# Letter LXI: Evelina in Continuation explained — Evelina

> Chapter companion for Evelina by Fanny Burney.

## What happens

Evelina writes to Maria Mirvan from Bristol Hotwells, where she has been sent for her health. She describes her reluctant parting from Mr. Villars, her improved health in the pleasant surroundings, and her observations on Mrs. Selwyn's masculine understanding and lack of feminine softness.

## Themes in this chapter

### Female Education and Innocence

Evelina reflects on Mrs. Selwyn's masculine understanding and the loss of feminine softness, highlighting contemporary ideals of female education and behavior.

### Gender and Power

Evelina notes her discomfort with a woman who lacks gentleness, contrasting with her ease with men, illustrating gendered expectations of power and demeanor.

## Character check-ins

### Evelina Anville

The narrator and letter writer, recovering her health at Bristol Hotwells.

### Miss Mirvan

The recipient of the letter, addressed as 'my dear Maria'.

### Rev. Mr. Villars

Evelina's guardian, who insisted she travel to Bristol for her health and from whom she parted reluctantly.

### Mrs. Selwyn

Evelina's companion on the journey, described as clever but lacking feminine gentleness.

### Mrs. Clinton

Also present at Bristol Hotwells to attend to Evelina.

## Key lines

> I cannot express the reluctance with which I parted from my revered Mr. Villars: it was not like that parting which, last April, preceded my journey to Howard Grove, when, all expectation and hope, though I wept, I rejoiced, and, though I sincerely grieved to leave him, I yet wished to be gone: the sorrow I now felt was unmixed with any livelier sensation; expectation was vanished, and hope I had none!

Evelina describes her sorrow at leaving Mr. Villars as deeper than before, since she now has no expectations or hopes to soften the grief.

_Highlights Evelina's emotional state and the contrast with her earlier departure._

> She is extremely clever: her understanding, indeed, may be called masculine: but, unfortunately, her manners deserve the same epithet; for, in studying to acquire the knowledge of the other sex, she has lost all the softness of her own.

Evelina observes that Mrs. Selwyn's intelligence is like a man's, but her manners are also masculine, having sacrificed feminine gentleness.

_Reflects 18th-century views on gender and the perceived incompatibility of female intellect with traditional femininity._

## Links

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