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diff --git a/old/54569-8.txt b/old/54569-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 44ad25e..0000000 --- a/old/54569-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5920 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Jane Austen and her Country-house Comedy, by W. H. Helm - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Jane Austen and her Country-house Comedy - -Author: W. H. Helm - -Release Date: April 18, 2017 [EBook #54569] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANE AUSTEN, COUNTRY-HOUSE COMEDY *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - - - - -[Frontispiece: Jane Austen] - - - - - JANE AUSTEN - AND HER - COUNTRY-HOUSE COMEDY - - - -BY - -W. H. HELM - -AUTHOR OF "ASPECTS OF BALZAC," ETC. - - - - EVELEIGH NASH - FAWSIDE HOUSE - LONDON - 1909 - - - - - RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, - BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND - BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. - - - - - TO - MY MOTHER - - - - -"I concluded, however unaccountable the assertion might appear at first -sight, that good-nature was an essential quality in a satirist, and -that all the sentiments which are beautiful in this way of writing, -must proceed from that quality in the author. Good-nature produces a -disdain of all baseness, vice, and folly; which prompts them to express -themselves with smartness against the errors of men, without bitterness -towards their persons."--STEELE, _Tatler_, No. 242. - - - - -NOTE - -The author is much indebted to the Hon. C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, and -also to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., for permission to make extracts -from the _Letters of Jane Austen_. - - - - -CONTENTS - -I - -DOMINANT QUALITIES - -Jane Austen's abiding freshness--Why she has not more -readers--Characteristics of her work--Absence of passion--Balzac, Jane -Austen, and Charlotte Brontë--Jane in her home circle--Her tranquil -nature--Her unselfishness--Compared with Dorothy Osborne--Prudent -heroines--Thoughtless admiration - - -II - -EQUIPMENT AND METHOD - -Literary influences--Jane Austen's defence of novelists--The old -essayists--Her favourite authors--Some novels of her time--Criticism of -her niece's novel--Sense of her own limitations--Her -method--Humour--Familiar names--Some characteristics of -style--Suggested emendations--A new "problem" of authorship--A -"forbidding" writer--"Commonplace" and "superficial"--Thomas Love -Peacock--Sapient suggestions - - -III - -CONTACT WITH LIFE - -Origins of characters--Matchmaking--Second marriages--Negative -qualities of the novels--Close knowledge of one class--Dislike of -"lionizing"--Madame de Staël--The "lower orders"--Tradesmen--Social -position--Quality of Jane's letters--Balls and parties - - -IV - -ETHICS AND OPTIMISM - -Dr. Whately on Jane Austen--"Moral lessons" of her novels--Charge of -"Indelicacy"--Marriage as a profession--A "problem" novel--"The -Nostalgia of the Infinite"--The "whitewashing" of Willoughby--Lady -Susan condemned by its author--_The Watsons_--Change in manners--No -"heroes"--Woman's love--The Prince Regent--_The Quarterly Review_ - - -V - -THE IMPARTIAL SATIRIST - -What has woman done?--"Nature's Salic law"--Women deficient in -satire--Some types in the novels--The female snob--The -valetudinarian--The fop--The too agreeable man--"Personal size and -mental sorrow"--Knightley's opinion of Emma--Ashamed of relations--Mrs. -Bennet--The clergy and their opinions--Worldly life--Absence of -dogma--Authors confused with their creations - - -VI - -PERSONAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL - -The novelist and her characters--Her sense of their -reality--Accessories rarely described--Her ideas on dress--Her own -millinery and gowns--Thin clothes and consumption--Domestic -economy--Jane as housekeeper--"A very clever essay"--Mr. Collins at -Longbourn--The gipsies at Highbury--Topography of Jane -Austen--Hampshire--Lyme Regis--Godmersham--Bath--London - - -VII - -INFLUENCE IN LITERATURE - -Jane Austen's genius ignored--Negative and positive instances--The -literary orchard--Jane's influence in English literature - - -BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE - -INDEX - - -FRONTISPIECE . . . . . . _By Violet Helm._ - -A LETTER OF JANE AUSTEN'S - - - - -{13} - -JANE AUSTEN - -AND HER - -COUNTRY-HOUSE COMEDY - - -I - -DOMINANT QUALITIES - -Jane Austen's abiding freshness--Why she has not more -readers--Characteristics of her work--Absence of passion--Balzac, Jane -Austen, and Charlotte Brontë--Jane in her home circle--Her tranquil -nature--Her unselfishness--Compared with Dorothy Osborne--Prudent -heroines--Thoughtless admiration. - - -The year 1775, which deprived England of her American colonies, was -generous to English art and literature. Had it only produced Walter -Savage Landor, or even no better worthy than James Smith of the -_Rejected Addresses_, it would not have done badly. But these were its -added bounties. Its greater gifts were Turner, Charles Lamb and Jane -Austen. Could we be offered the choice of re-possessing the United -States, or losing the very memory of these three, which alternative -would we choose? - -{14} - -It is difficult to appreciate the lapse of time since Jane Austen was -at work. We are now within a few years of the centenary of her death. -She had been laid beneath that black slab in Winchester Cathedral -before the first railway had been planned, or the first telegraph wire -stretched from town to town, or the first steamship steered across the -Atlantic. Yet the must of age has not settled on her books. The -lavender may lie between their pages, but it is still sweet, and there -is many a successful novelist of our own times whose work is already -far more out of date than hers. - -This perennial timeliness of atmosphere is no necessity of genius. -Fielding and Scott remain a delight for succeeding generations, because -they possess the essential quality of humanity, but the life which they -offer us is largely remote from our own, foreign to our experience. -Jane Austen invites us to enjoy a change of air among people with most -of whom we may soon feel at ease, finding nothing in their conversation -that will disturb our equanimity. If you are one of Jane Austen's -lovers, you come back to her novels for a holiday from the noise and -whirl of modern {15} fiction, as you would come from a great city to -the countryside or the coast village for rest and restoration. - -The failure of her books to attract the mass of novel-readers is due in -the first place to a lack of "exciting" qualities. No syndicate that -knew its business would offer them for serial purposes; they have no -breathless "situations," and their strong appeal is to the calmer -feelings and the intellect, not to the passions and the prejudices. In -one respect only has she anything in common with the popular novelists -of our day. Her set of characters is even more limited than theirs. -The virtuous heroine, the handsome hero, the frivolous coquette, the -fascinating libertine, the worldly priest, are to be encountered in her -pages, but the wicked nobleman and the criminal adventuress find no -places there. What is often overlooked, however, by those who speak of -Jane Austen's few characters, is that no two of them have quite the -same characteristics of mind. They are differentiated with admirable -art. Even so, the types are few, and the smallness of the field which -she cultivated has been frequently adduced as a bar to her inclusion -among the {16} masters of English fiction. She has the least range of -them all. When one thinks of the host of strongly-marked types in -Scott, in Dickens, in Thackeray, of the diversity of scenes and -incidents which fill the pages of their books, her few squires and -parsons and unemployed officers, with their wives and daughters, who -live out their days in Georgian parlours and in shrubberies and parks, -make a poor enough show in the dramatic and spectacular way. - -No particular passion dominates the life of any one of her leading -personages. Avarice, which has afforded such notable figures to almost -every great novelist, in her world is only represented by meanness; -lust and hate are nowhere strongly emphasized, even love is rarely -permitted to suggest the possibility of becoming violent. There are no -Pecksniffs, Quilps, Père Grandets, nor Lord Steynes; no Lady Kews, Jane -Eyres, nor Lisbeth Fischers. Only into the hearts of her younger women -does Jane Austen throw the searchlight of complete knowledge, lit by -her own feelings, and tended with self-analysis, and her heroines still -leave a large part of virtuous womankind unrepresented. - -{17} - -Balzac, describing the origins of his play _La Marâtre_ to the manager -who produced it, said: "We are not concerned with an appalling -melodrama wherein the villain sets light to houses and massacres the -inhabitants. No, I imagine a drawing-room comedy where all is calm, -tranquil, pleasant. The men play peacefully at the whist-table, by the -light of wax candles under little green shades. The women chat and -laugh as they do their fancy needlework. Presently they all take tea -together. In a word, everything shows the influence of regular habits -and harmony. But for all that, beneath this placid surface the -passions are at work, the drama progresses until the moment when it -bursts out like the flame of a conflagration. That is what I want to -show." - -The scene described is Jane Austen's--the quiet parlour, the -card-players, the women chatting, and working with their coloured -silks, the tea-tray, the shaded candles, the general air of ease and -tranquillity. We find it at Mansfield Park with the Bertrams, at -Hartfield with the Woodhouses, and, in spite of Lydia and her "mamma," -at Longbourn with the Bennets. But the _dénouement_ to which Balzac -looked for his {18} effect has no attraction for Jane Austen. -Catherine Morland, at Northanger Abbey, imagines some such tragedy -smouldering into life below the surface of quiet habitude as Balzac -discovers in his horrid war of step-daughter and step-mother, and Jane -Austen herself laughs with Henry Tilney at this impressionable country -maiden whom he mocks while he admires. - -Balzac and Jane Austen both strove to depict life, to show the motives -and instincts of men and women as the causes of action; in his case of -an energetic and passionate type, wherein the primary instincts are -freely exercised, in her case, of a simple, orderly kind, which allows -but little scope for the display of violence or the elaboration of -plots. There are exceptions, of course, which for fear of the precise -critic must at least be illustrated. Balzac has his quiet Pierrettes -and Rose Cormons, who suffer as patiently and far more poignantly than -an Elinor Dashwood or a Fanny Price; Jane Austen has her dissolute -Willoughbys and disturbing Henry Crawfords, and also her Maria -Rushworths and Mrs. Clays, who throw their bonnets over the windmills -with even less regard for their reputations than a Beatrix de {19} -Rochefide or a Natalie de Manerville. When a lapse from virtue on the -part of any of her characters was, on some rare occasion, necessary to -her plan, Jane Austen did not allow any prudish reserve to stand in the -way, but it may be said no less unreservedly that she never introduced -vice where her story could do quite as well without it, and it is never -the central motive of her novels. It is, then, not alone for the -narrowness of her field that her title to greatness has often been -disputed. Many persons whose literary tastes are marked by -understanding and catholicity refuse to acknowledge the genius of so -peaceful a novelist. Because of the absence of passion and sentiment -in Jane Austen's works, the author of _Jane Eyre_ would not recognize -in her the great artist that Scott and Coleridge believed her to be. -"The passions," wrote Miss Brontë, "are perfectly unknown to her; she -rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood. Even -to the feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but -distant recognition--too frequent converse with them would ruffle the -smooth elegance of her progress." The three novelists here brought -into momentary {20} association, the creators of _Eugénie Grandet_, -_Emma_, and _Jane Eyre_ represent three distinctive forces in fiction. -Charlotte Brontë, disillusioned with the world, of which she knew very -little, and angry at its follies and injustices, sat alone and poured -out her feelings in her books; Balzac, hungry for fame, wrote furiously -all night by the light of a dip, stimulating his fiery imagination with -the strong coffee which was the irresponsible author of many of his -most astonishing chapters; Jane Austen, taking her meals and her rest -regularly, sat at her little desk in the parlour where her mother and -sister were sewing or writing letters, and placidly turned her -observations and reflections into manuscript. Her hazel eyes, we may -be certain, never rolled in any kind of frenzy, her brown curls were -never disturbed by the spasmodic movements of nervous hands. Great -artist as she was, she had no greater share of the "artistic -temperament" than many a popular novelist who "turns out" two or three -serial stories at a time by the simple process of shuffling the -situations, changing the scenery, and re-naming the characters. If she -had been touched by the strong emotion of a Charlotte Brontë, or the -{21} burning imagination of a Balzac, she might have produced work -which would have set the world on fire, instead of merely infusing keen -happiness into responsive minds and compelling their love and -admiration. That is only to say that if she had been somebody else she -would not have been herself. It is peace, not war, that she carries to -us. Even her irony is not of the sardonic kind, and in her work the -"master spell" is so daintily mingled that the bitter ingredients seem -to have disappeared in the making. - -Respect and admiration and sympathy in a high degree have been given by -millions of minds, not always emotional, to many authors, but Jane -Austen is loved as few have been. The love is inspired by her works, -and she shares it with Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, and Anne -Elliot. Milton, in a line which is as clear in meaning as it is foggy -in construction, speaks of Eve as "the fairest of her daughters." Jane -Austen is regarded by the generality of her lovers as the most -delightful of her own heroines, and not merely as the woman who brought -them into existence. - -Could we have loved her so much if we had {22} lived with her at -Steventon Rectory or at Chawton Cottage? What she was at home I think -we know much better from her own letters than from her brother Henry's -panegyric, which, in spite of its obvious sincerity of intention, too -nearly resembles the memorial inscriptions of his own period to be -regarded with quite as much confidence as respect. "Faultless -herself," he wrote, "as nearly as human nature can be, she always -sought, in the faults of others, something to excuse, to forgive, or -forget." "Always" is a word which--as Captain Corcoran discovered of -its reverse--can hardly ever be used without considerable reservations. -We know, from her own pen, that Jane--we call one unwedded queen -"Elizabeth," why should we not call another "Jane"?--did not "always" -show so much tenderness for the faults of others, and when we remember -the endless variety of human nature we cannot but regard this -ascription of "faultlessness" by an affectionate brother as of little -more evidential value than Mrs. Dashwood's opinion (in _Sense and -Sensibility_) of the "faultlessness" of Marianne's lovers. It is no -disparagement to Henry Austen to say that his little {23} memoir is -more convincing as a record of his own character than of his sister's. -Their nephew, Mr. Austen Leigh, who wrote the fullest and most -admirable account of Jane Austen, was still in his teens when she died. -Apart from these sparse reminiscences we know practically nothing about -her except from her own novels and letters, but from them we may learn -almost as much of the mind of this delightful woman as any loving -relation could have told us. It may be possible for an author to write -an artificial novel without betraying his own nature to any positive -extent, but such novels as Jane Austen's cannot so be produced; it is -possible to write letters which, apart from the penmanship, offer no -evidences of character; but a pair of devoted sisters, however -different their ability or their philosophy of life, could not -correspond during twenty years without displaying much of the workings -of their minds. - -Some of Jane's literary admirers think that she was lively and -talkative, others that she was prone to silence in company. Probably -both views are correct. It depended on the company. Among those who -could appreciate her fun and her wit, her harmless quips and quizzing, -she was {24} full of vivacity; among those who raised their eyebrows at -her impromptu verses and missed the points of her piquant remarks on -persons and incidents she was speedily content, within the bounds of -good manners, to observe rather than to join in the comedy of -conversation. We need not unreservedly believe her brother's assurance -that "she never uttered either a hasty, a silly, or a severe -expression," but we may, from all we know of her, be fairly confident -that she had a control over her tongue which few such gifted humourists -have possessed. As for her temper, it was said in her family that -"Cassandra had the _merit_ of having her temper always under command, -but that Jane had the _happiness_ of a temper that never required to be -commanded." - -That her nature was not, in any marked degree, what is commonly called -"sympathetic" we may see from many passages in her letters, and her -novels afford ample corroboration. There was no avoidable hypocrisy -about her. In this at least she is the counterpart of Elizabeth or -Anne. "Do not be afraid of my encroaching on your privilege of -universal goodwill. You need not. There are {25} few people whom I -really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of -the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms -my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the -little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit -or sense." In a letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra there would have -been nothing to surprise us in this passage, which is actually taken -from the remarks of Elizabeth Bennet to her sister on the subject of -Bingley's long silence after the Netherfield ball. - -If Jane Austen did not cry over misfortunes which did not affect her, -neither did she pretend to ignore the affectations and weaknesses even -of her nearest relations. Can it be supposed, for instance, that she -was in the least degree blinded to the shortcomings of a beloved mother -of whom she could, on various occasions, write such news as that she -"continues hearty, her appetite and nights are very good, but she -sometimes complains of an asthma, a dropsy, water in her chest, and a -liver disorder"? - -A daughter and sister and friend whose attention was so closely -devoted, however {26} unobtrusively, to the study of character in a -narrow circle, would in most cases be "a little trying," but when the -observer was endowed with a keen sense of the absurd, and an irony -which, however weak in caustic, was strong in veracity, it might be -supposed that she would be an _enfant terrible_ of that mature kind -which in our own days is commoner than the nursery variety. In her -case, the supposition would be ill-founded. She was at once too -well-bred, and too kind-hearted, to let her special powers of wounding -take exercise on gentle hearts. But falsehood of any sort was -abhorrent to her, and as a consequence she was inclined, in communing -with her sister, to show herself a little intolerant even of those -amiable pretences of sorrow for common ailments and small troubles -which are so soothing to weak humanity. She rejected, for example, the -idea of commiserating with any one on account of a cold or a headache, -unless there were feverish symptoms! - -Of the "vacant chaff well-meant for grain" of which Tennyson sings so -sadly, Jane brought little to market. She would express to Cassandra -her sympathy with their acquaintances under great {27} disasters and -trivial misfortunes with the same penful of ink. What she wrote to her -sister--of her devotion for whom, from earliest childhood, her mother -said, "If Cassandra was going to have her head cut off, Jane would -insist on sharing her fate"--is far more free than what she uttered in -the family circle. Few have realized better the value of the unspoken -word, or given their relations less opportunity to remind them of the -evils of indiscretion. - -If she was unemotional and, in the ordinary sense of the word, -unsympathetic, she is not to be blamed for this lack of the qualities -with one of which she so amply endowed Marianne and with the other -Elinor Dashwood. We can no more make ourselves emotional or -sympathetic than we can make ourselves fair or dark, or rather, we can -only alter our ways as we can alter our complexions, by artifice. The -outward show of sympathy which is not felt is one of the commonest of -hypocrisies, perhaps inevitable at times from very charity. Happily it -is not a necessary part of that ultimate barrier which, even in the -truest friendships and the deepest love, makes it as impossible for one -human being to see the {28} whole of another's heart as it is -impossible to see more than a little of the "other side" of the moon. -We cannot help being more or less unfeeling, but we can subdue our -selfishness in action. Almost everything that can be learned about -Jane Austen strengthens the conviction that she was one of the least -selfish of women. - -In her last illness the fidelity of her spirit is constantly shown, and -her affection becomes more unreserved in its utterance. There is one -letter wherein, after speaking of Cassandra, she says, in a phrase -curiously suggestive of Thackeray: "As to what I owe her, and the -anxious affection of all my beloved family on this occasion, I can only -cry over it, and pray God to bless them more and more." - -That she was by nature "meek and lowly," as one of her American adorers -declares, I cannot believe, but if she preferred the spacious rooms and -well-spread board of her brother's mansion to the common parlour and -boiled mutton-and-turnips of her father's rectory, she did not grizzle -over her state, nor did she allow her conscious superiority of -intelligence to claim distinction in her home. One of the few glimpses -(apart from {29} her own writings) that we have of her in her family -relations is when, in the closing year of her life, her illness having -begun to weaken her body, she was obliged to lie down frequently during -the day. There was only one sofa at Chawton Cottage, and although Mrs. -Austen, in spite of the many ailments she had formerly complained of, -was a tolerably healthy old lady, the stricken daughter made herself a -couch by putting several chairs together, and declared that she -preferred it to the sofa which her mother commonly occupied. Sofas, we -must remember, were at least as rare then as oak-panelled walls are -now. It was in those days that Cobbett regretted that the sofa had -ever been introduced into his country, and he no doubt, according to -his habit, held the Prime Minister responsible for the aid to -effeminate indulgence of which his contemporary Cowper sang. - -Jane's discontent with the comparative poverty of her surroundings was -not translated into ill temper. There are many reasons for believing, -and few indeed for doubting, that she tried to do her duty in that -state of life to which she was born, and from which she was not -destined to {30} emerge into the more varied pleasures and pains of a -larger world. What if, among those whom she trusted, she could not -resist expressing the lively thoughts suggested to her acute wit by the -acts or utterances of her friends. She was the pride of her family, -and its sunshine, even if her rays were more akin to the sun as we know -him on a fine spring day at home than as we seek him on the Côte d'Azur. - -She seems to have been more nearly understood among the clergy and -squires, and other members of her family, than most humourists in their -immediate circles. The common experience of the genius in childhood -and youth, if biographers are to be credited, is for the delicate -shoots of his intelligence to be nipped by domestic frosts; but if -there had been any freezing in the Austen family, it was more likely to -be produced by the chill of Jane's own satirical remarks than by any -harm that the convention and narrowness of others could do to a mind so -well defended as hers. There are few traces of any such wintry weather -having occurred at Steventon or Chawton. Jane was certainly beloved, -greatly and deservedly, in her home. She was, no doubt, a little {31} -lonely, as genius, one may suppose, must always be, and as those who -are blest, or curst, with a strong sense of the absurd must be whether -they be geniuses or not. Her sister was her closest friend, but Jane's -published letters to Cassandra, read in the light of the novels, -suggest a reserve in discussing her inmost thoughts with that devoted -spirit which seems hardly compatible with the closest concordance of -ideas, in spite of the completest concordance of affection and a high -respect on Jane's part for Cassandra's sound sense and critical -judgment. Very different is the tone of the letters of that other -pretty humourist, Dorothy Osborne, to William Temple. In Dorothy's -case there was a perfect confidence in the entire sympathy and -comprehension of the recipient. This factor apart, how much there is -in common between the two dear women. The one was dead more than -eighty years before the other was born, but in all the history of -womanhood is there any pair in which the smiling philosophy that is the -salt of the mind is more fairly divided? Jane Austen lives still in -Elizabeth Bennet and in Emma Woodhouse; Dorothy Osborne only in her -sweet self. The one had {32} no passion but her work--and it was a -quiet, unconsuming passion. The other had no passion but her love, and -it was never able to overmaster her intelligence. "In earnest," she -wrote, "I am no more concerned whether people think me handsome or -ill-favoured, whether they think I have wit or that I have none, than I -am whether they think my name Elizabeth or Dorothy." It was not quite -true in her case, nor would it have been in Jane's, but it contains no -more exaggeration than is allowed to any woman of sense, and it was as -true of the one as of the other. - -Love has lately been defined by a ruthless analyzer of feelings as "a -specific emotion, exclusive in selection, more or less permanent in -duration, and due to a mental fermentation in itself caused by a law of -attraction." Jane Austen had never read such an explanation of love as -this, yet her views on the most powerful of the mixings of animal and -spiritual instincts are usually more placid than would please the -fancies of maidens who sleep with bits of wedding-cake beneath their -pillows. That passionate love "is woman's whole existence" is not -exemplified by Jane's favourite heroines. Emma or Elizabeth did not -{33} so regard it, even if Anne Elliot did lose some of her good looks -and Catherine Morland her appetite when their hopes of particular -bridegrooms seemed likely to be disappointed. Elizabeth would not have -worried greatly over Darcy if he had not come back for her, and Emma -would have been as happy at Hartfield without a husband as she had -always been, so long as Knightley was friendly. - -We cannot imagine that Jane Austen could ever have written to any man, -as Dorothy Osborne wrote to Temple of a love which she could not make -her family understand: "For my life I cannot beat into their heads a -passion that must be subject to no decay, an even perfect kindness that -must last perpetually, without the least intermission. They laugh to -hear me say that one unkind word would destroy all the satisfaction of -my life, and that I should expect our kindness should increase every -day, if it were possible, but never lessen." - -The conjugal instinct was not strongly developed in Jane; and, although -she seems to have been very fond of children, and especially of her -nephews and nieces, it may be assumed with some {34} confidence that -the maternal instinct also found little place in her nature. - -Marianne Dashwood, emotional, fastidiously truthful--she left to her -elder sister "the whole task of telling lies when politeness required -it"--romantically fond of scenery and poetry as any of Mrs. Radcliffe's -heroines, stands out among the girls of Jane's imagining as the only -one who outwardly exhibits the conventional signs of passionate -affection for a lover, Catherine's and Fanny's emotions being more -suggestive of maiden fancies, of "the flimsy furniture of a country -miss's brain," than of the yearnings of a Juliet or a Roxane. - -Nevertheless the idea that the Austen people are cold-blooded is warmly -opposed in an appreciative little essay published in America a few -years ago by Mr. W. L. Phelps. "Let no one believe," he writes, "that -Jane Austen's men and women are deficient in passion because they -behave with decency: to those who have the power to see and interpret, -there is a depth of passion in her characters that far surpasses the -emotional power displayed in many novels where the lovers seem to -forget the meaning of such words as honour, {35} virtue, and fidelity." -It may be that, like Richard Feverel on a certain occasion, the Henrys -and Edwards, the Emmas and Annes are "too British to expose their -emotions." But Lucy Feverel, one of the purest and truest women in -fiction, shows passion so that no special "power to see and interpret" -is requisite on the reader's part, and the same note is true of many of -the charming heroines drawn by the masters of imagination. - -At any rate Jane allowed her heroines as much passion and sentiment -as--so far as we can discover--she experienced herself. The one known -man who seems to have come near to being regarded as her accepted lover -was Thomas Lefroy, who lived to be Chief Justice of Ireland. - -"You scold me so much," she writes, in her twenty-first year, to -Cassandra, "in the nice long letter which I have this moment received -from you, that I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I -behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking -in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I _can_ expose -myself, however, only _once more_, because he leaves the country soon -after next Friday, on which day we _are_ to have a {36} dance at Ashe -after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young -man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the three -last balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed at -about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and ran -away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago." - -No coquettish "reigning beauty" was ever more easy as to the fate of -her lovers, or less likely to suffer at their hands, than this -Hampshire maiden, whose fine complexion, hazel eyes, and -well-proportioned figure attracted so much admiration, and whose sweet -voice and lively conversation completed the conquest of those whom she -cared to entertain. - -"Tell Mary," she writes to her sister (also in 1796), "that I make over -Mr. Heartley and all his estate to her for her sole use and benefit in -future, and not only him, but all my other admirers into the bargain -wherever she can find them, even the kiss which C. Powlett wanted to -give me, as I mean to confine myself in future to Mr. Tom Lefroy, for -whom I don't care six-pence." - -{37} - -This agreeable Irishman, to whom, in later years, we find references in -the records of the Edgeworth family, was speedily to pass out of Jane's -young life. Very soon she has to write: "At length the day is come on -which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this -it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea. -William Chute called here yesterday. I wonder what he means by being -so civil." - -We need not picture her as stopping her writing while she wiped the -tears from her streaming eyes. "We went by Bifrons," she says on -another occasion, "and I contemplated with a melancholy pleasure the -abode of him on whom I once fondly doted." She never did "dote" on any -man, so far as can be discovered or reasonably surmised, to any greater -extent than her favourite Emma may be said to have "doted" on Frank -Churchill. Emma's feelings about the man who was secretly engaged to -Jane Fairfax at the time, are thus analyzed by Jane Austen-- - - -"Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas -only varied as to the {38} how much. At first she thought it was a -good deal; and afterwards but little. She had great pleasure in -hearing Frank Churchill talked of; and, for his sake, greater pleasure -than ever in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston; she was very often thinking of -him, and quite impatient for a letter, that she might know how he was, -how were his spirits, how was his aunt, and what was the chance of his -coming to Randalls again this spring. But, on the other hand, she -could not admit herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to -be less disposed for employment than usual.... 'I do not find myself -making any use of the word _sacrifice_,' said she. 'In not one of all -my clever replies, my delicate negatives, is there any allusion to -making a sacrifice. I do suspect that he is not really necessary to my -happiness. So much the better. I certainly will not persuade myself -to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry -to be more.'" - - -Save for Willoughby's burst of misplaced enthusiasm over Marianne, -Frank Churchill's description of Jane Fairfax to Emma is the warmest -bit of love-painting in the Austen comedy-- - - -"She is a complete angel. Look at her. Is not she an angel in every -gesture? Observe the turn of her throat. Observe her eyes, as she is -looking up at my father. You will be glad to {39} hear (inclining his -head, and whispering seriously) that my uncle means to give her all my -aunt's jewels. They are to be new set. I am resolved to have some in -an ornament for the head. Will not it be beautiful in her dark hair?" - - -Such raptures as these are rarely permitted to the Austen lovers. In -their affairs of the heart, as in the general conduct of their lives, -plain living and quiet thinking reflect the simple habits of the people -among whom Jane passed her own smoothly-ordered life. - -To the simplicity of that life we owe one of her peculiar charms. If -she had been the famous, sought-after literary woman who is the -necessary complement of a dinner-party in a house of cultured luxury, -and whose name is found in the index of every volume of contemporary -reminiscences, she would not have been half so attractive to the type -of mind that most enjoys her novels. Yet when all possible allowance -has been made for her lightness of expression her own predilections -were certainly for the conditions of "opulent leisure" rather than of -decent comfort, for the amenities of Mansfield Park and Pemberley -rather than for those of Fullerton Rectory or the {40} Dashwoods' -cottage. "People get so horridly poor and economical in this part of -the world," she wrote from Steventon to her sister at Godmersham, "that -I have no patience with them. Kent is the only place for happiness; -everybody is rich there." - -This was written early in her life. In the year before she died, -writing to her niece Fanny, she said: "Single women have a dreadful -propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour -of matrimony, but I need not dwell on such arguments with _you_, pretty -dear." - -Contempt for poverty is expressed by several characters in her work. -"Be honest and poor, by all means"--says Mary Crawford to Edmund -Bertram--"but I shall not envy you; I do not much think I shall even -respect you. I have a much greater respect for those that are honest -and rich." - -Perhaps neither the real Jane nor the imaginary Mary is to be taken -quite literally, but that Jane would have freely assented to a -disbelief in the wisdom of marrying on a small income, however little -she approved of Mary's "too positive admiration for wealth," is certain -from all that {41} we know of her opinions on the essentials of -happiness. - -Godmersham is in Kent, and it was in that spacious, well-provided house -of her brother Edward, amid all the charms of parks and beechwoods, of -home comforts and "elegances" that marked the life of the large -landowner in those days, that she usually found herself most contented. -Then was the time when the squire was not driven to find an income by -letting his manor to a company promoter to whom the difference between -an oak and an elm is scarcely known, and whose chief object in hiring a -mansion in rural surroundings is to fill it with week-end parties who -play bridge indoors on summer afternoons and leave the beauties of the -gardens and the park to the peacocks and the deer. - -With such a modern plutocrat Jane would have had little in common, but -she would have had less with the modern Socialist. Landed property -stood for everything stable and dignified in her days, and those -critics of _Pride and Prejudice_ who unkindly emphasized the fact that -Elizabeth Bennet only decided to marry Darcy after she had seen the -glories of Pemberley and its park {42} and gardens, while they -implicitly libelled the girl, were not so unfair to the general -sentiment of her period. Sir Walter Scott, by the way, was one of -those who regarded Elizabeth Bennet's change of feeling towards Darcy -as the result of her visit to the fine place in Derbyshire. Surely -such a view connotes a failure to appreciate the humour of the -conversation on this point between Jane Bennet and her sister. The -elder girl asks the younger how long it is since she has felt any -affection for Darcy, and Elizabeth replies: "It has been coming on so -gradually, that I hardly know when it began; but I believe I must date -it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." Even Jane -Bennet, whose humour sense was not strongly developed, asks her to give -a serious answer. - -This much may be admitted, that the idea of marrying the curate never -presented itself to any one of the maidens who brighten the novels of -Jane Austen with their charms of mind and appearance. Elinor Dashwood -seems to have regarded about £600 a year (with sure prospect of -increase) as the minimum on which married life could hopefully be -entered upon, and I fancy {43} Jane would have agreed with her. The -majority of novel-readers may still prefer the hero and heroine whose -love will triumph over all obstacles of position, and opposition, of -want of sympathy on the part of others or of sense on their own, and -there have actually been readers who thought Lydia Bennet more -"interesting" than Elizabeth! The prudence of the heroines may to some -small extent account for the failure of Jane Austen's work to captivate -the "great heart of the public." In any case her fame is far from -universal. She has never been, and never will be, popular in the sense -in which the men and women whose publishers cheerfully print first -editions of a hundred thousand copies are popular. Her appeal, in her -own lifetime, when her name was unknown, was not to "the general," and -it is only much less restricted now because of the enormous increase in -the reading public. Actually it is immensely greater; relatively, its -increase is evidently small. One cannot, as in the case of some -authors, describe her work as being enjoyed only by the cultured class, -and neglected, because misapprehended, by the rest. True culture is -always discriminating, even in the presence of its {44} divinities. -Mr. Anthony Hope said not long ago, referring to literary snobbishness: -"There are certain companies in which to suggest, even with the utmost -humility, that certain parts of Jane Austen's novels are less -entertaining than other parts is thought considerably worse than -drawing invidious distinctions between various passages of Holy Writ." - -With those who regard Jane Austen's work as equally excellent in every -part, no patience is possible. The reader who finds it easy to get as -much enjoyment from _Sense and Sensibility_ or _Northanger Abbey_ as -from _Pride and Prejudice_ or _Mansfield Park_ must be blessed with a -comfortable absence of discrimination. Those who see no degree of -superiority in the presentation of the characters of Elizabeth Bennet -and Anne Elliot as compared with Elinor Dashwood and Catherine Morland -might be expected to regard Blanche Amory and Mrs. Jarley as the equals -respectively of Becky Sharp and Mrs. Gamp. - -Such uncritical admiration as Mr. Anthony Hope referred to is even more -annoying than the tone in which I have heard a distinguished writer -speak of Jane Austen as "that woman"--the {45} mildest of the -contemptuous terms that Napoleon applied to Madame de Staël. The -author who spoke of Jane Austen so slightingly admitted her power of -presenting a "bloodless" and trivial society in a life-like manner. No -such recognition of power is allowed to her by an American critic of -to-day, who says of her work "it may be called art, but it is a poor -species of that old art which depended for its effect upon false -similitudes." It is hard to believe that the writer of this -astonishing opinion had read many pages of the author he thus condemned -to a place among the third-rates. - - - - -{49} - -II - -EQUIPMENT; AND METHOD - -Literary influences--Jane Austen's defence of novelists--The old -essayists--Her favourite authors--Some novels of her time--Criticism of -her niece's novel--Sense of her own limitations--Her -method--Humour--Familiar names--Some characteristics of -style--Suggested emendations--A new "problem" of authorship--A -"forbidding" writer--"Commonplace" and "superficial"--Thomas Love -Peacock--Sapient suggestions. - - -"I believe there is no constraint to be put upon real genius; nothing -but inclination can set it to work," was one of the many sensible, if -unoriginal, observations of the monarch in whose reign Jane Austen was -born and died. But the inclination itself is usually started by -external suggestions, and it is a mere truism that most books are -written because others have appeared before them. Macaulay declared -that but for Fanny Burney's example Jane Austen would never have been a -novelist. Some of her early attempts at a complete novel did indeed -take the epistolary {50} form which was common in the preceding age, -and was the method of her admired Richardson, who, I think, fired her -ambition quite as much as Miss Burney. It would also seem that Mrs. -Radcliffe's wild romances had induced in Jane the desire to do -something that should please by the absence of every quality that had -made them popular. - -I doubt if there is any author of any period to whom the most famous -remark of Buffon could be more justly applied than to Jane Austen. -"_Le style est la femme même_" is a conviction which becomes more and -more firm as one reads her novels and her letters, and reflects over -their relationship. Her simple life and her limited opportunities, her -genius being granted, are a sufficient explanation of her work. Part -of that life, and a part more important, in proportion to the rest, -than it would have been in the case of one who had lived less remote -from the world of thought and action, was the reading of favourite -books. _Clarissa_, _Sir Charles Grandison_ and _Pamela_ influenced her -strongly, but she avoided more than she took from them in the formation -of her style. Miss Burney she now and then laughs at a little, {51} as -when, after John Thorpe has said to Catherine (who confesses she has -never read _Camilla_): "You had no loss, I assure you; it is the -horridest nonsense you can imagine; there is nothing in the world in it -but an old man's playing at see-saw and learning Latin; upon my soul, -there is not," Jane Austen adds that "the justness" of this critique -"was unfortunately lost on poor Catherine." But where she loved she -laughed. She appreciated her sister-novelist's work very highly, and -she writes of a young woman whom she met at a neighbour's house: "There -are two traits in her character which are pleasing--namely, she admires -Camilla, and drinks no cream in her tea." - -Scott's poetry, of course, Jane read and enjoyed. Three of his most -popular novels--_Waverley_, _Guy Mannering_, and _The -Antiquary_--appeared during her lifetime, and their authorship, like -that of her own works, was not avowed until after her death. How -wide-open was the "secret" of their origin from the very first, years -before Scott's acknowledgment, we may see in one of Jane's letters of -1814, where she says: "Walter Scott has no business to write novels; -{52} especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit -enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths -of other people. I do not like him, and do not mean to like _Waverley_ -if I can help it, but I fear I must." She herself declared, half -jestingly, that she wrote for fame and not for profit. Neither, in any -but shallow measure, was granted to her whilst she lived. She did not, -like Robert Burns, "pant after distinction," nor was she of the -"pushing" type. The offering-up of self-respect in the cause of -self-interest was the least possible of sacrifices with her. - -The machine-made horrors of Ann Radcliffe--"_la reine des -épouvantements_" as she has been aptly called, in spite of her retiring -disposition--were as familiar to Jane as were those, far less -_pouvantable_, of Ainsworth to the girls of a later generation. The -Radcliffe novels were published between Jane's fourteenth and -twenty-third years, when she was most open to romantic influences, but -however much she may have shuddered over them in her teens, she laughed -at them in her twenties, and it is certainly to the desire to satirize -the melodramatic sensations of the school of fiction {53} which they -represent that we chiefly owe _Northanger Abbey_, a pleasant mixture of -a serious love-story and a burlesque, a motto for which might have been -found in a sonnet of Shakespeare: - - "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; - Coral is far more red than her lips' red: - * * * * * - I grant I never saw a goddess go,-- - My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground." - -It is in this novel that, leaving her characters for a page or two to -take care of themselves, the author thus refers to the sorrows of the -novel-making craft, and expresses her high appreciation of the work of -Miss Burney and of Miss Edgeworth-- - - -"Let us not desert one another--we are an injured body. Although our -productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than -those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of -composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or -fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers; and while the -abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the history of England, or -of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of -Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the _Spectator_, and a -chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens,--there seems -almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and {54} undervaluing -the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which -have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. 'I am no -novel-reader.--I seldom look into novels.--Do not imagine that '_I_ -often read novels.--It is really very well for a novel.' Such is the -common cant. 'And what are you reading, Miss----?' 'Oh! it is only a -novel!' replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with -affected indifference, or momentary shame. 'It is only _Cecilia_, or -_Camilla_, or _Belinda_;' or, in short, only some work in which the -greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough -knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, -the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in -the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged -with a volume of the _Spectator_, instead of such a work, how proudly -would she have produced the book, and told its name! though the chances -must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous -publication of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a -young person of taste; the substance of its papers so often consisting -in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and -topics of conversation, which no longer concern any one living; and -their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable -idea of the age that could endure it." - -{55} - -This is a hard saying for those who count "Sir Roger de Coverley," "Mr. -Bickerstaff," and many "Clarindas" and "Sophronias" among their -friends. The age of the Regency may or may not have been as lax in its -morality as some of its detractors have declared, but that it was one -in which ladies could reasonably have been expected to blush over the -pages of the _Spectator_ is not easily to be believed. - -The girls in the manor-houses and parsonages of those days formed their -literary tastes on native productions without going abroad for their -novels. They did not read French fiction as their grandmothers and -great-grandmothers had done, or as their cousins in town still did in -spite of such warnings as that of a contemporary critic who held it -scarcely possible to read French "without contracting some pollution, -so extensively and radically is its whole literature depraved." Times -had changed since Dorothy Osborne discussed the voluminous romances of -Calprenède and Mademoiselle de Scudéri with William Temple. - -Another important branch of Jane's private and voluntary curriculum was -her reading not only in the "coarse" journalism of Steele and Addison -{56} and their colleagues, but in the various successors of the -_Spectator_ and the _Tatler_ which had their little days and died, -particularly during the reign of George II. Not only in the _Rambler_ -and the _Idler_ of the great man whom she so highly respected, but in -the _World_, the _Mirror_, the _Lounger_, the _Connoisseur_, and other -less remembered publications of their class, you may come upon -characters and reflections and incidents which may have afforded -fruitful suggestions to one who, after the manner of genius, could turn -even the dulness of others into sparkling delight of her own. - -Her favourite poet was Crabbe. She never met him, but she was so -charmed by his work that, as her nephew has recorded, she used jokingly -to say, "If she ever married at all, she could fancy being Mrs. -Crabbe." Her appreciation of such poems as _The Village_ and _The -Parish Register_ is suggestive. She herself made no attempt to -illustrate the "simple annals of the poor." Born in a family which was -itself a part of the landed gentry, in those days in its pride, she was -obviously conscious of a lofty barrier between her own class and the -peasantry. George Crabbe, on the other {57} hand, the son of lowly -folk, was born and nurtured in poverty, and he never forgot that he had -sprung from the sand-dunes of the East Coast. His pictures of the -poor, their sorrows and joys, fill the most delightful of his verses; -his ease in their society, his understanding of their minds and -characters mark him off as clearly from Jane Austen as--to take a very -modern instance--the admirable and sympathetic pictures of farm-life in -la Vendée offered in _La Terre qui meurt_ distinguish M. René Bazin -from M. Marcel Batilliat, who has dealt so feelingly with the decadence -of the château in _La Vendée aux Genêts_. Jane found in Crabbe -something that she missed in herself, a ready appreciation of all -classes. - -She loved Cowper too, both in his poems and his prose. There was much -in _The Task_ that could not but please her, though the humour must -have struck her as being exceedingly mild, and the descriptions -over-laboured. Cowper, though kindly to the rural poor, and often -referring to their occupations, smiles derisively at those who pretend -to envy the labourer's lot and to regard his cottage, if properly -"rose-bordered," as preferable to any other kind of residence. - -{58} - - "So farewell envy of the _peasant's nest_! - If Solitude make scant the means of life, - Society for me! thou seeming sweet, - Be still a pleasing object in my view; - My visit still, but never mine abode." - - -Jane was wholly in accord with the sentiment of these lines. In some -verses--composed in 1807 for a family competition in producing rhymes -with "rose"--which, but for the rhyming, are a burlesque of Cowper's -style, we find a picture of a cottager, wherein, if the "poetry" be -naturally of small account, are lines that would mark it, without the -direct evidence of the name, as hers, and not Cassandra's or Mrs. -Austen's. - - "Happy the lab'rer in his Sunday clothes! - In light-drab coat, smart waistcoat, well darn'd hose, - And hat upon his head, to church he goes; - As oft, with conscious pride, he downward throws - A glance upon the ample cabbage-rose, - Which, stuck in button-hole, regales his nose, - He envies not the gayest London beaux. - In church he takes his seat among the rows, - Pays to the place the reverence he owes, - Likes best the prayers whose meaning least he knows, - Lists to the sermon in a softening doze, - And rouses joyous at the welcome close." - - -There is a letter of January 1758 from Johnson to Bennet Langton which, -as Boswell remarks, shows its writer "in as easy and pleasant a state -of {59} existence, as constitutional unhappiness ever permitted him to -enjoy." I cannot help quoting it here as evidence of an affinity of -Johnson, in his happiest hours, with his constitutionally cheerful -admirer, Jane Austen-- - - -"The two Wartons just looked into the town, and were taken to see -_Cleone_, where, David says, they were starved for want of company to -keep them warm. David and Doddy have had a new quarrel, and, I think, -cannot conveniently quarrel any more. _Cleone_ was well acted by all -the characters, but Bellamy left nothing to be desired. I went the -first night, and supported it as well as I might; for Doddy, you know, -is my patron, and I would not desert him. The play was very well -received. Doddy, after the danger was over, went every night to the -stage-side, and cried at the distress of poor Cleone. I have left off -housekeeping, and therefore made presents of the game which you were -pleased to send me. The pheasant I gave to Mr. Richardson, the bustard -to Dr. Lawrence, and the pot I placed with Miss Williams, to be eaten -by myself.... Mr. Reynolds has within these few days raised his price -to twenty guineas a head, and Miss is much employed in miniatures. I -know not anybody else whose prosperity has increased since you left -them." - -{60} - -If the date and the reference to the writer's relations with the -dramatist had been suppressed the letter might have been given as one -of Jane's own without arousing suspicion in any but a confirmed -"Boswellian." "David" is Garrick, of course, while "Doddy" is Dodsley, -author of the play, and the fortunate recipient of the Langton pheasant -is the author of _Clarissa_, another of Jane's favourites more than -thirty years after, when she had had time to be born and grow up. - -Richardson, Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth (after 1800), -Scott (as poet), Johnson, Crabbe, and Cowper, then, afforded the more -solid literary nourishment of Jane Austen. She had studied the -essayists of Queen Anne's time and their emulators, and was not -unfamiliar with Fielding, and she did not neglect the ordinary books -that came from the circulating libraries of the day. "Mrs. Martin," -she writes of a bookseller in her neighbourhood who had started such a -library, "as an inducement to subscribe tells me that her collection is -not to consist only of novels, but of every kind of literature, etc. -She might have spared this pretension to _our_ family, who {61} are -great novel-readers, and not ashamed of being so; but it was necessary, -I suppose, to the self-consequence of half her subscribers." -Unhappily, this "high-class" venture was a total failure. - -The novels supplied by "Mrs. Martin" and others, forerunners of those -which now go forth from the Strand and Oxford Street, are frequently -referred to in Jane's letters, and some of them, if we are so disposed, -we can read at the British Museum. There was, for example, Sarah -Burney's _Clarentine_, which Jane and her mother read for the third -time (in 1807), and "are surprised to find how foolish it is ... full -of unnatural conduct and forced difficulties"; there was -_Self-Control_, a book "without anything of nature or probability," but -which Jane feared might be "too clever," and that she might find her -own work forestalled by it; there was the _Alphonsine_ of Madame de -Genlis, which "did not do. We were disgusted in twenty pages, as, -independent of a bad translation, it has indelicacies which disgrace a -pen hitherto so pure"; and there was _Margiarna_, which the Austens -were reading in the winter of 1809, at {62} Southampton, and "like very -well indeed. We are just going to set off for Northumberland to be -shut up in Widdrington Tower, where there must be two or three sets of -victims already immured under a very fine villain." - -About the same time Cassandra tells of some romance which the -Godmersham circle has been devouring, and Jane replies--"To set up -against your new novel, of which nobody ever heard before, and perhaps -never may again, we have got _Ida of Athens_, by Miss Owenson, which -must be very clever, because it was written, as the authoress says, in -three months. We have only read the preface yet, but her Irish girl -does not make me expect much. If the warmth of her language could -affect the body it might be worth reading in this weather." - -We shall not find much criticism of books either in the novels or the -letters. There is a passage in one of "Aunt Jane's" letters to her -niece Anna, written in 1814, in which her point of view on one -important question of style is clearly expressed. Anna, probably -inspired by her aunt's example--for the authorship of _Sense and -Sensibility_ and _Pride and Prejudice_ had leaked out {63} in the -family in spite of all precaution--had written a novel herself, and had -sent the MS. to Jane for kindly consideration and advice. The result -was not wholly encouraging-- - - -"Your Aunt C. (Cassandra) does not like desultory novels, and is rather -afraid yours will be too much so, that there will be too frequently a -change from one set of people to another, and that circumstances will -be introduced of apparent consequence which will lead to nothing. It -will not be so great an objection to me if it does. I allow much more -latitude than she does, and think nature and spirit cover many sins of -a wandering story, and people in general do not care so much about it -for your comfort.... I have scratched out the introduction between -Lord Portman and his brother and Mr. Griffin. A country surgeon (don't -tell Mr. C. Lyford) would not be introduced to men of their rank, and -when Mr. P. is first brought in, he would not be introduced as the -Honourable. That distinction is never mentioned at such times, at -least I believe not." - - -Of a later novel of Anna's, which Jane "read to your Aunt Cassandra in -our own room at night, while we undressed," she tells the girl that -"Devereux Forester's being ruined by his vanity is extremely good, but -I wish you would not let {64} him plunge into a 'vortex of -dissipation.' I do not object to the thing, but I cannot bear the -expression; it is such thorough novel slang, and so old that I dare say -Adam met with it in the first novel he opened...." - -Mrs. Austen had said, and Jane agreed with her, that Anna had allowed a -married couple in the novel to be too long in returning a visit from -the Vicar's wife, and Jane had ventured to expunge, as "too familiar -and inelegant," the "Bless my heart" in which Sir Thomas, one of the -characters, indulged. Jane's own Emma might say "Good God!" when she -pleased, but Anna's Sir Thomas might not even bless his heart! - -A last criticism on Anna's book is worth quoting for its direct bearing -on the critic's own method. "You describe a sweet place, but your -descriptions are often more minute than will be liked. You give too -many particulars of right hand and left." - -Jane's estimate of her own manner of work is modest enough. "The -little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a -brush as produces little effect after much labour," she says. {65} -With this phrase of her own as a text she has been called a -"miniaturist," but if authors and artists are to be compared, there is -quite as much of the selection and the richness of a Gainsborough in -her work as of the minuteness of a Metzu or a Meissonier. - -In her reply to the amazing proposal of the librarian at Carlton House -that she should compose an historical romance founded on the records of -the Saxe-Coburg family, she writes, not without a touch of her gentle -satire-- - - -"I am fully sensible that (such a romance) might be much more to the -purpose of profit or popularity than such pictures of domestic life in -country villages as I deal in. But I could no more write a romance -than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious -romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were -indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at -myself or at any other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had -finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on -in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am -convinced that I should totally fail in any other." - - -Her limitations of subject are clear to her own mind. Even of the -"domestic life in villages" {66} she would only deal with the side -where the daily bread was provided out of income, not out of retail -profits or weekly wages. It is a suggestive fact, to which I have -already alluded, that she never even tried to draw a peasant's family. -Her heroines may, on the rarest occasions, call at a cottage to inquire -after a sick child or leave a charitable gift, but of the conditions -under which the labouring classes lived, during the hard times of the -French wars, we learn nothing at all from her writings. The nearest -approaches to such subjects are the account of the Prices' home at -Portsmouth (a sordid interior which has been held, I think not -unjustly, to be as vivid in its suggestion of impecuniosity and -discomfort as anything written by Zola), and the similar, but far less -effective, picture of the Watsons' family life. - -Her literary style seems to be spontaneous, and so, in comparison with -that of "stylists," it certainly is. She had stored her mind with good -literature while still in her teens, and no doubt most of her limpid -sentences flowed freely from her pen. But the consistent absence of -superfluous epithets and other redundancies is evidence that she had -consciously formed an ideal of {67} composition, and that she thought -out the means of producing her effects is clear from several passages -in her letters. To her niece who addressed her as "Dear Miss Darcy," -and wanted her to answer in that character, Jane replied--"Even had I -more time I should not feel at all sure of the sort of letter that Miss -D. would write." She had studied her art till she could analyze its -qualities, as we may see from a letter written from Chawton in 1813. -Mrs. Austen had been reading _Pride and Prejudice_ aloud to Jane and -Martha Lloyd (who lived with the Austens), and Jane tells Cassandra -that-- - - -"Though she perfectly understands the characters herself, she cannot -speak as they ought. Upon the whole, however, I am quite vain enough, -and well satisfied enough. The work is rather too light and bright and -sparkling, it wants shade--to be stretched out here and there ... an -essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of -Buonaparte, or something that would form a contrast, and bring the -reader with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of -the general style." - - -Happily she did not provide the conventional "shade," which would have -been on a par with {68} the "brown tree" that, according to Sir George -Beaumont, was an indispensable feature of every properly composed -landscape painting. Shade, however, did appear in several chapters of -_Persuasion_, which, for a certain suggestion of melancholy, stands -apart from the other novels, though not as markedly as _Northanger -Abbey_ stands apart for its exuberant frivolity. - -Macaulay declared of Fanny Burney's later style that it was "the worst -that has ever been known among men." Jane Austen's style, in its happy -hours, is so admirably adapted to its purpose that, while we may not -call it "the best," a term which advertisement has rendered meaningless -as a standard of excellence, it has never been surpassed as a means to -a desired end. It seems trite to say that the first point to consider -in any question of style is the intended result, but it is a point so -frequently overlooked that much criticism about art and letters, as -about politics or agriculture, is vitiated by the hopeless effort to -set up an abstract ideal applicable to all cases, like a universal -watch-key. - -The result for which Jane Austen worked can scarcely be put in -question. She was impelled to {69} make her little world live in -fiction, not precisely as she saw it and heard it, but as she could -most attractively present it to minds possessing the indispensable -modicum of humour, without which the charm is lost at least as nearly -as the charm of a Turner sunset by a person whose optic nerve is -irresponsive to the red rays. Apart from her prevailing humour, the -modesty of her style is a continual beauty. There is none of that -florid eloquence which depends more on sound than sense for its effect, -nor of that forcing of strange phrases which in these days so often -passes for literary excellence. There is no preciosity about her -books; the narrative is easy, the incidents are probable; the dialogue, -with few exceptions, is natural, the bright people being differentiated -from the dull by their talk, and not, as in most novels, by the -author's assurances. If Mr. Meredith was right when he declared that -"it is unwholesome for men and women to see themselves as they are, if -they are no better than they should be," there must be many -"unwholesome" pages in Jane Austen's work for the tolerably large class -to which he referred. Neither in real life nor in the life of her -books did she "suffer fools gladly," {70} and so far as the men of her -creation are concerned she is on the whole more successful in -representing the foolish than the wise. Her chief failure is in the -realization of such a young man as one of her heroines would have been -likely to admire. Most of the younger men are sketchily drawn, and we -who are men would fain believe that she did not understand the nature -of a man's heart, seeing that she never found one worth accepting. -Knightley and Bertram seem to have been favourites of hers, but they -are not lively people, nor sufficiently wanting in priggishness. The -liveliest of them all is Henry Tilney, whatever his qualities of mind. -The Jane Austen touch is charmingly varied, and it is felt in some of -its happy strokes in the talk between this mercurial young rector and -the girl whose early-budding affections he so speedily returns. - - -"'Have you been long in Bath, madam?' - -"'About a week, sir,' replied Catherine, trying not to laugh. - -"'Really!' with affected astonishment. - -"'Why should you be surprised, sir?' - -"' Why, indeed!' said he, in his natural tone; 'but some emotion must -appear to be raised by {71} your reply, and surprise is more easily -assumed, and not less reasonable, than any other.'" - - -This bit of dialogue recalls a remark in a letter written by Jane to -Cassandra: "Benjamin Portal is here. How charming that is! I do not -exactly know why, but the phrase followed so naturally that I could not -help putting it down." - -Mr. Collins is one of the most finished of Jane's studies of men. He -comes near to the impossible at times, but she makes him a living -creature. The speech in which he offers his hand and advantages to his -cousin Elizabeth has often been quoted, and its charms can never fade. -Only a page of it is necessary to tempt the reader to turn--again or -for the first time--to _Pride and Prejudice_ in order that he may find -the rest of the inimitable scene-- - - -"My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for -every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example -of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced it will add -very greatly to my happiness; and, thirdly, which perhaps I ought to -have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and -recommendation of the very noble lady whom {72} I have the honour of -calling patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion -(unasked too!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night -before I left Hunsford--between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. -Jenkinson was arranging Miss de Bourgh's footstool--that she said, 'Mr. -Collins, you must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose -properly, choose a gentlewoman for my sake, and for your own; let her -be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to -make a small income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a -woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford, and I will visit her.' -Allow me, by the way, to observe, my fair cousin, that I do not reckon -the notice and kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh as among the least -of the advantages in my power to offer. You will find her manners -beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, -must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence -and respect which her rank will inevitably excite." - - -The immediate consequences of Elizabeth's refusal are delightfully -imagined and described. The moment Mrs. Bennet hears of it, she rushes -to her husband's room-- - - -"'You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will -not have him; and {73} if you do not make haste he will change his mind -and not have _her_.' - -"Mr. Bennet raised his eyes from his book as she entered, and fixed -them on her face with a calm unconcern, which was not in the least -altered by her communication. - -"'I have not the pleasure of understanding you,' said he, when she had -finished her speech. 'Of what are you talking?' - -"'Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr. -Collins, and Mr. Collins begins to say that he will not have Lizzy.' - -"'And what am I to do on the occasion? It seems a hopeless business.' - -"'Speak to Lizzy about if yourself. Tell her that you insist upon her -marrying him.' - -"'Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion.' - -"Mrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the -library. - -"'Come here, child,' cried her father as she appeared. 'I have sent -for you on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has -made you an offer of marriage. Is it true?' Elizabeth replied that it -was. 'Very well--and this offer of marriage you have refused?' - -"'I have, sir.' - -"'Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your -accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?' - -{74} - -"'Yes, or I will never see her again.' - -"'An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you -must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see -you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you -again if you _do_.'" - - -There is nothing "commonplace" about this. What matter that the -characters are only middle-class and "respectable," if they can afford -material for such excellent wit? - -In one respect, judged by the present standard in fiction, Jane -Austen's work assuredly is "commonplace." No novelist was ever less -troubled in the search for names. She merely took those of people she -had heard of or met, preferring the common to the unusual. Bennet, -Dashwood, Elliot, Price, Woodhouse--names that the modern "popular" -novelist would reject at sight, served her turn, a Darcy or a Tilney -being her highest flights in nomenclature. As for the Christian names, -they are of the most ordinary and are used over and over again. In -_Sense and Sensibility_, for example, three of the prominent characters -are named John--John Dashwood, John Middleton, and John Willoughby. -There are two {75} Catherines in _Pride and Prejudice_. Elizabeths, -Fannys, Annes, Marys, Henrys, Edwards, Roberts, "fill the bills," and -such a name as Frank Churchill seems recondite. It is much the same in -the letters, the truth being that the Gwladyses, and Evadnes, and -Marmadukes of those days were very rare, and almost unknown in rural -society. The burden which her sister Cassandra bore must have -strengthened Jane's determination that her heroes and heroines should -not have unusual names, and so we have our Elinors and Elizabeths, and -Fannys, with their Edwards and Edmunds, and Henrys. The Darcys are -almost the only exceptions that try the rule; "Fitzwilliam" and -"Georgiana" are more in the style of the ordinary novel of "high life." - -So much for names. How are the men and women who bear them -"introduced" to us? When a Colonel Newcome, or an Alfred Jingle, or a -Sylvain Pons comes upon the scene, we hear a good deal about his -personal appearance, his manner of dress, his bearing, and those who -introduce him have a huge circle of men and women to bring before us -with similar formalities. Jane Austen, like a casual hostess at a -modern {76} dance, leaves us, as often as not, to make acquaintance in -any way we can. Scott, with his wealth of character-studies among high -and middle and low, his kings and cavaliers and covenanters and -crofters, was the most generous giver of types among Jane Austen's -contemporaries; Maria Edgeworth in depicting the gentry and peasantry -of Ireland, and John Galt the small shop-keepers and their customers in -the Scottish country-towns, managed to present us to a large circle of -new acquaintances, of various classes and occupations. Jane had no use -for characters, or centres of social life, that required to be -specially described for a particular purpose. Only in one of her -novels (_Sense and Sensibility_) is the busy life of London made the -subject of any but the most casual description, and even then it is but -the transference of the country people to town, and of the two or three -towns-people back to their London houses from their country visits that -is effected. (The general life of the metropolis, its theatres, parks, -and bustle are left, to all intent, unnoticed. Yet, as we know from -many passages in her letters, Jane during her visits was a keen -spectator of the pageantry of life in a city which, she {77} jestingly -declared, played havoc with her character. "Here I am once more in -this scene of dissipation and vice," she writes from Cork Street in -August 1796, "and I begin already to find my morals corrupted." And in -the next month she sends this little message to Mr. Austen: "My father -will be so good as to fetch home his prodigal daughter from town, I -hope, unless he wishes me to walk the hospitals, enter at the Temple, -or mount guard at St. James'." She was not "prodigal"--save in gloves -and ribbons--but she enjoyed the delights of the country-cousin in -town. She went very often to the play, so often at times as to be -weary of it. _The Hypocrite_ (Bickerstaff's "alteration" of Cibber's -"adaptation" of _Tartuffe_) "well entertained" her, Dowton and Mathews -being the chief actors; and she saw Liston, Miss Stephens, Miss -O'Neill, and Kean at the outset of his fame. "The Clandestine -Marriage" was a favourite piece, and on one occasion she notes that her -nieces, whom she sometimes took to the theatre, "revelled last night in -Don Juan, whom we left in hell at half-past eleven." Such joys, -however, did not move her mind enough to seduce {78} her from the -country as a source of inspiration for her work. - -"_All_ lives lived out of London are mistakes more or less -grievous--but mistakes," said Sydney Smith, adapting, consciously or -not, the saying of Mascarille to the _Précieuses_: "Pour moi, Je tiens -que hors de Paris, il n'y a point de salut pour les honnetes gens." -The life of Jane Austen, whose humour the author of the _Plymley -Letters_, the father and uncle of a hundred diverting anecdotes, so -greatly enjoyed, may serve to show the weakness of such unreserved -generalization. Her subjects were found in the restful backwaters of -life, not in the crowded centres where mankind is more and more -bewildered by the failure of wisdom to keep pace with the advance of -knowledge. - -It is one of Jane's qualities as a writer that she shows little -hospitality to the stock phrases of ordinary people. Lord Chesterfield -told his son: "If, instead of saying that tastes are different, and -that every man has his own peculiar one, you should let off a proverb, -and say, that 'What is one man's meat is another man's poison.' ... -everybody would be persuaded that you had {79} never kept company with -anybody above footmen and housemaids." Proverbial philosophy finds -little encouragement from Jane, who places it in the mouths of her -least agreeable characters, and one may believe, after reading her -books and her letters, that she agrees with her own Marianne Dashwood, -who, when Sir John Middleton has dared to suggest that she will be -"setting her cap" at Willoughby, warmly replies: "That is an -expression, Sir John, which I particularly dislike. I abhor every -commonplace phrase by which wit is intended; and 'setting one's cap' at -a man, or 'making a conquest,' are the most odious of all. Their -tendency is gross and illiberal; and if their construction could ever -be deemed clever, time has long ago destroyed all its ingenuity." The -offending Sir John "did not much understand this reproof," but he -"laughed as heartily as if he did." Elizabeth Bennet's use of the -saying, "Keep your breath to cool your porridge," gives us a worse -shock than it can have given to Darcy, so unexpected is it from the -mouth of a Jane Austen heroine. When one of Cassandra's letters had -diverted Jane "beyond moderation," and she added: "I could die of {80} -laughter at it," she felt the banality of the phrase as keenly as -Marianne would have done, and saved herself with "as they used to say -at school." - -Whatever the words and phrases she employed, it can never be held that -she "spoke well" according to the test proposed by Catherine Morland -when she said to Henry Tilney, "I cannot speak well enough to be -unintelligible," a remark which Mr. Tilney hailed with delight as "an -excellent satire on modern language." Its origin may be found in that -first volume of _The Mirror_ which Catherine's mother brought -down-stairs for her edification, where we are told that "many great -personages contrive to be unintelligible in order to be respected." - -A peculiarity of Jane Austen's vocabulary and manner is her fondness -for negatives in "un," such words as "unabsurd," "unpretty," -"unrepulsable," "unfastidious," "untoward," and "unexceptionable"--a -pet fancy of hers, which occurs, I am told, at least eight times in -_Emma_ alone--being as common in her novels as "halidome" and "minion" -in the older romances of Wardour Street. Some day, perhaps, a lost -novel of hers, written during the apparently idle years {81} of her -residence at Bath, will be identified by the prevalence of "uns" in its -text. - -In clarity of meaning her style is usually of the purest, and there is -reason to think that her few obscurities are as often due to -carelessness as to defective art. Not that she was exempt from all the -weaknesses that she discovers for our amusement in the generality of -her sex. Henry Tilney's appreciation of women as letter-writers can -hardly have been imagined without at least a moment's reflection by the -author over her own achievements-- - - -"'I have sometimes thought,' says Catherine, doubtfully, 'whether -ladies _do_ write so much better letters than gentlemen. That is, I -should not think the superiority was always on our side.' - -"'As far as I have had opportunity of judging,' replies Tilney, 'it -appears to me that the usual style of letter-writing among women is -faultless, except in three particulars.' - -"'And what are they?' - -"'A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a -very frequent ignorance of grammar.' - -"'Upon my word, I need not have been afraid of disclaiming the -compliment! You do not think too highly of us in that way.' - -{82} - -"'I should no more lay it down as a general rule that women write -better letters than men, than that they sing better duets, or draw -better landscapes. In every power, of which taste is the foundation, -excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes.'" - - -Deficiency of subject has not been charged against Jane's published -letters, but they have often been charged with deficiency of serious -interest. Her works certainly do exhibit an occasional looseness of -grammar, mostly due to bad punctuation. The faulty construction of -Lucy's letters (_Sense and Sensibility_) is noted by the author, but -while Jane would not have been likely to regard "Sincerely wish you -happy in your choice" as a proper way of beginning a sentence, her own -delinquencies with respect to commas are sometimes no less grave than -those of Mrs. Robert Ferrars. She would have felt no serious sympathy -with Cyrano's declaration concerning his literary compositions-- - - "... Mon sang se coagule - En pensant qu'on y peut changer une virgule." - -Her blood was too cool to be frozen by the printer's fancies in -punctuation. - -{83} - -In an old number of the _Cambridge Observer_ the curious student may -find some suggested emendations of Jane Austen's text by Mr. A. W. -Verrall, many of them being concerned with what are probably printers' -errors. Those which deal with punctuation need not reflect on the -printer as prime offender. The author was a woman. Mr. Verrall's -ingenious suggestion that when Jane Austen is made to say that William -Price's "direct holidays" might justly be given to his friends at -Mansfield Park (his own family seeing him frequently at Portsmouth, -where his ship was lying), she really wrote "derelict holidays," has -little to commend it, "direct" so evidently, I think, being used to -differentiate his actual leave from his ordinary leisure hours when on -service. But there are two emendations, typical of many which might be -suggested (Mr. Verrall has probably noted them for the edition which he -ought to undertake in time for the centenary), which are entirely -acceptable. Fanny Price is made to say to Mr. Rushworth, on the -occasion when Maria Bertram and Crawford gave that unfortunate person -the slip in his own garden, "They desired me to stay; my {84} cousin -Maria charged me to say that you would find them at that knoll, or -thereabouts." Mr. Verrall justly observes that no one had desired -Fanny to stay, and she would be the last girl to utter "an irrelevant -falsehood." He holds that "she really did on this occasion, for -kindness' sake, say something 'not quite true,'" and it was: "They -desired me to say--my cousin Maria charged me to say, that you would -find them at that knoll, or thereabouts." - -Again, when in describing the discussion over Mrs. Weston's proposed -dance, Jane Austen is made to say (in _Emma_), "The want of proper -families in the place, and the conviction that none beyond the place -and its immediate environs could be attempted to attend, were -mentioned," the author's words were, in Mr. Verrall's opinion, "tempted -to attend." Like Shakespeare's, the MSS. of Jane Austen's masterpieces -are to seek, so that what she wrote we cannot prove. The probability -that in these two cases, as in others, the author omitted to notice in -proof the errors of the printer is more likely, on the whole, than that -her pen had slipped badly, and that her "copy" had never been carefully -read over. She {85} cared little for such slips, however, as we know -from a letter written after _Pride and Prejudice_ was published, -wherein she says: "There are a few typical errors, and a 'said he' or -'said she' would sometimes make the dialogue more immediately clear, -but 'I do not write for such dull elves,' as have not a great deal of -ingenuity themselves." "Typical," of course, is here used in its -obsolete sense of "typographical." - -The negative bond of union referred to above between Jane Austen and -the only English writer whom some of her eminent admirers have allowed -to take precedence of her--that the MSS. of both have -disappeared--suggests the passing reflection that in these days when -Shakespeare is not allowed to hold the title to his plays without -challenge, when Anne and Emily Brontë are accused of being (so far as -the public is concerned) mere pseudonyms of their sister Charlotte, -when George Henry Lewes has been given the credit for George Eliot's -novels, and the speeches of eminent statesmen are said to be written by -their wives, it is rather surprising that no one in search of a -striking subject for a magazine article has attacked the claims of Jane -Austen to a place among English {86} authors. There is no evidence in -the memoirs of her time that any distinguished person ever found -himself in her company, her name did not appear on the title-pages of -any books, she was almost unknown outside a small provincial circle, -and in that circle no one seems to have had any idea that there was -anything specially remarkable about her. Is it likely that such an -obscure little body should have written such admirable books? Is it -not much more likely that they were the work of Madame d'Arblay, or -that in these peaceful compositions Mrs. Radcliffe found rest and -recreation after the fearful strain on her delicate nervous system -involved in the production of her "_èpouvantable_" melodramas? Jane -Austen lays claim to some of the novels in her letters, it is true, -but, since Ben Jonson's references to Shakespeare, and all other -contemporary evidence in favour of the Stratford actor's authorship of -the plays have been explained away to the complete satisfaction of -those who dispute his claims, it would be no very difficult task to -persuade a number of earnest souls that Jane Austen's letters are not -really evidence of her authorship of the novels. As for her nearest -relations, they were {87} not in the real secret. The secret they are -supposed to have kept during her life was that she wrote the novels, -but if so, where are the MSS.? Why did not her admiring brothers -treasure those most precious relics? Two of her MSS. (in addition to -the opening chapters of her final effort in fiction) her family did, as -a fact, preserve, those of _Lady Susan_ and _The Watsons_, and these -(here italic type becomes necessary) _are so inferior to the six novels -acknowledged, soon after her death, as hers_, that it is easy (if we -like) to find it _difficult to believe that they are from the same -pen_! The real secret was that she did not write those six novels. -This fascinating theory is freely offered to whomsoever it may please -to follow it up. - -We gain many vivid glimpses of Jane Austen's views of life in her -novels, and _Northanger Abbey_ holds a place apart from the others, not -only for its many pages of burlesque, but as the vehicle by which so -many of the author's reflections are conveyed, in a bright wrapping, to -her appreciative readers. Let me give one or two examples-- - - -"The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already -set forth by the capital pen {88} of a sister author; and to her -treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that -though, to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in -females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a -portion of them too reasonable, and too well-informed themselves, to -desire anything more in woman than ignorance. But Catherine did not -know her own advantages--did not know that a good-looking girl, with an -affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting -a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward." - - -The sister author is Fanny Burney. The opinion of men, the "trifling" -or the "reasonable," is Jane Austen's. In Henry Tilney's remarks upon -Catherine's extraordinary fears concerning his father's conduct to Mrs. -Tilney we may discover something of Jane's view of the general -condition of society in her time. - - -"Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you -have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the -country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English: -that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense -of the probable, your own observation of {89} what is passing around -you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws -connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a -country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a -footing; where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary -spies; and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest -Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?" - - -Of Jane Austen as humourist there is no need to write specifically at -any length. Almost every extract given from her novels, whatever the -point to be illustrated, shows her in that capacity. It is impossible -for long to separate her humour from the rest of her qualities. Yet -there are people who see no humour in her, and actually like her novels -in spite of their "seriousness "! - -An American author, Mr. Oscar Adams, wrote a book about her some years -ago in order "to place her before the world as the winsome, delightful -woman that she really was, and thus to dispel the unattractive, not to -say forbidding, mental picture that so many have formed of her." Who -were these "many" people? Evidently they existed (either without or -within the author's own circle) or there would have been no reason {90} -to write a book for their conversion. They were probably those worthy -persons--we have all met a few of them ourselves--who read _Emma_, and -_Pride and Prejudice_, and the rest, without noticing that a malicious -little sprite is for ever peeping between the lines. Imagine a reader -who regards all Mr. Bennet's remarks as sober statements of considered -opinion, and you will understand how Jane Austen might seem formidable. -Though she is never so ruthless to her characters as Mr. Bennet is to -his wife, Jane is herself a member of his family. Perhaps "ruthless" -is the wrong word. You might apply it to a boy who throws pebbles at a -donkey, but if the object of his attack was a rhinoceros, the boy would -suffer more than the pachyderm. To the slings and arrows of her -husband's outrageous humour Mrs. Bennet was less sensible than was -Gulliver to the darts of the Lilliputians. Gulliver did feel a -pricking sensation, whereas Mrs. Bennet was merely annoyed that Mr. -Bennet did not always agree with her mood of the moment. In his -critical introduction to _Pride and Prejudice_ Professor Saintsbury -forcibly says, in reply to those who resent the presence of such a -husband as Mr. Bennet, that {91} Mrs. Bennet was "a quite irreclaimable -fool; and unless he had shot her or himself there was no way out of it -for a man of sense and spirit but the ironic." The most unpleasant -aspect of Mr. Bennet's sarcasms is not that they hurt his wife, which -they could not, but that they were heard by his five daughters, three -of whom at least were more or less able to understand them. - -Jane Austen the novelist, then, may truly be "forbidding" to readers -who take her _au pied de la lettre_. Such readers are in the position -of Catherine Morland listening to Henry Tilney's imaginary account of -the antiquities and mysteries of Northanger Abbey. She went there and -painfully discovered the truth, while they can no more hope to discover -it than a man with one eye can hope to see things as they appear to his -fellows who have two. Still, he is a king among the blind, and the -readers who find pleasure in Jane Austen as an entirely serious author -are to be counted happy as compared with those who cannot read her at -all. - -It has been said by Mr. Goldwin Smith that there is no philosophy -beneath the surface of Jane Austen's novels "for profound scrutiny to -bring {92} to light," her characters typifying nothing, because "their -doings and sayings are familiar and commonplace. Her genius is shown -in making the familiar and commonplace intensely interesting and -amusing." Such justification as may be discovered for the charge that -the subjects of the novels are commonplace is chiefly negative in kind. -It is not that we may find in real life innumerable people as -distinctive and entertaining as the principal characters of these -stories, but that Jane does not introduce us to dramatically unusual -scenes or persons. There are no houses like Dotheboys Hall or -Ravenswood Tower, no incidents like the flight of Jos Sedley from -Brussels or the arrest of Vautrin, no strange creatures like Mr. -Rochester or Jonas Chuzzlewit, no scenes like those in Fagin's kitchen -or Shirley's mill. She was immediately followed by a humourist whose -scenes and characters are as unusual as hers were familiar. He is -almost unknown to the great fiction-devouring public, and little read -in comparison even with Jane Austen, with whom he has some strong -affinities as well as antipathies. Thomas Love Peacock was never, so -happily inspired--or so happy perhaps--as when he was "ironing" the -{93} insincerity or the unreasonable prejudice of the "well-to-do" -class. There is, among the parsons of Jane Austen's creating, none who -is more gloriously diverting than Dr. Ffolliot in _Crotchet Castle_, -and it is pleasant to imagine Mr. Collins as curate to that militant -theologian. The talk of the young women in Peacock's modern novels is -better "informed" and much less natural than that of Elizabeth Bennet, -or Emma, or Anne, and as for the men, while Mr. Tilney or Mr. Darcy -might not have found it difficult to hold their own with most of the -lovers in Peacock's novels, his intellectuals--Milestone, McQueedy, and -the rest--would have found no one to refute their arguments among the -company at Netherfield or at Mansfield Park. Peacock allows his -satirical hobby-horse to run wild over the bramble-covered desert of -British prejudice, while Jane Austen never leaves go of the rein. The -result is that while he frequently makes us laugh at the absurdities of -his Scythrops and Chainmails, whose performances we know to be -burlesque, she makes us chuckle by her silver-shod satire of the class -which she had studied from childhood. There are some who read Jane -Austen and cannot read {94} Peacock, and the reverse is also true. -Those who can read both are never likely to be in want of pleasure on -winter evenings so long as mind and eyes are left. - -It is certain that no one familiar with either author could mistake a -page written by one of them for a page by the other. Jane Austen's -people, in spite of the humour with which the atmosphere is charged, -are always possible--except, some of her most intimate admirers say, -for Mr. Collins--while Peacock was never to be deterred from breaking -through the fence which borders the pathway of probability. Only such -readers as the prelate who declined to believe some of the incidents in -_Gulliver's Travels_ could be expected to regard _Melincourt_ or -_Nightmare Abbey_ as veracious narratives. For all that Peacock, whose -first novel, _Headlong Hall_, appeared in the year (1816) in which Jane -Austen's last (published) work was done, was her immediate successor as -a satirist of the follies and foibles of English men and women, and he -was succeeded in turn by the splendid Thackeray, whose most obvious -difference from Jane Austen lies in his frequent indulgence in -sentimental reflections. - -{95} - -Jane was amused by the suggestions for improving her work, or for the -plots of fresh novels, given to her from time to time, and among the -papers found after her death was one endorsed "Plan of a novel -according to hints from various quarters," the names of some of these -human "quarters" being given in the margin. There were to be a -"faultless" heroine and her "faultless" father driven from place to -place over Europe by the vile arts of a "totally unprincipled and -heartless young man, desperately in love with the heroine, and pursuing -her with unrelenting passion." Wherever she went somebody fell in love -with her, and she received frequent offers of marriage, which she -referred to her father, who was "exceedingly angry that he should not -be the first applied to." The "anti-hero" again and again carried her -off, and she was "now and then starved to death," but was always -rescued either by her father or the hero! For even the mildest -varieties of the plots thus burlesqued Jane had no use, unless to laugh -at them. - - - - -{99} - -III - -CONTACT WITH LIFE - -Origins of characters--Matchmaking--Second marriages--Negative -qualities of the novels--Close knowledge of one class--Dislike of -"lionizing"--Madame de Staël--The "lower orders"--Tradesmen--Social -position--Quality of Jane's letters--Balls and parties. - - -In her letters, as in her books, the satiric touch was on almost -everything that Jane Austen wrote. Her habit of making pithy little -notes on the doings of her acquaintances was, in writing to her sister, -irrepressible. The pith was not bitter. It was just the comment of a -highly intelligent woman to whom the gods had given the gift of humour, -and who, at an age when most girls of her day were as ingenuous as -Evelina or as Catherine Morland, had learnt how much insincerity and -affectation coloured the conduct even of kind and well-meaning people. - -In her references to the foibles of real men and women we gain many -glimpses of the origins--if not the originals--of some of her character -studies. {100} At an Ashford ball in 1798 one of the Royal Dukes was -present, and among those who supped in his company were Cassandra and a -Mrs. Cage, with whom the Austens were well acquainted. This lady was -uneasy in the presence of Royalty, and her mistakes were described in a -letter from Cassandra. Jane's mention of the incident in her reply is -a fair sample of the way in which, in her more serious mood, this young -woman of twenty-three regarded the weakness of her less cool and -reasonable friends: "I can perfectly comprehend Mrs. Cage's distress -and perplexity. She has all those kind of foolish and incomprehensible -feelings which would make her fancy herself uncomfortable in such a -party. I love her, however, in spite of all her nonsense." - -One can see a hint of Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Bennet in the silly woman who -flustered herself and fidgeted her companions in her attempts to assume -what she supposed to be the right behaviour on such an occasion. Jane, -who had never seen a prince, so far as we know, would have had no -"distress and perplexity." She would have curtsied in the prettiest -way, the Duke would have been charmed by her graceful figure, her {101} -clear complexion, and her soft brown eyes, and she would next day have -written to her sister "all the minute particulars, which only woman's -language can make interesting." - -Her reflections on the gossip of the hour are not always quite so -kindly. When Charles Powlett (of whose rejected offer of a kiss we -have already heard) brings home a wife, Jane tells her sister that this -bride "is discovered to be everything that the neighbourhood could wish -her, silly and cross as well as extravagant." Once, when a story has -reached her in the way that "Russian Scandal" is played, by the -muddling up of half-understood particulars in the process of -transmission from mouth to ear, she has to correct a previous statement -about some of the Austen circle-- - - -"On inquiring of Mrs. Clerk, I find that Mrs. Heathcote made a great -blunder in her news of the Crooks and Morleys. It is young Mr. Crook -who is to marry the second Miss Morley, and it is the Miss Morleys -instead of the second Miss Crook who were the beauties at the music -meeting. This seems a more likely tale, a better devised imposture." - - -{102} - -The sting is where stings usually are. - -Scandal was as distasteful to her as it can have been to Madame du -Châtelet, of whom Voltaire said that "_tout ce qui occupe la société -était de son ressort, hors la médisance._" Jane gave Cassandra many -little bits of news about their friends which the principals might have -resented, but between sister and sister such things are not scandalous, -and as for those who read them now, they may talk about the incidents -referred to as freely as they like without harm to any one. Many of -the "scandals" Jane mentions are "serious" only in her innocent fun. -We hear, for instance, that in 1809, "Martha and Dr. Mant are as bad as -ever, he runs after her in the street to apologize for having spoken to -a gentleman while she was near him the day before. Poor Mrs. Mant can -stand it no longer; she is retired to one of her married daughters." -Jane amused herself and her sister and teased poor Martha by her jokes -on this affair. "As Dr. M. is a clergyman," she writes, "this -attachment, however immoral, has a decorous air." Mrs. Jennings, Sir -John Middleton's mother-in-law, would have told the story quite -seriously, and with immense gusto, at the Barton {103} breakfast-table, -but Dr. Mant and Martha were not transferred to a novel to the -discomfort of themselves and their families and the delight of the -_roman à clef_ hunters of Southampton. - -The letters do seem occasionally to bring us into the company of people -whom we know quite well in the novels. Jane, replying to Cassandra at -Christmas 1798, says: "I am glad to hear such a good account of Harriet -Bridges; she goes on now as young ladies of seventeen ought to do, -admired and admiring.... I dare say she fancies Major Elkington as -agreeable as Warren, and if she can think so, it is very well." Alter -the surnames, and this passage might apply as well to Harriet Smith as -to Harriet Bridges. "I dare say she fancies Mr. Martin as agreeable as -Mr. Churchill, and if she can think so, it is very well," might have -been written by Emma to dear Anne Weston about the "little friend" from -the boarding-school. Jane, as in this case of Harriet Bridges, took so -much interest in the love affairs of her friends that we often think of -Emma Woodhouse and her match-making propensities, about which Mr. -Knightley spoke so harshly. By Emma's advice Harriet Smith, having -refused {104} Robert Martin, the young farmer, had regarded Mr. Elton -as a prospective husband, and when he went elsewhere Emma had selected -Frank Churchill for the vacant post. Then, through a serious mistake, -Mr. Knightley was the man, until at last the "inconsiderate, -irrational, unfeeling" nature of her conduct became clear to her mind, -and Harriet was allowed to marry the constant Martin. - -Mrs. Mitford declared that Jane Austen was husband-hunting at twelve -years of age, but the old lady's memory was evidently quite -untrustworthy about people and dates when she talked such nonsense. -Jane was, however, on her own showing, fond of looking out for possible -husbands for her pretty little nieces. Here is an instance, from a -letter of 1814--"Young Wyndham accepts the invitation. He is such a -nice, gentlemanlike, unaffected sort of young man, that I think he may -do for Fanny." Next day she is less pleased with him--"This young -Wyndham does not come after all; a very long and very civil note of -excuse is arrived. It makes one moralize upon the ups and downs of -this life." - -That the habit was hereditary--it was a custom {105} of Jane's time, -even more than it is of our own--we may see from a report she sent to -Cassandra of the pleasure with which Mr. and Mrs. Austen, with one -accord, lighted upon a suitable "match" for their elder daughter. He -was "a beauty of my mother's." Having no _affaire_ of her own to -trouble her rest, Jane took an active part as adviser for those in -whose fate she was affectionately interested. Especially was this the -case with this favourite niece, Fanny Knight, who, having fancied she -was "in love" with one man, discovered that she preferred, or thought -she preferred, another. - - -"Do not be in a hurry," wrote Aunt Jane, "the right man will come at -last; you will in the course of the next two or three years meet with -somebody more generally unexceptionable than anyone you have yet known, -who will love you as warmly as possible, and who will so completely -attract you that you will feel you never really loved before." - - -Fanny, who was "inimitable, irresistible," whose "queer little heart" -and its flutterings were "the delight of my life," might have been -fickle, but she did not, said her aunt, deserve such a punishment {106} -as to fall in love after marriage, and with the wrong man. - -Jane's views on second marriages are expressed in the case of Lady -Sondes, whose haste to find consolation after the death of Lord Sondes -was the subject of much chatter among the Mrs. Jenningses and Mrs. -Bennets of her neighbourhood. "Had her first marriage been of -affection, or had there been a grown-up single daughter, I should not -have forgiven her; but I consider everybody as having a right to marry -once in their lives for love, if they can, and provided she will now -leave off having bad headaches, and being pathetic, I can allow her, I -can _will_ her, to be happy." - -In the novels no woman of consequence--excepting the callous and -selfish Lady Susan Vernon--is allowed a second mate, nor is the -courtship before any of the marriages much in accord with the general -practice of English fiction. There is not even a description of some -splendid wedding. Jane, by the way, did not regard a marriage as the -proper occasion for public advertisement of the bride's qualities. -"Such a parade," she writes of the conduct of a certain {107} "alarming -bride," is "one of the most immodest pieces of modesty that one can -imagine. To attract notice could have been her only wish." - -It might seem, indeed, that the most original characteristic of her -works is the absence of almost all the qualities of plot and treatment -on which fiction usually depends for success with the public. If we -were asked of some modern lady writer, "What are her books like?" and -we replied, "In one respect they are conventional, for they all end in -the choosing of wedding-rings. But scarcely anybody in these novels -feels the 'grand passion,' they have no relation to current events, -nobody ever has a strange adventure, only one married woman is -faithless to her vows, no adventuress appears, there are no foreigners, -no one is in revolt against anything, nobody is seriously troubled -about the trend of society or the decadence of morals and taste, nobody -starves, or commits a murder, or engineers a swindle, there are no -cruel husbands, no triple _ménages_ and no mysterious occurrences or -detectives, and as nobody dies, nobody makes death-bed revelations," -the retort would probably imply, "What stupid stuff they must be." -These novels {108} do, indeed, depend for their effect on less of "plot -and passion" than almost any others of consequence yet written. There -are many novels of small plot. Balzac, in _Eugénie Grandet_, George -Sand, in _Tamaris_, show what even "stormy" novelists can do with a -modicum of events. But the lack of both plot and passion is rare in -the work that lives. It is thus that the genius of Jane Austen is -strongly displayed. Only genius could give a vital, an enduring -fascination to a record chiefly concerned with the ordinary experiences -of a few respectable country people, almost all of one class. - -She had the power, because, with the gifts of expression and of humour, -she combined an almost perfect knowledge of a typical section of -society, all the more clearly exhibited because of her comparative -ignorance of any other section. She did not care to study the very -poor, the very rich were outside her circle of common experience, and -she would rarely write about people or phases of life that were not as -familiar to her as the squire's daughter and the manners of the hunt -ball. She had none of Disraeli's audacity. "My son," said Isaac -Disraeli, when some one {109} expressed surprise at the knowledge of -"exalted circles" shown in _The Young Duke_, "my son, sir, when he -wrote that book, had never even _seen_ a duke." Jane Austen, "never -having seen a duke," or a ducal palace, never attempted to describe -either. She shrank from any kind of "lionizing," whether in village -society or in the "great world," and to this healthy pride is no doubt -partly due the obscurity in which she lived and died. One instance of -her reserve may be adduced. Soon after the appearance of _Mansfield -Park_ she was invited, "in the politest manner," to a party at the -house of a nobleman who suspected her of the authorship of that book, -and who, as an inducement, intimated that she would be able to converse -with Madame de Staël. "Miss Austen," says her brother, "immediately -declined the invitation. To her truly delicate mind such a display -would have given pain instead of pleasure." The story, which has -sometimes been regarded as evidence of improper pride on the part of -the English novelist, is in keeping with all that is known of Jane -Austen's nature. - -Had the meeting of the authors of _Emma_ and {110} _Corinne_ come -about, one would like to have heard their conversation. The talking -would have been largely on one side. Madame, who knew the "world," and -enjoyed the distinction of having been called a "wicked schemer" and a -"fright" by the greatest man of her time, would have tried in vain to -impress the unaffected Englishwoman who cared so little for politics -and Napoleon that, in those novels which Madame regarded as -"_vulgaire_," she scarcely alluded to either. Jane would have listened -attentively, and now and again, when Madame paused for breath, would -have made a polite remark, the covert humour of which would have been -lost on her famous companion. There is no suggestion that any hint as -to Madame de Staël's reputation had reached Chawton Cottage, otherwise -some might suppose that it was not only the diffident modesty Jane's -brother alleges which prevented her from going to the party. It is -quite likely that she who described the loves of Lydia Bennet and Maria -Rushworth with such an entire absence of sermonizing would yet have -felt that, though she might like to converse on a more private occasion -with the author of _Corinne_ and _Delphine_, she would {111} prefer not -to be matched with a lady who had put to so practical a test her -theories "_de l'influence des passions sur le bonheur_." - -Could there be a stronger contrast, physical or moral, than between the -country parson's slight and good-looking daughter, whose knowledge of -men and affairs was gained in the parlours of manor-houses and the -assembly-rooms of watering-places, and the financier's stout and ugly -daughter, whose political activities were so persistent that she had -been expelled from Paris, who had travelled, mingling in the society of -the governing classes, the artists, the men of letters in Italy, -Germany, and other lands, and whose literary performances, historical, -political, and imaginative, were read wherever educated readers existed? - -If Jane had no strong desire to be brought into contact with the great, -wise, and eminent of her time, neither were her tastes at all in the -direction of social equality or the advocacy of the "rights of man," -and while she was indifferent to the famous and influential, she was -scarcely more concerned for the obscure and lowly. Admire her work as -we may, and love her as many of us {112} must, we cannot recognize that -she was much in sympathy with any class but her own. It is certainly -to no undue regard for social position, to no want of charitable -intention, that we can attribute her general neglect of the drama, -comedy and tragedy alike, of humble life. It might be said that she -could, and if she would, have drawn the poor as well as she drew the -"gentry." She knew her limitations, and thus such rare sketches of the -"lower orders" as she gives stop short of any errors of understanding. -Mrs. Reynolds, Darcy's housekeeper, whose admiration for her master and -his sister is so strongly expressed, and Thomas, the servant at Barton -Cottage, who comes in to describe how he has seen "Mr. and Mrs. -Ferrars" in Exeter, are in no way out of drawing, though the phrase -with which the author finishes off the man-servant--"Thomas and the -table-cloth, now alike needless, were soon dismissed"--so aptly -suggests the position accorded to the working classes in her own works -that it almost seems to have a double meaning. Let any one familiar -with the novels try to recall occasions when a servant is introduced -even in such common cases as the answering of a bell or waiting {113} -at table, and he will find it hard to add to the examples already given -any with a better part than the overworked Nanny at the Watsons', who, -when Lord Osborne is paying his untimely visit, puts her head in at the -door and says, "Please, ma'am, master wants to know why he be'nt to -have his dinner." As for the class from which most of these servants -came, it has no place at all. Emma takes Harriet to a cottage where -there is a convalescent child who requires jellies or beef tea, but the -incident is of no account except as leading up to the visit to Mr. -Elton; and she goes to see an old servant while Harriet pays her formal -call at the Abbey Mill Farm. Robert Martin is a farmer, and a letter -from him is introduced, but he has no share of any consequence in the -dialogue. When we remember Jane Austen's avowed partiality for Emma, -and Emma's disgust at the idea of Harriet marrying a mere farmer, no -matter how much her admirer Knightley might support the man's claims, -we may not unreasonably suppose that Jane to some extent shared Emma's -prejudice. There was, however, a notable exception to Jane's -remoteness from the farming class. The joint tenant of the Manor {114} -farm at Steventon, the happily named James Digweed--who seems to have -been ordained later on--was admitted to so much favour that she could -not only dance and dine, and gossip with him, but could chaff her -sister about his evident desire to gain Cassandra's affection. - -Two or three apothecaries are admitted into the novels. One attends -Jane Bennet at Netherfield, and another attends Marianne Dashwood at -Cleveland. Apothecary was almost a term of contempt in those days, and -one of Jane's hits at the neighbourhood of Hans Place was that there -seemed to be only one person there who was "not an apothecary." She -even, as we have seen, corrects her niece for supposing that a country -doctor--not a mere "apothecary"--would ever be "introduced" to a peer! - -The only country tradesman who figures at all prominently is Sir -William Lucas, who had "risen to the honour of Knighthood by an address -to the King during his mayoralty. The distinction had perhaps been -felt too strongly. It had given him a disgust to his business.... By -nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St. -James's had made him courteous." He is {115} not so diverting a -creature as Martin Tinman of Crikswich in Mr. Meredith's delightful -comedy _The House on the Beach_, who, when rescued from that -storm-beaten home on a terrible night, was found to be wearing the -Court suit in which, long before, he had presented an address to the -throne! But Sir William Lucas's constant recollection of the fact that -_he_ had been received by the sovereign, while his neighbours, the -"small" country-gentlemen, had not, is illustrated with admirable art. -In his "emporium," with his stock-in-trade around him, his portrait -would never have been drawn. Mr. Weston also made money in trade, -apparently "in the wholesale line," after he had retired from the -militia, and of the proud and conceited Bingley sisters we are told -that "they were of a respectable family in the north of England; a -circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their -brother's fortune and their own had been acquired by trade." - -Jane has many kindly things to tell her sister about, her mother's -maids, especially of a faithful and industrious "Nannie." Of the -maids' relations, the agricultural class, amid whose homes {116} she -passed nearly all her life, she has, as I have said, left no account in -her novels. Her letters do indeed contain many bits of news concerning -the ploughmen and washerwomen of the parish, and they are significant -as to the manner, proper to the age, in which she regarded her humble -neighbours. Her references to the cottagers are commonly devoid of any -indication of deeper feeling than the consciousness of a need to give -them clothes. Of the people employed on her father's farm, she says-- - - -"John Bond begins to find himself grow old, which John Bond ought not -to do, and unequal to much hard work; a man is therefore hired to -supply his place as to labour, and John himself is to have the care of -the sheep. There are not more people engaged than before, I believe; -only men instead of boys. I fancy so at least, but you know my -stupidity as to such matters. Lizzie Bond is just apprenticed to Miss -Small, so we may hope to see her able to spoil gowns in a few years." - - -About Christmas (1798) she writes-- - - -"Of my charities to the poor since I came home you shall have a -faithful account. I have given a pair of worsted stockings to Mary -Hutchins, Dame Kew, Mary Steevens, and Dame Staples; {117} a shift to -Hannah Staples, and a shawl to Betty Dawkins, amounting in all to about -half-a-guinea. But I have no reason to suppose that the _Battys_ would -accept of anything, because I have not made them the offer." - - -Of personal service we hear but little. There is just the old "Lady -Bountiful" idea, adapted to the purse of the parson's younger daughter. -Alms were what the poor chiefly wanted, and alms they received--if not -in money, in warm garments. She gave them worsted stockings, and -flannel to wear in the cold weather. She did not often, so far as we -hear, sit and chat with Dame Staples and Dame Kew over the things that -made up their life-interests, or listen to the confidences of Lizzie -Bond and Hannah Staples concerning their rustic lovers. - -Sometimes we do hear of talks with poor women, as when Jane writes, "I -called yesterday upon Betty Londe, who inquired particularly after you, -and said she seemed to miss you very much, because you used to call in -upon her very often. This was an oblique reproach at me, which I am -sorry to have merited, and from which I will profit." We may well -believe that Jane was no {118} pioneer in "district visiting." Her -services to humanity were of another kind. Almost alone among the -greater novelists who have written the fiction of drawing-rooms, she -was hardly less indifferent as a writer to the concerns of the -governing class of her day than of the voteless class, unless, indeed, -she was a hostile witness so far as her knowledge went. Among the -worst-bred persons in the novels, with John Thorpe, Mr. Collins, and -the ever-delightful Mrs. Bennet, are Sir Walter Elliot and Lady -Catherine de Bourgh, and the hero whose manners are most open to -reproach is Lady Catherine's nephew, Darcy--before he has been refused -by Elizabeth. - -Jane Austen's views on the claims of social position, as distinct from -individual character, were much the same as Anne Elliot's. Mr. Elliot -and Anne, we learn-- - - -"Did not always think alike. His value for rank and connection she -perceived to be greater than hers. It was not merely complaisance, it -must be a liking to the cause, which made him enter warmly into her -father's and sister's solicitudes on a subject which she thought -unworthy to excite them.... She was reduced to form a wish which she -had never foreseen--a wish that they {119} had more pride.... Had Lady -Dalrymple and her daughter even been very agreeable, she would still -have been ashamed of the agitation they created; but they were nothing. -There was no superiority of manner, accomplishment, or understanding." - - -The Dalrymples and Lady Catherine de Bourgh do not lead one to suppose -that Jane's acquaintance with their class was a fortunate one. Had it -been, she would probably have given some happier examples of the -titular aristocracy. Lord Osborne, in _The Watsons_, is in some ways a -more amiable type, but too "sketchy" to be of much account as an -antidote to such unpleasing people as the aunt of Darcy and the cousins -of Anne Elliot. - -If persons of artificial eminence are almost unknown in the novels, -there is an even more complete dearth of men or women distinguished for -their individual gifts or achievements. Sir John Middleton fills his -too hospitable mansion with an endless supply of guests who keep his -maid-servants hard at work in preparing spare bedrooms, that were -occupied the night before, for fresh arrivals in the afternoon. He -hardly allows {120} time to speed the parting guests before he must -turn to welcome their successors. But no statesman, or traveller, or -professor, not so much as a rising politician or a poet, crosses those -ever-open doors. They do not come, for one reason--and it seems a -sufficient one--because they scarcely exist for the author, or if they -do, the people who eat mutton and drink port and Madeira around the -mahogany tables at Netherfield, or Barton, or Uppercross, know and care -nothing whatever about them and their performances. "Each thinks his -little set mankind" is as true of the characters in Jane Austen's books -as in a sense it is true, one is sometimes inclined to think, of their -author. The Morlands, and Musgroves, and Woodhouses, and Bennets have -never travelled, unless an occasional visit to London may count as -travel. They have been into some neighbouring county, they have been -perchance to Bath. They have not so much as been to Paris. Emma had -never seen the sea. Twenty years earlier it would have been different. -Darcy at any rate would have known something of France had he been -twenty years older. From the outbreak of the Revolution till the first -exile of {121} Napoleon, France was not a likely place for any but the -most adventurous of squires to choose for a pleasure-trip, nor, after -the rise of Napoleon's star, were the accessible parts of the Continent -very attractive for any but soldiers of fortune and spies. Thus, not -only are the conversations which Jane Austen offers devoid of any such -elements of interest as are introduced, for example, by the appearance -of Byron in _Venetia_, or of Shelley in _Nightmare Abbey_, but the -opportunities of lively talk offered by reminiscences of foreign -manners and scenes are not allowed to the author. On the other hand, -we do not meet with any of those egotistical travellers who, as a -contemporary of Jane Austen's declared, "If you introduce the name of a -river or a hill, instantly deluge you with the _Rhine_, or make you -dizzy with the height of _Mont Blanc_." - -In any case, however much the fact may be due to want of opportunities -for enlarging her knowledge, Jane, literature apart, took very little -interest in anything outside the social and family life of her own -class in the country. Her published correspondence has been described -as "trivial" (as her novels have been, for that is what {122} Madame de -Staël meant by "_vulgaire_," and not "vulgar," as Sir James Mackintosh -and others have supposed), and, in comparison with such contemporary -letters as Byron's or Lamb's, her accounts of her dances and her -bonnets are certainly weak tea for serious readers. They are, however, -exactly such letters as she might have been expected to write. Her -satire gives them an agreeable tartness which somehow suggests the -syllabubs which were so common a feature of the supper-tables of her -time. It is all, one may reasonably suppose, like the common talk of -the drawing-room in a manor-house on an afternoon when the men are -hunting or shooting--the choice of a winter frock, the prospects of a -ball at some territorial magnate's, the errors of cooks and housemaids, -the fatuity of this young man who is so rich, and the silliness of that -young woman who is so pretty--enlivened by Jane's wit. - -The dances, whether full-dress balls or merely "small and early hops" -were among the favourite pleasures of Jane Austen. If you have read -her letters you will feel that she is present when Fanny Price dances -so prettily at Mansfield Park, or when Darcy declines to dance with -Elizabeth because though she is "tolerable," she is {123} "not handsome -enough" to tempt him. "I danced twice with Warren last night, and once -with Mr. Charles Watkins, and to my inexpressible astonishment I -entirely escaped John Lyford. I was forced to fight hard for it, -however. We had a very good supper, and the greenhouse was illuminated -in a very elegant manner." Such bits of news are common at all periods -of Jane's correspondence. For example: "The ball on Thursday was a -very small one indeed, hardly so large as an Oxford smack;" and again, -"Our ball on Thursday was a very poor one, only eight couple, and but -twenty-three people in the room"--just as it was when they got up the -scratch dance at the Bertrams, "the thought only of the afternoon, -built on the late acquisition of a violin player in the servants' hall." - -On another occasion, at a public hall at the county town-- - - -"The Portsmouths, Dorchesters, Boltons, Portals, and Clerks were there, -and all the meaner and more usual etc., etcs. There was a scarcity of -men in general, and a still greater scarcity of any that were good for -much. I danced nine dances out of ten--five with Stephen Terry, T. -Chute, and James Digweed, and four with {124} Catherine. There was -commonly a couple of ladies standing up together, but not often any so -amiable as ourselves." - - -Jane, from all we know of her, would almost as soon dance with another -girl as with a man--it was the dancing she loved, and watching the -behaviour of others, their flirtations, their love-making, their airs -and affectations. - -Emma Woodhouse, the day after a dance at Highbury, might have sent to -her sister in Brunswick Square just such an account as Jane Austen to -her sister at Godmersham-- - -"There were very few beauties, and such as there were were not very -handsome." One of the girls seemed to her: "A queer animal with a -white neck. Mrs. Warren, I was constrained to think a very fine young -woman, which I much regret. She danced away with great activity. Her -husband is ugly enough, uglier even than his cousin John; but he does -not look so _very_ old. The Miss Maitlands are both prettyish, very -like Anne, with brown skins, large dark eyes, and a good deal of nose. -The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Maitland the jaundice." - -A ball to which Jane Austen went in 1808--her {125} thirty-fourth -year--was "rather more amusing" than she expected. "The melancholy -part was to see so many dozen young women standing by without partners, -and each of them with two ugly naked shoulders. It was the same room -in which we danced fifteen years ago. I thought it all over, and in -spite of the shame of being so much older, felt with thankfulness that -I was quite as happy now as then. We paid an additional shilling for -our tea." This letter is but one of many bits of evidence that no -memory of a Captain Wentworth troubled Jane's own life. The "shame" -such a woman could have felt in being "older" one can scarcely imagine, -and the context shows it was not seriously felt. - -The most pathetic dancing incident in the novels was the impromptu -affair at Uppercross (in _Persuasion_), where Anne saw her old lover -apparently losing his heart elsewhere. "The evening ended with -dancing. On its being proposed, Anne offered her services, as usual; -and though her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she sat at the -instrument, she was extremely glad to be employed, and desired nothing -in return but to be unobserved." She did not know that Wentworth, who -was making so merry with {126} the Musgrove girls, was faithful all the -time to his old love--herself. We might doubt whether the author knew -it until later on in the story, were it not that the idea of ending a -novel without the marriage of the principal maiden to the man she liked -best would have been entirely foreign to Jane Austen's method. So -Frederick Wentworth danced with the Musgroves, and Anne played for -their delight. - -The dance most fully described was that given by the Westons at the -"Crown," when Mr. Elton behaved so abominably to Harriet Smith, and Mr. -Knightley showed himself a _preux chevalier_ and saved Emma's lovely -_protégée_ from the humiliation of being the only "wallflower." In -describing how Elizabeth at Netherfield, Catherine at Bath, Harriet at -Highbury, and Fanny at Mansfield Park idly watched the dancing because -no man had asked them to join it, Jane, pretty girl and excellent -dancer as she was, spoke from personal experience. Once at any rate, -when "in the pride of youth and beauty," she was able to write, after a -dance at a neighbouring house-- - - -"I do not think I was very much in request. People were rather apt not -to ask me till they {127} could not help it; one's consequence, you -know, varies so much at times without any particular reason. There was -one gentleman, an officer of the Cheshire, a very good-looking young -man, who, I was told, wanted very much to be introduced to me; but as -he did not want it quite enough to take much trouble in effecting it, -we never could bring it about." - - -She would not, if she could help it, dance with bad partners. "One of -my gayest actions," she writes after a ball, "was sitting down two -dances in preference to having Lord Bolton's eldest son for my partner, -who danced too ill to be endured." - -It is in connection with one of the Westons' parties that Mr. Woodhouse -makes his sage observations on the eternal question of ventilation. -When Frank Churchill says that the fresh air difficulty will be settled -by their dancing in a large room, so that the windows need not be -opened, because "it is that dreadful habit of opening the windows, -letting in cold air upon heated bodies, which does the mischief," Mr. -Woodhouse cries-- - - -"'Open the windows! but surely, Mr. Churchill, nobody would think of -opening the windows at Randalls. Nobody could be so imprudent! I -never heard of such a thing. Dancing with open windows! I am sure -neither your father nor {128} Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was) -would suffer it.' - -"'Ah! sir--but a thoughtless young person will sometimes step behind a -window-curtain, and throw up a sash, without its being suspected. I -have often known it done myself.' - -"'Have you, indeed, sir? Bless me! I never could have supposed it. -But I live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear.'" - - -The conversation of this valetudinarian quietist is always diverting. -He suggests that Emma should leave the Coles' party before it is half -over, as it is so bad to be up late. "But, my dear sir," cried Mr. -Weston, "if Emma comes away early it will be breaking up the party." - -"And no great harm if it does," said Mr. Woodhouse. "The sooner every -party breaks up the better." - -Advancing maturity did not do much to spoil Jane's love of dances. -From Southampton, in 1809, she wrote: "Your silence on the subject of -our ball makes me suppose your curiosity too great for words. We were -very well entertained, and could have stayed longer but for the arrival -of my list shoes to convey me home, and I did not like to keep them -waiting in the cold." - -[Illustration: A letter of Jane Austen's] - -{129} - -If Jane tells Cassandra about her own dances, she is ever ready in -return for news of Cassandra's. "I shall be extremely anxious to hear -the event of your ball, and shall hope to receive so long and minute an -account of every particular that I shall be tired of reading it.... We -were at a ball on Saturday I assure you. We dined at Goodnestone and -in the evening danced two country dances and the Boulangeries." This -French dance, by the way, was on the unwritten programme at Mr. -Bingley's ball, in _Pride and Prejudice_. It seems to have had its -birth in the Revolution, when the bakers, men and women together, kept -themselves warm by joining hands and dancing up and down the streets. - -After Jane Fairfax had sung herself hoarse at the Coles' party-- - - -"The proposal of dancing--originating nobody exactly knew where--was so -effectually promoted by Mr. and Mrs. Cole that everything was rapidly -clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs. Weston, capital in her -country dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible waltz; and -Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to Emma, had -secured her hand, and led her up to the top, (where) she led off the -dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment." - - -{130} - -The waltz was a novelty still in those days, and seems here to be -classed as a country dance. It had been imported from Germany, where -Mozart had done much to forward its triumph, after Jane Austen had -written her earlier novels, and I cannot remember any other reference -to it in her work. It was at first considered an "improper" dance, and -one need not be surprised that a generation which had danced nothing -more intimate than the "boulangeries" was at first a little flustered -by the new fashion. Sheridan, watching the dancers in a ball-room, -repeated the following lines of his own composition, which aptly -suggest the contrast between the old dancing and the new as it struck -the eyes of our great-grand-aunts about the time when Emma danced at -the "Crown" and Jane Austen at Goodnestone. - - "With tranquil step, and timid, downcast glance, - Behold the well-paired couple now advance. - In such sweet posture our first parents moved, - While, hand in hand, through Eden's bowers they roved, - Ere yet the Devil, with promise fine and false, - Turn'd their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz." - - -Little wonder, when a waltz was regarded as forbidden fruit, if Edmund -Bertram, Fanny, and Sir Thomas were shocked at the very idea of -play-acting by the family and guests at Mansfield Park. {131} Not that -there were wanting plenty of quiet souls who were in nowise personally -distressed at the "impropriety" of the waltz on their own account, just -as, in the other matter of amateur theatricals, and the choice of a -play, when Lady Bertram asked her children not to "act anything -improper," it was not because she had any personal objection to offer, -but because "Sir Thomas would not like it." - -The Bertrams' ill-fated theatricals, and the waltz which Mrs. Weston -played, serve to emphasize the place which Jane Austen fills as an -historian of the transition from the formal prudery of the sceptical -eighteenth century to the broader liberties of the scientific -nineteenth. "What is become of all the shyness in the world?" she asks -her sister in 1807; "shyness and the sweating sickness have given way -to confidence and paralytic complaints." Morals change but little as -compared with _moeurs_. The girls who act in private theatricals every -winter and dance twenty waltzes a night half the year round are no whit -less virtuous than their great-grandmothers who were shocked at the -waltz, and caught cold in clothes which were so thin that, as a close -observer has recorded, you could "see the gleam of their {132} -garter-buckles" through the silks and kerseymeres as they danced, and -altogether so suitable for a classical revival that a contemporary poet -was moved to utter the quatrain-- - - "When dressed for the evening the girls now-a-days, - Scarce an atom of dress on them leave; - Nor blame them, for what is an evening dress - But a dress that is suited to Eve." - -Thus the mother of mankind is accused by one poet of having danced the -first waltz, and held responsible by another for the airy fashions of -the Récamier period. - -One of the principal differences of etiquette, we may note before -passing on, between the customs of the ball-room a century ago and now, -was that in the days when John Lyford was eluded with so much -difficulty a girl danced two successive dances with the same partner as -a matter of course, so that neither an imaginary John Thorpe nor a real -John Lyford could be got rid of by the promise of one dance. - -The scraps from the letters, given on the last few pages, help us to -realize how clearly Jane Austen's own life is at times reflected in her -books. - - - - -{135} - -IV - -ETHICS AND OPTIMISM - -Dr. Whately on Jane Austen--"Moral lessons" of her novels--Charge of -"Indelicacy"--Marriage as a profession--A "problem" novel--"The -Nostalgia of the Infinite"--The "whitewashing" of Willoughby--_Lady -Susan_ condemned by its author--_The Watsons_--Change in manners--No -"heroes"--Woman's love--The Prince Regent--_The Quarterly Review_. - - -"The moral lessons of this lady's novels," wrote Archbishop Whately in -his _Quarterly_ article of 1821, "though clearly and impressively -conveyed, are not offensively put forward, but spring incidentally from -the circumstances of the story." So inoffensively, indeed, are they -offered to our notice, that Dr. Whately himself seems to have been -unable to discover them at all. "On the whole," writes the Archbishop, -"Miss Austin's (_sic_) works may safely be recommended, not only as -among the most unexceptionable of their class, but as combining, in an -eminent degree, instruction with amusement, though without the direct -effort {136} at the former, of which we have complained, as sometimes -defeating its object." - -The most obvious "moral" of Jane Austen's novels is that if you are a -heroine you need not trouble yourself about your future. You are -certain to marry a worthy man with an income sufficient for a -comfortable existence. He may be endowed with something less than a -thousand a year, like Edward Ferrars, with a couple of thousand like -Captain Wentworth, or with the ten thousand a year which made Darcy -appear so admirable to Mrs. Bennet. In any case you will not have to -eat bread-and-scrape or go without a fire in your bedroom. The -Country-house Comedy of Jane Austen is full of morals if you are in -need of them, but it was not written to improve you, only to amuse -you--and its maker. If you must have a clear moral for each story, -after the manner of tracts, you may take them thus. _Pride and -Prejudice_ conveys the useful lesson that the person you most dislike -in one month may be the one you will very sensibly give your affection -to in the next; _Sense and Sensibility_ that when the bad man falls -into the pit he has dug for himself, the good man comes by his own; -_Emma_ that the {137} man whose society is most necessary to a woman's -quiet contentment is the man she ought to marry; _Mansfield Park_ that -a simple, unaffected girl who gains the second place in a man's -affections may win the prize through the disqualification of her more -brilliant rival; _Persuasion_ that nothing is more likely to revive an -old passion than to see its object warmly admired by some other -eligible party; _Northanger Abbey_ that a tuft-hunting father may be -induced to receive a daughter-in-law of no importance by the kindly -influence of a son-in-law of superior rank. As for _Lady Susan_, the -moral of that unpleasing story is that if a worldly _mater pulchra_ is -the rival in love of an ingenuous _filia pulchrior_ she will probably -lose the battle after much suffering on either side; and from _The -Watsons_ we may see that if a girl is educated above her family she -will find it hard to be happy beside the domestic hearth. All these -are plain workable morals. Whether the author of the novels would have -endorsed them we cannot certainly know, but it is more than probable -she would not. - -We need not suppose that Jane Austen was ignorant of the coarseness of -conversation, the {138} hard-drinking, the wild gambling, the moral -laxity of a large section of society that are so frequently exhibited -in the records of the age, in spite of the improvement in manners. But -we can hardly help laughing at the objection taken to her novels even -by some of her contemporaries, that they were "indelicate"! The -"indelicacy" was usually found in the views of marriage held and -expressed by the heroines and their families. The love-affairs of -these country maidens were not often, we must admit, such as to steal -away their beauty sleep or spoil their appetites for breakfast. Mrs. -Jennings' kindly endeavour to cure a girl's disappointment in love by a -variety of sweetmeats and olives, and a good fire, was perhaps not -wholly unjustified by experience. In those days, when no profession -save that of governess was open to women, when nursing the sick was -regarded as an occupation specially suitable for those of a low class, -when no door opened from the drawing-room on to the professional stage, -and when the very idea of a "female" as secretary to a man of affairs -or of business would have been condemned as "improper," marriage was -undoubtedly viewed by most people as the only aim {139} of a young -woman, "the pleasantest preservative from want," as Charlotte Lucas -regarded it, and, moreover, the average age of brides was much lower -than it is now-a-days. To avoid being a governess by attracting the -admiration of a man who could afford a wife was the hope, at least, of -most poorly endowed girls, and even if matrimony is not viewed with so -much sentiment and reserve by Jane Austen's heroines as by the -excessively squeamish Evelina, we may be inclined to prefer the -"indelicacy" of Jane Austen to the elaborate, delicacy of Fanny Burney. -Scott himself, by an ingenious paradox, has been accused--as a -novelist--of immorality, and _Quentin Durward_ in particular described -as "one of the most immoral novels that has even been written," because -its romance expresses nothing. The interest a boy takes in its -romantic passages "depends on the fact that he dreams himself to be in -similar circumstances; he must treat the novel subjectively, and it is -the subjective use of the imagination which does all the damage. It is -in reading such books as this that a bad habit of mind is begun, and -_Quentin Durward_ is more immoral for a boy of fourteen than a -translation of the most {140} shockingly indecent French novel." Well -may the anonymous writer of this unexpected criticism add: "There are -paradoxes to be met everywhere, and most of all in the question of -morality." This particular kind of immorality has not yet, so far as I -know, been charged against Jane Austen. She cannot be justly accused -of writing romance which "expresses nothing," but she certainly leaves -plenty of opportunity for young readers to exercise their imaginations, -and thus begin a "bad habit of mind." - -The view of marriage as a profession, with or without ardent affection, -is not the only thing that has shocked the delicacy of many of Jane -Austen's readers. Serious objection has been taken to her introduction -of episodes of an "improper" nature. How is the charge supported? -Lydia Bennet, a vulgar, badly brought-up girl still in her teens, -infatuated with the red coats of the militia officers, insists on going -away with Wickham, and lives with him as his mistress until, by the -generous aid of Darcy, and the determination of the Gardiners--her -uncle and aunt--"a marriage is arranged" and does "shortly take place." -This episode, say the stern critics, was (1) unnecessary to the plot, -{141} and (2) if it was necessary, it is too much insisted on and -developed. That it is an essential part of the little plot, worked in -to exhibit the best side of Darcy's character, which before has only -been seen in its least attractive light, seems to me obvious, and I -agree with Professor Saintsbury's opinion that it brings about the -_dénouement_ with complete propriety. Lydia's entire indifference to -the moral aspect of her conduct is and was unusual in a girl of sixteen -and of her class, but her character from first to last is consistently -drawn, and the contrast between the selfishness of Wickham and Lydia, -who care nothing for any one's happiness except their own, and not even -for each other's, and the sympathy of heart and variety of temperament -which bring Elizabeth and Darcy together is admirably drawn. - -Then we are asked to be shocked at the illustration of the bad -character and selfish cruelty of Willoughby given to Elinor Dashwood by -the very worthy and very dull Colonel Brandon in _Sense and -Sensibility_. It is a painful story. Willoughby, the faithless lover -of Marianne Dashwood, had seduced an impressionable girl whom Brandon, -out of affection for the memory of her {142} mother, herself ruined by -a scoundrel, had practically adopted, and whom such scandal-mongers as -Mrs. Jennings declared to be the Colonel's own child. "Why drag in -this nasty story?" ask the objectors, and above all, "why allow the -Colonel to pour it into the ears of a young girl like Elinor?" That it -comes unfortunately from Brandon, who is a rival--hopeless as it had -seemed--of Willoughby for Marianne's affection, and that in the -middle-class society of to-day a well-bred man would not tell such a -tale to a girl if he could find any other means of achieving an -imperative object is undeniable. - -What was Brandon to do? He knew that Marianne was pining for love of a -man at least as unworthy of her as, in his worst days, was Tom Jones of -Sophia, and he believed, with or without reason, that the knowledge of -Willoughby's character would be a bitter but efficacious medicine for -her heart-sickness. Elinor, the sensible, prudent, devoted sister, -seemed the only person to whom he could tell the story with any hope -that it would be discreetly used. "He had spent many hours in -convincing himself that he was right," and when Elinor said, "I -understand you, you have {143} something to tell me of Mr. Willoughby -that will open his character farther. Your telling it will be the -greatest act of friendship that can be shown to Marianne. My gratitude -will be ensured immediately by any information tending to that end, and -hers must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray let me hear it," there -is little reason for wonder that "upon this hint he spake," and told -the story of the moral ruin of the mother and the cruel desertion of -the daughter which the reader of _Sense and Sensibility_ will recall, -Elinor lost little time in retailing it to her sister, with the -immediate and apparently unexpected effect of increasing the girl's -unhappiness. "She felt the loss of Willoughby's character yet more -heavily than she had felt the loss of his heart," though we know that -she soon afterwards became as fond a wife of Colonel Brandon as she -ever could have been of Willoughby. - -Far more remarkable, I think, than Brandon's telling Elinor the -miserable story of his sister-in-law and her daughter is the manner in -which Elinor herself receives Willoughby's attempt to excuse his -conduct. He admits his treatment of Miss Williams, but asks how Elinor -could think {144} Colonel Brandon an impartial reporter of the affair, -and proceeds to offer his own excuse in the words that follow-- - - -"I do not mean to justify myself, but at the same time cannot leave you -to suppose that I have nothing to urge,--that because she was injured, -she was irreproachable,--and because I was a libertine, she must be a -saint. If the violence of her passion, the weakness of her -understanding--I do not mean, however, to defend myself. Her affection -for me deserved better treatment, and I often, with great -self-reproach, recall the tenderness which, for a very short time, had -the power of creating any return. I wish--I heartily wish it had never -been. But I have injured more than herself; and I have injured one -whose affection for me (may I say it?) was scarcely less warm than -hers, and whose mind--oh! how infinitely superior." - - -In other words, the inexperienced child was of weak understanding, and -loved him passionately, and therefore he was not so much to blame as if -she had been less warm in her affection and stronger in her -intelligence. Surely the reasoning should have been reversed. Yet -after this fine oration Elinor "pities" him, and, when he goes on to -disparage his wife, whom he has married for {145} her fortune, and to -express his continued love for Marianne, all that Elinor says is, "You -are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby, very blamable, you ought not to speak -in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my sister," and in saying -this "her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate -emotion." When he left her, Elinor assured him that she thought better -of him than she had done, "that she forgave, pitied him, wished him -well--was even interested in his happiness--and added some gentle -counsel as to the behaviour most likely to promote it;" counsel which -he showed little disposition to take. - -This tolerance by Elinor for a man who, on his own admission, had -"taken advantage" of a simple young girl, ignorant in the world's ways, -this readiness to allow extenuating circumstances to a mercenary -breaker of reputations and hearts, is a far more serious fact than the -mere introduction of a story which does fit quite easily into the plan -of the novel. Elinor's reflections when Willoughby had ended his -apologies sufficiently show that the point of view suggested in the -duologue between the sinner and the sister was deliberately set up by -the author-- - - -{146} - -"She made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the -irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent -habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the -character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person -and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a -feeling, affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and -vain; extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. -Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, -had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least -its offspring necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty -propensity, in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment. -The attachment from which, against honour, against feeling, against -every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no -longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the -sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery, -was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more -incurable nature." - - -The chapter describing this interview between Willoughby and Elinor is -the only one in all the novels of Jane Austen wherein a "problem," -after the kind dear to the dramatist of to-day and the novelists of -yesterday, is fully presented and {147} considered, the heroines, with -this exception, answering to Mr. Andrew Lang's description, being -"ignorant of evil, as it seems, and unacquainted with vain yearnings -and interesting doubts." Elinor only, as we find her on this occasion, -is a pioneer of that school of sociology which whitewashes the -individual at the expense of his early environment and education. Her -defence of this wretched man is, in principle, that which an Old Bailey -advocate offers when he cites the theories of Lombroso in favour of a -beetle-browed criminal who has stuck his knife into the breast of some -confiding woman. It was "the world" that had made him what he was, he -was to be pitied, not condemned. - -Though we have not to consider here whether Elinor and the advocate are -right or wrong, it is hard to avoid the thought that, when she wrote -this remarkable chapter, Jane Austen was influenced in a degree quite -unusual in that age with people of her class by the sense of futility -which, not long before her day, had been the motive of _Candide_. -Voltaire's irony is bitter, in spite of the optimism which his book -preaches, and of the essential kindness of his nature, while Jane -Austen's is as sweet {148} as irony can ever be. That she was -intentionally ironical in this case of Elinor's tolerance is scarcely -possible. Only a cynic would treat a pure-minded maiden's apology for -a heartless seducer as a subject for covert satire, and Jane was not a -cynic. - -Writing of Maria Edgeworth in his _Notes for a Diary_, Sir M. E. Grant -Duff says: "In her, as in Miss Austen, there is something wanting. Is -it what has been called the _nostalgie de l'Infini_?" That -intellectual ailment is more common now-a-days than it was in the -eighteenth century, and there was little of it in the grey matter of -any country brains when Jane was born. Certainly it cannot be -diagnosed from her work generally. Only in the particular case of -Elinor and Willoughby does that idea of the helplessness of man in the -maelstrom of Infinity which has paralyzed the wills of so many unhappy -victims, and induced the devastating literature of determinism, seem to -have entered into her plan of work--for only thus can I account for the -moral whitewashing of Willoughby, not by a "man-of-the-world," with his -"after all," and his "human nature" arguments, but by a country -ingénue. The more I {149} read Jane Austen's writings the stronger -grows my conviction that she was one of those fortunate beings whose -optimism is differentiated from pessimism by the good offices of an -excellent digestion and an even pulse. - -We need not suppose that she had thought much about the philosophical -sanction of conduct as opposed to the purely religious, or that she had -studied the French _Encyclopædia_. She was born and brought up in an -atmosphere wherein convention, in regard to the things that matter, was -almost omnipotent, and she was not of the type whereof iconoclasts are -made. She attacked no system, social or religious; but she had no -fondness for "isms," and thus it is that dogmatism is quite as hard to -discover in her writings as scepticism. - -It has been said already that Jane Austen was not a cynic. Yet it -would be easy, by making _Lady Susan_ one's text, and ignoring the rest -of her writings, to show that she was as cynical as a Swift or an -Anatole France. Of course I do not mean that her apparent cynicism in -this case was exercised on the kind of subjects which is ridiculed in -_The Tale of a Tub_ or in _L'Ile des {150} Pingouins_. But I know -nothing, in its way, more cold-blooded in the presentation of "love" -than the conclusion of that novel of Jane's springtime, which she -herself, her own wise critic, withheld from publication. The rivalry -of mother and daughter for the affections of the same man must always -be an unpleasant subject, and the story of the conflict between Lady -Susan Vernon and her daughter for the matrimonial prize represented by -Reginald de Courcy, as told in letters among the characters concerned, -is on a low plane. The morals of the "heroine" may not be suspect, but -her tone is below suspicion. - -What is the _dénouement_ of _Lady Susan_? The mother's schemes to -marry the man of the daughter's choice have ended in her own marriage -to the wealthy noodle whom she had tried to force upon the daughter. -"Frederica," says the author,--dropping the "correspondence" plan in -order to wind up the book more readily--"was therefore fixed in the -family of her uncle and aunt till such time as Reginald de Courcy could -be talked, flattered and finessed into an affection for her which, -allowing leisure for the conquest of his attachment to her mother, for -his abjuring all future {151} attachments, and detesting the sex, might -be reasonably looked for in the course of a twelve-month. Three months -might have done it in general, but Reginald's feelings were no less -lasting than lively. Whether Lady Susan was or was not happy in her -second choice, I do not see how it can ever be ascertained...." - -It is certain that to some considerable extent _Lady Susan_ was a -satire on several lady novelists of the period. All Jane Austen's -novels are more or less satirical, from _Northanger Abbey_, which is -full of burlesque passages, to _Persuasion_, in which they are so rare -that it needs a hunt to discover any. Whether or not _Lady Susan_ was -intended to be taken more seriously than in jest, it is a dull -performance. The whole plan and treatment of the book are artificial. -It was not Jane's natural instinct or her finer art which was at work -in its making. So foreign is it to herself that if the MS. had been -found in some cupboard of a manor-house no occupants of which had been -of known relationship to the Austens, I doubt if it would have been -attributed to her by any one who had not made a meticulous comparison -of its phraseology with her acknowledged works. - -{152} - -There is, I think, no surer evidence of Jane's fine taste, alike in -character and in literature, than that, having brought this novel to -completion, she deliberately suppressed it. Had she sold it to a -publisher, and allowed it to run its chance of popularity like the rest -of her finished novels, we should have had to revise our views on her -nature and judgment to a considerable extent. As it is, the fact that -having written a poor novel of disagreeable tendency she recognized the -unsatisfactory thing that she had done in time to cancel it is much in -her favour, and justifies the opinion that whatever defects of subject -or of treatment we may find in _Lady Susan_ were condemned by its -author. It is for this reason that we need not regret the decision of -her nephew and niece to publish, many years after their aunt's death, -the book which she herself had withheld. Only, let us never forget as -we read it that it was cancelled by the author. - -_The Watsons_ was produced, as far as can be ascertained, in that -middle period of Jane's life when, after her father's resignation of -the Steventon living he was spending his few remaining years at Bath -with his wife and daughters. Having {153} written three of her six -novels in the nineties of the eighteenth century--the six novels by -which she chose to be judged--at Steventon, she produced nothing more -of her best until at Chawton, in the early years of the nineteenth -century, she completed her life's work. - -All her books that live by their own merits were written in the heart -of the country. The book that comes nearest to the commonest fiction -of her period was chiefly written in a town which, however staid and -irreproachable in its tone at the present date, was in her time a -centre of worldliness and frivolity. - -_The Rivals_ was first acted in the year of Jane Austen's birth, but -the picture it offers of Bath society is almost as true of 1802 as of -1775. Dress had changed much in the intervening years, but in all else -there seems to have been little change between the Bath of Sheridan the -lover of Elizabeth Linley, and the Bath of Sheridan the friend of the -Prince Regent. It was among Lydia Languishes and Captain Absolutes -that Jane Austen walked in Milsom Street and danced at the -Assembly-rooms in 1802-5, and it was in an atmosphere of social -affectation and busy idleness that she found {154} her powers unequal -to any nobler performance than the account of the husband-hunting and -silly young women who angle for Lord Osborne and his friends. The -futilities of _The Watsons_ form a remarkable interlude between _Pride -and Prejudice_ and _Mansfield Park_. - -The rural society into which Jane Austen takes us in all her novels -marks a rapid development from the manners of the preceding age. If we -regard the Squire Western of Fielding as representative of a -considerable class of the country gentlemen of his time, we may wonder -how it is that no such rude disturber of the peace bursts in among the -Woodhouses and the Dashwoods. His nearest relation in Jane's novels is -Sir John Middleton, and he, with all his noise and ignorance, is a -quiet, well-bred person in comparison with the rude father of the -delicious Sophia. Even the less rubicund and animal squire of the -Hardcastle species is here unknown, and Squire Allworthy himself would -have been strange in the drawing-rooms of Mansfield Park and Pemberley, -or the parlours of Longbourn and Hartfield. There is less change to be -seen in the "manners and tone" of the women, especially the younger -{155} women, than of the men. Sophia and Amelia would have used a few -expressions, perhaps, that might have made Emma stare and cry "Good -God!" or the fine colour deepen on Elizabeth's cheeks, and Marianne -Dashwood would have confided to Elinor her astonishment that such -otherwise attractive girls should be so ignorant of the poets, and of -the proper arrangement of natural scenery. Had the girls become -confidential on further acquaintance, Sophia might have wondered why -Elizabeth said so little about the appearance of her lover, and so much -about his intelligence. But Tom Jones and Booth would never have got -on intimate terms with Knightley, or Darcy, or Edward Ferrars, until -these Austen young men had drunk more port than anybody in Jane's -novels--with the exception of John Thorpe as described by -himself--could carry without disaster. - -There are no "heroes" among these honest gentlemen of a hundred years -ago. Wentworth has indeed won credit and fortune at sea. Bertram and -Knightley do nothing to entitle them to the name, beyond marrying the -heroine. Edward Ferrars merely behaves properly in keeping faith {156} -with Lucy as long as she wants him. Darcy is heroic in taking Mrs. -Bennet for a mother-in-law; Henry Tilney makes fun of his chosen mate -in a way that would have cost him her heart in a more conventional -novel. "Il y a des héros en mal comme en bien," says Rochefoucauld, -but of the evil-doing kind there are none here, unless, indeed, the -effrontery with which, after jilting Marianne for a rich wife, -Willoughby comes to her sister Elinor and asks for her sympathy for his -sad fate, or the coolness of Wickham in the presence of the people he -has wronged may be regarded as evidence of heroism. - -It is to the wonderfully true presentation of the hearts and minds of -girls that these novels chiefly owe their immense power of attraction -even for readers who miss the greater part of the humour. Fanny Price -and Elinor Dashwood are themselves but poorly endowed with humour, and -Catherine Morland only possesses it in the rudimentary way of a lively -school-girl. With how much of understanding, how clearly and fully are -the hopes and fears, the innocent little plans of Fanny and Catherine, -the more mature and reasoned ways of Elinor shown to us, without the -least apparent effort. - -{157} - -The trustful reader nurtured on the successful fiction of our own time, -especially that of the last ten years, during which English novelists -have been able to indulge themselves and their public by the -introduction of incidents and types of character which up to about the -commencement of that decade would have secured the ban of the -circulating libraries, has been led to believe that sensual impulse -plays as large a part in woman's life as in man's. That such women as -Lady Bellaston in _Tom Jones_, Arabelle in _Le Lys dans la Vallée_, or -the Bellona of _Richard Feverel_ exist, and in great numbers, is -certain, but they are not representative of woman. Balzac, who was -not: much restrained by any fear of the libraries, knew that many -faithless wives (so very common in French fiction and drama, whatever -they might be in life) gave themselves to men their love for whom -contained much less of sensuality than of other instincts. Esther, the -unhappy Jewess of _Splendeurs et Misèes de Courtisanes_, loves Lucien -with an affection far more chaste than that which many a correct -heroine is made to display for the man with whom she goes to the altar -in the last chapter. The mistresses of famous men, as known to us from -memoirs and histories, have not {158} generally been of a sensual -nature. Aspasia, most distinguished of them all, was of the -intellectual, not the sensual, type. Strangely indelicate as was -Madame du Châtelet, her relations with Voltaire were based on affinity -of literary taste and critical appreciation much more than on physical -attraction. Even among the unintellectual women who have figured among -the _grandes amoureuses_ of history, the passion of the woman does not -in most instances appear to have been of the coarser kind. Louise de -la Vallière is at least more typical of womanhood than Barbara Villiers. - -Emma Woodhouse, deeply distressed at the supposed intention of -Knightley to marry Harriet Smith, feels that she cares not what may -happen, if he will but remain single all his life. "Could she be -secure of that, indeed, of his never marrying at all, she believed she -should be perfectly satisfied. Let him but continue the same Mr. -Knightley to her and her father, the same Mr. Knightley to all the -world; let Donwell and Hartfield lose none of their precious -intercourse of friendship and confidence, and her peace would be fully -secured. Marriage, in fact, would not do for her." Marriage, we know, -"did for her" very {159} well, and not at all, so far as we have her -story, in the idiomatic sense in which the words are commonly used. -But in this healthy maiden, who could regard with equanimity a future -wherein the man she liked best should never be more to her than a dear -friend who dropped in for tea or supper, we have an effective -illustration of the relative insignificance of passion in Jane Austen's -view of life. - -Emma Woodhouse has near relations in Elinor Dashwood and Edward -Ferrars, who, after the marriage of Lucy Steele to Robert Ferrars had -cleared away the only barrier to their own avowals of affection, "were -neither of them quite enough in love to think that three hundred and -fifty pounds a year would supply them with the comforts of life." -Kitty and Lydia Bennet could simultaneously adore all the officers of a -militia regiment, but there was nothing of the "all for love, and the -world well lost" nonsense about any of the agreeable women of Jane -Austen's creation. They were not to be captured by a man's attractions -of mind and person in the way that Millamant was by Mirabell's, nor -even by the art of others, as Beatrice was won for {160} Benedick--and -he for her. The names of Millamant and Beatrice were in the ancestral -tree of Elizabeth Bennet, but her pulses beat more regularly than -theirs. - -In the effect of Mary Crawford's charms on Edmund Bertram we may see -some pale suggestion of such an awakening as that of Robert Orange (in -_The School for Saints_), who, on meeting with Brigit, "suddenly had -found presented to him a mind and a nature in such complete harmony -with his own that it had seemed as though he were the words and she the -music, of one song." But it was only a "seeming" in Edmund's case, and -while we read Jane Austen our thoughts are rarely allowed to flow into -a "Romeo and Juliet" channel for more than a few moments at a time. - -The re-awakening of Wentworth's dormant love for Anne Elliot would have -afforded to most lady novelists an opportunity for some fine, romantic -writing. Jane Austen allows herself no romance in the matter. The sea -air at Lyme has heightened Anne's colour, and a passing visitor--her -cousin, as it happens--is attracted by her appearance. Wentworth -notices his glances of admiration and is _reminded_ that she is -charming! - -{161} - -"When they came to the steps leading upwards from the beach, a -gentleman, at the same moment preparing to come down, politely drew -back and stopped to give them way. They ascended and passed him; and -as they passed, Anne's face caught his eye, and he looked at her with a -degree of earnest admiration which she could not be insensible of. She -was looking remarkably well; her very regular, very pretty features -having the bloom and freshness of youth restored by the fine wind which -had been blowing on her complexion, and by the animation of eye which -it had also produced. It was evident that the gentleman (completely a -gentleman in manner) admired her exceedingly. Captain Wentworth looked -round at her instantly in a way which showed his noticing of it. He -gave her a momentary glance--a glance of brightness which seemed to -say, 'That man is struck with you'--and even I, at this moment, see -something like Anne Elliot again." - - -This scene may be deficient in the sentiment that delights Catherine -Morlands and Marianne Dashwoods, but it is a bit of true observation of -a familiar phase of human folly. Archbishop Whately remarks that: -"Authoresses ... can scarcely ever forget that they _are authoresses_. -They seem to feel a sympathetic shudder at exposing naked a female -mind. _Elles se peignent en buste_, and {162} leave the mysteries of -womanhood to be described by some interloping male, like Richardson or -Marivaux, who is turned out before he has seen half the rites, and is -forced to spin from his own conjectures the rest. Now from this fault -Miss Austin is free. Her heroines are what one knows women must be, -though one never can get them to acknowledge it." It is a striking -proof of the little that was known of Jane Austen by her contemporaries -that, even four years after her death, neither Whately himself, nor the -editor of the _Quarterly Review_ knew how to spell her name. - -The criticism that the mind brought up on modern fiction would be -likely to make on the girls of Jane Austen would be the reverse of -Whately's. It would be that her chief defect in depicting woman's -character was that she almost invariably did force the reader to spin -from his own conjectures when the "mysteries of the heart" were the -subject of her pages. The truth is divided, I think, between the -Archbishop and the supposed modern critic. Jane's heroines are true -women, admirably portrayed, but they only represent a certain -proportion of their sex. It could never be suspected of Elizabeth, or -Elinor, {163} or Anne, or Fanny that there was Southern blood in her -veins. There might have been a few drops--no more--in Marianne's. The -feelings of the author are reflected in her most attractive characters. -She might have married, again and again, of that there can be small -doubt; and while for herself she shared Dorothy Osborne's opinion as to -the essentials of conjugal happiness, I fancy that she would also have -agreed with Dorothy's brother that "all passions have more of trouble -than satisfaction in them, and therefore they are happiest that have -least of them." That, indeed, as we have already seen, was very much -the fault that Miss Brontë found in her as a novelist. - -Anne Elliot comes nearer than any of her fellow-heroines to Dorothy -Osborne's ideal of the changelessness of affection, the true union of -hearts, but, save for her involuntary tears at the Musgroves', she kept -her feelings under the most perfect control, and never, we may be sure, -tried to beat her convictions into the heads of her silly family, or -even of her faithful friend Lady Russell. - -There were, we may fairly believe, not a few who would like to have -been Jane's chosen mate. {164} One such unhappy being seems, as we -read, to be the actor in the little bit of serious comedy related, with -lively exaggeration, in a letter written when she was twenty-five years -old. "Your unfortunate sister was betrayed last Thursday into a -situation of the utmost cruelty. I arrived at Ashe Park before the -party from Deane, and was shut up in the drawing-room with Mr. Holder -alone for ten minutes. I had some thoughts of insisting on the -housekeeper or Mary Corbett being sent for, and nothing could prevail -on me to move two steps from the door, on the lock of which I kept one -hand constantly fixed." - -Elizabeth Bennet was not more uncomfortable when her mother took Kitty -up-stairs after breakfast in order that Mr. Collins might have what he -called "The honour of a private audience" with the elder girl. "Dear -ma'am," Elizabeth cried, "do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. -Collins must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody -need not hear. I am going away myself." But her mother's, "Lizzy, I -_insist_ upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins," compelled her to -remain, with results for which we must ever be grateful to {165} Mrs. -Bennet. It is not clear, however, that Mr. Holder was a suitor for -Jane. We are left in doubt both as to his hopes and his demerits. - -There is a little matter connected with the _Quarterly's_ two articles -in praise of Jane which is perhaps worth noting here. Gifford, who was -editor when both appeared, was so warm a supporter of the Prince Regent -that Hazlitt--one of Gifford's "beasts"--wrote in an open letter to -him: "When you damn an author, one knows that he is not a favourite at -Carlton House." Now the Prince is said to have been so fond of Jane -Austen's novels that he kept a set in each of his residences, and it is -unquestionable that, in consequence of a suggestion that was -"equivalent to a command," she dedicated Emma to him. "You will be -pleased to hear," she wrote on April 1, 1816, to John Murray the First, -who published the book, "that I have received the Prince's thanks for -the _handsome_ copy I sent him of 'Emma.' Whatever he may think of -_my_ share of the work, yours seems to have been quite right." - -In the same letter she expresses her disappointment at the "total -omission of 'Mansfield Park'" {166} in the _Quarterly's_ review of her -work in the preceding autumn. As to that review, it is a curious fact -that until Lockhart's "Life of Scott" appeared, Whately, who wrote the -1821 article, was credited with the authorship of the earlier review, -and it is still to be found against his name in the British Museum -catalogue, not from the ignorance of the cataloguers, but because he -appears as author on the title-page of a reprint of the article issued -at Ahmedabad in 1889. - - - - -{169} - -V - -THE IMPARTIAL SATIRIST - -What has woman done?--"Nature's Salic law"--Women deficient in -satire--Some types in the novels--The female snob--The -valetudinarian--The fop--The too agreeable man--"Personal size and -mental sorrow"--Knightley's opinion of Emma--Ashamed of relations--Mrs. -Bennet--The clergy and their opinions--Worldly life--Absence of -dogma--Authors confused with their creations. - - -It is a commonplace of those who refuse to recognize the claims of -woman to equal treatment in spheres of activity where man has long held -a monopoly, to ask what great thing has woman done in any walk of life? -One may talk in reply of Sappho, of Joan of Arc, of George Sand, of -George Eliot, of Florence Nightingale, and two or three others, and the -retort, if the greatness of these be admitted, is that they are the -exceptions that "prove" the rule. It is difficult, impossible perhaps, -to upset the man who denies that anything of "the greatest" in art, or -literature, or science has been achieved by a woman. The list {170} of -women who have left an abiding fame as poets, or novelists, or painters -is soon exhausted, and there is not a name that can, without reserve, -be placed among the Rembrandts and Turners, the Goethes and Miltons, -the Newtons and Darwins of mankind. Maybe this deficiency is largely -due to lack of opportunity. Since the gates were partly opened to -woman, within the lifetime of those who are still not old, she has done -enough to change the opinions of many who held that rocking the cradle -was a sufficiently active share in the ruling of the world for the sex -that produced the Maid of Orleans and the Lady with the Lamp. Such -justly conspicuous success as Madame Curie has attained in chemistry, -or Mrs. Garrett Anderson in medicine, or Mrs. Scharlieb in surgery, has -compelled the admission that even if woman were by nature unfitted to -reach the highest levels of intellectual achievement, she at least -could not be excluded from the learned professions on the ground of -inadequate mental equipment. - -"Nature's old Salic law," said Huxley, "will not be repealed, and no -change of dynasty will be effected." Jane Austen, at any rate, did not -{171} desire to repeal it. She was among the most feminine of the -women writers who have left an enduring reputation. It is something of -a paradox, therefore, that the quality on which her fame chiefly rests -is one which is rare among women, and in which most of those women who -have attained success in literature have been conspicuously -lacking--satirical humour. Apart from physical disabilities, want of -humour is woman's heaviest handicap in the conflict of life. Humour is -the principal ingredient of the philosophic temperament. Woman has -courage in adversity, she can suffer intensely without complaint, but -she rarely possesses the power of laughing at her own misfortunes. - -It has been said, and the saying might not easily be gainsaid, that -none of the great jokes of the world was made by a woman. There are -perhaps fifty great jokes--spoken jokes, of course, are meant, not -those generally humourless things known as "practical jokes"--and the -good stories that are told and received as novelties are, save in the -rarest instances, merely new editions of some wheeze which was already -ancient when it was told to a circle of mead-drinkers round a fire -{172} the smoke whereof--or some of it--escaped through the roof. It -is, there is reason to believe, no mere figure of speech that -originally most of the basic jokes were told round the galley fire of -the Ark during the long dark evenings after the animals had been fed, -the decks swept down, and the women had retired to their quarters. -Thus may we account for the otherwise inexplicably large proportion of -sea-faring and animal tales among the mirth-provoking yarns of man. A -woman might never make a joke, and yet have a keen sense of humour, -while, on the other hand, she might make many jokes, and have no sense -of humour at all. Most of the jokes that have any element of freshness -are alive with fun, and not with humour. Who is more humourless than -the notoriously funny man? - -Jane Austen is not often funny and seldom makes jokes in her novels. -Her humour is of the essential kind, which is so nearly akin to wit -that it is often almost identical with it. Wit and humour, after all -definitions, are brothers who might be taken for one another by those -who do not notice that the one has colder hands than the other. - -{173} - -If you want to laugh heartily you must not trust to Jane's novels for a -stimulant. Her characters laugh but little among themselves, and are -the cause of intellectual joy rather than of physical contractions in -those who read about them. - -When, after a re-reading of the novels, we sit and think over their -delights, many are the admirable bits of character-drawing that come to -mind. After we have thought of the heroines, the "good" people, in the -common meaning of the word, do not come back to us so readily as those -who, if not "bad," are decidedly faulty. The Westons, the Gardiners, -the Harvilles, the Crofts, Lady Russell, the John Knightleys, we recall -when we jog our memories. After Elizabeth, and Emma, and Anne, it is -the appallingly tactless Mrs. Bennet, the odiously snobbish Mrs. Elton, -the race-proud Lady Catherine, the entirely selfish Mr. Collins, the -lazy and thoughtless Lady Bertram, the mean and tyrannical Mrs. Norris, -the fatuous Sir Walter Elliot, these and their like, who throng into -view. No writer--not even Thackeray--has realized the female snob more -knowingly than Jane Austen in Mrs. Elton, whose {174} constant -reference of all matters of taste to the standard presented by "Maple -Grove" and the "barouche-landau" renders her as diverting to us as she -was insufferable to Emma Woodhouse. A woman like this, who is never -betrayed into an unselfish action or a noble aspiration, is happily not -a common object in real life, but there are enough of Mrs. Elton's -great-granddaughters about the world to exculpate Jane from the charge -of undue exaggeration. Emma herself has been called a snob, and only -the other day was described as "perpetually acting with bad taste." -But Emma's disdain for Robert Martin, and her opinion of the -degradation of marrying a governess, were due to prejudices of -convention, which thought--under Knightley's influence--dispelled. -Mrs. Elton was a snob at heart, who revelled in her own vulgarity of -instinct. - -If the snob is portrayed to perfection in Mrs. Elton, the -valetudinarian is no less happily presented in Mr. Woodhouse--"My dear -Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel"--and for a picture of an -empty-headed, frivolous wife married to a rational and bearish husband, -the Palmers, in _Sense and Sensibility_, have few equals. As for {175} -Miss Bates, she is without a serious rival as an inconsequential -babbler, and though we may be, and ought to be, as angry with Emma for -her rudeness at the Box Hill picnic as was Mr. Knightley himself, we -must admit that years of Miss Bates's disjoined garrulity were some -set-off against that gross breach of charity and good manners. Lady -Catherine de Bourgh has been placed by some critical readers among Jane -Austen's obvious caricatures. Is she not an entirely credible, if -happily rare, type? She is seen in a strong light in her attempt to -bully Elizabeth into a promise not to marry Darcy-- - - -"'With regard to the resentment of his family,' says Elizabeth at last, -'or the indignation of the world, if the former _were_ excited by his -marrying me, it would not give me one moment's concern--and the world -in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.' - -"'And this is your real opinion!' replies Lady Catherine. 'This is -your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not -imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I -came to try you. I hoped to find you reasonable; but, depend upon it, -I will carry my point.' - -"In this manner Lady Catherine talked on till {176} they were at the -door of the carriage, when, turning hastily round, she added-- - -"'I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your -mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously -displeased.' - -"Elizabeth made no answer, and without attempting to persuade her -ladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself." - - -Thus ends one of the great scenes of Jane Austen, a bit of duologue -which gives us the natures and capacities of two remarkable people, a -charming, clear-headed, self-reliant girl, and a blustering, stupidly -proud old woman. - -Sir Walter Elliot is the companion figure, more highly-coloured, of -Lady Catherine. This man, a vain fop who has not sense enough to -govern his own affairs, regards professional men as contemptible, if -necessary, adjuncts of society, and, at a time when only the splendid -services of our sailors had saved England from disaster he thus babbles -about the navy-- - - -"Yes; it is in two points offensive to me, I have two strong grounds of -objection to it. First, as being the means of bringing persons of -obscure {177} birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honours -which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of; and, secondly, as -it cuts up a man's youth and vigour most horribly; a sailor grows old -sooner than any other man. I have observed it all my life. A man is -in greater danger in the navy of being insulted by the rise of one -whose father his father might have disdained to speak to, and of -becoming prematurely an object of disgust himself, than in any other -line. One day last spring, in town, I was in company with two men, -striking instances of what I am talking of,--Lord St. Ives, whose -father we all know to have been a country curate, without bread to eat: -I was to give place to Lord St. Ives,--and a certain Admiral Baldwin, -the most deplorable-looking personage you can imagine; his face the -colour of mahogany, rough and rugged to the last degree; all lines and -wrinkles, nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at -top. 'In the name of heaven, who is that old fellow?' said I to a -friend of mine who was standing near (Sir Basil Morley). 'Old fellow!' -cried Sir Basil, 'it is Admiral Baldwin. What do you take his age to -be?' 'Sixty,' said I, 'or perhaps sixty-two.' 'Forty,' replied Sir -Basil, 'forty, and no more.' Picture to yourselves my amazement: I -shall not easily forget Admiral Baldwin. I never saw quite so wretched -an example of what a sea-faring life can do; but to a degree, I know it -is the same with them all: they are all knocked about, and {178} -exposed to every climate, and every weather, till they are not fit to -be seen. It is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before -they reach Admiral Baldwin's age." - - -There have been such fools as Sir Walter Elliot, but as a type he is -overdrawn. Jane loved the navy so much that her anger with those who -disparaged it gave her pen speed and added colour to the ink. - -Anne's cousin William Elliot, whose attentions to her help to revive -Wentworth's affection, is more closely studied by the author than any -of her "heroes." - - -"Everything united in him; good understanding, correct opinions, -knowledge of the world, and a warm heart. He had strong feelings of -family attachment and family honour, without pride or weakness; he -lived with the liberality of a man of fortune, without display; he -judged for himself in everything essential, without defying public -opinion in any point of worldly decorum. He was steady, observant, -moderate, candid; never run away with by spirits or by selfishness, -which fancied itself strong feeling; and yet, with a sensibility to -what was amiable and lovely, and a value for all the felicities of -domestic {179} life, which characters of fancied enthusiasm and violent -agitation seldom really possess." - - -Anne, however, was not long in discovering grave defects in this -outwardly model person. She saw that while he was - - -"rational, discreet, polished, he was not open. There never was any -burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or -good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. Her early -impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, -the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did -captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon -the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a -hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose -tongue never slipped. - -"Mr. Elliot was too generally agreeable. Various as were the tempers -in her father's house, he pleased them all. He endured too well, stood -too well with everybody." - - -Those who accuse Jane Austen of hardness have sometimes relied on her -treatment of Mrs. Musgrove's sorrow over her ne'er-do-well son, long -after his death, to support this charge. Anne and Wentworth, whose -mutual liking was just {180} beginning to bloom again, were "actually -on the same sofa, for Mrs. Musgrove had most readily made room for him; -they were divided only by Mrs. Musgrove. It was no insignificant -barrier, indeed. Mrs. Musgrove was of a comfortable, substantial size, -infinitely more fitted by nature to express good cheer and good humour -than tenderness and sentiment; and while the agitations of Anne's -slender form, and pensive face, may be considered as very completely -screened, Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the -self-command with which he attended to her large fat sighings over the -destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for." And then the -author stops in her narrative to observe that "Personal size and mental -sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large, bulky figure -has as good a right to be in deep affliction as the most graceful set -of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming -conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain--which taste cannot -tolerate--which ridicule will seize." - -She thus bluntly expresses what almost every satirist merely implies, -but she underrates her own powers. The ordinary writer might or might -not {181} be able to describe the grief of "a large, bulky figure" -without offence to the ordinary "taste." Genius could assuredly do -this thing. Shakespeare, with whom Whately, Macaulay and Tennyson -compared Jane Austen, made one of his greatest characters "fat and -scant of breath," but when Hamlet says to his friend, "Thou woulds't -not think how ill all's here about my heart," we do not find it -"ridiculous" that this "too, too solid flesh" should be joined with a -mind weighted with such poignant sorrow. In any case, whether she -mistrusted her own powers, or wanted Mrs. Musgrove to be slightly -ridiculous, which seems more likely, Jane did not here strive to -achieve what she pointedly tells us it would be beyond reason to expect. - -The character of Emma is described with unusual fulness, but the -description is placed in the mouth of George Knightley, her candid -admirer, who was perhaps not guiltless of the fault which Fainall -attributed to Mirabell, of being "too discerning in the failings of his -mistress." Mrs. Weston ("Miss Taylor that was") has said that Emma -means to read with Harriet Smith-- - - -{182} - -"'Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years -old,' replies Mr. Knightley. 'I have seen a great many lists of her -drawing-up, at various times, of books that she meant to read regularly -through--and very good lists they were, very well chosen, and very -neatly arranged--sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by some other -rule. The list she drew up when only fourteen--I remember thinking it -did her judgment so much credit, that I preserved it some time, and I -dare say she may have made out a very good list now. But I have done -with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never -submit to anything requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of -the fancy to the understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, -I may safely affirm that Harriet Smith will do nothing. You never -could persuade her to read half so much as you wished. You know you -could not.' - -"'I dare say,' replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, 'that I thought so _then_; -but since we have parted, I can never remember Emma's omitting to do -anything I wished.' - -"'There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as _that_,' -said Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and for a moment or two he had done. -'But I,' he soon added, 'who have had no such charm thrown over my -senses, must still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being -the cleverest of her family. At ten years old she had the {183} -misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister -at seventeen. She was always quick and assured; Isabella slow and -diffident. And ever since she was twelve, Emma has been mistress of -the house and of you all. In her mother she lost the only person able -to cope with her.'" - - -An unhappy condition of most of Jane's heroines is that they are of -necessity ashamed of their nearest relations. Anne Elliot felt this -trouble keenly, when at length she and Wentworth decided to take the -happiness which she had refused years before-- - - -"Anne, satisfied at a very early period of Lady Russell's meaning to -love Captain Wentworth as she ought, had no other alloy to the -happiness of her prospects than what arose from the consciousness of -having no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value. -There she felt her own inferiority keenly. The disproportion in their -fortune was nothing; it did not give her a moment's regret; but to have -no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing of -respectability, of harmony, of good will, to offer in return for all -the worth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers and -sisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could {184} well be -sensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity." - - -One can readily understand her regret. Her father was a fool, her -elder sister Elizabeth a slave of convention, with few rational ideas -of her own, and her younger sister a neurotic egotist, who grudged to -others the simplest pleasures if she did not feel able or disposed to -share them. - -Fanny Price was ashamed of the slovenly home at Portsmouth to which -Henry Crawford so inopportunely penetrated. Elizabeth Bennet's mother -was, of course, more nearly "impossible" even than Lady Catherine had -so pointedly suggested, for her defects were far worse than those of -obscure birth. This terrible woman, who kept her elder daughters -constantly on the rack by her fatuous chatter, who always said the -wrong thing, who had no desire for her children's welfare but to marry -them to anybody, with money if possible, or without it rather than not -at all, made one of her usual quick changes when she heard the -surprising news of Elizabeth's engagement to Darcy-- - - -{185} - -"She began at length to recover, to fidget about in her chair, get up, -sit down again, wonder, and bless herself. - -"'Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who -would have thought it! And it is really true? Oh, my sweetest Lizzy! -how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what -carriages you will have! Jane's is nothing to it--nothing at all. I -am so pleased--so happy! Such a charming man!--so handsome! so -tall--Oh, my dear Lizzy! pray apologize for my having disliked him so -much before. I hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy! A house -in town! Everything that is charming! Three daughters married! Ten -thousand a-year! Oh, Lord! what will become of me? I shall go -distracted.' - -"This was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted; and -Elizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself, -soon went away. But before she had been three minutes in her own room, -her mother followed her. - -"'My dearest child,' she cried, 'I can think of nothing else! Ten -thousand a-year, and very likely more! 'Tis as good as a lord! And a -special license. You must and shall be married by a special license. -But, my dearest love, tell me what dish Mr. Darcy is particularly fond -of, that I may have it to-morrow.' - -"This was a sad omen of what her mother's behaviour to the gentleman -himself might be; and {186} Elizabeth found that, though in the certain -possession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations' -consent, there was still something to be wished for." - - -Of Catherine Morland we are told that "her whole family were plain -matter-of-fact people, who seldom aimed at wit of any kind; her father -at the utmost being contented with a pun, and her mother with a -proverb." Having given us this little _aperçu_ of Mr. and Mrs. -Morland, the author, _more suo_, adds the information: "They were not -in the habit, therefore, of telling lies to increase their importance, -or of asserting at one moment what they would contradict the next." - -If we seek in our memories for scenes of particular excellence we shall -recall with renewed pleasure the rehearsals (_Mansfield Park_), the -encounters between Elizabeth and Mr. Collins and Elizabeth and Lady -Catherine (_Pride and Prejudice_), the second and last proposal of -Wentworth to Anne Elliot (_Persuasion_), the picnic at Box Hill and the -dance at the "Crown" (_Emma_). In all of these the spontaneity of the -narrative, the vitality of the talk and the vividness with which the -circumstances are realized with {187} the smallest amount of -description show the author's art in its most delightful vein. - -It is often in little touches, generally satirical, that Jane Austen -reveals the characters of her people. Lady Middleton, whose "reserve -was a mere calmness of _manner_ with which _sense_ had nothing to do"; -Mary Bennet, whom, when her sisters visited her, "they found, as usual, -deep in the study of thorough bass and human nature, and had some new -extracts to admire, and some new observations of threadbare morality to -listen to"; the gushing Louisa Musgrove, who declared that if she loved -a man as Mrs. Croft loved the Admiral, she "would always be with him, -nothing should ever separate" them, and that she "would rather be -overturned by him, than driven safely by anybody else"; Mr. Allen, a -country gentleman of fortune who "did not care about the garden, and -never went into it"; and General Tilney, poring over pamphlets when he -ought to be in bed, blinding his eyes "for the good of others" who -would never benefit in the least by his exertions; the heartless and -humbugging Mrs. Norris, whose plentiful talk about helping her poor, -child-burdened sister ended in her {188} "writing the letters" while -others sent substantial assistance--these, and many other entertaining -people live for us largely from such casual peeps into their natures -and sentiments. - -Jane Austen rarely describes a man or woman as possessing qualities -which are not justified by the evidence she offers. Almost the only -notable exceptions are Mrs. Dashwood, of whom we are told that "a man -could not very well be in love with either of her daughters, without -extending the passion to her," but who does not herself give us any -reason to regard her as other than an affectionate, well-meaning, and -injudicious person, and Captain Wentworth, who is stated to have been -witty, but who usually manages to restrain his wit when we happen to -meet him. - -The many parsons of the novels are at once too steady and too -prosperous to be in accord with either of the types of -eighteenth-century clergy most frequently conveyed by the literature of -their period. They may not have done much for their parishioners -beyond preaching to them once or twice a week, and sending them soup -occasionally, but they set them good examples by conducting themselves -decently and soberly. Of {189} their "views" we know little. Indeed, -few things are more remarkable in these novels, in the light of later -fiction, than that almost complete absence of any reference to dogmatic -religion to which attention has already been drawn. You may hunt -through them all and hardly find two definite statements that, except -to see what the vicar's bride was like, any of the characters went to -church. We know that the parsons preached, but whether there was any -one to hear their sermons we are usually left in doubt. In fact, as -Dr. Whately puts it, the author's religion is "not at all obtrusive." -His favourable view of Jane Austen's influence may be contrasted with -Robert Hall's of Maria Edgeworth's: "In point of tendency I should -class her books among the most irreligious I ever read.... She does -not attack religion nor inveigh against it, but makes it appear -unnecessary by exhibiting perfect virtue without it." - -It has frequently been said that the atmosphere of Jane Austen's books -is "Church of England," and this is in a sense true. She assumes that -the squires of whom she writes are adherents of Church and State, much -as a provincial {190} clergyman wrote quite recently in his Parish -Magazine: "It is generally taken for granted that Church is the only -possible religion for an English gentleman." We meet with no Romish -priests or Methodist preachers, not so much as a member of the Society -of Friends, but, on the other hand, we meet with no one who talks -against faith. It was a period when the Church itself had become -apathetic, when pluralists abounded, and when many rectors lived -comfortably on their great tithes, far from the parishes which they -left to the care of curates who were often worse off than gamekeepers. -A young man went into the Church, if there was a good living to be had, -just as he went to the Bar if his uncle was a flourishing attorney, or -into the navy if his friends had influence with the Board of Admiralty. -Many parsons, if they were well-to-do and fond of society, did not even -wear any distinctive dress. One meets vicars and curates to-day, in -summer-time, wearing green ties and grey tweed suits, and even a bishop -has been known to abandon his episcopal uniform when he was away on a -holiday. But, to take an instance from the novels, Catherine Morland, -who has met Henry {191} Tilney at a dance in Bath, and meets him again -at the Pump-room or elsewhere, does not know he is a clergyman until -she is told. The Church was merely a profession for most of those who -entered it. "Did Henry's income depend solely on his living," says -General Tilney, "he would not be well provided for. Perhaps it may -seem odd, that with only two younger children, I should think any -profession necessary to him; and certainly there are moments when we -could all wish him disengaged from every tie of business." The most -conscientious clergyman in the Austen Comedy is Edmund Bertram, who -really seems to have wished to do his duty, and thereby damaged his -chance of marrying Mary Crawford. - -The scanty reference to the observances of religion in the novels bears -on the worldly life of the age, as we know it from those who were of it -and saw it at its centre of activity, London society. Doctor Warner, -George Selwyn's chaplain, who attracted large congregations by his -eloquent preaching, and who was an avowed sceptic away from church, who -toadied the rich and noble, and told stories that delighted the Duke of -Queensberry, was no rare type of the {192} clergy of his time, and we -may be pretty certain that Jane Austen's Mr. Collins (who was not at -all likely to tell an improper story himself) would have found it very -difficult to believe that so exalted a personage as "Old Q." was unfit -for the society of clergymen. - -Jane frankly admitted that she knew too little of literature, -philosophy, and science, to allow her adequately to draw the character -of a scholarly and serious parson. "The comic side of the character I -might be equal to, but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary. -Such a man's conversation must at times be on subjects of science and -philosophy of which I know nothing, or at least occasionally abundant -in quotations and allusions which a woman who, like me, knows only her -own mother tongue, and has read little in that, would be totally -without the power of giving." According to her brother and her nephew, -Jane was better educated than she here makes out, knowing French, and a -good deal of Italian. Whether we believe her or not about her literary -and linguistic limitations, we can have small doubt that she knew very -little indeed about science and philosophy, in spite of being so much -{193} of a philosopher. In those days, when Cuvier was bringing his -genius in palæontology to bear on the recovery of lost types, and -preparing a way for Darwin, whose own grandfather was bravely aiding in -the clearance of paths in hitherto trackless jungles of prejudice and -obscurantism, science was scarcely regarded as a decent subject of -conversation before ladies in country drawing-rooms, and it never -obtrudes itself at Hartfield or at Mansfield Park. - -If we may read through every word of Jane's novels without discovering -any expression of dogmatic belief, we may equally find no direct -evidence, unless in that one story of Elinor and Willoughby, of -acceptance of the chilly Deism which had eaten so deeply into the -intellects both of laymen and clergy. The unrest, both moral and -physical, which had spread from Paris, from Holland, and from -Switzerland over the whole of Western Europe at that time, finds little -place for its fidgeting in the families to whom we are here introduced. -People, with the rare exceptions of a Wickham or a Willoughby, are -born, live, and die, in peace with the world and in general harmony -with their environments. - -{194} - -Admirable as Jane Austen's pictures of country life in house and garden -are, they are not to be accepted as literal transcripts. She was, -before all else, an artist, and the more an artist is devoted to -finicking reproduction of exact details the further is he removed from -art. Almost every author, if he writes with sincerity, must draw his -own moral portrait in his best work. In a literal sense there is no -reason to suppose that novelists often give us studies of themselves in -any degree comparable with the self-portraits of Rembrandt, Velasquez, -Madame Vigée le Brun or the moderns in the Uffizi Gallery. Sometimes, -of course, as in _Villette_ and _Delphine_, an author reports episodes -in his life almost as they happened, and it is certain, save in the -rarest cases, that something of an author's mental processes is -reproduced in all his creatures, "bad" as well as "good," though he is -more likely to show his own temperament and experience in a prominent -and sympathetic character than in any other. Very few writers follow -the example of Milton, of whom Coleridge declared "his Satan, his Adam, -his Raphael, almost all his Eve, are all John Milton." The common -mistake, a mistake so obvious that {195} we may wonder at its -continuance, is such a close identification of the author with any one -of his creations. Thus, because "Vivian Grey is Disraeli himself," -Disraeli is to be credited with the strange experiences of that uneasy -hero among foreign politicians and card-sharpers; and because "Jane -Eyre is Charlotte Brontë," Charlotte Brontë must at least have wished -to unite herself with a wild man whose wife had gone mad. There were -no doubt readers of Goethe's _Faust_ who, ignoring the legend, thought -the author had bargained with Mephisto and, it "goes without saying" -(Marianne Dashwood is not within hearing), that "Hamlet is -Shakespeare." Such arbitrary reasoning may account for the general -confusion of Frankenstein with the creature that he made. - -Among the widest traps, indeed, for those who love to see a _roman à -clef_ in every novel, is this identification of the author with one or -other of his characters. Some people have convinced themselves that -Cassandra and Jane Austen were the originals of Elinor and Marianne -Dashwood. Such an idea could only be held by those who had not seen -Jane's letters. Marianne, {196} sentimental, romantic, disagreeable in -a quite serious way, and usually inattentive "to the forms of general -civility," could not be Jane, and as certainly not Cassandra as we know -her, and while Elinor, the patient, long-suffering girl, might in some -ways represent either of the Austen sisters, she is very far from being -a portrait. - -Yet if neither Elinor Dashwood nor Marianne is to be described as a -likeness of Jane, the elder sister in her philosophical submission to -what she believed to be the loss of her lover, and the younger in her -literary tastes and her impatience with people who talk without -thinking may fairly be regarded as in part reflecting the author's -personality. None of her heroines _is_ Jane, but there is much of her -also in Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse, and a good deal in Anne -Elliot, though she admitted that Anne was too nearly perfect to be -altogether after her heart. The simple little souls of Fanny Price and -Catherine Morland, so dependent on the direct assistance of others in -the formation of their feelings, are in very small degree expressions -of the author's temperament. We may, I think, regard Emma Woodhouse as -the nearest approach to a {197} portrait of the artist who painted her, -but "nearest" is a relative superlative. Many people do not care for -Emma. A strong expression of recent disapproval was quoted a few pages -back. Jane Austen anticipated objections. "I am going," she said, -when she was beginning the book, "to take a heroine whom no one but -myself will much like." - -Whether or not we may see in Emma a good deal of Jane herself, we may -fairly be certain that none of her characters is an intentional copy of -any one in the circle of her friends and acquaintances. She herself -declared her opinion, which tallies with all that we know of her, that -the introduction of living people as actors in a work of imagination is -a breach of good manners, and that, propriety apart, she was too proud -of her characters to admit that they were "only Mrs. A. or Colonel B." -How far she made use of individuals in the composition of such -strongly-marked figures as Mrs. Elton, Mr. Collins and Sir Walter -Elliot, we cannot, of course, know. The point, for what it is worth, -could have been better elucidated if Miss Austen's circle had been less -far removed from the world wherein the {198} Wraxalls, the Gronows and -the Grevilles listen and watch. We know that, whatever the degree of -similitude, Disraeli's Rigby offers a recognizable likeness to Croker, -Dickens's Boythorn to Landor, Stevenson's Weir of Hermiston to -Braxfield. Accepting Jane Austen's denial of the deliberate -introduction of real persons in her novels, we cannot tell how many of -her Hampshire acquaintances served intellectually for her pictures of -country society as the maidens of Crotona served physically for the -picture of Helen by Zeuxis. We may be certain that, all unconsciously, -they gave her of their best, each according to his means. - - - - -{201} - -VI - -PERSONAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL - -The novelist and her characters--Her sense of their -reality--Accessories rarely described--Her ideas on dress--Her own -millinery and gowns--Thin clothes and consumption--Domestic -economy--Jane as housekeeper--"A very clever essay"--Mr. Collins at -Longbourn--The gipsies at Highbury--Topography of Jane -Austen--Hampshire--Lyme Regis--Godmersham--Bath--London. - - -On an earlier page a contrast between Balzac and Jane Austen has been -suggested. One characteristic they had in common was the sense of the -reality of their own creations. Madame de Surville, the sister of -Balzac, has recorded how, when the affairs of the family were being -discussed, he would say, "Ah, yes, but do you know to whom Felix de -Vandenesse is engaged? One of the Grandville girls. It is an -excellent marriage for him." Further than this an author's sense of -the actuality of his own imaginings could hardly go, unless, indeed, -like one modern author--if the {202} story is true, as it probably is -not--he were to invite the figments of his brain to lunch! - -Jane Austen was not quite so much obsessed by her inventions, though -she spoke of the very novels themselves as personal entities. _Pride -and Prejudice_ was "my own darling child," and of _Sense and -Sensibility_ she writes, when it is passing through the press: "No, -indeed, I am never too busy to think of _S. and S_. I can no more -forget it than a mother can forget her sucking child; and I am much -obliged to you for your inquiries." As for the characters, she loved -to talk of them as living people, and was so fond of Elizabeth Bennet, -for instance, that, as she wrote to Cassandra, she did not know how she -should be "able to tolerate" those who did not like her. - -She used to tell her nieces what happened to her imaginary people after -the novels were ended, how Mary Bennet married her uncle's clerk, or -her sister Kitty a clergyman, and how Mrs. Robert Ferrars's sister -"never caught the doctor." One of the most delightful of her letters, -as evidence of her happiness in her work, and of her half-serious -consciousness of the reality of her creations, was written after a -round of London picture {203} galleries. The portraits she looked for -were not those of Knights, or Austens, or Leighs, but of beautiful -women out of her own novels. They might be labelled Lady this or Mrs. -that, but she should recognize them if they were portraits of her -darling Elizabeth or her dearest Anne. She was disappointed. It is -true that at the Gallery in Spring Gardens she found "a small portrait -of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like her," and, moreover, "she is dressed -in a white gown, with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I had -always supposed, that green was a favourite colour with her. I dare -say Mrs. D. will be in yellow." For it was "Mrs. D."--the beloved -Elizabeth Darcy (_née_ Bennet), whose face her creator and devoted -admirer looked forward to seeing on some fashionable portrait-painter's -canvas. Alas! at none of the shows was the desired picture to be -found. "I can only imagine," writes the disappointed "friend," -soothing her regrets with a reflection natural to her mind, "that Mr. -D. prizes any picture of her too much to like it should be exposed to -the public eye. I can imagine he would have that sort of feeling--that -mixture of love, pride, and delicacy." - -{204} - -Thus we can see that Jane knew exactly what her heroines were like, -even if in their case, as in that of nearly all her characters, the -reader is left to fill in details of colour and feature very much as he -chooses. She was far more particular in describing the personal -appearance of real people, and in her letters the handsome and the ugly -are as clearly differentiated as the lively and the dull. "I never saw -so plain a family"--she declares after calling on some people named -Fagg--"five sisters so very plain! They are as plain as the Foresters, -or the Franfraddops, or the Seagraves, or the Rivers, excluding Sophy. -Miss Sally Fagg has a pretty figure, and that comprises all the good -looks of the family." Sometimes she attributed the blame for ill-looks -to a definite part of the genealogical tree. "I wish she was not so -very Palmery," she says of one of her nieces, "but it seems stronger -than ever, I never knew a wife's family features have such undue -influence." The Mrs. Palmer of _Sense and Sensibility_ was not of that -family. She was as pretty as she was foolish. - -Even if it be true that Jane Austen only painted the life which she -found immediately around her, {205} and that she would almost as soon -have attempted to depict the interior of a Thibetan lamassary as of an -English country-house of the kind Disraeli loved to paint, yet do her -characters "typify nothing?" If Mrs. Elton, and Sir John Middleton, -and Mary Musgrove are not types, then I do not see why Sir Charles -Grandison, or Mrs. Proudie, or Mr. Tulliver should be regarded as -types. Perhaps they should not, but then, what are types? Most of -Jane Austen's people may be common; there may be, in the flesh, a -hundred Lady Russells for one Lady Camper, and five hundred John -Willoughbys for one Willoughby Patterne. That is only to say that -humanity is richer in one type than in another. - -Jane was a realist, though Realism, in the sense in which we apply the -term in the criticism of living writers, has little place in her -novels. She assumes that her readers--the men and women of her own -age--are neither blind nor unaccustomed to the ordinary resources of -contemporary civilization. When her characters dine, they may usually, -for all we hear to the contrary, eat out of a common dish with the aid -of their unassisted fingers, after the manner of the nomads of the -Asiatic Steppes; {206} they may drink out of gourds like the Bushmen, -while, after the custom of the Romans, they recline on raised couches -in the attitude of Madame Récamier. We know that they sat round solid -mahogany or oaken tables, covered with damask cloths during the meat -and pudding service, that the silver was polished, and the glass -bright, even though the supply of plates was perhaps not always equal -to the number of courses; we have little doubt as to the kind of chairs -whereon the diners sat, and we may wish we had more of them in our own -dining-rooms. - -As to the costumes of the men and women who sat on the chairs, we are -usually left to dress them as we like, and there is little doubt that -many a modern reader has mentally pictured Darcy wearing a tweed suit -and a bowler hat, Charles Musgrove in a golfing-cap and loose -knickerbockers, and Mr. Collins or Mr. Elton in a stiff "round-about" -collar of the kind usually worn by the Anglican clergy of to-day. For -the ladies, the whirligig of time has brought back the modes of a -century ago. In spite of the cry for the equality of the sexes, there -are, as the Lord Chancellor and other eminent authorities have laid -down, marked {207} distinctions between the ways of women and of men. -One of such distinctions may be found in the fact that the fashions of -feminine dress move in a (very irregular and therefore theoretically -impossible) circle, while those of masculine dress rarely cross the -same point twice. Thus while, during the last few years, we have seen -our sisters and aunts affecting "modes" that were in vogue in the -periods of the Renaissance, the Directory, and the Empire, we have -never seen our brothers and uncles abroad in the streets attired like -the courtiers either of François _premier_ or of the First Consul. A -woman need not despair of wearing, without being followed by a crowd, -almost any costume of any period of woman's history. A man need not -look for the day when he may walk in the parks in the garb of Raleigh -or of Burke without attracting more attention than will be agreeable to -the modesty of any one but an actor-manager or the European agent of -some American world-industry. The Misses Bertram, of Mansfield Park, -might go shopping in Regent Street to-day without any one remarking -that their dress, or their coiffure, was seriously out of date. But we -only know how they dressed because we know the date {208} of their -birth, not because the author of a bit of their life-history has told -us. - -Who that has ever read _Weir of Hermiston_ can forget the description -of the heroine as she first appeared to Archie in the kirk? It was in -the very year (1814) in which Fanny Price's story was related, and of -Mary Crawford, if not of Fanny, a tale of town finery as bright as that -of Kirstie might have been told. We know how alluring Kirstie looked -to Archie in her "frock of straw-coloured jaconet muslin, cut low at -the bosom and short at the ankle," and "drawn up so as to mould the -contour of both breasts, and in the nook between ... surely in a very -enviable position, trembled the nosegay of primroses." Of some such -charming pictures we get at least the preliminary sketches in Jane -Austen's letters, but the finished works are never shown in the novels, -and we may dress the pretty heroines to our own fancy so long as we -keep to the style of their period, or, if our imaginations are feeble -and our knowledge of Regency costume deficient, Mr. Brock will do the -work for us in the more delightful of his coloured drawings, or Mr. -Hugh Thomson in his lively illustrations in pen and ink. - -{209} - -This point--that the material factors of manners and habits are little -noted by Jane Austen--will strike many readers, at first sight, as of -quite trivial importance. But it is largely the reason why her novels -have so modern an external air compared with those, let us say, of -Scott, or even of Balzac, who only began to write when her short career -was ending. If Jane Austen had described the conditions of life at -Hartfield or Kellynch with the particularity with which Balzac -describes the Grandets' house at Saumur, and the Guenics' at Guerande, -or had given us such full accounts of the villagers on the estate of -the Bertrams of Mansfield Park as Scott gave us of the smugglers and -gipsies on the lands of the Bertrams of Ellangowan, we should see more -clearly the changes that a hundred years have wrought in the habits of -the English country. - -Jane Austen was by no means indifferent to the cut and colour of her -own clothing, however little she allowed her heroines to talk about -theirs. But when we read of "Jane Austen frocks" for bridesmaids in -the accounts of modern weddings, they are copied from the illustrations -of Mr. Thomson or Mr. Brock, or else are so-called merely because {210} -they are of the period of her novels, which is much the same thing. -With the general subject of dress she deals as a novelist, we may -almost say once for all, in a single paragraph of _Northanger Abbey_. -The occasion was the dance at Bath which was to prove so momentous an -event in Catherine's life. - - -"What gown and what head-dress she should wear on the occasion became -her chief concern. She cannot be justified in it. Dress is at all -times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often -destroys its own aim. Catherine knew all this very well; her -great-aunt had read her a lecture on the subject only the Christmas -before; and yet she lay awake ten minutes on Wednesday night debating -between her spotted and her tamboured muslin; and nothing but the -shortness of the time prevented her buying a new one for the evening. -This would have been an error in judgment, great though not uncommon, -from which one of the other sex rather than her own, a brother rather -than a great-aunt, might have warned her; for man only can be aware of -the insensibility of man towards a new gown. It would be mortifying to -the feelings of many ladies could they be made to understand how little -the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire; -how little it is biassed by the texture {211} of their muslin, and how -unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, -the mull, or the jackonet. Woman is fine for her own satisfaction -alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the -better, for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a -something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the -latter." - - -If we regard these as the author's considered opinions, expressed with -a characteristic touch of _malice_, we shall probably agree that she -is, on the whole, right. Were women to make a note, every time a man -describes one of them as "well dressed," of what the subject of the -remark was wearing, they would, I believe, find an overwhelming -preponderance of votes in favour of well-fitting, plain, if not -actually "tailor-made" costumes for the daytime, and simple though not -conventual frocks for the evening, as compared with all the highly -decorated "confections," covered with what one may call "applied art," -whereon women spend so large a proportion of their allowances. - -The letters to Cassandra make up to some extent for the deficiencies of -the novels in a {212} matter so attractive to the author's admirers -among her own sex, though the particulars given are almost always -incomplete; that is to say, they depend on information which Cassandra -possessed, but which is denied to us. Such a case is presented when we -read: "Elizabeth has given me a hat, and it is not only a pretty hat, -but a pretty _style_ of hat too. It is something like Eliza's, only, -instead of being all straw, half of it is narrow purple ribbon. I -flatter myself, however, that you can understand very little of it from -this description. Heaven forbid that I should ever offer such -encouragement to explanations as to give a clear one on any occasion -myself! But I must write no more of this." The tantalizing thing is -that while we know that this pretty hat was something like Eliza's, we -have no idea what Eliza's was like, beyond the untrimmed fact that it -was "all straw." - -Then Cassandra is told by Jane, "I believe I _shall_ make my new gown -like my robe, but the back of the latter is all in a piece with the -tail, and will seven yards enable me to copy it in that respect?" -Alas! that we cannot discover how the robe was made, except that "the -back was all in a {213} piece with the tail." Often, of course, the -news about dress is mixed up with other news, as when Jane writes: "At -Nackington ... Miss Fletcher and I were very thick, but I am the -thinnest of the two. She wore her purple muslin, which is pretty -enough, though it does not become her complexion...." Once Jane's -account of her own necessities in the way of dress is nearly followed -by a sentence which not only contains evidence of her close -acquaintance with Fielding's greatest novel, but also reminds us of Mr. -Tom Lefroy. "You say nothing of the silk stockings; I flatter myself, -therefore, that Charles has not purchased any, as I cannot very well -afford to pay for them; all my money is spent in buying white gloves -and pink persian.... After I had written the above, we received a -visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is really -very well-behaved now; and as for the other, he has but _one_ fault, -which time will, I trust, entirely remove--it is that his morning coat -is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, -and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which _he_ -did when he was wounded." - -Many of her references to dress are of the {214} partly serious, partly -humorous kind which came naturally from her pen. "Flowers are very -much worn," she writes from Bath in the summer of 1799, "and fruit is -still more the thing. Elizabeth has a bunch of strawberries and I have -seen grapes, cherries, plums, apricots. There are likewise almonds and -raisins, French plums, and tamarinds at the grocers', but I have never -seen any of them in hats." She had, in the Southampton days, a spotted -muslin which she meant to wear out, in spite of its durability. "You -will exclaim at this, but mine really has signs of feebleness, which, -with a little care, may come to something." Then she has some -"bombazins" with trains, which "I cannot reconcile myself to giving up -as morning gowns; they are so very sweet by candlelight. I would -rather sacrifice my blue one ... in short I do not know and I do not -care." - -A peep into the economy of Steventon parsonage is now and again -offered. In 1796, "We are very busy making Edward's shirts, and I am -proud to say that I am the neatest worker of the party. They say that -there are a prodigious number of birds hereabouts this year, so that -perhaps _I_ may kill a few." - -{215} - -Another bit of work that the want of the riches of Kent forced upon the -poorer folks of Hampshire is shown to us when Jane writes: "I bought -some Japan ink and next week shall begin my operations on my hat, on -which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend." In this case -there is no difficulty of interpretation. Now-a-days there are simple -"dips" wherewith young ladies whose allowances are small or who in any -case wish to make the most of their money can change old straw hats -into new, soiled white into black, or green, or heliotrope. It was not -so a century ago, and when Jane wanted to turn her old white straw hat -into a new black one, she must needs Japan it. - -"I have read the 'Corsair,' mended my petticoat, and have nothing else -to do," she writes from London in 1814, and on another day about the -same time she informs her sister: "I have determined to trim my lilac -sarsenet with black satin ribbon, just as my China crape is, six-penny -width at the bottom, threepenny or four-penny at top." An even closer -glimpse of Jane in her home is afforded by a letter in which she says-- - - -{216} - -"I find great comfort in my stuff gown, but I hope you do not wear -yours too often. I have made myself two or three caps to wear of -evenings since I came home, and they save me a world of torment as to -hair-dressing, which at present gives me no trouble beyond washing and -brushing, for my long hair is always plaited up out of sight, and my -short hair curls well enough to want no papering." - - -Such references may remind us of Henry Tilney's astonishment that -Catherine did not keep a journal of her doings. "How are your absent -cousins to understand the tenor of your life...? How are your various -dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion -and curl of your hair to be described, in all their diversities, -without having constant recourse to a journal? My dear madam, I am not -so ignorant of young ladies' ways as you wish to believe me." - -Jane Austen was not reduced, as was her own Mrs. Hurst, to playing with -her bracelets and rings when there were no games or dances in progress. -On such occasions, like Elizabeth Bennet, she took up some needlework, -and amused herself by listening to the general conversation, and -entering into it when opportunity offered. Like everything {217} done -by her deft fingers, her fancy sewing is admirable, and her embroidery -would be treasured by her family for its intrinsic beauty even if no -such charming associations attached to it. There is a muslin scarf -adorned by her needle which, to her true lovers, might seem a more -precious relic than even her mahogany desk itself. - -One little "interior" sketched by Jane, after a visit to a young wife -who had just been blessed with a baby, is so illustrative of her own -neat habits, and her ideas of the material needs of happiness, that, -intimate as it is, it merits quotation: "Mary does not manage matters -in such a way as to make me want to lay in myself. She is not tidy -enough in her appearance; she has no dressing-gown to sit up in; her -curtains are all too thin, and things are not in that comfort and style -about her which are necessary to make such a situation an enviable one." - -We have seen on an earlier page that Jane Austen provided warm garments -for the village poor. On one occasion we know where she bought her -flannel. In an entry (made at Basingstoke) which might form the text -for a dissertation on prejudice and economy, she notes that: "I gave -{218} 2_s._ 3_d._ a yard for my flannel, and I fancy it is not very -good, but it is so disgraceful and contemptible an article in itself -that its being comparatively good or bad is of little importance." Why -this contempt for what, in spite of all patent substitutes, inflammable -and otherwise, is still commonly esteemed one of the most harmless and -necessary of materials? Marianne Dashwood included the wearing of a -flannel waistcoat by Colonel Brandon among the several defects which -made it impossible that she should ever be his wife, and when, for -reasons not all unconnected with the "happy ending" of the novel, she -agreed at last to marry him, it was in spite of the fact that this -gallant officer had "sought the constitutional safeguard" of the -much-despised garment. To Jane Austen and Marianne Dashwood flannel, -it seems, was as entirely unpleasing a commodity as celluloid collars -and cuffs are to most people of our own day. - -The ravages of consumption, as the Baron de Frenilly reflects in his -recently published memoirs, would have been far less terrible in those -times if women had been less hostile to warm dresses and flannel -petticoats. Fresh air and thick boots were {219} also to seek. The -women could not walk ten yards on a wet day without the water coming -through the thin soles of their dainty little shoes. Miss Bates was -quite exceptional in wearing shoes with reasonable soles. - -One more sumptuary extract must be quoted; it comes from a letter from -London in 1814: "My poor old muslin has never been dyed yet. It has -been promised to be done several times. What wicked people dyers are. -They begin with dipping their own souls in scarlet sin." The last -sentence brings its writer for the moment very near to modern fiction, -a considerable proportion of which is mainly occupied with the vivid -representation of the process in question as applied to the world in -general. - -After clothes, the table. Out of the works of some novelists you might -draw up menus, or at least bills-of-fare, for a month. People who -dwell in a bracing air, and take a great deal of exercise, could live -very comfortably on a small selection from the dishes served up in the -novels of Dickens, and those who like an even more simple cuisine could -rely quite confidently on the meals described by Dumas _père_. There -is plenty of {220} substantial fare, of course, in the Waverley novels, -and as for the works of Harrison Ainsworth, they groan under the -sirloins and haunches that were provided in those imaginary ages when -in Merry England the spits were always turning in every castle and -hall. The people of Jane Austen ate quite as much as was good for -them. They had breakfast, lunch--or noonshine--dinner, supper, and -tea, and everybody--always excepting Mr. Woodhouse and those whose -spirits were temporarily depressed--came with an appetite to every -meal, for all we know of the matter. No dinner is particularly -described, but those who want to know what people ate and drank at the -end of the eighteenth century may partly gratify their appetite from -the references which inevitably occur. Except that there were not -quite so many dishes on the table at once the meals differed little -from that to which Swift introduces us in his dialogue between the -company at Lady Smart's table. The Smarts, by the way, dined at three, -which in Jane Austen's time was still about the hour for the small -country-houses, though in the big houses it was five, marking the -gradual advance from the ten o'clock in the morning of the {221} -twelfth century to the eight o'clock in the evening or later of the -twentieth. - -Plain roast and boiled joints of mutton, pork, beef and veal, chickens, -game in season, sweetbreads, meat pies, boiled vegetables, suet -puddings, apple-tarts, jellies and custards were the ordinary food of -the well-to-do. Port and Burgundy were their principal drinks, but -probably the port was not usually such as is chiefly sold now-a-days. -It was less fortified, nearer to the natural wine, which is itself more -like a Burgundy than the port of modern commerce. Wine of any sort is -scarcely mentioned in Jane Austen's works. One of the few exceptions I -can recall is that--of unnamed species--offered to Mrs. and Miss Bates -at the Woodhouses', which the host advised them to mix freely with -water, advice they successfully managed to avoid taking, thanks to the -good offices of Emma. Jane Austen herself seems to have been fond of -wine. In her thirty-eighth year she writes: "As I must leave off being -young, I find many _douceurs_ in being a sort of _chaperon_, for I am -put on the sofa near the fire, and can drink as much wine as I like." -On a much earlier occasion, when she was herself under {222} -chaperonage, she had written: "I believe I drank too much wine last -night at Hurstbourne. I know not how else to account for the shaking -of my hands to-day. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any -indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error." -With our full knowledge of Jane's habit of playful exaggeration we may -be certain that her "too much" was nothing to shake our heads over, and -that the "error" was indeed "venial." - -Jane gives us sufficient evidence of the simplicity with which the -Austens' own table was furnished. From Steventon parsonage, in 1798, -she thus refers to one of the doctor's professional visits to her -mother. "Mr. Lyford was here yesterday; he came while we were at -dinner, and partook of our elegant entertainment. I was not ashamed at -asking him to sit down to table, for we had some pease-soup, a -sparerib, and a pudding. He wants my mother to look yellow and to -throw out a rash, but she will do neither." - -Years later, from Chawton, she writes that: "Captain Foote dined with -us on Friday, and I fear will not soon venture again, for the strength -of our dinner was a boiled leg of mutton, underdone even for James." - -{223} - -Jane herself did the housekeeping when her mother was indisposed and -Cassandra away, and she prided herself on her success, though she -detested the necessity of great economy. Her ideas on the eternal -servant question are not, we may be sure, quite faithfully expressed -when she writes: "My mother looks forward with as much certainty as you -can do to our keeping two maids; my father is the only one not in the -secret. We plan having a steady cook and a young, giddy housemaid, -with a sedate, middle-aged man, who is to undertake the double office -of husband to the former, and sweetheart to the latter. No children, -of course, to be allowed on either side." The simple life of the -parsonage is more accurately reflected in a comparison between the -house of the Austens and that of the Knights at Godmersham. "We dine -now at half-past three, and have done dinner, I suppose, before you -begin. We drink tea at half-past six. I am afraid you will despise -us. My father reads Cowper to us in the morning, to which I listen -when I can. How do you spend your evenings? I guess that Elizabeth -works, that you read to her, and that Edward goes to sleep." Jane -declares that she "always takes care to provide such things as please -(her) own {224} appetite," which she considers "the chief merit in -housekeeping." Ragout of veal and haricot mutton seem to have been -specially attractive to her. - -Picnics we hear of--one in particular, of course, at Box Hill--and the -Middletons were always getting them up. Cold pies and cold chickens, -and no doubt cold punch, were provided in plenty on those happy -occasions. - -French cookery was not so much appreciated in England in those days as -it had been twenty or thirty years earlier, before the Revolution. The -bread of our then hostile neighbours across the Channel was, however, -not infrequently copied in the bakehouse, as was the Boulanger dance in -the ball-room. Mrs. Morland reproached Catherine for talking so much -at breakfast about the French bread at Northanger, but the poor little -girl who had been so shamefully treated by General Tilney, and sadly -missed the attentions of his younger son, replied that she did not care -about the bread, and it was all the same to her what she ate. Mrs. -Morland could only attribute the girl's obvious unhappiness to the -contrast afforded by their humble parsonage to the glories of {225} the -Tilney mansion, "There is a very clever essay in one of the books -up-stairs, upon much such a subject," says this anxious mother, "about -young girls that have been spoilt for home by great acquaintance--_The -Mirror_, I think. I will look it out for you some day or other, -because I am sure it will do you good." Catherine tried to be -cheerful, but presently relapsed into languor and weariness; and Mrs. -Morland went off to seek for the "very clever essay." As Henry Tilney -arrived before she returned with it, its efficacy as a prophylactic for -listlessness and discontent was never put to the test. I will take the -risk of inducing the "listlessness and discontent" of the present -reader by devoting a page to this moral souvenir of Jane Austen's -infancy and of her own literary diversions. - -The "very clever essay" is dated March 6, 1779, and is in the form of a -letter from John Homespun, a "plain country gentleman, with a small -fortune and a large family," two of whose daughters had been -allowed--his opposition having been overcome--to spend the Christmas -holidays with a "great lady" whom they had met at the house of a -relation. They went with sparkling {226} eyes and rosy cheeks, they -came back with "cheeks as white as a curd, and eyes as dead as the -beads in the face of a baby." Their father sees no reason to wonder at -the change when he hears the girls, with new-found affectations of -speech and manner, describe the habits of their new friends. - - -"Instead of rising at seven, breakfasting at nine, dining at three, -supping at eight, and getting to bed by ten, as was their custom at -home, my girls lay till twelve, breakfasted at one, dined at six, -supped at eleven, and were never in bed till three in the morning. -Their shapes had undergone as much alteration as their faces. From -their bosoms (_necks_ they called them), which were squeezed up to -their throats, their waists tapered down to a very extraordinary -smallness; they resembled the upper half of an hour-glass. At this, -also, I marvelled; but it was the only shape worn at ----. Nor is -their behaviour less changed than their garb. Instead of joining in -the good-humoured cheerfulness we used to have among us before, my two -_fine_ young ladies check every approach to mirth, by calling it -_vulgar_. One of them chid their brother the other day for laughing, -and told him it was monstrously ill-bred.... Would you believe it, -sir, my daughter _Elizabeth_ (since her visit she is offended if we -call her {227} _Betty_) said it was _fanatical_ to find fault with -card-playing on Sunday; and her sister _Sophia_ gravely asked my -son-in-law, the clergyman, if he had not some doubts of the soul's -immortality?" - - -Mr. Homespun declares that the moral plague among the worldly rich -should be dealt with by Government "as much as the distemper among the -_horned cattle_." - -Happily Catherine Morland had not caught this particular disease of -all--it was only the plague of love that troubled her innocent soul, -and the medicine was provided without the interference of a Government -inspector. - - -From such a deliberate departure from the straight path I come back to -the subject of the economy of accessories in Jane Austen's novels. -When the French bread at Northanger led me astray, I was writing about -domestic economy, costumes and cookery. Why _should_ the dresses be -described or the dishes be named? We are concerned with the sayings -and doings of squires and parsons and their wives and daughters, not -with the achievements of cooks and milliners. This would be quite a -fair criticism, but it is none {228} the less certain that an author -who tells you what people eat and drink and wear does enable you to -realize more fully the contrast between the present and the period with -which the novel is concerned. That is our business, however, not his. -He is an artist, not an historian. There is a common practice on the -stage of "furbishing up" old plays by cutting out obsolete references -and introducing topical touches. The comedies of Robertson may be -"freshened" considerably to meet the taste of thoughtless play-goers, -by giving Captain Hawtrey a motor-car and Jack Poyntz a magazine-rifle. -The "moral" of these present pages is merely this, that with a few such -slight changes as making post-chaise read motor and coach read train, -and retarding the dinner from three or five to eight or half-past, -cutting out the occasional "elegants," and otherwise changing a word -here and there in the dialogue, long scenes from any one of Jane -Austen's novels could be acted without material alteration, in the -costume of to-day, with no serious offence to the unities. The absence -of physical detail in her narrative is no artistic defect. Mr. -Collins's first evening at Longbourn, for instance, is so vividly -represented that {229} we gain the impression of having been in the -room, though of its size and shape, and furniture, or of the appearance -and costume of its occupants, we are told little or nothing-- - - -"Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as -absurd as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest -enjoyment, maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of -countenance, and except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring -no partner in his pleasure. - -"By tea-time, however, the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was -glad to take his guest into the drawing-room again, and when tea was -over, glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies. Mr. Collins -readily assented, and a book was produced; but on beholding it (for -everything announced it to be from a circulating library), he started -back, and begging pardon, protested that he never read novels. Kitty -stared at him, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and -after some deliberation he chose _Fordyce's Sermons_. Lydia gaped as -he opened the volume, and before he had, with very monotonous -solemnity, read three pages she interrupted him with-- - -"'Do you know, mamma, that my Uncle Phillips talks of turning away -Richard; and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him? My aunt told -me {230} so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to -hear more about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town.' - -"Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr. -Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said-- - -"'I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books -of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes -me, I confess; for certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to -them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin.' - -"Then turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at -backgammon. Mr. Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted -very wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements." - - -The mephistophelian delight of the father in the unconscious absurdity -of his sententious guest, the rudeness of the younger daughters, and -the attempts of the elder girls to enforce the observance of ordinary -good manners, could not well be realized with finer effect, and no -description of accessories would heighten it. - -It is not only material accessories and necessaries, furniture, dress, -and so on that are slighted by Jane Austen. Incidents that are of -positive {231} value to her plan are not allowed to linger a moment -after they have served the turn. The adventure of Harriet Smith (in -_Emma_) with the gipsies, ending in her rescue by Frank Churchill, -fills just half a page. It would have filled a chapter in a novel by -Scott or Dickens. One possible reason for this brevity is clear -enough. The author knew little about gipsies, they were to her merely -low ruffians and drabs, horse-stealers and pilferers, and of their -fascination for the student of character she had no idea at all. There -were hundreds and hundreds of genuine Romany about the country in those -days. Borrow was not yet at work, and few people had taken the trouble -to discover what manner of mind the "Egyptians" possessed, and how they -spent their time when they were not robbing henroosts or swindling -housemaids. Scott felt something of the mysterious charm of this -ancient and nomadic race, but he was romantic, and romance, in Jane -Austen's way of thinking, was very nearly a synonym for absurdity. So -it is, therefore, that the gipsies in the Highbury lane appear for half -a page, speak no word that is reported, and then vanish from our ken. -The author implies that they hurried {232} away to avoid prosecution. -Perhaps she was almost as glad to see the last of them as were the -inhabitants of Highbury. Thus is a fine opportunity for a -"picturesque" scene thrown away. Undeveloped as it is, the adventure -stands absolutely alone in the novels as the sole occasion whereon any -of the characters has reason to fear violence at the hands of -ill-disposed persons. It was only in imagination that Catherine -Morland was carried off by masked men, though a spirited illustration -of Mr. Hugh Thomson's did once mislead a too hurried critic into -regarding the affair as an event in the heroine's life. - -There are, in fact, very few digressions in these books. Fielding -"digressed" by whole chapters at a time, Sterne's digressions filled -more space than his tale in his one "novel." Jane Austen keeps to the -road, and leaves the by-lanes unexplored. It is a pleasant road, old, -and bordered here and there with attractive-looking houses into which -we may enter by her kindly introduction, but if we wish to go off to -that hamlet on the right, or that coppice on the left, we must go -alone. She will sit on a stile till we return to pursue the direct -route. It is to her {233} effort to avoid all but the essential -factors in achieving her object that the general absence of landscape -and topographical detail of all kinds in her work is to be attributed. -In the case of a Dickens, a Balzac, a Hardy or a Meredith, you can -constantly identify the places where the scenes are laid. In Lincoln's -Inn Fields you can watch Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows; at Rochester you -can see the very room where Mr. Pickwick slept; at Nemours you can gaze -at the house where The Minoret-Levraults (in _Ursule Mirouet_) lived; -at Woolbridge you can find the manor house where the unhappy Tess -passed her bridal night. Down in Surrey you can take a photograph of -the Crossways House which was almost the whole fortune of Diana, at -Seaford you can see the "Elba Hall" of _The House on the Beach_ -sheltering beneath the downs, and as in these instances so in scores of -others. But in connection with the Austen novels, save for the London -streets and squares, there are only Bath and Lyme Regis and Portsmouth -where one can truly feel sure that such or such an incident in one or -other novel "occurred" on this very spot. - -If, however, there is no special "Jane Austen {234} country" to be -traced out by the diligent seeker for visible associations, there are -scattered spots where her presence is still to be felt. At Steventon, -where the earlier works were produced, the house of the Austens no -longer stands, having given place long since to a rectory on the other -side of the valley, more convenient and comfortable than that wherein -the father wrote his sermons and the daughter her novels--sermons and -novels which at the time seemed equally likely to achieve enduring -fame. Only the well and the pump remain to mark the site. The -surroundings are not all new--how should they be in a thinly populated -parish? There are still farms and cottages that were old before Jane -was born. The church is in better trim, but, externally at least, it -is much the same. - -Probably with scenery as with men and women Jane Austen did not usually -draw from models, and when she did, she gave the models their own -names. The one real bit of description of a place named in her work is -the account of the environs of Lyme Regis, which is so obviously -written from personal interest that some of her biographers have -supposed that her own {235} experiences during her visits there had -included a Captain Wentworth or at least a Captain Benwick. - - -"A very strange stranger it must be," she writes, "who does not see -charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it -better. The scenes in its neighbourhood, Charmouth, with its high -grounds and extensive sweeps of country, and still more its sweet -retired bay, backed by dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock among -the sands make it the happiest spot for watching the flow of the tide, -for sitting in unwearied contemplation; the woody varieties of the -cheerful village of Up Lyme; and, above all, Pinny, with its green -chasms between romantic rocks, where the scattered forest trees and -orchards of luxuriant growth declare that many a generation must have -passed away since the first partial falling of the cliff prepared the -ground for such a state, where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is -exhibited, as may more than equal any of the resembling scenes of the -far-famed Isle of Wight--these places must be visited, and visited -again, to make the worth of Lyme understood." - - -This was quite an exceptional digression from the thoughts and -conversation of Jane Austen's characters. One of those letters which -Leslie Stephen and others have thought so "trivial," but {236} which -are so characteristic in their spirit, was written from Lyme by Jane to -Cassandra, on September 14, 1804-- - - -"I continue quite well; in proof of which I have bathed again this -morning..... I endeavour, as far as I can, to supply your place, and -be useful and keep things in order. I detect dirt in the water -decanters, as fast as I can, and keep everything as it was under your -administration.... The ball last night was pleasant.... Nobody asked -me for the two first dances; the two next I danced with Mr. Crawford, -and had I chosen to stay longer might have danced with Mr. Granville -... or with a new odd-looking man who had been eyeing me for some time, -and at last, without any introduction, asked me if I meant to dance -again." - - -It is impossible to leave Lyme Regis without recalling how Tennyson, -when he was shown the place where the Duke of Monmouth was supposed to -have landed, cried: "Don't talk to me of the Duke of Monmouth! Show me -the exact spot where Louisa Musgrove fell!" - -Jane's intimacy with places was chiefly confined to Steventon, -Godmersham, Chawton, Southampton, Bath, and their neighbourhood. It is -not a {237} day's walk or an hour's motoring from Steventon to Chawton, -where, after the long interval of comparative inactivity, the later -novels were "born." At Chawton, according to one of her later -biographers, the "cottage" where she lived and worked has disappeared. -This is happily not true. It is true that it is now turned to other -uses than that of sheltering a parson's widow and her daughters. It -has been divided internally, and now forms a couple of labourers' -cottages and a village club, where tired toilers who have never read a -line of the books that were written under that roof discuss the merits -and defects of the tobacco tax and the Old Age Pensions Act. Chawton -House itself shows little structural change, and the park is scarcely -altered since Jane walked across from the Cottage to take tea with her -relations at the great house. - -At either of these villages, Steventon the birthplace of Jane herself -and of _Pride and Prejudice_ and _Mansfield Park_, and Chawton where -_Persuasion_ and _Emma_ came into being, you may find scenes which you -will associate with this or that story or incident, but nowhere are you -likely to feel the influence of locality more strongly in {238} -connection with either author or novels than at Godmersham, the home of -her brother Edward, where, until long after her death, her relations -dwelt amid their own broad acres. The place, with other property, came -to Edward Austen from Mr. and Mrs. Knight, who had adopted him, and -whose name he ultimately took. There is no more typically English seat -in the typically English county of Kent. The small sylvan village, the -old church above the Stour river, offer no special attractions for -tourists, and Godmersham House itself is one of the plainest even among -the country seats of the early Georgian age. Its one external charm is -its unpretentiousness. It has not even the huge classic portico on -which so many of the country houses of its period depend for -"impressiveness." Plain, commodious, well-placed, the house is lovely -for us only in that it sheltered for many a week, from year to year, -the author of _Pride and Prejudice_. It is just such a house as Sir -John Middleton filled with visitors at all seasons, or Mr. Darcy showed -to his future bride and her Uncle and Aunt Gardiner. - -If the house itself is without external beauty, the park surrounding it -is delightful. The {239} sparkling river flows through the midst of -great elms and oaks beneath which mingled herds of deer, sheep, and -oxen browse in the peaceful security of the golden age. As you sit on -the low wall of the lichen-covered bridge you see nothing that can have -changed in character since Jane Austen sat there and thought over the -doings of her dear heroines. One can almost hear the rumble of the -barouche that brought her mother and herself from the coach at Ashford -to the Hall at Godmersham, and if that high-hung carriage were suddenly -to turn the corner beside the big elm near the gate one would scarcely -be astonished. This park and this house, this river, the old trees, -the thatched cottages, the lanes and brooks all speak of the days when -Bingley came for Jane Bennet, and Henry Tilney for Catherine Morland. -If there is anything in the influence of place, Godmersham was part -author of the novels. The spirit of Jane Austen abides in the -delicious air of this quiet and unspoilt valley, where, when the wind -blows strongly from the south-east, the salt of the sea-breeze mingles -with the perfumes of the grass and the wood smoke as pleasantly as the -Attic wit of {240} Jane Austen mingles with the sweetness of her -heroines and the thousand delights of her dialogue. - -These are the chief country scenes of Jane's life. As to the towns, we -know more or less of her associations with Bath, Southampton, and -Winchester, as well as London. At Bath she used to stay in early youth -with her uncle and aunt, and she lived there for four years with her -parents. The fruits of her experience there may be enjoyed in -_Northanger Abbey_ and _Persuasion_, though her lack of the -topographical instinct is suggested by the absence of evident interest -in the buildings of Bath. We learn as much about the place from the -_Pickwick Papers_, which merely touch there on their way, or from the -allusions of the characters in _The Rivals_, where the events are of a -few days, as we do from chapters that cover long periods of residence -in one of the most beautiful, and still, in spite of the -disproportionate and architecturally discordant hotel, the least -injured cities of England. Souvenirs of the personal association of -Jane Austen with Bath are almost as plentiful as those of Johnson with -Fleet Street. The house in Sydney Place where the {241} Austens lived -during most of the time between Mr. Austen's resignation and his death -is the only one that bears a tablet to Jane's memory. But in Queen -Square, whence several of her letters are dated, in Gay Street, in the -Green Park, in the Paragon, the rooms she occupied with her relations -at one time or another remain very much as they were in her day, and -externally the buildings are unaltered, one and all being built of the -local stone which gives so notable a character to the Georgian -architecture of the city. In Camden Place where the Elliots rented -"the best house," in Pulteney Street where Catherine stayed with the -Allens, in Westgate Buildings where Anne cheered Mrs. Smith's lonely -days, there has been little change since _Northanger Abbey_ and -_Persuasion_ were written. There is probably no town in the world -associated with the work of a famous person of even so near a period -which has altered less in appearance than Bath since 1805. - -At Southampton the mother and daughters lived, after the father's -death, in a house in that secluded part of the town which stands -between the High Street and the old walls above the {242} "Water." -There is a bit of those walls which abuts on the spot where the -Austens' house stood, and it is one of the places where we may feel -confident that we are walking where Jane often walked, and gazing out -over a scene which was familiar to her in almost all save the funnels -of the steam yachts and the distant view of the train on its way to -Bournemouth or to London. - -In London itself there are many spots that will always recall Jane -Austen to her devoted friends and her lovers. In Henrietta Street -(Covent Garden), in Hans Place, in Cork Street, we know that she -herself stayed. Many of the characters in _Sense and Sensibility_--the -only novel in which we hear much of London--are associated with -familiar streets. Edward Ferrars stayed in Pall Mall, the Steele girls -in Bartlett's Buildings, Mrs. Jennings in Berkeley Street, the John -Dashwoods in Harley Street. The Gardiners (_Pride and Prejudice_) -lived in Gracechurch Street. - -The day has not yet come when public bodies could be sufficiently -affected by imaginative literature to place memorials on the houses -where fictitious personages have been supposed to dwell. {243} In -Paris the memorial to Charlet is an admirable group of a grenadier and -a gamin--typical characters from his work, and a musketeer guards the -monument of Dumas. The gods forbid that any sculptor should be -commissioned to give us life-size figures of Emma, Elizabeth, Anne, and -Fanny to sit around a statue of Jane Austen. But when next the London -County Council contemplates the placing of plaques on the former -residences of departed worthies they might consider whether--of course -with the consent of the freeholder and the leaseholder--her name might -not be placed on the house in Henrietta Street, once her brother -Henry's home, where so many of her letters were written. She tells of -the convenient arrangement of its rooms for the comfort of herself and -her nieces, and from its door she went to the neighbouring church, or -the theatres, which were within a few minutes' walk. It is not likely -that any political prejudice would cause even the most advanced -Progressive on the Council to object to the name of so very mild a Tory -being thus honoured. As to the more probable objection that she did -not "reside" there, but was only a visitor, one may plead that as there -is {244} a plaque on a newly-erected tube station recalling the -"residence" of Mrs. Siddons, and that a tablet proclaims that Turner -"lived" in a house built thirty years after his death, there would be -no great straining of logic in admitting the claim of a house in which -Jane Austen did undoubtedly write, and sleep, and talk. The front was -cemented in the middle of the last century, and the ground-floor is now -used for business purposes, but otherwise the house is little changed -since the Austens were there. - - - - -{247} - -VII - -INFLUENCE IN LITERATURE - -Jane Austen's genius ignored--Negative and positive instances--The -literary orchard--Jane's influence in English literature. - - -The author of a book bearing the title _Great English Novelists_, -published just ninety-one years after Jane Austen's death, does not -include her in his selection. He deals with eleven authors--Defoe, -Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Scott, Lytton, Disraeli, -Dickens, Thackeray, Meredith. The very fact that he stops short at -eleven, instead of making a round dozen, suggests that he really could -not think of any other novelist worthy to be credited with greatness. -It will be observed that all the team are men. Without quibbling as to -whether they are all "English," or all "great," or even all "novelists" -in the ordinary sense of the word, we may legitimately suppose that the -author is one of those to whom Jane Austen makes {248} no strong -appeal. The peculiarity of her position among English novelists could -not well be more pointedly emphasized than in the fact that while -Macaulay placed her next to Shakespeare as a painter of -character-studies, a critic should be found--and he is by no means -isolated--who can choose eleven great representatives of English -fiction without adding her as a twelfth. In the same week in which the -book just referred to was published, came a portfolio of twelve -photogravures entitled _Britain's Great Authors_. Scott, Thackeray, -Dickens, of course, were among them, and of right, but not Jane Austen. - -Perhaps even more suggestive is the statement of a clever woman-writer -the other day that Jane Austen's novels are merely "memorials," books -which no gentleman's (or lady's) library should be without, but which -are for show rather than for use. - -Her name may never be among those that are painted round the -reading-rooms of National Libraries, nor included by many -school-children in examination lists of eminent authors. Hers is too -delicate a product to attract the man or woman "in the street." There -is a bouquet about it that is lost on the palate which enjoys the -"strong" {249} fiction of the material phase through which humanity is -now passing--passing perhaps more briefly than most of us imagine. - -It has been the endeavour of this book to show Jane Austen as she lives -in her writings, and to suggest some at least of the many directions in -which those writings may be explored, and thus, if so may be, to bring -new members into the large but comparatively restricted circle wherein -she is regarded, not always as the first of English novelists, but at -least as second to none in the quality of her work. Sappho enjoys -undying fame with only a few fragments of verse still to her credit, -Omar for his one poem transformed by another mind, Boccaccio for a -volume of short stories, Boswell for one biography, Thomas à Kempis for -one devotional manual. Sparsity of performance, it is evident, is no -bar to enduring fame. Jane Austen's work, indeed, was not sparse. -There are, undoubtedly, novelists who have passed the record of Balzac -with his forty novels and scores of short stories, but their books for -the most part suggest the interminable succession of poplars along so -many a high road of France. Some of the trees have more foliage than -others, some are {250} more green or more blue in tone, a little more -tortuous, or robust, but in spite of all trivial differences _plus ça -change plus c'est la même chose_. If this arboreal parallel may be -pursued, may we not compare the work of Jane Austen with a group of -apple-trees in a sunny corner of some vast orchard? There are eight -Austen trees in the literary orchard. Two of them are stunted and bear -a poor crop of a sort little better than crabapples. The other six are -of several kinds, but all of fine quality and producing delicious fruit -of varying sweetness. Countless thousands of novels have been -published since Jane Austen's were given to the world, and many of them -have been unseemly, and of evil influence. But the taste of countless -writers and readers has been sweetened by the fruit of her delightful -mind, of the passing of whose fragrant harvest through English -literature it is not too much to say, as Jane herself said of Anne -Elliot's walk through Bath: "It was almost enough to spread -purification and perfume all the way." - - - - -{251} - -BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE - -1811. _Sense and Sensibility_. [Completed in 1798. Commenced many -years earlier in the form of letters, under the title _Elinor and -Marianne_.] - -1813. _Pride and Prejudice_. [Completed in 1797. Originally entitled -(in MS.) _First Impressions_.] - -1814. _Mansfield Park_. [Written in 1811-14.] - -1816. _Emma_. [Written in 1811-16.] - -1818. _Northanger Abbey_ and _Persuasion_. [_Northanger Abbey_ -(mostly written in 1798) was sold to a Bath bookseller for £10 in 1803. -He laid it aside, and it was bought back by Henry Austen, _at the same -price_, after _Sense and Sensibility_ and _Pride and Prejudice_ had -appeared. _Persuasion_, as originally completed (in 1816) had only -eleven chapters, but the author was not satisfied with Chapter X, and -replaced it by the present Chapters X and XI. The cancelled chapter is -included in Mr. Austen Leigh's memoir. It brings about the -re-engagement of Anne and Wentworth in a different, and certainly less -admirable, manner.] - -{252} - -1871. _Lady Susan_, _The Watsons_, and some extracts from the novel on -which Jane was at work until four months before her death. [These are -all included in Mr. Austen Leigh's book. The MS. of _Lady Susan_, -written before Jane was of age, was given by Cassandra Austen to her -niece Fanny (Lady Knatchbull), who consented to its publication. As -for the incomplete novel known as _The Watsons_, written about 1802, -Jane was not responsible for the naming of it, and had laid it aside -several years before _Mansfield Park_ was written. The work from which -she was compelled by illness to cease in March 1817 had not, in the -twelve chapters we possess, reached a point when its plan could be -foretold with reasonable confidence.] - -1884. _Letters of Jane Austen_, edited by her great-nephew, the first -Lord Brabourne. [These, which, with few exceptions were addressed to -Cassandra Austen, belonged to Lady Knatchbull, to whom some of them -were written. Many of Jane's letters were destroyed by Cassandra as -being too private to pass into other hands.] - -Mr. J. E. Austen Leigh's _Memoir_ of his aunt is not only to be highly -valued for its biographical details, but for its many anecdotes of Jane -Austen, and for the letters which fill a good many gaps in the other -published correspondence. - -{253} - -Those to whom the subject of the present volume is fresh, and who care -to pursue it, are advised to read the "introductions" contributed to -recent editions of Jane Austen's novels by various critics, -particularly Mr. Austin Dobson, Professor Saintsbury, and Mr. E. V. -Lucas, as well as the _Life_ contributed by Mr. Goldwin Smith to the -_Great Writers_ series. - -[The dates given on the left hand are those of publication.] - - - - -{255} - -INDEX - -Adams, Oscar, on Jane Austen, 89 - -Addison, Joseph, 55 - -"Allen, Mr.," 187 - -"----, Mrs.," 100 - -_Alphonsine_, 61 - -Anderson, Mrs. Garrett, 170 - -_Antiquary, The_, 51 - -Apothecaries, 114 - -Arc, Joan of, 169 - -Aspasia, 158 - -Austen, Cassandra, 31, 63, 79, 100, 212 - -----, Edward (_see_ Knight), 41, 214, 223, 238 - -----, The Rev. George, 152, 223, 241 - -----, Henry, 22, 243, 251 - -----, Jane, freshness of her work, 14; her aim, 18, 68; at home, 22; -her nature, 24-30; views on love, 32; her admirers, 35-37, 163; her -limited appeal, 43; on novels, 50-54; favourite authors, 56-60; -criticism of niece's work, 63-64; limitations of subject, 16-19, 65, -112, 192, 204; literary style, 66-70, 82-85; choice of names, 74; in -London, 76, 242; views of life, 41, 87, 217; as humourist, 89, 171-172; -a "forbidding" writer, 89; Mr. Goldwin Smith on her novels, 91; -contrasted with Peacock, 92-94; her letters, 23, 31, 99, 121, 211-223; -declines to meet Madame de Staël, 109; her charities, 116-117; at balls -and dances, 123-128; Dr. Whately on her work, 135, 161, 181, 189; views -of marriage, 106, 138-140; influenced by current philosophy, 143-149; -her fine taste, 152; her opinion of _Lady Susan_, 152; her heroines, -21, 32-33, 138-163; their relations, 183; her avoidance of dogmatism, -149, 193; love for her own creations, 202; economy of description, 205, -227, 231; on dress, 210-219; food, 219-224; places--Bath, 152, 214, -240; Chawton, 22, 153, 237; Godmersham, 41, 223, 238; London, 76, 242; -Lyme Regis, 160, 234-236; Southampton, 241; Steventon, 22, 153, 214, -234; her literary influence, 247-250 - -Austen, Mrs., 25, 29, 222, 223 - - - -Balzac, 17, 108, 201, 209, 233 - -"Barton," 102 - -"Bates, Miss," 175, 219, 221 - -Bath, 152, 153, 214, 240 - -Batilliat, Marcel, 57 - -Bazin, René, 57 - -Beaconsfield, Lord, 108 - -"Bellaston, Lady," 157 - -"Bellona" (_Richard Feverel_), 157 - -"Bennet, Elizabeth," 79, 93, 203, 216 - -"----, Jane," 42, 203 - -"----, Lydia," 43, 141, 229 - -"----, Mr.," 72, 90, 229 - -"----, Mrs.," 72, 90, 100 - -"Bertram, Edmund," 40, 70, 155 - -"----, Lady," 131 - -"----, Maria," 18, 83 - -"----, Sir Thomas," 64, 130 - -"Bingleys, The," 115, 129 - -Bond, John, 116 - -Boswell, James, 58 - -Boulangeries (dance), 129 - -"Bourgh, Lady Catherine de," 118, 175 - -Box Hill, picnic at, 175 - -Brabourne, Lord, 252 - -"Brandon, Colonel," 141-144 - -Brock, C. E., 209 - -Brontë, Charlotte, 19, 85, 195 - -Barney, Frances, 49, 53, 60, 86, 88 - -----, Sarah, 61 - -Byron, Lord, 121 - - - -Cage, Mrs., 100 - -Calprenède, 55 - -_Cambridge Observer_, 83 - -"Camper, Lady," 205 - -_Candide_, 147 - -Carlton House, 65, 165 - -"Chainmail, Mr.," 93 - -Charlet, 243 - -Châtelet, Madame du, 102, 158 - -Chawton, 22, 153, 237 - -Chesterfield, Lord, 78 - -Church of England, 189-191 - -"Churchill, Frank," 37, 104, 127, 231 - -Chute, William, 37 - -Cibber, Colley, 77 - -_Clandestine Marriage_, 77 - -_Clarentine_, 61 - -_Clarissa_, 50 - -"Clay, Mrs.," 18 - -Coleridge, 19, 194 - -"Coles, The," 129 - -"Collins, Mr.," 71, 93, 164, 192, 229 - -Colonies, American, 13 - -_Connoisseur, The_, 56 - -Consumption, 218 - -Cork Street, 77 - -"Cormon, Rose," 18 - -_Corsair, The_, 215 - -"Courcy, Reginald de," 150 - -Cowper, William, 29, 57, 223 - -Crabbe, George, 56 - -"Crawford, Henry," 18, 83 - -"----, Mary," 40, 160 - -Critic, an American, 45 - -Croker, John Wilson, 198 - -_Crotchet Castle_, 93 - -Curie, Madame, 170 - -Cuvier, 193 - - - -"Dalrymples, The," 119 - -"Darcy, Fitzwilliam," 33, 42, 93, 118, 203 - -"----, Georgiana," 67 - -Darwin, Erasmus, 193 - -"Dashwood, Elinor," 18, 43, 141-148 - -"----, Marianne," 79, 141 - -"----, Mrs.," 188 - -Deism, 193 - -Dickens, 219, 233 - -Digweed, James, 114, 123 - -Disraeli, Isaac, 108 - -Dobson, Austin, 253 - -Dodsley, Robert, 59-60 - -"Dotheboys Hall," 92 - -Dowton, William, 77 - -Dress, 210-219 - -"Dudley, Arabelle," 157 - -Duff, Sir M. E. Grant, 148 - -Dumas _père_, 219, 243 - - - -Edgeworth, Maria, 53, 60, 76, 148, 189 - -Eliot, George, 85, 169 - -"Elliot, Anne," 33, 93, 125, 163, 250 - -"----, Sir Walter," 118, 176 - -"----, William, 160, 178 - -"Elliott, Kirstie," 208 - -"Elton, Mr.," 104 - -"----, Mrs.," 173, 205 - -_Emma_, 80, 131, 237, 251 - -_Eugénie Grandet_, 108 - -"Evelina," 99, 139 - -"Eyre, Jane," 16, 195 - - - -"Fagin," 92 - -"Fairfax, Jane," 38, 129 - -"Ferrars, Edward," 155 - -"----, Lucy," 82 - -"Feverel, Lucy," 35 - -"----, Richard," 35 - -"Ffolliot, Dr.," 93 - -Fielding, Henry, 14, 154 - -"Fischer, Lisbeth," 16 - -Food, 219-224 - -France, Anatole, 149 - -Frénilly, Baron de, on dress, 218 - - - -Galt, John, 76 - -"Gardiners, The," 140, 242 - -Garrick, 59-60 - -Genlis, Madame de, 61 - -George III, on genius, 49 - -Gifford, William, 165 - -Gipsies, 231 - -"Gobseck, Esther van," 157 - -Godmersham, 41, 223, 238 - -"Grandet, Père," 16 - -"Grandison, Sir Charles," 205 - -_Great English Novelists_, 247 - -_Gulliver's Travels_, 94 - -_Guy Mannering_, 51 - - - -Hall, Robert, on Miss Edgeworth, 189 - -"Hamlet," 181 - -Hardy, Thomas, 233 - -Hazlitt, William, 165 - -_Headlong Hall_, 94 - -Henrietta Street, 242 - -"Homespun, Mr.," 225 - -Hope, Anthony, 44 - -_House on the Beach, The_, 115 - -"Hurst, Mrs.," 216 - -Huxley, Thomas, 170 - -_Hypocrite, The_, 77 - - - -_Ida of Athens_, 62 - -_Idler, The_, 56 - - - -"Jennings, Mrs.," 102, 138, 142 - -"Jingle, Alfred," 75 - -Johnson, Samuel, 56, 58 - -"Jones, Tom," 155, 213 - -Jonson, Ben, 86 - - - -Kean, Edmund, 77 - -"Kew, Lady," 16 - -Knatchbull, Lady, _see_ Knight, Fanny - -Knight, Edward (Austen), 41, 214, 223, 238 - -----, Fanny, 40, 104, 252 - -"Knightley, George," 70, 155, 181 - - - -_Lady Susan_, 87, 137, 149-152, 252 - -Lamb, Charles, 13 - -Landor, Walter Savage, 13, 198 - -Lang, Andrew, 147 - -Langton, Bennet, 58 - -_La Terre qui meurt_, 57 - -_La Vendée aux Genêts_, 57 - -Lefroy, Thomas, 35-36, 213 - -Leigh, J. E. Austen, 23, 251, 252 - -_Letters of Jane Austen_, 252 - -Lewes, G. H., 85 - -Liston, John, 77 - -Lloyd, Martha, 67 - -Lockhart, William, his "Life of Scott," 166 - -Lombroso, 147 - -London, 76, 242 - -_Lounger, The_, 56 - -Love, Jane Austen's views on, 32 - -"Lucas, Charlotte," 139 - -----, E. V., 253 - -"----, Sir William," 114-115 - -Lyford, John, 123 - -Lyme Regis, 160, 234-236 - -_Lys dans la Vallée, Le_, 157 - - - -Macaulay, 49, 68, 181 - -Mackintosh, Sir James, 122 - -"Manerville, Natalie de," 19 - -_Mansfield Park_, 44, 137, 165, 186, 237, 251 - -_Margiana_, 61 - -Marriage, 106, 138 - -Martin, Mrs., her library, 60 - -"----, Robert," 113 - -"Mascarille," 78 - -Mathews, Charles, 77 - -"McQueedy, Mr.," 93 - -_Melincourt_, 94 - -Meredith, George, 69, 115, 233 - -"Middleton, Lady," 187 - -"----, Sir John," 79, 102, 119, 205 - -"Milestone, Mr.," 93 - -"Millamant," 159 - -Milton, 21, 194 - -"Mirabell," 159 - -_Mirror, The_, 225 - -Mitford, Mrs., 104 - -"Morland, Catherine," 18, 34, 80, 81, 88, 91, 99, 216, 224, 227 - -"----, Mr. and Mrs.," 186 - -Murray, John, "The First," 165 - -"Musgrove, Louisa," 187, 236 - - - -Names, 74 - -"Nanny," 113 - -Napoleon on Madame de Staël, 45 - -"Nature's Salic Law," 170 - -"Newcome, Colonel," 75 - -Nightingale, Florence, 169 - -_Nightmare Abbey_, 94, 121 - -"Norris, Mrs.," 187 - -_Northanger Abbey_, 44, 53, 87, 151, 210, 240, 251 - -"Nostalgie de l'Infini," 148 - -Novel, "Plan of," 95 - -----, suggestion for, 65 - -Novelists, defence of, 53 - -Novels, 50, 60-62 - -----, French, 55, 57 - - - -O'Neill, Miss, 77 - -"Orange, Robert," 160 - -_Ordeal of Richard Feverel, The_, 157 - -Osborne, Dorothy, 31, 33, 55, 163 - -"----, Lord," 113 - -----, Mr., on passions, 163 - -Owenson, Miss, 62 - - - -_Pamela_, 50 - -"Patterne, Sir Willoughby," 205 - -Peacock, Thomas Love, 92-94 - -"Pecksniff," 16 - -"Pemberley," 42 - -_Persuasion_, 125, 137, 151, 186, 237, 240, 251 - -Phelps, W. L., 34 - -_Pickwick Papers_, 240 - -Picnics, 175, 224 - -"Pierrette," 18 - -Plutocrats, 41 - -_Plymley Letters_, 78 - -"Pons, Sylvain," 75 - -Portsmouth, 66, 184, 233 - -Poverty, 40 - -Powlett, Charles, 36, 101 - -_Précieuses ridicules_, 78 - -"Price, Fanny," 18, 34, 184 - -_Pride and Prejudice_, 44, 62, 85, 129, 136, 186, 237, 251 - -Property, landed, 41-42 - -"Proudie, Mrs.," 205 - - - -_Quarterly Review_, 135, 162, 165 - -Queensberry, Duke of, 191 - -_Quentin Durward_, 139 - -"Quilp," 16 - - - -Radcliffe, Mrs., 50, 52, 60, 86 - -_Rambler, The_, 56 - -"Ravenswood Tower," 92 - -Realism, 205 - -Regent, The, 153, 165 - -Religion, 189 - -Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 59 - -"----, Mrs.," 112 - -Richardson, Samuel, 50, 59, 60 - -"Rigby, Mr.," 198 - -_Rivals, The_, 153 - -"Rochefide, Beatrix de," 19 - -"Rushworth, Maria," 18 - -"Rushworth, Mr.," 83 - -"Russell, Lady," 163, 183, 205 - - - -Saintsbury, George, 90, 141, 253 - -Sand, George, 108, 169 - -Sappho, 249 - -Saxe-Coburg family, 65 - -Scharlieb, Mrs., 170 - -_School for Saints, The_, 160 - -Scott, Sir Walter, 16, 42, 51, 67, 76, 209 - -----, Life of, 166 - -Scudéri, Mademoiselle de, 55 - -"Scythrop," 93 - -"Sedley, Jos," 92 - -_Self-control_, 61 - -Selwyn, George, 191 - -_Sense and Sensibility_, 44, 62, 82, 136, 143, 202, 242 - -Shakespeare, 84-85, 181 - -Shelley, 121 - -Sheridan, 130, 153 - -"Shirley," 92 - -_Sir Charles Grandison_, 50 - -Smith, Goldwin, 91, 253 - -"----, Harriet," 103, 231 - -----, James, 13 - -----, Sydney, 78 - -Socialists, 41 - -Sondes, Lady, 106 - -Southampton, 241 - -_Spectator, The_, 53-55 - -Staël, Madame de, 45, 109-111 - -Steele, Richard, 55 - -Stephen, Leslie, 235 - -Stephens, Miss, 77 - -Steventon, 22, 153, 214, 234 - -"Steyne, Lord," 16 - -Surville, Madame de, 201 - -Swift, Jonathan, 149, 220 - - - -_Tamaris_, 108 - -_Tartuffe_, 77 - -_Tatler, The_, 56 - -Temple, Sir William, 33, 55 - -Tennyson, 26, 236 - -Thackeray, 16, 28, 94 - -Theatricals at the Bertrams', 131 - -Thomson, Hugh, 209, 232 - -"Thorpe, John," 51 - -"Tilney, General," 187, 224 - -"----, Henry," 18, 70, 80, 88, 91, 93, 216, 224, 225 - -"Tinman, Martin," 115 - -_Tom Jones_, 157 - -"Tulliver, Mr.," 205 - -Turner, J. M. W., 13 - - - -"Uppercross," dancing at, 125 - - - -Vallière, Louise de la, 158 - -"Vandenesse, Felix de," 201 - -"Vautrin," 92 - -Vendée, La, 57 - -_Venetia_, 121 - -Ventilation, Mr. Woodhouse on, 127 - -"Vernon, Lady Susan," 106 - -Verrall, A. W., on text of Jane Austen's novels, 83 - -_Village, The_, 56 - -Villiers, Barbara, 158 - -Voltaire, 147, 158 - - - -Waltz, 129-131 - -Warner, Dr., 191 - -_Watsons, The_, 87, 137, 152, 252 - -_Waverley_, 51, 52 - -_Weir of Hermiston_, 208 - -"Wentworth, Frederick," 125, 155, 188, 251 - -"Western, Sophia," 142, 155 - -"----, Squire," 154 - -"Weston, Mr.," 115 - -"----, Mrs.," 84, 103, 181 - -Whately, Archbishop, 135, 161, 181, 189 - -"Wickham," 141 - -"Williams, Miss," 143 - -"Willoughby, John," 18, 79, 141-146 - -Wine, 221 - -"Woodhouse, Emma," 33, 37, 64, 93, 103, 181, 221 - -"----, Mr.," 172, 174, 221 - -_World, The_, 56 - -Wyndham, Mr., 104 - - - -Zola, 66 - - - -THE END - - - - -RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, -SUFFOLK. - - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jane Austen and her Country-house -Comedy, by W. H. 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