Making allowance for the novelist’s strong individuality, there is an undoubted change in the tone. There are greater tolerance and tenderness especially noticeable in “Persuasion”—more thoughtfulness and earnestness in “Mansfield Park”—a perfection of composition which belongs peculiarly to “Emma.” All the three novels are distinguished by greater polish of the simple, vigorous diction, and a still more determined adherence to probability. The later novels may lack some amount of what Jane Austen herself defined as the sparkle of “Pride and Prejudice”—a sparkle which was often hard as well as bright; but the notion of any falling-off in power in the author would be absurd. There was an ample equivalent for anything she might have lost in fresh spontaneousness by what she had gained in reflection and feeling, and in delicacy of execution.
VI.
The shadow of what proved a mortal illness was already hanging over Jane Austen while she was working at “Persuasion,” and this circumstance may help to account for a certain soft pensiveness in the book, in opposition to the author’s earlier unbroken, often hard, brilliance. But, as a proof that her high standard of literary excellence, and the pains which she did not grudge in order to attain it, had not abated, Mr. Austen Leigh tells us that, having ended her novel, “Persuasion,” she was dissatisfied with the close, and her dissatisfaction preyed on her mind to such a degree as to affect her usually cheerful spirits. She retired to bed one night quite depressed, but rose next morning with renewed energy and hope to make a fresh effort. She pulled down what she had done so far as to cancel the chapter containing the re-engagement of the hero and heroine, which she had pronounced flat and tame. She wrote two entirely new chapters—among the most delightful in the book—in its place. Instead of reconciling the couple at the Crofts’ lodgings, she brought the Musgroves and Captain Harville to Bath, and we know the result. Any one who has the least idea of the relief implied to a conscientious artist in the conclusion of a long thought out, long laboured at piece of work—the double relief when bodily health and spirits have failed under the task—will comprehend something of the devotion to her art and concern for her reputation which compelled the novelist thus to resume and re-construct her last scenes.
Struggling against illness as Jane Austen was from the earlier stages of the internal disease which ultimately proved fatal, in the January of 1817—the year in which she died—she began another tale, and wrote on—in spite of such bodily weakness that the last portions were first traced in pencil, though the quantity continued as great as twelve chapters in seven weeks—till the 17th of March, two months before she left Chawton not to return, and four months before her death. Mr. Austen Leigh mentions some family troubles in the spring of 1816, which his aunt took to heart, and which might have aggravated her complaint. I do not know whether these had anything to do with the persistent industry under adverse circumstances; whether she might be anxious to contribute her share still, as she had been doing within the last few years, to the family income; or whether she might be prompted feverishly to seek the distraction from other cares afforded by mental work.
Certainly, those of Jane Austen’s letters which belong to this date are as lively as ever, and wittier than in her younger days. She wrote to a nephew in reference to the weather that it was really too bad, and had been too bad for a long time, much worse than any body could bear, and she began to think it would never be fine again. This was a finesse of hers, for she had often observed that if anybody wrote about the weather it was generally completely changed before the letter was read. She chaffed the Winchester boy on having first dated the letter from his father’s house at Steventon, and then given the superfluous information that he had returned home. She was glad that he had recollected to mention his being come home. Her heart had begun to sink within her when she had got so far through his letter without its being mentioned. She had been dreadfully afraid that he might have been detained at Winchester by some illness—confined to his bed, perhaps, and quite unable to hold a pen, and only dating from Steventon in order, with a mistaken sort of tenderness, to deceive her. But now she had no doubt of his being at home, she was sure he would not have said it so seriously unless it were so.
She changed the subject to describe countless post-chaises full of Winchester boys passing the cottage on their return home for their holidays—chaises full of future heroes, legislators, fools, and villains. Before he came to see his grandmother and aunts his mother must get well, he must go to Oxford, and not be elected. After that, a little change of scene might be good for him, and his physicians, she hoped, would order him to the sea, or to a house by the side of a very considerable pond.
In another letter to the same correspondent, Jane Austen said that one reason of her writing was for the pleasure of directing to the young fellow as Esquire. She wished him joy on having left Winchester for good. Now he might own how miserable he had been there; now it would gradually all come out, his crimes and his miseries: how often he had gone up by the mail to London and thrown away fifty guineas at a tavern, and how often he had been on the point of hanging himself, restrained only, as some ill-natured person writing on poor Winton had it, by the want of a tree within some miles of the city.
This nephew, like one of the author’s nieces, appears to have been perpetrating a boyish attempt at a novel under the fascination of the favourite Aunt Jane’s vocation. There was some delightful banter from her on their common craft. After a brief allusion to his Uncle Henry’s very superior sermons, she proceeded to suggest that the budding novelist and herself ought to get hold of one or two and put them into their novels; it would be a fine help to a volume; they could make their heroines read them aloud on a Sunday evening, just as well as Isabella Wardlaw in the “Antiquary”[10] was made to read the history of the Hartz demon in the ruins of St. Ruth, though Jane believed on recollection Lovel was the reader. She was quite concerned for the loss the lad’s mother had mentioned in her letter. Two chapters and a half to be missing was monstrous. It was well that she had not been at Steventon lately, and therefore could not be suspected of purloining them; two strong twigs and a half towards a nest of her own would have been something. She did not think, however, that any theft of that sort would be really very useful to her. What could she have done with his strong, manly, vigorous sketches, full of variety and glow? How could she possibly have joined them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which she worked with so fine a brush as produced little effect after much labour?
Jane Austen’s disease increased gradually, while she was spared much suffering. Her friends were not aware how soon or how late she apprehended the serious nature of her complaint. Her unselfishness and her buoyant temper alike inclined her to make light of any illness. An instance is given of her constant consideration for those around her. In the usual sitting-room at Chawton Cottage there was only one sofa, frequently occupied by Mrs. Austen, then in her seventy-eighth year. Jane, who was forced to lie down often, would never use the sofa, even in her mother’s absence. She contrived a sort of couch for herself with two or three chairs, and alleged that the arrangement was much more comfortable to her than a real sofa; but the importunity of a little niece drew from the invalid the private explanation that she believed if she herself had shown any inclination to use the sofa, her mother might have scrupled being on it so much as was good for her.
In a long letter to a friend, in the beginning of 1817, Jane wrote happily about herself, as having certainly gained strength during the winter, and being then not far from well. She thought she understood her case better than she had done, and ascribed her symptoms to biliousness, which could be kept off by care. After various bits of family news she finished the letter, then added in a postscript that the real object of the epistle was to ask her friend for a recipe, but she had thought it genteel not to let it appear early.