Woman's Work in English Fiction, from the Restoration to the Mid-Victorian Period

by Clara Helen Whitmore

  CHAPTER V

  Charlotte Smith. Mrs. Inchbald

  While Hannah More was endeavouring to improve the condition of the poorby teaching them diligence and sobriety, a group of earnest men andwomen were writing books and pamphlets in which they claimed thatpoverty and ignorance were due to unjust laws. The writings of Voltaireand Rousseau had filled their minds with bright pictures of a democracy.These theories were considered most dangerous in England, but they werethe theories which helped to shape the American constitution. Amongthese English revolutionists were William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft,Charlotte Smith, Mrs. Inchbald, and for a time Amelia Opie.

  The strongest political novel was _Caleb Williams_ by William Godwin. Inthis he shows how through law man may become the destroyer of man. Thisinterest in the rights of man awakened interest in the condition ofwomen; and Mary Wollstonecraft, who afterward became Mrs. Godwin, wrote_Vindication of the Rights of Woman_. This pamphlet was declaredcontrary to the Bible and to Christian law, although all its demandshave now been conceded. Charlotte Smith was also interested in theposition of women and the laws affecting them. In _Desmond_ shediscussed freely a marriage problem which in her day seemed very bold,while in her private life she ignored British prejudices.

  She was the mother of twelve children and the wife of a man of manyschemes, so that she was continually devising ways to extricate herlarge family from the financial difficulties into which he plunged them.At one time a friend suggested to her that her husband's attentionshould be turned toward religion. Her reply was: "Oh, for heaven's sake,do not put it into his head to take to religion, for if he does, he willinstantly begin by building a cathedral." She is supposed to havecaricatured him in the projector who hoped to make a fortune by manuringhis estate with old wigs. But when her husband was imprisoned for debt,she shared his captivity, and began to write to support her family.Although she died at the age of fifty-seven, she found time during hermanifold cares to write thirty-eight volumes.

  But not only did Mrs. Smith endure sorrows as great as those of herfavourite heroine, Sidney Biddulph, but one of her daughters wasequally unfortunate. She was married unhappily, and returned with herthree children for her mother to support. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, aftertwenty-three years of married life, agreed to live in separatecountries, he in Normandy, and she in England, although they alwayscorresponded and were interested in each other's welfare. Yet thisseparation, together with the revolutionary tendencies discovered in herwritings, raised a storm of criticism against her.

  In _Desmond_, which was regarded as so dangerous, Mrs. Smith haspresented the following problem: Geraldine, the heroine, is married to aspendthrift, who attempts to retrieve his fortunes by forcing his wifeto become the mistress of his friend, the rich Duc de Romagnecourt. Topreserve her honour she leaves him, hoping to return to her mother'sroof; but her mother refuses to receive her and bids her return to herhusband. As she dares not do this, and is without money, a faithfulfriend, Desmond, takes her under his protection, asking no reward butthe pleasure of serving her. Finally Geraldine receives a letterinforming her that her husband is ill. She returns to him, and nurseshim until he dies; after a year of mourning she marries Desmond.

  How could a woman have behaved more virtuously than Geraldine? She isalways high-minded and actuated by the purest motives. But it wasfeared that her example might encourage wives to desert their husbands,and consequently the novel was declared immoral.

  _Desmond_ was published in 1792, when the feeling against France wasvery bitter in England. The plot, as it meanders slowly through threevolumes, is constantly interrupted by political discussions. Theauthor's clearly expressed preference for a republican government, andher criticism of English law, met with bitter disapproval. One of thecharacters pronounces a panegyric upon the greater prosperity andhappiness that has come to the French soldiers, farmers, and peasants,since they came to believe that they were sharers in their own labours,and the hero of the book, writing from France to a friend in England,says: "I lament still more the disposition which too many Englishmenshow to join in this unjust and infamous crusade, against the holystandard of freedom; and I blush for my country." In the same book, theauthor censures the penal laws of England, by which robbery to theamount of forty shillings is punishable with death; and criticises thedelay of the courts in dealing justice.

  This criticism is expressed tamely, barely more than suggested, whencompared with the vigorous attacks which Dickens made in the nextcentury on English law and the slow action of justice in the famous"Circumlocution Office." Dickens wrote with such vigour that he broughtabout a reform. A modern reader finds _Desmond_ earnest and sincere, buttame to the point of dulness. It seems strange how the Tory party couldsee in this book a menace to the British constitution. But a writer inthe _Monthly Review_ for December, 1792, advocated her cause. "She isvery justly of opinion," he writes, "that the great events that arepassing in the world are no less interesting to women than to men, andthat, in her solicitude to discharge the domestic duties, a woman oughtnot to forget that, in common with her father and husband, her brothersand sons, she is a citizen."

  The publication of _The Old Manor House_ in the following year won backfor her many of the friends that she had lost by _Desmond_. But in thiswork also the same love of liberty, the same indifference to socialdistinctions, occur. The hero of _The Old Manor House_ joins the Englisharmy, and is sent to fight against the Americans; in the manyreflections upon this conflict, the author shows that her sympathies arewith the colonists. The father of the hero had married a young woman whohad nothing to recommend her but "beauty, simplicity, and goodness." Thehero himself falls in love with and marries a girl beneath him in rank,but he does not seem to feel that he has done a generous thing, nordoes the heroine show any gratitude for this honour. Each seemsunconscious that their difference in rank should be a bar to theirunion, provided they do not offend old Mrs. Rayland, the owner of themanor. A great change had come over the novel since Pamela wasoverpowered with gratitude to her profligate master, Mr. B, forcondescending to make her his wife.

  The revolutionary principles of Mrs. Smith's novels were soon forgotten,but two new elements were introduced by her that bore fruit in Englishfiction. Her great gift to the novel was the portrayal of refined,quiet, intellectual ladies, beside whom Evelina and Cecilia seem butschool-girls. Her heroines may be poor, they may be of inferior rank,but they are always ladies of sensitive nature and cultivated manners,and are drawn with a feeling and tenderness which no novelist before herhad reached. A contemporary said of Emmeline, "All is graceful, andpleasing to the sight, all, in short, is simple, femininely beautifuland chaste." This might be said of all the women she has created. OldMrs. Rayland, the central personage in her most popular novel, _The OldManor House_, notwithstanding her exalted ideas of her own importance asa member of the Rayland family, and the arbitrary manner in which shecompels all to conform to her old-fashioned notions, is always thehigh-born lady. We smile at her, but she never forfeits our respect.Scott said of her, "Old Mrs. Rayland is without a peer."

  Mrs. Smith's second gift to the novel was her charming descriptions ofrural scenery. Nature had for a long time been banished from the arts.Wordsworth in one of his prefaces wrote:

  "Excepting _The Nocturnal Reverie_ of Lady Winchelsea, and a passage ortwo in the _Windsor Forest_ of Pope, the poetry of the periodintervening between the publication of _Paradise Lost_ and _The Seasons_does not contain a single new image of external nature; and scarcelypresents a familiar one, from which it can be inferred that the eye ofthe Poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less that hisfeelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of genuineimagination."

  Fiction was as barren of scenery as poetry. None of the novelists werecognisant of the country scenes amid which their plots were laid, withthe possible exception of Goldsmith. _The Vicar of Wakefield_ has arural setting, and there are references to the trees, the blackbirds,and the hayfields; but description is not in
troduced for the sake of itsown beauty as in the novels of Charlotte Smith. In _Ethelinda_ there arebeautiful descriptions of the English Lakes, part of the scene beinglaid at Grasmere; _Celestina_ is in the romantic Provence; _Desmond_ inNormandy; and in _The Old Manor House_ we have the soft landscape of thesouth of England.

  In _The Old Manor House_ she thus describes one of the paths that ledfrom the gate of the park to Rayland Hall:

  "The other path, which in winter or in wet seasons was inconvenient,wound down a declivity, where furze and fern were shaded by a few oldhawthorns and self-sown firs: out of the hill several streams werefiltered, which, uniting at its foot, formed a large and clear pond ofnear twenty acres, fed by several imperceptible currents from othereminences which sheltered that side of the park; and the bason betweenthe hills and the higher parts of it being thus filled, the water foundits way over a stony boundary, where it was passable by a foot bridgeunless in time of floods; and from thence fell into a lower part of theground, where it formed a considerable river; and, winding among willowsand poplars for near a mile, again spread into a still larger lake, onthe edge of which was a mill, and opposite, without the park paling,wild heaths, where the ground was sandy, broken, and irregular, stillhowever marked by plantations made in it by the Rayland family."

  Every feature of the landscape is brought distinctly before the eye.Such descriptions are not unusual now, but they were first used byCharlotte Smith.

  Even more realistic is the picture of a road in a part of the New Forestnear Christchurch:

  "It was a deep, hollow road, only wide enough for waggons, and was insome places shaded by hazel and other brush wood; in others, by oldbeech and oaks, whose roots wreathed about the bank, intermingled withivy, holly, and evergreen fern, almost the only plants that appeared ina state of vegetation, unless the pale and sallow mistletoe, which hereand there partially tinted with faint green the old trees above them.

  * * * * *

  "Everything was perfectly still around; even the robin, solitarysongster of the frozen woods, had ceased his faint vespers to thesetting sun, and hardly a breath of air agitated the leafless branches.This dead silence was interrupted by no sound but the slow progress ofhis horse, as the hollow ground beneath his feet sounded as if he trodon vaults. There was in the scene, and in this dull pause of nature, asolemnity not unpleasant to Orlando, in his present disposition ofmind."

  In 1842, Miss Mitford wrote to Miss Barrett: "Charlotte Smith's works,with all their faults, have yet a love of external nature, and a powerof describing it, which I never take a spring walk without feeling." Andagain she wrote to a friend referring to Mrs. Smith, "Except that theywant cheerfulness, nothing can exceed the beauty of the style."

  * * * * *

  The life and writings of Mrs. Inchbald had some things in common withthe life and writings of Mrs. Smith. Both were obliged to write tosupport themselves as well as those dependent upon them. Both had seenmany phases of human nature, and both viewed with scorn the pretensionsof the rich and beheld with pity the sorrows of the poor. Both werechampions of social and political equality. Mrs. Inchbald, however, wasan actress and a successful playwright, hence her novels are the moredramatic, but they lack the beautiful rural setting which gives a poeticatmosphere to the writings of Charlotte Smith.

  _A Simple Story_, the first, of Mrs. Inchbald's two novels, has beencalled the precursor of _Jane Eyre_. It is the first novel in which weare more interested in what is felt than in what actually happens. Mr.Dorriforth, a Catholic priest, and Miss Milner, his ward, fall in lovewith each other, and we watch this hidden passion, which preys upon thehealth of both. He is horrified that he has broken his vows; she ismortified that she loves a man who, she believes, neither can nor doesreturn her feeling for him. When he is released from his vow, it is theemotion, not external happenings, that holds the interest. The firstpart of the story is brought to a close with the marriage of Mr.Dorriforth, now Lord Elmwood, and Miss Milner.

  Seventeen years elapse between the two halves of the novel. During thistime trouble has come between them and they have separated. Thecharacter of each has undergone a change. Traits of disposition thatwere first but lightly observed have been intensified with years. Mrs.Inchbald writes of the hero: "Dorriforth, the pious, the good, thetender Dorriforth, is become a hard-hearted tyrant; the compassionate,the feeling, the just Lord Elmwood, an example of implacable rigour andjustice." His friend Sandford has also changed with the years, but hehas been softened, not hardened by them--"the reprover, the enemy of thevain, the idle, and the wicked, but the friend and comforter of theforlorn and miserable."

  The story of Dorriforth gives unity to the two parts of the novel. Theconflict between his love and his anger holds the reader in suspenseuntil the conclusion. The characters of eighteenth-century fiction wereactuated by but a small number of motives. In nearly all the novels themen were either generous and free or stingy and hypocritical; the womenwere either virtuous and winsome, or immoral and brazen. Mrs. Inchbaldpossessed, only in a less degree, George Eliot's power ofcharacter-analysis; she observed minor qualities, and she was asunflinching in following the development of evil traits to a tragicconclusion as was the author of _Adam Bede_.

  In _The Gentleman's Magazine_ for March, 1791, some one wrote of _ASimple Story_:

  "She has struck out a path entirely her own. She has disdained to followthe steps of her predecessors, and to construct a new novel, as is toocommonly done, out of the scraps and fragments of earlier inventors. Herprincipal character, the Roman Catholic lord, is perfectly new: and shehas conducted him, through a series of surprising well-contrastedadventures, with an uniformity of character and truth of descriptionthat have rarely been surpassed."

  There is, however, one hackneyed scene. A young girl is seized, thrustinto a chariot, and carried at full speed to a lonely place. There ishardly an early novel where this bald incident is not worked up into oneor more chapters, with variations to suit the convenience of the plot.It was as much a part of the stock in trade of the novelist of theeighteenth century as a family quarrel is of the twentieth. With thisexception, _A Simple Story_ is new in its plot, incidents, characters,and mode of treatment. Emotion did not play so important a part in anovel again until Charlotte Bronte wrote _Jane Eyre_.

  Mrs. Inchbald's only other novel, _Nature and Art_, shows theartificialities of society. Two cousins, William and Henry, arecontrasted. William is the son of a dean. Henry's father went to Africato live, whence he sent his son to his rich uncle to be educated. Henryfails to comprehend the society in which he finds himself placed, andcannot understand that there should be any poor people.

  "'Why, here is provision enough for all the people,' said Henry; 'whyshould they want? why do not they go and take some of these things?'

  "'They must not,' said the dean, 'unless they were their own.'

  "'What, Uncle! Does no part of the earth, nor anything which the earthproduces, belong to the poor?'"

  His uncle fails to answer this question to his nephew's satisfaction.

  The vices and the fawning duplicity of William are contrasted with thevirtues and independent spirit of Henry.

  "'I know I am called proud,' one day said William to Henry.

  "'Dear Cousin,' replied Henry, 'it must be only then by those who do notknow you; for to me you appear the humblest creature in the world.'

  "'Do you really think so?'

  "'I am certain of it; or would you always give up your opinion tothat of persons in a superior state, however inferior in theirunderstanding? ... I have more pride than you, for I will never stoopto act or to speak contrary to my feelings.'"

  William rises to eminence, in time becoming a judge. Henry, who isalways virtuous, can obtain no preferment. This contrast in the twocousins is not so overdrawn as at first appears. William represents thearistocracy of the old world; Henry, the free representative of a newcountry.

  A tragic story runs
through the novel, which becomes intensely dramaticat the point where William puts on his black cap to pronounce sentenceon the girl whom he had ruined years before. He does not recognise her;but she, who had loved him through the years, becomes insane, not at thethought of death, but that he should be the one to pronounce thesentence. It is doubtful if any novelist before Scott had produced sothrilling a situation, a situation which grew naturally out of the plot,and the anguish of the poor unfortunate Agnes has the realism of ThomasHardy or Tolstoi.

  Only by reading these old novels can one comprehend the change producedin England by the next half-century. The teachings of Mrs. CharlotteSmith and Mrs. Inchbald were declared dangerous to the state. That theytaught disrespect for authority, was one of the many charges broughtagainst them. Yet with what ladylike reserve they advance views which alater generation applauded when boldly proclaimed by Dickens, Thackeray,and Disraeli!