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Indiana University Studies 



mined by the characters of the chief persons, as Hamlet's nature 

 determines the plot in Hamlet and Macbeth's in Macbeth. The minds 

 of these people have no consistency. They are no more than clay in 

 the hands of the author, and at times her hands wobble badly. As 

 has already been indicated, the main plots resemble each other. ^^i 

 An unsophisticated girl of refined nature, brought face to face with 

 life under especially trying circumstances, suffers woe after woe at 

 the hands of a more or less vulgar, heartless society. Sudden and 

 unexpected encounters between the heroine and someone whom she 

 is particularly anxious to avoid help to keep up the interest. Each 

 story abounds in lovers who are not wanted, but who insist on mani- 

 festing their regard. Some particularly coarse person harrows her 

 delicate sensibilities, and hordes of cruel people consciously or uncon- 

 sciously ply their ingenuities in tormenting her. 



As we have seen, the heroines waste a great deal of time in delibera- 

 tion. They justify their decisions by the most whimsical reasoning, 

 based generally on some far-fetched sense of honor or etiquette. 

 Even after we have endured these tedious soul-searchings, it all 

 amounts to nothing, for some tormentor suddenly makes his — or her — 

 appearance, and all is changed. Thus the volumes run on and on— 

 and there is no reason why they could not go on forever. They stop 

 because the author has decided to stop them, and for no other reason 

 under heaven. The Wanderer might have stopped, and very agreeably, 

 within the first hundred pages; after that, there is no valid reason for 

 its stopping at all. In the first two novels we are interested in the 

 heroines and sympathize with them in their tribulations, and are glad 

 when at last they find rest. In the last two novels they are so pre- 

 posterously scrupulous, and their griefs so unnecessary and far- 

 fetched, that we can take no interest in anything that occurs. 



All the plots have one technical excellence. They move straight- 

 forward. There occurs no sudden shift of scenes or turning back of 

 the clock, as in Dickens and Thackeray. All, except the first novel, 

 have a few short asides; but they do not charm us, like those in 

 Thackeray. There is no revelation of the author's delightful 

 personality, nor have they any of Thackeray's confidential manner or 

 affectation of knowingness. Lacking his tone of reminiscent humor, 

 they generally take the form of commonplace moralizations, which 

 in the last novel the heroine utters. All genuine philosophy is wanting, 

 altho the first lines of Camilla assume a philosophic tone. Some very 



121 Cf. Quarterly (April, 1814), 125. 



122 There are exceptions to this in Evelina. 



123 There are a few exceptions to this in the latter part of Camilla. 



124 Cf. Cecilia, I, 122, etc.; Camilla, I, 214, etc.; The Wanderer, II, 250, etc. 



