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Indiana University Studies 



their first meeting start a fight which continues unabated thruout the 

 book. They never mince matters, but plainly and vulgarly express 

 their minds to each other. They are fashioned after the pattern of 

 Smollett's roughs and bullies,^^ yet, like these worthies, they amuse us 

 in a broad way. Shameful as is the trick which the Captain and Sir 

 Clement play upon Madame Duval, it has a certain element of humor. 

 The old woman, lying in the ditch, all spattered with mud, her feet 

 tied and her battered curls ruined forever, makes a ludicrous picture.^^ 

 Upon an equally high plane is the humor of the Captain's ecstasy 

 when Monsieur Du Bois and this lady trip in the mud — it ends more 

 like a cat-fight than anything human. The joke with the monkey, 

 in which the unfortunate Lovel plays so sad a part, likewise goes too 

 far — nothing could go too far against Lovel — but it is too far-fetched.^^ 

 If this is fun, it is of the cheapest kind. In this instance and some of 

 her other humorous efforts, Madame D'Arblay displays a noteworthy 

 lack of feeling. Her heart seems absolutely hardened in contriving 

 the diabolical expedients of the Captain; but the most heartless, 

 unpardonable effort is her attempt to extract humor from the misery 

 of the two poor old women who are compelled to run a race.^^ 



All the humor, however, does not depend upon horseplay. Eve- 

 lina^s inexperience and naivete delight us. Here the touches are 

 lighter than anywhere else in the book. This young lady of seventeen 

 lays bare her heart with much charm as she attempts ''to describe 

 the world as it seems to a woman utterly preoccupied with the thought 

 of how she seems to the world". But her view of the world around 

 her would have been more humorous as well as more interesting could 

 her delineator have taken less seriously her conflict with the pro- 

 prieties, and have considered some of her embarrassing situations 

 with the detached attitude of Miss Austen. The Branghtons and 

 their lodger, Mr. Smith, who furnish humor of a more genuine 

 type than the cruel, premeditated jokes of Captain Mirvan, are the 

 most amusing people in the book, and in their ingenuousness make an 

 immediate appeal to our sense of the ridiculous. The comedy seldom 

 sinks into farce. The Misses Branghton are always admirable: 

 nothing could be more delightful than their bourgeois simplicity, in 

 spite of their assumption of knowingness. This short colloquy, simple 



63 See the passage from the Preface of Evelina (page 9 above), in which the 

 author speaks of "the humor of Smollet". 



64 Evelina, I, 164 flf. 



65 Ibid., I, 72 flf. 



66 Ibid., II, 268 flf. 



67 Ibid., II, 152 flf. 



6« Walter RaUegh, The English Novel, 252. 

 69 Ibid., 258. 



