'I have two messages: let me get rid of them, and then my paper will be
my own. Mary fully intended writing by Mr. Charles's frank, and only
happened entirely to forget it, but will write soon; and my father
wishes Edward to send him a memorandum of the price of hops.
'_Sunday Evening._
'We have had a dreadful storm of wind in the forepart of the day, which
has done a great deal of mischief among our trees. I was sitting alone
in the drawing-room when an odd kind of crash startled me. In a moment
afterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window. I reached it just
in time to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend into the
sweep!!!
'The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first crash, and which
was nearest to the pond, taking a more easterly direction, sank among
our screen of chestnuts and firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, breaking
off the head of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts of
several branches in its fall. This is not all: the maple bearing the
weathercock was broken in two, and what I regret more than all the rest
is, that all the three elms that grew in Hall's Meadow, and gave such
ornament to it, are gone.'
A certain Mrs. Stent comes into one of these letters 'ejaculating some
wonder about the cocks and hens.' Mrs. Stent seems to have tried their
patience, and will be known henceforward as having bored Jane Austen.
They leave Steventon when Jane is about twenty-five years of age and go
to Bath, from whence a couple of pleasant letters are given us. Jane is
writing to her sister. She has visited Miss A., who, like all other
young ladies, is considerably genteeler than her parents. She is
heartily glad that Cassandra speaks so comfortably of her health and
looks: could travelling fifty miles produce such an immediate change?
'You were looking poorly when you were here, and everybody seemed
sensible of it.' Is there any charm in a hack postchaise? But if there
were, Mrs. Craven's carriage might have undone it all. Then Mrs. Stent
appears again. 'Poor Mrs. Stent, it has been her lot to be always in the
way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs.
Stents ourselves, unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody.'
Elsewhere she writes, upon Mrs. ----'s mentioning that she had sent the
'Rejected Addresses' to Mr. H., 'I began talking to her a little about
them, and expressed my hope of their having amused her. Her answer was,
"Oh dear, yes, very much; very droll indeed; the opening of the house
and the striking up of the fiddles!" What she meant, poor woman, who
shall say?'
But there is no malice in Jane Austen. Hers is the charity of all clear
minds, it is only the muddled who are intolerant. All who love Emma and
Mr. Knightly must remember the touching little scene in which he
reproves her for her thoughtless impatience of poor Miss Bates's
volubility.
'You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from
a period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless
spirits and in the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her....
This is not pleasant to you, Emma, and it is very far from pleasant to
me, but I must, I will, I will tell you truths while I am satisfied with
proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that
you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do me
now.'
'While they talked they were advancing towards the carriage: it was
ready, and before she could speak again he had handed her in. He had
misinterpreted the feeling which kept her face averted and her tongue
motionless.' Mr. Knightly's little sermon, in its old-fashioned English,
is as applicable now as it was when it was spoken. We know that he was
an especial favourite with Jane Austen.