… [A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies] hangs together by that most fragile of threads, a central narrator who discusses her observations and recounts her own and others' adventures. The numerous poetic epistles, though composed by Galesia and appropriate where inserted, do little to unify the narrative. And since, as Galesia herself confesses, her own existence has been either solitary or confined to extremely modest social circles, her anecdotes have little drama and almost never a climax. The book tails away, in fact, into a conversation with her noble hostess about historical events, the evils of ambition, and more poetry.

At the same time, this very mundaneness has its own interest. The anecdotes of robbers and robberies with which her fellow coach riders amuse themselves in the introduction bear witness, no doubt, to contemporary interest in criminal fiction, but they are also so ordinary and plausible that they suggest newspaper reporting.¹ When Galesia's coach unceremoniously dumps her in the river, she is given shelter by a peasant couple whose meager but well-meant hospitality is observantly and realistically described. The details of her acquaintances and her mode of life in London are trivial; but as in the previous cases, the simplicity and the commonplaceness of event and character partake more of non-fiction than of fiction, and one is inclined to accept Mrs. Barker's observations as an authentic and undramatized view of life at the time.

Just as A Patch-Work Screen is an atypical novel, Galesia is an atypical fictional heroine. John J. Richetti calls her "a combination of the female moral censor and the learned and pious semi-recluse lady who is a familiar moral character of the age" and further notes that "Mrs. Barker's 'development' records the clear emergence of the heroic 'she-saint' from the erotic turbulence of popular female fiction."² Certainly she differs from, for example, the lustful Elisinda and the anodine Bellamira. But one wonders whether Mrs. Barker indeed intended to hold Galesia up to her readers as a "she-saint," for her validity as a character comes precisely from the sense of confusion and stress she experiences at finding her inclinations contrary to those duties society imposes on her and yet being unable to rebel with confidence against its dictates.

The question of love and marriage presents to her, for example, never-ending difficulties. The off-again-on-again relationship with Bosvil, to whom she proudly refused to reveal her affection because he did not properly declare his intentions to her parents, has already been described in Love Intrigues³ The post-Bosvil Galesia is, if anything, more cautious about propriety and, unfortunately perhaps for her, more percipient about her suitors. Bellair does observe the necessary ceremonies in informing both his and her parents of his intent, thereby delighting his father, who believes that marriage will reform his wayward son. Nevertheless, Galesia hesitates: "I was not so ignorant of the World, but to know or believe, that often those Beau Rakes, have the Cunning and Assurance to make Parents on both sides, Steps to their Childrens Disgrace, if not Ruin" (p. 37). Her caution is more than justified by Bellair's being hanged for a frolicsome robbery. Lysander, another suitor proposed to Galesia by her mother, is known to keep a mistress; when he declares to his inamorata that he wishes his freedom, she taunts him so mercilessly that he shoots himself—"A very fatal Warning to all unwary Gentlemen" (p. 88), Galesia reflects. She never does succeed in resolving her situation. She regrets Lysander's death, but "I had found so many Disappointments, that I began to be displeas'd at my-self, for hoping or expecting any thing that tended to Happiness" (p. 89). Certainly Galesia is an unrewarded heroine—but not one who is dishonest enough to pretend that all goes well with her.

The other great source of internal confusion and stress involves education—that is, the suitability of the intellectual life as a feminine pursuit. For poor Galesia, learning has been her only comfort. Studying medicine and anatomy comforted her when her beloved brother died and she felt herself "a useless Wretch; useless to the World; useless to my Friends, and a Burden to myself (p. 14). She maintains a lively and harmless friendship with university students through an exchange of poetry. Obliged to reside in London, she sees that her country manners and discourse are considered ridiculous; "I was like a Wild Ass in a Forest, and liv'd alone in the midst of this great Multitude" (p. 45). Once again, study comes to her aid: "it furnish'd me with Notions above the Trifles of my Sex, wherewith to entertain my self in Solitude" (p. 47).

Society's views are, however, pitilessly exposed to her by her reproachful mother, who urges her to leave off "idle Dreams on Parnassus, and foolish Romantick Flights, with Icarus" (p. 79). The lesson she reads her daughter is straightforward but grim for an intelligent woman: "[become] a good Mistress of a Family; and imploy your Parts in being an obedient Wife, a discreet Governess of your Children and Servants; a friendly Assistant to your Neighbours, Friends, and Acquaintance: This being the Business for which you came into the World, and for Neglect of this, you must give an Account when you go out of it" (p. 80).

Galesia is never able to come to terms with society's definition of a woman's function, as expressed by her mother, and her own inclination to study and to write. She believes that her studies "serv'd to make me unfit Company for every body; for the Unlearned fear'd, and the Learned scom'd my Conversation; at least I fancy'd so: A Learned Woman, being at best but like a Forc'd-Plant, that never has its due or proper Relish, but is wither'd by the first Blast that Envy or Tribulation blows over her Endeavours" (p. 11).⁴ Nor can she help reiterating society's views: "how useless, or rather pernicious, Books and Learning are to our Sex…. for by their Means we relish not the Diversions or Imbellishments of our Sex and Station; which render us agreeable to the World, and the World to us; but live in a Stoical Dulness or humersome Stupidity" (p. 79). Yet it is equally clear that she can neither accept nor adhere to these views.

In the popular romances a heroine may be torn by conflict, but eventually the conflict is solved and she lives happily ever after. Galesia, incapable of decisiveness or of having decisiveness thrust upon her, does not live happily ever after; she remains in the limbo of the unconcluded Patch-Work Screen. Yet it is this uncertainty, this equivocation of character that makes of her a heroine in the modern sense of the term. If the reader, upon finishing the novel, cannot help but wish that somehow she might come to terms with herself and with society, that somehow she might be rewarded for her lucidity, he feels at least that he has encountered real life, even if dull and undramatic, and a real person—not a common occurrence in the fiction of the period.

Notes

¹ Michael F. Shugrue shows how Mrs. Barker capitalizes here on criminal fiction in "The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Imitation in the Early Eighteenth-Century Novel," The South Atlantic Quarterly, 70 (Spring 1971), 248-255.

²Popular Fiction before Richardson (Oxford, 1969), p. 237.

³ Reprint ed., New York: Garland Publishing, 1973.

⁴ She expresses similar sentiments in poetry, lamenting the tree of knowledge:

Though in its Culture I have spent some Time,
Yet it disdains to grow in our* cold Clime,

Where it can neither Fruit nor Leaves produce,
Good for its Owner, or the publick Use.
(p. 25)

The * is identified in a footnote as "A Female Capacity."