The data of Jane Austen’s life have been repeated several times, as has been said, but beyond a few trifling11 allusions12 to her times no writer has thought it necessary to show up the background against which her figure may be seen, or to sketch14 from contemporary records the environment amid which she developed. Yet surely she is even more wonderful as a product of her times than considered as an isolated15 figure; therefore the object of this book is to show her among the scenes wherein she moved, to sketch the men and women to whom she was accustomed, the habits and manners of her class, and the England with which she was familiar. Her life was not long, lasting16 only from 1775 to 1817, but it covered notable times, and with such an epoch17 for presentation, with such a central figure to link together the sequence of events, we have a theme as inspiring as could well be found.
In many ways the times of Jane Austen are more removed from our own than the mere18 lapse19 of years seems to warrant. The extraordinary outburst of invention and improvement which took place in the reign20 of Queen Victoria, lifted manners and customs in advance of what two centuries of ordinary routine would have done. Sir Walter Besant in his London in the Eighteenth Century says, “The passing of the Reform Bill in 1832, the introduction of steamers on the sea, the beginning of railways on land, make so vast a break between the first third and last two-thirds of the nineteenth century, that I feel justified21 in considering the eighteenth century as lasting down to the year 1837; in other words, there were so few changes, and these so slight, in manners, customs, or [3] prevalent ideas, between 1700 and 1837, that we may consider the eighteenth century as continuing down to the beginning of the Victorian era, when change after change—change in the constitution, change in communications, change in the growth and extension of trade, change in religious thought, change in social standards—introduced that new time which we call the nineteenth century.”
According to this reckoning, Jane Austen may be counted as wholly an eighteenth-century product, and such a view is fully23 justified, for the differences between her time and ours were enormous. It is impossible to summarise24 in a few sentences changes which are essentially25 a matter of detail, but in the gradual unfolding of her life I shall attempt to show how radically26 different were her surroundings from anything to which we are accustomed.
It is an endless puzzle why, when her books so faithfully represent the society and manners of a time so unlike our own, they seem so natural to us. If you tell any half-dozen people, who have not made a special study of the subject, at what date these novels were written, you will find that they are all surprised to hear how many generations ago Jane Austen lived, and that they have always vaguely27 imagined her to be very little earlier than, if not contemporary with, Charlotte Bront? or George Eliot. So far as I am aware, no writer on Jane Austen has ever touched on this problem before. Her stories are as fresh and real as the day they were written, her characters might be introduced to us in the flesh any time, and, with the exception of a certain quaintness28 of eighteenth-century flavouring, there is nothing to bring before us the striking difference between their environment and our own. It is true that the long coach journeys stand out as an exception [4] to this, but they are the only marked exception. If we had never had an illustrated30 edition of Jane Austen, nine people out of ten at least would have formed mental pictures of the characters dressed in early Victorian, or perhaps even in present-day, costume. It is only since Hugh Thompson and C. E. Brock have put before us the costumes of the age, that our ideas have accommodated themselves, and we realise how Catherine Morland and Isabella Thorpe looked in their high-waisted plain gowns, when they had arrived at that stage of intimacy31 which enabled them to pin “up each other’s trains for the dance.” Or how attractive Fanny Price was in her odd high-crowned hat, with its nodding plume32, and the open-necked short-sleeved dress, as she surveyed herself in the glass while Miss Crawford snapped the chain round her neck. The knee-breeches of the men, their slippers33 and cravats34, the neat, close-fitting clerical garb35, these things we owe to the artists,—they are taken for granted in the text. It would have seemed as ridiculous to Jane Austen to describe them, as for a present-day novelist to mention that a London man made a call in a frock-coat and top-hat.
Yet her word-pictures are living and detailed36, filled in with innumerable little touches. How can we reconcile the seeming inconsistency? The explanation probably is, that without acting37 consciously, she, with the unerring touch of real genius, chose that which was lasting, and of interest for all time, from that which was ephemeral. In her sketches38 of human nature, in the strokes with which she describes character, no line is too fine or too delicate for her attention; but in the case of manners and customs she gives just the broad outlines that serve as a setting. Her novels are novels of character.
But the problem is not confined to the books; in her [5] letters to her sister, though there is abundant comment on dress, food, and minor39 details which should mark the epoch, yet the letters might have been written yesterday. Austin Dobson in one of his admirable prefaces to the novels says: “Going over her pages, pencil in hand, the antiquarian annotator40 is struck by their excessive modernity, and after a prolonged examination discovers, in this century-old record, nothing more fitted for the exercise of his ingenuity41 that such an obsolete42 game at cards as ‘Casino’ or ‘quadrille.’”
And this is true also of her letters. More remarkable43 still is the entire absence of comment on the great events which thrilled the world; with the exception of an allusion13 to the death of Sir John Moore, we hear no whisper of the wars and upheavals44 which happened during her life. It is true that the Revolution in France, which shook monarchs45 on their thrones, occurred before the first date of the published letters, yet her correspondence covers a time when battles at sea were chronicled almost continuously, when an invasion by France was an ever-present terror; Trafalgar and Waterloo were not history, but contemporary events; but though Jane must have heard and discussed these matters, no echo finds its way into her lively and amusing budgets of chit-chat to her sister. Of course women were not supposed to read the papers in those days, but with two sailor brothers the news must have often been personal and intimate, and she was, according to the notions of her time, well educated; yet we search in vain for any allusion to such contemporary matters. It may be objected that the letters of a modern girl to a sister would hardly touch on questions which agitate46 the public, but there are several replies to this: in the first place, few such exciting events have occurred in recent times as happened during Jane Austen’s life; our war in Africa was a mere trifle [6] in comparison with the bloody47 field of Waterloo, where Blucher and Wellington lost 30,000 men, or the thrilling naval48 victory of Trafalgar; and stupendous as have been the recent battles between Russia and Japan, they affect us only indirectly49—England is not herself involved in them, nor are her sons being slain50 daily. In the second place, surely even the South African War would probably produce some comment in letters, especially if the writer had brothers in the army as Jane had brothers in the navy. Thirdly, letters in Jane Austen’s time were one great means of news, for newspapers were not so easy to get, and were much more costly51 than now, so that we expect to find more of contemporary events in letters than at a time like the present, when telegrams and columns of print save us the trouble of recording52 such matters in private.
In the forty-two years between 1775 and 1817, vast discoveries of world-wide importance were made. When Jane Austen was born, Captain Cook was still in the midst of his exploration, and the map of the world was being unrolled day by day. Though New Zealand and Australia had been discovered by the Dutch in the previous century, they were all but unknown to England. Six years only before her birth had the great navigator charted and mapped New Zealand for the first time, also the east coast of Australia, and had christened New South Wales. When she was four years old, Cook was murdered by the natives at Hawaii.
The atlas53 from which she learnt her earliest geography lessons was therefore very different from those now in use. The well-known cartographer, S. Dunn, published an atlas in 1774, where Australia is marked certainly, but as though one saw it through distorted glasses; the east coast, Cook’s discovery, is [7] clearly defined, the rest is very vague; and the fact that Tasmania was an island had not then been discovered, for it appears as a projecting headland. In the same general way is New Zealand treated, and neither has a separate sheet to itself; beyond their appearance on the map of the world, they are ignored. Japan also looks queer to modern eyes, it almost touches China at both ends, enclosing a land-locked sea.
The epoch was one of change and enlargement in other than geographical54 directions. In the thirty years before Jane Austen’s birth an immense improvement had taken place in the position of women. Mrs. Montagu, in 1750, had made bold strokes for the freedom and recognition of her sex. The epithet55 “blue-stocking,” which has survived with such extraordinary tenacity56, was at first given, not to the clever women who attended Mrs. Montagu’s informal receptions, but to her men friends, who were allowed to come in the grey or blue worsted stockings of daily life, instead of the black silk considered de rigueur for parties. Up to this time, personal appearance and cards had been the sole resources for a leisured dame57 of the upper classes, and the language of gallantry was the only one considered fitting for her to hear. By Mrs. Montagu’s efforts it was gradually recognised that a woman might not only have sense herself, but might prefer it should be spoken to her; and that because the minds of women had long been left uncultivated they were not on that account unworthy of cultivation58. Hannah More describes Mrs. Montagu as “not only the finest genius, but the finest lady I ever saw ... her form (for she has no body) is delicate even to fragility; her countenance59 the most animated60 in the world; the sprightly61 vivacity62 of fifteen, with the judgment63 and experience of a Nestor.”
[8]
In art there had never before been seen in England such a trio of masters as Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney. Isolated portrait painters of brilliant genius, though not always native born, there had been in England,—Holbein, Vandyke, Lely, Kneller, and Hogarth are all in the first rank,—but that three such men as the trio above should flourish contemporaneously was little short of miraculous64.
In 1775, Sir Joshua had passed the zenith of his fame, though he lived until 1792. Gainsborough, who was established in a studio in Schomberg House, Pall65 Mall, was in 1775 at the beginning of his most successful years; his rooms were crowded with sitters of both sexes, and no one considered they had proved their position in society until they had received the hall-mark of being painted by him. He was only sixty-one at his death in 1788. Romney, who lived to 1802, never took quite the same rank as the other two, yet he was popular enough at the same time as Gainsborough; Lady Newdigate (The Cheverels of Cheverel Manor) mentions going to have her portrait painted by him, and says that “he insists upon my having a rich white satin with a long train made by Tuesday, and to have it left with him all the summer. It is the oddest thing I ever knew.” Sir Thomas Lawrence and Hoppner carried on the traditions of the portrait painters, the former living to 1830; with names such as these it is easy to judge art was in a flourishing condition.
Among contemporary landscape painters, Richard Wilson, who has been called “the founder66 of English Landscape,” lived until 1782. But his views, though vastly more natural than the stilted67 conventional style that preceded them, seem to our modern eyes, trained to what is “natural,” still to be too much conventionalised. [9] Among others the names of Gillray, Morland, Rowlandson stand out, all well on the way to fame while Jane was still a child.
These preliminary remarks have been made with a view to giving some general idea of that England into which she was born, and they refer to those subjects which only affected68 her indirectly. All those things which entered directly into her life, such as her country surroundings, contemporary books, prices of food, fashions, and a host of minor details, are dealt with more particularly in the course of the narrative69.
As we have said, matters of history are not mentioned or noticed in Jane Austen’s correspondence, which is taken up with her own environment, her neighbours, their habits and manners, and illumined throughout by a bright insight at times rather too biting to be altogether pleasant. Of her immediate70 surroundings we have a very clear idea.
Of all the writers of fiction, Jane Austen is most thoroughly71 English. She never went abroad, and though her native good sense and shrewd gift of observation saved her from becoming insular72, yet she cannot be conceived as writing of any but the sweet villages and the provincial73 towns of her native country. Even the Bront?s, deeply secluded74 as their lives were, crossed the German Ocean, and saw something of Continental75 life from their school at Brussels. Nothing of this kind fell to Jane Austen’s share. Yet people did travel in those days, travelled amazingly considering the difficulties they had to encounter, among which were the horrors of a sailing-boat with its uncertain hours. Fielding, in going to Lisbon, was kept waiting a month for favourable76 winds! There was also the terrible embarking77 and landing from a small boat before such conveniences as landing-stages were built.
[10]
In one of Lord Langdale’s letters, dated 1803, we have a vivid description of these horrors: “We left that place [Dover] about six o’clock last Saturday morning, and arrived at Calais at four in the afternoon. Our passage was rather disagreeable, the wind being chiefly against us, and rain sometimes falling in torrents78. I never witnessed a more curious scene than our landing. When the packet-boat had come to within two miles of the coast of France, we were met by some French rowing boats in which we were to be conveyed on shore. The French sailors surrounded us in the most clamorous79 and noisy manner, leaping into the packet and bawling80 and shouting so loud as to alarm the ladies on board very much. To these men, however, we were to consign81 ourselves, and we entered their boats, eight passengers going in each. When we got near the shore, we were told it was impossible for the boat to get close to land, on account of the tide being so low, and that we must be carried on the men’s shoulders. We had no time to reflect on this plan before we saw twelve or fourteen men running into the water,—they surrounded our boat and laid hold of it with such violence, that one might have thought they meant to sink it, and fairly pulled us into their arms.... For my part I laughed heartily82 all the time, but a lady who was with us was so much frighted, that I was obliged to support her in my arms a considerable time before she was able to stand.”
It was not only in the arms of men that passengers were thus carried ashore83, in Napoleon’s British Visitors and Captives, by J. G. Alger, there is a still more extraordinary account quoted from a contemporary letter. “In an instant the boathead was surrounded by a throng84 of women up to their middles and over, who were there to carry us on shore. Not being aware of [11] this man?uvre, we did not throw ourselves into the arms of these sea-nymphs so instantly as we ought, whereby those who sat at the stern of the boat were deluged85 with sea spray. For myself, I was in front, and very quickly understood the clamour of the mermaids86. I flung myself upon the backs of two of them without reserve, and was safely and dryly borne on shore, but one poor gentleman slipped through their fingers, and fell over head and ears into the sea.”
From the same entertaining book we learn that, “For ￡4, 13s. you could get a through ticket by Dover and Calais, starting either from the City at 4.30 a.m. by the old and now revived line of coaches connected with the rue29 Notre Dame des Victoires establishment in Paris, or morning and night by a new line from Charing87 Cross. Probably a still cheaper route, though there were no through tickets, was by Brighton and Dieppe, the crossing taking ten or fifteen hours. By Calais it seldom took more than eight hours, but passengers were advised to carry light refreshments88 with them. The diligence from Calais to Paris, going only four miles an hour, took fifty-four hours for the journey, but a handsome carriage drawn89 by three horses, in a style somewhat similar to the English post-chaise, could be hired by four or five fellow-travellers, and this made six miles an hour.”
During a great part of Jane Austen’s life, much of the Continent was closed to English people because of the perpetual state of war between us and either Spain or France, but in any case such an expedition would seem to have lain quite outside her limited daily round, and was never even mooted90.
Steventon Rectory, where she was born on December 16, 1775, has long ago vanished, and a new rectory, more in accordance with modern luxurious91 notions, [12] has been built. Of the old house, Lord Brabourne, great-nephew to Jane Austen, writes: “The house standing7 in the valley was somewhat better than the ordinary parsonage houses of the day; the old-fashioned hedgerows were beautiful, and the country around sufficiently92 picturesque93 for those who have the good taste to admire country scenery.”
Steventon is a very small place, lying in a network of lanes about seven miles from Basingstoke. The nearest points on the high-roads are Deane, on the Andover Road, and Popham Lane on the Winchester Road. There is an inn at the corner of Popham Lane to this day, and that there was an inn there in Jane Austen’s time we know, for Mrs. Lybbe Powys, writing in 1792, says: “We stopped at Winchester and lay that night at a most excellent inn at Popham Lane.” At this time, curiously94 enough, her fellow-travellers were Dr. Cooper, Jane Austen’s uncle, and his son and daughter, though whether the party made a détour to visit the rectory we do not know. Of course at that time Jane was of no greater importance than any seventeen-year-old daughter of a country clergyman, and there would be no reason to mention her.
It is difficult to find Steventon, so little is there of it, and that so much scattered96; a few cottages, a farm, and beyond, half a mile away, the church, with a pump in a field near to mark the site of the old rectory house where Jane Austen was born. This is all that remains97 of her time. The new rectory stands on the other side of the narrow road, raised above it, and sheltered by a warm backing of trees in which evergreens98 are conspicuous99. A very substantial-looking building it is, much superior to what was considered good enough for a clergyman in the eighteenth century. The country is well wooded, and the roads undulating, so that there [13] are no distant views. Probably a good deal of the planting has been done since Jane Austen’s time, but that there were trees then we know from her own account, and some of the fine oaks that still stand can have altered but little since then. Mr. Austen-Leigh’s account of the house in which she was born is worth quoting—
“North of the house, the road from Deane to Popham Lane ran at a sufficient distance from the front to allow a carriage drive through turf and trees. On the south side, the ground rose gently, and was occupied by one of those old-fashioned gardens in which vegetables and flowers are combined, flanked and protected on the east by one of the thatched mud walls common in that country, and overshadowed by fine elms. Along the upper or southern side of this garden ran a terrace of the finest turf, which must have been in the writer’s thoughts when she described Catherine Morland’s childish delight in ‘rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.’”
Though there is so little left to see, and the church has been “restored,” yet it is worth while to pass through this country to realise the environment in which the authoress spent her childhood. There are still left in the neighbourhood, notably100 at North Waltham, some of the old diamond-paned, heavily-timbered brick houses with thatched roofs, to which she must have been accustomed. The gentle curves of the roads, the oak and beech101 and fir overshadowing the sweet lanes, the wild clematis, which grows so abundantly that in autumn it looks like hoar-frost covering all the hedgerows, these things were prominent objects in the scenery amid which she lived. It is not likely she looked on her surroundings in the same way as any ordinarily educated person would now look on them. Love of scenery had not then been developed. The artificial and [14] formal landscape gardening, with “made” waterfalls, was the correct thing to admire. Genuine nature, much less homely102 nature, was only then beginning to be observed. This is strange to us, for, as Professor Geikie says, “At no time in our history as a nation has the scenery of the land we live in been so intelligently appreciated as it is to-day.”
But Jane was not in advance of her times, and though she loved her trees and flowers, we find in her writings no reflections of the scenes amid which she daily walked; in her books scenery is simply ignored. We know if it rained, because that material fact had an influence on the actions of her heroines, but beyond that there is little or nothing; yet she greatly admired Cowper, one of the earliest of the “natural” poets.
Mr. Austen-Leigh, her own nephew, speaks of the scenery around her first home as “tame,” and says that it has no “grand or extensive views,” though he admits it has its beauties, and says that Steventon “from the fall of the ground, and the abundance of its timber, is certainly one of the prettiest spots.” But this quiet prettiness, without the excessive richness to be found in other south-country villages, is perhaps more thoroughly characteristic of England than any other.
The impressions of childhood are invariably deep, and are cut with a clearness and minuteness to which none others of later times attain103. Just as a child examines a picture in a story-book with anxious and searching care, while an adult gains only a general impression of the whole, so a child knows the place where it has played in such detail that every bough104 of the trees, every root of the lilacs, every tiny depression or ditch is familiar. And thus Jane must have known the home at Steventon.
Writing about a storm in 1800, she says: “I was [15] just in time to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend105 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 amid our screen of chestnuts106 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 maple107 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 ornament108 to it, are gone.”
This bespeaks109 her intimate acquaintance with the trees, of which each one was a friend.
The country and the writer suited each other so wonderfully, that one pauses for a moment wondering whether, after all, environment may not have that magic influence claimed for it by some who hold it to be more powerful than inherited qualities. Influence of course it has, and one wonders what could possibly have been the result if two such natures as those of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bront? had changed places; if Jane had been brought up amid the wild, bleak110 Yorkshire moors111, and Charlotte amid the pleasant fields of Hampshire. As it is, the surroundings of each intensified112 and developed their own peculiar113 genius.
Jane was born of the middle class, her father, George Austen, being a clergyman in a day when clergymen were none too well thought of, yet taking a better position than most by reason of his own family and good connections. George Austen had early been left an orphan114, and had been adopted by an uncle. He showed the possession of brains by obtaining first a scholarship at St. [16] John’s College, Oxford115, and subsequently a fellowship.
He took Orders which, in the days when rectories were looked upon simply as “livings,” was a recognised mode of providing for a young man, whether he had any vocation116 for the ministry117 or not. But he seems to have fulfilled his duties, or what were then considered sufficient duties, creditably enough. Of George Austen one of his sons wrote—
“He resided in the conscientious118 and unassisted discharge of his ministerial duties until he was turned of seventy years.” He was a “profound scholar” and had “exquisite taste in every species of literature.”
The subject of the clergy95 at that date, and the examples of them which Jane has herself given us in her books, is an interesting one, and we shall return to it. The rectory of Steventon was presented to George Austen by Mr. Knight119, the same cousin who afterwards adopted his son Edward; and the rectory of Deane, a small place about a mile distant, was bought by an uncle who had educated him, and given to him. The villages were very small, only containing about three hundred persons altogether. In those days parish visiting or parochial clubs and entertainments were unthought of, Sunday schools in their earliest infancy120, and we hear nothing whatever throughout the whole of Jane Austen’s correspondence which leads us to think that she, in any way, carried out the duties which in these days fall to the lot of every clergyman’s daughter. This is not to cast blame upon her, it only means that she was the child of her times; these things had not then been organised.
THE REV22. JAMES AUSTEN
THE REV. GEORGE AUSTEN
George Austen married Cassandra, youngest daughter of the Rev. Thomas Leigh, who was of good family, her uncle was Dr. Theophilus Leigh, Master of Balliol [17] College, a witty121 and well-known man. These things are not of importance in themselves, but they serve to show that the family from which Jane sprang was on both sides of some consideration. The Austens lived first at Deane, but moved to Steventon in 1771. They had undertaken the charge of a son of Warren Hastings, who died young, and they had a large family of their own, as was consistent in days when families of ten, eleven, and even fifteen were no uncommon122 thing.
There were five sons and two daughters in all, and Jane was the youngest but one. (See Table, p. 326.) James, the eldest123, was probably too far removed in age from his younger sister ever to have been very intimate with her. It is said that he had some share in her reading and in forming her taste, but though she was very fond of him she never seems, as was very natural, to have had quite the same degree of intimate affection for him as she felt for those of her brothers nearer to her own age. James was twice married, and his only daughter by his first wife was Anna, of whom Jane makes frequent mention in her letters, and to whom some of the published correspondence was addressed. His second wife was Mary Lloyd, whose sister Martha was the very devoted124 friend, and frequent guest, of the girl Austens, and who late in life married Francis, one of Jane’s younger brothers. The son of James and Mary was James Edward, who took the additional name of Leigh, and was the writer of the Memoir125 which supplies one of the only two sources of authoritative126 information about Jane Austen. He died in 1874.
The next brother, Edward, as already stated, was adopted by his cousin Mr. Knight, whose name he took. He came into the fine properties of Chawton House in Hampshire and Godmersham in Kent, even during the lifetime of Mr. Knight’s widow, who looked on him as [18] a son and retired127 in his favour. Edward married Elizabeth Bridges, and had a family of eleven children, of whom the eldest, Fanny Catherine, married Sir Edward Knatchbull, and their eldest son was created Lord Brabourne; to him we owe the Letters which are the second of the authoritative books on Jane Austen.
Jane Austen was attached to her niece Fanny Knight in a degree only second to that of her attachment128 to her own sister Cassandra. Fanny’s mother, Mrs. Edward Austen or Knight (for the change of name seems not to have taken place until her death), died comparatively young, and the great responsibility thrown upon Fanny doubtless made her seem older, and more companionable, than her years; of her, her famous aunt writes—
“I found her in the summer just what you describe, almost another sister, and could not have supposed that a niece would ever have been so much to me. She is quite after one’s own heart. Give her my best love and tell her that I always think of her with pleasure.”
The third Austen brother, Henry, interested himself much in his sister’s writing, and saw about the business arrangements for her, when, after many years, she decided129 to publish one of her own books at her own risk. He was something of a rolling stone, filling various positions in turn, and at length taking Orders and succeeding his brother James in the Steventon living. During part of his life he lived in London, where Jane often stayed with him. He married first his cousin Eliza, the daughter of George Austen’s sister; she was the widow of a Frenchman, the Count de Feuillade, who had suffered death by the guillotine. Eliza was very popular with her girl cousins, as we can see from Jane’s remarks; she died in 1813, and in 1820 Henry married Eleanor, daughter of Henry Jackson. The two [19] youngest brothers, Francis and Charles, came above and below Jane, with about three years’ interval130 on either side. They both entered the navy, and both became admirals.
Frank rose to be Senior Admiral of the Fleet, and was created G.C.B.; he lived to be ninety-two. He, like another of his brothers, was twice married,—a habit that ran abnormally in the family,—and his second wife was Martha, the sister of his brother James’s wife, mentioned above. Charles married first Fanny Palmer, and was left a widower131 in 1815 with three small daughters. He married secondly132 her sister Harriet. The two Fannies, Mrs. Charles Austen and the eldest daughter of Edward Knight, sometimes cause a little confusion. Jane Austen mentions calling with the younger Fanny on the motherless children of her brother, one of whom was also Fanny, soon after their loss. “We got to Keppel Street, however, which was all I cared for, and though we could only stay a quarter of an hour, Fanny’s calling gave great pleasure, and her sensibility still greater; for she was very much affected at the sight of the children. Little Fanny looked heavy. We saw the whole party.”
It has been necessary to give a few details respecting the brothers who played so large a part in Jane’s life, because her visits away from home were nearly all to their houses, her letters are full of allusions to them, and the great family affection which subsisted133 between them all made the griefs and joys of the others the greatest events in a very uneventful life. The dearest, however, of the whole family was the one sister Cassandra, who, like Jane herself, never married, which seems the stranger when we consider how many of the brothers married twice. There was a sad little love-story in Cassandra’s life. She was engaged to a young clergyman [20] who had promise of promotion134 from a nobleman related to him. He accompanied this patron to the West Indies as chaplain to the regiment135, and there died of yellow fever. There is perhaps something more pathetic in such a tale than in any other, the glowing ideal has not been smirched by any touch of the actual sordid136 daily life, it is snatched away and remains an ideal always, and the happiness that might have been is enhanced by romance so as to be a greater deprivation137 than any loss of the actual.
The two sisters were sisters in reality, sharing the same views, the same friendships, the same interests. When away, Jane’s letters to Cassandra are full and lively, telling of all the numberless little events that only a sister can enjoy. And if Jane’s own estimate is to be believed, Cassandra’s are to the full as vivacious138.
“The letter which I have this moment received from you has diverted me beyond moderation. I could die of laughter at it, as they used to say at school. You are indeed the finest comic writer of the present age.”
Cassandra lived to 1845, long enough to see that her beloved sister’s letters would in all probability be published; she was of a reticent139 nature, with a strong dislike to revealing anything personal or intimate to the public, she therefore went through all these neatly written letters from Jane, which she had so carefully preserved, and destroyed anything of a personal nature. One cannot altogether condemn140 the action, greatly as we have been the losers; the letters that remain, many in number, deal almost entirely141 with outside matters, trivialities of everyday life, and they are written so brightly that we can judge how interesting the bits of self-revelation by so expressive142 a pen would have been.
In 1869, when Mr. Austen-Leigh published his [21] Memoir, only one or two of Jane Austen’s letters were available; but in 1882, on the death of Lady Knatchbull (née Fanny Knight), the letters above referred to, which Cassandra Austen had retained, were found among her belongings143, having come to her on her aunt’s death. Her son, created Lord Brabourne, therefore published these in two volumes in 1884, and when quotations144 and extracts are given in this book without further explanation, it must be inferred that these are taken from letters of Jane to Cassandra, as given by Lord Brabourne.
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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5
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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6
prancing
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的现在分词 ) | |
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7
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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8
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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9
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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10
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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11
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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12
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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13
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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14
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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15
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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16
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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17
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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18
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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19
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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20
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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21
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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22
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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23
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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24
summarise
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| vt.概括，总结 | |
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25
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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26
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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27
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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28
quaintness
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| n.离奇有趣，古怪的事物 | |
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29
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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30
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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31
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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32
plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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33
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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34
cravats
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| n.（系在衬衫衣领里面的）男式围巾( cravat的名词复数 ) | |
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35
garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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36
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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37
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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38
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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39
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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40
annotator
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| n.注释者 | |
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41
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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42
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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43
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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44
upheavals
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| 突然的巨变( upheaval的名词复数 )； 大动荡； 大变动； 胀起 | |
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45
monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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46
agitate
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|
| vi.(for,against)煽动，鼓动；vt.搅动 | |
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47
bloody
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|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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48
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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49
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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50
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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51
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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52
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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53
atlas
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| n.地图册，图表集 | |
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54
geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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55
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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56
tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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57
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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58
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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59
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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60
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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61
sprightly
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| adj.愉快的，活泼的 | |
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62
vivacity
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|
| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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63
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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64
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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65
pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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66
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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67
stilted
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|
| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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68
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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69
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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70
immediate
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|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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71
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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72
insular
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| adj.岛屿的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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73
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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74
secluded
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|
| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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75
continental
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|
| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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76
favourable
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|
| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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77
embarking
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| 乘船( embark的现在分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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78
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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79
clamorous
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|
| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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80
bawling
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|
| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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81
consign
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| vt.寄售（货品），托运，交托，委托 | |
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82
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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83
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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84
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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85
deluged
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|
| v.使淹没( deluge的过去式和过去分词 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付 | |
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86
mermaids
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|
| n.（传说中的）美人鱼( mermaid的名词复数 ) | |
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87
charing
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|
| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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88
refreshments
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| n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
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89
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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90
mooted
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|
| adj.未决定的，有争议的，有疑问的v.提出…供讨论( moot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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91
luxurious
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|
| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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92
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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93
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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94
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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95
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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96
scattered
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|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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97
remains
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|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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98
evergreens
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| n.常青树，常绿植物，万年青( evergreen的名词复数 ) | |
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99
conspicuous
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|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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100
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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101
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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102
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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103
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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104
bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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105
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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106
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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107
maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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108
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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109
bespeaks
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| v.预定( bespeak的第三人称单数 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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110
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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111
moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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112
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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113
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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114
orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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115
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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116
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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117
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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118
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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119
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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120
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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121
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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122
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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123
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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124
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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125
memoir
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| n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录 | |
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126
authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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127
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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128
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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129
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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130
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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131
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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132
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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133
subsisted
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| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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134
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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135
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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136
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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137
deprivation
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| n.匮乏；丧失；夺去，贫困 | |
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138
vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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139
reticent
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| adj.沉默寡言的；言不如意的 | |
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140
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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141
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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142
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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143
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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144
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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