At sight of thee, O Tricolor,
I seem to feel youth's hours return,
The loved, the lost!
So writes Mrs. Opie at the age of sixty, reviving, delighting, as she
catches sight of her beloved Paris once more, and breathes its clear
and life-giving air, and looks out across its gardens and glittering
gables and spires, and again meets her French acquaintances, and throws
herself into their arms and into their interests with all her old warmth
and excitability. The little grey bonnet only gives certain incongruous
piquancy to her pleasant, kind-hearted exuberance. She returns to
England, but far-away echoes reach her soon of changes and revolutions
concerning all the people for whom her regard is so warm. In August,
1830, came the news of a new revolution--'The Chamber of Deputies
dissolved for ever; the liberty of the press abolished; king, ministers,
court, and ambassadors flying from Paris to Vincennes; cannon planted
against the city; 5,000 people killed, and the Rue de Rivoli running
with blood.' No wonder such rumours stirred and overwhelmed the staunch
but excitable lady. 'You will readily believe how anxious, interested,
and excited I feel,' she says; and then she goes on to speak of
Lafayette, 'miraculously preserved through two revolutions, and in
chains and in a dungeon, now the leading mind in another conflict, and
lifting not only an armed but a restraining hand in a third revolution.'
Her heart was with her French friends and intimates, and though she kept
silence she was not the less determined to follow its leading, and,
without announcing her intention, she started off from Norwich and,
after travelling without intermission, once more arrived in her beloved
city. But what was become of the Revolution? 'Paris seemed as bright and
peaceful as I had seen it thirteen months ago! The people, the busy
people passing to and fro, and soldiers, omnibuses, cabriolets, citadenes,
carts, horsemen hurrying along the Rue de Rivoli, while foot passengers
were crossing the gardens, or loungers were sitting on its benches to
enjoy the beauty of the May-November.' She describes two men crossing
the Place Royale singing a national song, the result of the
Revolution:--
Pour briser leurs masses profondes,
Qui conduit nos drapeaux sanglants,
C'est la Liberté de deux mondes,
C'est Lafayette en cheveux blancs.
Mrs. Opie was full of enthusiasm for noble Lafayette surveying his court
of turbulent intrigue and shifting politics; for Cuvier in his own
realm, among more tranquil laws, less mutable decrees. She should have
been born a Frenchwoman, to play a real and brilliant part among all
these scenes and people, instead of only looking on. Something stirred
in her veins too eager and bubbling for an Englishwoman's scant share
of life and outward events. No wonder that her friends at Norwich were
anxious, and urged her to return. They heard of her living in the midst
of excitement, of admiration, and with persons of a different religion
and way of thinking to themselves. Their warning admonitions carried
their weight; that little Quaker bonnet which she took so much care of
was a talisman, drawing the most friendly of Friends away from the place
of her adoption. But she came back unchanged to her home, to her quiet
associations; she had lost none of her spirits, none, of her cheerful
interest in her natural surroundings. As life burnt on her kind soul
seemed to shine more and more brightly. Every one came to see her, to
be cheered and warmed by her genial spirit. She loved flowers, of which
her room was full. She had a sort of passion for prisms, says her
biographer; she had several set in a frame and mounted like a screen,
and the colour flew about the little room. She kept up a great
correspondence; she was never tired of writing, though the letters on
other people's business were apt to prove a serious burden at times.
But she lives on only to be of use. 'Take care of indulging in little
selfishnesses,' she writes in her diary; 'learn to consider others
in trifles: the mind so disciplined will find it easier to fulfil
the greater duties, and the character will not exhibit that trying
inconsistency which one sees in great and often in pious persons.' Her
health fails, but not her courage. She goes up to London for the last
time to her cousin's house. She is interested in all the people she
meets, in their wants and necessities, in the events of the time. She
returns home, contented with all; with the house which she feels so
'desirable to die in,' with her window through which she can view the
woods and rising ground of Thorpe. 'My prisms to-day are quite in their
glory,' she writes; 'the atmosphere must be very clear, for the radiance
is brighter than ever I saw it before;' and then she wonders whether the
mansions in heaven will be draped in such brightness; and so to the last
the gentle, bright, _rainbow_ lady remained surrounded by kind and
smiling faces, by pictures, by flowers, and with the light of her
favourite prismatic colours shining round about the couch on which she
lay.
_JANE AUSTEN._
1775-1817.
'A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes
originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de différence entre
les hommes.'--PASCAL.
'I did not know that you were a studier of character,' says Bingley to
Elizabeth. 'It must be an amusing study.'
'Yes, but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least
that advantage.'
'The country,' said Darcy, 'can in general supply but few subjects for
such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and
unvarying society.'
'But people themselves alter so much,' Elizabeth answers, 'that there is
something new to be observed in them for ever.'
'Yes, indeed,' cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by Darcy's manner of
mentioning a country neighbourhood; 'I assure you that we have quite as
much of _that_ going on in the country as in town.'
'Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment,
turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a
complete victory over him, continued her triumph.'
These people belong to a whole world of familiar acquaintances, who are,
notwithstanding their old-fashioned dresses and quaint expressions, more
alive to us than a great many of the people among whom we live. We
know so much more about them to begin with. Notwithstanding a certain
reticence and self-control which seems to belong to their age, and with
all their quaint dresses, and ceremonies, and manners, the ladies and
gentlemen in 'Pride and Prejudice' and its companion novels seem like
living people out of our own acquaintance transported bodily into a
bygone age, represented in the half-dozen books that contain Jane
Austen's works. Dear books! bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in
which the homely heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores
are enchanting.
Could we but study our own bores as Miss Austen must have studied hers
in her country village, what a delightful world this might be!--a world
of Norris's economical great walkers, with dining-room tables to dispose
of; of Lady Bertrams on sofas, with their placid 'Do not act anything
improper, my dears; Sir Thomas would not like it;' of Bennets, Goddards,
Bates's; of Mr. Collins's; of Rushbrooks, with two-and-forty speeches
apiece--a world of Mrs. Eltons.... Inimitable woman! she must be alive
at this very moment, if we but knew where to find her, her basket on her
arm, her nods and all-importance, with Maple Grove and the Sucklings in
the background. She would be much excited were she aware how she is
esteemed by a late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is well acquainted
with Maple Grove and Selina too. It might console her for Mr. Knightly's
shabby marriage.
All these people nearly start out of the pages, so natural and
unaffected are they, and yet they never lived except in the imagination
of one lady with bright eyes, who sat down some seventy years ago to an
old mahogany desk in a quiet country parlour, and evoked them for us.
One seems to see the picture of the unknown friend who has charmed us so
long--charmed away dull hours, created neighbours and companions for
us in lonely places, conferring happiness and harmless mirth upon
generations to come. One can picture her as she sits erect, with her
long and graceful figure, her full round face, her bright eyes cast
down,--Jane Austen, 'the woman of whom England is justly proud'--whose
method generous Macaulay has placed near Shakespeare. She is writing
in secret, putting away her work when visitors come in, unconscious,
modest, hidden at home in heart, as she was in her sweet and womanly
life, with the wisdom of the serpent indeed and the harmlessness of a
dove.
Some one said just now that many people seem to be so proud of seeing
a joke at all, that they impress it upon you until you are perfectly
wearied by it. Jane Austen was not of these; her humour flows gentle and
spontaneous; it is no elaborate mechanism nor artificial fountain, but
a bright natural stream, rippling and trickling over every stone and
sparkling in the sunshine. We should be surprised now-a-days to hear a
young lady announce herself as a studier of character. From her quiet
home in the country lane this one reads to us a real page from the
absorbing pathetic humorous book of human nature--a book that we can
most of us understand when it is translated into plain English; but
of which the quaint and illegible characters are often difficult to
decipher for ourselves. It is a study which, with all respect for Darcy's
opinion, must require something of country-like calm and concentration
and freedom of mind. It is difficult, for instance, for a too impulsive
student not to attribute something of his own moods to his specimens
instead of dispassionately contemplating them from a critical distance.
Besides the natural fun and wit and life of her characters, 'all
perfectly discriminated,' as Macaulay says, Jane Austen has the gift of
telling a story in a way that has never been surpassed. She rules her
places, times, characters, and marshals them with unerring precision.
In her special gift for organisation she seems almost unequalled. Her
picnics are models for all future and past picnics; her combinations of
feelings, of conversation, of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and
lifelike that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us--the
scene carries us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is
recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselves
so vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginary
scenes, we seem not only to read them, but to live them, to see the
people coming and going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the
ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them talking to one
another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life days and
events follow one another. Last Tuesday does not suddenly start into
existence all out of place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when we
are well on in '21. Countries and continents do not fly from hero to
hero, nor do long and divergent adventures happen to unimportant members
of the company. With Jane Austen days, hours, minutes succeed each other
like clockwork, one central figure is always present on the scene, that
figure is always prepared for company. Miss Edwards's curl-papers are
almost the only approach to dishabille in her stories. There are
postchaises in readiness to convey the characters from Bath or Lyme to
Uppercross, to Fullerton, from Gracechurch Street to Meryton, as their
business takes them. Mr. Knightly rides from Brunswick Square to
Hartfield, by a road that Miss Austen herself must have travelled in the
curricle with her brother, driving to London on a summer's day. It was
a wet ride for Mr. Knightly, followed by that never-to-be-forgotten
afternoon in the shrubbery, when the wind had changed into a softer
quarter, the clouds were carried off, and Emma, walking in the sunshine,
with spirits freshened and thoughts a little relieved, and thinking of
Mr. Knightly as sixteen miles away, meets him at the garden door; and
everybody, I think, must be the happier, for the happiness and certainty
that one half-hour gave to Emma and her 'indifferent' lover.
There is a little extract from one of Miss Austen's letters to a niece,
which shows that all this successful organisation was not brought about
by chance alone, but came from careful workmanship.
'Your aunt C.,' she says, 'does not like desultory novels, and is rather
fearful that yours will be too much so--that there will be too frequent
a change from one set of people to another, and that circumstances will
be sometimes introduced of apparent consequence, which will lead to
nothing. It will not be so great an objection to me. I allow much more
latitude than she does, and think nature and spirit cover many sins of a
wandering story....'
But, though the sins of a wandering story may be covered, the virtues of
a well-told one make themselves felt unconsciously, and without an
effort. Some books and people are delightful, we can scarce tell why;
they are not so clever as others that weary and fatigue us. It is a
certain effort to read a story, however touching, that is disconnected
and badly related. It is like an ill-drawn picture, of which the
colouring is good. Jane Austen possessed both gifts of colour and of
drawing. She could see human nature as it was; with near-sighted eyes,
it is true; but having seen, she could combine her picture by her art,
and colour it from life. How delightful the people are who play at
cards, and pay their addresses to one another, and sup, and discuss each
other's affairs! Take Mr. Bennet's reception of his sons-in-law. Take
Sir Walter Elliot compassionating the navy and Admiral Baldwin--'nine
grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top--a wretched
example of what a seafaring life can do, for men who are exposed to
every climate and weather until 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....' Or shall we quote the scene of Fanny Price's return
when she comes to visit her family at Portsmouth; in all daughterly
agitation and excitement, and the brother's and father's and sister's
reception of her.... 'A stare or two at Fanny was all the voluntary
notice that her brother bestowed, but he made no objection to her kissing
him, though still entirely engaged in detailing further particulars of
the "Thrush's" going out of harbour, in which he had a strong right of
interest, being about to commence his career of seamanship in her at
this very time. After the mother and daughter have received her, Fanny's
seafaring father comes in, and does not notice her at first in his
excitement. "Captain Walsh thinks you will certainly have a cruise to
the westward with the 'Elephant' by ---- I wish you may. But old Scholey
was saying just now that he thought you would be sent first to the
'Texel.' Well, well, we are ready whatever happens. But by ---- you lost
a fine sight by not being here in the morning to see the 'Thrush' go out
of harbour. I would not have been out of the way for a thousand pounds.
Old Scholey ran in at breakfast time to say she had slipped her moorings
and was coming out. I jumped up and made but two steps to the platform.
If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat she is one; and there she lies
at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an
eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform for two hours this afternoon
looking at her. She lies close to the 'Endymion,' between her and the
'Cleopatra,' just to the eastward of the sheer hulk."'
'"Ha!" cried William, "_that's_ just where I should have put her myself.
It's the best berth in Spithead. But here is my sister, sir; here is
Fanny, turning and leading her forward--it is so dark you do not see
her."'
'With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot her, Mr. Price now
received his daughter, and having given her a cordial hug and observed
that she was grown into a woman and he supposed would be wanting a
husband soon, seemed very much inclined to forget her again.'
How admirably it is all told! how we hear them all talking!
From her own brothers Jane Austen learned her accurate knowledge of
ships and seafaring things, from her own observation she must have
gathered her delightful droll science of men and women and their ways
and various destinations. Who will not recognise Mrs. Norris in that
master-touch by which she removes the curtain to save Sir Thomas's
feelings, that curtain which had been prepared for the private
theatricals he so greatly disapproved of? Mrs. Norris thoughtfully
carries it off to her cottage, where she happened to be particularly in
want of green baize.