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[Illustration: --It was long past midnight,--she had a heap of Mr.
L----'s old letters beside her. She denied that she was in tears.]




  LEONORA

  BY

  MARIA EDGEWORTH

  [Illustration]

  "O lady Leonora! lady Leonora is ill!" exclaimed
  every voice. The consternation was wonderful.

  LONDON
  J.M. DENT & Co. ALDINE HOUSE
  69, GREAT EASTERN STREET, E.C.
  1893




[Illustration]

  NOTE.


Leonora, though not published until 1806, was commenced three years
before that date: the circumstances under which it was written were to a
certain extent unique in Maria Edgeworth's life; for we are told that
throughout the time occupied in writing the story, she had in mind the
offer of marriage made to her by Monsieur Edelcrantz, a Swedish
gentleman of good position, "of superior understanding and mild
manners," as she told her aunt in a letter partly written before the
proposal and finished afterwards. This seems, from the biographies, to
have been the only time this truly good and sensible woman was ever
sought in marriage by any man; and it shows some of the good qualities
she possessed, that though she refused him, yet from the respect she
bore him and the esteem in which she held him, this story was written to
a large extent with a view to his approbation, though we are told that
she never knew whether or no he had read it.

On the next page is appended a list of the principal editions of this
volume.

Leonora, by Maria Edgeworth, 2 vols., London, 1806.

---- Another edition, with _Letters on Several Subjects_, and
    _An Essay on Self-Justification_ (forming Vol. IV. of _Tales
    and Miscellaneous Pieces_, by Maria Edgeworth, 14 vols.), London,
    1825.

---- Another edition (Vol. XIII. of _Novels and Tales_ of Maria
    Edgeworth, 18 vols.), London, 1832-33.

Many reprints from the stereotype plates of this edition have been
    issued in various forms and with varying arrangement of the stories.

Translated into French in 1807, and another edition in 1812.

        F. J. S.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

  LEONORA.


  Letter i.

  _Lady Olivia to Lady Leonora L----._


What a misfortune it is to be born a woman! In vain, dear Leonora, would
you reconcile me to my doom. Condemned to incessant hypocrisy, or
everlasting misery, woman is the slave or the outcast of society.
Confidence in our fellow-creatures, or in ourselves, alike forbidden us,
to what purpose have we understandings, which we may not use? hearts,
which we may not trust? To our unhappy sex genius and sensibility are
the most treacherous gifts of Heaven. Why should we cultivate talents
merely to gratify the caprice of tyrants? Why seek for knowledge, which
can prove only that our wretchedness is irremediable? If a ray of light
break in upon us, it is but to make darkness more visible; to show us
the narrow limits, the Gothic structure, the impenetrable barriers of
our prison. Forgive me if on this subject I cannot speak--if I cannot
think--with patience. Is it not fabled, that the gods, to punish some
refractory mortal of the male kind, doomed his soul to inhabit upon
earth a female form? A punishment more degrading, or more difficult to
endure, could scarcely be devised by cruelty omnipotent. What dangers,
what sorrows, what persecutions, what nameless evils awaits the woman
who dares to rise above the prejudices of her sex!

  "Ah! happy they, the happiest of their kind!"

who, without a struggle, submit their reason to be swathed by all the
absurd bandages of custom. What, though they <DW36> or distort their
minds; are not these deformities beauties in the eyes of fashion? and
are not these people the favoured nurslings of the _World_, secure of
her smiles, her caresses, her fostering praise, her partial protection,
through all the dangers of youth and all the dotage of age?

  "Ah! happy they, the happiest of their kind!"

who learn to speak, and think, and act by rote; who have a phrase, or a
maxim, or a formula ready for every occasion; who follow--

  "All the nurse and all the priest have taught."

And is it possible that Olivia can envy these _tideless-blooded_ souls
their happiness--their apathy? Is her high spirit so broken by
adversity? Not such the promise of her early years, not such the
language of her unsophisticated heart! Alas! I scarcely know, I scarcely
recollect, that proud self, which was wont to defy the voice of opinion,
and to set at nought the decrees of prejudice. The events of my life
shall be related, or rather the history of my sensations; for in a life
like mine sensations become events--a metamorphosis which you will see
in every page of my history. I feel an irresistible impulse to open my
whole heart to you, my dear Leonora. I ought to be awed by the
superiority of your understanding and of your character; yet there is
an indulgence in your nature, a softness in your temper, that dissipates
fear, and irresistibly attracts confidence.

You have generously refused to be prejudiced against me by busy,
malignant rumour; you have resolved to judge of me for yourself.
Nothing, then, shall be concealed. In such circumstances I cannot seek
to extenuate any of my faults or follies. I am ready to acknowledge them
all with self-humiliation more poignant than the sarcasms of my
bitterest enemies. But I must pause till I have summoned courage for my
confession. Dear Leonora, adieu!

  Olivia.




  Letter ij.

  _Olivia to Leonora._


Full of life and spirits, with a heart formed for all the enthusiasm,
for all the delicacy of love, I married early, in the fond expectation
of meeting a heart suited to my own. Cruelly disappointed, I
found--merely a husband. My heart recoiled upon itself; true to my own
principles of virtue, I scorned dissimulation. I candidly confessed to
my husband, that my love was extinguished. I proved to him, alas! too
clearly, that we were not born for each other. The attractive moment of
illusion was past--never more to return; the repulsive reality remained.
The living was chained to the dead, and, by the inexorable tyranny of
English laws, that chain, eternally galling to innocence, can be severed
only by the desperation of vice. Divorce, according to our barbarous
institutions, cannot be obtained without guilt. Appalled at the thought,
I saw no hope but in submission. Yet to submit to live with the man I
could not love was, to a mind like mine, impossible. My principles and
my feelings equally revolted from this legal prostitution. We separated.
I sought for balm to my wounded heart in foreign climes.

To the beauties of nature I was ever feelingly alive. Amidst the sublime
scenes of Switzerland, and on the consecrated borders of her classic
lakes, I sometimes forgot myself to happiness. Felicity, how
transient!--transient as the day-dreams that played upon my fancy in the
bright morning of love. Alas! not all creation's charms could soothe me
to repose. I wandered in search of that which change of place cannot
afford. There was an aching void in my heart--an indescribable sadness
over my spirits. Sometimes I had recourse to books; but how few were in
unison with my feelings, or touched the trembling chords of my
disordered mind! Commonplace morality I could not endure. History
presented nothing but a mass of crimes. Metaphysics promised some
relief, and I bewildered myself in their not inelegant labyrinth. But to
the bold genius and exquisite pathos of some German novelists I hold
myself indebted for my largest portion of ideal bliss; for those rapt
moments, when sympathy with kindred souls transported me into better
worlds, and consigned vulgar realities to oblivion.

I am well aware, my Leonora, that you approve not of these my favourite
writers: but yours is the morality of one who has never known sorrow. I
also would interdict such cordials to the happy. But would you forbid
those to taste felicity in dreams who feel only misery when awake? Would
you dash the cup of Lethe from lips to which no other beverage is
salubrious or sweet?

By the use of these opiates my soul gradually settled into a sort of
pleasing pensive melancholy. Has it not been said, that melancholy is a
characteristic of genius? I make no pretensions to genius: but I am
persuaded that melancholy is the habitual, perhaps the natural state of
those who have the misfortune to feel with delicacy.

You, my dear Leonora, will class this notion amongst what you once
called my refined errors. Indeed I must confess, that I see in you an
exception so striking as almost to compel me to relinquish my theory.
But again let me remind you, that your lot in life has been different
from mine. Alas! how different! Why had not I such a friend, such a
mother as yours, early to direct my uncertain steps, and to educate me
to happiness? I might have been----. But no matter what I might have
been----. I must tell you what I have been.

Separated from my husband, without a guide, without a friend at the most
perilous period of my life, I was left to that most insidious of
counsellors--my own heart--my own weak heart. When I was least prepared
to resist the impression, it was my misfortune to meet with a man of a
soul congenial to my own. Before I felt my danger, I was entangled
beyond the possibility of escape. The net was thrown over my heart; its
struggles were to no purpose but to exhaust my strength. Virtue
commanded me to be miserable--and I was miserable. But do I dare to
expect your pity, Leonora, for such an attachment? It excites your
indignation, perhaps your horror. Blame, despise, detest me; all this
would I rather bear than deceive you into fancying me better than I
really am.

Do not, however, think me worse. If my views had been less pure, if I
had felt less reliance on the firmness of my own principles, and less
repugnance to artifice, I might easily have avoided some appearances,
which have injured me in the eyes of the world. With real contrition I
confess, that a fatal mixture of masculine independence of spirit, and
of female tenderness of heart, has betrayed me into many imprudences;
but of vice, and of that meanest species of vice, hypocrisy, I thank
Heaven, my conscience can acquit me. All I have now to hope is, that
you, my indulgent, my generous Leonora, will not utterly condemn me.
Truth and gratitude are my only claims to your friendship--to a
friendship, which would be to me the first of earthly blessings, which
might make me amends for all I have lost. Consider this before, unworthy
as I am, you reject me from your esteem. Counsel, guide, save me!
Without vanity, but with confidence I say it, I have a heart that will
repay you for affection. You will find me easily moved, easily governed
by kindness. Yours has already sunk deep into my soul, and your power is
unlimited over the affections and over the understanding of

  Your obliged
  Olivia.




  Letter iij.

  _From Lady Leonora L---- to her mother, the Duchess of ----,
     enclosing the preceding letters._


I am permitted to send you, my dear mother, the enclosed letters. Mixed
with what you may not approve, you will, I think, find in them proofs of
an affectionate heart and superior abilities. Lady Olivia is just
returned to England. Scandal, imported from the continent, has had such
an effect in prejudicing many of her former friends and acquaintance
against her, that she is in danger of being excluded from that society
of which she was once the ornament and the favourite; but I am
determined to support her cause, and to do everything in my power to
counteract the effects of malignity. I cannot sufficiently express the
indignation that I feel against the mischievous spirit of scandal,
which destroys happiness at every breath, and which delights in the
meanest of all malignant feelings--the triumph over the errors of
superior characters. Olivia has been much blamed, because she has been
much envied.

Indeed, my dear mother, you have been prejudiced against her by false
reports. Do not imagine that her fascinating manners have blinded my
judgment: I assure you that I have discerned, or rather that she has
revealed to me, all her faults: and ought not this candour to make a
strong impression upon my mind in her favour? Consider how young, how
beautiful she was at her first entrance into fashionable life; how much
exposed to temptation, surrounded by flatterers, and without a single
friend. I am persuaded that she would have escaped all censure, and
would have avoided all the errors with which she now reproaches herself,
if she had been blessed with a mother such as mine.

  Leonora L----



  Letter iv.

  _The Duchess of ---- to her daughter._


    My dearest Child,

I must answer your last before I sleep--before I can sleep in peace. I
have just finished reading the rhapsody which it enclosed; and whilst my
mind is full and warm upon the subject, let me write, for I can write to
my own satisfaction at no other time. I admire and love you, my child,
for the generous indignation you express against those who trample upon
the fallen, or who meanly triumph over the errors of superior genius;
and if I seem more cold, or more severe, than you wish me to be,
attribute this to my anxiety for your happiness, and to that caution
which is perhaps the infirmity of age.

In the course of my long life I have, alas! seen vice and folly dressed
in so many different fashions, that I can find no difficulty in
detecting them under any disguise; but your unpractised eyes are almost
as easily deceived as when you were five years old, and when you could
not believe that your pasteboard nun was the same person in her various
changes of attire.

Nothing would tempt you to associate with those who have avowed
themselves regardless of right and wrong; but I must warn you against
another, and a far more dangerous class, who, professing the most
refined delicacy of sentiment, and boasting of invulnerable virtue,
exhibit themselves in the most improper and hazardous situations; and
who, because they are without fear, expect to be deemed free from
reproach. Either from miraculous good fortune, or from a singularity of
temper, these adventurous heroines may possibly escape with what they
call perfect innocence. So much the worse for society. Their example
tempts others, who fall a sacrifice to their weakness and folly. I would
punish the tempters in this case more than the victims, and for them the
most effectual species of punishment is contempt. Neglect is death to
these female lovers of notoriety. The moment they are out of fashion
their power to work mischief ceases. Those who from their character and
rank have influence over public opinion are bound to consider these
things in the choice of their associates. This is peculiarly necessary
in days when attempts are made to level all distinctions. You have
sometimes hinted to me, my dear daughter, with all proper delicacy, that
I am too strict in my notions, and that, unknown to myself, my pride
mixes with morality. Be it so: the pride of family, and the pride of
virtue, should reciprocally support each other. Were I asked what I
think the best guard to a nobility in this or in any other country, I
should answer, VIRTUE. I admire that simple epitaph in Westminster Abbey
on the Duchess of Newcastle:--"Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest
sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester;--a noble family, for all the
brothers were valiant and all the sisters virtuous."

I look to the temper of the times in forming rules for conduct. Of late
years we have seen wonderful changes in female manners. I may be like
the old marquis in Gil Blas, who contended that even the peaches of
modern days had deteriorated; but I fear that my complaints of the
degeneracy of human kind are better founded than his fears for the
vegetable creation. A taste for the elegant profligacy of French
gallantry was, I remember, introduced into this country before the
destruction of the French monarchy. Since that time, some sentimental
writers and pretended philosophers of our own and foreign countries have
endeavoured to confound all our ideas of morality. To every rule of
right they have found exceptions, and on these they have fixed the
public attention by adorning them with all the splendid decorations of
eloquence; so that the rule is despised or forgotten, and the exception
triumphantly established in its stead. These orators seem as if they had
been employed by Satan to plead the cause of vice; and, as if possessed
by the evil spirit, they speak with a vehemence which carries away their
auditors, or with a subtlety which deludes their better judgment. They
put extreme cases, in which virtue may become vice, or vice virtue: they
exhibit criminal passions in constant connexion with the most exalted,
the most amiable virtues; thus making use of the best feelings of human
nature for the worst purposes, they engage pity or admiration
perpetually on the side of guilt. Eternally talking of philosophy and
philanthropy, they borrow the terms only to perplex the ignorant and
seduce the imagination. They have their systems and their theories, and
in theory they pretend that the general good of society is their sole
immutable rule of morality, and in practice they make the variable
feelings of each individual the judges of this general good. Their
systems disdain all the vulgar virtues, intent upon some _beau ideal_ of
perfection or perfectibility. They set common sense and common honesty
at defiance. No matter: their doctrine, so convenient to the passions
and soporific to the conscience, can never want partisans; especially by
weak and enthusiastic women it is adopted and propagated with eagerness;
then they become personages of importance, and zealots in support of
their sublime opinions; and they can read--and they can write--and they
can talk--and they can _effect a revolution in public opinion_! I am
afraid, indeed, that they can; for of late years we have heard more of
sentiment than of principles; more of the rights of woman than of her
duties. We have seen talents disgraced by the conduct of their
possessors, and perverted in the vain attempt to defend what is
unjustifiable.

Where must all this end? Where the abuse of reason inevitably ends--in
the ultimate law of force. If in this age of reason women make a bad use
of that power which they have obtained by the cultivation of their
understanding, they will degrade and enslave themselves beyond
redemption; they will reduce their sex to a situation worse than it ever
experienced even in the ages of ignorance and superstition. If men find
that the virtue of women diminishes in proportion as intellectual
cultivation increases, they will connect, fatally for the freedom and
happiness of our sex, the ideas of female ignorance and female
innocence; they will decide that one is the effect of the other. They
will not pause to distinguish between the use and the abuse of reason;
they will not stand by to see further experiments tried at their
expense, but they will prohibit knowledge altogether as a pernicious
commodity, and will exert the superior power which nature and society
place in their hands, to enforce their decrees. Opinion obtained freedom
for women; by opinion they may be again enslaved. It is therefore the
interest of the female world, and of society, that women should be
deterred by the dread of shame from passing the bounds of discretion. No
false lenity, no partiality in favour of amusing talents or agreeable
manners, should admit of exceptions which become dangerous examples of
impunity. The rank and superior understanding of a _delinquent_ ought
not to be considered in mitigation, but as aggravating circumstances.
Rank makes ill conduct more conspicuous: talents make it more dangerous.
Women of abilities, if they err, usually employ all their powers to
justify rather than to amend their faults.

I am afraid, my dear daughter, that my general arguments are closing
round your Olivia; but I must bid you a good night, for my poor eyes
will serve me no longer. God bless you, my dear child.




  Letter v.

  _Leonora to her mother._


I agree with you, my dear mother, that in these times especially, it is
incumbent upon all persons, whose rank or reputation may influence
public opinion, to be particularly careful to support the cause of
female honour, of virtue, and religion. With the same object in view, we
may however differ in the choice of means for its attainment. Pleasure
as well as pain acts upon human creatures; and therefore, in governing
them, may not reward be full as efficacious as punishment? Our sex are
sufficiently apprised of the fatal consequences of ill conduct; the
advantages of well-earned reputation should be at least as great, as
certain, and as permanent.

In former times, a single finger pointed at the scutcheon of a knight
challenged him to defend his fame; but the defiance was open, the
defence was public; and if the charge proved groundless, it injured none
but the malicious accuser. In our days female reputation, which is of a
nature more delicate than the honour of any knight, may be destroyed by
the finger of private malice. The whisper of secret scandal, which
admits of no fair or public answer, is too often sufficient to dishonour
a life of spotless fame. This is the height, not only of injustice, but
of impolicy. Women will become indifferent to reputation, which it is so
difficult, even by the prudence of years, to acquire, and which it is so
easy to lose in a moment, by the malice or thoughtlessness of those who
invent or who repeat scandal. Those who call themselves the world often
judge without listening to evidence, and proceed upon suspicion with as
much promptitude and severity as if they had the most convincing proofs.
But because Caesar, nearly two thousand years ago, said, that his wife
ought not even to be suspected, and divorced her upon the strength of
this sentiment, shall we make it a general maxim, that suspicion
justifies punishment? We might as well applaud those, who when their
friends are barely suspected to be tainted with the plague, drive them
from all human comfort and assistance.

Even where women, from the thoughtless gaiety of youth, or the impulse
of inexperienced enthusiasm, may have given some slight cause for
censure, I would not have virtue put on all her gorgon terrors, nor
appear circled by the vengeful band of prudes; her chastening hand will
be more beneficially felt if she wear her more benign form. To place the
imprudent in the same class with the vicious is injustice and impolicy;
were the same punishment and the same disgrace to be affixed to small
and to great offences, the number of _capital_ offenders would certainly
increase. Those who were disposed to yield to their passions would, when
they had once failed in exact decorum, see no motive, no fear to
restrain them; and there would be no pause, no interval between error
and profligacy. Amongst females who have been imprudent, there are many
things to be considered which ought to recommend them to mercy. The
judge, when he is obliged to pronounce the immutable sentence of the
law, often, with tears, wishes that it were in his power to mitigate the
punishment: the decisions of opinion may and must vary with
circumstances, else the degree of reprobation which they inflict cannot
be proportioned to the offence, or calculated for the good of society.
Among the mitigating circumstances I should be inclined to name even
those which you bring in aggravation. Talents, and what is called
genius, in our sex are often connected with a warmth of heart, an
enthusiasm of temper, which expose to dangers from which the coldness of
mediocrity is safe. In the illuminated palace of ice, the lights which
render the spectacle splendid, and which raise the admiration of the
beholders, endanger the fabric and tend to its destruction.

But you will tell me, dear mother, that allusion is not argument--and I
am almost afraid to proceed, lest you should think me an advocate for
vice. I would not shut the gates of mercy, inexorably and
indiscriminately, upon all those of my own sex, who have even been _more
than imprudent_.

  "He taught them shame, the sudden sense of ill--
   Shame, Nature's hasty conscience, which forbids
   Weak inclination ere it grows to will,
   Or stays rash will before it grows to deeds."

Whilst a woman is alive to shame, she cannot be dead to virtue. But by
injudicious or incessant reproach, this principle, even where it is most
exquisite, may be most easily destroyed. The mimosa, when too long
exposed to each rude touch, loses its retractile sensibility. It ought
surely to be the care of the wise and benevolent to cherish that
principle, implanted in our nature as the guard of virtue, that
principle upon which legislators rest the force of punishment, and all
the grand interests of society.

My dear mother, perhaps you will be surprised at the style in which I
have been writing, and you will smile at hearing your Leonora discuss
the duties of legislators, and the grand interests of society. She has
not done so from presumption, or from affectation. She was alarmed by
your supposing that her judgment was deluded by fascinating manners, and
she determined to produce _general_ arguments, to convince you that she
is not actuated by particular prepossession. You see that I have at
least some show of reason on my side. I have forborne to mention
Olivia's name: but now that I have obviated, I hope by reasoning, the
imputation of partiality, I may observe that all my arguments are
strongly in her favour. She had been attacked by slander; _the world_
has condemned her upon suspicion merely. She has been imprudent; but I
repeat, in the strongest terms, that I am _convinced of her innocence_;
and that I should bitterly regret that a woman with such an affectionate
heart, such uncommon candour, and such superior abilities, should be
lost to society.

Tell me, my dear mother, that you are no longer in anxiety about the
consequences of my attachment to Olivia.

  Your affectionate daughter,
  Leonora.




  Letter vi.

  _The Duchess of ---- to her daughter._


You lament, my dear child, that such an affectionate heart,