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Helm -</title> - -<style type="text/css"> -body { color: black; - background: white; - margin-right: 10%; - margin-left: 10%; - font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; - text-align: justify } - -p {text-indent: 4% } - -p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } - -p.t1 {text-indent: 0% ; - font-size: 200%; - text-align: center } - -p.t2 {text-indent: 0% ; - font-size: 150%; - text-align: center } - -p.t2b {text-indent: 0% ; - font-size: 150%; - font-weight: bold; - text-align: center } - -p.t3 {text-indent: 0% ; - font-size: 100%; - text-align: center } - -p.t3b {text-indent: 0% ; - font-size: 100%; - font-weight: bold; - text-align: center } - -p.t4 {text-indent: 0% ; - font-size: 80%; - text-align: center } - -p.t4b {text-indent: 0% ; - font-size: 80%; - font-weight: bold; - text-align: center } - -p.t5 {text-indent: 0% ; - font-size: 60%; - text-align: center } - -h1 { text-align: center } -h2 { text-align: center } -h3 { text-align: center } -h4 { text-align: center } -h5 { text-align: center } - -p.poem {text-indent: 0%; - margin-left: 10%; } - -p.thought {text-indent: 0% ; - letter-spacing: 4em ; - text-align: center } - -p.letter {text-indent: 0%; - margin-left: 10% ; - margin-right: 10% } - -p.footnote {text-indent: 0% ; - font-size: 80%; - margin-left: 10% ; - margin-right: 10% } - -p.transnote {text-indent: 0% ; - margin-left: 10% ; - margin-right: 10% } - -p.index {text-indent: -5% ; - margin-left: 5% ; - margin-top: 0% ; - margin-bottom: 0% ; - margin-right: 0% } - -p.intro {font-size: 90% ; - text-indent: -5% ; - margin-left: 5% ; - margin-right: 0% } - -p.biblio {font-size: 90% ; - text-indent: -10% ; - margin-left: 10% ; - margin-right: 0% } - -p.quote {text-indent: 4% ; - margin-left: 10% ; - margin-right: 10% } - -p.finis { font-size: larger ; - text-align: center ; - text-indent: 0% ; - margin-left: 0% ; - margin-right: 0% } - -p.capcenter { margin-left: 0; - margin-right: 0 ; - margin-bottom: .5% ; - margin-top: 0; - font-weight: bold; - float: none ; - clear: both ; - text-indent: 0%; - text-align: center } - -img.imgcenter { margin-left: auto; - margin-bottom: 0; - margin-top: 1%; - margin-right: auto; } - -.pagenum { position: absolute; - left: 1%; - font-size: 95%; - text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; - font-style: normal; - font-weight: normal; - font-variant: normal; } - -</style> - -</head> - -<body> - - -<pre> - -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 - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="capcenter"> -<a id="img-front"></a> -<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-front.jpg" alt="Jane Austen" /> -<br /> -Jane Austen -</p> - -<h1> -<br /><br /> -JANE AUSTEN -<br /> -<span style="font-size: 50%">AND HER</span> -<br /> -COUNTRY-HOUSE COMEDY -</h1> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> -BY -</p> - -<p class="t2"> -W. H. HELM -</p> - -<p class="t4"> -AUTHOR OF "ASPECTS OF BALZAC," ETC. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> -EVELEIGH NASH<br /> -FAWSIDE HOUSE<br /> -LONDON<br /> -1909<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t4"> -RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,<br /> -BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND<br /> -BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> -TO -MY MOTHER -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p> -"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, <i>Tatler</i>, No. 242. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> -NOTE -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Letters of -Jane Austen</i>. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> -CONTENTS -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> -I -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> -<a href="#chap01">DOMINANT QUALITIES</a> -</p> - -<p class="intro"> -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 -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> -II -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> -<a href="#chap02">EQUIPMENT AND METHOD</a> -</p> - -<p class="intro"> -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 -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> -III -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> -<a href="#chap03">CONTACT WITH LIFE</a> -</p> - -<p class="intro"> -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 -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> -IV -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> -<a href="#chap04">ETHICS AND OPTIMISM</a> -</p> - -<p class="intro"> -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—<i>The Watsons</i>—Change in manners—No -"heroes"—Woman's love—The Prince Regent—<i>The -Quarterly Review</i> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> -V -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> -<a href="#chap05">THE IMPARTIAL SATIRIST</a> -</p> - -<p class="intro"> -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 -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> -VI -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> -<a href="#chap06">PERSONAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL</a> -</p> - -<p class="intro"> -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 -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> -VII -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> -<a href="#chap07">INFLUENCE IN LITERATURE</a> -</p> - -<p class="intro"> -Jane Austen's genius ignored—Negative and positive -instances—The literary orchard—Jane's influence -in English literature -</p> - -<p><br/></p> - -<p class="noindent"> -<a href="#biblio">BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE</a> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -<a href="#index">INDEX</a> -</p> - -<p><br/></p> - -<p class="noindent"> -<a href="#img-front">FRONTISPIECE</a> . . . . . . <i>By Violet Helm.</i> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -<a href="#img-128">A LETTER OF JANE AUSTEN'S</a> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap01"></a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">{<a id="P13"></a>13}</span></p> - -<h2> -JANE AUSTEN -<br /> -AND HER -<br /> -COUNTRY-HOUSE COMEDY -</h2> - -<p><br /></p> - -<h3> -I -<br /> -DOMINANT QUALITIES -</h3> - -<p class="intro"> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 <i>Rejected Addresses</i>, 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? -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P14"></a>14}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P15"></a>15}</span> -fiction, as you would come from a great city to -the countryside or the coast village for rest and -restoration. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P16"></a>16}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P17"></a>17}</span> -</p> - -<p> -Balzac, describing the origins of his play <i>La -Marâtre</i> 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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>dénouement</i> to which Balzac looked for his -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P18"></a>18}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P19"></a>19}</span> -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 <i>Jane Eyre</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P20"></a>20}</span> -association, the creators of <i>Eugénie Grandet</i>, -<i>Emma</i>, and <i>Jane Eyre</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P21"></a>21}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Could we have loved her so much if we had -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P22"></a>22}</span> -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 <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>) of the -"faultlessness" of Marianne's lovers. It is no -disparagement to Henry Austen to say that his little -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P23"></a>23}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P24"></a>24}</span> -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 <i>merit</i> of having her temper always -under command, but that Jane had the <i>happiness</i> -of a temper that never required to be commanded." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P25"></a>25}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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"? -</p> - -<p> -A daughter and sister and friend whose attention -was so closely devoted, however -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P26"></a>26}</span> -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 <i>enfant terrible</i> 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! -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P27"></a>27}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P28"></a>28}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P29"></a>29}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P30"></a>30}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P31"></a>31}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P32"></a>32}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P33"></a>33}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P34"></a>34}</span> -confidence that the maternal instinct also found -little place in her nature. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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, -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P35"></a>35}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -"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 <i>can</i> expose myself, however, only <i>once -more</i>, because he leaves the country soon after -next Friday, on which day we <i>are</i> to have a -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P36"></a>36}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -"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." -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P37"></a>37}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her -being in love. Her ideas only varied as to the -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P38"></a>38}</span> -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 -<i>sacrifice</i>,' 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.'" -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P39"></a>39}</span> -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?" -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P40"></a>40}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>you</i>, pretty dear." -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P41"></a>41}</span> -we know of her opinions on the essentials of -happiness. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> -who unkindly emphasized the fact that Elizabeth -Bennet only decided to marry Darcy after she -had seen the glories of Pemberley and its park -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P42"></a>42}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P43"></a>43}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P44"></a>44}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> or -<i>Northanger Abbey</i> as from <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> -or <i>Mansfield Park</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P45"></a>45}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap02"></a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">{<a id="P49"></a>49}</span></p> - -<h3> -II -<br /> -EQUIPMENT; AND METHOD -</h3> - -<p class="intro"> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P50"></a>50}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. "<i>Le -style est la femme même</i>" 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. -<i>Clarissa</i>, <i>Sir Charles Grandison</i> and <i>Pamela</i> -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, -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P51"></a>51}</span> -as when, after John Thorpe has said to Catherine -(who confesses she has never read <i>Camilla</i>): -"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." -</p> - -<p> -Scott's poetry, of course, Jane read and -enjoyed. Three of his most popular novels—<i>Waverley</i>, -<i>Guy Mannering</i>, and <i>The Antiquary</i>—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; -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P52"></a>52}</span> -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 <i>Waverley</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -The machine-made horrors of Ann Radcliffe—"<i>la -reine des épouvantements</i>" as she has been -aptly called, in spite of her retiring disposition—were -as familiar to Jane as were those, far less -<i>pouvantable</i>, 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P53"></a>53}</span> -which they represent that we chiefly owe <i>Northanger -Abbey</i>, a pleasant mixture of a serious love-story -and a burlesque, a motto for which might -have been found in a sonnet of Shakespeare: -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;<br /> - Coral is far more red than her lips' red:<br /> -<span style="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</span><br /> - I grant I never saw a goddess go,—<br /> - My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground."<br /> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<i>Spectator</i>, and a chapter from Sterne, are -eulogized by a thousand pens,—there seems almost a -general wish of decrying the capacity and -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P54"></a>54}</span> -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>I</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 <i>Cecilia</i>, or <i>Camilla</i>, -or <i>Belinda</i>;' 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 <i>Spectator</i>, 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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P55"></a>55}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Spectator</i> is not -easily to be believed. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Another important branch of Jane's private and -voluntary curriculum was her reading not only in -the "coarse" journalism of Steele and Addison -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P56"></a>56}</span> -and their colleagues, but in the various successors -of the <i>Spectator</i> and the <i>Tatler</i> which had their -little days and died, particularly during the reign -of George II. Not only in the <i>Rambler</i> and the -<i>Idler</i> of the great man whom she so highly -respected, but in the <i>World</i>, the <i>Mirror</i>, the -<i>Lounger</i>, the <i>Connoisseur</i>, 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>The Village</i> and <i>The Parish Register</i> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P57"></a>57}</span> -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 <i>La Terre qui meurt</i> distinguish -M. René Bazin from M. Marcel Batilliat, -who has dealt so feelingly with the decadence of -the château in <i>La Vendée aux Genêts</i>. Jane -found in Crabbe something that she missed in -herself, a ready appreciation of all classes. -</p> - -<p> -She loved Cowper too, both in his poems and -his prose. There was much in <i>The Task</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P58"></a>58}</span> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "So farewell envy of the <i>peasant's nest</i>!<br /> - If Solitude make scant the means of life,<br /> - Society for me! thou seeming sweet,<br /> - Be still a pleasing object in my view;<br /> - My visit still, but never mine abode."<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "Happy the lab'rer in his Sunday clothes!<br /> - In light-drab coat, smart waistcoat, well darn'd hose,<br /> - And hat upon his head, to church he goes;<br /> - As oft, with conscious pride, he downward throws<br /> - A glance upon the ample cabbage-rose,<br /> - Which, stuck in button-hole, regales his nose,<br /> - He envies not the gayest London beaux.<br /> - In church he takes his seat among the rows,<br /> - Pays to the place the reverence he owes,<br /> - Likes best the prayers whose meaning least he knows,<br /> - Lists to the sermon in a softening doze,<br /> - And rouses joyous at the welcome close."<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P59"></a>59}</span> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"The two Wartons just looked into the town, -and were taken to see <i>Cleone</i>, 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. <i>Cleone</i> 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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P60"></a>60}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Clarissa</i>, another of -Jane's favourites more than thirty years after, -when she had had time to be born and grow up. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>our</i> family, who -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P61"></a>61}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Clarentine</i>, 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 <i>Self-Control</i>, 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 <i>Alphonsine</i> 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 <i>Margiarna</i>, which the -Austens were reading in the winter of 1809, at -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P62"></a>62}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Ida of Athens</i>, 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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Sense and -Sensibility</i> and <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> had leaked out -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P63"></a>63}</span> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P64"></a>64}</span> -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...." -</p> - -<p> -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! -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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. -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P65"></a>65}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -Her limitations of subject are clear to her own -mind. Even of the "domestic life in villages" -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P66"></a>66}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P67"></a>67}</span> -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 <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> aloud to Jane and -Martha Lloyd (who lived with the Austens), and -Jane tells Cassandra that— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -Happily she did not provide the conventional -"shade," which would have been on a par with -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P68"></a>68}</span> -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 -<i>Persuasion</i>, which, for a certain suggestion of -melancholy, stands apart from the other novels, though -not as markedly as <i>Northanger Abbey</i> stands -apart for its exuberant frivolity. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -The result for which Jane Austen worked can -scarcely be put in question. She was impelled to -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P69"></a>69}</span> -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," -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P70"></a>70}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'Have you been long in Bath, madam?' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'About a week, sir,' replied Catherine, trying -not to laugh. -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'Really!' with affected astonishment. -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'Why should you be surprised, sir?' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"' Why, indeed!' said he, in his natural tone; -'but some emotion must appear to be raised by -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P71"></a>71}</span> -your reply, and surprise is more easily assumed, -and not less reasonable, than any other.'" -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Pride and -Prejudice</i> in order that he may find the rest of -the inimitable scene— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P72"></a>72}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, -for she vows she will not have him; and -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P73"></a>73}</span> -if you do not make haste he will change his mind -and not have <i>her</i>.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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. -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'I have not the pleasure of understanding -you,' said he, when she had finished her speech. -'Of what are you talking?' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'And what am I to do on the occasion? It -seems a hopeless business.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'Speak to Lizzy about if yourself. Tell her -that you insist upon her marrying him.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'Let her be called down. She shall hear my -opinion.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"Mrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth -was summoned to the library. -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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?' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'I have, sir.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'Very well. We now come to the point. Your -mother insists upon your accepting it. Is it not -so, Mrs. Bennet?' -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P74"></a>74}</span> -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'Yes, or I will never see her again.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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 <i>do</i>.'" -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>, -for example, three of the prominent characters -are named John—John Dashwood, John Middleton, -and John Willoughby. There are two -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P75"></a>75}</span> -Catherines in <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>. 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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P76"></a>76}</span> -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 -(<i>Sense and Sensibility</i>) 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P77"></a>77}</span> -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. <i>The Hypocrite</i> (Bickerstaff's "alteration" -of Cibber's "adaptation" of <i>Tartuffe</i>) "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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P78"></a>78}</span> -her from the country as a source of inspiration -for her work. -</p> - -<p> -"<i>All</i> 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 <i>Précieuses</i>: "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 <i>Plymley -Letters</i>, 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P79"></a>79}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P80"></a>80}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>The Mirror</i> 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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Emma</i> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P81"></a>81}</span> -of her residence at Bath, will be identified by the -prevalence of "uns" in its text. -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'I have sometimes thought,' says Catherine, -doubtfully, 'whether ladies <i>do</i> write so much -better letters than gentlemen. That is, I should -not think the superiority was always on our side.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'And what are they?' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'A general deficiency of subject, a total -inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance -of grammar.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'Upon my word, I need not have been afraid -of disclaiming the compliment! You do not -think too highly of us in that way.' -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P82"></a>82}</span> -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.'" -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 (<i>Sense and Sensibility</i>) 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— -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "... Mon sang se coagule<br /> - En pensant qu'on y peut changer une virgule."<br /> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Her blood was too cool to be frozen by the -printer's fancies in punctuation. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P83"></a>83}</span> -</p> - -<p> -In an old number of the <i>Cambridge Observer</i> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P84"></a>84}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -Again, when in describing the discussion over -Mrs. Weston's proposed dance, Jane Austen is -made to say (in <i>Emma</i>), "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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P85"></a>85}</span> -cared little for such slips, however, as we know -from a letter written after <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P86"></a>86}</span> -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 -"<i>èpouvantable</i>" 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P87"></a>87}</span> -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 <i>Lady Susan</i> and <i>The Watsons</i>, and these (here -italic type becomes necessary) <i>are so inferior to -the six novels acknowledged, soon after her death, -as hers</i>, that it is easy (if we like) to find it <i>difficult -to believe that they are from the same pen</i>! 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. -</p> - -<p> -We gain many vivid glimpses of Jane Austen's -views of life in her novels, and <i>Northanger Abbey</i> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful -girl have been already set forth by the capital pen -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P88"></a>88}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P89"></a>89}</span> -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?" -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 "! -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P90"></a>90}</span> -to write a book for their conversion. They were -probably those worthy persons—we have all met -a few of them ourselves—who read <i>Emma</i>, and -<i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, 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 <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> Professor Saintsbury -forcibly says, in reply to those who resent the -presence of such a husband as Mr. Bennet, that -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P91"></a>91}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Jane Austen the novelist, then, may truly be -"forbidding" to readers who take her <i>au pied de -la lettre</i>. 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P92"></a>92}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P93"></a>93}</span> -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 <i>Crotchet -Castle</i>, 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P94"></a>94}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> could -be expected to regard <i>Melincourt</i> or <i>Nightmare -Abbey</i> as veracious narratives. For all that -Peacock, whose first novel, <i>Headlong Hall</i>, 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. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P95"></a>95}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap03"></a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">{<a id="P99"></a>99}</span></p> - -<h3> -III -<br /> -CONTACT WITH LIFE -</h3> - -<p class="intro"> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P100"></a>100}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P101"></a>101}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P102"></a>102}</span> -</p> - -<p> -The sting is where stings usually are. -</p> - -<p> -Scandal was as distasteful to her as it can have -been to Madame du Châtelet, of whom Voltaire -said that "<i>tout ce qui occupe la société était de son -ressort, hors la médisance.</i>" 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P103"></a>103}</span> -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 <i>roman à clef</i> hunters of Southampton. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P104"></a>104}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -That the habit was hereditary—it was a custom -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P105"></a>105}</span> -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 <i>affaire</i> 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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P106"></a>106}</span> -as to fall in love after marriage, and with the -wrong man. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>will</i> her, to be -happy." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P107"></a>107}</span> -"alarming bride," is "one of the most immodest -pieces of modesty that one can imagine. To -attract notice could have been her only wish." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<i>ménages</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P108"></a>108}</span> -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 <i>Eugénie Grandet</i>, George -Sand, in <i>Tamaris</i>, 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P109"></a>109}</span> -expressed surprise at the knowledge of "exalted -circles" shown in <i>The Young Duke</i>, "my son, -sir, when he wrote that book, had never even <i>seen</i> -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 -<i>Mansfield Park</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -Had the meeting of the authors of <i>Emma</i> and -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P110"></a>110}</span> -<i>Corinne</i> 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 -"<i>vulgaire</i>," 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 <i>Corinne</i> and <i>Delphine</i>, she would -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P111"></a>111}</span> -prefer not to be matched with a lady who had put -to so practical a test her theories "<i>de l'influence -des passions sur le bonheur</i>." -</p> - -<p> -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? -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P112"></a>112}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P113"></a>113}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P114"></a>114}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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! -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P115"></a>115}</span> -not so diverting a creature as Martin Tinman of -Crikswich in Mr. Meredith's delightful comedy -<i>The House on the Beach</i>, 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 <i>he</i> 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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P116"></a>116}</span> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -About Christmas (1798) she writes— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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; -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P117"></a>117}</span> -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 <i>Battys</i> -would accept of anything, because I have not -made them the offer." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P118"></a>118}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P119"></a>119}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 <i>The Watsons</i>, 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P120"></a>120}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P121"></a>121}</span> -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 <i>Venetia</i>, or of -Shelley in <i>Nightmare Abbey</i>, 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 <i>Rhine</i>, or make you dizzy -with the height of <i>Mont Blanc</i>." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P122"></a>122}</span> -Madame de Staël meant by "<i>vulgaire</i>," 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P123"></a>123}</span> -"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." -</p> - -<p> -On another occasion, at a public hall at the -county town— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P124"></a>124}</span> -Catherine. There was commonly a couple of -ladies standing up together, but not often any so -amiable as ourselves." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p> -"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 <i>very</i> 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." -</p> - -<p> -A ball to which Jane Austen went in 1808—her -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P125"></a>125}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -The most pathetic dancing incident in the -novels was the impromptu affair at Uppercross -(in <i>Persuasion</i>), 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P126"></a>126}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>preux chevalier</i> and -saved Emma's lovely <i>protégée</i> 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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"I do not think I was very much in request. -People were rather apt not to ask me till they -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P127"></a>127}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P128"></a>128}</span> -Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was) would -suffer it.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.'" -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -"And no great harm if it does," said Mr. Woodhouse. -"The sooner every party breaks up the -better." -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p class="capcenter"> -<a id="img-128"></a> -<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-128.jpg" alt="A letter of Jane Austen's" /> -<br /> -A letter of Jane Austen's -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P129"></a>129}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Pride -and Prejudice</i>. 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. -</p> - -<p> -After Jane Fairfax had sung herself hoarse at -the Coles' party— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P130"></a>130}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "With tranquil step, and timid, downcast glance,<br /> - Behold the well-paired couple now advance.<br /> - In such sweet posture our first parents moved,<br /> - While, hand in hand, through Eden's bowers they roved,<br /> - Ere yet the Devil, with promise fine and false,<br /> - Turn'd their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz."<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P131"></a>131}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>moeurs</i>. 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P132"></a>132}</span> -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— -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "When dressed for the evening the girls now-a-days,<br /> - Scarce an atom of dress on them leave;<br /> - Nor blame them, for what is an evening dress<br /> - But a dress that is suited to Eve."<br /> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap04"></a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">{<a id="P135"></a>135}</span></p> - -<h3> -IV -<br /> -ETHICS AND OPTIMISM -</h3> - -<p class="intro"> -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—<i>Lady -Susan</i> condemned by its author—<i>The Watsons</i>—Change -in manners—No "heroes"—Woman's love—The -Prince Regent—<i>The Quarterly Review</i>. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -"The moral lessons of this lady's novels," wrote -Archbishop Whately in his <i>Quarterly</i> 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 (<i>sic</i>) -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P136"></a>136}</span> -at the former, of which we have complained, as -sometimes defeating its object." -</p> - -<p> -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. <i>Pride and -Prejudice</i> 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; <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> that when the -bad man falls into the pit he has dug for himself, -the good man comes by his own; <i>Emma</i> that the -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P137"></a>137}</span> -man whose society is most necessary to a woman's -quiet contentment is the man she ought to marry; -<i>Mansfield Park</i> 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; <i>Persuasion</i> that nothing is -more likely to revive an old passion than to see -its object warmly admired by some other eligible -party; <i>Northanger Abbey</i> 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 <i>Lady Susan</i>, -the moral of that unpleasing story is that if a -worldly <i>mater pulchra</i> is the rival in love of an -ingenuous <i>filia pulchrior</i> she will probably lose -the battle after much suffering on either side; and -from <i>The Watsons</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -We need not suppose that Jane Austen was -ignorant of the coarseness of conversation, the -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P138"></a>138}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P139"></a>139}</span> -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 <i>Quentin Durward</i> 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 <i>Quentin Durward</i> is more immoral for a boy -of fourteen than a translation of the most -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P140"></a>140}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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, -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P141"></a>141}</span> -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 <i>dénouement</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<i>Sense and Sensibility</i>. 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P142"></a>142}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P143"></a>143}</span> -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 <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P144"></a>144}</span> -Colonel Brandon an impartial reporter of the -affair, and proceeds to offer his own excuse in -the words that follow— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P145"></a>145}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P146"></a>146}</span> -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P147"></a>147}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Candide</i>. -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P148"></a>148}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -Writing of Maria Edgeworth in his <i>Notes for -a Diary</i>, Sir M. E. Grant Duff says: "In her, as -in Miss Austen, there is something wanting. Is it -what has been called the <i>nostalgie de l'Infini</i>?" 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P149"></a>149}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Encyclopædia</i>. 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. -</p> - -<p> -It has been said already that Jane Austen was -not a cynic. Yet it would be easy, by making -<i>Lady Susan</i> 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 <i>The Tale of a Tub</i> or in <i>L'Ile des -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P150"></a>150}</span> -Pingouins</i>. 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. -</p> - -<p> -What is the <i>dénouement</i> of <i>Lady Susan</i>? 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P151"></a>151}</span> -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...." -</p> - -<p> -It is certain that to some considerable extent -<i>Lady Susan</i> was a satire on several lady novelists -of the period. All Jane Austen's novels are more -or less satirical, from <i>Northanger Abbey</i>, which is -full of burlesque passages, to <i>Persuasion</i>, in which -they are so rare that it needs a hunt to discover -any. Whether or not <i>Lady Susan</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P152"></a>152}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Lady Susan</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -<i>The Watsons</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P153"></a>153}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -<i>The Rivals</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P154"></a>154}</span> -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 <i>The Watsons</i> form -a remarkable interlude between <i>Pride and -Prejudice</i> and <i>Mansfield Park</i>. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P155"></a>155}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P156"></a>156}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P157"></a>157}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Tom Jones</i>, Arabelle in <i>Le Lys dans -la Vallée</i>, or the Bellona of <i>Richard Feverel</i> 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 -<i>Splendeurs et Misèes de Courtisanes</i>, 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P158"></a>158}</span> -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 <i>grandes amoureuses</i> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P159"></a>159}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P160"></a>160}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>The School for Saints</i>), 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>reminded</i> that she is charming! -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P161"></a>161}</span> -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 <i>are authoresses</i>. They seem -to feel a sympathetic shudder at exposing naked -a female mind. <i>Elles se peignent en buste</i>, and -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P162"></a>162}</span> -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 <i>Quarterly Review</i> knew how to spell her name. -</p> - -<p> -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, -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P163"></a>163}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -There were, we may fairly believe, not a few -who would like to have been Jane's chosen mate. -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P164"></a>164}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>insist</i> upon your staying and hearing -Mr. Collins," compelled her to remain, with results -for which we must ever be grateful to -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P165"></a>165}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -There is a little matter connected with the -<i>Quarterly's</i> 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 <i>handsome</i> copy I sent him -of 'Emma.' Whatever he may think of <i>my</i> share -of the work, yours seems to have been quite right." -</p> - -<p> -In the same letter she expresses her disappointment -at the "total omission of 'Mansfield Park'" -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P166"></a>166}</span> -in the <i>Quarterly's</i> 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. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap05"></a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">{<a id="P169"></a>169}</span></p> - -<h3> -V -<br /> -THE IMPARTIAL SATIRIST -</h3> - -<p class="intro"> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P170"></a>170}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P171"></a>171}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P172"></a>172}</span> -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? -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P173"></a>173}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P174"></a>174}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>, have few equals. As for -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P175"></a>175}</span> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'With regard to the resentment of his family,' -says Elizabeth at last, 'or the indignation of the -world, if the former <i>were</i> 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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"In this manner Lady Catherine talked on till -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P176"></a>176}</span> -they were at the door of the carriage, when, turning -hastily round, she added— -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"Elizabeth made no answer, and without -attempting to persuade her ladyship to return -into the house, walked quietly into it herself." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P177"></a>177}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P178"></a>178}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P179"></a>179}</span> -life, which characters of fancied enthusiasm and -violent agitation seldom really possess." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="noindent"> -Anne, however, was not long in discovering grave -defects in this outwardly model person. She saw -that while he was -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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. -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P180"></a>180}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -She thus bluntly expresses what almost every -satirist merely implies, but she underrates her own -powers. The ordinary writer might or might not -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P181"></a>181}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P182"></a>182}</span> -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'I dare say,' replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, -'that I thought so <i>then</i>; but since we have parted, -I can never remember Emma's omitting to do -anything I wished.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'There is hardly any desiring to refresh such -a memory as <i>that</i>,' 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P183"></a>183}</span> -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.'" -</p> - -<p> -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P184"></a>184}</span> -well be sensible of under circumstances of -otherwise strong felicity." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P185"></a>185}</span> -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"She began at length to recover, to fidget about -in her chair, get up, sit down again, wonder, and -bless herself. -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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. -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"This was a sad omen of what her mother's -behaviour to the gentleman himself might be; and -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P186"></a>186}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<i>aperçu</i> of Mr. and Mrs. Morland, the author, <i>more -suo</i>, 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." -</p> - -<p> -If we seek in our memories for scenes of -particular excellence we shall recall with renewed -pleasure the rehearsals (<i>Mansfield Park</i>), the -encounters between Elizabeth and Mr. Collins -and Elizabeth and Lady Catherine (<i>Pride and -Prejudice</i>), the second and last proposal of -Wentworth to Anne Elliot (<i>Persuasion</i>), the picnic -at Box Hill and the dance at the "Crown" -(<i>Emma</i>). In all of these the spontaneity of the -narrative, the vitality of the talk and the vividness -with which the circumstances are realized with -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P187"></a>187}</span> -the smallest amount of description show the -author's art in its most delightful vein. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>manner</i> with which <i>sense</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P188"></a>188}</span> -"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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P189"></a>189}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P190"></a>190}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P191"></a>191}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P192"></a>192}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P193"></a>193}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P194"></a>194}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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 -<i>Villette</i> and <i>Delphine</i>, 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P195"></a>195}</span> -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 -<i>Faust</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -Among the widest traps, indeed, for those who -love to see a <i>roman à clef</i> 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, -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P196"></a>196}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>is</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P197"></a>197}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P198"></a>198}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap06"></a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">{<a id="P201"></a>201}</span></p> - -<h3> -VI -<br /> -PERSONAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL -</h3> - -<p class="intro"> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P202"></a>202}</span> -story is true, as it probably is not—he were to -invite the figments of his brain to lunch! -</p> - -<p> -Jane Austen was not quite so much obsessed by -her inventions, though she spoke of the very -novels themselves as personal entities. <i>Pride and -Prejudice</i> was "my own darling child," and of -<i>Sense and Sensibility</i> she writes, when it is -passing through the press: "No, indeed, I am never -too busy to think of <i>S. and S</i>. 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P203"></a>203}</span> -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 (<i>née</i> 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." -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P204"></a>204}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> was not -of that family. She was as pretty as she was -foolish. -</p> - -<p> -Even if it be true that Jane Austen only painted -the life which she found immediately around her, -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P205"></a>205}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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; -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P206"></a>206}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P207"></a>207}</span> -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 <i>premier</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P208"></a>208}</span> -of their birth, not because the author of a bit of -their life-history has told us. -</p> - -<p> -Who that has ever read <i>Weir of Hermiston</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P209"></a>209}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P210"></a>210}</span> -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 <i>Northanger -Abbey</i>. The occasion was the dance at Bath -which was to prove so momentous an event in -Catherine's life. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P211"></a>211}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -If we regard these as the author's considered -opinions, expressed with a characteristic touch of -<i>malice</i>, 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. -</p> - -<p> -The letters to Cassandra make up to some -extent for the deficiencies of the novels in a -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P212"></a>212}</span> -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 <i>style</i> 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." -</p> - -<p> -Then Cassandra is told by Jane, "I believe I -<i>shall</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P213"></a>213}</span> -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 <i>one</i> -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 <i>he</i> did when he was wounded." -</p> - -<p> -Many of her references to dress are of the -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P214"></a>214}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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>I</i> may kill a few." -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P215"></a>215}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -"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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P216"></a>216}</span> -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P217"></a>217}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P218"></a>218}</span> -2<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P219"></a>219}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>père</i>. There is plenty of -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P220"></a>220}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P221"></a>221}</span> -twelfth century to the eight o'clock in the evening -or later of the twentieth. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>douceurs</i> in being a sort of <i>chaperon</i>, -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P222"></a>222}</span> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -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." -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P223"></a>223}</span> -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P224"></a>224}</span> -appetite," which she considers "the chief merit -in housekeeping." Ragout of veal and haricot -mutton seem to have been specially attractive to -her. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P225"></a>225}</span> -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—<i>The Mirror</i>, 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P226"></a>226}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 (<i>necks</i> 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 <i>fine</i> young ladies check -every approach to mirth, by calling it <i>vulgar</i>. 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 <i>Elizabeth</i> -(since her visit she is offended if we call her -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P227"></a>227}</span> -<i>Betty</i>) said it was <i>fanatical</i> to find fault with -card-playing on Sunday; and her sister <i>Sophia</i> gravely -asked my son-in-law, the clergyman, if he had not -some doubts of the soul's immortality?" -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -Mr. Homespun declares that the moral plague -among the worldly rich should be dealt with by -Government "as much as the distemper among -the <i>horned cattle</i>." -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 <i>should</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P228"></a>228}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P229"></a>229}</span> -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— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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. -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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 -<i>Fordyce's Sermons</i>. Lydia gaped as he opened -the volume, and before he had, with very -monotonous solemnity, read three pages she interrupted -him with— -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P230"></a>230}</span> -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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold -her tongue; but Mr. Collins, much offended, laid -aside his book, and said— -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"'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.' -</p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -It is not only material accessories and necessaries, -furniture, dress, and so on that are slighted -by Jane Austen. Incidents that are of positive -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P231"></a>231}</span> -value to her plan are not allowed to linger a -moment after they have served the turn. The -adventure of Harriet Smith (in <i>Emma</i>) 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P232"></a>232}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P233"></a>233}</span> -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 <i>Ursule Mirouet</i>) 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 <i>The House on the Beach</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -If, however, there is no special "Jane Austen -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P234"></a>234}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P235"></a>235}</span> -experiences during her visits there had included a -Captain Wentworth or at least a Captain Benwick. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P236"></a>236}</span> -which are so characteristic in their spirit, was -written from Lyme by Jane to Cassandra, on -September 14, 1804— -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="quote"> -"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." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -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!" -</p> - -<p> -Jane's intimacy with places was chiefly confined -to Steventon, Godmersham, Chawton, Southampton, -Bath, and their neighbourhood. It is not a -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P237"></a>237}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p> -At either of these villages, Steventon the -birthplace of Jane herself and of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> -and <i>Mansfield Park</i>, and Chawton where <i>Persuasion</i> -and <i>Emma</i> 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P238"></a>238}</span> -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 <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>. 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. -</p> - -<p> -If the house itself is without external beauty, -the park surrounding it is delightful. The -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P239"></a>239}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P240"></a>240}</span> -Jane Austen mingles with the sweetness of her -heroines and the thousand delights of her -dialogue. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Northanger Abbey</i> and <i>Persuasion</i>, -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 <i>Pickwick Papers</i>, which merely -touch there on their way, or from the allusions of -the characters in <i>The Rivals</i>, 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P241"></a>241}</span> -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 <i>Northanger -Abbey</i> and <i>Persuasion</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P242"></a>242}</span> -"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. -</p> - -<p> -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 <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>—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 -(<i>Pride and Prejudice</i>) lived in Gracechurch -Street. -</p> - -<p> -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. -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P243"></a>243}</span> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P244"></a>244}</span> -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. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap07"></a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">{<a id="P247"></a>247}</span></p> - -<h3> -VII -<br /> -INFLUENCE IN LITERATURE -</h3> - -<p class="intro"> -Jane Austen's genius ignored—Negative and positive -instances—The literary orchard—Jane's influence in -English literature. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -The author of a book bearing the title <i>Great English -Novelists</i>, 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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P248"></a>248}</span> -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 <i>Britain's Great Authors</i>. Scott, -Thackeray, Dickens, of course, were among them, -and of right, but not Jane Austen. -</p> - -<p> -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. -</p> - -<p> -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" -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P249"></a>249}</span> -fiction of the material phase through which -humanity is now passing—passing perhaps more -briefly than most of us imagine. -</p> - -<p> -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 -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P250"></a>250}</span> -more green or more blue in tone, a little more -tortuous, or robust, but in spite of all trivial -differences <i>plus ça change plus c'est la même chose</i>. -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." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="biblio"></a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">{<a id="P251"></a>251}</span></p> - -<h3> -BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE -</h3> - -<p class="biblio"> -1811. <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>. [Completed in 1798. -Commenced many years earlier in the form of -letters, under the title <i>Elinor and Marianne</i>.] -</p> - -<p class="biblio"> -1813. <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>. [Completed in 1797. -Originally entitled (in MS.) <i>First Impressions</i>.] -</p> - -<p class="biblio"> -1814. <i>Mansfield Park</i>. [Written in 1811-14.] -</p> - -<p class="biblio"> -1816. <i>Emma</i>. [Written in 1811-16.] -</p> - -<p class="biblio"> -1818. <i>Northanger Abbey</i> and <i>Persuasion</i>. [<i>Northanger -Abbey</i> (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, -<i>at the same price</i>, after <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> -and <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> had appeared. -<i>Persuasion</i>, 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.] -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P252"></a>252}</span> -</p> - -<p class="biblio"> -1871. <i>Lady Susan</i>, <i>The Watsons</i>, 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 <i>Lady Susan</i>, 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 <i>The Watsons</i>, written about 1802, Jane was -not responsible for the naming of it, and had -laid it aside several years before <i>Mansfield Park</i> -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.] -</p> - -<p class="biblio"> -1884. <i>Letters of Jane Austen</i>, 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.] -</p> - -<p class="biblio"> - Mr. J. E. Austen Leigh's <i>Memoir</i> 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. -</p> - -<p> -<span class="pagenum">{<a id="P253"></a>253}</span> -</p> - -<p class="biblio"> - 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 <i>Life</i> contributed by Mr. Goldwin Smith -to the <i>Great Writers</i> series. -</p> - -<p class="biblio"> - [The dates given on the left hand are those of -publication.] -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="index"></a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">{<a id="P255"></a>255}</span></p> - -<h3> -INDEX -</h3> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Adams, Oscar, on Jane Austen, <a href="#P89">89</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Addison, Joseph, <a href="#P55">55</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Allen, Mr.," <a href="#P187">187</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mrs.," <a href="#P100">100</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Alphonsine</i>, <a href="#P61">61</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Anderson, Mrs. Garrett, <a href="#P170">170</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Antiquary, The</i>, <a href="#P51">51</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Apothecaries, <a href="#P114">114</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Arc, Joan of, <a href="#P169">169</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Aspasia, <a href="#P158">158</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Austen, Cassandra, <a href="#P31">31</a>, <a href="#P63">63</a>, <a href="#P79">79</a>, <a href="#P100">100</a>, <a href="#P212">212</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, Edward (<i>see</i> Knight), <a href="#P41">41</a>, <a href="#P214">214</a>, <a href="#P223">223</a>, <a href="#P238">238</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, The Rev. George, <a href="#P152">152</a>, <a href="#P223">223</a>, <a href="#P241">241</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, Henry, <a href="#P22">22</a>, <a href="#P243">243</a>, <a href="#P251">251</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, Jane, freshness of her work, -<a href="#P14">14</a>; her aim, <a href="#P18">18</a>, <a href="#P68">68</a>; at home, -<a href="#P22">22</a>; her nature, <a href="#P24">24-30</a>; views on -love, <a href="#P32">32</a>; her admirers, <a href="#P35">35-37</a>, -<a href="#P163">163</a>; her limited appeal, <a href="#P43">43</a>; on -novels, <a href="#P50">50-54</a>; favourite authors, -<a href="#P56">56-60</a>; criticism of niece's work, -<a href="#P63">63-64</a>; limitations of subject, -<a href="#P16">16-19</a>, <a href="#P65">65</a>, <a href="#P112">112</a>, <a href="#P192">192</a>, <a href="#P204">204</a>; -literary style, <a href="#P66">66-70</a>, <a href="#P82">82-85</a>; -choice of names, <a href="#P74">74</a>; in London, -<a href="#P76">76</a>, <a href="#P242">242</a>; views of life, <a href="#P41">41</a>, <a href="#P87">87</a>, -<a href="#P217">217</a>; as humourist, <a href="#P89">89</a>, <a href="#P171">171-172</a>; -a "forbidding" writer, <a href="#P89">89</a>; -Mr. Goldwin Smith on her novels, <a href="#P91">91</a>; -contrasted with Peacock, <a href="#P92">92-94</a>; -her letters, <a href="#P23">23</a>, <a href="#P31">31</a>, <a href="#P99">99</a>, <a href="#P121">121</a>, -<a href="#P211">211-223</a>; declines to meet -Madame de Staël, <a href="#P109">109</a>; her -charities, <a href="#P116">116-117</a>; at balls and -dances, <a href="#P123">123-128</a>; Dr. Whately -on her work, <a href="#P135">135</a>, <a href="#P161">161</a>, <a href="#P181">181</a>, <a href="#P189">189</a>; -views of marriage, <a href="#P106">106</a>, <a href="#P138">138-140</a>; -influenced by current philosophy, -<a href="#P143">143-149</a>; her fine taste, <a href="#P152">152</a>; -her opinion of <i>Lady Susan</i>, <a href="#P152">152</a>; -her heroines, <a href="#P21">21</a>, <a href="#P32">32-33</a>, <a href="#P138">138-163</a>; -their relations, <a href="#P183">183</a>; her -avoidance of dogmatism, <a href="#P149">149</a>, <a href="#P193">193</a>; -love for her own creations, <a href="#P202">202</a>; -economy of description, <a href="#P205">205</a>, -<a href="#P227">227</a>, <a href="#P231">231</a>; on dress, <a href="#P210">210-219</a>; -food, <a href="#P219">219-224</a>; places—Bath, -<a href="#P152">152</a>, <a href="#P214">214</a>, <a href="#P240">240</a>; Chawton, <a href="#P22">22</a>, -<a href="#P153">153</a>, <a href="#P237">237</a>; Godmersham, <a href="#P41">41</a>, -<a href="#P223">223</a>, <a href="#P238">238</a>; London, <a href="#P76">76</a>, <a href="#P242">242</a>; -Lyme Regis, <a href="#P160">160</a>, <a href="#P234">234-236</a>; -Southampton, <a href="#P241">241</a>; Steventon, -<a href="#P22">22</a>, <a href="#P153">153</a>, <a href="#P214">214</a>, <a href="#P234">234</a>; her literary -influence, <a href="#P247">247-250</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Austen, Mrs., <a href="#P25">25</a>, <a href="#P29">29</a>, <a href="#P222">222</a>, <a href="#P223">223</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Balzac, <a href="#P17">17</a>, <a href="#P108">108</a>, <a href="#P201">201</a>, <a href="#P209">209</a>, <a href="#P233">233</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Barton," <a href="#P102">102</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Bates, Miss," <a href="#P175">175</a>, <a href="#P219">219</a>, <a href="#P221">221</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Bath, <a href="#P152">152</a>, <a href="#P153">153</a>, <a href="#P214">214</a>, <a href="#P240">240</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Batilliat, Marcel, <a href="#P57">57</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Bazin, René, <a href="#P57">57</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Beaconsfield, Lord, <a href="#P108">108</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Bellaston, Lady," <a href="#P157">157</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Bellona" (<i>Richard Feverel</i>), <a href="#P157">157</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Bennet, Elizabeth," <a href="#P79">79</a>, <a href="#P93">93</a>, <a href="#P203">203</a>, <a href="#P216">216</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Jane," <a href="#P42">42</a>, <a href="#P203">203</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Lydia," <a href="#P43">43</a>, <a href="#P141">141</a>, <a href="#P229">229</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mr.," <a href="#P72">72</a>, <a href="#P90">90</a>, <a href="#P229">229</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mrs.," <a href="#P72">72</a>, <a href="#P90">90</a>, <a href="#P100">100</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Bertram, Edmund," <a href="#P40">40</a>, <a href="#P70">70</a>, <a href="#P155">155</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Lady," <a href="#P131">131</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Maria," <a href="#P18">18</a>, <a href="#P83">83</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Sir Thomas," <a href="#P64">64</a>, <a href="#P130">130</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Bingleys, The," <a href="#P115">115</a>, <a href="#P129">129</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Bond, John, <a href="#P116">116</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Boswell, James, <a href="#P58">58</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Boulangeries (dance), <a href="#P129">129</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Bourgh, Lady Catherine de," <a href="#P118">118</a>, <a href="#P175">175</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Box Hill, picnic at, <a href="#P175">175</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Brabourne, Lord, <a href="#P252">252</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Brandon, Colonel," <a href="#P141">141-144</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Brock, C. E., <a href="#P209">209</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Brontë, Charlotte, <a href="#P19">19</a>, <a href="#P85">85</a>, <a href="#P195">195</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Barney, Frances, <a href="#P49">49</a>, <a href="#P53">53</a>, <a href="#P60">60</a>, <a href="#P86">86</a>, <a href="#P88">88</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, Sarah, <a href="#P61">61</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Byron, Lord, <a href="#P121">121</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Cage, Mrs., <a href="#P100">100</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Calprenède, <a href="#P55">55</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Cambridge Observer</i>, <a href="#P83">83</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Camper, Lady," <a href="#P205">205</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Candide</i>, <a href="#P147">147</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Carlton House, <a href="#P65">65</a>, <a href="#P165">165</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Chainmail, Mr.," <a href="#P93">93</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Charlet, <a href="#P243">243</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Châtelet, Madame du, <a href="#P102">102</a>, <a href="#P158">158</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Chawton, <a href="#P22">22</a>, <a href="#P153">153</a>, <a href="#P237">237</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Chesterfield, Lord, <a href="#P78">78</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Church of England, <a href="#P189">189-191</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Churchill, Frank," <a href="#P37">37</a>, <a href="#P104">104</a>, <a href="#P127">127</a>, <a href="#P231">231</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Chute, William, <a href="#P37">37</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Cibber, Colley, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Clandestine Marriage</i>, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Clarentine</i>, <a href="#P61">61</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Clarissa</i>, <a href="#P50">50</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Clay, Mrs.," <a href="#P18">18</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Coleridge, <a href="#P19">19</a>, <a href="#P194">194</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Coles, The," <a href="#P129">129</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Collins, Mr.," <a href="#P71">71</a>, <a href="#P93">93</a>, <a href="#P164">164</a>, <a href="#P192">192</a>, <a href="#P229">229</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Colonies, American, <a href="#P13">13</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Connoisseur, The</i>, <a href="#P56">56</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Consumption, <a href="#P218">218</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Cork Street, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Cormon, Rose," <a href="#P18">18</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Corsair, The</i>, <a href="#P215">215</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Courcy, Reginald de," <a href="#P150">150</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Cowper, William, <a href="#P29">29</a>, <a href="#P57">57</a>, <a href="#P223">223</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Crabbe, George, <a href="#P56">56</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Crawford, Henry," <a href="#P18">18</a>, <a href="#P83">83</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mary," <a href="#P40">40</a>, <a href="#P160">160</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Critic, an American, <a href="#P45">45</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Croker, John Wilson, <a href="#P198">198</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Crotchet Castle</i>, <a href="#P93">93</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Curie, Madame, <a href="#P170">170</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Cuvier, <a href="#P193">193</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -"Dalrymples, The," <a href="#P119">119</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Darcy, Fitzwilliam," <a href="#P33">33</a>, <a href="#P42">42</a>, <a href="#P93">93</a>, <a href="#P118">118</a>, <a href="#P203">203</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Georgiana," <a href="#P67">67</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Darwin, Erasmus, <a href="#P193">193</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Dashwood, Elinor," <a href="#P18">18</a>, <a href="#P43">43</a>, <a href="#P141">141-148</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Marianne," <a href="#P79">79</a>, <a href="#P141">141</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mrs.," <a href="#P188">188</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Deism, <a href="#P193">193</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Dickens, <a href="#P219">219</a>, <a href="#P233">233</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Digweed, James, <a href="#P114">114</a>, <a href="#P123">123</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Disraeli, Isaac, <a href="#P108">108</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Dobson, Austin, <a href="#P253">253</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Dodsley, Robert, <a href="#P59">59-60</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Dotheboys Hall," <a href="#P92">92</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Dowton, William, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Dress, <a href="#P210">210-219</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Dudley, Arabelle," <a href="#P157">157</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Duff, Sir M. E. Grant, <a href="#P148">148</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Dumas <i>père</i>, <a href="#P219">219</a>, <a href="#P243">243</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Edgeworth, Maria, <a href="#P53">53</a>, <a href="#P60">60</a>, <a href="#P76">76</a>, <a href="#P148">148</a>, <a href="#P189">189</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Eliot, George, <a href="#P85">85</a>, <a href="#P169">169</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Elliot, Anne," <a href="#P33">33</a>, <a href="#P93">93</a>, <a href="#P125">125</a>, <a href="#P163">163</a>, <a href="#P250">250</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Sir Walter," <a href="#P118">118</a>, <a href="#P176">176</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, William, <a href="#P160">160</a>, <a href="#P178">178</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Elliott, Kirstie," <a href="#P208">208</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Elton, Mr.," <a href="#P104">104</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mrs.," <a href="#P173">173</a>, <a href="#P205">205</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Emma</i>, <a href="#P80">80</a>, <a href="#P131">131</a>, <a href="#P237">237</a>, <a href="#P251">251</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Eugénie Grandet</i>, <a href="#P108">108</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Evelina," <a href="#P99">99</a>, <a href="#P139">139</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Eyre, Jane," <a href="#P16">16</a>, <a href="#P195">195</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -"Fagin," <a href="#P92">92</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Fairfax, Jane," <a href="#P38">38</a>, <a href="#P129">129</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Ferrars, Edward," <a href="#P155">155</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Lucy," <a href="#P82">82</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Feverel, Lucy," <a href="#P35">35</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Richard," <a href="#P35">35</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Ffolliot, Dr.," <a href="#P93">93</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Fielding, Henry, <a href="#P14">14</a>, <a href="#P154">154</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Fischer, Lisbeth," <a href="#P16">16</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Food, <a href="#P219">219-224</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -France, Anatole, <a href="#P149">149</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Frénilly, Baron de, on dress, <a href="#P218">218</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Galt, John, <a href="#P76">76</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Gardiners, The," <a href="#P140">140</a>, <a href="#P242">242</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Garrick, <a href="#P59">59-60</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Genlis, Madame de, <a href="#P61">61</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -George III, on genius, <a href="#P49">49</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Gifford, William, <a href="#P165">165</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Gipsies, <a href="#P231">231</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Gobseck, Esther van," <a href="#P157">157</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Godmersham, <a href="#P41">41</a>, <a href="#P223">223</a>, <a href="#P238">238</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Grandet, Père," <a href="#P16">16</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Grandison, Sir Charles," <a href="#P205">205</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Great English Novelists</i>, <a href="#P247">247</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Gulliver's Travels</i>, <a href="#P94">94</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Guy Mannering</i>, <a href="#P51">51</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Hall, Robert, on Miss Edgeworth, <a href="#P189">189</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Hamlet," <a href="#P181">181</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Hardy, Thomas, <a href="#P233">233</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Hazlitt, William, <a href="#P165">165</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Headlong Hall</i>, <a href="#P94">94</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Henrietta Street, <a href="#P242">242</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Homespun, Mr.," <a href="#P225">225</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Hope, Anthony, <a href="#P44">44</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>House on the Beach, The</i>, <a href="#P115">115</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Hurst, Mrs.," <a href="#P216">216</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Huxley, Thomas, <a href="#P170">170</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Hypocrite, The</i>, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Ida of Athens</i>, <a href="#P62">62</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Idler, The</i>, <a href="#P56">56</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -"Jennings, Mrs.," <a href="#P102">102</a>, <a href="#P138">138</a>, <a href="#P142">142</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Jingle, Alfred," <a href="#P75">75</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Johnson, Samuel, <a href="#P56">56</a>, <a href="#P58">58</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Jones, Tom," <a href="#P155">155</a>, <a href="#P213">213</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Jonson, Ben, <a href="#P86">86</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Kean, Edmund, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Kew, Lady," <a href="#P16">16</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Knatchbull, Lady, <i>see</i> Knight, Fanny -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Knight, Edward (Austen), <a href="#P41">41</a>, <a href="#P214">214</a>, <a href="#P223">223</a>, <a href="#P238">238</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, Fanny, <a href="#P40">40</a>, <a href="#P104">104</a>, <a href="#P252">252</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Knightley, George," <a href="#P70">70</a>, <a href="#P155">155</a>, <a href="#P181">181</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Lady Susan</i>, <a href="#P87">87</a>, <a href="#P137">137</a>, <a href="#P149">149-152</a>, <a href="#P252">252</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Lamb, Charles, <a href="#P13">13</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Landor, Walter Savage, <a href="#P13">13</a>, <a href="#P198">198</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Lang, Andrew, <a href="#P147">147</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Langton, Bennet, <a href="#P58">58</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>La Terre qui meurt</i>, <a href="#P57">57</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>La Vendée aux Genêts</i>, <a href="#P57">57</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Lefroy, Thomas, <a href="#P35">35-36</a>, <a href="#P213">213</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Leigh, J. E. Austen, <a href="#P23">23</a>, <a href="#P251">251</a>, <a href="#P252">252</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Letters of Jane Austen</i>, <a href="#P252">252</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Lewes, G. H., <a href="#P85">85</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Liston, John, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Lloyd, Martha, <a href="#P67">67</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Lockhart, William, his "Life of Scott," <a href="#P166">166</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Lombroso, <a href="#P147">147</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -London, <a href="#P76">76</a>, <a href="#P242">242</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Lounger, The</i>, <a href="#P56">56</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Love, Jane Austen's views on, <a href="#P32">32</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Lucas, Charlotte," <a href="#P139">139</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, E. V., <a href="#P253">253</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Sir William," <a href="#P114">114-115</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Lyford, John, <a href="#P123">123</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Lyme Regis, <a href="#P160">160</a>, <a href="#P234">234-236</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Lys dans la Vallée, Le</i>, <a href="#P157">157</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Macaulay, <a href="#P49">49</a>, <a href="#P68">68</a>, <a href="#P181">181</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Mackintosh, Sir James, <a href="#P122">122</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Manerville, Natalie de," <a href="#P19">19</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Mansfield Park</i>, <a href="#P44">44</a>, <a href="#P137">137</a>, <a href="#P165">165</a>, <a href="#P186">186</a>, <a href="#P237">237</a>, <a href="#P251">251</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Margiana</i>, <a href="#P61">61</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Marriage, <a href="#P106">106</a>, <a href="#P138">138</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Martin, Mrs., her library, <a href="#P60">60</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Robert," <a href="#P113">113</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Mascarille," <a href="#P78">78</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Mathews, Charles, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"McQueedy, Mr.," <a href="#P93">93</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Melincourt</i>, <a href="#P94">94</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Meredith, George, <a href="#P69">69</a>, <a href="#P115">115</a>, <a href="#P233">233</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Middleton, Lady," <a href="#P187">187</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Sir John," <a href="#P79">79</a>, <a href="#P102">102</a>, <a href="#P119">119</a>, <a href="#P205">205</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Milestone, Mr.," <a href="#P93">93</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Millamant," <a href="#P159">159</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Milton, <a href="#P21">21</a>, <a href="#P194">194</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Mirabell," <a href="#P159">159</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Mirror, The</i>, <a href="#P225">225</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Mitford, Mrs., <a href="#P104">104</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Morland, Catherine," <a href="#P18">18</a>, <a href="#P34">34</a>, <a href="#P80">80</a>, -<a href="#P81">81</a>, <a href="#P88">88</a>, <a href="#P91">91</a>, <a href="#P99">99</a>, <a href="#P216">216</a>, <a href="#P224">224</a>, <a href="#P227">227</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mr. and Mrs.," <a href="#P186">186</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Murray, John, "The First," <a href="#P165">165</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Musgrove, Louisa," <a href="#P187">187</a>, <a href="#P236">236</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Names, <a href="#P74">74</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Nanny," <a href="#P113">113</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Napoleon on Madame de Staël, <a href="#P45">45</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Nature's Salic Law," <a href="#P170">170</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Newcome, Colonel," <a href="#P75">75</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Nightingale, Florence, <a href="#P169">169</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Nightmare Abbey</i>, <a href="#P94">94</a>, <a href="#P121">121</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Norris, Mrs.," <a href="#P187">187</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Northanger Abbey</i>, <a href="#P44">44</a>, <a href="#P53">53</a>, <a href="#P87">87</a>, <a href="#P151">151</a>, <a href="#P210">210</a>, <a href="#P240">240</a>, <a href="#P251">251</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Nostalgie de l'Infini," <a href="#P148">148</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Novel, "Plan of," <a href="#P95">95</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, suggestion for, <a href="#P65">65</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Novelists, defence of, <a href="#P53">53</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Novels, <a href="#P50">50</a>, <a href="#P60">60-62</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, French, <a href="#P55">55</a>, <a href="#P57">57</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -O'Neill, Miss, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Orange, Robert," <a href="#P160">160</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Ordeal of Richard Feverel, The</i>, <a href="#P157">157</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Osborne, Dorothy, <a href="#P31">31</a>, <a href="#P33">33</a>, <a href="#P55">55</a>, <a href="#P163">163</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Lord," <a href="#P113">113</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, Mr., on passions, <a href="#P163">163</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Owenson, Miss, <a href="#P62">62</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Pamela</i>, <a href="#P50">50</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Patterne, Sir Willoughby," <a href="#P205">205</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Peacock, Thomas Love, <a href="#P92">92-94</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Pecksniff," <a href="#P16">16</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Pemberley," <a href="#P42">42</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Persuasion</i>, <a href="#P125">125</a>, <a href="#P137">137</a>, <a href="#P151">151</a>, <a href="#P186">186</a>, <a href="#P237">237</a>, <a href="#P240">240</a>, <a href="#P251">251</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Phelps, W. L., <a href="#P34">34</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Pickwick Papers</i>, <a href="#P240">240</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Picnics, <a href="#P175">175</a>, <a href="#P224">224</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Pierrette," <a href="#P18">18</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Plutocrats, <a href="#P41">41</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Plymley Letters</i>, <a href="#P78">78</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Pons, Sylvain," <a href="#P75">75</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Portsmouth, <a href="#P66">66</a>, <a href="#P184">184</a>, <a href="#P233">233</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Poverty, <a href="#P40">40</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Powlett, Charles, <a href="#P36">36</a>, <a href="#P101">101</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Précieuses ridicules</i>, <a href="#P78">78</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Price, Fanny," <a href="#P18">18</a>, <a href="#P34">34</a>, <a href="#P184">184</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, <a href="#P44">44</a>, <a href="#P62">62</a>, <a href="#P85">85</a>, <a href="#P129">129</a>, <a href="#P136">136</a>, <a href="#P186">186</a>, <a href="#P237">237</a>, <a href="#P251">251</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Property, landed, <a href="#P41">41-42</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Proudie, Mrs.," <a href="#P205">205</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Quarterly Review</i>, <a href="#P135">135</a>, <a href="#P162">162</a>, <a href="#P165">165</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Queensberry, Duke of, <a href="#P191">191</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Quentin Durward</i>, <a href="#P139">139</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Quilp," <a href="#P16">16</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Radcliffe, Mrs., <a href="#P50">50</a>, <a href="#P52">52</a>, <a href="#P60">60</a>, <a href="#P86">86</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Rambler, The</i>, <a href="#P56">56</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Ravenswood Tower," <a href="#P92">92</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Realism, <a href="#P205">205</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Regent, The, <a href="#P153">153</a>, <a href="#P165">165</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Religion, <a href="#P189">189</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Reynolds, Sir Joshua, <a href="#P59">59</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mrs.," <a href="#P112">112</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Richardson, Samuel, <a href="#P50">50</a>, <a href="#P59">59</a>, <a href="#P60">60</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Rigby, Mr.," <a href="#P198">198</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Rivals, The</i>, <a href="#P153">153</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Rochefide, Beatrix de," <a href="#P19">19</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Rushworth, Maria," <a href="#P18">18</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Rushworth, Mr.," <a href="#P83">83</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Russell, Lady," <a href="#P163">163</a>, <a href="#P183">183</a>, <a href="#P205">205</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Saintsbury, George, <a href="#P90">90</a>, <a href="#P141">141</a>, <a href="#P253">253</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Sand, George, <a href="#P108">108</a>, <a href="#P169">169</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Sappho, <a href="#P249">249</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Saxe-Coburg family, <a href="#P65">65</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Scharlieb, Mrs., <a href="#P170">170</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>School for Saints, The</i>, <a href="#P160">160</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#P16">16</a>, <a href="#P42">42</a>, <a href="#P51">51</a>, <a href="#P67">67</a>, <a href="#P76">76</a>, <a href="#P209">209</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, Life of, <a href="#P166">166</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Scudéri, Mademoiselle de, <a href="#P55">55</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Scythrop," <a href="#P93">93</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Sedley, Jos," <a href="#P92">92</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Self-control</i>, <a href="#P61">61</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Selwyn, George, <a href="#P191">191</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Sense and Sensibility</i>, <a href="#P44">44</a>, <a href="#P62">62</a>, <a href="#P82">82</a>, <a href="#P136">136</a>, <a href="#P143">143</a>, <a href="#P202">202</a>, <a href="#P242">242</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Shakespeare, <a href="#P84">84-85</a>, <a href="#P181">181</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Shelley, <a href="#P121">121</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Sheridan, <a href="#P130">130</a>, <a href="#P153">153</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Shirley," <a href="#P92">92</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Sir Charles Grandison</i>, <a href="#P50">50</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Smith, Goldwin, <a href="#P91">91</a>, <a href="#P253">253</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Harriet," <a href="#P103">103</a>, <a href="#P231">231</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, James, <a href="#P13">13</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -——, Sydney, <a href="#P78">78</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Socialists, <a href="#P41">41</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Sondes, Lady, <a href="#P106">106</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Southampton, <a href="#P241">241</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Spectator, The</i>, <a href="#P53">53-55</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Staël, Madame de, <a href="#P45">45</a>, <a href="#P109">109-111</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Steele, Richard, <a href="#P55">55</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Stephen, Leslie, <a href="#P235">235</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Stephens, Miss, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Steventon, <a href="#P22">22</a>, <a href="#P153">153</a>, <a href="#P214">214</a>, <a href="#P234">234</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Steyne, Lord," <a href="#P16">16</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Surville, Madame de, <a href="#P201">201</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Swift, Jonathan, <a href="#P149">149</a>, <a href="#P220">220</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Tamaris</i>, <a href="#P108">108</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Tartuffe</i>, <a href="#P77">77</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Tatler, The</i>, <a href="#P56">56</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Temple, Sir William, <a href="#P33">33</a>, <a href="#P55">55</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Tennyson, <a href="#P26">26</a>, <a href="#P236">236</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Thackeray, <a href="#P16">16</a>, <a href="#P28">28</a>, <a href="#P94">94</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Theatricals at the Bertrams', <a href="#P131">131</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Thomson, Hugh, <a href="#P209">209</a>, <a href="#P232">232</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Thorpe, John," <a href="#P51">51</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Tilney, General," <a href="#P187">187</a>, <a href="#P224">224</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Henry," <a href="#P18">18</a>, <a href="#P70">70</a>, <a href="#P80">80</a>, <a href="#P88">88</a>, <a href="#P91">91</a>, <a href="#P93">93</a>, <a href="#P216">216</a>, <a href="#P224">224</a>, <a href="#P225">225</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Tinman, Martin," <a href="#P115">115</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Tom Jones</i>, <a href="#P157">157</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Tulliver, Mr.," <a href="#P205">205</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Turner, J. M. W., <a href="#P13">13</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -"Uppercross," dancing at, <a href="#P125">125</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Vallière, Louise de la, <a href="#P158">158</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Vandenesse, Felix de," <a href="#P201">201</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Vautrin," <a href="#P92">92</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Vendée, La, <a href="#P57">57</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Venetia</i>, <a href="#P121">121</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Ventilation, Mr. Woodhouse on, <a href="#P127">127</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Vernon, Lady Susan," <a href="#P106">106</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Verrall, A. W., on text of Jane Austen's novels, <a href="#P83">83</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Village, The</i>, <a href="#P56">56</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Villiers, Barbara, <a href="#P158">158</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Voltaire, <a href="#P147">147</a>, <a href="#P158">158</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Waltz, <a href="#P129">129-131</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Warner, Dr., <a href="#P191">191</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Watsons, The</i>, <a href="#P87">87</a>, <a href="#P137">137</a>, <a href="#P152">152</a>, <a href="#P252">252</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Waverley</i>, <a href="#P51">51</a>, <a href="#P52">52</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>Weir of Hermiston</i>, <a href="#P208">208</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Wentworth, Frederick," <a href="#P125">125</a>, <a href="#P155">155</a>, <a href="#P188">188</a>, <a href="#P251">251</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Western, Sophia," <a href="#P142">142</a>, <a href="#P155">155</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Squire," <a href="#P154">154</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Weston, Mr.," <a href="#P115">115</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mrs.," <a href="#P84">84</a>, <a href="#P103">103</a>, <a href="#P181">181</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Whately, Archbishop, <a href="#P135">135</a>, <a href="#P161">161</a>, <a href="#P181">181</a>, <a href="#P189">189</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Wickham," <a href="#P141">141</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Williams, Miss," <a href="#P143">143</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Willoughby, John," <a href="#P18">18</a>, <a href="#P79">79</a>, <a href="#P141">141-146</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Wine, <a href="#P221">221</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"Woodhouse, Emma," <a href="#P33">33</a>, <a href="#P37">37</a>, <a href="#P64">64</a>, <a href="#P93">93</a>, <a href="#P103">103</a>, <a href="#P181">181</a>, <a href="#P221">221</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -"——, Mr.," <a href="#P172">172</a>, <a href="#P174">174</a>, <a href="#P221">221</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -<i>World, The</i>, <a href="#P56">56</a> -</p> - -<p class="index"> -Wyndham, Mr., <a href="#P104">104</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="index"> -Zola, <a href="#P66">66</a> -</p> - - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> -THE END -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t4"> -RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, -BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND -BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jane Austen and her Country-house -Comedy, by W. 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