What the law
prescribes
is just to every one.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v02 - Aqu to Bag
, § 10.
)
PAIN
IT
F PAIN cannot be borne, we die. If it continue a long time it
becomes endurable; and the mind, retiring into itself, can
keep its own tranquillity and the true self be still unharmed.
If the body feel the pain, let the body make its moan. (Book
vii. , § 30. )
LOVE AND FORGIVENESS FOR THE EVIL-DOER
I'
F IT be in thy power, teach men to do better. If not, remem-
ber it is always in thy power to forgive. The gods are so
merciful to those who err, that for some purposes they grant
their aid to such men by conferring upon them health, riches, and
honor. What prevents thee from doing likewise? (Book ix. ,
§ 11
## p. 1037 (#463) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1037
-
ETERNAL CHANGE THE LAW OF THE UNIVERSE
TH
HINK, often, of how swiftly all things pass away and are no
more -the works of Nature and the works of man. The
substance of the Universe— matter-is like unto a river
that flows on forever. All things are not only in a constant
state of change, but they are the cause of constant and infinite
change in other things. Upon a narrow ledge thou standest!
Behind thee, the bottomless abyss of the Past! In front of thee,
the Future that will swallow up all things that now are! Over
what things, then, in this present life, wilt thou, O foolish man,
be disquieted or exalted-making thyself wretched; seeing that
they can vex thee only for a time-a brief, brief time! (Book
V. , § 23. )
THE PERFECT LIBERTY OF THE GOOD MAN
PER
ERADVENTURE men may curse thee, torture thee, kill thee; yet
can all these things not prevent thee from keeping at all
times thy thoughts pure, considerate, sober, and just. If
one should stand beside a limpid stream and cease not to revile
it, would the spring stop pouring forth its refreshing waters?
Nay, if such an one should even cast into the stream mud and
mire, would not the stream quickly scatter it, and so bear it away
that not even a trace would remain? How then wilt thou be
able to have within thee not a mere well that may fail thee, but
a fountain that shall never cease to flow? By wonting thyself
every moment to independence in judgment, joined together with
serenity of thought and simplicity in act and bearing. (Book
viii. , § 51. )
THE HARMONY AND UNITY OF THE UNIVERSE
O
DIVINE Spirit of the Universe, Thy will, Thy wish is mine!
Calmly I wait Thy appointed times, which cannot come too
early or too late! Thy providences are all fruitful to me!
Thou art the source, Thou art the stay, Thou art the end of all
things. The poet says of his native city, "Dear city of Cecrops ";
and shall I not say of the Universe, "Beloved City of God"?
(Book iv. , § 23. )
EITHER there is a predestined order in the Universe, or else it
is mere aggregation, fortuitous yet not without a certain kind of
order. For how within thyself can a certain system exist and
yet the entire Universe be chaos? And especially when in the
## p. 1038 (#464) ###########################################
1038
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
Universe all things, though separate and divided, yet work
together in unity? (Book iv. , § 27. )
THINK always of the Universe as one living organism, com-
posed of one material substance and one soul. Observe how all
things are the product of a single conception-the conception of
a living organism. Observe how one force is the cause of the
motion of all things: that all existing things are the concurrent
causes of all that is to be - the eternal warp and woof of the
ever-weaving web of existence. (Book iv. , § 40. )
THE CONDUCT of Life
C
OUNTRY houses, retreats in the mountains or by the sea-
these things men seek out for themselves; and often thou,
too, dost most eagerly desire such things. But this does.
but betoken the greatest ignorance; for thou art able, when thou
desirest, to retreat into thyself. No other where can a man find
a retreat more quiet and free from care than in his own soul;
and most of all, when he hath such rules of conduct that if
faithfully remembered, they will give to him perfect equanimity,
- for equanimity is naught else than a mind harmoniously disci-
plined. Cease not then to betake thyself to this retreat, there
to refresh thyself. Let thy rules of conduct be few and well
settled; so that when thou hast thought thereon, straightway they
will suffice to thoroughly purify the soul that possesses them, and
to send thee back, restless no more, to the things to the which
thou must return. With what indeed art thou disquieted? With
the wickedness of men? Meditate on the thought that men do
not do evil of set purpose. Remember also how many in the
past, who, after living in enmity, suspicion, hatred, and strife one
with another, now lie prone in death and are but ashes. Fret
then no more. But perhaps thou art troubled concerning the por-
tion decreed to thee in the Universe? Remember this alternative:
either there is a Providence or simply matter! Recall all the
proofs that the world is, as it were, a city or a commonwealth!
But perhaps the desires of the body still torment thee? Forget
not, then, that the mind, when conscious of its real self, when
self-reliant, shares not the agitations of the body, be they great
or small. Recall too all thou hast learned (and now holdest as
true) concerning pleasure and pain. But perhaps what men call
Fame allures thee? Behold how quickly all things are forgotten!
-
## p. 1039 (#465) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1039
Before us, after us, the formless Void of endless ages! How
vain is human praise! How fickle and undiscriminating those
who seem to praise! How limited the sphere of the greatest
fame! For the whole earth is but a point in space, thy dwelling-
place a tiny nook therein. How few are those who dwell there-
in, and what manner of men are those who will praise thee!
Therefore, forget not to retire into thine own little country
place,- thyself. Above all, be not diverted from thy course. Be
serene, be free, contemplate all things as a man, as a lover of
his kind, and of his country—yet withal as a being born to die.
Have readiest to thy hand, above all others, these two thoughts:
one, that things cannot touch the soul; the other, that things are
perpetually changing and ceasing to be. Remember how many of
these changes thou thyself hast seen! The Universe is change.
But as thy thoughts are, so thy life shall be. (Book iv. , §3. )
All things that befall thee should seem to thee as natural as
roses in spring or fruits in autumn: such things, I mean, as
disease, death, slander, dissimulation, and all other things which
give pleasure or pain to foolish men. (Book iv. , 44. )
Be thou like a lofty headland. Endlessly against it dash the
waves; yet it stands unshaken, and lulls to rest the fury of the
sea. (Book iv. , $49. )
((
Unhappy me upon whom this misfortune hath fallen! "-
nay, rather thou shouldst say, "Fortunate I, that having met with
such a misfortune, I am able to endure it without complaining; in
the present not dismayed, in the future dreading no evil. Such
a misadventure might have befallen a man who could not, per-
chance, have endured it without grievous suffering. " Why then
shouldst thou call anything that befalls thee a misfortune, and
not the rather a blessing? Is that a "misfortune," in all cases,
which does not defeat the purpose of man's nature? and does
that defeat man's nature which his Will can accept? And what
that Will can accept, thou knowest. Can this misadventure, then,
prevent thy Will from being just, magnanimous, temperate, cir-
cumspect, free from rashness or error, considerate, independent?
## p. 1040 (#466) ###########################################
1040
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
Can it prevent thy Will from being, in short, all that becomes at
man? Remember, then, should anything befall thee which might
cause thee to complain, to fortify thyself with this truth: this
is not a misfortune, while to endure it nobly is a blessing. (Book
iv. , § 49. )
Be not annoyed or dismayed or despondent if thou art not
able to do all things in accord with the rules of right conduct.
When thou hast not succeeded, renew thy efforts, and be serene
if, in most things, thy conduct is such as becomes a man. Love
and pursue the philosophic life. Seek Philosophy, not as thy
taskmaster but to find a medicine for all thy ills, as thou wouldst
seek balm for thine eyes, a bandage for a sprain, a lotion for a
fever. So it shall come to pass that the voice of Reason shall
guide thee and bring to thee rest and peace. Remember, too,
that Philosophy enjoins only such things as are in accord with
thy better nature. The trouble is, that in thy heart thou prefer-
rest those things which are not in accord with thy better nature.
For thou sayest, "What can be more delightful than these things? "
But is not the word "delightful" in this sense misleading?
Are not magnanimity, broad-mindedness, sincerity, equanimity,
and a reverent spirit more "delightful"? Indeed, what is more
"delightful" than Wisdom, if so be thou wilt but reflect upon the
strength and contentment of mind and the happiness of life that
spring from the exercise of the powers of thy reason and thine
intelligence? (Book v. , §9. )
As are thy wonted thoughts, so is thy mind; and the soul is
tinged by the coloring of the mind. Let then thy mind be con-
stantly suffused with such thoughts as these: Where it is pos-
sible for a man to live, there he can live nobly. But suppose
he must live in a palace? Be it so; even there he can live
nobly. (Book v. , § 16. )
Live with the gods! And he so lives who at all times makes
it manifest that he is content with his predestined lot, fulfilling
the entire will of the indwelling spirit given to man by the
Divine Ruler, and which is in truth nothing else than the Under-
standing the Reason of man. (Book v. , § 27. )
## p. 1041 (#467) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1041
Seek the solitude of thy spirit. This is the law of the
indwelling Reason-to be self-content and to abide in peace when
what is right and just hath been done. (Book vii. , § 28. )
Let thine eyes follow the stars in their courses as though
their movements were thine own. Meditate on the eternal trans-
formation of Matter. Such thoughts purge the mind of earthly
passion and desire. (Book vii. , § 45. )
Search thou thy heart! Therein is the fountain of good! Do
thou but dig, and abundantly the stream shall gush forth. (Book
vii. , § 59. )
Be not unmindful of the graces of life. Let thy body be
stalwart, yet not ungainly either in motion or in repose. Let not
thy face alone, but thy whole body, make manifest the alert-
ness of thy mind. Yet let all this be without affectation. (Book
vii. , § 60. )
Thy breath is part of the all-encircling air, and is one with
it. Let thy mind be part, no less, of that Supreme Mind com-
prehending all things. For verily, to him who is willing to be
inspired thereby, the Supreme Mind flows through all things and
permeates all things as truly as the air exists for him who will
but breathe. (Book viii. , § 54-)
Men are created that they may live for each other. Teach
them to be better or bear with them as they are. (Book viii. ,
$ 59. )
Write no more, Antoninus, about what a good man is or what
he ought to do. Be a good man. (Book x. , § 16. )
Look steadfastly at any created thing. See! it is changing,
melting into corruption, and ready to be dissolved. In its essen-
tial nature, it was born but to die. (Book x. , § 18. )
11-66
## p. 1042 (#468) ###########################################
1042
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
Co-workers are we all, toward one result. Some, consciously
and of set purpose; others, unwittingly even as men who sleep,
- of whom Heraclitus (I think it is he) says they also are co-
workers in the events of the Universe. In diverse fashion also
men work; and abundantly, too, work the fault-finders and the
hinderers, for even of such as these the Universe hath need.
It rests then with thee to determine with what workers thou wilt
place thyself; for He who governs all things will without failure
place thee at thy proper task, and will welcome thee to some
station among those who work and act together. (Book vi. , § 42. )
-
Unconstrained and in supreme joyousness of soul thou mayest
live though all men revile thee as they list, and though wild
beasts rend in pieces the unworthy garment-thy body. For
what prevents thee, in the midst of all this, from keeping thyself
in profound calm, with a true judgment of thy surroundings and
a helpful knowledge of the things that are seen? So that the
Judgment may say to whatever presents itself, "In truth this is
what thou really art, howsoever thou appearest to men;" and thy
Knowledge may say to whatsoever may come beneath its vision,
"Thee I sought; for whatever presents itself to me is fit material
for nobility in personal thought and public conduct; in short,
for skill in work for man or for God. " For all things which
befall us are related to God or to man, and are not new to us
or hard to work upon, but familiar and serviceable. (Book vii. ,
§ 68. )
When thou art annoyed at some one's impudence, straight-
way ask thyself, "Is it possible that there should be no impudent
men in the world? " It is impossible. Ask not then the impos-
sible. For such an one is but one of these impudent persons
who needs must be in the world. Keep before thee like con-
clusions also concerning the rascal, the untrustworthy one, and
all evil-doers. Then, when it is quite clear to thy mind that
such men must needs exist, thou shalt be the more forgiving
toward each one of their number. This also will aid thee to
observe, whensoever occasion comes, what power for good, Nature
hath given to man to frustrate such viciousness. She hath be-
stowed upon man Patience as an antidote to the stupid man
and against another man some other power for good. Besides,
## p. 1043 (#469) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1043
it is wholly in thine own power to teach new things to the one
who hath erred, for every one who errs hath but missed the
appointed path and wandered away. Reflect, and thou wilt dis-
cover that no one of these with whom thou art annoyed hath
done aught to debase thy mind, and that is the only real evil that
can befall thee.
Moreover, wherein is it wicked or surprising that the ignor-
ant man should act ignorantly? Is not the error really thine
own in not foreseeing that such an one would do as he did?
If thou hadst but taken thought thou wouldst have known he
would be prone to err, and it is only because thou hast forgot-
ten to use thy Reason that thou art surprised at his deed. Above
all, when thou condemnest another as untruthful, examine thyself
closely; for upon thee rests the blame, in that thou dost trust
to such an one to keep his promise. If thou didst bestow upon
him thy bounty, thine is the blame not to have given it freely,
and without expectation of good to thee, save the doing of the
act itself. What more dost thou wish than to do good to man?
Doth not this suffice,- that thou hast done what conforms to thy
true nature? Must thou then have a reward, as though the
eyes demanded pay for seeing or the feet for walking? For
even as these are formed for such work, and by co-operating
in their distinctive duty come into their own, even so man (by
his real nature disposed to do good), when he hath done some
good deed, or in any other way furthered the Commonweal, acts
according to his own nature, and in so doing hath all that is
truly his own. (Book ix. , §42. )
O Man, thou hast been a citizen of this great State, the Uni-
verse! What matters what thy prescribed time hath been, five
years or three?
What the law prescribes is just to every one.
Why complain, then, if thou art sent away from the State,
not by a tyrant or an unjust judge, but by Nature who led thee.
thither,― even as the manager excuses from the stage an actor
whom he hath employed?
"But I have played three acts only? "
True. But in the drama of thy life three acts conclude the
play. For what its conclusion shall be, He determines who
created it and now ends it; and with either of these thou hast
naught to do. Depart thou, then, well pleased; for He who dis-
misses thee is well pleased also. (Book xii. , § 36. )
## p. 1044 (#470) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1044
BE NOT disquieted lest, in the days to come, some misadvent-
ure befall thee. The Reason which now sufficeth thee will then
be with thee, should there be the need. (Book vii. , § 8. )
TO THE wise man the dictates of Reason seem the instincts
of Nature. (Book vii. , § 11. )
MY TRUE self- the philosophic mind- hath but one dread:
the dread lest I do something unworthy of a man, or that I may
act in an unseemly way or at an improper time. (Book vii. , § 20. )
ACCEPT with joy the Fate that befalls thee. Thine it is and
not another's. What then could be better for thee? (Book vii. ,
$ 57. )
SEE to it that thou art humane to those who are not humane.
(Book vii. , $65. )
HE WHO does not act, often commits as great a wrong as he
who acts. (Book ix. , §5. )
THE wrong that another has done - let alone! Add not to it
thine own. (Book ix. , § 20. )
How powerful is man! He is able to do all that God wishes
him to do. He is able to accept all that God sends upon him.
(Book xii. , 11. )
A LAMP sends forth its light until it is completely extinguished.
Shall Truth and Justice and Equanimity suffer abatement in thee
until all are extinguished in death? (Book xii. , § 15. )
## p. 1045 (#471) ###########################################
1045
JANE AUSTEN
(1775-1817)
HE biography of one of the greatest English novelists might
Sbe written in a dozen lines, so simple, so tranquil, so for-
Gtunate was her life. Jane Austen, the second daughter of
an English clergyman, was born at Steventon, in Hampshire, in 1775.
Her father had been known at Oxford as "the handsome proctor,"
and all his children inherited good looks. He was accomplished
enough to fit his boys for the University, and the atmosphere of the
household was that of culture, good breeding, and healthy fun. Mrs.
Austen was a clever woman, full of epi-
gram and humor in conversation, and rather
famous in her own coterie for improvised
verses and satirical hits at her friends.
The elder daughter, Cassandra, adored by
Jane, who was three years her junior, seems
to have had a rare balance and common-
sense which exercised great influence over
the more brilliant younger sister. Their
mother declared that of the two girls. Cas-
sandra had the merit of having her temper
always under her control; and Jane the
happiness of a temper that never required
to be commanded.
JANE AUSTEN
From her cradle, Jane Austen was used to hearing agreeable
household talk, and the freest personal criticism on the men and
women who made up her small, secluded world. The family circum-
stances were easy, and the family friendliness unlimited,- conditions
determining, perhaps, the cheerful tone, the unexciting course, the
sly fun and good-fellowship of her stories.
It was in this Steventon rectory, in the family room where the
boys might be building their toy boats, or the parish poor folk com-
plaining to "passon's madam," or the county ladies paying visits of
ceremony, in monstrous muffs, heelless slippers laced over open-
worked silk stockings, short flounced skirts, and lutestring pelisses
trimmed with "Irish," or where tradesmen might be explaining their
delinquencies, or farmers' wives growing voluble over foxes and
young chickens-it was in the midst of this busy and noisy publicity,
where nobody respected her employment, and where she was inter-
rupted twenty times in an hour, that the shrewd and smiling social
## p. 1046 (#472) ###########################################
1046
JANE AUSTEN
critic managed, before she was twenty-one, to write her famous
'Pride and Prejudice. ' Here too 'Sense and Sensibility' was finished
in 1797, and 'Northanger Abbey' in 1798. The first of these, submitted
to a London publisher, was declined as unavailable, by return of
post. The second, the gay and mocking 'Northanger Abbey,' was
sold to a Bath bookseller for £10, and several years later bought
back again, still unpublished, by one of Miss Austen's brothers. For
the third story she seems not even to have sought a publisher.
These three books, all written before she was twenty-five, were evi-
dently the employment and delight of her leisure. The serious busi-
ness of life was that which occupied other pretty girls of her time
and her social position,-dressing, dancing, flirting, learning a new
stitch at the embroidery frame, or a new air on "the instrument";
while all the time she was observing, with those soft hazel eyes of
hers, what honest Nym calls the "humors" of the world about her.
In 1801, the family removed to Bath, then the most fashionable
watering-place in England. The gay life of the brilliant little city,
the etiquette of the Pump Room and the Assemblies, regulated by
the autocratic Beau Nash, the drives, the routs, the card parties, the
toilets, the shops, the Parade, the general frivolity, pretension, and
display of the eighteenth century Vanity Fair, had already been
studied by the good-natured satirist on occasional visits, and already
immortalized in the swiftly changing comedy scenes of Northanger
Abbey. ' But they tickled her fancy none the less, now that she
lived among them, and she made use of them again in her later
novel, Persuasion. '
For a period of eight years, spent in Bath and in Southampton,
Miss Austen wrote nothing save some fragments of 'Lady Susan'
and The Watsons,' neither of them of great importance. In 1809
the lessened household, composed of the mother and her two daugh-
ters only, removed to the village of Chawton, on the estate of Mrs.
Austen's third son; and here, in a rustic cottage, now become a place
of pilgrimage, Jane Austen again took up her pen. She rewrote
'Pride and Prejudice,' she revised 'Sense and Sensibility,' and be-
tween February 1811 and August 1816 she completed Mansfield
Park,' 'Emma,' and 'Persuasion. ' At Chawton, as at Steventon, she
had no study, and her stories were written on a little mahogany desk
near a window in the family sitting-room, where she must often have
been interrupted by the prototypes of her Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Bennet,
Miss Bates, Mr. Collins, or Mrs. Norris. When at last she began to
publish, her stories appeared in rapid succession: 'Sense and Sensi-
bility' in 1811; 'Pride and Prejudice' early in 1813; 'Mansfield Park'
in 1814; Emma' in 1816; Northanger Abbey' and 'Persuasion' in
1818, the year following her death. In January 1813 she wrote to her
## p. 1047 (#473) ###########################################
JANE AUSTEN
1047
beloved Cassandra: "I want to tell you that I have got my own
darling child ('Pride and Prejudice') from London. We fairly set at
it and read half the first volume to Miss B. She was amused, poor
soul! . . but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must
confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in
print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her
at least, I do not know. " A month later she wrote:-"Upon the
whole, however, I am quite vain enough, and well satisfied 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 chap-
ter 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 Bonaparte, or something
that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased
delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style! "
Thus she who laughed at everybody else laughed at herself, and
set her critical instinct to estimate her own capacity. To Mr. Clarke,
the librarian of Carlton House, who had requested her to "delineate
a clergyman" of earnestness, enthusiasm, and learning, she replied:
"I am quite honored by your thinking me capable of drawing such
a clergyman as you gave the sketch of in your note. But I assure
you I am not. The comic part of the character I might be equal to,
but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary.
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. " And
when the same remarkable bibliophile suggested to her, on the
approach of the marriage of the Princess Charlotte with Prince
Leopold, that "an historical romance, illustrative of the august House
of Coburg, would just now be very interesting," she answered: - "I
am fully sensible that an historical romance, founded on the House
of Saxe-Coburg, might be much more to the purpose of profit or
popularity than such pictures of domestic life in country villages 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 to
keep it up, and never relax into laughing at myself or at other
people, I am sure that 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 con-
vinced that I shall totally fail in any other. " And again she writes:
"What shall 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 labor? "
-
## p. 1048 (#474) ###########################################
1048
JANE AUSTEN
Miss Austen read very little. She "detested quartos. " Rich-
ardson, Johnson, Crabbe, and Cowper seem to have been the only
authors for whom she had an appreciation. She would sometimes
say, in jest, that "if ever she married at all, she could fancy being
Mrs. Crabbe! " But her bent of original composition, her amazing
power of observation, her inexhaustible sense of humor, her absorb-
ing interest in what she saw about her, were so strong that she
needed no reinforcement of culture. It was no more in her power
than it was in Wordsworth's to "gather a posy of other men's
thoughts. "
During her lifetime she had not a single literary friend. Other
women novelists possessed their sponsors and devotees. Miss Ferrier
was the delight of a brilliant Edinboro' coterie. Miss Edgeworth was
feasted and flattered, not only in England, but on the Continent;
Miss Burney counted Johnson, Burke, Garrick, Windham, Sheridan,
among the admiring friends who assured her that no flight in fiction
or the drama was beyond her powers. But the creator of Elizabeth
Bennet, of Emma, and of Mr. Collins, never met an author of emi-
nence, received no encouragement to write except that of her own
family, heard no literary talk, and obtained in her lifetime but the
slightest literary recognition. It was long after her death that Wal-
ter Scott wrote in his journal:-"Read again, and 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 involvements and
feelings and characters of ordinary life 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
commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the
description and the sentiment is denied to me. " It was still later
that Macaulay made his famous estimate of her genius:- "Shake-
speare has neither equal nor second; but among those who, in the
point we have noticed (the delineation of character), approached
nearest the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane
Austen as a woman of whom England may justly be proud. She has
given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, common-
place, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly
discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of
human beings.
And all this is done by touches so delicate
that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description,
and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which
they have contributed. " And a new generation had almost forgotten
her name before the exacting Lewes wrote:-"To make our meaning
precise, we would say that Fielding and Jane Austen are the greatest
novelists in the English language.
We would rather have
·
## p. 1049 (#475) ###########################################
JANE AUSTEN
1049
written 'Pride and Prejudice,' or 'Tom Jones,' than any of the
Waverley novels.
The greatness of Miss Austen (her marvel-
ous dramatic power) seems more than anything in Scott akin to
Shakespeare. »
way.
The six novels which have made so great a reputation for their
author relate the least sensational of histories in the least sensational
'Sense and Sensibility' might be called a novel with a pur-
pose, that purpose being to portray the dangerous haste with which
sentiment degenerates into sentimentality; and because of its pur-
pose, the story discloses a less excellent art than its fellows. 'Pride
and Prejudice' finds its motive in the crass pride of birth and place
that characterize the really generous and high-minded hero, Darcy,
and the fierce resentment of his claims to love and respect on the
part of the clever, high-tempered, and chivalrous heroine, Elizabeth
Bennet. 'Northanger Abbey' is a laughing skit at the school of
Mrs. Radcliffe; 'Persuasion,' a simple story of upper middle-class
society, of which the most charming of her charming girls, Anne
Elliot, is the heroine; 'Mansfield Park,' a new and fun-loving version
of 'Cinderella'; and finally 'Emma,'- the favorite with most read-
ers, concerning which Miss Austen said, "I am going to take a
heroine whom no one but myself will much like," the history of
the blunders of a bright, kind-hearted, and really clever girl, who
contrives as much discomfort for her friends as stupidity or ill-nature
could devise.
Numberless as are the novelist's characters, no two clergymen,
no two British matrons, no two fussy spinsters, no two men of
fashion, no two heavy fathers, no two smart young ladies, no two
heroines, are alike. And this variety results from the absolute fidel-
ity of each character to the law of its own development, each one
growing from within and not being simply described from without.
Nor are the circumstances which she permits herself to use less genu-
ine than her people. What surrounds them is what one must expect;
what happens to them is seen to be inevitable.
The low and quiet key in which her "situations" are pitched
produces one artistic gain which countervails its own loss of imme-
diate intensity: the least touch of color shows strongly against that
subdued background. A very slight catastrophe among those orderly
scenes of peaceful life has more effect than the noisier incidents
and contrived convulsions of more melodramatic novels. Thus, in
'Mansfield Park' the result of private theatricals, including many
rehearsals of stage love-making, among a group of young people
who show no very strong principles or firmness of character, appears
in a couple of elopements which break up a family, occasion a piti-
able scandal, and spoil the career of an able, generous, and highly
## p. 1050 (#476) ###########################################
1050
JANE AUSTEN
promising young man. To most novelists an incident of this sort
would seem too ineffective: in her hands it strikes us as what in fact
it is a tragic misfortune and the ruin of two lives.
In a word, it is life which Miss Austen sees with unerring vision
and draws with unerring touch; so that above all other writers of
English fiction she seems entitled to the tribute which an Athenian
critic gave to an earlier and more famous realist,—
"O life! O Menander!
Which of you two is the plagiarist ? »
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
From Pride and Prejudice >
THE
HE next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins
made his declaration in form. Having resolved to do it
without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only
to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence
to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set
about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances which
he supposed a regular part of the business. On finding Mrs.
Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together, soon
after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words: -
"May I hope, madam, for your interest with your fair daugh-
ter Elizabeth, when I solicit for the honor of a private audience
with her in the course of this morning? "
Before Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of sur-
prise, Mrs. Bennet instantly answered:-"Oh, dear. Yes; cer-
tainly. I am sure Lizzy will be very happy-I am sure she can
have no objection. Come, Kitty, I want you upstairs. " And,
gathering her work together, she was hastening away, when
Elizabeth called out:-
"Dear ma'am, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Col-
lins must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that
anybody need not hear. I am going away myself. "
"No, no; nonsense, Lizzy.
I desire you will stay where you
are. " And upon Elizabeth's seeming really, with vexed and
embarrassed looks, about to escape, she added, "Lizzy, I insist
upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins. "
Elizabeth would not oppose such an injunction; and a mo-
ment's consideration making her also sensible that it would be
## p. 1051 (#477) ###########################################
JANE AUSTEN
1051
wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat
down again, and tried to conceal by incessant employment the
feelings which were divided between distress and diversion. Mrs.
Bennet and Kitty walked off; and as soon as they were gone,
Mr. Collins began:
"Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so
far from doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other per-
fections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had
there not been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure
you that I have your respected mother's permission for this
address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse,
however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble: my
attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon
as I entered the house I singled you out as the companion of
my future life.
But before I am run away with by my feelings.
on this subject, perhaps it will be advisable for me to state my
reasons for marrying-and moreover, for coming into Hertford-
shire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did. "
The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being
run away with by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing
that she could not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt
to stop him further, and he continued:-
-
――――――
"My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right
thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to
set the example of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am
convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly,
-which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is
the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady
whom I have the honor of calling patroness. Twice has she con-
descended to give me her opinion (unasked, too! ) on this subject;
and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford —
between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arran-
ging Miss de Bourgh's footstool-that she said, 'Mr. Collins, you
must marry. A clergyman like you must marry.
Choose prop-
erly, choose a gentlewoman, for my sake; and for your own, let
her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but
able to make a small income go a good way. This is my advice.
Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford,
and I will visit her! ' Allow me, by the way, to observe, my
fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice and kindness of Lady
Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the advantages in
-
## p. 1052 (#478) ###########################################
1052
JANE AUSTEN
my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond anything
I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be
acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence
and respect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much
for my general intention in favor of matrimony; it remains to be
told why my views are directed to Longbourn instead of my
own neighborhood, where, I assure you, there are many amiable.
young women. But the fact is, that being, as I am, to inherit
this estate after the death of your honored father (who, how-
ever, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy myself
without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters,
that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the
melancholy event takes place, which, however, as I have already
said, may not be for several years. This has been my motive,
my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your
esteem. And now, nothing remains for me but to assure you, in
the most animated language, of the violence of my affection. To
fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of
that nature on your father, since I am well aware that it could
not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds in the four
per cents. , which will not be yours till after your mother's
decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head,
therefore, I shall be uniformly silent; and you may assure your-
self that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when
we are married. ”
It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.
"You are too hasty, sir," she cried. "You forget that I have
made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time.
Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me.
I am
very sensible of the honor of your proposals, but it is impossible
for me to do otherwise than decline them.
PAIN
IT
F PAIN cannot be borne, we die. If it continue a long time it
becomes endurable; and the mind, retiring into itself, can
keep its own tranquillity and the true self be still unharmed.
If the body feel the pain, let the body make its moan. (Book
vii. , § 30. )
LOVE AND FORGIVENESS FOR THE EVIL-DOER
I'
F IT be in thy power, teach men to do better. If not, remem-
ber it is always in thy power to forgive. The gods are so
merciful to those who err, that for some purposes they grant
their aid to such men by conferring upon them health, riches, and
honor. What prevents thee from doing likewise? (Book ix. ,
§ 11
## p. 1037 (#463) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1037
-
ETERNAL CHANGE THE LAW OF THE UNIVERSE
TH
HINK, often, of how swiftly all things pass away and are no
more -the works of Nature and the works of man. The
substance of the Universe— matter-is like unto a river
that flows on forever. All things are not only in a constant
state of change, but they are the cause of constant and infinite
change in other things. Upon a narrow ledge thou standest!
Behind thee, the bottomless abyss of the Past! In front of thee,
the Future that will swallow up all things that now are! Over
what things, then, in this present life, wilt thou, O foolish man,
be disquieted or exalted-making thyself wretched; seeing that
they can vex thee only for a time-a brief, brief time! (Book
V. , § 23. )
THE PERFECT LIBERTY OF THE GOOD MAN
PER
ERADVENTURE men may curse thee, torture thee, kill thee; yet
can all these things not prevent thee from keeping at all
times thy thoughts pure, considerate, sober, and just. If
one should stand beside a limpid stream and cease not to revile
it, would the spring stop pouring forth its refreshing waters?
Nay, if such an one should even cast into the stream mud and
mire, would not the stream quickly scatter it, and so bear it away
that not even a trace would remain? How then wilt thou be
able to have within thee not a mere well that may fail thee, but
a fountain that shall never cease to flow? By wonting thyself
every moment to independence in judgment, joined together with
serenity of thought and simplicity in act and bearing. (Book
viii. , § 51. )
THE HARMONY AND UNITY OF THE UNIVERSE
O
DIVINE Spirit of the Universe, Thy will, Thy wish is mine!
Calmly I wait Thy appointed times, which cannot come too
early or too late! Thy providences are all fruitful to me!
Thou art the source, Thou art the stay, Thou art the end of all
things. The poet says of his native city, "Dear city of Cecrops ";
and shall I not say of the Universe, "Beloved City of God"?
(Book iv. , § 23. )
EITHER there is a predestined order in the Universe, or else it
is mere aggregation, fortuitous yet not without a certain kind of
order. For how within thyself can a certain system exist and
yet the entire Universe be chaos? And especially when in the
## p. 1038 (#464) ###########################################
1038
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
Universe all things, though separate and divided, yet work
together in unity? (Book iv. , § 27. )
THINK always of the Universe as one living organism, com-
posed of one material substance and one soul. Observe how all
things are the product of a single conception-the conception of
a living organism. Observe how one force is the cause of the
motion of all things: that all existing things are the concurrent
causes of all that is to be - the eternal warp and woof of the
ever-weaving web of existence. (Book iv. , § 40. )
THE CONDUCT of Life
C
OUNTRY houses, retreats in the mountains or by the sea-
these things men seek out for themselves; and often thou,
too, dost most eagerly desire such things. But this does.
but betoken the greatest ignorance; for thou art able, when thou
desirest, to retreat into thyself. No other where can a man find
a retreat more quiet and free from care than in his own soul;
and most of all, when he hath such rules of conduct that if
faithfully remembered, they will give to him perfect equanimity,
- for equanimity is naught else than a mind harmoniously disci-
plined. Cease not then to betake thyself to this retreat, there
to refresh thyself. Let thy rules of conduct be few and well
settled; so that when thou hast thought thereon, straightway they
will suffice to thoroughly purify the soul that possesses them, and
to send thee back, restless no more, to the things to the which
thou must return. With what indeed art thou disquieted? With
the wickedness of men? Meditate on the thought that men do
not do evil of set purpose. Remember also how many in the
past, who, after living in enmity, suspicion, hatred, and strife one
with another, now lie prone in death and are but ashes. Fret
then no more. But perhaps thou art troubled concerning the por-
tion decreed to thee in the Universe? Remember this alternative:
either there is a Providence or simply matter! Recall all the
proofs that the world is, as it were, a city or a commonwealth!
But perhaps the desires of the body still torment thee? Forget
not, then, that the mind, when conscious of its real self, when
self-reliant, shares not the agitations of the body, be they great
or small. Recall too all thou hast learned (and now holdest as
true) concerning pleasure and pain. But perhaps what men call
Fame allures thee? Behold how quickly all things are forgotten!
-
## p. 1039 (#465) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1039
Before us, after us, the formless Void of endless ages! How
vain is human praise! How fickle and undiscriminating those
who seem to praise! How limited the sphere of the greatest
fame! For the whole earth is but a point in space, thy dwelling-
place a tiny nook therein. How few are those who dwell there-
in, and what manner of men are those who will praise thee!
Therefore, forget not to retire into thine own little country
place,- thyself. Above all, be not diverted from thy course. Be
serene, be free, contemplate all things as a man, as a lover of
his kind, and of his country—yet withal as a being born to die.
Have readiest to thy hand, above all others, these two thoughts:
one, that things cannot touch the soul; the other, that things are
perpetually changing and ceasing to be. Remember how many of
these changes thou thyself hast seen! The Universe is change.
But as thy thoughts are, so thy life shall be. (Book iv. , §3. )
All things that befall thee should seem to thee as natural as
roses in spring or fruits in autumn: such things, I mean, as
disease, death, slander, dissimulation, and all other things which
give pleasure or pain to foolish men. (Book iv. , 44. )
Be thou like a lofty headland. Endlessly against it dash the
waves; yet it stands unshaken, and lulls to rest the fury of the
sea. (Book iv. , $49. )
((
Unhappy me upon whom this misfortune hath fallen! "-
nay, rather thou shouldst say, "Fortunate I, that having met with
such a misfortune, I am able to endure it without complaining; in
the present not dismayed, in the future dreading no evil. Such
a misadventure might have befallen a man who could not, per-
chance, have endured it without grievous suffering. " Why then
shouldst thou call anything that befalls thee a misfortune, and
not the rather a blessing? Is that a "misfortune," in all cases,
which does not defeat the purpose of man's nature? and does
that defeat man's nature which his Will can accept? And what
that Will can accept, thou knowest. Can this misadventure, then,
prevent thy Will from being just, magnanimous, temperate, cir-
cumspect, free from rashness or error, considerate, independent?
## p. 1040 (#466) ###########################################
1040
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
Can it prevent thy Will from being, in short, all that becomes at
man? Remember, then, should anything befall thee which might
cause thee to complain, to fortify thyself with this truth: this
is not a misfortune, while to endure it nobly is a blessing. (Book
iv. , § 49. )
Be not annoyed or dismayed or despondent if thou art not
able to do all things in accord with the rules of right conduct.
When thou hast not succeeded, renew thy efforts, and be serene
if, in most things, thy conduct is such as becomes a man. Love
and pursue the philosophic life. Seek Philosophy, not as thy
taskmaster but to find a medicine for all thy ills, as thou wouldst
seek balm for thine eyes, a bandage for a sprain, a lotion for a
fever. So it shall come to pass that the voice of Reason shall
guide thee and bring to thee rest and peace. Remember, too,
that Philosophy enjoins only such things as are in accord with
thy better nature. The trouble is, that in thy heart thou prefer-
rest those things which are not in accord with thy better nature.
For thou sayest, "What can be more delightful than these things? "
But is not the word "delightful" in this sense misleading?
Are not magnanimity, broad-mindedness, sincerity, equanimity,
and a reverent spirit more "delightful"? Indeed, what is more
"delightful" than Wisdom, if so be thou wilt but reflect upon the
strength and contentment of mind and the happiness of life that
spring from the exercise of the powers of thy reason and thine
intelligence? (Book v. , §9. )
As are thy wonted thoughts, so is thy mind; and the soul is
tinged by the coloring of the mind. Let then thy mind be con-
stantly suffused with such thoughts as these: Where it is pos-
sible for a man to live, there he can live nobly. But suppose
he must live in a palace? Be it so; even there he can live
nobly. (Book v. , § 16. )
Live with the gods! And he so lives who at all times makes
it manifest that he is content with his predestined lot, fulfilling
the entire will of the indwelling spirit given to man by the
Divine Ruler, and which is in truth nothing else than the Under-
standing the Reason of man. (Book v. , § 27. )
## p. 1041 (#467) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1041
Seek the solitude of thy spirit. This is the law of the
indwelling Reason-to be self-content and to abide in peace when
what is right and just hath been done. (Book vii. , § 28. )
Let thine eyes follow the stars in their courses as though
their movements were thine own. Meditate on the eternal trans-
formation of Matter. Such thoughts purge the mind of earthly
passion and desire. (Book vii. , § 45. )
Search thou thy heart! Therein is the fountain of good! Do
thou but dig, and abundantly the stream shall gush forth. (Book
vii. , § 59. )
Be not unmindful of the graces of life. Let thy body be
stalwart, yet not ungainly either in motion or in repose. Let not
thy face alone, but thy whole body, make manifest the alert-
ness of thy mind. Yet let all this be without affectation. (Book
vii. , § 60. )
Thy breath is part of the all-encircling air, and is one with
it. Let thy mind be part, no less, of that Supreme Mind com-
prehending all things. For verily, to him who is willing to be
inspired thereby, the Supreme Mind flows through all things and
permeates all things as truly as the air exists for him who will
but breathe. (Book viii. , § 54-)
Men are created that they may live for each other. Teach
them to be better or bear with them as they are. (Book viii. ,
$ 59. )
Write no more, Antoninus, about what a good man is or what
he ought to do. Be a good man. (Book x. , § 16. )
Look steadfastly at any created thing. See! it is changing,
melting into corruption, and ready to be dissolved. In its essen-
tial nature, it was born but to die. (Book x. , § 18. )
11-66
## p. 1042 (#468) ###########################################
1042
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
Co-workers are we all, toward one result. Some, consciously
and of set purpose; others, unwittingly even as men who sleep,
- of whom Heraclitus (I think it is he) says they also are co-
workers in the events of the Universe. In diverse fashion also
men work; and abundantly, too, work the fault-finders and the
hinderers, for even of such as these the Universe hath need.
It rests then with thee to determine with what workers thou wilt
place thyself; for He who governs all things will without failure
place thee at thy proper task, and will welcome thee to some
station among those who work and act together. (Book vi. , § 42. )
-
Unconstrained and in supreme joyousness of soul thou mayest
live though all men revile thee as they list, and though wild
beasts rend in pieces the unworthy garment-thy body. For
what prevents thee, in the midst of all this, from keeping thyself
in profound calm, with a true judgment of thy surroundings and
a helpful knowledge of the things that are seen? So that the
Judgment may say to whatever presents itself, "In truth this is
what thou really art, howsoever thou appearest to men;" and thy
Knowledge may say to whatsoever may come beneath its vision,
"Thee I sought; for whatever presents itself to me is fit material
for nobility in personal thought and public conduct; in short,
for skill in work for man or for God. " For all things which
befall us are related to God or to man, and are not new to us
or hard to work upon, but familiar and serviceable. (Book vii. ,
§ 68. )
When thou art annoyed at some one's impudence, straight-
way ask thyself, "Is it possible that there should be no impudent
men in the world? " It is impossible. Ask not then the impos-
sible. For such an one is but one of these impudent persons
who needs must be in the world. Keep before thee like con-
clusions also concerning the rascal, the untrustworthy one, and
all evil-doers. Then, when it is quite clear to thy mind that
such men must needs exist, thou shalt be the more forgiving
toward each one of their number. This also will aid thee to
observe, whensoever occasion comes, what power for good, Nature
hath given to man to frustrate such viciousness. She hath be-
stowed upon man Patience as an antidote to the stupid man
and against another man some other power for good. Besides,
## p. 1043 (#469) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1043
it is wholly in thine own power to teach new things to the one
who hath erred, for every one who errs hath but missed the
appointed path and wandered away. Reflect, and thou wilt dis-
cover that no one of these with whom thou art annoyed hath
done aught to debase thy mind, and that is the only real evil that
can befall thee.
Moreover, wherein is it wicked or surprising that the ignor-
ant man should act ignorantly? Is not the error really thine
own in not foreseeing that such an one would do as he did?
If thou hadst but taken thought thou wouldst have known he
would be prone to err, and it is only because thou hast forgot-
ten to use thy Reason that thou art surprised at his deed. Above
all, when thou condemnest another as untruthful, examine thyself
closely; for upon thee rests the blame, in that thou dost trust
to such an one to keep his promise. If thou didst bestow upon
him thy bounty, thine is the blame not to have given it freely,
and without expectation of good to thee, save the doing of the
act itself. What more dost thou wish than to do good to man?
Doth not this suffice,- that thou hast done what conforms to thy
true nature? Must thou then have a reward, as though the
eyes demanded pay for seeing or the feet for walking? For
even as these are formed for such work, and by co-operating
in their distinctive duty come into their own, even so man (by
his real nature disposed to do good), when he hath done some
good deed, or in any other way furthered the Commonweal, acts
according to his own nature, and in so doing hath all that is
truly his own. (Book ix. , §42. )
O Man, thou hast been a citizen of this great State, the Uni-
verse! What matters what thy prescribed time hath been, five
years or three?
What the law prescribes is just to every one.
Why complain, then, if thou art sent away from the State,
not by a tyrant or an unjust judge, but by Nature who led thee.
thither,― even as the manager excuses from the stage an actor
whom he hath employed?
"But I have played three acts only? "
True. But in the drama of thy life three acts conclude the
play. For what its conclusion shall be, He determines who
created it and now ends it; and with either of these thou hast
naught to do. Depart thou, then, well pleased; for He who dis-
misses thee is well pleased also. (Book xii. , § 36. )
## p. 1044 (#470) ###########################################
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
1044
BE NOT disquieted lest, in the days to come, some misadvent-
ure befall thee. The Reason which now sufficeth thee will then
be with thee, should there be the need. (Book vii. , § 8. )
TO THE wise man the dictates of Reason seem the instincts
of Nature. (Book vii. , § 11. )
MY TRUE self- the philosophic mind- hath but one dread:
the dread lest I do something unworthy of a man, or that I may
act in an unseemly way or at an improper time. (Book vii. , § 20. )
ACCEPT with joy the Fate that befalls thee. Thine it is and
not another's. What then could be better for thee? (Book vii. ,
$ 57. )
SEE to it that thou art humane to those who are not humane.
(Book vii. , $65. )
HE WHO does not act, often commits as great a wrong as he
who acts. (Book ix. , §5. )
THE wrong that another has done - let alone! Add not to it
thine own. (Book ix. , § 20. )
How powerful is man! He is able to do all that God wishes
him to do. He is able to accept all that God sends upon him.
(Book xii. , 11. )
A LAMP sends forth its light until it is completely extinguished.
Shall Truth and Justice and Equanimity suffer abatement in thee
until all are extinguished in death? (Book xii. , § 15. )
## p. 1045 (#471) ###########################################
1045
JANE AUSTEN
(1775-1817)
HE biography of one of the greatest English novelists might
Sbe written in a dozen lines, so simple, so tranquil, so for-
Gtunate was her life. Jane Austen, the second daughter of
an English clergyman, was born at Steventon, in Hampshire, in 1775.
Her father had been known at Oxford as "the handsome proctor,"
and all his children inherited good looks. He was accomplished
enough to fit his boys for the University, and the atmosphere of the
household was that of culture, good breeding, and healthy fun. Mrs.
Austen was a clever woman, full of epi-
gram and humor in conversation, and rather
famous in her own coterie for improvised
verses and satirical hits at her friends.
The elder daughter, Cassandra, adored by
Jane, who was three years her junior, seems
to have had a rare balance and common-
sense which exercised great influence over
the more brilliant younger sister. Their
mother declared that of the two girls. Cas-
sandra had the merit of having her temper
always under her control; and Jane the
happiness of a temper that never required
to be commanded.
JANE AUSTEN
From her cradle, Jane Austen was used to hearing agreeable
household talk, and the freest personal criticism on the men and
women who made up her small, secluded world. The family circum-
stances were easy, and the family friendliness unlimited,- conditions
determining, perhaps, the cheerful tone, the unexciting course, the
sly fun and good-fellowship of her stories.
It was in this Steventon rectory, in the family room where the
boys might be building their toy boats, or the parish poor folk com-
plaining to "passon's madam," or the county ladies paying visits of
ceremony, in monstrous muffs, heelless slippers laced over open-
worked silk stockings, short flounced skirts, and lutestring pelisses
trimmed with "Irish," or where tradesmen might be explaining their
delinquencies, or farmers' wives growing voluble over foxes and
young chickens-it was in the midst of this busy and noisy publicity,
where nobody respected her employment, and where she was inter-
rupted twenty times in an hour, that the shrewd and smiling social
## p. 1046 (#472) ###########################################
1046
JANE AUSTEN
critic managed, before she was twenty-one, to write her famous
'Pride and Prejudice. ' Here too 'Sense and Sensibility' was finished
in 1797, and 'Northanger Abbey' in 1798. The first of these, submitted
to a London publisher, was declined as unavailable, by return of
post. The second, the gay and mocking 'Northanger Abbey,' was
sold to a Bath bookseller for £10, and several years later bought
back again, still unpublished, by one of Miss Austen's brothers. For
the third story she seems not even to have sought a publisher.
These three books, all written before she was twenty-five, were evi-
dently the employment and delight of her leisure. The serious busi-
ness of life was that which occupied other pretty girls of her time
and her social position,-dressing, dancing, flirting, learning a new
stitch at the embroidery frame, or a new air on "the instrument";
while all the time she was observing, with those soft hazel eyes of
hers, what honest Nym calls the "humors" of the world about her.
In 1801, the family removed to Bath, then the most fashionable
watering-place in England. The gay life of the brilliant little city,
the etiquette of the Pump Room and the Assemblies, regulated by
the autocratic Beau Nash, the drives, the routs, the card parties, the
toilets, the shops, the Parade, the general frivolity, pretension, and
display of the eighteenth century Vanity Fair, had already been
studied by the good-natured satirist on occasional visits, and already
immortalized in the swiftly changing comedy scenes of Northanger
Abbey. ' But they tickled her fancy none the less, now that she
lived among them, and she made use of them again in her later
novel, Persuasion. '
For a period of eight years, spent in Bath and in Southampton,
Miss Austen wrote nothing save some fragments of 'Lady Susan'
and The Watsons,' neither of them of great importance. In 1809
the lessened household, composed of the mother and her two daugh-
ters only, removed to the village of Chawton, on the estate of Mrs.
Austen's third son; and here, in a rustic cottage, now become a place
of pilgrimage, Jane Austen again took up her pen. She rewrote
'Pride and Prejudice,' she revised 'Sense and Sensibility,' and be-
tween February 1811 and August 1816 she completed Mansfield
Park,' 'Emma,' and 'Persuasion. ' At Chawton, as at Steventon, she
had no study, and her stories were written on a little mahogany desk
near a window in the family sitting-room, where she must often have
been interrupted by the prototypes of her Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Bennet,
Miss Bates, Mr. Collins, or Mrs. Norris. When at last she began to
publish, her stories appeared in rapid succession: 'Sense and Sensi-
bility' in 1811; 'Pride and Prejudice' early in 1813; 'Mansfield Park'
in 1814; Emma' in 1816; Northanger Abbey' and 'Persuasion' in
1818, the year following her death. In January 1813 she wrote to her
## p. 1047 (#473) ###########################################
JANE AUSTEN
1047
beloved Cassandra: "I want to tell you that I have got my own
darling child ('Pride and Prejudice') from London. We fairly set at
it and read half the first volume to Miss B. She was amused, poor
soul! . . but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must
confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in
print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her
at least, I do not know. " A month later she wrote:-"Upon the
whole, however, I am quite vain enough, and well satisfied 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 chap-
ter 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 Bonaparte, or something
that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased
delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style! "
Thus she who laughed at everybody else laughed at herself, and
set her critical instinct to estimate her own capacity. To Mr. Clarke,
the librarian of Carlton House, who had requested her to "delineate
a clergyman" of earnestness, enthusiasm, and learning, she replied:
"I am quite honored by your thinking me capable of drawing such
a clergyman as you gave the sketch of in your note. But I assure
you I am not. The comic part of the character I might be equal to,
but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary.
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. " And
when the same remarkable bibliophile suggested to her, on the
approach of the marriage of the Princess Charlotte with Prince
Leopold, that "an historical romance, illustrative of the august House
of Coburg, would just now be very interesting," she answered: - "I
am fully sensible that an historical romance, founded on the House
of Saxe-Coburg, might be much more to the purpose of profit or
popularity than such pictures of domestic life in country villages 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 to
keep it up, and never relax into laughing at myself or at other
people, I am sure that 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 con-
vinced that I shall totally fail in any other. " And again she writes:
"What shall 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 labor? "
-
## p. 1048 (#474) ###########################################
1048
JANE AUSTEN
Miss Austen read very little. She "detested quartos. " Rich-
ardson, Johnson, Crabbe, and Cowper seem to have been the only
authors for whom she had an appreciation. She would sometimes
say, in jest, that "if ever she married at all, she could fancy being
Mrs. Crabbe! " But her bent of original composition, her amazing
power of observation, her inexhaustible sense of humor, her absorb-
ing interest in what she saw about her, were so strong that she
needed no reinforcement of culture. It was no more in her power
than it was in Wordsworth's to "gather a posy of other men's
thoughts. "
During her lifetime she had not a single literary friend. Other
women novelists possessed their sponsors and devotees. Miss Ferrier
was the delight of a brilliant Edinboro' coterie. Miss Edgeworth was
feasted and flattered, not only in England, but on the Continent;
Miss Burney counted Johnson, Burke, Garrick, Windham, Sheridan,
among the admiring friends who assured her that no flight in fiction
or the drama was beyond her powers. But the creator of Elizabeth
Bennet, of Emma, and of Mr. Collins, never met an author of emi-
nence, received no encouragement to write except that of her own
family, heard no literary talk, and obtained in her lifetime but the
slightest literary recognition. It was long after her death that Wal-
ter Scott wrote in his journal:-"Read again, and 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 involvements and
feelings and characters of ordinary life 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
commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the
description and the sentiment is denied to me. " It was still later
that Macaulay made his famous estimate of her genius:- "Shake-
speare has neither equal nor second; but among those who, in the
point we have noticed (the delineation of character), approached
nearest the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane
Austen as a woman of whom England may justly be proud. She has
given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, common-
place, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly
discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of
human beings.
And all this is done by touches so delicate
that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description,
and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which
they have contributed. " And a new generation had almost forgotten
her name before the exacting Lewes wrote:-"To make our meaning
precise, we would say that Fielding and Jane Austen are the greatest
novelists in the English language.
We would rather have
·
## p. 1049 (#475) ###########################################
JANE AUSTEN
1049
written 'Pride and Prejudice,' or 'Tom Jones,' than any of the
Waverley novels.
The greatness of Miss Austen (her marvel-
ous dramatic power) seems more than anything in Scott akin to
Shakespeare. »
way.
The six novels which have made so great a reputation for their
author relate the least sensational of histories in the least sensational
'Sense and Sensibility' might be called a novel with a pur-
pose, that purpose being to portray the dangerous haste with which
sentiment degenerates into sentimentality; and because of its pur-
pose, the story discloses a less excellent art than its fellows. 'Pride
and Prejudice' finds its motive in the crass pride of birth and place
that characterize the really generous and high-minded hero, Darcy,
and the fierce resentment of his claims to love and respect on the
part of the clever, high-tempered, and chivalrous heroine, Elizabeth
Bennet. 'Northanger Abbey' is a laughing skit at the school of
Mrs. Radcliffe; 'Persuasion,' a simple story of upper middle-class
society, of which the most charming of her charming girls, Anne
Elliot, is the heroine; 'Mansfield Park,' a new and fun-loving version
of 'Cinderella'; and finally 'Emma,'- the favorite with most read-
ers, concerning which Miss Austen said, "I am going to take a
heroine whom no one but myself will much like," the history of
the blunders of a bright, kind-hearted, and really clever girl, who
contrives as much discomfort for her friends as stupidity or ill-nature
could devise.
Numberless as are the novelist's characters, no two clergymen,
no two British matrons, no two fussy spinsters, no two men of
fashion, no two heavy fathers, no two smart young ladies, no two
heroines, are alike. And this variety results from the absolute fidel-
ity of each character to the law of its own development, each one
growing from within and not being simply described from without.
Nor are the circumstances which she permits herself to use less genu-
ine than her people. What surrounds them is what one must expect;
what happens to them is seen to be inevitable.
The low and quiet key in which her "situations" are pitched
produces one artistic gain which countervails its own loss of imme-
diate intensity: the least touch of color shows strongly against that
subdued background. A very slight catastrophe among those orderly
scenes of peaceful life has more effect than the noisier incidents
and contrived convulsions of more melodramatic novels. Thus, in
'Mansfield Park' the result of private theatricals, including many
rehearsals of stage love-making, among a group of young people
who show no very strong principles or firmness of character, appears
in a couple of elopements which break up a family, occasion a piti-
able scandal, and spoil the career of an able, generous, and highly
## p. 1050 (#476) ###########################################
1050
JANE AUSTEN
promising young man. To most novelists an incident of this sort
would seem too ineffective: in her hands it strikes us as what in fact
it is a tragic misfortune and the ruin of two lives.
In a word, it is life which Miss Austen sees with unerring vision
and draws with unerring touch; so that above all other writers of
English fiction she seems entitled to the tribute which an Athenian
critic gave to an earlier and more famous realist,—
"O life! O Menander!
Which of you two is the plagiarist ? »
AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
From Pride and Prejudice >
THE
HE next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins
made his declaration in form. Having resolved to do it
without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only
to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence
to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set
about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances which
he supposed a regular part of the business. On finding Mrs.
Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together, soon
after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words: -
"May I hope, madam, for your interest with your fair daugh-
ter Elizabeth, when I solicit for the honor of a private audience
with her in the course of this morning? "
Before Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of sur-
prise, Mrs. Bennet instantly answered:-"Oh, dear. Yes; cer-
tainly. I am sure Lizzy will be very happy-I am sure she can
have no objection. Come, Kitty, I want you upstairs. " And,
gathering her work together, she was hastening away, when
Elizabeth called out:-
"Dear ma'am, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Col-
lins must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that
anybody need not hear. I am going away myself. "
"No, no; nonsense, Lizzy.
I desire you will stay where you
are. " And upon Elizabeth's seeming really, with vexed and
embarrassed looks, about to escape, she added, "Lizzy, I insist
upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins. "
Elizabeth would not oppose such an injunction; and a mo-
ment's consideration making her also sensible that it would be
## p. 1051 (#477) ###########################################
JANE AUSTEN
1051
wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat
down again, and tried to conceal by incessant employment the
feelings which were divided between distress and diversion. Mrs.
Bennet and Kitty walked off; and as soon as they were gone,
Mr. Collins began:
"Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so
far from doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other per-
fections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had
there not been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure
you that I have your respected mother's permission for this
address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse,
however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble: my
attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon
as I entered the house I singled you out as the companion of
my future life.
But before I am run away with by my feelings.
on this subject, perhaps it will be advisable for me to state my
reasons for marrying-and moreover, for coming into Hertford-
shire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did. "
The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being
run away with by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing
that she could not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt
to stop him further, and he continued:-
-
――――――
"My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right
thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to
set the example of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am
convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly,
-which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is
the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady
whom I have the honor of calling patroness. Twice has she con-
descended to give me her opinion (unasked, too! ) on this subject;
and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford —
between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arran-
ging Miss de Bourgh's footstool-that she said, 'Mr. Collins, you
must marry. A clergyman like you must marry.
Choose prop-
erly, choose a gentlewoman, for my sake; and for your own, let
her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but
able to make a small income go a good way. This is my advice.
Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford,
and I will visit her! ' Allow me, by the way, to observe, my
fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice and kindness of Lady
Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the advantages in
-
## p. 1052 (#478) ###########################################
1052
JANE AUSTEN
my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond anything
I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be
acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence
and respect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much
for my general intention in favor of matrimony; it remains to be
told why my views are directed to Longbourn instead of my
own neighborhood, where, I assure you, there are many amiable.
young women. But the fact is, that being, as I am, to inherit
this estate after the death of your honored father (who, how-
ever, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy myself
without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters,
that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the
melancholy event takes place, which, however, as I have already
said, may not be for several years. This has been my motive,
my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your
esteem. And now, nothing remains for me but to assure you, in
the most animated language, of the violence of my affection. To
fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of
that nature on your father, since I am well aware that it could
not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds in the four
per cents. , which will not be yours till after your mother's
decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head,
therefore, I shall be uniformly silent; and you may assure your-
self that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when
we are married. ”
It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.
"You are too hasty, sir," she cried. "You forget that I have
made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time.
Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me.
I am
very sensible of the honor of your proposals, but it is impossible
for me to do otherwise than decline them.
