CHAPTER III.
Table of Contents Early Compositions-Friends at Ashe-A very old Letter-Lines on the Death of Mrs. Lefroy-Observations on Jane Austen's Letter-writing-Letters.
I know little of Jane Austen's childhood. Her mother followed a custom, not unusual in those days, though it seems strange to us, of putting out her babies to be nursed in a cottage in the village. The infant was daily visited by one or both of its parents, and frequently brought to them at the parsonage, but the cottage was its home, and must have remained so till it was old enough to run about and talk; for I know that one of them, in after life, used to speak of his foster mother as 'Movie,' the name by which he had called her in his infancy. It may be that the contrast between the parsonage house and the best class of cottages was not quite so extreme then as it would be now, that the one was somewhat less luxurious, and the other less squalid. It would certainly seem from the results that it was a wholesome and invigorating system, for the children were all strong and healthy. Jane was probably treated like the rest in this respect. In childhood every available opportunity of instruction was made use of. According to the ideas of the time, she was well educated, though not highly accomplished, and she certainly enjoyed that important element of mental training, associating at home with persons of cultivated intellect. It cannot be doubted that her early years were bright and happy, living, as she did, with indulgent parents, in a cheerful home, not without agreeable variety of society. To these sources of enjoyment must be added the first stirrings of talent within her, and the absorbing interest of original composition. It is impossible to say at how early an age she began to write. There are copy books extant containing tales some of which must have been composed while she was a young girl, as they had amounted to a considerable number by the time she was sixteen. Her earliest stories are of a slight and flimsy texture, and are generally intended to be nonsensical, but the nonsense has much spirit in it. They are usually preceded by a dedication of mock solemnity to some one of her family. It would seem that the grandiloquent dedications prevalent in those days had not escaped her youthful penetration. Perhaps the most characteristic feature in these early productions is that, however puerile the matter, they are always composed in pure simple English, quite free from the over-ornamented style which might be expected from so young a writer. One of her juvenile effusions is given, as a specimen of the kind of transitory amusement which Jane was continually supplying to the family party.
THE MYSTERY.
AN UNFINISHED COMEDY.
Table of Contents DEDICATION.
To the Rev. George austen.
Sir,-I humbly solicit your patronage to the following Comedy, which, though an unfinished one, is, I flatter myself, as complete a Mystery as any of its kind.
I am, Sir, your most humble Servant,
The Author.
THE MYSTERY, A COMEDY.
dramatis personæ.
Men.
Women.
Col.
Elliott.
Fanny Elliott.
OLD
Humbug. Mrs.
HumbugYoung Humbug.
andSir Edward Spangle Daphne.
and
Corydon.
ACT I.
Table of Contents Scene I.-A Garden.
Enter Corydon.
Corydon. But hush: I am interrupted. [Exit Corydon.
Enter Old Humbug and his Son, talking.
Old Hum. It is for that reason that I wish you to follow my advice. Are you convinced of its propriety?
Young Hum. I am, sir, and will certainly act in the manner you have pointed out to me.
Old Hum. Then let us return to the house. [Exeunt.
SCENE II.-A parlour in Humbug's house. Mrs. Humbug and Fanny discovered at work.
Mrs. Hum. You understand me, my love?
Fanny. Perfectly, ma'am: pray continue your narration.
Mrs. Hum. Alas! it is nearly concluded; for I have nothing more to say on the subject.
Fanny. Ah! here is Daphne.
Enter Daphne.
Daphne. My dear Mrs. Humbug, how d'ye do? Oh! Fanny, it is all over.
Fanny. Is it indeed!
Mrs. Hum. I'm very sorry to hear it.
Fanny. Then 'twas to no purpose that I-
Daphne. None upon earth.
Mrs. Hum. And what is to become of-?
Daphne. Oh! 'tis all settled. (Whispers Mrs. Humbug.)
Fanny. And how is it determined?
Daphne. I'll tell you. (Whispers Fanny.)
Mrs. Hum. And is he to-?
Daphne. I'll tell you all I know of the matter. (Whispers Mrs. Humbug and Fanny.)
Fanny. Well, now I know everything about it, I'll go away.
Mrs. Hum. and Daphne. And so will I. [Exeunt.
SCENE III.-The curtain rises, and discovers Sir Edward Spangle reclined in an elegant attitude on a sofa fast asleep.
Enter Col. Elliott.
Col. E. My daughter is not here, I see. There lies Sir Edward. Shall I tell him the secret? No, he'll certainly blab it. But he's asleep, and won't hear me;-so I'll e'en venture. (Goes up to SIR EDWARD, whispers him, and exit.)
END OF THE FIRST ACT.
FINIS.
* * * * *
Her own mature opinion of the desirableness of such an early habit of composition is given in the following words of a niece:-
'As I grew older, my aunt would talk to me more seriously of my reading and my amusements. I had taken early to writing verses and stories, and I am sorry to think how I troubled her with reading them. She was very kind about it, and always had some praise to bestow, but at last she warned me against spending too much time upon them. She said-how well I recollect it!-that she knew writing stories was a great amusement, and she thought a harmless one, though many people, she was aware, thought otherwise; but that at my age it would be bad for me to be much taken up with my own compositions. Later still-it was after she had gone to Winchester-she sent me a message to this effect, that if I would take her advice I should cease writing till I was sixteen; that she had herself often wished she had read more, and written less in the corresponding years of her own life.' As this niece was only twelve years old at the time of her aunt's death, these words seem to imply that the juvenile tales to which I have referred had, some of them at least, been written in her childhood.
But between these childish effusions, and the composition of her living works, there intervened another stage of her progress, during which she produced some stories, not without merit, but which she never considered worthy of publication. During this preparatory period her mind seems to have been working in a very different direction from that into which it ultimately settled. Instead of presenting faithful copies of nature, these tales were generally burlesques, ridiculing the improbable events and exaggerated sentiments which she had met with in sundry silly romances. Something of this fancy is to be found in 'Northanger Abbey,' but she soon left it far behind in her subsequent course. It would seem as if she were first taking note of all the faults to be avoided, and curiously considering how she ought not to write before she attempted to put forth her strength in the right direction. The family have, rightly, I think, declined to let these early works be published. Mr. Shortreed observed very pithily of Walter Scott's early rambles on the borders, 'He was makin' himsell a' the time; but he didna ken, may be, what he was about till years had passed. At first he thought of little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun.' And so, in a humbler way, Jane Austen was 'makin' hersell,' little thinking of future fame, but caring only for 'the queerness and the fun;' and it would be as unfair to expose this preliminary process to the world, as it would be to display all that goes on behind the curtain of the theatre before it is drawn up.
It was, however, at Steventon that the real foundations of her fame were laid. There some of her most successful writing was composed at such an early age as to make it surprising that so young a woman could have acquired the insight into character, and the nice observation of manners which they display. 'Pride and Prejudice,' which some consider the most brilliant of her novels, was the first finished, if not the first begun. She began it in October 1796, before she was twenty-one years old, and completed it in about ten months, in August 1797. The title then intended for it was 'First Impressions.' 'Sense and Sensibility' was begun, in its present form, immediately after the completion of the former, in November 1797 but something similar in story and character had been written earlier under the title of 'Elinor and Marianne;' and if, as is probable, a good deal of this earlier production was retained, it must form the earliest specimen of her writing that has been given to the world. 'Northanger Abbey,' though not prepared for the press till 1803, was certainly first...
