Maria Edgeworth

by Helen Zimmern

The moral is not insisted on, but is allowed to speak for itself, and is on that account far more eloquent.

Except when dealing with Irish scenes, Miss Edgeworth is never happier than when painting the perverse or intriguing fine ladies of society, who, having no real troubles or anxieties to occupy them, shielded from the physical evils of existence, make to themselves others, and find occupation for their empty heads and hours, with results put before us so simply, and devoid of euphemism, by Dr. Watts. Well indeed has the proverb said, "An empty mind is the devil's house." In her kindly way Miss Edgeworth can be scathing, and she exercises this power upon women of mere fashion. The ladies of the period were less occupied with public and philanthropic schemes than they are now, and hence had more time to expend on follies and frivolities. The whole pitiful system of unreal existence led by these women is exposed with an almost remorseless hand, for Miss Edgeworth had no tenderness for foolish failings. Inimitably, too, we are made to see how then, as now, there was tolerated in fashionable society a degree of vulgarity which would neither be suffered nor attempted in lower life. It was just because Miss Edgeworth's lines were cast among the rich and idle that she was able to understand all the misery and heartlessness of the lives of a large section of this community. We see how their petty cravings, their preposterous pursuits, bring positive misery on themselves if not on others; how their dispositions are sophisticated, their tempers warped, their time and talents wasted, in their restless chase after social distinction, after the craze of being in the fashion. "The scourges of the prosperous;" thus happily have these giant curses of mere fashionable life been defined. Miss Edgeworth certainly understood fully the nature of the disorder of her patients, the ennui, the stagnation of life and feeling that devoured them and sunk many of them at last to a depth at which they no longer merited the name of rational human beings. At the same time (and this is a point which must be insisted upon) there is no sourness about Miss Edgeworth's pictures of good society; her pen, in speaking of it, is not dipped in vinegar and wormwood, as was the pen of Thackeray, and sometimes even that of George Eliot. Without snobbishness, without envy, she writes quite simply, and absolutely objectively, of that which surged around her whenever she left the quiet of Edgeworthstown and visited in some of the many noble houses of Ireland, Scotland and England, in which she was a familiar friend. That her pictures of contemporary society were correct has never been disputed. She reproduced faithfully not only its coarser and silly side, but also the more brilliant conversational features, that make it contrast so favorably with that of our own day, in which the art of talking has been lost. Lord Jeffrey, an authority, and one not given to flattery, says that Miss Edgeworth need not be afraid of being excelled in "that faithful but flattering representation of the spoken language of persons of wit and politeness—in that light and graceful tone of raillery and argument, and in that gift of sportive but cutting médisance which is sure of success in those circles where success is supposed to be most difficult and desirable." In support of his statement he points to the conversation of Lady Delacour (Belinda), Lady Dashfort (Absentee) and Lady Geraldine (Ennui).

The first series of Tales from Fashionable Life met with so much favor that the publisher clamored for more. Some were lying ready, others had to be written, but in 1812 Miss Edgeworth was able to issue a second series, containing three stories, of which one, The Absentee, ranks worthily beside Castle Rackrent as a masterpiece. The evils this story sought to expose came daily under Miss Edgeworth's observation; she beheld the Irish landed gentry forsake their homes and their duties in order to go to London and cut a figure in fashionable society, spending beyond their means, oblivious of the state of home affairs, and merely regarding their properties as good milch kine. How their unfortunate tenants were ground down in order to meet these claims they neither knew nor cared. Lord and Lady Clonbrony, the absentees, are drawn with vivid touches: she is devoured by ambition to shine in a society for which she is not fitted, and voluntarily submits to any humiliations and rebuffs, any sacrifices, to attain this end; he, uprooted from his wonted surroundings, cannot acclimatize himself to new ones, and, merely to pass his time, sinks into the vices of gaming and betting. Lady Clonbrony affects a contempt for her native land and pretends she is not Irish. As, however, she cannot rid herself of an Irish pronunciation and Irish phrases, she is constantly placed in the dilemma of holding her tongue and appearing yet more foolish than she is; or, by mistaking reverse of wrong for right, so caricaturing the English pronunciation that thus alone she betrayed herself not to be English. In vain, too, this lady struggles to school her free, good-natured Irish manner into the cold, sober, stiff deportment she deems English. The results to which all this gives rise are delineated with consummate skill and good-humored satire. The scenes that occur in London society are highly diverting, but the story gains in deeper interest when it shifts to Ireland, whither Lady Clonbrony drives her only son, Lord Colambre, whom she has sought to marry against his will to an English heiress. Unknown to his tenants, from whom he has so long been absent, and further purposely disguised in order to elicit the truth concerning certain unfavorable rumors that have reached his ears, Lord Colambre is a witness of the oppressions under which his tenants labor from an unscrupulous and rapacious agent, who feels secure in his master's absence, and in that master's indifference to all but the money result of his estate. Charmingly is the Irish character here described; we see it in its best phases, with all its kindliness, wit, generosity. There are elements of simple pathos scattered about this story. With delicate and playful humor we are shown the heroic and imaginative side of the Irish peasantry. We quite love the kindly old woman who kills her last fowl to furnish supper to the stranger, whom she does not know to be her landlord. On the other hand we are amused beyond measure with Mrs. Rafferty, the Dublin grocer's wife and parvenue, who, in the absence of those who should have upheld Irish society, is able to make that dash that Lady Clonbrony vainly seeks to make in London. Her mixture of taste and incongruity, finery and vulgarity, affectation and ignorance, is delightful. The dinner-party scene at her house would make the reputation of many a modern novelist. It was a dinner of profusion and pretension, during which Mrs. Rafferty toiled in vain to conceal the blunders of her two untrained servants, who were expected to do the work of five accomplished waiters, talking high art meanwhile to her lordly guest, and occasionally venting her ill humor at the servants' blunders upon her unfortunate husband, calling out so loud that all the table could hear, "Corny Rafferty, Corny Rafferty, you're no more gud at the fut of my table than a stick of celery!" As for the scene in which Lord Colambre discovers himself to his tenantry and to their oppressor, Macaulay has ventured to pronounce it the best thing written of its kind since the opening of the twenty-second book of the Odyssey. No mean authority and no mean praise! As a story it is certainly one of the best contrived, and the end is particularly happy. Instead of a tedious moral there is a racy letter from the post-boy who drove Lord Colambre, and who paints, with true Hibernian vivacity and some delicious malaprops, the ultimate return of the Clonbrony family to their estate, which, to the optimistic Irish mind, represents the end of all their troubles and the inauguration of a new era of prosperity and justice. For one thing, it is so much more in keeping that an uncultured peasant, rather than a thoughtful and philosophical mind, should believe in so simple a solution to evils of long standing; that what we should have felt an error in Miss Edgeworth becomes right and natural in Larry. The suggestion for this conclusion came from Mr. Edgeworth, and he wrote a letter for the purpose. Miss Edgeworth, however, wrote one too, and her father so much preferred hers that it was chosen to form the admirable finale to the Absentee.

What perfect self-control Miss Edgeworth possessed may be judged from the fact that the whole of the Absentee, so full of wit and spirit, was written in great part while she was suffering agonies from toothache. Only by keeping her mouth full of some strong lotion could she in any way allay the pain, yet her family state that never did she write with more rapidity and ease. Her even-handed justice, her stern love of truth, are markedly shown in this novel. She does not exaggerate for the sake of strengthening her effects; thus, for example, she does not make all her agents bad, as some writers would have done; indeed, one is a very model middle-man. She is always far more careful to be true than to be effective, she uses the sober colors of reality, she paints with no tints warmer than life. The chief and abiding merit of her Irish scenes is not that of describing what had not been described before, but of describing well what had been described ill.

Vivian was written with extreme care and by no means with the same rapidity, yet it cannot be compared to the Absentee. Here Miss Edgeworth was once more clogged by her purpose and unable for a moment to lose sight of it. "I have put my head and shoulders to the business," she writes to her cousin, "and if I don't make a good story of it, it shall not be for want of pains." It proved no easy task, and only the fact that her father so much approved it, upheld her. "My father says Vivian will stand next to Mrs. Beaumont and Ennui. I have ten days' more work on it, and then huzza! ten days' more purgatory at other corrections, and then a heaven upon earth of idleness and reading, which is my idleness." Vivian is a particularly aggravating story, so excellent that it is hard to comprehend why it is not of that first-class merit which it just seems to miss. Its aim is to illustrate the evils and perplexities that arise from vacillation and infirmity of purpose, and it is rather a series of incidents than one well-rounded plot. Miss Edgeworth loves to paint, not an episode in life, but the history of a whole life-career. This permits her to trace out those gradual evolutions of some fault of character in which she displays such consummate ability, such precision and metaphysical subtlety. The hero, Vivian, a man of good disposition, but lacking firmness of purpose, cannot say "no," while at the same time he has all the spirit of opposition which seems to go hand in hand with weak characters, and is by them mistaken for resolution. The faults, the errors, the griefs, this trait of character leads him into are the staple of the story, which ends mournfully, since Vivian's inability to cure himself of his fault finally leads to his own death in a duel. He has not inaptly been named "a domestic Hamlet." Like Hamlet, he is neither able to accommodate himself to life as it is, nor strong enough to strike out a new life on his own account. The tale abounds in clever pictures of aristocratic and political society, and is full of the intrigues, the petty meannesses of social leaders. As usual, the moral instances are both striking and amusing, reason and ridicule being mixed in those just proportions that Miss Edgeworth knew how to blend so happily. A serious defect is undoubtedly the fact that it is not possible to care for the hero, and hence we grow rather indifferent to his good or ill fortune, and after a while are weary of the undoubted skill and perverted ingenuity with which he apologizes for his vacillation. On the other hand, as ever with Miss Edgeworth, the subordinate characters are throughout excellent, drawn with force and life-like power. Lord Glistonbury alone would redeem the book from the possibility of being dull. This talkative, conceited man, of neither principle nor understanding, who chatters adopted opinions and original nonsense, who loves to hear himself speak, and believes he is uttering great things, is a distinct creation.

The story of Madame de Fleury is slight in texture. It relates the experience of a rich and benevolent French lady who conducts a school for poor children after the Edgeworth type, and is rather a transcript from real life than a tale. Formal and conventional though it is, however, it was never wholly possible to Miss Edgeworth to belie her genius. Invariably she introduces some character, trait or observation that redeems even a dull tale from condemnation. In this case it is the delicate skill with which is depicted the gradual decline in character of Manon, who from an unconscientious child becomes a bold, unscrupulous woman. It was in penning Madame de Fleury that Miss Edgeworth encountered the difficulty she had observed of making truth and fiction mix well together. Emilie de Coulanges is the too correctly virtuous and rather colorless daughter of a refugee French countess, whose provoking character is deftly depicted with its selfishness, its self-absorption, that renders her both ungrateful and regardless of the comfort of the English lady who has most generously entertained her at no little personal inconvenience. Unfortunately an irritable temper mars Mrs. Somers' good, generous nature, and causes her to weary out even the affections of those who have most cause to love her. It also renders her suspicious of the probity, the good intentions of her friends. She loves to arouse sentimental quarrels; the bickerings and ultimate reconciliation give her real pleasure, as a form of mental titillation, and she fails to see that, though with her it is all surface, as her real feelings are not aroused, this may not be the case with her victims. Mrs. Somers, who may rank as the true heroine, is a bold yet highly-finished portrait, conceived and executed in Miss Edgeworth's best manner. The countess is little less happy. Miss Edgeworth possessed in a high degree that intuitive judgment of character which is more common in women than in men, and which, when properly exercised, balanced by judgment and matured by experience, explains the success they have met with in the domain of fictitious literature.

Again and again Miss Edgeworth proved the fecund creativeness with which she could delineate the moral and intellectual anatomy of the most varied and various characters. Her personages are animate with life and brightness. Above all else she was an artist in detail, and never more felicitous than when furnishing studies of foible in female form. Of this the Modern Griselda is a notable instance—a brilliant performance, almost too brilliant, for it scintillates with wit and epigrammatic wisdom; it never fails or flags for one little moment, so that at last the reader's attention is in danger of being surfeited by a feast of good things. The fable is the direct opposite to that of the old story of Griselda. In the words of Milton we are shown how it befalls the man

Who to worth in woman over-trusting,

Lets her will rule: restraint she will not brook;

And left to herself, if evil thence ensue,

She first his weak indulgence will accuse.

This the modern Griselda does to her husband's cost and her own. The story is a remarkable evidence of Miss Edgeworth's independence of genius. She showed no weak sympathy with the failings of her sex just because it was her sex, but, like a true friend, held them up to view and pointed them out for correction. Her objectiveness did not insure her, however, from misconstruction. Mrs. Barbauld wrote to her:—

I became very impatient for your Griselda before Johnson thought proper to produce it; need I add we have read it with great pleasure? It is charming, like everything you write, but I can tell you the gentlemen like it better than the ladies, and if you were to be tried by a jury of your own sex I do not know what punishment you might be sentenced to for having betrayed their cause. "The author is one of your own sex; we men have nothing to do but to stand by and laugh," was the remark of a gentleman, no less candid a man than Dr. Aiken: and then the moral (a general moral if I understand it right) that a man must not indulge his wife too much! If I were a new-married woman I do not know whether I would forgive you till you had made the amende honorable by writing something to expose the men. All, however, are unanimous in admiring the sprightliness of the dialogue and the ingenious and varied perverseness of the heroine.