She won all hearts. Her little step-daughter, Maria, loved her dearly,
and admired her as much as she loved her. She remembered, in after
years, standing at her step-mother’s dressing-table and looking up at
her with a sudden thought, “How beautiful!” The second Mrs. Edgeworth
became, under her husband’s tuition, a very good mechanic; and together
they wrote a little book for children, called _Harry and Lucy_. Very few
books for children had at that time been written, so that they were very
early in a field which has since found so many labourers. Mrs. Honora
discerned Maria’s remarkable qualities of mind. When the latter was only
twelve years old her step-mother wrote to her expressing the pleasure
she felt in being able to treat the young girl “as her equal in every
respect but age.” Mr. Edgeworth, too, fully appreciated and studiously
cultivated Maria’s gifts, and encouraged her in every way to treat him
with openness and familiarity. This conduct was a very great contrast
with the extreme stiffness and formality which then prevailed generally
between parents and children. It was near this time, but a little later,
that the well-known writer, William Godwin, was reproached by his mother
with his too great formality in addressing her; he had been accustomed
to speak and write to her as “Madam,” and she says in one of her letters
to him that “Hon’d Mother” “would be full as agreeable.” Therefore the
terms of friendly familiarity and equality between Maria and her parents
were the more remarkable. The happiness of Mr. Edgeworth’s second
marriage was unclouded, except by the symptoms of consumption in Honora,
which warned them that an inevitable parting was at hand. She died in
May 1780, when Maria was thirteen years old. By his dead wife’s side,
Mr. Edgeworth wrote to Maria impressing upon her all the hopes that he
and her step-mother had formed for her future. Very soon after he wrote
again and bade her write a short story on the subject of generosity; “It
must be taken,” he wrote, “from History or Romance, and must be sent the
sennight after you receive this; and I beg that you will take some pains
about it.” The story, when finished, was submitted to the judgment of
Mr. William Sneyd, Honora’s brother, who said of it, “An excellent
story, and extremely well written; but where is the generosity?”—a
saying which afterwards became a household word with the Edgeworths.
When Honora was dying she had solemnly begged her husband and her sister
Elizabeth to marry each other after her own death. Such marriages at
that time were not illegal, and eight months after Honora’s death her
sister and Mr. Edgeworth were married in St. Andrew’s Church, Holborn.
Not long after this the first really important event of Maria’s life
took place, when she went with her father and the rest of his family to
take up her residence in her Irish home. At the impressionable age of
fifteen, after having lived long enough in England to judge of the
differences between the two countries, she was introduced to an intimate
acquaintance with rural life in Ireland. Her father employed no agent
for the management of his property, but invited and expected Maria to
help him in all his business. In this way she acquired a thorough
insight into the charm, the weakness and the strength, the humour and
the melancholy of the Irish character.
From 1782, when Mr. Edgeworth and his family returned to live at their
Irish home, dates not only Maria Edgeworth’s close observation of Irish
character and customs, but also the very painstaking literary training
which she began to receive from her father. Up to this time Maria had
been much at school; owing to the delicate health of her first
step-mother, it was considered best that her education should be mainly
carried on elsewhere than at home. Now, however, Mr. Edgeworth divided
his time between the management of his estates and the education of his
children, and to Maria’s literary education in particular he devoted
himself with singular zeal and assiduity. She was continually practised
by him in systematic observing and writing; she was instructed to
prepare stories in outline. “None of your drapery,” her father would
say; “I can imagine all that. Let me see the bare skeleton.” At this
stage her compositions would be altered, revised, and amended by him,
and then returned to her for completion.
There is no doubt whatever of the immense pains which Mr. Edgeworth
bestowed upon Maria’s literary training; and Maria herself felt that she
owed everything to him. It may, however, very well be doubted whether
his influence upon her was good from the literary point of view. He gave
her method and system, and he cultivated her natural faculties for
observation; but there was something very mechanical and pedantic in his
mind—an affectation, a want of humour, and a want of spontaneity: she,
when left to herself, was content with grouping the facts of life and
nature as she saw them around her, without trying to be more instructive
than they are. _Castle Rackrent_, which is the best of her Irish
stories, was entirely her own, and bears no traces of her father’s hand.
This is the only one of her tales of which she did not draw out a
preliminary sketch or framework for her father’s criticism. She says
herself of this story, “A curious fact, that where I least aimed at
drawing characters I succeeded best. As far as I have heard, the
characters in _Castle Rackrent_ were, in their day, considered as better
classes of Irish characters than any I ever drew; they cost me no
trouble, and were made by no _receipt_, or thought of philosophical
classification; there was literally not a correction, not an alteration,
made in the first writing, no copy, and, as I recollect, no
interlineation; it went to the press just as it was written. Other
stories I have corrected with the greatest care, and remodelled and
re-written.” If she had given the world more work of this kind, and less
of the kind produced under her father’s methods, her name would to-day
occupy a higher place than it does in the hierarchy of literature.
Maria Edgeworth may be said to have invented the modern novel, which
gives the traits, the speech, the manners, and the thoughts of a
peasantry instead of moving only among the upper ten thousand. Sir
Walter Scott, with his usual frankness and generosity, stated in his
preface to the Waverley Novels that what really started him in his
career as a novelist was the desire to do for Scotland and the Scottish
peasantry what Miss Edgeworth had done for Ireland and the Irish
peasantry. “I felt,” he said, “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 to tend to procure sympathy for their
virtues and indulgence for their foibles.” Another of the leading
writers of this century has acknowledged his indebtedness to Miss
Edgeworth. The great Russian novelist, Ivan Tourgenieff, told a friend
that when he was quite young he was unacquainted with the English
language, but he used to hear his elder brother reading out to his
friends translations of Miss Edgeworth’s Irish stories, and the hope
rose in his mind that one day he would be able to do for Russia and her
people what Miss Edgeworth had done for Ireland.
Readers of the life of Maria Edgeworth find plenty of evidence of the
extremely disturbed state of Ireland during the ten or twelve years
which immediately preceded the passing of the Act of Union in 1800.
Reports of midnight outrages by armed and disguised bands of assassins
were frequent; unpopular people were hooted and pelted by day, and
sometimes murdered by night; country houses were provided with shutters
so contrived as to make it possible to open a cross-fire upon these
murderous bands in case of necessity. The “Thrashers” and the
“Whitetooths” were the names then assumed by those marauders who in
later times have been known as Whiteboys and Moonlighters. The state of
Ireland, politically and socially, became so critical that many people
began to feel that almost any change must be for the better. Added to
all the other elements of confusion, there was, about 1798, the almost
daily expectation of the French invasion. England and France were at
war, and it was believed by our enemies that if they could once effect a
landing in Ireland the people of that island were so ready for rebellion
that the landing of the French would be in itself almost enough to place
the whole country at their disposal. In this expectation they were,
fortunately, very much deceived. A graphic description of the French
invasion, and its utter failure to accomplish its purpose, has been
given by Miss Edgeworth. Her family had, indeed, a very close
acquaintance with the rebels and the invaders. The county in which
Edgeworthstown was situated was in actual insurrection, and when the
French landed at Killala, in county Mayo, they marched immediately upon
Longford, which was in close proximity to Edgeworthstown.
Mr. Edgeworth sent to the nearest garrison for military protection for
his household. He also found the majority of the troop of infantry which
he had organised faithful to him; but it soon became evident, in spite
of this and of the personal fidelity of his servants and tenants, that
the house must be abandoned, and that the whole family must take refuge
in the town of Longford. There is something rather amusing as well as
touching in Maria’s womanly regrets at leaving her new paint and paper
to the mercy of the rebels and the French. “My father,” she wrote, “has
made our little rooms so nice for us; they are all fresh painted and
papered. O rebels! O French! spare them! We have never injured you, and
all we wish is to see everybody as happy as ourselves.” After the family
and household had made good their departure from Edgeworthstown, Mr.
Edgeworth remembered that he had left, on the table of his study, a list
of the names of the men serving in his corps, on whose fidelity he could
depend. If this list fell into the hands of the enemy, the men whose
names were upon it would probably be selected for bitter and cruel
vengeance. “It would serve,” wrote Miss Edgeworth, “to point out their
houses for pillage and their families for destruction. My father turned
his horse instantly, and galloped back. The time of his absence appeared
immeasurably long, but he returned safely, after having destroyed the
dangerous paper.” Even if Mr. Edgeworth did spoil Maria’s romances, he
must be forgiven for the sake of this act of unselfish gallantry. When
the family arrived in safety at Longford, dangers began to arise from
another source. It was discovered in the course of a few days that
Edgeworthstown House had been left by the rebels entirely uninjured. The
corps of infantry which Mr. Edgeworth had brought with him into Longford
consisted partly of Catholics. Mr. Edgeworth entertained and defended
with vigour a plan for the defence of the town different from that
favoured by other persons in authority. All these circumstances were put
together with the speed of wild-fire, and created in the minds of the
ultra-Protestants of Longford the conviction that Mr. Edgeworth was in
secret league with the rebels; this, they were convinced, was the reason
why his house had been spared, why he had admitted Papists into any of
the bonds of good fellowship; and his plan for the defence of the gaol
and the garrison was, they believed, only a trick for making them over
into the enemy’s hands. Two farthing candles, by the light of which Mr.
Edgeworth had read the paper the previous evening, near the
fortifications of the gaol, were speedily exaggerated into a statement
that the gaol had been illuminated as a signal to the enemy. An armed
mob assembled, fully determined to tear him to pieces. He escaped
through the merest accident. Seeing him accompanied by English officers
in uniform, his enemies thought he was being brought back a prisoner,
and were for the moment satisfied. The incident is illustrative of the
conflicting passions which, for so many years, have formed the great
social and political difficulty in Ireland.
The rebels and their French allies were defeated at the battle of
Ballynamuck, and the quiet family life at Edgeworthstown was resumed.
All through the turmoil of wars and rumours of wars, the even tenor of
Maria’s way was very little disturbed. “I am going on in the old way,”
she wrote, “writing stories. I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and
sitting with my hands before me would not make any of us one degree
safer.”
Maria and her father had published their joint book, _Practical
Education_, in the very year (1798) of the exciting events just
narrated. Elizabeth, the second step-mother, also had a hand in it; to
her notes, we are told, may be traced the chapter on “Obedience.” In
this chapter the original view is put forward that in order to form and
firmly implant in little children the habit of obedience, their parents
should be careful at first only to tell them to do what they like doing.
The habit of unquestioning obedience thus formed will, it is thought, be
sufficiently strong to bear the strain, when the time comes that the
child is told to do things which it would rather not do. There is a
considerable element of good sense in this method, as most people will
agree who have tried it in the training and teaching of dogs. A much
more doubtful theory put forward in the book is that children never
should be in the society of servants. This appears to us, in these more
democratic days, to savour very much of pride and conceit. It is quite
true that parents cannot depute to a hired servant, however faithful,
the responsibility of their own position. But to say that a child is on
no account to speak to a servant, or to be spoken to by one, appears to
us now as most unreasonable and mischievous. How valuable in bridging
over the gulf that still separates class from class is the warm
affection that often exists between children and their nurses! Many a
nurse has vied with a mother in warm and self-sacrificing devotion for
her little charges; and all this wholesome and healing affection would
be lost if the plan advocated by the Edgeworths were carried out. It is
satisfactory to hear that Mrs. Barbauld protested against this doctrine,
and told Mr. Edgeworth that, besides the fact that it would foster pride
and ingratitude, “one and twenty other good reasons could be alleged
against it.” It may be hoped that Mr. Edgeworth acknowledged himself
vanquished before this formidable battery opened fire.
One of the most delightful incidents of Miss Edgeworth’s later life was
her friendship with Sir Walter Scott. When the first of the Waverley
Novels appeared, the secret of its authorship had been so carefully kept
that every one was in the dark on the subject. The publishers had sent a
copy to Miss Edgeworth and her father. As soon as Mr. Edgeworth had
finished reading it, he exclaimed, “Aut Scotus, aut Diabolus,” _i.e._
“either Scott or the Devil”; and Maria put these words at the top of the
letter which she wrote thanking the publishers for the book. Scott was
already known to the world by his poems, and to this must be attributed
the ready wit of the good guess made by the Edgeworths; for up to this
time neither father nor daughter had had the pleasure of meeting Scott.
In 1823, however, they did meet, and the acquaintance soon ripened into
a lifelong friendship. Scott acted as guide to Miss Edgeworth and her
sisters in showing them the beauties and monuments of Edinburgh. They
visited him at Abbotsford, and took a little tour together in the
beautiful scenery of the Highlands. There are delightful descriptions in
Miss Edgeworth’s letters of Scott and his wife; and we have a pretty
little picture of Scott and Lady Scott driving out, he with his dog,
Spicer, in his lap, and she with her dog, Ourisk, in hers.
When Maria arrived at Abbotsford, and was received by her host at his
archway, she exclaimed, “Everything about you is exactly what one ought
to have had wit enough to dream.” Two years later, Scott, accompanied by
his daughter and other members of his family, paid a return visit to
Edgeworthstown House. Lockhart, Scott’s biographer and son-in-law, was
one of the party. In his _Life of Scott_ he tells how on one occasion he
himself let fall some remark that poets and novelists probably regarded
the whole of human life simply as providing them with the materials for
their art. “A soft and pensive shade came over Scott’s face as he said,
‘I fear you have some very young ideas in your head. Are you not too apt
to measure things by some reference to literature, to disbelieve that
anybody can be worth much care, who has no knowledge of that sort of
thing, or taste for it? God help us! What a poor world this would be if
that were the true doctrine! I have read books enough, and observed and
conversed with enough of eminent and splendidly cultivated minds, too,
in my time; but I assure you I have heard higher sentiments from the
lips of poor uneducated men and women, when exerting the spirit of
severe yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or
speaking their simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot of friends
and neighbours, than I ever yet met with out of the pages of the Bible.
We shall never learn to feel and respect our true calling and destiny,
unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as moonshine,
compared with the education of the heart.’ Maria did not listen to this
without some water in her eyes ... but she brushed her tears gaily
aside, and said, ‘You see how it is. Dean Swift said he had written his
books in order that people might learn to treat him like a great lord.
Sir Walter writes his in order that he may be able to treat his people
as a great lord ought to do.’”
The delightful friendship between the two authors continued without
interruption till Scott’s death in the autumn of 1832. The clouds that
overshadowed his later years were bitterly lamented by Maria. She wrote
of the “poignant anguish” she felt from the thought that such a life had
been shortened by care and trouble. She declined, with one exception, to
allow Scott’s letters to herself to be published. If they are still in
existence, the reasons which caused her to withhold them no longer
exist, and judging from all we know of Scott and of her, it would be a
great gain to the public to be afforded the opportunity of reading them.
Those who have read this series of short biographies will find a great
many of the subjects of these sketches among Miss Edgeworth’s friends.
She gives a delightful description of Mrs. Fry, whom she once
accompanied to Newgate. “She opened the Bible,” wrote Miss Edgeworth,
“and read in the most sweetly solemn, sedate voice I ever heard, slowly
and distinctly, without anything in the manner that would detract
attention from the matter.” The Herschels and Mrs. Somerville were also
numbered among her friends. People sometimes seem to think that women
who can write books, and have learnt to understand the wonders of
science, will probably cease to care for feminine nicety in dress. It is
therefore very pleasant to find that Mrs. Somerville, the author of _The
Connection of the Physical Sciences_, and Miss Edgeworth had a
conference about a blue crêpe turban.
Maria Edgeworth’s life did not pass without the romance of love. She
received an offer of marriage from a Swedish gentleman, while she was
staying in Paris with her family in 1803. She returned his affection,
but refused to marry him, sacrificing herself and him to what she
believed to be her duty to her father and family. Her third and last
step-mother wrote that for years “the unexpected mention of his name, or
even that of Sweden, in a book or newspaper, always moved her so much
that the words and lines in the page became a mass of confusion before
her eyes, and her voice lost all power.” Her suitor, M. Edelcrantz,
never married. At the altar of filial piety she sacrificed much.
Nothing is more charming, in the character of Maria Edgeworth, than the
sweetness with which she put her own feelings on one side, and welcomed
one after another, her numerous step-mothers. The third and last, a Miss
Beaufort, was considerably younger than Maria. The marriage with Mrs.
Edgeworth No. 4 took place about six months after the death of Mrs.
Edgeworth No. 3. No wonder that even the inexhaustible patience of the
good daughter was rather tried by this rapidity. She owns that when she
first heard of the attachment, she did not wish for the marriage; but
her will was in all respects resolutely turned towards whatever would
promote her father’s happiness. She did not permit her regret to last,
and she welcomed the bride not only with unaffected cordiality, but with
sincerest friendship.
Another pleasant characteristic of Maria was the cheery way in which she
recognised and bore with the fact that she was the only plain member of
her family. There is a nice old sister in _Silas Marner_ who says to
some ladies who had not at all recognised their own want of beauty, “I
don’t mind being ugly a bit, do you?” Maria was like this, except that
she thought she possessed a pre-eminence of ugliness over all other
competitors. “Nobody is ugly now,” she wrote in 1831, “but myself!”
Impartial observers, however, state that the plainness of her features
was redeemed by the sweetness and vivacity of her expression, and by the
exquisite neatness of her tiny figure.
Many examples could be given of her practical good sense and
benevolence. On receiving a legacy of some diamond ornaments, she sold
them, and with the proceeds built a market-house for the village in
Ireland where she lived. In 1826, nine years after her father’s death,
she again undertook, this time for her brother, the management of the
estates. She exerted herself with characteristic energy to alleviate the
sufferings of her country during the terrible year of the Irish famine.
She died very suddenly and painlessly, two years later, in the arms of
her step-mother, on 22d May 1849, aged eighty-two. Macaulay considered
her the second woman in Europe of her time, giving the first place to
Madame de Staël. She does not seem to us now so great as this; but a
variety of interests centre round her, and she well deserves to be
remembered.
XVII
QUEEN LOUISA OF PRUSSIA.
“Sir, if a state submit
At once, she may be blotted out at once
And swallow’d in the conqueror’s chronicle.
Whereas in wars of freedom and defence
The glory and grief of battle won or lost,
Solders a race together—yea—tho’ they fail,
The names of those who fought and fell are like
A bank’d-up fire that flashes out again
From century to century, and at last
May lead them on to victory.”
“_The Cup._”—TENNYSON.
IT is very difficult for us now to go back in imagination to the time,
between eighty and ninety years ago, when the whole of Europe was in
danger of being crushed under the tyranny and rapacious cruelty of
Napoleon Buonaparte.
This miraculous man, with his insatiable ambition, his almost more than
human power and less than human unscrupulousness, had raised himself
from a comparatively humble station, not only to be Emperor of France,
but to be the conqueror of Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Germany. He dreamed
that in his person was to be revived the ancient empire of Charlemagne,
and that all the nations of Christendom were to be subject to his
universal dominion. He crowned himself in the presence of the Pope, in
Paris, in 1804, and the year following he had the iron crown of the
kings of Lombardy placed on his head at Milan. Not content with the
title of Emperor of France, he styled himself Emperor of the West,
conceding for a time to the Czar of Russia the title of Emperor of the
East.