". . . laburnum, rich
In streaming gold, syringa, ivory pure."
She said they were thinking of a laburnum tree as well. Her sense of natural beauty was unusually fresh and strong. Her novels show it, and always in such a way that her brief descriptions heighten the emotional significance of the scene; but the descriptions are usually landscapes, and the only place where she mentions a flower which can compare with her syringa bush is the interesting little
conversation between Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney, where she says to him: "I have just learnt to love a hyacinth."
Her love of children, like her love of Nature, has sometimes been ignored, and her description of the disagreeable children of Lady Middleton is made to symbolize her attitude to children as a whole.
Even if she had not mentioned children in any novel but Sense and Sensibility, her portrayal of the young Middletons would not, one feels, constitute grounds for saying she disliked children. It is, as Dr.
Johnson would say, "no very cynical asperity" to think that noisy, insolent, greedy and deceitful children are disagreeable; most people think so, unless the children happen to be their own; but apart from such sympathetic studies of children as those of the little Gardiners and Fanny Price,
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Jane Austen displays what was, for the time, an unusually lenient attitude to spoiled children, in the passage where Emma says that little Anna Weston is certain to be spoiled, and what will become of her? To which Mr. Knightley replies: "Nothing very bad. The fate of thousands. She will be disagreeable in infancy, and correct herself as she grows older." Not the novels only, but her letters make one understand how very much surprised a child who had known Jane
Austen would be to hear, from what eminent authority soever, that she was unsympathetic with children and disliked them in the true spirit of an old maid.
Frank Austen brought the little daughter of one of his friends to spend the day with them. He brought her home after church, and as Jane was writing to Cassandra, she said: "She is now talking away at my side, and examining the treasures of my writing desk and
drawers, very happy I believe; not at all shy of course." Jane thought the modern child a great improvement on what she had been herself, but she was surprised at its ease. "What is become of all the shyness in the world? Moral as well as natural diseases disappear and new ones take their places--shyness and the sweating sickness have given way to confidence and paralytic complaints." She admired the child's manner--"all the ready civility one sees in the best children of the present day; so unlike anything that I was myself at her age, that I am often all astonishment and shame." She was extremely grateful on this wet Sunday that they had a set of spillikins in the house: she thought the toy not the least important benefaction from the family of Knight to that of Austen.
In June of 1808 there was a large family gathering at Godmersham.
The Castle Square household was represented by Jane this time; there came, besides, James and Mary with little Edward and his sister Caroline, aged three; Anna, on
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the other hand, was to stay in Castle Square with her Aunt
Cassandra. Anna was now fifteen; she adored her aunts, especially her Aunt Jane. In some ways she recalled what the latter had once been; she was lively and uncertain, what country people describe as
"easy cast up, easy cast down"; she had much of that sweetness which won upon the eye and ear of anyone who talked to her aunt; in Anna, it was a something at once wild and gentle. She had also a desire to write. She had shown it when, as a child of five, she had dictated stories to Jane in the dressing room at Steventon; and when, at seven, she had written down for herself a drama based on that favorite of her aunt's, Sir Charles Grandison. At the same time, she was a fashionable young lady; she dismayed Jane by arriving with her hair in the mode of the moment, cut short behind like a boy's.
Jane said she was reconciled to it only by the thought that two or three years would repair the damage.
At Godmersham, Jane was going to another niece who loved her as dearly as Anna loved her, and who, from her more equable
temperament, could be a genuine companion to her. Fanny Austen was the same age as Anna, but while Anna was a much-beloved
object of anxiety, Fanny was "almost another sister." Jane told Cassandra on this visit: "I did not think a niece would ever have been so much to me."
The welcome at Godmersham was more than satisfying. James, who had gone ahead to leave room for Jane in his carriage, was walking with Edward in front of the house when they drove up. Jane said it was not necessary to mention that she had a most kind welcome
from Edward, "but I do, you see, because it is a pleasure." She had been given the Yellow Room, and was writing her letter in it at that moment. Fanny saw her Aunt James to her room first, because
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Aunt James was the married lady; then she flew to Aunt Jane; she stayed while Jane was dressing, and was "as energetic as usual" in her wishes that her Aunt Cassandra could have come as well.
Elizabeth had been dressing when the party arrived, but she came to Jane's room now, bringing with her Marianne, Charles and Louisa, seven, five and four, and there was a rapturous welcome from
everybody. Elizabeth was breeding again, but she seemed quite well; indeed, unusually active for her size. Jane tried to find out from Fanny if her mother tired herself in looking after the younger children; Fanny did not think so but Jane determined to take them off her sister-in-law's hands whenever she could, and took over at once the business of hearing Louisa read in the mornings.
The days passed delightfully; they breakfasted at ten, then Jane heard Louisa read, after which she usually spent an hour or two in the Yellow Room. She rejoiced particularly in the luxury of the space, for she had recently been staying at Brompton with Henry and Eliza, who had been obliged to give her very cramped quarters. The park with its river and the steep wooded hills of Godmersham
afforded beautiful walks. They roamed about a good deal, and
Edward drove James further afield. Jane was glad of it; she thought it would do James good to see a new country with its fine views.
"Edward certainly excels in doing the honors to his visitors and providing for their amusement." Even the summer evenings were short, for they had not finished supper till ten, but when they had, in the coolness and the dusk James read Marmion to them. Jane could not but be interested in the poem, but she did not know whether she altogether liked it, as yet.
Mary was enjoying the visit very much; she found her sister-in-law's tribe of children "less troublesome than she
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expected"; and independently of them, as Jane observed, "there is certainly not much to try the patience or hurt the spirits at
Godmersham." But Mary always had something about which to be a little nervous or unhappy. She had written to Anna, and because when Anna wrote to Jane she did not include any message to her stepmother, Mary supposed that she was not going to answer the letter. This was the sort of thing that Jane found most exhausting.
The folly of Lady Saye and Sele's conversation had gone off her like water from a duck's back. There is poetry in such foolishness; but petty, useless, eating cares, which no sensible encouragement and advice can do away, because they grow like Hydra's heads, produce an effect on the victimized listener which is almost disintegrating.
Jane was fond of Mary, and her personal kindness and her beautiful manners must have made her a most acceptable receiver of Mary's woes; but by the time Mary had finished, the burden probably sat as heavily on Jane's shoulders as on her own.
Of the children, Edward was having a fine time; he had playfellows of about his own age in his cousins Charles and William, and his Uncle Edward "talked nonsense to him most delightfully." But his little sister, Jane thought, would be glad to get home; her cousins were too much for her.
In the meantime, she wanted to know everything that went on in Cas
tle Square; she besought Cassandra to be minute. "You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge cake is to me." Would they send word of Anna's exact height? Godmersham wanted to know
whether she or Fanny were the taller. Anna must not be surprised to hear that the idea of her hair's having been cut off was not at all popular. She was interested to hear that Cassandra had taken Anna over the Isle of Wight; but as they had had to embark at four in the morning, she was afraid Cassandra
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must have had an almost sleepless night. A plan had been set on foot to bring little Edward home with them to Castle Square for a visit; she hoped they could find the beds.
There was one incident which the letters discussed with unusual seriousness; its background has been elucidated by Dr. Chapman in his note to Letter No. 52. The Morning Post of June 18th records:
"Another elopement has taken place in high life. A Noble Viscount, Lord S, has gone off with a Mrs. P, the wife of a relative of a noble marquis"; and the issue of June 21st adds: "Mrs. P's faux pas with Lord S-----e took place at an inn near Winchester." Jane said: "This is a sad story about Mrs. Powlett. I should not have suspected her of such a thing. She stayed the Sacrament, I remember, the last time that you and I did."
Jane Austen often referred, in letters, to this or that gentleman in the neighborhood as having taken a mistress; her attitude in regard to such doings among people she did not know was satirical and light.
Elopements without benefit of clergy play an important part in the stories of Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park; and on both these occasions the differing attitudes of the surrounding characters are so vividly expressed that one is not exclusively conscious of a superimposed attitude, that of the author's own opinion. The better people in each novel regarded the episode as a guilty one, and an event to shock and mortify the family in which it occurred, but in each case there is a solid contribution of worldly common sense or even, in the case of Mary Crawford, fashionable cynicism, which prevents the reader's feeling that the dice have been loaded against the couple.
But just as Jane Austen, though she tossed off a flippant remark about an adulteress in a ballroom, would not read Madame de Genlis'
account of such an affair, so, though she understood perfectly the varying attitude of society to sexual
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immorality, and reflected the tolerant as truly as the hostile, in her own heart she hated it. The idea of such a thing's happening in her own family would have caused her an unspeakable horror and
distress; directly it approached her own particular orbit, it took on another color altogether; and the fact that she and Mrs. Powlett had communicated at the same service was sufficient to make her regard the matter as a serious one. An airy reference to it, in those circumstances, would have been impossible to her taste. It is the tradition of her family that though she was very devout, she so much distrusted the exploiting of religious feeling that she was almost exaggerated in her reserve about her own. The very few references she ever makes to it belong to a later period of her life, with the exception of this; but the passage on Mrs. Powlett is of great interest when one remembers the sensations of Fanny Price on hearing of the liaison of Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford: "There was no possibility of rest. The evening passed without a pause of misery, the night was totally sleepless. She passed only from feelings of sickness to shudderings of horror; and from hot fits of fever to cold." This is a picture, not of Jane Austen, who had been acquainted with the nature of elopements ever since she was old enough to read the novels in her father's eighteenth-century library, but of Fanny Price, seventeen years old, who had been brought up in the austere elegance of
Mansfield Park, by a fashionable governess who worked under the eye of Sir Thomas Bertram; a girl protected by "a youth of mind as lovely as that of person," who was in a state of agitation in any case, being in love with Maria Bertram's brother, and having been
proposed to with the utmost perseverance by Henry Crawford
himself. Her situation fully justified her sleepless night; but had such a thing occurred in Jane Austen's own family, one believes that her
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feelings would have been more those of Fanny Price than of Mary Crawford.
By the end of June the house party was breaking up. "In another week," said Jane, "I shall be at home--and then my having been at Godmersham will seem like a dream, as my visit to Brompton seems already." Little Edward was to come with her. She supposed that when they got home it would be time to think about making the
orange wine, but for the moment all was "elegance, ease and luxury.
The Hattons and the Millers dine here today--and I shall eat ice and drink French wine, and be above vulgar economy." But even in resigning the comforts and elegance of Godmersham, there was
something to go home for. "Luckily the pleasures of friendship, of unreserved conversation, of similarity of taste and opinions, will make good amends for orange wine."
For July, August and September these pleasures were enjoyed, but in October it was Cassandra's turn to be at Godmersham again. The baby, John, was born just before his aunt's arrival; Jane was glad of that, and said: "His mama has our best wishes, and he our second best for health and comfort--though I suppose unless he has our best too, we do nothing for her." But the wishes this time were of no avail. Elizabeth had had eleven children in fifteen years, and the eleventh killed her. The anguish of her loss was felt for at
Southampton as much as if they had all been at Godmersham. "We have felt, we do feel for you all--as you will not need to be told--for you, for Fanny . . . for dearest Edward, whose loss and whose
sufferings seem to make those of every other person nothing. God be praised! that you can say what you do of him--that he has a religious mind to bear him up, and a disposition that will gradually lead him to comfort." Her heart was with Fanny. "My dear, dear Fanny!--I am
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so thankful that she has you with her!--you will do everything to her, you will give her all the consolation human aid can give." To Cassandra's next letter, she said: "Your accounts make us as comfortable as we can expect to be at such a time. Edward's loss is terrible, and must be felt as such, and these are too early days indeed to think of moderation in grief . . . but soon we may hope that our dear Fanny's sense of duty to that beloved father will rouse her to exertion. For his sake, and as the most acceptable proof of love to the spirit of her departed mother, she will try to be tranquil and resigned." She said she had sent the news to their cousin Edward Cooper, but she did hope he would not send "one of his letters of cruel comfort to my poor brother." Cassandra had sent news of all the children then at home, and mentioned particularly the eight-year-old Lizzie. Jane thought that such an event ought to make a solemn impression on a child's understanding, and yet, she said, "one's heart aches for a dejected mind of eight years old."
Soon she had an opportunity, gratefully accepted, of doing
something for the children. George and his brother Edward, thirteen and fourteen years old, were at Winchester, but their father had removed them for the time being until the shock of their mother's death should be something passed; they had been first with their uncle James at Steventon, and now they came for a few days to
Southampton. They came down perished with cold, having chosen to ride outside, and without their greatcoats; the coachman, Mr. Wise, had kindly spared them as much of his as possible, but they arrived in such a state that Jane thought they must be going to be laid up with chills. They were not, however; they had never been better.
They cried next day over a letter from their father, whom they spoke of with great affection, but after that they cheered up and Jane devoted herself to
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amusing them. They played bilbocatch, spillikins, paper ships, riddles, conundrums and cards; one evening Jane introduced
speculation, and "it was so much approved that we hardly knew how to leave off." Out of doors there
was endless amusement by the tidal river; they walked to the quayside after church, "when George was very happy as long as we could stay, flying about from one side to the other and skipping on board a collier immediately." Her eagerness in promoting their enjoyment and taking their minds off their grief was the more remarkable because, to a certain point, she believed that the grief ought to be felt. She was glad to see that Edward had been much affected by the sermon, of which the text happened to be taken from the Litany, on the subject of "All that are in danger, necessity or tribulation." In the evening they read the Psalms and Lessons and a sermon, to which the boys were very
attentive, but, said Jane, "you will not expect to hear that they did not return to conundrums the moment it was over." The next day they all went from Itchen Ferry up to Northam, where they landed,
"looked into the 74," and walked home. "The boys rowed a great part of the way, and their questions and answers, as well as their
enjoyment, were very amusing." George often, by his eagerness in everything, reminded Jane of his Uncle Henry.
Their aunt at Steventon had written pleasantly of them, which was more than Jane had hoped for; but Mary had only been able to get them one suit of mourning in Basingstoke, so it devolved on Jane to see to the rest in Southampton. She herself was already in mourning, in a black crepe gown and bonnet and a black velvet pelisse; she had supposed that black coats only would be needed for the boys, but she found that they considered black pantaloons equally indispensable.
Jane was doubtful, but she said:
"Of course
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one would not have them made uncomfortable by the want of what is usual on such occasions." She gave a picture of the two boys as she wrote: "George is most industriously making and naming paper ships, at which he afterwards shoots with horse chestnuts, brought from Steventon on purpose and Edward equally intent over the 'Lake of Killarney,' twisting himself about in one of our great chairs."
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