Maria Edgeworth Part 3

CHAPTER VI.

IRISH AND MORAL TALES.

In 1800 was published anonymously a small book called _Castle Rackrent_.

It professed to be a Hibernian tale, taken from facts and from the manners of the Irish squires before the year 1782. It proved to be a most entertaining, witty history of the fortunes of an Irish estate, told professedly by an illiterate, partial old steward, who recounted the story of the Rackrent family in his vernacular with the full confidence that the affairs of Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, Sir Kit and Sir Condy were as interesting to all the world as they were to himself.

_Honest_ Thaby, as this curious but characteristic specimen of Irish good humor, fidelity and wrong-headedness was pleased to call himself, having no conception of the true application of this epithet, had certainly shown literary perception, or rather his creator for him. For this was no other than Maria Edgeworth, who stood confessed upon the t.i.tle-page of the second edition that was clamorously demanded within a few months of issue. The confession was wrung from her because some one had not only a.s.serted that he was the author, but had actually taken the trouble to copy out several pages with corrections and erasures, as if it were his original ma.n.u.script. It was in this work that Miss Edgeworth first struck her own peculiar vein, and had she never written anything but _Castle Rackrent_ her fame could not have died. It is a page torn from the national history of Ireland, inimitable, perennially delightful, equally humorous and pathetic, holding up with shrewd wit and keen perception, mingled with sympathetic indulgence, the follies and vices that have caused, and in a modified degree still cause, no small proportion of the social miseries that have afflicted and still afflict that unhappy land.

Here are portrayed a series of Irish landlords with their odd discrepancies and striking individualities, alternately drunken, litigious, pugilistic, slovenly and densely ignorant; or else easy, extravagant and good-natured to the point of vice; all, however, of one mind in being profoundly indifferent to their own or their tenants'

welfare. The sharp contrasts of the magnificent and paltry that characterized their state of living, with the mixed confidence in a special Providence and their own good luck that distinguished their muddle-headed mode of thought, is forcibly held up to view. No conclusions are drawn; the narrative, which never flags or drags, is rattled off with spirit, the abundant anecdotes are poured forth with true Irish exuberance, while the humor of the story arises in great measure from the sublime unconsciousness of the story-teller to the wit, navete or absurdity of his remarks. We are held spell-bound, we laugh and weep in a breath, we are almost over-persuaded by loyal old Thady to pardon the errors of the family, "one of the most ancient in the kingdom, related to the kings of Ireland, but that was before my time."

If there was an ulterior end in view in this story beyond that of recording national characteristics which she had had peculiarly good opportunities for observing, and which she here reproduced from the life with broad, full strokes, Miss Edgeworth has masked it so happily that it does not obtrude itself. The society and manners of the Irish are painted as equally provoking and endearing. The book is an epitome of the Irish character, "fighting like devils for conciliation, and hating one another for the love of G.o.d." Never did laughter and tears, sympathy and repugnance, lie more closely together than in this tale. It is curious to read the author's prefatory apology when there are still alive, in every exasperated form, the very conditions she thinks belong to a state of things rapidly pa.s.sing away, "owing to the probable loss of Irish ident.i.ty after the union with England." The supposed "obsolete prejudices and animosities of race" are unhappily still extant. Perhaps it is partly this fact that makes Miss Edgeworth's Irish tales so fresh to this day. But only in part; on their own account alone they are delightful, and _Castle Rackrent_ even more than the rest.

We have Mrs. Barbauld's testimony that Miss Edgeworth wrote _Castle Rackrent_ una.s.sisted by her father, and judging how infinitely superior in spontaneity, flexibility, and nervousness of style, force, pith and boldness, it is to those of her writings with which he meddled, it is forcibly impressed upon us that Mr. Edgeworth's literary tinkering of his daughter's works was far from being to their advantage. Her next published book was her first attempt to deal with the novel proper. In _Belinda_ she strove to delineate the follies and hollowness of fas.h.i.+onable life. The heroine is rather a lifeless puppet; but the more truly prominent figure, Lady Delacour, is drawn with power and keen intuition. A woman of gay and frivolous antecedents, striving to rise into a higher atmosphere under the enn.o.bling influences of a pure friends.h.i.+p, and finding the task a difficult one, was no easy character to draw or to sustain. Had Lady Delacour died heroically, as Miss Edgeworth had planned, and as the whole course of the story leads the reader to expect, the book would have been a success. But to allow her to recover, to cause her to evolve a reformed character after a type psychologically impossible to one of her temperament, weakened the force of the foregoing pages and rendered them untrue. Again, it is on Miss Edgeworth's spoken testimony to Mrs. Barbauld that we learn that she meant to make Lady Delacour die, but that it was her father who suggested the alteration; and since it was a part of the Edgeworthian creed to believe in such simple and sudden reformations, she accepted his counsel, to the artistic injury of her tale. It was Mr. Edgeworth, too, who wrote and interpolated the worthless and high-flown Virginia episode, in which Clarence Harvey takes to the freak of wife-training after the pattern of Mr. Day. This incident is quite out of keeping with the character of Clarence, who is depicted a wooden dandy, but not a romantic fool. These changes, willingly submitted to by Miss Edgeworth, who had the most unbounded belief in her father's superior wisdom on all points whatsoever, also mark his idiosyncracy, for Mr. Edgeworth was a most rare and curious compound of utilitarianism and wild romance.

It is almost possible, in Miss Edgeworth's works, to venture to point out the pa.s.sages that have been tampered with and those where she has been allowed free play. Thus there are portions of _Belinda_ in which she is as much at her best as in _Castle Rackrent_, or other of her masterpieces. Who but she could have penned the lively description given by Sir Philip Baddeley of the fetes at Frogmore? How exquisitely is this ill-natured fool made to paint himself, how truthful is the picture, free from any taint of exaggeration! Sir Philip's endeavor to disgust Belinda with Clarence Harvey, his manner of attempting it, and his final proposal, is a very masterpiece of caustic humor.

_Belinda_ was no favorite with Miss Edgeworth. Writing to Mrs. Barbauld some years later, she says:--

Belinda is but an uninteresting personage after all.... I was not either in _Belinda_ or _Leonora_ sufficiently aware that the _goodness_ of a heroine interests only in proportion to the perils and trials to which it is exposed.

And again, after revising it for republication, she says:--

I really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone, Belinda, that I could have torn the pages to pieces; really I have not the heart or the patience to _correct_ her. As the hackney coachman said, "Mend _you_! Better make a new one."

Miss Edgeworth was therefore capable of self-criticism. Indeed, at no time did she set even a due value on her own work, still less an exaggerated one. To the day of her death she sincerely believed that all the honor and glory she had reaped belonged of right to her father alone. But there was yet another reason why Miss Edgeworth never liked _Belinda_. She was staying at Black Castle when the first printed copy reached her. Before her aunt saw it she contrived to tear out the t.i.tle-pages of the three volumes, and Mrs. Ruxton thus read it without the least suspicion as to its authors.h.i.+p. She was much delighted, and insisted on reading out to her niece pa.s.sage after pa.s.sage. Miss Edgeworth pretended to be deeply interested in some book she was herself reading, and when Mrs. Ruxton exclaimed, "Is not that admirably written?" replied, "Admirably read, I think." "It may not be so very good," added Mrs. Ruxton, "but it shows just the sort of knowledge of high life which people have who live in the world." But in vain she appealed to Miss Edgeworth for sympathy, until, provoked by her faint acquiescence, Mrs. Ruxton at last accused her of being envious. "I am sorry to see my little Maria unable to bear the praises of a rival author." This remark made Miss Edgeworth burst into tears and show her aunt the t.i.tle-pages of the book. But Mrs. Ruxton was not pleased; she never wholly liked _Belinda_ afterwards, and Miss Edgeworth had always a painful recollection that her aunt had suspected her of the meanness of envy.

In 1802 was published the _Essay on Irish Bulls_, bearing on its t.i.tle-page the names of father and daughter. Its t.i.tle appears to have misled even the Irish: at least it is related that an Irish gentleman, secretary to an agricultural society, who was much interested in improving the breed of Irish cattle, sent for it, expecting to find a work on live stock. We have Miss Edgeworth's own account of the genesis of the book:--

The first design of the essay was my father's: under the semblance of attack, he wished to show the English public the eloquence, wit and talents of the lower cla.s.ses of people in Ireland. Working zealously upon the ideas which he suggested, sometimes what was spoken by him was afterwards written by me; or when I wrote my first thoughts, they were corrected and improved by him; so that no book was ever written more completely in partners.h.i.+p. On this, as on most subjects, whether light or serious, when we wrote together, it would now be difficult, almost impossible, to recollect which thoughts originally were his and which were mine. All pa.s.sages in which there are Latin quotations or cla.s.sical allusions must be his exclusively, because I am entirely ignorant of the learned languages. The notes on the Dublin shoe-black's metaphorical language I recollect are chiefly his.

I have heard him tell that story with all the natural, indescribable Irish tones and gestures, of which written language can give but a faint idea. He excelled in imitating the Irish, because he never overstepped the modesty or the a.s.surance of nature. He marked exquisitely the happy confidence, the shrewd wit of the people, without condescending to produce effect by caricature. He knew not only their comic talents, but their powers of pathos; and often when he had just heard from them some pathetic complaint, he has repeated it to me while the impression was fresh.

In the chapter on wit and eloquence in _Irish Bulls_ there is a speech of a poor freeholder to a candidate who asked for his vote; this speech was made to my father when he was canva.s.sing the county of Longford. It was repeated to me a few hours afterwards, and I wrote it down instantly, without, I believe, the variation of a word.

The complaint of a poor widow against her landlord, and his reply, were quoted by Campbell in his _Lectures on Eloquence_, as happy specimens, under the conviction that they were fict.i.tious. Miss Edgeworth a.s.sures us that they are "unembellished facts," that her father was the magistrate before whom the complaint and defense were made, and that she wrote down the speeches word for word as he repeated them to her. This _Essay on Irish Bulls_, though a somewhat rambling and discursive composition, is a readable one, full of good stories, pathetic and humorous. Besides giving critical and apt ill.u.s.trations, the authors did justice to the better traits of the Irish character. It was an earnest vindication of the national intellect from the charge of habitual blundering, showing how blundering is common to all countries, and is no more Irish than Persian. They further proved that most so-called bulls are no bulls at all, but often a poetic license, a heart-spoken effusion, and that thus the offense became a grace beyond the reach of art.

_Moral Tales_ also saw the light in 1801. They too were written to ill.u.s.trate _Practical Education_, but aimed at readers of a more advanced age than the children's tales; in fact, both here and elsewhere Miss Edgeworth strove to do on a larger scale what was achieved by the ancient form of parable, to make an attractive medium for the instruction and conviction of minds. It was a fancy of hers, and perhaps a characteristic of her age, when female authors.h.i.+p was held in somewhat doubtful repute, that she invariably insisted on appearing before the public under cover of her father's name. He therefore wrote for _Moral Tales_, as afterwards for all her works, one of his ludicrously bombastic prefaces, which, whatever they may have done in his own time, would certainly to-day be the most effective means of repelling readers.

The stories are six in number: _Forester_, _The Prussian Vase_, _The Good Aunt_, _Angelina_, _The Good French Governess_, and _Mademoiselle Panache_. Of these the plots are for the most part poorly contrived, the narrative hammered out _invita Minerva_, and, owing to their aim, nothing capricious or accidental is permitted. Too obviously they are the mature fruits of purpose and reflection, not happy effusions of the fancy, and hence also not always successful. Sometimes the fault lay with the subject that afforded too little scope, sometimes the moral striven after did not admit of the embellishments requisite for a work of amus.e.m.e.nt. One thing, however, is certain: that Miss Edgeworth honestly endeavored to combine entertainment with instruction, and that, taken as a whole, she succeeded. She did not shelter herself behind the saying that _Il est permis d'ennuyer en moralites d'ici jusqu'a Constantinople_. But it is the key to her writings, to their excellences and their defects, that the duty of a moral teacher was always uppermost in her mind. Her aim was not to display her own talents, but to make her readers substantially better and happier, to show how easy and agreeable to practice are high principles. Again and again she insists, with irrefragable force, that it is the ordinary and attainable qualities of life rather than the lofty and heroic ones on which our substantial happiness depends, an insistance new in the domain of fiction, which as a rule preaches other doctrines. With this end in view she had necessarily to sacrifice some freedom and grace of invention to ill.u.s.trate her moral aphorisms, her salutary truths, and she yielded to the temptation to exaggerate in order to make her work more impressive.

Her _Moral Tales_ are a series of climaces of instances, an enlargement of La Bruyere's idea, a method allowable to creations of fancy, but not quite justifiable when applied to the probable. Moreover, it was a feature of the eighteenth century, to which in many respects Miss Edgeworth belonged, that its tales and novels were not a.n.a.lytic.

Psychology based upon biology was as yet unknown, or in so empirical a stage as to be remote from practical application. The writers of those days depict their characters not as the complex bundles of good and bad qualities and potentialities that even the veriest scribbler paints them to-day, but as sharply good or bad, so that one flaw of character, one vice, one folly, was made to be the origin of all their disasters. It is, of course, always dangerous when the author plays the part of Providence, and can twist the narrative to suit the moral; but this censure applies to all moral tales, by no matter whom. Miss Edgeworth strove to civilize and instruct by the rehearsal of a tale, and if we all, from the perversity of human nature, rather revolt against being talked to for our good, it must ever be added in her praise that she generally allures us and makes us listen to her maxims of right living.

Her self-imposed task was neither humble nor easy, but one that required judgment, patience and much knowledge of the world; her moral wholesomeness cannot be rated too highly or be too much commended. If she ascribed too large a share of morality to the head instead of the heart, this was the result of the doctrines with which her father had imbued her.

The most successful of the _Moral Tales_ is beyond question _Angelina_.

Its moral is not obtrusive, its fable is well constructed, the tale is told with point, spirit, gentle but incisive satire. The sentimental young lady, a female Don Quixote, roaming the world in search of an unknown friend whose acquaintance she has made solely through the medium of her writings, is a genus that is not extinct. Never has Miss Edgeworth been happier than here, when she combats her heroine's errors, not by serious arguments, but with the shafts of ridicule. The tale is a gem. _Forester_, on the other hand, for which Mr. Edgeworth claims that it is a male version of the same character, does not strike us in that light, nor is it as perfect in conception or execution. The character of the eccentric youth who scorns the common forms of civilized society, and is filled with visionary schemes of benevolence and happiness, was based, it would seem, upon that of Mr. Day, and, as a portrait, was doubtless a happy one. But the hero fails to interest, his aberrations are simply foolish, the means whereby he is redeemed too mechanical and crude, the whole both too detailed and too much condensed to hold our attention or to seem probable. _The Good French Governess_ embodies the Edgeworthian mode of giving lessons, which was to make them pleasures, not tasks, to the pupils; maxims now universally recognized and practiced, but new in the days when for little children there were no pleasant roads to learning in the shape of _kindergarten_. _The Good Aunt_ insists upon the necessity of home example and instruction, the lack of which no school training can supply. It is the weakest of all the tales, and verges dangerously upon the namby-pamby. _Mademoiselle Panache_, according to Mr. Edgeworth, is "a sketch of the necessary consequences of imprudently trusting the happiness of a daughter to the care of those who can teach nothing but accomplishments;" but which, according to most readers, will be p.r.o.nounced the melancholy result of an ignorance that could mistake an illiterate French milliner for an accomplished French governess. It is unjust to lay the results of the tuition of such a personage to the charge of that favorite scape-goat--the frivolity of the French nation. _The Prussian Vase_, a tale, again according to Mr. Edgeworth, "designed princ.i.p.ally for young gentlemen who are intended for the bar," is a pretty but apocryphal anecdote attributed to Frederic the Great, of a nature impossible to the mental bias of that enlightened despot. It is, moreover, an eulogium of the English mode of trial by jury.

Taken as a whole, these tales may be said to enforce the doctrine that unhappiness is more often the result of defects of character than of external circ.u.mstances. Like all Miss Edgeworth's writings, they found instant favor and were translated into French and German. With no desire to detract from their merits, we cannot avoid the inference that this circ.u.mstance points to a great lack of contemporary foreign fiction of a pure and attractive kind.

CHAPTER VII.

IN FRANCE AND AT HOME.

The peace, or rather the truce, of Amiens had induced many travellers to visit France. They all returned enraptured with what they had seen of society in Paris, and with the masterpieces of art dragged thither, as the spoils of military despotism. Letters from some of these tourists awakened in Mr. Edgeworth a wish to revisit France. The desire took shape as resolve after the visit to Edgeworthstown of M. Pictet, of Geneva, who promised the family letters of introduction to, and a cordial welcome among, the thinkers of the land. As translator of _Practical Education_, and as the editor of the _Bibliotheque Britannique_,[5] in which he had published most of Miss Edgeworth's _Moral Tales_, and detailed criticisms of both father and daughter, he had certainly prepared the way for their favorable reception. The tour was therefore arranged for the autumn of 1802, a roomy coach was purchased, and in September Mr., Mrs., Miss and Miss Charlotte Edgeworth started for their continental trip.

The series of letters Miss Edgeworth wrote home during this time are most entertaining, unaffected, sprightly and graphic. She often sketches a character, a national peculiarity, with a touch, while on the other hand she does not s.h.i.+rk detail if only she can succeed in presenting a vivid picture of all she is beholding to those dear ones at home who are debarred from the same enjoyment. Carnarvon, Bangor, Etruria and Leicester were visited on the way out. At Leicester Miss Edgeworth had an amusing adventure:--

Handsome town, good shops. Walked, whilst dinner was getting ready, to a circulating library. My father asked for _Belinda_, _Bulls_, etc.: found they were in good repute; _Castle Rackrent_ in better--the others often borrowed, but _Castle Rackrent_ often bought. The bookseller, an open-hearted man, begged us to look at a book of poems just published by a Leicester lady, a Miss Watts. I recollected to have seen some years ago a specimen of this lady's proposed translation of Ta.s.so, which my father had highly admired.

He told the bookseller that we would pay our respects to Miss Watts if it would be agreeable to her. When we had dined we set out with our enthusiastic bookseller. We were shown by the light of a lantern along a very narrow pa.s.sage between high walls, to the door of a decent-looking house: a maid-servant, candle in hand, received us. "Be pleased, ladies, to walk up stairs." A neatish room, nothing extraordinary in it except the inhabitants: Mrs.

Watts, a tall, black-eyed, prim, dragon-looking woman, in the background; Miss Watts, a tall young lady in white, fresh color, fair, thin, oval face, rather pretty. The moment Mrs. Edgeworth entered, Miss Watts, taking her for the auth.o.r.ess, darted forward with arms, long thin arms, outstretched to their, utmost swing.

"Oh, what an honor this is!" each word and syllable rising in tone till the last reached a scream. Instead of embracing my mother, as her first action threatened, she started back to the farthest end of the room, which was not light enough to show her att.i.tude distinctly, but it seemed to be intended to express the receding of awestruck admiration--stopped by the wall. Charlotte and I pa.s.sed by unnoticed, and seated ourselves, by the old lady's desire; she, after many twistings of her wrists, elbows and neck, all of which appeared to be dislocated, fixed herself in her arm-chair, resting her hands on the black mahogany splayed elbows. Her person was no sooner at rest than her eyes and all her features began to move in all directions. She looked like a nervous and suspicious person electrified. She seemed to be the acting partner in this house, to watch over her treasure of a daughter, to supply her with wordly wisdom, to look upon her as a phoenix, and--scold her.

Miss Watts was all ecstasy and lifting up of hands and eyes, speaking always in that loud, shrill, theatrical tone with which a puppet-master supplies his puppets. I all the time sat like a mouse. My father asked, "Which of those ladies, madam, do you think is your sister-auth.o.r.ess?" "I am no physiognomist"--in a screech--"but I do imagine that to be the lady," bowing, as she sat, almost to the ground, and pointing to Mrs. Edgeworth. "No; guess again." "Then that must be she," bowing to Charlotte. "No."

"Then this lady," looking forward to see what sort of an animal I was, for she had never seen me till this instant. To make me some amends, she now drew her chair close to me and began to pour forth praises: "Lady Delacour, oh! _Letters for Literary Ladies_, oh!"

Now for the pathetic part. This poor girl sold a novel in four volumes for ten guineas to Lane. My father is afraid, though she has considerable talents, to recommend her to Johnson, lest she should not answer! Poor girl! what a pity she had no friend to direct her talents! How much she made me feel the value of mine!

After a trip through the Low Countries, the travellers entered France and received many civilities in all the towns they pa.s.sed through, thanks to the fact that the _Bibliotheque Britannique_ was taken in every public library. At Paris the Edgeworths were admitted into the best society of the period, which consisted of the remains of the French n.o.bility, and of men of letters and science. The old Abbe Morellet, "respected as one of the most _reasonable_ of all the wits of France,"

the _doyen_ of French literature, was a previous acquaintance. By his introductions and those of M. Pictet, added to the prestige of their own names and their relations.h.i.+p to the Abbe Edgeworth, the most exclusive houses were opened to the family, and they thus became acquainted with every one worth knowing, among whom were La Harpe, Madame de Genlis, Kosciusko, Madame Recamier, the Comte de Segur, Dumont, Suard, Camille Jordan. In all circles the subject of politics was carefully avoided; the company held themselves aloof, and wilfully ignored the important issues that were surging around them; their conversation turned chiefly on new plays, novels and critical essays. As is usual in such small circles with limited interests, a good deal of mutual admiration was practiced, and the Edgeworths received their due share.

At the Abbe Morellet's Miss Edgeworth met Madame d'Oudinot, Rousseau's "Julie." This is her impression:--

Julie is now seventy-two years of age, a thin woman in a little black bonnet; she appeared to me shockingly ugly; she squints so much that it is impossible to tell which way she is looking; but no sooner did I hear her speak than I began to like her, and no sooner was I seated beside her than I began to find in her countenance a most benevolent and agreeable expression. She entered into conversation immediately; her manner invited and could not fail to obtain confidence. She seems as gay and open-hearted as a girl of fifteen. It has been said of her that she not only never did any harm, but never suspected any. She is possessed of that art which Lord Kaimes said he would prefer to the finest gift from the queen of the fairies: the art of seizing the best side of every object.

She has had great misfortunes, but she has still retained the power of making herself and her friends happy. Even during the horrors of the Revolution, if she met with a flower, a b.u.t.terfly, an agreeable smell, a pretty color, she would turn her attention to these, and for a moment suspend the sense of misery--not from frivolity, but from real philosophy. No one has exerted themselves with more energy in the service of her friends. I felt in her company the delightful influence of a cheerful temper and soft, attractive manners--enthusiasm which age cannot extinguish, and which spends, but does not waste itself on small but not trifling objects. I wish I could at seventy-two be such a woman! She told me that Rousseau, whilst he was writing so finely on education, and leaving his own children in the Foundling Hospital, defended himself with so much eloquence that even those who blamed him in their hearts could not find tongues to answer him. Once at dinner at Madame d'Oudinot's there was a fine pyramid of fruit. Rousseau in helping himself took the peach which formed the base of the pyramid, and the rest fell immediately. "Rousseau," said she, "that is what you always do with all our systems; you pull down with a single touch; but who will build up what you pull down?" I asked if he was grateful for all the kindness shown to him. "No, he was ungrateful; he had a thousand bad qualities, but I turned my attention from them to his genius and the good he had done mankind."

La Harpe was visited in his own home:--

He lives in a wretched house, and we went up dirty stairs, through dirty pa.s.sages, where I wondered how fine ladies' trains and noses could go; and were received in a dark, small den by the philosopher, or rather _devot_, for he spurns the name of philosopher. He was in a dirty, reddish night-gown, and very dirty night-cap bound round the forehead with a superlatively dirty, chocolate-colored ribbon. Madame Recamier, the beautiful, the elegant, robed in white satin, trimmed with white fur, seated herself on the elbow of his arm-chair, and besought him to repeat his verses. Charlotte has drawn a picture of this scene.

An interesting visit was also paid to Madame de Genlis:--

She had previously written to say she would be glad to be personally acquainted with Mr. and Miss Edgeworth. She lives--where do you think?--where Sully used to live, at the a.r.s.enal. Bonaparte has given her apartments there. Now, I do not know what you imagine in reading Sully's memoirs, but I always imagined that the a.r.s.enal was one large building with a facade to it, like a very large hotel or a palace, and I fancied it was somewhere in the middle of Paris.

On the contrary, it is quite in the suburbs. We drove on and on, and at last we came to a heavy archway, like what you see at the entrance to a fortified town. We drove under it for the length of three or four yards in total darkness, and then we found ourselves, as well as we could see by the light of some dim lamps, in a large square court surrounded by buildings: here we thought we were to alight. No such thing: the coachman drove under another thick archway, lighted at the entrance by a single lamp. We found ourselves in another court, and still we went on, archway after archway, court after court, in all which reigned desolate silence.

I thought the archways and the courts and the desolate silence would never end. At last the coachman stopped, and asked for the tenth time where the lady lived. It is excessively difficult to find people in Paris; we thought the names of Madame de Genlis and the a.r.s.enal would have been sufficient; but the whole of this congregation of courts and gateways and houses is called the a.r.s.enal; and hundreds and hundreds of people inhabit it who are probably perfect strangers to Madame de Genlis. At the doors where our coachman inquired, some answered that they knew nothing of her; some that she lived in the Faubourg St. Germain; others believed that she might be at Pa.s.sy; others had heard that she had apartments given to her by the Government somewhere in the a.r.s.enal, but could not tell where. While the coachman thus begged his way, we, anxiously looking out at him from the middle of the great square where we were left, listened for the answers that were given, and which often from the distance escaped our ears. At last a door pretty near to us opened, and our coachman's head and hat were illuminated by the candle held by the person who opened the door; and as the two figures parted from each other, we could distinctly see the expression of the countenances and their lips move. The result of this parley was successful; we were directed to the house where Madame de Genlis lived, and thought all difficulties ended. No such thing; her apartments were still to be sought for. We saw before us a large, crooked, ruinous stone staircase, lighted by a single bit of candle hanging in a vile tin lantern, in an angle of the bare wall at the turn of the staircase--only just light enough to see that the walls were bare and old, and the stairs immoderately dirty. There were no signs of the place being inhabited except this lamp, which could not have been lighted without hands. I stood still in melancholy astonishment, while my father groped his way into a kind of porter's lodge or den at the foot of the stairs, where he found a man who was porter to various people who inhabited this house. You know the Parisian houses are inhabited by hordes of different people, and the stairs are in fact streets, and dirty streets, to their dwellings. The porter, who was neither obliging nor intelligent, carelessly said that "_Madame de Genlis logeait au seconde a gauche, qu'il faudrait tirer sa sonnette_"--he believed she was at home if she was not gone out. Up we went by ourselves, for this porter, though we were strangers and pleaded that we were so, never offered to stir a step to guide or to light us. When we got to the second stage, we finally saw, by the light from the one candle at the first landing-place, two dirty, large folding doors, one set on the right and one on the left, and having on each a bell no larger than what you see in the small parlor of a small English inn. My father pulled one bell and waited some minutes--no answer; pulled the other bell and waited--no answer; thumped at the left door--no answer; pushed and pulled at it--could not open it; pushed open one of the right-hand folding doors--utter darkness; went in as well as we could feel--there was no furniture. After we had been there a few seconds we could discern the bare walls and some strange lumber in one corner. The room was a prodigious height, like an old play-house, and we went down again to the stupid or surly porter. He came up stairs very unwillingly, and pointed to a deep recess between the stairs and the folding doors: "_Allez!

voila la porte; tirez la sonnette._" He and his candle went down, and my father had just time to seize the handle of the bell, when we were again in darkness. After ringing this feeble bell, we presently heard doors open and little footsteps approaching nigh.

The door was opened by a girl of about Honora's size, holding an ill-set-up, wavering candle in her hand, the light of which fell full upon her face and figure. Her face was remarkably intelligent, dark, sparkling eyes, dark hair, curled in the most fas.h.i.+onable long corkscrew ringlets over her eyes and cheeks. She parted the ringlets to take a full view of us, and we were equally impatient to take a full view of her. The dress of her figure by no means suited the head and the elegance of her att.i.tude. What her "nether weeds" might be we could not distinctly see, but they seemed to be a coa.r.s.e, short petticoat, like what Molly Bristow's children would wear, not on Sundays; a woolen gray spencer above, pinned with a single pin by the lapels tight across the neck under the chin, and open all below. After surveying us and hearing that our name was Edgeworth, she smiled graciously and bid us follow her, saying, "_Maman est chez elle._" She led the way with the grace of a young lady who has been taught to dance, across two ante-chambers, miserable-looking, but miserable or not, no house in Paris can be without them. The girl or young lady, for we were still in doubt which to think her, led us into a small room, in which the candles were so well screened by a green tin screen that we could scarcely distinguish the tall form of a lady in black who rose from her arm-chair by the fireside as the door opened; a great puff of smoke came from the huge fireplace at the same moment. She came forward, and we made our way towards her as well as we could through a confusion of tables, chairs and work-baskets, china, writing-desks and inkstands, and bird-cages and a harp. She did not speak, and as her back was now turned to both fire and candle I could not see her face, nor anything but the outline of her form and her att.i.tude. Her form was the remains of a fine form, and her att.i.tude that of a woman used to a better drawing-room. I, being foremost, and she silent, was compelled to speak to the figure in darkness: "_Madame de Genlis nous a fait l'honneur de nous mander qu'elle voulait bien nous permettre de lui rendre visite, et de lui offrir nos respects_," said I, or words to that effect; to which she replied by taking my hand, and saying something in which "_charmee_" was the most intelligible word. Whilst she spoke she looked over my shoulder at my father, whose bow, I presume, told her he was a gentleman, for she spoke to him immediately as if she wished to please, and seated us in fauteuils near the fire. I then had a full view of her face and figure. She looked like the full-length picture of my great-grandmother Edgeworth you may have seen in the garret, very thin and melancholy, but her face not so handsome as my grandmother's; dark eyes, long sallow cheeks, compressed thin lips, two or three black ringlets on a high forehead, a cap that Mrs. Grier might wear--altogether an appearance of fallen fortunes, worn-out health, and excessive but guarded irritability. To me there was nothing of that engaging, captivating manner which I had been taught to expect by many even of her enemies. She seemed to me to be alive only to literary quarrels and jealousies; the muscles of her face as she spoke, or my father spoke to her, quickly and too easily expressed hatred and anger whenever any not of her own party were mentioned. She is now, you know, _devote acharnee_. When I mentioned with some enthusiasm the good Abbe Morellet, who has written so courageously in favor of the French exiled n.o.bility and their children, she answered in a sharp voice: "_Oui, c'est un homme de beaucoup d'esprit, a ce qu'on je crois meme, mais il faut apprendre qu'il n'est pas des Notres._"

My father spoke of Pamela, Lady Edward Fitzgerald, and explained how he had defended her in the Irish House of Commons. Instead of being pleased and touched, her mind instantly diverged into an elaborate and artificial exculpation of Lady Edward and herself, proving, or attempting to prove, that she never knew any of her husband's plans; that she utterly disapproved of them, at least of all she suspected of them.

This defense was quite lost upon us, who never thought of attacking; but Madame de Genlis seems to have been so much used to be attacked that she has defenses and apologies ready prepared, suited to all possible occasions. She spoke of Madame de Stael's _Delphine_ with detestation; of another new and fas.h.i.+onable novel, _Amelie_, with abhorrence, and kissed my forehead twice because I had not read it; "_Vous autres Anglaises, vous etes modestes!_"

Where was Madame de Genlis' sense of delicacy when she penned and published _Les Chevaliers du Cigne?_ Forgive, my dear Aunt Mary.

You begged me to see her with favorable eyes, and I went to see her after seeing her _Rosiere de Salency_, with the most favorable disposition, but I could not like her. There was something of malignity in her countenance and conversation that repelled love, and of hypocrisy which annihilated esteem; and from time to time I saw, or thought I saw, through the gloom of her countenance, a gleam of coquetry.[6] But my father judges much more favorably of her than I do. She evidently took pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person over whose mind he could gain great ascendancy. He thinks her a woman of violent pa.s.sions, unbridled imagination and ill-tempered, but not malevolent; one who has been so torn to pieces that she now turns upon her enemies, and longs to tear in her turn. He says she has certainly great powers of pleasing, though I certainly neither saw nor felt them. But you know, my dear aunt, that I am not famous for judging sanely of strangers on a first visit, and I might be prejudiced or mortified by Madame de Genlis a.s.suring me that she had never read anything of mine except _Belinda_, had heard of _Practical Education_, and heard it much praised, but had never seen it. She has just published an additional volume of her _Pet.i.ts Romans_, in which there are some beautiful stories; but you must not expect another _Mademoiselle de Clermont_--one such story in an age is as much as one can reasonably expect.

I had almost forgotten to tell you that the little girl who showed us in is a girl whom she is educating. "_Elle m'appelle Maman, mais elle n'est pas ma fille._" The manner in which this little girl spoke to Madame de Genlis, and looked at her, appeared to me more in her favor than anything else. She certainly spoke to her with freedom and fondness, and without any affectation. I went to look at what the child was writing. She was translating Darwin's _Zoonomia_. I read some of the translation; it was excellent. She was, I think she said, ten years old. It is certain that Madame de Genlis made the present Duke of Orleans[7] such an excellent mathematician, that when he was, during his emigration, in distress for bread, he taught mathematics as a professor in one of the German universities. If we could see or converse with one of her pupils, and hear what they think of her, we should be able to form a better judgment than from all that her books and her enemies say for or against her. I say her books, not her friends and enemies, for I fear she has no friends to plead for her except her books. I never met any one of any party who was her friend. This strikes me with real melancholy, to see a woman of the first talents in Europe, who had lived and shone in the gay court of the gayest nation in the world, now deserted and forlorn, living in wretched lodgings, with some of the pictures and finery--the wreck of her fortunes--before her eyes; without society, without a single friend, admired--and despised. She lived literally in spite, not in pity. Her cruelty in drawing a profligate character of the queen, after her execution, in _Les Chevaliers du Cigne_; her taking her pupils at the beginning of the Revolution to the revolutionary clubs; her connection with the late Duke of Orleans, and her hypocrisy about it; her insisting on being governess to his children when the d.u.c.h.ess did not wish it, and its being supposed that it was she who instigated the duke in all his horrible conduct; and, more than all the rest, her own attacks and apologies, have brought her into all this isolated state of reprobation. And now, my dear aunt, I have told you all I know, or have heard or think about her; and perhaps I have tired you, but I fancied that it was a subject particularly interesting to you; and if I have been mistaken you will, with your usual good nature, forgive me and say, "I am sure Maria meant it kindly."

While at Paris, at the mature age of thirty-six, there happened to Miss Edgeworth what is said to be the most important episode in a woman's life--she fell in love. The object of her affections was a M.

Edelcrantz, a Swede, private secretary to the King, whose strong, spirited character and able conversation attracted her greatly. She had not, however, reasoned concerning her feelings, and never realized either how strong they were, or dreamed that they would be reciprocated.

Knowing herself to be plain and, as she deemed, unattractive, and being no longer young, it did not occur to her that any man would wish to marry her. While writing a long, chatty letter to her aunt one day in December, she was suddenly interrupted by his visit and proposal:--