JANE AUSTEN AND HER COUNTRY-HOUSE COMEDY
Jane Austen
Jane Austen
JANE AUSTEN
AND HER
COUNTRY-HOUSE COMEDY
BY
W. H. HELM
AUTHOR OF "ASPECTS OF BALZAC," ETC.
EVELEIGH NASH
FAWSIDE HOUSE
LONDON
1909
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
TO MY MOTHER
"I concluded, however unaccountable the assertion might appear at first sight, that good-nature was an essential quality in a satirist, and that all the sentiments which are beautiful in this way of writing, must proceed from that quality in the author. Good-nature produces a disdain of all baseness, vice, and folly; which prompts them to express themselves with smartness against the errors of men, without bitterness towards their persons."—STEELE, Tatler, No. 242.
NOTE
The author is much indebted to the Hon. C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, and also to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., for permission to make extracts from the Letters of Jane Austen.
CONTENTS
I
DOMINANT QUALITIES
Jane Austen's abiding freshness—Why she has not more readers—Characteristics of her work—Absence of passion—Balzac, Jane Austen, and Charlotte BrontË—Jane in her home circle—Her tranquil nature—Her unselfishness—Compared with Dorothy Osborne—Prudent heroines—Thoughtless admiration
II
EQUIPMENT AND METHOD
Literary influences—Jane Austen's defence of novelists—The old essayists—Her favourite authors—Some novels of her time—Criticism of her niece's novel—Sense of her own limitations—Her method—Humour—Familiar names—Some characteristics of style—Suggested emendations—A new "problem" of authorship—A "forbidding" writer—"Commonplace" and "superficial"—Thomas Love Peacock—Sapient suggestions
III
CONTACT WITH LIFE
Origins of characters—Matchmaking—Second marriages—Negative qualities of the novels—Close knowledge of one class—Dislike of "lionizing"—Madame de StaËl—The "lower orders"—Tradesmen—Social position—Quality of Jane's letters—Balls and parties
IV
ETHICS AND OPTIMISM
Dr. Whately on Jane Austen—"Moral lessons" of her novels—Charge of "Indelicacy"—Marriage as a profession—A "problem" novel—"The Nostalgia of the Infinite"—The "whitewashing" of Willoughby—Lady Susan condemned by its author—The Watsons—Change in manners—No "heroes"—Woman's love—The Prince Regent—The Quarterly Review
V
THE IMPARTIAL SATIRIST
What has woman done?—"Nature's Salic law"—Women deficient in satire—Some types in the novels—The female snob—The valetudinarian—The fop—The too agreeable man—"Personal size and mental sorrow"—Knightley's opinion of Emma—Ashamed of relations—Mrs. Bennet—The clergy and their opinions—Worldly life—Absence of dogma—Authors confused with their creations
VI
PERSONAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL
The novelist and her characters—Her sense of their reality—Accessories rarely described—Her ideas on dress—Her own millinery and gowns—Thin clothes and consumption—Domestic economy—Jane as housekeeper—"A very clever essay"—Mr. Collins at Longbourn—The gipsies at Highbury—Topography of Jane Austen—Hampshire—Lyme Regis—Godmersham—Bath—London
VII
INFLUENCE IN LITERATURE
Jane Austen's genius ignored—Negative and positive instances—The literary orchard—Jane's influence in English literature
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
INDEX
FRONTISPIECE . . . . . . By Violet Helm.
A LETTER OF JANE AUSTEN'S
