Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  A number of experiments have already been tried; let us examine the result. Out of the prodigious number of young women who learn music and drawing, for instance, how many are there, who, after they become mistresses of their own time, and after they have the choice of their own amusements, continue to practise these accomplishments for the pure pleasure of occupation? As soon as a young lady is married, does she not frequently discover, that “she really has not leisure to cultivate talents which take up so much time?” Does she not complain of the labour of practising four or five hours a day to keep up her musical character? What motive has she for perseverance? She is, perhaps, already tired of playing to all her acquaintance. She may really take pleasure in hearing good music; but her own performance will not then please her ear so much as that of many others. She will prefer the more indolent pleasure of hearing the best music that can be heard for money at public concerts. She will then of course leave off playing, but continue very fond of music. How often is the labour of years thus lost for ever!

  Those who have excelled in drawing, do not appear to abandon the occupation so suddenly; it does not demand such an inordinate quantity of time to keep up the talent; the exertion of the imitative powers with apparent success, is agreeable; the employment is progressive, and, therefore, the mind is carried on to complete what has been begun. Independently of all applause, which may be expected for the performance, there is a pleasure in going on with the work. But setting aside enthusiasm and habit, the probability that any sensible person will continue to pursue a given employment, must depend, in a great measure, upon their own conviction of its utility, or of its being agreeable to those whom they wish to please. The pleasure which a lady’s friends receive from her drawings, arises chiefly from the perception of their comparative excellence. Comparative excellence is all to which gentlewomen artists usually pretend, all to which they expect to attain; positive excellence is scarcely attained by one in a hundred. Compared with the performances of other young ladies of their acquaintance, the drawings of Miss X or Y may be justly considered as charming! admirable! and astonishing! But there are few drawings by young ladies which can be compared with those of a professed artist. The wishes of obliging friends are satisfied with a few drawings in handsome frames, to be hung up for the young lady’s credit; and when it is allowed amongst their acquaintance, that she draws in a superior style, the purpose of this part of her education is satisfactorily answered. We do not here speak of those few individuals who really excel in drawing, who have learnt something more than the common routine which is usually learnt from a drawing master, who have acquired an agreeable, talent, not for the mere purpose of exhibiting themselves, but for the sake of the occupation it affords, and the pleasure it may give to their friends. We have the pleasure of knowing some who exactly answer to this description, and who must feel themselves distinct and honourable exceptions to these general observations.

  From whatever cause it arises, we may observe, that after young women are settled in life, their taste for drawing and music gradually declines. For this fact, we can appeal only to the recollection of individuals. We may hence form some estimate of the real value which ought to be put upon what are called accomplishments, considered as occupations. Hence we may also conclude, that parents do not form their judgments from the facts which they see every day in real life; or else may we not infer, that they deceive themselves as to their own motives; and that, amongst the reasons which make them so anxious about the accomplishments of their daughters, there are some secret motives more powerful than those which are usually openly acknowledged?

  It is admitted in the cabinet council of mothers, that some share of the value of accomplishments depends upon the demand for them in the fashionable world. “A young lady,” they say, “is nobody, and nothing, without accomplishments; they are as necessary to her as a fortune: they are indeed considered as part of her fortune, and sometimes are even found to supply the place of it. Next to beauty, they are the best tickets of admission into society which she can produce; and every body knows, that on the company she keeps, depends the chance of a young woman’s settling advantageously in the world.”

  To judge of what will please and attach men of superior sense and characters — we are not quite certain that these are the men who are to be considered first, when we speak of a young lady’s settling advantageously in the world; but we will take this for granted — to judge of what will please and attach men of superior sense and characters, we must observe their actual conduct in life, and listen to their speculative opinions. Superficial accomplishments do not appear to be the objects of their preference. In enumerating the perfections of his wife, or in retracing the progress of his love, does a man of sense dwell upon his mistress’s skill in drawing, or dancing, or music? No. These, he tells you, are extremely agreeable talents, but they could have never attached him; they are subordinate parts in her character; he is angry that you can rank them amongst her perfections; he knows that a thousand women possess these accomplishments, who have never touched his heart. He does not, perhaps, deny, that in Chloe, altogether, they have power to please, but he does not think them essential to her power.

  The opinion of women, who have seen a good deal of the world, is worth attending to upon this subject; especially if we can obtain it when their passions are wholly uninterested in their decision. Whatever may be the judgment of individuals concerning the character and politics of the celebrated Madame Roland, her opinion as a woman of abilities, and a woman who had seen a variety of life, will be thought deserving of attention. Her book was written at a time when she was in daily expectation of death, when she could have no motive to conceal her real sentiments upon any subject. She gives an account of her employments in prison, and, amongst others, mentions music and drawing.

  “I then employed myself in drawing till dinner time. I had so long been out of the habit of using a pencil, that I could not expect to be very dexterous; but we commonly retain the power of repeating with pleasure, or at least of attempting with ease, whatever we have successfully practised in our youth. Therefore the study of the fine arts, considered as a part of female education, should be attended to, much less with a view to the acquisition of superior talents, than with a desire to give women a taste for industry, the habit of application, and a greater variety of employments; for these assist us to escape from ennui, the most cruel disease of civilized society; by these we are preserved from the dangers of vice, and even from those seductions which are far more likely to lead us astray.

  “I would not make my daughter a performer. I remember, that my mother was afraid that I should become a great musician, or that I should have devoted myself entirely to painting: she wished that I should, above all other things, love the duties of my sex: that I should be a good economist, a good mistress, as well as a good mother of a family. I wish my Eudora to be able to accompany her voice agreeably on the harp. I wish that she may play agreeably on the piano-forte; that she may know enough of drawing, to feel pleasure from the sight and from the examination of the finest pictures of the great painters; that she may be able to draw a flower that happens to please her; and that she may unite in her dress elegance and simplicity. I should wish that her talents might be such, that they should neither excite the admiration of others, nor inspire her with vanity; I should wish that she should please by the general effect of her whole character, without ever striking any body with astonishment at first sight; and that she should attach by her good qualities, rather than shine by her accomplishments.”

  Women cannot foresee what may be the tastes of the individuals with whom they are to pass their lives. Their own tastes should not, therefore, be early decided; they should, if possible, be so educated that they may attain any talent in perfection which they may desire, or which their circumstances may render necessary. If, for instance, a woman were to marry a man who was fond of music, or who admired painting, she should be able to cultivate these talents for his amuse
ment and her own. If he be a man of sense and feeling, he will be more pleased with the motive than with the thing that is actually done. But if it be urged, that all women cannot expect to marry men of sense and feeling; and if we are told, that nevertheless they must look to “an advantageous establishment,” we must conclude, that men of rank and fortune are meant by that comprehensive phrase. Another set of arguments must be used to those who speculate on their daughters accomplishments in this line. They have, perhaps, seen some instances of what they call success; they have seen some young women of their acquaintance, whose accomplishments have attracted men of fortune superior to their own; consequently, maternal tenderness is awakened, and many mothers are sanguine in their expectations of the effect of their daughters education. But they forget that every body now makes the same reflections, that parents are, and have been for some years, speculating in the same line; consequently, the market is likely to be overstocked, and, of course, the value of the commodities must fall. Every young lady (and every young woman is now a young lady) has some pretensions to accomplishments. She draws a little; or she plays a little, or she speaks French a little. Even the blue-board boarding schools, ridiculed by Miss Allscript in the Heiress, profess to perfect young ladies in some or all of these necessary parts of education. Stop at any good inn on the London roads, and you will probably find that the landlady’s daughter can show you some of her own framed drawings, can play a tune upon her spinnet, or support a dialogue in French of a reasonable length, in the customary questions and answers. Now it is the practice in high life to undervalue, and avoid as much as possible, every thing which descends to the inferiour classes of society. The dress of to-day is unfashionable to-morrow, because every body wears it. The dress is not preferred because it is pretty or useful, but because it is the distinction of well bred people. In the same manner accomplishments have lost much of that value which they acquired from opinion, since they have become common. They are now so common, that they cannot be considered as the distinguishing characteristics of even a gentlewoman’s education. The higher classes in life, and those individuals who aim at distinction, now establish another species of monopoly, and secure to themselves a certain set of expensive masters in music, drawing, dancing, &c. and they endeavour to believe, and to make others believe, that no one can be well educated without having served an apprenticeship of so many lessons under some of these privileged masters. But it is in vain that they intrench themselves, they are pursued by the intrusive vulgar. In a wealthy, mercantile nation, there is nothing which can be bought for money, which will long continue to be an envied distinction. The hope of attaining to that degree of eminence in the fine arts which really deserves celebrity, becomes every day more difficult to private practitioners, because the number of competitors daily increases; and it is the interest of masters to forward their pupils by every possible means. Both genius and perseverance must now be united to obtain the prize of distinction; and how seldom are they found, or kept together, in the common course of education!

  Considering all these circumstances, is not there some reason to apprehend, that in a few years the taste for several fashionable appendages of female education, may change, and that those will consequently be treated with neglect, who have no other claim to public regard, than their proficiency in what may, perhaps, then be thought vulgar or obsolete accomplishments? Our great grandmothers distinguished themselves by truly substantial tent-work chairs and carpets, by needle-work pictures of Solomon and the queen of Sheba. These were admirable in their day, but their day is over; and these useful, ingenious, and laborious specimens of female talents, are consigned to the garret, or they are produced but as curiosities, to excite wonder at the strange patience and miserable destiny of former generations: the taste for tapestry and embroidery is thus past; the long labours of the loom have ceased. Cloth-work, crape-work, chenille-work, ribbon-work, wafer-work, with a long train of etceteras, have all passed away in our own memory; yet these conferred much evanescent fame, and a proportional quantity of vain emulation. A taste for drawing, or music, cannot be classed with any of these trifling performances; but there are many faded drawings of the present generations, which cannot stand in competition with the glowing and faithful colours of the silk and worsted of former times; and many of the hours spent at a stammering harpsichord, might, surely, with full as much domestic advantage, have been devoted to the embellishment of chairs and carpets. We hope that no one will so perversely misunderstand us, as to infer from these remarks, that we desire to see the revival of old tapestry work; or that we condemn the elegant accomplishments of music and drawing. We condemn only the abuse of these accomplishments; we only wish that they should be considered as domestic occupations, not as matters of competition, or of exhibition, nor yet as the means of attracting temporary admiration. We are not afraid that any, who are really conscious of having acquired accomplishments with these prudent and honourable views, should misapprehend what has been said. Mediocrity may, perhaps, attempt to misrepresent our remarks, and may endeavour to make it appear that we have attacked, and that we would discourage, every effort of female taste and ingenuity in the fine arts; we cannot, therefore, be too explicit in disclaiming such illiberal views.

  We have not yet spoken of dancing, though it is one of the most admired of female accomplishments. This evidently is an amusement, not an occupation; it is an agreeable exercise, useful to the health, and advantageous, as it confers a certain degree of habitual ease and grace. Mr. Locke seems to think, that it gives young people confidence in themselves when they come into company, and that it is, therefore, expedient to teach children early to dance: but there are so many other methods of inspiring young people with this confidence in themselves, that it appears unnecessary to lay much stress upon this argument. If children live in good company, and see constantly people with agreeable manners, they will acquire manners which the dancing master does not always teach; and they will easily vary their forms of politeness with the fashion of the day. Nobody comes into a room regularly as their dancing master taught them to make their entrance; we should think a strict adherence to his lessons ridiculous and awkward in well bred company; therefore much must be left to the discretion and taste of the pupil, after the dancing master has made his last bow. Ease of manners is not always attained by those who have been strictly disciplined by a Vestris, because the lessons are not always practised in precisely the same circumstances in which they were learnt: this confuses and confounds the pupils, and they rather lose than gain confidence in themselves, from perceiving that they cannot immediately apply what they have been taught. But we need not expatiate upon this subject, because there are few parents of good sense, in any rank of life, who will not perceive that their daughter’s manners cannot be formed or polished by a dancing-master. We are not to consider dancing in a grave and moral light; it is an amusement much more agreeable to young people, and much better suited to them in every respect, than cards, or silent assemblies of formal visiters. It promotes cheerfulness, and prevents, in some measure, the habits of gossiping conversation, and the love of scandal. So far we most willingly agree with its most vivacious advocates, in its common eulogium. But this is not, we fear, saying enough. We see, or fancy that we see, the sober matron lay down her carefully assorted cards upon the card-table, and with dictatorial solemnity she pronounces, “That dancing is something more than an amusement; that girls must learn to dance, because they must appear well in public; because the young ladies who dance the best, are usually most taken notice of in public; most admired by the other sex; most likely, in short, not only to-have their choice of the best partner in a ball room, but sometimes of the best partner for life.”

  With submission to maternal authority, these arguments do not seem to be justified of late years. Girls, who dance remarkably well, are, it is true, admired in a ball room, and followed, perhaps, by those idle, thoughtless young men, who frequent public places merely for want of something else to do.
This race of beings are not particularly calculated to make good husbands in any sense of the word; nor are they usually disposed to think of marriage in any other light than as the last desperate expedient to repair their injured fortunes. They set their wits against the sex in general, and consider themselves as in danger of being jockeyed into the matrimonial state. Some few, perhaps, who have not brought their imagination sufficiently under the command of the calculating faculty, are caught by beauty and accomplishments, and marry against the common rules of interest. These men are considered with pity, or with ridicule, by their companions, as dupes who have suffered themselves to be taken in: others are warned by their fate; and the future probability of similar errours, of course, must be diminished. The fashionable apathy, whether real or affected, with which young men lounge in public places, with scarcely the appearance of attention to the fair exhibitors before them, sufficiently marks the temper of the times; and if the female sex have lost any thing of the respect and esteem which ought to be paid to them in society, they can scarcely expect to regain their proper influence by concessions to the false and vitiated taste of those who combine to treat them with neglect bordering upon insolence. If the system of female education, if the system of female manners, conspire to show in the fair sex a degrading anxiety to attract worthless admiration, wealthy or titled homage, is it surprising that every young man, who has any pretensions to birth, fortune, or fashion, should consider himself as the arbiter of their fate, and the despotic judge of their merit? Women, who understand their real interests, perceive the causes of the contempt with which the sex is treated by fashionable coxcombs, and they feel some indignation at the meanness with which this contempt, tacitly or openly expressed, is endured. Women, who feel none of this indignation, and who, either from their education, or their circumstances, are only solicitous to obtain present amusement, or what they think the permanent advantages of a fortunate alliance, will yet find themselves mistaken by persisting in their thoughtless career; they will not gain even the objects to which they aspire. How many accomplished belles run the usual round of dissipation in all public places of exhibition, tire the public eye, and, after a season or two, fade and are forgotten! How many accomplished belles are there, who, having gained the object of their own, or of their mother’s ambition, find themselves doomed to misery for life! Those unequal marriages, which are sometimes called excellent matches, seldom produce much happiness. And where happiness is not, what is all the rest?