Maria Edgeworth Part 7

But not only on this account, for it is perhaps just in this direction that they err somewhat; for though no doubt true pictures of one section of society, there is no denying that Miss Edgeworth's outlook is not catholic; that the world, as she saw it, was prescribed almost exclusively within the bounds of so-called "good society"--a circle in which the heights and depths of life and feeling are rarely touched, because of the conventional boundaries within which its inmates are cooped.

Whence, then, the undeniable fact that Miss Edgeworth has gradually grown to join that band of authors known as standard, who are more spoken of than read? There is so much in her mode of life-conception that is entirely modern, so much that is in keeping rather with the advanced school of utilitarian ethicists than with the more sentimental school of her day, that it certainly does appear puzzling why she has not better maintained her place; for it would be idle to pretend that she has maintained it such as it was in her life-time. It cannot be because her plots are ill-constructed. When at her best she holds attention notwithstanding. Nor does an author's power to engross us at all depend on his constructive faculty. Indeed, some of those writers who most hold their readers have distinctly lacked this gift, which often exists independently of fine novelistic qualities. In portions of her work Miss Edgeworth need fear no rivals. Why is it, then, that in attempting an estimate of her powers, while allowing to her first-cla.s.s excellences, we have to deny her a first-cla.s.s place, thus condoning, to some extent, those who leave her unread to turn to less edifying and admirable writers? Is it not because there is absent from Maria Edgeworth's writings that divine spark of the ideal that alone allows works to live for all time--that spark which it is given to many an inferior author to own, while it is here denied to a woman of great intellectual power? While preeminently upright, high-principled and virtuous, Miss Edgeworth's ethics are pervaded by a certain coldness and self-consciousness that irresistibly give to her good people a pharisaical character; an impression from which it is always difficult and at times impossible for the reader to shake himself free. Her heroes and heroines act with too little spontaneity; they seem to calculate and know too surely the exact sum total of ultimate gain that will, in a justly-ordered world, accrue to them for their good actions, their self-sacrifice and devotion. Her heroes are almost as calculating as her villains.

It is a severe test to which to put an author, to read all his works consecutively; but it is one that more surely than aught else enables us to mark his place of merit. If he can stand this trial he is decidedly above the average; if he issue thence triumphant he may without hesitation be p.r.o.nounced among the great. Miss Edgeworth weathers this test very respectably; indeed it, more than all else, enforces upon the reader the great versatility she displays in character and situation.

Yet it is just after such a perusal that the absolute lack of the ideal element is so strongly borne in upon us. As the thirsty mountaineer drinks eagerly from the first clear streamlet that meets him trickling down from the heights, so Miss Edgeworth's readers eagerly turn from her to some more spontaneous writer to quench the drought that this continuous perusal has engendered. Even in this prosaic and materialistic age the belief in blue roses is happily not wholly dead; and though we will not suffer the garden of a novelist to grow no other plant, because we know that one filled with blue roses only is out of nature in this terrestrial globe, yet, in a well-ordered parterre, we do require that the blue rose should also have its place. It is to novelist and poet that the cultivation of this rare and heaven-born plant has been entrusted. Miss Edgeworth knew it not. Neither by hereditary tendency nor by training had she made acquaintance with this wonder-flower, for whose botanical a.n.a.lysis Mr. Edgeworth would have searched a Flora in vain, and whose existence he would therefore stoutly have denied.

With "little stores of maxims," like Tennyson's faithless love, Miss Edgeworth, acting from the very highest motives, after careful and philosophic deliberation, at personal suffering to herself, in her printed words, preached down the instincts of the heart. She knew not that excellent as utilitarianism is in its place and sphere, there is something more, something beyond, that is needed to form the basis upon which human actions are set in motion. For the spiritual and divine element in man she made no allowance, and it was this that drew down on her, from shallow contemporary critics, that condemnation of want of religion, flung in a narrow, dogmatic spirit, that wounded her so deeply. Outwardly the Edgeworths conformed to the established faith, and though liberal in the sense of being wide-minded, they were not in religious matters advanced in thought. Indeed, they thought little, if at all, of the next world, finding full occupation for their minds in this. Miss Edgeworth was hemmed in by the visible; she did not seek to justify the ways of G.o.d to man; life was to her no riddle; if man would but act rightly, all would be well; she deemed that it is given into his own hands to do good or evil, to be happy or the reverse. There was in her nothing of the poet and the seer; and by so much as she fails to speak to humanity in all its aspects, by so much she fails to take rank among the greatest teachers of our race. But with wisdom and good sense she recognized her limitations; she set herself a humbler but no less useful task; she carried out her aim faithfully and conscientiously, and by so much she too must be ranked among the good and faithful servants who do the work appointed by their Lord. And after all, is not the harmony of humanity best served by the free emission of the most diverse notes? Miss Edgeworth set herself to preach utilitarianism and the minor virtues. She succeeded; and in so far as she succeeded in that which she set herself to do, life was for her successful, and she was great.

CHAPTER XI.

VISITS ABROAD AND AT HOME.

Life at Edgeworthstown underwent no outward change owing to the death of its master. His place was taken by his eldest and unmarried son, Lovell, who sought to the best of his abilities to keep the house a home for his father's widow and his numerous brothers and sisters, an endeavor in which he was successful. Miss Edgeworth describes herself at this time as "quite absorbed in low domestic interests, of which only those who love home and love us can possibly bear to hear."

For some years after her father's death all she did was done as an effort, and more from a high sense of duty and from the thought that it would have pleased him who was gone, than from any inner desire to act.

When the family after a short absence rea.s.sembled at Edgeworthstown, it required all her inherited activity of mind, all her acquired self-command, to enable her to keep up her spirits on reentering that house in which for her the light was quenched. It was well for her not only that work was the purpose in life of all that family, that no drones were suffered in that household, but that her work had been planned for her by her father, and that in settling down to it she was obeying his commands.

It had been not only his darling wish, but his dying injunction, that she should complete the memoir of his life which he had begun and abandoned ten years previously. Why Mr. Edgeworth had written his life is not made clear, even by the preface, in which he attempts to explain the reasons that impelled him. The real reason was probably the excessive importance he attached to himself and his actions. It had always been his intention that Miss Edgeworth should revise and complete this memoir; but when he was dying he emphatically enjoined that it should be published without any change. This complicated her task, which she felt a heavy one. Excepting a few pa.s.sages, he had never shown what he had written even to his own family; and when he was urged by them to continue it, he used to say he "would leave the rest to be finished by his daughter Maria." Almost before her eyes were recovered she set to work upon her pious duty. Her anxiety lest she should not do justice to the theme weighed upon her so greatly that she could hardly speak of the memoirs even to her most intimate friends. It is reflected in the touchingly helpless preface she prefixed to the second volume:--

Till now I have never on any occasion addressed myself to the public alone, and speaking in the first person. This egotism is not only repugnant to my habits, but most painful and melancholy.

Formerly I had always a friend and father who spoke and wrote for me; one who exerted for me all the powers of his strong mind, even to the very last. Far more than his protecting kindness I regret, at this moment, the want of his guiding judgment now, when it is most important to me--where _his_ fame is at stake.

To save her eyesight her sisters a.s.sisted her in copying or in writing from her dictation; but even so she was forced to use her own vision, and while busy with the memoirs she allowed herself little of what was now her greatest relaxation, writing letters to her friends:--

We are looking to the bright side of every object that remains to us, and many blessings we have still. I am now correcting what I had written of my father's life, and shall be for some months, so shall not write any letters of such length as this.

Bear up and struggle as she would, bitterly and painfully she missed the always kind and ready adviser, the sympathetic intellectual companion, who had stood by her side till now and aided her in every difficult task. She felt like "drifting over an unknown sea without chart or compa.s.s." Nor were her spirits or those of the family raised by outward events. Wet seasons had induced famine and typhus fever, and the tenants were suffering from disease and distress. Then, too, the family had their own private anxieties in the illness of William, Lovell and f.a.n.n.y.

They were all more or less delicate; most of them had inherited consumptive tendencies, and many months rarely pa.s.sed without Miss Edgeworth having to record cases of sickness in those about her. These illnesses always absorbed her whole attention, called forth all her kindliness and unselfishness. She was ever the ready, willing nurse, the writer of bulletins to those away, the cheerer of long, sad hours of suffering. They were weary months, those early ones of 1818, and only in her affections did she find comfort. She writes:--

I was always fond of being loved, but of late I am become more sensible of the soothing power of affectionate expressions. Indeed, I have reason, although much has been taken from me, to be heartily grateful for all I have left of excellent friends, and for much, much unexpected kindness which has been shown to me and mine, not only by persons unconnected by any natural ties with me or them, but from mere acquaintance become friends.

In June she was able to announce: "I am now within two months' work of finis.h.i.+ng all I mean to write; but the work of revision and consideration--O! most anxious consideration." She was still desirous of having the opinion of friends, and more especially she desired the opinion of M. Dumont. Hearing he was to stay with Lord Lansdowne, at Bowood, she yielded to the importunities of these friends and went there to meet him, taking with her her sister Honora. She was soon able to tell Mrs. Edgeworth that Dumont "has been very much pleased with my father's ma.n.u.script; he has read a good deal and likes it. He hates Mr.

Day in spite of all his good qualities; he says he knows he could not bear that sort of man, who has such pride and misanthropies about trifles, raising a great theory of morals upon an _amour propre blesse_."

The change of scene was clearly beneficial to her. Once more her letters were filled with the anecdotes, the interesting talk she hears, accounts of which she knows will give pleasure to those at home. To give pleasure to others was always the one thought uppermost in her mind. "I am a vile correspondent when I have nothing to say; but at least I do write in some sort of way when I know I have something to say that will give pleasure to my friends." The whole character of the woman is revealed in these simple words. Among the good stories she tells from Bowood is one concerning Madame de Stael:--

Madame de Stael--I tumble anecdotes together as I recollect them--Madame de Stael had a great wish to see Mr. Bowles, the poet, or as Lord Byron calls him, the sonneteer; she admired his sonnets and his _Spirit of Maritime Discovery_, and ranked him high as an English genius. In riding to Bowood he fell and sprained his shoulder, but still came on. Lord Lansdowne alluded to this in presenting him to Madame de Stael, before dinner, in the midst of the listening circle. She began to compliment him and herself upon the exertion he had made to come and see her. "O, ma'am, say no more, for I would have done a great deal more to see so great a curiosity!" Lord Lansdowne says it is impossible to describe the shock in Madame de Stael's face--the breathless astonishment and the total change produced in her opinion of the man. She said afterwards to Lord Lansdowne, who had told her he was a simple country clergyman, "_Je vois bien que ce n'est qu'un simple cure qui n'a pas le sens commun quoique grand poete!_"

From Bowood Miss Edgeworth paid some other visits, seeing many old friends, and among them Mrs. Barbauld and the Misses Baillie:--

Joanna Baillie and her sister, most kind, cordial and warm-hearted, came running down their little flagged walk to welcome us. Both Joanna and her sister have such agreeable and new conversation--not old trumpery literature over again, and reviews, but new circ.u.mstances worth telling apropos to every subject that is touched upon; frank observations on character without either ill nature or the fear of committing themselves; no blue-stocking t.i.ttle-tattle or habits of wors.h.i.+pping or being wors.h.i.+pped; domestic, affectionate, good to live with and without fussing, continually doing what is most obliging and whatever makes us feel most at home. Breakfast is very pleasant in this house, the two good sisters look so neat and cheerful.

Although she had met with much encouraging criticism in the matter of her father's life, she still hesitated to publish. "The result of all I see, think and feel," she tells her stepmother, "is that we should be in no haste." Down to the very business arrangements the book weighed on her. She had hitherto left all such details to her father; and her kind friend Johnson being also dead, she felt yet more undecided how to act.

At every moment, in every detail of her life, she missed her father; but she was too brave a woman not to struggle with her grief, or not to adapt herself to altered conditions. Her eyes still caused her much trouble, and for nearly two years she was obliged to give them almost entire rest.

But for her patience and fort.i.tude in following the doctor's injunctions, it seems possible she might have entirely lost her sight.

As it was, a complete recovery took place; and though at times her eyes were weak, she was able to the end of her life to read, write and work with ease. At the end of the year 1819 she is able gleefully to tell her cousin that she must now make up for lost time and read.

"Now that I have eyes to read again, I find it delightful, and I have a voracious appet.i.te and a relish for food; good, bad and indifferent, I am afraid, like a half-famished, s.h.i.+pwrecked wretch."

She read all the new literature of the day, and eagerly inquired among all her friends what they commended. Byron's _Don Juan_ had caused much talk, but this did not attract her:--

After what you have told me, and after all I hear from every good judge of _Don Juan_, I never desire to see it. The only regret I feel upon the subject is that any pearls should be found, as I am told they may be found, in this intellectual dung-hill. How can the public allow this drunken, flagitious actor to appear before them, disgracing genius and the taste of his country? In Scott's last tales there are all the signs of a master mind, but now and then all the spasms in the stomach, for which I pity him. I am glad he is going to try some new scheme, for he has, I think, exhausted every variety of Scotch character.

It was not till early in 1820 that the memoirs of Mr. Edgeworth were completed. Having arranged that they should appear at Easter, Miss Edgeworth resolved to carry out a long-cherished plan, that of visiting Paris in company with her two young sisters, f.a.n.n.y and Harriet. At one time it seemed as if political events were too unsettled to make this project advisable, on which account she asked her good friend, Dr.

Holland, of Knutsford, to propose some other plans. Very significant is the remark she makes: "Observe that f.a.n.n.y and I both prefer society, good society, even to fine landscapes or even to volcanoes." Finally Paris was p.r.o.nounced safe, and they set out thither. It was on this occasion, when crossing to Holyhead, that she made her first acquaintance with a steamboat. She disliked what she called the "jigging motion," which, she said, was like the shake felt in a carriage when a pig is scratching himself behind the hind wheel while waiting at an Irish inn door. Her letters to her stepmother and sisters during this trip are frequent and detailed. At Paris they stayed some months, establis.h.i.+ng themselves domestically in apartments in the Place du Palais Bourbon. "_Madame Maria Edgeworth et Mademoiselles ses soeurs_"

ran their visiting-cards, which were soon left at the best Parisian houses. Many new friends were added to those they had previously made, and under the changed regime the connection of Miss Edgeworth with the Abbe Edgeworth became a pa.s.sport to the homes of the old n.o.bility. The circ.u.mstance that Miss Edgeworth was a most accomplished French scholar, speaking the language with as much ease as if it were her own, enabled her thoroughly to enter into and enjoy the society that was offered her.

Her knowledge of French cla.s.sic literature charmed her hosts and brought out all their best powers of conversation. Her ready sympathy and real interest won their hearts and induced many of them to tell her the sad stories of their adventures in the revolutionary days. But her intercourse was not confined to the aristocracy. Her hereditary taste for science brought her in contact with most of the distinguished scientific men of France, while literary society was, of course, thrown open to her. She noticed a great alteration in manners since their last visit:--

I should observe that a great change has taken place: the men huddle together now in France as they used to do in England, talking politics with their backs to the women in a corner, or even in the middle of the room, without minding them in the least, and the ladies complain and look very disconsolate, and many ask "If this be Paris?" and others scream Ultra nonsense or Liberal nonsense to make themselves of consequence and to attract the attention of the gentlemen. In 1803, under the First Consul's reign, when all freedom of discussion on public affairs was dangerous, and when all parties were glad to forget the horrors of the revolutionary days, conversation was limited to literary or scientific subjects, and was therefore much more agreeable to foreigners; now in 1820 the verb _politiquer_, to talk politics, had been invented.

As a foreigner Miss Edgeworth was enabled to visit at the houses of all factions, and she found much entertainment in hearing their opinions and diametrically opposite views. The Emigrants spoke of the Liberals with the bitterest detestation as revolutionary monsters; the Liberals spoke of the Ultras as bigoted idiots. One of these said of a lady celebrated in 1803 as a brilliant talker: "_Autrefois elle avait de l'esprit, mais elle est devenue Ultra, devote et bete._" While not sympathizing with the insolence of either party, Miss Edgeworth extracted some diversion and yet more moral reflection from all she saw. Writing to Dr. Holland after she had been an observer for some time, she says:--

Upon the whole, after comparing the society in Paris and London, I far prefer the London society, and feel a much stronger desire to return to London than ever to revisit Paris. There is scarcely any new literature or any taste for old literature in Paris. In London the production of a single article in the _Edinboro'_ or _Quarterly Review_, the l.u.s.tre, however evanescent, it casts on the reviewer or the author, is a proof of the importance of literature in fas.h.i.+onable society. No such thing in Paris. Even the Parisian men of science, many of them equal, some superior to ours, are obliged or think themselves obliged to turn statesmen, and sorry statesmen they make. Everything in Parisian society is, as it were, tainted by politics, and the politicians themselves seem to be mere actors.

I could forgive all their violence and the noise they make, screaming always all at a time, if they were really actuated by patriotism, but it seemed all for effect. A few exceptions, of course, to prove the rule.

The more she saw of Parisian life, the more convinced she felt that the French required, if not a despot, at least an absolute monarch to reign over them. A brilliant and ready talker, Miss Edgeworth was also an able listener, and hence her society was much sought after, while the beauty, intelligence and excellent dressing of her sisters caused them also to be regarded as acquisitions in days when the Continent was not swamped with tourists, as it is now, and natives were therefore able to open their doors. A galaxy of brilliant and historical names pa.s.s across the pages of Miss Edgeworth's letters, and many a reminiscence she has preserved of them. Her accounts of the various parties to which they went are so vivacious and graphic that those for whom they were written must have felt as if they had been present too, and had listened to all the talk in which science, politics, literature and nonsense were mixed in happy proportions. Here is an account of an evening at Cuvier's:--

p.r.o.ny, with his hair nearly in my plate, was telling me most entertaining anecdotes of Bonaparte; and Cuvier, with his head nearly meeting him, talking as hard as he could, not striving to show learning or wit--quite the contrary; frank, open-hearted genius, delighted to be together at home and at ease. This was the most flattering and agreeable thing to me that could possibly be.

Harriet was on the off side, and every now and then he turned to her in the midst of his anecdotes and made her so completely one of us; and there was such a prodigious noise, n.o.body could hear but ourselves. Both Cuvier and p.r.o.ny agreed that Bonaparte never could bear to have any but a decided answer. "One day," said Cuvier, "I nearly ruined myself by considering before I answered. He asked me, '_Faut il introduire le sucre de bettetrave en France?' 'D'abord, Sire, il faut songer si vos colonies'--'Faut il avoir le sucre de bettetrave en France?' 'Mais, Sire, il faut examiner'--'Bah! je le demanderai a Berthollet._'" This despotic, laconic mode of insisting on learning everything in two words had its inconveniences. One day he asked the master of the woods at Fontainebleau, "How many acres of wood here?" The master, an honest man, stopped to recollect. "Bah!" and the under-master came forward and said any number that came into his head. Bonaparte immediately took the masters.h.i.+p from the first and gave it to the second.

"_Qu'arrivait il?_" continued p.r.o.ny; "the rogue who gave the guess answer was soon found cutting down and selling quant.i.ties of the trees, and Bonaparte had to take the rangers.h.i.+p from him and reinstate the honest hesitator."

Many of her good stories had to be cut short or omitted for lack of time to tell them. "I find always that when I come to the end of my paper I have not told you half the entertaining things I had treasured up for you," she tells her stepmother. As in London, they lived in a constant whirl of gaiety. But Miss Edgeworth never forgot others amid the distinctions paid to herself. She was constantly thinking either what would please those left behind or what kind act she could do for those around her; and if it were nothing more than helping other English visitors to gain a glimpse of French society, she set herself with all ardor to accomplish it:--

Next to the delight of seeing my sisters so justly appreciated and so happy at Paris, my greatest pleasure has been in the power of introducing people to each other, who longed to meet, but could not contrive it before.

Social success did not turn her head:--

Certainly no people can have seen more of the world than we have done in the last three months. By seeing the world I mean seeing varieties of characters and manners, and being behind the scenes of life in many different societies and families. The constant chorus of our moral as we drive home together at night is, "How happy we are to be so fond of each other! How happy we are to be independent of all we see here! How happy that we have our dear home to return to at last!"

Her sisters told on their return how readily Miss Edgeworth would quit the company of the greatest people of the day, to superintend their dress or arrange some pleasure for them. "We often wondered," they said, "what her admirers would say, after all the profound remarks and brilliant witticisms they had listened to, if they heard all her delightful nonsense with us."

The sisters' gay life continued without intermission, only varied now and then by visits to French country houses. Among the most agreeable people they met Miss Edgeworth numbered some Russians and Poles. At the house of the Princess Potemkin she first made wondering acquaintance with, what is now fortunately a matter of course, the more refined mode of serving dinner known as _a la Russe_. She met, too, Prince Rostopchin, the man who burned Moscow by first setting fire to his own house:--

I never saw a more striking Calmuck countenance. From his conversation as well as from his actions I should think him a man of great strength of character. Speaking of the Russians, he compared their civilization to a naked man looking at himself in a gilt-framed mirror, and he told an anecdote that ill.u.s.trated the perfunctory method of government. The Governor of Siberia lived at Petersburg and never went near his Government. One day the Emperor, in presence of this Governor and Rostopchin, was boasting of his far-sightedness. "Commend me," said Rostopchin, "to M. le Gouverneur, who sees so well from Petersburg to Siberia."

At a breakfast at Camille Jordain's were a.s.sembled three of the most distinguished of the party who called themselves _Les Doctrinaires_, and alleged that they were more attached to measures than to men:--

These three doctrinaires were Casimir Perier, Royer Collard and Benjamin Constant, who is, I believe, of a more violent party. I do not like him at all; his countenance, voice, manner and conversation are all disagreeable to me. He is a fair, "whithky"

looking man, very near-sighted, with spectacles which seemed to pinch his nose. He pokes out his chin to keep his spectacles on, and yet looks over the top of his spectacles, _squinching_ up his eyes, so that you cannot see your way into his mind. Then he speaks through his nose and with a lisp, strangely contrasting with the vehemence of his emphasis. He does not give me any confidence in the sincerity of his patriotism, nor any high idea of his talents, though he seems to have a mighty high idea of them himself. He has been well called _Le Heros des Brochures_. We sat beside one another, and I think felt a mutual antipathy. On the other side of me was Royer Collard, suffering with toothache and swelled face; but notwithstanding the distortion of the swelling, the natural expression of his countenance and the strength and sincerity of his soul made their way, and the frankness of his character and plain superiority of his talents were manifest in five minutes'

conversation.

In June Miss Edgeworth and her sisters left Paris for a tour in Switzerland, visiting their friends the Moilliets, who lived at Pregny, near Geneva. Their house, which had formerly belonged to Josephine, commanded a superb view of the lake and of Mont Blanc. It was a surprise to Miss Edgeworth to find how much she was impressed with the beauty of the scenery about her:--

I did not conceive it possible that I should feel so much pleasure from the beauties of nature as I have done since I came to this country. The first moment when I saw Mont Blanc will remain an era in my life--a new idea, a new feeling, standing alone in the mind.