[45] Written in 1815-16.
[46] What a capital picture, of an amiable rich man’s bondage.
[47] Are old abbeys so common in Hampshire that Jane Austen should have
made two of her country-houses abbeys?
[48] The habit, now gone out of fashion, of having grown-up
parlour-boarders in schools, rendered them more like homes for young
people of all ages.
[49] These old genial suppers have vanished, being crowded out of
existence by late dinners, which are very different meals.
[50] We can, however, imagine Harriet’s showing that book, with
lingering pride and pleasure, to her grandchildren.
[51] The more convivial habits of the period peep out here and there in
Jane Austen’s novels.
[52] Disingenuous, mocking Emma!
[53] In reading Jane Austen’s novels one is carried back to the time
when good playing on the piano, or “the instrument” as it is frequently
called, was held, in the higher classes, as it is now in much lower
grades, a crowning mark of a liberal education in a girl. Yet Jane
Austen herself fell short of this attainment, and she almost invariably
makes her heroines--as in the experiences of Elizabeth Bennet, Emma
Woodhouse, Catherine Morland, and Fanny Price--either to have failed in
the duty of practising, so as not to have acquired more than a moderate
proficiency in music, or else to have been deficient in musical taste
or deprived of musical education.
[54] I have already said that Jane Austen wastes no time in
descriptions of places; yet she often contrives to suggest so much in
a few lines, that her pleasant, homely English scenes, no less than
her life-like characters, rise vividly before the mind. That briefest
description of Abbey Mill Farm--comfortable and tidy, with the short,
straight walk between the apple-trees up to the front door--does
its business thoroughly. I have seen more than one such cosy, trim,
old-fashioned farmhouse, which has brought the exclamation to my lips,
“That was where Harriet Smith visited the Martins.”
[55] I think it was Archbishop Whately who said, _apropos_ of Jane
Austen’s novels, that so far from its being easy to represent the
simplicity and folly which, like poverty, we have always with us, so as
to divert a reader, it demands nothing short of genius for the task.
[56] Already, in the interval between the writing of “Pride and
Prejudice” and of “Emma,” the constant use of men’s surnames in
conversation was going out in good society.
[57] I have heard that a great modern statesman, who takes some
relaxation in reading novels, and who is an ardent admirer of Jane
Austen, is specially in love with Mrs. Elton. Her portrait is his
favourite in this wonderful picture-gallery.
[58] In the course of the conversation, Jane Austen puts into Jane
Fairfax’s mouth a strong expression of admiration for the post-office
arrangements, with their regularity and despatch. Yet these were the
days of heavily-taxed letters and delayed conveyance by coach. What
would Jane Austen have thought of the penny post, with its multiplied
responsibilities and requirements, to which railway celerity is given?
and still the system bears the strain, and admirably fulfils the
intention of its founder.
[59] Morning walks, “taken fasting,” are now, we may be thankful, an
utterly exploded prescription for delicate men and women.
[60] In how many country houses in England is spruce beer to be found
to-day?
[61] The position of Frank Churchill--dependent on his uncle and aunt,
bound to humour their whims and wait on their pleasure--seems never to
have struck Jane Austen as unmanly and undesirable.
[62] A striking illustration of what a good woman must suffer from such
a false step as that which Jane Fairfax had taken.
[63] Emma has as much trouble in convincing her friends that she is not
attached to Frank Churchill, as Elizabeth Bennet found in persuading
her relations that she returned the affection of Darcy.
[64] Mr. Knightley’s quiet superiority to public opinion in making such
a suggestion, is another fine point in a fine character.
[65] Babies’ tiny caps have disappeared, like some other articles of
costume in Emma’s day. What would Mrs. Weston have thought of the bald
little polls which are now fearlessly exposed by mothers and nurses?
[66]
“They’ve robed that maid so poor and pale
In silks and samites rare;
And pearls for drops of frozen hail
Are glistening in her hair.”
[Illustration]
“SENSE AND SENSIBILITY,” AND “MANSFIELD PARK.”
Of the two novels for which I have not found space here, the one
belongs to the first, and the other to the second series of Jane
Austen’s tales.
“Sense and Sensibility” in its original form was, with the exception
perhaps of “Lady Susan,” the first written of the author’s stories
which have come down to us. It has always seemed to me inferior to
the novels which follow it, though its writer not only re-wrote it in
her youth, but prepared it again for the press in her mature years,
and brought it out before “Pride and Prejudice.” The astonishing
precedence thus given might, however, have been accidental, or it might
have been the result of the publisher’s choice. It might also have
been an instance of Jane Austen’s confidence in her own powers and
steadfastness of purpose. Certainly she appears to have valued “Sense
and Sensibility” as highly as her other novels: an example of the
proverbial blindness of authors to the proportion of merit in their own
writings.
To say that “Sense and Sensibility” is inferior to its companions is by
no means to suggest that it is without excellence. It has many of the
attractions of Miss Austen’s work. It is bright, clever, interesting
and exceedingly life-like. Here and there, as in the characters of Mr.
and Mrs. John Dashwood, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, and Mrs. Jennings there is
a good deal of the author’s critical acumen and dry humour, yet they
hardly arrive at their subsequent perfection. Thus Mr. and Mrs. Palmer,
who are a little like Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in their youth, lag behind
that entertaining couple.
In accordance with the name,[67] the story turns upon the relative
advantages and disadvantages of sense and sensibility, the verdict
being given, as might have been expected from the author, in favour of
sense.
Two sisters, Ellinor and Marianne Dashwood, equally good, but the one
full of quiet self-control, the other of impetuous feeling, which she
never seeks to restrain, rather priding herself on its indulgence, as a
proof of the strength and depth of her opinions and affections, have an
oddly similar fate, being both in turn disappointed in love, and in a
manner jilted by their respective lovers--Edward Ferrars, the reserved,
sober-minded, somewhat sad, young clergyman; and John Willoughby, a
frank, fervent, reckless young fellow, the masculine type which matches
with the style of girls like Marianne Dashwood.
The causes and ends of the two sisters’ histories are quite different
from each other. And the happy termination of Ellinor’s trials is
not made a consequence of her superior wisdom and moderation--a nice
distinction, with its appreciation of the facts of life, and of the
rewards and punishments which must be inward, not outward, certainly
remarkable in a young author.
Edward Ferrars’ unwitting injury to Ellinor proceeds from his too great
susceptibility to her attractions, and his involuntary betrayal of his
attachment when he is thrown much in her company, while all the time he
is an unresisting victim to a foolish youthful engagement. The lady is
a pert, underbred Lucy Steele, with an irrepressible sister Anne; both
of them determined not to lose sight of a great match for Lucy.
Willoughby, after a romantic introduction to Marianne, first
compromises himself by paying the most marked attention to the girl;
and then, to meet the views of the relative on whom he is dependent,
consents to give her up with the most cruel abruptness and harshness,
and to pay his addresses to an heiress who is, in every respect save
her fortune, repugnant to him.
Ellinor, who is made painfully aware of her lover’s entanglement by the
cunning of Lucy Steele in selecting the very girl whom Edward Ferrars
prefers for her confidante, behaves not merely with perfect honour,
but bears the mortification and grief with such gentle dignity and
patience, and such magnanimous consideration for the unhappiness of
Edward and the rights of Lucy, as to rob her unhappiness of half its
sting, and to escape all humiliating exposure to the speculation and
pity of her friends and acquaintances.
Marianne--who, far from checking, has gloried in Willoughby’s
extravagant devotion, and has never dreamt of concealing her answering
devotion, which she regards as his due--abandons herself in the same
proportion to incredulity, anguish, and despair on his desertion, until
her life nearly pays the forfeit, and she has rendered herself an
object either of ridicule or compassion to her whole circle.
At last Edward Ferrars is released, without dishonour on his part, from
his rash engagement to Lucy Steele, by that calculating young lady’s
having found a still better match in Edward’s less worthy brother, who
is, however, the favourite son of their rich, tyrannical mother. The
jilted man is thus free to consult his heart, and lays his tithes and
parsonage at the feet of Ellinor Dashwood, who, on her part, is not too
intolerant to accept the offer.
Marianne is cured of her folly by the shock of the illness which brings
her to the brink of the grave, and by such atonement as Willoughby
can offer, in the violence of his self-accusation and misery, when he
believes she is dying, really killed by his barbarity. He takes a long
night’s journey to inquire for her, and makes a clean breast to Ellinor
of the reality of his love for her sister, and his remorse for the ill
usage which, in his cowardliness and selfishness, he has inflicted on
her.
Marianne Dashwood is so effectually cured--there is much hope for the
broken heart of eighteen--that she listens before long, with gratitude
and sympathy, to the constant, tender suit of that Colonel Brandon
whom she had formerly laughed at and scorned as a lover, because he
had reached the advanced age of thirty-five, had to take precautions
against rheumatism, and confessed to having, when a young man, suffered
from an unfortunate attachment; while Marianne Dashwood has not
believed hitherto in any love save first love.
The evil of the gushing sensibility or sentimentality which, during the
last century, girls were understood to cherish till it disqualified
them for sober duty and rational behaviour, against which their
mentors--whether young, blooming, and arch, like Jane Austen when
she wrote “Sense and Sensibility,” or old, wrinkled, and grave, like
Dr. Gregory when he delivered his advice to his daughters--were
constantly warning young women, has given place in many quarters in
this nineteenth century to a rollicking pretence of no feeling, a
fast assumption of hardness, heartlessness and utter carelessness. Of
the two evils the last would be the worse, if we could believe in its
being anything more than an unlovely mask, in which bad manners and bad
taste are occasionally combined with morbid shyness and sensitiveness,
which, rather than betray themselves, assume the guise of levity,
worldly-mindedness, or stolid indifference.
But the old frantic manifestations of love, hatred, and anguish are
still to be found in a coarse, crude enough fashion; and, strange to
say, are welcomed when found by the very readers who reprobate the
existence in their own breasts of a pin’s prick of the piled-up agonies
which they enjoy in print in not a few modern novels.
“Mansfield Park,” one of Jane Austen’s later tales, is also one of
her best. The story is intended to show the wrong and suffering, the
positive moral taint produced by an entirely worldly education--whether
the worldliness has been confined to practice in opposition to
principles, or whether the very principles have never been inculcated,
or have been presented in such a distorted form as to lose all power
for good.
The handsome, healthy, wealthy, well-born and well-bred sons and
daughters of Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, have been fortunate
in inheriting all the good things of this life; and not the least
fortunate in possessing an honourable and upright father--though
his social prejudices and his partiality to his own flesh and blood
somewhat warp his judgment and dull his perceptions--and a mother who,
though an indolent, self-indulgent woman, is utterly incapable of
active unkindness or wrong-doing.
The counteracting, overbalancing loss against so much gain is, that
the young Bertrams, with one exception, have never learnt the first
rudiments of self-denial and self-restraint. Tom, Maria, and Julia
Bertram, under a thin varnish of polish and liveliness, are thoroughly
selfish, self-willed young people, not really happy amidst all
their advantages and the popularity secured by them, and altogether
unprepared for the temptations and vicissitudes of life. Only Edmund
Bertram--who, as the younger son, brought up to fill the family living,
may by comparison have borne the yoke in his youth--is manly, generous,
and kind.
The Bertrams’ great friends, Henry and Mary Crawford, who had been left
as orphans to the care of an uncle and aunt--of whom the first was one
of the worst specimens of the coarse and vicious naval officer[68]
of the day, and the second had lived a cat-and-dog life with her
husband--have missed what ought to have been the firm foundation of the
Bertrams’ characters.
No sacred sense of duty, no fine perception of rectitude extending
to word and thought, no unsullied purity of tone, had been, even in
theory, instilled into the Crawfords by the couple who, with all their
faults, had still loved and petted the boy and girl entrusted to them;
and so had been in one sense armed with deadliest weapons to destroy
the children’s moral nature.
Henry and Mary Crawford have, according to a graphic old saying,
hung as they grew, without training, unless in evil. They have been
endowed with many fine natural gifts and qualities, in addition to the
accessories of rank and wealth. With regard to the last, Henry has a
good estate in Norfolk, and Mary possesses a fortune of twenty thousand
pounds. In reference to the first, Mary is a lovely brunette, as well
as a witty, merry, good-natured woman, who can play on the harp and
sing in the long summer evenings to distraction--so far as young men
are concerned. Henry, though not handsome, has a good figure and “a
fine countenance,” by which old-fashioned phrase I understand a highly
agreeable and intelligent expression of face. He is even wittier and
more talented than his sister, frank, equal to any difficult occasion
of social life, and capable of winning golden opinions in all; a
special treasure in a dull country house; “a charming fellow”--in
short, a very fascinating young man.
The two Crawfords present the fairest exterior on first acquaintance.
They are cast in an altogether finer mould than Tom Bertram and his
sisters, and are fitted for better things by a subtle touch of their
author’s art. It takes time and trial to discover that under the
winning surface there is neither soundness nor steadfastness: the very
core is corrupt.
In broad contrast to the Crawfords and the Bertrams--all save
Edmund--are Fanny and William Price, the daughter and son of the poor,
worthless Lieutenant of Marines. They have been called upon from
their earliest childhood to be helpful, contented with little, and
self-forgetful. If Jane Austen dwelt somewhat strongly in “Emma” on the
blessings of prosperity, in “Mansfield Park” she had already taught,
and never with greater effect, how sweet were the uses of adversity.
Probably, of all the author’s heroines, Fanny Price, if not the most
charming, is the greatest triumph of genius, for one can hardly
conceive two natures moulded by circumstances more unlike than the life
of Jane Austen in her youth, and that of the timid, shrinking, sickly
Fanny Price. She comes as a humble _protégée_ to Mansfield Park, and
has to endure all the well-meant but somewhat oppressive patronage of
Sir Thomas, the perpetual fault-finding of her aunt Norris, and the
alternate condescension and snubbing of her cousins--always excepting
her champion, Edmund. But a little later on, even Edmund turns without
knowing it against his little cousin, whom he has defended, encouraged,
and been fond of ever since she came to Mansfield Park. For it is the
worst heart-ache of all to Fanny to see the cousin Edmund whom she has
looked up to, and loved all these years, about to throw himself away
on Mary Crawford, whom Fanny knows, by sure instinct, to be unworthy
of him. Edmund in his blindness insists on making his friend-pupil the
confidante of his hopes and fears; nay, as if to add insult to injury,
in his affectionate zeal for his young cousin’s welfare, he presses on
her to accept the suit of another man.
So completely did Jane Austen realise all the softness and sweetness,
and yet the staunchness--all the fragrant, white-violet-like charm
of Fanny Price--so well did the author describe the pangs of wounded
love in the tenderest of hearts--the meek mortification of a gentle
nature which bore no grudge against its enemies--the pensive joys, the
tremulous apprehensions of the situation--that Archbishop Whately went
near to asserting the conviction that only a woman who had been herself
crossed in love could thus fully interpret her heroine.
Mrs. Norris--Fanny’s terrible Aunt Norris, with her unslumbering
activity, her restless meddling, her good deeds done by proxy in the
parsimony which was stronger even than the love of rule, her doting
indulgence to the young Bertrams, her carping snappishness to Fanny
Price and her brother William--is an unsurpassed representation of a
domineering, time-serving, radically harsh and mean nature, under all
its pretensions and self-deceptions, as well as an inimitable piece of
genteel comedy.
William Price--Fanny’s frank, light-hearted young sailor brother--with
his pride in his profession, and his fondness for his sister, is also
very good.
I do not wish to tell in a few words how Fanny escaped the imminent
peril of being won by Henry Crawford. Indeed the peril, in the author’s
fidelity to nature, is so imminent, in spite of Fanny’s pre-engaged
affections--granting that they were hopeless--and the reader is so
enchanted with the flattered young prince’s sudden keen appreciation
of the neglected Cinderella, that he or she is tempted against reason,
almost against conscience, to long that Henry Crawford’s love may
prevail over his levity, vanity, and lack of settled principles, and
earn its reward, rendering him at once a better and a happier man.
But Jane Austen knew better, and the grievous sin and shame which
separate for ever Henry Crawford and Fanny Price, is made to open
Edmund Bertram’s eyes to the moral gulf between his nature and that of
Mary Crawford, which, no less than his sister’s degradation, simply
renders it impossible for him to marry Mary.
The obstacles between the couple, who have been fitted for each other
from the first, thus doubly swept away, Jane Austen does not waste
many words in bringing them together, and leaving them happy for ever
afterwards.
The scenes during the private theatricals--when Sir Thomas is lending
dignified encouragement to Mr. Crawford’s attentions to his niece, by
giving a ball at Mansfield Park--when Fanny is sent to pay her visit
to her home at Portsmouth, not so much to punish her for her obstinate
refusal of her gallant, undaunted lover, as to teach her when she
is well off, and how she ought to prize the good fortune within her
reach--are among the best Jane Austen has painted.
Jane Austen had something of a parental affection for her books. She
wrote to a friend, whose little daughter had been lately born, “I trust
you will be as glad to see my ‘Emma’ as I shall be to see your Jemima.”
She did not dismiss from her mind the creatures of her fancy with the
narrative in which they had figured. She seemed to like to follow them
in imagination in the careers into which she had launched them. They
were real men and women[69] to her. She would, when asked, supply
further particulars of the history of some of these brain-children. Her
friends learned in this way that Anne Steele found a husband in the
doctor; that Kitty Bennet was satisfactorily married to a clergyman
near Pemberley, while Mary obtained nothing higher than one of her
Uncle Philip’s clerks, and was content to be considered a star in
Meryton; that the considerable sum given by Mrs. Norris to William
Price was one pound; that the letters placed by Frank Churchill before
Jane Fairfax, which she swept away unread, contained the one word
“_pardon!_” and that Mr. Woodhouse survived his daughter’s marriage,
and kept her and Mr. Knightley from Donwell about two years.