“in the republic of letters, there is no member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his brethren of the quill, as the humble novelist; nor is his fate less hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers, perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous but less respectable.”
Jane Austen is more spirited in her complaint, and takes her example from Miss Burney herself:
“Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with novel-writers, of degrading, by their contemptuous censure, the very performances to the number of which they are themselves adding; joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of one novel be not patronised by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the Press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers; and while the ability of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator and a chapter from Sterne, is eulogised by a thousand pens, there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. ‘I am no novel-reader; I seldom look into novels; it is really very well for a novel.’ Such is the common cant. ‘And what are you reading, Miss ——?’ ‘Oh, it’s only a novel!’ replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference or momentary shame. ‘It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda,’ or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.”
FOOTNOTES:
[8] There is good ground for thinking that the change of title was made after the novel was finished, for Mr. Austen-Leigh says that Pride and Prejudice was written between October 1796 and August 1797, while it is referred to as First Impressions in letters as late as June 1799.
[9] Even the names here sound unexpectedly similar.
“PERSUASION” TO “JANE EYRE”
(1818-1847)
Susan Ferrier (1782-1854) once declared that “perhaps, after all, the only uncloying pleasure in life is that of fault-finding”; and this cynical conclusion may serve to measure, in some degree, the peculiar flavour of her brisk satire. The fact is, that she acquired her notions of literary skill from intimate association with “the Modern Athens,” as Edinburgh then styled itself, wherein “Crusty Christopher” and “The Ploughman Poet” held sway. It was here, as we know, that “Brougham and his confederates” formed that conspiracy of scorn, The Edinburgh Review, which Wilson out-Heroded in Blackwood. Following Miss Burney, in her spirited exhibition of “Humours,” Miss Ferrier also continued the Edgeworth “national” novel, by exploiting a period of Scotch history untouched by Scott.
As her friend, Wilson, remarks in the Noctes:
“These novels have one feature of true and melancholy interest quite peculiar to themselves. It is in them alone that the ultimate breaking-down and debasement of the Highland character has been depicted. Sir Walter Scott had fixed the enamel of genius over the last fitful flames of their half-savage chivalry, but a humbler and sadder scene—the age of lucre-banished clans—of chieftains dwindled into imitation squires, and of chiefs content to barter the recollections of a thousand years for a few gaudy seasons of Almacks and Crockfords, the euthanasia of kilted aldermen and steamboat pibrochs was reserved for Miss Ferrier.”