No such criticism, however applies to those full-length portraits of the inimitable Aunts in Marriage—the “sensible” Miss Jacky, Miss Nicky, who was “not wanting for sense either,” and Miss Grizzy, the great letter-writer. “Their life was one continued fash about everything or nothing”; and if a “sensible woman” generally means “a very disagreeable, obstinate, illiberal director of all men, women, and children,” the Aunts were really “well-meaning, kind-hearted, and, upon the whole, good-tempered” old ladies, whose garrulous absurdities are a perpetual delight.
Again, Miss Pratt (of The Inheritance) has certain obvious affinities to the inimitable Miss Bates; as Mr. M‘Dow (in Destiny) recalls Collins; and the creation of that good soul, Molly Macaulay, bears solitary evidence to Miss Ferrier’s seldom-exerted powers of sympathetic subtlety.
We are tempted to wonder if there be any particular significance in the fact that, though Miss Ferrier wrote Marriage almost immediately after the appearance of Sense and Sensibility, she did not publish it till seven years later.[11] If, during that interval, she felt compelled to study the supreme excellences of a sister-authoress, it is clear that she wisely abandoned any attempt at imitation. Her work, as we have seen, directly follows Miss Burney’s, and should be properly regarded in relation to Evelina and Cecilia; reflecting Society—and the upstart—of a slightly later generation, then flourishing in North Britain.
Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855) is the only writer on record who has deliberately declared herself a disciple.
“Of course, I shall copy as closely as I can nature and Miss Austen—keeping, like her, to genteel country life; or rather going a little lower, perhaps; and, I am afraid, with more of sentiment and less of humour. I do not intend to commit these delinquencies, mind. I mean to keep as playful as I can; but I am afraid they will happen in spite of me.... It will be called—at least, I mean it so to be—Our Village; will consist of essays, and characters, and stories, chiefly of country life, in the manner of the Sketch Book, connected by unity of locality and purpose. It is exceedingly playful and lively, and I think you will like it. Charles Lamb (the matchless Elia of the London Magazine) says nothing so fresh and characteristic has appeared for a long time.”
It was called Our Village; and appeared in parts between 1824 and 1832, the earlier series being the best, because afterwards she wrote for remuneration—when “I would rather scrub floors, if I could get as much by that healthier, more respectable, and more feminine employment,”—a declaration which prepares us for the criticism that, though in her own day she was accused of copying the “literal” manner of Crabbe and Teniers, she was at heart a frank sentimentalist. “Are your characters and descriptions true?” asked her friend Sir William Elford; and she replied, “Yes! yes! yes! as true as is well possible. You, as a great landscape painter, know that, in painting a favourite scene, you do a little embellish, and can’t help it, you avail yourself of happy accidents of atmosphere, and if anything be ugly, you strike it out, or if anything be wanting, you put it in. But still the picture is a likeness.”
Assuredly Miss Mitford was no realist, nor was her imitation servile. Once she expressed a desire that Miss Austen had shown “a little more taste, a little more perception of the graceful”; and, in such matters, as in culture, she was herself far more professional. But although she could describe, and even “compose,” with a charm of her own which almost defies analysis, Miss Mitford’s powers were strictly limited. The “country-town” atmosphere of Belford Regis lacks spontaneity; and Atherton, her only attempt at a novel, is wanting in varied incident or motion. Readers attracted by mere simplicity, however, will feel always a peculiar affection for Miss Mitford, that would be increased by her “Letters” which she describes as “just like so many bottles of ginger-beer, bouncing and frothy, and flying in everybody’s face.”
Christopher North remarked in Noctes Ambrosianæ that her writings were “pervaded by a genuine rural spirit—the spirit of Merry England. Every line bespeaks the lady.”
And the “Shepherd” replied: