the sweets of domesticity, you are far astray indeed. I do not know
whether she read La Rochefoucauld. She hardly needed to. In any case,
she well supports his dictum that there are comfortable marriages, but
no delicious ones. The motive of most she lashes with her whip of silken
scorn. “His temper might perhaps be a little soured by finding, like
many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in favor
of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly woman.” Though she had a
sister whom she loved better than anything on earth, the kindest thing
she could find to say of two most affectionate sisters was: “Among the
merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked
as the least considerable, that, though sisters, and living almost
within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between
themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.”
Nor is she much more enthusiastic about the charms of society. Her
heroines do, indeed, love an outing or a ball; but much more stress is
laid on untoward accidents that blight enjoyment than on its rapturous
completeness. And this is life, as we all know. Only—As for the little
distresses of social converse, who has ever depicted them more subtly?
“To Elizabeth it appeared, that had her family made an agreement to
expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have
been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit, or finer
success.”
No one probably will maintain that Miss Austen treats love very
seriously. Its common youthful ardors, “what is so often described as
arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words
have been exchanged,” she makes matter for derision or dismisses with
indifference. Isabella utters a platitude on the subject. “This charming
sentiment, recommended as much by sense as novelty, gave Catherine a
most pleasing remembrance of all the heroines of her acquaintance.” With
the author’s own serious heroines love is an emotion of such reverend
profundity that the ladies themselves require years to discover it, and
even then it has to be forced upon their notice.
Religion and the deeper concerns of life generally, where they are
mentioned at all, fare no better. They are touched with an irony of
somewhat dubious effect on the profane, as at the end of Northanger
Abbey, where those it may concern are left to wonder “Whether the
tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or
reward filial disobedience.” There is no doubt, however, that Miss
Austen sincerely honored sacred things. She would have said with her
own Elizabeth, “I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good.” She
appeared to think she would attain this end by keeping matters of the
soul mainly out of her work. But she miscalculated a little. I do not
know how one could more discredit religion than by exhibiting it in such
representatives as Dr. Grant, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Collins: a glutton, a
ninny, and an imbecile. If any reader holds that the prosy sermonizing of
Edward Bertram helps the divine end of the matter, I disagree totally.
And as she mocked all things in human life, so she had a peculiar fancy
for mocking the departure out of it. We know much mockable is there;
but it seems odd matter for a young girl to deal with. “It was felt as
such things must be felt. Everybody had a degree of gravity and sorrow;
tenderness toward the departed, solicitude for the surviving friends;
and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where she would be buried.
Goldsmith tells us that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has
nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is
equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.”
Obviously Miss Austen’s mocking was not all sweet, sunny, natural gaiety.
It had too much ill-nature in it. This shows, I think, in her fundamental
conception of character. Read over her list of _dramatis personæ_ and see
how many are attractive or agreeable. It is not that she presents set
types of evil or folly. Far from it. Her people are all human, vividly
human, walking figures of flesh and blood humanity. But like all true
human beings, they have good and evil both, and her vision usually turns
towards the evil, the mildly evil, the foolish and ridiculous. This
perversion is slight, but constant, and its very slightness makes it more
true—and more depressing. What doubles the hideousness of the hideous
scene between Mr. and Mrs. Dashwood (“Sense and Sensibility,” chapter II)
is its perfect humanity and the possibility that it might have been you
and I.
She will brand a whole company with a touch: they “almost all labored
under one or other of these disqualifications for being agreeable—want
of sense, either natural or improved—want of elegance—want of spirits—or
want of temper.” As any company might, to be sure—if you took it so. She
will brand a whole sex. Mr. Palmer had “no traits at all unusual in his
sex and time of life. He was nice in his eating, uncertain in his hours;
fond of his child, though affecting to slight it; and idled away the
morning at billiards, which ought to have been devoted to business.”
Above all, she is severe upon women past middle life. Few indeed has she
drawn that are even tolerable. Yet I have known some who were charming.
With what infinite, subtle, loving art are Mrs. Jennings and Mrs.
Norris made odious! And the best illustration of all for Miss Austen’s
methods is Miss Bates. Her creatress starts with a heroic determination
to be amiable for once. God has given this poor old specimen excellent
qualities. For heaven’s sake, let us dwell upon them and leave the
defects in shadow. “She was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named
without good will. It was her own universal good will and contented
temper which worked such wonders. She loved everybody, was interested
in everybody’s happiness, quick-sighted to everybody’s merits.” Yet the
turning of a page makes Miss Bates ridiculous, and the turning of more
makes her almost as tedious to us as the author evidently found her. In
the end she drives even Emma to open insult, which Emma speedily regrets,
and would probably as speedily renew.
But, it will be urged, I am making the old mistake of interpreting an
author from her writings, of transferring to her the sentiments of her
characters, or, at any rate, her merely formal literary expression.
Very well, let us turn to Miss Austen’s letters, and see what we
find there. To begin with, they are charming letters, full of life,
spirit, and vivacity, quite as charming as her novels. Her editors and
biographers seem to feel it necessary to apologize for them. Why? It is
true, they contain no reference to topics of the day. She might never
have heard of Napoleon, or known that America was discovered. But, as
letters, they are none the worse for that. Also, they are not formally
literary, have no set pieces, or elaborate disquisitions. There is hardly
a general thought in the whole of them. Who cares? They are literary
as being the work of one of the most exquisite masters of expression.
Indeed, an occasional odd glimpse of her constant literary preoccupation
slips out. “Benjamin Portal is here. How charming that is! I do not know
exactly why, but the phrase followed so naturally that I could not help
putting it down.” And again: “Your letter is come. It came, indeed,
twelve lines ago, but I could not stop to acknowledge it before, and I am
glad it did not arrive till I had completed my first sentence, because
the sentence had been made ever since yesterday, and I think forms a
very good beginning.” But, in general, they are merely the swiftest,
lightest chronicle of little daily happenings, made eternal by a sense
of fun as keen as Lamb’s. Is there in Lamb any bit of happier nonsense
than the sketch of Mr. Haden? “You seem to be under a mistake as to Mr.
H. You call him an apothecary. He is no apothecary; he has never been an
apothecary; there is not an apothecary in this neighbourhood.... He is
a Haden, nothing but a Haden, a sort of wonderful nondescript creature
on two legs, something between a man and an angel, but without the
least spice of an apothecary. He is, perhaps, the only person _not_ an
apothecary hereabouts. He has never sung to us. He will not sing without
a pianoforte accompaniment.”
Yet, minute as they are, and natural as they are, Miss Austen’s letters
tell us little about herself, that is, the inmost self that we wish to
get at. Those we have were almost all written to her nearest and dearest
sister, Cassandra. To Cassandra, if to any one, she must have opened her
soul. But, if so, she did it by lip and not by letter. It is rare indeed
that she goes so far as to say, “I am sick of myself and my bad pens.”
To be sure, such concealment of personal feeling and emotion is a most
significant trait of character. The gleam and glitter of those sparkling
pages with all their implication and suggestion recalls the charming
speech of Birnheim to Fanny Lear, “_Ce qui fait le charme de votre
conversation, ce n’est pas seulement ce que vous dites; c’est encore et
surtout ce que vous ne dites pas._” But when we try to get any definite
picture of the writer, she eludes us like a kind of elfin spirit, in
perpetual glimmering, mazy dance, refusing to stand still.
At any rate, mockery is the prominent feature in the letters, as in the
novels; and in letters as in novels, the mockery, though sometimes sunny
and sweet, is too often unkindly and leaves a sting. Miss Austen herself
once at least recognizes this. She describes a certain person as “the
sort of woman who gives me the idea of being determined never to be well
and who likes her spasms and nervousness, and the consequence they give
her, better than anything else. This is an ill-natured statement to send
all over the Baltic.” Doubtless, her modesty prevented her from thinking
of the ill-natured statements she was to send for ages all over the world.
But let us see, again, with more minuteness how completely she spins this
gauze web of satire over every phase of life. Is learning in question?
“I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most
unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.” Or
is she discussing family relations? “The possessor of one of the finest
estates in England and of more worthless nephews and nieces than any
other private man in the United Kingdom.” A prospective marriage is
summarily disposed of. Mr. Blackall is “a piece of perfection—noisy
perfection.... I could wish Miss Lewis to be of a silent turn and
rather ignorant, but naturally intelligent and wishing to learn, fond of
cold veal pies, green tea in the afternoon, and a green window-blind at
night.” Mrs. Austen is disturbed by receiving an unamiable letter from
a relative. Miss Austen is not. “The discontentedness of it shocked and
surprised her—but _I_ see nothing in it out of nature.”
As to society she resembles her heroines in liking balls, and, like her
heroines, she finds many drawbacks in them. “Our ball was chiefly made up
of Jervoises and Terrys, the former of whom were apt to be vulgar, the
latter to be noisy.... I had a very pleasant evening, however, though
you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it;
but I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is
some real opportunity for it.” On beauty she comments freely. “There
were very few beauties, and such as there were were not very handsome.
Miss Iremonger did not look well, and Mrs. Blount was the only one much
admired. She appeared exactly as she did in September, with the same
broad face, diamond bandeau, white shoes, pink husband, and fat neck.”
As in this passage, she often refers to dress and too often unkindly.
“Mrs. Powlett was at once expensively and nakedly dressed; we have had
the satisfaction of estimating her lace and her muslins; and she said
too little to afford us much other amusement.” In regard to one special
company she seems to express naïvely her general attitude. “I cannot
anyhow continue to find people agreeable.”
More intimate social relations and the sacred name of friendship are
treated at least as lightly. “The neighborhood have quite recovered the
death of Mrs. Rider; so much so, that I think they are rather rejoiced at
it now; her things were so very dear! And Mrs. Rogers is to be all that
is desirable. Not even death itself can fix the friendships of the world.”
And love? Persons who mock at nothing else mock at that. What should we
expect, then, from the genius of mockery? Whether she rallied her young
men to their faces, I do not know. Assuredly she rallied them behind
their backs. One evening she expects an offer, but is determined to
refuse, unless he promises to give away his white coat. The next she
makes over to a friend all her love interest, even “the kiss which C.
Powlett wanted to give me,” everything except Tom Lefroy, “for whom I
don’t care sixpence.” And when, writing to her niece in later years,
she sketches the man she might have loved, she ends by turning all
into laughter. “There are such beings in the world, perhaps one in a
thousand, as the creature you and I should think perfection, where grace
and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart
and understanding, but such a person may not come in your way, or, if he
does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the near relation
of your particular friend and belonging to your own county.”
Also, as in the novels, she is perpetually laughing at religion and
virtue, that is, of course, at those elements in religion and virtue
which are undeniably laughable. Morals and immorals she can treat lightly
in individual cases. “The little flaw of having a mistress now living
with him at Ashdown Park seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance
about him.” In their general phases she can jumble them happily with
physical disorders. “What is become of all the shyness in the world?
Moral as well as natural diseases disappear in the progress of time,
and new ones take their place. Shyness and the sweating sickness have
given way to confidence and paralytic complaints.” On death she is
inexhaustible. One would think she found it the most humorous thing
in life—as perhaps it is. With what amiable, kid-gloved atrocity does
she bury Mrs. Holder. “Only think of Mrs. Holder’s being dead! Poor
woman, she has done the only thing in the world she could possibly do to
make one cease to abuse her.” Apparently, even this supreme effort of
Mrs. Holder’s was not successful, in fact embalmed her in spiced abuse
forever. Other interments are quite as sympathetic as hers.
Most curious of all is Miss Austen on the death of a near relative, the
trim decorum, the correct restraint, the evident fear of being either
over-conventional or under-feeling. So in the first letter; but two days
later she rebounds and trifles with her mourning. “_One_ Miss Baker makes
my gown and the other my bonnet, which is to be silk covered with crape.”
Well could she say of herself, “I can lament in one sentence and laugh in
the next.” Only she immensely mistook the proportion.
One bare strong phrase takes us right to the root of all the mocking
and perversity. “Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and
wicked.”
It is in this spirit that she makes fun even of her own art, novel
writing, will not take it seriously, “the art of keeping lovers apart
in five volumes,” will not take its professors seriously. She mocks at
their machinery, their heroines, their landscape, their morals, and their
language, “novel slang,” she calls it, “thorough novel slang, and so old
that I daresay Adam met with it in the first novel he opened.” Whatever
pains she may have taken with her own work, she does not mention them,
unless ironically, when some one praises her. “I am looking about for a
sentiment, an illustration, or a metaphor in every corner of the room.”
If money and profit are suggested as possible objects, she laughs at
them. Fame is all she is thinking of. “I write only for fame and without
any view to pecuniary emolument.” But when it is a question of glory,
she laughs at that, and toils instead for pounds and shillings. “Though
I like praise as well as anybody, I like what Edward calls _Pewter_,
too.” Yet at the getting of money, and at the keeping of it, and at the
spending of it, and at the lack of it, still she laughs: “They will not
come often, I dare say. They live in a handsome style and are rich, and
she seemed to like to be rich, and we gave her to understand that we were
far from being so; she will soon feel, therefore, that we are not worth
her acquaintance.”
One subject only is too sacred for mocking—the British navy. And even
that seems sacred chiefly in connection with the Austens; for Sir
Walter Elliot is allowed to say that all officers should be killed off
after forty because of their weatherbeaten complexion. Miss Austen
herself, however, appears to have been possessed, like Louisa Musgrove,
with “a fine naval fervour,” which blossoms in Captain Wentworth’s
rapturous praise of his calling and fruits in the charming conclusion of
“Persuasion”: “She gloried in being a sailor’s wife, but she must pay
the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if
possible, more distinguished in the domestic virtues than in its national
importance.” A sentiment which would have delighted Sir Joseph Porter,
K.C.B., though it would have obliged Nelson to turn away his face.
So, are we to set down this demure, round-faced chit of a parson’s
daughter as one of the universal mockers, _der Geist der verneint_ in
petticoats, a sister of Aristophanes and Heine? It sounds ridiculous? How
she would have shrunk from _Das Buch Le Grand_ and shuddered with horror
at _Schnabelwopski_! Yet would she?
But her cynicism is more nearly related to Fielding and Smollett and
to the eighteenth century, that is, it does not flow from Heine’s
universal dissolution of all things, but is founded on a secure basis
of conventional belief. Minds of that eighteenth-century type were
so confident of God that they felt entirely at liberty to abuse man;
“whatever is is right” said the “one infallible Pope,” as Miss Austen
styles him, therefore there could be no harm in calling it wrong.
On the other hand, what separates Miss Austen from Fielding, what brings
her close to Heine, and what almost, if not quite, makes up for all her
mocking, is that you feel underneath the mocking an infinite fund of
tenderness, a warm, loving, hoping, earnest heart. Rarely has a woman
been more misjudged by another woman than Miss Austen by Miss Brontë
when she wrote,“Jane Austen was a complete and most sensible lady, but a
very incomplete and insensible woman.” Oh, no, under that demure demeanor
was hidden the germ of every emotion known to woman or to man. She knew
them all, she felt them all, and she restrained them all, which means
quite as much character—if perhaps not quite so much “temperament”—as the
volcanic flare of Charlotte Brontë. The very difficulty of tracing these
things under Miss Austen’s vigilant reserve adds to their significance
when found and to the convincing force of their reality.
First, as to emotion in general. The testimony of the novels is often
disputed. It is disputable when it refers to particular experiences
and must be used with care. But many little touches would have been
absolutely impossible, if the writer had not first felt them herself.
Thus, she says: “It is the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely
enjoyed by those who enjoy it completely, and the strong feelings which
alone can estimate it truly are the very feelings which ought to taste it
but sparingly.” Or again, with brief and rapid analysis, “She read with
an eagerness which hardly left her the power of comprehension; and from
impatience of knowing what the next sentence might bring, was incapable
of attending to the sense of the one before her eyes.” Do you suppose
the writer of that had never torn the heart out of a letter as madly as
Jane Eyre? And was there not plenty of emotion in the woman who described
the moment of release from a disagreeable partner as “ecstasy,” and who
fainted dead away when told suddenly that she was to leave her old home
and seek a new one?
Or in another line, how all the mockery of her own writing withers before
one short sentence which shows the real author, like all other authors:
“I _should_ like to know what her estimate is, but am always half afraid
of finding a clever novel _too clever_, and of finding my own story and
my own people all forestalled.”
Then as to love. Here the problem is more obscure. Some critics have
endeavored to deduce Miss Austen’s feelings from that of her heroines.
Others have entirely denied the legitimacy of such deduction. No doubt,
observation and divination may do much, but it seems to me that the
subtle details introduced in many a critical moment must be based on
experiences closely akin to those described. No man can ever understand
Miss Austen’s taste in heroes, and her creations in this line are the
worst of her mockeries, all the more so because unintentional. But if
she was blind to the faults of the type, she may have been equally blind
to them in some real Edward or Knightley. We all are. I should even like
to believe, with her adoring relative, that that shadowy lover who died
unnamed to posterity blighted her literary effort and accounted for the
singular gap between her earlier and later work. “That her grief should
have silenced her is, I think, quite consistent with the reserve of her
character,” writes the said relative. I agree as to the possibility, but
somewhat question the fact.
With the more common domestic and social feelings we are on surer ground.
There is a universal concordance of testimony as to Miss Austen’s
sweetness in such relations, her tenderness, her charm. Guarded as
her letters are, these qualities appear, in all the laughter, in all
the mockery. She watches over her mother, she longs for every detail
about her brothers, she cries for joy at their promotion, she exchanges
with her sister a thousand little intimacies, all the more sincere for
their daily triviality. It is said that the family were always amiable
in their daily intercourse, never argued or spoke harshly, and I can
believe it. It is said that Cassandra always controlled her temper,
but that Jane had no temper to control, and the latter statement I do
not believe, but do believe that appearances justified it. It is said
that she loved children, and many passages in her letters prove this.
See in the following the deep and evident tenderness turning into her
eternal mockery. “My dear itty Dordy’s remembrance of me is very pleasing
to me—foolishly pleasing, because I know it will be over so soon. My
attachment to him will be more durable. I shall think with tenderness and
delight on his beautiful and smiling countenance and interesting manner
until a few years have turned him into an ungovernable ungracious fellow.”
That she enjoyed playing the rôle of maiden aunt I see no reason to
imagine. But she accepted it with sweet kindliness, and as years went
on, she seems to have grown even more self-forgetful and thoughtful of
those about her. I have spoken of Heine. What could be lovelier than
his efforts to spare his old mother every detail of his last torturing
illness, writing her the gayest of letters from his pillow of agony?
Everything with Miss Austen is on a slighter scale; but how sweet is
the story of the sofa. Sofas were scarce in those days. The Austen rooms
contained but one, and Jane, dying, propped herself on two chairs, and
left the sofa to her invalid mother, declaring that the chairs were
preferable.
And if she loved others, they loved her. Her brother makes the truly
astonishing statement that in regard to her neighbors “even on their
vices did she never trust herself to comment with unkindness.... She
always sought in the faults of others something to excuse, to forgive
or forget.” And he adds, “No one could be often in her company without
feeling a strong desire of obtaining her friendship and cherishing a hope
of having obtained it.” The profound affection of her sister Cassandra
needs no further evidence than the pathetic letters written by her after
Jane’s death, and the feeling of the other members of the family seems
to have been hardly less deep. Especially was her society cherished
by children and young people. “Her first charm to children was great
sweetness of manner,” writes her niece, “she seemed to love you, and you
loved her in return.” Again, “Soon came the delight of her playful talk.
She could make everything amusing to a child.” And later, when years had
somewhat diminished the difference of age, “It had become a habit with me
to put by things in my mind with reference to her, and to say to myself,
I shall keep that for aunt Jane.”