[In the following excerpt, Cowie asserts that the controlling theme of The Lamplighter concerns the attainment of moral regeneration by means of humble submission to suffering.]

Not so prolific or indeed so long-lived as many of her kind, Maria Susanna Cummins wrote one novel, The Lamplighter, which with The Wide, Wide World and St. Elmo, probably represents the chief elements of the domestic novel in its most comprehensive and popular form. Miss Cummins was born at Salem, Massachusetts, and attended Mrs. Charles Sedgwick's fashionable school at Lenox. She was only twenty when she began to write stories for The Atlantic Monthly and only twenty-seven when she astonished and delighted an enormous public with The Lamplighter (1854).¹ The book was published by John P. Jewett and Company, a house that was responsible for many pious publications in the mid-nineteenth century. It sold 40,000 copies in a few weeks, and it became so well known that literary references were subsequently made to the characters of True and Gertrude without citation of the title of the book.

The little girl in this story is Gertrude, and the ogre-aunt is Nan Grant. Gertrude is rescued from a painfully sordid life on the Boston waterfront by Trueman Flint, the lamplighter, who takes her in and, though an elderly bachelor, nurses her through a three-weeks' illness brought on by exposure. Yet Trueman realizes his unfitness for bringing up a little girl properly and is delighted when Miss Emily Graham, a beautiful blind lady, takes a friendly interest in the waif. By degrees Gertrude is purged of her bad passions, such as revenge, and taught to accept suffering meekly as part of the divine plan. But other trials await her. After Trueman's orthodox sentimental death Gertrude is transferred to the bosom of Emily's family, where she receives good physical care but where she is exposed to female snobbery, the unpleasant attentions of an unworthy lover, the malicious wiles of a cruel and jealous housekeeper, and the gibes of Emily's father—who cannot understand why the independent little minx should reject a trip south in favor of staying home to nurse sick friends. The sick friends die and so does Nan Grant. Besides performing sundry holy duties, Gertrude has learned to support herself by teaching. She has also learned to love William Sullivan, an attractive young businessman whose duties have called him away for a long sojourn in the Orient. Matters of plot move toward a climax when Gertrude takes the usual trip to Saratoga.² Here she stumbles on a man who turns out to be her father. Before the relationship is established, however, Gertrude receives another cruel blow of fate when William Sullivan, returned after five years, not only fails to recognize Gertrude (now no child but a woman) but has the effrontery to appear to be intimate with one of the most notorious flirts who ever set foot on Saratoga soil. All is finally worked out satisfactorily, but only after the self-sacrificing Gertrude has risked her life in making sure that the flirt should be rescued from a burning ship. The dénouement demonstrates that Gertrude's father was once the suitor of Emily Graham, and the epilogue unites him in middle-aged bliss to the angelic Emily. Willie assures Gertrude that he had no idea of marrying the fashion-spoiled flirt (he was merely urging her to take care of her sick mother), and the young folks look forward to a life of sober joy. It is apparent that in their wedded life they will be above want, for Willie has made good in business, and Gertrude's father has made a fortune abroad.

The Lamplighter contains a considerable amount of petty realism, but its “morality” seems a little forced. Scenes intended to be deeply touching have a manufactured air—as in the following colloquy concerning a statue of the Infant Samuel in prayer:

“What do you s'pose he's sittin' on his knee for?”

Willie laughed. “Why, don't you know?” said he.

“No,” said Gerty; “what is he?”

“He's praying,” said Willie.

“Is that what he's got his eyes turned up for, too?”

“Yes, of course; he looks up to heaven when he prays.”

“Up to where?”

“To heaven.”

Gerty looked up at the ceiling in the direction in which the eyes were turned, then at the figure. She seemed very much dissatisfied and puzzled.

“Why, Gerty,” said Willie, “I shouldn't think you knew what praying was.”

“I don't,” said Gerty; “tell me.”

“Don't you ever pray,—pray to God?”

“No, I don't.—Who is God? Where is God?”

Willie looked inexpressibly shocked at Gerty's ignorance, and answered, reverently, “God is in heaven, Gerty.”

“I don't know where that is,” said Gerty. “I believe I don't know nothin' about it.”

“I shouldn't think you did,” said Willie. “I believe heaven is up in the sky; but my Sunday-school teacher says, ‘heaven is anywhere goodness is,’ or some such thing,” he said.

“Are the stars in heaven?” said Gerty.

“They look so, don't they?” said Willie. “They're in the sky, where I always used to think heaven was.”

“I should like to go to heaven,” said Gerty.³

The fundamental lesson of the book is to teach humble submission to suffering. The author has ransacked the poetry of sentiment to find suitable mottoes for her chapter headings, of which the following (by Mrs. Hemans) will serve as an example not only for The Lamplighter but in general for the whole genre:

Yet 'tis a weary task to school the heart,

Ere years of griefs have tamed its fiery spirit

Into that still and passive fortitude

Which is but learned from suffering.⁴

It seems profane to find anything false amid so much patient suffering and high testimony; yet the critical reader will be disturbed to find that a tale of moral regeneration is finally turned into a success story. Repeatedly the characters are urged to resign themselves to suffering in the confidence that only so can the soul be purified. Material goods and fashionable life are repeatedly referred to in terms of scorn. Yet here, as in most of the domestic novels, the author contrives that the hero and heroine shall have not only the satisfaction of having fought the good fight but a substantial monetary reward as well. Evidently the public approved, for The Lamplighter became a best seller. …

Notes

1. Dictionary of American Biography, IV, 600.

2. No self-respecting domestic novel omits the trip to Saratoga. Usually the itinerary also includes visits to Niagara Falls and the White Mountains, but these are optional, whereas Saratoga is required. Sometimes a character is sent abroad by the author, but the European trip is seldom described, doubtless because the author could not command the detail. Most of the authors grew up in a time (1820-1840) when “Europe was an experience which came to few, and to them as the event of a lifetime.” C. R. Fish, The Rise of the Common Man 1830-1850, New York, 1927, p. 19.

3. The Lamplighter, Boston, 1854, pp. 43-44.

4. Ibid., p. [449].