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 hornChide, on the lake, the lingering morn!How sweet, at eve, the lover's luteChime, when the groves were still and mute!And, when the midnight moon should laveHer forehead in the silver wave,How solemn on the ear would comeThe holy matin's distant hum.
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 hornChide, on the lake, the lingering morn!How sweet, at eve, the lover's luteChime, when the groves were still and mute!And, when the midnight moon should laveHer forehead in the silver wave,How solemn on the ear would comeThe 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 ofThe 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 werebrought into the space of the story.The Recesswas 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, publishedThe 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. InThe Canterbury Talesthere 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. TheseTalesrepresent the beginning of the modern short story.
In a preface to a complete edition of theTalespublished 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 ofTales, 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. InnumerableTalesof 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 Taleswere read and reread a long time after they were written. A critic inBlackwood'ssays 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 novelistswe have named, with the single exception of Fielding."
The most famous story of the collection isKruitzener, 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 poeticcharm. Ernest Hartley Coleridge said of this tale: "But themotif—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 ofWerner, 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 inKruitzener, but every one is there more fully and powerfully developed."
The Landlady's Taleis 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 broughtruin 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."
"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 theyhad 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."
InThe Absentee, the manners and customs of the Irish peasants are more broadly delineated than inCastle Rackrent.The Absenteewas 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 inabject 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 theOdyssey.
Ennuiis 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.'"
"'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 theEssay 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. BeforeCastle Rackrentwas 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 Waverleynovels. 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 themoral 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 novelPatronage, she replied: "Please to recollect, we had our moral to work out." Mr. Edgeworth, in his preface toTales 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 andexcellencies 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 theTales 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 toIbrahimannounced 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 correctingBelindafor 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 mentalsuggestion 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 inThe 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 inVivian, 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 ofEnnui, there is the twice-told tale of the nurse's son substituted for the real heir; but when he learns the true story of hisbirth, 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 herstepmother 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 namedAn hundred godly lessons which a mother on her death-bed gave to her children. Another book of religious and moral Sunday reading wascalledThe 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, inWaste 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 inThe 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 toBridewell. 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 ofThe 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 ofLazy Lawrencefinds 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 ofSimple Susanwith its picturesof 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 titleTales 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 "makesfun" 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 societyand 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, andThe 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 novelO'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 theQuarterly Review. It gives this quotation fromIda, 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 inThe O'Briens and the O'Flahertysit 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 hasnever 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.
Elizabeth Hamilton was also an Irish writer, but through her one novel she will always be associated with Scotland. InThe Cottagers of Glenburnieshe 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 herdescription 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 Glenburnieis 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 ofThe Window in ThrumsandBeside the Bonnie Brier Bush; Jane Porter wrote the first novel of Scotland's kings, the immediate forerunner ofWaverley,The Abbot, andThe 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 onScottish 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 ofThe 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 wouldseem 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 calledArtless 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 wasso 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 howThaddeus of Warsawcame 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, likeTom Jones, or improbable romances, likeThe Mysteries of Udolpho, were the only legitimate forms of fiction.Thaddeus of Warsawhad 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 writingThe 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 Scotlandwhither 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 ofWallaceby 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 theDictionary of National Biographywrites 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 inThe Scottish Chiefswhich 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, afterthe 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 Chiefsis 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 "oneherós de romanwhom 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 Chiefswas the only great historical romance. Four years laterWaverleywas published, the first of the novels of Sir Walter Scott. This was superior inimagination and in craftsmanship to Miss Porter's novel, but not in interest.The Scottish Chiefshas since been excelled by many others of the Waverley novels, though not by all, byHenry Esmond, andA 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 Chiefswill 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 toThe 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 titleSir 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 aschooner 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. TheQuarterly, 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 tothe 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, theQuarterlycriticism 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 thanThe Scottish ChiefsandSir 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.
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 ofVindication 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 ofAdeline 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 duelwith 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 husbandof 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 wroteSimple TalesandTales 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 advancedthat 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 ofSelf-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 toSelf-Controlled 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,Waverleywas 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, theReverend 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. InSelf-Controlthe 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 denominatedsin, and that which they named Prudery shines forth asvirtue. The problems of life which these novels discuss are the same, as we have said, which agitate the world to-day.