Memoir of Jane Austen

by Austen-Leigh, James Edward; Sutherland, Kathryn;

  TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. LEFROY°

  1

  The day returns again, my natal day;

  What mix’d emotions in my mind arise!

  Beloved Friend; four years have passed away

  Since thou wert snatched for ever from our eyes.

  2

  The day commemorative of my birth,

  Bestowing life, and light, and hope to me,

  Brings back the hour which was thy last on earth.

  O! bitter pang of torturing memory!

  3

  Angelic woman! past my power to praise

  In language meet thy talents, temper, mind,

  Thy solid worth, thy captivating grace,

  Thou friend and ornament of human kind.

  4

  But come, fond Fancy, thou indulgent power;

  Hope is desponding, chill, severe, to thee:

  Bless thou this little portion of an hour;

  Let me behold her as she used to be.

  5

  I see her here with all her smiles benign,

  Her looks of eager love, her accents sweet,

  That voice and countenance almost divine,

  Expression, harmony, alike complete.

  6

  Listen! It is not sound alone, ’tis sense,

  ’Tis genius, taste, and tenderness of soul:

  ‘Tis genuine warmth of heart without pretence,

  And purity of mind that crowns the whole.

  7

  She speaks! ’Tis eloquence, that grace of tongue,

  So rare, so lovely, never misapplied

  By her, to palliate vice, or deck a wrong:

  She speaks and argues but on virtue’s side.

  8

  Hers is the energy of soul sincere;

  Her Christian spirit, ignorant to feign,

  Seeks but to comfort, heal, enlighten, cheer,

  Confer a pleasure or prevent a pain.

  9

  Can aught enhance such goodness? yes, to me

  Her partial favour from my earliest years

  Consummates all: ah! give me but to see

  Her smile of love! The vision disappears.

  10

  ‘Tis past and gone. We meet no more below.

  Short is the cheat of Fancy o’er the tomb.

  Oh! might I hope to equal bliss to go,

  To meet thee, angel, in thy future home.

  11

  Fain would I feel an union with thy fate:

  Fain would I seek to draw an omen fair

  From this connection in our earthly date.

  Indulge the harmless weakness. Reason, spare.

  The loss of their first home is generally a great grief to young persons of strong feeling and lively imagination; and Jane was exceedingly unhappy when she was told that her father, now seventy years of age, had determined to resign his duties to his eldest son, who was to be his successor in the Rectory of Steventon, and to remove with his wife and daughters to Bath. Jane had been absent from home when this resolution was taken; and, as her father was always rapid both in forming his resolutions and in acting on them, she had little time to reconcile herself to the change.°

  A wish has sometimes been expressed that some of Jane Austen’s letters should be published. Some entire letters, and many extracts, will be given in this memoir; but the reader must be warned not to expect too much from them.° With regard to accuracy of language indeed every word of them might be printed without correction. The style is always clear, and generally animated, while a vein of humour continually gleams through the whole; but the materials may be thought inferior to the execution, for they treat only of the details of domestic life. There is in them no notice of politics or public events; scarcely any discussions on literature, or other subjects of general interest. They may be said to resemble the nest which some little bird builds of the materials nearest at hand, of the twigs and mosses supplied by the tree in which it is placed; curiously constructed out of the simplest matters.

  Her letters have very seldom the date of the year, or the signature of her christian name at full length; but it has been easy to ascertain their dates, either from the post-mark, or from their contents.

  The two following letters are the earliest that I have seen. They were both written in November 1800;° before the family removed from Steventon. Some of the same circumstances are referred to in both.

  The first is to her sister Cassandra, who was then staying with their brother Edward at Godmersham Park, Kent: —

  ‘Steventon, Saturday evening, Nov. 8th.°

  ‘MY DEAR CASSANDRA,

  ‘I thank you for so speedy a return to my two last, and particularly thank you for your anecdote of Charlotte Graham and her cousin, Harriet Bailey,° which has very much amused both my mother and myself. If you can learn anything farther of that interesting affair, I hope you will mention it. I have two messages; let me get rid of them, and then my paper will be my own. Mary fully intended writing to you by Mr. Chute’s frank,° and only happened entirely to forget it, but will write soon; and my father wishes Edward to send him a memorandum of the price of the hops. The tables are come, and give general contentment. I had not expected that they would so perfectly suit the fancy of us all three, or that we should so well agree in the disposition of them; but nothing except their own surface can have been smoother. The two ends put together form one constant table° for everything, and the centre piece stands exceedingly well under the glass, and holds a great deal most commodiously, without looking awkwardly. They are both covered with green baize, and send their best love. The Pembroke° has got its destination by the sideboard, and my mother has great delight in keeping her money and papers locked up. The little table which used to stand there has most conveniently taken itself off into the best bedroom; and we are now in want only of the chiffonniere,° which is neither finished nor come. So much for that subject; I now come to another, of a very different nature, as other subjects are very apt to be. Earle Harwood° has been again giving uneasiness to his family and talk to the neighbourhood; in the present instance, however, he is only unfortunate, and not in fault.

  ‘About ten days ago, in cocking a pistol in the guard-room at Marcau,° he accidentally shot himself through the thigh. Two young Scotch surgeons in the island were polite enough to propose taking off the thigh at once, but to that he would not consent; and accordingly in his wounded state was put on board a cutter and conveyed to Haslar Hospital, at Gosport, where the bullet was extracted, and where he now is, I hope, in a fair way of doing well. The surgeon of the hospital wrote to the family on the occasion, and John Harwood went down to him immediately, attended by James,1 whose object in going was to be the means of bringing back the earliest intelligence to Mr. and Mrs. Harwood, whose anxious sufferings, particularly those of the latter, have of course been dreadful. They went down on Tuesday, and James came back the next day, bringing such favourable accounts as greatly to lessen the distress of the family at Deane, though it will probably be a long while before Mrs. Harwood can be quite at ease. One most material comfort, however, they have; the assurance of its being really an accidental wound, which is not only positively declared by Earle himself, but is likewise testified by the particular direction of the bullet. Such a wound could not have been received in a duel. At present he is going on very well, but the surgeon will not declare him to be in no danger.1 Mr. Heathcote° met with a genteel little accident the other day in hunting. He got off to lead his horse over a hedge, or a house, or something, and his horse in his haste trod upon his leg, or rather ancle, I believe, and it is not certain whether the small bone is not broke. Martha has accepted Mary’s invitation for Lord Portsmouth’s ball.° He has not yet sent out his own invitations, but that does not signify; Martha comes, and a ball there is to be. I think it will be too early in her mother’s absence for me to return with her.

  ‘Sunday Evening.—We have had a dreadful storm of wind in the fore part of this day, which has done a
great deal of mischief among our trees. I was sitting alone in the dining-room when an odd kind of crash startled me—in a moment afterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window, which I reached just in time to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend into the Sweep!!!!!° The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first crash, and which was the nearest to the pond, taking a more easterly direction, sunk among our screen of chestnuts and firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, beating off the head of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts of several branches in its fall. This is not all. One large elm out of the two on the left-hand side as you enter what I call the elm walk, was likewise blown down; the maple° bearing the weathercock was broke in two, and what I regret more than all the rest is, that all the three elms which grew in Hall’s meadow, and gave such ornament to it, are gone; two were blown down, and the other so much injured that it cannot stand. I am happy to add, however, that no greater evil than the loss of trees has been the consequence of the storm in this place, or in our immediate neighbourhood. We grieve, therefore, in some comfort.

  ‘I am yours ever, ‘J.A.’

  The next letter, written four days later than the former, was addressed to Miss Lloyd,° an intimate friend, whose sister (my mother) was married to Jane’s eldest brother: —

  ‘Steventon, Wednesday evening, Nov. 12th.

  ‘MY DEAR MARTHA,

  ‘I did not receive your note yesterday till after Charlotte had left Deane, or I would have sent my answer by her, instead of being the means, as I now must be, of lessening the elegance of your new dress for the Hurstbourne ball by the value of 3d. You are very good in wishing to see me at Ibthorp° so soon, and I am equally good in wishing to come to you. I believe our merit in that respect is much upon a par, our self-denial mutually strong. Having paid this tribute of praise to the virtue of both, I shall here have done with panegyric, and proceed to plain matter of fact. In about a fortnight’s time I hope to be with you. I have two reasons for not being able to come before. I wish so to arrange my visit as to spend some days with you after your mother’s return. In the 1st place, that I may have the pleasure of seeing her, and in the 2nd, that I may have a better chance of bringing you back with me. Your promise in my favour was not quite absolute, but if your will is not perverse, you and I will do all in our power to overcome your scruples of conscience. I hope we shall meet next week to talk all this over, till we have tired ourselves with the very idea of my visit before my visit begins. Our invitations for the 19th are arrived, and very curiously are they worded.1 Mary mentioned to you yesterday poor Earle’s unfortunate accident, I dare say. He does not seem to be going on very well. The two or three last posts have brought less and less favourable accounts of him. John Harwood has gone to Gosport again to-day. We have two families of friends now who are in a most anxious state; for though by a note from Catherine this morning there seems now to be a revival of hope at Manydown,° its continuance may be too reasonably doubted. Mr. Heathcote,1 however, who has broken the small bone of his leg, is so good as to be going on very well. It would be really too much to have three people to care for.

  ‘You distress me cruelly by your request about books. I cannot think of any to bring with me, nor have I any idea of our wanting them. I come to you to be talked to, not to read or hear reading; I can do that at home; and indeed I am now laying in a stock of intelligence to pour out on you as my share of the conversation. I am reading Henry’s History of England,° which I will repeat to you in any manner you may prefer, either in a loose, desultory,° unconnected stream, or dividing my recital, as the historian divides it himself, into seven parts:—The Civil and Military: Religion: Constitution: Learning and Learned Men: Arts and Sciences: Commerce, Coins, and Shipping: and Manners. So that for every evening in the week there will be a different subject. The Friday’s lot—Commerce, Coins, and Shipping—you will find the least entertaining; but the next evening’s portion will make amends. With such a provision on my part, if you will do yours by repeating the French Grammar, and Mrs. Stent2 will now and then ejaculate some wonder about the cocks and hens, what can we want? Farewell for a short time. We all unite in best love, and I am your very affectionate

  ‘J.A.’

  The two next letters must have been written early in 1801, after the removal from Steventon had been decided on, but before it had taken place. They refer to the two brothers who were at sea, and give some idea of a kind of anxieties and uncertainties to which sisters are seldom subject in these days of peace, steamers, and electric telegraphs. At that time ships were often windbound or becalmed, or driven wide of their destination; and sometimes they had orders to alter their course for some secret service; not to mention the chance of conflict with a vessel of superior power—no improbable occurrence before the battle of Trafalgar.° Information about relatives on board men-of-war was scarce and scanty, and often picked up by hearsay or chance means; and every scrap of intelligence was proportionably valuable:—

  ‘MY DEAR CASSANDRA,°

  ‘I should not have thought it necessary to write to you so soon, but for the arrival of a letter from Charles to myself. It was written last Saturday from off the Start, and conveyed to Popham Lane by Captain Boyle, on his way to Midgham. He came from Lisbon in the “Endymion.” I will copy Charles’s account of his conjectures about Frank: “He has not seen my brother lately, nor does he expect to find him arrived, as he met Captain Inglis at Rhodes, going up to take command of the ‘Petrel,’ as he was coming down; but supposes he will arrive in less than a fortnight from this time, in some ship which is expected to reach England about that time with dispatches from Sir Ralph Abercrombie.”° The event must show what sort of a conjuror Captain Boyle is. The “Endymion” has not been plagued with any more prizes. Charles spent three pleasant days in Lisbon.

  ‘They were very well satisfied with their royal passenger,1 whom they found jolly and affable,° who talks of Lady Augusta as his wife, and seems much attached to her.

  ‘When this letter was written, the “Endymion” was becalmed, but Charles hoped to reach Portsmouth by Monday or Tuesday. He received my letter, communicating our plans, before he left England; was much surprised, of course, but is quite reconciled to them, and means to come to Steventon once more while Steventon is ours.’°

  From a letter written later in the same year:—°

  ‘Charles has received 30l. for his share of the privateer,° and expects 10l. more; but of what avail is to take prizes if he lays out the produce in presents to his sisters? He has been buying gold chains and topaze crosses for us.° He must be well scolded. The “Endymion” has already received orders for taking troops to Egypt, which I should not like at all if I did not trust to Charles being removed from her somehow or other before she sails. He knows nothing of his own destination, he says, but desires me to write directly, as the “Endymion” will probably sail in three or four days. He will receive my yesterday’s letter, and I shall write again by this post to thank and reproach him. We shall be unbearably fine.’

  CHAPTER IV

  Removal from Steventon—Residences at Bath and at Southampton—Settling at Chawton

  THE family removed to Bath in the spring of 1801, where they resided first at No. 4 Sydney Terrace, and afterwards in Green Park Buildings.° I do not know whether they were at all attracted to Bath by the circumstance that Mrs. Austen’s only brother, Mr. Leigh Perrot,° spent part of every year there. The name of Perrot, together with a small estate at Northleigh° in Oxfordshire, had been bequeathed to him by a great uncle. I must devote a few sentences to this very old and now extinct branch of the Perrot family; for one of the last survivors, Jane Perrot, married to a Walker, was Jane Austen’s great grandmother, from whom she derived her Christian name. The Perrots were settled in Pembrokeshire at least as early as the thirteenth century. They were probably some of the settlers whom the policy of our Plantagenet kings placed in that county, which thence acquired the name of ‘England beyond Wales,’ for the doubl
e purpose of keeping open a communication with Ireland from Milford Haven, and of overawing the Welsh. One of the family seems to have carried out this latter purpose very vigorously; for it is recorded of him that he slew twenty-six men of Kemaes, a district of Wales, and one wolf. The manner in which the two kinds of game are classed together, and the disproportion of numbers, are remarkable; but probably at that time the wolves had been so closely killed down, that lupicide was become a more rare and distinguished exploit than homicide. The last of this family died about 1778, and their property was divided between Leighs and Musgraves, the larger portion going to the latter. Mr. Leigh Perrot pulled down the mansion, and sold the estate to the Duke of Marlborough, and the name of these Perrots is now to be found only on some monuments in the church of Northleigh.

  Mr. Leigh Perrot was also one of several cousins to whom a life interest in the Stoneleigh property in Warwickshire was left, after the extinction of the earlier Leigh peerage, but he compromised his claim to the succession in his lifetime. He married a niece of Sir Montague Cholmeley° of Lincolnshire. He was a man of considerable natural power, with much of the wit of his uncle, the Master of Balliol,° and wrote clever epigrams and riddles, some of which, though without his name, found their way into print; but he lived a very retired life, dividing his time between Bath and his place in Berkshire called Scarlets. Jane’s letters from Bath make frequent mention of this uncle and aunt.

  The unfinished story, now published under the title of ‘The Watsons,’ must have been written during the author’s residence in Bath.° In the autumn of 1804 she spent some weeks at Lyme, and became acquainted with the Cobb, which she afterwards made memorable for the fall of Louisa Musgrove.° In February 1805, her father died at Bath, and was buried at Walcot Church. The widow and daughters went into lodgings for a few months, and then removed to Southampton.° The only records that I can find about her during those four years° are the three following letters to her sister; one from Lyme, the others from Bath. They shew that she went a good deal into society, in a quiet way, chiefly with ladies; and that her eyes were always open to minute traits of character in those with whom she associated: —