Authors: Elizabeth Jenkins
story of her life are apt to be nonplussed when they consider those novels in their chronological order. There is of course ample reason for saying that in
Persuasion
she showed signs of a new method, and of a new sensibility; it forms, they feel, that fitting close towards which the trend of her development had set, and had she not been untimely lost, it might have been, not the close, but the new
beginning. This idea that her attitude to life was undergoing a radical alteration, that the pointed brilliancy of youth was maturing
gradually into the profounder, more tranquil vision of middle-age, would receive much greater stimulus were the order of her novels other than it is. Could we suppose that she declined from the
unclouded radiance of
Pride and Prejudice
and
Emma
, through the shadowed loveliness of
Mansfield Park
to the autumnal beauty of
Persuasion
, we should have a line of development so clear and so suggestive that it might not be beyond the bounds of common sense to build some theory upon it. But Jane Austen's achievement was not one to be explained by reference to a biography. We cannot say of her that her brilliant work was conceived before the tragedy of 1802, and that what was created
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after that shows the unmistakable influence of grief; because actually the novels run in the very disconcerting order of:
Mansfield Park
,
Emma
,
Persuasion
, and that glittering fragment,
Sanditon
.
Emma
has been described as Jane Austen's most finished comedy.
One imagines that few of her admirers have the affection for it which they entertain for
Pride and Prejudice
; the author gave warning that she was about to choose a heroine whom nobody but herself would like very much, and if she thereby underrated Emma's claims,
scarcely anyone would maintain that Emma is as charming as
Elizabeth Bennet. Nevertheless the books have more of an affinity with each other than either has with
Mansfield Park
or
Persuasion
.
The strong gold light, as of early midsummer, that illumines every corner of that world composed of a Surrey village and a couple of country seats, within a morning's drive of Box Hill, is even more cordial and revealing than in
Pride and Prejudice
. Emma has not the heavenly air of Elizabeth Bennet, nor has Mr. Knightley hidden qualities like those of Mr. Darcy; he kept his affections to himself, it is true, but no one meeting him, in any circumstances, could have formed an idea of him as mistaken as those to which Mr. Darcy's behavior gave rise. The one character who is invested with a secret is not a frail creature such as Fanny Price, "indomitable in her feebleness," but a sophisticated young woman, unfortunate, but quite capable of taking care of herself; and the mystery, when it is brought to light, is, though interesting, on a smaller and more homely scale than the real badness of Wickham. Considering that the whole of a highly complicated plot turns on mystification and
misunderstanding, it is extraordinary that the atmosphere of the book should be so brilliant and serene; when Emma said she loved things to be "decided and open" she seems, by
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a remarkable paradox, to have dictated the tenor of the book that bears her name.
The structure of Emma not only exemplifies Jane Austen's own
peculiar method of showing each character in relation to all the rest; it suggests that of a Chinese ivory ball, and has an intricacy no less complicated and distinct.
The heroine in her wrong-headed folly spins six separate,
interlacing, circles of delusion. On this highly formalized base the characters move to and fro with a naturalness that defies description.
In no other of her books do we so luxuriate in our ability to listen and to look. The triumph of
Emma
in a general sense is perhaps that although the plot is intricate and formal in so striking a degree, yet every phase of it springs inevitably from the characters of those concerned. Emma's own misapplied quickness and her selfconferred right to interfere with other people's concerns are of course the mainspring of the story; but it could not proceed as it does without the foolish ductility of Harriet Smith, the coarseness and conceit of Mr. Elton, the calm good nature of Mr. Knightley, the mercurial character and undignified lack of scruple of Frank Churchill, the poise of Jane Fairfax that even wretchedness cannot defeat.
Newspaper writers sometimes describe an idea of female weakness and timidity as reminiscent of "one of Jane Austen's young ladies."
Could they be supposed to have read Jane Austen's works, they
might conceivably be thought to have Fanny Price in mind. In none other of the five heroines can one discover an explanation of this strange abuse of language, and Emma Woodhouse, with her
forwardness and overbearing insensibility, is almost too strong for the modern stomach. She is the only one of Jane Austen's heroines who suffers from the limitations of her time; her troubles
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arose from her having a great deal of health and vigor and nothing at all to do.
With all her intelligence, Emma was not capable of finding enough occupation for herself to keep her rational; she had never taken the trouble to practice sufficiently, and though she could never have played as well as Jane Fairfax, she had the honesty to be ashamed, considering her talents, of not playing better than she did. With her drawing it was the same thing. She was always meaning to read a great deal, and often drew up lists of books, but the resolve never came to anything; as Mr. Knightly said: "'I have done with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to anything requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding.'" Her abounding energy, for which she had no proper outlet, made her throw herself with undue eagerness and interest into the amusement of influencing other people's lives.
The attitude is a tiresome one at best; but when it concerns the love affairs of others it is something worse. Mr. Knightley accused Emma of indelicacy; we should frame the criticism in another manner, but in the substance of what he said we should agree exactly.
Indeed, Emma's conduct with regard to Harriet Smith was not only most severely condemned in the result, by which Harriet, having been talked into love with Mr. Elton, has perforce to be very
wretched when the mistake is discovered, but is repellent to the normal mind from the beginning. To give a friend's affairs a helpful push in the right direction is one thing; but to decide upon a match and endeavor to bring it about as if the two people concerned were merely clay in the hands of a superior being, is highly distasteful, and not any the less so because Emma was in fact cleverer, richer and better born than any of her neighbors
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in Highbury. In that readiness to acknowledge her own faults which is one of her most sympathetic characteristics, she owned the
wrongness of what she had been doing. "It was assuming too much, making light of what ought to be serious--a trick of what ought to be simple." It is her capacity to recognize her faults and to try to cure them that is responsible for most of our warmth of feeling towards Emma. Elizabeth Bennet is mistaken and repents, but the process in her is a much more spontaneous one. Emma had committed herself to a course of arrogant meddling implying so much that is
disagreeable in the nature that indulges in it, that it is the sign of a really honest and courageous character that she can shake off her weakness as she does, and that once she has seen her conduct in its true colors, she makes no attempt whatever at self-justification.
"When it came to such a pitch as this, she was not able to refrain from a start or a heavy sigh, or even from walking about the room for a few seconds: and the only source whence anything like
consolation, or composure, could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and leave her less to regret when it were gone."
The mood of the day that culminated in this misery is enhanced by one of Jane Austen's most emotional passages of natural description.
"The evening of this day was very long and melancholy at Hartfield.
The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights the longer visible." Even more emotional is the passage which immediately follows this one in the next
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chapter. Emma has come out into the garden, from which, though she is as far as possible from knowing it, she will return engaged to Mr. Knightley.
"The weather continued much the same all the following morning; and the same loneliness and the same melancholy seemed to reign at Hartfield, but in the afternoon it cleared; the wind changed into a softer quarter; the clouds were carried off; the sun appeared, it was summer again. With all the eagerness which such a transition gives, Emma resolved to be out of doors as soon as possible. Never had the exquisite sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm and brilliant after a storm, been more attractive to her."
The episode of Mr. Knightley's strawberry party contains a picture of landscape, full of that character which Jane Austen recognized and loved as truly English, though she had never been outside of
England. Mrs. Elton's conversation has driven the usually serene Jane Fairfax to ask Mr. Knightley to show them the whole extent of the grounds, and the party accordingly begin to walk.
"It was hot . . . they insensibly followed one another to the delicious shade of a broad, short avenue of limes, which, stretching beyond the garden at an equal distance from the river, seemed the finish of the pleasure grounds. . . . It was a charming walk, and the view which closed it was extremely pretty. The considerable slopes, at nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of
considerable abruptness and grandeur, well-clothed with wood; and at the bottom of this bank, favorably placed and sheltered, rose the Abbey Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and handsome circle around it."
"It was a sweet view--sweet to the eye and the mind. English
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verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright without being oppressive." Jane Austen herself seems to have been so much penetrated by the fairness she was describing, and her mind so full of all the lovely prospects she had ever seen, that she made in this passage what is perhaps her one and only mistake on a question of detail. She goes on to describe the surroundings of the farm as
"rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchards in blossom and light columns of smoke ascending." When the master of Godmersham had come to this point in his sister's work, he said: "I should like to know, Jane, where you get those apple trees of yours that blossom in July?"
Another passage of the novel which recalls the background of the Austen family is the pastime of Harriet Smith in making up an album of charades. A collection exists of charades made by Mr. Austen, Cassandra, James and Jane herself; one of her contributions was upon a bank note.
You may lie on my first by the side of a stream,
And my second compose to the nymph you adore,
But if, when you've none of my whole, her esteem
And affection diminish, think of her no more.
The episode of the charade submitted by Mr. Elton, which Emma
applies to Harriet though it is really intended for herself, offers another instance of the complex yet clear and brilliant structure so characteristic of the book. It takes her barely a moment to resolve the word into "courtship" "while Harriet was puzzling over the paper in all the confusion of hope and dullness."
Mr. Elton's charade concludes with the lines:
Thy ready wit the word will soon supply, May its approval beam in that soft eye!
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and Emma admits that "soft" is the justest epithet that could be given to Harriet's eye. The previous line is less strikingly apposite.
"'Harriet's ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in love, indeed, to describe her so.'" And when Harriet is prevented by a sore throat from coming to the party at Randalls, and Mr. Elton has not availed himself of the opportunity of staying at home that Emma has held out to him, she reflects: "'What a strange thing love is! He can see ready wit in Harriet, but he will not dine alone for her.'"
When the fearful truth of the real nature of Mr. Elton's attachment has burst upon her on the drive home, and she is at last alone in her bedroom in the turmoil of mind the discovery has produced, she goes over all the incidents of Mr. Elton's behavior which she had thought at the time to be a sign of his devotion to Harriet. "'To be sure, the charade, with its "ready wit"--but then, the "soft eyes" --in fact it suited neither; it was a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such thick-headed nonsense?'"
The description of Mrs. Goddard's school, from whence Emma
selected the lovely, stupid Harriet to be her chosen friend and companion, has frequently been compared with the Abbey School at Reading, as described by Mrs. Sherwood. The excellent, good-hearted, non-academic Mrs. Goddard does, in her attitude towards the business of female education, suggest that of Mrs. Latournelle.
"Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a school--not of a seminary, or an establishment, or anything which professed in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, upon new principles, and new systems--and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity,--but a real, honest,
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