Modern accomplishments; or, The march of intellect

Front matter

Glass

Book

MODEM ACCOMPLISHMENTS,

Preface

tal above useful acquirements, when both proportionably to then relative importance might be combined in the same system. Even in the present life, all the glitter of brilliant accomplishments will be but a poor compensation for the misery of ill-regulated feelings, and of incapacity for mental exercise. To provide resources of constant happiness within, is incomparably more important than to derive a transient and occasional gratification from exciting external applause.

Many good and worthy persons have objected to the elucidation of evangelical truth by fictitious narrative. They forget that if the Christian character could thus be represented as it is described in Scripture, rather than as, unhappily, it is too frequently exhibited in the world, much prejudice and opposition might be prevented. The mild, the persuasive, the dignified demeanor inculcated and inspired by the grace of God, would be more readily appreciated ; while the austerity of disposition, the aversion to control, the proneness to interference, the affected language, the discontent, the self-complacency, and the positiveness, which so frequently assume the holy name of religion, being discountenanced as they deserve, would impede no longer that all-important cause which they are professedly eager to advance. Nor let it be forgotten that our Divine Teacher himself has sanctioned, by his use of parables, the employment of imaginary histories to illustrate and enforce religious duty.

Nothing places abstract truth more vividly before the mind, than to see it represented acting and conversing in real life. No doubt higher honor may be acquired, and more extensive benefit conferred in the graver and more serious departments of composition ; yet, to attain some degree of usefulness by the humblest work of fiction, must be ranked among the objects of legitimate ambition, howevei faint or unfounded may be the hope of success.

MODERN ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

CHAPTER I. And even while fashion’s brightest arts decoy

The heart distrusting, asks if this be joy.

Goldsmith.

There never were two ladies more fitted to adorn the fashionable world in Edinburgh, than Lady Fitz-Patrick and Lady Howard, who both usually came, with their families, in November, to spend a part of the winter at their town residences in Moray Place. Every body knew them, and they knew every body ; their equipages, their jewels, their houses, and their establishments, were beyond the possibility of competition or criticism ; and if each person’s happiness were really to be measured by the opinion and report of others, we need only repeat what was daily remarked in every boudoir and drawing-room where their names were mentioned, that nothing could be more fortunate or more enviable than they both were, as they appeared to have taken out a patent for avoiding all the ordinary vexations and discomfitures of life. These ladies were sisters, and their chief object in coming to Edinburgh, when our story begins, was to give a last polish to the education of their two eldest daughters, who were now at an age to require what is emphatically termed a finishing ; few mothers ' being of opinion with the good divine, who remarks that the education of man can never be finished during the present state of existence. The boys of both families were scattered all over England at various public and preparatory schools, from whence they only returned, to riot during the holidays at home ; but Eleanor Fitz-Patrick and Matilda Howard having both recently attained the age of sixteen, were now far advanced in education, according to the views which were entertained on the subject by their respective mothers, whose methods and ideas, however, were as widely at variance on the management of children, as on eyery other subject where fashion had established no certain and despotic law.

Lady Fitz-Patrick had once been the most celebrated beauty of her day, and having preserved her sylph-like figure and bright hazel eyes, lighted up with the assistance of rouge, she still maintained an opinion, that to feel young was the same as to be young ; therefore her costume was as juvenile as ever. She disdained the use of caps or turbans, but wore her dark hair dressed with jewels, and piqued herself upon leading the “ best dressed life” in the world of fashion, where existence itself seemed to her a joyous carnival of continued and uninterrupted festivity. Her whole time and thoughts were engrossed in preparing to receive visitors, and in attracting admiration when they came. She was all fascination for strangers , but unfortunately the more nearly people were connected with her, the less she cared for their good opinion, — her heart might be compared to a well-frequented hotel, where the last comers were always the most welcome,^ — her conversation, her music, her dress, and her smiles, were all put on, like her diamonds, for public display ; but when her husband or family wished to share in private, what was so lavishly bestowed on every one else, she complained of being languid, nervous, indisposed, or any thing that gave her an excuse for being indolent and ennuyte. In short, this lady was, as she wished to be, the idol of all her mere general acquaintances, who remarked with astonishment and disapprobation how carelessly Sir Richard listened to their rapturous praises of her lively and captivating manners, and how immediately he turned off the subject when the grace and vivacity of his wife became, as it frequently did, the topic of an unqualified panegyric. Sir Richard Fitz-Patrick was an easy indolent man, fond of good eating and luxurious living, who often found his own table in such a racket of confusion, or else so delivered up to dulness, that he dined frequently at the club when he could escape from home ; and his children only saw their mother when they were fantastically dressed in the evening, in order to display their various accomplishments, like so many little fan toccini, for the amusement of the company.

Lady Fitz-Patrick’s house was the surest avenue to good society in Edinburgh, and whatever individual was intro-

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duced by her. might be as certain of rapid circulation as a new shilling out of the mint. Her house was lighted up for company twice every week, and no one else presumed to be “ at home” on the nights when her parties took place. She was lady patroness of every public ball that was given during the season, — she could fill the theatre on a day’s notice with a numerous and fashionable audience, — and her table was covered every morning, dike a snow-storm, with cards and invitations, so that she often laughingly threatened to give up residing in Edinburgh, to avoid the trouble of answering notes, or else to appoint a secretary of her own for the home department. Such a brilliant and successful career as we have described, was the envy and admiration of all competitors ; and though her own heart, which had naturally been endowed with sensibility, did occasionally feel some misgivings, whether the blaze of outward prosperity were a sufficient substitute for that inward peace which the world takes away but never can bestow, she soon stifled these unwelcome emotions, and succeeded in persuading herself, that the first object in life for herself, and for her lovely daughter, was to gain applause and admiration from the surrounding world.

In Eleanor Eitz-Patrick’s education, her mother did as she would have been done by, carefully teaching every accomplishment that could tend to embellish her manner, or to increase her fascinations. She was trained exclusively for the drawing-room, and it was her conduct and appearance there, which alone seemed of importance to Lady Fitz- Patrick, who was in a constant fidget to exhibit her, and who kept a list, as long as a newspaper, of every delinquency in appearance or address, for which she required to be corrected. The care of Eleanor’s morals and religion was committed to the governess, with a careless remark, that these things were quite out of her own line, and as for any management of the mind and temper, that was quite too much for her to attempt; but as Eleanor had naturally great animal spirits, it became the delight of her mother to encourage every indication of vivacity. All her childish bon mots were treasured up, and repeated to each successive visitor, in Eleanor’s presence ; and even when she did not overhear the exact purport of the communication, every one is gifted with a natural tact, which reveals at once when we are ourselves the subject of conversation, by which she discovered who was heroine of the tale. However pert her replies might have been to any stranger who addressed her they were generally hailed with a burst of rapturous ap* plause, and the inherent turn for mimicry which seems natural to all children, was cultivated in Eleanor by the most unbounded commendation. If Lady Fitz-Patrick occasionally reproved her daughter for imitating the voice or manner of b^er friends, it was in a tone of affected remonstrance, but with a laugh in her eye, which showed any thing rather than disapprobation, and the little mimic was often desired, a minute afterwards, to show how Sir Collin Fletcher walked, or Lady Evans shook her head. The capricious preferences and aversions which Eleanor expressed towards people, were also made a subject of grave discussion, and actual importance, — how she had taken a strange, unaccountable antipathy to old Mrs. Fortescue, and been most surprisingly gracious to Lady Montague ; and the peculiarities of her temper and conduct were watched as a matter of diversion, but without the smallest idea of their being corrected or improved. u Eleanor has an odd whim of being very grave and pensive for the last few days,” said Lady Fitz-Patrick to her sister one day. “ I have no conception of the cause, but it rather becomes her for variety ! You can scarcely imagine that her style of features would suit the contemplative mood, but indeed I can conceive no expression which would not look captivating in her faultless countenance.”

Though Miss Fitz-Patrick’s governess had been very frequently changed, her mother was always fortunate enough to secure one who had educated a certain number of accomplished Lady Carolines and Lady Sophias ; and as most of these pupils had since been brilliantly established in life, “ that was the best criterion,” she remarked, “ of the young ladies’ having been properly brought up.” In Eleanor’s dress there was generally something singular and fantastic, which claimed observation, and seemed to point her out, from her earliest infancy, as an object of notice, and Lady Fitz-Patrick had been always in the habit of boasting how constantly her nurse had formerly been stopped in the street, and asked, “ whose charming child she was.” The peculiar cut of her bonnet might often have claimed some part of the merit, but Eleanor Fitz-Patrick was indeed an eminently beautiful girl. The regular contour of her features, the transparent whiteness of her skin, the sunny smile upon her face, and the laughing brightness of her hazel eyes, gave

OR THE MARCH OF INTELLECT.

a dazzling brilliancy and intelligence to her countenance, which it was impossible to look at without admiration. There was a murmur of applause whenever she entered her mother’s drawing-room, which the lovely object of it but toe soon learnt to interpret aright ; and in case its import might have escaped attention, her delighted mother generally entertained the maid, when she superintended her daughter’s evening toilette, with anecdotes of the admiration which “ those beautiful ringlets” had excited, and how her foot had been compared to a Chinese lady’s, it was so ridiculously small.”

“ There is no advantage in concealing from a girl that she is handsome,” was a frequent remark of Lady Fitz- Patrick in her most sensible tone ; u she soon finds abundance of people to tell her so, and will become more indifferent from being accustomed to consider herself an acknowledged beauty. We always see that persons who are born to high rank, think less of it than those who are promoted late in life ; and I am convinced the same rule will hold good with respect to admiration also : Eleanor is born to it , and. the sooner she is aware of her birth-right the better !”

Her ladyship forgot, however, to guard the information she so liberally afforded, with such an appearance of indifference as might have fortified her daughter’s mind against over-estimating the gifts of nature ; and when the lovely Eleanor perceived that nothing distressed her mother so much as the most transient blemish in her looks, she soon learnt the too easy lesson of considering her personal appearance as the most important object in life, and would have shut herself up for a week, rather than be seen under the slightest eclipse of her usual brilliancy.

If Lady Fitz-Patrick led a life of busy idleness, laboriously, though often vainly toiling after pleasure, which has been so truly compared by the poet to quicksilver, for it u still eludes us, but it glitters still,” Lady Howard’s engagements were still more unrelaxed and incessant in their exaction on her time and thoughts. She had never been a beauty like her sister, and therefore, thinking it essential to be something wonderful in her own way, she had early in life determined to be “ prodigiously clever.” When a report first arose, many years before the commencement of our story, that Sir Francis Howard was to marry the bluestocking Miss Neville, the rumor was usually received with contemptuous incredulity ; and after it had been at length duly confirmed, the gossipping world in general declared they never could cease to wonder at so unsuitable a match ; while many excellent people said, (as they had remarked of a hundred marriages before,) that “ after this they could never be surprised at any thing again !” Sir Francis Howard had always been considered a mere horseand-dog man, whose studies were entirely confined to the Sporting Magazine and the Racing Calendar, varied occasionally by a peep at White’s Farriery, when any of his horses were indisposed ; and the chief object of his attention when he opened a newspaper was, to know the state of the St. Leger, or to read of any extraordinary run that had taken place with the Leicester or Yorkshire hounds; and whatever horses were to be sold at Tattersall’s, he carefully traced their pedigree, and often proved some of them to deserve a patent of nobility on account of their high lineage.

Sir Francis Howard had been an English stranger for the winter, when Miss Maria Neville made her debut in Edinburgh, and he had admired her seat on horseback, and her vivacity of look and manner, before the dreadful truth became revealed to him, that she was “ blue !” His friends laughed at the discovery, and piqued him into asserting that he liked her the better for it. They tried to “ show her up” on one occasion before him, and asked her a number of unanswerable questions. “ If she knew what was written in the lost books of Livy?” “Whether Charles the Bald wore a wig ?” and “ who commanded the left wing of the French at the battle of Spurs?” Miss Neville had tact enough to encourage the joke with liveliness and humour : Sir Francis protested that he admired her spirit and intelligence ; his friends laughed on, and at length laughed him into marrying her.

Nobody could conjecture what number of languages Lady Howard knew, and there was even a report that she had been convicted of Greek and Latin. Her acquaintance with literature became obvious every time she spoke ; for it was very seldom that Lady Howard did not quote some book that no one else in the room had ever either seen or heard of, so that she went for some time under the sobriquet of “ The walking Library.” She was a keen politician too, and constantly received “ Private letters from London,” with all the newest reports which were “ quite certain, and a great secret ” Once she had known a whole day before any one at the club, that there would be a change of Min

OR THE MARCH OF INTELLECT.

istry ; and Sir Francis often lamented, on lier account, the want of a Petticoat Parliament, as she would have been the greatest orator in it. Lady Howard’s name was in every oook-club ; she collected autographs and franks ; composed a little volume of Sonnets on “ Ruined Towers,” — “ Broken lilys,” — and “ Forget-me-nots contributed to Blackwood’s Magazine ; and once she actually perpetrated a pamphlet on the state of the nation, which was handed about in confidence amongst a select circle of friends, who pronounced it to be “ well worthy of her pen.”

Besides all this, Lady Howard patronized every body, and Sir Francis often told her, that she saved their acquaintances a perfect fortune in advertisements. If a servant needed a place, — if a friend wanted a house, — or a shop required customers, she was indefatigable, and covered lier chimney-piece with cards for singing-masters who required scholars, and from decayed gentlewomen who washed lace. Her back drawing-room was a perfect repository for the sale of paintings and pincushions, to gain a livelihood for various deserving persons in distress ; and it was reckoned quite a service of danger to visit much at Lady Howard’s, she had so many charitable traps set, to catch all the loose cash that might be straying in her friends’ pockets. Many who entered the house with a firm resolution of being quite impregnable to all assaults on their benevolence, found themselves returning to their carriages afterwards most unaccountably laden with “ the sweetest little poem in the world by a poor blind cobbler or a pair of rickety hand-screens that had been painted by an old woman in her bed ; or else a dozen of tickets for the raffle of some poor man’s watch, which was to be generously returned to him by anyone who had the good fortuue to win it. If they successfully evaded all these temptations, then they generally found themselves pledged to employ, for the rest of their lives, some distressed baker with a large family, whose bread was not much sourer than other peoples ; or to be measured at some cheap shop for a pair of shoes that it would be impossible ever to wear.

Sir Francis professed to be the only person who never would listen to her recommendations, and he was often Known to insinuate, that she must certainly levy a percentage for the trouble she took. But his cellar and hia stable were both alike inaccessible to all her bargains, and he sometimes laughed his friends completely out of coun tenance when he saw them pinioned into a u cheap coat,” or suffering under a u treasure of a cook,” warranted and recommended by Lady Howard.

Her parties were of a perfectly different caste from those of Lady Fitz-Patrick, though equally select and exclusive in her own line. Any author who had ever written, or was supposed to be writing a book, was sure to obtain a card ; all artists who had pictures in the exhibition received invitations immediately ; advocates who were too busy to attend parties in general ; travellers who had penetrated beyond the common orbit of Italy and Switzerland ; professors of every science ; amateurs in music, mathematics, or phrenology ; young ladies who could talk of taste and the fine arts, and Members of Parliament who had spoken in u the House,” were all assembled and mingled together at Lady Howard’s “ petites soirees.” Sir Francis complained that it was almost impossible to smuggle in any of his own friends, though he protested that they were generally very illustrious personages in their own departments ; — gentlemen who had bagged nearly a hundred brace of grouse in a single day, — or who had driven their own carriages so rapidly as to outstrip the mail, or who could walk a mile in five minutes, — all put in their claims to be “ lions,” but were very rarely permitted to pass muster, and only under an embargo on their ever being asked again. In short, nobody was ever half so busy or so clever in this world before as Lady Howard, and the labor of supporting the character she assumed might have made her an object of pity to the most worn-out actress. Night and day she played her part, or occupied herself in preparing for it. She kept up a correspondence that would have wearied a secretary of state, and ran through so many books, that it might have tired the eyes of Argus to read them, or the hands of Briareus to turn the leaves over. Her mind became like the bed of a river, where every thing flowed through, and nothing remained. History, reviews, pamphlets, magazines, poems, travels, and biographies, were all strewed upon her table, waiting to be read the first leisure moment, though frequently she paid them off with the most transient glance, like an insolvent debtor who dismisses a host of creditors at once, by paying a shilling in the pound.

When Lady Howard had got some degree in arrear of her reading, she had an instinctive dread of the frequent opening question in a literary conversation, “ Have you read

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the last publication ?” and she wished at least to be able to reply in her usual tone of decided criticism, u I begun it, but the style did not please me,” or, “ the little I had patience for, seemed very hackneyed.” Occasionally she made some governess out of place, mark the most prominent pas sages of a new book, if she suddenly heard that the author himself was to appear at an approaching party ; and Sir Francis alleged that once when a friend of her own had en trusted his manuscript poem for perusal, which she entirely forgot till he sent for the volume again, Lady Howard merely glanced down the last word of every line, to see how they all rhymed, and then wrote to him that she thought it “extremely harmonious.”

Such a public-spirited individual as we have described, would scarcely be expected to squander much time upon the care of' her children’s education, yet she was a prodigious amateur in the systems and theories by which infants can be trained into prodigies on the shortest notice. Lady Howard had already lost several of her family who were successively the wonders of their day. Each of them knew his letters at three years old, sung and repeated hymns at four, spoke French at five, and died at six, to the surprise and grief of their mother, who lamented her hard fate, and talked much of the severity of her afflictions ; but she learnt no caution by experience, and educated those who were spared with unrelaxing vehemence. Sir Francis mournfully declared that his children had been worked to death, but not being gifted with sufficient moral courage to insist on his own prerogative of absolute interference, he vainly attempted to convince Lady Howard of her error, and finding she was impenetrable to argument or entreaty, he contented himself with banishing his three remaining sons to school, and resolutely determined on estranging his affections from Matilda, whom he regarded as an object of painful sympathy, beyond the reach of his assistance, and therefore inevitably a victim like the rest, to excessive cultivation. Lady Howard’s utmost ingenuity was exercised in devising plans of study for her daughter, each of which required to be tried under the dynasty of a different governess, so that by the time Matilda Howard attained the age of sixteen, she had been successively taught by eight, all of whom were instructed in the last “ method ” that had been invented for making young ladies accomplished on the newest pattern, and though each of these preceptresses brought recommendations and testimonials, setting them forth as models of per fection, yet six months afterwards, Lady Howard invariably found out some fatal deficiency, which put a premature end to their reign. Sir Francis had been heard to insinuate, what many people believed, that the pleasure she had in providing them with situations amongst her friends, made Lady Howard fastidious, and still more, the gratification of writing to her correspondent at Berne or Schatfhausen, for a description of all the remaining Mademoiselles, with unpronounceable names, still en 'pension in the neighboring convents, together with a catalogue of their various acquirements, which were then emblazoned and discussed at the next committee on education amongst her literary friends.

Matilda Howard’s beauty was as brilliant, and her talents were no less promising, than those of her cousin Miss Fitz- Patrick, but Lady Howard had a theory so decidedly against any girl being either seen or heard of, till she was ready to be finally launched, that on the few occasions when Matilda appeared with her governess before visitors, she was merely permitted to be present as a quiet spectator, instead of acting, like Eleanor, in the capacity of principal performer, and in the quiet recesses of her own school-room, she was governed ostensibly according to the code of laws established by Lady Howard, but in reality according to the whim or caprice of the last new administration from Switzerland.

In the fashionable world few people knew, and the few who knew seldom recollected, that Lady Fitz-Patrick and Lady Howard had an elder sister, who considered herself as much a leader, and a person of consequence in her own particular “ set,” as themselves : and if possible, she found more to do than either of them. Miss Barbara Neville, in her youth, had been always much overlooked, owing to the superior brilliancy of her younger sisters, and with the same love of excitement, she tried to dress like Lady Fitz-Patrick, and to talk like Lady Howard, but somehow it never succeeded ; she was neither gazed at, nor listened to as they were, and the case seemed beyond all remedy, till at length it was suddenly announced, as publicly and decidedly as if she had been going to be married, that “ Miss Barbara Neville had become serious !” From that moment she was never seen or heard of again, at Lady Fitz-Patrick’s balls, nor at Lady Howard’s conversaziones, though she henceforth mingled in a world of her own, and enjoyed a great deal of what Sir F rancis called 11 religious dissipation.” There was always

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some clergyman, as infallible as the pope, whose preaching it seemed necessary to her salvation to attend, and this unfortunately never happened to be the pastor of her own parish, who was merely a man of sincere, but unpretending piety ; and accordingly every Sunday a coachman and a pair of horses were denied that rest which is the privilege of every living creature on the Sabbath, and obliged to convey Miss Barbara Neville to hear, what she called u a sweet or a striking discourse.” If any church was open for an extra sermon, before breakfast, or after dinner, she preferred attending a third or fourth service to the more retired, and equally essential duties of private prayer and meditation. At every missionary meeting, Miss Barbara Neville secured a front seat, and would gladly have mounted on the platform if her ascent had been allowed. At the General Assembly she might have been mistaken for a ruling elder, her attendance night and day was so incessant, and in every company indiscriminately she was ready to talk of her experience , as if she were the only Christian of the party, having misconceived cant for religion, like those who fancy that the rumbling of a cart is thunder. Every new doctrine found an advocate in Miss Neville ; and far from concluding that the most important topies are always most fully and distinctly enforced in Scripture, she generally seized on those which were obscure and difficult, maintaining that they were the most essential, so that a novice in controversy might have imagined that a new volume of the Bible had been recently discovered, from the zeal with which she propagated opinions which had been unknown in former ages to the humble, the teachable, the learned and the devout students, who, praying for the light of God’s own Spirit, and studying His word, to receive the sense and not to give it, had lived under the influence of its precepts, and died in the believing anticipation of its promises and hopes. Miss Barbara Neville had moreover struck out a particular interpretation of prophecy for her own use, and was supposed to be writing on it for the public benefit, as she talked slightingly of Newton and Keith, whom she stigmatized as persons of “ narrow views,” and she evidently thought that for her own part, she

“ Could deep mysteries unriddle More easily than thread a needle.”

Her very dres3 was religious ; she wore a cottage bonnet as long and round as a telescope, a sad-colored gown of some remarkably dingy hue, and an enormous basket on her arm, which left the imagination of spectators at fault to conjecture whether it contained provisions or clothing for a whole family in distress. Sir Francis used to complain that in church no one disturbed his devotions so much as Barbara, for if the most ordinary remark occurred, on the shortness or uncertainty of human life, she sighed as audibly as an old woman on the pulpit stairs, and if the sinfulness of our nature was alluded to, she shook her head till her long narrow bonnet vibrated like the pendulum of a clock.