Jane Austen, daughter of the rector of Steventon, in North
Hampshire, England, was born there on December 16, 1775, and
received her education from her father, a former Fellow of St.
John's College, Oxford. Her life was spent in the country or
in country towns, chiefly at the village of Chawton, near
Winchester. She died, unmarried, at Winchester on July 18,
1817, and was buried in the cathedral. The novels of Jane
Austen may be divided into two groups. The first three--"Sense
and Sensibility," "Pride and Prejudice," and "Northanger
Abbey"--were all written, in first draft, at any rate, between
1792 and 1798. These are the novels composed during the
author's residence at Steventon, which she left in 1801. There
succeeded an interval of practically fourteen years
(1798-1812), during which time the novelist let her mind lie
absolutely fallow. As a natural consequence of the
comparatively secluded life which Jane Austen led, the society
with which she deals in her novels is a rather restricted one.
It is the world of the country gentleman and of the upper
professional class. From a very early age Jane Austen had a
taste for writing tales, and the first draft of "Sense and
Sensibility "--then called "Elinor and Marianne"--was composed
as early as 1792. The book was recast under its present title
between 1797 and 1798, and again revised prior to its
publication in 1811. In addition to the six novels on which
her fame is based--all of which were issued anonymously--Jane
Austen has to her credit some agreeable "Letters," a fragment
of a story called "The Watsons," and a sort of novelette which
bears the name of "Lady Susan."
_I.--The Dashwoods of Norland Park_
Mr. Henry Dashwood, of Norland Park, Sussex, died leaving his widow and
his three daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, to the generosity of
Mr. John Dashwood, his son by his first wife and the heir to his estate.
Mr. John, who, apart from the family inheritance, had received one
fortune from his mother and another with his wife, was at first disposed
to increase the portions of his sisters by giving them a thousand pounds
apiece; but under the persuasion of his wife he finally resolved that it
would be absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more
for his father's widow and children than such kind of neighbourly acts
as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to
remove their things, and sending them presents of fish and game whenever
they were in season.
Taking account of this resolve, as expressed in Mr. John Dashwood's
frequent talk of the increasing expenses of housekeeping, and of the
perpetual demands made upon his purse, and exasperated, too, by the
manifest disapprobation with which Mrs. John Dashwood looked upon the
growing attachment between her own brother, Edward Ferrars, and Elinor,
Mrs. Henry Dashwood and her daughters left their old home with some
abruptness and went to live in Devonshire, where their old friend, Sir
John Middleton, of Barton Park, had provided them with a cottage close
to his own place.
Elinor, the eldest of the daughters, possessed a strength of
understanding and coolness of judgment which qualified her, though only
nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently
to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in
Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence. She had an
excellent heart. Her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were
strong; but she knew how to govern them. It was a knowledge which her
mother had yet to learn, and which one of her sisters had resolved never
to be taught. Marianne's abilities were, in many respects, quite equal
to Elinor's. She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her
sorrows, her joys could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable,
interesting; she was everything but prudent. The resemblance between her
and her mother was strikingly great, and her excess of sensibility,
which Elinor saw with concern, was by Mrs. Dashwood valued and
cherished.
Margaret, the other sister, was good-humoured; but she had already
imbibed a good deal of Marianne's romance, without having much of her
sense, and, at thirteen, she did not bid fair to equal her sisters at a
more advanced period of life.
But whatever the virtues or failings of the Dashwood ladies, their
society was very welcome at Barton Park. Sir John Middleton was a
good-looking man about forty, thoroughly good-humoured in manner and
countenance, friendly and kind-hearted in disposition, who delighted in
collecting about him more young people than his house would hold.
Lady Middleton was a handsome woman of six-and-twenty, well-bred, and
graceful in address, but deficient in frankness, warmth, or anything to
say for herself. She piqued herself upon the elegance of her table
appointments and of all her domestic arrangements; and this kind of
vanity it was that constituted her greatest enjoyment in any of their
parties. Sir John was a sportsman; Lady Middleton a mother. He hunted
and shot, and she humoured her children; and these were their only
resources. Continual engagements at home and abroad, however, supplied
all the deficiencies of nature and education--supported the good spirits
of Sir John, and gave exercise to the good-breeding of his wife.
Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton's mother, who formed one of the party on
the first occasion of the Dashwoods dining at Barton Park, was a
good-humoured, fat, elderly woman, who talked a good deal, and seemed
very happy, and rather vulgar. She was full of jokes and laughter, and
before dinner was over had said many witty things on the subject of
lovers and husbands, hoped they had not left their hearts behind them in
Sussex, and pretended to see them blush whether they did or not. In
fact, this lady was a born match-maker; and she at once proceeded, by
hints here and raillery there, to promote a match between Marianne, aged
seventeen, and Colonel Brandon, a grave but sensible bachelor on the
wrong side of thirty-five. Marianne, however, scorned and laughed at the
idea, being reasonable enough to allow that a man of five-and-thirty
might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling and every exquisite
power of enjoyment; and having met with an accident which led to her
being carried home by a handsome and vivacious young gentleman called
Willoughby, who had a seat called Combe Magna in Somersetshire, she
rapidly developed a liking for his society, and as quickly discovered
that in regard to music, to dancing, and to books, their tastes were
strikingly alike.
"Well, Marianne," said Elinor, after his first visit, "for one morning I
think you have done pretty well. You have already ascertained Mr.
Willoughby's opinion in almost every matter of importance. You know what
to think of Cowper and Scott; you are aware of his estimating their
beauties as he ought; and you have received every assurance of his
admiring Pope no more than is proper. But how is your acquaintance to be
long supported under such extraordinary dispatch of every subject for
discourse? You will soon have exhausted each favourite topic. Another
meeting will suffice to explain his sentiments on picturesque beauty and
second marriages, and then you can have nothing further to ask."
To this Marianne replied, "Is this fair? Is this just? Are my ideas so
scanty? But I see what you mean. I have been too much at my ease--too
happy, too frank. I have erred against every commonplace notion of
decorum. I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been
reserved, spiritless, dull and deceitful. Had I talked only of the
weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this
reproach would have been spared."
From which it will be gathered that Marianne began now to perceive that
that desperation which had seized her at sixteen-and-a-half of ever
seeing a man who could satisfy her ideas of perfection had been somewhat
rash and quite unjustifiable.
_II.--Marianne Dashwood in Love_
Willoughby's society soon became Marianne's most exquisite enjoyment.
The mutual attachment was obvious--amusingly obvious. They read, they
talked, they sang, they danced, they drove together, and they even
agreed in depreciating Colonel Brandon as "the kind of man whom
everybody spoke well of and nobody cared about; whom all were delighted
to see, and nobody remembered to talk to." Then, after cutting off a
lock of Marianne's hair, after offering her a horse, and after showing
her over the house which would eventually be his on the death of Mrs.
Smith, the elderly relative on whom he was partially dependent, the
young lover suddenly took leave of the family, having said not a word to
Mrs. Dashwood of an engagement, and having offered no other explanation
of his hasty departure than the flimsy pretext of being sent by his
relative on business to London.
Willoughby left for London a few days after Colonel Brandon had also
been unexpectedly summoned to the same place, and he expressed no hope
of any rapid return into Devonshire. On such an occasion Marianne would
have thought herself very inexcusable had she not given way to all her
feelings; and for some days she courted misery and indulged in tears, in
solitude, and in sleeplessness. But she was soon set a better example by
Elinor, who did her utmost to remain cheerful under the depression of
heart caused by a visit paid to the family about this same time by
Edward Ferrars. He was obviously uneasy, low-spirited and reserved, said
he had already been a fortnight in Devonshire stopping with some friends
at Plymouth, and, after a week's stay with the Dashwoods, left them, in
spite of their wishes and his own, and without any restraint on his
time. But Elinor and Marianne were not long allowed leisure to be
miserable. Sir John's and Mrs. Jennings' active zeal in the cause of
society soon procured them some other new acquaintance to see and
observe. One of these couples was Lady Middleton's brother-in-law and
younger sister, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer. It was impossible for anyone to be
more thoroughly good-natured or more determined to be happy than Mrs.
Palmer. The studied indifference, insolence, and discontent of her
husband gave her no pain, and when he scolded or abused her, she was
highly diverted. "Mr. Palmer is so droll," she used to say in a whisper
to Elinor; "he is always out of humour." One day, at dinner, his wife
said to him, with her usual laugh, "My love, you contradict everybody.
Do you know that you are quite rude?" To which he replied, "I did not
know I contradicted anybody in calling your mother ill-bred." But the
good-natured old lady was in no wise affronted, "Ay; you may abuse me as
much as you please," she said. "You have taken Charlotte off my hands,
and cannot give her back again. So there I have the whip-hand of you."
The other couple of new friends whom Sir John's reluctance to keep even
a third cousin to himself provided for them were the Misses Steele. In a
morning's excursion to Exeter Sir John and Mrs. Jennings had met with
two young ladies whom Mrs. Jennings had the satisfaction of discovering
to be her relations; and this was enough for Sir John to invite them
directly to the Park as soon as their engagements at Exeter were over.
The result was that Elinor and Marianne were almost forced into an
intercourse with two young women, who, however civil they might be, were
obviously underbred. Miss Steele was a plain girl about thirty, whose
whole conversation was of beaux; while Miss Lucy Steele, a pretty girl
of twenty-three, was, despite her native cleverness, probably common and
illiterate.
Marianne, however, who had never much toleration for anything like
impertinence, vulgarity, inferiority of parts, or even difference of
taste from herself, soon checked every endeavour at intimacy on their
side by the coldness of her behaviour towards them; but Elinor, from
politeness, submitted to the attentions of both, but especially to those
of Lucy, who missed no opportunity of engaging her in conversation, or
of striving to improve their acquaintance by an easy and frank
communication of her sentiments, until one day, as they were walking
together from the Park to the cottage, she asked Elinor if she were
personally acquainted with Mrs. John Dashwood's mother, Mrs. Ferrars,
and, in explanation of her question, proceeded to confound her by
confessing that she knew Mr. Edward Ferrars, who had been at one time
under the care of her uncle, Mr. Pratt, at Longstaple, near Plymouth,
and that she had been engaged to him for the last four years.
Distressed by this news, which she was quite aware that Lucy had
confided to her merely from jealousy and suspicion, indignant at
Edward's duplicity, though convinced of his genuine attachment to
herself, Elinor resolved not to give pain to her mother and sister by
telling them of the engagement. Indeed, her attention was soon withdrawn
from her own to her sister's love affairs by an invitation which Mrs.
Jennings gave the two girls to spend a few weeks with her in town at her
house near Portman Square, an invitation which was accepted by Marianne
in the hope of seeing Willoughby, and by Elinor with the intention of
looking after Marianne. Mrs. Jennings' party was three days on the road,
and arrived in Berkeley Street at three o'clock in the afternoon, in
time to allow Marianne to write a brief note to Willoughby. But he
failed to appear that evening; and when a loud knock at the door
resulted in Colonel Brandon being admitted instead, she found the shock
of disappointment too great to be borne with calmness, and left the
room.
As it happened, a full week elapsed before she discovered, by finding
his card on the table, that her lover had arrived in town. Even then she
could not see him. He failed to call the next morning, and though
invited to dine on the following day with the Middletons in Conduit
Street, he neglected to put in an appearance. Which strange conduct
moved Marianne to send another note to him; and Elinor to write to her
mother, entreating her to demand from Marianne an account of her real
situation with respect to him.
A meeting between Marianne Dashwood and John Willoughby at last took
place at a fashionable party, where the latter greeted the two sisters
with great coldness and reluctance; and a third letter from Marianne,
now frantic with grief, elicited a reply from him in which he announced
his engagement to another lady, "reproached himself for not having been
more guarded in his professions of esteem for Marianne, and returned,
with great regret, the lock of her hair which she had so obligingly
bestowed on him."
A day or two later Colonel Brandon called on Elinor to give her certain
information about Willoughby. He told her that his sudden departure from
Devonshire to London, which had surprised his friends so much, had been
due to an affecting letter he had received from his ward, Miss Williams,
the natural daughter of a beloved sister-in-law. Willoughby had met this
lady--a pretty girl of sixteen--at Bath, and, after a guilty intimacy,
had abandoned her. Colonel Brandon had gone to her rescue and to fight a
bloodless duel with her betrayer.
_III.--Matrimonial Intrigues_
One day Elinor and Marianne were at Gray's, in Sackville Street,
carrying on a negotiation for the exchange of a few old-fashioned jewels
belonging to their mother, when they came upon their half-brother, Mr.
John Dashwood. He paid a visit to Mrs. Jennings the next day, and came
with a pretence of an apology for his wife not coming, too. To his
sisters his manners, though calm, were perfectly kind; to Mrs. Jennings
most attentively civil; and on Colonel Brandon coming in soon after
himself, he eyed him with a curiosity that seemed to say that he only
wanted to know him to be rich to be equally civil to _him_. After
staying with them half an hour, he asked Elinor to walk with him to
Conduit Street, and to introduce him to Sir John and Lady Middleton; and
as soon as they were out of the house he began to make inquiries about
Colonel Brandon. Which inquiries having elicited the satisfactory
information that the gentleman had a good property at Delaford Park, in
Dorsetshire, Mr. Dashwood--indifferent to his sister's disclaimers
--proceeded to congratulate her on the prospect of a very respectable
establishment in life, to insist that the objections to a prior
attachment on her side were not insurmountable, and to inform her
that the object of that attachment--Mr. Edward Ferrars--was likely to be
married to Miss Morton, a peer's daughter, with thirty thousand pounds
of her own.
Mrs. John Dashwood had so much confidence in her husband's judgment that
she waited the very next day on both Mrs. Jennings and her daughter. She
found the former by no means unworthy her notice, and the latter one of
the most charming women in the world. The attraction was mutual, for
Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood.
There was a kind of cold-hearted selfishness on both sides, which
mutually attracted them; and they sympathised with each other in an
insipid propriety of demeanour and a general want of understanding.
Indeed, the Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons
that, though not much in the habit of giving anything, they determined
to give them a dinner; and soon after their acquaintance began, invited
them to dine at Harley Street, where they had taken a very good house
for three months. Mrs. Jennings and the Misses Dashwood were invited
likewise, and so were Colonel Brandon, as a friend of the young ladies,
and the Misses Steele, as belonging to the Middleton party in Conduit
Street. They were to meet Mrs. Ferrars.
Mrs. Ferrars turned out to be a little, thin woman, upright even to
formality in her figure, and serious even to sourness in her aspect. Her
complexion was sallow, and her features small, without beauty, and
naturally without expression; but a lucky contraction of the brow had
rescued her countenance from the disgrace of insipidity by giving it the
strong characters of pride and ill-nature. She was not a woman of many
words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the
number of her ideas; of the few syllables which did escape her, not one
fell to the share of Miss Dashwood, whom she eyed with the spirited
determination of disliking her at all events; whereas towards the Misses
Steele--particularly towards Lucy--both mother and daughter were
ostentatiously gracious. On this occasion Marianne created something of
a scene by openly resenting this treatment of her sister; while Mr.
Dashwood, seeking to interest Colonel Brandon in Elinor, showed him a
pretty pair of screens which she had painted for his wife, and informed
him that "a few months ago Marianne _was_ remarkably handsome, quite as
handsome as Elinor."
The next morning Lucy called on Elinor to exult in Mrs. Ferrars'
flattering treatment of her; her joy, however, was somewhat diminished
by the unexpected appearance of Edward Ferrars in Berkeley Street, for
though both Elinor and Lucy were able to keep up their respective poses
towards him, Marianne confused all three by an open demonstration of her
sisterly affection for him. But an invitation from Mrs. John Dashwood to
the Misses Steele to spend some days in Harley Street soon restored
Lucy's equanimity, and almost made Elinor believe that her rival was a
real favourite.
At any rate this was the view taken by foolish Nancy Steele.
"Lord!" thought she to herself, "they are all so fond of Lucy, to be
sure they will make no difficulty about it." And so away she went and
told Mrs. Dashwood all about Lucy's engagement to Edward Ferrars; the
result of which was that the married lady fell into hysterics, while the
Misses Steele were hastily bundled out of the house.
Elinor, on hearing this news from Mrs. Jennings, soon saw the necessity
of preparing Marianne for its discussion. She lost no time, therefore,
in making her acquainted with the real truth, and in endeavouring to
bring her to hear it talked of by others, without betraying that she
felt any uneasiness for her sister or any resentment towards Edward. At
first Marianne wept in grief and amazement; then she began to ascribe
Elinor's long reticence about the engagement to lack of real depth of
feeling; and it was not till the latter had done a deal of protesting
that the younger girl was able to give her sister due credit for
self-sacrifice and generosity. So when Mr. John Dashwood came round to
his sisters to tell them how Edward had refused to break off his
engagement, and how Mrs. Ferrars, on hearing of this, had resolved to
cut him off with a shilling, and to do all in her power to prevent his
advancing in any profession, and had settled on his brother Robert an
estate of a thousand pounds which she had intended to bestow on him,
Marianne let her indignation burst forth only when her brother had
quitted the room. A few days later, Elinor met Nancy Steele in
Kensington Gardens, who gave her a certain information, which
subsequently turned out to have been derived from listening at the
keyhole. This was to the effect that Edward, out of consideration for
Lucy, who would be marrying a man with no prospects and with no means
save two thousand pounds, had offered to give her up; but that Lucy had
protested her affection for him, was determined not to give him up, and
was building hopes on his taking orders and getting a living.
Fortunately, the much desired living came far sooner than Lucy could
have expected, for Colonel Brandon, with characteristic kindness,
offered the presentation of the rectory of Delaford to Edward through
Elinor.
_IV--A Happy Ending to Love's Troubles_
Anxious though the Misses Dashwood were to get back to Barton, they
could not refuse an invitation from the Palmers to spend a few days with
them. But, thanks to the romantic folly of Marianne--who, because she
fancied she could see Combe Magna, Willoughby's place, from Cleveland,
must needs take two evening walks in the grounds just where the grass
was the longest and the wettest--the house-party enjoyed not the
pleasantest of times. Marianne had to take to bed, and became so
feverish and delirious that Colonel Brandon volunteered to fetch Mrs.
Dashwood himself.
The next evening Elinor, who was acting as her sister's most devoted
nurse, and was hourly expecting her mother's arrival, was astounded by a
visit from Willoughby, who, having met Sir John Middleton in the lobby
of Drury Lane Theatre the previous night, and thus heard of Marianne's
serious illness, had set forth post-haste to make inquiries, and was now
delighted to find her out of danger. Attempting an exculpation of
himself, he confessed that at first meeting Marianne he had tried to
engage her regard without a thought of returning it; that afterwards he
grew sincerely fond of her, but put off from day to day paying her his
formal addresses and that just at the moment when he was going to make a
regular proposal to her, Mrs. Smith's discovery of his liaison with Miss
Williams, and his refusal to right matters by marrying the young lady,
dismissed him from his relative's house and favour, prevented him from
declaring his love to Marianne, and, in the embarrassed state of his
finances, seemed to render marriage with a wealthy woman his only chance
of salvation. He repudiated the charge of having deserted Miss Williams,
declaring that he did not know the straits to which she had been
reduced. He also alluded to the violence of her passion, and the
weakness of her understanding, as some excuses for the apparent
heartlessness of his own conduct.
He then went on to explain his treatment of Marianne's letters; how he
had already--previous to the arrival of the Dashwoods in town--become
engaged to Miss Sophia Grey; how, with his head and heart full of
Marianne, he was forced to play the happy lover to Sophia; and how
Sophia, in her jealousy, had opened Marianne's third letter and dictated
the reply.
"What do you think of my wife's style of letter-writing? Delicate,
tender, fully feminine, was it not?" said he.
"You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby," said Elinor. "You ought not to
speak in this way either of Mrs. Willoughby or my sister. You have made
your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a claim to your
politeness--to your respect, at least." She must be attached to you, or
she would not have married you."
"Do not talk to me of my wife," said he, with a heavy sigh. "She does
not deserve your compassion. She knew I had no regard for her when we
married. And now, do you pity me, Miss Dashwood? Have I explained away
any part of my guilt?"
"Yes. You have certainly removed something--a little," said Elinor. "You
have proved yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed
you."
When Mrs. Dashwood arrived at Cleveland, Elinor at once gave her the
joyful news of Marianne's material improvement in health and, after an
affectionate but nearly silent interview had taken place between mother
and sick child, the former proceeded to express to Elinor her admiration
for Colonel Brandon's disposition and manners, and her expectation that
he and Marianne would make a match of it. The Colonel, it seemed, had
told Mrs. Dashwood on the way of his affection for her daughter.
Marianne, however, at first seemed to have other plans. When the family
got back to Barton Cottage, she announced that she had determined to
enter on a course of serious study, and to devote six hours a day to
improving herself by reading. But with such a confederacy against her as
that formed by her mother and Elinor--with a knowledge so intimate of
Colonel Brandon's goodness--what could she do?
As for Elinor, her self-control was at last rewarded, thanks to a
strange _volte-face_ on the part of Lucy Steele who, finding that
_Robert_ Ferrars had the money, married him and jilted his brother. The
way was thus cleared to Elinor's union with Edward, whose mother was
induced to give the young couple her consent, and a marriage portion of
£10,000.
* * * * *