Jane Austen and her works

by Sarah Tytler

In the meantime Jane Austen began fresh work, for “Mansfield Park” was commenced the year before. She had no separate study; she worked in the family sitting-room, undisturbed by the conversation, or the various occupations going on around her, and subjected to all kinds of interruptions. She wrote at a little mahogany writing-desk, on small pieces of paper, which could be easily put aside, or covered with blotting-paper at the sight of visitors. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that she did not take the greatest pains with her work. She wrote and re-wrote, filed and polished; her own comparison for the process was painting on a few inches of ivory by repeated touches.

“Pride and Prejudice” attracted attention before long.[5] When the secret of the authorship became known, in spite of the author’s name being omitted on the title-page, Jane Austen’s experience was that of a prophet who has no honour in his own country. Mr. Austen Leigh says that any praise which reached the author and her family from their neighbours and acquaintances was of the mildest description, and that those excellent people would have considered Miss Jane’s relatives mad if it had been suspected that they put her, in their own minds, on a level with Madame d’Arblay or even with far inferior writers. A letter is given in which the novelist describes to her sister Cassandra in the liveliest terms her feelings on seeing “Pride and Prejudice” in print. She had got her own darling child from London. The advertisement of it had appeared in their paper that day for the first time. Eighteen shillings! She should ask a guinea for her two next, and twenty-eight shillings for her stupidest of all.

A friend who was not in the secret had dined at Chawton Cottage on the very day of the book’s coming, and in the evening the family had fairly set to it and read half the first volume to her without her having any suspicion. “She was amused, poor soul!” observes the author, and then adds, with admirable naïveté, “That she could not help, you know, with two such characters to lead the way, but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.”

In another letter Jane Austen refers to the second reading, which had not come off quite so well, and had even caused her some fits of disgust. She attributed the comparative failure to the rapid way in which her mother, who seemed to have been the reader, got on, and to her not being able to speak as the characters ought, though she understood them perfectly. When we recollect that the old lady was already seventy-four years of age, we are rather astonished that she found voice and breath for such a labour of love as reading aloud her daughter’s novel, than that she was not able to give the dialogue with sufficient point. Upon the whole, the daughter winds up, she was quite vain enough and well satisfied enough, and the only fault which she found with her story was that it was rather too light, and bright, and sparkling; it wanted to be stretched here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had, if not of solemn specious nonsense. Unquestionably the novelist was not plagued with diffidence, any more than with mock-modesty.

In the same letter she refers to an out-of-the-way book for a woman to read, with which she was then engaged; it was an “Essay on the Military Police, and Institutions of the British Empire, by Captain Pasley, of the Engineers.” She declared it was delightfully written, and highly entertaining, and that the author was the first soldier she had ever sighed for. The last assertion reminds one of Jane Austen’s strong preference for the sister service, which may be best explained by the circumstance that she had two brothers in the navy, and none in the army. Her heroes are squires, clergymen, and sailors, just as the male Austens were. She uses their Christian names, James, Henry, Frank, Edward, as well as her own. Her sister’s name was too singular and conspicuous to be thus employed.

Another letter a year later, in 1814, supplies an account of a journey which Jane Austen made “post” to London, in company with her brother Henry, who read the MS. of “Mansfield Park” by the way. It sounds as if the brother and sister were themselves the bearers of the new work to the publisher, who brought it out the same year.

“Emma,” the heroine of which proved almost as great a favourite as Elizabeth Bennet with their author, was written and published two years later, in 1816. It was in connection with this, the last book of hers which Jane Austen lived to see come out, that she received what her nephew calls the only mark of distinction ever bestowed upon her. She was in London during the previous autumn of 1815, the year of Waterloo, nursing her brother Henry through a dangerous illness, in his house in Hans Place. Henry Austen was attended by one of the Prince Regent’s physicians. To this gentleman it became known that his patient’s nurse was the author of “Pride and Prejudice.” The court physician told the lady that the Prince was a great admirer of her novels; that he read them often, and kept a set in every one of his residences; that he himself had thought it right to inform his royal highness that Miss Austen was staying in London, and that the Prince had desired Mr. Clarke, the librarian at Carlton House, to wait upon her.

The next day Mr. Clarke made his appearance and invited Jane Austen to Carlton House, saying that he had the Prince’s instructions to show her the library,[6] and other apartments, and to pay her every possible attention. The invitation was of course accepted, and in the course of the visit to Carlton House Mr. Clarke declared himself commissioned to say that if Miss Austen had any other novel forthcoming, she was at liberty to dedicate it to the Prince. Accordingly, such a dedication was immediately prefixed to “Emma,” which was at that time in John Murray’s hands.

The first part of the civility, the invitation to Carlton House, was a gracious enough mark of attention from the first gentleman in Europe to the first lady novelist in his kingdom; but at this distance of time, in the full light enjoyed by posterity, it seems passing strange that two such women as Jane Austen and Jane Porter—equal in moral worth, though standing on very different intellectual heights—should have eagerly availed themselves of the permission to dedicate books to George IV., though he had been ten times the Prince Regent, and the future king. And what is if possible stranger, is that the Prince Regent should have been, even professedly, an admiring, assiduous reader of the novels—altogether apart in literary merit, but alike in good tone and taste—of these two upright and blameless women. The fact is enough to tempt people to a disheartening doubt of the moral influence of books.

As a qualification to the pleasure derived from the princely compliment, Jane Austen had to suffer the annoyance of receiving and declining to comply with two rather preposterous suggestions offered to her by Mr. Clarke. The one was for her to pourtray the habits of life, character, and enthusiasm of a clergyman who should pass his time between London and the country, and who should bear some resemblance to Beattie’s Minstrel.