“‘There seems,’ said he, ‘to be a mixture of generous concern and kind curiosity in one of the loveliest and most intelligent faces in the world.’”
“‘Thus,’ resumed he, snatching my hand and ardently pressing it with his lips, ‘do I honor to myself for the honor done me. How poor is man, that he cannot express his gratitude to the object of his vows for obligations confessed, but by owing to her new obligations!’” [What a formal pedant of a lover!]
“In a soothing, tender, and respectful manner, he put his arm round me, and, taking my own handkerchief, unresisted, wiped away the tears as they fell on my cheek. ‘Sweet humanity! charming sensibility! check not the kindly gush. Dew-drops of heaven! (wiping away my tears and kissing the handkerchief)—dew-drops of heaven, from a mind like that heaven, mild and gracious.’
“He kissed my hand with fervor; dropped down on one knee; again kissed it. ‘You have laid me, madam, under everlasting obligations; and will you permit me before I rise, loveliest of women, will you permit me to beg an early day?’”
“He clasped me in his arms with an ardor that displeased me not on reflection, but at the time startled me. He thanked me again on one knee; I held out the hand he had not in his, with intent to raise him, for I could not speak. He received it as a token of favor; kissed it with ardor; arose, again pressed my cheek with his lips. I was too much surprised to repulse him with anger. But was he not too free? Am I a prude, my dear?”
Yes, Miss Byron, we are afraid you are a prude, to feel such surprise and doubt at an innocent kiss after a formal engagement.
By way of another contrast we copy the following passages: In the “Unhappy Mistake” of Mrs. Behn (Astræa), a lover, who is about to fight a duel, goes early in the morning to his sister’s bedroom, with whom Lucretia, the mistress of his affections, is sleeping. “They both happened to be awake and talking as he came to the door, which his sister permitted him to unlock, and asked him the reason of his so early rising, who replied that since he could not sleep he would take the air a little. ‘But first, sister,’ continued he, ‘I will refresh myself at your lips.’ ‘And now, madam,’ added he to Lucretia, ‘I would beg a cordial from you.’ ‘For that,’ said his sister, ‘you shall be obliged to me for once.’ Saying so, she gently turned Lucretia’s face toward him, and he had his wish. Ten to one but he had rather have continued with Lucretia than have gone to her brother, had he known him, for he loved her truly and passionately. But, being a man of true courage and honor, he took his leave of them, presently dressed, and tripped away with the messenger, who made more than ordinary haste.”
As an offset to this, we recur to the story of “Sir Charles Grandison.” In proof of the “humorous character” of Charlotte Grandison, we are told that soon after her marriage her husband made her a present of some old china. “And when he had done,” writes she to Harriet Byron, “taking the liberty, as he phrased it, half fearful, half resolute, to salute his bride for his reward, and then pacing backwards several steps with such a strut and crow—I see him yet,—indulge me, Harriet!—I burst into a hearty laugh; I could not help it; and he, reddening, looked round himself and round himself to see if anything was amiss on his part. The man, the man, honest friend,—I could have said, but had too much reverence for my husband,—is the oddity; nothing amiss in the garb.”
It is remarkable, says Forsyth, that some of the most immoral novels in the English language should have been written by women. This bad distinction belongs to Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood. Corruptio optimi est pessima, and that such corrupt stories as they gave to the world were the offspring of female pens is an unmistakable proof of the loose manners of the age. It is impossible, without the risk of offence, to quote freely from the works of an age when vice and indelicacy were triumphant and modesty had left its last footsteps upon earth.
It is refreshing to pass from their details of profligacy, and the insidious mischief of their assaults upon domestic purity, to that later school of fiction which, as Lord Bacon says, “serveth and conformeth to magnanimity, morality, and delectation.” Foremost among those at the dawn of the present century, whose ideals are framed according to the healthful and ennobling standards which conform to the government and will of God and which command the reverence of man, was Miss Jane Porter. If her heroes are paragons like Grandison, they are not, like Sir Charles, models of solemn foppery, insipid in their superiority, correct as automata in their elaborate politeness, or passing their lives, as Taine says, “in weighing their duties and making salutations.” They are quite as irreproachable, while they are far more consistent with the conditions of our human nature and our human life.