A century of children's books

by Florence V. Barry

The poetical language of this hermit, so unlike Crusoe’s plain story, suggests the influence of Saint Pierre, whose descriptions of scenery were more elaborate but less vigorous than Rousseau’s. “Feathered Choristers” entertain him “with melodious harmony;” Nature “puts on her gay enamelled garb and out of her rich wardrobe supplies all vegetables with new vesture.”

In such phrases, the philosophic hermit exalts Solitude at the expense of Society.

There is much unconscious humour in the account of the hermit’s efforts to overcome Nature, for although he has some of Crusoe’s practical ability, he trusts rather to theory. Depressed at the persistent hatred of a tribe of monkeys, for whom he has dug roots, he meditates on its cause, and deciding that he must have forfeited their respect “by hiding the beauty of his fabric under a gaudy disguise”, he discards the irrational garments which distinguish men from monkeys, and presents in his own person Rousseau’s Natural Man.

A friendly monkey, “Beau Fidèle”, plays the part of Friday, and the “surprising tractability and good nature” of this beast, contrasted with the ingratitude of a shipwrecked sailor, strengthen the general argument.

This is how the Philosopher, after fifteen years in his island, apostrophises a ship that suddenly appears:

“Unlucky invention! That thou shouldst ever come into men’s thoughts! The Ark which gave the first notion of a floating habitation, was ordered for the preservation of man, but its fatal copies daily expose him to destruction”; and when the sailors fail to take him off, “despite a sudden impulse to return”, he reflects upon his good fortune in having escaped the world, and counts his own situation happier than theirs. There is, of course, no Footprint in the Sand; yet the tale has romantic features. A child might skip most of the descriptions, but he would remember the white-bearded hermit and his monkey-servant in their hut built of growing trees. Crusoe had no such leaf-tapestry on his walls; and there is a map of Philip Quarll’s island which is a formulary of romantic truth; for in it may be seen (at A) the place where the Hermit was cast away, and at B, the place where Mr. Dorrington (who discovered him) landed; at E, the Hermit’s Lodge, and at K, the lake between the Rock and the Island.

The new Philip Quarll with all its absurdities was better reading for Children than The New Robinson Crusoe (Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere, translated into English from the French in 1788).[93] Crusoe’s ship never carried a heavier cargo than Campe’s tiresome family, who break up the story with their dull colloquies; but the book is a fresh proof that these philosophers had to call in the old masters to enforce their lessons, and could discover no more attractive theme than the old one of voyages and islands.

The English Conversations of Emily appeared in the same year as The Children’s Miscellany. Four years later, Mary Wollstonecraft, full of theories for the better education of girls, assumed the mantle of Madame d’Epinay, or rather placed it on the shoulders of a Representative whom no touch of human weakness could redeem from the hard grip of Reason: Mrs. Mason, a monstrous creation of her own.[94] It would be impossible to paint Mrs. Mason’s portrait. Nothing softer than granite could suggest her outline. Compared with her, Emily’s Mother is all kindness and indulgence. Her two charges, Mary and Caroline, are mere wax tablets whereon she records her impressions of virtue. Their very faults are placed upon them like labels, for Mrs. Mason to remove. Emily, though she was her mother’s “friend”, was a real child, pleased and amused by formal Nature lessons and unimaginative stories, since nothing better might be had; playing with dolls, “jumping, running about and making a noise”.

Mary, in the Original Stories, has to prove that she can “regulate her appetites”, before Mrs. Mason says: “I called her my friend, and she deserved the name, for she was no longer a child.” Mary and Caroline have no mother; Mary Wollstonecraft had no confidence in parents. She called in Mrs. Mason, a sort of moral physician, to make good the defects of a casual up-bringing. Mrs. Mason, true to the tradition d’Epinay, “never suffered them to be out of her sight”. She exhibited every excellence that she exhorted them to attain; and that none of her perfections should escape their notice, she discoursed upon these at intervals. Her success is inevitable and complete. She conducts her pupils through carefully selected experiences; she conducts the reader through the book. She never hesitates or doubts; she never betrays surprise.

The Tales were written “to illustrate the Moral”: it is thus that Mrs. Mason answers “the Ænigma of Creation”. She sees everything, understands everything, explains everything.