The Novel: Please Enjoy Responsibly

Having recently read Catherine Gallagher’s Nobody’s Story, which discusses extensively the social role of the reading of fiction in the eighteenth-century, I was specially attuned to mentions of reading in Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest. Throughout the novel, Radcliffe posits literature as something that offers much to its readers. We learn early that Adeline, the novel’s heroine, has benefited from reading: “From books, indeed, she had constantly derived her chief information and amusement: those belonging to La Motte were few, but well chosen; and Adeline could find pleasure in reading them more than once. When her mind was discomposed . . . a book was the opiate that lulled it to repose” (82). Especially important here is the fact that reading has offered Adeline not only entertainment but also education and comfort. As we observe Adeline’s relationship with literature throughout the rest of the novel, it seems that this sense of comfort is that which Radcliffe figures as the most constant benefit of reading. Whether suffering from loneliness at the abbey or grief at Leloncourt, Adeline takes solace in poetry and plays (82; 236; 261). Indeed, the narrator even goes so far as to mention, in one of the moments in which Adeline turns to literature for comfort, that poetry “had seldom forsaken her”; this indicates that, in a life in which instability and betrayal are the norm, the written word alone has been steadfast. Clearly, then, Radcliffe posits reading as beneficial. She does not do so, however, without some degree of caution.

There are two instances in The Romance of the Forest that, although not directly related to reading, respond, I believe, to an uneasiness about reading that we have seen intimated by other early novelists. Like Sarah Fielding, through the example of the beggar in The Governess, and Charlotte Lennox, through the example of Sir George in The Female Quixote, Radcliffe cautions her readers against readily assuming the veracity of a story and instead urges discernment by writing of Adeline’s encounter with Theodore’s suspect surgeon. In order to support his claim of “infallible judgment,” the surgeon tells Adeline a story of a patient who passed away while under his care. With the utmost confidence, he asserts that this death was the result of fatal mistakes made by the physician who first administered to the patient: “Depend upon it, said I, you are mistaken; these medicines cannot have relieved him; the patient is in the utmost danger”(183). The surgeon goes on to tell of his final efforts to save the man through an alteration of the first physician’s prescriptions but concludes finally that “all would not do, my opinion was verified, and he died even before the next morning” (184). As Adeline is a careful listener, Radcliffe expects us to be discerning readers; we are to notice, like Adeline, that this patient’s condition improved with the care of the first physician and worsened immediately when the surgeon assumed his care. Because Adeline attends the story with caution, she is able to conclude that this other physician is far more fit to tend to Theodore, and ultimately, Theodore lives as a result. Clearly, then, one must exercise prudence when the audience to a story.

Another anxiety with which British society regarded reading by the late eighteenth century is well represented metaphorically by Radcliffe’s account of Clara and her lute. According to Gallagher, novel readers were, by this time, pejoratively figured as so embroiled in the emotions of fictional characters that they often failed, and sometimes disastrously, to attend to the immediacies of their actual lives. Clara, similarly, is so enthused upon receiving a lute from her father that she “played it again and again till she forgot every thing besides” (249). Her zealous interest in the instrument soon results in her neglecting a needy family, losing valuable instructional time with her father, and missing dinner with her family (249-253). Ashamed at her lack of discipline, Clara attempts to return the lute to her father; in doing so, however, she proves to him that she has gained command of her impulses, and he no longer fears the instrument a perilous distraction. Counseling her on her further engagement with the lute, Clara’s wise father offers her the following: “Since you have sufficient resolution to resign it when it leads you from duty, I doubt not that you will be able to control its influence” (253). These words seem readily applicable to reading and, thus, strike me as Radcliffe’s soliciting her audience to approach reading in such a way that it, too, may be enjoyed responsibly. 

Passion and Compassion

Early in Fielding’s The Governess, the pupils of Mrs. Teachum’s academy are reformed by an experience in which they physically fight over an apple, feel and inflict pain, and later reflect seriously on the motivations for and consequences of their actions.  This, their first of many lessons, soon finds the girls, when dining together, “so changed, that each helped her next Neighbour before she would touch any for herself” (59).  I was surprised, then, to encounter, just a few pages later, what seemed a very different sentiment regarding one’s fellow person.  When, out on a walk, the class comes upon “a miserable ragged Fellow, who begged their charity,” they move instinctively to provide him aid, which prompts the following from their governess: “She told them, she approved of their Readiness to assist the poor Fellow, as he appeared to them: But oftentimes those Fellows made up dismal Stories without much Foundation, and because they were lazy, and would not work” (109).  That Mrs. Teachum would advocate caution, even mistrust, when interacting with the seemingly needy seemed incongruous with what I had thus far read.  Further reflection recalled, however, a story shared by Miss Jenny Pearce earlier in the novel, by which I began to form a clearer picture of that which Fielding is here promoting.  Jenny tells of a time in her youth in which she was much grieved by the loss of a beloved pet.  When Jenny's mother believes her daughter to have spent sufficient time mourning her loss, she advises her daughter thus: “Now tho’ I have always encouraged you in all Sentiments of Good-nature and Compassion . . . you are to consider, my Child, that you are not to give way to any Passions that interfere with your Duty" (65). 

The narrator soon offers several striking exemplifications of the validity of Mrs. Peace and Mrs. Teachum’s calls for caution.  In the fairy tale concerning Princess Hebe, the queen warns her daughter against “the Indulgence of the most Laudable Passion, even Benevolence and Compassion itself, through the tale of a “Hen, who, thinking that she heard the Voice of a little Duckling in Distress, flew from her Young ones, to go and give it Assistance” (129).  In consequence of committing this charitable act, the helpful hen is eaten by a fox, and her offspring by a falcon.  Yikes.  Soon after, Mrs. Teachum’s students are told, by Miss Jenny, of Princess Hebe’s being tricked into estrangement from her mother by her impulse to rescue a shepherdess from the clutches of the deceitful Rozella and of the fairy Sybella’s having been similarly hoodwinked in her efforts to aid what seems an old man interested in the reformation of his wayward son (135; 137).  These grave lessons could clearly be perceived as suggesting that charitable action leads to disaster.  However, as so many didactic voices throughout the novel explicitly commend benevolence, there is obviously something more at work here. 

This may simply amount to one aspect of Fielding’s larger admonition against acting with “Passion.”  In the aforementioned examples in which charitable action has dire consequences, it is important to note that each hinges on a spontaneous reaction, that of leaping to the aid of one in need, to a spontaneous emotion, that of compassion.  Happily, there are many examples in the novel in which concern with the well-being of others does not lead to oppression or death.  The students’ selfless interaction with one another following the “apple fray” is, of course, one important example, as the girls are only equal to such magnanimity after careful reflection upon their own and the others’ behavior.  Fielding posits reason, then, rather than passion, as the proper impetus for action. 

Because I, in my reading of The Governess, thought its views on charity strikingly pronounced, I wondered what other philosophy may have informed these views.  Having read, in the text’s introduction, that Fielding was influenced by Locke’s theories on education, I was interested in Locke’s views on benevolence, and I found Steven Forde’s “The Charitable John Locke” to be helpful (29).  It would be very difficult to paraphrase Forde’s treatment of the complex nature of Locke’s views on charity, but the following excerpt from his essay, though seemingly not wholly related to that which I am concerned with here, is instructive:

“In both [his “Venditio”] and the passage on charity in the First Treatise, Locke is very precise in his language: though charity is a duty it is not a duty of ‘justice.’  Justice, in matters of property, is concerned only with respecting the possessions of others and with fair rules of trade, a standard relatively easily reconciled with self-interest. Charity is a more exacting moral standard, but one to which people cannot strictly be held . . . [M] men are duty-bound only to refrain from harming or destroying one another.” (451)

Forde also asserts, ultimately, that “Lockean morality is not individual right per se, but concern for the common good.”  (1).  If I, in my admittedly very limited study of this aspect of Lockean theory, am correct in believing it to suggest that, because a natural right to self-preservation logically engenders self-interest, mediating one’s compassionate impulses through one’s self-interest is ethical, then these views seem to relate to those espoused by Fielding in The Governess.  For Mrs. Teachum and the novel’s other educators, self-preservation amounts, of course, to the preservation of one’s moral character, or the strict adherence to one’s “Duty.”  I would be interested in learning of the extent to which Fielding, like Locke, conceived of such preservation as ultimately beneficial to both the individual and society.