Love: The Passionate Kind
The subject of the story here is love. The themes which are pursued are those related to how love can go rightly or wrongly. Mostly wrongly, in this particular case relative to old-fashioned male and female sexuality. There is another pathway toward finding contentment in love, however. But first, the passionate kind:
“LOVE! as it is one of the first Passions for which the Soul finds room, so it is also the most easily deceiv'd: The good Opinion which it naturally inspires, of the darling Object, makes it almost an Impossibility to suspect his Honour and Sincerity; and the Pleasure which arises from a Self-assurance of the Truth of what we so eagerly desire, is too great for a young Heart, unaccustom'd to such Struggles, to repel.”
Love: The Platonic Kind
That other type of love which is explored in the narrative is the Platonic sort which dispenses with pleasures of the flesh and finds subsistence in things like loyalty and trust. It takes an entire book to get to the imagery summing up this location within the realm of love as the destination of the two main characters, but friendship as an acceptable replacement for passion is foreshadowed multiple times along the path:
“in a short Time, both their Resolutions of abandoning the World continuing, the Recluse and she took a House about seventy Miles distant from London, where they still live in a perfect Tranquility, happy in the real Friendship of each other, despising the uncertain Pleasures, and free from all the Hurries and Disquiets which attend the Gaieties of the Town: And where a solitary Life is the Effect of Choice, it certainly yields more solid Comfort than all the publick Diversions which those who are the greatest Pursuers of them can find.”
Expressions of Passion
Love of the passionate kind is fodder for imagery that manifests in literary form the profound emotions often considered impossible to described. What must be felt to understand is inevitably (as illustrated below) crafted into language in the attempt to circumvent the obvious obstacle to understanding on these terms, however. The language of love exemplifies the power of imagery throughout the story:
“A thousand Times have I attempted since to speak what 'twas I felt at this first fatal Interview; but Words cou'd never do Justice to the Wonders of his Charms, or half describe the Effect they wrought on me: Oh! had his Soul been worthy of that lovely, that transporting Outside, I shou'd have been too blest, been happy to as superlative a Degree, as now I am curs'd and wretched. But not to tire you with unavailing Wishes, or as fruitless Exclamations, I Lov'd! – was plung'd in a Wild Sea of Passion, before I had Time to know, or stem the Danger!”
The Man-Hater Club?
One way to interpret the story of the two women and their ultimate decision to find relief in the friendship of each other is view the book as being written by a member of the Man-Hater Club. True enough, men take it hard on the chin in the novel as a general representative of the species. But it would be difficult to argue that the reasoning here is not steeped in the authenticity and experience. The imagery speaks to what has been and still is, not to what exists only in the minds of men-hating women:
“I had heard and read too much of Men's Inconstancy, their Flatteries, their thousand Arts, to lure weak Woman to Belief and Ruin, not to tremble when I thought there was a Possibility he might not be exempted from those little Basenesses of his Sex. – These Meditations were the troublesome Companions of my Pillow”
