THE GREAT FOUR
Before completing our general conclusions as to the aim and achievement of women’s work, it may be well to institute certain comparisons between the four writers of genius around whom we have chronicled our record of progress; to estimate the ground covered by their work; to analyse their ideals, witnessing change and development.
Although, as we have seen, all primarily domestic, if not actually parochial, the middle-class, “set” as a subject by Richardson, became—more or less consciously—subdivided in their hands. Fanny Burney confined herself, almost without reserve, to studies of town life, with an occasional digression to fashionable health resorts. It is true that her heroines may sigh for a sylvan glade or dream of green fields: no woman of sensibility could do less. In their minds the country must inevitably be allied to virtue and content. But we cannot pretend that the rural scenes ofCamillaare drawn from nature; and Miss Burney was, undoubtedly, most at home in the drawing-room, at the assembly,in the opera-house, or at the baths. Nowhere else can we find so vivid and lifelike a picture of Society in the eighteenth century—the dramatic contrast with “Commerce at play” recallingVanity Fair. It is here, in fact, that Miss Burney’s exceptional personal experience gave her the enviable opportunity of drawing both Mayfair and Holborn at first hand. She is specifically Metropolitan, though we should not say Cockney. In her imagination there is no world outside London, no higher ambition than notoriety about Town.
The difference in Jane Austen’s work is almost startling. She seems practically unaware of London; and it would be difficult to name any group of intelligent persons so absolutely indifferent to its gaieties, its activities, or its problems as the characters inallher novels. It may be that Lucy Steele could not so easily have caught Robert Ferrars elsewhere; but the few Town chapters inSense and Sensibilityonly illustrate our contention as a whole, since the relations between all remain precisely the same as in the country, and practically everyone is delighted to “get away again.” The John Knightleys and the excellent Gardiners, indeed, live in London: but we only meet themaway from home; and, after all, the one “suggestive” comment on town life is the “unexpected discovery” that people who “live over their business” were able to “mix with” the County.
Jane Austen’s familiars are all drawn from the most unpromising circle: those who live “just outside” small towns, have just enough to live on without working for it, are just sufficiently well-bred to marry into “the County,” just simple enough to welcome a few “superior” townspeople. Doctors, attorneys, and—of course—clergymen, are included, as well as officers, naval or military, retired or on promotion. Elizabeth’s “He is a gentleman, I am a gentleman’s daughter,” defines the enclosure. The men, presumably, have business to transact, affairs to arrange. They read the newspapers and talk politics—among themselves. But Miss Austen does not concern herself with these aspects of life. Her heroines are not so gay as Miss Burney’s; they are not so thoroughly “in the swim.” But her picture is similarly one of home life, varied by “visiting” and “receiving.” She describes the distribution of one family into several—by “suitable” marriages. One section of English society, at oneperiod, in the home, is completely brought to life again.
Miss Brontë, even more thoroughly ignoring London, does not exhaustively represent any one class, and has, indeed, little concern with “manners.” Nevertheless, practically all her characters have “something to do.” They follow a profession, or own a factory. Clergymen are still largely in evidence, but education—in different forms—has come to the front, and, what is still more significant, some of her heroines have to work for their living. Wherefore, apart from the increased intensity of emotion, the external atmosphere is far more strenuous, and in Shirley we even find the dawn of a social problem, echoes of the early struggle between Capital and Labour. The pictures of school life, at home and abroad, do not merely reproduce facts, but cry out for improvements. The intimate knowledge of Continental conditions is, in itself, a new feature.
Finally, George Eliot extends the sphere of action in many directions. Maintaining the middle-class realism of Richardson, in her case largely concentrated on small-town tradesmen and farmers, she still avoids London, but embracesevery “profession,” and approaches, by expert study for “copy,” the labourers and mechanics “discovered” by Victorian novelists. She travels lower and more widely than her predecessors for atmosphere. She does not confine herself, like them, to personal experience. InFelix Holtshe deliberately arranges for the illustration of economic politics; inDaniel Derondashe opens a big “race” problem; inRomolashe essays “historical” romance. The passionate emotional outbursts of Charlotte Brontë have become psychological analyses; “problems” of all sorts are discussed with philosophical composure and professional knowledge. Within her self-imposed limits, woman has covered the field.
For the revelation of womanhood, through the types chosen for heroines, we find that Miss Burney still idealises a form of “sensibility,” which does not exhibit much advance on the ethereal purity of the old-world romance. The difference, however, is important, since the type is studied from life, not created by the imagination. The essential features of this quality are susceptibility to the fine shades, delicate refinement, and an exalted ideal of love. It is itself thoroughlyromantic, and separates heroines from ordinary mortals. Similar characteristics, if betrayed by men, may be attractive, but do not command respect.
Jane Austen, planting her challenge in the very title of her first novel, extols sense. Marianne, and—more subtly, perhaps—her mother, remain to secure our affection for a vanishing feminine grace; but, evidently, the type cannot survive the century. For, though few writers have actually said less about the rights of women or the problems of sex, no one has established with more undaunted conviction the progress to a new position. Gaily, and with well-assumed irresponsibility, brushing aside for ever “the advantages of folly in a pretty girl,” Janeassumes—with irresistible good humour—woman’s intellectual equality in everything that really matters. Catherine Morland is obviously a relic, conceived of parody; and Fanny Price was born at a disadvantage. Generally speaking, her heroines judge for themselves as a matter of course, and judge wisely. They even “judge for” the men. Their charm arises from mental independence.
Though to our modern notions their lives mayseem empty enough, a thousand and one touches reveal advance on the eighteenth-century conception of “what is becoming to elegant females.” They demand rational occupation, common-sense culture, the right to express themselves. They fall in love at the dictate of their own hearts. They set the standard of fidelity. It is true that Colonel Brandon’s adopted daughter and Maria Bertram submit to convention, and that Lydia Bennet is let off more easily because Darcy had “patched up” the affair; but the feeling about purity is sound and clear—that is, feminine. The “sense of sin” experienced by Jane Fairfax may be a little strained, but we meet with no high-flown notions of self-sacrifice in Emma; Elizabeth encourages Darcy to an explanation; and women are no longer afraid of happiness. They have grown to recognise that their life is in their own hands, not in those of man; that it is largely in their own power to shape their own destiny; that they will be wise to create their own standard of conduct, to settle their own affairs. The ideal emerging is startlingly modern in essentials. Though the problems confronting us to-day have not arisen, we feel that JaneAusten’s young ladies could have faced them with equanimity, possibly with a more balanced judgment than our own. There is a hint, indeed, inMansfield Parkthat the poor woman may one day triumph over her sisters of leisure; for are not Fanny, William, and even Susan, the only real “comforts” to their elders? Sir Thomas “saw repeated, and for ever repeated, reason to ... acknowledge the advantages of early hardship and discipline and the consciousness of being born to struggle and endure.”
Curiously enough, Charlotte Brontë, while uttering the first feminine protest, seems to have slipped back somewhat on this question. Taking for text Anne Elliot’s claim that women love longer without hope or life, she demands, even for Shirley, a male “master.” The explanation of this attitude was partly temperament—since women of vigorous intellect always need a flesh and blood prophet (witness Harriet Martineau and George Eliot): and it arose partly from her individual circumstances. The men of her family were, in different ways, exasperatingly weak; the “strong” men of her native moorlands were naturally domineering: her imagination was stirred, and hermind trained, by the Belgian Professor, Monsieur Heger, whowasher master—technically, and who—as we learn from independent testimony—always took a delight in scolding his pupils. We do not, to-day, admire the feminine footstool; nevertheless Charlotte Brontë’s heroines have strong individual character, and are much given to defying the world. The type will never become popular in fiction, it is too angular intellectually, and too discontented. The quality of physical plainness has been seldom adopted by novelists, male or female. But inShirleyMiss Brontë generously abandons many of her favourite ideals, forbothheroines. The types are mixed here; and we must feel that had circumstances encouraged a larger output, we might be compelled to modify many of our conclusions. It remains a fact that the authoress ofJane EyreandVillettedoes not stand in the direct line of progress: save that she introduces the awakening of women to serious topics, and proves them intent not merely on self-revelation, but on reform. Her central inspiration, however, is passion: which no woman had hitherto handled; which few have since so powerfully portrayed.
It is not easy, even if possible, to summarise the more complex, and much varied, ideals of womanhood exhibited by George Eliot. Each of her heroines is a study from life; and, by this time, women were not all created in one pattern. Again, we can scarcely say that she has given us a heroine inAdam Bede, whereasMiddlemarchmight claim to offer three. Maggie Tulliver shows little resemblance to Romola. Yet, undoubtedly, George Eliot had more conscious, and more definite, theories on women than any of her predecessors: she deliberately set out to expound and enforce them.
We are tempted, however, to conclude that her favourite ideal was self-sacrifice. Her outlook was inclined to be melancholy; and she introduces us to that struggle between temperament and circumstances which is the keynote of modern fiction, forming the problem novel. In Fanny Burney and Jane Austen the heroine was simply more refined, or more sensible, than her family; and the story was founded on this difference. In George Eliot each heroine has her own temperament and her own set of circumstances which create her own problem. Women are now nolonger concerned only with manners and delicacy: they have entered into life as a whole. The central fact, which may be seen in the earliest women-writers, is now expressed and deliberately put forward—that their moral standard is higher than men’s, that they have been treated unfairly by the world. Charlotte Brontë had emphasised this protest on one question, George Eliot applies it everywhere.
The elementary truth which the women novelists revealed (and for which they were censured by masculine critics) was that women do fall in love without waiting to be wooed. George Eliot develops this into a declaration of feminine judgment on life and character. Woman is no longer man-made, man-taught, or man-led. The door is opened for her independence.
Finally, it must not be forgotten that—whether intentionally or by instinct concerned with the revelation of their own nature—the great women-writers have been always awake to the humour of life. One says continually that womenhaveno sense of humour; but this mistake arises from generalisings, where the true test can only be applied by discrimination. Nothing differs sowidely betweenindividualsas the appreciation of humour; though it is true that much masculine wit, tending towards farce, appeals to few women.
In our “leading ladies” (here scarcely including Charlotte Brontë) we find peculiar power and extensive variety. Fanny Burney depends on an eye for comedy, Jane Austen on the humorous phrase, George Eliot on the study of wit.
InEvelinaandCeciliathe comic effects are mostly produced by the sudden meeting of opposites; the gay, irresponsible exaggeration of types; the clash of circumstances. Dickens, consciously or unconsciously, borrowed much of his method from Fanny Burney. The characters of each have their allotted foible, their catch phrase, their moral label, which somehow delights and surprises us afresh, however expected, at each repetition. Those inherently uncongenial are forced into close contact, one exposing the other. Speaking roughly, this is the stage manner. Could we not fancy the speakers confronted, and imagine their expressions of mutual astonishment, there would be little fun in them. They are not always quite so comic to our eyes as in each other’s.Captain Mirvan needs Madame Duval as a foil; that egregious fop Lovel is always playing up to Mrs. Selwyn; and, if Miss Branghton does not herself see the humour of the inimitable Smith, she brings it out. InCecilia, again, the guardians produce each other; the “Larolles” is never so happy as when expoundingMr.Meadows;Mr.Gosport requires an audience.
Miss Burney’s wit is the child of Society generated in a crowd; it savours of repartee. Although spontaneous and true to life, it does not flash out from the nature of things, but from deliberate arrangement. It has been sought and is found. The material is well chosen. The people are “put together” for our amusement.
Jane Austen has used, and refined, this method—as she has adapted everything from Miss Burney—in her earlier work. The titles—Pride and Prejudice,Sense and Sensibility—and the ideas behind them betray their own inspiration. Elizabeth Bennet, clearly, isintendedto strike fire fromMr.Collins and Lady Catherine; Mrs. Bennet would scarcely have seemed so funny to another husband. The “Burney” innocence of Catherine Morland tempts Isabella to extremes in knowingvulgarity; Mrs. Jennings cannot ruffle Lady Middleton.
But on her own account, and in her best moments, Miss Austen is far more subtle. Hers is an intimate humour, dependent on shades, not contrasts, of character. Even the more boisterous figures of fun, even Catherine’s ridiculous applications of Udolpho, are complete in themselves, needing no foil. Miss Austen possesses a humorous imagination, where Miss Burney could only observe. A mere list of her quaint characters would fill a chapter, and no one of them is only comic. They are human beings, not mere puppets set up to laugh at. Moreover, the humour of them is derived from the polished phrase. Generally a few words suffice, fit though few.
Most assuredly, on the other hand, Miss Austen does not depend for her humour upon her comic characters. To begin with, these are never dragged in for “relief,” they “belong to” the plotting; and in the second place, much of her most perfect satire arises from scenes in which they have no part. We have, for example, the dialogue on generosity betweenMr.and Mrs. John Dashwood; the paragraph about “natural folly in a beautifulgirl”; Miss Bingley’s ideal for a ball; Harriet’s “most precious treasures”; Sir Thomas Bertram’s complacent pride in Fanny; Mary Musgrave’s anxiety about “the precedence that was her due”; with other incidents too numerous to mention.
The fact is that almost every sentence of Miss Austen’s is pointed with humour; the finished phrasing of her narrative and her descriptions are unrivalled in wit. There is no strain or distortion, no laboured antithesis or uncouth dialect: merely the light touch, the unerring instinct for the happy phrase. At times we can detect indignation behind the laughter: her scorn is often most biting, she indulges in cynicism. But, in the main, her object is plainly derisive: the sheer joy of merriment, the consolation of meeting folly with a gay heart. And analysis will prove that, in her opinion, hypocrisy and pose are the sins unforgivable, the only legitimate occasion of joy to the jester. Elizabeth may turn off her discomfiture with a joke, but in reality she is honest, and wise enough to know that Darcy is unassailable by reason of his good qualities.
The attributes Miss Austen ridicules are thoseshe seriously despises or dislikes, however generously she often secures our affection for their possessors. Her “figures of fun” are not wholly despicable.
Attention has been drawn of late to a marked contrast between the French comedy of “social gesture”—which is entirely intellectual—and the whole-souled laughter of the English. Shakespeare’s comic “figures are not a criticism of life—no great English literature is that. It is a piece of life imaginatively realised. Falstaff is not judged, he is accepted. Dogberry is not offered as a fool to be ridiculed by his intellectual betters. We are not asked to deride him. We are asked to become part of his folly. Falstaff appeals to the Falstaff in ourselves. Dogberry is our common stupidity, enjoyed for the sake of the dear fool that is part of every man. Shakespeare’s laugh includes vice and folly in a humour which is the tolerance of Nature herself for all her works.... English laughter lives in good fellowship.”
Since Macaulay did not hesitate to compare Jane Austen with Shakespeare in one matter, we may repeat his audacity here. The definition, if definition it can be called, will surely apply toEmmaandPride and Prejudice. They are “pieces of life imaginatively realised.” We laughwiththe eccentricities, notatthem. Properly speaking, Miss Austen is no satirist. She can amuse us without killing emotion.
As hinted already, Charlotte Brontë has neither humour nor wit. She takes life most seriously; and, in attempting a comic relief, becomes lumping or savage. The fact of her “Shirley” curates recognising, and enjoying, their own portraits may serve to measure the limit of her success. Such men could only enjoy the second-rate. Her satire against charity schools and Belgian pensionnats is mere spite.
We must pass on, therefore, to George Eliot, who certainly had wit, and was once acclaimed very humorous. Here, as elsewhere, our authoress appears to have gathered up the resources of her predecessors, developed them by study and culture, dressed them up in the language of the professional. The fact that the mechanism of her humour can be analysed, however, must prove its limitation. It is “worked in,” skilfully, but obviously. There is everywhere an “impression of highly-wrought sentences which are meantto arrest the reader’s attention andwarn him what he is to look forof tragedy, of humour, of philosophy.” The humour is obviously “composed” to heighten the tragic effect by contrast. In her earlier work, indeed, every form of elaboration in style was but “one sign of her overmastering emotion,” therefore “fitting and suitable”; but repetition made it tedious and mechanical. After a time we see through “the expression of a humorous fancy in a pedantic phrase; the reminiscence of a classical idiom applied to some everyday triviality; the slight exaggeration of verbiage which is to accentuate an aphorism ... moulded on the plaster casts of the schools.”
The fact is that humour, and even wit, flourish most happily in uncultured fields—for there is only one George Meredith. Yet, within her limitations, there is triumph for the genius of George Eliot. None can deny tribute to Mrs. Poyser, or the “Aunts” inThe Mill on the Floss. That very severe study and applied observation, which kills spontaneity, lent her the power to excite tears and laughter. She has given us oddities as rugged as, and more various than, Miss Burney’s, contrasts of manners as bustling; scenesand persons as humanly humorous as Jane Austen’s. She combines their methods, enriching them by dialect, antithesis, allusion, and the “study” of types. There is humourandwit in her work.
If, as we certainly admit, both are “worked out” carefully and the labour shows through, we must also acknowledge that she has embraced, and extended, all the achievements of woman before her day, indicating the powers realised and the possibilities to be accomplished.