Chapter III: Part 3

But this tale of Marianne and her Willoughby has one element entirely absent from _Pride and Prejudice_, and never again attempted by Jane Austen. It may be said to border on melodrama. The young people’s ingenuous revels in emotion, whether of joy or grief, surprise one in so balanced a writer, and reveal powers we should not otherwise have suspected. Marianne, indeed, is the very personification of that sensibility, so dear to “elegant females” of the old world, so foreign to modern ideals. Having chosen her type, Miss Austen would seem determined to show how far she could go in this direction without distorting humanity. To the more conventional Miss Burney, sensibility was a grace essential in heroines. She is its acknowledged exponent, and compels us, despite prejudice, to recognise its real charm. But neither Evelina nor Cecilia exhibits so much naïveté as Marianne, such tempestuous abandon, such a fiery glow; yet we can read of her with equal patience, we can love her no less. She is saved, for us, by her genuine affection for “sensible” Eleanor, and her unselfish devotion to a mother who seems even younger and more foolish than herself. And Willoughby’s temperament fits her like a glove. His wooing, his wickedness, and his repentance belong to a generation before Miss Austen’s. Through this couple she triumphs in otherwise unexplored regions.

_Northanger Abbey_ has very much the appearance of juvenile effort, possibly recast in maturity. If not actually written in girlhood, it must be regarded as the flower of a true holiday spirit, blossoming in sheer fun. Fresh from the excited perusal of some novel by the terrifying Anne Radcliffe, whom I believe Miss Austen enjoyed as keenly as her own Catherine, she must have thrown herself into the composition of this delightful parody, just to renew its thrills, to linger over its absurdities. It is all pure farce, exaggeration cheerfully unrestrained. The irrepressible Arabella belongs to Miss Burney: her boasting brother should hang in the same gallery. Dear, foolish Catherine’s idle imaginings about General Tilney were never meant to resemble nature. Henry could scarcely have forgiven them, had he taken her quite seriously. Moreover, having one parody in hand, Miss Austen gaily embarks on yet another, no less irresponsible and spontaneous. Catherine is Evelina in miniature; the real _ingénue_ whose country breeding exposes her to the most diverting distresses in a Society amazingly mixed. Hovering between Thorpes and Tilneys, like Evelina between Mirvans and Branghtons, she enters each circle with the same innocence, enthusiasm, and naïveté. Miss Austen’s sly boast of originality in allowing her heroine to fall in love without stopping to ascertain “the gentleman’s feelings,” is but gentle raillery at a similar presumption in Miss Burney. Certainly Orville, no less than Tilney, was led on to serious thoughts of matrimony by the simple-minded revelation of a pretty girl’s partiality.

Where a laugh lurks behind every sentence, we need not expect the special “studies in humour” which stand out, everywhere, in the more serious stories. Yet General Tilney (later perfected in Sir Walter Elliot) is a finished sketch: while John Thorpe, who never opens his lips without betraying himself; and Arabella, whether in pursuit of the “two young men” or quizzing the naughty Captain, were hard to beat.

Nowhere, in all her work, has Miss Austen concentrated such pungent sarcasm as in the condescending explanation of how much folly reasonable men _prefer_ in lovely women.

“The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable, and too well informed themselves, to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.”

Do not the smooth words sting?

Approaching the second group, we look naturally, and not in vain, for evidence of maturity and development. Miss Austen does not, in fact, make any attempt to enlarge her sphere, to widen her outlook, to handle more strenuous emotion. But her plots, still based on parochial gossip, are more varied and complex: she works with a larger number of characters; actually perfecting some types already familiar, and introducing us to many a new acquaintance. Above all, her dramatis personæ are no longer fixed and defined at their first entrance: they grow with the story, often surprising us at last by qualities, no doubt dormant from the beginning, and never strained or inconsistent, but only possible to development through experience.

_Emma_ obviously invites comparison with _Pride and Prejudice_. The two heroines have long shared almost equally the position of a most popular favourite: one or other of the two books is almost universally judged her best. The charms of Emma and Harriet are more _naturally_ diverse because they are _not_ sisters: yet in the accidents of intimacy, mutual confidence, and common interests they form a basis for the plot precisely similar to that of the sisters in _Pride and Prejudice_ or _Sense and Sensibility_, not greatly differing from those in _Mansfield Park_ or _Persuasion_. Mr. Elton, the very pink of pretentious vulgarity, recalls Lydia and Lucy Steele: her _caro sposo_ eclipses Mr. Collins on his own ground. Miss Bates the garrulous, and Mr. Woodhouse the fussy, varied examples of the eternal bore, are formidable rivals, if not conquerors, of the inimitable Lady Catherine. Here we have “characters” in greater abundance, almost more finished in fuller detail.

Advance is more obvious, however, in the introduction of such independent family groups as the Westons, the Martins, the John Knightleys, and the Eltons: in the presence of a full-grown secondary plot--“The Fairfax Mystery,” as we might call it: and in the heroine’s _development_ through experience. A secret engagement is, in itself, new kind of material for Jane Austen to handle: well calculated to exercise her delicate command of dialogue. It lends particular interest to this novel, however simple the intrigue compared with more modern examples, however foreign to our own conceptions the “sense of sin” thereby engendered in Jane Fairfax. Young Churchill’s spirited conduct of the affair is a perpetual delight, certainly not least for its unintentional humbling of “the great Miss Woodhouse”: though his insinuations about Mr. Dixon (like Darcy’s rudeness) exceed the licence permitted a gentleman, however spoilt and high-spirited.

We have already noted the popularity of Emma, but, in this _unlike_ Elizabeth, she has her detractors. Some find her too managing, self-centred, and “superior” for charm. Admittedly she is a matchmaker, far less refined than she imagines herself: her rudeness to Miss Bates is difficult to pardon. But, as Knightley alone had the wit to recognise, Harriet’s innocent folly encouraged her worst qualities, and Emma’s repentance is sincere, bearing good fruit. To the end she is herself indeed; but how different a self--standing witness to the powers of character in bringing out the best of us. Having played with fire, she learnt her lesson, and so we may leave her, no less marvelling than she at the workings of what little Harriet was pleased to call her heart; admiring, as all must, Jane Austen’s finished study of that engaging “Miss.”

_Mansfield Park_, probably, is the least popular of the novels--on account of its heroine. Fanny Price has her partisans, but can never become a general favourite, until we again idealise humility in woman. Accepting, without a murmur, the most unreasonable and most exacting demands of all her “betters”; meekly grateful, to the point of servility, if Edmund bestows on her a kind word; she stands before us condemned by every code accepted to-day.

Yet Fanny, reversing the process in Emma, acquires self-confidence with years, and actually learns to play the heroine in adversity. The novel contains Miss Austen’s first, and last, picture of the great world beyond parish boundaries: it deals, successfully, with greater contrasts in social status than she ever attempted before or since. Lady Bertram, no less than Mrs. Norris, fairly eclipses all former achievements in character study.

Its crowded canvas, indeed, demands notice in detail. Sir Thomas neglects his family much as did Mr. Bennet, and suffers more serious punishment. The “villain” is replaced by Henry and Miss Crawford, of the world, worldly: figuring at first as very wholesome instruments of distraction to a stiff family circle; but ingeniously convicted, in touch with realities, of serious moral depravity. Their presence, however, reveals new power in the authoress, and considerably enlivens the scene. They do much towards the development of Fanny.

No two characters, on the other hand, could be more profoundly diverse than those of Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris: yet they fit each other without friction, and it were hard indeed to say which is more perfectly drawn. A woman more utterly devoid of feeling or lacking in common sense than the former, it is impossible to conceive. The mere hint of responsibility towards anyone or anything would have shattered her nerves completely; and no emergency, of joy or grief, ever taught her to face the exertion of making up her own mind for herself on the most trivial question. Yet there is no exaggeration. She is perfectly natural, not without charm, an ornament to the family circle whom all would miss. For Mrs. Norris, the intolerable busybody, it has been suggested that Miss Austen owed something directly to personal experience. Was this her revenge for much silent endurance? Certainly so much concentrated scorn, so stern a portrait seems to imply animus. Gentle, tender, and sympathetic by nature, was she at times lashed to fury by the cruel inanity of village types? Mrs. Elton, Miss Bates, and Mr. Collins may, in a less degree, have been similarly inspired. If it be so, verily they have their reward.

The central motive in _Mansfield Park_ is more complex than heretofore: its scenes more varied. The whole episode of Fanny’s visit to her struggling parents, and their squalid home, introduces an aspect of life elsewhere ignored, shows us humanity unrefined. The work is alive and vigorous, not altogether foreign to modern realism. Coming, moreover, from such uncongenial, and to them unfamiliar, surroundings; bred to hard work and hard times; cousin Fanny brings a new element into the lives of the elegant Miss Bertrams, our usual couple of sisters; who, again, are destined to further awakening from the manners and experience of Mary Crawford.

Finally, we have here the nearest approach to a so-called “social problem” ever handled by Jane Austen, and a thoroughly serious picture of punishment. It may seem hard to all of us, and modern casuists would certainly declare it unjust, that Maria should suffer so much more than Julia, who had no more principle, but less opportunity. In this matter, however, Miss Austen is uncompromising. Of the two Maria was more spoilt--by Mrs. Norris, more exposed to temptation; and actually committed sin. _Therefore she must expect punishment._ Julia proved herself equally cold-hearted and selfish; but by luck, neither through wisdom nor goodness, she kept within the code--and was forgiven.

Miss Austen does not let off the man altogether; for it is quite clear that Henry Crawford lost Fanny, and, with her, his best chance for happiness. But Maria lost everything; and so, the authoress seems to imply, it must be always. There is no hint of mercy, no chance for retrievement, in one of the sternest decrees of Fate that could overtake a woman--perpetual imprisonment with her aunt!

“Shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment, it may reasonably be supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment.”

Justice, indeed, hath fair play with Mrs. Norris. May we not whisper--Poor Maria!

_Persuasion_, Miss Austen’s last work and perhaps her finest, reveals maturity in other ways. No longer than _Northanger Abbey_, it has neither the complexity nor the crowded canvas distinguishing others of the second group. It is written throughout in a minor key, without one outstanding comic “character.” But, on the other hand, its construction is singularly compact, its emotions have a new depth, sincerity, and tenderness. Anne Elliot can never rival Elizabeth or Emma; though she is no less “superior” to her own family, and has in reality more character. Here our appreciation and our sympathies are emotional rather than intellectual. _We feel with her_ far more than with them. Though never recognised in her own circle, as were all Miss Austen’s heroines save Fanny Price, she dominates the story more than any. _Persuasion_, in fact, is a study in character, such as its authoress had never before attempted. No more, if indeed actually less, sensational than its predecessors, the whole scheme moves below the surface. It holds us more by feeling and atmosphere than by incident. We experience a similar delight in the perfectly turned phrases, the finished dialogue, and the neat characterisation; but here are no figures of fun, no animated social functions, no clash of types. We may smile, indeed, at Sir Walter Elliot or at the family of Uppercross; but the humour, however subtle and permeating, does not anywhere prevail over deeper emotion.

Certainly we note that Miss Austen still seeks out no new material, depends on no more startling situation. Anne’s happiness and misery alike arise, as did Jane’s and Elizabeth’s, from a refinement to which every other member of her family was absolutely blind. The natural understanding between two sisters is destroyed, as between Julia and Maria, by rivalry for the one eligible visitor to the neighbourhood; though here with no permanently disastrous results. The naïvely conceived villain of the first group has become--again as in _Mansfield Park_--an accomplished man of the world, with no sister indeed to further his perfectly honourable designs on the heroine, but, in the last event, not lacking a female accomplice. Its most striking effect in local colour, the glowing picture of naval types, was foreshadowed in William Price: though Admiral and Mrs. Croft admittedly stand high in Miss Austen’s gallery of character-studies. Society, as in _Northanger Abbey_, is located at Bath.

Yet nowhere has she attempted, with any approach to a like depth of feeling or earnestness, so much philosophy on life, so searching an analysis of human nature, as in the remarkable conversation on faithfulness, as severally exhibited by men and women, which artistically produces a permanent understanding between hero and heroine.

“Oh!” cried Anne eagerly to Captain Harville, “I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman. No, 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.”

This is the text of the whole novel, woven with subtlety into its very fabric, inspiring each thought, each word, though never obtruding. _Persuasion_ is neither a sermon nor a pamphlet. Its author assuredly holds no brief for woman, brings no charge against man. Yet here she speaks for her sex. Of what she has seen and felt it would appear that she could no longer remain silent.

Jane Austen reveals herself in her last message to posterity.

_Sense and Sensibility_, 1811.
_Pride and Prejudice_, 1813.
_Mansfield Park_, 1814.
_Emma_, 1816.
_Northanger Abbey_, 1818.
_Persuasion_, 1818.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Both passages are quoted on page 129.

[4] Also in the _Quarterly_, 1821.

[5] It is scarcely necessary, perhaps, to remark that the word “realism” is used, here and elsewhere, without any reference to the limited significance it has recently acquired. Realism, of course, really means truthfulness to life, _including_ imagination, faith, poetry, and the ideal; and _not_ a photographic reproduction of certain unpleasant, more or less abnormal, phases of human nature.

A “MOST ACCOMPLISHED COQUETTE”

In spite of the almost universal inclination to pass over Jane Austen’s “minor” works without serious comment, we are ourselves strongly disposed to consider _Lady Susan_ of considerable importance.

The early compositions, if sprightly, are not precocious: the cancelled chapter of _Persuasion_--replaced only eleven months before her death by chaps. x. and xi.--remains an interesting record of what would have fully satisfied a less careful artist; and the description--with extracts--which Mr. Austen-Leigh has given us of the novel begun on 27th January 1817 and continued until the 17th of March,[6] does not contain body enough for confident anticipation: _i.e._ of detail. There is, however, no reason for dreading any decline in artistic power.

Water-marks of 1803 and 1804 on the original manuscript prove _The Watsons_ to have been written between her two periods of productive activity; and it is not likely that definite evidence will now transpire in explanation of its having been left unfinished: unless we accept Mr. Austen-Leigh’s somewhat fastidious conclusion--

“that the author became aware of the evil of having placed her heroine too low, in such a position of poverty and obscurity as, though not necessarily connected with vulgarity, has a sad tendency to degenerate into it; and therefore, like a singer who has begun on too low a note, she discontinued the strain. It was an error of which she was likely to become more sensible, as she grew older, and saw more of society: certainly she never repeated it by placing the heroine of any subsequent work under circumstances likely to be unfavourable to the refinement of a lady.”[7]

Her nephew further remarks that “it could not have been broken up for the purpose of using the materials in another fabric”; although, in his opinion, a resemblance between Mr. Robert Watson and Mr. Elton is “very discernible.” We might also observe that Mr. Watson appears to have taken his “basin of gruel” as regularly as Mr. Woodhouse; while, on the other hand, Lord Osborne’s affected superiority to dancing recalls Darcy. Miss Watson’s theories on life and marriage are particularly characteristic:

“I would rather do anything than be a teacher at a school. _I_ have been at school, Emma, and know what a life they lead; _you_ never have. I should not like marrying a disagreeable man any more than yourself; but I do not think there _are_ many very disagreeable men; I think I could like any good-humoured man with a comfortable income. I suppose my aunt brought you up to be rather refined.”

Emma Watson, in fact, like all Jane Austen’s heroines, shines by _comparison_ with the rest of her family.

_Lady Susan_, unlike any of the stories mentioned above, is obviously complete and finished. “Her family have always believed it to be an early production”; but we cannot conjecture why it was laid aside and never published by her. It is, however, an “experiment”--never repeated; and very possibly Jane Austen did not feel moved to revise what evidently had not satisfied her own standard of perfection.

For us, however, its striking dissimilarity to the six recognised “works,” and its unique position in the development of fiction, are of peculiar interest. To begin with, it belongs to the old “picaresque” school of fiction, seldom popular in England, though practised with considerable vigour by Defoe, and _once_ revived by Thackeray in a work of genius--_Barry Lyndon_.

It may, perhaps, be considered an exaggeration to call the heroine a villain; and certainly Jane Austen entirely avoids the sordid material of criminal adventure (_not_ scorned by Thackeray); which is the recognised foundation of ordinary picaresque work. But the essential characteristic remains prominent. The good people are comparatively colourless; our interest centres around _Lady Susan_, and it is on her that the author has devoted her most careful work. Moreover, it should not be overlooked that _Lady Susan_ does contemplate, and actually instigate--in refined language--a course of action which may fairly be called criminal. The confidante, Mrs. Johnson--a recognised appendage to villainy--receives the following significant hint:

“Mainwaring is more devoted to me than ever; and were we at liberty, I doubt if I could resist even matrimony offered by _him_. This event, if his wife live with you, it may be in your power to hasten. The violence of her feelings, which must wear her out, may easily be kept in irritation. _I rely on your friendship for this._”

The quiet audacity of this paragraph is really astounding; and just because no other word in all the forty-one letters contains so much as a hint at anything beyond unblushing effrontery and reckless lying, we regard it, without hesitation, as the keynote of Jane Austen’s method, and the declaration of her aim. Only a villain could possibly have written these words; only a genius could have refrained from giving her away on some other occasion.

Superficially, Lady Susan is no worse than a merry widow, given to man conquest, perfectly indifferent--if not contemptuous--towards the wives or the fiancées of her victims. In this matter, indeed, her enemies complain that “she does not confine herself to that sort of honest flirtation which satisfies most people, but aspires to the more delicious gratification of making a whole family miserable.” During the first months of widowhood she had determined on “discretion” and being “as quiet as possible”:--“I have admitted no one’s attentions but Mainwaring’s. I have avoided _all general flirtation_ whatever; I have distinguished no creature besides, of all the numbers resorting hither, except Sir John Martin, on whom I bestowed a little notice, in order to detach him from Miss Mainwaring; but, if the world could know my motive _there_ they would honour me”;--the fact being that she wanted the man for her daughter.

This “most accomplished coquette in England” is described with some fullness by a sister-in-law who had every reason to think ill of her.

“She is really excessively pretty; however you may choose to question the allurements of a lady no longer young, I must, for my own part, declare that I have seldom seen so lovely a woman as Lady Susan. She is delicately fair, with fine grey eyes and dark eyelashes; and from her appearance one would not suppose her more than five and twenty; though she must in fact be ten years older. I was certainly not disposed to admire her, though always hearing she was beautiful; but I cannot help feeling that she possesses an uncommon union of symmetry, brilliancy, and grace. Her address to me was so gentle, frank, and even affectionate, that, if I had not known how much she has always disliked me for marrying Mr. Vernon, and that we had never met before, I should have imagined her an attached friend. One is apt, I believe, to connect assurance of manner with coquetry, and to expect that an impudent address will naturally attend an impudent mind; at least, I myself was prepared for an improper degree of confidence in Lady Susan; but her countenance is absolutely sweet, and her voice and manner winningly mild. I am sorry it is so, for what is this but deceit? Unfortunately, one knows her too well. She is clever and agreeable, has all that knowledge of the world which makes conversation easy, and talks very well, with a happy command of language, which is too often used, I believe, to make black appear white.”

Such being the lady’s own manners and sentiments, we are fully prepared for her satirical references to her daughter:

“I never saw a girl of her age”--she was sixteen--“bid fairer to be the sport of mankind. Her feelings are tolerably acute, and she is so charmingly artless in their display as to afford the most reasonable hope of her being ridiculous, and despised by every man who sees her. Artlessness will never do in love-matters; and that girl is born a simpleton who has it either by nature or affectation.”

It is hardly necessary to add that Lady Susan has no desire, or ambition, in life beyond universal admiration. She is “tempted” indeed, but does not on one occasion lose her head: and we cannot feel that she was even exactly pre-eminent in her practice. It does not appear that she quite succeeded in ever enjoying the fruits of victory. Miss Austen has not drawn for us a really “cunning” coquette. Lady Susan subdued men, but she could seldom hold them; and on no occasion does she conquer “circumstances,” _i.e._, other women.

There may be, obviously, three explanations of this fact. Either Jane Austen was lacking in the more robust humour of Thackeray and his predecessors, who seem to revel in the gaiety of the heartless; or she recognised the limitations of country life, where the artificial can never prosper for long; or she had, in her own quiet way, too much principle to countenance, even in fiction, any permanent happiness for the wicked.

However it be, the result is unique. Lady Susan stands alone as a heroine. As we have seen, the full depths of her criminality lurk beneath the surface: her power is rather hinted at than described. It is only on looking back over the accumulation of slight touches and chance words that we realise her astounding insincerity, her absolute lack of feeling, or the brilliance of her superficial attractiveness. It is a very short book, containing few characters and practically no events; yet we are startled, on reflection, at its unsparing picture of the incalculable amount of mischief that may be done by sheer empty-headedness, entirely without strong feeling or passion; and of the incredible isolation in which such a character must always live.

Lady Susan injures, in some degree, literally every person named in the whole story. She has not a friend in the world. In reality, perhaps, the last consideration indicates most clearly the virtue in Miss Austen’s characterisation. It is not once even mentioned, and, consequently, arouses no remark. We must deduct from it our own observation. But, inasmuch as never for one instant does a single thought for anyone but herself cross the mind of Lady Susan, so never does anyone else show one spark of affection for her. Mrs. Johnson, obviously, was governed by interested motives, and frankly abandons her at the first serious danger of “the consequences” to herself. The kind of devotion she inspired in men had no affinity to friendship, respect, consideration, or unselfishness. The closing scene is described with a cutting brevity, that recalls Miss Austen’s dismissal of Maria Rushworth and Mrs. Norris.

She married the man designed for her daughter--for an establishment: “Whether Lady Susan was or was not happy in her second choice, I do not see how it can ever be ascertained; for who would take her assurance of it on either side of the question? The world must judge from probabilities; she had nothing against her but her husband, and her conscience.”

As we have noticed before, Miss Austen seldom obtrudes her opinions, but they are occasionally implied. And, on such occasions, they are unhesitating. We find in her no doubt, no compromise--we might almost say no charity--about a few questions of ultimate morality.

On the whole, however, we cannot claim for _Lady Susan_ all those perfections of style associated with the genius of its author. Save for a few turns of phrase, of which we have quoted the most significant, it has little of her pointed epigram or subtle humour. The language is equally finished and inevitable, but there is neither sparkle nor gaiety. We miss the dialogue and the delicate variety in characterisation. It would be hazardous, indeed, to suppose that anyone could have “discovered” Jane Austen from Lady Susan; but, knowing her other work, we can detect the mastery.

In conclusion, it is worth noticing that she has here given us some insight into the constancy of man.

Reginald de Courcy had been a victim of Lady Susan’s. After her second marriage, her daughter

“Frederika was fixed in the family of her uncle and aunt till such time as Reginald de Courcy could be talked, flattered, and finessed into an affection for her which, allowing leisure for the conquest of his attachment to her mother, for his abjuring all future attachments, and detesting the sex, _might be reasonably looked for in a twelvemonth_. Three months might have done it in general, but Reginald’s feelings were no less lasting than lively.”

It will be remembered that Miss Austen is less explicit about Edmund Bertram:

“I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that every one may be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as to time in different people. I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire.”

On the other hand, Marianne Dashwood required two years to conquer her devotion to Willoughby in favour of Colonel Brandon; but then Miss Austen has claimed for her sex, through Anne Elliot, “the privilege of loving longest, when existence, or when hope, is gone.”

FOOTNOTES:

[6] She died 18th July 1817.

[7] It may surely be questioned whether this remark quite allows for the home of Fanny Price.

PARALLEL PASSAGES

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to name an author of genius even approximately equal to Jane Austen’s who owed so little as she to any deliberate study of literary models or conscious attention to the laws of style. Concerning her personal character and private interests we know, indeed, surprisingly little; but it is certain, on the one hand, that she was not in touch with the men and women of letters among her contemporaries, and, on the other, that her family circle did not practise the gentle art of criticism. The further assumption that she had thought little, and read less, about the theory of her art, is justified by the absence of any such references in her letters, and by her simple ideas of construction, as developed in the advice to a young relative who was attempting to follow her example:

“You are now collecting your people delightfully, getting them exactly into such a spot as is the delight of my life. Three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on.”

Jane Austen, however, read novels with keen enjoyment: _Northanger Abbey_ is in part an avowed burlesque of Mrs. Radcliffe, and we can discover, in the language of Shakespearean commentary, the “originals” for several of her plots and persons in the works of Fanny Burney.

Such an investigation, indeed, seems to have been almost courted by the author herself when she borrowed a title from a chance phrase of her sister-novelist’s, for a story with a somewhat similar plot, developed, among other coincidences, in two closely parallel scenes. When at length, after a series of cruel misfortunes, the hero and heroine of _Cecilia_ were permitted to console each other, an onlooker thus pointed the moral of their experience: “The whole of this unfortunate business has been the result of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.”

There must have been a day, about twenty years after they were written, when these words assumed, in Jane Austen’s eyes, a sudden significance. She had read them before, probably many times, but on this occasion they proved no less than an inspiration. Within her desk, on which perhaps the favourite volume was then lying, lay the neatly written manuscript of a tale constructed, in some measure, on the lines of this very _Cecilia_. She had called it _First Impressions_. Would not _Pride and Prejudice_ be a better name? It was certainly a happy thought.[8]

Now Delvile, like Darcy, fell in love against his family instincts, and, with an equally offensive condescension, discoursed at length on his struggles between pride and passion to the young lady he desired to honour with his affection. He, too, resisted long, yielded in the end, and was forgiven. His mother’s appeal to Cecilia was as violent, and almost as impertinent, as Lady Catherine’s to Elizabeth.

A close comparison of these two parallel scenes will serve at once to show Jane Austen’s familiarity with the copy and her originality of treatment. Darcy, like Delvile, is not “more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride.” But he has overcome his scruples and offers his hand, in confidence of its being accepted, to one who dislikes and despises him. Delvile, on the other hand, wishes merely to explain the reasons that have induced him to deny himself the dangerous solace of the “society” of one whom he believes to be entirely indifferent to him, and to excuse the occasional outbursts of tenderness into which he has been betrayed in unguarded moments. He does not complain of “the inferiority of her connections,” but of the clause in her uncle’s will by which her future husband is compelled to take her name. Cecilia had been puzzled by his uncertain behaviour, but, believing him only cautious from respect to his parents, had permitted herself to love him.

Mrs. Delvile again, like Lady Catherine, based her appeal on the “honour and credit” of the young man she was so anxious to release; but her insolence was tempered by affection, and disguised by high-sounding moral sentiments. Cecilia was softened, as Elizabeth had not been, by a sense of gratitude for past kindness and by a strained notion of respect for the older lady. Mrs. Delvile, except in her pride, is intended to inspire us with genuine respect; Lady Catherine is always treated with amused contempt.

There are other instances--less familiar, but equally striking--in which Miss Austen made use, in her own inimitable fashion, of characters, phrases, and situations in _Evelina_ and _Cecilia_.

Mr. Delvile, the pompous and foolish man of family, reappears in Sir Walter Elliot of _Persuasion_, and General Tilney of _Northanger Abbey_. Cecilia could never determine “whether Mr. Delvile’s haughtiness or his condescension humbled her most,” and he became “at length so infinitely condescending, with intention to give her courage, that he totally depressed her with mortification and chagrin.” Catherine Morland always found that “in spite of General Tilney’s great civilities to her, in spite of his thanks, invitations, and compliments, it had been a release to get away from him.”

Cecilia’s friendship for Henrietta Belfield resembles Emma’s for Harriet Smith. She was ever watching the state of her young friend’s heart; now soliciting her confidence, and again, from motives of prudence, rejecting it. For a time both girls are in love with the hero, and Henrietta dreams as fondly and as foolishly over Delvile’s imagined partiality as Harriet did over Knightley’s. Neither heroine has any thought of resigning her lover to her friend, or “of resolving to refuse him at once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not marry them both.”

The following conversation between Mr. Gosport and Miss Larolles recalls Miss Steele’s persistence in laughing at herself about the doctor (_Sense and Sensibility_), and Tom Bertram’s affected belief that Miss Crawford was “quizzing him and Miss Anderson” (_Mansfield Park_).

Gosport attacks Miss Larolles on a rumour now current about her, and, after some skirmishing, confesses to having heard that “she had left off talking.”

“‘Oh, was that all,’ cried she, disappointed. ‘I thought it had been something about Mr. Sawyer, for I declare I have been plagued so about him, I am quite sick of his name.’

“‘And for my part, I never heard it! So fear nothing from me on his account.’

“‘Lord, Mr. Gosport, how can you say so! I am sure you must know about the festino that night, for it was all over the town in a moment.’

“‘What festino?’

“‘Well, only conceive how provoking! Why, I know nothing else was talked of for a month.’”

This is the Miss Larolles who haunted the mind of Anne Elliot, in _Persuasion_, when she moved to the end of a form at the concert, in order to be sure of not missing Captain Wentworth:

“She could not do so without comparing herself with Miss Larolles, the inimitable Miss Larolles, but still she did it, and not with much happier effect.”

Here is the passage in question: “Do you know,” says Miss Larolles,

“Mr. Meadows has not spoke one word to me all the evening! though I am sure he saw me, for _I sat at the outside_ on purpose to speak to a person or two, that I knew would be strolling about; for if one sits on the inside there’s no speaking to a creature you know; so I never do it at the opera, nor in the boxes at Ranelagh, nor anywhere. It’s the shockingest thing you can conceive, to be made sit in the middle of these forms, one might as well be at home, for nobody can speak to one.”

The singularly unselfish affection of Mrs. and Miss Mirvan for Evelina, never clouded by envy of her superior attractions, finds its echo in the experience of Jane Fairfax:

“The affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss Campbell in particular, was the more honourable to each party, from the circumstance of Jane’s decided superiority, both in beauty and acquirements.”

When Evelina is in great trouble, and the “best of men,” Mr. Villars, is penetrated to the heart by the sight of her grief, he can think of no better consolation than:

“My dearest child, I cannot bear to see thy tears; for my sake dry them: such a sight is too much for me: _think of that_, Evelina, and take comfort, I charge thee.”

With similar masculine futility the self-centred Edmund Bertram attempts to soften the grief of his dear cousin:

“No wonder--you must feel it--you must suffer. How a man who had once loved, could desert you. But yours--your regard was new compared with----Fanny, _think of me_.”

Many a reader, doubtless, has, with Elizabeth Bennet, “lifted up his eyes in amazement” at the platitudes of Mary on the occasion of Lydia’s elopement, without suspecting that offensive young moralist of having culled her phrases from the earlier novelist. “Remember, my dear Evelina,” writes Mr. Villars, “nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman; _it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle_ of all human things.” Now Mary was “a great reader and made extracts.” She evidently studied the art of judicious quotation: “Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia,” says this astounding sister,

“we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable--that one false step involves her in endless ruin--that her reputation _is no less brittle than it is beautiful_, and that she cannot be too guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.”

The general resemblance of Catherine Morland’s situation to Evelina’s may have been unconscious, but was scarcely, we think, accidental. In _Northanger Abbey_, as in no other of Miss Austen’s novels, though in all Miss Burney’s, the heroine is detached from her ordinary surroundings and introduced to society under the inefficient protection of foolish acquaintances. Like Evelina, she finds in the great world much cause for alarm and anxiety, though, like her, she has the hero for partner at her first ball. She, too, is frequently tormented by the differences between her aristocratic and her vulgar friends. Henry Tilney’s attitude towards her, on the other hand, is very similar to Lord Orville’s towards Evelina. He can read her like an open book, and his discovery of her suspicions about his father is as ingenious and as delicately revealed as Orville’s generous chivalry to Evelina at the ridotto. Indeed, had Fanny Burney been more daring she would have confessed that Orville’s affection for Evelina, like Tilney’s for Catherine,

“originated in nothing better than gratitude; or in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought.”

The admiration which Evelina expressed with so much naïveté and earnestness to her guardian must have betrayed itself in her looks and conversation. Orville’s heart was won by unconscious flattery, though Miss Burney herself was too conventional to admit it. She left the conception and its defence to another. “It is a new circumstance in romance,” writes Miss Austen, “and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine’s dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own.”

We can scarcely avoid wondering whether Miss Austen remembered Sir Clement Willoughby when she decided upon the name of Marianne’s devoted, but faithless, lover. The two men bear somewhat similar relations to hero and heroine.

In one of her rare outbursts of self-confidence with the reader, Miss Austen appears to put _Camilla_ on a level with _Cecilia_; and Thorpe’s abuse of this novel in _Northanger Abbey_ must be interpreted as her own indirect praise, for that youth is never allowed to open his lips without exposing himself to our derision. It is immaterial to our purpose that posterity has accepted his verdict rather than Miss Austen’s. Her name appears among the subscribers to _Camilla_, and she was loyal to it without an effort. Here she was not likely to find much available material; but the conduct of Miss Margland towards Sir Hugh Tyrold and his adopted children may have suggested some traits in Mrs. Norris, and Mr. Westwyn’s naïve enthusiasm for his son bears a strong resemblance to that of Mr. Weston[9] for the inevitable Frank Churchill.

Miss Bingley made herself ridiculous by her definition of an accomplished woman as one who “must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages.” The germ of the satire appears in the experiences of Miss Burney’s _The Wanderer_, and in an allusion to the prevalent idea of feminine culture in _Camilla_:

“A little music, a little drawing, and a little dancing, which should all be but slightly pursued, to distinguish a lady of fashion from an artist.”

So writes Jane Austen, again, in _Lady Susan_:

“Not that I am an advocate for the prevailing fashion of acquiring a perfect knowledge of all languages, arts, and sciences. It is throwing away time to be mistress of French, Italian, and German; music, singing, and dancing.... I do not mean, therefore, that Frederika’s acquirements should be more than superficial, and I flatter myself that she will not remain long enough at school to understand anything thoroughly.”

It remains only to notice with what kindred indignation the two writers complain of the little honour accorded their craft. Miss Burney, in fact, did much to raise her profession; but it was not considered “quite respectable” by Miss Austen’s contemporaries.

Mr. Delvile complains of Cecilia’s large bill at the booksellers’, on the ground that

“a lady, whether so called from birth, or only from fortune, should never degrade herself by being put on a level with writers, and such sort of people.”

In the preface to _Evelina_ Miss Burney declares that

“in the republic of letters, there is no member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his brethren of the quill, as the humble novelist; nor is his fate less hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers, perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous but less respectable.”

Jane Austen is more spirited in her complaint, and takes her example from Miss Burney herself:

“Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with novel-writers, of degrading, by their contemptuous censure, the very performances to the number of which they are themselves adding; joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of one novel be not patronised by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the Press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers; and while the ability of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the _Spectator_ and a chapter from Sterne, is eulogised by a thousand pens, there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. ‘I am no novel-reader; I seldom look into novels; it is really very well for a novel.’ Such is the common cant. ‘And what are you reading, Miss ----?’ ‘Oh, it’s only a novel!’ replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference or momentary shame. ‘It is only _Cecilia_, or _Camilla_, or _Belinda_,’ or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.”

FOOTNOTES:

[8] There is good ground for thinking that the change of title was made after the novel was finished, for Mr. Austen-Leigh says that _Pride and Prejudice_ was written between October 1796 and August 1797, while it is referred to as _First Impressions_ in letters as late as June 1799.

[9] Even the names here sound unexpectedly similar.

“PERSUASION” TO “JANE EYRE”

(1818-1847)

SUSAN FERRIER (1782-1854) once declared that “perhaps, after all, the only uncloying pleasure in life is that of fault-finding”; and this cynical conclusion may serve to measure, in some degree, the peculiar flavour of her brisk satire. The fact is, that she acquired her notions of literary skill from intimate association with “the Modern Athens,” as Edinburgh then styled itself, wherein “Crusty Christopher” and “The Ploughman Poet” held sway. It was here, as we know, that “Brougham and his confederates” formed that conspiracy of scorn, _The Edinburgh Review_, which Wilson out-Heroded in _Blackwood_. Following Miss Burney, in her spirited exhibition of “Humours,” Miss Ferrier also continued the Edgeworth “national” novel, by exploiting a period of Scotch history untouched by Scott.

As her friend, Wilson, remarks in the _Noctes_:

“These novels have one feature of true and melancholy interest quite peculiar to themselves. It is in them alone that the ultimate breaking-down and debasement of the Highland character has been depicted. Sir Walter Scott had fixed the enamel of genius over the last fitful flames of their half-savage chivalry, but a humbler and sadder scene--the age of lucre-banished clans--of chieftains dwindled into imitation squires, and of chiefs content to barter the recollections of a thousand years for a few gaudy seasons of Almacks and Crockfords, the euthanasia of kilted aldermen and steamboat pibrochs was reserved for Miss Ferrier.”

And for the accuracy of her picture, the authoress herself lays claim to having paid careful attention to the results of deliberate study. “You may laugh,” she writes to Miss Clavering, “at the idea of its being at all necessary for the writer of a romance to be versed in the history, natural and political, the modes, manners, customs, etc., of the country where its bold and wanton freaks are to be played; but I consider it most essentially so, as nothing disgusts even an ordinary reader more than a discovery of the ignorance of the author, who is pretending to instruct and amuse.”

Meanwhile, the “Highlander” was more or less in fashion, and Susan Ferrier set off her picture by vivid contrasts with the most _recherché_ daughters of Society. An elegant slave of passion longs to fly with her Henry to the desert--“a beautiful place, full of roses and myrtles, and smooth, green turf, and murmuring rivulets, and though very retired, not absolutely out of the world; where one could occasionally see one’s friends, and give _déjeuner et fêtes-champêtres_.” So the foolish Indiana in Miss Burney’s _Camilla_ considered a “cottage” but “as a bower of eglantine and roses, where she might repose and be adored all day long.”

But a little experience soon teaches her she “did not very well then know what a desert was.” Scotch mists and mountain blasts dispel the fancy picture, and, after a brief period of acute wretchedness, the really heartless victim of a so-called love match becomes the zealous promoter of mercenary connections.

Miss Ferrier then introduces us to the next generation, where any attempt at dogmatism about love becomes hazardous.

“Love is a passion that has been much talked of, often described, and little understood. Cupid has many counterfeits going about the world, who pass very well with those whose minds are capable of passion, but not of love. These Birmingham Cupids have many votaries among boarding-school misses, militia officers, and milliners’ apprentices, who marry upon the mutual faith of blue eyes and scarlet coats; have dirty houses and squalling children, and hate each other most delectably. Then there is another species for more refined souls, which owes its birth to the works of Rousseau, Goethe, Coffin, etc. Its success depends very much upon rocks, woods, and waterfalls; and it generally ends in daggers, pistols, poisons, or Doctors’ Commons.”

It would seem that even the heroine is, like Emily in _Udolpho_, rather at sea concerning the proper distinction between virtue and taste.

She is “religious--what mind of any excellence is not? but hers is the religion of poetry, of taste, of feeling, of impulse, of any and everything but Christianity.” The worthy youth who loved her “saw much of fine natural feeling, but in vain sought for any guiding principle of duty. Her mind seemed as a lovely, flowery, pathless waste, whose sweets exhaled in vain; all was graceful luxuriance, but all was transient and perishable in its loveliness. No plant of immortal growth grew there, no ‘flowers worthy of Paradise.’”

Inevitably the dear creature is captivated, at first sight, by any good-looking villain: “There might, perhaps, be something of _hauteur_ in his lofty bearing; but it was so qualified by the sportive gaiety of his manners, that it seemed nothing more than that elegant and graceful sense of his own superiority, to which, even without arrogance, he could not be insensible.”

The hero will no doubt require time before he can stand up against so fine a gentleman; but justice requires his ultimate triumph, since, in Miss Ferrier’s judgment, a “good moral” was always essential to fiction.

“I don’t think, like all penny-book manufacturers, that ’tis absolutely necessary that the good boys and girls should be rewarded, and the naughty ones punished. Yet, I think, where there is much tribulation, ’tis fitter it should be the _consequence_, rather than the _cause_, of misconduct or frailty. You’ll say that rule is absurd, inasmuch as it is not observed in human life. That I allow; but we know the inflictions of Providence are for wise purposes, therefore our reason willingly submits to them. But, as the only good purpose of a book is to inculcate morality, and convey some lesson of instruction as well as delight, I do not see that what is called a _good moral_ can be dispensed with in a work of fiction.”

Miss Ferrier, in fact, would have no hand in the “raw head and bloody bone schemes” in which Miss Clavering (who wrote “The History of Mrs. Douglas” in _Marriage_) had, apparently, invited her to collaborate, and chose rather to exemplify her own theories in three very similar stories: _Marriage_ (1818), _The Inheritance_ (1824), and _Destiny_ (1831). Urged, again and again, to supplement these successes, she made “two attempts to write _something_ else, but could not please herself, and would not publish _anything_”--a most praiseworthy resolution.

She has left us an entertaining account of her “plan” for _Marriage_, which may well serve for an exact description of her actual achievement.