ABSTRACT
What had passed the preceding evening between Mrs. Vyvian and Rosalie was no sooner repeated to Montalbert, than it served as an additional argument to enforce the consent he had been so long soliciting. Montalbert was of a warm and impetuous temper: though he had never yet been emancipated from the government of an high-spirited and imperious mother, he was not the less bent on pleasing himself, than are those who have never been contradicted. It seemed, indeed, as if the severe restraint he had so long habitually been under, disposed him to be more earnest in a circumstance on which the whole happiness of his life depended; and when Rosalie asked him how he could hope ever to reconcile his mother to a marriage to which he himself owned she would have unconquerable objections, he inquired, in his turn, what amends she could make him for opposing the only connection which could make him happy, only from prejudice and difference of opinion in matters wherein he could not think as she did, and wherein he thought it unreasonable that her prepossessions should interfere with his choice. ‘I will certainly not make my mother uneasy, (said he); I will so far pay a compliment to her unfortunate prejudices, as to conceal from her what would make her so: but to relinquish the only woman I could ever love, is surely a greater sacrifice than she ought to demand of me. If, indeed, I were about to disgrace her, Rosalie, by uniting myself with a woman without reputation, or of a very mean and unworthy origin, I should feel that I ought not to be forgiven; but why, because our modes of worshipping God are different – why, because my mother was born in Italy, and you in England, should an imaginary barrier be raised, which must shut me out from happiness for ever? What has reason and common sense to do with all this?’ – Rosalie was compelled to acknowledge that it had very little: still, however, the idea of a clandestine marriage shocked her; she solicited most earnestly that her mother might be made acquainted with it. This he strenuously opposed; representing, that if Mrs. Lessington knew it, it would not be a secret from Mrs. Vyvian, ‘Who, however, she may love you, (said he), would make it a point of conscience to prevent my marrying a Protestant, and ruining myself, as she would conclude I should, in the affections of my mother for ever. You know, Rosalie, how much I love my aunt. There is a pensive resignation to a very unhappy fate, a sort of acquiescence, which arises not from want of 65sensibility, but from the patience and self-government she was learned, that render her to me infinitely interesting, while her kindness and affection to me demand all my gratitude. But with great virtues, and I know hardly any one who has so many, she is not without prejudices, which greatly add to her own unhappiness. It is unnecessary to point out to you what these are; nor need I tell you, Rosalie, that they are exactly such as would induce her to think it her indispensible duty to inform my mother of our attachment. Then all the evils, I apprehend, would follow. I must either hazard offending her beyond all hope of forgiveness, or I must lose you for ever.’ – Let no fastidious critic, on the characters of a novel, declaim against the heroine of this, as being too forward or too imprudent. There are only two ways of drawing such characters: they must either be represented as … ‘Such faultless monsters as the world ne’er saw’ –51
