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 Abbeyis 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 ofCeciliawere permitted to console each other, an onlooker thus pointed the moral of their experience: “The whole of this unfortunate business has been the result ofPRIDE 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 taleconstructed, in some measure, on the lines of this veryCecilia. She had called itFirst Impressions. Would notPride and Prejudicebe 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 madeuse, in her own inimitable fashion, of characters, phrases, and situations inEvelinaandCecilia.

Mr.Delvile, the pompous and foolish man of family, reappears in Sir Walter Elliot ofPersuasion, and General Tilney ofNorthanger Abbey. Cecilia could never determine “whetherMr.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 resolvingto refuse him at once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not marry them both.”

The following conversation betweenMr.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 aboutMr.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.’”

“‘Oh, was that all,’ cried she, disappointed. ‘I thought it had been something aboutMr.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, inPersuasion, when she moved tothe 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, forI sat at the outsideon 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 “bestof 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,” writesMr.Villars, “nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman;it is at once the most beautiful and most brittleof all human things.” Now Mary was “a great reader and made extracts.” She evidently studied theart 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 reputationis 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. InNorthanger 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 ofher 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 putCamillaon a level withCecilia; and Thorpe’s abuse of this novel inNorthanger Abbeymust 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 toCamilla, 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, andMr.Westwyn’s naïve enthusiasm for his son bears a strong resemblance to that ofMr.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’sThe Wanderer, andin an allusion to the prevalent idea of feminine culture inCamilla:

“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, inLady 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 toEvelinaMiss 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 thanthose 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 theSpectatorand 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 onlyCecilia, orCamilla, orBelinda,’ 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, forMr.Austen-Leigh says thatPride and Prejudicewas written between October 1796 and August 1797, while it is referred to asFirst Impressionsin letters as late as June 1799.[9]Even the names here sound unexpectedly similar.

[8]There is good ground for thinking that the change of title was made after the novel was finished, forMr.Austen-Leigh says thatPride and Prejudicewas written between October 1796 and August 1797, while it is referred to asFirst Impressionsin letters as late as June 1799.

[9]Even the names here sound unexpectedly similar.

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