Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  There is, it is usually found, most temptation for children to deceive when they are put in competition with each other, when their ambition is excited by the same object; but if the transient glory of excelling in quickness, or abilities of any sort, be much inferiour to the permanent honour which is secured by integrity, there is, even in competition, no danger of unfair play.

  March, 1792. One evening —— called the children round the tea-table, and told them the following story, which he had just met with in “The Curiosities of Literature.”

  When the queen of Sheba went to visit king Solomon, she one day presented herself before his throne with a wreath of real flowers in one hand, and a wreath of artificial flowers in the other hand; the artificial flowers were made so exactly to resemble nature, that at the distance at which they were held from Solomon, it was scarcely possible that his eye could distinguish any difference between them and the natural flowers; nor could he, at the distance at which they were held from him, know them asunder by their smell. “Which of these two wreaths,” demanded the queen of Sheba, “is the work of nature?” Solomon reflected for some minutes; and how did he discover which was real? S —— (five years old) replied, “Perhaps he went out of the room very softly, and if the woman stood near the door, as he went near her, he might see better.”

  Father. But Solomon was not to move from his place.

  S —— .. Then he might wait till the woman was tired of holding them, and then perhaps she might lay them down on the table, and then perhaps he might see better.

  Father. Well, C —— , what do you say?

  C —— . I think he might have looked at the stalks, and have seen which looked stiff like wire, and which were bent down by the weight of the natural flowers.

  Father. Well, H —— ?

  H —— . (ten years old.) I think he might send for a great pair of bellows, and blow, blow, till the real leaves dropped off.

  Father. But would it not have been somewhat uncivil of Solomon to blow, blow, with his great pair of bellows, full in the queen of Sheba’s face?

  H —— . (doubting.) Yes, yes. Well, then he might have sent for a telescope, or a magnifying glass, and looked through it; and then he could have seen which were the real flowers, and which were artificial.

  Father. Well, B —— , and what do you say?

  B —— . (eleven years old.) He might have waited till the queen moved the flowers, and then, if he listened, he might hear the rustling of the artificial ones.

  Father. S —— , have you any thing more to say?

  S —— repeated the same thing that B —— had said; his attention was dissipated by hearing the other children speak. During this pause, whilst S —— was trying to collect his thoughts, Mrs. E —— whispered to somebody near her, and accidentally said the word animals loud enough to be overheard.

  Father. Well, H —— , you look as if you had something to say?

  H —— . Father, I heard my mother say something, and that made me think of the rest.

  Mrs. E —— shook hands with H —— , and praised him for this instance of integrity. H —— then said that “he supposed Solomon thought of some animal which would feed upon flowers, and sent it to the two nosegays; and then the animal would stay upon the real flowers.”

  Father. What animal?

  H —— . A fly.

  Father. Think again.

  H —— . A bee.

  Father. Yes.

  The story says that Solomon, seeing some bees hover about the window, ordered the window to be thrown open, and watched upon which wreath of flowers the bee settled.

  August 1st, 1796. S —— (nine years old) when he was reading in Ovid the fable of Perseus and Andromeda, said that he wondered that Perseus fought with the monster; he wondered that Perseus did not turn him into stone at once with his Gorgon shield. We believe that S —— saw that his father was pleased with this observation. A few days afterwards somebody in the family recollected Mr. E — —’s having said, that when he was a boy he thought Perseus a simpleton for not making use of the Gorgon’s head to turn the monster into stone. We were not sure whether S —— had heard Mr. E —— say this or not; Mr. E —— asked him whether he recollected to have heard any such thing. S —— answered, without hesitation, that he did remember it.

  When children have formed habits of speaking truth, and when we see that these habits are grown quite easy to them, we may venture to question them about their thoughts and feelings; this must, however, be done with great caution, but without the appearance of anxiety or suspicion. Children are alarmed if they see that you are very anxious and impatient for their answer; they think that they hazard much by their reply; they hesitate, and look eagerly in your face, to discover by your countenance what they ought to think and feel, and what sort of answer you expect. All who are governed by any species of fear are disposed to equivocation. Amongst the lower class of Irish labourers, and under-tenants, a class of people who are much oppressed, you can scarcely meet with any man who will give you a direct answer to the most indifferent question; their whole ingenuity, and they have a great deal of ingenuity, is upon the qui vive with you the instant you begin to speak; they either pretend not to hear, that they may gain time to think, whilst you repeat your question, or they reply to you with a fresh question, to draw out your remote meaning; for they, judging by their own habits, always think you have a remote meaning, and they never can believe that your words have no intention to ensnare. Simplicity puzzles them much more than wit: for instance, if you were to ask the most direct and harmless question, as, “Did it rain yesterday?” the first answer would probably be, “Is it yesterday you mean?” “Yes.” “Yesterday! No, please your honour, I was not at the bog at all yesterday. Wasn’t I after setting my potatoes? Sure I did not know your honour wanted me at all yesterday. Upon my conscience, there’s not a man in the country, let alone all Ireland, I’d sooner serve than your honour any day in the year, and they have belied me that went behind my back to tell your honour the contrary. If your honour sent after me, sure I never got the word, I’ll take my affidavit, or I’d been at the bog.” “My good friend, I don’t know what you mean about the bog; I only ask you whether it rained yesterday.” “Please your honour, I couldn’t get a car and horse any way, to draw home my little straw, or I’d have had the house thatched long ago.” “Cannot you give me a plain answer to this plain question? Did it rain yesterday?” “Oh sure, I wouldn’t go to tell your honour a lie about the matter. Sarrah much it rained yesterday after twelve o’clock, barring a few showers; but in the night there was a great fall of rain any how; and that was the reason prevented my going to Dublin yesterday, for fear the mistress’s band-box should get wet upon my cars. But, please your honour, if your honour’s displeased about it, I’ll not be waiting for a loading; I’ll take my car and go to Dublin to-morrow for the slates, if that be what your honour means. Oh, sure I would not tell a lie for the entire price of the slates; I know very well it didn’t rain to call rain yesterday. But after twelve o’clock, I don’t say I noticed one way or other.”

  In this perverse and ludicrous method of beating about the bush, the man would persist till he had fairly exhausted your patience; and all this he would do, partly from cunning, and partly from that apprehension of injustice which he has been taught to feel by hard experience. The effects of the example of their parents is early and most strikingly visible in the children of this class of people in Ireland. The children, who are remarkably quick and intelligent, are universally addicted to lying. We do not here scruple or hesitate in the choice of our terms, because we are convinced that this unqualified assertion would not shock the feelings of the parties concerned. These poor children are not brought up to think falsehood a disgrace; they are praised for the ingenuity with which they escape from the cross examination of their superiors; and their capacities are admired in proportion to the acuteness, or, as their parents pronounce it, ‘cuteness, of their equivocating replie
s. Sometimes (the garçon) the little boy of the family is despatched by his mother to the landlord’s neighbouring bog or turf rick, to bring home, in their phraseology, in ours to steal, a few turf; if, upon this expedition, the little Spartan be detected, he is tolerably certain of being whipped by his mother, or some of his friends, upon his return home. “Ah, ye little brat! and what made ye tell the gentleman when he met ye, ye rogue, that ye were going to the rick? And what business had ye to go and belie me to his honour, ye unnatural piece of goods! I’ll teach ye to make mischief through the country! So I will. Have ye got no better sense and manners at this time o’day, than to behave, when one trusts ye abroad, so like an innocent?” An innocent in Ireland, as formerly in England, (witness the Rape of the Lock) is synonymous with a fool. “And fools and innocents shall still believe.”

  The associations of pleasure, of pride and gayety, are so strong in the minds of these well educated children, that they sometimes expect the very people who suffer by their dishonesty, should sympathise in the self-complacency they feel from roguery. A gentleman riding near his own house in Ireland, saw a cow’s head and fore feet appear at the top of a ditch, through a gap in the hedge by the road’s side, at the same time he heard a voice alternately threatening and encouraging the cow; the gentleman rode up closer to the scene of action, and he saw a boy’s head appear behind the cow. “My good boy,” said he, “that’s a fine cow.” “Oh, faith, that she is,” replied the boy, “and I’m teaching her to get her own living, please your honour.” The gentleman did not precisely understand the meaning of the expression, and had he directly asked for an explanation, would probably have died in ignorance; but the boy, proud of his cow, encouraged an exhibition of her talents: she was made to jump across the ditch several times, and this adroitness in breaking through fences, was termed “getting her own living.” As soon as the cow’s education is finished, she may be sent loose into the world to provide for herself; turned to graze in the poorest pasture, she will be able and willing to live upon the fat of the land.

  It is curious to observe how regularly the same moral causes produce the same temper and character. We talk of climate, and frequently attribute to climate the different dispositions of different nations: the climate of Ireland, and that of the West Indies, are not precisely similar, yet the following description, which Mr. Edwards, in his history of the West Indies, gives of the propensity to falsehood amongst the negro slaves, might stand word for word for a character of that class of the Irish people who, until very lately, actually, not metaphorically, called themselves slaves.

  “If a negro is asked even an indifferent question by his master, he seldom gives an immediate reply; but affecting not to understand what is said, compels a repetition of the question, that he may have time to consider, not what is the true answer, but what is the most politic one for him to give.”

  Mr. Edwards assures us, that many of these unfortunate negroes learn cowardice and falsehood after they become slaves. When they first come from Africa, many of them show “a frank and fearless temper;” but all distinction of character amongst the native Africans, is soon lost under the levelling influence of slavery. Oppression and terror necessarily produce meanness and deceit in all climates, and in all ages; and wherever fear is the governing motive in education, we must expect to find in children a propensity to dissimulation, if not confirmed habits of falsehood. Look at the true born Briton under the government of a tyrannical pedagogue, and listen to the language of in-born truth; in the whining tone, in the pitiful evasions, in the stubborn falsehoods which you hear from the school-boy, can you discover any of that innate dignity of soul which is the boasted national characteristic? Look again; look at the same boy in the company of those who inspire no terror; in the company of his school-fellows, of his friends, of his parents; would you know him to be the same being? his countenance is open; his attitude erect; his voice firm; his language free and fluent; his thoughts are upon his lips; he speaks truth without effort, without fear. Where individuals are oppressed, or where they believe that they are oppressed, they combine against their oppressors, and oppose cunning and falsehood to power and force; they think themselves released from the compact of truth with their masters, and bind themselves in a strict league with each other; thus school-boys hold no faith with their schoolmaster, though they would think it shameful to be dishonourable amongst one another. We do not think that these maxims are the peculiar growth of schools; in private families the same feelings are to be found under the same species of culture: if preceptors or parents are unjust or tyrannical, their pupils will contrive to conceal from them their actions and their thoughts. On the contrary, in families where sincerity has been encouraged by the voice of praise and affection, a generous freedom of conversation and countenance appears, and the young people talk to each other, and to their parents, without distinction or reserve; without any distinction but such as superior esteem and respect dictate. These are feelings totally distinct from servile fear: these feelings inspire the love of truth, the ambition to acquire and to preserve character.

  The value of a character for truth, should be distinctly felt by children in their own family: whilst they were very young, we advised that their integrity should not be tempted; as they grow up, trust should by degrees be put in them, and we should distinctly explain to them, that our confidence is to be deserved before it can be given. Our belief in any person’s truth, is not a matter of affection, but of experience and necessity; we cannot doubt the assertions of any person whom we have found to speak uniformly the truth; we cannot believe any person, let us wish to do it ever so much, if we have detected him in falsehoods. Before we have had experience of a person’s integrity, we may hope, or take it for granted, that he is perfectly sincere and honest; but we cannot feel more than belief upon trust, until we have actually seen his integrity tried. We should not pretend that we have faith in our pupils before we have tried them; we may hope from their habits, from the examples they have seen, and from the advantageous manner in which truth has always been represented to them, that they will act honourably; this hope is natural and just, but confidence is another feeling of the mind. The first time we trust a child, we should not say, “I am sure you will not deceive me; I can trust you with any thing in the world.” This is flattery or folly; it is paying beforehand, which is not the way to get business done; why cannot we, especially as we are teaching truth, say the thing that is—”I hope you will not deceive me. If I find that you may be trusted, you know I shall be able to trust you another time: this must depend upon you, not entirely upon me.” We must make ourselves certain upon these occasions, how the child conducts himself; nor is it necessary to use any artifice, or to affect, from false delicacy, any security that we do not feel; it is better openly to say, “You see, I do you the justice to examine carefully, how you have conducted yourself; I wish to be able to trust you another time.”

  It may be said, that this method of strict inquiry reduces a trust to no trust at all, and that it betrays suspicion. If you examine evidently with the belief that a child has deceived you, certainly you betray injurious suspicion, and you educate the child very ill; but if you feel and express a strong desire to find that your pupil has conducted himself honourably, he will be glad and proud of the strictest scrutiny; he will feel that he has earned your future confidence, and this confidence, which he clearly knows how he has obtained, will be more valuable to him than all the belief upon trust which you could affect to feel. By degrees, after your pupil has taught you to depend upon him, your confidence will prevent the necessity of any examination into his conduct. This is the just and delightful reward of integrity: children know how to feel and understand it thoroughly: besides the many restraints from which our confidence will naturally relieve them, they feel the pride for being trusted; the honour of having a character for integrity: nor can it be too strongly impressed upon their minds, that this character must be preserved, as it was obtained, by their own cond
uct. If one link in the chain of confidence be broken, the whole is destroyed. Indeed, where habits of truth are early formed, we may safely depend upon them. A young person, who has never deceived, would see, that the first step in falsehood costs too much to be hazarded. Let this appear in the form of calculation, rather than of sentiment. To habit, to enthusiasm, we owe much of all our virtues — to reason more; and the more of them we owe to reason, the better. Habit and enthusiasm are subject to sudden or gradual changes — but reason continues for ever the same. As the understanding unfolds, we should fortify all our pupil’s habits; and virtuous enthusiasm, by the conviction of their utility, of their being essential to the happiness of society in general, and conducive immediately to the happiness of every individual. Possessed of this conviction, and provided with substantial arguments in its support, young people will not be exposed to danger, either from sophistry or ridicule.

  Ridicule certainly is not the test of truth; but it is a test which truth sometimes finds it difficult to stand. Vice never “bolts her arguments” with more success, than when she assumes the air of raillery, and the tone of gayety. All vivacious young people are fond of wit; we do not mean children, for they do not understand it. Those who have the best capacities, and the strictest habits of veracity, often appear to common observers absolutely stupid, from their aversion to any play upon words, and from the literal simplicity with which they believe every thing that is asserted. A remarkably intelligent little girl of four years old, but who had never in her own family been used to the common phrases which sometimes pass for humour, happened to hear a gentleman say, as he looked out of the window one rainy morning, “It rains cats and dogs to-day.” The child, with a surprised, but believing look, immediately went to look out of the window to see the phenomenon. This extreme simplicity in childhood, is sometimes succeeded in youth by a strong taste for wit and humour. Young people are, in the first place, proud to show that they understand them; and they are gratified by the perception of a new intellectual pleasure. At this period of their education, great attention must be paid to them, lest their admiration for wit and frolic should diminish their reverence and their love for sober truth. In many engaging characters in society, and in many entertaining books, deceit and dishonesty are associated with superior abilities, with ease and gayety of manners, and with a certain air of frank carelessness, which can scarcely fail to please. Gil Blas, Tom Jones, Lovelace, Count Fathom, are all of this class of characters. They should not be introduced to our pupils till their habits of integrity are thoroughly formed; and till they are sufficiently skilful in analysing their own feelings, to distinguish whence their approbation and pleasure in reading of these characters arise. In books, we do not actually suffer by the tricks of rogues, or by the lies they tell. Hence their truth is to us a quality of no value; but their wit, humour, and the ingenuity of their contrivances, are of great value to us, because they afford us entertainment. The most honest man in the universe may not have had half so many adventures as the greatest rogue; in a romance, the history upon oath of all the honest man’s bargains and sales, law-suits and losses; nay, even a complete view of his ledger and day-book, together with the regular balancings of his accounts, would probably not afford quite so much entertainment, even to a reader of the most unblemished integrity and phlegmatic temper, as the adventures of Gil Blas, and Jonathan Wild, adorned with all the wit of Le Sage, and humour of Fielding. When Gil Blas lays open his whole heart to us, and tells us all his sins, unwhipt of justice, we give him credit for making us his confidant, and we forget that this sincerity, and these liberal confessions, are not characteristic of the hero’s disposition, but essential only to the novel. The novel writer could not tell us all he had to say without this dying confession, and inconsistent openness, from his accomplished villain. The reader is ready enough to forgive, having never been duped. When young people can make all these reflections for themselves, they may read Gil Blas with as much safety as the Life of Franklin, or any other the most moral performance. “Tout est sain aux sains,” as Madame de Sevigne very judiciously observes, in one of her letters upon the choice of books for her grand-daughter. We refer for more detailed observations upon this subject to the chapter upon Books. But we cannot help here reiterating our advice to preceptors, not to force the detestable characters, which are sometimes held up to admiration in ancient and modern history, upon the common sense, or, if they please, the moral feelings, of their pupils. The bad actions of great characters, should not be palliated by eloquence, and fraud and villainy should never be explained away by the hero’s or warrior’s code; a code which confounds all just ideas of right and wrong. Boys, in reading the classics, must read of a variety of crimes; but that is no reason that they should approve of them, or that their tutors should undertake to vindicate the cause of falsehood and treachery. A gentleman, who has taught his sons Latin, has uniformly pursued the practice of abandoning to the just and prompt indignation of his young pupils all the ancient heroes who are deficient in moral honesty: his sons, in reading Cornelius Nepos, could not absolutely comprehend, that the treachery of Themistocles or of Alcibiades could be applauded by a wise and polished nation. Xenophon has made an eloquent attempt to explain the nature of military good faith. Cambyses tells his son, that, in taking advantage of an enemy, a man must be “crafty, deceitful, a dissembler, a thief, and a robber.” Oh Jupiter! exclaims the young Cyrus, what a man, my father, you say I must be! And he very sensibly asks his father, why, if it be necessary in some cases to ensnare and deceive men, he had not in his childhood been taught by his preceptors the art of doing harm to his fellow-creatures, as well as of doing them good. “And why,” says Cyrus, “have I always been punished whenever I have been discovered in practising deceit?” The answers of Cambyses are by no means satisfactory upon this subject; nor do we think that the conversation between the old general and Mr. Williams, could have made the matter perfectly intelligible to the young gentleman, whose scrupulous integrity made him object to the military profession.