e
feelings controlled, not crushed, by duty.

Another marked change is shown in the manner in which Helen and
Granville Beauclerc fall in love. Miss Edgeworth had always protested
against the doctrine that love is a mere matter of personal beauty; she
showed how it may enslave for a moment, but that a preference resting on
so precarious a foundation was but a paltry tribute to her sex. Love,
she rightly preached, must be founded on higher motives; but her heroes
and heroines were too apt to fall in love in an edifying and instructive
manner; they know too well why they succumbed to the tender passion.
Until now she had almost denied the existence of romantic love,
agreeing, it would seem, with her own Mrs. Broadhurst: "Ask half the men
you are acquainted with why they are married, and their answer, if they
speak the truth, will be: 'Because I met Miss Such-a-one at such a
place, and we were continually together.'" "'Propinquity, propinquity,'
as my father used to say--and he was married five times, and twice to
heiresses." That amiable and respectable Bluebeard, Miss Edgeworth's
father, had hitherto held final sway over her characters. Was it the
removal of this influence that allowed Helen and Granville to fall in
love in a more rational manner? Helen does not now wait to see whether
Beauclerc has every virtue under the sun before she ventures to love
him; indeed, she sees his foibles clearly, and it is just when she
believes that he has shown a lack of honor and sincerity that in her
burst of grief she discovers that she loves him; loves him whatever he
is, whatever he does. As for Granville, he falls in love in a
thorough-going, earnest manner, which increases our feeling of his
reality. It has been objected to Miss Edgeworth's love-making that it is
stiff as compared with that of the present day. It certainly presents a
contrast to that of the Broughton school; but the loves of Helen and
Granville, as told by her in so real and human a manner, reveal their
feelings to be none the less tender that they are not hysterical, or any
the less deep for their power of modesty, reverence and reserve.

_Helen_ was suggested by Crabbe's tale, _The Confidant_, but that
feeling which is sinfully gratified and severely punished in Crabbe's
story becomes refined and reformed in Miss Edgeworth's crucible. It is,
however, interesting to compare her romance with the rapid sketch of the
stern original. Another new feature in _Helen_