Tales and Novels Volume I Part 37

Whilst the ceremonies of the introduction were going on, Herbert kept himself aloof, and, with his whip suspended over the stick on which he was riding, eyed Mad. de Rosier with no friendly aspect: however, when she held out her hand to him, and when he heard the encouraging tone of her voice, he approached, held his whip fast in his right hand, but very cordially gave the lady his left to shake.

"Are you to be my governess?" said he: "you won't give me very long tasks, will you?"

"Favoretta, my dear, what has detained you so long?" cried Mrs.

Harcourt, as the door opened, and as Favoretta, with her hair in nice order, was ushered into the room by Mrs. Grace. The little girl ran up to Mad. de Rosier, and, with the most caressing freedom, cried,--

"Will you love me? I have not my red shoes on to-day!"

Whilst Mad. de Rosier a.s.sured Favoretta that the want of the red shoes would not diminish her merit, Matilda whispered to Isabella--"Mourning is very becoming to her, though she is not fair;" and Isabella, with a look of absence, replied--"But she speaks English amazingly well for a French woman."

Mad. de Rosier did speak English remarkably well; she had spent some years in England, in her early youth, and, perhaps, the effect of her conversation was heightened by an air of foreign novelty. As she was not hackneyed in the common language of conversation, her ideas were expressed in select and accurate terms, so that her thoughts appeared original, as well as just.

Isabella, who was fond of talents, and yet fonder of novelty, was charmed, the first evening, with her new friend, more especially as she perceived that her abilities had not escaped Mad. de Rosier. She displayed all her little treasures of literature, but was surprised to observe that, though every s.h.i.+ning thing she said was taken notice of, nothing dazzled the eyes of her judge; gradually her desire to talk subsided, and she felt some curiosity to hear. She experienced the new pleasure of conversing with a person whom she perceived to be her superior in understanding, and whose superiority she could admire, without any mixture of envy.

"Then," said she, pausing, one day, after having successfully enumerated the dates of the reigns of all the English kings, "I suppose you have something in French, like our Gray's Memoria Technica, or else you never could have such a prodigious quant.i.ty of dates in your head. Had you as much knowledge of chronology and history, when you were of my age, as--as--"

"As you have?" said Mad. de Rosier: "I do not know whether I had at your age, but I can a.s.sure you that I have not now."

"Nay," replied Isabella, with an incredulous smile, "but you only say that from modesty."

"From vanity, more likely."

"Vanity! impossible--you don't understand me."

"Pardon me, but you do not understand _me_."

"A person," cried Isabella, "can't, surely, be vain--what we, in English, call vain--of _not_ remembering any thing."

"Is it, then, impossible that a person should be what you, in English, call vain, of _not_ remembering what is useless? I dare say you can tell me the name of that wise man who prayed for the art of forgetting."

"No, indeed, I don't know his name; I never heard of him before: was he a Grecian, or a Roman, or an Englishman? can't you recollect his name?

what does it begin with?"

"I do not wish either for your sake or my own, to remember the name; let us content ourselves with the wise man's sense, whether he were a Grecian, a Roman, or an Englishman: even the first letter of his name might be left among the useless things--might it not?"

"But," replied Isabella, a little piqued, "I do not know what you call useless."

"Those of which you can make no use," said Mad. de Rosier, with simplicity.

"You don't mean, though, all the names, and dates, and kings, and Roman emperors, and all the remarkable events that I have learned by heart?"

"It is useful, I allow," replied Mad. de Rosier, "to know by heart the names of the English kings and Roman emperors, and to remember the dates of their reigns, otherwise we should be obliged, whenever we wanted them, to search in the books in which they are to be found, and that wastes time."

"Wastes time--yes; but what's worse," said Isabella, "a person looks so awkward and foolish in company, who does not know these things--things that every body knows."

"And that every body is supposed to know," added Mad. de Rosier.

"_That_ never struck me before," said Isabella, ingenuously; "I only remembered these things to repeat in conversation."

Here Mad. de Rosier, pleased to observe that her pupil had caught an idea that was new to her, dropped the conversation, and left Isabella to apply what had pa.s.sed. Active and ingenious young people should have much left to their own intelligent exertions, and to their own candour.

Matilda, the second daughter, was at first pleased with Mad. de Rosier, because she looked well in mourning; and afterwards she became interested for her, from hearing the history of her misfortunes, of which Mad. de Rosier, one evening, gave her a simple, pathetic account.

Matilda was particularly touched by the account of the early death of this lady's beautiful and accomplished daughter; she dwelt upon every circ.u.mstance, and, with anxious curiosity, asked a variety of questions.

"I think I can form a perfect idea of her now," said Matilda, after she had inquired concerning the colour of her hair, of her eyes, her complexion, her height, her voice, her manners, and her dress--"I think I have a perfect idea of her now!"

"Oh no!" said Mad. de Rosier, with a sigh, "you cannot form a perfect idea of my Rosalie from any of these things; she was handsome and graceful; but it was not her person--it was her mind," said the mother, with a faltering voice: her voice had, till this instant, been steady and composed.

"I beg your pardon--I will ask you no more questions," said Matilda.

"My love," said Mad. de Rosier, "ask me as many as you please--I like to think of _her_--I may now speak of her without vanity--her character would have pleased you."

"I am sure it would," said Matilda: "do you think she would have liked me or Isabella the best?"

"She would have liked each of you for your different good qualities, I think: she would not have made her love an object of compet.i.tion, or the cause of jealousy between two sisters; she could make herself sufficiently beloved, without stooping to any such mean arts. She had two friends who loved her tenderly; they knew that she was perfectly sincere, and that she would not flatter either of them--you know _that_ is only childish affection which is without esteem. Rosalie was esteemed _autant qu'aimee_."

"How I should have liked such a friend! but I am afraid she would have been so much my superior, she would have despised me--Isabella would have had all her conversation, because she knows so much, and I know nothing!"

"If you know that you know nothing," said Mad. de Rosier, with an encouraging smile, "you know as much as the wisest of men. When the oracle p.r.o.nounced Socrates to be the wisest of men, he explained it by observing, 'that he knew himself to be ignorant, whilst other men,' said he, 'believing that they know every thing, are not likely to improve.'"

"Then you think I am likely to improve?" said Matilda, with a look of doubtful hope.

"Certainly," said Mad. de Rosier: "if you exert yourself, you may be any thing you please."

"Not any thing I please, for I should please to be as clever, and as good, and as amiable, and as estimable, too, as your Rosalie--but that's impossible. Tell me, however, what she was at my age--and what sort of things she used to do and say--and what books she read--and how she employed herself from morning till night."

"That must be for to-morrow," said Mad. de Rosier; "I must now show Herbert the book of prints that he wanted to see."

It was the first time that Herbert had ever asked to look into a book.

Mad. de Rosier had taken him entirely out of the hands of Mrs. Grace, and finding that his painful a.s.sociations with the sight of the syllables in his dog's-eared spelling-book could not immediately be conquered, she prudently resolved to cultivate his powers of attention upon other subjects, and not to return to syllabic difficulties, until the young gentleman should have forgotten his literary misfortunes, and acquired sufficient energy and patience to ensure success.

"It is of little consequence," said she, "whether the boy read a year sooner or later; but it is of great consequence that he should love literature."

"Certainly," said Mrs. Harcourt, to whom this observation was addressed; "I am sure you will manage all those things properly--I leave him entirely to you--Grace quite gives him up: if he read by the time we must think of sending him to school I shall be satisfied--only keep him out of my way," added she, laughing, "when he is stammering over that unfortunate spelling-book, for I don't pretend to be gifted with the patience of Job."

"Have you any objection," said Mad. de Rosier, "to my buying for him some new toys?"

"None in the world--buy any thing you will--do any thing you please--I give you carte blanche," said Mrs. Harcourt.

After Mad. de Rosier had been some time at Mrs. Harcourt's, and had carefully studied the characters, or, more properly speaking, the habits of all her pupils, she took them with her one morning to a large toy-shop, or rather warehouse for toys, which had been lately opened, under the direction of an ingenious gentleman, who had employed proper workmen to execute rational toys for the rising generation.

When Herbert entered "the rational toy-shop," he looked all around, and, with an air of disappointment, exclaimed, "Why, I see neither whips nor horses! nor phaetons, nor coaches!"--"Nor dressed dolls!" said Favoretta, in a reproachful tone--"nor baby houses!"--"Nor soldiers--nor a drum!" continued Herbert.--"I am sure I never saw such a toy-shop,"

said Favoretta; "I expected the finest things that ever were seen, because it was such a new _great_ shop, and here are nothing but vulgar-looking things--great carts and wheel-barrows, and things fit for orange-women's daughters, I think."

This sally of wit was not admired as much as it would have been by Favoretta's flatterers in her mother's drawing-room:--her brother seized upon the very cart which she had abused, and dragging it about the room, with noisy joy, declared he had found out that it was better than a coach and six that would hold nothing; and he was even satisfied without horses, because he reflected that he could be the best horse himself; and that wooden horses, after all, cannot gallop, and they never mind if you whip them ever so much: "you must drag them along all the time, though you make _believe_," said Herbert, "that they draw the coach of themselves; if one gives them the least push, they tumble down on their sides, and one must turn back, for ever and ever, to set them up upon their wooden legs again. I don't like make-believe horses; I had rather be both man and horse for myself." Then, whipping himself, he galloped away, pleased with his centaur character.

When the little boy in Sacontala is offered for a plaything "_a peac.o.c.k of earthenware, painted with rich colours_," he answers, "_I shall like the peac.o.c.k if it can run and fly--not else_." The Indian drama of Sacontala was written many centuries ago. Notwithstanding it has so long been observed, that children dislike useless, motionless playthings, it is but of late that more rational toys have been devised for their amus.e.m.e.nts.