(FANNY BURNEY, 1752-1840)
It is, to-day, a commonplace of criticism that the novel proper, though
partially forestalled in subject and treatment by Defoe, began with
Richardson’s _Pamela_ in 1740. The main qualities which distinguish
this work from our earlier “romances” were the attempt to copy, or
reproduce, real life; and the choice of middle-class society for
dramatis personæ. It is difficult for us to realise how long the
prejudice against “middle-class” characters held sway; but no doubt
Christopher North reflected the sentiments of the majority in 1829
when he represented the “Shepherd” declaring it to be his “profound
conviction that the strength o’ human nature lies either in the highest
or lowest estate of life. Characters in books should either be kings,
and princes, and nobles, and on a level with them, like heroes; or
peasants, shepherds, farmers, and the like, includin’ a’ orders amaist
o’ our ain working population. The intermediate class--that is,
leddies and gentlemen in general--are no worth the Muse’s while; for
their life is made up chiefly o’ mainners,--mainners,--mainners;--you
canna see the human creters for their claes; and should ane o’ them
commit suicide in despair, in lookin’ on the dead body, you are
mair taen up wi’ its dress than its decease.” The “romance” only
condescended below Prince or Peer for the exhibition of the Criminal.
It aimed at exaggeration in every detail for dramatic effect. It
recognised no limit to the resources of wealth, the beauty of virtue,
the splendour of heroism, or the corruption of villainy. It permitted
the supernatural. Fielding clearly considers it necessary to apologise
for the _vulgarity_ of mere “human nature”:
“The provision, then, which we have here made, is no other than Human
Nature: nor do I fear that any sensible reader, though most luxurious
in his taste, will start, cavil, or be offended because I have named
but one article. The tortoise, as the alderman of Bristol, well
learned in eating, knows by much experience, besides the delicious
calipash and calipee, contains many different kinds of food; nor can
the learned reader be ignorant, that in human nature, though here
collected under one general name, is such prodigious variety, that a
cook will have sooner gone through all the several species of animal
and vegetable food in the world, than an author will be able to
exhaust so extensive a subject.
“An objection may perhaps be apprehended from the more delicate, that
this dish is too vulgar and common; for what else is the subject of
all the romances, novels, plays, and poems, with which the stalls
abound? Many exquisite viands might be rejected by the epicure, if it
was sufficient cause for his contemning of them as common and vulgar,
that something was to be found in the most paltry alleys under the
same name. In reality, true nature is as difficult to be met with in
authors, as the Bayonne ham, or Bologna sausage, is to be found in the
shops.
“But the whole, to continue the metaphor, consists in the cooking of
the author; for, as Mr. Pope tells us,--
‘True wit is nature to advantage dress’d;
What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.’
“The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh
eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part,
and some of his limbs gibbetted, as it were, in the vilest stall in
town. Where then lies the difference between the food of the nobleman
and the porter, if both are at dinner on the same ox or calf, but in
the seasoning, the dressing, the garnishing, and the setting forth?
Hence the one provokes and incites the most languid appetite, and the
other turns and palls that which is the sharpest and keenest.
“In like manner the excellence of the mental entertainment consists
less in the subject than in the author’s skill in well dressing
it up. How pleased, therefore, will the reader be to find that we
have, in the following work, adhered closely to one of the highest
principles of the best cook which the present age, or perhaps that
of Heliogabalus, hath produced? This great man, as is well known to
all lovers of polite eating, begins at first by setting plain things
before his hungry guests, rising afterwards by degrees, as their
stomachs may be supposed to decrease, to the very quintessence of
sauce and spices.
“In like manner we shall represent human nature at first, to the keen
appetite of our reader, in that more plain and simple manner in which
it is found in the country, and shall hereafter hash and ragout it
with all the high French and Italian seasoning of affectation and
vice which courts and cities afford. By these means, we doubt not but
our reader may be rendered desirous to read on for ever, as the great
person just above mentioned, is supposed to have made some persons
eat.”
Samuel Richardson, printer, revolutionised fiction. He inaugurated a
method of novel-writing: shrewdly adapted, and developed, by Fielding;
boisterously copied by Smollett; humorously varied by Goldsmith and
Sterne. And when the new ideal of realism and simple narrative had
been thus, more or less consciously, established as fit fruit for the
circulating library: that “evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge,”
finally purified of all offence against decency, was planted in every
household by a timid and bashful young lady, who “hemmed and stitched
from breakfast to dinner with scrupulous regularity.”
The mental development of Frances Burney, authoress of _Evelina_, was
encouraged by “no governess, no teacher of any art or of any language.”
Her father’s library contained only _one novel_; and she does not
appear to have supplemented it in this particular. But the peculiar
circumstances of Dr. Burney’s social position, and the infectious
enthusiasm of his artistic temperament, provided his daughter with very
exceptional opportunities for the study of material appropriate to the
construction of a modern novel. On the one hand, he permitted her free
intercourse “with those whom butlers and waiting-maids call vulgar”;
and, on the other, he gave her every opportunity of watching Society
at ease in the company of artists and men of letters. At his concerts
and tea-parties, again, she often saw Johnson and Garrick; Bruce, Omai,
and the “lions” of her generation; the peers and the politicians; the
ambassadors and the travellers; the singers and the fiddlers.
And, finally, if her most worthy stepmother has been derided for the
conventionality which discouraged the youthful “observer,” and dictated
a “bonfire” for her early manuscripts, it may not be altogether
fanciful to conjecture that the domestic ideals of feminine propriety
thus inculcated had some hand in shaping the precise direction of the
influence which Fanny was destined to exert upon the development of her
art.
For if _Evelina_ was modelled on the work of Richardson, and the
fathers of fiction, who had so recently passed away, it nevertheless
inaugurated a new departure--the expression of a feminine outlook on
life. It was, frankly and obviously, written by a woman for women,
though it captivated men of the highest intellect.
We need not suppose that Johnson’s pet “character-monger” set out
with any intention of accomplishing this reform; but the woman’s view
is so obvious on every page that we can scarcely credit the general
assumption of “experienced” _masculine_ authorship, which was certainly
prevalent during the few weeks it remained anonymous. It would have
been far more reasonable for the public to have accepted the legend
of its being written by a girl of seventeen. For the heroine is
represented as being no older; and though Miss Burney was twenty-six
at the time, she has been most extraordinarily successful in assuming
the tone of extreme youth, and thus emphasising still further the
innovation. Its main subject is “The Introduction of a Young Lady to
the World”; and being told in letters from the heroine to her guardian,
could scarcely have been better arranged, by a self-conscious artist,
for the exposition of the novelty. On the other hand, the success of
its execution doubtless owes much to the author’s spontaneity and to
her untrained mind. It would seem that she was blissfully unconscious
of any accepted “rules” in composition; and even in _Cecilia_,
generally supposed to be partially disfigured by Johnson’s advice,
it is only in the structure of her sentences that she attempted to
be “correct.” It is a more complex variant of the same theme, with a
precisely similar inspiration: the manipulation of her own experience
of life, and her own comments thereon.
It is obvious that we can only realise the precise nature of what she
accomplished for fiction by comparing her work with Richardson’s,
since Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne wove all their stories about
a “hero,” and even Goldsmith drew women through the spectacles of a
naïvely “superior” and obviously masculine vicar. Richardson, on the
other hand, was admittedly an expert in the analysis of the feminine.
We must recognise a lack of virility in touch and outlook. The prim
exactitude of his cautious realism, however startling in comparison
with anything before _Pamela_, has much affinity with what our
ancestors might have expected from their womenkind. Yet his women are
quite obviously studies, not self-revelations. We can fancy that Pamela
sat on his knee to have her portrait taken; while he was giving such
infinite care to Clarissa’s drapery on the model’s throne. We can only
marvel that he could ever determine whether Clementina or Miss Harriet
Byron were a more worthy mate for “the perfect man.” Verily they were
all as men made them; exquisite creatures, born for our delight, but
regulated by our taste in loveliness and virtue. That marvellous little
eighteenth-century tradesman understood their weaknesses no less than
their perfections; but the fine lines of his brush show through every
word or expression: the delicacy of outline is deliberately obtained by
art. They are patently the fruits of acute observation, keen sympathy,
and subtle draughtsmanship. They remain lay figures, posed for the
centre of the picture. The showman is there, pulling the strings.
And above all they are man-made. For all his extraordinary insight
Richardson can only see woman from the outside. Our _consciousness_
of his skill proves it is conscious. His world still centres round
the hero: the rustic fine gentleman, the courtly libertine, or the
immaculate male.
Fanny Burney reverses the whole process. To begin with external
evidence: it is Evelina who tells the tale, and every person or
incident is regarded from her point of view. The resultant difference
goes to the heart of the matter. The reader does not here feel that he
is studying a new type of female: he is making a new friend. Evelina
and Cecilia speak for themselves throughout. There is no sense of
effort or study; not because Fanny Burney is a greater artist or has
greater power to conceal her art, but because, for the accomplishment
of her task, she has simply to be herself. It is here, in fact, that
we find the peculiar charm, and the supreme achievement, of the women
who founded the school. By never attempting professional study of
life outside their own experience, they were enabled to produce a
series of feminine “Confessions”; which remain almost unique as
human documents. We must recognise that it was Richardson who had
made this permissible. He broke away, for ever, from the extravagant
impossibilities and unrealities of Romance. He copied life, and
life moreover in its prosaic aspect--the work-a-day, unpicturesque
experience of the middle-class. But still he lingered among its crises.
It is not that in his days men were still given to the expression of
emotion by words, and deeds, of violence. While beautiful maidens were
liable to be driven furiously by the villain into the presence of an
unfrocked clergyman; while money could buy a whole army of accomplices
for their undoing; Richardson remains a realist in the narration of
such episodes. We are here referring to the fact that his stories are
all concerned with the elaborate development of one central emotion or
the analysis of one predominating character. They are pictures of life
composed for the exhibition of a slightly phenomenal aspect: the depths
of human nature, not commonly obvious to us in the moods of a day.
It was reserved for Fanny Burney, and still more Jane Austen, to “make
a story” out of the trivialities of our everyday existence; to reveal
humanity at a tea-party or an afternoon call. This is, of course, but
carrying on his reform one step further. The women, besides introducing
the new element of their own especial point of view, made the new
realism strictly _domestic_; and learned to depend, even less than
he, upon the exceptional, more obviously dramatic, or less normal,
incidents of actual life. If Richardson invented the ideal of fidelity
to human nature, Miss Burney selected its everyday habits and costume
for imitation. Evelina’s account of “shopping” in London would not fit
into Richardson’s scheme; while the many incidents and characters,
introduced merely for comic effect, lie outside his province.
Miss Burney’s ideal for heroines, indeed, must seem singularly
old-fashioned to-day; nor do we delight in _Evelina_ for those passages
to which its author devoted her most serious ambitions. She does not
excel in minute, or sustained, characterisation; nor have we ever
entirely confirmed the appreciation which declares that her work was
“inspired by one consistent vein of passion, never relaxed.” The
passion of Evelina--by which, however, the critic does _not_ mean her
love for Orville--has always seemed to us melodramatic and artificial.
We have little, or no, patience with those refined tremors and
heart-burnings which completely prostrate the young lady at the mere
possibility of seeing her long-lost father. It is not in human nature
to feel so deeply about anyone we have never seen, of whom we know
nothing but evil.
No blame attaches to Miss Burney as an artist in this respect, however,
because she was intent upon the revelation of _sensibility_, that most
elusive of female graces on which our grandmothers were wont to pride
themselves. Any definition of this quality, suited to our comprehension
to-day, would seem beyond the subtleties of emotional analysis; but
we may observe, as some indication of its meaning, that no _man_ was
ever supposed, or expected, to possess it. Sensibility, in fact, was
the acknowledged privilege of _ladies_--as distinguished at once from
gentlemen or women; particularly becoming in youth; and indicating the
well-bred, the elegant, and the fastidious. It must not, of course,
be confounded with “susceptibility,” a sign of weakness; for though
it, temporarily, unfitted the lady for action or speech, it was the
expression of deep, permanent, feeling and of exquisite taste. Her
gentle voice rendered inaudible by tears, her streaming eyes buried
in the cushions of her best sofa, or on the bosom of her best friend,
the beautiful maiden would fondly persuade herself that her life
was blighted for evermore. Pierced to the heart by a cold world, a
faithless friend, or a stern parent, as the case might be, she would
terrify those who loved her by the wild expression of her eyes, the
dead whiteness of her lips, her feeble gesticulations, and the disorder
of her whole person. In the end, mercifully, she would--faint! Under
such influences, we cannot distinguish very explicitly between the
effects of joy or sorrow. Evelina is scarcely more natural about her
transports at discovering a brother, or in the final _satisfaction_ of
her filial instincts, than in her alarm about “how He would receive
her,” already mentioned.
We are not justified, on the other hand, in supposing that a heroine
should only exhibit sensibility on some real emotional catastrophe.
There was a tendency, we have observed, in “elegant females” to be
utterly abashed and penetrated with remorse, covered with shame,
trembling with alarm, and on the verge of hysterics--from joy or
grief--upon most trivial provocation. A tone, a look, even a movement,
if unexpected or mysterious, was generally sufficient to upset the
nice adjustment of their mental equilibrium. “Have I done wrong? Am I
misunderstood? Is it possible he _really_ loves me?” The dear creatures
passed through life on the edge of a precipice: on the borderland
between content, despair, and the seventh heaven.
The wonder of it all comes from admitting that Miss Burney actually
reconciles us to such absurdities. Except in the passionate scenes,
Evelina’s sensibility is one of her chief charms. In some mysterious
and subtle fashion, it really indicates the superiority of her mind
and her essential refinement. She will be prattling away, with all the
naïveté of genuine innocence, about her delight in the condescending
perfections of the “noble Orville,” and then--at _one_ word of warning
from her beloved guardian--the whole world assumes other aspects,
no man may be trusted, and she would fly at once to peace, and
forgetfulness, in the country. We smile, inevitably, at the “complete
_ingénue_”; but the quick response to her old friend’s loving anxiety,
the transparent candour of a purity which, if instinctive, is not
dependent on ignorance, combine to form a really “engaging” personality.
It may be that we have here discovered the secret of sensibility--a
perception of the fine shades, and instant responsiveness to them.
There is, however, a most instructive passage in _The Mysteries of
Udolpho_ which throws much light on this matter. Mrs. Radcliffe
has every claim to be heard, for her heroines are much addicted to
sensibility. The passage occurs in an early chapter; when St. Aubert is
dying, and naturally wishes to impress upon his orphan daughter such
truths as may guide her safely through life. It has, therefore, all
the significance of the death-bed; while he “had never thought more
justly, or expressed himself more clearly, than he did now.” Under such
circumstances, and in such manner, did that worthy gentleman discourse
on