“Here, therefore, we have two essential and important circumstances, in which the earlier novels differed from those now in fashion, and were more nearly assimilated to the old romances. And there can be no doubt that, by the studied involution and extrication of the story, by the combination of incidents new, striking and wonderful beyond the course of ordinary life, the former authors opened that obvious and strong sense of interest which arises from curiosity; as by the pure, elevated, and romantic cast of the sentiment, they conciliated those better propensities of our nature which loves to contemplate the picture of virtue, even when confessedly unable to imitate its excellences.
“But strong and powerful as these sources of emotion and interest may be, they are, like all others, capable of being exhausted by habit. The imitators who rushed in crowds upon each path in which the great masters of the art had successively led the way, produced upon the public mind the usual effect of satiety. The first writer of a new class is, as it were, placed on a pinnacle of excellence, to which, at the earliest glance of a surprised admirer, his ascent seems little less than miraculous. Time and imitation speedily diminish the wonder, and each successive attempt establishes a kind of progressive scale of ascent between the lately deified author, and the reader, who had deemed his excellence inaccessible. The stupidity, the mediocrity, the merit of his imitators, are alike fatal to the first inventor, by showing how possible it is to exaggerate his faults and to come within a certain point of his beauties.
“Materials also (and the man of genius as well as his wretched imitator must work with the same) become stale and familiar. Social life, in our civilized days, affords few instances capable of being painted in the strong dark colours which excite surprise and horror; and robbers, smugglers, bailiffs, caverns, dungeons, and mad-houses, have been all introduced until they cease to interest. And thus in the novel, as in every style of composition which appeals to the public taste, the more rich and easily worked mines being exhausted, the adventurous author must, if he is desirous of success, have recourse to those which were disdained by his predecessors as unproductive, or avoided as only capable of being turned to profit by great skill and labour.
“Accordingly a style of novel has arisen, within the last fifteen or twenty years, differing from the former in the points upon which the interest hinges; neither alarming our credulity nor amusing our imagination by wild variety of incident, or by those pictures of romantic affection and sensibility, which were formerly as certain attributes of fictitious characters as they are of rare occurrence among those who actually live and die. The substitute for these excitements, which had lost much of their poignancy by the repeated and injudicious use of them, was the art of copying from nature as she really exists in the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking representation of that which is daily taking place around him.
“In adventuring upon this task, the author makes obvious sacrifices, and encounters peculiar difficulty. He who paints from le beau idéal, if his scenes and sentiments are striking and interesting, is in a great measure exempted from the difficult task of reconciling them with the ordinary probabilities of life: but he who paints a scene of common occurrence, places his composition within that extensive range of criticism which general experience offers to every reader. The resemblance of a statue of Hercules we must take on the artist’s judgment; but every one can criticize that which is presented as the portrait of a friend, or neighbour. Something more than a mere sign-post likeness is also demanded. The portrait must have spirit and character, as well as resemblance; and being deprived of all that, according to Bayes, goes ‘to elevate and surprize,’ it must make amends by displaying depth of knowledge and dexterity of execution. We, therefore, bestow no mean compliment upon the author of Emma, when we say that, keeping close to common incidents, and to such characters as occupy the ordinary walks of life, she has produced sketches of such spirit and originality, that we never miss the excitation which depends upon a narrative of uncommon events, arising from the consideration of minds, manners and sentiments, greatly above our own. In this class she stands almost alone; for the scenes of Miss Edgeworth are laid in higher life, varied by more romantic incident, and by her remarkable power of embodying and illustrating national character. But the author of Emma confines herself chiefly to the middling classes of society; her most distinguished characters do not rise greatly above well-bred country gentlemen and ladies; and those which are sketched with most originality and precision, belong to a class rather below that standard. The narrative of all her novels is composed of such common occurrences as may have fallen under the observation of most folks; and her dramatis personæ conduct themselves upon the motives and principles which the readers may recognize as ruling their own and that of most of their acquaintances.”
It is manifestly clear to us, then, from these passages, that Jane Austen’s contemporaries were quite aware of her influence upon the progress of fiction; and so generous a tribute, from one whose mighty genius had set the current in other directions, must be accounted no less honourable to the critic than to the criticised.
Four years after her death (i.e. six years later) the new school is again applauded, in an admirable appreciation, by Archbishop Whately of the posthumous Persuasion and Northanger Abbey,[4] who dwells at great length upon an important distinction between the “unnatural” and the “merely improbable” in fiction.
Scott, of course, was always generous in criticism; and his striking enthusiasm for Mrs. Radcliffe and the earlier women-writers, in his Lives of the Novelists, reveals no less chivalrous gallantry than his famous tribute to Miss Edgeworth. Still it was obviously necessary for the great critic to explain the grounds of his enthusiasm; and the “more assured attitude of applause which Whateley was able to adopt, after so short an interval, may serve to witness the advance which her genius had achieved in the general estimate.”
We cannot avoid noticing, however, that neither of her contemporary masculine critics seems to have been quite happy about the ideal of womanhood which Jane Austen was certainly the first to introduce. It required courage, indeed, to conceive of a heroine without “sensibility,” and the creator of Marianne Dashwood must certainly have been perfectly conscious of the omission. It happens that Scott and Whateley were both thirty-four when these articles were written, yet each complains, after his own fashion, of the calculating prudence here revealed towards love and matrimony by the young ladies of the piece. One would have supposed that neither of them was either old enough to remember “sensibility” in real life, or young enough for idle dreaming. Clearly, however, they had a tender partiality for the old type, probably shared by their readers; although both writers assure us that young people in their day were not in fact at all addicted to the sacrifice of all for love.
Scott is certainly not justified in stating that Elizabeth was led to accept Darcy by discovering the grandeur of his estates; both because such an attitude was inconsistent with her mental independence, and because she herself jokingly suggests this explanation of the remarkable change in her sentiments towards him, to tease her sister.