Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh (beginner reading books for adults .TXT) 📖

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.’  As this niece was only twelve years old at the time of her aunt’s death, these words seem to imply that the juvenile tales to which I have referred had, some of them at least, been written in her childhood.

But between these childish effusions, and the composition of her living works, there intervened another stage of her progress, during which she produced some stories, not without merit, but which she never considered worthy of publication.  During this preparatory period her mind seems to have been working 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 which she had met with in sundry silly romances.  Something 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.  The family have, rightly, I think, declined to let these early works be published.  Mr. Shortreed observed very pithily of Walter Scott’s early rambles on the borders, ‘He was makin’ himsell a’ the time; but he didna ken, may be, what he was about till years had passed.  At first he thought of little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun.’  And so, in a humbler way, Jane Austen was ‘makin’ hersell,’ little thinking of future fame, but caring only for ‘the queerness and the fun;’ and it would be as unfair to expose this preliminary process to the world, as it would be to display all that goes on behind the curtain of the theatre before it is drawn up.

It was, however, at Steventon that the real foundations of her fame were laid.  There some of her most successful writing was composed at such an early age as to make it surprising that so young a woman could have acquired the insight into character, and the nice observation of manners which they display.  ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ which some consider the most brilliant of her novels, was the first finished, if not the first begun.  She began it in October 1796, before she was twenty-one years old, and completed it in about ten months, in August 1797.  The title then intended for it was ‘First Impressions.’  ‘Sense and Sensibility’ was begun, in its present form, immediately after the completion of the former, in November 1797 but something similar in story and character had been written earlier under the title of ‘Elinor and Marianne;’ and if, as is probable, a good deal of this earlier production was retained, it must form the earliest specimen of her writing that has been given to the world.  ‘Northanger Abbey,’ though not prepared for the press till 1803, was certainly first composed in 1798.

Amongst the most valuable neighbours of the Austens were Mr. and Mrs. Lefroy and their family.  He was rector of the adjoining parish of Ashe; she was sister to Sir Egerton Brydges, to whom we are indebted for the earliest notice of Jane Austen that exists.  In his autobiography, speaking of his visits at Ashe, he writes thus: ‘The nearest neighbours 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 grandmother 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.’  One may wish that Sir Egerton had dwelt rather longer on the subject of these memoirs, instead of being drawn away by his extreme love for genealogies to her great-grandmother and ancestors.  That great-grandmother however lives in the family records as Mary Brydges, a daughter of Lord Chandos, married in Westminster Abbey to Theophilus Leigh of Addlestrop in 1698.  When a girl she had received a curious letter of advice and reproof, written by her mother from Constantinople.  Mary, or ‘Poll,’ was remaining in England with her grandmother, Lady Bernard, who seems to have been wealthy and inclined to be too indulgent to her granddaughter.  This letter is given.  Any such authentic document, two hundred years old, dealing with domestic details, must possess some interest.  This is remarkable, not only as a specimen of the homely language in which ladies of rank then expressed themselves, but from the sound sense which it contains.  Forms of expression vary, but good sense and right principles are the same in the nineteenth that they were in the seventeenth century.

‘My deares Poll,

‘Yr letters by Cousin Robbert Serle arrived here not before the 27th of Aprill, yett were they hartily wellcome to us, bringing ye joyful news which a great while we had longed for of my most dear Mother & all other relations & friends good health which I beseech God continue to you all, & as I observe in yrs to yr Sister Betty ye extraordinary kindness of (as I may truly say) the best Mothr & Gnd Mothr in the world in pinching herself to make you fine, so I cannot but admire her great good Housewifry in affording you so very plentifull an allowance, & yett to increase her Stock at the rate I find she hath done; & think I can never sufficiently mind you how very much it is yr duty on all occasions to pay her yr gratitude in all humble submission & obedience to all her commands soe long as you live.  I must tell you ’tis to her bounty & care in ye greatest measure you are like to owe yr well living in this world, & as you cannot but be very sensible you are an extra-ordinary charge to her so it behoves you to take particular heed tht in ye whole course of yr life, you render her a proportionable comfort, especially since ’tis ye best way you can ever hope to make her such amends as God requires of yr hands.  but Poll! it grieves me a little yt I am forced to take notice of & reprove you for some vaine expressions in yr lettrs to yr Sister—you say concerning yr allowance “you aime to bring yr bread & cheese even” in this I do not discommend you, for a foule shame indeed it would be should you out run the Constable having soe liberall a provision made you for yr maintenance—but ye reason you give for yr resolution I cannot at all approve for you say “to spend more you can’t” thats because you have it not to spend, otherwise it seems you would.  So yt ’tis yr Grandmothrs discretion & not yours tht keeps you from extravagancy, which plainly appears in ye close of yr sentence, saying yt you think it simple covetousness to save out of yrs but ’tis my opinion if you lay all on yr back ’tis ten tymes a greater sin & shame thn to save some what out of soe large an allowance in yr purse to help you at a dead lift.  Child, we all know our beginning, but who knows his end?  Ye best use tht can be made of fair weathr is to provide against foule & ’tis great discretion & of noe small commendations for a young woman betymes to shew herself housewifly & frugal.  Yr Mother neither Maide nor wife ever yett bestowed forty pounds a yeare on herself & yett if you never fall undr a worse reputation in ye world thn she (I thank God for it) hath hitherto done, you need not repine at it, & you cannot be ignorant of ye difference tht was between my fortune & what you are to expect.  You ought likewise to consider tht you have seven brothers & sisters & you are all one man’s children & therefore it is very unreasonable that one should expect to be preferred in finery soe much above all ye rest for ’tis impossible you should soe much mistake yr ffather’s condition as to fancy he is able to allow every one of you forty pounds a yeare a piece, for such an allowance with the charge of their diett over and above will amount to at least five hundred pounds a yeare, a sum yr poor ffather can ill spare, besides doe but bethink yrself what a ridiculous sight it will be when yr grandmothr & you come to us to have noe less thn seven waiting gentlewomen in one house, for what reason can you give why every one of yr Sistrs should not have every one of ym a Maide as well as you, & though you may spare to pay yr maide’s wages out of yr allowance yett you take no care of ye unnecessary charge you put yr ffathr to in yr increase of his family, whereas if it were not a piece of pride to have ye name of keeping yr maide she yt waits on yr good Grandmother might easily doe as formerly you know she hath done, all ye business you have for a maide unless as you grow oldr you grow a veryer Foole which God forbid!

‘Poll, you live in a place where you see great plenty & splendour but let not ye allurements of earthly pleasures tempt you to forget or neglect ye duty of a good Christian in dressing yr bettr part which is yr soule, as will best please God.  I am not against yr going decent & neate as becomes yr ffathers daughter but to clothe yrself rich & be running into every gaudy fashion can never become yr circumstances & instead of doing you creditt & getting you a good prefernt it is ye readiest way you can take to fright all sober men from ever thinking of matching thmselves with women that live above thyr fortune, & if this be a wise way of spending money judge you!  & besides, doe but reflect what an od sight it will be to a stranger that comes to our house to see yr Grandmothr yr Mothr & all yr Sisters in a plane dress & you only trickd up like a bartlemew-babby—you know what sort of people those are tht can’t faire well but they must cry rost meate now what effect could you imagine yr writing in such a high straine to yr Sisters could have but either to provoke thm to envy you or murmur against us.  I must tell you neithr of yr Sisters have ever had twenty pounds a yeare allowance from us yett, & yett theyr dress hath not disparaged neithr thm nor us & without incurring ye censure of simple covetousness they will have some what to shew out of their saving that will doe