Jane Austen was the youngest of seven children, who dwelt together in that amity which the Bible recommends but which frail humanity infrequently realizes. She was a genius without eccentricities, egotisms or rebellions; never did a writer of immortal books live a more conventional life or have less to write about. She had no literary friends, not even at the end of her life. Her best work was done at the age of twenty-two, and was a secret kept from the members of her family. She wrote on little sheets of paper, which could be quickly hidden under a blotter or a piece of “fancy work.” Her books were not published until late in her life, and then they were published anonymously. She died of tuberculosis at the age of forty-two.
The characters in her novels are the people of the world she knew. Her theme is, of course, the theme of all bourgeois fiction, the property marriage. Here we see the golden love-glints flashing from Cupid’s eyes; here we see the fortunes sailing about upon breezes of emotion; here we see Sensibility controlled by Sense.
Not great fortunes, you understand, but modest ones, such as entitle one to be on the visiting list of an English country rector. A fortune sufficient to enable the hero to escape the inconvenience of working, and to live in the country and exhibit to mankind a beautiful and graceful specimen of the human race. A fortune sufficient to enable him to marry a lady of Sense and Sensibility, and to provide her with a beautiful home and a garden, and a few servants, and maintenance for whatever number of children it may please Providence to send. That is the sort of fortune for which Jane Austen’s heroines are competing, and which each of them invariably gets—the bourgeois happy ending.
Do not misunderstand me: her heroines are not mercenary—that is, not with their conscious minds. The mercenary elements in their lives are instinctive and conventional; the laws of the British leisure classes, of “gentlefolk.” These laws Jane Austen never questioned, nor does anyone of her heroines ever question them. Therefore it is possible for these ladies to be mercenary to the point of ferocity, yet at the same time to be sentimental and even charming.
If you travel through the Jane Austen country you find the roads lined with hedge-rows, which bear flowers in the springtime, and are full of birds, and afford opportunity for delightful descriptions in novels; also they afford thrilling adventures, because a heroine can stand behind a hedge-row and listen to her best friend discussing her to her lover. Outside these hedge-rows walk common people of all sorts; farm laborers on their way to fourteen hours of animal-like toil; factory workers, pale and stunted; soldiers on the march; able seamen paying a visit to home; tradesmen, tourists—all sorts of persons one does not know. Behind the hedge-rows dwell the “gentlefolk,” carefully guarded by the police magistrates; and the common people never by any chance penetrate the hedge-rows, except in the capacity of servants. So the young ladies of the “gentle” family meet no men save such as have been carefully investigated and approved; so it is possible for these ladies to be full of Sensibility—that is, quivering with excitement at the male approach—and yet entirely innocent of mercenary motives, and entirely safe from the danger of making an unmercenary match.
How perfectly this system works you may note in Jane Austen’s novels. There are eight heroines, and eight fortunes to be married. One of the heroines takes the risk of marrying a clergyman who has no money except his “living.” Two others marry clergymen who, in addition to their “livings,” have good financial prospects. The other five marry non-clerical gentlemen of wealth. Mostly these fortunes come from land; everywhere over the Jane Austen novel there hovers a magic presence known as the “entailed estate.” In only one case is there any hint of vulgar origin for the fortune, in a recent connection with “trade.” Of all the fortunes, only one has actually been gained by the man who possesses it and bestows it upon the heroine; and this man has gained it in a most respectable Christian way—that is to say, not by “trade,” but by killing and robbery. He has been a naval captain, and brings home his share of the prizes taken.
The great crimes and horrors of the world lie outside the hedge-rows surrounding the Jane Austen rectory. We can hear the guns and smell the powder smoke, but the deadly missiles never pass the magic barrier. Two of Jane’s brothers are naval officers, and they come and go in imposing uniforms; the Napoleonic wars are on, and they are guarding the channel, and in later life become admirals. An intimate friend of the family is Warren Hastings, who conquered India for the British; when he was placed on trial for wholesale graft, he explained by saying that when he considered his opportunities, he marveled, not that he had taken so much, but that he had not taken more. Nothing of anything like this enters into the novels.
What does enter are the quiverings of Sensibility, the ups and downs of the “tender emotions.” When we were children we used to take a daisy and pull off the petals, and with petal number one we would say: “He loves me,” and with petal number two: “He loves me not,” and so on. With petal number one our heart goes up, and with petal number two it goes down. There is another question, equally thrilling: “Do I love him, or do I not?” Many things get in the way; Pride and Prejudice, for example. It is hard to know our own minds; and sometimes when we hesitate too long, it is necessary for the older members of our family to apply Persuasion. (I am making puns on the titles of the novels.)
I would not be understood to disparage this little English old maid. She did not make her world, in which the father of the family preaches in the name of the Prince of Peace, and the sons go out to kill and loot. She is a most charming and witty old maid, and her queer people are alive in every throb of their quivering hearts. She was a sly little body, and we suspect her of knowing more than she tells. There was a terrible scandal whispered concerning her, which she vehemently denied; we hate to pass it on, but this is a book of plain speaking and we have to do our duty—so let it be recorded that some of the neighbors suspected Jane Austen of watching them at tea-parties and church fairs, with the intention of putting their peculiarities into her books!