Good morning. So welcome to class 10. This is on Fanny Burney, and we're
going to be looking at Evelina, her most important and best-loved work. So
this obviously is leading us up to the background of Jane Austen. It's
leading us up to looking at Pride and Prejudice. So you need to be starting
to read Pride and Prejudice, isn't it? We've begun. Or have you read it
before? You've got the translation, you know. I think I have a little bit
of it. I'm having to continue. Okay. That's fine. Get it. Yes. And I need
to agree to continue. Oh, excellent. Excellent. That's it. That's it. Okay,
great. Well done. So let's have a look at this work, which comes from
before. I'm going to... Sorry, I'm going to hide the chat box. I'll open it
up if I ask any questions. Otherwise, let's get going. So let's have a
look. Now, Fanny Burney, 1752 to 1840. So born in the middle of the 18th
century. Fanny is short for Frances, so Frances Burnie, but we can call her
Burnie. So Dr. Johnson certainly did. Sorry? She died early. Absolutely.
She lived a long time. Very old. Yes, absolutely. No, it's very
interesting. And even more interesting when you see what happened to her.
Frances Burnie was born in Lyme Regis in England. Lyme Regis is a lovely
thing. Lyme Regis actually comes up in the Jane Austen novels. Not in the
one we're going to read, but another one. It was a little Regency town. The
Regency period, you know, very elegant, lovely house, Georgian
architecture. So, you know, she's part of this South of England ethos. She
was born in Lyme Regis and she was the daughter of Dr. Charles Burnie, who
was a musician and a music historian. And Frances Burnie's mother, Esther,
who's described by historians as a woman of wealth. And intelligence,
according to Wikipedia, was the daughter of a French refugee named Dubois.
And she died, sadly, when Fanny was 10. Fanny was self-educated. And it's
said that she started writing stories at the age of 10. You can imagine
that, you know, perhaps she would have channeled some of her anguish and
grief about her mother's death into this new writing project. Later on,
when she was 41, she married a French émigré, General Alexandre d'Arblay.
And during her life, you know, she traveled a lot, traveled to France. At
some point, she was stranded there by the Napoleonic Wars, and she actually
couldn't get home for about 10 years. And she later settled in Bath,
another key Austin city in South England, and she died there. She was very
prolific. She wrote four novels, eight plays, one biography, and 25 volumes
of letters and journals. And we've got some of her journals in the Norton
Anthology, and they're wonderful. I'm going to call your attention to some
of them as we go through this next little section. Throughout her career as
a writer, her wit and talent for satirical character were widely
acknowledged. For example, by literary figures such as Dr. Samuel Johnson.
So Johnson knew Burley, and I recommend that you read the entry on page
2998 of the Norton Anthology, which starts Mrs. Thrail, so you can see how
Johnson behaved when he was with her. He treated her as an equal, and he
said, Burley does do this, don't let them do that. Wonderful, wonderful
description of the way that Samuel Johnson thought. Her early novels were
read and enjoyed by Jane Austen, whose own title, Pride and Prejudice,
derives from the final pages of one of Burley's works called Cecilia.
Austen, we know, also subscribed to the publication of Burley's third
novel. Camilla, which made Burley £1,000 from the subscription and another
£1,000 from selling the copyright. And this allowed her and her husband to
build a cottage near Dauphin and Sarin, so she was able to actually make
money out of her novels. I think before she discovered the subscription
system, it was more difficult for her to make money. out of it. But later
on, she was pleased with that and we know that Jane Austen subscribed
because it's on the list of people who contributed money to Camilla. Her
journals are fabulous and they record life at court, talking to the king,
running away from the king, and then the king going, why did you run away?
Because the king was mad. King George was mad. And in the court, people
have to be very careful what they're doing. So she was very worried about
the propriety. But I think most significantly for the modern world is her
description of the mastectomy that she had to undergo in middle age. She
describes an operation by doctors to take out breast cancer. Without
anesthetic. And it's perfect. Well, exactly. Absolutely amazing. You know,
you feel for her. Page 203,005 is where the description is. starts and
particularly page 3009, so it goes on for quite a few pages, but
particularly, I mean, it's quite, if you can bear, if it's not necessary,
maybe you don't want to do it, but as a, as a, I mean, extraordinary piece
of writing. Yes, no, don't if you don't want to. Okay, let's have a look at
her best loved work, Evelina. This was published anonymously in 1778 at the
age of 26. I mean, as we saw before with Mary Shelley, who you'll remember
comes later than, later than Bernie. Again, very young, brought up on a
diet of books and, you know, writing from a very young age. And so at 26,
she publishes this novel. And we can consider that Evelina is at what's
known as a bildungsroman. This German word is sometimes used in literary
criticism. It means a coming of age novel. What does that mean? Coming of
age. No. No, it means that the character inside the novel grows up, changes
from being a child to become a bit more mature. There is a change in their
understanding of the world. Okay, that's a good one. And so we follow the
development of the 17-year-old Evelina. I'll start to explain some of the
storyline because it's actually quite complicated and it's long, it's quite
a long novel. So you'll be grateful, I hope, that you don't have to read it
because I've done it for you. This is a summary of it. Okay, so Evelina,
she's been brought up in the country by an adoptive father who's called
Arthur Villers. He's a vicar, he's a man of the church. After the rejection
by her aristocratic father and the church, she's there or didn't want to
know anything about her when she was a baby. Oh, that's what she thinks.
And her mother has died. When Evelina is taken to London by a friend, she
encounters social situations that put her character to the test. And
eventually she finds love and she's reconciled to her father. It's an
epistolary novel. Right, what's an epistolary novel? I know you're going to
use this. Ah, I was asking you guys. What does it mean? Epistolary. What
does that mean? Written by letters. In what way? Okay, well, yes. It's a
collection of letters that compose the story. So the letters tell us some
different points of view in some cases, and some of them are from Martha
Villers. Most of them are from Evelina herself to her friends, or to Mr.
Villers. Okay, and the novel examines the situation of young women, the
manners of the age. It uses comedy, and it's set in fashionable and
not-so-fashionable parts of London and near Bristol and Barnaby. And she
exposes bad behaviour at various levels of society, particularly bad
manners or selfish behaviour. And she does so with amazing vigour and
frankness. And one of the main themes of her novel, of course, is a young
woman going out into the world and immediately being the attention of lots
of men. She's very, very pretty. And she has lots and lots of unwanted
attention from men. But she also meets a nice young man, which of course is
lovely. And the theme about marriage and getting married is very strong in
the novel. There are other characters who are also looking for husbands,
men possibly not looking for wives, looking for mistresses. This idea of
the marriage market. And this is one of the things which is going to be
important for Pride and Prejudice, of course. Because Pride and Prejudice
opens with marriage. The lines. It is a truth universally acknowledged that
a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. So,
a very famous quotation from Pride and Prejudice. So, immediately it goes
to the heart of the matter, you know, if there's a young man and he's got
lots of money, oh, well, he needs a wife, doesn't he? We're going to give
him one or find him a wife. So, let's have a look. So, Evelina goes into
society. Now, Evelina, at the beginning of the novel, isn't able to use her
own aristocratic father's surname. So, she has this funny little surname
which has been given to her for no particular reason. Nobody else in the
novel is called by this name. She's called Evelina Anvil. Now, this looks
like quite a delicate, you know, sort of French-sounding ending. You, or,
you know, city or town, Anne. That's quite nice. But, if you look at it,
Anne Anvil means womping. Now, and this is one of the quite vigorous images
that you see in this novel, that she's being hit on by all these men who
come and try and take her away, and they pull her here and there, and
members of her family who try to impose their ideas on her. So she's, you
know, she is receiving the blows of a hammer on top of her. It's a very
interesting choice of name. Okay, so she's an orphan who's been brought up
in the country. There's a place called Berry Hill. Now, you will remember,
this is written in the 18th century, and so in a period when other writers
who we have seen before have been very influential. You can remember any
place that could be related with a name like Berry Hill. Who remembers in
the Gothic novels, Papa, within your chat box, and you can say if you want
to write, can you remember? A name. Oh. Name of a real place involved with
the Gothic novels, which was the home of a writer who Bernie would
definitely have known about. No? Strawberry Hill. Strawberry Hill. What was
Strawberry Hill? No, you won't care for some of those classes. It doesn't
matter. Anna, can you remember what or where was Strawberry Hill? It was
the Gothic house built by Boris Warhol. Oh, Castle of Otranto. Castle of
Otranto. Well done. It was the image that was... So she's taken this, you
know, Strawberry Hill. She's changed it into Berry Hill. So it's, you know,
it's like a homage to one of her favourite writers. It's lovely. Okay. So
she's been brought up in the country at Berry Hill by her grandfather's
tutor, the Reverend Arthur Villers, after the death of her mother. And then
her grandmother remarried a Frenchman and went off to Paris. So she
abandoned her granddaughter to be brought up by Arthur Villers. She's not
been recognised by her aristocratic father, Lord Belmont. A friend of Mrs
and Mr Villers, Lady Howard, invites Evelina to her house. And then her
daughter, Mrs Mervyn, and her granddaughter, Maria, go to London to meet
Mrs Mervyn's husband. Now, he's a captain who's returning from seven years
at sea. Citing the French, I will remind you, the following are the
pre-Novellionic book awards. Evelina writes to her guardian, and she asks
for permission to go to London with this little group. So Mrs. Mervyn and
Maria want to take her to London as a companion for Maria. So they go to
London, they'll meet the captain as it comes home, and then they all come
home to Lady Howard's house. And so she writes to her guardian, and she
says, they tell me that London is now in full splendour. The two playhouses
are open, the Opera House, Barnley, and the Pantheon. You see, I have
learned all their names. However, pray don't suppose that I make any point
of going, for I shall hardly sign to see them the part without me, though I
shall probably never meet with such another opportunity. And indeed, their
domestic happiness will be so great, it is natural to wish to partake of
it. She's trying to persuade him not to let her go. I believe I am
bewitched. I made a resolution when I began that I would not be urgent. But
my pen, or rather my thoughts, will not suffer me to keep it. And I
acknowledge, I must acknowledge, I cannot help wishing for your permission.
So she's very urgent. She says, oh, I don't want to be urgent, but please
let me go. So she's very sweet. She writes a lot of these very submissive
letters to this father figure of hers, who actually is as old as her
grandfather, but she treats him like a father. And she says that he's very
wise, and he's very good, and he's obviously, he's very nice to her in the
letters. And he said, of course you can go. But at the same time, she's
very, very respectful to him. And this is one of the characters, one of the
characteristics of her character is that she is, you know, the embodiment
of everything that is absolutely perfect, respectful to her elders, careful
with her manners. What can we say? Okay, so they go to London. And their
marina goes to a ball. She says, Mrs. Murdoch. Evan and Maria Evelina go to
the theater first, and they visit the parks, and they go shopping for new
clothes, you know, Oxford Street, Regent Street, things like this. They
have their hair dressed with powder. And at the ball, she offends. a young
thot who wants to dance with her. And then she meets somebody who's called
Lord Orville. What is a thot? There's not enough information in that. It's
a young man, not quite, no, no, no. A thot is a very 18th century word for
a young man who is rather affected in his manners. So he thinks he's rather
beautiful. It doesn't mean he's gay, but if you can imagine something a
little bit like a combination between this modern idea of, you know,
perhaps metrosexual. You know, very interested in his own fashion. He
thinks he's a prize for winning. He thinks he's rather nice, but maybe he
isn't. And so this is the idea of a thot. It's a pejorative word. Somebody
who thinks he's better and more beautiful and more elegant than he really
is, okay? So let's have a look at this character, this thot. He's called
No, definitely not. No, no. Very dated. It's archaic now. But used a lot in
the 18th century. And then it immediately went out of fashion after Jane
Austen. So you know if you see our text was bopping from about this period.
It's not used in Shakespeare as well, excuse me. So it comes from earlier.
This young man is called Mr. Lovell. Mr. Lovell. She says, not long after,
a young man who had for some time looked at us with a kind of negligent
impertinence advanced on tiptoe towards me. He had a set smile on his face
and his dress was so foppish that I really believed he even wished to be
stared at. He wanted to be looked at. And yet he was very ugly. Bowing
almost to the ground. With a sort of swing, waving his hand with the
greatest conceit. After a short and silly pause, he said, Madam, may I
presume? And stopped, offering to take my hand. Look at the spelling of
stopped, everybody. Look at this. When you think about pronunciation of
words, we do see in the text Here, pronunciation which will show you
exactly how they were saying these words. And as you can see, that's the
modern pronunciation. Stop. He offered to take her hand. I drew my hand
back. I drew it back. It could scarcely forbear laughing. She laughs at it.
She can't stop herself. Allow me, madam, continued he, effectively breaking
off her behalf and the honor and happiness, if I'm not so unhappiness to
address you too late, to have the happiness and honor. He wants her to
dance and she tells him that she's not going to dance with him because
she's already told somebody else that she's going to dance with him. But
it's a lie. And then he comes back later on and he's very angry with her.
Anyway, he's very bad-mannered. But she meets Lord Orville. Lord Orville is
the love interest. So we see him. He describes her as very nice. Soon
after, another gentleman who seemed about six and twenty years old, gaily
but not cockishly dressed and indeed extremely handsome with an air of
mixed politeness and gallantry, desired to know if I was engaged or would
honor him with my hand. So she goes off and she dances with him, of course.
And there's going to be this on-off romance with him all the way through
the novel with him being very, very polite. and her being very wrong and
not saying very much. Okay, as they have danced, they've danced with him.
Sorry, she's danced with him. But they're still at the ball. And there are
several dances, several tunes. People change partners and they go off and
perhaps they drink something at a little table. And in this scene, we see
something which we're going to see in Pride and Prejudice. At the ball,
Evelina's friend Maria goes for a drink. And at the table where she's
standing, she overhears Laura O'Neill talking to somebody else, talking to
another man about her. Let's have a look at the scene. So presently after,
a very gay little man. Remember, gay means happy or perhaps bright, with
perhaps bright clothes. But generally, gay means happy. Okay? So a very
gay-looking man stepped hastily after him and cried, why, my lord, what
have you done with your lovely partner? Happy? The guy rolled over with a
smile and a shrug. He was so happy. Happy? by jove cried the man she is the
most beautiful creature i ever saw in my life lord auburn's like he might
laugh but answered yes a pretty modest-looking girl oh my lord cried the
madman she is an angel a silent one pretended because only it has said the
minimum to lord auburn which the answer spoke shy why aye my lord how
stands she as to that she looks all intelligence and expression and lord
auburn said a poor weak girl as it should have been said by jove i'm glad
to hear it he's glad to hear it because he fancies his talents as we've
ever known this character is called uh willoughby uh so clement willoughby
and he is very interested in ebony and pursues her throughout uh the novel
and causes her lots of problems in fact at one point by pretending to be
okay now how is this related to pride and prejudice well this seems
imitated implied to prejudice in a slightly different form um it's an
overheard conversation passing judgment on a boy and a boy. We're going to
see it quite soon. It's quite early on in the novel, so look out for it.
I'm not going to take this as a spoiler. I'm not going to tell you exactly
what happens. Also, start looking out in Pride and Vigilance for characters
like this spot novel who causes problems and thinks that he's wonderful.
And this liberty character, Willoughby. Willoughby here. In fact, I'm not
going to give you any more spoilers, but look out for a character who, in
fact, also has a fairly similar name to Willoughby's. Aha! Right, okay. So
you have to look out for some of those in Pride and Perjury. Then we meet
some new characters. Captain Mervyn and Madame Duval. Now, this is Captain
Mervyn, of course, who is Mrs. Mervyn's husband, who's been a sea captain
at sea for 12 years. He's got a daughter. He's 17. He hasn't seen her for
many years. And he's come back after, you know, this tour of beauty,
probably with Nelson in the Navy, and he arrives in London. And he turns
out to be the most incredibly vulgar, offensive, he's horrible to his own
family. The women in his family just seem to accept the way he is, but he's
fairly horrible to everybody else. He criticizes his own daughter, he says
her nose is too big, you've grown up really horribly over the last seven
years. And it's a fascinating character, he's quite unusually horrible for
any kind of character. Even novels of this period, it's unusual. And after
some visits to the theatre and the opera, so he starts joining in the
activities in London, they meet Madame Duval by task, when they're looking
for a coach. ... Okay, now Madame Duval is Evelyne's grandmother. The one
who ran off to France, married a second time, and she has come back to
Britain from Paris. Originally she was an Englishwoman, she used to be... a
bar I made, before she married and had a nice bar in front of her, but now
she's sort of become a friendship bar. And she says, for instance, little
French expressions in there, and makes little mistakes like double
negatives. So, let's have a look at how the captain and Madeline Duval
interact with each other. We went last night to see the Fanta Ciccini,
where we had infinite entertainment from the performance of a little comedy
in French and Italian by puppets, so admirably memorable that they both
astonished and diverted us all, except the captain, who has a fixed and
most prejudiced hatred of whatever is not English. Now, this is one of his
characteristics, is that he hates people who are not English. He hates
anything that's not English. So, he hates French things, he hates French
people, absolutely loathes Madeline Duval. When it was over, while we
waited for the coach, a tall, elderly woman rushed quickly past us, calling
out, my God, what do I do? She's lost, she can't find a coach or carriage
to take her away, to take her back to her house. And so they take her in
their carriage, they give her a lift, and the captain starts arguing with
her. He says, hold your tongue for I must make bold to tell you if you
don't that I shall make no ceremony of tripping you out of the window and
there you may lie in the mud till some of your monseers come to help you
out of it. This is quite brutal, this is in the very first ten minutes of
meeting this woman. Their increasing passion quite terrified us and Mrs
Mervyn was beginning to remonstrate with the captain to tell him, oh don't
do that, when we were all silenced by what follows. Let me go villain that
you are, let me go or I'll promise you I'll get you put to prison for this
usage. I'm no common person, I assure you. And ma foi! I'll go to justice
feeling about you for I'm a person of fashion and I'll make you know it or
my name aren't Duval. So we discover in this way that they have by accident
bumped into Evelina's grandmother. Evelina, of course, is very dutiful and
immediately takes to her grandmother and, you know, oh, oh, my grandmother,
you know, this lovely... scene where she's very happy to have found her
again. But Madame Duval turns out to be a very strange character, and some
things start happening to her, and we realise that Captain Mervyn is very
keen to play tricks on people. After an evening out, Madame Duval is
getting into a coach with her friend Monsieur Duval, when they both fall
into the mud. Captain Mervyn is delighted. In fact, later on we begin to
suspect that it was actually the captain who might have pushed her.
Monsieur Duval was so obliging, though I'm sure it was an unlucky
obligingness for me, as to lift me up in his arms to carry me over the
place that was anchored deep in mud. They're outside, like a house I think,
and there's mud on the floor, so dirty in those days. And Monsieur Duval
picks her up to carry her over the worst part. But instead of my being ever
the better for it... Just as we were in the worst part, I am sure I wish we
had been 50 miles off, for somehow or other his foot slipped. At least, I
suppose so, though I can't think how it happened, for I'm such great
weight. But however that was, down we both came together, all in the mud.
And the more we tried to get up, the more deeper we got covered with the
nastiness. And my new Leon negligent, who was quite spoiled, so her clothes
were covered in mud. However, it's well we got up at all, for we might have
laid there till now, but what you cared, nobody never came near us. So
nobody helped her. We were there at the opera or the theatre together, and
she had to get up and walk off in a sort of whirlwind. And we were very
tired, looking hard, and they're very angry. But how does the captain
react? She says, this recital put the captain into an ecstasy. He went from
the lady to the gentleman, and from the gentleman to the lady, to enjoy,
alternately, the subtle bit of distress. We really shouted with pleasure,
and shaking Monsieur de Roche strenuously by the hand, wished him joy of
having touched English ground. And then he held a candle to Madame Duval,
but he might have a more complete view of her disaster, sharing with me
that he had never been better pleased in his life. He just laughs and you
can see that he enjoys other people, particularly Madame Duval, but
suffering. Now, the libertine Sir Clement Willoughby, who was so interested
in Evelina at the young of all, soon finds that the best way of
ingratiating himself with Captain Mervyn, because, of course, Evelina is
living in Captain Mervyn's house, so Clement Willoughby kind of tries to
enter the circle where Evelina is. The best way to do this is to make
Captain Mervyn happy. By teasing Madame Duval, he does this so that he can
hear Evelina, who doesn't know anything about his plans and who's falling
in love with Lord Orwell. So it becomes more complicated. Now, the Mervyn
family return to their country house. They take Evelina and they take
Madame Duval as well, because Madame Duval, you know, out of politeness,
because Madame Duval is Evelina's grandmother. Sir Clement Willoughby
arrives, and Captain Brevin and Willoughby plan a prank on Madame Duval.
They trick her into thinking that Monsieur Dubois, the Frenchman, is in the
Tower of London under arrest. And when she sets out to London to help him,
they attack her and tie her up. Captain Willoughby knows it's a trick and
sees him with Sir Clement, who tries to declare love to her in the middle
of the episode. It's like he gets her alone in the coach, in the carriage,
but she manages to fight him off. And then she goes and she blesses her
grandmother. But it's an extraordinary scene. This is really quite violent.
You won't see anything like this in Jane Austen. In Jane Austen everything
is much, much calmer, much less violent than this. It's comedy, but it's
very wild comedy. I saw that her feet were tattered. ...tied together with
a strong rope that was fastened to the upper branch of a tree, even with an
edge which ran around the ditch where she sat. I endeavoured to untie the
knot, but soon found it was infinitely beyond my strength. I was therefore
obliged to apply to the footman for being unwilling to add to his mirth by
the sight of Madame Duval's situation. Even the footman was laughing
because they are in on the joke. They know that it's just a crack, they're
not real thieves, they haven't been robbed by real highwaymen. I desired
him to lend a knife, I returned it and cut the rope and he was
disentangled. The servants were ready to die with laughter the moment they
saw her. But not all my remonstrances could prevail upon her to get into
the carriage, for she had most vehemently reproached them both for not
rescuing her. The footman, fixing his eyes on the ground as if fearful of
again trusting himself to look at her as he laughed, protested that the
robbers had vowed they would shoot him if he moved an inch, and one of them
had stayed to watch the chariot while the other carried her off. So, you
know, it's... it's... absolutely funny actually. It's funny but shocking.
It's funny but shocking at the same time. And of course, so while we're...
the interesting thing of course is that while we're getting this tremendous
high comedy and people giggling and laughing at the comedy inside, possibly
the reader is also... is torn in between. Do I laugh at this? It's funny,
it's funny, what's happening to her is funny, that's quite funny. But at
the same time... Evelina's response is to say, okay, well, this is
shocking. Poor Madame Duval. I can't tell her that there's this proud thing
going on. That would be shocking. Okay, right. The Scottish lodger. Madame
Duval now insists that Evelina go and stay with her. So they go back to
London. They're in a less fashionable part of town with Madame Duval's
nephew's family, the Branghtons. The Branghtons are in trade. They're not
aristocratic. And they live in a shop, with a house above the shop. And
there's an apartment or rooms that have been hired out to somebody else. So
Evelina meets the lodger who lives in the apartment in the Branghton's
building. So he's a young Scottish man and she sees that he's depressed.
One day she notices that he has a pistol in his pocket and she follows him
and she stops him from committing a suicide. This is quite funny too. In a
moment, strength and courage seem lent to me as they inspire me. She must
have started. And rushing precipitately into the room, just caught his arm,
and then overcome by my own fears, I fell down into his hide, worthless and
senseless, till she fainted. My recovery, however, was, I believe, almost
instantaneous, and then the sight of this unhappy man regarding me with a
look of unutterable astonishment, mixed with concern, presently restored me
to my recollection. I arose over difficulty. He did the same. The pistols I
soon saw were both on the floor. She picks up the pistols. I seize the
pistols. He said what of her? He made no effort to stop me. I glided past
him and tottered downstairs before air I could have recovered from this
stream of surmaisement. The moment I reached again the room I had so
fearfully left, I threw away the pistols, flinging myself on the first
chair, gave free vent to the feelings I had most painfully stifled in a
violent burst of tears, which indeed provided a happy relief to me. The
shock of having taken the pistols away from the poor man was going to blow
his brains out. But she saved him, and she writes a little letter to him.
Her guardian to say, I didn't know what to do. I've done the right thing.
And he writes back saying, oh, that was absolutely the right thing. That
was really good. That was excellent. You've saved somebody from committing
suicide. Okay. Then we meet Orville's snobbish sister. So Evelina's cousins
take advantage of Evelina's friendship with Lord Orwell by borrowing his
carriage, and this makes her very, very embarrassed. She sends him a note
of apology, and the letter that she gets back again seems to be declaring
that he loves her, but in a terrible, distasteful way. Oh, my darling, you
are the only one for me, kind of thing. So, she's a bit shocked. Oh, how
can you say things like that? You seem so polite. She starts to avoid
Orwell, and the effect on her health is terrible because, of course, she's
very stressed by having to try to avoid him when she knows that she really
loves him and she thought that he was nice. She gets ill. So, the family
sends her away with a friend who's called Mrs. Selwyn to visit. I don't
know. Another person who's called Mrs. Beaumont, and they go to Bristol.
Mrs. Selwyn is wonderful. She is ironic and sarcastic, and she says the
most wonderful things to people's faces in the novel that you think, oh, my
God, that's brilliant. It's real, proper British irony. sarcasm. Okay, so
they go to Bristol, and there they find that Lord Orville is going to visit
the area because his sister Louisa is engaged to be married to Lord Merton.
Lord Merton, we know, has tried to seduce Evelina, as practically every
person in the novel had done, except, of course, Lord Orville. Look out for
brother and sister relationships in Pride and Prejudice. You will see an
interesting and very nice version of this. This brother-sister relationship
here, where the hero has a younger sister and is trying to be careful about
who to marry, is funny because, of course, the sister doesn't appreciate
it. The sister is very unpleasant actually, and particularly nasty to
Evelina. In Pride and Prejudice there's a very lovely, a lovely younger
sister situation like this, where the sister actually does appreciate
what's being done for her. And it's interesting to compare them. But let's
have a look at Louisa. This is when we first meet Louisa. Meantime, the
lady, who seemed very young, hobbling rather than walking into the room.
She's been riding with Lord Merton. made a little passing curtsy to Mrs
Beaumont, saying, how are you, ma'am? And then without noticing anybody
else, with an air of languor, she flung herself upon a sofa, protesting in
a most effective voice and speaking so softly she could hardly get over it.
She was fatigued to death. How are you, ma'am? Roads are so monstrous,
Dusty. You can't imagine the troubles that you've had since then, ma'am.
It's hard to believe. Monstrous, disagreeable. I dare say, I'm so tanned, I
shan't be fit to be seen at this age. So she's saying, oh, God, oh, the
dust, the sun, oh, it's terrible. Good stuff. So she's quite a snobbish
character, and she doesn't speak. She hardly speaks to Evelina, even when
it's evident that her brother is not with Evelina. So she thinks that
Evelina is a nobody. She's an orphan. She doesn't have a name. And she
doesn't know about these aristocratic secret father. So she practically
ignores her. Okay, in Bristol, Orville spends quite a lot of time with
Evelina. At the Scottish lodge, she reappears to try and pay back the money
that Evelina has given her. And it turns out, in fact, that he's Evelina's
brother, a secret brother which she didn't know about. At the house in
Bristol they're surrounded by libertines and snobs. What's some of them for
you? Libertines and snobs. Yes, exactly. A libertine is a man who goes from
one woman to another, has little morals, and is generally very unpleasant.
Okay, in a horribly, horribly hilarious episode where the three of the men
who are staying in this house want to lay a bet. Now, Alden doesn't gamble.
It's very interesting. The novel actually speaks out against gambling,
which I think was probably a social problem at the time. If you remember
back to Poe from the... the card game of... what was it called? Ombra. You
know, this was one of the big things that people did in those days and it
caused problems for people. They want to lay a bet and they decide... they
try to decide what to bet on. And they decide to make it... about a race
between two old ladies, over 80 years old, to see which one will win. And
he goes, are you shocked? You think, oh my God, that's ridiculous, they
won't do it, but they do. And this is part of the scene where the old
ladies run a race, so they found two old ladies from the country, and so
one of them is going to belong to one of the men. It's like betting on
horses or betting on gold or anything that moves. For some time, the scene
was truly ridiculous. The agitation of the parties concerned and the bets
that were laid on the old woman were absurd beyond measure. Who are you
following? Whose side are you on? was echoed from mouth to mouth by the
whole company. Lord Merton and Mr. Connolly were both so excessively gay
and noisy that I soon found they had been free in drinking to their
success. They handed with loud shouts the old women to the race ground, and
encouraged them by liberal policies to exert themselves. And the signal was
given for them to set off. The poor creatures, feeble and frightened, ran
against each other, and neither of them able to support the shock, they
both fell to the ground. And a debate ensued. So one of them falls down a
little bit later on. A debate ensued that the poor creature was too much
hurt to move, and declared her utter inability to make another attempt. Mr.
Coverley was quite brutal. He swore at her with unmanly rage, and seemed
scarce able to refrain even from striking her. Lord Merton then, in great
rapture, said it was a hollow thing, but Mr. Coverley contended that the
fall was accidental, and time should be allowed for the woman to recover.
However, all the company being against him, so he was pronounced the loser.
This is quite an astonishing occurrence. In any kind of novel, you're
seeing polite society, and this is really the underside of the horrible
cruelty, vulgarity of some types of aristocracy. society. Okay, right.
Evelina's reconciled with her father. Evelina discovers that her father was
tricked into adopting another baby girl instead of her in his time. So her
father all this time has thought that his daughter was with him and this
young lady. And because Evelina's been in the countryside and apart from
society, she has never found out about this. And her father can see that
she looks exactly like her mother, so he recognizes her as his daughter.
And she gets engaged to Lord Orville. And Lord Orville goes and presents
her again to his sister. She now has the surname Belmont. She doesn't need
to be called Miss Amber anymore. Now she's Miss Belmont. So an elegant
French name. Miss Belmont, said Lord Orville, can receive no luster from
family, whatever she may give to it. So he's saying, she doesn't need to be
called Miss receive reflective glory from having an aristocratic family,
she gives reflective glory to her family. She is the one who is they are
benefiting from having her in the family. Louis said, you will I am sure be
happy to make yourself an interest in the friendship of Miss Belmont. My
way shortly and the joining of the friendships to have the happiness of
presenting to you by yet another name and by the most endearing of all
titles. This is lovely little, this is the way that Lord Norman speaks.
He's delicate, he's thoughtful about Evelina's needs and wants and protects
her at all times and very gently suggests that she's going to change her
name and become Lady Auburn. I believe it would be difficult to say whose
cheeks were at that moment of the deepest eyes. It's difficult to say who
was blushing most. Lady Louisa is of all my own for the conscious pride
with which she has hitherto slighted me gave to her an embarrassment which
equaled the confusion that her introduction so unexpectedly gave to me. She
saluted me, however, and with a faint smile said, I shall esteem myself
very happy to be comforted by the honour And when you're pushed into it,
there is a finally of most, you know, of a highly delighted finally. What
does this word slighty mean? To slight anybody? Anybody guess? Anybody?
Yes, it's something like that. If you slight somebody, either you offend
them directly or you ignore them and give offence in that way. And
slighting is something that, you know, this is a concept... Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's this kind of thing. Yes. So, you're going to see
this kind of thing happening quite regularly. There's people worrying about
being slighted. People slighting other people. This was, you know, one of
the big worries, of course, of this period. Okay. The captain has one last
prank to play on the pot. Now do you remember Mr. Lovell from the
beginning? Mr. Lovell was the top at the ball and he was offended because
she didn't dance with him exactly. Can you remember what he looked like?
She said something about the way he looked. What was his clothes? Was he
pampered? No, he was well dressed but he was very ugly. He was ugly. The
captain has thought up the most terrible plan to play on Mr. Lovell. By
this time, you know, the storm is coming to an end and we have seen that
Adelina is going to marry Lord Orville, you know, everybody's happy and
because people are coming together, the family are coming together to
celebrate the marriage. We see lots of characters come together in
situations and so the captain appears again and he, so he's in the same
house as Mr. Lovell who's on a social visit, and the captain says, the
captain abruptly says, Hey, have you ever had a brother in these spare
parts? No, sir. No, thank heavens. I'm free from all encumbrances of that
sort. Well, cried the captain, I met a person now just, just now, so like
you, I couldn't have sworn he had been your twin brother. Well, then to the
utter astonishment of everybody but himself, he hauled into the room a
monkey, fully dressed and extravagantly a la mode. Poor Mr. Lovell, too
much intimidated to stand up. They start arguing, why have you brought this
monkey into the room? The captain, you know, sort of saying, oh, you know,
he's just like you, you look the same. And he's trying to decide whether,
you know, to fight a duel with the captain. And of course, Mr. Lovell is
too much of a coward. He doesn't want to find. So they argue a bit, but
poor Mr. Lovell, too much intimidated to stand his ground. yet too much
enraged to submit, turned hastily round and, forgetful of consequences,
vented his passion by giving a furious blow to the monkey. He hits the
monkey. The creature, darting forwards, sprung instantly upon him, and
clinging around his neck, fastened his teeth to one of his ears. So the
monkey bites it on the ear. And the rest of the scene is his lover, with
blood pouring down his face and onto his bones. And he goes, oh, my
clothes! What am I going to do? And then he decides that he's not going to
fight a duel with the captain, because he definitely thinks that the
captain, of course, is a military man and he's going to win. So that's a
very, very curious episode. Very violent. Very cool. And in the end, well,
Evelina, now he's over. And this is the final little letter. So she writes
to her, her grand-father and tutor and guardian figure. All is over, my
dearest sir, and the fate of your Evelina is decided. This morning, with
fearful joy and trembling gratitude, she ignited herself forever with the
object of her dearest, her eternal affection. I have time for me more. The
chaise now awaits, which is to conduct me to D'Abbé, you know, into the
arms of the best of men." So she's going to go back and they're going to
visit her now. Um, a chaise? Does anybody know what a chaise is? No, no,
it's a type of transport. Transport, so what could it be in those days?
Yes, yes, yes. No, it's a carriage of some sort, isn't it? Yes. It won't be
one of those carrying chairs, although it looks kind of similar. Chair?
Chaise? No, it's a carriage. It's got wheels and horses in front of it. Um,
you'll see these kinds of transport, of course, in Jane Austen. You're
going to see, you know, carriages and chaises and coaches and things like
this, particularly carriages. Or horses, actually. One of the characters
gets... She gets ill because she doesn't travel by carriage or chaise. She
goes... by horse, and she gets wafted away. Okay, so that's Evelina. What
do you think? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, it's a comic. Yeah. Let me think.
How many men were interested in Evelina is what the question was. Yes, I'm
sorry, I simply couldn't fit them in. It's enormous. Well, okay, right, so
there's Lovell at the beginning, and Orville himself of course, then we've
got Sir Clement Willoughby, who is very insistent and tries to take her
hand all the time and propose to her in carriages and things like this,
takes her the long way around in a carriage and is promising to take her
home from the opera, and best you know, he takes her the long way around
and tries to hold her hand and thinks he loves her. Then they go to the
pleasure gardens at Ranley, and this is a kind of dubious place to be if
you're not protected by somebody in your party who's going to walk with you
all the time, and Evelina gets separated from the party. I can't remember
what the separation is caused by, lighting, some loud sound or something
like that and they shriek and run away and they get separated. She gets
separated. She discovers that she's walking in these avenues of trees and
it's dark, there's sunlight in, but she's walking around in an evening gown
and men come up to her and they presume that she's a prostitute. And the
only way that she can save herself from this situation is to latch on to
two other women that she sees in the avenue. And then... ...and sort of put
herself between them, oh ladies will you protect me, take me back to my
group, see if I can find my friends, will you help me? And they laugh a
little bit but they help her to get back to her group and she finds out
later on that they are prostitutes. So she's rescued by these prostitutes.
Lord Orwell sees her with these ladies and he's shocked. of course, and
then later on he says, did you really know these people? And then there are
people who come into the house of the cousins. So there are two girl
cousins and they have boyfriends or suitors and their suitors of the
cousins also hit on Evelina. They also say, oh, Evelina, she's my god, you
are very pretty. You know, these horrible scenes where every single man
that she meets of her own age tries to get up with her. And also Lord
Merton, who we see with the race for the old ladies, Lord Merton meets him
quite early on before we realize that he's engaged to Lady Lisa. So he's in
the same room as Lord Alder, so he behaves himself, but he kind of leers at
her and he looks her up and down and kind of goes, oh, I can't believe it.
Oh, you're lovely, aren't you, my dear? And he's older than Lord Alder and
he's very, very young. of a very lecherous character and then when she
discovers in Bristol that she's that he is engaged to Lady Louisa which she
hasn't met Lord Merson pretends not to know Evelyn he pretends never to
have met her he sees her and he goes oh and then when he's alone with her
later on and because they're in this house together because he's there
because of Lady Louisa now he's thankfully he never he doesn't marry in the
end thank god for that they're both awful but they don't fancy being
married to that when they're alone your Lord Merton is alone with Evelyn at
some point he goes again he goes oh my dear I didn't have moments you know
he takes away the hand oh he's just lecherous and really disgusting so
that's how many is that it's quite a lot isn't it I mean yes this this idea
I'm very interested in the names as well when she's chosen isn't it it's
her first novel she's chosen names from her knowledge of French you know
Duval, Dubois things like this that all will all go will you know
respectability but something quite rather elegant all all money all will
That's a funny name for us, but you know, it does seem to have the
significance of Anvil. And the village is the same as all of them, but
Anvil, Yonke, goodness me, and that's what... You know, she's very
spirited, but she makes Evelina very, very innocent. She's conveying these
transparent pictures of people behaving in disgusting ways, sharp and
horror about it, so it's down to the reader to be shocked by what you're
reading. And she leaves Evelina as a really respectable and concerned and
confused innocent, and she realises slowly that she's got to protect
herself from Willoughby, for example, and try and get away from him, but
she doesn't make any judgements about these lecherous men. She simply lets
us see. She says that they are lecherous, and that she's evicting them, and
that women at the time were not protected. They had... Well, you know,
perhaps they did need protection, literally, by a man, and preferably a man
who was... respectable and would respect them in the way that the law world
does. So it's a very interesting description of society at the time for
women. Okay, right, that is enough. The bell has gone. We must stop. Have a
lovely Christmas, Iruni. Merry Christmas, and I hope you guys have a lovely
time.