Chapter V

A cold, stormy rain sets in, stripping the July trees and shrubs. Mr. Woodhouse, whose spirits are easily affected by the weather, is more than usually dependent on cheering, at the very time that visitors fail. Emma, struggling to do a loving daughter’s part, cannot prevent herself from foreseeing how much more deserted Hartfield must soon prove. Mrs. Weston’s baby will engross her, and supersede even Emma in her friend’s affections. Both Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax will be gone from Highbury; and--far worst change of all, Mr. Knightley will be no longer walking in at all hours, when he has Harriet to keep him company at Donwell. And if he can be content with Harriet, only one reflection can increase Emma’s wretchedness--that it has been all her own work.

The rainy clouds clear away the following afternoon, and Emma seizes the opportunity of Mr. Perry’s calling and sitting with her father, to stroll out into the shrubbery--where the first thing she sees is Mr. Knightley passing the garden gate and coming towards her. She had not heard of his return from London, but she must be collected and calm. (Emma is a girl who possesses much self-respect and womanly dignity.)

Mr. Knightley, on his side, does not look cheerful; but he is perfectly capable of conversing quietly, as he turns and walks with her.

Emma fancies that he wishes to talk to her of Harriet, and shrinks from leading the way in the conversation, but braces herself to follow when he takes the initiative. It is only his recurring fits of silence she cannot bear.

She considers; tries to smile, and refers to some news for him to hear, which ought to surprise him.

If she means Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, he has heard that already, he tells her shortly.

Emma is relieved, but as she reminds him that he had once tried to give her a caution, and she wishes she had attended to it, her voice sinks and she sighs, adding, “I seem doomed to blindness.”

She suddenly finds her arm drawn within his and pressed, and hears him fairly faltering, “Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound--the feelings of the warmest friendship--indignation--abominable scoundrel!”

Emma[63] must undeceive him instantly.

“You are very kind, but you are mistaken. I am not in want of that sort of compassion. I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures; but I have no other reason to regret that I was not in the secret earlier.”

“Emma,” he cries eagerly, “are you indeed----” but checking himself, “No, no. I understand you: forgive me. I am pleased that you can even say so much. He is no object of regret. I could only be certain there was a preference. He is a disgrace to the name of man, and is he to be rewarded with that sweet young woman?”

Emma has to renew her protestations, striving for the old liveliness to carry off her sense of awkwardness.

“I am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse. But I never have.”

Her companion says nothing, and Emma, to convince him, recapitulates earnestly the true particulars of the case--Frank’s being the son of Mr. Weston, his having been continually at Hartfield; the fact that his attentions flattered her, even after she had come to look on them as a habit, a trick, nothing that had called for seriousness on her part. He had imposed on her, still he had not taken her in, in the serious meaning of the words.

Mr. Knightley grows cooler, and admits he may have underrated Frank Churchill. With such a woman he has a chance. He is a fortunate man, at three-and-twenty to have drawn a prize. Everything turns out well for him. “He meets with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even weary her by negligent treatment; and had he and all his family sought round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found her superior. His aunt is in the way. His aunt dies. He has only to speak; his friends are eager to promote his happiness. He has used everybody ill, and they are all delighted to forgive him.”

“You speak as if you envied him,” exclaims Emma.

“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy.”

Emma can say no more; they seem within half a sentence of Harriet. Emma wishes to change the subject, and speaks of the children in Brunswick Square.

But he is too fast for her. “You will not ask me what is the point of envy. Emma, I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment.”

“Oh, then don’t speak of it; don’t speak of it,” she cries impulsively; “take a little time; consider; don’t commit yourself.”

“Thank you!” he said, in a tone of deep mortification.

Emma cannot bear to give him pain. He is wishing, perhaps, to consult her. She may help him; give just praise to Harriet, represent to him his independence.

Emma refuses to go in, and as they take another turn, says hurriedly, “I stopped you ungraciously just now, Mr. Knightley; but if you have any wish to speak to me openly, as a friend, you may command me. I will hear whatever you like, I will tell you exactly what I think.”

“As a friend,” repeats Mr. Knightley. No, he has no wish. But why should he hesitate when he has gone too far for concealment? He accepts her offer as a friend. Will she tell him if he has any chance of ever succeeding? He stops to look the question, and the expression of his eyes overpowers her.

“My dearest Emma, for dearest you will always be to me, whatever the event of this hour’s conversation, tell me at once; say ‘no’ if it is to be said.”

She can really say nothing.

“‘You are silent,’ he cries, with great animation, ‘absolutely silent! at present I ask no more.’

“Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The dread of being awakened from the happiest dream was perhaps the most prominent feeling.

“‘I cannot make speeches, Emma,’ he soon resumed, and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing. ‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am; you hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it. Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows I have been a very indifferent lover. But you understand me. Yes, you see--you understand my feelings, and will return them if you can. At present I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice.’”

Emma’s mind is busy. Harriet’s hopes have been groundless--a delusion as complete as any of her own--and Emma rejoices that Harriet’s secret has not escaped her. “It was all the service she could now render her poor friend; for as to any of that heroism of sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the more worthy of the two--or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not marry them both, Emma had it not.” “She spoke then on being entreated. What did she say? Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does. She said enough to show there need not be despair, and to invite him to say more himself.”

“Mr. Knightley had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had come to see how she bore Frank Churchill’s engagement with no selfish view, the rest had been the work of a moment.

“_Her_ change was equal. This one half-hour had given to each the same precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust. On his side there had been a long-standing jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation, of Frank Churchill. He had been in love with Emma and jealous of Frank Churchill from about the same period, one sentiment having probably enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill that had taken him from the country. The Box Hill party had decided him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again such permitted, encouraged attentions. He had gone to learn to be indifferent, but he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much domestic happiness in his brother’s house; woman wore too amiable a form in it. Isabella was too much like Emma, differing only in those striking inferiorities which always brought the other in brilliancy before him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer. He had stayed on, however, vigorously, day after day, till this very morning’s post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax. Then, with the gladness which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no longer. He had ridden home through the rain, and had walked up directly after dinner to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery.

“He had found her agitated and low. Frank Churchill was a villain. He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill’s character was not desperate. She was his own Emma, by hand and word, when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow.” The concluding paragraph, in its mingled vivacity and satire, is peculiarly Jane Austen’s.

Emma had left the house for a little respite from suffering. She returns to it in an exquisite flutter of happiness. The reflections of a sleepless night tranquillise Emma’s feelings. Her gravest considerations are her father and Harriet, since Emma’s happiness by no means absolves her, in her own opinion, in that of her author, or in reality, from caring for others. She hardly knows yet what Mr. Knightley will ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produces the most solemn resolution of never quitting her father. She even weeps at the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lives it must be only an engagement, which, she flatters herself, might become an additional comfort to him.

With regard to poor Harriet, Emma must still experience much bitter self-reproach and many sorrowful regrets. The best that Emma can devise for her friend, while still avoiding a meeting, and communicating what she has to tell by letter, is to procure for Harriet an invitation to visit Isabella. A few weeks spent in London will furnish some amusement.

Emma’s letter to Harriet, written the first thing before breakfast, is so hard a task that Mr. Knightley, in walking over to breakfast, does not come too soon. He has not left her long when a thick packet from Mrs. Weston encloses Frank Churchill’s promised explanation.

It is a good letter--appealing not unsuccessfully to the candour and indulgence of his reader. The writer dwells eloquently on all the difficulties which beset his devoted attachment to Miss Fairfax, so that if he had not persuaded her to stoop to a secret engagement, he must have gone mad. He confesses ingenuously what had really been the motive of his first visit to Highbury.

He admits that his attentions to Miss Woodhouse were partly for the purpose of assisting in the concealment of his real object. But he insists that, if he had not been convinced of her indifference, he would not have acted as he did. They seemed to understand each other. When he called to take leave of her, he had been on the verge of confessing the truth. He believes she had some suspicion of it. He remembers her telling him at the ball that he ought to be grateful to Mrs. Elton. His heart was in Highbury, and his business was to get his body there as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.

Of the piano so much talked of, he need not say that it was ordered entirely without the knowledge of Miss Fairfax, who would never have allowed him to send it had any choice been given her. Afterwards he had behaved shamefully. Does Mrs. Weston remember the morning at Donwell? He was late. He met Miss Fairfax walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her; but she would not suffer it. He had thought her over-cautious, even cold. He now saw she was perfectly right. “While I, to blind the world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a proposal which might have made every previous precaution useless? Had we been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must have been suspected. I was mad enough, however, to resent--I doubted her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill, when, provoked by such conduct on my side--such shameful, insolent neglect of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have been impossible for any woman of sense to endure--she spoke her resentment in a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.”

Even then he was not such a fool as not to mean to be reconciled in time; but he went away, determined that she should make the first advances.

In the meantime she closed with the offer of a situation as governess; and wrote to him that, as she felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each, she dissolved it.

The letter reached him on the very morning of his aunt’s death. He answered it within the hour, but in the confusion which followed, his answer, instead of being sent off with the many letters despatched that day, was locked up in his writing-desk, while he trusted that he had said enough, though in but a few lines, to satisfy her. He was surprised at getting no answer till he received a parcel--his own letters returned, with a note stating her surprise at not having heard from him in reply to her last letter, and begging him to forward her letters to Mrs. Smallridge’s, near Bristol.

He knew the name, the place, and instantly saw what she had been about. What was to be done? One thing only. He must speak to his uncle; without his sanction Frank could not hope to be listened to again. And Mr. Churchill, softened by the late event, was earlier reconciled than Frank could have ventured to expect.

Is Mrs. Weston disposed to pity Frank for having to plead his cause with so much at stake? She must not pity him till he reached Highbury, and saw how ill he had made _her_. He knew when to find her alone. A great deal of very reasonable--very just--displeasure he had to persuade away. But it was done; they were reconciled--dearer, much dearer, than ever.

The letter makes its way to Emma’s heart. Frank had been wrong, but he has suffered, and is very sorry; and he is so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and Emma is so happy herself, that there is no being severe. Could he have entered the room, she must have shaken hands as heartily as ever.

Emma knows Mrs. Weston will like Mr. Knightley to see the letter; and she herself is anxious that he should read it when he comes again. He wishes to take it home with him; but when he has to look over it then and there, he goes through it, supplying a running commentary of caustic, humorous remarks: “Playing a dangerous game,” he observes at one place; and when he comes to the piano, exclaims, “Ah! that was the act of a very young man--too young to consider whether the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure.” “I perfectly agree with you, sir,” Mr. Knightley echoes, “you did behave very shamefully.” “What a letter the man writes!” protests the lover, impatient on his own account.

“I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him,” interposes Emma.

“Well, there is feeling here,” admits Knightley. “He does seem to have suffered in finding her ill. He has had great faults--faults of inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I am very much of his opinion in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves; but still, as he is, beyond doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very ready to believe his character will be improved, and acquire from hers the steadiness and delicacy of principle it wants.”

But Mr. Knightley has something else to talk of. “And it is in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love with” that he introduces his subject, “how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the happiness of her father.”

Emma’s answer is ready. She can never quit her father.

Mr. Knightley, unselfish in everything, feels this as strongly as herself. But his mind has been at work all the morning to overcome the obstacle. He had first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to remove with her to Donwell; but Mr. Knightley’s knowledge of his future father-in-law’s habits soon convinced him that this step was impossible. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield! it ought not to be attempted. But Mr. Knightley’s next plan “he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any respect objectionable: it was, that he should be received at Hartfield! that so long as her father’s happiness--in other words, his life--required Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise.”

The last solution of the difficulty has never occurred to Emma. “She was sensible of all the affection it evinced. She felt that in quitting Donwell he must be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits; that in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there would be much--very much--to be borne with.[64] She promised to think of it, and advised him to think of it more; but he was fully convinced that no reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration. He had been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his thoughts to himself.”

“Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for,” cried Emma. “I am sure William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you ask mine.”

“She promised, however, to think of it; and pretty nearly promised, moreover, to think of it with the intention of finding it a very good scheme.

“It is remarkable that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as heir-expectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded.”

Emma would be too happy but for poor Harriet. “In time, of course, Mr. Knightley would be forgotten, that is, supplanted; but this could not be expected to happen very early. Mr. Knightley himself would be doing nothing to assist the cure; not like Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley, always so kind, so feeling, so truly considerate for everybody, would never deserve to be less worshipped than now; and it really was too much to hope, even of Harriet, that she could be in love with more than three men in one year.”

Mrs. Weston’s friends are made happy by the birth of a daughter to her. Emma and Mr. Knightley compare notes on Miss Weston’s education. He declares he is losing his bitterness against spoiled children; they are disagreeable in infancy, but correct themselves as they grow older.

Emma reminds him she had the advantage of his endeavours to qualify the indulgence of other people. It would be the greatest humanity if he would do as much for poor little Anna Weston, except fall in love with her when she is thirteen.

“How often when you were a girl,” he tells her, “have you said to me with one of your saucy looks, ‘Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so and so; papa says I may,’ or ‘I have Miss Taylor’s leave;’ something which you knew I did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving two bad feelings instead of one.”

“‘What an amiable creature I was! No wonder you should hold my speeches in such affectionate remembrance.’

“‘Mr. Knightley, you always called me. Mr. Knightley, and from habit it has not so very formal a sound. And yet it is formal. I want you to call me something else, but I do not know what.’

“‘I remember once calling you George in one of my amiable fits, about ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as you made no objection, I never did it again.’

“‘And cannot you call me George now?’

“‘Impossible! I never can call you anything but Mr. Knightley. I will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton by calling you Mr. K. But I will promise,’ she added presently, laughing and blushing, ‘I will promise to call you once by your Christian name. I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where: in the building in which N. takes M. for better, for worse.’”

Harriet had answered Emma’s letter, breaking to her the true state of affairs, much as might have been supposed, without reproaches, or apparent sense of ill-usage; and yet Emma fancied there was a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style, which increased the desirableness of their being separate. It might be only her own consciousness, but it seemed as if an angel only could have been quite without resentment under such a stroke.

But an invitation from Isabella is procured, Harriet finds the excuse of wishing to see a dentist, and Emma has the comfort of getting Harriet conveyed in state, in Mr. Woodhouse’s carriage, to Brunswick Square, and established there for a fortnight.

John Knightley replies to his brother’s announcement of his intended marriage, with brotherly congratulations, in which Emma declares he writes like a sensible man. It is very plain he considers the good fortune of the engagement as all on her side, but that he is not without hope of her growing, in time, worthy of Mr. Knightley’s affection.

Mr. Knightley remonstrates like a lover on this inference. He means no such thing; he only means----

“Oh!” she cries, “if you fancy your brother does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret, and hear his opinion. Depend upon it, he will be much farther from doing _you_ justice. He will think all the happiness, all the advantage, on your side of the question--all the merit on mine. I wish I may not sink into ‘poor Emma’ with him at once. His tender compassion towards oppressed worth can go no farther.”

The communication of the couple’s purpose is made in the gentlest manner to Mr. Woodhouse. The information gives the poor gentleman a considerable shock. He tries earnestly to dissuade Emma from her intention. “She was reminded more than once of her having always said she would never marry, and assured that it would be a great deal better for her to remain single, and told of poor Isabella and poor Miss Taylor. But it would not do. Emma hung about him affectionately and smiled, and said it must be so, and that he must not class her with Isabella and Mrs. Weston, whose marriages, taking them from Hartfield, had, indeed, made a melancholy change. But she was not going from Hartfield. She was introducing no change in their numbers or their comforts but for the better. Did not he love Mr. Knightley very much? Would not he like to have him always on the spot?”

“Yes, that was all very true; Mr. Knightley could not be there too often; he should be glad to see him every day; but they did see him every day as it was. Why could not they go on as they had done?”

Mr. Woodhouse cannot soon be reconciled, but at least the matter is broken to him.

Contrast the tender, protecting reverence of the gay and witty Emma Woodhouse to her father’s weakness, with the flippant, bold, offensive disrespect displayed by so many of the silly, ill-bred, unprincipled heroines of modern novels to their despised and insulted fathers.

The proposed marriage has the warmest support from the rest of Emma’s friends--above all, from Isabella and Mrs. Weston. Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in reflections on the perfection of the match in every respect, “was one of the happiest women in the world. If anything could increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have outgrown its first set of caps.”[65]

Mr. Weston walks into Highbury the morning after he has heard the good news, to ascertain if “Jane” had any suspicion of it, and before night it is all over the place. It is, generally speaking, a well-approved match, though Mr. Elton can do no more than hope the young lady’s pride will now be contented, and suppose she has always meant to “catch Knightley;” and Mrs. Elton is forced to cry, “Rather he than I! Poor Knightley!” There will be an end to their pleasant intercourse. No more exploring parties to Donwell made for her. Shocking plan, living together! She knew a family near Maple Grove who had tried it, and been obliged to separate before the end of the first quarter.

I must beg Mrs. Elton’s pardon for differing from her, in remarking how far Jane Austen--with her hero and heroine--was above selfish insular prejudices, in contemplating the humane, kindly arrangement which did not fear to unite, in one household, kindred, old and young, of different generations.

Harriet’s visit to London has been protracted to a month’s duration, and Emma is rather anxiously anticipating her friend’s return in company with John Knightley and his wife, when Mr. Knightley walks in one morning, to tell her some news which he will not undertake to define as either good or bad.

She cries, it is good, for she sees him trying not to smile.

“I am afraid,” he said, composing his features, “I am very much afraid, my dear Emma, that you will not smile when you hear it.” He goes on to observe there is one subject on which they differ--does she not recollect it--Harriet Smith?

Emma’s cheeks flush, and she feels afraid for what is coming.

“You are prepared for the worst, I see, and very bad it is. Harriet Smith marries Robert Martin.”

Emma gives a violent start.

It is so, indeed. Mr. Knightley has had it from Robert Martin himself. He left him not half an hour before.

Still Emma sits, the picture of amazement.

Mr. Knightley prepares to try to reconcile her to the fact.

She interrupts him. It is not that such a circumstance can now make her unhappy; but she cannot believe it. He must only mean that Robert Martin intends to propose to Harriet!

“I mean that he has done it, and been accepted.”

“Well!” exclaims Emma; and, oh! the significance of the interjection!--she has to bend her face over her work-basket, to conceal her expression of delight and entertainment, while she begs for particulars.

“It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago, and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send to John. He delivered these papers to John at his chambers, and was asked by him to join their party the same evening to Astley’s. They were going to take the two eldest boys to Astley’s. The party was to be our brother and sister, Henry, John,--and Miss Smith. My friend Robert could not resist. They called for him in their way; were all extremely amused; and my brother asked him to dine with them next day, which he did; and in the course of that visit, as I understand, he found an opportunity of speaking to Harriet, and certainly did not speak in vain. She made him, by her acceptance, as happy even as he is deserving. He came down by yesterday’s coach, and was with me this morning, immediately after breakfast, to report his proceedings, first on my affairs, and then on his own. That is all I can relate of the how, where, and when. Your friend Harriet will make a much longer history when you see her. She will give you all the minute particulars, which only woman’s language can make interesting. In our communications we deal only in the great. However, I must say that Robert Martin’s heart seemed for _him_ and to _me_ very overflowing; and that he did mention, without its being much to the purpose, that on quitting their box at Astley’s, my brother took charge of Mrs. John Knightley and little John, and he followed with Miss Smith and Henry; and that at one time they were in such a crowd, as to make Miss Smith rather uneasy.”

Emma dares hardly speak, lest she should betray her unreasonable happiness; but she ventures to say she has learnt to think Harriet is doing extremely well; only the affair is so sudden, for she received reason lately to believe Harriet Smith more determined against Mr. Martin than ever.

“You ought to know your friend best,” replies Mr. Knightley; “but I should say she was a good-tempered, soft-hearted girl, not likely to be very, very determined against any young man who told her he loved her.”

Emma cannot help laughing. “Upon my word, I believe you know her quite as well as I do.”

He says he has taken some pains, as Emma must have seen, both for her sake and Robert Martin’s sake--he had reason to believe him as much in love with Harriet as ever--to get better acquainted with Harriet; and he has come to the satisfactory conclusion that she is an artless, amiable girl, with “very good notions, very seriously good principles, placing her happiness in the affections and utility of domestic life.”

No doubt, simple young Harriet Smiths, who are like wax in the hands of their friends, have not died out in the land; but the great thing for them, as for the wisest of their sex, is that they should possess integrity, a high sense of duty, that “good and honest heart,” which brings forth fruit a hundredfold. Having this greatest grace, they can dispense even with the intellectual gifts which have been denied them.

Emma is very serious and humble in her thankfulness; “yet there was no preventing a laugh sometimes. She must laugh at such a close--such an end of the doleful disappointment of five weeks back--such a heart--such a Harriet!”

“Now there would be a pleasure in her returning; everything would be a pleasure; it would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin.”

High among Emma’s pleasures is the consciousness that there will soon be no farther need for concealment in any of her relations. Her rejoicing at the prospect of a speedy escape from “disguise, equivocation, mystery--so hateful to her in practice”--ought to be written in letters of gold for an age of sorry romance, which is no true romance, since its foundations are so often laid in deception and double-dealing.

There is a charming conclusion to the second last chapter of “Emma,” in which many of the actors in the story meet accidentally at Randalls. There Emma first sees Frank Churchill after the explanations which have occurred, and after the announcement of their respective marriages. When a few moments of awkwardness have been surmounted, he thanks her for her message of forgiveness; and after they have renewed their friendly alliance on a more secure foundation, his spirits soon rise to their old high level. “Was she not looking well?” he said, confident of Emma’s sympathy, as he turned his eyes towards Jane; “better than she used to do?”

He is soon ready to fix laughing eyes on his companion, as he mentions the return of the Campbells, and names the name of Dixon.

Emma blushes, and forbids its being pronounced in her hearing.

“I can never think of it,” she cries, “without extreme shame.”

“The shame,” he answers, “is all mine--or ought to be”--a wise reservation. Then he asks if it is possible she never had any suspicion, and mentions how near he had once been to telling her everything. He demands Emma’s pity for his being compelled to remain at such a distance from Miss Fairfax, as not to have seen her once before since their reconciliation. Then with a gay, “Oh, by-the-bye,” he hopes Mr. Knightley is well, and returns her congratulations with interest. “He is a man,” said Frank Churchill, “whom I cannot presume to praise.”

Emma is delighted, and wants him to go on in the same style.

No, he is off the next moment to his own concerns and his own Jane. Did Emma ever see such a skin, such smoothness, such delicacy, a most distinguishing complexion, just colour enough for beauty?

“‘I have always admired her complexion,’ replied Emma, archly; ‘but do not I remember the time when you found fault with her for being so pale?--when we first began to talk of her--have you quite forgotten?’

“‘Oh, no. What an impudent dog I was; how could I dare----’

“But he laughed so heartily at the recollection, that Emma could not help saying, ‘I do suspect that in the midst of your perplexities at that time, you had very great amusement in tricking us all. I am sure you had. I am sure it was a consolation to you.’

“‘Oh, no, no, no! How can you suspect me of such a thing? I was the most miserable wretch.’

“‘Not quite so miserable as to be insensible to mirth. I am sure it was a source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us all in. Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself in the same situation. I think there is a little likeness between us.’

“He bowed.

“‘If not in our dispositions,’ she presently added, with a look of true sensibility, ‘there is a likeness in our destiny--the destiny which bids fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own.’

“‘True, true,’ he answered warmly. ‘No, not true on your side. You can have no superior. But most true on mine. She is a complete angel. Look at her! Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father. You will be glad to hear’ (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) ‘that my uncle means to give her all my aunt’s jewels. They are to be new set. I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will it not be beautiful in her dark hair?’[66]

“‘Very beautiful indeed,’ replied Emma; and she spoke so kindly that he gratefully burst out, ‘How delighted I am to see you again! and to see you in such excellent looks! I would not have missed this meeting for the world. I should certainly have called at Hartfield, had you failed to come.’

“Mrs. Weston is talking of some little alarm she had felt about the child, when she was within half a minute of sending for Mr. Perry.

“Frank Churchill caught the name. ‘Perry!’ said he to Emma, and trying as he spoke to catch Miss Fairfax’s eye, ‘My friend, Mr. Perry. What are they saying about Mr. Perry? Has he been here this morning? and how does he travel now? Has he set up his carriage?’

“Emma soon recollected and understood him; and while she joined in the laugh, it was evident from Jane’s countenance that she too was really hearing him, though trying to seem deaf.

“‘Such an extraordinary dream of mine!’ he cried. ‘I can never think of it without laughing. She hears us; she hears us, Miss Woodhouse. I see it in her cheek, her smile, her vain attempt to frown. Look at her! Do not you see that, at this instant, the very passage of her own letter, which sent me the report, is passing under her eye; that the whole blunder is spread before her; that she can attend to nothing else, though pretending to listen to the others?’

“Jane was forced to smile completely, for a moment; and the smile partly remained as she turned towards him, and said in a conscious, low, yet steady voice--‘How you can bear such recollections is astonishing to me! They will sometimes obtrude; but how can you _court_ them?’”

Jane Austen is not in favour of blindness in love. In the room of doting adoration, she makes her men and women feel the nobler, more rational, and infinitely more lasting love which sees all the faults of the person beloved, yet loves on fondly and faithfully, doing love’s best work in helping to remedy the imperfections. George Knightley is capable--not merely of finding fault with Emma, but of sharply reproving her, in his true and tender regard for her. Nay, we suspect there is something which may find even less approval from some critics, in Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Fairfax, at the summit of their happiness, remaining still clear-sighted and impartial enough to perceive the weak points, in characters so different as those of the two heroes, Darcy and Frank Churchill, and to set themselves to remove the flaws, even as the women themselves desire to be taught to recognise and amend their own foibles.

What worthy, enduring, consecrated love it is which stands such wholesome tests!

Neither is Miss Austen greatly on the side of love at first sight. She is a little distrustful of first impressions, and rather prefers--as the wiser and safer course--to give her girls to old and tried friends, who have developed into faithful lovers.

It is Harriet’s turn to look a little foolish when she and Emma meet; but having once owned that she had been presumptuous, silly, and self-deceived, her pain and confusion seem to die away, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the fullest exultation in the present and future--Emma’s unqualified congratulations removing every fear on the score of Harriet’s friend. Harriet is most happy to give every detail of the evening at Astley’s, and the dinner next day.

The fact is, she had always liked Robert Martin, and his continuing to love her has proved, under the circumstances, irresistible.

Emma becomes acquainted with Robert Martin, who is introduced at Hartfield. She feels perfectly satisfied with regard to the future respectability and happiness of her friend. At the same time Harriet’s engagements with the Martins, which draw her more and more from Hartfield, are not to be regretted. Jane Austen, with her uncompromising good sense, adds--“The intimacy between her and Emma must sink; their friendship must change into a calmer sort of good-will; and fortunately what ought to be, and must be, seemed already beginning, and in the most gradual, natural manner.”

But Emma does not fail to attend Harriet to church, in the end of that September, and see her hand bestowed on Robert Martin, with the blessing pronounced by Mr. Elton; while Emma has not a thought to spare for the identity of the officiating clergyman, beyond being engrossed by the reflection that it will probably be the same man who will do a like office for her and Mr. Knightley in the coming month of October.

Jane Fairfax has already quitted Highbury. She is restored to the comforts and refinements of her beloved home with the Campbells. The two Mr. Churchills--uncle and nephew--are also in town, and they are only waiting for the expiration of their first three months’ mourning, to celebrate the event which will remove Jane to preside over the dignified establishment at Enscombe.

After all, Emma and Mr. Knightley owe to a comical accident the power to go on with their share of the triple marriages at the time appointed, without distressing Mr. Woodhouse too much, as Emma recoiled from doing--though she perfectly believed the assurances of both the Mr. Knightleys, that when the catastrophe was over, the distress would soon be over too.

During the period of suspense, by an ill wind which blows somebody good, Mrs. Weston’s poultry-house is robbed of all her turkeys--evidently by the ingenuity of man. “Other poultry yards in the neighbourhood also suffered. Pilfering was _house-breaking_ to Mr. Woodhouse’s fears. He was very uneasy; and but for the sense of his son-in-law’s protection, would have been under wretched alarm every night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependence. While either of them protected him and his, Hartfield was safe. But Mr. John Knightley must be in London again, by the end of the first week in November.”

The result is, that with a much more cheerful and voluntary consent than she had ever ventured to hope for from her father, his daughter is able to fix the marriage day.

“The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery and parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby and very inferior to her own. ‘Very little white satin; very few lace veils; a most pitiful business! Selina would stare when she heard of it.’ But in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.”

In some respects “Emma” stands first among Jane Austen’s novels. In construction it is as nearly as possible perfect. The unparalleled art which, from characters and incidents even simpler and more ordinary than usual, builds up a tale which never for a moment loses its charm and interest, which is made to “grow,” as in real life--the one motive and the one action springing out of the other--the characters developing and ripening in exact proportion, is carried to such a height that critics have been justified in saying--and how rarely is such an assertion warranted in fiction?--that there is not a single chapter which could have been withdrawn without serious injury to the skilfully interwoven threads of the story. For that matter, critics might have gone a good deal further, and asserted that not a scene or a conversation, hardly a paragraph, could have been abstracted or shortened, without marring in a measure the succession of clearly discriminating, exquisitely delicate touches by which the author has done her work.

It is this artistic completeness which makes it so difficult--in a sense so ungracious a task, to condense Jane Austen’s pages, or tamper with them, however carefully and scrupulously. When one thinks by contrast of the disgracefully slovenly--not to say weak and foolish--performances which are often allowed to pass muster as story-telling, it is with mortification and misery for many of the professors of the “craft.”

Besides the incomparable finish which belongs to the author’s later novels, we have a nearly unique power of reading nice varieties of character in “Emma:” whether we turn to the plaintive, cautious Mr. Woodhouse; to John Knightley in his trenchant speeches; to Miss Bates in her pitter-patter of innocent gossip, to Emma in her rash blindness; to Harriet in her sweet silliness; to Frank Churchill, in his boyish enjoyment of stolen waters and bread eaten in secret, and the general mystification of his friends and acquaintances, no less than in his wilful, yet lovable and loyal passion for Jane Fairfax; to Mrs. Elton in her vain airs and clamorous self-assertion; to Mr. Knightley in his unpretending, kindly manliness.

FOOTNOTES:

[45] Written in 1815-16.

[46] What a capital picture, of an amiable rich man’s bondage.

[47] Are old abbeys so common in Hampshire that Jane Austen should have made two of her country-houses abbeys?

[48] The habit, now gone out of fashion, of having grown-up parlour-boarders in schools, rendered them more like homes for young people of all ages.

[49] These old genial suppers have vanished, being crowded out of existence by late dinners, which are very different meals.

[50] We can, however, imagine Harriet’s showing that book, with lingering pride and pleasure, to her grandchildren.

[51] The more convivial habits of the period peep out here and there in Jane Austen’s novels.

[52] Disingenuous, mocking Emma!

[53] In reading Jane Austen’s novels one is carried back to the time when good playing on the piano, or “the instrument” as it is frequently called, was held, in the higher classes, as it is now in much lower grades, a crowning mark of a liberal education in a girl. Yet Jane Austen herself fell short of this attainment, and she almost invariably makes her heroines--as in the experiences of Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, Catherine Morland, and Fanny Price--either to have failed in the duty of practising, so as not to have acquired more than a moderate proficiency in music, or else to have been deficient in musical taste or deprived of musical education.

[54] I have already said that Jane Austen wastes no time in descriptions of places; yet she often contrives to suggest so much in a few lines, that her pleasant, homely English scenes, no less than her life-like characters, rise vividly before the mind. That briefest description of Abbey Mill Farm--comfortable and tidy, with the short, straight walk between the apple-trees up to the front door--does its business thoroughly. I have seen more than one such cosy, trim, old-fashioned farmhouse, which has brought the exclamation to my lips, “That was where Harriet Smith visited the Martins.”

[55] I think it was Archbishop Whately who said, _apropos_ of Jane Austen’s novels, that so far from its being easy to represent the simplicity and folly which, like poverty, we have always with us, so as to divert a reader, it demands nothing short of genius for the task.

[56] Already, in the interval between the writing of “Pride and Prejudice” and of “Emma,” the constant use of men’s surnames in conversation was going out in good society.

[57] I have heard that a great modern statesman, who takes some relaxation in reading novels, and who is an ardent admirer of Jane Austen, is specially in love with Mrs. Elton. Her portrait is his favourite in this wonderful picture-gallery.

[58] In the course of the conversation, Jane Austen puts into Jane Fairfax’s mouth a strong expression of admiration for the post-office arrangements, with their regularity and despatch. Yet these were the days of heavily-taxed letters and delayed conveyance by coach. What would Jane Austen have thought of the penny post, with its multiplied responsibilities and requirements, to which railway celerity is given? and still the system bears the strain, and admirably fulfils the intention of its founder.

[59] Morning walks, “taken fasting,” are now, we may be thankful, an utterly exploded prescription for delicate men and women.

[60] In how many country houses in England is spruce beer to be found to-day?

[61] The position of Frank Churchill--dependent on his uncle and aunt, bound to humour their whims and wait on their pleasure--seems never to have struck Jane Austen as unmanly and undesirable.

[62] A striking illustration of what a good woman must suffer from such a false step as that which Jane Fairfax had taken.

[63] Emma has as much trouble in convincing her friends that she is not attached to Frank Churchill, as Elizabeth Bennet found in persuading her relations that she returned the affection of Darcy.

[64] Mr. Knightley’s quiet superiority to public opinion in making such a suggestion, is another fine point in a fine character.

[65] Babies’ tiny caps have disappeared, like some other articles of costume in Emma’s day. What would Mrs. Weston have thought of the bald little polls which are now fearlessly exposed by mothers and nurses?

[66]

“They’ve robed that maid so poor and pale
In silks and samites rare;
And pearls for drops of frozen hail
Are glistening in her hair.”

“SENSE AND SENSIBILITY,” AND “MANSFIELD PARK.”

Of the two novels for which I have not found space here, the one belongs to the first, and the other to the second series of Jane Austen’s tales.

“Sense and Sensibility” in its original form was, with the exception perhaps of “Lady Susan,” the first written of the author’s stories which have come down to us. It has always seemed to me inferior to the novels which follow it, though its writer not only re-wrote it in her youth, but prepared it again for the press in her mature years, and brought it out before “Pride and Prejudice.” The astonishing precedence thus given might, however, have been accidental, or it might have been the result of the publisher’s choice. It might also have been an instance of Jane Austen’s confidence in her own powers and steadfastness of purpose. Certainly she appears to have valued “Sense and Sensibility” as highly as her other novels: an example of the proverbial blindness of authors to the proportion of merit in their own writings.

To say that “Sense and Sensibility” is inferior to its companions is by no means to suggest that it is without excellence. It has many of the attractions of Miss Austen’s work. It is bright, clever, interesting and exceedingly life-like. Here and there, as in the characters of Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, and Mrs. Jennings there is a good deal of the author’s critical acumen and dry humour, yet they hardly arrive at their subsequent perfection. Thus Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, who are a little like Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in their youth, lag behind that entertaining couple.

In accordance with the name,[67] the story turns upon the relative advantages and disadvantages of sense and sensibility, the verdict being given, as might have been expected from the author, in favour of sense.

Two sisters, Ellinor and Marianne Dashwood, equally good, but the one full of quiet self-control, the other of impetuous feeling, which she never seeks to restrain, rather priding herself on its indulgence, as a proof of the strength and depth of her opinions and affections, have an oddly similar fate, being both in turn disappointed in love, and in a manner jilted by their respective lovers--Edward Ferrars, the reserved, sober-minded, somewhat sad, young clergyman; and John Willoughby, a frank, fervent, reckless young fellow, the masculine type which matches with the style of girls like Marianne Dashwood.

The causes and ends of the two sisters’ histories are quite different from each other. And the happy termination of Ellinor’s trials is not made a consequence of her superior wisdom and moderation--a nice distinction, with its appreciation of the facts of life, and of the rewards and punishments which must be inward, not outward, certainly remarkable in a young author.

Edward Ferrars’ unwitting injury to Ellinor proceeds from his too great susceptibility to her attractions, and his involuntary betrayal of his attachment when he is thrown much in her company, while all the time he is an unresisting victim to a foolish youthful engagement. The lady is a pert, underbred Lucy Steele, with an irrepressible sister Anne; both of them determined not to lose sight of a great match for Lucy.

Willoughby, after a romantic introduction to Marianne, first compromises himself by paying the most marked attention to the girl; and then, to meet the views of the relative on whom he is dependent, consents to give her up with the most cruel abruptness and harshness, and to pay his addresses to an heiress who is, in every respect save her fortune, repugnant to him.

Ellinor, who is made painfully aware of her lover’s entanglement by the cunning of Lucy Steele in selecting the very girl whom Edward Ferrars prefers for her confidante, behaves not merely with perfect honour, but bears the mortification and grief with such gentle dignity and patience, and such magnanimous consideration for the unhappiness of Edward and the rights of Lucy, as to rob her unhappiness of half its sting, and to escape all humiliating exposure to the speculation and pity of her friends and acquaintances.

Marianne--who, far from checking, has gloried in Willoughby’s extravagant devotion, and has never dreamt of concealing her answering devotion, which she regards as his due--abandons herself in the same proportion to incredulity, anguish, and despair on his desertion, until her life nearly pays the forfeit, and she has rendered herself an object either of ridicule or compassion to her whole circle.

At last Edward Ferrars is released, without dishonour on his part, from his rash engagement to Lucy Steele, by that calculating young lady’s having found a still better match in Edward’s less worthy brother, who is, however, the favourite son of their rich, tyrannical mother. The jilted man is thus free to consult his heart, and lays his tithes and parsonage at the feet of Ellinor Dashwood, who, on her part, is not too intolerant to accept the offer.

Marianne is cured of her folly by the shock of the illness which brings her to the brink of the grave, and by such atonement as Willoughby can offer, in the violence of his self-accusation and misery, when he believes she is dying, really killed by his barbarity. He takes a long night’s journey to inquire for her, and makes a clean breast to Ellinor of the reality of his love for her sister, and his remorse for the ill usage which, in his cowardliness and selfishness, he has inflicted on her.

Marianne Dashwood is so effectually cured--there is much hope for the broken heart of eighteen--that she listens before long, with gratitude and sympathy, to the constant, tender suit of that Colonel Brandon whom she had formerly laughed at and scorned as a lover, because he had reached the advanced age of thirty-five, had to take precautions against rheumatism, and confessed to having, when a young man, suffered from an unfortunate attachment; while Marianne Dashwood has not believed hitherto in any love save first love.

The evil of the gushing sensibility or sentimentality which, during the last century, girls were understood to cherish till it disqualified them for sober duty and rational behaviour, against which their mentors--whether young, blooming, and arch, like Jane Austen when she wrote “Sense and Sensibility,” or old, wrinkled, and grave, like Dr. Gregory when he delivered his advice to his daughters--were constantly warning young women, has given place in many quarters in this nineteenth century to a rollicking pretence of no feeling, a fast assumption of hardness, heartlessness and utter carelessness. Of the two evils the last would be the worse, if we could believe in its being anything more than an unlovely mask, in which bad manners and bad taste are occasionally combined with morbid shyness and sensitiveness, which, rather than betray themselves, assume the guise of levity, worldly-mindedness, or stolid indifference.

But the old frantic manifestations of love, hatred, and anguish are still to be found in a coarse, crude enough fashion; and, strange to say, are welcomed when found by the very readers who reprobate the existence in their own breasts of a pin’s prick of the piled-up agonies which they enjoy in print in not a few modern novels.

“Mansfield Park,” one of Jane Austen’s later tales, is also one of her best. The story is intended to show the wrong and suffering, the positive moral taint produced by an entirely worldly education--whether the worldliness has been confined to practice in opposition to principles, or whether the very principles have never been inculcated, or have been presented in such a distorted form as to lose all power for good.

The handsome, healthy, wealthy, well-born and well-bred sons and daughters of Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, have been fortunate in inheriting all the good things of this life; and not the least fortunate in possessing an honourable and upright father--though his social prejudices and his partiality to his own flesh and blood somewhat warp his judgment and dull his perceptions--and a mother who, though an indolent, self-indulgent woman, is utterly incapable of active unkindness or wrong-doing.

The counteracting, overbalancing loss against so much gain is, that the young Bertrams, with one exception, have never learnt the first rudiments of self-denial and self-restraint. Tom, Maria, and Julia Bertram, under a thin varnish of polish and liveliness, are thoroughly selfish, self-willed young people, not really happy amidst all their advantages and the popularity secured by them, and altogether unprepared for the temptations and vicissitudes of life. Only Edmund Bertram--who, as the younger son, brought up to fill the family living, may by comparison have borne the yoke in his youth--is manly, generous, and kind.

The Bertrams’ great friends, Henry and Mary Crawford, who had been left as orphans to the care of an uncle and aunt--of whom the first was one of the worst specimens of the coarse and vicious naval officer[68] of the day, and the second had lived a cat-and-dog life with her husband--have missed what ought to have been the firm foundation of the Bertrams’ characters.

No sacred sense of duty, no fine perception of rectitude extending to word and thought, no unsullied purity of tone, had been, even in theory, instilled into the Crawfords by the couple who, with all their faults, had still loved and petted the boy and girl entrusted to them; and so had been in one sense armed with deadliest weapons to destroy the children’s moral nature.

Henry and Mary Crawford have, according to a graphic old saying, hung as they grew, without training, unless in evil. They have been endowed with many fine natural gifts and qualities, in addition to the accessories of rank and wealth. With regard to the last, Henry has a good estate in Norfolk, and Mary possesses a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. In reference to the first, Mary is a lovely brunette, as well as a witty, merry, good-natured woman, who can play on the harp and sing in the long summer evenings to distraction--so far as young men are concerned. Henry, though not handsome, has a good figure and “a fine countenance,” by which old-fashioned phrase I understand a highly agreeable and intelligent expression of face. He is even wittier and more talented than his sister, frank, equal to any difficult occasion of social life, and capable of winning golden opinions in all; a special treasure in a dull country house; “a charming fellow”--in short, a very fascinating young man.

The two Crawfords present the fairest exterior on first acquaintance. They are cast in an altogether finer mould than Tom Bertram and his sisters, and are fitted for better things by a subtle touch of their author’s art. It takes time and trial to discover that under the winning surface there is neither soundness nor steadfastness: the very core is corrupt.

In broad contrast to the Crawfords and the Bertrams--all save Edmund--are Fanny and William Price, the daughter and son of the poor, worthless Lieutenant of Marines. They have been called upon from their earliest childhood to be helpful, contented with little, and self-forgetful. If Jane Austen dwelt somewhat strongly in “Emma” on the blessings of prosperity, in “Mansfield Park” she had already taught, and never with greater effect, how sweet were the uses of adversity.

Probably, of all the author’s heroines, Fanny Price, if not the most charming, is the greatest triumph of genius, for one can hardly conceive two natures moulded by circumstances more unlike than the life of Jane Austen in her youth, and that of the timid, shrinking, sickly Fanny Price. She comes as a humble _protégée_ to Mansfield Park, and has to endure all the well-meant but somewhat oppressive patronage of Sir Thomas, the perpetual fault-finding of her aunt Norris, and the alternate condescension and snubbing of her cousins--always excepting her champion, Edmund. But a little later on, even Edmund turns without knowing it against his little cousin, whom he has defended, encouraged, and been fond of ever since she came to Mansfield Park. For it is the worst heart-ache of all to Fanny to see the cousin Edmund whom she has looked up to, and loved all these years, about to throw himself away on Mary Crawford, whom Fanny knows, by sure instinct, to be unworthy of him. Edmund in his blindness insists on making his friend-pupil the confidante of his hopes and fears; nay, as if to add insult to injury, in his affectionate zeal for his young cousin’s welfare, he presses on her to accept the suit of another man.

So completely did Jane Austen realise all the softness and sweetness, and yet the staunchness--all the fragrant, white-violet-like charm of Fanny Price--so well did the author describe the pangs of wounded love in the tenderest of hearts--the meek mortification of a gentle nature which bore no grudge against its enemies--the pensive joys, the tremulous apprehensions of the situation--that Archbishop Whately went near to asserting the conviction that only a woman who had been herself crossed in love could thus fully interpret her heroine.

Mrs. Norris--Fanny’s terrible Aunt Norris, with her unslumbering activity, her restless meddling, her good deeds done by proxy in the parsimony which was stronger even than the love of rule, her doting indulgence to the young Bertrams, her carping snappishness to Fanny Price and her brother William--is an unsurpassed representation of a domineering, time-serving, radically harsh and mean nature, under all its pretensions and self-deceptions, as well as an inimitable piece of genteel comedy.

William Price--Fanny’s frank, light-hearted young sailor brother--with his pride in his profession, and his fondness for his sister, is also very good.

I do not wish to tell in a few words how Fanny escaped the imminent peril of being won by Henry Crawford. Indeed the peril, in the author’s fidelity to nature, is so imminent, in spite of Fanny’s pre-engaged affections--granting that they were hopeless--and the reader is so enchanted with the flattered young prince’s sudden keen appreciation of the neglected Cinderella, that he or she is tempted against reason, almost against conscience, to long that Henry Crawford’s love may prevail over his levity, vanity, and lack of settled principles, and earn its reward, rendering him at once a better and a happier man.

But Jane Austen knew better, and the grievous sin and shame which separate for ever Henry Crawford and Fanny Price, is made to open Edmund Bertram’s eyes to the moral gulf between his nature and that of Mary Crawford, which, no less than his sister’s degradation, simply renders it impossible for him to marry Mary.

The obstacles between the couple, who have been fitted for each other from the first, thus doubly swept away, Jane Austen does not waste many words in bringing them together, and leaving them happy for ever afterwards.

The scenes during the private theatricals--when Sir Thomas is lending dignified encouragement to Mr. Crawford’s attentions to his niece, by giving a ball at Mansfield Park--when Fanny is sent to pay her visit to her home at Portsmouth, not so much to punish her for her obstinate refusal of her gallant, undaunted lover, as to teach her when she is well off, and how she ought to prize the good fortune within her reach--are among the best Jane Austen has painted.

Jane Austen had something of a parental affection for her books. She wrote to a friend, whose little daughter had been lately born, “I trust you will be as glad to see my ‘Emma’ as I shall be to see your Jemima.” She did not dismiss from her mind the creatures of her fancy with the narrative in which they had figured. She seemed to like to follow them in imagination in the careers into which she had launched them. They were real men and women[69] to her. She would, when asked, supply further particulars of the history of some of these brain-children. Her friends learned in this way that Anne Steele found a husband in the doctor; that Kitty Bennet was satisfactorily married to a clergyman near Pemberley, while Mary obtained nothing higher than one of her Uncle Philip’s clerks, and was content to be considered a star in Meryton; that the considerable sum given by Mrs. Norris to William Price was one pound; that the letters placed by Frank Churchill before Jane Fairfax, which she swept away unread, contained the one word “_pardon!_” and that Mr. Woodhouse survived his daughter’s marriage, and kept her and Mr. Knightley from Donwell about two years.

FOOTNOTES:

[67] Jane Austen must have had a partiality for alliteration.

[68] In “Mansfield Park” it would seem as if Jane Austen impartially afforded a glimpse in Admiral Crawford and Lieutenant Price--though, to be sure, the last was only a lieutenant of marines--of the dark side of the members of the naval profession, whose bright side she illustrated, _con amore_, in William Price and in the naval officers in “Persuasion.”

[69] Children and animals are as much in the background in Jane Austen’s novels as they were in the society of her day.

“PERSUASION.”[70]