CHAPTER III - "THE NOVEL OF SUSPENSE." MRS. RADCLIFFE.
The enthusiasm which greeted Walpole's enchanted castle and MissReeve's carefully manipulated ghost, indicated an eager desirefor a new type of fiction in which the known and familiar weresuperseded by the strange and supernatural. To meet this end Mrs.Radcliffe suddenly came forward with her attractive store ofmysteries, and it was probably her timely appearance that savedthe Gothic tale from an early death. The vogue of the novel ofterror, though undoubtedly stimulated by German influence, wasmainly due to her popularity and success. The writers of thefirst half of the nineteenth century abound in references to herworks,[34] and she thus still enjoys a shadowy, ghost-likecelebrity. Many who have never had the curiosity to explore thelabyrinths of the underground passages, with which her castlesare invariably honeycombed, or who have never shuddered withapprehension before the "black veil," know of their existencethrough _Northanger Abbey_, and have probably also read howThackeray at school amused himself and his friends by drawingillustrations of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels.
Of Mrs. Radcliffe's life few facts are known, and ChristinaRossetti, one of her many admirers, was obliged, in 1883, torelinquish the plan of writing her biography, because thematerials were so scanty.[35] From the memoir prefixed to theposthumous volumes, published in 1826, containing _Gaston deBlondeville_, and various poems, we learn that she was born in1764, the very year in which Walpole issued _The Castle ofOtranto_, and that her maiden name was Ann Ward. In 1787 shemarried William Radcliffe, an Oxford graduate and a student oflaw, who became editor of a weekly newspaper, _The EnglishChronicle_. Her life was so secluded that biographers did nothesitate to invent what they could not discover. The legend thatshe was driven frantic by the horrors that she had conjured upwas refuted after her death.
It may have been the publication of _The Recess_ by Sophia Lee in1785 that inspired Mrs. Radcliffe to try her fortune with ahistorical novel. _The Recess_ is a story of languid interest,circling round the adventures of the twin daughters of Mary Queenof Scots and the Duke of Norfolk. Yet as we meander gentlythrough its mazes we come across an abbey "of Gothic elegance andmagnificence," a swooning heroine who plays the lute,thunderstorms, banditti and even an escape in a coffin--itemswhich may well have attracted the notice of Mrs. Radcliffe, whosefirst novel, _The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_,[36] appearedin 1789. Considered historically, this immature work is full ofinterest, for, with the notable exception of the supernatural, itcontains in embryo nearly all the elements of Mrs. Radcliffe'sfuture novels.
The scene is laid in Scotland, and the period, we are assured, isthat of the "dark ages"; but almost at the outset we are startledrudely from our dreams of the mediaeval by the statement that
"the wrongfully imprisoned earl, when the sweet tranquillity of evening threw an air of tender melancholy over his mind ... composed the following sonnet, which, having committed it to paper, he, the next evening dropped upon the terrace."
The sonnet consists of four heroic quatrains somewhat curiouslyresembling the manner of Gray. From this episode it may begathered that Mrs. Radcliffe did not aim at, or certainly did notachieve, historical accuracy, but evolved most of herdescriptions, not from original sources in ancient documents, butfrom her own inner consciousness. It was only in her lastnovel--_Gaston de Blondeville_--that she made use of oldchronicles. Within the Scottish castle we meet a heroine with an"expression of pensive melancholy" and a "smile softly cloudedwith sorrow," a noble lord deprived of his rights by a villain"whose life is marked with vice and whose death with thebitterness of remorse." But these grey and ghostly shadows, whoflit faintly through our imagination, are less prophetic ofcoming events than the properties with which the castle isendowed, a secret but accidently discovered panel, a trap-door,subterranean vaults, an unburied corpse, a suddenly extinguishedlamp and a soft-toned lute--a goodly heritage from _The Castle ofOtranto_. The situations which a villain of Baron Malcolm's typewill inevitably create are dimly shadowed forth and involve, erethe close, the hairbreadth rescue of a distressed maiden, thereinstatement of the lord in his rights, and the identificationof the long-lost heir by the convenient and time-honoured"strawberry mark." These promising materials are handled in achildish fashion. The faintly pencilled outlines, thecharacterless figures, the nerveless structure, give littlepresage of the boldly effective scenery, the strong delineationsand the dexterously managed plots of the later novels. Thegradual, steady advance in skill and power is one of the mostinteresting features of Mrs. Radcliffe's work. Few could haveguessed from the slight sketch of Baron Malcolm, a merely slavishcopy of the traditional villain, that he was to be the ancestorof such picturesque and romantic creatures as Montoni andSchedoni.
This tentative beginning was quickly followed by the moreambitious _Sicilian Romance_ (1790), in which we are transportedto the palace of Ferdinand, fifth Marquis of Mazzini, on thenorth coast of Sicily. This time the date is fixed officially at1580. The Marquis has one son and two daughters, the children ofhis first wife, who has been supplanted by a beautiful butunscrupulous successor. The first wife is reputed dead, but is,in reality, artfully and maliciously concealed in an uninhabitedwing of the abbey. It is her presence which leads to disquietingrumours of the supernatural. Ferdinand, the son, vainly tries tosolve the enigma of certain lights, which wander elusively aboutthe deserted wing, and finds himself perilously suspended, likeDavid Balfour in _Kidnapped_, on a decayed staircase, of whichthe lower half has broken away. In this hazardous situation,Ferdinand accidentally drops his lamp and is left in totaldarkness. An hour later he is rescued by the ladies of thecastle, who, alarmed by his long absence, boldly come in searchof him with a light. During another tour of exploration he hearsa hollow groan, which, he is told, proceeds from a murderedspirit underground, but which is eventually traced to the unhappymarchioness. These two incidents plainly reveal that Mrs.Radcliffe has now discovered the peculiar vein of mystery towardswhich she was groping in _The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_.From the very first she explained away her marvels by naturalmeans. If we scan her romances with a coldly critical eye--analmost criminal proceeding--obvious improbabilities start intoview. For instance, the oppressed marchioness, who has not seenher daughter Julia since the age of two, recognises her without amoment's hesitation at the age of seventeen, and faints in atransport of joy. It is no small tribute to Mrs. Radcliffe'sgifts that we often accept such incidents as these without demur.So unnerved are we by the lurking shadows, the flickering lights,the fluttering tapestry and the unaccountable groans with whichshe lowers our vitality, that we tremble and start at the waggingof a straw, and have not the spirit, once we are absorbed intothe atmosphere of her romance, to dispute anything she would haveus believe. The interest of the _Sicilian Romance_, which is fargreater than that of her first novel, arises entirely out of thesituations. There is no gradual unfolding of character andmotive. The high-handed marquis, the jealous marchioness, theimprisoned wife, the vapid hero, the two virtuous sisters, theleader of the banditti, the respectable, prosy governess, are aset of dolls fitted ingeniously into the framework of the plot.They have more substance than the tenuous shadows that glidethrough the pages of Mrs. Radcliffe's first story, but they moveonly as she deftly pulls the strings that set them in motion.
In her third novel, _The Romance of the Forest_, published in1792, Mrs. Radcliffe makes more attempt to discuss motive and totrace the effect of circumstances on temperament. The openingchapter is so alluring that callous indeed would be the readerwho felt no yearning to pluck out the heart of the mystery. LaMotte, a needy adventurer fleeing from justice, takes refuge on astormy night in a lonely, sinister-looking house. With startlingsuddenness, a door bursts open, and a ruffian, putting a pistolto La Motte's breast with one hand, and, with the other, draggingalong a beautiful girl, exclaims ferociously,
"You are wholly in our power, no assistance can reach you; if you wish to save your life, swear that you will convey this girl where I ma
y never see her more... If you return within an hour you will die."
The elucidation of this remarkable occurrence is long deferred,for Mrs. Radcliffe appreciates fully the value of suspense inluring on her readers, but our attention is distracted in themeantime by a series of new events. Treasuring the unfinishedadventure in the recesses of our memory, we follow the course ofthe story. When La Motte decides impulsively to reside in adeserted abbey, "not," as he once remarks, "in all respectsstrictly Gothic," but containing a trap-door and a human skeletonin a chest, we willingly take up our abode there and waitpatiently to see what will happen. Our interest is inclined toflag when life at the abbey seems uneventful, but we are ere longrewarded by a visit from a stranger, whose approach flings LaMotte into so violent a state of alarm that he vanishes withremarkable abruptness beneath a trapdoor. It proves, however,that the intruder is merely La Motte's son, and the timid marquisis able to emerge. Meanwhile, La Motte's wife, suspicious of herhusband's morose habits and his secret visits to a Gothicsepulchre, becomes jealous of Adeline, the girl they havebefriended. It later transpires that La Motte has turnedhighwayman and stores his booty in this secluded spot. The visitsare so closely shrouded in obscurity, and we have so exhaustedour imagination in picturing dark possibilities, that the simplesolution falls disappointingly short of our expectations. Thenext thrill is produced by the arrival of two strangers, thewicked marquis and the noble hero, without whom the tale ofcharacters in a novel of terror would scarcely be complete. Theemotion La Motte betrays at the sight of the marquis is due, weare told eventually, to the fact that Montalt was the victim ofhis first robbery. Adeline, meanwhile, in a dream sees abeckoning figure in a dark cloak, a dying man imprisoned in adarkened chamber, a coffin and a bleeding corpse, and hears avoice from the coffin. The disjointed episodes and bewilderingincoherence of a nightmare are suggested with admirable skill,and effectually prepare our minds for Adeline's discoveries a fewnights later. Passing through a door, concealed by the arras ofher bedroom, into a chamber like that she had seen in her sleep,she stumbles over a rusty dagger and finds a roll of moulderingmanuscripts. This incident is robbed of its effect for readers of_Northanger Abbey_ by insistent reminiscences of CatherineMorland's discovery of the washing bills. But Adeline, by theuncertain light of a candle, reads, with the utmost horror andconsternation, the harrowing life-story of her father, who hasbeen foully done to death by his brother, already known to us asthe unprincipled Marquis Montalt. La Motte weakly aids and abetsMontalt's designs against Adeline, and she is soon compelled totake refuge in flight. She is captured and borne away to anelegant villa, whence she escapes, only to be overtaken again.Finally, Theodore arrives, as heroes will, in the nick of time,and wounds his rival. Adeline finds a peaceful home in thechateau of M. La Luc, who proves to be Theodore's father. Herethe reader awaits impatiently the final solution of the plot.Once we have been inmates of a Gothic abbey, life in a Swisschateau, however idyllic, is apt to seem monotonous. In time Mrs.Radcliffe administers justice. The marquis takes poison; La Motteis banished but reforms; and Adeline, after dutifully burying herfather's skeleton in the family vault, becomes mistress of theabbey, but prefers to reside in a _chalet_ on the banks of LakeGeneva.
Although the _Romance of the Forest_ is considerably shorter thanthe later novels, the plot, which is full of ingeniouscomplications, is unfolded in the most leisurely fashion. Mrs.Radcliffe's tantalising delays quicken our curiosity aseffectively as the deliberate calm of a _raconteur_, who, with aview to heightening his artistic effect, pauses to light a pipeat the very climax of his story. Suspense is the key-note of theromance. The characters are still subordinate to incident, but LaMotte and his wife claim our interest because they are exhibitedin varying moods. La Motte has his struggles and, like Macbeth,is haunted by compunctious visitings of nature. Unlike thethorough-paced villain, who glories in his misdeeds, he isworried and harassed, and takes no pleasure in his crimes. MadameLa Motte is not a jealous woman from beginning to end like themarchioness in the _Sicilian Romance_. Her character is mouldedto some extent by environment. She changes distinctly in herattitude to Adeline after she has reason to suspect her husband.Mrs. Radcliffe's psychology is neither subtle nor profound, butthe fact that psychology is there in the most rudimentary form isa sign of her progress in the art of fiction. Theodore is asinsipid as the rest of Mrs. Radcliffe's heroes, who aredistinguishable from one another only by their names, and Adelineis perhaps a shade more emotional and passionless than Emily andEllena in _The Mysteries of Udolpho_ and _The Italian_. Thelachrymose maiden in _The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_, whocan assume at need "an air of offended dignity," is a preliminarysketch of Julia, Emily and Ellena in the later novels. Mrs.Radcliffe's heroines resemble nothing more than a compositephotograph in which all distinctive traits are merged into anexpressionless "type." They owe something no doubt toRichardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_, but their feelings are not sominutely analysed. Their lady-like accomplishments vary slightly.In reflective mood one may lightly throw off a sonnet to thesunset or to the nocturnal gale, while another may seek refuge inher water-colours or her lute. They are all dignified andresolute in the most distressing situations, yet they weep andfaint with wearisome frequency. Their health and spirits are asprecarious as their easily extinguished candles. Yet theseexquisitely sensitive, well-bred heroines alienate our sympathyby their impregnable self-esteem, a disconcerting trait whichwould certainly have exasperated heroes less perfect and morehuman than Mrs. Radcliffe's Theodores and Valancourts. Theirsorrows never rise to tragic heights, because they are onlypassive sufferers, and the sympathy they would win as patheticfigures is obliterated by their unfailing consciousness of theirown rectitude. In describing Adeline, Mrs. Radcliffe attempts anunusually acute analysis:
"For many hours she busied herself upon a piece of work which she had undertaken for Madame La Motte, but this she did without the least intention of conciliating her favour, but because she felt there was something in thus repaying unkindness, which was suited to her own temper, her sentiments and her pride. Self-love may be the centre around which human affections move, for whatever motive conduces to self-gratification may be resolved into self-love, yet, some of these affections are in their nature so refined that, though we cannot deny their origin, they almost deserve the name of virtue: of this species was that of Adeline."
It is characteristic of Mrs. Radcliffe's tendency to overlook theobvious in searching for the subtle, that the girl who feelsthese recondite emotions expresses slight embarrassment whenunceremoniously flung on the protection of strangers. Emily, in_The Mysteries of Udolpho_, possesses the same protective armouras Adeline. When she is abused by Montoni, "Her heart swelledwith the consciousness of having deserved praise instead ofcensure, and was proudly silent"; or again, in _The Italian_,
"Ellena was the more satisfied with herself because she had never for an instant forgotten her dignity so far as to degenerate into the vehemence of passion or to falter with the weakness of fear."
Her father, M. St. Aubert, on his deathbed, bids Emily beware of"priding herself on the gracefulness of sensibility."
Fortunately the heroine is merely a figurehead in _The Mysteriesof Udolpho_ (1794). The change of title is significant. The twoprevious works have been romances, but it is now Mrs. Radcliffe'sintention to let herself go further in the direction of wonderand suspense than she had hitherto ventured. She is like Scythropin _Nightmare Abbey_, of whom it was said:
"He had a strong tendency to love of mystery for its own sake; that is to say, he would employ mystery to serve a purpose, but would first choose his purpose by its capability of mystery."
Yet Mrs. Radcliffe, at the opening of her story, is sparing inher use of supernatural elements. We live by faith, and are drawnforward by the hope of future mystifications. In the first volumewe saunter through idyllic scenes of domestic happiness in theChateau le Vert and wander with Emily and
her dying fatherthrough the Apennines, with only faint suggestions of excitementto come. The second volume plunges us _in medias res_. The aunt,to whose care Emily is entrusted, has imprudently married atempestuous tyrant, Montoni, who, to further his own ends,hurries his wife and niece from the gaiety of Venice to the gloomof Udolpho. After a journey fraught with terror, amid rugged,lowering mountains and through dusky woods, we reach the castleof Udolpho at nightfall. The sombre exterior and the shadowhaunted hall are so ominous that we are prepared for the worstwhen we enter its portals. The anticipation is half pleasurable,half fearful, as we shudder at the thought of what may befall uswithin its walls. At every turn something uncanny shakes ouroverwrought nerves; the sighing of the wind, the echo of distantfootsteps, lurking shadows, gliding forms, inexplicable groans,mysterious music torture the sensitive imagination of Emily, whois mercilessly doomed to sleep in a deserted apartment with adoor, which, as so often in the novel of terror, bolts only onthe outside. More nerve wracking than the unburied corpse or eventhan the ineffable horror concealed behind the black veil are theimaginary, impalpable terrors that seize on Emily's tender fancyas she crosses the hall on her way to solve the riddle of heraunt's disappearance:
"Emily, deceived by the long shadows of the pillars and by the catching lights between, often stopped, imagining that she saw some person moving in the distant obscurity...and as she passed these pillars she feared to turn her eyes towards them, almost expecting to see a figure start from behind their broad shaft."
Torn from the context, this passage no longer congeals us withterror, but in its setting it conveys in a wonderfully vividmanner the tricks of a feverish imagination. So exhaustive--andexhausting--are the mysteries of Udolpho that it was a mistake tointroduce another haunted castle, le Blanc, as an appendix.
Mrs. Radcliffe's long deferred explanations of what is apparentlysupernatural have often been adversely criticised. Her methodvaries considerably. Sometimes we are enlightened almostimmediately. When the garrulous servant, Annette, is relating toEmily what she knows of the story of Laurentina, who had oncelived in the castle, both mistress and servant are wrought up toa state of nervous tension:
"Emily, whom now Annette had infected with her own terrors, listened attentively, but everything was still, and Annette proceeded... 'There again,' cried Annette, suddenly, 'I heard it again.' 'Hush!' said Emily, trembling. They listened and continued to sit quite still. Emily heard a slow knocking against the wall. It came repeatedly. Annette then screamed loudly, and the chamber door slowly opened--It was Caterina, come to tell Annette that her lady wanted her."
It is seldom that the rude awakening comes thus swiftly. Moreoften we are left wondering uneasily and fearfully for aprolonged stretch of time. The extreme limit of human enduranceis reached in the episode of the Black Veil. Early in the secondvolume, Emily, for whom the concealed picture had a fatalfascination, determined to gaze upon it.
"Emily passed on with faltering steps and, having paused a moment at the door before she attempted to open it, she then hastily entered the chamber and went towards the picture, which appeared to be enclosed in a frame of uncommon size, that hung in a dark part of the room. She paused again and then, with a timid hand, lifted the veil, but instantly let it fall--perceiving that, what it had concealed was no picture and, before she could leave the chamber, she dropped senseless on the floor."
In time Emily recovers, but the horror of the Black Veil preys onher mind until, near the close of the third volume, Mrs.Radcliffe mercifully consents to tell us not only what Emilythought that she beheld, but what was actually there.
"There appeared, instead of the picture she had expected, within the recess of the wall, a human figure of ghastly paleness, stretched at its length, and dressed in the habiliments of the grave. What added to the horror of the spectacle was that the face appeared partly decayed and disfigured by worms, which were visible on the features and hands... Had she dared to look again, her delusion and her fears would have vanished together, and she would have perceived that the figure before her was not human, but formed of wax... A member of the house of Udolpho, having committed some offence against the prerogative of the church, had been condemned to the penance of contemplating, during certain hours of the day, a waxen image made to resemble a human body in the state to which it is reduced after death ... he had made it a condition in his will that his descendants should preserve the image."
Mrs. Radcliffe, realising that the secret she had so jealouslyguarded is of rather an amazing character, asserts that it is"not without example in the records of the fierce severity whichmonkish superstition has sometimes inflicted on mankind." But theexplanation falls so ludicrously short of our expectations and isso improbable a possibility, that Mrs. Radcliffe would have beenwise not to defraud Catherine Morland and other readers of thepleasure of guessing aright. Few enjoy being baffled and thwartedin so unexpected a fashion. The skeleton of Signora Laurentinawas the least that could be expected as a reward for suspense sopatiently endured. But long ere this disclosure, we have learntby bitter experience to distrust Mrs. Radcliffe's secrets and tolook for ultimate disillusionment. The uncanny voice thatominously echoes Montoni's words is not the cry of a bodilessvisitant striving to awaken "that blushing, shamefaced spiritthat mutinies in a man's bosom," but belongs to an ordinary humanbeing, the prisoner Du Pont, who has discovered one of Mrs.Radcliffe's innumerable concealed passages. The bed with theblack velvet pall in the haunted chamber contains, not thefrightful apparition that flashed upon the inward eye of Emilyand of Annette, but a stalwart pirate who shrinks from discovery.The gliding forms which steal furtively along the ramparts anddisappear at the end of dark passages become eventually, like thenun in Charlotte Bronte's _Villette_, sensible to feeling as tosight. The unearthly music which is heard in the woods atmidnight proceeds, not from the inhabitants of another sphere,but from a conscience stricken nun with a lurid past. The corpse,which Emily believed to be that of her aunt, foully done to deathby a pitiless husband, is the body of a man killed in a bandit'saffray. Here Mrs. Radcliffe seems eager to show that she was notafraid of a corpse, but is careful that it shall not be thecorpse which the reader anticipates. She deliberately excitestrembling apprehensions in order that she may show how absurdthey are. We are befooled that she may enjoy a quietly malicioustriumph. The result is that we become wary and cautious. Thegenuine ghost story, read by Ludovico to revive his faintingspirits when he is keeping vigil in the "haunted" chamber, isrobbed of its effect because we half expect to be disillusionedere the close. It is far more impressive if read as a separatestory apart from its setting. The idea of explaining away what isapparently supernatural may have occurred to Mrs. Radcliffe afterreading Schiller's popular romance, _Der Geisterseher_ (1789), inwhich the elaborately contrived marvels of the Armenian, who wasmodelled on Cagliostro, are but the feats of a juggler and have aphysical cause. But more probably Mrs. Radcliffe's imaginationwas held in check by a sensitive conscience, which would notallow her to trade on the credulity of simple-minded readers.
It is noteworthy that Mrs. Radcliffe's last work--_The Italian_,published in 1797--is more skilfully constructed, and possessesfar greater unity and concentration than _The Mysteries ofUdolpho_. The Inquisition scenes towards the end of the book areunduly prolonged, but the story is coherent and free fromdigressions. The theme is less fanciful and far fetched thanthose of _The Romance of the Forest_ and _Udolpho_. It seldomstrays far beyond the bounds of the probable, nor overstrains ourcapacity for belief. The motive of the story is the Marchesa diVivaldi's opposition to her son's marriage on account of Ellena'sobscure birth. The Marchesa's far reaching designs are forwardedby the ambitious monk, Schedoni, who, for his own ends,undertakes to murder Ellena. _The Italian_ abounds in dramatic,haunting scenes. The strangely effective overture, whichdescribes the Confes
sional of the Black Penitents, the midnightwatch of Vivaldi and his lively, impulsive servant, Paulo, amidthe ruins of Paluzzi, the melodramatic interruption of thewedding ceremony, the meeting of Ellena and Schedoni on thelonely shore, the trial in the halls of the Inquisition, are allremarkably vivid. The climax of the story when Schedoni, about toslay Ellena, is arrested in the very act by her beauty andinnocence, and then by the glimpse of the portrait which leadshim to believe she is his daughter, is finely conceived andfinely executed. Afterwards, Ellena proves only to be his niece,but we have had our thrill and nothing can rob us of it. _TheItalian_ depends for its effect on natural terror, rather than onsupernatural suggestions. The monk, who haunts the ruins ofPaluzzi, and who reappears in the prison of the Inquisition,speaks and acts like a being from the world of spectres, but inthe fulness of time Mrs. Radcliffe ruthlessly exposes his methodsand kills him by slow poison. She never completely explains hisbehaviour in the halls of the Inquisition nor accountssatisfactorily for the ferocity of his hatred of Schedoni. We areunintentionally led on false trails.
The character of Schedoni is undeniably Mrs. Radcliffe'smasterpiece. No one would claim that his character is subtlestudy, but in his interviews with the Marchesa, Mrs. Radcliffereveals unexpected gifts tor probing into human motives. He is animposing figure, theatrical sometimes, but wrought of flesh andblood. In fiction, as in life, the villain has always existed,but it was Mrs. Radcliffe who first created the romantic villain,stained with the darkest crimes, yet dignified and impressivewithal. Zeluco in Dr. John Moore's novel of that name (1789) is apowerful conception, but he has no redeeming features to temperour repulsion with pity. The sinister figures of Mrs. Radcliffe,with passion-lined faces and gleaming eyes, stalk--or, ifoccasion demand it, glide--through all her romances, and as shegrows more familiar with the type, her delineations showincreased power and vigour. When the villain enters, or shortlyafterwards, a descriptive catalogue is displayed, setting forth,in a manner not unlike that of the popular _feuilleton_ ofto-day, the qualities to be expected, and with this he is letloose into the story to play his part and act up to hisreputation. In the _Sicilian Romance_ there is the tyrannicalmarquis who would force an unwelcome marriage on his daughter andwho immures his wife in a remote corner of the castle, visitingher once a week with a scanty pittance of coarse food. In _TheRomance of the Forest_ we find a conventional but thoroughvillain in Montalt and a half-hearted, poor-spirited villain inLa Motte, whose "virtue was such that it could not stand thepressure of occasion." Montoni, the desperate leader of thecondottieri in _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, is endued with sovigorous a vitality that we always rejoice inwardly at his returnto the forefront of the story. His abundant energy is refreshingafter a long sojourn with his garrulous wife and tearful niece.
"He delighted in the energies of the passions, the difficulties and tempests of life which wreck the happiness of others roused and strengthened all the powers of his mind, and afforded him the highest enjoyment... The fire and keenness of his eye, its proud exaltation, its bold fierceness, its sudden watchfulness as occasion and even slight occasion had called forth the latent soul, she had often observed with emotion, while from the usual expression of his countenance she had always shrunk."
Schedoni is undoubtedly allied to this desperado, but his methodsare quieter and more subtle:
"There was something terrible in his air, something almost superhuman. The cowl, too, as it threw a shade over the livid paleness of his face increased its severe character and gave an effect to his large, melancholy eye which approached to horror ... his physiognomy ... bore the traces of many passions which seemed to have fixed the features they no longer animated. An habitual gloom and severity prevailed over the deep lines of his countenance, and his eyes were so piercing that they seemed to penetrate at a single glance into the hearts of men, and to read their most secret thoughts--few persons could endure their scrutiny or even endure to meet them twice ... he could adapt himself to the tempers and passions of persons, whom he wished to conciliate, with astonishing facility."
The type undoubtedly owes something to Milton's Satan. LikeLucifer, he is proud and ambitious, and like him he retainstraces of his original grandeur. Hints from Shakespeare helped tofashion him. Like Cassius, seldom he smiles, and smiles in such asort
"As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit That could be moved to smile at anything."
Like King John,
"The image of a wicked heinous fault Lives in his eye: that close aspect of his Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast."
By the enormity of his crimes he inspires horror and repulsion,but by his loneliness he appeals, for a moment, like theconsummate villain Richard III., to our pity:
"There is no creature loves me And if I die, no soul will pity me. Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself?"
Karl von Moor, the famous hero of Schiller's _Die Raeuber_ (1781),is allied to this desperado. He is thus described in theadvertisement of the 1795 edition:
"The picture of a great, misguided soul, endowed with every gift of excellence, yet lost in spite of all its gifts. Unbridled passions and bad companionship corrupt his heart, urge him on from crime to crime, until at last he stands at the head of a band of murderers, heaps horror upon horror, and plunges from precipice to precipice in the lowest depths of despair. Great and majestic in misfortune, by misfortune reclaimed and led back to the paths of virtue. Such a man shall you pity and hate, abhor yet love in the robber Moor."
Among the direct progeny of these grandiose villains are to beincluded those of Lewis and Maturin, and the heroes of Scott andByron. We know them by their world-weariness, as well as by theirpiercing eyes and passion-marked faces, their "verra wrinklesGothic." In _The Giaour_ we are told:
"Dark and unearthly is the scowl That glares beneath his dusky cowl:
"The flash of that dilating eye Reveals too much of times gone by. Though varying, indistinct its hue Oft will his glance the gazer rue."
Of the Corsair, it is said:
"There breathe but few whose aspect might defy The full encounter of his searching eye."
Lara is drawn from the same model:
"That brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last And spoke of passions, but of passions past; The pride but not the fire of early days, Coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise; A high demeanour and a glance that took Their thoughts from others by a single look."
The feminine counterpart of these bold impersonations of evil isthe tyrannical abbess who plays a part in _The Romance of theForest_ and in _The Italian_, and who was adopted and exaggeratedby Lewis, but her crimes are petty and malicious, not daring andambitious, like the schemes of Montoni and Schedoni.
One of Mrs. Radcliffe's contemporaries is said to have suggestedthat if she wished to transcend the horror of the Inquisitionscenes in _The Italian_ she would have to visit hell itself. Likeher own heroines, Mrs. Radcliffe had too elegant and refined animagination and too fearful a heart to undertake so desperate ajourney. She would have recoiled with horror from the impioussuggestion. In _Gaston de Blondeville_, written in 1802, butpublished posthumously with a memoir by Noon Talfourd, sheventures to make one or two startling innovations. Her hero is nolonger a pale, romantic young man of gentle birth, but a stolid,worthy merchant. Here, at last, she indulges in a substantialspectre, who cannot be explained away as the figment of adisordered imagination, since he seriously alarms, not a solitaryheroine or a scared lady's-maid, but Henry III. himself and hisassembled barons. Yet apart from this daring escapade, it istimidity rather than the spirit of valorous enterprise that isurging Mrs. Radcliffe into new and untried paths. Her happy,courageous disregard for historical accuracy in describingfar-off scenes and bygone ages has deserted her. She searchespainfully in ancient records, instead of in her imaginati
on, formediaeval atmosphere. Her story is grievously overburdened withelaborate descriptions of customs and ceremonies, and she addslaborious notes, citing passages from learned authorities, suchas Leland's _Collectanea_, Pegge's dissertation on the obsoleteoffice of Esquire of the King's Body, Sir George Bulke's accountof the coronation of Richard III., Mador's _History of theExchequer_, etc. We are transported from the eighteenth century,not actually to mediaeval England, but to a carefully arrangedpageant displaying mediaeval costumes, tournaments and banquets.The actors speak in antique language to accord with thepicturesque background against which they stand. _Gaston deBlondeville_, which is noteworthy as an early attempt to shadowforth the days of chivalry, has far more colour than Leland's_Longsword_ (1752), Miss Reeve's _Old English Baron_ (1777), orMiss Sophia Lee's _Recess_ (1785), from which rather than fromMrs. Radcliffe's earlier romances its descent may be traced. Theattempt to avoid glaring anachronisms and to reproduce anaccurate picture of a former age points forward to Scott.Strutt's _Queenhoo Hall_, which Scott completed, was a revoltagainst the unscrupulous inventions of romance-writers, and wascrammed full of archaeological lore. The story of _Gaston deBlondeville_ is tedious, the characters are shadowy and unreal,and we become, as the Ettric Shepherd remarked, in _NoctesAmbrosianae_, "somewhat too hand and glove with his ghostship";yet, regarded simply as a spectacular effect, it is not withoutindications of skill and power. Miss Mitford based a drama on it,but it never attained the popularity of Mrs. Radcliffe's othernovels. It was published when her reputation was on the wane.
Of the materials on which Mrs. Radcliffe drew in fashioning herromances it is impossible to speak with any certainty. Doubtlessshe had studied certain old chronicles, and she was deeply readin Shakespeare, especially in the tragedies. Much of her leisure,we are told, was spent in reading the literary productions of theday, especially poetry and novels. At the head of her chaptersshe often quotes Milton as well as the poets of her owncentury--Mason, Gray, Collins, and once "Ossian"--choosing almostinevitably passages which deal with the terrible or the ghostly.She must have known _The Castle of Otranto_, and in _The Italian_she quotes several passages from Walpole's melodrama _TheMysterious Mother_. But often she may have been dependent on theoral legends clustering round ancient abbeys for the backgroundof her stories. Ghostly legends would always appeal to her, andshe probably amassed a hoard of traditions when she visitedEnglish castles during her tours with her husband. The backgroundof _Gaston de Blondeville_ is Kenilworth Castle. That ancientruins stirred her imagination profoundly is clear from passagesin her notes on the journeys. In Furness Abbey she sees in hermind's eye "a midnight procession of monks," and at BroughamCastle:
"One almost saw the surly keeper descending through this door-case and heard him rattle the keys of the chamber above, listening with indifference to the clank of chains and to the echo of that groan below which seemed to rend the heart it burst from,"
or again:
"Slender saplings of ash waved over the deserted door cases, where at the transforming hour of twilight, the superstitious eye might mistake them for spectres of some early possessor of the castle, restless from guilt, or of some sufferer persevering for vengeance."
Mrs. Radcliffe's style compares favourably with that of many ofher contemporaries, with that of Mrs. Roche, for instance, whowrote _The Children of the Abbey_ and an array of other forgottenromances, but she is too fond of long, imperfectly balancedsentences, with as many awkward twists and turns as the windingstairways of her ancient turrets. Nobody in the novels, exceptthe talkative, comic servant, who is meant to be vulgar andridiculous, ever condescends to use colloquial speech. Even inmoments of extreme peril the heroines are very choice in theirdiction. Dialogue in Mrs. Radcliffe's world is as stilted andunnatural as that of prim, old-fashioned school books. In herearliest novel she uses very little conversation, clearly findingthe indirect form of narrative easier. Sometimes, in the morehighly wrought passages of description, she slips unawares into amore daring phrase, _e.g._ in _Udolpho_, the track of blood"glared" upon the stairs, where the word suggests not the actualappearance of the bloodstain, but rather its effect on Emily'sinflamed and disordered imagination. Dickens might have chosenthe word deliberately in this connection, but he would have usedit, not once, but several times to ensure his result and toemphasise the impression. This is not Mrs. Radcliffe's way. Herattention to style is mainly subconscious, her chief interestbeing in situation. Her descriptions of scenery have often beenpraised. Crabb Robinson declared in his diary that he preferredthem to those of _Waverley_. When Byron visited Venice he foundno better words to describe its beauty than those of Mrs.Radcliffe, who had never seen it:
"I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of an enchanted wand."
In 1794 Mrs. Radcliffe and her husband made a journey throughHolland and West Germany, of which she wrote an account,including with it observations made during a tour of the EnglishLakes. All her novels, except _The Italian_ and _Gaston deBlondeville_, had been written before she went abroad, and indescribing foreign scenery she relied on her imagination, aidedperhaps by pictures and descriptions as well as by herrecollections of English mountains and lakes. The attempt toblend into a single picture a landscape actually seen and alandscape only known at second-hand may perhaps account for thelack of distinctness in her pictures. Her descriptions of sceneryare elaborate, and often prolix, but it is often difficult toform a clear image of the scene. In her novels she cares forlandscape only as an effective background, and paints with thebroad, careless sweep of the theatrical scene-painter. In the_Journeys_, where she depicts scenery for its own sake, herdelineation is more definite and distinct. She reveals an unusualfeeling for colour and for the lights and tones of a changing seaor sky:
"It is most interesting to watch the progress of evening and its effect on the waters; streaks of light scattered among the dark, western clouds after the sun had set, and gleaming in long reflection on the sea, while a grey obscurity was drawing over the east, as the vapours rose gradually from the ocean. The air was breathless, the tall sails of the vessel were without motion, and her course upon the deep scarcely perceptible; while above the planet burned with steady dignity and threw a tremulous line of light upon the sea, whose surface flowed in smooth, waveless expanse. Then other planets appeared and countless stars spangled the dark waters. Twilight now pervaded air and ocean, but the west was still luminous where one solemn gleam of dusky red edged the horizon from under heavy vapours."[37]
Sometimes her scenes are disappointingly vague. She describesIngleborough as "rising from elegantly swelling ground," andattempts to convey a stretch of country by enumerating a list ofits features in generalised terms:
"Gentle swelling slopes, rich in verdure, thick enclosures, woods, bowery hop-grounds, sheltered mansions announcing the wealth, and substantial farms with neat villages, the comfort of the country."
Yet she notices tiny mosses whose hues were "pea green andprimrose," and sometimes reveals flashes of imaginative insightinto natural beauty like "the dark sides of mountains marked onlyby the blue smoke of weeds driven in circles near the ground."These personal, intimate touches of detail are very differentfrom the highly coloured sunrises and sunsets that awaken theraptures of her heroines.
With all her limitations, Mrs. Radcliffe is a figure whom it isimpossible to ignore in the history of the novel. Her influencewas potent on Lewis and on Maturin as well as on a host offorgotten writers. Scott admired her works and probably owedsomething in his craftsmanship to his early study of them. Sheappeals most strongly in youth. The Ettrick Shepherd, who was bynature and education "just excessive superstitious," declares:
"Had I read _Udolpho_ and her other romances in my boyish days my hair would have stood on end like that o' other folk ... but afore her volumes fell into my hauns, my soul had been frichtened by
a' kinds of traditionary terrors, and many hunder times hae I maist swarfed wi' fear in lonesome spots in muir and woods at midnight when no a leevin thing was movin but mysel' and the great moon."[38]
There are dull stretches in all her works, but, as Hazlitt justlyclaims, "in harrowing up the soul with imaginary horrors, andmaking the flesh creep and the nerves thrill with fond hopes andfears, she is unrivalled among her countrymen."[39]
The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance Page 10
