Portraying Mrs. Mittin as an adventurous and audacious woman, who takes control of her affairs, pursues her life goal in her own way, and achieves it in the end, Frances Burney investigates this middle-aged woman‟s boldness.
By so doing, Burney, now middle-aged, makes her third novel, Camilla, a site for tacitly indicating her distrust in contemporary conduct book teachings on modesty.
Modesty is defined as “Not arrogance; not presumptuousness”; “Not impudence; not forwardness”; “Moderation; decency”; “Chastity; purity of manners” in A Dictionary of the English Language (1755-56) by Samuel Johnson (1709-84). It was overcharged with romantic sentiments in a great number of English writings in the eighteenth century. In Sermons to Young Women (1765), James Fordyce (1720-96), one of the virtue‟s most fervent advocates, invented a series of florid phrasal equivalents to enhance its attractions for his readers. Modesty, under Fordyce‟s scrupulous manipulation of words, became a “lovely” and “enchanting” quality, “the amiable reserve,”
“the beautiful grace,” and “the finest ornaments that can adorn [women],” just to name a few (86, 88, 113, 116).
As Ruth Bernard Yeazell demonstrates, the discourse of modesty, which attracted wide attention from advice writers, novelists, and even naturalists in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, centered on women. She points
out a fundamental paradox, for although most writers laid heavy emphasis on the idea that modesty was an innate female characteristic, they simultaneously insisted on the necessity of its strenuous and unremitting cultivation.14 In accordance with Yeazell‟s observation, the discussion of modesty most concerned questions related to middle-class marriage, and novels focused particularly on the period when heroes and heroines were choosing their partners. These “narratives of courtship”—the representations of “female resistance and female choice”—are termed by Yeazell “the fictions of modesty”; their central subject was “the modest woman” (ix-x, 4).
Yeazell also observes that the fictions of modesty best illustrate the confusion and contradictions existent in the constructed image of the modest woman. The conflicting pressures generated by her outward reserve and magnetic charms are clearly illustrated in Fables of the Female Sex (1744) by Edward Moore (1712-57):
To wiser heads attention lend, And learn this lesson from a friend.
She, who with modesty retires,
Adds fewel to her lover‟s fires. (X. 63-66)
With the same conviction of the modest woman‟s attractiveness, Thomas Marriot (d. 1766) wrote, “Modest concealments please a Lover‟s Eye, / The Charms you hide, his Fancy will supply” (811-12). According to Yeazell, with the modest woman‟s “downcast eyes, her head turned aside, and above all by the blush that suffuses her cheek,” she “never puts herself forward, and female modesty restrains and controls the violence of masculine love; but a modestly clothed body is more seductive than a merely naked one, and modesty creates love in the very act of restraining it” (5-6, emphasis added).
Furthermore, Yeazell‟s research stresses a strong link between the discourse of modesty and marriage; it informs us that the modest woman was constructed for marriage, that the modest woman‟s unconsciousness of
14 Yeazell observes the contradictions underlying the discourse of modesty, stating with a sarcastic tone:
Writers of popular conduct books and philosophers alike long insisted on the importance of female modesty, even as they contradicted one another—and themselves—on the nature of the virtue. It is a commonplace of the advice literature that women‟s modesty is instinctive, but the very existence of the literature testifies to the belief that the “instinct” must be elaborately codified and endlessly discussed: woman‟s “natural” modesty must be strenuously cultivated, the argument goes, lest both sexes fall victims to her “natural” lust. (5)
sexuality was meant to serve the end of courtship, and that “modest blushing”
was “the most familiar token of that seductive innocence,” which also leads to marriage (33-80). As courtship and marriage were the main concerns of the literature of modesty, together with the emphasis by the titles of many representative advice books, Fordyce‟s Sermons to Young Women for example,15 we can easily find that instead of addressing women in general, this very discourse targeted primarily a particular group of women, that is, the women who are “in the flower of their youth and beauty” (Hume 573). It specifically addressed the young women whose blushes, as Yeazell‟s research evidently shows, while most engaging men‟s fascination, manifested their own virtue and attractiveness at the same time. Nonetheless, by focusing mainly on the young female, this discourse inevitably marginalized women who had passed the period of bloom and were least competitive in the marriage market, including those of middle and advanced age, and old maids (Loose 28).
In his Treatise of Human Nature (1739), David Hume (1711-76) plainly demonstrated that the construction of the notions of modesty had much to do with reproduction. In his view, it was in the interests of patriarchal inheritance that men inculcated the idea that modesty was a specifically female characteristic. So the application of this notion to older women was simply a matter of prejudice and lazy thinking:
But speculative reasonings, which cost so much pains to philosophers, are often form‟d by the world naturally, and without reflection: As difficulties, which seem unsurmountable in theory, are easily got over in practice. Those, who have an interest in the fidelity of women, naturally disapprove of their infidelity, and all the approaches to it. Those, who have no interest, are carried along with the stream. Education takes possession of the ductile minds of the fair sex in their infancy.
And when a general rule of this kind is once establish‟d, men are apt to extend it beyond those principles, from which it first
15 There are many examples bearing witness to my statement: for instance, The Young Ladies Conduct:
or, Rules for Education, under Several Heads; with Instructions upon Dress, both before and after Marriage. And Advice to Young Wives (1722) by John Essex (n.d.); Essays on Various Subjects, Principally for Young Ladies (1777) by Hannah More (1745-1833); Letters to a Young Lady on a Variety of Useful and Interesting Subjects Calculated to Improve the Heart, to Form the Manners, and Enlighten the Understanding (1789) by John Bennett (n.d.); and, Letters to a Young Lady (1811) by Jane West (1758-1852).
arose. . . . And tho‟ all these maxims have a plain reference to generation, yet women past child-bearing have no more privilege in this respect, than those who are in the flower of their youth and beauty. Men have undoubtedly an implicit notion, that all those ideas of modesty and decency have a regard to generation;
since they impose not the same laws, with the same force, on the male sex, where that reason takes not place. . . . But as the case is not the same with regard to the different ages of women, for this reason, tho‟ men know, that these notions are founded on the public interest, yet the general rule carries us beyond the original principle, and makes us extend the notions of modesty over the whole sex, from their earliest infancy to their extremest old-age and infirmity. (572-73)
Hume‟s account suggests that middle-aged women would be well advised to consider that there was no good reason why they should adhere as strictly to the rules of modesty as young girls, especially if breaking away from these conventions could yield some material benefit.
The sensible Burney certainly perceived how modesty discourse discriminated against women who are “not young,” a term preferred by Jane Austen (1775-1817) in describing women who have passed their youth (Yeazell 77). At the same time, Burney‟s life experience also reminded her of the impracticability of the notions of modesty for women whom nature seems to forsake, no longer endowing their faces with the enchanting and seductive
“transient coloring” of a blush (Yeazell 65). It was all very well to write about heroines who charmed the whole world with their modest mien, downcast eyes, and blushes when Burney published Evelina and Cecilia (1782) and was under thirty and unmarried. However, when she published her third novel, she was a wife, a mother, and the breadwinner for her new family. The motivation behind its publication was far more practical than just to see her book published or to hold on to her success. She needed the money to build a house that could shelter her new family.
A woman in her “ripe middle age” (Doody 201), Frances Burney was about forty-four years old in 1796: the central concerns of modesty discourse clearly no longer applied to her. It is certainly not a far-fetched assumption if we attribute Burney‟s recognition of single middle-aged women‟s unenvied position in the marriage market to a few incidents she had just experienced
before she looked into the issue of female middle-agedness. As we can remember, Burney herself led a life resembling that of an old maid for a certain period of time before she married Alexandre d‟Arblay (1754-1818) at the age of forty-one in July 1793. During their courtship, Burney was no longer as passive and backward as she had been when involved in romantic relationships with George Owen Cambridge (1756-1841) in the early 1780s and Colonel Stephen Digby (1742-1800) in her years at court. Having learned the lessons from her previous love trials, Burney took an active role in nourishing the new relationship and determined to see the fruit it would bring forth. Furthermore, she courageously defied the world‟s opinion to defend her long-awaited love. In comparison with her former frustrating experiences, Frances Burney must have found her active participation in forming and fortifying the relationship with d‟Arblay more realistic and rewarding.
Mrs. Mittin‟s middle-agedness, autonomy, self-knowledge, and pragmatism, I believe, are not randomly inserted in the novel. This fictitious character, to some extent, not only reflects on how a woman‟s perspectives of the world may be affected by her age, but also shows the life wisdom a woman may gain from her experience and increasing age.
Apparently, being a middle-aged married woman during the creation of her third novel, to some extent, changed Burney‟s perspectives of old women and those who, like her, are in their middle age. She is different from the Burney who in Evelina (1778) makes Lord Orville praise Mrs. Mirvan for her femininity while having the heroine, echoing Mr. Villars‟s opinion, cast aspersions on Mrs. Selwyn‟s assertiveness and “masculine” understanding (268-69, 289).16 Mrs. Selwyn‟s “want of gentleness” is described as the lack of a virtue extremely essential to the female character (E 269). In Camilla, with the portrayal of Mrs. Mittin, the author expresses progressive views on middle-aged women and their assertive behavior, and takes up the role of a critic of modesty. Though the much younger Burney showed a commonplace disapproval of middle-aged women‟s assurance in her debut novel, eighteen years later, when composing Camilla, she could not be more conscious of the significance of women‟s self-confidence.
Over a period of eighteen years, Burney‟s love experiences had taught her the impracticability of excessive modesty and the effectiveness of
16 See Frances Burney‟s Evelina, or The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, hereafter cited parenthetically as E.
exercising her autonomy. Consequently, in Camilla, besides employing the well-received theme of young women‟s education by the representation of the young, ignorant, and fallible heroine, Burney also reflects on the difficulties many unsupported middle-aged women would encounter as well as on some practical and practicable responses they may have to daily hardships.
However, no matter how much the author was concerned about the female situation and difficulties, in practice, it was not possible for her to place Mrs.
Mittin in the central role of the novel. For she still needed to keep an eye on the market, even though publishing Camilla by subscription had secured profit before its publication. Admittedly, in eighteenth-century England, people would not be sufficiently interested to purchase a novel concerning a middle-aged woman who is not only socially underprivileged but lacks a strict moral code and embodies many shortcomings in her physical appearance.
Burney certainly does not mean to create Mrs. Mittin as a conduct book exemplar of feminine modesty. Like her creator, this character is also excluded from the central discourse of modesty because of her “chronological age.”17 As illustrated earlier in this article, it is Mrs. Mittin‟s autonomy and acquisitiveness that attract our attention. Straightforward and vociferous, Mrs.
Mittin is modeled after the assertive woman, a type of woman severely decried by Fordyce and the misogynist Richard Polwhele (1760-1838). Both insisted on drawing a distinct line between genders; modesty was reckoned by them an inherent characteristic of women.18 Fordyce relentlessly condemned
“impudent” women, calling them “destructive Syrens” (98, 100). In his view, these women had “forgotten to blush,” their foreheads were “hardened into shamelessness,” and their eyes, “formerly soft, virtuous, and downcast” and
17 Deveney Looser indicates that there are two ways to estimate age. One is by “the chronological age;
the other, by the “physical condition” (81).
18 Fordyce argues that a distinction should be made between men and women in their dress and behavior:
But what though the dress be kept ever so distinct, if the behaviour be not; in those points, I mean, where the character peculiar to each sex seems to require a difference? There, a metamorphosis in either will always offend an eye that is not greatly vitiated. It will do so particularly in your sex. By dint of assiduity and flattery, fortune and show, a Female Man shall sometimes succeed strangely with the women: but to the men an Amazon never fails to be forbidding. (I. 105)
In The Unsex’d Females, Polwhele associates modesty with women‟s nature. He criticizes eight contemporary women, including Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825), Mary Robinson (1758-1800), Charlotte Smith (1749-1806), Helen Maria Williams (1762-1827), Ann Yearsley (1756-1806), Mary Hays (1760-1843), Angelika Kauffmann (1741-1807), and Emma Crewe (1787-1818) (Polwhele 91-106). According to him, these women are “A female band despising NATURE‟S law, / As „proud defiance‟ flashes from their arms, / And vengeance smothers all their softer charms” (Polwhele 12-14).
effusing “the soul of innocence,” had “learnt to stare, and roll with unbounded wantonness; to dart nothing but unholy fire” (Fordyce 101). Fordyce made it clear that the women, who were “lost to shame,” would only excite detestation in men (103). To the reactionary Polwhele, who castigated a band of literary women led by Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97), the assertive women were “the Unsex‟d Females” who exchanged “the blush of modesty” for “the bronze of impudence.”19
In fact, Burney‟s criticism of decorum lies more in the notion‟s impracticability for middle-aged women than in any direct condemnation of it.
For, as the model of the modest woman aims at teaching young women the ways to lure a potential husband, it may serve well for them. However, for middle-aged women with no claim to youth or beauty, and especially those who share Mrs. Mittin‟s low social rank, Burney‟s picture of the forward and presumptuous middle-aged woman, who actively participates in shaping her own life, appears more reassuring and practicable. For, to some extent, it shows how individual effort and persistence may help a person‟s life turn for the better. Emphatically, it assures such readers that they can take part in framing their own lives.
Burney endows Mrs. Mittin with qualities, which help the latter confront ubiquitous economic difficulties. For instance, Mrs. Mittin is characterized as a woman of action. Her action, however, is not confined in the domicile or
“the calm of retreat” which Fordyce believed to be congenial to the modest woman (vii). Rather, her action is and needs to be performed in the great world, for it is the place where individual industriousness is more likely to make dreams come true. In the process of shaping her life, Mrs. Mittin creates chances for herself; instead of passively waiting for things to happen, she makes them happen. Since she cannot be satisfied with an income which can afford her only a very low standard of living, she travels from town to town, looking for opportunities and seizing whatever comes along to enhance the quality of her life. As has been shown earlier, this strategy may expose her to occasional hardships, but it enables her to satisfy her desires and have fun in the process. Furthermore, Mrs. Mittin is a character who would not succumb to her fate as a vulnerable gentlewoman would when unexpectedly caught by
19 As its preface to the 1800 American edition indicates, Polwhele‟s poem, The Unsex’d Females, owed its origin to a passage in The Pursuits of Literature (1796) by Thomas James Mathias (1754?-1835) (v), wherein Mathias condemns women writers, stating: “Our unsexed female writers now instruct, or confuse, us and themselves in the labyrinth of politicks, or turn us wild with Gallick frenzy” (238).
misfortune in Wakefield‟s account:
There is scarcely a more helpless object in the wide circle of misery which the vicissitudes of civilized society display, than a woman genteelly educated, whether single or married, who is deprived, by any unfortunate accident, of the protection and support of male relations; unaccustomed to struggle with difficulty, unacquainted with any resource to supply an independent maintenance, she is reduced to the depths of wretchedness, and not unfrequently, if she be young and handsome, is driven by despair to those paths which lead to infamy. (66)
Unlike the genteel woman described by Wakefield, who would passively meet the inadvertence of life and unheroically yield to circumstances, Burney‟s Mrs.
Mittin would undauntedly confront the difficulties.
Mrs. Mittin is not less affected by the “gothic economics” prevalent in the fictitious world. She lives on an annuity of about thirty pounds, which, according to Copeland‟s competence ledgers, is just above the income of the laboring poor and could barely support the life of a humble curate (24-25).
Such a man, as Anne Plumptre (1760-1818) admits in The Rector’s Son (1798), has no leisure to appreciate the beauty of nature, for he “could just but live” (I.
5). The statistics listed in Copeland‟s remarkable work shows us how Mrs.
Mittin‟s inclination to the dissipated lifestyle, a living style popular among the people of fashion, renders her income insufficient to support her life. However, Mrs. Mittin is neither intimidated nor defeated by this disagreeable situation.
Her enterprising spirit and energy make the life she yearns for possible.
Moreover, being a middle-aged woman, Mrs. Mittin has come to know herself better than in her youth. The self-knowledge she acquires with age enables her to follow her own way and shape her life. She recognizes her pragmatism and fully understands her own wishes and desires. Mrs. Mittin‟s daring to have her own way, industriousness, and persistence are the main reasons that she does not just barely survive, but lives reasonably well and according to her wishes. With all the illustrations above, I am not indicating that Burney approves of all Mrs. Mittin‟s conduct. As I have recounted earlier in this article, Burney creates Mrs. Mittin as an experimental character by deliberately making her vulgar and self-interested. The author removes from
Mrs. Mittin all possible constraints coming from within and without. By so doing, this character is allowed to exercise her autonomy and do whatever
Mrs. Mittin all possible constraints coming from within and without. By so doing, this character is allowed to exercise her autonomy and do whatever