself.
Her last novel, _The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys_, is of historic
value. Its plot was furnished by the stirring events which took place
when the Society of United Irishmen were fighting for parliamentary
reforms. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the devoted patriot, is easily
recognised in the brave Lord Walter Fitzwalter, and the life of Thomas
Corbet furnished the thrilling adventures of the hero, Lord Arranmore.
When Thomas Moore visited Thomas Corbet at Caen he referred to the
account given of his escape from prison in Lady Morgan's novel as
remarkably accurate in its details.
The style of Miss Owenson's earlier books was execrable and fully
justified the severe criticism in the first number of the _Quarterly
Review_. It gives this quotation from _Ida, or the Woman of Athens_:
"Like Aurora, the extremities of her delicate limbs were rosed with
flowing hues, and her little foot, as it pressed its naked beauty on a
scarlet cushion, resembled that of a youthful Thetis from its blushing
tints, or that of a fugitive Atalanta from its height." The wonder is
that any serious magazine should have wasted two pages of space upon
such nonsense. In ridiculing the book and the author, it gives her some
serious advice, with the encouragement that if she follow it, she may
become, not a writer of novels, but the happy mistress of a family.
Whether Lady Morgan took this ill-meant advice or not, her style
improved with each book, until in _The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys_ it
became simple and clear, with only an occasional tendency to high
colouring and bombast.
Maria Edgeworth has described the customs and manners of Ireland, and
unfolded the character of its people in a manner that has never been
equalled. But Lady Morgan, far inferior as an artist, has given fuller
and more picturesque descriptions of the landscape of the country, and
has made a valuable addition to the books bearing on the history of
Ireland.