Jane Austen (29 page)

light nor so used to running as Elizabeth; she was the sooner out of breath when they pursued Mr. Bennet across the paddock. In every respect she forms the ideal contrast to her mercurial sister, whose face, Miss Bingley said, was too thin, and whose eyes enchanted Mr.

Darcy with "their shape and color, and the eye-lashes, so remarkably fine."

Of the young men, Bingley and Wickham sustain the sense of gaiety and open good humor which is a part of the novel's atmosphere.

Bingley is simple, modest, easily led; but with a disposition to be pleased. His impulsively affectionate behavior to Jane when she and Elizabeth are at Netherfield; his sending his inquiries to Elizabeth by a housemaid very early in the morning, long before she received any from the two elegant ladies who waited on his sisters; his piling up the fire and his anxiety lest Jane should be sitting in a draft when she came down after dinner, are all a part of his character; so is his weakness, his dependence on Darcy's stronger mind; but even in that he laughs at himself. It is he who supplies that masterpiece among thumbnail sketches, of Darcy at Pemberley. "I declare I do not know a more awful object than Darcy on particular occasions, and in particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening, when he has nothing to do."

The character of Wickham, though so base, is not of a kind to cloud the brilliant surface of the mirror. A curious degree of sexual attraction often goes with a lively, unreliable disposition, which may either be somewhat superficial but perfectly well-meaning, or, driven by circumstances which it has not the strength to withstand, become that of a scoundrel. Wickham was well on the way to being a

scoundrel; but his sexual fascination was so great that Elizabeth Bennet, who was normally of a very critical turn of mind,

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saw at first absolutely nothing in him but what made him seem the most charming man she had ever met. Even Mrs. Gardiner thought him delightful and only warned Elizabeth against him because he was not in the position to support a wife. "You have sense, and we all expect you to use it." Even when the whole of his very discreditable story had been exposed, and Mr. Darcy had with

difficulty brought him into marrying Lydia Bennet, Wickham's

vanity made him still exert all his known powers of attraction on the family. The goaded Mr. Bennet said to Elizabeth: "'He is as fine a fellow as ever I saw. He simpers and smirks and makes love to us all.'" Wickham's epitaph in the story is perhaps Mr. Bennet's finest flight. Speaking to Elizabeth: "'I admire all my three sons-in-law highly,' said he; ' Wickham, perhaps, is my favorite; but I think I shall like
your
husband quite as well as Jane's.'"

Elizabeth Bennet has perhaps received more admiration than any other heroine in English literature. Stevenson's saying, that when she opened her mouth he wanted to go down on his knees, is particularly interesting because it is the comment of a man on a woman's idea of a charming woman. Not less significant is Professor Bradley's: "I am meant to fall in love with her, and I do." She is unique. The only girl between whom and herself there is any hint of resemblance is

Benedict's Beatrice. The wit, the prejudice against a lover, the warm and generous indignation against the ill usage of a cousin or a sister, remind us, something, one of the other. She attacks the mind in two ways:

. . . when she moves you see

Like water from a crystal over-filled,

Fresh beauty tremble out of her, and lave

Her fair sides to the ground.

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She is also completely human. Glorious as she is, and beloved of her creator, she is kept thoroughly in her place. She was captivated by Wickham, in which she showed herself no whit superior to the rest of female Meryton. She also toyed with the idea of a fancy for Colonel Fitzwilliam, who was much attracted by her. "But Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had no intentions at all, and, agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him."

Above all there is her prejudice against Darcy, and though their first encounter was markedly unfortunate, she built on it every dislike it could be made to bear; her eager condemnation of him and her no less eager remorse when she found that she had been mistaken, are equally lovable.

The serious side of her nature is perhaps nowhere better indicated than in the chapter where Charlotte Lucas secures and accepts Mr.

Collins' proposal and then has to tell Elizabeth that she has done so.

"The possibility of Mr. Collins' fancying himself in love with her friend had once occurred to Elizabeth within the last day or two; but that Charlotte could encourage him seemed almost as far from

possibility as that she could encourage him herself; and her

astonishment was consequently so great as to overcome at first the bounds of decorum, and she could not help crying out--

"'Engaged to Mr. Collins! my dear Charlotte, impossible!'

"The steady countenance which Miss Lucas had commanded in telling her story gave way to a momentary confusion here on

receiving so direct a reproach; though, as it was no more than she expected, she soon regained her composure, and calmly replied--

"'Why should you be surprised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it incredible that Mr. Collins should be able to procure

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any woman's good opinion, because he was not so happy as to

succeed with you?'

"But Elizabeth had now recollected herself; and making a strong effort for it, was able to assure her, with tolerable firmness, that the prospect of their relationship was highly grateful to her, and that she wished her all imaginable happiness.

"'I see what you are feeling,' replied Charlotte. 'You must be surprised, very much surprised, so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it all over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic; you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and, considering Mr. Collins' character, connections and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.'

"Elizabeth quietly answered: 'Undoubtedly,' and after an awkward pause, they returned to the rest of the family."

It is a scene between two young women, both of them normal,

pleasant and good; the conversation is of the briefest; in it the more remarkable of the two speaks only twice, and less than a dozen words in all; but what a world of thought and feeling, experience and philosophy it conjures up!

Mr. Darcy would not perhaps have acknowledged it, but of all her attractions it was Elizabeth's independence which charmed him

most; by standing off from him, she gave him, unconsciously, an opportunity really to see her. His quiet reply to Miss Bingley that there was meanness in any of the deceptions women sometimes

condescended to use for captivating men, suggests that though she was the worst offender, she had not been the only one. For the first time in his life he met an attractive woman who not only did not try to draw him in, but turned on him with anger and disgust

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when she found that, all unwittingly, she had done it. Her rejection of his proposal is of course the climax of his experience in finding that he had to be agreeable to a woman before she would be

agreeable to him; but the reader perceives, long before Elizabeth perceives it herself, how much he was attracted by her

unselfconscious behavior; as, for instance, when she almost ran from Meryton to Netherfield before breakfast to see Jane, "jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity." When she was shown into the breakfast room, with the hem of her petticoat deep in mud, she had not the least idea that Mr. Darcy, while

wondering whether the occasion justified her coming so far in such a manner, was admiring "the brilliancy which exercise had given her complexion."

The character of Fitzwilliam Darcy has been said to have no

counterpart in modern society. The error is a strange one. Darcy's uniting gentle birth with such wealth is indeed an anachronism.

Today death duties would have felled the Pemberley woods and the estate passed into the hands of ales and stout. But Darcy's essential character is independent of circumstances. He had the awkwardness and stiffness of a man who mixes little with society and only on his own terms, but it was also the awkwardness and stiffness that is found with Darcy's physical type, immediately recognizable among the reserved and inarticulate English of today. That his behavior in the early part of the book is owing to a series of external

circumstances rather than to his essential character is very carefully shown, and we have a further proof of how easy it was to

misunderstand him: when he and Elizabeth were becoming

reconciled to each other at Lambton, and Elizabeth had suddenly to give him the news of Lydia's elopement, he was quite silent and took an abrupt departure. She thought his behavior owing to his redoubled disgust

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at her family; it was really consternation at a state of affairs for which, as one who had failed to expose Wickham to society, he

thought himself partially responsible.

That his character was actually quite different from what it appeared to be on the surface is of course revealed by his behavior once the shock of Elizabeth's abuse has made him realize how it struck other people. It is a piece of extremely subtle characterization that when Elizabeth first met Lady Catherine, she thought that she and Mr.

Darcy were alike, and after she had fallen in love with Darcy, she wondered how she could ever have imagined a resemblance. We do not, however, doubt that the resemblance was there. It was a family likeness, accentuated on the one hand by a harsh and arrogant nature and on the other by a shy and uncommunicative one. This view of Darcy is borne out by the drawing of his sister. Georgiana Darcy was a very well-meaning girl, but she was so extremely shy that society was an agony to her; and though for her brother's sake she was longing to please Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner, it was all that her gentle, pleasant governess could do to guide her through the

occasion of their call as became the lady of Pemberley.

That some of his real nature had been, if unconsciously, perceived by Elizabeth before their reconciliation is proved by one of Jane Austen's rare and very beautiful touches of sensibility. It occurs when Elizabeth and her party are being taken round Pemberley by the housekeeper and arrive at the picture gallery. "In the gallery were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked on in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested her--and she beheld a striking resemblance of Mr. Darcy,

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with such a smile over the face, as she remembered to have

sometimes seen when he looked at her."

It is true that in an attempt to see whether Darcy's character would stand the test of time, it is necessary to see how it would appear were he denuded of his wealth; but from the point of view of his position in the work of art that presents him to us, the background of

Pemberley, that Derbyshire landscape with its trees in the variegated beauty and the stillness of summer, is truly harmonious. "The hill, crowned with wood, from which they had descended, receiving

increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms, these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen." When they were walking round the park, "they had now entered a beautiful walk by the side of the water, and every step was bringing forward a noble fall of ground, or a finer reach of the woods to which they were approaching."

They took the usual path, "which brought them again, after some time, in a descent amongst hanging woods, to the edge of the water and one of its narrowest parts . . . the valley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream, and a narrow walk amid the rough coppice-wood which bordered it."

Sir Walter Scott's statement that Elizabeth Bennet, on seeing the grounds of Pemberley, felt she had made a mistake in rejecting their owner, has been amply dealt with by distinguished admirers of

Elizabeth; but it is worthwhile noticing another instance of the penetrating honesty of

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Elizabeth's portrayal. To walk through such a house and grounds and not feel a slight pang at the idea that they might have been one's own is not in normal human nature; but Darcy's letter had long since brought about a partial change in Elizabeth's feelings. Had it not, she might not even have thought of the park in possible relation to herself; for though, when she thought she was going to the Lakes, she exclaimed in ecstasy: "What are men to rocks and mountains?"

the personal consideration was actually so preeminent with her, that at the moment the idea that she might have been the mistress of Pemberley struck her, walking as she was with Mr. and Mrs.

Gardiner, she remembered that, as Mr. Darcy's wife she would not, so she thought, have been allowed to continue her intercourse with her aunt and uncle. "This was a lucky recollection. It saved her from something like regret."

There is such intense psychological interest in Jane Austen's work that it is possible, strange as it may seem, to forget for a moment that they are primarily creations of comedy; not only are they so in the broader sense, by which one implies that in the development of the plot a character which begins with a mistaken attitude to life is brought back to the angle of normality, and reformed in the process, but Jane Austen's own attitude to the various characters is largely satirical, in however mildly luminous a degree; there is none of her figures whom she treats in a consistently serious manner. Most important of all, she has comic portraits whose effect is that of