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.