Jane Austen and Her Times

by G. E. Mitton

After only the lapse of a month or two from the completion of First Impressions, Jane began on Sense and Sensibility, which she at first called Elinor and Marianne, and which, in the form of letters, had been written long before; probably, if the truth were known, this might be called her first long story, and it was in any case the first published. The story in letters has been wittily described as the “most natural but the most improbable” form; and certainly, though this style of novel had a brief renewal of popularity a year or two ago, it is one that is aggravating to most readers, and requires many clumsy expedients to fill in gaps in order to make the story hang together connectedly. Miss Burney had employed it with good effect in Evelina, but even here the story would have run much better told straightforwardly. In any case Jane was well advised to abandon this form. The novel was finished in 1798 but not published until 1811.

Sense and Sensibility, though it has never been placed first in position among Jane Austen’s novels, has been accounted second by many people. The two sisters, Elinor and Marianne, who represent Sense and excessive Sensibility, are finely sketched. In this book the fact that Jane Austen’s leading men are not equal to her leading women is clearly exemplified. Mr. Austin Dobson speaks of the “colourless Edward Ferrars and stiff-jointed Colonel Brandon,” and the epithets are well deserved. We might add the selfish and unchivalrous Willoughby, for here may be noted a defect not uncommon in women-writers, an inability to grasp the code belonging to gentlemanly conduct. This is noticeable in the behaviour ascribed to Darcy in Pride and Prejudice already mentioned, but it is worse in the case of Willoughby, who is supposed to be brilliant, charming, and a gentleman, even though he acts badly by Marianne. His long explanation with Elinor, when Marianne lies on a sick-bed, and he himself is married, is supposed to atone for his bad behaviour; at all events it is made to exonerate him in Elinor’s eyes, whereas, far from exonerating him in the eyes of any ordinary person, it shows him in a worse light than anything that has preceded.

It is only a scoundrel or cad of the weakest sort who speaks slightingly of his wife, though unfortunately the code for women is different, and many a woman “gives away” her husband on small enough grounds. Yet in spite of one of the most stringent and least frequently infringed rules of manly conduct, we find Willoughby saying, apparently without any debasement in his creator’s eyes—

“‘With my hand and heart full of your sister, I was forced to play the happy lover to another woman, ... Marianne, beautiful as an angel, on one side ... and Sophia, jealous as the devil, on the other hand.’” He then goes on to say that the letter sent in his name, which had cut poor Marianne to the heart, was dictated by his wife. “‘What do you think of my wife’s style of letter writing?—delicate—tender—truly feminine—was it not?’” and in excuse for his marriage, “‘In honest words her money was necessary to me.’”

After this even Elinor feels bound to rebuke him, saying: “‘You have made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least.’”

“‘Do not talk to me of my wife,’” he replies. “‘She does not deserve your compassion. She knew I had no regard for her when we married.’”

In this book also there is a serious blot of another sort, a violation of probabilities, which suffices to score a heavy mark against it. In Pride and Prejudice there is certainly improbability in the fact that two portionless girls like Jane and Elizabeth Bennet should find such husbands as Bingley and Darcy, but the improbability is lessened by the fact that the pair of men were friends, and so one match contributes to the other; but in Sense and Sensibility the weak subterfuge for getting rid of Lucy Price, to whom Edward holds himself in honour bound, is hardly credible. There is no rational explanation of the obliging conduct of Robert Ferrars, Edward’s brother; to make a man so vain and selfish marry a woman who could bring him nothing, and whose charms were not great, is a poor means of escaping from an undesirable deadlock.

There remain a few other points for comment. We have in Mrs. Dashwood one of the silly though fond mothers that Jane Austen delights to describe. In Mrs. Jennings we have the comic relief, not so clever as that supplied by Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice or by Miss Bates in Emma. A little too coarse for many people, but still true enough to the times, when the fact of a man’s paying any attention to a girl at all was sufficient to make the gossips discuss their marriage and settlement in life with all openness.

The second chapter, often quoted, is one of the finest scenes in the whole book; here John Dashwood, mindful of his promise to his dying father, suggests giving each of his sisters a portion of one thousand pounds out of the magnificent estate which has come to him under the entail, but by the insidious arguments of his wife he at last settles it with his conscience to afford them such assistance “as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things, and sending them presents of fish and game and so forth, whenever they are in season.”

The cottage in which the Dashwoods were installed at Barton seems greatly to have resembled the cottage at Chawton. “As a house, Barton Cottage, though small, was comfortable and compact; but as a cottage it was defective, for the building was regular, the roof was tiled, the window-shutters were not painted green, nor were the walls covered with honeysuckles. A narrow passage led directly through the house into the garden behind. On each side of the entrance was a sitting-room about sixteen feet square and beyond them were the offices and the stairs. Four bedrooms and two garrets formed the rest of the house. It had not been built many years and was in good repair.” But as Sense and Sensibility was written long before Jane went to live at Chawton, it is possible this account of the cottage was interpolated later, perhaps when she revised the book for publication in 1811.