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

‘Sunday Evening.—We have had a dreadful storm of wind in the fore part of this day, which has done a great deal of mischief among our trees.  I was sitting alone in the dining-room when an odd kind of crash startled me—in a moment afterwards it was repeated.  I then went to the window, which I reached just in time to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend into the Sweep!!!!  The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first crash, and which was the nearest to the pond, taking a more easterly direction, sunk among our screen of chestnuts and firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, beating off the head of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts of several branches in its fall.  This is not all.  One large elm out of the two on the left-hand side as you enter what I call the elm walk, was likewise blown down; the maple bearing the weathercock was broke in two, and what I regret more than all the rest is, that all the three elms which grew in Hall’s meadow, and gave such ornament to it, are gone; two were blown down, and the other so much injured that it cannot stand.  I am happy to add, however, that no greater evil than the loss of trees has been the consequence of the storm in this place, or in our immediate neighbourhood.  We grieve, therefore, in some comfort.

‘I am yours ever,
‘J. A.’

The next letter, written four days later than the former, was addressed to Miss Lloyd, an intimate friend, whose sister (my mother) was married to Jane’s eldest brother:—

‘Steventon, Wednesday evening, Nov. 12th.

‘My dear Martha,

‘I did not receive your note yesterday till after Charlotte had left Deane, or I would have sent my answer by her, instead of being the means, as I now must be, of lessening the elegance of your new dress for the Hurstbourne ball by the value of 3d.  You are very good in wishing to see me at Ibthorp so soon, and I am equally good in wishing to come to you.  I believe our merit in that respect is much upon a par, our self-denial mutually strong.  Having paid this tribute of praise to the virtue of both, I shall here have done with panegyric, and proceed to plain matter of fact.  In about a fortnight’s time I hope to be with you.  I have two reasons for not being able to come before.  I wish so to arrange my visit as to spend some days with you after your mother’s return.  In the 1st place, that I may have the pleasure of seeing her, and in the 2nd, that I may have a better chance of bringing you back with me.  Your promise in my favour was not quite absolute, but if your will is not perverse, you and I will do all in our power to overcome your scruples of conscience.  I hope we shall meet next week to talk all this over, till we have tired ourselves with the very idea of my visit before my visit begins.  Our invitations for the 19th are arrived, and very curiously are they worded. {65}  Mary mentioned to you yesterday poor Earle’s unfortunate accident, I dare say.  He does not seem to be going on very well.  The two or three last posts have brought less and less favourable accounts of him.  John Harwood has gone to Gosport again to-day.  We have two families of friends now who are in a most anxious state; for though by a note from Catherine this morning there seems now to be a revival of hope at Manydown, its continuance may be too reasonably doubted.  Mr. Heathcote, {66a} however, who has broken the small bone of his leg, is so good as to be going on very well.  It would be really too much to have three people to care for.

‘You distress me cruelly by your request about books.  I cannot think of any to bring with me, nor have I any idea of our wanting them.  I come to you to be talked to, not to read or hear reading; I can do that at home; and indeed I am now laying in a stock of intelligence to pour out on you as my share of the conversation.  I am reading Henry’s History of England, which I will repeat to you in any manner you may prefer, either in a loose, desultory, unconnected stream, or dividing my recital, as the historian divides it himself, into seven parts:—The Civil and Military: Religion: Constitution: Learning and Learned Men: Arts and Sciences: Commerce, Coins, and Shipping: and Manners.  So that for every evening in the week there will be a different subject.  The Friday’s lot—Commerce, Coins, and Shipping—you will find the least entertaining; but the next evening’s portion will make amends.  With such a provision on my part, if you will do yours by repeating the French Grammar, and Mrs. Stent {66b} will now and then ejaculate some wonder about the cocks and hens, what can we want?  Farewell for a short time.  We all unite in best love, and I am your very affectionate

‘J. A.’

The two next letters must have been written early in 1801, after the removal from Steventon had been decided on, but before it had taken place.  They refer to the two brothers who were at sea, and give some idea of a kind of anxieties and uncertainties to which sisters are seldom subject in these days of peace, steamers, and electric telegraphs.  At that time ships were often windbound or becalmed, or driven wide of their destination; and sometimes they had orders to alter their course for some secret service; not to mention the chance of conflict with a vessel of superior power—no improbable occurrence before the battle of Trafalgar.  Information about relatives on board men-of-war was scarce and scanty, and often picked up by hearsay or chance means; and every scrap of intelligence was proportionably valuable:—

‘My dear Cassandra,

‘I should not have thought it necessary to write to you so soon, but for the arrival of a letter from Charles to myself.  It was written last Saturday from off the Start, and conveyed to Popham Lane by Captain Boyle, on his way to Midgham.  He came from Lisbon in the “Endymion.”  I will copy Charles’s account of his conjectures about Frank: “He has not seen my brother lately, nor does he expect to find him arrived, as he met Captain Inglis at Rhodes, going up to take command of the ‘Petrel,’ as he was coming down; but supposes he will arrive in less than a fortnight from this time, in some ship which is expected to reach England about that time with dispatches from Sir Ralph Abercrombie.”  The event must show what sort of a conjuror Captain Boyle is.  The “Endymion” has not been plagued with any more prizes.  Charles spent three pleasant days in Lisbon.

‘They were very well satisfied with their royal passenger, {68} whom they found jolly and affable, who talks of Lady Augusta as his wife, and seems much attached to her.

‘When this letter was written, the “Endymion” was becalmed, but Charles hoped to reach Portsmouth by Monday or Tuesday.  He received my letter, communicating our plans, before he left England; was much surprised, of course, but is quite reconciled to them, and means to come to Steventon once more while Steventon is ours.’

From a letter written later in the same year:—

‘Charles has received 30l. for his share of the privateer, and expects 10l. more; but of what avail is it to take prizes if he lays out the produce in presents to his sisters?  He has been buying gold chains and topaze crosses for us.  He must be well scolded.  The “Endymion” has already received orders for taking troops to Egypt, which I should not like at all if I did not trust to Charles being removed from her somehow or other before she sails.  He knows nothing of his own destination, he says, but desires me to write directly, as the “Endymion” will probably sail in three or four days.  He will receive my yesterday’s letter, and I shall write again by this post to thank and reproach him.  We shall be unbearably fine.’

Removal from Steventon—Residences at Bath and at Southampton—Settling at Chawton.

The family removed to Bath in the spring of 1801, where they resided first at No. 4 Sydney Terrace, and afterwards in Green Park Buildings.  I do not know whether they were at all attracted to Bath by the circumstance that Mrs. Austen’s only brother, Mr. Leigh Perrot, spent part of every year there.  The name of Perrot, together with a small estate at Northleigh in Oxfordshire, had been bequeathed to him by a great uncle.  I must devote a few sentences to this very old and now extinct branch of the Perrot family; for one of the last survivors, Jane Perrot, married to a Walker, was Jane Austen’s great grandmother, from whom she derived her Christian name.  The Perrots were settled in Pembrokeshire at least as early as the thirteenth century.  They were probably some of the settlers whom the policy of our Plantagenet kings placed in that county, which thence acquired the name of ‘England beyond Wales,’ for the double purpose of keeping open a communication with Ireland from Milford Haven, and of overawing the Welsh.  One of the family seems to have carried out this latter purpose very vigorously; for it is recorded of him that he slew twenty-six men of Kemaes, a district of Wales, and one wolf.  The manner in which the two kinds of game are classed together, and the disproportion of numbers, are remarkable; but probably at that time the wolves had been so closely killed down, that lupicide was become a more rare and distinguished exploit than homicide.  The last of this family died about 1778, and their property was divided between Leighs and Musgraves, the larger portion going to the latter.  Mr. Leigh Perrot pulled down the mansion, and sold the estate to the Duke of Marlborough, and the name of these Perrots is now to be found only on some monuments in the church of Northleigh.

Mr. Leigh Perrot was also one of several cousins to whom a life interest in the Stoneleigh property in Warwickshire was left, after the extinction of the earlier Leigh peerage, but he compromised his claim to the succession in his lifetime.  He married a niece of Sir Montague Cholmeley of Lincolnshire.  He was a man of considerable natural power, with much of the wit of his uncle, the Master of Balliol, and wrote clever epigrams and riddles, some of which, though without his name, found their way into print; but he lived a very retired life, dividing his time between Bath and his place in Berkshire called Scarlets.  Jane’s letters from Bath make frequent mention of this uncle and aunt.

The unfinished story, now published under the title of ‘The Watsons,’ must have been written during the author’s residence in Bath.  In the autumn of 1804 she spent some weeks at Lyme, and became acquainted with the Cobb, which she afterwards made memorable for the fall of Louisa Musgrove.  In February 1805, her father died at Bath, and was