Hale: Madame D'Arblay 



35 



and development of tendencies present but undeveloped in it. It 

 escaped the faults of the others only because it was written with an 

 unpremeditated art and was the natural expression of the author's 

 girlish spirit. At first she had no admiring audience to make her self- 

 conscious and insincere.. Her faults had not developed because she 

 had no incentive to exaggeration. Had she been content to be simple 

 and natural and to forget her audience, she might have continued 

 to write novels as delightful as Evelina. She failed because she was 

 not satisfied with doing well. Her first success was her ruin. We 

 have cause, therefore, to be glad that she wrote Evelina in secret and 

 published it in fear and trembling, and that no untimely praise robbed 

 us of its natural simplicity and its graceful, charming naivete. 



