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MORE VIEWS OF JANE AUSTEN
(by George Barnett Smith) (1895)
(From 'The Gentleman's Magazine'.)
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The author, writing for an article in a magazine a few years after publication of memoirs of Jane Austen by her nephew, mostly borrows material from the said memoirs; but he writes well, in his own words, except where he uses quotes.
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"An author who shall kindle into enthusiasm critics so diverse in character as Sir Walter Scott, Sir James Mackintosh, Archbishop Whately, and Lord Macaulay, must—in a literary sense—be in possession of the philosopher's stone. Such an author was the gifted woman whose name appears at the head of this article. Like Shakespeare, she took, as it were, the common dross of humanity, and by her wonderful power of literary alchemy, turned it into pure gold. yet she was apparently unconscious of her strength, and in the long roll of writers who have adorned our noble literature there is probably not one so devoid of pedantry or affectation, so delightfully self-repressive, or so free from egotism, as Jane Austen. Her life passed calmly and smoothly, resembling some translucent stream which meanders through our English meadows, and is never lashed into anger by treacherous rocks or violent currents. The lover of books, who turns from the rush and strife of existence in quest of intellectual solace and recreation, will discover in this writer a perennial spring of enjoyment and satisfaction."
"A very entertaining Memoir of Jane Austen was given to the world some years ago by her nephew, the Rev. J. E. Austen Leigh. ... Mr. Austen Leigh furnishes us with a glimpse of rural life in the South of England a century ago. It seems scarcely possible that so short a space of time should have made such a difference, both as regards the enlightenment of the inner and the softening of the rugged and outer aspects of life in the rural districts. We read that, so lately as towards the close of the last century, "a neighbouring squire, a man of many acres," referred the following difficulty to Mr. Austen's decision. "You know all about these sort of things. Do tell us. Is Paris in France, or France in Paris? For my wife has been disputing with me about it." If such was the condition of the tolerably well-to-do, we may form some idea of the ignorance and degradation of the labouring classes. ... Both Mr. and Mrs. Austen, however, were possessed of no ordinary mental parts, though it was from the latter (who lived to the great age of eighty-eight, dying only in 1827) that Jane Austen derived the genius which was destined to gain her high literary distinction. ... Happily Jane Austen was not left to the ordinary rural society we have already depicted. There was the refinement of her own home, and to her mother and elder sister Cassandra—women of intellectual power and high and pure tone—Miss Austen was deeply attached. But, besides these home sources of culture and improvement as well as enjoyment, she found in the neighbourhood, as her biographer observes, "persons of good taste and cultivated minds. Her acquaintance, in fact, constituted the very class from which she took her imaginary characters, ranging from the Member of Parliament or large landed proprietor to the young curate or younger midshipman of equally good family; and I think that the influence of these early associations may be traced in her writings, especially in two particulars. First, that she is entirely free from the vulgarity which is so offensive in some novels, of dwelling on the outward appendages of wealth or rank as if they were things to which the writer was unaccustomed; and, secondly, that she deals as little with very low as with very high stations in life." ... "
" ... "Pride and Prejudice," considered by many persons the most brilliant of her novels, was begun in 1796, before she was twenty-one years of age, and completed in about ten months. ... But the groundwork of "Sense and Sensibility" was composed even earlier than this, while "Northanger Abbey" was first written in 1798. ... "
"In the year 1801 the Austens removed to Bath, where "The Watsons," a story never concluded by the author, was written. ... The residence in Bath had not been without its uses to the novelist, as many scenes in her works abundantly testify. She was, however, acquainted with the fashionable city of the West before it became the residence of her family. Their stay at Southampton was not of long duration, as in 1809, through the kindness of Mr. Knight, of Steventon, they were able to take up their abode at Chawton, in Hampshire. ... She delighted in working unsuspected by others, and wrote upon small sheets of paper which could readily be put away or covered over on the approach of intruders. ... "
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"‘Seven Eastern cities claim great Homer dead,
"Through which the living Homer begged his bread.’"
"The prince's librarian, Mr. Clarke, writing to Miss Austen at the time of the approaching marriage of Prince Leopold to the Princess Charlotte, suggested that "an historical romance illustrative of the august House of Cobourg would just now be very interesting," and might very properly be dedicated to Prince Leopold. To this obliging recommendation, Miss Austen replied in terms which implied that she could not write to order. "I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable to me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter." ... "
................................................................................................" ... Cadell, the well-known publisher, declined by return of post to give any encouragement to the publication of Miss Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," or even to entertain the proposition to publish the work at the author's risk. "Northanger Abbey" was sold in 1803 to a publisher in Bath for 10l.; but so little enamoured was he of the story that he chose to abide by his first loss rather than risk further expense by publishing such a work. The author herself considered that when she -received 150l. from the sale of "Sense and Sensibility," it was a prodigious recompense for that which had cost her little or nothing. ... "
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" ... Except through the eye, however, the intellect of this great writer is scarcely indicated in the portrait; and ladies of the present day, in observing the style of dress, will be apt to think that they have improved vastly, as regards grace and beauty, upon the costume in vogue with their grandmothers.
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"The "Letters of Jane Austen," recently edited by Lord Brabourne, add very little knowledge of a personal character to that we already enjoyed. Nor are the letters themselves valuable from the literary point of view, and if Jane Austen were now living she would probably be extremely angry at their publication. If anything could damage the fame of a writer already well established it would be the issue of such works of supererogation as that undertaken by Lord Brabourne. There are, perhaps, twenty pages in the two volumes issued by his lordship which are either amusing or valuable, as illustrating Jane Austen's character and epistolary skill; but as the world is so very busy, and has so many important things to attend to, it could well have spared the remainder."
"The "Letters of Jane Austen," recently edited by Lord Brabourne, add very little knowledge of a personal character to that we already enjoyed. Nor are the letters themselves valuable from the literary point of view, and if Jane Austen were now living she would probably be extremely angry at their publication. If anything could damage the fame of a writer already well established it would be the issue of such works of supererogation as that undertaken by Lord Brabourne. There are, perhaps, twenty pages in the two volumes issued by his lordship which are either amusing or valuable, as illustrating Jane Austen's character and epistolary skill; but as the world is so very busy, and has so many important things to attend to, it could well have spared the remainder."
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The author quotes passages from Emma, and from Northanger Abbey, reminding us of the excellence of character sketching by Jane Austen.
The result is a strengthening of a remainder of subtle values emphasised by Jane Austen, as for example the key scene where Knightley's strong reproof to Emma after the picnic, which is what one is reminded of reading at he quotes here from Emma- for, excellent as the passage is, the strongest feeling one has is that Emma wasn't wrong in her jest, but yes, Knightley was right in the reproof, that however boring someone might be, it's wrong to hurt them merely for a jest, and it's not done by those brought up to manners of civil society.
"How comes it that of all the old novels, so few have survived to our own day? Where twenty have perished, only one lives to be read and remembered. We have Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, Goldsmith, and Jane Austen; but the works of other novelists, for which immortality was predicted at the beginning of the century, have sunk beyond revival in the waters of oblivion. ... "
So have others he mentions along with hername; but curiously enough, he doesn't mention the Bronte sisters or George Eliot, who were her contemporary and have survived the centuries as well.
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"A recent critic has quarrelled with her on the ground that her clergymen are not such clergymen as would satisfy us if they were thus drawn in stories written at the present time. This may be so; she has drawn the clergy of her own day; and they were not in the habit of obtruding the cloth, neither did they claim to be aesthetic as the word is now understood. Many of the clergymen Miss Austen has drawn are fine manly fellows; but in mingling in society they do not make everybody else uncomfortable by continually insisting upon the nature of their profession. Yet it must be admitted that some of them fail in rising to a true conception of the sacred and dignified nature of the office of a parish priest. Since Miss Austen's time, conscience has been quickened in the church. There is now an earnestness abroad to which the clergy were formerly comparative strangers."
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" ... It has been observed that, although novels are supposed to give a false picture of life and manners, this is not necessarily so. As regards many novelists, unquestionably the accusation is true, but no one can really feel its applicability to the works of Jane Austen. Her characters are not unnatural, neither are her incidents in the least degree improbable. She too thoroughly understands human nature to exaggerate its sentiments beyond recognition. Miss Austen is also a moral writer in the highest sense—that is, there is a high tone pervading all her works; this is no more than the natural outcome of her own life and character. But she has also great literary claims. Besides her capacity for minute detail as affecting her dramatis personae, already insisted upon, she has vivid powers of description, all the more effective, perhaps, because they are held in check by a sound judgment and a well-balanced imagination. She never exhausts a scene by what is called word-painting. She indicates its main features, and describes the general effect it produces upon the spectator, rather than recapitulates the size, weight, and colour of its various component elements. To say that she has a strong insight into female character is almost superfluous. George Eliot does not enter more deeply into the workings of the female mind and heart than she does. Add to all these claims that our author's novels are perfectly unexceptionable from every point of view, and that they combine rational amusement with no small degree of instruction, and we have advanced tolerably sufficient grounds for the continuous favour with which they have been and are still regarded."
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August 30, 2021 - August 31, 2021.
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