Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889)/Chapter 5
Chawton Cottage has long been pulled down, and as no picture of it exists we can only gather from the description that it was a fair-sized house, with a frontage near the road, but so skilfully arranged by Edward Austen that its sitting-rooms looked only upon the garden. He had planted trees and shrubs so as completely to screen the enclosure from the road (which was the highway to Winchester), and had thrown together two or three small fields to make a pleasant rambling unconventional garden, large enough for a very fair amount of ladies, exercise in those days when ladies took only moderate walks, and when Elizabeth Bennet was sneered at for walking six miles across country. The house was large enough to receive several visitors at a time, even when the home party were all there, and there was much coming and going of the brothers and their families, for the Austens were greatly attached to one another, and took pleasure in meeting as often as possible, while all the nephews and nieces regarded a visit to "Aunt Jane" as a delightful privilege. Being the youngest of her family, some of her brothers' children were not far from her owm age, and she always delighted in their companionship. One of them discovered in later years that he must constantly have interrupted her in the midst of her writing by his visits to Chawton Cottage, but she had never allowed him to find it out at the time, either by open mention or by repressed annoyance. Another wrote after her deaths, "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 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 moment, and was continued for two or three days if occasion served." Thus, beloved by both her own generation and the next, Jane's life at Chawton was a thoroughly peaceful and cheerful one; but much as she treasured the home life, it could not satisfy her so entirely as to make her forget that literary life, which was as a second nature to her.
In the summer of 1811, two years after her move to Chawton Cottage, Sense and Sensibility was published by Egerton, and Jane Austen, at the age of thirty-six, was fairly launched on that career of authorship which was to prove so short, yet so much more brilliant ultimately than her best friends and warmest admirers then expected. Her own expectations were so humble—probably from her two previous disappointments—that it has been said she saved something out of her income to meet any possible loss in the publication, a precaution which, it is needless to say, was quite uncalled for. She made one hundred and fifty pounds by it, and, on receiving the money, remarked that it was a great deal to earn for so little trouble!
Sense and Sensibility was originally called Elinor and Marianne, but it might as appropriately have been named The Dashwood Family, for it is really the history of one family, of whom two sister's are nominally the chief characters, but by no means the most interesting; and the other personages of the story, as was so usual with Jane Austen, only revolve round the centre characters. The John Dashwoods are unquestionably the most prominent, though not the most attractive, members of the family, and from the first conversation early in the book between John Dashwood and his wife, we feel that we know them thoroughly, and can safely predict their future conduct all through. John Dashwood is the only child of his father's first marriage; he inherits a good fortune from his mother, and has acquired another with his wife, besides which his only child has had a large one unexpectedly left to him by a relation. He has a stepmother and three half-sisters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret Dashwood, who, on the premature death of the father, are left very scantily provided for. On his death-bed, Mr. Dashwood earnestly entreats John Dashwood to do something for them, which the latter readily promises, all the more as the fortune which has come to his child had always been destined for the second family. The John Dashwoods take possession of the house and estate as soon as the funeral is over, and the elder Mrs. Dashwood perceives that she and her daughters must soon find themselves a home elsewhere. Meanwhile John Dashwood debates, first with himself, then with his wife, as to what he is bound to do for them.
"When he gave his promise to his father he meditated within himself to increase the fortunes of his sisters by the present of a thousand pounds apiece. He then really thought himself equal to it. The prospect of four thousand a year in addition to his present income, besides the remaining half of his own mother's fortune, warmed his heart, and made him feel capable of generosity.
"Yes, he would give them three thousand pounds: it would be liberal and handsome! It would be enough to make them completely easy. Three thousand pounds! he could spare so considerable a sum with little inconvenience."
He thought of it all day long and for many days successively, and he did not repent . . .
Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again upon the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum? It was very well known that no affection was ever known to exist between the children of any man by different marriages, and why was he to ruin himself and their poor little Harry by giving away all his money to his half-sisters?
"'It was my father's last request to me,' replied her husband, 'that I should assist his widow and daughters.'"
"'He did not know what he was talking of, I daresay; ten to one but he was light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune from your own child.'
"'He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only requested me, in general terms, to assist them and make their situation more comfortable than it was in his power to do. Perhaps it would have been as well if he had left it wholly to myself. He could hardly suppose I should neglect them. But as he required the promise I could not do less than give it: at least, I thought so at the time. The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed. Something must be done for them whenever they leave Norland and settle in a new home.'
"'Well then, let something be done for them; but that something need not be three thousand pounds. Consider,' she added, 'that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever. If, indeed, it could ever be restored to our poor little boy'
"'Why, to be sure,' said her husband very gravely, 'that would make a great difference. The time may come when Harry will regret that so large a sum was parted with. If he should have a numerous family, for instance, it would be a very convenient addition.'
"'To be sure it would.'
"'Perhaps, then, it would be better for all parties if the sum were diminished one half. Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious increase to their fortunes.'
"'Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half so much for his sisters, even if really his sisters! And as it is—only half blood! But you have such a generous spirit.'
"'I would not wish to do anything mean,' he replied. 'One had rather on such occasions do too much than too little. No one at least can think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can hardly expect more.'
"'There is no knowing what they may expect,' said the lady, 'but we are not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can afford to do.'
"'Certainly; and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds apiece. As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each have above three thousand pounds on their mother's death—a very comfortable fortune for any young woman.'
"'To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no addition at all. They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst them. If they marry, they will be sure of doing well; and if they do not, they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten thousand pounds.'
"'That is very true, and therefore I do not know whether, upon the whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother while she lives rather than for them—something of the annuity kind, I mean. My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself. A hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable.'
"His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this plan.
"'To be sure,' said she, 'it is better than parting with fifteen hundred pounds at once. But then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years we shall be completely taken in . . . people always live for ever when there is any annuity to be paid them, and she is very stout and healthy and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You are not aware of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the trouble of annuities, for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to old superannuated servants by my father's will, and it is amazing how disagreeable she found it. . . . My mother was quite sick of it. Her income was not her own, she said, with such perpetual claims upon it; and it was the more unkind in my father, because, otherwise, the money would have been entirely at my mother's disposal, without any restriction whatever. It has given me such an abhorrence of annuities, that I am sure I would not pin myself down to the payment of one for all the world.'
"'It is certainly an unpleasant thing,' replied Mr. Dashwood, 'to have those kind of yearly drains on one's income. One's fortune, as your mother justly says, is not one's own. To be tied down to the regular payment of such a sum on every rent-day is by no means desirable: it takes away one's independence.'
"'Undoubtedly; and, after all, you have no thanks for it. They think themselves secure; you do no more than what is expected, and it raises no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at my own discretion entirely. I would not bind myself to allow them anything yearly. It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a hundred, or even fifty pounds from our own expenses.'
"'I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should be no annuity in the case. Whatever I may give them occasionally will be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger income, and would not be sixpence the better for it at the end of the year. It will certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty pounds now and then will prevent their ever being distressed for money, and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father.'
"'To be sure it will. Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at all. The assistance he thought of, I daresay, was only such as might be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things, and sending them presents of fish and game and so forth whenever they are in season. I'll lay my life that he meant nothing further; indeed, it would be very strange and unreasonable if he did. Do but consider, my dear Mr. Dashwood, how excessively comfortable your mother-in-law and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds, besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which brings them in fifty pounds a year apiece, and of course they will pay their mother for their board out of it. Altogether they will have five hundred a year amongst them, and what on earth can four women want for more than that? They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will be nothing at all. They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be! Five hundred a year! I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giving them money, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able to give you something.'"
Perhaps Mrs. John Dashwood's bitterness against her husband's family is sharpened by perceiving the very evident attachment of her eldest brother Edward Ferrars for Elinor Dashwood, an attachment which both she and her mother find insupportable, as they are bent on his making a brilliant marriage which shall raise him to eminence. The elder Mrs. Dashwood, on the other hand, is delighted at the prospect, for, while cordially disliking her daughter-in-law, she has a great esteem and affection for Edward Ferrars; and warm-hearted, romantic, and imprudent, she looks to nothing but the future happiness of the young people. Her second daughter, Marianne, is the exact copy of her mother in disposition; both regard all prudence or circumspection as worldly wisdom of the worst type, and while they respect Elinor for her calm judgment and steady good sense, they have no wish whatever to imitate her.
I think the title of the book is misleading to modern ears. Sensibility in Jane Austen's day meant warm, quick feeling, not exaggerated or over-keen, as it really does now; and the object of the book, in my belief, is not to contrast the sensibility of Marianne with the sense of Elinor, but to show how with equally warm tender feelings the one sister could control her sensibility by means of her sense when the other would not attempt it. These qualities come still more prominently forward when Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters have found a home at Barton Cottage, on the estate of a cousin, Sir John Middleton. He is a good-humoured sportsman, his wife a vapid fine lady, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, a vulgar old woman. He is very fond of society, and the kind of society he gathers round him may be easily guessed.
Marianne, who is refined and cultivated, despises them all intensely, and is barely civil to the Middletons and their friends; Elinor, to whom their ways are equally distasteful, nevertheless recognises the kindly intentions of their landlord, and responds to them as far as possible. There is one individual at Barton Park whom she finds agreeable—Colonel Brandon, a friend of Sir John, who is a sensible, cultivated man of about five and thirty, and she is the more interested in him as he is from the first visibly falling in love with Marianne; but that young lady considers his age as an insuperable barrier to any ideas of marriage. "Thirty-five has nothing to do with matrimony," she declares contemptuously.
"'Perhaps,' said Elinor, 'thirty-five and seventeen had better not have anything to do with matrimony together; but if there should by any chance happen to be a woman who is single at seven and twenty, I should not think Colonel Brandon's being thirty-five any objection to his marrying her.'
"'A woman of seven and twenty,' said Marianne after pausing a moment, 'can never hope to feel or inspire affection again; and if her home be uncomfortable or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring herself to submit to the offices of a nurse for the sake of the provision and security of a wife. In his marrying such a woman, therefore, there would be nothing unsuitable. It would be a compact of convenience, and the world would be satisfied. In my eyes it would be no marriage at all, but that would be nothing. To me it would seem only a commercial exchange, in which each wished to be benefited at the expense of the other.'"
It is obvious that a young lady of seventeen with these views will make a great goose of herself some day, and the occasion is not far off. A new character appears at Barton Park, one John Willoughby, who is young, handsome, and well-born. He is evidently much attracted by Marianne's beauty and animation, and as she finds in him a congenial spirit, holding all her views, and agreeing with all her sentiments, she is soon as thoroughly in love with him as he appears to be with her. Elinor cannot wonder at their attachment, but she does wish they would make it a little less conspicuous. "When he was present she had no eyes for anyone else. Everything he did was right. Everything he said was clever. If their evenings at the Park were concluded with cards, he cheated himself and all the rest of the party to get her a good hand. If dancing formed the amusement of the night, they were partners for half the time; and when obliged to separate for a couple of dances, were careful to stand together, and scarcely spoke a word to anyone else. Such conduct made them, of course, most exceedingly laughed at; but ridicule could not shame, and seemed hardly to provoke them."
This blissful condition of "spooning," to which Elinor objects, and which Mrs. Dashwood thinks quite natural, comes to an end through Willoughby being called to London by a wealthy relation, whose orders he must obey. He departs with every appearance of affliction, but gives no pledge as to his return; and Marianne, though absolutely certain of his constancy, abandons herself to an ecstasy of grief and despair at his absence, which nothing can moderate. Elinor has troubles of her own quite as severe as her sister's. She has always felt that there was some unacknowledged obstacle between Edward Ferrars and herself, and has believed it to be the opposition of his mother, on whom he is entirely dependent, as he has never been allowed to have a profession. Now, however, two Miss Steeles, cousins of Sir John Middleton, appear at Barton Park, and Elinor learns for the first time, quite unexpectedly, what it is that lies between Edward and herself. He is engaged to Lucy Steele, an engagement formed in a moment of boyish folly when he was only nineteen and living with her uncle, his tutor; but the young lady, who has a keen eye to her own interests, is quite determined not to release him, and he cannot in honour draw back. Lucy has heard enough of Elinor to be jealous and suspicious; her engagement is a profound secret at present, but she confides it to Elinor under a pledge of secrecy, hoping thereby to make her thoroughly wretched. In this amiable intention she only half succeeds. Elinor knows Edward too well to believe that he really cares for a girl of Lucy's type; but she does feel that he is separated from her, probably for ever, and, being obliged to keep this knowledge a secret from her mother and sisters, and being at the same time very anxious to betray nothing that should give Lucy any triumph over her, her position is a very bard one. All this time nothing is heard of Willoughby, and, Marianne becomes increasingly wretched. Mrs. Jennings is going to her London house for the winter, and as she is fond of young people, and has married both her own daughters, she urges the Miss Dashwoods to accompany her. Elinor at first refuses the invitation.
"Mrs. Jennings received the refusal with some surprise, and repeated her invitation immediately. 'Oh, Lord! I am sure your mother can spare you very well, and I do beg you will favour me with your company, for I've quite set my heart upon it. Don't fancy that you will be any inconvenience to me, for I shan't put myself at all out of my way for you. It will only be sending Betty by the coach, and I hope I can afford that. We three shall be able to go very well in my chaise; and when we are in town, if you do not like to go wherever I do, well and good, you may always go with one of my daughters. I am sure your mother will not object to it; for I have had such good luck in getting my own children off my hands, that she will think me a very fit person to have the charge of you; and if I don't get one of you, at least, well married before I have done with you, it shall not be my fault. I shall speak a good word for you to all the young men, you may depend upon it . . . I am sure I shall be monstrous glad of Miss Marianne's company, whether Miss Dashwood will go or not; only the more the merrier, say I, and I thought it would be more comfortable for them to be together, because, if they got tired of me, they might talk to one another, and laugh at all my odd ways behind my back; but one or the other, if not both of them, I must have.'"
At any other time an invitation like this would have disgusted Marianne Dashwood beyond power of expression; now, in her eagerness to learn something about Willoughby, she is wild to go; and Elinor makes up her mind to endure the visit for her sake, well aware that poor Mrs. Jennings will get very little society out of her companion if Marianne go with her alone.
In London the plot thickens, and all the love affairs come to a crisis. Marianne, after sending Willoughby letter after letter, which remain unanswered, meets him at length, only to learn that he is on the eve of marriage to a young lady of large property, and, as her grief and misery are past all restraint, Elinor now ascertains what she had sometimes feared, but thought impossible, that Willoughby had never definitely spoken of love to Marianne, and that the romantically imprudent girl, pursuing her theory of complete confidence in anyone she loved, had given the most outspoken marks of devotion to a man who had never told her he cared for her. The truth must now be known to all their friends, who are by this time gathered in London, and Elinor's chief anxiety is to keep all the comments from reaching her sister.
Lady Middleton expressed her sense of the affair about once every day, or twice, if the subject occurred very often, by saying, "It is very shocking indeed!" and, by means of this continual, though gentle vent, was able, not only to see the Miss Dashwoods from the first without the smallest emotion, but very soon to see them without recollecting a word of the matter; and having thus supported the dignity of her own sex, and spoken her decided censure of what was wrong in the other, she thought herself at liberty to attend to the interest of her own assemblies, and therefore determined, though rather against the opinion of Sir John, as Mrs. Willoughby would at once be a woman of elegance and fortune, to leave her card with her as soon as she married.
"Sir John could not have thought it possible, a man of whom he had always had such reason to think well! such a good-natured fellow! he did not believe there was a bolder rider in England. It was an unaccountable business. He wished him at the devil, with all his heart. He would not speak another word to him, meet him where he might, for all the world; no, not if it were to be by the side of Barton Covert, and they were kept waiting for two hours together. Such a scoundrel of a fellow! such a deceitful dog!" Mrs. Jennings, who, like everyone else that saw them together, had believed Marianne and Willoughby to be formally though secretly engaged, is equally furious with him, and full of pity for her, but can soon console herself with prophecies of better things in store for Marianne. "'Well, my dear, 'tis a true saying about an ill wind, for it will be all the better for Colonel Brandon. I hope he will come to-night. It will be all to one a better match for your sister. Two thousand a year without debt or drawback. . . . Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you; exactly what I call a nice old-fashioned place, full of comforts and conveniences, quite shut in with great garden-walls that are covered with the best fruit-trees in the country, and such a mulberry-tree in the corner. . . . Then there is a dove-cote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a very pretty canal, and everything, in short, that one could wish for; and, moreover, it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike road, so 'tis never dull, for if you only go and sit up in an old yew arbour behind the house you may see all the carriages that pass along. Oh, 'tis a nice place!'" In spite of all these attractions Elinor is not hopeful of inducing Marianne to bestow her thoughts upon Colonel Brandon, who, on his part, is deeply grieved at the blow to Marianne, and, putting his own feelings completely aside, is only anxious to be of as much use to both the sisters as he can.
A decidedly dull and almost unnecessary part of the book comes in here, where Colonel Brandon thinks himself bound to give Elinor, at full length, an episode in Willoughby's past life, which, he hopes, may some day show Marianne more plainly how unworthy he was of her. The story is disagreeable; it is difficult to believe that a man like Colonel Brandon would have told it in all its details to a girl of nineteen, and it is obvious that it would do Marianne no good to know it, as Elinor discovers when, with curious want of judgment, she forces it upon her; in short, it is a little piece of sententiousness which betrays the youth of the writer. Poor Elinor's own affairs are sufficiently agitating at this time. The Miss Steeles have come up to London, and Lucy Steele, who is becoming very anxious to secure Edward, worms herself with great address into the good graces of his mother and sister, till she and her sister are invited to stay with Mrs. John Dashwood in London. Edward himself is in town and intensely wretched under Lucy's jealous eyes, while Elinor, in addition to her own distress, is placed in perpetual difficulties by Marianne, who, of course, knows nothing of Edward's unhappy position, and promotes tête-à-tête between him and Elinor so openly as to enrage Lucy almost beyond self-control. At last the storm bursts; the indiscretion of the elder Miss Steele reveals her sister's engagement, and the fury of Mrs. Ferrars and Mrs. Dashwood knows no bounds. John Dashwood immediately calls upon his sisters to give them all particulars and some news of his wife.
"'You have heard, I suppose,' said he with great solemnity, as soon as he was seated, 'of the very shocking discovery that took place under our roof yesterday.'
"They all looked their assent; it seemed too awful a moment for speech.
"'Your sister,' he continued, 'has suffered dreadfully; Mrs. Ferrars, too—in short, it has been a scene of such complicated distress—but I will hope that the storm may be weathered without our being any of us quite overcome. Poor Fanny! she was in hysterics all yesterday. But I would not alarm you too much. Donovan says there is nothing materially to be apprehended; her constitution is a good one, and her resolution equal to anything. She has borne it all with the fortitude of an angel! She says she never shall think well of anybody again; and one cannot wonder at it, after being so deceived—meeting with such ingratitude where so much kindness had been shown, so much confidence had been placed! It was quite out of the benevolence of her heart that she had asked these young women to her house, merely because she thought they deserved some attention, were harmless well-behaved girls, and would be pleasant companions; for, otherwise, we both wished very much to have invited you and Marianne to be with us, while your kind friend there was attending her daughter. And now to be so rewarded! "I wish with all my heart," says poor Fanny in her affectionate way, "that we had asked your sisters instead of them."'
"Here he stopped to be thanked, which being done, he went on:
"'What poor Mrs. Ferrars suffered when Fanny first broke it to her is not to be described. While she, with the truest affection, had been planning a most eligible connection for him, was it to be supposed that he could be all the time secretly engaged to another person? Such a suspicion could never have entered her head . . . "There, to be sure," said she, "I might have thought myself safe." She was quite in an agony. We consulted together, however, as to what should be done; and at last she determined to send for Edward. He came . . . his mother explained to him her liberal designs in case of his marrying Miss Morton, told him she would settle on him the Norfolk estate, which, clear of land-tax, brings in a good thousand a year, offered even, when matters grew desperate, to make it twelve hundred, and, in opposition to this, if he still persisted in this low connection, represented to him the certain penury that must attend the match. His own two thousand pounds, she protested, should be his all; she would never see him again, and so far would she be from affording him the smallest assistance that, if he were to enter into any profession with a view of better support, she would do all in her power to prevent his advancing in it.'
"Here Marianne, in an ecstasy of indignation, clapped her hands together, and cried, 'Gracious God! can this be possible?'
"'Well may you wonder, Marianne,' replied her brother, 'at the obstinacy which could resist such arguments as these. Your exclamation is very natural.'
"Marianne was going to retort, but she remembered her promises, and forbore. . . .
"'Well, Sir,' said Mrs. Jennings, 'and how did it end?'
"'I am sorry to say, Ma'am, in a most unhappy rupture. Edward is dismissed for ever from his mother's notice. He left her house yesterday; but where he is gone, or whether he is still in town, I do not know, for we, of course, can make no inquiry. . . . And there is one thing more preparing against him, which must be worse than all—his mother has determined, with a very natural kind of spirit, to settle that estate upon Robert immediately, which might have been Edward's on proper conditions. I left her this morning with her lawyer, talking over the business.'
"'Well,' said Mrs. Jennings, 'that is her revenge. Everybody has a way of their own. But I don't think mine would be to make one son independent because another had plagued me.'
"Marianne got up, and walked about the room.
"'Can anything be more galling to the spirit of a man,' continued John, 'than to see his younger brother in possession of an estate which might have been his own? Poor Edward! I feel for him sincerely.'
"A few minutes more, spent in the same kind of effusion concluded his visit, and, with repeated assurances to his sisters that he really believed there was no material danger in Fanny's indisposition, and that they need not, therefore, be very uneasy about it, he went away, leaving the three ladies unanimous in their sentiments on the present occasion, as far, at least, as it regarded Mrs. Ferrars's conduct, the Dashwoods' and Edward's. Marianne's indignation burst forth as soon as he quitted the room, and, as her vehemence made reserve impossible in Elinor, and unnecessary in Mrs, Jennings, they all joined in a very spirited critique upon the party."
Marianne's unusual self-control before her brother is due to the "promises" mentioned above, which Elinor had extorted from her. She has, of course, been greatly shocked and grieved at the discovery of Edward Ferrars's engagement; still more distressed by finding how long Elinor has had to bear the sorrow of it alone, and though at first, following her favourite theories, she declares that Elinor could never have really cared for Edward, or she could not have borne his desertion so calmly, she is gradually brought to a more reasonable frame of mind by her sister's earnest representations.
"'For four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature, knowing that it would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it was explained to you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least. It was told me—it was, in a manner, forced on me—by the very person herself whose prior engagement ruined all my prospects, and told me, as I thought, with triumph. This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to oppose by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most deeply interested; and it has not been only once—I have had her hopes and exultation to listen to again and again. I have known myself to be divided from Edward for ever . . . nothing has proved him unworthy, nor has anything declared him indifferent to me. I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister and the insolence of his mother, and have suffered the punishment of an attachment without enjoying its advantages. And all this has been going on at a time when, as you too well know, it has not been my only unhappiness. . . . If I had not been bound to silence, perhaps nothing could have kept me entirely—not even what I owed to my dearest friends—from openly showing that I was very unhappy.'"
Marianne's warm heart is completely overcome, and her praiseworthy efforts at self-government are the result.
The sisters are anxious now to leave London, but have to pay a visit on their way home to Mrs. Palmer, Mrs. Jennings' other daughter; and the whole of this visit might, I venture to think, have been omitted with advantage to the story. Marianne is taken ill there; Elinor and Mrs. Jennings remain alone to nurse her, as everyone else is afraid of infection. The illness increases so alarmingly that Mrs. Dashwood is sent for; and then Willoughby, who is already married, hears that Marianne is dying. In an agony of remorse at his late conduct to her, and of misery at his own position, he makes his way to Elinor to palliate as far as possible, his conduct, and to implore Marianne's forgiveness. His wretchedness softens Elinor into granting him a hearing; but, as a matter of fact, she had much better not have done so, nor should such a girl as she was have allowed him to tell her all he does about his past life, and about the woman he has married, even though its object is to soothe Marianne by letting her know how sincerely he had loved her. When Marianne recovers—as, of course, she does; nobody of interest ever dies in Jane Austen's novels—and returns to her own home with her sister, she is comforted by knowing that her love was not bestowed without return, and her high principle makes, her resolve to occupy her mind so thoroughly as to drive out all remembrance of the past. Her energetic schemes for doing this, and improving herself, are told with all Jane Austen's gentle finished satire. "'I know we shall be happy. I know the summer will pass happily away. I mean never to be later in rising than six, and from that time till dinner I shall divide every moment between music and reading. I have formed my plan, and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. Our own library is too well known to me to be resorted to for anything beyond mere amusement; but there are many works well worth reading at the Park, and there are others of more modern production, which I know I can borrow of Colonel Brandon. By reading only six hours a day I shall gain in the course of a twelvemonth a great deal of instruction, which I now feel myself to want.'"
In the same gently satirical tone we are told how Mrs. Dashwood receives the information of Colonel Brandon's attachment for Marianne, when—perhaps rather too soon—he ventures to tell her of it, and to entreat her to countenance and further it. He is well aware that Marianne has never cared for him, but he hopes with time and perseverance to succeed in his suit, and Mrs. Dashwood, who has never, until then, contemplated him as a lover for Marianne, relates to Elinor what has passed.
"'At last we are alone. My Elinor, you do not yet know all my happiness. Colonel Brandon loves Marianne; he has told me so himself.'
"Her daughter, feeling by turns both pleased and pained, surprised and not surprised, was all silent attention.
"'You are never like me, dear Elinor, or I should wonder at your composure now. Had I sat down to wish for any possible good to my family I should have fixed on Colonel Brandon's marrying one of you as the object most desirable, and I believe Marianne will be the most happy with him of the two.'
"Elinor was half inclined to ask her reason for thinking so, because, satisfied that none founded on an impartial consideration of their age, characters, or feelings could be given. . . .
"'His age is only so much beyond hers as to be an advantage, as to make his character and principles fixed, and his disposition, I am well convinced, is exactly the very one to make your sister happy. And his person, his manners, too, are all in his favour. My partiality does not blind me: he certainly is not so handsome as Willoughby, but, at the same time, there is something much more pleasing in his countenance. There was always a something, if you remember, in Willoughby's eyes at times which I did not like.'
"Elinor could not remember it; but her mother, without waiting for her assent, continued:
"'And his manners; the Colonel's manners are not only more pleasing to me than Willoughby's ever were, but they are of a kind I well know to be more solidly attaching to Marianne. Their gentleness, their genuine attention to other people, and their manly unstudied simplicity, is much more accordant with her real disposition than the liveliness, often artificial and often ill-timed, of the other. I am very sure, myself, that had Willoughby turned out as really amiable as he has proved himself the contrary, Marianne would yet never have been so happy with him as she will be with Colonel Brandon.'
"She paused. Her daughter could not quite agree with her; but her dissent was not heard, and, therefore, gave no offence."
It is clear that Colonel Brandon will succeed in time, but Elinor's own affairs are not in so blissful a state. Edward Ferrars, remaining faithful to Lucy, and, having determined upon taking Holy Orders, has been presented by Colonel Brandon to a small living in his gift (a severe blow to Mrs. John Dashwood, whose husband begs that the matter may not be mentioned before her!) and his marriage now appears imminent. But Lucy Steele has no taste for love in a cottage, and seeing Mrs. Ferrars really obdurate against her, and having an opportunity of making acquaintance with Robert Ferrars—the fortunate younger brother for whom Edward has been disinherited—she directs her energies to securing him. As she is pretty and clever, the gentleman weak and a coxcomb, she soon succeeds; a clandestine marriage puts all possible interference out of the question, and, as Mrs. Ferrars is too proud and too obstinate to reinstate her elder son in his proper place, Robert enjoys a comfortable income with the wife on whose account Edward had been turned out of his mother's house. Edward comes to Elinor for her forgiveness which, of course, he obtains and then, as she insists on his being again received by his mother before she will marry him, he reluctantly consents to call on his sister in London and ask her to make up matters between him and Mrs. Ferrars.
"'And if they really do interest themselves,' said Marianne in her new character of candour, 'in bringing about a reconciliation, I shall think that even John and Panny are not entirely without merit.'"
The reconciliation is brought about, and Edward and Elinor start upon their career of happiness together. Marianne gradually wakes up to the discovery that Colonel Brandon loves her, and the still more startling discovery that she can love him. "Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible passion as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting, instead of remaining even for ever with her mother, and finding her only pleasures in retirement and study, . . . she found herself at nineteen submitting to new attachments, entering on new duties, placed in a new home, a wife, the mistress of a family, and the patroness of a village."
There can be little doubt that in Sense and Sensibility we have the first of Jane Austen's revised and finished works, and in several respects it reveals an inexperienced author. The action is too rapid, and there is a want of dexterity in getting the characters out of their difficulties. Mrs. Jennings is too vulgar, and in her, as in several of the minor characters, we see that Jane Austen had not quite shaken off the turn for caricature, which in early youth she had possessed strongly. The disagreeable story of Willoughby's earlier life is unnecessary to the plot, Colonel Brandon is too shadowy to be interesting, and Margaret Dashwood, the third sister, is an absolute nonentity. Nevertheless, there is much in it that is good. The John Dashwoods; Elinor and Marianne, and their mother; the Middletons, and Mrs. Palmer are all excellent, and, remembering it as the work of a girl of twenty-one, its promise for her future success was very great. It can never be put aside by anyone as wholly unworthy of her powers; all that the most severe critic could say is that it is not quite up to the mark of her later, more matured writing, and this is, indeed, a faint condemnation which would be praise for almost any other author.