Complete Works of Jane Austen (430 page)

We may compare this account with the quotation given in the
Memoir
from Sir Henry Holland’s
Recollections:
—

I have the picture before me still of Lord Holland lying on his bed, when attacked with gout; his admirable sister, Miss Fox, reading aloud — as she always did on these occasions — some one of Miss Austen’s novels, of which he was never wearied.

It is as difficult to follow the various stages of Jane’s illness as it is to understand the exact nature of her complaint. She must have begun to feel her malady early in the year 1816; for some friends at a distance, whom she visited in the spring, ‘thought that her health was somewhat impaired, and observed that she went about her old haunts and recalled the old recollections connected with them in a particular manner — as if she did not expect ever to see them again.’ This is, however, almost the only indication that we have of any diminution of vigour at that time; for the three letters to Fanny Knight, given by Lord Brabourne as written in 1816, must be transferred to 1817; and so must the two short extracts on p, 151 of the
Memoir
, as they evidently refer to a family event which occurred in the March of the later year. The tone of her letters through the remainder of 1816, and at the beginning of the next year, was almost invariably cheerful, and she showed by the completion of
Persuasion
that she was capable of first-rate literary work during the summer of 1816. The fact is that, as to health, she was an incurable optimist; her natural good spirits made her see the best side, and her unselfishness prompted the suppression of anything that might distress those around her. Nothing, for instance, could be more lively than the following letter to Edward Austen, written while he was still at Winchester School, but had come home for his last summer holidays.

Chawton: July 9, 1816.

My dear Edward, — Many thanks. A thank for every line, and as many to Mr. W. Digweed for coming. We have been wanting very much to hear of your mother, and are happy to find she continues to mend, but her illness must have been a very serious one indeed. When she is really recovered, she ought to try change of air, and come over to us. Tell your father I am very much obliged to him for his share of your letter, and most sincerely join in the hope of her being eventually much the better for her present discipline. She has the comfort moreover of being confined in such weather as gives one little temptation to be out. It is really too bad, and has been too bad for a long time, much worse than anybody
can
bear, and I begin to think it will never be fine again. This is a
finesse
of mine, for I have often observed that if one writes about the weather, it is generally completely changed before the letter is read. I wish it may prove so now, and that when Mr. W. Digweed reaches Steventon to-morrow, he may find you have had a long series of hot dry weather. We are a small party at present, only grandmamma, Mary Jane, and myself. Yalden’s coach cleared off the rest yesterday. . . .

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 so seriously unless it actually were so. We saw a countless number of post-chaises full of boys pass by yesterday morning — full of future heroes, legislators, fools, and villains. You have never thanked me for my last letter, which went by the cheese. I cannot bear not to be thanked. You will not pay us a visit yet of course; we must not think of it. Your mother must get well first, and you must go to Oxford and
not
be elected; after that a little change of scene may be good for you, and your physicians I hope will order you to the sea, or to a house by the side of a very considerable pond. Oh! it rains again. It beats against the window. Mary Jane and I have been wet through once already to-day; we set off in the donkey-carriage for Farringdon, as I wanted to see the improvements Mr. Woolls is making, but we were obliged to turn back before we got there, but not soon enough to avoid a pelter all the way home. We met Mr. Woolls. I talked of its being bad weather for the hay, and he returned me the comfort of its being much worse for the wheat. We hear that Mrs. S. does not quit Tangier: why and wherefore? Do you know that our Browning is gone? You must prepare for a William when you come, a good-looking lad, civil and quiet, and seeming likely to do. Good bye. I am sure Mr. W. D. will be astonished at my writing so much, for the paper is so thin that he will be able to count the lines if not to read them.

Yours affec
ly
,
J. Austen.

Mr. J. E. Austen.

There was a second family visit this year to Cheltenham, where Cassandra and Jane had already been in the spring. Probably their connexion with this watering-place was through Mrs. James Austen, and
hers
was through her sister, Mrs. Fowle of Kintbury. Mr. Fowle had lived at Elkstone near Cheltenham, and continued to hold that benefice, which was in the gift of the Craven family. The Fowles would naturally renew their intercourse with their old friends in the neighbourhood, and
he
would go to see his curate and acquaint himself with the circumstances of his parish. The visits to Gloucestershire were therefore for pleasure and business as well as health.

In August 1816 it was a recent serious illness of Mrs. James Austen which took the party there; Mrs. Austen being accompanied by her daughter Caroline, and her sister-in-law Cassandra. Meanwhile, Jane remained with her mother at Chawton, where she had Edward Austen as a visitor.

During Cassandra’s absence Jane wrote to her as follows: —

Chawton: September 4, 1816.

We go on very well here, Edward is a great pleasure to me; he drove me to Alton yesterday. I went principally to carry news of you and Henry, and made a regular handsome visit, staying there while Edward went on to Wyards with an invitation to dinner: it was declined, and will be so again to-day probably, for I really believe Anna is not equal to the fatigue. The Alton four drank tea with us last night, and we were very pleasant: — Jeu de Violon, &c. — all new to Mr. Sweney — and he entered into it very well. It was a renewal of former agreeable evenings.

We all (except my mother) dine at Alton tomorrow, and perhaps may have some of the same sports again, but I do not think Mr. and Mrs. D. will add much to our wit. Edward is writing a novel — we have all heard what he has written — it is extremely clever, written with great ease and spirit; if he can carry it on in the same way it will be a first-rate work, and in a style, I think, to be popular. Pray tell Mary how much I admire it — and tell Caroline that I think it is hardly fair upon her and myself to have him take up the novel line.

Sunday [September 8].

My dearest Cassandra, — I have borne the arrival of your letter to-day extremely well; anybody might have thought it was giving me pleasure. I am very glad you find so much to be satisfied with at Cheltenham. While the waters agree, everything else is trifling.

Our day at Alton was very pleasant, venison quite right, children well-behaved, and Mr. and Mrs. Digweed taking kindly to our charades and other games. I must also observe, for his mother’s satisfaction, that Edward at my suggestion devoted himself very properly to the entertainment of Miss S. Gibson. Nothing was wanting except Mr. Sweney, but he, alas! had been ordered away to London the day before. We had a beautiful walk home by moonlight.

Thank you, my back has given me scarcely any pain for many days. I have an idea that 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. I am nursing myself up now into as beautiful a state as I can, because I hear that Dr. White means to call on me before he leaves the country.

I have not seen Anna since the day you left us; her father and brother visited her most days. Edward and Ben called here on Thursday. Edward was in his way to Selborne. We found him very agreeable. He is come back from France, thinking of the French as one could wish — disappointed in everything. He did not go beyond Paris.

I have a letter from Mrs. Perigord; she and her mother are in London again. She speaks of France as a scene of general poverty and misery: no money, no trade, nothing to be got but by the innkeepers, and as to her own present prospects she is not much less melancholy than before.

I enjoyed Edward’s company very much, as I said before, and yet I was not sorry when Friday came. It had been a busy week, and I wanted a few days’ quiet and exemption from the thought and contrivancy which any sort of company gives. I often wonder how
you
can find time for what you do, in addition to the care of the house; and how good Mrs. West could have written such books and collected so many hard words, with all her family cares, is still more a matter of astonishment. Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb.

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.

This is the last letter which we have from Jane to Cassandra. Probably the sisters were not parted again, except when Cassandra went for a few days to Scarlets, on the death of their uncle, Mr. Leigh Perrot, at the end of the following March; and if Jane wrote then, it must have been in such depression of mind and weakness of body, that her sister would not have preserved the writing for others to see.

In the meanwhile, the autumn of 1816 was probably occupied with the preparation of
Persuasion
for the press; and, on the whole, we should gather from the evidence before us that the earlier part of the winter saw one of those fallacious instances of temporary improvement which so often deceive nurses and patients alike, in cases of internal complaints. ‘I have certainly gained strength through the winter,’ she says, on January 24, 1817. On the 23rd: ‘I feel myself stronger than I was half a year ago’; and it was in this spirit of hopefulness that she had written the following lively letter to Edward Austen, when he had left Winchester and was about to enter on the career of an Oxford undergraduate.

Chawton: Monday [December 16, 1816].

My dear Edward, — One reason for my writing to you now is, that I may have the pleasure of directing to you
Esq
re.
I give you joy of having left Winchester. Now you may own how miserable you were there; now it will gradually all come out, your crimes and your miseries — how often you went up by the Mail to London and threw away fifty guineas at a tavern, and how often you were on the point of hanging yourself, restrained only, as some ill-natured aspersion upon poor old Winton has it, by the want of a tree within some miles of the city. Charles Knight and his companions passed through Chawton about 9 this morning; later than it used to be. Uncle Henry and I had a glimpse of his handsome face, looking all health and good humour. I wonder when you will come and see us. I know what I rather speculate upon, but shall say nothing. We think uncle Henry in excellent looks. Look at him this moment, and think so too, if you have not done it before; and we have the great comfort of seeing decided improvement in uncle Charles, both as to health, spirits, and appearance. And they are each of them so agreeable in their different way, and harmonise so well, that their visit is thorough enjoyment. Uncle Henry writes very superior sermons. You and I must try to get hold of one or two, and put them into our novels: it would be a fine help to a volume; and we could make our heroine read it aloud of 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 recollection, Lovell is the reader. By the bye, my dear Edward, 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 Steventon lately, and therefore cannot be suspected of purloining 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, spirited 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 labour?

You will hear from uncle Henry how well Anna is. She seems perfectly recovered. Ben was here on Saturday, to ask uncle Charles and me to dine with them, as to-morrow, but I was forced to decline it, the walk is beyond my strength (though I am otherwise very well), and this is not a season for donkey-carriages; and as we do not like to spare uncle Charles, he has declined it too.

Tuesday.
Ah, ha! Mr. Edward. I doubt your seeing uncle Henry at Steventon to-day. The weather will prevent your expecting him, I think. Tell your father, with aunt Cass’s love and mine, that the pickled cucumbers are extremely good, and tell him also—’tell him what you will.’ No, don’t tell him what you will, but tell him that grandmamma begs him to make Joseph Hall pay his rent, if he can.

You must not be tired of reading the word
uncle
, for I have not done with it. Uncle Charles thanks your mother for her letter; it was a great pleasure to him to know the parcel was received and gave so much satisfaction, and he begs her to be so good as to give three shillings for him to Dame Staples, which shall be allowed for in the payment of her debt here.

I am happy to tell you that Mr. Papillon will soon make his offer, probably next Monday, as he returns on Saturday. His
intention
can no longer be doubtful in the smallest degree, as he has secured the refusal of the house which Mr. Baverstock at present occupies in Chawton, and is to vacate soon, which is of course intended for Mrs. Elizabeth Papillon.