hen she yields to her lover's entreaties to
consummate a hasty marriage; when fear of her father's displeasure
induces her to keep their union a secret; when her love of luxurious
grandeur at court persuades her to contract a more exalted match; when
her terror of Clermont forces her into a shameless expedient for the
sake of mollifying his anger; and when after her exposure by her
husband, the Marquis, she brazens out her trial in hopes of maintaining
the splendor of her rank and fortune, she is welding link by link the
chain of circumstance that draws her to ultimate disaster. She is by no
means a simple heroine motivated by the elementary passions; instead she
is constantly swayed by emotions and desires of the most diverse and
complex nature. After her first taste of court life she learns to look
back on her husband's rusticity with a sort of contempt, and to regret
her precipitate action.

"Not that she hated Clermont; on the contrary, she had yet very great
Remains of her former Passion for him, whenever she reflected on the
Endearments which had past between them: but then she depis'd the
Meanness of his Extraction, and the Thoughts that she had put him in
possession of a Title, which gave him the Power, whenever he pleas'd
to exert it, of calling her from the present Grandeur of her State,
and obliging her to live with him in a mean Retirement; made all
Desires instigated by her Affection, immediately give way to that new
Idol of her Wishes, Greatness! And she more ardently endeavour'd to
find some Stratagem to prevent him from ever seeing her again, than
she had formerly pray'd in the Simplicity and Innocence of her
Affections, never to be separated from him." (p. 14).

When an ambitious marriage is proposed, her first horror at the thought
of deserting her country husband yields to a sort of resignation when
she persuades herself of the necessity of the step. And when she
considers the riches, title, and agreeable person of the Marquis, she
almost disdains herself for hesitating to prefer him to Clermont. Her
life is the tragedy of a soul too indolent to swim against the current
of events. Mrs. Haywood managed to give extraordinary vividness and
consistency to the character of the vacillating Henrietta by making the
plot depend almost entirely upon the indecision of the heroine.
Consequently none of the author's women are as sharply defined as this
weak, pleasure-loving French girl. Th