Susan Edmonstone Ferrier 1782-1854

How we remember the dead tells us a lot about who we are as a society. Who we remember, tells us even more. This quickly became obvious  when I first set out to write this blog. It became obvious how the majority of famous dead Edinburgh residents are well heeled men. Looking down wikipedia lists, perhaps only 10 percent of people mentioned are women, not to forget others who are non-binary, non-white etc... 

This in part, tells us how men, particularly those who occupy a privileged socioeconomic position, dominate. Even women, from such privileged backgrounds, have larger hurdles to overcome than their husbands, brothers and fathers. 

Walking around St Cuthbert's Burial Ground, trying to find the grave of Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, I thought I might like to lie flat down over the graves, to listen for murmuring voices, whispering forgotten truths. I didn’t want to imagine that the voices of this congregation were totally extinct. 

Before this visit, I had a quick read about Susan Edmonstone Ferrier on Wikipedia. She was well connected but did not enjoy some of the same privileges as others. I consider myself well read but had I never heard of her before. 

I could have spent an extra few weeks reading her three novels before writing this blog. I could have… but that would have been missing the point for now. I wanted to find the famous dead as they lay, not only within the graveyard but as they lie within our general cultural consciousness. Becoming more of a specialist would have meant losing some of that insight. 

So I conjured Ferrier’s voices by doing another google search. This was a tricker operation than looking up quotes from David Hume. As a fiction writer, Ferrier’s voices may not have reflected her own personally held opinions. The characters and voices in Ferrier’s novels would have occupied various positions, they would have given perspective and insight that pertains to different roles. I unearthed the following:

1. There's no doctor like meat and drink.

2. But who can count the beatings of the lonely heart?

3. There are plenty of fools in the world; but if they had not been sent for some wise purpose, they wouldn't have been here; and since they are here they have as good a right to have elbow-room in the world as the wisest.

4. ... what will not the heart endure ere it will voluntarily surrender the hoarded treasure of its love to the cold dictates of reason or the stern voice of duty!

5. Poverty and contempt generally go hand-in-hand in this world.

6. It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that there is no passion so deeply rooted in human nature as that of pride.

7. I'll suffer no daughter of mine to play the fool with her heart, indeed! She shall marry for the purpose for which matrimony was ordained amongst people of birth--that is, for the aggrandisement of her family, the extending of their political influence--for becoming, in short, the depository of their mutual interest. These are the only purposes for which persons of rank ever think of marriage.

8. lovers, it is well known, carry the art of tautology to its utmost perfection, and even the most impatient of them can both bear to hear and repeat the same things times without number, till the sound becomes the echo to the sense or the nonsense previously uttered.

9. It is universally allowed that, though nothing can be more interesting in itself than the conversation of two lovers, yet nothing can be more insipid in detail - just as the heavenly fragrance of the rose becomes vapid and sickly under all the attempts made to retain and embody its exquisite odor.

10. Oh, how easy it must be to be good when one has the power of doing good!

I am absolutely delighted with what I found. These voices have both passion and rationality but they come from a seasoned observer of life. 

It is perhaps no accident the Ferrier is an older contemporary of Soren Kierkegaard. Both write in various voices and wear different masks, it seems. Such an approach appreciates how no one voice can and must not dominate. A solo dominant voice, that comes as if from nowhere, cannot by definition be in a position to utter even the smallest shard of truth.      

I was pleased to read how Val McDermid wants to resurrect Ferrier. Mcdermid places Ferrier on a power with Jane Austin and wishes to revive her works and memory. I hope she succeeds.