THE NOVELS
The life of a genius is, after all, secondary to the works by which he
lives; no one would want to know anything about him had not the works
aroused their interest. The personality when revealed is oft-times
disappointing, sometimes repulsive, but that cannot alter the value
of the work. There is certainly no fear that we shall find anything
repulsive in the simple life of Jane Austen, or that we shall be
disappointed in knowing her as she was, but for all that the works are
the thing.
One writer on Jane Austen, in what purports to be a book, has devoted
three hundred and thirty-two pages out of three hundred and eighty-six
to a synopsis of the plots of the novels, told in bald and commonplace
language, without any of the sparkle of the original, so that even
the extracts embedded in such a context seem flat and uninteresting.
This sort of book-making is worse than useless, it is positively
harmful. Anyone who read the volume before reading the original novels
would assuredly never go to them after having seen them flattened
out in this style. There is no place for such a book; anyone who is
interested in Jane Austen at all should read her works as they are.
There can be no excuse on the ground of length, the longest, _Emma_,
runs to four hundred and thirty-six pages of clear type in duodecimo
form. For the publication of an abridged form of Richardson’s works,
there might be excuse; anyone who read such an abridgement might be
forgiven, for Richardson’s masterpiece filled seven volumes! But with
Jane Austen there is nothing to abridge, every sentence tells, there
is no prolixity, every word has its intrinsic value, and to retell her
sparkling little stories in commonplace language is indeed to attempt
the painting of the rose.
This book, at all events, is intended only for those who know the
novels at first hand, and there shall be no explaining, no pandering to
that laziness that prefers hash to joints. Taking it for granted that
everyone knows the six complete novels, we enter here on a discussion
of the excellencies common to all, leaving them to be discussed
singly as they occur chronologically in the life of their author. The
first question that occurs to anyone in this connection is how is it
that these books, without plot, without adventures, without _double
entendre_, have managed to entrance generations of readers, and to be
as much alive to-day as when they were written? The answer is simple
and comprehensive,—they are of human nature all compact. This is the
first and greatest quality. We have in them no heroes and heroines, no
villains, but only men and women; and while the world lasts stories of
real live flesh-and-blood characters will hold their own. The second
characteristic, which is the salt of fiction, is the keen sense of
humour that runs throughout. Jane Austen’s observation of the foibles
of her fellow-creatures was unusually sharp, her remarks in her letters
are not always kind, but in the novels this sharp and keen relish of
what is absurd is softened down so as to be nowhere offensive. Like her
own Elizabeth, she might say, “I hope I never ridicule what is wise or
good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I
own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”
A third characteristic, which is the result of genius alone, is her
dainty sense of selection. She never gives anything redundant either
in the actions or words of her characters, just enough is said or
done to reveal the people themselves to us. One has only to think of
writers deficient in this quality to realise how essential it is to
enjoyment. In Miss Ferrier’s _Marriage_, for instance, there are good
and striking scenes, but in her conversations she never knows when to
stop, the tedious long-winded sentences have to be skipped in order to
get on with the story. The art of selection is that which distinguishes
real dramatic talent from photographic realism. To be able to put down
on paper exactly what average people say is certainly a gift, for few
can do it, but a far higher gift is to select and combine just those
speeches and actions which give the desired effect without leaving
any sense of omission or incompleteness. Jane Austen had the power
also of giving a flash of insight into a state of mind or a personal
feeling in a few words more than any writer before or since. It is
one of her strongest points. Take for example that scene when Henry
Tilney instructing Catherine “talked of foregrounds, distances, and
second distances; side screens and perspectives; lights and shades;
and Catherine was so hopeful a scholar, that when they gained the
top of Beechen Cliff, she voluntarily rejected the whole city of Bath
as unworthy to make part of the landscape”; or the opening sentences
of _Mansfield Park_. “Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven
thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram of
Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised
to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences
of a handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the
greatness of the match; and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her
to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to
it.”
It is by touches such as these that the characters are made to live
before us, Jane never condescends to the device of tricks which Dickens
allowed himself to use with such wearisome iteration; we have none
of “the moustache went up and the nose came down” style. It is by a
perfect perspective, by light touches given with admirable effect, that
we know the difference between Fanny Price and Anne Elliot, both good,
sweet, retiring girls; or between Elinor Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse,
who both had the generosity of character to sympathise with another’s
love affairs while hiding their own. Henry Tilney and Edmund Crawford
were both young clergymen of a priggish type, but Henry’s didactic
reflections are not in the least the same as those which Edmund would
have uttered.
The silliness of Mrs. Palmer, with her final summary on the recreant
Willoughby, “She was determined to drop his acquaintance immediately,
and she was very thankful she had never been acquainted with him
at all. She wished with all her heart Combe Magna was not so near
Cleveland, but it did not signify for it was a great deal too far
off to visit; she hated him so much that she was resolved never to
mention his name again, and she should tell everyone she saw how good
for nothing he was,” is entirely different from the continuous weak
outpourings of poor little Miss Bates. “And when I brought out the
baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very
obliging as to take some, ‘Oh,’ said he directly, ‘there is nothing
in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest looking
home-baked apples I ever saw in my life.’ That, you know, was so very—
And I am sure by his manner it was no compliment. Indeed, they are very
delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice, only we do
not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us promise
to have them done three times; but Miss Woodhouse will be so good as
not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest sort for
baking beyond a doubt—” and so on and so on for a page or more.
The truth is that Jane Austen seized on qualities which are frequently
found in human nature, and developed them with such fidelity that
nearly all of us feel that we have at one time or another met a Miss
Bates or a Mrs. Norris, or that we can see traits in others which
resemble theirs; it is this which makes the appeal to all humanity.
She did not take one person out of her acquaintance and depict him or
her, but represented, in characters of her own creating, these salient
traits which will ever revive perennially while men and women exist.
Lord Macaulay does not hesitate to speak of Jane in the same breath
with Shakespeare. “Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second, but
among the writers who have approached nearest to the manner of the
great Master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman
of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of
characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet
every day, yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other
as if they were the most eccentric of human beings.” And Archbishop
Whateley makes the suggestive remark, “It is no fool that can describe
fools well.”
Before the birth of Jane Austen, the novel, which had been hardly
considered in England for many centuries, had suddenly found a
quartette of exponents which had placed the country in the foremost
rank of this branch.
It is rare indeed that four such men as Richardson, Fielding, Smollett,
and Sterne, with powers of imagination which make their work classic,
should be evolved at the same date. It would almost seem as if the
theory which declares that the world, in its onward rush through space,
passes through regions impregnated with certain forms of ether that
affect men’s minds, must have some grain of truth, when simultaneously
there leaped forth four exponents and first masters of an art that
hitherto can hardly have been said to exist. The united scope of their
four lives ranged from 1689 to 1771, and between these dates England
was enriched for all time.
With these four Jane Austen’s work has little in common. It is to
Richardson only that her novels owe anything, and they differ from
Richardson’s in many striking particulars.
Apart from the masters already mentioned, “A greater mass of trash and
rubbish never disgraced the press of any country than the ordinary
novels that filled and supported circulating libraries down nearly
to the time of Miss Edgeworth’s first appearance. There had been _The
Vicar of Wakefield_, to be sure, before, and Miss Burney’s _Evelina_
and _Cecilia_, and Mackenzie’s _Man of Feeling_, and some bolder and
more varied fictions of the Misses Lee. But the staple of our novel
market was beyond imagination despicable, and had consequently sunk and
degraded the whole department of literature of which it had usurped the
name.” (Jeffrey, _Essays_, Ed. 1853.)
And Macaulay says: “Most of the popular novels which preceded _Evelina_
were such as no lady would have written, and many of them were such as
no lady could without confusion own that she had read. The very name
of novel was held in horror among religious people. In decent families
which did not profess extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong
feeling against all such works. Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three
years before _Evelina_ appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of
sober fathers and husbands, when he pronounced the circulating library
an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge. This feeling on the part of
the grave and reflecting, increased the evil from which it had sprung.
The novelist, having little character to lose, and having few readers
among serious people, took, without scruple, liberties which, in our
generation, seem almost incredible.”
The effect that Miss Burney’s stories had upon contemporary readers
may be judged from a letter of Mr. Twining, a country clergyman of
education and standing, who wrote in 1782 to her father, Dr. Burney:
“I need not tell you that I gobbled up _Cecilia_ as soon as I could
get it from my library. I never knew such a piece of work made with a
book in my life. It has drawn iron tears down cheeks that were never
wetted with pity before; it has made novel readers of callous old
maiden ladies, who have not for years received pleasure from anything
but scandal. Judge, then, what effect it has had upon the young and
the tender hearted! I know two amiable sisters at Colchester, sensible
and accomplished women, who were found blubbering at such a rate one
morning! The tale had drawn them on till near the hour of an engagement
to dinner, which they were actually obliged to put off, because there
was not time to recover their red eyes and swelled noses.”
Miss Burney’s works are real enough, and not lightly to be dismissed;
she understood the human heart, and especially the heart of a girl,
her sentimental side is perfect, but beyond that she ceases to claim
anything out of the common. Her society types are types only; the gay
young man, a rake, but charming at heart, whose excesses were but the
wildness of an ill-brought-up youth, had been drawn many times before.
When she goes beyond affairs of the heart she at once caricatures; her
Captain and Mrs. Duval are gross and overdrawn even according to the
manners of the age.
Miss Burney preceded Jane Austen by several years; _Evelina_ was
published in 1778, when the sister-author was but three years old;
_Cecilia_ came out four years later, and _Camilla_ in 1796, the same
year in which _Pride and Prejudice_ was written, though it was not
published until 1813. There is no doubt that Jane Austen owed much
to her rival and predecessor, but her gifts were incomparably the
greater. Miss Burney’s cleverness consisted in the portrayal of feeling
in a young girl’s sensitive mind, her stories are stories of fashion
and incident; Jane Austen’s are of country life, and simple everyday
scenes. The one had its vogue, and, as an account of contemporary
manners, the books have their value and delight now, especially
_Evelina_, which stands high above its successors, each one of which is
poorer than the preceding one; but none are to be compared with any of
Jane Austen’s novels, which are for all time.
“Miss Edgeworth indeed draws characters and details conversations such
as occur in real life with a spirit of fidelity not to be surpassed;
but her stories are most romantically improbable, all the important
events in them being brought about by most providential coincidences.”
(Archbishop Whateley.)
It was a transition age from the conventional to the natural; as in
the admiration of landscape, the love for natural gardens, the gradual
disappearance of the formal and empty compliment to which women had
hitherto been treated, we find taste changing, so in literature the
conventional was giving way to the natural. Fielding and Smollett had
broken down the barriers in this respect, they had depicted life as it
was, not as convention had decreed it should be, hence their gigantic
success; but the life they saw and rendered was the life of a man of
the world, with all its roughness and brutality. Jane Austen was the
first to draw exactly what she saw around her in a humdrum country
life, and to discard all incident, all adventure, all grotesque types,
for perfect simplicity. She little understood what she was doing, but
herein lies her wonderful power, she was a pioneer. Jane’s writing
had nothing in common with Mrs. Radcliffe, whose style is mimicked in
_Northanger Abbey_. It had absolutely no adventures. The fall of Louisa
on the Cobb is perhaps the most thrilling episode in all the books, yet
by virtue of its entire simplicity, its naturalness, its gaiety, her
writing never fails to interest. Perhaps the most remarkable tribute
to her genius lies in the fact that, though her books are simplicity
itself, dealing with the love-stories of artless girls, they are read
and admired not only by girls and women, but more especially by men of
exceptional mental calibre. It has been said that the appreciation of
them is a test of intellect.
Though her novels are novels of sentiment, they never drift into sickly
sentiment, they are wholesome and healthy throughout. With tragedy she
had nothing to do; her work is comedy, pure comedy from beginning to
end. And as comedies well done are the most recreative of all forms
of reading, it is no wonder that, slight as are her plots, hardly to
be considered, minute as are the incidents, the attention of readers
should ever be kept alive. In all her books marriage is the supreme
end; the meeting, the obstacles, the gradual surmounting of these, and
the happy ending occur with the regularity of clockwork. And yet each
one differs from all the others, and she is never monotonous. Every
single book ends well, and it is a striking fact that there is not a
death in one of them. When, after a slight improvement, Marianne, in
_Sense and Sensibility_, grows worse—
“The repose of the latter [Marianne] grew more and more disturbed; and
her sister who watched with unremitting attention her continual change
of posture, and heard the frequent but inarticulate sounds of complaint
which passed her lips, was most wishing to rouse her from so painful a
slumber, when Marianne, awakened by some accidental noise in the house,
started hastily up, and, with feverish wildness cried out, ‘Is mamma
coming?’... Hour after hour passed away in sleepless pain and delirium
on Marianne’s side, and in the most cruel anxiety on Elinor’s,” we know
that in most books we should expect the worst, but with Jane Austen
we are sure that it will all turn out well, as indeed it does, and our
feelings are not unduly harrowed.
One point which is obvious in all the books is the utter lack of
conversation, except about the merest trivialities, among women.
In _Sense and Sensibility_ it is remarked of a dinner given by
John Dashwood that “no poverty of any kind, except of conversation,
appeared.... When the ladies withdrew to the drawing-room after dinner,
this poverty was particularly evident, for the gentlemen had supplied
the discourse with some variety—the variety of politics, enclosing
land, and breaking horses—but then it was all over, and one subject
only engaged the ladies till coffee came in, which was the comparative
height of Harry Dashwood, and Lady Middleton’s second son, William,
who were nearly of the same age ... the two mothers though each really
convinced that her own son was the taller, politely decided in favour
of the other. The two grandmothers with not less partiality, but more
sincerity, were equally earnest in support of their own descendant.”
The Christian names of that date were plain, and, for women, strictly
limited in number; it detracts something from a heroine to be called
Fanny Price or Anne Elliot; and Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennet are
little better; Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are the most fancy names
applied by Jane to any of her heroines.
Another point which may be noticed in the novels is that the outward
forms of religion, beyond the fact of a man’s being a clergyman, are
never mentioned, and that on all religious matters Jane is silent;
but this does not signify that she was not herself truly religious at
heart, for we have the testimony of those who knew her to the contrary,
particularly that of her brother Henry in his preface prefixed to the
first edition of _Northanger Abbey_, published after her death. But
though actual religion does not appear in her pages, the lessons that
the books teach are none the less enforced; had she been taking for
her sole text the merit of unselfishness, she could not have done more,
or indeed half so much, to further the spread of that virtue. To read
the books straight through one after the other is to feel the petty
meanness of self-striving, and the small gain that lies therein. The
talk of the mammas, such as Mrs. Bennet, who are perfectly incapable of
seeing their neighbours’ interest should it clash with their own; the
picture of the egregious Mrs. Norris with her grasping at the aspect
of generosity and self-sacrifice, without any intention of putting
herself to any inconvenience thereby; the weakness of such characters
as Willoughby in _Sense and Sensibility_, who allow themselves to drift
along the lines of least resistance without a thought of the after
misery they may cause: each and all of these are more potent than a
volume of sermons.
It may be noted that Jane Austen chose her characters from the class
of life in which she herself lived, we meet in her pages no dukes or
duchesses, and only a few slightly sketched labourers and gardeners,
who are brought in when inevitable; the story itself is concerned
with people of the middle classes, the squires and country gentlemen,
the clergymen, and upper-class prosperous tradespeople. We have no
inimitable rustics as in George Eliot’s wonderful books, nor any
disreputable knaves of the fashionable rich as in Miss Burney’s works.
It is, however, a remarkable fact that all the mankind are always at
leisure to picnic and dance attendance on the ladies at any hour of
the day; we have no business men; rides and excursions and picnics are
always provided with a full complement of idle young men to match the
young women. To this rule the clergymen are, of course, no exception.
There was a particular sort of country gentleman who seemed to flourish
in those days, of the type of Mr. Knightley and Mr. Bennet. These men
did not own enough land to call themselves squires, their farming was
very slight, they owned a secure fortune in some safe investment, and
apparently spent their lives in the insipid avocations which, until
recently, were the lot of nearly all men who were neither rich nor
poor. They played cards, and rode and saw their neighbours, and read
the newspapers, without seeming to feel their time hang at all heavy
on their hands. This breed seems almost extinct now, we are all too
excitable, and live too rapidly to make it possible. A man with such an
income as either of the two mentioned would almost certainly travel,
or take up some special hobby; he would be a social reformer, or on
his County Council, a J.P., a M.F.H., or something of the kind, with
occupations varied enough to afford him some apology for his existence.
The lowest of what may be called Jane Austen’s speaking parts are
filled by well-to-do tradesmen, or people just emerging from trade, as
the Gardiners in _Pride and Prejudice_, who still lived at the business
house in Gracechurch Street; for it was a time when house and shop were
not divided.
Her characters are all supposed to be gentlepeople, but there is a
difference between those who are of better family than others, such
as Bingley, who condescends in marrying Jane Bennet. There is one
point on which I venture to disagree with Mr. Pollock, who, in his
extremely suggestive and interesting book on _Jane Austen and her
Contemporaries_, says—
“Comment has been made, and justly made, on the perfect breeding and
manners of those people in Miss Austen’s novels who are supposed and
intended to be well-bred.”
On the contrary, to go no further than _Pride and Prejudice_, Darcy
himself passes every canon of gentlemanly conduct, and the Misses
Bingley, who were supposed to be of irreproachable breeding, betray
vulgarity and lack of courtesy in every sentence. The observations of
Miss Bingley on Elizabeth and Darcy would disgrace a kitchen-maid. When
Darcy has danced once with Elizabeth, Miss Bingley draws near to him,
and observes of the society she is in—
“‘You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many
evenings in this manner—in this society, and indeed I am quite of your
opinion. I never was more annoyed. The insipidity and yet the noise—the
nothingness and yet the self-importance of all these people! What would
I give to hear your strictures on them!’
“‘Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more
agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure
which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow!’
“Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he
would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections.
Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity, ‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet!’
“‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet!’ repeated Miss Bingley, ‘I am all
astonishment. How long has she been such a favourite? And pray when am
I to wish you joy?’
“‘That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady’s
imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love
to matrimony in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy.’
“‘Nay, if you are so serious about it, I shall consider the matter as
absolutely settled. You will have a charming mother-in-law indeed, and
of course she will always be at Pemberley with you.’”
The insolence of Lady Catherine de Bourgh might be adduced as a second
example from the same book. These people are well born and well bred,
but their manners and conduct are impossible. It may be alleged that
they were intended so to be. Probably; but that does not do away with
the fact that the well-bred people in the books are not always free
from vulgarity, which was the contention with which we started. They
might have been made disagreeable in a hundred other ways, had Miss
Austen so chosen, without violating all ordinary rules of conduct.
It is greatly to the author’s credit, and speaks of her refinement
of mind, that in an age when coarseness of every sort was rampant,
her books should be free from a whisper of it. We of this present
generation hardly realise how vice was countenanced in the days of the
Georges; well indeed was it for England that males of that line died
out, so that the heir to the throne was a girl-child, for during her
long reign the example which the court set, and which the inferiors
were quick to copy, was altered altogether. George the Third himself,
who occupied the throne during the whole of Jane Austen’s life, was a
happy exception among the Hanoverian sovereigns, but the excesses of
his sons were notorious.
Even the Duke of Kent, the best of them, accepts a left-handed alliance
as inevitable, to say nothing of worse. In writing familiarly to Mr.
Creevey after the death of Princess Charlotte, he says—
“The Duke of Clarence, I have no doubt, will marry if he can—he demands
the payment of all his debts, which are very great, and a handsome
provision for his ten natural children—God only knows the sacrifice it
will be to make, whenever I shall think it my duty to become a married
man. It is now seven and twenty years that Madame St. Laurent and I
have lived together; we are of the same age, have been in all climates
and all difficulties together, and you may well imagine, Mr. Creevey,
the pang it will be to part with her.” (_The Creevey Correspondence._)
The irregular unions of princes of the blood are unfortunately an
accepted fact, but the epoch in which such things were done in broad
daylight was one in which libertinism of all kinds was rampant. It was
an age also of excessive drunkenness, the Prince Regent frequently
appeared in public hardly able to stand. Creevey records that the
prince “drank so much as to be made very seriously ill by it”; he
says also, as if it were a thing to wonder at, “It is reckoned very
disgraceful in Russia for the higher orders to be drunk.”
The books of Smollett and Fielding had inculcated the general belief
that indecency and interest in a novel were inseparable, and it
is greatly to the credit of Miss Burney and Miss Austen that their
writings were of an entirely different tone.
Sir Walter Besant writes: “I do not wish to represent the eighteenth
century as much worse than our own in the matter of what is called
morality, meaning one kind of morality. The ‘great’ were allowed to
be above the ordinary restraints of morality. A certain noble lord
travelled with a harem of eight, which was, however, considered
scandalous.” (_London in the Eighteenth Century._)
No whisper of these things stains Jane Austen’s pages. And her clear,
unaffected view of middle-class life in small towns and villages was
true and not idealised, for these people were then, as they still
are, the salt of the world, neither apeing the fantastic vices of the
upper, nor the abandoned coarseness of the lower classes. They were
respectable and sometimes humdrum. They suffered from monotony, not
dissipation. That anyone should have been able to extract so much
pure fun from such slight materials is ever matter for wonder. She
did it by her marvellously close observation and power of selection,
qualities which are a gift. She was far more true to human nature than
the superficial reader knows, perhaps than she herself knew, for it is
a trait of genius to do by the light of nature what other people must
set about laboriously and ever fall short of attaining. When we notice
Mr. Bennet’s caustic humour reappearing in more genial form in his
second daughter, there is one of those little touches that binds the
characters together—the touch of heredity.
Another instance is in the case of Lady Middleton, who obviously
had not married either for love or for suitability, but only for
convenience; she is a cold woman, incapable of passion in the usual
sense, but her nature breaks out in an adoration of her children which
is neither for their benefit nor for hers. We see this again and again
in real life; it is the cold, unloving wives who idolise their children
because they are theirs, a feeling which is not real love but a kind
of extended selfishness, an instinct which, in the case of animals,
finds expression in licking their young. The books abound in similar
true touches, put in apparently without effort, and almost without
thought. When one considers that out of the mass of novels of that
age, then, as now, circulated and read by the aid of libraries, such
books as Hannah More’s _Cœlebs in Search of a Wife_ and Mackenzie’s
_Man of Feeling_ and _Man of the World_ were read and praised almost
universally as being far superior to the usual run of novels, one
gains some idea of the poverty of matter and manner that must have
disgraced the ruck. Both these “masterpieces,” so acclaimed as they
were issued, are the dullest, driest stuff, without a gleam of humour,
any attempt at a story, or any vivacity of expression or character.
The general style is, “Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So are to-day expected. Mr.
So-and-So is a pious, virtuous man, I am afraid I cannot say so much
for his wife,” and thereupon follows a long verbose description of the
two, who when they appear on the scene do and say nothing to indicate
any characteristics, but are mere dummies, pegs on which to hang the
discourse that precedes their entry. A favourite device for filling
up the pages that must be filled, is the narration by some secondary
character of all that has ever befallen them since their birth. Even
Miss Burney is not free from this; in _Cecilia_ at least the characters
break into narration as easily as some persons do into song. With this
kind of stuff to set the standard, the miracle of Jane’s books becomes
more admirable than ever, for anyone who has ever attempted to write
knows how exceedingly difficult it is to resist the influence of the
conventional canons in vogue.
[Illustration: MISS BURNEY (MADAME D’ARBLAY)]
Jane Austen seems to have been also as far ahead of her time in the use
of simple direct English as she was in construction and effect. She is
at least a generation in advance of average contemporary letters and
journals, in which the phrasing is often ponderous; the sonorous roll
of heavily-weighted sentences in the Johnsonian style, then so much
admired, does not ever seem to have occurred to her.
Yet even in her lively, crisp narration there are a few phrases that
strike on a modern ear as unaccustomed. Such is the use of the active
for the passive tense, “tea was carrying round”; the elision of the
final “n” in the infinitive, “but she said he seemed very angry at
being spoke to”; the use of adjectives for adverbs (often reproved
as a form of slang in the present day), “she must feel she has been
acting wrong.” The general use of men’s surnames by women occurs in the
earlier books, but we see an indication of change in this respect in
the passage of Jane’s lifetime, for in _Emma_ it is considered vulgar
of Mrs. Elton to address Mr. Knightley without the prefix. There are
little ways of expressing things that are not now in vogue, men are
“gentlemanlike,” ladies “amiable,” also “genteel and elegant”; one
phrase which has now descended to the realm of the lady’s-maid was then
quite good English, “so peculiarly the lady in it.” “Excessively” takes
the place of our “awfully,” we hear continually such expressions as
“monstrous obliging,” “prodigious pretty,” and “vastly civil.”
We have not hitherto noticed Miss Edgeworth’s, Miss Ferrier’s, or Miss
Mitford’s work, though they are generally considered as belonging
to the clever group of women writers who illumined the end of the
eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, because in this
chapter we are dealing only with Jane Austen’s own novels, not with
contemporary writers except as they affected her, and at the time when
she wrote her first books none of these writers had published anything,
and could not therefore possibly have influenced her. Miss Edgeworth’s
first novel, _Castle Rackrent_, came out in 1800, and Miss Ferrier’s
_Marriage_ in 1818, after Jane was in her grave.
Jane Austen’s own novels were written at such widely differing times,
and the interval between writing and publication was so great in some
cases, that the subject suffers from some confusion in the minds of
those who have not looked into the question closely. As the order of
writing is everything, and the order of publication a mere accident, we
will take them as they were written. This was in two groups of three
each. _Pride and Prejudice_ was begun in October 1796 and finished
the following August; _Sense and Sensibility_ was begun in 1797 and
finished in 1798, in which year _Northanger Abbey_ was also written.
Then there was a long gap, in which she produced only a fragment to be
noted hereafter, and not until 1812 was _Mansfield Park_ written; four
years later, in 1816, came _Emma_, quickly followed by _Persuasion_.
Of all these the first to be published was _Sense and Sensibility_
in 1811, and the dates of publication will thereafter be noted in
chronological order in the book as it progresses.
Besides these two distinct groups of three novels each, there is
another of the unfinished fragments, which never became real stories.
These consist of _Lady Susan_, a comedy in the form of letters, which
is ended up hastily with a few paragraphs of explanation; and _The
Watsons_, an unfinished tale, of which the end was told by Cassandra
Austen from remarks that her sister had made. Both of these are
included, as has been said, in Mr. Austen-Leigh’s _Memoir_, and it
seems a pity that they should not form a volume in one of the neat
series of Jane Austen’s novels now published, as to a real Austenite
they contain much that is valuable, and are full of characteristic
touches. Of the complete novels _Pride and Prejudice_ is admittedly
the best; there are several candidates for the second place, but
the superiority of _Pride and Prejudice_ is unquestioned. It was the
earliest of the books written, under the title _First Impressions_, and
as such it is referred to in Jane’s correspondence: “I do not wonder at
your wanting to read _First Impressions_ again, so seldom as you have
gone through it, and that so long ago;” this was to her sister in 1799,
and later on she adds, with the playfulness never long wanting, “I
would not let Martha read _First Impressions_ again upon any account,
and am very glad I did not leave it in your power. She is very cunning,
but I saw through her design, she means to publish it from memory, and
one more perusal must enable her to do it.”
There has been great diversity of opinion as to the relative merit of
the remaining books, but the concensus of opinion seems to declare
for _Emma_, the last but one in point of time, which shows that the
author’s genius had not abated. This book is totally different from the
first, it lacks the sparkle and _verve_ which runs all through _Pride
and Prejudice_, but it has perhaps more depth and is something softer
and more finished also.
These two books, and all the others, will be dealt with in detail as
they occur chronologically, for we are here only attempting to treat
them generally, and to bring out those characteristics and excellencies
common to all which made them such masterpieces, and gave their maker
such a unique place in the hierarchy of authors.
Jane Austen is one of the three greatest among English women novelists;
the other two being, of course, George Eliot and Charlotte Brontë,
whose lives overlapped at a much later date. The genius of these three
women is so entirely different in kind that the relative value of their
gifts can never be put into like terms; so long as men and women read
and discuss fiction, so long will each of the three styles have its
partisans who will argue it to be the supreme one of the trio. Yet
in spite of this, in spite also of a momentary fashion to decry the
wonderful gifts of George Eliot, it is quite certain that in depth and
breadth of feeling, and ability in its portrayal, she was unequalled
by either her predecessor or contemporary. Her range far surpasses
theirs. They each dealt with one phase of life or feeling: Jane Austen
with English village life, Charlotte Brontë with the element of passion
in man and woman, while George Eliot’s works embrace many varieties
of human nature and action. If her detractors are questioned, it will
commonly be found that they do not deny her ability or her brain power,
but her genius, which is of course a totally distinct thing. On further
probing of the matter, it is usually discovered that the contention is
based on the later works, such as _Middlemarch_ or _Daniel Deronda_. To
be quite fair, there are some appearances in these volumes to justify
such an estimate, but the mistake is that the opinion is superficial
and based on appearance only. In her later days George Eliot’s
tremendous ability, tremendous soul,—and tremendous is the only English
word that can be fitly applied to it,—made her see so far round and
over her own work, as well as allowing her such a wide survey as to the
causes and nature of things, that even the productions of her genius
were analysed, curbed, and held in channels. She could not let herself
go; her subtle insight, her complete knowledge of her characters, made
her qualify and account for their actions, perhaps more for her own
satisfaction than for that of readers. She might safely have left this
to her innate perception without fear, her genius would never have
let her go wrong, but she could not, she must analyse even her own
creations. No one in the world was more free from this tendency than
Jane Austen, she was perfectly unconscious of her own mastery of her
subject, as unconscious as the bee when it rejects all other shapes in
its cells for the hexagonal. The marvellous precision with which she
selected and rejected and grouped her puppets was almost a matter of
instinct. She put in the little touches which revealed what was in the
mind of her men and women without premeditation or any striving. It is
the perfection of this gift which allows her books to be read again and
again, for once the story is known, all the slight indications of its
ultimate ending, which may have been overlooked while the reader is not
in the secret, stand out vividly. We grant to George Eliot’s detractors
that in her later works her eyes were opened, and she analysed the
work of her genius instead of writing spontaneously, but to her true
admirers the genius is still there, though curbed and trammelled.
Every one of her men and women to the last are breathing human beings.
Having granted, however, so much, we turn to the earlier works, which,
amazing to say, are so often overlooked; here her gallery is full of
realities, not analysed or thwarted, but moving as impelled by nature.
Was there ever a boy-brother and girl-sister in all fiction to equal
Tom and Maggie Tulliver? And what of that inimitable trio, Sisters
Glegg and Tulliver and Pullet? Of its kind is there a scene that can
beat Bob Jakin’s twisting Mrs. Glegg round his finger with judicious
management? And these are from the abundance of one book only. No, Jane
cannot dispute precedence with George Eliot, but must yield the palm;
her characters, true and admirable as they are, lack that living depth
which George Eliot had the power to impart. But the two are so totally
different that it is difficult to find any simile that will bring them
into relation with one another. Perhaps the most expressive is that of
instrumental music: Jane Austen’s clear notes are like those which a
skilful performer extracts from a good harp, sweet and ringing, always
pleasant to listen to, and restful, but not soul stirring; while George
Eliot’s tones are like the deep notes of a violoncello, stirring up
the heart to its core, and leaving behind them feeling even after the
sound has ceased. The novels of Jane Austen were novels of character
and manners, those of George Eliot of feeling. There is no intention in
this comparison to minimise in any way the work of the earlier writer,
she chose her style, and of its kind it is perfect; her subtle touches
could only have been the result of the intuition which is genius, but
the profounder emotions, the slow development of character by friction
with those around, she did not attempt to depict.
We now turn to the third of the great trio. Charlotte Brontë’s gift
was a rush of strenuous passion that made her stories pour forth living
and molten as from the furnace. Her best characters are admirable, but
limited in number; we find the same timid heroine, who outwardly was
herself, and inwardly was full of force and passion, appearing in more
than one.
Charlotte’s bitter indictment of Jane’s work, though wholly untrue, can
be made allowance for, seeing that her eyes viewed such a different
section of the world of feeling. She says of _Pride and Prejudice_:
“An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully
fenced, highly cultured garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers,
but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh
air, no blue hill, no bonny beck.” And at another time, with much
truth: “The passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a
speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood. What sees keenly,
speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study; but what throbs
fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is
the unseen seat of life, and the sentient target of death, this Miss
Austen ignores.”
Charlotte Brontë’s own strongest point is her _story_, and as the
teller of an interesting story, absorbing in its wild and strenuous
action, she ranks very high, but character-drawing is not her forte.
She herself fails in the point of which she accuses Jane, she could
photograph those persons she knew intimately,—herself for instance, or
her father’s curates,—but directly she went beyond, she failed; what
could be weaker than the society people in _Jane Eyre_,—the ringletted
Blanche and the wooden young men?
A great many of her minor characters are mere dummies who do not
remain in the mind at all. But one of her strong points is one entirely
ignored by Jane, and that is the impression of scenery and the aspects
of weather. Which of us has not felt a chill of desolation as he stood
in fancy on the wet gravel-path leading up to Lowood? or not been
sensible of the exhilaration of that sharp, clear, frosty night when
Jane first encountered Mr. Rochester in the lane? In a few words,
very few, Charlotte Brontë has a marvellous capability for making one
feel the surroundings of her characters, and this is no mean gift.
Adherents she will always have, and to them it may be granted that
her whole theme was one totally ignored by Jane, whose men and women
are swept by no mighty whirlwinds of their own generating. In fact
it has been alleged against Jane that she had neither passion nor
pathos, and perhaps, if we except one or two touches of the latter
quality in dealing with forlorn little Fanny in _Mansfield Park_,
this is true. The only simile that occurs as suitable to use in the
comparison between Charlotte and Jane is that the soul of the one was
like the turbulent rush of her own brown Yorkshire streams over the
wild moorlands—streams which pour in cataracts and shatter themselves
on great grey stones in a tumultuous frenzy, while that of the other
resembled the calm limpid waters of her own Hampshire river, the
Itchen, wending its way placidly between luscious green meadows.
“A deeper sky, where stooping you may see
The little minnows darting restlessly.”
The preference between these two is all a matter of taste, and will be
decided by the fact whether the admiration of clear incisive humour
and comedy of manners outweighs that of fiery feeling and a rush of
emotion.