VI.
The shadow of what proved a mortal illness was already hanging over Jane Austen while she was working at “Persuasion,” and this circumstance may help to account for a certain soft pensiveness in the book, in opposition to the author’s earlier unbroken, often hard, brilliance. But, as a proof that her high standard of literary excellence, and the pains which she did not grudge in order to attain it, had not abated, Mr. Austen Leigh tells us that, having ended her novel, “Persuasion,” she was dissatisfied with the close, and her dissatisfaction preyed on her mind to such a degree as to affect her usually cheerful spirits. She retired to bed one night quite depressed, but rose next morning with renewed energy and hope to make a fresh effort. She pulled down what she had done so far as to cancel the chapter containing the re-engagement of the hero and heroine, which she had pronounced flat and tame. She wrote two entirely new chapters—among the most delightful in the book—in its place. Instead of reconciling the couple at the Crofts’ lodgings, she brought the Musgroves and Captain Harville to Bath, and we know the result. Any one who has the least idea of the relief implied to a conscientious artist in the conclusion of a long thought out, long laboured at piece of work—the double relief when bodily health and spirits have failed under the task—will comprehend something of the devotion to her art and concern for her reputation which compelled the novelist thus to resume and re-construct her last scenes.
Struggling against illness as Jane Austen was from the earlier stages of the internal disease which ultimately proved fatal, in the January of 1817—the year in which she died—she began another tale, and wrote on—in spite of such bodily weakness that the last portions were first traced in pencil, though the quantity continued as great as twelve chapters in seven weeks—till the 17th of March, two months before she left Chawton not to return, and four months before her death. Mr. Austen Leigh mentions some family troubles in the spring of 1816, which his aunt took to heart, and which might have aggravated her complaint. I do not know whether these had anything to do with the persistent industry under adverse circumstances; whether she might be anxious to contribute her share still, as she had been doing within the last few years, to the family income; or whether she might be prompted feverishly to seek the distraction from other cares afforded by mental work.
Certainly, those of Jane Austen’s letters which belong to this date are as lively as ever, and wittier than in her younger days. She wrote to a nephew in reference to the weather that it was really too bad, and had been too bad for a long time, much worse than any body could bear, and she began to think it would never be fine again. This was a finesse of hers, for she had often observed that if anybody wrote about the weather it was generally completely changed before the letter was read. She chaffed the Winchester boy on having first dated the letter from his father’s house at Steventon, and then given the superfluous information that he had returned home. She was glad that he had recollected to mention his being come home. Her heart had begun to sink within her when she had got so far through his letter without its being mentioned. She had been dreadfully afraid that he might have been detained at Winchester by some illness—confined to his bed, perhaps, and quite unable to hold a pen, and only dating from Steventon in order, with a mistaken sort of tenderness, to deceive her. But now she had no doubt of his being at home, she was sure he would not have said it so seriously unless it were so.
She changed the subject to describe countless post-chaises full of Winchester boys passing the cottage on their return home for their holidays—chaises full of future heroes, legislators, fools, and villains. Before he came to see his grandmother and aunts his mother must get well, he must go to Oxford, and not be elected. After that, a little change of scene might be good for him, and his physicians, she hoped, would order him to the sea, or to a house by the side of a very considerable pond.
In another letter to the same correspondent, Jane Austen said that one reason of her writing was for the pleasure of directing to the young fellow as Esquire. She wished him joy on having left Winchester for good. Now he might own how miserable he had been there; now it would gradually all come out, his crimes and his miseries: how often he had gone up by the mail to London and thrown away fifty guineas at a tavern, and how often he had been on the point of hanging himself, restrained only, as some ill-natured person writing on poor Winton had it, by the want of a tree within some miles of the city.
This nephew, like one of the author’s nieces, appears to have been perpetrating a boyish attempt at a novel under the fascination of the favourite Aunt Jane’s vocation. There was some delightful banter from her on their common craft. After a brief allusion to his Uncle Henry’s very superior sermons, she proceeded to suggest that the budding novelist and herself ought to get hold of one or two and put them into their novels; it would be a fine help to a volume; they could make their heroines read them aloud on a Sunday evening, just as well as Isabella Wardlaw in the “Antiquary”[10] was made to read the history of the Hartz demon in the ruins of St. Ruth, though Jane believed on recollection Lovel was the reader. She was quite concerned for the loss the lad’s mother had mentioned in her letter. Two chapters and a half to be missing was monstrous. It was well that she had not been at Steventon lately, and therefore could not be suspected of purloining them; two strong twigs and a half towards a nest of her own would have been something. She did not think, however, that any theft of that sort would be really very useful to her. What could she have done with his strong, manly, vigorous sketches, full of variety and glow? How could she possibly have joined them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which she worked with so fine a brush as produced little effect after much labour?
Jane Austen’s disease increased gradually, while she was spared much suffering. Her friends were not aware how soon or how late she apprehended the serious nature of her complaint. Her unselfishness and her buoyant temper alike inclined her to make light of any illness. An instance is given of her constant consideration for those around her. In the usual sitting-room at Chawton Cottage there was only one sofa, frequently occupied by Mrs. Austen, then in her seventy-eighth year. Jane, who was forced to lie down often, would never use the sofa, even in her mother’s absence. She contrived a sort of couch for herself with two or three chairs, and alleged that the arrangement was much more comfortable to her than a real sofa; but the importunity of a little niece drew from the invalid the private explanation that she believed if she herself had shown any inclination to use the sofa, her mother might have scrupled being on it so much as was good for her.
In a long letter to a friend, in the beginning of 1817, Jane wrote happily about herself, as having certainly gained strength during the winter, and being then not far from well. She thought she understood her case better than she had done, and ascribed her symptoms to biliousness, which could be kept off by care. After various bits of family news she finished the letter, then added in a postscript that the real object of the epistle was to ask her friend for a recipe, but she had thought it genteel not to let it appear early.
By April Jane Austen was seriously ill, and a young niece who had walked over with an elder sister to inquire for her aunt, received the impression of her as quite like an invalid. She was in her dressing-gown, sitting in an arm-chair, though she could get up and kindly greet the visitors. She was very pale, her voice was weak and low, and there was about her a general appearance of debility and suffering. She was not equal to the exertion of talking, and the visit of the nieces to the sick room was a short one, their other aunt, Cassandra, soon taking them away.
In the following month, May, Jane Austen was induced to go to Winchester, to be near a skilful doctor, who spoke encouragingly to his patient, but who from the first entertained little expectation of a permanent cure. She was accompanied by her life-long friend and sister Cassandra. They could leave their aged mother behind them with the friend and family connection who made one of the household at Chawton Cottage. Besides, Mrs. Austen was near several of her children and grandchildren. In Winchester, where the sisters had lodgings in the corner house in College Street, at the entrance to Commoners, the Austens had old and valued friends among the residents in the Close. Still Jane wrote hopefully about herself to the nephew to whom she appears to have been so much attached. There was no better way of thanking him for his affectionate concern for her during her illness than by telling him herself, as soon as possible, that she continued to get better. She seems to have been aware of the change in her penmanship, which struck him also, and hastened to observe gaily that she would not boast of her handwriting: neither that nor her face had yet recovered their proper beauty, but in other respects she gained strength very fast. She was then out of bed from nine in the morning until ten at night—upon the sofa, it was true, but she ate her meals with Aunt Cassandra in a rational way, and could employ herself and walk from one room to another. Mr. Lyford (the surgeon) said he would cure her, and if he failed, she would draw up a memorial to the Dean and Chapter, and had no doubt of redress from that pious, learned, and disinterested body. The sisters’ lodgings were very comfortable. They had a neat little drawing-room with a bow window, overlooking Dr. Gabell’s garden. Thanks to the kindness of her correspondent’s father and mother in sending her their carriage, her journey to Winchester on Saturday had been performed with very little fatigue, and had it been a fine day, she thought she would have felt none; but it had distressed her much to see Uncle Henry and William Knight, who had kindly attended them on horseback, riding in the rain almost the whole way.
The cheerful letter ends solemnly: “God bless you, my dear E——. If ever you are ill, may you be as tenderly nursed as I have been. May the same blessed alleviations of anxious sympathising friends be yours; and may you possess, as I dare say you will, the greatest blessing of all, in the consciousness of not being unworthy of their love. I could not feel this. Your very affectionate aunt, J. A.”
For amidst the sweet and jubilant sights and sounds of an English May and June in the old grey cathedral town, the great English novelist was fast passing away. Jane Austen had always been a sweet-tempered, contented woman, and all that was best and noblest in her nature and her faith came out in the patience, humility, and thankfulness with which she met her last enemy. “I will only say farther,” are her loving words, in one more letter, that “my dearest sister, my tender, watchful, indefatigable nurse, has not been made ill by her exertions. As to what I owe her, and the anxious affection of all my beloved family on this occasion, I can only cry over it, and pray God to bless them more and more.”
The sister who had lived together with Jane in their home—who had been with her waking and sleeping for forty-two years—who had served the little girl as a model—who had held the office of the young author’s sole confidante beforehand, as to her characters and plots—who had rejoiced and suffered with her, stood by and soothed Jane Austen’s death-bed; so did a sister-in-law, to whom the dying woman said, almost with her last breath, “You have always been a kind sister to me, Mary.”
Two of her brothers, whom she had so cherished in her faithful affection, both clergymen living near, were frequently with her, administering the consolations and services of their church, as well as testifying their constant regard. She was fully acquainted with her danger, though she continued hopeful. She had much to bind her to life. “We may well believe,” Mr. Austen Leigh writes, “that she would gladly have lived longer; but she was enabled, without dismay or complaint, to prepare for death. She was a humble, believing Christian.” And she was strengthened to rule her spirit to the last. Her sweetness of temper never failed. She was always considerate of, and grateful to, those who attended on her. At times, when she felt a little better, the ruling spirit of playfulness revived, and she amused her companions even in their sadness. She sank rapidly in the end. On being asked whether there was anything she wanted, her reply was, “Nothing but death.” These were her parting words. In quietness and peace, records Jane Austen’s nephew, she breathed her last, on the morning of July 18th, 1817, at the age of forty-two years. She was buried on the 24th of July, in Winchester Cathedral, near the centre of the north aisle, opposite the tomb of William of Wykeham. A slab of black marble marks the place.[11]
The words with which Mr. Austen Leigh concludes the memoir are full of simple pathos. “Her own family only attended the funeral. Her sister returned to her desolated home, there to devote herself to the care of her aged mother, and to live much on the memory of her lost sister, till called many years later to rejoin her. Her brothers went back sorrowing to their several homes. They were very fond and very proud of her. They were attached to her by her talents, her virtues, and her engaging manners; and each loved afterwards to fancy a resemblance in some niece or daughter of his own to the dear sister Jane, whose perfect equal they yet never expected to see.”
Surely to be thus prized and mourned by her nearest and dearest was beautiful and good—in one sense best—while it need not have interfered with wider interests and influences; and, doubtless, to be so cherished was the meet reward of Jane Austen’s faithful performance of the home duties from which no literary career, however arduous and distinguished, absolved her, and of her unswerving loyalty to the domestic affections which form the inner citadel of all true natures. For charity or love must always begin at home, and reign paramount there, wherever it may end, though the extremities of the earth may own its sway.
Jane Austen’s mother survived her ten years, dying at the great age of eighty-eight. Cassandra Austen lived nearly twenty years after her mother’s death, nearly thirty years after the death of Jane, dying at the age of seventy. On the death of Cassandra Austen, Chawton Cottage was suffered to fall far down in the social scale of houses: it was divided into tenements for labourers. The rooms continued to be so used while the walls were still standing, nine or ten years ago.