Manners and Miller, Edinburgh first edition - 1814
I have not managed to track down an affordable first edition yet. I bought the three volume second edition on 8th January 2021 for £230. I already had an edition published in 1832 - purchased on 13th November 2019 for £25. On 19 May 1813, Rev. Alexander Brunton became Professor of Hebrew at Edinburgh University. The Bruntons moved into Albany Row, in the New Town. They also holidayed in England and Mary wrote up her experiences in a nightly Diary. She commented on the towns as they travelled - Grantham, Stamford, Deptford, Richmond, Oxford, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick and, of course, London. They also visited Burleigh House, and Blenheim Palace, as well as enjoying art galleries and London's theatres. All these experiences she would put to good use in her next novel.
Her husband suggested that she should continue the plan she had started in Self-Control, this time showing how, when self control had been neglected, the mind must be controlled by suffering before it can hope for usefulness and true enjoyment. She began Discipline, which describes the [mis]fortunes of the wealthy and beautiful Ellen Percy, who experiences a frustrated elopement, her father's then her best friend's deaths, perjury, journey to Edinburgh, incarceration in a madhouse, before eventually finding happiness in the Highlands. I have been unable to track down a First Edition alas; but, first, purchased a single volume issue of 1832; then a three volume Second edition of 1815.
My second edition volumes - 1815
Mary again used a Preface to explain what she was engaged upon. There is high authority for using fable as the vehicle of important, even solemn, truth; and to this purpose it is here applied without hesitation...the whole moral and religious discipline of life being intended to form those habits of self-commend, in which Laura excelled (in Self-Control), and in which Ellen Percy is so miserably defective...a picture of human life which excludes [the progress of religious principle] is like a system of anatomy in which the heart is forgotten.
There is a marvellous first sentence, which could have been written by Jane Austen: I have heard it remarked, that he who writes his own history, ought to possess Irish humour, Scotch prudence, and English sincerity; - the first, that his work may be read; the second, that it may be read without injury to himself; the third, that the perusal of it may be profitable to others. Laura, relating the story in the first person, admits she only possesses the last qualification. The first volume describes her comfortable life, mixing in the elite circles of London, furnishing (in her own words) a proof of the corruption of human kind; being proud, petulant, and rebellious. Her father's mercantile affairs keep her in good comfort. She affirms that self-importance was fixed in my mind long before I could examine the grounds of this preposterous sentiment. Her mother dies as early as page 20, removing the only influence to bend my stubborn will. From then on, it is the story of self-regard and wilful behaviour. A sycophantic, fickle dame of quality Julia Arnold becomes her companion, and supports Ellen in her churlish attitude to the middle-aged 45-year-old Elizabeth Mortimer - an old friend of her mother's, who now comes as a semi-chaperon to the young ladies. They considered her as a spy on our actions...a stick, a bore, a quiz, or, to sum up all reproach in one comprehensive epithet, a Methodist. No hope for her, then!
On to the scene come two very different men. An old acquaintance of Miss Mortimer - Mr Maitland: a tall, erect man, of a figure more athletic than graceful. His features were tolerably regular, and his eyes the brightest I have ever seen...his smile was uncommonly pleasing [displaying] the whitest and most regular teeth in the world. What was there not to like? He was too staid, too cold and stately, disapproving of Ellen's lifestyle. Far more to her taste was the bounder, but aristocratic, Lord Frederick de Burgh - he was handsome, showy...danced well, drove four-in-hand... Although not in the same evil class as Colonel Hargrave (of Self-Control), he is clearly after Ellen's dowry and tries to persuade her to elope with him to Scotland. By the end of the volume, the House of Cards is beginning to collapse around Ellen. Miss Mortimer, suffering from a wasting disease, leaves for her own cottage; Lord Frederick has become Dick Dastardly, through most inappropriate behaviour. Julia Arnold's conduct is becoming more and more ambivalent.
The second volume feels increasingly didactic, with praise for, but also admonitions by, on behalf of the Creator. Ellen's downward slope has increased. She rebuffs Maitland's expressions of love, so he hies off to the West Indies. Owing Lord Frederick money, she finally agrees to elope with him; but he fails to turn up. The reason? Her father's business has failed and he commits suicide. Ellen is virtually penniless. She goes to live with Miss Mortimer, who succumbs to her disease. The false Julia has, inevitably, already left her. Moreover, I had lived without God in my prosperity, and my sorrow was without consolation. The only positive is that some of Miss Mortimer's goodness has rubbed off on the 17-year-old. The second half of the volume could have been shortened to no ill-effect. Ellen lodges meanly in Greenwich, then is offered the chance of tutoring a girl in Edinburgh. Off she goes! But the lady has gone south to Portsmouth. No job awaits.
Volume three sees Ellen at the mercy of a well-drawn character in Mrs Boswell, who tyrannises her husband and makes Ellen's life a misery in her employment. Her uniform selfishness, her pitiful cunning, her feeble stratagems to compass baby ends, filled me with unconquerable contempt... It was bound to end badly; in fact, it could not have been worse. Ellen, having caught the same illness as her charge, is forcibly taken to the Edinburgh mad-house on Mrs. Boswell's orders. Chapter XXIV contains much fine writing in its description of the cell and the want of hope therein. Ellen has reached the nadir of her existence. Incarcerated, she begins to review her empty life and turns to the Almighty: in a few days, I learnt more of myself than nineteen years had before taught me...the true glory of man consists...in that capacity of knowing, loving and serving God...
She is released, thanks to the commonsense of the prison doctor and then, in one of the most unlikely of the novel's occasions of coincidence, bumps into Julia Arnold, who is in an even worse state than she is! The latter dies, naughtily unwilling to commend herself to the Lord. Then, at last, good news. A Miss Charlotte Graham, who has been searching for her, not only finds her, on behalf of her brother Henry, but escorts Ellen to their family 'castle' in the Highlands, at Glen Eredine. Once there, she is enveloped in a kindness and familial charity which extends to all. It is strange! I never saw any thing like affection in servants, except in a novel. More was to come. Henry Graham arrives and... he is, in fact, Maitland!! I was no longer the arrogant girl whose understanding, dazzled by prosperity, was blind to his merit, whose heart, hardened by vanity, was insensible to his love. And so, dear reader, she is now the mother of three hardy generous boys, and two pretty affectionate little girls. On balance, she deserved it. She had been through the Valley of the Shadow as an atonement for her first 17 years.
The minor characters are well-tuned. Lady St Edmunds bears some similarity to Laura's aunt in Self-Control - very willing to practise deceit when in her own interests. Cecil Graham, whose sparkle of a quick black eye; and her firm sharply chiseled face, though disfigured by the national latitude of cheek is the instrument by which Ellen finally get to her reward in the Highlands.
There some nice phrases: I believe I could with more patience have endured a fit of cramp, than the most gentle reproof that ever (Miss Mortimer's) friendship administered. Ellen screens her Turkish drapery from observation behind the magnitude of our fat housekeeper. The third volume opens: By some untoward fate, the government of husbands generally falls into the hands of those who are not likely to bring the art into repute. Mrs St. Clare's figure might have served to illustrate all the doctrines of the acute angle.
Very topical today, is Maitland's attitude to the Slave Trade: he opposed, with all the zeal of honour and humanity, this vilest traffic that ever degraded the name and the character of man. This sounds very like the author's opinion.
My 1832 edition
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