A Walk with Jane Austen

by Lori Smith

  I hold in my mind a little-visited string of wonderful memories and embarrassing moments from that trip. My parents and I rode a gondola over gorgeous Barcelonas evening lights. We sat in a street café drinking red wine, in pain after walking around literally all of Paris (my mother was most in awe at the self-cleaning bathrooms at the Arc de Triomphe). In Scotland, we struggled to find a tiny fishing village someone on the plane had recommended to me, and when we did arrive there, discovered it to be, well…tiny. I was embarrassed at the time because of my parents’ solid American tourist mentality. They arerit even attempting to be good Europeans,I thought. They wanted fat-free creamer for their coffee and real American ham instead of jamon Serrano and generally talked loudly and shared food in restaurants in distinctly American ways.

  Looking back, I am embarrassed for myself, my little aggressions, my lack of grace.

  It was in the middle of that trip that we visited Cambridge: cool and quiet and somehow comforting. Gorgeous college buildings and chapels were softened with mist. We watched punters on the River Cam and had tea in a cozy shop—small tables, ham sandwiches with butter and grated cheese. It was lovely, I was charmed, and I expected Oxford now to be the same.

  But Oxford disappointed me with its contrasting noise, dirt, and general commotion.

  At the center I found the Bridge of Sighs, the copy of an ornate covered Venetian bridge that looks incredibly romantic in pictures but really just connects one college building to another. Then the Bodleian Library, founded in the 1300s—one of the worlds largest—and the round Radcliffe Camera or Rad Cam with its domed top. I eyed the café behind the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, one of the prettiest spots in town, and made my way down to get a look at the Thames— or the Isis, as they call it here.

  On the descent of St. Aidâtes, I wandered through a bit of meadow by Christ Church Cathedral and began to be enthralled.

  I wondered how Jane felt when she arrived here, a child in the midst of the bustle of college life. She came to Oxford when she was seven years old, away from home for the first time to attend boarding school with her sister, Cassandra.1 She was young to leave home, but the two girls were attached, and as her mother said later, “if Cassandra's head had been going to be cut off Jane would have hers cut off too.”2Perhaps they traveled with their brother James, who was already enrolled at St. Johns College, or perhaps their father took them. Their great witty uncle Theophilus, then ninety,3 was Master at Balliol College and may have been given the charge of looking after them from time to time. He must have seemed more than ancient to tiny Jane.

  Perhaps, I decided, I will come to love Oxford's dirt the way I love Paris's fumes: / am not without hope.

  I'm afraid at times I'm morbidly silly. I generally lose the ability to think and act with good sense around guys I could be interested in— just like any good chick-lit heroine, I suppose, but not promising for one who aspires after Austen. My emotions have changed so much in the course of one day. This morning I bumped into a terribly good-looking stranger on the stairs. I was timidly setting off to explore Oxford, in my green T-shirt and matching sort-of-coolish walking shoes and almost knee-length jean skirt with the ruffle (ever so slightly trailer trash but darn cute) when a guy carrying a huge suitcase appeared. I was in his way. I could easily have gotten out of his way if I hadn't been a bit dumbfounded. But there was the jet lag. I wasn't thinking entirely correctly. I took him in immediately—dark wavy hair, green eyes (or were they brown?), great smile, white shirt, bit of a tan— and went on my way with a much lighter heart. I'm afraid I'm looking too much for small, life-changing moments, and when you look for them too closely, you are apt to create them out of nothing at all.

  One guy my friends knew of who seemed acceptably interesting, if American, was planning to be in Oxford this week at a program that sounds remarkably similar to the program I am in. He is a friend of Emilie's fiancé, John, and Emilie is a very good friend of my very good friend Jordan (which sounds confusing, but really this connection is simpler than it sounds). Jordan was going to a party at Emilies, she mentioned that I was getting ready to leave for Oxford, Emilie remembered Johns friend.…and thus the plotting began.

  What we heard from John was that this guy, Frederick Kent is his name, is a lawyer (smart!) and very orthodox. That combination among the single Christian population can be a bit difficult to find. And he is in Oxford, so he must have some sense of adventure, right? And I determined that he would be good-looking, although John gave us frustratingly little information about his appearance.

  So as I packed, I wondered exactly what Frederick Kent might be like and just how much potential he might have. When my father dropped me off at the airport at an insanely early hour for my 8:10 a.m. international flight, I wandered through the airport picking out guys— the incredibly good-looking guy I would never have a chance with, the business traveler with a big belly, the Buddhist monk, the devout Muslim with his wife and children, the gawky teenager with his MP3 player—looking at them and thinking, Ah, Frederick Kent! and having a little laugh at their expense (or perhaps my own).

  Of course, I have decided that the good-looking guy on the stairs must be Frederick, although I suspect this is all very Lydia Bennet of me.

  Tonight I walked home with someone entirely different, who is now not a stranger and already feels like he could be much more than a friend. His name is Jack.

  I attempted to rule him out. Of course, a single woman who wants to be married has, ironically, no sharper skill than that which rules out potential suitors before fully understanding their character. But I am already afraid that all of my efforts in that vein will be unsuccessful.

  Three

  Christ Church: Good Company

  The more I know of the world,

  the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man

  whom I can really love. I require so much!

  —MARIANNE, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

  One day, after I left my job to write full time, I sat in the tiny sunroom of my town house at the café table squinched into the corner by the french doors, reading psalms and thinking about the utter truth of Jesus. In my exhaustion, his character—his complete truth, the kind I have never experienced—was clearer and more important and more true to me than it had ever been. I sat daydreaming in the sun and lost myself in it.

  I never entirely recovered from that mono-like virus five years ago. I've been regularly exhausted ever since, something that submits me not only to mood swings but also to dramatic spiritual experiences. I don't know how to explain them, except that in some ways you know things more fully and clearly when you are physically quite at the end of yourself. There are things you miss, I think, when you are able to carry out your daily tasks without ever thinking your psyche might slip through a fissure in the fabric of the universe and you might never recover (though, of course, this is not the best prescription for sanity).

  I was weary of the problems I'd had at work, of not being able to get people to listen to the complete story. I had to summarize and synthesize and give them conclusions for which they didn't understand all the background. Then they built on this scant foundation a thought system of their own about my work or the problems we were addressing that was not entirely accurate. Every experience, it seemed, was more complex than anyone else wanted to know. Thus they always had slight half-truths, and I felt scandalized and misrepresented. I began to sense that it is nearly impossible for any of us to be completely true when the mass of raw material we are working with—the heart and soul and mind that form our thoughts and desires and words—is so completely faulty to begin with.

  I realized then that Jesus knew all the exacts, everything the way it exactly happened, all the intricacies and dependencies and turns of phrase. Also that he is true in a way no one else ever could be—completely and thoroughly, with no shades of doubt, nothing motivated by pride, nothing muddy, everything clear and sound.

  This was so important to me a
s I sat in the sun that I thought about being in the presence of this complete truth and imagined declaring its goodness—his goodness—the way the angels do maybe, proclaiming and honoring him for who he is. I pictured myself going around in front of Jesus everywhere he went in heaven, preceding him, declaring him to be faithful and true and calling the rest of heaven to attention. And I quickly determined that that would get insanely annoying for all of eternity.

  Tonight I sat in a row of folding chairs in gorgeous little Christ Church Cathedral, where the air felt dusty and holy, and what hit me with full spiritual force in my exhaustion was the grace and goodness of God—that which I've begun to hope for in the everyday circumstances of my life but not entirely expect. I kept hearing those words in my head, and as I looked up at where the stone arches meet in the ceiling, I could imagine this goodness coming down to me. The Evensong prayers and the hymns and the readings and the gorgeously sung psalms—all of them added up to the message that I am not beyond grace and that perhaps I can hope even now, on this trip, for God's abundant blessings, whatever form those might take.

  I don't know what Jane would have made of these terribly serious spiritual musings. She was entrenched in the church because of her father and brothers, but she didn't write anything that would hint at any spiritual angst, any struggle to believe or not believe, or even any deep spiritual emotion. Perhaps her faith was just an accepted part of her life, as steady and unquestioned as the Hampshire seasons. She seems to have judged her own Christian life the way she evaluated those around her—not by what she felt about God, but by how she lived, how she treated others.

  Her nephew James Edward wrote about her spiritual reserve, about how she was “more inclined to think and act than to talk”1 about her faith. Her niece Anna remembered that Aunt Jane would enjoy things to the fullest, but that when she was contemplating serious matters, she would feel them the most deeply as well—“when grave she was very grave.”2 So perhaps, at some level, Jane would understand.

  What is clear is that Jane operated from a moral foundation. If she knew that others fell short, I believe it was in part because she was aware of her own failings. She crafted stories about lovely, smart, intelligent women—and men—who were blind to their own faults. Pride. Immaturity. Self-centeredness. These were not small, but impurities of character to be worked out with the help of those who loved you enough to tell you the truth.

  For Jane, this working out was genuine faith, this mastery of character as much to be celebrated as the excellent romantic conclusions of her novels. Jane is never heavy handed with this, but I believe the triumph of the books, for her, in the end is not only that the relationships come together but the kind of people who are allowed to come together— two people with characters that have been hammered out a bit, with faults that have been recognized and corrected. They are wise and humble enough to help each other work out their faults and appear guaranteed of some success in that regard.

  No one in Jane's stories is spared from this kind of stringent—even in a way harsh—evaluation. Persuasions Captain Wentworth is not allowed to have been motivated solely by hurt feelings but by “angry pride.”3 He is allowed to be ridiculous, yielding painful consequences to himself and Anne. Emma (in, of course, Emma),whom everyone must agree spoke truthfully when she told old Miss Bates that she must limit the number of “very dull”4 things she said, is not allowed to just laugh it off as a joke. Until Emma recognizes this meanness and, as a result, her propensity to overlook her own faults and need for correction, she cannot be really worthy in Austens mind. In Pride and Prejudice,Darcy as a child “was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit,”5 while Anne in Persuasion is nearly perfect and is easily guided by Mrs. Russell. She concedes that this is not a moral failing, but her own personality needs a bit of firming up. Meanwhile, Marianne in Sense and Sensibility allows her emotions to lead her into questionable situations, readily giving offense and ultimately caring only about her own happiness, while Elinor allows her own very strict moral code to stifle any kind of emotional display. (And although Jane was writing in praise of Elinor's self-control, I cannot read it without feeling like she is too rigid.)

  The faults of minor characters are on display as well. Mrs. Bennet is silly throughout Pride and Prejudice,while Mr. Bennet does not take enough trouble to discipline his daughters. In Sense and Sensibility,Mrs. Jennings is a gossip, and Emmas poor Miss Bates cannot stop talking. Mary (Annes younger sister in Persuasion) is never satisfied, determined to be the center of attention, always imagining herself ill (which was one of Jane's favorite failings to mock). And even the nearly perfect Jane Fairfax, also in Emma,entered into a questionable engagement without the knowledge of her family.

  Those who are more openly in the wrong are not dealt with extensively. In Sense and Sensibility,Willoughby deeply regretted losing Marianne, if he had the indignity of not being “forever inconsolable.”6 We know that in Pride and Prejudice,Wickham and Lydia quickly fell out of love and seemed destined not to be happy or content. As Lizzy conjectured, “How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.”7 In Persuasion,Mr. Elliot, who is only after Anne to gain a standing in the family and prevent another heir being born, is not at all enviable and ends up with the far less appealing Mrs. Clay.

  C. S. Lewis said that the world of Austen's novels “is exacting in so far as such obedience is rigidly demanded; neither excuses nor experiments are allowed.”8 At times—especially with Fanny in Mansfield Park—she is so particularly moral as to make me a bit weary of it. Yet she is right.

  One of her Evening Prayers captures her theology and my own better than I could:

  Look with mercy on the sins we have this day committed and in mercy make us feel them deeply, that our repentance may be sincere, and our resolutions steadfast of endeavouring against the commission of such in future. Teach us to understand the sinful-ness of our own hearts, and bring to our knowledge every fault of temper and every evil habit in which we have indulged to the discomfort of our fellow-creatures, and the danger of our own souls. May we now, and on each return of night, consider how the past day has been spent by us, what have been our prevailing thoughts, words and actions during it, and how far we can acquit ourselves of evil. Have we thought irreverently of thee, have we disobeyed thy commandments, have we neglected any known duty, or willingly given pain to any human being? Incline us to ask our hearts these questions oh! God, and save us from deceiving ourselves by pride or vanity.9

  I suppose it makes me feel that she understands the particulars, the detailed specifics of a situation. She understands the value of a tone of voice or a turn of phrase. She aimed at nothing less than the careful truth.

  After Evensong, I began to feel like Anne in Persuasion when she says, “My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of the clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation.”10 I was rich with the best kind of company.

  I met a couple of guys from D.C. on the way to Christ Church for Evensong. Jack is working on a masters in the classics; Spencer is a writer. We wandered through Oxford after church with their friend Paul, looking for a pub that was still serving food, and we ended up at the Eagle and Child—or the Bird and Baby, as the locals call it. This was where Lewis and Tolkien and the rest of the Inklings took their famous “long liquid lunches” every Tuesday. The place was small and dark, but I loved it for Lewis's sake and felt compelled to drink half a pint in his honor.

  Our repartee skittered its way from our religious backgrounds (largely rather conservative, which we all seemed to have moved away from a little) to Christians and politics (Christians in politics—very good; political Christianity—very bad); the shenanigans of various members of Congress; the importance of ending poverty and various other Christian efforts in social justice; and the dangerous cultural trends in American Christianity. The camaraderie was precious.
I thought of Jane and all her brothers and the houseful of boys and envied the mélange.

  By the end of the conversation, I knew Jack wasn't a typical Christian conservative guy. (Not that there's anything wrong with your typical Christian conservative guy, of course, but I am looking for something slightly different.) He's politically moderate, supports conservation causes, is deeply concerned for the poor, and believes that coming to God is a mysterious process—that God draws us to him and that we freely choose him in a way we can't entirely understand. (Nothing irks me more than guys who will presume to tell you exactly how God works in everyone's life, as though he can be pinpointed and charted out, all the mystery theologized out of him.)

  Before the evening was over, I wondered if my preference for the dashing stranger on the stairs had me imitating Marianne's mistakes in some form.

  As we walked back to Wycliffe ahead of the others, Jack and I talked about our families. I feel like we are instant friends. He asks if I am a morning person, and I laugh and say, “No. Actually, I can't imagine the possibility of being a morning person in any circumstances ever.” And I learn that he is an early riser, almost every day. This little exchange seems to signify something (because the other skill that single women possess is overanalyzing every conversation), our moving from group discussion to near-intimate details.

  On the plane to Oxford, when I got up to walk around and prevent said blood-clot danger from flying, I passed a professional-looking guy on the aisle opposite me, two rows up. He was sleeping or watching a movie, and I looked at his screen from two rows back to see what he was watching, but I barely noticed him or his glasses or his neat hair. Now I realize that guy was Jack, in seat 24C. He didn't notice me either, alternately anxious and thrilled, in my pink T-shirt and long jeans and ugly new hiking boots. Just as well. I was having a bad hair day.