Part 6

We have already noted the popularity of Emma, but, in this _unlike_ Elizabeth, she has her detractors. Some find her too managing, self-centred, and “superior” for charm. Admittedly she is a matchmaker, far less refined than she imagines herself: her rudeness to Miss Bates is difficult to pardon. But, as Knightley alone had the wit to recognise, Harriet’s innocent folly encouraged her worst qualities, and Emma’s repentance is sincere, bearing good fruit. To the end she is herself indeed; but how different a self--standing witness to the powers of character in bringing out the best of us. Having played with fire, she learnt her lesson, and so we may leave her, no less marvelling than she at the workings of what little Harriet was pleased to call her heart; admiring, as all must, Jane Austen’s finished study of that engaging “Miss.”

_Mansfield Park_, probably, is the least popular of the novels--on account of its heroine. Fanny Price has her partisans, but can never become a general favourite, until we again idealise humility in woman. Accepting, without a murmur, the most unreasonable and most exacting demands of all her “betters”; meekly grateful, to the point of servility, if Edmund bestows on her a kind word; she stands before us condemned by every code accepted to-day.

Yet Fanny, reversing the process in Emma, acquires self-confidence with years, and actually learns to play the heroine in adversity. The novel contains Miss Austen’s first, and last, picture of the great world beyond parish boundaries: it deals, successfully, with greater contrasts in social status than she ever attempted before or since. Lady Bertram, no less than Mrs. Norris, fairly eclipses all former achievements in character study.

Its crowded canvas, indeed, demands notice in detail. Sir Thomas neglects his family much as did Mr. Bennet, and suffers more serious punishment. The “villain” is replaced by Henry and Miss Crawford, of the world, worldly: figuring at first as very wholesome instruments of distraction to a stiff family circle; but ingeniously convicted, in touch with realities, of serious moral depravity. Their presence, however, reveals new power in the authoress, and considerably enlivens the scene. They do much towards the development of Fanny.

No two characters, on the other hand, could be more profoundly diverse than those of Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris: yet they fit each other without friction, and it were hard indeed to say which is more perfectly drawn. A woman more utterly devoid of feeling or lacking in common sense than the former, it is impossible to conceive. The mere hint of responsibility towards anyone or anything would have shattered her nerves completely; and no emergency, of joy or grief, ever taught her to face the exertion of making up her own mind for herself on the most trivial question. Yet there is no exaggeration. She is perfectly natural, not without charm, an ornament to the family circle whom all would miss. For Mrs. Norris, the intolerable busybody, it has been suggested that Miss Austen owed something directly to personal experience. Was this her revenge for much silent endurance? Certainly so much concentrated scorn, so stern a portrait seems to imply animus. Gentle, tender, and sympathetic by nature, was she at times lashed to fury by the cruel inanity of village types? Mrs. Elton, Miss Bates, and Mr. Collins may, in a less degree, have been similarly inspired. If it be so, verily they have their reward.

The central motive in _Mansfield Park_ is more complex than heretofore: its scenes more varied. The whole episode of Fanny’s visit to her struggling parents, and their squalid home, introduces an aspect of life elsewhere ignored, shows us humanity unrefined. The work is alive and vigorous, not altogether foreign to modern realism. Coming, moreover, from such uncongenial, and to them unfamiliar, surroundings; bred to hard work and hard times; cousin Fanny brings a new element into the lives of the elegant Miss Bertrams, our usual couple of sisters; who, again, are destined to further awakening from the manners and experience of Mary Crawford.

Finally, we have here the nearest approach to a so-called “social problem” ever handled by Jane Austen, and a thoroughly serious picture of punishment. It may seem hard to all of us, and modern casuists would certainly declare it unjust, that Maria should suffer so much more than Julia, who had no more principle, but less opportunity. In this matter, however, Miss Austen is uncompromising. Of the two Maria was more spoilt--by Mrs. Norris, more exposed to temptation; and actually committed sin. _Therefore she must expect punishment._ Julia proved herself equally cold-hearted and selfish; but by luck, neither through wisdom nor goodness, she kept within the code--and was forgiven.

Miss Austen does not let off the man altogether; for it is quite clear that Henry Crawford lost Fanny, and, with her, his best chance for happiness. But Maria lost everything; and so, the authoress seems to imply, it must be always. There is no hint of mercy, no chance for retrievement, in one of the sternest decrees of Fate that could overtake a woman--perpetual imprisonment with her aunt!

“Shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment, it may reasonably be supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment.”

Justice, indeed, hath fair play with Mrs. Norris. May we not whisper--Poor Maria!

_Persuasion_, Miss Austen’s last work and perhaps her finest, reveals maturity in other ways. No longer than _Northanger Abbey_, it has neither the complexity nor the crowded canvas distinguishing others of the second group. It is written throughout in a minor key, without one outstanding comic “character.” But, on the other hand, its construction is singularly compact, its emotions have a new depth, sincerity, and tenderness. Anne Elliot can never rival Elizabeth or Emma; though she is no less “superior” to her own family, and has in reality more character. Here our appreciation and our sympathies are emotional rather than intellectual. _We feel with her_ far more than with them. Though never recognised in her own circle, as were all Miss Austen’s heroines save Fanny Price, she dominates the story more than any. _Persuasion_, in fact, is a study in character, such as its authoress had never before attempted. No more, if indeed actually less, sensational than its predecessors, the whole scheme moves below the surface. It holds us more by feeling and atmosphere than by incident. We experience a similar delight in the perfectly turned phrases, the finished dialogue, and the neat characterisation; but here are no figures of fun, no animated social functions, no clash of types. We may smile, indeed, at Sir Walter Elliot or at the family of Uppercross; but the humour, however subtle and permeating, does not anywhere prevail over deeper emotion.

Certainly we note that Miss Austen still seeks out no new material, depends on no more startling situation. Anne’s happiness and misery alike arise, as did Jane’s and Elizabeth’s, from a refinement to which every other member of her family was absolutely blind. The natural understanding between two sisters is destroyed, as between Julia and Maria, by rivalry for the one eligible visitor to the neighbourhood; though here with no permanently disastrous results. The naïvely conceived villain of the first group has become--again as in _Mansfield Park_--an accomplished man of the world, with no sister indeed to further his perfectly honourable designs on the heroine, but, in the last event, not lacking a female accomplice. Its most striking effect in local colour, the glowing picture of naval types, was foreshadowed in William Price: though Admiral and Mrs. Croft admittedly stand high in Miss Austen’s gallery of character-studies. Society, as in _Northanger Abbey_, is located at Bath.

Yet nowhere has she attempted, with any approach to a like depth of feeling or earnestness, so much philosophy on life, so searching an analysis of human nature, as in the remarkable conversation on faithfulness, as severally exhibited by men and women, which artistically produces a permanent understanding between hero and heroine.

“Oh!” cried Anne eagerly to Captain Harville, “I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as--if I may be allowed the expression--so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.”

This is the text of the whole novel, woven with subtlety into its very fabric, inspiring each thought, each word, though never obtruding. _Persuasion_ is neither a sermon nor a pamphlet. Its author assuredly holds no brief for woman, brings no charge against man. Yet here she speaks for her sex. Of what she has seen and felt it would appear that she could no longer remain silent.

Jane Austen reveals herself in her last message to posterity.

_Sense and Sensibility_, 1811. _Pride and Prejudice_, 1813. _Mansfield Park_, 1814. _Emma_, 1816. _Northanger Abbey_, 1818. _Persuasion_, 1818.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Both passages are quoted on page 129.

[4] Also in the _Quarterly_, 1821.

[5] It is scarcely necessary, perhaps, to remark that the word “realism” is used, here and elsewhere, without any reference to the limited significance it has recently acquired. Realism, of course, really means truthfulness to life, _including_ imagination, faith, poetry, and the ideal; and _not_ a photographic reproduction of certain unpleasant, more or less abnormal, phases of human nature.

A “MOST ACCOMPLISHED COQUETTE”

In spite of the almost universal inclination to pass over Jane Austen’s “minor” works without serious comment, we are ourselves strongly disposed to consider _Lady Susan_ of considerable importance.

The early compositions, if sprightly, are not precocious: the cancelled chapter of _Persuasion_--replaced only eleven months before her death by chaps. x. and xi.--remains an interesting record of what would have fully satisfied a less careful artist; and the description--with extracts--which Mr. Austen-Leigh has given us of the novel begun on 27th January 1817 and continued until the 17th of March,[6] does not contain body enough for confident anticipation: _i.e._ of detail. There is, however, no reason for dreading any decline in artistic power.

Water-marks of 1803 and 1804 on the original manuscript prove _The Watsons_ to have been written between her two periods of productive activity; and it is not likely that definite evidence will now transpire in explanation of its having been left unfinished: unless we accept Mr. Austen-Leigh’s somewhat fastidious conclusion--

“that the author became aware of the evil of having placed her heroine too low, in such a position of poverty and obscurity as, though not necessarily connected with vulgarity, has a sad tendency to degenerate into it; and therefore, like a singer who has begun on too low a note, she discontinued the strain. It was an error of which she was likely to become more sensible, as she grew older, and saw more of society: certainly she never repeated it by placing the heroine of any subsequent work under circumstances likely to be unfavourable to the refinement of a lady.”[7]

Her nephew further remarks that “it could not have been broken up for the purpose of using the materials in another fabric”; although, in his opinion, a resemblance between Mr. Robert Watson and Mr. Elton is “very discernible.” We might also observe that Mr. Watson appears to have taken his “basin of gruel” as regularly as Mr. Woodhouse; while, on the other hand, Lord Osborne’s affected superiority to dancing recalls Darcy. Miss Watson’s theories on life and marriage are particularly characteristic:

“I would rather do anything than be a teacher at a school. _I_ have been at school, Emma, and know what a life they lead; _you_ never have. I should not like marrying a disagreeable man any more than yourself; but I do not think there _are_ many very disagreeable men; I think I could like any good-humoured man with a comfortable income. I suppose my aunt brought you up to be rather refined.”

Emma Watson, in fact, like all Jane Austen’s heroines, shines by _comparison_ with the rest of her family.

_Lady Susan_, unlike any of the stories mentioned above, is obviously complete and finished. “Her family have always believed it to be an early production”; but we cannot conjecture why it was laid aside and never published by her. It is, however, an “experiment”--never repeated; and very possibly Jane Austen did not feel moved to revise what evidently had not satisfied her own standard of perfection.

For us, however, its striking dissimilarity to the six recognised “works,” and its unique position in the development of fiction, are of peculiar interest. To begin with, it belongs to the old “picaresque” school of fiction, seldom popular in England, though practised with considerable vigour by Defoe, and _once_ revived by Thackeray in a work of genius--_Barry Lyndon_.

It may, perhaps, be considered an exaggeration to call the heroine a villain; and certainly Jane Austen entirely avoids the sordid material of criminal adventure (_not_ scorned by Thackeray); which is the recognised foundation of ordinary picaresque work. But the essential characteristic remains prominent. The good people are comparatively colourless; our interest centres around _Lady Susan_, and it is on her that the author has devoted her most careful work. Moreover, it should not be overlooked that _Lady Susan_ does contemplate, and actually instigate--in refined language--a course of action which may fairly be called criminal. The confidante, Mrs. Johnson--a recognised appendage to villainy--receives the following significant hint:

“Mainwaring is more devoted to me than ever; and were we at liberty, I doubt if I could resist even matrimony offered by _him_. This event, if his wife live with you, it may be in your power to hasten. The violence of her feelings, which must wear her out, may easily be kept in irritation. _I rely on your friendship for this._”

The quiet audacity of this paragraph is really astounding; and just because no other word in all the forty-one letters contains so much as a hint at anything beyond unblushing effrontery and reckless lying, we regard it, without hesitation, as the keynote of Jane Austen’s method, and the declaration of her aim. Only a villain could possibly have written these words; only a genius could have refrained from giving her away on some other occasion.

Superficially, Lady Susan is no worse than a merry widow, given to man conquest, perfectly indifferent--if not contemptuous--towards the wives or the fiancées of her victims. In this matter, indeed, her enemies complain that “she does not confine herself to that sort of honest flirtation which satisfies most people, but aspires to the more delicious gratification of making a whole family miserable.” During the first months of widowhood she had determined on “discretion” and being “as quiet as possible”:--“I have admitted no one’s attentions but Mainwaring’s. I have avoided _all general flirtation_ whatever; I have distinguished no creature besides, of all the numbers resorting hither, except Sir John Martin, on whom I bestowed a little notice, in order to detach him from Miss Mainwaring; but, if the world could know my motive _there_ they would honour me”;--the fact being that she wanted the man for her daughter.

This “most accomplished coquette in England” is described with some fullness by a sister-in-law who had every reason to think ill of her.

“She is really excessively pretty; however you may choose to question the allurements of a lady no longer young, I must, for my own part, declare that I have seldom seen so lovely a woman as Lady Susan. She is delicately fair, with fine grey eyes and dark eyelashes; and from her appearance one would not suppose her more than five and twenty; though she must in fact be ten years older. I was certainly not disposed to admire her, though always hearing she was beautiful; but I cannot help feeling that she possesses an uncommon union of symmetry, brilliancy, and grace. Her address to me was so gentle, frank, and even affectionate, that, if I had not known how much she has always disliked me for marrying Mr. Vernon, and that we had never met before, I should have imagined her an attached friend. One is apt, I believe, to connect assurance of manner with coquetry, and to expect that an impudent address will naturally attend an impudent mind; at least, I myself was prepared for an improper degree of confidence in Lady Susan; but her countenance is absolutely sweet, and her voice and manner winningly mild. I am sorry it is so, for what is this but deceit? Unfortunately, one knows her too well. She is clever and agreeable, has all that knowledge of the world which makes conversation easy, and talks very well, with a happy command of language, which is too often used, I believe, to make black appear white.”

Such being the lady’s own manners and sentiments, we are fully prepared for her satirical references to her daughter:

“I never saw a girl of her age”--she was sixteen--“bid fairer to be the sport of mankind. Her feelings are tolerably acute, and she is so charmingly artless in their display as to afford the most reasonable hope of her being ridiculous, and despised by every man who sees her. Artlessness will never do in love-matters; and that girl is born a simpleton who has it either by nature or affectation.”

It is hardly necessary to add that Lady Susan has no desire, or ambition, in life beyond universal admiration. She is “tempted” indeed, but does not on one occasion lose her head: and we cannot feel that she was even exactly pre-eminent in her practice. It does not appear that she quite succeeded in ever enjoying the fruits of victory. Miss Austen has not drawn for us a really “cunning” coquette. Lady Susan subdued men, but she could seldom hold them; and on no occasion does she conquer “circumstances,” _i.e._, other women.

There may be, obviously, three explanations of this fact. Either Jane Austen was lacking in the more robust humour of Thackeray and his predecessors, who seem to revel in the gaiety of the heartless; or she recognised the limitations of country life, where the artificial can never prosper for long; or she had, in her own quiet way, too much principle to countenance, even in fiction, any permanent happiness for the wicked.

However it be, the result is unique. Lady Susan stands alone as a heroine. As we have seen, the full depths of her criminality lurk beneath the surface: her power is rather hinted at than described. It is only on looking back over the accumulation of slight touches and chance words that we realise her astounding insincerity, her absolute lack of feeling, or the brilliance of her superficial attractiveness. It is a very short book, containing few characters and practically no events; yet we are startled, on reflection, at its unsparing picture of the incalculable amount of mischief that may be done by sheer empty-headedness, entirely without strong feeling or passion; and of the incredible isolation in which such a character must always live.

Lady Susan injures, in some degree, literally every person named in the whole story. She has not a friend in the world. In reality, perhaps, the last consideration indicates most clearly the virtue in Miss Austen’s characterisation. It is not once even mentioned, and, consequently, arouses no remark. We must deduct from it our own observation. But, inasmuch as never for one instant does a single thought for anyone but herself cross the mind of Lady Susan, so never does anyone else show one spark of affection for her. Mrs. Johnson, obviously, was governed by interested motives, and frankly abandons her at the first serious danger of “the consequences” to herself. The kind of devotion she inspired in men had no affinity to friendship, respect, consideration, or unselfishness. The closing scene is described with a cutting brevity, that recalls Miss Austen’s dismissal of Maria Rushworth and Mrs. Norris.

She married the man designed for her daughter--for an establishment: “Whether Lady Susan was or was not happy in her second choice, I do not see how it can ever be ascertained; for who would take her assurance of it on either side of the question? The world must judge from probabilities; she had nothing against her but her husband, and her conscience.”

As we have noticed before, Miss Austen seldom obtrudes her opinions, but they are occasionally implied. And, on such occasions, they are unhesitating. We find in her no doubt, no compromise--we might almost say no charity--about a few questions of ultimate morality.

On the whole, however, we cannot claim for _Lady Susan_ all those perfections of style associated with the genius of its author. Save for a few turns of phrase, of which we have quoted the most significant, it has little of her pointed epigram or subtle humour. The language is equally finished and inevitable, but there is neither sparkle nor gaiety. We miss the dialogue and the delicate variety in characterisation. It would be hazardous, indeed, to suppose that anyone could have “discovered” Jane Austen from Lady Susan; but, knowing her other work, we can detect the mastery.

In conclusion, it is worth noticing that she has here given us some insight into the constancy of man.

Reginald de Courcy had been a victim of Lady Susan’s. After her second marriage, her daughter

“Frederika was fixed in the family of her uncle and aunt till such time as Reginald de Courcy could be talked, flattered, and finessed into an affection for her which, allowing leisure for the conquest of his attachment to her mother, for his abjuring all future attachments, and detesting the sex, _might be reasonably looked for in a twelvemonth_. Three months might have done it in general, but Reginald’s feelings were no less lasting than lively.”

It will be remembered that Miss Austen is less explicit about Edmund Bertram:

“I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that every one may be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as to time in different people. I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire.”

On the other hand, Marianne Dashwood required two years to conquer her devotion to Willoughby in favour of Colonel Brandon; but then Miss Austen has claimed for her sex, through Anne Elliot, “the privilege of loving longest, when existence, or when hope, is gone.”

FOOTNOTES:

[6] She died 18th July 1817.

[7] It may surely be questioned whether this remark quite allows for the home of Fanny Price.

PARALLEL PASSAGES