Jane Austen (17 page)

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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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 been 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,'

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