Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters Part 32

MY DEAR Ca.s.sANDRA,--This is exactly the weather we could wish for, if you are but well enough to enjoy it. I shall be glad to hear that you are not confined to the house by an increase of cold.

We quite run over with books. My mother has got Sir John Carr's _Travels in Spain_ from Miss B.

and _I_ am reading a Society octavo, _An Essay on the Military Police and Inst.i.tutions of the British Empire_ by Capt. Pasley of the Engineers: a book which I protested against at first, but which upon trial I find delightfully written and highly entertaining. I am as much in love with the author as ever I was with Clarkson or Buchanan, or even the two Mr. Smiths of the City[237]--the first soldier I ever sighed for--but he does write with extraordinary force and spirit. Yesterday, moreover, brought us Mrs. Grant's _Letters_ with Mr. White's compliments; but I have disposed of them, compliments and all, for the first fortnight to Miss Papillon, and among so many readers or retainers of books as we have in Chawton I dare say there will be no difficulty in getting rid of them for another fortnight if necessary. I learn from Sir J. Carr that there is no Government House at Gibraltar; I must alter it to the Commissioner's.[238]

Our party on Wednesday was not unagreeable. . . .

We were eleven altogether, as you will find on computation, adding Miss Benn and two strange gentlemen, a Mr. Twyford, curate of Great Worldham, who is living in Alton, and his friend Mr. Wilkes.

I don't know that Mr. T. is anything except very dark-complexioned, but Mr. W. was a useful addition, being an easy, talking, pleasantish young man--a _very_ young man, hardly twenty, perhaps. He is of St. John's, Cambridge, and spoke very highly of H. Walter as a scholar. He said he was considered as the best cla.s.sic in the University.

How such a report would have interested my father!

Upon Mrs. D.'s mentioning that she had sent the _Rejected Addresses_ to Mr. H., I began talking to her a little about them, and expressed my hope of their having amused her. Her answer was 'Oh dear, yes, very much, very droll indeed--the opening of the House and the striking up of the fiddles!'

What she meant, poor woman, who shall say? I sought no farther. The P.'s have now got the book, and like it very much; their niece Eleanor has recommended it most warmly to them--_She_ looks like a rejected addresser. As soon as a whist party was formed, and a round table threatened, I made my mother an excuse and came away, leaving just as many for _their_ round table as there were at Mrs. Grant's.[239] I wish they might be as agreeable a set.

The Miss Sibleys want to establish a Book Society in their side of the country like ours. What can be a stronger proof of that superiority in ours over the Manydown and Steventon society, which I have always foreseen and felt? No emulation of the kind was ever inspired by _their_ proceedings; no such wish of the Miss Sibleys was ever heard in the course of the many years of that Society's existence. And what are their Biglands and their Barrows, their Macartneys and Mackenzies to Captain Pasley's _Essay on the Military Police of the British Empire_ and the _Rejected Addresses_?

I have walked once to Alton, and yesterday Miss Papillon and I walked together to call on the Garnets. . . . _I_ had a very agreeable walk, and if _she_ had not, more shame for her, for I was quite as entertaining as she was. Dame G. is pretty well, and we found her surrounded by her well-behaved, healthy, large-eyed children. I took her an old s.h.i.+ft, and promised her a set of our linen, and my companion left some of her Bank Stock with her.

Tell Martha that I hunt away the rogues every night from under her bed; they feel the difference of her being gone.

Friday [January 29, 1813].

I hope you received my little parcel by J. Bond on Wednesday evening, my dear Ca.s.sandra, and that you will be ready to hear from me again on Sunday, for I feel that I must write to you to-day. . . . I want to tell you that I have got my own darling child from London. On Wednesday I received one copy sent down by Falkener, with three lines from Henry to say that he had given another to Charles and sent a third by the coach to G.o.dmersham.

The advertis.e.m.e.nt is in our paper to-day for the first time: 18_s._ He shall ask 1_l._ 1_s._ for my two next, and 1_l._ 8_s._ for my stupidest of all.[240] Miss Benn dined with us on the very day of the book's coming, and in the evening we set fairly at it, and read half the first vol. to her, prefacing that, having intelligence from Henry that such a work would soon appear, we had desired him to send it whenever it came out, and I believe it pa.s.sed with her unsuspected. She was amused, poor soul! _That_ she could not help, you know, with two such people to lead the way, but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like _her_ at least I do not know. There are a few typical[241] errors; and a 'said he,' or a 'said she,' would sometimes make the dialogue more immediately clear; but--

I do not write for such dull elves As have not a great deal of ingenuity themselves.[242]

The second volume is shorter than I could wish, but the difference is not so much in reality as in look, there being a larger proportion of narrative in that part. I have lop't and crop't so successfully, however, that I imagine it must be rather shorter than _Sense and Sensibility_ altogether. Now I will try and write of something else; and it shall be a complete change of subject--ordination.[243] I am glad to find your enquiries have ended so well. If you could discover whether Northamptons.h.i.+re is a country of hedgerows, I should be glad again.

Thursday [February 4, 1813].

Your letter was truly welcome, and I am much obliged to you for all your praise; it came at a right time, for I had had some fits of disgust.

Our second evening's reading to Miss Benn had not pleased me so well, but I believe something must be attributed to my mother's too rapid way of getting on: though she perfectly understands the characters herself, she cannot speak as they ought. Upon the whole, however, I am quite vain enough and well-satisfied enough. The work is rather too light, and bright, and sparkling; it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story; an essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte, or anything that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style. I doubt your quite agreeing with me here. I know your starched notions. The caution observed at Steventon[244] with regard to the possession of the book is an agreeable surprise to me, and I heartily wish it may be the means of saving you from anything unpleasant--but you must be prepared for the neighbourhood being perhaps already informed of there being such a work in the world and in the Chawton world. . . .

The greatest blunder in the printing that I have met with is in page 220, l. 3, where two speeches are made into one.[245] There might as well have been no supper at Longbourn; but I suppose it was the remains of Mrs. Bennet's old Meryton habits.

Tuesday [February 9, 1813].

This will be a quick return for yours, my dear Ca.s.sandra; I doubt its having much else to recommend it; but there is no saying; it may turn out to be a very long and delightful letter.

I am exceedingly pleased that you can say what you do, after having gone through the whole work, and f.a.n.n.y's praise is very gratifying. My hopes were tolerably strong of _her_, but nothing like a certainty. Her liking Darcy and Elizabeth is enough. She might hate all the others if she would. I have her opinion under her own hand this morning, but your transcript of it, which I read first, was not, and is not, the less acceptable.

To _me_ it is of course all praise, but the more exact truth which she sends _you_ is good enough. . . .

I have been applied to for information as to the oath taken in former times of Bell, Book, and Candle, but have none to give. Perhaps you may be able to learn something of its origin and meaning at Manydown. Ladies who read those enormous great stupid thick quarto volumes which one always sees in the breakfast parlour there must be acquainted with everything in the world. I detest a quarto.

Capt. Pasley's book is too good for their Society.

They will not understand a man who condenses his thoughts into an octavo.

Miss Benn dined here on Friday. I have not seen her since--there is still work for one evening more. I know nothing of the P.'s. The C.'s are at home, and are reduced to read. They have got Miss Edgeworth. I have disposed of Mrs. Grant for the second fortnight to Mrs. D. It can make no difference to _her_ which of the twenty-six fortnights in the year the three volumes lay in her house.

Yours very affectionately, J. AUSTEN.

Miss Austen, Manydown--by favour of Mr. Gray.

As she read and re-read _Pride and Prejudice_, Jane must have become aware (if she did not know it before) that she had advanced far beyond _Sense and Sensibility_. Indeed, the earlier work seems to fade out of her mind, so far as allusions to its princ.i.p.al characters are concerned; while those of the later novel remain vivid and attractive to their creator. Even the minor characters were real to her; and she forgot nothing--down to the marriage of Kitty to a clergyman near Pemberley, and that of Mary to one of Uncle Philips's clerks.

In this work there seemed to be hardly anything for which she need apologise. Here everything is complete; the humour, though brilliant, is yet always subordinate to the progress of the story; the plot is inevitable, and its turning-point (the first proposal of Darcy) occurs exactly when it ought; while all fear of a commonplace ending is avoided by the insertion of the celebrated interview between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth. It gives us also an excellent example of the way in which Jane Austen composed her stories. We are always in the confidence of the heroine, who is hardly off the stage throughout the whole novel; we see the other characters with her eyes, even when they are persons--like Jane Bennet--with whom we believe ourselves to be intimately acquainted.

At the same time, such is the subtle irony of the author that we are quite aware of her intention to make us understand more of the heroine's state of mind than the heroine herself does, and to distinguish between her conscious and unconscious thoughts. Elizabeth has to change from hatred to love--real hatred and real love--in a volume and a half. But it would wound her self-respect if she acknowledged to herself that the pace at which she moved was so rapid; and the change is constantly only half admitted. Even near the end--when she says that, if Darcy is prevented from seeking her hand by the representations of Lady Catherine, she shall soon cease to regret him--we know that this is far from the truth: that her affection is really steadfast, and that she is only trying to disguise from herself her own anxiety. Other examples might easily be found.

On April 25, 1813, occurred the death of Eliza, Henry Austen's wife. She had suffered from a long and painful illness, and the end was 'a release at last.' These circ.u.mstances would diminish the grief felt at her loss; but the event must have carried their minds back to early days at Steventon; and Jane was sure to remember with grat.i.tude the affection and attention which Eliza had bestowed upon her much younger cousin.

Soon afterwards, Henry went down to Chawton; and on May 20 he drove Jane up to London in his curricle. This was a short visit, and, owing to Henry's being in deep mourning, no theatres were visited. Jane went, however, to three picture-galleries--her mind still full of Bennets and Darcys.

Sloane Street: [Thursday, May 20, 1813].[246]

MY DEAR Ca.s.sANDRA,--Before I say anything else, I claim a paper full of halfpence on the drawing-room mantelpiece; I put them there myself, and forgot to bring them with me. I cannot say that I have yet been in any distress for money, but I chuse to have my due, as well as the Devil.

How lucky we were in our weather yesterday! This wet morning makes one more sensible of it. We had no rain of any consequence. The head of the curricle was put half up three or four times, but our share of the showers was very trifling, though they seemed to be heavy all round us, when we were on the Hog's-back, and I fancied it might then be raining so hard at Chawton as to make you feel for us much more than we deserved. Three hours and a quarter took us to Guildford, where we staid barely two hours, and had only just time enough for all we had to do there; that is, eating a long, comfortable breakfast, watching the carriages, paying Mr. Herington, and taking a little stroll afterwards. From some views which that stroll gave us, I think most highly of the situation of Guildford. We wanted all our brothers and sisters to be standing with us in the bowling-green, and looking towards Horsham. . . . I was very lucky in my gloves--got them at the first shop I went to, though I went into it rather because it was near than because it looked at all like a glove shop, and gave only four s.h.i.+llings for them; upon hearing which everybody at Chawton will be hoping and predicting that they cannot be good for anything, and their worth certainly remains to be proved; but I think they look very well. We left Guildford at twenty minutes before twelve (I hope somebody cares for these minutiae), and were at Esher in about two hours more. I was very much pleased with the country in general.

Between Guildford and Ripley I thought it particularly pretty, also about Pains.h.i.+ll and everywhere else; and from a Mr. Spicer's grounds at Esher, which we walked into before our dinner, the views were beautiful. I cannot say what we did _not_ see, but I should think that there could not be a wood, or a meadow, or palace, or a remarkable spot in England that was not spread out before us on one side or the other. Claremont is going to be sold: a Mr. Ellis has it now. It is a house that seems never to have prospered. . . . After dinner we walked forward to be overtaken at the coachman's time, and before he did overtake us we were very near Kingston. I fancy it was about half-past six when we reached this house--a twelve hours'

business, and the horses did not appear more than reasonably tired. I was very tired too, and very glad to get to bed early, but am quite well to-day. I am very snug with the front drawing-room all to myself, and would not say 'thank you' for any company but you. The quietness of it does me good. I have contrived to pay my two visits, though the weather made me a great while about it, and left me only a few minutes to sit with Charlotte Craven.[247] She looks very well, and her hair is done up with an elegance to do credit to any education. Her manners are as unaffected and pleasing as ever. She had heard from her mother to-day. Mrs. Craven spends another fortnight at Chilton. I saw n.o.body but Charlotte, which pleased me best. I was shewn upstairs into a drawing-room, where she came to me, and the appearance of the room, so totally unschool-like, amused me very much; it was full of all the modern elegancies.

Monday [May 24, 1813].

I am very much obliged to you for writing to me.

You must have hated it after a worrying morning.

I went the day before to Layton's,[248] as I proposed, and got my mother's gown--seven yards at 6_s._ 6_d._ I then walked into No. 10,[249] which is all dirt and confusion, but in a very promising way, and after being present at the opening of a new account, to my great amus.e.m.e.nt, Henry and I went to the exhibition in Spring Gardens. It is not thought a good collection, but I was very well pleased, particularly (pray tell f.a.n.n.y) with a small portrait of Mrs. Bingley,[250] excessively like her.

I went in hopes of seeing one of her sister, but there was no Mrs. Darcy. Perhaps, however, I may find her in the great exhibition, which we shall go to if we have time. I have no chance of her in the collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds's paintings, which is now showing in Pall Mall, and which we are also to visit.

Mrs. Bingley's is exactly herself--size, shaped face, features, and sweetness; there never was a greater likeness. She is dressed in a white gown, with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I had always supposed, that green was a favourite colour with her. I dare say Mrs. D. will be in yellow.