letters, and then walk out about three quarters of an hour before
breakfast. So punctual and regular was she that for many years a lady
residing in the village used to be roused by her maid with the words,
“Miss Edgeworth’s walking, ma’am; it’s eight o’clock.” She generally
returned with her hands full of roses or other flowers that she had
gathered, and taking her needle-work or knitting, would sit down at the
family breakfast, a meal that was a special favorite of hers, though
she rarely partook of anything. But while the others were eating she
delighted to read out to them such extracts from the letters she had
received as she thought would please them. She listened, too, while
the newspaper was read aloud, although its literary and scientific
contents always attracted her more than its political; for in politics,
except Irish, she took little interest.
HELEN ZIMMERN: ‘Maria Edgeworth.’
* * * * *
After breakfast she sat down to write, and worked till luncheon-time;
and after that meal occupied herself with some needle-work, as
experience taught her that writing immediately after eating was bad for
her. At times her anxiety about a certain piece of work, an interesting
dialogue, or some half-finished character or scene, made her very
unwilling to defer her writing; but this was her rule. A drive in the
afternoon, in later years, was a pleasant relaxation: in early life she
rode with her father, but natural timidity about horses made her a poor
horsewoman. The rest of the day was passed much as other ladies pass
their time. She dined, took tea with the family, and passed the evening
in conversation, or listening to reading.... Maria was always busy with
a little piece of work with which she occupied herself during hours of
leisure from writing, or while she listened to reading aloud. These
busy fingers wrought many a piece of embroidery or fine needle-work,
while the brain wove the web of fancies bright or serious; many a scene
of lively dialogue, clever character-painting, or pathetic description,
passed into the clear words in which it later appeared on the pages of
tale or novel, while the hand was rapidly moving in some womanly bit of
needle-work.
GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’ * * * * *
[Sidenote: Miss Edgeworth in 1821.]
At last we approached the house. It is spacious, with an ample veranda
and conservatory covering part of its front quite beautifully, and
situated in a fine lawn of the richest green, interspersed with clumps
of venerable oaks and beeches. As we drove to the door, Miss Edgeworth
came out to meet us,--a small, short, spare lady of about sixty-seven,
with extremely frank and kind manners, and who always looks straight
into your face with a pair of mild, deep gray eyes, whenever she speaks
to you.
GEORGE TICKNOR: ‘Life, Letters, and Journals.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Never sat for her portrait.]
Miss Edgeworth ... carried herself very upright, with a dapper figure
and quick movements. She was the remains of a blonde, with light eyes
and hair; she was now gray, but wore a dark frisette, whilst the gray
hair showed through her cap behind. She was so plain that she was never
willing to sit for her portrait, and that is the reason why the public
has never been made acquainted with her personal appearance.
ELIZA FARRAR: ‘Recollections of Seventy Years.’
* * * * *
Her person is small and delicately proportioned, and her movements full
of animation. She has an aversion to having her likeness taken, which
no entreaties of her friends have been able to overcome. In one of her
notes she says, “I have always refused even my own family to sit for
my portrait, and with my own good-will, shall never have it painted;
as I do not think it would give either my friends or the public any
representation or expression of my mind, such as I trust may be more
truly found in my writings.”
MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY: ‘Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.’ Boston:
James Munroe & Co., 1844.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A good churchwoman.]
We went to church with the family, who all seemed Episcopalians in
principle and practice. Miss Edgeworth carried her favorite prayer-book
in a nice case, and knelt and made all the responses very devoutly.
The church is small, but neat; and their pew is the place of honor
in it, with a canopy and recess as large as any two other pews....
The Edgeworths have always been on the most kindly terms with their
Catholic neighbors and tenantry.
GEORGE TICKNOR: ‘Life, Letters and Journals.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A masculine understanding and no enthusiasm.]
I attended with much interest to the conversation of this remarkable
woman. She was little and possessed of no personal attractions; it
was evident that the usual feminine objects had never interfered
with her masculine understanding. Her conversation was chiefly
remarkable for its acuteness, good sense and practical sagacity. She
had little imagination and scarcely any enthusiasm. Solid sense,
practical acquirement--the qualities which will lead to success in the
world--were her great endowments, and they appeared at every turn in
her conversation, as they do in her writings. This disposition of mind
kept her free from the usual littlenesses of authors and raised her far
above the ordinary vanity of woman. She was simple and unaffected in
her manners, entirely free from conceit or effort in her conversation,
and kindly and benevolent in her judgment of others, as well as in her
views of life and in her intercourse with all around her. But she had
neither a profound knowledge of human nature nor the elevated mental
qualities which give a lasting ascendency over mankind.
SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON: ‘Some Account of My Life and Writings: an
Autobiography.’ Wm. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh and London, 1883.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Full of enthusiasm.]
She is full of fun and spirit; very good-humored, full of enthusiasm.
SIR WALTER SCOTT: _Letter to D. Terry_, in the former’s ‘Memoirs,’ by
J. G. Lockhart.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Warm-hearted and clever.]
Maria Edgeworth came frequently to see us when she was in England. She
was one of my most intimate friends, warm-hearted and kind, a charming
companion, with all the liveliness and originality of an Irishwoman.
The cleverness and animation, as well as affection, of her letters, I
cannot express.
MARY SOMERVILLE: ‘Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age.’
Boston: Roberts Bros., 1874.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Attitude toward authorship.]
Miss Edgeworth never needed to follow authorship as a profession; its
pecuniary results were of no moment to her, and hence she was spared
all the bitterness and incidental anxieties of an author’s life, the
working when the brain should rest, the imperative need to go on,
no matter whether there be aught to say or not. Her path, in this
respect, as in all others, traversed the high roads of life. Fame at
once succeeded effort; the heart-sickness of hope deferred was never
hers; she was therefore neither soured nor embittered by feeling within
herself powers which the world was unwilling or slow to acknowledge.
HELEN ZIMMERN: ‘Maria Edgeworth.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Method of working with her father.]
Whenever I thought of writing anything I always told my father my
first rough plans; and always, with the instinct of a good critic, he
used to fix immediately upon that which would best answer the purpose.
“Sketch that, and show it to me.” The words, from the experience of
his sagacity, never failed to inspire me with hope of success. It was
then sketched. Sometimes, when I was fond of a particular part, I used
to dilate on it in the sketch, but to this he always objected. “I
don’t want any of your painting--none of your drapery! I can imagine
all that. Let me see the bare skeleton!” It seemed to me sometimes
impossible that he could understand the very light sketch I made;
when, before I was conscious that I had expressed this doubt in my
countenance, he always saw it. “Now, my dear little daughter, I know,
does not believe that I understand her.” Then he would in his own words
fill up my sketch, paint the description, or represent the character
intended, with such life, that I was quite convinced he not only seized
the ideas, but that he saw with the prophetic eye of taste, the utmost
that could be made of them.
HELEN ZIMMERN: ‘Maria Edgeworth.’
* * * * *
‘Helen,’ written long after his death, would serve to reveal something
of the effect which Mr. Edgeworth had on his daughter’s writing. It
shows a lighter hand, a greater ease in handling dialogue, and a more
natural inconsistency in its characters, than she was allowed by her
father.... The hand of Miss Edgeworth had not lost its cunning, but
her natural timidity was so great that she could not work after her
life-long support was removed. She had accustomed herself to lean upon
what she considered her father’s superior knowledge of the world and
literary judgment, until she was unfitted for independent literary work
for a time.
GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Reads ‘A simple Story.’]
[Sidenote: Opinion of her own work.]
I have been reading, for the fourth time I believe, ‘The Simple Story,’
which I intended this time to read as a critic, that I might write to
Mrs. Inchbald about it; but I was so carried away by it that I ...
cried my eyes almost out before I came to the end.... I was obliged
to go from it to correct ‘Belinda’ for Mrs. Barbauld, who is going to
insert it in her collection of novels, with a preface; and I really was
so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone, ‘Belinda,’
that I could have torn the pages to pieces. And, really, I have not the
heart or the patience to _correct_ her. As the hackney coachman said,
“Mend _you_! better make a new one.”
MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Origin of ‘Harrington’ and ‘Ormond.’]
In 1816 Maria received a letter from an American Jewess, a Miss Rachel
Mordecai of Virginia, gently reproaching her with having made Jews
ridiculous and odious in her novels and tales, and begging her to give
the world a picture of a good Jew. This was the origin of the story of
‘Harrington.’... Mr. Edgeworth had expressed a wish to Maria that she
should write a story as a companion to ‘Harrington’; and with all the
anguish of heart which oppressed her natural spirits, at the sight of
her father suffering such pain, and daily growing weaker, she made a
strong effort to amuse him. By a wonderful exertion of love and genius,
she produced the gay and spirited pages of ‘Ormond’; among which may
be found some of her most vivacious scenes, her inimitable characters.
Wit, humor, and pathos made the story a bright entertainment for the
sufferer; who could not have realized in a line of its pages the aching
heart which dictated it. The book was read chapter by chapter in her
father’s room.
GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Literary theories.]
I had often and often a suspicion that my manner was too Dutch, too
minute.... I _know_ I feel how much _more is to be done, ought to
be done_, by suggestion than by delineation, by creative fancy than
by _fac simile_ copying; how much more by skilful selection and
fresh, consistent combination, than can be effected by the most acute
observation of individuals, or diligent accumulation of particulars.
There are little touches of _inconsistency_, which mark reality; for
human nature is really inconsistent. And there are _exceptions_, as
in grammar rules.... The value of odd characters depends upon their
being actually known to be true. In history, extraordinary characters
always interest us with all their inconsistencies, feeling we thus add
to our actual knowledge of human nature. In fiction, we have not this
conviction, and therefore not this sort or source of pleasure, even if
ever so well done.
Few readers do, or can, put themselves in the places of great
criminals, or fear to yield to such and such temptations. They know
that they cannot fall to the depth of evil at once, and they have no
sympathy, no fear: their spirits are not “put in the act of falling.”
But show them the steep path, the little declivity at first, the step
by step downwards; and they tremble. Show them the postern-gate, or
little breaches in their citadel of virtue; and they fly to guard
these. In short, show to them their own little faults which may lead
on to the greatest, and they shudder; that is, if this be done with
truth, and brought home to their consciousness. This is all which, by
reflection on my own mind, and comparison with others and with records
in books, ... I feel or fancy I have sometimes done or can do.
[Sidenote: “No commonplace book.”]
I have no “vast magazine of a commonplace book.” In my whole life,
since I began to write--which is now, I am concerned to state, upwards
of forty years--I have had only about half a dozen little note-books,
strangely and irregularly kept, sometimes with only words of reference
to some book or fact I could not bring accurately to mind. At first
I was much urged by my father to note down remarkable traits of
character, or incidents, which he thought might be introduced in
stories. But I was averse to noting down, because I was conscious that
it did better for me to keep the things in my head if they suited my
purpose; and if they did not, they would only encumber me. I knew
that when I wrote down, I put the thing out of my care, out of my
head; and that, though it might be put by very safe, I should not
know where to look for it; that the labor of looking over a note-book
would never do when I was in the warmth and pleasure of inventing.
In short, the process of combination, generalization, invention, was
carried on always in my head best.... I never could use notes in
writing dialogues. It would have been as impossible to me to get in
the prepared good things at the right moment, in the warmth of writing
conversation, as it would be to lay them in in real conversation;
perhaps more so, for I could not write dialogues at all without being
at the time fully impressed with the characters, imagining myself each
speaker; and that too fully engrossed the imagination to leave time for
consulting note-books: the whole fairy vision would melt away.
[Sidenote: “Castle Rackrent” not corrected or copied.]
A curious fact, that where I least aimed at drawing characters, I
succeeded best. As far as I have heard, the characters in ‘Castle
Rackrent’ were in their day considered as better classes of Irish
characters than any I ever drew; they cost me no trouble, and were made
by no _receipt_, or thought of “philosophical classification”; there
was literally not a correction, not an alteration, made in the first
writing, no copy, and, as I recollect, no interlineation; it went
to the press just as it was written. Other stories I have corrected
with the greatest care, and re-modelled and re-written.... In every
story (except ‘Rackrent’) which I ever wrote, I have always drawn out
a sketch, a frame-work. All these are in existence; and I have lately
compared many of the printed stories with them, some strangely altered,
by the way.
MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter to Mrs. Stark_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria
Edgeworth.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Detestation of fine writing.]
You excel, I think, peculiarly in avoiding what is commonly called
_fine-writing_,--a sort of writing which I detest; which calls the
attention away from the _thing_ to the _manner_, from the feeling
to the language; which sacrifices every thing to the sound, to the
mere rounding of a period; which mistakes _stage effect_ for nature.
All who are at all used to writing know and detect the _trick of the
trade_ immediately; and, speaking for myself, I _know_ that the writing
which has least the appearance of literary _manufacture_, almost
always pleases me the best. It has more originality; in narration
of fictitious events, it most surely succeeds in giving the idea of
reality, and in making the biographer, for the time, pass for nothing.
But there are few who can, in this manner, bear the _mortification_
of staying behind the scenes. They peep out eager for appearance, and
destroy the illusion by crying, _I_ said it, _I_ wrote it, _I_ invented
it all! Call me on the stage and crown me directly!
MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter to Mrs. Inchbald_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria
Edgeworth.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Effect of the ‘Moral Tales.’]
Miss Edgeworth has done more good both to the higher and lower world
than any writer since the days of Addison. She shoots at “folly as
it flies,” with the strong bolt of ridicule, and seldom misses her
aim. Much as I admire the polished satire and nice discrimination of
character in the ‘Tales of Fashionable Life,’ I prefer the homely
pathos and plain morality of her ‘Popular Tales.’ The story of Rosanna
is particularly delightful to me; and that of ‘To-morrow,’ made so deep
an impression on my mind, that, if it were possible for any earthly
power to reform a procrastinator, I really think that tale would have
cured me of my evil habits.... I delight in her works for the same
reason that you admire them--her exquisite distinction of character;
whereas I am convinced that at least nine-tenths of her readers are
caught solely by the humor of her dialogue and the liveliness of her
illustrations.
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Too didactic.]
Miss Edgeworth is somewhat too avowedly didactic: that seems to be
true of her, which the French critics, in the extravagance of their
conceits, attributed to Homer and Virgil, viz:--that they first thought
of a moral, and then framed a fable to illustrate it; she would,
we think, instruct more successfully, and she would, we are sure,
please more frequently, if she kept the design of teaching more out
of sight, and did not so glaringly press every circumstance of her
story, principal or subordinate, into the service of a principle to be
inculcated, or information to be given.... Miss Edgeworth’s novels put
us in mind of those clocks and watches which are condemned “a double
or a treble debt to pay”; which, besides their legitimate object, to
show the hour, tell you the day of the month or the week, give you a
landscape for a dial-plate, with the second-hand forming the sails of a
wind-mill, or have a barrel to play a tune, or an alarum to remind you
of an engagement: all very good things in their way; but so it is that
these watches never tell the time so well as those in which that is the
exclusive object of the maker. Every additional movement is an obstacle
to the original design.
SIR WALTER SCOTT: ‘Miss Austen’s Novels,’ _London Quarterly Review_,
January, 1821. ‘Scott’s Miscellanies,’ _vol. i_. Philadelphia: Carey &
Hart, 1841.
JANE AUSTEN.
1775-1817.
JANE AUSTEN.
Jane Austen may be said to have had the happiness of being without
a history. No other English woman of letters ever lived a life so
entirely uneventful. Its monotony was unbroken by travel, or by
acquaintance or even correspondence with other writers. Its placid flow
was never interrupted by love, or there is at least no surface-ripple
to tell us of the fact. We learn from the memoir by her nephew, the
Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh, that she was the daughter of a Hampshire
clergyman; she had one sister, very dear to her, and several brothers,
one of whom rose to the rank of admiral in the navy. Jane was born on
the 16th of December, 1775. In the years 1796 and ’97, before she was
twenty-three years old, she wrote the novel _Pride and Prejudice_; in
1797 and ’98, _Sense and Sensibility_, and _Northanger Abbey_. These
works, however, waited fifteen years for a publisher; and Jane, who
wrote merely for her own amusement, seems to have possessed her soul
in patience. In 1801 the family removed to Bath; in 1805 the Rev.
George Austen died, and they again removed to Southampton. In 1809 they
settled at Chawton, Hampshire; and in 1811 Jane was at length enabled
to publish _Sense and Sensibility_. It was followed in 1813 by _Pride
and Prejudice_. _Mansfield Park_ appeared in 1814, and _Emma_ in 1816.
Jane Austen died on the 18th of July, 1817. After her death her early
novel _Northanger Abbey_, and _Persuasion_, a mature work which has the
same mellower quality as _Emma_, together with a pathos peculiarly its
own, were published.
From the testimony of her nephew and the internal evidence of her
books, we may conclude Jane Austen to have been a decorous English
gentlewoman, conservative in temper, essentially feminine; a silent,
humorous observer of the most minute details; an affectionate daughter
and sister and a delightful aunt; at home “a still, sweet, placid
moonlight face, and slightly nonchalant”--abroad, perhaps a trifle
chilling. We may eke out the meagre record of her life with many
praises, drawn from widely-differing sources. If some of these appear
to us extravagant, and we are driven by reaction to complain of a
certain superficiality in Miss Austen’s writings, we should be disarmed
by the recollection that she is never pretentious. No better example
exists of a talent kept within its proper limitations. It has been well
said, that her enclosed spot of English ground is indeed little, but
never was verdure brighter or more velvety than its trim grass.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Home at Steventon.]
As the first twenty-five years, more than half of the brief life of
Jane Austen, were spent in the parsonage of Steventon, some description
of that place ought to be given. Steventon is a small rural village
upon the chalk hills of North Hants, situated in a winding valley
about seven miles from Basingstoke.... Of this somewhat tame country,
Steventon, from the fall of the ground and the abundance of its
timber, is certainly one of the prettiest spots. The house itself stood
in a shallow valley, surrounded by sloping meadows, well-sprinkled
with elm trees, at the end of a small village of cottages, each well
provided with a garden, scattered about prettily on either side of
the road.... North of the house, the road from Deane to Popham Lane
ran at a sufficient distance from the front to allow a carriage-drive
through turf and trees. On the south side the ground rose gently, and
was occupied by one of those old-fashioned gardens in which vegetables
and flowers are combined, flanked and protected on the east by one of
the thatched mud walls common in that country, and overshadowed by fine
elms. Along the upper or southern side of this garden, ran a terrace
of the finest turf, which must have been in the writer’s thoughts when
she described Catharine Morland’s childish delight in “rolling down the
green slope at the back of the house.”
REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’ London: Richard
Bentley, 1870.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Appearance in girlhood.]
When I knew Jane Austen, I never suspected that she was an authoress;
but my eyes told me she was fair and handsome, slight and elegant, but
with cheeks a little too full. The last time I think that I saw her was
at Ramsgate in 1803: perhaps she was then about twenty-seven years old.
Even then I did not know that she was addicted to literary composition.
SIR EGERTON BRYDGES: ‘Autobiography, Times, Opinions and
Contemporaries.’ London: Cochrane & M’Crane, 1834.
[Sidenote: In later years.]
[Sidenote: Attachment to her sister Cassandra.]