Complete Works of Jane Austen (435 page)

4. Chapter xxiv: All editions read: —

This dear William would soon be amongst them. There could be no doubt of his obtaining leave of absence immediately, for he was still only a midshipman; and as his parents, from living on the spot, must already have seen him and be seeing him perhaps daily, his direct holidays might with justice be instantly given to his sister.

The expression ‘his direct holidays,’ meaning ‘his actual holidays,’ is intelligible enough, but did not satisfy Dr. Verrall, who suggested ‘derelict’ as a naval expression to imply holidays on which no one had a claim, and which might therefore be given to Mansfield Park. Like many of Dr. Verrall’s emendations, its ingenuity is greater than its probability.

5. Chapter xxxiii, : —

Here again was a something of the same Mr. Crawford whom she had so reprobated before. How evidently was there a gross want of feeling and humanity where his own pleasure was concerned; and alas! how always known no principle to supply as a duty what the heart was deficient in.

It is difficult to believe that Jane Austen can have written anything so clumsy as ‘how always known no principle.’ Such, however, is the reading of all the editions, except the Hampshire Edition, which, without giving any note, violently emends to ‘how lacking the principle.’

6. Chapter xxxix: Bentley, following the second edition, reads: —

Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; all was busy without getting on, always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect.

Here the printer has been most ingenious. The text should, of course, be ‘always busy,’ as it is in the first edition and the Hampshire Edition.

7. Chapter xl: Bentley’s edition, following the early editions, reads: —

‘. . . for Henry is in Norfolk; business called him to Everingham ten days ago, or perhaps he only pretended the call, for the sake of being travelling at the same time that you were.’

Mr. Johnson and the Winchester Edition read ‘to call.’ There seems little doubt that ‘the call’ is the right reading.

8. Chapter xlvii: Bentley and nearly all editions read: —

Time would undoubtedly abate somewhat of his sufferings, but still it was a sort of thing which he never could get entirely the better of; and as to his ever meeting with any other woman who could — it was too impossible to be named but with indignation.

The broken sentence means ‘a woman who could console him for the loss of Mary.’

Mr. Johnson’s editions make nonsense of the passage by substituting a comma for the dash after ‘could.’

9. Chapter xlviii: Bentley, following the early editions, reads: —

Maria had destroyed her own character, and he would not, by a vain attempt to restore what never would be restored, be affording his sanction to vice, or in seeking to lessen its disgrace, be anywise accessory to introducing such misery in another man’s family, as he had known himself.

Mr. Johnson and the Winchester Edition read ‘by affording his sanction to vice,’ which is an unnecessary alteration.

‘Emma’

1. Chapter xviii: —

‘No, Emma; your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English. He may be very “aimable,” have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people — nothing really amiable about him.’

This reading, found in the first edition and the Winchester Edition, is without doubt correct; but Bentley, Johnson, and the Hampshire Edition read ‘He may be very “amiable.”‘

2. Chapter xxiii: —

But when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance proportionably advanced, . . .

Mr. Johnson, in his 1892 edition, did not approve of the word ‘proportionably,’ and read ‘[proportionately]’; but he has since altered his mind. The first edition and all others read ‘proportionably,’ and there appears to be authority for such a word.

3. Chapter xxv: —

Vanity, extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be doing something, good or bad; heedlessness as to the pleasure of his father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear in general; he became liable to all these [changes].

There are two words in the sentence, which differ in the various editions. The first edition reads ‘indifferent’ . . . ‘changes.’ Bentley reads ‘indifference’ . . . ‘changes.’ Mr. Johnson and the Winchester Edition read ‘indifferent’ and ‘charges’; the Hampshire Edition ‘indifference’ and ‘charges.’ ‘Indifference’ would seem to be probably right; ‘charges,’ certainly right.

4. Chapter xxix: —

‘Emma,’ said she, ‘this paper is worse than I expected. Look! in places you see it is dreadfully dirty: and the wainscot is more yellow and forlorn than anything could have imagined.’

So the first edition; Bentley, and the Hampshire Edition, insert ‘one’; Mr. Johnson and the Winchester Edition ‘I’ after ‘anything.’

5. Chapter xxxii, where Mrs. Elton says to Emma: —

‘I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, it is very delightful to me to be reminded of a place I am so extremely partial to as Maple Grove. I have spent so many happy minutes there!’ (with a little sign of sentiment).

So Mr. Johnson’s editions read, following the first edition. But Bentley’s, as well as the Hampshire and Winchester Editions, read ‘sigh,’ which seems to be certainly right.

6. Chapter xliv: —

Jane took Mrs. Elton aside, and told her at once, that upon thinking over the advantages of Mrs. Suckling’s situation, she had come to the resolution of accepting it.

So the first edition, followed by Bentley; but this is plainly a mistake for Mrs. Smallridge’s, and is corrected by Mr. Johnson, the Winchester and Hampshire Editions.

7. Chapter xlvi, where Mr. Weston tells Emma that his wife has something to break to her, and Emma at once fears for her relations in Brunswick Square: —

‘Mrs. Weston, do not trifle with me. Consider how many of my dearest friends are now in Brunswick Square. Which of them is it? I charge you by all that is sacred not to attempt concealment.’

‘Upon my word, Emma — —’

‘Your word! Why not your honour! Why not say upon your honour, that it has nothing to do with any of them? Good heavens! What can be to be
broke
to me that does relate to one of that family?’

So the first edition, followed by Bentley. But Mr. Johnson, the Hampshire and Winchester Editions insert ‘not’ before ‘relate’; and the negative seems needed.

8. Chapter xlvii: —

This was the conclusion of the first series of reflection.

So the first edition, followed by Bentley; Mr. Johnson, the Hampshire and Winchester Editions give ‘reflections.’ But in Jane Austen’s novels the expression ‘a series of’ is continually followed by a noun in the singular, when nowadays we should probably use the plural — e.g.
Emma
, chapter xxxvi, ‘a series of dissipation’;
Sense and Sensibility
, chapter xxvii, ‘a series of rain’; chapter xlvi, ‘a series of imprudence.’

Cf.
Emma
, chapter xxii, ‘after a series of what appeared to him strong encouragement’; though the Hampshire Edition has altered this to ‘encouragements.’

‘Northanger Abbey’

1. Chapter vi: ‘I am sure it is Laurentina’s skeleton.’ A reference to Mrs. Radcliffe’s
The Mysteries of Udolpho
will show that ‘Laurentina’ should be ‘Laurentini.’ All editions, however, read ‘Laurentina.’

2. Chapter viii: —

‘Let us walk about and quiz people. Come along with me, and I will show you the four greatest quizzers in the room; my two younger sisters and their partners. I have been laughing at them this half-hour.’

So the first edition, the Hampshire and Winchester Editions. Bentley, however, reads ‘quizzes,’ which seems correct, as the word ‘quizzer’ usually bore an active sense, and ‘quiz’ a passive.

3. Chapter xi: —

They all spent the evening together at Thorpe’s.

It seems improbable that Jane Austen can have written anything other than ‘at the Thorpes’’; but no edition has had the courage to make the change.

4. Chapter xiii: —

And with these words she broke away and hurried off. Thorpe would have darted after her, but Morland withheld him. ‘Let her go, let her go, if she will go. She is as obstinate as — —’

Thorpe never finished the simile, for it could hardly have been a proper one.

So the first edition reads, followed by Bentley and the Winchester Edition. The Hampshire Edition boldly gives ‘Morland,’ and this seems the natural solution. The only alternative is to break up the sentence thus: —

. . . but Morland withheld him. ‘Let her go, let her go, if she will.’ ‘She is as obstinate as — —’ Thorpe never finished the simile, &c.

But this does not seem so natural; nor do we imagine that the impropriety of the simile would necessarily have debarred Thorpe from completing it.

5. Chapter xxii: —

And for his part, to his uncritical palate, the tea was as well flavoured from the clay of Staffordshire as from that of Dresden or Sêve. But this was quite an old set, purchased two years ago.

So the first edition, and the Hampshire and Winchester Editions; but Bentley emends to ‘Sèvres,’ which must surely be correct.

6. Chapter xxvi: —

By ten o’clock the chaise-and-four conveyed the two from the abbey, and, after an agreeable drive of almost twenty miles, they entered Woodston, &c.

So all the editions; but is not ‘two’ a misprint for ‘trio’ — i.e. General Tilney, Eleanor, and Catherine? It is certain that Eleanor was of the party, for we read a little later: ‘His son and daughter’s observations were of a different kind. They had seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but his own’; nor is there anything to show that General Tilney rode on horseback.

For an example of the use of the word ‘trio’ by Jane Austen, see
Mansfield Park
, chapter xxix: ‘They were now a miserable trio.’

‘Persuasion’

1. Chapter i: The Hampshire and Winchester Editions, following the first edition, print the opening passage as follows: —

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; where he found occupation for an idle hour and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt. As he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century, and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed: this was the page at which his favourite volume always opened.

This obviously makes no sense as it stands; and to no less a light than Macaulay belongs the credit of putting it right.

Some of his old friends (says Sir G. O. Trevelyan in his
Life of Macaulay
) may remember how he prided himself on a correction of his own in the first page of
Persuasion
which he maintained to be worthy of Bentley, and which undoubtedly fulfils all the conditions required to establish the credit of an emendation; for, without the alteration of a word, or even of a letter, it turns into perfectly intelligible common-sense a passage which has puzzled, or which ought to have puzzled, two generations of Miss Austen’s readers.

And in a footnote, Sir George says: —

A slight change in the punctuation effects all that is required. According to Macaulay the sentence was intended by its author to run thus: ‘There any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This was the page at which his favourite volume opened.’

Whether or not the emendation would have satisfied Bentley the critic, it eventually satisfied Bentley the publisher, who adopted it in his later editions.

2. Chapter i, a page or two further on, all editions read: —

Be it known, then, that Sir Walter, like a good father (having met with one or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications), prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughter’s sake. For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up anything, which he had not been very much tempted to do. . . . His two other children were of very inferior value.

This is one more instance of a misplaced apostrophe, for, as Dr. Verrall pointed out in the
Cambridge Observer
, what Jane Austen must have written is ‘for his dear daughters’ sake.’ Even if the antithesis implied in the next sentence did not demand this, it is obvious that the correct Sir Walter would never have allowed himself to state that he remained single for the sake of one daughter only. Indeed, we have a proof of this in Chapter v, when Elizabeth says: ‘And as to my father, I really should not have thought that he who has kept himself single so long for our sakes need be suspected now.’

3. Chapter xxii: Bentley, following the first edition, reads: —

She was earnestly begged to return and dine, and give them all the rest of the day, but her spirits had been so long exerted that at present she felt unequal to move and fit only for home, where she might be sure of being as silent as she chose.

Promising to be with them the whole of the following morning, therefore, she closed the fatigues of the present by a toilsome walk to Camden Place, &c.

The Hampshire and Winchester Editions read ‘more,’ and this seems likely to be correct; for those acquainted with the road to Camden Place will know how inadvisable it would be for anyone ‘unequal to move’ to attempt it.

4. Chapter xxiii: Nearly all editions read: ‘The weather was unfavourable, and she had grieved over the rain on her friend’s account.’