[70] Written in 1816, and published after the Author’s death.
[71] If Jane Austen’s high standing as an artist is granted, what
becomes of the heathen saying that “Art has no moral?” Was she simply
great in spite of her morals? Again, how shall we dispose of the
scornful criticism, which treats the details of domestic life in a
novel as twaddle? Jane Austen and twaddle are as far apart as Jane
Austen and bombast.
[72] A young Musgrove who had been in the navy, and died abroad.
[73] Anne Elliot’s pathetic position is unique, so far as I know, in
the literature of Jane Austen’s day. The contrast of her faded face
and subdued spirit with Henrietta and Louisa Musgrove’s fresh bloom
and unchecked joyousness, would not be attempted in our day, with the
same object in view, by an author who put a supreme value on material
advantages, and extolled the attractions of youth beyond all other
attractions. No such author--above all in a semi-cynical, semi-sensuous
generation--could have anticipated, far less projected, the end of
“Persuasion.”
[74] In those days no lady was to be found without her small bottle
of “smelling salts” or her vinaigrette with aromatic vinegar. Have we
fewer headaches now-a-days, or are we more patient in bearing them?
[75] The manner in which the set-aside, quiet woman, who has yet so
much more strength and power of resource than the others, comes to the
front, whether she will or no, in the moment of trouble, is fine and
true to nature.
[76] The perfect simplicity, unaffectedness, and absence of
self-consciousness--including any consciousness of merit, displayed
in Anne’s kindness to her former companion, is very refreshing, after
those ostentatious representations of doing good, and of making private
stock out of public benevolence, which we are constantly encountering
both in real life and in books.
[77] The sudden bestowal of Louisa Musgrove and Captain Benwick on each
other is one of the most genuine and delightful surprises of fiction.
It is not only a triumphant testimony to how the whole destiny, not
merely of one person, but of a group of persons, may be altered by
what seems the simplest accident--the turning of a straw; it is one
of those bits of warm, homely, human inconsistency which baffle
all anticipation, are worth a hundred bloodless, laboured, logical
sequences, but can only be fitly conceived and carried out in a story,
by a great artist.
[78] A hint of defence for what might have been his own case.
[79] A familiarity with Italian used to be considered the graceful
crown of a woman’s accomplishments.
[80] The “rattle” of Madame D’Arblay’s novel of “Cecilia.”
[81] The two capital chapters, of which the substance is now to be
given, were written by Jane Austen to supersede a cancelled chapter in
“Persuasion,” withdrawn after she had finished the story.
[82] The renewal of the good understanding between Anne and Captain
Wentworth was contrived in the cancelled chapter of the story, with
much less spirit and feeling--as Jane Austen herself judged rightly--by
an accidental interview between the lovers in the Crofts’ lodgings;
in the course of which Admiral Croft unsuspiciously imposes on his
brother-in-law the trying task of conveying to Anne, Admiral and Mrs.
Croft’s friendly desire not to stand in the way of the arrangements
of Mr. Elliot and his cousin on their marriage; on the contrary, the
Crofts offer to vacate Kellynch to them if they wish it.
[83] In the intense sense of reality which all Jane Austen’s stories
give us, we are prompted here to go beyond what the author has chosen
to tell us, and speculate how the Musgroves, great and small, received
the news--not merely of Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot’s engagement,
but what they were sure to hear also, sooner or later, that it was the
end of an old attachment, utterly unsuspected by all their friends
at Uppercross. Would the Musgroves in their good nature content
themselves with thinking the couple had kept their secret well, or
would there be a general, slightly indignant sense of having been taken
in and humbugged, like, in its degree, to that which Emma Woodhouse
experienced when she learnt the long-standing engagement between Frank
Churchill and Jane Fairfax?
[84] No, indeed, it is her chief treasure.
[85] These were the very different days of frequent naval engagements
and much prize money.