Adeline Mowbray; or, The Mother and Daughter

by Amelia Opie

'I consider myself,' he used to say, 'as a sceptic, not as a man really certain of the truth of any thing which he advances. I doubt of all things, because I look upon doubt as the road to truth; and do but convince me what is the truth, and at what risk, whatever sacrifice, I am ready to embrace it.'

But, alas! neither the blamelessness of his life, nor even his active virtue, assisted by the most courteous manners, were deemed sufficient to counteract the mischievous tendency of his works; or rather, it was supposed impossible that his life could be blameless and his seeming virtues sincere:—and unheard, unknown, this unfortunate young man was excluded from those circles which his talents would have adorned, and forced to lead a life of solitude, or associate with persons unlike to him in most things, except in a passion for the bold in theory, and the almost impossible in practice.

Of this description of persons he soon became the oracle—the head of a sect, as it were; and those tenets which at first he embraced, and put forth more for amusement than from conviction, as soon as he began to suffer on their account, became as clear to him as the cross to the Christian martyr: and deeming persecution a test of truth, he considered the opposition made to him and his doctrines, not as the result of dispassionate reason striving to correct absurdity, but as selfishness and fear endeavouring to put out the light which showed the weakness of the foundation on which were built their claims to exclusive respect.

When Mrs Mowbray and Adeline first arrived at Bath, the latter had attracted the attention and admiration of Colonel Mordaunt, an Irishman of fortune, and an officer in the guards; and Adeline had not been insensible to the charms of the very fine person and engaging manners, united to powers of conversation which displayed an excellent understanding improved by education and reading. But Colonel Mordaunt was not a marrying man, as it is called: therefore, as soon as he began to feel the influence of Adeline growing too powerful for his freedom, and to observe that his attentions were far from unpleasing to her,—too honourable to excite an attachment in her which he resolved to combat in himself, he resolved to fly from the danger, which he knew he could not face and overcome; and after a formal but embarrassed adieu to Mrs Mowbray and Adeline, he suddenly left Bath.

This unexpected departure both surprised and grieved Adeline; but, as her feelings of delicacy were too strong to allow her to sigh for a man who, evidently, had no thoughts of sighing for her, she dismissed Colonel Mordaunt from her remembrance, and tried to find as much interest still in the ball-rooms, and the promenades, as his presence had given them: nor was it long before she found in them an attraction and an interest stronger than any which she had yet felt.

It is naturally to be supposed that Adeline had often wished to know personally an author whose writings delighted her as much as Glenmurray's had done, and that her fancy had often portrayed him: but though it had clothed him in a form at once pleasing and respectable,—still, from an idea of his superior wisdom, she had imagined him past the meridian of life, and not likely to excite warmer feelings than those of esteem and veneration: and such continued to be Adeline's idea of Glenmurray, when he arrived at Bath, having been sent thither by his physicians for the benefit of his health.

Glenmurray, though a sense of his unpopularity had long banished him from scenes of public resort in general, was so pleased with the novelties of Bath, that, though he walked wholly unnoticed except by the lovers of genius in whatsoever shape it showed itself, he frequented daily the pump-room, and the promenades; and Adeline had long admired the countenance and dignified person of this young and interesting invalid, without the slightest suspicion of his being the man of all others whom she most wished to see.

Nor had Glenmurray been slow to admire Adeline: and so strong, so irresistible was the feeling of admiration which she had excited in him, that, as soon as she appeared, all other objects vanished from his sight; and as women are generally quick-sighted to the effect of their charms, Adeline never beheld the stranger without a suffusion of pleasurable confusion on her cheek.

One morning at the pump-room, when Glenmurray, unconscious that Adeline was near, was reading the newspaper with great attention, and Adeline for the first time was looking at him unobserved, she heard the name of Glenmurray pronounced, and turned her head towards the person who spoke, in hopes of seeing Glenmurray himself; when Mrs Mowbray, turning round and looking at the invalid, said to a gentleman next her, 'Did you say, Sir, that that tall, pale, dark, interesting-looking young man is Mr Glenmurray, the celebrated author?'

'Yes, ma'am,' replied the gentleman with a sneer: 'that is Mr Glenmurray, the celebrated author.'