But Jane Austen, like Shakespeare, is a dramatist. So, lest this be taken for Miss Austen's opinion, Captain Wentworth has the last word here when he writes to Anne, "Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. Unjust I have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant."
And so, at the close of these novels, two more happy homes are added to those of rural England.
Are there many heroes and heroines for whom we dare predict a happy married life? Would Mr. B. and Pamela have written such long letters to each other about the training of their children if conversation had not been a bore? Evelina must have been disappointed to discover that Lord Orville lived on roast beef, plum-pudding, and port wine instead of music and poetry. Of all Scott's heroes and heroines none had sacrificed more for each other than Ivanhoe and Rowena; he gave up Rotherwood, and, as a disinherited son, sought forgetfulness of her charms in distant Palestine; she put aside all hopes of becoming a Saxon queen, and was true to the gallant son of Cedric. Yet we have Thackeray for authority that they were not only unhappy, but often quarrelled after Scott left them at the altar. And none of Thackeray's marriages turned out well, although Becky Sharp made Rodney Crawley very happy until he discovered her wiles. Dickens was perhaps more fortunate, but David was led away by the cunning ways of Dora before he discovered a companion and helpmate in Agnes, a heroine worthy to be placed beside Elizabeth and Jane Bennet. George Eliot's books and those of later novelists are rather a warning than an incentive to matrimony. Have all our sighs and tears over the mishaps of ill-starred lovers been in vain, and is it true that when the curtain falls at the wedding it is only to shut from view a scene of domestic infelicity?
Not so with Jane Austen. She is the queen of match-makers. The marriages brought about by her guidance give a belief in the permanency of English home life, quite as necessary for the welfare of the kingdom as the stability of Magna Charta. Her heroes have qualities that wear well, and her heroines might have inspired Wordsworth's lines:
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.
Besides the lovers, many diverting people lived in these homes of the gentry, quite as amusing as any of the peasants who were brought upon the stage by the older dramatists for our entertainment; perhaps more amusing, because of their self-sufficiency. These people seldom do anything that is peculiar, nor are they the objects of practical jokes, as were so many men and women in the earlier books; but they talk freely both at home and abroad about whatever is of interest to them. They seldom use stereotyped words or phrases, yet their conversation is a crystal from which the whole mental horizon of the speaker shines forth. When Mrs. Bennet learns that Netherfield Park has been let to a single gentleman of fortune, her first exclamation comes from the heart—"What a fine thing for our girls!" After Mr. Collins, upon whom Mr. Bennet's estate is entailed, has resolved to make all possible amends to his daughters by marrying one of them, and is making his famous proposal to Elizabeth, he says with solemn composure: "But, before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying—and, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did." No wonder Elizabeth laughed at such a lover. Mr. Collins is the same type of man as Mr. Smith, whom Evelina meets at Snow Hill, but infinitely more ridiculous because he is an educated man of some attainments.
Then there is Mr. Woodhouse, the father of Emma, with his constant solicitude for everybody's health and his fears that they may have indigestion. When his daughter and her family arrive from London, all well and hearty, he says by way of hospitality: "You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a basin of gruel." His friend Mrs. Bates is always voluble. She is describing Mr. Dixon's country seat in Ireland to Emma: "Jane has heard a great deal of its beauty—from Mr. Dixon, I mean—I do not know that she ever heard about it from anybody else—but it was very natural, you know, that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his addresses—and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them—for Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter's not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all blame them; of course she heard everything he might be telling Miss Campbell about his own home in Ireland." One respects the mental power of a woman who could remember the main thread of her discourse amid so many digressions.
How characteristic is Sir Walter Elliot's reply to the gentleman who is trying to bring a neighbour's name to his mind. "Wentworth? Oh, ay! Mr. Wentworth, the curate of Monkford. You misled me by the term Gentleman. I thought you were speaking of some man of property." And not the least amusing of these people is Mr. Elton's bride, a pert sort of woman who for some reason patronises everybody into whose company she is thrown. After meeting Mr. Knightley, by far the most consequential person about Highbury, she expresses her approval of him to Emma: "Knightley is quite the gentleman! I like him very much! Decidedly, I think, a very gentlemanlike man." And Emma wonders if Mr. Knightley has been able to pronounce this self-important newcomer as quite the lady. Pick out almost any speech at random, and anyone who is at all familiar with Miss Austen will easily recognise the speaker.
This ability to describe people by such delicate touches has been highly praised by Macaulay in the essay on Madame D'Arblay before quoted. He thus compares Jane Austen with Shakespeare:
"Admirable as he [Shakespeare] was in all parts of his art, we must admire him for this, that, while he has left us a greater number of striking portraits than all other dramatists put together, he has scarcely left us a single caricature. Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who, in the point which we have mentioned, have approached nearest to the manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There are, for instance, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class. They have all been liberally educated. They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They are all young. They are all in love. Not one of them has any hobbyhorse, to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have contributed."