Jane Austen: The Complete Novels E-Book

Jane Austen.

• Herausgeber: JA
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Here you will find an extensive biography of Jane Austen and all her novels (in the chronological order of their original publication).- Jane Austen: A Biography- Lady Susan- Sense and Sensibility- Pride and Prejudice- Mansfield Park- Emma- Persuasion- Northanger Abbey- The Watsons- Sanditon

Leseprobe

Jane Austen

THE COMPLETE NOVELS

Table of Contents

Jane Austen — A Biography

Lady Susan

Sense and Sensibility

Pride and Prejudice

Mansfield Park

Emma

Persuasion

Northanger Abbey

The Watsons

Sanditon

Jane Austen — A Biography

by Sarah Fanny Malden

Chapter 1 — Introductory

Chapter 2 — Girlhood and First Attempts at Writing

Chapter 3 — Her Life’s One Romance

Chapter 4 — First Attempts at Publishing and Change of Home

Chapter 5 — Sense and Sensibility

Chapter 6 — Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 7 —Mansfield Park

Chapter 8 — Emma

Chapter 9 — Northanger Abbey

Chapter 10 — Persuasion

Chapter 11 — Illness and Death

Chapter 1 — Introductory

More than twenty years ago a gentleman visiting Winchester Cathedral asked a verger to show him Jane Austen’s tomb. The man took him readily to a large slab of black marble set in the pavement near the centre of the north aisle, and the visitor stood for some time studying the inscription with keen interest; then, as he was turning away, the verger said in an apologetic tone, “Pray, sir, can you tell me whether there was anything particular about that lady; so many people want to know where she was buried?” Such ignorance of Mansfield Park and Emma may be pardoned in a verger; perhaps it would have been rather more extraordinary if he had seemed to know anything about them, but it is strange to think how many hundreds of educated people there were then who delighted in every line of Jane Austen’s writings, yet even so many years after their publication knew nothing about the life of their author, and could hardly have told whether she had lived in this century or in the last.

Rarely has a great writer’s life been so completely hidden from the public throughout its entire course, and, indeed, for many years afterwards, as Jane Austen’s, for no memoir of her was attempted until quite sixty years after she had passed away. Yet few authors could better have borne the fierce light of publicity upon their lives than the simple-minded, sweet-tempered woman, who never dreamed that any one outside her own family would care to know anything about her, and who courted personal notoriety so little. She would never have realized the charm that her sweet, peaceful, womanly life would one day have for those who, having long worshipped her genius in her writings, would be delighted to learn how completely free she was from all the whims and caprices that sometimes disfigure genius, and how entirely she carried out the saying of her great sister writer, “D’abord je suis femme, puis je suis artiste.” During her whole lifetime “few of her readers,” says her nephew, “knew even her name, and none knew more of her than her name”; and though this is perhaps too broad an assertion, it is undoubtedly true that she never made the least attempt to become known to any of her readers; indeed, she rather encouraged concealment than otherwise. There was no affectation of modesty in this, for throughout her life she expressed genuine and eager pleasure when her works were favorably received, but she had the shrinking of a refined nature from personal publicity, and her family, understanding the feeling, helped to screen her from it as much as they could. When Sense and Sensibility came out in 1811 her sister Cassandra wrote to various members of the family to beg they would not mention who was the author, and Jane herself expressed decided satisfaction when she heard it ascribed to a Miss Hamilton, who must have been better known to novel readers of that day than of this. Even in 1813, when Jane’s fame was still further established by Pride andPrejudice, she wrote of herself as “frightened” when she heard that a strange lady wished to be introduced to her, declaring, “If I am a wild beast I cannot help it. It is not my fault”; and her family bear witness how genuine was her dislike to being lionized.

To her it seemed simply absurd that any great fuss should be made about writings which she herself said “cost her so little”; which were carried on as a pleasant pastime in the midst of other occupations, and without even a separate room to work in. To write a novel was to her almost as simple a matter as to write a letter, and why should she be more famous for the one than for the other? She valued the approval and admiration of her own family and friends, but she never wished to pose as an authoress before the world at large; and the sort of homage offered to Miss Edgeworth, Miss Burney, Miss Mitford, and others, would have revolted her. Her love of fun, too, made her enjoy the amusing mystifications that sometimes sprang from the preservation of her incognita, and although, unlike her great contemporary, she never denied her own writings, she took no pains to claim them, for her name did not appear on the title-page of any of her novels until after her death.

Perhaps it was the natural result of Miss Austen’s complete absence of self-assertion that her fame was not widespread during her lifetime. At first sight it seems strange that her writings should not have become more immediately popular when so many worse ones were read with avidity; but, after all, the reason is not far to seek. Jane Austen’s novels were a new departure in fiction; many clever novelists had written before her, but they had relied for their success either, like Fielding, on strong, highly-colored pictures of life; or, like Richardson and Miss Burney, on endless complications of events; or, like Mrs. Radcliffe, on blood-curdling terrors. None of these great writers had successfully attempted a story in which there should not be one sensational incident, nor one extraordinary individual; which should deal neither with great people, nor with villains, nor with paragons of beauty and virtue, but simply with everyday types of character, leading every-day lives, and speaking and acting like ordinary mortals, but painted to the utmost perfection of finish by a most un-every-day genius. Jane Austen completely realized more than any other writer has ever done, the saying that no human being can be commonplace if you know him well enough. She knew human nature so well that no phase of it was uninteresting to her, and she painted it as thoroughly as she knew it; but her art was carried to the perfection which seems absolute simplicity, and the public could not immediately recognize the genius under the simplicity. A few able men and women instantly saw and proclaimed the merit of her works: Archbishop Whateley, Sir Walter Scott, Sydney Smith, the Countess of Morley, and — curiously enough — the Prince Regent, were among them; but they were in a small minority, and when she died in 1817 I can find no. mention of her or of her writings in any newspaper or periodical of the day.

Two of Jane’s best novels Mansfield Park and Persuasion, appeared after her death, but even these did not awaken public taste; and for many years longer the circle of her admirers continued a small one. Mr. Austen Leigh tells us from his own recollections, that “Sometimes a friend or neighbor who chanced to know of our connection with the author would condescend to speak with moderate approbation of Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice; but if they had known that we in our secret thoughts classed her with Mme. D’Arblay or Miss Edgeworth, or even with some other novel writers of the day whose names are now scarcely remembered, they would have considered it an amusing instance of family conceit To the multitude her works appeared tame and commonplace, poor in coloring, and sadly deficient in incident and interest. It is true that we were sometimes cheered by hearing that a different verdict had been pronounced by more competent judges; we were told how some great statesman or distinguished poet held these works in high estimation; we had the satisfaction of believing that they were most admired by the best judges, and comforted ourselves with Horace’s satis est equitem mihi plaudere. So much was this the case, that one of the ablest men of my acquaintance said, in that kind of jest which has much earnest in it, that he had established it in his own mind, as a new test of ability, whether people could or could not appreciate Miss Austen’s merits.”

It is needless to tell the present generation how completely all this is changed, and how many hundreds of readers are well acquainted with Emma and Pride and Prejudice who have never struggled through the many-volumed adventures of Cecilia, or the somewhat wearisome doings of Ennui; but the tide turned, though slowly, and it is difficult to tell by what steps Jane Austen reached her present secure pinnacle. Southey, Coleridge, Guizot, Lord Macaulay, Lord Holland, Whewell, and Lord Lansdowne, were all among the earlier of her warm admirers, and Sir James Mackintosh fired up in her defence when Mme. de Staël called her novels “vulgar.” Lord Macaulay planned a new edition of her works, with a memoir prefixed, the profits of which should go to erecting a monument to her memory in Winchester Cathedral; but his death checked this project, and the memoir remained unwritten. It may seem curious that no biography of her was earlier attempted, but fifty or sixty years ago the popular taste was in favor of stirring incidents in a memoir; the idea of studying the development and cultivation of a rare character throughout its career was little entertained, and the Austen family had no wish to force the biography of one so beloved on an indifferent or uninterested public.

Jane Austen had the happiness of being surrounded by relations who prized all her endowments, mental and moral; who were able to help her with criticism and cheer her with wise praise, while from her earliest childhood she imbibed cultivation from her parents and the elder members of her family. Her father, George Austen, was a man of superior intellect, and of excellent education, which latter he owed partly to the generosity of a relative, but more to his own industry and love of learning. He was of good family — the Austens had been settled in Kent for many generations — but at eight, years old he lost both his parents, and was penniless as well as an orphan. Through the liberality of an uncle he was sent to a good school at Tunbridge, where he proved himself worthy of such kindness by gaining first a scholarship at St. John’s, Oxford, and, finally, becoming a Fellow of his College. He took Orders soon after. To purchase a living was at that time the obvious way of helping a poor and deserving young clergyman, and in 1764 George Austen found himself the owner of two livings in Hampshire, both presented to him by relations; Deane, where he first took up his abode, and Steventon, where, in 1775, Jane Austen was born. Of course this was pluralism, but no one then would have thought of objecting to such a thing in moderation, and few could have objected strongly to Deane and Steventon being united, inasmuch as the two parishes were within a mile and a half of each other, and there were not three hundred souls in both of them combined.

Jane’s mother, Cassandra Leigh, was the daughter of a clergyman who lived near Henley-upon-Thames, and she was married to George Austen before he went to Deane. The mothers of clever men are proverbially highly gifted; whether the mothers of clever women are equally so may be more doubtful, but Jane Austen’s mother was unquestionably a woman of superior intellect, and to that much of her daughter’s ability might be traced. All readers of Mrs. Thrale must remember stories of Dr. Theophilus Leigh, who held the Mastership of Balliol College for more than fifty years, and was a noted wit and humorist of his day. Mrs. George Austen was his niece, and would seem to have had all his brilliant powers and epigrammatic play of wit, both in conversation and in letters; in addition to which she had a still greater blessing for a woman, in a temper of imperturbable sweetness, and this several of her family inherited from her, Jane most completely. Like her husband, she was of good family; a descendant of the Lord Chandos who was English Ambassador at Constantinople in 1686. The handsome young clergyman (George Austen was noted for his good looks even into extreme old age) settled with his bride at Deane in 1765, and they had a child, though not one of theft own, before they went there. Warren Hastings, then of course in India, confided to their charge the son of his first marriage, and the child remained with them until his early death of what was then called “putrid sore throat,” probably a form of diphtheria. On this child Mrs. Austen had lavished all a mother’s care, and throughout her life she declared that she could not have mourned more for her own child than she did for this adopted little one, though when he died her own nursery was filling fast, for five sons were born at Deane in rapid succession, James, Edward, Henry, Francis, and Charles.

In 1771 the Austen family migrated to Steventon Parsonage, only a drive of a mile and a half from Deane Parsonage, but such a mile and a half! Where nowadays a smooth lane runs from one village to the other there was then only a cart-track, cut up with fearful ruts, and absolutely impassable for an ordinary gentleman’s carriage. Mrs. Austen was unable either to walk or ride the distance, and so, when one of the wagons conveying the family goods had been nearly filled, the remaining space was occupied by a feather bed, upon which she was placed; the beds were then wedged between small pieces of furniture to avoid as much as possible all jolting, and in this manner did the clergyman’s wife reach her future home. On January the 9th, 1772, her first daughter was born, and christened Cassandra, and after an Interval of nearly four years, on December 16th, 1775, came Jane, and with her the Austen family closed.

The early life of all the young Austens was much the same. Like all her brothers and her sister, Jane was sent to a neighboring farmer’s wife as soon as possible after her birth, and remained there until of a convenient age to return home. This curious custom was then almost universal both in England and in France; most English writers of the day mention it as a matter of course, and both Richardson and Miss Edgeworth strongly uphold it. In France it was so systematized that the parents frequently sent with their infant a blank death certificate for the foster parents to fill up in case the child died while under their care! I do not know if this odd piece of foresight ever existed in England, at all events it was never needed for any of the young Austens, nor were they really banished from their parents, for both the father and mother visited the children almost daily until their return home. As far as health went the plan answered well, for all the children were healthy, and several lived to extreme old age, though Jane, alas! was not among these.

Except for occasional short absences from home, Jane’s birthplace was also her dwelling-place for twenty-five years, considerably more than the half of her short life, and some of her best writing was accomplished while there, so that a description of the quiet country parsonage cannot be without some interest for her readers.

Steventon, Stephington, or Stivetune — for the place has borne all these names — is not situated in a strikingly picturesque or beautiful country; in fact, there is a family tradition that Mrs. George Austen was wofully disappointed with her future home when taken to visit it as a bride-elect. Coming as she did from Henley-on-Thames she may have been hypercritical, but those who know the Hampshire scenery near Basingstoke will understand her feeling, for it is not of the kind to fascinate anyone at first sight. It is not exactly flat, but neither is it very hilly; it has plenty of trees, but no very fine timber, though there are many pretty walks and quiet nooks which make it a pleasant home-like neighborhood to anyone living in it, and knowing it well. There is a good view of Steventon from the railway between Basingstoke and Popham Beacon, but the parsonage house which we see there now is not the one in which Jane Austen opened her eyes to the world nearly a hundred and fourteen years ago. That one was pulled down more than sixty years ago; it is said to have been a square, comfortable-looking house on the other side of the valley to the present one; it was approached from the road by a shady drive, and was large enough to contain not only all the Austens and their household, but at different times many other people as well. It had a good-sized, old-fashioned garden, which was filled with fruit and flowers in delightfully indiscriminate profusion, and sloped gently upwards to a most attractive turf terrace; Every reader of Northanger Abbey will identify this terrace with a smile! From the parsonage garden there was a curious walk to the church; it was what natives of Hampshire call “a hedge,” which may be explained to those who are not natives of Hampshire as a footpath, or even sometimes a cart-track, bordered irregularly with copse wood and timber, far prettier than the ordinary type of English hedge, and forming a distinctive characteristic of the county. Jane Austen betrayed her Hampshire origin when she made Anne Elliot in Persuasion overhear Captain Wentworth and Louisa Musgrove “in the hedge-row behind her, as if making their way down the rough, wild sort of channel down the centre.”

The “hedge” at Steventon was called “the Church Walk,” and another of the same kind began at the corner of the turf terrace, and was formed farther on into a rustic shrubbery with seats here and there, called “the Wood Walk”; just the right place for Mr. Woodhouse to have taken his three turns in, or for Lady Bertram “to get out into in bad weather!” Steventon church, as Jane Austen knew it, was small and plain, with no greater merits than good proportions, early English windows, and seven centuries of age; but since then it has been almost rebuilt, and is now a far more imposing edifice. The Church Walk led also to a fine old Manor House of the time of Henry VIII, to the grounds of which the Austens had always free access: the rest of Steventon was simply a group of cottages with good gardens attached to them.

It is easy to see that scenery and surroundings of this kind would not lend themselves to interesting description in writing; nobody but George Sand could have thrown a poetic halo round Steventon, and, therefore, Jane Austen, with her usual excellent common sense, avoided all direct mention of it. Nevertheless, just as the Bronte writings breathe Yorkshire in every line, so that it is almost like walking over the moors to read Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, so it is unmistakable throughout her works that Steventon, under one form or another, was the background on which Jane Austen painted her “little bits of ivory two inches wide,” as she called her novels, and that the home-life of the parsonage, its duties, its amusements, its visits and its visitors, its joys and its griefs, were the tapestry into which she wove the lives of her heroes and heroines. Her invariable principle in writing was to use the material which lay near to hand, and which, therefore, she knew thoroughly how to manipulate. Both the places and the people must be much altered now from what they were when Jane Austen grew up among them; but the life-like figures painted so long ago by her master-hand gain additional clearness and vraisemblance for us when we realize how both they and their surroundings were drawn from what their author actually saw, and how completely it was her genius that transformed such commonplace material into immortal substance.

Nothing could have seemed less likely to inspire a young author with good subjects than the prosaic surroundings and quiet routine of the uneventful Steventon life, with its neighborhood neither better nor worse than other country neighborhoods of that day, and its distance from any large town or centre of life; yet Jane Austen found this sufficient for her.

Many great writers have made a splendid use of splendid material; but she truly “created,” for she made immortal pictures out of nothing. We have all encountered Miss Bates, Sir Walter Elliot, and General Tilney in real life, but few of us found them amusing until Jane Austen taught us to do so. It must not be supposed, however, that she ever drew absolute portraits in her works; she considered that an unpardonable liberty, and once, when accused of doing so, she indignantly repudiated “such an invasion of the social proprieties”; adding, with a laugh, “I am too proud of my gentlemen to admit that they were only Mr. A. or Colonel B.”

Like all truly great artists, she drew types, not individuals; and her writings, therefore, remain true to life, because types endure when individuals have long passed away. If she had not had “the divine spark” in herself, she would never have written at all, for she was not forced into doing so by Dr. Johnson’s great prescription — poverty; and she was too happy and contented in her home to write as a relief from a dull life. She wrote because she could not help it — full of hope that what was such a pleasure to her would some day cause as much pleasure to others; it is only a pity that she did not live to know all the enjoyment she would give to readers in number far beyond what she ever dreamed of.

Chapter 2 — Girlhood and First Attempts at Writing

The society immediately round Steventon when Jane Austen was growing up was neither above nor below the average of country society seventy miles from London, at a time when Squire Western was by no means an extinct character, nor Mr. B. a very uncommon one.

Even now it is not unusual for a country clergy-man to find himself the only educated gentleman within a radius of some miles round his parsonage; but the dense ignorance of country gentlemen a hundred years ago is a thing of the past, and it could scarcely happen to any clergyman now to be asked, as Mr. Austen was once by a wealthy squire, “You know all about these things. Do tell us. Is Paris in France, or France in Paris? for my wife has been disputing with me about it.” The Austens were not, however, dependent entirely on neighbors of this class for their social intercourse, and whether, like Mrs. Bennet, they dined with four-and-twenty families or not, they certainly managed to have a good deal of pleasant society. By birth and position the Austens were entitled to mix with the best society, of their county, and though not rich, their means were sufficient to enable them to associate with the best families in the neighborhood.

Country visits were more of a business then than now; wet weather and bad roads and dark nights made more obstacles to social intercourse than we realize in these days; but a houseful of merry, cultivated young people, presided over by genial parents, is sure to be popular with its neighbors, and Jane Austen had no lack of society when she was growing up. She was one of a most attractive family party, for they were all warmly attached to each other, full of the small jokes and bright sayings that enliven family life, and blessed with plenty of brains and cultivation, besides the sweet sunny temper that makes every-day life so easy.

Steventon Rectory in Jane Austen’s girlhood was as cheerful and happy a home as any girl need have desired, and she remembered it affectionately throughout her life, unconscious how much of its sunshine she herself had produced, for in her eyes its brightness was mainly owing to her sister, Cassandra. It was natural that two sisters coming together at the end of a line of brothers should draw much together, and from her earliest childhood Jane’s devotion to her elder sister was almost passionate in its intensity. As a little child she pined so miserably when Cassandra began going to school without her, that she was sent also, though too young for school life; but, as Mrs. Austen observed at the time, “If Cassandra were going to have her head cut off, Jane would insist on sharing her fate”; and this childish devotion only increased with riper years.

From beginning to end Jane never wrote a story that was not related first to Cassandra, and discussed with her; she literally shared every thought arid feeling with her sister, and the two pleasant volumes of letters which Lord Brabourne has published show us how the intense attachment between the two sisters never waned throughout their lives. The letters are almost in one way uninteresting to a third person; they are so full of the details of every-day life. Every particular is related, every plan discussed in them; they are the kind that could only pass between two people who knew that nothing which interested the one could fail to interest the other, and to open them is almost like intruding upon a confidential tête-à-tête: yet they are full of attraction for those who can read Jane’s own character between the lines. All her warmth of heart and devotion to her family shine out in them, as well as her quick perception of character; and they sparkle throughout with quiet fun, and with humor which is never ill-natured, while from first to last there is not a line written for effect, nor an atom of egotism or self-consciousness. It is characteristic both of Jane’s self-abnegation and of her complete faith in her sister that, even after she was a successful authoress, she always gave Cassandra’s opinion first to anyone consulting her on literary matters, and if it differed from her own she mentioned the fact almost apologetically, and merely as if she felt bound to do so.

If she did not actually pine for her sister’s presence after she was grown up, she certainly missed her, even in a short time, far more than most sisters, however affectionate, would do. At twenty she is eager to give up a ball to which she had been looking forward, merely that Cassandra may return from a visit two days earlier than she otherwise could, and writes, “I shall be extremely impatient to hear from you again, that I may know when you are to return.” At another time she reproaches her for staying away longer than she need have done, and entreats her to write oftener while away, declaring, “I am sure nobody can desire your letters as much as I do”; while every letter she receives from Cassandra is commented on with the same lover-like ardor, and received with the same delight, long after both the sisters had passed the romantic stage of girlhood.

“Excellent sweetness of you to send me such a nice long letter,” writes Jane, in 1813, when she was eight and thirty years old; and though doubtless letters were greater treasures then than now, it must be remembered that these and similar expressions are from a woman who was usually anything but “gushing” or “sentimental” in her language. Wherever the sisters were they always shared their bed-room, and if Jane’s feeling was the clinging devotion of a younger to an elder sister, Cassandra certainly returned it with an intense sympathy and affection that never diminished in life or in death.

The sisters were educated together chiefly at home. Mr. Austen taught his sons in great part himself, and was well fitted to do so, but the higher education for women had not then been discovered, and the Austen girls were not better instructed than other young ladies of their day. Jane’s especial gift was skill and dexterity with her fingers; she was a firstrate-needlewoman, and delighted in needle work; she excelled also in any game or occupation that required neat fingeredness; but she was no artist, and not a great musician, though far from a bad one. Like Elizabeth Bennet, “her performance was pleasing, though by no means capital.” She was an excellent French scholar, and a fair Italian one; German was in her day quite an exceptional acquirement for ladies; and as to what was then thought of the dead languages for them, all readers of Hannah More must remember her bashful heroine who put the cream into the tea-pot and the sugar into the milk-jug on it being discovered that she read Latin with her father!

Jane Austen risked no such overwhelming discovery, but she was well acquainted with the standard writers of her time, and had a fair knowledge of miscellaneous literature. Crabbe, Cowper, Johnson, and Scott were her favorite poets, though, rather oddly, she set Crabbe highest; and it was a standing joke in the family that she would have been delighted to become Mrs. Crabbe if she had ever been personally acquainted with the poet. Old novels were her delight, and the influence of Richardson and Miss Burney may be traced in some of her early writings; I have always thought that her criticism on the Spectator in Northanger Abbey proves that she could have known very little of Steele and Addison’s masterpieces; but tastes differ, and she may have been unlucky in her selections. She always took pleasure in calling herself “ignorant and uninformed,” and in declaring that she hated solid reading; but her letters continually make mention of new books which she is reading, and there was a constant stream of literature setting through the rectory at Steventon, in which Jane shared quite as fully as any of the others.

The delight and pursuit of her life, however, from very early days, was writing, and she seems to have been permitted to indulge in this pleasure with very little restraint; all the more, perhaps, that no amount of scribbling ever succeeded in spoiling her excellent handwriting. After she grew up to womanhood she regretted not having read more and written less before she was sixteen, and urged one of her nieces not to follow her example in that respect; but there must have been many wet or solitary days in the quiet rectory life which would have been very dull for the child without such a resource, and posterity may rejoice that no one hindered Jane Austen’s inclination for writing.

How soon she began to produce finished stories is not certain, but from a very early age her writings were a continual amusement and interest to the home circle, where they were criticised and admired with no idea as to what they might lead. Most young authors try their hands at dramatic writing some time or other, and Jane passed through this stage of composition when she was about twelve years old, though she never seems to have attempted it later in life. It was not a style which could have suited her, but at the time she tried it the young Austens had taken a craze for private theatricals, and Jane’s plays are thus easily accounted for.

The corps dramatique consisted of the brothers and sisters and a cousin, who had become one of them under pathetically romantic circumstances. She was a niece of Mr. Austen, had been educated in Paris, and married to a French nobleman, the Count de la Feuillade. He was guillotined in the Revolution, and she, with great difficulty, made her way to England, where she found a home in the already well-filled rectory at Steventon. She was clever and accomplished, rather un-English in her ways and tastes, and very ready to help in the theatricals, which, perhaps, would not have existed but for her. There was no theatre but the dining-room or a barn, and both actors and audience must have been limited in number; but plays were got up in which Mme. de Feuillade was the principal actress; James Austen wrote brilliant prologues and epilogues when they were wanted, and Jane Austen looked on and laid in materials for the immortal theatricals of the Bertram family. Space roust have made it impossible for a Mr. Yates, a Mr. Rush Worth, or the Crawfords to be among the Steventon actors; but there may have been a very sufficient spice of love-making throughout the business, for Mme. de Feuillade afterwards married Henry Austen, Jane’s third brother, and it is probable that there were enough “passages” between them during the theatricals to interest a girl of Jane’s age keenly. Meanwhile, something — perhaps the absurdly transparent mysteries in which some old comedies abound — suggested to her a little jeu d’esprit which, slight as it is, shows her keen sense of fun and her close observation, for she has copied the style and manner of an old play very closely, even in the dedication.

THE MYSTERY

An Unfinished Comedy

Dedication to the Rev. George Austen.

Sir,

I humbly solicit your patronage to the following comedy, which, though an unfinished one, is, I flatter myself, as complete a Mystery as any of its kind.

I am, Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

The Author.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Men.

Col. Elliott,

Old Humbug.

Young Humbug,

Sir Edward Spangle, and

Corydon.

Women.

Fanny Elliott,

Mrs. Humbug, and

Daphne.

Act I Scene I — A Garden.

Enter Corydon.

Corydon: But, hush; I am interrupted.

Exit Corydon. Enter Old Humbug and his Son, talking.

Old Hum.: It is for that reason that I wish you to follow my advice. Are you convinced of its propriety?

Young Hum.: I am, Sir, and will certainly act in the manner you have pointed out to me.

Old Hum.: Then let us return to the house.

Exeunt.

Scene II — A parlor in Humbug’s house. Mrs. Humbug and Fanny discovered at work.

Mrs. Hum.: You understand me, my love?

Fanny: Perfectly, ma’am; pray continue your narration.

Mrs. Hum.: Alas! it is nearly concluded, for I have nothing more to say on the subject Fanny: Ah! here is Daphne.

Enter Daphne.

Daphne: My dear Mrs. Humbug, how d’ye do? Ah, Fanny, it is all over!

Fanny: Is it, indeed?

Mrs. Hum.: I’m very sorry to hear it.

Fanny: Then ‘twas to no purpose that I

Daphne: None upon earth.

Mrs. Hum.: And what is to become of

Daphne: Oh! ‘tis all settled.

Whispers Mrs. Humbug.

Fanny: And how is it determined?

Daphne: I’ll tell you.

Whispers Fanny.

Mrs. Hum.: And is he to —?

Daphne: I’ll tell you all I know of the matter.

Whispers Mrs. Humbug and Fanny.

Fanny: Well, now I know everything about it I’ll go away.

Mrs. Hum. and Daphne: And so will I.

Exeunt.

Scene III — The curtain rises and discovers Sir Edward Spangle reclined in an elegant attitude on a sofa last asleep.

Enter Col. Elliott.

Col. E.: My daughter is not here, I see. There lies Sir Edward. Shall I tell him the secret? No, he’ll certainly blab it. But he’s asleep and wont hear me, so I’ll e’en venture.

Goes up to Sir Edward, whispers him and exit.

End of the First Act. Finis.

The Steventon theatricals came to an end when Jane was scarcely fifteen, but their influence on her writings existed for some time longer, and on the whole was scarcely a good one. “Instead of presenting faithful copies of nature, these tales were generally burlesques ridiculing the improbable events and exaggerated sentiments which she had met with in sundry silly romances.” Caricature is not a high type of art, and we may be glad that Jane Austen got over this stage while young. A trace of it lingers in Northanger Abbey, but she soon dropped it, either because it grated upon her own taste, or perhaps from the advice of her brother James. He was a man of much ability, and, being ten years older than his sister Jane, had a considerable share in forming her literary taste and judgment. About 1792 or thereabouts, she tried her hand at the form of novel in letters which Miss Burney and Richardson had then made very popular. It was natural that a girl deeply versed in Sir Charles Grandison and Evelina should be attracted by this style, but, in spite of some successes, it is doubtful if it could form a good vehicle for an everyday story, and it certainly was not suited to Jane Austen’s manner of writing. She bad not then, however, realized her own powers, or perfected her own inimitable style, and she persevered long enough with the letter-writing to compose at least two complete novels in it. One of these, Elinor and Marianne, she afterwards re-wrote completely, converting it from the letter form into ordinary narrative, and published it in 1811 as Sense and Sensibility. The other story, Lady Susan, which was much shorter, she never altered, but apparently did not like it enough to attempt publishing it, and for years after her death it was unknown to the public, as well as to most of her own family.

At some former time she had given the autograph copy of the story to a favorite niece, Fanny Austen (afterwards Lady Knatchbull, mother of the present Lord Brabourne). Another niece, Mrs. Lefroy, had taken a copy of the story for herself, and through these two ladies the existence of Lady Susan became known, so that more than sixty years after the author’s death it was published for the first time. No one knows its exact date, but it is evidently a juvenile production, and her family believe that it is the earliest specimen of her writings which has yet appeared in print.

It is a short story, dealing, as was the writer’s wont, with only two or three families; but except for this, it is scarcely suggestive of her later style, and is curiously deficient in all humor or playfulness, for which, indeed, the dimensions of the story do not give much scope. Lady Susan Vernon, the heroine, is a beautiful and accomplished coquette of the worst type. She has been left a young widow with one daughter, almost grown up, who is, of course, very much in her way, and whom she tries to get rid of by marrying her to a booby. Frederica Vernon, the daughter, who under a timid exterior conceals a high-principled and resolute disposition, resists the marriage so firmly that her mother sends her back to school in order to weary her into submission, while she herself goes to pay a long visit to a married brother-in-law, Mr. Charles Vernon, who she thinks may be a useful friend to her. By an awkwardly managed complication Frederica is unexpectedly obliged to leave school and appears at Churchhill (Charles Vernon’s), while her mother is deep in a flirtation with Mrs. Vernon’s brother, Reginald de Courcy; and through a still more clumsy tour force the “booby,” Sir James Martin, follows her there, and by his manners and appearance upsets all Lady Susan’s carefully-arranged version of her daughter’s engagement. Frederica falls in love with Reginald who is unconscious of her feeling for him, but is shaken in his allegiance to her mother, by observing what passes before him, until Lady Susan contrives to blind his judgment again, and, as he is heir to a large property and an old baronetcy, she allures him into offering his hand, which she accepts.

She departs for London, and her admirer follows, but there a complete éclaircissement takes place through Reginald encountering a Mrs. Mainwaring, with whose husband Lady Susan has long carried on a violent flirtation, and who reveals all her wrongs in language not to be misunderstood. He bids farewell to Lady Susan, who makes a contemptuous reply, and returns to his own home, while her ladyship prepares to enjoy herself in London, determined, however, first to get Frederica married to Sir James without delay, whatever may be the girl’s own wishes.

Here the correspondence, which is almost entirely confined to four people — Lady Susan and a friend on the one side, Mrs. Charles Vernon and her mother on the other — ceases, perhaps because Jane Austen found it impossible to wind up the plot satisfactorily by it; so in a concluding chapter — which is rather long and heavy but may have been written at a later period, as it has more of her usual mannerism in it than any other part of the story — she tells us, what we already foresee, that Frederica held out firmly against Sir James, that her mother got heartily sick of her and sent her back to Church-hill, where, of course, in due time, she became Reginald de Courcy’s wife, while Lady Susan herself was eventually married to Sir James Martin.

The story cannot be considered up to Jane Austen’s standard, and she probably felt this herself for she never tried to incorporate it in anything else that she wrote. It is curious that so young an author should have selected a heroine of thirty-five years old, and unsatisfactorily to have made the hero fall in love with both mother and daughter. There are greater faults than this, however, in the book; the characters are too slightly sketched to excite much interest, there is little or no dialogue to relieve the monotony of the letters, and the events do not fall out naturally. In short, few even of the author’s most devoted admirers would call it a good novel; and it can only interest those who like to trace the steps by which a great writer advances to fame.

Lady Susan is not well written, and between it and Pride and Prejudice there is almost as great a gulf as between Scenes of Clerical Life and Romola.

If published in her lifetime, Lady Susan might have injured Jane Austen’s literary reputation, but by the time her descendants decided to give it to the world her matured fame stood on a pinnacle that no immature work could possibly affect, and, as she evidently did not think highly of it herself, none of her admirers need shrink from avowing the same feeling.

Chapter 3 — Her Life’s One Romance

The years from 1787 to 1795 which passed over Steventon Parsonage, brought few changes to the quiet life of its inmates, except such as occur in every family of young people growing up. From boys and girls the Austens became young men and young women: James, Edward, and Henry all made their start in life, and the two elder ones married; Francis and Charles went into the navy and rose rapidly, for those were golden days for steady, ambitious young naval officers; Cassandra duly took her place as the “Miss Austen” of the family, and finally came Jane’s turn to be, as she says of a friend in one of her letters, “grown up and have a fine complexion, and wear great square muslin shawls.”

In other words, Jane Austen, in 1795, was “tall and twenty,” and if she had not, to continue the quotation, “beaux and balls in plenty,” it can only have been because the neighborhood was not rich in these advantages; she had, however, quite as much as she wanted of both.

Those who knew her at this time speak highly of her beauty, and two portraits which still exist of her quite bear out their praise. “Fair and handsome, slight and elegant,” Sir Egerton Brydges calls her at this time, and the first portrait, which shows her in early youth, depicts a tall, slight girl, whose graceful élancé figure is not wholly disfigured, even by the ugly, unbecoming dress of the day. She stands with a fan in her hand, in the attitude of one just about to speak; the head, well set and poised, is thrown slightly back, the brilliant beautiful eyes look laughingly out as if enjoying some gay speech, and the full lips are slightly parted, as if ready with a playful rejoinder. The hair is cut short, but waves in thick curls all over her head, and figure and expression alike give the idea of her being, like her own Emma Woodhouse, “the picture of health.” The brilliant expression would be attractive in a plainer face, and, looking at the radiant girl, one is tempted to wonder how Jane Austen could have remained Jane Austen all her life, but in truth no one would have found it easy to persuade her into matrimony. Her taste was fastidious, her home a very happy one, and her heart and mind abundantly occupied, so that the admiration she received amused more than it touched her, and she took good care that it should not usually go beyond very reasonable limits.

One admirer, who figures rather conspicuously in some of her earlier letters, subsequently achieved considerable eminence in life; this was Mr. Thomas Lefroy, afterwards Chief Justice of Ireland. He came into Hampshire one Christmas (when Jane was just twenty) on a visit to his aunt, Mrs. Lefroy, whose husband was the Rector of Ashe, the parish adjoining Steventon. This Mrs. Lefroy was a brilliant woman with much charm of manner; she was greatly attached to Jane, who looked up to her with all a girl’s admiration for an older woman of superior attainments. Jane was constantly at Ashe, and when she met Thomas Lefroy there the two clever young people were mutually attracted. Very possibly Mrs. Lefroy hoped that the attraction might ripen into something warmer, but Jane’s own tone on the matter is invariably playful.

“You scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have this moment received from you,” she writes to Cassandra in January, 1796, “that I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I can expose myself, however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the last three balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago.”

Cassandra’s sisterly feelings had taken alarm at this “gentleman-like, good-looking, pleasant young” Irishman, and Jane was bent on teasing her, for in the same letter she mischievously tells her sister that she had received a visit from Mr. Lefroy, who “has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove; — it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light.” Next she declares that she is looking forward with great impatience to the Ashe ball, “as I rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening. I shall refuse him, however, unless he promises to give away his white coat,” and then announces with mock solemnity that she intends to give up all her other admirers, and “confine myself in future to Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom I don’t care sixpence.” Finally, on January 16th, she tells her sister that “at length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea.” And thus ended this little episode “comme à vingt ans.”It is impossible to imagine that Jane had any serious feeling for “Tom Lefroy,” and, as he was three times married in the course of his life, and lived to be about ninety, his heart cannot have been irretrievably wounded either. Throughout his long and brilliant career, however, he never forgot his fair partner of the Ashe and Basingstoke balls, and to the last would refer to her as a girl much to be admired, and not easily to be forgotten by anyone who had once known her, an opinion which most others who knew her endorse warmly.

Two years later we hear of another “passage” in Jane’s life, which seems more serious on the gentleman’s side, though it is difficult to say whether she was touched by it or not. Writing in November 1798 (to her sister, as usual) she says that she has had a visit from Mrs. Lefroy, “with whom, in spite of interruptions both from my father and James, I was enough alone to hear all that was interesting, which you will easily credit when I tell you that of her nephew she said nothing at all, and of her friend very little. She showed me a letter which she had received from her friend a few weeks ago (in answer to one written by her to recommend a nephew of Mrs. Russell to his notice at Cambridge), towards the end of which was a sentence to this effect: ‘I am very sorry to hear of Mrs. Austen’s illness. It would give me particular pleasure to have an opportunity of improving my acquaintance with that family — with a hope of creating to myself a nearer interest. But at present I cannot indulge any expectation of it.’” After giving this quotation, Jane herself goes on: “This is rational enough; there is less love and more sense in it than sometimes appeared before, and I am very well satisfied. It will all go on exceedingly well, and decline away in a very reasonable manner. There seems no likelihood of his coming into Hampshire this Christmas, and it is therefore most probable that our indifference will soon be mutual, unless his regard, which appeared to spring from knowing nothing of me at first, is best supported by never seeing me. Mrs. Lefroy made no remarks in the letter, nor did she, indeed, say anything about him as relative to me. Perhaps she thinks she has said too much already.”

Evidently the unnamed “friend” of Mrs. Lefroy had fallen in love at first sight, the sort of attachment which Jane would least understand, and which she would be most inclined to ridicule. Nevertheless, as to her indifference, “the lady doth protest too much, methinks”; yet it is impossible not to suspect some consciousness in her careful avoidance of his name; it is clear that there were serious obstacles — probably of money — on his side, and that Jane, even if attracted by him, had determined to nip the whole affair in the bud.

From other sources we hear of repeated unsuccessful attempts to win her, especially of one suitor whose addresses she declined, although “he had the recommendations of good character and a good position in life, of everything, in fact, except the subtle power of touching her heart.” It seems wonderful that a woman who could describe love as she could, who could draw Fanny Price and Emma Woodhouse and Anne Elliot all under the spell of that influence, should never have felt its effects herself; yet her nephew declares that he knows “of no definite tale of love to relate” of her, and Lord Brabourne, while confirming the fact that she might more than once have been married had she wished it, confirms also Mr. Austen Leigh’s conviction that her heart was never won. There was, however, a sad little romance in her life, which for many years seems to have been known only to her sister. In 1801 Cassandra and Jane, while staying at the seaside in Devonshire, became acquainted with a clergyman who was in all respects so attractive that even Cassandra thought him worthy of her cherished sister, and his admiration for Jane was soon so marked that there was no doubt of his wishes, and, in the elder sister’s opinion not much doubt of his ultimate success. When the seaside visit ended, he impressed strongly on the sisters his intention of soon meeting them again, and Cassandra was preparing to see her constant companion removed to a new home, when tidings came of his sudden death before another interview could take place. What Jane felt at this time was told only to her sister, who so respected her reticence that she never mentioned the story until years after Jane’s death, when she spoke of it to some of the family, and gave them to understand that she considered this the one real romance of her sister’s life. Nevertheless, considering how short the time was during which the acquaintanceship had existed, even she could scarcely say how far her sister’s happiness had been really affected by it.

Through some curious misunderstanding of this little episode has arisen another far more romantic story about Jane Austen, which has only lately been given to the world. Sir Francis Doyle, in his brilliant and amusing Reminiscences, says that a friend of his once made acquaintance with a niece of Jane Austen, who gave her many particulars of her aunt’s life. According to her, Jane Austen was once actually engaged to a young naval officer, and after the peace of 1802 she went abroad with her father, sister, and fiancé to visit Switzerland. They travelled in company for some time till at length the Austens settled to go on to their next stage by diligence, while the young man started to walk over the mountains, intending to join them at Chamouni. They arrived there in due time, but waited for him in vain, at first unsuspicious of misfortune, then surprised and uneasy, finally in terrible alarm until the news of his death came to confirm their worst fears. The story adds that the young officer had overwalked himself, and became so alarmingly ill oh his way that he had been carried to a cottage, where he lay for many days between life and death, incapable of communicating with the outer world until just before his death, when he rallied sufficiently to give the Austens’ address to those who were nursing him, and thus they heard the news. Sir Francis builds upon this story (which, of course, only came to him third hand) a graceful little theory about Persuasion, which was not published until after Jane’s death, and which has often been remarked upon as softer and tenderer in tone than her earlier novels. He thinks that this is explained by the tragic romance through which she had passed before writing Persuasion; but this theory will hardly hold good in face of facts, and, indeed the story practically crumbles to pieces when investigated. First, the whole episode must have been before 1805, for Mr. Austen died in that year, but neither then nor at any other time is there any probability that Jane Austen was ever abroad; her own family believe that she never crossed the sea in her life. A second objection, which Sir Francis himself remarks upon, is that none of Jane’s own generation of relatives knew anything of the story, nor any of her nephews or nieces except the unnamed one who told it to Sir Francis’s friend. Mr. Austen Leigh and his sisters, Mrs. Lefroy and Miss Austen, all remembered their aunt Jane well; so did Lady Knatchbull, who had been a special companion and chosen confidante of hers; yet none of these had ever heard of Jane Austen being definitely engaged to anyone, and it is certain that the niece who related the story was not one of those who remembered her aunt, so that she can only have had it at second hand herself. Indeed, the Austens were on such intimate terms with each other that it is inconceivable they should not all have known of any declared engagement among themselves; but what above all is utterly and entirely inconceivable is that Cassandra Austen, who must have known all about it, should not only have never mentioned it to anyone, but should have told a different story to account for her sister never having married. Another explanation of Sir Francis’s story is also possible. Though Jane Austen never was engaged to be married, Cassandra Austen was; her fiancé died while out of England, after a short and sudden illness. With a resemblance like this between the sisters’ stories it is not difficult to see how, years later, when Cassandra and Jane were both gone, the more tragic romance would be given to the best-known sister with those embellishments and alterations that are sure to occur as a story filters from one génération to another.

Cassandra had been engaged to a young clergyman who could not many till he obtained preferment, but who had good prospects from a wealthy relative, who was kind to him and had several livings in his gift. While waiting for one of these to fall vacant, the patron, who knew nothing of the engagement, urged the young man to go out with him on a visit to the West Indies; he went there, and died of yellow fever. Cassandra’s grief, which was deep and lasting, was, of course, shared by Jane, who, though quite young at the time, already felt every sorrow of her sister as her own. That these two stories have been confused together, I feel sure; and those readers who regret losing an additional touch of romance for the charming story of Persuasion must remember that both Emma and Mansfield Park were written, and Northanger Abbey completely revised for the press, after 1805, so that there is really no reason why one of these should not show traces of Jane’s sorrow as well as another.

With the authority of the family for pronouncing the story told by Sir Francis a mistake, we may dismiss it, together with the wild statement once made by Mary Russell Mitford (on the authority of her mother) about Jane Austen in her girlhood. Mrs. Mitford, before her marriage, lived at Ashe, the rectory next to Steventon, and Miss Mitford, in one of her pleasant rambling letters, quotes her mother as remembering Jane Austen well before her marriage, and adds: “Mamma says that she was then the prettiest, silliest, most husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers.” Such a description of Jane Austen carries glaring improbability on the face of it, but fortunately it is needless to begin a defence of her character, for Mrs. Mitford married and left Ashe before Jane was ten years old, and the intercourse between Ashe and Steventon had come to an end about three years before that. Most unintentionally, therefore, Miss Mitford perpetuated some complete misunderstanding of her mother’s words, and we may fairly believe that some similar misunderstanding originated the story repeated to Sir Francis Doyle, who, seeing all its improbabilities, suggests himself that in some way or other his informant must have been “most unaccountably mistaken.”

Chapter 4 — First Attempts at Publishing and Change of Home

From about the age of twenty to five-and-twenty — that is, during the five last years of her life at Steventon — Jane had fairly taken up her pen, and worked really hard with it all the time. At least three of her best-known novels were written during this period, although, from their not having been published till much later, there is difficulty in fixing the exact dates of their composition. Pride and Prejudice, however, was begun in October, 1796, when she was nearly twenty-one, and finished in August, 1797. Three months after it was completed she began upon what we now know as Sense and Sensibility, but with which, as has been already said, she incorporated a good deal of an earlier story, Elinor and Marianne, originally written in letters. Northanger Abbey she wrote in 1798, soon after finishing Sense and Sensibility.

Even in the quiet life at Steventon, it is difficult to understand how Jane managed to combine so much literary work with all her household and social occupations, for so little was writing a serious business to her that she never mentions it in her letters throughout those years. It is provoking to read through the pages of correspondence with the sister to whom she told everything, and to find them full of little everyday details of home life without a single word upon the subject which would be so interesting now to us. It cannot have been from shyness that she avoided the topic, for her own family knew of her stories when completed, and, wonderful to relate, she carried on all her writing in the little parsonage sitting-room, with everyone coming in and out and pursuing occupations there. This, by the way, speaks volumes for the Austen family and their friends;