DEVICES OF THE MORALIST
Family authorship—Limitations of the little novel—the English
setting in early woodcuts: Thomas and John Bewick—the first
school-story: Sarah Fielding’s _Governess_—Stories of
country and domestic life: _The Village School_ and _Jemima
Placid_—Other school-stories—Nature and Truth in _The Juvenile
Spectator_—Adventures of animals—Mrs. Trimmer’s _Fabulous
Histories_—_The Life and Perambulation of a Mouse_—_Keeper’s
Travels_—_The Kitten of Sentiment_—Adventures of things: _The
Silver Threepence_ and the _Pincushion_.
The great writers for children were neither Lilliputian nor Rousseauist.
They emerged from a good company of aunts and mothers who, with a
sprinkling of fathers, were driven into anonymous authorship by the
demands of their own families: minor moralists, without any special gifts
of art or imagination, who managed to draw live pictures from their own
little world, and hit upon simple devices for holding attention and
exciting interest.
They were mostly innocent of Theory, but an intimate acquaintance with
the Child of Nature taught them in one way or another to avoid the
unpardonable sin of dulness.
Little novels, following their grown-up prototypes with unequal steps,
had their own limitations of setting and character. A nursery or a
schoolroom is always a nursery or a schoolroom, and varies only according
to particular houses and inhabitants. The few ways of escape (by a
window, a chimney or a keyhole) into fairyland, were blocked in most
eighteenth century houses, and the persons of moral tales, however
lifelike, were apt, from contact with a narrow circle, to assume familiar
characters.
Adventures of the milder sort might happen on the road to school, but
the only changes of scene were from parlour to schoolroom, or from town
to country. Any effort to exceed these by travels abroad landed the
unsophisticated author in a hopeless confusion of unknown tongues and
half-remembered directions.
And yet there was something in these English settings to compensate a
child for the loss of fairyland, if not to set his feet in the track
of it. Authors chiefly concerned with character were apt to give the
briefest indication of a background; but before 1780, there were woodcuts
that implied more than the words of the story.
Thomas Bewick had cut his first blocks for the York and Newcastle
chap-books, and although he soon passed on from these to a wider study of
Nature, they were enough to seal the fate of the old slovenly pictures in
children’s books.
As a boy, Bewick had filled the margins of his school-books and covered
the hearthstones of his mother’s cottage with drawings of the men and
beasts that he knew about his native village[98]; and these he reproduced
later in the cuts for chap-books and fables.
He could never draw fairies. The “Pigmy Sprite” in Gay’s _Fables_[99] is
not half so fairy-like as the little spinning-wheels and brooms of the
corner-pieces; but his drawings of trees and meadows, rocks and pools,
show the “fairy ground” of his own happy childhood.
It was thus that he gave a new meaning to the country setting which was
now a recognised feature of moral tales. A writer might demand no more of
Nature than that she should provide the Industrious Boy with fruit in
season; but Bewick caught her among the corn ricks or at the corner of a
lane, and she herself took up the parable.
The younger brother, John, who began by adapting some of Bewick’s
drawings, is better known as an illustrator of children’s books. Between
1790 and 1820, there are few cuts that do not show some trace of his
influence, and many of those in the smaller chap-books,—_The Adventures
of a Pincushion_, for example, and _The Life and Adventures of a
Fly_,[100]—have been attributed to him.
In a sense, John was more imaginative than his brother, quicker to
appreciate subtleties of character and expression. There is hardly less
truth of detail in the Lime-walks and rose-gardens of _The Looking Glass
for the Mind_ than in Thomas Bewick’s village scenes; but the little
figures are more graceful and courtly, the backgrounds more delicate.
John Bewick’s illustrations to _The New Robinson Crusoe_ gave shape to
Rousseau’s vague ideal; but his pictures of English children in their
natural surroundings were a literal return to Nature. And although they
were in complete accord with the changed attitude of the story-writers,
they proved (to the confusion of Theorists) that the new Philosophy had
made little impression on the familiar moods of Nature and childhood.
The School-setting, however cramped, was a source of wider interest than
the alternative parlour or nursery. It varied, according to the fortunes
of the persons concerned, from the Village School (commonly built on the
_Two-Shoes_ foundation, but without its Lilliputian features) to the
Academy for young Ladies or Gentlemen: an exclusive community which had
received its traditions from Sarah Fielding’s notable little book _The
Governess_; or, _The Little Female Academy_[101] published some fourteen
years before Rousseau’s _Emile_.
Writing in the first decade of Lilliputian books, the author of _David
Simple_ anticipated Rousseau with a gallery of children’s portraits, and
showed that the Child of Nature could survive pedantic forms as well as
theories.
Madame le Prince de Beaumont chose the same framework for her _Misses’
Magazine_;[102] Charles and Mary Lamb used it to connect the separate
stories of _Mrs. Leicester’s School_; Mrs. Sherwood seized upon the book
itself and revised it ruthlessly, and a host of anonymous writers copied
Miss Fielding’s method and envied her genius.
Half periodical, half novel, _The Governess_ was a perfect medium
for “Instruction and Amusement”. It contains sermons, fables,
Oriental-Classic stories and a moralised romance in the style of the
_Cabinet des Fées_.
Of the Governess herself, whose name of Mrs. Teachum became a popular
pseudonym for instructive writers, it must be confessed that she is a
Presence hardly less dominating than Mrs. Mason. To the mature reader,
who is uncomfortably conscious of having met her in real life, she is
more formidable than any lay-figure of a theorist. Her husband, described
as “a very sensible Man who took great Delight in improving his Wife,”
having completed his task, disappears from the story and leaves her to
pass on his improvements, to the “nine young Ladies commited to her
Care.” She is “about forty Years old, tall and genteel in her Person,
though somewhat inclined to Fat,” and her “lively and commanding Eye”
(more human, if less hypnotic than Mrs. Mason’s) “created an Awe in all
her little Scholars, except when she condescended to smile and talk
familiarly with them.”
Theorists, working upon this Paragon, extracted the more human elements;
but the children escaped, like Hop o’ my Thumb out of the Ogre’s house.
The long line of authentic portraits that extends from Miss Fielding to
Miss Edgeworth is of one family, and it is doubtful whether any amount of
“practical education” could have improved some of Mrs. Teachum’s pupils,
restricted as these were to “Reading, Writing, Working and all proper
Forms of Behaviour”.
The naughty children in books, as in life, can take care of themselves,
but it needs a writer of unusual tact to make the good ones live. Miss
Fielding’s good children are more to her credit than the “Rogues” who
figure in some of her best scenes; but there is nothing in the book quite
so amusing as her “Account of a Fray begun and carried on for the Sake of
an Apple, in which are shown the sad Effects of Rage and Anger.”
Mrs. Teachum, entering unexpectedly, produces a sudden calm in which the
losses on all sides can be counted:
“Each of the Misses held in her right hand, fast clenched, some Marks
of Victory. One of them held a little Lock of Hair, torn from the Head
of Her Enemy, another grasped a Piece of a Cap which, in aiming at her
Rival’s Hair, had deceived her Hand and was all the Spoils she could
gain, a third clenched a Piece of an Apron, a fourth of a Frock. In
short, everyone unfortunately held in her Hand a Proof of having been
engaged in the Battle. And the Ground was spread with Rags and Tatters
torn from the Backs of the _little inveterate Combatants_”.
Here is a satirical scene not unworthy of Fielding’s sister, yet not too
subtle for her audience. (The Ladies Caroline and Fanny, new to their
titles, are visiting Miss Jenny Peace.):
“Lady Caroline, who was dressed in a pink Robe embroidered thick with
Gold and adorned with very fine Jewels and the finest Mechlin lace,
addressed most of her Discourse to her Sister, that she might have the
Pleasure every Minute, of uttering ‘Your Ladyship’, in order to show what
she herself expected. Miss Jenny, amused by their insolent Affectation,
addressed herself to Lady Caroline with so many Ladyships and Praises of
fine Clothes as she hoped would have made her ashamed”.
Nobody who reads the book can suspect Miss Fielding of more than a
distant admiration for Mrs. Teachum. Her own sympathies are clearly with
the old dairywoman who, when the children were rebuked for a want of tact
in their remarks to her, replied: “O, let the dear Rogues alone, I like
their Prattle,” and taking Miss Polly (the youngest) by the hand, added:
“Come, my Dear, we will go into the Dairy and skim the Milk pans.”
There is a kind of story-telling, touched with the same wise playfulness,
which is not beyond the talents of average aunts. Two such there were,
sisters-in-law, Dorothy and Mary Jane Kilner, whose stories, published
in Dutch flowered covers, were as popular after 1780 as the earlier
Newberys. There is some doubt about their respective pseudonyms, but
the family records ascribe the signature “M. P.” to Dorothy and “S. S.”
to her sister, which establishes Dorothy as the author of _The Village
School_.[103]
Her stories grew naturally out of a happy and uneventful life spent in
the little Essex Village of Maryland Point, and her best critics were
the nephews and nieces for whom she wrote. But she was in the habit of
sending her books to “the Good Mrs. Trimmer” for criticism, and it seems
likely that she wrote _The Village School_ to help that lady in her work
of teaching poor children to read.
“M. P.” (she borrowed the initials of her village) is in some sort a
nursery Crabbe. There is not an incident in her story outside a country
child’s experience: no Babes-in-the Wood opening, no clever animals, no
romance of improbable good fortune. This is the “clean pleasant village”
of every-day life. The schoolmistress, Mrs. Bell, believes in simple
virtues, but has no theories. Boys and girls learn to read, and girls to
spin, knit stockings and sew. They are grouped quite simply, as in some
old-fashioned print, and M. P., having borrowed Miss Fielding’s device
of labelling them with symbolic names, uses it to avoid the complexities
of character. Jacob Steadfast and Kitty Spruce are predestined to carry
off the prizes which Betsy Giddy, Master Crafty and Jack Sneak inevitably
lose; and a child is content with the main distinctions of Good and Bad.
The story, slight as it is, reveals M. P. as an aunt who is not
indifferent to “Flowers picked out of the Hedges, Daisies and Butter
Flowers”; who can make garlands and enjoy a singing-game,—the right sort
of game for village schools:
“What we have to do is this
_All bow, all courtesy and all kiss_;
And first we are our Heads to bow
As we, my Dear, must all do now;
Then courtesy down unto the Ground,
Then rise again and all jump round.”
“You cannot think” she concludes, “how pretty it is when they mind to
sing and dance in the right time.”
This was an aunt who, in her own century, deserved some such tribute as
Stevenson’s:
“Chief of our Aunts—not only I
But all your dozen of nurslings cry—
What did other children do
And what were Childhood, wanting you?”
_Jemima Placid_,[104] variously ascribed to Dorothy and Mary Jane, is
woven of the same simple stuff. George Frere, writing in 1816 to his
brother Bartle[105], bore witness to its practical effect on one nursery.
They evidently came to it in turn, at a particular age. “You”, he wrote,
“are more of a philosopher than I am and can bear these things better,
and yet I have read _Jemima Placid_ since you have, but you have made the
best use of it”.
A Rousseauist might have overlooked the philosophy in this little
book,—the annals of a parsonage family, in which all the characters are
individuals and friends of the writer; for there is not an ounce of
theory in it. Jemima herself is neither a pedant nor an infant prodigy.
She is never expected to reason about her own development. Her philosophy
is of the older sort that comes of gentle discipline, and she is “placid”
not through pleasing no one but herself, but in spite of other people’s
unjust or exacting ways. It is doubtful whether she would have been very
different under the Eye of Mrs. Mason, but assuredly she would have been
less happy. No theoretic Child of Nature ever was so happy as Jemima with
her brothers.
The scene of parting, when the little girl (six years old) goes to
London, is an introduction to these three:
“I wish you were not going” says Charles, “for I put this box and drove
in these nails on purpose for you to hang up your doll’s clothes, and
now they will be no further use to us.” William bids her not cry, and
promises to write about the young rabbits. “And, Jemima,” adds Charles
more tactfully, “I wish I was going with you to London, for I should like
to see it, ’tis such a large place, a great deal bigger than any village
which we have seen; and they say the houses stand close together for a
great way and there are no fields or trees....”
It is the same village, seen from a different standpoint, narrowed on the
one hand to the record of a particular house, on the other, varied by
journeys and visits to town.
Old customs survive with the flowered covers of the book, and the next
few lines bring _Jemima Placid_ into touch with her predecessors. For
in London there is a great number of shops, and to be sure, among
other things, Jemima must bring back “Some little books which we can
understand, and which ... may be bought at Mr. Marshall’s _somewhere in
some churchyard_, but Jemima must inquire about it.”
The little things that make up a child’s life happen with natural
inconsequence. What gives the book a hold is the author’s unaffected
truth and tenderness, the modest philosophy which hides under simple
speeches or incidents.
Who but Jemima Placid, the unhappy guest of two spoilt London cousins,
could comfort herself under unjust reproof with “the rough drawing of a
little horse, which Charles had given her on the day of her departure and
which she had since carefully preserved.”
It is no wonder that her brothers are loth to welcome the Londoners on
their return visit; but “S. S.” can make her own “Book of Courtesy”, and
she refreshes it with the comments of real boys. William answers his
father’s rebuke with disconcerting logic: “You always tell me that the
naughtiest thing I can do is to tell lies, and I am sure I am very sorry
they are come, for I like Jemima to ourselves: so pray, Sir, what would
you choose I should do?”
There is not a trace of the “Juvenile Correspondent” in Charles’s letters
to Jemima; but the sentiment of humanitarians is mere vapouring compared
with this boy’s account of how they found the dog shot by a game-keeper
and buried him under the Laylock tree.
“‘Poor Hector! I shall hate Ben Hunt as Long as I live for it!’
‘Fy Charles’ said my father. ‘_Hector is dead, Sir_,’ said I, and I did
not stay to hear any further.”
Elizabeth Sandham, who wrote somewhat later “for the Children of former
Schoolfellows”, claimed a wider influence for the story of school life.
“A school”, she says, “may be styled the world in miniature. There the
passions which actuate the man may be seen on a smaller scale.”
On this assumption, she ventured into the unknown microcosm of a boys’
school,[106] where even Miss Edgeworth came to grief; but her book was a
model for some hundreds of school stories in which ambitious, studious or
mischievous boys play impossible parts. She was more at home in a later
study of schoolgirls[107]: careful sketches, brightened by satirical
remarks; but the moral is too obvious. Miss Sandham’s sense of humour was
too slight for effective relief.
An admirable miscellany, which brings genuine adventure and comedy into
the school setting, is _The Academy; r, a Picture of Youth_,[108]
published in 1808 by a Scottish schoolmaster who, in his preface, claims
to have taught “all ranks, from the peer’s son to the children of the
lower orders.” His taste is hardly less catholic than his experience,
for he not only adds satirical and dramatic scenes to the old fables and
admonitions, but adapts Berquin to an English atmosphere, and is ready to
sympathise with the shepherd, the labourer, the old man and his horse.
The book is a medley of old manners and new sentiments, in which the
characters, although they stand for familiar types, earn some rights of
personality by individual acts and speeches.
This author is indebted to Smollett for a trick of making his characters
talk in the language of their callings. Young Tradewell’s father consigns
him to the Rector’s care “per the bearer,” as if he were a bale of
merchandise; and a nautical father advises a son who has “gone a little
out of his course” to “sail clear of faults”, but if at any time he is
driven into them, to “be a brave boy and steer honourably off.”
Satire in Children’s books is apt to miss its mark. Some parents who
bought this _Picture of Youth_ must have felt like the old gentleman
of the story, who was furious at a clever caricature of himself until
somebody assured him that it was intended for his neighbour. Restored
to good humour by similar means, they would doubtless enjoy these
burlesques: the foolish indulgent mother, the sporting squire who laughs
at his son’s escapades, the parents who teach their boy “to recite
passages with tragic effect from our best poets”.
The Rector’s rational methods recall _Sandford and Merton_; but the book
is for older lads. The Bad Boy of _The Academy_ is more like a hero
of Picaresque romance, and the Good Boy (the son of a naval officer,
destined for the Service) is a new figure in moral tales; a pupil “highly
acceptable to the Rector” for his own sake; the more so, perhaps, for the
fresh memory of Trafalgar.
English people have an inherent power of reconciling opposites, which
perhaps comes of their being a mixed race. The most revolutionary
writers were held back by some thread of ancient custom, and those who
clung to the older modes of thought were not without some broadening
influence. “Nature” and “Truth” were still the accepted ideals of
literature, although the meaning of both had changed; and _The Juvenile
Spectator_,[109] which applied Addison’s method of character-drawing to
the nursery, used it with a new understanding of childhood.
Mrs. Arabella Argus,[110] its author, adds piquancy to her general scheme
by introducing herself as a Grandmother. Doubtless she was old enough to
remember Lilliputian traditions; but she was also too young to forget
the newer counsels of sanity and freedom. Like Addison, she begins by
describing herself and her aims, but so far is she from admiring the
model of the Baby Spectator, that she directs her brightest satire
against “little prodigies” and child-philosophers.
She is “an old woman, but not an old witch nor yet a fairy”; and without
resorting to anything so irrational as magic, she is able to set forth
secret information upon “Nursery Anecdotes, Parlour Foibles, Garden
Mischief and Hyde Park Romps”.
Now, a Newbery writer might have dealt with the first two of these items;
but he never could have countenanced such portents of revolution as
“Garden Mischief” and “Hyde Park Romps”.
The letters which Mrs. Argus receives from children show nothing like the
decorum of the Goodwill Correspondence.
Here is one from a typical Bad Boy (which however, Mrs. Argus contrasts
with another, “couched in terms of becoming timidity”, from a girl):
“To Mrs. Argus,
“A friend of Mamma’s says that you are very clever at finding
out the faults of children, pray tell me mine, for if you are
as cunning as she says you are, I need not mention them to you.
I am certain I know you; don’t you walk in the Park sometimes?
I am sure you do, though, and you have a very long nose; my
sister Charlotte and I hope you will answer this directly, for
we are in a great hurry to be satisfied about you.
“Your’s
CHARLES OSBORN.”
Mrs. Argus gives sound and pleasantly pointed advice in her replies,
though she loses more than one laugh to modern readers in her care for
propriety.
“Will you be so good” she writes in one postscript “as to tell your
brother that the word _Thump_ which occurred in his letter appears to me
an expression unworthy of a well-educated child.”
Yet she surprises a pugnacious grandson with the novel argument that so
few things are worth fighting about; and shows a genuine sympathy with
boyish pranks.
Her remarks upon fairy tales are a juvenile version of Addison on the
“Lady’s Library”. She knows exactly what sort of writing pleases some
children; how “the eager eyes of a little story-loving dame glisten with
delight” at a promising opening, and the lover of fairy tales “wishes,
just to gratify her curiosity, that there were really such creatures as
fairies”. Yet she is so far persuaded that “an early course of light
reading is very prejudicial to sound acquirement”, that she rejects any
story without the hall-mark of a “Moral”.
* * * * *
A favourite device for connecting the haphazard events of ordinary life
(and one that embellished the bare truth) was borrowed from current
satires. _The History of Pompey the Little; or, the Life and Adventures
of a Lap-Dog_[111] became a model for stories in which an animal, telling
the story of its life, acts as an observer and critic of human conduct.
Humanitarians and lovers of nature, taking up this form, produced more
or less faithful studies of birds and animals; and critics who objected
to fables, or thought satire dangerous had nothing to say against this
mixture of Natural History and Morality.
Doubtless the stricter guardians of youth looked askance at such a
defiance of Reason; but the “Creatures” had an immense influence in
the Nursery: their morals were vouched for by Æsop and all his tribe.
After all, it was only a new way of presenting the old lessons, and the
sternest parent could hardly reject so engaging a tutor as a Robin or a
Mouse.
Miss Fielding’s _Governess_ had not a larger following of School Stories
than Mrs. Trimmer’s _Fabulous Histories_[112] produced in moral tales
of birds and beasts. This little book, better known by its later title,
_The History of the Robins_, was suggested by Mrs. Trimmer’s children,
which may account for its being her only imaginative work. The children,
taught during walks in the fields and gardens “to take particular notice
of _every object_ that presented itself to their view”, were able, by a
natural process of elimination, to develop a chief interest in animals,
and “used often to express a wish that their Birds, Cats, Dogs etc.,
could talk, that they might hold conversations with them”. Their mother,
instead of rebuking them for so irrational a desire, adapted the idea of
talking birds to her own theories of morality and for once managed to see
things from a child’s point of view.
Her own childhood had never been anything but middle-aged. At ten she
wrote like a grown-up person, and her youth was spent in the company
of people much older then herself. Dr. Johnson, meeting her as a girl
of fifteen at Reynolds’s, was so much struck by her behaviour that he
invited her to his house next day, and presented her with a copy of
_The Rambler_.[113] This may have had its effect upon a style developed
in formal “correspondence” under her father’s direction; at any rate,
her diction remained pompous and conventional. Mrs. Trimmer “composed”
works as she “indited” letters. In “composing” _Fabulous Histories_,
she “seemed to fancy herself conversing with her own children in her
accustomed manner”; but that was because she was accustomed to converse,
not talk.
The children, secure in the possession of a “kind pussy Mamma”, never
noticed it; to them it was the most natural thing in the world that birds
should converse in the same way.
In their family relations, the robins are passable understudies of the
excellent Mr. and Mrs. Trimmer and their children; but the introduction
of a human family as their patrons and protectors restores them to the
shape of birds. For the first time in the history of children’s books,
the real centre of interest is transferred from the conduct of children
to such matters as living in a nest and learning to fly.
Here is a good example of Mrs. Trimmer’s style:
“When Miss Harriet first appeared, the winged suppliants approached with
eager expectation of the daily handful which their kind benefactress made
it a custom to distribute”.
On the human side, Mrs. Benson, a kind of domestic Mrs. Teachum, presides
over the morals of a son and daughter. Her interest in education is
almost equal to Mrs. Trimmer’s, who “wearied her friends by making it
so frequently the subject of conversation”; but benevolence softens her
utilitarian morality. When Master Frederick rushes to the window to feed
his birds and forgets to bid his Mamma good-morning, she admonishes him
thus:
“Remember, my dear, that you depend as much on your Papa and me for
everything you want, as these little birds do on you; nay, more so, for
they could find food in other places; but children can do nothing towards
their own support; they should therefore be dutiful and respectful to
those whose tenderness and care they constantly experience.”
The Robin family is more than half human. Nestlings, distinguished by
the expressive names of Robin, Dicky, Flapsy and Pecksy, exhibit all
the faults of children. But there is a world of difference between Mrs.
Trimmer’s treatment and that of the fabulist. She has learned to look at
a nest of birds from a child’s point of view; what is infinitely more
novel and surprising, she actually shifts her ground and considers the
Benson household _from the standpoint of a bird_. It is here that so many
of her imitators lost the trail; and thus it is that their books were
soon forgotten, while hers was read with delight for a century.
The adventure of the nestlings and the gardener has something of the
fascination of _Gulliver_. This is Robin’s description of the “Monster”
who visited them in their mother’s absence:
“.... Suddenly we heard a noise against the wall, and presently a great
round red face appeared before the nest, with a pair of enormous staring
eyes, a very large _beak_, and below that a wide mouth with _two rows of
bones_ that looked as if they could grind us all to pieces in an instant.
About the top of this round face, and down the sides, hung something
black, but _not like feathers_”.
The children dragged Mrs. Trimmer from her didactic throne: they even
made her talk their language. Her own style is reserved for the parent
birds, and in discussing important matters, the young ones imitate them.
“This great increase of family”, says the Robin to his mate, “renders
it prudent to make use of every means for supplying our necessities.
I myself must take a larger circuit.” The Mother bird thus addresses
her penitent son: “I have listened to your lamentations, and since you
seem convinced of your error, I will not add to your sufferings by my
reproaches.”
All this can be endured for the sake of so many delightful incidents. For
a child can climb up the ivy and creep under the wing of the mother bird.
He can join the nestlings in their first singing-lesson, follow them
in their first flight, and best of all, he can look at the great world
beyond the nest with their wondering eyes:
“_The orchard itself appeared to them a world._ For some time each
remained silent, gazing around, first at one thing, then at another; at
length Flapsy cried out: ‘What a charming place the world is! I had no
conception that it was half so big!’”
_The Life and Perambulation of a Mouse_[114] was Dorothy Kilner’s
contribution to the literature of talking beasts. The author is
discovered in a frontispiece, seated at a little round table, in a
mob-cap and kerchief. Her quill has just reached the end of the second
line. Erect in a box of wafers, the Mouse, with extended paw, is
dictating the story of his life.
This “chief of aunts,” snow-bound in a country house with many “young
folk,” takes up her pen at their request, to attempt her autobiography.
“I took up my pen, it is true”, she writes, “but not one word toward my
appointed task could I proceed....
‘Then write mine, which may be more diverting’, said a little squeaking
voice.”
Few “Introductions” were so promising, and the story (apart from
inevitable lessons) keeps its promise.
Four mice, Nimble (the narrator) and his brothers Longtail, Softdown
and Brighteyes, correspond to Mrs. Trimmer’s nestlings; over whom, to a
child’s mind, they have one advantage: they are _outlaws_, repeating in
miniature the adventures of Robin Hood.
To be sure, they lack the outlaw’s chief virtues, for they fly at the
approach of an enemy, and rob rich and poor alike. And although such
creatures could always be excused in the words of Dr. Watts:
“_For ’tis their Nature too_,”
a problem remains to puzzle the wit of a little philosopher: how it
happens that creatures so keenly alive to human errors are blind to the
iniquity of eating a poor woman’s cake, a present from her foster-son, or
the solitary candle that lights a poor man to bed. For indeed, these mice
are unsparing critics of cowardly, cruel and overbearing children; they
have a full repertory of moral and cautionary tales; they preach sermons
on human courage and honour.
The child of action puts aside all questioning, jumps nimbly into a
mouse’s skin and makes a fifth on these marauding expeditions. He
scuttles along behind the wainscot, buries himself in the most delicious
of plum cakes, outwits the footman, narrowly escapes the trap and thrills
at his first sight of the cat.
In a mischievous mood, he can hide in a lady’s shoe, or wake the
children and hear them wonder what it was. There are Eastern adventures
to be had among “spacious and elegant apartments”, where he can choose
from “a carpet of various colours” a flower that will hide him, and
crouch motionless at a passing footstep; and when there is a price upon
his head, or the house catches fire, there are still more thrilling
adventures of escape.
Should a critic remark that these things do not make up one quarter of
the book, a child may tell him that he does not mind sermons and, for
that matter, can preach them himself.
* * * * *
In 1798, one of the most realistic animal stories appeared: _Keeper’s
Travels in Search of his Master_,[115] the adventures of a dog. Its
author, Mr. Kendall, wrote other books, mostly about birds;[116] but
_Keeper’s Travels_ was the only serious rival to _Fabulous Histories_.
If any parent had scruples about talking beasts, here was a book that
could be put into a child’s hand with perfect safety. No eighteenth
century writer could help making an animal reason as if he were human;
but this is a real dog, wagging and whimpering his way through the book,
and if he does not speak, the story is not a whit less interesting for
that.
From the time that he loses sight of his master on a market-day by
being “so attentive to half a dozen fowls that were in a basket”, his
adventures are entirely natural and probable.
Keeper is never too human for belief: he does nothing that any dog might
not do; yet he makes a good hero,—sticking to his quest in spite of pain
and hunger, refusing comforts and saving the lives of children. Mr.
Kendall sums up his hero’s virtues in a quotation from Cowper, for those
who are “not too proud to stoop to quadruped instructors”. He was not
the only lover of animals to quote a humanitarian poet. The author of
_The Juvenile Spectator_ in her quaint _Adventures of a Donkey_,[117] has
these lines from Coleridge below the frontispiece:
“Poor little foal of an oppressed race!
I love the languid patience of thy face:
And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread,
And clap thy ragged coat and pat thy head.”
The Autobiography of a Cat was a more delicate task, a psychologist could
not explain the workings of its mind, although a careful observer might
record its more intelligible movements; but since every cat is a critic
of human character, there was nothing in the way of sermon or satire that
it could not achieve.
Elizabeth Sandham’s _Adventures of Poor Puss_[118] is a very literal
story, setting off the philosophy of “two four-footed moralisers” on
a sunny wall; but the anonymous author of _Felissa; or, the Life and
Opinions of a Kitten of Sentiment_[119] produced a masterpiece in this
kind.
Felissa is a Kitten of Satire as well as of Sentiment. This Author
adopted the form of _Pompey the Little_ in order to ridicule cant and
affectation in general, and Rousseau’s doctrine in particular; yet the
chief aim of the book (as the title-page shows) is to turn a child’s
thoughts from the hackneyed problems of juvenile conduct:
“We’ll have our Mottoes and our Chapters too,
And brave the Thunders of the dread Review:
_Misses no more o’er Misses’ Woes shall wail,_
_But list attentive to a Kitten’s Tale_.”
The heroine’s pedigree goes back to Perrault; she actually claims
descent from “that noble, excellent and exceeding wise Cat ... who owed
his honours to the liberality and gratitude of the celebrated nobleman
the Lord Marquis of Carabas”; and indeed she resembles her ancestor as
much in “Genius and Discretion” as she excels him in Morals. She is one
that might have sat on Dr. Johnson’s knee; her remarks upon Rousseau
would have delighted him. Describing the Countess of Dashley, her little
mistress’s mother, she says that this lady “had been advised by a French
gentleman, one Mr. Rousseau, to suffer her children to remain foolish
till seven or eight years of age, when, he said, they would grow wise of
their own accord”, a plan “so easy and delightful” that she immediately
adopted it.
Felissa’s satire has the prettiest effect of innocence. One moment she is
all kittenish mischief, the next, lost in wonder at the lady of fashion
who spares half a moment on the way to her carriage to peep in at her
little girl.
“For my part,” declares the Kitten, “my eyes were so dazzled by her
dress and her diamonds, and so alarmed by some feathers that grew out of
her head, in a manner which I had never witnessed before, but in my old
master’s cockatoo at the Castle (and she never wore hers so high), that
it was some minutes before I could recover myself.”
The episode of a mock-christening, which recalls the _Juvenile Tatler_,
serves to change the scene. Felissa, provoked to scratch, is sent down
in disgrace to a country Rectory, where she enjoys a quiet interval; but
before long, the Bad Nephew gets the better of the Good Midshipman, and
the kitten runs away.
She now seeks a refuge in the house of “the most charitable woman
living”, where, taking up her old part of unconscious critic, she
discovers that charity may be a mere cloak for display; and coming thence
to another house, ventures into the library of a Man of Sentiment whose
portrait would have pleased Rousseau’s enemies.
“I crept behind a huge folio to recover my fright and, as usual, set
about rendering my person neat and attractive, in expectation of soon
becoming visible. My new master, it was evident, could never have been
instructed on this subject; for as I peeped at him from behind my folio,
I thought that he was the dirtiest and most disagreeable man I had ever
seen in my life; and wished from my heart, that my nice clean father and
mother had had the education of him. He was short and thick, and by no
means pretty; of an ill complexion, and his face very far from clean;
_all his skins_, likewise, were of a bad colour, _both his shirt skin and
his outer-skin_, which seemed much out of repair....”
She is irresistible, this Felissa: reassured to find the sentimentalist
writing an _Ode to Mercy_; listening “with her ears pricked up, _as if
she had been watching for a mouse_,” while he reads it to his daughter;
puzzled by the extraordinary fact that “the more she appeared distressed,
the more pleased her father seemed to be.” It is even more unaccountable
that a young lady of so much sensibility should turn a starved kitten out
of doors. “But kittens are easily puzzled”, and Felissa runs into fresh
adventures on her way to a happy ending.
Her fortune is almost too modest for a descendant of Puss in Boots: no
more than the blessings of an Establishment and many friends; but the
chief of these is the daughter of an officer “who lost his invaluable
life in the memorable battle which deprived our country of the gallant
and lamented Nelson.”
She, of course, marries the promoted Midshipman, and the Kitten, having
attained a certain seniority, and finding little scope for her sly wit,
devotes herself to the instruction and amusement of little _Felissae_. If
a story could end better, let the Wyse Chylde show how.
* * * * *
Adventures of things, a variation of the same idea, were mostly derived
from Charles Johnstone’s novel, _Chrysal; or, the Adventures of a
Guinea_.[120]
If small coins might be supposed to talk as well as great ones (and
moralists saw no reason against it), a silver Threepence,[121] the
equivalent of a guinea in juvenile commerce, could relate transactions at
the Village Shop or at the corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard which, if less
thrilling than the Guinea’s, were more creditable to those concerned.
Other subjects of these stories had a greater fascination for unworldly
youth. These were things that a child would play with or carry about: a
Doll, a Pegtop or a Pincushion, which, from their intimate association
with the family, were in a position to discuss its affairs.
“S. S.” designed her _Adventures of a Pincushion_[122] “chiefly for the
use of young ladies,” little thinking that old ones would turn back with
delight to these records of domestic life in their great-grandmothers’
time.
It seems that the proper place for a pincushion (that essentially
feminine possession) was the pocket; but there were occasions, making
for adventure, when it was put into a workbag by mistake, or “lent to
Miss Meekly to fasten her Bib”, and then it was sure to be carried off in
another pocket to another house.
One effect of the book, unforeseen by its gentle author, was doubtless
to increase the number of lost pincushions; for never, until it was
published, had little Misses suspected what secret critics and inveterate
gossips they carried about with them, disguised in harmless taffetas.
Rarely indeed is this watchful companion at a loss for information, but
once (when S. S. decides to skip a scene) it remarks:
“The ladies now retired to dinner, but I am ignorant of what passed
there, as I was left upon a piece of embroidery.”
As for the woodcuts, they may well be John Bewick’s; they follow each
turn of the author’s quiet humour. Any little Miss could tell at a glance
that Martha was personating the Music Master and Charlotte teaching the
rest to dance. These pictures show everything but the colours, and for
that matter, nobody shrank from painting the Green Parlour, when the
pincushion declared that “the furniture was all of that colour”. Bewick
Collectors have never understood the fatal attraction of “plain” cuts.
“S. S.”, justifying her simple narrative in a preface (and thinking,
perhaps, of _Chrysal_), admits that “the pointed satire of ridicule might
have added zest to her story”, but thinks it unfit for children.
“To exhibit their superiors in a ridiculous view is not the proper method
to engage the youthful mind to respect. To represent their equals as
objects of contemptuous mirth is by no means favourable to the interest
of good nature. And to treat the characters of their inferiors with
levity, the author thought, was inconsistent with the sacred rights of
humanity.”
The criticism is a thought too serious. Ridicule is not always a bad
method of dealing with children’s faults; “S. S.” herself could use it
on occasion. Had she forgotten the Wagstaffs’ party in _Jemima Placid_,
or the delightful mischief of the dressing of Sally Flaunt, in which the
Pincushion played a chief part?
It is really a question of treatment; a wooden sword is sharp enough for
the nursery. If children are simply tickled by incongruities or miss the
point altogether, it is because the satirist has an eye on the grown-up
part of his audience. But, as “S. S.” points out, there is a danger that
incidents will be dragged in for satirical ends “without any cause to
produce them”; and, true to her own simple canon of art, she decides
“to make them arise naturally from the subject”, though it increase the
difficulties of her task.
The Preface shows a concern for form which is rare in these modest
writers; and the method justifies itself.
It is extraordinary that so much food for profit and enjoyment could be
stored in the shelves of old-fashioned houses.