Part 12

These are the chief country scenes of Jane's life. As to the towns, we know more or less of her associations with Bath, Southampton, and Winchester, as well as London. At Bath she used to stay in early youth with her uncle and aunt, and she lived there for four years with her parents. The fruits of her experience there may be enjoyed in _Northanger Abbey_ and _Persuasion_, though her lack of the topographical instinct is suggested by the absence of evident interest in the buildings of Bath. We learn as much about the place from the _Pickwick Papers_, which merely touch there on their way, or from the allusions of the characters in _The Rivals_, where the events are of a few days, as we do from chapters that cover long periods of residence in one of the most beautiful, and still, in spite of the disproportionate and architecturally discordant hotel, the least injured cities of England. Souvenirs of the personal association of Jane Austen with Bath are almost as plentiful as those of Johnson with Fleet Street. The house in Sydney Place where the {241} Austens lived during most of the time between Mr. Austen's resignation and his death is the only one that bears a tablet to Jane's memory. But in Queen Square, whence several of her letters are dated, in Gay Street, in the Green Park, in the Paragon, the rooms she occupied with her relations at one time or another remain very much as they were in her day, and externally the buildings are unaltered, one and all being built of the local stone which gives so notable a character to the Georgian architecture of the city. In Camden Place where the Elliots rented "the best house," in Pulteney Street where Catherine stayed with the Allens, in Westgate Buildings where Anne cheered Mrs. Smith's lonely days, there has been little change since _Northanger Abbey_ and _Persuasion_ were written. There is probably no town in the world associated with the work of a famous person of even so near a period which has altered less in appearance than Bath since 1805.

At Southampton the mother and daughters lived, after the father's death, in a house in that secluded part of the town which stands between the High Street and the old walls above the {242} "Water." There is a bit of those walls which abuts on the spot where the Austens' house stood, and it is one of the places where we may feel confident that we are walking where Jane often walked, and gazing out over a scene which was familiar to her in almost all save the funnels of the steam yachts and the distant view of the train on its way to Bournemouth or to London.

In London itself there are many spots that will always recall Jane Austen to her devoted friends and her lovers. In Henrietta Street (Covent Garden), in Hans Place, in Cork Street, we know that she herself stayed. Many of the characters in _Sense and Sensibility_--the only novel in which we hear much of London--are associated with familiar streets. Edward Ferrars stayed in Pall Mall, the Steele girls in Bartlett's Buildings, Mrs. Jennings in Berkeley Street, the John Dashwoods in Harley Street. The Gardiners (_Pride and Prejudice_) lived in Gracechurch Street.

The day has not yet come when public bodies could be sufficiently affected by imaginative literature to place memorials on the houses where fictitious personages have been supposed to dwell. {243} In Paris the memorial to Charlet is an admirable group of a grenadier and a gamin--typical characters from his work, and a musketeer guards the monument of Dumas. The gods forbid that any sculptor should be commissioned to give us life-size figures of Emma, Elizabeth, Anne, and Fanny to sit around a statue of Jane Austen. But when next the London County Council contemplates the placing of plaques on the former residences of departed worthies they might consider whether--of course with the consent of the freeholder and the leaseholder--her name might not be placed on the house in Henrietta Street, once her brother Henry's home, where so many of her letters were written. She tells of the convenient arrangement of its rooms for the comfort of herself and her nieces, and from its door she went to the neighbouring church, or the theatres, which were within a few minutes' walk. It is not likely that any political prejudice would cause even the most advanced Progressive on the Council to object to the name of so very mild a Tory being thus honoured. As to the more probable objection that she did not "reside" there, but was only a visitor, one may plead that as there is {244} a plaque on a newly-erected tube station recalling the "residence" of Mrs. Siddons, and that a tablet proclaims that Turner "lived" in a house built thirty years after his death, there would be no great straining of logic in admitting the claim of a house in which Jane Austen did undoubtedly write, and sleep, and talk. The front was cemented in the middle of the last century, and the ground-floor is now used for business purposes, but otherwise the house is little changed since the Austens were there.

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VII

INFLUENCE IN LITERATURE

Jane Austen's genius ignored--Negative and positive instances--The literary orchard--Jane's influence in English literature.

The author of a book bearing the title _Great English Novelists_, published just ninety-one years after Jane Austen's death, does not include her in his selection. He deals with eleven authors--Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Scott, Lytton, Disraeli, Dickens, Thackeray, Meredith. The very fact that he stops short at eleven, instead of making a round dozen, suggests that he really could not think of any other novelist worthy to be credited with greatness. It will be observed that all the team are men. Without quibbling as to whether they are all "English," or all "great," or even all "novelists" in the ordinary sense of the word, we may legitimately suppose that the author is one of those to whom Jane Austen makes {248} no strong appeal. The peculiarity of her position among English novelists could not well be more pointedly emphasized than in the fact that while Macaulay placed her next to Shakespeare as a painter of character-studies, a critic should be found--and he is by no means isolated--who can choose eleven great representatives of English fiction without adding her as a twelfth. In the same week in which the book just referred to was published, came a portfolio of twelve photogravures entitled _Britain's Great Authors_. Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, of course, were among them, and of right, but not Jane Austen.

Perhaps even more suggestive is the statement of a clever woman-writer the other day that Jane Austen's novels are merely "memorials," books which no gentleman's (or lady's) library should be without, but which are for show rather than for use.

Her name may never be among those that are painted round the reading-rooms of National Libraries, nor included by many school-children in examination lists of eminent authors. Hers is too delicate a product to attract the man or woman "in the street." There is a bouquet about it that is lost on the palate which enjoys the "strong" {249} fiction of the material phase through which humanity is now passing--passing perhaps more briefly than most of us imagine.

It has been the endeavour of this book to show Jane Austen as she lives in her writings, and to suggest some at least of the many directions in which those writings may be explored, and thus, if so may be, to bring new members into the large but comparatively restricted circle wherein she is regarded, not always as the first of English novelists, but at least as second to none in the quality of her work. Sappho enjoys undying fame with only a few fragments of verse still to her credit, Omar for his one poem transformed by another mind, Boccaccio for a volume of short stories, Boswell for one biography, Thomas à Kempis for one devotional manual. Sparsity of performance, it is evident, is no bar to enduring fame. Jane Austen's work, indeed, was not sparse. There are, undoubtedly, novelists who have passed the record of Balzac with his forty novels and scores of short stories, but their books for the most part suggest the interminable succession of poplars along so many a high road of France. Some of the trees have more foliage than others, some are {250} more green or more blue in tone, a little more tortuous, or robust, but in spite of all trivial differences _plus ça change plus c'est la même chose_. If this arboreal parallel may be pursued, may we not compare the work of Jane Austen with a group of apple-trees in a sunny corner of some vast orchard? There are eight Austen trees in the literary orchard. Two of them are stunted and bear a poor crop of a sort little better than crabapples. The other six are of several kinds, but all of fine quality and producing delicious fruit of varying sweetness. Countless thousands of novels have been published since Jane Austen's were given to the world, and many of them have been unseemly, and of evil influence. But the taste of countless writers and readers has been sweetened by the fruit of her delightful mind, of the passing of whose fragrant harvest through English literature it is not too much to say, as Jane herself said of Anne Elliot's walk through Bath: "It was almost enough to spread purification and perfume all the way."

{251}

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

1811. _Sense and Sensibility_. [Completed in 1798. Commenced many years earlier in the form of letters, under the title _Elinor and Marianne_.]

1813. _Pride and Prejudice_. [Completed in 1797. Originally entitled (in MS.) _First Impressions_.]

1814. _Mansfield Park_. [Written in 1811-14.]

1816. _Emma_. [Written in 1811-16.]

1818. _Northanger Abbey_ and _Persuasion_. [_Northanger Abbey_ (mostly written in 1798) was sold to a Bath bookseller for £10 in 1803. He laid it aside, and it was bought back by Henry Austen, _at the same price_, after _Sense and Sensibility_ and _Pride and Prejudice_ had appeared. _Persuasion_, as originally completed (in 1816) had only eleven chapters, but the author was not satisfied with Chapter X, and replaced it by the present Chapters X and XI. The cancelled chapter is included in Mr. Austen Leigh's memoir. It brings about the re-engagement of Anne and Wentworth in a different, and certainly less admirable, manner.]

{252}

1871. _Lady Susan_, _The Watsons_, and some extracts from the novel on which Jane was at work until four months before her death. [These are all included in Mr. Austen Leigh's book. The MS. of _Lady Susan_, written before Jane was of age, was given by Cassandra Austen to her niece Fanny (Lady Knatchbull), who consented to its publication. As for the incomplete novel known as _The Watsons_, written about 1802, Jane was not responsible for the naming of it, and had laid it aside several years before _Mansfield Park_ was written. The work from which she was compelled by illness to cease in March 1817 had not, in the twelve chapters we possess, reached a point when its plan could be foretold with reasonable confidence.]

1884. _Letters of Jane Austen_, edited by her great-nephew, the first Lord Brabourne. [These, which, with few exceptions were addressed to Cassandra Austen, belonged to Lady Knatchbull, to whom some of them were written. Many of Jane's letters were destroyed by Cassandra as being too private to pass into other hands.]

Mr. J. E. Austen Leigh's _Memoir_ of his aunt is not only to be highly valued for its biographical details, but for its many anecdotes of Jane Austen, and for the letters which fill a good many gaps in the other published correspondence.

{253}

Those to whom the subject of the present volume is fresh, and who care to pursue it, are advised to read the "introductions" contributed to recent editions of Jane Austen's novels by various critics, particularly Mr. Austin Dobson, Professor Saintsbury, and Mr. E. V. Lucas, as well as the _Life_ contributed by Mr. Goldwin Smith to the _Great Writers_ series.

[The dates given on the left hand are those of publication.]

{255}

INDEX

Adams, Oscar, on Jane Austen, 89

Addison, Joseph, 55

"Allen, Mr.," 187

"----, Mrs.," 100

_Alphonsine_, 61

Anderson, Mrs. Garrett, 170

_Antiquary, The_, 51

Apothecaries, 114

Arc, Joan of, 169

Aspasia, 158

Austen, Cassandra, 31, 63, 79, 100, 212

----, Edward (_see_ Knight), 41, 214, 223, 238

----, The Rev. George, 152, 223, 241

----, Henry, 22, 243, 251

----, Jane, freshness of her work, 14; her aim, 18, 68; at home, 22; her nature, 24-30; views on love, 32; her admirers, 35-37, 163; her limited appeal, 43; on novels, 50-54; favourite authors, 56-60; criticism of niece's work, 63-64; limitations of subject, 16-19, 65, 112, 192, 204; literary style, 66-70, 82-85; choice of names, 74; in London, 76, 242; views of life, 41, 87, 217; as humourist, 89, 171-172; a "forbidding" writer, 89; Mr. Goldwin Smith on her novels, 91; contrasted with Peacock, 92-94; her letters, 23, 31, 99, 121, 211-223; declines to meet Madame de Staël, 109; her charities, 116-117; at balls and dances, 123-128; Dr. Whately on her work, 135, 161, 181, 189; views of marriage, 106, 138-140; influenced by current philosophy, 143-149; her fine taste, 152; her opinion of _Lady Susan_, 152; her heroines, 21, 32-33, 138-163; their relations, 183; her avoidance of dogmatism, 149, 193; love for her own creations, 202; economy of description, 205, 227, 231; on dress, 210-219; food, 219-224; places--Bath, 152, 214, 240; Chawton, 22, 153, 237; Godmersham, 41, 223, 238; London, 76, 242; Lyme Regis, 160, 234-236; Southampton, 241; Steventon, 22, 153, 214, 234; her literary influence, 247-250

Austen, Mrs., 25, 29, 222, 223

Balzac, 17, 108, 201, 209, 233

"Barton," 102

"Bates, Miss," 175, 219, 221

Bath, 152, 153, 214, 240

Batilliat, Marcel, 57

Bazin, René, 57

Beaconsfield, Lord, 108

"Bellaston, Lady," 157

"Bellona" (_Richard Feverel_), 157

"Bennet, Elizabeth," 79, 93, 203, 216

"----, Jane," 42, 203

"----, Lydia," 43, 141, 229

"----, Mr.," 72, 90, 229

"----, Mrs.," 72, 90, 100

"Bertram, Edmund," 40, 70, 155

"----, Lady," 131

"----, Maria," 18, 83

"----, Sir Thomas," 64, 130

"Bingleys, The," 115, 129

Bond, John, 116

Boswell, James, 58

Boulangeries (dance), 129

"Bourgh, Lady Catherine de," 118, 175

Box Hill, picnic at, 175

Brabourne, Lord, 252

"Brandon, Colonel," 141-144

Brock, C. E., 209

Brontë, Charlotte, 19, 85, 195

Barney, Frances, 49, 53, 60, 86, 88

----, Sarah, 61

Byron, Lord, 121

Cage, Mrs., 100

Calprenède, 55

_Cambridge Observer_, 83

"Camper, Lady," 205

_Candide_, 147

Carlton House, 65, 165

"Chainmail, Mr.," 93

Charlet, 243

Châtelet, Madame du, 102, 158

Chawton, 22, 153, 237

Chesterfield, Lord, 78

Church of England, 189-191

"Churchill, Frank," 37, 104, 127, 231

Chute, William, 37

Cibber, Colley, 77

_Clandestine Marriage_, 77

_Clarentine_, 61

_Clarissa_, 50

"Clay, Mrs.," 18

Coleridge, 19, 194

"Coles, The," 129

"Collins, Mr.," 71, 93, 164, 192, 229

Colonies, American, 13

_Connoisseur, The_, 56

Consumption, 218

Cork Street, 77

"Cormon, Rose," 18

_Corsair, The_, 215

"Courcy, Reginald de," 150

Cowper, William, 29, 57, 223

Crabbe, George, 56

"Crawford, Henry," 18, 83

"----, Mary," 40, 160

Critic, an American, 45

Croker, John Wilson, 198

_Crotchet Castle_, 93

Curie, Madame, 170

Cuvier, 193

"Dalrymples, The," 119

"Darcy, Fitzwilliam," 33, 42, 93, 118, 203

"----, Georgiana," 67

Darwin, Erasmus, 193

"Dashwood, Elinor," 18, 43, 141-148

"----, Marianne," 79, 141

"----, Mrs.," 188

Deism, 193

Dickens, 219, 233

Digweed, James, 114, 123

Disraeli, Isaac, 108

Dobson, Austin, 253

Dodsley, Robert, 59-60

"Dotheboys Hall," 92

Dowton, William, 77

Dress, 210-219

"Dudley, Arabelle," 157

Duff, Sir M. E. Grant, 148

Dumas _père_, 219, 243

Edgeworth, Maria, 53, 60, 76, 148, 189

Eliot, George, 85, 169

"Elliot, Anne," 33, 93, 125, 163, 250

"----, Sir Walter," 118, 176

"----, William, 160, 178

"Elliott, Kirstie," 208

"Elton, Mr.," 104

"----, Mrs.," 173, 205

_Emma_, 80, 131, 237, 251

_Eugénie Grandet_, 108

"Evelina," 99, 139

"Eyre, Jane," 16, 195

"Fagin," 92

"Fairfax, Jane," 38, 129

"Ferrars, Edward," 155

"----, Lucy," 82

"Feverel, Lucy," 35

"----, Richard," 35

"Ffolliot, Dr.," 93

Fielding, Henry, 14, 154

"Fischer, Lisbeth," 16

Food, 219-224

France, Anatole, 149

Frénilly, Baron de, on dress, 218

Galt, John, 76

"Gardiners, The," 140, 242

Garrick, 59-60

Genlis, Madame de, 61

George III, on genius, 49

Gifford, William, 165

Gipsies, 231

"Gobseck, Esther van," 157

Godmersham, 41, 223, 238

"Grandet, Père," 16

"Grandison, Sir Charles," 205

_Great English Novelists_, 247

_Gulliver's Travels_, 94

_Guy Mannering_, 51

Hall, Robert, on Miss Edgeworth, 189

"Hamlet," 181

Hardy, Thomas, 233

Hazlitt, William, 165

_Headlong Hall_, 94

Henrietta Street, 242

"Homespun, Mr.," 225

Hope, Anthony, 44

_House on the Beach, The_, 115

"Hurst, Mrs.," 216

Huxley, Thomas, 170

_Hypocrite, The_, 77

_Ida of Athens_, 62

_Idler, The_, 56

"Jennings, Mrs.," 102, 138, 142

"Jingle, Alfred," 75

Johnson, Samuel, 56, 58

"Jones, Tom," 155, 213

Jonson, Ben, 86

Kean, Edmund, 77

"Kew, Lady," 16

Knatchbull, Lady, _see_ Knight, Fanny

Knight, Edward (Austen), 41, 214, 223, 238

----, Fanny, 40, 104, 252

"Knightley, George," 70, 155, 181

_Lady Susan_, 87, 137, 149-152, 252

Lamb, Charles, 13

Landor, Walter Savage, 13, 198

Lang, Andrew, 147

Langton, Bennet, 58

_La Terre qui meurt_, 57

_La Vendée aux Genêts_, 57

Lefroy, Thomas, 35-36, 213

Leigh, J. E. Austen, 23, 251, 252

_Letters of Jane Austen_, 252

Lewes, G. H., 85

Liston, John, 77

Lloyd, Martha, 67

Lockhart, William, his "Life of Scott," 166

Lombroso, 147

London, 76, 242

_Lounger, The_, 56

Love, Jane Austen's views on, 32

"Lucas, Charlotte," 139

----, E. V., 253

"----, Sir William," 114-115

Lyford, John, 123

Lyme Regis, 160, 234-236

_Lys dans la Vallée, Le_, 157

Macaulay, 49, 68, 181

Mackintosh, Sir James, 122

"Manerville, Natalie de," 19

_Mansfield Park_, 44, 137, 165, 186, 237, 251

_Margiana_, 61

Marriage, 106, 138

Martin, Mrs., her library, 60

"----, Robert," 113

"Mascarille," 78

Mathews, Charles, 77

"McQueedy, Mr.," 93

_Melincourt_, 94

Meredith, George, 69, 115, 233

"Middleton, Lady," 187

"----, Sir John," 79, 102, 119, 205

"Milestone, Mr.," 93

"Millamant," 159

Milton, 21, 194

"Mirabell," 159

_Mirror, The_, 225

Mitford, Mrs., 104

"Morland, Catherine," 18, 34, 80, 81, 88, 91, 99, 216, 224, 227

"----, Mr. and Mrs.," 186

Murray, John, "The First," 165

"Musgrove, Louisa," 187, 236

Names, 74

"Nanny," 113

Napoleon on Madame de Staël, 45

"Nature's Salic Law," 170

"Newcome, Colonel," 75

Nightingale, Florence, 169

_Nightmare Abbey_, 94, 121

"Norris, Mrs.," 187

_Northanger Abbey_, 44, 53, 87, 151, 210, 240, 251

"Nostalgie de l'Infini," 148

Novel, "Plan of," 95

----, suggestion for, 65

Novelists, defence of, 53

Novels, 50, 60-62

----, French, 55, 57

O'Neill, Miss, 77

"Orange, Robert," 160

_Ordeal of Richard Feverel, The_, 157

Osborne, Dorothy, 31, 33, 55, 163

"----, Lord," 113

----, Mr., on passions, 163

Owenson, Miss, 62

_Pamela_, 50

"Patterne, Sir Willoughby," 205

Peacock, Thomas Love, 92-94

"Pecksniff," 16

"Pemberley," 42

_Persuasion_, 125, 137, 151, 186, 237, 240, 251

Phelps, W. L., 34

_Pickwick Papers_, 240

Picnics, 175, 224

"Pierrette," 18

Plutocrats, 41

_Plymley Letters_, 78

"Pons, Sylvain," 75

Portsmouth, 66, 184, 233

Poverty, 40

Powlett, Charles, 36, 101

_Précieuses ridicules_, 78

"Price, Fanny," 18, 34, 184

_Pride and Prejudice_, 44, 62, 85, 129, 136, 186, 237, 251

Property, landed, 41-42

"Proudie, Mrs.," 205

_Quarterly Review_, 135, 162, 165

Queensberry, Duke of, 191

_Quentin Durward_, 139

"Quilp," 16

Radcliffe, Mrs., 50, 52, 60, 86

_Rambler, The_, 56

"Ravenswood Tower," 92

Realism, 205

Regent, The, 153, 165

Religion, 189

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 59

"----, Mrs.," 112

Richardson, Samuel, 50, 59, 60

"Rigby, Mr.," 198

_Rivals, The_, 153

"Rochefide, Beatrix de," 19

"Rushworth, Maria," 18

"Rushworth, Mr.," 83

"Russell, Lady," 163, 183, 205

Saintsbury, George, 90, 141, 253

Sand, George, 108, 169

Sappho, 249

Saxe-Coburg family, 65

Scharlieb, Mrs., 170

_School for Saints, The_, 160

Scott, Sir Walter, 16, 42, 51, 67, 76, 209

----, Life of, 166

Scudéri, Mademoiselle de, 55

"Scythrop," 93

"Sedley, Jos," 92

_Self-control_, 61

Selwyn, George, 191

_Sense and Sensibility_, 44, 62, 82, 136, 143, 202, 242

Shakespeare, 84-85, 181

Shelley, 121

Sheridan, 130, 153

"Shirley," 92

_Sir Charles Grandison_, 50

Smith, Goldwin, 91, 253

"----, Harriet," 103, 231

----, James, 13

----, Sydney, 78

Socialists, 41

Sondes, Lady, 106

Southampton, 241

_Spectator, The_, 53-55

Staël, Madame de, 45, 109-111

Steele, Richard, 55

Stephen, Leslie, 235

Stephens, Miss, 77

Steventon, 22, 153, 214, 234

"Steyne, Lord," 16

Surville, Madame de, 201

Swift, Jonathan, 149, 220

_Tamaris_, 108

_Tartuffe_, 77

_Tatler, The_, 56

Temple, Sir William, 33, 55

Tennyson, 26, 236

Thackeray, 16, 28, 94

Theatricals at the Bertrams', 131

Thomson, Hugh, 209, 232

"Thorpe, John," 51

"Tilney, General," 187, 224

"----, Henry," 18, 70, 80, 88, 91, 93, 216, 224, 225

"Tinman, Martin," 115

_Tom Jones_, 157

"Tulliver, Mr.," 205

Turner, J. M. W., 13

"Uppercross," dancing at, 125

Vallière, Louise de la, 158

"Vandenesse, Felix de," 201

"Vautrin," 92

Vendée, La, 57

_Venetia_, 121

Ventilation, Mr. Woodhouse on, 127

"Vernon, Lady Susan," 106

Verrall, A. W., on text of Jane Austen's novels, 83

_Village, The_, 56

Villiers, Barbara, 158

Voltaire, 147, 158

Waltz, 129-131

Warner, Dr., 191

_Watsons, The_, 87, 137, 152, 252

_Waverley_, 51, 52

_Weir of Hermiston_, 208

"Wentworth, Frederick," 125, 155, 188, 251

"Western, Sophia," 142, 155

"----, Squire," 154

"Weston, Mr.," 115

"----, Mrs.," 84, 103, 181

Whately, Archbishop, 135, 161, 181, 189

"Wickham," 141

"Williams, Miss," 143

"Willoughby, John," 18, 79, 141-146

Wine, 221

"Woodhouse, Emma," 33, 37, 64, 93, 103, 181, 221

"----, Mr.," 172, 174, 221

_World, The_, 56

Wyndham, Mr., 104

Zola, 66

THE END

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.