The Coquette

“He is gone. His fate is unalterably, and I trust, happily fixed. He lived the life, and died the death of the righteous. O that my last end may be like his!”

Mr. Haly’s death is indicative of the Christian view that death can be a joyous occasion, provided the deceased lived a righteous life. Because he was honorable, his friends can be assured that he is now in heaven, and is thus in a better state than he was in life. Eliza hopes for the same; however, her decisions lead her astray.Mr. Haly’s death is indicative of the Christian view that death can be a joyous occasion, provided the deceased lived a righteous life. Because he was honorable, his friends can be assured that he is now in heaven, and is thus in a better state than he was in life. Eliza hopes for the same; however, her decisions lead her astray.

“Time, which effaces every occasional impression, I find gradually dispelling  the pleasing pensiveness, which the melancholy event, the subject of my last, had diffused over my mind. Naturally cheerful, volatile, and unreflecting, the opposite disposition, I have found to contain sources of enjoyment, which I was before unconscious of possessing.”

Eliza is acutely aware of her own volatility, an attribute that will be her undoing. She is ironically reflective in her assessment of herself as “unreflecting.” The material joys that she is waking up to lead her away from virtue.

“I believe I shall never again resume those airs, which you term as coquettish, but which I think deserve a softer appellation; as they proceed from an innocent heart, and are the effusions of a youthful, and cheerful mind.”

This is the first instance in the novel that the word “coquette” is invoked. Lucy has evidently chided Eliza on such behavior before. Eliza merely attributes it to her inexperience and innocence.