“‘We have been exactly a quarter of an hour here,’ said Edmund, taking out his watch. ‘Do you think we are walking four miles an hour?’
“‘Oh, do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.’
“A few steps farther brought them out at the bottom of the very walk they had been talking of.
“‘Now, Miss Crawford, if you will look up the walk, you will convince yourself that it cannot be half a mile long, or half half a mile.’
“‘It is an immense distance,’ said she; ‘I see that with a glance.’
“He still reasoned with her, but in vain. She would not calculate, she would not compare. She would only smile and assert. The greatest degree of rational consistency could not have been more engaging, and they talked with mutual satisfaction.”
It is in “Mansfield Park” and in “Persuasion” that the influence of her two sailor brothers, Francis and Charles, on Jane Austen’s work can be most easily traced. Unlike the majority of writers of all time, from Shakespeare with his “Seacoast of Bohemia” down to the author of a penny dreadful, Jane Austen never touched, even lightly, on a subject unless she had a real knowledge of its details. Her pictures of the life of a country gentleman and of clergymen are accurate, if not always sympathetic. Perhaps it was all too near her own experience to have the charm of romance, but concerning sailors she is romantic. Their very faults are lovable in her eyes, and their lives packed with interest. When Admiral Croft, Captain Wentworth, or William Price appears on the scene, the other characters immediately take on a merely subsidiary interest, and this prominence is always that given by appreciation. The distinction awarded to Mr. Collins or Mrs. Elton, as the chief object of ridicule, is of a different nature. The only instance she cared to give us of a sailor who is not to be admired is Mary Crawford’s uncle, the Admiral, and even he is allowed to earn our esteem by disinterested kindness to William Price.
No doubt some of this enthusiasm was due to the spirit of the times, when, as Edward Ferrars says, “The navy had fashion on its side”; but that sisterly partiality was a stronger element there can be no question. Her place in the family was between these two brothers, Francis just a year older, and Charles some four years younger. Much has been said about her fondness for “pairs of sisters” in her novels, but no less striking are the “brother and sister” friendships which are an important factor in four out of her six books. The love of Darcy for his sister Georgiana perhaps suggests the intimacy between James Austen and Jane, where the difference in their ages of ten years, their common love of books, the advice and encouragement that the elder brother was able to give his sister over her reading, are all points of resemblance. The equal terms of the affection of Francis and Jane are of another type.
Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, Mrs. Croft and Frederick Wentworth, give us good instances of firm friendships. In the case of the Tilneys, confidences are exchanged with ease and freedom; but in “Persuasion,” the feeling in this respect, as in all others, is more delicate, and only in the chapter which Jane Austen afterwards cancelled can we see the quickness of Mrs. Croft’s perceptions where her brother was concerned. For so long as she supposes him to be on the brink of marrying Louisa Musgrove, sympathy is no doubt somewhat difficult to force, but “prompt welcome” is given to Anne as Captain Wentworth’s chosen wife; and with some knowledge of Mrs. Croft we know that the “particularly friendly manner” hid a warmth of feeling which would fully satisfy even Frederick’s notions of the love which Anne deserved. But it is in “Mansfield Park” that “brothers and sisters” play the strongest part. No one can possibly doubt the very lively affection of Mary and Henry Crawford. Even when complaining of the shortness of his letters, she says that Henry is “exactly what a brother should be, loves me, consults me, confides in me, and will talk to me by the hour together”—and the scene later on, where he tells of his devotion to Fanny Price, is as pretty an account of such a confidence as can be well imagined, where the worldliness of each is almost lost in the happiness of disinterested love, which both are feeling.
When Jane Austen comes to describing Fanny’s love for her brother William, her tenderness and her humour are in perfect accord. From the reality of the feelings over his arrival and promotion, to the quiet hit at the enthusiasm which his deserted chair and cold pork bones might be supposed to arouse in Fanny’s heart after their early breakfast, when he was off to London, the picture of sisterly love is perfect. We are told, too, that there was “an affection on his side as warm as her own, and much less encumbered by refinement and self-distrust. She was the first object of his love, but it was a love which his stronger spirits and bolder temper made it as natural for him to express as to feel.” So far this describes the love of William and Fanny, but a few lines further on comes a passage which has the ring of personal experience. In reading it, it is impossible not to picture a time which was always of great importance in the life at Steventon—the return on leave for a few weeks or a few months of one or other of the sailor brothers, and all the walks and talks which filled up the pleasant days. “On the morrow they were walking about together with true enjoyment, and every succeeding morrow renewed the tête-à-tête. Fanny had never known so much felicity in her life as in this unchecked, equal, fearless intercourse with the brother and friend, who was opening all his heart to her, telling her all his hopes and fears, plans and solicitudes respecting that long thought of, dearly earned, and justly valued blessing of promotion—who was interested in all the comforts and all the little hardships of her home—and with whom (perhaps the dearest indulgence of the whole) all the evil and good of their earliest years could be gone over again, and every former united pain and pleasure retraced with the fondest recollection.”