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diff --git a/34613-8.txt b/34613-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..108f575 --- /dev/null +++ b/34613-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7621 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Woman's Work in English Fiction, by Clara Helen Whitmore + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Woman's Work in English Fiction + From the Restoration to the Mid-Victorian Period + +Author: Clara Helen Whitmore + +Release Date: December 9, 2010 [EBook #34613] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN'S WORK IN ENGLISH FICTION *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + Woman's Work in + English Fiction + + + From the Restoration to the + Mid-Victorian Period + + + By + Clara H. Whitmore, A.M. + + + G. P. Putnam's Sons + New York and London + The Knickerbocker Press + 1910 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1909 + BY + CLARA H. WHITMORE + The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + + + +PREFACE + + +The writings of many of the women considered in this volume have sunk +into an oblivion from which their intrinsic merit should have preserved +them. This is partly due to the fact that nearly all the books on +literature have been written from a man's stand-point. While in other +arts the tastes of men and women vary little, the choice of novels is to +a large degree determined by sex. Many men who acknowledge +unhesitatingly that Jane Austen is superior as an artist to Smollett, +will find more pleasure in the breezy adventures of _Roderick Random_ +than in the drawing-room atmosphere of _Emma_; while no woman can read a +novel of Smollett's without loathing, although she must acknowledge that +the Scottish writer is a man of genius. + +This book is written from a woman's viewpoint. Wherever my own judgment +has been different from the generally accepted one, as in the estimate +of some famous heroines, the point in question has been submitted to +other women, and not recorded unless it met with the approval of a +large number of women of cultivated taste. + +This work was first undertaken at the suggestion of Dr. E. Charlton +Black of Boston University for a Master's thesis, and it was due to his +appreciative words that it was enlarged into book form. I also wish to +thank Professor Ker of London University, and Dr. Henry A. Beers and Dr. +Wilbur L. Cross of Yale University for the help which I obtained from +them while a student in their classes. It is with the deepest sense of +gratitude that I acknowledge the assistance given to me in this work by +Mr. Charles Welsh, at whose suggestion the scope of the book was +enlarged, and many parts strengthened. I wish especially to thank him +for calling my attention to _The Cheap Repository_ of Hannah More, and +to the literary value of Maria Edgeworth's stories for children. + +It is my only hope that this book may in a small measure fill a want +which a school-girl recently expressed to me: "Our Club wanted to study +about women, but we have searched the libraries and found nothing." + + C. H. W. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + CHAPTER I. + MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE (1624-1674)-- + APHRA BEHN (1640-1689)--MARY MANLEY (1672-1724) 1 + + CHAPTER II. + SARAH FIELDING (1710-1768)--ELIZA HAYWOOD (1693-1756)-- + CHARLOTTE LENNOX (1720-1766)--FRANCES SHERIDAN (1724-1766) 24 + + CHAPTER III. + FRANCES BURNEY (1752-1840) 45 + + CHAPTER IV. + HANNAH MORE (1745-1833) 62 + + CHAPTER V. + CHARLOTTE SMITH (1749-1806)--ELIZABETH INCHBALD (1753-1821) 73 + + CHAPTER VI. + CLARA REEVE (1725-1803)--ANN RADCLIFFE (1764-1822)--SOPHIA + LEE (1750-1824)--HARRIET LEE (1766-1851) 88 + + CHAPTER VII. + MARIA EDGEWORTH (1767-1849)--LADY MORGAN (1783-1859) 111 + + CHAPTER VIII. + ELIZABETH HAMILTON (1758-1816)--ANNA PORTER (1780-1832)--JANE + PORTER (1776-1850) 133 + + CHAPTER IX. + AMELIA OPIE (1769-1853)--MARY BRUNTON (1778-1818) 149 + + CHAPTER X. + JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) 157 + + CHAPTER XI. + SUSAN EDMONSTONE FERRIER (1782-1854)--MARY RUSSELL MITFORD + (1787-1855)--ANNA MARIA HALL (1800-1881) 179 + + CHAPTER XII. + LADY CAROLINE LAMB (1785-1828)--MARY SHELLEY (1797-1851) 200 + + CHAPTER XIII. + CATHERINE GRACE FRANCES GORE (1799-1861)--ANNA ELIZA BRAY + (1790-1883) 216 + + CHAPTER XIV. + JULIA PARDOE (1806-1862)--FRANCES TROLLOPE (1780-1863)-- + HARRIET MARTINEAU (1802-1876) 231 + + CHAPTER XV. + EMILY BRONTË (1818-1848)--ANNE BRONTË (1820-1849)-- + CHARLOTTE BRONTË (1816-1855) 247 + + CHAPTER XVI. + ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL (1810-1865) 274 + + CONCLUSION 293 + + INDEX 297 + + + + + WOMAN'S WORK IN + ENGLISH FICTION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +The Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Behn. Mrs. Manley + + +In the many volumes containing the records of the past, the names of few +women appear, and the number is still smaller of those who have won fame +in art or literature. Sappho, however, has shown that poetic feeling and +expression are not denied the sex; Jeanne d'Arc was chosen to free +France; Mrs. Somerville excelled in mathematics; Maria Mitchell ranked +among the great astronomers; Rosa Bonheur had the stroke of a master. +These women possessed genius, and one is tempted to ask why more women +have not left enduring work, especially in the realm of art. The Madonna +and Child, what a subject for a woman's brush! Yet the joy of maternity +which shines in a mother's eyes has seldom been expressed by her in +words or on canvas. It was left for a man, William Blake, to write some +of our sweetest songs of childhood. + +But as soon as the novel appeared, a host of women writers sprang up. +Women have always been story-tellers. Long before Homer sang of the fall +of Troy, the Grecian matrons at their spinning related to their maids +the story of Helen's infidelity; and, as they thought of their husbands +and sons who had fallen for her sake, the story did not lack in fervour. +But the minstrels have always had this advantage over the story-tellers: +their words, sung to the lyre, were crystallised in rhythmic form, so +that they resisted the action of time, while only the substance of the +stories, not the words which gave them beauty and power, could be +retained, and consequently they crumbled away. When the novel took on +literary form, women began to write. They were not imitators of men, but +opened up new paths of fiction, in many of which they excelled. + +The first woman to essay prose fiction as an art was Margaret, Queen of +Navarre. In the seventy-two tales of _The Heptameron_, a book written +before the dawn of realism, she related many anecdotes of her brother, +Francis the First, and his courtiers. Woman's permanent influence over +the novel began about 1640, and was due directly to the Hotel +Rambouillet, in whose grand _salon_ there mingled freely for half a +century the noblest minds of France. This _salon_ was presided over by +the Marquise de Rambouillet, who had left the licentious court of Henry +the Fourth, and had formed here in her home between the Louvre and the +Tuileries a little academy, where Corneille read his tragedies before +they were published, and Bousset preached his first sermon, while among +the listeners were the beautiful Duchess de Longueville, Madame de +Lafayette, Madame de Sévigné and Mademoiselle de Scudéri, besides other +persons of royal birth or of genius. The ladies of this _salon_ became +the censors of the manners, the literature, and even the language of +France. Here was the first group of women writers whose fame extended +beyond their own country, and has lasted, though somewhat dimmed, to the +present. Since the seventeenth century the influence of women novelists +has been ever widening. + +In England, women entered the domain of literature later than in France, +Spain, or Italy. Not until the Restoration did they take any active part +in the world of letters; and not until the reign of George the Third did +they make any marked contribution to fiction. + +The first woman writer of prose fiction in England was the thrice noble +and illustrious Princess Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle. During the +Commonwealth, the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle had lived in exile, but +with the restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660, they returned to +London, where the Duchess soon became a notable personage. Crowds +gathered in the park merely to see her pass, attracted partly by her +fame as a writer, partly by the singularities she affected. Her black +coach furnished with white curtains and adorned with silver trimmings +instead of gilt, with the footmen dressed in long black coats, was +readily distinguished from other carriages in the park. Her +peculiarities of dress were no less marked. Her long black +_juste-au-corps_, her hair hanging in curls about her bared neck, her +much beplumed velvet cap of her own designing, were objects of ridicule +to the court wits, who even asserted that she wore more than the usual +number of black patches upon her comely face. + +More singular than her habiliments were her pretentions as a woman of +letters, which caused the courtiers to laugh at her conceit. She was +evidently aware of this failing as she writes in her _Autobiography_: +"I fear my ambition inclines to vain-glory, for I am very ambitious; +yet 't is neither for beauty, wit, titles, wealth, or power, but as they +are steps to raise me to Fame's tower, which is to live by remembrance +in after-ages." + +But, notwithstanding her detractors, she received sufficient praise to +foster her belief in her own genius. Her plays were well received. Her +poems were declared by her admirers equal to Shakespeare's. Her +philosophical works, which she dedicated to the great universities of +Oxford and Cambridge, were accepted with fulsome flattery of their +author. When she visited the Royal Society at Arundel House, the Lord +President met her at the door, and, with mace carried before him, +escorted her into the room, where many experiments were performed for +her pleasure. In 1676, a folio volume was published, entitled _Letters +and Poems in Honour of the Incomparable Princess Margaret, Duchess of +Newcastle_, written by men of high rank and of learning, with the +following dedication by the University of Cambridge: + + To Margaret the First: + Princess of Philosophers: + Who hath dispelled errors: + Appeased the difference of opinions: + And restored Peace + To Learning's Commonwealth. + +Yet this praise was not all flattery, for the scholarly Evelyn always +speaks of her with respect, and after visiting her writes, "I was much +pleased with the extraordinary fanciful habit, garb, and discourse of +the Duchess." + +Amid the arid wastes of her philosophical works are green spots +enlivened by good sense and humour that have a peculiar charm. At the +time when the trained minds of the Royal Society were broadening +scientific knowledge by careful experiments, this lady, with practically +no education, sat herself down to write her thoughts upon the great +subjects of matter and motion, mind and body. She was emboldened to +publish her opinions, for, as she says: "Although it is probable, that +some of the Opinions of Ancient Philosophers in Ancient times are +erroneous, yet not all, neither are all Modern Opinions Truths, but +truly I believe, there are more Errors in the One than Truth in the +Other." Some of her explanations are very artless, as when she decides +that passions are created in the heart and not in the head, because +"Passion and Judgment seldom agree." + +Her philosophical works are often compounded of fiction and fact. Her +book called _The Description of a New World called the Blazing World_ +reminds one of some of the marvellous stories of Jules Verne. According +to the story a merchant fell in love with a lady while she was gathering +shells on the sea-coast, and carried her away in a light vessel. They +were driven to the north pole, thence to the pole of another world which +joined it. The conjunction of these two poles doubled the cold, so that +it was insupportable, and all died but the lady. Bear-men conducted her +to a warmer clime, and presented her to the emperor of the Blazing +World, whose palace was of gold, with floors of diamonds. The emperor +married the lady, and, at her desire to study philosophy, sent for the +Duchess of Newcastle, "a plain and rational writer," to be her teacher. +The story at this point rambles into philosophy. + +_Nature's Pictures drawn by Fancy's Pencil_ contains many suggestions +for poems and novels. Particularly beautiful is the fragment of a story +of a lord and lady who were forbidden to love in this world, but who +died the same night, and met on the shores of the Styx. "Their souls did +mingle and intermix as liquid essences, whereby their souls became as +one." They preferred to enjoy themselves thus rather than go to Elysium, +where they might be separated, and where the talk of the shades was +always of the past, which to them was full of sorrow. + +The Duchess of Newcastle wrote a series of letters on beauty, eloquence, +time, theology, servants, wit, and kindred subjects, often illustrated +by a little story, reminding the reader of some of the _Spectator_ +papers, which delighted the next generation. As in those papers, +characters were introduced. Mrs. P.I., the Puritan dame, appears in +several letters. She had received sanctification, and consequently +considered all vanities of dress, such as curls, bare necks, black +patches, fans, ribbons, necklaces, and pendants, temptations of Satan +and the signs of damnation. In a subsequent letter she becomes a +preaching sister, and the Duchess has been to hear her, and thus +comments upon the meeting: "There were a great many holy sisters and +holy brethren met together, where many took their turns to preach; for +as they are for liberty of conscience, so they are for liberty of +preaching. But there were more sermons than learning, and more words +than reason." + +This is the first example of the use of letters in English fiction. In +the next century it was adopted by Richardson for his three great +novels, _Pamela_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, and _Sir Charles Grandison_; it +was used by Smollett in the novel of _Humphry Clinker_, and became a +popular mode of composition with many lesser writers. + +But posterity is chiefly indebted to the Duchess of Newcastle for her +life of her husband and the autobiography that accompanies it. Of the +former Charles Lamb wrote that it was a jewel for which "no casket is +rich enough." Of the beaux and belles who were drawn by the ready pens +of the playwrights of the court of Charles the Second none are worthy of +a place beside the Duke of Newcastle and his incomparable wife. + +With rare felicity she has described her home life in London with her +brothers and sisters before her marriage. Their chief amusements were a +ride in their coaches about the streets of the city, a visit to Spring +Gardens and Hyde Park; and sometimes a sail in the barges on the river, +where they had music and supper. She announces with dignity her first +meeting with the Duke of Newcastle in Paris, where she was maid of +honour to the Queen Mother of England: "He was pleased to take some +particular notice of me, and express more than an ordinary affection for +me; insomuch that he resolved to choose me for his second wife." And in +another place she writes: "I could not, nor had not the power to refuse +him, by reason my affections were fixed on him, and he was the only +person I ever was in love with. Neither was I ashamed to own it, but +gloried therein." Here is the charm of brevity. Richardson would have +blurred these clearly cut sentences by eight volumes. + +In the biography of her husband she relates faithfully his services to +Charles the First at the head of an army which he himself had raised; +his final defeat near York by the Parliamentary forces; and his escape +to the continent in 1644. Then followed his sixteen years of exile in +Paris, Rotterdam, and Antwerp, where "he lived freely and nobly," +entertaining many persons of quality, although he was often in extreme +poverty, and could obtain credit merely by the love and respect which +his presence inspired. What a sad picture is given of the return of the +exiles to their estates, which had been laid waste in the Civil War and +later confiscated by Cromwell! But how the greatness of the true +gentleman shines through it all, who, as he viewed one of his parks, +seven of which had been completely destroyed, simply said, "He had been +in hopes it would not have been so much defaced as he found it." + +In the closing chapter the Duchess gives _Discourses Gathered from the +Mouth of my noble Lord and Husband_. These show both sound sense and a +broad view of affairs. She writes: + + "I have heard My Lord say, + + I + + "That those which command the Wealth of a Kingdom, command + the hearts and hands of the People. + + * * * * * + + XXXIII + + "That many Laws do rather entrap than help the subject." + +Clarendon, who thought but poorly of the Duke's abilities as a general, +gives the same characterisation of him: a man of exact proportion, +pleasant, witty, free but courtly in his manner, who loved all that were +his friends, and hated none that were his enemies, and who had proved +his loyalty to his king by the sacrifice of his property and at the risk +of his life. + +Perhaps the Duchess of Newcastle has unwittingly drawn a true +representation of the great body of English cavaliers, and has partly +removed the stain which the immoralities of the court afterward put upon +the name. These biographies give a story of marital felicity with all +the characteristics of the domestic novel. + +At this time the English novel was a crude, formless thing, without +dignity in literature. The Duchess of Newcastle, who aspired to be +ranked with Homer and Plato, would have spurned a place among writers of +romance, although her genius was primarily that of the novelist. She +constantly thought of plots, which she jotted down at random, her common +method of composition. She has described characters, and has left many +bright pictures of the manners and customs of her age. Her style of +writing is better than that of many of her more scholarly +contemporaries, who studied Latin models and strove to imitate them. She +wrote as she thought and felt, so that her style is simple when not lost +in the mazes of philosophical speculation. She had all the requisites +necessary to write the great novel of the Restoration. + +But in the next century her voluminous writings were forgotten, and the +casual visitor to Westminster Abbey who paused before the imposing +monument in the north transept read with amused indifference the quaint +inscription which marks the tomb of the noble pair; that she was the +second wife of the Duke of Newcastle, that her name was Margaret Lucas; +"a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant and all the sisters +were virtuous." To Charles Lamb belongs the credit of discovering the +worth of her writings. Delighting in oddities, but quick to discern +truth from falsehood, he loved to pore over the old folios containing +her works, and could not quite forgive his sister Mary for speaking +disrespectfully of "the intellectuals of a dear favourite of mine of the +last century but one--the thrice noble, chaste and virtuous, but again +somewhat fantastical and original-brained, generous Margaret Newcastle." + +Her desire for immortality is nearer its fulfilment to-day than at any +previous time. A third edition of the _Life of the Duke of Newcastle_ +was published in 1675, the year after her death. Nearly two hundred +years later, in 1872, it was included in Russell Smith's "Library of Old +Authors," and since then a modernised English edition and a French +edition of this book have been published. No one can read this biography +without feeling the charm of the quaint, childlike personality of the +Duchess of Newcastle. + +While all London was talking of the "mad Duchess of Newcastle," another +lady was living there no less eminent as a writer, but so distinguished +for her wit, freedom of temper, and brilliant conversation, that even +the great Dryden sought her friendship, and Sothern, Rochester, and +Wycherley were among her admirers. She was named "Astrea," and hailed as +the wonder and glory of her sex. But Aphra Behn's talents brought her a +more substantial reward than fame. Her plays were presented to crowded +houses; her novels were in every library, and she obtained a large +income from her writings; she was the first English woman to earn a +living by her pen. + +In her early youth, Mrs. Behn lived for a time at Surinam in Dutch +Guiana, where her father was governor. On one of the plantations was a +negro in whose fate she became deeply interested. She learned from his +own lips about his life in Africa, and was herself an eye witness of the +indignities and tortures he suffered in slavery. She was so deeply +impressed by his horrible fate, that on her return to London she related +his story to King Charles the Second and at his request elaborated it +into the novel _Oroonoko_. + +According to the story, Oroonoko, an African warrior, was married to +Imoinda, a beautiful maiden of his own people. His grandfather, a +powerful chieftain, also fell in love with the beautiful Imoinda and +placed her in his harem. When he found that her love for Oroonoko still +continued, he sold her secretly into slavery and her rightful husband +could learn nothing of her whereabouts. Later Oroonoko and his men were +invited by the captain of a Dutch trading ship to dine on board his +vessel. They accepted the invitation, but, after dinner, the captain +seized his guests, threw them into chains, and carried them to the West +Indies, where he sold them as slaves. Here Oroonoko found his wife, +whose loss he had deeply mourned, and they were reunited. Oroonoko, +however, indignant at the treachery practised against himself and his +men, incited the slaves to a revolt. They were overcome, and Oroonoko +was tied to a whipping-post and severely punished. As he found that he +could not escape, he resolved to die. But rather than leave Imoinda to +the cruelty of her owners, he determined to slay first his wife, then +his enemies, lastly himself. He told his plans to Imoinda, who willingly +accompanied him into the forest, where he put her to death. When he saw +his wife dead at his feet, his grief was so great that it deprived him +of the strength to take vengeance on his enemies. He was again captured +and led to a stake, where faggots were placed about him. The author has +described his death with a faithfulness to detail that carries with it +the impress of truth: "'My Friends, am I to die, or to be whipt?' And +they cry'd, 'Whipt! no, you shall not escape so well.' And then he +reply'd, smiling, 'A blessing on thee'; and assured them they need not +tie him, for he would stand fix'd like a Rock, and endure Death so as +should encourage them to die: 'But if you whip me' [said he], 'be sure +you tie me fast.'" + +The popularity of the book was instantaneous. It passed through several +editions. It was translated into French and German, and adapted for the +German stage, while Sothern put it on the stage in England. It created +almost as great a sensation as did _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ two hundred years +later. Like Mrs. Stowe's novel it had a strong moral influence, as it +was among the earliest efforts to call the attention of Europe to the +evils of the African slave trade. Moreover, this her first novel gave +Mrs. Behn an acknowledged place as a writer. + +_Oroonoko_ marks a distinct advance in English fiction. Nearly all +novels before this had consisted of a series of stories held together by +a loosely formed plot running through a number of volumes, sometimes +only five, but occasionally, as in _The Grand Cyrus_, filling ten +quartos. Their form was such that like the _Thousand and One Nights_ +they could be continued indefinitely. Most of these novels belonged +either to the pastoral romance or the historical allegory. In the +former the ladies and gentlemen who in a desultory sort of way carried +on the plot were disguised as shepherds and shepherdesses and lived in +idyllic state in Arcadia. In the latter they masqueraded under the names +of kings and queens of antiquity and entered with the flourish of +trumpets and the sound of drums. + +_Oroonoko_ was the first English novel with a well developed plot. It +moves along rapidly, without digression, to its tragic conclusion. Not +until Fielding wrote _Joseph Andrews_ was the plot of any English novel +so definitely wrought. The lesser writer had a slight advantage over the +greater. Mrs. Behn's novel is constructed upon dramatic lines, so that +it holds the interest more closely to the main characters, and the end +is awaited with intense expectation; while Fielding chose the epic form, +which is more discursive, and _Joseph Andrews_ like all his novels is +excessively tame, almost hackneyed in its conclusion. Mrs. Behn's black +hero is the first distinctly drawn character in English fiction, the +first one that has any marked personality. Sometimes the enthusiasm with +which he is described brings a smile to the lips of the modern reader +and reminds one of the heroic savages of James Fenimore Cooper and Helen +Hunt Jackson. She writes of him: "He was pretty tall, but of a Shape the +most exact that can be Fancy'd: The most famous Statuary could not form +the Figure of a Man more admirably turned from Head to Foot.... There +was no one Grace wanting, that bears the Standard of true Beauty." And +thus she continues the description in the superlative degree. + +But the story is for the most part realistic. Although the scenes in +Africa show the influence of the French heroic novels, as if the author +were afraid to leave her story in its simple truth but must adorn it +with purple and ermine, as soon as it is transferred to Surinam, where +Mrs. Behn had lived, it becomes real. It has local colouring, at that +time an almost unknown attribute. It has the atmosphere of the tropics. +The descriptions are vivid, and often photographic. Occasionally they +are exaggerated, but few travellers to a region of which their hearers +know nothing have been able to resist the temptation to deviate from the +exact truth. But the whole novel, even at this late day, leaves one with +the impression that it is a true biography. + +In the history of the English novel, in which _Pamela_ is given an +important place as the morning star which heralded the great light of +English realism about to burst upon the world, this well arranged, +definite, picturesque story of _Oroonoko_, whose author was reposing +quietly within the hallowed precincts of Westminster Abbey fifty years +before Richardson introduced _Pamela_ to an admiring public, should not +be forgotten. Before _Pamela_ was published, the complete works of Mrs. +Behn passed through eight editions. The plots of all her novels are well +constructed, with little extraneous matter, but with the exception of +Oroonoko the characters are shadowy beings, many of whom meet with a +violent death. _The Nun or the Perjured Duty_ has only five characters, +all of whom perish in the meshes of love. _The Fair Jilt or the Amours +of Prince Tarquin and Miranda_, founded on incidents that came to the +author's knowledge during her residence in Antwerp, is well fitted for +the columns of a modern yellow journal; the beautiful heroine causes the +death of everyone who stands in the way of her love or her ambition, but +she finally repents and lives happy ever after. Mrs. Behn's style is +always careless, owing to her custom of writing while entertaining +friends. + +A great change took place in the public taste during the next hundred +years, so that Mrs. Behn's novels, plays, and poems fell into disrepute. +Sir Walter Scott tells the story of his grand-aunt who expressed a +desire to see again Mrs. Behn's novels, which she had read with delight +in her youth. He sent them to her sealed and marked "private and +confidential." The next time he saw her, she gave them back with the +words: + +"Take back your bonny Mrs. Behn, and, if you will take my advice, put +her in the fire, for I find it impossible to get through the very first +novel. But is it not a very odd thing that I, an old woman of eighty and +upward, sitting alone, feel myself ashamed to read a book which sixty +years ago I have heard read aloud for the amusement of large circles, +consisting of the first and most creditable society in London?" + +Mrs. Behn has been accused of great license in her conduct and of gross +immorality in her writings. Her friend and biographer says of the +former: "For my part I knew her intimately, and never saw ought +unbecoming the just modesty of our sex, though more free and gay than +the folly of the precise will allow." For the latter the fashion must be +blamed more than she. Mrs. Behn was not actuated by the high moral +principles of Mademoiselle de Scudéri and Madame de Lafayette, with whom +love was an ennobling passion, nor was she writing for the refined men +and women of the Hotel Rambouillet; she was striving to earn a living by +pleasing the court of Charles the Second, and in that she was eminently +successful. + + * * * * * + +Nearly a quarter of a century after the death of Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley +published anonymously the first two volumes of the _New Atlantis_, the +book by which she is chiefly known, under the title of _Secret Memoirs +and Manners of Several Persons of Quality of both Sexes from the New +Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean_. Mrs. Manley was a Tory, and +she peopled the New Atalantis with members of the Whig party under +Marlborough as Prince Fortunatus. The book is written in the form of a +conversation carried on by Astrea, Virtue, and Intelligence, a +personification of the _Court Gazette_. They described the Whig leaders +so accurately, and related the scandal of the court so faithfully, that, +although fictitious names were used, no key was needed to recognise the +personages in the story. + +The publisher and printer were arrested for libel, but Mrs. Manley came +forward and owned the authorship. In her trial she was placed under a +severe cross-examination by Lord Sunderland, who attempted to learn +where she had obtained her information. She persisted in her statement +that no real characters were meant, that it was all a work of +imagination, but if it bore any resemblance to truth it must have come +to her by inspiration. Upon Lord Sunderland's objecting to this +statement, on the grounds that so immoral a book bore no trace of divine +impulse, she replied that there were evil angels as well as good, who +might possess equal powers of inspiration. The book was published in +May, 1709; in the following February, she was discharged by order of +the Queen's Bench. + +Soon after her discharge from court, she wrote a third and fourth volume +of the _New Atalantis_ under the title, _Memoirs of Europe toward the +Close of the Eighth Century written by Eginardus, Secretary and Favorite +to Charlemagne, and done into English, by the Translator of the New +Atalantis_. Here she has followed the French models. There is a loosely +constructed plot, and the characters tell a series of stories. Many of +the writers of Queen Anne's reign are described with none of that lustre +that surrounds them now, but as they appeared to a cynical woman who +knew them well. She refers to Steele as Don Phaebo, and ridicules his +search for the philosopher's stone; and laments that Addison, whom she +calls Maro, should prostitute his talents for gold, when he might become +a second Vergil. + +Mrs. Manley had been well trained to write a book like the _New +Atalantis_. At sixteen, an age when Addison and Steele were at the +Charterhouse preparing for Oxford, her father, Sir Roger Manley, died. A +cousin, taking advantage of her helplessness, deceived her by a false +marriage, and after three years abandoned her. Upon this she entered the +household of the Duchess of Cleveland, the mistress of Charles the +Second, who soon tired of her and dismissed her from her service. She +then began to write, and by her plays and political articles soon won an +acknowledged place among the writers of Grub Street. + +From the many references to her in the letters and journals of the +period, she seems to have been popular with the writers of both +political parties. Swift writes to Stella that she is a very generous +person "for one of that sort," which many little incidents prove. She +dedicated her play _Lucius_ to Steele, with whom she was on alternate +terms of enmity and friendship, as a public retribution for her ridicule +of him in the _New Atalantis_, saying that "scandal between Whig and +Tory goes for not." Steele, equally generous, wrote a prologue for the +play, perhaps in retribution for some of the harsh criticisms of her in +the _Tatler_. All readers of Pope remember the reference to her in the +_Rape of the Lock_, where Lord Petre exclaims that his honour, name and +praise shall live + + As long as Atalantis shall be read. + +Although Mrs. Manley's pen was constantly and effectively employed in +the interest of the Tory party, she being at one time the editor of the +_Examiner_, the Tory organ, none of her writings had the popularity of +the _New Atalantis_. It went through seven editions and was translated +into the French. The book has no intrinsic merit; its language is +scurrilous and obscene; but it appealed to the eager curiosity of the +public concerning the private immoralities of men and women who were +prominent at court. Human nature in its pages furnishes a contemptible +spectacle. + +The _New Atalantis_ has now, however, assumed a permanent place in the +history of fiction. This species of writing had been common, in France, +but it was the first English novel in which political and personal +scandal formed the groundwork of a romance. Swift followed its general +plan in _Gulliver's Travels_, placing his political enemies in public +office in Lilliput and Brobdingnag, only he so wrought upon them with +his imagination that he gave to the world a finished work of art, while +Mrs. Manley has left only the raw material with which the artist works. +Smollett's political satire, _Adventures of an Atom_, was also suggested +by the _New Atalantis_, but here the earlier writer has surpassed the +later. All three of these writers took a low and cynical view of +humanity. + +The women novelists who directly followed Mrs. Manley did not have her +strength, but they had a delicacy that has given to their writings a +subtle charm. From the time of Sarah Fielding to the present threatened +reaction the writings of women have been marked by chastity of thought +and purity of expression. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Sarah Fielding. Mrs. Lennox. Mrs. Haywood. Mrs. Sheridan + + +About the middle of the eighteenth century, some interesting novels were +written by women, but their fame was so overshadowed by the early +masters of English fiction, who were then writing, that they have been +almost forgotten. For in 1740 _Pamela_ was published, the first novel of +Samuel Richardson; in 1771, _Humphry Clinker_ appeared, the last novel +of Tobias Smollett; and during the thirty-one years between these two +dates all the books of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and Smollett were +given to the world, and determined the nature of the English novel. The +plot of most of their fifteen realistic novels is practically the same. +The hero falls in love with a beautiful young lady, not over seventeen, +and there is a conflict between lust and chastity. The hero, balked of +his prey, travels up and down the world, where he meets with a series of +adventures, all very much alike, and all bearing very little on the main +plot. At last fate leads the dashing hero to the church door, where he +confers a ring on the fair heroine, a paltry piece of gold, the only +reward for her fidelity, with the hero thrown in, much the worse for +wear, and the curtain falls with the sound of the wedding bells in the +distance. + +The range of these novels is narrow. They describe a world in which the +chief occupation is eating, drinking, swearing, gambling, and fighting. +Their chief artistic excellence is the strength and vigour with which +these low scenes are described. Sidney Lanier says of them: "They play +upon life as upon a violin without a bridge, in the deliberate endeavour +to get the most depressing tones possible from the instrument." And +Taine, who could hardly endure any of them, writes of Fielding what he +implies of the others: "One thing is wanted in your strongly-built +folks--refinement; the delicate dreams, enthusiastic elevation, and +trembling delicacy exist in nature equally with coarse vigour, noisy +hilarity, and frank kindness." + +The women who essayed the art of fiction during these years did not have +so firm a grasp of the pen as their male contemporaries, and they have +added no portraits to the gallery of fiction; but they saw and recorded +many interesting scenes of British life which quite escaped the +quick-sighted Fielding, or Sterne with the microscopic eyes. + +In 1744, when Richardson had written only one book, and Fielding had +published only two, before _Tom Jones_ or _Clarissa Harlowe_ had seen +the light of day, Sarah Fielding published _David Simple_, under the +title of _The Adventures of David Simple, containing an account of his +travels through the cities of London and Westminster in the search of a +real friend, by a Lady_. The author commenced the story as a satire on +society. For a long time David's search is unsuccessful. Although he +changed his lodgings every week, he could hear of no one who could be +trusted. Many, to be sure, dropped hints of their own excellence, and +the pity that they had to live with inferior neighbours. Among these was +Mr. Spatter, who introduced him to Mr. Varnish. The former saw the +faults of people through a magnifying glass; while the latter, when he +mentioned a person's failings, added, "He was sure they had some good in +them." But David soon learned that Mr. Varnish was no readier to assist +a friend in need than the fault-finding Mr. Spatter. + +Like her brother Henry, Sarah Fielding is often sarcastic. In one of the +chapters she leaves David to his sufferings, "lest it should be +thought," she added, "I am so ignorant of the world as not to know the +proper time of forsaking people." But the pessimistic vein of the first +volume changes to a more optimistic tone in the second. David, in his +search for one friend, finds three. Fortunately these consist of a +brother and sister and a lady in love with the brother. Even at this +early time, an author had no doubts as to how a novel should end. The +heading of the last chapter in the book informs us that it contains two +weddings, "and consequently the Conclusion of the Book." + +In its construction, the plot is similar to that of the other novels of +the period. David has plenty of time at his disposal, and listens with +more patience than the reader to the detailed history of all the people +he meets, and often begs a casual acquaintance to favour him with the +story of his life. + +But Sarah Fielding's chief charm to her women readers is the feminine +view of her times. In _David Simple_ we have the pleasure of travelling +through England, but with a woman as our guide. As Harry Fielding +travelled between Bath and London, the fair reader wonders what he +reported to Mrs. Fielding of what he had seen and heard. Surely at these +various inns there must have been some by-play of real affection, some +act of modest kindness, some incident of delicate humour. Did he regale +Mrs. Fielding with the scenes he has described for his readers? Probably +when she asked him if anything had happened _en route_, he merely yawned +and replied, "Oh, nothing worth while." He had too much reverence for +his wife to repeat these low scenes to her, and we suspect he had eyes +for no others. What would Addison or Steele have seen in the same place? + +Sarah Fielding also takes her characters on a stage-coach journey, but +here we sit beside the fair heroine, an intelligent lady, and gaze at +the men who sit opposite her. There is the Butterfly with his hair +pinned up in blue papers, wearing a laced waistcoat, and humming an +Italian air. He admires nothing but the ladies, and offered some little +familiarity to our heroine, which she repulsed; upon this he paid her +the greatest respect imaginable, being convinced, as she would not +suffer any intimacy from _him_, she must be one of the most virtuous +women that had ever been born. There is the Atheist, who being alone +with her for a few moments makes love to her in an insinuating manner, +and tries to prove to her that pleasure is the only thing to be sought +in life, and assures her that she may follow her inclinations without a +crime, "while she knew that nothing could so much oppose her _gratifying +him_, as her _pleasing herself_." Then there is the Clergyman who makes +honourable love to her, but by doing so puts an end to the friendship +which she had hoped might be between them; until at the end of the +journey, "she almost made a resolution never to speak to a man again, +beginning to think it impossible for a man to be civil to a woman, +unless he had some designs upon her." + +Whether or not women have ever portrayed the masculine sex truthfully is +an open question. But a gentleman mellowed and softened in the light of +ladies' smiles is quite a different creature from the same gentleman +when seen among the sterner members of his own sex, and there are +certain phases of men's characters portrayed in the novels of women +which Fielding, Scott, and Thackeray seem never to have seen. + +Miss Fielding descants upon many familiar scenes in a manner that would +have made her a valuable contributor to the _Tatler_ or _Spectator_. All +kinds of human nature interested her. There is the man who advises David +as a friend to buy a certain stock which he himself is secretly trying +to sell because he knows it has decreased in value, thus showing that +money transactions in London in the reigns of the Georges differed +little from money transactions on the Stock Exchange to-day. In some +respects, however, society has improved since the days of Sarah +Fielding. She describes the gentlemen of social prominence who tumble up +to the carriages of ladies who are driving through Covent Garden in the +morning, and present them with cabbages or other vegetables which they +have picked up from the stalls, too intoxicated to know that their +conduct is ridiculous. There are the crowds at the theatres who show +their displeasure with a playwright by making so much noise that his +play cannot be heard on its first night and so is condemned. Other +writers of the period complain of having received this kind of treatment +at the hands of the gentlemen mob. And then we are introduced to a scene +in the fashionable West End which is a familiar one to-day, where the +ladies of quality have their whist assemblies and spend all the morning +visiting each other and discussing how the cards were played the +previous evening and why certain tricks were lost. + +We recognise the fact, however, that Miss Fielding's knowledge of life +was but slight. She writes from the standpoint of a spectator, not like +her brother as one who had been a part of it. She was one of that group +of gentlewomen who gathered around Richardson and heard him read +_Clarissa_, or discussed life and books with him at the breakfast table +in the summer-house at North End, Hammersmith. Life was not lived there, +but philosophy often sat at the board, and there was fine penetration +into the characters and manners of men. Richardson transferred to Miss +Fielding the compliment which Dr. Johnson had bestowed upon him, and it +was not undeserved by the author of _David Simple_: + +"What a knowledge of the human heart! Well might a critical judge of +writing say, as he did to me, that your late brother's knowledge of it +was not (fine writer as he was) comparable to yours. His was but as the +knowledge of the outside of a clock-work machine, while yours was that +of all the finer springs and movements of the inside." + + * * * * * + +It is not difficult to conjure up a picture of the literary gentlemen +and gentlewomen who used to breakfast with Richardson in the +summer-house at North End; the gentlemen in their many-coloured velvet +suits, the ladies wearing broad hoops, loose sacques, and Pamela hats. +One of these ladies was Charlotte Ramsay, better known by her married +name of Mrs. Lennox. Her father, Colonel James Ramsay, was +lieutenant-governor of New York, where his daughter Charlotte was born +in 1720. She was sent to England at the age of fifteen, and soon after +her father died, leaving her unprovided for. She turned her attention to +literature as a means of livelihood, and at once became a favourite in +the literary circles of London, where she met and won the esteem of the +great Dr. Johnson. + +When her first novel, _The Life of Harriet Stuart_, was published, he +showed his appreciation of its author in a unique manner. At his +suggestion, the Ivy Lane Club and its friends entertained Mrs. Lennox +and her husband at the Devil's Tavern with a night of festivity. After +an elaborate supper had been served, a hot apple-pie was brought in, +stuffed full of bay-leaves, and Johnson with appropriate ceremonies +crowned the author with a wreath of laurel. The night was passed in +mirth and conversation; tea and coffee were often served; and not until +the creaking of the street doors reminded them that it was eight o'clock +in the morning did the guests, twenty in number, leave the tavern. + +Mrs. Lennox's claim to a place in English literature rests solely upon +her novel, _The Female Quixote_, published in 1752. Arabella, the +heroine, is the daughter of a marquis who has retired into the country, +where he lives remote from society. Her mother is dead; her father is +immersed in his books, so that Arabella is left alone, and whiles away +the hours by reading the novels of Mademoiselle de Scudéri. Her three +great novels, _Clelia_, _The Grand Cyrus_ and _Ibrahim_, are historical +allegories, in which the France of Louis XIV is given an historical +setting, and his courtiers masquerade under the names of famous men of +antiquity. There is no attempt at historical accuracy. But to Arabella +these books represented true history and depicted the real life of the +world. + +In a fine satirical passage Arabella informs Mr. Selvin, a man so +deeply read in ancient history that he fixed the date of any occurrence +by Olympiads, not years, that Pisistratus had been inspired to enslave +his country because of his love for Cleorante. Mr. Selvin wonders how +this important fact could have escaped his own research, and conceives a +great admiration for Arabella's learning. + +In the novels of Mademoiselle de Scudéri the characters, even in moments +of extreme danger, entertain each other with stories of their past +experiences. When Arabella has unexpected guests she bids her maid +relate to them the history of her mistress. She instructs her to "relate +exactly every change of my countenance, number all my smiles, +half-smiles, blushes, turnings pale, glances, pauses, full-stops, +interruptions; the rise and falling of my voice, every motion of my +eyes, and every gesture which I have used for these ten years past: nor +omit the smallest circumstance that relates to me." + +All the people Arabella meets are changed by her fancy into the +characters of her favourite books. In common people she sees princes in +disguise. If a man approaches her, she fancies that he is about to bear +her away to some remote castle, or to mention the subject of love, which +would be unpardonable, unless he had first captured cities in her +behalf. Yet amid the wildest extravagances Arabella never loses her +charm. Her generosity and purity of thought make her a very lovable +heroine, much more womanly than Clarissa or Sophia Western, and we do +not wonder that Mr. Glanville continues to love her, although he is so +often annoyed by her ridiculous fancies. + +But her belief in her hallucinations is as firm as that of the Spanish +Quixote for whom the book was named. Everyone will remember his attack +on the windmills, which he mistook for giants. Arabella was equally +brave. Thinking herself and some other ladies pursued, when the Thames +cuts off their escape, she addresses her companions in language becoming +one of her favourite heroines: "Once more, my fair Companions, if your +honour be dear to you, if an immortal glory be worth your seeking, +follow the example I shall set you, and equal, with me, the Roman +Clelia." She plunged into the river, but was promptly rescued. The +doctor who attended her in the illness that followed this heroic deed +convinced her of the folly of trying to live according to these old +books, and she consented to marry her faithful and deserving lover. + +The character of Arabella is not drawn with the broad strong lines of +Fielding, nor with the attention to minute detail which gives life to +the characters of Richardson. But the girlish sweetness of Arabella, her +refusal to believe wrong of others, her ignorance of life, her contempt +for a lover who has not shed blood nor captured cities in her behalf, is +a reality, and shows that the author knew the nature of the romantic +girl. In the noble simplicity of Arabella, Mrs. Lennox has, perhaps +unconsciously, paid a high tribute to the moral effects of the novels of +Scudéri. Arabella is the only clearly drawn character in the book. But +one humorous situation follows another, so that the interest never +flags. + +The other novels of Mrs. Lennox have no value save as they show the +trend of thought of the period. In _Henrietta_, afterward dramatised as +_The Sister_, the heroine, granddaughter of an earl, rather than change +her religion, leaves her family and becomes the maid of a rich but +vulgar tradesman's daughter. Of course her mistress, who has treated her +scurrilously, in time learns her true rank and is properly humbled. The +name given to one of the chapters might suffice for the most of them: +"In which our heroine is in great distress." + +This would seem to be the proper heading for many chapters of many books +of the period. In the days of Good Queen Bess, heroines were good and +happy. In the merry reign of Charles, they were bad but happy. Pamela +set a fashion from which heroines seldom dared to deviate for over a +hundred years. They were good--but, oh, so wretched! This type of women +became such a favourite with both sexes, that even the sane-minded Scott +says: + + And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears. + +During her period of distress Henrietta lodged with a milliner. Her +landlady showed her a small collection of books and pointed with +especial pleasure to her favourite novels: "There is Mrs. Haywood's +Novels, did you ever read them? Oh! they are the finest love-sick +passionate stories: I assure you, you'll like them vastly." Henrietta, +however, chose _Joseph Andrews_ for her diversion. Mrs. Eliza Haywood +was never admitted into that inner circle of highly respectable English +ladies who clustered around Richardson. She was more of an adventuress +in the domain of letters. In her first novels she followed the fashion +set by Mrs. Manley and supplied the public with scandals in high life. +_Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to Utopia_, published in 1725, +_The Secret Intrigues of the Count of Caramania_, published in 1727, are +the highly suggestive titles of two of the most popular of her early +works. + +After Richardson had made Virtue more popular than Vice, Mrs. Haywood +followed the literary fashion which he had set, and in 1751 wrote _The +History of Miss Betsey Thoughtless_. This has sometimes been called a +domestic novel, but that is a misnomer, since the characters are seldom +found at home, but rather are met in the various pleasure resorts of +London. As was the fashion in the novels of this time, and probably not +an uncommon occurrence in the English capital, the heroine was often +forced into a chariot by some lawless libertine, but fortunately was +always rescued by some more virtuous lover. The whole story is but a new +arrangement of the one or two incidents with which Richardson had wrung +the heart of the British public. It has one advantage over the most of +the novels which had preceded it. There is little told that does not +bear directly on the plot, the characters of the sub-plot being +important personages in the main story, and the book has a definite +conclusion. + +None of the characters, however, are pleasing. The hero, Mr. Trueworthy, +a combination of Tom Jones and Sir Charles Grandison, is a hypocrite. +The other male characters are insignificant. Miss Betsey, the heroine, +is almost charming. Conscious of her own innocence, she repeatedly +appears in a light that makes her worldly lover, Mr. Trueworthy, suspect +her virtue, until at last he begs to be released from his engagement to +her. The author of the book stands as a duenna at Miss Betsey's side, +and points out by the misfortunes of the heroine how foolish it is for +girls to ignore public opinion, and strives to inculcate the lesson +that a husband is the best protection for a young girl. We are properly +shocked at Miss Betsey's levity, who, although she had arrived at the +mature age of fourteen, cared not a straw for any of the gentlemen who +sought her hand, but liked to have them about her only because they +flattered her vanity or afforded her a subject for mirth. Miss Betsey's +gaiety, wit, and generosity would be very attractive--in fact, she is +quite an up-to-date young lady--but we see how much better she would +"get on" if she had a little more worldly wisdom. She is punished, as +she deserves to be, by losing her lover, and marries a man who makes her +very unhappy. Mr. Trueworthy, however, learns of her innocence; her +husband fortunately dies, and the author takes the bold step of uniting +the widow to her former lover, after a year of mourning and passing +through much suffering, brought upon herself by her own thoughtlessness. +She is rewarded, however, very much as Pamela was rewarded, by marrying +a man of honour, who had judged her formerly by his own conduct, being +too willing to believe by appearances that she had lost her chastity, +or, at least, had sullied her good name. + +In this novel, Mrs. Haywood is very near the line that divides the +artist from the artisan. Like a young girl with good health and good +spirits, Miss Betsey is ever on the verge of sweeping aside the +prejudices of her duenna, and asserting her own individuality, but is +constantly held back by the sense of worldly propriety. Had Mrs. Haywood +permitted Miss Betsey to carry the plot whither she would without let or +hindrance, she would have won for herself an acknowledged place among +the heroines of fiction. + +_The History of Miss Betsey Thoughtless_ was an epoch-making book. The +adventures of its heroine in the city of London took possession of the +imagination of Fanny Burney, while little more than a child, and led to +the story of _Evelina_, the forerunner of Jane Austen and her school. + + * * * * * + +The fashion for weeping heroines was at its height, when, in 1761, Mrs. +Francis Sheridan published _The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph_. The +story is written in the form of letters, in which the heroine reveals to +a friend of her own sex all the secrets of her heart. All London +rejoiced over the virtues of Sidney Biddulph, and wept over her sorrows. +She had been educated "in the strictest principles of virtue; from which +she never deviated, through the course of an innocent, though unhappy +life." It was so pathetic a story that Dr. Johnson doubted if Mrs. +Sheridan had a right to make her characters suffer so much, and Charles +James Fox, who sat up all night to read it, pronounced it the best of +all novels of his time. + +The book, as first written, was in three volumes. The author had brought +the story to a most fitting close. Both Sidney's husband and the man +whom she had really loved were dead, and the widow could have spent her +days in pleasing melancholy, contented with the thought that she had +never done a wrong. But the public demanded a continuation of the story. +In 1767, two volumes were added, giving the history of Sidney's +daughters, who seem to have inherited from their mother the enmity of +the fates, for their sufferings were as great as hers. + +Authors are prone to draw upon their own history for the emotions they +depict. But Mrs. Sheridan's life did not furnish the tragic elements of +_Sidney Biddulph_, although it was not without romance. Before her +marriage, she wrote a pamphlet in praise of the conduct of one Thomas +Sheridan, the manager of the Theatre Royal in Dublin, during a riot that +occurred in the theatre. Sheridan read these words in his praise, sought +the acquaintance of their author, and before long married her. + +History furnishes a long list of women of talent whose sons were men of +genius. Mrs. Sheridan's second son, Richard Brinsley, the author of the +light and sparkling _Rivals_, inherited his mother's talents without her +gloom. But Mrs. Sheridan also had some ability as a writer of comedy, +and the most famous character of the _Rivals_ was first sketched by her. +In a comedy, _A Journey to Bath_, declined by Garrick, one of the +characters was Mrs. Twyford, whom Richard Brinsley Sheridan transformed +into that famous blundering coiner of words, Mrs. Malaprop. + +Mrs. Sheridan's place in literature rests upon _Sidney Biddulph_. This +novel was an innovation in English fiction. Nearly one hundred years +earlier, Madame de Lafayette had written _The Princess of Clèves_, one +of the most nearly perfect novels that has ever been written, and the +first that depended for its interest, not alone on what was done, but on +the subtle workings of the human heart which led to the doing of it. +From that time the novels of French women were largely introspective. +English women, however, were either less interested in the inner life, +or more reserved in laying bare its secrets. _Sidney Biddulph_ was the +first English novel of this kind, and it left no definite trace on +fiction, although it was the favourite novel of Charlotte Smith and had +some slight effect upon her writings, and Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Opie, and +Mary Brunton noted the feelings of their characters. Not until _Jane +Eyre_ was published, long after Mrs. Sheridan had been forgotten, was +there any great English novel of the inner life. + +In its day _Sidney Biddulph_ was exceedingly popular on the continent of +Europe as well as in England. It was translated into German, and an +adaptation of it was made in French by the Abbé Prévost, under the +title, _Memoirs pour servir a l'histoire de la vertu_. But after all, +Sidney's sorrows were not real, or she herself was not real; and we of +to-day smile or yawn over the pages that drew tears from the eyes of the +mighty Dr. Johnson. + + * * * * * + +Notwithstanding the many excellencies of English fiction during the +middle of the eighteenth century, it was held in low repute. There had +been many writers attempting to portray real life who, without the +genius of the greater novelists, could imitate only their faults. In the +preface to _Polly Honeycomb_, which was acted at Drury Lane theatre in +1760, George Colman, the author, gives the titles of about two hundred +novels whose names appeared in a circulating library at that time. +_Amorous Friars, or the Intrigues of a Convent_; _Beauty put to its +Shifts, or the Young Virgin's Rambles_; _Bubbled Knights, or Successful +Contrivances, plainly evincing, in two Familiar Instances lately +transacted in this Metropolis, the Folly and Unreasonableness of Parents +Laying a Restraint upon their Children's Inclinations in the Affairs of +Love and Marriage_; _The Impetuous Lover, or the Guiltless Parricide_; +these are the titles of a few of the popular books of that period. +Colman in the character of Polly Honeycomb, an earlier Lydia Languish, +attempts to show the moral effects of such reading. Her head had been so +turned by these books that her father exclaims, "A man might as well +turn his daughter loose in Covent-Garden, as trust the cultivation of +her mind to A CIRCULATING LIBRARY." + +Fiction at this time lacked delicacy and refinement. The characters +lived largely in the streets or taverns, and were too much engrossed in +the pleasures of active life to give any heed to thoughts or emotions. +Though love was the constant theme of these books, as yet no true love +story had been written. The fires of home had not been lighted. The +refinements, the pure affections, the high ideals which cluster around +the domestic hearth had as yet no place in the novel. It needed the +feminine element, which, while no broader than that which had previously +made the novel, by its own addition gave something new to it and made it +truer to life. + +While no woman of marked genius had appeared, the number and influence +of women novelists continued to increase throughout the eighteenth +century. Tim Cropdale in the novel _Humphry Clinker_, who "had made +shift to live many years by writing novels, at the rate of five pounds a +volume," complains that "that branch of business is now engrossed by +female authors, who publish merely for the propagation of virtue, with +so much ease, and spirit, and delicacy, and knowledge of the human +heart, and all in the serene tranquillity of high life, that the reader +is not only enchanted by their genius, but reformed by their morality." +Schlosser in his _History of the Eighteenth Century_ pays this tribute +to the moral influence of the women novelists: "With the increase of the +number of writers in England in the course of the eighteenth century, +women began to appear as authors instead of educating their children, +and their influence upon morals and modes of thinking increased, as that +of the clergy diminished." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Fanny Burney + + +A noteworthy transformation took place in the English novel during the +late years of the eighteenth century and the early part of the +nineteenth. This change cannot be explained by the great difference in +manners only. The mode of life described by the early novelists was in +existence sixty years after they wrote scenes typical of the customs and +manners of their day, just as the quiet home life described by Miss +Austen was to be found in England a hundred years before it graced the +pages of a book. This new era in the English novel was due not to a +change of environment, but to the new ideals of those who wrote. + +In 1778, English fiction was represented by the work of Miss Burney, and +for thirty-six years, until 1814, when _Waverley_ appeared, this rare +plant was preserved and kept alive by a group of women, who trimmed and +pruned off many of its rough branches and gave to the wild native fruit +a delicacy and fragrance unknown to it before. English women writers +did at that time for the English novel what French women had done in +the preceding century for the French novel; they made it so pure in +thought and expression that Bishop Huet was able to say of the French +romances of the seventeenth century, "You'll scarce find an expression +or word which may shock chaste ears, or one single action which may give +offence to modesty." + +This great change in the English novel was inaugurated by a young woman +ignorant of the world, whose power lay in her innocent and lively +imagination. At his home in Queen Square and later in St. Martin's +Street, Charles Burney, the father of Frances, entertained the most +illustrious men of his day. Johnson, Reynolds, Garrick, Burke, and +Colman were frequent guests, while members of the nobility thronged his +parlours to listen to the famous Italian singers who gladly sang for the +author of the _History of Music_. Here Fanny, a bashful but observant +child, saw life in the drawing-room. But as Dr. Burney gave little heed +to the comings and goings of his daughters, they played with the +children of a wigmaker next door, where, perhaps, Fanny became +acquainted with the vulgar side of London life, which is so humorously +depicted in _Evelina_. She received but little education, nor was she +more than a casual reader, but she was familiar with _Pamela_, _Betsey +Thoughtless_, _Rasselas_, and the _Vicar of Wakefield_. Such was her +preparation for becoming a writer of novels. + +From her earliest years, she had delighted in writing stories and +dramas, although she received little encouragement in this occupation. +In her fifteenth year her stepmother proved to her so conclusively the +folly of girls' scribbling that Fanny burned all her manuscripts, +including _The History of Caroline Evelyn_. She could not, however, +banish from her mind the fate of Caroline's infant daughter, born of +high rank, but related through her grandmother to the vulgar people of +the East End of London. The many embarrassing situations in which she +might be placed haunted the imagination of the youthful writer, but it +was not until her twenty-sixth year that these situations were +described, when _Evelina or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World_ was +published. + +The success of the book was instantaneous. The name of the author, which +had been withheld even from the publishers, was eagerly demanded. All +agreed that only a man conversant with the world could have written such +accurate descriptions of life both high and low. The wonder was +increased when it was learned that the author was a young woman who had +drawn her scenes, not from a knowledge of the world, but from her own +intuition and imagination. Miss Burney became at once an honoured +member of the literary circle which Mrs. Thrale had gathered at +Streatham, and a favourite of Dr. Johnson, who declared that _Evelina_ +was superior to anything that Fielding had written, and that some +passages were worthy of the pen of Richardson. The book was accorded a +place among English classics, which it has retained for over a century. +"It was not hard fagging that produced such a work as _Evelina_," wrote +Mr. Crisp to the youthful author. "It was the ebullition of true +sterling genius--you wrote it because you could not help it--it +came--and so you put it down on paper." + +The novel, following the form so common in the eighteenth century, is +written in the form of letters. The plot is somewhat time-honoured; +there is the nurse's daughter substituted for the real heiress, and a +mystery surrounding some of the characters; it is unfolded slowly with a +slight strain upon the readers' credulity at the last, but it ends to +the satisfaction of all concerned. In many incidents and in some of the +characters the story suggests _Betsey Thoughtless_, but Miss Burney had +greater powers of description than Mrs. Haywood. + +The plot of the novel is forgotten, however, in the lively, witty manner +in which the characters are drawn and the ludicrous situations in which +they are placed. So long had these men and women held the mind of the +author that they are intensely real as they are presented to us at +assemblies, balls, theatres, and operas, where we watch their oddities +with amusement. + +Indeed no woman has given so many graphic, droll, and minute +descriptions of life as Miss Burney. Her genius in this respect is +different from that of other women novelists. She has made a series of +snap-shots of people in the most absurd situations and ridicules them +while she is taking the picture. Few women writers can resist the +temptation of peeping into the hearts of their men and women, and the +knowledge thus gained gives them sympathy, while it often detracts from +the strong lines of the external picture; a writer will not paint a +villain quite so black if he believes he still preserves some remnants +of a noble nature. But Miss Burney has no interest in the inner life of +her men and women. She saw their peculiarities and was amused by them, +and has presented them to the reader with minute descriptions and lively +wit. + +She also makes fine distinctions between people. Sir Clement Willoughby, +the West End snob, and Mr. Smith, the East End beau, are drawn with +discrimination. With what wit Miss Burney describes the scene at the +_ridotto_ between Evelina and Sir Clement. He had asked her to dance +with him. Unwilling to do so, because she wished to dance with another +gentleman, if he should ask her, she told Sir Clement she was engaged +for that dance. He did not leave her, however, but remained by her side +and speculated as to who the beast was so hostile to his own interests +as to forget to come to her; pitied the humiliation a lady must feel in +having to wait for a gentleman, and pointed to each old and lame man in +the room asking if he were the miscreant; he offered to find him for her +and asked what kind of a coat he had on. When Evelina did not know, he +became angry with the wretch who dared to address a lady in so +insignificant a coat that it was unworthy of her notice. To save herself +from further annoyance she danced with him, for she now knew that Sir +Clement had seen through her artifice from the beginning. + +But the portrait of Mr. Smith, the East End snob, is even better than +that of Sir Clement Willoughby. Evelina is visiting her relatives at +Snow Hill, when Mr. Smith enters, self-confident and vulgar. His aim in +life, as he tells us, is to please the ladies. When Tom Branghton is +disputing with his sister about the place where they shall go for +amusement, he reprimands Tom for his lack of good breeding. + +"O fie, Tom,--dispute with a lady!" cried Mr. Smith. "Now, as for me, +I'm for where you will, providing this young lady [meaning Evelina] is +of the party; one place is the same as another to me, so that it be but +agreeable to the ladies. I would go anywhere with you, Ma'm, unless, +indeed, it were to church;--ha, ha, ha, you'll excuse me, Ma'm, but, +really, I never could conquer my fear of a parson;--ha, ha, ha,--really, +ladies, I beg your pardon, for being so rude, but I can't help laughing +for my life." + +Mr. Smith endeavoured to make himself particularly pleasing to Evelina, +and for that purpose bought tickets for her and her relatives to attend +the Hampstead Assembly. When he observed that Evelina was a little out +of sorts, he attributed her low spirits to doubts of his intentions +towards her. "To be sure," he told her, "marriage is all in all with the +ladies; but with us gentlemen it's quite another thing." He advised her +not to be discouraged, saying with a patronising air, "You may very well +be proud, for I assure you there is nobody so likely to catch me at last +as yourself." + +Both Sir Clement Willoughby and Mr. Smith are selfish and conceited; but +the former had lived among the gentlemen of Mayfair, the latter among +the tradespeople of Snow Hill, and this difference of environment is +shown in every speech they utter. + +It is the contrast between these two distinct classes of society that +saves the book from becoming monotonous. Evelina visits the Pantheon +with her West End friends. When Captain Mirvan wonders what people find +in such a place, Mr. Lovel, a fashionable fop, quickly rejoins: "What +the ladies may come hither for, Sir, it would ill become _us_ to +determine; but as to we men, doubtless we can have no other view, than +to admire them." At another time Evelina visits the opera with the +vulgar Branghtons, who all rejoiced when the curtain dropped, and Mr. +Branghton vowed he would never be caught again. The Branghtons at the +opera is hardly inferior to Partridge at the play. Tom Branghton is a +good representative of his class. He describes with glee the last night +at Vauxhall: "There's such squealing and squalling!--and then all the +lamps are broke,--and the women skimper scamper;--I declare I would not +take five guineas to miss the last night!" + +All the characters, even the heroine, take delight, in boisterous mirth. +Much of the humour of the book consists rather in ludicrous situations +than in any real delicacy of wit. Too often the laugh is at another's +discomfiture, and so fails to please the present age with its kindlier +feeling towards others. Such are the practical jokes which Captain +Mirvan plays upon Madame Duval. In one instance, disguised as a robber, +he waylays the lady's coach, and leaves her in a ditch with her feet +tied to a tree. The many tricks which the doughty Salt plays upon this +lady so much resemble some of the humorous scenes in _Joseph Andrews_, +and _Tom Jones_ that we may infer the readers of that century found +them laughable. The Captain and the French woman are two puppets which +serve to introduce much of this horse-play. They are not even +caricatures; they are entirely unlike anything in human life. With the +exception of these two characters, all the men and women who provoked +the mirth of the heroine are well portrayed. + +Miss Burney is less felicitous in her descriptions of serious +characters. Lord Orville, the same type of man as Sir Charles Grandison, +is true only in the sense that Miss Burney announces the truth of the +entire book. "I have not pretended to show the world what it actually +_is_, but what it _appears_ to a girl of seventeen," she wrote in the +preface to _Evelina_. Lord Orville, all dignity, nobility, charm, and +perfection, is but the ideal of a young girl. + +Evelina was a new woman in literature, a revelation to the men of the +time of George the Third. The sincerity of the book could not be +doubted. "But," they asked, "did Evelina represent the woman's point of +view of life? Surely no man ever held like views." The Lovelaces and Tom +Joneses are not so attractive as when seen through the eyes of their own +sex, and the heroines are not so soft and yielding as a man would create +them. Evelina, like all Miss Burney's heroines, is independent, +fearless, and witty, with scarcely a trace of the traditional heroine +of fiction. Saints and Magdalenes have always appealed to the masculine +imagination. _La donna dolorosa_ has occupied a prominent place in the +art and literature of man's creation. Here he has revealed his sex +egoism in all its nudity: the woman weeping for man, either lover, +husband, or son; man the centre of her thoughts, her hopes and fears. +This new heroine with a new regard towards man was a revelation to them. +Evelina was the first woman to break the spell, to show them woman as +woman, in lieu of woman as parasite and adjunct to man. Evelina is not +always pleasing; she hasn't always good manners; she sometimes laughs in +the faces of the dashing beaux who are addressing her. But she is a +woman of real flesh and blood; such women have existed in all time, and, +liked many women we meet every day and whom men in all ages have known, +Evelina insists on being the centre of every scene. + +In July, 1782, Miss Burney's second book, _Cecilia, or Memoirs of an +Heiress_, was published. This novel met with as enthusiastic a reception +as _Evelina_. Gibbon read the whole five volumes in a day; Burke +declared they had cost him three days, though he did not part with the +story from the time he first opened it, and had sat up a whole night to +finish it; and Sir Joshua Reynolds had been fed while reading it, +because he refused to quit it at the table. + +The book shows more care and effort than _Evelina_. That was an outburst +of youthful vivacity and spirits, but in _Cecilia_ the author is +striving to do her best. This is particularly revealed in the style, +which shows the influence of Doctor Johnson, for it has lost the +simplicity of _Evelina_. The diction is more ambitious, and the +sentences are longer, many of them balanced. Even some of the inferior +characters from their speech, appear to have received a lesson in +English composition from Dr. Johnson. + +But the novel owes its place among English classics to the varieties of +characters portrayed and the vivid pictures of English life. Here again +the gaieties of Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Marylebone and the Pantheon have +become immortal, drawn with colours as vivid and enduring as Hogarth +used in painting the sadder sides of London life. No other writer has +brought these places before our eyes as clearly and as fully as Fanny +Burney. + +The plot of _Cecilia_, like that of _Evelina_, is so arranged as to +present different classes of society. _Cecilia_ has three guardians, +with one of whom she must live during her minority. First she visits Mr. +Harrel, a gay, fashionable man, a spendthrift and a gambler, who lives +in a fashionable house in Portman Square, where Cecilia, during a +constant round of festivities, meets the fashionable people of London. +Next she visits Mr. Briggs in the City, "a short thick, sturdy man, with +very small keen black eyes, a square face, a dark complexion, and a snub +nose." He was so miserly that when Cecilia asked for pen, ink, and a +sheet of paper, he gave her a slate and pencil, as he supposed she had +nothing of consequence to say. He was as sparing of his words as of his +money, and used the same elliptical sentences in his speech as Dickens +afterwards put into the mouth of Alfred Jingle, the famous character in +_Pickwick Papers_. He thus advises Cecilia in regard to her lovers: +"Take care of sharpers; don't trust shoe-buckles, nothing but Bristol +stones! tricks in all things. A fine gentleman sharp as another man. +Never give your heart to a gold-topped cane, nothing but brass gilt +over. Cheats everywhere: fleece you in a year; won't leave you a groat. +But one way to be safe,--bring 'em all to me." Lastly she visits Mr. +Delvile, her third guardian, a man of family, who despised both the men +associated with him as trustees of Cecilia; he lived in such gloomy +state in his magnificent old house in St. James's Square that it +inspired awe, and repressed all pleasure. Pride in their birth and +prejudice against all parvenus were the faults of Mr. and Mrs. Delvile. + +Besides these characters, there were many others whose names were for a +long time familiar in every household. Sir Robert Floyer was as vain as +Mr. Smith. Mr. Meadows was constantly bored to death; it was +insufferable exertion to talk to a quiet woman, and a talkative one put +him into a fever. At the opera the solos depressed him and the full +orchestra fatigued him. He yawned while ladies were talking to him, and +after he had begged them to repeat what they had said, forgot to listen. +"I am tired to death! tired of everything," was his constant expression. + +In his critical essay on Madame D'Arblay, Fanny Burney's married name, +under which her later works were published, Macaulay has thus dealt with +her treatment of character: + +"Madame D'Arblay has left us scarcely anything but humours. Almost every +one of her men and women has some one propensity developed to a morbid +degree. In _Cecilia_, for example, Mr. Delvile never opens his lips +without some allusion to his own birth and station; or Mr. Briggs +without some allusion to the hoarding of money; or Mr. Hobson, without +betraying the self-indulgence and self-importance of a purse-proud +upstart; or Mr. Simkins, without uttering some sneaking remark for the +purpose of currying favour with his customers; or Mr. Meadows, without +expressing apathy and weariness of life; or Mr. Albany, without +declaiming about the vices of the rich and the misery of the poor; or +Mrs. Belfield, without some indelicate eulogy on her son; or Lady +Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all +skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria +all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle; if ever Madame +D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of Monckton, we do not think +that she succeeded well.... The variety of humours which is to be found +in her novels is immense; and though the talk of each person separately +is monotonous, the general effect is not monotony, but a most lively and +agreeable diversity." + +While the character of Monckton is not strongly drawn, one or two scenes +in which he figures have great power. Mr. Monckton, who had married an +aged woman for her money, lived in constant hope of her dissolution. He +planned to keep Cecilia from marrying until that happy event, when he +schemed to make her his bride, and thus acquire a second fortune. He had +used his influence as a family friend to prejudice her lovers in her +eyes, and had just succeeded in breaking up an intimacy which he feared: +"A weight was removed from his mind which had nearly borne down even his +remotest hopes; the object of his eager pursuit seemed still within his +reach, and the rival into whose power he had so lately almost beheld her +delivered, was totally renounced, and no longer to be dreaded. A +revolution such as this, raised expectations more sanguine than ever; +and in quitting the house, he exultingly considered himself released +from every obstacle to his view,--till, just as he arrived home, he +recollected his wife!" + +Cecilia, the heroine of the novel, is only Evelina grown a little older, +a little sadder, a little more worldly wise. The humour is, too, a +little kindlier. The practical jokes so common in _Evelina_ do not mar +the pages of _Cecilia_. At times the latter novel becomes almost tragic. +The scene at Vauxhall where Mr. Harrel puts an end to his life of +dissipation is dramatic and thrilling. But Miss Burney had lost the +buoyancy and lively fancy which made the charm of _Evelina_. + +Miss Burney's last two novels, _Camilla, or a Picture of Youth_ and _The +Wanderer, or Female Difficulties_, have no claim to a place among +English classics. It is strange that, as she saw more of life, she +depicted it with less accuracy. This might seem to show that her first +novels owe their excellence to her vivid imagination rather than to her +powers of observation. Her weary life at court as second keeper of the +robes to Queen Charlotte; her marriage to Monsieur D'Arblay, and the +sorrows that came to her as the wife of a French refugee; all her +deeper experiences of life during the fourteen years between the +publication of _Cecilia_ and _Camilla_--these had completely changed her +light, humorous view of externals, and with that loss her power as an +artist disappeared. + +_Camilla_ has several heroines whose love affairs interest the reader. +It thus bears a resemblance to Miss Austen's novels, who speaks of it +with admiration and was, perhaps, influenced by it. Eugenia, who has +received the education of a man, is pleasing. Clermont Lynmere, like Mr. +Smith and Sir Robert Floyer, imagines that all the ladies are in love +with him. Sir Hugh Tyrold, with his love for the classics and his regret +that he had not been beaten into learning them when he was a boy, his +strict ideas of virtue and his desire to make everybody happy, is well +conceived, but the outlines are not strong enough to make him a living +character. _Camilla_ shows more than _Cecilia_ the style of Dr. Johnson. +It is heavy and slow, the words are long, and many of them of Latin +derivation. + +It was not until the year 1814, the year of _Waverley_, that her last +novel, _The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties_, was published, which, +following the style of _Camilla_, was in five volumes. It was partly +founded on incidents arising out of the French Revolution. The book was +eagerly awaited; the publishers paid fifteen hundred guineas for it; +but even the friendliest critic pronounced it a literary failure. + +To sum up, Macaulay in the essay before quoted makes clear Miss Burney's +place in fiction: + +"Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the +English drama; and she did it in a better way. She first showed that a +tale might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life +of London might be exhibited with great force and with broad comic +humour, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with +rigid morality, or even with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach +which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She +vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in a fair and noble +province of letters ... we owe to her not only _Evelina_, _Cecilia_, and +_Camilla_, but also _Mansfield Park_ and _The Absentee_." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Hannah More + + +During the time that Dr. Johnson dominated the literary conscience of +England, a group of ladies who had wearied of whist and quadrille, the +common amusements of fashion, used to meet at the homes of one another +to discuss literary and political subjects. They were called in ridicule +the "Blue Stocking Club," because Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, who was +always present at these gatherings, wore hose of that colour. Among the +members distinguished by their wit and talents were Mrs. Elizabeth +Montagu, the author of an _Essay on the Genius of Shakespeare_; Mrs. +Elizabeth Carter, a poetess and excellent Greek scholar; Mrs. Chapone, +whose _Letters to Young Ladies_ formed the standard of conduct for young +women of two generations; Miss Reynolds, the sister of Sir Joshua; and +Mrs. Vesey, noted as a charming hostess. Dr. Johnson, David Garrick, +Reynolds, and Burke were frequenters of this club. One may well imagine +that the conversation and wit of the Blue Stockings were far too rare +to be understood by the grosser minds of the mere devotees of fashion, +who in consequence threw a ridicule upon them which has always adhered +to the name. + +Hannah More, who had already become known as a playwright, visited +London in 1773, and at once was welcomed by this group. In a poem called +_The Bas Bleu_, dedicated to Mrs. Vesey, she thus describes the pleasure +of these meetings: + + Enlighten'd spirits! You, who know + What charms from polish'd converse flow, + Speak, for you can, the pure delight + When kindling sympathies unite; + When correspondent tastes impart + Communion sweet from heart to heart; + You ne'er the cold gradations need + Which vulgar souls to union lead; + No dry discussion to unfold + The meaning caught ere well 't is told: + In taste, in learning, wit, or science, + Still kindled souls demand alliance: + Each in the other joys to find + The image answering to his mind. + +The Blue Stocking Club was composed largely of Tories, so that when all +Europe became restless under the influence of the French Revolution, +they strongly combated the levelling doctrines of democracy. Hannah More +in particular, who had been conducting schools for the very poor near +Bristol, saw how the teachings of the revolutionists affected men +already prone to idleness and drink. To offset these influences, she +published a little book with the following title-page: "Village +Politics. Addressed to all the Mechanics, Journeymen, and Labourers, in +Great Britain. By Will Chip, a country Carpenter." + +It is not a novel in the strict sense of the word, but in simple +language, easily understood, it teaches the labouring people the +inconsistent attitude of France, and the strength and safety of the +English constitution. It is not a deep book, but has good work-a-day +common-sense, such as keeps the world jogging on, ready to endure the +ills it has rather than fly to others it knows not of. + +The book is in the form of a dialogue between Jack Anvil, the +blacksmith, and Tom Hood, the mason. + +"TOM. But have you read the _Rights of Man_? + +"JACK. No, not I: I had rather by half read the _Whole Duty of Man_. I +have but little time for reading, and such as I should therefore only +read a bit of the best." + + * * * * * + +"TOM. And what dost thou take a _democrat_ to be? + +"JACK. One who likes to be governed by a thousand tyrants, and yet can't +bear a king." + + * * * * * + +"TOM. What is it to be _an enlightened people_? + +"JACK. To put out the light of the Gospel, confound right and wrong, and +grope about in pitch darkness." + + * * * * * + +"TOM. And what is _benevolence_? + +"JACK. Why, in the new-fangled language, it means contempt of religion, +aversion to justice, overturning of law, doating on all mankind in +general, and hating everybody in particular." + +For a long time the authorship of the book remained a secret, and Will +Chip became a notable figure. The clergy and the land-owners in +particular rejoiced over his homely common-sense, and distributed these +pamphlets broadcast over the land. One hundred thousand copies were sold +in a short time. _Village Politics_ is said to have been one of the +strongest influences in England to awaken the common people to the +dangers which lie in a sudden overthrow of government. The book was +timely, for that decade had become intoxicated by the name of Liberty. +To-day democracy and equality are no longer feared. + +During many years Hannah More worked industriously among the poor of +Cheddar and its vicinity. On a visit to the Cliffs of Cheddar she found +an ignorant, half-savage people, many of whom dwelt in the caves and +fissures of the rocks, and earned a miserable subsistence by selling +stalactites and other minerals native to the place, to the travellers +who were attracted thither by the beautiful scenery. Among these people +Hannah More opened a Sunday-school, and later a day school, where the +girls were taught knitting, spinning, and sewing. A girl trained in her +school was presented on her marriage day with five shillings, a pair of +white stockings, and a new Bible. The teaching in the schools was so +practical that within a year schools were opened in nine parishes. + +In this missionary work, Miss More became intimately acquainted not only +with the very poor, but also with the rich farmers living in the +neighbourhood and the prosperous tradespeople of the villages. From +these better educated men she met with great opposition. One petty +landlord met her request for assistance with the remark: "The lower +classes are fated to be poor, ignorant and wicked; and wise as you are, +you cannot alter what is decreed." Another man informed her that +religion was the worst thing for the poor, it made them so lazy and +useless. + + * * * * * + +But the minds of the people had been awakened by the French Revolution. +They were beginning to think. Books and ballads attacking church and +constitution were hawked through the country and placed within reach of +all. To counteract the influence of these "corrupt and inflammatory +publications" Hannah More, between the years 1795-1798, published _The +Cheap Repository_, the first regular issue of this kind. Every month a +story, a ballad, and a tract for Sunday were published. Hannah More knew +so well the common reasoning and the mental attitude of those for whom +she wrote, that she was able to make her lessons most effective. So +great was the demand for these chap-books that over two million were +sold the first year.[1] + + [1] For a complete bibliography of these chap-books, see the + _Catalogue of English and American Chap-Books_ in Harvard + College Library, pp. 8-10; compiled in part by Charles Welsh. + +These stories were divided into two classes, those for "persons of +middle rank" and those for the common people. The former point out the +dangers of pride and covetousness; of substituting abstract philosophy +for religion; and warn masters not to forget their moral obligations +towards their servants. The latter aim to teach neatness, sobriety, +regularity in church attendance, and point out the happiness of those +who follow these precepts, and the misery of those who neglect them. + +Her two best known stories are _Mr. Fantom_ and _The Shepherd of +Salisbury Plain_. _Mr. Fantom: or the History of the New-Fashioned +Philosopher, and his Man William_ was written to warn masters of the +danger of teaching their servants disrespect for the Bible and for civil +law. Mr. Fantom was a shallow man, who glided upon the surface of +philosophy and culled those precepts which relieved his conscience from +any moral obligations. When he was asked to help the poor in his own +parish, he refused to consider their wants because his mind was so +engrossed by the partition of Poland. Like Mrs. Jellyby of a later time, +he was so much troubled by sufferings which he could not see that he +neglected his family and servants. When he reprimanded his butler, +William, for being intoxicated, the young man replied: "Why, sir, you +are a philosopher, you know; and I have often overheard you say to your +company, that private vices are public benefits; and so I thought that +getting drunk was as pleasant a way of doing good to the public as any, +especially when I could oblige my muster at the same time." In course of +time William became a thief and a murderer, and expiated his crimes on +the scaffold. + +In contrast to this is _The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_. This shepherd +was contented with his lot, and says: "David was happier when he kept +his father's sheep on such a plain as this, and employed in singing some +of his own psalms perhaps, than ever he was when he became king of +Israel and Judah. And I dare say we should never have had some of the +most beautiful texts in all those fine psalms, if he had not been a +shepherd, which enabled him to make so many fine comparisons and +similitudes, as one may say, from country life, flocks of sheep, hills +and valleys, fields of corn, and fountains of water." The shepherd's +neat cottage with its simple furnishings, his frugal wife and +industrious children are described in simple and convincing language. + +In the stories of the poor there are many interesting details of the +everyday life of that class that did not blossom into heroes and +heroines of romance for nearly half a century. Mrs. Sponge, in _The +History of Betty Brown, the St. Giles's Orange Girl_, is a character +that Dickens might have immortalised. Mrs. Sponge kept a little shop and +a kind of eating-house for poor girls near the Seven Dials. She received +stolen goods, and made such large profits in her business that she was +enabled to become a broker among the poor. She loaned Betty five +shillings to set her up in the orange business; she did not ask for the +return of her money, but exacted a sixpence a day for its use, and was +regarded by Betty, and the other girls whom she thus befriended, as a +benefactor. At last, Betty was rescued from the clutches of Mrs. Sponge. +By industry and piety she became mistress of a handsome sausage-shop +near the Seven Dials, and married a hackney coachman, the hero of one of +Miss More's ballads: + + I am a bold coachman, and drive a good hack + With a coat of five capes that quite covers my back; + And my wife keeps a sausage-shop, not many miles + From the narrowest alley in all broad St. Giles. + Though poor, we are honest and very content, + We pay as we go, for meat, drink, and for rent; + To work all the week I am able and willing, + I never get drunk, and I waste not a shilling; + And while at a tavern my gentleman tarries, + The coachman grows richer than he whom he carries, + And I'd rather (said I), since it saves me from sin, + Be the driver without, than the toper within. + +_The Cheap Repository_ was written to teach moral precepts. Neither +Hannah More nor her readers saw any artistic beauty in the sordid lives +of this lower stratum of society. They were not interested in the +superstitions of "Poor Sally Evans," who hung a plant called +"midsummer-men" in her room on Midsummer eve so that she might learn by +the bending of the leaves if her lover were true to her, and who +consulted all the fortune-tellers that came to her door to learn whether +the two moles on her cheek foretold two husbands or two children. +Hannah More recorded these simple fancies of poor Sally only to show her +folly and the misfortunes that afterwards befell her on account of her +superstitions. Writers of that century either laughed at the ignorant +blunders of the poor, or used them to point a moral. An interest in them +because they are human beings like ourselves with common frailties +belongs to the next century. Nothing proves more conclusively the growth +of the democratic idea than the changed attitude of the novel toward the +ignorant and the criminal. + + * * * * * + +Hannah More was always interested in the education of young ladies. She +wrote a series of essays called _Strictures on the Modern System of +Female Education_, in which she protested loudly against the tendency to +give girls an ornamental rather than a useful education. This was so +highly approved that she was asked to make suggestions for the education +of the Princess Charlotte. This led to her writing _Hints towards +Forming the Character of a Young Princess_. + +Hannah More finally embodied her theories on the education of women in a +book which she thought might appeal most strongly to the young ladies +themselves, _Coelebs in Search of a Wife_. Running through it, is a +slight romance. Coelebs, filled with admiration for Eve, as described +in _Paradise Lost_, where she is intent on her household duties, goes +forth into the world to find, if possible, such a helpmate for himself. +As he meets different women, he compares them with his ideal, and, +finding them lacking, passes a severe criticism upon female education +and accomplishments. Finally, he meets a lady with well-trained mind, +who delights in works of charity and piety, one well calculated to +conduct wisely the affairs of his household. She has besides proper +humility, and accepts with gratitude the honour of becoming Coelebs's +wife. + +Until her death at the advanced age of eighty-eight years, Hannah More +continued to write moral and religious essays, so that she was before +the public view for over fifty years, Mrs. S. C. Hall in her book +_Pilgrimages to English Shrines_ thus describes her in old age: + +"Hannah More wore a dress of very light green silk--a white China crape +shawl was folded over her shoulders; her white hair was frizzled, after +a by-gone fashion, above her brow, and that _backed_, as it were, by a +very full double border of rich lace. The reality was as dissimilar from +the picture painted by our imagination as anything could well be; such a +sparkling, light, bright, 'summery'-looking old lady--more like a +beneficent fairy, than the biting author of _Mr. Fantom_, though in +perfect harmony with _The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Charlotte Smith. Mrs. Inchbald + + +While Hannah More was endeavouring to improve the condition of the poor +by teaching them diligence and sobriety, a group of earnest men and +women were writing books and pamphlets in which they claimed that +poverty and ignorance were due to unjust laws. The writings of Voltaire +and Rousseau had filled their minds with bright pictures of a democracy. +These theories were considered most dangerous in England, but they were +the theories which helped to shape the American constitution. Among +these English revolutionists were William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, +Charlotte Smith, Mrs. Inchbald, and for a time Amelia Opie. + +The strongest political novel was _Caleb Williams_ by William Godwin. In +this he shows how through law man may become the destroyer of man. This +interest in the rights of man awakened interest in the condition of +women; and Mary Wollstonecraft, who afterward became Mrs. Godwin, wrote +_Vindication of the Rights of Woman_. This pamphlet was declared +contrary to the Bible and to Christian law, although all its demands +have now been conceded. Charlotte Smith was also interested in the +position of women and the laws affecting them. In _Desmond_ she +discussed freely a marriage problem which in her day seemed very bold, +while in her private life she ignored British prejudices. + +She was the mother of twelve children and the wife of a man of many +schemes, so that she was continually devising ways to extricate her +large family from the financial difficulties into which he plunged them. +At one time a friend suggested to her that her husband's attention +should be turned toward religion. Her reply was: "Oh, for heaven's sake, +do not put it into his head to take to religion, for if he does, he will +instantly begin by building a cathedral." She is supposed to have +caricatured him in the projector who hoped to make a fortune by manuring +his estate with old wigs. But when her husband was imprisoned for debt, +she shared his captivity, and began to write to support her family. +Although she died at the age of fifty-seven, she found time during her +manifold cares to write thirty-eight volumes. + +But not only did Mrs. Smith endure sorrows as great as those of her +favourite heroine, Sidney Biddulph, but one of her daughters was +equally unfortunate. She was married unhappily, and returned with her +three children for her mother to support. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, after +twenty-three years of married life, agreed to live in separate +countries, he in Normandy, and she in England, although they always +corresponded and were interested in each other's welfare. Yet this +separation, together with the revolutionary tendencies discovered in her +writings, raised a storm of criticism against her. + +In _Desmond_, which was regarded as so dangerous, Mrs. Smith has +presented the following problem: Geraldine, the heroine, is married to a +spendthrift, who attempts to retrieve his fortunes by forcing his wife +to become the mistress of his friend, the rich Duc de Romagnecourt. To +preserve her honour she leaves him, hoping to return to her mother's +roof; but her mother refuses to receive her and bids her return to her +husband. As she dares not do this, and is without money, a faithful +friend, Desmond, takes her under his protection, asking no reward but +the pleasure of serving her. Finally Geraldine receives a letter +informing her that her husband is ill. She returns to him, and nurses +him until he dies; after a year of mourning she marries Desmond. + +How could a woman have behaved more virtuously than Geraldine? She is +always high-minded and actuated by the purest motives. But it was +feared that her example might encourage wives to desert their husbands, +and consequently the novel was declared immoral. + +_Desmond_ was published in 1792, when the feeling against France was +very bitter in England. The plot, as it meanders slowly through three +volumes, is constantly interrupted by political discussions. The +author's clearly expressed preference for a republican government, and +her criticism of English law, met with bitter disapproval. One of the +characters pronounces a panegyric upon the greater prosperity and +happiness that has come to the French soldiers, farmers, and peasants, +since they came to believe that they were sharers in their own labours, +and the hero of the book, writing from France to a friend in England, +says: "I lament still more the disposition which too many Englishmen +show to join in this unjust and infamous crusade, against the holy +standard of freedom; and I blush for my country." In the same book, the +author censures the penal laws of England, by which robbery to the +amount of forty shillings is punishable with death; and criticises the +delay of the courts in dealing justice. + +This criticism is expressed tamely, barely more than suggested, when +compared with the vigorous attacks which Dickens made in the next +century on English law and the slow action of justice in the famous +"Circumlocution Office." Dickens wrote with such vigour that he brought +about a reform. A modern reader finds _Desmond_ earnest and sincere, but +tame to the point of dulness. It seems strange how the Tory party could +see in this book a menace to the British constitution. But a writer in +the _Monthly Review_ for December, 1792, advocated her cause. "She is +very justly of opinion," he writes, "that the great events that are +passing in the world are no less interesting to women than to men, and +that, in her solicitude to discharge the domestic duties, a woman ought +not to forget that, in common with her father and husband, her brothers +and sons, she is a citizen." + +The publication of _The Old Manor House_ in the following year won back +for her many of the friends that she had lost by _Desmond_. But in this +work also the same love of liberty, the same indifference to social +distinctions, occur. The hero of _The Old Manor House_ joins the English +army, and is sent to fight against the Americans; in the many +reflections upon this conflict, the author shows that her sympathies are +with the colonists. The father of the hero had married a young woman who +had nothing to recommend her but "beauty, simplicity, and goodness." The +hero himself falls in love with and marries a girl beneath him in rank, +but he does not seem to feel that he has done a generous thing, nor +does the heroine show any gratitude for this honour. Each seems +unconscious that their difference in rank should be a bar to their +union, provided they do not offend old Mrs. Rayland, the owner of the +manor. A great change had come over the novel since Pamela was +overpowered with gratitude to her profligate master, Mr. B, for +condescending to make her his wife. + +The revolutionary principles of Mrs. Smith's novels were soon forgotten, +but two new elements were introduced by her that bore fruit in English +fiction. Her great gift to the novel was the portrayal of refined, +quiet, intellectual ladies, beside whom Evelina and Cecilia seem but +school-girls. Her heroines may be poor, they may be of inferior rank, +but they are always ladies of sensitive nature and cultivated manners, +and are drawn with a feeling and tenderness which no novelist before her +had reached. A contemporary said of Emmeline, "All is graceful, and +pleasing to the sight, all, in short, is simple, femininely beautiful +and chaste." This might be said of all the women she has created. Old +Mrs. Rayland, the central personage in her most popular novel, _The Old +Manor House_, notwithstanding her exalted ideas of her own importance as +a member of the Rayland family, and the arbitrary manner in which she +compels all to conform to her old-fashioned notions, is always the +high-born lady. We smile at her, but she never forfeits our respect. +Scott said of her, "Old Mrs. Rayland is without a peer." + +Mrs. Smith's second gift to the novel was her charming descriptions of +rural scenery. Nature had for a long time been banished from the arts. +Wordsworth in one of his prefaces wrote: + +"Excepting _The Nocturnal Reverie_ of Lady Winchelsea, and a passage or +two in the _Windsor Forest_ of Pope, the poetry of the period +intervening between the publication of _Paradise Lost_ and _The Seasons_ +does not contain a single new image of external nature; and scarcely +presents a familiar one, from which it can be inferred that the eye of +the Poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less that his +feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of genuine +imagination." + +Fiction was as barren of scenery as poetry. None of the novelists were +cognisant of the country scenes amid which their plots were laid, with +the possible exception of Goldsmith. _The Vicar of Wakefield_ has a +rural setting, and there are references to the trees, the blackbirds, +and the hayfields; but description is not introduced for the sake of its +own beauty as in the novels of Charlotte Smith. In _Ethelinda_ there are +beautiful descriptions of the English Lakes, part of the scene being +laid at Grasmere; _Celestina_ is in the romantic Provence; _Desmond_ in +Normandy; and in _The Old Manor House_ we have the soft landscape of the +south of England. + +In _The Old Manor House_ she thus describes one of the paths that led +from the gate of the park to Rayland Hall: + +"The other path, which in winter or in wet seasons was inconvenient, +wound down a declivity, where furze and fern were shaded by a few old +hawthorns and self-sown firs: out of the hill several streams were +filtered, which, uniting at its foot, formed a large and clear pond of +near twenty acres, fed by several imperceptible currents from other +eminences which sheltered that side of the park; and the bason between +the hills and the higher parts of it being thus filled, the water found +its way over a stony boundary, where it was passable by a foot bridge +unless in time of floods; and from thence fell into a lower part of the +ground, where it formed a considerable river; and, winding among willows +and poplars for near a mile, again spread into a still larger lake, on +the edge of which was a mill, and opposite, without the park paling, +wild heaths, where the ground was sandy, broken, and irregular, still +however marked by plantations made in it by the Rayland family." + +Every feature of the landscape is brought distinctly before the eye. +Such descriptions are not unusual now, but they were first used by +Charlotte Smith. + +Even more realistic is the picture of a road in a part of the New Forest +near Christchurch: + +"It was a deep, hollow road, only wide enough for waggons, and was in +some places shaded by hazel and other brush wood; in others, by old +beech and oaks, whose roots wreathed about the bank, intermingled with +ivy, holly, and evergreen fern, almost the only plants that appeared in +a state of vegetation, unless the pale and sallow mistletoe, which here +and there partially tinted with faint green the old trees above them. + + * * * * * + +"Everything was perfectly still around; even the robin, solitary +songster of the frozen woods, had ceased his faint vespers to the +setting sun, and hardly a breath of air agitated the leafless branches. +This dead silence was interrupted by no sound but the slow progress of +his horse, as the hollow ground beneath his feet sounded as if he trod +on vaults. There was in the scene, and in this dull pause of nature, a +solemnity not unpleasant to Orlando, in his present disposition of +mind." + +In 1842, Miss Mitford wrote to Miss Barrett: "Charlotte Smith's works, +with all their faults, have yet a love of external nature, and a power +of describing it, which I never take a spring walk without feeling." And +again she wrote to a friend referring to Mrs. Smith, "Except that they +want cheerfulness, nothing can exceed the beauty of the style." + + * * * * * + +The life and writings of Mrs. Inchbald had some things in common with +the life and writings of Mrs. Smith. Both were obliged to write to +support themselves as well as those dependent upon them. Both had seen +many phases of human nature, and both viewed with scorn the pretensions +of the rich and beheld with pity the sorrows of the poor. Both were +champions of social and political equality. Mrs. Inchbald, however, was +an actress and a successful playwright, hence her novels are the more +dramatic, but they lack the beautiful rural setting which gives a poetic +atmosphere to the writings of Charlotte Smith. + +_A Simple Story_, the first, of Mrs. Inchbald's two novels, has been +called the precursor of _Jane Eyre_. It is the first novel in which we +are more interested in what is felt than in what actually happens. Mr. +Dorriforth, a Catholic priest, and Miss Milner, his ward, fall in love +with each other, and we watch this hidden passion, which preys upon the +health of both. He is horrified that he has broken his vows; she is +mortified that she loves a man who, she believes, neither can nor does +return her feeling for him. When he is released from his vow, it is the +emotion, not external happenings, that holds the interest. The first +part of the story is brought to a close with the marriage of Mr. +Dorriforth, now Lord Elmwood, and Miss Milner. + +Seventeen years elapse between the two halves of the novel. During this +time trouble has come between them and they have separated. The +character of each has undergone a change. Traits of disposition that +were first but lightly observed have been intensified with years. Mrs. +Inchbald writes of the hero: "Dorriforth, the pious, the good, the +tender Dorriforth, is become a hard-hearted tyrant; the compassionate, +the feeling, the just Lord Elmwood, an example of implacable rigour and +justice." His friend Sandford has also changed with the years, but he +has been softened, not hardened by them--"the reprover, the enemy of the +vain, the idle, and the wicked, but the friend and comforter of the +forlorn and miserable." + +The story of Dorriforth gives unity to the two parts of the novel. The +conflict between his love and his anger holds the reader in suspense +until the conclusion. The characters of eighteenth-century fiction were +actuated by but a small number of motives. In nearly all the novels the +men were either generous and free or stingy and hypocritical; the women +were either virtuous and winsome, or immoral and brazen. Mrs. Inchbald +possessed, only in a less degree, George Eliot's power of +character-analysis; she observed minor qualities, and she was as +unflinching in following the development of evil traits to a tragic +conclusion as was the author of _Adam Bede_. + +In _The Gentleman's Magazine_ for March, 1791, some one wrote of _A +Simple Story_: + +"She has struck out a path entirely her own. She has disdained to follow +the steps of her predecessors, and to construct a new novel, as is too +commonly done, out of the scraps and fragments of earlier inventors. Her +principal character, the Roman Catholic lord, is perfectly new: and she +has conducted him, through a series of surprising well-contrasted +adventures, with an uniformity of character and truth of description +that have rarely been surpassed." + +There is, however, one hackneyed scene. A young girl is seized, thrust +into a chariot, and carried at full speed to a lonely place. There is +hardly an early novel where this bald incident is not worked up into one +or more chapters, with variations to suit the convenience of the plot. +It was as much a part of the stock in trade of the novelist of the +eighteenth century as a family quarrel is of the twentieth. With this +exception, _A Simple Story_ is new in its plot, incidents, characters, +and mode of treatment. Emotion did not play so important a part in a +novel again until Charlotte Brontë wrote _Jane Eyre_. + +Mrs. Inchbald's only other novel, _Nature and Art_, shows the +artificialities of society. Two cousins, William and Henry, are +contrasted. William is the son of a dean. Henry's father went to Africa +to live, whence he sent his son to his rich uncle to be educated. Henry +fails to comprehend the society in which he finds himself placed, and +cannot understand that there should be any poor people. + +"'Why, here is provision enough for all the people,' said Henry; 'why +should they want? why do not they go and take some of these things?' + +"'They must not,' said the dean, 'unless they were their own.' + +"'What, Uncle! Does no part of the earth, nor anything which the earth +produces, belong to the poor?'" + +His uncle fails to answer this question to his nephew's satisfaction. + +The vices and the fawning duplicity of William are contrasted with the +virtues and independent spirit of Henry. + +"'I know I am called proud,' one day said William to Henry. + +"'Dear Cousin,' replied Henry, 'it must be only then by those who do not +know you; for to me you appear the humblest creature in the world.' + +"'Do you really think so?' + +"'I am certain of it; or would you always give up your opinion to +that of persons in a superior state, however inferior in their +understanding? ... I have more pride than you, for I will never stoop +to act or to speak contrary to my feelings.'" + +William rises to eminence, in time becoming a judge. Henry, who is +always virtuous, can obtain no preferment. This contrast in the two +cousins is not so overdrawn as at first appears. William represents the +aristocracy of the old world; Henry, the free representative of a new +country. + +A tragic story runs through the novel, which becomes intensely dramatic +at the point where William puts on his black cap to pronounce sentence +on the girl whom he had ruined years before. He does not recognise her; +but she, who had loved him through the years, becomes insane, not at the +thought of death, but that he should be the one to pronounce the +sentence. It is doubtful if any novelist before Scott had produced so +thrilling a situation, a situation which grew naturally out of the plot, +and the anguish of the poor unfortunate Agnes has the realism of Thomas +Hardy or Tolstoi. + +Only by reading these old novels can one comprehend the change produced +in England by the next half-century. The teachings of Mrs. Charlotte +Smith and Mrs. Inchbald were declared dangerous to the state. That they +taught disrespect for authority, was one of the many charges brought +against them. Yet with what ladylike reserve they advance views which a +later generation applauded when boldly proclaimed by Dickens, Thackeray, +and Disraeli! + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Clara Reeve. Ann Radcliffe. Harriet and Sophia Lee + + +The novel of the mysterious and the supernatural did not appear in +modern literature until Horace Walpole wrote _The Castle of Otranto_ in +1764, during the decade that was dominated by the realism of Smollett +and Sterne. The author says it was an attempt to blend two kinds of +romance, the ancient, which was all improbable, and the modern, which +was a realistic copy of nature. The machinery of this novel is clumsy. +An enormous helmet and a huge sword are the means by which an ancestor +of Otranto, long since dead, restores the castle to a seeming peasant, +who proves to be the rightful heir. + + * * * * * + +This book produced no imitators until 1777, when Clara Reeve wrote _The +Old English Baron_, which was plainly suggested by Walpole's novel, but +is more delicate in the treatment of its ghostly visitants. Here, as in +_The Castle of Otranto_, the rightful heir has been brought up a +peasant, ignorant of his high birth. Again his ancestors, supposedly +dead and gone, bring him into his own. One night he is made to sleep in +the haunted part of the castle, where his parents reveal to him in a +dream things which he is later able to prove legally. He learns the +truth about his birth, comes into his estate, and wins the lady of his +heart. When he returns to the castle as its master, all the doors fly +open through the agency of unseen hands to welcome their feudal lord. + +The characters of both these novels are without interest, and the +mysterious element fails to produce the slightest creepy thrill. + + * * * * * + +Twelve years passed before Walpole's novel found another imitator in +Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, who so far excelled her two predecessors that she +has been called the founder of the Gothic romance, and in this field she +remains without a peer. In her first novel, _The Castles of Athlin and +Dunbayne_, as in _The Old English Baron_ by Clara Reeve, a peasant +renowned for his courage and virtue loves and is beloved by a lady of +rank. A strawberry mark on his arm proves that he is the Baron Malcolm +and owner of the castle of Dunbayne, at which juncture amid great +rejoicings the story ends. + +The characters and the style foreshadow Mrs. Radcliffe's later work. +The usurping Baron of Dunbayne, who has imprisoned in his castle the +women who might oppose his ambition; the two melancholy widows; their +gentle and pensive daughters; their brave, loyal, and virtuous sons in +love respectively with the two daughters; the Count Santmorin, bold and +passionate, who endeavours by force to carry off the woman he +loves--these are types that Mrs. Radcliffe repeatedly developed until in +her later novels they became real men and women with strong conflicting +emotions. + +But superior to all her other powers is her ability to awaken a feeling +of the presence of the supernatural. The castle of Dunbayne has secret +doors and subterranean passages. The mysterious sound, as of a lute, is +wafted on the air from an unknown source. Alleyn, in endeavouring to +escape through a secret passage, stumbles over something in the dark, +and, on stooping to learn what it is, finds the cold hand of a corpse in +his grasp. This dead man has nothing to do with the story, but is +introduced merely to make the reader shudder, which Mrs. Radcliffe never +fails to do, even after we have learned all the secrets of her art. We +learn later in the book how the corpse happened to be left here +unburied; for in that day of intense realism, half-way between the +ancient belief in ghosts and the modern interest in mental suggestion, +every occurrence outside the known laws of physics was greeted with a +cynical smile. But, although Mrs. Radcliffe always explains the mystery +in her books, we hold our breath whenever she designs that we shall. + +_The Sicilian Romance_, _The Romance of the Forest_, _The Mysteries of +Udolpho_, and _The Italian_ were written and published during the next +seven years and each one shows a marked artistic advance over its +predecessor. With the opening paragraph of each, we are carried at once +into the land of the unreal, into regions of poetry rather than of +prose. Rugged mountains with their concealed valleys, whispering forests +which the eye cannot penetrate, Gothic ruins with vaulted chambers and +subterranean passages, are the scenes of her stories; while event after +event of her complicated plot happens either just as the mists of +evening are obscuring the sun, or while the moonlight is throwing +fantastic shadows over the landscape. It is an atmosphere of mystery in +which one feels the weird presence of the supernatural. This is +heightened by the ghostly suggestions she brings to the mind, as +incorporeal as spirits. A low hurried breathing in the dark, lights +flashing out from unexpected places, forms gliding noiselessly along the +dark corridors, a word of warning from an unseen source, cause the +reader to wait with hushed attention for the unfolding of the mystery. + +Sometimes the solution is trivial. The reader and the inmates of Udolpho +are held in suspense chapter after chapter by some terrible appearance +behind a black veil. When Emily ventures to draw the curtain, she drops +senseless to the ground. But this appearance turns out to be merely a +wax effigy placed there by chance. Often the explanation is more +satisfactory. The disappearance of Ludovico during the night from the +haunted chamber where he was watching in hopes of meeting the spirits +that infested it, makes the most sceptical believe for a time in the +reality of the ghostly visitants; and his reappearance at the close of +the book, the slave of pirates who had found a secret passage leading +from the sea to this room, and had used it as a place of rendezvous, is +declared by Sir Walter Scott to meet all the requirements of romance. + +But by a series of strange coincidences and dreams Mrs. Radcliffe still +makes us feel that the destiny of her characters is shaped by an unseen +power. Adeline is led by chance to the very ruin where her unknown +father had been murdered years before. She sees in dreams all the +incidents of the deed, and a manuscript he had written while in the +power of his enemies falls into her hands. Again by chance she finds an +asylum in the home of a clergyman, Arnaud La Luc, who proves to be the +father of her lover, Theodore Peyrou. It seems to be by the +interposition of Providence that Ellena finds her mother and is +recognised by her father. So in every tale we are made aware of powers +not mortal shaping human destiny. + +Mrs. Radcliffe adds to this consciousness of the presence of the +supernatural by another, perhaps more legitimate, method. She felt what +Wordsworth expressed in _Tintern Abbey_, written the year after her last +novel was published: + + And I have felt + A presence that disturbs me with the joy + Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime + Of something far more deeply interfused, + Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, + And the round ocean and the living air, + And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; + A motion and a spirit, that impels + All thinking things, all objects of all thought, + And rolls through all things. + +Mrs. Radcliffe seldom loses her feeling for nature, and has a strong +sense of the effect of environment on her characters. Julia, when in +doubt about the fate of Hippolitus, often walked in the evening under +the shade of the high trees that environed the abbey. "The dewy coolness +of the air refreshed her. The innumerable roseate tints which the +parting sun-beams reflected on the rocks above, and the fine vermil +glow diffused over the romantic scene beneath, softly fading from the +eye as the night shades fell, excited sensations of a sweet and tranquil +nature, and soothed her into a temporary forgetfulness of her sorrow." +As the happy lovers, Vivaldi and Ellena, are gliding along the Bay of +Naples, they hear from the shore the voices of the vine-dressers, as +they repose after the labours of the day, and catch the strains of music +from fishermen who are dancing on the margin of the sea. + +Sometimes nature is prophetic. The whole description of the castle of +Udolpho, when Emily first beholds it, is symbolical of the sufferings +she is to endure there: "As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, +leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and deeper, as the +thin vapour crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were +still tipped with splendour. From these, too, the rays soon faded, and +the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. +Silent, lonely, and sublime it seemed to stand the sovereign of the +scene, and to frown defiance on all who dared invade its solitary +reign." When Emily is happy in the peasant's home in the valley below, +she lingers at the casement after the sun has set: "But a clear +moonlight that succeeded gave to the landscape what time gives to the +scenes of past life, when it softens all their harsh features, and +throws over the whole the mellowing shade of distant contemplation." It +is this feeling for nature as a constant presence in daily life, now +elating the mind with joy, now awakening a sense of foreboding or +inspiring terror, and again soothing the mind to repose, that gives to +her books a permanent hold upon the imagination and marks their author +as a woman of genius. + +In her response to nature, she belongs to the Lake School. Scott said of +her: "Mrs. Radcliffe has a title to be considered as the first poetess +of romantic fiction, that is, if actual rhythm shall not be deemed +essential to poetry." Mrs. Smith describes nature as we all know it, as +it appears on the canvasses of Constable and Wilson. Mrs. Radcliffe's +descriptions of ideal and romantic nature have earned for her the name +of the English Salvator Rosa. + +Mrs. Radcliffe's characters are not without interest, although they are +often mere types. All her heroes and heroines are ladies and gentlemen +of native courtesy, superior education, and accomplishments. In _The +Mysteries of Udolpho_ she has set forth the education which St. Aubert +gave to his daughter, Emily: "St. Aubert cultivated her understanding +with the most scrupulous care. He gave her a general view of the +sciences, and an exact acquaintance with every part of elegant +literature. He taught her Latin and English, chiefly that she might +understand the sublimity of their best poets. She discovered in her +early years a taste for works of genius; and it was St. Aubert's +principle, as well as his inclination, to promote every innocent means +of happiness. 'A well informed mind,' he would say, 'is the best +security against the contagion of vice and folly.'" + +In all their circumstances her characters are well-bred. This type has +been nearly lost in literature, due, perhaps, to the minuter study of +manners and the analysis of character. When an author surveys his ladies +and gentlemen through a reading-glass, and points the finger at their +oddities and pries into their inmost secrets, even the Chesterfields +become awkward and clownish. But Mrs. Radcliffe, like Mrs. Smith, is a +true gentlewoman, and speaks of her characters with the delicate respect +of true gentility. Julia, Adeline, Emily, and Ellena, the heroines of +four of her books, love nature, and while away the melancholy hours by +playing on the lute or writing poetry, and are, moreover, well qualified +to have charge of a baronial castle and its dependencies. Her heroes are +worthy of her heroines. As they are generally seen in the presence of +ladies, if they have vices there is no occasion for their display. + +It is only in the characters of her villains that good and evil are +intertwined, and she awakens our sympathy for them equally with our +horror. Monsieur La Motte, a weak man in the power of an unscrupulous +one, is the best drawn character in _The Romance of the Forest_. He has +taken Adeline under his protection and has been as a father to her. But +before this he had committed a crime which has placed his life in the +hands of a powerful marquis. To free himself he consents to surrender +Adeline to the marquis, who has become enamoured of her beauty, hoping +by the sacrifice of her honour to save his own life. He is agitated in +the presence of Adeline, and trembles at the approach of any stranger. +Scott said of him, "He is the exact picture of the needy man who has +seen better days." + +In _The Italian_, Schedoni, a monk of the order of Black Penitents for +whom the novel is named, is guilty of the most atrocious crimes in order +that he may further his own ambition, but he is not devoid of natural +feeling. Scott says the scene in which he "is in the act of raising his +arm to murder his sleeping victim, and discovers her to be his own +child, is of a new, grand, and powerful character; and the horrors of +the wretch who, on the brink of murder, has just escaped from committing +a crime of yet more exaggerated horror, constitute the strongest +painting which has been produced by Mrs. Radcliffe's pencil, and form a +crisis well fitted to be actually embodied on canvas by some great +master." + +Every book has one or more gloomy, deep-plotting villains. But all the +people of rank bear unmistakable marks of their nobility, even when +their natures have become depraved by crime. In this she is the equal of +Scott. + +In every ruined abbey and castle there is a servant who brings in a +comic element and relieves the strained feelings. Peter, Annette, and +Paulo are all faithful but garrulous, and often bring disaster upon +their masters by overzeal in their service. + +When Vivaldi, the hero of _The Italian_, is brought before the tribunal +of the inquisition, his faithful servant, Paulo, rails bitterly at the +treatment his master has received. Vivaldi, well knowing the danger +which they both incur by too free speech, bids him speak in a whisper: + +"'A whisper,' shouted Paulo, 'I scorn to speak in a whisper. I will +speak so loud that every word I say shall ring in the ears of all those +old black devils on the benches yonder, ay, and those on that mountebank +stage, too, that sit there looking so grim and angry, as if they longed +to tear us in pieces. They--' + +"'Silence,' said Vivaldi with emphasis. 'Paulo, I command you to be +silent.' + +"'They shall know a bit of my mind,' continued Paulo, without noticing +Vivaldi. 'I will tell them what they have to expect from all their cruel +usage of my poor master. Where do they expect to go to when they die, I +wonder? Though for that matter, they can scarcely go to a worse place +than that they are in already, and I suppose it is knowing that which +makes them not afraid of being ever so wicked. They shall hear a little +plain truth for once in their lives, however; they shall hear--'" + +But by this time Paulo is dragged from the room. + +The plots of all Mrs. Radcliffe's novels are complicated. A whole skein +is knotted and must be unravelled thread by thread. _The Mysteries of +Udolpho_ is the most involved. Characters are introduced that are for a +time apparently forgotten; one sub-plot appears within another, but at +the end each is found necessary to the whole. + +_The Italian_ is simpler than the others: the plot is less involved, and +there are many strong situations. The opening sentence at once arouses +the interests of the reader: "Within the shade of the portico, a person +with folded arms, and eyes directed towards the ground, was pacing +behind the pillars the whole extent of the pavement, and was apparently +so engaged by his own thoughts as not to observe that strangers were +approaching. He turned, however, suddenly, as if startled by the sound +of steps, and then, without further pausing, glided to a door that +opened into the church, and disappeared." Another scene in which the +Marchesa Vivaldi and Schedoni are plotting the death of Ellena, is +justly famous. The former is actuated by the desire to prevent her son's +marriage to a woman of inferior rank; the latter hopes that he may gain +an influence over the powerful Marchesa that will lead to his promotion +in the church. Their conference, which takes place in the choir of the +convent of San Nicolo, is broken in upon by the faint sound of the organ +followed by slow voices chanting the first requiem for the dead. + +_The Italian_ is generally considered the strongest of Mrs. Radcliffe's +novels. It was published in 1797, and was as enthusiastically received +as were its predecessors, but for some reason it was the last book Mrs. +Radcliffe published. Neither the fame it brought her, nor the eight +hundred pounds she received for it from her publishers, tempted its +author from her life of retirement. Publicity was distasteful to her. At +the age of thirty-four, at an age when many novelists had written +nothing, she ceased from writing, and spent the rest of her years either +in travel or in the seclusion of her own home. + +The novel at this time was not considered seriously as a work of art, +and Mrs. Radcliffe may have considered that she was but trifling with +time by employing her pen in that way. In looking over the book reviews +in _The Gentlemen's Magazine_ for the years from 1790 to 1800, it is +significant that, while column after column is spent in lavish praise of +a book of medicine or science which the next generation proved to be +false, and of poetry that had no merit except that its feet could be +counted, seldom is a novel reviewed in its pages. _The Mysteries of +Udolpho_ was criticised for its lengthy descriptions, and _The Italian_ +was ignored. + +The direct influence of these novels on the literature of the nineteenth +century cannot be estimated. Mrs. Radcliffe's influence upon her +contemporaries can be more easily traced. The year after the publication +of _The Mysteries of Udolpho_ Lewis wrote _The Monk_. This has all the +horrors but none of the refined delicacy of Mrs. Radcliffe's work. +Robert Charles Maturin borrowed many suggestions from her, and the +gentle satire of _Northanger Abbey_ could never have been written if +Jane Austen had not herself come under the influence of _The Romance of +the Forest_. + +But her greatest influence was upon Scott. The four great realistic +novelists of the eighteenth century, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett and +Sterne whose influence can be so often traced in Thackeray and Dickens, +seem never to have touched the responsive nature of Scott. He edited +their works and often spoke in their praise, but that which was deepest +and truest in him, which gave birth to his poetry and his novels, seems +never to have been aware of their existence. Mrs. Radcliffe and Maria +Edgewood were his most powerful teachers. + +Andrew Lang in the introduction to _Rob Roy_ in the Border edition of +the _Waverley Novels_ calls attention to the fact that Waverley, Guy +Mannering, Lovel of _The Antiquary_, and Frank Osbaldistone were all +poets. Not only these men, but others, as Edward Glendinning and Edgar +Ravenswood, bear a strong family resemblance to Theodore Peyrou, +Valancourt, and Vivaldi, as well as to some of the other less important +male characters in Mrs. Radcliffe's novels. Scott's men stand forth more +clearly drawn, while Mrs. Radcliffe's are often but dimly outlined. +Ellen Douglas, the daughter of an exiled family; the melancholy Flora +MacIvor, who whiled away her hours by translating Highland poetry into +English; Mary Avenel, dwelling in a remote castle, are all refined, +educated gentlewomen such as Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Radcliffe delighted in, +and are placed in situations similar to those in which Julia, Adeline, +and Emily are found. + +But the heroines of Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Radcliffe have a quality which +not even Scott has been able to give to his women. It is expressed by a +word often used during the reign of the Georges, but since gone out of +fashion. They were women of fine sensibilities. Johnson defines this as +quickness of feeling, and it has been used to mean a quickness of +perception of the soul as distinguished from the intellect. The +sensibilities of women may not be finer than those of men, but they +respond to a greater variety of emotions. This gives to them a certain +evanescent quality which we find in Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre, Maggie +Tulliver, Romola, the portraits of Madame Le Brun and Angelica Kauffman, +and the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. This quality men have +almost never grasped whether working with the pen or the brush. +Rosalind, Juliet, Viola, Beatrice, all possess it; and in a less degree, +Diana of the Crossways is true to her sex in this respect. But the +features of nearly every famous Madonna, no matter how skilful the +artist that painted her, are stiff and wooden when looked at from this +point of view, and Scott's heroines, with the possible exception of +Jeanie Deans, are immobile when compared with woman as portrayed by many +an inferior artist of her own sex. + +Scott's complicated plots and his constant introduction of characters +who are surrounded by mystery or are living in disguise again suggest +Mrs. Radcliffe. Again and again he selected the same scenes that had +appealed to her, and in his earlier novels and poems he filled them in +with the same details which she had chosen. Perhaps it is due to her +influence that all the hills of Scotland, as some critic has observed, +become mountains when he touches them: "The sun was nearly set behind +the distant mountain of Liddesdale" was the beginning of an early +romance to have been entitled _Thomas the Rhymer_. Knockwinnock Bay in +_The Antiquary_ is first seen at sunset, and it is night when Guy +Mannering arrives at Ellangowan Castle. Melrose is described by +moonlight. The sun as it sets in the Trossachs brings to the mind of +Scott the very outlines and colours which Mrs. Radcliffe had used in +giving the first appearance of Udolpho, a scene which Scott has highly +praised; while these famous lines of James Fitz-James have caught the +very essence of one of her favourite spots: + + On this bold brow, a lordly tower; + In that soft vale, a lady's bower; + On yonder meadow, far away, + The turrets of a cloister grey! + How blithely might the bugle horn + Chide, on the lake, the lingering morn! + How sweet, at eve, the lover's lute + Chime, when the groves were still and mute! + And, when the midnight moon should lave + Her forehead in the silver wave, + How solemn on the ear would come + The holy matin's distant hum. + +In his later works Scott is tediously prosaic in description, far +inferior to Mrs. Radcliffe, and in the romantic description of scenery +he never excels her. It would seem to be no mere chance that in his +poetry and in his earlier novels he has so often struck the same key as +did the author of _The Mysteries of Udolpho_. + + * * * * * + +Two sisters, Harriet and Sophia Lee, were writing books and finding +readers during the time of Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Inchbald, and Mrs. +Radcliffe. In 1784, Sophia Lee published a three-volume novel, _The +Recess_, a story of the time of Queen Elizabeth, in which Elizabeth, +Mary Queen of Scots, and the earls Leicester, Norfolk, and Essex play +important rôles. The two heroines are unacknowledged daughters of Mary +Queen of Scots and Norfolk, to whom she has been secretly married during +her imprisonment in England. Many other situations in the book are +equally fictitious. + +The historical novels written in France during the reign of Louis XIV +paid no heed to chronology, but men and women whom the author knew well +were dressed in the garb of historical personages, and various periods +of the past were brought into the space of the story. _The Recess_ was +not a masquerade, but the plot and characters slightly picture the reign +of Elizabeth. This was one of the first novels in which there was an +attempt to represent a past age with something like accuracy. As this +was one of the first historical novels, using the term in the modern +sense, it had perhaps a right to be one of the poorest; for it is +impossible to conceive three volumes of print in which there are fewer +sentences that leave any impress on the mind than this once popular +novel. + +Sophia Lee wrote other novels which are said to be worse than this; but +in 1797 she and her sister Harriet, who had the greater imagination, +published _The Canterbury Tales_. Some of those written by Harriet are +excellent. According to the story a group of travellers have met at an +inn in Canterbury, where they are delayed on account of a heavy fall of +snow. To while away the weary hours of waiting, as they are gathered +about the fire in true English fashion, they agree, as did the +Canterbury pilgrims of long ago, that each one shall tell a story. But +the pilgrims whom Chaucer accompanied to the shrine of Thomas à Becket +are accurately described, and between the tales they discuss the stories +and exchange lively banter in which the nature of each speaker is +clearly revealed. In _The Canterbury Tales_ there is little +character-drawing. Any one of the stories might have been told by any +one of the narrators, and before the conclusion the authors dropped this +device. + +In the stories that are told the characters are weak, but the plots are +interesting and many of them original and clever. These _Tales_ +represent the beginning of the modern short story. + +In a preface to a complete edition of the _Tales_ published in 1832, +Harriet Lee wrote: + +"Before I finally dismiss the subject, I think I may be permitted to +observe that, when these volumes first appeared, a work bearing +distinctly the title of _Tales_, professedly adapted to different +countries, and either abruptly commencing with, or breaking suddenly +into, a sort of dramatic dialogue, was a novelty in the fiction of the +day. Innumerable _Tales_ of the same stamp, and adapted in the same +manner to all classes and all countries, have since appeared; with many +of which I presume not to compete in merit, though I think I may fairly +claim priority of design and style." + +_The Canterbury Tales_ were read and reread a long time after they were +written. A critic in _Blackwood's_ says of them: + +"They exhibit more of that species of invention which, as we have +already remarked, was never common in English literature than any of the +works of the first-rate novelists we have named, with the single +exception of Fielding." + +The most famous story of the collection is _Kruitzener, or the German's +Tale_. Part of the story is laid in Silesia during the Thirty Years' +War. Frederick Kruitzener, a Bohemian, is the hero, if such a term may +be used for so weak a man. In his youth he is thus described: + +"The splendour, therefore, which the united efforts of education, +fortune, rank, and the merits of his progenitors threw around him, was +early mistaken for a personal gift--a sort of emanation proceeding from +the lustre of his own endowments, and for which, as he believed, he was +indebted to nature, he resolved not to be accountable to man.... He was +distinguished!--he saw it--he felt it--he was persuaded he should ever +be so; and while yet a youth in the house of his father--dependent on +his paternal affection, and entitled to demand credit of the world +merely for what he was to be--he secretly looked down on that world as +made only for him." + +The tale traces the troubles which Kruitzener brings upon himself, his +misery and his death. It belongs to romantic literature; the mountain +scenes, a palace with secret doors, a secret gallery, a false friend, a +mysterious murder, all these remind us of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, but +the story does not possess her power or her poetic charm. Ernest +Hartley Coleridge said of this tale: "But the _motif_--a son predestined +to evil by the weakness and sensuality of his father, a father's +punishment for his want of rectitude by the passionate criminality of +his son, is the very key-note of tragedy." + +Byron read this story when he was about fourteen, and it affected him +powerfully. By a strange coincidence Kruitzener bears a strong +resemblance to Lord Byron himself. He was proud and melancholy, and, +while he led a life of pleasure, his spirits were always wrapped in +gloom. "It made a deep impression on me," writes Byron, "and may, +indeed, be said to contain the germ of much that I have since written." +In 1821, he dramatised it under the title of _Werner, or the +Inheritance_. The play follows the novel closely both in plot and +conversation. An editor of Byron's works wrote of it: "There is not one +incident in his play, not even the most trivial, that is not in Miss +Lee's novel. And then as to the characters--not only is every one of +them to be found in _Kruitzener_, but every one is there more fully and +powerfully developed." + +_The Landlady's Tale_ is far superior to all others in the collection, +if judged by present-day standards. This story of sin and its punishment +reminds one in its moral earnestness of George Eliot. Mr. Mandeville had +brought ruin upon a poor girl, Mary Lawson, whose own child died, when +she became the wet nurse of Robert, Mr. Mandeville's legitimate son and +heir. Mary grew to love the boy, but, when the father threatened to +expose her character unless she would continue to be his mistress, she +ran away, taking the infant with her. She became a servant in a +lodging-house in Weymouth, where she lived for fifteen years, respected +and beloved. At the end of that time, Mr. Mandeville came to the house +as a lodger, where he neither recognised Mary nor knew his son. But he +disliked Robert, and paid no heed to the fact that one of his own +servants was leading the boy into evil ways. When Robert was accused of +a crime which his own servant had committed, he saw him sent to prison +and later transported with indifference. The grief of the father when he +learned that Robert was his own child was most poignant, and his +unavailing efforts to save him are vividly told. He is left bowed with +grief, for he suffers under the double penalty of "a reproachful world +and a reproaching conscience." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Maria Edgeworth. Lady Morgan + + +"My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the family I have always been +known by no other than 'honest Thady'; afterward, in the time of Sir +Murtagh, diseased, I remember to hear them calling me 'old Thady,' and +now I'm come to 'poor Thady.'" Thus the faithful servant of the Rackrent +family introduces himself, before relating the history of the lords of +the castle, where he and his had lived rent-free time out of mind. And +what consummate art Maria Edgeworth showed in her first novel, _Castle +Rackrent_, in letting "poor Thady" ramble with all the garrulity of old +age. To him, who had never been farther than a day's tramp from the +castle, there was nothing in the world's history but it and its owners. +No servant but an Irish servant could have told the story as he did, +judging the characters of his masters with shrewd wit and relating their +worst failings with a "God bless them." + +And where out of Ireland could Thady have found such masters, ready to +spend all they had and another man's too, happy and free, and dying as +merrily as they had lived! There was Sir Patrick, who, as Thady tells +us, "could sit out the best man in Ireland, let alone the three +kingdoms"; Sir Kit, who married a Jewess for her money; and Sir Condy, +who signed away the estate rather than be bothered to look into his +steward's accounts, and then feigned that he was dead that he might hear +what his friends said of him at the wake. But he soon came to life, and +a merry time they had of it. "But to my mind," says Thady, "Sir Condy +was rather upon the sad order in the midst of it all, not finding there +was such a great talk about himself after his death, as he had expected +to hear." But Thady loved his master, and it is with genuine grief that +he records his ultimate death, and with simple and unconscious wit he +adds, "He had but a very poor funeral after all." + +In _The Absentee_, the manners and customs of the Irish peasants are +more broadly delineated than in _Castle Rackrent_. _The Absentee_ was +written to call the attention of the Irish landlords who were living in +England to the wretched condition of their tenants left in the power of +unscrupulous stewards. Lord Colambre, the son of Lord Clonbrony, an +absentee, visits his father's estates, which he has not seen for many +years, in disguise, and goes among the peasants, many of whom are in +abject poverty. But the quick generosity of the nation speaks in the +poor Widow O'Neil's "Kindly welcome, sir," with which she opens the door +to the unknown lord, and its enthusiastic loyalty in the joyful +acclamations of the peasants when he reveals himself to them,--a scene +which Macaulay has pronounced the finest in literature since the +twenty-second book of the _Odyssey_. + +_Ennui_ is another of her stories of Irish life, in which the supposed +Earl of Glenthorn, after a long residence in England, returns to his +Irish estates. The heroine of this tale is the old nurse, Ellinor +O'Donoghoe. As the nurses of many stories are said to have done, she had +substituted her own child for the rightful heir, and was frantic with +joy when she saw him the master of Glenthorn Castle. Her devotion to the +earl is pathetic, and her secret fears of the deception she had +practised on the old earl may have prompted her strange speech that, if +it pleased God, she would like to die on Christmas Day, of all days, +"because the gates of heaven will be open all that day; and who knows +but a body might slip in unbeknownst?" Ellinor is a woman of many +virtues and many failings, but she is always pure Celt. + +How well contrasted are the two cousins, friends of Ormond, Sir Ulick +O'Shane, a wily politician and a member of Parliament, and Mr. +Cornelius O'Shane, King of the Black Islands, called by his dependents +King Corny. The latter, bluff, generous, brave, open as the day, is yet +a match for his crafty kinsman. Sir Ulick's visit to King Corny is a +masterpiece. He has a purpose in his visit and a secret to guard, which +King Corny is watching to discover. Sir Ulick has been bantering his +kinsman on the old-fashioned customs observed on his estate and +ridicules his method of ploughing: + +"'Your team, I see, is worthy of your tackle,' pursued Sir Ulick. 'A +mule, a bull, and two lean horses. I pity the foremost poor devil of a +horse, who must starve in the midst of plenty, while the horse, bull, +and even mule, in a string behind him, are all plucking and munging away +at their hay ropes.' + +"Cornelius joined in Sir Ulick's laugh, which shortened its duration. + +"''Tis comical ploughing, I grant,' said he, 'but still, to my fancy, +anything's better and more profitable nor the tragi-comic ploughing you +practise every sason in Dublin.' + +"'I?' said Sir Ulick. + +"'Ay, you and all your courtiers, ploughing the half-acre, continually +pacing up and down that castle-yard, while you're waiting in attendance +there. Every one to his own taste, but, + + "'If there's a man on earth I hate, + Attendance and dependence be his fate.'" + +King Corny has been studying his diplomatic kinsman carefully to learn +his secret, until the wily politician, by unnecessary caution in +guarding it, overreaches himself, when King Corny exclaims to himself: + +"Woodcocked! That he has, as I foresaw he would." + +While the trained diplomat murmurs as he takes his leave, "All's safe." + +Native wit had got the better of artful cunning. + +And when Sir Ulick dies in disgrace, how pithy is the remark of one of +the men, as he is filling in the grave: + +"There lies the making of an excellent gentleman--but the cunning of his +head spoiled the goodness of his heart." + +In the same book, how generous and how Irish is Moriarty, lying on the +brink of death, as he thinks of Ormond, who had shot him in a fit of +passion but bitterly repented his rash deed: + +"I'd live through all, if possible, for his sake, let alone my +mudther's, or shister's or my own--'t would be too bad, after all the +trouble he got these two nights, to be dying at last, and hanting him, +maybe, whether I would or no." + +The quick kindness which so often twists an Irishman's tongue is +humorously illustrated in the _Essay on Irish Bulls_, which Maria +Edgeworth and her father wrote together. Mr. Phelim O'Mooney, disguised +as Sir John Bull, accepts his brother's wager that he cannot remain four +days in England without the country of his birth being discovered eight +times. Whenever his speech betrays him, it is the result of his +emotions. When he sees Bourke, a pugilist of his own country, overcome +by an Englishman, he cries to him excitedly: "How are you, my gay +fellow? Can you see at all with the eye that is knocked out?" A little +later, in discussing a certain impost duty, he grows angry and exclaims: +"If I had been the English minister, I would have laid the dog-tax upon +cats." The humour of his situation increases to a climax, so that the +fun never flags. Such stories as this in which the wit is simply +sparkling good-nature, with no attempt to use it as a weapon against +frail humanity as did Fielding and Thackeray, or to produce a smile by +exaggeration as did Dickens, but simply bubbling fun, as free from guile +as the sun's laughter on Killarney, show that Miss Edgeworth was a +comedian of the first rank. Like all true comedians, she is also strong +in the pathetic, but it is the Irish pathos, in which there is ever a +smile amid the tears. This is found in the story of the return of Lady +Clonbrony to her own country; the fall of Castle Rackrent; and the ruin +by their sudden splendour of the family of Christy O'Donoghoe. + +Whenever Miss Edgeworth writes of Ireland and its people, her pages glow +with the inspiration of genius. There is no exaggeration, no caricature; +all is told with simple truth. It has often been the fate of novelists +whose aim has been to depict the manners and customs of a locality to +win the ill-will of the obscure people they have brought into +prominence. But not so with Maria Edgeworth. Her family, although +originally English, had been settled for two hundred years in Ireland. +She loved the country and always wrote of it with a loving pen. Before +_Castle Rackrent_ was written, Ireland had been for many centuries an +outcast in literature, known only for her blunders and bulls. But, as +one of her characters says, "An Irish bull is always of the head, never +of the heart." Even though her characters are humorous, they are never +clowns. All the men have dignity, and all the women grace. She gave them +a respectable place in literature. + +But her influence was felt outside of Ireland. Old Thady, in his +garrulous description of the masters of Castle Rackrent, had introduced +the first national novel, in which the avowed object is to represent +traits of national character. Patriotic writers in other countries +learned through her how to serve their own land, and she was one of the +many influences which led to the writing of the Waverley novels. Scott +says in the preface of these books: + +"Without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate the rich humour, +pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact which pervade the work of my +accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own +country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately +achieved for Ireland--something which might introduce her natives to +those of the sister kingdom in a more favourable light than they had +been placed hitherto, and tend to procure sympathy for their virtues and +indulgence for their foibles." + +As the reader realises the power of Maria Edgeworth's mind, her ability +to describe manners and customs, to read character, and to depict comic +and tragic scenes, he wishes that her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, +had not so constantly interfered in her work, and insisted that every +book she wrote must illustrate some principle of education. He was not +singular in this respect. Rousseau, whom he greatly admired at one time, +had taught educational methods by a novel. Madame de Genlis, the teacher +of Louis Philippe, was writing novels that were celebrated throughout +Europe, in which she expounded rules for the training of the young. +Maria Edgeworth, with her father at her elbow, never lost sight of the +moral of her tale. Vivian, in the story of that name, was so weak that +he was always at the mercy of the artful. Ormond's passions led him into +trouble. Beauclerc was almost ruined by his foolish generosity. Lady +Delacour, with no object in life but pleasure, cast aside her own +happiness that she might outshine the woman she hated. Lady Clonbrony +squandered her fortune and health that she might be snubbed by her +social superiors. Mrs. Beaumont played a deep diplomatic game in her +small circle of friends, and finally overreached herself. Lady Cecilia, +the friend of Helen, brought sorrow to her and infamy upon herself by +her duplicity. In the analysis of motive, and the growth of Cecilia's +wrong-doing from a small beginning, the book resembles the novels of +George Eliot. But Maria Edgeworth could not know her own characters as +she otherwise would, because the moral was always uppermost. When Mrs. +Inchbald criticised her novel _Patronage_, she replied: "Please to +recollect, we had our moral to work out." Mr. Edgeworth, in his preface +to _Tales of Fashionable Life_, thus sets forth his daughter's purpose: + +"It has been my daughter's aim to promote by all her works the progress +of education from the cradle to the grave. All the parts of this series +of moral fiction bear upon the faults and excellencies of different +ages and classes; and they have all risen from that view of society +which we have laid before the public in more didactic works on +education." + +Such a method of writing tended to kill emotion, yet emotion breaks out +at times with genuine force, and always has a true ring. This is +especially true in the _Tales of Fashionable Life_. There society women +appear cold and heartless in the drawing-room, and so they have +generally been represented in fiction. So Thackeray regarded them. But +Maria Edgeworth followed them to the boudoir, and there reveals beneath +the laces and jewels many beautiful womanly traits. As we see in tale +after tale true feeling welling to the surface, and then choked up by +the moral, we recognise the pathetic truth that Mr. Edgeworth's +educational methods were fatal to genius. + +But strong emotion sways only a small part of the lives of most men and +women. Were it otherwise, like the great lyric poets, we should all die +young. And she has written about the common, everyday, prosaic life with +a truthfulness rarely excelled. + +One of the most interesting studies in a novel is to observe the +author's view of life. With the exception of those of Mademoiselle De +Scudéri nearly all the novels of French women considered love as the +ruling passion for happiness or woe, and all of the characters were +under its sway. Even Mademoiselle De Scudéri in the preface to _Ibrahim_ +announced it as her distinct purpose that all her heroes were to be +ruled by the two most sublime passions, love and ambition; but she was a +humorist and unconsciously interested her readers more by her witty +descriptions of people than by the loves of Cyrus and Mandane. But this +passion has seldom held such an exaggerated place in the stories of +English women. Maria Edgeworth in particular noticed that men and women +were actuated by many motives or passions. A large income or a title was +often capable of inspiring a feeling so akin to love that even the bosom +that felt its glow was unable to distinguish the difference. Loss of +respect could kill the strongest passion, and some of her heroines have +even remained single, or else married men whom at first they had +regarded with indifference, rather than marry the object of their first +love after he had forfeited their esteem. Sometimes the tameness of her +heroines shocked their author. While correcting _Belinda_ for Mrs. +Barbauld's "Novelists' Library," Miss Edgeworth wrote to a friend: + +"I really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone +Belinda, that I could have torn the pages out." + +Propinquity, opportunity, almost a mental suggestion are quite enough +to produce a long chain of events affecting a lifetime. "Ask half the +men you are acquainted with why they are married, and their answer, if +they speak the truth, will be, 'Because I met Miss Such-a-One at such a +place, and we were continually together.' 'Propinquity, propinquity,' as +my father used to say, and he was married five times, and twice to +heiresses." So speaks Mrs. Broadhurst, a match-making mother in _The +Absentee_. And this is the reason why most of Miss Edgeworth's heroes +and heroines love. But the advances of a designing woman are quite +sufficient, as in _Vivian_, to make a fond lover forget his plighted +troth to another, and the flattery of an unscrupulous man makes him +suspicious of his real friends. Character is destiny, if the character +is strong, but circumstances are destiny, if the character is weak. It +is the aim of her novels to show how certain traits of character, as +indecision, pride, love of luxury, indolence, lead to misfortune, and +how these dangerous traits may be overcome. + + * * * * * + +Notwithstanding her moral, her plots are never hackneyed and never +repeated. They are drawn from life and have the variety of life. In the +story of _Ennui_, there is the twice-told tale of the nurse's son +substituted for the real heir; but when he learns the true story of his +birth, and resigns the castle, the title, and all its wealth to the +rightful Earl of Glenthorn, who has been living in the village working +at the forge, there is a great change from the usual story. The heir of +the ancient family of Glenthorn accepts the earldom for his son, but +with reluctance. The manners of the peasant remain with the earl, and +the poor man, at last, begs the one who has been educated for the +position to accept the title and the estates. In this she emphasised +again what she constantly taught, that education and environment are +more powerful than heredity. + +As she taught that reason should be the guide of life, so she lived. Her +fourscore years and three were spent largely at her ancestral home of +Edgeworthstown. She assisted her father in making improvements to better +the condition of the tenantry, and to promote their happiness. When in +Paris, she met a Mr. Edelcrantz, a gentleman in the service of the king +of Sweden. Admiration was succeeded by love. But he could not leave the +court at Stockholm, and Miss Edgeworth felt that neither duty nor +inclination would permit her to leave her quiet life in Ireland. Reason +was stronger than love. So they parted like her own heroes and heroines. +All that history records of him is that he never married. She resumed +her responsibilities at home, and if the thought of this separation +sometimes brought the tears to her eyes, as her stepmother once wrote +to a friend, she was as cheerful, gay, and light-hearted in the home +circle as she had always been. + + * * * * * + +Besides her moral tales for adults, which were read throughout Europe, +Maria Edgeworth was always interested in the education of boys and +girls. The eldest sister in a family of twenty-one children, the +offspring of four marriages, she taught her younger brothers and +sisters, and thus grew to know intimately the needs of childhood and +what stories would appeal to them. As her father wrote, it was her "aim +to promote by all her works the progress of education from the cradle to +the grave." In her stories for children she inculcated lessons of +industry, economy, thoughtfulness, and unselfishness. + +If she helped to eradicate from the novel its false, highly colored +sentimental pictures of life, still greater was her work in producing +literature for young people. Hers were among the first wholesome stories +written for children. Before this the chapman had carried about with him +in his pack small paper-covered books which warned boys and girls of the +dangers of a life of crime. One book was named _An hundred godly lessons +which a mother on her death-bed gave to her children_. Another book of +religious and moral Sunday reading was called _The Afflicted Parent, or +the Undutiful Child Punished_. This gives the sad history of the two +children of a gentleman in Chester, a son and a daughter. The daughter +chided her brother for his wickedness, upon which he struck her and +killed her. He was hanged for this, but even then his punishment was not +completed. He came back to life, told the minister several wicked deeds +which he had committed, and was hanged a second time. In most of these +tales the gallows loomed dark and threatening. + + * * * * * + +In contrast to these morbid tales are the wholesome stories of Maria +Edgeworth. The boys and girls about whom she writes are drawn from life. +If they are bad, their crimes are never enormous, but simply a yielding +to the common temptations of childhood. Hal, in _Waste Not, Want Not_, +thinks economy beneath a gentleman's notice, and at last loses a prize +in an archery contest for lack of a piece of string which he had +destroyed. Fisher in _The Barring Out_, a cowardly boy, buys twelve buns +for himself with a half-crown which belonged to his friend, and then +gives a false account of the money. His punishment is expulsion from the +school. Lazy Lawrence has a worse fate. He will not work, plays pitch +farthing, is led by bad companions to steal, and is sent to Bridewell. +But he is not left in a hopeless condition. After he had served his term +of imprisonment he became remarkable for his industry. + +But there are more good boys and girls than bad ones in her stories. The +love of children for their parents, and the sacrifices they will make +for those they love, are beautifully told. In the story of _The +Orphans_, Mary, a girl of twelve, finds a home for her brothers and +sisters, after her father and mother die, in the ruins of Rossmore +Castle, where they support themselves by their labour. Mary finds that +she can make shoes of cloth with soles of platted hemp, and by this +industry the children earn enough for all their needs. As directions are +given for making these shoes, any little girl reading the story would +know how to follow the example of Mary. Jem in the story of _Lazy +Lawrence_ finds that there are many ways by which he can earn the two +guineas without which his horse Lightfoot must be sold. He works early +and late, and at last accomplishes his purpose. + +Mrs. Ritchie says of this story: "Lightfoot deserves to take his humble +place among the immortal winged steeds of mythology along with Pegasus, +or with Black Bess, or Balaam's Ass, or any other celebrated steeds." + +The story of _Simple Susan_ with its pictures of village life has the +charm of an idyl. The children by the hawthorn bush choosing their May +Queen; Susan with true heroism refusing this honour, in order that she +may care for her sick mother; the incident of the guinea-hen; Rose's +love for Susan; the old harper, playing tunes to the children grouped +about him--are all simply told. Susan's love for her pet lamb reminds +one of Wordsworth's poem of that name. + +And yet these children are not unusual. Most boys and girls have days +when they are as good as Mary, or Jem, or Susan. Maria Edgeworth is not +inculcating virtues which are impossible of attainment. + +A hundred years ago, these stories, as they came from the pen of Maria +Edgeworth, delighted boys and girls, and for at least fifty years were +read by parents and children. Then for a time they were hidden in +libraries, but a collection of them has lately been edited by Mr. +Charles Welsh under the appropriate title _Tales that never Die_, which +have proved as interesting to the children of to-day as to those of +by-gone generations. + +Whether Maria Edgeworth is writing for old or young, there is one marked +trait in all her stories, her kind feeling for all humanity. The vices +of her villains are recorded in a tone of sorrow. She seldom uses +satire; never "makes fun" of her characters. Her attitude towards them +is that of the lady of Edgeworthstown towards her dependents, or rather +that of the elder sister towards the younger members of the family. Such +broad and loving sympathy is found in Shakespeare and Scott, but seldom +among lesser writers. + + * * * * * + +In Sydney Owenson, better known by her married name of Lady Morgan, +Ireland found at this time another warm but less judicious friend. Her +life was more interesting than her books. Her father, an Irish actor, +introduced his daughter, while yet a child, to his associates, so that +she appeared in society at an early age. But Mr. Owenson was +improvident; debts accumulated, and Sydney at the age of fourteen began +to earn her own living. The position of a governess, which she filled +for a time, being unsuited to her gay, independent disposition, she +began to write. Like Johnson a half century or more earlier, with a play +in manuscript as her most valuable possession, she went alone to London. +She did not wait so long as he did for recognition. New books by new +authors were eagerly read. She earned money, a social position, fame, +and with it some disagreeable notoriety. An independent, witty Irish +woman of great charm, fearless in expressing her opinions, who had +introduced herself into society and for whom nobody stood as sponsor, +was looked upon by the old-fashioned English aristocracy as an +adventuress; and later, when she came forth as the champion of Irish +liberties, and upbraided England for tyranny, she was maliciously +denounced by the Tory party. + +She entered upon life with three purposes, to each of which she adhered: +to advocate the interest of Ireland by her writings; to pay her father's +debts; and to provide for his old age. All of these purposes she +accomplished. + +Besides plays and poems, and two or three insignificant stories, she +wrote four novels upon Irish subjects: _The Wild Irish Girl_, +_O'Donnel_, _Florence Macarthy_, and _The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys_. +In all these books the beauty of Irish scenery is depicted as +background; the fashionable life of Dublin is described, as well as the +peasant life in remote hamlets; while the natural resources of the land +and the native gaiety of the Celtic temperament are feelingly contrasted +with the poverty and misery brought about by unjust laws. + +She thus feelingly describes the condition of Ireland in the novel +_O'Donnel_. Its sincerity must excuse its overwrought style: "Silence +and oblivion hung upon her destiny, and in the memory of other nations +she seemed to hold no place; but the first bolt which was knocked off +her chain roused her from paralysis, and, as link fell after link, her +faculties strengthened, her powers revived; she gradually rose upon the +political horizon of Europe, like her own star brightening in the west, +and lifting its light above the fogs, vapours, and clouds, which +obscured its lustre. The traveller now beheld her from afar, and her +shores, once so devoutly pressed by the learned, the pious, and the +brave, again exhibited the welcome track of the stranger's foot. The +natural beauties of the land were again explored and discovered, and +taste and science found the reward of their enterprise and labours in a +country long depicted as savage, because it had long been exposed to +desolation and neglect." + +In this book a party of travellers visits the Giant's Causeway and its +scenery is described as an almost unfrequented place. + +The new interest in Ireland of which she writes was very largely due to +the novels of Maria Edgeworth, and partly to those of Lady Morgan +herself. + +Her last novel, _The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys_, is of historic +value. Its plot was furnished by the stirring events which took place +when the Society of United Irishmen were fighting for parliamentary +reforms. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the devoted patriot, is easily +recognised in the brave Lord Walter Fitzwalter, and the life of Thomas +Corbet furnished the thrilling adventures of the hero, Lord Arranmore. +When Thomas Moore visited Thomas Corbet at Caen he referred to the +account given of his escape from prison in Lady Morgan's novel as +remarkably accurate in its details. + +The style of Miss Owenson's earlier books was execrable and fully +justified the severe criticism in the first number of the _Quarterly +Review_. It gives this quotation from _Ida, or the Woman of Athens_: +"Like Aurora, the extremities of her delicate limbs were rosed with +flowing hues, and her little foot, as it pressed its naked beauty on a +scarlet cushion, resembled that of a youthful Thetis from its blushing +tints, or that of a fugitive Atalanta from its height." The wonder is +that any serious magazine should have wasted two pages of space upon +such nonsense. In ridiculing the book and the author, it gives her some +serious advice, with the encouragement that if she follow it, she may +become, not a writer of novels, but the happy mistress of a family. + +Whether Lady Morgan took this ill-meant advice or not, her style +improved with each book, until in _The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys_ it +became simple and clear, with only an occasional tendency to high +colouring and bombast. + +Maria Edgeworth has described the customs and manners of Ireland, and +unfolded the character of its people in a manner that has never been +equalled. But Lady Morgan, far inferior as an artist, has given fuller +and more picturesque descriptions of the landscape of the country, and +has made a valuable addition to the books bearing on the history of +Ireland. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Elizabeth Hamilton. Anna Porter. Jane Porter + + +Elizabeth Hamilton was also an Irish writer, but through her one novel +she will always be associated with Scotland. In _The Cottagers of +Glenburnie_ she did for the Scotch people what Maria Edgeworth had done +for the Irish, and represented for the first time in fiction the life of +the common people. It is a story of poor people of the serving class. +Mrs. Mason, who had been an upper servant in the family of a lord, has +been pensioned and takes up her abode with a cousin in the village of +Glenburnie. She was among the earliest of our settlement workers. This +little village with the pretty name, situated in a beautiful country, +had accumulated about its homes as much filth as the tenements of the +poorest ward of a large city, and for the same reason, that its +inhabitants did not understand the value of cleanliness. Its thatched +cottages, had it not been for their chimneys and the smoke issuing from +them, would have passed for stables or hog-sties, for there was a +dunghill in front of every door. + +Mrs. MacClarty's cottage, where Mrs. Mason was to live, was like all the +rest. It was as dirty inside as out. Mrs. MacClarty picked up a cloth +from the floor beside her husband's boots, with which to wipe her +dishes, and made her cheese in a kettle which had not been washed since +the chickens had eaten their last meal from it, although the remains of +their feast still adhered to the sides. When Mrs. MacClarty put her +black hands into the cheese to stir it, Mrs. Mason reminded her gently +that she had not washed them: + +"'Hoot,' returned the gudewife, 'my hands do weel eneugh. I canna be +fash'd to clean them at ilka turn.'" + +When Mrs. Mason proposed that the windows should be hung on hinges and +supplied with iron hooks, so that they could be opened at pleasure, Mr. +MacClarty objected to the plan: + +"'And wha do you think wad put in the cleek?' returned he. 'Is there +ane, think ye, aboot this hoose, that would be at sic a fash?' + +"'Ilka place has just its ain gait,' said the gudewife, 'and ye needna +think that ever we'll learn yours. And, indeed, to be plain wi' you, +cusine, I think you hae owre mony fykes. There, didna ye keep Grizzy for +mair than twa hours, yesterday morning, soopin' and dustin' your room +in every corner, an' cleanin' out the twa bits of buird, that are for +naething but to set your foot on after a'?'" + +It may be well to explain that the chickens had been roosting in this +chamber before Mrs. Mason's arrival. + +The story of Mr. MacClarty's death is pathetic. He is lying ill with a +fever in the press-bed in the kitchen, where not a breath of air reaches +him. The neighbours have crowded in to offer sympathy. The doors are +tightly closed, and his wife has piled blankets over him and given him +whiskey and hot water to drink. When Mrs. Mason, who knows that with +proper care his life can be saved, urges that he be removed to her room +where he can have air, all the neighbours violently oppose her advice. +But Peter MacGlashon, the oracle of the village, looks at it more +philosophically: + +"'If it's the wull o' God that he's to dee, it's a' ane whar ye tak him; +ye canna hinder the wull o' God.'" + +But upon Mrs. Mason's insisting that we should do our best to save the +life of the sick with the reason God has given us, Peter becomes +alarmed: + +"'That's no soond doctrine,' exclaimed Peter. 'It's the law of works.'" + +Elizabeth Hamilton had been a teacher and had written books on +education, so that her description of the school which Mrs. Mason +opened in the village gives an accurate idea of the Scottish schools for +the poorer classes. Each class was divided into landlord, tenants, and +under-tenants, one order being responsible for a specific amount of +reading and writing to the order above it. The landlord was responsible +to the master both for his own diligence and the diligence of his +vassals. If the tenants disobeyed the laws they were tried by a jury of +their mates. The results of the training at Mrs. Mason's school might +well be an aim of teachers to-day: "To have been educated at the school +of Glenburnie implied a security for truth, diligence and honesty." + +The pupils in the school gradually learned to love cleanliness and +order. The little flower-garden in front gave pleasure to all. The +villagers declared, "The flowers are a hantel bonnier than the midden +and smell a hantel sweeter, too." With this improvement in taste, the +"gude auld gaits" gave way to a better order of things. + +_The Cottagers of Glenburnie_ is more realistic in detail than anything +which had yet been written. It is a short simple story told in simple +language. There is a slight plot, but it is the village upon which our +attention is fastened. One individual stands out more strongly than the +rest: that is Mrs. MacClarty with her constant expression, "It is well +eneugh. I canna be fashed." + +This little book was read in every Scotch village, and many of the poor +people saw in it a picture of their own homes. But its sound +common-sense appealed to them. It was reasonable that butter without +hairs would sell for more than with them, and that gardens without weeds +would produce more vegetables than when so encumbered. The book did for +the cottagers of Scotland what Mrs. Mason had done for those of +Glenburnie. + + * * * * * + +The lives of Anna Maria and Jane Porter resemble in a few particulars +that of Elizabeth Hamilton. Like her they belonged, at least on the +father's side, to Ireland, and like her they lived in Scotland, and +their names will always be associated with that country. But Elizabeth +Hamilton wrote the first novel of Scotland's poor, the ancestor of _The +Window in Thrums_ and _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_; Jane Porter wrote +the first novel of Scotland's kings, the immediate forerunner of +_Waverley_, _The Abbot_, and _The Monastery_. + +Upon the death of Major Porter, who had been stationed for some years +with his regiment at Durham, Mrs. Porter removed to Edinburgh, where her +children were educated. Their quick lively imaginations found food for +growth on Scottish soil. At that time Caledonia was a land of cliff and +crag, inhabited by a quarrelsome people, whom the English still regarded +with something the same aversion which Dr. Johnson had so often +expressed to Boswell. But every castle had its story of brave knights +and fair ladies, and every brae had been the scene of renowned deeds of +arms. In every cottage the memory of the past was kept alive, and +fathers and mothers related to their children stories of Wallace and of +Bruce, until the romantic past became more real than the living present. +Mrs. Porter's servants delighted to relate to her eager children stories +of Scotland's glory. The maids would sing to them the songs of "Wallace +wight," and the serving-man would tell them tales of Bannockburn and +Cambus-Kenneth. + +Rarely have stories fallen on such fertile soil. In a short time, three +of these children became famous. Sir Robert Ker Porter, the brother of +Anna and Jane, followed closely in the footsteps of Scotland's heroes, +and became distinguished as a soldier and diplomat, as well as a famous +painter of battles. He painted the enormous canvas of _The Storming of +Seringapatam_, a sensational panorama, one hundred and twenty feet in +length, the first of its kind, but in a style that has often been +followed in recent years. The idol of his family, it would seem that he +was endowed with many of those qualities which his sisters gave to the +heroes of their romances. + +Anna Maria Porter, the youngest of the group, was the first to appear in +print. At the age of fifteen, she published a little volume called +_Artless Tales_. From this time until her death, at least every two +years a new book from her pen was announced. She wrote a large number of +historical romances, which were widely read and translated into many +languages. This kind of story, in the hands of Sophia Lee, was tame and +uninteresting. Anna Porter increased its scope and its popularity. Her +plots are well worked out with many thrilling adventures. Her +imagination, however, had been quickened by reading, not by observation, +and although her scenes cover many countries of Europe and many periods +of history, they differ but little in pictorial detail, and her +characters are lifeless. Her style of writing is, moreover, so inflated +that it gives an air of unreality to her books. + +She thus describes the Hungarian brothers: "They were, indeed, perfect +specimens of the loveliness of youth and the magnificence of manhood." +This novel, dealing with the French Revolution, was one of the most +popular of all her stories. It went through several editions both in +England and on the continent. Superlative expressions seem to have been +fashionable in that age which was still encumbered by much that was +artificial in dress and manners. Miss Porter with proper formality thus +writes of her heroine as she was recovering from a fainting fit: "With a +blissful shiver, Ippolita slowly unclosed her eyes, and turning them +round, with such a look as we may imagine blessed angels cast, when +awakening amid the raptures of another world, she met those of her sweet +and gracious uncle." + +Some of her society novels are witty and have a lively style, which +suggests the truth of Mr. S. C. Hall's description of the sisters. Anna, +a blonde, handsome and gay, he named L'Allegro, in contrast to Jane, a +brunette, equally handsome, but with the dignified manners of the +heroines of her own romances, whom he styled Il Penseroso. + + * * * * * + +Jane Porter took a more serious view of the responsibilities of +authorship than her sister. Her first novel, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_, was +written while England was agitated against France and excited over the +wrongs of Poland. It grew out of popular feeling. Miss Porter had become +acquainted with friends of Kosciusko, men who had taken part with him in +his country's struggle for liberty, and made him the hero of the story. +The scenery of Poland was so well described that the Poles refused to +believe that she had not visited their country; and events were related +in a manner so pleasing to them that they distinguished the author by +many honours. It is one thing to write an historical novel of people and +events that have long been buried in oblivion; but to write a story of +times so near the present that its chief actors are still living, is, +indeed, a rash task. And for any history to meet with the approval of +its hero and his friends bespeaks rare excellence in the work. + +In the light of the classic standing of the historical novel, due to the +genius of Scott and Dumas, it is interesting to read how _Thaddeus of +Warsaw_ came to be published. Miss Porter wrote the romance merely for +her own amusement, with no thought of its being read outside the circle +of her family and intimate friends. They urged her to publish it. But +for a long time she resisted their importunities on the ground that it +did not belong to any known style of writing: stories of real life, like +_Tom Jones_, or improbable romances, like _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, +were the only legitimate forms of fiction. _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ had the +exact details of history with a romance added to please the author's +fancy. Thus did Jane Porter discover to the world the possibilities of +the historical novel. + +Her next novel, _The Scottish Chiefs_, grew out of the stories she had +heard in her childhood. Besides the tales of Scotland's struggle for +independence which she heard from the servants in her own home, a +venerable old woman called Luckie Forbes, who lived not far from Mrs. +Porter's house, used to tell her of the wonderful deeds of William +Wallace. Of the influence these stories had upon her childish mind, Jane +Porter has thus written: + +"I must avow, that to Luckie Forbes's familiar, and even endearing, +manner of narrating the lives of William Wallace and his dauntless +followers; her representation of their heart-sacrifices for the good of +their country, filling me with an admiration and a reverential +amazement, like her own; and calling forth my tears and sobs, when she +told of the deaths of some, and of the cruel execution of the virtuous +leader of them all;--to her I must date my early and continued +enthusiasm in the character of Sir William Wallace! and in the friends +his truly hero-soul delighted to honour." + +Before writing _The Scottish Chiefs_, Miss Porter read everything she +could find bearing upon the history of England and Scotland during the +reigns of the first two Edwards. She personally visited the places she +described. She wrote in the preface: "I assure the reader that I seldom +lead him to any spot in Scotland whither some written or oral testimony +respecting my hero had not previously conducted myself." Besides these +sources of information, Miss Porter was familiar with the poem of +_Wallace_ by Blind Harry the Minstrel, the biographer of Scotland's +national hero. Blind Harry lived nearly two centuries after the death of +Wallace, but he had access to books now lost, and collected stories +about Scotland's struggle for independence while it was still prominent +in the public mind. Although he tells many exalted stories of the +numbers whom Wallace overcame by his single arm, the poem is on the +whole authentic. Sheriff Mackay in the _Dictionary of National +Biography_ writes that the life of Wallace by Blind Harry "became the +secular bible of his countrymen, and echoes through their later +history." Miss Porter introduced love scenes to vary the deeds of war, +but there is nothing else in _The Scottish Chiefs_ which is not true to +history, or to that more legitimate source of romance, the traditions +common among the people. + +From the opening chapter, in which Wallace is described as an outlaw +because he had refused to take the oath of allegiance to an English +king, to his death in London and the final crowning of Bruce, there is +not a dull page. Especially interesting is the scene between William +Wallace and the Earl of Carrick, after the battle of Falkirk, and the +appearance of Robert Bruce, who overheard this conversation, fighting by +the side of Wallace. The truth of this incident has been denied, but it +is related by Blind Harry. The trial of William Wallace in the great +hall at Westminster for treason, and his defence that he had never +acknowledged the English government, is most impressive, and is a matter +of record. + +_The Scottish Chiefs_ is the first historical novel in which the author +made diligent research in order to give a truthful representation of the +times. It has the atmosphere of feudal days. Notwithstanding the +ridicule cast upon Wallace as a lady's hero, he is drawn in heroic +proportions. Miss Mitford declared that she scarcely knew "one _herós de +roman_ whom it is possible to admire, except Wallace in Miss Porter's +story." The work is written in the style of the old epics. The many +puerile attempts of the last few years to write an historical romance in +which Washington or Lincoln should figure have shown how difficult is +the task. How weak and commonplace have these great men appeared in +fiction! It requires a nature akin to the heroic to draw it. In 1810, +when it was published, _The Scottish Chiefs_ was the only great +historical romance. Four years later _Waverley_ was published, the first +of the novels of Sir Walter Scott. This was superior in imagination and +in craftsmanship to Miss Porter's novel, but not in interest. _The +Scottish Chiefs_ has since been excelled by many others of the Waverley +novels, though not by all, by _Henry Esmond_, and _A Tale of Two +Cities_, but it preceded all these in time, and still holds a place as a +classic of the second rank. + +Critics of to-day smile at its enthusiastic style, but Miss Porter +speaks with no more enthusiasm than did the poor folk from whom she +heard the story. As long as enthusiastic youth loves an unblemished +hero, _The Scottish Chiefs_ will be read. It is impossible to analyse +these early impressions or to test their truth. One can only remember +them with gratitude. Jane Porter has, however, taught the youth of other +lands to reverence Scotland's popular hero, so that the mention of his +name awakens a thrill of pleasure, and the hills and glades associated +with his deeds glow with the light of romance. + +In 1815, Jane Porter wrote a third historical novel, _The Pastor's +Fireside_. This is far inferior to _The Scottish Chiefs_. It has the +same elevated style, and the mystery which surrounds the hero awakens +and holds the attention. But the novel deals with the later Stuarts, and +one feels that the author herself was but little interested in the +historical events about which she was writing. The book has no abiding +qualities. + +In 1832 was published a book bearing the title _Sir Edward Seaward's +Narrative of His Shipwreck and Consequent Discovery of certain Islands +in the Caribbean Sea, with a Detail of many extraordinary and highly +interesting Events in his Life from the year 1733 to 1749 as written in +his Own Diary. Edited by Jane Porter._ In the preface Miss Porter +explains how the manuscript was given to her by the relatives of Sir +Edward. The story reads like a second Robinson Crusoe. It has all the +minute details that give an air of verisimilitude to the writings of +Defoe. In the opening chapter, Edward Seaward supposedly gives this +account of himself: + +"Born of loyal and honest parents, whose means were just sufficient to +give a common education to their children, I have neither to boast of +pedigree nor of learning; yet they bequeathed to me a better +inheritance--a stout constitution, a peaceable disposition, and a proper +sense of what is due to my superiors and equals; for such an inheritance +I am grateful to God, and to them." + +In the story he is married to a woman of his own rank, and she embarks +with him for Jamaica, but they are shipwrecked on an island near Lat. 14 +deg. 30 min. N. and Long. 81 deg. W. They find bags of money hidden on +the island, some negroes come to them, and a schooner is driven to +their haven. Edward sees in this a purpose which afterward is fulfilled. +He says to his wife: "I should be the most ungrateful of men, to the +good God who has bestowed all this on me, if I did not feel that this +money, so wonderfully delivered into my hands, was for some special +purpose of stewardship. The providential arrival of the poor castaway +negroes, and then of the schooner,--all--all working together to give us +the means of providing every comfort, towards planting a colony of +refuge in that blessed haven of our own preservation,--seem to me, in +solemn truth, as so many signs from the Divine Will, that it is our duty +to fulfil a task allotted to us, in that long unknown island." + +This island becomes inhabited by a happy people, and Seaward is knighted +by George the Second. + +Everybody read the book. A second edition was called for within the +year. Old naval officers got out their charts, and hunted up the +probable locality of the places mentioned. Nobody at first doubted its +veracity. The _Quarterly_, however, decided that no such man had ever +existed and that the whole story was a fiction. It hunted for a schooner +mentioned and the names of the naval officers. The latter had never +served in his Majesty's navy and the former had not timed her voyages +according to the story. The uniform of a naval officer described in the +narrative was not worn until thirteen years after these adventures had +taken place, and no man by the name of Seaward had been knighted during +this time, nor was there any village in England having the name of the +village which he gave as his birthplace. Supposing the editor had +changed names and dates, the _Quarterly_ criticism becomes valueless. +Although the magazine declared it a work of fiction, it gave both the +story and the style high praise, and declared it far superior to her +romances. When Miss Porter was asked about it, she declined to answer, +but said that Scott had his great secret and she might be permitted to +have her little one. + +It is generally considered now to have been the work of Jane Porter. No +two books differ more in style than _The Scottish Chiefs_ and _Sir +Edward Seaward_. But twenty-two years had elapsed between them. The +former is written in dignified, stately language; the latter in simple +homely words, and both its invention and its style entitle it to a place +among English classics. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Amelia Opie. Mary Brunton + + +Every novel that touches upon the life of its generation naturally in +course of time becomes historical. These novels should be preserved, not +necessarily for their literary excellence, but because they bear the +imprint of an age. Such are the novels of Amelia Opie and Mary Brunton. + +Mrs. Opie, then Miss Alderson, left her quiet home in Norwich to visit +London at the height of the furor occasioned by the French Revolution. +The literary circles in which she was received were discussing excitedly +the rights of men and women, and the beauties of life lived according to +the dictates of nature. Among these enthusiasts, Miss Alderson met Mary +Wollstonecraft, the author of _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_, and +esteemed her highly. Her own imagination did not, however, yield to the +intoxication of a life of perfect freedom, a dream which wrecked the +life of Mary Wollstonecraft. + +There is no sadder biography than that of Mary Wollstonecraft. In Paris, +she met Gilbert Imlay, an American, with whom she fell in love. When he +wished to marry her, she refused to permit him to make her his wife, +because she had family debts to pay, and she was unwilling to have him +legally responsible for them. But she had read the books of Rousseau, +and had been deeply impressed with the thought that marriage is a +bondage, not needed by true love. She took the name of Imlay, and passed +for his wife, but the marriage was not sanctioned either by the church +or by law. After the birth of a daughter, Imlay deserted her. At first +she tried to commit suicide, and there is the sad picture of this +talented woman walking about in the drenching rain, and then throwing +herself from the bridge at Putney. She was rescued, and a little over a +year later became the wife of William Godwin. + +The life-story of Mary Wollstonecraft suggested to Amelia Opie the novel +of _Adeline Mowbray, or the Mother and Daughter_, which was not written +until after the death of the original. + +It is a tender pathetic story. Mrs. Mowbray, the mother of Adeline, +believed by her neighbours to be a genius, is interested in new theories +of education, and, while writing a book on that subject, occasionally +experiments with Adeline, although she neglects her for the most part. +In spite of this Adeline grows up beautiful and pure, totally ignorant +of the world and its wickedness. Her mother often quoted in her presence +the book of a Mr. Glenmurray, in which he proves marriage to be a +tyranny and a profanation of the sacred ties of love. Adeline is +captivated by the enthusiastic ideals of the young author. There is a +fine contrast in character and motive, where Adeline is entertaining Mr. +Glenmurray, the high-minded writer, and Sir Patrick O'Carrol, a man of +many gallantries. Sir Patrick is shocked to meet at her home the man +whose theories have banished him from respectable society. Adeline, +innocent of any low interpretation that may be put upon her words, makes +the frank avowal that, in her opinion, marriage is a shameless tie, and +that love and honour are all that should bind men and women. Sir Patrick +heartily agrees with her sentiments, and as a consequence accosts her +with a freedom repugnant to her, although she hardly understands its +import, while Glenmurray sits by gloomily, resolving to warn her in +private that the opinions she had expressed were better confined in the +present dark state of the public mind to a select and discriminating +circle. After they leave Adeline, Glenmurray, as the outcome of this +meeting, had the satisfaction of fighting a duel with Sir Patrick, +contrary to the tenets of his own book. + +But when, to escape the advances of Sir Patrick, Adeline places herself +under the protection of Glenmurray, who ardently loves her, he urges her +to marry him. This she refuses to do, and encourages him to show the +world the truth and beauty of his teachings. Glenmurray, a man of +sensitive nature, suffers more than Adeline from the indignities she +constantly receives when she frankly says she is Mr. Glenmurray's +companion, not his wife. He takes her from place to place to avoid them, +for he realises that the world censures her, while it excuses him. But +Adeline is so happy in her love for him, and in her faith in his +teachings, that she endures every humiliation with the faith of the +early Christian martyrs. When he urges her, as he so often does, to +marry him, he reads in her eyes only grief that he will not gladly +suffer for what he believes to be right, and desists rather than pain +her. But his death is hastened by the harassing thought that her whole +future is blighted by his teachings. As he says to her just before his +death: + +"Had not I, with the heedless vanity of youth, given to the world the +crude conceptions of four-and-twenty, you might at this moment have been +the idol of a respectable society; and I, equally respected, have been +the husband of your heart; while happiness would perhaps have kept that +fatal disease at bay, of which anxiety has facilitated the approach." + +It is a beautiful love story, but the hero and heroine were of too fine +a fibre to stand alone against the world. After the death of Glenmurray, +the interest flags. The conclusion is weak, not at all worthy of the +beginning. Love of every variety has been the theme of poets and +novelists, but there is no love story more beautiful for its +self-sacrificing devotion to principle and to each other, than the few +pages of this novel which tell of the unsanctioned married life of the +high-minded idealist and his bride. + +Mrs. Opie wrote _Simple Tales_ and _Tales of Real Life_. They are for +the most part pathetic stories in which unhappiness in the family circle +is caused either by undue sternness of a parent, the unfilial conduct of +a son or daughter, or a misunderstanding between husband and wife. The +feelings of the characters are often minutely described. A firm faith in +the underlying goodness of human nature is shown throughout all these +tales, and all teach love and forbearance. + + * * * * * + +Mary Brunton like Mrs. Opie wrote to improve the ethical ideals of her +generation. In the books of that day the theory was often advanced that +young men must sow their wild oats, and that men were more pleasing to +the ladies for a few vices. Her first novel, _Self-Control_, was written +to contradict this doctrine. In a letter to Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Brunton +wrote: + +"I merely intended to show the power of the religious principle in +bestowing self-command, and to bear testimony against a maxim as immoral +as indelicate, that a reformed rake makes the best husband." + +Laura, the heroine of _Self-Control_, ardently loved a man of rank and +fashion. When she learned of his amours, her love turned first to grief, +then to disgust. Stung by her abhorrence, he attempted to seduce her to +conquer her pride. The purity of the heroine triumphs. She meets a man +whom she esteems and afterwards marries. Many of Laura's adventures +border on the improbable, but her emotions are truthfully depicted. + +This was a bolder novel than appears on the surface. Long before this +the wicked heroine had been banished from fiction. The leading lady must +be virtuous to keep the love of the hero. Richardson laid down that law +of the novel. Mary Brunton asserted the same rule for the hero, and +maintained that a gentleman, handsome, noble, accomplished, could not +retain the love of a pure woman, if he were not virtuous. + +The book gave rise to heated discussions. Two gentlemen had a violent +dispute over it: one said it ought to be burnt by the common hangman; +the other, that it ought to be written in letters of gold. Beyond its +ethical import, the novel has no literary value. + +The kind reception given to _Self-Control_ led the author to begin her +second novel, _Discipline_. This was intended to show how the mind must +be trained by suffering before it can hope for true enjoyment when +self-control is lacking. Mary Brunton had read Miss Edgeworth's +description of the Irish people with pleasure; so she planned to set +forth in this novel the manners of the Scottish Highlands and of the +Orkneys, where she herself had been born. But before it was finished, +_Waverley_ was published. There the Scottish Highlands stood forth on a +large canvas, distinct and truthful, and Mrs. Brunton realised at once +how weak her own attempts were compared with Scott's masterly work. Her +interest in her book flagged, although it was published in December of +that year. Some of the Highland scenes are interesting because +accurately described, and her account of a mad-house in Edinburgh is +said to be an exact representation of an asylum for the insane in that +city. + +Mrs. Brunton died before her third novel, _Emmeline_, was finished. Her +husband, the Reverend Alexander Brunton, professor of Oriental +Languages at Edinburgh University, published the fragment of it with her +memoirs after her death. The aim of this novel was to show how little +chance of happiness there is when a divorced woman marries her seducer. +It only shows the inability of Emmeline to live down her past shame and +the unhappiness which follows the married pair. + +In the novels of Mrs. Opie and Mary Brunton the standard of conduct is +the same as to-day. Both men and women are expected to lead upright +lives, with true regard for the happiness of those about them. In +_Self-Control_ the hero refuses to fight a duel with the villain who has +injured him, and forgives him with a true Christian spirit. To be sure, +there are still seductions, and the world of fashion is without a heart. +But conduct which the former generation would have regarded with a smile +is here denominated SIN, and that which they named Prudery shines forth +as VIRTUE. The problems of life which these novels discuss are the same, +as we have said, which agitate the world to-day. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Jane Austen + + +If in this age of steam and electricity you would escape from the noise +of the city, and experience for an hour the quiet joys of the English +countryside, at a time when a chaise and four was the quickest means of +reaching the metropolis from any part of the kingdom, turn to the pages +of Jane Austen. In them have been preserved faithful pictures of the +peaceful life of the south of England exactly as it existed a hundred +and more years ago. The gently sloping downs crossed by hedgerows, the +lazy rivers meandering through the valleys, the little villages half +hidden in the orchards of apple, pear, peach, and plum, all suggest the +land of happy homes. On the outskirts of every village there are the two +of three gentlemen's houses: the substantial mansion of the squire, with +its park of old elms, oaks, and beeches; a smaller house suitable for a +gentleman of slender income, like Mr. Bennet, the father of the four +girls of _Pride and Prejudice_, or for an elder son who will in time +take possession of the hall, like Charles Musgrove in the story of +_Persuasion_; and the still smaller parsonage standing in the garden of +vegetables and flowers, surrounded by a laurel hedge, where lives a +younger son or a friend of the family. + +The gentry that inhabit these homes carry on the plot of Jane Austen's +novels. And what an even, almost uneventful life they lead. Life with +them is one long holiday. Dance follows dance, varied only by a dinner +at the mansion, a picnic party, private theatricals, a brief sojourn at +Bath, a briefer one in London, or a ride to Lyme, seventeen miles away. +But Cupid ever hovers near, and in each one of these groups of gentle +folk we watch the course of true love, "which never did run smooth." For +in spite of match-making mammas and stern fathers with an eye that the +marriage settlements shall be sufficient to clothe sentiment with true +British respectability, the six novels of Jane Austen contain as many +true and tender love stories, differing from one another not so much in +the incidents as in the characters of the lovers. Unlike the older +novelists, who constantly drew the attention away from the main theme by +stories of thrilling adventure, Jane Austen holds closely to the great +problem of fiction, whether or not the youths and maidens will be +happily married at the conclusion of the book. + +When Darcy first meets Elizabeth, the heroine of _Pride and Prejudice_, +he shuns her and her family as vulgar. Elizabeth is so prejudiced +against him that she cannot forget his insulting arrogance. But Darcy's +love cannot be stemmed. Other heroes have plunged into raging floods to +rescue the fair heroine. Darcy does more. For love of Elizabeth he +accepts the whole Bennet family, including Mrs. Bennet, who always says +the silly thing, and Lydia, who had almost invited Wickham to elope with +her and was indifferent as to whether or not he married her, until Darcy +compelled him to do so--a bitter humiliation for a man whose greatest +fault was overweening pride of birth. At last, Elizabeth comprehends the +extent of his generosity, his superior understanding and strength of +character, and Darcy is rewarded by the hand of the sunniest heroine in +all fiction. Who but Elizabeth with her independent spirit, quick +intelligence and lively wit could curb his family pride! They marry, and +we know they will be happy. + +_Sense and Sensibility_ works out a problem for lovers. Like many +romantic girls, Marianne asserts that a woman can love but once. "He +never loved that loved not at first sight" is also part of her creed. +But after her infatuation for Willoughby has been cured, she contentedly +marries Colonel Brandon, although she knows that he frequently has +rheumatism and wears flannel waistcoats. Marianne will be much happier +as the wife of a man of mature years who loves her impulsive nature and +can control it than she would have been with the gallant who won her +first love. + +In the piquant satire of _Northanger Abbey_ there is another problem +suggested. This book is distinctly modern. Man is the pursued; woman the +pursuer. Bernard Shaw has treated this momentous question in a serious +manner in many of his plays. Jane Austen regards it with a humorous +smile. Did Henry Tilney ever know why he married Catherine Morland? Or +was this daughter of a country parsonage, without beauty, without +accomplishments, and without riches, aware that on her first visit to +Bath she used feminine arts that would have put Becky Sharp to +shame--who, by the way, was a little girl at that time--and would have +made Anne, the knowing heroine of _Man and Superman_, green with envy? +Yet her arts consisted simply in following the dictates of her heart. +She fell in love with Henry Tilney; looked for him whenever she entered +the pump-room; was unhappy if he were absent and expressed her joy at +his approach; saw in him the paragon of wisdom and looked at every thing +with his eyes. From first ignoring her, he began to seek her society, +and learn the true excellence of her character. And then Jane Austen +explains: + +"I must confess that this affection originated in nothing better than +gratitude; or in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for +him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new +circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an +heroine's dignity, but if it is as new in common life, the credit of a +wild imagination will be all my own." + +But lest we think that Miss Austen is asserting a rule that women take +the initiative in this matter of love and marriage, it is well to +remember that Darcy first loved Elizabeth Bennet, and forced her to +acknowledge his worth, and that Colonel Brandon married a young lady who +had formerly supposed him at the advanced age of thirty-five to be +occupied with thoughts of death rather than of love. + +And Mr. Knightley is another hero who fell in love and waited patiently +for its return. Emma is like Marianne in one respect, she needed +guidance. Almost from childhood the mistress of her father's house and +the first lady in the society of Highbury, she was threatened by two +evils, "the power of having too much her own way, and a disposition to +think a little too well of herself." Mr. Knightley, the elder brother of +her elder sister's husband, is the only person that sees that she is not +always wise and that she is sometimes selfish. He is the only one that +chides her. Emma is interested in promoting the welfare of all about +her, but she lacks that most feminine quality of insight, so that her +well-meant help, as in the case of her protégée, poor Harriet Smith, is +sometimes productive of evil. And yet Emma is brave and self-forgetful. +Not until she has schooled herself to think of Mr. Knightley as married +to Harriet, is she aware how much he is a part of her own life. But this +is only another instance of her blindness. When she learns that he has +loved her with all her faults ever since she was thirteen, she is very +happy. There is no tumultuous passion in this union, but we are assured +of a love that will abide through the years. + +In _Mansfield Park_ and in _Persuasion_, there is another variety of the +old story. Fanny Price and Anne Elliot, the one the daughter of a poor +lieutenant of marines, whose family is the most ill-bred in all Miss +Austen's books, the other the neglected daughter of Sir Walter Elliot, +Baronet, have more in common than any other of her heroines. Although +these stories are different, yet in each it is the devotion of the +heroine that guides the course of love through many obstacles into a +quiet haven. Who that reads their story will say that Miss Austen's +maidens are without passion? They do not analyse their feelings, nor do +they pour them forth in wild soliloquy. But the heart of each is +clearly revealed through little acts and expressions. Fanny Price, +cherishing a love for Edmund Bertram, who was kind to her when she was +neglected by everybody else, refuses to marry the rich, handsome, and +brilliant Mr. Crawford, although she herself is penniless. We feel her +misery as she realises that she is nothing but a friend to Edmund and +rejoice with her when her love awakens a response. Anne Elliot, the +gentlest of all her heroines, who in obedience to her father has broken +her engagement to Captain Wentworth eight years before, when she is +again thrown into his company, observes his every expression, and grows +sad and weak in health at his studied neglect. Other heroines have said +more, but none have felt more than Miss Austen's. Anne Elliot herself +has spoken for them: + +"All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable +one) is that of loving longest, when existence, or when hope, is gone." + +But Jane Austen, like Shakespeare, is a dramatist. So, lest this be +taken for Miss Austen's opinion, Captain Wentworth has the last word +here when he writes to Anne, "Dare not say that man forgets sooner than +woman, that his love has an earlier death. Unjust I have been, weak and +resentful I have been, but never inconstant." + +And so, at the close of these novels, two more happy homes are added to +those of rural England. + +Are there many heroes and heroines for whom we dare predict a happy +married life? Would Mr. B. and Pamela have written such long letters to +each other about the training of their children if conversation had not +been a bore? Evelina must have been disappointed to discover that Lord +Orville lived on roast beef, plum-pudding, and port wine instead of +music and poetry. Of all Scott's heroes and heroines none had sacrificed +more for each other than Ivanhoe and Rowena; he gave up Rotherwood, and, +as a disinherited son, sought forgetfulness of her charms in distant +Palestine; she put aside all hopes of becoming a Saxon queen, and was +true to the gallant son of Cedric. Yet we have Thackeray for authority +that they were not only unhappy, but often quarrelled after Scott left +them at the altar. And none of Thackeray's marriages turned out well, +although Becky Sharp made Rodney Crawley very happy until he discovered +her wiles. Dickens was perhaps more fortunate, but David was led away by +the cunning ways of Dora before he discovered a companion and helpmate +in Agnes, a heroine worthy to be placed beside Elizabeth and Jane +Bennet. George Eliot's books and those of later novelists are rather a +warning than an incentive to matrimony. Have all our sighs and tears +over the mishaps of ill-starred lovers been in vain, and is it true that +when the curtain falls at the wedding it is only to shut from view a +scene of domestic infelicity? + +Not so with Jane Austen. She is the queen of match-makers. The marriages +brought about by her guidance give a belief in the permanency of English +home life, quite as necessary for the welfare of the kingdom as the +stability of Magna Charta. Her heroes have qualities that wear well, and +her heroines might have inspired Wordsworth's lines: + + A creature not too bright or good + For human nature's daily food, + For transient sorrows, simple wiles, + Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles. + +Besides the lovers, many diverting people lived in these homes of the +gentry, quite as amusing as any of the peasants who were brought upon +the stage by the older dramatists for our entertainment; perhaps more +amusing, because of their self-sufficiency. These people seldom do +anything that is peculiar, nor are they the objects of practical jokes, +as were so many men and women in the earlier books; but they talk freely +both at home and abroad about whatever is of interest to them. They +seldom use stereotyped words or phrases, yet their conversation is a +crystal from which the whole mental horizon of the speaker shines +forth. When Mrs. Bennet learns that Netherfield Park has been let to a +single gentleman of fortune, her first exclamation comes from the +heart--"What a fine thing for our girls!" After Mr. Collins, upon whom +Mr. Bennet's estate is entailed, has resolved to make all possible +amends to his daughters by marrying one of them, and is making his +famous proposal to Elizabeth, he says with solemn composure: "But, +before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it +would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying--and, +moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a +wife, as I certainly did." No wonder Elizabeth laughed at such a lover. +Mr. Collins is the same type of man as Mr. Smith, whom Evelina meets at +Snow Hill, but infinitely more ridiculous because he is an educated man +of some attainments. + +Then there is Mr. Woodhouse, the father of Emma, with his constant +solicitude for everybody's health and his fears that they may have +indigestion. When his daughter and her family arrive from London, all +well and hearty, he says by way of hospitality: "You and I will have a +nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a basin +of gruel." His friend Mrs. Bates is always voluble. She is describing +Mr. Dixon's country seat in Ireland to Emma: "Jane has heard a great +deal of its beauty--from Mr. Dixon, I mean--I do not know that she ever +heard about it from anybody else--but it was very natural, you know, +that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his +addresses--and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them--for +Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter's +not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all +blame them; of course she heard everything he might be telling Miss +Campbell about his own home in Ireland." One respects the mental power +of a woman who could remember the main thread of her discourse amid so +many digressions. + +How characteristic is Sir Walter Elliot's reply to the gentleman who is +trying to bring a neighbour's name to his mind. "Wentworth? Oh, ay! Mr. +Wentworth, the curate of Monkford. You misled me by the term +_Gentleman_. I thought you were speaking of some man of property." And +not the least amusing of these people is Mr. Elton's bride, a pert sort +of woman who for some reason patronises everybody into whose company she +is thrown. After meeting Mr. Knightley, by far the most consequential +person about Highbury, she expresses her approval of him to Emma: +"Knightley is quite the gentleman! I like him very much! Decidedly, I +think, a very gentlemanlike man." And Emma wonders if Mr. Knightley has +been able to pronounce this self-important newcomer as quite the lady. +Pick out almost any speech at random, and anyone who is at all familiar +with Miss Austen will easily recognise the speaker. + +This ability to describe people by such delicate touches has been highly +praised by Macaulay in the essay on Madame D'Arblay before quoted. He +thus compares Jane Austen with Shakespeare: + +"Admirable as he [Shakespeare] was in all parts of his art, we must +admire him for this, that, while he has left us a greater number of +striking portraits than all other dramatists put together, he has +scarcely left us a single caricature. Shakespeare has had neither equal +nor second. But among the writers who, in the point which we have +mentioned, have approached nearest to the manner of the great master, we +have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is +justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a +certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are +all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most +eccentric of human beings. There are, for instance, four clergymen, none +of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom, +Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram, and Mr. +Elton. They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class. +They have all been liberally educated. They all lie under the restraints +of the same sacred profession. They are all young. They are all in love. +Not one of them has any hobbyhorse, to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one +has a ruling passion, such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have +expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. +Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more +unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young +divines to his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches +so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of +description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect +to which they have contributed." + +Like Shakespeare Jane Austen knew the inner nature by intuition, and had +learned its outward expression by observation. Character not only +affects the speech of each one of her men and women, but determines +their destiny and shapes the plot of the story. The class she has chosen +to represent is the least under the sway of circumstances of any in +England. With money for all needs, and leisure for enjoyment, free from +obligations which pertain to higher rank, character here develops +freely and naturally. Not one of the matchmaking men or women, not even +the intelligent Emma, succeeds in changing the life of those whom they +attempt to influence. Character is stronger than any outside agency. In +this respect, Jane Austen is decidedly at variance with Thomas Hardy or +Tolstoi, but she is at one with Shakespeare. + +In the opening paragraph of each book, character begins to assert +itself. If Darcy had been without PRIDE, and Elizabeth had been without +PREJUDICE; if Marianne had had her sensibilities under control; if Emma +had not been blind; if Captain Wentworth had not been unjust and +resentful--there would have been no story to tell, the course of true +love would have run so smooth. But all of them are loving and faithful, +and these qualities in the end conquer, and bring the stories to a happy +conclusion. + +Edmund Gosse thus writes of her delineation of character: + +"Like Balzac, like Tourgenieff at his best, Jane Austen gives the reader +an impression of knowing everything there was to know about her +creations, of being incapable of error as to their acts, thoughts, or +emotions. She presents an absolute illusion of reality; she exhibits an +art so consummate that we mistake it for nature. She never mixes her +own temperament with those of her characters, she is never swayed by +them, she never loses for a moment her perfect, serene control of them. +Among the creators of the world, Jane Austen takes a place that is with +the highest and that is purely her own." + +This seeming control of her characters is due largely to the fact that +whatever happens to them is just what might have been expected. This is +particularly true of the bad people she has created. Innocence led +astray has been a popular means of exciting interest ever since +Richardson told the sad story of Clarissa Harlowe. But there is no such +incident in Jane Austen's books. Lydia, who hasn't a thought for anybody +nor anything but a red-coat, and Wickham, who elopes with her without +any intention of matrimony, are properly punished, by being married to +each other, and the future unhappiness which must be their lot is due to +their own natures. Willoughby had seduced one girl, trifled with the +affections of another, and married an heiress, but he finds only misery, +and sadly says: "I must rub through the world as well as I can." Henry +Crawford, and his sister, with so much that is good in their natures, +yet with a lack of moral fibre, are both unhappy. Each has lost the one +they respected and loved and might have married. With what wit she +leaves William Elliot, the all-agreeable man, the heir of Sir Walter, +who, that he may keep the latter single, has enticed the scheming Mrs. +Clay from his home: + +"And it is now a doubtful point whether his cunning or hers may finally +carry the day; whether, after preventing her from being the wife of Sir +Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed at last into making her the +wife of Sir William." + +And so punishment is meted out with that nicety of judgment which +distinguishes every detail of her novels. + +But Jane Austen has little interest in immorality. "Let other pens dwell +on guilt and misery; I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can," she +says in _Mansfield Park_. And her readers have observed that deeds of +evil take place off the stage, while she records only what is reported +of them in the drawing-room. + +She dwells as little on misery as on guilt. She shows in her letters +charitable regard for the poor people of Steventon and Chawton. She +describes minutely the unkempt house of Lieutenant Price at Portsmouth +with its incessant noise of heavy steps, banging doors, and untrained +servants, where every voice was loud excepting Mrs. Price's, which +resembled "the soft monotony of Lady Bertram's, only worn into +fretfulness." Miss Austen's pen was able to portray scenes of squalor +and vice; she chose to turn from them. Perhaps she felt instinctively +that true æsthetic pleasure cannot be produced by dwelling on a scene in +a book which would be repulsive to the eye. Miss Austen wrote before +there was much serious interest in the lives of the poor. Their only +function in literature had been to provoke laughter. The sensitive +daughter of the rector of Steventon may have felt, as others have, that +there was no occasion to laugh at the blunders and ill-manners of +peasants, which were proper and natural to their condition of life. She +did not need these people to entertain us. There were quite as funny +people in the hall as in the cottage, funnier, even, because their +humorous sayings spring from a humorous twist in their natures, not from +ignorance. + +Sir Walter Scott, after reading _Pride and Prejudice_ for the third +time, said: + +"That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and +feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most +wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself, like +any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary +commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the +description and the sentiment, is denied to me." + +Sir Walter Scott proved the truth of the above statement in _St. +Ronan's Well_, one of the least successful of his novels, which was +written in imitation of Jane Austen. + +Because Jane Austen confined her work so closely to ordinary +middle-class people, she has been called narrow. But if we judge men and +women not by dress and manners, but by what they are, these people +furnish as broad a view of humanity as could be obtained by travelling +up and down the world. A trained botanist will gather an herbarium from +a country lane that will give a more extended knowledge of botany than a +less skilful one could get by travelling through the woods and fields of +a continent. Very few novelists have portrayed greater varieties of +human nature than Miss Austen. + +Jane Austen's style has been praised by all critics. George William +Curtis wrote of her art: + +"She writes wholly as an artist, while George Eliot advocates views, and +Miss Brontë's fiery page is often a personal protest. In Miss Austen, on +the other hand, there is in kind, but infinitely less in degree, the +same clear atmosphere of pure art which we perceive in Shakespeare and +Goethe." + +While Miss Austen has been so often likened to Shakespeare, she is in no +sense a romantic writer. She belongs purely to the classic school. She +has the restraint, the perfect poise of the Greeks. She recognises +everywhere the need of law. She accepts society as it exists under the +restraints of law and religion. She no more questioned the English +prayer book and the English constitution than Homer questioned the +existence of the gods and the supreme power of kings. This feeling for +law shaped her art. Her plots are perfectly symmetrical. There is no +redundancy in expression. There is none of that wild luxuriance in fancy +or expression so common in romanticism. Each word used is needed in the +sentence, and is in its proper place. The strength of romanticism lies +in its impetuosity; the strength of classicism lies in its self-control. +This is the strength of Jane Austen. + +Emotion in her books is so restrained that the superficial reader doubts +its existence. Yet her characters feel deeply and are sensitive to the +acts and words of those about them. Although their feelings are under +control, they are none the less real. The reader watches, but is not +asked to participate in their griefs. + +As she never moves to tears, neither does she provoke laughter, but she +lightens every page with a quiet glow of humour. Humour was as natural +to her as to Elizabeth Bennet, whose sayings give the sparkle to _Pride +and Prejudice_. Much of the humour in her letters consists of an +unexpected turn to a sentence or an incongruous combination of words. +She writes of meeting "Dr. Hall in such very deep mourning that either +his mother, his wife or himself must be dead." She announces the +marriage of a gentleman to a widow by the laconic message, "Dr. Gardiner +was married yesterday to Mrs. Percy and her three daughters." And again +she says that a certain Mrs. Blount appeared the same as in September, +"with the same broad face, diamond bandeau, white shoes, pink husband, +and fat neck." She sees through the affectations of society and observes +the pleasure afforded by the small misfortunes of another as plainly as +did Thackeray later. The wife of a certain gentleman is discovered "to +be everything the neighbourhood could wish, silly and cross as well as +extravagant." She finds continual source of enjoyment in people's +foibles, and thinks that her own misfortunes ought to furnish jokes to +her acquaintances, or she will die in their debt for entertainment. + +In a less refined degree, this was the view of life of Miss Burney, her +favourite author. Miss Austen was but three years old when Evelina made +her début at Ranelagh, and not over seven when Cecilia visited her three +guardians in London: _Camilla_ was published in the year that it is +thought that Miss Austen began _Pride and Prejudice_. During these +years, Miss Burney's fame was undimmed. Consider yourself for a moment +in a circulating library, in the year 1797 or 1798, suppose you are fond +of novel reading, and have moreover the refined tastes of Miss Austen; +you will find there no novelist who can hold a rival place to Miss +Burney. Miss Austen refers to her both in her novels and letters. In +only one passage in her novels has she interrupted her story to express +a general opinion; that is in _Northanger Abbey_, where she praises the +art of the novelist, and refers particularly to _Cecilia_, _Camilla_, +and _Belinda_. In the same novel John Thorpe's lack of taste is +emphasised by his calling _Camilla_ a stupid book of unnatural stuff, +which he could not get through. She evidently discussed Miss Burney's +novels with the people she met; a certain young man just entered at +Oxford has heard that _Evelina_ was written by Dr. Johnson, and she +finds two traits in a certain Miss Fletcher very pleasing: "She admires +_Camilla_, and drinks no cream in her tea." But Miss Austen was no blind +disciple of Miss Burney. All the odd characters which Miss Burney culled +from the lower ranks of society were swept away by Miss Austen. +Everything approaching tragedy or the improbable is avoided, but what is +left is amplified and refined until there is no more trace of Miss +Burney than there is of Perugino in the paintings of Raphael. + +Artists in other lines have striven in their work for a unified whole. +Most novelists have been more intent on pointing a moral or producing a +sensation than on the technique of their writing. Their works as a whole +lack proportion. They obtrude unnecessarily in one part and are weak in +another. Miss Austen wrote because the characters in her brain demanded +expression. Who could remain silent with Elizabeth Bennet urging her to +utterance? She wrote with the greatest care because she could do nothing +slovenly. Whatever place may be assigned to her as the years go by, her +novels surpass all others written in English in their perfect art. + +Miss Austen's genius was but slowly recognised. Her first books were +published in 1811, only three years before _Waverley_, and her last +novels were published after it. Who will linger over the teacups while +knights in armour are riding the streets without? It is not until the +cavalcade has passed that home seems again a quiet, refreshing spot. So +the public, tired of the brilliant scenes and conflicting passions of +other novels, has in the last few years turned back to the simple, +wholesome stories of Jane Austen. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Miss Ferrier. Miss Mitford. Anna Maria Hall + + +Walter Scott, the most chivalrous of all writers, brought to an end +woman's supremacy in the novel, in 1814. At this time prose fiction was +far different from what it was in 1772, when Tobias Smollet died, and +much of this difference was due to women. Professor Masson, in his +lectures on the novel, gives the names of twenty novelists who wrote +between 1789-1814 who are remembered in the history of English +literature. "With the exception of Godwin," he writes, "I do not know +that any of the male novelists I have mentioned could be put in +comparison, in respect of genuine merit, with such novelists of the +other sex as Mrs. Radcliffe, Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Austen." It is +equally worthy of note that, of the twenty names given, fourteen are +women. + +Although during these years women had developed the historical novel, +and had brought the novel of mystery to a high degree of perfection, +they left the most enduring stamp on literature as realists, as painters +of everyday life and commonplace people. Francis Jeffrey wrote: + +"It required almost the same courage to get rid of the jargon of +fashionable life and the swarms of peers, foundlings, and seducers, that +infested our modern fables as it did in those days to sweep away the +mythological persons of antiquity, and to introduce characters who spoke +and acted like those who were to peruse their adventures." + +Women awakened interest in the humdrum lives of their neighbours next +door, and this without any exaggeration, simply by minute attention to +little things, and quick sympathy in the joys and sorrows of others. +They described manners and customs; their view of life was largely +objective. It is a noteworthy fact that while Scott was casting over all +Europe the light of romanticism, the women writers of the time, with but +one or two exceptions, were viewing life with the clear vision of Miss +Edgeworth and Miss Austen, as if the world obtruded too glaringly upon +their eyes to be lost sight of in happy day-dreams. + + * * * * * + +Susan Edmonstone Ferrier is better known to-day as the friend of Scott, +and an occasional visitor at Abbotsford, than as a successful novelist. +She was born at Edinburgh in 1782, where her father, James Ferrier, was +Writer to the Signet, and at one time Clerk of Session, Scott being one +of his colleagues. That great genius was one of the earliest to +appreciate the excellence of her descriptions of Scottish life given in +her first book, entitled _Marriage_, published anonymously in 1818. In +the conclusion of the _Tales of my Landlord_ he paid the unknown writer +this graceful tribute: + +"There remains behind not only a large harvest, but labourers capable of +gathering it in; more than one writer has of late displayed talents of +this description, and if the present author, himself a phantom, may be +permitted to distinguish a brother, or perhaps a sister, shadow, he +would mention in particular the author of the very lively work entitled +_Marriage_." + +Miss Ferrier wrote but three novels, _Marriage_, _The Inheritance_, and +_Destiny_, a period of six years intervening between the appearance of +each of them. Like Miss Burney and Miss Edgeworth she depicts two grades +of society. She shows forth the fashionable life of Edinburgh and +London, and the cruder mode of living found in the Scottish Highlands. +But between her and her models there is the great difference of genius +and talent. They passed what they had seen through the alembic of +imagination; she has depicted what she saw with the faithfulness of the +camera, and the crude realism of these scenes does not always blend +with the warp and woof of the story. + +Like Miss Edgeworth, Miss Ferrier had a moral to work out. She treats +society as a satirist, and lays bare its heartlessness, and the +unhappiness of its members who to escape ennui are led hither and +thither by the caprice of the moment. While she may present one side of +the picture, one hesitates to accept Lady Juliana, Mrs. St. Clair, or +Lady Elizabeth as common types of a London drawing-room. + +Her plots as well as her characters suffer from this conscious attempt +to teach the happiness that must follow the practice of the Christian +virtues. In _Marriage_ there are two complete stories. Lady Juliana is +the heroine of the first part; her two daughters, who are born in the +first half, supplant their mother as heroines of the second half. The +plot of _Destiny_ is not much better. The denouement is tame, and the +characters lack consistency. _The Inheritance_ has the strongest plot of +the three; but Mrs. St. Clair and her secret interviews with the +monstrosity Lewiston, who, by the way, has the honour to be an American, +throw an air of unreality over a story in many respects intensely real. +In this story, as in so many old novels, the nurse's daughter had been +brought up as the rightful heiress. The scene in which she tells her +betrothed lover, the heir of the estate, the story of her birth, which +she had just learned, is said to have suggested to Tennyson the +beautiful ballad of _Lady Clare_. + +But when Miss Ferrier sees loom in imagination the sombre purple hills +of the Highlands, with the black tarns in the hollows half-hidden in +mist, her genius awakes. If she had devoted herself to these people and +this region, and ignored the fashionable life of the cities, she might +have written a book worthy to be placed beside the best of Miss +Edgeworth or Miss Mitford. At the time she wrote, the Highland chief no +longer summoned his clan about him at a blast from his bugle, but he had +lost little of his old-time picturesqueness. The opening of _Destiny_ +describes the wealth of the chief of Glenroy: + +"All the world knows that there is nothing on earth to be compared to a +Highland chief. He has his loch and his islands, his mountains and his +castle, his piper and his tartan, his forests and his deer, his +thousands of acres of untrodden heath, and his tens of thousands of +black-faced sheep, and his bands of bonneted clansmen, with claymores +and Gaelic, and hot blood and dirks." + +But Miss Ferrier also depicted a more sordid type of Highlander. +Christopher North in his _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ writes of her novels: + +"They are the works of a very clever woman, sir, and they have one +feature of true and melancholy interest quite peculiar to themselves. It +is in them alone that the ultimate breaking-down and debasement of the +Highland character has been depicted. Sir Walter Scott had fixed the +enamel of genius over the last fitful gleams of their half-savage +chivalry, but a humbler and sadder scene--the age of lucre-banished +clans,--of chieftains dwindled into imitation squires, and of chiefs +content to barter the recollections of a thousand years for a few gaudy +seasons of Almacks and Crockfords, the euthanasia of kilted aldermen and +steamboat pibrochs, was reserved for Miss Ferrier." + +Besides her descriptions of the Highlands, Miss Ferrier has drawn +several Scotch characters that deserve to live. What a delightful group +is described in _Marriage_, consisting of the three Misses Douglas, +known as "The girls," and their friend Mrs. Maclaughlan! Miss Jacky +Douglas, the senior of the trio, "was reckoned a woman of sense"; Miss +Grizzy was distinguished by her good-nature and the entanglement of her +thoughts; and it was said that Miss Nicky was "not wanting for sense +either"; while their friend Lady Maclaughlan loved and tyrannised over +all three of them. Sir Walter Scott admired the character of Miss Becky +Duguid, a poor old maid, who "was expected to attend all accouchements, +christenings, deaths, chestings, and burials, but she was seldom asked +to a marriage, and never to any party of pleasure." Joanna Baillie +thought the loud-spoken minister, M'Dow, a true representative of a few +of the Scotch clergy whose only aim is preferment and good cheer. But +none of her other characters can compare with the devoted Mrs. Molly +Macaulay, the friend of the Chief of Glenroy in _Destiny_. When Glenroy +has an attack of palsy, she hurries to him, and when she is told that he +has missed her, she exclaims with perfect self-forgetfulness: + +"Deed, and I thought he would do that, for he has always been so kind to +me,--and I thought sometimes when I was away, oh, thinks I to myself, I +wonder what Glenroy will do for somebody to be angry with,--for +Ben-bowie's grown so deaf, poor creature, it's not worth his while to be +angry at him,--and you're so gentle that it would not do for him to be +angry at you; but I'm sure he has a good right to be angry at me, +considering how kind he has always been to me." + +Christopher North said of Molly Macaulay, "No sinner of our gender could +have adequately filled up the outline." + +George Saintsbury, considering the permanent value of Miss Ferrier's +work, wrote for the _Fortnightly Review_ in 1882: + +"Of the four requisites of the novelist, plot, character, description, +and dialogue, she is only weak in the first. The lapse of an entire +half-century and a complete change of manners have put her books to the +hardest test they are ever likely to have to endure, and they come +through it triumphantly." + +But, besides the excellences mentioned by Mr. Saintsbury, Miss Ferrier +is master of humour and pathos. No story is sadder than that of Ronald +Malcolm, the hero of _Destiny_. He had been willed the castle of Inch +Orran with its vast estates, but with the provision that he was to have +no benefit from it until his twenty-sixth year. In case of his death the +property was to go to his father, an upright but poor man. As Ronald had +many years to wait before he could enjoy his riches, he entered the +navy. His ship was lost at sea and the news of his death reported in +Scotland. But Ronald had been rescued from the sinking ship, and +returned to his father's cottage. Here he met a purblind old woman, who +told him how his father, Captain Malcolm, had moved to the castle, and +what good he was doing among his tenantry. She described the sorrow of +the people at the death of Ronald, but added: "Och! it was God's +providence to tak' the boy out of his worthy father's way; and noo a' +thing 's as it should be, and he has gotten his ain, honest man; and +long, long may he enjoy it!" And then she said thankfully, "The poor +lad's death was a great blessing--och ay, 'deed was 't." The scene where +Ronald goes to the castle and looks in at the window upon the happy +family group, consisting of his father and mother, brothers and sisters, +resembles in many particulars the sad return of Enoch Arden. The close +of the scene is as touching in the novel as in the poem: "Yes, yes, they +are happy, and I am forgotten!" sobs the lad, as he turns away. + +Miss Ferrier, however, seldom touches the pathetic; she is first of all +a humourist. But there is a blending of the smiles and tears of human +life in the delightful character of Adam Ramsay. Engaged as a boy to +Lizzie Lundie, he had gone forth into the world to make a fortune, but +when he returned after many years he found that she had married in his +absence, and soon afterwards had died. Crabbed to all about him, he +still cherished the remembrance of his early love, and was quickly moved +by any appeal to her memory. + +The practical philosophy of the Scottish peasantry is amusingly set +forth in the scene where Miss St. Clair visits one of the cottages on +Lord Rossville's estate. She found the goodman very ill, and everything +about the room betokening extreme poverty. When she offered to send him +milk and broth, and a carpet and chairs to make the room more +comfortable, his wife interposed, "A suit o' gude bein comfortable dead +claise, Tammes, wad set ye better than aw the braw chyres an' carpets i' +the toon." Sometime afterward, when Miss St. Clair called to see how the +invalid was, she found him in the press-bed, while the clothes were +warming before the fire. His wife explained that she could not have him +in the way, and if he were cold, it could not be helped, as the clothes +had to be aired, and added, "An' I 'm thinkin' he 'll no be lang o' +wantin' them noo." + +But notwithstanding her humour, Miss Ferrier was a stern moralist, whose +attitude toward life had been influenced indirectly by the teachings of +John Knox. She sometimes seems to stand her characters in the stocks, +and call upon the populace to view their sins or absurdities. She seldom +throws the veil of charity over them. Men as novelists are prone to +exaggeration. Women have represented life with greater truth both in its +larger aspects and in details. Miss Ferrier carries this quality to an +extreme. She tells not only the truth, but, with almost heartless +honesty, reveals the whole of it, so that many of her men and women are +repugnant to the reader while they amuse him. The best judges of +Scottish manners have borne witness to the exactness of her portraiture. +She is, perhaps, an example of the artistic failure of over-realism. + +Mary Russell Mitford like Miss Ferrier painted her scenes and her +portraits from real life. But there is as wide a difference between +their writings as between the rocky ledges of the Grampian Hills and the +soft meadows bathed in the sunshine which stretch back of the cottages +of Our Village. Miss Mitford's, indeed, was a sunny nature, not to be +hardened nor embittered by a lifelong anxiety over poverty and debts. +Her father, Dr. Mitford, had spent nearly all his own fortune when he +married Miss Mary Russell, an heiress. Besides being constantly involved +in lawsuits, he was addicted to gambling, and soon squandered the +fortune which his wife had brought him, besides twenty thousand pounds +won in a lottery. He is said to have lost in speculations and at play +about seventy thousand pounds, at that time a large fortune. The +authoress was a little over thirty years of age when the poverty of the +family forced them to leave Bertram House, their home for many years, +and remove to a little labourer's cottage about a mile away, on the +principal street of a little village near Reading, known as Three Mile +Cross. Here the support of the family devolved upon the daughter, a +burden made harder by the continual extravagance of the father, whom she +devotedly loved. Although she received large sums for her writings, it +is with the greatest weariness that she writes to her friend Miss +Barrett, afterwards Mrs. Browning, of the struggles that have been hers +the greater part of her life, the ten or twelve hours of literary +drudgery each day, often in spite of ill health, and her hope that she +may always provide for her father his accustomed comforts. Not only was +she enabled to do this, but, through the help of friends, to pay, after +his death, the one thousand pounds indebtedness, his only legacy to her. + +Yet there is not a trace of this worry in the delightful series of +papers called _Our Village_, which she began to contribute at this time +to the _Lady's Magazine_. Before this she had become known as a poet and +a successful playwright, but had believed herself incapable of writing +good prose. Necessity revealed her fine power of description, and Three +Mile Cross furnished her with scenes and characters. + +_Our Village_ marked a new style in fiction. The year it was commenced, +she wrote to a friend: + +"With regard to novels, I should like to see one undertaken without any +plot at all. I do not mean that it should have no story; but I should +like some writer of luxuriant fancy to begin with a certain set of +characters--one family, for instance--without any preconceived design +farther than one or two incidents or dialogues, which would naturally +suggest fresh matter, and so proceed in this way, throwing in incidents +and characters profusely, but avoiding all stage tricks and strong +situations, till some death or marriage should afford a natural +conclusion to the book." + +Miss Mitford followed this plan as far as her great love of nature would +permit. For when she found her daily cares too great to be borne in the +little eight-by-eight living-room, she escaped to the woods and fields. +She loved the poets who wrote of nature, and next to Miss Austen, whom +she placed far above any other novelist, she delighted in the novels of +Charlotte Smith, and in her own pages there is the same true feeling for +nature. + +_Our Village_ follows in a few particulars Gilbert White's _History of +Selborne_. As he described the beauties of Selborne through the varying +seasons of the year, she describes her walks about Three Mile Cross, +first when the meadows are covered with hoar frost, then when the air is +perfumed with violets, and later when the harvest field is yellow with +ripened corn. All the lanes, the favourite banks, the shady recesses are +described with delicate and loving touch. How her own joyous, optimistic +nature speaks in this record of a morning walk in a backward spring: + +"Cold bright weather. All within doors, sunny and chilly; all without, +windy and dusty, It is quite tantalising to see that brilliant sun +careering through so beautiful a sky, and to feel little more warmth +from his presence than one does from that of his fair but cold sister, +the moon. Even the sky, beautiful as it is, has the look of that one +sometimes sees in a very bright moonlight night--deeply, intensely blue, +with white fleecy clouds driven vigorously along by a strong breeze, now +veiling and now exposing the dazzling luminary around whom they sail. A +beautiful sky! and, in spite of its coldness, a beautiful world!" + +But how naturally we meet the people of the village and become +interested in them. There is Harriet, the belle of the village, "a flirt +passive," who made the tarts and puddings in the author's kitchen; Joel +Brent, her lover, a carter by calling, but, by virtue of his personal +accomplishments, the village beau. There is the publican, the carpenter, +the washerwoman; little Lizzie, the spoilt child, and all the other boys +and girls of the village. It is very natural to-day to meet these poor +people in novels; at that time the poor people of Ireland and Scotland +had begun to creep into fiction, but it was as unusual in England as a +novel without a plot. Even to-day Miss Mitford's attitude toward these +people is not common. It seems never to have occurred to the author, and +certainly does not to her readers, that these men dressed in overalls +and these women in print dresses with sleeves rolled to the elbow were +not the finest ladies and gentlemen of the land. She greets them all +with a playful humour which reminds one of the genial smile of Elia. C. +H. Herford in _The Age of Wordsworth_ wrote of _Our Village_: + +"No such intimate and sympathetic portrayal of village life had been +given before, and perhaps it needed a woman's sympathetic eye for little +things to show the way. Of the professional story-teller on the alert +for a sensation there is as little as of the professional novelist on +the watch for a lesson." + +_Belford Regis_, a series of country and town sketches, was written soon +after the completion of _Our Village_. Here again is the happy blending +of nature and humanity; the same fusion of truth and fiction. As Belford +Regis is "Our Market Town," there is a wider range of characters, as +different classes are represented; and a more intimate view, since the +same people appear in more than one story. Stephen Lane, the butcher, +and his wife are often met with. He is so fat that "when he walks, he +overfills the pavement, and is more difficult to pass than a link of +full-dressed misses or a chain of becloaked dandies." Of Mrs. Lane she +writes: "Butcher's wife and butcher's daughter though she were, yet was +she a graceful and gracious woman, one of nature's gentlewomen in look +and in thought." There was Miss Savage, "who was called a sensible woman +because she had a gruff voice and vinegar aspect"; and Miss Steele, who +was called literary, because forty years ago she made a grand poetical +collection. Miss Mitford even does justice to Mrs. Hollis, the fruiterer +and the village gossip; "There she sits, a tall, square, upright figure, +surmounted by a pleasant, comely face, eyes as black as a sloe, cheeks +as rounds as an apple, and a complexion as ruddy as a peach, as fine a +specimen of a healthy, hearty English tradeswoman, the feminine of John +Bull, as one would desire to see on a summer's day.... As a gossip she +was incomparable. She knew everybody and everything; had always the +freshest intelligence, and the newest news; her reports like her plums +had the bloom on them, and she would as much have scorned to palm upon +you an old piece of scandal as to send you strawberries that had been +two days gathered." + +A reviewer in the _Athenæum_ thus criticises the book: + +"If (to be hypercritical) the pictures they contain be a trifle too +sunny and too cheerful to be real--if they show more generosity and +refinement and self-sacrifice existing among the middle classes than +does exist,--too much of the meek beauty, too little of the squalidity +of humble life,--we love them none the less, and their authoress all the +more." + +In _Belford Regis_ we miss the fields, the brooks, the flowers, and the +sky, which made the charm of _Our Village_. In some respects it is a +more ambitious book, but it has not the perennial charm of _Our +Village_. + +Miss Mitford's favourite author, as we have seen, was Jane Austen. She +had the same regard for her that Miss Austen felt for Fanny Burney. The +two authors have many points of resemblance. Both have the same clear +vision, and sunny nature; the same repugnance to all that is +sensational, or coarse, or low; the same dislike of strong pathos or +broad humour; and Miss Mitford has approached more closely than any +other writer to the elegance of diction and purity of style of Miss +Austen. + +They have another point in common, they both show excellent taste in +their writings. This quality of good taste is due to native delicacy and +refinement, a sensitive withdrawal from what is ugly, and a quick +feeling for true proportion; the very things which give to a woman her +superior tact, which Ruskin has called "the touch sense." In the novel +it is pre-eminently a feminine characteristic. Few men have it in a +marked degree. It adds all the charm we feel in the presence of a +refined woman to the novels of Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, and Miss +Mitford. + +But, while Miss Mitford and Miss Austen have many points of resemblance, +they have many points of difference. Miss Austen liked the society of +men and women, and during her younger days was fond of dinner-parties +and balls. Miss Mitford preferred the woods and fields, liked the +society of her dogs, and wrote to a friend before she was twenty that +she would never go to another dance if she could help it. Miss Austen +selects a small group of gentry, and by the intertwining of their lives +forms a beautiful plot; Miss Mitford rambles through the village and the +country walks of Three Mile Cross, and as she meets the butcher, the +publican, the boys at cricket, she gleans some story of interest, and +brings back to us, as it were, a basket in which have been thrown in +careless profusion violets and anemones, cowslips and daisies, and all +the other flowers of the field. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Anna Maria Hall, a country-woman of Miss Edgeworth, wrote of her +first novel: "_My Sketches of Irish Character_, my first dear book, was +inspired by a desire to describe my native place, as Miss Mitford had +done in _Our Village_, and this made me an author." Most of these +sketches were drawn from the county of Wexford, her native place, whose +inhabitants, she says in the preface, are descendants of the +Anglo-Norman settlers of the reign of Henry the Second, and speak a +language unknown in other districts of Ireland. + +The book is a series of well-told stories of the poor people, whom we +should have imagined to be pure Celt, if the author had not said they +resembled the English. There is the tender pathos, the quick humour, the +joke which often answers an argument, the guidance of the heart rather +than the head; but she has dwelt upon one characteristic but lightly +touched upon by Miss Edgeworth and Lady Morgan, the poetic feeling of +the Celt, the imagery that so often adorns their common speech. The old +Irish wife says to the bride who speaks disrespectfully of the fairies: +"Hush, Avourneen! Sure they have the use of the May-dew before it falls, +and the colour of the lilies and the roses before it's folded in the +tender buds; and can steal the notes out of the birds' throats while +they sleep." + +_The Irish Peasantry_, and _Lights and Shadows of Irish Life_, won Mrs. +Hall the ill-will rather than the love of her countrymen. She had lived +for a long time in England, and upon returning to her native land was +impressed by the lack of forethought which kept the country poor. Their +early marriages, their indifference to time, their frequent visits to +the public house, their hospitality to strangers even when they +themselves were in extreme poverty and debt--all made so deep an +impression upon her mind that she attempted to teach the Irish worldly +wisdom. But the lesson was distasteful to the people and probably +useless, as the characteristics which she would change were the very +essence of the Irish nature, the traits which made him a Celt, not a +Saxon. In these books, the wooings, weddings, and funerals are +portrayed, and there is a little glimpse of fairy lore. + +_Midsummer Eve, a Fairy Tale of Love_, grew out of the fairy legends of +Ireland. It is said that a child whose father has died before its birth +is placed by nature under the peculiar guardianship of the fairies; and, +if born on Midsummer Eve, it becomes their rightful property; they take +it to their own homes and leave in its place one of their changelings. +The heroine of the story is a child of that nature, over whose birth the +fairies of air, earth, and water preside. But at the will of Nightstar, +Queen of the Fairies of the Air, she is left with her mother, but +adopted and watched over by the fairies as their own. Their great gift +to her is that of loving and being loved. The human element is not well +blended with the fairy element. The entire setting should have been +rural, for in the city of London, particularly in the exhibition of the +Royal Academy, where part of the story is placed, it is not easy to +keep the tranquil twilight atmosphere, which fairies love. The book is +like a song in which the bass and soprano are written in different keys. +But when we are back in Ireland, and the fairies again appear and +disappear, it is charming. The old woodcutter, Randy, who sees and talks +with the fairies, is a delightful creature, and gives to the story much +of its beauty. + +Mrs. Hall's novels have but little literary value, but she has brought +to light Irish characteristics and Irish traditions which were +overlooked by her predecessors, and for that reason they deserve to +live. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Lady Caroline Lamb. Mrs. Shelley + + +It is impossible to comprehend the Byronic craze which swept cool-headed +England off her feet during the regency. _Childe Harold_ was the +fashion, and many a hero of romance, even down to the time of +_Pendennis_, aped his fashions. Disraeli and Bulwer were among his +disciples. Bulwer's early novels, _Falkland_ and _Pelham_, were +influenced by him; and _Vivian Grey_ and _Venetia_ might have been the +offspring of Byron's prose brain, so completely was Disraeli under his +influence at the time. + +The poorest of the novels of this class, but the one which gives the +most intimate picture of Byron, is _Glenarvon_, by Lady Caroline Lamb. +Its hero is Byron. The plot follows the outlines of her own life, and +all the characters were counterparts of living people whom she knew. +Calantha, the heroine, representing Lady Caroline, is married to Lord +Avondale, or William Lamb, better known as Lord Melbourne, at one time +Premier of England. Lord and Lady Avondale are very happy, until +Glenarvon, "the spirit of evil," appears and dazzles Calantha. Twice +she is about to elope with him, but the thought of her husband and +children keeps her back. They part, and for a time tender _billets-doux_ +pass between them, until Calantha receives a cruel letter from +Glenarvon, in which he bids her leave him in peace. Other well-known +people appeared in the book. Lord Holland was the Great Nabob, Lady +Holland was the Princess of Madagascar, and Samuel Rogers was the Yellow +Hyena or the Pale Poet. The novel had also a moral purpose; it was +intended to show the danger of a life devoted to pleasure and fashion. + +Of course the book made a sensation. Lady Caroline Lamb, the daughter of +Earl Bessborough, the granddaughter of Earl Spencer, related to nearly +all the great houses of England, had all her life followed every impulse +of a too susceptible imagination. Her infatuation for Lord Byron had +long been a theme for gossip throughout London. She invited him +constantly to her home; went to assemblies in his carriage; and, if he +were invited to parties to which she was not, walked the streets to meet +him; she confided to every chance acquaintance that she was dying of +love for him. Yet, as one reads of this affair, one suspects that this +devotion was nothing more than the infatuation of a high-strung nature +for the hero of a romance. In writing to a friend about her husband, +she says, "He was privy to my affair with Lord Byron and laughed at it." +On her death-bed she said of her husband, "But remember, the only noble +fellow I ever met with was William Lamb." + +A month after her death, Lord Melbourne wrote a sketch of her life for +the _Literary Gazette_. In this he said: + +"Her character it is difficult to analyse, because, owing to the extreme +susceptibility of her imagination, and the unhesitating and rapid manner +in which she followed its impulses, her conduct was one perpetual +kaleidoscope of changes.... To the poor she was invariably +charitable--she was more: in spite of her ordinary thoughtlessness of +self, for them she had consideration as well as generosity, and delicacy +no less than relief. For her friends she had a ready and active love; +for her enemies no hatred: never perhaps was there a human being who had +less malevolence; as all her errors hurt only herself, so against +herself only were levelled her accusation and reproach." + +How far Byron was in earnest in this tragicomedy is more difficult to +determine. In one letter to her he writes: "I was and am yours, freely +and entirely, to obey, to honour, to love, and fly with you, where, +when, and how yourself might and may determine." That Byron was piqued +when he read the book, his letter to Moore proves: "By the way, I +suppose you have seen _Glenarvon_. It seems to me if the authoress had +written the truth--the whole truth--the romance would not only have been +more romantic, but more entertaining. As for the likeness, the picture +can't be good; I did not sit long enough." It was not pleasing to Lord +Byron's vanity to appear in her book as the spirit of evil, beside her +husband, a high-minded gentleman, ready to sacrifice for his friends +everything "but his honour and integrity." + +Notwithstanding the humorous elements in the connection of Lord Byron +and Lady Caroline Lamb, the story is pathetic. His poetic personality +attracted her as the light does the poor moth. Disraeli caricatured her +in the character of Mrs. Felix Lorraine in _Vivian Grey_, and introduced +her into _Venetia_ under the title of Lady Monteagle, where he made much +of her love for the poet Cadurcis, otherwise Lord Byron. + +Lady Caroline Lamb wrote two other novels, but they are of no value. In +her third, _Ada Reis_, considered her best, she introduced Bulwer as the +good spirit. + +The little poem written by Lady Caroline Lamb on the day fixed for her +departure from Brocket Hall, after it had been decided that she was to +live in retirement away from her husband and son, shows tenderness and +poetic feeling: + + They dance--they sing--they bless the day, + I weep the while--and well I may: + Husband, nor child, to greet me come, + Without a friend--without a home: + I sit beneath my favourite tree, + Sing then, my little birds, to me, + In music, love, and liberty. + +At the time that the British public was smiling graciously, even if a +little humorously, upon Lady Caroline Lamb, and was lionising Lord +Byron, it spurned from its presence with the greatest disdain Percy and +Mary Shelley. Even after the death of Shelley, when Mary returned to +London with herself and son to support, it received her as the prodigal +daughter for whom the crumbs from the rich man's table must suffice. + +Mary Shelley had inherited from her mother the world's frown. Mary +Wollstonecraft Godwin had been, the greater part of her life, at +variance with society. She was the author, as has been said, of the +_Vindication of the Rights of Woman_, and had for a long time been an +opponent of marriage, chiefly because the civil laws pertaining to it +deprived both husband and wife of their proper liberty. Her bitter +experience with Imlay had, however, so modified her views on this +latter subject that she became the wife of William Godwin a short time +before the birth of their daughter Mary, who in after years became Mrs. +Shelley. Although her mother died at her birth, Mary Godwin was deeply +imbued with her theories of life. She had read her books, and had often +heard her father express the same views concerning the bondage of +marriage and its uselessness. Her elopement with Shelley while his wife +Harriet was still living gains a certain sanction from the fact that she +plighted her troth to him at her mother's grave. After the sad death of +Harriet, however, Shelley and Mary Godwin conceded to the world's +opinion, and were legally married. But the anger of society was not +appeased, and, even after both had become famous, it continued to ignore +the poet Shelley and his gifted wife. + +At the age of nineteen Mrs. Shelley was led to write her first novel. +Mr. and Mrs. Shelley and Byron were spending the summer of 1816 in the +mountains of Switzerland. Continuous rain kept them in-doors, where they +passed the time in reading ghost stories. At the suggestion of Byron, +each one agreed to write a blood-curdling tale. It is one of the strange +freaks of invention that this young girl succeeded where Shelley and +Byron failed. Byron wrote a fragment of a story which was printed with +_Mazeppa_. Shelley also began a story, but when he had reduced his +characters to a most pitiable condition, he wearied of them and could +devise no way to bring the tale to a fitting conclusion. After listening +to a conversation between the two poets upon the possibilities of +science discovering the secrets of life, the story known as +_Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus_ shaped itself in Mary's mind. + +_Frankenstein_ is one of those novels that defy the critic. Everyone +recognises that the letters written by Captain Walton to his sister in +which he tells of his meeting with Frankenstein, and repeats to her the +story he has just heard from his guest, makes an awkward introduction to +the real narrative. Yet all this part about Captain Walton and his crew +was added at the suggestion of Shelley after the rest of the story had +been written. But the narrative of Frankenstein is so powerful, so real, +that, once read, it can never be forgotten. Mrs. Shelley wrote in the +introduction of the edition of 1839 that, before writing it, she was +trying to think of a story, "one that would speak to the mysterious +fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror--one to make the reader +dread to look round, to curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the +heart." That she has done this the experience of every reader will +prove. + +But the story has a greater hold on the imagination than this alone +would give it. The monster created by Frankenstein is closely related to +our own human nature. "My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love +and sympathy," he says, "and, when wrenched by misery to vice and +hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture, +such as you cannot even imagine." There is a wonderful blending of good +and evil in this demon, and, while the magnitude of his crimes makes us +shudder, his wrongs and his loneliness awaken our pity. "The fallen +angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had +friends and associates in his desolation; I am quite alone," the monster +complains to his creator. Who can forget the scene where he watches +Frankenstein at work making for him the companion that he had promised? +Perhaps sadder than the story of the monster is that of Frankenstein, +who, led by a desire to widen human knowledge, finds that the fulfilment +of his lofty ambition has brought only a curse to mankind. + +In 1823, Mary Shelley published a second novel, _Valperga_, so named +from a castle and small independent territory near Lucca. Castruccio +Castracani, whose life Machiavelli has told, is the hero of the story. +The greatest soldier and satirist of his times, the man of the novel is +considered inferior to the man of history. Mrs. Shelley had read +broadly before beginning the book, and she has described minutely the +customs of the age about which she is writing. Shelley pronounced it "a +living and moving picture of an age almost forgotten." + +The interest centres in the two heroines, Euthanasia, Countess of +Valperga, and Beatrice, Prophetess of Ferrara. Strong, intellectual, and +passionate, not until the time of George Eliot did women of this type +become prominent in fiction. Euthanasia, a Guelph and a Florentine, with +a soul "adapted for the reception of all good," was betrothed to the +youth Castruccio, whom she at that time loved. Later, when his character +deteriorated under the influence of selfish ambition, she ceased to love +him, and said, "He cast off humanity, honesty, honourable feeling, all +that I prize." Castruccio belonged to the Ghibelines, so that the story +of their love is intertwined with the struggle between these two parties +in Italy. + +But more beautiful than the intellectual character of Euthanasia, is the +spiritual one of Beatrice, the adopted daughter of the bishop of +Ferrara, who is regarded with feelings of reverence by her countrymen, +because of her prophetic powers. Pure and deeply religious, she accepted +all the suggestions of her mind as a message from God. When Castruccio +came to Ferrara and was entertained by the bishop as the prince and +liberator of his country, she believed that together they could +accomplish much for her beloved country: "She prayed to the Virgin to +inspire her; and, again giving herself up to reverie, she wove a subtle +web, whose materials she believed heavenly, but which were indeed stolen +from the glowing wings of love." No wonder she believed the dictates of +her own heart, she whose words the superstition of the age had so often +declared miraculous. She was barely seventeen and she loved for the +first time. How pathetic is her disillusionment when Castruccio bade her +farewell for a season, as he was about to leave Ferrara. She had +believed that the Holy Spirit had brought Castruccio to her that by the +union of his manly qualities and her divine attributes some great work +might be fulfilled. But as he left her, he spoke only of earthly +happiness: + +"It was her heart, her whole soul she had given; her understanding, her +prophetic powers, all the little universe that with her ardent spirit +she grasped and possessed, she had surrendered, fully, and without +reserve; but, alas! the most worthless part alone had been accepted, and +the rest cast as dust upon the winds." + +Afterwards, when she wandered forth a beggar, and was rescued by +Euthanasia, she exclaimed to her: + +"You either worship a useless shadow, or a fiend in the clothing of a +God." + +The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft could fully sympathise with +Beatrice. In the grief, almost madness, with which Beatrice realises her +self-deception, there are traces of Frankenstein. Perhaps no problem +plucked from the tree of good and evil was so ever-present to Mary +Shelley as why misery so often follows an obedience to the highest +dictates of the soul. Both her father and mother had experienced this; +and she and Shelley had tasted of the same bitter fruit. In the analysis +of Beatrice's emotions Mrs. Shelley shows herself akin to Charlotte +Brontë. + +Three years after the death of Shelley, she published _The Last Man_. It +relates to England in the year 2073 when, the king having abdicated his +throne, England had become a republic. Soon after this, however a +pestilence fell upon the people, which drove them upon the continent, +where they travelled southward, until only one man remained. The plot is +clumsy; the characters are abstractions. + +But the feelings of the author, written in clear letters on every page, +are a valuable addition to the history of the poet Shelley and his wife. +Besides her fresh sorrow for her husband, Byron had died only the year +before. Her mind was brooding on the days the three had spent together. +Her grief was too recent to be shaken from her mind or lost sight of in +her imaginative work. Shelley, and the scenes she had looked on with +him, the conversations between him and his friends, creep in on every +page. Lionel Verney, the Last Man, is the supposed narrator of the +story. He thus describes Adrian, the son of the king: "A tall, slim, +fair boy, with a physiognomy expressive of the excess of sensibility and +refinement, stood before me; the morning sunbeams tinged with gold his +silken hair, and spread light and glory over his beaming countenance ... +he seemed like an inspired musician, who struck, with unerring skill, +the 'lyre of mind,' and produced thence divinest harmony.... His slight +frame was over informed by the soul that dwelt within.... He was gay as +a lark carrolling from its skiey tower.... The young and inexperienced +did not understand the lofty severity of his moral views, and disliked +him as a being different from themselves." Shelley, of course, was the +original of this picture. Lord Byron suggested the character of Lord +Raymond: "The earth was spread out as a highway for him; the heavens +built up as a canopy for him." "Every trait spoke predominate self-will; +his smile was pleasing, though disdain too often curled his lips--lips +which to female eyes were the very throne of beauty and love.... Thus +full of contradictions, unbending yet haughty, gentle yet fierce, +tender and again neglectful, he by some strange art found easy entrance +to the admiration and affection of women; now caressing and now +tyrannising over them according to his mood, but in every change a +despot." + +A large part of the three volumes is taken up with a characterisation of +Adrian and Lord Raymond, the latter of whom falls when fighting for the +Greeks. How impossible it was for her to rid her mind of her own sorrow +is shown at the end of the third volume, where Adrian is drowned, and +Lionel Verney is left alone. He thus says of his friend: + +"All I had possessed of this world's goods, of happiness, knowledge, or +virtue--I owed to him. He had, in his person, his intellect, and rare +qualities, given a glory to my life, which without him it had never +known. Beyond all other beings he had taught me that goodness, pure and +simple, can be an attribute of man." + +Mrs. Shelley made the great mistake of writing this novel in the first +person. _The Last Man_, who is telling the story, although he has the +name of Lionel, is most assuredly of the female sex. The friendship +between him and Adrian is not the friendship of man for man, but rather +the love of man and woman. + +Mrs. Shelley's next novel, _Lodore_, written in 1835, thirteen years +after the death of her husband, had a better outlined plot and more +definite characters. But again it echoes the past. Lord Byron's unhappy +married relations and Shelley's troubles with Harriet are blended in the +story, Lord Byron furnishing the character in some respects of Lord +Lodore, while his wife, Cornelia Santerre, resembles both Harriet and +Lady Byron. Lady Santerre, the mother of Cornelia, augments the trouble +between Lord and Lady Lodore, and, contrary to the evident intentions of +the writer, the reader's sympathies are largely with Cornelia and Lady +Santerre. When Lodore wishes Cornelia to go to America to save him from +disgrace, Lady Santerre objects to her daughter's accompanying him: + +"He will soon grow tired of playing the tragic hero on a stage +surrounded by no spectators; he will discover the folly of his conduct; +he will return, and plead for forgiveness, and feel that he is too +fortunate in a wife who has preserved her own conduct free from censure +and remark while he has made himself a laughing-stock to all." + +These words strangely bring to mind Lord Byron as having evoked them. + +Again Lady Lodore's letter to her husband at the time of his departure +to America reminds one of Lady Byron: + +"If heaven have blessings for the coldly egotistical, the unfeeling +despot, may those blessings be yours; but do not dare to interfere with +emotions too pure, too disinterested for you ever to understand. Give me +my child, and fear neither my interference nor resentment." + +Lady Lodore's character changes in the book, and becomes more like that +of Harriet Shelley. As Mrs. Shelley wrote, fragments of the past +evidently came into her mind and influenced her pen, and her original +conception of the characters was forgotten. Clorinda, the beautiful, +eloquent, and passionate Neapolitan, was drawn from Emilia Viviani, who +had suggested to Shelley his poem _Epipsychidion_, while both Horatio +Saville, who had "no thought but for the nobler creations of the soul, +and the discernment of the sublime laws of God and nature," and his +cousin Villiers, also an enthusiastic worshipper of nature, possessed +many of Shelley's qualities. + +Besides two other novels of no value, _Perkin Warbeck_ and _Falkner_, +Mrs. Shelley wrote numerous short stories for the annuals, at that time +so much in vogue. In 1891, these were collected and edited with an +appreciative criticism by Sir Richard Garnett. Many of them have the +intensity and sustained interest of Frankenstein. + +After the death of her husband, grief and trouble dimmed Mrs. Shelley's +imagination. But the pale student Frankenstein, the monster he created, +and the beautiful priestess, Beatrice, three strong conceptions, testify +to the genius of Mary Shelley. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +Mrs. Gore. Mrs. Bray + + +During the second decade of the nineteenth century, while Scott was +writing some of the most powerful of the Waverley novels, a host of new +writers sprang into popular notice. John Galt, William Harrison +Ainsworth, and G. P. R. James began their endless series of historical +romances, while in 1827, Bulwer Lytton and Benjamin Disraeli introduced +to the reading public, as the representatives of fashionable society, +_Falkland_ and _Vivian Grey_. The decade was prolific also in novels by +women. Jane Austen had died in 1817, but Maria Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, +the Porters, Amelia Opie, Miss Ferrier, Mrs. Shelley and Miss Mitford +were still writing; during this period, Mrs. S. C. Hall began her work +in imitation of Miss Mitford, while Mrs. Gore and Mrs. Bray took up the +goose-quill, piled reams of paper on their desks, and began their +literary careers. + +About a score of years before Thackeray tickled English society with +pictures of its own snobbery, Mrs. Gore, a young woman, wife of an +officer in the Life Guards, saw through the many affectations of the +polite world, and in a series of novels, pointed out its ludicrous +pretences with lively wit. Mrs. Gore has suffered, however, from the +multiplicity of her writings. During the years between 1823, when she +wrote her first novel, _Theresa Marchmont_, and 1850, when, quite blind, +she retired from the world of letters, she published two hundred volumes +of novels, plays, and poems. Her plots are often hastily constructed, +her men and women dimly outlined, but she is never dull. No writer since +Congreve has so many sparkling lines. She has been likened to Horace, +and if we compare her wit with that of Thackeray, who by the way +ridiculed her in his _Novels by Eminent Hands_, her humour has qualities +of old Falernian, beside which his too frequently has the bitter flavour +of old English beer. The Englishman is inclined to take his wit, like +his sports, too seriously, and to mingle with it a little of the spice +of envy. Mrs. Gore has none of this, however, and skims along the +surface of fashionable life with a grace and ease and humour extremely +diverting. + +Her writings are so voluminous that one can only make excerpts at +random. One of the liveliest is _Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb_, +a humorous satire on _Vivian Grey_. "The arch-coxcomb of his +coxcombical time" had become a coxcomb at the age of six months, when he +first saw himself in the mirror, from which time his nurse stopped his +crying by tossing him in front of a looking-glass. His curls made him so +attractive that at six years of age he was admitted to his mother's +boudoir, from which his red-headed brother was excluded, and he +superseded the spaniel in her ladyship's carriage. With the loss of his +curls went the loss of favour. He did not prosper at school, and was +rusticated after a year's residence at Oxford. Here he formed an +acquaintance which helped him much in the world of coxcombry. Though +this man was not well born, he was an admitted leader among gentlemen. +Cecil soon discovered that his high social position was due entirely to +his impertinence, and he made this wise observation: "Impudence is the +quality of a footman; impertinence of his master. Impudence is a thing +to be rebutted with brute force; impertinence requires wit for the +putting down." So he matched his wit with this man's impertinence, and +they became sworn friends. + +When Cecil went to London, he found that "people had supped full of +horrors, during the Revolution, and were now devoted to elegiac +measures. My languid smile and hazel eyes were the very thing to settle +the business of the devoted beings left for execution." Of course all +the women fell desperately in love with him. "I had always a +predisposition to woman-slaughter, with extenuating circumstances, as +well as a stirring consciousness of the exterminating power," he +explains to us. Like Childe Harold and Vivian Grey, this coxcomb soon +became weary of London, and travelled through Europe in an indolent way, +for after all it was his chief pleasure "to lie in an airy French bed, +showered over with blue convolvulus," and read tender billets from the +ladies. This book was an excellent antidote to the Byronic fever, then +at its height. + +In her _Sketches of English Character_, Mrs. Gore describes different +men who were in her time to be met with in the social life of London. +The Dining-Out Man thus speaks for himself: + +"Ill-natured people fancy that the life of a dining-out man is a life of +corn, wine, and oil; that all he has to do is to eat, drink and be +merry. I only know that, had I been aware in the onset of life, of all I +should have to go through in my vocation, I would have chosen some +easier calling. I would have studied law, physic, or divinity." + +In the sketches of _The Clubman_, she assigns John Bull's dislike of +ladies' society as the reason for the many clubs in the English +metropolis: + +"While admitting woman to be a divinity, he chooses to conceal his idol +in the Holy of Holies of domestic life. Duly to enjoy the society of +Mrs. Bull, he chooses a smoking tureen, and cod's head and shoulders to +intervene between them, and their olive branches to be around their +table.... For John adores woman in the singular, and hates her in the +plural; John loves, but does not like. Woman is the object of his +passion, rarely of his regard. There is nothing in the gaiety of heart +or sprightliness of intellect of the weaker sex which he considers an +addition to society. To him women are an interruption to business and +pleasure." + +Mrs. Gore could also unveil hypocrisy. In her novel _Preferment, or My +Uncle the Earl_, she thus describes a worthy ornament of the church: + +"The Dean of Darbington glided along his golden railroad--'mild as +moonbeams'--soft as a swansdown muff--insinuating as a silken eared +spaniel. His conciliating arguments were whispered in a tone suitable to +the sick chamber of a nervous hypochondriac, and his strain of argument +resembled its potations of thin, weak, well-sweetened barley water. +While Dr. Macnab succeeded with _his_ congregation by kicking and +bullying them along the path of grace, Dr. Nicewig held out his finger +with a coaxing air and gentle chirrup, like a bird-fancier decoying a +canary." + +A critic in the _Westminster Review_ in 1831 thus writes of her: + +"Mrs. Gore has a perfectly feminine knowledge of all the weaknesses and +absurdities of an ordinary man of fashion, following the routine of +London life in the season. She unmasks his selfishness with admirable +acuteness; she exposes his unromantic egotism, with delightful +sauciness. Her portraits of women are also executed with great spirit; +but not with the same truth. In transferring men to her canvas, she has +relied upon the faculty of observation, usually fine and vigilant in a +woman; but when portraying her own sex, the authoress has perhaps looked +within; and the study of the internal operations of the human machine is +a far more complex affair, and requires far more extensive experience, +and also different faculties, from those necessary to acquire a perfect +knowledge of the appearances on the surface of humanity." + +Notwithstanding Mrs. Gore touches so lightly on the surface of life, +certain definite sociological and moral principles underlie her work. +She is as democratic as Charlotte Smith, Mrs. Inchbald, Miss Mitford, or +even William Godwin. She asserts again and again that men of inferior +birth with the same opportunities of education may be as intellectual +and refined as the sons of a "hundred earls." Those members of the +aristocracy who fail to recognise the true worth of intelligent men of +plebeian origin are made very ridiculous. In her novel _Pin Money_, +published in 1831, how very funny is Lady Derenzy's speech when she +learns that a soap manufacturer is being fêted in fashionable society! +Lady Derenzy, by the way, is the social law-giver to her little coterie: + +"It is now some years," said she, "since the independence of America, +and the influence exerted in this country by the return of a large body +of enlightened men, habituated to the demoralising spectacle of an +equalisation of rank, was supposed to exert a pernicious influence on +the minds of the secondary and inferior classes of Great Britain. At +that critical moment I whispered to my husband, 'Derenzy! be true to +yourself, and the world will be true to you. Let the aristocracy of +Great Britain unite in support of the Order; and it will maintain its +ground against the universe!' Lord Derenzy took my advice, and the +country was saved. + +"Again, when the assemblage of the States General of France,--the fatal +tocsin of the revolution,--spread consternation and horror throughout +the higher ranks of every European country, and the very name of the +guillotine operated like a spell on the British peerage, I whispered to +my husband, 'Derenzy! be true to yourself, and the world will be true +to you. Let the aristocracy of Great Britain unite in support of the +Order; and it will maintain its ground against the universe!' Again Lord +Derenzy took my advice, and again the country was saved." + +Mrs. Gore has so cleverly mingled the so-called self-made men and men of +inherited rank in her books that one cannot distinguish between them. In +_The Soldier of Lyons_, one of her early novels, which furnished Bulwer +with the plot of his play _The Lady of Lyons_, the hero, a peasant by +birth and a soldier of the Republic, enters into a marriage contract +with the widow of a French marquis, in order to save her from the +guillotine. This lady of high rank learns to respect her husband, and +becomes the suitor for his love. In _The Heir of Selwood_, a former +field marshal of Napoleon, a peasant, devotes his energies to improving +the condition of the poor on the estate he had won by his services to +his country, and at his death his tenants erected a column to his +memory, bearing the inscription: "Most dear to God, to the king, and to +the people." + +Mrs. Gore constantly asserts that the only distinctions between men are +based upon character and ability. She says of one of her characters, a +poet: + +"His footing in society is no longer dependent upon the caprice of a +drawing-room. It is the security of that intellectual power which forces +the world to bend the knee. The poor, dreamy boy, self-taught, +self-aided, had risen into power. He wields a pen. And the pen in our +age weighs heavier in the social scale than a sword of a Norman baron." + +Mrs. Gore lived at a time when the introduction of machinery and the +establishment of large factories was producing a new type of man: men +like Burtonshaw in _The Hamiltons_: "A practical, matter-of-fact +individual, with plenty of money and plenty of intellect; the sort of +human power-loom one would back to work wonders against a dawdling old +spinning-jenny like Lord Tottenham." + +A critic in the _Westminster Review_ wrote in 1832 as follows: + +"The wealthy merchant or money-dealer is represented, perhaps for the +first time in fiction, as a man of true dignity, self-respect, +education, and thorough integrity, agreeable in manners, refined in +tastes, and content with, if not proud of, his position in society." + +Mrs. Gore was called by her contemporaries the novelist of the new era. + +She was also interested in the great ethical questions of life. She did +not write of the love of youthful heroes and more youthful heroines. She +often traced the consequences of sin on character and destiny. In _The +Heir of Selwood_, she is as stern a moralist in tracing the effects of +vice as George Eliot. _The Banker's Wife_, the scene of which is laid +among the merchants of London, is a serious study of the sorrows of a +life devoted to outward show. The picture of the banker among his +guests, whose wealth, unknown to them, he has squandered, reminds one of +the days before the final overthrow of Dombey and Son. + +Mrs. Gore was a woman of genius. With the stern principles of the +puritan, and feelings as republican as the mountain-born Swiss, she was +never controversial. She saw the absurdities of certain hollow +pretensions of society, but her good-humoured raillery offended no one. +If her two hundred volumes could be weeded of their verbiage by some +devotee of literature, and reduced to ten or fifteen, they would be not +only entertaining reading, but would throw strong lights upon the +_élite_ of London in the days when hair-oils, pomades, and strong +perfumes were the distinguishing marks of the Quality. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Gore owed her place in English letters to native wit and ability; +Mrs. Bray owed hers to hard study and painstaking endeavour. She was one +of the few women who followed the style of writing brought to perfection +by Sir Walter Scott. + +Mrs. Bray became imbued with the historic spirit early in life. Her +first husband was Charles Stothard, the author of _Monumental Effigies +of Great Britain_, with whom she travelled through Brittany, Normandy +and Flanders. While he made careful drawings of the ruins of castles and +abbeys, she read Froissart's _Chronicles_, visited the places which he +has described, and traced out among the people any surviving customs +which he has recorded. + +Two novels were the result of these studies. _De Foix, or Sketches of +the Manners and Customs of the Fourteenth Century_, is a story of Gaston +Phoebus, Count de Foix, whose court Froissart visited, and of whom he +wrote: "To speak briefly and truly, the Count de Foix was perfect in +person and in mind; and no contemporary prince could be compared with +him for sense, honour, or liberality." _The White Hoods_, a name by +which the citizens of Ghent were denominated, is laid in the +Netherlands, and tells of the conflict between the court and the +citizens of Ghent, under Philip von Artaveld, during the reign of +Charles the Fifth of France and the early kingship of Charles the Sixth. +As in all her novels, the accuracy for which she strove in the most +minute details retards the action of the plot, but adds to the +historical value of these romances. + +For the tragic romance of _The Talba, or Moor of Portugal_, Mrs. Bray, +as she had not visited the Spanish peninsula, depended upon her reading. +The plot was suggested to her by a picture of Ines de Castro in the +Royal Academy. It represented the gruesome coronation of the corpse of +Ines de Castro, six years after her death. Thus did her husband, Don +Pedro, show honour to his wife, who had been put to death while he, then +a prince, was serving in the army of Portugal. The whole story is a +fitting theme for tragedy, and was at one time dramatised by Mary +Mitford. In order to give her mind the proper elevation for the +impassioned scenes of this novel, it was Mrs. Bray's custom to read a +chapter of Isaiah or Job each day before beginning to write. + +After the death of her first husband, Mrs. Bray married the vicar of +Tavistock, and for thirty-five years lived in the vicarage of that town. +Here she became interested in the legends of Devon and Cornwall, and +wrote five novels founded upon the history of tradition of those +counties. _Henry de Pomeroy_ opens at the abbey of Tavistock, one of the +oldest abbeys in England, during the reign of Richard Coeur-de-Leon. +The scene of _Fitz of Fitz-Ford_ is also laid at Tavistock, but during +the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Another story of the reign of the Virgin +Queen was _Warleigh, or the Fatal Oak: a Legend of Devon_. _Courtenay of +Walreddon: a Romance of the West_ takes place in the reign of Charles +the First, about the commencement of the Civil War. A gypsy girl, by +name Cinderella Small, is introduced into the story, and has been highly +praised. The character, as well as some of the stories told of her, was +drawn from life. + +But the most famous of these novels is _Trelawny of Trelawne; or the +Prophecy: a Legend of Cornwall_, a story of the rebellion of Monmouth. +Like most of the romances upon English themes, the private history of +the family furnishes the romance, the historical happenings being used +only for the setting: the usual method of Scott. The hero of this novel +is Sir Jonathan Trelawny, one of the seven bishops who were committed to +the Tower by James the Second. When he was arrested by the king's +command, the Cornish men rose one and all, and marched as far as Exeter, +in their way to extort his liberation. Trelawny is a popular hero of +Cornwall, as the following lines testify: + + A good sword and a trusty hand! + A merry heart and true! + King James's men shall understand + What Cornish lads can do! + + And have they fixed the where and when? + And shall Trelawny die? + Here's twenty thousand Cornish men + Will know the reason why! + + Out spake their captain brave and bold, + A merry wight was he-- + "If London Tower were Michael's hold, + We'll set Trelawny free!" + + We'll cross the Tamar, land to land, + The Severn is no stay, + All side to side, and hand to hand, + And who shall say us nay? + + And when we come to London Wall, + A pleasant sight to view, + Come forth! Come forth! Ye cowards all, + To better men than you! + + Trelawny he's in keep and hold-- + Trelawny he may die, + But here's twenty thousand Cornish bold + Will know the reason why! + +Like Scott, Mrs. Bray went about with notebook in hand, and noted the +features of the landscape, the details of a ruin, or the furniture or +armour of the period of which she was writing. It is this painstaking +work, together with the fact that she had access to places and books +that were then denied to the ordinary reader, and chose subjects and +places not before treated in fiction, that gives permanent value to her +writings. She also had the proper feeling for the past, and dignity and +elevation of style. Sometimes an entire page of her romances might be +attributed to the pen of the "Mighty Wizard." Perhaps the highest +compliment that can be paid her as an artist is that she resembles Scott +when he is nodding. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Julia Pardoe. Mrs. Trollope. Harriet Martineau + + +Somewhere between the second and third decades of the nineteenth +century, the modern novel was born. The romances of the twenties are, +for the most part, old-fashioned in tone, and speak of an earlier age; +but in the thirties, the modern novel, with its exact reproduction of +places, customs, and speech, and strong local flavour, was full-grown. +Dickens, under the name of Boz, was contributing his sketches to _The +Old Monthly Magazine_ and the _Evening Chronicle_. Thackeray was +beginning to contribute articles to _Fraser's Magazine_, established in +1830. Annuals and monthlies sprang up in the night, and paid large sums +for long and short stories. The thirst for them was unquenchable. Many +women were supporting themselves by writing tales which did not live +beyond the year of their publication. Mrs. Marsh was writing stories of +fashionable life varied by historical romances. Mrs. Crowe wrote +stories of fashionable life varied by supernatural romances and tales of +adventure. In _The Story of Lilly Dawson_, published in 1847, the +heroine was captured and brought up by smugglers, and the gradual +development of her character was traced; thus giving to the story a +psychological interest. Lady Blessington earned two thousand pounds a +year for twenty years by novels and short stories of fashionable life. +Lady Blessington had a European reputation as a court beauty and a +brilliant and witty conversationalist. This with the coronet must have +helped to sell her books. They do not contain even a sentence that holds +the attention. A friend said of her, "Her genius lay in her tongue; her +pen paralysed it." More enduring work in fiction was done by Julia +Pardoe, Mrs. Trollope, and Harriet Martineau. + + * * * * * + +The novels of Julia Pardoe, like those of Mrs. Bray, owe their value, +not to their intrinsic merit, but to the comparatively unknown places to +which she introduces her readers. She accompanied her father, Major +Pardoe, to Constantinople, where they were entertained by natives of +high position, to whom they had letters of introduction, and Miss Pardoe +was the guest of their wives in the harem. Her knowledge of the mode of +life and habits of thought of Turkish women is considered second only +to that of Mary Wortley Montagu. + +The material for her story _The Romance of the Harem_ was obtained +during her visits to these Turkish ladies. In this she has caught the +languid, heavily perfumed atmosphere of the Orient. Besides the main +plot, stories of adventure and love are related which beguiled the +slowly passing hours of the inmates of the seraglio. Some of them might +have been told by Schehezerhade, if she had wished to add to her +entertainment of _The Thousand and One Nights_. + +After Miss Pardoe's return to England, she wrote a series of fashionable +novels, inferior to many of those of Mrs. Gore, and better than the best +of those by Lady Blessington. _Confessions of a Pretty Woman_, _The +Jealous Wife_, and _The Rival Beauties_ were the most popular of these, +although they have long since been forgotten. + +In 1849, Miss Pardoe published a collection of stories under the title +_Flies in Amber_. The title, she explains in the preface, was suggested +by a belief of the Orientals that amber comes from the sea, and attracts +about it all insects, which find in it both a prison and a posthumous +existence. Some of the stories of this collection were gathered in her +travels. _An Adventure in Bithynia_, _The Magyar and the Moslem, or an +Hungarian Legend_, and the _Yèrè-Batan-Seraï_, which means +Swallowed-up Palace, the great subterranean ruin of Constantinople, have +the interest which always attaches to tales gathered by travellers in +unfrequented places. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Frances Trollope, the mother of the more famous author Anthony +Trollope, like Miss Pardoe, found material for stories in unfamiliar +places. Mrs. Trollope had the nature of the pioneer. With her family, +she sought our western lands of the Mississippi Valley, where the virgin +forest had resounded to the axe of the first settler but a short time +before. She wrote the first book of any note describing the manners of +the Americans; the first strong novel calling attention to the evils of +slavery in our Southern States; and the first one describing graphically +the white slavery in the cotton-mills of Lancashire; and she is, +perhaps, the only writer who began a long literary career at the age of +fifty-two. + +On the fourth of November, 1827, Mrs. Trollope with her three children +sailed from London, and, after about seven weeks on the sea, arrived on +Christmas Day at the mouth of the Mississippi. After a brief visit in +New Orleans, this party of English travellers sailed up the river to +Memphis, where, remote from the comforts of civilisation, they abode for +a time under the direction of Mrs. Wright, an English lecturer who had +come to America for the avowed purpose of proving the perfect equality +of the black and white races. But Mrs. Trollope and her family soon +tired of life in the wilderness, and sought Cincinnati, at that time a +small city of wooden houses, not over thirty years of age. After two +years' residence in Cincinnati, she went by stage to Baltimore, visited +Philadelphia and New York, and returned to England, after a sojourn of +three and a half years in this country. + +During her residence in the United States, she made copious notes of +what she saw and heard. These she published the year after her return to +England, under the title _Domestic Manners of the Americans_. At once +the pens of all the critics were let loose upon the author. Her American +critics declared that she knew nothing about them or their country; and +their English friends refused to believe that the people of America had +such shocking bad manners. + +Mrs. Trollope reported truthfully what she saw and heard. But a frontier +city is made up of people gathered from the four corners of the earth: +each family is a law unto itself; so that the speeches Mrs. Trollope +carefully set down, and the customs she depicted, were often +peculiarities of individuals rather than of a community. But she has +left a vivid picture of American life in the twenties, less exaggerated +than the picture Charles Dickens gave of it in the forties. Mrs. +Trollope's attitude is no more hostile than his, but he is more +entertaining. He held us up to ridicule and laughed at us; she seriously +pointed out our errors in the hope that we might amend. She is slightly +inconsistent at times, for, while asserting the equality of whites and +blacks, she as bitterly resented the equality of white master and white +servant. Her purpose in writing this book was to warn her own countrymen +of the evils which must follow a government of the many. + +Although she never takes the broad view, but always the narrow and +partial one, her book gives a good picture of the everyday life and +habits of thought of the next generation to that which had fought and +won the American Revolution. The white heat of republican fervour, so +obnoxious to a European, welded the nation together as one people, and +filled their hearts with a religious reverence for the constitution. She +meant them as a reproach, but we read these words with pride: "I never +heard from anyone a single disparaging word against their government." + +Mrs. Trollope has been described by her friends as a refined woman of +charming personality. But as soon as she began to write, she donned her +armour and proclaimed her hostility either to her hero or to the larger +part of the characters of the book. This method is dangerous to art. +Even the genius of Thackeray is lessened by his lack of sympathy. + +In 1833 Mrs. Trollope published her first novel, _The Refugee in +America_. It is the story of an English lord who has fled to America to +escape English justice. He and his friends have settled in Rochester, +New York. It was written for the sole purpose of describing the manners +of the people of our Eastern cities. The author's attitude toward them +is well illustrated by a conversation between Caroline, the young +English girl, and her American _protégée_, Emily. After a dinner in +Washington, Caroline exclaims to her friend: + +"'Oh, my own Emily, you must not live and die where such things be.' + +"Emily sighed as she answered, 'I am born to it, Miss Gordon.' + +"'But hardly bred to it. We have caught you young, and we have spoiled +you for ever as an American lady.'" + +Three years later Mrs. Trollope published her strongest novel, _The Life +and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw_. This is a powerful +picture of early life on the Mississippi; it was the first novel since +Mrs. Behn's _Oroonoko_ which called attention to the evils of African +slavery. It is marred, however, by want of sympathy with the community +she is describing. Mr. Jonathan Whitlaw Senior has "squat in the bush," +an expression to which Mrs. Trollope objects, but which brings to mind +at once the log cabin in the forest clearing, and the muscular, uncouth +pioneer. Jonathan furnishes firewood to the Mississippi steamers, and by +this means gains sufficient wealth to carry out his life's ambition: to +set up a store in Natchez, and to own "niggers." But the life of a +pioneer has made Jonathan as cunning as a fox. This cunning his son +Jonathan, the hero of the story, has inherited to the full. As a +slave-owner he is as grasping and cruel as Legree, whom Mrs. Stowe +immortalised some years later. His character, though drawn with strength +and vigour, is inconsistent. He is a miser, yet he is a gambler and a +spendthrift, qualities not often found together. He is not a true +representative of the son of a pioneer. Clio Whitlaw, the aunt of the +hero, belongs more truly to her environment. One suspects the English +family at Cincinnati had received neighbourly kindnesses from women like +her. With her physical strength and great courage she is kind and +neighbourly to all who need her help. The sad story of Edward Bligh, the +young Kentuckian who preached the gospel to the slaves, the victim of +lynch law, a word dreaded even then, is as thrilling as parts of _Uncle +Tom's Cabin_. + +Besides _Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw_, Mrs. Trollope created two other +characters that will cause her name to live as long as those of William +Harrison Ainsworth or G. P. R. James. The coarse scheming widow Barnaby +is the heroine of three novels, _Widow Barnaby_, _The Widow Married_, +and _The Widow Wedded, or the Barnabys in America_. In the last book +Mrs. Trollope somewhat humorously pays off her scores against her +American critics, who had dubbed her a cockney, unfamiliar with good +society in either England or America. The Widow Barnaby, who has come to +New Orleans with her husband after his little gambling ways have made +residence in London unpleasant, decides to earn some money by writing a +book on America. She describes the Americans, not as they are, but as +they think they are. She listens to all their boasts about themselves +and country, and puts it faithfully in her book. Of course they like it +and she becomes the literary lion of America. + +Anthony Trollope, in his book _An Autobiography_, said of his mother's +books on America: "Her volumes were very bitter; but they were very +clever, and they saved the family from ruin." She is also given the +credit of having improved the manners of American society. Whenever a +"gentleman" at his club put his feet on the table, or indulged in any +liberty of which she would not have approved, others cried, "Trollope! +Trollope! Trollope!" + +The _Vicar of Wrexhill_, the scene of which is laid in England, is an +attack on the evangelical clergy in the Episcopal Church. The vicar is +no truer to the great body of evangelical preachers than Jonathan +Jefferson Whitlaw is true to the great body of slave-owners. There is +the same exaggeration to prove a theory. Evangelical preaching is +harmful, is the theorem, and a man is selected to prove it who in any +walk of life would be a hypocrite and libertine. The book has many +interesting situations. The vicar's proposal to the rich widow, one of +his parishioners, is clever: "Let me henceforth be as the shield and +buckler that shall guard thee; so that thou shalt not be afraid for any +terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day." And he promises, +if she will marry him, to lead her "sinful children into the life +everlasting." No other book has shown, as this does, the powerful effect +upon sensitive natures of this kind of preaching. One feels that the +followers of the Reverend Vicar were under the influence of hypnotic +suggestion, and that their awakening from this spell was like the +awakening from a trance. + +Mrs. Trollope was actuated by humanitarian motives. This was not as +usual then as since Dickens popularised the humanitarian novel. Only +three years after he wrote _Sketches by Boz_, Mrs. Trollope wrote _The +Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong_, the story of a boy employed +in the mills of Lancashire. Negro slavery in the South, even as Mrs. +Trollope saw it, was a happy state of existence compared with child +slavery in the mills of Ashleigh and Deep Valley, Lancashire, where the +children were driven to work by the lash in the morning, and were +crippled by the "Billy roller," the name of the stick by which they were +beaten for inattention to their work during the day. If the truth of +these horrors were not attested by other writers of this time, one would +doubt the possibility of their existence in the same land and at the +same time in which Wordsworth was writing of the beauties of his own +childhood, where the river Derwent mingled its murmurs with his nurse's +song. + +Mrs. Trollope assailed injustice with a powerful pen. Woman's moral +nature is truer and more sensitive than man's. Even if her sympathies +cloud her judgment, it is better than that her judgment should reason +away her sympathies. Neither has woman in her philanthropy contented +herself with broad principles which would help all and therefore reach +none. The dusky slave in the cotton-fields, the pale-faced child in the +cotton-mills, have alike touched the hearts of women, who by their pens +have been able to awaken the conscience of a nation. The horror of child +labour wrung from Mrs. Browning the heart-felt poem, _The Cry of the +Children_. The four strong novels proclaiming the tyranny of the whites +over the blacks, _Oronooko_, _Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw_, _Uncle Tom's +Cabin_, and _The Hour and the Man_, were written by women. + + * * * * * + +The name of Harriet Martineau was a familiar one in every household +during the early years of Queen Victoria's reign. Like Mrs. Trollope she +was a woman of fearless honesty. But Harriet Martineau was never the +_raconteur_, she was first the educator. She wrote story after story to +teach lessons in political and social science. Her method of work, as +set forth in her autobiography, was peculiar, and the result is not +uninteresting. In her _Political Economy Tales_, she selected certain +principles which she wished to set forth, and embodied each principle in +a character. The operations of these principles furnished the plot of +the story. Besides the illustrations of the principles by the +characters, the laws were discussed in conversation, and thus the lesson +was taught. In the story _Brooke and Brooke Farm_, she made use of an +expression which Ruskin almost paraphrased: "The whole nation, the whole +world, is obliged to him who makes corn grow where it never grew +before; and yet more to him who makes two ears ripen where only one +ripened before." In the tale _A Manchester Strike_, factory life and the +problems that face the working men are set forth, the aim being to show +that work and wages depend upon the great laws of supply and demand. + +Miss Martineau wrote two novels. _Deerbrook_, in 1839, was modelled on +_Our Village_. The village doctor, Mr. Hope, is the central figure. Firm +in his convictions, he loses the favour of the leading families, and +through their influence he is deprived of his practice. A fever, +however, sweeps over the place and his former enemies beg, not in vain, +for his skilful services. A double love story runs through the book. +Mrs. Rowland, a scheming woman, is the most cleverly drawn of the +characters, and was evidently suggested by some of Miss Edgeworth's +fashionable ladies. + +Harriet Martineau also visited America, but some years later than Mrs. +Trollope, when the slavery agitation was at its height. As she had +written upon the evils of slavery before she left England, she was +invited to attend a meeting of the Abolitionists in Boston. She accepted +this invitation, and expressed there her abhorrence of slavery. After +this she received letters from some of the citizens of the pro-slavery +States, threatening her life if she entered their domain. This +naturally threw her entirely with the Abolition party, and she wrote +many articles to help their cause. + +Miss Martineau's second novel, _The Hour and the Man_, grew out of her +sympathy and belief in the coloured race. Toussaint de L'Ouverture, the +devoted slave, soldier, liberator, and martyr, is the hero. Every scene +in which this wonderful black figures is vividly written. Many of the +minor incidents are but slightly sketched, and many of the minor +characters elude the reader's grasp. How far this book is a truthful +portrayal of the negro cannot be judged until the "race problem" is +surveyed with unprejudiced eyes. Then and not until then will its place +in literature be assigned. She gives the same characterisation of this +hero of St. Domingo as does Wendell Phillips in his wonderful speech of +which the following is the peroration: + +"But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of History +will put Phocian for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for +England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, consummate +flower of our earlier civilisation, then, dipping her pen in the +sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the +soldier, the statesman, the martyr, TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE." + +_The Hour and the Man_ was published in 1840, and was warmly received by +the Abolitionists. William Lloyd Garrison, after reading it, wrote the +following sonnet to the author: + + England! I grant that thou dost justly boast + Of splendid geniuses beyond compare; + Men great and gallant,--women good and fair,-- + Skilled in all arts, and filling every post + Of learning, science, fame,--a mighty host! + Poets divine, and benefactors rare,-- + Statesmen,--philosophers,--and they who dare + Boldly to explore heaven's vast and boundless coast, + To one alone I dedicate this rhyme, + Whose virtues with a starry lustre glow, + Whose heart is large, whose spirit is sublime, + The friend of liberty, of wrong the Foe: + Long be inscribed upon the roll of time + The name, the worth, the works of HARRIET MARTINEAU. + +Miss Martineau wrote on a variety of subjects, and generally held a view +contrary to the accepted one. She wrote upon mesmerism, positivism, +atheism, which she professed, and after each book warriors armed with +pens sprang up to assail the author. But she had many friends, even +among those who were most bitter against her doctrines. One wrote of +her, "There is the fine, honest, solid, North-country element in her." +R. Brimley Johnson in _English Prose_, edited by Craik in 1896, said of +her writings: + +"Her gift to literature was for her own generation. She is the exponent +of the infant century in many branches of thought:--its eager and +sanguine philanthropy, its awakening interest in history and science, +its rigid and prosaic philosophy. But her genuine humanity and real +moral earnestness give a value to her more personal utterances, which do +not lose their charm with the lapse of time." + +Harriet Martineau's name and personality will be remembered in history +after her books have been forgotten. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +The Brontës + + +During the middle of the nineteenth century, English fiction largely +depicted manners and customs of different classes and different parts of +England. While Dickens, Thackeray, Disraeli, and Mrs. Gaskell were +writing realistic novels, romantic fiction found noble exponents in the +Brontë sisters. + +The quiet life lived by the Brontës in the vicarage on the edge of the +village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire seems prosaic to the +casual observer, but it had many weird elements of romanticism. The +purple moors stretching away behind the grey stone vicarage, the grey +sky, and the sun always half-frowning, and never sporting with nature +here as it does over the mountains in Westmoreland, make thought earnest +and deep, and suggest the mystery which surrounds human life. It is a +serious country, that of the Wharf valley; the people are a serious +people, silent and observant. The Brontës were a direct outcome of this +country and people, only in them their severity and silence were kindled +into life by a Celtic imagination. + +What a group of people lived within those grey stone walls! As the vicar +and his four motherless children gathered about their simple board, +while they engaged in conversation with each other or with the curate, +what scenes would have been enacted in that quiet room if the fancies +teeming in each childish brain could have been suddenly endowed with +life! How could even a dull curate, with an undercurrent of addition and +subtraction running in his brain, based upon his meagre salary and +economical expenditures, have been insensible to the thought with which +the very atmosphere must have been surcharged? The brother, Patrick +Branwell, found his audience in the public house, and delighted it with +his wit and conversation. The sisters, after their household tasks were +done, wrote their stories and often read them to each other. + +But fate had chosen her darkest hues in which to weave the warp and woof +of their lives. The wild dissipations and wilder talk of their brother +Branwell clouded the imaginations of his sisters, and in a short time +death was a constant presence in their midst. In September, 1848, +Branwell died at the age of thirty; in less than three months, Emily +died at the age of twenty-nine; and in five-months, Anne died at the +age of twenty-seven; and Charlotte, the eldest, was left alone with her +father. During the remaining six years of her life, her compensation for +her loss of companionship was her writing. Not long after the death of +her sisters, Mr. Nicholls proposed to her; was refused; proposed again +and was accepted; then came the separation caused by Mr. Brontë's +hostility to the marriage; then the marriage in the church under whose +pavement so many members of her family were buried, grim attendants of +her wedding; then the nine short months of married life; then the death +of the last of the Brontë sisters at the age of thirty-nine. Mr. Brontë +outlived her only six years, but he was the last of his family. Six +children had been born to Patrick Brontë, not one survived him. Forty +years had eliminated a family which yet lives through the imaginative +powers of the three daughters who reached years of maturity. + +Of the three sisters, the least is known of Emily, and her one novel, +_Wuthering Heights_, reveals nothing of herself. Not one of the +characters thought or felt as did the quiet, retiring author. Yet so +great was her dramatic power that her brother Branwell was credited with +the book, as it was deemed impossible for a woman to have conceived the +character of Heathcliff. And yet this arch-fiend of literature was +created by the daughter of a country vicar, whose only journeys from +home had been to schools, either as pupil or governess. Charlotte Brontë +has thrown but little light upon her sister's character. She says that +she loved animals and the moors, but was cold toward people and repelled +any attempt to win her confidence. The author of _Jane Eyre_ seems +neither to have understood Emily's nature nor her genius. Yet we are +told that Emily was constantly seen with her arms around the gentle +Anne, and that they were inseparable companions. If Anne Brontë could +have lived longer, she would have thrown much light upon the character +of the author of _Wuthering Heights_. But now, as we read of her brief +life and her one novel, she seems to belong to the great dramatists +rather than to the novelists, to the poets who live apart from the world +and commune only with the people of their own creating. + +_Wuthering Heights_ stands alone in the history of prose fiction. It +belongs to the wild region of romanticism, but it imitates no book, and +has never been copied. No incident, no character, no description, can be +traced to the influence of any other book, but the atmosphere is that of +the West Riding of Yorkshire. + +Charlotte Brontë thus speaks of it in a letter to a friend: + +"_Wuthering Heights_ was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out +of homely materials. The statuary found a granite block on a solitary +moor; gazing thereon, he saw how from the crag might be elicited a head, +savage, swart, sinister: a form moulded with at least one element of +grandeur--power. He wrought with a rude chisel, and from no model but +the vision of his meditations. With time and labour, the crag took human +shape, and there it stands, colossal, dark and frowning, half statue, +half rock, in the former sense, terrible and goblin-like; in the latter, +almost beautiful, for its colouring is of mellow grey, and moorland moss +clothes it, and heath, with its blooming bells and balmy fragrance, +grows faithfully close to the giant's foot." + +All of this is true, but it gives only the general outlines, nothing of +the inner meaning. + +In all literature, there is not so repulsive a villain as Heathcliff, +the offspring of the gipsies. Insensible to kindness, but resentful of +wrong; hard, scheming, indomitable in resolution; quick to put off the +avenging of an injury until he can make his revenge serve his purpose; +the personification of strength and power; he is yet capable of a love +stronger than his hate. Heathcliff is so repulsive that he does not +attract, and drawn with such skill that, as has been said, he has not +been imitated. + +But the strong, dark picture of Heathcliff makes us forget that +Catharine is the centre of the story. The night that Mr. Lockwood spends +at Wuthering Heights he reads her books, and her spirit appears to him +crying for entrance at the window, and complaining that she has wandered +on the moors for twenty years. While living, she represents a human soul +balanced between heaven and hell, loved by both the powers of darkness +and of light. But in her earliest years, she had loved Heathcliff; their +thoughts, their affections were intertwined, and they were welded, as it +were, into one soul, not at first by love, but by their common hatred of +Hindley Earnshaw. When Catharine meets Edgar Linton, her finer nature +asserts itself. She loves him as a being from another world; he gives +her the first glimpse of real goodness, kindness, and gentleness. She +catches through him a gleam of Paradise. But she knows how transient +this is, and says to her old nurse, Nelly Dean: + +"I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in +heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so +low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry +Heathcliff now; and that, not because he's handsome, no, Nelly, but +because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his +and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from +lightning, or frost from fire." + +But Catharine is married to Edgar, and for three years her better nature +triumphs. Heathcliff is away; Edgar Linton loves her truly, and their +home is happy. Catharine alone knows that that house is not her true +place of abode. She alone knows that Edgar has not touched her inner +nature. She knows that her real self, the self that must abide through +the centuries, is indissolubly linked with another's. And when +Heathcliff returns, the intensity of her joy, her almost unearthly +delight, she neither can nor attempts to conceal. Not once is she +deceived as to his true nature. She knows the depth of his depravity, +and thus warns the girl who has fallen in love with him: + +"He's not a rough diamond--a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic;--he's +a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, let this or that +enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them,--I +say, let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged: and he'd +crush you, like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome +charge." + +But Catharine's nature is akin to his, and it is with almost brutal +delight that she helps forward this marriage, when she finds the girl +does not trust her word. + +Then comes the strife between Edgar and Heathcliff for the soul, so it +seems, of Catharine. There is no jealousy on Edgar's part. The book +never stoops to anything so earthly. Edgar loathes Heathcliff and cannot +understand Catharine's affection for her early playmate. Although she +never for a moment hesitates in her allegiance to Heathcliff, it is this +strife that causes her death. The strife between good and evil wears her +out. + +Even after her death, her soul cannot leave this earth. It is still +joined to Heathcliff's. It resembles here the story of Paola and +Francesca. Catharine is waiting for him and his only delight is in her +haunting presence. Heathcliff cannot be accused of keeping Catharine +from Paradise. In life she would not let him from her presence, and she +clings to him now. It is the story of _Undine_ reversed. Undine gained a +soul through a mortal's love. And we feel toward the close that +Catharine, selfish and passionate as she was, is yet Heathcliff's better +spirit. Catharine while living had prevented Heathcliff from killing her +brother. Although he loved Catharine better than himself, and would have +made any sacrifice at her request, he feels no more tenderness for her +offspring than for his own. But the spirit of Catharine lived in her +child and nephew, and when they looked at him with her eyes, he had no +pleasure in his revenge upon the son of Hindley nor on the daughter of +Edgar Linton. + +In the tenderness that once or twice comes over Heathcliff as he looks +at Hareton Earnshaw, there is a ray of promise that he may be redeemed. +And in the final outcome of the story, one can but hope that Catharine's +restless spirit, as it watches and waits for Heathcliff, is striving to +bring some blessing upon her house. The awakening of a better nature in +Hareton, through his love for Catharine's daughter, is a pretty, tender +idyl. The book is like a Greek tragedy in this, that at the close the +atmosphere has been purged; the sun once more shines through the windows +of Wuthering Heights; hatred is dead, and love reigns supreme. + +_Wuthering Heights_ is a novel not of externals, not of character, but +of something deeper, more vital. The love of Catharine and Heathcliff +has no physical basis; it is the union of souls evil, but not material. +It is the sex of spirit, not of body, that adds its might to the +resistless force that unites these two. Notwithstanding the external +pictures are so distinct that a painter could transfer them to his +canvas, the book is a soul-tragedy. + +_Wuthering Heights_ cannot be classed among the so-called popular +novels. It has appealed to the poets rather than to the readers of +fiction. It has received the warmest praise from the poet Swinburne. In +_The Athenæum_ of June 16, 1883, he thus eulogises it: + +"Now in _Wuthering Heights_ this one thing needful ['logical and moral +certitude'] is as perfectly and triumphantly attained as in _King Lear_ +or _The Duchess of Malfi_, in _The Bride of Lammermoor_ or _Notre-Dame +de Paris_. From the first we breathe the fresh dark air of tragic +passion and presage; and to the last the changing wind and flying +sunlight are in keeping with the stormy promise of the dawn. There is no +monotony, there is no repetition, but there is no discord. This is the +first and last necessity, the foundation of all labour and the crown of +all success, for a poem worthy of the name; and this it is that +distinguishes the hand of Emily from the hand of Charlotte Brontë. All +the works of the elder sister are rich in poetic spirit, poetic feeling, +and poetic detail; but the younger sister's work is essentially and +definitely a poem in the fullest and most positive sense of the term." + +At the close of this essay he writes: + +"It may be true that not many will ever take it to their hearts; it is +certain that those who do like it will like nothing very much better in +the whole world of poetry or prose." + +All that we know of Emily Brontë's nature is consistent, such as we +would expect of the author of _Wuthering Heights_. The first stanza of +her last poem, written but a short time before her death, reveals her +strength of will and faith: + + No coward soul is mine, + No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: + I see Heaven's glories shine, + And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. + +These lines evoked the following tribute from Matthew Arnold: + + ----she + (How shall I sing her?) whose soul + Knew no fellow for might, + Passion, vehemence, grief, + Daring, since Byron died, + That world-famed son of fire--she, who sank + Baffled, unknown, self-consumed; + Whose too bold dying song + Stirr'd, like a clarion-blast, my soul. + +The great books of prose fiction have been for the most part the work of +mature years. The lyric poets burst into rhapsody at the dawn of life; +but the powers of the novelist have ripened more slowly. The novelists +have done better work after thirty-five than at an earlier age but few +of them have written a classic at the age of twenty-eight, as did Emily +Brontë. + + * * * * * + +Anne Brontë's fame has been both augmented and dimmed by the greater +genius of her two sisters. She is remembered principally as one of the +Brontës, so that her books have been oftener reprinted and more +extensively read than their actual merit would warrant. In comparison +with the greater genius of Charlotte and Emily, her writings have been +declared void of interest, and without any ray of the brilliancy which +distinguishes their books. This latter statement is not true. Anne +Brontë did not have their imaginative power, but she reproduced what she +had seen and learned of life with conscientious devotion to truth. +_Wuthering Heights_ and _Agnes Grey_, Anne Brontë's first book, were +published together in three volumes so as to meet the popular demand +that novels, like the graces, should appear in threes. It is a +photographic representation of the life of a governess in England during +the forties. Agnes's courage in determining to augment the family income +by seeking a position as governess; the high hopes with which she enters +upon her first position; her conscientious resolve to do her full +Christian duty to the spoiled children of the Bloomfields; her dismissal +and sad return home; her second position in the family of Mr. Murray, a +country squire; the two daughters, one determined to make a fine match +for herself, the other a perfect hoyden without a thought beyond the +horses and dogs; the disregard of the truth in both; Mr. Hatfield, the +minister, who cared only for the county families among his +parishioners; Miss Murray's marriage for position and the unhappiness +that followed it--form a series of photographs, which only a sensitive, +responsive nature could have produced. The contrast between the gentle, +refined governess, and the coarse natures upon whom she is dependent, is +well shown, although there is no attempt on the part of the author to +assert any superiority of one over the other. We have many books in +which the shrinking governess is described from the point of view of the +family or one of their guests, but here the governess of an English +fox-hunting squire has spoken for herself; she has described her trials +and the constant self-sacrifice which is demanded of her without +bitterness, and in a kindly spirit withal, and for that reason the book +is a valuable addition to the history of the life and manners of the +century. + +_The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_, her second novel, was a peculiar book to +have shaped itself in the brain of the gentle youngest daughter of the +Vicar of Haworth. But Anne Brontë had seen phases of life which must +have sorely wounded her pure spirit. She had been governess at Thorp +Green, where her brother Branwell was tutor, and where he formed that +unfortunate attachment for the wife of his employer, which, with the +help of liquor and opium, deranged his mind. Anne wrote in her diary at +this time, "I have had some very unpleasant and undreamt-of experience +of human nature." As we picture Anne Brontë, with her light brown hair, +violet-blue eyes, shaded by pencilled eyebrows, and transparent +complexion, she seems a spirit of goodness and purity made to behold +daily a depth of evil in the nature of one dear to her, which fills her +with wonderment and horror. + +Mr. Huntingdon of Wildfell Hall was drawn from personal observation of +her brother. She wrote with minuteness, because she believed it her duty +to hold up his life as a warning to others. The gradual change in Mr. +Huntingdon from the happy confident lover to the ruined debauchee is +well traced; the story of his infatuation for the wife of his friend, so +reckless that he attempted no concealment, is realistic in the extreme. +But what a change in the novel! A hundred years before, Huntingdon would +have made a fine hero of romance, but here he is disgraced to the +position of chief villain, and the reader feels for him only pity and +loathing. Probably a man's pen would have touched his errors more +lightly, but Anne Brontë painted him as he appeared to her. The author +attributes such a character as Huntingdon's to false education, and +makes her heroine say: + +"As for my son--if I thought he would grow up to be what you call a man +of the world,--one that has 'seen life,' and glories in his experience, +even though he should so far profit by it as to sober down, at length, +into a useful and respected member of society--I would rather that he +died to-morrow--rather a thousand times." + +Notwithstanding its defects--and it is full of them judged from the +stand-point of art--_Wildfell Hall_ is a book of promise. In the +descriptions of the Hall, the mystery that surrounds its mistress, the +rumours of her unknown lover, the heathclad hills and the desolate +fields, there are romantic elements that remind one of _Wuthering +Heights_. The book is more faulty than _Agnes Grey_, but the writer had +a deeper vision of life with its weaknesses and its depths of human +passion. If years had mellowed that "undreamt-of experience" of Thorp +Green, Anne Brontë with her truthful observation and sympathetic insight +into character might have written a classic. The material out of which +_Wildfell Hall_ was wrought, under a more mature mind, with a better +grasp of the whole and a better regard for proportion, would have made a +novel worthy of a place beside _Jane Eyre_. + + * * * * * + +That English fiction has produced sweeter and more varied fruit by being +grafted with the novels of women no one who gives the matter a serious +thought can for a moment doubt. One distinctive phase of woman's mind +made its way but slowly in the English novel. Women are by nature +introspective. They read character and are quick to grasp the motives +and passions that underlie action. The French women have again and again +embodied this view of human nature in their novels, which are +essentially of the inner life. _The Princess of Clèves_ by Madame de +Lafayette, written in 1678, is the first book in which all the conflicts +are those of the emotions; here the great triumph is that which a woman +wins over her own heart. Madame de Tencin in _Mémoires du Comte de +Comminges_ represents her hero and heroine under the influence of two +great passions, religion and love. Madame de Souza, Madame Cottin, +Madame de Genlis, Madame de Staël, and George Sand wrote novels of the +inner life. The Princess of Clèves with noble dignity controls her +emotion and at last conquers it. The pages of George Sand thrill with +unbridled passion. + +The English women, however, are more repressed by nature than the +French, and the English novel of the inner life advanced but slowly. The +emotions of the long-forgotten Sidney Biddulph are minutely told. _A +Simple Story_ by Mrs. Inchbald is a psychological novel. Amelia Opie, +Mary Brunton, and Mrs. Shelley wrote novels of the inner life. + +But _Jane Eyre_ is the first English novel which in sustained intensity +of emotion can compare with the novels of Madame de Staël or George +Sand. The style partakes of the high-wrought character of the heroine, +and the reader is whirled along in the vortex of feeling until he too +partakes of every varied mood of the characters, and closes the book +fevered and exhausted. It is one of the ironies of fate that Charlotte +Brontë with her strong pro-Anglican prejudices should belong to the +school of these French women. But there is the same difference between +their writings that there is between the French temperament and the +English. Even in the wildest moments of Jane Eyre her passion is rather +like the river Wharf when it has overflowed its banks; while theirs is +like the mountain torrent that bears all down before it. + +Much of the passion that Charlotte Brontë describes is pure imagination. +She wrote freely to her friends about herself and the people whom she +knew. The three rejected suitors caused her only a little amusement. Her +love for Mr. Nicholls, whom she afterwards married, was little warmer +than respect. We could as easily weave a romance out of Jane Austen's +remark that the poet Crabbe was a man whom she could marry as to make a +love story out of Charlotte's relations to Monseiur Héger, who figures +as the hero in three of her books. Here she is greater than the French +women writers: they knew by experience what they wrote; she by innate +genius. + +Perhaps no novelist ever had more meagre materials out of which to make +four novels than had Charlotte Brontë: her sisters, Monsieur and Madame +Héger, the curates, and herself; a small village in Yorkshire, two +boarding schools, two positions as governess, and a short time spent in +a school in Brussels. Compare this range with the material that Scott, +Dickens, or Thackeray had--then judge how much of the elixir of genius +was given to each. + +The early pages of _Jane Eyre_, the first novel which Charlotte Brontë +published, describe Lowood Institution, a place modelled upon Cowan's +Bridge School. The two teachers, the kind Miss Temple and the cruel Miss +Scatcherd, were drawn from two instructors there at the time the Brontës +attended it. Helen Burns, so untidy but so meek in spirit, was Maria +Brontë, the eldest sister, who died at the age of eleven, probably as a +result of the poor food and harsh treatment of the school. With what +calm she replies to Jane, when she would sympathise with her for an +unjust punishment: + +"I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, +things in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should +learn my lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I +cannot bear to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very +provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and +particular." + +Helen Burns, with her calm submission, and Jane Eyre, with her +rebellious spirit, are finely contrasted. Jane's passionate resentment +of the punishments which Miss Scatcherd inflicted on Helen was genuine. +Charlotte was nine years old when she left Cowan's Bridge School, but +her suppressed anger at the punishments which her sister Maria had +received there flashed out years afterwards in _Jane Eyre_. + +Charlotte Brontë was writing _Jane Eyre_ at the same time that Emily and +Anne were writing _Wuthering Heights_ and _Agnes Grey_. As they read +from their manuscripts, Charlotte objected to beauty as a requisite of a +heroine, and said, "I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as +myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours." So arose the +conception of Jane Eyre. If the slight, shy, Yorkshire governess, +without beauty or charm of manner, had appeared before the imagination +of any novelist either male or female, at that time, and asked to be +admitted into the house of fiction, she would have been refused entrance +as cruelly as Hannah shut the door in the face of Jane Eyre, when she +came to her dripping with the rain, cold and weak from two nights' +exposure on the moor, and asking for charity. But Charlotte Brontë, +with a woman's sympathetic eye made doubly penetrating and loving by +genius, chose this outcast from romance as a heroine, a woman without +beauty or charm, and boldly proclaimed that moral beauty was superior to +physical beauty, and that the attraction of one soul for another lay +quite beyond the pale of external form. + +Jane Eyre is not, however, Charlotte Brontë, as has been so often +asserted. She would not have gone back to comfort Mr. Rochester, after +she had once left the Hall. One suspects that he was drawn from reading, +since the author hardly trusted her knowledge of worldly men to draw a +fitting lover for Jane. Mr. Rochester is very much the same type of man +as Mr. B., whom Pamela married, and the independent Jane addresses him +as "My Master," an expression constantly on the lips of Pamela. Yet +Rochester leaves a permanent impression on the mind, for he represents a +strong man at war with destiny. He conceals his marriage because of his +determination to conquer fate. It is pointed out by critics to-day that +he is quite an impossible character, that he is, in fact, a woman's +hero. It is well to remember, however, that the author of _Jane Eyre_ +was believed at first to have been a man, as it was thought impossible +for a man like Rochester to have been conceived in a woman's brain, and +not until Mrs. Gaskell's life of the Brontës was published was +Charlotte's character as a modest woman established. But men have +repudiated Mr. Rochester, and so we must accept their judgment. + +The heroine of her next novel, _Shirley_, was suggested by Emily Brontë. +Only Shirley was not Emily. Shirley could not have conceived even the +dim outlines of _Wuthering Heights_, but she had many of the strong +qualities of Emily, and these, mingled with the softer stuff of her own +nature, make her contradictory but charming, and Louis Moore, an +agreeable tutor whom Emily Brontë would have quite despised, naturally +falls in love with his wayward pupil, as they pore over books in the +school-room. Shirley is contrasted with Caroline Helstone, of whom Mrs. +Humphry Ward says: "For delicacy, poetry, divination, charm, Caroline +stands supreme among the women of Miss Brontë's gallery." Even if other +admirers of Miss Brontë deny her this eminence, she certainly possesses +all the qualities, rare among heroines, which Mrs. Ward has attributed +to her. + +In many of the conversations between Shirley and Caroline, there are +reminders of what passed between the Brontë sisters in their own home. +The relative excellence of men and women novelists always interested +them. Shirley evidently expressed Charlotte's own views in the +following words: + +"If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; +but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about +women. They do not read them in a true light; they misapprehend them, +both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, +half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. Then to hear them +fall into ecstasies with each other's creations, worshipping the heroine +of such a poem--novel--drama, thinking it fine,--divine! Fine and divine +it may be, but often quite artificial--false as the rose in my best +bonnet there. If I spoke all I think on this point, if I gave my real +opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate works, where +should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging stones in half-an-hour." + +"After all," says Caroline, "authors' heroines are almost as good as +authoresses' heroes." + +"Not at all," Shirley replies. "Women read men more truly than men read +women. I'll prove that in a magazine article some day when I've time; +only it will never be inserted; it will be 'declined with thanks,' and +left for me at the publisher's." + +The greater part of the men in _Shirley_ were drawn from life, and are +as true to their sex as were the heroines of Dickens, Thackeray, or +Disraeli, who were then writing. As for the curates, they are perfect. +No man's hand could have executed their portraits so skilfully. They +have no more real use in the story than they seem to have had in their +respective parishes. But this daughter of a country vicar, who knew +nothing of the London cockney, who was then enlivening the books of +Dickens, seized upon the funniest people she knew, the curates, and they +have been immortalised. + +There is often in Charlotte Brontë's novels a separation of plot and +character, as if they formed themselves independently in her mind. This +is especially true of _Shirley_. At that time the attention of England +was directed toward the manufacturing towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire. +Mrs. Trollope and Harriet Martineau had written upon conditions of life +there. In _Sybil_ Disraeli considered broadly the underlying causes of +the misery of the operatives. Mrs. Gaskell wrote _Mary Barton_, a story +of Manchester life, the same year that Charlotte Brontë was writing +_Shirley_. The plot of the last named is laid in the early years of the +nineteenth century, and turns upon the opposition of the workmen to the +introduction of machinery. But the plot and characters are constantly +getting in each other's way and tripping each other up. Though the book +is full of defects, one cannot judge it harshly. When she began the +funny description of the curates' tea-drinking, her brother and sisters +were with her. Before it was finished, she and her father were left +alone. But at this time the public demanded melodrama. Fires, drownings, +and death-beds were popular methods of untying hard knots and of playing +upon the emotions of the reader. She, like Mrs. Gaskell, constantly +resorts to outside circumstances to help put things to rights when they +are drifting in the wrong direction, circumstances which Jane Austen +would not have admitted in a book of hers. + +Before Charlotte Brontë wrote _Jane Eyre_ or _Shirley_, she had finished +_The Professor_, and offered it to different publishers, but it was +rejected by all. Finally she herself lost faith in it, and transformed +it into the beautiful story of _Villette_, where the school of Madame +and Monseiur Héger in Brussels is made immortal. In the plot of +_Villette_, as in the plot of _Jane Eyre_ and of _Shirley_, many +extraneous events happen which are either unexpected or unnecessary. +Like _Jane Eyre_, _Villette_ is steeped in the romantic spirit, but the +hard light of reason again dispels the illusion. In the management of +the supernatural Charlotte is far inferior to Emily. The explanation of +the nun in _Villette_ is even childish. It is the mistake made by Mrs. +Radcliffe, by nearly all writers of the age of reason. They give a ray, +as it were, a whisper from the mysterious world which surrounds that +which is manifest to our everyday senses. Be it the fourth dimension, or +what not, we catch for a moment a message from this other world, which, +even indistinct, still tells us that this visible world is not all, that +there is something beyond. Then, with hard common-sense, they deny their +own message, and, so doing, deny to us the world of mystery, and leave +us only the material world in which to believe. Not so Emily Brontë. Not +so Scott or Shakespeare. We may believe in Hamlet's ghost or not; we may +believe or not in the White Lady of Avenel; we may believe or not that +Catharine's soul hovered near Heathcliff. But we are still left with a +belief in the life after death, and still believe in something beyond +experience, and still grope to find those things in heaven and earth of +which philosophy does not dream. + +But the characters, not the plot, remain in the mind, after reading +_Villette_. Madame Beck, whose prototype was Madame Héger, is as clever +as Cardinal Wolsey or Cardinal Richelieu; but she uses all her +diplomatic skill in the management of a lady's school, which, under her +ever watchful eye, with the aid of duplicate keys to the trunks and +drawers of the teachers and pupils, runs without friction of any kind. +Lucy Snowe, the English teacher in _Villette_, is far more pleasing than +Jane Eyre; she is not so passionate, but her view of life is deeper and +broader, and consequently kinder. And there is Paul Emanuel. Who would +have believed the rejected professor would have grown into that scholar +of middle age? He is so distinctly the foreigner in showing every +emotion under which he is labouring. How pathetic and how lovable he is +on the day of his fête when he thinks that the English governess has +forgotten him, and has not brought even a flower to make the day happier +for him! So fretful in little things, so heroic in large things, with so +many faults which every pupil can see, but with so many virtues, frank +even about his little deceptions, he is a lovable man. But many of Miss +Brontë's readers do not find Paul Emanuel as delightful as Paulina, the +womanly little girl who grows into the childlike woman. She is as +sensitive as the mimosa plant to the people about her. Every event of +her childhood, all the people she cared for then, remained indelibly +imprinted on her mind, so that, with her, friendship and love are strong +and abiding. + +Notwithstanding their many defects, Charlotte Brontë's novels have left +a permanent impression upon English fiction and have won an acknowledged +place among English classics. She first made a minute analysis of the +varying emotions of men and women, and noted the strange, unaccountable +attractions and repulsions which everybody has experienced. Paulina, a +girl of six, is happy at the feet of Graham, a boy of sixteen, although +he is unconscious of her presence. And so instance after instance can be +given of affinities and antipathies which lie beyond human reason. She, +like her sister Emily, though with less clear vision, was searching for +the hidden sources of human feeling and human action. + +Charlotte Brontë wrote to a friend: + +"I always through my whole life liked to penetrate to the real truth; I +like seeking the goddess in her temple, and handling the veil, and +daring the dread glance." + +Her truthfulness in painting emotion, which to her own generation seemed +most daring, even coarse, has given an abiding quality to her work. And +besides she created Paulina and Paul Emanuel. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Mrs. Gaskell + + +Ever since Eve gave Adam of the forbidden fruit, "and he did eat," the +relative position of the sexes has rankled in the heart of man. The sons +of Adam proclaim loudly that they were given dominion over the earth and +all that the earth contained; but they have been ever ready to follow +blindly the beckoning finger of some fair daughter of Eve. Perhaps it is +a consciousness of this domination of the weaker sex that has led man to +proclaim in such loud tones his mastery over woman, having some doubts +of its being recognised by her unless asserted in bold language. At a +time when the novels of women received as warm a welcome from the public +and as large checks from the publishers as those of men, a writer whose +sex need not be given thus discussed their relative merits: + +"What is woman, regarded as a literary worker? Simply an inferior +animal, educated as an inferior animal. And what is man? He is a +superior being, educated by a superior being. So how can they ever be +equal in that particular line?" + +Granted the premises, there can be but one conclusion. + +The perfect assurance with which men have asserted their own sufficiency +in all lines of art would be amusing if it had not been so disastrous in +distorting and warping at least three of them: music, the drama, and +prose fiction. As slow as the growth of spirituality, has been the +recognition of woman's mental and moral power. It seems almost +incredible that not many years ago only male voices were heard in places +of amusement. Deep, rich, full, and sonorous, no one disputes the beauty +of the male chorus; but modern opera would be impossible without the +soprano and alto voices, and Madame Patti, Madame Sembrich, and Madame +Lehman have proved that in natural gifts and in the technique of art +women are not inferior to their brethren. + +By the same slow process women have won recognition on the stage. Even +in Shakespeare's time men saw no reason why women should acquire the +histrionic art. Imagine Juliet played by a boy! Yet Essex, Leicester, +Southampton, in the boxes, the groundlings in the pit, and Ben Jonson +sitting as critic of all, were well satisfied with it, for they were +used to it, just as men have accepted the heroines of their own novels, +though every woman they meet is a refutation of their truth. It only +needed a woman in a woman's part to open the eyes of the audience to all +they had missed before. Not until the Restoration, did any woman appear +on the English stage. The following lines given in the prologue written +for the revival of _Othello_, in which the part of Desdemona was acted +for the first time by a woman, show how quick critics were to see the +folly of the old custom: + + For to speak truth, men act, that are between + Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen, + With bone so large, and nerve so uncompliant, + When you call Desdemona, enter Giant. + +As we cannot conceive of the English stage without such women as Mrs. +Siddons, Charlotte Cushman, and Ellen Terry, so we cannot conceive of +the English novel without such writers as Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, +Mary Mitford, the Brontës, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot, each one +of whom carried some phase of the novel to so high a point that she has +stood pre-eminent in her own particular line. Too often we confuse art +with its subject-matter. If it requires as much skill to give interest +to the everyday occurrences of the home as to the thrilling adventures +abroad; to depict the life of women as the life of men; to reveal the +joys and sorrows of a woman's heart as the exultations and griefs of +man's; then these women deserve a place equal to that held by +Richardson, Fielding, Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray. Their art, as their +subject-matter, is different. With the exception of George Eliot, they +have not virility with its strength and power, but they have femininity, +no less strong and powerful, a quality possessed by Scott, but by no +other of these masculine writers, with the possible exception of +Dickens, and in him it is a femininity, which tends to run to +sentimentalism, a different characteristic. + + * * * * * + +Elizabeth Gaskell, one of the most feminine of writers, is so well known +as the author of _Cranford_, that delightful village whose only +gentleman dies early in the story, that many of its readers do not know +that its author was better known by her contemporaries through her +humanitarian novels; in which she discussed the great problems that face +the poor. + +Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Stevenson, was born in Chelsea in +1810. She spent the greater part of her childhood and girlhood at the +home of her mother's family, Knutsford in Cheshire, the place she +afterward made famous under the name of Cranford. In 1832, she married +the Reverend William Gaskell, minister of the Unitarian chapel in +Manchester, and that city became her home. She took an active interest +in all the affairs of the city, and constantly visited the poor. Her +husband's father, besides being the professor of English History and +Literature in Manchester New College, a Unitarian institution, was a +manufacturer; thus Mrs. Gaskell had the opportunity of hearing both +sides of the controversy which was then waging between labour and +capital. + +In the early forties, there was much suffering among the "mill-hands"; +many were dying of starvation, and consequently there were many strikes +and uprisings. These conditions led to her writing her first novel, +_Mary Barton_. The book was written during the years 1845-1847, although +it was not published until 1848. The nucleus of it, Mrs. Gaskell wrote +to a friend, was John Barton. Since she herself was constantly wondering +at the inequalities of fortune, which permitted some to starve, while +others had abundance, how must it affect an ignorant man, himself on the +verge of starvation, and filled with pity for the sufferings of his +friends? Driven almost insane by the condition of society, and hoping to +remedy it, he commits a crime, which preys so upon his conscience that +it finally wears out his own life. + +Mrs. Gaskell in this, her first novel, has left an undying picture of +that section of smoky Manchester where the mill-workers live: its +narrow lanes; small but not uncomfortable cottages, well supplied with +furniture in days when work was plentiful, but destitute even of a fire +when it was scarce; the undersized men and women, with irregular +features, pale blue eyes, sallow complexions, but with an intelligence +rendered quick and sharp by their life among the machinery, and by their +hard struggle for existence. The life of the poor had often furnished a +theme for the poets, but it was the life of shepherds and milkmaids, +above whom the blue sky arched, and whose labours were brightened by the +songs of the birds, and the colours and sweet odours of fruit and +flowers. But Mrs. Gaskell described the life of the poor in a town where +factory smoke obscured the light of the sun, and where the weariness of +labour was rendered more intense by the clanging factory bell, and the +constant whirr of machinery ringing in their ears. It is a gloomy +picture, but no gloomier than the reality. + +Disraeli in _Sybil_ discussed the questions of labour and capital in +their relations to the history of England, with a broad intellectual +grasp of the sociological causes which produced these conditions. He +wrote in the interests of two classes, the Crown and the People, with +the hope that England might again have a free monarchy and a prosperous +people. It is a well illustrated treatise on government, but the +principles advocated or discussed always overshadow the characters. He +had no such intimate knowledge of the lives of the poor as had Mrs. +Gaskell. She conducts us to the homes of John Barton, George Wilson, and +Job Legh, shows the simplicity of their lives, and their sense of the +injustice under which they are suffering, and their helpfulness to each +other in times of need. + +How simple and true is the friendship that binds Mary Barton, the +dressmaker's apprentice; Margaret, the blind singer; and Alice Wilson, +the aged laundress, whose mind is constantly dwelling on the green +fields and running brooks of her childhood's home. These women possess +the strength of character of the early Teutonic women. They are +reticent, not given to the exchange of confidences, but ready to help a +friend with all they have in the hour of need. When Margaret thinks that +the Bartons are in want of money, she says to Mary, "Remember, if you're +sore pressed for money, we shall take it very unkind if you do not let +us know." But she does not question her. Later when her great trouble +comes to Mary Barton, which she must bear alone, when she must free a +lover from the charge of murder without incriminating her father, she +shows presence of mind, clearness of vision, and both moral and physical +courage. + +Jem Wilson, the hero of the story, is as strong as Mary Barton, the +heroine. Although Dickens was writing of the poor, he always found some +means to educate his heroes, and generally placed them among gentlemen. +Jem Wilson's education was received in the factory, and the little rise +he made above his fellows was due to his better understanding of +machinery. He was a working man, proud of his skill, and of his good +name for honesty and sobriety. + +The plot of _Mary Barton_ is highly melodramatic, and its technique is +open to criticism. It should not be read, however, for the story, but +for the many home scenes in which we come into close sympathy with the +men and women of Manchester. There is no novel in which we feel more +strongly the heart-beats of humanity. It leaves the impression, not of +art, but of life. + +Mrs. Gaskell turned again to the struggles between labour and capital +for the plot of her novel _North and South_. Between this story and +_Mary Barton_ she had written _Cranford_ and _Ruth_, but her mind seemed +to revert, as it were, from the peaceful village life to the stirring +mill-towns of Lancashire. The great contrast between life in the +counties of England presided over by the landed gentry, and that in the +counties where the manufacturers formed the aristocracy, suggested this +book. It was published in 1855, seven years after _Mary Barton_. The +plot of _North and South_ is better proportioned than is that of _Mary +Barton_. There are fewer characters, better contrasted. It is a brighter +picture, with more humour, but it does not leave so strong an impression +on the mind as does the earlier work. Both, however, are more accurate +than _Hard Times_, a book with which Dickens himself was highly +dissatisfied. He knew little of the life in the manufacturing districts, +but, in a spirit of indignation at the poverty brought on by grasping +manufacturers, he caricatured the entire class in the persons of Mr. +Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby. When these men are compared with the +manufacturers as represented in _North and South_, Mrs. Gaskell's more +intimate knowledge of them is at once apparent. + +Mrs. Gaskell had been accused of taking sides with the working men, and +representing their point of view in _Mary Barton_. In _North and South_, +the hero, Mr. Thornton, is a rich manufacturer, a fine type of the +self-made man, but standing squarely on his right to do what he pleases +in his own factory. "He looks like a person who would enjoy battling +with every adverse thing he could meet with--enemies, winds, or +circumstances," was Margaret Hale's comment when she first met him. +"He's worth fighting wi', is John Thornton," said one of the leaders of +the strike. For although the condition of affairs in the mill-towns had +much improved since John Barton went to London as a delegate from his +starving townsmen, and was refused a hearing by Parliament, a large part +of the book is concerned with the story of a strike, which in its +outcome brought starvation to many of the men, and bankruptcy to some of +the masters, the acknowledged victors. + +Higgins, one of the leaders of the working men, is a true Lancashire +man, and like Thornton, the leader of the masters, has many traits of +character as truly American as English. His sturdy independence is well +shown in Margaret's first interview with him. The daughter of a vicar in +the south of England, she had been accustomed to call upon the poor in +her father's parish. Learning that Higgins's daughter, Bessy, is ill she +expresses her desire to call upon her. "I'm none so fond of having +stranger folk in my house," Higgins informs her, but he finally relents +and says, "Yo may come if yo like." + +But besides the conflict between the manufacturers and their employees, +with which much of the book is concerned, there is the sharp contrast +between the Hales, born and bred in the south of England, and the +mill-owners in whose society they are placed. Mr. Hale, indecisive, +inactive, in whom thought is more powerful than reality, is as helpless +as a child among these men of action, and utterly unable to cope with +the problems they are facing. Margaret, the refined daughter of a poor +clergyman, is contrasted with the proud Mrs. Thornton, the mother of a +wealthy manufacturer, who would make money, not birth, the basis of +social distinctions. But Margaret is even better contrasted with the +poor factory girl, Bessy Higgins, who turns to her for help and +sympathy. There is hardly a story of Mrs. Gaskell's which is not adorned +by the friendship of the heroine for some other woman in the book. + +In both these novels, she taught that the only solution of the great +problem of capital and labour was a recognition of the fact that their +interests were identical, and that friendly intercourse was the only +means of breaking down the barrier that divided them. + +Mrs. Gaskell was so versatile, she touched upon so many problems of +human life, that it is almost impossible to summarise her work. _Ruth_ +considers the question of the girl who has been betrayed. Ruth is as +pure as Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and like her is a victim of +circumstances. A stranger who has taken her under her protection reports +that Ruth is a widow, and Ruth passively acquiesces in the deception, +hoping that her son may never know the disgrace of his birth. But the +truth comes to light, involving in temporary disgrace Ruth and her son, +and the household of Mr. Benson, the dissenting minister whose home had +been her place of refuge. But Mrs. Gaskell is always optimistic. By her +good deeds, Ruth wins the love and honour of the entire community. This +novel was loudly assailed. It was claimed that Mrs. Gaskell had condoned +immorality, and it was considered dangerous teaching that good deeds +were an atonement for such a sin. But if _Ruth_ found detractors, it +also found warm admirers, who recognised the broader teachings of the +story. Mrs. Jameson wrote to Mrs. Gaskell: + +"I hope I do understand your aim--you have lifted up your voice against +'that demoralising laxity of principle,' which I regard as the ulcer +lying round the roots of society; and you have done it wisely and well, +with a mingled courage and delicacy which excite at once my gratitude +and my admiration." + +The scene of _Sylvia's Lovers_ is laid in Whitby, at a time when the +press-gang was kidnapping men for the British navy. It is a story of the +loves, jealousies, and sorrows of sailors, shopkeepers, and small +farmers, among whom Sylvia moves as the central figure. Du Maurier, who +illustrated the second edition of this novel, was so charmed with the +heroine that he named his daughter Sylvia for her. This story, like +_Ruth_, has much of the sentimentalism so fashionable in the middle of +the nineteenth century. The leading canon of criticism at that time was +the power with which a writer could move the emotions of the reader, and +the novelist was expected either to convulse his readers with laughter +or dissolve them into tears. There are many funny scenes in _Sylvia's +Lovers_, but the key-note is pathos. Like many novels of Dickens, there +are death-bed scenes introduced only for the luxury of weeping over +sorrows that are not real, and there are melodramatic situations as in +her other books. Parts of this novel suggested to Tennyson the poem of +_Enoch Arden_. + +But, however powerful may be the novels dealing with the questions that +daily confront the poor, there is a perennial charm in the society of +people who dwell amid rural scenes. Mrs. Gaskell has written several +short stories of the pastoral type. Such a story is _Cousin Phillis_. It +is a beautiful idyl and reminds one of the old pastorals in which ladies +and gentlemen played at shepherds and shepherdesses. Cousin Phillis +cooks, irons, reads Dante, helps the haymakers, falls in love, and mends +a broken heart, and is brave, true, and unselfish. Her father is what +one would expect from such a daughter. He cultivates his small farm, +finds rest from his labours in reading, and neglects none of the many +duties which belong to him as the dissenting minister of a small +village. + +_Cranford_ and _Wives and Daughters_ have this in common, that the scene +of both is laid in the village of Knutsford. The former is a rambling +story of events in two or three households, and of the social affairs in +which all the village is concerned. It is without doubt the favourite of +Mrs. Gaskell's novels. _Wives and Daughters_ was Mrs. Gaskell's last +story, and was left unfinished at her death. It shows a great artistic +advance over her earlier work. The plot is more natural; it has not so +many sharp contrasts, which George Eliot criticised in Mrs. Gaskell's +stories. The characters are also more subtle. Molly, the daughter of the +village doctor, is an unselfish, thoughtful girl, but with none of that +unreal goodness which Dickens sometimes gave to his heroines. When she +receives her first invitation to a child's party, and her father is +wondering whether or not she can go, her speech is characteristic of her +nature: + +"Please, Papa,--I do wish to go--but I don't care about it." + +Molly feels very keenly, and longs for things with all the strength of +an ardent nature, but she always subordinates herself and her wishes to +others. In the character of Cynthia, Mrs. Gaskell makes a plea for the +heartless coquette. Cynthia is beautiful, she likes to please those in +whose company she finds herself, but quickly forgets the absent. It is +not her fault that young men's hearts are brittle, for it is as natural +for her to smile, and be gay and forget, as it is for Molly to love, be +silent, and remember. So it is Cynthia who has the lovers, while Molly +is neglected. Clare, Cynthia's mother, is more selfish than her +daughter, but she has learned the art of seeming to please others while +thinking only of pleasing herself. She is as crafty as Becky Sharp, but +softer, more feline, and more subtle; a much commoner type in real life +than Thackeray's diplomatic heroine. + +Mr. A. W. Ward, in the biographical introduction to the Knutsford +Edition of her novels, says of her later work: + +"When Mrs. Gaskell had become conscious that if true to herself, to her +own ways of looking at men and things, to the sympathies and hopes with +which life inspired her, she had but to put pen to paper, she found what +it has been usual to call her later manner--the manner of which +_Cranford_ offered the first adequate illustration, and of which _Cousin +Phillis_ and _Wives and Daughters_ represent the consummation." + +The same critic compares the later work of Mrs. Gaskell with the later +work of George Sand and finds that "in their large-heartedness" they are +similar. He also gives George Sand's tribute to her English +contemporary. "Mrs. Gaskell," she said, "has done what neither I nor +other female writers in France can accomplish: she has written novels +which excite the deepest interest in men of the world, and yet which +every girl will be the better for reading." + +It is not often that a novelist finds another writer to take up and +enlarge her work as did Mrs. Gaskell. Her novels contain the germ of +much of George Eliot's earlier writings. _The Moorland Cottage_ +suggested many parts of _The Mill on the Floss_. Edward and Maggie +Brown--the former important, consequential and dictatorial, the latter +self-forgetful, eager to help others, and by her very eagerness prone to +blunders--were developed by George Eliot into the characters of Tom and +Maggie Tulliver. The weak and fretful mothers in the two books are much +alike, while the love story and the catastrophe have the same general +outline. + +They both drew largely from the working people of the North or of the +Midlands, and both constantly introduced Dissenters. Silas Marner +belongs to the manufacturing North, and the people of Lantern Yard are +of the same class as those of Manchester and Milton. Felix Holt and Adam +Bede belong to the same type as Jem Wilson and Mr. Thornton, while +Esther Lyon is not unlike Margaret Hale. Both often presented life from +the point of view of the poor. + +Both were interested in the development of character, and in the +changes which it underwent for good or evil under the influence of +outward circumstances. But George Eliot had greater intellectual power +than Mrs. Gaskell. She had the broader view and the deeper insight. Mrs. +Gaskell could never have conceived the plots nor the characters of +_Romola_ nor _Middlemarch_. She constantly introduced extraneous matter +to shape her plots according to her will, while with George Eliot the +fate of character is as hard and unyielding as was the fate of +predestination in the sermons of the old Calvinistic divines. Mrs. +Gaskell, like Dickens, introduced death-bed scenes merely to play upon +the emotions. George Eliot was never guilty of this defect; with her, +character is a fatalism that is inexorable. + +But Mrs. Gaskell had a more hopeful view of life than had George Eliot. +The Unitarians believe in man and have faith in the clemency of God. +This makes them a cheerful people. However dark the picture that Mrs. +Gaskell paints, we have faith that conditions will soon be better, and +at the close of the book we see the dawn of a brighter day. George Eliot +had taken the suggestions of Mrs. Gaskell and amplified them with many +details that the woman of lesser genius had omitted. But to each was +given her special gift. If George Eliot's characters stand out as more +distinct personalities, they are drawn with less sympathy. George +Eliot's men and women are often hard and sharp in outline; Mrs. +Gaskell's, no matter how poor or ignorant, are softened and refined. + +It was this quality that made it possible for her to write that +inimitable comedy of manners, _Cranford_. Her other novels with their +deep pathos, strong passion, and dramatic situations must be read to +show the breadth of her powers, but _Cranford_ will always give its +author a unique place in literature. Imagine the material that furnished +the groundwork of this story put into the hands of any novelist from +Richardson to Henry James. It seems almost like sacrilege to think what +even Jane Austen might have said of these dear elderly ladies. As for +Thackeray, their little devices to keep up appearances would have seemed +to him instances of feminine deceit, and he might have put even Miss +Jenkyns with her admiration of Dr. Johnson into his _Book of Snobs_. +What tears Dickens would have drawn from our eyes over the love story of +Miss Matty and Mr. Holbrook. How George Eliot would have mourned over +the shallowness of their lives. Henry James would have squinted at them +and their surroundings through his eye-glass until he had discovered +every faded spot on the carpet or skilful darn in the curtain. Miss +Mitford would have appreciated these ladies and loved them as did Mrs. +Gaskell, only she would have been so interested in the flowers and +birds and clouds that she would have forgotten all about the Cranford +parties, and would probably have ignored the presence in their midst of +the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson, the sister-in-law of an earl. So we must +conclude that only Mrs. Gaskell could make immortal this village of +femininity, where to be a man was considered almost vulgar, but into +which she has introduced one of the most chivalrous gentlemen in the +person of Captain Browne, and one of the most faithful of lovers in the +person of Mr. Holbrook, while no book has a more lovable heroine than +fluttering, indecisive Miss Matty, over whose fifty odd years the +sorrows of her youth have cast their lengthening shadows. + +_Mary Barton_ is a work of genius. Only a woman of high ideals could +have drawn the character of Margaret Hale, an earlier Marcella, or Molly +Gibson, or Mr. Thornton, or Mr. Holman. Only a woman of deep insight +could have created a woman like Ruth: a book which in its problem and +its deep earnestness reminds one of _Aurora Leigh_. But her readers will +always love Mrs. Gaskell for the sake of the gentle ladies of +_Cranford_. + + + + +CONCLUSION + + +Mrs. Gaskell died on the twelfth of November, 1865. Of the novelists who +have been considered in this book only three survived her, Mrs. Bray, +Mrs. S. C. Hall, and Harriet Martineau, but they added little to prose +fiction after that date. During the third quarter of the nineteenth +century, however, the number of books written by women continued to +increase each year. Julia Kavanagh was the author of several novels, the +first of which _The Three Paths_, was published in 1848; all her stories +were written with high moral aim and delicacy of feeling. _Uncle Tom's +Cabin_, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1850, is probably the +most powerful novel ever written to plead the cause of oppressed +humanity. Dinah Maria Muloch Craik kept up the interest in the domestic +novel; her most popular book, _John Halifax, Gentleman_, has lost none +of its charm for young women, even if it does not meet the requirements +of a classic. Mrs. Henry Wood is still remembered as the author of the +melodramatic _East Lynne_, but her best stories are the _Johnny Ludlow +Papers_, which deal with character alone; her popularity is attested by +the fact that more than a million copies of her books have been issued. +Charlotte Yonge's forgotten novels were classed among the _Church +Stories_, because they contain so much piety and devotion. Of a +different type was Miss de la Ramée, who wrote under the name of Ouidà; +she had fine gifts of word-painting, but a fondness for the questionable +in conduct. Miss Braddon, the author of _Lady Audley's Secret_, excelled +in complicated plots. Mrs. Oliphant has been a most versatile writer, +and followed almost every style of prose fiction; her domestic stories +are generally considered her best. Anne Thackeray, better known as Mrs. +Ritchie, the daughter of the great novelist, has written several novels, +all of which have a delightfully feminine touch. Miss Rhoda Broughton +has entertained the reading public by love stories which hold the +attention until the marriage takes place. But all these women fade into +insignificance beside George Eliot, whose first story, _The Sad Fortunes +of the Rev. Amos Barton_, appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1857, +and whose last novel, _Daniel Deronda_, was published nearly twenty +years later, in 1876. + +It seems strange that any reader of her books should have thought them +the product of a man's brain, as was at first believed. For, +notwithstanding her power in developing a plot, her breadth of view, and +her mental grasp, her genius is essentially feminine. She excelled in +analysis of character, in attention to details, in ethical teaching, and +in artistic truthfulness, the qualities in which women have been +pre-eminent. Only a woman's pen could have drawn such characters as +Dinah Morris, Maggie Tulliver, and Dorothea Casaubon, or could have +followed the minute and subtle influences under which the plot of +_Middlemarch_ is shaped. George Eliot has left a larger portrait gallery +of women than any other novelist. Not only has she drawn different +grades of society, but, what is perhaps a more difficult task, she has +drawn the different grades of spiritual greatness and moral littleness. +She brought the psychological novel to a degree of perfection which has +never been surpassed. + +Mrs. Oliphant has thus written of George Eliot's place in literature: + +"Another question which has been constantly put to this age, and which +is pushed with greater zeal every day, as to the position of women in +literature and the height which it is in their power to attain, was +solved by this remarkable woman, in a way most flattering to all who +were and are fighting the question of equality between the two halves of +mankind; for here was visibly a woman who was to be kept out by no +barriers, who sat down quietly from the beginning of her career in the +highest place, and, if she did not absolutely excel all her +contemporaries in the revelation of the human mind and the creation of +new human beings, at least was second to none in those distinguishing +characteristics of genius." + +We are too near the nineteenth century to decide as to the relative +positions of its great novelists. At one time George Eliot was placed at +the head of all writers of fiction, with Dickens and Thackeray as rivals +for the second place. But she was dethroned by Thackeray, and there are +signs that the final kingship will be given to Charles Dickens, unless +Scott receives it instead. + +Fashions in novels change at least every fifty years. Exciting plots and +situations, strong emotional scenes, sharp contrasts, are not demanded +by present readers, who also turn away with disgust from the saintly +heroine and the irreclaimable villain. Of the many volumes of fiction +written in the eighteenth century only two are in general circulation +to-day, _Robinson Crusoe_ and _The Vicar of Wakefield_. But all those +once popular novels, even if their very names are now forgotten, have +done their work in shaping the thought and morals of their own and +succeeding generations. + + + + +INDEX + + + _Abbott, The_, 137 + _Absentee, The_, 61, 112-113, 122 + _Ada Reis_, 203 + _Adam Bede_, 84, 289, 295 + Addison, Joseph, 21, 28 + _Adeline Mowbray, or the Mother and Daughter_, 150-153 + _Adventures of an Atom_, 23 + _Afflicted Parent, The, or the Undutiful Child Punished_, 125 + _Age of Wordsworth, The_, 193 + _Agnes Grey_, 258-259, 261, 265 + Ainsworth, William Harrison, 216, 239 + Alderson, Miss, _see_ Opie, Amelia + _Amorous Friars, or the Intrigues of a Convent_, 42 + _Amos Barton_, 294 + _Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda_, 18 + _Antiquary, The_, 102, 104 + _Arabian Nights_, 15, 233 + Arblay, Madame D', _see_ Burney, Frances + _Arblay, Madame D', Essay on_, 57-58, 61, 168-169 + Arden, Enoch, 187 + Arnold, Matthew, 257 + _Artless Tales_, 139 + _Athenæum, The_, 194, 256 + _Aurora Leigh_, 292 + Austen, Jane, 39, 45, 60, 101, 157-178, 179, 180, 191, 195, 196, + 216, 263, 270, 276, 291 + + Baillie, Joanna, 154, 155 + Balzac, Honoré de, 170 + _Banker's Wife, The_, 225 + Barbauld, Mrs. Anna Letitia, 121 + Barrett, Miss, _see_ Browning, Elizabeth + _Barring Out, The_, 125 + _Bas Bleu_, 62, 63 + _Beauty Put to its Shifts, or the Young Virgin's Rambles_, 42 + Behn, Aphra, 1, 13-19 + _Belford Regis_, 193-196 + _Belinda_, 121, 177 + _Beside the Bonny Brier Bush_, 137 + _Betsy Thoughtless, Miss, The History of_, 36-39, 46, 48 + _Bithynia, An Adventure in_, 233 + _Blackwood's Magazine_, 107, 294 + Blake, William, 2 + _Blazing World, Description of a New World Called the_, 6-7 + Blessington, Lady, 232, 233 + Blind Harry the Minstrel, 143, 144 + Bonheur, Rosa, 1 + _Book of Snobs, The_, 291 + Boswell, James, 138 + Bousset, 3 + Braddon, Mary Elizabeth, 294 + Bray, Ann Eliza, 216, 225-230, 232, 293 + _Bride of Lammermoor, The_, 256 + Brontë, Anne, 249, 250, 257-261 + Brontë, Charlotte, 85, 174, 210, 249, 250, 256, 258, 261-273 + Brontë, Emily, 248, 249-257, 258, 267, 270, 271, 273 + Brontës, The, 247-273, 276 + _Brooke and Brooke Farm_, 242 + Broughton, Rhoda, 294 + Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 81, 103, 190, 242 + Brunton, Alexander, 156 + Brunton, Mary, 41, 149, 153-156, 262 + _Bubbled Knights, or Successful Contrivances_, 42 + Bulwer, Edward, Lord Lytton, 200, 216, 223 + Burke, Edmund, 46, 54, 62 + Burney, Charles, 46 + Burney, Frances, 39, 45-61, 168, 176, 177, 181, 195 + Byron, Lord (George Gordon), 109, 200-206, 210-213, 257 + + _Caleb Williams_, 73 + _Camilla, or a Picture of Youth_, 59-60, 176, 177 + _Canterbury Tales, The_, 106-110 + _Caroline Evelyn, The History of_, 47 + Carter, Elizabeth, 62 + _Castle of Otranto, The_, 88 + _Castle Rackrent_, 111-112, 117 + _Castles of Athlyn and Dunbayne_, 89 + Cavendish, Margaret, _see_ Newcastle, Duchess of + Cavendish, William, _see_ Newcastle, Duke of + _Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb_, 217-219 + _Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress_, 54-59, 60, 61, 78, 176, 177 + _Celestina_, 80 + _Chap-Books_, 67 + Chapone, Hester, 62 + Chaucer, Geoffrey, 106 + _Cheap Repository, The_, 67-71 + _Childe Harold_, 200, 219 + Clarendon, Earl of (Edward Hyde), 10 + _Clarissa Harlowe_, 8, 26, 30, 171 + _Clelia_, 32 + _Clubman, The_, 219 + _Coelebs in Search of a Wife_, 71-72 + Coleridge, Ernest Hartley, 109 + Collier, Jeremy, 61 + Colman, George, 42, 43, 46 + _Confessions of a Pretty Woman_, 233 + Congreve, William, 217 + Cooper, James Fenimore, 16 + Corneille, 3 + _Cottagers of Glenburnie, The_, 16 + Cottin, Sophie, Madame de, 262 + _Court Gazette_, 20 + _Courtenay of Walreddon; a Romance of the West_, 227 + _Cousin Phillis_, 286-287, 288, 292 + Crabbe, George, 263 + Craik, Dinah Maria Muloch, 293 + Craik's _English Prose_, 245 + _Cranford_, 277, 281, 287, 288, 291-292 + Crewe, Catherine, 232 + _Cry of the Children, The_, 242 + Curtis, George William, 174 + + _Daniel Deronda_, 294 + Dante, Alighieri, 286 + David Copperfield, 164 + _David Simple_, 26-31 + _Deerbrook_, 243 + Defoe, Daniel, 146 + _De Foix, or Sketches of the Manners and Customs of the Fourteenth + Century_, 226 + _Desmond_, 74-77, 80 + _Destiny_, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186-187 + Diana of the Crossways, 103 + Dickens, Charles, 56, 69, 76, 77, 87, 102, 116, 164, 231, 236, 240, + 247, 264, 268, 269, 277, 281, 282, 286, 290, 291, 296 + _Discipline_, 155 + Disraeli, Benjamin, 87, 200, 216, 247, 269, 279 + Dombey and Son, 225 + _Domestic Manners of the Americans_, 235-236 + Dryden, John, 13 + _Duchess of Malfi, The_, 256 + Du Maurier, 285 + + _East Lynne_, 293 + Edgeworth, Maria, 102, 111-128, 130, 131, 133, 155, 179, 180, 181, + 182, 183, 196, 197, 216, 243, 276 + Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 115, 118, 119, 121, 124 + _Eighteenth Century, History of the_, 44 + Elia, _see_ Lamb, Charles + Eliot, George, 84, 109, 119, 164, 174, 276, 277, 289-291, 294-296 + Emma, 161-162, 166-167, 168, 170 + _Emmeline_, 155 + _Ennui_, 113, 122 + _Enoch Arden_, 286 + _Epipsychidion_, 214 + _Essay on Irish Bulls_, see _Irish Bulls, Essay on_ + _Essay on Madame D'Arblay_, see _Arblay, Madame D', Essay on_ + _Ethelinda_, 79 + Evans, Marian, _see_ Eliot, George + _Evelina, or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World_, 39, 46, 47-54, + 55, 59, 61, 78, 164, 176, 177 + Evelyn, John, 5 + _Evening Chronicle_, 231 + _Examiner_, 22 + + _Fair Jilt, The_, 18 + _Falkland_, 200, 216 + _Falkner_, 214 + _Fantom, Mr.: or the History of the New-Fashioned Philosopher, + and his Man William_, 68, 72 + Felix Holt, 289 + _Female Education, Strictures on the Modern System of_, 71 + _Female Quixote, The_, 32-35 + Ferrier, Susan Edmonstone, 179-188, 189, 216 + Fielding, Henry, 16, 24, 25, 26, 27, 34, 48, 101, 116, 277 + Fielding, Sarah, 23, 24, 26-31 + _Fits of Fitz-Ford_, 227 + _Flies in Amber_, 233 + _Florence Macarthy_, 129 + _Fortnightly Review_, 185 + Fox, Charles James, 40 + _Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus_, 206-207, 215 + _Fraser's Magazine_, 231 + Froissart's _Chronicles_, 226 + + Gait, John, 216 + Garnett, Sir Richard, 214 + Garrick, David, 41, 46, 62 + Garrison, William Lloyd, 245 + Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 247, 267, 269, 270, 274-293 + Genlis, Stephanie Felicite, Comtesse de, 118, 262 + _Gentleman's Magazine, The_, 101 + Gibbon, Edward, 54 + _Glenarvon_, 200-203 + Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, _see_ Wollstonecraft, Mary + Godwin, William, 73, 150, 179, 205, 210, 221 + Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 174 + Goldsmith, Oliver, 79 + Gore, Catherine Grace Frances, 216-225, 233 + Gosse, Edmund, 170 + _Grand Cyrus, The_, 15, 32, 121 + _Gulliver's Travels_, 23 + Guy Mannering, 102 + + _Hackney Coachman, The_, 70 + Hall, Anna Maria (Mrs. S. C.), 72, 179, 196-199, 216, 293 + Hall, S. C., 140 + Hamilton, Elizabeth, 133-137 + _Hamiltons, The_, 224 + Hamlet, 271 + _Hard Times_, 282 + Hardy, Thomas, 86, 170 + _Harriet Stuart, The Life of_, 31 + Harry, Blind, the Minstrel, _see_ Blind Harry the Minstrel + Haywood, Eliza, 24, 36-39, 48 + _Heir of Selwood, The_, 223, 225 + Helen, 119 + _Henrietta_, 35 + _Henry de Pomeroy_, 227 + _Henry Esmond_, 145 + _Heptameron_, The, 2 + Herford, C. H., 193 + _Hints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess_, 71 + Homer, 2, 11, 175 + Horace, 217 + _Hour and the Man, The_, 242, 244-245 + Huet, Bishop, Pierre Daniel, 46 + _Humphry Clinker_, 8, 24, 44 + _Hungarian Brothers_, 139 + + _Ibrahim_, 32, 121 + _Ida, or the Woman of Athens_, 131 + _Impetuous Lover, The, or the Guiltless Parricide_, 43 + Inchbald, Elizabeth, 41, 73, 82-87, 105, 119, 221, 262 + _Inheritance, The_, 181, 182-183, 184, 185, 187-188 + _Irish Bulls, Essay on_, 115-116 + _Irish Peasantry, Stories of the_, 197, 198 + _Italian, The_, 91, 94, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101 + Ivanhoe, 164 + + Jackson, Helen Hunt (H. H.), 16 + James, G. P. R., 216, 239 + James, Henry, 291 + Jameson, Mrs. (Anna), 285 + _Jane Eyre_, 41, 82, 85, 250, 261, 263, 264-267, 270, 272 + _Jealous Wife, The_, 233 + Jeffrey, Francis, 180 + Joan of Arc, 1 + _John Halifax, Gentleman_, 293 + _Johnny Ludlow Papers_, 294 + Johnson, R. Brimley, 245 + Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 30, 31, 32, 39, 42, 46, 48, 55, 60, 62, 103, 128, + 138, 291 + _Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, The Life and Adventures of_, 237-239, 242 + Jonson, Ben, 275 + _Joseph Andrews_, 16, 36, 52 + _Journey to Bath_, 41 + Jules Verne, _see_ Verne, Jules + + Kauffman, Angelica, 103 + Kavanagh, Julia, 293 + _King Lear_, see _Lear_ + Knox, John, 188 + _Kruitzener, or the German's Tale_, 108-109 + + _Lady Audley's Secret_, 294 + _Lady Clare_, 183 + _Lady of Lyons, The_, 223 + _Lady's Magazine_, 190 + Lafayette, Madame de, 3, 19, 41, 262 + Lamb, Lady Caroline, 200-204 + Lamb, Charles, 8, 12, 193 + Lamb, William (Lord Melbourne), 200, 201, 202, 203, 204 + _Landlady's Tale, The_, 109 + Lang, Andrew, 102 + Lanier, Sidney, 25 + _Last Man, The_, 210-212 + _Lazy Lawrence_, 125, 126 + _Lear, King_, 256 + Lee, Harriet, 88, 105-110 + Lee, Sophia, 88, 105-110, 139 + Lennox, Charlotte, 24, 31-36 + _Letters of the Duchess of Newcastle_, 7-8 + _Letters to Young Ladies_, 62 + Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 101 + "Library of Old Authors," Russell Smith, 12 + _Life of the Duke of Newcastle_, see _Newcastle, Life of the Duke of_ + _Lights and Shadows of Irish Life_, 197-198 + _Lilly Dawson, The Story of_, 232 + _Literary Gazette_, 202 + _Lodore_, 212-214 + Longueville, Duchesse de, 3 + _Lucius_, 22 + Lytton, Bulwer, _see_ Bulwer, Edward (Lord Lytton) + + Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 57, 61, 113, 168 + Machiavelli, Niccolo, 207 + Mackay, Sheriff, 143 + _Magyar, The, and the Moslem_, 233 + _Man and Superman_, 160 + _Manchester Strike, A_, 243 + Manley, Mary, 1, 19-23, 36 + _Mansfield Park_, 61, 162-164, 171, 172 + Marcella, 292 + Margaret, Queen of Navarre, 2 + _Marriage_, 181, 182, 184 + Marsh, Anne, 231 + Martineau, Harriet, 231, 232, 242-246, 269, 293 + _Mary Barton_, 269, 278-281, 282, 283, 289, 292 + Masson, David, 179 + Maturin, Charles Robert, 101 + _Mazeppa_, 206 + Mémoires du Comte de Comminges, 262 + _Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la vertu_, 42 + _Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to Utopia_, 36 + _Michael Armstrong, The Life and Adventures of_, 241 + _Middlemarch_, 290, 295 + _Midsummer Eve, a Fairy Tale of Love_, 198-199 + _Mill on the Floss_, The, 289, 295 + Mitford, Mary Russell, 81, 144, 179, 183, 189-196, 216, 221, 227, + 276, 291, 292 + _Monastery, The_, 137, 271 + _Monk, The_, 101 + Montagu, Elizabeth, 62 + Montagu, Mary Wortley, 233 + _Monthly Review_, 77 + _Monumental Effigies of Great Britain_, 226 + Moore, Thomas, 131 + _Moorland Cottage, The_, 289 + More, Hannah, 62-72, 73 + Morgan, Lady, 111, 197, 216 + _Music, History of_, 46 + _Mysteries of Udolpho, The_, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 99, 101, 104, 105, + 141 + + _Nature and Art_, 85-86 + _Nature's Pictures Drawn by Fancy's Pencil_, 7 + _New Atalantis_, 19-23 + Newcastle, Duchess of, 1, 3-13 + Newcastle, Duke of, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 + _Newcastle, Life of the Duke of_, 10-12 + _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, 183 + _Nocturnal Reverie_, 79 + North, Christopher (John James Wilson), 183, 185 + _North and South_, 281-284, 289, 292 + _Northanger Abbey_, 101, 160-161, 177 + _Notre Dame de Paris_, 256 + "Novelists' Library," 121 + _Novels by Eminent Hands_, 217 + _Nun, The, or the Perjured Duty_, 18 + + _O'Briens, The, and the O'Flahertys_, 129, 130-131 + _O'Donnel_, 129-130 + _Odyssey_, 113 + _Old English Baron, The_, 88, 89 + _Old Manor House, The_, 77-78, 79, 80 + Oliphant, Mrs. Margaret, 294, 295 + Opie, Mrs. Amelia, 41, 73, 149-153, 156, 216, 262 + _Orange Girl of St. Giles's, The_, 69-70 + Ormond, 113-115 + _Oroonoko_, 13-18, 237, 242 + _Orphans, The_, 126 + _Othello_, 276 + Ouidà, 294 + _Our Village_, 189, 190-193, 195, 196, 243 + Owenson, Sydney, _see_ Morgan, Lady + + _Pamela_, 8, 17, 18, 24, 31, 35, 46, 78, 164, 266 + _Paradise Lost_, 72, 79 + Pardoe, Julia, 231-234 + _Pastor's Fireside, The_, 146 + _Patronage_, 119 + _Pelham_, 200 + _Pendennis_, 200 + _Perkin Warbeck, The Fortunes of_, 214 + _Persuasion_, 158, 162-164, 167, 170, 172 + Phillips, Wendell, 244 + _Pickwick Papers_, 56 + _Pilgrimages to English Shrines_, 72 + _Pin Money_, 222-223 + Plato, 11 + _Political Economy Tales_, 242-243 + _Polly Honeycomb_, 42, 43 + Pope, Alexander, 22, 79, 160 + Porter, Anna Maria, 133, 137-140, 216 + Porter, Jane, 133, 137, 138, 140-148, 216 + _Preferment, or My Uncle the Earl_, 220 + Prévost, Abbé, 42 + _Pride and Prejudice_, 157, 158-159, 161, 164, 166, 170, 171, 173, + 175, 176, 178 + Princess of Clèves, The, 41, 262 + _Professor, The_, 270 + + _Quarterly Review_, 131, 147, 148 + + Radcliffe, Ann, 88, 89-105, 108, 179, 270 + Rambouillet, Marquise de, 3 + Ramée, Louise de la, _see_ Ouidà + Ramsey, Charlotte, _see_ Lennox, Charlotte + _Rape of the Lock_, 22 + _Rasselas_, 46 + _Recess, The_, 105-106 + Reeve, Clara, 88-89 + _Refugee in America, The_, 237 + Richardson, Samuel, 8, 9, 17, 24, 26, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 48, 101, + 154, 171, 277, 291 + _Rights of Man_, 64 + _Rights of Woman, Vindication of the_, see _Vindication of the + Rights of Woman_ + Ritchie, Mrs., 126, 294 + _Rival Beauties, The_, 233 + _Rivals, The_, 41, 43 + _Rob Roy_, 102 + _Robinson Crusoe_, 146, 296 + Rogers, Samuel, 201 + _Romance of the Forest, The_, 91, 92, 93, 97, 101 + _Romance of the Harem, The_, 233 + _Romance of the West, A_, 228 + Romeo and Juliet, 275 + _Romola_, 290 + Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 73, 118 + Ruskin, 195 + _Ruth_, 281, 284-285, 286, 292 + + _St. Ronan's Well_, 174 + Saintsbury, George, 185, 186 + Sand, George, 262, 263, 288 + Sappho, 1 + Schlosser, 44 + Scott, Sir Walter, 18, 36, 102, 103, 104, 105, 118, 128, 141, 144, + 155, 164, 173, 179, 180, 181, 184, 216, 225, 228, 229, 230, + 264, 271, 277, 296 + _Scottish Chiefs, The_, 142-145 + Scudèri, Mlle. de, 3, 19, 32, 33, 35, 120, 121 + _Seasons, The_, 79 + _Secret Intrigues of the Count of Caramania, The_, 36 + _Selborne, The Natural History and Antiquities of_, 191 + _Self-Control_, 154-155, 156 + _Sense and Sensibility_, 159-160, 161, 170, 171 + Sévigné, Madame, de, 3 + Shakespeare, William, 5, 103, 128, 168, 169, 170, 174, 271, 275 + _Shakespeare, Essay on the Genius of_, 62 + Shaw, Bernard, 160 + Shelley, Mary, 200, 204-215, 262 + Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 204, 205, 206, 208, 210-214 + _Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, The_, 68, 69, 72 + Sheridan, Mrs. Frances, 24, 39-42 + Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 40, 41 + _Shirley_, 267-270 + _Sicilian Romance, The_, 91, 93, 94 + _Sidney Biddulph, The Memoirs of Miss_, 39-42, 74 + _Silas Marner_, 289 + _Simple Story, A_, 82-84, 262 + _Simple Susan_, 126-127 + _Simple Tales_, 153 + _Sir Charles Grandison_, 8, 37, 53 + _Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative_, 146-148 + _Sister, The_, 35 + _Sketches by Boz_, 241 + _Sketches of English Character_, 219-220 + _Sketches of Irish Character_, 196-197 + Smith, Charlotte, 41, 73-82, 87, 102, 103, 105, 191, 221 + Smith Russell, "Library of Old Authors," _see_ "Library of + Old Authors" + Smollett, Tobias, 8, 23, 24, 88, 101, 179 + _Soldier of Lyons, The, a Tale of the Tuileries_, 223 + Sothern, Thomas, 13, 15 + Souza, Madame de, 262 + _Spectator Papers_, 7, 29 + Staël, Madame de (Anne Louise Necker), 262, 263 + Steele, Richard, 21, 22, 28 + Sterne, Laurence, 24, 25, 88, 102, 169 + _Stories of the Irish Peasantry_, see _Irish Peasantry, + Stories of the_ + Stothard, Charles, 226 + Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 15, 238, 293 + Swift, Jonathan, 22, 23 + Swinburne, Charles Algernon, 256 + _Sybil_, 269, 279 + _Sylvia's Lovers_, 285-286 + + Taine, 25 + _Talba, The, or Moor of Portugal_, 226 + _Tale of Two Cities_, 145 + _Tales of Fashionable Life_, 119-120 + _Tales of my Landlord, The_, 181 + _Tales of Real Life_, 153 + _Tales that Never Die_, 127 + _Tatler, The_, 22, 29 + _Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The_, 259-261 + Tencin, Mme. de, 262 + Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 183, 286 + Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 284 + Thackeray, Anna Isabella, _see_ Ritchie, Mrs. + Thackeray, William Makepeace, 87, 102, 116, 120, 164, 176, 216, + 217, 231, 237, 247, 264, 277, 288, 291, 296 + _Thaddeus of Warsaw_, 140-141 + _Theresa Marchmont_, 217 + _Thomas the Rhymer_, 104 + Thrale, Mrs. (Mrs. Piozzi), 48 + _Three Paths, The_, 293 + _Tintern Abbey_, 93 + Tolstoi, Count Leo, 86, 170 + _Tom Jones_, 26, 37, 53, 141 + Tourgenieff, 170 + _Trelawny of Trelawne; or the Prophecy: a Legend of Cornwall_, 228 + Trollope, Anthony, 234, 239 + Trollope, Frances, 231, 232, 234-242, 243, 269 + + _Udolpho, The Mysteries of_, see _Mysteries of Udolpho, The_ + _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, 15, 238, 293 + _Undine_, 254 + + _Valperga: or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of + Lucca_, 207-210 + _Vanity Fair_, 164, 288 + _Venetia_, 200 + Verne, Jules, 6 + _Vicar of Wakefield, The_, 46, 79, 296 + _Vicar of Wrexhill, The_, 240 + _Village Politics: Addressed to all Mechanics, Journeymen, and + Labourers in Great Britain. By Will Chip, a Country + Carpenter_, 64-65 + _Villette_, 270-273 + _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_, 74, 149, 204 + Vivian, 119, 122 + _Vivian Grey_, 200, 216, 217, 219 + Voltaire, François, 73 + + Wallace, 143 + Walpole, Horace, 88, 89 + _Wanderer, The, or Female Difficulties_, 59, 60 + Ward, A. W., 288 + Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 267 + _Warleigh, or the Fatal Oak; a Legend of Devon_, 227 + _Waste Not, Want Not_, 125 + _Waverley_, 45, 60, 137, 144, 155, 178 + _Waverley Novels_, 102, 117, 145, 216 + Welsh, Charles, 67, 127 + _Werner, or the Inheritance_, 109 + _Westminster Review_, 221, 224 + White, Gilbert, 191 + _White Hoods, The_, 226 + _Whole Duty of Man_, 64 + _Widow Barnaby_, 239 + _Widow Married, The_, 239 + _Widow Wedded, The, or the Barnabys in America_, 239 + _Wild Irish Girl, The_, 129 + _Will Chip, a Country Carpenter_, see _Village Politics_ + _Winchelsea, Lady_, 79 + _Window in Thrums, The_, 137 + _Windsor Forest_, 79 + _Wives and Daughters_, 287-288, 292, 293 + Wollstonecraft, Mary, 73, 74, 149, 150, 204, 205, 210 + Wood, Mrs. Henry, 293 + Wordsworth, William, 79, 93, 127, 165, 241 + _Wuthering Heights_, 249, 256, 258, 261, 265, 267, 271 + _Wycherley, William_, 13 + + _Yèrè-Batan-Seraï_, 234 + Yonge, Charlotte Mary, 294 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Woman's Work in English Fiction, by +Clara Helen Whitmore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN'S WORK IN ENGLISH FICTION *** + +***** This file should be named 34613-8.txt or 34613-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/6/1/34613/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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