Complete Works of Jane Austen (395 page)

‘It is impossible to say at how early an age she began. There are copy-books extant containing tales, some of which must have been composed while she was a young girl, as they had amounted to a considerable number by the time she was sixteen. Her earliest stories are of a slight and flimsy texture, and are generally intended to be nonsensical, but the nonsense has much spirit in it. They are usually preceded by a dedication of mock solemnity to some one of her family. It would seem that the grandiloquent dedications prevalent in those days had not escaped her youthful penetration. Perhaps the most characteristic feature in those early productions is that, however puerile the matter, they are always composed in pure simple English, quite free from the over-ornamented style which might be expected from so young a writer.’ The following is a specimen: —

THE MYSTERY.

AN UNFINISHED COMEDY.

DEDICATION.
To the Rev. George Austen.

Sir, — I humbly solicit your patronage to the following 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.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Men.

Women.

Col. Elliot.

Fanny Elliott.

Old Humbug.

Mrs. Humbug

Young Humbug.

and

Sir Edward Spangle     

Daphne.

and

Corydon.

ACT I.

Scene I. —
A Garden.
Enter
Corydon.

Corydon.
But hush: I am interrupted.       [
Exit
Corydon.

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 parlour in
Humbug’s
house
. Mrs. Humbug
and
Fanny
discovered at work
.

Mrs. Hum.
You understand me, my love?

Fanny.
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 ‘twas 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’ll tell you. (
Whispers
Fanny.)

Mrs. Hum.
And is he to —— ?

Daphne.
I’ll tell you all I know of the matter. (
Whispers
Mrs. Humbug
and
Fanny.)

Fanny.
Well, now I know everything about it, I’ll go away.

Mrs. Hum.
}
} And so will I.   [
Exeunt.
Daphne.
}

Scene III. —
The curtain rises, and discovers
Sir Edward Spangle
reclined in an elegant attitude on a sofa fast asleep.

Enter
Col. Elliott.

Col. E.
My daughter is not here, I see. There lies Sir Edward. Shall I tell him the secret? No, he’ll certainly blab it. But he’s asleep, and won’t hear me, so I’ll e’en venture. (
Goes up to
Sir Edward,
whispers him, and exit.
)

End of the First Act. Finis.

A somewhat later venture, pure extravaganza, called
Evelyn
is dedicated, by permission, to Miss Mary Lloyd.

The manuscript volume which contains
Evelyn
is grandly entitled on the outside ‘Volume the Third’; on the inside ‘Effusions of Fancy by a very Young Lady, consisting of Tales in a Style entirely new.’ It contains one other tale, unfinished, but of considerable length, called
Kitty or the Bower
, which is preceded by the following dedication, dated ‘Steventon, August 1792.’

To Miss Austen.

Madam, — Encouraged by your warm patronage of
The Beautiful Cassandra
and
The History of England
, which, through your generous support, have obtained a place in every library in the Kingdom, and run through four score editions, I take the liberty of begging the same Exertions in favour of the following novel, which I humbly flatter myself possesses Merit beyond any already published, or any that will ever in future appear, except such as may proceed from the pen of your most grateful

Humble Servant,
The Author.

The tale begins in characteristic style, which suggests the later
Northanger Abbey
.

Catharine had the misfortune, as many heroines have had before her, of losing her parents when she was very young, and of being brought up under the care of a maiden aunt, who, while she tenderly loved her, watched her conduct with so scrutinizing a severity as to make it very doubtful to many people, and to Catharine among the rest, whether she loved her or not.

Catharine lives with this aunt in Devonshire, five miles from Exeter. Some friends of her aunt, a Mr. Stanley, M.P., his wife and daughter (very foolish, and suggestive of Isabella Thorpe) come to visit them. Mr. Stanley’s son turns up unexpectedly and pays great attention to Catharine, much to the disgust of the aunt, who has a detestation of all young men. The tale comes to an abrupt conclusion with the departure of the guests. The story is at times amusing, but obviously immature, and we need not regret that it was never finished.

Other early sketches are
Henry and Eliza
, dedicated to Miss Cooper, which must have been written before the latter’s marriage at the end of 1792;
The Visit
, dedicated to the Rev. James Austen;
Jack and Alice
, and
Adventures of Mr. Harley
, dedicated to Francis William Austen, Esq., midshipman on board H.M.S.
Perseverance
(soon after 1788), and other pieces dedicated to Charles John Austen, Esq.

Evelyn
and
Kitty
seem to mark a second stage in her literary education: when she was hesitating between burlesque and immature story-telling, and when indeed it seemed 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.  ‘Her own mature opinion of the desirableness of such an early habit of composition is given in the following words of a niece: —

As I grew older, my aunt would talk to me more seriously of my reading and my amusements. I had taken early to writing verses and stories, and I am sorry to think how I troubled her with reading them. She was very kind about it, and always had some praise to 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 otherwise; 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.

‘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 which we have mentioned had, some of them at least, been written in her childhood; while others were separated only by a very few years from the period which included specimens of her most brilliant writing.’

In the summer of 1788, when the girls were fifteen and twelve respectively, they accompanied their parents on a visit to their great-uncle, old Mr. Francis Austen, at Sevenoaks. Though Jane had been to Oxford, Southampton, and Reading before, it is probable that this was her first visit into Kent, and, what must have been more interesting still, her first visit to London. We have no clue as to where the party stayed in town, but one of Eliza de Feuillide’s letters to Philadelphia Walter mentions that they dined with Eliza and her mother on their way back to Hampshire.

They talked much of the satisfaction their visit into Kent had afforded them. What did you think of my uncle’s looks? I was much pleased with them, and if possible he appeared more amiable than ever to me. What an excellent and pleasing man he is; I love him most sincerely, as indeed I do all the family. I believe it was your first acquaintance with Cassandra and Jane.

Though Philadelphia’s reply to this letter has not been preserved, we have a letter of hers to her brother. Writing on July 23, she says: —

Yesterday I began an acquaintance with my two female cousins, Austens. My uncle, aunt, Cassandra, and Jane arrived at Mr. F. Austen’s the day before. We dined with them there. As it’s pure nature to love ourselves, I may be allowed to give the preference to the eldest, who is generally reckoned a most striking resemblance of me in features, complexion, and manners. I never found myself so much disposed to be vain, as I can’t help thinking her very pretty, but fancied I could discover
she
was not so well pleased with the comparison, which reflection abated a great deal of the vanity so likely to arise and so proper to be suppres’t. The youngest [Jane] is very like her brother Henry, not at all pretty and very prim, unlike a girl of twelve; but it is hasty judgment which you will scold me for. My aunt has lost several fore-teeth, which makes her look old; my uncle is quite white-haired, but looks vastly well; all in high spirits and disposed to be pleased with each other.

A day or two later, Philadelphia wrote further: —

I continue to admire my amiable likeness the best of the two in every respect; she keeps up conversation in a very sensible and pleasing manner. Yesterday they all spent the day with us, and the more I see of Cassandra the more I admire [her]. Jane is whimsical and affected.

‘Not at all pretty,’ ‘whimsical and affected.’ ‘Poor Jane!’ one is tempted to exclaim, but whatever she would have said to this estimate of herself, of one thing we may be perfectly sure: that she would have been the first to agree with her critic as to her own absolute inferiority to Cassandra.

There is a passage in a letter written from Southampton, February 1807, in which she says she is often ‘all astonishment and shame’ when she thinks of her own manners as a young girl and contrasts them with what she sees in the ‘best children’ of a later date.

One other mention of Jane at this period may be quoted — that of Sir Egerton Brydges, the author and genealogist. His sister had married Mr. Lefroy, who in 1783 had become rector of Ashe (the living which George Austen would have held, had it become vacant before Deane), in succession to Dr. Russell. Sir Egerton, on his marriage in 1788, had for two years rented Mr. Austen’s parsonage at Deane in order to be near his sister.

The nearest neighbours of the Lefroys were the Austens at 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.

Sir Egerton’s description is the more pleasing of the two; but it must be remembered that he was writing long after the time he mentions, and that his recollections were no doubt somewhat mellowed by Jane Austen’s subsequent fame; whereas Philadelphia Walter’s is an unvarnished contemporary criticism — the impression made by Jane on a girl a few years older than herself.

Fortunately, neither looks nor manners are stereotyped at the age of twelve, so we need not be surprised to find that Eliza, when writing in August 1791 in reference to a letter just received from Steventon, talks of the two sisters as ‘perfect Beauties,’ who were of course gaining ‘hearts by dozens.’ And again in November of the same year, she writes that she hears ‘they are two of the prettiest girls in England.’ When due allowance is made for family exaggeration, we may conclude that at eighteen and fifteen years of age both Cassandra and Jane had their fair share of good looks.

Eliza’s letters give us another glimpse of the sisters in 1792, and indeed of the whole Steventon party. She writes on September 26: —

I have the real pleasure of informing you that our dear Uncle and Aunt are both in perfect health. The former looks uncommonly well, and in my opinion his likeness to my beloved mother is stronger than ever. Often do I sit and trace her features in his, till my heart overflows at my eyes. I always tenderly loved my Uncle, but I think he is now dearer to me than ever, as being the nearest and best beloved relation of the never to be sufficiently regretted parent I have lost; Cassandra and Jane are both very much grown (the latter is now taller than myself), and greatly improved as well in manners as in person, both of which are now much more formed than when you saw them. They are I think equally sensible and both so to a degree seldom met with, but still my heart gives the preference to Jane, whose kind partiality to me indeed requires a return of the same nature. Henry is now rather more than six feet high, I believe; he also is much improved, and is certainly endowed with uncommon abilities, which indeed seem to have been bestowed, though in a different way, upon each member of this family. As to the coolness which you know had taken place between H. and myself, it has now ceased, in consequence of due acknowledgement, on his part, and we are at present on very proper relationlike terms. You know that his family design him for the Church. Cassandra was from home when I arrived; she was then on a visit to Rowling, the abode of her brother Edward — from which she returned some time since, but is now once more absent, as well as her sister, on a visit to the Miss Lloyds, who live at a place called Ibthorp, about eighteen miles from hence. . . . There has been a Club Ball at Basingstoke and a private one in the neighbourhood, both of which my cousins say were very agreeable.