Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters Part 31

You cannot imagine--it is not in human nature to imagine--what a nice walk we have round the orchard. The row of beech look very well indeed, and so does the young quickset hedge in the garden. I hear to-day that an apricot has been detected on one of the trees. My mother is perfectly convinced _now_ that she shall not be overpowered by her cleft-wood, and I believe would rather have more than less.

G.o.d bless you, and I hope June will find you well, and bring us together.

Thursday [June 6].

[Anna] does not return from Faringdon till this evening, and I doubt not has had plenty of the miscellaneous, unsettled sort of happiness which seems to suit her best. We hear from Miss Benn, who was on the Common with the Prowtings, that she was very much admired by the gentlemen in general.

We began pease[231] on Sunday, but our gatherings are very small, not at all like the gathering in the _Lady of the Lake_. Yesterday I had the agreeable surprise of finding several scarlet strawberries quite ripe; had _you_ been at home, this would have been a pleasure lost. There are more gooseberries and fewer currants than I thought at first. We must buy currants for our wine.

I had just left off writing and put on my things for walking to Alton, when Anna and her friend Harriot called in their way thither, so we went together. Their business was to provide mourning against the King's death, and my mother has had a bombasin bought for her. I am not sorry to be back again, for the young ladies had a great deal to do, and without much method in doing it.

Yours affectionately, J. A.

The printing of _Sense and Sensibility_ cannot have been very rapid, for in September 28 there is the following entry in f.a.n.n.y Austen's diary: 'Letter from At. Ca.s.s to beg we would not mention that Aunt Jane wrote _Sense and Sensibility_.' This looks as if it were still on the eve of publication, and it was not in fact advertised until October 31.

FOOTNOTES:

[207] _Memoir_, p. 80.

[208] _Ibid._ p. 196.

[209] See pp. 275, 285.

[210] We are told in the biographical notice prefixed to Bentley's edition of the novels in 1833, that though Jane, when her authors.h.i.+p was an open secret, was once asked by a stranger to join a literary party at which Madame de Stael would be present, she immediately declined the invitation.

[211] _Memoir_, p. 89.

[212] She had experienced a similar shock before in the sudden death, by accident, of her cousin, Jane Williams.

[213] This judgment is based on the idea that _Elinor and Marianne_ (admittedly earlier than _First Impressions_) bore something of the same relation to _Sense and Sensibility_ that _First Impressions_ did to _Pride and Prejudice_.

[214] _Jane Austen and her Country-house Comedy_, by W. H. Helm.

[215] Her cousin, Mary Cooke.

[216] This may have been Bullock's Natural History Museum, at 22 Piccadilly. See _Notes and Queries_, 11 S.v. 514.

[217] In Pall Mall.

[218] Theophilus Cooke.

[219] See p. 6.

[220] White Friars, Canterbury--the residence of Mrs. Knight.

[221] He took command of the _Elephant_ on July 18, 1811, and became again concerned in the Napoleonic Wars. _Sailor Brothers_ p. 226.

[222] The original of this letter is in the British Museum.

[223] _Sense and Sensibility._ We do not know whether the _Incomes_ were ever altered.

[224] Mr. Hampson, like Mr. Walter, must have been related to Jane through her grandmother (Rebecca Hampson), who married first, Dr.

Walter; secondly, William Austen. Mr. Hampson succeeded to a baronetcy, but was too much of a republican to use the t.i.tle.

[225] Jane and her niece f.a.n.n.y seem to have invented a language of their own--the chief point of which was to use a 'p' wherever possible. Thus the piece of music alluded to was 'Strike the harp in praise of Bragela.'

[226] We learn from a letter of Ca.s.sandra that he arrived in time to spend (with his family) a week at Chawton Cottage. He had been absent almost seven years. It was their first sight of his wife.

[227] The Comte d'Antraigues and his wife were both of them notable people. _He_ had been elected deputy for the _n.o.blesse_ to the States-General in 1789, and had taken at first the popular side; but as time went on he became estranged from Mirabeau, and was among the earliest to emigrate in 1790. For the rest of his life he was engaged in plotting to restore the Bourbons. His wife had been the celebrated Madame St. Hubert of the Paris opera-house, and was the only woman ever known to have inspired Bonaparte to break forth into verse. Both the Count and Countess were murdered by their valet at Barnes, July 22, 1812. (_Un agent secret sous la Revolution et l'Empire: Le Comte d'Antraigues_, par Leonce Pingaud. Paris, 1894.)

[228] A novel by Mrs. Brunton, published in 1810.

[229] We can give no explanation of the cousins.h.i.+p, if any existed, of Miss Beckford; Miss Payne may have descended from a sister of Jane's grandmother, Rebecca Austen, who married a man of that name.

[230] Perhaps in the battle of Albuera, May 16, 1811, which is described by Professor Oman (_Cambridge Modern History_, ix. 467) as 'the most b.l.o.o.d.y incident of the whole Peninsular War.'

[231] June 2. They ought to have waited for the King's birthday (June 4), which was considered the correct day to begin pease upon.

CHAPTER XV

_PRIDE AND PREJUDICE_

1812-1814

The t.i.tle-page of _Sense and Sensibility_ describes the book as being 'by a Lady.' This ascription satisfied the author's desire for concealment, but it puzzled the advertisers. The first advertis.e.m.e.nt--that in the _Morning Chronicle_ on October 31, 1811--merely describes it as 'a novel, called _Sense and Sensibility_, by Lady ----.' In the same paper, on November 7, it is styled an 'extraordinary novel by Lady ----'; while on November 28 it sinks to being an 'interesting novel,' but is ascribed to 'Lady A.'[232]

Jane's expectations were so modest that she laid by a sum out of her very slender resources to meet the expected loss. She must have been delighted at the result. By July 1813 every copy of the first edition had been sold; and not only had her expenses been cleared but she was one hundred and forty pounds to the good.[233] If we compare this with the thirty pounds that f.a.n.n.y Burney received for _Evelina_, the one hundred pounds that Maria Edgeworth got for _Castle Rackrent_, or the hundred and forty pounds gained by Miss Ferrier for her first novel, we shall see that Jane Austen had no reason to complain.

The money was no doubt very welcome; but still more important from another point of view was the favourable reception of the work. Had it been a failure and an expense to its author, she would hardly have dared, nor could she have afforded, to make a second venture. On the success of _Sense and Sensibility_, we may say, depended the existence of _Pride and Prejudice_. Now she could return with renewed spirit to the preparation of the more famous work which was to follow, and on which she had already been engaged for some time, concurrently with her first-published novel.

We have no letters and little news for 1812; but we know that in April Edward Austen and his daughter f.a.n.n.y came to Chawton House for three weeks. It was their last visit as Austens; for on the death of Mrs.

Knight--his kind and generous patron and friend--in October of that year, Edward and all his family took the name of Knight[234]: a name which had been borne by every successive owner of the Chawton Estate since the sixteenth century. In June, Jane went with her mother to stay for a fortnight at Steventon Rectory--the last visit ever paid by Mrs.

Austen to any place. When she determined never to leave home again, she said that her latest visit should be to her eldest son. Accordingly she went, and took a final farewell of the place where nearly the whole of her married life had been spent. She was then seventy-two years old, and lived on for sixteen more; but she kept her resolution and never again left Chawton Cottage for a single night. Her long survival can hardly have been expected by those who had to nurse her through frequent fits of illness; but these ailments do not seem to have been of the sort that kills. She was, however, always ready to contemplate the near approach of death both for herself and others; for in July 1811, after buying some bombazine in which to mourn for the poor King, she said: 'If I outlive him it will answer my purpose; if I do not, somebody may mourn for me in it: it will be wanted for one or the other, I dare say, before the moths have eaten it up.' As it happened, the King lived nine more years, and Mrs. Austen sixteen; and it was the lot of the latter to lose two children before her own time came. When Jane died in 1817, the health of her eldest brother, James, was failing, and two years and a half later he died. His mother lived on; but during the last years of her life she endured continual pain not only patiently but with characteristic cheerfulness. She once said to her grandson, Edward Austen: 'Ah, my dear, you find me just where you left me--on the sofa. I sometimes think that G.o.d Almighty must have forgotten me; but I dare say He will come for me in His own good time.'[235]

Our letters recommence in January 1813--almost at the exact date of the publication of _Pride and Prejudice_--a date which will seem to many people the central point in Jane Austen's life. She appeared, indeed, to be rather of that opinion herself, so far as her modest, una.s.suming nature would allow her to attribute importance to one of her own works.

She calls it her 'darling child,' and does not know how she can tolerate people who will not care at least for Elizabeth. But we had better let her speak for herself. The first of the following letters[236] was written before the publication took place; but the others deal largely with _Pride and Prejudice_, while there is an under-current of allusions to _Mansfield Park_--now approaching completion.

Chawton: Sunday evening [January 24, 1813].