Hale: Madame D'Arblay 



21 



"I beg your pardon a thousand times! I don't well know how this 

 happened; but the chimney-piece looks so like my own, — and the fire was 

 so comfortable, — that I suppose I thought I was at home, and took that 

 parcel for one that the servant had put there for me. And I was wondering 

 to myself when I had ordered all those linens and muslins, and the like: I 

 could not recollect one article of them." 82 



Mr. Tedman and the Admiral furnish a mild degree of amusement at 

 times, and in one of the latter's remarks we catch the last flicker of 

 the author's vanished genius: 



"Not that I would condemn a dead man, who cannot speak- in his own 

 defence, for I hold nothing to be narrower than that.''^^ 



V. Pathos 



To amuse the reader is only a secondary consideration in these 

 novels. It would seem that Madame D'Arblay's prime object is to 

 develop his sympathetic powers, for with an ingenuity relentless and 

 untiring, she invents torture after torture for her long-suffering hero- 

 ines. This wanton cruelty appears even in Evelina. As Sir Walter 

 Raleigh says: ' 'Social miseries, in all their intensity and variety, surely 

 never had a more enthusiastic recorder. The tortures Evelina suffers 

 have the vividness of a nightmare. Most of the book describes 

 the trials and tribulations of this unsophisticated young heroine. In 

 addition, we have the sentimental Macartney, with his liberal quota 

 of griefs. In the second novel, the tortures increase. Not only the 

 three guardians and the throng of lovers, but every character in the 

 book lends a hand i'n tormenting the young heiress. A glance at the 

 headings of some of the chapters will show what a thrilling time she 

 had — and how natural was her delirium in the latter part of the 

 story: chapter i, "A Wrangling"; chapter ii, ''A Suspicion"; chapter 

 iii, ''A Disturbance"; chapter iv, ''A Calm"; chapter v, ''An Alarm"; 

 chapter vi, "A Suspense"; chapter vii, "A Relation"; chapter viii, 

 "An Enterprise". 85 



Camilla has even more turmoil. Everybody takes a turn on the 

 rack. At the beginning of volume one, Eugenia has her shoulder "put 

 out" and her knee dislocated. Besides, she catches the smallpox. 

 Not long after, Sir Hugh Hes at the point of death. Soon Camilla's 

 love for Edgar begins, and its agonies extend thru the five volumes. 

 In the meantime Lynmere comes home, disdains Eugenia, irritates 



82 The Wanderer, II, 209. 



83 Ibid., V, 383. 



81 The English Novel, 258. 



85 From the Table of Contents (vol. II, book IX). 



