PEN-PORTRAITS OFLITERARY WOMEN

BY THEMSELVES AND OTHERS

EDITED BY HELEN GRAY CONE AND JEANNETTE L. GILDER

WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES BY THE FORMER.

Vol. I.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, 739 & 741 Broadway, New York.

[Pg ii]

Copyright, 1887, By O. M. DUNHAM.

Press W. L. Mershon & Co., Rahway, N. J.

[Pg iii]

CONTENTS.

[Pg v]

PREFATORY NOTE.

This book was suggested by Mr. Mason’s “Personal Traits of British Authors,” published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. With a single exception—Charlotte Brontë—the editor of that excellent work excluded from his pages the literary women of England. The belief that the public would find interest in a presentation of the characteristics and surroundings of many of these women, has induced us to supplement Mr. Mason’s volumes with the present series of “Pen Portraits.”

The distinction in title implies a slight change of plan. We have not confined ourselves to the depicting of personal traits, but have admitted a descriptive background; beyond the figures of Charlotte and Emily Brontë, a glimpse is caught of the wild moors, purple with heather; and the Mediterranean,[Pg vi] dark with storm, appears behind the graceful head of Mary Shelley. When a critical remark of some fellow-worker seemed to have point, we have included it; such passages may be regarded as pencillings, in various hands, on the margin of the catalogue of our gallery.

The plan of this work originally included English writers only. In the course of its preparation, however, a certain amount of material relative to two others (to the greatest of Frenchwomen and to that American woman of letters who most notably represents an interesting past phase of national growth), has presented itself and has not been rejected.

For the extracts used in these two volumes we give full credit, both at the foot of the quotations and in an alphabetically arranged list at the end of each volume. To these authors and to their publishers we acknowledge our deep obligation, for, without the material they have furnished, these “Pen Portraits” could never have been drawn.

THE EDITORS.

[Pg 9]

HANNAH MORE.1745-1833.

[Pg 11]

HANNAH MORE.

Hannah More was born on the 2nd of February, 1745, in the hamlet of Fishponds in Stapleton parish, about four miles from Bristol. Her father was the Master of the Free School of that place. His five daughters grew up to follow his profession, opening, in 1757, a boarding-school in Bristol, which was very successful. Hannah’s early womanhood was passed at Bristol, with occasional visits to London, where she was welcomed by the most brilliant society of the day. After the death of her dear friend Garrick, in 1779, she gradually withdrew herself from the world. In 1785 she went to live at Cowslip Green, whence she removed in 1800 to Barley Wood, near Wrington, eight miles from Bristol. Her sisters shared her home, devotedly laboring with her among the poor. Death took them from her one by one, and at last, in September, 1833, she followed them. She had removed to Clifton in order to be under the care of friends.

It is sadly to be feared that some of her once very popular works, which undoubtedly accomplished much good in their day, have passed with modern readers into the category of “books which are no books,”—among[Pg 12] which Charles Lamb reckoned “court calendars, directories, pocket-books, draught-boards, bound and lettered at the back, ... and generally, all those volumes which ‘no gentleman’s library should be without.’” The whirligig of time brings in new fashions of thought and expression, and “the ways of literature are strewn all over with the shells of books which the public has devoured and forgotten.” But to turn from the works of Mrs. More’s pen and read of the works of her helping hands among the poor, is as though, in some old-time garden where the untrimmed box-borders have grown into sad confusion, and the old flowers with the odd names have ceased to bloom, we came suddenly upon the fresh wild-rose that is never out of fashion. The story of the sturdy struggles of this delicate woman with the squalor, ignorance,

and indifference of that barbarous rural England of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, brings her near to us to-day, claiming a respectful admiration which modern taste hardly accords to her writings.

The following is a list of her principal works:

Poems: The Search After Happiness. Sir Eldred of the Bower and the Legend of Sensibility. The Bas Bleu. Florio. Bleeding Rock. Bible Rhymes.

Dramas: Percy, A Tragedy, performed at Covent Garden Theatre, 1777. Fatal Falsehood, performed in 1779. The Inflexible Captive.

Prose Works: Thoughts on the Manners of the Great. Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable[Pg 13] World. Strictures on Female Education. Cælebs in Search of a Wife, 1808. Practical Piety. Christian Morals. Moral Sketches.

At an early age she evinced a large aptitude for learning, and a desire for information. When her mother first began to think of teaching her to read, she found Hannah had already made considerable progress, from attending to the instructions bestowed on her elder sisters.

Her nurse having lived in the family of Dryden, the inquisitive mind of the intelligent child was incessantly prompting her to ask for stories about the poet; and to her father’s excellent memory she was indebted for long stories from the Greek and Roman histories. Whilst sitting on his knee, he would, to gratify her ear by the sound, repeat speeches of her favorite heroes, in their original language, afterward translating them into English.

Mr. More imparted to his daughters the rudiments both of Latin and of the mathematics, and was afterward, it is said, alarmed at the proficiency of his pupils.

Mrs. Elwood: ‘Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England.’ London: Henry Colburn, 1843.

At this early period, too, the signs of that precarious health which exercised her piety and virtue by so many trials in the course of her long life, began to appear; and it was recorded in the family, that pain and suffering were in her at that early period without their usual attendants of fretfulness and impatience.

[Pg 14]

In her days of infancy, when she could possess herself of a scrap of paper, her delight was to scribble upon it some essay or poem, with some well-directed moral, which was afterward secreted in a dark corner where the servant kept her brushes and dusters. Her little sister, with whom she slept, was usually the repository of her nightly effusions; who, in her zeal lest these compositions should be lost, would sometimes steal down to procure a light, and commit them to the first scrap of paper which she could find. Among the characteristic sports of Hannah’s childhood, which their mother was fond of recording, we are told that she was wont to make a carriage of a chair, and then call to her sisters to ride with her to London to see bishops and booksellers; an intercourse which we shall hereafter show to have been realized. The greatest wish her imagination could frame, when her scraps of paper were exhausted, was, that she might one day be rich enough to have a whole quire to herself; and when, by her mother’s indulgence, the

prize was obtained, it was soon filled with supposititious letters to depraved characters, to reclaim them from their errors, and letters in return expressive of contrition and resolutions of amendment.

This branch of the family was attached to the established church, Mr. More himself being a stanch Tory, and what is known as a High Churchman; but the other members of the family were Presbyterians, and the daughters of Mr. Jacob More had frequently heard their father say that he had two great-uncles captains in Oliver Cromwell’s army. Jacob More’s mother appears, from family tradition, to have possessed a mind of more than ordinary vigor.[Pg 15] She was a pious woman, and used to tell her younger relatives that they would have known how to value gospel privileges had they lived, like her, in the days of proscription and persecution, when, at midnight, pious worshippers went with stealthy steps through the snow, to hear the words of inspiration delivered by a holy man at her father’s house; while her father, with a drawn sword, guarded the entrance from violent or profane intrusion.

W. Roberts: ‘Memoirs of Hannah More,’ New York: Harper & Bros., 1834.

I would wish you a Merry Christmas as well as a Happy New-Year, but that I hate the word merry so applied; it is a fitter epithet for a bacchanalian than a Christian festival, and seems an apology for idle mirth and injurious excess.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister from Hampton 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

On Sunday evening I was a little alarmed; they were preparing for music (sacred music was the ostensible thing), but before I had time to feel uneasy, Garrick turned round and said, “Nine,[1] you are a Sunday woman; retire to your room—I will recall you when the music is over.”

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from Farnborough Place, 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

We spent an agreeable evening at Dr. Cadogan’s,[Pg 16] where Mrs. Montagu and I, being the only two monsters in the creation who never touch a card (and laughed at enough for it we are), had the fireside to ourselves; and a more elegant and instructive conversation I have seldom enjoyed.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister from London 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

I am going, to-day, to a great dinner; nothing can be conceived so absurd, extravagant and fantastical as the present mode of dressing the head. Simplicity and modesty are things so much exploded, that the very names are no longer remembered. I have just escaped from one of the most fashionable disfigurers; and though I charged him to dress me with the greatest simplicity, and to have only a very distant eye upon the fashion, just enough to avoid the pride of singularity; yet in spite of all these sage didactics, I absolutely blush at myself.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from London 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

Again I am annoyed by the foolish absurdity of the present mode of dress. Some ladies carry on their heads a large quantity of fruit, and yet they would despise a poor useful member of society who carried it there for the purpose of selling it for bread. Some, at the back of their perpendicular caps, hang four or five ostrich feathers, of different colors, etc. Spirit of Addison! thou pure and gentle shade arise! thou who, with such fine humor, and such polished sarcasm, didst lash the cherry-colored hood and the party patches; awake! for the follies thou didst lash were[Pg 17] but the beginning of follies; and the absurdities thou didst censure were but the seeds of absurdities!

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from London, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

The other night we had a great deal of company, eleven damsels, to say nothing of men. I protest I hardly do them justice, when I pronounce that they had, among them, on their heads, an acre and a half of shrubbery, besides slopes, grass-plots, tulip-beds, clumps of peonies, kitchen-gardens, and green-houses.... I have no doubt that they held in great contempt our roseless heads and leafless necks.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from Burgay, 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

And now we are upon vanities, what do you think is the reigning mode as to powder?—only turmeric, that coarse dye which stains yellow. The Goths and Vandals, the Picts and Saxons, are come again. It falls out of the hair, and stains the skin so that every pretty lady must look as yellow as a crocus, which I suppose will become a better compliment than as white as a lily.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from Hampton, 1782, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

The other evening they carried me to Mrs. Ord’s assembly; I was quite dressed for the purpose; Mrs. Garrick gave me an elegant cap, and put it on herself; so that I was quite sure of being smart; but how short-lived is all human joy! and see what it is to live in the[Pg 18] country! When I came into the drawing-rooms I found them full of company, every human creature in deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet. I never recollected that the mourning for some foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. However, I got over it as well as I could, made an apology, lamented the ignorance in which I had lately lived, and I hope this false step of mine will be buried in oblivion.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from London, 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

I find my dislike of what are called public diversions greater than ever, except a play; and when Garrick has left the stage, I could be very well contented to relinquish plays also, and to live in London, without ever again setting my foot in a public place.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from London, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

I had no less than five invitations to dine abroad to-day, but preferred the precious and rare luxury of solitude.

‘Percy’ is acted again this evening: do any of you choose to go? I can write you an order: for my own part, I shall enjoy a much superior pleasure—that of sitting by the fire, in a great chair.

Hannah More: Letters to her sister, from London, 1777 and 1778, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

On Monday I was at a very great assembly at the Bishop of St. Asaph’s. Conceive to yourself one[Pg 19] hundred and fifty or two hundred people met together, dressed in the extremity of the fashion; painted as red as bacchanals; poisoning the air with perfumes; treading on each other’s gowns; making the crowd they blame; and not one in ten able to get a chair; protesting they are engaged to ten other places, and lamenting the fatigue they are not obliged to endure; ten or a dozen card-tables crammed with dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics, and yellow admirals; and you have an idea of an assembly. I never go to these things when I can possibly avoid it, and stay, when there, as few minutes as I can.

Hannah More: Letter to her sister, from Hampton, 1782, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

With the well-known writer, Dr. Langhorne, when vicar of Blagdon, she long maintained a poetical and literary correspondence. The introduction took place in 1773, while she was recovering from an attack of ague, at Uphill, on the Somersetshire coast. The doctor was at the time taking his recreation at the neighboring and better known watering-place, Weston-Super-Mare. They often rode together upon the sands; Miss More, as the custom then was, on the pillion behind her servant; and when it happened that either chanced to miss the other, a paper was placed in a cleft post near the water, generally containing some quaint remark, or a few verses. On one of these occasions, the doctor committed his wit and gallantry to the sand, on which he inscribed with his cane:

[Pg 20]

“Along the shore Walked Hannah More; Waves! let this record last: Sooner shall ye, Proud earth and sea, Than what she writes, be past. John Langhorne.”

Miss More, with her riding whip, wrote immediately beneath:

“Some firmer basis, polish’d Langhorne, choose, To write the dictates of thy charming muse; Thy strains in solid characters rehearse, And be thy tablet lasting as thy verse. Hannah More.”

Henry Thompson: ‘Life of Hannah More.’ Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1838.

His residence at Belmont was beautifully situated, and he had carriages and horses and every thing to make a visit to Belmont agreeable. He permitted his cousins to ask any young persons at the school to spend their vacations with them. Their governesses being nearly of their own age, they made choice of the two youngest of the sisters—Hannah and Patty More. The consequence was natural. She was very clever and fascinating, and he was generous and sensible; he became attached, and made his offer, which was accepted. He was a man of large fortune, and she was young and dependent; she quitted her interest in the concern of the school, and was at great expense in preparing and fitting herself out to be the wife of a man of large fortune. The day was fixed more than once for the marriage, and Mr. Turner each[Pg 21] time postponed it. Her sisters and friends interfered, and would not permit her to be so treated and trifled with. He continued in the wish to marry her; but her friends, after his former conduct, and on other accounts,

persevered in keeping up her determination not to renew the engagement.

Mrs. Simmons: Letter in W. Roberts’ ‘Memoirs of Hannah More.’

Since I wrote last, Hannah has been introduced by Miss Reynolds to Baretti, to Edmund Burke—the sublime and beautiful Edmund Burke! From a large party of literary persons assembled at Sir Joshua’s she received the most encouraging compliments; and the spirit with which she returned them was acknowledged by all present, as Miss Reynolds informed poor us.

... We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds. She had sent to engage Dr. Percy (Percy’s collection—now you know him), quite a spritely modern, instead of a rusty antique, as I expected. He was no sooner gone than Miss Reynolds ordered the coach to take us to Dr. Johnson’s very own house; yes, Abyssinia’s Johnson! Dictionary Johnson! Rambler’s, Idler’s, and Irene’s Johnson!

... Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous exclamations on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah and said, “She was a silly thing.” When our visit was ended, he called for his hat (as it rained), to attend us down a very long entry to our coach, and not Rasselas could have acquitted himself more en cavalier.

... I forgot to mention, that not finding Johnson[Pg 22] in his little parlor when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great chair, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius; when he heard it he laughed heartily, and said it was a chair on which he never sat.

Tuesday evening we drank tea at Sir Joshua’s with Dr. Johnson. Hannah is certainly a great favorite. She was placed next him, and they had the entire conversation to themselves. They were both in remarkably high spirits; it was certainly her lucky night! I never heard her say so many good things. The old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one very pleasant. You would have imagined we had been at some comedy had you heard our peals of laughter. They, indeed, tried which could “pepper the highest,” and it is not clear to me that the lexicographer was really the highest seasoner.

It is nothing but “child,” “little fool,” “love,” and “dearest.” After much critical discourse, he turns round to me, and with one of his most amiable looks, which must be seen to form the least idea of it, he says: “I have heard that you are engaged in the useful and honorable employment of teaching young ladies,” upon which ... we entered upon the history of our birth, parentage, and education; showing how we were born with more desires than guineas; and how, as years increased our appetites, the cupboard at home began to grow too small to gratify them; and how, with a bottle of water, a bed, and a blanket, we set out to seek our fortunes; and how we found a great house, with nothing in it; and how it was like to remain so, till looking into our knowledge-boxes, we happened to find a little learning, a good thing when land is gone, or[Pg 23] rather none: and so at last, by giving a little of this little learning to those who had less, we got a good store of gold in return; but how, alas! we wanted the wit to keep it.—“I

love you both,” cried the inamorato—“I love you all five—I never was at Bristol—I will come on purpose to see you—what! five women live happily together!—I will come and see you—I have spent a happy evening—I am glad I came—God for ever bless you, you live lives to shame duchesses.”