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Untitled Article
nature and with . the external appurtenances of affection , is the almost certain triumph of moral evil , and produces the worst degradation . The writer has preserved her heroine from taint solely By the omnipotence of authorship . And she has wrought another ( objectionable miracle . She has not only killed off Fitecloin so very opportunely as to show his death to be the fiat of the
novelist rather than of Nature , but she has set aside his will by a decree in Chancery , which we know not whether to ascribe to the natural justice of Eldon or the moral courage of Brougham . Chancery would not hare awarded Cleone the possession of the property nor the care of the children . It would either have auctioned the arrangements of the will , or appointed orthodox guardians . But Mrs . Grimstone is merciful . She feels that she can afford to be so .
These volumes contain much food for the reflective reader , and will suggest , if we mistake not , more inferences in relation to existing institutions than are formally deduced by the writer , or than would , perhaps , be sanctioned by her opinions . We must not make her responsible for all the speculations which may be stimulated by the effusions of her rich and bold intellect . For her own moral she can well answer . We conclude with quoting one of the many reflections by which that moral is constituted : —
• It is when we at once desire and doubt that we seek counsel of another . Cleone , without committing Mr . Pitzcloin , stated her case to Mrs , Howell , and asked her opinion and advice . The advice given was such as , in the present state of society , women are ever prone to give , even when the enforcing circumstances of individual and family distress that characterized the fate of Cleone do not enter into the case .
Resourceless as women are , the prospect of provision for life , which a respectable marriage presents , is one which the majority deem it the hefght of folly to slight : the sentiment that can alone seal up and beatify marriage is a secondary consideration *—often no consideration at all . g £ * While women are constrained by the circumstances that at present
operate upon them , no man can feel secure how much or how little he is accepted from motives of expediency , rather than from any deep , conclusive feeling . It is not too much to say that , under present partial institutions , and the mere apology for education that exists , it is i nterest and vanity that have far more to do with marriage than sympathy and affection . Need we , then , wonder that selfish indifference and secret
faithlessness sometimes steal into the homes of women who have been trained to display , and compelled to perjury ? Is it not man ' s highest interest to change a state of things that givjes him semblance for reality —the power to make slaves , but not the power to draw from them what his better feelings must lead him to desire—disinterested love—intellectual sympathy ?
4 In decrying the existing state of arbitrary power on one side , and slavish hypocrisy on the other , no wish is entertained to alter or injure the beautiful law of nature , by which distinctive and consistent differences exist between the character and conduct of the respective sexes . The power of thinking and acting independently need not generate bold-
Untitled Article
80 S Ckone .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 302, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/74/
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