As, since Mrs. Radcliffe’s death, the story of her mental alienation has been revived, in reference to her later days, it has been deemed right to apply to Dr. Scudamore for an authentic statement, which he has kindly given, and which must set such idle reports entirely at rest. It is as follows:
“Mrs. Radcliffe had been for several years subject to severe catarrhal coughs, and also was occasionally afflicted with asthma.
“In March 1822, she was ill with inflammation of the lungs, and for a considerable time remained much indisposed. With the summer season and change of air, she regained a tolerable state of health.
“In the early part of January 1823, in consequence of exposure to cold, she was again attacked with inflammation of the lungs, and much more severely than before. Active treatment was immediately adopted, but without the desired relief; and the symptoms soon assumed a most dangerous character. At the end of three weeks, however, and contrary to all expectation, the inflammation of the lungs was overcome; and the amendment was so decided, as to present a slight prospect of recovery.
“Alas! our hopes were soon disappointed. Suddenly, in the very moment of seeming calm from the previous violence of disease, a new inflammation seized the membranes of the brain. The enfeebled frame could not resist this fresh assault: so rapid in their course were the violent symptoms, that medical treatment proved wholly unavailing.
“In the space of three days, death closed the melancholy scene.
“In this maimer, at the age of fifty-nine, society was deprived of a most amiable and valuable member, and literature of one of its brightest ornaments.
“The foregoing statement will, I hope, afford all the explanation, which can be required, of the nature of Mrs. Radcliffe’s illness. During the whole continuance of the inflammation of the lungs, the mind was perfect in its reasoning powers, and became disturbed only on the last two or three days, as a natural consequence of the inflammation affecting the membranes of the brain.
“Previously to the last illness, and at all times, Mrs. Radcliffe enjoyed a remarkably cheerful state of mind; and no one was farther removed from “ mental desolation,” as has been so improperly described of the latter part of her life.
“She possessed a quick sensibility, as the necessary ally of her fine genius; but this quality would serve to increase the warmth of the social feelings, and effectually prevent the insulation of the mind, either as regards the temper or the understanding.”
Mrs. Radcliffe was, in her youth, exquisitely proportioned, though she resembled her father, and his brother and sister, in being low of stature. Her complexion was beautiful, as was her whole countenance, especially her eyes, eyebrows, and mouth. She was educated in the principles of the Church of England; and through life, unless prevented by serious indisposition, regularly attended its services. Her piety, though cheerful, was deep and sincere. Although perfectly well bred, and endowed with faculties and tastes which rendered her a delightful companion, she wanted that confidence which is necessary to mixed society, and which she could scarcely acquire, without losing something of the delicacy of feeling, which marked her character. If, in her retirement, she was sometimes affected by circumstances which would have passed unheeded amidst the bustle of the world, she was more than repaid by the enjoyments, which were fostered in the shade; and perhaps few distinguished authors have passed a life so blameless and so happy.
Mrs. Radcliffe may fairly be considered as the inventor of a new style of romance; equally distinct from the old tales of chivalry and magic, and from modern representations of credible incidents and living manners. Her works partially exhibit the charms of each species of composition; interweaving the miraculous with the probable, in consistent narrative and breathing of tenderness and beauty peculiarly her own. The poetical marvels of the first fill the imagination, but take no hold on the sympathies, to which they have become alien: the vicissitudes of the last awaken our curiosity, without transporting us beyond the sphere of ordinary life. But it was reserved for Mrs. Radcliffe to infuse the wondrous in the credible; to animate rich description with stirring adventure; and to impart a portion of human interest to the progress of romantic fiction. She occupied that middle region between the mighty dreams of the heroic ages and the realities of our own, which remained to be possessed; filled it with goodly imagery; and made it resonant with awful voices. Her works, in order to produce their greatest impression, should be read first, not in childhood, for which they are too substantial; nor at mature age, for which they may seem too visionary; but at that delightful period of youth, when the soft twilight of the imagination harmonizes with the luxurious and uncertain light cast on their wonders. By those, who come at such an age to their perusal, they will never be forgotten.
The principal means, which Mrs. Radcliffe employed to raise up her enchantments on the borders of truth, are, first, her faculty of awakening emotions allied to superstitious fear; and, secondly, her skill in selecting and describing scenes and figures precisely adapted to the feelings she sought to enkindle. We will examine each of these powers, and then shortly advert to their development in her successive romances.
I. The art, by which supernatural agency is insinuated, derives its potency from its singular application to human nature, in its extremes of weakness and strength. Simply considered, fear is the basest of emotions, and the least adapted to the dignity of romance; yet it is that, of which the most heroic heart sometimes whispers a confession. On the other hand, every thing, which tends to elevate and ennoble our feelings, to give the character of permanency to our impressions, and impart a tongue to the silence of nature, has reference to things unseen. The tremblings of the spirit, which are base when prompted by any thing earthly, become sublime when inspired by a sense of the visionary and immortal. They are the secret witnesses of our alliance with power, which is not of this world. We feel both our fleshly infirmity and our high destiny, as we shrink on the borders of spiritual existence. Whilst we listen for echoes from beyond the grave, and search with tremulous eagerness for indications of the unearthly, our Curiosity and Fear assume the grandeur of passions. We might well doubt our own immortality, if we felt no restless desire to forestal the knowledge of its great secret, and held no obstinate questionings with the sepulchre. We were not of heavenly origin, if we did not struggle after a communion with the invisible; nor of human flesh, if we did not shudder at our own daring; — and it is in the union of this just audacity and venial terror, that we are strangely awed and affected. It is, therefore, needless to justify the use of the supernatural in fiction; for it is peculiarly adapted to the workings of the imagination — that power, whose high province is to mediate between the world without us and the world within us; on the one hand to impart sentiment and passion to the external universe, and make it redolent of noble associations; and, on the other, to clothe the affections of the heart and the high suggestions of the reason with colour and shape, and present them to the mind in living and substantial forms.
There are various modes, in which the supernatural may be employed, requiring more or less of a dextrous sympathy, in proportion to the depth and seriousness of the feeling, which the author proposes to awaken. In cases where the appeal is only made to the fancy, it is sufficient if the pictures are consistent with themselves, without any reference to the prejudices, or passions, of those, before whom they are presented. To this class the fables of the Greek mythology belong, notwithstanding their infinite varieties of grandeur and beauty. They are too bright and palpable to produce emotions of awe, even among those, who professed to believe them; and rather tended to inclose the sphere of mortal vision, which they adorned and gladdened, with more definite boundaries, than to intimate the obscure and eternal. Instead of wearing, then, the solemn aspect of antiquity, they seem, even now, touched with the bloom of an imperishable youth. The gorgeous Oriental fictions and modern tales of fairy lore are also merely fantastical, and advance no claim on faith, or feeling. Their authors escape from the
laws of matter, without deriving any power from the functions of spirit; they are rather without than above nature, and seek only an excuse in the name of the supernatural for their graceful vagaries. Akin essentially to these are mere tales of terror, in which horrors are accumulated on horrors. Beyond the precincts of the nursery, they are nothing but a succession of scenic representations — a finely coloured phantasmagoria, which may strike the fancy, but do not chill the blood, and soon weary the spectator. It is only the “eye of childhood” which “fears a painted devil.” In some of the wild German tales, indeed, there is, occasionally, a forcible exaggeration of truth, which strikes for a moment, and seems to give back the memory of a forgotten dream. But none of these works, whatever poetical merit they may possess, have the power to fascinate and appal, by touching those secret strings of mortal apprehension, which connect our earthly with our spiritual being.
In these later days, it, no doubt, requires a fine knowledge of the human heart to employ the supernatural, so as to move the pulses of terror. Of all superstitions, the most touching are those, which relate to the appearance of the dead among the living; not only on account of the reality which they derive from mingling with the ordinary business of life, but of the cold and shuddering sympathy we feel for a being like to whom we may ourselves become in a few short years. To bring such a vision palpably on the scene is always a bold experiment, and usually requires a long note of preparations and a train of circumstances, which may gradually and insensibly dispose the mind to implicit credence. Yet to dispense with all such appliances, and to call forth the grandest spirit, that ever glided from the tomb, was not beyond Shakspeare’s skill. A few short sentences only prepare the way for the ghost of the murdered King of Denmark; the spirit enters, and we feel at once he is no creature of time; he speaks, and his language is “of Tartarus, and the souls in bale.” Such mighty magic as this, however, belonged only to the first of poets. Writers who, in modern times, have succeeded in infusing into the mind thoughts of unearthly fear, have usually taken one of these two courses: either they have associated their superstitions with the solemnities of nature, and contrived to interweave them in the very texture of life, without making themselves responsible for the feelings they excite: or they have, by mysterious hints and skilful contrivances, excited the curiosity and terror of their readers, till they have prepared them either to believe in any wonder they may produce, or to image for themselves in the obscurity fearful shapes, and to feel the presence of invisible horrors.
Those, who seek to create a species of supernatural interest by the first of these processes, find abundant materials adapted to their use in the noblest parts of our own intellectual history. There are doubtful phenomena within the experience of all reflecting minds, which may scarcely be referred to their mere mortal nature, and which sometimes force on the coldest sceptic a conviction, that he is “fearfully” as well as “wonderfully made.” Golden dreams hover over our cradle, and shadows thicken round the natural descent of the aged into the grave. Few there are, who, in childhood, have not experienced some strange visitings of serious thought, gently agitating the soul like the wind “that bloweth where it listeth,” suggesting to it holy fancies, and awakening its first sympathy with a world of sorrow and of tears. Who has not felt, or believed that he has felt, a sure presentiment of approaching evil? Who, at some trivial occurrence, “striking the electric chord by which we are darkly bound,” has not been startled by the sudden revival of old images and feelings, long buried in the depth of years, which stalk before him like the spectres of departed companions? Who has not shrunk from the fascination of guilty thoughts, as from “supernatural soliciting?” Where is the man so basely moulded, that he does not remember moments of inspiration, when statelier images than his common intellect can embody, hopes and assurances brighter than his constitutional temperament, may recal, and higher faculties within himself than he has ever been able to use, have stood revealed to him like mountain-tops at the utmost reach of vision, touched by a gleam of the morning sun? And who, in the melancholy calm of the mind, sadly looking into its depths, has not perceived the gigantic wrecks of a nobler nature, as the fortunate voyager on some crystal lake has discerned, or fancied he discerned, the wave-worn towers of a forgotten city far in the deep waters? There are magic threads in the web of life, which a writer of romance has only to bring out and to touch with appropriate hues of fancy. From the secret places of the soul are “voices more solemn than from old superstitions, to which he may bid us hearken. In his works, prophecies may be fulfilled; presentiments justified; the history of manhood may answer to the dreams of the nursery; and he may leave his readers to assert if they can, “These have their causes; they are natural.” Let him only give due effect to the problem, and he may safely trust their hearts to supply the answer!
The other mode of exciting terror requires, perhaps, greater delicacy and skill, as the author purposes to influence the mind directly from without, instead of leaving it, after receiving a certain clue, to its own workings. In this style, up to the point where Mrs. Radcliffe chooses pause and explain, she has no rival. She knows the string of feeling shé must touch, and exactly proportions her means to her design. She invariably succeeds not by the quantity but the quality of her terrors. Instead of exhibiting a succession of magnificent” glooms, which only darken the imagination, she whispers some mysterious suggestion to the soul, and exhibits only just enough of her picture to prolong the throbbings she has excited. In nothing is her supremacy so clearly shown, as in the wise and daring economy, with which she has employed the instruments of fear. A low groan issuing from distant vaults; a voice heard among an assembly from an unknown speaker; a little track of blood seen by the uncertain light of a lamp on a castle staircase; a wild strain of music floating over moonlight woods; as introduced by her, affect the mind more deeply than terrible incantations, or accumulated butcheries. “Pluck out the heart of her mystery!” — tell, at once, the secret, the lightest hint of which appals — verify the worst apprehensions of the reader; and what would be the reality in common hands? Y ou can suspect nothing more than a cruel murder perpetrated many years ago by an unprincipled monk, or an avowed robber! Why should we suffer all the stings of curiosity on such an issue? Human life is not held so precious, murder is not so strange and rare an occurrence, that we should be greatly agitated by the question whether, two centuries ago, a bandit destroyed one of his captives; but the skill of the writer, applying itself justly to the pulses of terror in our intellectual being, gives tragic interest to the inquiry, makes the rusted dagger terrible, and the spot of blood sublime. This faculty is the more remarkable, as it is employed to raise a single crime into importance; while others of equal dye are casually alluded to, and dismissed, as deeds of little note, and make no impression on the reader. Assassins who murder for hire, commonly excite no feeling in romance, except as mere instruments, like the weapons they use; but, when Mrs. Radcliffe chooses to single out one of these from the mass, though undistinguished by peculiar characteristics, she rivets our attention to Spalatro, as by an irresistible spell; forces us to watch every movement of his haggard countenance, and makes the low sound of his stealthy footsteps sink into the soul. Her faculty, therefore, which has been represented as melo-dramatic, is akin to the very essence of tragic power, which is felt not merely in the greatness of the actions, or sorrows, which it exhibits, but in its nice application to the inmost sources of terror and of pity.
It is extraordinary, that a writer thus gifted should, in all her works intended for publication, studiously resolve the circumstances, by which she has excited superstitious apprehensions, into mere physical causes. She seems to have acted on a notion, that some established canon of romance obliged her to reject real supernatural agency; for it is impossible to believe she would have adopted this harassing expedient if she had felt at liberty to obey the promptings of her own genius. So absolute was her respect for every species of authority, that it is probable
she would rather have sacrificed all her productions, than have transgressed any arbitrary law of taste, or criticism. It is equally obvious, that there is no valid ground of objection to the use of the supernatural, in works of fiction, and that it is absolutely essential to the perfection of that kind of romance, which she invented. To the imagination it is not only possible, but congenial, when introduced with art, and employed for high and solemn purposes. Grant only the possibility of its truth, which “the fair and innocent” are half disposed to believe, and there is nothing extravagant in the whole machinery, by which it works. But discard it altogether, and introduce, in its stead, a variety of startling phenomena, which are resolved at last into petty deceptions and gross improbabilities, and you at once disappoint the fancy, and shock the understanding of the reader. In the first case, the reason is not offended, because it is not consulted; in the last, it is expressly appealed to with the certainty of an unfavourable decision. Besides it is clear that all the feelings created up to the moment of explanation, and which it has been the very object of the author to awaken, have obeyed the influence of these very principles, which at last she chooses to disown. If the minds to whom the work is addressed were so constituted as to reject the idea of supernatural agency, they would be entirely unmoved by the circumstances arranged to produce the impression of its existence; and “ The Mysteries of Udolpho” would have fallen still-born from the press! Why then should the author turn traitor to her own “so potent art?” Why, having wrought on the fears of her readers till she sways them at her will, must she turn round and tell them they have been awed and excited by a succession of mockeries? Such impotent conclusions injure the romances as works of art, and jar on the nerves of the reader, which are tuned for grand wonders, not paltry discoveries. This very error, however, which injures the effect of Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, especially on a second perusal, sets off, in the strongest light, the wizard power of her genius. Even when she has dissolved mystery after mystery, and abjured spell after spell, the impression survives, and the reader is still eager to attend again, and be again deluded. After the voices heard in the chambers of Udolpho have been shown to be the wanton trick of a prisoner, we still revert to the remaining prodigies with anxious curiosity, and are prepared to give implicit credence to new wonders at Chateau le Blanc. In the romance of Gaston de Blondeviile, Mrs. Radcliffe, not intending to publish, gratified herself by the introduction of a true spectre; and, without anticipating the opinion of the public on that work, we may venture to express a belief, that the manner, in which the supernatural agency is conducted, will deepen the general regret, that she did not employ it in her longer and more elaborate productions. —
Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) Page 331