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In: Humour·Novels·British Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #50054.
The work is an eighteenth‑century romance that presents itself as a genteel adventure of a young lady raised in secluded aristocratic splendor. It opens with a melancholy marquis who, after the death of his wife, withdraws to a remote castle and raises his daughter Arabella in a world of cultivated beauty, extensive libraries and finely tuned education. Arabella’s upbringing is steeped in the romances that fill her father’s collection, and these stories shape her belief that love governs all life. The narrative quickly moves to her seventeenth year, when a handsome London visitor, Mr Hervey, catches sight of her at a country church, igniting the first stir of intrigue and the promise of a courtship that will drive the plot forward.
Written in the ornate, reflective prose of the late eighteenth century, the novel blends social commentary with the conventions of sentimental romance. Its voice is formal yet intimate, offering detailed descriptions of dress, architecture and the inner lives of its characters. Readers who enjoy period pieces that explore the tension between isolated aristocratic life and the yearning for romantic adventure, particularly those interested in the development of the “female Quixote” archetype, will find this story engaging.
The opening · free to read
The pain his undeserved disgrace gave him, he was enabled to conceal by the natural haughtiness of his temper; and, behaving rather like a man who had resigned, than been dismissed from his posts, he imagined he triumphed sufficiently over the malice of his enemies, while he seemed to be wholly insensible of the effects it produced. His secret discontent, however, was so much augmented by the opportunity he now had of observing the baseness and ingratitude of mankind, which in some degree he experienced every day, that he resolved to quit all society whatever, and devote the rest of his life to solitude and privacy. For the place of his retreat he pitched upon a castle he had in a very remote province of the kingdom, in the neighbourhood of a small village, and several miles distant from any town. The vast extent of ground which surrounded this noble building, he had caused to be laid out in a manner peculiar to his taste: the most laborious endeavours of art had been used to make it appear like the beautiful product of wild, uncultivated nature. But if this epitome of Arcadia could boast of only artless and simple beauties, the inside of the castle was adorned with a magnificence suitable to the dignity and immense riches of the owner.
While things were preparing at the castle for his reception, the marquis, though now advanced in years, cast his eyes on a young lady, greatly inferior to himself in quality, but whose beauty and good sense promised him an agreeable companion. After a very short courtship, he married her, and in a few weeks carried his new bride into the country, from whence he absolutely resolved never to return.
The marquis, following the plan of life he had laid down, divided his time between the company of his lady, his library, which was large and well furnished, and his gardens. Sometimes he took the diversion of hunting, but never admitted any company whatever; his pride and extreme reserve rendered him so wholly inaccessible to the country gentry about him, that none ever presumed to solicit his acquaintance.
In the second year of his retirement, the marchioness brought him a daughter, and died in three days after her delivery. The marquis, who had tenderly loved her, was extremely afflicted at her death; but time having produced its usual effects, his great fondness for the little Arabella entirely engrossed his attention, and made up all the happiness of his life. At four years of age he took her from under the direction of the nurses and women appointed to attend her, and permitted her to receive no part of her education from another, which he was capable of giving her himself. He taught her to read and write in a very few months; and, as she grew older, finding in her an uncommon quickness of apprehension, and an understanding capable of great improvements, he resolved to cultivate so promising a genius with the utmost care; and, as he frequently, in the rapture of paternal fondness, expressed himself, render her mind as beautiful as her person was lovely.
Nature had indeed given her a most charming face, a shape easy and delicate, a sweet and insinuating voice, and an air so full of dignity and grace, as drew the admiration of all that saw her. These native charms were improved with all the heightenings of art; her dress was perfectly magnificent; the best masters of music and dancing were sent for from London to attend her. She soon became a perfect mistress of the French and Italian languages, under the care of her father; and it is not to be doubted, but she would have made a great proficiency in all useful knowledge, had not her whole time been taken up by another study.
From her earliest youth she had discovered a fondness for reading, which extremely delighted the marquis; he permitted her therefore the use of his library, in which, unfortunately for her, were great store of romances, and, what was still more unfortunate, not in the original French, but very bad translations.
The deceased marchioness had purchased these books to soften a solitude which she found very disagreeable; and, after her death, the marquis removed them from her closet into his library, where Arabella found them.
The surprising adventures with which they were filled, proved a most pleasing entertainment to a young lady who was wholly secluded from the world; who had no other diversion, but ranging like a nymph through gardens, or, to say better, the woods and lawns in which she was enclosed; and who had no other conversation but that of a grave and melancholy father, or her own attendants.
Her ideas, from the manner of her life, and the objects around her, had taken a romantic turn; and, supposing romances were real pictures of life, from them she drew all her notions and expectations. By them she was taught to believe, that love was the ruling principle of the world; that every other passion was subordinate to this; and that it caused all the happiness and miseries of life. Her glass, which she often consulted, always showed her a form so extremely lovely, that, not finding herself engaged in such adventures as were common to the heroines in the romances she read, she often complained of the insensibility of mankind, upon whom her charms seemed to have so little influence.
The perfect retirement she lived in afforded, indeed, no opportunities of making the conquests she desired; but she could not comprehend how any solitude could be obscure enough to conceal a beauty like hers from notice; and thought the reputation of her charms sufficient to bring a crowd of adorers to demand her of her father. Her mind being wholly filled with the most extravagant expectations, she was alarmed by every trifling incident; and kept in a continual anxiety by a vicissitude of hopes, fears, wishes, and disappointments.
Contains a description of a lady's dress, in fashion not much above two thousand years ago. The beginning of an adventure which seems to promise a great deal.
Arabella had now entered into her seventeenth year, with the regret of seeing herself the object of admiration to a few rustics only, who happened to see her; when, one Sunday, making use of the permission the marquis sometimes allowed her, to attend Divine service at the church belonging to the village near which they lived, her vanity was flattered with an adorer not altogether unworthy of her notice.
This gentleman was young, gay, handsome, and very elegantly dressed; he was just come from London with an intention to pass some weeks with a friend in that part of the country; and at the time Arabella entered the church, his eyes, which had wandered from one rural fair to another, were in an instant fixed upon her face. She blushed with a very becoming modesty; and, pleased with the unusual appearance of so fine a gentleman, and the particular notice he took of her, passed on to her seat through a double row of country people; who, with a profusion of awkward bows and curtsies, expressed their respect.
Mr. Hervey, for that was the stranger's name, was no less surprised at her beauty, than the singularity of her dress; and the odd whim of being followed into the church by three women attendants, who, as soon as she was seated, took their places behind her.
Her dress, though singular, was far from being unbecoming. All the beauties of her neck and shape were set off to the greatest advantage by the fashion of her gown, which, in the manner of a robe, was made to sit tight to her body; and fastened on the breast with a knot of diamonds. Her fine black hair hung upon her neck in curls, which had so much the appearance of being artless, that all but her maid, whose employment it was to give them that form, imagined they were so. Her head-dress was only a few knots advantageously disposed, over which she wore a white sarsenet hood, somewhat in the form of a veil, with which she sometimes wholly covered her fair face, when she saw herself beheld with too much attention.
This veil had never appeared to her so necessary before. Mr. Hervey's eager glances threw her into so much confusion, that, pulling it over her face as much as she was able, she remained invisible to him all the time they afterwards stayed in the church. This action, by which she would have had him understand, that she was displeased at his gazing on her with so little respect, only increased his curiosity to know who she was.
When the congregation was dismissed, he hastened to the door, with an intention to offer her his hand to help her to her coach; but seeing the magnificent equipage that waited for her, and the number of servants that attended it, he conceived a much higher idea of her quality than he had at first; and, changing his design, contented himself with only bowing to her as she passed; and as soon as her coach drove away, enquired of some persons nearest him, who she was?
These rustics, highly delighted with the opportunity of talking to the gay Londoner, whom they looked upon as a very extraordinary person, gave him all the intelligence they were able, concerning the lady he enquired after; and filled him with an inconceivable surprise at the strange humour of the marquis, who buried so beautiful a creature in obscurity.
At his return home, he expressed his admiration of her in terms that persuaded his friend she had made some impression on his heart; and, after rallying him a little upon this suspicion, he assumed a more serious air, and told him, if he really liked Lady Bella, he thought it not impossible but he might obtain her. The poor girl, added he, has been kept in confinement so long, that I believe it would not be difficult to persuade her to free herself by marriage. She never had a lover in her life; and therefore the first person who addresses her has the fairest chance for succeeding.
Mr. Hervey, though he could not persuade himself his cousin was in earnest when he advised him to court the only daughter of a man of the marquis's quality, and heiress to his vast estates; yet relished the scheme, and resolved to make some attempt upon her before he left the country. However, he concealed his design from his cousin, not being willing to expose himself to be ridiculed, if he did not succeed; and, turning the advice he had given him into a jest, left him in the opinion that he thought no more of it.
Arabella, in the mean time, was wholly taken up with the adventure, as she called it, at church: the person and dress of the gentleman who had so particularly gazed on her there, was so different from what she had been accustomed to see, that she immediately concluded he was of some distinguished rank. It was past a doubt, she thought, that he was excessively in love with her; and as she soon expected to have some very extraordinary proofs of his passion, her thoughts were wholly employed on the manner in which she should receive them.
As soon as she came home, and had paid her duty to the marquis, she hurried to her chamber, to be at liberty to indulge her agreeable reflections; and, after the example of her heroines, when any thing extraordinary happened to them, called her favourite woman; or, to use her own language, her, "in whom she confided her most secret thoughts."
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