Vehement Flame

by Margaret Deland

Margaret Deland (nee Margaretta Wade Campbell) (1857-1945) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. She also wrote an autobiography in two volumes. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. In 1880 she married Lorin F. Deland. They took in and supported unmarried mothers; it was at this period she began to write. Her poetry collection The Old Garden was published in 1886. Deland received a Litt. D. from Bates College in 1920. She is known principally for the novel John Ward, Preacher (1888), and her 'Old Chester' books, based on her early memories of Maple Grove and Manchester, Pennsylvania. Her other works include Florida Days (1889), A Summer Day (1889), Philip and His Wife (1890), Sidney (1892), Mr Tommy Dove (1893), The Wisdom of Fools (1897), The Awakening of Helena Richie (1906), The Way to Peace (1910), The Iron Woman (1911), The Voice (1912), Partners (1913), The Hands of Esau (1914), Around Old Chester (1915), The Rising Tide (1916), and The Vehement Flame (1922).

340 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2005

About the author

From Wikipedia:
Margaretta Wade Campbell was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (today a part of Pittsburgh) on February 23, 1857. Her mother died due to complications from the birth and she was left in the care of an aunt named Lois Wade and her husband Benjamin Campbell Blake.[1]

On May 12, 1880, she married Lorin F. Deland. Her husband had inherited his father's publishing company, which he sold in 1886 and worked in advertising.[1] It was at this period she began to write, first authoring verses for her husband's greeting-card business.[1] Her poetry collection The Old Garden was published in 1886.

Deland and her husband moved to Boston, Massachusetts and, over a four year span, they took in and supported unmarried mothers at their residence at 76 Mount Vernon Street on Beacon Hill. They also maintained a summer home, Greywood, overlooking the Kennebunk River in Kennebunkport, Maine.[2] It was in this home that Canadian actress Margaret Anglin visited in 1909 and the two women looked over Deland's manuscript for The Awakening of Helena Richie. As Anglin reported, "I never spent a pleasanter time than I did while Mrs. Deland and I chugged up and down the little Kennbunkport [sic] River in a boat, talking over the future of Helena Richie."[3] The Delands kept their summer home in Maine for about 50 years.[2]

In 1910, Deland wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthly recognizing the ongoing struggles for women's rights in the United States: "Restlessness!" she wrote, "A prevailing discontent among women — a restlessness infinitely removed from the content of a generation ago."[4] During World War I, Deland did relief work in France; she was awarded a cross from the Legion of Honor for her work.[1] "She received a Litt.D. from Bates College in 1920. In 1926, she was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters[1] along with Edith Wharton, Agnes Repplier and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. The election of these four women to the organization was said to have "marked the letting down of the bars to women."[5]

By 1941, Deland had published 33 books.[2] She died in Boston at the Hotel Sheraton, where she then lived, in 1945.[6] She is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery. Her home on Mount Vernon Street is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.[7]

Reviews

[Jennifer Booth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eh? I was disappointed

I was hoping to have another old good old fashioned romance. I found it to be pointless and dull. I hope to find one soon

[Adrienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like there’s a lot to unpack in this book. The plot definitely didn’t go where I thought it would. It was pretty hard to get through – because a lot of it was about people who started out happy and in love and innocent becoming selfish and degraded and ashamed. The ‘vehement flame’ of the title is jealousy, and it motivates a lot of the action of the book. Eleanor’s jealousy is one of the main things that motivates the disintegration of their marriage. Her jealousy is personified by her dog Bingo, jealous of anyone who comes near his mistress, and another facet of jealousy is mirrored in Lillie, whose maternal jealousy makes her terrified of anyone who might try to take Jacky away from her. Maurice begins as a proponent of Truth – his coworkers call him G. Washington, and his moral degradation comes from having to keep the secret of Jacky from Eleanor. The other main proponent of truth is Edith, and she ends up as the one who can bring him happiness, in the end. No one is completely blamed for the mistakes they make, but everyone is held accountable. Everyone is agreed (even Eleanor, in the end) that Eleanor shouldn’t have married Maurice, because he was so young. The text is not kind to either Maurice, who is often unkind, or Eleanor, with her pathetic jealousy, although both are in a way redeemed by the end. It was a lot about mistakes and how people pay for them, about how jealousy kills love, what love really means, and whether everyone has the right to be happy…