A Simple Story by the actress, playwright and novelist Elizabeth Inchbald has remained enduringly popular and almost continuously in print since its first publication in 1791. In scenes charged with understated erotic tension it tells the stories of the flirtatious Miss Milner who falls in love with her guardian, a Roman Catholic priest and aristocrat, and of their daughter Matilda who, banished from her father's sight, craves his love. In her use of dramatic methods—expressive gestures, delayed revelations and economical dialogues—to present these two versions of the same power-struggle between an older father-lover figure and a young girl, Inchbald achieves a psychological intensity and subtlety of characterization rarely found in other late eighteenth-century novelists.
Chapter 1 No.1
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Dorriforth, bred at St. Omer's in all the scholastic rigour of that college, was, by education, and the solemn vows of his order, a Roman Catholic priest-but nicely discriminating between the philosophical and the superstitious part of that character, and adopting the former only, he possessed qualities not unworthy the first professors of Christianity. Every virtue which it was his vocation to preach, it was his care to practise; nor was he in the class of those of the religious, who, by secluding themselves from the world, fly the merit they might have in reforming mankind. He refused to shelter himself from the temptations of the layman by the walls of a cloister, but sought for, and found that shelter in the centre of London, where he dwelt, in his own prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
He was about thirty, and had lived in the metropolis near five years, when a gentleman above his own age, but with whom he had from his youth contracted a most sincere friendship, died, and left him the sole guardian of his daughter, who was then eighteen.
The deceased Mr. Milner, on his approaching dissolution, perfectly sensible of his state, thus reasoned with himself before he made the nomination:-"I have formed no intimate friendship during my whole life, except one-I can be said to know the heart of no man, except the heart of Dorriforth. After knowing his, I never sought acquaintance with another-I did not wish to lessen the exalted estimation of human nature which he had inspired. In this moment of trembling apprehension for every thought which darts across my mind, and more for every action which I must soon be called to answer for; all worldly views here thrown aside, I act as if that tribunal, before which I every moment expect to appear, were now sitting in judgment upon my purpose. The care of an only child is the great charge that in this tremendous crisis I have to execute. These earthly affections that bind me to her by custom, sympathy, or what I fondly call parental love, would direct me to study her present happiness, and leave her to the care of those whom she thinks her dearest friends; but they are friends only in the sunshine of fortune; in the cold nipping frost of disappointment, sickness, or connubial strife, they will forsake the house of care, although the very house which they may have themselves built."
Here the excruciating anguish of the father, overcame that of the dying man.
"In the moment of desertion," continued he, "which I now picture to myself, where will my child find comfort? That heavenly aid which religion gives, and which now, amidst these agonizing tortures, cheers with humbler hope my afflicted soul; that, she will be denied."
It is in this place proper to remark, that Mr. Milner was a member of the church of Rome, but on his marriage with a lady of Protestant tenets, they mutually agreed their sons should be educated in the religious opinion of their father, and their daughters in that of their mother. One child only was the result of their union, the child whose future welfare now occupied the anxious thoughts of her expiring father. From him the care of her education had been with-held, as he kept inviolate his promise to her departed mother on the article of religion, and therefore consigned his daughter to a boarding-school for Protestants, whence she returned with merely such ideas of religion as ladies of fashion at her age mostly imbibe. Her little heart employed in all the endless pursuits of personal accomplishments, had left her mind without one ornament, except such as nature gave; and even they were not wholly preserved from the ravages made by its rival, Art.
While her father was in health he beheld, with extreme delight, his accomplished daughter, without one fault which taste or elegance could have imputed to her; nor ever enquired what might be her other failings. But, cast on a bed of sickness, and upon the point of leaving her to her fate, those failings at once rushed on his thought-and all the pride, the fond enjoyment he had taken in beholding her open the ball, or delight her hearers with her wit, escaped his remembrance; or, not escaping it, were lamented with a sigh of compassion, or a contemptuous frown, at such frivolous qualifications.
"Something essential," said he to himself, "must be considered-something to prepare her for an hour like this. Can I then leave her to the charge of those who themselves never remember such an hour will come? Dorriforth is the only person I know, who, uniting the moral virtues to those of religion, and pious faith to native honour, will protect, without controlling, instruct, without tyrannizing, comfort, without flattering; and, perhaps in time, make good by choice, rather than by constraint, the dear object of his dying friend's sole care."
Dorriforth, who came post from London to visit Mr. Milner in his illness, received a few moments before his death all his injunctions, and promised to fulfil them. But, in this last token of his friend's esteem, he still was restrained from all authority to direct his ward in one religious opinion, contrary to those her mother had professed, and in which she herself had been educated.
"Never perplex her mind with an idea that may disturb, but cannot reform"-were his latest words; and Dorriforth's reply gave him entire satisfaction.
Miss Milner was not with her father at this affecting period-some delicately nervous friend, with whom she was on a visit at Bath, thought proper to conceal from her not only the danger of his death, but even his indisposition, lest it might alarm a mind she thought too susceptible. This refined tenderness gave poor Miss Milner the almost insupportable agony of hearing that her father was no more, even before she was told he was not in health. In the bitterest anguish she flew to pay her last duty to his remains, and performed it with the truest filial love, while Dorriforth, upon important business, was obliged to return to town.
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Chapter 1 No.1
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Chapter 2 No.2
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Chapter 3 No.3
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Chapter 4 No.4
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Chapter 5 No.5
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Chapter 6 No.6
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Chapter 7 No.7
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Chapter 8 No.8
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Chapter 9 No.9
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Chapter 10 No.10
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Chapter 11 No.11
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Chapter 12 No.12
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Chapter 13 No.13
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Chapter 14 No.14
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Chapter 15 No.15
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Chapter 16 No.16
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Chapter 17 No.17
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Chapter 18 No.18
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Chapter 19 No.19
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Chapter 20 No.20
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Chapter 21 No.21
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Chapter 22 No.22
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Chapter 23 No.23
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Chapter 24 No.24
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Chapter 25 No.25
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Chapter 26 No.26
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Chapter 27 No.27
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Chapter 28 No.28
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Chapter 29 No.29
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Chapter 30 No.30
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Chapter 31 No.31
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Chapter 32 No.32
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Chapter 33 No.33
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Chapter 34 No.34
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Chapter 35 No.35
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Chapter 36 No.36
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Chapter 37 No.37
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Chapter 38 No.38
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Chapter 39 No.39
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Chapter 40 No.40
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