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Indiana University Studies 



Language of this kind abounds in Camilla: 



To Miss Camilla Tyrold: 



An incident has happened that over-powers me with sadness and horror. 

 I cannot write. 0! come and pass an hour or two at Cleves with your 

 distressed Eugenia, 



Altho the diction in Evelina has not reached the emotional proportions 

 of these works, unmistakable beginnings of the later sentimentality are 

 evident. The scene in which Evelina's father acknowledges her^^ is 

 a prototype of the agonizings that occupy so much space in Camilla 

 and The Wanderer. A subsequent meeting between the two anticipates 

 those tearful episodes that fill the last two novels : 



Tears and sighs seemed to choke him. . . . 



I could not speak; I kissed his hand on my knee: and then, with yet 

 more emotion, he again blessed me, and hurried out of the room, — leaving 

 me almost drowned in tears. . . . 



When I was sufficiently composed to return to the parlour, I found Lord 

 Orville waiting for me with the utmost anxiety: — and then a new scene of 

 emotion, though of a different nature, awaited me. . . 



The trend of this sentimentalizing is obvious. It indicates the first 

 stage of the evolution toward the tears of Camilla, the rant of Elinor, 

 and the convulsions of the fair Incognita. In Cecilia, which represents 

 the second stage, Mortimer Delvile makes love to the heroine after 

 this doleful fashion: 



"Angelic creature!" cried Delvile, his own tears overflowing. . . . 



"Ah, Delvile!" cried sh3, a little reviving. . . . 



"Too kind, too feeling Delvile!" cried the penetrated Cecilia. . . . 



"Oh, words of transport and extacy!" cried the enraptured Delvile, "oh, 

 partner of my life! friend, solace, darling of my bosom! that so lately I thought 

 expiring! that I folded to my bleeding heart in the agony of eternal separa- 

 tion!"*! 



Madam D'Arblay's tendency to write in this way was due to the 

 influence of the sentimental school of fiction, represented by The 

 Man of Feeling and similar works. The chief source of her emotion 

 was Richardson [^i the expression of it, she follows closely the 



manner of Mackenzie, who published his novel seven years before 

 Evelina appeared. A few extracts from it will show its superabundance 

 of sentiment. Harley, the hero, visited Bedlam, and his friend gave 

 the keeper some money for the inmates : 



3« Camilla, III, 94. 

 39 Evelina, II, 232. 



Evelina, II, 250. Of. also 246 ff. 

 " Cecilia, II, 458. 

 *2 See below, p. 31. 



