Maria Graham: A Literary Biography By Regina Akel

Chapter 1:

The Early Years

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The parallels are many, and they seem to reinforce the view that Maria Graham used many fictional devices in her memoir—such as, in this instance, the symbolism of the journey, the presence of the fellow travellers, or the aspect of the vehicle and of the coachman—in a manner that brings Dickens to mind. In other words, Maria Graham is here antici-pating aspects of the Victorian novel and, more specifically, those of Bildungsromane such as Jane Eyre (1847) or David Copperfield (1850). The description of the coach and its driver continues,

It was dragged along by two heavy horses, and driven by an excellent and venerable person by the name of Blewitt, who never endangered his own or his passengers’ necks by performing the journey in less than twelve hours! I think I see him now—a middle-sized, spare man, with long gray locks, and a ruddy face, a drab coat with black button-holes, metal buttons as large as cheese plates, engraved with curious devices, a double-breasted woollen waistcoat, buckskins buckled at the knee, top boots in winter, and white stockings with shoes with great metal buckles in summer; a large hat and a nosegay at his buttonhole completed old Blewitt’s attire. I shall have further occasion to mention him. (15)

It can be inferred from the last sentence of the description that Maria Graham meant to use this character again. Apparently she did not, and the coachman Blewitt remains one of the few intriguing dead ends in this unfinished narrative.⁶ In this instance the memoirist makes a parallel between the coachman’s leisurely style of driving and the long time he must have taken to dress himself so carefully in the mornings, since he wore so many complicated articles of clothing.

The principal characters at this stage of Maria’s life, however, are the two sisters who own the school where she becomes a pupil at the age of eight. In this case, the characterisation is done through irony, through hyperbole, and through implication. It is easy to infer, from the portraits of the two Misses Bright, which one turns out to be the narrator’s favourite, and why: