It would be difficult, if not impossible, to name an author of genius
even approximately equal to Jane Austen’s who owed so little as she to
any deliberate study of literary models or conscious attention to the
laws of style. Concerning her personal character and private interests
we know, indeed, surprisingly little; but it is certain, on the one
hand, that she was not in touch with the men and women of letters among
her contemporaries, and, on the other, that her family circle did not
practise the gentle art of criticism. The further assumption that she
had thought little, and read less, about the theory of her art, is
justified by the absence of any such references in her letters, and by
her simple ideas of construction, as developed in the advice to a young
relative who was attempting to follow her example:
“You are now collecting your people delightfully, getting them exactly
into such a spot as is the delight of my life. Three or four families
in a country village is the very thing to work on.”
Jane Austen, however, read novels with keen enjoyment: _Northanger
Abbey_ is in part an avowed burlesque of Mrs. Radcliffe, and we can
discover, in the language of Shakespearean commentary, the “originals”
for several of her plots and persons in the works of Fanny Burney.
Such an investigation, indeed, seems to have been almost courted by the
author herself when she borrowed a title from a chance phrase of her
sister-novelist’s, for a story with a somewhat similar plot, developed,
among other coincidences, in two closely parallel scenes. When at
length, after a series of cruel misfortunes, the hero and heroine
of _Cecilia_ were permitted to console each other, an onlooker thus
pointed the moral of their experience: “The whole of this unfortunate
business has been the result of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.”
There must have been a day, about twenty years after they were written,
when these words assumed, in Jane Austen’s eyes, a sudden significance.
She had read them before, probably many times, but on this occasion
they proved no less than an inspiration. Within her desk, on which
perhaps the favourite volume was then lying, lay the neatly written
manuscript of a tale constructed, in some measure, on the lines of
this very _Cecilia_. She had called it _First Impressions_. Would
not _Pride and Prejudice_ be a better name? It was certainly a happy
thought.[8]
Now Delvile, like Darcy, fell in love against his family instincts,
and, with an equally offensive condescension, discoursed at length on
his struggles between pride and passion to the young lady he desired to
honour with his affection. He, too, resisted long, yielded in the end,
and was forgiven. His mother’s appeal to Cecilia was as violent, and
almost as impertinent, as Lady Catherine’s to Elizabeth.
A close comparison of these two parallel scenes will serve at once to
show Jane Austen’s familiarity with the copy and her originality of
treatment. Darcy, like Delvile, is not “more eloquent on the subject of
tenderness than of pride.” But he has overcome his scruples and offers
his hand, in confidence of its being accepted, to one who dislikes and
despises him. Delvile, on the other hand, wishes merely to explain
the reasons that have induced him to deny himself the dangerous solace
of the “society” of one whom he believes to be entirely indifferent to
him, and to excuse the occasional outbursts of tenderness into which he
has been betrayed in unguarded moments. He does not complain of “the
inferiority of her connections,” but of the clause in her uncle’s will
by which her future husband is compelled to take her name. Cecilia
had been puzzled by his uncertain behaviour, but, believing him only
cautious from respect to his parents, had permitted herself to love him.
Mrs. Delvile again, like Lady Catherine, based her appeal on the
“honour and credit” of the young man she was so anxious to release; but
her insolence was tempered by affection, and disguised by high-sounding
moral sentiments. Cecilia was softened, as Elizabeth had not been,
by a sense of gratitude for past kindness and by a strained notion
of respect for the older lady. Mrs. Delvile, except in her pride, is
intended to inspire us with genuine respect; Lady Catherine is always
treated with amused contempt.
There are other instances--less familiar, but equally striking--in
which Miss Austen made use, in her own inimitable fashion, of
characters, phrases, and situations in _Evelina_ and _Cecilia_.
Mr. Delvile, the pompous and foolish man of family, reappears in Sir
Walter Elliot of _Persuasion_, and General Tilney of _Northanger
Abbey_. Cecilia could never determine “whether Mr. Delvile’s
haughtiness or his condescension humbled her most,” and he became
“at length so infinitely condescending, with intention to give her
courage, that he totally depressed her with mortification and chagrin.”
Catherine Morland always found that “in spite of General Tilney’s
great civilities to her, in spite of his thanks, invitations, and
compliments, it had been a release to get away from him.”
Cecilia’s friendship for Henrietta Belfield resembles Emma’s for
Harriet Smith. She was ever watching the state of her young friend’s
heart; now soliciting her confidence, and again, from motives of
prudence, rejecting it. For a time both girls are in love with the
hero, and Henrietta dreams as fondly and as foolishly over Delvile’s
imagined partiality as Harriet did over Knightley’s. Neither heroine
has any thought of resigning her lover to her friend, or “of resolving
to refuse him at once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive,
because he could not marry them both.”
The following conversation between Mr. Gosport and Miss Larolles
recalls Miss Steele’s persistence in laughing at herself about the
doctor (_Sense and Sensibility_), and Tom Bertram’s affected belief
that Miss Crawford was “quizzing him and Miss Anderson” (_Mansfield
Park_).
Gosport attacks Miss Larolles on a rumour now current about her, and,
after some skirmishing, confesses to having heard that “she had left
off talking.”
“‘Oh, was that all,’ cried she, disappointed. ‘I thought it had been
something about Mr. Sawyer, for I declare I have been plagued so about
him, I am quite sick of his name.’
“‘And for my part, I never heard it! So fear nothing from me on his
account.’
“‘Lord, Mr. Gosport, how can you say so! I am sure you must know about
the festino that night, for it was all over the town in a moment.’
“‘What festino?’
“‘Well, only conceive how provoking! Why, I know nothing else was
talked of for a month.’”
This is the Miss Larolles who haunted the mind of Anne Elliot, in
_Persuasion_, when she moved to the end of a form at the concert, in
order to be sure of not missing Captain Wentworth:
“She could not do so without comparing herself with Miss Larolles,
the inimitable Miss Larolles, but still she did it, and not with much
happier effect.”
Here is the passage in question: “Do you know,” says Miss Larolles,
“Mr. Meadows has not spoke one word to me all the evening! though I am
sure he saw me, for _I sat at the outside_ on purpose to speak to a
person or two, that I knew would be strolling about; for if one sits
on the inside there’s no speaking to a creature you know; so I never
do it at the opera, nor in the boxes at Ranelagh, nor anywhere. It’s
the shockingest thing you can conceive, to be made sit in the middle
of these forms, one might as well be at home, for nobody can speak to
one.”
The singularly unselfish affection of Mrs. and Miss Mirvan for Evelina,
never clouded by envy of her superior attractions, finds its echo in
the experience of Jane Fairfax:
“The affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss
Campbell in particular, was the more honourable to each party, from
the circumstance of Jane’s decided superiority, both in beauty and
acquirements.”
When Evelina is in great trouble, and the “best of men,” Mr. Villars,
is penetrated to the heart by the sight of her grief, he can think of
no better consolation than:
“My dearest child, I cannot bear to see thy tears; for my sake dry
them: such a sight is too much for me: _think of that_, Evelina, and
take comfort, I charge thee.”
With similar masculine futility the self-centred Edmund Bertram
attempts to soften the grief of his dear cousin:
“No wonder--you must feel it--you must suffer. How a man who had once
loved, could desert you. But yours--your regard was new compared
with----Fanny, _think of me_.”
Many a reader, doubtless, has, with Elizabeth Bennet, “lifted up his
eyes in amazement” at the platitudes of Mary on the occasion of Lydia’s
elopement, without suspecting that offensive young moralist of having
culled her phrases from the earlier novelist. “Remember, my dear
Evelina,” writes Mr. Villars, “nothing is so delicate as the reputation
of a woman; _it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle_ of all
human things.” Now Mary was “a great reader and made extracts.” She
evidently studied the art of judicious quotation: “Unhappy as the
event must be for Lydia,” says this astounding sister,
“we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a
female is irretrievable--that one false step involves her in endless
ruin--that her reputation _is no less brittle than it is beautiful_,
and that she cannot be too guarded in her behaviour towards the
undeserving of the other sex.”
The general resemblance of Catherine Morland’s situation to Evelina’s
may have been unconscious, but was scarcely, we think, accidental. In
_Northanger Abbey_, as in no other of Miss Austen’s novels, though
in all Miss Burney’s, the heroine is detached from her ordinary
surroundings and introduced to society under the inefficient protection
of foolish acquaintances. Like Evelina, she finds in the great world
much cause for alarm and anxiety, though, like her, she has the hero
for partner at her first ball. She, too, is frequently tormented by
the differences between her aristocratic and her vulgar friends. Henry
Tilney’s attitude towards her, on the other hand, is very similar to
Lord Orville’s towards Evelina. He can read her like an open book,
and his discovery of her suspicions about his father is as ingenious
and as delicately revealed as Orville’s generous chivalry to Evelina
at the ridotto. Indeed, had Fanny Burney been more daring she would
have confessed that Orville’s affection for Evelina, like Tilney’s for
Catherine,
“originated in nothing better than gratitude; or in other words, that
a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of
giving her a serious thought.”
The admiration which Evelina expressed with so much naïveté and
earnestness to her guardian must have betrayed itself in her looks
and conversation. Orville’s heart was won by unconscious flattery,
though Miss Burney herself was too conventional to admit it. She left
the conception and its defence to another. “It is a new circumstance
in romance,” writes Miss Austen, “and dreadfully derogatory of an
heroine’s dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a
wild imagination will at least be all my own.”
We can scarcely avoid wondering whether Miss Austen remembered Sir
Clement Willoughby when she decided upon the name of Marianne’s
devoted, but faithless, lover. The two men bear somewhat similar
relations to hero and heroine.
In one of her rare outbursts of self-confidence with the reader,
Miss Austen appears to put _Camilla_ on a level with _Cecilia_; and
Thorpe’s abuse of this novel in _Northanger Abbey_ must be interpreted
as her own indirect praise, for that youth is never allowed to open
his lips without exposing himself to our derision. It is immaterial to
our purpose that posterity has accepted his verdict rather than Miss
Austen’s. Her name appears among the subscribers to _Camilla_, and she
was loyal to it without an effort. Here she was not likely to find much
available material; but the conduct of Miss Margland towards Sir Hugh
Tyrold and his adopted children may have suggested some traits in Mrs.
Norris, and Mr. Westwyn’s naïve enthusiasm for his son bears a strong
resemblance to that of Mr. Weston[9] for the inevitable Frank Churchill.
Miss Bingley made herself ridiculous by her definition of an
accomplished woman as one who “must have a thorough knowledge of music,
singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages.” The germ of the
satire appears in the experiences of Miss Burney’s _The Wanderer_, and
in an allusion to the prevalent idea of feminine culture in _Camilla_:
“A little music, a little drawing, and a little dancing, which should
all be but slightly pursued, to distinguish a lady of fashion from an
artist.”
So writes Jane Austen, again, in _Lady Susan_:
“Not that I am an advocate for the prevailing fashion of acquiring a
perfect knowledge of all languages, arts, and sciences. It is throwing
away time to be mistress of French, Italian, and German; music,
singing, and dancing.... I do not mean, therefore, that Frederika’s
acquirements should be more than superficial, and I flatter myself
that she will not remain long enough at school to understand anything
thoroughly.”
It remains only to notice with what kindred indignation the two writers
complain of the little honour accorded their craft. Miss Burney, in
fact, did much to raise her profession; but it was not considered
“quite respectable” by Miss Austen’s contemporaries.
Mr. Delvile complains of Cecilia’s large bill at the booksellers’, on
the ground that
“a lady, whether so called from birth, or only from fortune, should
never degrade herself by being put on a level with writers, and such
sort of people.”