Author: Frances Jacson Title: Isabella. A Novel Place of publication: London Publisher: Printed for Henry Colburn and Co. Date of publication: 1823 Edition: 1st ed. Number of volumes: 3 ISABELLA. A NOVEL. BY THE AUTHOR OF “RHODA,” &c, “Take, if you can, ye careless and supine, Counsel and caution from a voice like mine. Truths that the theorist could never reach, And observation taught me,—I teach.” COWPER. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR HENRY COLBURN AND CO. 1823. ISABELLA. CHAP. I. “Oh! these deliberate fools!” SHAKESPEARE. “Example draws where Precept fails; And Sermons are less read than Tales.” IT is advisable, therefore, that Tales should supply the place of Sermons; but it is not therefore necessary that they should resemble them. These little Volumes do not, then, contain an illustration of mysteries, which, if they could be illustrated, would be no longer mysteries. Nor do they pretend to argue the plea of Faith versus Works — nor Works versus Faith. No! we leave such high and inscrutable matters to those who prefer the means to the end. We deal in simple facts; and present you with the veritable, and, as we trust, the delightful HISTORY OF ISABELLA HASTINGS. Isabella was the eldest daughter of Lady Jane Hastings, a widow, whose purposed web of life had been broken to pieces by the unexpected accident of her husband dying before his father. By this untimely, and, as Lady Jane always called it, unnatural event, the title and fortunes which had determined her choice in a companion for life, had eluded her hopes, and had rested with a younger brother of her husband’s. The several sons which had blessed the first period of the marriage had all died in their infancy; and several years having elapsed between the death of the last, and the quick succession in which she had presented Mr. Hastings with the three daughters who survived him, Lady Jane found herself, on his death, in the wane of life, without having made one ascending step from the rank in which she was born, with a limited income, and three girls, who, if they were to be countesses, baronesses, or even splendidly-established commoners, could only hope to be so by the favours bestowed upon them by Nature, or from the reputation imposed upon them by education. In the minute features of the loveliest babe ever born, it is beyond the skill of the most practised eye to ascertain whether the expanding form will be that of ugliness or beauty. Lady Jane was resolved to leave nothing to chance; she determined to inflict on the powerless victims every accomplishment that could adorn beauty, if such should be their happy lot, or which would most effectually countervail the want of it, were she destined to be the unfortunate creature who was to bring out to observation a train of Misses whom no one would wish to look upon. From these motives Isabella, had received what Lady Jane called, “the best of all possible educations.” Not, indeed, in one particular, resembling those of the present day; where authority seems to have changed hands, and the child rules the parent. “Sic volo” was Lady Jane’s motto: and, as her maternal feelings were not of a nature to lead her to sacrifice the future well-being of her offspring to the indulgence of the present moment, she was not deterred by any harshness in the process from pursuing the end which she had in view. But who shall arraign the motives of parental fondness? She could only design the good of her children; and her indefatigable labourings to promote this good were so evident to all, that the least candid of her acquaintance could not but allow that the Misses Hastings were contracting a debt of obligation to their mother, that the most implicit obedience in their disposal in life, and their most devoted affection through the course of it, would but inadequately discharge. Does any one ask upon what foundation so extensive a claim was rested? the answer is easy. No one could accumulate a greater variety of dancing and drawing, of singing and language masters for their daughters than Lady Jane Hastings had done; no one could have poured into their tender minds a greater portion of premature knowledge, and no slave-master could more rigorously have enacted the fulfilment of every successive task than had Lady Jane. Nor let it be supposed that the moral of education had escaped the acuteness of her intellect. She well knew, when properly modified, how it might tend to enhance the merit of the more essential parts of her system; the additional brilliancy which the setting might give to the stone. Her moral was not indeed conveyed in the antiquated phraseology of the apostolic age, but she had many, if not unanswerable, reasons to prove, that it meant the same thing. If she dropped the motive “for letting their light to shine before men,” she enforced the duty. No one could instil into the tender minds of the pupils a higher respect for the “world’s good opinion,” nor a greater dread of its censure; nor could more eruditely instruct them in all the mysteries of a “dignified pride,” nor better inforce the sacredness of the duties that we owe “to ourselves.” If in the spirited acting up to the full sense of such instructions the confines of another’s pride were trespassed upon, or the duties that we owe “to others” were forgotten, the fault was not Lady Jane’s. Inconvenience must happen to individuals, but each ought to take care of themselves. So she had been instructed; by the rule which she now gave she had acted; and she imagined that she could plead her own success as a proof of the solidity of its foundation. As the master architect, Lady Jane attended herself to the great outlines of her daughters’ education; the minor parts she left to be filled by the assistant governess. Her own time being fully occupied by seeing that the expensive attendance of the various accomplishment masters was not thrown away, or that the person during their absence lost not the ply which it had been the result of so much trouble to give it, she committed to Mrs. Obrien all the cares of religious instruction. Having made it an indispensable part of her recommendation that she should be “a member of the Established Church,” she modestly said, that she considered her as a person better fitted than herself to go into all the “detail of such matters.”––“Mrs. Obrien had been educated to understand them;” and indeed she had “no great fault to find with the manner of enforcing what she knew;”—“if there were a little too much point made of outward observances which sometimes encroached upon a time barely sufficient for all the necessary parts of education, or a little too literal an interpretation of rules and precepts which a more extended intellect would have taken in a more liberal sense, yet the error was on the right side. Provided that nothing more important was omitted, there was no harm, while girls were young, in being something more scrupulous, perhaps than others, of doing, what however all the world did, and what all the world must do in the end,—but the reputation of strictness had its advantages, and she must acknowledge that nobody could have nobler sentiments than Mrs. Obrien, or could better know how to instil them into her pupils; so that she hoped there would be no great harm done by a little preciseness while they continued in the school-room,—it made them more obedient there, and would soon wear off when they came into the world.” Lady Jane had already begun to reap the reward of so happy an union of energy and supineness,—of vigilant watchfulness and dormant confidence,—of unbending control and modest acquiescence. It was agreed on all hands that Lady Jane was the most exemplary of mothers, and the Misses Hastings the best educated of daughters. Lady Jane drew the consequence, that the Misses Hastings would be the earliest and best established young ladies of the age, that is of the next—five years! Already she had a little foretaste of this supreme felicity in the disappointment which seemed to hover over the as strenuous, but, as she conceived, less well-directed efforts of her sister-in-law, the Lady Stanton.—Lady Stanton had a little preceded her in the race of bringing up, and bringing out, “accomplished females,” and Lady Jane having felt that the titled daughters of Lady Stanton had advantages beyond any which she could claim for her own, she had wisely appeared to waive all competition where she had little hope of victory. She had calculated, indeed, that the most formidable of these daughters would be disposed of before she brought any of her own under public observation; but Lady Charlotte Stanton had now “been out” the last three years, and she was Lady Charlotte Stanton still!—Lady Jane wondered how it could be!—for she was beautiful as an angel, or a goddess, or any other unearthly being which happened to occur to Lady Jane’s imagination when she spoke of her niece—yet perhaps it might be accounted for—she had always seen errors in her sister’s way of bringing up her girls: errors which she flattered herself she had kept free from. The difference would be seen.—Isabella, after all, might be disposed of before her transcendant cousin.