A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Saussure, Madame Necker de
SAUSSURE, MADAME NECKER DE,
Was the daughter of M. de Saussure, and born in the city of Geneva about the year 1768. Her father, a man of profound learning, was very careful to cultivate the mind of his daughter, and yet very fearful she would display her learning pedantically.
At the age of nineteen she married M. Necker, nephew of the celebrated minister of finance, and, as was then considered, very brilliant prospects opened before the young couple. The Revolution destroyed these hopes, but it brought the uncle and nephew and their families together, and Madame de Saussure became intimate with Madame de Staël. "From that time my thoughts were more particularly directed towards moral science and literature," says Madame de Saussure, in a letter to an American friend.
The troubles of Geneva obliging M. Saussure and his family to pass some years in Switzerland, where the education of their children became the occupation of both parents, it was not till after the decease of her husband that Madame de Saussure began to publish her writings: she thus describes her feelings and opinions on her own authorship:—
"It was not until my youth had passed that I appeared before the public under my own name, and I congratulate myself that it was so. The works that I should have written in early life would not have satisfied me now. The attempt to write would probably have been beneficial to me; but there are so many causes of excitement in early life, personal affections and the desire to win the lore and esteem of others occupy the mind so fully, that the young rarely press steadily onward to the most elevated mark. My education had been of an exciting nature, and the circumstances of my life were calculated to foster a spirit of romance. It is very probable, therefore, that my early writings would have been imbued "with more fancy than good sense. In this last of all my works that I now send you, I have believed it my duty to paint the destiny of woman, dark as the pictures may be, in true colours; but possibly the recollections and habits of youth have acquired too much power over me. You will judge. But I hope that, at least, age, deafness, sorrows, and the active duties of religion, have rendered my motives simple and pure, and have formed, in some respects, such a character as I have pourtrayed for the example of others."
"The last of all her works" to which she alludes, was "Progressive Education," her best and most important production. It was translated into English and published in Boston. It deserves to have a place in every mother's library.
Madame de Saussure also wrote a "Biography of Madame de Staël," and translated from the German Schiegel's "Course of Dramatic Literature;" but her most earnest efforts were directed to the cause of education. She does not evince brilliancy of genius, yet few, if any, of the French female writers have displayed such good sense and Christian principles in their productions. She died in 1847.