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Indiana University Studies 



Eliot's psychologizing. Like Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa, these 

 heroines constantly hesitate, and worry over questions of deportment 

 and conscience, and indulge in the most elaborate reasonings before 

 taking a step. The analysis, however, is not as skilful or thorogoing as 

 George Eliot's. Utterly devoid of humor and never convincing, it is 

 a weary business. It never stimulates us intellectually like Meredith's, 

 or amuses us like Thackeray's. It is flimsy, for the simple reason 

 that the characters have no brains to be analyzed. Besides, 

 Madame D'Arblay looks upon the reason as a simple, and not a com- 

 plex thing, and consequently deduces motives that carry little con- 

 viction. Her characters have no backbone. Their mental processes 

 seem more like apologies for their senseless behavior than explana- 

 tions of their real motives. This, more than anything else, causes the 

 weakness of her plots. The motivation depends upon whimsicalities 

 that are inexplicable. Cecilia's pretexts for lending Harrel her money, 

 for going over and over again to Mrs. Belfield's, and for getting into 

 all those embarrassing situations, have no justification. No good and 

 sufficient reason is given for Camilla and Edgar's estrangement, and 

 Eugenia's loyalty to Bellamy borders on the idiotic. The Wanderer 

 deserves all the tribulations that come to her, on account of her pur- 

 poseless behavior. Her scruples and decisions have so little sense 

 behind them that we lose all patience with her.^^^ What, for example, 

 could be more senseless than the position she takes when she mistakes 

 the deer-stealers for murderers? All is going well with her — as well as 

 could be expected— in Dame Fairfield's house, and any change in 

 her situation will mean absolute peril for her, and yet she determines 

 ''to let no personal consideration whatsoever, interfere any longer 

 with her causing an immediate investigation to be made into this 

 fearful business". Her attitude toward her involuntary husband 

 shows that her moral sense has no reasonable basis. After eluding 

 him for five volumes, she is finally caught by him; then, when, just 

 in the nick of time. Sir Jaspar snatches her from his clutches, she 

 almost convinces herself that she ought to return to him: 



But when she beheld him seized and in custody — and heard him called 

 her husband . . . duty, for that horrible instant seemed in his favor; and 

 had not Sir Jaspar summoned her by her maiden name, to attend her own 

 nearest relative, all her resistance had been subdued, by an overwhelming 

 dread that to resist might possibly be wrong.^"^^ 



103 For the study of this element in Madame D'Arblay, see the following sections 

 in Camilla: II, 222-249, 289-326; III, 382 ff., 391 fl. ; IV, 39 ff., 41 ff. 



Cf. Edinburgh Review (Feb. 1815), 337. 

 105 The Wanderer, V, 7. 



Ibid., V, 326. 



