Part 14
Tom Tulliver’s whole relationship with his sister is an admirable study in the conventional notion of a stupid man’s “superiority” to a clever woman; but it cannot be criticised, or in any way regarded, as a feminine conception. That provokingly worthy and obstinate young man is perfectly true to life. There is neither mistake nor exaggeration here. We must all feel that “this lady” knows. In marriage, Tom would certainly have played the master to any woman “worthy of him,” but would not thereby have become less normal or natural. If men question or puzzle over anything in _The Mill on the Floss_, it is not Maggie’s toleration of Tom, but her temporary infatuation for Stephen. He indeed is something of a lady’s man, not a woman’s; but probably we may not disown the type. To some extent, again, Adam Bede is “masterly” to his mother, and would probably--barring accidents on which the plot hinges--have been accepted by Hetty in the same spirit; but he is certainly _not_ perfect, and seldom, if ever, outruns probability.
But although George Eliot, having a wide outlook, recognises and illustrates the tendency in man to play the master, she does not associate it with any idea of perfection, nor does she idealise submission in women. Yet we know that personally, though less intensely than Charlotte Brontë, she too disliked sex-assertion, and found comfort in what the other only desired, a large measure of intellectual rest, by letting a man think and act for her. At all times her religion and her philosophy were largely borrowed or reflective--for all their assumption of independence--and every page of her life reveals the carefully protective influence of George Henry Lewes. Only less than any of the other chief women novelists did George Eliot permit self-expression in her work, and the particular portraiture of man we are here discussing was not the result of study but the exposure of conviction.
Finally, it was reserved for later writers, not of supreme genius, to develop the type to its extremity. Charlotte Yonge, with her usual superabundance of dramatis personæ, has _two_ “women’s men” in _The Heir of Redclyffe_, and the contrast between them is most instructive. The aggressive “perfection” of Philip, indeed, is crude enough. Miss Yonge deliberately exaggerates his manifold virtues in order to darken the evil within. The reader and his own conscience alone ever realise the full force of his jealous suspicions and obstinacy in self-justification. Guy’s faults, on the other hand, are all on the surface; but his exalted saintliness is even more superhuman than the other’s unerring morality. Both exemplify a feminine ideal; though Philip has only one worshipper, her faith is unfaltering. His, indeed, is the type that lives to hold forth, to inform, and to dogmatise. Woe to the woman who ventures to think for herself. The power or charm of Guy is unconscious. They love his passionate outbursts, his generous impetuosity, his childish remorse and “sensibility.” In him, however, there are _some_ qualities which men esteem: he was a sportsman, adventurous, and transparently sincere. Only his final “conversion” and the death-bed scene spoil the picture. He becomes, in the end (what Philip had always been), the sport of feminine imagination with its craving for perfectibility. He loses the human touch, vanishing among the gods.
We have the “last word” in this matter from _John Halifax, Gentleman_. With school-girl naïveté Phineas tells us on every page that “there was never any man like him.” His smile, his tenderness, his courage, his independence, his tact and tyranny in the home, his quiet influence on Capital and Labour, are certainly unique, and no less certainly monotonous. He _understands_ everybody, and “deals with them” easily. It costs him nothing to lead men and dominate women. Quietly and without effort, he pursues his way--to an admiring chorus, always “the master,” the perfect gentleman. He was dignified, attractive, and very “particular over his daintiest of cambric and finest of lawn.” The little waif of the opening chapters indignantly repudiated the name of “beggar-boy”: “You mistake; I never begged in my life: I am a person of independent property, which consists of my head and my two hands, out of which I hope to realise a large capital some day.” And he kept his word.
Prompt and acute in business, of unflinching integrity, and guided by generous understanding as to the serious labour problems of his generation, John was one of those fine English tradesmen who effected so much, not only towards the foundation of our commercial empire, but towards removing the barriers between their own class and a Society largely composed of “fox-hunting, drinking, dicing fools.” The girl who loved him was “shocked” to hear of his being “in business,” although her feelings quickly developed to proud worship.
It is here, indeed, that Mrs. Craik reveals most power. Towards the “world”--his equals, his “men,” or his “superiors”--John Halifax is the true gentleman, and a splendid specimen of manhood. He has rare dignity, shrewd insight, and ready command of language. The scene of his “drawing-room” fracas with Richard Brithwood is extremely dramatic, and gives us almost a higher opinion of the hero than any other. Entirely free from the narrow-mindedness of the ordinary self-made man, he almost subdues our dislike of the gentle despotism which he assumes towards wife and family. The complacent masculinity is exaggerated by the author’s persistence in keeping him to the centre of the picture; and we are disposed to believe that it might have been less open to criticism if expressed, as well as conceived, by a woman. Phineas Fletcher, the fictional Ego, has some charm; but he is absolutely feminine, if not womanish, and the Jonathan-David attitude of every page becomes wearisome by repetition. There is no doubt that this perpetual enthusiasm of one man for another offends our taste, and has a tendency to make both a little ridiculous. John has a positive weakness for perfection, and we should observe the fact with more pleasure if it were less frequently “explained.”
Here the man creates his surroundings or sets the tone, presumably exemplifying the author’s ideal. He is singularly pure-minded, preposterously domestic, and very confident about the natural supremacy of man. It is the immense amount of tender detail, the infinite number of soft touches which convict the author of femininity. Her hero, however, is no knight of romance, no Bayard of the drawing-room, no love-lorn youth of dreams, no “fine gentleman,” the mate of a girl’s sensibility. He is not all soul and heart. He is of tougher fibre in groundwork (despite his “halo”), and primarily practical. Concerned externally with such tough problems as trade depression, the “bread riots,” and the introduction of machinery, he is more often placed before us as lover, husband, father, and friend. Frank and decisive, he has remarkable self-control, and remains ideally simple. He has no doubts about sin and goodness, indifference or faith. We should be tempted to say that he spent his life in the nursery, though sometimes, indeed, the view of the nursery is not unworthy of our attention:
“I delighted to see dancing. Dancing, such as it was then, when young people moved breezily and lightly, as if they loved it; skimming like swallows down the long line of the Triumph--gracefully winding in and out through the graceful country-dance--lively always, but always decorous. In those days people did not think it necessary to the pleasures of dancing that any stranger should have the liberty to snatch a shy, innocent girl round the waist, and whirl her about in mad waltz or awkward polka, till she stops, giddy and breathless, with burning cheek and tossed hair, looking--as I would not have liked to see our pretty Maud look.”
Most of us, I fancy, would think better of John without Phineas at his elbow, if he were less supremely self-conscious, less given to that analysis of his own acts and emotions which is essentially feminine. But Mrs. Craik will not let her hero alone. She thrusts him upon us without mercy, till we are driven to cry “halt.” We are convinced that no human being could comfortably carry about with him so heavy a burden of perfectibility. He is (as women have often fancied us) not what we are but what she would have us be; and here, as elsewhere, even the Ideal does not please man.
PERSONALITIES
All art is the expression of an individuality, and environment has some influence on genius. Without question _Evelina_ and _Cecilia_ owe much to the accidents of Miss Burney’s own experience. Hers, indeed, was an eventful, almost romantic, life. To-day we only remember Dr. Burney as the father of Fanny; but he was a man of mark in his own generation, and his industrious enthusiasm was obviously infectious. Fanny was not early distinguished among his clever children, and we must conclude that she had something of that delicate refinement granted her heroines, making her rather shy and diffident among the mixed gatherings in which he took such pride and delight. As one of her sisters remarked, this lack of self-confidence gave her at times the appearance of hauteur; and it is quite obvious that no suspicions could have been aroused in any of them of her capacity for “taking notes.” Hers was always the quiet corner where “the old lady,” as they called her at home, could observe the quality, occasionally join in a spirited conversation, and--after her own fashion--enjoy “the diversions.” Her characteristics, says fourteen-year-old Susan, “seem to be sense, sensibility, and bashfulness, even to prudery.” It would be kinder, perhaps, to credit her with modesty such as we find expressed in her own account of _Evelina; or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World_:
“Perhaps this may seem rather a bold attempt and title for a female whose knowledge of the world is very confined, and whose inclinations, as well as situation, incline her to a private and domestic life. All I can urge is, that I have only presumed to trace the accidents and adventures to which a ‘young woman’ is liable; I have not pretended to shew the world what it actually is, but what it _appears_ to a young girl of seventeen: and so far as that, surely any girl who is past seventeen may safely do? The motto of my excuse shall be taken from Pope’s _Temple of Fame_:
‘In every work, regard the author’s end; None e’er can compass more than they intend.’”
How far she had actually experienced adventures, or at least met characters, similar to those of her novel, her entertaining Diaries most abundantly illustrate. One is almost ashamed before the enthusiasm which, between domesticities considered becoming a lady, secretarial work for Dr. Burney, and voluminous letters to her faithful friend Daddy Crisp, the authoress accomplished so much in so comparatively short a period.
For she had not only to “scribble” _Evelina_, but to copy it all out in a feigned upright hand. It was natural enough that Lowndes, bookseller, should have refused to publish without the whole manuscript, but equally natural that she should complain:
“This man, knowing nothing of my situation, supposed, in all probability, that I could sit quietly at my bureau, and write on with expedition and ease, till the work was finished. But so different was the case, that I had hardly time to write half a page a day; and neither my health nor inclination would allow me to continue my _nocturnal_ scribbling for so long a time, as to write first, and then copy, a whole volume. I was therefore obliged to give the attempt and affair entirely over for the present.”
Genius, of course, would not be stifled; and, in the end, she completed her work within the year, gaily accepting the payment of £20 down for the copyright, to which the publisher added £10 when its success was assured by a sale of 2300 copies during 1778.
Frances Burney became immediately the pet of Society. The diaries of this period are crowded with records of flattery which may seem extravagant, if not ludicrous, to modern reticence; and she has been criticised for repeating them. Yet for us it is fortunate that there were “two or three persons,” for whom her diaries were written, “to whom her fame gave the purest and most exquisite delight.” They have become history, and, as Macaulay remarks, “nothing can be more unjust than to confound these outpourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympathy, with the egotism of a blue-stocking who prates to all who come near her about her own novel or her own volume of sonnets.”
The fact is that, by a comparison with the Early Diaries, we may feel confident that Miss Burney was never spoilt by popularity. Inevitably she came out of the shade, talked more as she was more often singled out for compliments or conversation; but there is no appearance of conceit, and little increase in self-confidence. The youthful simplicity of her work remains her prevailing characteristic; and the slight maturity of _Cecilia_, not always an advantage, is obviously no more than a desire to please. It is not her own sense of dignity in authorship, but the pride of Crisp and the affection of Dr. Johnson which stimulates the effort. Always “instinct with the proprieties and the delicacies implanted by careful guardians,”[16] it was her business to “describe the world as it seems to a woman utterly preoccupied with the thought of how she seems to the world,” to picture man “simply and solely as a member of a family.” One recognises the limit and single-mindedness of her aim, in her reason for abandoning drama. She found she could not “preserve spirit and salt, and yet keep up delicacy.”
We are all familiar enough to-day with the cruelty of the reward by which foolish persons thought to acknowledge her prowess. The five years’ imprisonment at Court, though it could not ultimately tame her spirit, brought about temporary physical wreck, and seems to have lulled for ever the desire for literary fame. We have endeavoured to show, in an earlier chapter, that _Camilla_ is not entirely without significance; but there can be no question that after her marriage she wrote only for money, and, if not without individuality, yet, as it were, to order and by rule.
We are concerned here only with her earlier years, when she was the replica of her own heroines.
The real character of Miss Austen almost defies analysis. Contemporary evidence, of any discrimination, is practically non-existent; her life presents no outstanding adventure; and it is very dangerous to assume identity between any expression in the novels and her experience or opinion. As a matter of fact, she never even states a truth, exhibits an emotion, or judges a case except by implication. Even the apparent generalisations or author’s comments on life are really attuned to the atmosphere of the particular novel in which they appear.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged,” we read, “that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Miss Austen knows better. She is perfectly aware of the perverseness often exhibited by wealthy bachelors. The sentence is no more than a most ingenious stroke of art. It plunges us at once into the atmosphere of Meryton and the subject of the tale. It betrays Mrs. Bennet and, in a lesser degree, Lady Lucas. It prepares us for her vulgarity, at once distressing, and elevating by contrast, the refinement of Jane and Elizabeth. Never surely did a novel open with a paragraph so suggestive. Again, the first page of _Mansfield Park_ contains a phrase of similar significance. The author remarks: “There certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.” Again, she is not speaking in her own person. Lady Bertram felt this--so far as she ever formed an opinion for herself. Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Price had personal experience of its truth. The subtle irony reveals _their_ point of view, not Miss Austen’s.
It requires, of course, no particular subtlety to trace from her novels the type of character she approves and loves best, her general standard of manners and conduct, and her scorn for hypocrisy. We have even hazarded to affirm evidence for her opinions on one or two questions of more importance. But they do _not_ reveal her personality in detail; and to say, with her nephew, that she possessed all the charms of all her heroines, would be to make her inhuman.
There is, in fact, an undiscriminating conventionality about such descriptions as we possess which gives us no real information. We are told, for example, that
“her carriage and deportment were quiet, yet graceful. Her features were separately good. Their assemblage produced an unrivalled expression of that cheerfulness, sensibility, and benevolence which were her real characteristics. Her complexion was of the finest texture. It might with truth be said that her eloquent blood spoke through her modest cheek. Her voice was extremely sweet. She delivered herself with fluency and precision. Indeed, she was formed for elegant and rational society, excelling in conversation as much as in composition. In the present age it is hazardous to mention accomplishments. Our authoress would, probably, have been inferior to few in such acquirements had she not been so superior to most in higher things.”
It would seem as if the writer were really intent on describing perfection.
And _yet_, we are convinced personally that Miss Austen had a peculiar charm of her own. Undoubtedly she lived among persons as empty-headed as those she has immortalised; probably she had met Mrs. Norris, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Collins: apparently she was happy. No doubt her devotion to Cassandra (suggesting her partiality for sister-heroines) counted for much; and all her family were agreeable. They had a good deal of “sense.” Her life provided even less variety of incident than she discovered at Longbourn or Uppercross; and, if she was fond of reading, she knew nothing about literature. Her letters do not suggest the uneasiness attached to the possession of a soul--as we moderns understand it.
Yet one point merits attention and may partially reveal. There can be no question that the very breath of her art is satire, and she is at times even cynical. Yet the one thing we know positively of her private life is that she was a favourite aunt, a devoted sister, a sympathetic daughter. Now the child-lover, beloved of children, must possess certain qualities, which prove that her cynicism was not ingrained, misanthropic, or pessimistic; that her pleasure in fun was neither ill-natured nor unsympathetic. There must have been strength of character in two directions not often united. Her life was, in a measure, isolated--from superiority. She gave more than she received. Nor can we believe her entirely unaware of what life might have yielded her in more equal companionship; entirely without bitterness--for example--in the invention of Mrs. Norris. There can be no question, we think, that life never awakened the real Jane Austen. She lived absolutely in, and for, her art, of which the delight to her was supreme. Yet family tradition declares, with obvious truth, that her genius never tempted her to arrogance, affectation, or selfishness. She worked in the family sitting-room, writing on slips of paper that could immediately, without bustle or parade, be slipped _inside_ her desk at the call of friendship or courtesy. At any moment she suffered interruption without protest. The absolute self-command so obvious in the work governed her life.
But we have always believed that one passage in _Pride and Prejudice_ does give us a suggestive glimpse--again only by implication--of very real autobiography:
“‘You are a great deal too apt,’ says Eliza to Jane Bennet, ‘to like people in general. You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life.’
“‘I would not wish to be hasty in censuring anyone,’ answers Jane, ‘but I always speak what I think.’
“‘I know you do, and it is _that_ which makes the wonder. With _your_ good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others. Affectation of candour is common enough--one meets it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design--to take the good of everybody’s character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad--belongs to you alone.’”
This is, we like to fancy, a portrait of her own sister, Cassandra. Jane Austen herself was _not_ “a great deal too apt to like people in general,” though she too could be marvellously tender with Marianne Dashwood, most “silly” of heroines, and her still more ridiculous mother. It is certain, indeed, that she never neglected even the most tiresome “neighbours,” but she did not love them. There is evidence enough in _Persuasion_ that she could sympathise with deep feelings, which were necessarily suppressed in such surroundings as she gives all her heroines, and had experienced herself.
Her reverend father, “the handsome proctor,” like most clergymen of his generation, was essentially a country gentleman, not very much better educated, and scarcely more strenuous, than his neighbours. His wife took a simple and honest pride in the management of her household; and his sons followed their father’s footsteps, entered the navy, or pursued whatever other profession they could most _conveniently_ enter. The whole atmosphere of the vicarage was complacently material and old-fashioned, where the ideas of progress filtered slowly and discontent was far from being considered divine. The personal aloofness from characters delineated, so conspicuous in her art, was borrowed from life. Everywhere, and always, the real Jane stood aside.
Nor were there granted her any of the consolations of culture. We have no doubt that she received no more education than might be acquired at Mrs. Goddard’s:
“A school, not a seminary, or an establishment, or anything which professed, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, upon new principles and new systems--and where young ladies, for enormous pay, might be screwed out of health and into vanity--but a real, honest, old-fashioned boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent out of the way and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies.”
It needed, perhaps, some such unromantic, unruffled, and unvaried existence, with a mind perfectly composed, to produce those six flawless works of art which remain for us the most complete expression of good sense, the most complete triumph over the fanciful exaggerations of romance. Genius alone could adjust the balance with such nicety and leave us content. She forces us, by sheer wit and sympathy, to love and admire the very persons of all time and place who have in themselves least to interest or attract.