The Governess(家庭女教师)

VIP免费

2024-12-25 0 0 487.81KB 133 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

The Governess

By Sarah Fielding

The Governess

There lived in the northern parts of England, a gentlewoman who

undertook the education of young ladies; and this trust she endeavoured

faithfully to discharge, by instructing those committed to her care in

reading, writing, working, and in all proper forms of behaviour. And

though her principal aim was to improve their minds in all useful

knowledge; to render them obedient to their superiors, and gentle, kind,

and affectionate to each other; yet did she not omit teaching them an exact

neatness in their persons and dress, and a perfect gentility in their whole

carriage.

This gentlewoman, whose name was Teachum, was the widow of a

clergyman, with whom she had lived nine years in all the harmony and

concord which forms the only satisfactory happiness in the married state.

Two little girls (the youngest of which was born before the second year of

their marriage was expired) took up a great part of their thoughts; and it

was their mutual design to spare no pains or trouble in their education.

Mr. Teachum was a very sensible man, and took great delight in

improving his wife; as she also placed her chief pleasure in receiving his

instructions. One of his constant subjects of discourse to her was

concerning the education of children: so that, when in his last illness his

physicians pronounced him beyond the power of their art to relieve him,

he expressed great satisfaction in the thought of leaving his children to the

care of so prudent a mother.

Mrs. Teachum, though exceedingly afflicted by such a loss, yet

thought it her duty to call forth all her resolutions to conquer her grief, in

order to apply herself to the care of these her dear husband's children.

But her misfortunes were not here to end: for within a twelvemonth after

the death of her husband, she was deprived of both her children by a

violent fever that then raged in the country; and, about the same time, by

the unforeseen breaking of a banker, in whose hands almost all her fortune

was just then placed, she was bereft of the means of her future support.

The Christian fortitude with which (through her husband's instructions)

she had armed her mind, had not left it in the power of any outward

accident to bereave her of her understanding, or to make her incapable of

The Governess

doing what was proper on all occasions. Therefore, by the advice of all

her friends, she undertook what she was so well qualified for; namely, the

education of children. But as she was moderate in her desires, and did

not seek to raise a great fortune, she was resolved to take no more scholars

than she could have an eye to herself without the help of other teachers;

and instead of making interest to fill her school, it was looked upon as a

great favour when she would take any girl. And as her number was fixed

to nine, which she on no account would be prevailed on to increase, great

application was made, when any scholar went away, to have her place

supplied; and happy were they who could get a promise for the next

vacancy.

Mrs. Teachum was about forty years old, tall and genteel in her person,

though somewhat inclined to fat. She had a lively and commanding eye,

insomuch that she naturally created an awe in all her little scholars; except

when she condescended to smile, and talk familiarly to them; and then she

had something perfectly kind and tender in her manner. Her temper was

so extremely calm and good, that though she never omitted reprehending,

and that pretty severely, any girl that was guilty of the smallest fault

proceeding from an evil disposition; yet for no cause whatsoever was she

provoked to be in a passion; but she kept up such a dignity and authority,

by her steady behavior, that the girls greatly feared to incur her displeasure

by disobeying her commands; and were equally pleased with her

approbation, when they had done anything worthy her commendation.

At the time of the ensuing history, the school (being full) consisted of

the nine following young ladies:

Miss JENNY PEACE. Miss NANNY SPRUCE. Miss SUKEY

JENNETT. Miss BETTY FORD. Miss DOLLY FRIENDLY. Miss

HENNY FRET. Miss LUCY SLY. Miss POLLY SUCKLING. Miss

PATTY LOCKIT.

The eldest of these was but fourteen years old, and none of the rest had

yet attained their twelfth year.

AN ACCOUNT OF A FRAY, BEGUN AND CARRIED ON FOR

THE SAKE OF AN APPLE: IN WHICH ARE SHOWN THE SAD

The Governess

EFFECTS OF RAGE AND ANGER.

It was on a fine summer's evening when the school-hours were at an

end, and the young ladies were admitted to divert themselves for some

time, as they thought proper, in a pleasant garden adjoining to the house,

that their governess, who delighted in pleasing them, brought out a little

basket of apples, which were intended to be divided equally amongst them;

but Mrs. Teachum being hastily called away (one of her poor neighhours

having had an accident which wanted her assistance), she left the fruit in

the hands of Miss Jenny Peace, the eldest of her scholars, with a strict

charge to see that every one had an equal share of her gift.

But here a perverse accident turned good Mrs. Teachum's design of

giving them pleasure into their sorrow, and raised in their little hearts

nothing but strife and anger: for, alas! there happened to be one apple

something larger than the rest, on which the whole company immediately

placed their desiring eyes, and all at once cried out, 'Pray, Miss Jenny, give

me that apple.' Each gave her reasons why she had the best title to it:

the youngest pleaded her youth, and the eldest her age; one insisted on her

goodness, another from her meekness claimed a title to preference; and

one, in confidence of her strength, said positively, she would have it; but

all speaking together, it was difficult to distinguish who said this, or who

said that.

Miss Jenny begged them all to be quiet, but in vain; for she could not

be heard: they had all set their hearts on that fine apple, looking upon

those she had given them as nothing. She told them they had better be

contented with what they had, than be thus seeking what it was impossible

for her to give to them all. She offered to divide it into eight parts, or to

do anything to satisfy them; but she might as well have been silent; for

they were all talking and had no time to hear. At last as a means to quiet

the disturbance, she threw this apple, the cause of their contention, with

her utmost force over a hedge into another garden, where they could not

come at it.

At first they were all silent, as if they were struck dumb with

astonishment with the loss of this one poor apple, though at the same time

they had plenty before them.

The Governess

But this did not bring to pass Miss Jenny's design: for now they all

began again to quarrel which had the most right to it, and which ought to

have had it, with as much vehemence as they had before contended for the

possession of it; and their anger by degrees became so high, that words

could not vent half their rage; and they fell to pulling of caps, tearing of

hair, and dragging the clothes off one another's backs: though they did

not so much strike, as endeavour to scratch and pinch their enemies.

Miss Dolly Friendly as yet was not engaged in the battle; but on

hearing her friend Miss Nanny Spruce scream out, that she was hurt by a

sly pinch from one of the girls, she flew on this sly pincher, as she called

her, like an enraged lion on its prey; and not content only to return the

harm her friend had received, she struck with such force, as felled her

enemy to the ground. And now they could not distinguish between friend

and enemy; but fought, scratched, and tore, like so many cats, when they

extend their claws to fix them in their rival's heart.

Miss Jenny was employed in endeavouring to part them.

In the midst of this confusion appeared Mrs. Teachum, who was

returning in hopes to see them happy with the fruit she had given them;

but she was some time there before either her voice or presence could

awaken them from their attention to the fight; when on a sudden they all

faced her, and fear of punishment began now a little to abate their rage.

Each of the misses held in her right hand, fast clenched, some marks of

victory; for they beat and were beaten by turns. One of them held a little

lock of hair torn from the head of her enemy; another grasped a piece of a

cap, which, in aiming at her rival's hair, had deceived her hand, and was

all the spoils she could gain; a third clenched a piece of an apron; a fourth,

of a frock. In short, everyone unfortunately held in her hand a proof of

having been engaged in the battle. And the ground was spread with rags

and tatters, torn from the backs of the little inveterate combatants.

Mrs. Teachum stood for some time astonished at the sight; but at last

she enquired of Miss Jenny Peace, who was the only person disengaged, to

tell her the whole truth, and to inform her of the cause of all this

confusion.

Miss Jenny was obliged to obey the commands of her governess;

The Governess

though she was so good natured that she did it in the mildest terms; and

endeavoured all she could to lessen, rather than increase, Mrs. Teachum's

anger. The guilty persons now began all to excuse themselves as fast as

tears and sobs would permit them.

One said, 'Indeed, madam, it was none of my fault; for I did not begin;

for Miss Sukey Jennett, without any cause in the world (for I did nothing

to provoke her), hit me a great slap in the face, and made my tooth ache;

the pain DID make me angry; and then, indeed, I hit her a little tap; but it

was on her back; and I am sure it was the smallest tap in the world and

could not possibly hurt her half so much as her great blow did me.'

'Law, miss!' replied Miss Jennett, 'how can you say so? when you

know that you struck me first, and that yours was the great blow, and mine

the little tap; for I only went to defend myself from your monstrous

blows.'

Such like defences they would all have made for themselves, each

insisting on not being in fault, and throwing the blame on her companion;

but Mrs. Teachum silenced them by a positive command; and told them,

that she saw they were all equally guilty, and as such would treat them.

Mrs. Teachum's method of punishing I never could find out. But this

is certain, the most severe punishment she had ever inflicted on any misses,

since she had kept a school, was now laid on these wicked girls, who had

been thus fighting, and pulling one another to pieces, for a sorry apple.

The first thing she did was to take away all the apples; telling them,

that before they had any more instances of such kindness from her, they

should give her proofs of their deserving them better. And when she had

punished them as much as she thought proper, she made them all embrace

one another, and promise to be friends for the future; which, in obedience

to her commands, they were forced to comply with, though there remained

a grudge and ill-will in their bosoms; every one thinking she was punished

most, although she would have it, that she deserved to be punished least;

and they continued all the sly tricks they could think on to vex and tease

each other.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MISS JENNY PEACE AND MISS

The Governess

SUKEY JENNETT; WHEREIN THE LATTER IS AT LAST

CONVINCED OF HER OWN FOLLY IN BEING SO QUARRELSOME;

AND, BY HER EXAMPLE, ALL HER COMPANIONS ARE BROUGHT

TO SEE AND CONFESS THEIR FAULT.

The next morning Miss Jenny Peace used her utmost endeavours to

bring her schoolfellows to be heartily reconciled, but in vain: for each

insisted on it, that she was not to blame; but that the whole quarrel arose

from the faults of others. At last ensued the following dialogue between

Miss Jenny Peace and Miss Sukey Jennett, which brought about Miss

Jenny's designs; and which we recommend to the consideration of all our

young readers.

MISS JENNY. Now pray, Miss Sukey, tell me, what did you get by

your contention and quarrel about that foolish apple?

MISS SUKEY. Indeed, ma'am, I shall not answer you; I know that

you only want to prove, that you are wiser than I, because you are older.

But I don't know but some people may understand as much at eleven years

old as others at thirteen: but, because you are the oldest in the school,

you always want to be tutoring and governing. I don't like to have more

than one governess; and if I obey my mistress, I think that is enough.

MISS JENNY. Indeed, my dear, I don't want to govern you, nor to

prove myself wiser than you; I only want that instead of quarrelling, and

making yourself miserable, you should live at peace and be happy.

Therefore, pray do answer my question, whether you get anything by your

quarrel?

MISS SUKEY. No I cannot say I got anything by it: for my

mistress was angry, and punished me; and my hair was pulled off, and my

clothes torn in the scuffle; neither did I value the apple; but yet I have too

much spirit to be imposed on. I am sure I had as good a right to it as any

of the others; and I would not give up my right to anyone.

MISS JENNY. But don't you know, Miss Sukey, it would have

shown much more spirit to have yielded the apple to another, than to have

fought about it? Then indeed you would have proved your sense; for you

would have shown, that you had too much understanding to fight about a

trifle. Then your clothes had been whole, your hair not torn from your

The Governess

head, your mistress had not been angry, nor had your fruit been taken

away from you.

MISS SUKEY. And so, miss, you would fain prove, that it is wisest

to submit to everybody that would impose upon one? But I will not

believe ii, say what you will.

MISS JENNY. But is not what I say true? If you had not been in

the battle, would not your clothes have been whole, your hair not torn,

your mistress pleased with you, and the apples your own?

Here Miss Sukey paused for some time: for as Miss Jenny was in the

right and had truth on her side, it was difficult for Miss Sukey to know

what to answer. For it is impossible, without being very silly, to

contradict truth; and yet Miss Sukey was so foolish, that she did not care

to own herself in the wrong; though nothing could have been so great a

sign of her understanding.

When Miss Jenny saw her thus at a loss for an answer, she was in

hopes of making her companion happy; for, as she had as much good

nature as understanding, that was her design. She therefore pursued her

discourse in the following manner:

MISS JENNY. Pray, Miss Sukey, do answer me one question more.

Don't you lie awake at nights, and fret and vex yourself, because you are

angry with your school-fellows? Are not you restless and uneasy,

because you cannot find a safe method to be revenged on them, without

being punished yourself? Do tell me truly, is not this your case?

MISS SUKEY. Yes it is. For if I could but hurt my enemies,

without being hurt myself, it would be the greatest pleasure I could have in

the world.

MISS JENNY. Oh fie, Miss Sukey! What you have now said is

wicked. Don't you consider what you say every day in your prayers'?

And this way of thinking will make you lead a very uneasy life. If you

would hearken to me, I could put you into a method of being very happy,

and making all those misses you call your enemies, become your friends.

MISS SUKEY. You could tell me a method, miss? Do you think I

The Governess

don't know as well as you what is fit to be done? I believe I am as

capable of finding the way to be happy, as you are of teaching me.

Here Miss Sukey burst into tears, that anybody should presume to tell

her the way to be happy.

MISS JENNY. Upon my word, my dear, I don't mean to vex you; but

only, instead of tormenting yourself all night in laying plots to revenge

yourself, I would have you employ this one night in thinking of what I

have said. Nothing will show your sense so much, as to own that you

have been in the wrong. Nor will anything prove a right spirit so much.

as to confess your fault. All the misses will be your friends, and perhaps

follow your example. Then you will have the pleasure of having caused

the quiet of the whole school; your governess will love you; and you will

be at peace in your mind, and never have any more foolish quarrels, in

which you all get nothing but blows and uneasiness.

Miss Sukey began now to find, that Miss Jenny was in the right, and

she herself in the wrong; but yet she was so proud she would not own it.

Nothing could be so foolish as this pride; because it would have been both

good and wise in her to confess the truth the moment she saw it.

However, Miss Jenny was so discreet as not to press her any farther that

night; but begged her to consider seriously on what she had said, and to let

her know her thoughts the next morning and then left her.

When Miss Sukey was alone she stood some time in great confusion.

She could not help seeing how much hitherto she had been in the wrong;

and that thought stung her to the heart. She cried, stamped, and was in as

great an agony as if some sad misfortune had befallen her. At last, when

she had somewhat vented her passion by tears, she burst forth into the

following speech:

'It is very true what Miss Jenny Peace says; for I am always uneasy. I

don't sleep in quiet because I am always thinking, either that I have not my

share of what is given us, or that I cannot be revenged on any of the girls

that offend me. And when I quarrel with them, I am scratched and

The Governess

bruised; or reproached. And what do I get by all this? Why, I scratch,

bruise, and reproach them in my turn. Is not that gain enough? I

warrant I hurt them as much as they hurt me. But then indeed, as Miss

Jenny says, if I could make these girls my friends, and did not wish to hurt

them, I certainly might live a quieter, and perhaps a happier, life. But

what then, have I been always in the wrong all my lifetime? for I always

quarrelled and hated everyone who had offended me. Oh! I cannot bear

that thought! It is enough to make me mad! when I imagined myself so

wise and so sensible, to find out that I have been always a fool. If I think

a moment longer about it, I shall die with grief and shame. I must think

myself in the right; and I will too. But, as Miss Jenny says, I really am

unhappy; for I hate all my schoolfellows; and yet I dare not do them any

mischief; for my mistress will punish me severely if I do. I should not so

much mind that neither; but then those I intend to hurt will triumph over

me, to see me punished for their sakes. In short, the more I reflect, the

more I am afraid Miss Jenny is in the right; and yet it breaks my heart to

think so.'

Here the poor girl wept so bitterly, and was so heartily grieved, that

she could not utter one word more; but sat herself down, reclining her

head upon her hand, in the most melancholy posture that could be; nor

could she close her eyes all night, but lay tossing and raving with the

thought how she should act, and what she should say to Miss Jenny the

next day.

When the morning came, Miss Sukey dreaded every moment, as the

time drew nearer when she must meet Miss Jenny. She knew it would not

be possible to resist her arguments; and yet shame for having been in fault

overcame her.

As soon as Miss Jenny saw Miss Sukey with her eyes cast down, and

confessing, by a look of sorrow, that she would take her advice, she

embraced her kindly; and, without giving her the trouble to speak, took it

for granted, that she would leave off quarreling, be reconciled to her

schoolfellows, and make herself happy.

Miss Sukey did indeed stammer out some words, which implied a

confession of her fault; but they were spoke so low they could hardly be

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

TheGoverness1TheGovernessBySarahFieldingTheGoverness2TherelivedinthenorthernpartsofEngland,agentlewomanwhoundertooktheeducationofyoungladies;andthistrustsheendeavouredfaithfullytodischarge,byinstructingthosecommittedtohercareinreading,writing,working,andinallproperformsofbehaviour.Andthoughherprinci...

展开>> 收起<<

The Governess(家庭女教师).pdf

共133页,预览27页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

The Governess(家庭女教师)

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: