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Memoir of Jane Austen · Memoir of Jane Austen

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  Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen Lee preface, The Memoir of my
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  Aunt Jane Austen has been received with more favor than I had ventured to expect.
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  The notice is taken of it in the periodical press, as well as
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  letters addressed to me by many with whom I am not personally acquainted, show
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  that an unabated interest is still taken in every particular that can be told about
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  her. I am thus encouraged not only to offer a second edition of the
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  memoir, but also to enlarge it with some additional matter, which I might
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  have scrupled to intrude on the public, if they had not thus seemed to
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  call for it. In the present edition, the narrative is somewhat enlarged,
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  and a few more letters are added, with a short specimen of her childish
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  stories. The canceled chapter of Persuasion is given, and compliance with wishes both
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  publicly and privately expressed. A fragment of a story unentitled the Watsons is printed,
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  and extracts are given from a novel which she had begun a few months
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  before her death. But the chief edition is a short tale never before public
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  called Lady Susan. I regret that the little which I've been able to add
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  cannot appear in my first edition, as much of it was either unknown to
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  me or not my command when I first published. And I hope that I
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  may claim some indulgent allowance for the difficulty of recovering little facts and feelings which
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  had been merged half a century deep in oblivion. November seventeenth, eighteen seventy,
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  Chapter one. Jane Austin was born in December sixteenth, seventeen seventy five,
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  at the parsonage house of Steventon in Hampshire. Her father, the Reverend
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  George Austin, was of a family long established in the neighborhood of Tendon and
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  Seven Oaks in Kent. I believe that early in the seventeenth century they were
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  clothiers. Hasted in its History of Kent says quote the clothing business was exercised
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  by persons who possessed most of the landed property in the whale, and so
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  much that almost all of the ancient families of these parts now of large estates
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  in genteel rank in life, and some of them ennobled by titles are sprung
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  from ancestors who have used this great staple manufacture, now almost unknown. Here
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  in his list of families hasted places at Austin's and he adds that these clothiers
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  were usually called the gray Coats of Kent, and were a body so numerous
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  and united that at county elections, whoever had their vote and interest was almost
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  certain of being elected. The family still retains a badge of this origin,
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  for their livery is of that peculiar mixture of light blue and white called Kentish
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  gray, which forms the facings of the Kentish militia. Mister George Austin had
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  lost both his parents before he was nine years old. He inherited no property
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  from them, but was happy in having a kind uncle, mister Francis Austen,
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  a successful lawyer at Tunbridge, the ancestor of the Austins of Kippington,
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  who, though he had children of his own, yet made liberal provision for
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  his orphan nephew. The boy received a good education at Tunbridge School, where
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  he obtained a scholarship and subsequently a fellowship at Saint John's College, Oxford.
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  In seventeen sixty four he came into possession of the two adjoining rectories of Dean
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  and Steventon in Hampshire, the former purchased for him by his generous uncle Francis,
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  the latter given by his cousin mister Knight. This was no very gross
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  case of plurality, according to the ideas of that time, for the two
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  villages were low more than a mal apart, and their united populations scarcely amounted
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  to three hundred. In the same year he married Cassandra, the youngest daughter
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  of the Reverend Thomas Lee, of the family of Leeds of Warwickshire, who,
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  having been a fellow of all souls, held the college living of Harpston,
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  near Henley upon Thames. Mister Thomas Lee was the younger brother of doctor
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  Theophilius Lee, a personage well known at Oxford in his day, and his
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  day was not a short one, for he lived to be ninety and held
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  the mastership of Balliol College for above half a century. He was a man
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  more famous for his sayings than his doings, overflowing with puns and witticisms and
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  sharp retort, but his most serious joke was his practical one, of living
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  much longer than had been expected or intended. He was a fellow of Corpus,
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  and the story is that the Balliol men, unable to agree in electing
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  one of their own number to the mastership, chose him partly under the idea
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  that he was in weak health and likely soon to cause another vacancy. It
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  was afterwards said that his long incumbency had been a judgment on the society for
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  having elected an out college man. I imagined that the front of Balliol towards
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  Broad Street, which had recently been pulled down, must have been built,
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  or at least restored, while he was master, for the Lee Arms were
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  placed under the cornice at the corner nearest to Trinity Gates. The beautiful building
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  lately erected has destroyed this record, and thus monuments themselves memorials need his fame
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  for witty and agreeable conversation extended beyond the bounds of the university. Missus Thrale,
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  in a letter to doctor Johnson, writes, thus are you acquainted with
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  doctor Lee, the Master of Balliol College? And are you not delighted with
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  his gaiety of manners and youthful vivacity, now that he is eighty six years
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  of age. I never heard a more perfect or excellent pun than his when
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  some one told him how, in a late dispute among the Privy Councilors,
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  the Lord Chancellor struck the table with such violence that he split it. No,
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  no, no, replied the master. I can hardly persuade myself that
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  he split the table, though I believe he divided the board. Some of
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  his sayings, of course, survive in family tradition. He was once calling
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  on a gentleman notorious for never opening a book, who took him into a
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  room overlooking the bath Road, which was then a great thoroughfare for travelers of
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  every class, saying, rather pompously, this doctor, I call my study.
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  The doctor, glancing his eye around the room in which no books were
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  to be seen, replied and very well named too, sir, For you
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  know, Pope tells us the proper study of mankind is man. When my
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  father went to Oxford, he was honored with an invitation to dine with this
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  dignified cousin. Being a raw undergraduate, unaccustomed to the habits of the university,
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  he was about to take off his gown as if it were a great
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  coat, when the old man, then considerably turned eighty, said, with
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  a grim smile, young man, you need not strip. We are not
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  going to fight. This humor remained in him so strongly till the last that
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  he might almost have supplied Pope with another instance of the ruling passion strong in
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  death for only three days before he expired, being told that an old acquaintance
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  was lately married, having recovered from a long illness by eating eggs, and
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  that the wits said that had been egged on to matrimony, he immediately trumped
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  the joke, saying they made the yoke sit easy on him. I do
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  not know from what common ancestor the Master of Balliol and his great niece Jane
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  Austen, with some others of the family, may have derived the keen sense
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  of humor, which they certainly possessed. Mister and Missus George Austin resided first
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  at Dean, but removed in seventeen seventy one to Steventon, which was their
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  residence for about thirty years. They commenced their married life with the charge of
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  a little child, a son of the celebrated Warren Hastings, who had been
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  committed to the care of mister Austin before his marriage, probably through the influence
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  of his sister Missus Hancock, whose husband at that time held some office under
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  Hastings in India. Mister Gleig, in his Life of Hastings, says that
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  his son George, the offspring of his first marriage, was sent to England
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  in seventeen sixty one for his education, but that he had never been able
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  to ascertain to whom his precious charge was entrusted, nor what became of him.
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  I am able to state from family tradition that he died young of what
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  was then called putrid sore throat, and that Missus Austen had become so much
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  attached to him that she always declared that his death had been as great a
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  grief to her as if he had been a child of her own. About
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  this time, the grandfather of Mary Russell Mitford, doctor Russell, was rector
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  of the adjoining parish of Ashe, so that the parents of two popular female
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  writers must have been intimately acquainted with each other. As my subject carries me
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  back about a hundred years, it will afford occasions for absorbing many changes gradually
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  affected in the manners and habits of society, which I may think it worth
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  while to mention. They may be little things, But time gives a certain
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  importance even to trifles, as it imparts a peculiar flavor of wine. The
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  most ordinary article of domestic life are looked on with some interest if they are
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  brought to light after being long buried, and we feel a natural curiosity to
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  know what was done and said by our forefathers, even though it may be
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  nothing wiser or better than what we are daily doing or saying ourselves. Some
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  of this generation may be little aware how many conveniences now considered to be necessities
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  and matters of course, were unknown to their grandfathers and grandmothers. The lane
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  between Dean and Steventon has long been as smooth as the best turnpike road,
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  but when the family removed from the one residence to the other in seventeen seventy
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  one, it was a mere cart track, so cut up by deep ruts
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  as to be impassable for a light carriage. Missus Austen, who was not
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  then in strong health, performed the long journey on a feather bed placed upon
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  some soft articles of furniture in the wagon which held their household goods. In
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  those days, it was not unusual to set men to work with shovel and
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  pickaxe to fill up the ruts and holes and roads seldom used by carriages on
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  such special occasions as a funeral or a wedding. Ignorance and coarseness of language
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  also were still lingering, even upon higher levels of society than might have been
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  expected to retain such mists. About this time, a neighboring squire, a
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  man of many acres, referred the following difficulty to mister Austin's decision. Quote,
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  you know all of these sorts of things, do tell us as Paris
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  and France, or France in Paris? For my wife has been disputing with
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  me about it. The same gentleman, narrating some conversation which he had heard
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  between the rector and his wife, represented the latter as being her reply to
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  her husband with a round oath. And when his daughter called him to task,
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  reminding him that missus Austin never swore, he replied, now, Betty,
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  why do you pull me up for nothing that's neither here nor there.
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  You know very well that's only my way of telling the story. Attention has
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  lately been called by a celebrated writer to the inferiority of the clergy, to
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  the laity of England two centuries ago. The charge, no doubt is true
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  if the rural clergy are to be compared with the higher section of country gentlemen,
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  who went into Parliament and mixed in London society, and took the lead
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  in their several counties. But it might be found less true if they were
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  to be compared, as in all fairness they ought to be with that lower
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  section with whom they usually associated. The smaller landed proprietors, who seldom went
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  farther from their home than their county town. From the squire with his thousand
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  acres to the yaleman who cultivated his hereditary property of one or two hundred,
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  then formed a numerous class, each of the aristocrat of his own parish.
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  And there was probably a greater difference in manner and refinement between this class and
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  that immediately above them, than can now be found between any two persons who
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  rank as gentlemen. For in the progress of civilization, though all orders may
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  make some progress, yet it is most perceptible in the lower It is a
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  process of leveling up the rear rank, dressing up, as it were,
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  close to the front rank. When Hamlet mentions as something which he had for
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  three years taken note of that the toe of the peasant comes so near the
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  heel of the courtier. It is probably intended by Shakespeare as a satire on
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  his own times, but it expressed a principle which is working at all times,
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  in which society makes any progress. I believe that a century ago the
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  improvement in most county parishes began with the clergy, and in those days,
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  as director, who chanced to be a gentleman and a scholar, found himself
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  superior to his chief parishioners in information and manners, and became a sort of
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  center of refinement and politeness. Mister Austin was a remarkably good looking man,
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  both in his youth and his old age. During his life of office at
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  Oxford he had been called the handsome Proctor, and at Bath, when more
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  than seventy years old, he attracted observations by his fine features and abundance of
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  snow white hair. Being a good scholar, he was able to prepare two
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  of his sons for the university, and to direct the studies of his other
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  children, whether sons or daughters, as well as to increase his income by
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  taking pupils and Missus Austin also was to be found the germ of much of
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  the ability which was concentrated in Jane, but of which others of her children
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  had a share. She united strong common sense with a lively imagination, and
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  often expressed herself both in writing and in conversation, with epic, grammatic force
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  and point. She lived, like many of her family, to an advanced
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  age. During the last years of her life, she endured continual pain,
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  not only patiently but with characteristic cheerfulness. She once said to me, quote,
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  ah my dear, you find me just where you left me on the
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  sofa. I sometimes think that God Almighty must have forgotten me, but I
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  dare say he will come for me in his own good time and quote.
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  She died and was buried at Chawton January eighteen twenty seven, aged eighty eight.
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  Her own family were so much in the rest of the world so little
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  to Jane Austen, that some brief mention of her brothers and sisters is necessary
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  in order to give any idea of the objects which principally occupied her thoughts and
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  filled her heart, especially as some of them, from their characters or professions
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  in life, may be supposed to have had more or less influence on her
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  writings, though I feel some reluctance in bringing before public notice persons and circumstances
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  essentially private. Her eldest brother, James, my own father, had,
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  when a very young man at Saint John's College, Oxford, been the originator
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  and chief supporter of a periodical paper called The Loiterer, written somewhat on the
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  plan of The Spectator and its successors, but nearly confined to subjects connected with
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  the university and after life. He used to speak very slightingly of his early
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  work, which he had the better right to do, as whatever may have
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  been the degree of their merits, the best papers had certainly been written by
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  himself. He was well read in English literature, had a correct taste,
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  and wrote readily and happily, both in prose and verse. He was more
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  than ten years older than Jane, and had, I believe, a large
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  share in directing her reading and forming her taste. Her second brother, Edward,
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  had been a good deal separated from the rest of the family, as
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  he was early adopted by his cousin, mister Knight, of god Mersham Park
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  in Kent and Chawton House in Hampshire and finally came into possession both of the
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  property and the name. But though a good deal separated in childhood, they
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  were much together and after life, and Jane gave a large share of her
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  affections to him and his children. Mister Knight was not only a very amiable
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  man, kind and indulgent to all connected with him, but possessed also a
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  spirit of fun and liveliness, which made him especially delightful to all young people.
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  Her third brother, Henry, had great conversational powers and inherited from his
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  father an eager and sanguine disposition. He was a very entertaining companion, but
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  had perhaps less steadiness of purpose, certainly less success in life than his brothers.
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  He became a clergyman a middle aged and an allusion to his sermons will
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  be found in one of Jane's letters. At one time he resided in London
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  and was useful in transacting his sister's business with her publishers. Her two youngest
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  brothers, Francis and Charles, were sailors during that glorious period of the British
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  Navy which comprises the close of the last in the beginning of the present century,
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  when it was impossible for an officer to be almost always a foe,
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  as these brothers were, without seeing service which in these days would be considered
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  distinguished. Accordingly, they were continually engaged in actions of more or less importance,
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  and sometimes gained promotion by their success. Both rose to the rank of
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  admiral and carried out their flags to distant stations. Francis lived to attain the
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  very summit of his professional having lived in his ninety third year g c b
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  and Senior Admiral of the Fleet in eighteen sixty five. He possessed great firmness
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  of character, with a strong sense of duty, whether due from himself to
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  others or from others to himself. He was consequently a strict displenarian, but
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  as he was a very religious man, it was remarked of him, for
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  in those days at least it was remarkable that he maintained this discipline without ever
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  uttering an oath or permitting one in his presence. On one occasion, when
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  ashore in the seas side town, he was spoken of as the officer who
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  kneeled at church, a custom which now happily would not be thought peculiar.
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  Charles was generally serving in frigates or sloops, blockading harbors, driving the ships
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  of the enemy ashore, boarding gunboats, and frequently making small prizes. At
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  one time he was absent from England on such services for seven years together.
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  In later life, he commanded the Bellerophon at the bombardment of Saint Jean Diacre
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  in eighteen forty. In eighteen fifty he went out in the Hastings in command
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  of the East India and China Station, but on the breaking out of the
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  Burmese War, he transferred his flag to a steam sloop for the purpose of
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  getting up the shallow waters of the Arrawadi, on board of which he died
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  of cholera in eighteen fifty two, and the seventy fourth year of his age.
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  His sweet temper and affectionate disposition, in which he resembled his sister Jane,
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  has secured him an unusual portion of attachment, not only from his own
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  family, but from all the officers and common sailors who served under him.
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  One who was with him at his death has left this record of him.
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  Our good Admiral won the hearts of all by his liad gentleness and kindness,
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  until he was struggling with disease and endeavoring to do his duty as Commander in
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  chief of the British Naval forces in these waters. His death was a great
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  grief to the whole fleet. I know that I cried bitterly when I found
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  he was dead. The Order and Council of the Governor General of India,
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  Lord Dalhousie expresses admiration of the staunch, high spirit which, notwithstanding his age
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  and previous sufferings, had led the Admiral to take his part in the trying
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  service which has closed his career. These two brothers have been dwelt on longer
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  than the others because their honorable career accounts for Jane Austen's partiality for the navy,
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  as well as for the readiness and accuracy with which she wrote about it.
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  She was always very careful not to meddle with matters which she did not
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  thoroughly understand. She never touched upon politics, law, or medicine, subjects
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  which some novel writers have ventured on rather too boldly and have treated, perhaps
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  with more brilliancy than accuracy. But with ships and sailors, she felt herself
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  at home, or at least could always trust to a brotherly critic to keep
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  her right. I believe that no flaw has ever been found in her seamanship,
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  either in Mansfield Park or in persuasion. But dearest of all to the
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  heart of Jane was her sister Cassandra, about three years her senior. Their
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  sisterly affection for each other could scarcely be exceeded. Perhaps it began on Jane's
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  side with the feeling of deference natural to a loving child towards a kind elder
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  sister. Something of this feeling always remained, and even the maturity of her
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  powers, and in the enjoyment of increasing success, she would still speak of
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  Cassandra as of one wiser and better than herself. In childhood, when the
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  elder was sent to the school of Missus Lauturnal in the fore Brewery at Reading,
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  the younger went with her, not because she was thought old enough to
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  profit much by the instruction there imparted, but because she would have been miserable
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  without her sister, her mother observing that if Cassandra were going to have her
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  head cut off, Jane would insist on sharing her fate. This attachment was
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  never interrupted or weakened. They lived in the same house and shared the same
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  bedroom till separated by death. They were not exactly alike. Cassandra's was the
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  colder and calmer disposition. She was always prudent and well judging, but with
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  less outward demonstration of feeling and less sunniness of temper than Jane possessed. It
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  was remarked in her family that Cassandra had the merit of having her temper always
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  under command, but that Jane had the happiness of a temper that never required
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  to be commanded. When sense and sensibility came out, some persons who knew
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  the family slightly surmised that the two elder miss Dashwoods were intended by the author
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  for her sister and herself, But this could not be the case. Cassandra's
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  character might indeed represent the sense of Eleanor, but Jane's had little in common
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  with the sensibility of Marianne. The young woman who, before the age of
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  twenty could so clearly discern the failings of marian Dashwood could hardly have been subject
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  to them herself. This was the small circle continually enlarged, however, by
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  the increasing families of four of her brothers, within which Jane Austen found her
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  wholesome pleasures, duties and interests, and beyond which she went very little into
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  society during the last ten years of her life. There is so much that
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  was agreeable and attractive in this party that its members may be excused if they
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  were inclined to live somewhat too exclusively within it. They might see in each
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  other much to love and esteem, and something to admire. The family talk
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  had abundance of spirit and vivacity, and was never troubled by disagreements, even
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  in little matters, for it was not their habit to dispute or argue with
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  each other. Above all, there was strong family affection and firm union,
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  never be broken but by death. It cannot be doubted that all this had
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  its influence on the author in the construction of her stories, and which a
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  family party usually supplies the narrow stage, while the interest is made to revolve
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  around a few actors. It will be seen also that though her circle society
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  was small, yet she found in her neighborhood persons of good taste and cultivate
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  minds. Her acquaintance, in fact constituted the very class from which she took
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  her imaginary characters, ranging from the member of parliament or large landed proprietor,
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  to the young curate or younger midshipmen of equally good family. And I think
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  the influence of these early associations may be traced in her writings, especially in
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  two particulars. First, that she was entirely free from the vulgarity which is
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  so offensive in some novels, of dwelling on the outward appendages of wealth or
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  rank, as if they were things to which the writer was unaccustomed. Secondly,
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  that she deals as little with very low as with very high stations of
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  life. She does not go lower than the mis steals Missus Elton and John
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  Thorpe, people of bad taste in underbred manners, such as are actually found
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  sometimes mingling with better society. She has nothing resembling the Bringtons, or mister
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  Debster and his friend Tom Hicks, with whom Madame de Arblay left to season
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  her stories and to produce striking contract trust to her well bred characters. End
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  of chapter one, Chapter two description of Steventon. Life at Steventon, changes
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  of habits and customs in the last century as the first twenty five years.
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  More than half of the brief life of Jane Austen were spent in the parsonage
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  of Steventon. Some description of that place ought to be given. Steventon is
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  a small rural village upon the Chalk Hills of North Haunts, situated in a
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  winding valley about seven miles from Basingstoke. The Southwestern Railway crosses it by a
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  short embankment, and as it curves around, presents a good view of it
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  on the left hand to those who are traveling down the line about three miles
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  before entering the tunnel under Popham Beacon. It may be known to some sportsmen
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  as lying in one of the best portions of the vine Hunt. It is
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  certainly not a picturesque country. It presents no grand or extensive views, but
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  the features are small rather than plain. The surface continually swells and sinks,
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  but the hills are not bold or the valleys deep. And though it is
• 24:02
  sufficiently well clothed with woods and hedgerows, yet the poverty of the soil in
• 24:06
  most places prevents the timber from attaining a large size. Still, it has
• 24:11
  its beauties. The lanes wind along in a natural curve, continually fringed with
• 24:15
  irregular borders of native turf and lead to pleasant nooks and corners. One who
• 24:21
  knew and loved it well very happily expressed its quiet charms when he wrote,
• 24:25
  true taste is not fastidious nor rejects, because they may not come within the
• 24:30
  rule of composition. Pure and picturesque, unnumbered, simple scenes which fill the
• 24:33
  leaves of nature's sketchbook. Of this somewhat tame country steventon, from the fall
• 24:40
  of the ground and the abundance of its timber, is certainly one of the
• 24:42
  prettiest spots. Yet one cannot be surprised when Jane's mother, a little before
• 24:48
  her marriage, was shown the scenery of her future home, she should have
• 24:51
  thought it an attractive compared with the broad river, the rich valley, and
• 24:55
  the noble hills which she had been accustomed to behold at her native home near
• 24:59
  Henley. Upon time. The house itself stood in a shallow valley surrounded by
• 25:03
  sloping meadows, well sprinkled with elm trees, at the end of a small
• 25:07
  village of cottages, each well provided with the garden scattered about prettily on either
• 25:11
  side of the road. It was sufficiently commodious to hold pupils. In addition,
• 25:15
  to a growing family, and was in those times considered to be above
• 25:19
  the average of parsonages. But the rooms were furnished with less elegance than would
• 25:23
  now be found in the most ordinary dwellings. No cornice marked the junction of
• 25:27
  wall and ceiling, while the beams which supported the upper floors projected into the
• 25:32
  rooms below in all their naked simplicity, covered only by a coat of paint
• 25:36
  or whitewash. Accordingly, it has since been considered unworthy of being the rectory
• 25:41
  house of a family living, and about forty five years ago it was pulled
• 25:45
  down for the purpose of erecting a new house in a far better situation.
• 25:48
  On the opposite side of the valley. North of the house, the road
• 25:52
  from Dean to Popham Lane ran at a sufficient distance from the front to allow
• 25:55
  a carriage drive through turf and trees. On the south side, the ground
• 25:59
  rose gently and was occupied by one of those old fashioned gardens in which vegetables
• 26:03
  and flowers are combined, flanked and protected on the east by one of the
• 26:07
  thatched mud walls common in that country, and overshadowed by fine elms. Along
• 26:11
  the upper or southern side of this garden, ran a terrace of the finest
• 26:15
  turf, which must have been in the Right's thoughts when she described Catherine Morland's
• 26:18
  childish delight in rolling down the green slope at the back of her house.
• 26:22
  But the chief beauty of Steventon consisted in its hedgerows. A hedgerow in that
• 26:27
  country does not mean a thin formal line of quickset, but an irregular border
• 26:33
  of copsewood and timber, often wide enough to contain within it a winding footpath
• 26:37
  or a rough cart track. Under its shelter, the earliest primroses and emones
• 26:41
  and wild hyacinths were to be found, sometimes first Bird's Nest and now and
• 26:48
  then the unwelcome Adder. Two such hedgerows radiated, as it were, from
• 26:52
  the parsonage garden. One, a continuation of the turf terrace, proceeded westward,
• 26:57
  forming the southern boundary of the home meadows, and was formed into a
• 27:02
  rustic shrubbery with occasional seats, entitled the wood Walk. The other ran straight
• 27:07
  up the hill, under the name of the Church Walk, because it led
• 27:10
  to the parish church as well as to a fine old manor house of Henry
• 27:14
  the Eighth's time occupied by a family named Digweed, who have for more than
• 27:18
  a century rented it, together with the chief farm in the parish. The
• 27:22
  church itself, I speak of it as it then was, before the improvements
• 27:26
  made by the present rector. A spireless fine just seen above the woody lane
• 27:33
  might have appeared mean and uninteresting to an ordinary observer, but the adept in
• 27:37
  church architecture would have known that it must have stood there some seven centuries,
• 27:41
  and would have found beauty in the very narrow early English windows, as well
• 27:45
  as in the general proportions of its little chancel. While its solitary position,
• 27:49
  far from the hum of the village and within sight of no habitation except a
• 27:53
  glimpse of the gray manor house through its circling screen of sycamores, has in
• 27:57
  it something solemn and appropriate. The last resting place of the silent dead.
• 28:03
  Sweet violets, both purple and white, grow in abundance beneath its south wall.
• 28:07
  One may imagine for how many centuries the ancestors of those little flowers have
• 28:11
  occupied that undisturbed sunny nook, and may think how few living families can boast
• 28:17
  of as ancient a tenure of their land. Large elms protrude their rough branches.
• 28:22
  Old hawthorns shed their annual blossoms over the graves, and the hollow yew
• 28:26
  tree must be at least coeval with the church. But whatever may be the
• 28:30
  beauties or defects of the surrounding scenery. This was the residence of Jane Austen
• 28:34
  for twenty five years. This was the cradle of her genius. These were
• 28:40
  the first objects which inspired her young heart with the sense of the beauties of
• 28:42
  nature. In strolls along those wood walks, thick coming fancies rose in her
• 28:48
  mind and gradually assumed the forms in which they came forth to the world.
• 28:52
  In that simple church, she brought them all into subjection to the piety which
• 28:56
  ruled her in life and supported her in death. The home at Steventon must
• 29:02
  have been, for many years a pleasant and prosperous one. The family was
• 29:06
  unbroken by death and seldom visited by sorrow. Their situation had some peculiar advantages
• 29:11
  beyond those of ordinary rectories. Steventon was a family living. Mister Knight,
• 29:17
  the patron, was also a proprietor of nearly the whole parish. He never
• 29:21
  resided there, and consequently the rector and his children came to be regarded in
• 29:25
  the neighborhood as kind of representatives of the family. They shared with the principal
• 29:30
  tenant the command of an excellent manner, and enjoyed, in this reflected way
• 29:34
  some of the consideration usually awarded to landed proprietors. They were not rich,
• 29:40
  but aided by mister Austin's power of teaching, they had enough to afford a
• 29:44
  good education to their sons and daughters, to mix in the best society of
• 29:48
  the neighborhood, and to exercise a liberal hospitality to their own relations and friends.
• 29:53
  A carriage and a pair of horses were kept. This might imply a
• 29:56
  higher style of living in our days than a in theirs. There were then
• 30:02
  no assessed taxes, the carriage, once bought, entailed little further expense,
• 30:07
  and the horses, probably like mister Bennett's, were often employed on farm work.
• 30:12
  Moreover, it should be remembered that a pair of horses in those days
• 30:15
  were almost necessary if ladies were to move about at all, for neither the
• 30:21
  condition of the roads nor the style of carriage building admitted of any comfortable vehicle
• 30:25
  being drawn by a single horse. When one looks at the few specimens still
• 30:29
  remaining of coach building in the last century, it strikes one that the chief
• 30:33
  object of the builders must have been to combine the greatest possible weight with the
• 30:37
  least possible amount of accommodation. The family lived in close intimacy with two cousins,
• 30:42
  Edward and Jane Cooper, the children of Missus Austen's eldest sister, and
• 30:48
  doctor Cooper, the vicar of Sonning, near Reading. The Coopers lived for
• 30:52
  some years at Bath, which seems to have been much frequented in those days
• 30:56
  by clergymen retiring from work. I believe that Cassandra and Jane sometimes visited them
• 31:02
  there, and that Jane thus acquired the intimate knowledge of the topography and customs
• 31:07
  of Bath, which enabled her to write Northanger Abbey long before she resided there
• 31:11
  herself. After the death of their own parents, the two young Coopers paid
• 31:15
  long visits at Steventon. Edward Cooper did not live undistinguished. When an undergraduate
• 31:22
  at Oxford, he gained the prize for Latin hexameters on Hortus Anglicus in seventeen
• 31:27
  ninety one, and in later life he was known by a work on prophecy
• 31:32
  called The Crisis, and other religious publications, especially for several volumes of sermons
• 31:37
  much preached in many pulpits in my youth. Jane Cooper was married from her
• 31:42
  uncle's house at Steventon to Captain afterwards Sir Thomas Williams, under whom Charles Austen
• 31:48
  served in several ships. She was a dear friend of her namesake, but
• 31:53
  was fated to become a cause of great sorrow to her for a few years
• 31:57
  after the marriage she was set at killed by an accident to her carriage.
• 32:02
  There was another cousin closely associated with them at Steventon, who must have introduced
• 32:07
  greater variety into the family circle. This was the daughter of mister Austen's only
• 32:13
  sister, Missus Hancock. This cousin had been educated in Paris and married to
• 32:19
  a count of the Foyade, of whom I know little more than that he
• 32:22
  perished by the guillotine during the French Revolution. Perhaps his chief offense was his
• 32:27
  rank, but it was said that the charge of incivism under which he suffered
• 32:30
  rested on the fact of his having laid down some arable land into pasture,
• 32:35
  a sign of his intention to embarrass the Republican government by producing a famine.
• 32:39
  His wife escaped through the dangers and difficulties to England, was received for some
• 32:45
  time into her uncle's family, and finally married her cousin, Henry Austen.
• 32:50
  During the short piece of Amia, she and her second husband went to France
• 32:54
  in the hope of recovering some of the count's property, and there narrowly escaped,
• 32:59
  being included amongst the detenus. Orders had been given by Buonaparte's government to
• 33:05
  detain all English travelers, but at the post houses, Missus Henry Austen gave
• 33:08
  the necessary orders herself, and her French was so perfect that she passed everywhere
• 33:14
  for a native, and her husband escaped under this protection. She was the
• 33:19
  clever woman and highly accomplished after the French rather than the English mode. And
• 33:22
  in those days when intercourse with the continent was long interrupted by a war,
• 33:28
  such an element in the society of a country parsonage must have been a rare
• 33:31
  acquisition. The sisters may have been more indebted to this cousin than to Missus
• 33:37
  Latournelle's teaching, for the considerable knowledge of French which they possessed. She also
• 33:42
  took the principal parts in the private theatricals in which the family several times indulged,
• 33:46
  having their summer theater in the barn and their winter one within the narrow
• 33:51
  limits of the dining room, where the number of the audience must have been
• 33:53
  very limited. On these occasions. The prologs and epilogs were written by Jane's
• 33:59
  eldest brother, and some of them are very vigorous and amusing. Jane was
• 34:04
  only twelve years old at the time of the earliest of these representations, and
• 34:07
  not more than fifteen when the last took place. She was, however,
• 34:13
  an early observer, and it may be reasonably supposed that some of the incidents
• 34:17
  and feelings which were so vividly painted in the Mansfield Park theatricals are due to
• 34:22
  her recollections of these entertainments. Some time before they left Steventon, one great
• 34:28
  affliction came upon the family. Cassandra was engaged to be married to a young
• 34:32
  clergyman. He had not sufficient private fortune to permit an immediate union, but
• 34:37
  the engagement was not likely to be a hopeless or a protracted one, for
• 34:42
  he had the prospect of an early preferment from a nobleman with whom he was
• 34:45
  conducted both by birth and by personal friendship. He accompanied this friend to the
• 34:51
  West Indies as chaplain to his regiment, and there died of yellow fever,
• 34:54
  to the great concern of his friend and patron, who afterwards declared that if
• 35:00
  he had known of the engagement, he would not have permitted him to go
• 35:01
  out to such a climate. This little domestic tragedy caused great and lasting grief
• 35:07
  to the principal sufferer, and could not but cast a gloom over the whole
• 35:12
  party. The sympathy of Jane was probably from her age and her peculiar attachment
• 35:16
  to her sister. The deepest of all of Jane herself, I know of
• 35:21
  no such definite tale of love to relate her reviewer in the Quarterly of January
• 35:25
  eighteen twenty one observes concerning the attachment of Fanny Price to Edmund Bertram, the
• 35:31
  silence in which this passion is cherished, the slender hopes and enjoyments by which
• 35:37
  it is fed, the restlessness and jealousy with which it fills a mind naturally
• 35:40
  active, contented, and unsuspicious, The manner in which it tinges every event
• 35:45
  and every reflection are painted with a vividness and a detail of which we can
• 35:50
  scarcely conceive anyone but a female. And we should almost add a female writing
• 35:54
  from recollection capable. This conjecture, however probable, was wide of the mark.
• 36:01
  The picture was drawn from the intuitive perceptions of genius, not from personal
• 36:06
  experience. In no circumstance of her life was there any similarity between herself and
• 36:12
  her heroine in Mansfield Park. She did not, indeed, pass through life
• 36:15
  without being the subject of warm affection. In her youth she had declined the
• 36:20
  addresses of a gentleman who had the recommendations of good character and connections and position
• 36:25
  of life, of everything, in fact, except the subtle power of touching
• 36:30
  her heart. There is, however, one passage of romance in her history
• 36:34
  with which I am imperfectly acquainted, and to which I am unable to assign
• 36:37
  name or date or place, though I have it on sufficient authority. Many
• 36:44
  years after her death, some circumstances induced her sister Cassandra to break through her
• 36:47
  habitual reticence and to speak of it. She said that, whilst staying at
• 36:52
  some seaside place, they became acquainted with a gentleman whose charm of person,
• 36:58
  mind, and manners was such that Ca Sondra thought him worthy to possess and
• 37:01
  likely to win her sister's love. When they parted, he expressed his intention
• 37:07
  of soon seeing them again, and Cassandra felt no doubt as to his motives.
• 37:10
  But they never again met. Within a short time they heard of his
• 37:15
  sudden death. I believe that if Jane ever loved it was this unnamed gentleman.
• 37:20
  But the acquaintance had been short, and I am unable to say whether
• 37:23
  her feelings were such of a nature as to affect her happiness. Any description
• 37:29
  that I might attempt of the family life at Steventon, which closed soon after
• 37:32
  I was born, could be little better than a fancy piece. There is
• 37:37
  no doubt that if we could look into the households of the clergy in the
• 37:39
  small gentry of that period, we should see some things which would seem strange
• 37:44
  to us, and should miss many more to which we are accustomed. Every
• 37:49
  hundred years, and especially a century like the last, marked by an extraordinary
• 37:52
  advance in wealth, luxury, and refinement of taste, as well as in
• 37:57
  the mechanical arts which embellish our houses, must produce a great change in their
• 38:01
  aspect. These changes are always at work. They are going on now,
• 38:07
  but so silently that we take no note of them. Men soon forget the
• 38:10
  small objects which they leave behind them as they drift down the stream of life.
• 38:15
  As Pope says, nor does life's stream for observation stay. It hurries
• 38:21
  all too fast to mark their way. Important inventions, such as the applications
• 38:27
  of steam, gas, and electricity, may find their places in history,
• 38:30
  but not so the alterations, great as they may be, which have taken
• 38:35
  place in the appearance of our dining and drawing rooms. Who can now record
• 38:38
  the degrees by which the custom prevalent in my youth of asking each other to
• 38:43
  take wine together at dinner became obsolete? Who will be able to fix twenty
• 38:47
  years, hence the date when our dinners begin to be carved and handed round
• 38:51
  by servants, instead of smoking before our eyes and noses on the table.
• 38:55
  To record such little manners would indeed be to chronicle smaller. But in a
• 39:00
  slight memoir like this, I may be allowed to note some of those changes
• 39:05
  in social habits which give a color to history, but which the historian has
• 39:09
  the greatest difficulty in recovering. At that time, the dinner table presented a
• 39:15
  far less splendid appearance than it does now. It was appropriated to solid food
• 39:20
  rather than to flowers, fruits, and decorations, nor was there much glitter
• 39:24
  of plate upon it. For the early dinner hour rendered candlesticks unnecessary, and
• 39:30
  silver forks had not come into general use, while the broad rounded end of
• 39:34
  the knives indicated the substitute generally used instead of them. The dinners, too
• 39:38
  were more homely, though not less plentiful and savory, and the bill of
• 39:43
  fare in one house would not be so like that in another, as it
• 39:45
  is now. For family receipts were held in high estimation. A grandmother of
• 39:51
  culinary talent could bequeath to her descend and fame for some particular dish, and
• 39:55
  might influence the family dinner for many generations dos estomagna parentium vertus. One house
• 40:04
  would pride itself on its ham, another on its game pie, and a
• 40:07
  third on its superior firmity or tansey pudding. Beer and home made wines,
• 40:13
  especially mead, were more largely consumed. Vegetables were less plentiful, and less
• 40:17
  various. Potatoes were used, but not so abundantly as now, and there
• 40:23
  was an idea that they were to be eaten only with roast meat. There
• 40:28
  were novelties to a tenant's wife who was entertained at Steventon Parsonage, certainly less
• 40:32
  than a hundred years ago, and when Missus Austen advised her to plant them
• 40:37
  in her own garden, she replied, no, no, they are very
• 40:39
  well for you, gentry, but they must be terribly costly to rear.
• 40:45
  But a still greater difference would be found in the furniture of the rooms,
• 40:49
  which would appear to us lamentably scanty. There was a general deficiency of carpeting
• 40:53
  and sitting rooms, bedrooms and passages. A pianoforte, or rather a spinnet
• 41:00
  or hopsichord, was by no means a necessary appendage. It was to be
• 41:05
  found only where there was a decided taste for music. Not so common then
• 41:08
  as now, or in such great houses as would probably contain a billiard table,
• 41:15
  There would often be but one sofa in the house, and that a
• 41:17
  stiff, angular, uncomfortable article. There were no deep easy chairs nor other
• 41:23
  appliances for lounging. For to lie down or even to lean back was a
• 41:28
  luxury permitted only to old persons or invalids. It was said of a nobleman,
• 41:32
  a personal friend of George the third, and a model gentleman of his
• 41:37
  day, that he would have made the tour of Europe without ever touching the
• 41:39
  back of his traveling carriage. But perhaps we should be most struck with the
• 41:44
  total absence of those elegant little articles which now embellish and encumber our drawing room
• 41:49
  tables. We should miss the sliding bookcases and picture stands, the letter weighing
• 41:53
  machines and envelope cases, the periodicals and illustrated newspapers, above all the countless
• 42:00
  swarm of photograph books which now threaten to swallow up all that space. A
• 42:06
  small writing desk with a smaller work box or netting case was all that each
• 42:10
  young lady contributed to occupy the table for the large family work basket, though
• 42:16
  often produced in the parlor, lived in the closet. There must have been
• 42:21
  more dancing throughout the country in those days than there is now, and it
• 42:24
  seems to have sprung up more spontaneously, as if it were a natural production,
• 42:30
  with less fastidiousness as to the quality of music, lights and floor.
• 42:35
  Many country towns had a monthly ball throughout the winter, in some of which
• 42:38
  the same apartment served for dancing and tea room. Dinner parties more frequently ended
• 42:44
  with an extempore dancing on the carpet to the music of a harpsichord in the
• 42:47
  house or a fiddle from the village. This was always supposed to be for
• 42:52
  the entertainment of the young people, but many who had little pretension to youth
• 42:57
  were very ready to join in. There can be no doubt that Jane herself
• 43:01
  enjoyed dancing, for she attributes this taste to her favorite heroines. In most
• 43:07
  of her works, a ball or a private dance is mentioned and made of
• 43:10
  importance. Many things connected with the ball rooms of those days have now passed
• 43:16
  into oblivion. The barbarous law which confined the lady to one partner throughout the
• 43:22
  evening must indeed have been abolished before Jane went to balls. It must be
• 43:27
  observed, however, that this custom was in one respect advantageous to the gentleman,
• 43:31
  inasmuch as it rendered his duties more practicable. He was bound to call
• 43:37
  upon his partner the next morning, and it must have been convenient to have
• 43:40
  only one lady, for whom he was obliged to gallop all the country over
• 43:45
  the last night's partner, to behold and humbly hope she caught no cold.
• 43:50
  But the stately minuet still reigned supreme, and every regular ball commenced with it.
• 43:54
  It was a slow and solemn movement, expressive of grace and dignity rather
• 44:00
  than of merriment. It abounded in formal bows and courtesies, with measured paces
• 44:07
  forwards, backwards and sideways, and many complicated gyrations. It was executed by
• 44:13
  one lady and gentleman, amidst the admiration or the criticism of surrounding spectators.
• 44:19
  In its early and most palmy days, as when Sir Charles and Lady Grandison
• 44:22
  delighted the company by dancing it at their own wedding, the gentlemen wore a
• 44:27
  dress sword, and the lady was armed with a fan of nearly equal dimensions.
• 44:31
  Addison observes that women are armed with fans as men with swords, and
• 44:37
  sometimes do more execution with them. The graceful carriage of each weapon was considered
• 44:42
  the test of high breeding. The clownish man was in danger of being tripped
• 44:45
  up by his sword getting between his legs. The fan held clumsily looked more
• 44:50
  of a burden than an ornament, while in the hands of an adept it
• 44:52
  could be made to speak a language of its own. It was not everyone
• 44:57
  who felt qualified to make this public excit ambition, and I have been told
• 45:01
  that those ladies who intended to dance minuets used to distinguish themselves from others by
• 45:07
  wearing a particular kind of lappet on their head dress. I have heard also
• 45:10
  of another curious proof of their respect in which this dance was held. Gloves
• 45:15
  immaculately clean were considered requisite for its due performance, while gloves a little soiled
• 45:21
  were thought good enough for a country dance, And accordingly some prudent ladies provided
• 45:25
  themselves with two pairs for their several purposes. The minuet expired with the last
• 45:30
  century, but long after it had ceased to be danced publicly, it was
• 45:35
  taught to boys and girls in order to give them a graceful carriage. Hornpipes,
• 45:38
  cotillions, and reels were occasionally danced, but the chief occupation of the
• 45:43
  evening was the interminable country dance, in which all could join. This dance
• 45:47
  presented a great show of enjoyment, but it was not without its peculiar troubles.
• 45:52
  The ladies and gentlemen were ranged apart from each other in opposite rows,
• 45:55
  so that the facilities for flirtation or interesting and were not so great as might
• 46:01
  have been desired by both parties. Much heart burning and discontent sometimes arose as
• 46:06
  to who should stand above whom, and especially as to who was entitled to
• 46:10
  the high privilege of calling and leading off the first dance. And no little
• 46:15
  indignation was felt at the lower end of the room when any of the leading
• 46:17
  couples retired prematurely from their duties and did not condescend to dance up and down
• 46:22
  the whole set. We may rejoice that these causes of irritation no longer exist,
• 46:28
  and that of such feelings as jealousy, rivalry, and discontent ever touched
• 46:30
  celestial bosoms in the modern ballroom, they must arise from different and more recondit
• 46:36
  sources. I am tempted to add a little about the difference of personal habits.
• 46:43
  It may be asserted as a general truth that less was left to the
• 46:45
  charge and discretion of servants, and more was done or superintended by the masters
• 46:51
  and mistresses. With regard to the mistresses, it is I believe generally understood
• 46:55
  that at the time to which I refer one hundred years ago, they took
• 47:00
  a personal part in the higher branches of cookery, as well as in the
• 47:04
  concoction of home made wines and distilling of herbs for domestic medicines, which are
• 47:08
  nearly allied to the same art. Ladies did not disdain to spin the thread
• 47:13
  of which the household linen was woven. Some ladies liked to wash with their
• 47:17
  own hands their choice china after breakfast or tea. In one of my earliest
• 47:22
  child's books, a little girl, the daughter of a gentleman, was taught
• 47:25
  by her mother to make her own bed before leaving her chamber. It was
• 47:29
  not so much that they had not servants to do all these things for them,
• 47:32
  as that they took an interest in such occupations. And it must be
• 47:37
  borne in mind how many sources of interest enjoyed by this generation were then closed
• 47:40
  or very scantily opened to ladies. A very small minority of them cared much
• 47:45
  for literature or science. Music was not very common, and drawing was still
• 47:51
  rarer accomplishment. Needlework in some other form or other. It was their chief
• 47:55
  sedentary employment. But I doubt whether the rising generation are equally aware how much
• 48:00
  gentlemen also did for themselves in those times, and whether some things that I
• 48:05
  can mention will not be a surprise for them. Two homely proverbs were held
• 48:08
  in high estimation in my earliest days than they are now. The master's eye
• 48:14
  makes the horse fat. And if you would be well served, serve yourself.
• 48:20
  Some gentlemen took pleasure in being their own gardeners, performing all the scientific
• 48:23
  and some of the manual work themselves. Well dressed young men of my acquaintance,
• 48:29
  who had their coat from a London tailor, would always brush their evening
• 48:31
  suit themselves, rather than entrust it to the carelessness of a rough servant and
• 48:37
  to the risks of dirt and grease in the kitchen. For in those days
• 48:39
  servants halls were not common in the houses of the clergy in the smaller country
• 48:44
  gentry. It was quite natural that Catherine Morland should have contrasted the magnificence of
• 48:50
  the offices at Northanger Abbey with a few shapeless pantries in her father's parsonage.
• 48:54
  A young man who expected to have as things packed or unpacked for him by
• 48:58
  a servant when he traveled have been thought exceptionally fine or exceptionally lazy. When
• 49:04
  my uncle undertook to teach me to shoot, his first lesson was had to
• 49:07
  clean my gun. It was thought meritorious on the evening of a hunting day
• 49:12
  to turn out after dinner, lanthorn in hand and visit the stable to ascertain
• 49:16
  that the horse had been well cared for. This was of the more importance
• 49:20
  because, previous to the introduction of clipping about the year eighteen twenty, it
• 49:24
  was a difficult and tedious work to make a long coated hunter dry and comfortable,
• 49:30
  and was often very imperfectly done. Of course, such things were not
• 49:34
  practiced by those who had gamekeepers and stud grooms and plenty of well trained servants.
• 49:39
  But they were practiced by many who were equivocally gentlemen, and whose grandsons,
• 49:44
  occupying the same position in life, may perhaps be astonished at being told
• 49:47
  that such things were. I have drawn pictures for which my own experience,
• 49:53
  or what I heard from others in my youth, have supplied the materials.
• 49:58
  Of course, they cannot be universally act applicable such details varied in various circles,
• 50:02
  and were changed very gradually. Nor can I pretend to tell how much
• 50:06
  of what I have said is descriptive of the family life at Steventon in Jane
• 50:09
  Austen's youth. I am sure that the ladies there had nothing to do with
• 50:13
  the mysteries of the stupot or the preserving pan. But it is probable that
• 50:17
  their way of life differed a little from ours, and would have been appeared
• 50:21
  to us more homely. It may be that useful articles which would not now
• 50:24
  be produced in drawing rooms were hemmed and marked and darned in the old fashioned
• 50:29
  parlor, But all of this concerned only the outer life. There was as
• 50:32
  much cultivation and refinement of mind as now, with probably more studied courtesy and
• 50:38
  ceremony of manner to visitors will. Certainly, in that family, literary pursuits
• 50:44
  were not neglected. I remember to have heard of only two little things different
• 50:47
  from modern customs. One was that on hunting mornings the young men usually took
• 50:52
  to their hasty breakfast in the kitchen. The early hour at which hounds then
• 50:58
  met may account for this, and probably the custom began, if did not
• 51:00
  end when they were boys, for they hunted at an early age in a
• 51:05
  scrambling sort of way, upon any pony or donkey that they could procure,
• 51:08
  or in default of such luxuries on foot. I have been told that Sir
• 51:13
  Francis Austen, when seven years old, bought on his own account, and
• 51:16
  must be supposed, with his father's permission, a pony for a guinea and
• 51:20
  a half, and after riding him with great success for two seasons, sold
• 51:23
  him for a guinea more. One may wonder how the child could have so
• 51:28
  much money, and how the animal could have been obtained for so little.
• 51:31
  The same authority informs me that his first cloth suit was made from a scarlet
• 51:36
  habit, which, according to the fashion of the times, had been his
• 51:39
  mother's usual morning dress. If all this is true, the future Admiral of
• 51:45
  the British Fleet must have cut a conspicuous figure in the hunting field. The
• 51:50
  other peculiarity was that when the roads were dirty, the sisters took long walk
• 51:53
  in pattens. This defiance against wet and dirt is now seldom seen. The
• 52:00
  few that remain are banished from good society and employed only in menial work.
• 52:06
  But one hundred and fifty years ago they were celebrated in poetry and considered so
• 52:09
  clever a contrivance that Gay in his trivia, ascribes the invention to a god
• 52:15
  stimulated by his passion for a mortal damsel, and derives the name Patten from
• 52:21
  Patty. The patten now supports each frugal dame, which from the blue eyed
• 52:25
  Patty takes the name. But mortal damsels have long ago discarded the clumsy implement.
• 52:31
  First it dropped its iron ring and became a clog. Afterwards it was
• 52:36
  fined down into the pliant galosh, lighter to wear and more effectual to protect.
• 52:42
  A no less manifest instance of gradual improvement than Cowper indicates when he traces
• 52:46
  through eighty lines of poetry his accomplished sofa back to the original three legged stool.
• 52:52
  As an illustration of the purposes which a patent was intended to serve.
• 52:55
  I add the following epigram written by Jane Austen's uncle, mister Leigh Perrot,
• 53:00
  on reading in a newspaper the marriage of Captain Foot to Miss Patten. Through
• 53:05
  the rough paths of life, with the patten in your guard, may you
• 53:08
  safely and pleasantly jog. May the knot never slip, nor the ring pressed
• 53:13
  too hard, nor the foot find the patten a clog. At the time
• 53:17
  when Jane Austen lived at Steventon, a work was carried on in the neighboring
• 53:22
  cottages, which ought to be recorded because it has long ceased to exist.
• 53:25
  Up to the beginning of the present century, poor women found profitable employment in
• 53:30
  spinning flax or wool. This was a better occupation for them than straw plaiting,
• 53:35
  inasmuch as it was carried out at the family hearth and did not admit
• 53:38
  of gadding and gossiping about the village. The implement used was the long,
• 53:43
  narrow machine of wood, raised on legs, furnished at one end with a
• 53:46
  large wheel and at the other with a spindle, on which the flax or
• 53:50
  wool was loosely wrapped, connected together by a loop of string. One hand
• 53:54
  turned the wheel while the other formed the thread. The outstretched arms, the
• 54:00
  advanced foot, the sway of the whole figure backwards and forwards produced picturesque attitudes
• 54:06
  and displayed whatever of grace or beauty the workwoman might possess. Some ladies were
• 54:10
  fond of spinning, but they worked in quieter manner, sitting at a neat
• 54:14
  little machine of varnished wood like turnbridge ware, generally turned by the foot,
• 54:19
  with a basin of water at hand to supply the moisture required for forming the
• 54:22
  thread, which the cottager took by a more direct and natural process from her
• 54:27
  own mouth. I remember too, such elegant little wheels in our own family.
• 54:31
  It may be observed that this hand spinning is the most primitive of female
• 54:35
  accomplishments, and can be traced back to the earliest times. Ballad, poetry,
• 54:40
  and fairy tales are full of allusions to it. The term spinster still
• 54:45
  testifies to its having been the ordinary enjoyment of the English young woman. It
• 54:50
  was the labor assigned to the ejected nuns by the rough earl, who said,
• 54:52
  go spin, ye jades, go spin. It was the enjoyment at
• 54:57
  which Roman matrons and Grecian princesses presus amongst their handmaids. Heathen mythology celebrated it
• 55:02
  in the Three Fates, spinning and measuring out the thread of human life.
• 55:07
  Holy scripture honors it in those wise hearted women who did spin with their hands
• 55:12
  and brought that which they had spun for the construction of the tabernacle in the
• 55:15
  wilderness, and an old English proverb carries it still farther back to the time
• 55:21
  when Adam delved and Eve span But at last this time honored domestic manufacturers,
• 55:25
  quite extinct amongst us, crushed by the power of steam, overborne by countless
• 55:30
  host of spinning Jenny's and I can only just remember some of its last struggles
• 55:36
  for the existence in the Steventon cottages. End of chapter two, Chapter three,
• 55:44
  Early Compositions, Friends at Ash, A very old letter lines on the
• 55:49
  death of Missus Lefroy, observations on Jane Austen's letter writing letters. I know
• 55:54
  little of Jane Austen's childhood. Her mother followed a custom not unws usual in
• 56:00
  those days, though it seemed strange to us, of putting out her babies
• 56:04
  to be nursed in a cottage. In the village. The infant was daily
• 56:07
  visited by one or both of its parents, and frequently brought to them at
• 56:10
  the parsonage. But the cottage was its home, and must have remained so
• 56:15
  till it was old enough to run about and talk. For I know that
• 56:19
  one of them in after life used to speak of his foster mother, as
• 56:22
  movie the name by which he had called her in his infancy. It may
• 56:27
  be that the contrast between the parsonage house and the best class of cottages was
• 56:30
  not quite so extreme then as it would be now, that the one was
• 56:34
  somewhat less luxurious and the other less squalid. It would certainly seem from the
• 56:38
  results that it was a wholesome and invigorating system, for the children were all
• 56:43
  strong and healthy. Jane was probably treated like the rest in this respect.
• 56:49
  In childhood, every available opportunity of instruction was made use of according to the
• 56:53
  ideas of the time. She was well educated, though not highly accomplished,
• 56:58
  and she certainly enjoyed them important element of mental training associating at home with persons
• 57:04
  of cultivated intellect. It cannot be doubted that her early years were bright and
• 57:07
  happy, living as she did with indulgent parents in a cheerful home, not
• 57:13
  without agreeable variety of society. To these sources of enjoyment must be added the
• 57:17
  first stirrings of talent within her, and the absorbing interest of original composition.
• 57:23
  It is impossible to say at how early an age she began to write.
• 57:28
  There are copy books extant containing tales, some of which must have been composed
• 57:31
  while she was a young girl, as they had amounted to a considerable number
• 57:36
  by the time she was sixteen. Her earliest stories are of a slight and
• 57:39
  flimsy texture, and are generally intended to be nonsensical, but the nonsense has
• 57:45
  much spirit in it. They are usually preceded by a dedication of mock solemnity
• 57:50
  to some one of her family. It would seem that the grand eloquent dedications
• 57:53
  prevalent in those days had not escaped her youthful penetration. Perhaps the most characteristic
• 58:00
  feature in these early productions is that, however puerile the matter, they are
• 58:05
  always composed in pure, simple English, quite free from the over ornamented style
• 58:09
  which might be expected from so young a writer. One of her juvenile effusions
• 58:15
  is given as a specimen of the kind of transitory amusement which Jane was continually
• 58:20
  supplying to the family party. The Mystery an unfinished comedy dedication to the Reverend
• 58:27
  George Austen, Sir, I humbly solicit your patronage to the following comedy,
• 58:31
  which, though an unfinished one, is I flatter myself as complete a mystery
• 58:37
  as any of its kind. I am, sir, your most humble servant,
• 58:40
  the author the mystery A comedy dramatis persona men Colonel Eliot, Old Humbug,
• 58:50
  Young Humbug, Sir Edward Spangle and Coridon. Women Fanny Elliott, Missus
• 58:57
  Humbug and Daphney act one seen one a garden, Enter cordon cordon, but
• 59:04
  Hush, I am interrupted, exit cordon. Enter Old Humbug and his son
• 59:08
  talking, Old Hum. It is for that reason that I wish you to
• 59:13
  follow my advice. Are you convinced of its propriety? Young Hum? I
• 59:17
  am sir, and will certainly act in the manner you have pointed out to
• 59:21
  me, Old Hum. Then let us return to the house. Excellent scene
• 59:25
  too, a parlor in Humbug's house. Missus Humbug and Fanny discovered at work.
• 59:30
  Missus Hum, you understand me, my love Fanny perfectly, ma'am.
• 59:36
  Pray continue your narration, Missus hum, alas it is nearly concluded, for
• 59:40
  I have nothing more to say on the subject. Fanny. Ah, here
• 59:45
  is Daphne. Enter Daphne, Daphne, my dear Missus Humbug. How do
• 59:50
  you do? Oh Fanny? It is all over Fanny, is it indeed,
• 59:54
  Missus Hum, I'm very sorry to hear it. Fanny. Then there's
• 1:00:00
  no purpose that I Daphne, none upon earth, Missus Hum. And what
• 1:00:05
  is to become of Daphne? Oh tis all settles? Whispers to missus Humbug,
• 1:00:10
  Fanny, And how is it determined? Daphne, I'll tell you,
• 1:00:15
  whispers Fanny, Missus Hum. And easy to Daphney, I'll tell you all
• 1:00:20
  I know of the matter, whispers missus Humbug and Fanny. Fanny, Well,
• 1:00:24
  now I know everything about it. I'll go away, missus Hum and
• 1:00:29
  Daphne, and so will I. Exit Scene three. The curtain rises and
• 1:00:34
  discovers Sir Edward Spangle, reclined in an elegant attitude on a sofa, fast
• 1:00:37
  asleep. Enter Colonel Elliott. Colonel E. My daughter is not here.
• 1:00:43
  I see there lies Sir Edward. Shall I tell him the secret? No,
• 1:00:47
  he'll certainly blab it, but he's asleep and won't hear me. So
• 1:00:51
  I'll adventure. Goes up to Sir Edward, whispers to him, and exits.
• 1:00:55
  End of the first act. Finny her own mature opinion of the desirableness
• 1:01:00
  of such an early habit of composition, as given in the following words of
• 1:01:05
  a niece. As I grew older, my aunt would talk to me more
• 1:01:08
  seriously of my reading and my amusements. I had taken early to writing verses
• 1:01:14
  and stories, and I am sorry to think how I troubled her with reading
• 1:01:16
  them. She was very kind about it, and always had some praise to
• 1:01:21
  besteau. But at last she warned me against spending too much time upon them.
• 1:01:25
  She said, how well I recollected that she knew writing stories was a
• 1:01:30
  great amusement, and she thought a harmless one, though many people she was
• 1:01:34
  aware thought otherwise, but that at my age it would be bad for me
• 1:01:38
  to be much taken up with my own compositions. Later, still, it
• 1:01:43
  was after she had gone to Winchester she sent me a message to this effect
• 1:01:46
  that if I would take her advice, I should cease writing till I was
• 1:01:50
  sixteen, that she herself often wished she had read more and written less in
• 1:01:54
  the corresponding years of her own life. As this Neith was only twelve years
• 1:01:59
  old at the time of her aunt's death, these words seemed to imply that
• 1:02:02
  the juvenile tales to which have referred had some of them at least been written
• 1:02:07
  in her childhood. But between these childish effusions and the composition of her living
• 1:02:13
  works there intervened another stage of her progress, during which she produced some stories
• 1:02:17
  not without merit, but which she never considered worthy of publication. During this
• 1:02:22
  preparatory period, her mind seems to have been working in a very different direction
• 1:02:27
  from that into which it ultimately settled. Instead of presenting faithful copies of nature,
• 1:02:32
  these tales were generally burlesque, ridiculing the improbable events and exaggerated sentiments which
• 1:02:38
  she had met with in sundry silly romances. Something of this fancy is to
• 1:02:44
  be found in Northender Abbey, but she soon left it far behind. In
• 1:02:47
  her subsequent course. It would seem as if she were first taking note of
• 1:02:52
  all the faults to be avoided, and curiously considering how she ought not to
• 1:02:55
  write, before she attempted to put forth her strength in the right direction.
• 1:03:00
  The family have rightly, i think, declined to let these early works be
• 1:03:04
  published. Mister short Reid observed very pithly of Walter Scott's early rambles on the
• 1:03:08
  borders. He was making himsel at the time, but he did not know
• 1:03:14
  maybe what he was about till years had passed. At first he thought of
• 1:03:17
  little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun. And so
• 1:03:22
  in a humbler way, Jane Austen was making herself little, thinking of future
• 1:03:25
  fame, but caring only for the queerness and the fun. And it would
• 1:03:29
  be as unfair to expose this preliminary process to the world as it would be
• 1:03:34
  to display all that goes on behind the curtain of the theater before it is
• 1:03:37
  drawn up. It was, however, at Steventon, that the real foundations
• 1:03:42
  of her fame were laid there. Some of her most successful writing was composed
• 1:03:45
  at such an early age as to make it surprising that so young a woman
• 1:03:50
  could have acquired the insight into character and the nice observation of manners which they
• 1:03:54
  display. Pride and prejudice, which some consider the most brilliant of her novels,
• 1:04:00
  was the first finished, if not the first begun. She began it
• 1:04:03
  in October seventeen ninety six, before she was twenty one years old, and
• 1:04:09
  completed it in about ten months in August seventeen ninety seven. The title then
• 1:04:14
  intended for it was First Impressions, Sense and Sensibility was begun in its present
• 1:04:19
  form immediately after the completion of the former in November seventeen ninety seven. But
• 1:04:25
  something similar in story and character had been written earlier under the title of Eleanor
• 1:04:30
  and Marianne, and if, as is probable, a good deal of this
• 1:04:33
  earlier production was retained, it must form the earliest specimen of her writing that
• 1:04:39
  has been given to the world. Northendier Abbey, though not prepared for the
• 1:04:43
  press till eighteen o three, was certainly first composed in seventeen ninety eight.
• 1:04:48
  Amongst the most valuable neighbors of the Austins were mister and Missus Lefroy and their
• 1:04:53
  family. He was rector of the adjoining parish of Ashe. She was sister
• 1:04:58
  to Sir Edgarton Bridges, to whom we are indebted for the earliest notice of
• 1:05:01
  Jane Austen that exists in his autobiography. Speaking of his visits at Ashe,
• 1:05:06
  he writes, thus the nearest neighbors of the Lefroys were the Austins of Steventon.
• 1:05:12
  I remember Jane Austen the novelist as a little child. She was very
• 1:05:16
  intimate with Missus Lefroy, and much encouraged by her. Her mother was a
• 1:05:20
  miss Lee, whose paternal grandmother was a sister to the first Duke of Chandos.
• 1:05:26
  Mister Austen was of a Kentish family, of which several branches have been
• 1:05:30
  settled in the wild of Kent, and some are still remaining there. When
• 1:05:33
  I knew Jane Austen, I never suspected that she was an authoress. But
• 1:05:38
  my eyes told me that she was fair and handsome, slight and elegant,
• 1:05:42
  but with cheeks a little too full. One may wish that Sir Edgarton had
• 1:05:45
  dwelt rather longer on the subject of these memories, instead of being drawn away
• 1:05:49
  by his extreme love for genealogies to her great grandmother and ancestors. That great
• 1:05:55
  grandmother, however, lives in the family records as Mary Bridges, a daughter
• 1:06:00
  of Lord Chandos, married in Winchester Abbey to a Theophilus Lee of Adelestrop in
• 1:06:04
  sixteen ninety eight. When a girl, she had received a curious letter of
• 1:06:10
  advice and reproof written by her mother from Constantinople. Mary or Paul was remaining
• 1:06:15
  in England with her grandmother, Lady Bernard, who seems to have been wealthy
• 1:06:19
  and inclined to be too indulgent to her granddaughter. This letter is given.
• 1:06:24
  Any such authentic document two hundred years old dealing with domestic details must possess some
• 1:06:30
  interest. This is remarkable not only as a specimen of the homely language in
• 1:06:34
  which ladies of rank then expressed themselves, but from the sound sense which it
• 1:06:40
  contains. Forms of expression vary, but good sense and right principles are the
• 1:06:45
  same in the nineteenth century than they were in the seventeenth century. My dearest
• 1:06:49
  Paul, your letters by cousin Robert Searle arrived here not before the twenty seventh
• 1:06:55
  of April. Yet were they heartily welcomed to us, bringing ye joyful news
• 1:07:00
  which a great while we had longed for. Of my most dear mother and
• 1:07:02
  all other relations and friends. Good health, which I beseech God continue to
• 1:07:08
  you all, and as I observe in yours, to your sister Betty,
• 1:07:12
  your extraordinary kindness of as I may truly say, the best mother and grandmother
• 1:07:16
  in the world, in pinching herself to make you so fine, I cannot
• 1:07:21
  but admire her great good housewifery, in affording you so very plentiful an allowance,
• 1:07:27
  and yet to increase her stock at the rate I find she hath done.
• 1:07:30
  And I think I can never sufficiently mind you how very much it is
• 1:07:34
  your duty, on all occasions to pay her your gratitude in all humble submissions
• 1:07:40
  and obedience to her commands. So long as you live. I must tell
• 1:07:44
  you tis her bounty and care in your greatest measure that you are likely to
• 1:07:48
  owe your well living in this world. And as you cannot help but be
• 1:07:53
  very sensible, you are an extraordinary charged to her. So it behooves you
• 1:07:57
  to take particular heed that in the whole course of your life you render her
• 1:08:01
  a proportional comfort. Especially tis your best way you can ever hope to make
• 1:08:06
  her such amends as God requires of your hands. But Paul, it grieves
• 1:08:12
  me a little. Yet I am forced to take notice and reprove you for
• 1:08:15
  some vain expressions in your letters to your sister. You say, concerning your
• 1:08:20
  allowance, you aim to bring your bread and cheese. Even in this I
• 1:08:24
  do not discommend you for a foul shame. Indeed, it would be should
• 1:08:28
  you run out the constable, having so liberal a provision made you for your
• 1:08:31
  maintenance. But your reason you give for your resolution, I cannot at all
• 1:08:36
  approve for you to say to spend more than you can't. That's because you
• 1:08:42
  have it not to spend, otherwise it seems you would so. Yet tis
• 1:08:46
  your grandmother's discretion and not yours, that keeps you from extravagancy, which plainly
• 1:08:50
  appears in you close of your sentence saying, yet you think it's simple covetousness
• 1:08:56
  to save out of yours. But tis my opinion, if you lay all
• 1:09:00
  on your back, tis ten times a greater sin and shame than to save
• 1:09:04
  somewhat out of so large an allowance in your purse to help you at a
• 1:09:08
  dead lift. Child, We all know our beginning, but who knows his
• 1:09:13
  end. The best use that can be made out of fair weather is to
• 1:09:15
  provide against fowl, And tis great discretion and of no small commendations for a
• 1:09:21
  young woman betimes to show herself half wifely and frugal. Your mother neither maid
• 1:09:28
  nor wife ever yet bestowed forty pounds a year on herself. And yet if
• 1:09:32
  you never fall under a worse reputation in the world than she, I thank
• 1:09:36
  God for it. Hath hitherto done you need not repine at it, and
• 1:09:42
  you cannot be ignorant of the difference that was between my fortune and what you
• 1:09:45
  are to expect. You ought, likewise to consider that you have seven brothers
• 1:09:50
  and sisters, and you are all one man's children, And therefore it is
• 1:09:56
  very unreasonable that one should expect to be preferred in fineries so much above all
• 1:10:00
  the rest, for'tis impossible you should so much mistake your father's condition as
• 1:10:06
  to fancy he is able to allow every one of you forty pounds a year
• 1:10:10
  apiece. For such an allowance, with the charge of their diet over and
• 1:10:15
  above, will amount to at least five hundred pounds a year, a sum
• 1:10:18
  your poor father can ill spare. Besides, do but think yourself, what
• 1:10:24
  a ridiculous sight it will be when your grandmother and you come to us to
• 1:10:28
  have no less than seven waiting gentlewomen in one house. For what reason can
• 1:10:32
  you give why every one of your sisters should not have every one of them
• 1:10:35
  a maid as well as you. And though you may spare to pay your
• 1:10:40
  maid's wages out of your allowance, yet you take no care of the unnecessary
• 1:10:44
  charge you put your father to in your increase of his family. Whereas if
• 1:10:48
  it were not a piece of pride to have the name of keeping your maid,
• 1:10:53
  she yet waits on. Your good grandmother might easily do as formerly you
• 1:10:58
  know she hath done all the business you have for a maid, unless as
• 1:11:01
  you grow older you grow a arier fool, which God forbid. Paul,
• 1:11:06
  you live in a place where you see great plenty and splendor. But let
• 1:11:12
  not the allurements of earthly pleasures tempt you to forget or neglect the duty of
• 1:11:15
  a good Christian in dressing your better part, which is your soul, as
• 1:11:20
  will best please God. I am not against your going decent and neat,
• 1:11:26
  as becomes your father's daughter. But to clothe yourself rich and be running into
• 1:11:30
  every gaudy fashion can never become your circumstances. And instead of doing you credit
• 1:11:35
  and getting you a good preferment, it is the readiest way you can take
• 1:11:40
  to fright all sober men from ever thinking of matching themselves with women that live
• 1:11:45
  above their fortune. And if this be a wise way of spending money,
• 1:11:48
  judge you, and besides, do but reflect what an odd sight it will
• 1:11:53
  be to a stranger that comes to our house to see your grandmother, your
• 1:11:58
  mother, and all your sisters in a plain dress, and you only tricked
• 1:12:01
  up like a Bartholomew baby. You know what sort of people those are that
• 1:12:06
  can't farewell but they must cry roast meat. Now what effect could you imagine
• 1:12:11
  your writing in such a high strain to your sisters could have but either to
• 1:12:15
  provoke them to envy you or murmur against us. I must tell you neither
• 1:12:20
  of your sisters have ever had twenty pounds a year allowance from us yet,
• 1:12:25
  and yet their dress hath not disparaged neither them nor us without incurring the censure
• 1:12:30
  of simple covetousness. They will have some what to show out of their savings
• 1:12:35
  that will do them credit. And I expect yet you that their elder sister
• 1:12:42
  should rather set them examples of the like nature than tempt them from treading in
• 1:12:47
  the steps of their good grandmother and poor mother. This is not half what
• 1:12:51
  might be said on this occasion. But believing thee to be a very good
• 1:12:56
  natured, dutiful child, I should have thought it a great deal too much
• 1:13:00
  much. But yet, having in my coming hither passed through many most desperate
• 1:13:04
  dangers, I cannot forbear thinking and preparing myself for all events, and therefore
• 1:13:10
  not knowing how it may please God to dispose of us, I conclude it
• 1:13:14
  my duty to God and THEE, my dear child, to lay this matter
• 1:13:17
  as home to THEE as I could, assuring you my daily prayers are not
• 1:13:23
  nor shall be wanting, that God may give you grace always to remember to
• 1:13:28
  make a right use of this truly affectionate counsel of your poor mother. And
• 1:13:32
  though I speak very plain, downrite English to you, yet I would not
• 1:13:36
  have you doubt but that I love you as heartily as any child I have.
• 1:13:41
  And if you serve God and take good courses, I promise you my
• 1:13:45
  kindness to you shall be according to your own heart's desire. For you may
• 1:13:49
  be certain I can aim at nothing in what I have now writ but your
• 1:13:55
  real good, which to promote, shall be the study and care day and
• 1:13:59
  night of my dear Paul, thy truly affectionate mother, Eliza chandas Para of
• 1:14:04
  Galata. May the sixth, sixteen eighty six PostScript, Thy father and I
• 1:14:11
  send THEE our blessing, and all thy brothers and sisters their service, our
• 1:14:15
  hearty and affectionate service to my brother and sister child, and all my dear
• 1:14:20
  cousins. When you see my Lady Worcester and cousin, Howland's pray present them
• 1:14:26
  my most humble service. This letter shows that the wealth acquired by trade was
• 1:14:31
  already manifesting itself, in contrast with the straitened circumstances of some of the nobility.
• 1:14:38
  Mary Bridges's poor father, in whose household economy was necessary, was the
• 1:14:43
  King of England's ambassador at Constantinople. The grandmother, who lived in great plenty
• 1:14:47
  and splendor, was the widow of a Turkey merchant. But then, as
• 1:14:53
  now it would seem, rank had the power of attracting and absorbing wealth.
• 1:14:57
  At ash also, Jane became a que painted with a member of the Lefroy
• 1:15:00
  family, who was still living when I began these memoirs a few months ago,
• 1:15:05
  the right Honorable Thomas Lefroy, the late Chief Justice of Ireland. One
• 1:15:11
  must look back more than seventy years to reach the time when these two bright
• 1:15:15
  young persons were, for a short time intimately acquainted with each other, and
• 1:15:20
  then separated on their several courses, never to meet again. Both destined to
• 1:15:25
  attain some distinction in their different ways, one to survive the other for more
• 1:15:30
  than half a century, yet in his extreme old age, to remember and
• 1:15:33
  speak, as he sometimes did, of his former companion, as one to
• 1:15:39
  be much admired and not easily forgotten by those who had ever known her.
• 1:15:43
  Missus Lefroy herself was a remarkable person. Her rare endowments of goodness, talents,
• 1:15:48
  graceful person and engaging manners were sufficient to secure her a prominent place in
• 1:15:54
  any society into which she was thrown, while her enthusiastic eagerness of disposition rendered
• 1:15:59
  her a specially attractive to a clever and lively girl. She was killed by
• 1:16:03
  a fall from her horse on Jane's birthday, December sixteenth, eighteen o four.
• 1:16:09
  The following lines to her memory were written by Jane four years afterwards,
• 1:16:14
  when she was thirty three years old. They are given not for their merits
• 1:16:17
  as poetry, but to show how deep and lasting was the impression made by
• 1:16:21
  the elder friend on the mind of the younger to the memory of Missus Lefroy.
• 1:16:28
  The day returns again, my natal day. What mixed emotions in my
• 1:16:31
  mind, arise, beloved friend. Four years have passed away since thou wert
• 1:16:36
  snatched forever from our eyes. The day commemorative of my birth, bestowing life
• 1:16:43
  and light and hope to me, brings back the hour which was thy last
• 1:16:46
  on earth. Oh bitter pang of torturing memory. Angelic woman passed my power
• 1:16:53
  to praise in language, Meet thy talents, temper, mind, thy solid
• 1:16:58
  worth, thy captivating gray, Thou, friend and ornament of human kind.
• 1:17:02
  But come fond fancy thou. Indulgent power, hope is desponding, chill,
• 1:17:08
  severe to thee Bless thou this little portion of an hour. Let me behold
• 1:17:13
  her as she used to be. I see her here with all her smiles,
• 1:17:15
  benign, her looks of eager love, her accents sweet, that voice
• 1:17:20
  and countenance almost divine expression, harmony alike complete. Listen. It is not
• 1:17:27
  sound alone. Tis sense, tis genius, taste and tenderness of soul,
• 1:17:31
  Tis genuine warmth of heart without pretense, and purity of mind that crowns the
• 1:17:36
  whole. She speaks, tis eloquence, that grace of tongue, so rare,
• 1:17:42
  so lovely, never misapplied by her to palliate vice or decor wrong.
• 1:17:46
  She speaks and argues, But on virtue's side. Hers is the energy of
• 1:17:51
  soul. Sincere her Christian spirit, ignorant to feign, seeks but to comfort,
• 1:17:57
  heal, enlighten, cheer, confer a place, leasure, or prevent
• 1:18:00
  a pain. Can aught enhance such goodness? Yes to me her partial favor
• 1:18:05
  from my earliest years consummates all Ah give me, but to see her smile
• 1:18:11
  of love. The vision disappears, tis past and gone. We meet no
• 1:18:15
  more. Below short is the cheat of fancy or the tomb. Oh might
• 1:18:20
  I hope to equal bliss, to go to meet thee angel in thy future
• 1:18:24
  home. Fain would I feel and union with thy fate? Fain would I
• 1:18:29
  seek to draw an omen fare from this connection in our earthly date? Indulge
• 1:18:32
  the harmless weakness reason spare. The loss of their first home is generally a
• 1:18:39
  great grief to young persons of strong feeling and lively imagination, and Jane was
• 1:18:44
  exceedingly unhappy when she was told that her father, now seventy years of age,
• 1:18:47
  had determined to resign his duties to his eldest son, who was to
• 1:18:51
  be his successor in the rectory of Steventon, and to remove with his wife
• 1:18:56
  and daughters to Bath. Jane had been absent from her home when this resolution
• 1:19:00
  was taken, and as her father was always rapid both informing his resolutions and
• 1:19:05
  enacting on them, she had little time to reconcile herself to the change.
• 1:19:12
  A wish has sometimes been expressed that some of Jane Austen's letters should be published.
• 1:19:16
  Some entire letters and many extracts will be given in this memoir, but
• 1:19:20
  the reader must be warned not to expect too much from them with regard to
• 1:19:25
  accuracy of language. Indeed, every word of them might be printed without correction.
• 1:19:30
  The style is always clear and generally animated, while a vain of humor
• 1:19:33
  continually gleams through the whole. But the materials may be thought inferior to the
• 1:19:39
  execution, for they treat only of the details of domestic life. There is
• 1:19:44
  in them no notice of politics or public events, scarcely any discussions on literature
• 1:19:48
  or other subjects of general interest. They may be said to resemble the nest
• 1:19:54
  which some little bird builds of the materials nearest at hand, of the twigs
• 1:19:58
  and mosses supplied by the tree in which it is placed. Curiously constructed out
• 1:20:02
  of the simplest matters, her letters have seldomed the date of the year or
• 1:20:08
  the signature of her Christian name at full length, but it has been easy
• 1:20:11
  to ascertain their dates, either from the postmark or from their contents. The
• 1:20:15
  two following letters are the earliest that I have seen. They were both written
• 1:20:19
  in November eighteen hundred, before the family removed from Steventon. Some of the
• 1:20:25
  same circumstances are referred to in both. The first is to her sister Cassandra,
• 1:20:30
  who was then staying with their brother Edward at Gonersham Park, Kent,
• 1:20:34
  steventon Saturday evening November eighth. My dear Cassandra, I thank you for so
• 1:20:40
  speedy a return to my two last, and particularly thank you for your anecdote
• 1:20:45
  of Charlotte Graham and her cousin Harriet Bailey, which has very much amused both
• 1:20:49
  my mother and myself. If you can learn anything farther of that interesting affair,
• 1:20:54
  I hope you will mention it. I have two messages. Let me
• 1:20:58
  get rid of them, and then my paper will be my Mary fully intended
• 1:21:01
  writing to you by mister Shute's frank and only happened entirely to forget it,
• 1:21:06
  but will write soon. And my father wishes Edward to send him a memorandum
• 1:21:11
  of the price of the hops. The tables are come and give general contentment.
• 1:21:15
  I had not expected that they would so perfectly suit the fancy of us
• 1:21:18
  all three, or that we should so well agree in the disposition of them.
• 1:21:24
  But nothing except their own surface can have been smoother. The two ends
• 1:21:28
  put together form one constant table for everything, and the centerpiece stands most exceedingly
• 1:21:32
  well under the glass, and holds a great deal most commodiously without looking awkwardly.
• 1:21:39
  They are both covered with green baize, and send their best love.
• 1:21:43
  The pembroke has got its destination by the sideboard, and my mother has great
• 1:21:47
  delight in keeping her money and papers locked up. The little table which used
• 1:21:51
  to stand there has most conveniently taken itself off into the best bed room,
• 1:21:56
  and we are now in want only of the chiffonniere, which is neither finished,
• 1:22:00
  nor come so much for that subject. I now come to another of
• 1:22:04
  a very different nature, as other subjects are very apt to be. Earl
• 1:22:09
  Harwood has been again giving uneasiness to his family, and talked to the neighborhood.
• 1:22:14
  In the present instance, however, he is only unfortunate and not in
• 1:22:17
  fault. About ten days ago, in cocking a pistol in the guard room
• 1:22:21
  at Marseilles, he accidentally shot himself through the thigh. Two young Scotch surgeons
• 1:22:28
  in the island were polite enough to propose taking off the thigh at once,
• 1:22:30
  but to that he would not consent, and accordingly, in his wounded state,
• 1:22:34
  was put on board a cutter and conveyed to Hasler Hospital at Gosport,
• 1:22:40
  where the bullet was extracted, and where he now is, I hope in
• 1:22:43
  a fair way of doing well. The surgeon of the hospital wrote to the
• 1:22:46
  family on the occasion, and John Harwood went down to him immediately, attended
• 1:22:51
  by James, whose object in going was to be the means of bringing back
• 1:22:56
  the earliest intelligence to mister and Missus Harwood, whose anxious sufferings, particularly those
• 1:23:00
  of the latter, have of course been dreadful. They went down on Tuesday,
• 1:23:05
  and James came back the next day, bringing such favorable accounts as greatly
• 1:23:10
  to lessen the distress of the family. A dean though it will probably be
• 1:23:14
  a long while before Missus Hardwood can be quite at ease. One most material
• 1:23:18
  comfort, however, they have the assurance of its being really an accidental wound,
• 1:23:24
  which is not only positively declared by Earl himself, but is likewise testified
• 1:23:29
  by the particular direction of the bullet. Such a wound could not have been
• 1:23:33
  received in a duel. At present he is going on very well, but
• 1:23:38
  the surgeon will not declare him to be in no danger. Mister Heathcote met
• 1:23:42
  with a genteel little accident the other day in hunting. He got off to
• 1:23:45
  lead his horse over a hedge or a house or something, and his horse,
• 1:23:49
  in his haste, trod upon his leg, or rather ankle, I
• 1:23:53
  believe, and it is not certain whether the small bone is not broke.
• 1:23:58
  Martha has accepted Mary's imitation for Lord Portsmouth's ball. He has not yet sent
• 1:24:02
  out his own invitations. But that does not signify Martha comes and a ball
• 1:24:06
  there is to be. I think it will be too early, in her
• 1:24:10
  mother's absence, for me to return with her. Sunday evening. We have
• 1:24:14
  had a dreadful storm of wind in the forepart of this day, which has
• 1:24:17
  done a great deal of mischief among our trees. I was sitting alone in
• 1:24:21
  the dining room when an odd kind of crash startled me in a moment.
• 1:24:26
  Afterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window, which I reached
• 1:24:30
  just in time to see the last of our two highly valued elms to send
• 1:24:33
  into the sweep. The other, which had fallen I supposed in the first
• 1:24:38
  crash, and which was the nearest to the pond, taking a more easterly
• 1:24:42
  direction, sunk among our screen of chestnuts and furs, knocking down one bruce
• 1:24:46
  fir, beating off the head of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts
• 1:24:50
  of several branches in its fall. This is not all one large elm out
• 1:24:56
  of the two on the left hand side as you enter, what I call
• 1:24:59
  the elm W was likewise blown down. The maple bearing the weather crook was
• 1:25:03
  broken too. And what I regret more than all the rest, is that
• 1:25:08
  the three elms which grew in Hall's Meadow and gave such ornament to it,
• 1:25:12
  are gone, two blown down, and the other so much injured that it
• 1:25:15
  cannot stand. I am happy to add, however, that no greater evil
• 1:25:19
  than the loss of trees has been the consequence of the storm. In this
• 1:25:23
  place, or in our immediate neighborhood. We grieve therefore in some comfort,
• 1:25:28
  I am yours ever, j A. The next letter, written four days
• 1:25:32
  later than the former, was addressed to Miss Lloyd, an intimate friend whose
• 1:25:36
  sister my mother was married to Jane's eldest brother, steventon Wednesday evening November twelfth,
• 1:25:45
  My dear Martha, I did not receive your note yesterday till after Charlotte
• 1:25:49
  had left Dean, or I would have sent my answer by her, instead
• 1:25:53
  of being the means as I now must be, of lessening the elegance of
• 1:25:57
  your new dress for the Hearst horn Ball by the value of the threepence.
• 1:26:00
  You are very good in wishing to see me at Ibthorpe so soon, and
• 1:26:03
  I am equally good in wishing to come to you. I believe our merit
• 1:26:08
  in that respect is much upon a par our self denial mutually strong. Having
• 1:26:14
  paid this tribute of praise to the virtue of both, I shall here have
• 1:26:16
  done with a panegyric and proceed to plain matter of fact, in about a
• 1:26:21
  fortnight's time I hope to be with you. I have two reasons for not
• 1:26:26
  being able to come before. I wish to so arrange my visit as to
• 1:26:30
  spend some days with you after your mother's return, in the first place,
• 1:26:33
  that I may have the pleasure of seeing her, and in the second that
• 1:26:36
  I may have a better chance of bringing you back with me. Your promise
• 1:26:41
  in my favor was not quite absolute. But if your will is not perverse,
• 1:26:45
  you and I will do all in our power to overcome your scruples of
• 1:26:47
  conscience. I hope we shall meet next week to talk this all over,
• 1:26:53
  till we have tired ourselves with the very idea of my visit. Before my
• 1:26:56
  visit begins, our invitations for the nineteenth arrived, and very curiously are they
• 1:27:01
  worded. Mary mentioned you yesterday poor Earl's unfortunate accident. I dare say he
• 1:27:06
  does not seem to be going on very well. The two or three last
• 1:27:11
  posts have brought less and less favorable accounts of him. John Harwood has gone
• 1:27:15
  to Gosport again to day. We have two families of friends now who are
• 1:27:18
  in a most anxious state. For though, by a note from Catherine this
• 1:27:23
  morning, there seems now to be a revival of hope at manydown, its
• 1:27:27
  continuous may be too reasonably doubted. Mister Heathcote, however, who has broken
• 1:27:31
  the small bone of his leg is so good as to be going on very
• 1:27:35
  well. It would be really too much to have three people to care for
• 1:27:41
  you. Distress me cruelly by your request about books. I cannot think of
• 1:27:45
  any to bring with me, nor have I any idea of our wanting them.
• 1:27:48
  I come to you to be talked to, not to read or hear
• 1:27:51
  reading. I can do that at home, And indeed I am now laying
• 1:27:55
  in a stock of intelligence to pour out on you as my share of the
• 1:27:58
  conversation. I am reading Henry's History of England, which I will repeat to
• 1:28:03
  you in any manner you may prefer, either in a loose, dulcatory,
• 1:28:08
  unconnected stream, or dividing my recitals as the historian divides it himself into seven
• 1:28:13
  parts, the civil and military, Religion, constitution, learning and learned men,
• 1:28:18
  arts and sciences, Commerce, coins and shipping, and manners, so
• 1:28:24
  that for every evening in the week there will be a different subject. The
• 1:28:27
  friday's lot commerce coins and shipping you will find the least entertaining, but the
• 1:28:31
  next evening's portion will make amends with such a provision on my part, if
• 1:28:36
  you will do yours by repeating the French Grammar and missus Stent will now and
• 1:28:41
  then ejaculate some wonder about the cocks and hens. What can we want?
• 1:28:45
  Farewell for a short time we all unite in best love, and I am
• 1:28:48
  your very affectionate j A. The two letters must have been written early in
• 1:28:54
  eighteen o one, after the removal from Steventon had been decided on, but
• 1:28:59
  before it had taken place. They refer to the two brothers who were at
• 1:29:01
  sea, and give some idea of the kind of anxieties and uncertainties to which
• 1:29:06
  sisters are seldom subject in these days of peace. Steamers and electric telegraphs.
• 1:29:12
  At that time ships were often wind bound, or becalmed, or driven wide
• 1:29:15
  of their destination, and sometimes they had orders to alter their course for some
• 1:29:19
  secret service. Not to mention the chance of conflict with a vessel of superior
• 1:29:25
  power no improbable occurrence. Before the Battle of Trafalgar, information about relatives on
• 1:29:30
  board men of war was scarce and scanty, and often picked up by hearsay
• 1:29:34
  or chance means, and every scrap of intelligence was proportionably valuable. My dear
• 1:29:41
  Cassandra, I should not have thought it necessary to write to you so soon,
• 1:29:45
  but for the arrival of a letter from Charles to myself. It was
• 1:29:48
  written last Saturday from off the Start, and conveyed to Popham Lane by Captain
• 1:29:54
  Boyle on his way to Midgem. He came from Lisbon. In the endymion,
• 1:29:59
  I will call up Charles at account of his conjectures about Frank. He
• 1:30:02
  has not seen my brother lately, nor does he expect to find him arrived
• 1:30:06
  as he met Captain Inglis at Rhodes going up to take command of the petrol
• 1:30:11
  as he was coming down. But supposes he will arrive in less than a
• 1:30:15
  fortnight from this time in some ship which is expected to reach England about that
• 1:30:19
  time, with dispatches from Sir Ralph Abercarbie. The event must show what sort
• 1:30:25
  of a conjuror Captain Boyle is. The indemion has not been played with any
• 1:30:30
  more prizes. Charles spent three pleasant days in Lisbon. They were very well
• 1:30:34
  satisfied with their royal passenger, whom they found jolly and affable, who talks
• 1:30:40
  of Lady Augusta as his wife and seems much attached to her. When this
• 1:30:44
  letter was written, the indemion was becalmed, but Charles hoped to reach Portsmouth
• 1:30:48
  by Monday or Tuesday. He received my letter communicating our plans before he left
• 1:30:54
  England. Was much surprised, of course, but is quite reconciled to them,
• 1:30:58
  and means to come to Steventon once more. While Steventon is ours.
• 1:31:01
  From a letter written later in the same year, Charles has received thirty pounds
• 1:31:06
  for his share of the Privateer, and expects ten pounds more. But of
• 1:31:11
  what avail is it to take prizes if he lays out the produce in presents
• 1:31:15
  to his sisters. He has been buying gold chains and topaz crosses for us.
• 1:31:18
  He must be well scolded. The Endemion has already received orders for taking
• 1:31:24
  troops to Egypt, which I should not at all like if I did not
• 1:31:27
  trust to Charles being removed from her somehow or other before she sails. He
• 1:31:31
  knows nothing of his own destination, he says, but desires me to write
• 1:31:35
  directly, as the Endemion will probably sail in three or four days. He
• 1:31:41
  will receive my yesterday's letter, and I shall write again by this post to
• 1:31:45
  thank and reproach him. We shall be unbearably fine. End of Chapter three.
• 1:31:54
  Chapter four Removal from Steventon residences at Bath and at Southampton. Settling at
• 1:32:00
  Chowtam, the family removed to Bath in the spring of eighteen o one,
• 1:32:04
  where they resided first at number four Sidney Terrace and afterwards in Green Park buildings.
• 1:32:10
  I do not know whether they were at all attracted to Bath by the
• 1:32:13
  circumstance that Missus Austen's only brother, mister Lee Parrott, spent part of every
• 1:32:18
  year there. The name of Parrot, together with a small estate at Northley
• 1:32:23
  in Oxfordshire, had been bequeathed to him by a great uncle. I must
• 1:32:27
  devote a few sentences to this very old and now extinct branch of the Parrott
• 1:32:31
  family, for one of the last survivors, Jane Parrott, married to a
• 1:32:35
  Walker, was Jane Austen's great grandmother, from whom she derived her Christian name.
• 1:32:41
  The Parrots were settled in Pembrokeshire at least as early as the thirteenth century.
• 1:32:45
  They were probably some of the settlers whom the policy of our Plantagenet kings
• 1:32:49
  placed in that county, which thence acquired the name of England Beyond Wales,
• 1:32:55
  for the double purpose of keeping open a communication with Ireland from Milford Haven,
• 1:33:00
  and of overawing the Welsh. One of the family seems to have carried out
• 1:33:04
  this latter purpose very vigorously, for it is recorded of him that he slew
• 1:33:09
  twenty six men of Kemes, a district of Wales, and one wolf.
• 1:33:14
  The manner in which the two kinds of game are classed together and the disproportion
• 1:33:17
  of numbers are remarkable, but probably at that time the wolves had been so
• 1:33:21
  closely killed down that lupicide was become a more rare and distinguished exploit than homicide.
• 1:33:29
  The last of this family died about seventeen eighty eight and their property was
• 1:33:32
  divided between Lee's and Musgraves, the larger portion going to the latter. Mister
• 1:33:38
  Leigh Parrott pulled down the mansion and sold the estate to the Duke of Marlborough,
• 1:33:42
  and the name of these Parrots is now to be found only on some
• 1:33:45
  monuments in the Church of Northley. Mister Lee Parott was also one of several
• 1:33:50
  cousins to whom a life interest in the Stoneleigh property in Warwickshire was left after
• 1:33:56
  the extinction of the earlier Lee peerage, but he compromised his cli to the
• 1:34:00
  secession in his lifetime. He married a niece of Sir Montague Chealmley of Lincolnshire.
• 1:34:05
  He was a man of considerable natural power, with much of the wit
• 1:34:09
  of his uncle, the Master of Balliol, and wrote clever epigrams and riddles,
• 1:34:14
  some of which, though without his name, found their way into print.
• 1:34:17
  But he lived a very retired life, dividing his time between Bath and
• 1:34:21
  his place in Berkshire called Scarlett's. Jane's Letters from Bath make frequent mention of
• 1:34:27
  this uncle and aunt. The unfinished story now published under the title of the
• 1:34:31
  Watsons must have been written during the author's residence in Bath. In the autumn
• 1:34:36
  of eighteen o four, she spent some weeks at Lyme and became acquainted with
• 1:34:42
  the cob which the afterwards made memorable for the fall of Louisa Musgrove. In
• 1:34:46
  February eighteen o five, her father died at Bath and was buried at Walcotte
• 1:34:50
  Church. The widow and daughters went into lodgings for a few months, and
• 1:34:55
  then removed to Southampton. The only records that I can find about her during
• 1:35:00
  these four years are the three following letters to her sister, one from Lyme,
• 1:35:03
  the others from Bath. They show that she went a good deal into
• 1:35:08
  society in a quiet way, chiefly with ladies, and that her eyes were
• 1:35:12
  always open to minute traits of character in those with whom she associated. Extract
• 1:35:17
  from a letter from Jane Austen to her sister Lyme, Friday, September fourteenth,
• 1:35:23
  eighteen o four. My dear Cassandra, I take the first sheet of
• 1:35:27
  fine striped paper to thank you for your letter from Weymouth and express my hopes
• 1:35:31
  of your being at Ibthorpe before this time. I expect to hear that you
• 1:35:35
  reached it yesterday evening, being able to get as far as Blandford on Wednesday.
• 1:35:41
  Your account of Weymouth contains nothing which strikes me so forcibly as there being
• 1:35:45
  no ice in the town for every other vexation. I was in some measure
• 1:35:49
  prepared, and particularly for your disappointment in not seeing the royal family go on
• 1:35:55
  board on Tuesday, having already heard from mister Crawford that he had seen you
• 1:35:59
  in the very active being too late, But for there being no eyes,
• 1:36:02
  what could prepare me? You found my letter at andover I hoped yesterday,
• 1:36:08
  and have now for many hours been satisfied that your kind anxiety on my behalf
• 1:36:13
  was as much thrown away as kind anxiety usually is. I continue quite well,
• 1:36:17
  in proof of which I have bathed again this morning. It was absolutely
• 1:36:21
  necessary that I should have the little fever and indisposition which I had. It
• 1:36:27
  has been all the fashion this week. In line. We are quite settled
• 1:36:30
  in our lodgings by this time, as you may suppose, and everything goes
• 1:36:34
  on in the usual order. The servants behave very well and make no difficulties.
• 1:36:40
  Though nothing certainly can exceed the inconvenience of the offices, except the general
• 1:36:45
  dirtiness of the house and furniture and all its inhabitants. I endeavor as far
• 1:36:49
  as I can to supply your place, and be useful and keep things in
• 1:36:54
  order. I detect dirt in the water decanters as fast as I can,
• 1:36:58
  and keep everything as it was under your administration. The ball last night was
• 1:37:02
  pleasant, but not full For Thursday. My father stayed contentedly till half past
• 1:37:08
  nine. We went a little after eight, and then walked home with James
• 1:37:12
  and a lantern, though I believed the lantern was not lit as the moon
• 1:37:15
  was up. But sometimes this lantern may be a great convenience to him.
• 1:37:20
  My mother and I stayed about an hour later. Nobody asked me the first
• 1:37:25
  two dances. The next two I danced with mister Crawford, and had I
• 1:37:29
  chosen to stay longer, might have danced with mister Granville, Missus Granville's son,
• 1:37:33
  whom my dear friend. Miss A introduced me, or with a new
• 1:37:38
  odd looking man who had been eyeing me for some time, and at last,
• 1:37:42
  without any introduction, asked me if I meant to dance again. I
• 1:37:45
  think he must be Irish by his ease, and because I imagine him to
• 1:37:48
  belong to the honorable Bees, who are son and son's wife of an Irish
• 1:37:54
  viscount. Bold, queer looking people just fit to be quality at lime.
• 1:37:59
  I call old yesterday morning, ought it not in strict propriety, be be
• 1:38:02
  termed yester morning on miss A, and was introduced to her father and mother.
• 1:38:08
  Like other young ladies, she is considerably genteeler than her parents. Missus
• 1:38:13
  A sat darning a pair of stockings the whole of my visit, But do
• 1:38:16
  not mention this at home, lest a warning should act as an example.
• 1:38:20
  We afterwards walk together for an hour on the cobb. She is very conversible
• 1:38:25
  in a common way. I do not perceive wit or genius, but she
• 1:38:29
  has some sense and some degree of taste, and her manners are very engaging.
• 1:38:32
  She seems to like people rather too easily. Yours affectionately, Jane Austen.
• 1:38:39
  Letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra at Ibthorpe, alluding to the
• 1:38:43
  sudden death of Missus Lloyd at that place, twenty five Gay Street, Bath,
• 1:38:48
  Monday, April eight, eighteen o five. My dear Cassandra, here
• 1:38:54
  is a day for you, did Bath or Ibthorpe, ever see such an
• 1:38:57
  eighth of April? It is March and April to g other the glare of
• 1:39:00
  the one in the warmth of the other. We do nothing but walk about
• 1:39:04
  as far as your means will admit. I hope you profit by such weather
• 1:39:08
  too. I dare say you are already the better for a change of pace.
• 1:39:13
  We were out again last night. Miss Irvine invited us, when I
• 1:39:16
  meant her in the Crescent, to drink tea with them, but I rather
• 1:39:19
  declined it, having no idea that my mother would be disposed for another evening
• 1:39:24
  visit there so soon. But when I gave her the message. I found
• 1:39:27
  her very well inclined to go, and accordingly, on leaving chapel, we
• 1:39:31
  walked to Lansdowne. This morning we have been to see Miss Chamberlaine look hot
• 1:39:35
  on horseback. Seven years and four months ago we went to the same riding
• 1:39:41
  house to see Miss Lefroy's performance. What a different set we are now moving
• 1:39:45
  in. But seven years, I suppose, are enough to change every pore
• 1:39:48
  of one's skin and every feeling of one's mind. We did not walk long
• 1:39:53
  in the crescent yesterday. It was hot and not crowded enough, so we
• 1:39:58
  went into the field and passed close by S. T and Miss s Again.
• 1:40:01
  I have not yet seen her face, but neither her dress nor air
• 1:40:05
  have anything of the dash or stylishness which the Browns talked of. Quite the
• 1:40:10
  contrary. Indeed, her dress is not even smart, and her appearance very
• 1:40:14
  quiet. Miss Irvine says she is never speaking a word, poor wretch.
• 1:40:18
  I am afraid she is en pennetence. Here has been the excellent missus Colthart
• 1:40:24
  calling while my mother was out, and I was believed to be so.
• 1:40:29
  I always respected her as a good hearted, friendly woman, and the Browns
• 1:40:32
  have been here I find their affidavits on the table. The Ambuscad reached Gibraltar
• 1:40:38
  on the ninth of March and found all well, so say the papers.
• 1:40:43
  We have had no letters from anybody, but we expect to hear from Edward
• 1:40:45
  tomorrow and from you soon afterwards. How happy they are at Gottersham. Now
• 1:40:50
  I shall be very glad of a letter from Ibthorpe, that I may know
• 1:40:55
  how you all are, but particularly yourself. This is nice weather for missus
• 1:40:59
  j Austin's going to Spain, and I hope she will have a pleasant visit
• 1:41:02
  there. I expect a prodigious account of the Christening dinner. Perhaps it brought
• 1:41:08
  you at last into the company of Miss Dundas again Tuesday. I received your
• 1:41:13
  letter last night and wish it may be soon followed by another to say that
• 1:41:16
  all is over. But I cannot help thinking that nature will struggle again and
• 1:41:20
  produce a revival. Poor woman. May her end be peaceful and easy as
• 1:41:26
  the exit we have witnessed, and I dare say it will. If there
• 1:41:29
  is no revival, suffering must be all over. Even the consciousness of existence
• 1:41:33
  I suppose was gone when you wrote the nonsense I have been writing in this
• 1:41:38
  and in my last letter seems out of place at such a time, but
• 1:41:42
  I will not mind it. It will do you no harm, and nobody
• 1:41:45
  else will be attacked by it. I am heartily glad that you can speak
• 1:41:47
  so comfortably of your own health and looks, though I can scarcely comprehend the
• 1:41:53
  latter being really improved. Could traveling fifty miles produce such an immediate change?
• 1:41:58
  You were looking very poorly here, and everybody seemed sensible of it. Is
• 1:42:02
  there a charm in a hack post chaise? But if there were, Missus
• 1:42:05
  Craven's carriage might have undone it all. I am much obliged to you for
• 1:42:10
  the time and trouble you have bestowed on Mary's cap, and I am glad
• 1:42:14
  it pleases her, but it will prove a useless gift at present. I
• 1:42:16
  suppose will she not leave Ibthorpe on her mother's death As a companion. You
• 1:42:23
  are all that Martha can be supposed to want, and in that light,
• 1:42:26
  under these circumstances, your visit will indeed have been well timed. Thursday I
• 1:42:31
  was not able to go on yesterday. All my wit and leisure were bestowed
• 1:42:35
  on letters to Charles and Henry. In the former, I wrote in consequence
• 1:42:40
  of my mother's having seen in the papers that the Urania was waiting at Portsmouth
• 1:42:44
  for the convoy for Halifax. This is nice, as it is only three
• 1:42:47
  weeks ago that you wrote by the Camilla. I wrote to Henry because I
• 1:42:51
  had a letter from him in which he desired to hear from me very soon.
• 1:42:56
  His to me was most affectionate and kind, as well as inaing there
• 1:43:00
  is no merit to him in that he cannot help being amusing. He offers
• 1:43:04
  to meet us on the sea coast if the plan of which Edward gave him
• 1:43:08
  some hint takes place. Will not this be making the execution of such a
• 1:43:13
  plan more desirable and delightful than ever? He talks of the rambles we took
• 1:43:16
  together last summer with pleasing affection, Yours ever, Jane Austen, from the
• 1:43:23
  same to the same Gay Street, Sunday evening, April twenty first, eighteen
• 1:43:27
  o five. My dear Cassandra, I am much obliged to you for writing
• 1:43:31
  to me again so soon. Your letter yesterday was quite an unexpected pleasure.
• 1:43:36
  Poor missus Stent. It has been her lot to be always in the way,
• 1:43:41
  but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to
• 1:43:45
  be missus stents, ourselves unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody. My morning
• 1:43:49
  engagement was with the cooks, and our party consisted of George and Mary,
• 1:43:54
  a, mister L, Miss B, who had been with us at the
• 1:43:57
  concert, and the youngest Miss W. Not Julia. We have done with
• 1:44:01
  her. She is very ill, But Mary Mary W's turn is actually come
• 1:44:06
  to be grown up and have a fine complexion and wear great square muslin shawls.
• 1:44:12
  I have not expressly enumerated myself among the party, but there I was,
• 1:44:15
  and my cousin George was very kind and talked sense to me every now
• 1:44:19
  and then in the intervals of his more animated fooleries with Miss B, who
• 1:44:25
  is very young and rather handsome, and whose gracious manners, ready wit and
• 1:44:29
  solid remarks put me somewhat in mind of my old acquaintance L. L.
• 1:44:33
  There was a monstrous deal of stupid quizzing and commonplace nonsense talked, but scarcely
• 1:44:39
  any wit all that bordered on it or on sense, came from my cousin
• 1:44:44
  George, whom altogether I like very well. Mister b seems nothing more than
• 1:44:47
  a tall young man. My evening engagement and walk was with miss A,
• 1:44:53
  who had called on me the day before and gently upbraided me in her turn
• 1:44:57
  with a change of manners to her, since she had been in or at
• 1:45:00
  least of late, unlucky me that my notice should be of such consequence and
• 1:45:05
  my manners so bad. She was so well disposed and so reasonable that I
• 1:45:10
  soon forgave her and made this engagement with her in proof of it. She
• 1:45:14
  is really an agreeable girl, so I think I may like her. And
• 1:45:17
  her great want of a companion at home, which may well make any tolerable
• 1:45:21
  acquaintance important to her, gives her another claim on my attention. I shall
• 1:45:27
  endeavor as much as possible to keep my intimacies in their proper place and prevent
• 1:45:30
  their clashing among so many friends. It will be well if I do not
• 1:45:34
  get into a scrape. And now here is miss Blashford. Come. I
• 1:45:39
  should have gone distracted if the bullets had stayed. When I tell you I
• 1:45:43
  have been visiting a countess this morning, you will, immediately, with great
• 1:45:45
  justice but no truth, guess it to be Lady Rowdin. No, it
• 1:45:50
  is Lady Levin, the mother of Lord balgony On. Receiving a message from
• 1:45:56
  Lord and Lady Levin through the Mackays declaring their intention of waiting on, we
• 1:46:00
  thought it right to go to them. I hope we have not done too
• 1:46:03
  much, but the friends and admirers of Charles must be attended to. They
• 1:46:08
  seem very reasonable, good sort of people, very civil, and full of
• 1:46:12
  his praise. We were shown at first into an empty drawing room, and
• 1:46:16
  presently in came his lordship, not knowing who we were, to apologize for
• 1:46:20
  the servant's mistake, and to say himself what was untrue that Lady Levin was
• 1:46:26
  not within. He is a tall, gentlemanlike looking man, with spectacles and
• 1:46:30
  rather deaf. After sitting with him ten minutes, we walked away, but
• 1:46:34
  Lady Levin coming out of the dining parlor as we passed the door, we
• 1:46:39
  were obliged to attend her back to it and pay our visit over again.
• 1:46:43
  She is a stout woman with a very handsome face. By this means we
• 1:46:46
  had the pleasure of hearing Charles's praises twice over. They think themselves excessively obliged
• 1:46:53
  to him and estimate him so highly as to wish Lord Balgany when he is
• 1:46:57
  quite recovered to go out to him. There is a pretty little lady Marian
• 1:47:00
  of the party to be shaken hands with, and asked if she remembered mister
• 1:47:04
  Austin, I shall write to Charles by the next packet, unless you tell
• 1:47:10
  me in the meantime of your intending to do it. Believe me if you
• 1:47:14
  choose your affectionate Sister Jane did not estimate too highly the cousin George mentioned in
• 1:47:19
  the foregoing letter, who might easily have been superior in sense and wit to
• 1:47:24
  the west of the party. He was the Reverend George Lee Cook, long
• 1:47:28
  known and respected at Oxford, where he held important offices and had the privilege
• 1:47:32
  of helping to form the minds of men more eminent than himself. As tutor
• 1:47:38
  in Corpus Christi College, he became instructor to some of the most distinguished undergraduates
• 1:47:43
  of that time, amongst others, to Doctor Arnold, the Reverend John Keble,
• 1:47:47
  and Sir John Coleridge. The latter has mentioned him in terms of affectionate
• 1:47:51
  regard, both in his memoir of Keble and in a letter which appears in
• 1:47:57
  Dean Stanley's Life of Arnold. Mister Cook was also an impressive preacher of earnest
• 1:48:01
  awakening sermons. I remember to have heard it observed by some of my undergraduate
• 1:48:06
  friends that, after all, there was more good to be got from George
• 1:48:11
  Cook's plain sermons than from much of the more labored oratory of the university pulpit.
• 1:48:16
  He was frequently examiner in the schools, and occupied the chair of the
• 1:48:19
  Sedleyan Professor of Natural Philosophy from eighteen ten to eighteen fifty three. Before the
• 1:48:28
  end of eighteen o five, the little family party removed to Southampton. They
• 1:48:31
  resided in a commodious, old fashioned house in a corner of Castle Square.
• 1:48:36
  I have no letters of my aunt, nor any other record of her during
• 1:48:41
  her four years residence at Southampton. And though I now began to know and
• 1:48:45
  what was the same thing to love her myself, yet my observations were only
• 1:48:48
  those of a young boy, and were not capable of penetrating her character or
• 1:48:54
  estimating her powers. I have, however, a lively recollection of some local
• 1:48:59
  circumstances at Sains Southampton, and as they refer chiefly to things which have been
• 1:49:02
  long ago swept away, I will record them. My grandmother's house had a
• 1:49:08
  pleasant garden bounded on one side by the old city walls. The top of
• 1:49:12
  this wall was sufficiently wide to afford a pleasant walk with an extensive view,
• 1:49:16
  easily accessible to ladies by steps. This must have been a part of the
• 1:49:20
  identical walls which witnessed the embarkation of Henry the Fifth before the Battle of Agincour,
• 1:49:27
  and the detection of the conspiracy of Cambridge, Scroup and Gray, which
• 1:49:30
  Shakespeare has made so picturesque, when, according to the chorus in Henry the
• 1:49:35
  Fifth, the citizens saw the well appointed king at Hampton Pier embark his royalty.
• 1:49:42
  Among the records of the town of Southampton they have a minute and authentic
• 1:49:45
  count drawn up at that time of the encampment of Henry the Fifth near the
• 1:49:49
  town before his embarkment for France. It is remarkable that the place where the
• 1:49:54
  army was encamped, then a low level plain, is now entirely covered by
• 1:49:59
  the sea and is called Westport. At that time, Castle Square was occupied
• 1:50:03
  by a fantastic edifice too large for the space in which it stood, though
• 1:50:08
  too small to accord well with its castellated style, erected by the second Marquis
• 1:50:13
  of Lansdowne, half brother to the well known statesman who succeeded him in the
• 1:50:17
  title. The marchioness had a light phaeton, drawn by six and sometimes by
• 1:50:23
  eight little ponies, each pair decreasing in size and becoming lighter in color through
• 1:50:28
  all the shades of dark brown, light, brown, bay, and chestnut.
• 1:50:31
  As it was placed farther away from the carriage. The two leading pears
• 1:50:35
  were managed by two boyish postilions. The two pairs nearest to the carriage were
• 1:50:41
  driven in hand. It was a delight to me to look down from the
• 1:50:44
  window and see this fairy equipage put together. For the premises of this castle
• 1:50:48
  were so contracted that the whole process went on in the little space that remained
• 1:50:54
  of the open square. Like other fairy works, however, it all proved
• 1:50:58
  of vanessent, not only carriage and ponies, but castle itself soon vanished away
• 1:51:02
  like the baseless fabric of a vision. On the death of the marquis in
• 1:51:06
  eighteen o nine, the castle was pulled down. Few probably remember its existence,
• 1:51:12
  and anyone who might visit the place now would wonder how it ever could
• 1:51:15
  have stood there In eighteen o nine, mister Knight was able to offer his
• 1:51:19
  mother the choice of two houses on his property, one near his usual residence
• 1:51:25
  at Godmersham Park in Kent, the other near Chawton House, his occasional residence
• 1:51:30
  in Hampshire. The latter was chosen, and in that year the mother and
• 1:51:33
  daughters, together with Miss Lloyd, a near connection who lived with them,
• 1:51:38
  settled themselves at Chawton College. Chawton may be called the second as well as
• 1:51:43
  the last home of Jane Austen, for during the temporary residences of the party
• 1:51:46
  at Bath in Southampton, she was only a sojourner in a strange land,
• 1:51:50
  but here she found a real home amongst her own people. It so happened
• 1:51:56
  that during her residence at Chawton, circumstances brought several of her brother and their
• 1:52:00
  families with an easy distance of the house. Chaunton must also be considered the
• 1:52:04
  place most closely connected with her career as a writer, for there it was
• 1:52:09
  that, in the maturity of her mind, she either wrote or rearranged and
• 1:52:13
  prepared for publication the books by which she has become known to the world.
• 1:52:17
  This was the home where, after a few years, while still in the
• 1:52:20
  prime of life she began to droop and wither away, and which she left
• 1:52:25
  only in the last stage of her illness, yielding to the persuasion of friends
• 1:52:29
  hoping against hope. This house stood in the village of Chawton, about a
• 1:52:33
  mile from Alton, on the right hand side, just where the road to
• 1:52:38
  Winchester branches off from that to Gosport. It was so close to the road
• 1:52:42
  that the front door opened upon it, while a very narrow enclosure paled in
• 1:52:46
  on each side protected the building from danger of collision with any runaway vehicle.
• 1:52:51
  I believe it had been originally built for an inn, for which purpose it
• 1:52:56
  was certainly well situated. Afterwards it had been outcccupied by mister Knight's steward.
• 1:53:01
  But by some additions to the house and some judicious planting and screening, it
• 1:53:05
  was made a pleasant and commodious abode. Mister Knight was experienced and adroid at
• 1:53:11
  such arrangements, and this was a labor of love to him. A good
• 1:53:14
  sized entrance and two sitting rooms made the length of the house, all intended
• 1:53:18
  originally to look upon the road, but the large drawing room window was blocked
• 1:53:23
  up and turned into a bookcase and another opened at the side, which gave
• 1:53:27
  to view only turf and trees. As a high wooden fence and horn beam
• 1:53:30
  hedge shut out the Winchester Road, which skirted the whole length of the little
• 1:53:34
  domain. Trees were planted to each side to form a shrubbery walk carried round
• 1:53:40
  the enclosure, which gave a sufficient space for ladies exercise. There was a
• 1:53:45
  pleasant irregular mixture of hedgerow and gravel walk, and orchard and long grass for
• 1:53:49
  mowing, arising from two or three little enclosures having been thrown together. The
• 1:53:55
  house itself was quite as good as the generality of parsonage houses then were,
• 1:53:59
  and much in the same style, and was capable of receiving other members of
• 1:54:02
  the family as frequent visitors. It was sufficiently well furnished, Everything inside and
• 1:54:09
  out was kept in good repair, and it was altogether a comfortable and ladylike
• 1:54:13
  establishment, though the means which supported it were not large. I give this
• 1:54:17
  description because some interest is generally taken in the residence of a popular writer.
• 1:54:23
  Cowper's unattractive house in the street of Olny has been pointed out to visitors,
• 1:54:28
  and has even attained the honor of an engraving in Southey's edition of his works.
• 1:54:31
  But I cannot recommend any admirer of Jane Austen to undertake a pilgrimage to
• 1:54:35
  this spot. The building indeed still stands, but it has lost all that
• 1:54:41
  gave it its character. After the death of missus Cassandra Austen in eighteen forty
• 1:54:45
  five, it was divided into tenements for laborers, and the grounds reverted to
• 1:54:49
  ordinary uses. End of chapter four, Chapter five description of Jane Austen's person,
• 1:54:58
  character, and tastes. As my memoir has now reached the period when
• 1:55:01
  I saw a great deal of my aunt and was old enough to understand something
• 1:55:05
  of her value, I will here attempt a description of her person, mind,
• 1:55:10
  and habits. In person, she was very attractive. Her figure was
• 1:55:15
  rather tall and slender, her step light and firm, and her whole appearance
• 1:55:19
  expressive of health and animation. In complexion, she was a clear brunette with
• 1:55:25
  a rich color. She had full round cheeks with mouth and nose, small
• 1:55:29
  and well formed, bright hazel eyes, and brown hair forming natural curls close
• 1:55:33
  round her face. If not so regularly handsome as her sister, yet her
• 1:55:39
  countenance had a peculiar charm of its own to the eyes of most beholders at
• 1:55:44
  the time of which I am now writing. She never was seen, either
• 1:55:46
  morning or evening without a cap. I believe that she and her sister were
• 1:55:50
  generally thought to have taken to the garb of middle age earlier than their years
• 1:55:55
  or their looks required, and that though remarkably neat in their dress, as
• 1:56:00
  in all their ways, they were scarcely sufficiently regardful of the fashionable or the
• 1:56:03
  becoming. She was not highly accomplished according to the present standard. Her sister
• 1:56:10
  drew well, and it is from a drawing of hers that the likeness prefix
• 1:56:13
  to this volume has been taken. Jane herself was fond of music, and
• 1:56:17
  had a sweet voice, both in singing and in conversation. In her youth
• 1:56:21
  she had received some instruction on the pianoforte, and at Chawton she practiced daily,
• 1:56:27
  chiefly before breakfast. I believe she did so partly that she might not
• 1:56:31
  disturb the rest of the party, who were less fond of music. In
• 1:56:34
  the evening, she would sometimes sing to her own accompaniment some simple old songs,
• 1:56:41
  the words and airs of which now never heard, still linger in my
• 1:56:44
  memory. She read French with facility and knew something of Italian. In those
• 1:56:49
  days, German was no more thought of than Hindostani. As part of a
• 1:56:54
  lady's education in history, she followed the old guides Goldsmith, Hume, and
• 1:56:59
  Robertson. Critical inquiry into the usually received statements of the old historians was scarcely
• 1:57:04
  begun. The history of the early kings of Rome had not yet been dissolved
• 1:57:09
  into legend. Historic characters lay before the reader's eyes in broad light or shade,
• 1:57:15
  not much broken up by details. The virtues of King Henry the eighth
• 1:57:18
  were yet undiscovered, nor had much light been thrown on the inconsistencies of Queen
• 1:57:24
  Elizabeth. The one was held to be an unmitigated tyrant and an embodied old
• 1:57:29
  Bluebeard, the other a perfect model of wisdom and policy. Jane, when
• 1:57:33
  a girl, had strong political opinions, especially about the affairs of the sixteenth
• 1:57:38
  and seventeenth centuries, she was a vehement defender of Charles the First and his
• 1:57:43
  grandmother Mary. But I think it was rather from an impulsive feeling than from
• 1:57:46
  any inquiry into the evidences by which they must be condemned or acquitted. As
• 1:57:53
  she grew up. The politics of the day occupied very little of her attention,
• 1:57:57
  but she probably shared the feeling of moderate tory which prevailed in her family.
• 1:58:01
  She was well acquainted with the old periodicals, from the Spectator downwards.
• 1:58:05
  Her knowledge of Richardson's works was such as no one is likely again to acquire
• 1:58:12
  now that the multitude and the merits of our light literature have called off the
• 1:58:15
  attention of readers from that great master. Every circumstance narrated in Sir Charles Grandison,
• 1:58:21
  all that was ever said or done in the cedar parlor was familiar to
• 1:58:26
  her, and the wedding days of Lady l and Lady g were as well
• 1:58:30
  remembered as if they had been living friends. Amongst her favorite writers, Johnson
• 1:58:34
  in prose, Crab in verse, and Cowper in both stood high. It
• 1:58:40
  is well that the native good taste of herself and of those with whom she
• 1:58:44
  lived, saved her from the snare into which a sister novelist had fallen of
• 1:58:47
  imitating the grand, eloquent style of Johnson. She thoroughly enjoyed Crab, perhaps
• 1:58:54
  on account of a certain resemblance to herself in minute and highly finished detail,
• 1:58:59
  and would sometime say in jest that if she ever married at all, she
• 1:59:02
  could fancy being Missus Crabbe, looking on the author quite as an abstract idea
• 1:59:08
  and ignorant, and regardless what manner of man he might be. Scott's poetry
• 1:59:13
  gave her great pleasure. She did not live to make much acquaintance with his
• 1:59:15
  novels, only three of them were published before her death. But it will
• 1:59:20
  be seen by the following extract from one of her letters that she was quite
• 1:59:25
  prepared to admit the merits of Waverley. And it is remarkable that, living
• 1:59:29
  as she did, far apart from the gossip of the literary world, she
• 1:59:33
  should even then have spoken so confidently of his being the author of it.
• 1:59:39
  Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is
• 1:59:44
  not fair. He has fame and prophet enough as a poet, and ought
• 1:59:47
  not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not mean
• 1:59:50
  to like Waverley if I can help it, but I fear I must.
• 1:59:55
  I am quite determined, however, not to be pleased with Missus S's should
• 1:59:59
  I ever meet with it, which I hope I may not. I think
• 2:00:02
  I can be stout against anything written by her. I have made up my
• 2:00:06
  mind to like no novels, really, but miss Edworth's ease and my own.
• 2:00:12
  It was, not, however, what she knew, but what she
• 2:00:15
  was that distinguished her from others. I cannot better describe the fascination which she
• 2:00:19
  exercised over children than by quoting the words of two of her nieces. One
• 2:00:25
  says, as a very little girl, I was always creeping up to Aunt
• 2:00:29
  Jane and following her whenever I could, in the house and out of it.
• 2:00:32
  I might not have remembered this but for the recollection of my mother's telling
• 2:00:36
  me privately that I must not be troublesome to my aunt. Her first charm
• 2:00:41
  to children was great sweetness of manner. She seemed to love you, and
• 2:00:45
  you loved her in return. This, as well as I can now recollect,
• 2:00:48
  was what I felt in my early days, before I was old enough
• 2:00:51
  to be amused by her cleverness. But soon came the delight of her playful
• 2:00:57
  talk. She could make everything amusing to a child. Then, as I
• 2:01:00
  got older, when cousins came to share the entertainment, she would tell us
• 2:01:05
  the most delightful stories, chiefly of Fairyland and her fairies all had characters of
• 2:01:11
  their own. The tale was invented, I am sure at the moment,
• 2:01:14
  and was continued for two or three days if occasion served. Again, when
• 2:01:19
  staying at Chawton with two of her other nieces, we often had amusements in
• 2:01:24
  which my aunt was very helpful. She was the one to whom we always
• 2:01:28
  looked for help. She would furnish us with what we wanted from her wardrobe.
• 2:01:31
  She would be the entertaining visitor in our make believe house. She amused
• 2:01:35
  us in various ways. Once I remember in giving a conversation as between myself
• 2:01:41
  and my two cousins, supposing we were all grown up, the day after
• 2:01:45
  a ball. Very similar is the testimony of another niece. Aunt Jane was
• 2:01:50
  a general favorite with children, her ways with them being so playful, and
• 2:01:55
  her long circumstantial stories so delightful. These were continued for time to time,
• 2:02:00
  and were begged for on all possible and impossible occasions. Woven as she proceeded
• 2:02:05
  out of nothing but her own happy talent for invention, ah if but one
• 2:02:11
  of them could be recovered, And again as I grew older, when the
• 2:02:14
  original seventeen years between our ages seemed to shrink to seven or to nothing.
• 2:02:18
  It comes back to me now, how strangely I missed her. It had
• 2:02:23
  become so much a habit with me to put by things in my mind with
• 2:02:26
  a reference to her, and say to myself, I shall keep this for
• 2:02:30
  Aunt Jane. A nephew of hers used to observe that his visit to Chawton
• 2:02:34
  after the death of his Aunt Jane were always a disappointment to him. From
• 2:02:39
  old associations. He could not help expecting to be particularly happy in that house,
• 2:02:44
  and never till he got there could he realize to himself how all its
• 2:02:46
  peculiar charm was gone. It was not only that the chief light in the
• 2:02:51
  house was quenched, but that the loss of it had cast a shade over
• 2:02:55
  the spirits of the survivors. Enough has been said to show her love for
• 2:02:59
  chillildren, and her wonderful power of entertaining them, But her friends of all
• 2:03:02
  ages felt her enlivening influence. Her unusually quick sense of the ridiculous led her
• 2:03:09
  to play with all the commonplaces of everyday life, whether as regarded persons or
• 2:03:14
  things, But she never played with its serious duties or responsibilities, nor did
• 2:03:18
  she ever turn individuals into ridicule. With all her neighbors in the village she
• 2:03:23
  was unfriendly, though not on intimate terms. She took a kindly interest in
• 2:03:28
  all their proceedings and liked to hear about them. They often served for her
• 2:03:31
  amusement, but it was her own nonsense that gave zest to the gossip.
• 2:03:35
  She was as far from possible from being censorious or satirical. She never abused
• 2:03:41
  or quizzed them. That was the word of the day, an ugly word
• 2:03:45
  now obsolete, and the ugly practice which it expressed is much less prevalent now
• 2:03:48
  than it was then. The laugh which she occasionally raised was imagined for her
• 2:03:54
  neighbors, as she was equally ready to imagine for her friends or herself impossible
• 2:03:59
  contingents, or by relating in prose or verse some trifling anecdote colored to her
• 2:04:04
  own fancy, or in writing a fictitious history of what they were supposed to
• 2:04:09
  have said or done, which could deceive nobody. The following specimens may be
• 2:04:14
  given of the liveliness of mind, which imparted an agreeable flavor both to her
• 2:04:18
  correspondence and her conversation on reading in the newspapers the marriage of mister Gell to
• 2:04:24
  Miss Gill of Eastbourne. At Eastbourne, mister Gell, from being perfectly well
• 2:04:29
  became dreadfully ill for love of Miss Gill. So he said, with some
• 2:04:33
  sighs, I'm the slave of your eyes. Oh restore if you please by
• 2:04:38
  accepting my ease on the marriage of a middle aged flirt with a mister Wake,
• 2:04:44
  whom it was supposed she would scarcely have accepted in her youth. Maria,
• 2:04:47
  good humored and handsome and tall for a husband, was at her last
• 2:04:51
  stake, and having in vain danced at many a ball, is now happy
• 2:04:57
  to jump at a wake. We're all at the play last night to see
• 2:05:00
  Miss O'Neill and Isabella. I do not think she was quite equal to my
• 2:05:04
  expectation. I fancy I want something more that can be. Acting seldom satisfies
• 2:05:11
  me. I took two pocket handkerchiefs, but had very little occasion for either.
• 2:05:15
  She is an elegant creature, however, and hugs mister Young delightfully.
• 2:05:20
  So Miss b is actually married, but I never have seen it in the
• 2:05:24
  papers, and one may as well be single if the wedding is not to
• 2:05:28
  be in print. Once too, she took it into her head to write
• 2:05:30
  the following mock panegyric on a young friend who really was clever and handsome.
• 2:05:36
  One in measured verse, I'll now rehearse the charms of lovely Anna. And
• 2:05:42
  First, her mind is unconfined, like any vast Savannah. Two, Ontario's
• 2:05:48
  lake may fitly speak her fancy's ample bound, Its circuit may, on strict
• 2:05:54
  survey five hundred miles be found. Three, Her wit descends on foes and
• 2:06:00
  friends like famed niagaras fall and travelers gaze in wild, amaze and listen one
• 2:06:05
  and all. Four. Her judgment sound thick, black, profound, like
• 2:06:11
  Transatlantic grooves, dispenses aid and friendly shade to all that in it robes.
• 2:06:16
  Five. If thus her mind to be defined, America exhausts and all that's
• 2:06:23
  grand in that great land in similes, it costs six. Oh, how
• 2:06:29
  can I her person try to image and portray, How paint the face,
• 2:06:33
  the form, how trace in which those virtues lay? Seven? Another world
• 2:06:40
  must be unfurled. Another language known ere tongue or sound can publish round her
• 2:06:45
  charms of flesh and bone. I believe that all this nonsense was nearly extempore,
• 2:06:51
  and that the fancy of drawing the images from America arose at the moment
• 2:06:57
  from the obvious rhyme which presented itself in the first stand. The following extracts
• 2:07:01
  are from letters addressed to a niece who was at that time amusing herself by
• 2:07:06
  attempting a novel, probably never finished, certainly never published, and of which
• 2:07:12
  I know nothing. But what these extracts tell. They show the good natured
• 2:07:15
  sympathy and encouragement which the aunt, then herself occupied in writing Emma, could
• 2:07:21
  give to the less matured powers of the niece. They bring out, incidentally,
• 2:07:26
  some of her opinions concerning compositions of that kind. Extracts Chawton, August
• 2:07:32
  tenth, eighteen fourteen. Your aunt's seed is not like dulcatory novels, and
• 2:07:38
  is rather fearful that yours will be too much so that there will be too
• 2:07:42
  frequent a change from one set of people to another, and that circumstances will
• 2:07:46
  be sometimes introduced of apparent consequence, which will lead to nothing. It will
• 2:07:53
  not be so great an objection to me. I allow much more latitude than
• 2:07:57
  she does, and think nature and spirit cover many sins of a wandering story,
• 2:08:01
  and people in general do not care much about it. For your comfort
• 2:08:05
  September ninth, you are now collecting your people, delightfully, getting them exactly
• 2:08:11
  into such a spot as is the delight of my life. Three or four
• 2:08:15
  families in a country village is the very thing to work on, and I
• 2:08:18
  hope you will write a great deal more and make full use of them while
• 2:08:22
  they are so favorably arranged. September twenty eighth. Devereux Forrester being ruined by
• 2:08:28
  his vanity is very good, but I wish you would not let him plunge
• 2:08:33
  into a vortex of dissipation. I do not object the thing, but I
• 2:08:37
  cannot bear the expression. It is such a thorough novel slang and so old
• 2:08:41
  that I dare say Adam met with it in the first novel that he opened,
• 2:08:46
  Hans Place, November eighteen fourteen. I have been very far from finding
• 2:08:52
  your book in evil. I assure you I read it immediately, and with
• 2:08:54
  great pleasure. Indeed, I do think you get on very fast. I
• 2:09:00
  I wish other people of my acquaintance could compose as rapidly. Julian's history was
• 2:09:05
  quite a surprise to me. You had not very long known it yourself,
• 2:09:07
  I suspect, but I have no objection to make to the circumstance. It
• 2:09:11
  is very well told, and his having been in love with the aunt gives
• 2:09:16
  Cecilia an additional interest with him. I like the idea a very proper compliment
• 2:09:20
  to an aunt. I rather imagine, indeed, that nieces are seldom chosen
• 2:09:24
  but in compliment to some aunt or other. I dare say your husband was
• 2:09:30
  in love with me once, and would never have thought of you if he
• 2:09:33
  had not supposed me dead of a scarlet fever. Jane Austen was successful in
• 2:09:37
  everything that she attempted with her fingers. None of us could throw spilikans in
• 2:09:41
  so perfect a circle, or take them off with so steady a hand.
• 2:09:46
  Her performances with cup and ball were marvelous. The one used at Chawton was
• 2:09:50
  an easy one, and she has been known to catch it on the point
• 2:09:54
  above a hundred times at secession till her hand was weary. She she sometimes
• 2:10:00
  found a resource in that simple game when unable from weakness in her eyes to
• 2:10:05
  read or write long together. A specimen of her clear, strong handwriting is
• 2:10:09
  here given. Happy would the compositors for the press be if they had always
• 2:10:13
  so legible a manuscript to work from. But the writing was not the only
• 2:10:18
  part of her letters which showed superior handiwork. In those days there was an
• 2:10:22
  art in folding and ceiling. No adhesive envelopes made all easy. Some people's
• 2:10:28
  letters always looked loose and untidy, but her paper was sure to take the
• 2:10:33
  right folds, and her sealing wax to drop into the right place. Her
• 2:10:37
  needlework, both plain and ornamental, was excellent, and might almost have put
• 2:10:41
  a sewing machine to shame. She was considered especially great in satin stitch.
• 2:10:48
  She spent much time in these occupations, and some of her merriest talk was
• 2:10:52
  overclosed which she and her companions were making, sometimes for themselves and sometimes for
• 2:10:56
  the poor. There still were made. D's a curious specimen of her needlework,
• 2:11:01
  made for a sister in law, my mother, in a very small
• 2:11:05
  bag, is deposited a little rolled up housewife, furnished with minnekin needles and
• 2:11:09
  fine thread. In the housewife is a tiny pocket, and in the pocket
• 2:11:15
  is enclosed a slip of paper on which, written as with a crow quill,
• 2:11:18
  are the lines. This little bag I hope will prove to be not
• 2:11:24
  vainly made, for should you thread and needles want, it will afford you
• 2:11:28
  aid. And as we are about to part, twill serve another end,
• 2:11:33
  for when you look upon this bag, you'll recollect your friend. It is
• 2:11:37
  the kind of article that some benevolent fairy might be supposed to give as a
• 2:11:41
  reward to a diligent little girl. The whole is a flowered silk, and
• 2:11:46
  having been never used and carefully preserved, it is as fresh and bright as
• 2:11:50
  when it was first made seventy years ago, and shows that the same hand
• 2:11:54
  which painted so exquisitely with the pen, could work as delicately with the needle.
• 2:12:01
  I have collected some of the bright qualities which shone, as it were,
• 2:12:03
  on the surface of Jane Austen's character and attracted most notice. But underneath
• 2:12:09
  them there lay the strong foundations of sound sense and judgment, rectitude of principle,
• 2:12:15
  and delicacy of feeling, qualifying her equally to advise, assist, or
• 2:12:20
  amuse. She was, in fact as ready to comfort the unhappy or to
• 2:12:24
  nurse the sick, as she was to laugh and jest with the light hearted
• 2:12:28
  two of her nieces were grown up, and one of them was married before
• 2:12:31
  she was taken away from them. As their minds became more matured, they
• 2:12:37
  were admitted into closer intimacy with her and learned more of her graver thoughts.
• 2:12:41
  They know what a sympathizing friend and judicious adviser they found her to be in
• 2:12:46
  many little difficulties and doubts of early womanhood. I do not venture to speak
• 2:12:52
  of her religious principles. That is a subject on which she herself was more
• 2:12:56
  inclined to think and act than to talk. And I shall imitate her satisfied
• 2:13:01
  to have shown how much of Christian love and humility abounded in her heart,
• 2:13:05
  without presuming to lay bare the roots. Whence those graces grew some little insight.
• 2:13:11
  However, into these deeper recesses of the heart, must be given when
• 2:13:15
  we come to speak of her death. End of Chapter five. Chapter six.
• 2:13:22
  Habits of composition resumed after a long interval first publication. The interest taken
• 2:13:28
  by the author in the success of her works read by Chloe Winters, April
• 2:13:33
  two thousand and eight. It may seem extraordinary that Jane Austen should have written
• 2:13:39
  so little during the years that elapsed between leaving Steventon and settling at Chaunton,
• 2:13:45
  Especially when this cessation from work is contrasted with her literary activity both before and
• 2:13:50
  after that period. It might rather have been expected that fresh scenes and new
• 2:13:54
  acquaintance would have called forth her powers, while the quiet life which the family
• 2:13:58
  led both that Bath and Southampton must have afforded abundant leisure for composition. But
• 2:14:03
  so it was that nothing which I know of, certainly nothing which the public
• 2:14:07
  have seen, was completed in either of those places. I can only state
• 2:14:11
  the fact without assigning any cause for it. But as soon as she was
• 2:14:15
  fixed in her second home, she resumed the habits of composition which had been
• 2:14:18
  formed in her first, and continued them to the end of her life.
• 2:14:22
  The first year of her residence at Tauton seems to have been devoted to revising
• 2:14:26
  and preparing for the press, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice.
• 2:14:31
  But between February eighteen eleven and August eighteen sixteen she began and completed Mansfield Park,
• 2:14:37
  Emma and Persuasion, so that the last five years of her life produced
• 2:14:41
  the same number of novels with those which had been written in her early youth.
• 2:14:46
  How she was able to effect all this is surprising, for she had
• 2:14:48
  no separate study to retire to, and most of the work must have been
• 2:14:52
  done in the general sitting room, subject to all kinds of casual interruptions.
• 2:14:58
  She was careful that her OCU patients should not be suspected by servants or visitors,
• 2:15:03
  or any persons beyond her own family party. She wrote upon small sheets
• 2:15:07
  of paper, which could easily be put away or covered with a piece of
• 2:15:11
  blotting paper. There was between the front door and the offices a swing door,
• 2:15:16
  which creaked when it was opened, but she objected to having this little
• 2:15:18
  inconvenience remedied, because it gave her notice when anyone was coming. She was
• 2:15:24
  not, however, troubled with companions like her own, Missus Allen in Northanger
• 2:15:28
  Abbey, whose vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking were such that as she
• 2:15:33
  never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent. And
• 2:15:35
  therefore while she sat at work, if she lost her needle, or broke
• 2:15:39
  her thread, or saw a speck of dirt on her gown, she must
• 2:15:43
  observe it. Whether there were any one at leisure to answer her or not.
• 2:15:48
  In that well occupied female party, there must have been many precious hours
• 2:15:52
  of silence during which the pen was busy at the little Mahogany writing desk,
• 2:15:56
  while Fanny Price, or Emma Woodhouse or Anne Elliott was growing into beauty and
• 2:16:00
  interest. I have no doubt that I and my sisters and cousins, in
• 2:16:05
  our visits to Chawton, frequently disturbed this mystic process without having any idea of
• 2:16:09
  the mischief that we were doing. Certainly we never should have guessed it by
• 2:16:13
  any signs of impatience or irritability in the writer, as so much had been
• 2:16:18
  previously prepared. When once she began to publish, her works came out in
• 2:16:22
  quick succession. Sense and Sensibility was published in eighteen eleven, Pride and Prejudice
• 2:16:28
  at the beginning of eighteen thirteen, Mansfield Park in eighteen fourteen, Emma Early
• 2:16:33
  in eighteen sixteen. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion did not appear till after her death
• 2:16:37
  in eighteen eighteen. It will be shown farther on why Northanger Abbey, though
• 2:16:43
  amongst the first written, was one of the last published. Her first three
• 2:16:46
  novels were published by Egerton, her last three by Murray. The profits of
• 2:16:52
  the four which had been printed before her death had not at that time amounted
• 2:16:54
  to seven hundred pounds. I have no record of the publication of Sense and
• 2:17:00
  Sensibility, nor of the authour's feelings at this her first appearance before the public,
• 2:17:05
  but the following extracts from three letters to her sister give a lively picture
• 2:17:09
  of the interest with which she watched the reception of Pride and Prejudice, and
• 2:17:13
  show the carefulness with which she corrected her compositions and rejected much that had been
• 2:17:16
  written. Chawton, Friday, January twenty ninth, eighteen thirteen. I hope
• 2:17:24
  you received my little parcel by Jay Bond on Wednesday evening, my dear Cassandra,
• 2:17:28
  and that you will be ready to hear from me again on Sunday,
• 2:17:31
  for I feel that I must write to you to day. I want to
• 2:17:33
  tell you that I have got my own darling child from London. On Wednesday
• 2:17:39
  I received one copy sent down by Faulkner, with three lines from Henry to
• 2:17:43
  say that he had given another to Charles, and sent a third by the
• 2:17:45
  Coach to Godmisham. The advertisement is in our paper to day for the first
• 2:17:50
  time eighteen shillings, he shall ask one pound one shilling for my two next,
• 2:17:54
  and one pound eight shillings for my stupidest of all. Miss b dined
• 2:17:58
  with us on the very day of the books coming, and in the evening
• 2:18:01
  we fairly sat at it, and with half the first volume to her,
• 2:18:05
  prefacing that, having intelligence from Henry that such a work would soon appear,
• 2:18:09
  we had desired him to send it whenever it came out, And I believe
• 2:18:11
  it passed with her unsuspected. She was amused, boss all that she could
• 2:18:16
  not help, you know, with two such people to lead the way.
• 2:18:20
  But she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I think
• 2:18:24
  her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print. And how I shall
• 2:18:28
  be able to tolerate those who do not like her? At least I do
• 2:18:30
  not know. There are a few typical errors, and A said he,
• 2:18:33
  or A said she would sometimes make the dialog more immediately clear. But I
• 2:18:39
  do not write for such dull elves as have not a great deal of ingenuity
• 2:18:43
  themselves. The second volume is shorter than I could wish, but the difference
• 2:18:46
  is not so much in reality as in look, there being a larger proportion
• 2:18:50
  of narrative in that part. I have lopped and cropped so successfully, however,
• 2:18:56
  that I imagine it must be rather shorter than sense and sensibility altogether.
• 2:19:00
  Now I will try and write of something else. Chawton, Thursday, February
• 2:19:05
  fourth, eighteen thirteen. My dear Cassandra, your letter was truly welcome,
• 2:19:09
  and I am much obliged to you for all your praise. It came at
• 2:19:13
  a right time, for I had had some fits of disgust. Our second
• 2:19:18
  evening's reading to Miss b had not pleased me so well. But I believe
• 2:19:20
  something must be attributed to my mother's too rapid way of getting on. Though
• 2:19:26
  she perfectly understands the characters herself, she cannot speak as they ought upon the
• 2:19:31
  whole. However, I am quite vain enough and well satisfied enough. The
• 2:19:35
  work is rather too light and bright and sparkling. It wants shade. It
• 2:19:39
  wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense if
• 2:19:43
  it could be had, if not of solemn, specious nonsense about something unconnected
• 2:19:48
  with the story. An Essay on writing a critique on Walter Scott, or
• 2:19:52
  the history of Buonaparte, or something that would form a contrast and bring the
• 2:19:58
  reader with increased delight to the latefulness and epigrammatism of the general style. The
• 2:20:03
  greatest blunder in the printing that I have met with is in page two hundred
• 2:20:07
  and twenty, volume three, where two speeches are made into one. That
• 2:20:11
  might as well be no supposit longborne, but I suppose it was the remains
• 2:20:15
  of Missus Bennett's old Meriton habits. The following letter seems to have been written
• 2:20:20
  soon after the last two, in February eighteen thirteen. This will be a
• 2:20:26
  quick return for yours, my dear Cassandra. I doubt it's having much else
• 2:20:30
  to recommend it, but there is no saying. It may turn out to
• 2:20:33
  be a very long and delightful letter. I am exceedingly pleased that you can
• 2:20:37
  say what you do after having gone through the whole work, and Fanny's praise
• 2:20:41
  is very gratifying. My hopes were tolerably strong of her, but nothing like
• 2:20:46
  a certainty. Her liking Darcyine Elizabeth is enough. She might hate all the
• 2:20:50
  others if she would, I have her opinion under her own hand. This
• 2:20:52
  morning. But your transcript of it, which I read first, was not
• 2:20:56
  and is not. The less acceptable to me is of course all praise.
• 2:21:01
  But the more exact truth which she sends you was good enough. Our party
• 2:21:05
  on Wednesday was not unagreeable, though we wanted a master of the house,
• 2:21:07
  less anxious and fidgety, and more conversible. Upon Missus's mention that she had
• 2:21:13
  sent the rejected addresses to Missus h I began talking to her a little about
• 2:21:16
  them and expressed my hope of Verra. Having amused her. Her answer was,
• 2:21:22
  oh, dear, yes, very much, very droll. Indeed the
• 2:21:26
  opening of the house and the striking up of the fiddles what she meant?
• 2:21:30
  Poor woman who shall say? I sought no farther. As soon as a
• 2:21:33
  whist party was formed and a round table threatened, I made my mother an
• 2:21:37
  excuse and came away, leaving just as many for their round table as there
• 2:21:41
  were at Missus Grant's. I wish they might be as agreeable a set.
• 2:21:46
  My mother is very well and finds great amusement and glove knitting, and at
• 2:21:50
  present wants no other work. We quite run over with books she has got
• 2:21:54
  Sir John Carr's travels in Spain, and I am reading a Society Octovo,
• 2:21:58
  an essay on from the Military, Police and Institutions of the British Empire by
• 2:22:03
  Captain Pasley of the Engineers, a book which I protested against it at first,
• 2:22:07
  but which upon trial I find delightfully written and highly entertaining. I am
• 2:22:11
  as much in love with the author as I ever was with Clarkson of Buchanan,
• 2:22:16
  or even the two mister Smiths of the city, the first soldier I
• 2:22:18
  ever sighed for. But he does write with extraordinary force and spirit. Yesterday
• 2:22:24
  moreover brought us Missus Grant's letters with mister White's compliments. But I have disposed
• 2:22:28
  of them compliments and all to miss p And amongst so many readers or retainers
• 2:22:33
  of the books as we have in charten, I dare say there will be
• 2:22:37
  no difficulty in getting rid of them for another fortnight if necessary. I have
• 2:22:41
  disposed of Missus Grant for the second fortnight to missus it can make no difference
• 2:22:46
  to her which of the twenty six fortnights in the year the three volumes lie
• 2:22:48
  on her table. I have been applied to for information as to the oath
• 2:22:52
  taken in former times of bell, book and candle, but have none to
• 2:22:56
  give. Perhaps you may be able to learn something of its origin. Where
• 2:23:00
  you now are ladies who read those enormous, great, stupid, thick quarter
• 2:23:05
  volumes which one always sees in the breakfast parlor. There must be acquainted with
• 2:23:09
  everything in the world. I detest a quarto. Captain Pasley's book is too
• 2:23:15
  good for their society. They will not understand a man who condenses his thoughts
• 2:23:18
  into an octavo. I have learned from Sir je A Carr that there is
• 2:23:22
  no government house at Gibraltar. I must alter it to the commissioners. The
• 2:23:28
  following letter belongs to the same year, but treats of a different subject.
• 2:23:31
  It describes a journey from Chotton to London in her brother's curricle, and shows
• 2:23:35
  how much could be seen and enjoyed in course of a long summer's day by
• 2:23:39
  leisurely traveling amongst scenery which the traveler in an express train now rushes through in
• 2:23:45
  little more than an hour, but scarcely sees at all. Sloane Street,
• 2:23:50
  Thursday May twenty, eighteen thirteen, My dear Cassandra. Before I say anything
• 2:23:56
  else, I claim a paper full of halfpence on the drawing room mantel piece.
• 2:24:00
  I put them there myself and forgot to bring them with me. I
• 2:24:03
  cannot say that I have yet been in any distress for money, but I
• 2:24:07
  choose to have my do as well as the devil. How lucky we were
• 2:24:11
  on our weather yesterday. This wet morning makes one more sensible of it.
• 2:24:15
  We had no rain of any consequence. The head of the curricle was put
• 2:24:18
  half up three or four times, but our share of the showers was very
• 2:24:22
  trifling, though they seemed to be heavy all round us when we were on
• 2:24:26
  the hog's back, and I fancied it might then be raining so hard at
• 2:24:28
  Sharton as to make you feel for us much more than we deserved. Three
• 2:24:33
  hours and a quarter took us to Guildford, where we stayed barely two hours
• 2:24:37
  and had only just time enough for all we had to do there, that
• 2:24:41
  is, eating a long and comfortable breakfast, watching the carriages, paying mister
• 2:24:45
  Harrington, and taking a little stroll afterwards. From some views which that stroll
• 2:24:50
  gave us, I think most highly of the situation of Guildford. We wanted
• 2:24:54
  all our brothers and sisters to be standing with us in the Bowling Green and
• 2:24:58
  looking towards Horsham. I was very lucky in my gloves, got them at
• 2:25:01
  the first shop I went to, though I went into it rather because it
• 2:25:05
  was near than because it looked at all like a glove shop, and gave
• 2:25:09
  only four shillings for them, after which everybody at Chotton will be hoping and
• 2:25:13
  predicting that they cannot be good for anything, and their worth certainly remained to
• 2:25:16
  be proved. But I think they look very well. We left Guildford at
• 2:25:22
  twenty minutes before twelve. I hope somebody cares for these minutia, and were
• 2:25:26
  at Esher in about two hours more. I was very much pleased with the
• 2:25:31
  country in general. Between Guildford and Ripley. I thought it particularly pretty.
• 2:25:35
  Also about Paines Hill, and from a mister Spicer's grounds at Esher, which
• 2:25:39
  we walked into before dinner. The views were beautiful. I cannot say what
• 2:25:43
  we did not see, but I should think there could not be a wood
• 2:25:46
  or a meadow, or palace or remarkable spot in England that was not spread
• 2:25:50
  out before us on one side or another. Claremont is going to be sold,
• 2:25:56
  ah, mister Ellis has it now? It is a house that seems
• 2:25:58
  never to have prospered. After dinner, we walked forward to be overtaken at
• 2:26:01
  the coachman's time, and before he did overtake us, we were very near
• 2:26:05
  Kingston. I fancy it was about half past six when we reached this house,
• 2:26:11
  a twelve hours business, and the horses did not appear more than reasonably
• 2:26:13
  tired. I was very tired too, and glad to get to bed early,
• 2:26:18
  but am quite well to day. I am very snug in the front
• 2:26:20
  drawing room all to myself, and would not say thank you for any company,
• 2:26:24
  but to the quietness of a does me good. I have contrived to
• 2:26:28
  pay my two visits, though the weather made me a great while about it,
• 2:26:33
  and left me only a few minutes to sit with Charlotte Craven. She
• 2:26:35
  looks very well, and her hair is done up with an elegance to do
• 2:26:39
  credit to her education. Her manners are as unaffected and pleasing as ever she
• 2:26:43
  had heard from her mother. To day, Missus Craven spends another fortnight at
• 2:26:46
  Chilton. I saw nobody but Charlotte, which pleased me best. I was
• 2:26:50
  shown upstairs into a drawing room, where she came to me and the appearance
• 2:26:54
  of the room so totally unschoolike amused me very much. It was full of
• 2:26:58
  my modern elegancies, yours very effectually. Ja. The next letter, written
• 2:27:07
  in the following year, contains an account of another journey to London with her
• 2:27:11
  brother Henry and reading with him the manuscript of Mansfield Park, Henrietta Street,
• 2:27:16
  Wednesday, March twoh eighteen fourteen. My dear Cassandra, you were wrong in
• 2:27:22
  thinking of us at Guildful. Last night. We were at Cobham, and
• 2:27:26
  reaching g we found that John and the horses were gone on. We therefore
• 2:27:31
  did no more than we had done at Farnham, sit in the carriage while
• 2:27:35
  fresh horses were put in, and proceeded directly to Cobham, which we reached
• 2:27:39
  by seven and about eight were sitting down to a very nice roast fowl.
• 2:27:43
  We had altogether a very good journey, and everything at Cobham was comfortable.
• 2:27:48
  I could not pay mister Harrington. That was the only alas of the business.
• 2:27:52
  I shall therefore return his bill and my mother's to l that you may
• 2:27:56
  try your luck. We did not begin reading till Bentley Green. Henry's approbation
• 2:28:01
  is hitherto even equal to my wishes. He says it is different from the
• 2:28:05
  other two, but does not appear to think it at all inferior. He
• 2:28:09
  has only married Missus R. I am afraid he has gone through the most
• 2:28:13
  entertaining part. He took to Lady B and Missus N most kindly and gives
• 2:28:18
  great praise to the drawing of the characters. He understands them all, likes
• 2:28:22
  Fanny, and I think foresees how it will all be. I finished the
• 2:28:26
  Heroine last night and was very much amused by it. I wonder James did
• 2:28:31
  not like it better. It diverted me exceedingly. We went to bed at
• 2:28:35
  ten. I was very tired, but slept to a miracle and am lovely
• 2:28:39
  to day, and at present Henry seems to have no complaint. We left
• 2:28:43
  Cobham at half past eight, stopped to bait and breakfast at Kingston, and
• 2:28:48
  were in this house considerably before too. Nice smiling mister Barlow met us at
• 2:28:52
  the door, and, in reply to inquiries after news, said that peace
• 2:28:56
  was generally expected. I have taken possession of my bedroom, unpacked my bandbox,
• 2:29:01
  sent Miss PA's two letters to the two penny post, then visited by
• 2:29:05
  mister b and am now writing by myself at the new table in the front
• 2:29:09
  room. It is snowing. We had some snowstorms yesterday and a smart frost
• 2:29:13
  at night, which gave us a hard road from Cobham to Kingston. But
• 2:29:18
  as it was then getting dirty and heavy, Henry had a pair of leaders
• 2:29:20
  put on to the bottom of Sloane Street. His own horses therefore cannot have
• 2:29:26
  had hard work. I watched for vales as we drove through the streets,
• 2:29:30
  and had the pleasure of seeing several upon vulgar heads. And now how do
• 2:29:33
  you all do you? In particular after the worry of yesterday and the day
• 2:29:37
  before. I hope Martha had a pleasant visit again, and that you and
• 2:29:41
  my mother could eat your beef pudding depend upon my thinking of the chimney sweeper
• 2:29:45
  as soon as I wake tomorrow. Places are secured at Drury Lane for Saturday.
• 2:29:50
  But so great is the rage for seeing Keen that only a third and
• 2:29:52
  fourth row could be got, as it is in a front box. However,
• 2:29:56
  I hope we shall do pretty well. Shylock a good place for Fanny.
• 2:30:01
  She cannot be much affected. I think missus Perrigan has just been there
• 2:30:05
  she tells me that we owe her Master for the silk dying. My poor
• 2:30:09
  muslin has never been died, yet it has been promised to be done several
• 2:30:13
  times. What wicked people die as are they begin with dipping their own souls
• 2:30:18
  in scarlet sin. It is evening we have drank tea, and to have
• 2:30:24
  torn through the third volume of the Heroine. I do not think it falls
• 2:30:26
  off. It is a delightful burlesque, particularly on the Radcliffe style. Henry
• 2:30:31
  is going on with Mansfield Park. He admires h Crawford. I mean properly,
• 2:30:37
  as a clever, pleasant man. I tell you all the good I
• 2:30:39
  can, as I know how much you will enjoy it. We hear that
• 2:30:43
  mister Kean is more admired than ever. There are no good places to be
• 2:30:46
  got in dry Lane for the next fortnight, but Henry means to secure some
• 2:30:50
  for Saturday fortnight, when you are reckoned upon. Give my love to little
• 2:30:54
  Cass. I hope she found my bed comfortable last night. I have seen
• 2:30:58
  nobody in life lond and yet with such a long chin as doctor Syntax,
• 2:31:03
  nor anybody quite so large as gog Maculachus. Yours affectly j Austen end of
• 2:31:09
  chapter six, Chapter seven seclusion from the literary world noticed from the Prince Regent
• 2:31:18
  correspondence with mister Clark suggestions to alter her style of writing. Jane Austen lived
• 2:31:28
  in entire seclusion from the literary world. Neither by correspondence nor by personal intercourse
• 2:31:35
  was she known to any contemporary authors. It is probable that she never was
• 2:31:41
  in company with any person whose talents or whose celebrity equalled her own, so
• 2:31:46
  that her powers never could have been sharpened by collision with superior intellects, nor
• 2:31:52
  her imagination aided by their casual suggestions. Whatever she produced was a genuine,
• 2:31:58
  homemade article. Even during the last two or three years of her life,
• 2:32:05
  when her works were rising in the estimation of the public, they did not
• 2:32:09
  enlarge the circle of her acquaintance. Few of her readers knew even her name,
• 2:32:15
  and none knew more of her than her name. I doubt whether it
• 2:32:18
  would be possible to mention any other author of note whose personal obscurity was so
• 2:32:24
  complete. I can't think of none like her, but of many to contrast
• 2:32:28
  with her in this respect. Fanny Burney. Afterwards, Madame d'ablair was at
• 2:32:35
  an early age, petted by Doctor Johnson and introduced to the wits and scholars
• 2:32:41
  of the day at the tables of Missus Rail and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Anna
• 2:32:46
  Silward, in herself constituted shrine at Litchfield, would have been miserable had she
• 2:32:52
  not trusted that the eyes of all lovers of poetry were devoutly fixed on her.
• 2:32:56
  Johanna Bailey and Maria Edgeworth were indeed far from curting publicity. They loved
• 2:33:03
  the privacy of their own families, one with their brother and sister in their
• 2:33:07
  Hampstead villa, the other in her more distant retreat in Ireland. But fame
• 2:33:13
  pursued them, and they were the favorite correspondents of Sir Walter Scott Crabbe,
• 2:33:20
  who was usually buried in a country parish, yet sometimes visited London and dined
• 2:33:24
  at Holland House, and was received as a fellow poet by Campbell, Moore
• 2:33:30
  and Rogers, And on one memorial occasion he was Scot's guests at Edinburgh and
• 2:33:35
  gazed with wondering eyes on the incongruous pageantry with which George the Fourth was entertained
• 2:33:41
  in that city. Even those great writers who hid themselves amongst lakes and mountains,
• 2:33:48
  associated with each other, and though little seeing by the world, was
• 2:33:54
  so much in its thoughts that a new term lacers was coined to designate them.
• 2:34:00
  The chief part of Charlotte's Bronte's life was spent in a wild solitude compared
• 2:34:05
  with which Stevenson and Chawton might be considered to be in the gay world.
• 2:34:11
  And yet she attained to personal distinction which never fought Jane's lot. When she
• 2:34:16
  visited her kind publisher in London, literary men and women were invited purposely to
• 2:34:22
  meet her. Thacker Ay bestowed upon her the honor of his notice, and
• 2:34:26
  once in Willis's rooms, she had to walk, shy and trembling through an
• 2:34:33
  avenue of lords and ladies drawn up for the purpose of gazing at the author
• 2:34:37
  of Jane Eyre. Miss Mitford too lived quietly in our village, devoting her
• 2:34:43
  time and talents to the benefit of her father, scarcely worthy of her,
• 2:34:48
  but she did not live there unknown. Her strategies gave her a name on
• 2:34:52
  London. She numbered Milman and Teuford amongst her correspondents, and her works were
• 2:34:58
  the passport the Society of many who would not otherwise have sought her. Hundreds
• 2:35:05
  admired Miss Midford on account of her writings. For one who ever connected the
• 2:35:09
  idea of Miss Austen with the press. A few years ago, a gentleman
• 2:35:13
  visiting Winchester Cathedral desired to be shown Miss Austen's grave. The Verger, as
• 2:35:20
  he pointed it out, asked, pray, sir, can you tell me
• 2:35:24
  whether there was anything particular about that lady? So many people want to know
• 2:35:28
  where she was buried. During her life, the ignorance of the verger was
• 2:35:33
  shared by most people. Few knew that there was anything particular about that lady.
• 2:35:39
  It was not till towards the close of her life, when the last
• 2:35:43
  of the works that she saw published was in the press, that she received
• 2:35:46
  the only mark of distinction ever bestowed upon her, And that was remarkable for
• 2:35:52
  the High Quarter whence it emanated, rather than for any actual increase of fame
• 2:35:58
  that it conferred. It happened thus, in the autumn of eighteen fifteen,
• 2:36:05
  she nursed her brother Henry through a dangerous fever and slow convalescence at his house
• 2:36:09
  in Hans's Place. He was attended by one of the Prince Regard's physicians.
• 2:36:16
  All attempts to keep her name secret had at this time seized, and though
• 2:36:22
  it had never appeared on a title page, all who cared to know might
• 2:36:26
  easily learn it. And the friendly physician was aware that his patience nurse was
• 2:36:31
  the author of Pride and Prejudice. Accordingly, he informed her one day that
• 2:36:37
  the Prince was a great admirer of her novels, that he read a muffin
• 2:36:41
  and kept her set in every one of his residences. That he himself therefore
• 2:36:46
  had thought it, writing from his Royal Highness, that Miss Austen was staying
• 2:36:50
  in London, and that the Prince had desired mister Clarke, the librarian of
• 2:36:54
  Carton Halls, to wait upon her. The next day mister Clark made his
• 2:37:01
  appearance and invited her to Calton House, saying that he had the Prince's instructions
• 2:37:05
  to show her the library and other apartments, and to pay her every possible
• 2:37:11
  attention. The invitation was of course accepted, and during the visit to Carlton
• 2:37:16
  House, mister Clark declared himself commissioned to say that if Miss Austen had any
• 2:37:22
  other novel forthcoming, she was at liberty to dedicate it to the Prince.
• 2:37:26
  Accordingly, such a dedication was immediately prefixed to Emma, which was at the
• 2:37:31
  time in the press. Mister Clark was the brother of Doctor Clark, the
• 2:37:37
  traveler and mineralogist, whose life has been written by Bishop Otter. Jane found
• 2:37:45
  him not only a very courteous gentleman, but also a warm admirer of her
• 2:37:48
  talents, though it would be seen by his letters that he did not clearly
• 2:37:52
  apprehend the limits of her powers or the proper feud for their exercise. The
• 2:37:58
  following correspondents took place between them. Feeling some apprehension lest she should make a
• 2:38:05
  mistake in acting on the verbal permission which I had received from the Prince,
• 2:38:09
  Jane addressed the following letter to mister Clark November fifteenth, eighteen fifteen. Sir,
• 2:38:18
  I must take the liberty of asking you a question. Among the many
• 2:38:24
  flattering attentions which I received from you were Carlton House on Monday, lest was
• 2:38:28
  an information of my being at liberty to dedicate any future work to His Royal
• 2:38:33
  Highness, the Prince Regent, without the necessity of any soltitation on my part.
• 2:38:39
  Such at least I believed to be your words. But as I am
• 2:38:43
  very anxious to be quite certain of what was intended, I entreated to have
• 2:38:48
  the goodness to inform me how such a permission to be understood, and whether
• 2:38:52
  it is incumbent on me to show my sense of the honor by inscribing the
• 2:38:58
  work now in the press to His Royal Highness. I should be equally concerned
• 2:39:01
  to appear either presumptors or ungrateful. The following Gracial's answer was returned by mister
• 2:39:09
  Clark, together with the suggestion, which must have been received to some surprise.
• 2:39:16
  Carlton House, November sixteenth, eighteen fifteen. Dear Madam, it is
• 2:39:22
  certainly not incumbent on you to dedicate your work now in the press to His
• 2:39:26
  Royal Highness, But if you wish to do the regend that honor, either
• 2:39:31
  now or at any future period, I am happy to send you that permission,
• 2:39:35
  which did not require any more trouble or solicitation on our part. Your
• 2:39:41
  late works, Madam, and in particular Mansfield Park, reflect the highest honor
• 2:39:46
  on your genius and your principles. In every new work, your mind seems
• 2:39:50
  to increase its energy and power of discrimination. The regend has read and admired
• 2:39:56
  all your publications, except my best thanks for the pleasure your volumes had given
• 2:40:03
  me. In the perusal of them, I felt a great inclination to write
• 2:40:07
  and say so. And I also, dear Madam, wished to be allowed
• 2:40:11
  to ask you to delineate in some future work, the habits of life and
• 2:40:16
  character and enthusiasm of a clergyman who should pass his time between the metropolis and
• 2:40:22
  the country, who should be something like Pidde's Manstrow, silent when glad factionate,
• 2:40:28
  though shy and in his looks, was most demurely said, and now
• 2:40:33
  he left aloud he had none knew why. Neither Goldsmith nor la Fontaine,
• 2:40:39
  in his stabloody for me, have in my mind quite delineated an English clergyman,
• 2:40:43
  at least of the present day, fond of and entirely engaged in literature.
• 2:40:50
  No man's enemy but his own pray, Dear Madam, think of these
• 2:40:54
  things. Believe me at all times with sincerity and respect, your faith full
• 2:41:00
  and obliged servant. J. S. Clark, Librarian. The following letter
• 2:41:05
  written in reply will show how unequal the author of Pride and Prejudice felt herself
• 2:41:11
  to delineating an enthusiastic clergyman of the present day who should resemble Betty's minstrel.
• 2:41:20
  December eleventh, Dear Sir, my Emma is now so near a publication that
• 2:41:26
  I feel it right to assure you of my not having forgotten your kind recommendation
• 2:41:31
  of an early copy for Carlton House, and that I have mister Murray's promise
• 2:41:35
  of its being sent to His Royal Highness under cover to you three days previous
• 2:41:41
  to the work being really out. I must make use of this opportunity to
• 2:41:46
  thank you, dear Sir, for the very high praise bestow on my other
• 2:41:50
  novels. I am too vain to wish to convince you that you have praised
• 2:41:54
  them beyond their merits. My greatest anxiety at present is that this oath work
• 2:42:00
  should not disgrace what was good in the others. But on this point I
• 2:42:05
  would do myself the justice to declare that whatever may be my wishes for his
• 2:42:09
  success, I am strongly haunted with the idea that to those readers who have
• 2:42:15
  preferred pride and prejudice, it will appear inferior in wit, and to those
• 2:42:20
  who have preferred Mansfield Park inferior in good sense, such as it is.
• 2:42:26
  However, I hope you will do me the favor of accepting a copy.
• 2:42:31
  Mister Murray will have directions for sending one. I am quite honored by your
• 2:42:35
  thinking me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you give the sketch off in
• 2:42:39
  your note of November sixteenth. But I assure you I am not the common
• 2:42:46
  part of the character. I may be equal to, but not the good,
• 2:42:48
  the enthusiastic, the literary. Such a man's conversation must at times be
• 2:42:54
  on subjects of science and philosophy on which I know nothing, or at least
• 2:43:00
  be occasionally abundant in quotations and allusions which a woman who like me knows only
• 2:43:07
  her own mother tongue and has read little in that would be totally without the
• 2:43:11
  power of giving a classical education, or at any rate, a very extensive
• 2:43:16
  acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern. Appears to be quite indispensable for
• 2:43:24
  the person who would do any justice to your clergyman. And I think I
• 2:43:28
  may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and
• 2:43:33
  uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress. Believe me, dear Sir,
• 2:43:39
  your obliged and faithful, humble servant, Jane Austen. Mister Clark,
• 2:43:46
  however, was not to be discouraged from proposing another subject. He had recently
• 2:43:52
  been appointed Chaplain in private English Secretary to Prince Leopold, who was then about
• 2:43:56
  to be united to the Princess Charlotte. And when he again wrote to express
• 2:44:01
  the gracious thanks of the Prince Regent for the copy of Emma which had been
• 2:44:05
  presented, he suggests that an historical romance illustrative at the August House of Cobourg
• 2:44:11
  would just now be very interesting and might very properly be dedicated to Prince Leopold.
• 2:44:20
  This was much as if Sir William Ross had been set to paint a
• 2:44:24
  great battle piece, and it is amusing to see with what great civility she
• 2:44:28
  declined, a proposal which must have struck her as ludicrous in the following letter,
• 2:44:35
  My dear Sir, I am honored by the Prince's thanks and very much
• 2:44:41
  obliged to yourself for the kind manner in which you mention the work. I
• 2:44:46
  have also to acknowledge a formal letter forwarded to me from Hans's place. I
• 2:44:50
  assure you I felt very grateful for the friendly tenor of it, and hope
• 2:44:56
  my silence will have been considered as it was truly to proceed only from an
• 2:45:01
  unwillingness to tax your time with idle thanks under every interesting circumstance which your own
• 2:45:09
  talents and literary labors have placed you in, or the favor of the Rege,
• 2:45:13
  and bestowed you have my best wishes. Your recent appointments, I hope
• 2:45:20
  are a step to something still better. In my opinion, the service of
• 2:45:24
  a court can hardly be too well paid for. Immense must be the sacrifice
• 2:45:28
  of time and feeling required by it. You are very kind in your hands
• 2:45:35
  as to the sort of composition which might recommend me at present, And I
• 2:45:39
  am fully sensible that an historical romance founded on the house of Sexe Cobourg may
• 2:45:45
  be much more to the purpose of profit and popularity than such pictures of domestic
• 2:45:50
  life and country villages as I deal in. But I could no more write
• 2:45:56
  a romance than an epic poem. I couldnot sit seriously down to write a
• 2:46:01
  serious romance under any other motive than to save my life. And if it
• 2:46:07
  were indispensable for me to keep it up, and never relaxed into laughing at
• 2:46:11
  myself at other people. I am sure I should be hung before I had
• 2:46:16
  finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and
• 2:46:20
  go on in my own way. And though I may never succeed again in
• 2:46:26
  that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other, I
• 2:46:31
  remain my dear sir, you are very much obliged and sincere Friend. J.
• 2:46:35
  Austen Chawton, near Alton, April first, eighteen sixteen. Mister Clark
• 2:46:45
  should have recollected the warning of the wise man, force not the course of
• 2:46:50
  the river. If you diverted from the channel in which nature taught it to
• 2:46:54
  flow, and force it into one habit charldly cut by yourself, you will
• 2:47:00
  lose its grace and beauty. But when his free course is not hindered,
• 2:47:05
  he makes sweet music with the animal stones, giving a gentle kiss to every
• 2:47:11
  search. He overtaketh in his pilgrimage. And so by many winding nuoksies trays
• 2:47:16
  with willing sport, all writers of fiction who have geniuses strong enough to work
• 2:47:22
  out a course of their own, resist every attempt to interfere with its direction.
• 2:47:30
  Not two writers could be more unlike each other than Jane Austen and Charlotte
• 2:47:33
  Bronte, so much so that the letter was unable to understand why the former
• 2:47:39
  was admired, and confessed that she herself should hardly like to live with her
• 2:47:43
  ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses. But each writer equally resisted
• 2:47:50
  interference with their own natural style of composition. Miss Bronte, in reply to
• 2:47:56
  a friendly critic who had her against being too melodramatic and had ventured to propose
• 2:48:03
  Miss Austen's works to her as a study, writes, thus, whenever I
• 2:48:11
  do write another book, I think I will have nothing of what you call
• 2:48:16
  melodrama. I think so, but I am not sure. I think too,
• 2:48:22
  I will endeavor to follow the council which shines out of Miss Austen's mild
• 2:48:26
  eyes, to finish more and be more subdued. But neither am I sure
• 2:48:31
  of that when authors write best, or at least when they write most fluently,
• 2:48:37
  an influence seems to awaken in them, which becomes their master, which
• 2:48:41
  will have its way putting out of you all beheas but its own, dictating
• 2:48:46
  certain words and insisting on their being used, whether a vehement or measured in
• 2:48:52
  their nature, new moding characters, giving a thought of terms of incidents,
• 2:48:58
  rejecting carefully elaborate old ideas, in suddenly creating and adopting new ones. Is
• 2:49:03
  it not so? And should we try to counteract this influence? Can you
• 2:49:09
  indeed contact it? The play, for rarely with which the one peris an
• 2:49:16
  attack on her liberty, and the vehement eloquence of the other in pleading the
• 2:49:20
  same cause and maintaining the independence of genius, are very characteristic at the minds
• 2:49:26
  of the respective writers. The suggestions which Jane received as to the sort of
• 2:49:31
  story that she ought to write, were, however, an amusement to her,
• 2:49:35
  though they were not likely to prove useful, and she has left amongst
• 2:49:39
  her papers when entitled plan of a novel according to hints from various quarters.
• 2:49:46
  The names of some of those advisers are written on the margin of the manuscript,
• 2:49:50
  opposite to their respective suggestions. Heroin to be the daughter of a clergyman
• 2:49:58
  who, after having lived much in the world, had retired from it and
• 2:50:01
  settled on accuracy with a very small fortune of his own the most excellent man
• 2:50:07
  that can be imagined, perfect in character, temper, and manner, without
• 2:50:13
  the smallest drawback or peculiarity to prevent his being the most delightful companion to his
• 2:50:18
  daughter from one year's end to the other, herring thoughtless in character, beautiful
• 2:50:24
  in person, and possessing every possible accomplishment. Booked to open with father and
• 2:50:31
  daughter conversing in long speeches, elegant language and a tone of high serious sentiment.
• 2:50:39
  The father induced, at his daughter's ernest request to relate to her the
• 2:50:43
  past events of his life. Narrative to reach through the greater part of the
• 2:50:48
  first volume, as besides all the circumstances of his attachment to her mother and
• 2:50:54
  their marriage, it would comprehends his going to see as chaplain to a distinguished
• 2:50:58
  neighbor character the court, and is going afterwards to court himself, which involved
• 2:51:05
  him in many interesting situations, concluding with his opinion of the benefits of tithes
• 2:51:09
  being done away with. From this outset, the story will proceed and contain
• 2:51:16
  a striking variety of adventures. Father an exemplary perish priest and devoted to literature,
• 2:51:24
  but heroin and father never above a fortnight in one place, he being
• 2:51:30
  driven from his curacy by the vile arts of some totally and principled and heartlet
• 2:51:35
  young men desperately in love with the heroine and pursuing her with the unrelenting passion.
• 2:51:43
  No sooner setient in one country of Europe than they are compelled to quit
• 2:51:48
  it and retire to another, always making new acquaintance, and always obliged to
• 2:51:52
  leave them. This will, of course exhibit the wide variety of character.
• 2:51:58
  The scene will be forever shifting froments out of people to another, but there
• 2:52:03
  will be no mixture. All the good will be unexceptionable in every respect,
• 2:52:11
  there will be no fibles or weaknesses, but with the wicked, who will
• 2:52:16
  be completely depraved and infamous, hardly resemblance of humanity left in them. Early
• 2:52:22
  in her career, the heroine must meet with the hero all perfection, of
• 2:52:28
  course, and only prevented from paying his addresses to her by some excess of
• 2:52:33
  refinement. Wherever she goes, somebody falls in love with her, and she
• 2:52:39
  receives repeated offers of marriage, which she refers wholly to her father, exceedingly
• 2:52:46
  angry that he should not be the first applied to often carried away by the
• 2:52:52
  anti hero, by rescued either by her father or the hero, often reduced
• 2:52:58
  to support herself in a by her talents and work for her bread, continually
• 2:53:03
  cheated and refouded of her hire, one down to skeleton and now and then
• 2:53:09
  starved death. At last, hunted out of civilized society, Denied the poor
• 2:53:16
  shelter of the humblest cottage, they are compelled to retreat in the camp's chactka,
• 2:53:22
  where the poor father, quiet won down, finding his end approaching,
• 2:53:28
  throws himself from the ground, and after four or five hours of tender advice
• 2:53:33
  and parental admonition to his miserable child, expires in a fine burst of literary
• 2:53:39
  enthusiasm intermingled with invectives against the holders of tithes heroin inconsolable for some time,
• 2:53:50
  but afterwards crawls back towards her former country, having at least twenty narrow escapes
• 2:53:56
  of falling to the hands of anti hero, and at last, in the
• 2:54:01
  very nick of time, turning a corner to avoid him, runs into the
• 2:54:07
  arms of the hero himself, who, having just shaken off these scruples which
• 2:54:11
  fettered him before, was at the very moment setting off in pursuit of her
• 2:54:18
  the tenderest and completed, Sir Claricisman takes place, and they are happily united
• 2:54:26
  throughout the whole work, hering to being the most elegant society and living in
• 2:54:31
  high style. Since the first publication of this memoir, mister Murray of Albermarle
• 2:54:37
  Street has very kindly sent to me copies of the following letters which his father
• 2:54:43
  received from Jane Austen when engaged in the publication of Emma. The increasing cordiality
• 2:54:50
  of the letter shows that the author felt that her interests were duly cared for,
• 2:54:54
  and was glad to find herself in the hands of a publisher whom she
• 2:54:58
  could consider as a friend. Her brother had addressed to mister Murray a strong
• 2:55:05
  complaint of the tardiness of the printer twenty three hands Plays, Thursday, November
• 2:55:11
  twenty third, eighteen fifteen. Sir, my brother's note last Monday has been
• 2:55:20
  so fruitless that I am afraid there can be but little chance of my writing
• 2:55:24
  to any good effect. But yet I am so very much disappointed and vexed
• 2:55:30
  by the delays of the printers, that I cannot help begging to know whether
• 2:55:33
  there is no hope of their being quickened. Instead of the work being ready
• 2:55:37
  by the end of the present month, it will hardly ad written, will
• 2:55:41
  now proceed be finished by the end of the next And as I expect to
• 2:55:46
  leave London early in December, it is of consequence that no more time should
• 2:55:50
  be lost. Is it likely that the printers will be influenced to greater dispatch
• 2:55:58
  and punctuality by knowing that the work is to be dedicated by permission to the
• 2:56:01
  Prince Regent? If you can make that circumstance operate, I shall be very
• 2:56:07
  glad. My brother returns waterly with many thanks for the loan of it.
• 2:56:13
  We have heard much of Scott's account of Paris. If it be not incompatible
• 2:56:18
  with other arrangements, would you favor us with it? Supposing you have any
• 2:56:22
  set already opened, you may depend upon its being careful hands. I remain,
• 2:56:30
  sir, your obstinate, humble servant. J. Austen Hans Place,
• 2:56:37
  December eleventh, eighteen fifteen. Dear Sir, as I find that Emma is
• 2:56:43
  advertised for publication as early as Saturday next, I think it best to lose
• 2:56:48
  no time in settling all that remains to be settled on the subject, and
• 2:56:52
  adopt this method as involving the smallest tax on your time. In the first
• 2:56:58
  place, I beg you to understand and that I leave the terms on which
• 2:57:01
  the trade should be supplied with the work entirely to your judgment, entreating you
• 2:57:07
  to be guided in every such arrangement by your own experience of what is most
• 2:57:13
  likely to clear off the edition rapidly. I shall be satisfied with whatever you
• 2:57:18
  feel to be best. The title page must be EMMA dedicated by permission to
• 2:57:26
  His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent. And it is my particular wish that
• 2:57:31
  one set should be completed and sent to His Royal Highness two or three days
• 2:57:35
  before the work is generally public. It should be sent under cover to Reverend
• 2:57:41
  J. S. Clark, Librarian Carlton House. I shall subjoin a list
• 2:57:46
  of those persons to whom I must trouble you to forward also set each when
• 2:57:52
  the work is out, all unbound with from the authoress and the first page
• 2:58:00
  return you with very many thanks the books you have so obligingly supplied me with.
• 2:58:05
  I am very sensible. I assure you of the attention you have paid
• 2:58:09
  to my convenience and amusement. I return also Mansfield Park as ready for a
• 2:58:16
  second edition. I believe as I can make it. I am in Hans's
• 2:58:20
  Place till the sixteenth. From that day inclusive, my direction will be Chelton,
• 2:58:26
  Alton Hans. I remain dear Sir, your faithful, humble servant,
• 2:58:31
  J. Austen, I wish you would have the goodness to send the line
• 2:58:35
  by the bearer stating the day on which the set will be ready for the
• 2:58:39
  Prince Regent Hen's Place. December eleventh, eighteen fifteen. Dear Sir, I
• 2:58:50
  am much obliged by yours and very happy to feel everything arranged to our mutual
• 2:58:54
  satisfaction. As to my direction about the title page, it was arising from
• 2:59:01
  my ignorance only, and from my having never noticed the proper place for dedication.
• 2:59:07
  I thank you for putting me right. Any deviation from what is usually
• 2:59:11
  done in such cases is the last thing I should wish for. I feel
• 2:59:16
  happy in having a friend to save me from the ill effect of my own
• 2:59:20
  blunder. Yours, Dear Sir, et cetera. J. Austen Thornton,
• 2:59:28
  April first, eighteen sixteen, Dear Sir, I return you the quarterly review
• 2:59:35
  with many thanks. The authoress of Emma has no reason a thing to complain
• 2:59:41
  of her treatment in it, except in the total omission of Mansfield Park.
• 2:59:46
  I cannot but be sorry that so clever a man as the reviewer of Emma,
• 2:59:50
  should consider it as unworthy of being noticed. You will be pleased to
• 2:59:56
  hear that I have received the Prince's thanks for the handsome coup I sent him
• 3:00:00
  of Emma. Whatever you may think of my share of the work, yours
• 3:00:05
  seem to have been quite right. In consequence of the late event in Henrietta
• 3:00:11
  Street. I must request that if you should, at any time have anything
• 3:00:16
  to communicate by letter, you will be so good as to write by the
• 3:00:18
  posts directing to me Miss J. Austen, Chawton, near Alton, And
• 3:00:26
  that for anything of a larger book you will lead to the same direction by
• 3:00:31
  Collier's Sampton Coach. I remain dear, Sir, yours very faithfully, J.
• 3:00:37
  Austen. About the same time the following letters passed between the Countess of
• 3:00:43
  Morley and the writer of Emma. I do not know whether they were personally
• 3:00:48
  acquainted with each other, nor in what this interchange of civilities originated the Countess
• 3:00:56
  of Morley to Miss j Austen, Autumn December twenty seventh, eighteen fifteen.
• 3:01:03
  Madam, I have been most anxiously waiting for an introduction to Emma, and
• 3:01:09
  I am infinitely obliged to you for a kind recollection of me which will procure
• 3:01:15
  me the pleasure of her acquaintance some day sooner than I should otherwise have had
• 3:01:20
  it. I am already become intimate with the Woodhouse family and feel that they
• 3:01:26
  will not amuse and interest me less than the Bennetts, Bechanms, Nurises,
• 3:01:31
  and all their admirable predecessors. I can give them no higher praise, I
• 3:01:37
  am, Madam, you are much obliged f Molly. Miss j Austen to
• 3:01:43
  the Countess of Molly, Madam, accept my thanks for the honor of your
• 3:01:50
  note and for a kind disposition in favor of Emma. In my present state
• 3:01:56
  of doubt as to her reception in the world, it is particularly gratifying to
• 3:02:01
  me to receive so early an assurance of her Ladyship's approbation. It encourages me
• 3:02:07
  to depend on the same share of general a good opinion which Emma's predecessors have
• 3:02:11
  experienced, and to believe that I have not yet, as almost every writer
• 3:02:16
  of fancy this sooner or later of a written myself. I am Madam,
• 3:02:22
  your obliged and faithful servant, j Austen, December thirty first, eighteen fifteen,
• 3:02:31
  and of chapter seven, Chapter eight. Slow growth of her fame,
• 3:02:39
  ill success of first attempts at publication. Two reviews of her works contrasted.
• 3:02:46
  Seldom has any literary reputation been of such slow growth as that of Jane Austen.
• 3:02:52
  Readers of the present day know the rank that is generally assigned to her.
• 3:02:56
  They have been told by Archbishop Whatley in his review of her works,
• 3:03:01
  and by Lord macaulay in his review of Madame d'arblay's the reason why the highest
• 3:03:05
  place is to be awarded to Jane Austen as a truthful drawer of character,
• 3:03:11
  and why she is to be classed with those who have approached nearest in that
• 3:03:13
  respect to the great Master Shakespeare. They see her safely placed by such authorities
• 3:03:20
  in her niche not indeed amongst the highest orders of genius, but in one
• 3:03:24
  confessedly her own and our British temple of literary fame, and it may be
• 3:03:31
  difficult to make them believe how coldly her works were at first received, and
• 3:03:35
  how few readers had any appreciation of their peculiar merits. Sometimes a friend or
• 3:03:39
  neighbor who chanced to know of our connection with the author would condescend to speak
• 3:03:45
  with moderate approbation of sense and sensibility, or pride and prejudice. But if
• 3:03:50
  they had known that we and our secret thoughts classed her with Madame D'Arblay or
• 3:03:54
  miss Edgeworth, or even with some other novel writers of the day whose name
• 3:04:00
  are now scarcely remembered, they would have considered it an amusing instance of family
• 3:04:03
  Conceit, to the multitude, her works appeared tame in commonplace, poor and
• 3:04:09
  coloring, and sadly deficient, and incident and interest. It is true that
• 3:04:15
  we were sometimes cheered by hearing that a different verdict had been pronounced by more
• 3:04:18
  competent judges. We were told how some great statesmen or distinguished poet held these
• 3:04:24
  works in high estimation. We had the satisfaction of believing that they were most
• 3:04:28
  admired by the best judges, and comforted ourselves with Horace's sadus as equitum mihi
• 3:04:35
  plaudier. So much was this the case that one of the ablest men of
• 3:04:41
  my acquaintance said, in that kind of jest which is made earnest in it,
• 3:04:46
  that he had established it in his own mind as a new test of
• 3:04:48
  ability whether people could or could not appreciate Miss Austen's merits. But though such
• 3:04:56
  golden opinions were now and then gathered in, yet the wide field of public
• 3:05:01
  taste yielded no adequate return, either in praise or profit. Her reward was
• 3:05:07
  not to be the quick return of the cornfield, but the slow growth of
• 3:05:09
  the tree, which is to endure to another generation. Her first attempts at
• 3:05:15
  publication were very discouraging. In November seventeen ninety seven, her father wrote the
• 3:05:20
  following letter to mister Cadell, Sir, I have in my possession a manuscript
• 3:05:26
  novel comprising three volumes about the length of Miss Burney's Evelina. As I am
• 3:05:33
  well aware of what consequence it is that a work of this sort should make
• 3:05:37
  its first appearance under a respectable name I apply to you. I shall be
• 3:05:41
  much obliged therefore, if you will inform me whether you choose to be concerned
• 3:05:46
  in it, what will be the expense of publishing it at the author's risk,
• 3:05:50
  and what you will venture to advance for the property of it, if
• 3:05:52
  on perusal it is approved of. Should you give any encouragement, I will
• 3:05:58
  send you the work. I am, sir, your humble servant, George
• 3:06:01
  Austen, Steventon, near Overton, Hants, first November seventeen ninety seven.
• 3:06:11
  This proposal was declined by return of post. The work, thus summarily rejected,
• 3:06:16
  must have been pride and prejudice. The fate of Northanger Abbey was still
• 3:06:22
  more humiliating. It was sold in eighteen o three to a publisher in Bath
• 3:06:26
  for ten pounds, but it found so little favor in his eyes that he
• 3:06:31
  chose to abide by his first loss rather than risk farther expense by publishing such
• 3:06:35
  a work. It seems to have lain for many years unnoticed in his drawers,
• 3:06:41
  somewhat as the first chapters of Waverley looked forgotten amongst the old fishing tackle
• 3:06:45
  in Scott's cabinet, Tilney's, Thorpe's and Morland's consigned apparently to eternal oblivion.
• 3:06:52
  But when four novels of steadily increasing success had given the writer some confidence in
• 3:06:56
  herself. She wished to recover the copyright of this early work. One of
• 3:07:01
  her brothers undertook the negotiation. He found the purchaser very willing to receive back
• 3:07:07
  his money and to resign all claim to the copyright when the bargain was concluded
• 3:07:13
  and the money paid, But not till then the negotiator had the satisfaction of
• 3:07:18
  informing him that the work which had been so lightly esteemed was by the author
• 3:07:20
  of pride and prejudice. I do not think that she was herself much mortified
• 3:07:26
  by the want of early success. She wrote for her own amusement. Money,
• 3:07:31
  though acceptable, was not necessary for the moderate expenses of her quiet home.
• 3:07:35
  Above all, she was blessed with a cheerful, contented disposition and a
• 3:07:39
  humble mind. And so lowly did she esteem her own claims that when she
• 3:07:45
  received one hundred fifty pounds from the sale of Sense and Sensibility, she considered
• 3:07:50
  it a prodigious recompence for that which should cost her nothing. It cannot be
• 3:07:56
  supposed, however, that she was altogether insensible to the superiority of her own
• 3:08:00
  workmanship over that of some contemporaries who are then enjoying a brief popularity. Indeed,
• 3:08:05
  a few touches in the following extracts from two of her letters show that
• 3:08:09
  she was as quick sighted to absurdities and composition as to those in living persons.
• 3:08:16
  Mister C's opinion is gone down in my list, But as my paper
• 3:08:18
  relates only to Mansfield Park, I may fortunately excuse myself from entering mister D's
• 3:08:26
  I will redeem my credit with him by writing a close imitation of self control.
• 3:08:30
  As soon as I can, I will improve upon it. My heroine
• 3:08:35
  shall not only be wafted down an American river in a boat by herself.
• 3:08:39
  She shall cross the Atlantic in the same way, and never stop till she
• 3:08:43
  reaches Gravesend. We have got Rosanne in our society, and find it,
• 3:08:48
  much as you describe it, very good and clever, but tedious. Missus
• 3:08:52
  Hawkins's great excellence is on serious subjects. There are some very delightful conversations and
• 3:08:58
  reflections on religion, but on lighter topics I think she falls into many absurdities,
• 3:09:03
  and as to love her heroine has very comical feelings. There are a
• 3:09:07
  thousand improbabilities in the story do you remember the two miss Ormstons introduced just at
• 3:09:13
  last? Very flat and unnatural. Mademoiselle Casart is rather my passion. Two
• 3:09:20
  notices of her works appeared in the Quarterly Review, one in October eighteen fifteen,
• 3:09:26
  and another more than three years after her death, in January eighteen twenty
• 3:09:31
  one. The latter article is known to have been from the pen of Whatley,
• 3:09:35
  afterwards Archbishop of Dublin. They differ much from each other in the degree
• 3:09:39
  of praise which they award, and I think also, it may be said,
• 3:09:43
  and the ability with which they are written. The first bestows some approval,
• 3:09:48
  but the other expresses the warmest admiration. One can scarcely be satisfied with
• 3:09:54
  the critical acumen of the former writer, who, in treating of sense and
• 3:09:58
  Sensibility, takes no notice whatever of the vigor with which many of the characters
• 3:10:03
  are drawn, but declares that the interest and merit of the piece depends altogether
• 3:10:07
  upon the behavior of the elder sister. Nor is he fair when, in
• 3:10:13
  pride and prejudice he represents Elizabeth's change of sentiments towards Darcy as caused by the
• 3:10:18
  side of his house and grounds. But the chief discrepancy between the two reviewers
• 3:10:24
  is to be found in their appreciation of the commonplace and silly characters to be
• 3:10:26
  found in these novels. On this point, the difference almost amounts to a
• 3:10:31
  contradiction, such as one sometimes sees drawn up in parallel columns when it is
• 3:10:37
  desired to convict some writer or some statesman of inconsistency. The reviewer in eighteen
• 3:10:43
  fifteen says, the faults of these works arise from the minute detail which the
• 3:10:48
  author's plan comprehends. Characters of folly or simplicity, such as those of Old
• 3:10:54
  wood House and Miss Bates, are ridiculous when first presented, but if too
• 3:10:58
  often brought forward or too long dwelt on, their prosing is apt to become
• 3:11:03
  as tiresome in fiction as in real society. The reviewer in eighteen twenty one,
• 3:11:09
  on the contrary, singles out the Fools as especial instances of the writer's
• 3:11:13
  abilities, and declares that in this respect she shows a regard to character hardly
• 3:11:18
  exceeded by Shakespeare himself. These are his words. Like him Shakespeare, she
• 3:11:26
  shows as admirable a discrimination in the character of fools as of people of sense,
• 3:11:31
  a merit, which is far from common to invent. Indeed, a
• 3:11:35
  conversation full of wisdom or of wit requires that the writer should himself possess ability,
• 3:11:39
  but the converse does not hold good. It is no fool that can
• 3:11:43
  describe fools well. And many who have succeeded pretty well in painting superior characters
• 3:11:50
  have failed in giving individuality to those weaker ones which it is necessary to introduce
• 3:11:54
  in order to give a faithful representation of real life. They exhibit to us
• 3:12:00
  mere folly in the abstract, forgetting that to the eye of the skillful naturalists,
• 3:12:03
  the insects on a leaf present as wide differences as exist between the lion
• 3:12:07
  and the elephant, slender and shallow and egg cheek, as Shakespeare has painted
• 3:12:13
  them. Though equally, fools resemble one another no more than Richard and Macbeth
• 3:12:18
  and Julius Caesar and Miss Sawson's Missus Bennett, mister Rushworth and Miss Bates are
• 3:12:24
  no more alike than her, Darcy Knightley and Edmund Bertram. Some have complained,
• 3:12:30
  indeed, of finding her fools too much like nature and consequently tiresome.
• 3:12:35
  There is no disputing about tastes. All we can say is that such critics
• 3:12:39
  must, whatever deference they may outwardly pay to received opinions, find the Merry
• 3:12:43
  Wives of Windsor and Twelfth Night very tiresome, and that those who look with
• 3:12:48
  pleasure at Wilkie's pictures or those of the Dutch school, must admit that excellence
• 3:12:52
  of imitation making for attraction on that which would be insipid or disagreeable in the
• 3:12:58
  reality. Our minuteness of detail has also been found fault with. But even
• 3:13:03
  where it produces at the time a degree of tediousness, we know not whether
• 3:13:07
  that can justly be reckoned a blemish which is absolutely essential to a very high
• 3:13:11
  excellence. Now it is absolutely impossible without this to produce that thorough acquaintance with
• 3:13:18
  the characters which is necessary to make the reader heartily interested in them. Let
• 3:13:22
  any one cut out from the Iliad or from Shakespeare's plays everything. We are
• 3:13:28
  far from saying that either might not lose some parts with advantage. But let
• 3:13:31
  him reject everything which is absolutely devoid of importance and interest, and he will
• 3:13:37
  find that what is left will have lost more than half its charms. We
• 3:13:41
  are convinced that some writers have diminished the effect of their works by being scrupulous
• 3:13:45
  to admit nothing into them which had not some absolute and independent merit. They
• 3:13:50
  have acted like those who strip off the leaves of a fruit tree, as
• 3:13:54
  being of themselves good for nothing, with the view of securing more nourishment to
• 3:13:58
  the fruit, which in fact cannot attain its full maturity and flavor without them.
• 3:14:05
  The world, I think, has endorsed the opinion of the later writer,
• 3:14:09
  But it would not be fair to set down the discrepancy between the two
• 3:14:11
  entirely to the discredit of the former. The fact is that in the course
• 3:14:16
  of the intervening five years, these works have been read and re read by
• 3:14:20
  many leaders in the literary world. The public taste was forming itself all this
• 3:14:26
  time, and grew by what it fed on. These novels belonged to a
• 3:14:30
  class which gain rather than lose by frequent perusals, and it is probable that
• 3:14:35
  each reviewer represented fairly enough the prevailing opinions of readers in the year when each
• 3:14:39
  wrote. Since that time, the testimonies in favor of Jane Austen's works have
• 3:14:46
  been continual and almost unanimous. They are frequently referred to as models. Nor
• 3:14:52
  had they lost their first distinction of being especially acceptable to minds of the highest
• 3:14:56
  order. I shall indulge myself by collecting into the the next chapter instances of
• 3:15:01
  the homage paid to her by such persons end of chapter eight, Chapter nine,
• 3:15:07
  opinions expressed by eminent persons, opinions of others of less eminence, opinion
• 3:15:16
  of American readers. Into this list of the admirers of my aunt's works,
• 3:15:20
  I admit those only whose eminence will be universally acknowledged. No doubt the number
• 3:15:26
  might have been increased. Southey, in a letter to Sir Egerton Bridges,
• 3:15:31
  says, you mentioned Miss Austen. Her novels are more true to nature,
• 3:15:37
  and have for my sympathies passages of finer feeling than any others of this age.
• 3:15:43
  She was a person of whom I have heard so well and thinks so
• 3:15:46
  highly, that I regret not having had an opportunity of testifying to her the
• 3:15:52
  respect which I felt for It may be observed that Southey had probably heard from
• 3:15:58
  his own family connections of the charm of her private character. A friend of
• 3:16:03
  us, the daughter of mister big Wither of many Down Park, near Basingstoke,
• 3:16:09
  was married to Southey's uncle, the Reverend Herbert Hill, who had been
• 3:16:15
  useful to his nephew in many ways, and especially in supplying him with the
• 3:16:18
  means of attaining his extensive knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese literature. Mister Hill had
• 3:16:24
  been chaplain to the British factory at Lisbon, where Southy visited him, and
• 3:16:30
  had the use of a library in those languages which his uncle had collected.
• 3:16:35
  Southey himself continually mentions his uncle Hill in terms of respect and gratitude. St.
• 3:16:43
  Coleridge would sometimes burst out into high encomiums of Miss Austen's novels as being,
• 3:16:48
  in their way perfectly genuine and individual productions. I remember Miss Mitford saying
• 3:16:56
  to me, I would almost cut off one of my hands if it would
• 3:17:00
  enable me to write like your aunt with the other. The biographer of Sir
• 3:17:03
  J. Mackrindar says something recalled to his mind the traits of character which are
• 3:17:09
  so delicately touched in Miss Austen's novels. He said that there was genius in
• 3:17:15
  sketching out that new kind of novel. He was vexed for the credit of
• 3:17:18
  the Edinburgh Review that it had left her unnoticed the quarterly had done her more
• 3:17:24
  justice. It was impossible for a foreigner to understand fully the merit of her
• 3:17:30
  works. Madame de Stall, to whom he had recommended one of her novels,
• 3:17:35
  found no interest in it, and in her note to him in reply
• 3:17:39
  said it was vulgar. And yet he said nothing could be more true than
• 3:17:45
  what he wrote in answer, there is no book which that word would so
• 3:17:48
  little suit. Every village could furnish matter for a novel. To Miss Austen,
• 3:17:54
  she did not need the common materials for a novel strong emotions or strong
• 3:17:58
  incident. It was not, however, quite impossible for a foreigner to appreciate
• 3:18:03
  these works. For Massour Ghiseau writes, thus, I am a great novel
• 3:18:09
  reader, and I seldom read German all French novels. The characters are too
• 3:18:15
  artificial. My delight is to read English novels, particularly those written by women.
• 3:18:20
  Setur unqui de morul Miss Austen, miss Ferrier, et cetera, from
• 3:18:26
  a school which, in the excellence and profusion of its productions, resembles the
• 3:18:31
  cloud of dramatic poets of the Great Athenian Age. In the keepsake of eighteen
• 3:18:37
  twenty five, the following lines appeared, written by Lord Morpeth afterwards, Seventh
• 3:18:43
  Earl of Carlisle and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, accompanying an illustration of a lady
• 3:18:50
  reading a novel beats thy quick pulse or Ingebald's thrilling leaf, Brunton's eye moral
• 3:18:56
  Opie's deep wrought grief has them. I'll chaperone claim thy yielding art, Gerald's
• 3:19:03
  dark page to Valiant's gentle art. Or is it thou all perfect Austin here,
• 3:19:09
  let one poor wreath adorn thy early pair that scarce, allow thy modest
• 3:19:15
  youth to claim its living portion of thy certain fame. Oh, Missus Bennet,
• 3:19:20
  Missus Norris too, while memorys of eyes will dream of you, And
• 3:19:26
  mister Woodhouse, whose substimious lip must thin but not too thin. His gruel
• 3:19:33
  sip miss bates our idol though the village bore and Missus Elton oughtn't to explore,
• 3:19:41
  while the clear style flows on without pretense, with unstained purity and unmad
• 3:19:46
  sense. Or if a sister here approached the throne, she called the rich
• 3:19:52
  inheritance her own. The admiration felt by Lord Macauley would probably have taken a
• 3:19:58
  very practical fe wm if his life had been prolonged. I have the authority
• 3:20:03
  of his sister, Lady Trevillian, for stating that he had intended to undertake
• 3:20:09
  the task upon which I have ventured. He purposed to write a memoir of
• 3:20:13
  Miss Austen with criticisms of her works, to prefix it to a new edition
• 3:20:18
  of her novels, and from the proceeds of the sale, to erect a
• 3:20:22
  monument to her memory in Winchester Castle. Oh that such an idea had been
• 3:20:28
  realized, that portion of the plan which Lord Macaulay's success would have been most
• 3:20:33
  certain, might have been almost sufficient for his object. A memoir written by
• 3:20:37
  him would have been a monument. I am kindly permitted by Sir Henry Holland
• 3:20:43
  to give the following quotation from his printed but unpublished recollections of his past life.
• 3:20:48
  I have the picture still before me of Lord Holland lying on his bed,
• 3:20:52
  when attacked with gout, his admirable sister Miss Fox beside him, reading
• 3:20:58
  aloud, as he always did on these occasions, some one of Miss Austen's
• 3:21:03
  novels, of which he was never wearied. I well recollect the time when
• 3:21:09
  these charming novels, almost unique in their style of humor, burst suddenly on
• 3:21:13
  the world, it was sad that their writer did not live to witness the
• 3:21:18
  growth of her fame. My brother in law, Sir Denis Lemochamp, has
• 3:21:24
  supplied me with the following anecdotes from his own recollections. When I was a
• 3:21:28
  student at Drinity College, Cambridge, mister Whewell, then a fellow and afterwards
• 3:21:35
  master of a college, often spoke to me with admiration of Miss Austen's novels.
• 3:21:41
  On one occasion I said that I had found Persuasion rather dull. He
• 3:21:45
  quite fired up in defense of it, insisting that it was the most beautiful
• 3:21:50
  of her works. This accomplished philosopher was deeply versed in works of fiction.
• 3:21:56
  I recollect his writing to me from Carnival, where he had the charge of
• 3:22:01
  some pupils that he was weary of his stay, for he had read the
• 3:22:05
  circulating library twice through. During a visit I paid to Lord Lansdowne at Bowood
• 3:22:11
  in eighteen hundred and forty six, one of Miss Austen's novels became the subject
• 3:22:16
  of conversation and of praise, especially from Lord Lansdowne, who observed that one
• 3:22:22
  of the circumstances of his life, which he looked back upon with vexation,
• 3:22:28
  was that Miss Austin should once have been living some weeks in his neighborhood without
• 3:22:31
  his knowing it. I have heard Sydney Smith more than once and well,
• 3:22:37
  with eloquence on the merits of Miss Austen's novels. He told me he should
• 3:22:43
  have enjoyed, giving how the pleasure of reading her praises in the Edinburgh Review.
• 3:22:48
  Fanny Bryce was one of his prime favorites. I close this list of
• 3:22:52
  testimonies this long Coatina Potram with the remarkable words of Sir Walter Scott, taken
• 3:22:58
  from his die for March fourteenth, eighteen hundred and twenty six, read again
• 3:23:03
  for the third time at least miss Aspen's finally written novel of Pride and Prejudice.
• 3:23:09
  That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters
• 3:23:15
  of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met.
• 3:23:18
  With the big barewell strain, I can do myself like any now going,
• 3:23:24
  but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth
• 3:23:31
  of the description, and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity
• 3:23:35
  such a gifted creature died so early. The well worn condition of Scott's own
• 3:23:41
  copy of these works attests that they were much read in his family. When
• 3:23:46
  I visited Abbotsford a few years after Scott's death, I was permitted, as
• 3:23:50
  an unusual favor to take one of these volumes in my hands. One cannot
• 3:23:56
  suppress the wish that she had lived to know what such men thought of her
• 3:24:00
  powers, and how gladly they would have cultivated a personal acquaintance with her.
• 3:24:05
  I do not think that it would at all have impaired the modest simplicity of
• 3:24:09
  her character, or that we should have lost our own dear aunt Jane in
• 3:24:13
  a blaze of literary fame. It may be amusing to contrast with these testimonies
• 3:24:20
  from the great the opinions expressed by other readers of more ordinary intellect. The
• 3:24:24
  author herself has left a list of criticisms, which it had been her amusement
• 3:24:30
  to collect through means of her friends. This list contains much of warm hearted,
• 3:24:35
  sympathizing praise, interspersed with some opinions which may be considered surprising. One
• 3:24:41
  lady could say nothing better of Mansfield Park than it was a mere novel.
• 3:24:46
  Another owned that she thought sense and sensibility and brightened prejudice downright nonsense, but
• 3:24:54
  expected to like Mansfield Park better, and having finished the first Partilliam, hoped
• 3:25:00
  that she had got through the worst. Another did not like Mansfield Park nothing
• 3:25:05
  interesting in the characters language four. One gentleman read the first and last chapters
• 3:25:11
  of Emma, but did not look at the rest, because he had been
• 3:25:13
  told that it was not interesting. The opinions of another gentleman about Emma was
• 3:25:18
  so bad that they could not be reported to the author Kwai Armand's Tats and
• 3:25:24
  Fincher. Thirty five years after her death, there came also a voice of
• 3:25:31
  praise from across the Atlantic in eighteen fifty five. The following letter was received
• 3:25:35
  by her brothers of Francis Austen, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, sixth January
• 3:25:43
  eighteen hundred and fifty two. Since high critical authority has pronounced the delineations of
• 3:25:48
  character in the works of Jane Austen second only to those of Shakespeare, transatmatic
• 3:25:54
  admiration appears superfluous, Yet it may not be uninterested to her family to receive
• 3:26:01
  an assurance that the influence of her genius is extensively recognized in the American Republic,
• 3:26:07
  even by the highest judicial authorities. The late mister Chief Justice Marshall of
• 3:26:15
  the Supreme Court of the United States and his associate Mister Justice's story highly estimated
• 3:26:20
  and admired Missus Austen, and to them we owe our introduction to her society.
• 3:26:26
  For many years, her talents have brightened our daily path, and her
• 3:26:31
  name in those of her characters, are familiar to us as household words.
• 3:26:35
  We have long wished to express to some of her family the sentiments of gratitude
• 3:26:41
  and affection she has inspired, and request more information relative to her life than
• 3:26:46
  is given in the brief memoir prefixed to her works. Having accidentally that a
• 3:26:52
  brother of Jane Austen eld a high rank in the British Navy, we have
• 3:26:56
  obtained his address from our friends and Admiral Wormly, now resident in Boston,
• 3:27:03
  and we trust and this expression of our feeling will be received by her relations
• 3:27:07
  with the kindness and of vanity characteristic of admirals of her creation. Sir Francis
• 3:27:13
  Austen or one of his family would confer a great favor by complying with our
• 3:27:20
  request. The autograph of his sister, or a few lines in her handwriting,
• 3:27:24
  would be placed among our chief treasures. The family who delight in the
• 3:27:30
  companionship of Jane Austen and who present this petition are of English origin. Their
• 3:27:35
  ancestor held a high rank among the first emigrants to New England, and his
• 3:27:41
  name and character have been ably represented by his descendants in various public stations of
• 3:27:46
  trust and responsibility. To the present time in the colony and state of Massachusetts,
• 3:27:54
  a letter addressed to Miss Quincey, care of the Honorable Joshua Quincy,
• 3:27:58
  Boston, Massachusetts, would reach its destination. Sir Francis Austin returned a suitable
• 3:28:05
  reply to this application and sent a long letter of the sisters, which no
• 3:28:09
  doubt still occupies the place of honor promised by the Quincy family. End of
• 3:28:16
  Chapter nine, Chapter ten observations on the novels. It is not the object
• 3:28:22
  of these memoirs to attempt to criticism on Jane Austen's novels. Those particulars only
• 3:28:30
  have been noticed which could be illustrated by the circumstances of her own life.
• 3:28:35
  But I now desire to offer a few observations on them, and especially on
• 3:28:39
  one point on which my age renders me a competent witness, the fidelity with
• 3:28:45
  which they represent the opinions and manners of the class of society in which the
• 3:28:50
  author lived early in this century. They do this the more faithfully on account
• 3:28:56
  of the very deficiency with which they have been sometimes charged, namely that they
• 3:29:01
  make no attempt to raise the standard of human life, but merely represent it
• 3:29:05
  as it was. They certainly were not written to support any theory or inculcate
• 3:29:11
  any particular moral, except indeed the great moral, which is to be equally
• 3:29:16
  gathered from an observation of the course of actual life, namely the superiority of
• 3:29:20
  high over low principles, and of greatness over littleness of mind. These writings
• 3:29:26
  are like photographs in which no feature is softened, no ideal expression is introduced.
• 3:29:33
  All is the unadorned reflection of the natural object. And the value of
• 3:29:39
  such a faithful likeness must increase as time gradually works more and more changes in
• 3:29:43
  the face of society itself. A remarkable instance of this is to be found
• 3:29:48
  in her portraiture of the clergy. She was the daughter and the sister of
• 3:29:54
  clergymen who certainly were not low specimens of their order, and she has chosen
• 3:29:58
  three of her heroes from that profession. But no one in these days can
• 3:30:03
  think that either Edmund Bertram or Henry Tilney had adequate ideas of the duties of
• 3:30:09
  a parish minister. Such, however, were the opinions in practice then prevalent
• 3:30:15
  among respectable and conscientious clergymen, before their minds had been stirred first by evangelical
• 3:30:22
  and afterwards by the High Church movement which this century has witnessed. The country
• 3:30:28
  may be congratulated, which, on looking back to such a fixed landmark,
• 3:30:33
  can find that it has been advancing instead of receding from it. The long
• 3:30:37
  interval that elapsed between the completion of Northender Abbey in seventeen ninety eight and the
• 3:30:43
  commencement of Mansfield Park in eighteen eleven may sufficiently account for any difference of style
• 3:30:48
  which may be perceived between her three earlier and her three later productions. If
• 3:30:54
  the formers showed quite as much originality and genius, they may perhaps be thought
• 3:31:01
  to have less of the faultless finish and high polish which distinguished the latter.
• 3:31:05
  The characters of the John Dashwoods, Mister Collins, and the Thorpes stand out
• 3:31:11
  from the canvas with a vigor and originality which cannot be surpassed. But I
• 3:31:16
  think that in her last three works are to be found a greater refinement of
• 3:31:20
  taste, a more nice sense of propriety, and a deeper insight into the
• 3:31:24
  delicate anatomy of the human heart, marking the difference between the brilliant girl and
• 3:31:30
  the mature woman. Far from being one of those who have overwritten themselves,
• 3:31:35
  it may be affirmed that her fame would have stood on a narrower and less
• 3:31:39
  firm basis if she had not lived to resume her pen at Chawton. Some
• 3:31:46
  persons have surmised that she took her characters from individuals with whom she had been
• 3:31:50
  acquainted. They were so lifelike that it was assumed that they must have once
• 3:31:54
  lived and have been transferred bodily, as it were, into her pages.
• 3:32:00
  But surely such a supposition betrays an ignorance of the high prerogative of genius to
• 3:32:05
  create out of its own resources imaginary characters who shall be true to nature and
• 3:32:11
  consistent in themselves. Perhaps, However, the distinction between keeping true to nature
• 3:32:18
  and servilely copying any one's specimen of it is not always clearly apprehended. It
• 3:32:24
  is indeed true both of the writer and of the painter, that he can
• 3:32:28
  use only such lineaments as exist and as he has observed to exist in living
• 3:32:35
  objects. Otherwise he would produce monsters instead of human beings. But in both
• 3:32:41
  it is the office of high art to mold these features into new combinations,
• 3:32:46
  and to place them in the attitudes and impart to them the expressions which may
• 3:32:50
  suit the purposes of the artist, so that they are nature, but not
• 3:32:54
  exactly the same nature which had to come before his eyes. Can be obtained
• 3:33:01
  only from the natural flowers which the bee has sucked. Yet it is not
• 3:33:05
  a reproduction of the odour or flavor of any particular flower, but becomes something
• 3:33:09
  different when it has gone through the process of transformation which that little insect is
• 3:33:15
  able to effect. Hence, in the case of painters arises the superiority of
• 3:33:20
  original compositions over portrait painting. Reynolds was exercising a higher faculty when he designed
• 3:33:26
  comedy and tragedy contending for Garrick, than when he merely took a likeness of
• 3:33:31
  that actor. The same difference exists in writings between the original conceptions of Shakespeare
• 3:33:39
  and some other creative geniuses and such full length likenesses of individual persons. The
• 3:33:45
  talking Gentleman, for instance, as are admirably drawn by Miss Mitford. Jane
• 3:33:50
  Austen's powers, whatever may be the degree in which she possessed them, were
• 3:33:54
  certainly of that higher order. She did not copy individuals, but she invested
• 3:34:01
  her own creations with individuality of character. A reviewer in the Quarterly speaks of
• 3:34:07
  an acquaintance who ever since the publication of Pride and Prejudice, had been called
• 3:34:11
  by his friends, mister Bennett, but the author did not know him.
• 3:34:16
  Her own relations never recognized any individual in her characters, and I can call
• 3:34:22
  to mind several of her acquaintances whose peculiarities were very tempting and easy to be
• 3:34:26
  caricatured, of whom there are no traces in her pages. She herself,
• 3:34:33
  when questioned on the subject by a friend, expressed a dread of what she
• 3:34:37
  called such an invasion of social proprieties. She said that she thought it quite
• 3:34:41
  fair to note peculiarities and weaknesses, but that it was her desire to create,
• 3:34:48
  not reproduce. Besides, she added, I am too proud of my
• 3:34:52
  gentlemen to admit that they were only mister A or Colonel B. She did
• 3:34:56
  not, however, suppose that her imaginary care characters were of a higher order
• 3:35:01
  than are to be found in nature, for she said, when speaking of
• 3:35:05
  two of her great favorites, Edmund Bertram and mister Knightley, they are very
• 3:35:09
  far from being what I know English gentlemen often are. She certainly took a
• 3:35:16
  kind of parental interest in the beings whom she had created, and did not
• 3:35:20
  dismiss them from her thoughts when she had finished her last chapter. We have
• 3:35:24
  seen in one of her letters her personal affection for Darcy and Elizabeth, and
• 3:35:30
  when sending a copy of Emma to a friend whose daughter had been lately born,
• 3:35:33
  she wrote, thus, I trust you will be as glad to see
• 3:35:37
  my Emma as I shall be to see your Jemima. She was very fond
• 3:35:41
  of Emma, but did not reckon on her being a general favorite, for
• 3:35:46
  when commencing that work, she said, I am going to take a heroine
• 3:35:50
  whom no one but myself, will, much like she would, if asked,
• 3:35:54
  tell us many little particulars about the subsequent career of some of her people.
• 3:36:00
  In this traditionary way, we learned that miss Steele never succeeded in catching
• 3:36:03
  the doctor, that Kitty Bennett was satisfactorily married to a clergyman near Pemberley,
• 3:36:09
  while Mary obtained nothing higher than one of her uncle Phillips's clerks, and was
• 3:36:16
  content to be considered a star in the society of Meryton. That the considerable
• 3:36:20
  sum given by Missus Norris to William Price was one pound, that mister Woodhouse
• 3:36:26
  survived his daughter's marriage and kept her in mister Knightley from settling at Donwell about
• 3:36:31
  two years, and that the letters placed by Frank Churchill before Jane Fairfax,
• 3:36:37
  which she swept away unread, contained the word pardon of the good people in
• 3:36:43
  Northender Abbey and persuasion. We know nothing more than what is written, for
• 3:36:46
  before those works were published, their author had been taken away from us,
• 3:36:50
  and all such amusing communications had ceased forever. End of Chapter ten, Chapter
• 3:36:58
  eleven, declining health of Jane Austen, elasticity of her spirits, her resignation
• 3:37:09
  and humility. Her death. Early in the year eighteen sixteen, some family
• 3:37:16
  troubles disturbed the usually tranquil course of Jane Austin's life, and it's probable that
• 3:37:20
  the inward malady which was to prove ultimately fatal, was already felt by her.
• 3:37:26
  For some distant friends whom she visited in the spring of that year,
• 3:37:30
  thought that her health was somewhat impaired, and observed that she went about her
• 3:37:35
  old haunts and recalled old recollections connected with them in a particular manner, as
• 3:37:39
  if she did not expect ever to see them again. It's not surprising that
• 3:37:46
  under these circumstances some of her letters were of a graver tone than had been
• 3:37:50
  customary with her, and expressed resignation rather than cheerfulness in reference to these troubles.
• 3:37:58
  In a letter to her brother Charles, after mentioning that she had been
• 3:38:01
  laid up with an attack of bilious fever, she says, I live upstairs
• 3:38:05
  for the present and am coddled. I am the only one of the party
• 3:38:09
  who has been so silly. But a weak body must excuse weak nerves.
• 3:38:13
  And again to another correspondent, but I am getting too near complaint. It
• 3:38:18
  has been the appointment of God. However, secondary causes may have operated,
• 3:38:22
  but the elasticity of her spirits soon recovered their tone. It was in the
• 3:38:28
  latter half of that year when she addressed the two following lively letters to a
• 3:38:33
  nephew, one while he was at Winchester School, the other soon after he
• 3:38:37
  had left it. Chawton, July ninth, eighteen sixteen. My dear e,
• 3:38:45
  many thanks a thank for every line, and as many to mister w.
• 3:38:50
  Digweed for coming. We have been wanting very much to hear of your
• 3:38:54
  mother and are happy to find she continues to mend. But her illness must
• 3:38:58
  have been of very serious one. Indeed, when she is really recovered,
• 3:39:03
  she ought to try change of air and come over to us. Tell your
• 3:39:07
  father that I am very much obliged to him for his share of your letter,
• 3:39:11
  and most sincerely join in the hope of her being eventually much the better
• 3:39:16
  for her present discipline. She has the comfort moreover of being confined in such
• 3:39:22
  weather as gives one little temptation to be out. It is really too bad,
• 3:39:28
  and has been too bad for a long time, much worse than anyone
• 3:39:31
  can bear. And I begin to think it will never be fine again.
• 3:39:37
  This is a finesse of mine, for I have often observed that if one
• 3:39:41
  writes about the weather, it is generally completely changed before the letter is read.
• 3:39:46
  I wish it may prove so now, and that when mister W.
• 3:39:48
  Digweed reaches Steventon to morrow he may find you have had a long series of
• 3:39:54
  hot, dry weather. We are a small party at present, only Grandmamma,
• 3:39:58
  May, Mary, Jane, and myself Yolden's coach cleared off the rest
• 3:40:03
  yesterday. I am glad you recollected to mention your being come home. My
• 3:40:07
  heart began to sink within me when I had got so far through your letter
• 3:40:13
  without it being mentioned. I was dreadfully afraid that you might be detained at
• 3:40:16
  Winchester by severe illness, confined to your bed, perhaps and quite unable to
• 3:40:22
  hold a pen, and only dating from Steventon in order with a mistaken sort
• 3:40:26
  of tenderness to deceive me. But now I have no doubt of your being
• 3:40:31
  at home. I am sure you would not say it so seriously unless it
• 3:40:35
  actually were so. We saw a countless number of post chaises full of boys
• 3:40:41
  passed by yesterday morning, full of future heroes, legislators, fools and villains.
• 3:40:48
  You have never thanked me for my last letter, which went by the
• 3:40:50
  cheese. I cannot bear not to be thanked. You will not pay us
• 3:40:54
  a visit, yet, of course we must not think of it. Your
• 3:40:58
  mother get well first, and you must go to Oxford and not be elected.
• 3:41:05
  After that. A little change of scene may be good for you and
• 3:41:07
  your physician, I hope will order you to the sea, or to a
• 3:41:11
  house by the side of a very considerable pond. Oh, it rains again.
• 3:41:16
  It beats against the window. Mary Jane and I have been wet through
• 3:41:20
  once already. To day we set off in the donkey carriage for Farringdon,
• 3:41:24
  as I wanted to see the improvement mister Woolves is making. But we were
• 3:41:28
  obliged to turn back before we got there, but not soon enough to avoid
• 3:41:33
  a pelter. All the way home we met mister wools. I talked of
• 3:41:37
  it being bad weather for the hay, and he returned me the comfort of
• 3:41:41
  its being much worse for the wheat. We hear that missus s does not
• 3:41:46
  quit Tangier. Why and wherefore do you know that our browning is gone?
• 3:41:52
  You must prepare for a William when you come, a good looking lad,
• 3:41:56
  civil and quiet and seemingly likely to do good bye. I'm sure mister w
• 3:42:03
  d will be astonished at my writing so much, for the paper is so
• 3:42:07
  thin that he will be able to count the lines, if not to read
• 3:42:11
  them. Yours affectionately, Jane Austen. In the next letter will be found
• 3:42:18
  her description of her own style of composition, which has already appeared in the
• 3:42:22
  notice prefixed to Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, Chawton, Monday, December sixteenth,
• 3:42:31
  eighteen sixteen. My dear e, one reason for my writing to you now
• 3:42:37
  is that I may have the pleasure of directing to you esquire. I give
• 3:42:41
  you joy of having left Winchester. Now you may own how miserable you were
• 3:42:46
  there. Now it will gradually all come out your crimes and your miseries.
• 3:42:50
  How often you went up by the mail to London and threw away fifty guineas
• 3:42:54
  at a tavern, and how often you were on the point of hanging yourself,
• 3:43:00
  restrained only as some ill natured aspersion upon poor old Winton has it by
• 3:43:05
  the want of a tree within some miles of the city. Charles Knight and
• 3:43:09
  his companions pass through Chawton about nine this morning, later than it used to
• 3:43:15
  be Uncle Henry, and I had a glimpse of his handsome face, looking
• 3:43:20
  all health and good humor. I wonder when you will come and see us.
• 3:43:24
  I know what I rather speculate upon, but shall say nothing. We
• 3:43:28
  think Uncle Henry in excellent looks. Look at him this moment, and think
• 3:43:35
  so too, if you have not done it before. And we have the
• 3:43:39
  great comfort of seeing decided improvement in Uncle Charles, both as to health,
• 3:43:43
  spirits and appearance. And they are each of them so agreeable in their different
• 3:43:50
  way, and harmonize so well that their visit is thorough enjoyment. Uncle Henry
• 3:43:56
  writes very superior sermons. You and I must try to get hold of one
• 3:44:01
  or two and put them into our novels. It would be a fine help
• 3:44:03
  to a volume, and we could make our heroine read it aloud on a
• 3:44:07
  Sunday evening, just as well as Isabella Wardour in the Antiquary is made to
• 3:44:11
  read History of the Hearts demon in the Ruins of Saint Ruth. Though I
• 3:44:16
  believe on recollection Lovell is the reader. By the bye, my dear E,
• 3:44:22
  I am quite concerned for the loss. Your mother mentions in her letter
• 3:44:26
  two chapters and a half to be missing is monstrous. It is well that
• 3:44:30
  I have not been to Steventon lately, and therefore cannot be suspected of purloining
• 3:44:35
  them. Two strong twigs and a half towards a nest of my own would
• 3:44:39
  have been something. I do not think, however, that any theft of
• 3:44:43
  that sort would be really useful to me. What should I do with your
• 3:44:48
  strong, manly, vigorous sketches, full of variety and glow? How could
• 3:44:54
  I possibly join them on to the little bit two inches wide of ivory on
• 3:44:58
  which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labor.
• 3:45:03
  You will hear from Uncle Henry how well Anna is. She seems perfectly
• 3:45:07
  recovered. Ben was here on Saturday to ask Uncle Charles and me to dine
• 3:45:11
  with them as to morrow, but I was forced to decline it. The
• 3:45:16
  walk is beyond my strength, though I am otherwise very well, and this
• 3:45:20
  is not a season for donkey carriages, and as we do not like to
• 3:45:24
  spare Uncle Charles, he has declined it too. Tuesday, Ah, mister
• 3:45:30
  e, I doubt your seeing Uncle Henry at steventon to day. The weather
• 3:45:33
  will prevent your expecting him. I think tell your father, with Aunt Cass's
• 3:45:39
  love and mine, that the pickled cucumbers are extremely good, and tell him
• 3:45:43
  also tell him what you will. No, don't tell him what you will,
• 3:45:48
  but tell him that Grandmamma begs him to make Joseph Hall pay his rent
• 3:45:54
  if he can. You must not be tired of reading the word Uncle,
• 3:45:58
  for I have not done with it. Uncle Charles, thanks your mother for
• 3:46:03
  her letter. It was a great pleasure to him to know that the parcel
• 3:46:07
  was received and gave so much satisfaction. And he begs her to be so
• 3:46:11
  good as to give three shillings for him to Dame Staples, which shall be
• 3:46:16
  allowed for in the payment of her debt. Here adieu, amiable. I
• 3:46:20
  hope Caroline behaves well to you, yours affectionately, j Austen. I cannot
• 3:46:30
  tell how soon she was aware of the serious nature of her malady. By
• 3:46:33
  God's mercy, it was not attended with much suffering, so that she was
• 3:46:37
  able to tell her friends as in the foregoing letter, and perhaps sometimes to
• 3:46:41
  persuade herself that, accepting want of strength, she was otherwise very well,
• 3:46:48
  but the progress of the disease became more and more manifest as the year advanced.
• 3:46:54
  The usual walk was at first shortened and then discontinued, and there was
• 3:47:00
  sought in a donkey carriage. Gradually, too, her habits of activity within
• 3:47:05
  the house ceased, and she was obliged to lie down much. The sitting
• 3:47:09
  room contained only one sofa, which was frequently occupied by her mother, who
• 3:47:13
  was more than seventy years old. Jane would never use it even in her
• 3:47:18
  mother's absence, but she contrived a sort of couch for herself with two or
• 3:47:22
  three chairs, and was pleased to say that this arrangement was more comfortable to
• 3:47:28
  her than a real sofa. Her reasons for this might have been left to
• 3:47:31
  be guessed, but for the importunities of a little niece, which obliged her
• 3:47:35
  to explain that if she herself had shown any inclination to use the sofa,
• 3:47:41
  her mother might have scrupled being on it so much as was good for her.
• 3:47:45
  It is certain, however, that the mind did not share in this
• 3:47:48
  decay of the bodily strength. Persuasion was not finished before the middle of August
• 3:47:52
  in that year, and the manner in which it was then completed, affords
• 3:47:56
  proof that neither the critical nor the cree creative powers of the author were at
• 3:48:01
  all impaired. The book had been brought to an end in July, and
• 3:48:05
  the re engagement of the hero and the heroine effected in a totally different manner
• 3:48:09
  in a scene laid at Admiral Croft's lodgings. But her performance did not satisfy
• 3:48:16
  her. She thought it tame and flat, and was desirous of producing something
• 3:48:20
  better. This weighed upon her mind, the more so, probably on account
• 3:48:26
  of the weak state of her health, so that one night she retired to
• 3:48:30
  rest in very low spirits. But such depression was little in accordance with her
• 3:48:35
  nature, and was soon shaken off. The next morning she awoke to much
• 3:48:41
  cheerful views and brighter inspirations. The sense of power revived, and imagination resumed
• 3:48:46
  its course. She canceled the condemned chapter and wrote two others entirely different in
• 3:48:52
  its stead. The result is what we possess, the visit of the Musgrove
• 3:48:56
  party to bath the crowded an animated scene at the white Hart Hotel, and
• 3:49:01
  the charming conversation between Captain Harville and Anne Elliot, overheard by Captain Wentworth,
• 3:49:07
  by which the two faithful lovers were at last led to understand each other's feelings.
• 3:49:13
  The tenth and eleventh chapters of Persuasion, then, rather than the actual
• 3:49:18
  winding up of the story, contained the latest of her printed compositions, her
• 3:49:22
  last contribution to the entertainment of the public. Perhaps it may be thought that
• 3:49:28
  she has seldom written anything more brilliant, and that, independent of the original
• 3:49:33
  manner in which the denouement is brought about, the pictures of Charles Musgrove's good
• 3:49:37
  natured boyishness and of his wife's jealous selfishness would have been incomplete without these finishing
• 3:49:43
  strokes. The Cancil chapter exists in manuscript. It's certainly inferior to the two
• 3:49:50
  which were substituted for it, But it was such as some writers and some
• 3:49:54
  readers might have been contented with, and it contains touches which scarcely any other
• 3:50:00
  hand could have given, the suppression of which may be almost a matter of
• 3:50:03
  regret. The following letter was addressed to her friend, Miss Big, then
• 3:50:09
  staying at Stretham with her sister, the wife of the Reverend Herbert Hill,
• 3:50:13
  uncle of Robert Southey. It appears to have been written three days before she
• 3:50:18
  began her last work, which will be noticed in another chapter, and shows
• 3:50:22
  that she was not at the time aware of the serious nature of her malady.
• 3:50:30
  Chawton, January twenty fourth, eighteen seventeen, My dear Alethea, I
• 3:50:37
  think it time there should be a little writing between us, though I believe
• 3:50:41
  the epistolary debt is on your side, and I hope this will find all
• 3:50:46
  at Stretham Party well, neither carried away by the flood, nor rheumatic through
• 3:50:50
  the damps. Such mild weather is, you know, delightful to us,
• 3:50:56
  And though we have a great many ponds and a fine running stream through the
• 3:50:58
  meadows on the other side of the road, it is nothing but what beautifies
• 3:51:03
  us and does to talk of. I have certainly gained strength through the winter,
• 3:51:09
  and am not far from being well, and I think I understand my
• 3:51:13
  own case now so much better than I did, as to be able by
• 3:51:16
  care to keep off any serious return of illness. I am convinced that bile
• 3:51:22
  is at the bottom of all I have suffered, which makes it easy to
• 3:51:26
  know how to treat myself. You'll be glad to hear thus much of me.
• 3:51:31
  I'm sure we have just had a few days visit from Edward, who
• 3:51:35
  brought us a good account of his father, and the very circumstance of his
• 3:51:39
  coming at all, of his father's being able to spare him, is itself
• 3:51:43
  a good account. He grows still and still improves in appearance, at least
• 3:51:48
  in the estimation of his aunt's, who love him better and better as they
• 3:51:52
  see the sweet temper and warm affections of the boy confirmed in the young man.
• 3:51:58
  I tried hard to persuade him that he must have some message for William.
• 3:52:01
  But in Vain this is not a time of year for donkey carriages,
• 3:52:05
  and our donkeys are necessarily having so long a run of luxurious idleness that I
• 3:52:11
  suppose we shall find they have forgotten much of their education when we use them
• 3:52:15
  again. We do not use two at once, however, don't imagine such
• 3:52:18
  excesses. A new clergyman is expected here very soon, perhaps in time to
• 3:52:24
  assist mister Papillon on Sunday. I shall be very glad when the first hearing
• 3:52:30
  is over. It will be a nervous hour for our pew, though we
• 3:52:33
  hear that he acquits himself with as much ease and collectedness as if he had
• 3:52:37
  been used to it all his life. We have no chance, we know,
• 3:52:41
  of seeing you between Streatham and Winchester. You go the other road and
• 3:52:45
  are engaged to two or three houses. If there should be any change,
• 3:52:48
  however, you know how welcome you would be. We have been reading the
• 3:52:54
  poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo, and generally with much approbation. Nothing will please all
• 3:53:00
  the world, you know, but parts of it suit me better than much
• 3:53:03
  that he has written. Before the opening the proem, I believe he calls
• 3:53:07
  it is very beautiful. Poor man, one cannot but grieve for the loss
• 3:53:13
  of the son fondly described. Has he at all recovered it? What do
• 3:53:18
  mister and missus Hale know about his present state? Yours affectionately, J.
• 3:53:24
  Austen. The real object of this letter is to ask you for a receipt,
• 3:53:28
  but I thought it genteel not to let it appear early. We remember
• 3:53:33
  some excellent orange wine at many down, made from civil oranges. Entirely or
• 3:53:37
  chiefly. I should be very much obliged to you for the receipt, if
• 3:53:41
  you can command it within a few weeks. On the day before January twenty
• 3:53:46
  third, she had written to her niece in the same hopeful tone. I
• 3:53:50
  feel myself getting stronger than I was, and can so perfectly walk to Alton
• 3:53:56
  or back again without fatigue, that I hope to be able to do both
• 3:54:00
  when summer comes. Alas summer came to her only on her deathbed. March
• 3:54:07
  the seventeenth is the last date to be found in the manuscript on which she
• 3:54:09
  was engaged. And as the watch of the drowned man indicates the time of
• 3:54:13
  his death, so does this final date seem to fix the period when her
• 3:54:18
  mind could no longer pursue its accustomed course. And here I cannot do better
• 3:54:24
  than quote the words of the niece, to whose private records of her aunt's
• 3:54:28
  life and character I have been so often indebted. I do not know how
• 3:54:33
  early the alarming symptoms of her malady came on. It was in the following
• 3:54:37
  March that I had the first idea of her being seriously ill. It had
• 3:54:43
  been settled that about the end of that month or the beginning of April,
• 3:54:46
  I should spend a few days at Chawton in the absence of my father and
• 3:54:50
  mother, who were just then engaged with mister Leigh Perrot in arranging her late
• 3:54:54
  husband's affairs. But Aunt Jane became too ill to have me in the house,
• 3:55:00
  and so I went instead to my sister, missus Lefroy at Wyards.
• 3:55:05
  The next day we walked over to Chawton to make inquiries after our aunt.
• 3:55:09
  She was then keeping her room, but said she would see us, and
• 3:55:13
  we went up to her. She was in her dressing gown and was sitting
• 3:55:16
  quite like an invalid, in an arm chair. But she got up and
• 3:55:20
  kindly greeted us, and then, pointing to seats which had been arranged for
• 3:55:24
  us by the fire, she said, there is a chair for the married
• 3:55:28
  lady and a little stool for you, Caroline. It's strange, but those
• 3:55:35
  trifling words were the last of hers that I can remember, for I retain
• 3:55:39
  no recollection of what was said by any one in the conversation that ensued.
• 3:55:45
  I was struck by the alteration in herself. She was very pale, her
• 3:55:50
  voice was weak and low, and there was about her a general appearance of
• 3:55:54
  debility and suffering. But I have been told that she never had much acute
• 3:55:58
  pain. She was not equal to the exertion of talking to us, and
• 3:56:03
  our visit to the sick room was a very short one. Aunt Cassandra soon
• 3:56:07
  taking us away. I do not suppose we stayed a quarter of an hour,
• 3:56:13
  and I never saw Aunt Jane again. In May eighteen seventeen she was
• 3:56:18
  persuaded to remove to Winchester for the sake of medical advice from mister Lyford.
• 3:56:24
  The Lyfords have for some generations maintained a high character in Winchester for medical skill,
• 3:56:30
  and the mister Lyford of that day was a man of more than provincial
• 3:56:33
  reputation in whom Great London practitioners expressed confidence. Mister Lyford spoke encouragingly. It
• 3:56:41
  was, not, of course his business to extinguish hope in his patient,
• 3:56:45
  but I believed that he had from the first very little expectation of a permanent
• 3:56:48
  cure. All that was gained by the removal from home was the satisfaction of
• 3:56:54
  having done the best that could be done, together with such alleviations of suffering
• 3:56:58
  as superior medae skill could afford. Jane and her sister Cassandra took lodgings in
• 3:57:03
  College Street. They had two kind friends living in the close. Missus Heathcote
• 3:57:09
  and Miss Bigg, the mother and aunt of the present Sir William Heathcote of
• 3:57:13
  Hursley, between whose family and ours a close friendship has existed for several generations.
• 3:57:20
  These friends did all that they could to promote the comfort of the sisters
• 3:57:24
  during the sad sojourn in Winchester, both by their society and by supplying those
• 3:57:30
  little conveniences in which a lodging house was likely to be deficient. It was
• 3:57:33
  shortly after settling in these lodgings that she wrote to a nephew the following characteristic
• 3:57:39
  letter, no longer alas in her former strong, clear hand, missus David's
• 3:57:46
  College Street, Winton, Tuesday, May twenty seventh. There is no better
• 3:57:52
  way, my dearest e, of thanking you for your affectionate concern for me
• 3:57:58
  during my illness, than by telling you myself, as soon as possible,
• 3:58:01
  that I continue to get better. I will not boast of my handwriting,
• 3:58:05
  neither that nor my face have yet recovered their proper beauty. But in other
• 3:58:11
  respects I gain strength very fast. I am now out of bed from nine
• 3:58:15
  in the morning to ten at night upon the sofa. It is true,
• 3:58:18
  but I eat my meals with Aunt Cassandra in a rational way, and can
• 3:58:22
  employ myself and walk from one room to another. Mister Lyford says he will
• 3:58:30
  cure me, and if he fails, I shall draw up a memorial and
• 3:58:33
  lay it before the Dean and Chapter, and have no doubt of redress from
• 3:58:37
  that pious, learned and disinterested body. Our lodgings are very comfortable. We
• 3:58:43
  have a neat little drawing room with a bow window overlooking doctor Gabelle's garden.
• 3:58:48
  Thanks to the kidenance of your father and mother in sending me their carriage.
• 3:58:52
  My journey hither on Saturday was performed with very little fatigue, and had it
• 3:58:56
  been a fine day, I think I should have felt none. But it
• 3:59:01
  distressed me to see Uncle Henry and William Knight, who kindly attended us on
• 3:59:05
  horseback, riding in the rain almost the whole way. We expect a visit
• 3:59:09
  from them to morrow, and hope they will stay the night. And on
• 3:59:13
  Thursday, which is a confirmation and a holiday, we are to get Charles
• 3:59:18
  out to breakfast. We have had but one visit from him, poor fellow,
• 3:59:24
  as he is in sick room, but he hopes to be out to
• 3:59:26
  night. We see missus Heathcote every day, and William is to call upon
• 3:59:33
  us soon. God bless you, my dear e. If ever you are
• 3:59:37
  ill. May you be as tenderly nursed as I have been. May the
• 3:59:41
  same blessed alleviations of anxious sympathizing friends be yours, And may you possess,
• 3:59:48
  as I dare say you will, the greatest blessing of all. In the
• 3:59:52
  consciousness of not being unworthy of their love. I could not feel this,
• 3:59:58
  your very affectionate aunt j A. The following extract from a letter which has
• 4:00:03
  been before printed written soon after the former breathes the same spirit of humility and
• 4:00:09
  thankfulness. I will only say further that my dearest sister, my tender,
• 4:00:15
  watchful, indefatigable nurse, has not been made ill by her exertions as to
• 4:00:20
  what I owe her and the anxious affection of all my beloved family. On
• 4:00:24
  this occasion I can only cry over it and pray God to bless them more
• 4:00:30
  and more. Throughout her illness, she was nursed by her sister, and
• 4:00:35
  often assisted by her sister in law my mother. Both were with her when
• 4:00:41
  she died. Two of her brothers, who are clergymen lived near enough to
• 4:00:45
  Winchester to be in frequent attendance and to administer the services suitable for a Christian's
• 4:00:50
  death bed. While she used the language of hope to her correspondence, she
• 4:00:54
  was fully aware of her danger, though not appalled by it. Its true
• 4:01:00
  true that there was much to attach her to life. She was happy in
• 4:01:03
  her family, She was just beginning to feel confidence in her own success,
• 4:01:07
  and no doubt the exercise of her great talents was an enjoyment in itself.
• 4:01:13
  We may well believe that she would gladly have lived longer, but she was
• 4:01:16
  enabled, without dismay or complaint, to prepare for death. She was a
• 4:01:22
  humble, believing Christian. Her life had been passed in the performance of home
• 4:01:26
  duties and the cultivation of domestic affections, without any self seeking or craving.
• 4:01:31
  After applause, she had always sought, as it were, by instinct,
• 4:01:35
  to promote the happiness of all who came within her influence, And doubtless she
• 4:01:41
  had her reward in the peace of mind, which was granted her in her
• 4:01:43
  last days. Her sweetness of temper never failed. She was ever considerate and
• 4:01:50
  grateful to those who attended on her. At times when she felt rather better,
• 4:01:54
  her playfulness of spirit revived, and she amused them even in their sadness.
• 4:02:01
  Once, when she thought herself near her end, she said what she
• 4:02:05
  imagined might be her last words to those around her, and particularly thanked her
• 4:02:09
  sister in law for being with her, saying, you have always been a
• 4:02:11
  kind sister to me. Mary. When the end at last came, she
• 4:02:18
  sank rapidly, and on being asked by her attendants whether there was anything she
• 4:02:22
  wanted, her reply was nothing but death. These were her last words.
• 4:02:30
  In quietness and peace. She breathed her last on the morning of July eighteenth,
• 4:02:35
  eighteen seventeen. On the twenty fourth of that month, she was buried
• 4:02:41
  in Winchester Cathedral, near the center of the North Aisle, almost opposite to
• 4:02:46
  the beautiful chantry tomb of William of Wickham. A large slab of black marble
• 4:02:50
  in the pavement marks the place. Her own family only attended the funeral.
• 4:02:56
  Her sister returned to her desolated home. There to devote herself for ten years
• 4:03:01
  to the care of her aged mother and to live much on the memory of
• 4:03:05
  her lost sister till called many years later to rejoin her. Her brothers went
• 4:03:11
  back sorrowing to their several homes. They were very fond and very proud of
• 4:03:16
  her. They were attached to her by her talents, her virtues, and
• 4:03:20
  her engaging manners, and each loved afterwards to fancy a resemblance in some niece
• 4:03:24
  or daughter of his own, to the dear sister Jane, whose perfect equal
• 4:03:30
  they yet never expected to see. End of Chapter eleven, the canceled chapter
• 4:03:39
  Chapter ten of Persuasion. With all this knowledge of mister Elliot and this authority
• 4:03:46
  to impart it, Anne left Westgate Buildings, her mind deeply busy in revolving
• 4:03:52
  what she had heard, feeling, thinking, recalling, and foreseeing everything.
• 4:03:58
  Shocked at mister Elliot, sighing over future Kellynch, and pained for Lady Russell,
• 4:04:03
  whose confidence in him had been entire, the embarrassment which must be felt
• 4:04:09
  from this hour in his presence. How to behave to him, how to
• 4:04:13
  get rid of him, what to do by any of the party at home?
• 4:04:18
  Where to be blind, where to be active? It was altogether a
• 4:04:22
  confusion of images and doubts, a perplexity, an agitation, which she could
• 4:04:28
  not see the end of. And she was in Gay Street, and still
• 4:04:31
  so much engrossed that she started on being addressed by Admiral Croft as if he
• 4:04:37
  were a person unlikely to be met there. It was within a few steps
• 4:04:41
  of his own door. You are going to call upon my wife, said
• 4:04:46
  he. She will be very glad to see you. Anne denied it.
• 4:04:50
  No, she really had not time. She was in her way home.
• 4:04:54
  But while she spoke, the Admiral had stepped back and knocked at the door,
• 4:04:58
  calling out, yes, yes, do go in. She is all
• 4:05:01
  alone. Go in and rest yourself. Anne felt so little disposed at this
• 4:05:07
  time to be in company of any sort that it vexed her to be thus
• 4:05:09
  constrained. But she was obliged to stop. Since you are so very kind,
• 4:05:16
  said she. I will just ask missus Croft how she does. But
• 4:05:18
  I really cannot stay five minutes. You are sure she is quite alone?
• 4:05:24
  The possibility of Captain Wentworth had occurred, and most fearfully anxious was she to
• 4:05:30
  be assured either that he was within or that he was not, which might
• 4:05:35
  have been a question. Oh, yes, quite alone. Nobody but her
• 4:05:39
  mantua maker with her, and they have been shut up together this half hour,
• 4:05:43
  so it must be over soon. Her man to a maker that I
• 4:05:48
  am sure my calling now would be most inconvenient. Indeed, you must allow
• 4:05:52
  me to leave my card and be so good as to explain it afterwards to
• 4:05:56
  missus Croft. No, No, not at all, not at all.
• 4:06:00
  She will be very happy to see you. Mind. I will not swear
• 4:06:03
  that she has not something particular to say to you, but that will all
• 4:06:07
  come out in the right place. I give no hints. Why, miss
• 4:06:11
  Elliot, we begin to hear strange things of you smiling in her face,
• 4:06:16
  but you have not much the look of it as grave as a little judge.
• 4:06:20
  Anne blushed. Aye, Aye, that will do now, It is
• 4:06:24
  all right. I thought we were not mistaken. She was left to guess
• 4:06:30
  at the direction of his suspicions. The first wild idea had been of some
• 4:06:33
  disclosure from his brother in law, but she was ashamed the next moment and
• 4:06:39
  felt how far more probable it was that he should be meaning mister Elliot.
• 4:06:43
  The door was opened, and the man evidently beginning to deny his mistress when
• 4:06:48
  the sight of his master stopped him. The admiral enjoyed the joke exceedingly.
• 4:06:54
  Anne thought his triumph over Stephen rather too long. At last, however,
• 4:06:58
  he was able to invite her upstairs, and, stepping before her, said
• 4:07:03
  I will just go up with you myself and show you in. I cannot
• 4:07:05
  stay because I must go to the post office. But if you will only
• 4:07:09
  sit down for five minutes, I am sure Sophie will come and you will
• 4:07:13
  find nobody to disturb you. There is nobody but Frederick here, opening the
• 4:07:18
  door as he spoke, such a person to be passed over as nobody to
• 4:07:22
  her, after being allowed to feel quite secure indifferent at her ease, to
• 4:07:28
  have it burst on her that she was to be the next moment in the
• 4:07:33
  same room with him. No time for recollection, for planning behavior or regulating
• 4:07:37
  manners. There was time only to turn pale before she had passed through the
• 4:07:43
  door and met the astonished eyes of Captain Wentworth, who was sitting by the
• 4:07:46
  fire, pretending to read, and prepared for no greater surprise than the admiral's
• 4:07:52
  hasty return. Equally unexpected was the meeting on each side. There was nothing
• 4:07:58
  to be done, however, but to stifle feelings and to be quietly polite,
• 4:08:01
  and the Admiral was too much on the alert to leave any troublesome pause.
• 4:08:07
  He repeated again what he had said before about his wife, and everybody
• 4:08:11
  insisted on Anne's sitting down and being perfectly comfortable. Was sorry he must leave
• 4:08:16
  her himself, but was sure missus Croft would be down very soon and would
• 4:08:20
  go upstairs and give her notice. Directly. Anne was sitting down, but
• 4:08:26
  now she arose again to entreat him not to interrupt missus Croft and re urge
• 4:08:31
  the wish of going away and calling another time. But the Admiral would not
• 4:08:35
  hear of it. And if she did not return to the charge with unconquerable
• 4:08:39
  perseverance, or did not, with a more passive determination, walk quietly out
• 4:08:45
  of the room, as certainly she might have done, may she not be
• 4:08:48
  pardoned? If she had no horror of a few minutes tete a tete with
• 4:08:54
  Captain Wentworth. May she not be pardoned for not wishing to give him the
• 4:08:56
  idea that she had reseated herself. And the Admiral took leave, but on
• 4:09:03
  reaching the door said Frederick, a word with you, if you please.
• 4:09:09
  Captain Wentworth went to him, and instantly before they were well out of the
• 4:09:13
  room, the Admiral continued, as I am going to leave you together.
• 4:09:16
  It is but fair I should give you something to talk of, and so
• 4:09:20
  if you please here. The door was very firmly closed. She could guess
• 4:09:26
  by which of the two, and she lost entirely what immediately followed, but
• 4:09:31
  it was impossible for her not to distinguish parts of the rest. For the
• 4:09:35
  Admiral, on the strength of the doors being shut, was speaking without any
• 4:09:39
  management of voice. Though she could hear his companion trying to check him,
• 4:09:43
  she could not doubt their being speaking of her. She heard her own name
• 4:09:48
  and Kellynch repeatedly. She was very much disturbed. She knew not what to
• 4:09:54
  do or what to expect, and, among other agonies, felt the possibility
• 4:09:58
  of Captain Wentworth's not reach turning into the room at all, which, after
• 4:10:03
  her consenting to stay, would have been too bad. For language, they
• 4:10:07
  seemed to be talking of the Admiral's lease of Kellynch. She heard him say
• 4:10:11
  something of the lease being signed or not signed. That was not likely to
• 4:10:18
  be a very agitating subject, but then followed, I hate to be at
• 4:10:22
  an uncertainty. I must know at once. Sophie thinks the same. Then,
• 4:10:26
  in a lower tone, Captain Wentworth seemed remonstrating, wanting to be excused,
• 4:10:31
  wanting to put something off. Foo Foo answered the admiral, Now is
• 4:10:37
  the time. If you will not speak, I will stop and speak myself.
• 4:10:41
  Very well, sir, very well, sir followed with some impatience from
• 4:10:46
  his companion, opening the door, as he spoke, you will, then
• 4:10:50
  you promise you will, replied the admiral, in all the power of his
• 4:10:54
  natural voice, unbroken even by one thin door. Yes, sir, yes,
• 4:11:01
  and the Admiral was hastily left. The door was closed, and the
• 4:11:05
  moment arrived in which Anne was alone with Captain Wentworth. She could not attempt
• 4:11:11
  to see how he looked, but he walked immediately to a window as if
• 4:11:16
  irresolute and embarrassed, And for about the space of five seconds, she repented
• 4:11:20
  what she had done, censured it as unwise, blushed over it as indelicate.
• 4:11:26
  She longed to be able to speak of the weather or the concert,
• 4:11:31
  but could only compass the relief of taking a newspaper in her hand. The
• 4:11:35
  distressing pause was over, however, he turned round in half a minute,
• 4:11:39
  and, coming towards the table where she sat, said, in a voice
• 4:11:43
  of effort and constraint, you must have heard too much already, Madam,
• 4:11:48
  to be in any doubt of my having promised Admiral Croft to speak to you
• 4:11:52
  on a particular subject. And this conviction determines me to do so, however
• 4:11:56
  repugnant to my to all my sense of propriety, to be taking so great
• 4:12:01
  a liberty, you will acquit me of impertinence, I trust by considering me
• 4:12:07
  as speaking only for another, and speaking by necessity. And the Admiral is
• 4:12:11
  a man who can never be thought impertinent by anyone who knows him as you
• 4:12:15
  do. His intentions are always the kindest and the best, and you will
• 4:12:20
  perceive he is actuated by none other in the application which I am now,
• 4:12:24
  with with very peculiar feelings, obliged to make. He stopped, but merely
• 4:12:33
  to recover breath, not seeming to expect any answer. Anne listened as if
• 4:12:37
  her life depended on the issue of his speech. He proceeded with a forced
• 4:12:43
  alacrity. The Admiral, Madam, was this morning confidently informed that you were
• 4:12:50
  upon my soul. I am quite at a loss, ashamed, breathing and
• 4:12:54
  speaking quickly. The awkwardness of giving information of this kind to one of the
• 4:13:00
  parties. You can be at no loss to understand me. It was very
• 4:13:03
  confidently said that mister Elliot that everything was settled in the family for a union
• 4:13:09
  between mister Elliot and yourself. It was added that you were to live at
• 4:13:15
  Kellynch, that Kellynch was to be given up. This the Admiral knew could
• 4:13:20
  not be correct, but it occurred to him that it might be the wish
• 4:13:22
  of the parties, and my commission from him, Madam, is to say
• 4:13:28
  that, if the family wish it such, his lease of Kellynch shall be
• 4:13:31
  canceled, and he and my sister will provide themselves with another home, without
• 4:13:37
  imagining themselves to be doing anything which under similar circumstances would not be done for
• 4:13:41
  them. This is all, Madam. A very few words in reply from
• 4:13:46
  you will be sufficient that I should be the person commissioned on this subject.
• 4:13:50
  Is extraordinary, and believe me, Madam, it is no less painful.
• 4:13:56
  A very few words, however, will put an end to the awkwardness and
• 4:13:58
  distress we may both be feeling. Anne spoke a word or two, but
• 4:14:05
  they were unintelligible, and before she could command herself, he added, if
• 4:14:11
  you will only tell me that the Admiral may address a line to Sir Walter.
• 4:14:13
  It will be enough pronounce only the words he may, and I shall
• 4:14:18
  immediately follow him with your message. No, Sir, said Anne, there
• 4:14:24
  is no message you are missin. The admiral is misinformed. I due justice
• 4:14:30
  to the kindness of his intentions, but he is quite mistaken. There is
• 4:14:35
  no truth in any such report. He was a moment silent. She turned
• 4:14:41
  her eyes towards him for the first time since his re entering the room.
• 4:14:45
  His color was varying, and he was looking at her with all the power
• 4:14:48
  and keenness which she believed no other eyes than his possessed. No truth in
• 4:14:56
  any such report, he repeated, No true in any part of it.
• 4:15:03
  None. He had been standing by a chair, enjoying the relief of leaning
• 4:15:07
  on it or of playing with it. He now sat down, drew it
• 4:15:11
  a little nearer to her, and looked with an expression which had something more
• 4:15:16
  than penetration in it, something softer. Her countenance did not discourage. It
• 4:15:22
  was a silent, but a very powerful dialog on his supplication, on hers
• 4:15:28
  acceptance. Still a little nearer, and a hand was taken and pressed,
• 4:15:33
  and Anne, my own dear Anne, bursting forth in all the fullness of
• 4:15:39
  exquisite feeling, and all suspense and indecision were over. They were reunited,
• 4:15:45
  They were restored to all that had been lost. They were carried back to
• 4:15:50
  the past with only an increase of attachment and confidence, and only such a
• 4:15:54
  flutter of present delight as made them little fit for the interruption of missus Croft
• 4:15:58
  when she joined them not long afterwards. She probably, in the observations of
• 4:16:06
  the next ten minutes, saw something to suspect, And though it was hardly
• 4:16:10
  possible for a woman of her description to wish the man to a maker had
• 4:16:12
  imprisoned her longer, she might be very likely wishing for some excuse to run
• 4:16:18
  about the house, some storm to break the windows above, or a summons
• 4:16:22
  to the admiral's shoemaker below. Fortune favored them all, however, in another
• 4:16:26
  way, in a gentle, steady rain just happily set in. As the
• 4:16:30
  Admiral returned and Anne rose to go, she was earnestly invited to stay dinner.
• 4:16:37
  A note was despatched to Camden Place, and she stayed stayed till ten
• 4:16:41
  at night, And during that time the husband and wife, either by the
• 4:16:45
  wife's contrivance, or by simply going on in their usual way, were frequently
• 4:16:51
  out of the room together, gone upstairs to hear a noise, or downstairs
• 4:16:56
  to settle their accounts, or upon the landing to trim the lamp. And
• 4:17:00
  these precious moments were turned to so good an account that all the most anxious
• 4:17:06
  feelings of the past were gone through. Before they parted at night, Anne
• 4:17:11
  had the felicity of being assured that, in the first place, so far
• 4:17:15
  from being altered for the worst, she had gained inexpressibly in personal loveliness,
• 4:17:21
  and that as to character, hers was now fixed on his mind as perfection
• 4:17:26
  itself, maintaining the just medium of fortitude and gentleness, that he had never
• 4:17:30
  ceased to love and to prefer her, though it had been only at Upper
• 4:17:36
  Cross that he had learnt to do her justice, and only at Lime that
• 4:17:40
  he had begun to understand his own feelings, that at Lime he had received
• 4:17:44
  lessons of more than one kind. The passing admiration of mister Eliot had at
• 4:17:48
  least roused him, and the scene on the cob, and at Captain Harville's
• 4:17:53
  had fixed her superiority. In his preceding attempts to attach himself to Louisa Musgrove
• 4:18:00
  the attempts of anger and pique. He protested that he had continually felt the
• 4:18:06
  impossibility of really caring for Louisa, though till that day, till the leisure
• 4:18:11
  for reflection which followed it, he had not understood the perfect excellence of the
• 4:18:17
  mind with which Louisa's could so ill bear comparison, or the perfect the unrivaled
• 4:18:22
  hold it possessed over his own. There he had learnt to distinguish between the
• 4:18:27
  steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self will, between the darings of heedlessness
• 4:18:33
  and the resolution of a collected mind. There he had seen everything to exalt
• 4:18:38
  in his estimation the woman he had lost, and there had begun to deplore
• 4:18:44
  the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment which had kept him from
• 4:18:48
  trying to regain her when thrown in his way. From that period to the
• 4:18:53
  present, had his penance been the most severe, he had no sooner been
• 4:18:57
  free from the horror and nat remorse attending the first few days of Louisa's accident.
• 4:19:03
  No sooner had begun to feel himself alive again than he had begun to
• 4:19:07
  feel himself, though alive, not at liberty. He found that he was
• 4:19:12
  considered by his friend Harville an engaged man. The Harvilles entertained not a doubt
• 4:19:18
  of a mutual attachment between him and Louisa, and though this to a degree
• 4:19:22
  was contradicted instantly, it yet made him feel that perhaps by her family,
• 4:19:29
  by everybody, by herself, even the same idea might be held, and
• 4:19:33
  that he was not free in honor, though if such were to be the
• 4:19:37
  conclusion, too free alas in heart. He had never thought justly on this
• 4:19:44
  subject before, and he had not sufficiently considered that his excessive intimacy at Uppercross
• 4:19:49
  must have its danger of ill consequence in many ways, and that while trying
• 4:19:53
  whether he could attach himself to either of the girls, he might be exciting
• 4:19:57
  unpleasant reports, if not raising unrequited regard. He found too late that he
• 4:20:04
  had entangled himself, and that precisely as he became thoroughly satisfied of his not
• 4:20:11
  caring for Louisa at all, he must regard himself as bound to her.
• 4:20:15
  If her feelings for him were what the Harvilles supposed. It determined him to
• 4:20:21
  leave lyme and await her perfect recovery. Elsewhere he would gladly weaken by any
• 4:20:27
  fair means, whatever sentiment or speculations concerning them might exist. And he went
• 4:20:33
  therefore into Shropshire, meaning after a while to return to the crofts at Kellynch
• 4:20:37
  and act as he found requisite. He had remained in Shropshire, lamenting the
• 4:20:45
  blindness of his own pride and the blunders of his own calculations, till at,
• 4:20:49
  once released from Louisa by the astonishing felicity of her engagement with Bennock Bath,
• 4:20:56
  Bath had instantly followed in thought, and not long after in fact,
• 4:21:03
  to Bath, to arrive with hope, to be torn by jealousy at the
• 4:21:07
  first sight of mister Elliot, to experience all the changes of each at the
• 4:21:11
  concert, to be miserable by the morning's circumstantial report, to be now more
• 4:21:17
  happy than language could express, or any heart but his own be capable of.
• 4:21:22
  He was very eager and very delightful in the description of what he had
• 4:21:26
  felt at the concert. The evening seemed to have been made up of exquisite
• 4:21:30
  moments, the moment of her stepping forward in the octagon room to speak to
• 4:21:36
  him, the moment of mister Elliot's appearing and tearing her away, and one
• 4:21:40
  or two subsequent moments marked by returning hope or increasing despondency. Were dwelt on
• 4:21:45
  with energy to see you, cried he in the midst of those who could
• 4:21:52
  not be my well wishers. To see your cousin close by you, conversing
• 4:21:56
  and smiling, and feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match.
• 4:22:03
  To consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to influence
• 4:22:07
  you, even if your own feelings were reluctant or indifferent, To consider what
• 4:22:11
  powerful support would be his. Was it not enough to make the fool of
• 4:22:15
  me which I appeared? How could I look on without agony? Was not
• 4:22:21
  the very sight of the friend who sat behind you? Was not the recollection
• 4:22:26
  of what had been the knowledge of her influence, the indelible, immovable impression
• 4:22:30
  of what persuasion had once done? Was it not all against me? You
• 4:22:37
  should have distinguished, replied Anne. You should not have suspected me. Now
• 4:22:41
  the case so different, and my age so different. If I was wrong
• 4:22:47
  in yielding to persuasion once, remember it was to persuasion exerted on the side
• 4:22:52
  of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was
• 4:22:56
  to duty. But no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying
• 4:23:00
  a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred and all duty
• 4:23:04
  violated. Perhaps I ought to have reasoned thus, he replied, But I
• 4:23:11
  could not. I could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired
• 4:23:15
  of your character. I could not bring it into play. It was overwhelmed,
• 4:23:19
  buried, lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under year
• 4:23:25
  after year. I could think of you only as one who had yielded,
• 4:23:30
  one who had given me up, who had been influenced by any one rather
• 4:23:33
  than by me. I saw you with the very person who had guided you
• 4:23:38
  in that year of misery. I had no reason to believe her of less
• 4:23:42
  authority. Now the force of habit was to be added. I should have
• 4:23:48
  thought, said Anne, that my manner to yourself might have spared you much
• 4:23:52
  or all of this. No, No, your manner might be only the
• 4:23:57
  ease which your engagement to another man would give. I left you in this
• 4:24:02
  belief, and yet I was determined to see you again. My spirits rallied
• 4:24:07
  with the morning, and I felt that I had still a motive for remaining
• 4:24:11
  here. The Admiral's news, indeed, was a revulsion. Since that moment,
• 4:24:17
  I have been divided what to do, and had it been confirmed,
• 4:24:19
  this would have been my last day in Bath. There was time for all
• 4:24:26
  this to pass with such interruptions only as enhanced the charm of the communication,
• 4:24:30
  and Bath could hardly contain any other two beings at once so rationally and so
• 4:24:36
  rapturously happy as during that evening occupied the sofa of missus Croft's drawing room in
• 4:24:41
  Gay Street. Captain Wentworth had taken care to meet the Admiral as he returned
• 4:24:47
  into the house, to satisfy him as to mister Elliot and Kellynch and the
• 4:24:52
  delicacy of the Admiral's good nature kept him from saying another word on the subject.
• 4:24:56
  To Anne, he was quite concerned, and lest he might have been
• 4:25:00
  giving her pain by touching on a tender part, who could say? She
• 4:25:04
  might be liking her cousin better than he liked her. And upon recollection,
• 4:25:08
  if they had been to Mary at all, why should they have waited so
• 4:25:11
  long? When the evening closed. It is probable that the Admiral received some
• 4:25:18
  new ideas from his wife, whose particularly friendly manner in parting with her gave
• 4:25:23
  Anne the gratifying persuasion of her seeing and approving. It had been such a
• 4:25:30
  day to Anne. The hours which had passed since her leaving Camden Place had
• 4:25:34
  done so much she was almost bewildered, almost too happy. In looking back.
• 4:25:41
  It was necessary to sit up half the night and lie awake the remainder
• 4:25:45
  to comprehend with composure her present state and pay for the overplus of bliss by
• 4:25:52
  headache and fatigue. Then follows chapter eleven I E. Two twelve in the
• 4:26:00
  published book, and at the end is written Finis July eighteenth, eighteen sixteen.
• 4:26:10
  End of chapter twelve, Chapter thirteen, The last work Jane Austen was
• 4:26:17
  taken from us. How much unexhausted talent perished with her, How largely she
• 4:26:22
  might yet have contributed to the entertainment of her readers if her life had been
• 4:26:26
  prolonged, cannot be known. But it is certain that the mine at which
• 4:26:30
  she had so long labored was not worked out, and that she was still
• 4:26:33
  diligently employed in collecting fresh materials from it. Persuasion had been finished in August
• 4:26:40
  eighteen sixteen. Some time was probably given to correcting it for the press,
• 4:26:45
  but on the twenty seventh of the following January, according to the date on
• 4:26:48
  her own manuscript, she began a new novel and worked at it up to
• 4:26:52
  the seventeenth of March. The chief part of this manuscript is written in her
• 4:26:56
  usual firm and neat hand, but some of the latter pages seem to have
• 4:27:00
  been first traced in pencil, probably when she was too weak to sit long
• 4:27:04
  at her desk, and written over in ink afterwards. The quantity produced does
• 4:27:10
  not indicate any decline of power or industry, for in those seven weeks twelve
• 4:27:14
  chapters had been completed. It is more difficult to judge of the quality of
• 4:27:18
  a work so little advanced it had received no name. There was scarcely any
• 4:27:23
  indication what the course of the story was to be, nor was any heroine
• 4:27:27
  yet perceptible, who, like Fanny Price or Anne Elliott, might draw round
• 4:27:32
  her the sympathies of the reader. Such an unfinished fragment cannot be presented to
• 4:27:37
  the public, but I am persuaded that some of Jane Austen's admirers will be
• 4:27:41
  glad to learn something about the latest creations. Which were forming themselves in her
• 4:27:45
  mind. And therefore, as some of the principal characters were already sketched in
• 4:27:51
  with a vigorous hand, I will try to give an idea of them,
• 4:27:53
  illustrated by extracts from the work. The scene is late at Sandeton, a
• 4:27:59
  village on the Sussex coast, just struggling into notoriety as a bathing place,
• 4:28:03
  under the patronage of the two principal proprietors of the parish, Mister Parker and
• 4:28:08
  Lady Denham. Mister Parker was an amiable man with more enthusiasm than judgment,
• 4:28:15
  whose somewhat shallow mind overflowed with the one idea of the prosperity of Sandton,
• 4:28:19
  together with a jealous contempt of the rival village of Brynshaw, where a similar
• 4:28:23
  attempt was going on. To the regret of his much enduring wife, he
• 4:28:27
  had left his family mansion, with all of its ancestral comforts of gardens,
• 4:28:33
  shrubberies and shelter, situated in a valley some miles inland, and had built
• 4:28:37
  a new residence, a Trafalgar house, on the bare brow of the hill,
• 4:28:41
  overlooking Sandaton and the sea exposed to every wind that blows, but he
• 4:28:47
  will confess to no discomforts, nor suffer his family to feel any from the
• 4:28:51
  change. The following extract brings him before the reader mounted on his hobby.
• 4:28:56
  He wanted to secure the promise of a visit, and to get as many
• 4:29:00
  of the family as his own house would hold, to follow him to Sanduton
• 4:29:03
  as soon as possible. And healthy as all the hay woods undeniably were,
• 4:29:08
  he foresaw that every one of them would be benefited by the sea. He
• 4:29:12
  held it indeed as certain that no person, however upheld for the present,
• 4:29:17
  by fortuitous aids of exercise and spirit in a semblance of health, could be
• 4:29:22
  really in a state of secure and permanent health without spending at least six weeks
• 4:29:26
  by the sea every year. The sea, air, and sea bathing together
• 4:29:30
  were nearly infallible, one or the other of them being a match for every
• 4:29:33
  disorder of the stomach, the lungs, or the blood. They were anti
• 4:29:37
  spasmodic, anti pulmonary, anti bilious, and anti rheumatic. Nobody could catch
• 4:29:44
  cold by the sea, Nobody wanted appetite by the sea. Nobody wanted spirits,
• 4:29:48
  nobody wanted strength. They were healing softening, relaxing, fortifying, and
• 4:29:53
  bracing, seemingly just as was wanted, sometimes one sometimes the other. If
• 4:30:00
  the sea breeze failed, the sea bath was the certain corrective, and when
• 4:30:04
  bathing disagreed, the sea breeze was evidently designed by nature for the cure.
• 4:30:10
  His eloquence, however, could not prevail. Mister and missus Haywood never left
• 4:30:14
  home. The maintenance, education and fitting out of fourteen children demanded a very
• 4:30:18
  quiet, settled, careful course of life, and obliged them to be stationary
• 4:30:23
  and healthy at Willingdon. What prudence had first enjoined was now rendered pleasant by
• 4:30:29
  habit. They never left home, and they had a gratification in saying so.
• 4:30:33
  Lady Denham's was a very different character. She was a rich, vulgar
• 4:30:37
  widow with a sharp but narrow mind, who cared for the prosperity of Sandton
• 4:30:41
  only so far as it might increase the value of her own property. She
• 4:30:45
  is thus described Lady Denham had been a rich miss Brereton, born to wealth
• 4:30:52
  but not to education. Her first husband had been a mister Hollis, a
• 4:30:56
  man of considerable property in the country, of which a large her share of
• 4:31:00
  the parish of Sandeton, with manor and mansion house formed a part. He
• 4:31:04
  had been an elderly man when she married him, her own age about thirty.
• 4:31:08
  Her motives for such a match could be little understood at the distance of
• 4:31:12
  forty years. But she had so well nursed and pleased mister Hollis that at
• 4:31:17
  his death he left her everything, all his estates, and all at her
• 4:31:21
  disposal. After a widowhood of some years, she had been induced to Mary
• 4:31:26
  again. The late Sir Harry Denham of Denham Park in the neighborhood of Sandeton,
• 4:31:30
  succeeded in removing her and her large income to his own domains, but
• 4:31:34
  he could not succeed in the views of permanently enriching his family, which were
• 4:31:38
  attributed to him. She had been too wary to put anything out of her
• 4:31:42
  own power, and when on Sir Harry's death she returned again to her own
• 4:31:48
  house at Sandeton, she was said to have made this boast that though she
• 4:31:52
  had got nothing but her title from the family, yet she had given nothing
• 4:31:56
  for it. For the title, it was to be supposed that she married.
• 4:32:00
  Lady Denham was indeed a great lady beyond the common wants of society.
• 4:32:04
  For she had many thousands a year to bequeath, and three distinct sets of
• 4:32:08
  people to be courted by her own relations, who might very reasonably wish for
• 4:32:12
  her original thirty pounds. Among them the legal heirs of mister Hollis, who
• 4:32:18
  might hope to be more indebted to her sense of justice than he had allowed
• 4:32:21
  them to be to his, And those members of the Denham family, for
• 4:32:25
  whom her second husband had hoped to make a good bargain. By all these,
• 4:32:29
  or by branches of them, she had no doubt been long and still
• 4:32:32
  continued to be well attacked. And of these three divisions, mister Parker did
• 4:32:37
  not hesitate to say that mister Hollis's kindred were the least in favor, and
• 4:32:41
  Sir Henry Denham's the most. The former he believed had done themselves irremediable harm
• 4:32:47
  by expressions of very unwise resentment at the time of mister Hollis's death. The
• 4:32:52
  latter, to the advantage of being the remnant of a connection which she had
• 4:32:55
  certainly valued, joined those of having been known to her from their childhood,
• 4:33:00
  and of being always at hand to pursue their interest by seasonable attentions. But
• 4:33:04
  another claimant was now to be taken into account a young female relation whom Lady
• 4:33:10
  Denham had been induced to receive into her family, after having always protested against
• 4:33:15
  any such addition, and often enjoyed the repeated defeat. She had given to
• 4:33:19
  every attempt of her own relations to introduce this young lady or that young lady
• 4:33:23
  as a companion at Sanderton House. She had brought back with her from London
• 4:33:29
  last michaelmas a Miss Clara Brereton, who bid fair to vie in favor with
• 4:33:33
  Sir Edward Denham and to secure for herself and her family that share of the
• 4:33:37
  accumulated property which they certainly had the best right to inherit. Lady Denham's character
• 4:33:44
  comes out in a conversation which takes place at mister Parker's tea table. The
• 4:33:48
  conversation turned entirely upon Sandton, its present number of visitants and the chances of
• 4:33:55
  a good season. It was evident that Lady Denham had more anxiety, more
• 4:33:59
  fears of loss than her coadjutor. She wanted to have the place to fill
• 4:34:03
  faster, and seem to have many harassing apprehensions of the lodgings being in some
• 4:34:07
  instances under let to report that a large boarding school was expected. She replies,
• 4:34:14
  ah, well, no harm in that they will stay there six weeks.
• 4:34:17
  And out of such a number, who knows. But some may be
• 4:34:18
  consumptive and want asses milk, And I have two milch asses at this very
• 4:34:23
  time. But perhaps the little misses may hurt the furniture. I hope they
• 4:34:27
  will have a good sharp governess to look after them. But she wholly disapproved
• 4:34:33
  of mister Parker's wish to secure the residence of a medical man amongst them.
• 4:34:37
  Why what should we do with a doctor here? It would only be encouraging
• 4:34:41
  our servants and the poor to fancy themselves ill if there was a doctor at
• 4:34:44
  hand. Oh, pray, let us have none of that tribe at Sanditon.
• 4:34:48
  We go on very well as we are. There is the sea and
• 4:34:51
  the downs and my milch asses. And I have told missus Whitby that if
• 4:34:53
  anybody inquires for a chamber horse, they may be supplied at a fair rate.
• 4:34:59
  Poor mans. Mister Hollis's chamber horse as good as new, And what
• 4:35:03
  can people want more? I have lived seventy years in the world and never
• 4:35:07
  took physic except twice, and never saw the face of a doctor in all
• 4:35:10
  my life on my own account. And I really believe if my poor dear
• 4:35:14
  Sir Harry had never seen one neither, he would have been alive. Now
• 4:35:18
  ten fees one after another did the men take who sent him out of the
• 4:35:22
  world. I beseech you, mister Parker, no doctor's here. This lady's
• 4:35:26
  character comes out more strongly in a conversation with mister Parker's guest, Miss Charlotte
• 4:35:32
  Haywood. Sir Edward Denham, with his sister Esther and Clara Brereton have just
• 4:35:36
  left them. Charlotte accepted an imitation from Lady Denham to remain with her on
• 4:35:41
  the terrace while the others adjourned to the library. Lady Denham, like a
• 4:35:45
  true great lady, talked and talked only of her own concerns, and Charlotte
• 4:35:49
  listened, taking hold of Charlotte's arm with the ease of one who felt that
• 4:35:53
  any notice from her was a favor and communicative. From the same sense of
• 4:35:59
  importance, or from a natural love of talking. She immediately said, in
• 4:36:03
  a tone of great satisfaction and with a look of arch sagacity, Miss Ester
• 4:36:07
  wants me to invite her and her brother to spend a week with me at
• 4:36:11
  Sandyton House, as I did last summer. But I shan't. She has
• 4:36:15
  been trying to get round me every way with her praise of this and her
• 4:36:18
  praise of that. But I saw what she was about. I saw through
• 4:36:22
  it all. I am not very easily taken in, my dear Charlotte.
• 4:36:26
  Can think of nothing more harmless to be said than the simple inquiry of Sir
• 4:36:30
  Edward and Miss Denham. Yes, my dear, my young folks as I
• 4:36:33
  call them sometimes, for I take them very much by the hand, and
• 4:36:37
  had them with me last summer about this time for a week from Monday to
• 4:36:41
  Monday, and very delighted and thankful they were, for they are very good
• 4:36:45
  young people, my dear. I would not have you think that I only
• 4:36:48
  notice them for poor dear Harry's sake. No, no, they are very
• 4:36:52
  deserving themselves, or trust me, they would not be so much in my
• 4:36:56
  company. I am not the woman to help anybody blindfold. I always take
• 4:37:02
  care to know what I am about and who I have to deal with before
• 4:37:04
  I stir a finger. I do not think I was ever overreached in my
• 4:37:08
  life, and that is a good deal for a woman to say that has
• 4:37:11
  been twice married. Poor dear Sir Harry, between ourselves thought at first to
• 4:37:17
  have got more. But with a bit of a sigh, he is gone,
• 4:37:22
  and we must not find fault with the dead. Nobody could live happier
• 4:37:26
  together than us. And he was a very honorable man, quite the gentleman
• 4:37:30
  of ancient family. And when he died, I gave Sir Edward his gold
• 4:37:33
  watch. This was said with a look at her companion, which implied its
• 4:37:37
  right to produce a great impression, And seeing no rapturous astonishment on Charlotte's countenance,
• 4:37:42
  she added quickly, he did not bequeath it to his nephew, My
• 4:37:47
  dear, it was no bequest. It was not in the will. He
• 4:37:49
  only told me, and that but once, that he should wish his nephew
• 4:37:53
  to have his watch. But it need not have been binding if I had
• 4:37:56
  not chosen very kind, indeed very handsome, said Charlotte, absolutely forced to
• 4:38:02
  effect admiration. Yes, my dear, and it is not the only kind
• 4:38:07
  thing I've done by him. I have been a very liberal friend to Sir
• 4:38:10
  Edward, and poor young man he needs it bad enough. For though I
• 4:38:15
  am only the dowager, my dear, and he is the heir. Things
• 4:38:18
  do not stand between us in the way they usually do between those two parties.
• 4:38:22
  Not a shilling do I receive from the Denham estate. Sir Edward has
• 4:38:26
  no payments to make me. He don't stand upper most. Believe me,
• 4:38:30
  it is I that help him. Indeed, he is a very fine young
• 4:38:33
  man, and particularly elegant. In his address, this was said chiefly for
• 4:38:38
  the sake of saying something, but Charlotte directly saw that it was laying her
• 4:38:41
  open to suspicion by Lady Denham's giving a shrewd glance at her and replying,
• 4:38:47
  yes, yes, he's very well to look at. And it is to
• 4:38:49
  be hoped that somebody of large fortune will think so. For Sir Edward must
• 4:38:53
  marry for money. He and I often talk that matter over. A handsome
• 4:38:59
  young man like him will go smirking and smiling about and paying girls compliments.
• 4:39:03
  But he knows he must marry for money. And Sir Edward is a very
• 4:39:07
  steady young man in the main, and has got very good notions. Sir
• 4:39:11
  Edward Denham said, Charlotte, with such personal advantages may be almost sure of
• 4:39:15
  getting a woman of fortune if he chooses it. This glorious sentiment seemed to
• 4:39:19
  quite remove suspicion. Ay, my dear, that is very sensibly said.
• 4:39:25
  And if we could but get a young heiress to Sandton. But heiresses are
• 4:39:29
  monstrous scarce. I do not think we have had an heiress here, nor
• 4:39:33
  even a co since Sandton has been a public place. Families come after families,
• 4:39:37
  But as far as I can learn, it is not one in a
• 4:39:40
  hundred of them that have any real property landed or funded. An income perhaps,
• 4:39:45
  but no property. Clergymen may be, or lawyers from town, or
• 4:39:48
  half pay officers, or widows with only a jointure. And what can such
• 4:39:53
  people do to anybody, except just as they take our empty houses and between
• 4:39:57
  ourselves. I I think they are great fools for not staying at home.
• 4:40:03
  Now, if we could get a young heiress to be sent here for her
• 4:40:04
  health, and as soon as she got well, have her fall in love
• 4:40:07
  with Sir Edward, and miss Ester must marry somebody of fortune too. She
• 4:40:12
  must get a rich husband. Ah, young ladies that have no money are
• 4:40:17
  very much to be pitied. After a short pause, if miss Ester thinks
• 4:40:21
  to talk me into inviting them to come and stay at Sandyton House. She
• 4:40:25
  will find herself mistaken. Matters are altered with me since last summer. You
• 4:40:29
  know, I have Miss Clara with me now, which makes a great difference.
• 4:40:33
  I should not choose to have my two housemaids time taken up all the
• 4:40:36
  morning in dusting out bedrooms. They have Miss Clara's room to put to rights
• 4:40:41
  as well as mine every day. If they had hard work, they would
• 4:40:44
  want higher wages. Charlotte's feelings were divided between amusement and indignation. She kept
• 4:40:49
  her own countenance and kept a civil silence, but without attempting to listen any
• 4:40:55
  longer, and only conscious that Lady Denham was still talking in the same way,
• 4:40:59
  allowed her her own thoughts to form themselves into such meditation as this.
• 4:41:03
  She is thoroughly mean. I had no expectation of anything so bad. Mister
• 4:41:07
  Parker spoke too mildly of her. He is too kind hearted to see clearly,
• 4:41:12
  and their very connection misleads him. He has persuaded her to engage in
• 4:41:17
  the same speculation, and because they have so far the same object in view,
• 4:41:22
  he fancies that she feels like him in other things. But she is
• 4:41:25
  very, very mean. I can see no good in her, poor miss
• 4:41:29
  Brereton, and it makes everybody mean about her. This poor Sir Edward and
• 4:41:33
  his sister. How far nature meant them to be respectable I cannot tell.
• 4:41:37
  But they are obliged to be mean in their civility to her. And I
• 4:41:41
  am mean too in giving her my attention with the appearance of coinciding with her.
• 4:41:45
  Thus it is when rich people are sordid. Mister Parker has two unmarried
• 4:41:51
  sisters of singular character. They live together, Diana, the younger, always
• 4:41:56
  takes the lead, and the elder follows in the same track. It is
• 4:42:00
  their pleasure to fancy themselves invalids to a degree and in a manner never experienced
• 4:42:03
  by others, but from a state of exquisite pain and utter prostration. Diana
• 4:42:08
  Parker can always rise to be officious in the concerns of all her acquaintance,
• 4:42:12
  and to make incredible exertions where they are not wanted. It would seem that
• 4:42:18
  they must always be either very busy for the good of others, or else
• 4:42:22
  extremely ill themselves, some natural delicacy of constitution. In fact, with an
• 4:42:26
  unfortunate turn for medicine, especially quack medicine had given them an early tendency at
• 4:42:32
  various times to various disorders. The rest of their suffering was from their own
• 4:42:37
  fancy, the love of distinction, and the love of the wonderful. They
• 4:42:41
  had charitable hearts and many amiable feelings, but a spirit of restless activity and
• 4:42:45
  the glory of doing more than anybody else had a share in every exertion of
• 4:42:49
  benevolence, and there was vanity in all they did, as well as in
• 4:42:53
  all they endured. These peculiarities come out in the following letter of Diana Parker
• 4:43:00
  to her brother. My dear Tom, we were much grieved at your accident,
• 4:43:03
  and if you had not described yourself as having fallen into such very good
• 4:43:07
  hands, I should have been with you at all hazards. The day after
• 4:43:11
  the receipt of your letter, though it found me suffering under a more severe
• 4:43:15
  attack than usual of my old grievance, spasmodic, bile, and hardly able
• 4:43:19
  to crawl from my bed to the sofa. But how were you treated?
• 4:43:22
  Send me more particulars in your next If indeed a simple sprain, as you
• 4:43:27
  denominate it, nothing would have been so judicious as friction, friction by the
• 4:43:32
  hand alone, supposing it could be applied immediately. Two years ago I happened
• 4:43:37
  to be calling on Missus Sheldon when her coachman's brained his foot as he was
• 4:43:41
  cleaning the carriage and could hardly limp into the house, But by the immediate
• 4:43:45
  use of friction alone steadily persevered in. I rubbed his ankle with my own
• 4:43:51
  hands for four hours without intermission. He was well in three days. Pray
• 4:43:56
  never run into peril again in looking for an apothecary on our case out,
• 4:44:00
  For had you, the most experienced man in his line, settled at Sandatan,
• 4:44:03
  it would be no recommendation to us. We have entirely done with the
• 4:44:07
  whole medical tribe. We have consulted physician after physician in Vain till we are
• 4:44:12
  quite convinced that they can do nothing for us, and that we must trust
• 4:44:17
  to our knowledge of our own wretched constitutions for any relief. But if you
• 4:44:21
  think it advisable for the interests of the place to get a medical man there,
• 4:44:25
  I will undertake the commission with pleasure, and have no doubt of succeeding.
• 4:44:30
  I could soon put the necessary irons in the fire as forgetting to Sandutan
• 4:44:33
  myself, it is an impossibility. I grieve to say that I cannot attempt
• 4:44:37
  it, but my feelings tell me too plainly that in my present state the
• 4:44:41
  sea air would probably be the death of me, And in truth I doubt
• 4:44:45
  whether Susan's nerves would be equal to the effort. She has been suffering much
• 4:44:49
  from headache, and six leeches a day for ten days together relieved her so
• 4:44:53
  little that we thought it right to change our measures, and being convinced on
• 4:44:57
  examination that much of the evil lay in her gums, I persuaded her to
• 4:45:02
  attack the disorder there. She has accordingly had three teeth drawn, and is
• 4:45:07
  decidedly better, But her nerves are a good deal deranged, and she can
• 4:45:11
  only speak in a whisper, and fainted away this morning on poor Arthur's trying
• 4:45:15
  to suppress a cough. Within a week of the date of this letter,
• 4:45:18
  in spite of the impossibility of moving and of the fatal effects to be apprehended
• 4:45:22
  from the sea air, Diana Parker was at Sandyton with her sister. She
• 4:45:27
  had flattered herself that by her own indefatagical exertions and by setting at work the
• 4:45:32
  agency of many friends. She had induced two large families to take houses at
• 4:45:36
  Sandaton. It was to expedite these politic views that she came, and though
• 4:45:41
  she met with some disappointment of her expectation, yet she did not suffer in
• 4:45:45
  health. Such were some of the dramatis Personnee already dressed and prepared for their
• 4:45:49
  parts. They are at least original, and unlike any that the author had
• 4:45:53
  produced before. The success of the peace must have depended on the skill with
• 4:45:59
  which these these parts might be played. But a few will be inclined to
• 4:46:03
  distress the skill of one who had so often succeeded. If the author had
• 4:46:07
  lived to complete her work, it is probable that these personages might have grown
• 4:46:11
  into as mature an individuality of character, and have taken as permanent a place
• 4:46:15
  amongst our familiar acquaintance as mister Bennett or John Thorpe, Mary Musgrove, or
• 4:46:21
  Aunt Norris herself. End of Chapter thirteen, Chapter fourteen PostScript. When first
• 4:46:30
  I was asked to put together a memoir of my aunt, I saw reasons
• 4:46:34
  for declining the attempt. It was not only that, having passed the threescore
• 4:46:40
  years and ten usually allotted to men's strengths, and being unaccustomed to write for
• 4:46:45
  publication, I might well distrust my ability to complete the work, but that
• 4:46:49
  I also knew the extreme scantiness of the materials out of which it might be
• 4:46:53
  constructed. The grave closed over my aunt fifty two years ago, and during
• 4:47:00
  that long period no idea of writing her life had been entertained by any of
• 4:47:04
  her family. Her nearest relatives, far from making provisions for such a purpose,
• 4:47:11
  had actually destroyed many of the letters and papers by which it might have
• 4:47:15
  been facilitated. They were influenced, I believe, partly by an extreme dislike
• 4:47:21
  to publishing private details, and partly by never having assumed that the world would
• 4:47:26
  take so strong and abiding an interest in her works as to claim her name
• 4:47:30
  as public property. It was therefore necessary for me to draw upon recollections rather
• 4:47:38
  than unwritten documents, for my materials, while the subject itself supplied me with
• 4:47:44
  nothing striking or prominent with which to arrest the attention of the reader. It
• 4:47:48
  has been said that the happiest individuals, like nations, during their happiest periods,
• 4:47:55
  have no history. In the case of my aunt, it was not
• 4:47:59
  only that her course of life was unvaried, but that her own disposition was
• 4:48:03
  remarkably calm, and even there was in her nothing eccentric or angular, no
• 4:48:08
  ruggedness of temper, no singularity of manner, none of the morbid sensibility or
• 4:48:15
  exaggeration of feeling which not unfrequently accompanies great talents to be worked up into a
• 4:48:21
  picture. Hers was a mind well balanced on a basis of good sense,
• 4:48:26
  sweetened by an affectionate heart, and regulated by fixed principles, so that she
• 4:48:33
  was to be distinguished from many other amiable and sensible women only by that peculiar
• 4:48:37
  genius which shines out clearly enough in her works, but of which a biographer
• 4:48:42
  can make little use. The motive which at last induced me to make the
• 4:48:48
  attempt is exactly expressed in the passage prefixed to these pages. I thought that
• 4:48:52
  I saw something to be done, knew of no one who could do it
• 4:48:56
  but myself, and so was driven to the enterprise. I am glad that
• 4:49:02
  I have been able to finish my work as a family record. It can
• 4:49:06
  scarcely fail to be interesting to those relatives who must ever set a high value
• 4:49:10
  on their connection with Jane Austen, And to them I especially dedicate it,
• 4:49:15
  But as I have been asked to do so, I also submit it to
• 4:49:18
  the center of the public, with all its faults, both of deficiency and
• 4:49:22
  redundancy. I know that its value in their eyes must depend not on any
• 4:49:29
  merits of its own, but on the degree of estimation in which my aunt's
• 4:49:33
  works may still be held, And indeed I shall esteem it one of the
• 4:49:37
  strongest testimonies ever borne to her talents, if for her sake an interest can
• 4:49:41
  be taken in so poor a sketch as I have been able to draw.
• 4:49:48
  Bravicridge September seventh, eighteen sixty nine. PostScript printed at the end of the
• 4:49:59
  first edition, omitted from the second, since these pages were in type.
• 4:50:06
  I have read with astonishment the strange misrepresentation of my aunt's manners given by Miss
• 4:50:11
  Midford in a letter which appears in her lately published Life, Volume one,
• 4:50:15
  page three hundred five. Miss Midford does not profess to have known Jane Austen
• 4:50:21
  herself, but to report what had been told her by her mother, Having
• 4:50:26
  stated that her mother, before her marriage, was well acquainted with Jane Austen
• 4:50:30
  and her family, she writes thus, Mamma says that she was then the
• 4:50:37
  prettiest, silliest, most affected husband hunting butterfly she ever remembers. The editor
• 4:50:45
  of Miss Midford's Life very properly observes in a note how different this description is
• 4:50:51
  from every other account of Jane Austen, from whatever quarter. Certainly, it
• 4:50:56
  is so totally at variance with the modest simplicity of carriage which I have attributed
• 4:51:00
  to my aunt, that if it could be supposed to her assemblance of truth,
• 4:51:06
  it must be equally injurious to her memory and to my trustworthiness as her
• 4:51:10
  biographer. Fortunately, I am not driven to put my authority in competition with
• 4:51:15
  that of Miss Midford, nor to ask which ought to be considered the better
• 4:51:18
  witness in this case, because I am able to prove, by a reference
• 4:51:22
  to dates, that Miss Midford must have been under a mistake, and that
• 4:51:26
  her mother could not possibly have known what she was supposed to have reported.
• 4:51:30
  Inasmuch as Jane Austen, at the time referred to was a little girl,
• 4:51:37
  missus Midford was the daughter of doctor Russell, rector of Ashe, a parish
• 4:51:41
  adjoining Steventon, so that the families of Austin and Russell must at a time
• 4:51:45
  have been known to each other. But the date assigned by Miss Midford for
• 4:51:49
  the termination of the acquaintance is the time of her mother's marriage. This took
• 4:51:55
  place in October seventeen eighty five, when Jane, who had been born in
• 4:51:57
  September seventeenth seventy five, was not quite ten years old. In point of
• 4:52:03
  fact, however, Miss Russell's opportunities of observing Jane Austen must have come to
• 4:52:08
  an end still earlier, for upon Doctor Russell's death in January seventeen eighty three,
• 4:52:15
  his widow and daughter removed from the neighborhood, so that all intercourse between
• 4:52:18
  the families ceased when Jane was little more than seven years old. All persons
• 4:52:25
  who undertake to narrate from hearsay things which are supposed to have taken place before
• 4:52:30
  they were born, are liable to error, and are apt to call in
• 4:52:33
  imagination to the aid of memory. And hence it arises that many a fancy
• 4:52:37
  peace has been substituted for genuine history. I do not care to correct the
• 4:52:42
  inaccurate account of Jane Austen's manners in after life, because Miss Midfoot candidly expresses
• 4:52:48
  a doubt whether she had not been misinformed on that point. November seventeenth,
• 4:52:55
  eighteen sixty nine, end of Chap. To fourteen PostScript