TOO NEAR THE PRECIPICE
AN EYE FOR AN EYE
The Cliffs of Moher, now among the sites being considered for an upcoming list of the Seven Wonders of the World, have become the most visited tourist attraction in Ireland. However, there were only a few other visitors when our own little family of five, mist swirling in our faces, paid our respects in 1974. These sheer precipices, facing the Atlantic from the western coast of Ireland, had shed their cloud cover; and our primary concern was to keep the children away from the edge.
Young Frederick Neville, the new Earl of Scroope after his uncle's death, gave no thought to how close he was to the brink as he stood there with Mrs. O'Hara while her daughter Kate, pregnant with the young Earl's child, waited in the cottage. That was the problem, of course: the young Earl paid little heed as to how near he might come to any precipice—hence the liaison with Kate O'Hara, a beautiful Irish lass whose cottage was not so far from his regimental quarters as to prevent his frequent visits. This connection, so offensive to his family at Scroope Manor in Dorsetshire, is the story of An Eye for an Eye, written by Anthony Trollope in 1870.
This short novel is set both in Ireland and in England. After setting his first two novels in Ireland, Trollope later returned to the Irish countryside for Castle Richmond and, some ten years later, An Eye for an Eye, which he wrote shortly after a return visit to Ireland. The towering physical feature of the story is the collection of cliffs. The towering social institution is the order of the nobility of England. Like other institutions, practices, and ideas that appear to be threatened by common sense, this one required vigilant defense and faithful observance of its demands. In this story we find young Frederick Neville called, somewhat to his surprise, by his uncle the Earl of Scroope to be his heir. It would be inconvenient for Frederick to become the Earl. A handsome young man in the process of sowing his wild oats, he had a few more to sow.
And so he does. Frederick returns to his regiment in Ireland and pursues his infatuation with Kate O'Hara of the lonely Ardkill cottage, knowing as he does so that whatever her personal attractions and gifts, he lacks the courage to present her in Dorsetshire as Countess of Scroope. The Earl, before his unexpected death, insists that Fred abandon his Irish conquest and marry the fair and well-born Sophie Mellerby.
The women weigh in pretty heavily on the issue. Kate's mother, we learn, has been married to a Captain O'Hara, presumed to have died after misadventures. We see her walking beneath the cliffs, where she would remain for hours, "with her hat in her hand and her hair drenched."
In this she anticipated the memorable Sarah Woodruff, played by Meryl Streep in the film adaptation of John Fowles's novel The French Lieutenant's Woman, hooded and patient, looking out at the storm from the end of the Cobb in Lyme Regis. In each case, the impression is the same: don't trifle with this woman.
But the drumbeat of the story has begun. Mrs. O'Hara reflects as she observes the development of love between Frederick Neville and her daughter: "Men are wolves to women, and utterly merciless when feeding high on their lust."