Unsurprisingly for a novel concerned with courtship and marriage and structured as a series of notes among friends, the letters in The History of Emily Montague concern themselves largely with the nature of friendship and love and what makes an ideal matrimonial alliance. Both the men and women of the novel focus on these issues in their writing, and Frances Brooke has pretty successfully created a coterie of well-differentiated characters with their own personalities and priorities but who are, in the main, kindred spirits on these subjects.
One flaw in this, however, comes in the person of Colonel Edward Rivers, the love interest of Emily Montague and the focus of most of the action of the novel (Emily herself is comparably quiet). Where Samuel Richardson could be found guilty of creating, in Pamela, a female character ideally suited to the desires of a male author, Brooke has here outlined a rather womanish young man whose interest in romance is probably a little far-fetched. I don’t necessarily find his letters themselves overly feminine in their writing style, as he does take a pretty confident and direct approach and is usually the one writing the injunctive letters, but he’s extremely liberal (as are all the characters) and sentimental.
At the beginning of the novel, he exhorts his friend back in Europe, John Temple, to stop messing around with loose French women and think about settling down, because a good marriage is clearly the seat of ultimate bliss. Temple is more interested in having fun for a while longer, and thus begins one of the “back in England” storylines so hard to follow closely from Canada. Suffice it to say that Temple, who wants to get married least, ends up married first of all the group.
Much later in the novel, Rivers writes to his sister—now Mrs. Temple!—and gives her a very clear picture of his thoughts on marriage:
Equality is the soul of friendship: marriage, to give delight, must join two minds, not devote a slave to the will of an imperious lord; whatever conveys the idea of subjection necessarily destroys that of love, of which I am so convinced, that I have always wished the word OBEY expunged from the marriage ceremony.
Rivers gets regularly gushy about the importance of friendship, of equality, of women who are mature enough to actually talk to, and of how wrong it is for parents to choose matches for their children. He also speaks positively of the masculinity of the native women—and sometimes this gets astonishingly modern: on native women being able to “vote,” Rivers complains of how the English “so impolitely deprive you of the common rights of citizenship” and adds, “By the way, I don’t think you are obliged in conscience to obey laws you have had no share in making; your plea would certainly be at least as good as that of the Americans, about which we every day hear so much.” And immediately upon seeing Emily he falls utterly in love with her, fairly swooning over how wonderful she is in every imaginable way.
Bell Fermor fills an important role in the epistolary novel, that of confidante to Emily Montague. It is this role that gives her the most forceful personality in the book—she gets to be the sassy sidekick to the quiet and unassuming Emily. She’s smart and often smart-mouthed. Here she gives a disquisition on love and marriage in a letter to Mrs. Temple back in London:
Emily and I, however, differ in our ideas of love: it is the business of her life, the amusement of mine; ’tis the food of her hours, the seasoning of mine.
Or, in other words, she loves like a foolish woman, I like a sensible man: for men, you know, compared to women, love in about the proportion of one to twenty.
’Tis a mighty wrong thing, after all, Lucy, that parents will educate creatures so differently who are to live with and for each other.
Every possible means is used, even from infancy, to soften the minds of women, and to harden those of men; the contrary endeavour might be of use, for the men creatures are unfeeling enough by nature, and we are born too tremblingly alive to love, and indeed to every soft affection.
That last is reminiscent of Mr. B in Pamela, actually. She goes on to reveal that perhaps Brooke knew Rivers was a bit too feminine, in fact:
Your brother is almost the only one of his sex I know, who has the tenderness of woman with the spirit and firmness of man; a circumstance which strikes every woman who converses with him, and which contributes to make him the favourite he is amongst us.
…
A propos to women, the estimable part of us are divided into two classes only, the tender and the lively.The former, at the head of which I place Emily, are infinitely more capable of happiness; but, to counterbalance this advantage, they are also capable of misery in the same degree. We of the other class, who feel less keenly, are perhaps upon the whole as happy, at least I would fain think so.
For example, if Emily and I marry our present lovers, she will certainly be more exquisitely happy than I shall; but if they should change their minds, or any accident prevent our coming together, I am inclined to fancy my situation would be much the most agreeable.
Bell, like Temple, affects not to care so much for the marriage business, and is a big flirt. But it turns out she can be just as much a “foolish woman” as Emily, and again, desiring marriage somewhat less, and with a courtship slower to start, she and her man tie the knot before Emily and Rivers. The several love stories in the novel open and close on a last-in, first-out basis, dragging the main romance on until the end.
Even Bell’s father is as liberal as the children in his ideas on marriage:
She is Bell Fermor still; but is addressed by a gentleman who is extremely agreeable to me, and I believe not less so to her; I however know too well the free spirit of woman, of which she has her full share, to let Bell know I approve her choice; I am even in doubt whether it would not be good policy to seem to dislike the match, in order to secure her consent: there is something very pleasing to a young girl, in opposing the will of her father.
Cute. The whole thing gives a bit of an impression of silly young people, running around making love to each other and writing excited and passionate letters, opining on the importance of independence and love matches. And of course, in the end things are very much happily ever after, in a largely gratuitous tying-up of plots. It’s sort of an overflowing of sensibility, and on the saccharine side. But while actually reading it I was swept up in the romance of these silly, charming people to a point that surprised me.
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