THE WIDOW AND HER TWO DAUGHTERS.
La Veuve et ses Deux Filles is better known by the title of Blanche and Vermillion, under which it has been frequently printed, and was also produced on the French stage by Mons. Florian, in March, 1781. The moral of the story is declared by the Fairy to be that excessively trite and common-place axiom, that happiness consists in content, or, in the words of the author, the possession of things only that are necessary without wishing for more; but the author forgot to show us that Blanche was discontented. It does not appear that she wished for superfluities, or to be a "great Queen," or that such an idea ever entered her head till the Fairy promised her she should become one, "not to reward," but "to punish," her for begrudging to give away her plums. Poor Blanche is therefore made an unhappy queen; her low birth renders her an object of contempt at Court; the King is a worthless person, who neglects the innocent girl his passion induced him to place upon his throne, and who is the mother of his children; and at length the miserable wife exclaims that "happiness is not to be found in magnificent palaces but in the innocent occupations of the country." Now this is foolish—it is worse, for it is false and injurious. There is as much happiness in palaces and on thrones, thank God, as there is in cottages. The occupations of a virtuous sovereign are as innocent as those of a husbandman, while the power to do good, existing with the will, must make the balance of happiness greatly in favour of the former. The cares of State are burdensome enough, no doubt, and the more conscientious the monarch, the weightier the sense of responsibility; but has the countryman no cares, no sorrows, no vices? The legal occupations of all classes are "innocent." Is it only kings and nobles who yield to temptations or indulge in the evil propensities of our common nature? There has been too much of this fallacy infused into what are called moral stories, and at the risk of being accused of breaking a butterfly on the wheel, I have singled out this particular instance, as Blanche and Vermillion is to be found in almost every child's story-book. That the author's intention was laudable, I do not doubt; but to read a wholesome lesson, she should have shown Blanche to have been discontented with the lot assigned to her by Providence, pining to mix in society for which she was neither fitted by birth nor education, and dreaming that happiness consisted solely in rank, wealth, and luxury. The moral should have been, not that such possessions were incompatible with virtue and happiness, but that their owners were not exempted from the frailties and sufferings of humanity, and that unequal marriages were rarely fortunate ones. All this, it will be said, she might mean, but it is not evident; and the only impression made upon a child's mind by this story, if any impression can be made by it whatever, is the very absurd and objectionable one, that all kings and queens are wicked and unhappy, and all farmers and dairy-maids virtuous and contented.