SOCIETY AND LOVE-MAKING
The first of the published letters was written in January 1796, a
time of year when such a scene as that sketched at the end of the last
chapter must often have taken place. The season was far from being a
gloomy one, however, balls and entertainments were going on all round,
and the Austens had guests of their own also. These were their cousins
the Coopers, in regard to whom Lord Brabourne, who being himself a
great-nephew ought to have known, makes a most curious blunder. In his
notes previous to the letters he says, “The Coopers, whose arrival
is expected in the first, and announced in the second letter, were
Dr. Cooper, already mentioned as having married Jane Austen’s aunt,
Jane Leigh, with his wife and their two children, Edward and Jane, of
whom we shall frequently hear.” This was in 1796, but Dr. Cooper had
died in 1792; he had held the livings of Sonning, in Berkshire, and
Whaddon, near Bath, contemporaneously until his death. The Mr. Cooper
whom the Austens were expecting, was Dr. Cooper’s son Edward, of whom
Lord Brabourne speaks as a child, with his wife and _their_ two small
children, Edward and Isabella, then both under two years old. The
Coopers are mentioned a great deal in the entertaining Diary of Mrs.
Philip Lybbe Powys, from which we have already quoted, for Edward
Cooper married her daughter Caroline. He, like his father, was in
Orders, and was at first a curate at Harpsden under his non-residential
grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Leigh, and was afterwards presented to the
living of Hamstall Ridware, Staffordshire, by Mrs. Leigh, a relative
of his mother’s by whom he was connected with the Austens, Mrs. Austen
having been a Miss Leigh. On January 21, 1799, Jane writes: “Yesterday
came a letter to my mother from Edward Cooper to announce, not the
birth of a child, but of a living; for Mrs. Leigh has begged his
acceptance of the rectory of Hamstall Ridware in Staffordshire, vacant
by Mr. Johnson’s death. We collect from his letter that he means to
reside there. The living is valued at one hundred and forty pounds a
year, but it may be improvable.”
The little boy mentioned above as coming with his parents to stay at
Steventon, had been christened at Harpsden Church on December 3, 1794,
and Henry Austen was one of the sponsors. At the christening of another
little Cooper, named Cassandra, in 1797, Mrs. Austen stood sponsor.
Jane remarks of the two elder children who came to Steventon, “the
little boy is very like Dr. Cooper, and the little girl is to resemble
Jane, they say.” This probably gave rise to Lord Brabourne’s mistake,
but in reality Jane Austen was commenting on the child’s likeness to
its dead grandfather, not to its father, and the Jane the girl was to
resemble, was Edward Cooper’s sister Jane, who became Lady Williams,
and was killed in a carriage accident in 1798.
Even Mr. Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen’s own nephew, does not seem to have
realised Dr. Cooper’s plurality of livings, for he says, “The family
lived in close intimacy with two cousins, Edward and Jane Cooper, the
children of Mrs. Austen’s eldest sister, and Dr. Cooper, the vicar
of Sonning, near Reading. The Coopers lived for some years at Bath,
which seems to have been much frequented in those days by clergymen
retiring from work. I believe that Cassandra and Jane sometimes visited
them there, and that Jane thus acquired the intimate knowledge of the
topography and customs of Bath which enabled her to write _Northanger
Abbey_ long before she resided there herself.”
The inference is not quite true, for if this had been so she must
have acquired that knowledge before her seventeenth year, for she
was that age when her uncle Dr. Cooper died, and it is probable that
her aunt had predeceased him as she is never mentioned at all by
Mrs. Lybbe Powys, who relates a tour she made with him, his son and
daughter, to the Isle of Wight. But there is no need for any inference
of the sort at all, for Jane had another uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs.
Leigh-Perrot—her mother’s brother having adopted the additional name
of Perrot—who sometimes resided at Bath, and it is obviously to an
invitation from this aunt she refers in a letter of 1799.
As we have said, it was the season of balls at Steventon; quiet as
the rectory was there were many large houses of the country gentry
around in various directions, and entertainments of all sorts were
then perhaps even more in fashion than now; to all of these the
rectory party received invitations. In the second paragraph of the
first letter, Jane says, “We had an exceeding good ball last night,”
and later, “I am almost ashamed to tell you how my Irish friend and I
behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking
in the way of dancing and sitting down together ... we had a very good
supper, and the greenhouse was illuminated in a very elegant manner.”
In another letter, written later, she gives the following account of
a ball: “We were very well entertained, and could have stayed longer,
but for the arrival of my list shoes to convey me home, and I did not
like to keep them waiting in the cold. The room was tolerable full, and
the ball opened by Miss Glyn. The Miss Lances had partners, Captain
Dauvergne’s friend appeared in regimentals, Caroline Maitland had an
officer to flirt with, and Mr. John Harrison was deputed by Captain
Smith, himself being absent, to ask me to dance. Everything went well,
you see, especially after we had tucked Mrs. Lance’s neckerchief in
behind, and fastened it with a pin.”
Mr. Austen-Leigh says: “There must have been more dancing throughout
the country in those days than there is now, and it seems to have
sprung up more spontaneously, as if it were a natural production, with
less fastidiousness as to the quality of music, lights, and floor.
Many country towns had a monthly ball throughout the winter, in some of
which the same apartment served for dancing and tea-room.”
People in the country were then more dependent on each other for
entertainment, there was no looking upon the London season as a
necessity, and people could not rush about from one end of England
to another for a night or two as they now do. During the long winter
months, when the bitter cold and the cumbersome methods of travelling
made any journey out of the question for most, to say nothing of
the expense, balls for those in the neighbourhood of Steventon were
frequently given, and Jane and Cassandra Austen had their full share,
and seem to have most heartily enjoyed it. Jane herself evidently loved
dancing, balls are frequently mentioned in her novels, and the actual
dancing itself, even without its enjoyable concomitant of flirtation,
seems to have attracted her.
Customs, however, then differed very much from those that now reign
in ballrooms. In one way everything was more formal, in another more
simple. The music, the wines, and the floor were less considered; young
people got up an impromptu dance in a drawing-room very easily; and the
champagne, without which no one would dare to ask their friends to a
dance now, was then not considered necessary. On the other hand, the
actual performance was more formal; there were no romps at lancers,
no round dances such as waltzes at all; waltzes did not begin to be
danced generally until 1814, and the polka not until 1844. In the
beginning of 1814, when the waltz was just coming into fashion, Miss
Mitford declaims against it, and calls it this “detestable dance.”
“In addition to the obvious reasons which all women ought to have for
disliking it, I cannot perceive its much vaunted graces. What beauty
can there be in a series of dizzying revolutions, of which the wearisome
monotony banishes all the tricksy fancies of the poetry of motion,
and conveys to the eyes of the spectators the idea of a parcel of
teetotums set a-spinning for their amusement?” In Jane’s time, minuets,
cotillions, etc., were the staple of the programme, and toward the
end of the evening country dances, no doubt danced with much precision
and elegance. Deportment was then a necessary part of the curriculum
at every girls’ boarding-school; and the ways of getting in and out
of a carriage, and much more of bowing and entering a reception room,
were all taught as if the performer were to go upon the stage; every
motion was regulated. It is true that the custom, so aptly illustrated
in _Evelina_, when the lady was forced by politeness to accept the
first man who asked her, and to remain his partner for the evening, a
custom that must have been responsible for many sore hearts and spoiled
evenings, had gone out in Jane’s time. But it was the fashion, at what
were called private dances, for any man to ask any girl he fancied to
become his partner without previous introduction; at public balls the
Master of the Ceremonies did the introducing. In Evelina’s time, girls
must have had many an exciting evening, many an anguished moment when
the wrong man asked the honour of their hand while the right man had
not come forward! Evelina made a terrible mess of things at her first
dance. She refused the ridiculous little fop who first approached her,
and afterwards accepted the handsome and engaging Lord Orville, who, it
must be confessed, is a far superior man to Miss Austen’s corresponding
hero, Darcy. Evelina narrates her acceptance of him in a letter to her
guardian—
“Well, I bowed, and I am sure I coloured; for indeed I was frightened
at the thoughts of dancing before so many people, all strangers, and,
which was worse, with a stranger; however, that was unavoidable; for,
though I looked round the room several times, I could not see one
person that I knew. And so he took my hand and led me to join in the
dance.”
Of course the fop was not one to take this considered insult quietly,
he approached when Evelina and Lord Orville were sitting out between
the dances, and asked, “‘May I know to what accident I must attribute
not having the honour of your hand?’
“‘Accident, sir,’ repeated I much astonished.
“‘Yes, accident, madam,—for surely—I must take the liberty to
observe—pardon me, madam,—it ought to be no common one—that should
tempt a lady—so young a one too,—to be guilty of ill-manners.’
“A confused idea now for the first time entered my head, of something
I had heard of the rules of an assembly, but I was never at one
before—I have only danced at school—and so giddy and heedless I
was, that I had not once considered the impropriety of refusing one
partner, and afterwards accepting another. I was thunderstruck at the
recollection....
“I afterwards told Mrs. Mirvan of my disasters, and she good-naturedly
blamed herself for not having better instructed me, but she said she
had taken it for granted that I must know such common customs.”
There is no trace of such a custom in Jane’s times, her partners were
always numerous. At the dances at Basingstoke or in the neighbourhood,
she probably knew almost everyone in the room on familiar terms; and
she frequently had a brother with her to counterbalance the brothers
of her girl friends. She danced well, with vivacity and grace; we can
imagine her appearance without difficulty; her hair encircled by some
neat bandeau or coquettish bow, her high-waisted simple frock of soft
white muslin, her curls escaping in little ringlets on forehead and
shoulders, her hazel eyes dancing as she parried the conversational
thrusts of some too bold admirer, even as her own Elizabeth Bennet
might have done. She certainly must have been popular; a girl who can
talk wittily, dance well, and who is bright and sweet-tempered must
always be in demand. And all the time her mind, half unconsciously,
was storing up the little words and gestures of the persons around.
Everything that was significant, everything that was amusing was
noted, and from this storehouse she was to draw many a scene to delight
unnumbered people yet unborn.
In her time, the acceptance of a dance still carried with it two
dances, or the twice going up and down in the minuet.
Foolish Mrs. Bennet, overflowing with the events of the evening, on her
return from the ball with her daughters, thus pours out her soul to her
satirical husband—
“‘Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how
well she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and
danced with her twice. Only think of that, my dear, he actually danced
with her twice; and she was the only creature in the room that he asked
a second time. First of all he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see
him stand up with her, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed,
nobody can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was
going down the dance. So he inquired who she was, and got introduced,
and asked her for the two next. Then the two third he danced with Miss
King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane
again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and _the Boulanger_—’”
At another ball poor Elizabeth has Mr. Collins for a partner—
“The first two dances, however, brought a return of distress; they were
dances of mortification. Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn, apologising
instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being aware of it,
gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable partner for a
couple of dances can give.”
In _Northanger Abbey_ the hero and heroine first meet in the Lower
Rooms at Bath at a ball, where they are introduced by the Master of
the Ceremonies, but the subject of Bath is such an engrossing one that
it must be treated separately in another chapter. In public ballrooms
gentlemen wore swords, and ladies carried enormous fans; it must have
required some practice to manage these respective weapons in a crowded
room. Mr. Austen-Leigh says in a note, “Old gentlemen who had survived
the fashion of wearing swords, were known to regret the disuse of that
custom, because it put an end to one way of distinguishing those who
had, from those who had not, been used to good society. To wear the
sword easily, was an art which, like swimming or skating, required to
be learned in youth.”
As to the costumes worn, we get an idea of Catherine Morland’s dress in
her partner’s jocose remark describing the “sprigged muslin robe with
blue trimmings—plain black shoes.” A few of the fashions we learn from
contemporary newspapers, which thus filled their columns when foreign
news was scarce.
_The Times_ remarks facetiously,—for _The Times_ had not learnt to take
its high office seriously in those days,—”We are very happy to see the
waists of our fair countrywomen walking downwards by degrees towards
the hip. But as we are a little acquainted with the laws of increasing
velocity in fashionable gravitation, we venture to express, thus early
in their descent, a hope that they will stop there.” (April 15, 1799.)
About this time fashion required ladies to wear an enormous pyramid
of feathers on their heads, and many were the jests made about this
extraordinary whim of fashion—
“At all elegant assemblies there is a room set apart for the lady
visitants to put their feathers on, as it is impossible to wear them
in any carriage with a top to it. The lustres are also removed on this
account, and the doors are carried up to the ceiling. A well-dressed
lady, who nods with dexterity, can give a friend a little tap upon the
shoulder across the room without incommoding the dancers. The ladies’
feathers are now generally carried in the sword case at the back of the
carriage. (_The Times_, December 29, 1795.)
With the soft light of wax candles—even nowadays sometimes preferred
to modern brilliancy—shining on the long, clinging muslin dresses,
the arch head-dresses and nodding plumes, the swords and the fans,
a ball-room must have presented a most animated spectacle; added to
which the dress of the gentlemen was certainly far more picturesque and
becoming than that of the present day. The gay satin coats and ruffles,
the knee-breeches and silk stockings, must greatly have enlivened the
scene. The subject of dress is too large to be treated in the middle
of such a chapter, but to gain any idea of the balls which gave Jane
Austen so much entertainment, these things must be at least indicated.
Apropos of the minuet, Mr. Austen-Leigh says: “It was not everyone who
felt qualified to make this public exhibition, and I have been told
that those ladies who intended to dance minuets, used to distinguish
themselves from others by wearing a particular kind of lappet on their
headdress. I have heard also of another curious proof of the respect in
which this dance was held. Gloves immaculately clean were considered
requisite for its due performance, while gloves a little soiled were
thought good enough for a country dance; and accordingly some prudent
ladies provided themselves with two pairs for their several purposes.”
The lady of the greatest distinction in the room was chosen to open
the ball. Modest Fanny in _Mansfield Park_ was quite overwhelmed when
she discovered that she was expected to do this, in the absence of her
cousins, by taking the first part in the minuet, an idea that had never
occurred to her before. “She found herself the next moment conducted to
the top of the room, and standing there to be joined by the rest of the
dancers, couple after couple as they were formed.... The ball began. It
was rather honour than happiness to Fanny for the first dance at least;
her partner was in excellent spirits, and tried to impart them to her;
but she was a great deal too much frightened to have any enjoyment till
she could suppose herself no longer looked at.”
At balls there was generally a room set aside for the older people who
preferred to play cards. Mrs. Lybbe Powys, in 1777, gives an account of
a fashionable evening party—
“No minuets that night; it would have been difficult without a master
of ceremonies among so many people of rank. Two card-rooms, the
drawing-rooms and eating-room. The latter looked so elegant lighted
up; two tables at loo, one quinze, one vingt-et-une, many whist. At
one of the former large sums passed and repassed. I saw one lady of
quality borrow ten pieces of Tessier within half an hour after she
sat down to vingt-une, and a countess at loo, who owed to every soul
round the table before half the night was over. The orgeat, lemonade,
capillaire, and red and white negus with cakes, were carried round the
whole evening. At half an hour after twelve the supper was announced,
and the hall doors thrown open, on entering which nothing could be more
striking, as you know ‘tis so fine a one, and was then illuminated by
three hundred coloured lamps round the six doors, over the chimney,
and over the statue at the other end.... The tables had a most
pleasing effect ornamented with everything in the confectionery way,
and festoons and wreaths of artificial flowers prettily disposed; all
fruits of the season as grapes, pines, etc., fine wines—ninety-two sat
down to supper.... The once so beautiful Lady Almeria I think is vastly
altered. She and Lady Harriot Herbert had the new trimmings, very
like bell ropes with their tassels, and seemingly very inconvenient
in dancing. After supper they returned to dancing, chiefly then
cotillions, till near six.”
Cotillions were later replaced by quadrilles. In 1816, Jane writes to
her niece Fanny—
“Much obliged for the quadrilles which I am grown to think pretty
enough, though of course they are very inferior to the cotillions of my
own day.”
But balls were not the only recreations Jane and Cassandra had; people
were very sociable in those days; the sketch of Sir John Middleton’s
horror of being alone, and his delight at gathering together in his
house all the acquaintances whom he could persuade to come, is only
slightly exaggerated from the prevailing spirit of his times. People
were always running over to see each other, always spending long days
at each other’s houses; hospitality was taken for granted, and was too
common to be reckoned a virtue. Jane and Cassandra in this way were
continually in touch with their nearest neighbours at Deane and Ashe.
It is impossible to resist quoting the following malevolent description
of Jane Austen, so unlike anything we know of her; it was given to Miss
Mitford by a lady who, it is admitted, had every reason to dislike the
Austens, for her brother-in-law was engaged in a lawsuit with Edward
Austen (Knight), trying to get away from him one of his estates!
This lady says that Jane had “stiffened into the most perpendicular,
precise, taciturn piece of single blessedness that ever existed, and
that, till _Pride and Prejudice_ showed what a precious gem was hidden
in that unbending case, she was no more regarded in society than a
poker or a fire screen or any other thin upright piece of wood or
iron that fills its corner in peace and quietness. The case is very
different now, she is a poker, but a poker of whom everyone is afraid.”
And Mrs. Mitford professes to recollect Jane in girlhood as being “the
prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband hunting butterfly” she ever
remembers.
The whole tone of Jane’s own writings and letters redeems her memory
from any possible reproach of affectation, and the evidence all points
to the fact that, though not averse from a flirtation, she was the very
last of all girls to desire a husband! But it is of interest to record
contemporary impressions, so as to show both sides of the shield.
The first of the letters in Lord Brabourne’s book contains suggestions
of a subject much more interesting than mere dancing or visiting. In
the case of an author like Jane Austen, who has become the world’s
property, it is impossible that there should be any concealment of
those affairs of the heart usually reserved for private confidence
only. To fail in discussing such a point would be to leave aside
a whole aspect of her life and books. Jane must have been admired,
her vivacity, her wit, her gaiety of heart, her pleasant person, and
her keen enjoyment of life must have attracted attention; we know
definitely she had at least two eligible offers, and probably others,
as she was the very last person to boast of such things openly. It
has sometimes happened that those most worth having have lived and
died single, for they are too fastidious, too difficult to please, to
mate readily, while a commonplace girl is made happy by the addresses
of any ordinary man, and gladly persuades herself to be in love.
Jane, who had a peculiar and deep knowledge of character, could not
be easily blinded, she would have required much in a man, and men no
doubt instinctively knew it. Her tongue, we know, was sharp, she had a
knack of saying sharp things, and those who did not know her well may
have been uneasy under her penetrating insight. Those who did know her
may have gathered from her perfectly spontaneous manner and absence
of any affectation that she was entirely heart whole, and been thus
discouraged from trying their fate. The extract naming her Irish friend
has already been quoted, this referred to the late Lord Chief Justice
of Ireland, at that time only Tom Lefroy, whose uncle was Rector of
Ashe, adjoining Deane, and with whom Jane seems to have carried on a
lively flirtation.
After telling Cassandra how much she had danced with him, she adds,
“I can expose myself, however, only once more, because he leaves the
country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance
at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good looking, pleasant
young man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the
three last balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed
at about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and
ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago.... After I
had written the above we received a visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his
cousin George.”
“I mean to confine myself in future to Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom I don’t
care sixpence.”... _Friday._ “At length the day is come on which I am
to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be
over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea.”
At this time she was twenty-one, and he twenty-three, but they do not
seem to have been of such susceptible dispositions as many young men
and women of their age.
We hear of Mr. Lefroy again in 1798, when his aunt has been calling
at Steventon. The reference is a little perplexing. Jane says first,
speaking of Mrs. Lefroy, “Of her nephew she said nothing at all, and of
her friend very little,” and a few sentences further on remarks, “She
showed me a letter which she had received from her friend a few weeks
ago, toward the end of which is a sentence to this effect, ‘I am very
sorry to hear of Mrs. Austen’s illness. It would give me particular
pleasure to have an opportunity of improving my acquaintance with
that family—with the hope of creating to myself a nearer interest. But
at present I cannot indulge any expectation of it.’ This is rational
enough; there is less love and more sense in it than sometimes appeared
before, and I am very well satisfied. It will go on exceedingly well,
and decline away in a very reasonable manner. There seems to be no
likelihood of his coming into Hampshire this Christmas, and it is
therefore most probable that our indifference will soon be mutual,
unless his regard, which appeared to spring from knowing nothing of me
at first, is best supported by never seeing me.”
It seems evident, therefore, that some friend who had been staying
at Ashe previously had also shown symptoms of losing his heart to
Jane, who did not take his affection seriously, and was in no danger
of losing her own. Her prediction seems to have been verified, for we
never hear of him again, unless he was the man to whom Mr. Austen-Leigh
refers when he says—
“In her youth she had declined the addresses of a gentleman who had
the recommendations of good character and connections, and position
of life, of everything in fact except the subtle power of touching her
heart.”
The other offer above referred to was made to her in 1802 by someone
described by her niece Anna as a “sensible pleasant man,” but he also
failed in the essential particular.
Mr. Austen-Leigh tells us further of “one passage of romance in
her history with which I am imperfectly acquainted, and to which
I am unable to assign name, or date, or place, though I have it on
sufficient authority. Many years after her death, some circumstances
induced her sister Cassandra to break through her habitual reticence
and to speak of it. She said that, while staying at some seaside place,
they became acquainted with a gentleman, whose charm of person, mind,
and manners, was such that Cassandra thought him worthy to possess
and likely to win her sister’s love. When they parted he expressed his
intention of soon seeing them again, and Cassandra felt no doubt as to
his motives. But they never again met. Within a short time they heard
of his sudden death.”
This incident may seem too slight and unimportant even for reference,
but in reality it may have had a deep significance. Those who have
studied human nature, know that there are here and there among both men
and women, minds that are satisfied with nothing less than the best. A
temperament like Jane Austen’s, where the whole nature was extremely
sensitive, and the mind extremely clear-sighted, would have required
qualities of the heart and mind in a man to be loved that are not to
be found every day. In addition, it would have been quite impossible
for her to marry any man from respect only or simple friendship.
Nothing but love could have carried her fastidious nature over the
bound of matrimony. Such natures as Jane’s are not facile: not for them
the willing self-deception which imagines love in any man who is an
admirer; not for them the blindness which attributes qualities where
they are not, nor the vanity which credits a man with every virtue
merely because he has the taste to prefer them. Many marriages are made
on these lines, and a proportion turn out well; but the higher natures,
standing out here and there, require a sounder basis.
The incident above described is attributed by her niece (Anna Lefroy),
writing many years later, to the year 1799 or 1800, when Jane was on a
tour in Devonshire with her mother and sister, and other writers have
drawn from it the inference that from this heart distress came the
inability to create, and that it thus accounted for the long interval
during which she wrote nothing at all. This hardly seems likely, or
at all events there were many other causes equally likely, such as the
impossibility of getting her MSS. published, which may have militated
against her adding to them, and her own father’s death may have been a
shock from which she was slow to recover.
There is a cryptic sentence in the correspondence of 1808 which seems
to show that her heart was at that time touched, and that she expected
to meet someone who was an object of great interest to her. She was
then staying at Godmersham, and writes—
“I have been so kindly pressed to stay longer here, in consequence of
an offer of Henry’s to take me back some time in September, that, not
being able to detail all my objections to such a plan, I have felt
myself obliged to give Edward and Elizabeth one private reason for my
wishing to be at home in July. They feel the strength of it, and say
no more, and one can rely on their secrecy. After this I hope we shall
not be disappointed of our friend’s visit; my honour as well as my
affection will be concerned in it.”
If these words had occurred some years earlier, they would seem to
point directly to that visitor whose coming was hindered by death, but,
according to the niece’s account, they must have been written too long
after this incident to have any bearing upon it. It may be, however,
that Anna, being young at the time, and knowing of the affair only by
hearsay, was mistaken; and in any case she does not authoritatively
state the year as 1799, but believes it to have been about then. If,
however, the first meeting had taken place in 1805 or 1806, this remark
of Jane’s might allude to it, for no one says that the death of the
man in question took place immediately after she knew him, but only
before there was a second meeting. Jane’s own words, “my honour as
well as my affection,” point directly to some admirer, for she would
feel that once having betrayed her own eagerness to her brother and
sister-in-law, the fact of the visitor’s not taking the trouble to
come to see her would appear to them a direct slight. The reference can
hardly have been to anything but a love-affair, and her own eagerness
looks as if she were in earnest at last. If the words cannot be taken
to refer to the known admirer, they must certainly have referred to
some other; and as nothing more is heard of him, perhaps he did not
come as she anticipated, and she, who had found it so difficult to take
the proposals of others seriously, was herself mistaken when she was in
earnest; but all this is mere conjecture.
Sir Walter Scott, in his review of _Emma_ in the _Quarterly_, finds
generally in Jane Austen’s books a deficiency of what he considers
romance, and he thus indicts her—
“One word, however, we must say in behalf of that once powerful
divinity, Cupid, king of gods and men, who in these times of
revolution, has been assailed, even in his own kingdom of romance, by
the authors who were formerly his devoted priests. We are quite aware
that there are few instances of first attachment being brought to a
happy conclusion, and that it seldom can be so in a state of society so
highly advanced as to render early marriages among the better classes
acts, generally speaking, of imprudence. But the youth of this realm
need not at present be taught the doctrines of selfishness. It is
by no means their error to give the world, or the good things of the
world, all for love; and before the authors of moral fiction couple
Cupid indivisibly with calculating prudence, we would have them reflect
that they may sometimes lend their aid to substitute more mean, more
sordid, and more selfish motives of conduct, for the romantic feelings
which their predecessors perhaps fanned into too powerful a flame.
Who is it, that in his youth has felt a virtuous attachment, however
romantic, or however unfortunate, but can trace back to its influence
much that his character may possess of what is honourable, dignified,
and disinterested?”
With due deference to the opinion of the greatest romancer in English
fiction, he begs the question when he inserts the words “however
unfortunate.” An unfortunate love-affair in youth exercises without
doubt a lasting good effect on any man who has grit in him, it is the
fortunate ones that, paradoxically, are often so unfortunate.
Perhaps no word in the English language has ever been misused like
poor “romance”; Jane was not devoid of it, in almost every case she
distinguishes between the real and the false, Marianne’s silly girlish
admiration for Willoughby, and Emma’s purely imaginary inclination
toward Frank Churchill, are alike shown to be false, and founded only
on that fleeting attraction which both men and women in early youth
feel for the admirable person of one of the opposite sex. There are
many persons still who think that this first flush of passion is
real romance; that a young man who, at the most susceptible moment of
his life, sees a pretty face, and falls a victim to it, perhaps even
without ever having spoken to its possessor, has struck the real thing.
This is to put love on the lowest basis of animalism. The beautiful
girl, whatever the nature that lies beneath, is sought by a score of
young men purely because she arouses in them their first instincts of
manhood, but perhaps to no one of them is she the real mate. Love, that
true deep attraction of the heart and mind, does not come so readily,
nor is it induced by personal attractions without further knowledge,
though it may well be enhanced by them. Many and many a man takes a
rash step into marriage, solely on the ground of external attraction,
to gratify a youthful impulse, and having himself fitted the harness
to his shoulders, spends the rest of his life in accommodating himself
to it, without making the process of accommodation too patent to the
eyes of the world. If he be a man at all, he realises that it was his
own doing entirely, and he must bear the responsibility. Such marriages
may, if the two be malleable and adaptable, turn out happily enough,
especially if, as does sometimes happen, love comes after marriage,
but the risk is a terrible one to take. The perpetuation of the race
is the most urgent necessity, so nature takes care to secure it at all
risks to the happiness of individuals; and certainly were it not for
the indulgence of this momentary madness of youth, which oddly enough
Sir Walter seems to regard as a form of unselfishness, the world would
have fewer married couples in it.
When Jane depicted the slow growth of Emma’s love for Knightley,
she drew wisely. Lord Brabourne has remarked that he wished Emma had
married Frank Churchill, and herein he shows his own superficial view
of human nature. Emma was a strong character strongly developed. She
must either have married, for her own happiness, a man who was her
master, or one whom she could completely guide; the world usually
accords the latter kind of marriage to such natures, and in the
character of Elinor Dashwood, who in some ways resembles Emma, we see
this alternative match, for she marries the hopelessly weak Edward
Ferrars; but Emma’s was the better match; for many a man has discovered
for himself that when a strong nature finds its master it gives a far
higher and nobler love and obedience than that given by a shallow one
whose opinions and ideas are merely wisps of fancy. Emma recognised
that Knightley was her master, his quiet audacity, his failure to
join in the general pæan of flattery she received, his manliness in
controlling his own feelings, appealed to her, and we may feel sure
that her self-surrender just gave that finishing touch of softening to
her nature which it needed; as a loving wife with full confidence in
the judgment and principle of the man she had chosen, she would grow
softer and kindlier every day of her life. She and Frank Churchill
would very soon have been disgusted with each other, for he was not so
weak as to have surrendered entirely to her authority, and constant
friction would have been the result of their mating. Jane Austen
does not make her ideal marriage a mere cementing of friendship, she
recognises that to be perfect it must have that element of personal
attraction which, to fastidious minds, alone makes marriage possible.
Mr. Knightley was Emma’s friend and adviser from the first, but not
until her inclination for him was revealed in a lightning flash did
the idea of marrying him enter her head. The difference between this
personal inclination and the fantasy of youth is, that what is cause in
the one is effect in the other. In the case of real love, the personal
appearance is loved because of the personality behind it; in the
spurious attraction the personal appearance is the first consequence,
and the character behind it is idealised, with the constant result of
woeful disillusionment. In one place Jane shows how fully she realised
the difference between the true and the false by a little saying,
“Three and twenty—a period when, if a man chooses a wife, he generally
chooses ill.”
In the softest and most tender of her books, _Persuasion_, she gives
a beautiful picture of a girl’s real love, a love which lasted through
time and brought out what was best in the character, and in one of the
most charming scenes in this novel, Anne Elliot, the heroine, gives her
views on men’s and women’s constancy thus—
“‘Your [men’s] feelings may be the strongest,’ replied Anne, ‘but the
same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the
most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived;
which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments.
Nay, it would be too hard upon you if it were otherwise. You have
difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You
are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship.
Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health,
nor life to be called your own. It would be too hard indeed if (with a
faltering voice) woman’s feelings were to be added to all this.’”
This, in spite of its somewhat glorified view of an ordinary man’s
career, is very touching, and still more so what follows—
“‘We can never expect to prove anything upon such a point. It is a
difference of opinion which does not admit of proof. We each begin
probably with a little bias towards our own sex; and upon that bias
build every circumstance in favour of it which has occurred within
our own circle.... I hope to do justice to all that is felt by you—I
believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives.
I believe you equal to every important exertion and to every domestic
forbearance, so long as—if I may be allowed the expression—so long as
you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives and lives
for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very
enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when
existence or when hope is gone.’”
Natures which set their all on the chance of such a high throw as
the demand for a marriage combining personal attraction and real
suitability of character, know well that it is not likely that they
will win; people who ask only for personal attraction, and risk
all the rest, are in different case. But it is remarkable how the
growing generation of men are learning to look below the surface and
to take some trouble to find out the character of the girl who has
attracted them before binding themselves; men, even young men, do
not rush into marriage with the same lack of all self-control that a
previous generation did. With the evaporation of the sentimentality
of the Victorian period there has come also a far higher ideal of
marriage, and a man demands more of his wife than evanescent personal
attractions.
Though Jane set love at a high altitude, she was perfectly free from
false sentiment or silly sentimentality. She says in one place of a
man who loves hopelessly, “It is no creed of mine, as you must be well
aware, that such sorts of disappointments kill anybody.”
And her delightful sense of humour shows up in an inimitable light
the foolish weakness of a girl suffering from a purely imaginary
love-affair. The occasion is after the disillusionment of poor
sentimental Harriet as to the real feelings of Mr. Elton, whom she had
been encouraged by Emma to regard as an unexpressed lover. “Harriet
came one morning to Emma with a small parcel in her hand, and after
sitting down and hesitating thus began—
“‘Miss Woodhouse, if you are at leisure, I have something that I should
like to tell you; a sort of confession to make—and then you know it
will be over.’
“Emma was a good deal surprised, but begged her to speak....
“‘How could I be so long fancying myself—,’ cried Harriet warmly. ‘It
seems like madness! I can see nothing at all extraordinary in him now,
I do not care whether I meet him or not, except that of the two I had
rather not see him; and indeed I would go any distance round to avoid
him, but I do not envy his wife in the least; I neither admire her
nor envy her as I have done. She is very charming, I daresay, and all
that, but I think her very ill-tempered and disagreeable; I shall never
forget her look the other night. However, I assure you, Miss Woodhouse,
I wish her no evil. No, let them be ever so happy together, it will
not give me another moment’s pang; and, to convince you that I have
been speaking the truth, I am now going to destroy—what I ought to have
destroyed long ago—what I ought never to have kept; I know that very
well (blushing as she spoke). However, now I will destroy it all, and
it is my particular wish to do it in your presence, that you may see
how rational I am grown. Cannot you guess what this parcel holds?’ said
she with a conscious look.
“‘Not the least in the world. Did he ever give you anything?’
“‘No, I cannot call them gifts, but they are things that I have valued
very much.’
“She held the parcel towards her and Emma read the words, ‘Most
precious treasures’ on the top. Her curiosity was greatly excited.
Harriet unfolded the parcel and she looked on with impatience. Within
abundance of silver paper was a pretty little Tunbridge-ware box,
which Harriet opened; it was well lined with the softest cotton; but
excepting the cotton, Emma saw only a small piece of court-plaister.
“‘Now,’ said Harriet, ‘you _must_ recollect.’
“‘No, indeed, I do not.’
“‘Dear me! I should not have thought it possible that you could forget
what passed in this very room about court-plaister, one of the very
last times we ever met in it.... Do not you remember his cutting his
finger with your new pen-knife, and your recommending court-plaister?
But, as you had none about you, and knew I had, you desired me to
supply him; and so I took mine out, and cut him a piece; but it was
a great deal too large, and he cut it smaller, and kept playing some
time with what was left before he gave it back to me. And so then, in
my nonsense, I could not help making a treasure of it; so I put it by,
never to be used, and looked at it now and then as a great treat.’
“‘My dearest Harriet!’ cried Emma, putting her hands before her
face, and jumping up, ... ‘And so you actually put this piece of
court-plaister by for his sake,’ ... and secretly she added to herself,
‘Lord bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton
a piece of court-plaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about!
I never was equal to this.’
“‘Here,’ resumed Harriet, turning to her box again, ‘here is something
still more valuable,—I mean that _has been_ more valuable,—because this
is what did really once belong to him, which the court-plaister never
did.’
“Emma was quite eager to see this superior treasure. It was the end of
an old pencil, the part without any lead.
“‘This was really his,’ said Harriet. ‘Do not you remember one morning?
... I forget exactly the day ... he wanted to make a memorandum in his
pocket-book; it was about spruce beer ... and he wanted to put it down;
but when he took out his pencil there was so little lead that he soon
cut it all away, and it would not do, so you lent him another, and this
was left upon the table as good for nothing. But I kept my eye upon it;
and, as soon as I dared, caught it up, and never parted with it again
from that moment.’...
“‘My poor dear Harriet! and have you actually found happiness in
treasuring up these things?’
“‘Yes, simpleton as I was!—but I am quite ashamed of it now, and wish I
could forget as easily as I can burn them. It was very wrong of me, you
know, to keep any remembrances after he was married. I knew it was—but
had not resolution enough to part with them.’”
This is pure comedy!
In Jane Austen’s day there certainly was an openness in the
arrangements about marriage that jars on our more reticent minds.
Of course it is undeniable that at that time a girl’s only vocation,
unless she happened to be a genius, was marriage, but the way in which
suitability as to means and position were frequently considered as
of all importance, and love merely as a secondary consideration, is
slightly perturbing. Jane Austen’s high ideal of marriage must have
been rarer then than at the present time. Perhaps the best example of
the shameless discussion of the _mariage de convenance_ in the novels
is the interview between Elinor Dashwood and her brother, when Colonel
Brandon has shown some slight attention to her. Her brother begins by
asking—
“‘Who is Colonel Brandon? Is he a man of fortune?’
“‘Yes, he has very good property in Dorsetshire.’
“‘I am glad of it. He seems a most gentlemanlike man; and I think,
Elinor, I may congratulate you on the prospect of a very respectable
establishment in life.’
“‘Me, brother! what do you mean?’
“‘He likes you. I observed him narrowly, and am convinced of it. What
is the amount of his fortune?’
“‘I believe about two thousand a year.’
“‘Two thousand a year!’ Then working himself up to a pitch of
enthusiastic generosity, he added, ‘Elinor, I wish with all my heart it
were twice as much for your sake.’
“‘Indeed, I believe you,’ replied Elinor, ‘but I am very sure that
Colonel Brandon has not the smallest wish of marrying me.’
“‘You are mistaken, Elinor; you are very much mistaken. A very little
trouble on your side secures him. Perhaps just at present he may
be undecided; the smallness of your fortune may make him hang back;
his friends may all advise him against it. But some of those little
attentions and encouragements which ladies can so easily give will fix
him in spite of himself. And there can be no reason why you should not
try for him. It is not to be supposed that any prior attachment on your
side—in short you know, as to an attachment of that kind it is quite
out of the question, the objections are insurmountable—Colonel Brandon
must be the man; and no civility shall be wanting on my part to make
him pleased with you and your family. It is a match that must give
universal satisfaction.’”
The “prior attachment” was that to his own brother-in-law, Edward
Ferrars, for whom his wife hoped to get a better match, and as a matter
of fact the man in question, Colonel Brandon, was not in love with
Elinor, but with her impulsive sister, Marianne, who was wasting away
under the slights of Willoughby. Of her, her brother kindly remarks—
“‘At her time of life, anything of an illness destroys the bloom
for ever! Hers has been a very short one! She was as handsome a girl
last September as ever I saw, and as likely to attract the men. There
was something in her style of beauty to please them particularly. I
remember Fanny used to say she would marry sooner and better than you
did; she will be mistaken, however. I question whether Marianne now
will marry a man worth more than five or six hundred a year at the
utmost, and I am very much deceived if you do not do better.’
“Elinor tried very seriously to convince him that there was no
likelihood of her marrying Colonel Brandon, but it was an expectation
of too much pleasure to himself to be relinquished.... He had just
compunction enough for having done nothing for his sisters himself to
be exceedingly anxious that everyone else should do a great deal.”
And John Dashwood’s idea of the barter of women for so much, according
to their attractions, though it differed not in essentials from that of
a Circassian slave-dealer, was quite an ordinary one. The un-blushing
eagerness with which any heiress was literally pursued, the desperate
devices to get portionless daughters married, doubtless have their
counterparts now, but they are not so prominent; portionless daughters
of wit and talent can make lives for themselves, independent of
matrimony, and heiress hunters have at least the decency to pretend
they are in love.
In view of the ideas of her times, Jane’s ideal of marriage stands out
conspicuously. She wanted all her heroines to have every probability
of happiness in the marriage state, and though perhaps she did not
consciously set to work to consider what would make them so in so
many words, it is remarkable that certain points which, from her
own observations of the human race, were the best foundations for
married happiness, are to be found in every one of the marriages of
her principal characters. The first essential which we have already
touched upon was suitability of character. Poor Marianne Dashwood and
the ardent Willoughby would have tried each other desperately with the
vehemence of their enthusiasm; in six months they would have loathed
each other as ardently as they had loved, therefore Marianne is not
allowed to marry Willoughby, but mates with Colonel Brandon, the sort
of man who would exercise an unconscious influence over her, teaching
her self-control, and who would be kindly indulgent to her whims and
wishes, not clashing with them on his own account.
The second essential, which is fulfilled in every case of the principal
characters in the novels, is that the marriages are real unions, not
those accidental associations which are based on imagination. Her men
and women get to know each other thoroughly by constant intercourse,
until the faults and virtues, the defects and abilities, are clear
and plain. Jane knew that real love may begin by attraction, but must
be built upon knowledge. In not a single case is a pretty face or a
handsome person the reason for a man’s or woman’s falling in love.
Darcy considers Elizabeth Bennet only “tolerable” when he first sees
her, it is when he begins to care for her that he notes her “fine
eyes.” Though Catherine Morland was a pretty girl, it was not that
which won Henry Tilney, but her naïve adoration of himself, and her
sweet sincerity. Edmund Bertram runs after Miss Crawford for a time,
but it is the excellence of Fanny’s mind which gives him his life’s
happiness, and so on through all.
The third essential in Jane’s mind was evidently that the love of the
two should be mutual. In every case her heroine is genuinely in love
before she gives her consent to marriage. Fanny Bertram of course knew
her own love for Edmund long before his eyes were opened to the need
he had for her. Anne Elliot had bitterly regretted for many weary years
the fatal compliance with the wishes of her friends which had separated
her from the man she loved, and when he returns only to pay attentions
to another, and she imagines she has lost him for ever, she still
never swerves in her loyalty to him. Poor Elinor has the mortification
of hearing from the lips of a rival that Edward Ferrars is engaged
to her, but still her choice never falters. For women of this kind,
women of fine character, marriage without love is impossible; in the
abstract it is not a necessity, as it often seems to be to a man; if
they cannot have the one man they love, they will infinitely prefer to
remain single. We must admit that, as Anne Elliot says, the power of
loving longest remains with women, only we should amend to the extent
of saying with the noblest women.
Many men hold that woman’s love is not essential to a happy marriage,
so long as they are in love with the woman they make their wife they
think that her love is not necessary. This arises purely from want
of imagination. They themselves, marrying a woman they passionately
admire, start with all the glamour and glory which suffices to
veil the difficult beginnings of a _menage à deux_; but the woman,
who enters without this help, has to expend an immense amount of
patience and self-control over wearisome domestic details, which
would be transformed into pure joy if she also saw through a glorified
atmosphere. A match where the woman does not love is very hard on her.
It is, of course, perfectly true that the ardent love of a man has
often won a woman’s love in return; many a happy marriage has sprung
from this beginning; but any man who is not more selfish than the rest
of his sex, should try to assure himself that the love is there before
marriage.
Of course to a man it is incredible that girls will consent to marry
when they do not love; why should they? One knows it is not always
the prospect of a home and maintenance, one would scorn to assess
woman’s nature at so low a rate. There is no real explanation, though
possibly dense ignorance and girlish impulse toward the excitement, and
the trivial accessories of a bride’s position, may be the most usual
contributory causes. If this is so, as woman increases in intelligence
and reasonable knowledge, that is to say, as she becomes more fit to
be a real mate to man, so will man find it increasingly difficult to
persuade her into a one-sided-love marriage, oftentimes so disastrous
to both, and at the best such a makeshift for what might be.