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."