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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
A MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 'LADY SUSAN': a Novel 
 
 <SrV. 
 
LONDON: PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
A MEMOIR 
 
 JANE AUSTEN 
 
 j/eV 
 
 BY HER NEPHEW 
 
 AUSTEN LEIGH 
 
 FIFTH EDITION 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 LADY SUSAN 
 
 AND FRAGMENTS OF 
 TWO OTHER UNFINISHED TALES BV MISS AUSTEN 
 
 LONDON 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET 
 
 publishers in ©ibinatn to ijcr gftajcstu lfcc SJucca 
 
 1883 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Memoir of my Aunt, Jane Austen, has 
 been received with more favour than I had 
 ventured to expect. The notices taken of it 
 in the periodical press, as well as letters ad- 
 dressed to me by many with whom I am not 
 personally acquainted, show that an unabated 
 interest is still taken in every particular that 
 can be told about her. I am thus encouraged 
 not only to offer a Second Edition of the 
 Memoir, but also to enlarge it with some addi- 
 tional matter which I might have scrupled to 
 intrude on the public if they had not thus seemed 
 to call for it. In the present Edition, the nar- 
 rative is somewhat enlarged, and a few more 
 letters are added ; with a short specimen of her 
 childish stories. The cancelled chapter of ' Per- 
 suasion ' is given, in compliance with wishes 
 both publicly and privately expressed. A frag- 
 ment of a story entitled ' The Watsons ' is 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 printed ; and extracts are given from a novel 
 which she had begun a few months before her 
 death ; but the chief addition is a short tal 
 never before published, called ' Lady Susan.' 
 I regret that the little which I have been able 
 to add could not appear in my First Edition ; 
 as much of it was either unknown to me, or 
 not at my command, when I first published ; 
 and I hope that I may claim some indulgent 
 allowance for the difficulty of recovering little 
 facts and feelings which had been merged half 
 a century deep in oblivion. 
 
 November 17, 1870, 
 
A MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 JANE AUSTEN. 
 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introductory Remarks — Birth of Jane Austen — Her Family 
 Connections — Their Influence on Iter Writings. 
 
 ORE than half a century has passed away 
 since I, the youngest of the mourners,* 
 attended the funeral of my dear aunt 
 Jane in Winchester Cathedral ; and now, 
 in my old age, I am asked whether my memory 
 will serve to rescue from oblivion any events of her 
 life or any traits of her character to satisfy the en- 
 quiries of a generation of readers who have been 
 born since she died. Of events her life was singu- 
 larly barren: few changes and no great crisis ever 
 broke the smooth current of its course. Even her 
 fame may be said to have been posthumous : it did 
 
 * I went to represent my father, who was too unwell to attend him- 
 self, and thus I was the only one of my generation present. 
 
 B 
 
A Memoir of 
 
 not attain to any vigorous life till she had ceased to 
 exist. Her talents did not introduce her to the 
 notice of other writers, or connect her with the lite- 
 rary world, or in any degree pierce through the 
 obscurity of her domestic retirement. I have there- 
 fore scarcely any materials for a detailed life of my 
 aunt ; but I have a distinct recollection of her person 
 and character ; and perhaps many may take an in- 
 terest in a delineation, if any such can be drawn, of 
 that prolific mind whence sprung the Dashwoods 
 and Bennets, the Bertrams and Woodhouses, the 
 Thorpes and Musgroves, who have been admitted 
 as familiar guests to the firesides of so many families, 
 and are known there as individually and intimately 
 as if they were living neighbours. Many may care 
 to know whether the moral rectitude, the correct 
 taste, and the warm affections with which she in- 
 vested her ideal characters, were really existing in 
 the native source whence those ideas flowed, and 
 were actually exhibited by her in the various rela- 
 tions of life. I can indeed bear witness that there 
 was scarcely a charm in her most delightful charac- 
 ters that was not a true reflection of her own sweet 
 temper and loving heart. I was young when we lost 
 her; but the impressions made on the young are 
 deep, and though in the course of fifty years I have 
 forgotten much, I have not forgotten that 'Aunt 
 Jane ' was the delight of all her nephews and nieces. 
 We did not think of her as being clever, still less as 
 being famous ; but we valued her as one always, kind, 
 sympathising, and amusing. To all this I am a 
 
jFane Austen. 
 
 living witness, but whether I can sketch out such a 
 faint outline of this excellence as shall be perceptible 
 to others may be reasonably doubted. Aided, how- 
 ever, by a few survivors* who knew her, I will not 
 refuse to make the attempt. I am the more inclined 
 to undertake the task from a conviction that, however 
 little I may have to tell, no one else is left who could 
 tell so much of her. 
 
 Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, at 
 the Parsonage House of Steventon in Hampshire. 
 Her father, the Rev. George Austen, was of a family 
 long established in the neighbourhood of Tenterden 
 and Sevenoaks in Kent. I believe that early in the 
 seventeenth century they were clothiers. Hasted, in 
 his history of Kent, says: 'The clothing business 
 was exercised by persons who possessed most of the 
 landed property in the Weald, insomuch that almost 
 all the ancient families of these parts, now of large 
 estates and genteel rank in life, and some of them 
 ennobled by titles, are sprung from ancestors who 
 have used this great staple manufacture, now almost 
 unknown here.' In his list of these families Hasted 
 places the Austens, and he adds that these clothiers 
 ' were usually called the Gray Coats of Kent ; and 
 
 * My chief assistants have been my sisters, Mrs. B. Lefroy and Miss 
 Austen, whose recollections of our aunt are, on some points, more vivid 
 than my own. I have not only been indebted to their memory for facts, 
 but have sometimes used their words. Indeed some passages towards 
 the end of the work were entirely written by the latter. 
 
 I iave also to thank some of my cousins, and especially the daughters 
 of Admiral Charles Austen, for the use of letters and papers which had 
 passed into . their hands, without which this Memoir, scanty as it is, 
 could not have been written. 
 
 r. 2 
 
A Memoir of 
 
 were a body so numerous and united that at county 
 elections whoever had their vote and interest was 
 almost certain of being elected.' The family still 
 retains a badge of this origin ; for their livery is of 
 that peculiar mixture of light blue and white called 
 Kentish gray, which forms the facings of the Kentish 
 militia. 
 
 Mr. George Austen had lost both his parents before 
 he was nine years old. He inherited no property 
 from them ; but was happy in having a kind uncle, 
 Mr. Francis Austen, a successful lawyer at Tunbridge, 
 the ancestor of the Austens of Kippington, who, 
 though he had children of his own, yet made liberal 
 provision for his orphan nephew. The boy received 
 a good education at Tunbridge School, whence he 
 obtained a scholarship, and subsequently a fellowship, 
 at St. John's College, Oxford. In 1764 he came into 
 possession of the two adjoining Rectories of Deane 
 and Steventon in Hampshire ; the former purchased 
 for him by his generous uncle Francis, the latter 
 given by his cousin Mr. Knight This was no very 
 gross case of plurality, according to the ideas of that 
 time, for the two villages were little more than a mile 
 apart, and their united populations scarcely amounted 
 to three hundred. In the same year he married Cas- 
 sandra, youngest daughter of the Rev. Thomas Leigh, 
 of the family of Leighs of Warwickshire, who, having 
 been a fellow of All Souls, held the College livin°- of 
 Harpsden, near Henley-upon-Thames. Mr. Thomas 
 Leigh was a younger brother of Dr. Theophilus 
 Leigh, a personage well known at Oxford in his day, 
 
Jane Austen, 5 
 
 and his day was not a short one, for he lived to be 
 ninety, and held the Mastership of Balliol College for 
 above half a century. He was a man more famous 
 for his sayings than his doings, overflowing with puns 
 and witticisms and sharp retorts ; but his most 
 serious joke was his practical one of living much 
 longer than had been expected or intended. He was 
 a fellow of Corpus, and the story is that the Balliol 
 men, unable to agree in electing one of their own 
 number to the Mastership, chose him, partly under 
 the idea that he was in weak health and likely soon 
 to cause another vacancy. It was afterwards said 
 that his long incumbency had been a judgment on 
 the Society for having elected an Oitt-College Man* 
 I imagine that the front of Balliol towards Broad Street 
 which has recently been pulled down must have been 
 built, or at least restored, while he was Master, for 
 the Leigh arms were placed under the cornice at the 
 corner nearest to Trinity gates. The beautiful build- 
 ing lately erected has destroyed this record, and thus 
 ' monuments themselves memorials need.' 
 
 His fame for witty and agreeable conversation ex- 
 tended beyond the bounds of the University. Mrs. 
 Thrale, in a letter to Dr. Johnson, writes thus : "Are 
 you acquainted with Dr. Leigh,-f- the Master of Balliol 
 College, and are you not delighted with his gaiety of 
 
 * There seems to have been some doubt as to the validity of this 
 election; for Hearne says that it was referred to the Visitor, who 
 confirmed it. (Heame's Diaries, v. 2.) 
 
 t Mrs. Thrnle writes Dr. Lee, but there can be no doubt of the 
 identity of person. 
 
A Memoir of 
 
 manners and youthful vivacity, now that he is eighty- 
 six years of age? I never heard a more perfect or 
 excellent pun than his, when some one told him how, 
 in a late dispute among the Privy Councillors, the 
 Lord Chancellor struck the table with such violence 
 that he split it. " No, no, no," replied the Master ; 
 " I can hardly persuade myself that he split the table, 
 though I believe he divided the Board." ' 
 
 Some of his sayings of course survive in family 
 tradition. . He was once calling on a gentleman 
 notorious for never opening a book, who took him 
 into a room overlooking the Bath Road, which was 
 then a great thoroughfare for travellers of every class, 
 saying rather pompously, ' This, Doctor, I call my 
 study.' . The Doctor, glancing his eye round the 
 room, in which no books were to be seen, replied, 
 'And very well named too, sir, for you know Pope 
 tells us, "The proper study of mankind is Man."' 
 When my father went to Oxford he was honoured 
 with an invitation to dine with this dignified cousin. 
 Being a raw undergraduate, unaccustomed to the 
 habits of the University, he was about to take off his 
 gown, as if it were a great coat, when the old man, 
 then considerably turned eighty, said, with a grim 
 smile, ' Young man, you need not strip : we are not 
 going to fight.' This humour remained in him so 
 strongly to the last that he might almost have sup- 
 plied Pope with another instance of ' the ruling passion 
 strong in death,' for only three days before he expired, 
 being told that an old acquaintance was lately married, 
 having recovered from a long illness by eating eggs, 
 
Jane Austen. 
 
 and that the wits said that he had been egged on to 
 matrimony, he immediately trumped the joke, saying, 
 ' Then may the yoke sit easy on him.' I do not 
 know from what common ancestor the Master of 
 Balliol and his great-niece Jane Austen, with some 
 others of the family, may have derived the keen 
 sense of humour which they certainly possessed. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. George Austen resided first at Deane, 
 but removed in 1771 to Steventon, which was their 
 residence for about thirty years. They commenced 
 their married life with the charge of a little child, a 
 son of the celebrated Warren Hastings, who had 
 been committed to the care of Mr. Austen before his 
 marriage, probably through the influence of his sister; 
 Mrs. Hancock, whose husband at that time held 
 some office under Hastings in India. Mr. Gleig, in 
 his ' Life of Hastings,' says that his son George, the 
 offspring of his first marriage, was sent to England 
 in 1 76 1 for his education, but that he had never been 
 able to ascertain to whom this precious charge was 
 entrusted, nor what became of him. I am able to 
 state, from family tradition, that he died young, of 
 what was then called putrid sore throat; and that 
 Mrs. Austen had become so much attached to him 
 that she always declared that his death had been as 
 great a grieftoheras if he had been a child of her own. 
 
 About this time, the grandfather of Mary Russell 
 Mitford, Dr. Russell, was Rector of the adjoining 
 parish of Ashe ; so that the parents of two popular 
 female writers must have been intimately acquainted 
 with each other. 
 
A Memoir of 
 
 As my subject carries me back about a hundred 
 years, it will afford occasions for observing many 
 changes gradually effected in the manners and habits 
 of society, which I may think it worth while to men- 
 tion. They may be little things, but time gives a 
 certain importance even to trifles, as it imparts a 
 peculiar flavour to wine. The most ordinary articles 
 of domestic life are looked on with some interest, if 
 they are brought to light alter being long buried ; 
 and we feel a natural curiosity to know what was 
 done and said by our forefathers, even though it may 
 be nothing wiser or better than what we are daily 
 doing or saying ourselves. Some of this generation 
 may be little aware how many conveniences, now 
 considered to be necessaries and matters of course, 
 were unknown to their grandfathers and grand- 
 mothers. The lane between Deane and Steventon 
 has long been as smooth as the best turnpike road ; 
 but when the family removed from the one residence 
 to the other in 1 771, it was a mere cart track, so cut 
 up by deep ruts as to be impassable for a light 
 carriage. Mrs. Austen, who was not then in strong 
 health, performed the short journey on a feather-bed, 
 placed upon some soft articles of furniture in the 
 waggon which held their household goods. In those 
 days it was not unusual to set men to work with 
 shovel and pickaxe to fill up ruts and holes in roads 
 seldom used by carriages, on such special occasions 
 as a funeral or a wedding. Ignorance and coarseness 
 of language also were still lingering even upon higher 
 levels of society than might have been expected to 
 
Jane Austen. 
 
 retain such mists. About this time, a neighbouring 
 squire, a man of many acres, referred the following 
 difficulty to Mr. Austen's decision : ' You know all 
 about these sort of things. Do tell us. Is Paris in 
 France, or France in Paris ? for my wife has been 
 disputing with me about it' The same gentleman, 
 narrating' some conversation which he had heard 
 between the rector and his wife, represented the 
 latter as beginning her reply to her husband with a 
 round oath ; and when his daughter called him to 
 task, reminding him that Mrs. Austen never swore, 
 he replied, ' Now, Betty, why do you pull me up for 
 nothing? that's neither here nor there; yon know 
 very well that's only my way of telling the story' 
 Attention has lately been called by a celebrated writer 
 to the inferiority of the clergy to the laity of England 
 two centuries ago. The charge no doubt is true, if 
 the rural clergy are to be compared with that higher 
 section of country gentlemen who went into parlia- 
 ment, and mixed in London society, and took the 
 lead in their several counties ; but it might be found 
 less true if they were to be compared, as in all fair- 
 ness they ought to be, with that lower section with 
 whom they usually associated. The smaller landed 
 proprietors, who seldom went farther from home than 
 their county town, from the squire with his thousand 
 acres to the yeoman who cultivated his hereditary 
 property of one or two hundred, then formed a 
 numerous class — each the aristocrat of his own parish ; 
 and there was probably a greater difference in man- 
 ners and refinement between this class and that im- 
 
10 A Memoir of 
 
 mediately above them than could now be found 
 between any two persons who rank as gentlemen. 
 For in the progress of civilisation, though all orders 
 may make some progress, yet it is most perceptible 
 in the lower. It is a process of ' levelling up ; ' the 
 rear rank ' dressing up,' as it were, close to the front 
 rank. When Hamlet mentions, as something which 
 he had 'for three years taken note of,' that ' the toe of 
 the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier,' it 
 was probably intended by Shakspeare as a satire on 
 his own times ; but it expressed a principle which is 
 working at all times in which society makes any 
 progress. I believe that a century ago the improve- 
 ment -in most country parishes began with the clergy ; 
 and that in those days a rector who chanced to be a 
 gentleman and a scholar found himself superior to his 
 chief parishioners in information and manners, and 
 became a sort of centre of refinement and politeness. 
 
 Mr. Austen was a remarkably good-looking man, 
 both in his youth and his old age. During his year 
 of office at Oxford he had been called ' the handsome 
 Proctor ;' and at Bath, when more than seventy years 
 old, he attracted observation by his fine features and 
 abundance of snow-white hair. Being a good scholar 
 he was able to prepare two of his sons for the Univer- 
 sity, and to direct the studies of his other children, 
 whether sons or daughters, as well as to increase his 
 income by taking pupils. 
 
 In Mrs. Austen also was to be found the germ of 
 much of the ability which was concentrated in Jane, 
 but of which others of her children had a share. She 
 
jfane Austen., 
 
 united strong common sense with a lively imagina- 
 tion, and often expressed herself, both in writing and 
 in conversation, with epigrammatic force and point. 
 She lived, like many of her family, to an advanced 
 age. During the last years of her life she endured 
 continual pain, not only patiently but with character- 
 istic cheerfulness. She once said to me, ' Ah, my 
 dear, you find me just where you left me — on the sofa. 
 I sometimes think that God Almighty must have 
 forgotten me ; but I dare say He will come for me in 
 His own good time.' She died and was buried at 
 Chawton, January 1827, aged eighty-eight. 
 
 Her own family were so much, and the rest of the 
 world so little, to Jane Austen, that some brief men- 
 tion of her brothers and sister is necessary in order to 
 give any idea of the objects which principally occu- 
 pied her thoughts and .filled her heart, especially as 
 some of them, from their characters or professions in 
 life, may be supposed to have had more or less influ- 
 ence on her writings : though I. feel some reluctance 
 in bringing before public notice persons and circum- 
 stances essentially private. 
 
 Her eldest brother James, my own father, had, when 
 a very young man, at St. John's College, Oxford, been 
 the originator and chief supporter of a periodical 
 paper called 'The Loiterer,' written somewhat on 
 the plan of the ' Spectator' and its successors, but 
 nearly confined to subjects connected with the Uni- 
 versity. In after life he used to speak very slight- 
 ingly of this early work, which he had the better right 
 
12 A Memoir of 
 
 to do, as, whatever may have been the degree of their 
 merits, the best papers had certainly been written by 
 himself. He was well read in English literature, had 
 a correct taste, and wrote readily and happily, both 
 in prose and verse. He was more than ten years 
 older than Jane, and had, I believe, a large share in 
 directing her reading and forming her taste. 
 
 Her second brother, Edward, had been a good deal 
 separated from the rest of the family, as he was early 
 adopted by his cousin, Mr. Knight, of Godmersham 
 Park in Kent and Chawton House in Hampshire ; 
 and finally came into possession both of the property 
 and the name. But though a good deal separated in 
 childhood, they were much together in after life, and 
 Jane gave a large share of her affections to him and 
 his children. Mr. Knight was not only a very amiable 
 man, kind and indulgent to all connected with him, 
 but possessed also a spirit of fun and liveliness, which 
 made him especially delightful to all young people. 
 
 Her third brother, Henry, had great conversational 
 powers, and inherited from his father an eager and 
 sanguine disposition. He was a very entertaining 
 companion, but had perhaps less steadiness of pur- 
 pose, certainly less success in life, than his brothers. 
 He became a clergyman when middle-aged ; and an 
 allusion to his sermons will be found in one of Jane's 
 letters. At one time he resided in London, and was 
 useful in transacting his sister's business with her 
 publishers. 
 
 Her two youngest brothers, Francis and Charles, 
 were sailors during that glorious period of the British 
 
Jane Austen. 13 
 
 navy which comprises the close of the last and the 
 beginning of the present century, when it was impos- 
 sible for an officer to be almost always afloat, as these 
 brothers were, without seeing service which, in these 
 days, would be considered distinguished. Accord- 
 ingly, they were continually engaged in actions of 
 more or less importance, and sometimes gained pro- 
 motion by their success. Both rose to the rank 
 of Admiral, and carried out their flags to distant 
 stations. 
 
 <f"~Francis lived to attain the very summit of his pro- 
 fession, having died, in his ninety-third year, G.C.B. 
 and Senior Admiral of the Fleet, in 1865. He pos- 
 sessed great firmness of character, with a strong sense 
 of duty, whether due from himself to others, or from 
 others to himself. He was consequently a strict dis- 
 ciplinarian ; but, as he was a very religious man, it 
 was remarked of him (for in those days, at least, it 
 was remarkable) that he maintained this discipline 
 without ever uttering an - oath or permitting one in 
 his presence. On one occasion, when ashore in a sea- 
 side town, he was spoken of as 'the officer who 
 kneeled at church ;' a custom which now happily 
 would not be thought peculiar. 
 
 Charles was generally serving in frigates or sloops ; 
 blockading harbours, driving the ships of the enemy 
 ashore, boarding gun-boats, and frequently making 
 small prizes. At one time he was absent from Eng- 
 land on such services for seven years together. In 
 later life he commanded the Bellerophon, at the bom- 
 bardment of St. Jean dAcre in 1840. In 1850 he 
 
14 A Memoir of 
 
 went out in the Hastings, in command of the East 
 India and China station, but on the breaking out of 
 the Burmese war he transferred his flag to a steam 
 sloop, for the purpose of getting up the shallow 
 waters of the Irrawaddy, on board of which he died 
 of cholera in 1852, in the seventy-fourth year of his 
 age. His sweet temper and affectionate disposition, 
 in which he resembled his sister Jane, had secured to 
 him an unusual portion of attachment, not only from 
 his own family, but from all the officers and common 
 sailors who served under him. One who was with 
 him at his death has left this record of him ,' ' Our 
 good Admiral won the hearts of all by his gentleness 
 and kindness while he was struggling with disease, 
 and endeavouring to do his duty as Commander-in- 
 chief of the British naval forces in these waters. His 
 death was a great grief to the whole fleet I know 
 that I cried bitterly when I found he was dead.' The 
 Order in Council of the Governor-General of India, 
 Lord Dalhousie, expresses ' admiration of the staunch 
 high spirit which, notwithstanding his age and pre- 
 vious sufferings, had led the Admiral to take his part 
 in the trying service which has closed his career.' 
 
 These two brothers have been dwelt on longer than 
 the others because their honourable career accounts 
 for Jane Austen's partiality for the Navy, as well as 
 for the readiness and accuracy with which she wrote 
 about it She was always very careful not to meddle 
 with matters which she did not thoroughly understand. 
 She never touched upon politics, law, or medicine, 
 subjects which some novel writers have ventured on 
 
Jane Austen. in 
 
 rather too boldly, and have treated, perhaps, with 
 more brilliancy than accuracy. But with ships and 
 sailors she felt herself at home, or at least could 
 always trust to a brotherly critic to keep her right. 
 I believe that no flaw has ever been found in her 
 seamanship either in ' Mansfield Park ' or in ' Per- 
 suasion.' 
 
 But dearest of all to the heart of Jane was her 
 sister Cassandra, about three years her senior. Their 
 sisterly affection for each other could scarcely be ex- 
 ceeded. Perhaps it began on Jane's side with the 
 feeling of deference natural to. a loving child towards 
 a kind elder sister. Something of this feeling always 
 remained; and even in the maturity of her powers, 
 and in the enjoyment of increasing success, she would 
 still speak of Cassandra as of one wiser and better 
 than herself. In childhood, when the elder was sent 
 to the school of a Mrs. Latournelle, in the Forbury 
 at Reading, the younger went with her, not because 
 she Tvas thought old enough to profit much by the 
 instruction there imparted, but because she would 
 have been miserable without her sister ; her mother 
 observing that ' if Cassandra were going to have her 
 head- cut off, Jane would insist on sharing her fate.' 
 This attachment was never interrupted or weakened. 
 They lived in the same home, and shared the same 
 bed-room, till separated by death. They were not 
 exactly alike. Cassandra's was the colder and calmer 
 disposition ; she was always prudent and well judging, 
 but with less outward demonstration of feeling and 
 less sunniness of temper than Jane possessed. It was 
 
\6 A Memoir of 
 
 remarked in her family that ' Cassandra had the merit 
 of having her temper always under command, but 
 that Jane had the happiness of a temper that never 
 required to be commanded.' When 'Sense and 
 Sensibility' came out, some persons, who knew the 
 family slightly, surmised that the two elder Miss 
 Dashwoods were intended by the author for her sister 
 and herself; but this could not be the case. Cas- 
 sandra's character might indeed represent the ' sense ' 
 of Elinor, but Jane's had little in common with the 
 'sensibility* of Marianne. The young woman who, 
 before the age of twenty, could so clearly discern the 
 failings of Marianne Dashwood, could hardly have 
 been subject to them herself. 
 
 This was the small circle, continually enlarged, 
 however, by the increasing families of. four of her 
 brothers, within which Jane Austen found her whole- 
 some pleasures, duties, and interests, and beyond which 
 she went very little into society during the last ten 
 years of her life. There was so much that was agree- 
 able and attractive in this family party that its 
 members may be excused if they were inclined to 
 live somewhat too exclusively within it They might 
 see in each other much to love and esteem, and 
 something to admire. The family talk had abun- 
 dance of spirit and vivacity, and was never troubled 
 by disagreements even in little matters, for it was not 
 their habit to dispute or argue with, each other: above 
 all, there was strong family affection and firm union, 
 never to be broken but by death. It cannot be 
 doubted that all this had its influence on the author 
 
Jane A listen. 1 7 
 
 in the construction of her stories, in which a family 
 party usually supplies the narrow stage, while the 
 interest is made to revolve round « few actors. 
 
 It will be seen also that though her circle of society 
 was small, yet she found in her neighbourhood persons 
 of good taste and cultivated minds. Her acquaint- 
 ance, in fact, constituted the very class from which 
 she took her imaginary characters, ranging from the 
 member of parliament, or large landed proprietor, to 
 the young curate or younger midshipman of equally 
 good family ; and I think that the influence of these 
 early associations may be traced in her writings, 
 especially in two particulars. First, that she is 
 entirely free from the vulgarity, which is so offensive 
 in— some ~novels,~"of 'dwelling on the outward ap- 
 pendages of wealth or rank, as if they were things to 
 which the writer was unaccustomed ; and, secondly, 
 that she deals as little with very low as with very 
 high stations irflife: "She does not go lower than the 
 Miss~Steeles, Mrs. Elton, and John Thorpe, people of 
 bad taste and underbred manners, such as are actually 
 found sometimes mingling with better society. She 
 has nothing resembling the Brangtons, or Mr. Dubster 
 and his friend Tom Hicks, with whom Madame 
 D'Arblay loved to season her stories, and to produce 
 striking contrasts to her well bred characters. 
 
1 8 A Memoir of 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Description of Steventon — Life at Steventon — Changes of Habits and 
 Customs in tlie last Century. 
 
 As the first twenty-five years, more than half of the 
 brief life of Jane Austen, were spent in the parsonage 
 of Steventon, some description of that place ought to 
 be given. Steventon is a small rural village upon the 
 chalk hills of north Hants, situated in a winding 
 valley about seven miles from Basingstoke. The 
 South-Western railway crosses it by a short embank- 
 ment, and, as it curves round, presents a good view of 
 it on the left hand to those who are travelling down 
 the line, about three miles before entering the tunnel 
 ^under Popham Beacon. It may be known to some 
 ■sportsmen, as lying in one of the best portions of the 
 Vine Hunt. It is certainly not a picturesque country ; 
 it presents no grand or extensive views ; but the 
 features are small rather than plain. The surface 
 continually swells and sinks, but the hills are not 
 bold, nor the valleys deep ; and though it is sufnciently 
 well clothed with woods and hedgerows, yet the 
 poverty of the soil in most places prevents the timber 
 from attaining a large size. Still it has its beauties. 
 The lanes wind along in a natural curve, continually 
 
Jane Aitstcn. 19 
 
 fringed with irregular borders of native turf, and lead 
 to pleasant nooks and corners. One who knew and 
 loved it well very happily expressed its quiet charms, 
 when he wrote 
 
 True taste is not fastidious, nor rejects, 
 Because they may not come within the rule 
 Of composition pure and picturesque, 
 Unnumbered simple scenes which fill the leaves 
 Of Nature's sketch book. 
 
 Of this somewhat tame country, Steventon, from 
 the fall of the ground, and the abundance of its timber, 
 is certainly one of the prettiest spots ; yet one cannot 
 be surprised that, when Jane's mother, a little before 
 her marriage, was shown the scenery of her future 
 home, she should have thought it unattractive, com- 
 pared with «the broad river, the rich valley, and the 
 noble hills which she had been accustomed to behold 
 at her native home near Henley-upon-Thames. 
 
 The house itself stood in a shallow valley, sur- 
 rounded by sloping meadows, well sprinkled with elm 
 trees, at the end of a small village of cottages, each 
 well provided with a garden, scattered about prettily 
 on either side of the road. It was sufficiently com- 
 modious to hold pupils in addition to a growing 
 family, and was in those times considered to be above 
 the average of parsonages; but the rooms were 
 finished with less elegance than would now be found 
 in the most ordinary dwellings. No cornice marked 
 the junction of wall and ceiling ; while the beams 
 which supported the upper floors projected into the 
 rooms below in all their naked simplicity, covered 
 
20 A Memoir of 
 
 only by a coat of paint or whitewash : accordingly 
 it has since been considered unworthy of being the 
 Rectory house of a family living, and about forty- 
 five years ago it was pulled down for the purpose of 
 erecting a new house in a far better situation on the 
 opposite side of the valley. 
 
 North of the house, the road from Deane to Pop- 
 ham 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" occu- 
 pied 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 
 Catharine Morland's childish delight in ' rolling down 
 the green slope at the back of the house.' 
 
 But the chief beauty of Steventon consisted in its 
 hedgerows. A hedgerow, in that country, does not 
 mean a thin formal line of quickset, but an irregular 
 border of copse-wood and timber, often wide enough 
 to contain within it a winding footpath, or a rough 
 cart track. Under its shelter the earliest primroses, 
 anemones, and wild hyacinths were to be found ; 
 sometimes, the first bird's-nest; and, now and then, 
 the unwelcome adder. Two such hedgerows radiated, 
 as it were, from the parsonage garden. One, a con- 
 tinuation of the turf terrace, proceeded westward, 
 forming the southern boundary of the home meadows ; 
 
Jane Austen. 21 
 
 and was formed into a rustic shrubbery, with occa- 
 sional seats, entitled ' The Wood Walk' The other 
 ran straight up the hill, under the name of ' The 
 Church Walk,' because it led to the parish church, as 
 well as to a fine old manor-house, of Henry VIII.'s 
 time, occupied by a family named Digweed, who have 
 for more than a century rented it, together with the 
 chief farm in the parish. The church itself — I speak 
 of it as it then was, before the improvements made 
 by the present rector — 
 
 A little splreless fane, 
 Just seen above the woody lane, 
 
 might have appeared mean and uninteresting to an 
 ordinary observer; but the adept in church architec- 
 ture would have known that it must have stood there 
 some seven centuries, and would have found beauty 
 in the very narrow early English windows, as well as 
 in the general proportions of its little chancel ; while 
 its solitary position, far from the hum of the village, 
 and within sight of no habitation, except a glimpse of 
 the gray manor-house through its circling screen of 
 sycamores, has in it something solemn and appro- 
 priate to the last resting-place of the silent dead. 
 Sweet violets, both purple and white, grow in abun- 
 dance beneath its south wall. One may imagine for 
 how many centuries the ancestors of those little 
 flowers have occupied that undisturbed, sunny nook, 
 and may think how few living families can boast of 
 as ancient a tenure of their land. Large elms pro- 
 trude their rough branches ; old hawthorns shed their 
 
22 A Memoir of 
 
 annual blossoms over the graves; and the hollow 
 yew-tree must be at least coeval with the church. 
 
 But whatever may be the beauties or defects of the 
 surrounding scenery, this was the residence of Jane 
 Austen for twenty-five years. This was the cradle of 
 her genius. These were the first objects which in- 
 spired her young heart with a sense of the beauties 
 of nature. In strolls along those wood-walks, thick- 
 coming fancies rose in her mind, and gradually as- 
 sumed the forms in which they came forth to the 
 world. In that simple church she brought them all 
 into subjection to the piety which ruled her in life, 
 and supported her in death. 
 
 The home at Steventon must have been, for many 
 years, a pleasant and prosperous one. • The family 
 was unbroken by death, and seldom visited by sorrow. 
 Their situation had some peculiar advantages beyond 
 those of ordinary rectories. Steventon was a family 
 living. Mr. Knight, the patron, was also proprietor 
 of nearly the whole parish. He never resided there, 
 .and consequently the rector and his children came to 
 be regarded in the neighbourhood as a kind of re- 
 presentatives of the family. They shared with the 
 principal tenant the command of an excellent manor, 
 and enjoyed, in this reflected way, some of the con- 
 sideration usually awarded to landed proprietors. 
 They were not rich, but, aided by Mr. Austen's powers 
 of teaching, they had enough to afford a good educa- 
 tion to their sons and daughters, to mix in the best 
 society of the neighbourhood, and to exercise a liberal 
 hospitality to their own relations and friends. A 
 
Jane Austen. 
 
 carriage and a pair of horses were kept. This might 
 imply a higher style of living in our days than it did 
 in theirs. There were then no assessed taxes. The 
 carriage, once bought, entailed little further expense ; 
 and the horses probably, like Mr. Bennet's, were often 
 employed on farm work. Moreover, it should be re- 
 membered that a pair of horses in those days were 
 almost necessary, if ladies were to move about at all ; 
 for neither the condition of the roads nor the style of 
 carriage-building admitted of any comfortable vehicle 
 being drawn by a single horse. When one looks at 
 the few specimens still remaining of coach-building in 
 the last century, it strikes one that the chief object of 
 the builders must have been to combine the greatest 
 possible weight with the least possible amount of 
 a ccommodation. 
 
 The family lived in close intimacy with two cousins, 
 Edward and Jane Cooper, the children of Mrs. 
 Austen's eldest sister, and Dr. Cooper, the vicar of 
 Sonning, near Reading. The Coopers lived for some 
 years at Bath, which seems to have been much fre- 
 quented in those days by clergymen retiring from 
 work. I believe that Cassandra and Jane sometimes 
 visited them there, and that Jane thus acquired the 
 intimate knowledge of the topography and customs 
 of Bath, which enabled her to write ' Northanger 
 Abbey ' long before she resided there herself. After 
 the death of their own parents, the two young Coopers 
 paid long visits at Steventon. Edward Cooper did 
 not live undistinguished. When an undergraduate at 
 Oxford, he gained the prize for Latin hexameters on 
 
24 A Memoir of 
 
 ' Hortus Anglicus ' in 1791 ; and in later life he was 
 known by a work on prophecy, called ' The Crisis,' 
 and other religious publications, especially for several 
 volumes of Sermons, much preached in many pulpits 
 in my youth. Jane Cooper was married from her 
 uncle's house at Steventon, to Captain, afterwards Sir 
 Thomas Williams, under whom Charles Austen served 
 in several ships. She was a dear friend of her name- 
 sake, but was fated to become a cause of great sorrow 
 to her, for a few years after the marriage she was 
 suddenly killed by an accident to her carriage. 
 
 There was another cousin closely associated with 
 them at Steventon, who must have introduced greater 
 variety into the family circle. This was the daughter 
 of Mr. Austen's only sister, Mrs. Hancock. This 
 cousin had been educated in Paris, and married to a 
 Count de Feuillade, of whom I know little more than 
 that he perished by the guillotine during the French 
 Revolution. Perhaps his chief offence was his rank ; 
 but it was said that the charge of ' incivism,' under 
 which he suffered, rested on the fact of his having 
 laid down some arable land into pasture — a sure sign 
 of his intention to embarrass the Republican Govern- 
 ment by producing a famine ! His wife escaped 
 through dangers and difficulties to England, was re- 
 ceived for some time into her uncle's family, and 
 finally married her cousin Henry Austen. Durin"- 
 the short peace of Amiens, she and her second hus- 
 band went to France, in the hope of recovering some 
 of the Count's property, and there narrowly escaped 
 being included amongst the detenus. Orders had 
 
Jane Austen. 25 
 
 been given by Buonaparte's government to detain all 
 English travellers, but at the post-houses Mrs. Henry 
 Austen gave the necessary orders herself, and her 
 French was so perfect that she passed everywhere for 
 a native, and her husband escaped under this pro- 
 tection. 
 
 She was a clever woman, and highly accomplished, 
 after the French rather than the English mode ; and 
 in those days, when intercourse with the Continent 
 was long interrupted by war, such an element in the 
 society of a country parsonage must have been a 
 rare acquisition. The sisters may have been more 
 indebted to this cousin than to Mrs. La Tournelle's 
 teaching for the considerable knowledge of French 
 which they possessed. She also took the principal 
 parts in the private theatricals in which the family 
 several times indulged, having their summer theatre 
 in the barn, and their winter one within the narrow 
 limits of the dining-room, where the number of the 
 audience must have been very limited. On these 
 occasions, the prologues and epilogues were written 
 by Jane's eldest brother, and some of them are very 
 vigorous and amusing. Jane was only twelve years 
 old at the time of the earliest of these representa- 
 tions, and not more than fifteen when the last took 
 place. She was, however, an early observer, and it 
 may be reasonably supposed that some of the in- 
 cidents and feelings which are so vividly painted in 
 the Mansfield Park theatricals are due to her recol- 
 lections of these entertainments. 
 
 Some time before they left Steventon, one great 
 
26 A Memoir of 
 
 affliction came upon the family. Cassandra was en- 
 gaged to be married to a young clergyman. He had 
 not sufficient private fortune to permit an immediate 
 union ; but the engagement was not likely to be a 
 hopeless or a protracted one, for he had a prospect 
 of early preferment from a nobleman with whom he 
 was connected both by birth and by personal friend- 
 ship. He accompanied this friend to the West Indies, 
 as chaplain to his regiment, and there died of yellow 
 fever, to the great concern of his friend and patron, 
 who afterwards declared that, if he had known cf 
 the engagement, he would not have permitted him 
 to go out to such a climate. This little domestic 
 tragedy caused great and lasting grief to the prin- 
 cipal sufferer, and could not but cast a gloom over 
 the whole party. The sympathy of Jane was pro- 
 bably) from her age, and her peculiar attachment to 
 her sister, the deepest of all. 
 
 Of Jane herself I know of no such definite tale of 
 love to relate. Her reviewer in the 'Quarterly' of 
 January 182 1 observes, concerning the attachment 
 of Fanny Price to Edmund Bertram : ' The silence in 
 which this passion is cherished, the slender hopes and 
 enjoyments by which it is fed, the restlessness and 
 jealousy with which it fills a .mind naturally active, 
 contented, and unsuspicious, the manner in which 
 it tinges every event, and every reflection, are painted 
 with a vividness and a detail of which we can scarcely 
 conceive any one but a female, and we should almost 
 add, a female writing from recollection, capable.' 
 This conjecture, however probable, was wide of the 
 
Jane Austen. 2J 
 
 mark. The picture was drawn from the intuitive 
 perceptions of genius, not from personal experience. 
 In no circumstance of her life was there any simi- 
 larity between herself and her heroine in ' Mansfield 
 Park.' She did not indeed pass through life without 
 being the object of warm affection. In her youth 
 she had declined the addresses of a gentleman who 
 had the recommendations of good character, and con- 
 nections, and position in life, of everything, in fact, 
 except the subtle power of touching her heart. There 
 is, however, one passage of romance in her history 
 with which I am imperfectly acquainted, and to 
 which I am unable to assign name, or date, or place, 
 though I have it on sufficient authority. Many years 
 after her death, some circumstances induced her sister 
 Cassandra to break through her habitual reticence, 
 and to speak of it She said that, while staying at 
 some seaside place, they became acquainted with a 
 gentleman, whose charm of person, mind, and man- 
 ners was such that Cassandra thought him worthy 
 to possess and likely to win her sister's love. When 
 they. parted, he expressed his intention of soon seeing 
 them again ; and Cassandra felt no doubt as to his 
 motives. But they never again met. Within a short 
 time they heard of his sudden death. I believe that, 
 if Jane ever loved, it was this unnamed gentleman ; 
 but. the acquaintance had been short, and I am 
 unable to say whether her feelings were of such a 
 nature as to affect her happiness. 
 
 Any description that I might attempt of the family 
 life at Steventon, which closed soon after I was born, 
 
28 A Memoir of 
 
 could be little better than a fancy-piece. There is 
 no doubt that if we look into the households of the 
 clergy and the small gentry of that period, we should 
 see some things which would seem strange to us, and 
 should miss many more to which we are accustomed. 
 Every hundred years, and especially a century like 
 the last, marked by an extraordinary advance in 
 wealth, luxury, and refinement of taste, as well as in 
 the mechanical arts which embellish our houses, must 
 produce a great change in their aspect. These 
 changes are always at work ; they are going on now, 
 but so silently that we take no note of them. Men 
 soon forget the small objects which they leave behind 
 them as they drift down the stream of life. As Pope 
 says — 
 
 Nor does life's stream for observation stay ; 
 It hurries all too fast to mark their way. 
 
 Important inventions, such as the applications of 
 steam, gas, and electricity, may find their places in 
 history ; but not so the alterations, great as they may 
 be, which have taken place in the appearance of our 
 dining and drawing-rooms. Who can now record the 
 degrees by which the custom prevalent in my youth 
 of asking each other to take wine together at dinner 
 became obsolete ? Who will be able to fix, twenty 
 years hence, the date when our dinners began to be 
 carved and handed round by servants, instead of 
 smoking before our eyes and noses on the table ? To 
 record such little matters would indeed be ' to chro- 
 nicle small beer.' But, in a slight memoir like this, 
 
Jane Austen. 29 
 
 I may be allowed to note some of those changes in 
 social habits which give a colour to history, but 
 which the historian has the greatest difficulty in re- 
 covering. 
 
 At that time the dinner-table presented a far less 
 splendid appearance than it does now. It was ap- 
 propriated to solid food, rather than to flowers, fruits, 
 and decorations. Nor was there much glitter of plate 
 upon it; for the early dinner hour rendered candle- 
 sticks unnecessary, and silver forks had not come 
 into general use : while the broad rounded end of the 
 knives indicated the substitute generally used instead 
 of them.* 
 
 The dinners too were more homely, though not 
 less plentiful and savoury ; and the bill of fare in one 
 house would not be so like that in another as it is 
 now, for family receipts were held in high estimation. 
 A grandmother of culinary talent could bequeath to 
 her descendant fame for some particular dish, and 
 
 * The celebrated Beau Brummel, who was so intimate with George IV. 
 as to be able to quarrel with him, was bom in 1771. It is reported 
 that when he was questioned about his parents, he replied that it was 
 long since he had heard of them, but that he imagined the worthy 
 couple must have cut their own throats by that time, because when he 
 last saw them they were eating peas with their knives. Yet Brummel's 
 father had probably lived in good society ; and was certainly able to 
 put his son into a fashionable regiment, and to leave him 30,000/.' 
 Raikes believes that he had been Secretary to Lord North. Thackeray's 
 idea that he had been a footman cannot stand against the authority of 
 Raikes, who was intimate with the son. 
 
 * RaJVts's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 207. 
 
30 A Memoir of 
 
 might influence the family dinner for many gene- 
 rations. 
 
 Dos est magna parentium 
 Virtus. 
 
 One house would pride itself on its ham, another on 
 its game-pie, and a third on its superior furmity, or 
 tansey-pudding. Beer and home-made wines, espe- 
 cially mead, were more largely consumed. Veget- 
 ables were less plentiful and less various. Potatoes 
 were used, but not so abundantly as now ; and there 
 was an idea that they were to be eaten only with 
 roast meat. They were novelties to a tenant's wife 
 who was entertained at Steventon Parsonage, cer- 
 tainly less than a hundred years ago ; and when Mrs. 
 Austen advised her to plant them in her own garden, 
 she replied, 'No, no; they are very well for you 
 gentry, but they must be terribly costly to rear' 
 
 But a still greater difference would be found in the 
 furniture of the rooms, which would appear to us 
 lamentably scanty. There was a general deficiency 
 of carpeting in sitting-rooms, bed-rooms, and passages. 
 A pianoforte, or rather a spinnet or harpsichord, was 
 by no means a necessary appendage. It was to be 
 found only where there was a decided taste for music, 
 not so common then as now, or in such great houses 
 as would probably contain a billiard-table. There 
 would often be but one sofa in the house, and that a 
 stiff, angular, uncomfortable article. There were no 
 deep easy-chairs, nor other appliances for lounging ; 
 for to lie down, or even to lean back, was a luxury 
 
Jane Austen. 31 
 
 permitted only to old persons or invalids. It was 
 said of a nobleman, a personal friend of George III. 
 and a model gentleman of his day, that he would 
 have made the tour of Europe without ever touching 
 the back of his travelling carriage. But perhaps we 
 should be most struck with the total absence of those 
 elegant little articles which now embellish and en- 
 cumber our drawing-room tables. We should miss 
 the sliding bookcases and picture-stands, the letter- 
 weighing machines and envelope cases, the periodicals 
 and illustrated newspapers — above all, the countless 
 swarm of photograph books which now threaten to 
 swallow up all space. A small writing-desk, with a 
 smaller work-box, or netting-case, was all that each 
 young lady contributed to occupy the table ; for the 
 large family work-basket, though often produced in 
 the parlour, lived in the closet. 
 
 There must have been more dancing throughout 
 the country in those days than there is now: and it 
 seems to have sprung up more spontaneously, as if it 
 were a natural production, with less fastidiousness as 
 to the quality of music, lights, and floor. Many 
 country towns had a monthly ball throughout the 
 winter, in some of which the same apartment served 
 for dancing and tea-room. Dinner parties more fre- 
 quently ended with an extempore dance on the 
 carpet, to the music of a harpsichord in the house, or 
 a fiddle from the village. This was always supposed 
 to be for the entertainment of the young people, but 
 many, who had little pretension to youth, were very 
 ready to join in it. There can be no doubt that 
 
33 A Memoir of 
 
 Jane herself enjoyed dancing, for she attributes this 
 taste to her favourite heroines ; in most of her works, 
 a ball or a private dance is mentioned, and made of 
 importance. 
 
 Many things connected with the ball-rooms of 
 those days have now passed into oblivion. The 
 barbarous law which confined the lady to one partner 
 throughout the evening must indeed have been abo- 
 lished before Jane went to balls. It must be ob- 
 served, however, that this custom was in one respect 
 advantageous to the gentleman, inasmuch as it ren- 
 dered his duties more practicable. He was bound to 
 call upon his partner the next morning, and it must 
 have been convenient to have only one lady for 
 whom he was obliged 
 
 To gallop all the country over, 
 The last night's partner to behold, 
 And humbly hope she caught no cold. 
 
 But the stately minuet still reigned supreme; and 
 every regular ball commenced with it It was a 
 slow and solemn movement, expressive of grace and 
 dignity, rather than of merriment. It abounded in 
 formal bows and courtesies, with measured paces, 
 forwards, backwards and sideways, and many com- 
 plicated gyrations. It was executed by one lady 
 and gentleman, amidst the admiration, or the criti- 
 cism, of surrounding spectators. In its earlier and 
 most palmy days, as when Sir Charles and Lady 
 Grandison delighted the company by dancing it at 
 their own wedding, the gentleman wore a dress 
 
Jane A us ten. 33 
 
 sword, and the lady was armed with a fan of nearly 
 equal dimensions. Addison observes that 'women 
 are armed with fans, as men with swords, and some- 
 times do more execution with them.' The graceful 
 carriage of each weapon was considered a test of 
 high breeding. The clownish man was in danger of 
 being tripped up by his sword getting between his 
 legs : the fan held clumsily looked more of a burden 
 than an ornament ; while in the hands of an adept 
 it could be made to speak a language of its own.* 
 It was not everyone who felt qualified to make this 
 public exhibition, and I have been told that those 
 ladies who intended to dance minuets, used to distin- 
 guish themselves from others by wearing a particular 
 kind of lappet on their head-dress. I have heard 
 also of another curious proof of the respect in which 
 this dance was held. Gloves immaculately clean 
 were considered requisite for its due performance, 
 while gloves a little soiled were thought good enough 
 for a country dance ; and accordingly some prudent 
 ladies provided themselves with two pairs for their 
 several purposes. The minuet expired with the last 
 century : but long after it had ceased to be danced 
 publicly it was taught to boys and girls, in order to 
 give them a graceful carriage. 
 
 * See 'Spectator,' No. 102, on the Fan Exercise. Old gentlemen 
 who had survived the fashion of wearing swords were known to regret 
 the disuse of that custom, because it put an end to one way of dis- 
 tinguishing those who had, from those who had not, been used to good 
 society. To wear the sword easily was an art which, like swimming 
 and skating, required - to be learned in youth. Children could practise 
 it early with their toy swords adapted to their size. 
 
 D 
 
34 A Memoir of 
 
 Hornpipes, cotillons, and reels, were occasionally 
 danced ; but the chief occupation of the evening was 
 the interminable country dance, in which all could 
 join. This dance presented a great show of enjoy- 
 ment, but it was not without its peculiar troubles. 
 The ladies and gentlemen were ranged apart from each 
 other in opposite rows, so that the facilities for flirta- 
 tion, or interesting intercourse, were not so great as 
 might have been desired by both parties. Much 
 heart-burning and discontent sometimes arose as to 
 who should stand above wlwm, and especially as to 
 tvho was entitled to the high privilege of calling and 
 leading off the first dance : and no little indignation 
 was felt at the lower end of the room when any of 
 the leading couples retired prematurely from their 
 duties, and did not condescend to dance up and 
 down the whole set We may rejoice that these 
 causes of irritation no longer exist ; and that if such 
 feelings as jealousy, rivalry, and discontent ever touch 
 celestial bosoms in the modem ball-room they must 
 arise from different and more recondite sources. 
 
 I am tempted to add a little about the difference 
 Of personal habits. It may be asserted as a general 
 truth, that less was left to the charge and discretion 
 of servants, and more was done, or superintended, by 
 the masters and mistresses. With regard to the mis- 
 tresses, it is, I believe, generally understood, that at 
 the time to which I refer, a hundred years ago, they 
 took a personal part in the higher branches of cook- 
 ery, as well as in the concoction of home-made wines, 
 and distilling of herbs for domestic medicines, which 
 are nearly allied to the same art Ladies did not dis- 
 
Jane Aitsten. 
 
 dain to spin the thread of which the household linen 
 was woven. Some ladies liked to wash with their 
 own hands their choice china after breakfast or tea. 
 In one of my earliest child's books, a little girl, the 
 daughter of a gentleman, is taught by her mother to 
 make her own bed before leaving her chamber. It 
 was not so much that they had not servants to do all 
 these things for them, as that they took an interest in 
 such occupations. And it must be borne in mind 
 how many sources of interest enjoyed by this genera- 
 tion were then closed, or very scantily opened to 
 ladies. A very small minority of them cared much 
 for literature or science. Music was not a very com- 
 mon, and drawing was a still rarer, accomplishment ; 
 needlework, in some form or other, was their chief 
 sedentary employment. 
 
 But I doubt whether the rising generation are 
 equally aware how much gentlemen also did for 
 themselves in those times, and whether some things 
 that I can mention will not be a surprise to them. 
 Two homely proverbs were held in higher estimation 
 in my early days than they are now — ' The master's 
 eye makes the horse fat ;' and, ' If you would be well 
 served, serve yourself.' Some gentlemen took plea- 
 sure in being their own gardeners, performing all the 
 scientific, and some of the manual, work themselves. 
 Well-dressed young men of my acquaintance, who had 
 their coat from a London tailor, would always brush 
 their evening suit themselves, rather than entrust 
 it to the carelessness of a rough servant, and to 
 the risks of dirt and grease in the kitchen ; for in 
 
$6 A Memoir of 
 
 those days servants' halls were not common in the 
 houses of the clergy and the smaller country gentry. 
 It was quite natural that Catherine Morland should 
 have contrasted the magnificence of the offices at 
 Northanger Abbey with the few shapeless pantries 
 in her father's parsonage. A young man who ex- 
 pected to have his things packed or unpacked for him 
 by a servant, when he travelled, would have been 
 thought exceptionally fine, or exceptionally lazy. 
 When my uncle undertook to teach me to shoot, his 
 first lesson was how to clean my own gun. It was 
 thought meritorious on. the evening of a hunting day, 
 to turn out after dinner, lanthorn in hand, and visit 
 the stable, to ascertain that the horse had been well 
 cared for. This was of the more importance, because, 
 previous to the introduction of clipping, about the 
 year 1820, it was a difficult and tedious work to make 
 a long-coated hunter dry and comfortable, and was 
 often very imperfectly done. Of course, such things 
 were not practised by those who had gamekeepers, 
 and stud-grooms, and plenty of well-trained servants; 
 but they were practised by many who were unequi- 
 vocally gentlemen, and whose grandsons, occupying 
 the same position in life, may perhaps be astonished 
 at being told that * suck things were! 
 
 I have drawn pictures for which my own expe- 
 rience, or what I heard from others in my youth, 
 have supplied the materials. Of course, they cannot 
 be universally applicable. Such details varied in 
 various circles, and were changed very gradually ; nor 
 can I pretend to tell how much of what I have said 
 
Jane Austen. 37 
 
 is descriptive of the family life at Steventon in Jant 
 Austen's youth. I am sure that the ladies there had 
 nothing to do with the mysteries of the stew-pot or 
 the preserving-pan ; but it is probable that their way. 
 of life differed a little from ours, and would have ap- 
 peared to us more homely. It may be that useful 
 articles, which would not now be produced in drawing- 
 rooms, were hemmed, and marked, and darned in the 
 old-fashioned parlour. But all this concerned only 
 the outer life ; there was as much cultivation and re- 
 finement of mind as now, with probably more studied 
 courtesy and ceremony of manner to visitors ; whilst 
 certainly in that family literary pursuits were not 
 neglected. 
 
 I remember to have heard of only two little things 
 different from modern customs. One was, that on 
 hunting mornings the young men usually took their 
 hasty breakfast in the kitchen. The early hour at 
 which hounds then met may account for this; and 
 probably the custom began, if it did not end, when 
 they were boys ; for they hunted at an early age, in a 
 scrambling sort of way, upon any pony or donkey 
 that they could procure, or, in default of such luxuries, 
 on foot. T have been told that Sir Francis Austen, 
 when seven years old, bought on his own account, it 
 must be supposed with his father's permission, a pony 
 for a guinea and a half; and after riding him with 
 great success for two seasons, sold him for a guinea 
 more. One may wonder how the child could have so 
 much money, and how the animal could have been 
 obtained for so little. The same authority informs 
 
38 A Memoir of 
 
 me that his first cloth suit was made from a scarlet 
 habit, which, according to the fashion of the times, 
 had been his mother's usual morning dress. If all 
 this is true, the future admiral of the British Fleet 
 must have cut a conspicuous figure in the hunting- 
 field. The other peculiarity was that, when the roads 
 were dirty, the sisters took long walks in pattens. 
 This defence against wet and dirt is now seldom seen. 
 The few that remain are banished from good society, 
 and employed only in menial work ; but a hundred 
 and fifty years ago they were celebrated in poetry, 
 and considered so clever a contrivance that Gay, in 
 his 'Trivia,' ascribes the invention to a god stimulated 
 by his passion for a mortal damsel, and derives the 
 name ' Patten' from ' Patty.' 
 
 The patten now supports each frugal dame, 
 Which from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name. 
 
 But mortal damsels have long ago discarded the 
 clumsy implement. First it dropped its iron ring and 
 became a clog ; afterwards it was fined down into the 
 pliant galoshe — lighter to wear and more effectual to 
 protect — a no less manifest instance of gradual im- 
 provement than Cowper indicates when he traces 
 through eighty lines of poetry his 'accomplished sofa' 
 back to the original three-legged stool. 
 
 As an illustration of the purposes which a patten 
 was intended to serve, I add the following epigram, 
 written by Jane Austen's uncle, Mr. Leigh Perrot, on 
 reading in a newspaper the marriage of Captain Foote 
 to Miss Patten : — 
 
Jane Austen. 39 
 
 Through the rough paths of life, with a patten your guard, 
 
 May you safely and pleasantly jog ; 
 May the knot never slip, nor the ring press too hard, 
 
 Nor the Foot find the Patten a clog. 
 
 At the time when Jane Austen lived at Steventon, 
 a work was carried on in the neighbouring cottages 
 which ought to be recorded, because it has long 
 ceased to exist. 
 
 Up to the beginning of the present century, poor 
 women found profitable employment in spinning flax 
 or wooL This was a better occupation for them than 
 straw plaiting, inasmuch as it was carried on at the 
 family hearth, and did not admit of gadding and gos- 
 siping about the village. The implement used was a 
 long narrow machine of wood, raised on legs, fur- 
 nished at one end with a large wheel, and at the other 
 with a spindle on which the flax or wool was loosely 
 wrapped, connected together by a loop of string. One 
 hand turned the wheel, while the other formed the 
 thread. The outstretched arms, the advanced foot, 
 the sway of the whole figure backwards and forwards, 
 produced picturesque attitudes, and displayed what- 
 ever of. grace or beauty the work-woman might pos- 
 sess.* Some ladies were fond of spinning, but they 
 worked in a quieter manner, sitting at a neat little 
 machine of varnished wood, like Tunbridge ware, 
 generally turned by the foot, with a basin of water at 
 hand to supply the moisture required for forming the 
 thread, which the cottager took by a more direct and 
 
 * Mrs. Gaskell, in her tale of 'Sylvia's Lovers,' declares that this 
 hand-spinning rivalled harp-playing in its gracefulness. 
 
40 A Memoir of 
 
 natural process from her own mouth. I remember 
 two such elegant little wheels in our own family. 
 
 It may be observed that this hand-spinning is the 
 most primitive of female accomplishments, and can 
 be traced back to the earliest times. Ballad poetry 
 and fairy tales are full of allusions to it The term 
 ' spinster ' still testifies to its having been the ordinary 
 employment of the English young woman. It was 
 the labour assigned to the ejected nuns by the rough 
 earl who said, ' Go spin, ye jades, go spin.' It was 
 the employment at which Roman matrons and Gre- 
 cian princesses presided amongst their handmaids. 
 Heathen mythology celebrated it in the three Fates 
 spinning and measuring out the thread of human 
 life. Holy Scripture honours it in those ' wise-hearted 
 women ' who ' did spin with their hands, and brought 
 that which they had spun ' for the construction of the 
 Tabernacle in the wilderness : and an old English 
 proverb carries it still farther back to the time ' when 
 Adam delved and Eve span.' But, at last, this time- 
 honoured domestic manufacture is quite extinct 
 amongst us — crushed by the power of steam, over- 
 borne by a countless host of spinning jennies, and I 
 can only just remember some of its last struggles for 
 existence in the Steventon cottages. 
 
Jane Austen. 4 1 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Early Compositions— Friends at Ashe — A very old Letter — Lines on tke 
 Death of Mrs. Lefroy— Observations on Jane Austen's Letter-writing 
 —Letters. 
 
 I KNOW little of Jane Austen's childhood. Her 
 mother followed a custom, not unusual in those days, 
 though it seems strange to us, of putting out her 
 babies to be nursed in a cottage in the village. The 
 infant was daily visited by one or both of its parents, 
 and frequently brought to them at the parsonage, but 
 the cottage was its home, and must have remained so 
 till it was old enough to run about and talk ; for I 
 know that one of them, in after life, used to speak of 
 his foster mother as ' Movie,' the name by which he 
 had called her in his infancy. It may be that the 
 contrast between the parsonage house and the best 
 class of cottages was not quite so extreme then as it 
 would be now, that the one was somewhat less luxuri- 
 ous, and the other less squalid. It would certainly 
 seem from the results that it was a wholesome and 
 invigorating system, for the children were all strong 
 and healthy. Jane was probably treated like the rest 
 in this respect In childhood every available oppor- 
 tunity of instruction was made use of. According to 
 the ideas of the time, she was well educated, though 
 
42 A Memoir of 
 
 not highly accomplished, and she certainly enjoyed 
 that important element of mental training, associating 
 at home with persons of cultivated intellect. It can- 
 not be doubted that her early years were bright and 
 happy, living, as she did, with indulgent parents, in a 
 cheerful home, not without agreeable variety of society. 
 To these sources of enjoyment must be added the first 
 stirrings of talent within her, and the absorbing in- 
 terest of original composition. It is impossible to say 
 at how early an age she began to write. There are 
 copy books extant containing tales some of which 
 must have been composed while she was a young girl, 
 as they had amounted to a considerable number by 
 the time she was sixteen. Her earliest stories are of 
 a slight and flimsy texture, and are generally intended 
 to be nonsensical, but the nonsense has much spirit 
 in it. They are usually preceded by a dedication of 
 mock solemnity to some one of her family. It would 
 seem that the grandiloquent dedications prevalent in 
 those days had not escaped her youthful penetration. 
 Perhaps the most characteristic feature in these «arly 
 productions is that, however puerile the matter, they 
 are always composed in pure simple English, quite 
 free from the over-ornamented style which might be 
 expected from so young a writer. One of her juvenile 
 effusions is given, as a specimen of the kind of tran- 
 sitory amusement which Jane was continually sup- 
 plying to the family party. 
 
Jane Austen. 43 
 
 THE MYSTERY. 
 
 AN UNFINISHED COMEDY. 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 To the Rev. George Austen. 
 
 Sir, — I humbly solicit your patronage to the following 
 Comedy, which, though an unfinished one, is, I flatter myself, 
 as complete a Mystery as any of its kind. 
 
 I am, Sir, your most humble Servant, 
 
 The Author. 
 
 THE MYSTERY, A COMEDY. 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Women. 
 
 C6L Elliott. 
 
 Fanny Elliott 
 
 Old Humbug. 
 
 Mrs. Humbug 
 
 Young Humbug. 
 
 and 
 
 Sir Edward Spangle 
 
 Daphne. 
 
 and 
 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 Scene I. — A Garden. 
 
 Enter Corydon. 
 
 Corydon. But hush : I am interrupted. [Exit Corydon. 
 
 Enter Old Humbug and his Son, talking. 
 
 Old Hum. It is for that reason that I wish you to follow 
 my advice. Are you convinced of its propriety ? 
 
44 -A Memoir of 
 
 Young Hum. I am, sir, and will certainly act in the 
 manner you have pointed out to me. 
 
 Old Mum. Then let us return to the house. [Exeunt. 
 
 Scene II. — A parlour in Humbug's house. Mrs. Humbug 
 and Fanny discovered at work. 
 
 Mrs. Hum. You understand me, my love 1 
 Fanny. Perfectly, ma'am : pray continue your narration. 
 Mrs. Hum. Alas ! it is nearly concluded ; for I have 
 nothing more to say on the subject 
 Fanny. Ah ! here is Daphne. 
 
 Enter Daphne. 
 
 Daphne. My dear Mrs. Humbug, how d'ye do? Oh I 
 Fanny, it is all over. 
 
 Fanny. Is it indeed ! 
 
 Mrs. Hum. I'm very sorry to hear it 
 
 Fanny. Then 'twas to no purpose that I 
 
 Daphne. None upon earth. 
 
 Mrs. Hum. And what is to become of ? 
 
 Daphne. Oh ! 'tis all settled. ( Whispers Mrs. Humbuc.) 
 
 Fanny. And how is it determined ? 
 
 Daphne. I'll tell you. ( Whispers Fanny.) 
 
 Mrs. Hum. And is he to ? 
 
 Daphne. I'll tell you all I know of the matter. ( Wliispers 
 Mrs. Humbug and Fanny.) 
 
 Fanny. Well, now I know everything about it, I'll go away. 
 
 Mrs. Hum.] . , r _ 
 
 „ ., ■ And so will I. \ Exeunt. 
 
 Daphne. L 
 
 Scene III. — The curtain rises, and discovers Sir Edward 
 Spangle reclined in an elegant attitude on a sofa fast asleep. 
 
 Enter Col. Elliott. . 
 Col. E. My daughter is not here, I see. There lies Sir 
 
Jane A us tat. 45 
 
 Edward. Shall I tell him the secret ? No, he'll certainly 
 blab it But he's asleep, and won't hear me ; — so I'll e'en 
 venture. {Goes up to Sir Edward, whispers him, and exit.) 
 
 END OF THE FIRST ACT. 
 FINIS. 
 
 Her own mature opinion of the desirableness of 
 such an early habit of composition is given in the 
 following words of a niece : — 
 
 " As I grew . older, my aunt would talk to me more 
 seriously of my reading and my amusements. I had 
 taken early to writing verses and stories, and I am 
 sorry to think how I troubled her with reading them. 
 She was very kind about it, and always had some 
 praise to bestow, but at last she warned me against 
 spending too much time upon them. She said — how 
 well I recollect it ! — that she knew writing stories was 
 a great amusement, and site thought a harmless one, 
 though many people, she was aware,. thought other- 
 wise ; but that at my age it would be bad for me to 
 be much taken up with my own compositions. Later 
 still — it was after she had gone to Winchester — she 
 sent me a message to this effect, that if I would take 
 her advice I should cease writing till I was sixteen ; that 
 she had herself often wished she had read more, and 
 written less in the corresponding years of her own 
 life.' As this niece was only twelve years old at the 
 time of her aunt's death, these words seem to imply 
 that the juvenile tales to which I have referred had, 
 some of them at least, been written in her childhood. 
 
46 A Memoir of 
 
 But between these childish effusions, and the com- 
 position of her living works, there intervened another 
 stage of her progress, during which she produced 
 some stories, not without merit, but which she never 
 considered worthy of publication. During this pre- 
 paratory period her mind seems to have been working 
 in a very different direction from that into which it 
 ultimately settled. Instead of presenting faithful 
 copies of nature, these tales were generally bur- 
 lesques, ridiculing the improbable events and ex- 
 aggerated sentiments which she had met with in 
 sundry silly romances. Something of this fancy is 
 to be found in ' Northanger Abbey,' but she soon left 
 it far behind in her subsequent course. It would 
 seem as if she were first taking note of all the faults 
 to be avoided, and curiously considering how she 
 ought not to write before she attempted to put forth 
 her strength in the right direction. The family have, 
 rightly, I think, declined to let these early works be 
 published. Mr. Shortreed observed very "pithily of 
 Walter Scott's early rambles on the borders, ' He was 
 makin' himsell a' the time ; but he didna ken, may be, 
 what he was about till years had passed. At first he 
 thought of little, I dare say, but the queerness and 
 the fun.' And so, in a humbler way, Jane Austen 
 was 'makin' hersell,' little thinking of future fame, 
 but caring only for ' the queerness and the fun ; * and 
 it would be as unfair to expose this preliminary pro- 
 cess to the world, as it would be to display all that 
 goes on behind the curtain of the theatre before it is 
 drawn up. 
 
Jane Austen. 47 
 
 It was, however, at Steventon that the real founda- 
 tions of her fame were laid. There some of her most 
 successful writing was composed at such an early age 
 as to make it surprising that so young a woman could 
 have acquired the insight into character, and the nice 
 observation of manners which they display. 'Pride 
 and Prejudice,' which some consider the most brilliant 
 of her novels, was the first finished, if not the first 
 begun. She began it in October 1796, before she was 
 twenty-one years old, and completed it in about ten 
 months, in August 1797. The title then intended for 
 it was ' First Impressions.' ' Sense and Sensibility ' 
 was begun, in its present form, immediately after the 
 completion of the former, in November 1797 ; but 
 something similar in story and character had been 
 written earlier under the title of ' Elinor and Mari- 
 anne ; ' and if, as is probable, a good deal of this 
 earlier production was retained, it must form the 
 earliest specimen of her writing that has been given 
 to the world. ' Northanger Abbey/ though not pre- 
 pared for the press till 1803, was certainly first com- 
 posed in 1798- 
 
 Amongst the most valuable neighbours of the 
 Austens were Mr. and Mrs. Lefroy and their family. 
 He was rector of the adjoining parish of Ashe ; she 
 was sister to Sir Egerton Brydges, to whom we are 
 indebted for the earliest notice of Jane Austen that 
 exists. In his autobiography, speaking of his visits 
 at Ashe, he writes thus : ' The nearest neighbours of 
 the Lefroys were the Austens of Steventon. I re- 
 member Jane Austen, the novelist, as a little child. 
 
48 A Memoir of 
 
 She was very intimate with Mrs. Lefroy, and much 
 encouraged by her. Her mother was a Miss Leigh, 
 whose paternal grandmother was sister to the first 
 Duke of Chandos. Mr. Austen was of a Kentish 
 family, of which several branches have been settled in 
 the Weald of Kent, and some are still remaining 
 there. When I knew Jane Austen, I never suspected 
 that she was an authoress ; but my eyes told me that 
 she was fair and handsome, slight and elegant, but 
 with cheeks a little too full.' One may wish that 
 Sir Egerton had dwelt rather longer on the subject 
 of these memoirs, instead of being drawn away by his 
 extreme love for genealogies to her great-grand- 
 mother and ancestors. That great-grandmother how- 
 ever lives in the family records as Mary Brydges, 
 a daughter of Lord Chandos, married in Westminster 
 Abbey to Theophilus Leigh of Addlestrop in 1698. 
 When a girl she had received a curious letter of 
 advice and reproof, written by her mother from Con- 
 stantinople. Mary, or ' Poll,' was remaining in Eng- 
 land with her grandmother, Lady Bernard, who seems 
 to have been wealthy and inclined to be too indul- 
 gent to her granddaughter. This letter is given. 
 Any such authentic document, two hundred years 
 old, dealing with domestic details, must possess some 
 interest This is remarkable, not only as a specimen 
 of the homely language in which ladies of rank then 
 expressed themselves, but from the sound sense 
 which it contains. Forms of expression vary, but 
 good sense and right principles are the same in the 
 nineteenth that they were in the seventeenth century. 
 
Jane Austen. 49 
 
 ' My dea'res Poll, 
 ' Y r letters by Cousin Robbert Serle arrived here 
 not before the 27 th of Aprill, yett were they hartily 
 wellcome to us, bringing y e joyful news which a great 
 while we had longed for of my most dear Mother & 
 all other relations & friends good health which I 
 beseech God continue to you all, & as I observe in 
 y™ to y r Sister Betty y e extraordinary kindness of 
 (as I may truly say) the best Moth 1 & G nd Moth r in 
 the world in pinching herself to make you fine, so I 
 cannot but admire her great good Housewifry in 
 affording you so very plentifull an allowance, & yett 
 to increase her Stock at the rate I find she hath 
 done ; & think I can never sufficiently mind you how 
 very much it is y r duty on all occasions to pay her 
 y r gratitude in all humble submission & obedience to 
 all her commands soe long as you live. I must tell 
 you 'tis to her bounty & care in y greatest measure 
 you are like to owe y r well living in this world, & as 
 you cannot but be very sensible you are an extra- 
 ordinary charge to her so it behoves you to take par- 
 ticular heed th' in y° whole course of y r life, you 
 render her a proportionable comfort, especially since 
 'tis y best way you can ever hope to make her such 
 amends as God requires of y r hands, but Poll! it 
 grieves me a little & y' I am forced to take notice of 
 & reprove you for some vaine expressions in y r lett™ 
 to y r Sister — you say concerning y r allowance "you 
 aime to bring y r bread & cheese even " in this I do 
 not discommend you, for a foule shame indeed it 
 would be should you out run the Constable having 
 
 E 
 
50 A Memoir of 
 
 . soe liberall a provision made you for y r maintenance 
 — but y e reason you give for y r resolution I cannot at 
 all approve for you say " to spend more you can't " 
 thats because you have it not to spend, otherwise it 
 seems you would. So y* 'tis y r Grandmoth" discre- 
 tion & not yours th* keeps you from extravagancy, 
 which plainly appears in y e close of y r sentence, say- 
 ing y* you think it simple covetousness to save out of 
 y ls but 'tis my opinion if you lay all on y r back 'tis 
 ten tymes a greater sin & shame th n to save some 
 what out of soe large an allowance in y r purse to 
 help you at a dead lift. Child, we all know our 
 beginning, but who knows his end ? Y e best use th' 
 can be made of fair weath r is to provide against foule 
 & 'tis great discretion & of noe small commenda- 
 tions for a young woman betymes to shew herself 
 housewifly & frugal. Y r Mother neither Maide nor 
 wife ever yett bestowed forty pounds a yeare on 
 herself & yett if you never fall und r a worse reputa- 
 tion in y e world th n she (I thank God for it) hath 
 hitherto done, you need not repine at it, & you can- 
 not be ignorant of y e difference th 4 was between my 
 fortune & what you are to expect You ought like- 
 wise to consider th* you have seven brothers & sisters 
 & you are all one man's children & therefore it is 
 very unreasonable that one should expect to be pre- 
 ferred in finery soe much above all y° rest for 'tis 
 impossible you should soe much mistake y r ffather's 
 condition as to fancy he is able to allow every one of 
 you forty pounds a yeare a piece, for such an allow- 
 ance with the charge of their diett over and above 
 
Jane Austen. 51 
 
 will amount to at least five hundred pounds a yeare, 
 a sum y r poor ffather can ill spare, besides doe but 
 bethink y r self what a ridiculous sight it will be when 
 y r grandmoth r & you come to us to have noe less th n 
 seven waiting gentlewomen in one house, for what 
 reason can you give why every one of y r Sist" should 
 not have every one of y m a Maide as well as you, & 
 though you may spare to pay y r maide's wages out 
 of y r allowance yett you take no care of y e unne- 
 cessary charge you put y r ffath r to in y r increase of 
 his family, whereas if it were not a piece of pride to 
 have y 6 name of keeping y r maide she y' waits on y r 
 good Grandmother might easily doe as formerly 
 you know she hath done, all y e business you have for 
 a maide unless as you grow old r you grow a veryer 
 Foole which God forbid ! 
 
 'Poll, you live in a place where you see great 
 plenty & splendour but let not y e allurements of 
 earthly pleasures tempt you to forget or neglect y e 
 duty of a good Christian in dressing y r bett r part 
 which is y r soule, as will best please God. I am not 
 against y r going decent & neate as becomes y r 
 ffathers daughter but to clothe y'self rich & be run- 
 ning into every gaudy fashion can never become y r 
 circumstances & instead of doing you creditt & 
 getting you a good prefer"' it is y* readiest way you 
 can take to fright all sober men from ever thinking of 
 matching th m selves with women that live above thy r 
 fortune, & if this be a wise way of spending money 
 judge you ! & besides, doe but reflect what an od 
 
52 A Memoir of 
 
 sight it will be to a stranger that comes to our house 
 to see y r Grandmoth' y r Moth r & all y r Sisters in a 
 plane dress & you only trick d up like a bartlemew- 
 babby — you know what sort of people those are th l 
 can't faire well but they must cry rost meate now 
 what effect could you imagine y r writing in such a 
 high straine to y r Sisters could have but eithe T to pro- 
 voke th m to envy you or murmur against us. I must 
 tell you neith r of y r Sisters have ever had twenty 
 pounds a yeare allowance from us yett, & yett they 1 
 dress hath not disparaged neith r th m nor us & without 
 incurring y e censure of simple covetousness they will 
 have some what to shew out of their saving that will 
 doe th m creditt & I expect y 4 you th* are theyr elder 
 Sister sh d rather sett th m examples of y e like nature 
 th u tempt th m from treading in y e steps of their good 
 Grandmoth* & poor Moth r . This is not half what 
 might be saide on this occasion but believing thee to 
 be a very good natured dutyfull child I sh d have 
 thought it a great deal too much but y* having in my 
 coming hither past through many most desperate 
 dangers I cannot forbear thinking & preparing my- 
 self for all events, & therefore not knowing how it 
 may please God to dispose of us I conclude it my 
 duty to God & thee my d r child to lay this matter 
 as home to thee as I could, assuring you my daily 
 prayers are not nor shall not be wanting that God 
 may give you grace always to remember to make 
 a right use of this truly affectionate counsell of 
 y r poor Moth r . & though I speak very plaine down- 
 right english to you yett I would not have, you doubt 
 
Jane Austen. 53 
 
 but that I love you as hartily as any child I have & 
 if you serve God and take good courses I promise 
 you my kindness to you shall be according to y r 
 own hart's desire, for you may be certain I can aime 
 at nothing in what I have now writ but y r real good 
 which to promote shall be y 6 study & care day & night 
 ' Of my dear Poll 
 ' thy truly affectionate Moth r . 
 
 'Eliza Ckandos. 
 
 ' Pera of Galata, May y« 6th 16S6. 
 
 ' P.S. — Thy ffath r & I send thee our blessing, & 
 all thy broth™ & sist™ they r service. Our harty & 
 affectionate service to my broth r & sist r Childe & all 
 my dear cozens. When you see my Lady Worster 
 & cozen Howlands pray present th m my most humble 
 service.' 
 
 This letter shows that the wealth acquired by trade 
 was already manifesting itself in contrast with the 
 straitened circumstances of some of the nobility. 
 Mary Brydges's ' poor ffather,' in whose household 
 economy was necessary, was the King of England's 
 ambassador at Constantinople ; the grandmother, 
 who lived in . ' great plenty and splendour,' was the 
 widow of a Turkey merchant. But then, as now, 
 it would seem, rank had the power of attracting and 
 absorbing wealth. 
 
 At Ashe also Jane became acquainted with a 
 member of the Lefroy family, who was still living 
 when I began these memoirs, a few months ago ; the 
 Right Hon. Thomas Lefroy, late Chief Justice of 
 
54 A Memoir of 
 
 Ireland. One must look back more than seventy 
 years to reach the time when these two bright young 
 persons were, for a short time, intimately acquainted 
 with each other, and then separated on their several 
 courses, never to meet again ; both destined to attain 
 some distinction in their different ways, one to sur- 
 vive the other for more than half a century, yet in his 
 extreme old age to remember and speak, as he some- 
 times did, of his former companion, as one to be 
 much admired, and not easily forgotten by those who 
 had ever known her. 
 
 . Mrs. Lefroy herself was a remarkable person. Her 
 rare endowments of goodness, talents, graceful person, 
 and engaging manners, were sufficient to secure her a 
 prominent place in any society into which she was 
 thrown; while her enthusiastic eagerness of disposi- 
 tion rendered her especially attractive to a clever and 
 lively girl. She was killed by a fall from her horse 
 on Jane's birthday, Dec. 16, 1804. The following 
 lines to her memory were written by Jane four years 
 afterwards, when she was thirty-three years old. 
 They are given, not for their merits as poetry, but to 
 -show how deep and lasting was the impression made 
 by the elder friend on the mind of the younger : — 
 
 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. 
 
Jane Austen. 55 
 
 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. 
 
$6 A Memoir of 
 
 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. 
 
 io. 
 '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. 
 
 n. 
 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 daugh- 
 ters to Bath. . Jane had been absent from home when 
 this resolution was taken ; and, as her father was 
 
Jane Austen. 57 
 
 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 continu- 
 ally 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. 
 
58 A Memoir of 
 
 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 en- 
 tirely 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 awk- 
 wardly. They are both covered with green baize, and 
 send their best love. The Pembroke has got its des- 
 tination 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 ; 
 
Jane Atisten. 59 
 
 and we are now in want only of the chiffonniere, 
 is neither finished nor come. So much for that sub- 
 ject ; 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 im- 
 mediately, attended by James,* 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 assur- 
 ance of its being really an accidental wound, which is 
 not only positively declared by Earle himself, but is 
 * James, the writer's eldest brother. 
 
6o A Memoir of 
 
 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.* 
 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 net 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 
 
 * The limb was saved. 
 
Jane Austen. 61 
 
 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 conse- 
 quence of the storm in this place, or in our imme- 
 diate 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 3^. 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 
 
62 A Memoir of 
 
 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 ist place, that I may have the plea- 
 sure 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 rperverse, 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.* 
 Mary mentioned to you yesterday poor Earle's unfor- 
 tunate 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 Cathe- 
 rine this morning there seems now to be a revival of 
 hope at Manydown, its continuance may be too rea- 
 sonably doubted. Mr. Heathcote,f however, who has 
 
 * The invitation, the ball dress, and some other things in this and 
 the preceding letter refer to a ball annually given at Hurstboume Park, 
 on the anniversary of the Earl of Portsmouth's marriage with his first 
 wife. He was the Lord Portsmouth whose eccentricities afterwards be- 
 came notorious, and the invitations, as well as other arrangements about 
 these balls, were of a peculiar character. 
 
 + The father of Sir William Heathcote, of Hursley, who was married 
 to a daughter of Mr. Bigg Wither, of Manydown, and lived in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
Jane Austen. 63 
 
 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 Eng- 
 land, 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. Stent* 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 1 801, after the removal from Steventon had been 
 
 * A very dull old lady, then residing with Mrs. Lloyd. 
 
64 A Memoir of 
 
 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 " Endy- 
 
Jane Austen. 6$ 
 
 mion" has not been plagued with any more prizes. 
 Charles spent three pleasant days in Lisbon. 
 
 ' They were very well satisfied with their royal 
 passenger,* 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 Ports- 
 mouth by Monday or Tuesday. He received my 
 letter, communicating our plans, before he left Eng- 
 land ; 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 30/. for his share of the pri- 
 vateer, and expects 10I. more ; but of what avail is it 
 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.' 
 
 * The Duke of Sussex, son of George III., married, without royal 
 consent, to the Lady Augusta Murray. 
 
 F 
 
66 A Memoir of 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Removal from Steventon — Residences at Bath and at Soutiamjitori— 
 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 North- 
 leigh 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 double 
 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 
 
Jane Austen. 67 
 
 this latter purpose very vigorously ; for it is recorded 
 of him that he slew twenty-six men of Kemaes, a dis- 
 trict 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 pro- 
 bably 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 
 
68 A Memoir of 
 
 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 : — 
 
 Extract from a letter from Jane Atisten to Jier Sister. 
 
 'Lyme, Friday, Sept 14(1804). 
 
 ' My dear Cassandra,— I take the first sheet of 
 fine striped paper to thank you for your letter from 
 Weymouth, and express my hopes of your being at 
 Ibthorp before this time. I expect to hear that you 
 reached it yesterday evening, being able to get as far 
 as Blandford on Wednesday. Your account of Wey- 
 mouth contains nothing which strikes me so forcibly 
 as there being no ice in the town. For every other 
 vexation I was in some measure prepared, and par- 
 ticularly for your disappointment in not seeing the 
 Royal Family go on board on Tuesday, having 
 already heard from Mr. Crawford that he had seen 
 you in the very act of being too late. But for there 
 
Jane A us ten. 69 
 
 being no ice, what could prepare me ! You found 
 my letter at Andover, I hope, yesterday, and have 
 now for many hours been satisfied that your kind 
 anxiety on my behalf was as much thrown away as 
 kind anxiety usually is. I continue quite well ; in 
 proof of which I have bathed again this morning. 
 It was absolutely necessary that I should have the 
 little fever and indisposition which I had : it has been 
 all the fashion this week in Lyme. We are quite 
 settled in our lodgings by this time, as you may 
 suppose, and everything goes on in the usual order. 
 The servants behave very well, and make no diffi- 
 culties, though nothing certainly can exceed the 
 inconvenience of the offices, except the general 
 dirtiness of the house and furniture, and' all its in- 
 habitants. I endeavour, as far as I can, to supply 
 your place, and be useful, and keep things in order. 
 I detect dirt in the water decanters, as fast as I can, 
 and keep everything as it was under your adminis- 
 tration. . . . The ball last night was pleasant, but 
 not full for Thursday. My father staid contentedly 
 till half-past nine (we went a little after eight), and 
 then walked home with James and a lanthorn, though 
 I believe the lanthorn was not lit, as the moon was 
 up ; but sometimes this lanthorn may be a great 
 convenience to him. My mother and I staid about 
 an hour later. Nobody asked me the two first 
 dances ; the two next I danced with Mr. Crawford, 
 and had I chosen to stay longer might have danced 
 with Mr. Granville, Mrs. Granville's son, whom my 
 dear friend Miss A. introduced to me, or with a new 
 
A Memoir of 
 
 odd-looking man who had been eyeing me for some 
 time, and at last, without any introduction, asked me 
 if I meant to dance again. I think he must be Irish 
 by his ease, and because I imagine him to belong to 
 the hon bl B.'s, who are son, and son's wife of an Irish 
 viscount, bold . queer-looking people, just fit to be 
 quality at Lyme. , I called yesterday morning (ought 
 it not in strict propriety to be termed yester-morn- 
 ing ?) on Miss A. and was introduced to her father 
 and mother. Like , other young ladies she is con- 
 siderably genteeler than her parents. Mrs. A. sat 
 darning a pair of stockings the whole of my visit. 
 But do not mention this at home, lest a warning 
 should act as an example. We afterwards walked 
 together for an hour on the Cobb ; she is very con- 
 verseable in a common way ; I do not. perceive wit 
 or genius, but she. has sense and some degree of 
 taste, and her manners are very engaging. She 
 seems to like people rather too easily. 
 
 ' Yours affect 1 *, 
 
 'J. A.' 
 
 Letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra at 
 Ibthorp, alluding to the sudden death of Mrs. Lloyd 
 at that place : — 
 
 '25 Gay Street (Bath), Monday, 
 
 'AprilS, 1805. 
 
 'My dear Cassandra, — Here is a day for you. 
 Did Bath or Ibthorp ever see such an 8th of April ? 
 It is March and April together ; the glare of the one 
 E^nd the warmth of the other. We do nothing but 
 
Jane Austen. yi 
 
 walk about. As far as your means will admit, I hope 
 you profit by such weather too. I dare say you are 
 already the better for change of place. We were out 
 again last night. Miss Irvine invited us, when I met 
 her in the Crescent, to drink tea with them, but I 
 rather declined it, having no idea that my mother 
 would be disposed for another evening visit there so 
 soon ; but when I gave her the message, I found her 
 very well inclined to go ; and accordingly, on leaving 
 Chapel, we walked to Lansdown. This morning we 
 have been to see Miss Chamberlaine look hot on 
 horseback. Seven years and four months ago we 
 went to the same riding-house to see Miss Lefroy's 
 performance!* What a different set are we now 
 moving in ! But seven years, I suppose, are enough 
 to change every pore of one's skin and every feeling 
 of one's mind. We did not walk long in the Crescent 
 yesterday. It was hot and not crowded enough ; so 
 we went into the field, and passed close by S. T. and 
 Miss S.f again. I have not yet seen her face, but 
 neither her dress nor air have anything of the dash or 
 stylishness which the Browns talked of; quite the 
 contrary ; indeed, her dress is not even smart, and her ■ 
 appearance very quiet Miss Irvine says she is never 
 speaking a word. Poor wretch ; I am afraid she is 
 en penitence. Here has been that excellent Mrs. 
 Coulthart calling, while my mother was out, and I 
 was believed to be so. I always respected her, as a 
 
 * Here is evidence that Jane Austen was acquainted with Bath before 
 it became her residence in 1801. See p. 23. 
 + A gentleman and lady lately engaged to be married. 
 
J2 A Memoir of 
 
 good-hearted friendly woman. And the Browns have 
 been here ; I find their affidavits on the table. The 
 "Ambuscade " reached Gibraltar on the 9th of March, 
 arid found all well ; so say the papers. We have had 
 no letters from anybody, but we expect to hear from 
 Edward to-morrow, and from you soon afterwards. 
 How happy they are at Godmersham now ! I shall be 
 very glad of a letter from Ibthorp, that I may know 
 how you all are, but particularly yourself. This is 
 nice weather for Mrs. J. Austen's going to Speen, and 
 I hope she will have a pleasant visit there. I expect 
 a prodigious account of the christening dinner ; per- 
 haps it brought you at last into the company of Miss 
 Dundas again. 
 
 ' Tuesday. — I received your letter last night, and 
 wish it may be soon followed by another to say that 
 all is over ; but I cannot help thinking that nature 
 will struggle again, and produce a revival. Poor 
 woman ! May her end be peaceful and easy as the 
 exit we have witnessed ! And I dare say it will. If 
 there is no revival, suffering must be all over ; even the 
 consciousness of existence, I suppose, was gone when 
 you wrote. The nonsense I have been writing in this 
 and in my last letter seems out of place at such a 
 time, but I will not mind it ; it will do you no harm, 
 and nobody else will be attacked by it. I am heartily 
 glad that you can speak so comfortably of your own 
 health and looks, though I can scarcely comprehend 
 the latter being really approved. Could travelling 
 fifty miles produce such an immediate change ? You 
 were looking very poorly here, and everybody seemed 
 
Jane Austen. J$ 
 
 sensible of it Is there a charm in a hack post- 
 chaise ? But if there were, Mrs. Craven's carriage 
 might have undone it all. I am much obliged to you 
 for the time and trouble you have bestowed on 
 Mary's cap, and am glad it pleases her ; but it will 
 prove a useless gift at present, I suppose. Will not 
 she leave Ibthorp on her mother's death ? As a 
 companion you are all that Martha can be supposed 
 to want, and in that light, under these circumstances, 
 your visit will indeed have been well timed. 
 
 ' Thursday. — I was not able to go on yesterday ; 
 all my wit and leisure were bestowed on letters to 
 Charles and Henry. To the former I wrote in conse- 
 quence of my mother's having seen in the papers that 
 the " Urania " was waiting at Portsmouth for the 
 convoy for Halifax. This is nice, as it is only three 
 weeks ago that you wrote by the " Camilla." I wrote 
 to Henry because I had a letter from him in which 
 he desired to hear from me very soon. His to me 
 was most affectionate and kind, as well as entertain- 
 ing ; there is no merit to him in tliat ; he cannot help 
 being amusing. He offers to meet us on the sea 
 coast, if the plan- of which Edward gave him some 
 hint takes place. Will not this be making the exe- 
 cution of such a plan more desirable and delightful 
 than ever ? He talks of the rambles we took together 
 last summer with pleasing affection. 
 
 ' Yours ever, 
 
 'J. A.' 
 
74 -A Memoir of 
 
 From the same to the same. 
 
 ' Gay St. Sunday Evening, 
 
 'April 21 (1805). 
 
 'My dear Cassandra, — I am much obliged to 
 you for writing to me again so soon; your letter 
 yesterday was quite an unexpected pleasure. Poor 
 Mrs. Stent ! it has been her lot to be always in the 
 way ; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time 
 we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, unequal 
 to anything, and unwelcome to everybody. . . . My 
 morning engagement was with the Cookes, and our 
 party consisted of George and Mary, a Mr. L., Miss 
 B., who had been with us at the concert, and the 
 youngest Miss W. Not Julia; we have done with 
 her ; she is very ill ; but Mary. Mary W.'s turn is 
 actually come to be grown up, and have a fine com- 
 plexion, and wear great square muslin shawls. I have 
 not expressly enumerated myself among the party, 
 but there I was, and my cousin George was very 
 kind, and talked sense to me every now and then, in 
 the intervals of his more animated fooleries with Miss 
 B., who is very young, and rather handsome, and 
 whose gracious manners, ready wit, and solid remarks, 
 put me somewhat in mind of my old acquaintance 
 L: L. There was a monstrous deal of stupid quizzing 
 and common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any 
 wit ; all that bordered on it or on sense came from 
 my cousin George, whom altogether I like very well. 
 Mr. B. seems nothing more than a tall young man. 
 My evening engagement and walk was with Miss A., 
 
Jane Austen. 75 
 
 who had called on me the day before, and gently up- 
 braided me in her turn with a change of manners to 
 her since she had been in Bath, or at least of late. 
 Unlucky me! that my notice should be of such con- 
 sequence, and my manners so bad ! She was so well 
 disposed, and so reasonable, that I soon forgave her, 
 and made this engagement with her in proof of it. 
 She is really an agreeable girl, so I think I may like 
 her; and her great want of a companion at home, 
 which may well make any tolerable acquaintance im- 
 portant to her, gives her another claim on my attention. 
 I shall endeavour as much as possible to keep my 
 intimacies in their proper place, and prevent their 
 clashing. Among so many friends, it will be well if I 
 do not get into a scrape ; and now here is Miss 
 Blashford come. I should have gone distracted if the 
 Bullers had staid. . . . When I tell you I have been 
 visiting a countess this morning, you will immediately, 
 with great justice, but no truth, guess it to be Lady 
 Roden. No : it is Lady Leven, the mother of Lord 
 Balgonie. On receiving a message from Lord and 
 Lady Leven through the Mackays, declaring their 
 intention of waiting on us, we thought it right to go 
 to them. I hope we have not done too much, but the 
 friends and admirers of Charles must be attended to. 
 They seem very reasonable, good sort of people, very 
 civil, and full of his praise.* We were shewn at first 
 into an empty drawing-room, and presently in came 
 
 * It seems that Charles Austen, then first lieutenant of the ' Endy- 
 mion,' had had an opportunity of shewing attention and kindness to 
 some of Lord Leven's family. 
 
?6 A Memoir of 
 
 his lordship, not knowing who we were, to apologise 
 for the servant's mistake, and to say himself what was 
 untrue, that Lady Leven was not within. He is a 
 tall gentlemanlike looking man, with spectacles, and 
 rather deaf. After sitting with him ten minutes we 
 walked away; but Lady Leven coming out of the 
 dining parlour as we passed the door, we were obliged 
 to attend her back to it, and pay our visit over again. 
 She is a stout woman, with a very handsome face. 
 By this means we had the pleasure of hearing Charles's 
 praises twice over. They think themselves exces- 
 sively obliged to him, and estimate him so highly as 
 to wish Lord Balgonie, when he is quite recovered, to 
 go out to him. There is a pretty little Lady Marianne 
 of the party, to be shaken hands with, and asked if 
 she remembered Mr. Austen. . . . 
 
 ' I shall write to Charles by the next packet, unless 
 you tell me in the meantime of your intending to 
 do it 
 
 ' Believe me, if you chuse,. 
 
 'Y r aff te Sister.'. 
 
 Jane did not estimate too highly the ' Cousin George * 
 mentioned in the foregoing letter; who might easily 
 have been superior in sense and wit to the rest of the 
 party. He was the Rev. George Leigh Cooke, long 
 known and respected at Oxford, where he held im- 
 portant offices, and had the privilege of helping to 
 form the minds of men more eminent than himself. 
 As Tutor in Corpus Christi College, he became in- 
 structor to some of the most distinguished under- 
 
Jane A listen. 
 
 graduates of that time : amongst others to Dr. Arnold, 
 the Rev. John Keble, and Sir John Coleridge. The 
 latter has mentioned him in terms of affectionate 
 regard, both in his Memoir of Keble, and in a letter 
 which appears in Dean Stanley's 'Life of Arnold.' 
 Mr. Cooke was also an impressive preacher of earnest 
 awakening sermons. I remember to have heard it 
 observed by some of my undergraduate friends that, 
 after all, there was more good to be got from George 
 Cooke's plain sermons than from much of the more 
 laboured oratory of the University pulpit. He was 
 frequently Examiner in the schools, and occupied the 
 chair of the Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, 
 from 1810 to 1853. 
 
 Before the end of 1805, the little family party 
 removed to Southampton. They resided in a com- 
 modious old-fashioned house in a corner of Castle 
 Square. 
 
 I have no letters of my aunt, nor any other record 
 of her, during her four years' residence at Southamp- 
 ton ; and though I now began to know, and, what 
 was the same thing, to love her myself, yet my 
 observations were only those of a young boy, and 
 were not capable of penetrating her character, or 
 estimating her powers. I have, however, a lively 
 recollection of some local circumstances at South- 
 ampton, and as they refer chiefly to things which 
 have been long ago swept away, I will record them. 
 My grandmother's house had a pleasant garden, 
 bounded on one side by the old city walls ; the top 
 of this wall was sufficiently wide to afford a pleasant 
 
J% A Memoir of 
 
 walk, with an extensive view, easily accessible to 
 
 ladies by steps. This must have been a part of the 
 
 identical walls which witnessed the embarkation of 
 
 Henry V. before the battle of Agincourt, and the 
 
 detection of the conspiracy of Cambridge, Scroop, 
 
 and Grey, which Shakspeare has made so picturesque ; 
 
 when, according to the chorus in Henry V., the citizens 
 
 saw 
 
 The well-appointed King at Hampton Pier 
 Embark his royalty. 
 
 Among the records of the town of Southampton, 
 they have a minute and authentic account, drawn up 
 at that time, of the encampment of Henry V. near 
 the town, before his embarkment for France. It is 
 remarkable that the place where the army was en- 
 camped, then a low level plain, is now entirely covered 
 by the sea, and is called Westport* At that time 
 Castle Square was occupied by a fantastic edifice, too 
 large for the space in which it stood, though too small 
 to accord well with its castellated style, erected by the 
 second Marquis of Lansdowne, half-brother to the 
 well-known statesman, who succeeded him in the title. 
 The Marchioness had a light phaeton, drawn by six, 
 and sometimes by eight little ponies, each pair de- 
 creasing in size, and becoming lighter in colour, 
 through all the grades of dark brown, light brown, 
 bay, and chestnut, as it was placed farther away from 
 the carriage. The two leading pairs were managed 
 by two boyish postilions, the two pairs nearest to the 
 
 - * See Wharton's note to Johnson and Steevens' Shakspeare. 
 
Jane Austen. 79 
 
 carriage were driven in hand. It was a delight to me 
 to look down from the window and see this fairy equi- 
 page put together ; for the premises of this castle were 
 so contracted that the whole process went on in the 
 little space that remained of the open square. Like 
 other fairy works, however, it all proved evanescent 
 Not only carriage and ponies, but castle itself, soon 
 vanished away, ' like the baseless fabric of a vision.' 
 On the death of the Marquis in 1809, the castle was 
 pulled down. Few probably remember its existence ; 
 and any one who might visit the place now would 
 wonder how it ever could have stood there. 
 
 In 1809 Mr. Knight was able to offer his mother 
 the choice of two houses on his property ; one near 
 his usual residence at Godmersham Park in Kent ; 
 the other near Chawton House, his occasional resi- 
 dence in Hampshire. The latter was chosen ; and in 
 that year the mother and daughters, together with 
 Miss Lloyd, a near connection who lived with them, 
 settled themselves at Chawton Cottage. 
 
 Chawton may be called the second, as well as the 
 last home of Jane Austen ; for during the temporary 
 residences of the party at Bath and Southampton she 
 was only a sojourner in a strange land ; but here she 
 found a real home amongst her own people. It so 
 happened that during her residence at Chawton cir- 
 cumstances brought several of her brothers and their 
 families within easy distance of the house. Chawton 
 must also be considered the place most closely con- 
 nected with her career as a writer; for there it was 
 that, in the maturity of her mind, she either wrote or 
 
8o A Memoir of 
 
 rearranged, and prepared for publication the books by 
 which she has become known to the world. This was 
 the home where, after a few years, while still in the 
 prime of life, she began to droop and wither away, and 
 which she left only in the last stage of her illness, 
 yielding to the persuasion of friends hoping against 
 hope. 
 
 This house stood in the village of Chawton, about 
 a mile from Alton, on the right hand side, just where 
 the road to Winchester branches off from that to 
 Gosport It was so close to the road that the front 
 door opened upon it ; while a very narrow enclosure, 
 paled in on each side, protected the building from 
 danger of collision with any runaway vehicle. I 
 believe it had been originally built for an inn, for 
 which purpose it was certainly well situated. After- 
 wards it had been occupied by Mr. Knight's steward ; 
 but by some additions to the house, and some judi- 
 cious planting and skreening, it was made a pleasant 
 and commodious abode. Mr. Knight was experienced 
 and adroit at such arrangements, and this was a 
 labour of love to him. A good-sized entrance and 
 two sitting-rooms made the length of the house, all 
 intended originally to look upon the road, but the 
 large drawing-room window was blocked up and 
 turned into a book-case, and another opened at the 
 side which gave to view only turf and trees, as a high 
 wooden fence and hornbeam hedge shut out the Win- 
 chester road, which skirted the whole length of the 
 little domain. Trees were planted each side to form 
 a shrubbery walk, carried round the enclosure, which 
 
Jane Austen. 8 1 
 
 gave a sufficient space for ladies' exercise. There 
 was a pleasant irregular mixture of hedgerow, and 
 gravel walk, and orchard, and long grass for mowing, 
 arising from two or three little enclosures having been 
 thrown together. The house itself was quite as good 
 as the generality of parsonage-houses then were, and 
 much in the same style ; and was capable of receiv- 
 ing other members of the family as frequent visitors. 
 It was sufficiently well furnished ; everything inside 
 and out was kept in good repair, and it was alto- 
 gether a comfortable and ladylike establishment, 
 though the means which supported it were not large. 
 I give this description because some interest is 
 generally taken in the residence of a popular writer. 
 Cowper's unattractive house in the street of Olney 
 has been pointed out to visitors, and has even at- 
 tained the honour of an engraving in Southey's 
 edition of his works : but I cannot recommend any 
 admirer of Jane Austen to undertake a pilgrimage 
 to this spot The building indeed still stands, but it 
 has lost all that gave it its character. After the death 
 of Mrs. Cassandra Austen, in 1845, it was divided 
 into tenements for labourers, and the grounds re- 
 verted to ordinary uses. 
 
82 A Memoir of 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Description of fane Austen' s person, character, and tastes. 
 
 As my memoir has now reached the period when I 
 saw a great deal of my aunt, and was old enough to 
 understand ■ something of her value, I will here at- 
 tempt a description of her person, mind, and habits. 
 In person she was very attractive; her figure was 
 rather tall and slender, her step light and firm, and 
 her whole appearance expressive of health and ani- 
 mation. In complexion she was a clear brunette 
 with a rich colour ; she had full round cheeks, with 
 mouth and nose small and well formed, bright hazel 
 •eyes, and brown hair forming natural curls close 
 round her face. If not so regularly handsome as her 
 sister, yet her countenance had a peculiar charm of 
 its own to the eyes of most beholders. At the time 
 of which I am now writing, she never was seen, either 
 morning or evening, without a cap ; I believe that 
 she and her sister were generally thought to have 
 taken to the garb of middle age earlier than their 
 years or their looks required ; and that, though re- 
 markably neat in their dress as in all their ways, they 
 were scarcely sufficiently regardful of the fashionable, 
 or the becoming. 
 
yane Austen. 83 
 
 She was not highly accomplished according to the 
 present standard. Her sister drew well, and it is 
 from a drawing of hers that the likeness prefixed to 
 this volume has been taken. Jane herself was fond 
 of music, and had a sweet voice, both in singing and 
 in conversation ; in her youth she had received some 
 instruction on the pianoforte; and at Chawton she 
 practised daily, chiefly before breakfast. I believe 
 she did so partly that she might not disturb the rest 
 of the party who were less fond of music. In the 
 evening she would sometimes sing, to her own ac- 
 companiment, some simple old songs, the words and 
 airs of which, now never heard, still linger in my 
 memory. 
 
 She read French with facility, and knew something 
 of Italian. In those days German was no more 
 thought of than Hindostanee, as part of a lady's 
 education. In history she followed the old guides — 
 Goldsmith, Hume, and Robertson. Critical enquiry 
 into the usually received statements of the old his- 
 torians was scarcely begun. The history of the early 
 kings of Rome had not yet been dissolved into 
 legend. Historic characters lay before the reader's 
 eyes in broad light or shade, not much broken up by 
 details. The virtues of King Henry VIII. were yet 
 undiscovered, nor had much light been thrown on the 
 inconsistencies of Queen Elizabeth ; the one was held 
 to be an unmitigated tyrant, and an embodied Blue 
 Beard; the other a perfect model of wisdom and 
 policy. Jane, when a girl, had strong political 
 opinions, especially about the affairs of the sixteenth 
 
84 A Memoir of 
 
 and seventeenth centuries. She was a vehement de- 
 fender of Charles I. and his grandmother Mary; but 
 I think it was rather from an impulse of feeling than 
 from any enquiry into the evidences by which they 
 must be condemned or acquitted. As she grew up, 
 the politics of the day occupied very little of her 
 attention, but she probably shared the feeling of 
 moderate Toryism which prevailed in her family. 
 She was well acquainted with the old periodicals 
 from the 'Spectator' downwards. Her knowledge 
 of Richardson's works was such as no one is likely 
 again to acquire, now that the multitude and the 
 merits of our light literature have called off the 
 attention of readers from that great master. Every 
 circumstance narrated in Sir Charles Grandison, all 
 that was ever said or done in the cedar parlour, was 
 familiar to her ; and the wedding days of Lady L. 
 and Lady G. were as well remembered as if they had 
 been living friends. Amongst her favourite writers, 
 Johnson in prose, Crabbe in verse, and Cowper in 
 both, stood high. It is well that the native good 
 taste of herself and of those with whom she lived, 
 saved her from the snare into which a sister novelist 
 had fallen, of imitating the grandiloquent style of 
 Johnson. She thoroughly enjoyed Crabbe; perhaps 
 on account of a certain resemblance to herself in 
 minute and highly finished detail ; and would some- 
 times say, in jest, that, if she ever married at all, 
 she could fancy being Mrs. Crabbe ; looking on the 
 author quite as an abstract idea, and ignorant and 
 regardless what manner of man he might be. Scott's 
 
Jane Austen. 85 
 
 poetry gave her great pleasure ; she did not live to 
 make much acquaintance with his novels. Only three 
 of them were published before her death ; but it will 
 be seen by the following extract from one of her 
 letters, that she was quite prepared to admit the 
 merits of ' Waverley'; and it is remarkable that, living, 
 as she did, far apart from the gossip of the literary 
 world, she should even then have spoken so confi- 
 dently of his being the author of it : — 
 
 ' Walter Scott has no business to write novels ; 
 especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame 
 and profit enough as a poet, and ought not to be 
 taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do 
 not mean to like " Waverley," if I can help it, but I 
 fear I must I am quite determined, however, not to 
 
 be pleased with Mrs. 's, should I ever meet with 
 
 it, which I hope I may not. I think I can be stout 
 against anything written by her. I have made up my 
 mind to like no novels really, but Miss Edgeworth's, 
 E.'s, and my own.' 
 
 It was not, however, what she knew, but what she 
 was, that distinguished her from others. I cannot 
 better describe the fascination which she exercised 
 over children than by quoting the words of two ol 
 her nieces. One says : — 
 
 ' As a very little girl I was always creeping up to 
 aunt Jane, and following her whenever I could, in the 
 house and out of it I might not have remembered 
 this but for the recollection of my mother's telling me 
 privately, that I must not be troublesome to my aunt 
 Her first charm to children was great sweetness of 
 
86 A Memoir of 
 
 manner. She seemed to love you, and you loved her 
 in return. This, as well as I can now recollect, was 
 what I felt in my early days, before I was old enough 
 to be amused by her cleverness. But soon came 
 the delight of her playful talk. She could make 
 everything amusing to a child. Then, as I got older, 
 when cousins came to share the entertainment, she 
 would tell us the most delightful stories, chiefly of 
 Fairyland, and her fairies had all characters of their 
 own. The tale was invented, I am sure, at the mo- 
 ment, and was continued for two or three days, if 
 occasion served.' 
 
 Again : ' When staying at Chawton, with two of 
 her other nieces, we often had amusements in which 
 my aunt was very helpful. She was the one to whom 
 we always looked for help. She would furnish us with 
 what we wanted from her wardrobe ; and she would 
 be the entertaining visitor in our make-believe house. 
 She amused us in various ways. Once, I remember, 
 in giving a conversation as between myself and my 
 two cousins, supposing we were all grown up, the day 
 «fter a balL' 
 
 Very similar is the testimony of another niece : — 
 ' Aunt Jane was the general favourite with children ; 
 her ways with them being so playful, and her long 
 circumstantial stories so delightful. These, were con- 
 tinued from time to time, and were begged for on all 
 possible and impossible occasions ; woven, as she pro- 
 ceeded, out of nothing but her own happy talent for 
 invention. Ah! if but one of them could be reco- 
 vered \ And again, as I grew older, when the ori- 
 
Jane Austen. 87 
 
 ginal seventeen years between our ages seemed to 
 shrink to seven, or to nothing, it comes back to me 
 now how strangely I missed her. It had become so 
 much a habit with me to put by things in my mind 
 with a reference to her, and to say to myself, I shall 
 keep this for aunt Jane.' 
 
 A nephew of hers used to observe that his visits to 
 Chawton, after the death of his aunt Jane, were always 
 a disappointment to him. From old associations he 
 could not help expecting to be particularly happy in 
 that house ; and never till he got there could he rea- 
 lise to himself how all its peculiar charm was gone. 
 It was not only that the chief light in the house was 
 quenched, but that the loss of it had cast a shade over 
 the spirits of the survivors. Enough has been said to 
 show her love for children, and her wonderful power 
 of entertaining them ; but her friends of all ages felt 
 her enlivening influence. Her unusually quick sense 
 of the ridiculous led her to play with all the common- 
 places of everyday life, whether as regarded persons 
 or things ; but she never played with its serious duties 
 or responsibilities, nor did she ever turn individuals 
 into ridicule. With all her neighbours in the village 
 she was on friendly, though not on intimate, terms. 
 She took a kindly interest in all their proceedings, 
 and liked to hear about them. They often served for 
 her amusement ; but it was her own nonsense that 
 gave zest to the gossip. She was as far as possible 
 from being censorious or satirical. She never abused 
 them or quizzed them — tkatvms the word of the day ; 
 an ugly word, now obsolete ; and the ugly practice 
 
A Memoir of 
 
 which it expressed is much less prevalent now than it 
 was then. The laugh which she occasionally raised 
 was by imagining for her neighbours, as she was 
 equally ready to imagine for her friends or herself, 
 impossible contingencies, or by relating in prose or 
 verse some trifling anecdote coloured to her own 
 fancy, or in writing a fictitious history of what they 
 were supposed to have said or done, which could 
 deceive nobody. 
 
 The following specimens may be given of the live- 
 liness of mind which imparted an agreeable flavour 
 both to her correspondence and her conversation : — 
 
 On reading in the newspapers the marriage of 
 Mr. Gell to Miss Gill, of Eastbourne. 
 
 At Eastbourne Mr. Gell, From being perfectly well, 
 Became dreadfully ill, For love of Miss GilL 
 So he said, with some sighs, I'm the slave of your iis ; 
 Oh, restore, if you please, By accepting my ees. 
 
 On the marriage of a middle-aged Flirt with a 
 Mr. Wake, whom, it was supposed, she would 
 scarcely have accepted in her youth. 
 
 Maria, good-humoured, and handsome, and tall, 
 For a husband was at her last stake ; 
 
 And having in vain danced at many a ball, 
 Is now happy to jump at a Wake. 
 
 ' We were all at the play last night to see Miss 
 O'Neil in Isabella. I do not think she was quite 
 equal to my expectation. I fancy I want something 
 more than can be. Acting seldom satisfies me. I 
 
Jane Austen. 89 
 
 took two pockethandkerchiefs, but had very little 
 occasion for either. She is an elegant creature, how- 
 ever, and hugs Mr. Young delightfully.' 
 
 ' So, Miss B. is actually married, but I have never 
 seen it in the papers ; and one may as well be single 
 if the wedding is not to be in print' 
 
 Once, too, she took it into her head to write the 
 following mock panegyric on a young friend, who 
 really was clever and handsome : — 
 
 In measured verse I'll now rehearse 
 
 The charms of lovely Anna : 
 And, first, her mind is unconfined 
 
 Like any vast savannah. 
 
 2. 
 
 Ontario's lake may fitly speak 
 
 Her fancy's ample bound : 
 Its circuit may, on strict survey 
 
 Five hundred miles be found 
 
 3- 
 Her wit descends on foes and friends 
 
 'Like famed Niagara's Fall ; 
 And travellers gaze in wild amaze, 
 
 And listen, one and alL 
 
 4- 
 
 Her judgment sound, thick, black, profound, 
 
 Like transatlantic groves, 
 Dispenses aid, and friendly shade 
 
 To all that in it roves. 
 
90 A Memoir of 
 
 5- 
 If thus her mind to be defined 
 
 America exhausts, 
 And all that's grand in that great land 
 
 In similes it costs — 
 
 6. 
 
 Oh how can I her person try 
 
 To image, and portray ? 
 How paint the face, the form how trace 
 
 In which those virtues lay ? 
 
 7- 
 Another world must be unfurled, 
 
 Another language known, 
 Ere tongue or sound can publish round 
 
 Her charms of flesh and bone. 
 
 I believe that all this nonsense was nearly extem- 
 pore, and that the fancy of drawing the images from 
 America arose at the moment from the obvious rhyme 
 which presented itself in the first stanza. 
 
 The following extracts are from letters addressed 
 to a niece who was at that time amusing herself by 
 attempting a novel, probably never finished, 'certainly 
 never published, and of which I know nothing but 
 what these extracts tell. They show the good-natured 
 sympathy and encouragement which the aunt, then 
 herself occupied in writing ' Emma,' could give to the 
 less matured powers of the niece. They bring out 
 incidentally some of her opinions concerning compo- 
 sitions of that kind : — 
 
Jane Austen. 91 
 
 Extracts. 
 
 ' Chawton, Aug. 10, 1814. 
 
 ' Your aunt C. does not like desultory novels, and 
 is rather fearful that yours will be too much so ; that 
 there will be too frequent a change from one set of 
 people to another, and that circumstances will be 
 sometimes introduced, of apparent consequence, which 
 will lead to nothing. It will not be so great an objec- 
 tion to me. I allow much more latitude than she 
 does, and think nature and spirit cover many sins of 
 a wandering story. And people in general do not 
 care much about it, for your comfort. . . .' 
 
 'Sept 9. 
 
 ' You are now collecting your people delightfully, 
 getting them exactly into such a spot as is the delight 
 of my life. Three or four families in a country vil- 
 lage is the very thing ±0 work on ; and I hope you 
 will write a great deal more, and make full use of 
 them while they are so very favourably arranged.' 
 
 « Sept 28. 
 ' Devereux Forrester being ruined by his vanity is 
 very good : but I wish you would not let him plunge 
 into a " vortex of dissipation." I do not object to the 
 tiling, but I cannot bear the expression : it is such 
 thorough novel slang ; and so old that I dare say 
 Adam met with it in the first novel that he opened.' 
 
92 A Memoir of 
 
 ' Hans Place (Nov. 1814). 
 ' I have been very far from finding your book an 
 evil, I assure you. I read it immediately, and with 
 great pleasure. Indeed, I do think you get on very 
 fast. I wish other people of my acquaintance could 
 compose as rapidly. Julian's history was quite a 
 surprise to me. You had not very long known it 
 .yourself, I suspect; but I have no objection to make 
 to the circumstance ; it is very well told, and his 
 having been in love with the aunt gives Cecilia an 
 additional interest with him. I like the idea ; a very 
 proper compliment to an aunt! I rather imagine, 
 indeed, that nieces are seldom chosen but in compli- 
 ment to some aunt or other. I dare say your husband 
 was in love with me once, and would never have 
 thought of you if he had not supposed me dead of a 
 scarlet fever.' 
 
 Jane Austen was successful in everything that she 
 attempted with her fingers. None of us could throw 
 spilikins in so perfect a circle, or take them off with 
 so steady a hand. Her performances with cup and 
 ball were marvellous. The one used at Chawton was 
 an easy one, and she has been known to catch it on 
 the point above an hundred times in succession, till her 
 hand was weary. She sometimes found a resource in 
 that simple game, when unable, from weakness in her 
 eyes, to read or write long together. A specimen of her 
 Clear strong handwriting is here given. Happy would 
 the compositors for the press be if they had always so 
 legible a manuscript to work from. But the writing 
 
Jane Austen. 93 
 
 •was not the only part of her letters which showed 
 superior handiwork. In those days there was an art 
 in folding and sealing. No adhesive envelopes made 
 all easy. Some people's letters always looked loose 
 and untidy ; but her paper was sure to take the right 
 folds, and her sealing-wax to drop into the right place. 
 Her needlework both plain and ornamental was ex- 
 cellent, and might almost have put a sewing machine 
 to shame. She was considered especially great in 
 satin stitch. She spent much time in these occupations, 
 and some of her merriest talk was over clothes which 
 she and her companions were making, sometimes for 
 themselves, and sometimes for the poor. There still 
 remains a curious specimen of her needlework made 
 for a sister-in-law, my mother. In a very small bag 
 is deposited a little rolled up housewife, furnished with 
 minikin needles and fine thread. In the housewife is 
 a tiny pocket, and in the pocket is enclosed a slip of 
 paper, on which, written as with a crow quill, are these 
 lines : — 
 
 This little bag, I hope, will prove 
 
 To be not vainly made ; 
 For should you thread and needles want, 
 
 It will afford you aid. 
 
 And, as we are about to part, 
 
 'T will serve another end : 
 For, when you look upon this bag, 
 
 You'll recollect your friend. 
 
 It is the kind of article that some benevolent fairy 
 might be supposed to give as a reward to a dili- 
 
Q4 -A Memoir of 
 
 gent little girL The whole is of flowered silk, and 
 having been never used and carefully preserved, it is 
 as fresh and bright as when it was first made seventy- 
 years ago ; and shows that the same hand which 
 painted so exquisitely with the pen could work as 
 delicately with the needle. 
 
 I have collected some of the bright qualities which 
 shone, as it were, on the surface of Jane Austen's 
 character, and attracted most notice ; but underneath 
 them there lay the strong foundations of sound sense 
 and judgment, rectitude of principle, and delicacy of 
 feeling, qualifying her equally to advise, assist, or 
 amuse. She, was, in fact, as ready to comfort the 
 unhappy, or to nurse . the sick, as she was to laugh 
 and jest with the light-hearted. Two of her nieces 
 were grown up, and one of them was married, before 
 she was taken away from them. As their minds be- 
 came more matured, they were admitted into closer 
 intimacy with her, and learned more of her graver 
 thoughts ; they know what a sympathising friend and 
 judicious adviser they found her to be in many little 
 difficulties and doubts of early womanhood. 
 
 I do not venture to speak of her religious prin- 
 ciples : that is a subject on which she herself was 
 more inclined to think and act than to talk, and I shall 
 imitate her reserve ; satisfied to have shown how much 
 of Christian love and humility abounded in her heart, 
 without presuming to lay bare the roots whence those 
 graces grew. Some little insight, however, into these 
 deeper recesses of the heart must be given, when we 
 come to speak of her death. 
 
Jane Austen. 95 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Habits of Composition resumed after a long interval — First publication — 
 The interest taken by the Author in the success of her Works. 
 
 It may seem extraordinary that Jane Austen should 
 have written so little during the years that elapsed 
 between leaving Steventon and settling at Chawton ; 
 especially when this cessation from work is contrasted 
 with her literary activity both before and after that 
 period. It might rather have been expected that fresh 
 scenes and new acquaintance would have called forth 
 her powers ; while the quiet life which the family led 
 both at Bath and Southampton must have afforded 
 abundant leisure for composition ; but so it was that 
 nothing which I know of, certainly nothing which the 
 public have seen, was completed in either of those 
 places. I can only state the fact, without assigning any 
 cause for it ; but as soon as she was fixed in her second 
 home, she resumed the habits of composition which 
 had been formed in her first, and continued them to 
 the end of her life. The first year of her residence 
 at Chawton seems to have been devoted to revising 
 and preparing for the press ' Sense and Sensibility,' 
 and 'Pride and Prejudice'; but between February 
 181 1 and August 18 16, she began and completed 
 * Mansfield Park,' ' Emma,' and ' Persuasion/ so that 
 the last five years of her life produced the same 
 
96 A Memoir of 
 
 number of novels with those which had been written 
 in her early youth. How she was able to effect all 
 this is surprising, for she had no separate study to 
 retire to, and most of the work must have been done 
 in the general sitting-room, subject to all kinds of 
 casual interruptions. She was careful that her occu- 
 pation should not be suspected by servants, or visitors, 
 or any persons beyond her own family party. She 
 wrote upon small sheets of paper which could easily 
 be put away, or covered with a piece of blotting 
 paper. There was, between the front door and the 
 offices, a swing door which creaked when it was 
 opened ; but she objected to having this little incon- 
 venience remedied, because it gave her notice when 
 anyone was coming. She was not, however, troubled 
 with companions like her own Mrs. Allen in ' North- 
 anger Abbey,' whose ' vacancy of mind and incapacity 
 for thinking were such that, as she never talked a 
 great deal, so she could never be entirely silent ; and 
 therefore, while she sat at work, if she lost her needle, 
 or broke her thread, or saw a speck of dirt on her 
 gown, she must observe it, whether there were any 
 one at leisure to answer her or not.' In that well 
 occupied female party there must have been many 
 precious hours of silence during which the pen was 
 busy at the little mahogany writing-desk,* while 
 Fanny Price, or Emma Woodhouse, or Anne Elliott 
 was growing into beauty and interest. I have no 
 doubt that I, and my sisters and cousins, in our visits 
 
 * This mahogany desk, which has done good service to the public, is 
 now in the possession of my sister, Miss Austen. 
 
Jane Austen. 97 
 
 to Chawton, frequently disturbed this mystic process, 
 without having any idea of the mischief that we were 
 doing ; certainly we never should have guessed it by 
 any signs of impatience or irritability in the writer. 
 
 As so much had been previously prepared, when 
 once she began to publish, her works came out in 
 quick succession. 'Sense and Sensibility* was pub- 
 lished in 181 1, ' Pride and Prejudice ' at the beginning 
 of 1813, 'Mansfield Park' in 1814, 'Emma' early in 
 1 8 16 ; ' Northanger Abbey ' and ' Persuasion ' did not 
 appear till, after her death, in 18 18. It will be shown 
 farther on why ' Northanger Abbey,' though amongst 
 the first written, was one of the last published. Her 
 first three novels were published by Egerton, her last 
 three by Murray. The profits of the four which had 
 been printed before her death had not at that time 
 amounted to seven hundred pounds. 
 
 I have no record of the publication of ' Sense and 
 Sensibility,' nor of the author's feelings at this her first 
 appearance before the public ; but the following ex- 
 tracts from three letters to her sister give' a lively 
 picture of the interest with which she watched the 
 reception of ' Pride and Prejudice,' and show the 
 carefulness with which she corrected her compositions, 
 and rejected much that had been written : — 
 
 'Chawton, Friday, January 29 (1813). 
 
 ' I hope you received my little parcel by J. Bond on 
 Wednesday evening, my dear Cassandra, and that you 
 will be ready to hear from me again on Sunday, for I 
 feel that I must write to you to-day. I want to tell 
 
 H 
 
98 A Memoir of 
 
 you that I have got my own darling child from 
 London. On Wednesday I received one copy sent 
 down by Falkener, with three lines from Henry to say 
 that he had given another to Charles and sent a third 
 by the coach to Godmersham. . . . The advertise- 
 ment is in our paper to-day for the first time : 1 8s. 
 He shall ask il. is. for my two next, and il. 8s. for 
 my stupidest of all. Miss B. dined with us on the 
 very day of the book's coming, and in the evening we 
 fairly set at it, and read half the first voL to her, pre- 
 facing that, having intelligence from Henry that such 
 a work would soon appear, we had desired him to 
 send it whenever it came out, and I believe it passed 
 with her unsuspected. She was amused, poor soul ! 
 That she could not help, you know, with two such 
 people to lead the way, but she really does seem to 
 admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I thinkher as 
 delightful a creature as~ever appeared in print, and 
 how I shall be able to tolerate those who do hot like 
 her at least I do not know. There are a few typical 
 errors ; and. a " said he," or a "said she," would some- 
 times make the dialogue more immediately clear ; but 
 " I do not write for such dull elves " as have not a 
 great deal of ingenuity themselves. The second vo- 
 lume is shorter than I could wish, but the difference 
 is not so much in reality as in look, there being a larger 
 proportion of narrative in that part. I have lop't and 
 crop't so successfully, however, that I imagine it 
 must be rather shorter than " Sense and Sensibility " 
 altogether. Now I will try and write of something 
 else.' 
 
Jane Austen. 99 
 
 'Ckawton, Thursday, February 4 (1813). 
 
 'My dear Cassandra, — Your letter was truly 
 welcome, and I am much obliged to you for all your 
 praise ; it came at a right time, for I had had some fits of 
 disgust. Our second evening's reading to Miss B. had 
 not pleased me so well, but I believe something must 
 be attributed to my mother's too rapid way of getting 
 on : though she perfectly understands the characters 
 herself, she cannot speak as they ought. Upon the 
 whole, however, I am quite vain enough and well satis- 
 fied enough. The work is rather too light, and bright, 
 and sparkling ; it wants shade ; it wants to be stretched 
 out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it 
 could be had ; if not, of solemn specious nonsense, 
 about something unconnected with the story; an 
 essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the 
 history of Buonaparte, or something that would form 
 a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight 
 to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general 
 style. . . . The greatest blunder in the printing that I 
 have metwith is in page 220, v. 3, where two speeches 
 are made into one. There might as well be no sup- 
 pers at Longbourn ; but I suppose it was the remains 
 of Mrs. Bennett's old Meryton habits.' 
 
 The following letter seems to have been written 
 soon after the last two : in February 1813 : — 
 
 ' This will be a quick return for yours, my dear 
 Cassandra ; I doubt its having much else to recom- 
 mend it ; but there is no saying ; it may turn out to 
 be a very long and delightful letter. I am exceedingly 
 
loo A Memoir of 
 
 pleased that you can say what you do, after having 
 gone through the whole work, and Fanny's praise is 
 very gratifying. My hopes were tolerably strong of 
 her, but nothing like a certainty. Her liking Darcy 
 and Elizabeth is enough. She might hate all the 
 others, if she would. I have her opinion under her 
 own hand this morning, but your transcript of it, 
 which I read first, was not, and is not, the less accept- 
 able. To me it is of course all praise, but the more exact 
 
 truth which she sends you is good enough Our 
 
 party on Wednesday was not unagreeable, though we 
 wanted a master of the house less anxious and fidgety, 
 
 and more conversible. Upon Mrs. 's mentioning 
 
 that she had sent the rejected addresses to Mrs. H., I 
 began talking to her a little about them, and expressed 
 my hope of their having amused her. Her answer 
 was, " Oh dear yes, very much, very droll indeed, the 
 opening of the house, and the striking up of the 
 fiddles ! " What she meant, poor woman, who shall 
 say ? I sought no farther. As soon as a whist party 
 was formed, and a round table threatened, I made 
 my mother an excuse and came away, leaving just as 
 many for their round table as there were at Mrs. 
 Grant's* I wish they might be as agreeable a set 
 My mother is very well, and finds great amusement 
 in glove-knitting, and at present wants no other work. 
 We quite run over with bopks. She has got Sir 
 John Carr's " Travels in Spain," and I am reading a 
 Society octavo, an " Essay on the Military Police and 
 Institutions of the British Empire," by Capt Pasley of 
 * At this time, February 1813, 'Mansfield Park' was nearly finished. 
 
Jane A listen. i o I 
 
 the Engineers, a book which I protested against at 
 first, but which upon trial I find delightfully written 
 and highly entertaining. I am as much in love with 
 the author as I ever was with Clarkson or Buchanan, 
 or even the two Mr: Smiths of the city. The first 
 soldier I ever sighed for ; but he does write with ex- 
 traordinary force and spirit Yesterday, moreover, 
 brought us " Mrs. Grant's Letters," with Mr. White's 
 compliments ; but I have disposed of them, compli- 
 ments and all, to Miss P., and amongst so many 
 readers or retainers of books as we have in Chawton, 
 I dare ' say there will be no difficulty in getting rid 
 of them for another fortnight, if necessary. I have 
 disposed of Mrs. Grant for the second fortnight to 
 
 Mrs. . It can make no difference to her which of 
 
 the twenty-six fortnights in the year the 3 vols, lie on 
 her table. I have been applied to for information as 
 to the oath taken in former times of Bell, Book, and 
 ■Candle, but have none to give. Perhaps you may be 
 able to learn something of its origin where you now 
 are. Ladies who read those enormous great stupid 
 thick quarto volumes which one always sees in the 
 breakfast parlour there must be acquainted with every- 
 thing in the world. I detest a quarto. Capt. Pasley's 
 book is too good for their society. They will not 
 understand a man who condenses his thoughts into 
 an octavo. I have learned from Sir J. Carr that there 
 is no Government House at Gibraltar. I must alter 
 it to the Commissioner's.' 
 
 The following letter belongs to the same year, but 
 
102 A Memoir of 
 
 treats of a different subject. It describes a journey 
 from Chawton to London; in her brother's curricle, 
 and shows how much could be seen and enjoyed in 
 course of a long summer's day by leisurely travelling 
 amongst scenery which the traveller in an express 
 train now rushes through in little more than an hour, 
 but scarcely sees at all : — 
 
 * Sloane Street, Thursday, May 20 (1S13). 
 
 'My dear Cassandra, 
 ' Before I say anything else, I claim a paper full of 
 halfpence on the drawing-room mantel-piece ; I put 
 them there myself, and forgot to bring them with me. 
 I cannot say that I have yet been in any distress for 
 money, but I chuse to have my due, as well as the 
 Devil. How lucky we were in our weather yesterday! 
 This wet morning makes one more sensible of it We 
 had no rain of any consequence. The head of the 
 curricle was put half up three or four times, but our 
 share of the showers was very trifling, though they 
 seemed to be heavy all round us, when we were on 
 the Hog's-back, and I fancied it might then be raining 
 so hard at Chawton as to make you feel for us much 
 more than we deserved. Three hours and a quarter 
 took us to Guildford, where we staid barely two hours, 
 and had only just time enough for all we had to do 
 there ; that is, eating a long and comfortable breakfast, 
 watching the carriages, paying Mr. Harrington, and 
 taking a little stroll afterwards. From some views 
 which that stroll gave us, I think most highly of the 
 situation of Guildford. We wanted all our brothers 
 
Jane A us ten. 103 
 
 and sisters to be standing with us in the bowling- 
 green, and looking towards Horsham. I was very 
 lucky in my gloves — got them at the first shop I 
 went to, though I went into it rather because it was 
 near than because it looked at all like a glove shop, 
 and gave only four shillings for them ; after which 
 everybody at Chawton will be hoping and predicting 
 that they cannot be good for anything, and their 
 worth certainly remains to be proved ; but I think they 
 look very well. We left Guildford at twenty minutes 
 before twelve (I hope somebody cares for these 
 minutiae), and were at Esher in about two hours more. 
 I was very much pleased with the country in general. 
 Between Guildford and Ripley I thought it particularly 
 pretty, also about Painshill ; and from a Mr. Spicer's 
 grounds at Esher, which we walked into before dinner, 
 the views were beautiful. I cannot say what we did 
 not see, but I should think there could not be a 
 wood, or a meadow, or palace, or remarkable spot in 
 England that was not spread out before us on one 
 side or other. Claremont is going to be sold : a Mr. 
 Ellis has it now. It is a house that seems never to 
 have prospered. After dinner we walked forward 
 to be overtaken at the coachman's time, and before 
 he did overtake us we were very near Kingston. I 
 fancy it was about half-past six when we reached this 
 house — a twelve hours' business, and the horses did not 
 appear more than reasonably tired. I was very tired 
 too, and glad to get to bed early, but am quite well 
 to-day. I am very snug in the front drawing-room 
 all to myself, and would not say "thank you" for 
 
104 A Memoir of 
 
 any company but you. The quietness of it does me 
 good. I have contrived to pay my two visits, though 
 the weather made me a great while about it, and left 
 me only a few minutes to sit with Charlotte Craven* 
 She looks very well, and her hair is done up with 
 an elegance to do credit to any education. Her 
 manners are as unaffected and pleasing as ever. She 
 had heard from her mother to-day. Mrs. Craven 
 spends another fortnight at Chilton. I saw nobody 
 but Charlotte, which pleased me best I was shewn 
 upstairs into a drawing-room, where she came to me, 
 and the appearance of the room, so totally unschool- 
 like, amused me very much ; it was full of modern 
 elegancies. 
 
 ' Yours very affec 11 *-, ' J. A.' 
 
 The next letter, written in the following year, 
 contains an account of another journey to London, 
 with her brother Henry, and reading with him the 
 manuscript of ' Mansfield Park ' : — 
 
 ' Henrietta Street, Wednesday, March 2 (1814). 
 
 ' My dear Cassandra, 
 'You were wrong in thinking of us at Guildford 
 last night : we were at Cobham. On reaching G. 
 we found that John and the horses were gone on. 
 We therefore did no more than we had done at 
 Farnham — sit in the carriage while fresh horses were 
 put in, and proceeded directly to Cobham, which we 
 
 * The present Lady Pollen, of Redenham, near Andover, then at a 
 school in London. 
 
Jane Austen. 105 
 
 reached by seven, and about eight were sitting down 
 to a very nice roast fowl, &c. We had altogether a very 
 good journey, and everything at Cobham was comfort- 
 able. I could not pay Mr. Harrington ! That was the 
 only alas ! of the business. I shall therefore return 
 his bill, and my mother's 2/., that you may try your 
 luck. We did not begin reading till Bentley Green. 
 Henry's approbation is hitherto even equal to my 
 wishes. He says it is different from the other two, 
 but does not appear to think it at all inferior. He 
 has only married Mrs. R. I am afraid he has gone 
 through the most entertaining part. He took to 
 Lady B. and Mrs. N. most kindly, and gives great 
 praise to the drawing of the characters. He under- 
 stands them all, likes Fanny, and, I think, foresees how 
 it will all be. I finished the " Heroine " last night, and 
 was very much amused by it. I wonder James did 
 not like it better. It diverted me exceedingly. We 
 went to bed at ten. I was very tired, but slept to a 
 miracle, and am lovely to-day, and at present Henry 
 seems to have no complaint We left Cobham at 
 half-past eight, stopped to bait and breakfast at King- 
 ston, and were in this house considerably before two. 
 Nice smiling Mr. Barlowe met us at the door and, in 
 reply to enquiries after news, said that peace was 
 generally expected. I have taken possession of my 
 bedroom, unpacked my bandbox, sent Miss P.'s two 
 letters to the twopenny post, been visited by M d- B., 
 and am now writing by myself at the new table in 
 the front room. It is snowing. We had some snow- 
 storms yesterday, and a smart frost at night, which 
 
io6 A Memoir of 
 
 gave us a hard road from Cobham to Kingston ; but 
 as it was then getting dirty and heavy, Henry had a 
 pair of leaders put on to the bottom of Sloane St. 
 His own horses, therefore, cannot have had hard work. 
 I watched for veils as we drove through the streets, 
 and had the pleasure of seeing several upon vulgar 
 heads. And now, how do you all do ? — you in par- 
 ticular, after the worry of yesterday and the day 
 before. I hope Martha had a pleasant visit again, 
 and that you and my mother could eat your beef- 
 pudding. Depend upon my thinking of the chimney- 
 sweeper as soon as I wake to-morrow. Places are 
 secured at Drury Lane for Saturday, but so great is 
 the rage for seeing Kean that only a third and fourth 
 row could be got ; as it is in a front box, however, I 
 hope we shall do pretty well — Shylock, a good play 
 for Fanny — she cannot be much affected, I think. 
 Mrs. Perigord has just been here. She tells me that 
 we owe her master for the silk-dyeing. My poor 
 old muslin has never been dyed yet It has been 
 promised to be done several times. What wicked 
 people dyers are. They begin with dipping their 
 owrj souls in scarlet sin. It is evening. We have 
 drank tea, and I have torn through the third vol. of 
 the " Heroine." I do not think it falls off. It is a 
 delightful burlesque, particularly on the Radcliffe 
 style. Henry is going on with " Mansfield Park" He 
 admires H. Crawford : I mean properly, as a clever, 
 pleasant man. I tell you all the good I can, as I 
 know how much you will enjoy it We hear that 
 Mr. Kean is more admired than ever. There are no 
 
Jane Austen. 10; 
 
 good places to be got in Drury Lane for the next 
 fortnight, but Henry means to secure some for Satur- 
 day fortnight, when you are reckoned upon. Give 
 my love to little Cass. I hope she found my bed 
 comfortable last night. I have seen nobody in Lon- 
 don yet with such a long chin as Dr. Syntax, nor 
 anybody quite so large as Gogmagolicus. 
 
 'Yours aff'y, 
 
 'J. Austen.' 
 
lo8 A Memoir of 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Seclusion from the literary -world — Notice from the Prince Regent — 
 Correspondence with Mr. Clarke — Suggestions to alter her style of 
 
 •writing. 
 
 JANE AUSTEN lived in entire seclusion from the 
 literary world: neither by correspondence, nor by 
 personal intercourse was she known to any contem- 
 porary authors. It is probable that she never was in 
 company with any person whose talents or whose 
 celebrity equalled her own ; so that her powers never 
 could have been sharpened by collision with superior 
 intellects, nor her imagination aided by their casual 
 suggestions. Whatever she produced was a genuine 
 home-made article. Even during the last two or 
 three years of her life, when her works were rising in 
 the estimation of the public, they did not enlarge 
 the circle of her acquaintance. Few of her readers 
 knew even her name, and none knew more of her 
 than her name. I doubt whether it would be pos- 
 sible to mention any other author of note, whose 
 personal obscurity was so complete. I can think of 
 none like her, but of many to contrast with her in 
 that respect. Fanny Burney, afterwards Madame 
 D Arblay, was at an early age petted by Dr. Johnson, 
 
Jane Austen. 109 
 
 and introduced to the wits and scholars of the day 
 at the tables of Mrs. Thrale and Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds. Anna Seward, in her self-constituted shrine 
 at Lichfield, would have been miserable, had she not 
 trusted that the eyes of all lovers of poetry were 
 devoutly fixed on her. Joanna Baillie and Maria 
 Edgeworth were indeed far from courting publicity ; 
 they loved the privacy of their own families, one with 
 her brother and sister in their Hampstead villa, the 
 other in her more distant retreat in Ireland ; but 
 fame pursued them, and they were the favourite cor- 
 respondents of Sir Walter Scott. Crabbe, who was 
 usually buried in a country parish, yet sometimes 
 visited London, and dined at Holland House, and was 
 received as a fellow-poet by Campbell, Moore, and 
 Rogers; and on one memorable occasion he was 
 Scott's guest at Edinburgh, and gazed with wonder- 
 ing eyes on the incongruous pageantry with which 
 George IV. was entertained in that city. Even those 
 great writers who hid themselves amongst lakes and 
 mountains associated with each other; and though 
 little seen by the world were so much in its thoughts 
 that a new term, ' Lakers,' was coined to designate 
 them. The chief part of Charlotte Bronte's life was 
 spent in a wild solitude compared with which Ste- 
 venton and Chawton might be considered to be in 
 the gay world ; and yet she attained to personal 
 distinction which never fell to Jane's lot. When she 
 visited her kind publisher in London, literary men 
 and women were invited purposely to meet her : 
 Thackeray bestowed upon her the honour of his 
 
no A Memoir of 
 
 notice ; and once in Willis's Rooms,* she had to 
 walk shy and trembling through an avenue of lords 
 and ladies, drawn up for the purpose of gazing at 
 the author of 'Jane Eyre.' Miss Mitford, too, lived 
 quietly in ' Our Village,' devoting her time and talents 
 to the benefit of a father scarcely worth of her; but 
 she did not live there unknown. Her tragedies gave 
 her a name in London. She numbered Milman and 
 Talfourd amongst her correspondents ; and her works 
 were a passport to the society of many who would 
 not otherwise have sought her. Hundreds admired 
 Miss Mitford on account of her writings for one who 
 ever connected the idea of Miss Austen with the 
 press. A few years ago, a gentleman visiting Win- 
 chester Cathedral desired to be shown Miss Austen's 
 grave. The verger, as he pointed it out, asked, 
 ' Pray, sir, can you tell me whether there was any- 
 thing particular about that lady; so many people 
 want to know where she was buried ? ' During her 
 life the ignorance of the verger was shared by most 
 people;' few knew that 'there was anything par- 
 ticular; about that lady.' 
 
 It was not till towards the close of her life, when 
 the last of the works that she saw published was in 
 the press, that she received the only mark of dis- 
 tinction ever bestowed upon her ; and that was re- 
 markable for the high quarter whence it emanated 
 rather than for any actual increase of fame that it 
 conferred. It happened thus. In the autumn of 
 1815 she nursed her brother Henry through a dan- 
 * See Mrs. Gaskell's 'Life of Miss Bronte,' voL ii. p. 215. . 
 
Jane Austen. in 
 
 gerous fever and slow convalescence at his house in 
 Hans Place. He was attended by one of the Prince 
 Regent's physicians. All attempts to keep her name 
 secret had at this time ceased, and though it had 
 never appeared on a title-page, all who cared to 
 know might easily learn it : and the friendly phy- 
 sician was aware that his patient's nurse was the 
 author of 'Pride and Prejudice.' Accordingly he 
 informed her one day that the Prince was a great 
 admirer of her novels ; that he read them often, and 
 kept a set in every one of his residences ; that he 
 himself therefore had thought it right to inform his 
 Royal Highness that Miss Austen was staying in 
 London, and that the Prince had desired Mr. Clarke, 
 the librarian of Carlton House, to wait upon her. 
 The next day Mr. Clarke made his appearance, and 
 invited her to Carlton House, saying that he had 
 the Prince's instructions to show her the library and 
 other apartments, and to pay her every possible atten- 
 tion. The invitation was of course accepted, and 
 during the visit to Carlton House Mr. Clarke de- 
 clared himself commissioned to say that if Miss 
 Austen had any other novel forthcoming she was at 
 liberty to dedicate it to the Prince. Accordingly such 
 a dedication was immediately prefixed to 'Emma,' 
 which was at that time in the press. 
 
 Mr. Clarke was the brother of Dr. Clarke, the 
 traveller and mineralogist, whose life has been written 
 by Bishop Otter. Jane found in him not only a very 
 courteous gentleman, but also a warm admirer of her 
 talents ; though it will be seen by his letters that he 
 
112 A Memoir of 
 
 did not clearly apprehend the limits of her powers, 
 or the proper field for their exercise. The following 
 correspondence took place between them. 
 
 Feeling some apprehension lest she should make a 
 mistake in acting on the verbal permission which she 
 had received from the Prince, Jane addressed the 
 following letter to Mr. Clarke : — 
 
 'Nov. 15, 1815. 
 
 'Sir, — I must take the liberty of asking you a 
 question. Among the many flattering attentions 
 which I received from you at Carlton House on 
 Monday last was the information of my being at 
 liberty to dedicate any future work to His Royal 
 Highness the Prince Regent, without the necessity 
 of any solicitation on my part. Such, at least, I 
 believed to be your words ; but as I am very anxious 
 to be quite certain of what was intended, I entreat 
 you to have the goodness to inform me how such a 
 permission is to be understood, and whether it is 
 incumbent on me to show my sense of the honour by 
 inscribing the work now in the press to His Royal 
 Highness ; I should be equally concerned to appear 
 either presumptuous or ungrateful.' 
 
 The following gracious answer was returned by 
 Mr. Clarke, together with a suggestion which must 
 have been received with some surprise : — 
 
 ' Carlton House, Nov. 16, 1815. 
 ' Dear MADAM, — It is certainly not incumbent on 
 you to dedicate your work now in the press to His 
 
Jane Austen. 113 
 
 Royal Highness ; but if you wish to do the Regent 
 that honour either now or at any future period I am 
 happy to send you that permission, which need not 
 require any more trouble or solicitation on your part. 
 
 ' Your late works, Madam, and in particular " Mans- 
 field Park," reflect the highest honour on your genius 
 and your principles. In every new work your mind 
 seems to increase its energy and power of discrimi- 
 nation. The Regent has read and admired all your 
 publications. 
 
 'Accept my best thanks for the pleasure your 
 
 volumes have given me. In the perusal of them I 
 
 felt a great inclination to write and say so. And I 
 
 also, dear Madam, wished to be allowed to ask you 
 
 to delineate in some future work the habits of life, 
 
 and character, and enthusiasm of a clergyman, who 
 
 should pass his time between the metropolis and the 
 
 country, who should be something like Beattie's 
 
 Minstrel — 
 
 Silent when glad, affectionate tho' shy, 
 
 And in his looks was most demurely sad ; 
 And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why. 
 
 Neither Goldsmith, nor La Fontaine in his " Tableau 
 de Famille," have in my mind quite delineated an 
 English clergyman, at least of the present day, fond 
 of and entirely engaged in literature, no man's enemy 
 but his own. Pray, dear Madam, think of these 
 
 things. 
 
 ' Believe me at all times with sincerity and 
 
 respect, your faithful and obliged servant, 
 'J. S. Clarke, Librarian.' 
 1 
 
1 14 A Memoir of 
 
 The following letter, written in reply, will show 
 how unequal the author of 'Pride and Prejudice' 
 felt herself to delineating an enthusiastic clergyman 
 of the present day, who should resemble Beattie's 
 Minstrel : — 
 
 'Dec. ii, 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — My " Emma " is now so near pub- 
 lication that I feel it right to assure you of my not 
 having forgotten your kind recommendation of an 
 early copy for Carlton House, and that I have Mr. 
 Murray's promise of its being sent to His Royal 
 Highness, under cover to you, three days previous to 
 the work being really out. I must make use of this 
 opportunity to thank you, dear Sir, for the very high 
 praise you bestow on my other novels. I am too 
 vain to wish to convince you that you have praised 
 them beyond their merits. My greatest anxiety at 
 present is that this fourth work should not disgrace 
 -what was good in the others. But on this point I 
 -will do myself the justice to declare that, whatever 
 may be my wishes for its success, I am strongly 
 haunted with the idea that to those readers who have 
 preferred "Pride and Prejudice" it will appear in- 
 ferior in wit, and to those who have preferred " Mans- 
 field Park " inferior in good sense. Such as it is, 
 however, I hope you will do me the favour of accept- 
 ing a copy. Mr. Murray will have directions for 
 sending one. I am quite honoured by your thinking 
 me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you gave 
 the sketch of in your note of Nov. 16th. But I 
 
Jane Austen. 115 
 
 assure you I am not. The comic part of the cha- 
 racter I might be equal to, but not the good, the 
 enthusiastic, the literary. Such a man's conversation 
 must at times be on subjects of science and philoso- 
 phy, of which I know nothing ; or at least be occa- 
 sionally abundant in quotations and allusions which 
 a woman who, like me, knows only her own mother 
 tongue, and has read little in that, would be totally 
 without the power of giving. A classical education, 
 or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with 
 English literature, ancient and modern, appears to 
 me quite indispensable for the person who would do 
 any justice to your clergyman ; and I think I may 
 boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most 
 unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to 
 be an authoress. 
 
 ' Believe me, dear Sir, 
 ' Your obliged and faithful hum 1 ' 1 Ser 1 . 
 'Jane Austen.'* 
 
 Mr. Clarke, however, was not to be discouraged 
 from proposing another subject He had recently 
 been appointed chaplain and private English secre- 
 tary to Prince Leopold, who was then about to 
 be united to the Princess Charlotte ; and when he 
 again wrote to express the gracious thanks of the 
 Prince Regent for the copy of ' Emma ' which had 
 been presented, he suggests that ' an historical ro- 
 
 * It was her pleasure to boast of greater ignorance than she had any 
 just claim to. She knew more than her mother tongue, for she knew a 
 good deal of French and a little of Italian. 
 
 1 2 
 
Ii6 A Memoir of 
 
 mance illustrative of the august House of Cobourg 
 would just now be very interesting,' and might very 
 properly be dedicated to Prince Leopold. This was 
 much as if Sir William Ross had been set to paint 
 a great battle-piece ; and it is amusing to see with 
 what grave civility she declined a proposal which 
 must have struck her as ludicrous, in the following 
 letter :— 
 
 ' My dear Sir, — I am honoured by the Prince's 
 thanks and very much obliged to yourself for the 
 kind manner in which you mention the work. I 
 have also to acknowledge a former letter forwarded 
 to me from Hans Place. I assure you I felt very 
 grateful for the friendly tenor of it, and hope my 
 silence will have been considered, as it was truly 
 meant, to proceed only from an unwillingness to tax 
 your time with idle thanks. Under every interesting 
 circumstance which your own talents and literary 
 labours have placed you in, or the favour of the 
 Regent bestowed, you have my best wishes. Your 
 recent appointments I hope are a step to something 
 still better. In my opinion, the service of a court 
 can hardly be too well paid, for immense must be the 
 sacrifice of time and feeling required by it 
 
 ' You are very kind in your hints as to the sort of 
 composition which might recommend me at present, 
 and I am fully sensible that an historical romance, 
 founded on the House of Saxe Cobourg, might be 
 much more to the purpose of profit or popularity 
 than such pictures of domestic life in country villages 
 
Jane Austen. 117 
 
 as I deal in. But I could no more write a romance 
 than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down 
 to write a serious romance under any other motive 
 than to save my life ; and if it were indispensable for 
 me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at 
 myself or at other people, I am sure I should be 
 hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, 
 I must keep to my own style and go on in my own 
 way ; and though I may never succeed again in that, 
 I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other. 
 ' I remain, my dear Sir, 
 ' Your very much obliged, and sincere friend, 
 
 ' J. Austen. 
 
 'Chawton, near Alton, April 1, iSi6.' 
 
 Mr. Clarke should have recollected the warning of 
 the wise man, 'Force not the course of the river.' 
 If you divert it from the channel in which nature 
 taught it to flow, and force it into one arbitrarily cut 
 by yourself, you will lose its grace and beauty. 
 
 But when his free course is not hindered, 
 
 He makes sweet music with the enamelled stones, 
 
 Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 
 
 He overtaketh in his pilgrimage : 
 
 And so by many winding nooks he strays 
 
 With willing sport. 
 
 All writers of fiction, who have genius strong 
 enough to work out a course of their own, resist every 
 attempt to interfere with its direction. No two 
 writers could be more unlike each other than Jane 
 Austen and Charlotte Bronte ; so much so that the 
 latter was unable to understand why the former was 
 
n8 A Memoir of 
 
 admired, and confessed that she herself ' should hardly 
 like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their 
 elegant but confined houses ;' but each writer equally 
 resisted interference with her own natural style of 
 composition. Miss Bronte, in reply to a friendly 
 iritic, who had warned her against being too melo- 
 dramatic, and had ventured to propose Miss Austen's 
 works to her as a study, writes thus : — 
 
 ' Whenever I do write another book, I think I will 
 have nothing of what you call " melodrama." I think 
 so, but I am not sure. I think, too, I will endeavour 
 to follow the counsel which shines out of Miss Aus- 
 ten's " mild eyes,'' to finish more, and be more sub- 
 dued ; but neither am I sure of that. When authors 
 write best,, or, at least, when they write most fluently, 
 an influence seems to waken in them which becomes 
 their master — which will have its way — putting out 
 of view all behests but its own, dictating certain 
 words, and insisting on their being used, whether 
 vehement or measured in their nature, new moulding 
 characters, giving unthought of turns to incidents, 
 rejecting carefully elaborated old ideas, and suddenly 
 creating and adopting new ones. Is it not so ? And 
 should we try to counteract this influence ? Can we 
 indeed counteract it ?' * 
 
 The playful raillery with which the one parries an 
 attack on her liberty, and the vehement eloquence of 
 the other in pleading the same cause and maintaining 
 the independence of genius, are very characteristic of 
 the minds of the respective writers. 
 
 * Mrs. Gaskell's ' Life of Miss Bronte,' vol. ii. p. 53. 
 
Jane Austen. 1 19 
 
 The suggestions which Jane received as to the sort 
 of story that she ought to write were, however, an 
 amusement to her, though they were not likely to 
 prove useful ; and she has left amongst her papers 
 one entitled, ' Plan of a novel according to hints from 
 various quarters.' The names of some of those ad- 
 visers are written on the margin of the manuscript 
 opposite to their respective suggestions. 
 
 ' Heroine to be the daughter of a clergyman, who 
 after having lived much in the world had retired from 
 it, and settled on a curacy with a very small fortune 
 of his own. The most excellent man that can be 
 imagined, perfect in character, temper, and manner, 
 without the smallest drawback or peculiarity to pre- 
 vent his being the most delightful companion to his 
 daughter from one year's end to the other. Heroine 
 faultless in character, beautiful in person, and pos- 
 sessing every possible accomplishment. Book to open 
 with father and daughter conversing in long speeches, 
 elegant language, and a tone of high serious senti- 
 ment. The father induced, at his daughter's earnest 
 request, to relate to her the past events of his life. 
 Narrative to reach through the greater part of the 
 first volume ; as besides all the circumstances of his 
 attachment to her mother, and their marriage, it will 
 comprehend his going to sea as chaplain to a distin- 
 guished naval character about the court ; and his 
 going afterwards to court himself, which involved him 
 in many interesting situations, concluding with his 
 opinion of the benefits of tithes being done away with. 
 . . . From this outset the story will proceed, and con- 
 
1 20 A Memoir of 
 
 tain a striking variety of adventures. Father an ex- 
 emplary parish priest, and devoted to literature ; but 
 heroine and father never above a fortnight in one 
 place : he being driven from his curacy by the vile 
 arts of some totally unprincipled and heartless young 
 man, desperately in love with the heroine, and pur- 
 suing her with unrelenting passion. No sooner set- 
 tled in one country of Europe, than they are compelled 
 to quit it, and retire to another, always making new 
 acquaintance, and always obliged to leave them. This 
 will of course exhibit a wide variety of character. 
 The scene will be for ever shifting from one set of 
 people to another, but there will be no mixture, all 
 the good will be unexceptionable in every respect. 
 There will be no foibles or weaknesses but with the 
 wicked, who will be completely depraved and in- 
 famous, hardly a resemblance of humanity left in 
 them. Early in her career, the heroine must meet 
 with the hero : all perfection, of course, and only pre- 
 vented from paying his addresses to her by some 
 excess of refinement Wherever she goes, somebody 
 falls in love with her, and she receives repeated offers 
 of marriage, which she refers wholly to her father, 
 exceedingly angry that he should not be the first 
 applied to. Often carried away by the anti-hero, but 
 rescued either by her father or the hero. Often re- 
 duced to support herself and her father by her talents, 
 and work for her bread ; continually cheated, and 
 defrauded of her hire ; worn down to a skeleton, and 
 now and then starved to death. At last, hunted out 
 of civilised society, denied the poor shelter of the 
 
Jane Austen. 121 
 
 humblest cottage, they are compelled to retreat into 
 Kamtschatka, where the poor father quite worn down, 
 finding his end approaching, throws himself on the 
 ground, and after four or five hours of tender advice 
 and parental admonition to his miserable child, ex- 
 pires in a fine burst of literary enthusiasm, inter- 
 mingled with invectives against the holders of tithes. 
 Heroine inconsolable for some time, but afterwards 
 crawls back towards her former country, having at 
 least twenty narrow escapes of falling into the hands 
 of anti-hero; and at last, in the very nick of time, 
 turning a corner to avoid him, runs into the arms of 
 the hero himself, who, having just shaken off the 
 scruples which fettered him before, was at the very 
 moment setting off in pursuit of her. The tenderest 
 and completest tclaircissement takes place, and they 
 are happily united. Throughout the whole work 
 heroine to be in the most elegant society, and living 
 in high style.' 
 
 Since the first publication of this memoir, Mr. 
 Murray of Albemarle Street has very kindly sent to 
 me copies of the following letters, which his father 
 received from Jane Austen, when engaged in the 
 publication of ' Emma.' The increasing cordiality of 
 the letters shows that the author felt that her inte- 
 rests were duly cared for, and was glad to find herself 
 in the hands of a publisher whom she could consider 
 as a friend. 
 
 Her brother had addressed to Mr. Murray a strong 
 complaint of the tardiness of a printer : — 
 
A Memoir of 
 
 ' 23 Hans Place, Thursday, November 23 (1815). 
 ' Sir, — My brother's note last Monday has been so 
 fruitless, that I am afraid there can be but little 
 chance of my writing to any good effect ; but yet I 
 am so very much disappointed and vexed by the 
 delays of the printers, that I cannot help begging to 
 know whether there is no hope of their being quick- 
 ened. Instead of the work being ready by the end 
 of the present month, it will hardly, at the rate we 
 now proceed, be finished by the end of the next ; and 
 as I expect to leave London early in December, it is 
 of consequence that no more time should be lost. Is 
 it likely that the printers will be influenced to greater 
 dispatch and punctuality by knowing that the work 
 is to be dedicated, by permission, to the Prince 
 Regent ? If you can make that circumstance operate, 
 I shall be very glad. My brother returns ' Waterloo' 
 with many thanks for the loan of it We have heard 
 much of Scott's account of Paris.* If it be not 
 incompatible with other' arrangements, would you 
 favour us with it, supposing you have any set already 
 opened ? You may depend upon its being in careful 
 hands. 
 
 ' I remain, Sir, your ob t- humble Se t- 
 
 'J. Austen.' . 
 
 ' Hans Place, December 11 (1815). 
 'DEAR Sir, — As I find that "Emma" is advertised 
 for publication as early as Saturday next, I think it 
 best to lose no time in settling all that remains to be 
 
 * This must have been ' Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk.' 
 
Jane Austen. 123 
 
 settled on the subject, and adopt this method as in- 
 volving the smallest tax on your time. 
 
 ' In the first place, I beg you to understand that I 
 leave the terms on which the trade should be sup- 
 plied with the work entirely to your judgment, en- 
 treating you to be guided in every such arrangement 
 by your own experience of what is most likely to 
 clear off the edition rapidly. I shall be satisfied 
 with whatever you feel to be best. The title-page 
 must be "Emma, dedicated by permission to H.R.H. 
 the Prince Regent." And it is my particular wish that 
 one set should be completed and sent to H.R.H. two 
 or three days before the work is generally public. It 
 should be sent under cover to the Rev. J. S. Clarke, 
 Librarian, Carlton House. I shall subjoin a list of 
 those persons to whom I must trouble you to forward 
 also a set each, when the work is out ; all unbound, 
 with " From the Authoress " in the first page. 
 
 ' I return you, with very many thanks, the books 
 you have so obligingly supplied me with. I am very 
 sensible, I assure you, of the attention you have paid 
 to my convenience and amusement. I return also 
 "Mansfield Park," as ready for a second edition, I 
 believe, as I can make it I am in Hans Place till 
 the 16th. From that day inclusive, my direction will 
 be Chawton, Alton, Hants. 
 
 ' I remain, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Y r faithful humb. Serv 1 - 
 
 'J. Austen. 
 
 ' I wish you would have the goodness to send a line 
 
124 A Memoir of 
 
 by the bearer, stating the day on which the set will be 
 ready for the Prince Regent' 
 
 * Hans Place, December n (1815). 
 ' DEAR SIR, — I am much obliged by yours, and 
 very happy to feel everything arranged to our mutual 
 satisfaction. As to my direction about the title-page, 
 it was arising from my ignorance only, and from my 
 having never noticed the proper place for a dedication. 
 I thank you for putting me right. Any deviation 
 from what is usually done in such cases is the last 
 thing I should wish for. I feel happy in having a 
 friend to save me from the ill effect of my own 
 blunder. 
 
 'Yours, dear Sir, &c. 
 
 'J. Austen.' ' 
 
 • Chawton, April I, 1816. 
 
 'DEAR SIR, — I return you the "Quarterly Review" 
 with many thanks. The Authoress of " Emma " has 
 no reason, I think, to complain of her treatment in it, 
 except in the total omission of " Mansfield Park" I 
 cannot but be sorry that so clever a man as the 
 Reviewer of " Emma " should consider it as unworthy 
 of being noticed. You will be pleased to hear that I 
 have received the Prince's thanks for the handsome 
 copy I sent him of " Emma." Whatever he may think 
 of my share of the work, yours seems to have been 
 quite right. 
 
 ' In consequence of the late event in Henrietta 
 Street, I must request that if you should at any time 
 
Jane Austen. 125 
 
 have anything to communicate by letter, you will be 
 so good as to write by the post, directing to me (Miss 
 J. Austen), Chawton, near Alton ; and that for any- 
 thing of a larger bulk, you will add to the same 
 direction, by Collier's Southampton coach. 
 ' I remain, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Yours very faithfully, 
 
 ' J. Austen.' 
 
 About the same time the following letters passed 
 between the Countess of Morley and the writer of 
 ' Emma.' I do not know whether they were personally 
 acquainted with each other, nor in what this inter- 
 change of civilities originated : — 
 
 The Countess of Morley to Miss J. Austen. 
 
 'Saltram, December 27 (1815). 
 
 ' Madam, — I have been most anxiously waiting for 
 an introduction to "Emma," and am infinitely obliged 
 to you for your kind recollection of me, which will 
 procure me the pleasure of her acquaintance some 
 days sooner than I should otherwise have had it I 
 am already become intimate with the Woodhouse 
 family, and feel that they will not amuse and interest 
 me less than the Bennetts, Bertrams, Norrises, and 
 all their admirable predecessors. I can give them no 
 higher praise. 
 
 ' I am, Madam, your much obliged 
 
 ' F. Morley.' 
 
126 A Memoir of 
 
 Miss J. A listen to the Countess of Morley. 
 
 'Madam, — Accept my thanks for the honour of 
 your note, and for your kind disposition in favour of 
 " Emma." In my present state of doubt as to her re- 
 ception in the world, it is particularly gratifying to 
 me to receive so early an assurance of your Lady- 
 ship's approbation. It encourages me to depend on the 
 same share of general good opinion which " Emma's " 
 predecessors have experienced, and to belieye that I 
 have not yet, as almost every writer of fancy does 
 sooner or later, overwritten myself. 
 ' I am, Madam, 
 ' Your obliged and faithful Serv t- 
 
 ' J. Austen. 
 
 'December 31, 1815.* 
 
Jane A listen. 127 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Slow growth of her fame — HI success of first attempts at publication — 
 Two Reviews of her works contrasted. 
 
 SELDOM has any literary reputation been of such 
 slow growth as that of Jane Austen. Readers of the 
 present day know the rank that is generally assigned 
 to her. They have been told by Archbishop Whately, 
 in his review of her works, and by Lord Macaulay, in 
 his review of Madame D'Arblay's, the reason why 
 the highest place is to be awarded to Jane Austen, as 
 a truthful drawer of character, and why she is to be 
 classed with those who have approached nearest, in 
 that respect, to the great master Shakspeare. They 
 see her safely placed, by such authorities, in her niche, 
 not indeed amongst the highest orders of genius, but 
 in one confessedly her own, in our British temple of 
 literary fame ; and it may be difficult to make them 
 believe how coldly her works were at first received, 
 and how few readers had any appreciation of" their 
 peculiar merits. Sometimes a friend or neighbour, 
 who chanced to know of our connection with the 
 author, would condescend to speak with moderate 
 approbation of ' Sense and Sensibility,' or ' Pride and 
 Prejudice ' ; but if they had known that we, in our 
 secret thoughts, classed her with Madame DArblay 
 
128 A Memoir of 
 
 or Miss Edgeworth, or even with some other novel 
 writers of the day whose names are now scarcely- 
 remembered, they would have considered it an 
 amusing instance of family conceit To the multi- 
 tude her works appeared tame and commonplace,* 
 poor in colouring, and sadly deficient in incident and 
 interest. It is true that we were sometimes cheered 
 by hearing that a different verdict had been pro- 
 nounced by more competent judges : we were told 
 how some great statesman or distinguished poet held 
 these works in high estimation ; we had the satisfac- 
 tion of believing that they were most admired by the 
 best judges, and comforted ourselves with Horace's 
 ' satis est Equitem mihi plaudere.' So much was this 
 the case, that one of the ablest men of my acquaint- 
 ance | said, in that kind of jest which has much 
 earnest in it, that he had established it in his own 
 mind, as a new test of ability, whether people could 
 or could not appreciate Miss Austen's merits. 
 
 But though such golden opinions were now and 
 then gathered in, yet the wide field of public taste 
 
 * A greater genius than my aunt shared with her the imputation of 
 being commonplace. Lockhart, speaking of the low estimation in which 
 Scott's conversational powers were held in the literary and scientific 
 society of Edinburgh, says : ' I think the epithet most in vogue con- 
 cerning it was " commonplace." ' He adds, however, that one of the 
 most eminent of that society was of a different opinion, ' who, when 
 some glib youth chanced to echo in his hearing the consolatory tenet of 
 local mediocrity, answered quietly, " I have the misfortune to think 
 differently from you — in my humble opinion Walter Scott's sense is a. 
 still more wonderful thing than his genius." ' — Lockhart's Life of Scott, 
 vol. iv. chap. v. 
 
 t The late Mr. R. H. Cheney. 
 
Jane Austen. 129 
 
 yielded no adequate return either in praise or profit 
 Her reward was not to be the quick return of the 
 cornfield, but the slow growth of the tree which is to 
 endure to another generation. Her first attempts at 
 publication were very discouraging. In November, 
 1797, her father wrote the following letter to Mr. 
 Cadell :— 
 
 ' Sir, — I have in my possession a manuscript novel, 
 comprising 3 vols., about the length of Miss Burney's 
 " Evelina." As I am well aware of what consequence 
 it is that a work of this sort sh d make its first appear- 
 ance under a respectable name, I apply to you. I 
 shall be much obliged therefore if you will inform me 
 whether you choose to be concerned in it, what will 
 be the expense of publishing it at the author's risk, 
 and what you will venture to advance for the property 
 of it, if on perusal it is approved of. Should you 
 give any encouragement, I will send you the work. 
 ' I am, Sir, your humble Servant, 
 
 ' George Austen.' 
 
 4 Steventon, near Overton, Hants, 
 ' 1st Nov. 1797.' 
 
 This proposal was declined by return of post ! The 
 work thus summarily rejected must have been ' Pride 
 and Prejudice.' 
 
 The fate of ' Northanger Abbey ' was still more 
 humiliating. It was sold, in 1803, to a publisher in 
 Bath, for ten pounds, but it found so little favour in 
 his eyes, that he chose to abide by his. first loss rather 
 
 K 
 
130 A Memoir of 
 
 than risk farther expense by publishing such a work. 
 It seems to have lain for many years unnoticed in his 
 drawers ; somewhat as the first chapters of 'Waverley' 
 lurked forgotten amongst the old fishing-tackle in 
 Scott's cabinet. Tilneys, Thorpes, and Morlands 
 consigned apparently to eternal oblivion ! But 
 when four novels of steadily increasing success had 
 given the writer some confidence in herself, she 
 wished to recover the copyright of this early work. 
 One of her brothers undertook the negotiation. He - 
 found the purchaser very willing to receive back his 
 money, and to resign all claim to the copyright 
 When the bargain was concluded and the money 
 paid, but not till then, the negotiator had the satis- 
 faction of informing him that the work which had 
 been so lightly esteemed was by the author of ' Pride 
 and Prejudice.' I do not think that she was herself 
 much mortified by the want of early success. She 
 wrote for her own amusement. Money, though ac- 
 ceptable, was not necessary for the moderate expenses 
 of her quiet home. Above all, she was blessed with 
 a cheerful contented disposition, and an humble mind ; 
 and so lowly did she esteem her own claims, that 
 when she received 150/. from the sale of 'Sense and 
 Sensibility,' she considered it a prodigious recompense 
 for that which had cost her nothing. It cannot be 
 supposed, however, that she was altogether insensible 
 to the superiority of her own workmanship over that 
 of some contemporaries who were then enjoying a 
 brief popularity. Indeed a few touches in the follow- 
 ing extracts from two of her letters show that she 
 
Jane Austen. 131 
 
 was as quicksighted to absurdities in composition as 
 to those in living persons. 
 
 ' Mr. C.'s opinion is gone down in my list ; but as 
 my paper relates only to " Mansfield Park," I may 
 fortunately excuse myself from entering Mr. D.'s. I 
 will redeem my credit with him by writing a close 
 imitation of " Self-Control," as soon as I can. I will 
 improve upon it. My heroine shall not only be wafted 
 down an American river in a boat by herself. She 
 shall cross the Atlantic in the same way ; and never 
 stop till she reaches Gravesend.' 
 
 ' We have got " Rosanne " in our Society, and find 
 it much as you describe it; very- good and clever, but 
 tedious. Mrs. Hawkins' great excellence is on serious 
 subjects. There are some very delightful conver- 
 sations and reflections on religion : but on lighter 
 topics I think she falls into many absurdities ; and, 
 as to love, her heroine has very comical feelings. 
 There are a thousand improbabilities in the story. 
 Do you remember the two Miss Ormsdens introduced 
 just at last? Very flat and unnatural. Mad eae - 
 Cossart is rather my passion.' 
 
 Two notices of her works appeared in the ' Quarterly 
 Review.' One in October 1815, and another, more 
 than three years after her death, in January 1821. 
 The latter article is known to have been from the 
 pen of Whately, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin * 
 
 * Lockhart had supposed that this article had been written by Scott, 
 because it exactly accorded with the opinions which Scott had often 
 been heard to express, but he learned afterwards that it had been written 
 by "Whately ; and Lockhart, who became the Editor of the Quarterly, 
 
 K 2 
 
132 A Memoir of 
 
 They differ much from each other in the degree of 
 praise which they award, and I think also it may be 
 said, in the ability with which they are written. 
 The first bestows some approval, but the other ex- 
 presses the warmest admiration. One can scarcely 
 be satisfied with the critical acumen of the former 
 writer, who, in treating of ' Sense and Sensibility,' 
 takes no notice whatever of the vigour with which 
 many of the characters are drawn, but declares that 
 ' the interest and merit of the piece depends cdtogetlter 
 upon the behaviour of the elder sister ! ' Nor is he 
 fair when, in ' Pride and Prejudice,' he represents 
 Elizabeth's change of sentiments towards Darcy as 
 caused by the sight of his house and grounds. But 
 the chief discrepancy between the two reviewers is 
 to be found in their appreciation of the common- 
 place and silly characters to be found in these novels. 
 On this point the difference almost amounts to a 
 contradiction, such as one sometimes sees drawn up 
 in parallel columns, when it is desired to convict 
 some writer or some statesman of inconsistency. 
 The Reviewer, in 1815, says: 'The faults of these 
 •works arise from the minute detail which the author's 
 ,plan comprehends. Characters of folly or simplicity, 
 such as those of old Woodhouse and Miss Bates, 
 are ridiculous when first presented, but if too often 
 brought forward, or too long dwelt on, their prosing 
 
 must have had the means of knowing the truth. (See Lockhart's Life 
 jcf Sir Walter Scott, vol. v. p. 158.) I remember that, at the time when 
 the review came out, it was reported in Oxford that Whately had written 
 the article at the request of the lady whom he afterwards married. 
 
Jane Austen. 133 
 
 is apt to become as tiresome in fiction as in real 
 society.' The Reviewer, in 1821, on the contrary, 
 singles out the fools as especial instances of the 
 writer's abilities, and declares that in this respect she 
 shows a regard to character hardly exceeded by 
 Shakspeare himself. These are his words : ' Like 
 him (Shakspeare) she shows as admirable a discrimi- 
 nation in the character of fools as of people of sense ; 
 a merit which is far from common. To invent indeed 
 a conversation full of wisdom or of wit requires that 
 the writer should himself possess ability ; but the 
 converse does not hold good, it is no fool that can 
 describe fools well ; and many who have succeeded 
 pretty well in painting superior characters have failed 
 in giving individuality to those weaker ones which it 
 is necessary to introduce in order to give a faithful 
 representation of real life : they exhibit to us mere 
 folly in the abstract, forgetting that to the eye of the 
 skilful naturalist the insects on a leaf present as 
 wide differences as exist between the lion and the 
 elephant. Slender, and Shallow, and Aguecheek, as 
 Shakspeare has painted them, though equally fools, 
 resemble one another no more than Richard, and 
 Macbeth, and Julius Caesar; and Miss Austen's* 
 Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Rushworth, and Miss Bates are no 
 more alike than her Darcy, Knightley, and Edmund 
 Bertram. Some have complained indeed of finding 
 her fools too much like nature, and consequently 
 tiresome. There is no disputing about tastes ; all we 
 
 * In transcribing this passage I have taken the liberty so far to cor- 
 rect it as to spell her name properly with an ' e. ' 
 
1 34 A Memoir of 
 
 can say is, that such critics must (whatever deference 
 they may outwardly pay to received opinions) find 
 the " Merry Wives of Windsor " and " Twelfth Night" 
 very tiresome ; and that those who look with pleasure 
 at Wilkie's picture, or those of the Dutch school, 
 must admit that excellence of imitation may confer 
 attraction on that which would be insipid or disagree- 
 able in the reality. Her minuteness of detail has 
 also been found fault with ; but even where it pro- 
 duces, at the time, a degree of tediousness, we know 
 not whether that can justly be reckoned a blemish, 
 which is absolutely essential to a very high excellence. 
 Now it is absolutely impossible, without this, to pro- 
 duce that thorough acquaintance with the characters 
 which is necessary to make the reader heartily in- 
 terested in them. Let any one cut out from the 
 " Iliad " or from Shakspeare's plays everything (we 
 are far from saying that either might not lose some 
 parts with advantage, but let him reject everything) 
 which is absolutely devoid of importance and interest 
 in itself; and he will find that what is left will have 
 lost more than half its charms. We are convinced 
 that some writers have diminished the effect of their 
 works by being scrupulous to admit nothing into 
 them which had not some absolute and independent 
 merit. They have acted like those who strip off the 
 leaves of a fruit tree, as being of themselves good for 
 nothing, with the view of securing more nourishment 
 to the fruit, which in fact cannot attain its full matu- 
 rity and flavour without them.' 
 
 The world, I think, has endorsed the opinion of 
 
Jane Austeii. 135 
 
 the later writer ; but it would not be fair to set down 
 the discrepancy between the two entirely to the dis- 
 credit of the former. The fact is that, in the course 
 of the intervening five years, these works had been 
 read and reread by many leaders in the literary 
 world. The public taste was forming itself all this 
 time, and 'grew by what it fed on.' These novels 
 belong to a class which gain rather than lose by fre- 
 quent perusals, and it is probable that each Reviewer 
 represented fairly enough the prevailing opinions of 
 readers in the year when each wrote. 
 
 Since that time* the testimonies in favour of Jane 
 Austen's works have been continual and almost un- 
 animous. They are frequently referred to as models ; 
 nor have they lost their first distinction of being 
 especially acceptable to minds of the highest orden 
 I shall indulge myself by collecting into the next 
 chapter instances of the homage paid to her by such 
 persons. 
 
136 A Memoir of 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Opinions expressed by eminent persons — Opinions ofotiurs of less 
 eminence — Opinion of American readers. 
 
 INTO this list of the admirers of my Aunt's works, I 
 admit those only whose eminence will be universally 
 acknowledged. No doubt the number might have 
 been increased. 
 
 Southey, in a letter to Sir Egerton Brydges, says : 
 'You mention Miss Austen. Her novels are more- 
 true to nature, and have, for my sympathies, passages 
 of finer feeling than any others of this age. She was 
 a person of whom I have heard so well and think so 
 highly, that I regret not having had an opportunity 
 of testifying to her the respect which I felt for her.' 
 
 It may be observed that Southey had probably 
 heard from his own family connections of the charm of 
 her private character. A friend of hers, the daughter 
 of Mr. Bigge Wither, of Manydown Park near Basing- 
 stoke, was married to Southey' s- uncle, the Rev. Her- 
 bert Hill, who had been useful to his nephew in many 
 ways, and especially in supplying him with the means 
 of attaining his extensive knowledge of Spanish and 
 Portuguese literature. Mr. Hill had been Chaplain to 
 the British Factory at Lisbon, where Southey visited 
 
Jane Austen. 137 
 
 him and had the use of a library in those languages 
 which his uncle had collected. Southey himself con- 
 tinually mentions his uncle Hill in terms of respect 
 and gratitude. 
 
 S. T. Coleridge would sometimes burst out into high 
 encomiums of Miss Austen's novels as being, ' in their 
 way, perfectly genuine and individual productions.' 
 
 I remember Miss Mitford's saying to me : ' I would 
 almost cut off one of my hands, if it would enable me 
 to write like your aunt with the other.' 
 
 The biographer of Sir J. Mackintosh says : 'Some- 
 thing recalled to his mind the traits of character which 
 are so delicately touched in Miss Austen's novels. . . 
 He said that there was genius in sketching out that 
 new kind of novel. . . He was vexed for the credit of 
 the " Edinburgh Review " that it had left her un- 
 noticed.* . . The "Quarterly" had done her more 
 justice. . . It was impossible for a foreigner to under- 
 stand fully the merit of her works. Madame de Stael, 
 to whom he had recommended one of her novels, found 
 no interest in it ; and in her note to him in reply said 
 it was " vulgaire " : and yet, he said, nothing could be 
 more true than what he wrote in answer : " There is 
 no book which that word would so little suit" . . . 
 Every village could furnish matter for a novel to Miss 
 Austen. She did not need the common materials for 
 a novel, strong emotions, or strong incidents.' f 
 
 It was not, however, quite impossible for a foreigner 
 
 * Incidentally she had received high praise in Lord Macaulay's 
 Review of Madame D'Arblay's Works in the ' Edinburgh.' 
 + Life of Sir J. Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 472. 
 
A Memoir of 
 
 to appreciate these works ; for Mons. Guizot writes 
 thus : ' I am a great novel reader, but I seldom read 
 German or French novels. The characters are too 
 artificial. My delight is to read English novels, par- 
 ticularly those written by women. " C'est toute une 
 ecole de. morale." Miss Austen, Miss Ferrier, &c, 
 form a school which in the excellence and profusion 
 of its productions resembles the cloud of dramatic 
 poets of the great Athenian age.' 
 
 In the 'Keepsake' of 1825 the following lines ap- 
 peared, written by Lord Morpeth, afterwards seventh 
 Earl . of Carlisle, and Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland, 
 accompanying an illustration of a lady reading a 
 novel. 
 
 Beats thy quick pulse o'er Inchbald's thrilling leaf, 
 
 Brnnton's high moral, Opie's deep wrought grief? 
 , Has the mild chaperon claimed thy yielding heart, 
 
 Carroll's dark page, Trevelyan's gentle art ? 
 
 . Or is it thou, all perfect Austen ? Here 
 • ■ Let one poor wreath adom thy early bier, 
 
 That scarce allowed thy modest youth to claim 
 
 Its living portion of thy certain fame ! . 
 
 Oh ! Mrs. Bennet ! Mrs. Norris too ! 
 
 While memory survives we'll dream of you. 
 
 A1id Mr. Woodhouse, whose abstemious lip 
 
 Must thin, but not too thin, his gruel sip. 
 
 Miss Bates, our idol, though the village bore ; 
 
 And Mrs. Elton, ardent to explore. 
 
 While the dear style flows on without pretence, 
 . With unstained purity,, and unmatched sense : 
 
 Or, if a sister e'er approached the throne, 
 
 She called the rich ' inheritance ' her own. 
 
 The admiration felt by Lord Macaulay would 
 probably have taken a very practical form, if his life 
 
Jane Atistcn. 139 
 
 had been prolonged. I have the authority of his 
 sister, Lady Trevelyan, for stating that he had in- 
 tended to undertake the task upon which I have 
 ventured. He purposed to write a memoir of Miss 
 Austen, with criticisms on her works, to prefix it to a 
 new edition of her novels, and from the proceeds of 
 the sale to erect a monument to her memory in 
 Winchester Cathedral. Oh! that such an idea had 
 been realised ! That portion of the plan in which 
 Lord Macaulay's success would have been most certain 
 might have been almost sufficient for his object. A 
 memoir written by him would have been a monument. 
 
 I am kindly permitted by Sir Henry Holland to 
 give the following quotation from his printed but 
 unpublished recollections of his past life: — 
 
 ' I have the picture still before me of Lord Holland 
 lying on his bed, when attacked with gout, his ad- 
 mirable sister, Miss Fox, beside him reading aloud, as 
 she always did on these occasions, some one of Miss 
 Austen's novels, of which he was never wearied. I 
 well recollect the time when these charming novels, 
 almost unique in their style of humour, burst suddenly 
 on the world. It was sad that their writer did not 
 live to witness the growth of her fame.' 
 
 My brother-in-law, Sir Denis Le Marchant, has 
 supplied me with the following anecdotes from his 
 own recollections: — 
 
 'When I was a student at Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, Mr. Whewell, then a Fellow and afterwards 
 Master of the College, often spoke to me with ad- 
 
140 A Memoir of 
 
 miration of Miss Austen's novels. On one occasion 
 I said that I had found " Persuasion " rather dull. 
 He quite fired up in defence of it, insisting that it was 
 the most beautiful of her works. This accomplished 
 philosopher was deeply versed in works of fiction. I 
 recollect his writing to me from Caernarvon, where he 
 .had the charge of some pupils, that he was weary of 
 his stay, for he had read the circulating library twice 
 through. 
 
 'During a visit I paid to Lord Lansdowne, at 
 Bowood, in 1846, one of Miss Austen's novels became 
 the subject of conversation and of praise, especially 
 from Lord Lansdowne, who observed that one of the 
 circumstances of his life which he looked back upon 
 with vexation was that Miss Austen should once have 
 been living some weeks in his neighbourhood without 
 his knowing it. 
 
 ' I have heard Sydney Smith, more than once, dwell 
 with eloquence on the merits of Miss Austen's novels. 
 He told me he should have enjoyed giving her the 
 pleasure of reading her praises in the "Edinburgh 
 Review." " Fanny Price " was one of his prime 
 favourites.' 
 
 I close this list of testimonies, this long 'Catena 
 Patrum,' with the remarkable words of Sir Walter 
 Scott, taken from his diary for March 14, 1826:* 
 ' Read again, for the third time at least, Miss Austen's 
 finely written novel of " Pride and Prejudice." That 
 young lady had a talent for describing the involve- 
 ments and feelings and characters of ordinary life, 
 
 * Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. vi. chap. vii. 
 
Jane Austen. 141 
 
 which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. 
 The big Bow- Wow strain I can do myself like any 
 now going; but the exquisite touch which renders 
 ordinary common-place things and characters in- 
 teresting from the truth of the description and the 
 sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a 
 gifted creature died so early ! ' The well-worn con- 
 dition of Scott's own copy of these works attests that 
 they were much read in his family. When I visited 
 Abbotsford, a few years after Scott's death, I was 
 permitted, as an unusual favour, to take one of these 
 volumes in my hands. One cannot suppress the wish 
 that she had lived to know what such men thought 
 of her powers, and how gladly they would have 
 cultivated a personal acquaintance with her. I do 
 not think that it would at all have impaired the 
 modest simplicity of her character ; or that we should 
 have lost our own dear ' Aunt Jane ' in the blaze of 
 literary fame. 
 
 It may be amusing to contrast with these testi- 
 monies from the great, the opinions expressed by 
 other readers of more ordinary intellect. The author 
 herself has left a list of criticisms which it had been 
 her amusement to collect, through means of her 
 friends. This list contains much of warm-hearted 
 sympathising praise, interspersed with some opinions 
 which may be considered surprising. 
 
 One lady could say nothing better of ' Mansfield 
 Park/ than that it was ' a mere novel' 
 
 Another owned that she thought ' Sense and Sensi- 
 bility ' and ' Pride and Prejudice ' downright non- 
 
142 A Memoir of 
 
 sense ; but expected to like ' Mansfield Park ' better, 
 and having finished the first volume, hoped that she 
 had got through the worst. 
 
 Another did not like 'Mansfield Park.' Nothing 
 interesting in the characters. Language poor. 
 
 One gentleman read the first and last chapters of 
 ' Emma,' but did not look at the rest, because he had 
 been told that it was not interesting. 
 
 The opinions of another gentleman about ' Emma ' 
 were so bad that they could not be reported to the 
 author. 
 
 ' Quot homines, tot sentential.' 
 
 Thirty-five years after her death there came also a 
 voice of praise from across the Atlantic. In 1852 
 the following letter was received by her brother Sir 
 Francis Austen : — 
 
 ' Boston, Massachusetts, U. S. A. 
 6th Jan. 1852. 
 
 ' Since high critical authority has pronounced the 
 delineations of character in the works of Jane Austen 
 second only to those of Shakspeare, transatlantic 
 admiration appears superfluous; yet it may not be 
 uninteresting to her family to receive an assurance 
 that the influence of her genius is extensively recog- 
 nised in the American Republic, even by the highest 
 judicial authorities. The late Mr. Chief Justice Mar- 
 shall, of the supreme Court of the LTnited States, and 
 his associate Mr. Justice Story, highly estimated and 
 admired Miss Austen, and to them we owe our intro- 
 duction to her society. For many years her talents 
 have brightened our daily path, and her name and 
 
Jane A listen. 143 
 
 those of her characters are familiar to us as " house- 
 hold words.'' We have long wished to express to 
 some of her family the sentiments of gratitude and 
 affection she has inspired, and request more infor- 
 mation relative to her life than is given in the brief 
 memoir prefixed to her works. 
 
 ' Having accidentally heard that a brother of Jane 
 Austen held a high rank in the British Navy, we 
 have obtained his address from our friend Admiral 
 Wormley, now resident in Boston, and we trust this 
 expression of our feeling will be received by her 
 relations with the kindness and urbanity characte- 
 ristic of Admirals of Iter creation. Sir Francis Austen, 
 or one of his family, would confer a great favour by 
 complying with our request. The autograph of his 
 sister, or a few lines in her handwriting, would be 
 placed among our chief treasures. 
 
 ' The family who delight in the companionship of 
 Jane Austen, and who present this petition, are of 
 English origin. Their ancestor held a high rank 
 among the first emigrants to New England, and 
 his name and character have been ably represented 
 by his descendants in various public stations of trust 
 and responsibility to the present time in the colony 
 and state of Massachusetts. A letter addressed to 
 Miss Quincey, care of the Hon We Josiah Quincey, 
 Boston, Massachusetts, would reach its destination.' 
 
 Sir Francis Austen returned a suitable reply to 
 this application ; and sent a long letter of his sister's, 
 which, no doubt, still occupies the place of honour 
 promised by the Quincey family. 
 
144 A Memoir of 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Observations on the Novels. 
 
 It is not the object of these memoirs to attempt a 
 criticism on Jane Austen's novels. Those particulars 
 only have been noticed which could be illustrated by 
 the circumstances of her own life ; but I now desire to 
 offer a few observations on them, and especially on 
 one point, on which my age renders me a competent 
 witness — the fidelity with which they represent the 
 opinions and manners of the class of society in which 
 the author lived early in this century. They do this 
 the more faithfully on accouDt of the very deficiency 
 with which they have been sometimes charged — 
 namely, that they make no attempt to raise the 
 standard of human life, but merely represent it as it 
 was. They_certainly were not written to support any 
 theory or inculcate any particular ;mpral, r except in- 
 deed the great moral which is to be equally gathered 
 from an observation of the course of actual life — 
 namely7 the superiority of high over low principles^- 
 and of greatness over littleness of mind. These 
 writings are like photographs, in which no feature is 
 softened ; no ideal expression is introduced, all is the 
 (Unadorned reflection of the natural object ; and the 
 
Jane Austen. 145 
 
 value of such a faithful likeness must increase as \ 
 time gradually works more and more changes in the \ 
 face of society itself. | A remarkable instance of this 
 is to be found in her portraiture of the clergy. She 
 was the daughter and the sister of clergymen, who 
 certainly were not low specimens of their order : and 
 she has chosen three of her heroes from that pro- 
 fession ; but no one in these days can think that 
 either Edmund Bertram or Henry Tilney had ade- 
 quate ideas of the duties of a parish minister. Such, 
 however, were the opinions and practice then pre- 
 valent among respectable and conscientious clergy- 
 men before their minds had been stirred, first by the 
 Evangelical, and afterwards by the High Church 
 movement which this century has witnessed. The 
 country may be congratulated which, on looking 
 back to such a fixed landmark, can find that it has 
 been advancing instead of receding from it 
 
 The long interval that elapsed between the com- 
 pletion of ' Northanger Abbey ' in 1 798, and the 
 commencement of 'Mansfield Park' in 181 1, may 
 sufficiently account for any difference of style which 
 may be perceived between her three earlier and her 
 three later productions. If the former showed quite 
 as much originality and genius, they may perhaps be 
 thought to have less of the faultless finish and high 
 polish which distinguish the latter. The characters 
 of the John Dashwoods, Mr. Collins, and the Thorpes 
 stand out from the canvas with a vigour and origi- 
 nality which cannot be surpassed ; but I think that 
 in her last three works are to be found a greater 
 
 L 
 
146 A Memoir of 
 
 refinement of taste, a more nice sense of propriety, 
 and a deeper insight into the delicate anatomy of 
 the human heart, marking the difference between 
 the brilliant girl and the mature woman. Far from 
 being one of those who have over-written themselves, 
 it may be affirmed that her fame would have stood 
 on a narrower and less firm basis, if she had not lived 
 to resume her pen at Chawton. 
 
 Some persons have surmised that she took her 
 characters from individuals with whom she had been 
 acquainted. They were so life-like that it was as- 
 sumed that they must once have lived, and have 
 been transferred bodily, as it were, into her pages. 
 But surely such a supposition betrays an ignorance 
 of the high prerogative of genius to create out of its 
 own resources imaginary characters, who shall be 
 true to nature and consistent in themselves. Perhaps, 
 however, the distinction between keeping true to 
 nature and servilely copying any one specimen of it 
 is not always clearly apprehended. It is indeed 
 -true, both of the writer and of the painter, that he 
 can use only such lineaments as exist, and as he 
 lias observed to exist, in living objects ; otherwise he 
 would produce monsters instead of human beings ; 
 •but in both it is the office of high art to mould these 
 features into new combinations, and to place them in 
 the attitudes, and impart to them the expressions 
 which may suit the purposes of the artist ; so that 
 they are nature, but not exactly the same nature 
 which had come before his eyes ; just as honey can 
 be obtained only from the natural flowers which the 
 
fane Austen. 1 47 
 
 bee has sucked ; yet it is not a reproduction of the 
 odour or flavour of any particular flower, but becomes 
 something different when it has gone through the 
 process of transformation which that little insect is 
 able to effect. Hence, in the case of painters, arises 
 the superiority of original compositions over portrait 
 painting. Reynolds was exercising a higher faculty 
 when he designed Comedy and Tragedy contending 
 for Garrick, than when he merely took a likeness of 
 that actor. The same difference exists in writings 
 between the original conceptions of Shakspeare and 
 some other creative geniuses, and such full-length 
 likenesses of individual persons, ' The Talking Gentle- 
 man ' for instance, as are admirably drawn by Miss 
 Mitford. Jane Austen's powers, whatever may be 
 the degree in which she possessed them, were cer- 
 tainly of that higher order. She did not copy 
 individuals, but she invested her^bwri - creations 
 with individuality of character. A reviewer in the 
 ' Quarterly' speaks of an acquaintance who, ever 
 since the publication of 'Pride and Prejudice,' had_ 
 been called by his friends Mr. Bennet, but the author 
 did not know him. Her own relations never recog- 
 nised any individual in her characters ; and I can 
 call to mind several of her acquaintance whose pecu- 
 liarities were very tempting and easy to be carica- 
 tured of whom there are no traces in her pages. She 
 herself, when questioned on the subject by a friend, 
 expressed a dread of what she called such an ' inva- 
 sion of social proprieties.' She said that she thought 
 it quite fair to note peculiarities and weaknesses, but 
 
148 A Memoir of 
 
 that it was her desire to create, not to reproduce ; 
 ' bestdes,' she added, ' I am too proud of my gentle- 
 men to admit that they were only Mr. A. or Colonel 
 B.' She did not, however, suppose that her imagi- 
 nary characters were of a higher order than are to be 
 found in nature ; for she said, when speaking of two 
 of her great favourites, Edmund Bertram and Mr. 
 Knightley : ' They are very far from being what I know 
 English gentlemen often are.' 
 
 She certainly took a kind of parental interest in 
 the beings whom she had created, and did not dis- 
 miss them from her thoughts when she had finished 
 her last chapter. We have seen, in one of her letters, 
 her personal afFection~T6r"D"arcy and Elizabeth; and 
 when sending a. copy of ' Emma ' to a friend whose 
 daughter had been lately born, she wrote thus : ' I . 
 trust you will be as glad to see my " Emma," as I 
 shall be to see your Jemima.' She was very fond of 
 Emma, but did not reckon on her being a general 
 favourite ; for, when commencing that work, she said, 
 'I am going to take a heroine whom no one but 
 myself will much like.' She would, if asked, tell us 
 many little particulars about the subsequent career 
 of some of her>'people. In this traditionary way we 
 learned that Miss Steele never succeeded in catch- 
 ing the Doctor ; that Kitty Bennet was satisfactorily 
 married to a clergyman near Pemberley, while Mary 
 obtained nothing higher than one of her uncle Philip's 
 clerks, and was content to be considered a star in 
 the society of Meriton ; that the ■ considerable sum ' 
 given by Mrs. Norris to William Price was one 
 
Jane Austen. 149 
 
 pound ; that Mr. Woodhouse survived his daughter's 
 marriage, and kept her and Mr. Knightley from 
 settling at Donwell, about two years; and that the 
 letters placed by Frank Churchill before Jane Fairfax, 
 which she swept away unread, contained the word 
 4 pardon.' Of the good people in ' Northanger Abbey ' 
 and ' Persuasion ' we know nothing more than what is 
 written : for before those works were published their 
 author had been taken away from us, and all such 
 amusing communications had ceased for ever. 
 
150 A Memoir of 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Declining health offline Austen — Elasticity of her spirits — Her 
 resignation and humility — Her death. 
 
 Early in the year 1816 some family troubles dis- 
 turbed the usually tranquil course of Jane Austen's 
 life ; and it is probable that the inward malady, 
 which was to prove ultimately fatal, was already felt 
 by her ; for some distant friends,* whom she visited 
 in the spring of that year, thought that her health 
 was somewhat impaired, and observed that she went 
 about her old haunts, and recalled old recollections 
 connected with them in a particular manner, as if she 
 did not expect ever to see them again. It is not 
 surprising that, under these circumstances, some of 
 her letters were of a graver tone than had been 
 customary with her, and expressed resignation rather 
 than cheerfulness. In reference to these troubles in 
 a letter to her brother Charles, after mentioning that 
 she had been laid up with an attack of bilious fever, 
 she says : ' I live up stairs for the present and am 
 coddled. I am the only one of the party who has 
 been so silly, but a weak body must excuse weak 
 nerves.' And again, to another correspondent : ' But 
 
 * The Fowles, of Kintbury, in Berkshire. 
 
Jane A us ten. 151 
 
 I am getting too near complaint ; it has been the 
 appointment of God, however secondary causes may 
 have operated.' But the elasticity of her spirits soon 
 recovered their tone. It was in the latter half of that 
 year that she addressed the two following lively 
 letters to a nephew, one while he was at Winchester 
 School, the other soon after he had left it : — 
 
 'Chawton, July 9, 181 6. 
 ' My Dear E. — Many thanks. A thank for every 
 line, and as many to Mr. W. Digweed for coming. 
 We have been wanting very much to hear of your 
 mother, and are happy to find she continues to mend, 
 but her illness must have been a very serious one 
 indeed. When she is really recovered, she ought to 
 try change of air, and come over to us. Tell your 
 father that I am very much obliged to him for his 
 share of your letter, and most sincerely join in the 
 hope of her being eventually much the better for her 
 present discipline. She has the comfort moreover of 
 being confined in such weather as gives one little 
 temptation to be out It is really too bad, and has 
 been too bad for a long time, much worse than any 
 one can bear, and I begin to think it will never be 
 fine again. This is a finesse of mine, for I have often 
 observed that if one writes about the weather, it is 
 generally completely changed before the letter is 
 read. I wish it may prove so now, and that when 
 Mr. W. Digweed reaches Steventon to-morrow, he 
 may find you have had a long series of hot dry 
 weather. We are a small party at present, only 
 
152 A Memoir of 
 
 grandmamma, Mary Jane, and myself. Yalden's 
 coach cleared off the rest yesterday. I am glad you 
 recollected to mention your being come home.* My 
 heart began to sink within me when I had got so far 
 through your letter without its being mentioned. I 
 was dreadfully afraid that you might be detained at 
 Winchester by severe illness, confined to your bed 
 perhaps, and quite unable to hold a pen, and only 
 dating from Steventon in order, with a mistaken sort 
 of tenderness, to deceive me. But now I have no 
 doubt of your being at home. I am sure you would 
 not say it so seriously unless it actually were so. 
 We saw a countless number of post-chaises full of 
 boys pass by yesterday morning f — full of future 
 heroes, legislators, fools, and villains. You have 
 never thanked me for my last letter, which went by 
 the cheese. I cannot bear not to be thanked. You 
 will not pay us a visit yet of course ; we must not 
 think of it Your mother must get well first, and 
 you must go to Oxford and not be elected ; after that 
 a little change of scene may be good for you, and 
 your physicians I hope will order you to the sea, or 
 to a house by the side of a very considerable pond.J 
 Oh ! it rains again. It beats against the window. 
 Mary Jane and I have been wet through once already 
 
 * It seems that her young correspondent, after dating from his home, 
 had been so superfluous as to state in his letter that he was returned 
 home, and thus to have drawn on himself this banter. 
 
 + The road by which many Winchester boys returned home ran close 
 to Chawton Cottage. 
 
 X There was, though it exists no longer, a pond close to Chawton 
 Cottage, at the junction of the Winchester and Gosport roads. 
 
Jane A listen. 153 
 
 to-day ; we set off in the donkey-carriage for Far- 
 ringdon, as I wanted to see the improvement Mr. 
 Woolls is making, but we were obliged to turn back 
 before we got there, but not soon enough to avoid a 
 pelter all the way home. We met Mr. Woolls. I 
 talked of its being bad weather for the hay, and he 
 returned me the comfort of its being much worse 
 for the wheat We hear that Mrs. S. does not quit 
 Tangier : why and wherefore ? Do you know that 
 our Browning is gone ? You must prepare for a 
 William when you come, a good-looking lad, civil 
 and quiet, and seeming likely to do. Good bye. I 
 am sure Mr. W. D.* will be astonished at my writing 
 so much, for the paper is so thin that he will be able 
 to count the lines if not to read them. 
 ' Yours aiTec ly , 
 
 ' Jane Austen.' 
 
 In the next letter will be found her description of 
 her own style of composition, which has already ap- 
 peared in the notice prefixed to ' Northanger Abbey ' 
 and ' Persuasion ' : — 
 
 'Chaw-ton, Monday, Dec. 16th (1816). 
 
 ' My Dear E., — One reason for my writing to you 
 now is, that I may have the pleasure of directing to 
 you Esq™ - I give you joy of having left Winchester. 
 Now you may own how miserable you were there ; 
 now it will gradually all come out, your crimes and 
 
 * Mr. Digweed, who conveyed the letters to and from Chan-ton, 
 was the gentleman named in page 21, as renting the old manor-house 
 and the large, farm at Steventon. 
 
1 54 -A Memoir of 
 
 your miseries — how often you went up by the Mail 
 to London and threw away fifty guineas at a tavern, 
 and how often you were on the point of hanging 
 yourself, restrained only, as some ill-natured aspersion 
 upon poor old Winton has it, by the want of a tree 
 within some miles of the city. Charles Knight and 
 his companions passed through Chawton about 9 
 this morning ; later than it used to be. Uncle 
 Henry and I had a glimpse of his handsome face, 
 looking all health and good humour. I wonder 
 when you will come and see us. I know what I 
 rather speculate upon, but shall say nothing. We 
 think uncle Henry in excellent looks. Look at him 
 this moment, and think so too, if you have not done 
 it before ; and we have the great comfort of seeing 
 decided improvement in uncle Charles, both as to 
 health, spirits, and appearance. And they are each 
 of them so agreeable in their different way, and 
 harmonise so well, that their visit is thorough enjoy- 
 ment Uncle Henry writes very superior sermons. 
 You and I must try to get hold of one or two, and 
 put them into our novels : it would be a fine help to 
 a volume; and we could make our heroine read it 
 aloud on a Sunday evening, just as well as Isabella 
 Wardour, in the "Antiquary," is made to read the 
 " History of the Hartz Demon '' in the ruins of St. 
 Ruth, though I believe, on recollection, Lovell is the 
 reader. By the bye, my. dear E., I am quite con- 
 cerned for the loss your mother mentions in her 
 letter. Two chapters >and a half to be missing is 
 monstrous ! It is well that / have not been at 
 
Jane Austen. 155 
 
 Steventon lately, and therefore cannot be suspected 
 of purloining them : two strong twigs and a half 
 towards a nest of my own would have been some- 
 thing. I do not think, however, that any theft of that 
 sort would be really very useful to me. What should 
 I do with your strong, manly, vigorous sketches, full 
 of variety and glow? How could I possibly join 
 them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory 
 on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces 
 little effect after much labour ? 
 
 ' You will hear from uncle Henry how well Anna 
 is. She seems perfectly recovered. Ben was here on 
 Saturday, to ask uncle Charles and me to dine with 
 them, as to-morrow, but I was forced to decline it, 
 the walk is beyond my strength (though I am other- 
 wise very well), and this is not a season for donkey- 
 carriages; and as we do not like to spare uncle 
 Charles, he has declined it too. Tuesday. Ah, ah ! 
 Mr. E. I doubt your seeing uncle Henry at Steven- 
 ton to-day. The weather will prevent your expecting 
 him, I think Tell your father, with aunt Cass's love 
 and mine, that the pickled .cucumbers are extremely 
 good, and tell him also — "tell him what you wilL" 
 No, don't tell him what you will, but tell him that 
 grandmamma begs him to make Joseph Hall pay 
 his rent, if he can. 
 
 ' You must not be tired of reading the word uncle, 
 for I have not done with it. Uncle Charles thanks 
 your mother for her letter ; it was a great pleasure 
 to him to know that the parcel was received and 
 gave so much satisfaction, and he begs her to be so 
 
156 A Memoir of 
 
 good as to give three shillings for him to Dame 
 Staples, which shall be allowed for in the payment 
 of her debt here. 
 
 ' Adieu, Amiable ! I hope Caroline behaves well 
 to you. 
 
 ' Yours affec Iy , 
 
 ']. Austen.' 
 
 I cannot tell how soon she was aware of the serious 
 nature of her malady. By God's mercy it was not 
 attended with much suffering ; so that she was able 
 to tell her friends as in the foregoing letter, and 
 perhaps sometimes to persuade herself that, except- 
 ing want of strength, she was ' otherwise very well ;' 
 but the progress of the disease became more and 
 more manifest as the year advanced. The usual 
 walk was at first shortened, and then discontinued ; 
 and air was sought in a donkey-carriage. Gradually, 
 too, her habits of activity within the house ceased, 
 and she was obliged to lie down much. The sitting- 
 room contained only one sofa, which was fre- 
 quently occupied by her mother, who was more than 
 seventy years old. Jane would never use it, even in 
 her mother's absence ; but she contrived a sort of 
 couch for herself with two or three chairs, and was 
 pleased to say that this arrangement was more com- 
 fortable to her than a real sofa. Her reasons for this 
 might have been left to be guessed, but for the im- 
 portunities of a little niece, which obliged her to 
 explain that if she herself had shown any inclination 
 to use the sofa, her mother might have scrupled 
 being on it so much as was good for her. 
 
Jane Austen. 157 
 
 It is certain, however, that the mind did not share 
 in this decay of the bodily strength. ' Persuasion ' 
 was not finished before the middle of August in that 
 year; and the manner in which it was then com- 
 pleted affords proof that neither the critical nor the 
 creative powers of the author were at all impaired. 
 The book had been brought to an end in July ; and 
 the re-engagement of the hero and heroine effected 
 in a totally different manner in a scene laid at Ad- 
 miral Croft's lodgings. But her performance did not 
 satisfy her. She thought it tame and flat, and was 
 desirous of producing something better. This weighed 
 upon her mind, the more so probably on account of 
 the weak state of her health ; so that one night she 
 retired to rest in very low spirits. But such depres- 
 sion was little in accordance with her nature, and 
 was soon shaken off. The next morning she awoke 
 to more cheerful views and brighter inspirations : the 
 sense of power revived ; and imagination resumed its 
 course. She cancelled the condemned chapter, and 
 wrote two others, entirely different, in its stead. The 
 result is that we possess the visit of the Musgrove 
 party to Bath ; the crowded and animated scenes at 
 the White Hart Hotel ; and the charming conversa- 
 tion between Capt. Harville and Anne Elliot, over- 
 heard by Capt. Wentworth, by which the two faithful 
 lovers were at last led to understand each other's 
 feelings. The tenth and eleventh chapters of ' Per- 
 suasion ' then, rather than the actual winding-up of the 
 story, contain the latest of her printed compositions, 
 her last contribution to the entertainment of the 
 
158 A Memoir of 
 
 public. Perhaps it may be thought that she has 
 seldom written anything more brilliant; and that, 
 independent of the original manner in which the 
 denouement is brought about, the pictures of Charles 
 Musgrove's goodnatured boyishness and of his wife's 
 jealous selfishness would have been incomplete without 
 these finishing strokes. The cancelled chapter exists 
 in manuscript. It is certainly inferior to the two 
 which were substituted for it: but it was such as 
 some writers and some readers might have been con- 
 tented with ; and it contained touches which scarcely 
 any other hand could have given, the suppression of 
 which may be almost a matter of regret* 
 
 The following letter was addressed to her friend 
 Miss Bigg, then staying at Streatham with her 
 sister, the wife of the Reverend Herbert Hill, uncle 
 of Robert Southey. It appears to have been written 
 three days before she began her last work, which will 
 be noticed in another chapter ; and shows that she 
 was not at that time aware of the serious nature of 
 her malady : — 
 
 ' Chawton, January 24, 1S17. 
 
 ' MY DEAR ALETHEA, — I think it time there 
 should be a little writing between us, though I be- 
 lieve the epistolary debt is on your side, and I hope 
 this will find all the Streatham party well, neither 
 carried away by the flood, nor rheumatic through 
 the damps. Such mild weather is, you know, de- 
 
 * This cancelled chapter is now printed, in compliance with the 
 requests addressed to me from several quarters. 
 
Jane Austen. 159 
 
 lightful to us, and though we have a great many- 
 ponds, and a fine running stream through the mea- 
 dows on the other side of the road, it is nothing but 
 what beautifies us and does to talk of. / have cer- 
 tainly gained strength through the winter and am not 
 far from being well; and I think I understand my 
 own case now so much better than I did, as to be 
 able by care to keep off any serious return of illness. 
 I am convinced that bile is at the bottom of all I 
 have suffered, which makes it easy to know how to 
 treat myself. You will be glad to hear thus much of 
 me, I am sure. We have just had a few days' visit 
 from Edward, who brought us a good account of his 
 father, and the very circumstance of his coming at 
 all, of his father's being able to spare him, is itself a 
 good account He grows still, and still improves in 
 appearance, at least in the estimation of his aunts, 
 who love him better and better, as they see the sweet 
 temper and warm affections of the boy confirmed in the 
 young man : I tried hard to persuade him that he must 
 have some message for William,* but in vain. . . . 
 This is not a time of year for donkey-carriages, and 
 our donkeys are necessarily having so long a run of 
 luxurious idleness that I suppose we shall find they 
 have forgotten much of their education when we use 
 them again. We do not use two at once however ; 
 don't imagine such excesses. . . Our own new clergy- 
 man f is expected here very soon, perhaps in time to 
 
 * Miss Bigg's nephew, the present Sir William Heathcote, of 
 Hursley. 
 + Her brother Henry, who had been ordained late in life. 
 
l6o A Memoir of 
 
 assist Mr. Papillon on Sunday. I shall be very glad 
 when the first hearing is over. It will be a nervous 
 hour for our pew, though we hear that he acquits him- 
 self with as much ease and collectedness, as if he had 
 been used to it all his life. We have no chance we 
 know of seeing you between Streatham and Win- 
 chester : you go the other road and are engaged to 
 two or three houses ; if there should be any change, 
 however, you know how welcome you would be. . . . 
 We have been reading the " Poet's Pilgrimage to 
 Waterloo," and generally with much approbation. 
 Nothing will please all the world, you know ; but 
 parts of it suit me better than much that he has 
 written before. The opening — tJie proem I believe 
 he calls it — is very beautiful. Poor man ! one can- 
 not but grieve for the loss of the son so fondly de- 
 scribed. Has he at all recovered it ? What do Mr. 
 and Mrs. Hill know about his present state ? 
 ' Yours aff ly , 
 
 ' J. Austen. 
 
 ' The real object of this letter is to ask you for a 
 receipt, but I thought it genteel not to let it appear 
 early. We remember some excellent orange wine at 
 Manydown, made from Seville oranges, entirely or 
 chiefly. I should be very much obliged to you for 
 the receipt, if you can command it within a few 
 weeks.' 
 
 On the day before, January 23rd, she had written 
 to her niece in the same hopeful tone : ' I feel myself 
 getting stronger than I was, and can so perfectly walk 
 
Jane Austen. 161 
 
 to Alton, or back again without fatigue, that I hope 
 to be able to do both when summer comes.' 
 
 Alas ! summer came to her only on her death- 
 bed. March 17th is the last date to be found in the 
 manuscript on which she was engaged; and as the 
 watch of the drowned man indicates the time of his 
 death, so does this final date seem to fix the period 
 when her mind could no longer pursue its accustomed 
 course. 
 
 And here I cannot do better than quote the words 
 of the niece to whose private records of her aunt's 
 life and character I have been so often indebted : — 
 ' I do not know how early the alarming symptoms of 
 her malady came on. It was in the following March 
 that I had the first idea of her being seriously ill. It 
 had been settled that about the end of that month, or 
 the beginning of April, I should spend a few days at 
 Chawton, in the absence of my father and mother, 
 who were just then engaged with Mrs. Leigh Perrot in 
 arranging her late husband's affairs ; but Aunt Jane 
 became too ill to have me in the house, and so I 
 went instead to my sister Mrs. Lefroy at Wyards'. 
 The next day we walked over to Chawton to make 
 enquiries after our aunt. She was then keeping her 
 room, but said she would see us, and we went up to 
 her. She was in her dressing gown, and was sitting 
 quite like an invalid in an arm-chair, but she got up 
 and kindly greeted us, and then, pointing to seats 
 which had been arranged for us by the fire, she said, 
 " There is a chair for the married lady, and a little 
 
 M 
 
1 62 A Memoir of 
 
 stool for you, Caroline." * It is strange, but those 
 trifling words were the last of hers that I can re- 
 member, for I retain no recollection of what was said 
 by anyone in the conversation that ensued. I was 
 struck by the alteration in herself. She was very 
 pale, her voice was weak and low, and there was 
 about her a general appearance of debility and suffer- 
 ing ; but I have been told that she never had much 
 acute pain. She was not equal to the exertion of 
 talking to us, and our visit to the sick room was a 
 very short one, Aunt Cassandra soon taking us away. 
 I do not suppose we stayed a quarter of an hour ; and 
 I never saw Aunt Jane again.' 
 
 In May 1817 she was persuaded to remove to 
 Winchester, for the sake of medical advice from Mr. 
 Lyford. The Lyfords have, for some generations, 
 maintained a high character in Winchester for medical 
 skill, and the Mr. Lyford of that day was a man of 
 more than provincial reputation, in whom great 
 London practitioners expressed confidence. Mr. 
 Lyford spoke encouragingly. It was hot, of course, 
 his business to extinguish hope in his patient, but I 
 believe that he had, from the first, very little expec- 
 tation of a permanent cure. All that was gained by 
 the removal from home was the satisfaction of having 
 done the best that could be done, together with such 
 alleviations of suffering as superior medical skill could 
 afford. 
 
 Jane and her sister Cassandra took lodgings in 
 College Street They had two kind friends living 
 * The writer was at that time under twelve years old. 
 
Jane Ausicri. 1G3 
 
 in the Close, Mrs. Heathcote and Miss Bigg, the 
 mother and aunt of the present Sir Wm. Heathcote 
 of Hursley, between whose family and ours a close 
 friendship has existed for several generations. These 
 friends did all that they could to promote the comfort 
 of the sisters, during that sad sojourn in Winchester, 
 both by their society, and by supplying those little 
 conveniences in which a lodging-house was likely to 
 be deficient. It was shortly after settling in these 
 lodgings that she wrote to a nephew the following 
 characteristic letter, no longer, alas ! in her former 
 strong, clear hand. 
 
 'Mrs. David's, College St., Winton, 
 Tuesday, May 27th. 
 
 ' There is no better way, my dearest E., of thank- 
 ing you for your affectionate concern for me during 
 my illness than by telling you myself, as soon as 
 possible, that I continue to get better. I will not 
 boast of my handwriting ; neither that nor my face 
 have yet recovered their proper beauty, but in other 
 respects I gain strength very fast. I am now out of 
 bed from 9 in the morning to. 10 at night : upon 
 the sofa, it is true, but I eat my meals with aunt 
 Cassandra in a rational way, and can employ myself, 
 and walk from one room to another. Mr. Lyford 
 says he will cure me, and if he fails, I shall draw up 
 a memorial and lay it before the Dean and Chapter, 
 and have no doubt of redress from that pious, 
 learned, and disinterested body. Our lodgings are 
 very comfortable. We have a neat little drawing- 
 room with a bow window overlooking Dr. Gabell's 
 
1,64- A Memoir of 
 
 garden.* Thanks to the kindness of your father. and 
 mother in sending me their carriage, my journey 
 hither on Saturday was performed with very little 
 fatigue, and had it been a fine day, I think I should 
 have felt none; but it distressed me to see uncle 
 Henry and Wm. Knight, who kindly attended us on 
 horseback, riding in the rain almost the whole way. 
 We expect a visit from them to-morrow, and hope 
 they will stay the night ; and on Thursday, which is 
 a confirmation and a holiday, we are to get Charles 
 out to breakfast We have had but one visit from 
 him, poor fellow, as he is in sick-room, but he hopes 
 to be out to-night. We see Mrs. Heathcote every 
 day, and William is to call upon us soon. God bless 
 you, my dear E. If ever you are ill, may you be 
 as tenderly nursed as I have been. May the same 
 blessed alleviations of anxious, sympathising friends 
 be yours : and may you possess, as I dare say you 
 will, the greatest blessing of all in the consciousness 
 of not being unworthy of their love. / could not 
 feel this. 
 
 ' Your very affec" Aunt, 
 
 'J. A.' 
 
 The following extract from a letter which has been 
 before printed, written soon after the former, breathes 
 the same spirit of humility and thankfulness : — 
 
 ' I will only say further that my dearest sister, my 
 tender, watchful, indefatigable nurse, has not been 
 
 * It was the comer house in College Street, at the entrance to 
 Commoners. 
 
Jane Austen. 165 
 
 made ill by her exertions. As to what I owe her, 
 and the anxious affection of all my beloved family 
 on this occasion, I can only cry over it, and pray 
 God to bless them more and more.' 
 
 Throughout her illness she was nursed by her 
 sister, often assisted by her sister-in-law, my mother. 
 Both were with her when she died. Two of her 
 brothers, who were clergymen, lived near enough to 
 Winchester to be in frequent attendance, and to ad- 
 minister the services suitable for a Christian's death- 
 bed. While she used the language of hope to her 
 correspondents, she was fully aware of her danger, 
 though not appalled by it. It is true that there was 
 much to attach her to life. She was happy in her 
 family ; she was just beginning to feel confidence in 
 her own success ; and, no doubt, the exercise of her 
 great talents was an enjoyment in itself. We may 
 well believe that she would gladly have lived longer ; 
 but she was enabled without dismay or complaint to 
 prepare for death. She was a humble, believing 
 Christian. Her life had been passed in the perform- 
 ance of home duties, and the cultivation of domestic 
 affections, without any self-seeking or craving after 
 applause. She had always sought, as it were by 
 instinct, to promote the happiness of all who came 
 within her influence, and doubtless she had her re- 
 ward in the peace of mind which was granted her in 
 her last days. Her sweetness of temper never failed. 
 She was ever considerate and grateful to those who 
 attended on her. At times, when she felt rather 
 better, her playfulness of spirit revived, and she 
 
1 66 A Memoir of 
 
 amused them even in their sadness. Once, when 
 she thought herself near her end, she said what she 
 imagined might be her last words to those around 
 her, and particularly thanked her sister-in-law for 
 being with her, saying: 'You have always been a 
 kind sister to me, Mary.' When the end at last 
 came, she sank rapidly, and on being asked by her 
 attendants whether there was anything that she 
 wanted, her reply was, 'Nothing but death! These 
 were her last words. In quietness and peace she 
 breathed her last on the morning of July 18, 1817. 
 
 On the 24th of that month she was buried in 
 Winchester Cathedral, near the centre of the north 
 aisle, almost opposite to the beautiful chantry tomb 
 of William of Wykeham. A large slab of black 
 marble in the pavement marks the place. Her own 
 femily only attended the funeral. Her sister re- 
 turned to her desolated home, there to devote herself, 
 for ten years, to the care of her aged mother ; and to 
 live much on the memory of her lost sister,. till called 
 many years later to rejoin her. Her brothers went 
 back sorrowing to their several homes. They were 
 very fond and very proud of her. They were at- 
 tached to her by her talents, her virtues,, and her 
 engaging manners ; and each loved afterwards to 
 fancy a resemblance in some niece or daughter of 
 his own to the dear sister Jane, whose perfect equal 
 they yet never expected to see. 
 
Jane Austen. 167 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Cancelled Cliapter {Chap. X.) of '« Persuasion.' 
 
 With all this knowledge of Mr. Elliot and this 
 authority to impart it, Anne left Westgate Buildings, 
 her mind deeply busy in revolving what she had. 
 heard, feeling, thinking, recalling, and foreseeing 
 everything, shocked at Mr. Elliot, sighing over future 
 Kellynch, and pained for Lady Russell, whose con- 
 fidence in him had been entire. The embarrassment 
 which must be felt from this hour in his presence ! 
 How to behave to him? How to get rid of him? 
 What to do by any of the party at. home ? Where 
 to be blind ? Where to be active ? It was altogether, 
 a confusion of images and doubts — a perplexity, an 
 agitation which she could not see the end of. .And 
 she was in Gay Street, and still so much engrossed, 
 that she started on being .addressed by Admiral 
 Croft, as if he were a person unlikely to be met 
 there. . It was within a few steps of his own door. 
 
 ' You are going to call upon my wife/ said he. ' She 
 will be very glad to see you.' 
 ' Anne' denied it 
 
 ' No ! she really had not time, she was in her way 
 home ; ' but while she spoke the Admiral had stepped 
 back and knocked at the door, calling out, 
 
1 68 A Memoir of 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; do go in ; she is all alone ; go in and rest 
 yourself.' 
 
 Anne felt so little disposed at this time to be in 
 company of any sort, that it vexed her to be thus 
 constrained, but she was obliged to stop. 
 
 ' Since you are so very kind,' said she, ' I will just 
 ask Mrs. Croft how she does, but I really cannot stay 
 five minutes. You are sure she is quite alone ? ' 
 
 The possibility of Captain Wentworth had oc- 
 curred ; and most fearfully anxious was she to be 
 assured — either that he was within, or that he was 
 not — which might have been a question. 
 
 ' Oh yes ! quite alone, nobody but her mantua- 
 maker with her, and they have been shut up together 
 this half-hour, so it must be over soon.' 
 
 ' Her mantuamaker ! Then I am sure my calling 
 now would be most inconvenient. Indeed you must 
 allow me to leave my card and be so good as to 
 explain it afterwards to Mrs. Croft' 
 
 ' No, no, not at all — not at all — she will be very 
 happy to see you. Mind, I will not swear that she 
 has not something particular to say to you, but that 
 will all come out in the right place. I give no hints. 
 Why, Miss Elliot, we begin to hear strange things of 
 you (smiling in her face). But you have not much 
 the look of it, as grave as a little judge !' 
 
 Anne blushed. 
 
 ' Aye, aye, that will do now, it is all right. I 
 thought we were not mistaken.' 
 
 She was left to guess at the direction of his sus- 
 picions ; the first wild idea had been of some dis- 
 
Jane Austen. 169 
 
 closure from his brother-in-law, but she was ashamed 
 the next moment, and felt how far more probable it 
 was that he should be meaning Mr. Elliot. The door 
 was opened, and the man evidently beginning to deny 
 his mistress, when the sight of his master stopped 
 him. The Admiral enjoyed the joke exceedingly. 
 Anne thought his triumph over Stephen rather too 
 long. At last, however, he was able to invite her up 
 stairs, and stepping before her said, ' I will just go 
 up with you myself and show you in. I cannot stay, 
 because I must go to the Post-Office, but if you will 
 only sit down for five minutes I am sure Sophy will 
 come, and you will find nobody to disturb you — there 
 is nobody but Frederick here,' opening the door as 
 he spoke. Such a person to be passed over as no- 
 body to her\ After being allowed to feel quite 
 secure, indifferent, at her ease, to have it burst on 
 her that she was to be the next moment in the same 
 room with him ! No time for recollection ! for plan- 
 ning behaviour or regulating manners ! There was 
 time only to turn pale before she had passed through 
 the door, and met the astonished eyes of Captain 
 Wentworth, who was sitting by the fire, pretending 
 to read, and prepared for no greater surprise than 
 the Admiral's hasty return. 
 
 Equally unexpected was the meeting on each side. 
 There was nothing to be done, however, but to stifle 
 feelings, and to be quietly polite, and the Admiral 
 was too much on the alert to leave any troublesome 
 pause. He repeated again what he had said before 
 about his wife and everybody, insisted on Anne's 
 
170 A Memoir of 
 
 sitting down and being perfectly comfortable — was 
 sorry he must leave her himself, but was sure Mrs. 
 Croft would be down very soon, and would go up- 
 stairs and give her notice directly. Anne was sitting 
 down, but now she arose, again to entreat him not to 
 interrupt Mrs. Croft and re-urge the wish of going 
 away and calling another time. But the Admiral 
 would not hear of it ; and if she did not return to the 
 charge with unconquerable perseverance, or did not 
 with a more passive determination walk quietly out 
 of the room (as certainly she might have done), 
 may she not be pardoned ? If she had no horror of 
 a few minutes' tete-a-tete with Captain Wentworth, 
 may she not be pardoned for not wishing to give 
 him the idea that she had? She reseated herself, 
 and the Admiral took leave, but on reaching the 
 door, said — 
 
 ' Frederick, a word with you if you please.' 
 - Captain Wentworth went to him, and instantly, 
 before they were well out of the room, the Admiral 
 continued — 
 
 'As I am going to leave you together, it is but 
 fair I should give you something to talk of; and so, 
 if- you please ' 
 
 Here the door was very firmly, closed, she could 
 guess by which of the two — and she lost entirely 
 what immediately followed, but it was impossible 
 for her not to distinguish parts of the rest, for the 
 Admiral, on the strength of the door's being -shut, 
 was speaking without any management of voice, 
 though she could hear his companion trying to check- 
 
Jane Austen. 171 
 
 him. She could not doubt their being speaking of 
 her. She heard her own name and Kellynch re- 
 peatedly. She was very much disturbed. She 
 knew not what to do, or what to expect, and among 
 other agonies felt the possibility of Captain Went- 
 worth's not returning into the room at all, which, 
 after her consenting to stay, would have been — too 
 bad for language. They seemed to be talking of 
 the Admiral's lease of Kellynch. She heard him 
 say something of the lease being signed — or not 
 signed — t/iat .vrzs not likely to be a very agitating 
 subject, but then followed — 
 
 ' I hate to be at an uncertainty. I must know at 
 once. Sophy thinks the same.' 
 
 Then in a lower tone Captain Wentworth seemed 
 remonstrating, wanting to be excused, wanting to put 
 something off. 
 
 ' Phoo, phoo,' answered the Admiral, ' now is the 
 time ; if you will not speak, I will stop and speak 
 myself.' 
 
 ' Very well, sir, very well, sir,' followed with some 
 •impatience from his companion, opening the door as 
 he spoke — 
 
 'You will then, you promise you will?' replied 
 the Admiral in all the power of his natural voice, 
 unbroken even by one thin door. 
 
 ' Yes, sir, yes.' And the Admiral was hastily left, 
 the door was closed, and the moment arrived in which 
 Anne was alone with Captain Wentworth. 
 
 She could not attempt to see how he looked, but 
 he walked immediately to a window as if irresolute 
 
172 A Memoir of 
 
 and embarrassed, and for about the space of five 
 seconds she repented what she had done — censured 
 it as unwise, blushed over it as indelicate. She 
 longed to be able to speak of the weather or the 
 concert, but could only compass the relief of taking a 
 newspaper in her hand. The distressing pause was 
 over, however ; he turned round in half a minute, and 
 coming towards the table where she sat, said in a voice 
 of effort and constraint — 
 
 ' You must have heard too much already, Madam, 
 to be in any doubt of my having promised Admiral 
 Croft to speak to you on a particular subject, and 
 this conviction determines me to do so, however re- 
 pugnant to my — to all my sense of propriety to be 
 taking so great a liberty! You will acquit me of 
 impertinence I trust, by considering me as speaking 
 only for another, and speaking by necessity ; and the 
 Admiral is a man who can never be thought imperti-' 
 nent by one who knows him as you do. His inten- 
 tions are always the kindest and the best, and you 
 will perceive he is actuated by none other in the 
 application which I am now, with — with very pe- 
 culiar feelings — obliged to make.' He stopped, but 
 merely to recover breath, not seeming to expect any 
 answer. Anne listened as if her life depended on the 
 issue of his speech. He proceeded with a forced 
 alacrity : — 
 
 ' The Admiral, Madam, was this morning confi- 
 dently informed that you were — upon my soul, I am 
 quite at a loss, ashamed (breathing and speaking 
 quickly) — the awkwardness of giving information of 
 
Jane Austen, 173 
 
 this kind to one of the parties — you can be at no loss 
 to understand me. It was very confidently said that 
 Mr. Elliot — that everything was settled in the family 
 for a union between Mr. Elliot and yourself. It was 
 added that you were to live at Kellynch — that 
 Kellynch was to be given up. This the Admiral 
 knew could not be correct. But it occurred to 
 him that it might be the wish of the parties. And 
 my commission from him, Madam, is to say, that 
 if the family wish is such, his lease of Kellynch 
 shall be cancelled, and he and my sister will provide 
 themselves with another home, without imagining 
 themselves to be doing anything which under similar 
 circumstances would not be done for them. This is 
 all, Madam. A very few words in reply from you 
 will be sufficient. That / should be the person 
 commissioned on this subject is extraordinary ! and 
 believe me, Madam, it is no less painful. A very 
 few words, however, will put an end to the awkward- 
 ness and distress we may both be feeling.' 
 
 Anne spoke a word or two, but they were unintel- 
 ligible ; and before she could command herself, he 
 added, 'If you will only tell me that the Admiral 
 may address a line to Sir Walter, it will be enough. 
 Pronounce only the words, lie may, and I shall imme- 
 diately follow him with your message.' 
 
 ' No, Sir,' said Anne ; ' there is no message. You 
 are misin — the Admiral is misinformed. I do justice 
 to the kindness of his intentions, but he is quite mis- 
 taken. There is no truth in any such report.' 
 
 He was a moment silent. She turned her eyes 
 
174 -A Memoir of 
 
 towards him for the first time since his re-entering the 
 room. His colour was varying, and he was looking 
 at her with all the power and keenness which she 
 believed no other eyes than his possessed. 
 
 'No truth in any such report?' he repeated. 'No 
 truth in zn.y part of it ?' 
 
 ' None.' 
 
 He had been standing by a chair, enjoying the 
 relief of leaning on it, or of playing with it. He now 
 sat down, drew it a little nearer to her, and looked 
 with an expression which had something more than 
 penetration in it — something softer. Her countenance 
 did not discourage. It was a silent but a very power- 
 ful dialogue ; on his supplication, on hers acceptance. 
 Still a little nearer, and a hand taken and pressed ; 
 and 'Anne, my own dear Anne!' bursting forth in all 
 the fulness of exquisite feeling, — and all suspense and 
 indecision were over. They were re-united. They 
 were restored to all that had been lost. They were 
 carried back to the past with only an increase of at- 
 tachment and confidence, and only such a flutter of 
 present delight as made them little fit for the inter- 
 ruption of Mrs. Croft when she joined them not long 
 afterwards. Site, probably, in the observations of the 
 next ten minutes . saw something to suspect ; and 
 though it was hardly possible for a woman of her 
 description to wish the mantuamaker had imprisoned 
 her longer, she might be very likely wishing for some 
 excuse to run about the house, some storm to break 
 the windows above, or a summons to the Admiral's 
 shoemaker below. Fortune favoured them all, how- 
 
Jane Austen. 175 
 
 ever, in another way, in a gentle, steady rain, just hap- 
 pily set in as the Admiral returned and Anne rose to 
 go. She was earnestly invited to stay dinner. A 
 note was despatched to Camden Place, and she staid — 
 staid till ten at night ; and during that time the hus- 
 band and wife, either by the wife's contrivance, or by 
 simply going on in their usual way, were frequently 
 out of the room together — gone upstairs to hear a 
 noise, or downstairs to settle their accounts, or upon 
 the landing to trim the lamp. And these precious 
 moments were turned to so good an account that all the 
 most anxious feelings of the past were gone through. 
 Before they parted at night, Anne had the felicity 
 of being assured that in the first place (so far from 
 being altered for the worse), she had gained inexpres- 
 sibly in personal loveliness ; and that as to character, 
 hers was now fixed on his mind as perfection itself, 
 maintaining the just medium of fortitude and gentle- 
 ness — that he had never ceased to love and prefer 
 her, though it had been only at Uppercross that he 
 had learnt to do her justice, and only at Lyme that 
 he had begun to understand his own»feelings ; that at 
 Lyme he had received lessons of more than one kind — 
 the passing admiration of Mr. Elliot had at least 
 roused him, and the scene on the Cobb, and at. Captain 
 Harville's, had fixed her superiority. In his preced- 
 ing attempts to attach himself to Louisa Musgrove 
 (the attempts of anger and pique), he protested that 
 he had continually felt the impossibility of really 
 caring for Louisa, though till that day, till the leisure 
 for reflection which followed it, he had not under- 
 
1 76 . A Memoir of 
 
 stood the perfect excellence of the mind with which 
 Louisa's could so ill bear comparison ; or the perfect, 
 the unrivalled hold it possessed over his own. There 
 he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of 
 principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the 
 darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a col- 
 lected mind ; there he had seen everything to exalt in 
 his estimation the woman he had lost, and there had 
 begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of 
 resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain 
 her when thrown in his way. From that period to the 
 present had his penance been the most severe. He 
 had no sooner been free from the horror and remorse 
 attending the first few days of Louisa's accident, no 
 sooner had begun to feel himself alive again, than he 
 had begun to feel himself, though alive, not at liberty. 
 He found that he was considered by his friend Har- 
 ville an engaged man. The Harvilles entertained 
 not a doubt of a mutual attachment between him and 
 Louisa; and though this to a degree was contradicted 
 instantly, it yet made him feel that perhaps by her 
 family, by everybody, by herself even, the same idea 
 might be held, and that he was not free in honour, 
 though if such were to be the conclusion, too free alas ! 
 in heart He had never thought justly on this sub- 
 ject before, and he had not sufficiently considered 
 that his excessive intimacy at Uppercross must have 
 its danger of ill consequence in many ways ; and that 
 while trying whether he could attach himself to either 
 of the girls, he might be exciting unpleasant reports 
 if not raising unrequited regard. 
 
Jane Austen. 177 
 
 He found too late that he had entangled himself, 
 and that precisely as he became thoroughly satisfied 
 of his not caring for Louisa at all, he must regard 
 himself as bound to her if her feelings for him were 
 what the Harvilles supposed. It determined him to 
 leave Lyme, and await her perfect recovery elsewhere. 
 He would gladly weaken by any fair means what- 
 ever sentiment or speculations concerning them might 
 exist; and he went therefore into Shropshire, meaning 
 after a while to return to the Crofts at Kellynch, and 
 act as he found requisite. 
 
 He had remained in Shropshire, lamenting the 
 blindness of his own pride and the blunders of his 
 own calculations, till at once released from Louisa 
 by the astonishing felicity of her engagement with 
 Benwick. 
 
 Bath — Bath had instantly followed in thought, and 
 not long after in fact. To Bath — to arrive with hope, 
 to be torn by jealousy at the first sight of Mr. Elliot ; 
 to experience all the changes of each at the concert ; 
 to be miserable by the morning's circumstantial re- 
 port, to be now more happy than language could ex- 
 press, or any heart but his own be capable of. 
 
 He was very eager and very delightful in the de- 
 scription of what he had felt at the concert ; the evening 
 seemed to have been made up of exquisite moments. 
 The moment of her stepping forward in the octagon 
 room to speak to him, the moment of Mr. Elliot's 
 appearing and tearing her away, and one or two sub- 
 sequent moments, marked by returning hope or in- 
 creasing despondency, were dwelt on with energy. 
 
 N 
 
178 A Memoir of 
 
 ' To see you,' cried he, ' in the midst of those who 
 could not be my well-wishers; to see your cousin 
 close by you, conversing and smiling, and feel all the 
 horrible, eligibilities and proprieties of the match! To 
 consider it as the certain wish of every being who 
 could hope to influence you ! Even if your own feel- 
 ings were reluctant or indifferent, to consider what 
 powerful support would be his ! Was it not enough 
 to make the fool of me which I appeared ? How 
 could I look on without agony ? Was not the very 
 sight of the friend who sat behind you ; was not the 
 recollection of what had been, the knowledge of her 
 influence, the indelible, immovable impression of what 
 persuasion had once done — was it not all against 
 me ? ' 
 
 'You should have distinguished,' replied Anne. 
 ' You should not have suspected me now ; the case so 
 different, and my age so different If I was wrong in 
 yielding to persuasion once, remember it was to per- 
 suasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. 
 When I yielded, I thought it was to duty ; but no 
 duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man 
 indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, 
 and all duty violated.' 
 
 ' Perhaps I ought to have reasoned thus,' he re- 
 plied ; ' but I could not. I could not derive benefit 
 from the late knowledge I had acquired of your cha- 
 racter. I could not bring it into play ; it was over- 
 whelmed, buried, lost in those earlier feelings which I 
 had been smarting under year after year. I could 
 think of you only as one who . had yielded, who had 
 
Jane Austen. 179 
 
 given me up, who had been influenced by anyone 
 rather than by me. I saw you with the very person 
 who had guided you in that year of misery. I had 
 no reason to believe her of less authority now. The 
 force of habit was to be added.' 
 
 * I should have thought,' said Anne, ' that my man- 
 ner to yourself might have spared you much or all 
 of this.' 
 
 ' No, no ! Your manner might be only the ease 
 which your engagement to another man would give. 
 I left you in this belief; and yet — I was determined 
 to see you again. My spirits rallied with the morn- 
 ing, and I felt that I had still a motive for remaining 
 here. The Admiral's news, indeed, was a revulsion ; 
 since that moment I have been divided what to do, 
 and had it been confirmed, this would have been my 
 last day in Bath.' 
 
 There was time for all this to pass, with such inter- 
 ruptions only as enhanced the charm of the commu- 
 nication, and Bath could hardly contain any other 
 two beings at once so rationally and so rapturously 
 happy as during that evening occupied the sofa of 
 Mrs. Croft's drawing-room in Gay Street. 
 
 Captain Wentworth had taken care to meet the 
 Admiral as he returned into the house, to satisfy him 
 as to Mr. Elliot and Kellynch ; and the delicacy of 
 the Admiral's good-nature kept him from saying 
 another word on the subject to Anne. He was quite 
 concerned lest he might have been giving her pain by 
 touching on a tender part — who could say ? She 
 might be liking her cousin better than he liked her ; 
 
1 80 A Memoir of 
 
 and, upon recollection, if they had been to marry at 
 all, why should they have waited so long ? When the 
 evening closed, it is probable that the Admiral re- 
 ceived some new ideas from his wife, whose particu- 
 larly friendly manner in parting with her gave Anne 
 the gratifying persuasion of her seeing and approving. 
 It had been such a day to Anne ; the hours which 
 had passed since her leaving Camden Place had done 
 so much! She was almost bewildered — almost too 
 happy in looking back It was necessary to sit up 
 half the night, and lie awake the remainder, to com- 
 prehend with composure her present state, and pay 
 for the overplus of bliss by headache and fatigue. 
 
 Then follows Chapter XL, i.e. XII. in the pub- 
 lished book and at the end is written — 
 
 Finis, July 18, 1816. 
 
Jane Austen. 181 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 The last Work. 
 
 Jane Austen was taken from us: how much un- 
 exhausted talent perished with her, how largely she 
 might yet have contributed to the entertainment of 
 her readers, if her life had been prolonged, cannot 
 be known ; but it is certain that the mine at which 
 she had so long laboured was not worked out, and 
 that she was still diligently employed in collect- 
 ing fresh materials from it. 'Persuasion' had been 
 finished in August 1816; some time was probably 
 given to correcting it for the press ; but on the 27th 
 of the following January, according to the date on 
 her own manuscript, she began a new novel, and 
 worked at it up to the 17th of March. The chief 
 part of this manuscript is written in her usual firm 
 and neat hand, but some of the latter pages seem to 
 have been first traced in pencil, probably when she 
 was too weak to sit long at her desk, and written 
 over in ink afterwards. The quantity produced does 
 not indicate any decline of power or industry, for in 
 those seven weeks twelve chapters had been com- 
 pleted. It is more difficult to judge of the quality 
 of a work so little advanced. It had received no 
 name; there was scarcely any indication what the 
 
1 82 A Memoir of 
 
 course of the story was to be, nor was any heroine 
 yet perceptible, who, like Fanny Price, or Anne 
 Elliot, might draw round her the sympathies of the 
 reader. Such an unfinished fragment cannot be pre- 
 sented to the public ; but I am persuaded that some 
 of Jane Austen's admirers will be glad to learn some- 
 thing about the latest creations which were forming 
 themselves in her mind ; and therefore, as some of 
 the principal characters were already sketched in 
 with a vigorous hand, I will try to give an idea of 
 them, illustrated by extracts from the work. 
 
 The scene is laid at Sanditon, a village on the 
 Sussex coast, just struggling into notoriety as a 
 bathing-place, under the patronage of the two prin- 
 cipal proprietors of the parish, Mr. Parker and Lady 
 Denham. • 
 
 Mr. Parker was an amiable man, with more en- 
 thusiasm than judgment, whose somewhat shallow 
 mind overflowed with the one idea of the prosperity 
 of Sanditon, together with a jealous contempt of the 
 rival village of Brinshore, where a similar attempt 
 was going on. To the regret of his much-enduring 
 wife, he had left his family mansion, with all its an- 
 cestral comforts of gardens, shrubberies, and shelter, 
 situated in a valley some miles inland, and had built 
 a new residence — a Trafalgar House— on the bare 
 brow of the hill overlooking Sanditon and the sea, 
 exposed to every wind that blows; but he will con- 
 .fess to no discomforts, nor suffer his family to feel 
 any from the change. The following extract brings 
 him before the reader, mounted on his hobby : — : 
 
Jane Austen. 183 
 
 ' He wanted to secure the promise of a visit, and 
 to get as many of the family as his own house would 
 hold to follow him to Sanditon as soon as possible ; 
 and, healthy as all the Heywoods undeniably were, 
 he foresaw that every one of them would be bene- 
 fitted by the sea. He held it indeed as certain that 
 no person, however upheld for the present by for- 
 tuitous aids of exercise and spirit in a semblance of 
 health, could be really in a state of secure and per- 
 manent health without spending at least six weeks 
 by the sea every year. The sea air and sea-bathing 
 together were nearly infallible ; one or other of them 
 being a match for every disorder of the stomach, the 
 lungs, or the blood. They were anti-spasmodic, anti- 
 pulmonary, anti-bilious, and anti-rheumatic. Nobody 
 could catch cold by the sea ; nobody wanted appe- 
 tite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody 
 wanted strength.- They were healing, softening, re- 
 laxing, fortifying, and bracing, seemingly just as was 
 wanted ; sometimes one, sometimes the other. If 
 the sea breeze failed, the sea-bath was the certain 
 corrective ; and when bathing disagreed, the sea 
 breeze was evidently designed by nature for the cure. 
 His eloquence, however, could not prevail. Mr. and 
 Mrs. HeyWood never left home The mainten- 
 ance, education, and fitting out of fourteen children 
 demanded a very quiet, settled, careful course of life ; 
 and obliged them to be stationary and healthy at 
 Willingden. What prudence had at first enjoined 
 was now rendered pleasant by habit. They never 
 left home, and they had a gratification in saying so.' 
 
1 84 A Memoir of 
 
 Lady Denham's was a very different character. 
 She was a rich vulgar widow, with a sharp but narrow 
 mind, who cared for the prosperity of Sanditon only 
 so far as it might increase the value of her own 
 property. She is thus described : — 
 
 'Lady Denham had been a rich Miss Brereton, 
 born to wealth, but not to education. Her first 
 husband had been a Mr. Hollis, a man of consider- 
 able property in the country, of which a large share 
 of the parish of Sanditon, with manor and mansion- 
 house, formed a part. He had been an elderly man 
 when she married him ; her own age about thirty. 
 Her motives for such a match could be little under- 
 stood at the distance of forty years, but she had so 
 well nursed and pleased Mr. Hollis that at his death 
 he left her everything — all his estates, and all at her 
 disposal. After a widowhood of some years she had 
 been induced to marry again. The late Sir Harry 
 Denham, of Denham Park, in the neighbourhood of 
 Sanditon, succeeded in removing her and her large 
 income to his own domains ; but he could not suc- 
 ceed in the views of permanently enriching his family 
 which were attributed to him. She had been too 
 wary to put anything out of her own power, and 
 when, on Sir Harry's death, she returned again to 
 her own house at Sanditon, she was said to have 
 made this boast, " that though she had got nothing 
 but her title from the family, yet she had given 
 nothing for it." For the title it was to be supposed 
 that she married. 
 ' Lady Denham was indeed a great lady, beyond the 
 
Jane Austen. 185 
 
 common wants of society ; for she had many thousands 
 a year to bequeath, and three distinct sets of people 
 to be courted by : — her own relations, who might very 
 reasonably wish for her original thirty thousand pounds 
 among them ; the legal heirs of Mr. Hollis, who might 
 hope to be more indebted to her sense of justice than 
 he had allowed them to be to his ; and those members 
 of the Denham family for whom her second husband 
 had hoped to make a good bargain. By all these, or 
 by branches of them, she had, no doubt, been long 
 and still continued to be well attacked ; and of these 
 three divisions Mr. Parker did not hesitate to say that 
 Mr. Hollis's kindred were the least in favour, and Sir 
 Harry Denham's the most. The former, he believed, 
 had done themselves irremediable harm by expres- 
 sions of very unwise resentment at the time of Mr. 
 Hollis's death: the latter, to the advantage of being 
 the remnant of a connection which she certainly 
 valued, joined those of having been known to her 
 from their childhood, and of being always at hand to 
 pursue their interests by seasonable attentions. But 
 another claimant was now to be taken into account : 
 a young female relation whom Lady Denham had 
 been induced to receive into her family. After having 
 always protested against any such addition, and often 
 enjoyed the repeated defeat she had given to every 
 attempt of her own relations to introduce ' this young 
 lady, or that young lady,' as a companion at Sanditon 
 House, she had brought back with her from London 
 last Michaelmas a Miss Clara Brereton, who bid fair 
 to vie in favour with Sir Edward Denham, and to 
 
1 86 A Memoir of 
 
 secure for herself and her family that share of the 
 accumulated property which they had certainly the 
 best right to inherit.' 
 
 Lady Denham's character comes out in a conversa- 
 tion which takes place at Mr. Parker's tea-table. 
 
 ' The conversation turned entirely upon Sanditon, its 
 present number of visitants, and the chances of a good 
 season. It was evident that Lady Denham had more 
 anxiety, more fears of loss than her coadjutor. She 
 wanted to have the place fill faster, and seemed to 
 have many harassing apprehensions of the lodgings 
 being in some instances underlet. To a report that a 
 large boarding-school was expected she replies, ' Ah, 
 well, no harm in that. They will stay their six weeks, 
 and out of such a number who knows but some may 
 be consumptive, and want asses' milk; and I have two 
 milch asses at this very time. But perhaps the little 
 Misses may hurt the furniture. I hope they will have 
 a good sharp governess to look after them.' But she 
 wholly disapproved of Mr. Parker's wish to secure the 
 residence of a medical man amongst them. 'Why, 
 what should we do with a doctor here? It would only 
 be encouraging our servants and the poor to fancy 
 themselves ill,, if there was a doctor at hand.. Oh, 
 pray let us have none of that tribe at Sanditon: we 
 go on very well as we are. There is the Sea, and the 
 downs, and my milch asses: and I have. told Mrs. 
 Whitby that if anybody enquires for a chamber horse, 
 they may be supplied at a fair rate (poor Mr. Hollis's 
 chamber horse, as good as new); and what can people 
 want more? I have lived seventy good years in the 
 
Jane Austen. 1S7 
 
 world, and never took physic, except twice: and never 
 saw the face of a doctor in all my life on my own 
 account; and I really believe if my poor dear Sir 
 Harry had never seen one neither, he would have been 
 alive now. Ten fees, one after another, did the men 
 take who sent him out of the world. I beseech you, 
 Mr. Parker, no doctors here.' 
 
 This lady's character comes out more strongly in a 
 conversation with Mr. Parker's guest. Miss Charlotte 
 Heywood. Sir Edward Denham with his sister 
 Esther and Clara Brereton have just left them. 
 
 ' Charlotte accepted an invitation from Lady Den- 
 ham to remain with her on the terrace, when the others 
 adjourned to the library. Lady Denham, like a true 
 great lady, talked, and talked only of her own 
 concerns, and Charlotte listened. Taking hold of 
 Charlotte's arm with the ease of one who felt that 
 any notice from her was a favour, and communicative 
 from the same sense of importance, or from a natural 
 love of talking, she immediately said in a tone of 
 great satisfaction, and with a look of arch sagacity: — 
 
 ' Miss Esther wants me to invite her and her brother 
 to spend a week with me at Sanditon House, as I did 
 last summer, but I shan't. She has been trying to get 
 round me, every way with her praise of this and her 
 praise of that ; but I saw what she was about. I saw 
 through it all. I am not very easily taken in, my dear/ 
 . Charlotte could think of nothing more harmless to 
 be said than the simple enquiry of, ' Sir Edward and 
 Miss Denham?' 
 
 'Yes, my dear; my young folks, as I call them, 
 
1 88 A Memoir of 
 
 sometimes: for I take them very much by the hand, 
 and had them with me last summer, about this time, 
 for a week — from Monday to Monday — and very 
 delighted and thankful they were. For they are very 
 good young people, my dear. I would not have you 
 think that I only notice them for poor dear Sir Harry's 
 sake. No, no; they are very deserving themselves, 
 or, trust me, they would not be so much in my 
 company. I am not the woman to help anybody 
 blindfold. I always take care to know what I am 
 about, and who I have to deal with before I stir a 
 finger. I do not think I was ever overreached in my 
 life ; and that is a good deal for a woman to say that 
 has been twice married. Poor dear Sir Harry (between 
 ourselves) thought at first to have got more, but (with 
 a bit of a sigh) he is gone, and we must not find fault 
 with the dead. Nobody could live happier together 
 than us : and he was a very honourable man, quite 
 the gentleman, of ancient family ; and when he died I 
 gave Sir Edward his gold watch.' 
 
 This was said with a look at her companion which 
 implied its right to produce a great impression ; and 
 seeing no rapturous astonishment in Charlotte's coun- 
 tenance, she added quickly, 
 
 'He did not bequeath it to his nephew, my dear; 
 it was no bequest ; it was not in the will. He only 
 told me, and that but once, that he should wish his 
 nephew to have his watch ; but it need not have been 
 binding, if I had not chose it' 
 
 ' Very kind indeed, very handsome ! ' said Char- 
 lotte, absolutely forced to affect admiration. 
 
Jane Austen. 189 
 
 ' Yes, my dear ; and it is not the only kind thing I 
 have done by him. I have been a very liberal friend 
 to Sir Edward ; and, poor young man, he needs it 
 bad enough. For, though I am only the dowager, 
 my dear, and he is the heir, things do not stand 
 between us in the way they usually do between those 
 two parties. Not a shilling do I receive from the 
 Denham estate. Sir Edward has no payments to 
 make me. He don't stand uppermost, believe me ; it 
 is / that help him! 
 
 ' Indeed ! he is a very fine young man, and par- 
 ticularly elegant in his address.' 
 
 This was said chiefly for the sake of saying some- 
 thing ; but Charlotte directly saw that it was laying 
 her open to suspicion, by Lady Denham's giving a 
 shrewd glance at her, and replying, 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; he's very well to look at ; and it is to 
 be hoped that somebody of large fortune will think 
 so ; for Sir Edward must marry for money. He and 
 I often talk that matter over. A handsome young 
 man like him will go smirking and smiling about, 
 and paying girls compliments, but he knows he must 
 marry for money. And Sir Edward is a very steady 
 young man, in the main, and has got very good 
 notions.' 
 
 ' Sir Edward Denham/ said Charlotte, ' with such 
 personal advantages, may be almost sure of getting a 
 woman of fortune, if he chooses it.' 
 
 This glorious sentiment seemed quite to remove 
 suspicion. 
 
 'Aye, my dear, that is very sensibly said; and 
 
i go A Memoir of 
 
 if we could but get a young heiress to Sanditon ! 
 But heiresses are monstrous scarce ! I do not think 
 we have had an heiress here, nor even a Co., since 
 Sanditon has been a public place. Families come 
 after families, but, as far as I can learn, it is not one 
 in a hundred of them that have any real property, 
 landed or funded. An income, perhaps, but no pro- 
 perty. Clergymen, may be, or lawyers from town, 
 or half-pay officers, or widows with only a jointure ; 
 and what good can such people do to anybody? 
 Except just as they take our empty houses, and 
 (between ourselves) I think they are great fools for 
 not staying at home. Now, if we could get a young 
 heiress to be sent here for her health, and, as soon as 
 she got well, have her fall in love with Sir Edward ! 
 And Miss Esther must marry somebody of fortune, 
 too. She must get a rich husband. Ah! young 
 ladies that have no money are very much to be 
 pitied.' After a short pause : ' If Miss Esther thinks 
 to talk me into inviting them to come and stay 
 at Sanditon House, she will find herself mistaken. 
 Matters are altered with me since last summer, you 
 know: I have Miss Clara with me now, which makes 
 a great difference. I should not choose to have my 
 two housemaids' time taken up all the morning in 
 dusting out bedrooms. They have Miss Clara's room 
 ' to put to rights, as well as mine, every day. If they 
 had hard work, they would want higher wages.' 
 
 Charlotte's feelings were divided between amuse- 
 ment and indignation. She kept her countenance, 
 and kept a civil silence ; but without attempting to 
 
Jane Austen. 191 
 
 listen any longer, and only conscious that Lady 
 Denham was still talking in the same way, allowed 
 her own thoughts to form themselves into such 
 meditation as this : — ' She is thoroughly mean ; I had 
 no expectation of anything so bad. Mr. Parker spoke 
 too mildly of her. He is too kind-hearted to see 
 clearly, and their very connection misleads him. He 
 has persuaded her to engage in the same speculation", 
 and because they have so far the same object in 
 view, he fancies that she feels like him in other 
 things ; but she is very, very mean. I can see no 
 good in her. Poor Miss Brereton! And it makes 
 everybody mean about her. This poor Sir Edward 
 and his sister! how far nature meant them to be 
 respectable I cannot tell ; but they are obliged to be 
 mean in their servility to her; and I am mean, too, 
 in giving her my attention with the appearance of 
 coinciding with her. Thus it is when rich people are 
 sordid.' 
 
 Mr. Parker has two unmarried sisters of singular 
 character. They live together ; Diana, the younger, 
 always takes the lead, and the elder follows' in the 
 same track. It is their pleasure to fancy themselves 
 invalids to a degree and in a manner never expe- 
 rienced by others ; but, from a state of exquisite pain 
 and utter prostration, Diana Parker can always rise to 
 be officious in the concerns of all her acquaintance, 
 and to make incredible exertions where they are not 
 wanted. 
 
 It would seem that they must be always either 
 very busy for the good of others, or else extremely 
 
192 A Memoir of 
 
 ill themselves. Some natural delicacy of constitu- 
 tion, in fact, with an unfortunate turn for medicine, 
 especially quack medicine, had given them an early 
 tendency at various times to various disorders. The 
 rest of their suffering was from their own fancy, the 
 love of distinction, and the love of the wonderful. 
 They had charitable hearts and many amiable feel- 
 ings ; but a spirit of restless activity, and the glory of 
 doing more than anybody else, had a share in every 
 exertion of benevolence, and there was vanity in all 
 they did, as well as in all they endured. 
 
 These peculiarities come out in the following letter 
 of Diana Parker to her brother : — 
 
 ' My DEAR Tom, — We were much grieved at your 
 accident, and if you had not described yourself as 
 having fallen into such very good hands, I should have 
 been with you at all hazards the day after receipt 
 of your letter, though it found me suffering under a 
 more severe attack than usual of my old grievance, 
 spasmodic bile, and hardly able to crawl from my 
 bed to the sofa. But how were you treated ? Send 
 me more particulars in your next If indeed a 
 simple sprain, as you denominate it, nothing would 
 have been so judicious as friction — friction by the 
 hand alone, supposing it could be applied imme- 
 diately. Two years ago I happened to be calling on 
 Mrs. Sheldon, when her coachman sprained his foot, 
 as he was cleaning the carriage, and could hardly 
 limp into the house; but by the immediate use of 
 friction alone, steadily persevered in (I rubbed his 
 
Jane Austen. 193 
 
 ancle with my own hands for four hours without 
 intermission), he was well in three days. . . . Pray 
 never run into peril again in looking for an apothe- 
 cary on our account ; for had you the most ex- 
 perienced man in his line settled at Sanditon, it 
 would be no recommendation to us. We have en- 
 tirely done with the whole medical tribe. We have 
 consulted physician after physician in vain, till we 
 are quite convinced that they can do nothing for us, 
 and that we must trust to our knowledge of our 
 own wretched constitutions for any relief; but if you 
 think it advisable for the interests of the place to. get 
 a medical man there, I will undertake the com- 
 mission with pleasure, and have no doubt of succeed- 
 ing. I could soon put the necessary irons in the 
 fire. As for getting to Sanditon myself, it is an 
 impossibility. I grieve to say that I cannot attempt 
 it, but my feelings tell me too plainly that in my 
 present state the sea-air would probably be the death 
 of me ; and in truth I doubt whether Susan's nerves 
 would be equal to the effort. She has been suffer- 
 ing much from headache, and six leeches a day, for 
 ten days together, relieved her so little that we 
 thought it right to change our measures ; and being 
 convinced on examination that much of the evil lay 
 in her gums, I persuaded her to attack the disorder 
 there. She has accordingly had three teeth drawn, 
 and is decidedly better; but her nerves are a good 
 deal deranged, she can only speak in a whisper, and 
 fainted away this morning on poor Arthur's trying to 
 suppress a cough.' 
 
 O 
 
194 A Memoir of 
 
 Within a week of the date of this letter, in spite 
 of the impossibility of moving, and of the fatal effects 
 to be apprehended from the sea-air, Diana Parker 
 was at Sanditon with her sister. She had flattered 
 herself that by her own indefatigable exertions, and 
 by setting at work the agency of many friends, she 
 had induced two large families to take houses at 
 Sanditon. It was to expedite these politic views that 
 she came ; and though she met with some disappoint- 
 ment of her expectation, yet she did not suffer in 
 health. 
 
 Such were some of the dramatis persona, ready 
 dressed and prepared for their parts. They are at 
 least original and unlike any that the author had 
 produced before. The success of the piece must 
 have depended on the skill with which these parts 
 might be played ; but few will be inclined to dis- 
 trust the skill of one who had so often succeeded. 
 If the author had lived to complete her work, it is 
 probable that these personages might have grown 
 into as mature an individuality of character, and 
 have taken as permanent a place amongst our familiar 
 acquaintance, as Mr. Bennet, or John Thorp, Mary 
 Musgrove, or Aunt Norris herself. 
 
iSJ? tUsU-t-i^. tysC^cjgt^ X^*-<-«-<-» Jcs£- 'p£*-i^^~> 
 
 ^U^ <y> a*^^u~ fa y/^, 1 6L~*~4- 
 
 
Jane Austen. 195 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Postscript. 
 
 WHEN first I was asked to put together a memoir of 
 my aunt, I saw reasons for declining the attempt 
 It was not only that, having passed the three score 
 years and ten usually allotted to man's strength, 
 and being unaccustomed to write for publication, I 
 might well distrust my ability to complete the work, 
 but that I also knew the extreme scantiness of the 
 materials out of which it must be constructed. The 
 grave closed over my aunt fifty-two years ago ; and 
 during that long period no idea of writing her life 
 had been entertained by any of her family. Her 
 nearest relatives, far from making provision for such 
 a purpose, had actually destroyed many of the letters 
 and papers by which it might have been facilitated. 
 They were influenced, I believe, partly by an ex- 
 treme dislike to publishing private details, and partly 
 by never having assumed that the world would take 
 so strong and abiding an interest in her works as to 
 claim her name as public property. It was therefore 
 necessary for me to draw upon recollections rather 
 than on written documents for my materials ; while 
 the subject itself supplied me with nothing striking 
 
196 A Memoir of 
 
 or prominent with which to arrest the attention of 
 the reader. It has been said that the happiest in- 
 dividuals, like nations during their happiest periods, 
 have no history. In the case of my aunt, it was not 
 only that her course of life was unvaried, but that 
 her own disposition was remarkably calm and even. 
 There was in her nothing eccentric or angular; no 
 ruggedness of temper ; no singularity of manner ; 
 none of the morbid sensibility or exaggeration of 
 feeling, which not unfrequently accompanies great 
 talents, to be worked up into a picture. Hers was 
 a mind well balanced on a basis of good sense, 
 sweetened by an affectionate heart, and regulated by 
 fixed principles ; so that she was to be distinguished 
 from many other amiable and sensible women only 
 by that peculiar genius which shines out clearly 
 enough in her works, but of which a biographer can 
 make little use. The motive which at last induced 
 me to make the attempt is exactly expressed in the 
 passage prefixed to these pages. I thought that I 
 saw something to be done : knew of no one who 
 could do it but myself, and so was driven to the 
 enterprise. I am glad that I have been able to 
 finish my work. As a family record it can scarcely 
 fail to be interesting to those relatives who must 
 ever set a high value on their connection with Jane 
 Austen, and to them I especially dedicate it ; but as 
 I have been asked to do so, I also submit it to the 
 censure of the public, with all its faults both of 
 deficiency and redundancy. I know that its value in 
 their eyes must depend, not on any merits of its 
 
Jane Austen. 197 
 
 own, but on the degree of estimation in which my 
 aunt's works may still be held ; and indeed I shall 
 esteem it one of the strongest testimonies ever borne 
 to her talents, if for her sake an interest can be taken 
 in so poor a sketch as I have been able to draw. 
 
 Bray Vicarage: 
 Sept. 7, 1869. 
 
LADY SUSAN. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE lately received permission to print the 
 following tale from the author's niece, Lady Knatch- 
 bull, of Provender, in Kent, to whom the autograph 
 copy was given. I am not able to ascertain when it 
 was composed. Her family have always believed it 
 to be an early production. Perhaps she wrote it as 
 an experiment in conducting a story by means of 
 letters. It was not, however, her only attempt of 
 that kind ; for ' Sense and Sensibility ' was first 
 written in letters ; but as she afterwards re-wrote one 
 of these works and never published the other, it is 
 probable that she was not quite satisfied with the 
 result. The tale itself is scarcely one on which a 
 literary reputation could have been founded : but 
 though, like some plants, it may be too slight to 
 stand alone, it may, perhaps, be supported by the 
 strength of her more firmly rooted works. At any 
 rate, it cannot diminish Jane Austen's reputation as 
 a writer ; for even if it should be judged unworthy of 
 the publicity now given to it, the censure must fall on 
 him who has put it forth, not on her who kept it 
 locked up in her desk. 
 
LADY SUSAN. 
 
 i. 
 
 Lady Susan Vernon to Mr. Vernon. 
 
 Langford, Dec. 
 
 Y dear Brother, — I can no longer re- 
 fuse myself the pleasure of profiting by 
 your kind invitation when we last parted 
 of spending some weeks with you at 
 Churchhill, and, therefore, if quite convenient to you 
 and Mrs. Vernon to receive me at present, I shall 
 hope within a few days to be introduced to a 
 sister whom I have so long desired to be acquainted 
 with. My kind friends here are most affectionately 
 urgent with me to prolong my stay, but their hos- 
 pitable and cheerful dispositions lead them too much 
 into society for my present situation and state of 
 mind ; and I impatiently look forward to the hour 
 when I shall be admitted into your delightful re- 
 tirement. 
 
 I long to be made known to your dear little children, 
 in whose hearts I shall be very eager to secure an 
 interest I shall soon have need for all my fortitude, 
 
204 Lady Susan. 
 
 as I am on the point of separation from my own 
 daughter. The long illness of her dear father pre- 
 vented my paying her that attention which duty and 
 affection equally dictated, and I have too much reason 
 to fear that the governess to whose care I consigned 
 her was unequal to the charge. I have therefore 
 resolved on placing her at one of the best private 
 schools in town, where I shall have an opportunity of 
 leaving her myself in my way to you. I am deter- 
 mined, you see, not to be denied admittance at 
 Churchhill. It would indeed give me most painful 
 sensations to know that it were not in your power to 
 receive me. 
 
 Your most obliged and affectionate Sister, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 II. 
 
 Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Langford. 
 You were mistaken, my dear Alicia, in supposing 
 me fixed at this place for the rest of the winter : it 
 grieves me to say how greatly you were mistaken, 
 for I have seldom spent three months more agreeably 
 than those which' have just flown away. At present, 
 nothing goes smoothly ; the females of the family 
 are united against me. You foretold how it would be 
 when I first came to Langford, and Mainwaring is so 
 uncommonly pleasing that I was not without appre- 
 hensions for myself. I remember saying to myself, 
 as I drove to the house, ' I like this man, pray. 
 
Lady Susan. 205 
 
 Heaven no harm come of it ! ' But I was determined 
 to be discreet, to bear in mind my being only four 
 months a widow, and to be as quiet as possible : and 
 I have been so, my dear creature ; I have admitted 
 no one's attentions but Mainwaring's. I have avoided 
 all general flirtation whatever ; I have distinguished 
 no creature besides, of all the numbers resorting 
 hither, except Sir James Martin, on whom I bestowed 
 a little notice, in order to detach him from Miss 
 Mainwaring ; but, if the world could know my motive 
 tiiere they would honour me. I have been called an 
 unkind mother, but it was the sacred impulse of 
 maternal affection, it was the advantage of my 
 daughter that led me on ; and if that daughter were 
 not the greatest simpleton on earth, I might have 
 been rewarded for my exertions as I ought 
 
 Sir James did make proposals to me for Frederica ; 
 but Frederica, who was born to be the torment of my 
 life, chose to set herself so violently against the match 
 that I thought it better to lay aside the scheme for 
 the present I have more than once repented that I 
 did not marry him myself; and were he but one 
 degree less contemptibly weak I certainly should : 
 but I must own myself rather romantic in that 
 respect, and that riches only will not satisfy me. 
 The event of all this is very provoking : Sir James is 
 gone, Maria highly incensed, and Mrs. Mainwaring 
 insupportably jealous ; so jealous, in short, and so 
 enraged against me, that, in the fury of her temper, I 
 should not be surprised at her appealing to her guardian, 
 if she had the liberty of addressing him : but there 
 
2o6 Lady Susan. 
 
 your husband stands my friend ; and the kindest, 
 most amiable action of his life was his throwing her 
 off for ever on her marriage. Keep up his resent- 
 ment, therefore, I charge you. We are now in a sad 
 state ; no house was ever more altered ; the whole 
 party are at war, and Mainwaring scarcely dares 
 speak to me. It is time for me to be gone ; I have 
 therefore determined on leaving them, and shall 
 spend, I hope, a comfortable day with you in town 
 within this week. If I am as little in favour with 
 Mr. Johnson as ever, you must come to me at 10 
 Wigmore Street; but I hope this may not be the 
 case, for as Mr. Johnson, with all his faults, is a man 
 to whom that great word 'respectable' is always given, 
 and I am known to be so intimate with his wife, his 
 slighting me has an awkward look. 
 
 I take London in my way to that insupportable 
 spot, a country village ; for I am really going to 
 ChurchhilL Forgive me, my dear friend, it is my 
 • last resource. Were there another place in England 
 open to me I would prefer it Charles Vernon is my 
 aversion, and I am afraid of his wife. At Churchhill, 
 however, I must remain till I have something better 
 in view. My young lady accompanies me to town, 
 where I shall deposit her under the care of Miss 
 Summers, in Wigmore Street, till she becomes a little 
 more reasonable. She will make good connections 
 there as the girls are all of the best families. The 
 price is immense, and much beyond what I can ever 
 attempt to pay. 
 
Lady Susan. 207 
 
 Adieu, I will send you a line as soon as I arrive 
 in town. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 III. 
 
 Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy. 
 
 Cliurchhill. 
 
 My dear Mother, — I am very sorry to tell you that 
 it will not be in our power to keep our promise of 
 spending our Christmas with you ; and we are pre- 
 vented that happiness by a circumstance which is not 
 likely to make us any amends. Lady Susan, in a 
 letter to her brother-in-law, has declared her intention 
 of visiting us almost immediately; and as such a visit 
 is in all probability merely an affair of convenience, it 
 is impossible to conjecture its length. I was by no 
 means prepared for such an event, nor can I now ac- 
 count for her ladyship's conduct ; Langford appeared 
 so exactly the place for her in every respect, as well 
 from the elegant and expensive style of living there, 
 as from her particular attachment to Mr. Mainwaring, 
 that I was very far from expecting so speedy a dis- 
 tinction, though I always imagined from her increasing 
 friendship for us since her husband's death that we 
 should, at some future period, be obliged to receive her. 
 Mr. Vernon, I think, was a great deal too kind to her 
 when he was in Staffordshire ; her behaviour to him, 
 independent of her general character, has been so in- 
 excusably artful and ungenerous since our marriage 
 
2o8 Lady Susan. 
 
 was first in agitation that no one less amiable and 
 mild than himself, could have overlooked it all ; and 
 though, as his brother's widow, and in narrow cir- 
 cumstances, it was proper to render her pecuniary 
 assistance, I cannot help thinking his pressing invi- 
 tation to her to visit us at Churchhill perfectly 
 unnecessary. Disposed, however, as he always is to 
 think the best of everyone, her display of grief, and 
 professions of regret, and general resolutions of 
 prudence, were sufficient to soften his heart and make 
 him really confide in her sincerity ; but, as for myself, 
 I am still unconvinced, and plausibly as her ladyship 
 has now written, I cannot make up my mind till I 
 better understand her real meaning in coming to us. 
 You may guess, therefore, my dear madam, with what 
 feelings I look forward to her arrival. She will have 
 occasion for all those attractive powers for which she 
 is celebrated to gain any share of my regard ; and I 
 shall certainly endeavour to guard myself against their 
 influence, if not accompanied by something more sub- 
 stantial. She expresses a most eager desire of being 
 acquainted with me, and makes very gracious mention 
 of my children, but I am not quite weak enough to 
 suppose a woman who has behaved with inattention, 
 if not with unkindness to her own child, should be 
 attached to any of mine. Miss Vernon is to be placed 
 at a school in London before her mother comes to us, 
 which I am glad of, for her sake and my own. It 
 must be to her advantage to be separated from her 
 mother, and a girl of sixteen who has received so 
 wretched an education, could not be a very desirable 
 
Lady Susan. 209 
 
 companion here. Reginald has long wished, I know, 
 to see the captivating Lady Susan, and we shall 
 depend on his joining our party soon. I am glad to 
 hear that my father continues so well ; and am, with 
 best love, &c, 
 
 Catherine Vernon. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Mr. De Convey to Mrs. Vernon. 
 
 Parklands. 
 
 My dear Sister, — I congratulate you and Mr. Vernon 
 on being about to receive into your family the most 
 accomplished coquette in England. As a very dis- 
 tinguished flirt I have always been taught to consider 
 her, but it has lately fallen in my way to hear some 
 particulars of her conduct at Langford, which prove 
 that she does not confine herself to that sort of honest 
 flirtation which satisfies most people, but aspires to 
 the more delicious gratification of making a whole 
 family miserable. By her behaviour to Mr. Main- 
 waring she gave jealousy and wretchedness to his 
 wife, and by her attentions to a young man previously 
 attached to Mr. Mainwaring's sister deprived an 
 amiable girl of her lover. 
 
 I learnt all this from Mr. Smith, now in this neigh- 
 bourhood (I have dined with him, at Hurst and 
 Wilford), who is just come from Langford where he 
 was a fortnight with her ladyship, and who is there- 
 fore well qualified to make the communication. 
 
 What a woman she must be ! I long to see her, and 
 P 
 
2io Lady Susan. 
 
 shall certainly accept your kind invitation, that I may 
 form some idea of those bewitching powers which can 
 do so much — engaging at the same time, and in the 
 same house, the affections of two men, who were 
 neither of them at liberty to bestow them — and all 
 this without the charm of youth ! I am glad to find 
 Miss Vernon does not accompany her mother to 
 Churchhill, as she has not even manners to recom- 
 mend her ; and, according to Mr. Smith's account, is 
 equally dull and proud. Where pride and stupidity 
 unite there can be no dissimulation worthy notice, and 
 Miss Vernon shall be consigned to unrelenting con- 
 tempt; but by all that I can gather Lady Susan 
 possesses a degree of captivating deceit which it must 
 be pleasing to witness and detect. I shall be with 
 you very soon, and am ever, 
 
 Your affectionate Brother, 
 R. DE COURCY. 
 
 V. 
 Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 ChurchhilL 
 I received your note, my dear Alicia, just before I 
 left town, and rejoice to be assured that Mr. Johnson 
 suspected nothing of your engagement the evening 
 before. It is undoubtedly better to deceive him 
 entirely, arid since he will be stubborn he must be 
 tricked. I arrived here in safety, and have no reason 
 to complain of my reception from Mr. Vernon ; but I 
 confess myself not equally satisfied with the behaviour 
 
Lady Susan. 211 
 
 of his lady. She is perfectly well-bred, indeed, and 
 has the air of a woman of fashion, but her manners 
 are not such as can persuade me of her being pre- 
 possessed in my favour. I wanted her to be delighted 
 at seeing me. I was as amiable as possible on the 
 occasion, but all in vain. She does not like me. To 
 be sure when we consider that I did take some pains 
 to prevent my brother-in-law's marrying her, this want 
 of cordiality is not very surprising, and yet it shows 
 an illiberal and vindictive spirit to resent a project 
 which influenced me six years ago, and which never 
 succeeded at last. 
 
 I am sometimes disposed to repent that I did not 
 let Charles buy Vernon Castle, when we were obliged 
 to sell it ; but it was a trying circumstance, especially 
 as the sale took place exactly at the time of his 
 marriage ; and everybody ought to respect the delicacy 
 of those feelings which could not endure that my 
 husband's dignity should be lessened by his younger 
 brother's having possession of the family estate. 
 Could matters have been so arranged as to prevent 
 the necessity of our leaving the castle, could we have 
 lived with Charles and kept him single, I should have 
 been very far from persuading my husband to dispose 
 of it elsewhere ; but Charles was on the point of 
 marrying Miss De Courcy, and the event has justified 
 me. Here are children in abundance, and what 
 benefit could have accrued to me from his purchasing 
 Vernon ? My having prevented it may perhaps have 
 given his wife an unfavourable impression, but where 
 there is a disposition to dislike, a motive will never be 
 
212 Lady Susan. 
 
 wanting ; and as to money matters it has not withheld 
 him from being very useful to me. I really have a 
 regard for him, he is so easily imposed upon ! The 
 house is a good one, the furniture fashionable, and 
 everything announces plenty and elegance. Charles 
 is very rich I am sure ; when a man has once got his 
 name in a banking-house he rolls in money ; but they 
 do not know what to do with it, keep very little 
 company, and never go to London but on business. 
 We shall be as stupid as possible. I mean to win my 
 sister-in-law's heart through the children ; I know all 
 their names already, and am going to attach myself 
 with the greatest sensibility to one in particular, a 
 young Frederic, whom I take on my lap and sigh 
 over for his dear uncle's sake. 
 
 Poor Mainwaring ! I need not tell you how much I 
 miss him, how perpetually he is in my thoughts. I 
 found a dismal letter from him on my arrival here, 
 full of complaints of his wife and sister, and lamenta- 
 tions on the cruelty of his fate. I passed' off the 
 letter as his wife's, to the Vernons, and when I write 
 to him it must be under cover to you. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 VI. 
 Mrs. Vernon to Mr. De Courcy. 
 
 Omrchhill. 
 
 Well, my dear Reginald, I have seen this danger- 
 ous creature, and must give you some description of 
 her, though I hope you will soon be able to form your 
 own judgment. She is really excessively pretty ; 
 
Lady Susan. 213 
 
 however you may choose to question the allurements 
 of a lady no longer young, I must, for my own part, 
 declare that I have seldom seen so lovely a woman 
 as Lady Susan. She is delicately fair, with fine grey 
 eyes and dark eyelashes; and from her appearance 
 one would not suppose her more than five and twenty, 
 though she must in fact be ten years older. I was cer- 
 tainly not disposed to admire her, though always hear- 
 ing she was beautiful ; but I cannot help feeling that 
 she possesses an uncommon union of symmetry, bril- 
 liancy, and grace. Her address to me was so gentle, 
 frank, and even affectionate, that, if I had not known 
 how much she has always disliked me for marrying 
 Mr. Vernon, and that we had never met before, I 
 should have imagined her an attached friend. One is 
 apt, I believe, to connect assurance of manner with 
 coquetry, and to expect that an impudent address 
 will naturally attend an impudent mind ; at least I 
 was myself prepared for an improper degree of confi- 
 dence in. Lady Susan; but her countenance is abso- 
 lutely sweet, and her voice and manner winningly 
 mild. I am sorry it is so, for what is this but deceit ? 
 . Unfortunately, one knows her too well. She is clever 
 and agreeable, has all that knowledge of the world 
 which makes conversation easy, and talks very well, 
 with a happy command of language, which is too 
 often used, I believe, to make black appear white. 
 She has already almost persuaded me of her being 
 warmly attached to her daughter, though I have been 
 so long convinced to the contrary. She speaks of her 
 with so much tenderness and anxiety, lamenting so 
 
J 14 Lady Susan. 
 
 bitterly the neglect of her education, which she repre- 
 sents however as wholly unavoidable, that I am forced 
 to recollect how many successive springs her ladyship 
 spent in town, while her daughter was left in Stafford- 
 shire to the care of servants, or a governess very little 
 better, to prevent my believing what she says. 
 
 If her manners have so great an influence on my 
 resentful heart, you may judge how much more 
 strongly they operate on Mr. Vernon's generous tem- 
 per. I wish I could be as well satisfied as he is, that 
 it was really her choice to leave Langford for Church- 
 hill ; and if she had not stayed there for months 
 before she discovered that her friend's manner of 
 living did not suit her situation or feelings, I might 
 have believed that concern for the loss of such a hus- 
 band as Mr. Vernon, to whom her own behaviour was 
 far from unexceptionable, might for a time make her 
 wish for retirement But I cannot forget the length 
 of her visit to the Mainwarings, and when I reflect on 
 the different mode of life which she led with them 
 from that to which she must now submit, I can only 
 suppose that the wish of establishing her reputation 
 by following though late the path of propriety, occa- 
 sioned her removal from a family where she must in 
 reality have been particularly happy. Your friend 
 Mr. Smith's story, however, cannot be quite correct, 
 as she corresponds regularly with Mrs. Mainwaring. 
 At any rate it must be exaggerated. It is scarcely 
 possible that two men should be so grossly deceived 
 by her at once. 
 
 Yours, &c, Catherine Vernon. ■ 
 
Lady Susan. 215 
 
 VII. 
 
 Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 
 My dear Alicia, — You are very good in taking 
 notice of Frederica, and I am grateful for it as a mark 
 of your friendship ; but as I cannot have any doubt 
 of the warmth of your affection, I am far from exact- 
 ing so heavy a sacrifice. She is a stupid girl, and has 
 nothing to recommend her. I would not, therefore, 
 on my account, have you encumber one moment of 
 your precious time by sending for her to Edward 
 Street, especially as every visit is so much deducted 
 from the grand affair of education, which I really 
 wish to have attended to while she remains at Miss 
 Summers'. I want her to play and sing with some 
 portion of taste and a good deal of assurance, as she 
 has my hand and arm and a tolerable voice. I was 
 so much indulged in my infant years that I was never 
 obliged to attend to anything, and consequently am 
 without the accomplishments which are now necessary 
 to finish a pretty. woman. Not that I am an advo- 
 cate for the prevailing fashion of acquiring a perfect 
 knowledge of all languages, arts, and sciences.' 'It is 
 throwing time away to be mistress of French, Italian, 
 and German : music, singing, and drawing, &c, will gain 
 a woman some applause, but will not add one lover to 
 her list — grace and manner, after all, are of the great- 
 est importance. I do not mean, therefore, that Frede- 
 rica's acquirements should be more than superficial, 
 
216 Lady Susan. 
 
 and I flatter myself that she will not remain long 
 enough at school to understand anything thoroughly. 
 I hope to see her the wife of Sir James within a 
 twelvemonth. You know on what I ground my hope, 
 and it is certainly a good foundation, for school 
 must be very humiliating to a girl of Frederica's age. 
 And, by-the-by, you had better not invite her any 
 more on that account, as I wish her to find her situa- 
 tion as unpleasant as possible. I am sure of Sir 
 James at any time, and could make him renew his 
 application by a line. I shall trouble you meanwhile 
 to prevent his forming any other attachment when he 
 comes to town. Ask him to your house occasionally, 
 and talk to him of Frederica, that he may not forget 
 her. Upon the whole, I commend my own conduct 
 in this affair extremely, and regard it as a very happy 
 instance of circumspection and tenderness. Some 
 mothers would have insisted on their daughter's ac- 
 cepting so good an offer on the first overture ; but I 
 could not reconcile it to myself to force Frederica into 
 a marriage from which her heart revolted, and instead 
 of adopting so harsh a measure merely propose to 
 make it her own choice, by rendering her thoroughly 
 uncomfortable till she does accept him — but enough 
 of this tiresome girl. You may well wonder how I 
 contrive to pass my time here, and for the first week 
 it was insufferably dull. Now, however, we begin to 
 mend, our party is enlarged by Mrs. Vernon's brother, 
 a handsome young man, who promises me some 
 amusement. There is something about him which 
 rather interests me, a sort of sauciness and familiarity 
 
Lady Susan. 217 
 
 which I shall teach him to correct. He is lively, and 
 seems clever, and when I have inspired him with 
 greater respect for me than his sister's kind offices 
 have implanted, he may be an agreeable flirt. There 
 is exquisite pleasure in subduing an insolent spirit, 
 in making a person predetermined to dislike acknow- 
 ledge one's superiority. I have disconcerted him 
 already by my calm reserve, and it shall be my en- 
 deavour to humble the pride of these self-important 
 De Courcys still lower, to convince Mrs. Vernon that 
 her sisterly cautions have been bestowed in vain, and 
 to persuade Reginald that she has scandalously belied 
 me. This project will serve at least to amuse me, and 
 prevent my feeling so acutely this dreadful separation 
 from you and all whom I love. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 VIII. 
 Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Convey. 
 
 ChurchliilL 
 My dear Mother, — You must not expect Reginald 
 back again for some time. He desires me to tell you 
 that the present open weather induces him to accept 
 Mr. Vernon's invitation to prolong his stay in Sussex, 
 that they may have some hunting together. He 
 means to send for his horses immediately, and it is 
 impossible to say when you may see him in Kent. I 
 will not disguise my sentiments on this change from 
 you, my dear mother, though I think you had better 
 
2i8 Lady Susan. 
 
 not communicate them to my father, whose excessive 
 anxiety about Reginald would subject him to an 
 alarm which might seriously affect his health and 
 spirits. Lady Susan has certainly contrived, in the 
 space of a fortnight, to make my brother like her. In 
 short, I am persuaded that his continuing here beyond 
 the time originally fixed for his return is occasioned 
 as much by a degree of fascination towards her, as by 
 the wish of hunting with Mr. Vernon, and of course I 
 cannot receive that pleasure from the length of his 
 visit which my brother's company would otherwise give 
 me. I am, indeed, provoked at the artifice of this 
 unprincipled woman ; what stronger proof of her dan- 
 gerous abilities can be given than this perversion of 
 Reginald's judgment, which when he entered the 
 house was so decidedly against her ? In his last letter 
 he actually gave me some particulars of her behaviour 
 at Langford, such as he received from a gentleman 
 who knew her perfectly well, which, if true, must raise 
 abhorrence against her, and which Reginald himself 
 was entirely disposed to credit His opinion of her, 
 I am sure, was as low. as of any woman in England ; 
 and when he first came it was evident that he consi- 
 dered her as one. entitled neither to delicacy nor re- 
 spect, and that he felt she would be delighted with 
 the attentions of any man inclined to flirt with hen 
 Her behaviour, I confess, has been calculated to do 
 away, with such, an idea ; I have not detected the 
 smallest: impropriety in it — nothing of vanity, of pre- 
 tension, of levity ; and she is altogether so attractive 
 that I should not wonder at his being delighted with 
 
Lady Susan. 219 
 
 her, had he known nothing of her previous to this 
 personal acquaintance ; but, against reason, against 
 conviction, to be so well pleased .with her, as I am 
 sure he is, does really astonish me. His admiration 
 was at first very strong, but no more than was natural, 
 and I did not wonder at his being much struck by the 
 gentleness and delicacy of her manners ; but when he 
 has mentioned her of late it has been in terms of more 
 extraordinary praise ; and yesterday he actually said 
 that he could not be surprised at any effect produced 
 on the heart of man by such loveliness and such abi- 
 lities ; and when I lamented, in reply, the badness of 
 her disposition, he observed that whatever might have 
 been her errors they were to be imputed to her neg- 
 lected education and early marriage, and that she 
 was altogether a wonderful woman. This tendency 
 to excuse her conduct, or to forget it, in the warmth 
 of admiration, vexes me ; and if I did not know that 
 Reginald is too much at home at Churchhill- to need 
 an invitation for lengthening his visit, I should regret 
 Mr. Vernon's giving him any. Lady Susan's inten- 
 tions are of course those of absolute coquetry, or a 
 desire of universal admiration ; I cannot for a moment 
 imagine that she has anything more serious in view ; 
 but it mortifies me to see a young man of Reginald's 
 sense duped by her at all. 
 
 I am, &c, 
 
 Catherine Vernon. 
 
220 Lady Susan. 
 
 IX. 
 Mrs. Johnson to Lady S. Vernon. 
 
 Edward Street. 
 My dearest Friend, — I congratulate you on Mr. De 
 Courcy's arrival, and I advise you by all means to 
 marry him ; his father's estate is, we know, consider- 
 able, and I believe certainly entailed. Sir Reginald 
 is very infirm, and not likely to stand in your way 
 long. I hear the young man well spoken of ; and 
 though no one can really deserve you, my dearest 
 Susan, Mr. De Courcy may be worth having. Main- 
 waring will storm of course, but you may easily pacify 
 him ; besides, the most scrupulous point of honour 
 could not require you to wait for his emancipation. I 
 have seen Sir James ; he came to town for a few days 
 last week, and called several times in Edward Street 
 I talked to him about you and your daughter, and he 
 is so far from having forgotten you, that I am sure he 
 would marry either of you with pleasure. I gave him 
 hopes of Frederica's relenting, and told him a great 
 deal of her improvements. I scolded him for making 
 love to Maria Mainwaring ; he protested that he had 
 been only in joke, and we both laughed heartily at 
 her disappointment ; and, in short, were very agree- 
 able. He is as silly as ever. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Alicia. 
 
Lady Susan. 221 
 
 Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 ChurchhilL 
 I am much obliged to you, my dear friend, for 
 your advice respecting Mr. De Courcy, which I know 
 was given with the full conviction of its expediency, 
 though I am not quite determined on following it. 
 I cannot easily resolve on anything so serious as 
 marriage ; especially as I am not at present in want 
 of money, and might perhaps, till the old gentleman's 
 death, be very little benefited by the match. It is true 
 that I am vain enough to believe it within my reach. 
 I have made him sensible of my power, and can now 
 enjoy the pleasure of triumphing over a mind pre- 
 pared to dislike me, and prejudiced against all my 
 past actions. His sister, too, is, I hope, convinced 
 how little the ungenerous representations of anyone 
 to the disadvantage of another will avail when op- 
 posed by the immediate influence of intellect and 
 manner. I see plainly that she is uneasy at my 
 progress in the good opinion of her brother, and 
 conclude that nothing will be wanting on her part to 
 counteract me ; but having once made him doubt 
 the justice of her opinion of me, I think I may defy 
 her. It has been delightful to me to watch his ad- 
 vances towards intimacy, especially to observe his 
 altered manner in consequence of my repressing by 
 the cool dignity of my deportment his insolent ap- 
 proach to direct familiarity. My conduct has been 
 
222 Lady Susan. 
 
 equally guarded from the first, and I never behaved 
 less like a coquette in the whole course of my life, 
 though perhaps my desire of dominion was never 
 more decided. I have subdued him entirely by 
 sentiment and serious conversation, and made him, 
 I may venture to say, at least half in love with me, 
 without the semblance of the most commonplace 
 flirtation. Mrs. Vernon's consciousness of deserving 
 every sort of revenge that it can be in my power to 
 inflict for her ill-offices could alone enable her to 
 perceive that I am actuated by any design in be- 
 haviour so gentle and unpretending. Let her think 
 and act as she chooses, however. I have never yet 
 found that the advice of a sister could prevent a 
 young man's being in love if he chose. We are 
 advancing now to some kind of confidence, and in 
 short are likely to be engaged in a sort of platonic 
 friendship. On my side you may be sure of its never 
 being more, for if. I were not attached to another 
 person as much as I can be to anyone, I should 
 make a point of not bestowing my affection on a 
 man who had dared to think so meanly of me. 
 Reginald has a good figure and is not unworthy 
 the praise you have heard given him, but is still 
 greatly inferior to our friend at Langford. He is less 
 polished, less insinuating than Mainwaring, and is 
 comparatively deficient in the power of saying those 
 delightful things which put one in good humour with 
 oneself and all the world. He is quite agreeable 
 enough, however, to afford me amusement, and to 
 make many of those hours pass very pleasantly 
 
Lady Susan. 223 
 
 which would otherwise be spent in endeavouring to 
 overcome my sister-in-law's reserve, and listening to 
 the insipid talk of her husband. Your account of 
 Sir James is most satisfactory, and I mean to give 
 Miss Frederica a hint of my intentions very soon. 
 
 Yours, &c, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy. 
 
 ChurchhiU. 
 I really grow quite uneasy, my dearest mother, about 
 Reginald, from witnessing the very rapid increase of 
 Lady Susan's influence. They are now on terms of 
 the most particular friendship, frequently engaged in 
 long conversations together; and she has contrived 
 by the most artful coquetry to subdue his judgment 
 to her own purposes. It is impossible to see the 
 intimacy between them so very soon established 
 without some alarm, though I can hardly suppose 
 that Lady Susan's plans extend to marriage. I wish 
 you could get Reginald home again on any plausible 
 pretence ; he is not at all disposed to leave us, and I 
 have given him as many hints of my father's pre- 
 carious state of health as common decency will allow 
 me to do in my own house. Her power over him 
 must now be boundless, as she has entirely effaced all 
 his former ill-opinion, and persuaded him not merely 
 to forget but to justify her conduct. Mr. Smith's 
 account of her proceedings at Langford, where he 
 
224 Lady Susan. 
 
 accused her of having made Mr. Mainwaring and a 
 young man engaged to Miss Mainwaring distractedly 
 in love with her, which Reginald firmly believed 
 when he came here, is now, he is persuaded, only a 
 scandalous invention. He has told me so with a 
 warmth of manner which spoke his regret at having 
 believed the contrary himself. How sincerely do I 
 grieve that she ever entered this house! I always 
 looked forward to her coming with uneasiness ; but 
 very far was it from originating in anxiety for Regi- 
 nald. I expected a most disagreeable companion 
 for myself, but could not imagine that my brother 
 would be in the smallest danger of being captivated 
 by a woman with whose principles he was so well ac- 
 quainted, and whose character he so heartily despised, 
 If you can get him away it will be a good thing. 
 Yours, &c, 
 
 Catherine Vernon. 
 
 XII. 
 Sir Reginald De Courcy to his Son. 
 
 Portlands. 
 
 I know that young men in general do not admit 
 of any enquiry even from their nearest relations into 
 affairs of the heart, but I hope, my dear Reginald, 
 that you will be superior to such as allow nothing for 
 a father's anxiety, and think themselves privileged 
 to refuse him their confidence and slight his advice. 
 You must be sensible that as an only son, and the 
 representative of an ancient family, your conduct in 
 
Lady Susan. 225 
 
 life is most interesting to your connections; and in 
 the very important concern of marriage especially, 
 there is everything at stake — your own happiness, 
 that of your parents, and the credit of your name. I 
 do not suppose that you would deliberately form an 
 absolute engagement of that nature without acquaint- 
 ing your mother and myself, or at least, without 
 being convinced that we should approve of your 
 choice ; but I cannot help fearing that you may be 
 drawn in, by the lady who has lately attached you, 
 to a marriage which the whole of your family, far 
 and near, must highly reprobate. Lady Susan's age 
 is itself a material objection, but her want of cha- 
 racter is one so much more serious, that the difference 
 of even twelve years becomes in comparison of small 
 amount. Were you not blinded by a sort of fasci- 
 nation, it would be ridiculous in me to repeat the 
 instances of great misconduct on her side so very 
 generally known. 
 
 Her neglect of her husband, her encouragement 
 of other men, her extravagance and dissipation, were 
 so gross and notorious that no one could be ignorant 
 of them at the time, nor can now have forgotten 
 them. To our family she has always been repre- 
 sented in softened colours by the benevolence of Mr. 
 Charles Vernon, and yet, in spite of his generous en- 
 deavours to excuse her, we know that she did, from 
 the most selfish motives, take all possible pains to 
 prevent his marriage with Catherine. 
 
 My years and increasing infirmities make me very 
 desirous of seeing you settled in the world. To the 
 
 Q 
 
226 Lady Susan. 
 
 fortune of a wife, the goodness of my own will make 
 me indifferent, but her family and character must be 
 equally unexceptionable. When your choice is fixed 
 so that no objection can be made to it, then I can 
 promise you a ready and cheerful consent ; but it is 
 my duty to oppose a match which deep art only 
 could render possible, and must in the end make 
 wretched. It is possible her behaviour may arise only 
 from vanity, or the wish of gaining the admiration ot 
 a man whom she must imagine to be particularly 
 prejudiced against her ; but it is more likely that she 
 should aim at something further. She is poor, and 
 may naturally seek an alliance which must be ad- 
 vantageous to herself; you know your own rights, 
 and that it is out of my power to prevent your 
 inheriting the family estate. My ability of distress- 
 ing you during my life would be a species of revenge 
 to which I could hardly stoop under any circum- 
 stances. 
 
 I honestly tell you my sentiments and intentions : 
 I do not wish to work on your fears, but on your 
 sense and affection. It would destroy every comfort 
 of my life to know that you were married to Lady 
 Susan Vernon ; it would be the death of that honest 
 pride with which I have hitherto considered my son ; 
 I should blush to see him, to hear of him, to think of 
 him. I may perhaps do no good but that of reliev- 
 ing my own mind by this letter, but I felt it my duty 
 to tell you that your partiality for Lady Susan is no 
 secret to your friends, and to warn you against her. 
 I should be glad to hear your reasons for disbelieving 
 
Lady Susan. 227 
 
 Mr. Smith's intelligence ; you had no doubt of its 
 authenticity a month ago. If you can give me your 
 assurance of having no design beyond enjoying the 
 conversation of a clever woman for a short period, 
 and of yielding admiration only to her beauty and 
 abilities, without being blinded by them to her faults, 
 you will restore me to happiness ; but, if you cannot 
 do this, explain to me, at least, what has occasioned 
 so great an alteration in your opinion of her. 
 I am, &c, &c, 
 
 Reginald De Courcy. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Lady De Courcy to Mrs. Vernon. 
 
 Parklands. 
 
 My dear Catherine, — Unluckily I was confined to 
 my room when your last letter came, by a cold which 
 affected my eyes so much as to prevent my reading 
 it myself, so I could not refuse your father when he 
 offered to read it to me, by which means he became 
 acquainted, to my great vexation, with all your 
 fears about your brother. I had intended to write 
 to Reginald myself as soon as my eyes would let 
 me, to point out, as well as I could, the danger of an 
 intimate acquaintance, with so artful a woman as 
 Lady Susan, to a young man of his age, and high 
 expectations. I meant, moreover, to have reminded 
 him of our being quite alone now, and very much in 
 need of him to keep up our spirits these long winter 
 evenings. Whether it would have done any good 
 
 Q2 
 
228 Lady Susan. 
 
 can never be settled now, but I am excessively vexed 
 that Sir Reginald should know anything of a matter 
 which we foresaw would make him so uneasy. He 
 caught all your fears the moment he had read your 
 letter, and I am sure he has not had the business 
 out of his head since. He wrote by the same post 
 to Reginald a long letter full of it all, and particu- 
 larly asking an explanation of what he may have 
 heard from Lady Susan to contradict the late shock- 
 ing reports. His answer came this morning, which I 
 shall enclose to you, as I think you will like to see 
 it. I wish it was more satisfactory ; but it seems 
 written with such a determination to think well of 
 Lady Susan, that his assurances as to marriage, &c, 
 do not set my heart at ease. I say all I can, how- 
 ever, to satisfy your father, and he is certainly less 
 uneasy since Reginald's letter. How provoking it 
 is, my dear Catherine, that this unwelcome guest of 
 yours should not only prevent our meeting this 
 Christmas, but be the occasion of so much vexation 
 and trouble ! Kiss the dear children for me. 
 Your affectionate mother, 
 
 C. De Courcy. 
 
 XIV. 
 Mr. De Courcy to Sir Reginald. 
 
 Churjhhiil. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have this moment received your 
 letter, which has given me more astonishment than I 
 
Lady Susan. 229 
 
 ever felt before. I am to thank my sister, I suppose, 
 for having represented me in such a light as to injure 
 me in your opinion, and give you all this alarm. I 
 know not why she should choose to make herself and 
 her family uneasy by apprehending an event which 
 no one but herself, I can affirm, would ever have 
 thought possible. To impute such a design to Lady 
 Susan would be taking from her every claim to that 
 excellent understanding which her bitterest enemies 
 haye never denied her; and equally low must sink 
 my pretensions to common sense if I am suspected 
 of matrimonial views in my behaviour to her. Our 
 difference of age must be an insuperable objection, 
 and I entreat you, my dear father, to quiet your 
 mind, and no longer harbour a suspicion which can- 
 not be more injurious to your own peace than to our 
 understandings. I can have no other view in re- 
 maining with Lady Susan, than to enjoy for a short 
 time (as you have yourself expressed it) the con- 
 versation of a woman, of high intellectual powers. If 
 Mrs. Vernon would allow something to my affection 
 for herself and her husband in the length of my visit, 
 she would do more justice to us all ; but my sister is 
 unhappily prejudiced beyond the hope of conviction 
 against Lady Susan. From an attachment to her 
 husband, which in itself does honour to both, she 
 cannot forgive the endeavours at preventing their 
 union, which have been attributed to selfishness in 
 Lady Susan ; but in this case, as well as in many 
 others, the world has most grossly injured that lady, 
 by supposing the worst where the motives of her, 
 
3jo Lady Susan. 
 
 conduct have been doubtful. Lady Susan had heard 
 something so materially to the disadvantage of my 
 sister as to persuade her that the happiness of Mr. 
 Vernon, to whom she was always much attached, 
 would be wholly destroyed by the marriage. And 
 this circumstance, while it explains the true motives 
 of Lady Susan's conduct, and removes all the blame 
 which has been so lavished on her, may also con- 
 vince us how little the general report of anyone 
 ought, to be credited ; since no character, however 
 upright, can escape the malevolence of slander. If 
 my sister, in the security of retirement, with as little 
 opportunity as inclination to do evil, could not avoid 
 censure, we must not rashly condemn those who, 
 living in the world and surrounded with temptations, 
 should be accused of errors which they are known to 
 have the ; power of committing. 
 
 , I blame myself severely for having so easily be- 
 lieved the slanderous tales invented by Charles Smith 
 to the prejudice of Lady Susan, as I am now con- 
 vinced how greatly they have traduced her. As to 
 Mrs. Mainwaring's jealousy it was totally his own 
 invention, and his account of her attaching Miss 
 Mainwaring's lover was scarcely better founded. Sir 
 James Martin had been drawn in by that young lady 
 to pay her some attention; and as he is a man of 
 fortune, it' was easy to see her views extended to 
 marriage. It is well known that Miss M. is absolutely 
 on the catch : for a husband, and no one therefore 
 can pity her- for losing, by the superior attractions of 
 another woman, the chance of being able to make .a 
 
Lady Susan. 231 
 
 worthy man completely wretched. Lady Susan was 
 far from intending such a conquest, and on finding: 
 how warmly Miss Mainwaring resented her lover's 
 defection, determined, in spite of Mr. and Mrs. Main- 
 waring's most urgent entreaties, to leave the family. 
 I have reason to imagine she did receive serious pro- 
 posals from Sir James, but her removing to Langford 
 immediately on the discovery of his attachment, must 
 acquit her on that article with any mind of common 
 candour. You will, I am sure, my dear Sir, feel the 
 truth of this, and will hereby learn to do justice to 
 the character of a very injured woman. I know that 
 Lady Susan in coming to Churchhill was governed 
 only by the most honourable and amiable intentions ; 
 her prudence and economy are exemplary, her regard 
 for Mr. Vernon equal even to his deserts ; and her 
 wish of obtaining my sister's good opinion merits a 
 better return than it has received. As a mother she 
 is unexceptionable ; her solid affection for her child 
 is shown by placing her in hands where her education 
 will be properly attended to; but because she has 
 not the blind and weak partiality of most mothers, 
 she is accused of wanting maternal tenderness. Every 
 person of sense, however, will know how to value and 
 commend her well-directed affection, and will join 
 me in wishing that Frederica Vernon may prove 
 more worthy than she has yet done of her mother's 
 tender care. I have now, my dear father, written my 
 real sentiments of Lady Susan ; you will know from • 
 this letter how highly I admire her abilities, and 
 esteem her character; but if you are not equally 
 
Lady Susan. 
 
 convinced by my full and solemn assurance that 
 your fears have been most idly created, you will 
 deeply mortify and distress me. 
 
 I am, &c, &c, 
 
 R. De COURCY. 
 
 XV. 
 Mrs.. Vernon to Lady De Courcy. 
 
 ChurchiilL 
 My dear Mother, — I return you Reginald's letter, 
 and rejoice with all my heart that my father is made 
 easy by it : tell him so, with my congratulations ; 
 but, between ourselves, I must own it has only con- 
 vinced me of my brother's having no presetit in- 
 tention of marrying Lady Susan, not that he is in 
 no danger of doing so three months hence. He 
 gives a very plausible account of her behaviour at 
 Langford ; I wish it may be true, but his intelli- 
 gence must come from herself, and I am less disposed 
 to believe it than to lament the degree of intimacy 
 subsisting between them implied by the discussion of 
 such a subject I am sorry to have incurred his dis- 
 pleasure, but can expect nothing better while he is so 
 very eager in Lady Susan's justification. He is very 
 severe against me indeed, and yet I hope I have not 
 been hasty in my judgment of her. Poor woman ! 
 though I have reasons enough for my dislike, I can- 
 not help pitying her at present, as she is in real 
 distress, and with too much cause. She had this 
 morning a letter from the lady with whom she has 
 
Lady Susan. 233 
 
 placed her daughter, to request that Miss Vernon 
 might be immediately removed, as she had been de- 
 tected in an attempt to run away. Why, or whither 
 she intended to go, does not appear ; but, as her situ- 
 ation seems to have been unexceptionable, it is a sad 
 thing, and of course highly distressing to Lady Susan. 
 Frederica must be as much as sixteen, and ought to 
 know better; but from what her mother insinuates, 
 I am afraid she is a perverse girl. She has been 
 sadly neglected, however, and her mother ought to 
 remember it Mr. Vernon set off for London as 
 soon as she had determined what should be done. 
 He is, if possible, to prevail on Miss Summers to let 
 Frederica continue with her ; and if he cannot succeed, 
 to bring her to Churchhill for the present, till some 
 other situation can be found for her. Her ladyship is 
 comforting herself meanwhile by strolling along the 
 shrubbery with Reginald, calling forth all his tender 
 feelings, I suppose, on this distressing occasion. She 
 has been talking a great deal about it to me. She 
 talks vastly well ; I am afraid of being ungenerous, or 
 I should say, too well to feel so very deeply ; but I 
 will not look for faults ; she may be Reginald's wife ! 
 Heaven forbid it ! but why should I be quicker-sighted 
 than anyone else ? Mr. Vernon declares that he never 
 saw deeper distress than hers, on the receipt of the 
 letter; and is his judgment inferior to mine? She 
 was very unwilling that Frederica should be allowed 
 to come to Churchhill, and justly enough, as it seems 
 a sort of reward to behaviour deserving very differ- 
 ently ; but it was impossible to take her anywheie 
 
2 34 Lady Susan. 
 
 else, and she is not to remain here long. ' It will be 
 absolutely necessary,' said she, ' as you, my dear sister, 
 must be sensible, to treat my daughter with some 
 severity while she is here ; a most painful necessity, 
 but I will endeavour to submit to it. I am afraid I 
 have often been too indulgent, but my poor Fre- 
 derica's temper could never bear opposition well : you 
 must support and encourage me ; you must urge the 
 necessity of reproof if you see me too lenient' All 
 this sounds very reasonably. Reginald is so incensed 
 against the. poor silly girl ! Surely it is not to Lady 
 Susan's credit that he should be so bitter against her 
 daughter; his idea of her must be drawn from the 
 mother's description. Well, whatever may be his 
 fate, we have the comfort of knowing that we have 
 done our utmost to save him. We must commit the 
 event to a higher power. 
 
 Yours ever, &c. 
 
 Catherine Vernon. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 
 Never, my dearest Alicia, was I so provoked in my 
 life as by a letter this morning from Miss Summers. 
 That horrid girl of mine has been trying to run away. 
 I had not a notion of her being such a little devil 
 before, she seemed to have all the Vernon milkiness ; 
 but on receiving the letter in which I declared my. 
 intention about Sir James, she actually attempted to 
 
Lady Susan. 23 5 
 
 elope ; at least, I cannot otherwise account for her 
 doing it. She meant, I suppose, to go to the Clarks 
 in Staffordshire, for she has no other acquaintances. 
 But she shall be punished, she sJiall have him. I 
 have sent Charles to town to make matters up if he 
 can, for I do not by any means want her here. If 
 Miss Summers will not keep her, you must find me 
 out another school, unless we can get her married 
 immediately. Miss S. writes word that she could 
 not get the young lady to assign any cause for her 
 extraordinary conduct, which confirms me in my own 
 previous explanation of it. Frederica is too shy, I 
 think, and too much in awe of me to tell tales, but if 
 the mildness of her uncle should get anything out of 
 her, I am not afraid. I trust I shall be able to make 
 my story as good as hers. If I am vain of anything, 
 it is of my eloquence. Consideration and esteem as 
 surely follow command of language as admiration 
 waits on beauty, and here I have opportunity enough 
 for the exercise of my talent, as the chief of my time 
 is spent in conversation. 
 
 Reginald is never easy unless we are by ourselves, 
 and when the weather is tolerable, we pace the shrub- 
 bery for hours together. I like him on the whole 
 very well; he is clever and' has a good deal to say, 
 but he is sometimes impertinent and troublesome. 
 There is a sort of ridiculous delicacy about, him 
 which requires the fullest explanation of whatever he 
 may have heard to my disadvantage, and is never 
 satisfied till he thinks he has ascertained the begin- 
 ning and end of everything. This is one sort of love, 
 
236 Lady Susan. 
 
 but I confess it does not particularly recommend 
 itself to me. I infinitely prefer the tender and liberal 
 spirit of Mainwaring, which, impressed with the 
 deepest conviction of my merit, is satisfied that what- 
 ever I do must be right ; and look with a degree of 
 contempt on the inquisitive and doubtful fancies of 
 that heart which seems always debating on the rea- 
 sonableness of its emotions. Mainwaring is indeed, 
 beyond all compare, superior to Reginald — superior 
 in everything but the power of being with me ! Poor 
 fellow ! he is much distracted by jealousy, which I 
 am not sorry for, as I know no better support of love. 
 He has been teazing me to allow of his coming into 
 this country, and lodging somewhere near incog. ; but 
 I forbade everything of the kind. Those women are 
 inexcusable who forget what is due to themselves, and 
 !*the opinion of the world. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 XVII. 
 Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy. 
 
 ChurchhilL 
 
 My dear Mother, — Mr. Vernon returned on Thurs- 
 day night, bringing his niece with him. Lady Susan 
 had received a line from him by that day's post, 
 informing her that Miss Summers had absolutely 
 refused to allow of Miss Vernon's continuance in her 
 academy ; we were therefore prepared for her arrival, 
 and expected them impatiently the whole evening. 
 
Lady Susan. 237 
 
 They came while we were at tea, and I never saw 
 any creature look so frightened as Frederica when 
 she entered the room. Lady Susan, who had been 
 shedding tears before, and showing great agitation 
 at the idea of the meeting, received her with perfect 
 self-command, and without betraying the least tender- 
 ness of spirit She hardly spoke to her, and on 
 Frederica's bursting into tears as soon as we were 
 seated, took her out of the room, and did not return 
 for some time. When she did, her eyes looked 
 very red, and she was as much agitated as before. 
 We saw no more of her daughter. Poor Reginald 
 was beyond measure concerned to see his fair friend 
 in such distress, and watched her with so much tender 
 solicitude, that I, who occasionally caught her observ- 
 ing his countenance with exultation, was quite out 
 of patience. This pathetic representation lasted the 
 whole evening, and so ostentatious and artful a display 
 has entirely convinced me that she did in fact feel 
 nothing. I am more angry with her than ever since I 
 have seen her daughter ; the poor girl looks so unhappy 
 that my heart aches for her. Lady Susan is surely 
 too severe, for Frederica does not seem to have the 
 sort of temper to make severity necessary. She looks 
 perfectly timid, dejected, and penitent. She is very 
 pretty, though not so handsome as her mother, nor at 
 all like her. Her complexion is delicate, but neither 
 so fair nor so blooming as Lady Susan's, and she has 
 quite the Vernon cast of countenance, the oval face 
 and mild dark eyes, and there is peculiar sweetness 
 in her look when she speaks either to her uncle or 
 
238 Lady Susan. 
 
 me, for as we behave kindly to her we have of course 
 engaged her gratitude. 
 
 Her mother has insinuated that her temper is in- 
 tractable, but I never saw a face less indicative of 
 any evil disposition than hers ; and from what I can 
 see of the behaviour of each to the other, the invariable 
 severity of Lady Susan and the silent dejection of 
 Frederica, I am led to believe as heretofore that the 
 former has no real love for her daughter, and has 
 never done her justice or treated her affectionately. I 
 have not been able to have any conversation with my 
 niece ; she is shy, and I think I can see that some 
 pains are taken to prevent her being much with me. 
 Nothing satisfactory transpires as to her reason for 
 running away. Her kind-hearted uncle, you may be 
 sure, was too fearful of distressing her to ask many 
 questions as they travelled. I wish it had been- pos- 
 sible for me to fetch her instead of him. I think I 
 should have discovered the truth in the course of a 
 thirty-mile journey. The small pianoforte has been 
 removed within these few days, at Lady Susan's re- 
 quest, into her dressing-room, and Frederica spends 
 great part of the day there, practising as it is called ; 
 but I seldom hear any noise when I pass that way ; 
 what she does with herself there I do not know. 
 There are plenty of books, but it is not every girl 
 who has been running wild the first fifteen years of 
 her life, that can or will read. Poor creature ! the 
 prospect from her window is not very instructive, for 
 that room overlooks the lawn, you know, with the 
 shrubbery on one side, where she may see her mother 
 
Lady Susan. 239 
 
 walking for an hour together in earnest conversation 
 with Reginald. A girl of Frederica's age must be 
 childish indeed, if such things do not strike her. Is 
 it not inexcusable to give such an example to a 
 daughter ? Yet Reginald still thinks Lady Susan the 
 best of mothers, and still condemns Frederica as a 
 worthless girl ! He is convinced that her attempt to 
 run away proceeded from no justifiable cause, and had 
 no provocation. I am sure I cannot say that it had, 
 but while Miss Summers declares that Miss Vernon 
 showed no signs of obstinacy or perverseness during 
 her whole stay in Wigmore Street, till she was de- 
 tected in this scheme, I cannot so readily credit 
 what Lady Susan has made him, and wants to make 
 me believe, that it was merely an impatience of 
 restraint and a desire of escaping from the tuition of 
 masters which brought on the plan of an elopement. 
 O Reginald, how is your judgment enslaved ! He 
 scarcely dares even allow her to be handsome, and 
 when I speak of her beauty, replies only that her 
 eyes have no brilliancy ! Sometimes he is sure she 
 is deficient in understanding, and at others that her 
 temper only is in fault In short, when a person is 
 always to deceive, it is impossible to be consistent 
 Lady Susan finds it necessary that Frederica should 
 be to blame, and probably has sometimes judged it 
 expedient to excuse her of ill-nature and sometimes 
 to lament her want of sense. Reginald is only re- 
 peating after her ladyship. 
 
 I remain, &c, &c, 
 
 Catherine Vernon. 
 
240 Lady Susan. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 From the same to the same. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 
 My dear Mother, — I am very glad to find that my 
 description of Frederica Vernon has interested you, 
 for I do believe her truly deserving of your regard ; 
 and when I have communicated a notion which has 
 recently struck me, your kind impressions in her 
 favour will, I am sure, be heightened. I cannot help 
 fancying that she is growing partial to my brother. 
 I so very often see her eyes fixed on his face with 
 a remarkable expression of pensive admiration. He 
 is certainly very handsome ; and yet more, there is 
 an openness in his manner that must be highly pre- 
 possessing, and I am sure she feels it so. Thought- 
 ful and pensive in general, her countenance always 
 brightens into a smile when Reginald says anything 
 amusing ; and, let the subject be ever so serious that 
 he may be conversing on, I am much mistaken if a 
 syllable of his uttering escapes her. I want to make 
 him sensible of all this, for we know the power of 
 gratitude on such a heart as his ; and could Frederica's 
 artless affection detach him from her mother, we 
 might bless the day which brought her to Churchhill. 
 I think, my dear mother, you would not disapprove 
 of her as a daughter. She is extremely young, to be 
 sure, has had a wretched education, and a dreadful 
 example of levity in her mother ; but yet I can pro- 
 nounce her disposition to be excellent, and her natural 
 abilities very good. Though totally without accom- 
 
Lady Susan. 241 
 
 plishments, she is by no means so ignorant as one 
 might expect to find her, being fond of books and 
 spending the chief of her time in reading. Her 
 mother leaves her more to herself than she did, and 
 I have her with me as much as possible, and have 
 taken great pains to overcome her timidity. We are 
 very good friends, and though she never opens her 
 lips before her mother, she talks enough when alone 
 with me to make it clear that, if properly treated by 
 Lady Susan, she would always appear to much greater 
 advantage. There cannot be a more gentle, affec- 
 tionate heart ; or more obliging manners, when acting 
 without restraint ; and her little cousins are all very 
 fond of her. 
 
 Your affectionate Daughter, 
 
 C. Vernon. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Churcliliill. 
 
 You will be eager, I know, to hear something 
 further of Frederica, and perhaps may think me 
 negligent for not writing before. She arrived with her 
 uncle last Thursday fortnight, when, of course, I lost 
 no time in demanding the cause of her behaviour ; 
 and soon found myself to have been perfectly right 
 in attributing it to my own letter. The prospect of 
 it frightened her so thoroughly, that, with a mixture of 
 true girlish perverseness and folly, she resolved on 
 getting out of the house and proceeding directly by 
 the stage to her friends, the Clarkes ; and had really 
 
 R 
 
242 Lady Susan. 
 
 got as far as the length of two streets in her journey 
 when she was fortunately missed, pursued, and over- 
 taken. Such was the first distinguished exploit of 
 Miss Frederica Vernon ; and, if we consider that it 
 was achieved at the tender age of sixteen, we shall 
 have room for the most flattering prognostics of her 
 future renown. I am excessively provoked, however, 
 at the parade of propriety which prevented Miss 
 Summers from keeping the girl; and it seems so 
 extraordinary a piece of nicety, considering my 
 daughter's family connections, that I can only suppose 
 the lady to be governed by the fear of never getting 
 her money. Be that as it may, however, Frederica 
 is returned on my hands ; and, having nothing else 
 to employ her, is busy in pursuing the plan of 
 romance begun at Langford. She is actually falling 
 in love with Reginald De Courcy! To disobey her 
 mother by refusing an unexceptionable offer is not 
 ■enough ; her affections must also be given without her 
 mother's approbation. I never saw a girl of her age 
 bid fairer to be the sport of mankind. Her feelings 
 are tolerably acute, and she is so charmingly artless 
 in their display as to afford the most reasonable hope 
 ■of her being ridiculous, and despised by every man 
 ■who sees her. - 
 
 Artlessness will never do in love matters ; and 
 that girl is born a simpleton who has it either by 
 nature or affectation. I am not yet certain that Regi- 
 nald sees what she is about, nor is it of much conse- 
 quence. She is now an object of indifference to him, 
 and she would be one of contempt were he to under- 
 
Lady Susan. 243 
 
 stand her emotions. Her beauty is much admired 
 by the Vernons, but it has no effect on him. She is 
 in high favour with her aunt altogether, because she 
 is so little like myself, of course. She is exactly the 
 companion for Mrs. Vernon, who dearly loves to be 
 first, and to have all the sense and all the wit of the 
 conversation to herself: Frederica will never eclipse 
 her. When she first came I was at some pains to 
 prevent her seeing much of her aunt ; but I have re- 
 laxed, as I believe I may depend on her observing 
 the rules I have laid down for their discourse. But 
 do not imagine that with all this lenity I have for a 
 moment given up my plan of her marriage. No ; I am 
 unalterably fixed on this point, though I have not yet 
 quite decided on the manner of bringing it about. I 
 should not choose to have the business brought on 
 here, and canvassed by the wise heads of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Vernon ; and I cannot just now afford to go to 
 town. Miss Frederica must therefore wait a little. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 We have a very unexpected guest with us at 
 present, my dear mother : he arrived yesterday. I 
 heard a carriage at the door, as I was sitting with my 
 children while they dined ; and supposing I should be 
 wanted, left the nursery soon afterwards, and was 
 half-way down stairs, when Frederica, as pale as ashes. 
 
244 Lady Susan. 
 
 came running up, and rushed by me into her own 
 room. I instantly followed, and asked her what was 
 the matter. ' Oh ! ' said she, 'he is come — Sir James 
 is come, and what shall I do ?' This was no expla- 
 nation ; I begged her to tell me what she meant. At 
 that moment we were interrupted by a knock at the 
 door : it was Reginald, who came, by Lady Susan's 
 direction, to call Frederica down. ' It is Mr. De 
 Courcy ! ' said she, colouring violently. ' Mamma has 
 sent for me; I must go.' We all three went down 
 together ; and I saw my brother examining the terri- 
 fied face of Frederica with surprise. In the breakfast- 
 room we found Lady Susan, and a young man of 
 gentlemanlike appearance, whom she introduced by 
 the name of Sir James Martin — the very person, as 
 you may remember, whom it was said she had been 
 at pains to detach from Miss Mainwaring; but the 
 conquest, it seems, was not designed for herself, or she 
 has since transferred it to her daughter; for Sir James 
 is now desperately in love with Frederica, and with 
 full encouragement from mamma. The poor girl, 
 however, I am sure, dislikes him ; and though his 
 person and address are very well, he appears, both to 
 Mr. Vernon and me, a very weak young man. Frede- 
 rica looked so shy, so confused, when we entered the 
 room, that I felt for her exceedingly. Lady Susan 
 behaved with great attention to her visitor ; and yet 
 I thought I could perceive that she had no particular 
 pleasure in seeing him. Sir James talked a great 
 deal, and made many civil excuses to me for the 
 liberty he had taken in coming to Churchhill — mixing 
 
Lady Susan. 245 
 
 more frequent laughter with his discourse than the 
 subject required — said many things over and over 
 again, and told Lady Susan three times that he had 
 seen Mrs. Johnson a few evenings before. He now 
 and then addressed Frederica, but more frequently 
 her mother. The poor girl sat all this time without 
 opening her lips — her eyes cast down, and her colour 
 varying every instant; while Reginald observed all 
 that passed in perfect silence. At length Lady Susan, 
 weary, I believe, of her situation, proposed walking ; 
 and we left the two gentlemen together, to put on our 
 pelisses. As we went upstairs Lady Susan begged 
 permission to attend me for a few moments in my 
 dressing-room, as she was anxious to speak with me 
 in private. I led her thither accordingly, and as soon 
 as the door was closed, she said : ' I was never more 
 surprised in my life than by Sir James's arrival, and 
 the suddenness of it requires some apology to you, 
 my dear sister ; though to me, as a mother, it is 
 highly flattering. He is so extremely attached to 
 my daughter that he could not exist longer without 
 seeing her. Sir James is a young man of an amiable 
 disposition and excellent character ; a little too much 
 of the rattle, perhaps, but a year or two will rectify 
 that: and he is in other respects so very eligible a 
 match for Frederica, that I have always observed his 
 attachment with the greatest pleasure ; and am per- 
 suaded that you and my brother will give the alliance 
 your hearty approbation. I have never before men- 
 tioned the likelihood of its taking place to' anyone, 
 •because I thought that whilst Frederica continued at 
 
246 Lady Susan. 
 
 school it had better not be known to exist ; but now, 
 as I am convinced that Frederica is too old ever to 
 submit to school confinement, and have, therefore, 
 begun to consider her union with Sir James as not 
 very distant, I had intended within a few days to ac- 
 quaint yourself and Mr. Vernon with the whole busi- 
 ness. I am sure, my dear sister, you will excuse my 
 remaining silent so long, and agree with me that such 
 circumstances, while they continue from any cause in 
 suspense, cannot be too cautiously concealed. When 
 you have the happiness of bestowing your sweet little 
 Catherine, some years hence, on a man who in con- 
 nection and character is alike unexceptionable, you 
 will know what I feel now ; though, thank Heaven, 
 you cannot have all my reasons for rejoicing in such 
 an- event. Catherine will be amply provided for, and 
 not, like my Frederica, indebted to a fortunate esta- 
 blishment for the comforts of life.' She concluded by 
 demanding my congratulations. I gave them some- 
 what awkwardly, I believe ; for, in fact, the sudden 
 disclosure of so important a matter took from me the 
 power of speaking with any clearness. She thanked 
 me, however, most affectionately, for my kind concern 
 in the welfare of herself and daughter ; and then said : 
 'I am not apt to deal in professions, my. dear Mrs. 
 Vernon, and I never had the convenient talent of 
 affecting sensations foreign to my heart; and therefore 
 I trust you will believe me when I declare, that much 
 as I had heard in your praise before I knew you, I 
 had no idea that I should ever love you as I now do ; 
 and I must further say that your friendship towards 
 
Lady Susan. 247 
 
 me is more particularly gratifying because I have 
 reason to believe that some attempts were made to 
 prejudice you against me. I only wish that they, 
 whoever they are, to whom I am indebted for such 
 kind intentions, could see the terms on which we now 
 are together, and understand the real affection we 
 feel for each other ; but I will not detain you any 
 longer. God bless you, for your goodness to me and 
 my girl, and continue to you all your present happi- 
 ness.' What can one say of such a woman, my dear 
 mother ? Such earnestness, such solemnity of expres- 
 sion ! and yet I cannot help suspecting the truth of 
 everything she says. As for Reginald, I believe he 
 does not know what to make of the matter. When 
 Sir James came, he appeared all astonishment and 
 perplexity ; the folly of the young man and the con- 
 fusion of Frederica entirely engrossed him ; and 
 though a little private discourse with Lady Susan has 
 since had its effect, he is still hurt, I am sure, at her 
 allowing of such a man's attentions to her daughter. 
 Sir James invited himself with great composure to 
 remain here a few days — hoped we would not think 
 it odd, was aware of its being very impertinent, but 
 he took the liberty of a relation ; and concluded by 
 wishing, with a laugh, that he might be really one 
 very soon. Even Lady Susan seemed a little discon- 
 certed by this forwardness; in her heart I am per- 
 suaded she sincerely wished him gone. But something 
 must be done for this poor girl, if her feelings are 
 •such as both I and her uncle believe them to be. She 
 must not be sacrificed to policy or ambition, and she 
 
248 Lady Susan. 
 
 must not be left to suffer from the dread of it. The 
 girl whose heart can distinguish Reginald De Courcy, 
 deserves, however he may slight her, a better fate 
 than to be Sir James Martin's wife. As soon as I can 
 get her alone, I will discover the real truth ; but she 
 seems to wish to avoid me. I hope this does not 
 proceed from anything wrong, and that I shall not 
 find out I have thought too well of her. Her beha- 
 viour to Sir James certainly speaks the greatest con- 
 sciousness and embarrassment, but I see nothing in it 
 more like encouragement. Adieu, my dear mother. 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 C. Vernon. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Miss Vernon to Mr. De Courcy. 
 
 Sir, — I hope you will excuse this liberty; I am 
 forced upon it by the greatest distress, or I should be 
 ashamed to trouble you. I am very miserable about 
 Sir James Martin, and have no other way in the world 
 of helping myself but by writing to you, for I am 
 forbidden even speaking to my uncle and aunt on the 
 subject ; and this being the case, I am afraid my ap- 
 plying to you will appear no better than equivocation, 
 and as if I attended to the letter and not the spirit of 
 mamma's commands. But if you do not take my 
 part and persuade her to break it off, I shall be half 
 distracted, for I cannot bear him. No human being 
 but yon could have any chance of prevailing with her. 
 
Lady Susan. 249 
 
 If you will, therefore, have the unspeakably great 
 kindness of taking my part with her, and persuading 
 her to send Sir James away, I shall be more obliged 
 to you than it is possible for me to express. I always 
 disliked him from the first : it is not a sudden fancy, 
 I assure you, sir; I always thought him silly and 
 impertinent and disagreeable, and now he is grown 
 worse than ever. I would rather work for my bread 
 than marry him. I do not know how to apologise 
 enough for this letter ; I know it is taking so great a 
 liberty. I am aware how dreadfully angry it will make 
 mamma, but I remember the risk. 
 
 I am, Sir, your most humble servant, 
 
 F. S. V. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Lady Susan to Mrs. "Johnson. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 
 This is insufferable ! My dearest friend, I was never 
 so enraged before, and must relieve myself by writing 
 to you, who I know will enter into all my feelings. 
 Who should come on Tuesday but Sir James Mar,tin ! 
 Guess my astonishment, and vexation — for, as you 
 well know, I never wished him to be seen at Church- 
 hill. What a pity that you should not have known 
 his intentions ! Not content with coming, he actually 
 invited himself to remain here a few days. I could 
 have poisoned him ! I made the best of it, however, 
 and told my story with great success to Mrs. Vernon, 
 who, whatever might be her real sentiments, said 
 
250 Lady Susan. 
 
 nothing in opposition to mine. I made a point also 
 of Frederica's behaving civilly to Sir James, and gave 
 her to understand that I was absolutely determined 
 on her marrying him. She said something of her 
 misery, but that was all. I have for some time been 
 more particularly resolved on the match from seeing 
 the rapid increase of her affection for Reginald, and 
 from not feeling secure that a knowledge of such 
 affection might not in the end awaken a return. Con- 
 temptible as a regard founded only on compassion 
 must make .them both in my eyes, I felt by no 
 m^ans assured that such might not be the consequence. 
 It is true that Reginald had not in any degree grown 
 cool towards me ; but yet he has lately mentioned 
 Frederica spontaneously and unnecessarily, and once 
 said something in praise of her person. He was all 
 astonishment at the appearance of my visitor, and at 
 first observed Sir James with an attention which I was 
 pleased to see not unmixed with jealousy; but un- 
 luckily it was impossible for me really to torment 
 him, as Sir James, though extremely gallant to me, 
 very soon made the whole- party understand that his 
 heart was devoted to my daughter. I had no great 
 difficulty in convincing De Gourcy, when we were 
 alone, that I was perfectly justified, all things con- 
 sidered, in desiring the match ;- and the whole business 
 seemed most comfortably arranged. They could none 
 of themhelp perceiving that Sir James was no Solomon ; 
 but I had positively forbidden Frederica complaining 
 to Charles Vernon or his wife, and they had therefore 
 no pretence for interference ; though my impertinent 
 
Lady Susan. 251 
 
 sister, I believe, wanted only opportunity for doing 
 so. Everything, however, was going on calmly and 
 quietly ; and, though I counted the hours of Sir James's 
 stay, my mind was entirely satisfied with the posture 
 of affairs. Guess, then, what I must feel at the sudden 
 disturbance of all my schemes ; and that, too, from a 
 quarter where I had least reason to expect it. Reginald 
 came this morning into my dressing-room with a very 
 unusual solemnity of countenance, and after some 
 preface informed me in so many words that he wished 
 to reason with me on the impropriety and unkindness 
 of allowing Sir James Martin to address my daughter 
 contrary to her inclinations. I was all amazement 
 When I found that he was not to be laughed out of his 
 design, I calmly begged an explanation, and desired 
 to know by what he was impelled, and by whom 
 commissioned, to reprimand me. He then told me, 
 mixing in his speech a few insolent compliments and 
 ill-timed expressions of tenderness, to which I listened 
 with perfect indifference, that my daughter had ac- 
 quainted him with some circumstances concerning 
 herself, Sir James, and me which had given him great 
 uneasiness. In short, I found that she had in the first 
 place actually written to him to request his interference, 
 and that, on receiving her letter, he had conversed 
 with her on the subject of it, in order to understand 
 the particulars, and to assure himself of her real 
 wishes. I have not a doubt but that the girl took 
 this opportunity of making downright love to him. 
 I am convinced of it by the manner in which he spoke 
 of her. Much good may such love do him ! I shall 
 
252 Lady Susan. 
 
 ever despise the man who can be gratified by the 
 passion which he never wished to inspire, nor solicited 
 the avowal of. I shall always detest them both. He 
 can have no true regard for me, or he would not have 
 listened to her; and she, with her little rebellious 
 heart and indelicate feelings, to throw herself into the 
 protection of a young man with whom she has scarcely 
 ever exchanged two words before ! I am equally con- 
 founded at her impudence and his credulity. How 
 dared he believe what she told him in my disfavour ! 
 Ought he not to have felt assured that I must have 
 unanswerable motives for all that I had done ? Where 
 was his reliance on my sense and goodness then ? 
 Where the resentment which true love would have 
 dictated against the person defaming me — that person, 
 too, a chit, a child, without talent or education, whom 
 he had been always taught to despise ? I was calm 
 for some time ; but the greatest degree of forbearance 
 may be overcome, and I hope I was afterwards suffi- 
 ciently keen. He endeavoured, long endeavoured, to 
 soften my resentment ; but that woman is a fool 
 indeed who, while insulted by accusation, can be 
 worked on by compliments. At length he left me, 
 as deeply provoked as myself; and he showed his 
 anger more. I was quite cool, but he gave way to 
 the most violent indignation ; I may therefore expect 
 it will the sooner subside, and perhaps his may 
 be vanished for ever, while mine will be found still 
 fresh and implacable. He is now shut up in his 
 apartment, whither I heard him go on leaving . mine. 
 How unpleasant, one would think, must be his reflec- 
 
Lady Siisan. 253 
 
 tions! but some people's feelings are incomprehen- 
 sible. I have not yet tranquillised myself enough to 
 see Frederica. She shall not soon forget the occur- 
 rences of this day ; she shall find that she has poured 
 forth her tender tale of love in vain, and exposed 
 herself for ever to the contempt of the whole world, 
 and the severest resentment of her injured mother. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Mis. Vernon to Lady De Courcy. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 
 Let me congratulate you, my dearest mother ! The 
 affair which has given us so much anxiety is drawing 
 to a happy conclusion. Our prospect is most delight- 
 ful, and since matters have now taken so favourable a 
 turn, I am quite sorry that I ever imparted my appre- 
 hensions to you ; for the pleasure of learning that the 
 danger is over is perhaps dearly purchased by all that 
 you have previously suffered. I am so much agitated 
 by delight that • I can scarcely hold a pen; but am 
 determined to send you a few short lines by James, 
 that you may have some explanation of what must so 
 greatly astonish you, as that Reginald should be re- 
 turning to Parklands. I was sitting about half-an- 
 hour ago with Sir James in the breakfast parlour, 
 when my brother called me out of the room. I in- 
 stantly saw that something was the matter ; his com- 
 plexion was raised, and he spoke with great emotion ; 
 you know his eager manner, my dear mother, when 
 
254 Lady Susan. 
 
 his mind is interested. ' Catherine,' said he, ' I am 
 going home to-day ; I am sorry to leave you, but I 
 must go : it is a great while since I have seen my 
 father and mother. I am going to send James forward 
 with my hunters immediately ; if you have any letter, 
 therefore, he can take it I shall not be at home 
 myself till Wednesday or Thursday, as I shall go 
 through London, where I have business ; but before 
 I leave you,' he continued, speaking in a lower tone, 
 and with still greater energy, 'I must warn you of 
 one thing — do not let Frederica Vernon be made un- 
 happy by that Martin. He wants to marry her ; her 
 mother promotes the match, but she cannot endure 
 the idea of it Be assured that I speak from the 
 fullest conviction of the truth of what I say ; I know 
 that Frederica is made wretched by Sir James's con- 
 tinuing here. She is a sweet girl, and deserves a better 
 fate. Send him away immediately ; he is only a fool : 
 but what her mother can mean, Heaven only knows ! 
 Good bye,' he added, shaking my hand with earnest- 
 ness ; ' I do not know when you will see me again ; 
 but remember what I tell you of Freclerica ; you must 
 make it your business to see justice done her. She is 
 an amiable girl, and has a very superior mind to what 
 we have given her credit for.' He then left me, and 
 ran upstairs. I would not try to stop him, for I know 
 what his feelings must be. The nature of mine, as I 
 listened to him, I need not attempt to- describe ; for a 
 minute or two I remained in the same spot, over- 
 powered by wonder of a most agreeable sort indeed ; 
 yet it required some consideration to be tranquilly 
 
Lady Susan. 255 
 
 happy. In about ten minutes after my return to the 
 parlour Lady Susan entered the room. I concluded, 
 of course, that she and Reginald had been quarrelling ; 
 and looked with anxious curiosity for a confirmation of 
 my belief in her face. Mistress of deceit, however, she 
 appeared perfectly unconcerned, and after chatting on 
 indifferent subjects for a short time, said to me, ' I find 
 from Wilson that we are going to lose Mr. De Courcy 
 — is it true that he leaves Churchhill this morning ? ' 
 I replied that it was. ' He told us nothing of all this 
 last night,' said she, laughing,- ' or even this morning 
 at breakfast ; but perhaps he did not know it himself. 
 Young men are often hasty in their resolutions, and 
 not more sudden in forming than unsteady in keeping 
 them. I should not be surprised if he were to change 
 his mind at last, and not go.' She soon afterwards 
 left the room. I trust, however, my dear mother, that 
 we have no reason to fear an alteration of his present 
 plan; things have gone too far. They must have 
 quarrelled, and about Frederica, too. Her calmness 
 astonishes me. What delight will be yours in seeing 
 him again ; in seeing him still worthy your esteem, 
 still capable of forming your happiness ! When I 
 next write I shall be able to tell you that Sir James 
 is gone, Lady Susan vanquished, and Frederica at 
 peace. We have much to do, but it shall be done. 
 I am all impatience to hear how this astonishing 
 change was effected. I finish as I began, with the 
 warmest congratulations. 
 
 Yours ever, &c, 
 
 Cath. Vernon. 
 
2 $6 Lady Susan. 
 
 XXIV. 
 From the same to the same. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 
 Little did I imagine, my dear mother, when I sent 
 off my last letter, that the delightful perturbation of 
 spirits I was then in would undergo so speedy, so 
 melancholy a reverse. I never can sufficiently regret 
 that I wrote to you at all. Yet who could have 
 foreseen what has happened ? My dear mother, every 
 hope which made me so happy only two hours ago 
 has vanished. The quarrel between Lady Susan and 
 Reginald is made up, and we are all as we were before. 
 One point only is gained. Sir James Martin is dis- 
 missed. What are we now to look forward to ? I 
 am indeed disappointed ; Reginald was all but gone, 
 his horse was ordered and all but brought to the door ; 
 who would not have felt safe ? For half an hour I 
 was in momentary expectation of his departure. 
 After I had sent off my letter to you, I went to Mr. 
 Vernon, and sat with him in his room talking over 
 the whole matter, and then determined to look for 
 Frederica, whom I had not seen since breakfast. I 
 met her on the stairs, and saw that she was crying. 
 ' My dear aunt,' said she, ' he is going — Mr. De Courcy 
 is going, and it is all my fault. I am afraid you will 
 be very angry with me, but indeed I had no idea it 
 would end so.' ' My love,' I replied, ' do not think it 
 necessary to apologise to me on that account I shall 
 feel myself under an obligation to anyone who is the 
 means of sending my brother home, because,' recol- 
 
Lady Susan. 257 
 
 lecting myself, ' I know my father wants very much 
 to see him. But what is it you have done to occasion 
 all this ? ' She blushed deeply as she answered : ' I 
 was so unhappy about Sir James that I could not 
 help — I have done something very wrong, I know ; 
 but you have not an idea of the misery I have been 
 in : and mamma had ordered me never to speak to you 
 or my uncle about it, and — ' ' You therefore spoke to 
 my brother to engage his interference,' said I, to save 
 her the explanation. 'No, but I wrote to him — I 
 did indeed, I got up this morning before it was light, 
 and was two hours about it ; and when my letter 
 was done I thought I never should have courage to 
 give it. After breakfast, however, as I was going to my 
 room, I met him in the passage, and then, as I knew 
 that everything must depend on that moment, I forced 
 myself to give it He was so good as to take it imme- 
 diately. I dared not look at him, and ran away directly. 
 I was in such a fright I could hardly breathe. My dear 
 aunt, you do not know how miserable I have been.' 
 ' Frederica,' said I, ' you ought to have told me all your 
 distresses. You would have found in me a friend always 
 ready to assist you. Do you think that your uncle 
 or I should not have espoused your cause as warmly 
 as my brother ? ' ' Indeed, I did not doubt your kind- 
 ness,' said she, colouring again, 'but I thought Mr. 
 De Courcy could do anything with my mother ; but 
 I was mistaken : they have had a dreadful quarrel 
 about it, and he is going away. Mamma will never 
 forgive me, and I shall be worse off than ever.' ' No, 
 you shall not,' I replied ; ' in such a point as this your 
 
 S 
 
258 Lady Susan. 
 
 mother's prohibition ought not to have prevented your 
 speaking to me on the subject. She has no right to 
 make you unhappy, and she shall not do it. Your 
 applying, however, to Reginald can be productive only 
 of good to all parties. I believe it is best as it is. 
 Depend upon it that you shall not be made unhappy 
 any longer.' At that moment how great was my 
 astonishment at seeing Reginald come out of Lady 
 Susan's dressing-room. My heart misgave me in- 
 stantly. His confusion at seeing me was very evident. 
 Frederica immediately disappeared. ' Are you going ? ' 
 I said ; ' you will find Mr. Vernon in his own room.' 
 ' No, Catherine,' he replied, ' I am not going. Will 
 you let me speak to you a moment ? ' We went into 
 my room. ' I find,' he continued, his confusion in- 
 creasing as he spoke, ' that I have been acting with 
 my usual foolish impetuosity. I have entirely mis- 
 understood Lady Susan, and was on the point of 
 leaving the house under a false impression of her 
 conduct There has been some very great mistake ; 
 we have been all mistaken, I fancy. Frederica does 
 not know her mother. Lady Susan means nothing 
 but her good, but she will not make a friend of her. 
 Lady Susan does not always know, therefore, what 
 wilL make her daughter happy. Besides, I could 
 have no right to interfere. Miss Vernon was mis- 
 taken in applying to me. In short, Catherine, every- 
 thing has gone wrong, but it is now all happily set- 
 tled. Lady Susan, I believe, wishes to speak to you 
 about it, if you are at leisure.' ' Certainly,' I replied, 
 deeply sighing at the recital of so lame a story. I 
 
Lady Susan. 259 
 
 made no comments, however, for words would have 
 been vain. 
 
 Reginald was glad to get away, and I went to 
 Lady Susan, curious, indeed, to hear her account of 
 it ' Did I not tell you,' said she with a smile, ' that 
 your brother would not leave us after all ?' ' You did, 
 indeed,' replied I very gravely ; 'but I flattered myself 
 you would be mistaken.' ' I should not have hazarded 
 such an opinion,' returned she, ' if it had not at that 
 moment occurred to me that his resolution of going 
 might be occasioned by a conversation in which we 
 had been this morning engaged, and which had ended 
 very much to his dissatisfaction, from our not rightly 
 understanding each other's meaning. This idea struck 
 me at the moment, and I instantly determined that 
 an accidental dispute, in which I might probably be 
 as much to blame as himself, should not deprive you 
 of your brother. If you remember, I left the room 
 almost immediately. I was resolved to lose no time 
 in clearing up those mistakes as far as I could. The 
 case was this — Frederica had set herself violently 
 against marrying Sir James.' 'And can your lady- 
 ship wonder that she should?' cried I with some 
 warmth ; ' Frederica has an excellent understanding, 
 and Sir James has none.' 'I am at least very far 
 from regretting it, my dear sister,' said she ; ' on the 
 contrary, I am grateful for so favourable a sign of my 
 daughter's sense. Sir James is certainly below par 
 (his boyish manners make him appear worse) ; and 
 had Frederica possessed the penetration and the 
 abilities which I could have wished in my daughter, 
 
260 Lady Susan. 
 
 or had I even known her to possess as much as she 
 does, I should not have been anxious for the match.' 
 ' It is odd that you should alone be ignorant of your 
 daughter's sense!' 'Frederica never does justice to 
 herself; her manners are shy and childish, and besides 
 she is afraid of me. During her poor father's life she 
 was a spoilt child; the severity which it has since 
 been necessary for me to show has alienated her affec- 
 tion ; neither has she any of that brilliancy of intellect, 
 that genius or vigour of mind which will force itself 
 forward.' ' Say rather that she has been unfortunate 
 in her education ! ' ' Heaven knows, my dearest Mrs. 
 Vernon, how fully I am aware of that ; but I would 
 wish to forget every circumstance that might throw 
 blame on the memory of one whose name is sacred 
 with me.' Here she pretended to cry ; I was out of 
 patience with her. 'But what,' said I, 'was your 
 ladyship going to tell me about your disagreement 
 with my brother ? ' 'It originated in an action of my 
 daughter's, which equally marks her want of judgment 
 ■and the unfortunate dread of me I have been men- 
 tioning — she wrote to Mr. De Courcy.' ' I know she 
 •did ; you had forbidden her speaking to Mr. Vernon 
 or to me on the cause of her distress ; what could she 
 do, therefore, but apply to my brother?' 'Good 
 God ! ' she exclaimed, ' what an opinion you must 
 have of me! Can you possibly suppose that I was 
 aware of her unhappiness ? that it was my object to 
 make my own child miserable, and that I had for- 
 bidden her speaking to you on the subject from a fear 
 of your interrupting the diabolical scheme ? Do you 
 
Lady Susan. 2O1 
 
 think me destitute of every honest, every natural 
 feeling ? Am I capable of consigning her to ever- 
 lasting misery whose welfare it is my first earthly 
 duty to promote ? The idea is horrible ! ' ' What, then, 
 was your intention when you insisted on her silence ?' 
 ' Of what use, my dear sister, could be any application 
 to you, however the affair might stand ? Why should 
 I subject you to entreaties which I refused to attend 
 to myself? Neither for your sake nor for hers, nor 
 for my own, could such a thing be desirable. When 
 my own resolution was taken I could not wish for the 
 interference, however friendly, of another person. I 
 was mistaken, it is true, but I believed myself right' 
 ' But what was this mistake to which your ladyship 
 so often alludes ? from whence arose so astonishing a 
 misconception of your daughter's feelings ? Did you 
 not know that she disliked Sir James ?' ' I knew that 
 he was not absolutely the man she would have 
 chosen, but I was persuaded that her objections to 
 him did not arise from any perception of his deficiency. 
 You must not question me, however, my dear sister, 
 too minutely on this point,' continued she, taking me 
 affectionately by the hand ; 'I honestly own that there 
 is something to conceal. Frederica makes me very 
 unhappy ! Her applying to Mr. De Courcy hurt me 
 particularly.' ' What is it you mean to infer,' said 
 I, ' by this appearance of mystery ? If you think 
 your daughter at all attached to Reginald, her ob- 
 jecting to Sir James could not less deserve to be 
 attended to than if the cause of her objecting had 
 been a consciousness of his folly ; and why should 
 
262 Lady Susan. 
 
 your ladyship, at any rate, quarrel with my brother 
 for an interference which, you must know, it is not in 
 his nature to refuse when urged in such a manner ? ' 
 
 ' His disposition, you know, is warm, and he came 
 to expostulate with me ; his compassion all alive for 
 this ill-used girl, this heroine in distress ! We mis- 
 understood each other : he believed me more to 
 blame than I really was ; I considered his inter- 
 ference less excusable than I now find it I have a 
 real regard for him, and was beyond expression mor- 
 tified to find it, as I thought, so ill bestowed. We 
 were both warm, and of course both to blame. His 
 resolution of leaving Churchhill is consistent with his 
 general eagerness. When I understood his intention, 
 however, and at the same time began to think that 
 we had been perhaps equally mistaken in each other's 
 meaning, I resolved to have an explanation before 
 it was too late. For any member of your family I 
 must always feel a degree of affection, and I own it 
 would have sensibly hurt me if my acquaintance with 
 Mr. De Courcy had ended so gloomily. I have now 
 only to say further, that as I am convinced of 
 Frederica's having a reasonable dislike to Sir James, 
 I shall instantly inform him that he must give up 
 all hope of her. I reproach myself for having even, 
 though innocently, made her unhappy on that score. 
 She shall have all the retribution in my power to 
 make ; if she value her own happiness as much as I 
 do, if she judge wisely, and command herself as she 
 ought, she may now be easy. Excuse me, my dearest 
 sister, for thus trespassing on your time, but I owe it 
 
Lady Susan. 263 
 
 to my own character; and after this explanation I 
 trust I am in no danger of sinking in your opinion.' 
 I could have said, ' Not much, indeed ! ' but I left her 
 almost in silence. It was the greatest stretch of for- 
 bearance I could practise. I could not have stopped 
 myself had I begun. Her assurance ! her deceit ! but 
 I will not allow myself to dwell on them ; they will 
 strike you sufficiently. My heart sickens within me. 
 As soon as I was tolerably composed I returned to 
 the parlour. Sir James's carriage was at the door, 
 and he, merry as usual, soon afterwards took his 
 leave. How easily does her ladyship encourage or 
 dismiss a lover! In spite of this release, Frederica 
 still looks unhappy: still fearful, perhaps, of her 
 mother's anger; and though dreading my brother's 
 departure, jealous, it may be, of his staying. I see 
 how closely she observes him and Lady Susan, poor 
 girl ! I have now no hope for her. There is not a 
 chance of her affection being returned. He thinks 
 very differently of her from what he used to do ; he 
 does her some justice, but his reconciliation with her 
 mother precludes every dearer hope. Prepare, my 
 dear mother, for the worst ! The probability of their 
 marrying is surely heightened ! He is more securely 
 hers than ever. When that wretched event takes 
 place, Frederica must belong wholly to us. I am 
 thankful that my last letter will precede this by so 
 little, as every moment that you can be saved from 
 feeling a joy which leads only tD disappointment is 
 of consequence. 
 
 Yours ever, &c. 
 
 Catherine Vernon. 
 
J 64 Lady Susan. 
 
 XXV. 
 Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 
 I call on you, dear Alicia, for congratulations : I 
 am my ovvnself, gay and triumphant ! When I wrote 
 to you the other day I was, in truth, in high irritation, 
 and with ample cause. Nay, I know not whether I 
 ought to be quite tranquil now, for I have had more 
 trouble in restoring peace than I ever intended to 
 submit to — a spirit, too, resulting from a fancied 
 sense of superior integrity, which is peculiarly in- 
 solent ! I shall not easily forgive him, I assure you. 
 He was actually on the point of leaving Churchhill ! 
 I had scarcely concluded my last, when Wilson 
 brought me word of it. I found, therefore, that some- 
 thing must be done ; for I did not choose to leave 
 my character at the mercy of a man whose passions 
 are so violent and so revengeful. It would have 
 been trifling with my reputation to allow of his de- 
 parting with such an impression in my disfavour ; in 
 this light, condescension was necessary. I sent Wilson 
 to say that I desired to speak with him before he 
 went; he came immediately. The angry emotions 
 which had marked every feature when we last parted 
 were partially subdued. He seemed astonished at 
 the summons, and looked as if half wishing and half 
 fearing to be softened by what I might say. If my 
 countenance expressed what I aimed at, it was com- 
 posed and dignified ; and yet, with a degree of pen- 
 siveness which might convince him that I was not 
 
Lady Susan. 265 
 
 quite happy. ' I beg your pardon, sir, for the liberty 
 I have taken in sending for you,' said I ; ' but as I 
 have just learnt your intention of leaving this place 
 to-day, I feel it my duty to entreat that you will not 
 on my account shorten your visit here even an hour. 
 I am perfectly aware that after what has passed 
 between us it would ill suit the feelings of either to 
 remain longer in the same house : so very great, so 
 total a change from the intimacy of friendship must 
 render any future intercourse the severest punish- 
 ment ; and your resolution of quitting Churchhill is 
 undoubtedly in unison with our situation, and with 
 those lively feelings which I know you to possess. 
 But, at the same time, it is not for me to suffer such a 
 sacrifice as it must be to leave relations to whom you 
 are so much attached, and are so dear. My remaining 
 here cannot give that pleasure to Mr. and Mrs. Vernon 
 which your society must ; and my visit has already 
 perhaps been too long. My removal, therefore, which 
 must, at any rate, take place soon, may, with perfect 
 convenience, be hastened ; and I make it my particular 
 request that I may not in any way be instrumental 
 in separating a family so affectionately attached to 
 each other. Where I go is of no consequence to any- 
 one ; of very little to myself; but you are of im- 
 portance to all your connections.' Here I concluded, 
 and I hope you will be satisfied with my speech. Its 
 effect on Reginald justifies some portion of vanity, 
 for it was no less favourable than instantaneous. Oh, 
 how delightful it was to watch the variations of his 
 countenance while I spoke ! to see the struggle be- 
 
266 Lady Susan. 
 
 tween returning tenderness and the remains of dis- 
 pleasure. There is something agreeable in feelings 
 so easily worked on ; not that I envy him their pos- 
 session, nor would, for the world, have such myself ; 
 but they are very convenient when one wishes to 
 influence the passions of another. And yet this 
 Reginald, whom a very few words from me softened 
 at once into the utmost submission, and rendered 
 more tractable, more attached, more devoted than 
 ever, would have left me in the first angry swelling of 
 his proud heart without deigning" to seek an explana- 
 tion. Humbled as he now is, I cannot forgive him 
 such an instance of pride, and am doubtful whether I 
 ought not to punish him by dismissing him at once 
 after this reconciliation, or by marrying and teazing 
 him for ever. But these measures are each too violent 
 to be adopted without some deliberation ; at present 
 my thoughts are fluctuating between various schemes. 
 I have many things to compass : I must punish Fre- 
 derica, and pretty severely too, for her application to 
 Reginald ; I must punish him for receiving it so 
 favourably, and for the rest of his conduct. I must 
 torment my sister-in-law for the insolent triumph of 
 her look and manner since Sir James has been dis- 
 missed ; . for, in reconciling Reginald to me, I was not 
 able to save that ill-fated young man; and I must 
 make myself amends for the humiliation to which I 
 have stooped within these few days. To effect all 
 this I have various plans. I have also an idea of 
 being soon in town ; and whatever may be my deter- 
 mination as to the rest, I shall probably put tliat 
 
Lady Susan. 267 
 
 project in execution ; for London will be always the 
 fairest field of action, however my views may be 
 directed ; and at any rate I shall there be rewarded 
 by your society, and a little dissipation, for a ten 
 weeks' penance at Churchhill. I believe I owe it to 
 my character to complete the match between my 
 daughter and Sir James after having so long in- 
 tended it Let me know your opinion on this point. 
 Flexibility of mind, a disposition easily biassed by 
 others, is an attribute which you know I am not very 
 desirous of obtaining ; nor has Frederica any claim 
 to the indulgence of her notions at the expense of her 
 mother's inclinations. Her idle love for Reginald, 
 too ! It is surely my duty to discourage such ro- 
 mantic nonsense. All things considered, therefore, it 
 seems incumbent on me to take her to town and 
 marry her immediately to Sir James. When my 
 own will is effected contrary to his, I shall have some 
 credit in being on good terms with Reginald, which 
 at present, in fact, I have not ; for though he is still in 
 my power, I have given up the very article by which 
 our quarrel was produced, and at best the honour of 
 victory is doubtful. Send me your opinion on all 
 these matters, my dear Alicia, and let me know 
 whether you can get lodgings to suit me within a 
 short distance of you. 
 
 Your most attached 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
268 Lady Susan. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan. 
 
 Edward Street. 
 
 I am gratified by your reference, and this is my 
 advice : that you come to town yourself, without loss 
 of time, but that you leave Frederica behind. It 
 would surely be much more to the purpose to get 
 yourself well established by marrying Mr. De Courcy, 
 than to irritate him and the rest of his family by. 
 making her marry Sir James. You should think more 
 of yourself and less of your daughter. She is not of 
 a disposition to do you credit in the world, and seems 
 precisely in her proper place at Churchhill, with the 
 Vernons. But you are fitted for society, and it is 
 shameful to have you exiled from it Leave Frederica, 
 therefore, to punish herself for the plague she has 
 given you, by indulging that romantic tender-hearted- 
 ness which will always ensure her misery enough, and 
 come to London as soon as you can. I have another 
 reason for urging this : Mainwaring came to town last 
 week, and has contrived, in spite of Mr. Johnson, to 
 make opportunities of seeing me. He is absolutely 
 miserable about you, and jealous to such a degree of 
 De Courcy that it would be highly unadvisable for 
 them to meet at present And yet, if you do not 
 allow him to see you here, I cannot answer for his 
 not committing some great imprudence — such as going 
 to Churchhill, for instance, which would be dreadful ! 
 Besides, if you take my advice, and resolve to marry 
 
Lady Susan. 269 
 
 De Courcy, it will be indispensably necessary to you 
 to get Mainwaring out of the way ; and you only can 
 have influence enough to send him back to his wife. 
 I have still another motive for your coming : Mr. John- 
 sen leaves London next Tuesday ; he is going for his 
 health to Bath, where, if the waters are favourable 
 to his constitution and my wishes, he will be laid up 
 with the gout many weeks. During his absence we 
 shall be able to chuse our own society, and to have 
 true enjoyment. I would ask you to Edward Street, 
 but that once he forced from me a kind of promise never 
 to invite you to my house ; nothing but my being in 
 the utmost distress for money should have extorted it 
 from me. I can get you, however, a nice drawing-room 
 apartment in Upper Seymour Street, and we may be 
 always together thereor here ; for I consider mypromise 
 to Mr. Johnson as comprehending only (at least in his 
 absence) your not sleeping in the house. Poor Main- 
 waring gives me such histories of his wife's jealousy. 
 Silly woman to expect constancy from so charming a 
 man ! but she always was silly — intolerably so in marry- 
 ing him at all, she the heiress of a large fortune and 
 he without a shilling : one title, I know, she might have 
 had, besides baronets. Her folly in forming the con- 
 nection was so great that, though Mr. Johnson was her 
 guardian, and I do not in general share his feelings, I 
 never can forgive her. 
 
 Adieu. Yours ever, 
 
 Alicia. 
 
270 Lady Susan. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Mrs. Vernon to Lady De Courcy. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 This letter, my dear mother, will be brought you by 
 Reginald. His long visit is about to be concluded at 
 last, but I fear the separation takes place too late to 
 do us any good. She is going to London to see her 
 particular friend, Mrs. Johnson. It was at first her 
 intention that Frederica should accompany her, for 
 the benefit of masters, but we overruled her there. 
 Frederica was wretched in the idea of going, and I 
 could not bear to have her at the mercy of her mother; 
 not all the masters in London could compensate for 
 the ruin of her comfort. I should have feared, too, for 
 her health, and for everything but her principles — there 
 I believe she is not to be injured by her mother, or 
 her mother's friends ; but with those friends she must 
 have mixed (a very bad set, I doubt not), or have been 
 left in total solitude, and I can hardly tell which would 
 have been worse for her. If she is with her mother, 
 moreover, she must, alas ! in all probability be with 
 Reginald, and that would be the greatest evil of all. 
 Here we shall in time be in peace, and our regular 
 employments, our books and conversations, with exer- 
 cise, the children, and every domestic pleasure in my 
 power to procure her, will, I trust, gradually overcome 
 this youthful attachment I should not have a doubt 
 of it were she slighted for any other woman in the 
 world than her own mother. How long Lady Susan 
 
Lady Susan. 271 
 
 will be in town, or whether she returns here again, I 
 know not I could not be cordial in my invitation, but 
 if she chuses to come no want of cordiality on my part 
 will keep her away. I could not help asking Reginald 
 if he intended being in London this winter, as soon as 
 I found her ladyship's steps would be bent thither ; and 
 though he professed himself quite undetermined, there 
 was something in his look and voice as he spoke which 
 contradicted his words. I have done with lamentation ; 
 I look upon the event as so far decided that I resign 
 myself to it in despair. If he leaves you soon for 
 London everything will be concluded. 
 
 Your affectionate, &c, 
 
 C. Vernon. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan. 
 
 Edward Street. 
 My dearest Friend, — I write in the greatest distress ; 
 the most unfortunate event has just taken place. Mr. 
 Johnson has hit on the most effectual manner of 
 plaguing us all. He had heard, I imagine, by some 
 means or other, that you were soon to be in London, 
 and immediately contrived to have such an attack of 
 the gout as must at least delay his journey to Bath, 
 if not wholly prevent it. I am persuaded the gout is 
 brought on or kept off at pleasure ; it was the same 
 when I wanted to join the Hamiltons to the Lakes ; 
 and three years ago, when / had a fancy for Bath, 
 nothing could induce him to have a gouty symptom. 
 
272 Lady Susan. 
 
 I am pleased to find that my letter had so much 
 effect on you, and that De Courcy is certainly your 
 own. Let me hear from you as soon as you arrive, 
 and in particular tell me what you mean to do with 
 Mainwaring. It is impossible to say when I shall be 
 able to come to you ; my confinement must be great- 
 It is such an abominable trick to be ill here instead of 
 at Bath that I can scarcely command myself at all. 
 At Bath his old aunts would have nursed him, but here 
 it all falls upon me; and he bears pain with such 
 patience that I have not the common excuse for losing 
 my temper. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 Alicia. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Lady Susan Vernon to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Upper Seymour Street. 
 
 My dear Alicia, — There needed not this last fit of the 
 gout to make me detest Mr. Johnson, but now the 
 extent of my aversion is not to be estimated. To 
 have you confined as nurse in his apartment ! My 
 dear Alicia, of what a mistake were you guilty in 
 marrying a man of his age ! just old enough to be 
 formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout ; too old 
 to be agreeable, too young to die. I arrived last 
 night about five, had scarcely swallowed my dinner 
 when Mainwaring made his appearance. I will not 
 dissemble what real pleasure his sight afforded me, 
 nor how strongly I felt the contrast between his person 
 
Lady Susan. 273 
 
 and manners arid those of Reginald, to the infinite 
 disadvantage of the latter. For an hour or two I was 
 even staggered in my resolution of marrying him, 
 and though this was too idle and nonsensical an idea 
 to remain long on my mind, I do not feel very eager 
 for the conclusion of my marriage, nor look forward 
 with much impatience to the time when Reginald, 
 according to our agreement, is to be in town. I shall 
 probably put off his arrival under some pretence or 
 other. He must not come till Mainwaring is gone. I 
 am still doubtful at times as to marrying ; if the old 
 man would die I might not hesitate, but a state of 
 dependance on the caprice of Sir Reginald will not 
 suit the freedom of my spirit ; and if I resolve to wait 
 for that event, I shall have excuse enough at present 
 in having been scarcely ten months a widow. I have 
 not given Mainwaring any hint of my intention, or 
 allowed him to consider my acquaintance with Regi- 
 nald as more than the commonest flirtation, and he is 
 tolerably appeased. Adieu, till we meet; I am en 
 chanted with my lodgings. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Lady Susan Vernon to Mr. de Courcy. 
 
 Upper Seymour Street. 
 I have received your letter, and though I do not 
 attempt to conceal that I am gratified by your im- 
 patience for the hour of meeting, I yet feel myself 
 
 T 
 
274 Lady Susan. 
 
 under the necessity of delaying that hour beyond the 
 time originally fixed. Do not think me unkind for 
 such an exercise of my power, nor accuse me of in- 
 stability without first hearing my reasons. In the 
 course of my journey from Churchhill I had ample 
 leisure for reflection on the present state of our affairs, 
 and every review has served to convince me that they 
 require a delicacy and cautiousness of conduct to which 
 we have hitherto been too little attentive. We have 
 been hurried on by our feelings to a degree of precipi- 
 tation which ill accords with the claims of our friends 
 or the opinion of the world. We have been unguarded 
 in forming this hasty engagement, but we must not 
 ■complete the imprudence by ratifying it while there 
 is so much reason to fear the connection would be 
 ■opposed by those friends on whom you depend. It is 
 not for us to blame any expectations on your father's 
 side of your marrying to advantage; where posses- 
 sions are so extensive as those of your family, the 
 wish of increasing them, if not strictly reasonable, is 
 too common to excite surprise or resentment. He has 
 .a right to require a woman of fortune in his daughter- 
 in-law, and I am sometimes quarrelling with myself 
 for suffering you to form a connection so imprudent ; 
 but the influence of reason is often acknowledged too 
 late by those who feel like me. I have now been but 
 a few months a widow, and, however little indebted to 
 my husband's memory for any happiness derived from 
 him during a union of some years, I cannot forget 
 that the indelicacy of so early a second marriage must 
 subject me to the censure of the world, and incur, 
 
Lady Susan. 275 
 
 what would be still more insupportable, the displeasure 
 of Mr. Vernon. I might perhaps harden myself in 
 time against the injustice of general reproach, but the 
 loss of his valued esteem I am, as you well know, ill- 
 fitted to endure ; and when to this may be added the 
 consciousness of having injured you with your family, 
 how am I to support myself ? With feelings so poig- 
 nant as mine, the conviction of having divided the 
 son from his parents would make me, even with you, 
 the most miserable of beings. It will surely, there- 
 fore, be advisable to delay our union — to delay it till 
 appearances are more promising — till affairs have 
 taken a more favourable turn. To assist us in such a 
 resolution I feel that absence will be necessary. We 
 must not meet. Cruel as this sentence may appear, 
 the necessity of pronouncing it, which can alone re- 
 concile it to myself, will be evident to you when you 
 have considered our situation in the light in which I 
 have found myself imperiously obliged to place it. 
 You maybe — you must be — well assured that nothing 
 but the strongest conviction of duty could induce me 
 to wound my own feelings by urging a lengthened 
 separation, and of insensibility to yours you will 
 hardly suspect me. Again, therefore, I say that we 
 ought not, we must not, yet meet. By a removal for 
 some months from each other we shall tranquillise the 
 sisterly fears of Mrs. Vernon, who, accustomed herself 
 to the enjoyment of riches, considers fortune as neces- 
 sary everywhere, and whose sensibilities are not of a 
 nature to comprehend ours. Let me hear from you 
 soon — very soon. Tell me that you submit to my 
 
276 Lady Susan. 
 
 arguments, and do not reproach me for using such. 
 I cannot bear reproaches : my spirits are not so high 
 as to need being repressed. I must endeavour to 
 seek amusement, and fortunately many of my friends 
 are in town ; amongst them the Mainwarings ; you 
 know how sincerely I regard both husband and wife. 
 I am, very faithfully yours, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 XXXI. 
 Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Upper Seymour Street. 
 
 My dear Friend, — That tormenting creature, Regi- 
 nald, is here. My letter, which was intended to keep 
 him longer in the country, has hastened him to town, 
 Much as I wish him away, however, I cannot help 
 being pleased with such a proof of attachment. He 
 is devoted to me, heart and soul. He will carry this 
 note himself, which is to serve as an introduction to 
 you, with whom he longs to be acquainted. Allow 
 him to spend the evening with you, that I may be in 
 no danger of his returning here. I have told him that 
 I am not quite well, and must be alone ; and should 
 he call again there might be confusion, for it is im- 
 possible to be sure of servants. Keep him, therefore, 
 I entreat you, in Edward Street. You will not find 
 him a heavy companion, and I allow you to flirt with 
 him as much as you like. At the same time, do not 
 forget my real interest ; say all that you can to con- 
 vince him that I shall be quite wretched if he remains 
 
Lady Susan. 2jJ 
 
 here ; you know my reasons — propriety, and so forth. 
 I would urge them more myself, but that I am im- 
 patient to be rid of him, as Mainwaring comes within 
 half-an hour. Adieu ! 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
 XXXII. 
 Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan. 
 
 Edward Street 
 My dear Creature, — I am in agonies, and know not 
 what to do. Mr. De Courcy arrived just when he 
 should not Mrs. Mainwaring had that instant entered 
 the house, and forced herself into her guardian's 
 presence, though I did not know a syllable of it till 
 afterwards, for I was out when both she and Reginald 
 came, or I should have sent him away at all events ; 
 but she was shut up with Mr. Johnson, while lie waited 
 in the drawing-room for me. She arrived yesterday 
 in pursuit of her husband, but perhaps you know this 
 already from himself. She came to this house to 
 entreat my husband's interference, and before I could 
 be aware of it, everything that you could wish to be 
 concealed was known to him, and unluckily she had 
 wormed out of Mainwaring's servant that he had 
 visited you every day since your being in town, and 
 had just watched him to your door herself! What 
 could I do ? Facts are such horrid things ! All is by 
 this time known to De Courcy, who is now alone with 
 Mr. Johnson. Do not accuse me ; indeed, it was im- 
 possible to prevent it Mr. Johnson has for some time 
 
278 Lady Susan. 
 
 suspected De Courcy of intending to marry you, and 
 would speak with him alone as soon as he knew him 
 to be in the house. That detestable Mrs. Mainwaring, 
 who, for your comfort, has fretted herself thinner and 
 uglier than ever, is still here, and they have been all 
 closeted together. What can be done ? At any 
 rate, I hope he will plague his wife more than ever. 
 With anxious wishes, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 Alicia. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Upper Seymour Street 
 
 This eclaircissement is rather provoking. How 
 unlucky that you should have been from home ! I 
 thought myself sure of you at seven ! I am undis- 
 mayed however. Do not torment yourself with fears 
 on my account ; depend on it, I can make my story 
 good with Reginald. Mainwaring is just gone ; he 
 brought me the news of his wife's arrival. Silly 
 woman, what does she expect by such manoeuvres ? 
 Yet I wish she had stayed quietly at Langford. Regi- 
 nald will be a little enraged at first, but by to- 
 morrow's dinner, everything will be well again. 
 
 Adieu ! 
 
 S.V. 
 
Lady Susan. 279 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Mr. Dc Convey to Lady Susan. 
 
 — Hotel. 
 I write only to bid you farewell, the spell is re- 
 moved ; I see you as you are. Since we parted 
 yesterday, I have received from indisputable authority 
 such a history of you as must bring the most morti- 
 fying conviction of the imposition I have been under, 
 and the absolute necessity of an immediate and 
 eternal separation from you . You cannot doubt 
 to what I allude. Langford ! Langford ! that word 
 will be sufficient. I received my information in Mr. 
 Johnson's house, from Mrs. Mainwaring herself. You 
 know how I have loved you ; you can intimately 
 judge of my present feelings, but I am not so weak as 
 to find indulgence in describing them to a woman 
 who will glory in having excited their anguish, but 
 whose affection they have never been able to gain. 
 
 It De Courcy. 
 
 XXXV. 
 Lady Susan to Mr. De Courcy. 
 
 Upper Seymour Street 
 I will not attempt to describe my astonishment in 
 reading the note this moment received from you. I 
 am bewildered in my endeavours to form some ra- 
 tional conjecture of what Mrs. Mainwaring can have 
 told you to occasion so extraordinary a change in your 
 sentiments. Have I not explained everything to you 
 
jSo Lady Susan. 
 
 with respect to myself which could bear a doubtful 
 meaning, and which the ill-nature of the world had 
 interpreted to my discredit ? What can you now 
 have heard to stagger your esteem for me ? Have I 
 ever had a concealment from you ? Reginald, you 
 agitate me beyond expression, I cannot suppose that 
 the old story of Mrs. Mainwaring's jealousy can be 
 revived again, or at least be listened to again. Come 
 to me immediately, and explain what is at present 
 absolutely incomprehensible. Believe me the single 
 word of Langford is not of such potent intelligence as 
 to supersede the necessity of more. If we are to 
 part, it will at least be handsome to take your per- 
 sonal leave — but I have little heart to jest ; in truth, 
 I am serious enough ; for to be sunk, though but for 
 an hour, in your esteem is a humiliation to which I 
 know not how to submit. I shall count every minute 
 till your arrival. 
 
 S. V. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Mr. De Courcy to Lady Susan. 
 
 Hotel. 
 
 Why would you write to me ? Why do you require 
 particulars ? But, since it must be so, I am obliged 
 to declare that all the accounts of your misconduct 
 during the life, and since the death of Mr. Vernon, 
 which had reached me, in common with the world in 
 general, and gained my entire belief before I saw 
 you, but which you, by the exertion of your per- 
 
Lady Susan. 2S1 
 
 verted abilities, had made me resolved to disallow, 
 have been unanswerably proved to me ; nay more, I 
 am assured that a connection, of which I had never 
 before entertained a thought, has for some time ex- 
 isted, and still continues to exist, between you and 
 the man whose family you robbed of its peace in 
 return for the hospitality with which you were re- 
 ceived into it; that you have corresponded with 
 him ever since your leaving Langford ; not with his 
 wife, but with him, and that he now visits you every 
 day. Can you, dare you deny it ? and all this at the 
 time when I was an encouraged, an accepted lover ! 
 From what have I not escaped ! I have only to be 
 grateful. Far from me be all complaint, every sigh 
 of regret. My own folly had endangered me, my 
 preservation I owe to the kindness, the integrity of 
 another ; but the unfortunate Mrs. Mainwaring, whose 
 agonies while she related the past seemed to threaten 
 her reason, how is she to be consoled ! After such 
 a discovery as this, you will scarcely affect further 
 wonder at my meaning in bidding you adieu. My 
 understanding is at length restored, and teaches no 
 less to abhor the artifices which had subdued me 
 than to despise myself for the weakness on which 
 their strength was founded. 
 
 R. DE COURCY. 
 
282 Ludy Susan. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Lady Susan to Mr. De Courcy. 
 
 Upper Seymour Street 
 I am satisfied, and will trouble you no more when 
 these few lines are dismissed. The engagement 
 which you were eager to form a fortnight ago is no 
 longer compatible with your views, and I rejoice to 
 find that the prudent advice of your parents has not 
 been given in vain. Your restoration to peace will, I 
 doubt not, speedily follow this act of filial obedience, 
 and I flatter myself with the hope of surviving my 
 share in this disappointment 
 
 S. V. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Mrs. Johnson to Lady Susan Vernon. 
 
 Edward Street. 
 I am grieved, though I cannot be astonished at 
 your rupture with Mr. De Courcy; he has just in- 
 formed Mr. Johnson of it by letter. He leaves 
 London, he says, to-day. Be assured that I partake 
 in all your feelings, and do not be angry if I say that 
 our intercourse, even by letter, must soon be given 
 up. It makes me miserable ; but Mr. Johnson vows 
 that if I persist in the connection, he will settle in the 
 country for the rest of his life, and you know it is 
 impossible to submit to such an extremity while any 
 other alternative remains. You have heard of course 
 
Lady Susan. 28^ 
 
 that the Mainwarings are to part, and I am afraid 
 Mrs. M. will come home to us again ; but she is still 
 so fond of her husband, and frets so much about him, 
 that perhaps she may not live long. Miss Main- 
 waring is just come to town to be with her aunt, and 
 they say that she declares she will have Sir James 
 Martin before she leaves London again. If I were 
 you, I would certainly get him myself. I had almost 
 forgot to give you my opinion of Mr. De Courcy ; I 
 am really delighted with him ; he is full as hand- 
 some, I think, as Mainwaring, and with such an open, 
 good-humoured countenance, that one cannot help 
 loving him at first sight. Mr. Johnson and he are 
 the greatest friends in the world. Adieu, my dearest 
 Susan, I wish matters did not go so perversely. That 
 unlucky visit to Langford ! but I dare say you did 
 all for the best, and there is no defying destiny. 
 Your sincerely attached, 
 
 Alicia. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson. 
 
 Upper Seymour Street 
 My dear Alicia, — I yield to the necessity which 
 parts us. Under circumstances you could not act 
 otherwise. Our friendship cannot be impaired by it, 
 and in happier times, when your situation is as in- 
 dependent as mine, it will unite us again in the same 
 intimacy as ever. For this I shall impatiently wait, 
 and meanwhile can safely assure you that I never was 
 
284 Lady Susan. 
 
 more at ease, or better satisfied with myself and 
 everything about me than at the present hour. Your 
 husband I abhor, Reginald I despise, and I am secure 
 of never seeing either again. Have I not reason to 
 rejoice ? Mainwaring is more devoted to me than 
 ever ; and were we at liberty, I doubt if I could 
 resist even matrimony offered by him. This event, if 
 his wife live with you, it may be in your power to 
 hasten. The violence of her feelings, which must 
 wear her out, may be easily kept in irritation. I 
 rely on your friendship for this. I am now satisfied 
 that I never could have brought myself to marry 
 Reginald, and am equally determined that Frederica 
 never shall. To-morrow, I shall fetch her from 
 Churchhill, and let Maria Mainwaring tremble for the 
 consequence. Frederica shall be Sir James's wife 
 before she quits my house, and she may whimper, and 
 the Vernons may storm, I regard them not. I am 
 tired of submitting my will to the caprices of others ; 
 of resigning my own judgment in deference to those 
 to whom I owe no duty, and for whom I feel no 
 respect; I have given up too much, have been too 
 easily worked on, but Frederica shall now feel the 
 difference. Adieu, dearest of friends ; may the next 
 gouty attack be more favourable! and may you 
 always regard me as unalterably yours, 
 
 S. Vernon. 
 
Lady Susan. 285 
 
 XL. 
 Lady de Courcy to Mrs. Vernon. 
 
 My dear Catherine, — I have charming news for you, 
 and if I had not sent off my letter this morning you 
 might have been spared the vexation of knowing of 
 Reginald's being gone to London, for he is returned. 
 Reginald is returned, not to ask our consent to his 
 marrying Lady Susan, but to tell us they are parted 
 for ever. He has been only an hour in the house, and I 
 have not been able to learn particulars, for he is so very 
 low that I have not the heart to ask questions, but I 
 hope we shall soon know all This is the most joyful 
 hour he has ever given us since the day of his birth. 
 Nothing is wanting but to have you here, and it is our 
 particular wish and entreaty that you would come to 
 us as soon as you can. You have owed us a visit 
 many long weeks ; I hope nothing will make it in- 
 convenient to Mr. Vernon ; and pray bring all my 
 grandchildren ; and your dear niece is included, of 
 course ; I long to see her. It has been a sad, heavy 
 winter hitherto, without Reginald, and seeing nobody 
 from ChurchhilL I never found the season so dreary 
 before ; but this happy meeting will make us young 
 a^ain. Frederica runs much in my thoughts, and 
 when Reginald has recovered his usual good spirits 
 (as I trust he soon will) we will try to rob him of his 
 heart once more, and I am full of hopes of seeing 
 their hands joined at no great distance. 
 
 Your affectionate mother, 
 
 C. De Courcy. 
 
286 Lady Susan. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Mrs. Vernon to Lady de Courcy. 
 
 Churchhill. 
 My dear Mother, — Your letter has surprised me 
 beyond measure ! Can it be true that they are really 
 separated — and for ever ? I should be overjoyed if I 
 dared depend on it, but after all that I have seen how 
 can one be secure ? And Reginald really with you ! My 
 surprise is the greater because on Wednesday, the 
 very day of his coming to Parklands, we had a most 
 unexpected and unwelcome visit from Lady Susan, 
 looking all cheerfulness and good-humour, and seem- 
 ing more as if she were to marry him when she got to 
 London than as if parted from him for ever. She 
 stayed nearly two hours, was as affectionate and agree- 
 able as ever, and not a syllable, not a hint was dropped, 
 of any disagreement or coolness between them. I 
 asked her whether she had seen my brother since his 
 arrival in town ; not, as you may suppose, with any 
 doubt of the fact, but merely to see how she looked. 
 She immediately answered, without any embarrass- 
 ment, that he had been kind enough to call on her on 
 Monday ; but she believed he had already returned 
 home, which I was very far from crediting. Your 
 kind invitation is accepted by us with pleasure, and 
 on Thursday next we and our little ones will be 
 with you. Pray heaven, Reginald may not be in 
 town again by that time! I wish we could bring 
 dear Frederica too, but I am sorry to say that her 
 
Lady Susan. 287 
 
 mother's errand hither was to fetch her away ; and, 
 miserable as it made the poor girl, it was impossible 
 to detain her. I was thoroughly unwilling to let her 
 go, and so was her uncle ; and all that could be urged 
 we did urge; but Lady Susan declared that as she 
 was now about to fix herself in London for several 
 months, she could not be easy if her daughter were 
 not with her for masters, &c. Her manner, to be 
 sure, was very kind and proper, and Mr. Vernon 
 believes that Frederica will now be treated with affec- 
 tion. I wish I could think so too. The poor girl's 
 heart was almost broke at taking leave of us. I 
 charged her to write to me very often, and to remem- 
 ber that if she were in any distress we should be 
 always her friends. I took care to see her alone, that 
 I might say all this, and I hope made her a little 
 more comfortable ; but I shall not be easy till I can 
 go to town and judge of her situation myself. I wish 
 there were a better prospect than now appears of the 
 match which the conclusion of your letter declares 
 your expectations of. At present, it is not very 
 likely. 
 
 Yours ever, &c, 
 
 C. Vernon. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 This correspondence, by a meeting between some 
 of the parties, and a separation between the others, 
 could not, to the great detriment of the Post-Office 
 revenue, be continued any longer. Very little assist- 
 
288 Lady Susan. 
 
 ance to the State could be derived from the epistolary 
 intercourse of Mrs. Vernon and her niece; for the 
 former soon perceived, by the style of Frederica's 
 letters, that they were written under her mother's 
 inspection ! and therefore, deferring all particular en- 
 quiry till she could make it personally in London, ceased 
 writing minutely or often. Having learnt enough, 
 in the meanwhile, from her open-hearted brother, 
 of what had passed between him and Lady Susan to 
 sink the latter lower than ever in her opinion, she was 
 proportionably more anxious to get Frederica removed 
 from such a mother, and placed under her own care ; 
 and, though with little hope of success, was resolved 
 to leave nothing unattempted that might offer a chance 
 of obtaining her sister-in-law's consent to it. Her 
 anxiety on the subject made her press for an early 
 visit to London ; and Mr. Vernon, who, as it must 
 already have appeared, lived only to do whatever he 
 was desired, soon found some accommodating business 
 to call him thither. With a heart full of the matter, 
 Mrs. Vernon waited on Lady Susan shortly after her 
 arrival in town, and was met with such an easy and 
 cheerful affection, as made her almost turn from her 
 with horror. No remembrance of Reginald, no con- 
 sciousness of guilt, gave one look of embarrassment; 
 she was in excellent spirits, and seemed eager to show 
 at once by every possible attention to her brother and 
 sister her sense of their kindness, and her pleasure in 
 their society. Frederica was no more altered than 
 Lady Susan ; the same restrained manners, the same 
 timid look in the presence of her mother as heretofore, 
 
Lady Susan. 289 
 
 assured her aunt of her situation being uncomfortable, 
 and confirmed her in the plan of altering it. No 
 unkindness, however, on the part of Lady Susan ap- 
 peared. Persecution on the subject of Sir James was 
 entirely at an end ; his name merely mentioned to say 
 that he was not in London ; and indeed, in all her 
 conversation, she was solicitous only for the welfare 
 and improvement of her daughter, acknowledging, in 
 terms of grateful delight, that Frederica was now 
 growing every day more and more what a parent 
 could desire. Mrs. Vernon, surprised and incredulous, 
 knew not what to suspect, and, without any change in 
 her own views, only feared greater difficulty in accom - 
 plishing them. The first hope of anything better was 
 derived from Lady Susan's asking her whether she 
 thought Frederica looked quite as well as she had 
 done at Churchhill, as she must confess herself to have 
 sometimes an anxious doubt of London's perfectly 
 agreeing with her. Mrs. Vernon, encouraging the 
 doubt, directly proposed her niece's returning with 
 them into the country. Lady Susan was unable to 
 express her sense of such kindness, yet knew not, 
 from a variety of reasons, how to part with her 
 daughter ; and as, though her own plans were not yet 
 wholly fixed, she trusted it would ere long be in her 
 power to take Frederica into the country herself, 
 concluded by declining entirely to profit by such 
 unexampled attention. Mrs. Vernon persevered, how- 
 ever, in the offer of it, and though Lady Susan 
 continued to resist, her resistance in the course of a 
 few days seemed somewhat less formidable. The 
 
 u 
 
290 Lady Sttsan. 
 
 lucky alarm of an influenza decided what might not 
 have been decided quite so soon. Lady Susan's 
 maternal fears were then too much awakened for her 
 to think of anything but Frederica's removal from the 
 risk of infection ; above all disorders in the world she 
 most dreaded the influenza for her daughter's con- 
 stitution ! 
 
 Frederica returned to Churchhill with her uncle 
 and aunt; and three weeks afterwards, Lady Susan 
 announced her being married to Sir James Martin. 
 Mrs. Vernon was then convinced of what she had only 
 suspected before, that she might have spared herself 
 all the trouble of urging a removal which Lady 
 Susan had doubtless resolved on from the first 
 Frederica's visit was nominally for six weeks, but her 
 mother, though inviting her to return in one or two 
 affectionate letters, was very ready to oblige the whole 
 party by consenting to a prolongation of her stay, 
 .and in the course of two months ceased to write of 
 ^her absence, and in the course of two more to write 
 to her at all. Frederica was therefore fixed in the 
 family of her uncle and aunt till such time as Re- 
 ginald De Courcy could be talked, flattered, and 
 iinessed into an affection for her which, allowing 
 leisure for the conquest of his attachment to her 
 mother, for his abjuring all future attachments, and 
 detesting the sex, might be reasonably looked for in 
 the course of a twelvemonth. Three months might 
 have done it in general, but Reginald's feelings were 
 no less lasting than lively. Whether Lady Susan 
 was or was not happy in her second choice, I do not 
 
Lady Susan. 291 
 
 see how it can ever be ascertained ; for who would 
 take her assurance of it on either side of the ques- 
 tion ? The world must judge from probabilities ; she 
 had nothing against her but her husband, and her 
 conscience. Sir James may seem to have drawn a 
 harder lot than mere folly merited ; I leave him, 
 therefore, to all the pity that anybody can give him. 
 For myself, I confess that / can pity only Miss Main- 
 waring; who, coming to town, and putting herself 
 to an expense in clothes which impoverished her for 
 two years, on purpose to secure him, was defrauded 
 of her due by a woman ten years older than herself. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
THE WATSONS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This work was left by its author a fragment without 
 a name, in so elementary a state as not even to be 
 divided into chapters ; and some obscurities and in- 
 accuracies of expression may be observed in it which 
 the author would probably have corrected. The 
 original manuscript is the property of my sister, Miss 
 Austen, by whose permission it is now published. 
 I have called it ' The Watsons,' for the sake of having 
 a title by which to designate it. Two questions may 
 be asked concerning it When was it written ? And, 
 why was it never finished ? I was unable to answer 
 the first question, so long as I had only the internal 
 evidence of the style to guide me. I felt satisfied, 
 indeed, that it did not belong to that early class of 
 her writings which are mentioned at page 46 of the 
 Memoir, but rather bore marks of her more mature 
 style, though it had never been subjected to the filing 
 and polishing process by which she was accustomed 
 to impart a high finish to her published works. At 
 last, on a close inspection of the original manuscript, 
 the water-marks of 1803, and 1804, were found in the 
 paper on which it was written. It is, therefore, pro- 
 bable, that it was composed at Bath, before she 
 ceased to reside there in 1805. This would place 
 the date a few years later than the composition, but 
 
2g6 Preface. 
 
 earlier than the publication of ' Sense and Sensibility,' 
 and ' Pride and Prejudice.' 
 
 To the second question, why v;r.s it never finished ? 
 I can give no satisfactory answer. I think it will be 
 generally admitted that there is much in it which pro- 
 mised well : that some of the characters are drawn 
 with her wonted vigour, and some with a delicate 
 discrimination peculiarly her own ; and that it is rich 
 in her especial power of telling the story, and bring- 
 ing out the characters by conversation rather than 
 by description. It could not have been broken up 
 for the purpose of using the materials in another 
 fabric ; for, with the exception of Mrs. Robert Watson, 
 in whom a resemblance to the future Mrs. Elton is 
 very discernible, it would not be easy to trace much 
 resemblance between this and any of her subsequent 
 works. She must have felt some regret at leaving 
 Tom Musgrave's character incomplete ; yet he never 
 appears elsewhere. My own idea is, but it is only 
 a guess, that the author became aware of the evil 
 of having placed her heroine too low, in such a 
 position of poverty and obscurity as, though not 
 necessarily connected with vulgarity, has a sad ten- 
 dency to degenerate into it; and therefore, like a 
 singer who has begun on too low a note, she discon- 
 tinued the strain. It was an error of which she was 
 likely to become more sensible, as she grew older, 
 and saw more of society ; certainly she never repeated 
 it by placing the heroine of any subsequent work 
 under circumstances likely to be unfavourable to the 
 refinement of a lady. 
 
THE WATSONS. 
 
 HE first winter assembly in the town of D. 
 in Surrey was to be held on Tuesday, 
 October 13th, and it was generally ex- 
 pected to be a very good one. A long 
 list of county families was confidently run over as 
 sure of attending, and sanguine hopes were entertained 
 that the Osbornes themselves would be there. The 
 Edwards' invitation to the Watsons followed of course. 
 The Edwards were people of fortune, who lived in the 
 town and kept their coach. The Watsons inhabited 
 a village about three miles distant, were poor and 
 had no close carriage ; and ever since there had been 
 balls in the place, the former were accustomed to 
 invite the latter to dress, dine, and sleep at their 
 house on every monthly return throughout the winter. 
 On the present occasion, as only two of Mr. Watson's 
 children were at home, and one was always necessary 
 as companion to himself, for he was sickly and had 
 lost his wife, one only could profit by the kindness 
 of their friends. Miss Emma Watson, who was very 
 recently returned to her family from the care of an 
 aunt who had brought her up, was to make her first 
 
298 T/te Watsons. 
 
 public appearance in the neighbourhood, and her 
 eldest sister, whose delight in a ball was not lessened 
 by a ten years' enjoyment, had some merit in cheer- 
 fully undertaking to drive her and all her finery in 
 the old chair to D. on the important morning. 
 
 As they splashed along the dirty lane Miss Wat- 
 son thus instructed and cautioned her inexperienced 
 sister. 
 
 ' I dare say it will be a very good ball, and among 
 so many officers you will hardly want partners. You 
 will find Mrs. Edwards' maid very willing to help 
 you, and I would advise you to ask Mary Edwards' 
 opinion if you are at all at a loss, for she has a 
 very good taste. If Mr. Edwards does not lose his 
 money at cards you will stay as late as you can 
 wish for ; if he does he will hurry you home per- 
 haps — but you are sure of some comfortable soup. 
 I hope you will be in good looks. I should not be 
 surprised if you were to be thought one of the prettiest 
 girls in the room, there is a great deal in novelty. 
 Perhaps Tom Musgrave may take notice of you ; but 
 I would advise you by all means not to give him any 
 encouragement He generally pays attention to every 
 new girl, but he is a great flirt and never means any- 
 thing serious.' 
 
 'I think I have heard you speak of him before,' 
 said Emma, 'who is he ?' 
 
 ' A young man of very good fortune, quite indepen- 
 dent, and remarkably agreeable, an universal favourite 
 wherever he goes. Most of the girls hereabout are in 
 love with him, or have been. I believe I am the only 
 
The Watsons. 299 
 
 one among them that have escaped with a whole heart ; 
 and yet I was the first he paid attention to when he 
 came into this country six years ago ; and very great 
 attention did he pay me. Some people say that he 
 has never seemed to like any girl so well since, 
 though he is always behaving in a particular way to 
 one or another.' 
 
 'And how came your heart to be the only cold 
 one ? ' said Emma, smiling. 
 
 'There was a reason for that,' — replied Miss Watson, 
 changing colour — 'I have not been very well used 
 among them, Emma, I hope you will have better 
 luck.' 
 
 ' Dear sister, I beg your pardon, if I have unthink- 
 ingly given you pain.' 
 
 'When first we knew Tom Musgrave,' continued 
 Miss Watson, without seeming to hear her, 'I was 
 very much attached to a young man of the name of 
 Purvis, a particular friend of Robert's, who used to 
 be with us a great deal. Everybody thought it 
 would have been a match.' 
 
 A sigh accompanied these words, which Emma 
 respected in silence; but her sister after a short 
 pause went on. 
 
 ' You will naturally ask why it did not take place, 
 and why he is married to another woman, while I 
 am still single. But you must ask him — not me — 
 you must ask Penelope. Yes, Emma, Penelope was 
 at the bottom of it all. She thinks everything fair 
 for a husband. I trusted her; she set him against 
 me. with a view of gaining him herself, and it ended 
 
30O The Watsons. 
 
 in his discontinuing his visits, and soon after marrying 
 somebody else. Penelope makes light of her conduct, 
 but / think such treachery very bad. It has been the 
 ruin of my happiness. I shall never love any man 
 as I loved Purvis. I do not think Tom Musgrave 
 should be named with him in the same day.' 
 
 ' You quite shock me by what you sayof Penelope,' 
 said Emma, ' could a sister do such a thing ? Rivalry, 
 treachery between sisters ! I shall be afraid of being 
 acquainted with her. But I hope it was not so ; ap- 
 pearances were against her.' 
 
 'You do not know Penelope. There is nothing 
 she would not do to get married. She would as 
 good as tell you so herself. Do not trust her with 
 any secrets of your own, take warning by me, do not 
 trust her ; she has her good qualities, but she has no 
 faith, no honour, no scruples, if she can promote her 
 own advantage. I wish with all my heart she was 
 well married. I declare I had rather have her well 
 married than myself.' 
 
 'Than yourself! yes I can suppose so. A heart 
 wounded like yours can have little inclination for 
 matrimony.' 
 
 ' Not much indeed — but you know we must many. 
 I could do very well single for my own part ; a 
 little company, and a pleasant ball now and then, 
 would be enough for me, if one could be young for 
 ever ; but my father cannot provide for us, and it 
 is very bad to grow old and be poor and laughed at. 
 I have lost Purvis, it is true ; but very few people 
 marry their first loves. I should not refuse a man 
 
TIic Watsons. 301 
 
 because he was not Purvis. Not that I can ever quite 
 forgive Penelope.' 
 
 Emma shook her head in acquiescence. 
 
 'Penelope, however, has had her troubles,' con- 
 tinued Miss Watson. ' She was sadly disappointed 
 in Tom Musgrave, who afterwards transferred his 
 attentions from me to her, and whom she was very 
 fond of ; but he never means anything serious, and 
 when he had trifled with her long enough, he began 
 to slight her for Margaret, and poor Penelope was 
 very wretched. And since then, she has been trying 
 to make some match at Chichester — she won't tell us 
 with whom ; but I believe it is a rich old Dr. Harding, 
 uncle to the friend she goes to see; and she has taken 
 a vast deal of trouble about him, and given up a great 
 deal of time to no purpose as yet When she went 
 away the other day, she said it should be the last 
 time. I suppose you did not know what her parti- 
 cular business was at Chichester, nor guess at the 
 object which could take her away from Stanton just 
 as you were coming home after so many years' 
 absence.' 
 
 ' No indeed, I had not the smallest suspicion of it 
 I considered her engagement to Mrs. Shaw just at that 
 time as very unfortunate for me. I had hoped to find 
 all my sisters at home, to be able to make an imme- 
 diate friend of each' 
 
 ' I suspect the Doctor to have had an attack of the 
 asthma, and that she was hurried away on that ac- 
 count. The Shaws are quite on her side — at least, I 
 believe so; but she tells me nothing. She professes 
 
302 Tlie Watsons. 
 
 to keep her own counsel ; she says, and truly enough, 
 that " Too many cooks spoil the broth." ' 
 
 ' I am sorry for her anxieties,' said Emma ; ' but I 
 do not like her plans or her opinions. I shall be 
 afraid of her. She must have too masculine and bold 
 a temper. To be so bent on marriage — to pursue a 
 man merely for the sake of situation, is a sort of thing 
 that shocks me ; I cannot understand it Poverty is 
 a great evil ; but to a woman of education and feeling 
 it ought not, it cannot be the greatest I would 
 rather be teacher at a school (and I can think of 
 nothing worse), than marry a man I did not like.' 
 
 * I would rather do anything than be teacher at a 
 school,' said her sister. ' T have been at school, 
 Emma, and know what a life they lead ; yoti never 
 have. I should not like marrying a disagreeable man 
 any more than yourself ; but I do not think there are 
 many very disagreeable men ; I think I could like 
 any goodhumoured man with a comfortable income. 
 I suppose my aunt brought you up to be rather 
 refined.' 
 
 ' Indeed I do not know. My conduct must tell 
 you how I have been brought up. I am no judge of 
 it myself. I cannot compare my aunt's method with 
 any other person's, because I know no other.' 
 
 ' But I can see in a great many things that you are 
 very refined. I have observed it ever since you came 
 home, and I am afraid it will not be for your happi- 
 ness. Penelope will laugh at you very much.' 
 
 ' That will not be for my happiness, I am sure. If 
 my opinions are wrong I must correct them ; if they 
 
The Watsons. 303 
 
 are above my situation, I must endeavour to conceal 
 them ; but I doubt whether ridicule — has Penelope 
 much wit ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; she has great spirits, and never cares what 
 she says.' 
 
 ' Margaret is more gentle, I imagine ?' 
 ' Yes ; especially in company ; she is all gentleness 
 and mildness when anybody is by. But she is a little 
 fretful and perverse among ourselves. Poor creature ! 
 She is possessed with the notion of Tom Musgrave's 
 being more seriously in love with her than he ever 
 was with anybody else, and is always expecting him 
 to come to the point. This is the second time within 
 this twelvemonth that she has gone to spend a month 
 with Robert and Jane on purpose to egg him on by 
 her absence; but I am sure she is mistaken, and 
 that he will no more follow her to Croydon now than' 
 he did last March. He will never marry unless he 
 can marry somebody very great ; Miss Osborne, per- 
 haps, or somebody in that style.' 
 
 ' Your account of this Tom Musgrave, Elizabeth, 
 gives me very little inclination for his acquaintance.' 
 ' You are afraid of him ; I do not wonder at you.' 
 ' No, indeed ; I dislike and despise him.' 
 ' Dislike and despise Tom Musgrave ! No, that 
 you never can. I defy you not to be delighted with 
 him if he takes notice of you. I hope he will dance 
 with you ; and I dare say he will, unless the Osbornes 
 come with a large party, and then he will not speak 
 to anybody else.' 
 
 'He seems to have most engaging manners !' said 
 
304 The Watsons. 
 
 Emma. ' Well, we shall see how irresistible Mr. Tom 
 Musgrave. and I find each other. I suppose I shall 
 know him .as soon as I enter the ball-room ; he must 
 carry some of his charms in his face.' 
 
 ' You will not find him in the ball-room, I can tell 
 you ; you will go early, that Mrs. Edwards may get 
 a good place by the fire, and he never comes till late ; 
 if the Osbornes are coming, he will wait in the pas- 
 sage and come in with them. I should like to look 
 in upon you, Emma. If it was but a good day with 
 my father, I would wrap myself up, and James should 
 drive me over as soon as I had made tea for him ; 
 and I should be with you by the time the dancing 
 began.' 
 
 ' What ! Would you come late at night in this 
 chair?' 
 
 ' To be sure I would. There, I said you were very 
 refined, and tltafs an instance of it.' 
 
 Emma for a moment made no answer. At last she 
 said — 
 
 ' I wish, Elizabeth, you had not made a point of 
 my going to this ball ; I wish you were going instead 
 of me. Your pleasure would be greater than mine. 
 I am a stranger here, and know nobody but the Ed- 
 wards; my enjoyment, therefore, must be very doubt- 
 ful. Yours, among all your acquaintance, would 
 be certain. It is not too late to change. Very little 
 apology could be requisite to the Edwards, who 
 .must be more glad of your company than of mine, 
 and I should most readily return to my father ; and 
 should not be at all afraid to drive this quiet old 
 
The Watsons. 305 
 
 creature home. Your clothes I would undertake to 
 find means of sending to you.' 
 
 ' My dearest Emma,' cried Elizabeth, warmly, ' do 
 you think I would do such a thing ? Not for the uni- 
 verse ! But I shall never forget your goodnature in 
 proposing it. You must have a sweet temper indeed ! 
 I never met with anything like it ! And would you 
 really give up the ball that I might be able to go to 
 it ? Believe me, Emma, I am not so selfish as that 
 comes to. No ; though I am nine years older than 
 you are, I would not be the means of keeping you 
 from being seen. You are very pretty, and it would 
 be very hard that you should not have as fair a 
 chance as we have all had to make your fortune. No, 
 Emma, whoever stays at home this winter, it shan't 
 be you. I am sure I should never have forgiven the 
 person who kept me from a ball at nineteen.' 
 
 Emma expressed her gratitude, and for a few 
 minutes they jogged on in silence. Elizabeth first 
 spoke : — 
 
 ' You will take notice who Mary Edwards dances 
 with?' 
 
 ' I will remember her partners, if I can ; but you 
 know they will be all strangers to me.' 
 
 'Only observe whether she dances with Captain 
 Hunter more than once — I have my fears in that 
 quarter. Not that her father or mother like officers ; 
 but if she does, you know, it is all over with poor 
 Sam. And I have promised to write him word who 
 she dances with.' 
 
 'Is Sam attached to Miss Edwards?' 
 X 
 
306 The Watsons. 
 
 'Did not you know that ?' 
 
 ' How should I know it ? How should I know in 
 Shropshire what is passing of that nature in Surrey ? 
 It is not likely that circumstances of such delicacy 
 should have made any part of the scanty communi- 
 cation which passed between you and me for the last 
 fourteen years.' 
 
 'I wonder I never mentioned it when I wrote. 
 Since you have been at home, I have been so busy 
 with my poor father, and our great wash, that I have 
 had no leisure to tell you anything ; but, indeed, I 
 concluded you knew it all. He has been very much 
 in love with her these two years, and it is a great dis- 
 appointment to him that he cannot always get away 
 to our balls ; but Mr. Curtis won't often spare him, 
 and just now it is a sickly time at Guildford.' 
 
 ' Do you suppose Miss Edwards inclined to like him ? ' 
 
 ' I am afraid not : you know she is an only child, 
 and will have at least ten thousand pounds.' 
 
 ' But still she may like our brother.' 
 
 ' Oh, no ! The Edwards look much higher. Her 
 father and mother would never consent to it Sam is 
 only a surgeon, you know. Sometimes I think she 
 does like him. But Mary Edwards is rather prim 
 and reserved ; I do not always know what she would 
 be at.' 
 
 ' Unless Sam feels on sure grounds with the lady 
 herself, it seems a pity to me that he should be en- 
 couraged to think of her at all.' 
 
 'A young man must think of somebody,' said 
 Elizabeth, 'and why should not he be as lucky as 
 
The Watsons. 307 
 
 Robert, who has got a good wife and six thousand 
 pounds ? ' 
 
 ' We must not all expect to be individually lucky,' 
 replied Emma. ' The luck of one member of a family 
 is luck to all.' 
 
 * Mine is all to come, I am sure,' said Elizabeth, 
 giving another sigh to the remembrance of Purvis. ' I 
 have been unlucky enough ; and I cannot say much 
 for you, as my aunt married again so foolishly. Well, 
 you will have a good ball, I daresay. The next turn- 
 ing will bring us to the turnpike : you may see the 
 church-tower over the hedge, and the White Hart is 
 close by it I shall long to know what you think of 
 Tom Musgrave.' 
 
 Such were the last audible sounds of Miss Watson's 
 voice, before they passed through the turnpike-gate, 
 and entered on the pitching of the town, the jumbling 
 and noise of which made further conversation most 
 thoroughly undesirable. The old mare trotted heavily 
 on, wanting no direction of the reins to take the right 
 turning, and making only one blunder, in proposing 
 to stop at the milliner's, before she drew up towards 
 Mr. Edwards' door. Mr. Edwards lived in the best 
 house in the street, and the best in the place, if Mr. 
 Tomlinson, the banker, might be indulged in calling 
 his newly-erected house at the end of the town, with 
 a shrubbery and sweep, in the country. 
 
 Mr. Edwards' house was higher than most of its 
 neighbours, with four windows on each side the door ; 
 the windows guarded by posts and chains, and the 
 door approached by a flight of stone steps. 
 
308 The Watsons. 
 
 ' Here we are,' said Elizabeth, as the carriage ceased 
 moving, ' safely arrived, and by the market clock we 
 have been only five-and-thirty minutes coming ; which 
 I think is doing pretty well, though it would be nothing 
 for Penelope. Is not it a nice town? The Edwards 
 have a noble house, you see, and they live quite in 
 style. The door will be opened by a man in livery, 
 with a powdered head, I can tell you.' 
 
 Emma had seen the Edwards only one morning at 
 Stanton ; they were therefore all but strangers to her ; 
 and though her spirits were by no means insensible to 
 the expected joys of the evening, she felt a little un- 
 comfortable in the thought of all that was to precede 
 them. Her conversation with Elizabeth, too, giving 
 her some very unpleasant feelings with respect to her 
 own family, had made her more open to disagreeable 
 impressions from any other cause, and increased her 
 sense of the awkwardness of rushing into intimacy on 
 so slight an acquaintance. 
 
 There was nothing in the manner of Mrs. and Miss 
 Edwards to give immediate change to these ideas. 
 The mother, though a very friendly woman, had a 
 reserved air, and a great deal of formal civility ; and 
 the daughter, a genteel-looking girl of twenty-two, 
 with her hair in papers, seemed very naturally to have 
 caught something of the style of her mother, who had 
 brought her up. Emma was soon left to know what 
 they could be, by Elizabeth's being obliged to hurry 
 away; and some very languid remarks on the pro- 
 bable brilliancy of the ball were all that broke, at 
 intervals, a silence of half-an-hour, before they were 
 
The Watsons. 309 
 
 joined by the master of the house. Mr. Edwards 
 had a much easier and more communicative air than 
 the ladies of the family ; he was fresh from the street, 
 and he came ready to tell whatever might interest. 
 After a cordial reception of Emma, he turned to his 
 daughter with — 
 
 ' Well, Mary, I bring you good news : the Osbornes 
 will certainly be at the ball to-night Horses for two 
 carriages are ordered from the White Hart to be at 
 Osborne Castle by nine.' 
 
 ' I am glad of it,' observed Mrs. Edwards, ' because 
 their coming gives a credit to our assembly. The 
 Osbornes being known to have been at the first ball, 
 will dispose a great many people to attend the second. 
 It is more than they deserve ; for, in fact, they add 
 nothing to the pleasure of the evening : they come so 
 late and go so early ; but great people have always 
 their charm.' 
 
 Mr. Edwards proceeded to relate many other little 
 articles of news which his morning's lounge had 
 supplied him with, and they chatted with greater 
 briskness, till Mrs. Edwards' moment for dressing 
 arrived, and the young ladies were carefully recom- 
 mended to lose no time. Emma was shown to a very 
 comfortable apartment, and as soon as Mrs. Edwards' 
 civilities could leave her to herself, the happy occupa- 
 tion, the first bliss of a ball, began. The girls, dressing 
 in some measure together, grew unavoidably better 
 acquainted. Emma found in Miss Edwards the show 
 of good sense, a modest unpretending mind, and a 
 great wish of obliging ; and when they returned to the 
 
310 The Watsons. 
 
 parlour where Mrs. Edwards was sitting, respectably 
 attired in one of the two satin gowns which went 
 through the winter, and a new cap from the milliner's, 
 they entered it with much easier feelings and more 
 natural smiles than they had taken away. Their 
 dress was now to be examined: Mrs. Edwards 
 acknowledged herself too old-fashioned to approve 
 of every modern extravagance, however sanctioned ; 
 and though complacently viewing her daughter's 
 good looks, would give but a qualified admiration; 
 and Mr. Edwards, not less satisfied with Mary, paid 
 some compliments of good-humoured gallantry to 
 Emma at her expense. The discussion led to more 
 intimate remarks, and Miss Edwards -gently asked 
 Emma if she was not often reckoned very like her 
 youngest brother. Emma thought she could perceive 
 a faint blush accompany the question, and there 
 seemed something still more suspicious in the manner 
 in which Mr. Edwards took up the subject. 
 
 ' You are paying Miss Emma no great compliment, 
 I think, Mary,' said he, hastily. ' Mr. Sam Watson is 
 a very good sort of young man, and I dare say a very 
 clever surgeon ; but his complexion has been rather too 
 much exposed to all weathers to make a likeness to 
 him very flattering.' 
 
 Mary apologised, in some confusion — 
 
 ' She had not thought a strong likeness at all incom- 
 patible with very different degrees of beauty. There 
 might be resemblance in countenance, and the com- 
 plexion and even the features be very unlike.' 
 
 ' I know nothing of my brother's beauty,' said 
 
The Watsons. 311 
 
 Emma, ' for I have not seen him since he was seven 
 years old ; but my father reckons us alike.' 
 
 ' Mr. Watson ! ' cried Mr. Edwards ; * well, you as- 
 tonish me. There is not the least likeness in the 
 world ; your brother's eyes are grey, yours are brown ; 
 he has a long face, and a wide mouth My dear, do 
 you perceive the least resemblance?' 
 
 ' Not the least: Miss Emma Watson puts me very 
 much in mind of her eldest sister, and sometimes I 
 see a look of Miss Penelope, and once or twice there 
 has been a glance of Mr. Robert, but I cannot perceive 
 any likeness to Mr. Samuel.' 
 
 ' I see the likeness between her and Miss Watson,' 
 replied Mr. Edwards, 'very strongly, but I am not 
 sensible of the others. I do not much think she is 
 like any of the family but Miss Watson ; but I am 
 very sure there is no resemblance between her and 
 Sam.' 
 
 This matter was settled, and they went to dinner. 
 
 'Your father, Miss Emma, is one of my oldest 
 friends,' said Mr. Edwards, as he helped her to wine, 
 when they were drawn round the fire to enjoy their 
 dessert. ' We must drink to his better health. It is 
 a great concern to me, I assure you, that he should be 
 such an invalid. I know nobody who likes a game of 
 cards, in a social way, better than he does, and very 
 few people who play a fairer rubber. It is a thousand 
 pities that he should be so deprived of the pleasure. 
 For now, we have a quiet little Whist Club, that meets 
 three times a week at the White Hart ; and if he could 
 but have his health, how much he would enjoy it!' 
 
3 1 2 The Watsons. 
 
 ' I daresay he would, sir ; and I wish, with all my 
 heart, he were equal to it.' 
 
 ' Your club would be better fitted for an invalid,' 
 said Mrs. Edwards, 'if you did not keep it up so 
 late.' This was an old grievance. 
 
 'So late, my dear! What are you talking of?' 
 cried the husband, with sturdy pleasantry. ' We are 
 always at home before midnight. They would laugh 
 at Osborne Castle to hear you call that late ; they 
 are but just rising from dinner at midnight.' 
 
 'That is nothing to the purpose,' retorted the 
 lady, calmly. ' The Osbornes are to be no rule for 
 us. You had better meet every night, and break up 
 two hours sooner.' 
 
 So far the subject was very often carried ; but Mr. 
 and Mrs. Edwards were so wise as never to pass that 
 point; and Mr. Edwards now turned to something 
 else. He had lived long enough in the idleness of a 
 town to become a little of a gossip, and having some 
 anxiety to know more of the circumstances of his 
 young guest than had yet reached him, he began 
 with — 
 
 ' I think, Miss Emma, I remember your aunt very 
 well, about thirty years ago ; I am pretty sure I 
 danced with her in the old rooms at Bath the year 
 before I married. She was a very fine woman then, 
 but like other people, I suppose, she is grown some- 
 what older since that time. I hope she is likely to 
 be happy in her second choice.' 
 
 ' I hope so ; I believe so, sir,' said Emma, in some 
 agitation. 
 
The Watsons. 313 
 
 ' Mr. Turner had not been dead a great while, I 
 think?' 
 
 ' About two years, sir.' 
 
 ' I forget what her name is now.' 
 
 ' O'Brien.' 
 
 ' Irish ! ah, I remember ; and she is gone to settle 
 in Ireland. I do not wonder that you should not 
 wish to go with her into that country, Miss Emma ; 
 but it must be a great deprivation to her, poor lady ! 
 after bringing you up like a child of her own.' 
 
 ' I was not so ungrateful, sir,' said Emma, warmly, 
 ' as to wish to be anywhere but with her. It did not 
 suit Captain O'Brien that I should be of the party.' 
 
 ' Captain ! ' repeated Mrs. Edwards. ' The gentle- 
 man is in the army then ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, ma'am.' 
 
 •Aye, there is nothing like your officers for capti- 
 vating the ladies, young or old. There is no resisting 
 a cockade, my dear.' 
 
 ' I hope there is,' said Mrs. Edwards gravely, with 
 a quick glance at her daughter ; and Emma had just 
 recovered from her own perturbation in time to see a 
 blush on Miss Edwards' cheek and in remembering 
 what Elizabeth had said of Captain Hunter, to wonder 
 and waver between his influence and her brother's. 
 
 ' Elderly ladies should be careful how they make a 
 second choice,' observed Mr. Edwards. 
 
 ' Carefulness and discretion should not be confined 
 to elderly ladies, or to a second choice,' added his 
 wife. ' They are quite as necessary to young ladies in 
 their first.' 
 
314 The Watsons. 
 
 ' Rather more so, my dear,' replied he ; ' because 
 young ladies are likely to feel the effects of it longer. 
 When an old lady plays the fool, it is not in the 
 course of nature that she should suffer from it many 
 years.' 
 
 Emma drew her hand across her eyes, and Mrs. 
 Edwards, in perceiving it, changed the subject to one 
 of less anxiety to all. 
 
 With nothing to do but to expect the hour of 
 setting off, the afternoon was long to the two young 
 ladies ; and though Miss Edwards was rather dis- 
 composed at the very early hour which her mother 
 always fixed for going, that early hour itself was 
 watched for with some eagerness. The entrance of 
 the tea-things at seven o'clock was some relief; and, 
 luckily, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards always drank a dish 
 extraordinary and ate an additional muffin when 
 they were going to sit up late, which lengthened the 
 ceremony almost to the wished-for moment 
 
 At a little before eight o'clock the Tomlinsons' car- 
 riage was heard to go by, which was the constant 
 signal for Mrs. Edwards to order hers to the door ; 
 and in a very few minutes the party were trans- 
 ported from the quiet and warmth of a snug parlour to 
 the bustle, noise, and draughts of air of a broad entrance 
 passage of an inn. Mrs. Edwards, carefully guard- 
 ing her own dress, while she attended with yet greater 
 solicitude to the proper security of her young charges' 
 shoulders and throats, led the way up the wide stair- 
 case, while no sound of a ball but the first scrape of 
 one violin blessed the ears of her followers ; and 
 
Tlie Watsons. 315 
 
 Miss Edwards, on hazarding the anxious enquiry of 
 whether there were many people come yet, was told 
 by the waiter, as she knew she should, that Mr. Tom- 
 linson's family were in the room. 
 
 In passing along a short gallery to the assembly 
 room, brilliant in lights before them, they were ac- 
 costed by a young man in a morning-dress and boots, 
 who was standing in the doorway of a bedchamber 
 apparently on purpose to see them go by. 
 
 'Ah! Mrs. Edwards, how do you do? How do 
 you do, Miss Edwards ? ' he cried, with an easy air. 
 ' You are determined to be in good time, I see, as 
 usual. The candles are but this moment lit' 
 
 ' I like to get a good seat by the fire, you know, 
 Mr. Musgrave,' replied Mrs. Edwards. 
 
 ' I am this moment going to dress/ said he. ' I 
 am waiting for my stupid fellow. We shall have a 
 famous balL The Osbornes are certainly coming ; 
 you may depend upon that, for I was with Lord 
 Osborne this morning.' 
 
 The party passed on. Mrs. Edwards' satin gown 
 swept along the clean floor of the ballroom to the 
 fireplace at the upper end, where one party only were 
 formally seated, while three or four officers were 
 lounging together, passing in and out from the ad- 
 joining card-room. A very stiff meeting between 
 these near neighbours ensued, and as soon as they 
 were all duly placed again, Emma, in a low whisper, 
 which became the solemn scene, said to Miss 
 Edwards : — 
 
 ' The gentleman we passed in the passage was Mr. 
 
316 The Watsons. 
 
 Musgrave, then ; he is reckoned remarkably agree- 
 able, I understand?' 
 
 Miss Edwards answered hesitatingly, ' Yes ; he is 
 very much liked by many people ; but ixie are not 
 very intimate.' 
 
 ' He is rich, is not he ? ' 
 
 ' He has about eight or nine hundred a-year, I 
 believe. He came into possession of it when he was 
 very young, and my father and mother think it has 
 given him rather an unsettled turn. He is no favourite 
 with them.' 
 
 The cold and empty appearance of the room, and 
 the demure air of the small cluster of females at one 
 end of it, began soon to give way. The inspiriting 
 sound of other carriages was heard, and continual 
 accessions of portly chaperones, and strings of smartly 
 dressed girls, were received, with now and then a 
 fresh gentleman straggler, who, if not enough in love 
 to station himself near any fair creature, seemed glad 
 to escape into the card-room. 
 
 Among the increasing number of military men, 
 one now made his way to Miss Edwards with an 
 air of empressment which decidedly said to her com- 
 panion, ' I am Captain Hunter ; ' and Emma, who 
 could not but watch her at such a moment, saw her 
 looking rather distressed, but by no means displeased, 
 and heard an engagement formed for the two first 
 dances, which made her think her brother Sam's 
 a hopeless case. 
 
 Emma in the meanwhile was not unobserved or 
 unadmired herself. A new face, and a very pretty 
 
The Watsons. 317 
 
 one, could not be slighted. Her name was whispered 
 from one party to another, and no sooner had the 
 signal been given by the orchestra's striking up a 
 favourite air, which seemed to call the young to their 
 duty and people the centre of the room, than she found 
 herself engaged to dance with a brother officer, intro- 
 duced by Captain Hunter. 
 
 Emma Watson was not more than of the middle 
 height, well made and plump, with an air of healthy 
 vigour. Her skin was very brown, but clear, smooth, 
 and glowing, which, with a lively eye, a sweet smile, 
 and an open countenance, gave beauty to attract, 
 and expression to make that beauty improve on ac- 
 quaintance. Having no reason to be dissatisfied 
 with her partner, the evening began very pleasantly 
 to her, and her feelings perfectly coincided with the 
 reiterated observation of others, that it was an ex- 
 cellent ball. The two first dances were not quite 
 over when the returning sound of carriages after a 
 long interruption called general notice ! — ' The Os- 
 bornes are coming ! ' ' The Osbornes are coming ! ' 
 was repeated round the room. After some minutes 
 of extraordinary bustle without and watchful curi- 
 osity within, the important party, preceded by the 
 attentive master of the inn, to open a door which was 
 never shut, made their appearance. They consisted 
 of Lady Osborne ; her son, Lord Osborne ; her 
 daughter, Miss Osborne ; Miss Carr, her daughter's 
 friend ; Mr. Howard, formerly tutor to Lord Osborne, 
 now clergyman of the parish in which the castle 
 stood ; Mrs. Blake, a widow sister, who lived with 
 
3iS The Watsons. 
 
 him ; her son, a fine boy of ten years old ; and Mr. 
 Tom Musgrave, who probably, imprisoned within his 
 own room, had been listening in bitter impatience to 
 the sound of the music for the last half-hour. In 
 their progress up the room they paused almost im- 
 mediately behind Emma to receive the compliments 
 of some acquaintance, and she heard Lady Osborne 
 observe that they had made a point of coming early 
 for the gratification of Mrs. Blake's little boy, who 
 was uncommonly fond of dancing. Emma looked at 
 them all as they passed, but chiefly and with most 
 interest on Tom Musgrave, who was certainly a 
 genteel, good-looking young man. Of the females 
 Lady Osborne had by much the finest person ; though 
 nearly fifty, she was very handsome, and had all the 
 dignity of rank. 
 
 Lord Osborne was a very fine young man; but 
 there was an air of coldness, of carelessness, even of 
 awkwardness about him, which seemed to speak him 
 out of his element in a ball-room. He came in fact 
 only because it was judged expedient for him to 
 please the borough ; he was not fond of women's 
 company, and he never danced. Mr. Howard was an 
 agreeable-looking man, a little more than thirty. 
 
 At the conclusion of the two dances, Emma found 
 herself, she knew not how, seated amongst the Os- 
 borne's set ; and she was immediately struck with 
 the fine countenance and animated gestures of the 
 little boy, as he was standing before his mother, con- 
 sidering when they should begin. 
 
 ' You will not be surprised at Charles's impatience,' 
 
TJie Watsons. 319 
 
 said Mrs. Blake, a lively, pleasant -looking little woman 
 of five or six and thirty, to a lady who was standing 
 near her, ' when you know what a partner he is to 
 have. Miss Osborne has been so very kind as to 
 promise to dance the two first dances with him.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes ! we have been engaged this week,' cried 
 the boy, ' and we are to dance down every couple.' 
 
 On the other side of Emma, Miss Osborne, Miss 
 Carr, and a party of young men were standing en- 
 gaged in very lively consultation ; and soon after- 
 wards she saw the smartest officer of the set walking 
 off to the orchestra to order the dance, while Miss 
 Osborne passing before her to her little expecting 
 partner, hastily said, ' Charles, I beg your pardon for 
 not keeping my engagement, but I am going to dance 
 these two dances with Colonel Beresford. I know 
 you will excuse me, and I will certainly dance with 
 you after tea;' and without staying for an answer, 
 she turned again to Miss Carr, and in another minute 
 was led by Colonel Beresford to begin the set. If 
 the poor little boy's face had in its happiness been 
 interesting to Emma, it was infinitely more so under 
 this sudden reverse ; he stood the picture of disap- 
 pointment with crimsoned cheeks, quivering lips, and 
 eyes bent on the floor. His mother, stifling her own 
 mortification, tried to soothe his with the prospect of 
 Miss Osborne's second promise ; but, though he con- 
 trived to utter with an effort of boyish bravery, ' Oh, 
 I do not mind it ! ' it was very evident by the un- 
 ceasing agitation of his features that he minded it 
 as much as ever. 
 
320 The Watsons. 
 
 Emma did not think or reflect ; she felt and acted. 
 ' I shall be very happy to dance with you, sir, if you 
 like it,' said she, holding out her hand with the most 
 unaffected good-humour. The boy, in one moment 
 restored to all his first delight, looked joyfully at his 
 mother; and stepping forwards with an honest, simple 
 ' Thank you, ma'am/ was instantly ready to attend his 
 new acquaintance. The thankfulness of Mrs. Blake 
 was more diffuse ; with a look most expressive of 
 unexpected pleasure and lively gratitude, she turned 
 to her neighbour with repeated and fervent acknow- 
 ledgements of so great and condescending a kindness 
 to her boy. Emma with perfect truth could assure 
 her that she could not be giving greater pleasure than 
 she felt herself; and Charles being provided with his 
 gloves and charged to keep them on, they joined the 
 set which was now rapidly forming, with nearly equal 
 complacency. It was a partnership which could not 
 be noticed without surprise. It gained her a broad 
 stare from Miss Osborne and Miss Carr as they passed 
 her in the dance. ' Upon my word, Charles, you are 
 in luck,' said the former, as she turned him ; ' you 
 have got a better partner than me;' to which the 
 happy Charles answered ' Yes.' 
 
 Tom Musgrave, who was dancing with Miss Carr, 
 gave her many inquisitive glances ; and after a time 
 Lord Osborne himself came, and under pretence of 
 talking to Charles, stood to look at his partner. 
 Though rather distressed by such observation, Emma 
 could not repent what she had done, so happy had it 
 made both the boy and his mother; the latter of 
 
The Watsons. 321 
 
 whom was continually making opportunities of ad- 
 dressing her with the warmest civility. Her little 
 partner she found, though bent chiefly on dancing, 
 was not unwilling to speak, when her questions or 
 remarks gave him anything to say ; and she learnt, 
 by a sort of inevitable enquiry, that he had two 
 brothers and a sister, that they and their mamma all 
 lived with his uncle at Wickstead, that his uncle 
 taught him Latin, that he was very fond of riding, 
 and had a horse of his own given him by Lord 
 Osborne ; and that he had been out once already 
 with Lord Osborne's hounds. 
 
 At the end of these dances, Emma found they were 
 to drink tea ; Miss Edwards gave her a caution to be 
 at hand, in a manner which convinced her of Mrs. 
 Edwards' holding it very important to have them 
 both close to her when she moved into the tea-room ; 
 and Emma was accordingly on the alert to gain her 
 proper station. It was always the pleasure of the 
 company to have a little bustle and crowd when they 
 adjourned for refreshment. The tea-room was a 
 small room within the card-room ; and in passing 
 through the latter, where the passage was straitened 
 by tables, Mrs. Edwards and her party were for a 
 few moments hemmed in. It happened close by 
 Lady Osborne's casino table ; Mr. Howard, who be- 
 longed to it, spoke to his nephew ; and Emma, on 
 perceiving herself the object of attention both to 
 Lady Osborne and him, had just turned away her 
 eyes in time to avoid seeming to hear her young 
 companion exclaim delightedly aloud, ' Oh, uncle ! 
 
 Y 
 
322 The Watsons. 
 
 do look at my partner ; she is so pretty ! ' As 
 they were immediately in motion again, however, 
 Charles was hurried off without being able to receive 
 his uncle's suffrage. On entering the tea-room, in 
 which two long tables were prepared, Lord Osborne 
 was to be seen quite alone at the end of one, as if 
 retreating as far as he could from the ball, to enjoy 
 his own thoughts and gape without restraint. Charles 
 instantly pointed him out to Emma. ' There's Lord 
 Osborne, let you and I go and sit by him.' 
 
 ' No, no,' said Emma, laughing, ' you must sit 
 with my friends.' 
 
 Charles was now free enough to hazard a few 
 questions in his turn. ' What o'clock was it ? ' 
 
 ' Eleven.' 
 
 ' Eleven ! and I am not at all sleepy. Mamma 
 said I should be asleep before ten. Do you think 
 Miss Osborne will keep her word with me when tea 
 is over ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes ! I suppose so ; ' though she felt that she 
 had no better reason to give than that Miss Osborne 
 had not kept it before. 
 
 ' When shall you come to Osborne Castle ? ' 
 
 ' Never, probably. I am not acquainted with the 
 family.' 
 
 ' But you may come to Wickstead and see mamma, 
 and she can take you to the castle. There is a 
 monstrous curious stuffed fox there, and a badger, 
 anybody would think they were alive. It is a pity 
 you should not see them.' 
 
 On rising from tea there was again a scramble for 
 
The Watsons. 323 
 
 the pleasure of being first out of the room, which 
 happened to be increased by one or two of the card- 
 parties having just broken up, and the players being 
 disposed to move exactly the different way. Among 
 these was Mr. Howard, his sister leaning on his arm ; 
 and no sooner were they within reach of Emma, than 
 Mrs. Blake, calling her notice by a friendly touch, 
 said, 'Your goodness to Charles, my dear Miss 
 Watson, brings all his family upon you. Give me 
 leave to introduce my brother.' Emma curtsied, the 
 gentleman bowed, made a hasty request for the 
 honour of her hand in the two next dances, to which 
 as hasty an affirmative was given, and they were im- 
 mediately impelled in opposite directions. Emma was 
 very well pleased with the circumstance ; there was a 
 quietly cheerful, gentlemanlike air in Mr. Howard 
 which suited her ; and in a few minutes afterwards the 
 value of her engagement increased, when, as she was 
 sitting in the card-room, somewhat screened by a 
 door, she heard Lord Osborne, who was lounging on 
 a vacant table near her, call Tom Musgrave towards 
 him and say, ' Why do not you dance with that beau- 
 tiful Emma Watson ? I want you to dance with her, 
 and I will come and stand by you.' 
 
 ' I was determined on it this very moment, my 
 lord ; I'll be introduced and dance with her directly.' 
 
 ' Aye, do ; and if you find she does not want much 
 talking to, you may introduce me by and by.' 
 
 ' Very well, my lord ; if she is like her sisters she 
 will only want to be listened to. I will go this 
 
324 TJie Watsons. 
 
 moment. I shall find her in the tea-room. That stiff 
 old Mrs. Edwards has never done tea.' 
 
 Away he went, Lord Osborne after him; and 
 Emma lost no time in hurrying from her corner 
 exactly the other way, forgetting in her haste that 
 she left Mrs. Edwards behind. 
 
 ' We had quite lost you,' said Mrs. Edwards, who 
 followed her with Mary in less than five minutes. 
 ' If you prefer this room to the other there is no 
 reason why you should not be here, but we had better 
 all be together.' 
 
 Emma was saved the trouble of apologising, by 
 their being joined at the moment by Tom Musgrave, 
 who requesting Mrs. Edwards aloud to do him the 
 honour of presenting him to Miss Emma Watson, 
 left that good lady without any choice in the busi- 
 ness, but that of testifying by the coldness of her 
 manner that she did it unwillingly. The honour of 
 dancing with her was solicited without loss of time, 
 and Emma, however she might like to be thought a 
 beautiful girl by lord or commoner, was so little dis- 
 posed to favour Tom Musgrave himself that she had 
 considerable satisfaction in avowing her previous en- 
 gagement. He was evidently surprised and discom- 
 posed. The style of her last partner had probably 
 led him to believe her not overpowered with applica- 
 tions. 
 
 ' My little friend, Charles Blake,' he cried, • must 
 not expect to engross you the whole evening. We 
 can never suffer this. It is against the rules of the 
 assembly, and I am sure it will never be patronised 
 
The Watsons. 325 
 
 by our good friend here, Mrs. Edwards; she is by 
 much too nice a judge of decorum to give her license 
 to such a dangerous particularity ' 
 
 ' I am not going to dance with Master Blake, sir!' 
 
 The gentleman, a little disconcerted, could only 
 hope he might be fortunate another time, and seem- 
 ing unwilling to leave her, though his friend, Lord 
 Osborne, was waiting in the doorway for the result, 
 as Emma with some amusement perceived, he began 
 to make civil enquiries after her family. 
 
 ' How comes it that we have not the pleasure of 
 seeing your sisters here this evening ? Our assemblies 
 have been used to be so well treated by them that we 
 do not know how to take this neglect.' 
 
 ' My eldest sister is the only one at home, and she 
 could not leave my father.' 
 
 ' Miss Watson the only one at home ! You astonish 
 me ! It seems but the day before yesterday that I 
 saw them all three in this town. But I am afraid I 
 have been a very sad neighbour of late. I hear dread- 
 ful complaints of my negligence wherever I go, and I' 
 confess it is a shameful length of time since I was at 
 Stanton. But I shall now endeavour to make myself 
 amends for the past.' 
 
 Emma's calm curtsey in reply must have struck 
 him as very unlike the encouraging warmth he had 
 been used to receive from her sisters, and gave him 
 probably the novel sensation of doubting his own in- 
 fluence, and of wishing for more attention than she 
 bestowed. The dancing now recommenced ; Miss 
 Carr being impatient to call, everybody was required 
 
326 The Watsons. 
 
 to stand up ; and Tom Musgrave's curiosity was ap- 
 peased on seeing Mr. Howard come forward and 
 claim Emma's hand. 
 
 ' That will do as well for me,' was Lord Osborne's 
 remark, when his friend carried him the news, and he 
 was continually at Howard's elbow during the two 
 dances. 
 
 The frequency of his appearance there was the only 
 unpleasant part of the engagement, the only objection 
 she could make to Mr. Howard. In himself, she 
 thought him as agreeable as he looked ; though chat- 
 ting on the commonest topics, he had a sensible, unaf- 
 fected way of expressing himself, which made them all 
 worth hearing, and she only regretted that he had not 
 been able to make his pupil's manners as unexcep- 
 tionable as his own. The two dances seemed very 
 short, and she had her partner's authority for con- 
 sidering them so. At their conclusion, the Osbornes 
 and their train were all on the move. 
 
 'We are off at last,' said his lordship to Tom; 
 ' How much longer do you stay in this heavenly 
 place ? — till sunrise ?' 
 
 'No, faith! my lord; I have had quite enough of it, 
 I assure you. I shall not show myself here again 
 when I have had the honour of attending Lady Os- 
 borne to her carriage. I shall retreat in as much 
 secrecy as possible to the most remote corner of the 
 house, where I shall order a barrel of oysters, and be 
 famously snug.' 
 
 ' Let me see you soon at the castle, and bring me 
 word how she looks by daylight.' 
 
The Watsons. 327 
 
 Emma and Mrs. Blake parted as old acquaintance, 
 and Charles shook her by the hand, and wished her 
 goodbye at least a dozen times. From Miss Osborne 
 and Miss Carr she received something like a jerking 
 curtsey as they passed her ; even Lady Osborne gave 
 her a look of complacency, and his lordship actually 
 came back after the others were out of the room, to 
 ' beg her pardon,' and look in the window-seat behind 
 her for the gloves which were visibly compressed in 
 his hand. As Tom Musgrave was seen no more, we 
 may suppose his plan to have succeeded, and imagine 
 him mortifying with his barrel of oysters in dreary 
 solitude, or gladly assisting the landlady in her bar to 
 make fresh negus for the happy dancers above. 
 Emma could not help missing the party by whom 
 she had been, though in some respects unpleasantly, 
 distinguished, and the two dances which followed and 
 concluded the ball were rather flat in comparison with 
 the others. Mr. Edwards having played with good 
 luck, they were some of the last in the room. 
 
 ' Here we are back again, I declare,' said Emma 
 sorrowfully, as she walked into the dining-room, where 
 the table was prepared, and the neat upper maid was 
 lighting the candles. 
 
 ' My dear Miss Edwards, how soon it is at an end ! 
 I wish it could all come over again.' 
 
 A great deal of kind pleasure was expressed in net 
 having enjoyed the evening so much ; and Mr. Ed- 
 wards was as warm as herself in the praise of the 
 fulness, brilliancy, and spirit of the meeting, though 
 as he had been fixed the whole time at the same 
 
328 The Watsons. 
 
 table in the same room, with only one change of 
 chairs, it might have seemed a matter scarcely per- 
 ceived ; but he had won four rubbers out of five, and 
 everything went well. His daughter felt the advan- 
 tage of this gratified state of mind, in the course of 
 the remarks and retrospections which now ensued 
 over the welcome soup. 
 
 ' How came you not to dance with either of the 
 Mr. Tomlinsons, Mary?' said her mother. 
 
 ' I was always engaged when they asked me.' 
 
 ' I thought you were to have stood up with Mr. 
 James the two last dances ; Mrs. Tomlinson told me 
 he was gone to ask you, and I had heard you say two 
 minutes before that you were not engaged.' 
 
 ' Yes, but there was a mistake ; I had misunder- 
 stood. I did not know I was engaged. I thought it 
 had been for the two dances after, if we stayed so long; 
 but Captain Hunter assured me it was for those very 
 two.' 
 
 ' So you ended with Captain Hunter, Mary, did 
 you ?' said her father. ' And whom did you begin 
 with ?' 
 
 ' Captain Hunter,' was repeated in a very humble 
 tone. 
 
 ' Hum ! That is being constant, however. But 
 who else did you dance with ?' 
 
 ' Mr. Norton and Mr. Styles.' 
 
 'And who are they?' 
 
 ' Mr. Norton is a cousin of Captain Hunter's.* 
 
 And who is Mr. Styles ?' 
 
 • One of his particular friends.' 
 
The Watsons. 329 
 
 'All in the same regiment,' added Mrs. Edwards. 
 ' Mary was surrounded by red-coats all the evening. 
 I should have been better pleased to see her dancing 
 with some of our old neighbours, I confess.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; we must not neglect our old neighbours. 
 But if these soldiers are quicker than other people in 
 a ball-room, what are young ladies to do ?' 
 
 ' I think there is no occasion for their engaging 
 themselves so many dances beforehand, Mr. Ed- 
 wards.' 
 
 ' No, perhaps not ; but I remember, my dear, when 
 you and I did the same.' 
 
 Mrs. Edwards said no more, and Mary breathed 
 again. A good deal of good-humoured pleasantry 
 followed, and Emma went to bed in charming spirits, 
 her head full of Osbornes, Blakes, and Howards. 
 
 The next morning brought a great many visitors. It 
 was the way of the place always to call on Mrs. Ed- 
 wards the morning after a ball, and this neighbourly 
 inclination was increased in the present instance by a 
 general spirit of curiosity on Emma's account, as 
 everybody wanted to look again at the girl who had 
 been admired the night before by Lord Osborne. 
 Many were the eyes, and various the degrees of ap- 
 probation with which she was examined. Some saw 
 no fault, and some no beauty. With some her brown 
 skin was the annihilation of every grace, and others 
 could never be persuaded that she was half so hand- 
 some as Elizabeth Watson had been ten years ago. 
 The morning passed quickly away in discussing the 
 merits of the ball with all this succession of company, 
 
33° The Watsons. 
 
 and Emma was at once astonished by finding it two 
 o'clock, and considering that she had heard nothing 
 of her father's chair. After this discovery she had 
 walked twice to the window to examine the street, 
 and was on the point of asking leave to ring the bell 
 and make enquiries, when the light sound of a car- 
 riage driving up to the door set her heart at ease. 
 She stepped again to the window, but instead of the 
 convenient though very un-smart family equipage 
 perceived a vieat curricle. Mr. Musgrave was shortly 
 afterwards announced, and Mrs. Edwards put on her 
 very stiffest look at the sound. Not at all dismayed, 
 however, by her chilling air, he paid his compliments 
 to each of the ladies with no unbecoming ease, and 
 continuing to address Emma presented her a note, 
 which ' he had the honour of bringing from her sister, 
 but to which he must observe a verbal postscript from 
 himself would be requisite.' 
 
 The note, which Emma was beginning to read 
 rather before' Mrs. Edwards had entreated her to use 
 no ceremony, contained a few lines from Elizabeth 
 importing that their father, in consequence -of being 
 unusually well, had taken the sudden resolution of 
 attending the visitation that day, and that as his road 
 lay quite wide from D. it was impossible for her to 
 come home till the following morning, unless the 
 Edwards would send her, which was hardly to be 
 expected, or she could meet with any chance convey- 
 ance, or did not mind walking so far. She had 
 scarcely run her eye through the whole, before she 
 
Tlie Watsons. 331 
 
 found herself obliged to listen to Tom Musgrave's 
 further account. 
 
 ' I received that note from the fair hands of Miss 
 Watson only ten minutes ago,' said he ; * I met her 
 in the village of Stanton, whither my good stars 
 prompted me to turn my horses' heads. She was at 
 that moment in quest of a person to employ on the 
 errand, and I was fortunate enough to convince her 
 that she could not find a more willing or speedy mes- 
 senger than myself. Remember, I say nothing of my 
 disinterestedness. My reward is to be the indulgence 
 of conveying you to Stanton in my curricle. Though 
 they are not written down, I bring your sister's orders 
 for the same.' 
 
 Emma felt distressed ; she did not like the proposal 
 — she did not wish to be on terms of intimacy with 
 the proposer ; and yet, fearful of encroaching on the 
 Edwards, as well as wishing to go home herself, she 
 was at a loss how entirely to decline what he offered: 
 Mrs. Edwards continued silent, either not under- 
 standing the case, or waiting to see how the young 
 lady's inclination lay. Emma thanked him, but pro^ 
 fessed herself very unwilling to give him so much 
 trouble. ' The trouble was of course honour, plea- 
 sure, delight — what had he or his horses to do ?' Still 
 she hesitated — ' She believed she must beg leave to 
 decline his assistance; she was rather afraid of the 
 sort of carriage. The distance was not beyond a 
 walk.' Mrs. Edwards was silent no longer. She 
 enquired into the particulars, and then said, ' We 
 shall be extremely happy, Miss Emma, if you can 
 
332 The Watsons. 
 
 give us the pleasure of your company till to-morrow ; 
 but if you cannot conveniently do so, our carriage is 
 quite at your service, and Mary will be pleased with 
 the opportunity of seeing your sister.' 
 
 This was precisely what Emma had longed for, 
 and she accepted the offer most thankfully, acknow- 
 ledging that as Elizabeth was entirely alone, it was 
 her wish to return home to dinner. The plan was 
 warmly opposed by their visitor — 
 
 ' I cannot suffer it, indeed. I must not be deprived 
 of the happiness of escorting you. I assure you there 
 is not a possibility of fear with my horses. You might 
 guide them yourself. Your sisters all know how quiet 
 they are ; they have none of them the smallest scruple 
 in trusting themselves with me, even on a race-course. 
 Believe me,' added he, lowering his voice, 'you are 
 quite safe — the danger is only mine.' 
 
 Emma was not more disposed to oblige him for all 
 this. 
 
 ' And as to Mrs. Edwards' carriage being used the 
 day after a ball, it is a thing quite out of rule, I 
 assure you — never heard of before. The old coach- 
 man will look as black as his horses — won't he, Miss 
 Edwards ?' 
 
 No notice was taken. The ladies were silently 
 firm, and the gentleman found himself obliged to 
 submit 
 
 ' What a famous ball we had last night,' he cried, 
 after a short pause ; ' How long did you keep it up 
 after the Osbornes and I went away ? ' 
 
 ' We had two dances more.' 
 
The Watsons. 333 
 
 ' It is making it too much of a fatigue, I think, to 
 stay so late. I suppose your set was not a very full 
 one.' 
 
 ' Yes ; quite as full as ever, except the Osbornes. 
 There seemed no vacancy anywhere ; and everybody 
 danced with uncommon spirit to the very last' 
 
 Emma said this, though against her conscience. 
 
 ' Indeed ! perhaps I might have looked in upon 
 you again, if I had been aware of as much ; for I am 
 rather fond of dancing than not. Miss Osborne is a 
 charming girl, is not she ? ' 
 
 ' I do not think her handsome,' replied Emma, to 
 whom all this was chiefly addressed. 
 
 ' Perhaps she is not critically handsome, but her 
 manners are delightful. And Fanny Carr is a most 
 interesting little creature. You can imagine nothing 
 more naive or piquante ; and what do you think of 
 Lord Osborne, Miss Watson ?' 
 
 ' He would be handsome even though he were not 
 a lord, and, perhaps, better bred ; more desirous of 
 pleasing and showing himself pleased in a right 
 place.' 
 
 ' Upon my word, you are severe upon my friend ! 
 I assure you Lord Osborne is a very good fellow.' 
 
 ' I do not dispute his virtues, but I do not like his 
 careless air.' 
 
 ' If it were not a breach of confidence,' replied 
 Tom, with an important look, ' perhaps I might be 
 able to win a more favourable opinion of poor 
 Osborne.' 
 
 Emma gave him no encouragement, and he was 
 
334 Tte Watsons. 
 
 obliged to keep his friend's secret. Ke was also 
 obliged to put an end to his visit, for Mrs. Edwards 
 having ordered her carriage there was no time to be 
 lost on Emma's side in preparing for it. Miss Ed- 
 wards accompanied her home ; but as it was dinner 
 hour at Stanton stayed with them only a few minutes. 
 
 ' Now, my dear Emma,' said Miss Watson, as soon 
 as they were alone, ' you must talk to me all the rest 
 of the day without stopping, or I shall not be satis- 
 fied ; but, first of all, Nanny shall bring in the dinner. 
 Poor thing ! You will not dine as you did yesterday, 
 for we have nothing but some fried beef. How nice 
 Mary Edwards looks in her new pelisse ! And now 
 tell me how you like them all, and what I am to say 
 to Sam. I have begun my letter ; Jack Stokes is to 
 call for it to-morrow, for his uncle is going within a 
 mile of Guildford next day.' 
 
 Nanny brought in the dinner. 
 
 ' We will wait upon ourselves,' continued Elizabeth, 
 ' and then we shall lose no time. And so you would 
 not come home with Tom Musgrave ?' 
 
 'No, you had said so much against him that I 
 could not wish either for the obligation or the inti- 
 macy which the use of his carriage must have created. 
 I should not even have liked the appearance of it.' 
 
 ' You did very right ; though I wonder at your for- 
 bearance, and I do not think I could have done it 
 myself. He seemed so eager to fetch you that I 
 could not say no, though it rather went against me to 
 be throwing you together, so well as I knew his 
 tricks-; but I did long to see you, and it was a clever 
 
Tlie Watsons. 335 
 
 way of getting you home. Besides, it won't do to be 
 too nice. Nobody could have thought of the Ed- 
 wards letting you have their coach, after the horses 
 being out so late. But what am I to say to Sam ? ' 
 
 ' If you are guided by me you will not encourage 
 him to think of Miss Edwards. The father is de- 
 cidedly against him, the mother shows him no favour, 
 and I doubt his having any interest with Mary. She 
 danced twice with Captain Hunter, and I think 
 shows him in general as much encouragement as is 
 consistent with her disposition, and the circumstances 
 she is placed in. She once mentioned Sam, and cer- 
 tainly with a little . confusion ; but that was perhaps 
 merely owing to the consciousness of his liking her, 
 which may very probably have come to her know- 
 ledge.' 
 
 ' Oh ! dear, yes. She has heard enough of that 
 from us all. Poor Sam ! he is out of luck as well as 
 other people. For the life of me, Emma, I cannot 
 help feeling for those that are crossed in love. Well, 
 now begin, and give me an account of everything as 
 it happened.' 
 
 Emma obeyed her, and Elizabeth listened with 
 very little interruption till she heard of Mr. Howard 
 as a partner. 
 
 ' Dance with Mr. Howard. Good heavens ! You 
 don't say so ! Why he is quite one of the great and 
 grand ones. Did you not find him very high ?' 
 
 ' His manners are of a kind to give me much more 
 ease and confidence than Tom Musgrave's.' 
 
 ' Well, go on. I should have been frightened out 
 
336 The Watsons 
 
 of my wits to have had anything to do with the 
 Osborne's set' 
 
 Emma concluded her narration. 
 
 'And so you really did not dance with Tom Mus- 
 grave at all ; but you must have liked him — you must 
 have been struck with him altogether.' 
 
 ' I do not like him, Elizabeth. I allow his person 
 and air to be good ; and that his manners to a certain 
 point — his address rather — is pleasing. Eut I see 
 nothing else to admire in him. On the contrary, he 
 seems very vain, very conceited, absurdly anxious for 
 distinction, and absolutely contemptible in some of 
 the measures he takes for being so. There is a ridi- 
 culousness about him that entertains me ; but his 
 company gives me no other agreeable emotion.' 
 
 ' My dearest Emma ! You are like nobody else in 
 the world. It is well Margaret is not by. You do 
 not offend me, though I hardly know how to believe 
 you ; but Margaret would never forgive such words.' 
 
 ' I wish Margaret could have heard him profess his 
 ignorance of her being out of the country; he declared 
 it seemed only two days since he had seen her.' 
 
 ' Aye, that is just like him ; and yet this is the 
 man she will fancy so desperately in love with her. 
 He is no favourite of mine, as you well know, Emma, 
 but you must think him agreeable. Can you lay 
 your hand on your heart, and say you do not ? ' 
 
 ' Indeed, I can, both hands ; and spread them to 
 their widest extent' 
 
 ' I should like to know the man you do think 
 agreeable.' 
 
The Watsons. 337 
 
 ' His name is Howard.' 
 
 ' Howard ! Dear me ; I cannot think of him bat 
 as playing cards with Lady Osborne, and looking 
 proud. I must own, however, that it is a relief to me 
 to find you can speak as you do of Tom Musgrave. 
 My heart did misgive me that you would like him 
 too well. You talked so stoutly beforehand, that I 
 was sadly afraid your brag would be punished. I 
 only hope it will last, and that he will not come on 
 to pay you much attention. It is a hard thing for a 
 woman to stand against the flattering ways of a man 
 when he is bent upon pleasing her.' 
 
 As their quietly sociable little meal concluded, 
 Miss Watson could not help observing how com- 
 fortably it had passed. 
 
 ' It is so delightful to me,' said she, ' to have things 
 going on in peace and good-humour. Nobody can 
 tell how much I hate quarrelling. Now, though we 
 have had nothing but fried beef, how good it has all 
 seemed. I wish everybody were as easily satisfied 
 as you ; but poor Margaret is very snappish, and 
 Penelope owns she would rather have quarrelling 
 going on than nothing at all.' 
 
 Mr. Watson returned in the evening not the worse 
 for the exertion of the day, and, consequently, pleased 
 with what he had done, and glad to talk of it over 
 his own fireside. Emma had not foreseen any in- 
 terest to herself in the occurrences of a visitation ; 
 but when she heard Mr. Howard spoken of as the 
 preacher, and as having given them an excellent 
 sermon, she could not help listening with a quicker ear 
 
 z 
 
338 Tlie Watsons. 
 
 ' I do not know when I have heard a discourse 
 more to my mind,' continued Mr. Watson, ' or one 
 better delivered. He reads extremely well, with 
 great propriety, and in a very impressive manner, and 
 at the same time without any theatrical grimace or 
 violence. I own I do not like much action in the 
 pulpit ; I do not like the studied air and artificial 
 inflexions of voice which your very popular and most 
 admired preachers generally have. A simple de- 
 livery is much better calculated to inspire devotion, 
 and shows a much better taste. Mr. Howard read 
 like a scholar and a gentleman.' 
 
 ' And what had you for dinner, sir ? ' said his 
 eldest daughter. 
 
 He related the dishes, and told what he had ate 
 himself. 
 
 ' Upon the whole,' he added, ' I have had a very- 
 comfortable day. My old friends were quite sur • 
 prised to see me amongst them, and I must say that 
 •everybody paid me great attention, and seemed to 
 feel for me as an invalid. They would make me sit 
 near the fire ; and as the partridges were pretty high, 
 Dr. Richards would have them sent away to the 
 •other end of the table, " that they might not offend 
 Mr. Watson," which I thought very kind of him. 
 But what pleased me as much as anything was Mr. 
 Howard's attention. There is a pretty steep flight of 
 steps up to the room we dine in, which do not quite 
 agree with my gouty foot, and Mr. Howard walked 
 by me from the bottom to the top, and would make 
 me take his arm. It struck me as very becoming in 
 
The Watsons. 339 
 
 so young a man, but I am sure I had no claim to 
 expect it, for I never saw him before in my life. By 
 the by, he enquired after one of my daughters, but 
 I do not know which. I suppose you know among 
 yourselves.' 
 
 On the third day after the ball, as Nanny, at five 
 minutes before three, was beginning to bustle into the 
 parlour with the tray and knife-case, she was sud- 
 denly called to the front door by the sound of as 
 smart a rap as the end of a riding whip could give ; 
 and though charged by Miss Watson to let nobody 
 in, returned in half a minute with a look of awkward 
 dismay to hold the parlour door open for Lord Os- 
 borne and Tom Musgrave. The surprise of the 
 young ladies may be imagined. No visitors would 
 have been welcome at such a moment, but such 
 visitors as these — such an one as Lord Osborne at 
 least, a nobleman and a stranger, was really dis- 
 tressing. 
 
 He looked a little embarrassed himself, as, on being 
 introduced by his easy voluble friend, he muttered 
 something of doing himself the honour of waiting 
 upon Mr. Watson. Though Emma could not but 
 take the compliment of the visit to herself, she was 
 very far from enjoying it. She felt all the incon- 
 sistency of such an acquaintance with the very humble 
 style in which they were obliged to live ; and having 
 in her aunt's family been used to many of the ele- 
 gancies of life, was fully sensible of all that must be 
 open to the ridicule of richer people in her present 
 
340 TJie Watsons. 
 
 home. Of the pain of such feelings, Elizabeth knew 
 very little. Her simple mind, or juster reason, saved 
 her from such mortification ; and though shrinking 
 under a general sense of inferiority, she felt no par- 
 ticular shame. Mr. Watson, as the gentlemen had 
 already heard from Nanny, was not well enough to be 
 down stairs. With much concern they took their 
 seats ; Lord Osborne near Emma, and the convenient 
 Mr. Musgrave, in high spirits at his own importance, 
 on the other side of the fireplace with Elizabeth. He 
 was at no loss for words ; but when Lord Osborne 
 had hoped that Emma had not caught cold at the 
 ball he had nothing more to say for some time, and 
 could only gratify his eye by occasional glances at 
 his fair companion. Emma was not inclined to give 
 herself much trouble for his entertainment, and after 
 hard labour of mind, he produced the remark of its 
 being a very fine day, and followed it up with the 
 question of, ' Have you been walking this morning ? ' 
 
 ' No, my lord, we thought it too dirty.' 
 
 ' You should wear half-boots.' After another pause : 
 ' Nothing sets off a neat ankle more than a half-boot ; 
 nankeen, galoshed with black, looks very well. Do 
 not you like half-boots ? ' 
 
 'Yes; but unless they are so stout as to injure 
 their beauty, they are not fit for country walking.' 
 
 ' Ladies should ride in dirty weather. Do you 
 ride?' 
 
 ' No, my lord.' 
 
 ' I wonder every lady does not ; a woman never 
 looks better than on horseback.' 
 
The Watsons. 341 
 
 ' But every woman may not have the inclination or 
 the means.' 
 
 ' If they knew how much it became them, they 
 would all have the inclination; and I fancy, Miss 
 Watson, when once they had the inclination, the 
 means would soon follow.' 
 
 ' Your lordship thinks we always have our own 
 way. Tliat is a point on which ladies and gentlemen 
 have long disagreed ; but without pretending to de- 
 cide it, I may say that there are some circumstances 
 which even women cannot control. Female economy 
 will do a great deal, my lord, but it cannot turn a 
 small income into a large one.' 
 
 Lord Osborne was silenced. Her manner had 
 been neither sententious nor sarcastic, but there was 
 a something in its mild seriousness, as well as in the 
 words themselves, which made his lordship think ; 
 and when he addressed her again, it was with a de- 
 gree of considerate propriety totally unlike the half- 
 awkward, half-fearless style of his former remarks. It 
 was a new thing with him to wish to please a woman ; 
 it was the first time that he had ever felt what was 
 due to a woman in Emma's situation ; but as he was 
 wanting neither in sense nor a good disposition he 
 did not feel it without effect. 
 
 ' You have not been long in this country, I under- 
 stand,' said he, in the tone of a gentleman. ' I hope 
 you are pleased with it' 
 
 He was rewarded by a gracious answer, and a more 
 liberal full view of her face than she had yet be- 
 stowed. Unused to exert himself, and happy in con- 
 
34 2 The Watsons, 
 
 templating her, he then sat in silence for some 
 minutes longer, while Tom Musgrave was chattering 
 to Elizabeth ; till they were interrupted by Nanny's 
 approach, who, half-opening the door and putting in 
 her head, said — 
 
 ' Please, ma'am, master wants to know why he 
 be'nt to have his dinner ? ' 
 
 The gentlemen, who had hitherto disregarded every 
 symptom, however positive, of the nearness of that 
 meal, now jumped up with apologies, while Elizabeth 
 called briskly after Nanny to take up the fowls. 
 
 ' I am sorry it happens so,' she added, turning good- 
 humouredly towards Musgrave, ' but you know what 
 early hours we keep.' 
 
 Tom had nothing to say for himself,. he knew it 
 very well, and such honest simplicity, such shameless 
 truth,, rather bewildered him. Lord Osborne's part- 
 ing compliments took some time, his inclination for 
 speech seeming to increase with the shortness of the 
 term for indulgence. He recommended exercise in 
 defiance of dirt ; spoke again in praise of half-boots ; 
 begged that his sister might be allowed to send 
 Emma the name of her shoemaker; and concluded 
 with saying, ' My hounds will be hunting this country 
 next week. I believe they will throw off at Stanton 
 Wood on Wednesday at nine o'clock. I mention 
 this.in hopes of your being drawn out to see what's 
 going on. If the morning's tolerable, pray do us the 
 honour of giving us your good wishes in person.' 
 
 The sisters looked on each other with astonishment 
 when their visitors had withdrawn. 
 
The Watsons. 343 
 
 ' Here's an unaccountable honour! ' cried Elizabeth 
 at last. ' Who would have thought of Lord Osborne's 
 coming to Stanton ? He is very handsome ; but Tom 
 Musgrave looks all to nothing the smartest and most 
 fashionable man of the two. I am glad he did not 
 say anything to me ; I would not have had to talk to 
 such a great man for the world. Tom was very 
 agreeable, was not he ? But did you hear him ask 
 where Miss Penelope and Miss Margaret were, when 
 he first came in ? It put me out of patience. I am 
 glad Nanny had not laid the cloth however, it would 
 have looked so awkward; just the tray did not 
 signify.' To say that Emma was not flattered by 
 Lord Osborne's visit, would be to assert a very un- 
 likely thing, and describe a very odd young lady ; 
 but the gratification was by no means unalloyed ; his 
 coming was a sort of notice which might please her 
 vanity, but did not suit her pride, and she would 
 rather have known that he wished the visit without 
 presuming to make it, than have seen him at Stanton. 
 
 Among other unsatisfactory feelings it once occurred 
 to her to wonder why Mr. Howard had not taken the 
 same privilege of coming, and accompanied his lord- 
 ship, but she was willing to suppose that he had 
 either known nothing about it, or had declined any 
 share in a measure which carried quite as much im- 
 pertinence in its form as good breeding. Mr. Watson 
 was very far from being delighted when he heard 
 what had passed ; a little peevish under immediate 
 pain, and ill-disposed -to be pleased, he only replied, 
 
 ' Pooh ! Pooh ! what occasion could there be for 
 
344 The Watsons. 
 
 Lord Osborne's coming ? I have lived here fourteen 
 years without being noticed by any of the family. It 
 is some fooling of that idle fellow, Tom Musgrave. I 
 cannot return the visit. I would not if I could.' 
 And when Tom Musgrave was met with again, he 
 was commissioned with a message of excuse to 
 Osborne Castle, on the too sufficient plea of Mr. 
 Watson's infirm state of health. 
 
 A week or ten days rolled quietly away after this 
 visit before any new bustle arose to interrupt even for 
 half a day the tranquil and affectionate intercourse of 
 the two sisters, whose mutual regard was increasing 
 with the intimate knowledge of each other which such 
 intercourse produced. The first circumstance to break 
 in on their security was the receipt of a letter from 
 Croydon to announce the speedy return of Margaret, 
 and a visit of two or three days from Mr. and Mrs. 
 Robert Watson, who undertook to bring her home, 
 and wished to see their sister Emma. 
 
 It was an expectation to fill the thoughts of the 
 sisters at Stanton and to busy the hours of one of 
 them at least ; for, as Jane had been a woman of 
 fortune, the preparations for her entertainment were 
 considerable ; and as Elizabeth had at all times more 
 goodwill than method in her guidance of the house, 
 she could make no change without a bustle. An 
 absence of fourteen years had made all her brothers 
 and sisters strangers to Emma, but in her expectation 
 of Margaret there was more than the awkwardness 
 of such an alienation ; she had heard things which 
 made her dread her return ; and the day which brought 
 
The Watsons. 345 
 
 the party to Stanton, seemed to her the probable 
 conclusion of almost all that had been comfortable in 
 the house. 
 
 Robert Watson was an attorney at Croydon in a 
 good way of business ; very well satisfied with him- 
 self for the same, and for having married the only 
 daughter of the attorney to whom he had been clerk, 
 with a fortune of six thousand pounds. Mrs. Robert 
 was not less pleased with herself for having had that 
 six thousand pounds and for being now in posses- 
 sion of a very smart house in Croydon, where she 
 gave genteel parties and wore fine clothes. In her 
 person there was nothing remarkable ; her manners 
 were pert and conceited. Margaret was not without 
 beauty; she had a slight pretty figure, and rather 
 wanted countenance than good features ; but the 
 sharp and anxious expression of her face made her 
 beauty in general little felt. On meeting her long- 
 absent sister, as on every occasion of show, her 
 manner was all affection and her voice all gentleness ; 
 continual smiles and a very slow articulation being 
 her constant resource when determined on pleasing. 
 
 She was now * so delighted to see dear, dear Emma,' 
 that she could hardly speak a word in a minute. 
 
 ' I am sure we shall be great friends,' she observed 
 with much sentiment as they were sitting together. 
 Emma scarcely knew how to answer such a proposi- 
 tion, and the manner in which it was spoken she could 
 not attempt to equal. Mrs. Robert Watson eyed her 
 with much familiar curiosity and triumphant compas- 
 sion ; the loss of the aunt's fortune was uppermost in 
 
346 The Watsons. 
 
 her mind at the moment of meeting ; and she could 
 not but feel how much better it was to be the 
 daughter of a gentleman of property in Croydon than 
 the niece of an old woman who threw herself away 
 on an Irish captain. Robert was carelessly kind, as 
 became a prosperous man and a brother ; more intent 
 on settling with the post-boy, inveighing against the 
 exorbitant advance in posting, and pondering over a 
 doubtful halfcrown, than on welcoming a sister who 
 was no longer likely to have any property for him to 
 get the direction of. 
 
 ' Your road through the village is infamous, Elizabeth/ 
 said he ; ' worse than ever it was. By heaven ! I would 
 indict it if I lived near you. Who is surveyor now?' 
 
 There was a little niece at Croydon to be fondly 
 enquired after by the kind-hearted Elizabeth, who 
 regretted very much her not being of the party. 
 
 ' You. are very good,' replied her mother, ' and I 
 assure you it went very hard with Augusta to have 
 us come away without her. I was forced to say we 
 were only going to church, and promise to come back 
 for her directly. But you know it would not do to 
 bring her without her maid, and I am as particular as 
 ever in having her properly attended to.' 
 
 'Sweet little darling,' cried Margaret. 'It quitb 
 broke my heart to leave her.' 
 
 ' Then why was you in such a hurry to run away 
 from her?' cried Mrs. Robert 'You are a sad 
 shabby girl. I have been quarrelling with you all the 
 way we came, have not I ? Such a visit as this I 
 never heard of ! You know how glad we are to have 
 
Tlie Watsons. 347 
 
 any of you with us, if it be for months together ; and 
 I am sorry (with a witty smile) we have not been 
 able to make Croydon agreeable this autumn.' 
 
 ' My dearest Jane, do not overpower me with your 
 raillery. You know what inducements I had to bring 
 me home. Spare me, I entreat you. I am no match 
 for your arch sallies.' 
 
 ' Well, I only beg you will not set your neighbours 
 against the place. Perhaps Emma may be tempted 
 to go back with us and stay till Christmas, if you 
 don't put in your word.' 
 
 Emma was greatly obliged. ' I assure you we 
 have very good society at Croydon. I do not much 
 attend the balls, they are rather too mixed ; but our 
 parties are very select and good. I had seven tables 
 last week in ray drawing-room.' 
 
 ' Are you fond of the country ? How do you like 
 Stanton ? ' 
 
 ' Very much/ replied Emma, who thought a com- 
 prehensive answer most to the purpose. She saw 
 that her sister-in-law despised her immediately. 
 Mrs. Robert Watson was indeed wondering what 
 sort of a home Emma could possibly have been used 
 to in Shropshire, and setting it down as certain that 
 the aunt could never have had six thousand pounds. 
 
 ' How charming Emma is,' whispered Margaret to 
 Mrs. Robert in her most languishing tone. Emma 
 was quite distressed by such behaviour ; and she did 
 not like it better when she heard Margaret five 
 minutes afterwards say to Elizabeth in a sharp, quick 
 accent, totally unlike the first, ' Have you heard from 
 
348 Tlie Watsons. 
 
 Pen since she went to Chichester ? I had a letter the 
 other day. I don't find she is likely to make anything 
 of it. I fancy she'll come back ' Miss Penelope,' as 
 she went.' 
 
 Such she feared would be Margaret's common voice 
 when the novelty of her own appearance were over ; 
 the tone of artificial sensibility was not recommended 
 by the idea. The ladies were invited upstairs to pre- 
 pare for dinner. 
 
 ' I hope you will find things tolerably comfortable, 
 Jane,' said Elizabeth, as she opened the door of the 
 spare bedchamber. 
 
 ' My good creature,' replied Jane, 'use no ceremony 
 with me, I entreat you. I am one of those who always 
 take things as they find them. I hope I can put up 
 with a small apartment for two or three nights with- 
 out making a piece of work. I always wish to be 
 treated quite " en famille '' when I come to see you. 
 And now I do hope you have not been getting a great 
 dinner for us. Remember we never, eat suppers.' 
 
 'I suppose,' said Margaret rather quickly to 
 Emma, ' you and I are to be together ; Elizabeth 
 always takes care to have a room to herself.' 
 
 ' No. Elizabeth gives me half hers.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' in a softened voice, and rather mortified to 
 find that she was not ill-used. 
 
 ' I am sorry I am not to have the pleasure of your 
 company, especially as it makes me nervous to be 
 much alone.' 
 
 Emma was the first of the females in the parlour 
 again ; on entering it she found her brother alone. 
 
The Watsons. 349 
 
 ' So Emma,' said he, ' you are quite a stranger at 
 home. It must seem odd enough for you to be here. 
 A pretty piece of work your Aunt Turner has made 
 of it ! By heaven ! A woman should never be 
 trusted with money. I always said she ought to 
 have settled something on you, as soon as her husband 
 died." 
 
 ' But that would have been trusting vie with money,' 
 replied Emma, ' and I am a woman too.' 
 
 'It might have been secured to your future use, 
 without your having any power over it now. What a 
 blow it must have been upon you ! To find yourself, 
 instead of heiress of 8,000/. or 9,000/., sent back a 
 weight upon your family, without a sixpence. I hope 
 the old woman will smart for it.' 
 
 ' Do not speak disrespectfully of her ; she was very 
 good to me, and if she has made an imprudent choice, 
 she will suffer more from it herself than I can 
 possibly do.' 
 
 'I do not mean to distress you, but you know 
 everybody must think her an old fool. I thought 
 Turner had been reckoned an extraordinarily sensible, 
 clever man. How the devil came he to make such a 
 will?' 
 
 ' My uncle's sense is not at all impeached in my 
 opinion by his attachment to my aunt. She had been 
 an excellent wife to him. The most liberal and 
 enlightened minds are always the most confiding. 
 The event has been unfortunate, but my uncle's 
 memory is, if possible, endeared to me by such a 
 proof of tender respect for my aunt.' 
 
350 Tfie Watsons. 
 
 ' That's odd sort of talking. He might have pro- 
 vided decently for his widow, without leaving every- 
 thing that he had to dispose of, or any part of it, at 
 her mercy.' 
 
 ' My aunt may have erred/ said Emma, warmly ; 
 ' she has erred, but my uncle's conduct was faultless ; 
 I was her own niece, and he left to her the power of 
 providing for me.' 
 
 ' But unluckily she has left the pleasure of providing 
 for you to your father, and without the power. That's 
 the long and short of the business. After keeping 
 you at a distance from your family for such a length 
 of time as must do away all natural affection among 
 us, and breeding you up (I suppose) in a superior 
 style, you are returned upon their hands without a 
 sixpence.' 
 
 'You know,' replied Emma, struggling with her 
 tears, ' my uncle's melancholy state of health. He 
 was a greater invalid than my father. He could not 
 leave home.' 
 
 'I do not mean to make you cry,' said Robert, 
 rather softened — and after a short silence, by way of 
 changing the subject, he added : ' I am just come from 
 my father's room ; he seems very indifferent. It will 
 be a sad break up when he dies. Pity you can none 
 of you get married ! You must come to Croydon as 
 well as the rest, and see what you can do there. I 
 believe if Margaret had had a thousand or fifteen 
 hundred pounds, there was a young man who would 
 have thought of her.' 
 
 Emma was glad when they were joined by the 
 
The Watsons. 351 
 
 others ; it was better to look at her sister-in-law's 
 finery than listen to Robert, who had equally irritated 
 and grieved her. Mrs. Robert, exactly as smart as 
 she had been at her own party, came in with apologies 
 for her dress. 
 
 ' I would not make you wait,' said she, ' so I put 
 on the first thing I met with. I am afraid I am a sad 
 figure. My dear Mr. W. (addressing her husband), 
 you have not put any fresh powder in your hair.' 
 
 ' No, I do not intend it. I think there is powder 
 enough in my hair for my wife and sisters.' 
 
 ' Indeed, you ought to make some alteration in your 
 dress before dinner when you are out visiting, though 
 you do not at home.' 
 
 ' Nonsense.' 
 
 'It is very odd you do not like to do what other 
 gentlemen do. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Hemming change 
 their dress every day of their lives before dinner. 
 And what was the use of my putting up your last new 
 coat, if you are never to wear it ? ' 
 
 ' Do be satisfied with being fine yourself and leave 
 your husband alone.' 
 
 To put an end to this altercation and soften the evi- 
 dent vexation of her sister-in-law, Emma (though in no 
 spirits to make such nonsense easy), began to admire 
 her gown. It produced immediate complacency. 
 
 ' Do you like it ? ' said she. ' I am very happy. It 
 has been excessively admired, but sometimes I think 
 the pattern too large. I shall wear one to-morrow 
 which I think you will prefer to this. Have you 
 seen the one I gave Margaret ? ' 
 
352 Tlie Watsons. 
 
 Dinner came, and except when Mrs. Robert looked 
 at her husband's head, she continued gay and flippant, 
 chiding Elizabeth for the profusion on the table, and 
 absolutely protesting against the entrance of the roast 
 turkey, which formed the only exception to ' you see 
 your dinner.' ' I do beg and entreat that no turkey may 
 be seen to-day. I am really frightened out of my 
 wits with the number of dishes we have already. Let 
 us have no turkey I beseech you.' 
 
 ' My dear,' replied Elizabeth, ' the turkey is roasted, 
 and it may just as well come in as stay in the kitchen. 
 Besides, if it is cut, I am in hopes my father may be 
 tempted to eat a bit, for it is rather a favourite dish.' 
 
 ' You may have it in, my dear, but I assure you I 
 shan't touch it.' 
 
 Mr. Watson had not been well enough to join the 
 party at dinner, but was prevailed on to come dowri 
 and drink tea with them. 
 
 ' I wish he may be able to have a game of cards, 
 to-night,' said Elizabeth to Mrs. Robert, after seeing 
 her father comfortably seated in his arm-chair. 
 
 4 Not on my account, my dear, I beg. You know 
 I am no card-player. I think a snug chat infinitely 
 better. I always say cards are very well sometimes 
 to break a formal circle, but one never wants them 
 among friends.' 
 
 ' I was thinking of it's being something to amuse 
 my father,' said Elizabeth, ' if it was not disagreeable 
 to you. He says his head won't bear whist, but per- 
 haps if we make a round game he may be tempted to 
 sit down with us.' 
 
The Watsons. 353 
 
 'By all means, my dear creature, I am quite at 
 your service, only do not oblige me to choose the 
 game, that's all. Speculation is the only round game 
 at Croydon now, but I can play anything. When 
 there is only one or two of you at home, you must be 
 quite at a loss to amuse him. Why do you not get 
 him to play at cribbage? Margaret and I have 
 played at cribbage most nights that we have not been 
 engaged.' 
 
 A sound like a distant carriage was at this moment 
 caught ; everybody listened ; it became more decided ; 
 it certainly drew nearer. It was an unusual sound for 
 Stanton at any time of the day, for the village was on 
 no very public road, and contained no gentleman's 
 family but the rector's. The wheels rapidly approached; 
 in two minutes the general expectation was answered ; 
 they stopped beyond a doubt at the garden-gate of the 
 parsonage. Who could it be ? It was certainly a 
 postchaise. Penelope was the only creature to be 
 thought of ; she might perhaps have met with some 
 unexpected opportunity of returning. A pause of 
 suspense ensued. Steps were distinguished along the 
 paved footway, which led under the window of the 
 house to the front door, and then within the passage. 
 They were the steps of a man. It could not be 
 Penelope. It must be Samuel. The door opened, 
 and displayed Tom Musgrave in the wrap of a 
 traveller. He had been in London and was now on 
 his way home, and he had come half-a-mile out of his 
 road merely to call for ten minutes at Stanton. He 
 loved to take people by surprise with sudden visits at 
 
 A A 
 
354 The Watsons. 
 
 extraordinary seasons, and, in the present instance, he 
 had the additional motive of being able to tell the 
 Miss Watsons, whom he depended on finding sitting 
 quietly employed after tea, that he was going home 
 to an eight o'clock dinner. 
 
 As it happened, he did not give more surprise than 
 he received, when, instead of being shown into the usual 
 little sitting-room, the door of the best parlour (a foot 
 larger each way than the other) was thrown open, and 
 he beheld a circle of smart people, whom he could not 
 immediately recognise, arranged with all the honours 
 of visiting round the fire, and Miss Watson seated at 
 the best Pembroke table, with the best tea-things 
 before her. He stood a few seconds in silent amaze- 
 ment ' Musgrave,' ejaculated Margaret, in a tender 
 voice. He recollected himself, and came forward, 
 delighted to find such a circle of friends, and blessing 
 his good fortune for the unlooked-for indulgence. He 
 shook hands with Robert, bowed and smiled to the 
 ladies, and did everything very prettily, but as to any 
 particularity of address or emotion towards Margaret, 
 Emma, who closely observed him, perceived nothing 
 that did not justify Elizabeth's opinion, though Mar- 
 garet's modest smiles imported that she meant to take 
 the visit to herself. He was persuaded without much 
 difficulty to throw off his great coat and drink tea 
 with them. For 'whether he dined at eight or nine,' 
 as he observed, 'was a matter of very little conse- 
 quence;' and without seeming to seek he did not turn 
 away from the chair close by Margaret, which she 
 was assiduous in providing him. She had thus secured 
 
The Watsons. 355 
 
 him from her sisters, but it was not immediately in 
 her power to preserve him from her brother's claims ; 
 for as he came avowedly from London, and had left 
 it only four hours ago, the last current report as to 
 public news, and the general opinion of the day, must 
 be understood before Robert could let his attention 
 be yielded to the less rational and important demands 
 of the women. At last, however, he was at liberty to 
 hear Margaret's soft address, as she spoke her fears of 
 his having had a most terrible cold, dark, dreadful 
 journey — 
 
 ' Indeed, you should not have set out so late.' 
 
 ' I could not be earlier,' he replied. ' I was detained 
 chatting at the Bedford by a friend. All hours are 
 alike to me. How long have you been in the country 
 Miss Margaret?' 
 
 'We only came this morning; my kind brother 
 and sister brought me home this very morning. 'Tis 
 singular — is not it ?' 
 
 ' You were gone a great while, were not you ? A 
 fortnight, I suppose ?' 
 
 ' You may call a fortnight a great while, Mr. Mus- 
 grave,' said Mrs. Robert, sharply ; ' but we think a 
 month very little. I assure you we bring her home 
 at the end of a month much against our will.' 
 
 ' A month ! Have you really been gone a month ? 
 'Tis amazing how time flies.' 
 
 'You may imagine,' said Margaret, in a sort of 
 whisper, ' what are my sensations in finding myself 
 once more at Stanton ; you know what a sad visitor I 
 make. And I was so excessively impatient to see 
 
356 The Watsons. 
 
 Emma ; I dreaded the meeting, and at the same time 
 longed for it. Do you not comprehend the sort of 
 feeling ?' 
 
 ' Not at all,' cried he, aloud ; ' I could never dread 
 a meeting with Miss Emma Watson, or any of her 
 sisters.' 
 
 It was lucky that he added that finish. 
 
 ' Were you speaking to me ?' said Emma, who had 
 caught her own name. 
 
 ' Not absolutely,' he answered ; ' but I was thinking 
 of you, as many at a greater distance are probably 
 doing at this moment. Fine open weather, Miss 
 Emma — charming season for hunting.' 
 
 'Emma is delightful, is not she?' whispered Mar- 
 garet ; ' I have found her more than answer my 
 warmest hopes. Did you ever see anything more 
 perfectly beautiful ? I think even you must be a con- 
 vert to a brown complexion.' 
 
 He hesitated. Margaret was fair herself, and he 
 did not particularly want to compliment her; but 
 Miss Osborne and Miss Carr were likewise fair, and 
 his devotion to them carried the day. 
 
 'Your sister's complexion,' said he, at last, 'is as 
 fine as a dark complexion can be ; but I still profess 
 my preference of a white skin. You have seen Miss 
 Osborne ? She is my model for a truly feminine com- 
 plexion, and she is very fair.' 
 
 ' Is she fairer than me ?' 
 
 Tom made no reply. ' Upon my honour, ladies,' 
 said he, giving a glance over his own person, ' I am 
 highly indebted to your condescension for admitting 
 
The Watsons. 357 
 
 me in such dishabille into your drawing-room. I 
 really did not consider how unfit I was to be here, or 
 I hope I should have kept my distance. Lady Os- 
 borne would tell me that I was growing as careless as 
 her son if she saw me in this condition.' 
 
 The ladies were not wanting in civil returns, and 
 Robert Watson, stealing a view of his own head in an 
 opposite glass, said with equal civility — 
 
 'You cannot be more in dishabille than myself. 
 We got here so late that I had not time even to put 
 a little fresh powder into my hair.' 
 
 Emma could not help entering into what she sup- 
 posed her sister-in-law's feelings at the moment 
 
 When the tea-things were removed, Tom began to 
 talk of his carriage ; but the old card-table being set 
 out, and the fish and counters, with a tolerably clean 
 pack brought forward from the buffet by Miss Watson, 
 the general voice was so urgent with him to join their 
 party that he agreed to allow himself another quarter 
 of an hour. Even Emma was pleased that he would 
 stay, for she was beginning to feel that a family party 
 might be the worst of all parties ; and the others were 
 delighted. 
 
 ' What's your game ?' cried he, as they stood round 
 the table. 
 
 ' Speculation, I believe,' said Elizabeth ' My sister 
 recommends it, and I fancy we all like it I know 
 you do, Tom.' 
 
 ' It is the only round game played at Croydon now,' 
 said Mrs. Robert ; ' we never think of any other. I 
 am glad it is a favourite with you.' 
 
3SS The Watsons. 
 
 'Oh! me] said Tom. 'Whatever you decide on 
 will be a favourite with me. I have had some pleasant 
 hours at speculation in my time; but I have not been 
 in the way of it for a long while. Vingt-un is the 
 game at Osborne Castle. I have played nothing but 
 vingt-un of late. You would be astonished to hear 
 the noise we make there — the fine old lofty drawing- 
 room rings again. Lady Osborne sometimes declares 
 she cannot hear herself speak. Lord Osborne enjoys it 
 famously, and he makes the best dealer without excep- 
 tion that I ever beheld — such quickness and spirit, he 
 lets nobody dream over their cards. I wish you could 
 see him over-draw himself on both his own cards. It 
 is worth anything in the world ! ' 
 
 'Dear me!' cried Margaret, 'why should not we 
 play vingt-un ? I think it is a much better game 
 than speculation. I cannot say I am very fond of 
 speculation.' 
 
 Mrs. Robert offered not another word in support of 
 the game. She was quite vanquished, and the 
 fashions of Osborne Castle carried it over the fashions 
 of Croydon. 
 
 ' Do you see much of the parsonage family at the 
 castle, Mr. Musgrave ?' said Emma, as they were 
 taking their seats. 
 
 ' Oh ! yes ; they are almost always there. Mrs. 
 Blake is a nice little goodhumoured woman ; she and 
 I are sworn friends ; and Howard's a very gentleman- 
 like good sort of fellow. You are not forgotten, I 
 assure you, by any of the party. I fancy you must 
 have a little cheek-glowing now and then, Miss 
 
The Watsons. 359 
 
 Emma. Were not you rather warm last Saturday 
 about nine or ten o'clock in the evening ? I will tell 
 you how it was — I see you are dying to know. Says 
 Howard to Lord Osborne ' 
 
 At this interesting moment he was called on by 
 the others to regulate the game, and determine some 
 disputable point ; and his attention was so totally 
 engaged in the business, and afterwards by the course 
 of the game, as never to revert to what he had been 
 saying before; and Emma, though suffering a good 
 deal from curiosity, dared not remind him. 
 
 He proved a very useful addition at their table. 
 Without him it would have been a party of such 
 very near relations as could have felt little interest, 
 and perhaps maintained little complaisance, but his 
 presence gave variety and secured good manners. He 
 was, in fact, excellently qualified to shine at a round 
 game, and few situations made him appear to greater 
 advantage. He played with spirit, and had a great 
 deal to say ; and though no wit himself, could some- 
 times make use of the wit of an absent friend, and 
 had a lively way of retailing a common-place, or say- 
 ing a mere nothing, that had great effect at a card- 
 table. The ways and good jokes of Osborne Castle 
 were now added to his ordinary means of entertain- 
 ment He repeated the smart sayings of one lady, 
 detailed the oversights of another, and indulged them 
 even with a copy of Lord Osborne's overdrawing him- 
 self on both cards. 
 
 The clock struck nine while he was thus agreeably 
 occupied ; and when Nanny came in with her master's 
 
360 TJie Watsons. 
 
 basin of gruel, he had the pleasure of observing to 
 Mr. Watson that he should leave him at supper while 
 he went home to dinner himself. The carriage was 
 ordered to the door, and no entreaties for his staying 
 longer could now avail ; for he well knew that if he 
 stayed he would have to sit down to supper in less 
 than ten minutes, which to a man whose heart had 
 been long fixed on calling his next meal a dinner, 
 was quite insupportable. On finding him determined 
 to go, Margaret began to wink and nod at Elizabeth 
 to ask him to dinner for the following day, and Eliza- 
 beth at last, not able to resist hints which her own 
 hospitable social temper more than half seconded, 
 gave the invitation — 'Would he give Robert the 
 meeting, they should be very happy ?' 
 
 ' With the greatest pleasure,' was his first reply. In 
 a moment afterwards, ' That is, if I can possibly get 
 here in time ; but I shoot with Lord Osborne, and 
 therefore must not engage. You will not think of me 
 unless you see me.' And so he departed, delighted 
 in the uncertainty in which he had left it. 
 
 Margaret, in the joy of her heart, under circum- 
 stances which she chose to consider as peculiarly pro- 
 pitious, would willingly have made a confidante of 
 Emma when they were alone for a short time the 
 next morning, and had proceeded so far as to say, 
 ' The young man who was here last night, my dear 
 Emma, and returns to-day, is more interesting to me 
 than perhaps you may be aware ; ' but Emma, pre- 
 tending to understand nothing extraordinary in the 
 
The Watsons. 361 
 
 words, made some very inapplicable reply, and jump- 
 ing up, ran away from a subject which was odious to 
 her. As Margaret would not allow a doubt to be 
 repeated of Musgrave's coming to dinner, preparations 
 were made for his entertainment much exceeding 
 what had been deemed necessary the day before ; 
 and taking the office of superintendence entirely from 
 her sister, she was half the morning in the kitchen 
 herself, directing and scolding. 
 
 After a great deal of indifferent cooking and anxious 
 suspense, however, they were obliged to sit down 
 without their guest. Tom Musgrave never came ; 
 and Margaret was at no pains to conceal her vexation 
 under the disappointment, or repress the peevishness 
 of her temper. The peace of the party for the re- 
 mainder of that day and the whole of the next, which 
 comprised the length of Robert and Jane's visit, was 
 continually invaded by her fretful displeasure and 
 querulous attacks. Elizabeth was the usual object of 
 both. Margaret had just respect enough for her 
 brother's and sister's opinion to behave properly by 
 them, but Elizabeth and the maids could never do 
 right ; and Emma, whom she seemed no longer to 
 think about, found the continuance of the gentle voice 
 beyond calculation short. Eager to be as little among 
 them as possible, Emma was delighted with the alter- 
 native of sitting above with her father, and warmly 
 entreated to be his constant companion each evening ; 
 and as Elizabeth loved company of any kind too 
 well not to prefer being below at all risks ; as she had 
 rather talk of Croydon with Jane, with every inter- 
 
362 The Watsons. 
 
 ruption of Margaret's perverseness, than sit with only 
 her father, who frequently could not endure talking 
 at all, the affair was so settled, as soon as she could 
 be persuaded to believe it no sacrifice on her sister's 
 part. To Emma the change was most acceptable and 
 delightful Her father, if ill, required little more than 
 gentleness and silence, and being a man of sense and 
 education, was, if able to converse, a welcome com- 
 panion. In his chamber Emma was at peace from 
 the dreadful mortifications of unequal society and 
 family discord; from the immediate endurance of 
 hard-hearted prosperity, low-minded conceit, and 
 wrong-headed folly, engrafted on an untoward dis- 
 position. She still suffered from them in the contem- 
 plation of their existence, in memory and in prospect, 
 but for the moment she ceased to be tortured by their 
 effects. She was at leisure ; she could read and think, 
 though her situation was hardly such as to make re- 
 flection very soothing. The evils arising from the loss 
 of her uncle were neither trifling nor likely to lessen ; 
 and when thought had been freely indulged in con- 
 trasting the past and the present, the employment of 
 mind and dissipation of unpleasant ideas, which only 
 reading could produce, made her thankfully turn to a 
 book. 
 
 The change in her home society and style of life, 
 in consequence of the death of one friend and the 
 imprudence of another, had indeed been striking. 
 From being the first object of hope and solicitude to 
 an uncle who had formed her mind with the care of a 
 parent, and of tenderness to an aunt whose amiable 
 
The Watsons. 363 
 
 temper had delighted to give her every indulgence ; 
 from being the life and spirit of a house where all 
 had been comfort and elegance, and the expected 
 heiress of an easy independence, she was become of 
 importance to no one — a burden on those whose affec- 
 tions she could not expect, an addition in a house 
 already overstocked, surrounded by inferior minds, 
 with little chance of domestic comfort, and as little 
 hope of future support. It was well for her that she 
 was naturally cheerful, for the change had been such 
 as might have plunged weak spirits in despondence. 
 
 She was very much pressed by Robert and Jane to 
 return with them to Croydon, and had some difficulty 
 in getting a refusal accepted, as they thought too 
 highly of their own kindness and situation to suppose 
 the offer could appear in less advantageous light to 
 anybody else. Elizabeth gave them her interest, 
 though evidently against her own, in privately urging 
 Emma to go. 
 
 ' You do not know what you refuse, Emma,' said 
 she, ' nor what you have to bear at home. I would 
 advise you by all means to accept the invitation; 
 there is always something lively going on at Croydon. 
 You will be in company almost every day, and Robert 
 and Jane will be very kind to you. As for me, I 
 shall be no worse off without you than I have been 
 used to be; but poor Margaret's disagreeable ways 
 are new to you, and they would vex you more than 
 you think for, if you stay at home.' 
 
 Emma .vas of course uninfluenced, except to greater 
 
364 The Watsons. 
 
 esteem for Elizabeth, by such representations, and the 
 visitors departed without her. 
 
 When the author's sister, Cassandra, showed the 
 manuscript of this work to some of her nieces, she 
 also told them something of the intended story ; for 
 with this dear sister — though, I believe, with no one 
 else — Jane seems to have talked freely of any work 
 that she might have in hand. Mr. Watson was soon 
 to die ; and Emma to become dependent for a home 
 on her narrow-minded sister-in-law and brother. She 
 was to decline an offer of marriage from Lord Osborne, 
 and much of the interest of the tale was to arise from 
 Lady Osborne's love for Mr. Howard, and his counter 
 affection for Emma, whom he was finally to marry. 
 
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