As it becomes clear from her letters that Evelina is becoming attached to Lord Orville, Mr. Villars tries to advise her in his own letters not to get too caught up in her feelings (since Lord Orville may not marry someone of her class position). In one letter, he frames Evelina’s current situation as a fight between imagination and reason, personifying both in the process:
Young, animated, entirely off your guard, and thoughtless of consequences, Imagination took the reins, and Reason, slow-paced, though sure-footed, was unequal to a race with so eccentric and flighty a companion. How rapid was then my Evelina’s progress through those regions of fancy and passion whither her new guide conducted her!
Here, Mr. Villars paints a picture of “Imagination” as a young person “thoughtless of consequences” who “took the reins” in Evelina’s life, while “Reason”—a “slow-paced, though sure-footed” person—was unable to compete. With “Imagination” as her “new guide,” Evelina has made “progress through those regions of fancy and passion.” This pair of personifications effectively communicates Mr. Villars’s concern that Evelina is not being rational or grounded in her relationship with Lord Orville and getting lost in a fantasy.
While one of Evelina’s strengths is her sensibility (or emotional sensitivity), here Mr. Villars warns that her emotions may be leading her astray. As her father figure, Mr. Villars believes his role is to guide her through this period of her life, allowing her independence while still advising her from afar.
After Evelina writes to Mr. Villars and tells him of her reunion with her estranged birth father Sir John Belmont—describing how he has welcomed her into his life and given her her rightful title and inheritance—Mr. Villars responds joyfully, using a metaphor and personification in the process:
My child, thy happiness is engraved, in golden characters, upon the tablets of my heart! and their impression is indelible; for, should the rude and deep-searching hand of Misfortune attempt to pluck them from their repository, the fleeting fabric of life would give way, and in tearing from my vitals the nourishment by which they are supported, she would but grasp at a shadow insensible to her touch.
Here, Mr. Villars uses a metaphor to compare his heart to tablets on which Evelina’s “happiness is engraved, in golden characters,” effectively communicating the intensity of his happiness for his adopted daughter. He then personifies “Misfortune” as a woman, imagining that, should she use her hand “to attempt to pluck [the golden characters engraved on his heart] from their repository,” she would remove his very life-force and he would become “a shadow.”
This is Mr. Villars’s poetic way of sharing with Evelina that her happiness makes him immensely happy as well, so much so that it is impossible to separate her joy from his. Seeing her reputation restored and her nobility acknowledged is all he has wanted for her since the start of the novel.
