| “Purvis," said Mrs. Robinson, putting her spoon into her cup, "you positively make no more tea for me; you have no compassion on my poor nerves.” -- from Light and Shade, at a tea party scene where the guests include Sir Montagu D'Arcy This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. The introductory post is here. My "six simple questions for academics" post is here. |
CMP #214: Mrs. Foster has thoughts: review of Light and Shade, 1803
Of the several thousand novels published during the long eighteenth century, The Woman of Colour has a special place in the hearts of the academy because the protagonist is a woman of colour. I reviewed the novel here. Some academics speculate that the author of The Woman of Colour might actually be a woman of colour. I will weigh up the case for that, but Mrs. E.M. Foster and Mrs. E.G. Bayfield are top candidates for the answer to the question: “who wrote The Woman of Colour”?
Therefore, I am following the tangled trail of title page attributions and—here’s a novel thought—actually reading the books authored by Foster and Bayfield to look for similarities with The Woman of Colour in language, plot, tropes, and themes...
Of the several thousand novels published during the long eighteenth century, The Woman of Colour has a special place in the hearts of the academy because the protagonist is a woman of colour. I reviewed the novel here. Some academics speculate that the author of The Woman of Colour might actually be a woman of colour. I will weigh up the case for that, but Mrs. E.M. Foster and Mrs. E.G. Bayfield are top candidates for the answer to the question: “who wrote The Woman of Colour”?
Therefore, I am following the tangled trail of title page attributions and—here’s a novel thought—actually reading the books authored by Foster and Bayfield to look for similarities with The Woman of Colour in language, plot, tropes, and themes...
Trope-tastic
For example, I previously read Miriam, another of Mrs. Foster’s novels (and reviewed it here). In both that novel and in Light and Shade, we have a strong emphasis on submission to the will of God. We have a leading man haunted by a secret sorrow. We have an orphaned heroine. We have some remarkable coincidences of the “small world” variety. We have contrived misunderstandings between hero and heroine which delay their happiness until the last chapters of the final volume. You might think that I am being condescending here, but actually, I enjoyed the story and whizzed through all four volumes. I guess the reason that romance authors keep repeating these tropes is because they work! The reader is engaged by them.
I am not going to reiterate the entire plot, except to remark that it has more drama than you will find in Austen. There are several romantic triangles, three elopements, a madwoman in the attic and a murder. Instead, I want to share another aspect of this novel: in contrast to Austen, a lot of Light and Shade is taken up with current events and Mrs. Foster’s opinion of them, The narrator frequently breaks away to, as they used to say in those days, “shoot folly as it flies,” (quoting Pope) or to “lash the follies of the times" (quoting Otway). For example, the narrator praises the hero as one whose manners were a happy balance between “the formal precision and officious politeness of the last age, and the churlish rudeness and studied negligence which so disgraces this.”
The villain of the novel is a farmer who tries to profit off rising wheat prices when the poor people in his county are starving. The heroine indignantly thinks: “[T]he man who can inhumanly treasure up that [wheat], waiting for a higher price, when he may already get an almost exorbitant one for every grain of it; the man who can, unmoved, behold the poor around him, dying for want to that bread which he withholds from them; he who refuses to part with a scanty portion… to the labourer who tilled the ground, who sowed, who reaped it for him…"
In other words we have a female author who is not afraid of expressing her opinions. Of course, these editorials, along with the minor characters who are brought on to illustrate some specific vice or folly, help to expand the story to four volumes. But these digressions are also what make the forgotten sentimental novels of Austen’s time a repository of opinion on the issues and fads of the past. So, without further ado, Mrs. Foster’s thoughts on:
For example, I previously read Miriam, another of Mrs. Foster’s novels (and reviewed it here). In both that novel and in Light and Shade, we have a strong emphasis on submission to the will of God. We have a leading man haunted by a secret sorrow. We have an orphaned heroine. We have some remarkable coincidences of the “small world” variety. We have contrived misunderstandings between hero and heroine which delay their happiness until the last chapters of the final volume. You might think that I am being condescending here, but actually, I enjoyed the story and whizzed through all four volumes. I guess the reason that romance authors keep repeating these tropes is because they work! The reader is engaged by them.
I am not going to reiterate the entire plot, except to remark that it has more drama than you will find in Austen. There are several romantic triangles, three elopements, a madwoman in the attic and a murder. Instead, I want to share another aspect of this novel: in contrast to Austen, a lot of Light and Shade is taken up with current events and Mrs. Foster’s opinion of them, The narrator frequently breaks away to, as they used to say in those days, “shoot folly as it flies,” (quoting Pope) or to “lash the follies of the times" (quoting Otway). For example, the narrator praises the hero as one whose manners were a happy balance between “the formal precision and officious politeness of the last age, and the churlish rudeness and studied negligence which so disgraces this.”
The villain of the novel is a farmer who tries to profit off rising wheat prices when the poor people in his county are starving. The heroine indignantly thinks: “[T]he man who can inhumanly treasure up that [wheat], waiting for a higher price, when he may already get an almost exorbitant one for every grain of it; the man who can, unmoved, behold the poor around him, dying for want to that bread which he withholds from them; he who refuses to part with a scanty portion… to the labourer who tilled the ground, who sowed, who reaped it for him…"
In other words we have a female author who is not afraid of expressing her opinions. Of course, these editorials, along with the minor characters who are brought on to illustrate some specific vice or folly, help to expand the story to four volumes. But these digressions are also what make the forgotten sentimental novels of Austen’s time a repository of opinion on the issues and fads of the past. So, without further ado, Mrs. Foster’s thoughts on:
Impetuous West Indian, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University West Indians
There are three wealthy West Indians in this novel, and they are all portrayed as being impetuous, unthinking, and careless with their money. Cary Saville, a young heir, “was a West-Indian, with all the quickness and instability of the character; his understanding was not of that cast which is competent for sound judgment or deep disquisition, it was rather the volatile spirit, which hastily skimmed he superficies of a subject, and staid not to examine causes or effects…. He was profuse even to prodigality….” Two heiresses (one with a “clear brown” complexion and "black" eyes), impulsively elope without the consent of their parents or guardian. Authors in general disapprove of elopements and usually mete out disaster to the female characters who indulge in them. Murtha Stanley dies and her cousin Jemima Caruthers is headed for divorce and disgrace as the novel closes.
There is no condemnation of slavery in this novel, or mention of emancipation. On the other hand, the narrator specifies that a minor off-stage character, Mr. Selwood, “returned from India some years [ago] with a handsome fortune, honourably acquired." The emphasis on “honourably” must be an implicit reference to controversy around the English presence in India.
There are three wealthy West Indians in this novel, and they are all portrayed as being impetuous, unthinking, and careless with their money. Cary Saville, a young heir, “was a West-Indian, with all the quickness and instability of the character; his understanding was not of that cast which is competent for sound judgment or deep disquisition, it was rather the volatile spirit, which hastily skimmed he superficies of a subject, and staid not to examine causes or effects…. He was profuse even to prodigality….” Two heiresses (one with a “clear brown” complexion and "black" eyes), impulsively elope without the consent of their parents or guardian. Authors in general disapprove of elopements and usually mete out disaster to the female characters who indulge in them. Murtha Stanley dies and her cousin Jemima Caruthers is headed for divorce and disgrace as the novel closes.
There is no condemnation of slavery in this novel, or mention of emancipation. On the other hand, the narrator specifies that a minor off-stage character, Mr. Selwood, “returned from India some years [ago] with a handsome fortune, honourably acquired." The emphasis on “honourably” must be an implicit reference to controversy around the English presence in India.
Proto-feminism
Volume I chronicles the blighted hopes of Clara Mortimer, whose heart is broken when Cary Saville, her childhood sweetheart, marries Murtha instead. After Cary and Murtha run through their fortunes and die of the mad whirlpool of dissipation (as one does), Clara brings up their surviving daughter, named Cary after her father. Herself an orphan, left with a modest inheritance from her late guardian, Clara realizes that there are advantages to being alone in the world: “When she reflected on her own situation, a feeling of liberty, of independence, unknown before, infused a warm glow on her heart; to have her time her own, to nurse her darling girl, to visit the houses of the poor peasantry, to take long and solitary rambles unchecked by the idea of hours, or of being unaccountable to any being for her absence; surely all this would be delightful.” Clara Mortimer looks for a good education for Clary and finds a headmistress who “cultivated the humane propensities of the heart, but at the same time she repressed the enervating indulgence of sensibility and sentiment and… urged a decisive, a steady, and a rational deportment.”
The ideal marriage
Though this is a marriage plot novel, there are several unhappy marriages and Foster doesn’t shy away from depicting domestic abuse. A minor character “had more than once had the cowardice and barbarity to strike his helpless wife.” His second wife becomes a hopeless drudge, worn down by endless pregnancies and unending labour.
In Mansfield Park, Austen mentioned the double standard around infidelity. Mrs. Foster is even more explicit: “Though Mrs. Robinson be excluded from the company of modest women; yet such is the corruption and contradiction of the times, all doors are opened to Major Turton; and the hours are consumed by his miserable victim [i.e. Mrs. Robinson] in the sharpest mental misery [i.e. jealousy and shame].”
These tragic examples of unhappy marriage demonstrate why heroines must choose their husbands carefully, because the law and the Church of England decreed that husbands must be obeyed. For our happy ending, Cary Saville "(now Lady Aubrey) remembers that she is the ‘weaker vessel.’ In all cases of doubt it is at once her pride and delight to apply for the advice and the approving assent of her husband.”
Volume I chronicles the blighted hopes of Clara Mortimer, whose heart is broken when Cary Saville, her childhood sweetheart, marries Murtha instead. After Cary and Murtha run through their fortunes and die of the mad whirlpool of dissipation (as one does), Clara brings up their surviving daughter, named Cary after her father. Herself an orphan, left with a modest inheritance from her late guardian, Clara realizes that there are advantages to being alone in the world: “When she reflected on her own situation, a feeling of liberty, of independence, unknown before, infused a warm glow on her heart; to have her time her own, to nurse her darling girl, to visit the houses of the poor peasantry, to take long and solitary rambles unchecked by the idea of hours, or of being unaccountable to any being for her absence; surely all this would be delightful.” Clara Mortimer looks for a good education for Clary and finds a headmistress who “cultivated the humane propensities of the heart, but at the same time she repressed the enervating indulgence of sensibility and sentiment and… urged a decisive, a steady, and a rational deportment.”
The ideal marriage
Though this is a marriage plot novel, there are several unhappy marriages and Foster doesn’t shy away from depicting domestic abuse. A minor character “had more than once had the cowardice and barbarity to strike his helpless wife.” His second wife becomes a hopeless drudge, worn down by endless pregnancies and unending labour.
In Mansfield Park, Austen mentioned the double standard around infidelity. Mrs. Foster is even more explicit: “Though Mrs. Robinson be excluded from the company of modest women; yet such is the corruption and contradiction of the times, all doors are opened to Major Turton; and the hours are consumed by his miserable victim [i.e. Mrs. Robinson] in the sharpest mental misery [i.e. jealousy and shame].”
These tragic examples of unhappy marriage demonstrate why heroines must choose their husbands carefully, because the law and the Church of England decreed that husbands must be obeyed. For our happy ending, Cary Saville "(now Lady Aubrey) remembers that she is the ‘weaker vessel.’ In all cases of doubt it is at once her pride and delight to apply for the advice and the approving assent of her husband.”
"A boarding school miss taking an evening lesson," Lewis Walpole library, Yale University Modern education
“[A] boarding-school education is now so much the fashion (or, if you like it better, the rage), that from the shoe-maker to the tailor all the young ladies are sent to the academy and seminary to be instructed in affectation, and in a perfect contempt of the plebian occupation of their Papas.”
In my earlier series on female education, I learned that many novels were taken up with the issue of how females should be educated. Mrs. Foster spends a lot of time on this. You’ll recall Austen’s mini-editorial about boarding schools in Emma; Forster goes on for several chapters about how females should be raised as “reasonable" beings. She uses some heavy-handed satire to portray two defective boarding schools.
Charity
In my earlier series on charity, I explored how authors used charitable visits to establish the bona fides of the virtuous heroine. Often, charity is reserved for the “deserving poor,” but the virtuous characters in Light and Shade don’t make this distinction. When Farmer Greenfield declares the poor “are a pack of abusive unthankful wretches,” the benevolent Sir Edward shoots back with: “We will not talk of their deserts… there are good and bad indiscriminately mixed in all ranks of life.”
Narrative technique
Forster’s narrator frequently interrupts the story to address the reader and to imagine the reader answering back and commenting upon the story. Her imagined reader exclaims “I’m sick to death of the vile low stuff, the highest character here is a vile country parson…” The narrator comes back with “I am willing to ask Miss Quality-Airs… if she would require an author or an authoress to write on subjects with which he or she is wholly unacquainted. The painter of Nature must often descend to the lower walks of life…”. Then she explains that the heroine’s hero will soon show up. Another author who used this technique was Jane Smith, using her alter ego of Prudentia Homespun.
Mrs. Foster deliberately referenced contemporary controversies. If Jane Austen had done the same; had she devoted her attention to this season’s fashion or this month’s political scandal, perhaps her works would not have survived to become called “timeless” classics.
“[A] boarding-school education is now so much the fashion (or, if you like it better, the rage), that from the shoe-maker to the tailor all the young ladies are sent to the academy and seminary to be instructed in affectation, and in a perfect contempt of the plebian occupation of their Papas.”
In my earlier series on female education, I learned that many novels were taken up with the issue of how females should be educated. Mrs. Foster spends a lot of time on this. You’ll recall Austen’s mini-editorial about boarding schools in Emma; Forster goes on for several chapters about how females should be raised as “reasonable" beings. She uses some heavy-handed satire to portray two defective boarding schools.
Charity
In my earlier series on charity, I explored how authors used charitable visits to establish the bona fides of the virtuous heroine. Often, charity is reserved for the “deserving poor,” but the virtuous characters in Light and Shade don’t make this distinction. When Farmer Greenfield declares the poor “are a pack of abusive unthankful wretches,” the benevolent Sir Edward shoots back with: “We will not talk of their deserts… there are good and bad indiscriminately mixed in all ranks of life.”
Narrative technique
Forster’s narrator frequently interrupts the story to address the reader and to imagine the reader answering back and commenting upon the story. Her imagined reader exclaims “I’m sick to death of the vile low stuff, the highest character here is a vile country parson…” The narrator comes back with “I am willing to ask Miss Quality-Airs… if she would require an author or an authoress to write on subjects with which he or she is wholly unacquainted. The painter of Nature must often descend to the lower walks of life…”. Then she explains that the heroine’s hero will soon show up. Another author who used this technique was Jane Smith, using her alter ego of Prudentia Homespun.
Mrs. Foster deliberately referenced contemporary controversies. If Jane Austen had done the same; had she devoted her attention to this season’s fashion or this month’s political scandal, perhaps her works would not have survived to become called “timeless” classics.
Featured in Light and Shade: the craze for Perkins Patent Metal Tractors, a quack cure for everything About the author
Nothing is known about Mrs. E.M. Foster, I believe, except from the opinions that can be gleaned from her novels. Devoutly Christian, she was socially conservative in many ways but also has been described as a proto-feminist. She authored 14 novels. The title--Light and Shade--is Foster’s reference to the fact that she did not create characters who were “pictures of perfection.” She wrote some historical novels but she specialized in relatively realistic social dramas.
The Critical Review commended Light and Shade as being “lively, pleasing, and interesting.” I agree—except for the scenes set in Teignmouth with a gaggle of good-for-nothing fashionable swains, I was interested in the story and the outcome. The Critical Review surmised that some of the “peculiarly striking” characters “must be portraits,” that is, they must be portraits of real people the author knew. I had the same thought, particularly in regards to the minor character of Purvis, a well-intentioned but weak young man who fritters away his inheritance.
So, what about similarities to The Woman of Colour? I will do some more research before sharing my conclusions.
Nothing is known about Mrs. E.M. Foster, I believe, except from the opinions that can be gleaned from her novels. Devoutly Christian, she was socially conservative in many ways but also has been described as a proto-feminist. She authored 14 novels. The title--Light and Shade--is Foster’s reference to the fact that she did not create characters who were “pictures of perfection.” She wrote some historical novels but she specialized in relatively realistic social dramas.
The Critical Review commended Light and Shade as being “lively, pleasing, and interesting.” I agree—except for the scenes set in Teignmouth with a gaggle of good-for-nothing fashionable swains, I was interested in the story and the outcome. The Critical Review surmised that some of the “peculiarly striking” characters “must be portraits,” that is, they must be portraits of real people the author knew. I had the same thought, particularly in regards to the minor character of Purvis, a well-intentioned but weak young man who fritters away his inheritance.
So, what about similarities to The Woman of Colour? I will do some more research before sharing my conclusions.
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