This is the second of the three novels of Grace Kennedy which I possess. The other two - Father Clement (the most well-known) and Philip Colville; or A Covenanter's Story - were published in 1823 and 1825 respectively, the latter posthumously. Whereas I have both of them in first edition, I have - so far - only managed to track down a second edition of Dunallan. It is the only one published as a three-decker; but, I feel, its purpose would have been more effective it if had been pruned to two volumes.
The nadir is reached in a missive of enormous length - Dunallan's letter to his wife Catharine on pp. 1-83 of Volume II. I have occasionally sprinkled the margin with pencilled comments, such as a first class-prig (he wrote, My taste was really too refined to tolerate open vice, and my morals still too pure to contemplate without disgust many scenes...); and theological masochism. Dunallan is affected (infected?) by his dying youthful pastor friend Churchill's morbid desire for death. After his demise, Churchill's mother says, how profoundly peaceful! I would not bring him back for a thousand worlds. Oh, God, only permit me soon to follow him! Revelation, apparently, trumped all. Dunallan's own epiphany occurs by a Swiss lakeside - rather like John Wesley's heart being 'strangely warmed' in Aldersgate. His next letter was, mercifully, short and hurried! However, the imprint of piety is now even more marked on Catherine - who immediately set about that exact scrutiny of her own character, and constant attention to its improvement, which she thought necessary to fit her for a companion to Dunallan. The latter appears, all too often, to be a religious control freak.
Catharine, indeed, has much to live up to. Dunallan's mother was cast in the same pious clay. Each morning, for two hours, she passed chiefly on her knees - examining her heart in the presence of her God - its every motive - its every desire... the events of the day she considered as guided, or overruled by the providence of God and Saviour... Thus, Catharine herself prays for submission to the Divine will - to all its dispensations, however painful, however mortifying... And there's the rub - mortification, a besetting aspect of Christianity. There seems to be minimal genuine, natural happiness involved. More often, life seems to entertain painful apprehensions. Catharine is all too often pale and trembling. Her husband regularly reminds her in whose merciful and compassionate hands his, and all our lives are, and trust all your anxieties and fears to him. It might be more positive to eschew such anxieties and fears in the first place! During Dunallan's fight for life, after being seriously wounded, he is grieved at not being more anxious to leave this world and all it has to offer for another, which, in my soul, I believe to be far preferable. He has a wife, for God's sake! He is sanctimonious, insufferable and a prig. (He says to Catharine, tenderly as I feel for you, there is yet a want, a defect in your character which I have never clearly expressed. Get away!)
Catharine is even castigated for her sentiments becoming quite methodistical. When cousin Elizabeth is charged to explain what she meant, she says, I mean that narrow uncharitable spirit which limits all goodness to a few strict, and, to people who live in the world, - impracticable rules...never stirring out on a Sunday unless to go half a dozen times to hear some canting preacher - never opening your mouth but to pronounce some religious sentence...(sounds horribly like Dunallan!!) Miss Morven, a new acquaintance, then admits to being a Methodist, causing some little embarrassment. In fairness, on another occasion, Catharine realises that her former prejudice against a sect she had thought dull, gloomy, degrading superstition, and hypocrisy, which I have long joined in regarding with scorn and contempt, and instead remarks to herself, Surely this must be true religion.
The most 'alive' characters are those who are not drenched in religion. Catharine's cousin Elizabeth, who chides her: you get such gloomy dismal notions about everything. Sunday was surely intended for a day of rest and happiness, not of melancholy deprivations. Hear, hear! say I. Helen Graham, the uncultivated romantic, who prefers Shakespeare to the Bible; Mr Melville who complains that the ladies are too violently anxious to be right, I think, and see more evil in some things than really exists. Harcourt, Dunallan's rakish brother-in-law; and, the firebrand from hell, St. Clair. His dastardly plan to counterfeit Catherine's letters to Dunallan nearly worked and his explosive denouement in the court at the end is quite exciting! Lady Fitzhenry, aka Dunallan's Aspasia, the naughty adulteress, is full of vim and vigour. If it was not for the latter two's earthly behaviour the novel would have sunk under the weight of its didactic downpour.
Revelation rather than experience is held up to be the key to Heaven. If Grace Kennedy hoped that her novel would encourage readers to embrace Christianity, she might well have suffered disappointment. A consistently dour and humourless approach to life rather cancels out the more positive Justification By Faith Alone that is an element in the Dunallan credo. Roman Catholicism is given short shrift - superstitious notions - if not as harsh as in the author's Father Clement. Catharine, alas, is dragged down to Dunallan's near-fanatical and gloomy mind-set. What the author sees as spiritual nourishments, some readers would tax as being more akin to sanctimonious smothering. Catharine is first introduced as of high birth, and immense fortune, very beautiful, and in general, amiable in temper, she was indisputably the most charming and most admired young lady in that part of the country. She ends, shackled to a gloomy religious monomaniac. If there are children (there has been no evidence of any physical relationship with Dunallan) then let us hope that some semblance of amiability and happiness return to her. Grace Kennedy is not a positive or encouraging proselytiser for her faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment