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THE STORY 
 
 OF 
 
 Jane Austen's Life 
 
 BY 
 
 OSCAR FAY ADAMS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE PRESUMPTION OF SEX," "CHAPTERS FROM 
 JANE AUSTEN." " POST-LAUREATE IDYLS," 
 
 Nefo lEWtion, Mttstrattto 
 
 BOSTON 
 lee and shepard publishers 
 
 io Milk Street 
 1897 
 
 1)EC 17 W* 
 
Copyright, 1891, by A. C. McClurg & Co. 
 Copyright, 1896, by Lee and Shepard 
 
 A II rights reserved. 
 
 The Story of Jane Austen's Life 
 
 mnujersttg l@ress 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
Ka fjts jFrfento, 
 
 Eben Howard Gay, 
 
 The author affectionately dedicates these pages. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE present volume, appearing so soon after 
 * the lives of Miss Austen by Mrs. Maiden and 
 Prof. Goldwin Smith, would have little excuse for 
 existence if constructed on precisely the same 
 lines as its predecessors. But Jane Austen the 
 novelist is too well known to the literary world 
 to need much more said concerning her; while 
 Jane Austen the woman is, I am compelled to 
 believe, still a stranger to most of those who 
 read her books. To place her before the world 
 as the winsome, delightful woman that she really 
 was, and thus to dispel the unattractive, not to 
 say forbidding, mental picture that so many have 
 formed of her is the purpose of the chapters that 
 follow. With what success the task here at- 
 tempted has been achieved is for readers to 
 determine. 
 
 The summer of 1889 was spent by the writer 
 in visiting all the localities once familiar to Jane 
 
2 PREFACE. 
 
 Austen ; and the descriptions of Bath, Steventon, 
 Chawton, and other places can therefore be said 
 to have the merit of accuracy at least. It was 
 originally designed to insert a number of views of 
 localities mentioned ; but the difficulty of satis- 
 factorily reproducing these reluctantly obliged the 
 author to forego this intention. The work was 
 begun and partly completed at Winchester, al- 
 most in the shadow of its great cathedral; and 
 the opening chapters were read and approved by 
 one of Jane Austen's grandnephews, Reverend 
 Edward Cracroft Lefroy, now, alas ! as these lines 
 are written, just dead in the fulness of his powers 
 as a poet, after a long illness. 
 
 The writer has received much valued assistance 
 from the Austen kindred and from others inter- 
 ested in his work, and takes occasion here to 
 express his obligations in this respect to Lord 
 Brabourne ; Augustus Austen-Leigh, Provost of 
 King's College, Cambridge University; Montagu 
 G. Knight, Esq. of Chawton House, Alton, Hants ; 
 and Reverend J. Morland Rice, of Bramber 
 Rectory, Steyning, Sussex, — all grandnephews of 
 Jane Austen. Also to the Very Reverend G. W. 
 Kitchin, Dean of Winchester ; Thomas W. Shore, 
 Esq., of Southampton, Hants ; R. E. Peach, Esq., 
 of Bath ; Mrs. Harris, of Steventon Manor, Whit- 
 
PREFACE. 3 
 
 church, Hants ; and Miss Charlotte M. Yonge, of 
 Otterbourne, Hants. 
 
 In May of the present year, a number of these 
 chapters were read by the author to the late Hon. 
 James Russell Lowell, at the latter's request, in the 
 study at Elmwood ; and more than one friendly 
 criticism then received has been heeded in the 
 final revision. Mr. Lowell took a warm interest 
 in the work ; and the author had hoped to have 
 the happiness on one of these autumn days 
 of placing the published book before him. But 
 this was not to be ; for just as the first pages 
 were going to press, the summons came, and 
 under the trees of Elmwood their owner passed 
 for the last time. 
 
 Oscar Fay Adams. 
 
 Felton Hall, 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
 Oct 12, 1891. 
 
NOTE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 IN this edition the author has followed out his 
 original intention of inserting illustrations of 
 scenes more or less closely connected with the life 
 of Miss Austen ; and it is hoped that the volume 
 will possess an added interest thereby. Several of 
 the illustrations are taken from photographs made 
 expressly for the work in the summer of 1889, and 
 the letter of Miss Austen's, of which a fac-simile is 
 presented, was given to the author for that purpose 
 by the late. Lord Brabourne. The portrait of Rev. 
 Edward Austen Leigh, her nephew and first biog- 
 rapher, is from a photograph given by his son, 
 A. Austen Leigh, M.A., the Provost of King's Col- 
 lege, Cambridge. 
 
 The Hermitage, 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts, 
 November 25, 1896. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Prelude 9 
 
 II. Childhood at Steventon 16 
 
 III. Life at Steventon ; First Visit to Bath ; 
 
 Earliest Attempts at Writing ... 32 
 
 IV. The Writing of " Pride and Prejudice," 
 
 " Sense and Sensibility/' and " North- 
 anger Abbey " 53 
 
 V. Visit to Bath ; Removal to Bath ; " The 
 
 Watsons ; " The Austens at Lyme . . 66 
 VI. Death of Jane's Father; Lodgings in 
 Bath; Jane Austen in Society; Visits 
 
 in Kent 94 
 
 VII. Removal to Southampton ; Life and So- 
 ciety there 106 
 
 VIII. Removal to Chawton ; Publication of 
 " Sense and Sensibility,"." Pride and 
 Prejudice," and "Mansfield Park" 144/ 
 IX. Last Years at Chawton; "Emma;" 
 
 " Persuasion " 184 
 
 X. Last Illness and Death 206 
 
 XI. Jane's Brothers and Sister 221 
 
 XII. Character of Jane Austen shown in 
 
 her Writings 229 
 
 Appendix . . . 257 
 
 Biography and Criticism of Jane Austen . . 259 
 Index 267 
 

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 Reduced Fac-simii.e of Miss Austen's Writing. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Portrait of Jane Austen Frontispiece 
 
 Fac-simile Letter of Jane Austen .... 7 
 
 Winchester Cathedral from the Southeast 10 
 
 Old Manor at Steventon 17 
 
 Steventon Church 18 
 
 Portrait of Jane Austen at Fifteen ... 32 
 
 Bath Abbey from the Northeast .... 67 
 
 Number Four Sydney Place, Bath .... 84 
 
 Views at Lyme Regis 91 
 
 Pump Room Interior, Bath 98 
 
 Old Wall at Southampton in 
 
 Chawton Cottage, from the Road .... 145 
 
 Rear of Chawton Cottage 155 
 
 House on College Street, Winchester . . 208 
 
 North Aisle of Winchester Cathedral . . 220 
 
 Chawton House 230 
 
 The Octagon, Assembly Rooms, Bath ... 235 
 
 Portrait of Reverend J. E. Austen-Leigh . 257 
 
THE STORY 
 
 OF 
 
 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE, 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 IT is late afternoon in Winchester. The shadows 
 are gathering in the gloomy transepts of the 
 cathedral and lengthening across the quiet green- 
 sward of the Close. The great clock that over- 
 hangs the High Street strikes six ; and a moment 
 later the quarter chimes from the Guildhall send 
 forth the slow music of their notes, and the hour 
 is struck more slowly still. A pause, and then fol- 
 low the four double quarter strokes, and the delib- 
 erate, dignified hour bell of the cathedral sounds 
 far up in the tower, that is now a golden grey in 
 the rays of the western sun. A longer pause suc- 
 ceeds, and then come the double quarter strokes 
 from the belfry of the College of William of Wyke T 
 ham, and the six meditative hour strokes afterward. 
 Just in this same way may the hour have sounded 
 in the ears of Jane Austen seventy- two years ago 
 
IO JANE AUSTEN'S LIEE. 
 
 this 17th of July, 1889. It was the last hour the 
 bells of the ancient city she had loved so much were 
 ever to tell to her, the last which she was ever 
 to heed, for a little later she had done with time. 
 
 It was but a very small part of the world upon 
 which she could look out that long-past July after- 
 noon. In front was a narrow street along which the 
 college boys were moving up and down at inter- 
 vals like restless but irregular shuttles, disappearing 
 and reappearing through the entrance to Com- 
 moners' just at hand ; across the roadway a brick 
 wall partly screening the narrow garden-plot of 
 Dr. Gabell, the college head-master, behind which 
 rose the high flint wall of the Close crowned with 
 tufts of crimson flowers and waving streamers of 
 dark ivy. Over this again were the grey tower and 
 roof of the mighty cathedral, its south transept gable 
 just seen above the green leafage of the Close. 
 To the left the street view was bounded by the red 
 brick houses of Kingsgate Street, into which it led ; 
 but to the right the eye might follow the roadway 
 past the stone bridge over one of the streams of 
 the Itchen, that bubbled out beneath the low arch 
 in the wall of Wolvesey Castle, till it turned a 
 sharp corner round the wall of the garden of the 
 college warden. A bit of the Hampshire downs, 
 a shoulder of St. Giles's Hill, closed the prospect 
 here. This was all that she could have seen, and 
 very little it may appear ; but it was, nevertheless, a 
 part of the scenery she had always known, and it 
 was beneath the shadow of the majestic cathedral, 
 
w 
 
PRELUDE. n 
 
 familiar to her from childhood, that she had come 
 to die. It was not home, to be sure, but yet home 
 was not far distant ; and at the least home faces 
 were near her, and the sister whose love had been 
 the most precious gift of a lifetime was to be with 
 her so long as she could feel the touch of human 
 affection. 
 
 It had not been a long life that was so near its 
 gentle ending on that summer evening, — a little 
 less than forty-two years in all. Happy, cheerful, 
 uneventful years they had been, full of affectionate 
 duties and pleasant cares, and latterly touched by 
 the perception of growing fame. She was just en- 
 tering upon middle life : a woman universally 
 beloved in her circle of acquaintance, and in the 
 maturity of powers not fully recognized by her- 
 self and those nearest to her, but which the world 
 outside the Hampshire one she knew best was just 
 beginning to acknowledge. The daughter of a 
 country clergyman, who, so far as we know, was 
 only once in her life two hundred miles from 
 her birthplace ; one of a large family with such 
 advantages only as one might fairly claim in jus- 
 tice to the rest, and therefore with no especial 
 pains bestowed upon her education, — it could 
 not have easily occurred to those who knew her as 
 a woman that her name was to become one of the 
 brightest in the literature of her country, or to 
 those who knew her as a novelist that the books 
 which they thought vastly superior to hers would 
 soon gather dust upon their shelves, while hers 
 
12 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 were to continue the delight of endless generations. 
 The Annual Register for 1 8 1 7 makes more or less 
 extended mention of seven persons of note who 
 died in July of that year, — the Rt. Hon. George 
 Ponsonby is herein mourned at length ; and the 
 virtues of a Duke of Northumberland, an Earl of 
 Eglinton, a ninth Lord Arundel, a Lady Ann 
 Murray, a Sir William Pearce Ashe A Court, and a 
 daughter of Madame de Stael, are set forth in 
 appropriate terms. No room, however, seems to 
 have been found by the editor of that sedate 
 chronicle to record the death at Winchester, on 
 the 1 8th of that same month, of an untitled woman 
 whose loss to the age in which she lived was 
 greater than could have been occasioned by the 
 deaths of seventy times seven such as these. 
 But how should the editor of the Annual Register 
 know this? How should he have heard of one 
 whose personality was known to but very few? 
 
 The novelists of that time mingled freely in the 
 literary life of the period ; and whatever advantages 
 may have arisen from associating with one another 
 they may be presumed to have reaped. But of 
 literary companionship or associations Jane Austen 
 knew little or nothing. She wrote in the seclusion 
 of a country home, — a seclusion much more remote 
 eighty or ninety years ago than now ; and echoes 
 only, and these not strong ones, reached her 
 there of the world's applause. That same applause 
 had resounded much more loudly in the ears of 
 Mrs. RadclirTe or Madame d'Arblay ; but long be- 
 
PRELUDE. I3 
 
 fore their ears were stopped with dust, the pleasing 
 noise had almost died away. Curiosity only leads 
 us now to turn the pages of their books; some 
 feeling much more permanent sends us to Miss 
 Austen's. It was their lot as well as that of sev- 
 eral of their contemporaries in the same field to 
 outlive the popularity they so quickly acquired ; 
 it was that of Jane Austen to die while the sun of 
 her fame was not half risen. The sweets of suc- 
 cess she but barely tasted. Yet for these same 
 sweets I do not think she at any time very greatly 
 cared. Sincere appreciation of her writing pleased 
 her as honest praise must please any conscientious 
 literary worker ; but it was not indispensable to her, 
 and no amount of admiration of her genius could 
 have destroyed the fine poise of her nature. 
 
 But if Miss Austen missed many of the rewards 
 received by women of that day who labored in the 
 same field of literature, she at the same time 
 escaped many of the trials which are the portion of 
 those whose fame is quickly won. The malice of 
 detractors, the jealousies of the unsuccessful, the 
 hundred stings which may be felt in a literary life, 
 — from these she was securely shielded by her com- 
 parative seclusion and the slow though sure growth 
 of her fame. She surely stands in no need of our 
 regretful sympathy, this woman of talent cut off 
 from earthly existence in the early dawning of an 
 ever-brightening renown. Life had already brought 
 her large measure of happiness and affection; she 
 had been able to exercise the gift that was hers 
 
i 4 JANE AUSTEN- S LIFE. 
 
 with little hindrance ; and she had met with approval 
 of her work in quarters where approbation wafs help- 
 ful and stimulating. She did not feel that her 
 abilities were unappreciated or overlooked. 
 
 Nor were they. On the contrary, they were 
 admired to as great an extent as the taste of sev- 
 enty-five years ago would admit. General favor it 
 was impossible for them to obtain at once, because 
 they appealed to tastes then shared by few. Miss 
 Austen herself could not realize how excellent her 
 writing was, for there was nothing in precisely the 
 same lines with which to compare it, and her critics 
 of course had precisely the same obstacle to meet. 
 She must not, then, be looked upon as one who 
 was underestimated while she lived. If we judge 
 of her work by the standards of her own time, we 
 shall see that she was not undervalued \ and most 
 certainly we cannot complain because her con- 
 temporaries did not estimate her by criteria they 
 had not yet reached. She had, in such measure 
 as was possible then, the honor she deserved ; she 
 accepted it, was grateful for it, and did not lament 
 or feel the want of more ; and her life moved se- 
 renely on, therefore, to its early close unfretted by 
 fears that it was missing what it should have won. 
 We may be very sure that she never thought of 
 pitying herself; and why, then, should we com- 
 passionate her? Rather ought we to rejoice with 
 her that life brought to her all the happiness it did, 
 filling it so full that no room was left for regrets. 
 
 What that life was, begun in a retired country 
 
PRELUDE. I5 
 
 rectory and ended not quite forty-two years later 
 in a small provincial city a few miles distant and 
 beside the walls of its venerable cathedral, the 
 pages which follow attempt more or less imper- 
 fectly to tell. 
 
II. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AT STEVENTON. 
 
 "POLDED securely away in a valley among the 
 * low chalk downs of North Hampshire is a 
 straggling thatch-roofed village, with little to" distin- 
 guish it, except perhaps to one who knows it well, 
 from countless other hamlets hidden in sheltered 
 coombes of southern England. The Southwestern 
 Railway crosses the valley on a high curved em- 
 bankment which shuts off the view to the west ; but 
 so insignificant is the village considered by the rail- 
 way authorities that no station has ever been built 
 for its accommodation. Winchester, fourteen miles 
 south, and Basingstoke, some six or seven north- 
 west, are the nearest towns known to any but the 
 Hampshire world ; and the traveller to this quiet 
 valley, approaching it from Winchester, has before 
 him a walk or drive of four miles after leaving the 
 train at Micheldever, and one of about the same 
 distance if he leaves it at Overton, in the opposite 
 direction. 
 
 The highroad to Deane turns sharply to the left 
 at the end of the village, and disappears under the 
 embankment ; and it is along this road, for the dis- 
 tance of half a mile preceding the turn, that the 
 
CHILDHOOD AT STEVENTON. iy 
 
 dozen or fifteen houses of the neighborhood are 
 situated, several being of distinctly recent date. 
 Opposite one which seems from its appearance the 
 oldest of them all, the road to North Waltham turns 
 off to the east ; and just north of this, approached 
 through a small bit of thicket, is the rectory, a 
 cheerful two-storied mansion, at the top of a well- 
 kept, sunny lawn. From here the view widens : to 
 westward distant meadows, bordered by broad lines 
 of hedgerow, spread themselves out upon the 
 swelling downs, and patches of woodland thrust 
 their dark masses between. South of the sloping 
 lawn, and across the road last mentioned, is a small 
 field, shaded at one end by large elms. A dis- 
 used pump here, and a depression which must once 
 have been a cellar, are now all the signs remaining 
 to mark the spot where the rectory of Steventon 
 stood, seventy years ago. Along the eastern side 
 of this small meadow a very broad hedgerow path 
 leads up the slope to the church, less than half a 
 mile to the south. Here, beyond the end of the 
 hedgerow path, surrounded by a small churchyard 
 and shaded on the north by a great hollow yew of 
 dateless antiquity, is the church of St. Nicholas, 
 seven centuries old. Close at hand are the spa- 
 cious and carefully trimmed lawns of a large modern 
 manor-house ; and south of this, across an exqui- 
 sitely soft stretch of green turf, is the former manor, 
 a long grey stone facade of the early Tudor period, 
 and, save for its western end, nearly hidden by 
 shining ivy leaves and the sweeping branches of 
 2 
 
1 8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIEE. 
 
 ancient trees. From the broad lawns and gardens 
 here, the tiny village along the shaded highway can- 
 not be seen ; and the eye ranges beyond its green 
 tree- tops over sunny slopes covered with fertile 
 fields, some of which, no doubt to the farmer's dis- 
 quiet, are blazing with scarlet poppies. A peace- 
 ful, pastoral landscape it is, with no very strong 
 features, but one possessing many charms, and of 
 which a real lover of Nature would not easily 
 tire. 
 
 Thus looks Steventon and its vicinity to-day. 
 The lapse of a century cannot have made any great 
 changes in its aspect. Remove from the scene the 
 modern manor-house of red brick, the stunted spire 
 that crowns but does not adorn the tower of St. 
 Nicholas's church, and at least a third of the houses 
 in the village ; take away the railway and the pres- 
 ent rectory, and in the field beneath it replace its 
 predecessor under the tall elms, — and then, with 
 some minor changes in the disposition of gardens 
 and hedgerows, we have the Steventon which Jane 
 Austen's eyes looked upon a hundred years ago : 
 then, as now, a handful of homes wholly withdrawn 
 from the turmoil of the outside world. 
 
 To this same Steventon came to live, in 1771, 
 the Reverend George Austen, then between thirty- 
 five and forty years of age. Left an orphan at the 
 age of nine, he had been cared for and educated 
 by his uncle, Francis Austen, a lawyer of Tunbridge. 
 From Tunbridge Grammar School he received one 
 of its Oxford scholarships, and entered St. John's 
 
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CHILDHOOD AT STEVENTOIV. jg 
 
 College, where he subsequently obtained a fellow- 
 ship. As a. young man he was known at Oxford as 
 " the handsome proctor ;" and when living at Bath, 
 after having passed his seventieth year, his clearly- 
 cut, refined features and snowy hair made him a 
 centre of observation in all companies. No portrait 
 of him remains, if indeed one were ever painted ; 
 but at Chawton House I saw, in the possession of 
 his great-grandson, a full-length silhouette likeness 
 of him, in which his elegant figure and scholarly 
 profile are very observable. He is here represented 
 as one of a group, and holds by the hand his son 
 James, who was apparently at that period a lad of 
 eight or nine years. 
 
 In 1764, being then in orders, he had come into 
 the possession of two adjoining Hampshire livings, 
 Steventon and Deane, — the latter the gift of his 
 uncle, who had purchased it for his nephew, the 
 former the gift of his second cousin, Mr. Knight of 
 Chawton and Godmersham. In the same year that 
 he obtained these preferments he married Cassan- 
 dra Leigh, the youngest daughter of Reverend 
 Thomas Leigh of Henley-on-Thames, whose elder 
 brother, Dr. Theophilus Leigh, was Master of Bal- 
 liol for more than fifty years. At the beginning 
 of their married life, Mr. and Mrs. Austen had 
 charge of a little son of Warren Hastings, com- 
 mitted to the care of Mr. Austen some three years 
 before his marriage, most probably, as Miss Austen's 
 earliest biographer suggests, through the influence 
 of the clergyman's sister, Mrs, Hancock, whose 
 
2o JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 husband was an officer in Hastings's Indian com- 
 mand. This lad, George Hastings, died young, to 
 the great grief of the Austens, to whom he had 
 become very dear. 
 
 At Deane the three eldest children of the Aus- 
 tens were born, James, Edward, and Henry Thomas ; 
 and not long after the birth of their third son, in 
 1 771, they removed, as has been stated, from Deane 
 to Steventon, which remained their home for thirty 
 years. The journey was a brief one, less than two 
 miles, but the road, now so well kept, was then but 
 a cart-path furrowed by deep ruts ; and Mrs. Aus- 
 ten, who had not yet recovered her strength, was 
 placed upon a feather bed laid upon the softest 
 household articles in the wagon, that she might 
 make the short trip in comparative comfort. 
 
 The house to which the Austens now came with 
 their three young children, the oldest a lad of six, 
 though somewhat better than many country rec- 
 tories at that time, could not be said to have been 
 anything more than fairly commodious and com- 
 fortable ; and it was certainly greatly inferior to the 
 handsome stone rectory which looks down upon 
 the site of its predecessor. In front a carriage- 
 drive, or "sweep," as Jane would have styled it, 
 wound under the elms from the gateway ; and at 
 the back, on the southerly side, the gentle upward 
 slope was occupied by a moderately large flower 
 and kitchen garden ; and above this was a ter- 
 race of close green turf. Perhaps this terrace, as 
 Miss Austen's nephew and biographer pleasantly 
 
CHILD HO OD AT STE VENTON. 2 1 
 
 assumes, may have been in the mind of the novel- 
 ist when, in the opening chapter of " Northanger 
 Abbey," she describes the heroine's childish joy 
 in " rolling down the greensward at the back of 
 the house." On the east line of the garden was a 
 thatched mud wall, counterparts of which may still 
 be seen in many a Hampshire village, while the ter- 
 race merged itself to westward in a hedgerow path 
 which bounded the rectory meadows on the south. 
 Seats were placed at intervals along this shaded 
 path, which to the Austens was known as " The 
 Wood Walk." On the farther side of the garden a 
 broader hedgerow path led then, as now, up the 
 slope to the church and manor-house, which in the 
 Austens' time and for generations later was occu- 
 pied by the Digweed family. In the field beyond 
 this path was a small pond, or " duck-pool," which 
 has long since disappeared. 
 
 It was a pleasant nook of which all these were 
 the outward features, — a spot which the Austens 
 came to love very dearly ; yet we are told that when 
 Mrs. Austen was still Miss Leigh and was being 
 shown the scenery of the locality, she expressed 
 some disappointment, missing no doubt the lovely 
 river views of her Henley home. However this 
 may have been, the seven years' residence at 
 Deane had by this time accustomed her to the 
 waterless Hampshire landscapes ; and whatever re- 
 grets she may once have felt had long passed away 
 when she came to Steventon to live. 
 
 In the summer of i88q, I was shown some of 
 
22 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 the parish registers at the Steventon rectory. One 
 of the earlier records contains a careful copy of 
 the entries originally made by Mr. Austen's prede- 
 cessor in the neat handwriting of Mr. Austin, who 
 signs his own name as copyist. Then follow in 
 the same neat hand the dates of the baptisms, 
 marriages, and burials throughout the long years 
 of his ministry, the careful penmanship growing a 
 little less firm in the closing years of the century. 
 Here is one of the early entries which has an 
 interest for us. 
 
 " Cassandra Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev'd Mr 
 George Austen, Rector of the Parish, and Cassandra, 
 his Wife, was privately Baptiz'd Jan? 9th, 1773. Rec'd 
 into the church Janf 25th the same year." 
 
 The records are not of frequent occurrence in 
 the register, for neither births nor deaths followed 
 hard upon each other in this small village, and 
 marriages were few and far between. We have 
 but to turn a leaf, then, to find an entry made 
 nearly three years later, which recorded an event 
 of great subsequent importance to the world of 
 letters. 
 
 " Jane, daughter of the Rev'd Mr George Austen, 
 Rector of this Parish and Cassandra, his Wife, was 
 privately Baptized Dec. 17 th , 1775. Rec'd into the 
 church April 5th, 1776." 
 
 The date of Jane Austen's birth, which was De- 
 cember 16, preceded the private baptism by one 
 
CHILDHOOD A T STE VENTON. 23 
 
 day only ; but the birth and baptism of the elder 
 sister occurred on the same day. 
 
 Our knowledge of the childhood of Jane Austen 
 must remain, owing to the scanty information to 
 be obtained respecting it, very largely inferential. 
 It was her mother's custom to put out her children 
 to be nursed at a cottage in the village ; and Jane 
 was probably no exception to this rule. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Austen paid daily visits to the cottage in be- 
 half of the infant's welfare, and it was frequently 
 brought to the rectory by the nurse ; but until old 
 enough to run about freely and to talk with some 
 approach to clearness, the cottage and not the rec- 
 tory was the child's home, probably for the first 
 two years of her life. Whatever may now be 
 thought of the practice, it was common enough 
 in English homes a hundred years ago ; and the 
 Austens in following it were therefore doing noth- 
 ing unusual. 
 
 The Steventon rectory was already full of young 
 life when Jane's year or two with her cottage nurse 
 came to an end. Her eldest brother James was 
 now a lad of twelve ; and between these two were 
 Edward, who was not far from nine, Henry, a boy 
 of six, and Cassandra and Francis, with a differ- 
 ence of less than a year in their ages, and about 
 three and a half and four and a half years respec- 
 tively. A year or two later, Charles, the youngest 
 member of all, was added to the circle. With so 
 large a number of children, among whom too 
 were included several pupils of Mr. Austen's who 
 
24 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 were boarded in the family, we cannot have rea- 
 son to suppose that the rectory was at any time a 
 dull place to live in. The Austens' nearest neigh- 
 bors were the Digweed family at the manor-house ; 
 and the intercourse between the two houses was 
 frequent and friendly. At Ashe, two miles away, 
 lived the Lefroy family, with whom the inmates of 
 the Steventon rectory were especially intimate. 
 Mr. Lefroy held the living of Ashe, and his wife 
 was a sister of Sir Egerton Brydges, the writer. 
 He was a regular visitor at Ashe, and in his auto- 
 biography, published in 1834, occurs the earliest 
 existing personal notice of Jane Austen, which 
 reads as follows : - — 
 
 " The nearest neighbors of the Lefroys were the 
 Austens of Steventon. I remember Jane Austen, the 
 novelist, as a little child. She was very intimate with 
 Mrs. Lefroy and much encouraged by her. Her 
 mother was a Miss Leigh, whose paternal grand- 
 mother was sister to the first Duke of Chandos. Mr. 
 Austen was of a Kentish family, of which several 
 branches have been settled in the Weald of Kent, 
 and some are still remaining there. When I knew 
 Jane Austen, I never suspected that she was an 
 authoress ; but my eyes told me that she was fair 
 and handsome, slight and elegant, but with cheeks 
 a little too full." 
 
 Surely the hobby of a lover of genealogies was 
 never more perversely brought to the front. We 
 are longing for personal details of one who was of 
 vastly more importance to the world in general 
 
CHILDHOOD AT STEVENTON. 
 
 2 5 
 
 than the garrulous Sir Egerton had ever been, and 
 he suddenly cuts off his tale and talks of her great- 
 grandmother ! 
 
 At the Ashe rectory were the two boys, John and 
 Benjamin ; and no long period was suffered to lapse 
 in which the young Austens and the young Lefroys 
 were not in each other's company. Many years 
 later, Benjamin, the youngest boy at Ashe, mar- 
 ried the oldest daughter of James Austen, thus 
 strengthening the bond between the families. Two 
 cousins of the Austens, Edward and Susan Cooper, 
 the children of Mrs. Austen's oldest sister, were in 
 the habit of paying long visits at Steventon, much 
 to the delight of the children at the two rectories. 
 
 The Steventon household contained when Jane 
 was about thirteen another inmate, in the person of 
 the young Countess de Feuillade, the daughter of 
 Mr. Austen's sister, Mrs. Hancock. Her husband 
 had been guillotined during the French Revolu- 
 tion ; and after that event she was for some years 
 a member of her uncle's family, in which she had 
 often been a visitor previously. Many years later 
 she became the second wife of her cousin Henry 
 Austen. The countess was a brilliant, highly ac- 
 complished young woman, used to the most pol- 
 ished and brilliant society in France ; and what a 
 resource such a person must have been in a coun- 
 try home full of unsophisticated young people can 
 easily be imagined. It is not improbable that she 
 assisted her cousins Cassandra and Jane in their 
 study of French, for her knowledge, of that Ian- 
 
2 6 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 guage was so perfect that she passed everywhere in 
 France for a native of the country. But however 
 much she may have contributed to their education, 
 she certainly took an active part in the amuse- 
 ments of her cousins. Private theatricals were in 
 high favor at Steventon, the young people's summer 
 theatre being the barn, and the family dining-room 
 constituting their winter one. The principal fem- 
 inine roles in these representations were always 
 taken by the countess ; and the prologues and epi- 
 logues were written by James Austen, whose son 
 declares them to have been exceptionally vigorous 
 and amusing. The first of these dramas was acted, 
 before a very limited audience, we must believe, 
 when Jane was not far from twelve years old, and 
 the last when she was fifteen. It is not improba- 
 ble that she may have taken parts of more or less 
 prominence in the casts of some of the latest of 
 these plays ; and we know that she certainly acted 
 in parlor theatricals in later life. The late Sir 
 William Heathcote of Hursley remembered being 
 with her at a Twelfth Night party when he was a 
 little boy, on which occasion she, having drawn the 
 part of Mrs. Candor, acted it with appreciation 
 and spirit. Undoubtedly the realistic descriptions 
 of the amateur rehearsals in " Mansfield Park" had 
 their source in the author's recollections of the 
 Steventon dramas of her early girlhood. 
 
 It will readily enough be seen from what has 
 been said of Steventon rectory, its inmates and 
 neighbors and frequent visitors, that remote as it 
 
CHILDHOOD AT STEVEN TON. 
 
 27 
 
 was from towns, its young people did not of ne- 
 cessity lead either a cramped or monotonous life. 
 Their active, ingenious minds devised many plans 
 for amusement, and their studies were always intel- 
 ligently superintended. Mrs. Austen was a person 
 of much native ability and quick imagination, and 
 could express herself with ease and elegance in 
 writing as well as in speaking. From her it is 
 probable that Jane inherited her imaginative tem- 
 perament and her lively sense of humor, the latter 
 an inheritance which was shared with her brother 
 Henry. Mr. Austen was a man of scholarly tastes 
 and acquirements, and besides preparing his sons 
 James and Henry for the university, directed the 
 studies of his younger children in addition to 
 those of his pupils, and the many pastoral cares 
 which fall to the lot of a country clergyman. 
 
 Nearly eleven years intervened between Jane 
 and her oldest brother James, born at Deane 
 rectory Feb. 13, 1765. He, while still a very 
 young man at Oxford, was esteemed one of the 
 ablest writers among the undergraduates, being 
 particularly well versed in English literature. In 
 the opinion of his son, James Austen directed the 
 reading of Jane and Cassandra, and was instru- 
 mental in forming their literary tastes. This seems 
 not at all unlikely. A bright, studious fellow, fresh 
 from the university, and returning full of enthu- 
 siasms respecting his favorite authors, would no 
 doubt find it a particularly congenial task to im- 
 part those same enthusiasms to his young sis- 
 
28 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 ters, neither of them old enough to question his 
 opinions or call for a reversion of his judgments. 
 
 Of her second brother, Edward, born at Deane 
 Oct. 7, 1768, Jane saw much less in her child- 
 hood than of James, for when quite a young lad, 
 he was adopted by his third cousin, Thomas 
 Knight of Godmersham Park, Kent, and Chawton 
 House, Hants. He inherited his cousin's estates 
 in 1794, and in 181 2 took the family name of his 
 generous relative. In later life, as will be seen in 
 these pages, Jane was much in the company of this 
 brother, and seems to have been rather fonder of 
 him than of James, though perhaps not consciously 
 so. 
 
 Henry Thomas, the third brother, born at 
 Deane in 1 771, seems to have inherited very 
 much of his father's eager, joyous spirit, and to 
 have notably excelled in conversation. As a de- 
 lightful companion for young and old he was un- 
 equalled ; but unfortunately his ease of manner and 
 adroitness in adapting himself to any society were 
 not supplemented with that singleness of purpose 
 which insures success. He was always full of 
 schemes and plans which usually came to nought, 
 and at which his brothers and sisters learned to 
 smile good-humoredly, and perhaps, as years went 
 on, a little sadly, foreseeing the probable result 
 of each in its turn. 
 
 Francis, the fourth brother, was born at Steven- 
 ton near the close of 1 773, and to him the firmness 
 and decision so much needed in the character of 
 
CHILDHOOD AT STEVENTON. 
 
 29 
 
 Henry seem to have been given in double meas- 
 ure. He entered the navy, where his talents soon 
 gained him promotion. As an officer he was a 
 strict disciplinarian, rigid in demanding the re- 
 spect due from others to his office, and punctili- 
 ous in according the proper amount of deference 
 from himself to others. His religious convictions 
 were exceedingly strong ; and he was never wanting 
 in the courage of his opinions, at one time being 
 known in the navy as " the officer who kneeled in 
 church," from which we may infer a certain laxity 
 of religious deportment on the part of his naval 
 contemporaries. His disposition was a happy and 
 contented one ; and the precision and deliberation 
 so characteristic of his later life must have been 
 admirably set off in the home-life at the rectory 
 by the sanguine impetuosity of his next older 
 brother. 
 
 Charles, born in 1778, and the youngest of the 
 seven, is said to have greatly resembled his sister 
 Jane in sweetness of temper and lovable disposi- 
 tion, and to have had the good fortune throughout 
 his long life of attaching others strongly to himself. 
 Like his brother Francis, he entered the navy, and 
 soon made his way upward from the ranks of the 
 midshipmen, winning as easily by means of his 
 warm-hearted, generous temperament the un- 
 stinted affection of his comrades in the service 
 as he had that of his brothers and sisters. 
 
 It was this same affectionate gentleness of dispo- 
 sition, noticeable in every individual of the Austen 
 
3 o JANE AUSTEN'S LIEE. 
 
 family, and reaching perhaps its strongest devel- 
 opment in Charles Austen, the youngest of thern 
 all, which bound its members so closely together. 
 All, with the possible exception of Henry Austen, 
 were persons of strong domestic tastes, by no 
 means averse to frequent contact with the world, 
 but finding, as children, their chief enjoyments 
 among themselves, and as men and women, their 
 highest pleasures in their own family circles. 
 
 Of Cassandra Austen we shall hear much in the 
 course of this narrative ; but a few words at this 
 point may be said of what she was in their child- 
 hood to her sister Jane, to whom she was al- 
 ways dearer than any one else in the whole world. 
 The elder of the two by three years, she, who had 
 been the one girl among so many boys, must 
 have had, as soon as the small Jane was transferred 
 from the cottage- nursery to the rectory, a peculiar 
 affection for the longed-for sister. From the very 
 first they shared the same room, and whatever 
 pains or pleasures fell to the portion of one were 
 sympathetically those of the other also. Outwardly 
 there was probably more demonstration of affection 
 on the part of Jane, Cassandra's nature being less 
 impulsive in this respect ; but I am inclined to be- 
 lieve that the affection Cassandra gave was no less 
 than that she received, although she may have 
 found more difficulty in its expression. Still, as 
 we possess none of her letters to Jane, it is not 
 possible to speak positively on this latter point. 
 That hers was the stronger personality may perhaps 
 
CHIL DHO OD AT STE VENTO.\ \ 3 1 
 
 be inferred from the fact of Jane's sisterly defer- 
 ence to her through their whole life, although the 
 difference in age may to some extent account for 
 this, and from the general opinion of the family 
 that while "Cassandra had the merit of having 
 her temper always under command, Jane had 
 the happiness of a temper that never needed 
 to be commanded." In other words, the amia- 
 bility of the younger was constitutional, the seren- 
 ity of the older the result of the exercise of 
 self-discipline. 
 
 When it became evident that the home instruc- 
 tion could not longer suffice in all ways for the 
 needs of a rapidly growing girl, Cassandra was 
 sent to Mrs. La Tournelle's school at Reading, 
 and thither Jane accompanied her. It was not 
 expected that at Jane's tender age she would be 
 able to derive much benefit from the instruction 
 at Reading ; but she was allowed to go because if 
 left at home she would have been utterly miser- 
 able without her chief companion, for, as Mrs. 
 Austen used sometimes to say, " if Cassandra 
 were going to have her head cut off, Jane would 
 insist upon sharing the same fate." It was not 
 in all respects a strong, self-reliant nature of which 
 such a remark could be made, however lightly, but 
 one which nevertheless was capable of intense 
 feeling and boundless self-abnegation. 
 
 " So they grew together, 
 Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, 
 But yet a union in partition." 
 
III. 
 
 LIFE AT STEVENTON; FIRST VISIT TO BATH; 
 EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT WRITING, 
 
 PRECISELY how old the sisters were at the 
 time of their being sent to school at Read- 
 ing does not anywhere appear in the family 
 records ; - but we may safely assume the event to 
 have been, in Jane's case at least, the first going 
 away from home. After that date, whenever it 
 may have been, Jane and Cassandra were from 
 time to time welcome visitors in Bath, at the 
 house of their mother's brother, Mr. Leigh Perrot, 
 and at the house of her sister, who, with her hus- 
 band, Dr. Cooper, the Vicar of Sonning, near 
 Reading, resided in Bath. One of these visits, 
 quite possibly the earliest, must have been paid 
 by Jane in 1791, on which occasion a portrait was 
 painted of her by the then popular artist, ZofTani, 
 representing her as a sweet faced girl of not more 
 than fifteen. This portrait was long in the pos- 
 session of Colonel Austen, of Kippington, who is 
 said to have been Jane's godfather, and it was 
 therefore most probably painted at his desire. The 
 present owner, Reverend John Morland Rice, of 
 Bramber Rectory, Steyning, Surrey, a grand nephew 
 of the original of the portrait, was bequeathed it 
 
Jane Austen at Fifteen. 
 
 FROM A PAINTING IN POSSESSION OF THE REV. MORLAND RICE, OF BRAMBEF 
 
FIRST VISIT TO BATH. 
 
 33 
 
 by Dr. Harding Newman (late Fellow of Magdalen 
 College, Oxford), whose stepmother had received 
 it from Colonel Austen. 
 
 No particulars concerning this visit have been 
 preserved ; but very probably the sisters were to- 
 gether when it took place, since their correspond- 
 ence, when separated, was frequent and regular, 
 and it was Cassandra's custom to retain all her sis- 
 ter's letters. That no letters of her own to Jane 
 exist, is no doubt owing to her having destroyed 
 whatever letters of hers she may have found among 
 her sister's papers after the death of the latter. 
 Supposing her to have done this, we cannot but 
 regret the fact, for without question they would, 
 if we had them, add much to our knowledge of 
 these two lives which were so much to each other. 
 
 What Jane Austen thought of Bath a few years 
 later we know ; but it would have been of excep- 
 tional interest if we could have been made familiar 
 with her first impressions of that gay city. To the 
 young country girl, who had hitherto seen no 
 places larger than Reading, Winchester, and pos- 
 sibly Southampton, the first sight of the beautiful, 
 pleasure-loving town on the banks of the winding 
 Avon must have been like a glimpse into some fair 
 and strange new world. Bath was then, as it had 
 been for more than a century, London writ small. 
 Amusement was its god ; and Christopher Anstey 
 was its prophet, none the less popular because he 
 was not always a sayer of smooth things. 
 
 Here in the narrower streets leading to the Abbey 
 3 
 
34 JANE AUSTEN'S, LIFE. 
 
 and the Pump Room one might have seen in the 
 Bath season all the rank and fashion, the wealth 
 and wit of London passing between the dark- 
 fronted houses. "The Ladies of St. James's," 
 who, when in London, went " swinging to the 
 play," now in pretended search of health went 
 daily in the same fashion to the baths and the 
 Pump Room, attended by the same throng of 
 gallants and men of fashion who filled their 
 London drawing-rooms. The beautiful Misses 
 Gubbins were now the reigning beauties in Bath, 
 having as rivals the daughter of the Archbishop of 
 Tuam and Miss Bedingfield. When Jane Austen 
 went on Sundays to the fashionable Laura Chapel 
 a few years later, she may have seen all these 
 people at their devotions in that home of aristo- 
 cratic piety, and near them the famous Mrs. Piozzi, 
 short and stout, with a patch of rouge on each 
 cheek, or the Duchess of York, with brown hair 
 falling about her face, but, let us hope, without 
 the retinue of dogs of assorted sizes which usually 
 attended her everywhere else. 
 
 Almost any day she might have seen in the thor- 
 oughfares of Bath or in the Pump Room many of 
 the famous men of her time on the occasion of her 
 first visit, — Melmoth, the noted scholar, William 
 Hoare, the Royal Academician, the brilliant Sheri- 
 dan, the yet unappreciated Herschels, William and 
 Caroline, and the host of their contemporaries in 
 literature, science, and art, who were familiar fig- 
 ures in Bath in 1791. 
 
FIRST VISIT TO BATH. 
 
 35 
 
 There was in the life of the city at that time a 
 glitter of extravagance, an excess of parade, which 
 though somewhat less pronounced than in the days 
 of Beau Nash, thirty years before, might still daz- 
 zle and confuse the wide-eyed gaze of fifteen. But 
 if it did so, the bewilderment was but brief; for hers 
 was too clear-sighted a vision to be long in doubt 
 between shadow and substance, and to lose sight 
 of the realities hidden beneath all the multitude of 
 vain shows that made up the outward semblance 
 of Bath in the last decade of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. However it all may have impressed her as a 
 girl, she did not when a young woman resident 
 there unduly esteem its fascinations. 
 
 How early she began to write is unknown ; but 
 copy-books of hers containing stories and sketches 
 written when she must have been not far from 
 twelve are in existence, and by the time she was 
 sixteen there was a goodly accumulation of these. 
 No doubt that first visit to Bath, and the glimpse of 
 the great world which it opened to her, stimulated 
 the powers she was already beginning to exercise. 
 What she thought in later life of the habit of writ- 
 ing in childhood may be learned from what one of 
 her nieces, who was a girl of twelve at the time of 
 her aunt's death, has said : — 
 
 "As I grew older, my aunt would talk to me more 
 seriously of my reading and amusements. I had 
 taken early to writing verses and stories, and am sorry 
 to think how I troubled her with reading them. She 
 was very kind about it, and always had some praise to 
 
36 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 bestow ; but at last she warned me against spending 
 too much time upon them. She said — how well I 
 recollect it ! — that she knew writing stories was a 
 great amusement, and she thought a harmless one, 
 though many people, she was aware, thought other- 
 wise ; but that at my age it would be bad for me to 
 be much taken up with my own compositions. Later 
 still — it was after she had gone to Winchester — she 
 sent me a message to this effect,— that if I would take 
 her advice I should cease writing till I was sixteen; 
 that she had herself often wished she had read more 
 and written less in the corresponding years of her 
 own life." 
 
 It is a slight though not unimportant insight 
 into Jane Austen's life that these words afford us. 
 In the bright young niece, whose teens were still 
 some years ahead, absorbed in the pleasant task of 
 transcribing her thoughts and fancies, the aunt not 
 unnaturally saw a reflection of her own childhood, 
 and recalling her own delight in similar tasks, gave 
 a fond encouragement. Her conviction that both 
 sides of a question should be regarded, however, 
 must have made her give the contrary opinion 
 of other people along with her own, and her 
 sense of proportion included the added warning. 
 Then when she felt herself passing the portals of 
 a newer life, came the last word of thoughtful, 
 matured advice, founded upon a perception that 
 to some extent that necessary proportion had not 
 always been preserved by herself in the years 
 when girlhood was developing into womanhood. 
 She may have lived to think, too, that some of 
 
EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT WRITING. 37 
 
 her own talent might be the heritage of the little 
 girl whose tastes and habits were so like what hers 
 had been in those far-off but well-remembered 
 days at Steventon. 
 
 Of her own juvenile compositions Mr. Austen - 
 Leigh tells us that " her earliest stories are of a 
 slight and flimsy texture, and are generally in- 
 tended to be nonsensical, but the nonsense has 
 much spirit in it. They are usually preceded by a 
 dedication of mock solemnity to one of her family. 
 It would seem that the grandiloquent dedications 
 prevalent in those days had not escaped her youth- 
 ful penetration." 
 
 It would have been strange indeed if they had, 
 for nothing in the nature of affectation or pom- 
 posity which came within her range of observation 
 seems to have escaped' from her presence un- 
 masked, or at least undetected, through the whole 
 of her after-life. She disliked shams as heartily as 
 a Carlyle could have desired ; but gentle, humorous 
 satire, rather than hammer-headed vituperation, 
 was the weapon she wielded against them. 
 
 The nature of some of her earlier work may be 
 seen in the fragment which follows. One can 
 without difficulty imagine the handsome old clergy- 
 man, her father, smiling over the mock heroic 
 dedication to himself, the indulgent approval of 
 her mother, the shouts of delight from the older 
 brothers over "little Jane's comedy," and what 
 the young writer valued most of all, the generous 
 praise of her beloved sister. True, it is but the 
 
38 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 merest trifle, but yet a trifle that is not without an 
 especial interest considered in the light which its 
 inventor's later productions throw upon it. 
 
 THE MYSTERY. 
 
 AN UNFINISHED COMEDY. 
 
 Dedication. 
 
 To the Rev. George Austen. 
 
 Sir, — -r I humbly solicit your patronage to the fol- 
 lowing comedy, which, though an unfinished one, is, 
 I flatter myself, as complete a Mystery as any of its 
 kind. 
 
 I am, sir, your most humble servant, 
 
 The Author. 
 
 THE MYSTERY, A COMEDY. 
 Drcunatis Persona. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Colonel Elliott. 
 Old Humbug. 
 Young Humbug. 
 Sir Edward Spangle 
 
 and 
 Corydon. 
 
 Women. 
 Fanny Elliott. 
 Mrs. Humbug 
 
 and 
 Daphne. 
 
 Act I. 
 
 Scene I. — A Garden. 
 Enter Corydon. 
 Corydon. But hush ! I am interrupted. 
 
 [Exit Corydon. 
 
EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT WRITING. 39 
 
 Enter Old Humbug and his Son, talking. 
 
 Old Hum. It is for that reason that I wish you to 
 follow my advice. Are you convinced of its propriety ? 
 
 Young Hum. I am, sir, and will certainly act in 
 the manner you have pointed out to me. 
 
 Old Hum. Then let us return to the house. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 Scene II. A parlor in Humbug's house. Mrs. 
 Humbug aitd Fanny discovered at work. 
 
 Mrs. Hum. You understand me, my love ? 
 
 Fa?iny. Perfectly, ma'am ; pray continue your 
 narration. 
 
 Mrs. Hum. Alas ! it is nearly concluded ; for I 
 have nothing more to say on the subject. 
 
 Fanny. Ah, here is Daphne. 
 
 Enter Daphne 
 
 Daphne. My dear Mrs. Humbug, how d'ye do? 
 Oh. Fanny, it is all over ! 
 
 Fanny. Is it indeed ? 
 
 Mrs. Hum. I 'm very sorry to hear it. 
 
 Fanny. Then 't was to no purpose that I 
 
 Daphne. None upon earth. 
 
 Mrs. Hum. And what is to become of — ? 
 
 Daphne. Oh, 'tis all settled. 
 
 [ Whispers Mrs. Humbug. 
 
 Fanny. And how is it determined ? 
 
 Daphne. I '11 tell you. [ Whispers Fanny. 
 
 Mrs. Hum. And is he to — ? 
 
 Daphne. I '11 tell you all I know of the matter. 
 
 [Whispers Mrs. Humbug and Fanny. 
 
 Fanny. Well, now I know everything about it, I '11 
 
 go away. 
 
 Mrs. Hum. ) . , .... , _ 
 
 n , y And so will I. [Exeunt. 
 
4 o JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Scene III. The curtain rises, and discovers Sir 
 Edward Spangle reclined in an elegant atti- 
 tude on a sofa, fast asleep. 
 
 Enter Colonel Elliott. 
 
 Col. E, My daughter is not here, I see There 
 lies Sir Edward. Shall I tell him the secret ? No, 
 he '11 certainly blab it. But he 's asleep and won't 
 hear me ; so I '11 e'en venture. 
 
 \_Goes up to Sir Edward, whispers him, and exit. 
 
 End of the First Act. 
 
 Finis. 
 
 But fragmentary writing of this character was 
 succeeded by another stage of literary activity, 
 in which were produced a number of stories, said 
 to be, for some of them are still extant, not with- 
 out value. She however never sought to publish 
 these ; and her family, reverencing her very proba- 
 ble desire, have never allowed them to be printed. 
 It must not be imagined that the majority of these 
 compositions resemble in any important particulars 
 the novels which have made her famous, differing 
 in degree only and not in kind. On the contrary, 
 they are very dissimilar both as to subject and 
 treatment. Mr. Austen- Leigh observes in relation 
 to them that " her mind seems to have been work- 
 ing in a very different direction from that into 
 which it ultimately settled. Instead of presenting 
 faithful copies of nature, these tales were generally 
 burlesques, ridiculing the improbable events and 
 exaggerated sentiments she had met with in sun- 
 
EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT WRITING. 
 
 41 
 
 dry silly romances. vSomething of this fancy is to 
 be found in ' Northanger Abbey,' but she soon left 
 it far behind in her subsequent course. It would 
 seem as if she were first taking note of all the 
 faults to be avoided, and curiously considering 
 how she ought not to write before she attempted 
 to put forth her strength in the right direction." 
 
 It was in this kind of literary occupation, varied 
 by performance of the ordinary home duties which 
 must have been hers, and by frequent visits to 
 relatives in Somerset and Kent as well as in her 
 native Hampshire, that the years of Jane Austen's 
 life from sixteen to twenty were passed. The first 
 draft, as it may be called, of the novel " Sense and 
 Sensibility " is undoubtedly a later effort of this pe- 
 riod. It was entitled " Elinor and Marianne," and, 
 much elaborated and rigorously revised, forms the 
 groundwork of the subsequent matured narration. 
 
 At the time of its composition her fancy had 
 lost much of its extravagant tone ; and when she 
 recast the tale some years after in its present form, 
 discarding entirely the epistolary conduct of the 
 story, the element of the burlesque had disap- 
 peared from her work. 
 
 Whether the tale " Lady Susan " may be dated 
 from this period cannot be satisfactorily deter- 
 mined. The form of it, — for the story is managed 
 wholly by letters, — and the fact that she seems to 
 have made no effort to publish it, would seem to 
 refer its preparation to a time anterior to the writ- 
 ing of " Pride and Prejudice ;" and this is the view 
 
4 2 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 taken by the members of her own family. A cer- 
 tain amount of exaggeration in the drawing of the 
 principal figure, and a perceptible want of clear- 
 ness in the outlining of some of the lesser person- 
 ages, seem to my mind to confirm this opinion and 
 definitely to place this work therefore in the num- 
 ber of those written before " Pride and Prejudice." 
 At the opening of 1796, Cassandra Austen paid 
 a visit to her friend, Mrs Elizabeth Fowle, who was 
 living at Kintbury, in Berkshire, about a dozen 
 miles from Steventon. Her twenty-third birthday 
 occurred while she was absent from home ; and to 
 her, on that occasion, Jane wrote the earliest of 
 her letters which has been preserved. Indeed, it is 
 the first piece of her writing the date of which is 
 absolutely beyond question, and is therefore valuable 
 for that if for no other reason. It is in no sense a 
 remarkable letter, but merely such as any sprightly 
 girl of twenty might send to a sister from whom 
 she had no reserves, and who would understand at 
 once all its playful allusions. 
 
 Steventon, Saturday (January 9). 
 
 In the first place, I hope you will live twenty-three 
 years longer. Mr. Tom Lefroy's birthday was yester- 
 day, so that you are very near of an age. 
 
 After this necessary preamble, I shall proceed to 
 inform you that we had an exceeding good ball last 
 night, and that I was very much disappointed at not 
 seeing Charles Fowle of the party, as I had previously 
 heard of his being invited. In addition to our set at 
 the Harwoods' ball, we had the Grants, St. Johns, 
 
EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT WRITING. 43 
 
 Lady Rivers, her three daughters and a son, Mr 1 and 
 Miss Heathcote, Mrs. Lefevre, two Mr. Watkins, Mr. 
 J. Portal, Miss Deanes, two Miss Ledgers, and a tall 
 clergyman who came with them, whose name Mary 
 would never have guessed. 
 
 We were so terrible good as to take James in our 
 carriage, though there were three of us before ; but 
 indeed he deserves encouragement for the very great 
 improvement which has lately taken place in his dan- 
 cing. Miss Heathcote is pretty, but not near so hand- 
 some as I expected. Mr. H. began with Elizabeth, 
 and afterwards danced with her again ; but they do not 
 know how to be particular. I flatter myself, however, 
 that they will profit by the three successive lessons 
 which I have given them. 
 
 You scold me so much in the nice long letter which 
 I have this moment received from you that I am al- 
 most afraid to tell you how my Irish friend 2 and I 
 behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most prof- 
 ligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting 
 down together. I can expose myself, however, only 
 once more, as he leaves the country soon after next 
 Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe 
 after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, 
 pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to our ever 
 having met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say 
 much ; for he is so excessively laughed at about me at 
 Ashe that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and 
 ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days 
 ago. 
 
 We left Warren at Dean Gate, in our way home 
 
 1 Afterward Sir William Heathcote, and father to the Sir 
 William Heathcote mentioned on page 26. 
 
 2 Mr. Thomas Lefroy, afterward Lord Chief-Justice of 
 Ireland; born in 1776, died in 1S69. 
 
44 JANE AUSTEN'S LIEE. 
 
 last night, and he is now on his road to town. He 
 left his love, etc to you, and I will deliver it when we 
 meet. Henry l goes to Harden to-day in his way to 
 his Master's degree. We shall feel the loss of these 
 two most agreeable young men exceedingly, and shall 
 have nothing to console us till the arrival of the 
 Coopers on Tuesday. As they will stay here till 
 the Monday following, perhaps Caroline will go to 
 the Ashe ball with me, though I dare say she will not. 
 
 I danced twice with Warren last night, and once 
 with Mr. Charles Watkins, and to my inexpressible 
 astonishment, I entirely escaped John Lyford I was 
 forced to fight hard for it, however. We had a very 
 good supper,, and the greenhouse was illuminated in a 
 very elegant manner. 
 
 We had a visit yesterday morning from Mr. Ben- 
 jamin Portal, whose eyes are as handsome as ever. 
 Everybody is extremely anxious for your return ; but 
 as you cannot come home by the Ashe ball, I am glad 
 I have not fed them with false hopes. James danced 
 with Alithea, and cut up the turkey with great per- 
 severance. You say nothing of the silk stockings ; I 
 flatter myself, therefore, that Charles has not pur- 
 chased any, as I cannot very well afford to pay for 
 them, — all my money is spent in buying white gloves 
 and pink persian. I wish Charles had been at Many- 
 down, because he would have given you some descrip- 
 tion of my friend ; and I think you must be impatient 
 to hear something about him. 
 
 Henry is still hankering after the Regulars ; and as 
 his project of purchasing the adjutancy of the Oxford- 
 shire is now over, he has got a scheme in his head 
 about getting a lieutenancy and adjutancy in the 
 Eighty-sixth, — a new-raised regiment, which he fan- 
 
 1 Henry Austen. 
 
EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT WRITING. 45 
 
 cies will be ordered to the Cape of Good Hope. I 
 heartily hope that he will, as usual, be disappointed in 
 this scheme. We have trimmed up and given away 
 all the old paper hats of Mamma's manufacture ; I 
 hope you will not regret the loss of yours. After I 
 had written the above, we received a visit from Mr. 
 Tom Lefroy and his cousin The latter is really very 
 well-behaved now ; and as for the other, he has but one 
 fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove, — it is 
 that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a 
 very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears 
 the same colored clothes, I imagine, which he did 
 when he was wounded. 
 
 Sunday. — By not returning till the 19th, you will ex- 
 actly contrive to miss seeing the Coopers, which I sup- 
 pose it is your wish to do. We have heard nothing 
 from Charles for some time. One would suppose they 
 must have sailed by this time, as the wind is so favor- 
 able. What a funny name Tom has got for his vessel ! 
 But he has no taste in names, as we well know, and I 
 dare say he christened it himself I am sorry for the 
 Beeches' loss of their little girl, especially as it is the 
 one so like me. I condole with Miss M. on her 
 losses, and with Elizabeth on her gains, and ever 
 yours, J. A. 
 
 To Mrss Austen, 
 
 Rev. Mr. Fowle's, Kintbury, Newbury. 
 
 The winter not yet half over, and four balls 
 already, with a fifth in the near future ! It cer- 
 tainly does not appear as if life in that small village 
 among the chalk downs was found so very monoto- 
 nous by the dwellers there about a century ago. 
 In the popular imagination Jane Austen has been 
 enshrined as an exceedingly prim, not to say 
 
4 6 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 starched, personage ; and even many who have been 
 willing to admit that she had a good deal that was 
 lovable in her nature, have nevertheless insisted 
 that she was precise. It is difficult to see just how 
 such a misapprehension first arose, but I am rather 
 disposed to attribute it to a hasty glance at the 
 portrait which represents her in a cap, — for in the 
 average mind of the present, caps and rigidity of 
 deportment are indissolubly associated. A second 
 look at the portrait — this time at the animated 
 features beneath the cap — will go far to correct 
 this conception ; and a reading of her letters can 
 hardly fail to shatter the stiffly outlined image 
 which the name of Jane Austen summons before 
 the minds of very many people whose hasty impres- 
 sions have never received the corrective of sober 
 second thought. As a matter of fact, Jane Austen 
 when a young woman entered into the amuse- 
 ments of those about her with hearty enjoyment, 
 and by no means disdained them later in life. 
 
 A good deal of speculation has been indulged in 
 respecting the extent of the feeling which may 
 have existed between Jane and the " Mr. Tom 
 Lefroy " mentioned in this epistle. In a subse- 
 quent letter to her sister, dated January 16, are 
 several allusions to him, the first being as follows : 
 "Our party to Ashe to-morrow will consist of 
 Edward Cooper, James (for a ball is nothing with- 
 out him), Buller, who is now staying with us, and 
 I. I look forward with great impatience to it, as I 
 rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in 
 
EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT WRITING. 
 
 47 
 
 the course of the evening. I shall refuse him, 
 however, unless he promises to give away his white 
 coat." A little farther on she remarks, after speak- 
 ing of several of her admirers : " I mean to confine 
 myself in future to Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom I 
 don't care sixpence." 
 
 Then on the morning of the ball she writes : 
 " At length the day is come on which I am to flirt 
 my last with Tom Lefroy ; and when you receive 
 this it will be over. My tears flow as I write, at 
 the melancholy idea." 
 
 That there must have been a considerable de- 
 gree of intimacy between these two lively young 
 people is undoubtedly true ; and this arose in the 
 beginning from the constant intercourse between 
 the Austens and the Lefroys of Ashe, where " Mr. 
 Tom " was visiting, — an intercourse which it is to 
 be presumed suffered no interruption on account 
 of the presence at the latter place of the Irish 
 " admirer of Tom Jones." I think we shall not 
 go far wrong if we assume some amount of mutual 
 attraction resulting from the frequent friendly meet- 
 ings at the two houses ; and we do know with cer- 
 tainty that after the lapse of more than seventy 
 years the Irish Chief-Justice still remembered with 
 pleasure the Jane Austen of his far-off youth, 
 speaking often of her as one who could not fail to 
 be admired, and whom it was impossible for those 
 who had known her ever to forget. Who knows 
 how far the memory of old age may have been 
 tinged with something very like regret that he had 
 
4 8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 not been moved to put his fate to the touch three^ 
 score and ten long years before. 
 
 His appearance pleased her, it is easy to see, 
 and she was not at all averse to his society ; but 
 some of this may have been due to the impres- 
 sion which any handsome, lively, well-connected 
 young man might be presumed to make in a coun- 
 try neighborhood, where the advent of agreeable 
 strangers was not of such frequent occurrence as 
 to dull the palm of entertainment. Yet when all 
 such allowances have been made, it must still ap- 
 pear that she had an unmistakable fancy for this 
 young relative of her old friends at Ashe, which 
 longer acquaintance might have developed into a 
 deeper sentiment. Her heart may not have been 
 touched, but her fancy was certainly attracted, 
 Nearly three years later he was still occasionally 
 present to her mind, for on Nov. 17, 1798, we 
 find her writing thus to Cassandra, then visiting 
 at Godmersham, in Kent : — 
 
 "Mrs. Lefroy did come last Wednesday, and 
 the Harwoods came likewise, but very considerately 
 paid their visit before Mrs. Lefroy's arrival, with 
 whom, in spite of interruptions both from my father 
 and James, I was enough alone to hear all that was 
 interesting, which you will easily credit when I tell 
 you that of her nephew she said nothing at all, and of 
 her friend very little. She did not once mention the 
 name of the former to me, and I was too proud to 
 make any enquiries; but on my father's asking where 
 he was, I learnt that he was gone back to London in 
 his way to Ireland, where he is called to the Bar, and 
 means to practise.'* 
 
EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT WRITING. 49 
 
 " Too proud to make any enquiries." Surely 
 the hesitancy here revealed is of a stronger kind 
 than what the presence in the room of her father 
 and brother might occasion, for Mrs. Lefroy seems 
 to have been, in spite of the years between them, 
 after Cassandra, her warmest friend. Another op- 
 portunity when the two were together could there- 
 fore easily have been found for questioning if the 
 writer of the letter had not been " too proud " to 
 seek further concerning one who may possibly 
 have sent no message of inquiry to his aunt regard- 
 ing her young friend. Thus "proud," I am very 
 confident, would Jane's own Anne Elliot have 
 been. That she loved we may not assume. That 
 a friendly interest was excited, and that she might 
 have come in time to find this giving place to love, 
 I am quite willing to believe. 
 
 But Miss Austen's life was now too full of occu- 
 pation to leave place for sentimental regrets, even 
 had she been sentimentally disposed, which she 
 most assuredly never was. In August of 1796, she 
 paid a visit to her brother Edward, then living 
 at Rowling, a small Kentish estate belonging to the 
 family of his wife, spending a day or two in London 
 en route, and returning to Steventon either at the 
 end of September or early in October. Five letters 
 of hers to Cassandra written at this time are extant, 
 one of which it was intended to reproduce in this 
 volume. 
 
 Bits of humor enliven the family doings, which 
 Jane recounts for her sister's benefit ; and she does 
 4 
 
5 o JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 not disdain a mild pun occasionally. On Septem- 
 ber i she writes : "I am sorry that you found 
 such a conciseness in the strains of my first letter. 
 I must endeavor to make you amends for it when 
 we meet, by some elaborate details which I shall 
 shortly begin composing." 
 
 A few lines farther on she compares her position 
 in having to wait for the escort of her brother 
 Henry before she can return home to that of a fa- 
 vorite heroine with her, — the Camilla of Madame 
 d'Arblay's creation : — 
 
 " To-morrow I shall be just like Camilla in Mr. 
 Dubster's summer-house ; for my Lionel will have 
 taken away the ladder by which I came here, or at 
 least by which I intended to get away, and here I must 
 stay till his return. My situation, however, is some- 
 what preferable to hers, for I am very happy here, 
 though I should be glad to get home at the end of 
 the month." 
 
 She had, indeed, a very generous admiration for 
 the work of her sister novelist, " Camilla " being, 
 however, the novel she preferred to any other of 
 Madame d'Arblay's, at this period at any rate. In 
 a letter written a fortnight later, she again refers to 
 " Camilla " in describing an acquaintance : — 
 
 " Miss Fletcher and I were very thick, but I am the 
 thinnest of the two. She wore her purple muslin, 
 which is pretty enough, though it does not become her 
 complexion. There are two traits in her character 
 which are pleasing ; namely, she admires ' Camilla,' 
 and drinks no cream in her tea. If you should ever 
 
EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT WRITING. 51 
 
 see Lucy, you may tell her that I scolded Miss 
 Fletcher for her negligence in writing, as she desired 
 me to do, but without being able to bring her to any 
 proper sense of shame ; that Miss Fletcher says in 
 her defence that as everybody whom Lucy knew when 
 she was in Canterbury has now left it, she has nothing 
 at all to write to her about. By everybody, I suppose 
 Miss Fletcher means that a new set of officers have 
 arrived there; but this is a note of my own." 
 
 In this young woman, whose chief interest in 
 the archiepiscopal city centred in the officers of 
 the garrison there, one involuntarily detects a con- 
 siderable likeness to Lydia Bennet of " Pride and 
 Prejudice," to whom a red-coat was the sight in 
 the whole world most worthy of her attention. 
 Lest Cassandra, who writes of attending a ball at 
 Steventon, should be tempted to fancy that such 
 joys were hers alone, Jane informs her, — 
 
 " We were at a ball on Saturday, I assure you. We 
 dined at Goodnestone, and in the evening danced two 
 country-dances and the Boulangeries. I opened the 
 ball with Edward Bridges ; the other couples were 
 Lewis Cage and Harriet, Frank and Louisa, Fanny and 
 George. Elizabeth played one country-dance, Lady 
 Bridges the other, which she made Henry dance with 
 her, and Miss Finch played the Boulangeries. 
 
 " In reading over the last three or four lines, I am 
 aware of my having expressed myself in so doubtful a 
 manner that if I did not tell you to the contrary, you 
 might imagine it was Lady Bridges who made Henry 
 dance with her at the same time that she was playing, 
 which, if not impossible, must appear a very improba- 
 ble event to you. But it was Elizabeth who danced." 
 
52 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 About the middle of this month (September, 
 1796) Francis Austen received an appointment on 
 the newly launched frigate "Triton ; " and his de- 
 light over this piece of good fortune was partici- 
 pated in by his relatives, — for nothing which 
 concerned the welfare of any member of this affec- 
 tionate family could ever be a matter of indiffer- 
 ence to the rest. This appointment seems to have 
 hastened his sister's departure from Rowling, or at 
 least to have left her in some uncertainty as to an 
 escort to London if she did not go when he did : 
 " For as to Henry's coming into Kent again, the 
 time of its taking place is so very uncertain that I 
 should be waiting for dead men's shoes. ," 
 
 There appears to have been a little impatience 
 in her mind throughout this visit, as if, much as 
 she enjoyed being at her brother Edward's, she did 
 not at all wish to prolong the time of her absence 
 from home. At Steventon she could of course 
 to a great extent command her own hours, but as 
 a guest at Rowling it was otherwise ; and per- 
 haps at this period she desired to be more by 
 herself or to discuss at length with her sister the 
 subject that was beginning to fill the chief place 
 in her thoughts. For years she had been feeling 
 her way to authorship, and now it may have been 
 that she felt moved to attempt something of more 
 importance than she had done hitherto. At all 
 events, she was soon to test the existence of the 
 genius within her. 
 
IV, 
 
 THE WRITING OF " PRIDE AND PREJUDICE," 
 " SENSE AND SENSIBILITY," AND " NORTH- 
 ANGER ABBEY;" HOUSEHOLD CARES; PER- 
 SONAL ATTIRE; PREPARATIONS FOR A BALL; 
 PROMOTION OF JANE'S BROTHERS. 
 
 \ /ERY soon after her return to Steventon in the 
 " autumn of 1796, Jane Austen took up work in 
 earnest. The time of tentative apprenticeship was 
 over ; that of definite purpose had come. In Oc- 
 tober, when nol yet twenty-one, she began writing 
 a novel which it was her intention to call " First 
 Impressions ; " but for this she afterward substituted 
 the much happier title of " Pride and Prejudice." 
 Upon this labor she was engaged for the next ten 
 months, the closing pages being written in August 
 of 1797, Cassandra and most probably the others 
 of the family were aware of the nature of her occu- 
 pation ; and that the sister at least was allowed to 
 read the pages of manuscript while they were being 
 written, is implied in a letter, of the 8th of Janu- 
 ary, 1798, where Jane playfully alludes to Cassan- 
 dra's familiarity with the story : "I do not won- 
 der at your wanting to read ' First Impressions ' 
 again, so seldom as you have gone through it, and 
 that so long ago." 
 
 The affectionate interest which the older sister 
 took in the work of the younger is clearly enough 
 
54 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 shown in her desire to see again because they were 
 Jane's the chapters which she must have known 
 by this time almost as well as the author of them. 
 
 Less than three months elapsed after the com- 
 pletion of " Pride and Prejudice " before its author 
 seems in November to have set about the revision 
 and recasting of " Elinor and Marianne ; " and very 
 possibly in accordance with her later plan, the 
 changing of the title to " Sense and Sensibility " 
 was one of the first alterations made upon it. 
 
 In this same month of November she made an 
 attempt to publish " Pride and Prejudice," her father 
 on that occasion writing the following letter to Mr. 
 Cadell, the London publisher : — 
 
 Sir, — I have in my possession a manuscript novel, 
 comprising 3 vols., about the length of Miss Burney s 
 " Evelina." As I am well aware of what consequence 
 it is that a work of this sort sh d make its first ap- 
 pearance under a respectable name, I apply to you. I 
 shall be much obliged, therefore, if you will inform me 
 whether you choose to be concerned in it, what will be 
 the expense of publishing it at the author's risk, and 
 what you will venture to advance for the property of it, 
 if on perusal it is approved of. Should you give any 
 encouragement, I will send you the work. 
 I am, sir, your humble servant, 
 
 George Austen. 
 Steventon, near Overton, Hants, 
 1st Nov., 1797. 
 
 As we read this carefully worded epistle with its 
 elaborate prefatory compliment, and picture to our- 
 selves the manner of its reception, it occasions us 
 
"PRIDE AND PREJUDICE" 55 
 
 no surprise to learn that the Reverend George 
 Austen's proposal was declined by return of post. 
 The neat, close handwriting, now grown slightly 
 tremulous, would in itself hardly rouse any interest 
 in the mind of the busy publisher, who probably 
 imagined the author of the novel and the writer 
 of the letter to be the same elderly person, with a 
 taste for scribbling, but without capacity for anything 
 beyond it. Steventon, Hants ! How should he 
 have heard of that small village, sunk amid the 
 downs of southern England, and perhaps not too 
 well known even to the bishop of whose spiritual 
 preserves it was a part ? Or how should merit, from 
 a publisher's point of view, arise out of Hamp- 
 shire? And then the reference to " Evelina," too, 
 was unfortunate. Doubtless it was another of the 
 numerous imitations of that famous book, too many 
 of which had come to him already. No ; it was 
 clearly not a work which it would pay him to con- 
 cern himself with, and the matter should be settled 
 at once on that presumption. It was very soon, 
 therefore, that the Reverend George Austen had 
 the disappointment of learning that his formally 
 worded proposal was declined, and the further 
 unhappiness of informing his daughter of the fact. 
 For knowing as we do how closely the welfare of 
 any particular Austen was interwoven with that of 
 all, we may be very sure that here was a painful task 
 for the affectionate father, so proud of his daugh- 
 ter's dawning talent. 
 
 Whatever feelings of regret Jane Austen may 
 
5 6 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 have had when this summary rejection of her book 
 was made known to her, we have no more means of 
 knowing than we have of ascertaining the nature of 
 Mr. Cadell's reflections in later life regarding his 
 refusal ; but she had too much serenity of disposi- 
 tion to allow this hindrance to her desires to weigh 
 very heavily upon her spirits, and very possibly said 
 little about the affair to any one but Cassandra. 
 Complete discouragement certainly could not have 
 overtaken her, for before the end of the month she 
 was, as we have already seen, diligently at work 
 upon another book. Writing to her was always a 
 pleasure ; fame she was not unduly anxious to win ; 
 and money was not a necessity to her. Discour- 
 agement, therefore, if felt at all, could be experi- 
 enced but momentarily by a nature like hers. 
 
 Less time seems to have been spent in writing 
 " Sense and Sensibility " than upon its predecessor, 
 probably because so much of the material was ready 
 to her hand, needing only the careful revision and 
 recasting which she was now competent to give. 
 When it was completed we are not informed, but 
 it must have been within a few months, for, as Mr. 
 Austen- Leigh declares, a third book, " Northanger 
 Abbey," was begun and finished in the next year, 
 1798. 
 
 But writing was not the only occupation of this 
 busy personage in these years of her young woman- 
 hood. The health of Mrs. Austen, at no time 
 apparently very strong, was at this period certainly 
 very far from being all that could be desired, 
 
HOUSEHOLD CARES. 
 
 57 
 
 and upon her daughters, therefore, fell the weight 
 of the household cares, — a burden borne during the 
 frequent absences of her sister by Jane alone. The 
 rectory, to be sure, had not now as many inmates 
 as it had held during her childhood, — for two sons 
 had married and were established in homes of their 
 own, two others were absent in the navy, and the 
 fifth was but an occasional visitor at home, while 
 Mr. Austen had for some time ceased to take pu- 
 pils into his family ; but nevertheless there must 
 still have been abundant room for the exercise of a 
 large amount of housewifely diligence, — a faculty 
 which there seems every reason for supposing Jane 
 to have possessed. 
 
 Besides the countless indoor cares which she 
 must have had, a certain amount of cottage visiting 
 — a duty recognized as belonging to the ladies of a 
 country clergyman's household — was accomplished 
 by her, and there were also varied social duties 
 which might not go unperformed. Of all these 
 things she writes with lively freedom to her sister, 
 who for the last four months of i 798 and a portion 
 of the succeeding year was living with her brother, 
 Edward Austen. Mrs. Knight, the widow of his 
 adopted father, had recently made over to him the 
 Knight estate at Godmersham, to which place he 
 had now removed ; and to Godmersham, therefore, 
 Jane's letters were at this period addressed. " I 
 carry about," she observes in one letter, " the keys of 
 the wine closet ; and twice since I began this letter 
 have I had orders to give in the kitchen.'* 
 
5 8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 None of the homely family details like this which 
 can possibly interest the absent sister are omitted 
 from the correspondence ; and it is their presence 
 which make the letters so real as we read them nearly 
 a century afterward. No eye but that of Cassandra 
 was expected to behold what Jane's animated pen 
 was recording ; and consequently there is in her 
 pages no posing for the public gaze, even had she 
 been desirous of thus attitudinizing, which I by no 
 means think she was. Could she have foreseen that 
 her letters were to be printed, while they might have 
 contained less of essentially home matters, and 
 would undoubtedly have had a more pronounced 
 literary flavor, they would, I am very sure, have 
 borne but little resemblance to the published letters 
 of many of her contemporaries who seem not to 
 have been able to pen the briefest note without 
 thinking of the possible verdict of posterity upon it. 
 
 We might have preferred to know, more fre- 
 quently than we are permitted to do, Jane Aus- 
 ten's opinion of the books and people of her 
 day, for of course she had very decided views 
 on both books and people, as we can ascertain 
 occasionally from the few allusions she does make ; 
 but these matters she most probably discussed with 
 her sister when they were together, confining the 
 topics of her letters mainly to the incidents of 
 every- day life. 
 
 " Dame Bushell," she tells Cassandra, "washes for 
 us only one week more, as Sukey has got a place. 
 John Steevens' wife undertakes our purification. She 
 
HOUSEHOLD CARES. 
 
 59 
 
 does not look as if anything she touches would ever 
 be clean, but who knows ? We do not seem likely to 
 have any other maid-servant at present ; but Dame 
 Staples will supply the place of one." 
 
 In the same letter which expresses lack of con- 
 fidence in the powers of John Steevens's wife, she 
 writes, — 
 
 " I am very fond of experimental housekeeping, 
 such as having an ox-cheek now and then ; I shall 
 have one next week, and I mean to have some little 
 dumplings put into it, that I may fancy myself at 
 Godmersham." 
 
 In November Cassandra is informed that — 
 
 " Our family affairs are rather deranged at present, 
 for Nanny has kept her bed these three or four days, 
 with a pain in her side and fever, and we are forced 
 to have two charwomen, which is not very comforta- 
 ble. She is considerably better now ; but it must 
 still be some time, I suppose, before she is able to do 
 anything. You and Edward will be amused, I think, 
 when you know that Nanny Littlewart dresses my 
 hair." 
 
 It was the same hand which so carefully noted 
 for her sister's edification hundreds of details like 
 these that as faithfully recounted the succession 
 of small events which form the background of her 
 own novels. She was abundantly aware that such 
 trivial matters do not make the whole of life ; but 
 she understood their bearing upon it, and that the 
 extent of their influence is a variable quantity, 
 
60 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 depending on the characters of the individuals af- 
 fected by them. Her daily routine was such as to 
 show her that little matters of every-day existence 
 were not to be despised, in the fashion of the 
 weavers of sentimental fiction. Her native com- 
 mon-sense would have saved her from sharing in 
 their error even if her insight had not been keen 
 enough to allow her to recognize the subtile effect 
 of every-day incident upon character. 
 
 Not unfrequently we find in the correspondence 
 at this time allusions to her personal appearance. 
 " I have made myself two or three caps to wear of 
 evenings since I came home," she remarks in De- 
 cember, 1798, "and they save me a world of tor- 
 ment as to hair- dressing, which at present gives 
 me no trouble beyond washing and brushing, for 
 my long hair is always plaited up out of sight, and 
 my short hair curls well enough to want no paper- 
 ing. I have had it cut lately by Mr. Butler." 
 
 Mr. Austen-Leigh observes, in the course of his 
 biography, that the Austen sisters were considered 
 to have adopted the custom of wearing caps much 
 earlier in life than their years or looks required, 
 and from this passage in Jane's letter it would 
 seem that she at least began to do so when not 
 quite twenty- three. ,Of one thing we may rest as- 
 sured, that the articles in question were becoming 
 to her, or she never would have worn them. She 
 was very far from being vain, but she did like to 
 look her best, as what sane woman or man does 
 not? 
 
PERSONAL ATTIRE. 6 1 
 
 Regarding her caps, she enlarges a fortnight 
 later : — 
 
 " I took the liberty, a few days ago, of asking your 
 black velvet bonnet to lend me its cawl, which it 
 very readily did, and by which I have been enabled to 
 give a considerable improvement of dignity to the cap, 
 which was before too nidgetty to please me. I shall 
 wear it on Thursday ; 1 but I hope you will not be of- 
 fended with me for following your advice as to its 
 ornaments only in part. I still venture to retain the 
 narrow silver round it, put twice round without any 
 bow, and instead of the black military feather shall 
 put in the coquelicot one, as being smarter, and be- 
 sides, coquelicot is to be all the fashion this winter. 
 After the ball, I shall probably make it entirely 
 black." 
 
 This is Tuesday's intention, but on Wednesday 
 she takes up her letter to add, " I have changed 
 my mind, and changed the trimmings of my cap 
 this morning," — a sentence which serves to show 
 how constant was the dependence of the younger 
 sister upon the judgment of the elder. 
 
 11 1 felt as if I should not prosper if I strayed from 
 your directions ; and I think it makes me look more 
 like Lady Conyngham than it did before, which is all 
 that one lives for now. I believe I shall make my 
 new gown like my robe; but the back of the latter is 
 all in a piece with the tail, and will seven yards en- 
 able me to copy it in that respect ? " 
 
 1 On the occasion of a ball at Manydown. 
 
62 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE, 
 
 The ball once over, we find her writing of it in 
 thus wise : — 
 
 " There were twenty dances, and I danced them all, 
 and without any fatigue. I was glad to find myself 
 capable of dancing, and with so much satisfaction as I 
 did ; from my slender enjoyment of the Ashford balls 
 (as assemblies for dancing), I had not thought myself 
 equal to it, but in cold weather, and with a few 
 couples, I fancy I could just as well dance for a week 
 together as for half an hour. My black cap was 
 openly admired by Mrs. Lefroy, and secretly, I ima- 
 gine, by everybody else in the room." 
 
 And this woman who would not have minded 
 dancing for a week together is the same per- 
 sonage who has been constantly styled " prim," 
 "demure," and "precise." Surely, if this be 
 primness, what may its antithesis resemble ? 
 Did primness ever before condescend to dance 
 twenty dances in one evening even of the 
 statelier measures of our great- grandmothers ? 
 It must not be forgotten that she who frankly 
 confesses to so much enjoyment is not a young 
 girl at her first party, but Miss Jane Austen, a 
 young woman of twenty- three, already arrived at 
 the dignity of " aunt," the heroine of numberless 
 balls, and the author by this time of three un- 
 published novels. 
 
 Never was the personality of another more 
 amusingly misconceived than Miss Austen's has 
 been by persons to whom her name has been syn- 
 onymous with what is termed " old maidishness." 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR A BALL. ^ 
 
 But I more than suspect that those who bring 
 this awful charge against her have little more 
 knowledge of her than what is comprised in a 
 familiarity with her name and the titles of her 
 books. Let us note the preparations of this 
 " demure," sober-minded precisian for another 
 ball, which was to take place early in 1799 : 
 
 " I am not to wear my white satin cap to-night, 
 after all ; I am to wear a mamalone cap instead, which 
 Charles Fowle sent to Mary, and which she lends me. 
 It is all the fashion now, — worn at the opera, and by 
 Lady Mildmays at Hackwood balls. I hate describing 
 such things, and I dare say you will be able to guess 
 what it is like. I have got over the dreadful epocha 
 of mantua-making much better than I expected. My 
 gown is made very much like my blue one, which you 
 always told me sat very well, with only these varia- 
 tions : the sleeves are short, the wrap fuller, the 
 apron comes over it, and a band of the same com- 
 pletes the whole." 
 
 Of Miss Austen's own share in the festivities of 
 this particular occasion, we hear thus, — 
 
 " I do not think I was very much in request. 
 People were rather apt not to ask me till they could 
 not help it ; one's consequence, you know, varies so 
 much at times without any particular reason. There 
 was one gentleman, an officer of the Cheshire, a verv 
 good-looking young man, who, I was told, wanted very 
 much to be introduced to me; but as he did not want 
 it quite enough to take much trouble in effecting it, we 
 never could bring it about. 
 
 " I danced with Mr. John Wood again ; twice with 
 
6 4 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Mr. South, a lad from Winchester, who, I suppose, is 
 as far as possible from being related to the bishop of 
 that diocese as it is possible to be ; with G. Lefroy 
 and J. Harwood, who, I think, takes to me rather 
 more than he used to do. One of my gayest actions 
 was sitting down two dances in preference to hav- 
 ing Lord Bolton's eldest son for my partner, who 
 danced too ill to be endured." 
 
 Hardly was this ball over before another suc- 
 ceeded it ; and at this one we hear of her having 
 six partners whom she names for Cassandra's edifi- 
 cation, styling them "an odd set," and then adds, 
 with a touch of the cheerful philosophy so strongly 
 characteristic of her : " I had a very pleasant even- 
 ing, however, though you will probably find out that 
 there was no particular reason for it ; but I do not 
 think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until 
 there is some real opportunity for it," — a lesson, 
 by the way, which has never been well conned by 
 the generality of the human race before or since 
 Jane Austen learned it. 
 
 The allusions to Jane's brothers are exceedingly 
 numerous in all of her letters, showing how con- 
 stantly they and their affairs were present to her 
 mind. Their various journeys, their separate 
 family events, their good fortunes, when such be- 
 fell, — all are noted and dwelt upon in her letters 
 with affectionate interest. And from all that we 
 know of them, and this is not a little all told, they 
 were worthy of the love of two such sisters as Jane 
 and Cassandra Austen, — a love which they repaid 
 
PROMOTION OF JANE'S BROTHERS. 65 
 
 by the utmost consideration and kindness which 
 brotherly affection could suggest and fraternal re- 
 gard supply. 
 
 Sometimes we are treated to a glimpse of them as 
 they appeared to those who admired them, as, for 
 instance, when we are told with sisterly pride that 
 " Charles was very much admired at Kintbury, and 
 Mrs. Lefroy never saw him so much improved in 
 her life, and thinks him handsomer than Henry." 
 
 All were inexpressibly dear to Jane, but Charles 
 was probably nearest her heart. " Our own par- 
 ticular little brother," she writes of him at one 
 time. At another we hear that " our dear Charles," 
 then a lieutenant on board the " Scorpion," " begins 
 to feel the dignity of ill usage." Accordingly his 
 father communicates with Admiral Gambier on the 
 subject, and soon thereafter Jane writes joyfully 
 that although continued on the " Scorpion," Charles 
 will soon be promoted ; and, to add to her delight, 
 about the time that this hoped-for event takes 
 place, Capt. Francis Austen is raised to the rank 
 of commander, and appointed to the " Petterel," 
 off Gibraltar. 
 
V. 
 
 VISIT TO BATH; IN THE BALL-ROOM; LETTER 
 TO MISS LLOYD; REMOVAL TO BATH; "THE 
 WATSONS;" THE AUSTENS AT LYME; THE 
 COBB AT LYME; JANE AUSTEN IN DEVON. 
 
 IN May of the year 1799 Edward Austen, who 
 with his wife had taken a house in Bath for 
 A month that he might try the waters there for the 
 benefit of his health, invited his mother and sister 
 jane to visit him for that period. The invitation 
 was accepted ; and while Mrs. Austen and her 
 younger daughter were absent on this occasion, 
 Cassandra remained with her father at Steventon. 
 This was at least Jane's third visit to Bath if we 
 suppose her first one to have been at the time 
 when her portrait was painted. Between these two 
 dates, at the close of 1797, another visit seems to 
 have taken place, the time of which, indeed, is 
 definitely settled by means of a passage in a letter 
 of hers from Bath under date of April 8, 1805, in 
 which she says : " This morning we have been 
 to see Miss Chamberlaine look hot on horse- 
 back. Seven years and four months ago we went 
 to the same riding-house to see Miss Lefroy's 
 performance." 
 
 In itself the matter is of trifling importance un- 
 til we assume, as I think we may safely do, that it was 
 
VISIT TO BATH. 67 
 
 at the time of this second visit, of which we know no 
 more than what may be gathered from the above 
 extract, that Jane Austen acquired that intimate 
 knowledge of Bath localities and customs which 
 she turned to such excellent purpose in writing 
 "Northanger Abbey" the next 3^ear. The in- 
 formation she might have obtained on her first 
 visit when a girl of fifteen would certainly not 
 have been accurate enough to have served her 
 turn some six or seven years later ; and for this 
 reason I think it extremely probable that returning 
 to Steventon and completing " Sense and Sensi- 
 bility," she set herself at work upon " Northanger 
 Abbey" while her impressions of Bath remained 
 fresh and vivid. Certain it is that she was there- 
 fore no stranger to the gay city when she and her 
 mother went there in the spring of 1799. 
 
 Her letters describing the events of this latest 
 visit are all dated from their temporary home at 1 3 
 Queen Square, then as now an exceedingly pleasant 
 and cheerful locality. The square, which unlike 
 many similarly named enclosures does not belie 
 its name, was designed and built by the noted archi- 
 tect, John Wood the elder, some little time before 
 the middle of the eighteenth century, and consists 
 of handsome stone residences of a uniform height 
 of three stories, with pillared fronts, enclosing a 
 small well- shaded park, in the centre of which is 
 an obelisk commemorating a royal visit to the city 
 in 1738. From the first the square was a fashion- 
 able locality much affected by the gayety and 
 
68 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 fashion of London sojourning at Bath, nominally 
 for the purpose of "drinking the waters." Al- 
 though in modern days it has lost a good deal of 
 its original prestige, it yet remains for many pur- 
 poses a desirable quarter of the town. No. 13, 
 where the Austens were staying, is on the southern 
 side of the square and at the west corner, fronting 
 therefore upon both Queen Square and Princes' 
 Street. The neighborhood seems to have favor- 
 ably impressed Jane, for she writes to Cassandra : 
 
 " I like our situation very much ; . . . and the pros- 
 pect from the drawing-room window, at which I now 
 write, is rather picturesque, as it commands a prospec- 
 tive view of the left side of Brock Street, broken by 
 three Lombardy poplars in the garden of the last 
 house in Queen's Parade." 
 
 The " three Lombardy poplars " have long since 
 vanished from the scene, and just beyond them 
 what was then an open common is now the de- 
 lightful Royal Victoria Park ; but from where Jane 
 Austen sat to write these lines the eye may still range 
 across the square, past the five or six tall dark- 
 fronted houses of the Queen's Parade to where the 
 houses on " the left side of Brock Street " rise 
 above the luxuriant leafage of the Park. 
 
 Her letters at this time from " England's 
 Florence " — 
 
 " The lovely city whose grace no grief deflowers " — 
 are fuller chronicles of events than those from 
 Steventon, as they naturally would be ; but she does 
 
VISIT TO BATH. 
 
 69 
 
 not forget among them all to detail in lively 
 fashion such essentially feminine matters as these : 
 
 " My cloak is come home ; I like it very much, and 
 can now exclaim with delight, like J. Bond at hay- 
 harvest, ' This is what I have been looking for these 
 three years,' I saw some gauzes in a shop in Bath 
 Street yesterday at only fourpence a yard, but they 
 were not so good or so pretty as mine. Flowers 
 are very much worn, and fruit is still more the thing. 
 ... I am quite pleased with Martha and Mrs. Lefroy 
 for wanting the pattern of our caps; but I am not so 
 well pleased with your giving it to them. Some wish, 
 some prevailing wish, is necessary to the animation of 
 everybody's mind ; and in gratifying this, you leave 
 them to form some other which will not probably 
 be half so innocent. . . . Though you have given me 
 unlimited powers concerning your sprig, I cannot de- 
 termine what to do about it, and shall therefore in this 
 and in every other future letter continue to ask your 
 further directions. We have been to the cheap shop, 
 and very cheap we found it, but there are only flowers 
 made there, no fruit ; and as I could get four or five very 
 pretty sprigs of the former for the same money which 
 would procure only one Orleans plum, — in short, could 
 get more for three or four shillings than I could have 
 means of bringing home, — I cannot decide on the 
 fruit till I hear from you again. Besides, I cannot 
 help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers 
 grow out of the head than fruit. What do you think 
 on that subject ? " 
 
 Of their amusements we hear something now 
 and then. 
 
 " There is to be a grand gala on Tuesday evening 
 in Sydney Gardens, — a concert with illuminations and 
 fireworks. To the latter Elizabeth and I look forward 
 
7 o JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 with pleasure; and even the concert will have more 
 than its usual charm for me, as the gardens are large 
 enough for me to get pretty well beyond the reach of 
 its sound." 
 
 A fortnight later saw the Austens at another 
 display of fireworks in the same place, when " the 
 fireworks," so she records, " were really very 
 beautiful, and surpassing my expectations." 
 
 Ninety years have come and gone since that 
 delightful evening; and still on gala nights the 
 Bathonians stroll out through Pulteney Street to 
 experience a similar pleasure in the same locality. 
 On the ninetieth anniversary of Jane's second 
 evening at Sydney Gardens, a soft, moonless June 
 night, I rambled through the shaded pathways, lit 
 by countless lanterns and still further illumined 
 at intervals by myriads of rockets and candles scat- 
 tering their colored fires, my thoughts turning with 
 little effort to the brilliant young woman who had 
 found in those same leafy lantern- lit alleys the 
 pleasures of that long-past gala night surpassing 
 her expectations. But for the . railway- cutting 
 through the pleasant park, time has not made many 
 important changes there in the course of nine long 
 decades. Many of the trees are yet standing under 
 whose branches she then walked ; and it is chiefly 
 the faces and the fashions which one who knew the 
 gardens at the dawn of the century would fail to 
 recognize there now. Time, indeed, has made but 
 little apparent impression upon this city girt round 
 by the fair downs of Somerset. It has added, it 
 is true, a darker shade to the sombre house- fronts ; 
 
VISIT TO BATH. j T 
 
 but it has been impartial, and has tinted the facade 
 of a year with the same deep tone worn by its 
 neighbor of nearly two centuries. Change itself 
 is made to wear the garb of permanence here. 
 
 "Age and grey forgetfulness, time that shifts and veers, 
 Touch not thee, our fairest, whose charm no rival nears." 
 
 But Jane Austen's knowledge of Bath by this 
 time was not limited to acquaintance with its 
 streets and the people who filled them, but in- 
 cluded a pretty thorough familiarity with its 
 suburbs as well. On one occasion she mentions 
 with enjoyment a summer walk near sunset be- 
 yond the city streets, — 
 
 " Sunset liker sunrise along the shining steep " 
 
 " We took a very charming walk from six to eight 
 up Beacon Hill, and across some fields to the village 
 of Charlecombe, which is sweetly situated in a little 
 green valley, as a village with such a name ought to 
 be. . . . We had a Miss North and a Mr, Gould of 
 our party; the latter walked home with me after tea. 
 He is a very young man, just entered Oxford, 
 wears spectacles, and has heard that 'Evelina' was 
 written by Dr. Johnson." 
 
 On a fair June morning of 1889 I climbed the 
 steep streets leading up to Camden Crescent, the 
 Camden Road of Jane's day and of "Persuasion," 
 and ascending a flight of steps at its farther end, 
 reached the yet steeper path up Beacon Hill, — 
 a toil rewarded most amply by glimpses through 
 
7 2 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE, 
 
 the dense shrubbery crowning the upper hillside of 
 the roofs and towers below me of the — 
 
 " City lulled asleep by the chime of passing years," 
 
 The portion of Lansdown still called Beacon Hill 
 is now partially covered with houses ; but these I 
 soon left behind, and passed along a winding road 
 which led away from them down the northeastern 
 slope to where the few houses of Charlecombe are 
 strung like infrequent beads along the curving lane. 
 Here in a pasture sloping up from the roadside is 
 the smallest of churchyards with barely space within 
 for a diminutive church with saddleback tower, both 
 tower and west end almost hidden from sight by 
 the dark branches of a yew that was old in the 
 time of the Conqueror. From this quiet folding 
 of the hills one may see in the distance some of the 
 suburbs of the city so near at hand ; but all is green 
 and fair and sweet on this secluded hill-slope, and 
 the lark's song falling through a thousand feet of 
 air and the voice of the cuckoo telling his name to 
 all the hills were the only sounds I heard. Surely 
 
 " Peace hath here found harborage mild as very sleep." 
 
 Nearly a century has passed since that evening 
 walk of which Jane Austen wrote, but nothing of 
 the charm which she found in the lovely valley 
 has vanished with the years ; and as the village 
 looked to her eyes in 1799, so it appeared un- 
 changed to mine so long after. 
 
 It is in one of these letters from Bath that we 
 find one of the comparatively few allusions Miss 
 
VISIT TO BATH. 
 
 73 
 
 Austen makes to her own work. Her first book 
 was still known to the family circle as " First Im- 
 pressions ; " and it is to this she alludes in a passage 
 wherein Cassandra is playfully cautioned to with- 
 hold the book from their friend, Martha Lloyd, 
 the sister-in-law of James Austen : — 
 
 ' I would not let Martha read 'First Impressions' 
 again upon any account, and am very glad that I did 
 not leave it in your power. She is very cunning, but 
 I saw through her design ; she means to publish it 
 from memory, and one more perusal must enable her 
 to do it." 
 
 It clearly appears that by this time the fact of 
 Jane's having written one book or more was no 
 secret among the circle of family connections, as 
 it had never been in the Steventon household it- 
 self. She may have shrunk from being known as 
 an author to the world at large, but that the small 
 world composed of her own family and immediate 
 friends should so know her she was not greatly dis- 
 inclined ; and it seems probable that her books in 
 manuscript were circulated to some extent among 
 the friends most nearly associated with her, for 
 their criticisms and suggestions. The advice in 
 such matters of Cassandra and her brothers James 
 and Henry probably had the most weight with 
 her of all that she doubtless received. It is 
 more than ten years later before we meet with the 
 next reference to her own writing ; and then we 
 find her speaking of "Sense and Sensibility," at 
 that time passing through the press in London : 
 
74 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 "No, indeed, I am never too busy to think of ' S. 
 and S ' I can no more forget it than a mother can 
 forget her sucking child; and I am much obliged to 
 you for your inquiries. I have had two sheets to cor- 
 rect, but the last only brings us to Willoughby's first 
 appearance. Mrs. K. regrets in the most flattering 
 manner that she must wait till May, but I have 
 scarcely a hope of its being out in June. Henry does 
 not neglect it; he has hurried the printer, and says he 
 will see him again to-day. It will not stand still dur- 
 ing his absence, — it will be sent to Eliza * 
 
 "The incomes remain as they were, but I will get 
 them altered if I can. I am very much gratified by 
 Mrs, K.'s interest in it, and whatever may be the 
 event of it as to my credit with her, sincerely wish 
 her curiosity could be satisfied sooner than is now 
 probable I think she will like my Elinor, but can- 
 not build on anything else." 
 
 In spite of the scanty references which she makes 
 to her books, the nature of such as do occur is of 
 a character to show us that they occupied no in- 
 significant place in her thoughts, though in the 
 period between the two extracts just made, her 
 pen accomplished but little. 
 
 After this sojourn in Bath, which ended on June 
 20, we know nothing definitely of the family his- 
 tory of the Austens for more than a year, or to 
 be exact, not until Oct. 25, 1800; and we may 
 assume that for the greater part of this time 
 the sisters were together, since they seldom left 
 their parents at the same time, one usually re- 
 
 1 The wife of Henry Austen. 
 
IN THE BALL-ROOM. 
 
 75 
 
 maining in charge of the household in the absence 
 of the other. In October of this latter year Cas- 
 sandra was again at Godmersham visiting Edward 
 Austen and his wife, and the correspondence was 
 resumed. In the letters at this time are many 
 references to the two sailor brothers, to the various 
 movements of James and Henry, to their neigh- 
 bors, their own amusements, and to the contem- 
 plated removal of the Steventon household to 
 Bath. Cassandra is asked in one place : " Did 
 you think of our ball on Thursday evening, and 
 did you suppose me at it? You might very 
 safely, for there I was ; " and out of the ten 
 dances which constituted the employment of this 
 evening of revelry, we are quite prepared to hear 
 that Jane danced nine. 
 
 At a ball taking place at Deane a few days later, 
 she was present, with the same capacity for enjoy- 
 ment, dancing, so she tells us, nine dances out of 
 twelve, and " merely prevented from dancing the 
 rest by the want of a partner." 
 
 Certainly Miss Jane Austen at the age of twenty- 
 five was yet some degrees removed from absolute 
 formality, in spite of the sobering effect of that 
 cap with its coquelicot ribbons. Perhaps it was 
 during the time of those three dances in which 
 she did not engage for want of a partner that she 
 had leisure to observe, for her sister's amusement, 
 the appearance of some of the " fifty people " who 
 were in the ball-room. 
 
76 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 " There were few beauties ; and such as there were, 
 were not very handsome. Mrs. Iremonger did not 
 look well, and Mrs Blount was the only one much 
 admired. She appeared exactly as she did in Septem- 
 ber, with the same broad face, diamond bandeau- 
 white shoes, pink husband, and fat neck. ... I 
 looked at Sir Thomas Champneys and thought of poor 
 Rosalie ; I looked at his daughter, and thought her a 
 queer animal with a white neck Mrs. Warren I was 
 constrained to think a very fine young woman, which 
 I much regret. She danced away with great activity. 
 Her husband is ugly enough, uglier even than his 
 cousin John; but he does not look so very old. The 
 Miss Maitlands are both prettyish, very like Anne, 
 with brown skins, large dark eyes, and a great deal of 
 nose. The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Mait- 
 land the jaundice. Miss Debary, Susan, and Sally, 
 all in black, but without any statues, made their ap- 
 pearance, and I was as civil to them as circumstances 
 would allow me." 
 
 The incidental allusion to the ball occurring in 
 September, of which we know only what may be 
 inferred from the reference, will perhaps not escape 
 the notice of those who, like the writer, are glad 
 to think that Jane Austen was still happy and buoy- 
 ant enough to find delight in the amusements 
 and pastimes of the people about her. 
 
 There is no trace of ill-nature in these rather 
 vigorously drawn characterizations. Cassandra 
 would not misinterpret them, she was sure ; and as 
 no other eye, so she fancied, would ever rest upon 
 her hasty thumb-nail portraitures, she was at no 
 pains to qualify what she wrote. They are, in fact, 
 
LETTER TO MISS LLOYD. 
 
 77 
 
 conceived in precisely the same humorous spirit as 
 the following passage from a letter written in the 
 same month, November, 1800, to her friend Martha 
 Lloyd, then living with her mother at Ibthorp, where 
 Tane visited her before the month was ended : 
 
 '' You distress me cruelly by your request about 
 books. I cannot think of any to bring with me, nor 
 have I any idea of our wanting them. I come to you 
 to be talked to, not to read or hear reading ; I can do 
 that at home ; and indeed I am now laying in a stock 
 of intelligence to pour out on you as my share of in- 
 formation. I am reading Henry s ' History of Eng- 
 land,' * which I will repeat to you in any manner you 
 may prefer, either in a loose, desultory, unconnected 
 stream, or dividing my recital as the historian divides 
 it himself, into seven parts . The Civil and Military; 
 Religion : Constitution ; Learning and Learned Men ; 
 Arts and Sciences; Commerce, Coins, and Shipping; 
 and Manners. So that for every evening in the week 
 there will be a different subject. The Friday's lot — 
 Commerce, Coins, and Shipping — you will find the 
 least entertaining; but the next evening's will make 
 amends. With such a provision on my part, if you 
 will do yours by repeating the French Grammar, and 
 Mrs. Stent 2 will now and then ejaculate some won- 
 der about the cocks and hens, what can we want?" 
 
 It is not unlikely that it was during Jane's 
 short visit to the Lloyds that her father, now 
 
 1 Robert Henry's " History of Great Britain on a New 
 Plan " was a comparatively recent book at the time this 
 letter was written. 
 
 2 An intensely dull old lady, then a member of the Lloyd 
 household at Ibthorp. 
 
78 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 past seventy, suddenly decided to resign the living 
 of Steventon in favor of his son James ; for Mr. 
 Austen- Leigh records the fact of Jane's absence 
 from home when this resolve was taken, and adds 
 that as Mr. Austen "was always rapid both in 
 forming his resolutions and in acting on them, she 
 had little time to reconcile herself to the change." 
 Lord Brabourne, in his edition of the letters of 
 his great-aunt, observes that this removal does not 
 seem to have been so much regretted by her as 
 it might naturally have been when one remembers 
 that Steventon had been her home from the time 
 of her birth till then, and explains this seeming in- 
 difference by adding that her home was wherever 
 her own people were. Her nephew, writing fifteen 
 years before, assures us on the contrary that " Jane 
 was exceedingly unhappy " when informed of the 
 contemplated change. Undoubtedly he may, when 
 a boy, have heard something in relation to the 
 subject from his father, who was Jane's eldest 
 brother, and writing half a century later, have re- 
 corded what he imperfectly remembered, or per- 
 haps have unconsciously colored his statement with 
 what he fancied that his aunt ought to have felt on 
 such an occasion. This supposition seems to me 
 not at all unlikely, for I cannot for a moment be- 
 lieve that a woman of Jane Austen's even tempera- 
 ment would have allowed herself to appear " very 
 unhappy " over what her common-sense must have 
 told her was for the best. That she remained 
 wholly unaffected by the circumstance is of course 
 
REMOVAL TO BATH. 
 
 79 
 
 impossible ; but if " some natural tears " were shed 
 over the approaching change,, she dried them soon, 
 and " unhappy " she certainly never became. The 
 following passage from a letter to Cassandra of 
 Jan. 3, 1 80 1, written after the removal was a 
 settled event of the near future, supports the ex- 
 planation of Lord Brabourne much better than 
 the assertion of her nephew ; but in justice to the 
 latter, the fact must not be lost sight of that he 
 never saw the letter from which the extract is 
 taken. 
 
 " I get more and more reconciled to the idea of our 
 removal. We have lived long enough in this neigh- 
 borhood. The Basingstoke balls are certainly on the 
 decline, there is something interesting in the bustle of 
 going away ; and the prospect of spending future sum- 
 mers by the sea or in Wales is very delightful. For a 
 time we shall now possess many of the advantages 
 which 1 have often thought of with envy in the wives 
 of sailors or soldiers. It must not be generally known, 
 however, that I am not sacrificing a great deal in quit- 
 ting the country, or I can expect to inspire no tender- 
 ness, no interest, in those we leave behind." 
 
 The change was indeed for the better, so far at 
 least as Mr. and Mrs. Austen were concerned. In 
 resigning the parish to his son, Mr. Austen could 
 feel that it would be ably cared for by one whose 
 heart was in his work, as his own had been for so 
 long; and in the city he could surround the last 
 years of his wife and himself with many comforts 
 and enjoyments not possible to obtain in the coun- 
 
80 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 try, but to which his long life of useful labor might 
 now fairly entitle him. His daughter could not 
 fail to see this very readily, and without doubt 
 adopted at home the same cheerful, sportive attitude 
 toward the coming event which is manifest in the 
 letter to her sister. 
 
 The decision having been irrevocably made by 
 the Austens, there followed a long period of uncer- 
 tainty in what part of Bath their new home had 
 best be fixed ; and Jane's letters are full of refer- 
 ences to the difficulty of settling upon a suitable 
 locality. Each of them possessed greater or less 
 familiarity with Bath, and separate likes and dis- 
 likes for particular quarters thereof, and this did 
 not tend to simplify their perplexities. Westgate 
 Buildings, in the near vicinity of the baths, was one 
 of the first places they thought of, — the same lo- 
 cality in which Mrs. Smith is represented in " Per- 
 suasion " as living, and thereby incurring the fine 
 scorn of Sir Walter Elliot. 
 
 Westgate Buildings were among the earliest of 
 the houses erected by Wood the elder in the course 
 of his extensive operations ; and as he continued his 
 labors, the tide of fashion gradually ebbed from the 
 streets first built up by him, until by the time " Per- 
 suasion " was written, Westgate Buildings had be- 
 come what it is now, — a very unfashionable region 
 indeed. At the opening of the century, however, 
 it was, if not an extremely desirable location, a per- 
 fectly unobjectionable place of residence. Charles 
 Street, for which Jane declared a preference, is a 
 
REMOVAL TO BATH. 81 
 
 short distance farther west. Laura Place, an oc- 
 tagonal enlargement of Pulteney Street, east of the 
 Avon, and near which they had some thoughts of es- 
 tablishing themselves, seems to have been consid- 
 ered beyond their means, it being then as now a 
 highly esteemed portion of the city. Gay Street, a 
 handsome avenue leading from Queen Square to the 
 Circus, was likewise thought too expensive a situa- 
 tion for their purse. Exception was however made to 
 " the lower house on the left-hand side as you as- 
 cend," for which a smaller rent was asked, and there 
 appears some reason for believing that a few years 
 later they did occupy this house for a short time. 1 
 Mrs. x-\usten, Jane writes, at one time fixed her 
 wishes " on the corner house in Chapel Row, which 
 opens into Princes' Street. Her knowledge of it, 
 however, is confined only to the outside." As this 
 place is exactly opposite the side of 13 Queen 
 Square, it is probable that Mrs. Austen had taken a 
 fancy to it when staying at the latter place in 1799. 
 They were not wanting in advisers, who seem to 
 have multiplied rather than divided their perplexi- 
 ties ; for Jane observes that her aunt, Mrs. Perrot, 
 " will want to get us into Oxford Buildings, but we 
 all unite in a particular dislike of that part of the 
 town, and therefore hope to escape," — a hope which, 
 on account of the steepness of the street in the vicin- 
 ity last mentioned, and the consequent discomfort to 
 elderly people like Mr. and Mrs. Austen, was a very 
 natural one. Against Trim Street, the reputation of 
 
 1 See page 97. 
 6 
 
82 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 which was not much better in the last century than 
 in this, they appear to have been jestingly warned. 
 All this early in January, 1801, and a fortnight 
 later they are still uncertain as ever where to lay 
 their heads. 
 
 " Miss Lyford was very pleasant, and gave my mother 
 such an account of the houses in Westgate Buildings, 
 where Mrs. Lyford lodged four years ago, as ,made 
 her think of a situation there with great pleasure ; 
 but your opposition will be without difficulty decisive, 
 and my father, who was very well inclined towards the 
 Row before, has now ceased to think of it entirely. At 
 present the environs of Laura Place seem to be his 
 choice. His views on the subject are much advanced 
 since I came ; he grows quite ambitious, and actually 
 requires now a comfortable and a creditable-looking 
 house." 
 
 It was easy enough for Mr. Austen to make up 
 his mind to exchange Steventon for Bath ; but in 
 coming suddenly to this conclusion, he probably 
 had not the faintest notion of the amount of per- 
 plexity and indecision into which his resolve was 
 to plunge himself and family for long weeks after- 
 ward. It may all seem a trivial matter to those 
 who move yearly and think little about it ; but when 
 a household has remained in one place for thirty 
 years, the choosing of another home becomes a sub- 
 ject of the gravest consideration, and this it certainly 
 received in the Austen family. 
 
 " I join with you," writes Jane on January 22, "in 
 wishing: for the environs of Laura Place, but do not 
 
REMOVAL TO BATH. S$ 
 
 venture to expect it. My mother hankers after the 
 Square dreadfully, and it is but natural to suppose that 
 my uncle will take her part. It would be very pleasant 
 to be near Sydney Gardens ; we might go into the 
 labyrinth every day." 
 
 Winter merged itself into spring, and spring 
 became midsummer, before the anxieties of the 
 Austens were at length over. In May, however, the 
 transit from Steventon to Bath was accomplished ; 
 and the family remained with their relatives, the 
 Perrots, whose house was in the Paragon, — a long 
 row of tall houses fronting on a steep street in 
 Walcot parish, and affording from their rear windows 
 an extensive view of Hampton Down and the valley 
 of the Avon to Bathampton. House- hunting now 
 began in earnest ; and in May Jane writes as follows 
 to Cassandra, then visiting the Lloyds at Up- Hurst- 
 borne, a village five miles from Andover, near the 
 line of the two counties of Wilts and Hamp- 
 shire : " I fancy we are to have a house in Seymour 
 Street, 1 or thereabouts. My uncle and aunt like 
 the situation." A few lines farther on we read that 
 Jane and her uncle, Mr. Perrot, have been to see 
 some house in Green Park Buildings, very near the 
 Seymour Street just mentioned. On May 1 2 she 
 explores a house in the latter street, and on the 
 2 1 st they hear such unfavorable accounts of 
 Green Park Buildings that they decide definitely 
 
 1 Seymour Street, which leads south from James Street 
 opposite Charles Street, is a short thoroughfare, one side of 
 which is now occupied by the Midland Railway Station. 
 
84 JANE AUSTEN'S L/EE. 
 
 against that locality at any rate, and also against 
 some houses close by in New King Street. 
 
 In what manner they reached a final decision, or 
 at just what time, there are no records existing 
 to inform us, the last letter of this year being that 
 of May 21 ; but the absolute necessity of making 
 some choice may have driven them hastily into a 
 decision at the last moment, for they ended by 
 settling in a vicinity not before thought of by them, 
 though nearer Laura Place than any other named 
 in the letters. This was Sydney Place, a handsome 
 range of three-storied houses in Bathwick parish, 
 between the ends of Pulteney and Bathwick streets. 
 These residences faced the Sydney Gardens, so 
 that Jane's desire to be near that pleasure-ground 
 had now its realization. The house in which they 
 lived, and which presents exactly the same appear- 
 ance as its neighbors, is No. 4, and is the 
 fourth from Pulteney Street. In Mr. Austen-Leigh's 
 memoir the locality is named as • Sydney Terrace, 
 which is a slight error, for as Mr. Peach, the his- 
 torian of Bath, has assured me, " there never was 
 a Sydney Terrace at all until some years after Miss 
 Austen's time." 
 
 Of the four years spent in Bath by the Austen 
 family we hear from the correspondence of the last 
 one only, and perhaps may conclude, from want of 
 definite information to the contrary, that the sisters 
 were not separated for any long period during these 
 years. How the time was passed by Jane herself 
 must now be fairly clear from what we know of her 
 
Number Four, Sydney Place. 
 
 THE AUSTEN HOME AT BATH. 
 
REMOVAL TO BATH. 85 
 
 habits and preferences. In such a place and with 
 her frankly admitted liking for society and her en- 
 joyment of it in moderation, it is by no means 
 likely that these were years of seclusion. At the 
 proper seasons there were the Assembly Balls to 
 attend at the Upper and Lower Rooms ; and like 
 her own Catherine Morland and Anne Elliot, she 
 must have gone frequently to the Pump Room to 
 meet her acquaintances, and have strolled with them 
 at evening along the Crescent. And there were the 
 much -admired Sydney Gardens in front of her own 
 door ! 
 
 Her fondness for walking and her keen enjoy- 
 ment of scenery led her to extend her rambles in 
 the suburbs much farther than she was able to do 
 in the course of her previous visits ; and she could 
 now enjoy the felicity of Cassandra's company in 
 these excursions, which supplied the one thing 
 needed to make her perfectly happy in them. To- 
 gether they must have roamed the downs above 
 Sham Castle or the grounds about Prior Park, 
 which Pope and Fielding had found so charming, 
 and which the latter had long before celebrated in 
 the opening of "Torn Jones." Beechen Cliff they 
 found without doubt as pleasing as did Catherine 
 Morland in the company of Henry Tilney; and 
 Lansdown, on the opposite side of the city, they 
 could not have helped knowing well, perhaps as far 
 northward as the famous Prospect Stile, whence on 
 clear days, beyond the towers of Bristol, one may 
 catch the gleam of the waters of the Bristol Channel. 
 
86 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Indeed, we cannot go far wrong in assuming an 
 intimate acquaintance on Jane's part during these 
 four years with most of the places of interest in and 
 about the city — 
 
 " Loved of men, beloved of us, souls that fame inspheres." 
 
 As one wanders through its streets, or surveys it 
 from the green cordon of its hills, it is pleasant to 
 think that one is treading in Jane Austen's foot- 
 steps. Not every association which clings to this 
 city " girt about with beauty " is so fragrant as those 
 which connect it with her name ; and surely few 
 are better worth the cherishing. 
 
 That her pen was not entirely laid aside during 
 these years at Bath the unfinished story which Mr. 
 Austen- Leigh has styled, "The Watsons," affords 
 testimony, if we agree with him in considering it 
 to be a work of this period. Certainly he would 
 have been quite right in judging from the internal 
 evidence presented by its style that it did not be- 
 long to the number of her early sketches and frag- 
 mentary tales, even if he had not had the water- 
 marks of the paper on which it is written to assist 
 him toward this conclusion. As these water-marks 
 are dated 1803 and 1804, we are able of course to 
 assert positively that it could not have been written 
 before the years named ; but it must remain purely 
 a matter of opinion whether these pages may not 
 have been written either at Southampton or Chaw- 
 ton as well, for the water-mark of 1804 would not 
 disprove the latter assumption. It has unquestiona- 
 
"THE WATSONS." 87 
 
 bly a maturity of thought not so distinctly tracea- 
 ble in her first three books, though of course it is 
 wanting in the finish which they as completed and 
 revised works possess ; and who can say that it does 
 not belong to the time when in the quiet cottage at 
 Chawtonshe began to write again with even more de- 
 votion to her task than she showed in the years from 
 1 796 to 1 798 ? Still the classification which places 
 its date somewhere about 1804 is a convenient one ; 
 and if it cannot be conclusively proved can as little 
 be disproved, and therefore for practical purposes 
 may be accepted. 
 
 It is not a work which is familiar to most readers, 
 even to those who know the six completed novels 
 intimately, and has not, I think, received quite the 
 attention it deserves. To a generation which is 
 disposed to regard with reverence the half-com- 
 pleted tales, the fragmentary sketches, and even the 
 pencilled memoranda found upon the writing-desks 
 of the great masters of fiction when the chair is for- 
 ever pushed aside and the pen laid away to be 
 taken up no more, this story, unrevised fragment 
 as it is, but showing on every page whose the prac- 
 tised hand that penned it, should be of especial 
 interest. Not without much truth her nephew says 
 of it : — 
 
 " I think it will be generally admitted that there is 
 much in it which promised well: that some of the char- 
 acters are drawn with her wonted vigor, and some with 
 a delicate discrimination peculiarly her own; and that 
 it is rich in her especial power of telling the story and 
 
SS JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 bringing out the characters by conversation rather than 
 by description." 
 
 To Cassandra the writer seems to have talked 
 freely of her plans in regard to this story ; and 
 when in her old age the surviving sister was 
 showing the manuscript of this tale to some of her 
 nieces, she told them in what manner Jane had 
 intended to complete it, but seems not to have 
 added, what did not occur to them to ask, when 
 it was written. 
 
 In September, 1804, Mr. and Mrs. Austen and 
 their daughter Jane spent some weeks in lodgings 
 at Lyme-Regis, on the Dorset coast, but close to 
 the borders of Devon ; and it is to the impressions 
 received during this visit that we owe certain mem- 
 orable scenes in " Persuasion." The picturesque 
 little watering-place, of more consequence then 
 than now, when Bournemouth, Boscombe, Torquay, 
 and other towns along the Dorset and Devon shores 
 have risen into notice, seems, with its irregular lines 
 of houses, jostling one another in their efforts to 
 find standing room along the beach at the base 
 of the great Dorset downs, to have greatly de- 
 lighted Jane Austen. When, in " Persuasion," she 
 makes Anne Elliot say of Lyme, " So much 
 novelty and beauty ! I have travelled so little that 
 every fresh place must be interesting to me ; but 
 there is real beauty at Lyme, and, in short, my im- 
 pressions of the place are very agreeable," she is 
 declaring her own likings as well as Anne Elliot's. 
 
THE AUSTENS AT LYME. 89 
 
 So strongly indeed was she impressed by the little 
 town and vicinage that the only extended descrip- 
 tion of scenery she permits herself to give in any of 
 her novels is one of which Lyme and its neighbor- 
 hood is the subject. Of this particular passage I 
 shall have more to say later ; but I am very sure 
 that any one who has had the happiness of seeing 
 this corner of Dorsetshire will heartily echo Jane 
 Austen's enthusiastic assertion that " a very strange 
 stranger it must be who does not see charms in the 
 immediate environs of Lyme to make him wish to 
 know it better." 
 
 The locality of the Austen lodgings Jane omits to 
 mention in her letter to Cassandra, then visiting 
 the Lloyds at Ibthorp ; but we may assume them to 
 have been in the newer and less crowded portion 
 of the town, west of the noisy little river Lyme, 
 and not far from the esplanade. Mr. Austen's 
 advanced years would naturally have made him 
 averse to choosing a house which could be reached 
 only by one of the steep hillside streets for which 
 Lyme is so famous ; and the older streets, east of 
 the Lyme, must have been then as now too redolent 
 of fish to make them altogether desirable for resi- 
 dence. I am inclined therefore to think their home 
 to have been in one of the group of houses between 
 the esplanade and the roadway leading to the Cobb, 
 as the breakwater is locally termed. Nevertheless, 
 wherever situated, their rooms appear to have left 
 something still to be desired, for Jane informs her 
 sister that " nothing can exceed the inconveniences 
 
9 o JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 of the offices except the general dirtiness of the 
 house and furniture and all its inhabitants." 
 
 There was much to occupy Jane's time during the 
 sojourn at Lyme, as the observations in her letter 
 of September 14 sufficiently show. Attentions to 
 the comforts of her parents, calls, walks upon the 
 Cobb, and the Thursday balls, — these, with the 
 bathing, must have taken a large share of it, but we 
 know from " Persuasion" that they did not absorb 
 it all. Up- Lyme, Pinney, the pretty, neat, village 
 of Charmouth near the mouth of the small river 
 Char, — these she knew well, and must frequently 
 have walked to one or other of them, along roads 
 and paths which offer at almost every step views 
 that are among the most beautiful in England. 
 That these were as generally appreciated in her 
 time as now may fairly be questioned. Ninety or 
 a hundred years ago, the world was only just begin- 
 ning to see beauty in scenery which had not called 
 in the aid of the landscape gardener to enhance its 
 attractiveness ; and what then brought strangers to 
 Lyme was not the charm of its surroundings, but 
 nominally its character as a health resort, and 
 in reality its reputation as a watering-place with 
 some pretensions to be called fashionable. Miss 
 Austen was one of the first to see in Lyme some- 
 thing of interest apart from its two " lions " — the 
 George Inn, where the Duke of Monmouth stayed 
 after his landing here in 1685, and the remarkable 
 stone cobb, or pier — and the visitors themselves. 
 Since her day Lyme- Regis has never wanted for 
 eulogists. 
 
Views at Lyme Regis. 
 
THE COBB AT LYME. 
 
 9 1 
 
 The Cobb, which is so prominent a feature in 
 " Persuasion," has undergone extensive alterations 
 since that book was written. In 1824 it was so 
 greatly damaged by a severe storm that it was de- 
 termined by the Board of Ordnance to rebuild and 
 extend it. Accordingly, in April, 1825, under the 
 direction of Lieutenant Fanshawe, of the Royal En- 
 gineers, operations were begun upon the Cobb, 
 which were not completed until a year from the fol- 
 lowing November, when the structure was left in its 
 present substantial, shapely condition. It consists of 
 a broad upper level, with a lower level on the shore- 
 ward or harbor side, some ten feet below the other. 
 At present the levels are connected by a double 
 flight of steps near the shoreward end, and two 
 single nights at other points. The central flight, 
 showing from the distance as a dark diagonal line 
 along the side of the wall, consists of rough stones 
 projecting from its face, and is locally known 
 as "the teeth." When the Cobb was rebuilt, a 
 hundred feet, which did not require reconstruction, 
 were left in the same state as before. This por- 
 tion, which includes " the teeth," was built in 
 1792, and is called "the new Cobb" in "Persua- 
 sion," and is therefore all that is left of the Cobb 
 which Jane Austen knew. Down those steep steps 
 the party in " Persuasion " descended on the mem- 
 orable occasion when Louisa Musgrove insisted on 
 jumping down them, and fell so tragically at the 
 bottom. 
 
 It is related that when Lord Tennvson was 
 
9 2 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 visiting Lyme, his friends there were exceedingly 
 anxious to show him where the Duke of Mon- 
 mouth landed, which it is extremely doubtful if 
 they could have done, since there is no existing 
 trace of the pier upon which he disembarked. 
 Much to their surprise, the poet exclaimed with 
 considerable indignation, " Don't talk to me of the 
 Duke of Monmouth ! Show me the precise spot 
 where Louisa Musgrove fell." 
 
 If the Austens visited other places than. Lyme 
 in the autumn of 1804, Mr. Austen-Leigh's me- 
 moir makes no mention of the fact ; and as the 
 Brabourne edition of the Austen letters contains 
 none of this year, we have no further authentic ac- 
 count of their movements at this time. A writer in 
 "Temple Bar " for 1879 asserts, however, that either 
 just before or just after their stay at Lyme, they 
 passed some time at Teignmouth, lodging in a house 
 said to be still standing, and called by the same 
 name as then, — " Great Bella Vista," — but gives 
 no authority for the statement. Teignmouth, as no 
 tourist in Devon needs to be informed, is a fashion- 
 able resort on the Devonshire coast, sixteen miles 
 south of Exeter ; and that Jane Austen may have 
 visited it is not at all unlikely, for she was by no 
 means unfamiliar with localities in Devon. Bar- 
 ton Cottage, the home of the Dashwoods, in " Sense 
 and Sensibility," is mentioned as only four miles 
 north of Exeter ; and the scenery in its neighbor- 
 hood is described with too much exactness to lead 
 us to believe it entirely imaginary. Dawlish, named 
 
JANE AUSTEN IN DEVON 93 
 
 in the same work, is but three miles from Teign- 
 mouth; and the presumption in my mind is 
 that either in this year or in some other of the 
 family residence in Bath, she spent enough time 
 in Devonshire for her to acquire a pretty intimate 
 knowledge of its localities, — information which 
 she afterward used in preparing " Sense and Sensi- 
 bility " for the press, and in writing " Persuasion." 
 This may not improbably have been in 1802 ; for 
 in one of her letters of 18 14 she refers to her 
 acquaintance with Dawlish twelve years previously. 
 Unfortunately, the letters for this period which 
 would settle this and many other points in her 
 history are no longer in existence. 
 
 How long Miss Austen remained in Lyme is not 
 known, nor if this were her only visit ; but whether 
 the possible trip to Teignmouth took place before 
 or afterward, one thing is certain, that in the late 
 autumn the Austens were again in Bath, and the 
 family life was resumed at Sydney Place. So far 
 as is known, this was the last time the Rever- 
 end George Austen was ever to leave home until 
 the time when he should go out from its doors to 
 return no more. But how shortly this was to be 
 the Austens could not know. 
 
VI. 
 
 DEATH OF JANE'S FATHER; LODGINGS IN 
 BATH; JANE AUSTEN IN SOCIETY; VISITS 
 IN KENT, 
 
 TN Mr. Austen- Leigh's memoir of his aunt he 
 A makes mention that his grandfather, the 
 Reverend George Austen, died in Bath in Feb- 
 ruary, 1805, and that he was buried in Walcot 
 Church in that city. Lord Brabourne, chronicling 
 the same fact in the introduction to his edition of 
 the Austen letters, simply says that the death oc- 
 curred early in 1805. Hoping to ascertain the 
 exact date of the event, if possible, I went one 
 morning, in June of 1889, to the mother church 
 of Walcot parish, St. Swithin's, and among the 
 hundreds of tablets which almost entirely cover the 
 walls of the interior, looked in vain for one to com- 
 memorate the virtues of the rector of Steventon. 
 The verger, amazed that I passed by the monu- 
 ments to Anstey and Madame d'Arblay with a 
 hasty glance, assured me that there was no such 
 tablet in the church as the one I was seeking, and 
 in deprecatory excuse of the seeming neglect on 
 the part of the Austen family to provide such a 
 memorial, added that " literary people did n't often 
 have much money to spend in that way." 
 
DEATH OF JANE'S FATHER. 95 
 
 Whether Jane Austen and her family were with- 
 held from recording their father's merits in marble 
 in this place by any such reasons as this may 
 be questioned ; but certain it is that St. Swithin's 
 Church, the place of his burial, contains no other 
 memorial of him than a brief entry in the burial 
 register of the parish for 1805. This record in- 
 cludes merely the date, Jan. 26, 1805, and the 
 number of the vault where the interment was 
 made. 
 
 It may seem not a little singular that there 
 should be no other remembrance of him here be- 
 yond this faded leaf in a time-worn parish register 
 seldom seen by any but the verger and some in- 
 frequent visitor like myself; but doubtless there 
 were good and sufficient reasons why no stone to 
 his memory was added to the many mural tablets 
 which the church contains. It was not because he 
 was not affectionately remembered, we may be very 
 sure. 
 
 But, some one may urge, if he were thus remem- 
 bered, why are no allusions made to him in the 
 letters of his daughter after his death? And in 
 regard to this query, it must be admitted that the 
 only possible reference to him in Jane's letters 
 subsequently to this period, occurs in one of April 
 8, 1805, where, speaking of the expected death of 
 their friend, Mrs. Lloyd, she says, " May her end 
 be as peaceful and easy as the one we have wit- 
 nessed ! " And yet it would not be fair to accuse 
 her of indifference because of her apparent silence 
 
9 6 JANE AUSTEN'S LIEE. 
 
 in reference to this great family sorrow ; for all our 
 existing knowledge of the Austen family is against 
 such an assumption. It must be borne in mind 
 that from May 21, 1801, to August 24, 1805, we 
 have no letters of hers save one written from 
 Lyme the September before Mr. Austen's death, 
 and two others from Bath in the April which fol- 
 lowed it. Because in these two letters, out of 
 others which may have been written, her father is 
 not mentioned except inferentially, there is hardly 
 warrant for the belief that he was not mourned. 
 Far from it. We must believe from what we know 
 of her nature that she felt his loss as sincerely as any 
 one could do ; but her sunny temperament prob- 
 ably preserved her from continually dwelling upon 
 it. Cassandra Austen, who knew intimately every 
 thought almost of her sister's heart, most assuredly 
 did not convict her of want of feeling. Their 
 common loss was a common sorrow, too closely 
 shared to need the relief of many words. 
 
 Soon after Mr. Austen's death, the family re- 
 moved from Sydney Place to Gay Street ; but as 
 to the exact locality of their new residence there 
 exists some difference of opinion. Mr. Peach, in 
 his " Historic Houses of Bath," expressly declares 
 that the Austens removed from Sydney Place to 
 No. 1 Gay Street ; while Mr. Wodehouse, M. P. 
 for Bath, in a published address upon Miss 
 Austen's life and works, gives the number as 25, 
 and Lord Brabourne merely says that the family 
 removed to Gay Street. Jane Austen's letter of 
 
LODGINGS IN BATH. 
 
 97 
 
 April 8, 1805, quoted in her nephew's memoir, is 
 dated from No. 25 Gay Street; but on April 21 
 she heads her letter with " Gay Street " simply. 
 
 No. 1 Gay Street is no longer in existence. 
 It was a fine house with a side entrance under a 
 handsome porch, and a few years ago was pulled 
 down in order to widen the approach to the Vic- 
 toria Park. The street has not been renumbered, 
 so that at present there is no No. 1 . Mr. Peach 
 is very firm in his belief that the Austens lodged 
 here, although the reasons for his faith do not 
 seem to me altogether clear. Those who prefer 
 to think of Jane Austen as at No. 25 have at 
 least the satisfaction of knowing that that house 
 still exists. 
 
 But whichever locality be the correct one, the 
 Austen residence in this street was not of long 
 duration, for in the late spring or early summer of 
 1 305 Mrs. Austen and her daughters removed to 
 No. 2 7, Green Park Buildings, 1 — a pleasant locality 
 not far from Gay Street, and very near the pres- 
 ent Midland Railway Station. The opposite sides of 
 a small triangular park, which is open at its base or 
 southern side, are here built up with rows of hand- 
 some stone houses the windows of which command 
 cheerful views in several directions, the green 
 background of Beechen Cliff to the south being 
 an especially prominent feature in the prospect. 
 
 But the Austens' life at Bath was now drawing to 
 a close ; and before the end of 1805 the family was 
 
 1 Now Green Park. 
 7 
 
9 8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 established at Southampton. That the four years 
 of Jane's residence in Bath were much enjoyed by 
 her is unquestionable. It is, however, a generally 
 received opinion that she cared nothing for so- 
 ciety, and seldom mingled in it ; but this, like 
 many other opinions hastily accepted without 
 inquiry, is an erroneous one. For the frivolous, 
 empty tide of London fashion which flowed 
 through Bath in certain seasons, carrying with it 
 to the provincial city the polished vices as well as 
 the glittering follies of the metropolis, she certainly 
 did not care. That society knew her not. Nor was 
 she known to the literary men and women of the day 
 who might now and then be seen in the Pump Room 
 in the company of the other notables of the time. 
 Nothing of hers had yet been published ; for al- 
 though Bull, a publisher in Old Bond Street, had 
 purchased in 1802 the manuscript of " Northanger 
 Abbey" for the sum of ten pounds, it was lying 
 untouched, and possibly unread, among his papers 
 at the epoch of her leaving Bath. Such slight 
 encouragement as this had not tempted her to 
 consider herself a literary personage ; and she ac- 
 cordingly made no effort to know personally the 
 men and women whose books she knew, and 
 whose faces must some of them have been familiar 
 to her among the people she saw at the Pump 
 Room or in the streets. 
 
 But because Miss Austen mingled neither in the 
 literary society of the day nor in the ranks of the 
 ultra- fashionable, it must not be supposed that she 
 
JANE AUSTEN IN SOCIETY. gg 
 
 dwelt in hermit-like seclusion these four years. 
 The preceding pages will have been written in 
 vain if they have not shown that she found 
 pleasure in the usual pursuits of society, — its 
 visits, its balls and parties, and, in short, its en- 
 tire round of engagements. Her handsome face 
 and winsome manners brought her much attention 
 wherever she went ; and her wit and vivacity made 
 her conversation eagerly listened to. She was not 
 in the least deceived as to the nature of the ad- 
 miration she received, for she could very clearly 
 discern the boundary line between flattery and 
 sincerity; but she could not help knowing that 
 she w r as attractive, and she took an honest pleasure in 
 the fact. Gay society did not "make for her the 
 whole of life, but it added to it a great deal that 
 was congenial to her. Before she came to live in 
 Bath, she had gone much into social life in the 
 neighborhood of Steventon and Winchester, had 
 danced at more than one ball in Kent, and was 
 no stranger to the Bath Assembly Rooms ; but 
 continued residence in the latter city offered her 
 increased advantages, which there is every reason 
 to suppose that she improved. Although it has 
 suited the fancy of many persons, three quarters 
 of a century after her death, to label her " the 
 prim Miss Austen," we may be very positive that 
 the lively young people of her own circle, 
 the many young men she danced with, or the 
 many girls she sat and talked with so gayly 
 never applied such an adjective to her. 
 
ioo JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 The close of 1804 brought with it the first great 
 sorrow of her life, — the loss of her friend, Mrs. 
 Lefroy of Ashe, who was killed by a fall from her 
 horse on Jane's twenty-ninth birthday (Decem- 
 ber 16). Though a number of years the elder of 
 the two, Mrs. Lefroy was, next to Cassandra, Jane's 
 closest friend. There were, in fact, many points of 
 resemblance between the two in character as well as 
 in person ; and the fondness Mrs. Lefroy had shown 
 for Jane as a child had ripened into the deepest 
 affection for her as a woman. Like Jane, she was 
 very attractive in appearance ; and her eager en- 
 thusiasm found its counterpart in the younger 
 woman's fresh delight in new scenes and new 
 people. Her death could not fail to make a deep 
 and lasting impression upon Jane, who, four years 
 later, wrote a poem of some length in memory of 
 her friend. Of this poem it is quite enough to 
 say that while in every way commendable as to 
 sentiment, its merit as verse is not great enough 
 to make us wish that she had devoted more time 
 to metrical studies. 
 
 A few weeks after Mrs. Lefroy' s death occurred 
 that of Mr. Austen, as we have already noted ; and 
 these two great sorrows coming so closely upon 
 one another may have made Jane not averse to 
 leaving Bath altogether, when such a change was 
 decided upon. But before the change of resi- 
 dence to Southampton was made, Mrs. Austen and 
 her daughters paid a visit to their relatives in Kent. 
 The sisters were not, however, together at this time, 
 
VISITS IN KENT. 101 
 
 for on the 24th of August, 1805, Jane, who 
 was then staying at Godmersham Park, some six 
 or seven miles south of Canterbury, takes occasion 
 to write to Cassandra, then a guest at Goodnestone x 
 Farm, between Canterbury and Deal. In this let- 
 ter we get incidentally a glimpse of the gentle, 
 obliging disposition which made "Aunt Jane" so 
 popular among her nephews and nieces : — 
 
 "Yesterday was a very quiet day with us; my 
 noisiest efforts were writing to Frank and playing at 
 battledore and shuttlecock with William. He and I 
 have practised together two mornings, and improve 
 a little ; we have frequently kept it up three times, 
 and once or twice six" 
 
 It is an attractive picture which this extract 
 summons up before us. One can very readily see 
 the animated, handsome woman whose nearly 
 thirty years did not oppress her with a weight of 
 dignity so great as to prevent her enjoyment of 
 a childrens' game, and who was always ready to 
 leave her own employment in order to please an 
 importunate small nephew by joining him in his. 
 
 A day or two later the sisters changed places, 
 meeting in Canterbury en route, — Jane being now 
 at Goodnestone and Cassandra at Godmersham. 
 These visits in Kent were events of much impor- 
 tance to them both, and considering the incon- 
 veniences of travelling in those days, were of 
 
 1 There is another Goodnestone in Kent, near Faver- 
 sham, and about eight miles west of Canterbury. 
 
102 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 frequent occurrence. Goodnestone was the home 
 of their relatives, the Bridges ; and Godmersnarn, 
 as we are already aware, was the residence of their 
 brother Edward. Both are in the immediate neigh- 
 borhood of Canterbury, which city became almost 
 if not quite as well known to Jane Austen as Win- 
 chester, though perhaps not having quite as high a 
 place in her affections, and certainly less definitely 
 associated with her in our minds. The country 
 around the city of Saint Augustine is most truly — 
 
 " A land of hops and poppy-mingled corn ; " 
 
 and through it all there wind in countless placid 
 curves the clear waters of the Stour flowing north- 
 ward through the gap in the low chalk downs at Wye 
 to join the sea beyond the Sandwich bars. Inter- 
 minable hop-fields spread themselves over the low- 
 lying Kentish lands ; red- coned hop-kilns perk up 
 their inquiring heads in every quarter ; and here 
 and there windmills wave white, awkward arms 
 beseechingly. 
 
 Fifteen miles south of Canterbury is the town of 
 Ashford, above whose clustered roofs rises the 
 great tower of the ancient church dedicated to 
 Saint Mary. It is now a place of much importance 
 as a railway centre ; but a century ago it was a 
 nucleus of social life for eastern Kent, and the Ash- 
 ford balls were frequently attended by the Austen 
 sisters in the course of their Kentish visits. If 
 one follows the Stour four or five miles northward 
 from the stone bridge at Ashford, one finds upon 
 
VISITS IN KENT. 
 
 103 
 
 its banks at the foot of Wye Down the village of 
 Wye, but little larger now than when the Aus- 
 tens knew it. Not far from the railway station can 
 be seen the low square tower of St. Lawrence's 
 Church at Godmersham, and near at hand the 
 woods and pleasure-grounds of Godmersham Park, 
 shut off from the roadway by a high wall. Chalk 
 downs slope upward to the west beyond God- 
 mersham House ; and through the eastern portion 
 of the park runs the Stour. Chilham Park and 
 Castle to the north, and Eastwell Park to the south, 
 both of them frequently visited by Cassandra and 
 Jane, are neither of them far distant or much be- 
 yond the limits of an easy walk ; and following up 
 the windings of the Stour beyond the downs of 
 Chartham, one sees the vast grey bulk of the cathe- 
 dral lifting itself above the many crdw T ding red 
 roofs of Canterbury. It is a fair country. Cer- 
 tainly there is no lovelier region in eastern Kent 
 than the valley of the Stour, which in the course 
 of her repeated visits became as familiar to Jane 
 Austen as were " England's Florence " beside the 
 Avon, the long roll of the Hampshire downs, or 
 the level meads of the Itchen from Winchester 
 to Southampton. 
 
 The life in Kent was at all seasons one many 
 times removed from dulness or monotony ; and the 
 sisters never seem to have wanted for abundant 
 occupation in the course of their visits. The large 
 households at Godmersham and Goodnestone pre- 
 sented many absorbing interests : and there were 
 
104 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 countless excursions to Canterbury and Ashford, 
 varied by brief visits among the neighboring gentry. 
 It is on Jane's return from one of these during this 
 summer that she writes thus : — 
 
 " Our visit to Eastwell was very agreeable ; I found 
 Ly. Gordon's manners as pleasing as they had been 
 described, and saw nothing to dislike in Sir Janison, 
 excepting once or twice a sort of sneer at Mrs. Anne 
 Finch." 
 
 During this month of August an important topic 
 in Kent seems to have been a prospective grand 
 ball at Deal, which the Austens, being in mourn- 
 ing, of course did not expect to attend, but which 
 they evidently could not help hearing much of. 
 Jane, who was still at Goodnestone with the 
 Bridges, succeeded in persuading her friend Harriet 
 Bridges to accept an invitation to the ball, which 
 was to take place on the Friday of her own return 
 to Godmersham. The Hattons from Eastwell 
 were to take Miss Bridges ; but Jane appears to 
 have feared that this part of the plan might fail, 
 for she tells Cassandra, — 
 
 " I am anxious on the subject, from the fear of 
 being in the way if they do not come to give Harriot 1 a 
 conveyance. I proposed and pressed being sent home 
 on Thursday to prevent the possibility of being in the 
 wrong place, but Harriot would not hear of it." 
 
 As it happened, the news of the death of the 
 Duke of Gloucester, brother to George the Third, 
 
 1 It must be admitted that my beloved great-aunt was a 
 careless speller. — Lord Brabourne. 
 
VISITS IN KENT. IO g 
 
 was received before the letter was completed ; and 
 the public mourning for that event of course put an 
 end to the expected festivities at Deal. Still the 
 account of the preparations for the ball is not with- 
 out an interest for us, in the additional evidence it 
 affords of the unselfish disposition of Jane Austen, 
 and her willingness to put aside all considerations 
 of a personal nature whenever the convenience or 
 happiness of another was concerned. 
 
VII. 
 
 REMOVAL TO SOUTHAMPTON ; LIFE AND 
 SOCIETY THERE; VISIT IN KENT. 
 
 IN Lord Brabourne's pleasant, gossipy introduc- 
 tion to the published letters of his illustrious 
 great-aunt, after mentioning the removal of the 
 Austens from Bath, he observes, " I do not know 
 why the family chose Southampton as their next 
 residence ; " and Mr. Austen- Leigh, recording the 
 same event, makes no comment whatever on any 
 supposed reasons for the change. As there are no 
 existing letters or family records dating from this 
 period, we can account for the Austens' choice only 
 inferentially ; but some little knowledge of the 
 Southampton of a century ago, as compared with 
 the busy seaport of to-day, will perhaps aid us 
 slightly in the matter. 
 
 It was not far from the year 1750 that South- 
 ampton came into notice as a watering-place, with 
 fashionable lodging-houses and a well-defined 
 "season." In 1767 the Public Assembly Rooms 
 on the West Quay were built, and a Master of Cere- 
 monies held sway in the ball-room, of late years 
 used as a drill-hall, and now fast falling into decay. 
 What Brighton was to be soon after was faintly 
 
 
REMOVAL TO SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 107 
 
 shadowed forth in the Southampton of the early- 
 years of the reign of George the Good ; but the 
 exclusively fashionable people were not suffered to 
 have things all their own way. It began to be dis- 
 covered that the small provincial borough possessed 
 unmistakable advantages as a health resort ; and at 
 the close of the eighteenth century its relation to 
 the rest of England was not very different from that 
 held now by such places as Torquay and Bourne- 
 mouth on the southern coast, and Ventnor and 
 Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight. But it was not 
 for long that it held this place. In 1803 an 
 Act of Parliament was passed for making docks 
 and extending the quays at Southampton. In 
 1820 the first steamer made her way along South- 
 ampton Water and the Solent ; and Southampton 
 the watering-place ceased to be, while South- 
 ampton the thriving seaport began existence in 
 its stead. 
 
 At the time, however, when Mrs. Austen and her 
 daughters left Bath, Southampton was a quiet sea- 
 side watering-place much affected by those in search 
 of health, but becoming each year less and less 
 the resort of fashionable idlers. We know that 
 the state of Mrs. Austen's health had often been a 
 source of anxiety to her children ; and it seems to 
 me exceedingly probable that the beneficial climate 
 of Southampton was not without influence in the 
 family considerations, and that the place was se- 
 lected for their residence very largely on their 
 mother's account. 
 
108 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Then, too, they were quite as likely to meet with 
 congenial people here as at Bath ; and furthermore, 
 their new location was a very convenient one in 
 some respects, as it brought them nearer to their 
 Kentish relatives, while it did not remove them 
 from the circle of their Hampshire friends. Per- 
 haps also the near vicinity of Portsmouth was 
 reckoned by them as an advantage, since whenever 
 the naval members of the family were ordered to 
 report at Portsmouth, it was very easy for the sons 
 to visit their mother, who was so close at hand ; and 
 as it happened, for a portion of the Austens' resi- 
 dence in Southampton Capt. Francis Austen and 
 his wife made part of the family. 
 
 At what time in the autumn the move was 
 made is not known ; but before the close of 
 1805 it had been a feat some time since accom- 
 plished. Their new home is thus described by Mr. 
 Austen- Leigh : — 
 
 " My grandmother's house had a pleasant garden, 
 bounded on one side by the old city walls ; the top of 
 this was sufficiently wide to afford a pleasant walk 
 with an extensive view, easily accessible by steps." 
 
 Of this garden we hear something more in Jane's 
 letters, for on Feb. 8, 1807, she writes to her 
 sister that — 
 
 " Our garden is putting in order by a man who bears 
 a remarkably good character, has a very fine com- 
 plexion, and asks something less than the first. The 
 shrubs which border the gravel walk, he says, are 
 
REMOVAL TO SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 109 
 
 only sweetbrier and roses, the latter of an indifferent 
 sort ; we mean to get a few of a better kind, therefore, 
 and at my own particular desire he procures us some 
 syringas. I could not do without a syringa, for the sake 
 of Cowper's line. We talk also of a laburnum. The 
 border under the terrace wall is clearing away to re- 
 ceive currants and gooseberry bushes; and a spot is 
 found very proper for raspberries." 
 
 The "pleasant garden' of Mr. Austen- Leigh's 
 recollections, which his aunt heard called "the 
 best in town," has long had existence in memory 
 only ; and where it once was is a spot now so 
 squalid and forlorn that it is difficult to realize 
 that it was ever anything else. Little but the name 
 is left of the Castle Square which was the abode of 
 the Austens for four years. Leading from the west- 
 ern side of the broad High Street, close to and be- 
 low the ancient and massive Bar Gate spanning 
 the roadway with its Norman arches, is the narrow 
 alley called Castle Lane, which furnishes the most 
 direct approach to the square from the east ; and 
 along this the Austens must have passed daily. A 
 fragment of the old wail of the castle, closely 
 hemmed in by other structures, may still be seen 
 on the upper side of the lane, which is but a short 
 one, ending in a small triangular plot of open 
 ground, dusty and turfless, and wholly within the 
 horse- shoe curve described by the castle walls, 
 and originally the base court of the castle. Sev- 
 eral streets lead from this square, one to the south 
 ascending a small rise of ground and terminating 
 
no JANE AUSTEN S LIFE. 
 
 after a short curve at the door of a large stone 
 building now called Zion Hall, and used as a Salva- 
 tion Array hall. On this spot once stood the singu- 
 lar castellated house of the Marquis of Lansdowne, 
 the most pretentious dwelling in that neighborhood. 
 It was taken down about the year 1810; and its 
 absence makes it difficult to imagine, as Mr. Austen- 
 Leigh remarks, how so large a building as it evi- 
 dently was could have stood in so contracted a 
 space. The ground it occupied was once some 
 ten or twelve feet higher, and formed a mound 
 crowned by the castle keep in the days when 
 Henry the Fifth embarked at Southampton for the 
 invasion of France. 
 
 What must have been a very familiar sight in 
 Jane Austen's daily life at Castle Square is thus 
 narrated by her nephew : — 
 
 " The Marchioness had alight phaeton, drawn by six, 
 and sometimes by eight, little ponies, each pair decreas- 
 ing in size, and becoming lighter in color through all the 
 grades of dark brown, light brown, bay, and chestnut, 
 as it was placed farther away from the carriage. The 
 two leading pairs were managed by two boyish postil- 
 ions ; the two pairs nearest to the carriage were driven 
 in hand. It was a delight to me to look down from 
 the window and see this fairy equipage put together; 
 for the premises of the castle were so contracted that 
 the whole process went on in the little space that re- 
 mained of the open square." 
 
 Westward of Castle Square and close at hand is 
 the battlemented line of the city walls with a road- 
 
REMOVAL TO SOUTHAMPTOX. m 
 
 way along the parapet ; and from here a flight of 
 forty steps leads down to a broad modern esplanade 
 at the waterside. Below the square to the south- 
 west, approached by a narrow squalid street, and 
 facing the West Quay, is a long stretch of the city 
 wall, with a fine Edwardian arcade along its front. 
 Opposite this at one point is the time-worn wooden 
 structure before mentioned, the fashionable As- 
 sembly Room in the middle and later Georgian 
 period. 
 
 The neighborhood of Castle Square is not an 
 agreeable one in our day, and must have steadily 
 deteriorated for decade after decade till it became 
 what it is now, — one of the city slums. No trace 
 here remains of the Austen house, which, judging 
 from Mr. Austen Leigh's account, must have been 
 situated on the west side of the square, with its 
 garden extending to the base of the battlemented 
 wall already mentioned. All of the houses in the 
 square present a mean and dingy appearance, and 
 none of them would seem to be much over fifty 
 years old ; and certainly none of them were in ex- 
 istence in the Austens' time. Yet in spite of all 
 the changes the lapse of years has made, one feature 
 of the Castle Square of eighty years ago remains 
 practically the same as then, the one, too, which 
 must have been most dearly prized by the sisters, 
 — the fair prospect the situation offers. 
 
 Stand for a while on the parapet to which the 
 Austen garden once reached. Below the walls to 
 westward are the waters of the Test, no longer a 
 
U2 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 pretty, swiftly flowing trout stream, as at Stockbridge, 
 miles away in North Hants, but an estuary a mile or 
 two in breadth, and rapidly widening southward into 
 Southampton Water. Across its rippling surface 
 is seen the waving boscage of the great New Forest 
 in full view. Along the Test the many sails show 
 white as the wings of the screaming gulls that fly 
 above it. Perhaps it is toward evening ; and the 
 broad Test burns in the glow of the sun, that is 
 poised just above the New Forest trees, behind 
 which it glides a few moments later ; or it is early 
 morning, and the walls of the castle throw long 
 dark wavering shadows halfway across the river, 
 but beyond these shadows the sails redden, and the 
 skies above the New Forest glow with a pale reflex 
 of the eastern light. Or it may be that a low- 
 lying fog cuts off from view the farther shore ; or 
 the Test is ruffled by flaws or passing showers, or 
 foam- crested in the face of a western gale ; or the 
 full tide, " glazed with muffled moonlight," covers 
 all the sands, and swings in long slow undulations 
 from the castle walls to the New Forest shores. 
 Just such scenes as these one may see from time 
 to time from the old base court of the castle ; and 
 just such sights Jane Austen saw from her garden in 
 the same base court more than a lifetime ago. It 
 grows very easy to comprehend her liking for 
 Southampton when one has such views before him, 
 and remembers the lovely old-time garden from 
 which they could once have been witnessed. 
 How readily the family adjusted themselves to 
 
LIFE AT SOU THA MP TO h r . j^ 
 
 their new residence, and how the change was at 
 first enjoyed by them all, we know nothing defi- 
 nitely, since there is no correspondence existing for 
 the year 1806, and the memoir has nothing to add 
 in regard to it. Indeed, from the 30th of August, 
 1805, there is a break in the correspondence until 
 Jan. 7, 1807 ; and at this time, when we regain 
 certain intelligence of the family movements, Cas- 
 sandra is visiting at Godmersham, while Jane- is 
 keeping house for her mother and entertaining 
 her brother James and his wife, who had come 
 from Steventon for a short visit. Besides Mrs. 
 George Austen and Jane, the family circle now 
 comprised Capt. Francis Austen and his wife, 
 and Miss Martha Lloyd, the sister-in-law of James 
 Austen. To a certain extent the cares of the 
 household were shared by Miss Lloyd and Mrs. 
 Francis Austen ; but the practical direction of it 
 all must have been the province of Jane when her 
 elder sister was from home. Housekeeping does not 
 seem to have been particularly liked by her, perhaps 
 from the conscientious fear that she was not com- 
 petent to fill her sister's place, or the thought that 
 she was not doing enough for the comfort of those 
 for whom she was caring. Such an inference as 
 this last at any rate may be drawn, I think, from 
 such passages as the following in the first letter 
 of 1807 : — 
 
 " When you receive this, our guests will be gone or 
 going; and I shall be left to the comfortable disposal 
 of my time, to ease of mind from the torments of 
 
114 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 rice puddings and apple dumplings, and probably to re- 
 gret that I did not take more pains to please them all. 
 " Captain Foote dined with us on Friday, and I 
 fear will not soon venture again ; for the strength of 
 our dinner was a boiled leg of mutton, underdone even 
 for James, and Captain Foote has a particular dislike to 
 underdone mutton ; but he was so good-humored and 
 pleasant that I did not much mind his being starved." 
 
 We hear much of Francis Austen in the three 
 letters written during the winter of 1807. 
 
 " Frank's going into Kent," his sister writes in Feb- 
 ruary, '"' depends, of course, upon his being unem- 
 ployed ; but as the First Lord, after promising Lord 
 Moira that Captain A. should have the first good 
 frigate that was vacant, has since given away two or 
 three fine ones, he has no particular reason to expect 
 an appointment now." 
 
 A line or two farther on we hear that " Frank 
 has got a very bad cough for an Austen ; but it 
 does not disable him from making very nice 
 fringe for the drawing-room window-curtains." 
 
 A trifling item enough, but one which shows the 
 future admiral's aversion to anything like idleness, 
 — an aversion shared by his brothers and sisters 
 also. That Jane was not the only member of the 
 family who relied upon Cassandra's judgment is 
 shown in the following allusion to Captain Austen 
 and his wife : — 
 
 " Frank and Mary cannot at all approve of your not 
 being at home in time to help them in their finishing 
 purchases, and desire me to say that if you are not, 
 they will be as spiteful as possible, and choose every- 
 
SOCIETY IN SOUTHAMPTON. n 5 
 
 thing in the style most likely to vex you, — knives 
 that will not cut, glasses that will not hold, a sofa 
 without a seat, and a bookcase without shelves." 
 
 The Austens appear to have had by this time 
 many acquaintances in Southampton, and by no 
 means to have wanted for society, feeling obliged 
 to decline, in fact, a number of proffered civilities. 
 In this connection Jane writes at the opening of 
 1807,— 
 
 " Our acquaintance increase too fast. He [ Frank J 
 was recognized lately by Admiral Bertie; and a few days 
 since arrived the Admiral and his daughter Catherine 
 to wait upon us. There was nothing to like or dislike 
 in either. To the Berties are to be added the Lances, 
 with whose cards we have been endowed, and whose 
 visit Frank and I returned yesterday. They live about 
 a mile and three quarters from S., to the right of the 
 new road to Portsmouth ; and I believe their house 
 is one of those which are to be seen almost anywhere 
 among the woods on the other side of the Itchen. It is 
 a handsome building, stands high, and in a very beauti- 
 ful situation. We found only Mrs. Lance at home, and 
 whether she boasts any offspring beside a grand piano- 
 forte did not appear. She was civil and chatty enough, 
 and offered to introduce us to some acquaintance in 
 Southampton, which we gratefully declined. 
 
 " I suppose they must be acting by the orders of 
 Mr. Lance of Netherton in this civility, as there seems 
 no other reason for their coming near us They will 
 not come often, I dare say. They live in a handsome 
 style, and are rich, and she seemed to like to be rich; 
 and we gave her to understand that we were far from 
 being so. She will soon feel, therefore, that we are not 
 worth her acquaintance." 
 
Il6 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 In the quiet passing notice of the rich woman who 
 " seemed to like to be rich," it is easy to recog- 
 nize the same hand which gave us so many briefly 
 comprehensive characterizations in the pages of 
 " Emma " and " Mansfield Park." 
 
 In the letters of this winter are a number of al- 
 lusions to books of the day, — references which are 
 not without interest for the light they throw upon 
 Miss Austen's preferences in such matters : — 
 
 " ' Alphonsine ' did not do. We were disgusted in 
 twenty' pages, as, independent of a bad translation, it 
 has indelicacies which disgrace a pen hitherto so pure ; 
 and we changed it for the ' Female Quixote/ \ which 
 now makes our evening amusement to me a very high 
 one, as I find the work quite equal to what I re- 
 membered it- Mrs. F. A., to whom it is quite new, 
 enjoys it as much as one could wish ; the other Mary, 2 
 I believe, has little pleasure from that or any other 
 book. 
 
 " We are reading • Clarentine, ' 3 and are surprised 
 to find how foolish it is I remember liking it much 
 less on a second reading than at the first; and it does 
 not bear a third at all. It is full of unnatural conduct 
 and forced difficulties, without striking merit of any 
 kind. 
 
 " I recommend Mrs. Grant's letters as a present. 
 What they are about, and how many volumes they 
 form, I do not know, having never heard of them but 
 
 1 " The Female Quixote,'' a novel by Charlotte Lenox, 
 was first published in 1752. 
 
 2 The wife of James Austen. 
 
 3 A novel by Sarah Harriet Burney, half-sister to Madame 
 d'Arblay, published in 1796. 
 
A YOUNG VISITOR. 
 
 II 7 
 
 from Miss Irvine, who speaks of them as a new and 
 highly admired work, and as one which has pleased 
 her highly. I have inquired for the book here, but 
 find it quite unknown." 
 
 The book herein referred to is without doubt 
 " Letters from the Mountains," by Mrs. Anne 
 Grant of Laggan, which was published in 1806, 
 and enjoyed a considerable share of popularity for 
 a time, though at present she is best remembered 
 by a subsequent work, " Memoirs of an American 
 Lady." 
 
 In the second of the letters written during this 
 winter, mention is made of a young girl who spent 
 an afternoon at the Austens', and with whom Jane 
 seems to have been much pleased. 
 
 " The morning was so wet that I was afraid we 
 should not be able to see our little visitor, but Frank, 
 who alone could go to church, called for her after 
 service; and she is now talking away at my side, and 
 examining the treasures of my writing-desk drawers,— 
 very happy, I believe; not at all shy, of course 
 . . . What is become of all the shyness in the world ? 
 Moral as well as natural diseases disappear in the 
 progress of time; and new ones take their place. 
 Shyness and the sweating sickness have given way to 
 confidence and paralytic complaints. . . . Evening. — 
 Our little visitor has just left us, and left us highly 
 pleased with her , she is a nice, natural, open-hearted, 
 affectionate girl, with all the ready civility which one 
 sees in the best children in the present day ; so unlike 
 anything that I was myself at her age that I am often 
 all astonishment and shame." 
 
n8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Popular as Jane Austen always was with those of 
 her own age, she was even enthusiastically admired 
 by children ; and in many little ways she uncon- 
 sciously betrays the secret of their fondness for 
 her. For the time being she made their interests 
 hers, and treated them with the same gentle con- 
 sideration she accorded their elders. She does 
 not appear to have ever been so occupied as to 
 find their presence an annoyance, or ever to have 
 fancied it undignified to join them in their amuse- 
 ments or to provide them with diversions when 
 their own resources failed. Part of this came no 
 doubt from her own strong natural love for children ; 
 but still more, I think, proceeded from an intuitive 
 perception of each child's individuality, which en- 
 abled her to adapt herself to their varying natures 
 and thus win their hearts by respecting their sepa- 
 rate personalities. She allowed them to see that 
 their pursuits were not looked upon by her as in any 
 sense trifling ; and in return they gave her an un- 
 stinted affection. The wide circle of nephews 
 and nieces always found in " Aunt Jane " a ready 
 sharer in all their joys and sorrows ; and the other 
 children whom she knew experienced from her 
 much of the same appreciative kindness. 
 
 In June of 1808, Jane, in company with the Stev- 
 enton Austens (her brother James, his wife, and two 
 children), paid one of her many visits to Godmer- 
 sham, while Cassandra remained at Southampton ; 
 and the four letters which tell all that we definitely 
 know of this summer in her life were written from 
 
AT GODMERSHAM. 
 
 119 
 
 Godmersham in this month. The characteristic 
 family affection existing between the various Austens 
 is more than usually observable in those letters. On 
 their way to Kent the party had stopped in London 
 to visit Henry Austen, who had not been well ; and 
 Cassandra is now informed of his improved health. 
 Francis was at this time on board the " St. Albans," 
 anchored near the end of June off the Kentish coast ; 
 and we hear that Henry meditates a trip from Lon- 
 don in order to see his brother Frank, in which 
 case Jane hopes for a peep at him in Godmersham. 
 The two oldest brothers, James and Edward, ap- 
 pear to be nearly inseparable during this visit. At 
 one time they go together for a day at Sandling 
 Park, then, as now, the home of the Deedes family, 
 and at that period much admired for the beauty of 
 its mansion, built a few years before ; at another 
 they are setting off for Canterbury together ; while 
 their walks in each other's company about God- 
 mersham are very many. The writer's own greet- 
 ing from her brother's family is dwelt upon with 
 unmistakable delight : — 
 
 " Elizabeth, 1 who was dressing when we arrived, 
 came to me for a minute, attended by Marianne, 
 Charles, and Louisa, and, you will not doubt, gave me 
 a very affectionate welcome. That 1 had received such 
 from Edward also I need not mention; but I do, you 
 see, because it is a pleasure." 
 
 Reading this last line, one is irresistibly reminded 
 of George Eliot's pathetic confession in one of her 
 
 1 The wife of Edward Austen. 
 
120 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 letters, " I like not only to be loved, but to be told 
 that I am loved." 
 
 Something of the same desire for expressions of 
 tenderness was a part of the nature of this other 
 woman, who differed in so many ways from the great 
 novelist of our time, but who could not forbear 
 telling of the affectionate welcome from her 
 brother " because it was a pleasure." They loved 
 one another very dearly, these brothers and sisters, 
 and they were not ashamed to own the fact. 
 
 It must have been a lively, joyous family party 
 at Godmersham in that far-off June. The two 
 brothers, as we know, were constantly in each 
 other's society ; their wives and Jane were equally 
 happy in their own ; while the ten children of Ed- 
 ward, or such a proportion of them as had escaped 
 the tyranny of long clothes, were, it is safe to say, 
 delighted with the visit of Edward and Caroline, 
 the children of their uncle James. Fanny, the 
 oldest of the Godmersham children, was now a 
 girl of fifteen. She was then, and always remained, 
 a favorite with her aunt Jane, who tells Cassandra 
 in the first letter that their niece " is grown both in 
 height and size since last year, but not immoder- 
 ately, looks very well, and seems as to conduct and 
 manner just what she was and what one would 
 wish her to continue." 
 
 It was to this niece that Cassandra Austen be- 
 queathed her sister Jane's letters at the time of her 
 death in 1845. T ne niece was then Lady Knatch- 
 bull, the mother of Lord Brabourne, whose fairy 
 
REVEREND AUSTEX-LEIGH 121 
 
 tales have delighted a whole generation of young 
 readers. She survived till 1882, and soon after 
 that date the letters left her by her aunt Cassandra 
 were given to the world by Lord Brabourne. 
 
 " Little Edward," who was one of Jane's favor- 
 ite nephews, and the eldest son of her brother 
 James, was now a lad of ten, From his relatives, 
 the Leigh Perrots, he inherited the estate of Scarlets 
 in Berkshire in maturer life, at which epoch he 
 added the name of Leigh to his own. At past 
 seventy, when he had been the Reverend Austen- 
 Leigh for many years, he published the first ex- 
 tended life of his gifted aunt which had ever 
 appeared. This was in 1869; an ^ hi s death oc- 
 curred five years after, in 1874. One of his sons, 
 Augustus Austen-Leigh, is the present Provost of 
 King's College, Cambridge. 
 
 A photograph before me of the Reverend Mr. 
 Austen- Leigh, in which may be traced consid- 
 erable resemblance to the Austens, represents 
 him as a benignant, kindly old gentleman of sixty 
 or more years. There are many references to him 
 in the chronicle of this visit. " His uncle Edward 
 talks nonsense to him delightfully, more than he 
 can always understand," Jane writes in one place ; 
 and the last letter closes with the item, " Little 
 Edward is quite well again." 
 
 But these were not the only two young mem- 
 bers of the household who occupied their aunt 
 Jane's thoughts ; allusions to the more juvenile 
 ones are frequent, and, to one who does not 
 
122 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 follow closely the details of the family history, 
 somewhat confusing ; and even Aunt Cassandra, one 
 would think, must sometimes have been at fault to 
 establish the identity of every child mentioned, when 
 the number was so large and the names not always 
 dissimilar. But the loving Aunt Jane had no such 
 difficulty ; and all the references were probably 
 clearer than it might now seem to the only individ- 
 ual she ever expected to read her letters. 
 
 In the midst of the numberless bits of family 
 details, all of which she knew would be of as much 
 interest to her sister and mother as to herself, we 
 come suddenly upon a passing reference to the 
 chief literary event of 1808, — the appearance of 
 " Marmion," a poem which at the time Jane wrote 
 had been out but four months. She does not seem 
 to have been so much impressed by the book as 
 many of her contemporaries, and was not wanting 
 in the courage of her opinions : " Ought I to be 
 very much pleased with ' Marmion ' ? As yet I am 
 not. James reads it aloud in the evening. — the 
 short evening, beginning at about ten and broken 
 by supper." 
 
 As it turned out, however, she came to like the 
 work better ere the end of the book was reached. 
 
 In the last letter we find her expressing some 
 wonder that her brother Frank's wife, then visiting 
 on the Isle of Wight, did not show as much en- 
 thusiastic impatience over her husband's return in 
 the "St. Albans " as the affectionate sister naturally 
 looked for: "When are calculations ever right? 
 
END OF THE VISIT IN KENT I2 $ 
 
 I could have sworn that Mary must have heard 
 of the ' St. Alban's ' return, and would have been 
 wild to come home or to be doing something. 
 Nobody ever feels or acts, suffers or enjoys, as 
 one expects," — a discovery which the author of 
 " Pride and Prejudice " has not remained singular 
 in making. 
 
 The happy Godmersham visit drew to its close 
 early in July. It was already planned that Jane 
 should return to Southampton on the 8th ; and in 
 a postscript, added on July i, to her letter of the 
 day before, we find her saying, — 
 
 " In another week I shall be at home ; and there 
 my having been at Godmersham will seem like a 
 dream, as my visit at Brompton seems already. 
 
 "The orange wine will want our care soon. But in 
 the mean time, ior elegance and ease and luxury, the 
 Hattons and Milles dine here to-day, and I shall eat 
 ice and drink French wine, and be above vulgar 
 economy Luckily the pleasures of friendship, of 
 unreserved conversation, of similarity of taste and 
 opinions, will make good amends for orange wine" 
 
 There is one other allusion to the Brompton 
 visit, but no clew is given as to the time it was 
 made ; but it probably took place just previously to 
 the Godmersham visit, as we know that Jane was in 
 London on June 4, and arrived at her brother 
 Edward's on the 14th, so that between these two 
 dates there was sufficient opportunity for its occur- 
 rence. The Brompton meant is in all likelihood 
 the London suburb, and not the portion of Chatham 
 in Kent which goes by that name. 
 
124 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 A short distance from Castle Square on the west 
 side of the High Street at the corner of East 
 Street is the Church of All Saints, a Grecian-fronted 
 edifice with Ionic columns, which replaced, in 
 1792, an old Norman church originally called All- 
 Hallows. Of this church the Reverend Dr. Mant 
 was rector from 1793101817; and during the time 
 the Austens resided in Southampton they were his 
 parishioners. The church is rather closer to Castle 
 Square than that of St. Lawrence, and consider- 
 ably nearer than either the ancient Holy Rood 
 Church, or the still more venerable temple dedi- 
 cated to Saint Michael, and was probably chosen 
 as their parish church on account of its con- 
 venient location, since Mrs. Austen could more 
 frequently attend it than any other. Its appear- 
 ance has changed very little since Jane Austen 
 attended service there ; but the interest attaching 
 to it in the eyes of the visitor can be little other 
 than the fact that it was the church at which she 
 worshipped, since, unlike St. Michael's, it has no 
 antiquarian or architectural features to detain one. 
 The church of her choice during her life in Bath 
 is not known ; but that All- Saints was the one she 
 frequented in Southampton may be considered as 
 conclusively established, and it is to this church 
 and its rector that allusion is made a few pages 
 farther on. 
 
 July and August of 1808 we may suppose the 
 sisters to have passed in each other's company at 
 Southampton ; but in September Cassandra was 
 
EVENINGS IN SOUTHAMPTON. 125 
 
 again in Godmersham, and the correspondence 
 was taken up once more. As usual, the absent 
 sister is kept informed of the small events which 
 went to make up the daily round of life at the 
 Southampton home, — matters which Cassandra 
 could doubtless have pretty accurately surmised 
 for herself, but which she always found of absorb- 
 ing interest when related in the younger sister's 
 sprightly, gossipy style. How well the elder Miss 
 Austen could parallel from her own recollections 
 some such bit as this from Jane's letter of Octo- 
 ber 1, as she smiled over the merry nonsense at 
 its close ! — 
 
 " Our party at Mrs. Duer's produced the novelties 
 of two old Mrs. Pollens and Mrs. Hey wood, with whom 
 my mother made a quadrille table ; and of Mrs Mait- 
 land and Caroline, and Mr. Booth without his sisters, 
 at commerce. I have got a husband for each of the 
 Miss Maitlands. Colonel Powlett and his brother 
 have taken Argyle's inner house ; and the consequence 
 is so natural that I have no ingenuity in planning it. If 
 the brother should luckily be a little sillier than the 
 Colonel, what a treasure for Eliza ! " 
 
 One of their evenings at home is described as 
 follows : — 
 
 " About an hour and a half after your toils on 
 Wednesday ended, ours began. At seven o'clock, 
 Mrs Harrison, her two daughters, and two visitors, 
 with Mr. Debary and his eldest sister, walked in. 
 
 "A second pool of commerce, and all the longer by 
 the addition ot the two girls, who, during the first, had 
 one corner of the table and spillikins to themselves, 
 
126 JANE AUSTEN'S LIEE. 
 
 was the ruin of us ; it completed the prosperity of Mr. 
 Debary, however, for he won them both. 
 
 " Mr Harrison came late and sat by the fire, for 
 which I envied him, as we had our usual luck of having 
 a very cold evening. It rained when our company 
 came, but was dry again before they left us. 
 
 " The Miss Rallards are said to be remarkably well- 
 informed ; their manners are unaffected and pleasing ; 
 but they do not talk quite freely enough to be agreeable, 
 nor can I discover any right they had by taste or feel- 
 ing to go their late tour " 
 
 Alas ! the Miss Ballards have had many succes- 
 sors in tourists of a later day, whose tastes and 
 feelings are far from commensurate with the mul- 
 titude of advantages afforded for their cultivation. 
 
 It would appear that about this time Mrs. George 
 Austen had entertained some thoughts of leaving 
 Southampton, for Jane writes that her mother was 
 really expecting to move to Alton in East Hants, 
 as the rent of their present house was becoming 
 somewhat of a burden upon her income. " Mrs. 
 Lyell's hundred and thirty guineas' rent have made 
 a great impression," Jane observes in regard to 
 her mother's state of mind. Before the end of Sep- 
 tember, however, Mrs. Austen had begun to fancy 
 it would be an excellent solution of her perplexities 
 if she should remove to Wye in Kent, and thus be 
 near to her son Edward at Godmersham. The 
 sudden death of her daughter-in-law, the mistress 
 of Godmersham, which occurred early in October, 
 changed her plans very materially. Mr. Edward 
 Austen after this event was desirous that his mother 
 
CHOICE OF NEW HOME 
 
 127 
 
 should be comfortably settled on one or the other 
 of his estates, either in Kent or Hampshire, and 
 accordingly offered her the choice of a home in 
 either locality, — an offer which perhaps he could 
 not conveniently make before, or which his recent 
 sorrow made him realize the need of making. She 
 selected Chawton Cottage on the Hampshire 
 property, probably, as Lord Brabourne suggests, 
 on account of her lifelong associations with that 
 shire ; and thenceforth the family arrangements at 
 Southampton were all made with reference to 
 Chawton as their future home. 
 
 The affliction which had befallen her brother 
 was keenly felt by Jane, who had a strong regard 
 for her sister-in-law ; and her letters at this time are 
 full of the sad event : — 
 
 " That you are for ever in our thoughts you will not 
 doubt. I see your mournful party in my mind's eye 
 under every varying circumstance of the day ; and in 
 the evening especially, figure to myself its sad gloom : 
 the efforts to talk, the frequent summons to melancholy 
 orders and cares, and poor Edward, restless in misery, 
 going from one room to another and perhaps not 
 seldom upstairs, to see all that remains of his Eliza- 
 beth. Dearest Fanny must now look upon herself as 
 his prime source of comfort, his dearest friend ; as the 
 being who is gradually to supply to him, to the extent 
 that is possible, what he has lost." 
 
 The hope expressed in the last sentence met 
 with ample fulfilment ; and Lord Brabourne writes 
 that " from that moment my mother took charge 
 
128 JANE AUSTEN S LIFE. 
 
 of the family, watched over her brothers and sisters, 
 was her father's right hand and mainstay, and 
 proved herself as admirable in that position as 
 afterwards in her married life." 
 
 It was of this same niece, who, at fifteen, took 
 up so bravely the burden which had been her 
 mother's, no light yoke to bear in a house where ten 
 children had to be taken care of, that her aunt Jane 
 had written a few days before the bereavement : 
 
 " I am greatly pleased with your account of Fanny, 
 I found her in the summer just what you describe,— 
 almost another sister, — and could not have supposed 
 that a niece would ever have been so much to me. 
 She is quite after one's own heart ; give her my best 
 love, and tell her that I always think of her with 
 pleasure." 
 
 The tender heart that felt so deeply for her 
 brother in his great sorrow could not fail to go out 
 in sympathy toward the little ones in their grief: 
 " Your account of Lizzy is very interesting. Poor 
 child ! One must hope the impression will be 
 strong ; and yet one's heart aches for a dejected 
 mind of eight years old." 
 
 Two of Edward's sons were at Winchester 
 College at this time, and being excused from 
 school duties on account of their affliction, spent 
 a few days at their grandmother's in Southampton. 
 Their aunt Jane seems to have devoted herself to 
 their entertainment and to have done all in her 
 power to lighten the weight of their common 
 sorrow. She tells Cassandra, — 
 
NEPHEWS OF JANE AUSTEN. I2 g 
 
 " They behave extremely well in every respect, show- 
 ing quite as much feeling as one wishes to see, and on 
 every occasion speaking of their father with the liveliest 
 affection. His letter was read over by each of them 
 yesterday, and with many tears. George sobbed aloud ; 
 Edward's tears do not flow so easily. . . . George is 
 almost a new acquaintance to me ; and I find him in a 
 different way as engaging as Edward. 
 
 " We do not want amusement : bilbocatch, at which 
 George is indefatigable, spillikins, paper ships, riddles, 
 conundrums, and cards, with watching the flow and 
 ebb of the river, and now and then a stroll out, keep us 
 well employed. . . I hope your sorrowing party were 
 at church yesterday, and have no longer that to dread. 
 . . . / weiit with my two nephews j and I saw 
 Edward was much affected by the sermon, which, 
 indeed, I could have supposed p?irposely addressed to 
 the afflicted, if the text had not naturally come in the 
 course of Dr. Mant's observations on the Litany. 
 1 All that are in danger, necessity, or tribulation,' was 
 the subject of it The weather did not allow us 
 afterwards to get farther than the quay, where George 
 was very happy as long as we could stay, flying about 
 from one side to the other, and skipping on board a 
 collier immediately 
 
 " In the evening we had the Psalms and Lessons, 
 and a sermon at home, to which they were very 
 attentive ; but you will not expect to hear that they 
 did not return to conundrums the moment it was 
 over. . . . 
 
 "While I write now, George is most industriously 
 making and naming paper ships, at which he after- 
 wards shoots with horse-chestnuts, brought from 
 Steventon on purpose; and Edward, equally intent 
 over the ' Lake of Killarney,' twisting himself about in 
 one of the great chairs. . . . Tuesday. — We had a 
 9 
 
130 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 little water party yesterday: I and my two nephews 
 went from the Itchen Ferry up to Northam, 1 where 
 we landed, looked into the 74, and walked home ; and it 
 was so much enjoyed that I had intended to take them 
 to Netley 2 to-day. The tide is just right for our going 
 immediately after moonshine; but I am afraid there 
 will be rain. If we cannot get so far, however, we may 
 perhaps go round from the ferry to the quay. 
 
 " I had not proposed doing more than cross the 
 Itchen yesterday ; but it proved so pleasant, and so 
 much to the satisfaction of all, that when we reached 
 the middle of the stream, we agreed to be rowed up the 
 river. Both the boys rowed great part of the way ; and 
 their questions and remarks, as well as their enjoy- 
 ment, were very amusing. George's enquiries were 
 endless ; and his eagerness in everything reminds me 
 often of his uncle Henry. 
 
 " Our evening was equally agreeable in its way : I 
 introduced speculation, and it was so much approved 
 that we hardly knew how to leave off." 
 
 I think there are few episodes in Jane Austen's 
 life over which it is pleasanter to linger in thought 
 than this, in which we see her giving up day after day 
 to the diversion of these two bright boys to whom 
 their first great sorrow had. come so early. True 
 enough, she enjoyed their company and loved to 
 have them with her ; but it is not to be supposed 
 that she had no other cares to occupy her at this 
 time. Nevertheless, her other duties seem to have 
 been quietly laid aside just then in the face of the 
 
 1 One of the suburbs of Southampton. 
 
 2 Netley Abbey is distant from Southampton between two 
 and three miles eastward. 
 
NEPHEWS OF JANE AUSTEN. I3 i 
 
 one she regarded as the most imperative. I like to 
 summon up before me the pretty picture the little 
 company must have made rowing up the peaceful 
 Itchen, — not the busy stream it is now, with steam 
 ferry-bridges constantly plying between the city and 
 its growing suburb of Woolston, but a quiet stretch 
 of water vexed only by the ferry, which was a 
 thousand years old in their day, and by the 
 pleasure-boats belonging to the wealthy owners 
 of the villas on its eastern side. One may be very 
 sure that the two boys found an excellent comrade 
 in their handsome aunt, — one who would hear all 
 their questions in smiling patience, praise their 
 skill in rowing, and perhaps now and then take an 
 oar herself when they urged her to do so. 
 
 The older of the lads survived his aunt for 
 more than sixty years ; and the younger, who is 
 described by Lord Brabourne as " one of those 
 men who are clever enough to do almost anything, 
 but live to their lives' end very comfortably doing 
 nothing," outlived her by half a century. Her 
 observation that he reminded her of his uncle 
 Henry shows something of her penetration in re- 
 gard to character, for Henry Austen, who was most 
 undeniably clever, perhaps in some respects the 
 most brilliant member of his family, can hardly be 
 said to have accomplished much more in his own 
 long life than to have lived comfortably and en- 
 joyed himself. Till middle life he was always full 
 of eager interest in plans which ultimately proved 
 abortive ; and the same enthusiasm which at last 
 
132 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 faded into complacent acceptance of life's easier 
 conditions found its subsequent counterpart in his 
 nephew, whose " enquiries were endless," but w r ho 
 in all his life, according to Lord Brabourae, " did 
 nothing worthy of mention." One thing at least 
 Jane Austen's early death secured her from, — the 
 pain of seeing this beloved nephew, "ittle Dordy," 
 as she sometimes styles him, renew the disappoint- 
 ment she must have continually felt, though it 
 but seldom found utterance, in regard to her 
 brother Henry. 
 
 As winter drew near, a visit from Henry Austen 
 was looked forward to by the Southampton family ; 
 and Jane writes, — 
 
 " Our brother we may perhaps see in the course of a 
 few days; and we mean to take the opportunity of his 
 help to go one night to the play. Martha 1 ought to 
 see the inside of the theatre once while she lives 
 in Southampton ; and I think she will hardly wish to 
 take a second view." 
 
 From this we may infer that the presentation of 
 the drama in Southampton eighty or ninety years 
 ago left much to be desired. In a letter of 
 December this same year, we find Jane expressing 
 much pleasure in the possession of a new pair of 
 bracelets ; and following this are several passages 
 so strongly characteristic of the writer in her gayest 
 mood that I make no apology for transcribing them 
 almost entire. 
 
 1 Martha Lloyd, afterward the second wife of Francis 
 Austen. 
 
BALL AT SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 *33 
 
 " Soon after I had closed my last letter to you, we 
 were visited by Mrs. Dickens and her sister-in-law, 
 Mrs. Bertie, the wife of a lately made admiral Mrs. 
 F. A., 1 I believe, was their first object, but they put 
 up with us very kindly. . . . Mrs D. seems a really 
 agreeable woman; that is, her manners are gentle, 
 and she knows a great many of our connections in 
 West Kent. Mrs. Bertie lives in the Polygon, and 
 was out when we returned her visit, which are her 
 two virtues. 
 
 " A larger circle of acquaintance and an increase of 
 amusement is quite in character with our approaching 
 removal. Yes, I mean to go to as many balls as pos- 
 sible, that I may have a good bargain. Everybody 
 is very much concerned at our going away ; and every- 
 body is acquainted with Chawton, and speaks of it as 
 a remarkably pretty village ; and everybody knows the 
 house we describe, but nobody fixes on the right. 
 
 " I am very much obliged to Mrs. Knight for such a 
 proof of the interest she takes in me ; and she may de- 
 pend on it that I will marry Mr. Papillon, whatever 
 may be his reluctance or my own. I owe her much 
 more than such a trifling sacrifice. 
 
 " Our ball was rather more amusing than I expected. 
 Martha liked it very much; and I did not gape till the 
 last quarter of an hour. It was past nine before we 
 were sent for, and not twelve when we returned. The 
 room was tolerably full; and there were perhaps 
 thirty couple of dancers. The melancholy part was 
 to see so many dozen young women standing by with- 
 out partners, and each of them with two ugly naked 
 shoulders. 
 
 " It was the same room in which we danced fifteen 
 
 1 Mrs. Francis Austen, who had just left Southampton 
 with her husband. 
 
I34 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 years ago. I thought it all over, and in spite of the 
 shame of being so much older, felt with thankfulness 
 that I was quite as happy now as then. We paid an 
 additional shilling for our tea, which we took as we 
 chose in an adjoining and very comfortable room. 
 
 " There were only four dances, and it went to my 
 heart that the Miss Lances ( one of them, too, named 
 Emma) should have partners only for two. You will 
 not expect to hear that / was asked to dance ; but I 
 was — by the gentleman we met that Sunday with 
 Captain d'Auvergne. We have always kept up a 
 bowing acquaintance since; and being pleased with his 
 black eyes, I spoke to him at the ball, which brought 
 on me this civility ; but I do not know his name, and 
 he seems so little at home in the English language that 
 I believe his black eyes may be the best of him." 
 
 At the close of 1808 James Austen, who had now 
 been rector of Steventon for nearly eight years, re- 
 ceived a very acceptable addition to his stipend in 
 the gift of ^100 a year from his uncle and aunt at 
 Bath, — Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Perrot ; and this event, 
 like every other piece of good fortune which befell 
 her five brothers, gave Jane great pleasure. 
 
 " We have now pretty well ascertained James's in- 
 come to be eleven hundred pounds, curate paid, which 
 makes us very happy, — the ascertainment as well as 
 the income." 
 
 In the last letter of 1808 mention is incidentally 
 made of an elderly spinster of uncertain temper, 
 whose company was in general very little desired, 
 but whose friendlessness excited a sincere touch of 
 
C1MRITABLE ESTIMATES. 
 
 J 35 
 
 sympathy in the cheerful happy woman whose 
 society no one could have too much of. 
 
 "Our evening party on Thursday produced nothing 
 more remarkable than Miss Murden s coming too, 
 though she had declined it absolutely in the morning, 
 and sitting very ungracious and very silent with us 
 from seven o clock till half after eleven." 
 
 This is written on Tuesday, but on Wednesday we 
 hear that — 
 
 " Miss Murden was quite a different creature this 
 last evening from what she had been before, owing to 
 her having with Martha's help found a situation in the 
 morning, which bids very fair for comfort. When she 
 leaves Steventon, she comes to board and lodge with 
 Mrs. Hookey, the chemist, — for there is no Mr 
 Hookey. I cannot say that I am in any hurry for the 
 conclusion of her present visit, but I was truly glad to 
 see her comfortable in mind and spirits ; at her age 
 perhaps one may be as friendless oneself, and in 
 similar circumstances quite as captious." 
 
 It was characteristic of Jane Austen to be able 
 to perceive that people often become disagreeable 
 from causes to a great extent beyond their con- 
 trol ; and she judged human failings accordingly. 
 It was this spirit of gentle tolerance which once 
 made her say of a very tiresome old lady of her 
 acquaintance, — 
 
 " Poor Mrs. Stent ! it has been her lot to be always 
 in the way ; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in 
 time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, un- 
 equal to anything and unwelcome to everybody " 
 
136 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 There are fewer references at this period to 
 Charles Austen, who was then at Bermuda, than 
 usual in her correspondence ; but there is one 
 which is worth quotation for its affectionate sisterly 
 extravagance of phrase, — 
 
 " I must write to Charles next week. You may 
 guess in what extravagant terms Earle Harwood 
 speaks of him. He is looked up to by everybody 
 in all America." 
 
 As the weeks go on, the preparations and plans for 
 the new home in Chawton find an important place 
 in Jane's communications, as, for instance : — 
 
 14 Yes, yes, we will have a pianoforte, as good a one 
 as can be got for thirty guineas ; and I will practise 
 country-dances, that we may have some amusement for 
 our nephews and nieces when we have the pleasure of 
 their company." 
 
 What w T onder that such an aunt was popular 
 with nieces and nephews ! At Chawton House I 
 saw in the summer of 1889 a volume of dance 
 music in manuscript, the careful handiwork of the 
 two sisters ; so we may believe that Jane's kindly in- 
 tentions were carried into effect, and indeed Mr. 
 Austen- Leigh makes mention that at Chawton she 
 practised daily, and usually before breakfast. 
 
 In the midst of her last winter at Southampton, 
 busied with household cares and social engagements 
 not a few, she still had time to keep up at least a par- 
 tial acquaintance with the literature of the day, for 
 we find her writing thus of one of Lady Morgan's 
 
LADY MORGAN'S NOVELS. j^ 
 
 early books, " Woman ; or, Ida of Athens," which 
 was published at the beginning of 1809. 
 
 " To set against your new novel, of which nobody 
 ever heard before, and perhaps never may again, 
 we have got * Ida of Athens,' by Miss Owenson, 
 which must be very clever, because it was written, as 
 the authoress says, in three months. We have only 
 read the preface yet; but her 'Irish Girl' 1 does not 
 make me expect much. If the warmth of her lan- 
 guage could affect the body, it might be worth reading 
 in this weather." 
 
 Who now has leisure to read Lady Morgan's 
 novels, composed in three months? When one 
 recalls the many months of patient writing and 
 revision which went to the making of any one of 
 Jane Austen's finished sketches, we can well be- 
 lieve that she distrusted the hasty methods of her 
 contemporary, who though seven years her junior 
 was already the author of as many books as the 
 Hampshire novelist produced in her whole life. 
 To a more famous book which was published at 
 about the same time as "Ida of Athens" she also 
 refers in one of this winter's letters : — 
 
 " You have by no means raised my curiosity after 
 ' Caleb.' My disinclination for it before was affected, 
 but now it is real. I do not like the evangelicals. Of 
 course I shall be delighted when I read it, like other 
 people; but till 1 do, I dislike it." 
 
 1 " The Wild Irish Girl," by Lady Morgan, was published 
 in 1801. 
 
I3 8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 This is said on the 23d of January; and on the 
 30th she again makes mention of Mrs. Hannah 
 More's chef d'ceuvre. — 
 
 " I am not at all ashamed about th"e name of the 
 novel, having been guilty of no insult towards your 
 handwriting. The diphthong I always saw ; but know- 
 ing how fond you were of adding a vowel wherever 
 you could, I attributed it to that alone, and the knowl- 
 edge of the truth does the book no service The only 
 merit it could have was in the name of ' Caleb.,' which 
 has an honest, unpretending sound ; but in ' Ccelebs ' 
 there is pedantry and affectation. Is it written only to 
 classical scholars ? " 
 
 There is another playful arrow aimed at Cas- 
 sandra's spelling in one of these January letters ; 
 but it must be confessed that Jane's own spelling was 
 not wholly above reproach. " Niece " is invariably 
 spelled " neice " in her correspondence ; " Harriet " 
 appears as "Harriot;" and similar misplacements 
 and substitutions are common in her manuscript. 
 Accuracy in spelling seems to be one of the virtues 
 much more strenuously insisted upon by the pres- 
 ent generation than by the members of the one 
 which included its great- grandparents. In an age 
 which may almost be said to have cultivated in- 
 dividuality in regard to orthography, the humor 
 presumably concealed in eccentric sequence of 
 letters would have fallen most lamentably flat. 
 
 "You used me scandalously by not mentioning 
 Edward Cooper's sermons. I tell you everything; 
 and it is unknown what mysteries you conceal from 
 
SIR JOHN MOORE. 139 
 
 me ; and, to add to the rest, you persevere in giving 
 a final e to ' invalid,' thereby putting it out of one's 
 power to suppose Mrs. E. Leigh, even for a moment, 
 a veteran soldier." 
 
 As in the novels so in the letters there are but few 
 allusions to contemporary events in the European 
 world ; yet they are not entirely wanting. For 
 instance, we have the death of Sir John Moore 
 twice referred to : — 
 
 " This is grievous news from Spain It is well that 
 Dr. Moore was spared" the knowledge of such a sons 
 death." 
 
 This is on January 24, and in the next letter she 
 adds, — 
 
 " I am sorry to find that Sir J. Moore has a mother 
 living; but though a very heroic son, he might not be 
 a very necessary one to her happiness. . . . I wish Sir 
 John had united something of the Christian with the 
 hero in his death." 
 
 Because there is so little reference in her novels 
 and letters to the historical events of her genera- 
 tion, Miss Austen has more than once been re- 
 proached with indifference. The most momentous 
 events were taking place in Europe during her 
 lifetime, yet save for less than half a dozen brief 
 allusions, occurring incidentally in her novels, and 
 one or two in her correspondence, like the one 
 just quoted, we should not know from either novels 
 or letters that this was the epoch of the first 
 Napoleon, that her countrymen were dying by 
 
140 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 thousands in the trenches during the Peninsular 
 War, or fighting with unexampled heroism on the 
 field of Waterloo. Was this indifference on her 
 part? Not wholly that, it seems to me. 
 
 That her novels should present almost no re- 
 flections of the stirring close of the eighteenth 
 century, and the equally tumultuous dawning of 
 the nineteenth, need not surprise one. The unex- 
 pressed principle upon which she acted in literary 
 composition was to write of nothing concerning 
 which she had not personal knowledge; and 
 naturally this limited very materially the size of 
 her canvases, excluding altogether the scenes 
 in political or literary life of which she knew 
 nothing. 
 
 I confess that I have more difficulty in account- 
 ing for the omission from her correspondence of all 
 mention of what was passing in the world at large. 
 From her two brothers in the navy she must have 
 learned much of the nature and extent of naval 
 movements at that time ; and we know that in their 
 absence she kept herself informed of the position 
 of the squadrons of which their vessels formed 
 parts. But her other brothers appear not to have 
 concerned themselves very greatly with matters 
 outside the daily current of their lives j and their 
 attitude no doubt affected Jane's to a great ex- 
 tent. One was a country clergyman, with a 
 multitude of small parish cares absorbing his time 
 and thoughts ; another a country gentleman whose 
 hours were mainly devoted to the management of 
 
RESTRICTED SYMPATHIES. 
 
 141 
 
 two large estates, a hundred miles apart ; while the 
 third was a man too full of his own multifarious 
 schemes, and numberless attentions to the pleasure 
 of his many relatives, to have much room for, 
 thought of other things. Like her brothers, Jane 
 was a person of restricted sympathies. Her feel- 
 ings in regard to the men and women she knew 
 were both active and kindly; but the circum- 
 stances of her life were not such as to broaden 
 the field of her sympathies, and to this must be 
 attributed her lack of interest in the great world of 
 affairs. It must be kept well in mind also that 
 her correspondence which has been preserved, is 
 but a small portion of the whole ; and that for 
 several periods of two or three years, or even 
 longer, we have not a line of her writing to guide 
 us to a knowledge of her thoughts and feelings. 
 Had we more letters or a correspondence ad- 
 dressed to more than one person, — for that is 
 the practical limitation of what we do possess, — 
 we might discover in her a wider range of sensi- 
 bilities than is now apparent. Her position in 
 regard to the larger aspects of her time was, 
 let us believe, not so much one of indifference as 
 that necessarily assumed by one who from lack 
 of knowledge underrated the importance of 
 their bearing upon the century in which she 
 lived. 
 
 At the close of the Austen residence in the base 
 court of Southampton Castle, Jane had reached 
 the age of thirty-four ; but she enjoyed an occa- 
 
142 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 sional ball nearly as much as when still on the 
 sunny side of twenty, and of the last one she at- 
 tended in Southampton we are told that she could 
 have stayed longer but for the arrival of her list 
 shoes to take her home. We can well believe that 
 on this occasion she did not want for partners, or 
 if this could possibly have been, that any lack of 
 attendants would have ruffled the surface of her 
 perpetual good-nature. 
 
 One more pleasant reference to the favorite 
 niece, Fanny, which occurs in the latest letter of 
 this winter, must close our account of the South- 
 ampton life, which had been in the main a very 
 satisfactory one, but which the family were now 
 quite willing to exchange for the home awaiting 
 them at Chawton. 
 
 " I am gratified by her having pleasure in what I 
 write; but I wish the knowledge of my being exposed 
 to her discerning criticism may not hurt my style by 
 inducing too great a solicitude. I begin already to 
 weigh my words and sentences more than I did, and 
 am looking about for a sentiment, an illustration, or a 
 metaphor in every corner of the room. Could my 
 ideas flow as fast as the rain in the store-closet it 
 would be charming." 
 
 She had just been writing of her niece that while 
 the young girl continued to give happiness to 
 those about her, she would be pretty sure of her 
 own share. 
 
 Consciously or unconsciously, Jane Austen's life 
 was tuned to this same key ; and her private hap- 
 
UNSOUGHT HAPPINESS. ^ 
 
 piness was always assured, because it came to her 
 in the ordinary course of an existence which gave 
 delight to every one within its range. All happi- 
 ness is sweet ; but unsought happiness is sweetest, 
 and this higher joy was always hers. 
 
 NOTE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The Very Reverend G. W. Kitchin, Dean of Win- 
 chester, in a letter to the author, observes in regard 
 to Miss Austen's spelling : — 
 
 " By the way, don't cite Harriot against people 
 as a miss-spelling. It was the fashionable way of 
 both spelling and pronouncing the name (formerly- 
 far more fashionable than now) in the eighteenth 
 century. It was not the thing to sound the two r's, 
 and the a was made very broad." 
 
VIII. 
 
 REMOVAL TO CHAWTON ; PUBLICATION OF "SENSE 
 AND SENSIBILITY," "PRIDE AND PREJUDICE," 
 AND " MANSFIELD PARK." 
 
 IN December of 1808 Jane had written to her 
 sister that they hoped or wanted " to be settled 
 in Chawton in time for Henry to come to us for some 
 shooting in October at least, or a little earlier; 
 and Edward may visit us after taking his boys 
 back to Winchester," — adding, " Suppose we name 
 the 4th of September." This arrangement prob- 
 ably underwent some modification, for a fortnight 
 later they seem to have definitely decided to leave 
 Southampton on Easter Monday, April 3, and after 
 visiting at Godmersham to go directly to their new 
 home. With what degree of precision this plan 
 was carried out we are left in uncertainty, since 
 there are no letters existing from Jane to her sister 
 between the end of January, 1809, and the middle 
 of April, 181 1. That the removal was accom- 
 plished, however, in the late spring or early sum- 
 mer of 1809, we may safely take for granted; 
 for with everything in readiness at Chawton, 
 there remained no reason to delay leaving 
 Southampton. 
 
 The house at Chawton, which was to be their 
 home for the rest of their lives, had originally 
 

REMOVAL TO CHAWTON. i 45 
 
 been an inn, or posting-house ; and for this pur- 
 pose was well adapted by its situation, being so 
 near the high-road that the front door opened 
 directly upon it. Several additions which Mr. 
 Edward Austen made to the building at this time 
 gave the exterior more the air of a private dwell- 
 ing ; while extensive alterations inside increased 
 its capacity for comfort. It stood very near the 
 entrance to Chawton Park, and was the last house 
 in Chawton village on the right-hand side of the 
 road from Alton, a mile to the eastward ; just in 
 front was a fork in the road, — the Winchester 
 highway turning to the right, and that to Gosport 
 to the left. According to Mr. Austen-Leigh's 
 description, — 
 
 " A good-sized entrance and two sitting-rooms made 
 the length of the house, all intended originally to look 
 upon the road ; but the large drawing-room window 
 was blocked up and turned into a bookcase, and an- 
 other opened at the side, which gave to view only turf 
 and trees, as a high wooden fence and hornbeam 
 hedge shut out the Winchester road, which skirted 
 the whole length of the little domain. Trees were 
 planted each side to form a shrubbery walk, carried 
 round the enclosure. . . . There was a pleasant ir- 
 regular mixture of hedgerow and gravel walk and 
 orchard and long grass for mowing, arising from 
 two or three little enclosures having been thrown 
 together. The house itself was quite as good as 
 the generality of parsonage-houses then were, and 
 much in the same style, and was capable of receiv- 
 ing other members of the family as well as frequent 
 visitors." 
 
 10 
 
146 JANE AUSTEN S LIFE. 
 
 In Lord Brabourne's interesting account of the 
 cottage as it appeared in 1884, he mentions the 
 bricked-up drawing-room window, but appears to 
 think that the change here indicated had been ac- 
 complished since the time of the Austens ; for he 
 goes on to observe that he believes this was " the 
 window of the drawing-room of the house when 
 Jane's family lived there." The matter is not one 
 of importance, but it may be noted that the closing 
 of this opening would insure a greater degree of 
 privacy to the occupants of the house; and as Mr. 
 Austen- Leigh was in his boyhood and during the 
 lifetime of his aunt Jane a frequent visitor at his 
 grandmother's, his account is doubtless the more 
 accurate one in this particular. 
 
 The present condition of the cottage l is well 
 shown in photographs taken for the author in Sep- 
 tember, 1889, by the courtesy of the present 
 owner of Chawton Park, — Montagu Knight, Es- 
 quire, a grandnephew of Jane Austen. The house 
 is fairly commodious and quite large enough for 
 the needs of a family like Mrs. Austen's, which 
 included only herself and daughters, and Miss Mar- 
 tha Lloyd. The front door opens into a passage- 
 way used by the members of a laborers' club 
 which occupies all of the lower floor to the left of 
 the entry. As I entered the apartment where 
 "Mansfield Park," "Emma," and "Persuasion" 
 
 1 " Chawton Cottage has long been pulled down, and no 
 picture of it exists " (Life of Jane Austen by Mrs. Maiden, 
 published May, 
 
REMOVAL TO CHAWTON. I47 
 
 were written, its sole occupant, a middle-aged la- 
 borer, looked up from the newspaper he was reading, 
 and courteously acknowledged the presence of his 
 landlord, Mr. Knight, and myself. The place, now 
 used as a club-room, contains a billiard-table and 
 several substantial benches and tables. Mugs of 
 beer are now called for where once the orange wine 
 was sipped ; and the London dailies form the lit- 
 erature of the room that aforetime contained the 
 manuscripts of the six books upon which has since 
 securely rested the renown of the famous woman 
 who lived and wrote therein. 
 
 Besides the laborers' club the cottage contains 
 three cottagers' dwellings, entered from the rear, 
 and in one of these stands a solid old bureau, once 
 the property of Jane Austen's mother. Going 
 through the house, we passed out by the west door 
 at the rear, which opens upon a large garden-plot 
 now divided among the cottagers to whose use it 
 is appropriated. The bushes which I saw growing 
 against the wall are for the most part sturdy Banksia 
 roses planted there at least half a century ago by 
 Cassandra Austen, who was very fond of flowers. 
 It was a liking she shared with her niece by 
 marriage, the wife of her nephew, Edward Knight ; 
 and the two ladies spent many long hours here and 
 at the great house in the Park in consultation over 
 their favorite plants. 
 
 The life which the Austens were to spend at 
 Chawton was materially different in tenor from 
 that passed at Southampton and Bath. In those 
 
I4 8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE, 
 
 towns the social distractions were many ; at Chaw- 
 ton they were necessarily few. Instead of looking 
 from their windows upon streets full of fashionable 
 pleasure-seekers, as when in Bath, or upon castle 
 walls or sail-dotted waters, as when living in the 
 ancient seaport between the Itchen and the Test, 
 the Austens could now behold no more animated 
 a scene than that afforded by a country road with 
 its comparatively infrequent passers-by. For the 
 many shops of Bath and Southampton they ex- 
 changed the few inferior ones of the small town of 
 Alton, a mile or more away ; and for the numerous 
 peals of church-bells, that had sounded for so 
 long a period in their ears, they could hear only 
 the bell from the small parish church close at hand, 
 or that from the venerable pile at Alton dedicated 
 to Saint Nicholas. But the change from city to 
 country, from animation to quiet and seclusion, 
 was one they did not find all unwelcome. Perhaps 
 had it not been made, those three early novels of 
 Jane's had never received their final revision, or 
 the later three been written at all. It is certain 
 that neither at Bath nor at Southampton did she 
 obtain the leisure for writing which had once been 
 found in the old rectory at Steventon, and which 
 was now to be hers in the retirement of Chawton 
 Cottage. 
 
 From now until that last journey to Winchester, 
 eight years later, the chief occasions of Jane's leaving 
 home were to be her visits to her brother Henry 
 in London, or to Edward ( who had now formally 
 
AT THE PLAY. I49 
 
 taken the name of Knight ) at Godmersham. She 
 enjoyed these trips exceedingly, but was always 
 ready to return to Chawton and to Cassandra, from 
 whom separation became more and more of a pain 
 as years went on. 
 
 What the rather frequent journeys to London 
 brought into her life we first learn from her 
 letters written at her brother Henry's home in 
 Sloane Street, in April of 1 8 1 1 . The theatre was 
 always a delight to her, and she looked forward to 
 seeing one or more plays whenever she went to 
 London. On this particular occasion she was 
 very much disappointed over a change of bill 
 occurring on a certain night when Henry Aus- 
 ten had planned to take his wife and sister 
 to the theatre, which substituted " Hamlet " for 
 " King John." " We are to go on Monday to 
 ' Macbeth ' instead. It is a great disappointment 
 to us both," she declares, — -an expression of regret 
 which perhaps reveals the tendency of her Shake- 
 spearian preferences. Few play-goers of the present, 
 I imagine, would grieve overmuch at a change which 
 gave them " Hamlet " for one of the historical plays. 
 What actually happened on the evening in question 
 we hear of later : — 
 
 " We did go to the play, after all, on Saturday. We 
 went to the Lyceum, and saw the 'Hypocrite,' — an 
 old play taken from Moliere's ' Tartuffe,' — and were 
 well entertained. Dowton and Mathews were the 
 good actors ; Mrs. Edwin was the heroine, and her per- 
 formance is just what it used to be. I have no chance 
 
l5 o JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 of seeing Mrs. Siddons. She did 'act on Monday ; but 
 as Henry was told by the box-keeper that he did not 
 think she would, the plans and all thought of it were 
 given up. I should particularly have liked seeing her 
 in Constance, and could swear at her with little effort 
 for disappointing me." 
 
 The spectacle of Jane Austen meditating an out- 
 burst of profanity, even in jest, differs materially 
 from the sedate portrait in browns and greys which 
 some of her admirers have painted of her, and to 
 my thinking is not the less attractive, because the 
 more human, of the two. 
 
 One of the diversions of this London visit was a 
 musicale at her brother's ; and knowing what we do 
 of her general attractiveness, it occasions us no 
 surprise to learn that her company was in great 
 demand in the pauses of the entertainment, and 
 to find her declaring, — 
 
 " I was quite surrounded by acquaintance, especially 
 gentlemen ; and with Mr. Hampson, Mr. Seymour, Mr. 
 W. Knatchbull, Mr. Guillemarde, Mr. Cure, a Captain 
 Simpson, brother to the Captain Simpson, besides 
 Mr. Walter and Mr. Egerton, in addition to the 
 Cookes and Miss Beckford and Miss Middleton, I 
 had quite as much upon my hands as I could do." 
 
 Other pleasures of these London weeks con- 
 sisted of excursions to the Liverpool Museum and 
 the British Gallery ; and her remark that she had 
 some amusement at each, though her preference 
 for men and women always inclined, her " to at- 
 tend more to the company than the sight," is 
 important as showing the same trait of character 
 
L OND ON SHOPPING. 1 5 x 
 
 which in her writing led her to place small depend- 
 ence on descriptive backgrounds to enhance her 
 effects. Then there were walks in Kensington 
 Gardens, drives, dinners, and what Jane always 
 seems to have had pleasure in, — shopping. On 
 this last topic and its attendant train of feminine 
 consequences, she thus enlarges to Cassandra : — 
 
 " I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very ex- 
 travagant and spending all my money, and what is 
 worse for you, I have been spending yours too ; for in 
 a linen-draper's shop, to which I went for checked 
 muslin, and for which I was obliged to give seven 
 shillings a yard, I was tempted by a pretty-colored 
 muslin, and bought ten yards of it on the chance of 
 your liking it. But at the same time, if it should not 
 suit you, you must not think yourself at all obliged to 
 take it ; it is only 3s. 6d. per yard, and I should not in 
 the least mind keeping the whole. In texture it is 
 just what we prefer ; but its resemblance to green 
 crewels, I must own, is not great, for the pattern is a 
 small spot. ... I was very well satisfied with my pur- 
 chases, — my bugle trimming at 2s. /[d., and three pair 
 silk stockings for a little less than \2s. a pair. . . . Miss 
 Burton has made me a very pretty little bonnet, and 
 now nothing can satisfy me but I must have a straw 
 hat, of the riding-hat shape, like Mrs. Tilson's ; and a 
 young woman in this neighborhood is actually making 
 me one. I am really very shocking ; but it will not be 
 dear at a guinea. Our pelisses are \js. each; she 
 charges only 8s. for the making, but the buttons seem ex- 
 pensive, — are expensive, I might have said, for the fact 
 is plain enough. . . . I do not mean to provide another 
 trimming for my pelisse, for I am determined to spend 
 no more money ; so I shall wear it as it is, longer than 
 
152 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 I ought, and then — I do not know. ... I mean, if I 
 can, to wait for your return before I have my new gown . 
 made up, from a notion of their making up to more 
 advantage together; and as I find the muslin is not so 
 wide as it used to be, some contrivance may be neces- 
 sary. I expect the skirt to require one half-breadth 
 cut in gores, besides two whole breadths." 
 
 Cassandra would appear to have made some in- 
 quiries regarding her sister's costume at the must- 
 cafe, for she is informed that — 
 
 " My head-dress was a bugle-band like the border to 
 my gown, and a flower of Mrs. Tilson's. I depended 
 upon hearing something of the evening from Mr. W. 
 K., and am very well satisfied with his notice of me : 
 'A very pleasing-looking young woman,' — that must 
 do. One cannot pretend to anything better now ; thank- 
 ful to have it continued a few years longer." 
 
 When one thinks of Jane Austen at thirty-five, 
 still as handsome as when ten years younger, with 
 her bright animated face, sprightly conversation, 
 and becoming attire, the expression, " a pleasing- 
 looking young woman," seems decidedly tame, and 
 makes one impatient with the " Mr. W. K." who 
 had nothing more enthusiastic than this in his 
 vocabulary to say of her. But I am bound to be- 
 lieve that the seven other gentlemen who gathered 
 about her that evening found themselves abun- 
 dantly able to utter warmer words of praise than 
 these, although the object of it all was not so 
 fortunate as to hear them. 
 
 The two years which at this time had elapsed 
 since the removal to Chawton had not been alto- 
 
MRS. BRUNTOiVS " SELF-CONTROL." 
 
 '53 
 
 gether unprofitable ones from the literary point of 
 view. In that period her attention had once more 
 turned to authorship; and during 1809 and 18 10 
 she had been recasting " Elinor and Marianne," 
 which now received its title, " Sense and Sensibility," 
 and also revising " Pride and Prejudice." During 
 her stay in London in the spring of 1 8 1 1 the former 
 book was slowly passing through the press, — a pro- 
 cess which her brother Henry attempted, without 
 much success, to hasten. In connection with her 
 own work appears an allusion to the popular novel 
 of the first half of 181 1, Mrs. Brunton's "Self- 
 control " : — 
 
 "We have tried to get 'Self-control,' but in vain. 
 I should like to know what her estimate is, but am 
 always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever, 
 and of finding my own story and my own people all 
 forestalled." 
 
 Never were apprehensions more needless than 
 these ; for Jane Austen's character-painting was not 
 of the kind which any of her contemporaries could 
 conceive of. In the present instance, Mrs. Brun- 
 ton's story, " intended to show the power of the 
 religious principle in bestowing self-command, and 
 to bear testimony against a maxim as immoral as 
 indelicate, that ' a reformed rake makes the best hus- 
 band,' " was quite out of the course adopted by the 
 genius of her sister novelist, who never made formal 
 enunciation of a didactic purpose at the outset of 
 her tales. Still it was not unnatural that Miss 
 Austen, who intended to delineate in Elinor Dash- 
 
15 4 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 wood a woman whose distinguishing characteristic 
 was self-control, should have felt some little anxiety 
 as to what another writer was doing with a similar 
 theme. Two years later, after re-reading Mrs. 
 Brunton's story, she records her views concerning 
 it: — 
 
 " I am looking over ' Self-Control ' again ; and my 
 opinion is confirmed of its being an excellently meant, 
 elegantly written work, without anything of nature or 
 probability in it. I declare I do not know whether 
 Laura's passage down the American river is not the 
 most natural, possible, every-day thing she does." 
 
 May of 1811 found Jane back at Chawton and 
 Cassandra at Godmersham ; and the recital of the 
 homely household details which the absent sister 
 never wearied of hearing about is resumed. Jane 
 seems to have had but a very moderate liking for 
 flowers ; but Cassandra, on the contrary, was very 
 fond of them, and for her sister's sake Jane fills 
 her pages with items concerning them : — 
 
 " Some of your flower-seeds are coming up very well; 
 but your mignonette makes a wretched appearance. 
 Miss Benn has been equally unlucky as to hers. She 
 had seed from four different people, and none of it 
 comes up. Our young piony at the foot of the fir-tree 
 has just blown, and looks very handsome; and the whole 
 of the shrubbery border will soon be very gay with 
 pinks and sweet-williams, in addition to the columbines 
 already in bloom. The syringas, too, are coming out. 
 We are likely to have a great crop of Orleans plumbs; 
 but not many greengages, — on the standard scarcely 
 any, three or four dozen, perhaps, against the wall. 
 
THE GARDEX A T CHA WTON 
 
 *55 
 
 . . . You cannot imagine — it is not in human 
 nature to imagine — what a nice walk we have round 
 the orchard. The row of beech look very well indeed, 
 and so does the young quick-set hedge in the garden. 
 1 hear to-day that an apricot has been detected on one 
 of the trees." 
 
 Verily, the Austen garden, shut in by high walls 
 and shrubbery, and brilliant with pinks, peonies, 
 syringas, and 
 
 " Sweet-William with his homely cottage smell," 
 must have been a charming spot in which to linger 
 on those long June afternoons. But instead of 
 those gay, long-vanished blooms I saw only 
 thrifty cabbages and potatoes growing in the 
 once trim flower-plots ; and of all that wealth of 
 blossoms only a few pale roses scattered their petals 
 from the cottage wall. 
 
 Summer appears to have begun early in 1811, 
 and to have brought with it what Jane very 
 much disliked, — thunder-storms, — in abundance. 
 
 "We sat upstairs," she writes on May 29, "and had 
 thunder and lightning, as usual. I never knew such a 
 spring for thunder-storms as this has been ! Thank 
 God, we have had no bad ones here. I thought myself 
 in luck to have my Uncomfortable feelings shared by 
 the mistress of the house, as that procured blinds and 
 candles." 
 
 Two days later Cassandra is informed that " we 
 have had a thunder-storm again this morning. Your 
 letter came to comfort me for it." 
 
 As the summer progressed, the garden began to 
 show forth fruits and vegetables as well as flowers. 
 
I5 6 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 " We began pease on Sunday ; but our gatherings are 
 very small, not at all like the gathering in the ' Lady 
 of the Lake.' Yesterday I had the agreeable surprise 
 of finding several scarlet strawberries quite ripe ; had 
 you been at home, this would have been a pleasure lost. 
 There are more gooseberries and fewer currants than 
 I thought at first. We must buy currants for our 
 wine." 
 
 Lord Brabourne endeavors to fancy his aunt 
 walking along the paths of the Chawton garden 
 " eng'aged in deciding upon the fate of one of her 
 heroes or heroines, or maturing the plot of her 
 next book." It is an attractive picture that is 
 thus summoned up : the high-walled, fragrant pleas- 
 ance bright with its many blooms, and the tall, 
 graceful figure, in the picturesque dress of the 
 period, moving slowly up and down its walks, per- 
 haps with eyes cast down and hands lightly clasped 
 behind her, like some fair woman in William Mor- 
 ris's pre-Raphaelite gallery of folk, — 
 
 " Midways of a walled garden ; " 
 
 and it may or may not have had its counterpart in 
 the reality. But in point of fact, wherever her medi- 
 tations may have taken place, her writing was 
 always done indoors in the family sitting-room, 
 which looked out upon the garden, and where 
 entire seclusion was not possible. Her nephew 
 and biographer says of this : — 
 
 " She was careful that her occupation should not be 
 suspected by servants or visitors or any persons be- 
 yond her own family party. She wrote upon small 
 
"SENSE AND SENSIBILITY" 157 
 
 sheets of paper which could easily be put away, or 
 covered with a piece of blotting-paper. There was 
 between the front door and the offices a swing door 
 which creaked when it was opened ; but she objected to 
 having this little inconvenience remedied because it 
 gave her notice when any one was coming. . . . 
 
 ... In that well-occupied female party there 
 must have been many precious hours of silence during 
 which the pen was busy at the little mahogany writing- 
 desk, while Fanny Price or Emma Woodhouse or 
 Anne Elliot was growing into beauty and interest. I 
 have no doubt that I and my sisters and cousins, in 
 our visits to Chawton, frequently disturbed this mys- 
 tic process, without having any idea of the mischief 
 that we were doing; certainly we never should have 
 guessed it by any signs of impatience or irritability 
 in the writer." 
 
 In February of this year she began work upon 
 " Mansfield Park," — an occupation which the Lon- 
 don visit and correction of the proofs of " Sense 
 and Sensibility " must have somewhat interrupted. 
 As she once wrote that she did not expect the lat- 
 ter book would appear as early as June, we may 
 infer that it was not published before midsummer 
 of 1 8 1 1 . Its authorship was well known to various 
 branches of the Austen kindred ; but the time had 
 not yet come for the public to share this knowl- 
 edge. In the diary of the favorite niece, Fanny, 
 is an entry dated Sept. 28, 181 1, which is as 
 follows : — 
 
 11 Letter from At. Cass., to beg we would not men- 
 tion that Aunt Jane wrote ' Sense and Sensibility.' " 
 
158 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Save for a few entries in this niece's diary there 
 are no records of Jane Austen's life during the year 
 1 812. Fanny Knight, who was now nineteen, 
 spent some weeks during the spring of that year 
 at Chawton House, in company with her father ; 
 and in the constant intercourse maintained during 
 such visits between cottage and manor, the affection 
 between the aunt and niece was strengthened and 
 intensified. Her younger sister, writing in old 
 age to Lord Brabourne, says of his mother in this 
 regard, — 
 
 "Your dear mother, being so many years older than 
 the rest of us, was a friend and companion of the two 
 aunts, Cassandra and Jane, particularly of the latter ; 
 and they had all sorts of secrets together whilst we 
 were only children." 
 
 As the sisters do not appear to have been sepa- 
 rated this year, considerable progress was pre- 
 sumably made upon "Mansfield Park," since when 
 Cassandra was at home, the younger sister's cares 
 were fewer ; and during the last months of the year 
 Jane busied herself in correcting the proofs of 
 "Pride and Prejudice," which was given to the 
 world in January, 1813. By this date Cassandra 
 was absent upon one of her Godmersham visits ; 
 and Jane writes to her on January 29 in high 
 spirits over the appearance of the new book : 
 
 " I want to tell you that I have got my own darling 
 child from London. On Wednesday I received one 
 copy sent down by Falkener, with three lines from 
 Henry to say that he had given another to Charles, 
 
"PRIDE AND PREJUDICE:' i59 
 
 and sent a third by the coach to Godmersham. . . . 
 Miss B. dined with us on the very day of the book's 
 coming; and in the evening we fairly set at it, and read 
 half the first volume to her, prefacing that having in- 
 telligence from Henry that such a work would soon 
 appear, we had desired him to send it whenever it 
 came out, and I believe it passed with her unsus- 
 pected. She was amused, poor soul ! That she 
 could not help, you know, with two such people to 
 lead the way ; but she really does seem to admire 
 Elizabeth. 1 must confess that I think her as de- 
 lightful a creature as ever appeared in print ; and how 
 I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her 
 at least, I do not know. There are a few typical 
 errors ; and a ' said he,' or a ' said she,' would some- 
 times make the dialogue more immediately clear; but 
 ' I do not write for such dull elves ' as have not a 
 great deal of ingenuity themselves. The second 
 volume is shorter than I could wish ; but the differ- 
 ence is not so much in reality as in look, there being 
 a larger proportion of narrative in that part. I have 
 lop't and crop't so successfully, however, that I ima- 
 gine it must be rather shorter than ' Sense and Sensi- 
 bility ' altogether." 
 
 Making requisite allowance for the playful ex- 
 aggeration here, it is still evident that Miss Austen 
 took the honest pride in good work which every 
 real artist does ; and that a recognition of its merits 
 was by no means a matter of indifference to her. 
 The allusion to the lopping and cropping of 
 "Pride and Prejudice" hints at the careful re- 
 vision it had finally undergone. One can readily 
 fancy the pleasure with which she listened to her 
 mother's reading, and to the comments of the 
 
160 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 visitor, who had not the faintest notion that the 
 author of those amusing chapters was close to her 
 elbow. A few days after, Jane writes of another 
 reading from the entertaining volume, — 
 
 " Our second evening's reading to Miss B. had not 
 pleased me so well ; but I believe something must be 
 attributed to my mother's too rapid way of getting on. 
 Though she perfectly understands the characters her- 
 self, she cannot speak as they ought. Upon the whole, 
 however, I am quite vain enough and well satisfied 
 enough. The work is rather too light and bright and 
 sparkling. It wants shade ; it wants to be stretched 
 out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if 
 it could be had; if not, of solemn, specious nonsense, 
 about something unconnected with the story ; an essay 
 on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history 
 of Buonaparte, or something that would form a con- 
 trast, and bring the reader with increased delight to 
 the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general 
 style." 
 
 In the ironical suggestion as to the " specious 
 nonsense " which might be inserted in the tale, 
 we gain a notion of her real feeling respecting 
 matters of style, — a sentiment which never allowed 
 her to indulge in digressions in the course of her 
 novels, which consequently present perhaps the fin- 
 est instances of unimpeded direct narration in the 
 whole range of English fiction. From the extract 
 which immediately follows, we learn who were her 
 favorite -characters in " Pride and Prejudice " : 
 
 " I am exceedingly pleased that you can say what 
 you do, after having gone through the whole work; 
 
"MANSFIELD PARK." 161 
 
 and Fanny's praise is very gratifying. My hopes were 
 tolerably strong of her, but nothing like a certainty. 
 Her liking Darcy and Elizabeth is enough. She 
 might hate all the others, if she would. I have her 
 opinion under her own hand this morning ; but your 
 transcript of it, which I read first, was not and is not 
 the less acceptable. To me it is all praise ; but the 
 more exact truth which she sends you is good 
 enough.'' 
 
 At the time these sentences were written — 
 namely, in February of 1813 — " Mansfield Park" 
 was nearly finished ; but she worked upon it very 
 slowly and carefully, and it was a year later before 
 she was reading the completed manuscript with 
 her brother Henry, whose judgment in matters 
 literary she appears to have valued highly, how- 
 ever little confidence she may have felt disposed 
 to place in other judgments of his. 
 
 More or less speculation has been indulged in 
 regarding the actual position of " Mansfield Park ; " 
 but it is the opinion of the Austens of the present 
 generation that no precise locality furnished the 
 materials for the description. It is not at all im- 
 probable, however, that the vicinity of Chawton, as 
 an appreciative writer has pointed out, was in the 
 author's mind in several of the descriptions in 
 "Mansfield Park" and "Emma." Mr. Kebbel, 
 the critic to whom allusion is made, suggests that 
 Chawton House and Chawton Cottage were the 
 models from which Jane drew the stately abode of 
 Sir Thomas Bertram and the "White House," 
 which was the home of the never-to-be-forgotten 
 
1 62 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Mrs. Norris. There is nothing to offer which very 
 strongly militates against this suggestion ; and to 
 one familiar with Chawton Park, it seems a very 
 likely one. Still Jane Austen was well acquainted 
 with the surroundings of more than one manor- 
 house in Kent as well as in Hants, and may, and 
 doubtless did, have more than one such in mind 
 when writing " Mansfield Park." 
 
 In regard to " Emma," Mr. Kebbel fancies that 
 the Highbury described within its pages may have 
 been meant for either Holybourne or Froyle, 
 villages a few miles distant from Alton ; but any 
 one who searches for a likeness may as easily 
 trace one between Highbury and certain Kentish 
 or Somerset villages which Jane knew well as 
 between Highbury and either of these two villages 
 in East Hants. Except where existing places 
 were actually named in her books, however, 
 it is probable that no recognizable description of 
 localities was attempted. 
 
 She found opportunity in the intervals of this 
 winter's tasks to read much, for new books 
 appeared at Chawton with great frequency ; and 
 in February she writes, — 
 
 " We quite run over with books. She [Mrs. 
 Austen] has got Sir John Carr's ' Travels in Spain;' 
 and I am reading a Society octavo, an ' Essay on the 
 Military Police and Institutions of the British Empire,' 
 by Captain Pasley of the Engineers, — a book which I 
 protested against at first, but which upon trial I find 
 delightfully written and highly entertaining. I am as 
 much in love with the author as I ever was with 
 
GUILDFORD AND ESHER. ^3 
 
 Clarkson or Buchanan, or the two Mr. Smiths 1 of the 
 city. The first soldier I ever sighed for ; but he does 
 write with extraordinary force and spirit. Yesterday, 
 moreover, brought us 'Mrs. Grant's Letters' with 
 Mr. White's compliments." 
 
 In May of this year, Jane made a journey to 
 London in her brother's curricle, going by way of 
 Guildford and Esher, and spending twelve hours 
 en route. A leisurely progress it w r as through the 
 lovely county of Surrey, white w r ith hawthorn 
 blooms and fresh w r ith all the beauty of an English 
 spring ; and she seems to have thoroughly enjoyed 
 every mile of it. At Guildford and Esher, where 
 stoppages for breakfast and dinner were made, she 
 and her brother took short strolls while the horses 
 were resting. Of Guildford, w 7 hich many later 
 tourists have deemed picturesque she records : 
 " From some views which that stroll gave us, I think 
 most highly of the situation of Guildford. We 
 wanted all our brothers and sisters to be standing 
 with us in the bowling-green and looking towards 
 Horsham." 
 
 The country between Guildford and Ripley 
 seemed to her " particularly pretty, also about 
 Painshill ; " and of Esher she writes, — 
 
 " From a Mr. Spicer's grounds, which we walked 
 ,into before dinner, the views were beautiful. I cannot 
 say what we did not see ; but I should think there could 
 
 1 Horace and James Smith, the authors of " The Rejected 
 Addresses/' which was published in 181 2. 
 
164 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE, 
 
 not be a wood or a meadow or palace or remarkable 
 spot in England that was not spread out before us on 
 one side or other." 
 
 In March of the year following, she made the 
 same excursion with her brother, but presumably 
 in a close carriage, for there were some flurries of 
 snow during the second day, the journey being 
 broken by a night's rest at Cobham on the way ; 
 and a portion of the time was employed in reading 
 together the manuscript of " Mansfield . Park." 
 Concerning this, Cassandra is informed : — 
 
 "We did not begin reading till Bentley Green. 
 Henry's approbation is hitherto even equal to my 
 wishes. 'He says it is different from the other two, 
 but does not appear to think it at all inferior. He has 
 only married Mrs. R. I am afraid he has gone 
 through the most entertaining part. He took to Lady 
 B. and Mrs. N. most kindly, and gives great praise to 
 the drawing of the characters. He understands them 
 all, likes Fanny, and, I think, foresees how it will all 
 be. . . . He admires H. Crawford,— I mean, properly, 
 as a clever, pleasant man. I tell you all the good I 
 can, as I know how much you will enjoy it." <- 
 
 In the course of the earlier of these visits, she 
 amused herself by endeavoring to discover, in the 
 picture galleries to which she went, some portraits 
 which should resemble her own mental pictures of 
 the heroines of " Pride and Prejudice." No por- 
 trait of Elizabeth met her eye either in the Spring 
 Gardens Exhibition, or among Sir Joshua Reynolds's 
 paintings then on view i»— FaH~-Mttll ; but at the 
 former place- she did perceive a portrait which 
 
JAXE'S CHARACTERS REAL TO HER. ^5 
 
 satisfied her ideas of how Jane should look, as we 
 shall see : — 
 
 " It is not thought a good collection ; but I was very 
 well pleased, particularly (pray tell Fanny) with a 
 small portrait of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like her, . . . 
 exactly herself, — size, shaped face, features, and sweet- 
 ness ; there never was a greater likeness. She is 
 dressed in a white gown, with green ornaments, which 
 convinces me of what I had always supposed, that 
 green was a favorite colour with her." 
 
 The only modern and partial inheritor of Jane 
 Austen's peculiar shade of realism, he who created 
 Barsetshire, and filled it full of living men and 
 women, Anthony Trollope, confesses that Barset 
 was to him a real county, and the folk who trod 
 the streets of his cathedral city of Barchester — the 
 Grantleys, the Proudies, and the rest — had as 
 actual an existence as the people who passed him 
 in the London streets. 
 
 To Jane Austen, her characters were real per- 
 sonages likewise. So much time was invariably 
 spent upon each of her books, in composition, 
 revision, reading the manuscripts aloud to the few 
 persons admitted to her confidence, and whose 
 critical taste she valued, as well as in frequent 
 discussions regarding them with these same per- 
 sons, that they became as much a part of her life 
 as the men and women of flesh and blood whom 
 she saw every day. A few of them, indeed, like 
 Elinor Dashwood, Elizabeth Bennet, Fanny Price, 
 Emma Woodhouse, and Anne Elliot, she loved 
 
1 66 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 almost as she loved her own brothers and sister : 
 and anything to the disparagement of these crea- 
 tions of her brain hurt her as keenly as if uttered 
 against one of her household. Many great novelists 
 have felt similarly; but not all have expressed 
 themselves as naively on the point as did she. 
 
 It was a habit with her to talk over her charac- 
 ters with her niece Fanny when they met ; and on 
 one or more occasions the niece amused her aunt 
 Jane by writing to her in the character of Miss 
 Darcy. 
 
 In September, 1813, in company with this niece 
 and two other daughters of her brother Edward, jane 
 paid a short visit to her brother Henry, whose wife 
 had died earlier in the year, and who had lately- 
 removed to Henrietta Street. Although Jane was in 
 London but three nights on this occasion, two of 
 them were spent at the theatre. The opera of 
 " Don Juan," very possibly Gluck's ballet of that 
 name, and not Mozart's " Don Giovanni," since she 
 mentions it as the third performance of the evening, 
 was what the party listened to the first night, and 
 " Midas " and " The Clandestine Marriage " on the 
 second. 
 
 During the time of this visit she heard from 
 her London acquaintances a good deal of praise 
 bestowed upon " Pride and Prejudice," the charac- 
 ter of Elizabeth being especially liked. 
 
 She was unfeignedly fond of Crabbe's poetry, and 
 evidently would have preferred meeting him to any 
 other literary light of her time ; and there are 
 
ADMIRATION FOR CRAB BE. 167 
 
 several jesting allusions to this admiration of hers 
 in the correspondence of this year. " I am in 
 agonies," she exclaims in one of her letters from 
 Henrietta Street, — "I have not yet seen Mr. 
 Crabbe ; " and in an account of the second play 
 she witnessed she stops to declare that she " was 
 particularly disappointed at seeing nothing of Mr. 
 Crabbe. I felt sure of him when I saw that the 
 boxes were fitted up with crimson velvet." 
 
 " No," she writes a month later from Kent, " I have 
 never seen the death of Mrs. Crabbe. 1 have only just 
 been making out from one of his prefaces that he pro- 
 bably was married. It is almost ridiculous. Poor 
 woman ! I will comfort him as well as I can, but I do 
 not undertake to be good to her children. She had 
 better not leave any." 
 
 Whether the poet Crabbe ever read any of Jane 
 Austen's novels, I do not know ; but that she should 
 have enjoyed his verse is easily explainable, for 
 there is the same patience of realism in "The 
 Village " and " The Borough " as in " Emma " or 
 " Mansfield Park." Both writers were persons of 
 keen but necessarily somewhat restricted sym- 
 pathies ; and both were minute observers of the 
 events of common daily life. Had the poet 
 possessed any of the humorous perceptions of the 
 novelist, his realism, while remaining no less true 
 than hers, would have happily wanted that un- 
 relieved sombre tinge which, more than anything 
 else, has caused his verse to fall so much out of 
 favor with a later generation. 
 
^8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE: 
 
 The hurried London visit, so full of the play, of 
 calls and shopping, of which latter occupation a 
 good deal is told us, was succeeded by a two 
 months' sojourn at Godmersham, to which, in fact, 
 the London expedition was but the prelude. Be- 
 tween the details of life at a great country house, 
 like that at Godmersham Park, and those which 
 concerned a family in plain though comfortable 
 circumstances, like the one in Chawton Cottage, 
 there was necessarily a wide difference ; and Jane 
 seems to have momentarily fancied that her sister 
 might think her indifferent to the more homely 
 household matters pertaining to Chawton when 
 surrounded by the luxury of her brother's home. 
 Accordingly we hear made such an affectionate 
 request as this, which shows, if such testimony be 
 needed, how near to Jane's heart were all the small 
 events occurring in her mother's home. Her own 
 Miss Bates did not dwell upon similar trifles with 
 more kindly perseverance : " Let me know when 
 you begin the new tea, and the new white wine. 
 My present elegancies have not yet made me in- 
 different to such matters. I am still a cat if I see 
 a mouse." 
 
 In return for Cassandra's items of news she gives 
 in her own sportive fashion a recital of everything 
 in her present life that can possibly interest those 
 at home. The two nephews, Edward and George, 
 by this time at Oxford, are mentioned at times in 
 some such strain as this : " George writes cheerfully 
 and quietly, . . . went to lecture on Wednesday, 
 
HABITS OF JANE'S BROTHERS. 169 
 
 states some of his expenses, and concludes with 
 saying, ' I am afraid I shall be poor.' I am glad 
 he thinks about it so soon." 
 
 Perhaps the event of chief importance to Jane 
 at this time was a visit which her brother Charles 
 and his wife paid to the Godmersham household : 
 " Here they are, safe and well, just like their own 
 nice selves, — Fanny looking as neat and white this 
 morning as possible ; and dear Charles all affection- 
 ate, placid, quiet, cheerful good- humor." 
 
 In these last years of Jane's life, she saw less of 
 her youngest brother than of any of the other four ; 
 but there was no weakening of the tie in conse- 
 quence. She knew all the habits and likings of 
 the whole five as intimately as their respective 
 wives could have done, and regarded all such topics 
 with affectionate as well as sometimes amused 
 interest : — 
 
 "This cold weather," she writes, in mid-October of 
 1813, to Cassandra, now visiting Henry Austen in 
 London, "comes very fortunately for Edward's nerves, 
 with such a houseful: it suits him exactly; he is all 
 alive and cheerful. Poor James, on the contrary, must 
 be running his toes into the fire. " 
 
 The cold weather seems to have infused a good 
 deal of liveliness into Kentish society at this time, 
 and not limited its beneficial effects solely to " Ed- 
 ward's nerves ; " for a concert at Chilham Castle, a 
 ball at Canterbury, and any number of friendly visi- 
 tations were among the mild dissipations of this 
 
i 7 o JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 autumn. And Jane Austen was a part of all she 
 describes, and enjoyed the interchange of social 
 amenities as heartily as she had ever done, like 
 the sensible woman that she was. As usual, too, 
 she kept her eyes wide open in the midst of it all ; 
 and the tiny thumb-nail sketches she draws of the 
 various people she meets are just as spirited as 
 ever. If they seem to us now a trifle unsym- 
 pathetic occasionally, it must be remembered that 
 she knew most thoroughly the person to whom she 
 wrote, and therefore did not pause in her rapid 
 sketchings to throw in the lines required to soften 
 them. Her object was simply to amuse Cassandra, 
 who, she well knew, would mentally supply these 
 same modifying touches while she read. 
 
 " I have extended my lights and increased my 
 acquaintance a good deal within these two days. Lady 
 Honeywood you know. I did not sit near enough to 
 be a perfect judge, but I thought her extremely pretty, 
 and her manners have all the recommendations of ease 
 and good-humor and unaffectedness ; and going about 
 with four horses and nicely dressed herself, she is 
 altogether a perfect sort of woman. . . . We met 
 only the Bretons at Chilham Castle, besides a Mr. 
 and Mrs. Osborne and a Miss Lee staying in the 
 house, and were only fourteen altogether. My brother 
 and Fanny thought it the pleasantest party they had 
 ever known there ; and I was very well entertained by 
 bits and scraps. I had long wanted to see Dr. Breton ; 
 and his wife amuses me very much with her affected 
 refinement and elegance. Miss Lee I found very con- 
 versable : she admires Crabbe as she ought. She is at 
 an age of reason, ten years older than myself at least." 
 
"PRIDE AND PREJUDICE." ^ l 
 
 " Poor Dr. Isham," she tells Cassandra, in one of 
 the letters of this period, " is obliged to admire ' P. 
 and P.,' and to send me word that he is sure he shall 
 not like Madame d'Arblay's new novel half so well." 
 
 As "The Wanderer," the " new novel" alluded 
 to, which was published a few months later, is an 
 excessively dull tale, " poor Dr. Isham " was not 
 paying, after all, what could be styled an extrava- 
 gant compliment. 
 
 But " P. and P.," as Jane calls it, was now grow- 
 ing rapidly into favor; and in November she was 
 able to tell her sister, — 
 
 " Since I wrote last, my second edition has stared 
 me in the face. Mary tells me that Eliza means to 
 buy it. I wish she may. ... I cannot help hoping 
 that many will feel themselves obliged to buy it. I 
 shall not mind imagining it a disagreeable duty to 
 them, so as they do it. Mary heard before she left 
 home that it was very much admired at Cheltenham, and 
 that it was given to Miss Hamilton. It is pleasant to 
 have such a respectable writer named. I cannot tire 
 you, I am sure, on this subject, or I would apologize. 
 What weather and what news! We have enough to 
 do to admire them both. I hope you derive your full 
 share of enjoyment from each." 
 
 The lady to whom Jane looked up as " such a 
 respectable writer," was Miss Elizabeth Hamilton, 
 who died in 1816 at the age of fifty-eight, and 
 whose " Letters of a Hindoo Rajah," "The Modern 
 Philosopher," and other works, although once much 
 admired, are now as seldom read as " The Faerie 
 Queene " and infinitely less talked about. 
 
i 7 2 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 " I am read and admired in Ireland, too," Jane 
 notes early in November for her sister's pleasure. 
 " There is a Mrs. Fletcher, the wife of a judge, an 
 old lady, and very good and very clever, who is all 
 curiosity to know about me, — what I am like, and 
 so forth. I am not known to her by name, how- 
 ever." Then follows a shaft of playful irony aimed 
 at herself: " I do not despair of having my picture 
 in the Exhibition at last, — all white and red, with 
 my head on one side ; or perhaps I may marry 
 young Mr. d'Arblay." 
 
 While Jane was in Kent she experienced much 
 anxiety respecting the ill health of her brother 
 Henry; and allusions to his condition are of fre- 
 quent occurrence in the correspondence. The 
 elder sister was now with him, leaving the Chaw- 
 ton household to be cared for by Miss Lloyd; 
 and the younger sister wished to be with her 
 brother also if her services should be needed on 
 her return from Kent. Accordingly she assures 
 Cassandra to this effect : — 
 
 " I cannot be quite easy without staying a little 
 while with Henry, unless he wishes it otherwise ; his 
 illness and the dull time of year together make me 
 feel that it would be horrible of me not to offer to re- 
 main with him; and therefore unless you know of any 
 objection, I wish you would tell him with my best 
 love that I shall be most happy to spend ten days 
 or a fortnight in Henrietta Street, if he will accept me. 
 I do not offer more than a fortnight, because I shall 
 then have been some time away from home ; but it will 
 be a great pleasure to be with him, as it always is." 
 
RETURN TO LOXDON WITH HENRY. I73 
 
 The offer was accepted ; and in the last letter 
 from Kent she says : " I was only afraid you might 
 think the offer superfluous ; but you have set my 
 heart at ease. Tell Henry that I will stay with 
 him, let it be ever so disagreeable to him." 
 
 The Godmersham visit ended on the 13th of 
 November ; and a day or two later she was with her 
 brother Henry in London. This particular brother, 
 who had always, as Jane expresses it, " a turn for 
 being ill," was for that reason an object of especial 
 solicitude to his mother and sisters, and particu- 
 larly so since the death of his wife had left him 
 alone, with no one in his household to take thought 
 for his comfort. His illness at this time was not a 
 long one; and in February of 18 14, he visited his 
 mother and sisters at Chawton, and on his return to 
 London took his younger sister with him. This 
 was the trip beguiled of its tedium by the reading 
 of " Mansfield Park," as we have already heard ; 
 and the reading begun at Bentley Green was con- 
 cluded in London some days later. The two were 
 evidently very happy over the reading, — he in 
 sincere admiration of his sister's talents, she in the 
 knowledge that her work was being approved by 
 the critic whose literary judgment she most valued. 
 Let us glance for a moment at her pleased report- 
 ing of some of his judgments : — 
 
 " Henry has this moment said that he likes my ' M. 
 P.' better and better; he is now in the third volume. 
 I believe now he has changed his mind as to foresee- 
 ing the end; he said yesterday, at least, that he de- 
 
1 74 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 fied anybody to say whether H. C, would be reformed, 
 or would forget Fanny in a fortnight. . . . Henry has 
 finished 'Mansfield Park;' and his approbation has 
 not lessened. He found the last half of the last vol- 
 ume extremely interesting.''' 
 
 To my thinking there is something very delight- 
 ful in the unselfish enjoyment which the Austen 
 kindred took in the achievements of their most 
 gifted member. Just as in the old days at the 
 rectory at Steventon the young people there had 
 freely applauded the juvenile sketches of little 
 Jane, so now as men and women in middle life they 
 maintained the same hearty, unaffected interest in 
 her writing, with never a trace of envy present to 
 mar it. She wrote and was happy in the writing. 
 The brothers and sister read and delighted in the 
 reading, one and all. Their approval, and that of 
 the nephews and nieces who were now old enough 
 to read her books, supplied her with sufficient in- 
 centive to proceed, although, as we have seen, the 
 applause of a wider circle of readers afforded her 
 much gratification. 
 
 As usual, there was much play- going on the part 
 of Jane and her brother, who seem to have been 
 fonder of this amusement than any others of the 
 family ; and at this time she saw Kean as Shylock, 
 and "could not imagine better acting." She likewise 
 heard Coffey's ballad farce, " The Devil to Pay," 
 which very much amused her, Arne's opera of 
 " Artaxerxes," and Dibdin's comic opera of "The 
 Farmer's Wife," which does not seem to have 
 
RETURN TO LONDON WITH HENRY, i 
 
 75 
 
 yielded her unbounded delight, for she remarks of 
 the chief singer : " Her merit in singing is, I dare 
 say, great; that she gave me no pleasure is no re- 
 flection upon her, nor, I hope, upon myself, being 
 what Nature made me upon that article. All that I 
 am sensible of in Miss S. is a pleasing person and 
 no skill in acting." 
 
 As usual, too, the London shop-windows held 
 out many temptations to Jane, who was never indif- 
 ferent about what she wore, and had a weakness for 
 becoming coiffures in particular. Cassandra is 
 therefore informed that there are " a great many 
 pretty caps in the windows of Cranbourn Alley. 
 I hope when you come we shall both be tempted. 
 I have been ruining myself in black satin ribbon 
 with a proper pearl edge ; and now I am trying to 
 draw it up into a kind of roses, instead of putting 
 it in plain double plaits." 
 
 Just what sort of gowns she was wearing at this 
 time we learn from the following item : — 
 
 11 1 have determined to trim my lilac sarsnet with 
 black satin ribbon, just as my China crape is, 6d. 
 width at the bottom, 3^. or ^d. at top. Ribbon 
 trimmings are all the fashion at Bath, and I dare say 
 the fashions of the two places are alike enough in that 
 point to content me. With this addition it will be 
 a very useful gown, happy to go anywhere." 
 
 During April, May, and June of 1814, Edward 
 Knight and his family were living at Chawton House 
 instead of at Godmersham ; and the intercourse be- 
 
176 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 tween cottage and great house consequently was 
 of the most uninterrupted character. When the 
 cottage was not dining at the great house, the 
 latter was dining at the cottage ; and Jane and her 
 favorite niece appear by the entries in the latter's 
 diary to have been almost inseparable. Sometimes 
 they walked to Alton on shopping expeditions, and 
 very often they roamed about Chawton Park, its 
 gardens, and stretch of forest in company ; and 
 as nearly, as it was possible for any human being 
 to do, the niece supplied to Jane the place of her 
 sister Cassandra, now with Henry Austen in Lon- 
 don. The path across "the Pasture" from the 
 village to the great house was one often trodden 
 by Jane whenever her brother's family were resi- 
 dent there ; and one of her nieces who was living 
 within the past five years vividly recalled in old 
 age the figure of her Aunt Jane walking along this 
 path with head a little to one side, and sometimes 
 a very small cushion pressed against her cheek, if 
 she were suffering from face-ache, as she not un- 
 frequently did in later life. 
 
 Sometime in the summer of 1814 " Mansfield 
 Park " appeared in print ; but the only allusion to 
 the fact which her letters afford is a scrap of com- 
 mendation quoted from her friends the Cookes, 
 whom she appears to have visited in July or late in 
 June : — 
 
 " In addition to their other claims on me they 
 admire 'Mansfield Park' exceedingly. Mr. Cooke 
 says 'it is the most sensible novel he ever read,' and 
 
MARRIA GE OF HENR Y A US TEN. 
 
 177 
 
 the manner in which I treat the clergy delights them 
 very much." 
 
 In August, Henry Austen having lately removed 
 from Henrietta Street to 23 Hans Place, Jane vis- 
 ited him in his new quarters, which she calls de- 
 lightful, and adds that they more than met her 
 expectations, the garden being "quite a love." 
 The real object of the change of residence seems 
 to be revealed in the following passage, relating 
 to her brother : — 
 
 " Henry wants me to see more of his Hanwell favor- 
 ite, and has written to invite her to spend a day or two 
 here with me. His scheme is to fetch her on Satur- 
 day. I am more and more convinced that he will 
 marry again soon, and like the idea of her better 
 than of anybody else at hand." 
 
 How serious the nature of Mr. Henry Austen's 
 attentions to " his Hanwell favorite " we shall prob- 
 ably never know ; for however much his feelings 
 may have been interested, he remained a widower 
 until some time after Jane's death, when he mar- 
 ried Miss Eleanor Jackson of London, who was 
 presumably not the " Hanwell favorite." During 
 these visits Jane of course was hostess to her 
 brother's many friends ; and she writes in amus- 
 ing fashion of some expected guests whom she 
 was to entertain at dinner, — 
 
 " Mr. Hampson dines here to-morrow, and proposed 
 bringing his son ; so I must submit to seeing George 
 12 
 
17 8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Hampson, though I had hoped to go through life with- 
 out it. It was one of my vanities, like your not read- 
 
 As will have been noted in the course of these 
 pages, Jane Austen's journeys, though frequent, 
 were not extended or greatly varied. London she 
 knew well, and the south of England, from Canter- 
 bury on the east to Exeter and its vicinity on the 
 west; but except for a casual reference there is 
 nothing in her correspondence to show that she was 
 ever fifty miles north of London in her life. That 
 on one occasion, however, she must have travelled 
 in Scotland would seem to be clear, from the inci- 
 dental reference just mentioned, which occurs in a 
 letter of August, 1814. She is describing her jour- 
 ney to London in an over- crowded coach, and de- 
 clares that " it put me in mind of my own coach 
 between Edinburgh and Stirling." 
 
 It appears just a little singular that she should 
 have made so important a journey as this implies, 
 for a trip to Scotland was not lightly undertaken 
 by south of England people in those days ; but the 
 circumstance appears nowhere else in her corre- 
 spondence. She who was so alive to the beauty of 
 Lyme-Regis could not certainly have remained in- 
 sensible to the scenes which must have met her 
 eyes in such a tour as this. As, however, it is still 
 uncertain that we have the whole of her corre- 
 spondence with her sister, the absence of detail re- 
 garding it is partially explainable. It becomes still 
 more so when we reflect that very few of her other 
 
ADVICE TO HER NIECE. j^ 
 
 letters have been preserved, or, what amounts to 
 the same thing, printed. 
 
 During the year 1 8 1 4, Jane maintained an active 
 correspondence with her niece, Anna Austen, who 
 was then engaged upon a novel, the manuscript of 
 which she submitted to her aunt Jane in the early 
 summer for her advice and criticism. Jane's first 
 letters to her niece show the ready interest she took 
 in the younger woman's work, and her willingness 
 to aid when she could : — 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you for sending 
 your MS. It has entertained me extremely, — in- 
 deed, all of us. I read it aloud to your Grandmamma 
 and Aunt Cass., and we were all very much pleased. 
 The spirit does not droop at all. Sir Thos., Lady 
 Helen, and St. Julian are very well done ; and Cecilia 
 continues to' be interesting in spite of her being so 
 amiable. ... I like the beginning of Devereux For- 
 ester very much ; a great deal better than if he had 
 been very good or very bad. ... I do not like a lover 
 speaking in the 3rd person. . . . /think it not natural." 
 
 This was in June ; and in August the aunt writes 
 on the same subject, — 
 
 " 1 like the name ' Which is the Heroine ? ' very well, 
 and I dare say shall grow to like ir very much in time ; 
 but ' Enthusiasm ' was something so very superior that 
 my common title must appear to disadvantage. . . . 
 My corrections have not been more important than 
 heretofore ; here and there we have thought the sense 
 could be expressed in fewer words, and I have scratched 
 out Sir Thos. from walking with the others to the 
 stables, &c, the very day after breaking his arm ; for 
 
!8o JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 though I find your papa did walk out immediately after 
 his arm was set, I think it can be so little usual as to 
 appear unnatural in a book. Lynn will not do. Lynn 
 is towards forty miles from Dawlish, and would not be 
 talked of there. I have put Starcross instead. . . . 
 
 " I have also scratched out the introduction between 
 Lord Portman and his brother and Mr. Griffin. A 
 country surgeon (don't tell Mr. C. Lyford) would not 
 be introduced to men of their rank; and when Mr. P. 
 is first brought in, he would not be introduced as the 
 Honourable. That distinction is never mentioned at 
 such times, — at least, I believe not. . . . Let the Port- 
 mans go to Ireland ; but as you know nothing of the 
 manners there, you had better not go with them. You 
 will be in danger of giving false representations. Stick 
 to Bath and the Foresters. There you will be quite 
 at home." 
 
 In giving this last piece of advice, Jane was fol- 
 lowing strictly in the line she had long ago marked 
 out for herself, — that of describing only localities, 
 customs, and people with which she was thoroughly 
 familiar. The care she took in reference to small 
 matters in her own novels is hinted at in the in- 
 structions to her niece. " Starcross," which she 
 inserted in place of Lynn, is but a few miles from 
 Dawlish, and would naturally be more talked of 
 there than another town forty miles away. It is a 
 trifle, like the other matters objected to ; but to 
 Jane Austen anything which jarred against the 
 probabilities, however slightly, ceased to be a trifle. 
 
 In a letter of September 9, written after reading 
 more of the manuscript, which the niece was for- 
 
LITERARY SUGGESTIONS. 181 
 
 warding as she wrote, a few chapters at a time, there 
 is more minuteness of criticism : — 
 
 " You describe a sweet place ; but your descrip- 
 tions are often more minute than will be liked. You 
 give too many particulars of right hand and left. Mrs. 
 Forester is not careful enough of Susan's health. Su- 
 san ought not to be walking out so soon after heavy 
 rains, taking long walks in the dirt. An anxious 
 mother would not suffer it. I like your Susan ... as 
 she is now exceedingly ; but I am not quite so well 
 satisfied with her behavior to George R. At first she 
 seems all over attachment and feeling, and afterwards 
 to have none at all ; she is so extremely confused 
 at the ball, and so well satisfied apparently with Mr. 
 Morgan. She seems to have changed her character."' 
 
 More suggestions follow a fortnight later : — 
 
 " Devereux Forester's being ruined by his vanity 
 is extremely good ; but I wish you would not let him 
 plunge into a 'vortex of dissipation.' I do. not object 
 to the thing, but I cannot bear the expression ; it is 
 such thorough novel slang, and so old that I dare say 
 Adam met with it in the first novel he opened. . . . 
 What can you do with Egerton to increase the interest 
 for him ? . . . He might lend all his money to Cap- 
 tain Morris ; but then he would be a great fool if 
 he did. Cannot the Morrises quarrel, and he re- 
 concile them ? Excuse the liberty I take in these 
 
 Early in November the niece to whom these 
 bits of advice were addressed became the wife of 
 Benjamin Lefroy, the son of Jane's early friend. 
 The young couple removed at once to Hendon, a 
 
182 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 few miles from London ; and Jane tells her niece to 
 " make everybody at Hendon admire * Mansfield 
 Park.' " 
 
 Before the end of November the aunt, who had 
 now gone to visit her brother in London, drove 
 with him to Hendon to see the young people, 
 from which expedition she returned much pleased. 
 The marriage does not seem to have occasioned 
 any serious break in the new Mrs. Lefroy's literary 
 labors ; for early in December she sent to her 
 aunt another instalment of the story, and Jane's 
 response to this enclosure is just as unwea- 
 riedly kind as if she had not been occupied for 
 the previous six months in advising and suggest- 
 ing about innumerable previous pages. She com- 
 ments on one of the incidents of the tale in her 
 usual animated strain, — 
 
 " St. Julian's having been in love with the aunt gives 
 Cecilia an additional interest with him. I like the 
 idea, — a very proper compliment to an aunt ! I rathe* 
 imagine, indeed, that nieces are seldom chosen but 
 out of compliment to some aunt or other. I dare sa} 
 Ben was in love with me once, and would never have 
 thought of you if he had not supposed me dead oi 
 scarlet fever/' 
 
 Whether Mrs. Anna Lefroy's novel was evei 
 finished is doubtful. Other interests probabl) 
 entered her life, and her literary aspirations faded 
 out of sight. Her stepbrother, Mr. Austen- Leigh, 
 asserts that it never was published. Certainly, 
 at this point it disappears entirely from the cor- 
 
MRS. LEFROY'S NOVEL. 
 
 183 
 
 respondence. In August following the Lefroys 
 removed from Hendon to a small estate called 
 Wyards, near Alton, and within an easy walk 
 of Chawton ; and to this place her aunt's next let- 
 ter which has been preserved is addressed. It 
 is a note, bearing date of September 29, and 
 includes no mention of the novel which had oc- 
 cupied the chief portion of the correspondence 
 between the two the year previous. Very possibly 
 the aunt had foreseen the probable result of her 
 niece's labors, but forbore, with characteristic 
 thoughtfulness, to say a word of discouragement, 
 trusting that time would convince the young 
 author of the futility of her labors. Certain of 
 her criticisms make it tolerably clear to my 
 mind that she could never have entertained any 
 strong hopes of the book's success if printed. 
 Yet however this may have been, her time was 
 given for her niece's benefit freely and ungrudg- 
 ingly. But indeed no confidence that was re- 
 posed in Jane Austen's kindness of heart was 
 ever misplaced. 
 
IX. 
 
 LAST YEARS AT CHAWTON; "EMMA;" "PER- 
 SUASION." 
 
 TN the month of October, 1815, Henry Austen 
 * was again taken ill ; and on this occasion his 
 condition was considered more critical than it had 
 ever been in previous seizures. His sister jane, 
 who was at this time staying with him to attend 
 to the publication of " Emma," became much 
 alarmed, and on the 2 2d of the month wrote for 
 her brother James and Cassandra, and the day 
 following for her brother Edward, as she feared 
 the low fever which had prostrated him was likely 
 to prove fatal. It was an illness which in its ulti- 
 mate consequences concerned a greater number 
 of people than the Austen connection, large as 
 that was. The world could better have spared a 
 Henry Austen than a Jane ; yet the handsome, 
 accomplished man, who had spent all his life in 
 drifting from one thing to another, full of schemes 
 which came to little, and who succeeded in nothing 
 except in being always fascinating and agreeable, 
 was destined to live five and thirty years longer, 
 while his sister, in the midst of her devotion to his 
 needs at this time, undoubtedly contracted the 
 
LAST YEARS AT CHAWTON. 185 
 
 disease which, developing slowly but surely, ended 
 her own life less than two years after. 
 
 Although this was a sharp sickness, Mr. Austen 
 seems to have been so far convalescent in another 
 week that his brothers could return to their homes 
 relieved of their fears in great part. Cassandra re- 
 mained with her brother and sister until November 
 20, when she returned to Chawton with Edward 
 Knight, who, with his daughter Fanny, had again 
 visited his brother Henry for a few days. The 
 niece, however, stayed until the 8th of December ; 
 and the invalid's condition having rapidly im- 
 proved, they were able to enjoy each other's society 
 without feeling the weight of so much anxiety as 
 had hitherto been borne by the entire family to a 
 certain extent, but especially by Jane. : 
 
 " Emma," which Jane had been busied over in 
 Chawton for many months previously, and which 
 had been nearly finished as long ago as March, 
 was now advertised to appear on Saturday, Dec. 
 16, 181 5. It seems to have gone more rapidly 
 through the press than its predecessors had done, 
 especially the later chapters of it ; and a rapid suc- 
 cession of proof-sheets was kept circulating between 
 her brother's house in Hans Place and Mr. Murray's 
 printing-office. The labor and thought involved in 
 the proper attention to them must have been no 
 light burden to bear at a time when her brother's 
 state of health demanded a large amount of watch- 
 ful care from her. These were the last proof-sheets 
 that she was ever to concern herself with, and 
 
1 86 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 " Emma " the last book of hers she was destined 
 to behold in print. 
 
 The fact of her authorship of the three fore- 
 going novels had for many months been practi- 
 cally an open secret. It could not help being 
 such, now that the knowledge was shared by so 
 large a circle of relatives and friends ; and she 
 had ceased to care greatly that the personality 
 of the author should remain unknown. Chance, 
 however, brought her name prominently before 
 the world. 
 
 Her brother's physician had been one of the 
 medical attendants of the Prince Regent ; and know- 
 ing that his patient's sister was the author of " Sense 
 and Sensibility " and the two novels by the same 
 hand which had succeeded it, he informed her, no 
 doubt to her great surprise, that the books in ques- 
 tion were greatly admired by the Prince, who read 
 them often, and kept a set in each of his royal resi- 
 dences. He further observed that he had told the 
 Prince that the author of the tales which had so 
 much delighted him was then in London, and that 
 His Royal Highness had requested his librarian at 
 Carlton House, Mr. J. S. Clarke, to call upon her. 
 This unexpected information pleased her, no doubt ; 
 but it does not appear that the notice of the Prince 
 Regent, whom she styles in her letters the " P. R.," 
 was unduly valued by her, nor that she was especially 
 overcome by the royal condescension when Mr. 
 Clarke called upon her next day and invited her to 
 Carlton House, adding that the Prince Regent had 
 
"EMMA." 187 
 
 desired him to admit her to the library and other 
 apartments, and show her every attention. 
 
 Naturally enough the invitation was accepted ; 
 and while the courteous librarian was doing the 
 honors, — for the admiration of the future George 
 the Fourth for her books was not so great as to in- 
 spire him with a desire to behold their author, — 
 he informed her that the Regent had graciously 
 directed him to say that if she intended writing 
 another novel, she was at liberty to dedicate it to 
 His Royal Highness. 
 
 The First Gentleman of Europe has very few claims 
 upon the regard of posterity ; but it must always 
 be set down to his credit that at a time when the 
 average standard of literary taste was so radically 
 opposed to that which finds its gratification in work 
 like Miss Austen's, he was sufficiently acute to per- 
 ceive and admire her peculiar and distinctive excel- 
 lence ; and it must be admitted that from his point of 
 view he paid to her one of the highest compliments 
 he knew how to bestow. The dedication for which 
 he thus gave permission was accordingly prefixed to 
 " Emma," then nearly through the press, and led 
 to a correspondence between Jane Austen and the 
 courteous librarian, whose own admiration for her 
 talents, although perfectly sincere, is curiously 
 wanting in any adequate comprehension of their 
 scope. His royal patron would hardly have fallen 
 into a misapprehension like that revealed in the 
 letters by Mr. Clarke which follow. Not knowing 
 how far she might rely upon the verbal permission 
 
1 88 JANE AUSTEN'S LIEE. 
 
 given on the occasion of her visit, Miss Austen 
 soon after wrote to Mr. Clarke in relation to the 
 matter : — 
 
 Nov. 15, 1815. 
 Sir, — I must take the liberty of asking you a ques- 
 tion. Among the many flattering attentions which I 
 received from you at Carlton House on Monday last 
 was the information of my being at liberty to dedicate 
 any future work to His Royal Highness the Prince Re- 
 gent without the necessity of any solicitation on my 
 part. Such, at least, I believed to be your words ; but 
 as I am very anxious to be quite certain of what was 
 intended, I entreat you to have the goodness to inform 
 me how such a permission is to be understood, and 
 whether it is incumbent on me to show my sense of the 
 honour by inscribing the work now in the press to His 
 Royal Highness. I should be equally concerned to ap- 
 pear either presumptuous or ungrateful. 
 
 To this Mr. Clarke replied immediately, adding 
 a most surprising suggestion of his own : — 
 
 Carlton House (Nov. 16, 181 5) 
 Dear Madam, — It is certainly not incumbent on 
 you to dedicate your work now in the press to His 
 Royal Highness ; but if you wish to do the Regent 
 that honour either now or at any future period, I 
 am happy to send you that permission, which need 
 not require any more trouble or solicitation on your 
 part. 
 
 Your late works, Madam, and in particular " Mans- 
 field Park," reflect the highest honour on your genius 
 and your principles. In every new work your mind 
 seems to increase its energy and power of discrimina- 
 tion. The Regent has read and admired all your 
 publications. 
 
MR. CLARKE'S SUGGESTIONS. 189 
 
 Accept my best thanks for the pleasure your vol- 
 umes have given me. In the perusal of them I felt a 
 great inclination to write and say so ; and I also, dear 
 Madam, wished to be allowed to ask you to delineate 
 in some future work the habits of life, and character, 
 and enthusiasm of a clergyman who should pass his 
 time between the metropolis and the country, who 
 should be something like Beattie's Minstrel, — 
 
 " Silent when glad, affectionate tho' shy, 
 
 And in his looks was most demurely sad; 
 And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why." 
 
 Neither Goldsmith, nor La Fontaine in his " Tableau 
 de Famille," have in my mind quite delineated an 
 English clergyman, at least of the present day, fond 
 of and entirely engaged in literature, no man's enemy 
 but his own. Pray, dear Madam, think of these things. 
 Believe me at all times with sincerity and respect, 
 Your faithful and obliged servant, 
 
 J. S. Clarke, Librarian. 
 
 This kindly but rather stilted epistle, with its im- 
 possible suggestion, must have given great amuse- 
 ment to Jane and her brother ; but she answered 
 its appeal with a grave courtesy, taking pains to 
 show why she could not follow out the writer's plan, 
 in a way that would have indicated to any person 
 of moderately keen perceptions that her talent was 
 not to be thus diverted from its natural channel. 
 
 Dec. n. 
 Dear Sir, — My "Emma" is now so near publica- 
 tion that I feel it right to assure you of my not having 
 forgotten your kind recommendation of an early copy 
 for Carlton House, and that I have Mr. Murray's 
 promise of its being sent to His Royal Highness, under 
 
190 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 cover to you, three days previous to the work being 
 really out. I must make use of this opportunity to\ 
 thank you, dear Sir, for the very high praise you bestow 
 on my other novels. I am too vain to wish to convince 
 you that you have praised them beyond their merits. 
 My greatest anxiety at present is that this fourth work 
 should not disgrace what was good in the others. But 
 on this point 1 will do myself the justice to declare that 
 whatever may be my wishes for its success, I am 
 strongly haunted with the idea that to those readers 
 who have preferred " Pride and Prejudice " it will ap- I 
 pear inferior in wit, and to those who have preferred ; 
 " Mansfield Park " inferior in good sense. Such as it is, I 
 however, I hope you will do me the favour of accepting 
 a copy. Mr. Murray will have directions for sending 
 one. I am quite honoured by your thinking me capa- 
 ble of drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch 
 of in your note of Nov. 16th. But I assure you I am 
 not The comic part of the character I might be equal 
 to, but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary. 
 Such a man's conversation must at times be on sub- 
 jects of science and philosophy, of which I know 
 nothing, or at least be occasionally abundant in quota- 
 tions and allusions which a woman who, like me, knows 
 only her own mother-tongue, and has read little in 
 that, would be totally without the power of giving. A 
 classical education, or at any rate a very extensive 
 acquaintance with English literature, ancient and 
 modern, appears to me quite indispensable for the per- 
 son who would do any justice to your clergyman ; and 
 I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible van- 
 ity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who 
 ever dared to be an authoress 
 
 Believe me, dear Sir, 
 Your obliged and faithful hum bl ser f ., 
 
 Jane Austen. 
 
MR. CLARKE'S SUGGESTIONS. I9I 
 
 "Mr. Clarke, however," says Mr. Austen- Leigh, 
 " was not to be discouraged from proposing another 
 subject. He had recently been appointed chaplain 
 and private English secretary to Prince Leopold, who 
 was then about to be united to the Princess Char- 
 lotte ; and when he again wrote to express the gra- 
 cious thanks of the Prince Regent for the copy of 
 ' Emma ' which had been presented, he suggests 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. 
 This was much as if Sir William Ross had been set to 
 paint a great battle-piece ; and it is amusing to see 
 with what grave civility she declined a proposal which 
 must have struck her as ludicrous, in the following 
 letter:" — 
 
 My dear Sir, — I am honoured by the Prince's 
 thanks, and very much obliged to yourself for the kind 
 manner in which you mention the work. I have also 
 to acknowledge a former letter forwarded to me from 
 Hans Place I assure you I felt very grateful for the 
 friendly tenor of it, and hope my silence will have 
 been considered, as it was truly meant, to proceed 
 only from an unwillingness to tax your time with idle 
 thanks. Under every interesting circumstance which 
 your own talents and literary labours have placed you 
 in, or the favour of the Regent bestowed, you have my 
 best wishes. Your recent appointments I hope are a 
 step to something still better' In my opinion, the ser- 
 vice of a court can hardly be too well paid, for im- 
 mense must be the sacrifice of time and feeling re- 
 quired by it. 
 
 You are very kind in your hints as to the sort of 
 composition which might recommend me at present; 
 and I am fully sensible that an historical romance, 
 
192 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 founded on the House of Saxe-Cobourg, might be 
 much more to the purpose of profit or popularity than 
 such pictures of domestic life in country villages as I 
 deal in. But 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 for me to 
 keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or 
 at other people, I am sure I should be hung before I 
 had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to 
 my own style and go on in my own way ; and though 
 I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced 
 that I should totally fail in any other. 
 I remain, my dear Sir, 
 Your very much obliged and sincere friend, 
 
 J. Austen. 
 Chawton, near Alton, April i, 1816 
 
 It is satisfactory to be able to add that this let- 
 ter silenced, if it did not convince, the librarian 
 of Carlton House, and that he offered no further 
 suggestions. 
 
 While "Emma" was receiving its last correc- 
 tions in the proof, its author had also been going 
 carefully through the pages of " Mansfield Park," 
 and making such changes as her critical sense dic- 
 tated, returning it to Mr. Murray on December 11, 
 " as ready for a second edition as I can make it," 
 she tells him. No wonder that the weight of 
 care and anxiety on her brother's behalf, coming 
 at a period when necessity obliged her to spend 
 long hours over the innumerable proof sheets of 
 " Emma " and this final revision of " Mansfield 
 Park," should have pressed heavily upon her. 
 
CATHERINE." 
 
 J 93 
 
 There is no mention of her being out of health in 
 these months, and it was not until the subsequent 
 spring that she began visibly to decline ; but the 
 burdens of the autumn had already done their fatal 
 work upon her, though neither she nor her friends 
 suspected it. 
 
 About the middle of December she returned to 
 Chawton ; and the next intelligence we have of her 
 is contained in a letter to her niece, Fanny, dated 
 the 20th of the following February, in which she 
 speaks of having been ill with rheumatism and 
 tenderly nursed by her sister ; but in spite of this 
 indisposition she was able to do some sisterly 
 offices for the brother whose devoted nurse she 
 had been a few months before, for she mentions 
 having completed the marking of some of his 
 shirts. In the next letter, dated March 13, is an 
 item of importance as showing how persistent her 
 literary labors were in the last years of her life in 
 spite of many hindrances : — 
 
 11 1 will answer your kind questions more than you 
 expect. 'Miss Catherine" is put upon the shelf for 
 the present, and I do not know that she will ever 
 come out ; but I have a something ready for publica- 
 tion which may perhaps appear about a twelvemonth 
 hence. It is short, — about the length of ' Catherine.' 
 This is for yourself alone." 
 
 Mr. Austen -Leigh in his biography makes no 
 
 mention of " Catherine ; " and I am not aware that 
 
 this reference to it appears to have been noticed 
 
 by any writer upon Jane Austen. Its author proba- 
 
 13 
 
i 94 JANE AUSTENS LIFE. 
 
 bly never subjected it to revision, from the feeling 
 that it was not up to the level of her other work, 
 and took care that it should not be published. All 
 that is known of it is what is contained in the pas- 
 sage quoted. The book was called " Catherine," 
 and was short. It can hardly fail to have been 
 better than " Lady Susan , " and I am led to wish 
 that this and not " Lady Susan " had fallen into 
 her nephew's hands when he decided to give to 
 the world a hitherto unpublished story by his illus- 
 trious aunt. 
 
 The other work mentioned as " ready for publi- 
 cation " must have been the first draft of " Persua- 
 sion," though one is at a loss to know how she 
 had found time to write it with all she had had to 
 occupy her. The information that it might appear 
 " about a twelvemonth hence " would seem to 
 imply that she intended to extend and amplify it 
 in the intervening time. Ten days later, however, 
 she tells her niece, — 
 
 " Do not be surprised at finding Uncle Henry ac- 
 quainted with my having another ready for publication. 
 I could not say No when he asked me, but he knows 
 nothing more of it. You will not like it, so you need 
 not be impatient. You may perhaps like the heroine, 
 as she is almost too good for me." 
 
 However nearly ready for the printer the book, 
 if "Persuasion " be here meant, may have seemed 
 to her at this time, she certainly soon altered her 
 mind concerning it, either rewriting or very mate- 
 rially enlarging it, as we shall have occasion later to 
 observe. 
 
"persuasion: 
 
 95 
 
 In this letter, which was written on the 23d of 
 March, she confesses that she has " certainly not 
 been well for many weeks." About a week ago, 
 she adds, — 
 
 " I was very poorly. I have had a good deal of 
 fever at times, and indifferent nights; but I am con- 
 siderably better now, and am recovering my looks a 
 little, which have been bad enough, — black and white 
 and every wrong colour. I must not depend upon being 
 ever very blooming again. Sickness is a dangerous 
 indulgence at my time of life." 
 
 It was while her health was thus undermined 
 that the bank in which Henry Austen had for some 
 time been a partner failed, involving him and many 
 of the members of the Austen kindred in serious 
 loss. This trouble was very greatly felt by Jane, 
 who not far from this time was visiting her friends 
 the Fowles in Berkshire. She had by no means 
 recovered from the strain of the previous autumn, 
 as we have just seen, and was consequently less 
 able to bear the trial than the others of the family. 
 Her Berkshire friends perceived a great change in 
 her appearance ; and it became very evident to all 
 who saw her that she was certainly very far from 
 well. Still she was busy at her little mahogany 
 desk a good deal of the time, for she was at work 
 upon " Persuasion," which was undergoing revision 
 or rewriting, if we assume this to have been the 
 work to which she alludes in March ; and on July 
 16 she brought it to its first conclusion. 
 
 For a time in the spring her usual cheerfulness 
 
196 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 deserted her. The winter's rheumatism had been 
 followed, as we have already seen, by the bilious 
 fever, and this in turn by the family troubles ; and 
 writing of all this to her brother Charles, then liv- 
 ing in Keppel Street in London, she says : " I live 
 upstairs for the present, and am coddled. I am 
 the only one of the party who has been so silly, 
 but a weak body must excuse weak nerves." 
 
 To another correspondent she remarks, " I am 
 getting too near complaint ; it has been the ap- 
 pointment of God, however secondary causes may 
 have operated." 
 
 The depression which she felt was a perfectly 
 natural one ; and the only wonder is that consid- 
 ering all the circumstances which caused it, it was 
 not only greater than it was, but more prolonged. 
 The feeling never seems to have become so strong 
 as to deserve the name of despondency, and was 
 not of long duration. When the temporary cloud 
 had lifted, she was as cheerful as ever. 
 
 Early in the spring a donkey- carriage was ob- 
 tained for her benefit; and on the 23d of March 
 she writes to her niece Fanny in regard to it : 
 
 " I took my first ride yesterday, and liked it very 
 much. I went up Mounter's Lane and round by where 
 the new cottages are to be, and found the exercise and 
 everything very pleasant; and I had the advantage of 
 agreeable companions, as At. Cass, and Edward walked 
 by my side." 
 
 Then follows the little touch of sisterly affection 
 which means so much : " At. Cass, is such an ex- 
 cellent nurse, so assiduous and unwearied ! " 
 
"PERSUASION." I97 
 
 As soon as her spirits had recovered their usual 
 tone, manifold interests occupied her thoughts as 
 usual \ and early in July she was writing in animated 
 fashion to the nephew who became her biographer, 
 and who was now near the end of his last year at 
 Winchester College. The lad, having gone to his 
 home at Steventon for a few days, had after dating 
 his letter from there incautiously added that he 
 was at home ; and his aunt rallies him upon his 
 superfluity of detail : — 
 
 " I am glad you recollected to mention your being 
 come home. My heart began to sink within me when 
 I had got so far through your letter without its being 
 mentioned. I was dreadfully afraid that you might be 
 detained at Winchester by severe illness, confined to 
 your bed perhaps, and quite unable to hold a pen, and 
 only dating from Steventon in order, with a mistaken 
 sort of tenderness, to deceive me. But now I have no 
 doubt of your being at home. I am sure you would 
 not say it unless it actually were so." 
 
 This was written on the 9th of July, and nine 
 days later the first ending of " Persuasion " was 
 reached. Always extremely critical in regard to 
 the quality and finish of her work, the success of 
 each book only impelled her to use greater care in 
 the preparation of the next ; and on this occasion 
 she was more than usually dissatisfied with her 
 writing. The last chapter she felt to be a rather 
 tame conclusion to what immediately preceded it ; 
 and a brief season of depression was the conse- 
 quence. One morning, however, after having gone 
 
i 9 8 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 to bed the evening previous in what were for her 
 unusually low spirits, she set at work with all the 
 old vigor ; and though she could necessarily write 
 but little at a time, she had by the middle of 
 August concluded " Persuasion " in a manner which 
 satisfied her own exacting literary sense, as it has 
 satisfied the demands of every critic since then. 
 
 But it is far from easy to understand how she 
 was able to accomplish all that she did in the last 
 year that she was able to write. While " Persua- 
 sion " was in hand she had been obliged to give up, 
 one after another, many of her cherished habits. 
 She was always extremely fond of walking ; but as 
 summer came on, the walks grew shorter, and at 
 last ceased altogether. Then recourse was had to 
 the donkey-carriage purchased at the time of her 
 illness in the spring. In the letter from which the 
 last quotation was made, she mentions starting for 
 Farrington — a village between Chawton and Sel- 
 borne — in this vehicle, but gives no hint of how dis- 
 tasteful to her must have been such a conveyance 
 when contrasted with her former active method 
 of taking the air. Withindoors of course she 
 could do less and less in addition to her writing ; 
 and she had the pain of seeing her sister assume 
 one by one the household duties which had been 
 her own so long, fearing, as she must have begun 
 to fear, that she would never again be strong 
 enough to share Cassandra's cares as she had done 
 since they were children. For a part of every day 
 it became a habit with her now to lie down ; and 
 
"PERSUASION." 199 
 
 lest she might deprive her aged mother from using 
 the one sofa there was space for in the family 
 room, she improvised for herself a couch of chairs, 
 which it suited her to say was more comfortable 
 for her than the sofa would have been. That this 
 was not and could not have been strictly true will 
 quickly enough be perceived ; but what can one 
 do except to forgive the thoughtful deception and 
 love her the better for it? It had always been her 
 custom to pursue her literary tasks in the family 
 sitting-room ; and as she once explained to a small 
 niece who refused to be satisfied with anything but 
 definite answers to her questions, if she had shown 
 a desire to use the sofa in the intervals of her work 
 her mother might not have felt willing to use it 
 also as much as she needed to do. Perhaps Mrs. 
 Austen, who was by no means wanting in perception, 
 may have seen through her daughter's loving sub- 
 terfuge. I like to think that she did, and that she 
 was large-minded enough to respect in silence the 
 unselfishness of a spirit which even in illness could 
 yet prefer another's comfort to her own. 
 
 " Persuasion " at last finished to her mind, Jane 
 apparently regained some of her former degree of 
 health. She still continued to spend a portion of 
 every day at her writing-desk, but mainly in 
 attending to her correspondence, which had not 
 been wholly neglected even when she was engaged 
 upon her novel during most of the hours in which 
 she was able to write. Not far from this time she 
 paid several short visits with her sister Cassandra, 
 
200 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 one of which was to her brother James and his 
 family at Steventon. It was destined to be the 
 last time she was ever to see the home of her 
 childhood ; and though she may have had some 
 presentiment of the fact, certainly none of her 
 family foresaw it. In September Cassandra was 
 staying for a short time at Cheltenham ; and on 
 the 8th Jane wrote to her what was probably the 
 last letter the other ever received from her, since 
 after that date the two were not separated. 
 
 In response to her sister's inquiries Jane says, 
 "Thank you, my back has given me scarcely 
 any pain for many days. I have an idea that the 
 agitation does it as much harm as fatigue, and that 
 I was ill at the time of your going from the very 
 circumstance of your going," — a touching confes- 
 sion, which shows how entire was now the depend- 
 ence of the younger upon the older sister. 
 
 She was certainly much better at this time than 
 she had been in the spring, as is evidenced in her 
 mention of what she was able to accomplish. The 
 letter tells of her going to Alton on one occasion 
 and walking home by moonlight. Even suppos- 
 ing her to have walked but one way and to have 
 gone only to the nearest part of Alton, the effort 
 involved a walk of at least a mile ; company 
 easily tired her, however, and much as she enjoyed 
 seeing her brothers, Edward and Frank, their visits 
 began to weary her, leaving her almost glad when 
 they were gone, and desirous of " exemption from 
 the thought and contrivancy which any sort of 
 
RE VEREND HENR Y A US TEN. 2 o I 
 
 company gives. I often wonder how you can 
 find time for what you do in addition to the care 
 of the house." 
 
 In one of the closing paragraphs of the letter 
 her dislike to the then prevalent school of church- 
 manship finds an utterance which is interesting to 
 us as revealing by inference the nature of her 
 religious preferences : " We do not much like 
 Mr. Cooper's new sermons. They are fuller of 
 regeneration and conversion than ever, with the 
 addition of his zeal in the cause of the Bible 
 Society." 
 
 How the remainder of the autumn was spent by 
 her we do not know ; but that it was a period of 
 comparative comfort may be surmised from the fact 
 that in January she speaks of having gained in 
 strength. The gain was delusive, to be sure, but to 
 all appearance it may have been real enough. 
 
 After the failure of the bank the versatile and 
 sanguine Henry Austen concluded to adopt the 
 profession of his father and eldest brother ; and 
 Jane refers to this in a letter to her nephew Ed- 
 ward Austen, written on the 16 th of December. 
 After congratulating the lad upon having left the 
 college at Winchester for the university at Oxford, 
 she observes, " Your uncle Henry writes very supe- 
 rior sermons. You and I must try to get hold of 
 one or two, and put them into our novels." 
 
 This nephew too, we thus learn, was addicted to 
 writing fiction ; but like his sister Anna's efforts in 
 the same field, his own probably came to nothing, 
 
202 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 for all we hear of them in his biography of his 
 aunt is merely this allusion in her letter to him. 
 Regarding the sermons she continues, — 
 
 "It would be a fine help to a volume ; and we could 
 make our heroine read it aloud on a Sunday evening, 
 just as well as Isabella Wardour in the ' Antiquary ' 
 is made to read the * History of the Hartz Demon ' in 
 the ruins of St. Ruth, though I believe upon recollec- 
 tion Lovell is the reader. By the bye, my dear E., I am 
 quite concerned for the loss your mother mentions in 
 her letter. Two chapters and a half to be missing is 
 monstrous ! It is well that I have not been at Steven- 
 ton lately, and therefore cannot be suspected of pur- 
 loining them ; two strong twigs and a half towards a 
 nest of my own would have been something. I do 
 not think, however, that any theft of that sort would 
 be really very useful to me. What should I do with 
 your strong, manly sketches, full of variety and glow ? 
 How could I possibly join them on to the little bit 
 (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so 
 fine a brush as produces little effect after much 
 labor?" 
 
 In all probability Jane did not prophesy to her- 
 self that her brilliant, disappointing, but wholly 
 lovable brother would achieve a great amount of 
 success in his new and sacred profession, and as a 
 matter of fact he was actively engaged in it but 
 two or three years, or while he held the living of 
 Steventon after the death of his brother James and 
 until his nephew William Knight was old enough 
 to take it ; but she could and did appreciate his 
 gifts as a sermonizer, in which capacity he may very 
 possibly have surpassed his brother James. 
 
READS SOUTHEY. 
 
 203 
 
 In a letter to her friend Miss Bigg, dated Jan. 
 24, 181 7, we note one more reference to her 
 brother Henry as a clergyman : — 
 
 " Our own new clergyman is expected here very 
 soon, perhaps in time to assist Mr. Papillon on Sun- 
 day. I shall be very glad when the first hearing is 
 over. It will be a nervous hour for our pew, though 
 we hear that he acquits himself with as much ease and 
 collectedness as if he had been used to it all his life." 
 
 Her own bit of literary self- description has been 
 often quoted apart from its context ; but I think it 
 gains in force when contrasted with her generous 
 approval of her nephew's work. She recognized 
 very fully the limits of her art, but possibly did 
 not so readily appreciate what that " fine brush " 
 of hers was actually accomplishing within those 
 limits. 
 
 In this letter of January 24 occurs a reference 
 to a poem of Southey she was reading at the time, 
 which if for no other reason is of interest because 
 it is the last book which she mentions as having 
 read. It had been in print but a few months at 
 this time. 
 
 " We have been reading ' The Poet's Pilgrimage to 
 Waterloo,' and generally with much approbation. 
 Nothing will please all the world, you know ; but parts 
 of it suit me better than much that he has written be- 
 fore. The opening — the proem, I believe he calls it — 
 is very beautiful. Poor man ! one cannot but grieve 
 for the loss of the son so fondly described." 
 
204 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Some portion of the last months of 1816 was no 
 doubt devoted by her to preparing " Persuasion " 
 for the press ; and then upon the 2 7th of January, 
 according to the date she placed upon her manu- 
 script, she began a new novel upon which she 
 worked industriously for seven weeks, the last lines 
 being written on the 1 7th of March. In that time 
 twelve chapters were written, — an extraordinary 
 amount of work when her physical condition is 
 considered. Although she had written to one of 
 her nieces about the period when the task was 
 begun in so hopeful a strain as this, " I feel my- 
 self getting stronger than I was, and can so per- 
 fectly walk to Alton, or back again without fatigue, 
 that I hope to be able to do both when summer 
 comes," she must have been much weaker in 
 reality than she thought herself. As spring came 
 on, the illusory strength of the winter melted away 
 with the snow. "The chief part of this manu- 
 script," says her nephew, " is written in her usual 
 firm, neat hand, but some of the later pages seem 
 to have been first traced in pencil, probably when 
 she was too weak to sit at her desk, and written 
 over in ink afterwards." 
 
 There is an indescribable pathos of suggestion 
 in these words of his. Now that life was so nearly 
 over for her she experienced more strongly than 
 she had ever done the impulse to write, feeling, it 
 may have been, as each day brought her nearer to 
 the unseen, a sense within herself of powers greater 
 than had yet been fully shown. And it was all in 
 
THE UNFINISHED TASK. 205 
 
 vain. One by one the days passed, each as it went 
 leaving her perceptibly weaker and stealing from 
 her ringers a little of their pliant strength, till the 
 firm, clear writing grew by degrees tremulous and 
 irregular, and the pen dropped at last from the 
 hand that could no longer hold it. It must have 
 been a bitter moment when the realization came to 
 her, as it must assuredly have one day come, that 
 it was all for nothing that she had been working, 
 that the patient careful labor of those long weeks 
 would never give delight to the world like the 
 works which had gone before it, and that always 
 and forever — 
 
 " The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower 
 Unfinished must remain." 
 
 I cannot think, as some persons have done, that 
 this fragment of a story upon which her latest 
 strength was expended is of but little worth. To 
 my mind it is full of the charm which attaches to 
 all her writing. But I will not undertake its de- 
 fence. It is but an unrevised fragment merely, 
 and to criticise it in that condition were the height 
 of unfairness. It is the very last work outlined by 
 a woman of superlative talent, or, shall we not say, 
 genius? The artist's plan is undefined ; the back- 
 ground is vague and uncertain, and the purpose of 
 many lines remains a mystery never to be un- 
 folded. But it is an artist's work, left just as the 
 artist turned from it one day to answer a sudden 
 summons, and as such should be sacred from all 
 irreverent touch. 
 
X. 
 
 LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 
 
 \ I J HEN the pen was finally laid aside, the 
 * ^ Austen family recognized, what seemingly 
 they had not done previously, that the beloved 
 daughter and sister was so ill as to justify the 
 gravest apprehensions. So long as she could pay 
 short visits to her friends, or take her rides in 
 the donkey- carriage, or, failing strength for these 
 things, could sit and write a short time each day, 
 they had not felt that she was greatly out of health. 
 But the pen laid down, and the chair pushed aside 
 from the little mahogany desk, made her actual 
 condition no longer a matter of doubt to any of 
 them. Her niece Caroline, the twelve-year-old 
 daughter of James Austen, was to have paid a visit 
 at her grandmother's near the beginning of April ; 
 but Aunt Jane was then too feeble to have com- 
 pany in the house, and Caroline went to the house 
 of her sister, Mrs. Anna Lefroy, which was not far 
 away. 
 
 " The next day," writes the niece, "we walked over 
 to Chawton to make enquiries after our aunt. She 
 was then keeping her room, but said she would see 
 us, and we went up to her. She was in her dressing- 
 
LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 
 
 207 
 
 gown, and was sitting quite like an invalid in an arm- 
 chair; but she got up and kindly greeted us, and then 
 pointing to seats which had been arranged for us by 
 the fire, she said, ' There is a chair for the married 
 lady, and a little stool for you, Caroline.' It is strange, 
 but these trifling words were the last of hers that I 
 can remember, for I retain no recollection of what 
 was said by any one in the conversation that ensued. 
 I was struck by the alteration in herself. She was 
 very pale ; her voice was weak and low ; and there 
 was about her a general appearance of debility and 
 suffering ; but I have been told that she never had 
 much acute pain. She was not equal to the exer- 
 tion of talking to us, and our visit to the sick-room 
 was a very short one, Aunt Cassandra soon taking us 
 away." 
 
 The month of April passed, and May followed, 
 but brought with it little change for the better in 
 the invalid's condition ; and on the 24th, in the 
 company of her sister and her brother Henry, she 
 went to Winchester to be under the care of a 
 noted physician of that town, Mr. Lyford. He 
 belonged to a family of medical men, and his skill 
 was much esteemed beyond the borders of Hamp- 
 shire, London physicians having expressed much 
 confidence in him. From the first he appears to 
 have had, according to Mr. Austen- Leigh, but 
 slight hope of effecting his patient's permanent 
 cure ; but he spoke cheerfully, thinking perhaps 
 that with care so valuable a life might be pro- 
 longed for a number of months at least. 
 
 Along the southern wall of the Close at Win- 
 chester is a narrow thoroughfare called College 
 
208 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Street, which extends easterly from Kingsgate 
 Street to a little beyond a clear, rapidly flowing 
 branch of the Itchen, near which it turns abruptly 
 to the south, skirting the high, walled garden of 
 the warden of the college. On the left hand, be- 
 tween the roadway and the wall of the Close, are 
 a few houses and some narrow gardens ; and on the 
 right the street is lined with plain brick dwellings 
 for a quarter of its length, and for the remainder by 
 the long, frontage of the outer buildings belonging 
 to the ancient College of William of Wykeham. 
 The last of these houses to the right, which adjoins 
 the Commoners' entrance to the college, was then 
 owned and occupied by a Mrs. David, — a respec- 
 table woman in middle life who let a portion of 
 her house to lodgers. After her death in 1843 
 the property passed to her nephew and thence to 
 his son, Mr. La Croix, now an elderly man, whose 
 skill as a pastry-cook has been tested by gener- 
 ation after generation of William of Wykeham's 
 sons. 
 
 It was in this building, now occupied by the 
 estimable Mr. La Croix, that Cassandra Austen 
 had engaged lodgings for her sister and herself, 
 the locality being chosen, very likely, from its 
 close vicinity to the home of their friends Mrs. 
 Heathcote and her sister, Miss Bigg, who lived in 
 one of the canon's houses in the Close. A very 
 short walk under little St. Swithin's Church over 
 the Kingsgate and then across the Close, after 
 passing its venerable seldom-closed gates, was all 
 
u 
 

LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 209 
 
 the journey required for Cassandra to take to sum- 
 mon their aid at any time. To these friends the 
 sisters owed many a thoughtful attention, receiving 
 not only the pleasure of their society, but such 
 additions to their lodging-house comforts as would 
 naturally suggest themselves to lifelong friends to 
 furnish. The removal from Chawton to Winchester 
 had taken place on Saturday, and on the Tuesday 
 succeeding Jane wrote to the nephew last men- 
 tioned the following note, almost the latest piece 
 of her writing which we possess : — 
 
 Mrs. David's, College St., Winton, 
 Tuesday, May 27. 
 
 There is no better way, my dearest E., of thanking 
 you for your affectionate concern for me during my 
 illness than my telling you myself, as soon as possible, 
 that I continue to get better. I will not boast of my 
 handwriting ; neither that nor my face have yet re- 
 covered their proper beauty, but in other respects I 
 gain very fast. I am now out of bed from 9 in the 
 morning to 10 at night : upon the sofa, it is true, but 
 I eat my meals with aunt Cassandra in a rational way, 
 and can employ myself, and walk from one room to 
 another. Mr. Lyford says he will cure me ; and if he 
 fails, I shall draw up a memorial and lay it before the 
 Dean and Chapter, and have no doubt of redress from 
 that pious, learned, and disinterested body. Our lodg- 
 ings are very comfortable. We have a neat little 
 drawing-room with a bow-window overlooking Dr. 
 Gabell's garden. Thanks to the kindness of your 
 father and mother in sending me their carriage, my 
 journey hither on Saturday was performed with very 
 little fatigue, and had it been a fine day, I think I 
 14 
 
210 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 should have felt none ; but it distressed me to see 
 uncle Henry and Wm. Knight, who kindly attended 
 us on horseback, riding in the rain almost the whole 
 way. We expect a visit from them to-morrow, and 
 hope they will stay the night; and on Thursday, which 
 is a confirmation and a holiday, we are to get Charles 
 out to breakfast We have had but one visit from him, 
 poor fellow, as he is in sick-room ; but he hopes to be 
 out to-night. We see Mrs. Heathcote every day, and 
 William is to call upon us soon. God bless you, my 
 dear E. ! If ever you are ill, may you be as. tenderly 
 nursed as I have been. May the same blessed alle- 
 viations of anxious, sympathizing friends be yours ; 
 and may you possess, as I dare say you will, the 
 greatest blessing of all in the consciousness of not 
 being unworthy of their love, /could not feel this. 
 Your very affec te Aunt, 
 
 J. A. 
 
 The letter here transcribed shows more clearly 
 and simply than the words of any biographer could 
 do the solicitous, grateful, loving nature of the one 
 who wrote it. She had room for an anxious thought 
 for those who might be enduring discomfort for her 
 sake, even while she was undergoing the fatigues of 
 a long carriage journey, — fatigues which, however 
 she might make light of them, could not but be 
 considerable to one as ill as she must then have 
 been. But then and always she experienced the 
 deepest gratitude for all that was done for her. It 
 was no forced humility of spirit which led her at 
 this time to esteem herself unworthy of all the 
 kindness she received, but the sincere utterance 
 of a soul that so far from thinking of itself more 
 
LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 2 n 
 
 highly than it ought to think, had invariably pre- 
 ferred another's comfort to its own. 
 
 One afternoon of June, 1889, in the company 
 of the Dean 1 who at present rules so ably over 
 the grey precincts of Winchester Cathedral, I en- 
 tered the old house in College Street which Jane 
 Austen had found so comfortable in the last weeks 
 of her life. The Dean having explained our wishes 
 to the owner, the latter readily admitted us up a 
 rather dark stair possessing a landing and a turn, 
 and into the " neat little drawing-room " men- 
 tioned in the letter, from the bow-window of which 
 flowers and vines overhang the entrance to the 
 pastry-cook shop below. It is a small room, 
 lighted only by the bow-window, and connecting 
 by a passage-way with other apartments in the 
 rear. Over the way there was a bit of garden to 
 be seen, and beyond and above the leafage of the 
 Close the south transept gable and the tower of 
 the cathedral. 
 
 It was a pleasant corner of the beautiful old 
 city, — not an absolutely still one, for the voices 
 of the young Wykehamists now and again echoed 
 along the street, but a peaceful spot nevertheless, 
 with just enough of life stirring within it to please 
 one whose hold on existence, but not her kindly 
 interest in many of its aspects, was fast loosening. 
 As we sat in the* little room with curious time-worn 
 paper on the walls, from which some old views of 
 Paris were suspended, the seventy-two years since 
 the Austens were there seemed to fade into the 
 
 1 The Very Reverend G. W. Kitchin, now (1896) Dean 
 of Durham. 
 
212 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 past, and show us the patient, gentle invalid on 
 the sofa in the corner, and close beside her Cas- 
 sandra Austen, — that " dearest sister," that "ten- 
 der, watchful, indefatigable nurse." 
 
 It was transitory enough, like most illusions ; 
 but as we walked thoughtfully back through Col- 
 lege and St. Swithin streets to where the sharply 
 pointed arches of the Deanery entrance revealed 
 their graceful outlines across the greensward of the 
 Close, we talked, as was natural, of little else than 
 the gifted woman in whose very presence we had 
 seemed to be that summer day. 
 
 The improvement in her condition noted by 
 Jane in her letter, which was probably owing as 
 much as anything to the change of air and scene 
 incident upon the removal from Chawton to Win- 
 chester, lasted but a very short time ; for on June 
 14, a little over two weeks later, her niece Fanny 
 sadly records in her diary the latest news from 
 Winchester to this effect, " A sad account of my 
 poor dear aunt Jane." Four days after the diary 
 contains this entry, " Another hopeless account 
 from Winchester ; " and again on June 27 the 
 words, " Much the same account of dear aunt 
 Jane." 
 
 By this time the circle of friends to whom Jane 
 Austen was so dear had of course ceased to enter- 
 tain hope of her recovery, but they may not have 
 thought the end so near as it proved to be. Some 
 one whom she loved was always with her in these 
 last days. Cassandra, the devoted sister, seldom 
 
LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 2 i$ 
 
 left her side, and her ministrations were shared by 
 her sister-in-law, Mrs. James Austen. Henry and 
 James Austen came to Winchester every few days 
 to see their sister ; while the two friends from the 
 Close daily passed along College Street to the 
 Austen lodgings at Mrs. David's. Everything that 
 the thoughtful love of those about her could sug- 
 gest to add to her comfort was ungrudgingly sup- 
 plied ; and that she was fully sensible of the tender 
 solicitude of her friends appears in almost the last 
 lines she ever wrote : — 
 
 "My dearest sister, my tender, watchful, indefati- 
 gable nurse, has not been made ill by her exertions. 
 As to what I owe her, and the anxious affection of all 
 my beloved family on this occasion, I can only cry 
 over it, and pray God to bless them more and more." 
 
 The natural sweetness of her disposition never 
 forsook her, even in the weakness of illness. Some- 
 times when she was feeling momentarily better her 
 former liveliness returned ; and some amusing, play- 
 ful expression of hers would bring smiles to the 
 anxious faces of the friends about her. 
 
 Ere June was ended she recognized her con- 
 dition fully, but accepted the knowledge calmly, 
 notwithstanding that life had been very sweet to 
 her, shielded as she had always been from much 
 contact with its ruder experiences, while the events 
 of the last few years had been of such a character 
 as to incline her to wish to live to enjoy for a 
 longer time the fame that had dawned across 
 them. But, as her nephew observes, — 
 
214 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 " Her life had been passed in the performance of 
 home duties, and the cultivation of domestic affec- 
 tions, without any self-seeking or craving after ap- 
 plause. She had always sought, as it were by instinct, 
 to promote the happiness of all who came within her 
 influence ; and doubtless she had her reward in the 
 peace of mind which was granted her in her last 
 days." 
 
 At length there came a day when she fancied 
 the end was close at hand ; and turning from one 
 to another of the friends beside her, she said some 
 gentle word of parting to each, thanking especially 
 the sister-in-law who had borne with Cassandra the 
 more arduous cares of nursing and attendance, 
 adding in the sweet tones which never failed her, 
 "You have always been a kind sister to me, 
 Mary." 
 
 But after this there seemed to be a pause in the 
 progress of the disease ; and for two or three weeks 
 she lingered in a state which implied the existence 
 of but little pain, and that permitted her to talk with 
 her attendants and enjoy their presence. Then 
 the complaint returned or took on another phase ; 
 and on the evening of the 17 th of July, after a 
 half- hour of suffering, she sank into that uncon- 
 sciousness which passed just as another day was 
 breaking into that broader existence " whose portal 
 we call death." 
 
 To the aged mother in the cottage at Chawton 
 there came, a few hours later, the news which for 
 weeks she had been expecting yet dreading to 
 hear. What such a loss as hers must have been 
 
LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 215 
 
 we can understand from what we know of the one 
 for whom she mourned. The death of her hus- 
 band had been the one great anguish of her life 
 till now at nearly eighty she had the pain of losing 
 the most gifted of all her seven children. 
 
 To Jane's beloved niece at Godmersham the 
 latter' s father wrote from Winchester at once, well 
 knowing how sharp a sorrow his words would carry 
 to his daughter, who was so like the sister he had 
 lost, and who had loved her so well. It was on 
 Friday morning that Jane Austen died ; and on 
 Sunday the sister, sitting in the little room beside 
 the silent form of the one who had been the al- 
 most idolized companion of a whole life, wrote 
 to her niece Fanny the touching letter that fol- 
 lows, — a letter full of the details which the other 
 would wish to know, but the penning of which 
 must have cost the writer many tears : — 
 
 Winchester, Sunday. 
 
 My dearest Fanny, — Doubly dear to me now 
 for her dear sake whom we have lost. She did love 
 you most sincerely ; and never shall I forget the proofs 
 of love you gave her during her illness, in writing those 
 kind, amusing letters, at a time when I know your 
 feelings would have dictated so different a style. 
 Take the only reward I can give you, in the assurance 
 that your benevolent purpose was answered ; you did 
 contribute to her enjoyment. 
 
 Even your last letter afforded her pleasure. I 
 merely cut the seal and gave it to her; she opened it 
 and read it herself. Afterwards she gave it to me to 
 read, and then talked to me a little, and not uncheer- 
 
216 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 fully, of its contents; but there was then a languor 
 about her which prevented her taking the same in- 
 terest in anything she had been used to do. 
 
 Since Tuesday evening, when her complaint re- 
 turned, there was a visible change : she slept more and 
 much more comfortably ; indeed, during the last eight- 
 and-forty hours she was more asleep than awake. Her 
 looks altered and fell away, but I perceived no mate- 
 rial diminution of strength ; and though I was then 
 hopeless of a recovery, I had no suspicion how rapidly 
 my loss was approaching. 
 
 I have lost a treasure, — such a sister, such a friend 
 as never can have been surpassed. She was the sun 
 of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of 
 every sorrow ; I had not a thought concealed from 
 her ; and it is as if I had lost a part of myself. I loved 
 her only too well, — not better than she deserved, but 
 I am conscious that my affection for her made me 
 sometimes unjust to and negligent of others ; and I 
 can acknowledge, more than as a general principle, 
 the justice of the Hand which struck the blow. 
 
 You know me too well to be at all afraid that I 
 should suffer materially from my feelings. I am per- 
 fectly conscious of the extent of my irreparable loss ; 
 but I am not at all overpowered, and very little indis- 
 posed, nothing but what a short time, with rest and 
 change of air, will remove. I thank God that I was 
 enabled to attend her to the last, and amongst my 
 many causes of self-reproach I have not to add any 
 wilful neglect of her comfort. 
 
 She felt herself to be dying about half an hour 
 before she became tranquil and apparently uncon- 
 scious. During that half-hour was her struggle, poor 
 soul! She said she could not tell us what she suf- 
 fered, though she complained of little fixed pain. 
 When I asked her if there was anything she wanted, 
 
LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 
 
 217 
 
 her answer was she wanted nothing but death ; and 
 some of her words were, " God grant me patience ! 
 Pray for me, oh, pray for me ! " Her voice was af- 
 fected, but as long as she spoke she was intelligible. 
 
 I hope I do not break your heart, my dearest 
 Fanny, by these particulars ; I mean to afford you 
 gratification while I am relieving my own feelings. I 
 could not write so to anybody else ; indeed, you are 
 the only person I have written to at all, excepting your 
 grandmamma, — it was to her, not your Uncle Charles, 
 I wrote on Friday. 
 
 Immediately after dinner on Thursday I went into 
 the town to do an errand which your dear aunt was 
 anxious about. I returned about a quarter before six, 
 and found her recovering from faintness and oppres- 
 sion. She got so well as to give me a minute account 
 of her seizure ; and when the clock struck six she was 
 talking quietly to me. 
 
 I cannot say how soon afterwards she was seized 
 again with the same faintness, which was followed by 
 the sufferings she could not describe ; but Mr. Lyford 
 had been sent for, had applied something to give her 
 ease, and she was in a state of quiet insensibility by 
 seven o'clock at the latest. From that time till half- 
 past four, when she ceased to breathe, she scarcely 
 moved a limb ; so that we have every reason to think, 
 with gratitude to the Almighty, that her sufferings 
 were over. A slight motion of the head with every 
 breath remained till almost the last. I sat close to 
 her, with a pillow in my lap to assist in supporting her 
 head, which was almost off the bed, for six hours ; 
 fatigue made me then resign my place to Mrs. J. A. 
 for two hours and a half, when I took it again, and in 
 about an hour more she breathed her last. I was able 
 to close her eyes myself ; and it was a great gratifica- 
 tion to me to render her those last services. There 
 
218 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 was nothing convulsed which gave the idea of pain in 
 her look ; on the contrary, but for the continual mo- 
 tion of the head she gave one the idea of a beautiful 
 statue. And even now, in her coffin, there is such a 
 sweet, serene air over her countenance as is quite 
 pleasant to contemplate. 
 
 This day, my dearest Fanny, you have had the 
 melancholy intelligence, and I know you will suffer 
 severely ; but I likewise know that you will apply to 
 the fountain-head for consolation, and that our mer- 
 ciful God is never deaf to such prayers as you will 
 offer. 
 
 The last sad ceremony is to take place on Thurs- 
 day morning ; her dear remains are to be deposited in 
 the cathedral. It is a satisfaction to me to think that 
 they are to lie in a building she admired so much ; her 
 precious soul, I presume to hope, reposes in a far 
 superior mansion. May mine one day be reunited 
 to it. 
 
 Your dear papa, your Uncle Henry, and Frank 
 and Edwd. Austen, 1 instead of his father, will attend. 
 I hope they will none of them suffer lastingly from 
 their pious exertions. The ceremony must be over 
 before ten o'clock, as the cathedral service begins at 
 that hour, so that we shall be at home early in the 
 day, for there will be nothing to keep us here after- 
 wards. ... I am, my dearest Fanny, 
 
 Most affectionately Yours, 
 
 Cass. Eliz. Austen. 
 
 On Thursday, July 24, not far from nine in the 
 morning, a small company of the male members of 
 the Austen kindred moved slowly forth from the 
 
 1 Known to literature as the Reverend Austen-Leigh. 
 He was the son of Reverend James Austen, who was not 
 well enough to be present. 
 
LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 2 ig 
 
 house on College Street, taking with them all that 
 remained on earth of the bright, unselfish woman, 
 the tender sister, the loving aunt, of whose genius 
 they had all been so justly proud. Very quietly 
 the necessary movements were made, so that the 
 sister sitting in her desolation in the room above 
 should hear no jarring sound j and " had I not 
 been upon the listen," so she tells us, " I should 
 not have known when they left the house." 
 
 From the bow-window of her room Cassandra 
 watched the mournful company till in a few mo- 
 ments it had passed from sight around the corner 
 of Kingsgate Street ; but in thought she still fol- 
 lowed it through the low, dark arches of the Kings- 
 gate, till it entered, at the foot of St. Swithin 
 Street, a few steps farther, the shady precincts of 
 the Close, and wound along past the corners of the 
 choristers' school and then of the Deanery oppo- 
 site, past the opening of the long " dark cloister," 
 till it paused before the side door in the south aisle 
 of the cathedral. It was but a brief journey, this sad 
 one she was following step by step while she sat so 
 quietly in the lonely apartment out of which had 
 gone all that she most cared for. Sitting there 
 with her grief, she could nevertheless see her 
 brothers pass into the mighty cathedral, cross the 
 long-drawn nave, the most majestic in all England, 
 and pause once more, this time before the spot in 
 the north aisle where they were to leave the dust 
 of their sister to mingle with the dust of kings and 
 queens, of prelates and of warriors ; but not one of 
 
220 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 all that host of buried greatness had lived a fairer 
 life or left a sweeter memory than had her sister 
 and theirs. 
 
 The service ended, the grave filled up, and the 
 temporary slab which covered it fitted into its 
 place in the floor of the aisle, 1 the brothers went 
 their way as the bells of the cathedral began ring- 
 ing for morning prayer. A few moments after, the 
 white-robed singing boys and vicars-choral moved 
 choirwards from the south transept, followed by 
 the vergers and the surpliced canons ; and the 
 organ sent its waves of sound surging along the 
 vaulted roof. These, too, after a little went their 
 way; the great cathedral was left to the vergers 
 and the Saint Cross bedesmen to care for, the sun- 
 light streamed in gloriously through the long range 
 of the clerestory windows, 
 
 " And merry was the world though she was dead." 
 
 1 The precise locality of the gravestone is in the pave- 
 ment of the fifth bay of the north aisle, counting from the 
 west. It is a slab of black marble with the following 
 inscription : — 
 
 " In memory of Jane Austen, youngest daughter of the late 
 Revd. George Austen, formerly Rector of Steventon in this County. 
 She departed this life on July 18, 1817, aged 41, after a long illness, 
 supported with the patience and hope of a Christian. The benevo- 
 lence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extra- 
 ordinary endowments of her mind, obtained the regard of all who 
 knew her, and the warmest love of her immediate connexions. 
 Their grief is in proportion to their affection ; they know their loss 
 to be irreparable, but in their deepest affliction they are consoled by 
 a firm, though humble, hope that her charity, devotion, faith and 
 purity have rendered her soul acceptable in the sight of her 
 Redeemer." 
 
Winchester Cathedral, North Aisle, looking West. 
 
 THE SLAB ABOVE THE GRAVE t>F MISS AUSTEN IS AT THE END OF THE MATTING 
 SHOWN IN THE ILLUSTRATION. 
 
XL 
 
 JANE'S BROTHERS AND SISTER. 
 
 SAID the youngest mourner in the cathedral on 
 that 24th of July, 181 7, — the nephew who in 
 his old age wrote so tenderly of the beloved aunt 
 of his boyhood, and whose pious care placed in 
 the wall of the north aisle the memorial brass 
 which bears her name, — 
 
 " Her brothers went back sorrowing to their several 
 homes. They were very fond and very proud of her. 
 They were attached to her by her talents, her virtues, 
 and her engaging manners ; and each loved after- 
 wards to fancy a resemblance in some niece or daugh- 
 ter of his own to the dear sister Jane whose perfect 
 equal they yet never expected to see." 
 
 Her death was the first break in the circle of 
 brothers and sisters ; and nearly two years and a 
 half later a second was caused by the death of 
 the Reverend James Austen at Steventon, on Dec. 
 13, 1 819. In the chancel of the church of St. 
 Nicholas at Steventon, of which he had been 
 rector since the resignation of his father in 1801, 
 is a mural tablet 1 to his memory, and close at 
 
 1 " To the memory of Rev. James Austen who succeeded 
 his father as Rector of this Parish, and died Dec. 13th 1819, 
 aged 53 years." 
 
222 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE, 
 
 hand, in the small but sunny churchyard, is hi? 
 tomb. He was twice married, — the first time tc 
 Anne Mathew, whose only child, Anna, married, as 
 we have already ascertained, the younger son of 
 Jane's early friend, Mrs. Lefroy of Ashe. His two 
 children by his second wife, Mary Lloyd, — the 
 " Mary " to whom Jane expressed so much grati- 
 tude in her last days, — were James Edward, the 
 same who afterward added the name of Leigh to 
 his own, .and Caroline, who died unmarried in 1880. 
 
 Mrs. George Austen, who at the time of her 
 daughter's death was seventy-eight years old, lived 
 on quietly in the cottage at Chawton for several 
 years after the loss of her eldest son. These were 
 years of almost constant pain, which she bore, how- 
 ever, with patience and cheerfulness. To her 
 nephew Edward she once remarked during one of 
 his visits to her : " Ah, my dear, you find me just 
 where you left me, on the sofa. I sometimes think 
 God Almighty must have forgotten me ; but I dare 
 say He will come for me in His own good time." 
 The ending she had longed for came in January, 
 1827, at the cottage in Chawton; and the small 
 churchyard about Chawton Church in her great- 
 grandson's park contains her tomb. 
 
 There was no one left at the cottage now to 
 need a daughter's nor a sister's care ; and Cassan- 
 dra, whose home it still continued to be, spent 
 much of her time with the families of her brothers. 
 Her nephew, Edward Knight, after his marriage 
 made Chawton House his home ; and she naturally 
 
JANE'S BROTHERS AND SISTER. 223 
 
 passed a large part of her time in his family, being 
 especially fond of his second wife ; for like all his 
 uncles and many of his cousins, he was twice mar- 
 ried. She made, however, frequent trips to God- 
 mersham and Steventon ; and her death occurred 
 while she was visiting her brother, Admiral Francis 
 Austen, K. C. B., whose home was at Portsdown 
 Lodge near Portsmouth. She was buried beside 
 her mother in Chawton Churchyard ; and when I 
 visited her grave in July of 1889, a thrifty young 
 yew which grew close beside it almost hid from 
 sight the following inscription upon the stone at its 
 head : — 
 
 " In Memory of Cassandra Elizabeth Austen who 
 died the 22d of March 1845. Aged 72." 
 
 Not many years ago a fire destroyed the nave of 
 Chawton Church, since rebuilt, but happily spared 
 the ivy-covered chancel, the interior walls of 
 which bear tablets in remembrance of Mrs. Austen 
 and her older daughter. On the memorial to the 
 latter are the words : — 
 
 " In Memory of Cassandra Elizabeth Austen, 
 daughter of the Reverend George Austen, Rector of 
 Steventon in this county. Died 22d of March, 1845. 
 Aged 72. 
 
 " Being justified by faith we have peace with God 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ. — Rom. v. 1." 
 
 A fair knowledge of what Cassandra Austen was 
 may be gleaned to some extent from the foregoing 
 
224 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 pages. That hers was a character well worthy of 
 the sisterly adoration of a woman like Jane Austen 
 may not be doubted. With Jane she shared in 
 the affectionate esteem of all her brothers, and in 
 the reverent affection of their many nephews and 
 nieces. After the deaths of her beloved sister and 
 aged mother her life continued to be an active, 
 busy one ; for though her own household cares may 
 not have been very great, yet in the homes of her 
 brothers and their children her counsel and ser- 
 vices were constantly in demand. The great sor- 
 row of her lifetime was probably not far removed 
 from the surface of her thoughts at any after 
 period. Soon after Jane's death she wrote to her 
 niece Fanny : — 
 
 " I get out of doors a good deal, and am able to em- 
 ploy myself. Of course those employments suit me 
 best which leave me most at leisure to think of her I 
 have lost, and I do think of her in every variety of 
 circumstance. ... I know the time must come when 
 my mind will be less engrossed by her idea, but I do 
 not like to think of it." 
 
 Hers was too healthy a mind to dwell upon the 
 past to the exclusion of the present ; and when the 
 first sharpness of loss had gone, and her sorrow had 
 passed from anguished pain into softened grief, she 
 took up the plain details of common life with the 
 gentle cheerfulness of her race. It had not been 
 her first great trial, this parting with her sister. 
 Long ago, in the old days at Steventon, fully 
 twenty years before, she had met and become 
 
JANE'S BROTHERS AND SISTER. 225 
 
 deeply attached to a young clergyman ; and their 
 engagement was favorably regarded by their rel- 
 atives. Her lover was the friend of a young 
 nobleman, with whom he went to India as chap- 
 lain to the other's regiment. While in India he 
 sickened and died of yellow fever, to the great 
 grief of the young peer, who declared that had he 
 known of the engagement, he should not have en- 
 couraged his friend to encounter the risks of a 
 tropical climate. 
 
 To Cassandra the shock of his death was a most 
 severe one ; and the entire household shared her 
 grief and gave her their tender.est pity. Jane's 
 affectionate sympathy was of the utmost value to 
 the older sister at this epoch, and strengthened 
 the tie between them, which never had been a 
 weak one. The love of her sister did all that 
 human affection could do to supply the place of 
 what was lost from Cassandra's life, but — 
 
 " Life is love, and love is life, be sure ! 
 And once loved, always must that love be strong." 
 
 Her grandnephew, Lord Brabourne, who was a 
 lad of fifteen at the time of his aunt Cassandra's 
 death, well remembers her visits to Godmersham 
 in his boyish days. She was an old lady by that 
 time, with bright apple-red cheeks like her brother 
 Edward's, giving a fine healthy tone of color to 
 her face. She was a high favorite with her grand- 
 nephews and grandnieces, of whom she had many ; 
 and after the lapse of five and forty years they 
 '5 
 
226 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 remember their great- aunt Cassandra as invari- 
 ably winning and agreeable. 
 
 Henry Thomas Austen, whom I cannot but ac- 
 cuse as the remote though unwitting cause of his 
 sister Jane's death, went to Berlin the year follow- 
 ing that event in the capacity of chaplain. The 
 death of his brother James was the occasion of his 
 return to England at the close of 1 8 1 9 ; and he 
 succeeded him as rector of Steventon. In 1820 
 he married for the second time, and in 1822 re- 
 signed the living which had been filled by an 
 Austen so long, in favor of his nephew, William 
 Knight, who retained it till his own death in 1873. 
 This appears to have been the only church prefer- 
 ment held by Henry Austen, who was no more 
 persistent in this profession than in any other, and 
 who lacked throughout his long life of almost 
 eighty years that mysterious gift which goes by the 
 name of " faculty." It was a disappointing, unsat- 
 isfactory life to those to whom he was dear, but 
 probably not to himself, for he seemingly extracted 
 a fair amount of comfort and happiness from it. 
 He died at Tunbridge Wells in 1850, leaving no 
 children. 
 
 The youngest of the Austen brothers, Admiral 
 Charles Austen, was much less often in the com- 
 pany of his relatives than the others, being absent 
 from England on many long cruises in the royal ser- 
 vice, — one of these, indeed, lasting for seven years. 
 He commanded the " Bellerophon " at the bom- 
 bardment of St. Jean d'Acre in 1840, and ten years 
 
JANE'S BROTHERS AND SISTER. 227 
 
 later was commander-in-chief of the British naval 
 forces in the East Indian and Chinese waters. He 
 never returned to England after this, and died of 
 cholera on board his flagship in the Irawaddy in 
 the year 1852, when he had nearly reached the 
 age of seventy-four. 
 
 In November of the same year the second 
 brother, Edward, who since the age of forty- four 
 had borne the surname of Knight, died at God- 
 mersham a few weeks after his eighty-fourth birth- 
 day had been passed. At Chawton House is a 
 portrait painted of him when he was not far from 
 twenty-five, which shows him to have been an un- 
 usually fine-looking young man, bearing, according 
 to family tradition, not a little resemblance to his 
 sister Jane. That he retained his good looks till 
 very late in life, a small miniature of him bears 
 abundant testimony. 
 
 But one of all the Steventon household was now 
 left alive, Admiral Sir Francis Austen, who was 
 destined to a longer life than any other member of 
 it, his death not occurring till 1865, at his home in 
 Portsmouth, twenty years after the death of his 
 sister Cassandra at the same place. His first wife, 
 who is very often referred to in Jane's letters from 
 Southampton, died in 1823 ; and some time after- 
 ward he married Martha Lloyd, the sister of Mrs. 
 James Austen. She had been an inmate of Mrs. 
 George Austen's family at Southampton, and again 
 at Chawton ; and Jane was much attached to her. 
 
 With the death of Sir Francis Austen the gener- 
 
228 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 ation of which his sister Jane was the most gifted 
 representative became extinct. Of the Austens of 
 later days little need here be said beyond the fact 
 that they have always been deeply sensible of the 
 talents and abilities of their famous aunt, and have 
 borne honored names in their various stations in 
 life. Some of them, like Lord Brabourne and the 
 late Reverend Edward Cracroft Lefroy, are not 
 unknown to the literature of the present day ; and 
 none of them have done anything to bring the 
 slightest stain upon — 
 
 " The grand old name of gentleman." 
 
XII. 
 
 CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN SHOWN IN 
 HER WRITINGS. 
 
 THE nephew to whom the world owes its first 
 * extended and authoritative account of his 
 illustrious aunt gives in one of his chapters a most 
 pleasing personal description of her. His state- 
 ments, which are attested by family tradition and 
 bits of contemporary evidence, may be taken as 
 accurate, for at the time of her death in 1 8 1 7 he 
 had reached the age of eighteen years, and was 
 therefore quite old enough to form impressions 
 which should be sufficiently permanent to with- 
 stand the effacing effects of the half-century which 
 was to elapse before his memoir would be written. 
 From him, then, we learn that Jane Austen was in 
 person " very attractive ; her figure was rather tall 
 and slender, her step light and firm, and her whole 
 appearance expressive of health and animation. In 
 complexion she was a clear brunette with a rich 
 color ; she had full, round cheeks, with mouth and 
 nose small and well-formed, bright hazel eyes, and 
 brown hair forming natural curls close round her 
 face." In short, she was in appearance just such a 
 specimen of the high-bred Hampshire gentle- 
 woman as on£ may see any day in Winchester 
 
230 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 High Street or at afternoon tea in any Winchester 
 drawing-room of the present. 
 
 Of the two daughters at the Steventon rectory 
 Cassandra Austen was probably the better-looking, 
 for her features had the regularity which those of 
 her sister lacked ; but Jane's face expressed the 
 more animation. The elder sister drew very well ; 
 and it is to her that we owe the best-known like- 
 ness of Jane Austen, — a pencil drawing made by 
 Cassandra not far from the time when the family 
 left Steventon. This represents her as wearing a 
 cap, — a custom which the sisters adopted early in 
 life and long before their friends thought such an 
 addition to their costume rendered imperative by 
 their years. Jane was fond of music, as we already 
 have learned, but preferred probably the less com- 
 plex kind ; and at Chawton she practised the piano 
 with a good deal of regularity. At Chawton House, 
 besides the dance music already mentioned as be- 
 longing to her, I saw other music-books of hers 
 with her autograph on the faded fly-leaves. One 
 was a volume of six sonatas by Jean Chretien Bach ; 
 another consisted of manuscript music copied by 
 both the sisters ; and a third was a book of Scotch 
 songs. She did not confine herself to instrumen- 
 tal music, for we have the authority of her nephew 
 for saying that she sang these songs to her own 
 accompaniment, and that her voice was very sweet. 
 
 Who would not like to have sat some eighty 
 years ago in the great drawing-room, with its high, 
 dark wainscot reaching nearly to the ceiling, its 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 231 
 
 large, hospitable, generous-looking fireplace, its 
 broad range of mullioned Tudor windows looking 
 upon a perfect lawn, and sitting there have seen 
 'Jane Austen at her brother's piano, and listened to 
 her singing? Who would not have enjoyed an ex- 
 perience like this ? Though eighty years have fled, 
 the beautiful room remains much as when she used 
 to visit it, her music is still upon the piano, and 
 very pleasant it is to remember that here she sat 
 and sang, and moreover that her voice was sweet. 
 * Besides a knowledge of music she read French 
 easily, and was not wholly ignorant of Italian ; but 
 the list of what in those days would have been 
 called her " accomplishments " does not go much 
 beyond this point. History she knew a good deal 
 of, and when a girl, is said to have had very pro- 
 nounced views upon the political events of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, being a par- 
 ticularly valiant defender of Mary of Scotland and 
 of Charles I. However this may have been, in her 
 later life politics occupied a very small portion of 
 her thoughts ; and she certainly experienced no 
 difficulty in keeping the head of the unfortunate 
 Charles I. out of her writings. 
 
 As may be inferred from sundry passages in her 
 letters, she was fond of reading, although she has 
 comparatively little to say in them concerning her 
 favorite authors. Addison and Steele she had read 
 frequently, and Richardson she almost knew by 
 heart. Johnson she admired, but- to a much less 
 extent ; and certainly nothing can be more unlike 
 
232 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 his vicious, inflated, ponderous style than her own. 
 Crabbe we have heretofore ascertained to have 
 been a favorite writer with her ; and Cowper, about 
 whom she says less, stood high in her regards. In 
 spite of one or two allusions which seem to bear a 
 contrary meaning, she enjoyed Scott's poetry, with 
 which she was quite familiar ; and his prose, also, 
 so far as she had the opportunity of knowing it, for 
 but three of the Waverley novels were published in 
 her lifetime. Although she was quite removed 
 from the atmosphere of contemporary literary dis- 
 cussion, she at once detected the authorship of 
 " Waverley," speaking thus confidently concerning 
 it in a letter to her niece, Mrs. Anna Lefroy : — 
 
 - " Walter Scott has no business to write novels, es- 
 pecially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and 
 profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the 
 bread out of the mouths of other people. 
 
 " I do not like him, and do not mean to like * Wa- 
 verley ' if I can help it, but fear I must. 
 
 " I am quite determined, however, not to be pleased 
 with Mrs. West's 'Alicia De Lacy,' should I ever 
 meet with it, which I hope I shall not. I think I can 
 be stout against anything written by Mrs. West. I 
 have made up my mind to like no novels really but 
 Miss Edgeworth's, yours, and my own." 
 
 The ringers that held the pen so skilfully had 
 no less sure a touch in other employments. At 
 the once popular game of spillikens, to which there 
 are many references in her correspondence, she 
 was considered an adept ; and when playing cup 
 and ball, she would sometimes catch the ball a 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 233 
 
 hundred times in succession. Not unfrequently, in 
 the latter part of her life, when pain in the eyes 
 made it difficult for her to read or write long con- 
 tinuously, she would amuse herself at this graceful 
 pastime till they were temporarily rested. But 
 more important, at least in the estimation of her 
 contemporaries, was her skill in all branches of 
 needlework, her achievements in satin stitch in 
 particular being considered beyond all praise. 
 
 As has been before remarked, she was always in 
 high favor with children, who were invariably at- 
 tracted to her by her sweetness of manner. As 
 one of her nieces has expressed it, " She seemed 
 to love you, and you loved her in return." She 
 mingled freely in the amusements of children, and 
 was the one among their elders to whom they 
 always looked for help in their indoor sports. Her 
 ready invention enabled her to tell the most 
 delightfully long and circumstantial stories at the 
 shortest notice ; and we may easily believe that this 
 accomplishment was one which her twoscore or 
 more nephews and nieces did not suffer to rust for 
 want of use, but persistently begged for its unim- 
 peded exercise on every possible occasion. It 
 seems to me by no means improbable that her 
 grandnephevv, Lord Brabourne, whose talent as a 
 weaver of fairy tales is so generally recognized by 
 children of to-day, may have discovered his own 
 peculiar gifts in the same direction from a knowl- 
 edge of his aunt's abilities in that quarter. 
 
 In regard to her skill in the telling of fairy tales, 
 
234 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 we must of course depend upon the evidence of 
 her nephews and nieces, — a testimony presumably 
 somewhat colored by family reverence for, and 
 pride in, her genius, yet accurate enough in the 
 main. Upon the same authority, too, we must 
 rest as to personal descriptions. When, however, 
 we wish to know what Jane Austen really thought 
 and felt, — what, in fact, she really was, — we must 
 first turn, as we have all along been doing, to her 
 correspondence with her kinsfolk, and afterward 
 to the pages of her books. While she did not con- 
 sciously draw her own portrait or disclose her indi- 
 vidual opinions on any of these, still there are 
 features of the likeness to be traced and hints of 
 the opinions to be gleaned from the chapters of the 
 novels, if we will take the trouble to look for them. 
 It has been pointed out by several writers that 
 her description of the delight her heroine Cathe- 
 rine Morland at ten years old experienced in 
 " rolling down the greensward at the back of the 
 house " was probably an autobiographical reminis- 
 cence, and so too, very likely, was the relation of 
 Catherine's preference for cricket over " not merely 
 dolls, but the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, 
 — nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or 
 watering a rose-bush." Catherine's childhood, in 
 fact, must have resembled her own in more than 
 one of its aspects. Like hers, it contained nothing 
 in any wise remarkable, but was a sensible, healthy 
 period of existence, such as a girl brought up as 
 Jane had been, and with her amiable tolerance of 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 235 
 
 disposition, would be likely to have. I do not 
 mean to say that Catherine Morland is in any sense 
 a counterpart of Jane Austen ; I mean simply that 
 there are occasional resemblances between the 
 novelist and her creation, which have a flavor that 
 to my mind is distinctly autobiographic. When 
 she records of Catherine that " though she could 
 not write sonnets, she brought herself to read 
 them ; and though there seemed no chance of 
 throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude 
 on the pianoforte of her own composition, she 
 could listen to other people's performance with 
 very little fatigue," — there is a personal reminis- 
 cence of her girlhood underlying the irony aimed at 
 certain youthful heroines of contemporary fiction. 
 She was doubtless thinking of herself when she 
 declares that Catherine " had reached the age of 
 seventeen, without having seen one amiable youth 
 who could call forth her sensibility, without hav- 
 ing inspired one real passion, and without having 
 excited even any admiration but what was very 
 moderate and very transient." 
 
 She had not the tinge of romance which led her 
 pleasing young heroine into such awkward situa- 
 tions ; but she certainly possessed the healthy tem- 
 perament which made admiration not unwelcome 
 to Catherine, while at the same time by no means 
 indispensable to her happiness. In that delightful 
 chapter of " Northanger Abbey " which recounts 
 the first appearance of Catherine at a ball in the As- 
 sembly Rooms at Bath, I am very sure we may see 
 
236 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 Jane Austen, the pretty, animated, unsophisticated 
 girl of fifteen, going through the same experience, 
 with her aunt, Mrs. Perrot, perhaps, as chaperone. 
 
 But however many autobiographic touches she 
 may have introduced into the description of Cath- 
 erine Morland, the likeness to herself at this period 
 appears more strongly in Elizabeth Bennet. The 
 native good sense which was usually at Catherine's 
 command in emergencies was a distinguishing 
 characteristic of Jane Austen ; but the vivacity and 
 animation which Elizabeth possessed in a much 
 greater degree than her sister heroine were quite 
 as essential a part of their author's being, as every 
 letter of hers bears indubitable evidence. There 
 seems small reason to doubt that certain features in 
 the portrait of Jane Bennet were adapted from her 
 sister Cassandra, though the original of the portrait 
 could lay claim to much greater strength of charac- 
 ter than Jane Bennet had. How far Jane Austen 
 was indebted to living persons for the characters 
 of her dra??iatis persona must of course remain 
 purely a matter for individual conjecture. Her 
 family are of the opinion that she never introduced 
 actual personalities into her books, and this is un- 
 doubtedly true respecting her figures as separate 
 wholes ; but as I read her letters, I seem to see 
 here and there details which I cannot help think- 
 ing form the outline of a number of the subordinate 
 creations in her pages. 
 
 As to the principal figures, I am by no means so 
 sure, with the exception of the important ones 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 237 
 
 already mentioned. William Price, in " Mansfield 
 Park," while he may not be considered as a por- 
 trait of either of her sailor brothers, is, I am in- 
 clined to think, a compound of the traits she 
 admired in each of them. She was proud of their 
 achievements, of their simple, unaffected manliness, 
 and of the strength of the fraternal tie which neither 
 time nor distance was powerful enough to weaken ; 
 and so I am very confident it was the thought of 
 Francis or Charles that inspired such a passage 
 as this : — 
 
 " William was often called on by his uncle to be the 
 talker. His recitals were amusing in themselves to 
 Sir Thomas ; but the chief object in seeking them was 
 to understand the reciter, to know the young man by 
 his histories ; and he listened to his clear, simple, 
 spirited details with full satisfaction, seeing in them 
 the proof of good principles, professional knowledge, 
 energy, courage, and cheerfulness, — everything that 
 could deserve or promise well. Young as he was. 
 William had already seen a great deal. He had 
 been in the Mediterranean, in the West Indies, in the 
 Mediterranean again ; had been often taken on shore 
 by the favour of his captain, and in the course of seven 
 years had known every variety of danger which sea 
 and war together could offer." 
 
 Intimately acquainted with representatives of 
 the naval profession, in the persons of her broth- 
 ers Francis and Charles, her knowledge of the 
 clergy of the Establishment was even closer. Her 
 father and two of her brothers were Anglican 
 clergymen, so were her uncle, Dr. Cooper, and 
 
238 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 one or more of her cousins ; while in the circle of 
 her immediate acquaintance were rectors and 
 curates enough to have ministered to the spiritual 
 wants of a small diocese. But of the clergy as a 
 class, she gives us no such attractive presentment 
 as she does of the navy in William Price. For the 
 most part it is only incidentally, and as it were 
 unavoidably, that we learn that her clerical figures 
 are clergymen at all; and it certainly is not for 
 diligence in their sacred calling that we are inter- 
 ested in Henry Tilney, Edmund Bertram, Mr. 
 Elton, or Edward Ferrars. Much has been said 
 of Jane Austen's pictures of the clergy ; and con- 
 clusions have been drawn therefrom which reflect 
 by no means favorably upon the Anglican shep- 
 herds of her day, — for of Nonconformist ministers 
 she knew nothing, dissent being only a name to 
 her. But her father, the Reverend George Austen, 
 was a man by no means neglectful of any portion 
 of his work, and her brother James was a worthy 
 successor to him in the quiet corner of Hampshire 
 where the elder clergyman had labored for two- 
 score years ; and there were others whom she 
 knew in the same profession whose lives were an 
 equal ornament to it. Why, then, have we no such 
 con amore portrayal of a clergyman from her hand 
 as we have of a sailor in the person of William 
 Price? Is it because Jane Austen had little es- 
 teem for clergymen as such? I think not. 
 
 It is true that the standard of clerical efficiency 
 was lower a century ago than at present. People 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 239 
 
 were abundantly satisfied if their vicar or rector 
 performed his sacred and his social duties with 
 an equal amount of careful decorum. The age 
 did not call for that vigor of spiritual life which is 
 now generally esteemed essential in those who are 
 to lead the way in things external to this world ; 
 and the average clergyman, being but an average 
 clergyman, performed, like the average man in 
 other professions, no more than was expected of 
 him. It was only here and there that a curate or 
 a canon had wakened to perceptions of greater 
 usefulness and deeper spiritual experience than 
 had been active in the church since the days of 
 George Herbert and Nicholas Ferrar. Jane Aus- 
 ten, it may be presumed, was not greatly in ad- 
 vance of the thoughts of her time in these matters. 
 She was attracted to the Established Church by 
 feeling and association ; but of the possibilities 
 which should open before that church after Evan- 
 gelicism, Tractarianism, and Rationalism had suc- 
 cessively exerted their awakening influences upon 
 it, she naturally could not conceive, since the last 
 two were non-existent, and the first she knew only 
 through some of its narrower and bigoted phases. 
 Evangelicism, as she saw it, repelled her. Its set 
 phrases were distasteful, its rigidity and narrow- 
 ness were repulsive, to so tolerant and broad a 
 mind as hers; while she was not sufficiently ac- 
 quainted with it to recognize the real worth of the 
 religious experience for which it stood. 
 
 It does not follow from her atcitude toward 
 
240 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 this development of the church's life that she was 
 in every way satisfied with the average clergyman 
 of her day, and that she had no worthy ideals of 
 what men in that profession should resemble. But 
 she disliked cant so thoroughly, and was so con- 
 vinced that religion should be a constructive feature 
 in life, — should appear rather in its general ten- 
 dency than in especial manifestations, — that I 
 believe she shrank from delineating a clergyman 
 who should be more distinctly clerical than the 
 ordinary man in that calling with whom her readers 
 were likely to be acquainted. She was not sure 
 enough of her ability to draw a member of this 
 reverend profession who should be entirely free 
 from a tinge of the cant she so heartily disliked. 
 If she had this fear, I imagine it was a groundless 
 one ; but granting its existence, I think the fact 
 that she drew for us no loftier types of the pro- 
 fession to which her father and brothers belonged 
 may be thus accounted for. What she herself 
 thought of the duties of a parish priest — an opinion 
 fortified by a knowledge of what her father and her 
 brother James had accomplished — maybe learned 
 from the words she puts into the mouth of Sir 
 Thomas Bertram in " Mansfield Park " : — 
 
 " A parish has wants and claims which can be known 
 only by a clergyman constantly resident, and which no 
 proxy can be capable of satisfying to the same extent. 
 Edmund might, in the common phrase, do the duty oi 
 Thornton — that is, he might read prayers and preach — 
 without giving up Mansfield Park ; he might ride over 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 241 
 
 every Sunday, to a house nominally inhabited, and go 
 through divine service ; he might be the clergyman of 
 Thornton Lacey every seventh day for three or four 
 hours, if that would content him. But it will not. He 
 knows that human nature needs more lessons than a 
 weekly sermon can convey ; and that if he does not 
 live among his parishioners, and prove himself by 
 constant attention their well-wisher and friend, he 
 does very little either for their good or his own." 
 
 Here, then, is one of her ideals for a clergyman : 
 a life which should be spent in devotion to the 
 best interests of his people ; an existence in which 
 their welfare was entitled to a consideration prior 
 to his own, — an ideal in which there does not seem 
 to be so very much lacking even now. She knew 
 perfectly what the popular conception of a clergy- 
 man then was : — 
 
 " Indolence and love of ease, — a want of all laudable 
 ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination 
 to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make 
 men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but 
 to be slovenly and selfish, — read the newspaper, watch 
 the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate 
 does all the work, and the business of his own life is 
 to dine." 
 
 And in the spirited bit of dialogue in " Mansfield 
 Park," from which this extract is taken, she com- 
 bats very successfully such a low view of the clerical 
 character. A careful examination of her work will 
 lead us, unless I am much mistaken, to acquit her 
 of injustice toward a profession which in reality she 
 esteemed most highly, though it may not dispel 
 16 
 
2 42 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 the regret that she did not attempt to create a 
 loftier example of clerical excellence than she has 
 done. 
 
 To a greater extent than was perhaps common 
 in her day, Jane Austen was a lover of natural 
 scenery. It is freely shown in her letters ; it does 
 not so readily appear in her novels, at least not to 
 a hurried reader of them, and for a very specific 
 as well as artistic reason. Never did an author 
 obtrude so little of his or her personality in print 
 as Miss Austen. She never stood at one side and 
 gossiped with her audience about the people on 
 her stage, revealing her own virtues while she 
 moralized over their foibles. She never tied a 
 knot in the thread of her story while she directed 
 attention to this enchanting bit of scenery or that 
 depressing period of tiresome weather, or detailed 
 at length her views upon subjects only remotely 
 connected with the matter in hand. Her sense of 
 proportion forbade all this ; and consequently we 
 do not find her indulging, for instance, in descrip- 
 tions of the scenery she enjoyed, except as integral 
 portions of her narrative. 
 
 Scattered throughout "Sense and Sensibility" 
 may be noticed several allusions to the scenery of 
 Somersetshire, and of the coombes and downs of 
 Devon in the neighborhood of Exeter; but they 
 are not introduced without a definite purpose, for 
 in every case the narrative is dependent upon some 
 collocation of scenery and incident, yet the former 
 is never independent of the latter. In such a pas- 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 243 
 
 sage as this in " Mansfield Park," the few lines of 
 description, instead of retarding the narrative, are 
 in reality helpful, and rarely does she permit her- 
 self a longer clause of this kind : — 
 
 " The day was uncommonly lovely. It was really 
 March ; but it was April in its mild air, brisk soft 
 wind, and bright sun occasionally clouded for a minute ; 
 and everything looked so beautiful under the influence 
 of such a sky, the effects of the shadows pursuing each 
 other, on the ships at Spithead and the island beyond, 
 with the ever-varying hues of the sea now at high 
 water, dancing in its glee and dashing against the 
 ramparts with so fine a sound, produced altogether 
 such a combination of charms for Fanny, as made her 
 gradually almost careless of the circumstances under 
 which she felt them." 
 
 Again, in " Emma " occurs this description of a 
 rainy day, admirable for its conciseness and its 
 perfect adaptation to her immediate purposes : 
 
 " The evening of this day was very long and melan- 
 choly, at Hartfield. The weather added what it could 
 of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and nothing of 
 July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the 
 wind was despoiling, and the length of the day, which 
 only made such cruel sights the longer visible." 
 
 If in " Northanger Abbey " she devotes a line 
 or two to Beechen Cliff or some other natural 
 feature of Bath, it is because that especial locality 
 has its purpose to serve in her sequence of events. 
 The only exception she makes to this rule of hers, 
 and it is a partial exception only, is in one of the 
 
244 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 chapters of " Persuasion," wherein the subjoined 
 description of the neighborhood of Lyme-Regis 
 occurs : — 
 
 " As there is nothing to admire in the buildings 
 themselves, the remarkable situation of the town, the 
 principal street almost hurrying into the water, the 
 walk to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little 
 bay, which in the season is animated with bathing- 
 machines and company, the Cobb itself, its old won- 
 ders and new improvements, with the very beautiful 
 line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are 
 what the stranger's eye will seek ; and a very strange 
 stranger it must be who does not see charms in the 
 immediate environs of Lyme to make him wish to 
 know it better. The scenes in its neighborhood, — 
 Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive 
 sweeps of country, and still more its sweet, retired 
 bay, backed by dark cliffs, where fragments of low 
 rocks among the sands make it the happiest spot for 
 watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in unwearied 
 contemplation ; the woody varieties of the cheerful 
 village of Up-Lyme ; and above all, Pinney, with its 
 green chasms between romantic rocks, where the scat- 
 tered forest trees and orchards of luxuriant growth 
 declare that many a generation must have passed 
 away since the first partial falling of the cliff prepared 
 the ground for such a state, where a scene so wonder- 
 ful and so lovely is exhibited as may more than equal 
 any of the resembling scenes of the far-famed Isle of 
 Wight, — these places must be visited, and visited 
 again, to make the worth of Lyme understood." 
 
 It is an exception one is glad to have made, for 
 the glimpse it affords of the author's own habits 
 and preferences. We like to know that she took 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 245 
 
 a tranquil delight in " sitting in unwearied contem- 
 plation, watching the flow of the tide," and follow- 
 ing with her eastward gaze the long line of yellow 
 cliffs till they merge into the horizon to appear a 
 few leagues farther on as a low dark cloud, mark- 
 ing where the Isle of Portland thrusts itself sharply 
 into the sea. 
 
 Charmouth to-day, in its lovely situation, still 
 repays the notice of the traveller ; and the green 
 chasms of Pinney, now made more noticeable by 
 succeeding landslips, are quite as wonderful as 
 Jane Austen found them. It would seem as if 
 when she did attempt a bit of natural description 
 she was resolved to be unerringly exact in her use 
 of terms. " The principal street almost hurrying 
 into the water" can hardly fail to impress simi- 
 larly every visitor to Lyme. It is as if the street 
 has gained so great an impetus in its long descent 
 from the lofty down on the Exeter road that it 
 can barely stop itself at the water's edge, and 
 is able to do so only by making a violent turn to 
 the left and rushing up the opposite ascent toward 
 the grey old church of St. Michael. 
 
 Not less careful is her choice of adjectives than 
 of participles. Leaving Lyme by the Axminster 
 road, a walk over the long hill (and very much 
 preoccupied must one be who does not turn re- 
 peatedly in the course of such a walk to gaze at 
 the fair prospect behind him, of silver sea and 
 curving lines of cliff) brings the traveller into a 
 pleasant, irregular coombe, or valley, on the farther 
 
246 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 side of the down. Here is a pretty village, mod- 
 erately shaded and not hemmed in too closely by 
 the encircling downs, with all its houses, from 
 thatch-roofed cottage to more pretentious dwel- 
 ling, showing the presence of thrift and comfort. 
 Many of them are yellow-washed, and look bright 
 even on a cloudy day. An attractive -looking 
 church with battlemented tower stands on a 
 wooded knoll above the high-road, but not far 
 removed from it. There is nothing anywhere to 
 repel the eye; nothing of dirt or gloom to be 
 detected anywhere. I saw it thus eighty-five years 
 after Jane Austen, looking upon it, pronounced it 
 " cheerful •" and I could think of no better charac- 
 terization for the little village of Up- Lyme half 
 hidden among the green downs of Devon. 
 
 The same gentle pleasure which Jane experi- 
 enced in quiet contemplation of the sea she took 
 in watching the slow passing of summer into win- 
 ter through the mild gradations of an English 
 autumn. The latter was a season peculiarly dear 
 to her in her later years, and she more than once 
 briefly touches upon her feeling for it. Like her 
 own Anne Elliot, her pleasure in that season arose 
 " from the view of the last smiles of the year upon 
 the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from 
 repeating to herself some few of the thousand 
 poetical descriptions extant of autumn, — that sea- 
 son of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the 
 mind of taste and tenderness ; that season which 
 has drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, 
 
CHARACTER OF J AXE AUSTEN. 247 
 
 some attempt at description or some lines of 
 feeling." 
 
 What fraternal affection meant to her we have 
 seen over and over again in the pages which have 
 preceded this. It was with her a link which noth- 
 ing could sever, a bond which was dearer to her 
 than anything else in life. What an exquisite 
 ideal of such affection she places before us in the 
 love of Fanny Price for her brother William ! 
 There is no room for doubting that in describing 
 it she was recalling some happy moments with her 
 brother Charles or Francis returning from one or 
 other of their voyages. 
 
 " Fanny had never known so much felicity in her 
 life as in this unchecked, equal, fearless intercourse 
 with the brother and friend, who was opening all his 
 heart to her, telling her all his hopes and fears, plans 
 and solicitudes, respecting that long thought of, dearly 
 earned, and justly valued blessing of promotion; . . . 
 with whom (perhaps the dearest indulgence of the 
 whole) all the good and evil of their childish years 
 could be gone over again, and every former united 
 pain and pleasure retraced with the fondest recol- 
 lection. An advantage this, a strengthener of love, in 
 which even the conjugal tie is beneath the fraternal. 
 Children of the same family, the same blood, with the 
 same first associations and habits, have some means 
 of enjoyment in their power which no subsequent con- 
 nexions can supply ; and it must be by a long and 
 unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no sub- 
 sequent connexion can justify, if such precious re- 
 mains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely 
 outlived." 
 
248 JANE AUSTEN'S LIEE. 
 
 Few stronger or more impressive words than 
 these have been written upon this theme ; but the 
 passage which contains them is not foisted upon 
 the narrative, but appears as an integral part of 
 it, as every reader of " Mansfield Park " must 
 remember. 
 
 In "Northanger Abbey" we recognize the pres- 
 ence of a spirit of good-humored irony not held 
 in check to so great a degree as is desirable, 
 but which appears nowhere else in her writings in 
 such inartistic proportions. The same spirit shines 
 out in her letters, which are full of epigrammatic 
 touches of the kind ; but in her novels, with this 
 exception, it appears incidentally and at long 
 intervals, where it serves to light up a page or 
 sharpen the point of a description. In " North- 
 anger Abbey" she intended to satirize a certain 
 prevalent school of fiction which amused her by 
 some of its absurdities ; but her own corrected 
 perceptions of the relative importance of the fac- 
 tors of a story kept her from repeating this mis- 
 take, for delightful as is the recital of Catherine 
 Morland's adventures, the motive of the tale is 
 certainly an inartistic one. Henceforward this 
 element in her work displayed itself only in such 
 characterizations as that of Robert Ferrars in 
 " Sense and Sensibility," whose face expressed 
 "strong, natural, sterling insignificance," and of 
 his mother also, with whom " a lucky contraction 
 of the brow had rescued her countenance from the 
 disgrace of insipidity, by giving it the strong char- 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 249 
 
 acters of pride and ill-nature," and whose words, 
 not being many, were " proportioned to the num- 
 ber of her ideas." Indeed, in " Northanger Ab- 
 bey " itself it is sometimes softened into humorous 
 incidental reflections like this : — 
 
 "Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and 
 excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own 
 aim. Catherine knew all this very well ; her great- 
 aunt had read her a lecture on the subject only the 
 Christmas before ; and yet she lay awake ten minutes 
 on Wednesday night debating between her spotted 
 and her tamboured muslin ; and nothing but the short- 
 ness of the time prevented her buying a new one for 
 the evening. This would have been an error in judg- 
 ment, great though not uncommon, from which one of 
 the other sex rather than her own, a brother rather 
 than a great-aunt, might have warned her ; for man 
 only can be aware of the insensibility of man towards 
 a new gown. It would be mortifying to the feelings of 
 many ladies could they be made to understand how 
 little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or 
 new in their attire ; how little it is biassed by the tex- 
 ture of their muslin, and how unsusceptible of peculiar 
 tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, the 
 mull, or the jackonet. Woman is fine for her own 
 satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, 
 no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness 
 and fashion are enough for the former; and a some- 
 thing of shabbiness or impropriety will be most en- 
 dearing to the latter. But not one of these grave 
 reflections troubled the tranquillity of Catherine." 
 
 There is not the slightest touch of cynicism in a 
 passage of this kind any more than in the one 
 
250 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 that follows, which shows the quiet amusement 
 it gave her to observe the attitude of the men 
 of her day toward anything like the existence of 
 reasoning powers in any representative of her 
 own sex. 
 
 "Where people wish to attach, they should always 
 be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is 
 to come with an inability of administering to the van- 
 ity of others, which a sensible person would always 
 wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the 
 misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as 
 well as she can. 
 
 " The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl 
 have been already set forth by the capital pen of a 
 sister author ; and to her treatment of the subject I 
 will only add, in justice to men, that though to the 
 larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in 
 females is a great enhancement of their personal 
 charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and 
 too well informed themselves to desire anything more 
 in woman than ignorance." 
 
 It was never her intention to be didactic, and 
 when she does occasionally become so, it is because 
 the spirit of the age in which she lived was too 
 strong for her ; and she wrote in unconscious obe- 
 dience to its demands. Not writing with this de- 
 sign before her, however, there arose no occasion 
 for her to apply the heavier strokes of satire to 
 the sins and foibles of her fellow-beings ; and con- 
 sequently the satire remains simply good- humor 
 with an edge to it, as, for example, when she says 
 in " Emma " that — 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 251 
 
 " Human nature is so well disposed towards those 
 who are in interesting situations that a young person 
 who either marries or dies is sure of being kindly 
 spoken of; " 
 
 or again in the same book that — 
 
 " It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. 
 Instances have been known of young people passing 
 many, many months successively without being at any 
 ball of any description, and no material injury accrue 
 either to body or mind ; but when a beginning is made, 
 — when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, 
 though slightly, felt, — it must be a very heavy set 
 that does not ask for more." 
 
 Readers of " Persuasion " will remember that 
 when Lady Russell was so much annoyed by the 
 animation and cheerful stir in the Musgroves' family 
 rooms at holiday time, she declared to Anne El- 
 liot her intention to remember to choose in future 
 some other season of the year for calling at Upper- 
 cross. This circumstance, it will also be recalled, 
 gives occasion for a quiet passing observation of 
 this nature : — 
 
 " Every body has their taste in noises as well as in 
 other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious or 
 most distressing by their sort rather than their quan- 
 tity. When Lady Russell not long afterwards was 
 entering Bath on a wet afternoon, and driving through 
 the long course of streets from the Old Bridge to 
 Camden Place, amidst the dash of other carriages, the 
 heavy rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of news- 
 men, muffin-men, and milkmen, and the ceaseless 
 clink of pattens, she made no complaint. No, these 
 
252 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 were noises which belonged to the winter pleasures ; 
 her spirits rose under their influence ; and, like Mrs. 
 Musgrove, she was feeling, though not saying, that 
 after being long in the country, nothing could be so 
 good for her as a little quiet cheerfulness." 
 
 It is in " Persuasion," too, that we find a witty 
 reflection like the following, which is of a kind she 
 seldom permitted herself to indulge in, but w r hich 
 no one of her time could put so tersely as she : 
 
 " Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no 
 necessary proportions. A large, bulky figure has as 
 good a right to be in deep affliction as the most grace- 
 ful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, 
 there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will 
 patronize in vain, which taste cannot tolerate, which 
 ridicule will seize." 
 
 As must already have been seen, she took a 
 healthy delight in novel-reading; and she read 
 with all her critical perceptions alive to merits as 
 well as faults. She early recognized the immense 
 importance that the novel was already coming to 
 hold in modern life, and had small patience with 
 that form of literary affectation which labored to 
 belittle it. It is against this practice that she ex- 
 claims with healthy indignation in one of the 
 earlier chapters of " Northanger Abbey " : — 
 
 " I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic 
 custom, so common with novel-writers, of degrading, 
 by their contemptuous censure, the very performances 
 to the number of which they are themselves adding : 
 joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 253 
 
 harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever 
 permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, 
 if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn 
 over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas ! if the 
 heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine 
 of another, from whom can she expect protection and 
 regard ? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to 
 the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their 
 leisure, and over every new novel to talk in thread- 
 bare strains of the trash with which the press now 
 groans. Let us not desert one another ; we are an 
 injured body. Although our productions have afforded 
 more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of 
 any other literary corporation in the world, no species 
 of composition has been so much decried. From 
 pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as 
 many as our readers ; and while the abilities of the 
 nine-hundredth abridger of the ' History of England,' 
 or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume 
 some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with 
 a paper from the ' Spectator,' and a chapter from 
 Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens, there 
 seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity 
 and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of 
 slighting the performances which have only genius, 
 wit, and taste to recommend them. ' I am no novel- 
 reader. I seldom look into novels. Do not imagine 
 that / often read novels. It is really very well for a 
 novel.' Such is the common cant. ' And what are 
 you reading. Miss ? ' ' Oh, it is only a novel ! ' re- 
 plies the young lady ; while she lays down her book 
 with affected indifference or momentary shame. It is 
 only ' Cecilia,' or ' Camilla,' or ' Belinda ; ' or, in 
 short, only some work in which the greatest powers of 
 the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough 
 knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation 
 
254 JANE AUSTEN'- S LIFE. 
 
 of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and 
 humor, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen 
 language." 
 
 It is the only actual digression to be found in 
 her books if, considering the manner in which it 
 occurs, it may fairly be so styled ; but it is surely a 
 most pardonable one, which her readers should be 
 willing to forgive equally on account of its spirited 
 defence of her profession and the strength of the 
 position it occupies. 
 
 Consideration for the feelings of others was a 
 noticeable trait in her character ; and her novels 
 afford many incidental as well as unconscious reve- 
 lations of it. But of all these I like best that 
 which appears in " Emma," where Mr. Knightley 
 administers a deserved rebuke to the heroine, 
 whose thoughtlessness has allowed her to ridicule 
 publicly the harmless absurdities of Miss Bates. 
 Unquestionably Jane Austen derived amusement 
 from a contemplation of the vanities and small 
 frailties of the men and women of her Hampshire 
 and Kentish world ; but equally without question 
 do I believe that she never found delight in mak- 
 ing light of them in public, however she may have 
 enjoyed discussing them in lively, unrestrained in- 
 tercourse with Cassandra. 
 
 " Persuasion " represents the ripest development 
 of Jane Austen's powers, the latest phase of her 
 thoughts and feelings. It is a novel which, while 
 not wanting in the several excellences of those 
 which preceded it, has a mellower tone and a 
 
CHARACTER OF JANE AUSTEN. 255 
 
 more finished grace of style than any of the others. 
 It was written at a time when bodily strength had 
 given place to weakness ; and although her mind 
 was more active than ever, her physical condition 
 insensibly influenced her thought, giving this latest 
 of her books that deeper note of feeling, that finer 
 touch of sympathy and tenderness, which make 
 " Persuasion " the greatest of all her works. 
 
 She has not infused into the character of Anne 
 Elliot, its heroine, all of her own strength of pur- 
 pose or vivacity of manner ; but when Anne Elliot 
 is giving utterance to her deepest convictions it 
 is Jane Austen herself who is speaking, — the 
 woman who is passing into the serenity of middle 
 life, into the maturity and insight of chastened 
 feeling. 
 
 She may not have seen so far into the deeps of 
 motive as some of her successors; she may not 
 have been able to trace the influence of circum- 
 stance upon character with as unerring skill ; her 
 horizon may seem a narrow one to our less ob- 
 structed gaze, and the ultimate purposes and ideals 
 of her drai7iatis persona curiously circumscribed 
 when contrasted with a later view of human re- 
 sponsibilities. But within her range — a range too 
 that is much wider than her superficial readers 
 suspect — she has no equal, and her inferiors ap- 
 proach her only in the same degree that the lesser 
 lights of " the spacious times of great Elizabeth " 
 approached the great sun of their day and of all 
 days since. 
 
256 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE. 
 
 What Jane Austen was as a novelist has too 
 many times been told to need retelling here. 
 What she was as a woman I have in these now 
 completed chapters endeavored to show. There 
 remains no need for further words of mine. What- 
 ever measure of success may belong to the endeavor 
 is no part of the biographer's duty to decide ; this, 
 however, I can most sincerely say, that its perform- 
 ance has been to me a labor of devotion, rever- 
 ence, and love. And now that the end of it all is 
 reached, I know of no better colophon than the 
 tender, earnest words in which Jane Austen, 
 almost in her last days, expressed her concep- 
 tions of the love of man and woman : — 
 
 " God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and 
 faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. I 
 should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose 
 that true attachment and constancy were known only 
 by woman. No, I believe you capable of everything 
 great and good in your married lives. I believe you 
 equal to every important exertion, and to every domes- 
 tic forbearance, so long as — if I may be allowed the 
 expression — so long as you have an object. I mean, 
 while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All 
 the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very 
 enviable one ; you need not covet it) is that of loving 
 longest when existence or when hope is gone." 
 
Reverend James Edward Austen- Leigh, 1798- 1874. 
 
 NEPHEW AND FIRST BIOGRAPHER OF JANE AUSTEN. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Extract from Manuscript Book of Family Records 
 kept by the late Miss Fanny Lefroy, great-?iiece of 
 Jane Austen. 
 
 I think my mother 1 must have spent most of 
 her time at Steventon during the widowhood of 
 her father, for she could remember . . . hearing 
 "Pride and Prejudice" (begun 1796) read aloud 
 by the youthful writer to her sister. She was a very 
 intelligent, quick-witted child ; and she caught up 
 the names of the characters, and talked about them 
 so much downstairs, that her aunts feared she would 
 provoke enquiry, for the story was still a secret from 
 the elders. Let me in my mother's words describe 
 the house and room in which Jane Austen wrote 
 her two first works. 
 
 " The Rectory of Steventon had been of the most misera- 
 ble description ; but in the possession of my grandfather it 
 became a tolerably roomy and convenient habitation, as he 
 added, and improved, and walled in a good kitchen garden, 
 and planted out the east wind, enlarging the house until it 
 
 1 Miss Lefroy's mother was Mrs. Anna Austen Lefroy, the oldest 
 child of Reverend James Austen. The latter had lost his first wife, 
 Anna's mother ; and at this time his little daughter was an inmate of 
 Steventon rectory before her father had succeeded to the living. 
 
 17 
 
25 8 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 came to be considered a very comfortable family residence. 
 On the sunny side was a shrubbery and flower-garden, with 
 a terrace walk of turf which communicated by a small gate 
 with what was termed the wood walk, — a path winding 
 through clumps of underwood, and overhung by tall elm 
 trees skirting the upper side of the home meadows. The 
 lower bow-window, which looked so cheerfully into the 
 sunny garden, and up the middle grass-walk bordered with 
 strawberries, to the sun-dial at the end, was that of my 
 grandfather's study, his own exclusive property, safe from 
 the bustle of all household cares. The dining, or common 
 sitting room looked to the front, and was lighted by two 
 casement windows. On the same side the front door 
 opened into a smaller parlour; and visitors, who were few 
 and rare, were not a bit the less welcome to my grand- 
 mother because they found her sitting there busily engaged 
 with her needle, making and mending. In later times, but 
 not probably until my two aunts had completed their 
 short course of schooling at M dme Laturelle's at Reading 
 Abbey, and were living at home, a sitting-room was made 
 upstairs, — ' the dressing-room,' as they were pleased to call 
 it, perhaps because it opened into a smaller chamber in 
 which my two aunts slept. I remember the common-look- 
 ing carpet, with its chocolate ground, and the painted press 
 with shelves above for books, and Jane's piano, and an 
 oval looking-glass that hung between the windows ; but 
 the charm of the room, with its scanty furniture and cheaply 
 papered walls, must have been, for those old enough to 
 understand it, the flow of native home-bred wit with all 
 the fun and nonsense of a large and clever family. Here, 
 as I have said before, were written the two first of my aunt 
 Jane's completed works, ' Pride and Prejudice ' and ' Sense 
 and Sensibility.' " x 
 
 1 The manuscript book from which the above is taken is now in 
 the possession of C. Austen-Leigh, Cambridge, a cousin of the late Miss 
 Lefroy, who has kindly furnished the extract for use in this volume. 
 
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM OF JANE 
 AUSTEN. 
 
 1833. Northanger Abbey. By Jane Austen. Philadelphia, 
 1833. i6vo. 
 
 Contains Biographical Notice of the Author. 
 1843. Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England. By Mrs. 
 A. K. Elwood. 2 vols. London, 1843. 8v0 - 
 Jane Austen, vol. ii., Pp. 174-186. 
 
 1855. Woman's Record ; or, Sketches of all Distinguished 
 Women, etc. By Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale. New 
 York, 1855. 8vo. 
 
 Jane Austen, pp. 184-194. 
 
 1821-1861. Miscellaneous Lectures and Reviews. By 
 Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin. Lon- 
 don, 1861. 8vo. 
 Review of " Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion," pp. 282-313, 
 
 reprinted from the Quarterly Review, 1821. 
 1863. English Women of Letters, etc. By Julia Kavanagh. 
 2 vols. London, 1863. 8vo - 
 
 Miss Austen, vol. ii., pp. 180-236. 
 
 1870. A Memoir of Jane Austen. By her nephew, J. E. 
 
 Austen-Leigh. London, 1870. 8vo. 
 
 1871. Second edition, to which is added " Lady Susan " and 
 
 fragments of two other unfinished tales by Miss 
 Austen. London, 1871. 8vo. Fifth edition, 1883. 
 1871. The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century, 
 etc. By William Forsyth. London, 1871. 8vo. 
 Jane Austen, pp. 328-337. 
 
260 BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. 
 
 1875. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Ninth edition. Edin- 
 burgh, 1875. 4 to « 
 
 Jane A usten, vol. Hi. 
 
 1880. Jane Austen and her Works. By Henrietta Keddie, 
 " Sarah Tytler." With a portrait on steel. Lon- 
 don, 1880. 8vo. Later edition. London, 1884. 8vo. 
 
 1882. The Literary History of England, etc. By Mrs. Mar- 
 
 garet O. W. Oliphant. 3 vols. London, 1882. 8vo. 
 Jane Austen, vol. Hi., pp. 221-237. 
 
 1883. A Book of Sibyls. By Mrs. Anne Isabella Thackeray- 
 
 • Ritchie. London, 1883. 8vo. 
 
 Jane Austen, pp. 197-229. 
 
 1883. Jane Austen's Novels : a Bowdoin Prize Dissertation. 
 By William George Pellew. Boston, 1883. 8vo. 
 
 50 P- 
 
 1883. Historic Houses in Bath. By R. E. Peach. London, 
 
 1883. 
 
 Jane Austen, First Series, pp. 149-150. 
 
 1884. Letters of Jane Austen. Edited with an Introduction 
 
 and Critical Remarks by Edward, Lord Brabourne. 
 2 vols. London, 1884. 
 
 1885. Dictionary of National Biography. London, 1885. 
 
 8vo. 
 
 Jane Austen. By Leslie Stephen, vol. ii, pp. 259, 260. 
 
 1886. Letters to Dead Authors. By Andrew Lang. Lon- 
 
 don, 1886. 8vo. 
 
 To Jane Austen, pp. 75-85. 
 
 1887. Word Portraits. Edited by Mabel E. Wotten. Lon- 
 
 don, 1887. 
 
 Jane A usten, pp. 7-10. 
 
 1888. Pen-Portraits of Literary Women. By Helen Gray 
 
 Cone and Jeanette L. Gilder. 2 vols. New York, 
 1888. 8vo. 
 
 Jane Austen, vol. i.,Pp- 195-220. 
 1888. Chapters from Jane Austen. Edited by Oscar Fay 
 Adams. Boston, 1888. 
 
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. 261 
 
 1888. Women and Men. By Thomas Wentworth Higgin- 
 
 son. New York, 1888. 
 
 Men's Novels and Wometi's Novels, pp. 156-160. 
 
 1889. Some Eminent Women of Our Times. By Mrs. 
 
 Henry Fawcett. London, 1889. 
 Jane Austen, pp. 136-144. 
 
 1889. Jane Austen. By Mrs. S. F. Maiden. {Eminent 
 
 Women Series.) London and Boston, 1889. 8vo. 
 
 1890. Life of Jane Austen. By Goldwin Smith. {Great 
 
 Writers Series.) Vol. 30. London, 1890. 
 
 1 891. The Story of Jane Austen's Life. By Oscar Fay 
 
 Adams. Chicago, 1891. 
 
 1892. Women Writers. By Catherine J. Hamilton. First 
 
 Series. London, 1892. 8vo. 
 
 Jane Austen, pp. 191-206. 
 1892. Twelve English Authoresses. By Mrs. Walford. 
 London, 1892. 8vo. 
 
 Jane Austen, pp. 65-81. 
 
 1892. Letters of Jane Austen. Edited by Miss Woolsey. 
 Boston, 1892. 
 
 Preface by Miss Woolsey, iii.-x. 
 
 1894. Pride and Prejudice. By Jane Austen. Illustrated 
 by Hugh Thomson. London and New York, 1895. 
 Preface by George Saintsbury, ix.-xxiii. 
 
 1896. Sense and Sensibility. By Jane Austen. Illustrated 
 by Hugh Thomson. 
 
 Introduction by Austin Dobs on, vii.-xvi. 
 
 1896. Pride and Prejudice. By Jane Austen. Illustrated 
 by Charles E. Brock. 
 
 Introduction by A ustin Dobson. 
 
26.2 BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. 
 
 Magazine Articles. 
 
 Vol. Pages. 
 1815. "Emma." (Quarterly Review.) By 
 
 Sir Walter Scott 14 188-201 
 
 1821. "Northanger Abbey" and "Persua- 
 sion." (Quarterly.) By Archbishop 
 
 Whately . . 24 352-376 
 
 1830. Jane Austen. (Edinburgh Review.) . 51 448-450 
 
 1852. " " (Colburn's New Monthly 
 
 Mag.) 95 17-23 
 
 Same Article. (Littell's Living Age.) 33 477-480 
 
 1853. Jane Austen. (North Am. Rev.) By 
 
 J. F. Kirk 77 201-203 
 
 1855. Biographical Notice. (Littell.) . . 45 205-207 
 
 1856. " " (Eclectic Mag.) . ^7 197-200 
 1859. The Novels of Jane Austen: Black- 
 wood 86 99-113 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) 62 424-436 
 
 i860. British Novelists : Richardson. Miss 
 
 Austen. Scott. (Frazer'sMag.) . 61 30-35 
 1863. Jane Austen. (Atlantic Monthly.) By 
 
 Mrs. A. M. Waterston 11 235-240 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) 76 418-422 
 
 1863. Jane Austen's Novels. (Christian 
 
 Exam.) By Miss I. M. Luyster. . 74 400-421 
 1866. Jane Austen. (Englishwoman's Do- 
 mestic Mag.) 3d Series .... 2 237-240 
 1870. Jane Austen. (Harper's Mag.) By 
 
 S. S. Conant 41 225-233 
 
 1870. Jane Austen. (Fortnightly.) By T. 
 
 E. Kebbel 13 187-193 
 
 1870. Jane Austen. (Hours at Home.) By 
 
 Anne Manning 11 516-522 
 
 1870. Jane Austen. (Nation.) ByGoldwin 
 
 Smith 10 124-126 
 
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. 263 
 
 Vol. Pages. 
 1S70. Jane Austen. (North British Rev.) . 52 129-152 
 1870. " " (St. Paul's Mag.) . . 5 631-643 
 1870. Miss Austen -and Miss Mitford. Black- 
 wood . . 107 290-313 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) 105 38-55 
 
 1870. Miss Austen and Miss Mitford. (Quar- 
 terly Rev.) By G. F. Chorley . . 128 196-218 
 Same Article. (Littell.) .... 104 558-569 
 1870. Jane Austen and her Novels. (Dub- 
 lin Rev.) . . 67 43°-457 
 
 1870. Glimpse of a British Classic. (Cham- 
 
 bers's Journal) 47 157-160 
 
 187 1. Early Writings of Jane Austen- (Na- 
 
 tion.) By E. Quincy 13 164-165 
 
 187 1. Jane Austen. (CornhilL) By Mrs. 
 
 Thackeray-Ritchie 24 158-174 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) no 643-653 
 
 " " (Eclectic Mag.) . . > 37 197 
 
 1872. Jane Austen. (Englishwoman's Do- 
 
 mestic Mag.) 3d Series .... 14 187-189 
 1877. Jane Austen. (Englishwoman's Do- 
 mestic Mag.) 3d Series .... 24 267-271 
 1879. Hunting for Snarkes at Lyme-Regis. 
 
 (Temple Bar.) By F. C. L. . . . 57 391-397 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) 143 633-637 
 
 1882. Jane Austen. (Argosy.) By Alice 
 
 King 34 187-192 
 
 1882. Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. 
 
 (Modern Rev.) By A. Armitt . . 3 384-396 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) 153 368-373 
 
 1882. Jane Austen. (Temple Bar.) ... 64 350-365 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) 153 43-52 
 
 " " (Eclectic Mag.) ... 98 615-624 
 
 1882. Is it Just ? (Temple Bar.) .... 67 270-284 
 
 Miss Austen. (Littell.) 156 691-699 
 
264 BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. 
 
 Vol. Pages. 
 
 1882. From Miss Austen to Mr. Trollope. 
 
 (Spectator.) 552 1609-11 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) 156 186-189 
 
 2. Jane Austen's Novels. (Sat. Rev.) . 54 827-828 
 [882. Jane Austen's Novels. (Lit. World.) 
 
 Boston 13 130-131 
 
 [882. A Bundle of Letters. (Temple Bar.) 67 285-288 
 
 1883. Jane Austen. (Dublin Rev.) . . . 93 103-129 
 883. Jane Austen and George Eliot. (Na- 
 tional Rev.) By T. E. Kebbel . . 2 259-273 
 
 [884. Jane Austen and her Style. (Macmil- 
 
 lan.) By M. A. W 51 84-91 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) . . . .. .164 58-64 
 
 4. Letters of Jane Austen. (Spectator.) 57 s 1482-83 
 
 L884. " " " " (Sat. Rev.) 58 637-638 
 4. " " " " (Academy.) 
 
 By T. W. Lyster . .' 26 333~334 
 
 4. Letters of Jane Austen. (Athenaeum, 
 Nov. '84.) ..." 585-586 
 
 [885. Jane Austen at Home. (Fortnightly.) 
 
 By T. E. Kebbel 43 262-270 
 
 Same Article. (Littell.) . . . . .164 680-685 
 
 5. More Views of Jane Austen. (Gentle- 
 man's Mag.) By G. B. Smith . . 285 26-45 
 
 9. Maiden's Life of Jane Austen. (Spec- 
 tator.) ... 632 80-81 
 
 9. Maiden's Life of Jane Austen. (Acad- 
 emy.) By J. A. Noble 36 95~97 
 
 9. Jane Austen. (Time.) By W. Robert- 
 son. Feb. '89 193-201 
 
 9. A Note of Provinciality in Jane Austen. 
 (Harvard Monthly.) By R. E. N. 
 Dodge 8 152-159 
 
 o. Jane Austen. (Academy.) By J. A. 
 
 Noble 37 330 
 
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. 
 
 265 
 
 Vol. Pages. 
 
 1890. The Charm of Jane Austen. (Specta- 
 
 tor) 64 1 403-404 
 
 1891. A Note on Jane Austen. (Scribner's 
 
 Monthly.) By W. B. S. Clymer . 9 377-387 
 
 1891. ThreeFamous Old Maids. (Lippincott's 
 
 Magazine.) By Agnes Repplier . . 47 390-394 
 
 1892. A Girl's Opinion on Jane Austen. 
 
 (Temple Bar.) By Edith Edlemann. 94 343-350 
 1892. Jane Austen and her Heroines. (The 
 Monthly Packet.) New Series. By 
 W. Warde Fowler 3 18-30 
 
 1892. Plagiarism of Jane Austen. (National 
 
 Review.) By Walter Herries Pollock 19 82-84 
 
 1893. Jane Austen and Miss Ferrier. (Atlan- 
 
 tic Monthly.) By C. T. Copeland . 71 836-846 
 
 1893. In the Footsteps of Jane Austen. (New 
 England Magazine.) New Series. 
 By Oscar Fay Adams 8 594-608 
 
 1893. Our Incomparable Jane. (The Speak- 
 er.) By Arthur Thomas Quiller- 
 Couch 7 400-402 
 
 1893. Adams's Life of Jane Austen. (Spec- 
 tator.) By John Dennis .... 70 1 825-826 
 
 1893. A Fortunate Old Maid. (The Dial.) 
 
 By " Octave Thanet " 13 342-344 
 
 1893. To Miss Jane Austen. A Poem. 
 
 (Spectator.) By Alfred Cochrane 70 1 127 
 
 1894. Jane Austen. (Tennessee University 
 
 Magazine.) By Josephine Cole . . 8 51-54 
 1894. An Illustrated Pride and Prejudice. 
 
 (Spectator.) 73 2 644-645 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Alton, Hants : position of, in rela- 
 tion to Chawton, 148. 
 
 Annual Register, the : contains no 
 mention of Jane Austen's death, 
 12. 
 
 Anstey, Christopher: allusion 
 to, as the prophet of Bath, 33 ; 
 tablet to his memory in St. Swith- 
 in's Church, Bath, 94. 
 
 Ashe, Hants : nearness to Steven- 
 ton, Sir Egerton Brydges a visi- 
 tor at, intimacy between the 
 rectory families at Ashe and 
 Steventon, 24; boys at, 25. 
 
 Ashford, Kent : location of, for- 
 mer and present importance, 
 Church of St. Mary, 102. 
 
 Austen, Anna. See Lefroy, Mrs. 
 Anna. 
 
 Austen, Cassandra, sister . of 
 Jane: date of birth given in 
 Steventon parish register, 22 ; 
 hers a stronger personality than 
 Jane's, sent to school at Read- 
 ing, 31 ; preserves all her sister's 
 letters, 33 ; visits Mrs. Fowle at 
 Kintbury, 42 ; her deep interest 
 in her sister's work, 54 ; visits 
 her brother Edward at Godmers- 
 ham, 75; shows MS. of "The 
 Watsons " to her nieces, 88 ; 
 visits the Lloyds at Ibthorp, 89 ; 
 judgment valued by her brother 
 Francis, 114; remains at South- 
 ampton in summer of 1808, 118 ; 
 bequeathes letters to Lady 
 Knatchbull, 120; goes to God- 
 mersham in September, 1808, 
 
 125 ; playfully reproved by Jane 
 for misspelling " Ccelebs," 138; 
 fondness for flowers, 147, 154 ; 
 assists in nursing her brother 
 Henry in autumn of 1815, 185 ; 
 styled by Jane " an unwearied 
 nurse," 196; visits Cheltenham, 
 entire dependence of Jane upon, 
 200 ; goes to Winchester with 
 Jane, 207 ; engages lodgings at 
 Mrs. David's, 208 ; last tribute of 
 Jane to, 213 ; writes to her niece 
 Fanny of Jane's last hours, 215- 
 218 ; remains alone in her room 
 during the funeral, 219; spends 
 much time with her brothers, 
 222 ; death at Portsmouth, grave 
 at Chawton, tablet to, in Chawton 
 church, 223 ; character of, writes 
 to her niece Fanny of her great 
 loss, 224 ; attachment for a young 
 clergyman, his early death, the 
 shock to her, Jane's sympathy, 
 Lord Brabourne's recollection of 
 her, resemblance to Edward, 
 favorite with grandnephews and 
 nieces, 225 ; probably handsomer 
 than Jane, her pencil portrait 
 of Jane, 230 ; some traits of, 
 sketched in Jane Bennett, 236. 
 
 Austen, Caroline, niece of Jane : 
 Jane's advice to, in regard to 
 writing, 35-36; describes her 
 aunt Jane in her last illness, 
 206-207. 
 
 Austen, Mrs. Cassandra Eliza- 
 beth, mother of Jane : marriage 
 to George Austen, 19 ; journey 
 
268 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 from Deane to Steventon, 20 ; 
 her imagination and humor in- 
 herited by Jane, 27 ; her health 
 a source of anxiety to her chil- 
 dren, 107 ; thinks of leaving 
 Southampton, of removing to 
 Alton, of removing to Wye, 126 ; 
 decides to go to Chawton, 127 ; 
 reads " Pride and Prejudice " 
 aloud when first published, 159- 
 160; receives news of Jane's 
 death, 214-215 ; continues to 
 live at Chawton, years of pain, 
 death, burial in Chawton church- 
 yard, 222 ; tablet to, in Chawton 
 Church, 223. 
 
 Austen, Admiral Charles, 
 brother of Jane : birth of, at 
 Steventon, 23, 29 ; resembles 
 Jane in sweetness of temper, 
 enters navy, 29 ; nearest to 
 Jane's heart of all her brothers, 
 promotion of, 65 ; at Bermuda, 
 his sister's pride in, 136; visits 
 Godmersham in 1813, 169 ; lives 
 in London in 1816, 196 ; his 
 long cruises, bombards St. Jean 
 d'Acre, commander-in-chief Brit- 
 ish East Indian naval forces, 
 death, 226-227. 
 
 Austen, Colonel, of Kippington : 
 said to have been godfather of 
 Jane, orders portrait painted of 
 Jane, 32. 
 
 Austen, Francis, great-uncle of 
 Jane : educates his nephew, 
 George Austen, 18; purchases 
 the living of Deane for his 
 nephew, 19. 
 
 Austen, Admiral Francis, 
 brother of Jane ; birth at Ste- 
 venton, 28; his firmness of char- 
 acter, a rigid disciplinarian, 
 kneeling in church, enters navy, 
 29; appointed on "The Triton," 
 52 ; raised to rank of comman- 
 der, 65 ; resides with his mother 
 and sisters at Southampton, 113 ; 
 on board the " St. Albans," 119 ; 
 
 visits Jane when ill at Chawton, 
 200 ; attends funeral of Jane, 
 218-220; home at Portsdown, 
 223 ; the last of his family, death 
 of his first wife, second marriage, 
 death, 227. 
 
 Austen, Edward, brother of 
 Jane : birth at Deane, adoption 
 of, by his third cousin, Thomas 
 Knight, inherits his cousin's es- 
 tates, 28; lives at Rowling for a 
 short time, 49; receives gift of 
 estate at Godmersham, 57 ; goes 
 to Bath for health,, takes his 
 mother and Jane there, 66 ; grief 
 at loss of his wife, 127 ; sends his 
 sons to their grandmother's at 
 Southampton, 128 ; takes the 
 name of Knight, 149 ; resides 
 at Chawton House in spring of 
 1812, 158; his "nerves," 169; 
 visits his sick brother Henry in 
 autumn of 1815, 185; visits Jane 
 with Francis, 200 ; visits Jane 
 at Winchester in her last illness, 
 213 ; writes to his daughter of 
 Jane's death, 215 ; attends Jane's 
 funeral, 218-220; death of, por- 
 trait of at Chawton House, re- 
 semblance to Jane, 227. 
 
 Austen, Reverend George, 
 father of Jane : age when re- 
 moving to Steventon, 18; educa- 
 tion, appearance at age of 70, 
 silhouette of at Chawton House, 
 receives livings of Deane and 
 Steventon, 19 ; prepares his sons 
 for Oxford, 27; writes to pub- 
 lisher about " Pride and Preju- 
 dice," 54; disappointment at reply 
 of publisher, 55 ; resigns living 
 of Steventon, 78; uncertainty of 
 himself and family as to location 
 of a home in Bath, 80-84; death 
 of, 94 ; record of his death in 
 parish register of St. Swithin's, 
 Bath, possible reference to in 
 one of Jane's letters, 95; not 
 neglectful of his duties, 238. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 269 
 
 Austen, Mrs. George. See Aus- 
 ten, Mrs. Cassandra Elizabeth. 
 
 Austen, Reverend Henry 
 Thomas, brother of Jane : birth 
 at Deane, inherits his father's 
 eager nature, is unpractical, 28 ; 
 resemblance to his nephew 
 George Knight, 130 ; character 
 of, 131-132 ; drives to London 
 with Jane, 163 ; his favorable 
 opinion of "Mansfield Park," 
 164; illness of in 1813, visits 
 Chawton, criticises " Mansfield 
 Park" in MS., 173; removes to 
 Hans Place, second marriage of, 
 177; serious illness of, is nursed 
 by Jane, 184-185 ; his bank- 
 ing-house fails, 195 ; enters the 
 Church, 201 ; gifts as a preacher, 
 holds living of Steventon, 202 ; 
 expected to preach at Chawton, 
 203 ; takes Jane to Winchester 
 for treatment, 207 ; visits Jane 
 at Winchester, 213; attends fu- 
 neral of Jane, 218-220; remote 
 cause of Jane's death, goes to 
 Berlin, succeeds James as rector 
 of Steventon, remarries, resigns 
 living to his nephew, death, left 
 no children, 226. 
 
 Austen, Reverend James, 
 brother of Jane: silhouette of, 
 at Chawton House, 19 ; writes 
 prologues for private theatricals, 
 26 ; birth at Deane, abilities 
 evinced at Oxford, directs his 
 sisters' studies, 27 ; visits his 
 mother and sister at Southamp- 
 ton, 113; visits Godmersham 
 with Jane, 118-123 ; enjoyment 
 of Edward's company, 119 ; 
 reads "Marmion" to his sister 
 Jane, 122 ; receives addition to 
 his income as rector of Steven- 
 ton, 134 ; visits Jane in her last 
 illness, 213 ; too ill to attend 
 Jane's funeral, 218; death, tab- 
 let to, 221 ; twice married, his 
 children, 222 ; succeeded by 
 
 Henry as rector of Steventon, 
 226 ; a worthy successor to his 
 father, 238. 
 
 Austen, Mrs. James. See Aus- 
 ten, Mrs. Mary. 
 
 Austen, Mrs. Mary, sister-in- 
 law of Jane : care of Jane in 
 latter's last illness, 213; Jane's 
 last words to, 214; mention of, 
 in Cassandra's letter, 2x7; mar- 
 riage to James Austen, her two 
 children by him, 222. 
 
 Austen, James Edward. See 
 A Jisten-Leigh, Reverend. 
 
 Austen, Jane, her Life: last 
 hours referred to, 10 ; no men- 
 tion of in Annual Register for 
 1817, sincere appreciation pleas- 
 ing to, 12 ; not undervalued 
 while living, 14 ; record of birth 
 in Steventon parish register, 22 ; 
 probable part in private theatri- 
 cals when a child, later appear- 
 ance in, as Mrs. Candor, 26 ; life- 
 long dependence upon Cassandra, 
 goes to school at Reading with 
 Cassandra, 31; earliest impres- 
 sions of Bath, 32-35; advice to 
 her niece concerning composi- 
 tion, 35-36 ; juvenile sketches 
 described by Mr. Austen-Leigh, 
 37; "The Mystery," 37-40; no 
 desire to publish her early short 
 stories, Mr. Austen-Leigh's re- 
 mark concerning, 40-41 ; writes 
 " Elinor and Marianne " when 
 between sixteen and twenty, un- 
 certain date of " Lady Susan," 
 41 ; earliest dated letter of, 42- 
 45; erroneous ideas concerning, 
 45-46,62-63,99; her regard for 
 Tom Lefroy, writes to Cassan- 
 dra concerning, 47-49 ; visits 
 Edward at Rowling, 49 ; com- 
 pares herself to "Camilla," evi- 
 dent liking for the character, 50; 
 attends a dance at Goodnestone, 
 51 ; departure from Rowling, 52; 
 begins writing in earnest, writes 
 
270 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 " Pride and Prejudice," 53 ; re- 
 vises " Elinor and Marianne," 
 and changes title to " Sense and 
 Sensibility," first attempt to pub- 
 lish " Pride and Prejudice," 54; 
 her discouragement but momen- 
 tary, time spent on "Sense and 
 Sensibility," begins and finishes 
 " Northanger Abbey," 56; other 
 occupations at this time, 56-65 , 
 spends winter of 1798-99 with 
 Edward at Godmersham, 57; be- 
 gins to wear caps, 60 ; writes to 
 Cassandra concerning caps, 61 ; 
 dances twenty dances without 
 fatigue, 62; thinks it not worth 
 while to wait for enjoyment, fre- 
 quent allusions in correspondence 
 to her brothers, 64; second and 
 third visits to Bath, 66 ; intimate 
 knowledge of Bath, when gained, 
 67 ; shopping expeditions in Bath, 
 69 ; attends fetes in Sydney Gar- 
 dens, 70; walks to Beacon Hill 
 and Charlecombe, 71 ; playful 
 allusion to "Pride and Preju- 
 dice" under its first title " First 
 Impressions," no desire to be 
 known as an author, 73 ; alludes 
 to "Sense and Sensibility," re- 
 turns to Steventon from Bath, 
 74 ; frequent attendance at balls, 
 ball at Deane. describes the peo- 
 ple at, no malice in her descrip- 
 tions, 75-76; letter to Martha 
 Lloyd, visit to, at Ibthorp, 77 ; 
 probable feelings at leaving Ste- 
 venton, 78-80 ; search for eligible 
 house in Bath, 80-84; removes 
 with her family to No. 4 Sydney 
 Place, 84 ; fondness for walking, 
 85 ; visit to Lyme-Regis, admira- 
 tion for, lodgings at, occupations, 
 88-93 ; visit to Teignmouth, 
 knowledge of Devonshire, 92 ; 
 acquaintance with Dawlish, re- 
 turn to Bath from Lyme, 93 ; 
 enjoyment of life in Bath, slight 
 acquaintance with literary people, 
 
 dislike of frivo'ous society, 98 ; 
 goes to Bath Assembly Rooms, 
 99 ; grief at loss of her friend 
 Mrs. Lefroy, 100 ; visits at God- 
 mersham, plays battledore and 
 shuttlecock with her nephews, 
 visits Goodnestone, 101 ; inti- 
 mate knowledge of Canterbury 
 and eastern Kent, 102-103 ; views 
 to be seen from her Southampton 
 home, 112 ; housekeeping anxie- 
 ties, 113-114 ; calls on South- 
 ampton people, 115 ; reads " Al- 
 phonsine," " Female Quixote," 
 and " Clarentine," and com- 
 mends Mrs Grant's " Letters," 
 116-117; a favorite with children, 
 118 ; visits Godmersham with 
 James, opinion of "Marmion," 
 visits Brompton, 118-123; at- 
 tends All Saints' Church at 
 Southampton, 124 ; describes 
 her evening amusements at 
 Southampton, 125-126; keen 
 sympathy for Edward in his 
 family affliction, 127 ; devotes 
 herself to entertainment of her 
 nephews, goes rowing en the 
 Itchen, 129-13 1 ; pleasure at 
 hearing of James' good fortune, 
 134; tolerance of human foibles, 
 135 ; pride in her brother Charles, 
 136; her careless spelling, 104, 
 138 ; few references in correspon- 
 dence to political events, 139- 
 140; restricted sympathies, 141 ; 
 relish for society when 34, 142 ; 
 her happiness always unsought, 
 
 143 ; hopes of being settled at 
 Chawton in September of 1809, 
 
 144 ; sees " The Hypocrite " 
 acted in London, 149 ; attends 
 musicale at Henry Austen's in 
 London, goes to Liverpool Mu- 
 seum, British Gallery, Ken- 
 sington Gardens, her London 
 purchases, 150-151 ; overhears 
 comment upon herself of " Mr. 
 W. K.," 152 ; recasts "Elinor 
 
INDEX. 
 
 271 
 
 and Marianne," and revises 
 '' Pride and Prejudice," specu- 
 lations concerning "Self-Con- 
 trol," 153 ; later opinion of 
 " Self-Control," returns to Chaw- 
 ton from London, describes the 
 Chawton garden, dislike of thun- 
 derstorms, 154-155 ; possible pic- 
 ture of, in the Chawton garden, 
 does not wish it known that she 
 writes. 156 ; begins " Mansfield 
 Park," 157 ; corrects proof of 
 " Pride and Prejudice," 158; 
 honest pride in her work, read- 
 ing aloud of " Pride and Preju- 
 dice," at Chawton when first 
 published, 159-160; never di- 
 gresses in her novels. 160 ; reads 
 completed MS. of " Mansfield 
 Park " to Henry, 161 ; reads 
 and enjoys " Pasley's Military 
 Police, etc.," drives to London, 
 admires views at Guildford and 
 Esher, 163 ; tries to discover a 
 likeness to Elizabeth Rennet in 
 portraits in the picture galleries, 
 164; her characters real people 
 to her, 165 ; visits Henry in 
 London in September, 1813, 
 attends theatre there, 166 : fond- 
 ness for Crabbe's poetry, 167 ; 
 visits Godmersham, 168 ; es- 
 teem for Mrs. Hamilton's writ- 
 ings. 171 ; anxiety about Henry's 
 health, 172 ; goes to London in 
 February, 1814, 173 ; attends 
 opera in London, 174; is much 
 in the society of her niece Fanny 
 in 1814, suffers much from face- 
 ache in later life, 176; journeys 
 usually short, time of trip to Scot- 
 land unknown, 178 ; advice to 
 her niece Anna in regard to the 
 latter's novel, 179-182 ; describes 
 only localities with which she is 
 familiar, 180; visits Henry in 
 London in November, 1814, 182 ; 
 devoted attendance upon Henry 
 during his illness, its effect upon 
 
 her health, 184-185; visits Carl- 
 ton House by invitation of the 
 Prince Regent ; correspondence 
 with J. S. Clarke, 187-192 ; de- 
 clines to sketch clergyman on 
 lines suggested by Mr. Clarke, 
 190 ; declines to write a histori- 
 cal romance on House of Saxe- 
 Cobourg, corrects proofs of 
 "Emma," revises "Mansfield 
 Park" for second edition, 192; 
 returns to Chawton from Lon- 
 don, allusion to " Catherine," 
 first reference to "Persuasion," 
 193 ; " Persuasion " thought 
 nearly ready for the press, 194 ; 
 complains of ill-health, pecuni- 
 ary losses, visits in Berkshire, 
 revises " Persuasion," 195 ; tem- 
 porary depression of spirits, rides 
 in donkey-carriage, 196 ; recov- 
 ers her spirits, playful letter to 
 her nephew, first ending of 
 " Persuasion," 197 ; concludes 
 "Persuasion" a second time, 
 failing health, 198 ; thought for 
 her mother's comfort, health 
 improves somewhat, 199; visits 
 Steventon for the last time, 
 walks to Alton, easily wearied. 
 
 200 ; dislike of evangelical school, 
 
 201 ; opinion of Henry Austen's 
 sermons, suggests their being in- 
 serted in her novels, describes 
 her own work, praises her 
 nephew's writing, 201-202 : 
 writes Miss Bigg about Henry's 
 preaching, reads Southey's 
 "Poet's Pilgrimage," 203; ar- 
 ranges " Persuasion " for the 
 press, begins a new novel, 
 strength fails, 204 ; ceases writ- 
 ing, nature of her unfinished 
 work, 205 ; serious nature of 
 her illness recognized by the 
 Austens, 206; receives visitors 
 in sick-room, goes to Winches- 
 ter for treatment, 207 ; lodges 
 with Cassandra at Mrs. David's, 
 
272 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 208 ; writes to her nephew from 
 Winchester, 209-210 ; improve- 
 ment in health but tempo- 
 rary, continues to lose strength, 
 212 ; grateful for friends' care of 
 her, recognizes her condition, 
 213; fancies death near, bids 
 adieu to friends, a pause in the 
 disease, death, 214; death oc- 
 curs on Sunday, Cassandra's ac- 
 count of her sister's last moments, 
 215-218; funeral ceremonies, in- 
 scription on gravestone, place in 
 the cathedral, 218-220; sympa- 
 thy with Cassandra in the latter's 
 early sorrow, 225; attachment to 
 Martha Lloyd, 227; personal 
 description of, by her nephew, 
 229 ; fond of music, music of 
 hers now at Chawton House, 
 230; knowledge of history, lik- 
 ing for Charles I. and Mary 
 Stuart, reads Addison, Steele? 
 and Richardson, 231 ; style 
 very unlike Johnson's, esteems 
 Cowper, enjoys Scott's verse, de- 
 tects authorship of" Waverley," 
 
 232 ; fondness for games, adored 
 by children, tells fairy tales, 
 
 233 ; autobiographic touches in 
 Catherine Morland, 234-235 ; 
 resemblance to her own Eliza- 
 beth Bennet, 236 ; traits in 
 Charles and Francis Austen 
 probably reproduced by her in 
 William Price, 237 ; knowledge 
 of the clergy, her ideas of cleri- 
 cal duties not in advance of 
 her day, dislike of cant, her 
 ideals for clergymen, 238-241 ; 
 her love of scenery, 242 ; mere 
 descriptions of scenery subordi- 
 nate to the theme, 243 ; single 
 exception to this rule in descrip- 
 tion of Lyme, 244 ; accuracy of 
 her descriptions of Lyme and 
 Up-Lyme, liking for autumn, 
 245-246; strong belief in frater- 
 nal affection, 247 ; good-natured 
 
 irony and satire, 248-251 ; fond- 
 ness for novel reading, her con- 
 viction of the importance of fic- 
 tion, 252-253; her consideration 
 for others, he»- latest thought 
 represented in " Persuasion," 
 254 ; her own deepest convic- 
 tions expressed by Anne Elliot, 
 no equal within her range, 255 ; 
 her conception of the love of 
 men and women, 256 ; reads 
 " Pride and Prejudice " aloud to 
 Cassandra and her niece Anna, 
 257 ; her room at Steventon de- 
 scribed by Anna Austen, 258. 
 Austen-Leigh, Augustus, grand- 
 nephew to Jane : present Pro- 
 vost of King's College, 121. 
 Austen-Leigh, Reverend James 
 Edward, nephew to Jane : sug- 
 gestion concerning the terrace at 
 Steventon, 20-21 ; opinion of his 
 father's parlor dramas, 26 ; con- 
 jectures that his father directed 
 Jane's studies, 27; estimate 
 of Jane's early unpublished 
 sketches, 37; estimate of her 
 unpublished burlesque tales, 40- 
 41 ; mentions date of writing 
 " Northanger Abbey," 56; ob- 
 servation concerning the wear- 
 ing of caps by the Austen sisters, 
 60 ; remarks concerning the Aus- 
 tens' removal from Steventon, 
 78 ; error in memoir regarding 
 Sydney Terrace, 84 ; gives " The 
 Watsons" its title, 86; estimate 
 of " The Watsons," 87-88 ; no 
 mention in memoir of Jane's 
 visits to other places than Lyme 
 in the autumn of 1814, 92 ; re- 
 cords death of Rev. Geo. Aus- 
 ten, 94 ; quotes Jane's letter of 
 April 8, 1805, in memoir, 97; re- 
 cords removal of the Austens to 
 Southampton, 106 ; describes the 
 Austen garden at Southampton, 
 108 ; describes the Lansdowne 
 equipage, no ; called " Little 
 
INDEX. 
 
 273 
 
 Edward " by Jane, a favorite 
 nephew with Jane, inherits estate 
 of Scarlets, takes the name of 
 Leigh, publishes memoir of Jane, 
 death mentioned, mention of his 
 son, A. A. Leigh, appearance at 
 sixty, i2i ; mentions Jane's daily 
 piano practice at Chawton, 136 ; 
 describes Chawton Cottage, 145 ; 
 visits Chawton often in boyhood, 
 146 ; describes his aunt's manner 
 of writing, 156-157 ; asserts that 
 his sister Anna's novel was never 
 published, 182 ; comment on 
 Mr. Clarke's literary sugges- 
 tions, 191 ; does not mention 
 " Catherine " in his memoir, 
 193 ; possibly wiser to have pub- 
 lished " Catherine" than " Lady 
 Susan," 194; last year at Win- 
 chester College, playful letter to, 
 from Jane, 197; writes fiction, 
 201 ; Jane's estimate of his writ- 
 ing, 202 ; describes handwriting 
 of Jane's last MS., 204 ; men- 
 tions physican's opinion of Jane's 
 condition, 207 ; last letter to, 
 from Jane, 209-211 ; estimate of 
 Jane's character, 214; mention 
 of, in Cassandra's letter, note 
 concerning, 218 ; present at 
 Jane's funeral, places brass me- 
 morial of Jane in cathedral, de- 
 scribes the family affection for 
 Jane, 221 ; son of James Austen 
 by the latter's second wife, takes 
 name of Leigh, 222 ; age at time 
 of his aunt's death, description 
 of her in his memoir of her, 229 , 
 mentions Jane's singing, 230. 
 
 Barsetshire, a real county to its 
 creator, Trollope, 165. 
 
 Basingstoke, Hants : position in re- 
 lation to Steventon, 16. 
 
 Bath, Somerset : Anstey the pro- 
 phet of, 33 ; Pump Room, celeb- 
 rities to be seen at, 34-35 ; 
 
 Laura Chapel a pious resort of 
 fashion, 34; probable date of 
 Jane's second visit to, third visit, 
 66 ; Queen Square, described, 
 position of No. 13, 67-68; Brock 
 Street, Queen's Parade, men- 
 tioned by Jane in a letter, 68 ; 
 Sydney Gardens, gala nights at, 
 69-70 ; few striking changes in, 
 during the last century, 70-71 ; 
 Camden Crescent, formerly called 
 Camden Road, 71 ; Westgate 
 Buildings, description of, 80; 
 Laura Place, location of, Mr. 
 Austen's liking for, 81-82 ; Gay 
 Street, location of, 81 ; removal 
 of the Austens from Sydney 
 Place to, 96-97 ; Chapel Row, 
 Mrs. Austen's preference for 
 house in, 81 ; Oxford Buildings, 
 dislike of the Austens for, 81 ; 
 Trim Street, unpleasant reputa- 
 tion of, 82 ; Sydney Gardens, 
 Jane's liking for, 83 ; Paragon, 
 view from, 83 ; New King Street, 
 mention of, 84; Sydney Place, 
 removal of the Austens to, loca- 
 tion of, 84; Sydney Terrace, not 
 in existence in Jane's time, 84 ; 
 Beechen Cliff, doubtless much 
 visited by the Austen sisters, 85 ; 
 view of, mentioned, 97 ; Jane's 
 close knowledge of, during resi- 
 dence there, 86 ; Seymour Street, 
 location of, 83 ; St. Swithin's 
 Church, memorial tablets in, ob- 
 servations of the verger, 94, 
 parish register of, 95 ; Green 
 Park Buildings, removal of the 
 Austens to, from Gay Street, de- 
 scription of, 97. 
 Brabourne, Edward, Lord, 
 grandnephew of Jane : introduc- 
 tion to his aunt Jane's cor- 
 respondence mentioned, 94, 96, 
 106; remarks concerning re- 
 moval from Steventon, 78 ; com- 
 ment on Jane's spelling, 104 ; 
 publishes Jane's letters, fairy 
 
 8 
 
274 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 tales of, 12 1 ; suggests reasons 
 for removal to Chawton, describes 
 his mother's care of her father's 
 family, 127-128 ; remarks con- 
 cerning his uncle Geo. Knight, 
 131 ; his description of Chawton 
 Cottage in 1884 mentioned, 146 ; 
 fancy of, concerning his aunt 
 Jane, 156; well-known to litera- 
 ture, 228 ; skill as a writer of fairy 
 tales, 233. 
 
 Brighton, Sussex : foreshadowed 
 in Southampton, 107. 
 
 Brunton, Mrs. : motif of her 
 "Self-Control," 153. 
 
 Brvdges, Sir Egerton: a visitor 
 at Ashe, mentions Jane in his 
 autobiography, 24. 
 
 Bull, a Bath publisher : buys 
 MS. of " Northanger Abbey," 
 and neglects to publish, 98. 
 
 Burney, Sarah Harriet : Jane's 
 unfavorable criticism of her 
 " Clarentine," 116. 
 
 Cadell, publisher : is offered MS. 
 of "Pride and Prejudice," 54; 
 probable cause of his rejection 
 of MS., 55 ; possible later re- 
 flections concerning his action, 
 
 5 6 " 
 Canterbury, Kent : description of 
 
 its neighborhood, Jane's familiar 
 
 acquaintance with it, 102-103. 
 
 Charlecombe, Somerset : present 
 appearance of, 72. 
 
 Charmouth, Dorset: location of, 
 90; lovely situation, 245. 
 
 Chartham, Kent ; view from the 
 downs of, 103. 
 
 Chawton, Hants: description of 
 cottage, present condition of, 
 Mrs. Maiden's statement con- 
 cerning, 145-147 ; cottage garden 
 described by Jane, present ap- 
 pearance of, 154-155 *> vicinity of, 
 possibly described in " Mansfield 
 Park," 161-162 ; frequent inter- 
 
 course between cottage and great 
 house in the Austens' time, 176 ; 
 path across "The Pasture" 
 much used by Jane, 176 ; death 
 of Mrs. Geo. Austen at, 222; 
 churchyard, graves of Cassandra 
 and her mother, Chawton 
 Church, 223 ; Chawton House, 
 Jane's music in, drawing-room 
 in, 230. 
 
 " Catherine " : referred to by Jana 
 as her own work, 193 ; nothing 
 definite known about it, 194. 
 
 Chilham, Kent : park and castle 
 frequently visited by the Austens, 
 103 ; the Bretons of the Castle, 
 170. 
 
 Clarke, J. L., librarian of Prince 
 Regent : calls upon Jane, 186 ; 
 correspondence with, suggests 
 impossible subjects as foundation 
 for future tales by Jane, 187-192. 
 
 Cooper, Epward and Susan. 
 cousins of Jane : frequent visits 
 of, at Steventon, 25. 
 
 Cooper, Dr., uncle of Jane : re- 
 sides at Bath, 32. 
 
 Cowper : held in high esteem by 
 Jane, 32. 
 
 Crabbe, George: his verse much 
 admired by Jane, 166 ; narrow 
 range of his sympathies, 167. 
 
 David, Mrs. : her house in Win- 
 chester described, the Austen 
 sisters take lodgings there, death 
 of, 208; Austen lodgings at, 
 213. 
 
 D'Arblay, Madame: popularity 
 of her writing in her youth, 
 12 ; tablet to, in St. Swithin's 
 Church, Bath, 94 ; her novel, 
 "The Wanderer," a dull tale, 
 171. 
 
 Dawlish, Devon: position of, 
 Jane's acquaintance with, 93. 
 
 Deal, Kent : prospective ball at, 
 104 ; ball given up, 105. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 2 75 
 
 Deane, Hants : road to from Ste- 
 venton, 16 ; living of, presented to 
 George Austen, 19 ; birthplace 
 of James, Edward, and Henry 
 Austen, 20. 
 
 Dean of Winchester, the : accom- 
 panies author to the house where 
 Jane died, 211-212. 
 
 Digweed, family of: the former 
 occupants of Steventon Manor, 
 21 ; intercourse with the Austens, 
 24. 
 
 Devonshire : Jane's knowledge of, 
 92 ; allusions to scenery of, in 
 " Sense and Sensibility," 242. 
 
 Eastwell Park, Kent : frequently 
 visited by the Austens, 103. 
 
 " Elinor and Marianne " : probable 
 date of writing, 41 ; revision and 
 change of title to " Sense and 
 Sensibility," 54. 
 
 " Emma " : suggested scene of, 
 162 ; advertised appearance, 185 ; 
 dedication to the Prince Regent, 
 187 ; copy ordered sent to the 
 Prince Regent, 189 ; last proofs 
 read, 192. 
 
 Feuillade, Countess de, cousin 
 of Jane : her husband guillo- 
 tined, lives at Steventon, marries 
 Henry Austen, 25 ; knowledge 
 of French, is active in private 
 theatricals, 26. 
 
 Gabell, Dr. : head master of 
 Winchester College in 1817, 10 ; 
 garden seen from Jane's lodg- 
 ings, 209. 
 
 George the Fourth. See Prince 
 Regent. 
 
 Godmersham, Kent : first visit of 
 Jane to, estate given to Edward 
 Austen, 57 ; St. Lawrence's 
 Church, 103. 
 
 Grant, Mrs., of Laggan : works 
 
 mentioned, 116-117. 
 Guildford, Surrey : Jane admires 
 
 views at, 163. 
 
 Hamilton, Miss Elizabeth : 
 works admired, now little read, 
 171. 
 
 Hancock, Mrs. : aunt to Jane, 
 mention of, 19 ; mother of Coun- 
 tess de Feuillade, 25. 
 
 Hastings, George, son of War- 
 ren Hastings : in care of the 
 Austen family, 19 ; death of, 20. 
 
 Hastings, Warren : places his 
 son in care of the Austen family, 
 19. 
 
 Heathcote, Sir Wm. : sees Jane 
 act in private theatricals, 26. 
 
 Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire : 
 early home of Mrs. Geo. Austen, 
 19. 
 
 Itchen, the : water party on, 130 ; 
 present appearance at Southamp- 
 ton contrasted with past, 131 ; at 
 Winchester, 208. 
 
 Kebbel, T. R. : suggestions re- 
 garding localities in " Mansfield 
 Park" and " Emma," 161-162. 
 
 Kintbury, Berks: position in rela- 
 tion to Steventon, 42. 
 
 Knatchbull, Lady Fanny, niece 
 to Jane : at fifteen, 120 ; tribute 
 to her of her son, Lord Bra- 
 bourne, 128 ; pleasure taken in 
 her aunt's writing, 142 ; cau- 
 tioned by Cassandra not to men- 
 tion authorship of " Sense and 
 Sensibility," 157; visits Chawton 
 House in 1812, described by her 
 sister Marianne, 158; compa- 
 nion to her aunts, 158; much in 
 Jane.'s company in 1814, 176 ; 
 questions about " Catherine " 
 
276 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 answered by Jane, 193 ; writes in 
 her diary of Jane's hopeless ill- 
 ness, 212 ; letter to from her 
 father announcing Jane's death, 
 letter to from Cassandra, 215- 
 218; second letter to from Cas- 
 sandra after Jane's death, 224. 
 
 Knight, Edward. See Austen, 
 Edward. 
 
 Knight, Edward (2d), nephew 
 to Jane : loss of his mother, 
 Jane's sympathy for, her enter- 
 tainment of, 219-13 r ; wife of, the 
 companion of Cassandra Austen, 
 147 ; at Oxford, 168 
 
 Knight, Fanny. See Knatckbull, 
 Lady. 
 
 Knight, George, nephew of 
 Jane ; his aunt's opinion of him 
 as a boy, resemblance to Henry 
 Austen, 129-130 ; ' Lord Bra- 
 bourne's remarks upon, 131-132 ; 
 goes to Oxford, 168. 
 
 Knight, Marianne, niece to 
 Jane : describes her sister, Lady 
 Knatchbull, 158. 
 
 Knight, Montagu G., grand- 
 nephew of Jane : present owner- 
 ship of Chawton mentioned, 146 ; 
 accompanies the author to Chaw- 
 ton Cottage, 147. 
 
 Knight, William, nephew of 
 Jane : Jane's game of battledore 
 with, 101 ; takes living of Steven- 
 ton when old enough, 202 ; suc- 
 ceeds Henry Austen, at Steven- 
 ton, death, 226. 
 
 La Croix, Mr. : owner of house 
 where Jane died, skill as pastry- 
 cook well-known to Wykeham- 
 ists, 211. 
 
 Lansdowne, Marquis of : South- 
 ampton residence described, no. 
 
 " Lady Susan " : probable date of, 
 41-42. 
 
 Lefroy, Mrs. Anna Austen, 
 niece to Jane : attempts at fic- 
 
 tion, her aunt Jane's suggestions 
 concerning, 179-182 ; marries 
 Benjamin Lefroy, 181 ; her novel 
 never published, 182 ; removes 
 to Wyards, 183 ; visits her aunt 
 Jane in the latter's last illness, 
 206-207; marriage mentioned, 
 222 ; informed by Jane of author- 
 ship of " Waverley," 232; de- 
 scribes Steventon in her girlhood, 
 257-258. 
 
 Lefroy, Benjamin, son of Jane's 
 friend : marries daughter of 
 James Austen, 25, 181 ; moves 
 to Wyards near Alton, 183. 
 
 Lefroy, Mrs., of Ashe: friend of 
 Jane, sister to Sir Egerton 
 Brydges, 24 ; death of, 100. 
 
 Lefroy, Tom (Chief- Justice of Ire- 
 land) : described by Jane, 43 ; his 
 admiration of Tom Jones, 45 ; 
 at ninety still remembers Jane, 
 47- 
 
 Lefroy, Reverend Edward 
 Cracroft, grandnephew of 
 Jane : mentioned, 228. 
 
 Leigh, Cassandra. See Austen, 
 Mrs. Cassandra. 
 
 Leigh, Thomas : maternal grand- 
 father of Jane, 19. 
 
 Leigh, Theophilus : great-uncle 
 of Jane, 19. 
 
 Lenox, Charlotte : her " Fe- 
 male Quixote " admired by Jane, 
 116. 
 
 Lloyd, Martha: playful allusion 
 to, by Jane, 73 ; lives at Ibthorp 
 in 1800, 77 ; lives with the 
 Austens at Southampton, 113 ; 
 left in charge of the Chawton 
 household, t 72 ; marries Francis 
 Austen, Jane's attachment to 
 her, 227. 
 
 Lyford, Mr. : his medical skill, 
 slight hopes for Jane's recovery, 
 207 ; playful allusion to, in one of 
 Jane's letters, 209. 
 
 Lyme-Regis, Dorset : picturesque 
 position of, 88-89 '» former rank 
 
INDEX. 
 
 277 
 
 as a watering-place, the George 
 Inn, landing of Duke of Mon- 
 mouth, 90; Cobb, the, descrip- 
 tion of, account of its rebuilding, 
 upper and lower levels, Louisa 
 Musgrove's fall from, 91 ; Ten- 
 nyson at Lyme, 92 ; description 
 of, quoted from " Persuasion," 
 244 : character of principal street, 
 St. Michael's Church, 245. 
 
 Mant, Reverend Dr. : rector of 
 All Saints', Southampton, 124 ; 
 observations on the Litany re- 
 ferred to, 129. 
 
 <; Mansfield Park " : vicinity of 
 Chawton possibly described in 
 certain places, 161 ; first pub- 
 lished, 176; description of scen- 
 ery quoted from, 243 ; Jane's 
 estimate of fraternal affection 
 quoted from, 247. 
 
 Micheldever, Hants: nearest sta- 
 tion to Steventon on the south, 16. 
 
 More, Mrs. Hannah : her 
 "Coelebs" remarked upon, 137- 
 138- 
 
 Moore, Sir John : death of, men- 
 tioned by Jane, 139. 
 
 Morgan, Lady : novels read by 
 Jane, 137. 
 
 Netley, Hants: distance from, to 
 Southampton, 130 
 
 Newman, Dr. Harding: be- 
 queaths portrait of Jane to Rev. 
 J. M. Rice, 33. 
 
 North Waltham, Hants : road to, 
 from Steventon, 17. 
 
 " Northanger Abbey": when be- 
 gun, when finished, 56 ; knowl- 
 edge of Bath customs shown in, 
 67; MS. of, sold for 10 pounds, 
 98: man's notice of woman's 
 dress quoted from, 249 ; remarks 
 on novels quoted from, 252- 
 253- 
 
 Overton, Hants: railway station 
 nearest Steventon on the North, 
 16. 
 
 Paslev, Captain : his " Essay 
 on the Military Police " admired 
 by Jane, 162. 
 
 "Persuasion": first reference to, 
 193 ; thought nearly ready by 
 Jane, 194 ; revision of, 195 ; first 
 ending written, dissatisfaction 
 with, 197; second ending 
 written, 198 ; arranges for the 
 press, 204 ; scenery of Lyme 
 quoted from, 244 : description of 
 autumn quoted from, 246 ; Lady 
 Rivers' entrance to Bath quoted, 
 251 ; Jane's estimate of love of 
 men and women quoted from, 
 256 
 
 Peach, R E,. : remarks concern- 
 ing Sydney Terrace, 84 ; views 
 regarding Austen lodgings on 
 Gay Street, 96-97. 
 
 Perrot, Leigh, uncle of Jane : 
 residence at Bath, 32 ; his gift to 
 James Austen, 134. 
 
 Piozzi., Mrs. : personal appear- 
 ance when at Bath, 34. 
 
 Pinney, Devon : mention of, 90 ; 
 landslips at, 245. 
 
 " Pride and Prejudice " : first title 
 of, closing pages written, 53 ; re- 
 vised, 153 ; proofs corrected, 158; 
 first reading of, when published, 
 159; Jane's favorite characters 
 in, 161 ; reaches second edition, 
 171; read aloud by Jane when 
 first written, to Cassandra and her 
 niece Anna, 257. 
 
 Prince Regent, The : admires 
 Jane's works, 186; permits de- 
 dication of " Emma " to him- 
 self, 187. 
 
 Portsmouth, Hants : nearness to 
 Southampton an advantage to 
 the Austens. 108 ; death of Cas- 
 sandra Austen at, 223 ; home of 
 Francis Austen, his death at, 227. 
 
2 7 8 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Radcliffe, Mrs. Ann: popularity 
 of, in lifetime, 12. 
 
 Rice, Rev. J. M., grandnephew 
 of Jane : present owner of Jane's 
 portrait, 32. 
 
 Richardson: known by Jane al- 
 most by heart, 231. 
 
 Rowling, Kent : home of Edward 
 Austen for a time, 49. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter : his poetry 
 enjoyed by Jane, 232. 
 
 Sandling Park, Kent : visited by 
 Jane's brothers, the house then 
 much admired, 119. 
 
 Steventon, Hants : no railway sta- 
 tion at, position, modern rectory, 
 site of former rectory, view from , 
 St. Nicholas Church, modern 
 manor, old manor, appearance 
 in 18th century, 16-18 ; living 
 presented to Geo. Austen, 19 ; 
 gardens in Jane's childhood, the 
 " Wood Walk," 20-21 ; parish re- 
 gister, handwriting of Geo. Aus- 
 ten, dates of birth of Jane and 
 Cassandra, 22 ; Austen children 
 put out to nurse, young life at 
 rectory, 23 ; visits of the Cooper 
 cousins, the Countess de Feuil- 
 lade, private theatricals, 26-27 ; 
 Francis Austen born at, 28 ; in- 
 significance of, 55 ; living re- 
 signed by Geo. Austen, 78 ; 
 James Austen rector of, 134 ; 
 death of James Austen at, tablet 
 in church to him, 221 ; tomb of 
 James Austen in churchyard, 
 222 ; Henry Austen succeeds 
 James as rector, living held by 
 William Knight, 226 ; rectory 
 described by Anna Austen Le- 
 froy, 257-258. 
 "Sense and Sensibility": new 
 title of " Elinor and Marianne," 
 54 ; short time spent in recasting, 
 56; in press, 153; when pub- 
 lished, 1.57; authorship known to 
 
 the Prince Regent, 186 ; Somer- 
 setshire scenery described in, 
 242. 
 
 Somersetshire : scenery alluded to 
 in " Sense and Sensibility," 242. 
 
 Stour, the, Kent: scenery in its 
 neighborhood, 102-103. 
 
 Southampton, Hants : early his- 
 tory as a watering-place, first 
 steamer plies at, docks estab- 
 lished, 106-107; Austen garden 
 described by Mr. Austen-Leigh 
 and Jane, 108 ; Castle Square, 
 locality and present condition, 
 city wall, 109-111 ; the Test, 
 views from Castle Square, 112 ; 
 Castle Lane, locality of, 109 ; 
 Jane's acquaintances in, 115 ; 
 All Saints' Church, description 
 of, St. Michael's Church men- 
 tioned, 124 ; Northam, suburb 
 visited by Jane, the Itchen 
 Ferry, 131 ; Woolston, a suburb 
 of, 13 1 ; theatre at, 132 ; ball at, 
 133 ; Austens leave Southamp- 
 ton, 144. 
 
 " The Watsons " : probable date 
 of, worthy of more attention, 
 Mr. Austen-Leigh's remarks on, 
 86-87 ; Jane's confidence with 
 Cassandra concerning, 88. 
 
 Trollope, Anthony : inheritor of 
 Jane's realism, Barsetshire a real 
 county to him, 165. 
 
 Up-Hurstborne, Hants : location 
 of, 83. 
 
 Up-Lyme, Devon : mention of, 90 ; 
 present appearance, concise de- 
 scription of, in "Persuasion," 
 246. 
 
 Winchester, Hants: High Street 
 clock, Guildhall chimes, cathe- 
 dral clock, 9 ; Cathedral Close, 
 walls of, 101 gates of, 208 ; Col- 
 lege, bells of, Commoners' en. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 279 
 
 trance, 10 ; College Street, men- 
 tion of, 10; description of, 
 208; Kingsgate Street men- 
 tioned, 10, 208, 219; the Itchen, 
 mention of, 10; Wolvesey Castle, 
 mention of, 10; St. Giles' Hill 
 mentioned, 10 ; Jane's death 
 at, 12 ; position in relation to 
 Steventon, 16; St. Swithin's 
 Church, locality of, 208 ; St. 
 Swithin's Street mentioned, 212, 
 
 219; St. Cross bedesmen men- 
 tioned, 220. 
 Wye, Kent : location of, 103. 
 
 York, Duchess of: her retinue oi 
 dogs, 34. 
 
 Zoffani : paints portrait of Jane, 
 32. 
 
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