Martyrs to Duty
In the essay titled “Pianist and Martyr” the author introduces the reader to three characters: Miss Goodenough, Miss Well-Bred and Miss Nonesuch. These are metaphorical figures, of course, but they each represent a certain type of a larger tapestry of ironic invention: the young British women practicing diligently at the piano every day not out of any love, but out of an obligation imposed by parents. Collectively, they represent a character that is one of the ironic highlights of a collection notable that one could spend hours mining for its wealth of irony: “martyrs to duty.”
Jack Sprat and His Wife
This nursery rhyme couple becomes an important set of characters in Webster’s ironic consideration of what seems the inevitable conflict between those who view their opinions as infallible and those who live out lives in direct contradiction of that sense of infallibility. Jack Sprat could not eat fat whereas his wife could not eat the lean part of meat. On the surface, the two seem utterly and hopelessly incompatible: just like husband who violates the wife’s rules of infallibility. Instead of separating over this conflict, however, they find the perfect solution to happiness with each other: finding harmony through sympathy with another’s perspective rather than rejecting it on the fundamentally false premise that anyone is infallible.
Robert Browning
Only one person is directly mentioned in the introduction to her collection which Webster fashioned for the first edition of her collection. In explaining that the collection of essays are comprised of submissions previously published in a column in the Examiner, she makes special note to mention one particular sort of contribution that is notably absent: literary reviews. Having admitted this, she then immediately feels compelled to make an excuse—her word—for the inclusion of one particular example which does meet this definition. Partially, at least. Titled “A Transcript and a Translation,” Webster’s excuse for its inclusion against her self-prohibition of literary reviews is that it its contents—“occasioned by a work of Robert Browning”—were deemed by her significant enough to be considered not a review as such, but a literary “essay.” And, besides, the essay allowed her access to include commentary on the subject of translation which would otherwise not have been included.
Mrs. Grundy
Although “A Housewife’s Opinions” as a title for a book written in Victorian England seems like it would almost certainly be some sort of guidebook for etiquette or manners, it is actually refreshingly in its view toward the conventional notions of that period’s infamously misunderstood prudery. Which is not to say that the book does not include references to Victorian expectations of tyrannical priggishness. The essay titled “Mrs. Grundy” might be confusing to modern readers, but readers at the time would have been familiar with the name as Americans would have been with Uncle Sam or Santa Claus. Mrs. Grundy is the all-encompassing fictional metaphor for pretty much everything that most people think about when they hear they hear the word Victorian. Webster treats her with velvety soft blanket of irony laid over a bed of sharp needles asking “What should we do without her?” and suggesting all of England is “saved from chaos by Mrs. Grundy.”
Saint Opportune
The essay which bears the name of the Benedictine nun who lived during the 8th century seems curiously out of place among the others. The essay is essentially a sincere biographical account of the life of its titular figure free of the irony, understated humor and pithy quotes that mark the bulk of the collection. She is presented as honorable, beautiful, virtuous and sanctified. Were the essay not about an actual person, one might well suspect it was the subtlest example of irony the author could possibly conceive. Except that the essay is not about the actual 8th century nun and abbess known as Saint Opportune. And the essay’s seeming dismissal of the literary force which is the engine driving almost every other essay is not really absent, but just incredibly focused. Ultimately, it does become clear—though most readers will probably be well into the text before it becomes so—that “Saint Opportune” moves beyond mere irony to become the one example of outright satirical parody found here.
