I soon fell into my new position, not only with ease, but avidity, for I found that “’twas my vocation, Hal!” It was so new to teach and not to be taught—to assume authority and not to submit to it—to snatch some hours from congenial duties for voluntary pursuits as pleasant as they were habitual—to be petted like a child and to govern like a mistress. Fine air, great exercise, spacious rooms, and abundant and wholesome living produced an immediate effect on my spirits and my health. As my conscious independence influenced my mind, which was now breaking forth at various points, I seized with avidity the reasonable observations of Mr. Featherstone, a sensible and excellent man, who, in his grave tones resembled the raisoneur of a French comedy.
The order and propriety which marked the economy of the house, the regular and easy hours gave me impressions of domestic discipline which are not yet effaced from my life and practice.
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It was just the epoch when “the tide in the affairs of man” had taken that turn which introduced a high domestic civilization into the houses of mere country gentlemen unknown to the Irish nobility of other times.*
And so in health and spirits, labour and amusement, flowed on sunny days and seasons, which dear Dr. Watts himself would have considered as coming up to his own ritual of
“Books, and works, and healthful play;” |
My intimacy with my young friends prolonged the epoch of my own adolescence, and as a few hours sleep
* Speaking of this one day to the late Earl of Rosse, so eminent as Sir Lawrence Parsons in earlier days, he assured me that he remembered in his boyhood, in the country houses of remote provinces, habits not far removed from semi-barbarism, and which would startle credulity now. At festive seasons, when the country houses were thronged beyond even their expansive power of accommodation; the “Barrack-room,” the room appropriated to all late comers, had a hearth in the centre, and an opening in the roof for the emission of smoke (such as still exists in the castle of the Sydneys, near Tunbridge), where they all lay down on the floor, with their feet to the fire, in a ring, and their heads on their portmanteaus. A few years back, during my residence at Kissingen, the Princess Esterhazy, with whom I had been associated in my first travelling life, and who renewed our acquaintance at the German baths, pressed my husband and myself to pay her a visit at Esterhazy, adding, “The style of the place I think will interest you. If you ring your bell in the morning for hot water for your toilette, I won’t promise that you will get it. Accommodation is not the character of German castles; but en revanche,” she added, laughingly, “your toilet table will be of solid silver, and the dressing-boxes studded with gems.” Domestic civilization in Austria, and what it was in Ireland a century ago, seem much on a par, le superflu mais non pas l’essentiel. |
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Here is one as an illustration:
Looking from “my bower window,” one fine morning, I saw the “water-cask boy” on his way with the cart to a pure spring, a mile off, which supplied us with water; for Bracklin owed its name to its “Brack Lynn,” or the muddy stream: that was all the water then on the grounds.
Miss Matty Reynolds, an old vestal of high family and great agricultural celebrity in the county, had in her domains a fine spring of water, to which the whole neighbourhood resorted for their supply.
It struck me that it would be charming to have “a drive” before the duties of the day began, and that I could think of my novel as I went along. I was then in the midst of St. Clair.
So I perched myself on the hogshead behind “little Pat Lester,” the lodge-keeper’s son. Miss Matty Reynolds was standing at her gate, “tall and straight as a poplar tree,” when we arrived. She received me with Irish welcome, insisting that I should come in and breakfast on “a griddle cake” and fresh-churned butter, “and an egg that was not laid yet, but would be in a minute.”
I yielded, and so did little Pat Lester, for, instead of filling his hogshead, he went down to the kitchen to have his breakfast on potatoes and ale.
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We both alike outstaid our time, and when I was reseated on my cask and little Pat on his donkey, flurried and hurried, we neither of us perceived that the bung had flown out of the hogshead, so that by the time we reached the castle gates I sat dripping
“Like a mermaid just risen from the say,” |
“Miss Owenson, is that you? We were afraid something had happened to you!” and so certainly there had.
He said no more, but stalked before me into the house.
The girls were ready to die with laughing when I appeared, but Mr. Featherstone declared his intention of “writing to my father;” dear Mrs. Featherstone “championed me” to the uttermost, and an Irish song with “Barbara Allen,” in the evening, settled the account, and the next day I was taken back to favour on the promise to be more circumspect for the future.
The most striking events in the first year of my residence with the
Featherstones, was the death of the Dowager Lady Steele, and the inheritance of her house and property in
Dublin, by her most amiable daughter. I was all but present at the death of the eccentric
belle of Lord Chesterfield’s court. Pope never drew anything more characteristic of the master
passion strong in death; and that charming description of the dying coquette was not more
illustrative of the intensity of
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A frequent occasional residence in Dublin was the result of our getting the fine, old-fashioned furnished house in Dominic Street, which preserved in the costume of the eighteenth century a study for me of infinite delight.
The “best drawing-room” had not been entered for some years, and on opening the doors there was a rent in the tapestry of cobwebs, which was quite suffocating.
The curtains lined, and wadded and “finished” at the bottom with leaden weights to regulate their drawing up, were of rich crimson satin damask, and the fact that a crimson silk stocking filled with money fell down from the cornice on the first attempt to move them, was not the least interesting incident connected with them. The careful old lady had various such hiding places for her money.
The beautiful marble chimney-piece, finely sculptured, reached half
way to the ceiling, and was surmounted with a range of Etruscan vases. The ponderous chairs
and settees, as the sofas were called, were regimented against the wall, and intermingled
with cabinets inscrutable from their dust. A large table in the centre of the room was
covered with folio books, and here I must record the delight with which I first opened a
volume of Cowley. Chinese paper was on the walls and
Turkey carpet on the floor;
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“The dæmon whispered, Timon have
a taste,” |
Such was the result of the frippery influence of Carlton House on the taste of the day.
Taste is truth, the truth of Nature in art. All transition states are the doubts between habit and experiment, impeding present progress even whilst they recognise past mistakes. The regency of England was in its season perilous as that of France. Both of them were under the guidance of men well gifted, but profoundly corrupted by the selfishness induced by their position, and the vulgar illiteracy of their bringing up.
During the interregnum between the removal of the sumptuous old furniture and the advent of the lemon-coloured calico, this precious old room was entirely consigned to my care and occupation, and there I pursued my own studies among the old folio books on the table.
I had never read Cowley before.
I was enchanted,
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I think it was about this time that a demand being made by the butler for paper to put round his candles, which Lady Steele’s femme de ménage had hitherto supplied from a coffer filled with old papers in the garret, I was requested by Mrs. Featherstone to see if there were any left.
I gladly undertook the fouille; and when some few years afterwards I was present at the digging up of a priestess, whose statue had been long looked for in Pompeii by Neapolitan antiquaries, my excitement at the process was scarcely more than what I felt when, as I stooped over the old trunk, I read the name of “Alexander Pope” appended to one old yellow letter and “Jonathan Swift” to another! I left the butler to help himself, and ran down with my treasures to Mrs. Featherstone, who merely said, “Well, my dear, you are heartily welcome to them.”
My first impulse was to enclose Pope’s letter to Lady Moira, because it was my first opportunity to
acknowledge her literary patronage in general and her kindness to myself and my father in
particular. A few days afterwards she sent a gentleman to pay me a visit, the Rev. Mr. Gouldsbury, who was also a friend of the
Featherstones; he was the bearer of a very gracious letter from
her noble self. Of course I communicated her letter to my father, who wrote to thank
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My father’s Irish pride still rose in revolt against my position in Mrs. Featherstone’s family. He wrote me word that he hoped soon to place me under the protection of some of our Connaught cousins. But I hated the idea of Connaught cousins, and my pride revolted from idle dependence. He sent me Lady Moira’s answer to him, which ran as follows:—
I have just received Mr.
Owenson’s letter dated the 24th; and though my eyes are
still weak from the effects of a late inflammation in them, I do not delay the
acknowledgment of it, lest the many trifles which often intervene to prevent
one’s intentions, that are neither foreseen, nor can be avoided, should
arrive to prevent my quickly assuring him, that I feel sensibly his paternal
anxiety, and shall be very happy at any time to be serviceable to his
daughters; and the pains he has taken in their education and the success of it,
are points that I am well acquainted with. My friend, Mr. Gouldsbury, I have the pleasure to assure
you, thinks extremely well of your literary daughter, and as a very sensible,
worthy and an informed personage, Mr. Owenson will be
persuaded he has a strong advocate with me for that daughter; but,
unfortunately, it must be confined rather to my inclination than power to serve
her. The change that has taken place in my
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Having read this epistle from Lady Moira, I wrote the following:—
A thousand thanks for sending me Lady Moira’s amiable letter, but I am so sorry, dear papa, that you wrote to her on my account.
The idea of my being dame de compagnie to so great a lady is too presumptuous, and a “humble companion” I will not be to any one. I could never walk out with little dogs or “run little messages” to the housekeeper’s room, as poor Miss Harriet Ronker told me she was obliged to do at Lady Shannon’s, although she, Miss Ronker, is of one of the best French families that emigrated at the Edict of Nantes.
What objections can you have to my occupying a position
as teacher to the young? It is a calling which enrols the names of Madame de Maintenon,
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