Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/144

132 others, the fault of her surroundings and education. For, placed immediately under Mr. Edgeworth's personal influence, his powers of suasion and plausible presentment, it -was not easy to escape, and his daughter never questioned his final wisdom or desired such escape. In a critical reading of her books it is amusing to note how ever and again her father crops forth. Thus her heroes constantly ask what manner of education the young lady of their choice has received, because as "prudent men" they feel that only on this can they base their future hopes of happiness. And yet, strangely enough, with this absolute faith in the power of education, is combined a belief that nothing, not even this almighty thing, can overcome the fact that if a girl be the daughter of a woman who has at any time forgotten herself, no matter how good the education may have been, no matter that this parent may have died at her birth or the child never lived beside her, Miss Edgeworth's heroes regard her as necessarily lost, consider that it is impossible she should continue in the straight path. They will stifle their strongest feelings, make themselves and the girl miserable rather than marry her. A special instance of this occurs in The Absentee, where Lord Colambre prefers to break off his engagement with his adored cousin, the charming and high-principled Grace Nugent, rather than wed her after he hears a rumour that her mother has not been legally married to her father. Hence a deus ex machina has to be evoked, who, like all such gods cuts the Gordian knot in bungling fashion. After attributing all possibilities to education, there is quite a comic inconsistency in this method of visiting the offences of the wrong-doer upon the victim. But