Microsoft Word - Copy of Jane Austen by Elizabeth Jenkins.doc Page 13

  The crosses were each formed of five stones; but in one the jewels were of an oval shape and all of the same size, while in the other they were rectangular, and the topaz forming the stem of the cross was twice as long as the other four. Topazes, with amethysts and garnets, were very fashionable, especially to wear with the white frocks that were the height of elegance; how nobly extravagant the presents were may be understood from the beautiful episode in

  Mansfield Park. Charles, flushed with prize money, had bought gold chains to go with the crosses; when the midshipman William Price bought an amber cross for his sister Fanny, he had wanted to buy a chain as well, but he had not

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  the money to do it. Such was Jane's last letter before Cassandra joined them for Sidmouth.

  Eliza Austen writing to Phila Walter on the 29th of October in that year says: "I conclude that you know of our uncle and aunt Austen and their daughters having spent the summer in Devonshire. They are now returned to Bath where they are superintending the fitting up of their new house."

  This letter covers the time of what was, to herself, one of the most important periods of Jane Austen's existence. It was certainly the year which has given rise to the most discussion and conjecture of any in her life.

  The information we possess about this matter is derived solely from Cassandra Austen, and was given by her, many years after her

  sister's death, to her sister-in-law, Mrs. James Austen, and the daughter of James and Mary, Anna's halfsister, Caroline.

  Caroline Austen's account of what her aunt Cassandra had said, and the manner in which Cassandra, usually so much reserved, had been led to give it, was this: that when they had all three been staying together at Newtown, the party had become acquainted with a young and very goodlooking man in the Engineers, whom Caroline Austen refers to as Mr. H. E. Cassandra admired and liked the young man, and this struck her niece at the time as something unusual, because Cassandra "so rarely admired strangers." Shortly after they had left Newtown, they heard that Mr. H. E. had died of a sudden illness.

  The news shocked Cassandra out of her reserve, and moved by the coincidence which brought back to her what must have been, after the death of her own lover, one of the darkest periods of her life, she told her niece that when she and Jane had been staying in

  Devonshire, they had met a young man, of whom Mr. H. E. had

  strongly reminded her. He appeared to be greatly attracted

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  by Jane; Cassandra's impression was that he had fallen in love with her and was "quite in earnest." He was very anxious to know where they would be the next summer, implying that wherever it was, he should be there too. Cassandra's opinion of him may be inferred from the fact that she thought him worthy of Jane, and she was certain also "that he would have been a successful suitor." They parted in the full expectation of meeting again but more happily.

  Shortly afterwards they heard that he was dead.

  Such is the only existing mention of the story, and for the next three years none of Jane's letters has survived. The blank is complete, the darkness impenetrable. She was not the woman to be prostrated by a love affair, however tragic; she would not rudely have repulsed all attempts at sympathy and shut herself up in grief till the beauty of the world became a torment instead of a consolation. She thought a person stood disgraced who abandoned him or herself to a private grief and disregarded the claims of others to decency and

  consideration. One may feel assured, without undue tendency to imagination, that she went about every daily occupation with more scrupulous attention rather than less, and that she recovered a certain peace of mind the more quickly because she meant to recover it. On the other hand, one cannot doubt that she suffered very much. She was not one of those women of whom men say that they are "made for love"; but she had, with all the awe-inspiring qualities of her mind, a bright and loving nature, a sweetness and tenderness of affection, and though she could not feel pass sion without its spiritual accompaniments, when she fell in love at twenty-six, one feels that she did it with mind and body, with heart as well as soul. It is that which makes the tragedy complete. She was predisposed to love; no one knew better than she the support that woman's nature gains from

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  man's; she thought a happy marriage the best fate for everybody; but her fastidiousness was such that, though she was prone to flirting and made herself agreeable by instinct, she found the utmost difficulty in finding a man--not a worthy or intelligent man, or even an attractive man, but one whom she could love, and when she had found him it was only to know him before she lost him.

  The importance of what happened to her as it affected the

  development of her sensibilties and powers is great, but it lies in the fact that it acted as a pointer towards realms of undiscovered country; and the exquisite speech on woman's constancy written fifteen years afterwards is not uttered by Jane Austen in her own person, but by Anne Elliot, whom Jane Austen's experience enabled her to understand. Had Jane met another man as sympathetic with herself as the nameless companion of that summer of 1801, there is no reason to suppose that she would not have loved again and

  married him; she was difficult to please, but not incapable of being pleased. That she never met another man to equal, in her estimation, the one she had known, was a thing very likely to happen, and which did actually happen, but it was not an inevitable consequence of what had gone before. To say that people can get over their

  unhappiness is not to make light of it, or to underestimate its influence on their lives long after the pain has ceased to be felt; but to say of someone who, from duty, common sense and inclination, made as determined an effort as possible to overcome distress, who had such a relish for existence as transformed it, without the aid of external circumstances, into an adventure of entertainment, hope and joy: that such a person never recovered from a love affair that ended disastrously in early life, or that she would never have been so unfaithful to the image of the past as to fall in love again, is surely to

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  show an extraordinary lack of comprehension of the essentials of her character.

  It is impossible not to long to know what he was like; "young and handsome," "worthy" of Jane: on such a foundation one could erect a structure satisfying enough to one's own fancy, but as Henry Tilney said: "If it is to be guesswork, let us all guess for ourselves." At all events one feels justified in saying that his name was not Edmund Bertram or George Knightley or Captain Frederick Wentworth. It is enough that she knew him.

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  10

  THE THREE years' residence in 4 Sydney Place which began with

  the return from Devonshire in 1801 is the period marked by the gap in Jane's correspondence. It is probable that Cassandra may have wished to be with her sister as much as she could: her constant presence must have been Jane's best, if not her only comfort for some time; but that there should have been no occasion for letters during three years would have marked so complete a change in the sisters' way of living as is not likely to have been the case. Henry and Eliza's house was now added to the round of establishments to be visited by both, and Edward is not likely to have forgotten his claims on Cassandra; his seventh child, Marianne, was born in 1801, and Charles, his eighth, in 1803, and even had there been no visits in between, he would scarcely have done without Cassandra's usual services while Elizabeth was upstairs.

  The move to Bath had been undertaken because of Mr. Austen, now over seventy and in uncertain health, but it was his wife who was actually ill when they got there. Cassandra and Jane nursed their mother; Cassandra was especially capable in a sick room, as she was in housekeeping; they had, besides a doctor whom they thought a great deal

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  of, a Mr. Bowen; and the whole incident of Mrs. Austen's illness is commemorated in a few verses composed by the spirited old lady herself, entitled: A Dialogue between Death and Mrs. A.

  Says Death: "I've b
een trying these three weeks and more To seize on old Madam here at Number Four, Yet I still try in vain, tho' she's turned of three score; To what is my ill success owing?" "I'll tell you, old Fellow, if you cannot guess, To what you're indebted for your ill success-To the prayers of my husband, whose love I possess, To the care of my daughters, whom Heaven will bless, To the skill and attention of Bowen. "

  Another marriage in the family was imminent. Cassandra and Jane had been very fortunate in their first two sisters-inlaw, Elizabeth and Mary, and if, as the family record suggests, some of the Austens thought that Eliza was too "pleasure-loving" to be a suitable wife for the mercurial Henry, Jane at least was not likely to have been among them, constant as she was to her early loves, of whom the wonderful grown-up cousin had been among the first. She was to be equally fortunate in the choice of her fourth brother. Frank was at present reduced to half pay and was employed in organizing "the sea fencibles" whose duty it was to keep a lookout and give the alarm should Napoleon's fleet attempt a landing on an unsuspected part of the coast. While so employed he met Miss Mary Gibson at

  Ramsgate; and though his prospects were not yet sufficiently settled for him to be able to offer an immediate marriage, they became engaged. Cassandra and Jane both liked Mary extremely, and Jane's visiting her at Ramsgate is one of the few incidents of which

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  we have any mention during this time. Mary Gibson can have had no notion when she first met her future sister-inlaw of what her

  achievements were to be, and must therefore have had an unusually complete impression, in the most favorable circumstances, of Jane's personality as a simple member of society. To be prepared to like Frank's choice, and then to find that she truly did like her, would have brought out the most fascinating and endearing aspect of Jane's behavior; and to be received by Jane Austen with open arms as a member of the family must have been, in its way, almost as

  delightful as becoming engaged to Captain Francis Austen. Only one thing marred the coming of Mary Gibson into the family circle; Cassandra and Jane had hoped that Frank might marry Martha.

  Whatever might have been Jane's sensations during these three years, this was the period that finished and revised Northanger Abbey, and when one considers that exquisitely hilarious work, the most

  unrestrainedly witty of all the completed novels, it is strangely touching to see how noticeably graver the second part is than the first: it displays, for one thing, the cure of Catherine Morland's entêtement; it contains also the story of Eleanor Tilney's feelings for her dead mother: but even so, the prevailing character of the work is not affected. Northanger Abbey is not one of the great novels, but its style is the most consistently stimulating of any; it bubbles and sings with a cool and brilliant exhilaration, and one is never more

  conscious of the spirit of an age as inspiring different forms of art than when walking among the streets of Bath with a copy of

  Northanger Abbey in one's hand.

  The characterization of Northanger Abbey is in its way as perfect as that of the later books, but it deals with simpler, more emphatic types than are found in Pride and Prejudice,

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  Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. One is fascinated by the vivid presentation of John Thorpe and Mrs. Allen--till one comes to consider Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet. Nevertheless the ring of characters in Northanger Abbey is realized with characteristic perfection, and they have that other excellence peculiar to their author, that they all, even those in the most distinctly separate parts, react upon, and are seen in relation to each other. John Thorpe reflects upon General Tilney, General Tilney upon Mrs. Allen,

  Isabella Thorpe upon Henry and Eleanor, and thus the solidity and conviction of the whole are powerfully but imperceptibly

  strengthened with every succeeding turn of the action. In one respect the characterization is superior to that of Sense and Sensibility; there are no weak spots in it. One does not say of anybody in Northanger Abbey, as one says of Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars: "I understand what this character is meant to be, but I do not feel about him or her as I am meant to feel." At the same time, none of the dramatis personœ is seen in situations of such depth and emotional significance as Elinor, when she discovers the secret engagement of Edward and Lucy, or Colonel Brandon in recognizing in Marianne a likeness to the sister-in-law he had loved and who had become a prostitute.

  The book bears a likeness to Sense and Sensibility in one respect: it satirizes a prevalent fashion instead of merely viewing individuals from a satirical aspect. An exaggerated enthusiasm for sensibility and the picturesque has given place in this book to a ridiculing of the absurd conventions of the popular novel, and a mania for Gothic romance. The story opens by describing Catherine as going through the normal stages of childhood and gawky adolescence, "noisy and wild," developing gradually into the bloom of seventeen, when her interests began to turn in the direction of

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  finery and balls, and when she had the pleasure of sometimes

  hearing her parents say: "Catherine grows quite a goodlooking girl; she is almost pretty today." And having thus delineated a girl completely normal in character and circumstances, Jane Austen says that being what she was, Catherine Morland was of course quite unsuitable to be the heroine of a novel. The original achievement of Charlotte Brontë in creating the heroine of a powerful love story from a girl of unusual character but of appearance avowedly plain and insignificant has often been commented upon; the earlier feat of Jane Austen in demonstrating that a little ordinary girl was an interesting subject for a novel was quite as remarkable and new.

  The two parts of the story, laid respectively in Bath and at

  Northanger Abbey in Gloucestershire, are connected by the mistake into which General Tilney was led, of thinking that Catherine, under the guardianship of the wealthy Allens, was herself the heiress to a large fortune, and his consequent invitation to her to spend some months at Northanger, with a view to marrying her to Henry,

  between whom and Catherine he had seen that there was already an interesting degree of friendship. His grossly brutal behavior in turning the innocent guest out of doors when he had discovered his own mistake comes like a thunderclap; and well-nigh incredible as such behavior at first appears in someone who, like the General, was not merely of gentle birth but piqued himself considerably upon being so, its genuine probability is established by the developing of the astutest character study in the book. General Tilney's affability and courtesy, so overwhelming as positively to alarm the simple Catherine, have something frightening about them from the start.

  "The bustle of going was not pleasant. The clock struck ten while the trunks were carrying down,

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  and the General had fixed to be out of Milsom Street by that hour.

  His great coat, instead of being brought for him to put on directly, was spread out in the curricle in which he was to accompany his son.

  The middle seat of the chaise was not drawn out, though there were three people to go in it, and his daughter's maid had so crowded it with parcels that Miss Morland would not have room to sit; and so much was he influenced by this apprehension that she had some

  difficulty in saving her own new writing desk from being thrown out into the street." The entirely hollow nature of the General's good-heartedness, of which he himself was of course unconscious, is illustrated by almost everything he says. The chef d'œuvre of his speeches has been generally allowed to be that in which he

  condemned patch-on bow windows. Poor Catherine was so much

  embarrassed by his asking her opinion of every room in Woodstone as if she were to be its future mistress that she could not say anything in praise of what she saw; and though the General deprecated his possessions with ludicrous mock-modesty when anybody was

  impressed by their splendor, the least hint of any imagined criticism put him on his mettle at once. "'We are not calling it a good house,'

&nbs
p; said he. 'We are not comparing it with Fullerton and Northanger. We are considering it as a mere parsonage, small and confined, we allow, but decent perhaps and habitable; and altogether not inferior to the generality; or, in other words, I believe there are few country parsonages in England half so good. It may admit of improvement, however. Far be it from me to say otherwise; and anything in reason-

  -a bow thrown out, perhaps; though, between ourselves, if there is one thing more than another my aversion, it is a patched-on bow.'"

  General Tilney's thrusting Catherine out of doors when she was found not to be an heiress after all is exactly of a

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  piece with utterances showing such a lack of integrity, such vanity and blind egotism, such childish lack of self-control; it is an audacious climax which few authors would have ventured upon; but on a careful study of General Tilney's character it rings faultlessly true: Catherine had been discovered to be poor, and therefore need be spared no unkindness or indignity. Richardson revealed the

  barbarity that can underlie a polished behavior, in deeds of violence and rape; Jane Austen does it, without going one step beyond the confines of everyday existence.

  The part played in Northanger Abbey by the satire on Gothic romance is secondary to the attraction of the characters themslves, but is exceedingly entertaining in itself, and the more so to a modern reader because its chief value is not its intrinsic interest, but the effect it has on the minds of the different people who read it. The parody of Mrs. Radcliffe which Henry Tilney makes for Catherine's amusement when they are driving to Northanger is indeed not so much a parody, as another romance on the lines of Udolpho, and gives those who shirk reading that romance all that they need to know.