Born and reared in County Longford in Ireland, Maria Edgeworth was one of the most prolific writers of the 19th century. Her first novel, Castle Rackrent (1800), is generally regarded as the first true historical novel and family chronicle in English. She was a great influence on Sir Walter Scott, who referred to her as "the great Maria."
In the following excerpts from her first published work, Letters for Literary Ladies (1795), Edgeworth relies on the fictional character of Caroline to explore the relationships between women and men at the end of the 18th century.
Caroline's Letters to Julia on Marriage and Separation
by Maria Edgeworth
LETTER III.
Caroline to Julia, On her intended marriage.
Indeed, my dear Julia, I hardly know how to venture to give you my advice upon a subject which ought to depend so much upon your own taste and feelings. My opinion and my wishes I could readily tell you: the idea of seeing you united and attached to my brother is certainly the most agreeable to me; but I am to divest myself of the partiality of a sister, and to consider my brother and Lord V---- as equal candidates for your preference--equal, I mean, in your regard; for you say that "Your heart is not yet decided in its choice.--If that oracle would declare itself in intelligible terms, you would not hesitate a moment to obey its dictates." But, my dear Julia, is there not another, a safer, I do not say a better oracle, to be consulted--your reason? Whilst the "doubtful beam still nods from side to side," you may with a steady hand weigh your own motives, and determine what things will be essential to your happiness, and what price you will pay for them; for
"Each pleasure has its price; and they who payDo me the justice to believe that I do not quote these lines of Dryden as being the finest poetry he ever wrote; for poets, you know, as Waller wittily observed, never succeed so well in truth as in fiction.
Too much of pain, but squander life away."
Since we cannot in life expect to realize all our wishes, we must distinguish those which claim the rank of wants. We must separate the fanciful from the real, or at least make the one subservient to the other.
It is of the utmost importance to you, more particularly, to take every precaution before you decide for life, because disappointment and restraint afterwards would be insupportable to your temper.
You have often declared to me, my dear friend, that your love of poetry, and of all the refinements of literary and romantic pursuits, is so intimately "interwoven in your mind, that nothing could separate them, without destroying the whole fabric."
Your tastes, you say, are fixed; if they are so, you must be doubly careful to insure their gratification. If you cannot make them subservient to external circumstances, you should certainly, if it be in your power, choose a situation in which circumstances will be subservient to them. If you are convinced that you could not adopt the tastes of another, it will be absolutely necessary for your happiness to live with one whose tastes are similar to your own.The belief in that sympathy of souls, which the poets suppose declares itself between two people at first sight, is perhaps as absurd as the late fashionable belief in animal magnetism: but there is a sympathy which, if it be not the foundation, may be called the cement of affection. Two people could not, I should think, retain any lasting affection for each other, without a mutual sympathy in taste and in their diurnal occupations and domestic pleasures. This, you will allow, my dear Julia, even in a fuller extent than I do. Now, my brother's tastes, character, and habits of life, are so very different from Lord V----'s, that I scarcely know how you can compare them; at least before you can decide which of the two would make you the happiest in life, you must determine what kind of life you may wish to lead; for my brother, though he might make you very happy in domestic life, would not make the Countess of V---- happy; nor would Lord V---- make Mrs. Percy happy. They must be two different women, with different habits, and different wishes; so that you must divide yourself, my dear Julia, like Araspes, into two selves; I do not say into a bad and a good self; choose some other epithets to distinguish them, but distinct they must be: so let them now declare and decide their pretensions; and let the victor have not only the honours of a triumph, but all the prerogatives of victory. Let the subdued be subdued for life--let the victor take every precaution which policy can dictate, to prevent the possibility of future contests with the vanquished.
Continued on page two
