| 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. Spoilers abound in my discussion of these forgotten novels, and I discuss 18th-century attitudes which I do not necessarily endorse. “Mrs. Wilmington saw the state of her mind with pity, yet she made no remarks on it, hoping that time with lenient hand would yet pour the balm of consolation into her wounded and care-worn heart.” |
CMP#259 Maids As They Are Not and Wives As They Are (1803) by Mrs. Martha Homely
The pseudonymous authoress Mrs. Martha Homely knew that the first unrelentingly weepy and overwrought volume of Maids As They Are is notably different from the livelier scandal-ridden subsequent volumes, and in her foreword she “entreats those who are fatigued at the melancholy of her first volume” to hang in there. Volume Two introduces Lady Lucy and her two sisters, more wickedly captivating than her heroine. Of course they are only there to be held up as a bad example. Of course!
The story centers around our beautiful and virtuous heroine Theodora Cameron. Actually, the first chapter traces the family line back to the time of good Queen Anne, but the family tree collapses as the authoress dispatches Theodora’s aunt, then her uncle the baronet, then Theodora’s mother, then her father. We’re left with Theodora and her cousin Evelin Cameron, the only remaining male heir to the baronetcy. They are in fact double first cousins, because their fathers are twin brothers (the one who popped out first was the baronet) who married sisters. Their parents intended them for each other from their cradles. No genetic counselors in this little Welsh village, evidently...
The story centers around our beautiful and virtuous heroine Theodora Cameron. Actually, the first chapter traces the family line back to the time of good Queen Anne, but the family tree collapses as the authoress dispatches Theodora’s aunt, then her uncle the baronet, then Theodora’s mother, then her father. We’re left with Theodora and her cousin Evelin Cameron, the only remaining male heir to the baronetcy. They are in fact double first cousins, because their fathers are twin brothers (the one who popped out first was the baronet) who married sisters. Their parents intended them for each other from their cradles. No genetic counselors in this little Welsh village, evidently...
When Evelin is away at school, he sends highly overwrought letters to Theodora about how he longs to come back and throw himself at her feet. But alas, no sooner has he finished his schooling than he is off to serve in the Napoleonic Wars. I for one would have counselled against sending the last living scion of the Cameron family to war, but nobody asked me. Word soon comes that he has died on a French battlefield. The end.
Just kidding, folks. Evelin isn’t dead after all! He writes that he is heading back to England to throw himself at Theodora’s feet. But when he hastens back to their home village after a long recuperation in France, he hears the church bells ringing, he sees Theodora entering the church, he sees the villagers celebrating a wedding, and he concludes that he’s a day too late.
Evelin immediately marries Bernice, the nice young girl who nursed him when he was wounded in France. But-- it's all a big misunderstanding! Theodora was the maid of honour, not the bride!
Actually, I’m giving that part away early. The only thing Theodora knows at this point is that Evelin suddenly jilted her and married someone else. When he realizes his mistake, he tries to explain, but she says it wouldn’t be proper to read a letter from a married man, so she continues in ignorance.
Theodora resolves to accompany her friend Aspasia Woodford to visit Aspasia’s noble relatives, the Lurewells, in Bath. That’s when the narrative leaves behind the forehead-clenching drama we’ve had so far and becomes chattier, cheerful, and ironic, with a new cast of characters. We have the (very) typical situation of an upright and virtuous heroine surrounded by fops, fools, and decadence. At least Theodora has her friend with her; many heroines face this gauntlet of grotesques on their own.
Lady Lucy Lurewell has snagged a lower-class but wealthy husband, (such people were referred to as a “cit”, short for citizen). They have lodgings at Laura Place. Lucy is a Mary Crawford sort of character—very worldly, witty, and well-read. She actually makes a joke about venereal disease—at least I think she does. See what you think. An army officer jokes that “Cupid, inexorable Cupid, lies perdu in the beautiful hair of Lady Lucy.”
“I shall then, for once in my life,” exclaimed Lord Selcourt, “have an opportunity of catching his godship.”
“You had better take care,” cried her gay ladyship, “that you catch nothing else.”
Just kidding, folks. Evelin isn’t dead after all! He writes that he is heading back to England to throw himself at Theodora’s feet. But when he hastens back to their home village after a long recuperation in France, he hears the church bells ringing, he sees Theodora entering the church, he sees the villagers celebrating a wedding, and he concludes that he’s a day too late.
Evelin immediately marries Bernice, the nice young girl who nursed him when he was wounded in France. But-- it's all a big misunderstanding! Theodora was the maid of honour, not the bride!
Actually, I’m giving that part away early. The only thing Theodora knows at this point is that Evelin suddenly jilted her and married someone else. When he realizes his mistake, he tries to explain, but she says it wouldn’t be proper to read a letter from a married man, so she continues in ignorance.
Theodora resolves to accompany her friend Aspasia Woodford to visit Aspasia’s noble relatives, the Lurewells, in Bath. That’s when the narrative leaves behind the forehead-clenching drama we’ve had so far and becomes chattier, cheerful, and ironic, with a new cast of characters. We have the (very) typical situation of an upright and virtuous heroine surrounded by fops, fools, and decadence. At least Theodora has her friend with her; many heroines face this gauntlet of grotesques on their own.
Lady Lucy Lurewell has snagged a lower-class but wealthy husband, (such people were referred to as a “cit”, short for citizen). They have lodgings at Laura Place. Lucy is a Mary Crawford sort of character—very worldly, witty, and well-read. She actually makes a joke about venereal disease—at least I think she does. See what you think. An army officer jokes that “Cupid, inexorable Cupid, lies perdu in the beautiful hair of Lady Lucy.”
“I shall then, for once in my life,” exclaimed Lord Selcourt, “have an opportunity of catching his godship.”
“You had better take care,” cried her gay ladyship, “that you catch nothing else.”
John Sanders, An Assembly at the Pump Room (detail) (1750–1825) In a fun and somewhat Shakespearean episode, Aspasia accidentally intercepts Lucy’s letter setting up an assignation with Lord Selcourt, while Selcourt sends a love-letter to Theodora. The girls have fun with this and put Selcourt in his place.
Another young man about town proposes to Theodora, and she does not bother with the pro forma response of being undeservedly honoured by his addresses. She just cuts him down like a lawnmower. I think she has greater license to be so brusque because she is an heiress: “do you think me so insufferably vain, as to credit the fine rhapsody you have just uttered, which, assure yourself, I consider as a kind of cant jargon, which you address to almost every woman you meet?”
Then it’s off to Portman-Square in London where Theodora attracts Lord Morton, a nice enough young man, but she can’t get over her love for Evelin. Lord Morton wants to marry her even after her financial agent absconds with her fortune, leaving her almost penniless. “Where, in the name of wonder, George,” exclaimed [his sister] “did you get these old-fashioned notions,--gratitude, affection, generosity, duty, love and a cottage, beans, peas, and potatoes”?
Theodora refuses his Lordship and also has to fend off additional lecherous male characters whose intentions are not so honourable. Meanwhile, Lady Lucy runs off with her latest lover, as does her weak-minded friend Mrs. Ainsworth. Their lapse from virtue is tied to the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft: What can be wrong, Mrs. Ainsworth exclaims, to “throw off the unjust prejudices, the vain maxims of my sex, and assert my native energies? Can laws made by man shackle the heart?”
Another young man about town proposes to Theodora, and she does not bother with the pro forma response of being undeservedly honoured by his addresses. She just cuts him down like a lawnmower. I think she has greater license to be so brusque because she is an heiress: “do you think me so insufferably vain, as to credit the fine rhapsody you have just uttered, which, assure yourself, I consider as a kind of cant jargon, which you address to almost every woman you meet?”
Then it’s off to Portman-Square in London where Theodora attracts Lord Morton, a nice enough young man, but she can’t get over her love for Evelin. Lord Morton wants to marry her even after her financial agent absconds with her fortune, leaving her almost penniless. “Where, in the name of wonder, George,” exclaimed [his sister] “did you get these old-fashioned notions,--gratitude, affection, generosity, duty, love and a cottage, beans, peas, and potatoes”?
Theodora refuses his Lordship and also has to fend off additional lecherous male characters whose intentions are not so honourable. Meanwhile, Lady Lucy runs off with her latest lover, as does her weak-minded friend Mrs. Ainsworth. Their lapse from virtue is tied to the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft: What can be wrong, Mrs. Ainsworth exclaims, to “throw off the unjust prejudices, the vain maxims of my sex, and assert my native energies? Can laws made by man shackle the heart?”
At her lowest ebb, Theodora is rescued from poverty and isolation by Mrs. Wilmington, a wealthy single woman who knew the Cameron family. She basically adopts Theodora. Back in the home village, Evelin’s wife Bernice dies (poor Bernice, never more than a convenient plot point, what a sad little life). Evelin goes to London to find Theodora, sees her with her admirer Lord Morton, and, for the second time, assumes she is married. Idiot.
Finally, Theodora reads Evelin's letter of explanation about the misunderstanding which led to him marrying Bernice. Propriety prevents Theodora from answering him and letting him know she's available, so Mrs. Wilmington does it for her. Evelin writes back that he can’t wait to throw himself at her feet but alas, he has basically emoted himself into a fatal illness. He dies.
The authoress imagines that some of her fair readers: “would long since have thrown [the story] by in disgust, could she possibly have anticipated its conclusion, could she have foreseen that I have been all this time leading her on, through some hundreds of pages, and conclude at last without a wedding; and that Theodora is destined by fate, and the author, to die an old maid!” Well, when we compare the independent life of Theodora’s friend Mrs. Wilmington to the unhappy marriages which pass in review before us in this novel, the author makes independence look pretty good.
Finally, Theodora reads Evelin's letter of explanation about the misunderstanding which led to him marrying Bernice. Propriety prevents Theodora from answering him and letting him know she's available, so Mrs. Wilmington does it for her. Evelin writes back that he can’t wait to throw himself at her feet but alas, he has basically emoted himself into a fatal illness. He dies.
The authoress imagines that some of her fair readers: “would long since have thrown [the story] by in disgust, could she possibly have anticipated its conclusion, could she have foreseen that I have been all this time leading her on, through some hundreds of pages, and conclude at last without a wedding; and that Theodora is destined by fate, and the author, to die an old maid!” Well, when we compare the independent life of Theodora’s friend Mrs. Wilmington to the unhappy marriages which pass in review before us in this novel, the author makes independence look pretty good.
Sugar was sold in hard-packed cones and had to be scraped off or broken up The wrap up
Then we have the wrap-up for the rest of the characters. Just as Austen dwells on Sir Thomas Bertram’s remorse for the faulty education of his daughters at the end of Mansfield Park, so Lucy Lurewell's father Lord Dormwell “recollected with remorse and anguish, his own blameable conduct towards his children; he saw that to education alone might be attributed all their errors, that no policy could ensure virtue, no advantages of rank and fortune, give dignity, or secure respect and happiness, without religion… while he had been ambitious to procure for them worldly possessions, he had neglected those which could alone have been permanent and lasting.” This is the moral of the tale--only a proper upbringing can prepare young people for the temptations and trials they will face in adult life.
Like some other authors we’ve read, Martha Homely addresses the reader directly and sometimes imagines what they would say about her book: “Surely,” cries a fashionable belle, just out of her teens, throwing aside my book in disgust, “this work was written by the wife or daughter of some country parson, who having nothing better to do, thought to improve the morals of the rising age, with a few dry sentiments, crammed into a stupid novel.” I didn't know that the term "teens" was in use at this time.
Then we have the wrap-up for the rest of the characters. Just as Austen dwells on Sir Thomas Bertram’s remorse for the faulty education of his daughters at the end of Mansfield Park, so Lucy Lurewell's father Lord Dormwell “recollected with remorse and anguish, his own blameable conduct towards his children; he saw that to education alone might be attributed all their errors, that no policy could ensure virtue, no advantages of rank and fortune, give dignity, or secure respect and happiness, without religion… while he had been ambitious to procure for them worldly possessions, he had neglected those which could alone have been permanent and lasting.” This is the moral of the tale--only a proper upbringing can prepare young people for the temptations and trials they will face in adult life.
Like some other authors we’ve read, Martha Homely addresses the reader directly and sometimes imagines what they would say about her book: “Surely,” cries a fashionable belle, just out of her teens, throwing aside my book in disgust, “this work was written by the wife or daughter of some country parson, who having nothing better to do, thought to improve the morals of the rising age, with a few dry sentiments, crammed into a stupid novel.” I didn't know that the term "teens" was in use at this time.
Milkmaid (detail) John Augustus Atkinson (1775-1830) Other features
Our California-based royal, Prince Harry, finds Westminster Abbey creepy because everything about it “spoke of death.” In his autobiography he goes on to list some of the famous people amongst the three thousand laid to rest there but I’m sure all that detail was added by his ghostwriter since Harry has no knowledge of, or interest in, the history of his country. However, I was reminded of that remark because Lady Lucy feels the same: “when I’m in church, and that’s one reason why I never go there; who, for mercy’s sake, that has the least spirit, can bear to sit moping in a kind of human charnel house, where the accumulated dust and ashes of many centuries, are piled up together?”
There are several subplots. One involves Theodora giving assistance to the destitute widow of a soldier. Her backstory provides an insight into the restricted life of the poor in Austen’s England. Mary and her friend Anne are apprenticed as children by the parish to a cruel farm couple as indentured servants. They are beaten, scolded, and half-starved. Anne dies under the brutal treatment. Mary runs away but she is “taken before a magistrate to give an account of myself; the truth then came out, I was sent home to my parish; choice was given me either to go back to my master, or serve out my time in the house of correction. I chose the latter.” After serving her time, she marries but she and her husband fall on hard times. He enlists and she follows him to the continent where he dies. “[T]he officers were very good, made a subscription for me, and I embarked on a merchant-man bound for Great Britain.” She arrived penniless and was freezing and starving with her two children in a ditch when Theodora finds her. Theodora provides immediate assistance, then writes to her late husband’s officers to confirm the truth of her story, before giving her the money to set up her own little shop in Minehead. That takes us to another aspect of the novel, the upbraiding of the nobility and the wealthy. The narrator editorializes: “O weak and misguided children of affluence! Ye who sacrifice your health, your fortune, and your fame [i.e. reputation], in the overwhelming vortex of dissipation, ye can never experience a delight equal to that now felt by our heroine!”
Although she condemns adultery, of course, the author also takes a benign view toward a former kept woman who becomes respectable once she is married: “[S]he looks up to her husband as a superior being, manages his family, darns the stocking, breaks up sugar, scolds the servants, and now and then takes a friendly cup of tea with a gossiping neighbour… and they generally agree in their condemnation of all the unfortunates of their own sex, who have in any respect swerved from the severest rules of female decorum.”
I do not think these viewpoints indicate a radical or Jacobin outlook. The author exhorts people to fulfill the roles into which they were born and set a better example to the lower orders: “many of our nobility exhibit a pattern, which every class in society might do well to imitate; yet where the vicious are tolerated and supported, or at least, not sufficiently discouraged—where high birth is considered an excuse for great vices—and where riches ensure respect, it can scarcely admit of a wonder, that men and women will run every risk to gain the latter, and assume the appearance, and enjoy the privileges. Of the former. Lady Caroline, Lady Elizabeth, Lady Anne, elope from their husbands (nothing upon earth more common!) a divorce is obtained, the lady marries her seducer—sometimes any one else; an act of oblivion is passed; and as if she had changed her nature with her name, she is again admitted into the society of the virtuous and respectable, even of her own sex. ‘O tempora! O mores!’”
Our California-based royal, Prince Harry, finds Westminster Abbey creepy because everything about it “spoke of death.” In his autobiography he goes on to list some of the famous people amongst the three thousand laid to rest there but I’m sure all that detail was added by his ghostwriter since Harry has no knowledge of, or interest in, the history of his country. However, I was reminded of that remark because Lady Lucy feels the same: “when I’m in church, and that’s one reason why I never go there; who, for mercy’s sake, that has the least spirit, can bear to sit moping in a kind of human charnel house, where the accumulated dust and ashes of many centuries, are piled up together?”
There are several subplots. One involves Theodora giving assistance to the destitute widow of a soldier. Her backstory provides an insight into the restricted life of the poor in Austen’s England. Mary and her friend Anne are apprenticed as children by the parish to a cruel farm couple as indentured servants. They are beaten, scolded, and half-starved. Anne dies under the brutal treatment. Mary runs away but she is “taken before a magistrate to give an account of myself; the truth then came out, I was sent home to my parish; choice was given me either to go back to my master, or serve out my time in the house of correction. I chose the latter.” After serving her time, she marries but she and her husband fall on hard times. He enlists and she follows him to the continent where he dies. “[T]he officers were very good, made a subscription for me, and I embarked on a merchant-man bound for Great Britain.” She arrived penniless and was freezing and starving with her two children in a ditch when Theodora finds her. Theodora provides immediate assistance, then writes to her late husband’s officers to confirm the truth of her story, before giving her the money to set up her own little shop in Minehead. That takes us to another aspect of the novel, the upbraiding of the nobility and the wealthy. The narrator editorializes: “O weak and misguided children of affluence! Ye who sacrifice your health, your fortune, and your fame [i.e. reputation], in the overwhelming vortex of dissipation, ye can never experience a delight equal to that now felt by our heroine!”
Although she condemns adultery, of course, the author also takes a benign view toward a former kept woman who becomes respectable once she is married: “[S]he looks up to her husband as a superior being, manages his family, darns the stocking, breaks up sugar, scolds the servants, and now and then takes a friendly cup of tea with a gossiping neighbour… and they generally agree in their condemnation of all the unfortunates of their own sex, who have in any respect swerved from the severest rules of female decorum.”
I do not think these viewpoints indicate a radical or Jacobin outlook. The author exhorts people to fulfill the roles into which they were born and set a better example to the lower orders: “many of our nobility exhibit a pattern, which every class in society might do well to imitate; yet where the vicious are tolerated and supported, or at least, not sufficiently discouraged—where high birth is considered an excuse for great vices—and where riches ensure respect, it can scarcely admit of a wonder, that men and women will run every risk to gain the latter, and assume the appearance, and enjoy the privileges. Of the former. Lady Caroline, Lady Elizabeth, Lady Anne, elope from their husbands (nothing upon earth more common!) a divorce is obtained, the lady marries her seducer—sometimes any one else; an act of oblivion is passed; and as if she had changed her nature with her name, she is again admitted into the society of the virtuous and respectable, even of her own sex. ‘O tempora! O mores!’”
About the Author
According to Peter Garside, a pre-eminent scholar of the early novel, “Mrs. Martha Homely” is the pseudonym of Elizabeth Thomas, who also wrote under the name of Bridget Bluemantle. We know nothing about Elizabeth Thomas, but I think she is a female writer, as her female characters are better delineated than her male characters. She imagines the reader trying to picture the author: “but vain are their endeavours, the author will not unveil herself even at the end of the work. Whether I am young, handsome, fashionable, gay, and smart in my appearance, or old, ugly, and grave, they will, I hope, never know. She does refer to herself as “old and homely.” As well: “I may be old and unmarried, and almost entirely devoted to household and culinary occupations, such a supposition would ruin this work at once, for how can a woman who makes puddings and pies, darns stockings, mends linen, and scolds her servants, ever be able to give a true account of men and women of fashion, and without fashion, what is a novel!”
But this homely old maid stuff could be an assumed persona, as with fellow-novelist Jane West’s alter ego Prudentia Homespun. Thomas says she has “legitimate children” but perhaps she is speaking metaphorically. “I have ‘TWO COUNSELLORS’ on the road, my own legitimate children, who will plead for “Theodora,” and for the author, and who, in the cause of virtue, shall clamour loud, hoping for your applause.”
Maids As They Are received no reviews when it was first published, and I have found no critical commentary on it since. It is far from the worst novel I’ve read from this period. As usual, the wicked females are more interesting than the prudish heroine, but this is a problem faced by many an author.
According to Peter Garside, a pre-eminent scholar of the early novel, “Mrs. Martha Homely” is the pseudonym of Elizabeth Thomas, who also wrote under the name of Bridget Bluemantle. We know nothing about Elizabeth Thomas, but I think she is a female writer, as her female characters are better delineated than her male characters. She imagines the reader trying to picture the author: “but vain are their endeavours, the author will not unveil herself even at the end of the work. Whether I am young, handsome, fashionable, gay, and smart in my appearance, or old, ugly, and grave, they will, I hope, never know. She does refer to herself as “old and homely.” As well: “I may be old and unmarried, and almost entirely devoted to household and culinary occupations, such a supposition would ruin this work at once, for how can a woman who makes puddings and pies, darns stockings, mends linen, and scolds her servants, ever be able to give a true account of men and women of fashion, and without fashion, what is a novel!”
But this homely old maid stuff could be an assumed persona, as with fellow-novelist Jane West’s alter ego Prudentia Homespun. Thomas says she has “legitimate children” but perhaps she is speaking metaphorically. “I have ‘TWO COUNSELLORS’ on the road, my own legitimate children, who will plead for “Theodora,” and for the author, and who, in the cause of virtue, shall clamour loud, hoping for your applause.”
Maids As They Are received no reviews when it was first published, and I have found no critical commentary on it since. It is far from the worst novel I’ve read from this period. As usual, the wicked females are more interesting than the prudish heroine, but this is a problem faced by many an author.
Previous post: Emma the unrequited heroine
RSS Feed