WOMANHOOD.
On their return the Edgeworths at first inclined to think that the
English papers had exaggerated the Irish disturbances. Accustomed to a
condition of permanent discontent, they were relieved to find that
though there were alarms of outrages committed by "Hearts of Oak Boys"
and "Defenders," though there were nightly marauders about
Edgeworthstown, though Mr. Edgeworth had been threatened with
assassination, still, all things considered, "things in their
neighborhood were tolerably quiet." In this matter as in others, of
course, the basis of comparison alone constitutes the value of the
inference deduced. In any case the family resumed their quiet course of
existence; Mr. Edgeworth busy with the invention of a telegraph, Miss
Edgeworth writing, helping to educate the little ones, visiting and
being visited by her Aunt Ruxton. In the evenings the family gathered
round the fireside and the father read aloud. Late in 1793 Miss
Edgeworth writes:--
This evening my father has been reading out Gay's _Trivia_, to our
great entertainment. I wished very much, my dear aunt, that you and
Sophy had been sitting round the fire with us. If you have
_Trivia_, and if you have time, will you humor your niece so far as
to look at it? I had much rather make a bargain with any one I
loved to read the same book with them at the same hour, than to
look at the moon like Rousseau's famous lovers. "Ah! that is
because my dear niece has no taste and no eyes." But I assure you I
am learning the use of my eyes main fast, and make no doubt, please
Heaven I live to be sixty, to see as well as my neighbors. I am
scratching away very hard at the _Freeman Family_.[3]
That Miss Edgeworth was not affected by the current sentimentalism of
the period, the above remark shows. Indeed, her earliest letters evince
her practical, straightforward common sense. Romance had no place in her
nature. In 1794 she was engaged upon her _Letters to Literary Ladies_.
She wrote to her cousin:--
Thank my aunt and thank yourself for kind inquiries after _Letters
to Literary Ladies_. I am sorry to say they are not as well as can
be expected, nor are they likely to mend at present; when they are
fit to be seen--if that happy time ever arrives--their first visit
shall be to Black Castle. They are now disfigured by all manner of
crooked marks of papa's critical indignation, besides various
abusive marginal notes, which I would not have you see for
half-a-crown sterling, nor my aunt for a whole crown as pure as
King Hiero's.
The arts of peace, as she herself expresses it, were going on
prosperously side by side with those of war; the disturbances, of which
Miss Edgeworth continues to write quite lightly, having become
sufficiently serious to require military intervention.
In 1795 the _Letters to Literary Ladies_ were published. Considering the
time when the work was written it showed much independence and advance
of thought, though to-day it would be stigmatized as somewhat
retrograde. It is nothing more than a plea in favor of female education,
repeating arguments that of late years have been well worn, and of which
the world, for some time past convinced of the wisdom of according
education to women, no longer stands in need. The book is interesting
to-day merely as another proof of how much Mr. Edgeworth and his
daughter were advanced in thought. They could not be brought to the
common opinion then prevalent that ignorance was a woman's safeguard,
that taste for literature was calculated to lead to ill conduct, though
even a thinker so enlightened in many respects as Mr. Day indorsed Sir
Anthony Absolute's dictum that the extent of a woman's erudition should
consist in her knowing her letters, without their mischievous
combinations.
Not even the honors of first authorship could cause Miss Edgeworth's
private letters, then any more than afterwards, to be occupied with
herself. "I beg, dear Sophy," she writes to her cousin, "that you will
not call my little stories by the sublime title of 'my works;' I shall
else be ashamed when the little mouse comes forth." It is the affairs of
others, the things that it will please or amuse her correspondents to
hear, that she writes about. The tone is always good-humored and kindly.
Ever and again the noiseless tenor of her way was disturbed by the
insurgents. She writes, January, 1796:--
You, my dear aunt, who were so brave when the county of Meath was
the seat of war, must know that we emulate your courage; and I
assure you, in your own words, "that whilst our terrified neighbors
see nightly visions of massacres, we sleep with our doors and
windows unbarred." I must observe, though, that it is only those
doors and windows that have neither bolts nor bars that we leave
unbarred, and these are more at present than we wish even for the
reputation of our valor. All that I crave for my own part is that
if I am to have my throat cut, it may not be by a man with his face
blackened with charcoal. I shall look at every person that comes
here very closely, to see if there be any marks of charcoal upon
their visages. Old wrinkled offenders, I should suppose, would
never be able to wash out their stains, but in others a _very_
clean face will, in my mind, be a strong symptom of guilt--clean
hands proof positive, and clean nails ought to hang a man.
In 1796 appeared the first volume of the _Parent's Assistant_. It is
agreeable to learn from a letter of hers that she was not responsible
for this clumsy title:--
My father had sent the _Parent's Friend_, but Mr. Johnson has
degraded it into _Parent's Assistant_, which I dislike particularly
from association with an old book of arithmetic called the _Tutor's
Assistant_.
The book was so successful that the publisher expressed a wish for more
volumes, to be brought out with illustrations. Miss Beaufort, the
daughter of a neighboring clergyman, was entrusted with the artistic
commission, which led to an intimacy between the families. Meanwhile
Miss Edgeworth, stimulated by success, continued to write new stories,
and to correct and revise old ones. The _Moral Tales_ were conceived at
this time, and the idea of writing on Irish Bulls had occurred to her.
She was also busy upon _Practical Education_. At the same time Mrs.
Elizabeth Edgeworth's health, that had long been precarious, gave way,
and in November, 1797, to the sorrow of all the circle, she fell a
victim to consumption. As before, Mr. Edgeworth was soon consoled. It
was in the direction of Miss Beaufort that he turned his eyes. There
must certainly have been something attractive in this man, now past
fifty, three times a widower, with a numerous family by different wives,
that could induce a young girl to regard him as a wooer. Miss Edgeworth
frankly owns that when she first knew of this attachment she did not
wish for the marriage. But her father, with his persuasive tongue,
overcame her objections.
Mr. Edgeworth himself announced his intending nuptials to Dr. Darwin, at
the end of a long letter dealing with the upas tree, frogs, agriculture,
hot-water pipes, and so forth:--
And now for my piece of news, which I have kept for the last: I am
going to be married to a young lady of small fortune and large
accomplishments--compared with my age, much youth (not quite 30)
and more prudence--some beauty, more sense--uncommon talents, more
uncommon temper--liked by my family, loved by me. If I can say all
this three years hence, shall not I have been a fortunate, not to
say a wise man?
He was able to say so not only three years after, but to the end of his
life. Whatever may be thought of Mr. Edgeworth's many and hasty
marriages, it must be admitted that they all turned out to the happiness
of himself and his children. Miss Edgeworth wrote a long letter to her
future stepmother, characteristic both of her amiable disposition, her
filial piety and her method of regarding love. "Miss Edgeworth's Cupid,"
as Byron observed, "was always something of a Presbyterian." In it she
assures Miss Beaufort (who was her junior) that she will find her
"gratefully exact _en belle fille_;" a promise she fulfilled beyond the
letter.
Within seven months of his late wife's death, just as public affairs
were assuming a still stormier aspect, and the nation about to burst
into the rebellion of 1798, Mr. Edgeworth was once more a bridegroom.
The wedding trip of the couple took them through the disturbed
districts; they beheld rebels hidden in the potato furrows, and passed a
car between whose shafts the owner had been hanged--a victim to the
"Defenders." But in the house of Edgeworthstown there was, as ever,
peace and concord; and the trying situation upon which the new wife was
called to enter was smoothed for her even by the children of the woman
whom she had so quickly displaced in their father's affection.
In an incredibly short time all things and people found themselves in
their proper places, and the new Mrs. Edgeworth soon proved herself a
fitting person to hold the reins of household government. Only a month
after the marriage Miss Edgeworth can tell her cousin:--
We are indeed happy. The more I see of my friend and mother, the
more I love and esteem her, and the more I feel the truth of all
that I have heard you say in her praise. So little change has been
made in the way of living, that you would feel as if you were going
on with your usual occupations and conversation amongst us. We
laugh and talk and enjoy the good of every day, which is more than
sufficient. How long this may last we cannot tell. I am going on in
the old way, 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. I have finished a volume of wee-wee stories about the
size of the _Purple Jar_, all about Rosamond. My father has made
our little rooms so nice for us; 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.
The summer passed with immunity from open insurrection in County
Longford; but it shortly appeared that the people were secretly leagued
with the rest of their countrymen, and only waited the arrival of the
French to break into rebellion. Soon the whole district about
Edgeworthstown was disturbed, and in September it was needful for the
family to beat a precipitate retreat from home, leaving it in the hands
of the rebels. Happily it was spared from pillage, thanks to one of the
invaders, to whom Mr. Edgeworth had once shown kindness. The family were
only away five days. A battle had speedily settled the rebels and
dispersed the French, whom their own allies had deserted at the first
volley. But those days, although only five days, seemed a life-time to
Miss Edgeworth, from the dangers and anxieties the family underwent in
their course.
By November all disturbances had so far subsided around Edgeworthstown
as to allow the family to busy themselves with private theatricals, Miss
Edgeworth writing the play, the children acting it, the father building
the stage. At the end of the year Mr. Edgeworth was returned for the
last Irish Parliament, and the family went with him to Dublin. The Union
was then the hot theme of debate, the Irish having incontestably shown
themselves incapable of home rule. Mr. Edgeworth very characteristically
spoke for the Union and voted against it, declaring "that England has
not any right to do Ireland good against her will."
In the spring of 1799 Mr., Mrs. and Miss Edgeworth went to England and
renewed their acquaintance with Mr. Watt, Dr. Darwin and Mr. William
Strutt of Derby. They also came into contact with many literary
celebrities, Mr. Edgeworth now posing as an author upon the strength of
_Practical Education_, written in partnership with his daughter, who was
ever not only willing but anxious that he should bear off all the honor
and glory. Among their acquaintance was Mrs. Barbauld, for whom both
father and daughter conceived a genuine regard, and whom Mr. Edgeworth
liked the more because she was a proof of the soundness of his belief
that the cultivation of literary tastes does not necessarily unfit a
woman for her domestic duties. In London they also visited their
publisher, Mr. Johnson, an intelligent, generous, but most dilatory man,
who was then confined in King's Bench Prison on account of some
publication held treasonable. Of this English visit there are,
unfortunately, only two letters preserved: one announcing the birth of
another baby into this already huge family, the other treating of "a
young man, Mr. Davy,[4] who has applied himself much to chemistry, has
made some discoveries of importance, and enthusiastically expects
wonders will be performed by the use of certain gases."
With the dissolution of the last Irish Parliament, Mr. Edgeworth's
public duties came to an end, and the quiet, happy life at
Edgeworthstown recommenced its even course, marked only by the
publication of Miss Edgeworth's works, and by births and deaths in the
family circle.