If in this age of steam and electricity you would escape from the noise of the city, and experience for an hour the quiet joys of the English countryside, at a time when a chaise and four was the quickest means of reaching the metropolis from any part of the kingdom, turn to the pages of Jane Austen. In them have been preserved faithful pictures of the peaceful life of the south of England exactly as it existed a hundred and more years ago. The gently sloping downs crossed by hedgerows, the lazy rivers meandering through the valleys, the little villages half hidden in the orchards of apple, pear, peach, and plum, all suggest the land of happy homes. On the outskirts of every village there are the two of three gentlemen's houses: the substantial mansion of the squire, with its park of old elms, oaks, and beeches; a smaller house suitable for a gentleman of slender income, like Mr. Bennet, the father of the four girls of Pride and Prejudice, or for an elder son who will in time take possession of the hall, like Charles Musgrove in the story of Persuasion; and the still smaller parsonage standing in the garden of vegetables and flowers, surrounded by a laurel hedge, where lives a younger son or a friend of the family.
The gentry that inhabit these homes carry on the plot of Jane Austen's novels. And what an even, almost uneventful life they lead. Life with them is one long holiday. Dance follows dance, varied only by a dinner at the mansion, a picnic party, private theatricals, a brief sojourn at Bath, a briefer one in London, or a ride to Lyme, seventeen miles away. But Cupid ever hovers near, and in each one of these groups of gentle folk we watch the course of true love, "which never did run smooth." For in spite of match-making mammas and stern fathers with an eye that the marriage settlements shall be sufficient to clothe sentiment with true British respectability, the six novels of Jane Austen contain as many true and tender love stories, differing from one another not so much in the incidents as in the characters of the lovers. Unlike the older novelists, who constantly drew the attention away from the main theme by stories of thrilling adventure, Jane Austen holds closely to the great problem of fiction, whether or not the youths and maidens will be happily married at the conclusion of the book.
When Darcy first meets Elizabeth, the heroine of Pride and Prejudice, he shuns her and her family as vulgar. Elizabeth is so prejudiced against him that she cannot forget his insulting arrogance. But Darcy's love cannot be stemmed. Other heroes have plunged into raging floods to rescue the fair heroine. Darcy does more. For love of Elizabeth he accepts the whole Bennet family, including Mrs. Bennet, who always says the silly thing, and Lydia, who had almost invited Wickham to elope with her and was indifferent as to whether or not he married her, until Darcy compelled him to do so—a bitter humiliation for a man whose greatest fault was overweening pride of birth. At last, Elizabeth comprehends the extent of his generosity, his superior understanding and strength of character, and Darcy is rewarded by the hand of the sunniest heroine in all fiction. Who but Elizabeth with her independent spirit, quick intelligence and lively wit could curb his family pride! They marry, and we know they will be happy.
Sense and Sensibility works out a problem for lovers. Like many romantic girls, Marianne asserts that a woman can love but once. "He never loved that loved not at first sight" is also part of her creed. But after her infatuation for Willoughby has been cured, she contentedly marries Colonel Brandon, although she knows that he frequently has rheumatism and wears flannel waistcoats. Marianne will be much happier as the wife of a man of mature years who loves her impulsive nature and can control it than she would have been with the gallant who won her first love.
In the piquant satire of Northanger Abbey there is another problem suggested. This book is distinctly modern. Man is the pursued; woman the pursuer. Bernard Shaw has treated this momentous question in a serious manner in many of his plays. Jane Austen regards it with a humorous smile. Did Henry Tilney ever know why he married Catherine Morland? Or was this daughter of a country parsonage, without beauty, without accomplishments, and without riches, aware that on her first visit to Bath she used feminine arts that would have put Becky Sharp to shame—who, by the way, was a little girl at that time—and would have made Anne, the knowing heroine of Man and Superman, green with envy? Yet her arts consisted simply in following the dictates of her heart. She fell in love with Henry Tilney; looked for him whenever she entered the pump-room; was unhappy if he were absent and expressed her joy at his approach; saw in him the paragon of wisdom and looked at every thing with his eyes. From first ignoring her, he began to seek her society, and learn the true excellence of her character. And then Jane Austen explains:
"I must confess that this affection originated in nothing better than gratitude; or in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine's dignity, but if it is as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will be all my own."
But lest we think that Miss Austen is asserting a rule that women take the initiative in this matter of love and marriage, it is well to remember that Darcy first loved Elizabeth Bennet, and forced her to acknowledge his worth, and that Colonel Brandon married a young lady who had formerly supposed him at the advanced age of thirty-five to be occupied with thoughts of death rather than of love.
And Mr. Knightley is another hero who fell in love and waited patiently for its return. Emma is like Marianne in one respect, she needed guidance. Almost from childhood the mistress of her father's house and the first lady in the society of Highbury, she was threatened by two evils, "the power of having too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself." Mr. Knightley, the elder brother of her elder sister's husband, is the only person that sees that she is not always wise and that she is sometimes selfish. He is the only one that chides her. Emma is interested in promoting the welfare of all about her, but she lacks that most feminine quality of insight, so that her well-meant help, as in the case of her protégée, poor Harriet Smith, is sometimes productive of evil. And yet Emma is brave and self-forgetful. Not until she has schooled herself to think of Mr. Knightley as married to Harriet, is she aware how much he is a part of her own life. But this is only another instance of her blindness. When she learns that he has loved her with all her faults ever since she was thirteen, she is very happy. There is no tumultuous passion in this union, but we are assured of a love that will abide through the years.
In Mansfield Park and in Persuasion, there is another variety of the old story. Fanny Price and Anne Elliot, the one the daughter of a poor lieutenant of marines, whose family is the most ill-bred in all Miss Austen's books, the other the neglected daughter of Sir Walter Elliot, Baronet, have more in common than any other of her heroines. Although these stories are different, yet in each it is the devotion of the heroine that guides the course of love through many obstacles into a quiet haven. Who that reads their story will say that Miss Austen's maidens are without passion? They do not analyse their feelings, nor do they pour them forth in wild soliloquy. But the heart of each is clearly revealed through little acts and expressions. Fanny Price, cherishing a love for Edmund Bertram, who was kind to her when she was neglected by everybody else, refuses to marry the rich, handsome, and brilliant Mr. Crawford, although she herself is penniless. We feel her misery as she realises that she is nothing but a friend to Edmund and rejoice with her when her love awakens a response. Anne Elliot, the gentlest of all her heroines, who in obedience to her father has broken her engagement to Captain Wentworth eight years before, when she is again thrown into his company, observes his every expression, and grows sad and weak in health at his studied neglect. Other heroines have said more, but none have felt more than Miss Austen's. Anne Elliot herself has spoken for them:
"All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one) is that of loving longest, when existence, or when hope, is gone."