Such an investigation, indeed, seems to have been almost courted by the author herself when she borrowed a title from a chance phrase of her sister-novelist’s, for a story with a somewhat similar plot, developed, among other coincidences, in two closely parallel scenes. When at length, after a series of cruel misfortunes, the hero and heroine of Cecilia were permitted to console each other, an onlooker thus pointed the moral of their experience: “The whole of this unfortunate business has been the result of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.”
There must have been a day, about twenty years after they were written, when these words assumed, in Jane Austen’s eyes, a sudden significance. She had read them before, probably many times, but on this occasion they proved no less than an inspiration. Within her desk, on which perhaps the favourite volume was then lying, lay the neatly written manuscript of a tale constructed, in some measure, on the lines of this very Cecilia. She had called it First Impressions. Would not Pride and Prejudice be a better name? It was certainly a happy thought.[8]
Now Delvile, like Darcy, fell in love against his family instincts, and, with an equally offensive condescension, discoursed at length on his struggles between pride and passion to the young lady he desired to honour with his affection. He, too, resisted long, yielded in the end, and was forgiven. His mother’s appeal to Cecilia was as violent, and almost as impertinent, as Lady Catherine’s to Elizabeth.
A close comparison of these two parallel scenes will serve at once to show Jane Austen’s familiarity with the copy and her originality of treatment. Darcy, like Delvile, is not “more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride.” But he has overcome his scruples and offers his hand, in confidence of its being accepted, to one who dislikes and despises him. Delvile, on the other hand, wishes merely to explain the reasons that have induced him to deny himself the dangerous solace of the “society” of one whom he believes to be entirely indifferent to him, and to excuse the occasional outbursts of tenderness into which he has been betrayed in unguarded moments. He does not complain of “the inferiority of her connections,” but of the clause in her uncle’s will by which her future husband is compelled to take her name. Cecilia had been puzzled by his uncertain behaviour, but, believing him only cautious from respect to his parents, had permitted herself to love him.
Mrs. Delvile again, like Lady Catherine, based her appeal on the “honour and credit” of the young man she was so anxious to release; but her insolence was tempered by affection, and disguised by high-sounding moral sentiments. Cecilia was softened, as Elizabeth had not been, by a sense of gratitude for past kindness and by a strained notion of respect for the older lady. Mrs. Delvile, except in her pride, is intended to inspire us with genuine respect; Lady Catherine is always treated with amused contempt.
There are other instances—less familiar, but equally striking—in which Miss Austen made use, in her own inimitable fashion, of characters, phrases, and situations in Evelina and Cecilia.
Mr. Delvile, the pompous and foolish man of family, reappears in Sir Walter Elliot of Persuasion, and General Tilney of Northanger Abbey. Cecilia could never determine “whether Mr. Delvile’s haughtiness or his condescension humbled her most,” and he became “at length so infinitely condescending, with intention to give her courage, that he totally depressed her with mortification and chagrin.” Catherine Morland always found that “in spite of General Tilney’s great civilities to her, in spite of his thanks, invitations, and compliments, it had been a release to get away from him.”
Cecilia’s friendship for Henrietta Belfield resembles Emma’s for Harriet Smith. She was ever watching the state of her young friend’s heart; now soliciting her confidence, and again, from motives of prudence, rejecting it. For a time both girls are in love with the hero, and Henrietta dreams as fondly and as foolishly over Delvile’s imagined partiality as Harriet did over Knightley’s. Neither heroine has any thought of resigning her lover to her friend, or “of resolving to refuse him at once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not marry them both.”
The following conversation between Mr. Gosport and Miss Larolles recalls Miss Steele’s persistence in laughing at herself about the doctor (Sense and Sensibility), and Tom Bertram’s affected belief that Miss Crawford was “quizzing him and Miss Anderson” (Mansfield Park).
Gosport attacks Miss Larolles on a rumour now current about her, and, after some skirmishing, confesses to having heard that “she had left off talking.”