Jane and Dorothy
Page 36
In the society Jane and Dorothy inhabited, both ‘eagerness’ and ‘prudence’, both ‘sense’ and ‘sensibility’ could bring a woman considerable pain. By following their experiences the sheer weight, the inertia, of the prejudices that pressed upon their lives becomes frighteningly apparent. Dorothy’s courageous elopement could not, in the end, free her from domestic labour, for the apparently ‘alternative’ lifestyle she embraced was rooted in traditional notions about the respective roles of men and women. Equally, Jane’s quiet acceptance of the loss of Tom Lefroy only left her in a home where more and more sacrifices would be demanded of her.
However, from within the restricted world of a respectable Georgian spinster, Jane Austen crafted novels which have appealed to a broader range of readers than almost any other body of literature. From Japan to Canada, to India and Eastern Europe readers have found universal meaning in the stories of love, injustice, kindness, cruelty and personal integrity which she wrote on a tiny table in an ordinary, slightly shabby parlour in Hampshire over two centuries ago.
At first Dorothy’s legacy was limited to a small circle of close acquaintances. In 1833, Catherine Clarkson, having read through ‘heaps’ of her letters exclaimed, ‘What a heart and what a head they discover! What puffs we hear of women, and even of men, who have made books and done charities, and all that, but whose doings and thinkings and feelings are not to be compared with hers!’2
Dorothy would live in the hearts of her friends until her journals were published in 1897 and she gradually found her way into the consciousness of a grateful public. ‘If the written word could cure rheumatism I think hers might,’ said Virginia Woolf, ‘like a dock leaf laid to a sting’.3
The voices of those two fifteen-year-olds – one who sought to lay bare the secrets of her heart, and one who aimed to expose the folly of others – would mature into the work that survives and still speaks to us. And that is because neither the spirit nor the genius of these two women, neither their good sense, nor their deep feelings could be entirely silenced by the suffocating circumstances under which they lived.
Jane and Dorothy were not simply products of their time. They made choices in their lives, and it was those choices which defined them.
Appendix 1
These are the stanzas from The Minstrel which reminded Dorothy of William.
And oft he traced the uplands, to survey,
When o’er the sky advanced the kindling dawn,
The crimson cloud, blue main, and mountain grey,
And lake, dim-gleaming on the smoky lawn;
Far to the west the long, long vale withdrawn,
Where twilight loves to linger for a while;
And now he faintly kens the bounding fawn,
And villager abroad at early toil.
But, lo! the sun appears! and heaven, earth, ocean, smile.
And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb,
When all in mist the world below was lost.
What dreadful pleasure! there to stand sublime,
Like shipwrecked mariner on desert coast,
And view the enormous waste of vapour, tost
In billows, lengthening to the horizon round,
Now scooped in gulfs, with mountains now embossed!
And hear the voice of mirth and song rebound,
Flocks, herds, and waterfalls, along the hoar profound!
In truth he was a strange and wayward wight,
Fond of each gentle, and each dreadful scene.
In darkness, and in storm, he found delight:
Nor less, than when on ocean-wave serene
The southern sun diffused his dazzling shene.
Even sad vicissitude amused his soul:
And if a sigh would sometimes intervene,
And down his cheek a tear of pity roll,
A sigh, a tear, so sweet, he wished not to controul.
(James Beattie the Minstrel Bk 1 xx to xxii)
Appendix 2
The Forest
XI. — EPODE.
Not to know vice at all, and keep true state,
Is virtue and not fate :
Next to that virtue, is to know vice well,
And her black spite expel,
Which to effect (since no breast is so sure,
Or safe, but she’ll procure
Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard
Of thoughts to watch, and ward
At the eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,
That no strange, or unkind
Object arrive there, but the heart, our spy,
Give knowledge instantly,
To wakeful reason, our affections’ king :
Who, in th’ examining,
Will quickly taste the treason, and commit
Close, the close cause of it.
‘Tis the securest policy we have,
To make our sense our slave.
But this true course is not embraced by many :
By many ! scarce by any.
For either our affections do rebel,
Or else the sentinel,
That should ring larum to the heart, doth sleep;
Or some great thought doth keep
Back the intelligence, and falsely swears,
They are base, and idle fears
Whereof the loyal conscience so complains,
Thus, by these subtile trains,
Do several passions invade the mind,
And strike our reason blind,
Of which usurping rank, some have thought love
The first ; as prone to move
Most frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests,
In our enflamed breasts :
But this doth from the cloud of error grow,
Which thus we over-blow.
The thing they here call Love, is blind desire,
Arm’d with bow, shafts, and fire ;
Inconstant, like the sea, of whence ‘tis born,
Rough, swelling, like a storm :
With whom who sails, rides on the surge of fear,
And boils, as if he were
In a continual tempest. Now, true love
No such effects doth prove ;
That is an essence far more gentle, fine,
Pure, perfect, nay divine ;
It is a golden chain let down from heaven,
Whose links are bright and even,
That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines
The soft, and sweetest minds
In equal knots : this bears no brands, nor darts,
To murder different hearts,
But in a calm, and god-like unity,
Preserves community.
O, who is he, that, in this peace, enjoys
The elixir of all joys ?
A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers,
And lasting as her flowers :
Richer than Time, and as time’s virtue rare
Sober, as saddest care ;
A fixed thought, an eye untaught to glance :
Who, blest with such high chance
Would, at suggestion of a steep desire,
Cast himself from the spire
Of all his happiness ? But soft : I hear
Some vicious fool draw near,
That cries, we dream, and swears there’s no such thing,
As this chaste love we sing.
Peace, Luxury, thou art like one of those
Who, being at sea, suppose,
Because they move, the continent doth so.
No, Vice, we let thee know,
Though thy wild thoughts with sparrows’ wings do flie,
Turtles can chastly die ;
And yet (in this t’ express ourselves more clear)
We do not number here
Such spirits as are only continent,
Because lust’s means are spent :
Or those, who doubt the common mouth of fame,
And for their place and name,
Cannot so safely sin : their
chastity
Is mere necessity.
Nor mean we those, whom vows and conscience
Have fill’d with abstinence :
Though we acknowledge, who can so abstain,
Makes a most blessed gain.
He that for love of goodness hateth ill,
Is more crown-worthy still,
Than he, which for sin’s penalty forbears ;
His heart sins, though he fears.
But we propose a person like our Dove,
Graced with a Phoenix’ love ;
A beauty of that clear and sparkling light,
Would make a day of night,
And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys ;
Whose odorous breath destroys
All taste of bitterness, and makes the air
As sweet as she is fair.
A body so harmoniously composed,
As if nature disclosed
All her best symmetry in that one feature !
O, so divine a creature,
Who could be false to? chiefly, when he knows
How only she bestows
The wealthy treasure of her love on him ;
Making his fortune swim
In the full flood of her admired perfection ?
What savage, brute affection,
Would not be fearful to offend a dame
Of this excelling frame ?
Much more a noble, and right generous mind,
To virtuous moods inclined
That knows the weight of guilt ; he will refrain
From thoughts of such a strain,
And to his sense object this sentence ever,
“Man may securely sin, but safely never.”
Appendix 3
Among all Lovely Things my Love had been
Among all lovely things my Love had been;
Had noted well the stars, all flowers that grew
About her home; but she had never seen
A glow-worm, never one, and this I knew.
While riding near her home one stormy night
A single glow-worm did I chance to espy;
I gave a fervent welcome to the sight,
And from my horse I leapt; great joy had I.
Upon a leaf the glow-worm did I lay,
To bear it with me through the stormy night:
And, as before, it shone without dismay;
Albeit putting forth a fainter light.
When to the dwelling of my Love I came,
I went into the orchard quietly;
And left the glow-worm, blessing it by name,
Laid safely by itself, beneath a tree.
The whole next day, I hoped, and hoped with fear;
At night the glow-worm shone beneath the tree;
I led my Emma to the spot, “Look there,”
Oh! Joy it was for her, and joy for me!
Notes and References
The following abbreviations are used for frequently cited texts.
Early Years Ernest De Selincourt and Chester L. Shaver (eds), The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol 1: The Early Years: 1787-1805 (Second Revised Edition) (Oxford, 2000)
Middle Years 1 Ernest De Selincourt and Mary Moorman (eds), The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol 2: The Middle Years: Part I: 1806-1811 (Second Revised Edition) (Oxford, 2000)
Middle Years 2 Ernest De Selincourt, Mary Moorman and Alan G. Hill (eds) The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol 3: The Middle Years: Part II: 1812-1820 (Second Revised Edition) (Oxford, 2000)
Later Years 1 Ernest De Selincourt and Alan G. Hill (eds) The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol 4: The Later Years: Part I: 1821-1828 (Second Revised Edition) (Oxford, 2000)
Later Years 2 Ernest De Selincourt and Alan G. Hill (eds) The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol 5: The Later Years: Part II: 1829-1834 (Second Revised Edition) (Oxford, 2000)
Grasmere Journal Pamela Woof (ed) Dorothy Wordsworth: The Grasmere Journal, (Oxford, 1991)
Memoir James Edward Austen-Leigh, A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections (Oxford 2002)
Austen Papers Richard A. Austen-Leigh, Austen Papers 1704-1856 (London, 1995)
Letters Deirdre Le Faye, (ed). Jane Austen’s Letters (Third Edition) (Oxford, 1995)
Note: Where a reference to a letter is made, the number refers to the letter rather than the page; references to Dorothy’s Journals include a date rather than a page number.
Prologue
1. W.J.B. Owen and Jane Worthington Smyser (eds), The Prose Works of William Wordsworth (Oxford 1974) Vol III p.372
2. Early Years 1
3. Early Years 2
4. Early Years 2
5. In 1806, after reading Thomas Clarkson’s History of the Rise and Abolition of the Slave Trade, Dorothy would write to Mrs Clarkson – as a compliment to her husband’s work – ‘Clarissa Harlowe was not more interesting when I first read [it] at 14 years of age.’ (Middle Years Part 1 81)
6. Early Years 5
7. Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady (London, 1784) Vol 1 Letter xxiii
8. Early Years 1
9. Clarissa Names of the Principal Persons
10. The original title of this work, as given in the manuscript notebook Volume the Second, was Love and Freindship. But the archaism or misspelling was later corrected by Jane Austen herself.
11. All quotations from Love and Friendship are taken from Jane Austen Minor Works (Oxford, 1988) p.76-109
12. Amanda Vickery, Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England, (New Haven, 2009) p.185
13. Emily J. Climenson, Elisabeth Montagu: The Queen of the Blue-stockings. Her correspondence from 1720 to 1761 (1908) vol 1 p. 113. (Quoted in Bridget Hill, Women Alone: Spinsters in England 1660-1850 (New Haven, 2001) p. 8)
14. Robert Halsband (ed )The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1965) Vol 1 p.112 (quoted in Women Alone p.8.)
Chapter One
1. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (London, 2003) p. 337
2. Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (Cambridge, 2004) p. 20
3. Early Years 277
4. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (London, 2003) p. 225
5. Memoir (Oxford, 2002) p. 23
6. William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1798-99) (London, 1995) Book I
7. Le Faye, A Family Record p. 21
8. Memoir p.185
9. Austen Papers p. 333. (Mrs Austen’s mother died in August 1768)
10. Pride and Prejudice p. 79
11. Letters p. 24
12. Stephen Gill, William Wordsworth: A Life, (Oxford, 1990) p. 207