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The Good French Governess
by
The wonderful thing which had caught Herbert’s attention was a dry printing press. Mad. de Rosier was glad to procure this little machine for Herbert, for she hoped that the new associations of pleasure which he would form with the types in the little compositor’s stick, would efface the painful remembrance of his early difficulties with the syllables in the spelling-book. She also purchased a box of models of common furniture, which were made to take to pieces, and to be put together again, and on which the names of all the parts were printed. A number of other useful toys tempted her, but she determined not to be too profuse: she did not wish to purchase the love of her little pupils by presents; her object was to provide them with independent occupations; to create a taste for industry, without the dangerous excitation of continual variety.
Isabella was delighted with the idea of filling up a small biographical chart, which resembled Priestley’s; she was impatient also to draw the map of the world upon a small silk balloon, which could be filled with common air, or folded up flat at pleasure.
Matilda, after much hesitation, said she had decided in her mind, just as they were going out of the shop. She chose a small loom for weaving riband and tape, which Isabella admired, because she remembered to have seen it described in “Townsend’s Travels:” but, before the man could put up the loom for Matilda, she begged to have a little machine for drawing in perspective, because the person who showed it assured her that it required no sort of genius to draw perfectly well in perspective with this instrument.
In their way home, Mad. de Rosier stopped the carriage at a circulating library. “Are you going to ask for the novel we were talking of yesterday?” cried Matilda.
“A novel!” said Isabella, contemptuously: “no, I dare say Mad. de Rosier is not a novel-reader.”
“Zeluco, sir, if you please,” said Mad. de Rosier. “You see, Isabella, notwithstanding the danger of forfeiting your good opinion, I have dared to ask for a novel.”
“Well, I always understood, I am sure,” replied Isabella, disdainfully, “that none but trifling, silly people were novel-readers.”
“Were readers of trifling, silly novels, perhaps you mean,” answered Mad. de Rosier, with temper; “but I flatter myself you will not find Zeluco either trifling or silly.”
“No, not Zeluco, to be sure,” said Isabella, recollecting herself; “for now I remember Mr. Gibbon, the great historian, mentions Zeluco in one of his letters; he says it is the best philosophical romance of the age. I particularly remember that, because somebody had been talking of Zeluco the very day I was reading that letter; and I asked my governess to get it for me, but she said it was a novel–however, Mr. Gibbon calls it a philosophical romance.”
“The name,” said Mad. de Rosier, “will not make such difference to us; but I agree with you in thinking, that as people who cannot judge for themselves are apt to be misled by names, it would be advantageous to invent some new name for philosophical novels, that they may no longer be contraband goods–that they may not be confounded with the trifling, silly productions, for which you have so just a disdain.”
“Now, ma’am, will you ask,” cried Herbert, as the carriage stopped at his mother’s door–“will you ask whether the man has brought home my spade and the watering-pot? I know you don’t like that I should go to the servants for what I want; but I’m in a great hurry for the spade, because I want to dig the bed for my radishes before night: I’ve got my seeds safe in my hand.”
Mad. de Rosier, much pleased by this instance of obedience in her impatient pupil, instantly inquired for what he wanted, to convince him that it was possible he could have his wishes gratified by a person who was not an inhabitant of the stable or the kitchen. Isabella might have registered it in her list of remarkable events, that Herbert, this day, was not seen with the butler, the footman, or the coachman. Mad. de Rosier, who was aware of the force of habit, and who thought that no evil could be greater than that of hazarding the integrity of her little pupils, did not exact from them any promise of abstaining from the company of the servants, with whom they had been accustomed to converse; but she had provided the children with occupations, that they might not be tempted, by idleness, to seek for improper companions; and, by interesting herself with unaffected good-nature in their amusements, she endeavoured to give them a taste for the sympathy of their superiors in knowledge, instead of a desire for the flattery of inferiors. She arranged their occupations in such a manner, that, without watching them every instant, she might know what they were doing, and where they were; and she showed so much readiness to procure for them any thing that was reasonable, that they found it the shortest method to address their petitions to her in the first instance. Children will necessarily delight in the company of those who make them happy; Mad. de Rosier knew how to make her pupils contented, by exciting them to employments in which they felt that they were successful.