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<\/a><\/p>\nLooks young in the picture, right? Well, that\u2019s \u2019bout how young she was when her first novel came out, in 1778. She was twenty-five.<\/p>\n
That novel (Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady\u2019s Entrance into the World<\/i>) made her famous. I\u2019m reading it right now. It\u2019s nothing like what I thought it was gonna be. I thought it was gonna be comic; it\u2019s realistic and intense.<\/p>\n
She wrote only four novels: three hits and one dud, or so I\u2019ve been told a hundred times. Very few people read any of \u2019em, unless you\u2019re psycho for the history of the novel. Then you have to read all of \u2019em.<\/p>\n
I think her\u00a0name<\/i>\u00a0puts people off sometimes. It\u2019s like her name is \u201cKimmy Peanut.\u201d How can these books be any good if they were written by somebody named Kimmy Peanut.<\/p>\n
Plus, just from that engraving, you can see how all these white-wigged literary guys (Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, et al.) would be dying to pat her on the head. Which basically gives you another excuse for skipping the books. (She must be overrated, right?)<\/p>\n
I<\/i> wasn\u2019t gonna read her novels either. I just wanted to look at her journals and letters. I\u2019d seen \u2019em quoted from time to time, and it looked to me like she had an eye for the telling detail. She was clearly witty and down to earth, and she knew everybody, including King George III.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Maybe you\u2019ve read a famous essay by Virginia Woolf, called \u201cDr. Burney\u2019s Evening Party\u201d? It\u2019s in The Common Reader<\/i>. All the information in that thing is from Fanny Burney\u2019s book about her dad, which, in turn, was written up mainly from her private papers. You read the Woolf and you figure\u2014correctly\u2014that Fanny must have been a smash of a diarist. And this is right where the case stood for me, a few years ago.<\/p>\n
One barrier to reading Burney\u2019s diary is the fact she kept it for seventy years. The modern edition of it started to appear in the early seventies, and they just finished the series this year<\/i>. Here\u2019s the last brick in the wall:<\/p>\n
Twenty-four volumes, floor to ceiling. I own five. But you know what? There\u2019s an easier way. Penguin Classics, baby. Frances Burney: Journals and Letters<\/i>, selected, with an introduction, by Peter Sabor and Lars Troide, 2001. On page 1 she\u2019s fifteen; on page 566 she\u2019s eighty-seven.<\/p>\n I have to warn you, though. The diaries make you want to read the novels,\u00a0bad<\/i>. You just want to know if she can handle her fictional material as well as she handles her lived experience. My intuition was:\u00a0no way<\/i>. However, I gotta tell ya: Kimmy Peanut had some tricks up her sleeve.<\/p>\n Just to give you an idea how delightful she can be, lemme show you a good-size, juicy passage from her journal. This is her, writing on January 10, 1770, age seventeen<\/i>, about a masquerade she had attended two days before. The Penguin footnote is helpful: \u201cParticipants in masquerades were expected to act completely \u2018in character\u2019 until the unmasking later on.\u201d<\/p>\n Please pay special attention to the way young people in 1770 processed their homosocial desires and intimacies. I find this whole sequence positively Shakespearean. There\u2019s just a lot goin\u2019 on in every sentence. (The spelling and punctuation oddities are all authorial, but abbreviations have been expanded by her Penguin editors.)<\/p>\n I observed a Nun, Dressed in Black, who was speaking with great earnestness, and who discovered by her Voice to be a Miss Milne, a pretty Scotch Nymph I have met at Mrs Stranges. I stopt to listen to her. She turn\u2019d about and took my Hand and led me into a Corner of the Room\u2014\u2018Beautiful Creature!\u2019 cried she, in a plaintive Voice, \u2018with what pain do I see you here, beset by this Crowd of folly and deceit! O could I prevail on you to quit this wicked world, and all its vices, and to follow my footsteps!\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018But how am I to account,\u2019 said I, \u2018for the reason that one who so much despises the world, should chuse to mix with the gayest part of it? What do you do here?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I come but,\u2019 said she, \u2018to see and to save such innocent, beautiful, young Creatures as you from the snares of the Wicked. Listen to me, I was once such as you are; I mixed with the World; I was caressed by it, I loved it\u2014I was deceived!\u2014surrounded by an artful set of flattering, designing men, I fell but too easily into the net they spread for me; I am now convinced of the vanity of Life, and in this peaceful, tranquil state shall I pass the remainder of my Days.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018It is so impossible,\u2019 said I, \u2018to listen to you without being benefitted by your Conversation, that I shall to the utmost of my power\u00a0imitate you<\/i>, and always chuse to despise the World, and hold it in contempt.\u2014At a\u00a0masquerade<\/i>!\u2014.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Alas,\u2019 said she, \u2018I am here meerly to contemplate on the strange follies and vices of mankind\u2014this scene affords me only a subject of joy to think I have quitted it.\u2019<\/p>\n We were here interrupted, and parted\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n I seized the first opportunity that offered of again joining my sage monitor the fair Nun\u2014who did not seem averse to honouring me with her Conversation. She renewed her former subject, expatiated on the wickedness and degeneracy of the World, dwelt with great energy and warmth on the deceit and craft of man, and pressed me to join her holy Order with the zeal of an Enthusiast. A pink Domino advanced, and charged her not to instill her preposterous sentiments into my mind; she answered him with so much contempt that he immediately quitted us.\u2014We were then accosted by the shepherd, who would fain have appeared of some consequence, and aimed at being gallant and agreeable\u2014Poor man! wofully was he the contrary. The Nun did not spare him. \u2018Hence,\u2019 cried she, \u2018thou gaudy Animal, with thy trifling and ridiculous trappings away\u2014Let not this fair Creature be corrupted by this Company. O fly the pernicious impertinence of these shadows which surround thee!\u2014\u2019 \u2018The\u2014the Lady\u2014\u2018 stammered the poor swain\u2014\u2018The Lady will be\u2014will be more likely\u2014to be hurt\u2014by\u2014 \u2014by you than\u2014than\u2014\u2019 \u2018Yes, yes,\u2019 cried she, \u2018she would be safe enough were she followed only by such as thee!\u2019 Hetty just then bid me observe a very droll old Dutch man, who soon after joined us\u2014He accosted us in High Dutch\u2014 \u2014not that I would Quarrel with any one who told me it was\u00a0Low<\/i>\u00a0Dutch!\u2014it might be Arabick for ought I could tell! He was very completely Dressed, and had on an exceeding droll old man\u2019s mask, and was smoaking a Pipe\u2014He presented me with a Quid of Tobaco, I accepted it very cordially:\u2014the Nun was not disposed to be pleased\u2014she attacked poor Mynheer with much haughtiness\u2014\u2018Thou savage!\u2014hence to thy native Land of Brutes and Barbarians, smoak thy Pipe there, but pollute not us with thy dull and coarse attempts at Wit and pleasantry\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n The Dutch man however heeded her not, he amused himself with talking and making signs of devotion to me, while the Nun railed, and I Laughed.\u2014At last she took my Hand, and led me to another part of the Room, where we renewed our former Conversation. \u2018You see,\u2019 she cried, \u2018what a Herd of Danglers flutter around you; thus it was once with me; your form is elegant; your Face I Doubt not is beautiful; your sentiments are superior to both: regard these Vipers then with a proper disdain; they will follow you, will admire, Court, caress and flatter you\u2014they will engage your affections\u2014 \u2014and then they will desert you! it is not that you are less amiable, or that they cease to esteem you; but they are weary of you; novelty must attone in another for every loss they may regret in you:\u2014it is not merit they seek, but variety.\u00a0I<\/i>\u00a0speak from experience!\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018\u2019Tis rather surprising,\u2019 said I, that one would speaks with such vigour of the World,\u2014and professes having quitted it from\u00a0knowing<\/i>\u00a0its degeneracy, and who talks of experience in the style of Age; should have a Voice which is a perpetual reminder of her own Youth; and should in all visible respects, be so formed to grace and adorn the World she holds in such contempt.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Hold,\u2019 cried she, \u2018remember my sacred order, and remember that we Nuns can never admit to our Conferences that baleful Enemy of innocence, Flattery! Alas, you learn this from men! Would you but renounce them! what happiness would such a Convert give me!\u2019<\/p>\n The Dutchman and the shepherd soon joined us again\u2014the former was very liberal of his tobaco, and supported his character with much drollery, speaking no English, but a few Dutch words, and making signs. The shepherd seemed formed for all the stupidity of a Dutch man more than the man who assumed that Dress; but\u00a0he<\/i>\u00a0aimed at something superior.\u2014The Nun looking on her Veil and Habit as a sanction to the utmost liberty of speech, spoke to them both without the least ceremony.\u2014All she said to\u00a0me<\/i>\u00a0did honour to the Name she assumed\u2014it was sensible and delicate, it was\u00a0probably<\/i>\u00a0very true; it was\u00a0certainly<\/i>\u00a0very well adapted to her apparent character: but when we were joined by men, her exhortation degenerated into railing; which though she might intend the better to support her part, by displaying her indignation against the sex, nevertheless seemed rather suited to the virulency and bitterness of a revengeful woman of the World, than the gentleness and dignity which were expected from the piety, patience and forbearance of a Cloister. \u2018And what,\u2019 said she to the Dutch man, \u2018what can have induced such a savage to venture himself here? Go, seek thy fellow Brutes! the vulgar, bestial society thou art used to, is such alone as thou ought to mix with.\u2019<\/p>\n He\u00a0jabbered<\/i>\u00a0something in his defence, and seemed inclined to make his Court to me. \u2018Perhaps,\u2019 said she, \u2018it may be in the power of this fair Creature to reform thee; she may civilize thy gross and barbarous manners.\u2019 The Dutch man bowed, said\u00a0yaw<\/i>, and put his Hand on his Heart in token of approbation. \u2018Ay,\u2019 said the poor shepherd, whose eyes had the most marked expression of stupidity (if stupidity can be said to have\u00a0any<\/i>\u00a0expression) that I ever saw, and his words and manner so exactly coincided with this appearance, that he was meerly an object for Laughter\u2014he served only for such to\u00a0me<\/i> at least; for indeed my spirits were not very low.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Friends, can you not picture this whole thing, done to perfection, in a movie? The filmmakers would have to get across that the Fanny character is often crushingly shy, but is here inspired and enlivened by the urgent ministrations of this attractive older girl. And it\u2019s important that the Fanny character\u00a0recognizes<\/i>\u00a0her (Anne Mylne in real life, who, by the way, got married five years later to a baronet), but is not made so giddy by the banter that her critical intelligence relaxes. She is well aware of the discordant notes that creep into the nun\u2019s performance under threat of male interference, and she handles this matter in a deliciously understated way. One thinks:\u00a0Ah ha. A novelist<\/i>.<\/p>\n Now, if you\u2019re like me, you\u2019re wondering \u201cDoes she indeed have a masquerade scene in any of her novels\u2014?\u201d Reader, she does. It\u2019s in her second novel,\u00a0Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress<\/i>\u00a0(1782): Book II, Chapter 3. However:<\/p>\n I guess you could skip to the chapter in question; it starts on page 103 in the above edition.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll close on a tender note. I happen to own a stray volume of an early edition (the fourth, 1784) of\u00a0Cecilia<\/i>\u00a0(it was five separate codices, when it came out). Mine is Volume III, which contains Books V and VI (the masquerade scene is in Volume I). It\u2019s in its original boards. Who knows how many people have owned it.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n