The ecumenical "tolerance tale" is a tiny subgenre of the nineteenth century religious novel, and an overwhelmingly Protestant one. The political economist Robert Torrens' quad-decker The Victim of Intolerance: or, the Hermit of Killarney, a Catholic Tale (1814) is, while rather clumsily executed (Torrens had only one previous novel under his belt, and...it shows), a good example of the tolerance tale's approach to religious reconciliation: it turns denominational allegiances into interchangeable group identifiers, in which all religious practices essentially reduce to adiaphora (things indifferent). Thus, aside from quick references to attending Mass, funeral rites, and a possible miraculous vision of the dead (which O'Connor, the titular hermit, nevertheless admits that readers might believe to be a hallucination), the novel renders both Catholicism and Protestantism entirely indistinguishable as forms of Christianity, even as it also concedes that their practices are considerably different. The differences exist--the novel simply remains almost completely silent about them. Actual discussions of religious faith are conducted on the basis of either natural theology--one can detect a bit of William Paley wandering through--or philosophy, with the Bible nowhere to be seen. As is often the case in such novels, interfaith marriage both "proves" and models the possibility of tolerance: as O'Neil, an old friend of O'Connor's, explains to him, "[w]henever our [O'Neil and his wife, Mary Ann] opinions happen not to coincide, each is anxious to leave the other free, and to keep at a distance every thing that might interrupt the cordial sympathy arising from the thousand other instances in which our ideas and sentiments agree" (I.104). The successful tolerant marriage, like the successful tolerant country, acknowledges yet remains silent about difference, while reaffirming mutual similarities. (Nevertheless, as Julia M. Wright points out, the novel's overall trajectory criticizes this attempt to figure national politics in terms of interfaith marriage [1].) This position enables Torrens to effectively secularize the "Catholic question" as one of citizenship (much as Charles Dickens would do in Barnaby Rudge).
O'Connor, Torrens' hero, has the worst luck, all because he is Catholic. His "found" memoirs narrate how his Catholicism interferes at every turn with his ability to function as both a man and a citizen. Born of an ancient Irish family, O'Connor "had struggled ardently to distinguish myself in the world; but the remnant of the penal code, which was still in force, had blasted all my hopes, and left a sense of injustice rankling at my heart" (I.41). O'Connor's struggle to uphold the burden of his patrimony against the power of the state will be blocked at every turn. Moreover, this "rankling," which hints at his strong sensibilities, is one of our first hints that the penal code warps Catholic subjectivity. While the novel frequently invokes the language of sensibility to describe O'Connor's feelings, especially his passion for the beautiful Protestant Julia (a shout-out to Rousseau's Julie from La Nouvelle Heloise, discussed in the text, and Henry Mackenzie's Julia de Roubigne), sanctioned prejudice consistently twists his sensibility into something more dangerous. At the end, when he has become an unwilling revolutionary, just the mention of his now-lost Julia is enough to make him rejoin the "desperate project" (IV.276) of the revolution's dangerous young leader. Thwarted sensibility, that is, runs into dangerous channels. And O'Connor's sensibilities are indeed thwarted everywhere, from school (his anti-Catholic rival Browne gets unfair advantages), to politics (he's ineligible to become an MP), to the military (he can't rise in the ranks without converting), and to trade (he discovers that the Protestants running the courts are against him). These obstacles leave him no possible route of development as a gentleman, with "'desires that can never be gratified'" (III.198). Although the novel's periodic forays into soapboxing for Torrens' views on economics, the Constitution, and politics more generally are not what you would call graceful, their presence reminds the reader that an O'Connor who talks like Torrens can only disseminate his positions if he's of the same religion as Torrens. O'Connor's unwilling turn to insurgency is, from the novel's point of view, the only option left open to a character with a desire for fame and the heightened emotional sensitivities to go along with it--even though it's also the wrong option. There's a minor parallel in the form of a bloodthirsty rebel--the illegitimate son of a deceitful Protestant man and a Catholic woman--animated by vengeance for the wrongs done to his family in general and his mother in particular; this man, a murderer and rapist, horrifies O'Connor, but as another character makes clear, his personal trajectory has been shaped by the same prejudices. (As the reader may no doubt have figured out, Torrens spends a lot of time explaining why Irish Catholics want to rebel, while insisting that patience is the best political choice.)
The novel's interest in balked sensibility carries over to its sense that sensibility in its own right may not be all that helpful, politically speaking. The narrative of O'Connor's wrongs that occupies most of volume III is told to Mr. Russel, the lovely Julia's father, who initially feels that O'Connor is "the best calculated both to render my daughter happy, and to restore to me a son" (III.4). At various points, the narrative is interrupted so that we can appreciate Russel's appropriately sensible response. Russel is "strongly moved" and "seemed to sorrow over the wrongs of his adopted son" (III.57); he "paced the room with violence" (III.119); he manifests "strong emotion" (III.209). Throughout, his sympathies with O'Connor's sufferings appear complete, as he lives over O'Connor's agonies and thoroughly agrees with O'Connor's critique of Protestant prejudice. And then...he refuses to allow O'Connor to marry Julia, on the grounds that the penal codes that debar O'Connor from enjoying the full benefits of citizenship make him an inappropriate husband; he wants Julia to marry a man capable of entering Parliament, and that isn't O'Connor. Later, Russel momentarily recants when there is a promise of Catholic Emancipation, only to re-recant when it falls through. Having opened up the prospect of interfaith reconciliation with the O'Neils, Torrens then sweeps it away. In fact, to make matters worse, Russel then marries off Julia to Browne, O'Connor's lifelong enemy--despite knowing the fact perfectly well. As a Protestant, Russel is perfectly willing to sympathize with O'Connor; he isn't, however, willing to do anything to upset his own goals with that sympathy, and indeed, his choice of Julia's husband suggests that "sensibility" is perfectly compatible with betrayal.
[1] Julia M. Wright, Representing the National Landscape in Irish Romanticism (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2014), 39, 41-42.
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