The essays of virginia w.., p.18
The Essays of Virginia Woolf, Volume 5, page 18
And when this is said we have also said by implication that Mr Birrell is a born writer – not one of our great writers, certainly not one of our professional writers, but one of those writers who spring as naturally from our literature as the dog-rose from the hedge and scent it with as true a fragrance. How lightly and easily he casts the line of his sentence! How the images come flocking to his pen and how pleasant and sometimes more than pleasant they are to the ear! – ‘gentle as is the breath with which a child disperses a dandelion-clock,’fn16 he says in his preface; or – ‘it must have been hard while still in the middle passage of life to scent the night-air’fn17 – but to underline what is so natural is to spoil it. And then pervading the wit and the sparkle, there is something pungent as the smell of good tobacco – that profound love of books, which some good critics have lacked, but would have been better critics for possessing. ‘No man of letters knew letters better than he. He knew literature in all its branches – he had read books, he had written books, he had sold books, he had bought books, and he had borrowed them…. He loved a catalogue; he delighted in an index.’fn18 What he says of Johnson we might say of him. Everything about a book from the leather of the binding to the print on the page smells sweet in his nostrils.
So then if one seeks an excuse for reading Mr Birrell – and pleasure is still a little suspect – it is that he makes books seem lovable objects and reading an entrancing occupation. Literature when he writes of it ceases to be an art and a mystery and becomes an assembly of all sorts of interesting people. The books turn into people, and the people turn into books. There are the Waverley novels and Tristram Shandy and the Essays of Elia; there is also Miss Hannah More and Arthur Young and Arthur Young’s little Bobbin.fn19 Some of the books are very rare, and some of the people are very obscure. There are many theological volumes among them and a good many lawyers. Then suddenly Mr Browning or Mr Matthew Arnold appears in the flesh, or behold, there is Nathaniel Hawthorne walking along a street in Liverpool in the year 1856.fn20
In short, it is a splendid entertainment to which we are invited, call it what you will. And to have created so varied a prospect, to have brought together out of the dimness so many shapes, the queer and the hunchbacked as well as the stately and the splendid, to have led us up to the great writers in a mood of warmth and happy expectation, yet critically, too, and by no means ready to tolerate fustian or humbug – that is a great task to have accomplished. It tempts us to quote one of Mr Birrell’s sentences, and, indeed, to alter one word without his permission. ‘Even that most extraordinary compound, the rising generation of readers, whose taste in literature is as erratic as it is pronounced, read their Lamb,’ says Mr Birrell – and here we interpose ‘read their Birrell’ – and then go on in concert ‘with laughter and with love.’fn21
Fanny Burney’s Half-Sisterfn1
Since a copy of Evelina was lately sold for the enormous sum of four thousand pounds;fn2 since the Clarendon Press has lately bestowed the magnificent compliment of a new edition upon Evelina;fn3 since Maria Allen was the half-sisterfna of the authoress of Evelina; since the story of Evelina owed much to the story of Maria Allen, it may not be impertinent to consider what is still to be collected of the history of that misguided and unfortunate girl.
As is well known, Dr Burney was twice married. He took for his second wife a Mrs Allen of Lynn, the widow of a substantial citizen who left her with a fortune which she promptly lost, and with three children, of whom one, Maria, was almost the same age as Fanny Burney when Dr Burney’s second marriage made them half-sisters.fn4 And half-sistersfnb they might have remained with none but a formal tie between them, had not the differences between the two familiesfnc brought about a much closer relationship. The Burneys were the gifted children of gifted parents. They had enjoyed all the stimulus that comes from running in and out of rooms where grown-up people are talking about books and music, where the piano is always open, and somebody – it may be David Garrick, it may be Mrs Thralefn5 – is always dropping in to dinner. Maria, on the other hand, had been bred in the provinces. The great figures of Lynn were well known to her, but the great figures of Lynn were merely Miss Dolly Young – who was so ugly – or Mr Richard Warren, who was so handsome. The talk she heardfnd was the talk of squires and merchants. Her greatest excitement was afne dance at the Assembly Rooms or a scandal in the town.
Thus she was rustic and unsophisticated where the Burneys were metropolitan and cultivated. But she was bold and dashing where they were timid and reserved. She was all agog for life and adventure where they were always running away in agonies of shyness to commit their innumerable observations to reams of paper. Unrefined, but generous and unaffected, she brought to Poland-street that whiff of fresh air, that contact with ordinary life and ease in the presence of ordinary things, which the precocious family lacked themselves and found most refreshing in others. Sometimes she visited them in London; sometimes they stayed with her at Lynn. Soon she came to feel for them all, but for Fanny in particular, a warm, a genuine, a surprised admiration. They were so learned and so innocent; they knew so many things; and yet they did not know half as much about life as she did. It was to them, naturally, that she confided her own peccadilloes and adventures, wishing perhaps for counsel, wishing perhaps to impress. Fanny was one of those shy people – ‘I am not near so squeamish as you are,’fn6 Maria observed – who draw out the confidences of their bolder friends and delight in accounts of actions which they could not possibly commit themselves. Thus in 1770 Fanny was imparting to her diary certain confidences that Maria had made her of such a nature that when she read the book later she judged it best to tear out twelve pages and burn them. Happily, a packet of letters survives which,fnf though rather meagrely doled out by an editor in the eighties, who thought them too full of dashes to be worthy of the dignity of print, allow us to guess pretty clearly what kind of secret Maria confided and Fanny recorded, and Fanny, grown mature, then tore up.
For example, there was an Assembly at Lynn some time in 1770 to which Maria did not want to go. Betfng Dickens, however, overcame her scruples, and she went. However, she was determined not to dance. However, she did dance. Martin was there. She broke her earring. She danced a minuet à quatre. She got into the chariot to come home. She came home. ‘Was I alone? – guess – well, all is vanity and vexations of spirit.’fn7 It needs little ingenuity to interpret these nods and winks and innuendoes. Maria danced with Martin. She came home with Martin. She sat alone with Martin, and she had been strictly forbidden by her mother to meet Martin. That is obvious. But what is not, after all these years, quite so clear is for what reason Mrs Allen disapproved. On the face of it Martin Rishton was a very good match for Maria Allen. He was well born, he had been educated at Oxford, he was the heir of his uncle Sir Richard Bettenson, and Sir Richard Bettenson had five thousand a year and no children.fnh Nevertheless, Maria’s mother warmly opposed the match. She said rather vaguely that Martin ‘had been extravagant at Oxford, and that she had heard some story that he had done something unworthy of a gentleman.’fn8 But her ostensible objections were based perhaps uponfni others which were less easy to state. There was her daughter’s character for example. Maria was ‘a droll girl with a very great love of sport and mirth’.fn9 Her temper was lively and warm. She was extremely outspoken. ‘If possible,’ Fanny said, ‘she is too sincere. She pays too little regard to the world; and indulges herself with too much freedom of raillery and pride of disdain towards those whose vices and follies offend her.’fn10 When Mrs Allen looked from Maria to Martin she saw, there can be no doubt, something that made her uneasy. But what? Perhaps it was nothing more than that Martin was particular about appearances and Maria ratherfnj slack; that Martin was conventional by nature and Maria the very opposite; that Martin liked dress and decorum and that Maria was one of those heedless girls who say the first thing that comes into their heads and never reflect, if they are amused themselves, whatfnk people will say if they have holes in their stockings. Whatever the reason, Mrs Allen forbade the match; and Sir Richard Bettenson, whether to meet her views or for educational purposes, sent his nephew in the beginning of 1771 to travel for two years abroad. Maria remained at Lynn.
Five months, however, had not passed before Martin burst in unexpectedly at a dinner-party of relations in Welbeck-street. He looked very well, but when he was asked why he had come back in such a hurry, ‘he smiled, but said nothing to the question.’fn11 Maria, although still at Lynn, at once got wind of his arrival. Soonfnl she saw him at a dance, but she did not dance with him and the ban was evidently enforced, for her letters become plaintive and agitated and hint at secrets that she cannot reveal, even to her dear toads the Burneys. It was now her turn to be sent abroad, partly to be out of Martin’s way, partly to finish her education. She was dispatched to Geneva. But the Burneys soon received a packet from her. In the first place, she had some little commissions that she must ask them to discharge. Would they send her a pianoforte, some music, Fordyce’s sermons,fn12 a tea cadet, an ebony inkstand with silver-plated tops, and a very pretty naked wax doll with blue eyes to be had in Fleet-street for half-a-crown – all of which, if well wrapped up, could travel safely in the case of the pianoforte. She had no money to pay with at the moment, forfnm she had been persuaded and indeed was sure that it was true economy if one passed through Paris to spend all one’s money on clothes. But she could always sell her diamonds or she would give them ‘a bill on somebody in London.’fn13 These trifling matters dispatched, she turned to something of far greater importance. Indeed, what she had to say was so important that it must be burnt at once. Indeed, it was only her great distress and being alone in a foreign land that led her to tell them at all. But the truth was – so far as can now be ascertained among the fragments and the dashes – the truth was that she had gone much farther with Martin than anybody knew. She had in fact confessed her love to him. And he had proposed something which had made her very angry. She had refused to do it. She had written him a very angry letter. She had had indeed to write it three times over before she got it right. When he read it he was furious. ‘Did my character,’ he wrote, ‘ever give you reason to imagine I should expose you because you loved me? ’Tis thoroughly unnatural – I defy the world to bring an instance of my behaving unworthy the Character of a Gentleman.’fn14 Thesefnn were his very words. And, Maria wrote, ‘I think such the sentiments of a Man of Honour, and such I hope to find him,’fn15 she concluded; for although she knew very well that Hetty Burney and Mr Crisp disliked him, he was – here she came out with it – the man ‘on whom all my happiness in this Life depends and in whom I wish to see no faults.’fn16 The Burneys hid the letters, breathed not a word to their parents, and waited in suspense. Nor did they have to wait long. Before the spring was over Maria was back again in Poland-street and in circumstances so romantic, so exciting, and above all so secret that ‘I dare not,’ Fanny exclaimed, ‘commit particulars to paper.’ This much (and one would have thought it enough) only could be said. ‘Miss Allen – for the last time I shall call her so, – came home on Monday last … she – was married last Saturday!’fn17 It was true. Martin Rishton had gone out secretly to join her abroad.fno They had been married at Ypres on May 16, 1772. On the 18th Maria reached England and confided the grand secret to Fanny and Susan Burney, but she told nofnp one else. They were afraid to tell her mother. They were afraid to tell Dr Burney. In their dilemma they turned to the strange man who was always their confidant – to Samuel Crisp of Chesington.fn18
Many years before this Samuel Crisp had retired from the world. He had been a man of parts, a man of fashion, and a man of great social charm. But his fine friends had wasted his substance and his clever friends had damned his play. In disgust with the insincerity of fashionable life and the fickleness of fame he had withdrawn to a decayed manor house near London, which, however, was so far from the high road and so hidden from travellers in the waste of a common that no one could find it unless specially instructed. But Mr Crisp was careful to issue no instructions. The Burneys were almost the only friends who knew the way across the fields to his door. But the Burneys could never come often enough. He depended upon the Burneys for life and society and for news of the great world which he despised and yet could not forget.fnq The Burney children stood to him in the place of his own children. Upon them he lavished all the shrewdness and knowledge and disillusionment which he had won at such cost to himself andfnr now found so useless in an old manor house on a wild common with only old Mrs Hamilton and young Kitty Cook to bear him company.
It was, then, to Chesington and to Daddy Crisp that Maria Rishton and Susan Burney made their way on June 7 with their tremendous secret burning in their breasts. At first Maria was too nervous to tell him the plain truth. She triedfns to enlighten him with hints and hums and ha[’]s. But she succeeded only in rousing his wrath against Martin, which he expressed so strongly,fnt ‘almost calling him a Mahoon,’fn19 that Maria began to kindle and ran off in a huff to her bedroom. Here she resolved to take the bull by the horns. She summoned Kitty Cook and sent her to Mr Crisp with a saucy message: ‘Mrs. Rishton sent compts. and hoped to see him at Stanhoe this summer.’fn20 Upon receiving the message Mr Crisp came in haste to the girls’ bedroom. An extraordinary scene then took place. Maria knelt on the floor and hid her face in the bedclothes. Mr Crisp commanded her to tell the truth – was she indeed Mrs Rishton? Maria could not speak. Kitty Cook ‘claw’d hold of her left hand and shew’d him the ring.’fn21 Then Susanfnu produced two letters from Martin which proved the fact beyond doubt. They had been married legally. They were man and wife. If that were so, there was only one thing to be done, Mr Crisp declared – Mrs Burney must be informed and the marriage must be made public at once. He behaved with all the sense and decision of a man of the world. He wrote to Maria’s mother – he explained the whole situation. On getting the letter Mrsfnv Burney was extremely angry. She received the couple – she could do nothing else – but she never liked Martin and she never altogether forgave her daughter. However, the deed was done, and now the young couple had nothing to do but to settle down to enjoy the delights which they had snatched so impetuously.
All now depended, for those who loved Maria – and Fanny Burney loved her very dearly – upon the character of Martin Rishton. Was he, as Mr Crisp almost said, a Mahoon? Or was he, as his sister openly declared,fnw a Bashaw?fn22 Would he make her happy or would he not? The discerning and affectionate eyes of Fanny were now turned observingly upon Martin to find out. And yet it was very difficult to find out anything for certain. He was a strange mixture. Hefnx was high-spirited; he was ‘prodigiously agreeable.’fn23 But he was somehow, with his talkfny of vulgarity and distinction, rather exacting – he liked his wife to do him credit. For example, the Rishtons went on to take the waters at Bath, and there were the usual gaieties infnz progress. Fischerfn24 was giving a concert, and the eldest Miss Linleyfn25 was singing, perhaps for the last time. All Bath would be there. But poor Maria sat alone in the lodgings writing to Fanny, and the reason she gave was a strange one. Martin, ‘who is rather more exact about dress than I am, can’t think of my appearing’ unless she bought a ‘suit of mignionet linen fringed for second mourning’ to go in. She refused; the dress was too expensive; ‘and as he was unwilling I should appear else, I gave up the dear Fischer – see what a cruel thing to have a sposo who is rather a p-p-y in those sort of things.’fn26 So there she sat alone; and she hated Bath; and she found servants such a nuisance – she had had to dismiss the butler already. At the same time, she was head over heels in love with her Rishy, and one would like to suppose that the tiff about the dress was made up by the present of Romeo, the remarkably fine brown Pomeranian dog, which Martin bought for a large sum at this time and gave her. Martin himself had a passion for dogs.
It was no doubt in order to gratify his love of sport and Maria’s dislike of towns that they moved on laterfnaa that spring to Teignmouth, or as Maria calls it, to ‘Tingmouth,’ in Devon. The move was entirely to her liking. Her letters gushed and burbled, had fewer stops and more dashes than ever, as she endeavoured to describe the delights of Tingmouth to Fanny in London. Their cottage was ‘one of the neatest Thatch’d cottages you ever saw.’fn27 It belonged to a sea captain. It was full of china glass flowers that he had brought home from his voyages. It was hung with prints from the Prayer-book and the Bible. There were also two pictures, one said to be by Raphael, the other by Correggio. The Miss Minifiesfn28 might have described it as a retreat for a heroine. It looked on to a green. The fisher people were simple and happy. Their cottages were clean and their children were healthy. The sea was full of whiting, salmon and young mackerel. Martin had bought a brace of beautiful spaniels. It was a great diversion to make them go into the water. ‘Indeed, we intend getting a very large Newfoundland dog before we leave this place.’fn29 And they intended to go for expeditionsfnbb and take their dinner with them. And Fanny must come. Nothing could serve them but that Fanny should come and stay. It was monstrous for her to say that she must stop at home and copy her father’s manuscripts. She must come at once; andfncc if she came she need not spend a penny, for Maria wore nothing but a common linen gown and had not had her hair dressed once since she came here.fndd In short, Fanny must come.
