The Jane Austen Book Club Part 19

Elizabeth is one of five Bennet daughters, second in age only to the beautiful Jane. The Bennet estate is entailed on a male cousin, and although the girls are comfortable enough as long as their father lives, their long-term financial survival depends on their marrying.

The story revolves around Elizabeth's continued dislike of Darcy and Darcy's growing attraction to Elizabeth. When she meets the rake Wickham, he dislikes Darcy intensely; she is quickly won over by their shared distaste.

A subplot involves her father's heir, the Reverend Collins, who attempts to amend his financial impact on the family by asking Elizabeth to marry him. Elizabeth rejects him-he is pompous and stupid-so heproposes to Charlotte Lucas, Eliza-beth's best friend, who accepts.

Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, but rudely. Elizabeth rudely re-jects him. Wickham elopes with Lydia, the youngest Bennet sis-ter, and Darcy is instrumental in finding the couple and buying Lydia a marriage.

This, along with his steadfast love and im-proved manners, convinces Elizabeth that he is the man for her after all. Jane marries Darcy's friend Mr. Bingley on the same day Elizabeth and Darcy are married. Both sisters end up very rich.

Persuasionwas, likeNorthanger Abbey, published posthu-mously. It begins in the summer of 1814; peace has broken out; the navy is home. A vain and profligate widower, Sir Walter El-liot, is forced as an economy to let the family estate to an Admi-ral Croft, and move with his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, to Bath. A younger daughter, Anne Elliot, visits her delightfully whiny married sister, Mary, before joining them.

Many years before, Anne was engaged to Admiral Croft's brother-in-law, now Captain Frederick Wentworth. Her fam-ily's disapproval and the advice of an old friend, Lady Russell, caused her to cancel the match, but she is still in love with him.

Wentworth comes to call on his sister and begins a series of visits to see the Musgroves, the family into which Mary Elliot has married. This keeps him often in Anne's path. She must watch as Wentworth appears to wife-hunt among the Musgrove daugh-ters, favouring Louisa. On a trip to Lyme, Louisa suffers a bad fall, from which she is slow to recover.

Anne joins her family in Bath, though they seem neither to miss her nor to want her. A cousin, the heir to her father's t.i.tle, has been attentive to her oldest sister. When Anne arrives, he turns his attentions to her.

He is revealed by Anne's old school chum Mrs. Smith to be a villain. Louisa's engagement is announced, not to Wentworth, but rather to Benwick, a bereaved navy man who saw her often in Lyme.

Wentworth follows Anne to Bath, and after several more misunderstandings, they marry at last.

The Response

IN WHICH JANE AUSTEN'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS COMMENT ONMansfield Park, OPINIONS COLLECTED AND RECORDED BY AUSTEN HERSELF1.

My Mother-not liked it so well as P. & P-Thought f.a.n.n.y insipid.-Enjoyed Mrs Norris.- Ca.s.sandra [sister]-thought it quite as clever, tho' not so brilliant as P. & P.-Fond of f.a.n.n.y.-Delighted much in Mr Rushworth's stupidity.- My Eldest Brother [James]-a warm admirer of it in general.- Delighted with the Portsmouth Scene.

Mr & Mrs Cooke [G.o.dmother]-very much pleased with it- particularly with the Manner in which the Clergy are treated.- Mr Cooke called it 'the most sensible Novel he had ever read.'-Mrs Cooke wished for a good Matronly Character.- Mrs Augusta Bramstone [elderly sister of Wither Bramstone]- owned that she thought S & S.-and P. & P. downright nonsense, but expected to like M P. better, & having finished the 1st vol.- flattered herself she had got through the worst.

Mrs Bramstone [wife of Wither Bramstone]-much pleased with it; particularly with the character of f.a.n.n.y, as being so very nat-ural. Thought Lady Bertram like herself.-Preferred it to either of the others-but imaginedthat might be her want of Taste-as she does not understand Wit.-

IN WHICH JANE AUSTEN S FAMILY AND FRIENDS COMMENT ONEmma2

My Mother-thought it more entertaining than M. P.-but not so interesting as P. & P.-No characters in it equal to Ly Cather-ine & Mr Collins.-

Ca.s.sandra-better than P. & P.-but not so well as M. P.-

Mr & Mrs J. A. [James Austen]-did not like it so well as either of the 3 others. Language different from the others; not so easily read.-

Captn. Austen [Francis William]-liked it extremely, observing that though there might be more Wit in P & P-& an higher Morality in M P-yet altogether, on account of it's[sic] peculiar air of Nature throughout, he preferred it to either.

Mr Sherer [vicar]-did not think it equal to either M P-(which he liked the best of all) or P & P.-Displeased with my pictures of Clergymen.- Miss Isabella Herries-did not like it-objected to my exposing the s.e.x in the character of the Heroine-convinced that I had meant Mrs & Miss Bates for some acquaintance of theirs-People whom I never heard of before.-

Mr c.o.c.kerelle-liked it so little, that f.a.n.n.y wd not send me his opinion.-

Mr Fowle [friend since childhood] I-read only the first & last Chapters, because he had heard it was not interesting.-

Mr Jeffery [editor of theEdinburgh Review j was kept up by it three nights.

IN WHICH CRITICS, WRITERS, AND LITERARY FIGURES COMMENT ON AUSTEN, HER.

NOVELS, HER ADMIRERS, AND HER DETRACTORS THROUGH TWO CENTURIES.

1812-Unsigned review ofSense and Sensibility3

We will, however, detain our female friends no longer than to a.s.sure them, that they may peruse these volumes not only with satisfaction but with real benefits, for they may learn from them, if they please, many sober and salutary maxims for the conduct of life, exemplified in a very pleasing and entertain-ing narrative.

1814-Mary Russell Mitford, review ofPride and Prejudice4

It is impossible not to feel in every line ofPride and Prejudice, in every word of "Elizabeth," the entire want of taste which could produce so pert, so worldly a heroine as the beloved of such a man as Darcy.

Wickham is equally bad. Oh! they were 'just fit for each other, and I cannot forgive that delightful Darcy for parting them. Darcy should have married Jane.

1815-Sir Walter Scott, review ofEmma5

Upon the whole, the turn of this author's novels bears the same relation to that sentimental and romantic cast, that corn-fields and cottages and meadows bear to the highly adorned grounds of a show mansion, or the rugged sublimities of a mountain landscape. It is neither so captivating as the one, nor so grand as the other, but it affords to those who frequent it a pleasure nearly allied with the experience of their own social habits; and what is of some importance, the youthful wan-derer may return from his promenade to the ordinary busi-ness of life, without any chance of having his head turned by the recollection of the scene through which he has been wan-dering.

1826-Sir Walter Scott eleven years later, after Austen's death, his enthusiasm having grown6 Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel ofPride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do my-self like any now going, but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!

1826-Chief Justice John Marshall, letter to Joseph Story7 I was a little mortified to find you had not admitted the name of Miss Austen into your list of favourites...

. Her flights are not lofty, she does not soar on an eagle's wings, but she is pleas-ing, interesting, equable, yet amusing. I count on your making some apology for this omission.

1830-Thomas Henry Lister8

Miss Austen has never been so popular as she deserved to be. Intent on fidelity of delineation, and averse to the common-place tricks of her art, she has not, in this age of literary quack-ery, received her reward. Ordinary readers have been apt to judge of her as Partridge, in Fielding's novel, judged of Gar-rick's acting. He could not see the merit of a man who merely behaved on the stage as any body might be expected to behave under similar circ.u.mstances in real life. He infinitely pre-ferred the "robustious periwig-pated fellow," who flourished his arms like a wind-mill, and ranted with the voice of three. It was even so with many of the readers of Miss Austen. She was too natural for them.

1848-Charlotte Bronte, letter to G. H. Lewes9 What a strange lecture comes next in your letter! You say I must familiarise my mind with the fact that "Miss Austen is not a poetess, has no 'sentiment'" (you scornfully enclose the word in inverted commas), "no eloquence, none of the ravishing enthusiasm of poetry"; and then you add, Imust "learn to acknowledge her asone of the greatest artists, one of the greatest painters of human character and one of the writers with the nicest sense of means to an end that ever lived."

The last point only will I ever acknowledge. Can there be a great artist without poetry?

1870-Unsigned review of James Edward Austen-Leigh'sA Memoir of Jane Austen10 Miss Austen has always beenpar excellence the favourite au-thor of literary men. The peculiar merits of her style are recognised by all, but, with the general ma.s.s of readers, they have never secured what can fairly be called popularity. . . . It has always been known that Miss Austen's private life was un-ruffled by any of the incidents or pa.s.sions which favour trade of the biographer.... It fits in with our idea of the auth.o.r.ess, to find that she was a proficient in the microscopic needle-work of sixty years since, that she was never in love, that she "took to the garb of middle age earlier than her years or her looks required."...

The critics of the day were . . . in the dark... . She was not conscious herself of founding a new school of fiction, which would inspire new canons of criticism.

1870-Margaret Oliphant11 Miss Austen's books did not secure her any sudden fame. They stole into notice so gradually and slowly, that even at her death they had not reached any great height of success. . .. We are told that at her death all they had produced of money was but seven hundred pounds, and but a moderate modic.u.m of praise. We cannot say we are in the least surprised by this fact; it is, we think, much more surprising that they should at length have climbed into the high place they now hold. To the general public, which loves to sympathise with the people it meets in fiction, to cry with them, and rejoice with them, and take a real interest in all their concerns, it is scarcely to be ex-pected that books so calm and cold and keen, and making so little claim upon their sympathy, would ever be popular....They are rather of the cla.s.s which attracts the connoisseur, which charms the critical and literary mind.

1870-Anthony Trollope12 Emma, the heroine, is treated almost mercilessly. In every pas-sage of the book she is in fault for some folly, some vanity, some ignorance,-or indeed for some meanness.... Now-adays we dare not make our heroines so little.

1894-Alice Meynell13 She is a mistress of derision rather than of wit or humour.

Her irony is now and then exquisitely bitter.. . . The lack of tenderness and of spirit is manifest in Miss Austen's indiffer-ence to children. They hardly appear in her stories except to il-l.u.s.trate the folly of their mothers. They are not her subjects as children; they are her subjects as spoilt children, and as chil-dren through whom a mother may receive flattery from her designing acquaintance, and may inflict annoyance on her sensible friends. . . . In this coldness or dislike Miss Austen resembles Charlotte Bronte.

1895-Willa Cather14 I have not much faith in women in fiction. They have a sort of s.e.x consciousness that is abominable.

They are so limited to one string and they lie so about that. They are so few, the ones who really did anything worth while; there were the great Georges, George Eliot and George Sand, and they were any-thing but women, and there was Miss Bronte who kept her sentimentality under control and there was Jane Austen who certainly had more common sense than any of them and was in some respects the greatest of them all.... When a woman writes a story of adventure, a stout sea tale, a manly battle yarn, anything without wine, women and love, then I will be-gin to hope for something great from them, not before.

1898-Unsigned article inThe Academy15

It is sometimes my fortune at a week-end to... have discov-ered a cosy old inn on the Norfolk coast where there are no golf-links, some flight shooting, an abundance of rabbits to pop at, a plain, good dinner to be had, and a comfortable oak room in which to spend the evening. For the sake of conve-nience I will call my friends... Brown and Robinson....

Brown is a flourishing journalist, and therefore, entirely dest.i.tute alike of definite opinion and principle....

It is his business to keep a finger on the public pulse and allot s.p.a.ce ac-cordingly.

Robinson is an ardent young student, busily employed in devouring literature wholesale. . . . It was he that started the talk about Jane Austen....

"I like Di [Vernon]," said the student, "but [Sir Walter] Scott did not take her through her paces as well as Lizzie [Elizabeth Bennet] is taken. She is not shown in as many dif-ferent moods and tempers. She is too perfect. It was the way of Scott. All his heroines ... are spotless. Elizabeth has a thou-sand faults.., is often blind, pert, audacious, imprudent; and yet how splendidly she comes out of it all! Alive to the very tips of her fingers..

"It does my heart good to see that youth is still capable of enthusiasm," said the journalist, "but my dear chap, after an-other twenty years, when I hope to see you a portly husband and father who has ceased to think much of heroines either in fact or fiction, your ideals will be completely changed. You will likemuch better to read about Mrs. Norris saving three-quarters of a yard of baize out of the stage-curtain, and f.a.n.n.y Price will be more interesting to you than Elizabeth."

"Not a bit of it," stoutly rejoined the student. "Mrs. Norris is quite interesting to me now....

1898-Mark Twain16 Every time I read "Pride and Prejudice" I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

1901-Joseph Conrad to H. G. Wells17 What is all this about Jane Austen? What is therein her? What is it all about?