Hale: Madame D'Arhlay 



13 



Harley stood fixed in astonishment and pity! his friend gave money to 

 the keeper. . . . He put a couple of guineas into the man's hand: "Be kind 

 to that unfortunate" — He burst into tears and left them. . .43 



On another occasion: 



His resolution failed; he shrunk back, and locking the gate as softly as 

 he could, stood on tiptoe looking over the wall till they were gone. At that 

 instant a shepherd blew his horn: the romantic melancholy of the sound 

 quite overcame him!— it was the very note that wanted to be touched — he 

 sighed! dropped a tear! — and returned. . 



Finally, when he had languished a good many days and was dying of 

 love unspoken, Miss Walton, the lady in the case, came to see him 

 and frankly acknowledged her affection: 



He seized her hand — a languid color reddened his cheek — a smile bright- 

 ened faintly m his eye. As he gazed on her, it grew dim, it fixed, it closed — 

 He sighed, and fell back on his seat — Miss Walton screamed at the sight — 

 His aunt and the servants rushed into the room — They found them lying 

 motionless together — His physician happened to call at that instant. Every 

 art was tried to recover them — with Miss Walton they succeeded — But 

 Harley was gone forever. 45 



Undoubtedly some such influence as Mackenzie's sentimentahsm had 

 begun to affect Madame D'Arblay when she wrote Evelina. The senti- 

 mentalizing in Cecilia is still more pronounced, and in the last two 

 novels it appears with no restraint whatever. If we note the rapid 

 development that this propensity attains in the four years between the 

 publication of the first two novels, and then recall that fourteen years 

 pass before Camilla appears, and eighteen more before The Wanderer, 

 it seems a certainty that this characteristic of the later style grew 

 directly out of the earlier. An author's faults usually become more 

 pronounced as he advances in age, unless the development of his 

 critical faculty counteracts them. Madame D'Arblay, however, 

 seems not only to have had no critical faculty, but to have lacked 

 entirely a sense of humor, which alone would have saved her from so 

 wild a vagary. 



« The Man of Feeling, 38. 



44 Ibid., 133. 



45 Ibid., 152. 



"JBt^e/ina was published in 1778; Cecilia, 1782; Camilla, 1796; The Wanderer, 

 1814. 



