{
54
PARTISAN REVIEW
forced by reaction. Yet they remain only mirror-revolutionists, since
their rebellion, lacking full awareness of the historical process and
failing to adjust their ego to the external world, is superficial. Mrs.
Radcliffe neither realizes her dilemmas nor commits hersel£ to resolu–
tions. Even a complete "literary" criticism should take account of
her situation and discriminate on these grounds between her roman–
ticism and the romanticism of the poets mentioned. Scott's novels
would stand, perhaps, rather near those of Mrs. Radcliffe, and also
other "romantic" works by Southey, Campbell, or Rogers.
The sentimental/unsentimental ambiguity underlies many other
ambiguities in the
Mysteries,
and is determined by the opposition of
aesthetic response/moral response. The basic aesthetic scale is one of
sensibility in the eighteenth-century sense of the word. The basic
moral scale is one of shrewdness. This essentially bourgeois dilemma,
expressing itself in a co-existing ethics of self-interest and an ethics
of pity and in the opposition of Mandeville to Shaftesbury, of Hut–
cheson to Adam Smith, or within Adam Smith himself, is resolved
imperfectly by charity-benevolence. Yet benevolence itself is subject
to prudential check. The novels of the later eighteenth century are
forever insisting on the dangers of undiscriminating bounty. St.
Aubert, the father of Emily, explains that apathy is a vice, but that
sensibility is a "dangerous quality" and "the romantic error of
amiable minds." St. Aubert accepts the principle of charity: "Senti–
ment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it leads us to good
actions." But the principle does not resolve the dilemma because of
the chance that one may abandon himself to indiscreet charity unless
he has a "temperate and uniform nature," as St. Aubert puts it.
Valancourt, the hero, is deficient in this temperance and uniformity.
Because of his sensibility Emily falls in love with him, but this sensi–
bility leads him td improvidences in charity by which he is chastened
to caution; then he is fit to wed Emily. Thus the novel is morally
directed toward caution (enlightened self-interest) and a proper
restraint of generosity while it is aesthetically directed toward an indul–
gence of sentiment to the degree of incaution. Socially this is an
important matter, since, as Mrs. Radcliffe says elsewhere, conduct
should be determined by principle, not feeling; and the application
- of principle to alleviating social distress leads to a program in which
"to each according to his needs" is a materialistic morality motivated
not by feeling but intelligence. Ruskin's "gentleman" is a vessel of
romantic benevolence-"Your gentleman has walked in pity all day
long; the tears have never been out of his eyes." Pity is not enough.
