Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh (best books to read for success txt) 📕

Tuesday.  Ah, ah! Mr. E.  I doubt your seeing uncle Henry at Steventon to-day.  The weather will prevent your expecting him, I think.  Tell your father, with aunt Cass’s love and mine, that the pickled cucumbers are extremely good, and tell him also—“tell him what you will.”  No, don’t tell him what you will, but tell him that grandmamma begs him to make Joseph Hall pay his rent, if he can.

‘You must not be tired of reading the word uncle, for I have not done with it.  Uncle Charles thanks your mother for her letter; it was a great pleasure to him to know that the parcel was received and gave so much satisfaction, and he begs her to be so good as to give three shillings for him to Dame Staples, which shall be allowed for in the payment of her debt here.

‘Adieu, Amiable!  I hope Caroline behaves well to you.

Yours affecly,
‘J. Austen.’

I cannot tell how soon she was aware of the serious nature of her malady.  By God’s mercy it was not attended with much suffering; so that she was able to tell her friends as in the foregoing letter, and perhaps sometimes to persuade herself that, excepting want of strength, she was ‘otherwise very well;’ but the progress of the disease became more and more manifest as the year advanced.  The usual walk was at first shortened, and then discontinued; and air was sought in a donkey-carriage.  Gradually, too, her habits of activity within the house ceased, and she was obliged to lie down much.  The sitting-room contained only one sofa, which was frequently occupied by her mother, who was more than seventy years old.  Jane would never use it, even in her mother’s absence; but she contrived a sort of couch for herself with two or three chairs, and was pleased to say that this arrangement was more comfortable to her than a real sofa.  Her reasons for this might have been left to be guessed, but for the importunities of a little niece, which obliged her to explain that if she herself had shown any inclination to use the sofa, her mother might have scrupled being on it so much as was good for her.

It is certain, however, that the mind did not share in this decay of the bodily strength.  ‘Persuasion’ was not finished before the middle of August in that year; and the manner in which it was then completed affords proof that neither the critical nor the creative powers of the author were at all impaired.  The book had been brought to an end in July; and the re-engagement of the hero and heroine effected in a totally different manner in a scene laid at Admiral Croft’s lodgings.  But her performance did not satisfy her.  She thought it tame and flat, and was desirous of producing something better.  This weighed upon her mind, the more so probably on account of the weak state of her health; so that one night she retired to rest in very low spirits.  But such depression was little in accordance with her nature, and was soon shaken off.  The next morning she awoke to more cheerful views and brighter inspirations: the sense of power revived; and imagination resumed its course.  She cancelled the condemned chapter, and wrote two others, entirely different, in its stead.  The result is that we possess the visit of the Musgrove party to Bath; the crowded and animated scenes at the White Hart Hotel; and the charming conversation between Capt. Harville and Anne Elliot, overheard by Capt. Wentworth, by which the two faithful lovers were at last led to understand each other’s feelings.  The tenth and eleventh chapters of ‘Persuasion’ then, rather than the actual winding-up of the story, contain the latest of her printed compositions, her last contribution to the entertainment of the public.  Perhaps it may be thought that she has seldom written anything more brilliant; and that, independent of the original manner in which the dénouement is brought about, the pictures of Charles Musgrove’s good-natured boyishness and of his wife’s jealous selfishness would have been incomplete without these finishing strokes.  The cancelled chapter exists in manuscript.  It is certainly inferior to the two which were substituted for it: but it was such as some writers and some readers might have been contented with; and it contained touches which scarcely any other hand could have given, the suppression of which may be almost a matter of regret. {167}

The following letter was addressed to her friend Miss Bigg, then staying at Streatham with her sister, the wife of the Reverend Herbert Hill, uncle of Robert Southey.  It appears to have been written three days before she began her last work, which will be noticed in another chapter; and shows that she was not at that time aware of the serious nature of her malady:—

‘Chawton, January 24, 1817.

‘My Dear Alethea,—I think it time there should be a little writing between us, though I believe the epistolary debt is on your side, and I hope this will find all the Streatham party well, neither carried away by the flood, nor rheumatic through the damps.  Such mild weather is, you know, delightful to us, and though we have a great many ponds, and a fine running stream through the meadows on the other side of the road, it is nothing but what beautifies us and does to talk of.  I have certainly gained strength through the winter and am not far from being well; and I think I understand my own case now so much better than I did, as to be able by care to keep off any serious return of illness.  I am convinced that bile is at the bottom of all I have suffered, which makes it easy to know how to treat myself.  You will be glad to hear thus much of me, I am sure.  We have just had a few days’ visit from Edward, who brought us a good account of his father, and the very circumstance of his coming at all, of his father’s being able to spare him, is itself a good account.  He grows still, and still improves in appearance, at least in the estimation of his aunts, who love him better and better, as they see the sweet temper and warm affections of the boy confirmed in the young man: I tried hard to persuade him that he must have some message for William, {169a} but in vain. . . .  This is not a time of year for donkey-carriages, and our donkeys are necessarily having so long a run of luxurious idleness that I suppose we shall find they have forgotten much of their education when we use them again.  We do not use two at once however; don’t imagine such excesses. . .  Our own new clergyman {169b} is expected here very soon, perhaps in time to assist Mr. Papillon on Sunday.  I shall be very glad when the first hearing is over.  It will be a nervous hour for our pew, though we hear that he acquits himself with as much ease and collectedness, as if he had been used to it all his life.  We have no chance we know of seeing you between Streatham and Winchester: you go the other road and are engaged to two or three houses; if there should be any change, however, you know how welcome you would be. . . .  We have been reading the “Poet’s Pilgrimage to Waterloo,” and generally with much approbation.  Nothing will please all the world, you know; but parts of it suit me better than much that he has written before.  The opening—the proem I believe he calls it—is very beautiful.  Poor man! one cannot but grieve for the loss of the son so fondly described.  Has he at all recovered it?  What do Mr. and Mrs. Hill know about his present state?

‘Yours affly,
‘J. Austen.

‘The real object of this letter is to ask you for a receipt, but I thought it genteel not to let it appear early.  We remember some excellent orange wine at Manydown, made from Seville oranges, entirely or chiefly.  I should be very much obliged to you for the receipt, if you can command it within a few weeks.’

On the day before, January 23rd, she had written to her niece in the same hopeful tone: ‘I feel myself getting stronger than I was, and can so perfectly walk to Alton, or back again without fatigue, that I hope to be able to do both when summer comes.’

Alas! summer came to her only on her deathbed.  March 17th is the last date to be found in the manuscript on which she was engaged; and as the watch of the drowned man indicates the time of his death, so does this final date seem to fix the period when her mind could no longer pursue its accustomed course.

And here I cannot do better than quote the words of the niece to whose private records of her aunt’s life and character I have been so often indebted:—

‘I do not know how early the alarming symptoms of her malady came on.  It was in the following March that I had the first idea of her being seriously ill.  It had been settled that about the end of that month, or the beginning of April, I should spend a few days at Chawton, in the absence of my father and mother, who were just then engaged with Mrs. Leigh Perrot in arranging her late husband’s affairs; but Aunt Jane became too ill to have me in the house, and so I went instead to my sister Mrs. Lefroy at Wyards’.  The next day we walked over to Chawton to make enquiries after our aunt.  She was then keeping her room, but said she would see us, and we went up to her.  She was in her dressing gown, and was sitting quite like an invalid in an arm-chair, but she got up and kindly greeted us, and then, pointing to seats which had been arranged for us by the fire, she said, “There is a chair for the married lady, and a little stool for you, Caroline.” {171}  It is strange, but those trifling words were the last of hers that I can remember, for I retain no recollection of what was said by anyone in the conversation that ensued.  I was struck by the alteration in herself.  She was very pale, her voice was weak and low, and there was about her a general appearance of debility and suffering; but I have been told that she never had much acute pain.  She was not equal to the exertion of talking to us, and our visit to the sick room was a very short one, Aunt Cassandra soon taking us away.  I do not suppose we stayed a quarter of an hour; and I never saw Aunt Jane again.’

In May 1817 she was persuaded to remove to Winchester, for the sake of medical advice from Mr. Lyford.  The Lyfords have, for some generations, maintained a high character in Winchester for medical skill, and the Mr. Lyford of that