BEHIND THE HEDGE-ROWS
Spreading the magic carpet of the imagination, we take flight from the
free and easy court of Weimar to the home of an English rector, where
impropriety is scarcely whispered, and where a little old maid of genius
lives amid tea-parties and the embroidering of linen and the visiting
of the poor, interrupted at intervals by the major crises of births,
marriages and deaths.
Jane Austen was the youngest of seven children, who dwelt together in
that amity which the Bible recommends but which frail humanity
infrequently realizes. She was a genius without eccentricities, egotisms
or rebellions; never did a writer of immortal books live a more
conventional life or have less to write about. She had no literary
friends, not even at the end of her life. Her best work was done at the
age of twenty-two, and was a secret kept from the members of her family.
She wrote on little sheets of paper, which could be quickly hidden under
a blotter or a piece of “fancy work.” Her books were not published until
late in her life, and then they were published anonymously. She died of
tuberculosis at the age of forty-two.
The characters in her novels are the people of the world she knew. Her
theme is, of course, the theme of all bourgeois fiction, the property
marriage. Here we see the golden love-glints flashing from Cupid’s eyes;
here we see the fortunes sailing about upon breezes of emotion; here we
see Sensibility controlled by Sense.
Not great fortunes, you understand, but modest ones, such as entitle one
to be on the visiting list of an English country rector. A fortune
sufficient to enable the hero to escape the inconvenience of working,
and to live in the country and exhibit to mankind a beautiful and
graceful specimen of the human race. A fortune sufficient to enable him
to marry a lady of Sense and Sensibility, and to provide her with a
beautiful home and a garden, and a few servants, and maintenance for
whatever number of children it may please Providence to send. That is
the sort of fortune for which Jane Austen’s heroines are competing, and
which each of them invariably gets--the bourgeois happy ending.
Do not misunderstand me: her heroines are not mercenary--that is, not
with their conscious minds. The mercenary elements in their lives are
instinctive and conventional; the laws of the British leisure classes,
of “gentlefolk.” These laws Jane Austen never questioned, nor does
anyone of her heroines ever question them. Therefore it is possible for
these ladies to be mercenary to the point of ferocity, yet at the same
time to be sentimental and even charming.
If you travel through the Jane Austen country you find the roads lined
with hedge-rows, which bear flowers in the springtime, and are full of
birds, and afford opportunity for delightful descriptions in novels;
also they afford thrilling adventures, because a heroine can stand
behind a hedge-row and listen to her best friend discussing her to her
lover. Outside these hedge-rows walk common people of all sorts; farm
laborers on their way to fourteen hours of animal-like toil; factory
workers, pale and stunted; soldiers on the march; able seamen paying a
visit to home; tradesmen, tourists--all sorts of persons one does not
know. Behind the hedge-rows dwell the “gentlefolk,” carefully guarded by
the police magistrates; and the common people never by any chance
penetrate the hedge-rows, except in the capacity of servants. So the
young ladies of the “gentle” family meet no men save such as have been
carefully investigated and approved; so it is possible for these ladies
to be full of Sensibility--that is, quivering with excitement at the
male approach--and yet entirely innocent of mercenary motives, and
entirely safe from the danger of making an unmercenary match.
How perfectly this system works you may note in Jane Austen’s novels.
There are eight heroines, and eight fortunes to be married. One of the
heroines takes the risk of marrying a clergyman who has no money except
his “living.” Two others marry clergymen who, in addition to their
“livings,” have good financial prospects. The other five marry
non-clerical gentlemen of wealth. Mostly these fortunes come from land;
everywhere over the Jane Austen novel there hovers a magic presence
known as the “entailed estate.” In only one case is there any hint of
vulgar origin for the fortune, in a recent connection with “trade.” Of
all the fortunes, only one has actually been gained by the man who
possesses it and bestows it upon the heroine; and this man has gained it
in a most respectable Christian way--that is to say, not by “trade,” but
by killing and robbery. He has been a naval captain, and brings home his
share of the prizes taken.
The great crimes and horrors of the world lie outside the hedge-rows
surrounding the Jane Austen rectory. We can hear the guns and smell the
powder smoke, but the deadly missiles never pass the magic barrier. Two
of Jane’s brothers are naval officers, and they come and go in imposing
uniforms; the Napoleonic wars are on, and they are guarding the channel,
and in later life become admirals. An intimate friend of the family is
Warren Hastings, who conquered India for the British; when he was placed
on trial for wholesale graft, he explained by saying that when he
considered his opportunities, he marveled, not that he had taken so
much, but that he had not taken more. Nothing of anything like this
enters into the novels.
What does enter are the quiverings of Sensibility, the ups and downs of
the “tender emotions.” When we were children we used to take a daisy and
pull off the petals, and with petal number one we would say: “He loves
me,” and with petal number two: “He loves me not,” and so on. With petal
number one our heart goes up, and with petal number two it goes down.
There is another question, equally thrilling: “Do I love him, or do I
not?” Many things get in the way; Pride and Prejudice, for example. It
is hard to know our own minds; and sometimes when we hesitate too long,
it is necessary for the older members of our family to apply Persuasion.
(I am making puns on the titles of the novels.)
I would not be understood to disparage this little English old maid. She
did not make her world, in which the father of the family preaches in
the name of the Prince of Peace, and the sons go out to kill and loot.
She is a most charming and witty old maid, and her queer people are
alive in every throb of their quivering hearts. She was a sly little
body, and we suspect her of knowing more than she tells. There was a
terrible scandal whispered concerning her, which she vehemently denied;
we hate to pass it on, but this is a book of plain speaking and we have
to do our duty--so let it be recorded that some of the neighbors
suspected Jane Austen of watching them at tea-parties and church fairs,
with the intention of putting their peculiarities into her books!