Editor’s Introduction.
AN errant perusal of half the pages of this little volume once caused me to determine to eschew literary criticism in the preface I was asked to write, and to speak of the book solely according to its historical and hence its intrinsic value.
Continual reading here and there, and, at length, a careful examination of the work as a whole have convinced me that several merits may be attributed to the book which range themselves separately in my mind and which are distinct and wholly unique characteristics. They seem to me to be as follows: the bare antiquarian value—as a relic, rare, and old; the historical-literary value, as an expression of the times in which it was written; and its purely artistic worth, as a specimen of English novel writing.
The book was published, as the title page shows, early in 1789, and the self-acknowledged author was Mrs. Perez Morton whose maiden name was Sarah Wentworth Apthorp. Miss Apthorp was born in Braintree in 1759, and had, before her marriage in 1777 with Mr. Morton, gained something more than a local reputation as a clever maker of rhymes, having contributed many poems to the early New England Magazine—the first periodical published in America. These, with additional verses and short didactic essays, were together brought out in 1823, under the title of “My Mind and Its Thoughts.” The edition was small, and sold entirely by subscription. Miss Apthorp wrote over the pseudonym of “Philenia.” Her longer poems, epics, are “Ouabi, or The Virtue of Nature: an Indian Tale in Four Cantos,” and “Beacon Hill,” in which is told the story of the American Revolution. This last is said to have moved Robert Treat Paine to designate her as the “American Sappho.”
In 1788, while Mr. and Mrs. Morton were occupying the historical Taylor mansion in Dorchester, a painful domestic tragedy occurred, which, taken in connection with similar contingencies that were happening in the society in which they moved, doubtless gave “Philenia” the impetus and raison d’être for the “Power of Sympathy,” published anonymously the following year.
Although evidently written with the purest motive, the good people of that day were not anxious to receive the lesson, probably because many of them figured as examples. The edition was bought up and destroyed,—as Drake remarks in his “History of Roxbury”, “so effectually suppressed that no copy is now known to exist.” With the exception of the book now before me, I believe this to be true.
The condition of affairs in America, immediately following the Revolution, was not what many suppose. The people were not completely united in raving against John Bull and his institutions. It is true the lower classes and those of the middle class, who had been excited into believing that delusive and, for them, hypocritical motto; “No taxation without representation”, or who had gained or lost all through the late fratricidal struggle, were thriving wonderfully on “spread eagle” patriotism stimulated by “Yankee Doodle” and “Hail Columbia”—which, today, unfortunately bandage the eyes of America’s native civilization—and entertained a cordial hatred of England and all things English. Later they were to sympathize with Mirabeau, with Robespierre and others, and cry death to that French King who had so lately saved them from the dismal caprices of George III and his ignorant and haughty ministers. Politically, they gloried in the name of Democrat.
Nevertheless, there existed an aristocracy in America; an aristocracy that had refrained from becoming Tory solely because personal interest demanded that it should become rebel. Its members were English in taste and manner, in their hearts they were Royalists. They called themselves Federalists. To this category belonged the Hancocks, John Adams, Hamilton, perhaps even Washington himself; and here we find the Apthorps and the Mortons. They had a fondness for court and ceremony—thought and culture were still colonial; they talked of the American gentleman, while they dreamed of the English nobleman; for all that, there was a rapidly growing strain of independence, of confidence in self. All of which qualities have today evolved the best type of the American lady and gentleman.
Early in the second half of the eighteenth century, a literary revolution was in progress in England: sentimentalism, which so long had been mistaken for sentiment, was given its proper place; knightly romance was sneered at and shelved, the hale hearty laughter of Fielding disturbed the spinsters and gossip mongers sipping their tea in the corners; Laurence Sterne, that sentimentalist in realism, condemned in caricature what the foolish thought he defended in truth; and Sheridan, the hater of sham and conventionality, satirized the social deformity of the times in drama, drawing scenes and characters from real life as found in the famous Pump-room at Bath.
To the aristocracy—hence to the reading class—of the young American republic this atmospheric change, toned and tempered and with an influence less radical, was transmitted. It cried out aloud against the sham of character, while it maintained the poetry of diction; it was realistic in subject, romantic in method; it openly lauded the “Sentimental Journey,” while it secretly emulated “Tom Jones”; its aim was to portray life through truth rather than art—but the latter often unconsciously asserted itself; its grave defect was the attempt to commingle art and moral philosophy. In this literary atmosphere the “Power of Sympathy” was written, in character and color colonial, indigenous, to English soil, and true to humanity at all time.
A little more than a century ago the style of telling a story through the medium of epistles was revived; it was thus Richardson wrote “Clarissa Harlowe” and “Pamela,” and Fielding his “Joseph Andrews.” In this form Mrs. Morton sought to tell her story.
Both Richardson and Fielding are famous for the amount of detail with which they fetter some otherwise natural descriptions leaving no opportunity for the imagination. Tedious detail we do not find in the pages of the “Power of Sympathy”—all here is not written; the phraseology is well balanced, paragraphing is handled with consummate skill, the chapters are for the most part short, the color suggestive; and if detail be employed at all, it is only when the author waxes mildly pedantic—robbed of which quality, she would not be true to the humanity of her time.
What then can I say of her diction? Simply that it is of the best. To say so, is seemingly audacious. The modern grammarian may dispute it. Yet viewed against the background of her period and station, taking her style all in all as a medium of vivid, natural expression, where the economy of attention is second only to striking portrayal, where elegance, simplicity, directness are ever present but never obtrusive, there is reason enough for our remark. An examination of the suicide’s letters alone would excuse us from all prejudice in the matter.
The “Power of Sympathy,” in facsimile form, is surely a valuable acquisition to the antiquarian; to the student of culture, the book is the realistic expression of life of a people and an era that are by no means lacking in interest and importance; and to the littérateur, it is not an unworthy example of more than ordinary literary art.
WALTER LITTLEFIELD.
Boston, June 19, 1894.
PREFACE
NOVELS have ever met with a ready reception into the Libraries of the Ladies, but this species of writing hath not been received with universal approbation: Futility is not the only charge brought against it.—Any attempt, therefore, to make these studies more advantageous, has at least a claim upon the patience and candour of the publick.
IN NOVELS which expose no particular VICE, and which recommend no particular Virtue, the fair Reader, though she may find amusement, must finish them without being impressed with any particular idea: So that if they are harmless, they are not beneficial.
OF the Letters before US, it is necessary to remark, that this errour on each side has been avoided—the dangerous consequences of SEDUCTION are exposed, and the Advantages of FEMALE EDUCATION set forth and recommended.
The Power of Sympathy.