PR 4036 
 .H8 
 Copy 1 
 
 Vol. iil. No. 10. Ten Cents. 
 
 Per Year, One Dollar. 
 
 Uittle 3ournc\>e 
 to tbe 1bome0 of 
 3famou0 Momcn 
 b^ Albert "Ibubbar^ 
 
 Jane Hu6ten 
 
 OCTOBER, 1897 
 
 New York arid Lohdon : <B. p. 
 
 iputnam'6 Sons * * 
 
 New Rochelle, N. Y. The 
 
 Knickerbocker Press -^ 
 
OLUtle 3ourne?0 
 
 SERIES FOR 1897 
 
 Xlttle Sourness to tbe Ibomes ot 
 famous Momcn 
 
 Described by Elbert Hubbard 
 
 No. I.— Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
 
 " 2.— Madame Guyon 
 
 •' 3.~Harriet Martineau 
 
 " 4.— Charlotte Bronte' 
 
 '* 5.— Christina Rossetti 
 
 •* 6.— Rosa Bonheur 
 
 *• 7. — Madame de Stael 
 
 " 8.— Elizabeth Fry 
 
 •* 9. — Mary Lamb 
 
 " 10. — Jane Austen 
 
 " II. — Empress Josephine 
 
 " 12.— Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 
 
 The above papers, which will form the 
 series of Little Journeys for the year 1897, 
 will be issued monthly, beginning in January. 
 
 The numbers will be printed uniform in 
 size with the series of 1895 and 1896, but a 
 vellum deckel-edge paper will be used, and 
 each number will have a portrait as frontis- 
 piece. The price of the series of 12 num- 
 bers for 1897 will be $1.00 per year ; and for 
 single copies 10 cents, postage paid. 
 
 The price for sets or for single copies of 
 the series for 1805 and 1896 will remain as 
 before, 50 cents for the set and 5 cents per 
 copy. 
 
 Entered at the Post Office, New Rochelle, N. Y., 
 as second class matter 
 
 Copyright, 1897, by 
 
 G. P. Putnam's sons 
 
 27 * 29 West 23D Street, New York 
 
 24 Bedford Street, Strand, London 
 
 THE Knickerbocker Press, New Rochbllb, N. Y. 
 
JANE AUSTEN 
 
 323 
 
-^^h 
 
 3^ 
 
 U? 
 
 Delaford is a nice place I can tell you ; exactly 
 what I call a nice old-fashioned place, full of 
 comforts, quite shut in with great garden walls 
 that are covered with fruit trees and such a mul- 
 berry tree in the corner. Then there is a dove- 
 cote, some delightful fish ponds, and a very pretty 
 canal, and everything, in short, that one could 
 wish for; and moreover it's close to the church 
 and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike 
 road. 
 
 Sense atid Sensibility. 
 
 324 
 
JANE AUSTEN. 
 
 I. 
 
 IT was at Cambridge, England, I met 
 him — a fine intelligent clergyman 
 he was, too. " He 's not a 'Varsity 
 man," said my new acquaintance, speak- 
 ing of Dr. Joseph Parker, the world's 
 greatest preacher. "If he were he 
 would n't do all these preposterous 
 things, you know." 
 
 ''He's a little like Henry Irving," I 
 ventured apologetically. 
 
 "True, and what absurd mannerisms — 
 did you ever see the like ! Yes, one 's 
 from Yorkshire and the other from Corn- 
 wall, and both are Philistines." 
 
 He laughed at his joke and so did I, 
 for I always try to be polite. 
 325 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 So I went my way, and as I strolled it 
 came to me that my clerical friend was 
 right — a university course would have 
 taken all the individuality out of these 
 strong men and made of their genius a 
 purely neutral decoction. 
 
 And when I thought further and con- 
 sidered how much learning has done to 
 banish wisdom, it was a satisfaction to 
 remember that Shakespeare at Oxford did 
 nothing beyond making the acquaintance 
 of an inn-keeper's wife. 
 
 It hardly seems possible that a Harvard 
 degree would have made a stronger man 
 of Abraham Lincoln ; or that Edison, 
 whose brain has wrought greater changes 
 than that of any other man of the cen- 
 tury, was the loser by not being versed 
 in physics as taught at Yale. 
 
 The Law of Compensation never rests, 
 and the men who are taught too much 
 from books are not taught by Deity. 
 Most education in the past has failed to 
 awaken in its subject a degree of intel- 
 lectual consciousness. It is the education 
 326 
 
5ane Bu5ten 
 
 that the Jesuits served out to the Indian. 
 It made him peaceable but took all dig- 
 nity out of him. From a noble red man 
 he descended into a dirty Injun, who 
 signed away his heritage for rum. 
 
 The world's plan of education has 
 mostly been priestly — we have striven 
 to inculcate trust and reverence. We 
 have cited authorities and quoted pre- 
 cedents and given examples : it was a 
 matter of memory : while all the time the 
 whole spiritual acreage was left untilled. 
 
 A race educated in this way never ad- 
 vances, save as it is jolted out of its no- 
 tions by men with either a sublime 
 ignorance of, or an indifference to what 
 has been done and said. These men are 
 always called barbarians by their con- 
 temporaries : they are jeered and hooted. 
 They supply much mirth by their eccen- 
 tricities. After they are dead the world 
 sometimes canonizes them and carves on 
 their tombs the word *' Savior." 
 
 Do I then plead the cause of ignorance ? 
 Well, yes, rather so. A little ignorance 
 327 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 is not a dangerous thing. A man who 
 reads too much — who accumulates too 
 many facts — gets his mind filled to the 
 point of saturation ; matters then crys- 
 tallize and his head becomes a solid thing 
 that refuses to let anything either in or 
 out. In his soul there is no guest-cham- 
 ber. His only hope for progress lies in 
 another incarnation. 
 
 And so a certain ignorance seems a 
 necessary equipment for the doing of a 
 great work. To live in a big city and 
 know what others are doing and saying ; 
 to meet the learned and powerful, and 
 hear their sermons and lectures ; to view 
 the unending shelves of vast libraries is 
 to be discouraged at the start. And thus 
 we find that genius is essentially rural — 
 a country product. Salons, soirees, 
 theatres, concerts, lectures, libraries, 
 produce a fine mediocrity that smiles at 
 the right time and bows when 't is 
 proper, but it is well to bear in mind that 
 George Bliot, Elizabeth Barrett, Char- 
 lotte Bronte, and Jane Austen were all 
 328 
 
S^ane Hasten 
 
 country girls, with little companion ship, 
 nourished on picked-up classics, having 
 a healthy ignorance of what the world 
 was saying and doing. 
 
 329 
 
II. 
 
 JANB AUSTEN lived a hundred years 
 ago. But when you tramp that 
 five miles from Overton, where the 
 railroad station is, to Steventon, where 
 she was born, it does n't seem like it. 
 Rural England does not change much. 
 Great fleecy clouds roll lazily across the 
 blue, overhead, and the hedgerows are 
 full of twittering birds that you hear but 
 seldom see ; and the pastures contain 
 mild-eyed cows that look at you with 
 wide-open eyes over the stone walls, and 
 in the towering elm trees that sway their 
 branches in the breeze crows hold a 
 noisy caucus. And it comes to you that 
 the clouds and the blue sky and the 
 hedgerows and the birds and the cows 
 and the crows are all just as Jane Austen 
 knew them — no change. These stone 
 330 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 walls stood here then and so did the low 
 slate-roofed barns and the whitewashed 
 cottages where the roses clamber over 
 the doors. 
 
 I paused in front of one of these snug, 
 homely, handsome pretty little cottages 
 and looked at the two exact rows of 
 flowers that lined the little walk leading 
 from gate to cottage door. The pathway 
 was made from coal ashes and the flower- 
 beds were marked off" by pieces of broken 
 crockery set on edge. 'Twas an absent- 
 minded, impolite thing to do — to stand 
 leaning on a gate and critically exam- 
 ine the landscape gardening, evidently 
 an overworked woman's gardening, at 
 that. 
 
 As I leaned there the door opened and 
 a little woman with sleeves rolled up 
 appeared. I mumbled an apology, but 
 before I could articulate it she held 
 out a pair of scissors and said, "Perhaps, 
 sir, you 'd like to clip some of the flowers 
 — the roses over the door are best ! " 
 
 Three children hung to her skirts, 
 331 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 peeking 'round faces from behind, and 
 quite accidentally disclosing a very neat 
 ankle. 
 
 I took the scissors and clipped three 
 splendid Jacqueminots and said it was a 
 beautiful day. She agreed with me and 
 added that she was just finishing her 
 churning and if I 'd wait a minute until 
 the butter came, she 'd give me a drink of 
 buttermilk. 
 
 I waited without urging and got the 
 buttermilk, and as the children had come 
 out from hiding I was minded to give 
 them a penny apiece. Two coppers were 
 all I could muster, so I gave the two 
 boys each a penny and the little girl a 
 shilling. The mother protested that she 
 had no change and that a bob was too 
 much for a little girl like that, but I as- 
 sumed a Big-Bonanza air and explained 
 that I was from California where the 
 smallest change is a dollar. 
 
 " Go thank the gentleman, Jane." 
 
 "That 's right, Jane Austen, come here 
 and thank me ! " 
 
 332 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 " How did you know her came was 
 Jane Austen — ^Jane Austen Humphreys ? " 
 
 "I did n't know — I only guessed." 
 
 Then little Mrs. Humphreys ceased 
 patting the butter and told me that she 
 named her baby girl for Jane Austen, who 
 used to live near here a long time ago. 
 Jane Austen was oneof the greatest writers 
 that ever lived— the Rector said so. 
 The Rev. George Austen preached at 
 Steventon for years and years, and I 
 should go and see the church — the same 
 church where he preached and where 
 Jane Austen used to go. And anything 
 I wanted to know about Jane Austen's 
 books the Rector could tell for he was a 
 wonderful learned man was the Rector — 
 *' Kiss the gentleman, Jane." 
 
 So I kissed Jane Austen's round, rosy 
 cheek and stroked the towsled heads of the 
 two boys by way of blessing, and started 
 for Steventon to interview the Rector 
 who was very wise. 
 
 And the clergyman who teaches his 
 people the history of their neighborhood, 
 333 
 
3^anc Busten 
 
 and tells them of the excellent men and 
 women who once lived thereabouts, is 
 both wise and good. And the present 
 Rector at Steventon is both— I 'm sure of 
 that. 
 
 334 
 
III. 
 
 IT was a very happy family that lived 
 in the Rectory at Steventon from 
 1775 to 1 80 1. There were five boys 
 and two girls, and the youngest girl's 
 name was Jane. Between her and James, 
 the oldest boy, lay a period of twelve 
 years of three hundred and sixty-five days 
 each, not to mention leap years. 
 
 The boys were sent away to be educated, 
 and when they came home at holiday 
 time they brought presents for the mother 
 and the girls and there was great rejoic- 
 ing. 
 
 James was sent to Oxford. The girls 
 were not sent away to be educated — it 
 was thought hardly worth while then to 
 educate women, and some folks still hold 
 to that belief. When the boys came 
 home, they were made to stand by the 
 335 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 door jamb, and a mark was placed on the 
 casing, with a date, which showed how 
 much they had grown. And they were 
 catechized as to their knowledge and 
 cross-questioned and their books in- 
 spected ; and so we find one of the sisters 
 saying, once, that she knew all of the 
 things her brothers knew, and besides 
 that she knew all the things she knew 
 herself. 
 
 There were plenty of books in the li- 
 brary and the girls made use of them. 
 They would read to their father "because 
 his eyesight was bad," but I cannot help 
 thinking this a clever ruse on the part of 
 the good Rector. 
 
 I do not find that there were any se- 
 crets in that household, or that either 
 Mr. or Mrs. Austen ever said that child- 
 ren should be seen and not heard. It 
 was a little republic of letters— all their 
 own. Thrown in on themselves, for not 
 many of the yeomanry thereabouts could 
 read, there was developed a fine spirit of 
 comradeship among parents and children, 
 336 
 
3^ane Bu6ten 
 
 brothers and sisters, servants and visitors, 
 that is a joy to contemplate. Before the 
 days of railroads a "visitor" was more 
 of an institution than he is now. He 
 stayed longer and was more welcome ; 
 and the news he brought from distant 
 parts was eagerly asked for. Nowadays 
 we know all about everything, almost 
 before it happens, for yellow journalism 
 is so alert that it discounts futurity. 
 
 In the Austen household had lived and 
 died a son of Warren Hastings. The lad 
 had so won the love of the Austens that 
 they even spoke of him as their own ; 
 and this bond also linked them to the 
 great outside world of statecraft. The 
 things the elders discussed were the 
 properties too of the children. 
 
 Then once a year the Bishop came — 
 came in knee breeches, hob-nailed shoes, 
 and shovel hat, and the little church was 
 decked with greens. The Bishop came 
 from Paradise, little Jane used to think, 
 and once, to be polite, she asked him 
 how all the folks were in Heaven. Then 
 337 
 
5ane Bustcn 
 
 the other children giggled and the Bishop 
 spilt a whole cup of tea down the front 
 of his best coat, and coughed and choked 
 until he was very red in the face. 
 
 When Jane was ten years old there 
 came to live at the Rectory a daughter of 
 Mrs. Austen's sister. She came to them 
 direct from P'rance. Her name was 
 Madame Fenillade. She was a widow 
 and only twenty-two. Once when little 
 Jane overheard one of the brothers say 
 that Monsieur Fenillade had kissed Ma- 
 damoiselle Guillotine, she asked what he 
 meant and they would not tell her. 
 
 Now Madame spoke French with grace 
 and fluency, and the girls thought it 
 queer that there should be two languages 
 — English and French — so they picked 
 up a few words of French, too, and at the 
 table would gravely say "Merci, Papa," 
 and " S' il vous plait, Mamma." Then Mr. 
 Austen proposed that at table no one 
 should speak anything but French. So 
 Madame told them what to call the sugar 
 and the salt and the bread, and no one 
 338 
 
5anc Busten 
 
 called anything except by its French 
 name. In two weeks each of the whole 
 dozen persons who sat at that board, as' 
 well as the girl who waited on table, had 
 a bill-of-fare w^orking capital of French. 
 In six months they could converse with 
 ease. 
 
 And science with all its ingenuity has 
 not yet pointed out a better way for ac- 
 quiring a new language, than the plan the 
 Austens adopted at Steventon Rectory. 
 We call it the "Berlitz Method" now. 
 
 Madame Fenillade's widowhood rested 
 lightly upon her, and she became quite 
 tke life of the whole household. 
 
 One of the Austen boys fell in love 
 with the French widow ; and surely it 
 would be a very stupid country boy that 
 would n't love a French widow like that ! 
 
 And they were married and lived hap- 
 pily ever afterward. 
 
 But before Madame married and moved 
 away she taught the girls charades, and 
 then little plays, and a theatrical per- 
 formance was given in the barn. 
 339 
 
Jane Bu6ten 
 
 Then a play could not be found that 
 just suited, so Jane wrote one and Cassan- 
 dra helped, and Madame criticised and 
 the Rev. Mr. Austen suggested a few 
 changes. Then it was all rewritten. 
 And this was the first attempt at writing 
 for the public by Jane Austen. 
 
 340 
 
IV. 
 
 JANB AUSTE^N wrote four great nov- 
 els. Pride and Prejudice was 
 begun when she w^as twenty and fin- 
 ished a year later. The old father started 
 a course of novel-reading on his own ac- 
 count in order to fit his mind to pass 
 judgment on his daughter's work. He 
 was sure it was good, but feared that love 
 had blinded his eyes and he wanted to 
 make sure. After six months' compar- 
 ison he wrote to a publisher explaining 
 that he had the MS. of a great novel that 
 would be parted with for a consideration. 
 He assured the publisher that the novel 
 was as excellent as any Miss Burney, 
 Miss Kdgeworth, or anyone else ever 
 wrote. 
 
 Now publishers get letters like that 
 by every mail, and when Mr. Austen 
 341 
 
5ane Bustcn 
 
 received his reply it was so antarctic in 
 sentiment that the MS, was stored away 
 in the garret where it lay for just eleven 
 years before it found a publisher. But 
 in the meantime Miss Austen had writ- 
 ten three other novels — not with much 
 hope that anyone would publish them, 
 but to please her father and the few 
 intimate friends who read and sighed 
 and smiled in quiet. 
 
 The year she was thirty years of age 
 her father died — died with no thought 
 that the world would yet endorse his 
 own loving estimate of his daughter's 
 worth. 
 
 After the father's death financial trou- 
 bles came and something had to be done 
 to fight off possible hungry wolves. The 
 MS. was hunted out, dusted, gone over, 
 and submitted to publishers. They 
 sniffed at it and sent it back. Finally 
 a man was found who was bold enough 
 to read. He liked it but would n't admit 
 the fact. Yet he decided to print it. 
 He did so. The reading world liked it 
 342 
 
5ane Biistcn 
 
 and said so, although not very loudly. 
 Slowly the work made head, and small- 
 sized lyondon drafts were occasionally 
 sent by publishers to Miss Austen with 
 apologies because the amounts were not 
 larger. 
 
 Now in reference to writing books it 
 may not be amiss to explain that no one 
 ever said, " Now then, I '11 write a story ! " 
 and sitting down at table took up pen 
 and dipping it in ink, wrote. Stories 
 don't come that way. Stories take pos- 
 session of one — incident after incident — 
 and you write in order to get rid of 'em 
 — with a few other reasons mixed in, 
 for motives, like silver, are always found 
 mixed. Children play at keeping house : 
 and men and women who have loved 
 think of the things that might have hap- 
 pened, imagine all the things that might 
 have happened, and from thinking it all 
 over to writing it out is but a step. You 
 begin one chapter and write it this fore- 
 noon, and do all you may to banish the 
 plot the next chapter is all in your head 
 343 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 before sundown. Next morning you 
 write chapter number two, to unload 
 it, and so the story spins itself out into 
 a book. All this if you live in the 
 country and have time to think and are 
 not broken in upon by too much work 
 and worry — save the worry of the ever 
 restless mind. Whether the story is 
 good or not depends upon what you 
 leave out. 
 
 The sculptor produces the beautiful 
 statue by chipping away such parts of 
 the marble block as are not needed. 
 
 Really happy people do not write 
 stories — they accumulate adipose tissue 
 and die at the top through fatty degen- 
 eration of the cerebrum. A certain dis- 
 appointment in life, a dissatisfaction 
 with environment, is necessary to stir 
 the imagination to a creative point. If 
 things are all to your taste you sit back 
 and enjoy them. You forget the flight 
 of time, the march of the seasons, your 
 future life, family, country — all, just as 
 Antony did in Egypt. A deadly, languor- 
 344 
 
5atte Busten 
 
 ous satisfaction comes over you. Pain, 
 disappointment, unrest, or a joy that 
 hurts, are the things that prick the mind 
 into activity. 
 
 Jane Austen lived in a little village. 
 She felt the narrowness of her life — the 
 inability of those beyond her own house- 
 hold to match her thoughts and emotions. 
 Love came that way — a short heart-rest, a 
 being understood, were hers. The gates 
 of Paradise swung ajar and she caught a 
 glimpse of the glories within, and sighed 
 and clasped her hands and bowed her 
 head in a prayer of thankfulness. 
 
 When she arose from her knees the 
 gates were closed ; the way was dark ; 
 she was alone — alone in a little quibbling, 
 carping village, where tired folks worked 
 and gossiped, ate, drank, slept. Her 
 home was pleasant, to be sure, but man 
 is a citizen of the world, not of a house. 
 
 Jane Austen began to write — to write 
 
 about these village people. Jane was 
 
 tall, and twenty — not very handsome, but 
 
 better, she was good-looking. She looked 
 
 345 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 good because she was. She was pious, 
 but not too pious. She used to go call- 
 ing among the parishioners, visiting the 
 sick, the lowly, the troubled. Then 
 when Great Folks came down from Ivon- 
 don to *'the Hall," she went with the 
 Rector to call on them too, for the Rector 
 was servant to all — his business was to 
 minister : he was a Minister. And the 
 Reverend George Austen was a bit proud 
 of his youngest daughter. She was just 
 as tall as he, and dignified and gentle : 
 and the clergyman chuckled quietly to 
 himself to see how she was the equal in 
 grace and intellect of any Fine Lady from 
 Ivondontown. 
 
 And although the good Rector prayed, 
 *' From all vanity and pride of spirit, 
 good Lord, deliver us," it never occurred 
 to him that he was vain of his tall 
 daughter Jane, and I 'm glad it did n't. 
 There is no more crazy bumble-bee gets 
 into a mortal's bonnet than the buzzing 
 thought that God is jealous of the affec- 
 tion we have for our loved ones. If we 
 346 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 are ever damned, it will be because we 
 have too little love for our fellows, not 
 too much. 
 
 But, egad ! brother, it 's no small de- 
 light to be sixty and a little stooped and 
 a trifle rheumatic, and have your own 
 blessed daughter, sweet and stately, 
 comb your thinning grey locks, help you 
 on with your overcoat, find your cane, 
 and go trooping with you, hand in hand, 
 down the lane on merciful errand bent. 
 It 's a temptation to grow old and feign 
 sciatica ; and if you could only know 
 that, someday, like old King Lear, upon 
 your withered cheek would fall Cordelia's 
 tears, the thought would be a solace. 
 
 So Jane Austen began to write stories 
 about the simple folks she knew. She 
 wrote in the family sitting-room at a little 
 mahogany desk that she could shut up 
 quickly if prying neighbors came in to tell 
 their woes and ask questions about all 
 those sheets of paper ! And all she wrote 
 she read to her father and to her sister 
 Cassandra. 
 
 347 
 
Jane Busten 
 
 And they talked it all over together 
 and laughed and cried and joked over it. 
 The kind old minister thought it a good 
 mental drill for his girls to write and ex- 
 press their feelings. The two girls col- 
 laborated — that is to say one wrote and 
 the other looked on. Neither girl had 
 been "educated," except what their 
 father taught them. But to be born into 
 a bookish family, and inherit the hospi- 
 table mind and the receptive heart, is 
 better than to be sent to Harvard Annex. 
 
 Preachers, like other folks, sometimes 
 assume a virtue when they have it not. 
 But George Austen didn't pretend — he 
 was. And that 's the better plan, for no 
 man can deceive his children — they take 
 his exact measurement, whether others 
 ever do or not ; and the only way to win 
 and hold the love of a child (or a grown- 
 up) is to be frank and simple and honest. 
 I 've tried both schemes. 
 
 I cannot find that George Austen ever 
 claimed he was only a worm of the dust, 
 or pretended to be more or less than he 
 348 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 was, or to assume a knowledge that he did 
 not possess. He used to say, " My Dears, 
 I really do not know. But let 's keep the 
 windows open and light may yet come." 
 
 It was a busy family of plain average 
 people — not very rich, and not very poor. 
 There were difficulties to meet, and 
 troubles to share, and joys to divide. 
 
 Jane Austen was born in 1775 ; "Jane 
 Eyre " in 1816 — one year before Jane 
 Austen died. 
 
 Charlotte Bronte knew all about Jane 
 Austen, and her example fired Charlotte's 
 ambition. Both were daughters of coun- 
 try clergymen. Charlotte lived in the 
 north of Kngland on the wild and treeless 
 moors, where the searching winds rattled 
 the panes and black-faced sheep bleated 
 piteously, Jane Austen lived in the rich 
 quiet of a prosperous farming country, 
 where bees made honey and larks nested. 
 The Rev. Patrick Bronte disciplined his 
 children : George Austen loved his. In 
 Steventon there is no "Black Bull"; 
 only a little dehorned inn, kept by a 
 349 
 
5ane 2lu5ten 
 
 woman who hatches canaries, and will 
 sell you a warranted singer for five shil- 
 lings, with no charge for the cage. At 
 Steventon no red-haired Yorkshiremen 
 offer to give fight or challenge you to a 
 drinking-bout. 
 
 The opposites of things are alike, and 
 that is why the world ties Jane Eyre and 
 Jane Austen in one bundle. Their meth- 
 ods of work were totally different : their 
 effects gotten in different ways. Char- 
 lotte Bronte fascinates by startling situa- 
 tions and highly colored lights that dance 
 and glow, leading you on in a mad chase. 
 There 's pain, unrest, tragedy in the air. 
 The pulse always is rapid and the tem- 
 perature high. 
 
 It is not so with Jane Austen. She is 
 an artist in her gentleness, and the world 
 is to-day recognizing this more and more. 
 The stage now works its spells by her 
 methods — without rant, cant, or fustian 
 — and as the years go by this must be so 
 more and more, for mankind's face is 
 turned toward truth. 
 350 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 To weave your spell out of common- 
 place events and brew a love-potion 
 from every-day materials is high art. 
 When Kipling takes three average sol- 
 diers of the line, ignorant, lying, swear- 
 ing, smoking, dog-fighting soldiers, who 
 can even run on occasion, and by tell- 
 ing of them hold a world in thrall- 
 that 's art ! In these soldiers three we 
 recognize something very much akin to 
 ourselves, for the thing that holds no 
 relationship to us does not interest us — 
 we cannot leave the personal equation 
 out. This fact is made plain in The 
 Black Riders, where the devils dancing 
 in Tophet look up and espying Steve 
 Crane, address him thus : ** Brother ! " 
 
 Jane Austen's characters are all plain, 
 every-day folks. The work is always 
 quiet. There are no entangling situa- 
 tions, no mysteries, no surprises. 
 
 Now, to present a situation, an emo- 
 tion, so it will catch and hold the atten- 
 tion of others, is largely a knack — you 
 practise on the thing until you do it 
 351 
 
5ane Busten 
 
 well. This one thing I do. But the man 
 who does this thing is not intrinsically 
 any greater than those who appreciate 
 it— in fact they are all made of the same 
 kind of stuff. Kipling himself is quite a 
 commonplace person. He is neither 
 handsome nor magnetic. He is plain 
 and manly and would fit in anywhere. 
 If there was a trunk to be carried up- 
 stairs, or an ox to get out of a pit, 
 you 'd call on Kipling if he chanced that 
 way, and he 'd give you a lift as a matter 
 of course, and then go on whistling with 
 hands in his pockets. His art is a knack 
 practised to a point that gives facility. 
 
 Jane Austen was a commonplace per- 
 son. She swept, sewed, worked, and did 
 the duty that lay nearest her. She wrote 
 because she liked to, and because it 
 gave pleasure to others. She wrote as 
 well as she could. She had no thought 
 of immortality, or that she was writing 
 for the ages — no more than Shakespeare 
 had. She never anticipated that Southey, 
 Coleridge, Ivamb, Guizot, and Macaulay 
 352 
 
5anc Busten 
 
 would hail her as a marvel of insight, 
 nor did she suspect that a woman as 
 great as George Bliot would declare her 
 work flawless. 
 
 But to-day strong men recognize her 
 books as rarely excellent, because they 
 show the divinity in all things, keep 
 close to the ground ; gently inculcate 
 the firm belief that simple people are as 
 necessary as great ones, that small things 
 are not necessarily unimportant, and that 
 nothing is really insignificant. It all rings 
 true. 
 
 And so I sing the praises of the aver- 
 age woman — the woman who does her 
 work, who is willing to be unknown, 
 who is modest and unaffected, who tries 
 to lessen the pains of earth, and to add 
 to its happiness. She is the true guard- 
 ian angel of mankind ! 
 
 No book published in Jane Austen's 
 lifetime bore her name on the title-page ; 
 she was never lionized by society ; she 
 was never two hundred miles from home ; 
 she died when forty-two years of age, and 
 353 
 
5ane Bu6ten 
 
 it was sixty years before a biography was 
 attempted or asked for. She sleeps in 
 the cathedral at Winchester, and not so 
 very long ago a visitor, on asking the 
 verger to see her grave, was conducted 
 thither, and the verger asked, " Was she 
 anybody in particular? so many folks 
 ask where she 's buried, you know ! " 
 
 But this is changed now, for when the 
 verger took me to her grave and we 
 stood by that plain black marble slab, he 
 spoke intelligently of her life and work. 
 And many visitors now go to the cathe- 
 dral only because it is the resting-place 
 of Jane Austen, who lived a beautiful, 
 helpful life and produced great art, yet 
 knew it not. 
 
 354 
 
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