Mary Brunton
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TO MRS BALFOUR.
JAN. 17, 1818.
* * I am glad you are teaching Mary Latin. It seems to me, that nature itself points out the propriety of teaching women languages, by the facility with which we generally acquire them. I never knew a girl, who, in learning the dead languages, did not keep above the boys in her class; nor did I ever happen to see this acquisition produce a female pedant. Indeed, learning of all kinds is now too common among ladies, to be any longer like Cain's mark, excluding the bearer from all human intercourse. I know a lady, who, two years ago, gained a mathematical prize, from Oxford I think, with perfect impunity; being still universally received as a very agreeable womanly sort of person.
I am clear for furnishing women with such accomplishments as are absolutely incapable of being converted into matter of exhibition; and such, in the present state of society, are classical learning and mathematics. These hard times compel so many women to celibacy, that I should think it no bad speculation to educate a few for respectable old maids; especially such as have minds strong enough to stand alone, and romantic enough, not to chuse to marry, merely for the sake of being married. Luckily, the education which fits a woman for leading apes with a good grace, will not spoil her for "suckling fools, and chronicling small beer."
Whether your Mary is to marry or not, I hope she will grow up with a mind vigorous and happy in its own resources; trained as a mind ought to be, which is soon to shake off its connection with all material objects, and to owe its sole happiness to improvement in knowledge and goodness.
As for the boys, the world will educate them in spite of you. You may "plant and water," but the rude blast will soon give your sprouts its own direction; nor can they, like our happier sex, hide themselves from its influence. Reading, reflection, and advice do much to form the character of women. Men are the creatures of circumstance and of example; half a dozen witty profligates will put to flight a dozen years' maxims in an afternoon. But as the old saying has it, "they are well kept whom God keeps;" and some are wonderfully kept--some as wonderfully restored. By this time, I fancy you think I am borrowing a page from the Dr's incipient volume.
I wish you would let me do the honours of the banks of Esk. Surely you may contrive to leave Orkney for a little while next summer. You would be so much amused; and yet you would return with such new pleasure to your home. So, at least, it is with me. Wherever I ramble, my own home seems to me like some flowery island in the great ocean, upon which the eye, when it is weary of wanderings, can always rest with pleasure.
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Composition had now long ceased to be a voluntary employment. It had come to be looked upon as a task; and she rather sought reasons to justify to her own mind her desertion of her former habits, than opportunities of renewing them in their strength. During the summer of 1818, however, she had in a great measure conquered these feelings; and had it pleased Providence to spare her life, I am convinced that she would at this hour have been returning to her former occupations with all her former ardour.
She was strongly impressed, indeed, with a belief that her confinement was to prove fatal; not on vague presentiment, but on grounds of which I could not entirely remove the force, though I obstinately refused to join in the inference which she drew from them. Under this belief she completed every the most minute preparation for her great change, with the same tranquillity as if she had been making arrangements for one of those short absences, which only endeared her home the more to her. The clothes in which she was laid in the grave had been selected by herself; she herself had chosen and labelled some tokens of remembrance for her more intimate friends; and the intimations of her death were sent round from a list in her own hand-writing. But these anticipations, though so deeply fixed, neither shook her fortitude, nor diminished her cheerfulness. They neither altered her wish to live, nor the ardour with which she prepared to meet the duties of returning health, if returning health were to be her portion.
They seemed rather to animate her zeal the more in any thing by which she could promote the welfare of her fellow-creatures. To this great work she seemed the more anxious to devote herself, as her recollection became the deeper, that the "night cometh in which no man can work." "Life," she says, in one of the last letters which she ever wrote, and which contains no other trace of her own forebodings; "life is too short and uncertain to admit of our trifling with even the lesser opportunities of testifying good-will. The flower of the field must scatter its odours to-day. To-morrow it will be gone."
Her forebodings were not often the subject of her conversation with those around her, because she knew how painful the theme was to them. For the same reason, she mentioned it but slightly to her relations at a distance. But there is a striking mixture of fortitude and tenderness in the last letter which she addressed to her sister-in-law.
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TO MRS BALFOUR.
FRANKFIELD, OCT. 22, 1818.
* * * If it please Almighty God to spare my infant's life and my own,--I trust I am "made of sterner stuff," than to shrink from a few hours of any pain which nature can support.--I suppose the trial will be made about three weeks hence. I hope not sooner; for even then I shall scarcely be ready. Ready! do I say! What time would be necessary to prepare me for the change which I must probably then undergo! But there is ONE with whom one day is as a thousand years! When I spoke of preparation, I merely meant that I had not "set my house in order."
I wish, my dear Mary, that some of you would write to me very circumstantially about aunt Craigie; and soon, lest the letter be too late for me. If I am to be removed, I cannot regret that she is so soon to follow. But what a loss will she be to every member of your circle? Where is there a being, within the sphere of her influence, who does not owe to her many acts of kindness? It grieves me especially to think of her excellent sister, whose kind heart will feel her privation most deeply! Remember me most affectionately to them both, especially to aunt Mary, who was the first love of my heart--who was the first person whom I recollect as showing me kindness--and who, since the time when I remember her singing to sooth me, till this moment of my sending her my blessing and farewell, has never ceased to be kind and dear to me!*
May God bless my dear William and you, in your family, and in all your concerns; but chiefly in that great concern of making your conduct in this life a preparation for a better! I shall not write again. My husband will.--
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Her anticipations, however, had been only too well-founded. After giving birth to a still-born son, on the 7th of December, and recovering, for a few days, with a rapidity beyond the hopes of her medical friends, she was attacked with fever. It advanced with fatal violence, till it closed her earthly life on the morning of Saturday, December 19, 1818.
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Over what she was in the relations of domestic life, the hand which traces this narrative, must be allowed to draw a veil. To those who knew her there, no words of mine are wanting; and, to those who knew her not, no words of mine could convey any just idea of her value.
Her own letters, indeed, with which the kindness of her correspondents has enabled me so largely to enrich this Memoir, convey a more faithful and far more impressive picture than any which I could have drawn, not only of her general manner, but of a mind and a heart which were open as the day.
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Of her literary character, I have endeavoured to give a true, though feeble outline. They who have merely heard of her as the author of two once popular novels, if they ever glance at these pages at all, may think I have said too much. But I am sure that the detail will not seem tedious to those who met her in the intercourse of private life; or who examined her books with care enough to estimate from them what the author might have been capable of performing.
Criticism on her works, although it might have been expected from any other biographer, it is not my intention to attempt. Censure or panegyric, indeed, would be alike unsuitable from me. Were there no other reason for my declining the task, I might well be deterred from it by the single circumstance, of my having anticipated for her books so different a fate from that which they have experienced. I did not expect that they were to become rapidly popular; but I trusted that the calm good sense and discrimination of character which they display, and the pure and lofty sentiments which they breathe, and the flowing and natural eloquence which clothes them, would at last establish them, as much as works of the kind are ever established, in public favour. The fact has been entirely the reverse. They rose very fast into celebrity, and their popularity seems to have as quickly sunk away.
It might have been otherwise, had she been permitted to increase their number. I am persuaded, that, in all which she had done, she was only trying her strength; and that, if her life had been prolonged, the standard of female intellect might have been heightened, and the character of English literature might have been embellished by her labours.
The excellence of her mind consisted more in the general harmony of its faculties, than in the extraordinary strength of any one. Her memory, as I have mentioned before, was retentive rather of facts and opinions than of dates and words; and this circumstance, perhaps, made the stores of a very rich and active mind seem even more original than in truth they were. Her imagination I would characterize rather as vivid and distinct, than as peculiarly inventive. Her taste had not been very early cultivated; but it grew so rapidly with the slightest guidance, that any defect was obviously the fault, not of nature, but of misdirection. Her judgment was both quick and steady; and her discrimination between sophistry and sound argument was almost instinctive.
The trace, perhaps, of early unkindness had made her slow in receiving strangers to her esteem. But her warm affections, when they once were won, repaid a thousand fold any suspicion which might at the first have restrained them. Never was there on earth attachment more implicit--more disinterested--more self-devoting than hers. Never was there openness more artless and confiding.
From these mingled elements,--a scrutiny of strangers, approaching almost to jealousy, and an attachment and gratitude to her friends, which gave them credit for every excellence,--she gained latitude enough in her study of mankind, to pourtray every variety of moral feeling.
The study of character in real life was a favourite pursuit with her; and the little journals from which extracts are published in this volume, contain many examples of the skill which she exercised in this department, even under obvious disadvantages, and on very slender intercourse. These, however, from their very nature, cannot be published.
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In her letter to Miss Baillie, quoted above, p. xliii, she alludes to some poems which she had composed in her very early youth. I cannot venture to insert what she herself so peremptorily rejects; although some of them are within my reach, of which she had preserved copies. Since that period, I am scarcely aware of her having written a line of verse till very recently; and it was owing to an accidental circumstance that she resumed the attempt. In some of those periods, during which she did not think herself equal to any literary exertion, she amused her leisure with music. She attempted particularly to recall and to note down some airs peculiar to Orkney, which had pleased her in her childhood. Before she would play any new one to me, she used to exact a promise, that I would write words for the tune. The promise was often forfeited; and I find among her papers, some instances in which she herself has supplied the defect. Three of these little poems I shall here subjoin. The last of them derives a strong and melancholy interest, from its being, so far as I know, the last thing which she wrote. Before it met my eye, the hand which had written it was in the grave.
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Air--"My Love's in Germany."
Oh, why didst thou wander from me, my own love,
Oh, why didst thou wander from me?
For idly I roam in each meadow and grove,
Where, gladsome, I loitered with thee, my own love,
Where, gladsome, I loitered with thee.
Oh! heavy's my heart when the sunset is sweet,
And sick when the morning looks gay,
For then I remember how I used to meet
With thee, who art now far away, my own love,
With thee, who art now far away.
And when the wild storms, round his dwelling that rave,
Tell man to be social and free,
Poor I shall be lonely and cold as the grave,
While pining in absence from thee, my own love,
While pining in absence from thee.
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AIR--
That altered form thou shalt not see,
Which once was lovely to thine eyes;
And memory still in charms to thee
Shall dress it, though its beauty flies.
Nor shall my presence e'er betray
A wrinkle, or a lock of grey!
Thou shalt not know that sorrow's blast
Has swept the roses of my prime;
That care her hand hath o'er me pass'd
Sadly anticipating time;
And on my brow her lines of thought,
In deep deforming furrows, wrought.
Oh! if the years that roll along
Shall carry in their course away
Each gift of mind--each feeling strong--
That blest me in life's better day,
How soothing is the thought, that thou
Wilt think me still what I am now!
The naked tree, whose yellow leaf
Is swept before the winter wind,
Shall rise from its dominion brief,
Opening to vernal breezes kind.
But changing seasons, as they flee,
No bloom renewed can bring to me!
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AIR--
While thou at eventide art roaming
Along the elm-o'ershaded walk,
Where, past, the eddying stream is foaming
Beneath its tiny cataract,--
Where I with thee was wont to talk,--
Think thou upon the days gone by,
And heave a sigh!
When sails the moon above the mountains,
And cloudless skies are purely blue,
And sparkle in the light the fountains,
And darker frowns the lonely yew,--
Then be thou melancholy too,
When musing on the hours I proved
With thee, beloved!
When wakes the dawn upon thy dwelling,
And lingering shadows disappear,
And soft the woodland songs are swelling
A choral anthem on thine ear,
--Think--for that hour to thought is dear!
And then her flight remembrance wings
To by-past things.
To me, through every season, dearest;
In every scene--by day, by night,
Thou present to my mind appearest
A quenchless star--for ever bright!
My solitary, sole delight!
Alone--in grove--by shore--at sea,
I think of thee!
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On her religious character, I must not allow myself to dilate, for her piety was not of an ostentatious or obtrusive kind. It was willingly avowed whenever it could benefit others, by example; but it shrunk from observation in its details, and there is a sacredness in its privacy on which I dare not intrude.
Though her affections were warm, her religion was not a religion of the affections only. Her powerful and discriminating judgment was faithfully employed in investigating the evidences of her belief, even while she prayed most meekly for that faith which cometh down only from the Father of Lights. The books which she valued the most in this most important of all discussions, were Butler's Analogy, Macknight's Truth of the Gospel History, and Paley's Horae Paulinae. The last attracted her in a very peculiar degree, and she used to reckon it by far the most original and the most acute of Dr Paley's works.
In the study of the Scriptures themselves, she was unwearied; and the pleasure which she had in the employment was ever new.
The books which, next to the Bible, she kept constantly near her, both as doctrinal and as practical remembrancers, were John Newton's Messiah and Cardiphonia; Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living; the Old Whole Duty of Man; Baxter's Saints' Everlasting Rest; and Cowper's Poems.
She had the highest reverence for the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England; and her guide in the duty of self-examination, was Bishop Gibson's little book upon the Lord's Supper. She was too deeply convinced of the vital importance of the duty of self-examination, not to be regular and strict in discharging it. She recorded in writing, at least twice in every year, the answers which her conscience enabled her to give to the different topics of enquiry, which are suggested by Bishop Gibson; and on comparing this record from time to time, she wrote down the inferences by which she desired that her conduct might be guided.
The only direct contribution which she has left to the spiritual welfare of her fellow-creatures, beyond what is contained in her works already published, is the fragment inserted in this volume, under the title which she herself had given it, of HELPS TO DEVOTION. It is published exactly in the state in which she left it. Some one, I trust, of judgment as sound, of affections as warm, and of piety as ardent as her own, will complete the selection which she has begun. In the preface, of which the manuscript is blotted with tears of the most eager interest, she draws the picture of the influence of her religion upon her own mind.
I never was acquainted with any human being, who, in every concern of life, minute or important, was guided by a more earnest wish to do the will of GOD. The principle might, at times, be mastered by temptation, but it was not forgotten; and the meekest and humblest self-condemnation immediately acknowledged the folly of having swerved from its dictates.
So long as the use of her understanding was preserved to her, the same temper which had swayed her through life, was manifested on her death-bed. On one of the last occasions when I expressed to her my delight and gratitude for the increasing hopes of her recovery; her answer was, that though she could not but wish to live while her life was so valued, her earnest prayer had been, that, in this and in every thing else, instead of her being allowed to chuse for herself, her heavenly Father might do what was best for us both.
Within two short days thereafter, the violence of fever suspended the expressions of her feelings!--GOD only knows with what bitterness of heart I longed that one ray of intelligence might return ere her departure; that I might hear her speak once again of her faith and hope; that I might once again receive her blessing. It was "best for her" that recognition should not aggravate the last conflict of nature; and,--for me,--if I cannot profit by the remembrance of her life, the accents of her last breath would have been lost upon me.
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I close this feeble sketch with a testimony far outweighing all that it would have been possible for me to say,--a testimony from one who knew her intimately--one whose good opinion was dear to her, for she loved and reverenced him.
Dr Inglis thus closed a sermon, "On the death of the Righteous," the first which was preached in the Tron Church after her interment.
"Let me exhort you, in the last place, as you would rise superior to the fear of death, to cherish the memory of those who have already passed from the society of the few who were most dear to you on earth, to the society of the blessed in Heaven.
"How unnatural seems to be the conduct of many, whose consolation for the loss of a departed friend appears to depend upon committing his name to oblivion--who appear to shrink from the view of every object that would, for a moment, bring to their recollection the delight which they once felt in his society. If such conduct be, in any respect, excusable, it can only be in the case of those who have no hope in God.
"There are few, if any, among us, who have not, ere now, committed to the silent tomb the perishing remains of some, who had been, not only long, but deservedly dear to us; whose virtues are, in consequence, a satisfying pledge that they have only gone before us to the mansions of bliss. Some of us have, but recently, laid in the grave all that was mortal and perishing of one, who may well continue to live in our remembrance--whose memory will be a monitor to us of those virtues which may qualify us for being reunited to her society. Though the body mingle with the dust, the spirit, in this case, yet speaketh; it invites, and, I trust, enables us to anticipate more effectually on earth, our intercourse with the spirits of the just in Heaven.
"Great cause we, no doubt, have to mourn over that dispensation of Providence, which has, in the meanwhile, removed from the sphere of our converse on earth--one, from whose converse we had so invariably derived at once instruction and delight--whose piety was so genuine, that, while never ostentatiously displayed, it was, as little, in any case, disguised--whose mental energies communicated such a character and effect to both her piety and her active beneficence, that they often served the purpose of an example to others, when such a purpose was not contemplated by her--whose mental energies, great as they were, yet derived their chief value from being stedfastly consecrated to the interests of truth and the cause of virtue--and whose native simplicity and openness of mind imparted to all her endowments a value, which no talents can otherwise possess.
"Not to mourn over a dispensation of Providence, which has deprived us, in the meanwhile, of such a blessing, would be incompatible with the design of Providence, in visiting us with such a cause of affliction. But God forbid that we should sorrow as men who have no hope of being reunited in Heaven to those who have been most dear to them on earth! God forbid that we should be unwilling in our hearts to conform to the design of Providence, when, by removing from us those who have been the objects of our regard in this world, it would, in some sense, unite earth to heaven, by gradually weaning us from the world, and gradually transferring our hearts to heaven, before we have altogether completed the appointed years of our pilgrimage on earth!
"Let a view of our condition, as the heirs of Heaven, so elevate our minds, as to make us now join, with one heart, in the language of our Christian triumph--'O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.' Amen."
ALEX. BRUNTON.
EDINBURGH, March 8, 1819.
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* This excellent person died a few days before her niece; but not before she had received this affecting testimony of gratitude and attachment.
This presentation of Emmeline. With Some Other Pieces., by Mary Brunton is Copyright 2003 by P.J. LaBrocca. It may not be copied, duplicated, stored or transmitted in any form without written permission. The text is in the public domain.