XVJANE AUSTEN

Thereis very little story to tell in the life of Jane Austen. She was one of the greatest writers of English fiction; but her own life, like the life she describes with such extraordinary and minute accuracy in her tales, had no startling incidents, no catastrophes. The solid ground never shook beneath her feet; neither she, nor the relations and neighbours with whom her tranquil life was passed, were ever swept away by the whirlwind of wild passions, nor overwhelmed by tragic destiny. The ordinary, everyday joys and sorrows that form a part of the lives of all of us, were hers; but nothing befell her more sensational or wondrous than what falls to the lot of most of us. This even tenor of her own way she reproduces with marvellous skill in the pages of her novels. It has been well said that “every village could furnish matter for a novel to Miss Austen.” The material which she used is within the reach of every one; but she stands alone, hitherto quite unequalled, for the power of investing with charm and interest these incidents in the everyday life of everyday people which are the whole subject-matter of her six finished novels. A silly elopement on the part of one of the five Miss Bennets inPride and Prejudice, and the fall which stuns Louisa Musgrove inPersuasion, when she insists on jumping off the cob at Lyme, are almost the only incidents in her books that can even be called unusual. Her novels remind us of pictures we sometimes see which contain no one object of supreme or extraordinary loveliness, but which charm by showing us the beauty and interest in that which lies around us on every side. There is a picture by Frederick Walker, called “A Rainy Day,” which is a very good instance of this; it is nothing but a village street just by a curve in the road; the houses are such as may be seen in half the villages in England: a dog goes along looking as dejected as dogs always do in the rain, the light is reflected in the puddles of the wet road, one foot-passenger only has ventured out. There is nothing in the picture but what we may all of us have seen hundreds and thousands of times, and yet one could look and look at it for hours and never weary of the charm of quiet, truthful beauty it contains. This is one of the things which true artists, whether their art is painting pictures or writing books, can do for those who are not artists—that is, help them to see and feel the beauty and interest of the ordinary surroundings of everyday life. Robert Browning makes a great Italian painter say—

We’re made so that we loveFirst when we see them painted, things we have passedPerhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;And so they are better painted—better to us,Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;God uses us to help each other so,Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now,Your cullion’s hanging face? A bit of chalk,And trust me, but you should, though! How much moreIf I drew higher things with the same truth!That were to take the Prior’s pulpit place,Interpret God to all of you.

We’re made so that we love

First when we see them painted, things we have passed

Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;

And so they are better painted—better to us,

Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;

God uses us to help each other so,

Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now,

Your cullion’s hanging face? A bit of chalk,

And trust me, but you should, though! How much more

If I drew higher things with the same truth!

That were to take the Prior’s pulpit place,

Interpret God to all of you.

Jane Austen[4]was a clergyman’s daughter, born in 1775 at the Vicarage of Steventon, about seven miles from Basingstoke, in Hampshire. Here she lived, for the first twenty-five years of her life, the quiet family life of most young ladies of similar circumstances; two of her brothers were in the Navy, one was a country gentleman, having inherited an estate from a cousin, another was a clergyman. The most dearly loved by Jane of all her family was her sister Cassandra, older than herself by three years. The sisters were so inseparable that when Cassandra went to school, Jane, though too young to profit much by the instruction given, was sent also, because it would have been cruel to separate the sisters; her mother said, “If Cassandra were going to have her head cut off, Jane would insist on sharing her fate.” The devotion between the sisters was lifelong. Their characters were not much alike; Cassandra was colder, calmer, and more reserved than her sister, whose sweet temper and affectionate disposition specially endeared her to all her family; but Jane throughout her life relied upon Cassandra as one who was wiser and stronger than herself. The quiet family life at Steventon was diversified by one or two visits to Bath, then a very fashionable resort; a short visit to Lyme is spoken of later on; and in the early days in the vicarage the Austen children not infrequently amused themselves with private theatricals. Readers ofNorthanger Abbey,Persuasion, andMansfield Parkwill find these mild amusements woven into the web of the story; for, as Jane Austen says herself, she was like a bird who uses the odd bits of wool or moss in the hedgerows near to weave into the tiny fabric of its nest. The plays which the Austens acted were frequently written by themselves. This may probably have given to Jane her early impulse to authorship. It is not improbable that it also smoothed the way of her career as a writer in another sense; for at that time very great prejudice still existed in many people’s minds against women who were writers. Lord Granville, speaking in December 1887, at the unveiling of the statue of the Queen at Holloway College, cited a great French writer who had laid it down as an axiom that a woman could commit no greater fault than to be learned; the same writer had said—of course partly in joke—that it is enough knowledge for any woman if she is acquainted with the fact that Pekin is not in Europe, or that Alexander the Great was not the son-in-law of Louis the XIV. Referring to events within his own knowledge and memory, Lord Granville added, “One of the most eminent English statesmen of the century, a brilliant man of letters himself, after reading with admiration a beautiful piece of poetry written by his daughter, appealed to her affection for him to prevent her ever writing again, his fear was so great lest she should be thought a literary woman.”

If a similar prejudice were in any degree felt by the Austen family, it is not unlikely that it was gradually dissolved by the early habit of the children of writing plays for home acting. We read, indeed, that Jane did nearly all her writing in the general sitting-room of the family, and that she was careful to keep her occupation secret from all but her own immediate relations. For this purpose she wrote on small pieces of paper, which could easily be put away, or covered by a piece of blotting-paper or needlework. The little mahogany desk at which she wrote is still preserved in the family. She never put her name on a title-page, but there is no evidence that her family would have disapproved of her doing so. They seem to have delighted in all she did, and to have helped her by every means in their power. She was a great favourite with her brothers and sister, and with all the tribe of nephews and nieces that grew up about her. She had no trace of any assumption of superiority, and gave herself no airs of any kind. She had too much humour and sense of fun for there to be any danger of this in her case. She was thoroughly womanly in her habits, manners, and occupations. Like Miss Martineau, her early training preserved her from being a literary lady who could not sew. Her needlework was remarkably fine and dainty, and specimens of it are still preserved which show that her fingers had the same deftness and skill as the mind which created Emma Woodhouse and her father, Mrs. Norris and Elizabeth Bennet. She had taken to authorship as a duck takes to water, and had written some of her most remarkable books before she was twenty; and she had done this so simply and naturally that she seems to have produced in her family the impression that writing first-rate novels was one of the easiest things in the world. We find, for instance, that she writes in 1814 many letters of advice to a novel-writing niece; and she advises another little niece to cease writing till she is sixteen years old, the child being at that time only ten or twelve. In 1816 she addresses a very interesting letter to a nephew who is writing a novel, and has had the misfortune to lose two chapters and a half! She makes kindly fun of the young gentleman, and suggests that if she finds his lost treasure she shall engraft his chapters into her own novel; but she adds: “I do not think, however, that any theft of that sort would be really very useful to me. What should I do with your strong, manly, vigorous sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labour?”

Early in 1801 the home at Steventon was broken up. Mr. Austen resigned his living in consequence of failing health, and the family removed to Bath. Mr. Austen died in 1805, and Mrs. Austen and her daughters lived for a time at Southampton. They had no really homelike home, however, between leaving Steventon in 1801 and settling at Chawton, in Hampshire, in 1809; and it is very characteristic of Jane Austen’s home-loving nature that this homeless period was also a period of literary inactivity. She wroteSense and Sensibility,Northanger Abbey, andPride and Prejudicebefore she left Steventon, though none of them were published till after she came to live at Chawton. Here in her second home she wroteMansfield Park,Emma, andPersuasion. In consequence of having three novels finished before one was printed, when she once began to publish, her works appeared in rapid succession.Sense and Sensibilitywas the first to appear, in 1811, and the others followed quickly after one another, for her work was at once appreciated by the public, and the great leaders of the literary world, such as Sir Walter Scott, Southey, and Coleridge, welcomed her with cordial and generous praise. One curious little adventure should be mentioned. In 1803, during her residence at Bath, she had sold the manuscript ofNorthanger Abbeyto a Bath publisher for £10. This good man, on reconsideration, evidently thought he had made a bad bargain, and resolved to lose his ten pounds rather than risk a larger sum in printing and publishing the book. The manuscript therefore lay on his shelves for many years quite forgotten. But the time came whenSense and Sensibility,Pride and Prejudice, andMansfield Parkhad placed their author in the first rank of English writers, and it occurred to Miss Austen and her family that it might be well to rescueNorthanger Abbeyfrom its unappreciative possessor. One of her brothers called on the Bath publisher and negotiated with him the re-purchase of the manuscript, giving for it the same sum which had been paid to the author about ten years earlier. The publisher was delighted to get back his £10, which he had never expected to see again, and Jane Austen’s brother was delighted to get back the manuscript. Both parties to the bargain were fully satisfied; but the poor publisher’s feelings would have been very different if he had known that the neglected manuscript, with which he had so joyfully parted, was by the author of the most successful novels of the day.

There is a quiet vein of fun and humorous observation running through all Miss Austen’s writings. It is as visible in her private letters to her friends as in her works intended for publication. The little turns of expression are not reproduced, but the humour of the one is very similar to that of the other. Thus, for instance, in one of her letters she describes a visit to a young lady at school in London. Jane Austen had left her a raw schoolgirl, and found her, on this visit, developed into a fashionable young lady. “Her hair,” writes Jane to Cassandra, “is done up with an elegance to do credit to any education.” Who can read this without thinking of Fanny Price inMansfield Park, and the inevitable contempt she inspired in her fashionable cousins because she did not know French and had but one sash?

Reference has already been made to the high appreciation of Miss Austen’s genius which has been expressed by the highest literary authorities in her own time and in ours. Sir Walter Scott wrote in his journal: “I have read again, and for the third time, Miss Austen’s very finely-written novel ofPride and Prejudice. That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going, but the exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the descriptive and the sentiment is denied to me.” Lord Macaulay, the great historian, wrote in his diary: “Read Dickens’sHard Times, and another book of Pliny’sLetters. ReadNorthanger Abbey, worth all Dickens and Pliny put together. Yet it was the work of a girl. She was certainly not more than twenty-six. Wonderful creature!” Guizot, the French historian, was a great novel reader, and he delighted in English novels, especially those written by women. Referring to the women writers of the beginning of this century, of whom Miss Austen was the chief, he said that their works “form a school which, in the excellence and profusion of its productions, resembles the cloud of dramatic authors of the great Athenian age.” The late Mr. G. H. Lewes said he would rather have writtenPride and Prejudicethan any of the Waverley novels. George Eliot calls Jane Austen the greatest artist that has ever written, “using the term ‘artist’ to signify the most perfect master over the means to her end.” It is perhaps only fair to state that some good judges do not entertain so high an opinion of her work. Madame de Staël pronounced against her, using the singularly inappropriate word “vulgar,” in condemnation of her work. If there is a writer in the world free from vulgarity in its ordinary sense, it is Jane Austen; it must be supposed that Madame de Staël used the word in its French sense,i.e.“commonplace” or “ordinary,” such a meaning of the word as is retained in our English expression “the vulgar tongue.” Charlotte Brontë felt in Miss Austen a deficiency in poetic imagination, in the high tone of sentiment which elevates the prose of everyday life into poetry. She found her “shrewd and observant rather than sagacious and profound.” Miss Austen’s writings were so essentially different from the highly imaginative work of her sister author, that it is not surprising that the younger failed somewhat in appreciation of the elder writer.

Jane Austen’s failing health in 1816 caused much anxiety to her family. It is characteristic of her gentle thoughtfulness for all about her that she never could be induced to use the one sofa with which the family sitting-room was provided. Her mother, who was more than seventy years old, often used the sofa, and Jane would never occupy it, even in her mother’s absence, preferring to contrive for herself a sort of couch formed with two or three chairs. A little niece, puzzled that “Aunt Jane” preferred this arrangement, drew from her the explanation that if she used the sofa in her mother’s absence, Mrs. Austen would probably abstain from using it as much as was good for her. Her last book,Persuasion, was finished while she was suffering very much from what proved to be her dying illness. Weak health did not in any way diminish her industry, and she exacted from herself the utmost perfection that she felt she was capable of giving to her work. The last chapters ofPersuasionwere cancelled and re-written because her first conclusion of the story did not satisfy her. In May 1817 she and her sister removed to Winchester in order that Jane might have skilled medical advice. Here she died on 18th July and was buried opposite Wykeham’s Chantry, in the cathedral. Her sweetness of temper and her gentle gaiety never failed her throughout a long and trying illness. When the end was near, one of those with her asked if there was anything she wanted; her reply was, “Nothing but death.”

4. A very interesting memoir of Miss Austen has been written by her nephew, Mr. Austen Leigh. All who love her works should read it, and thereby come to know and love the woman.

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