by Edith Howes
This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
[Picture: Look what a fine morning it is . . . Insects, Birds, & Animals, are all enjoying existence]
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT’S ORIGINAL STORIES
WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILLIAM BLAKE
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WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY E. V. LUCAS
* * * * *
LONDON HENRY FROWDE 1906
* * * * *
OXFORD: HORACE HART PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The germ of the _Original Stories_ was, I imagine, a suggestion (in themanner of publishers) from Mary Wollstonecraft’s employer, Johnson of St.Paul’s Churchyard, that something more or less in the manner of Mrs.Trimmer’s _History of the Robins_, the great nursery success of 1786,might be a profitable speculation. For I doubt if the production of abook for children would ever have occurred spontaneously to an author somuch more interested in the status of women and other adult matters.However, the idea being given her, she quickly wrote the book—in 1787 or1788—carrying out in it to a far higher power, in Mrs. Mason, theself-confidence and rectitude of Mrs. Trimmer’s leading lady, Mrs.Benson, who in her turn had been preceded by that other flawlessinstructor of youth, Mr. Barlow. None of these exemplars could do wrong;but the Mrs. Mason whom we meet in the following pages far transcends theothers in conscious merit. Mrs. Benson in the _History of the Robins_(with the author of which Mary Wollstonecraft was on friendly terms) wassufficiently like the Protagonist of the Old Testament to be, when amongMrs. Wilson’s bees, ‘excessively pleased with the ingenuity and industrywith which these insects collect their honey and wax, form their cells,and deposit their store’; but Mrs. Mason, as we shall see, went stillfarther.
It has to be remembered that the _Original Stories_ were written when theauthor was twenty-nine, five years before she met Gilbert Imlay and sixyears before her daughter Fanny Imlay was born. I mention this factbecause it seems to me to be very significant. I feel that had the bookbeen written after Fanny’s birth, or even after the Imlay infatuation, itwould have been somewhat different: not perhaps more entertaining,because its author had none of that imaginative sympathy with the youngwhich would direct her pen in the direction of pure pleasure for them;but more human, more kindly, better. One can have indeed little doubt asto this after reading those curious first lessons for an infant whichcame from Mary Wollstonecraft’s pen in or about 1795, (printed in volumetwo of the _Posthumous Works_, 1798), and which give evidence of so muchmore tenderness and reasonableness (and at the same time want of Reason,which may have been Godwin’s God but will never stand in that relationeither to English men or English children) than the monitress of the_Original Stories_, the impeccable Mrs. Mason, ever suggests. I know ofno early instance where a mother talks down to an infant more prettily:continually descending herself to its level, yet never with any of Mrs.Mason’s arrogance and superiority. Not indeed that this poor mother,with her impulsive warm heart wounded, and most of her illusions gone,and few kindly eyes resting upon her, could ever have compassed much ofMrs. Mason’s prosperous self-satisfaction and authority had she wishedto; for in the seven years between the composition of the _OriginalStories_ and the lessons for the minute Fanny Imlay, she had lived anemotional lifetime, and suffering much, pitied much.
In Lesson X, which I quote, although it says nothing of charity orkindness, a vastly more human spirit is found than in any of Mrs. Mason’shomilies on our duty to the afflicted:—
See how much taller you are than William. In four years you have learned to eat, to walk, to talk. Why do you smile? You can do much more, you think: you can wash your hands and face. Very well. I should never kiss a dirty face. And you can comb your head with the pretty comb you always put by in your own drawer. To be sure, you do all this to be ready to take a walk with me. You would be obliged to stay at home, if you could not comb your own hair. Betty is busy getting the dinner ready, and only brushes William’s hair, because he cannot do it for himself.
Betty is making an apple-pye. You love an apple-pye; but I do not bid you make one. Your hands are not strong enough to mix the butter and flour together; and you must not try to pare the apples, because you cannot manage a great knife.
Never touch the large knives: they are very sharp, and you might cut your finger to the bone. You are a little girl, and ought to have a little knife. When you are as tall as I am, you shall have a knife as large as mine; and when you are as strong as I am, and have learned to manage it, you will not hurt yourself.
You can trundle a hoop, you say; and jump over a stick. O, I forgot!—and march like men in the red coats, when papa plays a pretty tune on the fiddle.
Even a very little of the tender spirit that this lesson breathes, even avery little of its sense of play, would have leavened the _OriginalStories_ into a more wholesome consistency. As it stands, that book isone of the most perfect examples of the success with which, a century ormore ago, any ingratiating quality could be kept out of a work for theyoung. According to William Godwin, his unhappy wife had always a prettyand endearing way with children. Yet of pretty and endearing ways, as ofhumour, I take him to have been a bad judge; for I do not think that anywoman possessing enough sympathy to attach children to her as he, in oneof the most curious biographies in the language, assures us that she had,could have suppressed the gift so completely in her first book for youngminds. And the Mrs. Masonic character of her own Preface supports myview.
I do not wish to suggest that previous to 1787 Mary Wollstonecraft hadbeen a stranger to suffering. Far from it. Her life had known littlejoy. Her father’s excesses, her mother’s grief and poverty, her sister’smisfortunes, her own homelessness, and, to crown all, the death of herclose friend Frances Blood, must have dimmed if not obliterated most ofher happy impulses. But it is one thing to suffer bereavement and to beanxious about the troubles of others near and dear; and it is quiteanother to suffer oneself by loving, even to a point of personaldisaster, and then losing both that love and the friendliness (such as itwas) of the world. Imlay’s desertion and the birth of Fanny were realthings beside which a drunken father, unhappy sisters, and a dead friendwere mere trifles.
This little book is to my mind chiefly interesting for two reasons apartfrom its original purpose—for the light it throws on the attitude of thenursery authors of that day towards children, and for the character ofMrs. Mason, a type of the dominant British character, in petticoats, herefor the first time (so far as my reading goes) set on paper.
I have no information regarding the success of the _Original Stories_ intheir day, and such spirited efforts as are now made to obtain them bycollectors are, we know, due rather to Blake than to Mary Wollstonecraft;but any measure of popularity that they may have enjoyed illustrates theawful state of slavery in which the children of the seventeen-ninetiesmust have subsisted. It is indeed wonderful to me to think that only apoor hundred years ago such hard and arid presentations of adultperfection and infantile incapacity should have been considered, even bycapable writers, all that the intelligence of children needed or theirten
der inexperience deserved. I do not deny that children are not to-daytoo much considered: indeed, I think that they are: I think there is nowan unfortunate tendency to provide them with literature in such varietyas to anticipate, and possibly supplant, the most valuable naturalworkings of their minds in almost every direction; but such activity atany rate indicates a desire on the part of the writers of these books tounderstand their readers, whereas I can detect none in the _OriginalStories_ or in hundreds of kindred works of that day. _Sandford andMerton_ and Mrs. Trimmer’s book stand apart: there is much humanity andimaginative sympathy in both; but with the majority of nursery authors,to fling down a collection of homilies was sufficient.
The odd thing is that every one was equally thoughtless: it is not merelythat Mary Wollstonecraft should consider such an intellectual stone asChapter XV worth preparing for poor little fellow creatures that neededbread; but that her publisher Johnson should consider it the kind ofthing to send forth, and that, with artists capable of dramatic interestavailable, he should hand the commission to illustrate it to WilliamBlake, who, exquisitely charming as were his drawings for his own_Songs_, was as yet in no sense of the word an ingratiating illustratorof narratives of real life for young eyes. And there still remains theparent or friend who, picking up the book in a shop, considered it thekind of thing to strike a bliss into the soul of Master Henry or MissSusan as a birthday present. It is all, at this date, so incredible, soshortsighted, so cruel, one could almost say. No one seems to have triedat all: the idea of wooing a child was not in the air—certainly MaryWollstonecraft had none of it.
Who it was that first discerned the child to be a thing of joy, acharacter apart worth coming to without patronage, a flower, a fairy, Icannot say. But Blake, in his writings, had much to do with thediscovery, and Wordsworth perhaps more. Certain, however, is it thatMary Wollstonecraft, even if she had glimmerings of this truth, had nomore; and those she suppressed when the pen was in her hand.
I might remark here that the circumstance that Blake’s drawings forSalzmann’s _Elements of Morality_, which Mary Wollstonecraft translatedin 1791, also for Johnson, are more interesting and dramatic, is due tothe fact that he merely adapted the work of the German artist. Blake wasuniformly below himself in this kind of employment. Only in the raptfreedoms of the angelic harper in his hut, in the picture opposite page56 of the present work, does he approach his true genius; while in hisconception of Mrs. Mason I have no confidence. Not slim and willowy andpensive was she in my mental picture of her: I figure a matron of sternerstuff and solider build.
But having said this against the _Original Stories_, I have said all, foras the casket enshrining Mrs. Mason its value remains unassailable.
It was well for Mrs. Mason that Mary Wollstonecraft set her on paper in1788. Had she waited until the _Vindication of the Rights of Women_ waswritten in 1792 (and dedicated to Talleyrand), had she waited untillittle Fanny Imlay was born into a stony world, Mrs. Mason would neverhave been. Because it is the likes of Mrs. Mason that keep the rights ofwomen, as Mary Wollstonecraft saw them, in the background, and demand theproduction of marriage lines. Mrs. Mason would have been the first toregret the unwomanliness of the publication both of the book and of thebaby. The Preface to this book suggests that Mary Wollstonecraft was atthat time, before she had loved and lost and suffered, something of aMrs. Mason herself; but Mrs. Mason remained Masonic to the end, whereaspoor Mary’s heart and mind were always in conflict. She may have lovedpure Reason, but she loved Gilbert Imlay too. And this Mrs. Mason neverdid.
Mrs. Mason never nods. Her tact, her mental reaction, her confidence,her sense of duty and knowledge of duty, are alike marvellous. When thehigher mercy compels her to end a wounded lark’s misery by putting herfoot on its head, she ‘turns her own the other way’. At the close of awalk during which her charges have been ‘rational’, she shakes hands withthem. Her highest praise to Mary, after the fruit-picking incident onpage 40, is to call her ‘my friend’; ‘and she deserved the name,’ addsthe lady, ‘for she was no longer a child.’ No child could be her friend.One wonders what she made of the beautiful words ‘Suffer the littlechildren to come unto Me . . . for of such is the kingdom of Heaven’; butof course she did not know them: her Testament was obviously the Old.
Yet we have, as it happens, a comment on Christ’s remark, in herstatement on page 8, made in one of her recurring monologues onsuperiority and inferiority, that it is ‘only to animals that children_can_ do good’. Mrs. Mason’s expression of alarm and dismay on hearingthe words ‘A little child shall lead them’ could be drawn adequately, onefeels, only by Mary Wollstonecraft’s friend Fuseli.
‘I govern my servants and you,’ said Mrs. Mason, ‘by attending strictlyto truth, and this observance keeping my head clear and my heart pure, Iam ever ready to pray to the Author of Good, the Fountain of truth.’ Shenever paid unmeaning compliments, (and here it is interesting to comparethe second paragraph of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Preface, where she plays atbeing a Mrs. Mason too), or permitted any word to drop from her tonguethat her heart did not dictate. Hence she allowed Mrs. Trimmer’s_History of the Robins_ to be lent to a little girl, only on conditionthat the little girl should be made to understand that birds cannotreally talk. She had in her garden, although large, only one bed oftulips, because the tulip flaunts, whereas the rose, of which she had aprofusion, is modest. That God made both does not seem to have troubledher. She thought that the poor who were willing to work ‘had a right tothe comforts of life’. During a thunderstorm she walked with the samesecurity as when the sun enlivened the prospect, since her love of virtuehad overcome her fear of death. She was weaned from the world, ‘but notdisgusted.’ When she visited those who have been reduced from theiroriginal place in society by misfortunes, she made such alterations inher dress as would suggest ceremony, lest too much familiarity shouldappear like disrespect. She forbade Caroline to cry when in pain,because the Most High was educating her for eternity. She thought thatall diseases were sent to children by the Almighty to teach them patienceand fortitude. She never sought bargains, wishing every one to receivethe just value for their goods; and when her two charges at last lefther, to return to their father, she dismissed them with the words, ‘Youare now candidates for my friendship, and on your advancement in virtuemy regard will in future depend.’
The great fault of Mrs. Mason is that she had none. One seems tounderstand why her own children and husband died so quickly.
Since I have read this little book a new kind of nightmare has come intomy slumbers: I dream that I am walking with Mrs. Mason. The greatnessand goodness of Mrs. Mason surround me, dominate me, suffocate me. Withhead erect, vigilant eye, and a smile of assurance and tolerance on hermassive features, she sails on and on, holding my neatly-gloved hand,discoursing ever of the infinite mercy of God, the infinite paltriness ofmyself, and the infinite success of Mrs. Mason. I think that Mrs.Mason’s most terrible characteristic to me (who have never been quitesure of anything) is the readiness with which her decisions springfully-armed from her brain. She knows not only everything, but herselftoo: she has no doubts. Here she joins hands with so much that is mosttriumphant in the British character. The Briton also is without doubts.He marches forward. He is right. It is when I contemplate him in thismood—and Mrs. Mason too—that I most wonder who my ancestors can havebeen.
The awful reality of Mrs. Mason proves that Mary Wollstonecraft, had sheknown her own power and kept her mental serenity, might have been a greatnovelist. Mrs. Mason was the first and strongest British Matron. Shecame before Mrs. Proudie, and also, it is interesting to note, before SirWilloughby Patterne. But she was, I fear, an accident; for there isnothing like her in our author’s one experiment in adult fiction, _TheWrongs of Woman_.
E. V. LUCAS.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Look what a fine morning it is.—Insects, Birds, _Frontispiece_a
nd Animals, are all enjoying existence.Indeed we are very happy! _to face page_ 36Be calm, my child, remember that you must do all _to face page_ 46the good you can the present dayTrying to trace the sound, I discovered a little _to face page_ 56hut, rudely builtEconomy and Self-denial are necessary, in every _to face page_ 86station, to enable us to be generous
[Picture: Facsimile of the title page of the 1791 edition]
PREFACE
These conversations and tales are accommodated to the present state ofsociety; which obliges the author to attempt to cure those faults byreason, which might never to have taken root in the infant mind. Goodhabits, imperceptibly fixed, are far preferable to the precepts ofreason; but, as this task requires more judgment than generally falls tothe lot of parents, substitutes must be sought for, and medicines given,when regimen would have answered the purpose much better. I believethose who examine their own minds, will readily agree with me, thatreason, with difficulty, conquers settled habits, even when it is arrivedat some degree of maturity: why then do we suffer children to be boundwith fetters, which their half-formed faculties cannot break.
In writing the following work, I aim at perspicuity and simplicity ofstyle; and try to avoid those unmeaning compliments, which slip from thetongue, but have not the least connexion with the affections that shouldwarm the heart, and animate the conduct. By this false politeness,sincerity is sacrificed, and truth violated; and thus artificial mannersare necessarily taught. For true politeness is a polish, not a varnish;and should rather be acquired by observation than admonition. And we mayremark, by way of illustration, that men do not attempt to polishprecious stones, till age and air have given them that degree ofsolidity, which will enable them to bear the necessary friction, withoutdestroying the main substance.
