The Myth of ''Everybody's Dear Jane"

A Re-assessment of Jane Austin

by David Monaghan

In "The Lesson of Balzac," written in bough."(2) Rather, he believes that 1905, Henry James describes Jane Aus• her fame results from extraneous bio• ten as "their 'dear,1 our dear, graphical factors. Readers are fas• everybody's dear, Jane."(l) He is cinated, James argues, by the phenom• moved to refer to her with such heavy enon of the secluded spinster who irony by his irritation at what he mused as she toiled over her workbas- perceives to be the illegitimate ket, and sometimes recorded these reasons for the growing popularity of musings in graceful and facile novels: a writer who had been largely ignored The key to Jane Austen's fortune by the public for forty years after with posterity has been in part her death. So far as James is con• the extraordinary grace of her cerned Jane Austen's popularity has facility, in fact of her uncon• little to do with her artistic merits. sciousness: as if, at the most, In fact, for him, she is merely a for difficulty, for embarrass• writer of "light felicity" who ment, she sometimes, over her "leaves us hardly more curious of her workbasket, her tapestry flowers, process, or of the experience in her in the spare, cool drawing-room that fed it, than the brown thrush of other days, fell a-musing, who tells his story from the garden lapsed too metaphorically, as one JANE AUSTEN 177J—1X17 may say, into wool-gathering, and blokes goin' off to London on 'orse- her dropped stitches, of these back for 'air-cuts an' shaves," (p. pardonable, of these precious 170) the mess-waiter too learns to love moments, were afterwards picked Jane and become a Janeite. Eventually, up as little touches of human membership in this secret society saves truth, little glimpses of his life because, during a frantic re• steady vision, little master• treat, he wins a place on an already strokes of imagination.(3) over-crowded hospital train by com• menting to the matron, a fellow Jane• James here demonstrates a remarkable ite, that one of the nurses is like blindness to Jane Austen's very real Miss Bates, from Emma. achievement as a writer. This was possibly a result of his conviction The Janeites, then, did not receive that women novelists in general are their name until 1926. However, as "ever gracefully, comfortably, envi• Henry James points out, the cult began ably, unconscious (it would be too about forty years after Jane Austen's much to call them even suspicious) of death, and, in fact, received its main the requirements of form."(4) However, impetus from J.E. Austen-Leigh's he is perceptive about the existence Memoir of his aunt, published in 1870. of a Jane Austen cult, and about the Austen-Leigh is crucial in the evolu• reasons for its emergence. tion of the Jane Austen cult because he created the prototypical figure of This cult was later given a name by " Aunt Jane," (6)a spinster lady pos• Rudyard Kipling in his story "The sessed of "a sweet temper and loving Janeites," published in 1926. "The heart," (p. 2) for whom "Her own family Janeites" is a half-mocking, half- were so much, and the rest of the world affectionate account of how a cockney so little" (p. 12) and whose life was mess-waiter in World War I discovers ruled by "piety." (p. 23) Austen-Leigh the existence of a "very select so• also firmly established the typical ciety, " (5) entrance into which is de• Janeite reading of the novels. Al• pendent on a knowledge of Tilniz an' though he echoes the positive reviews trapdoors (p. 168) and on being "a of Archbishop Whately, Macauley and Janeite in your 'eart." (p. 188) By Lewes, who praised Jane Austen for her diligently reading and memorizing six skill in characterization and her ac• novels, which "weren't adventurous, nor curate depiction of manners, Austen- smutty, nor what you'd even call inter- Leigh is unwilling to rank his aunt estin'—all about girls o' seventeen with the greatest novelists. This is . . . , not certain 'oom they'd like to because he sees her as a woman of marry: an' their dances an1 card- limited horizons, who knew little about parties an' picnics, and their young politics, law or medicine, and who thus restricted herself to "3 or 4 families that Jane Austen writes in her letters in a village." In Charlotte Bronte's to her sister Cassandra. He claims words, Austen-Leigh believes that Jane that "Her unusually quick sense of the Austen simply presents us with "an ac• ridiculous led her to play with all the curate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-places of everyday life, whether commonplace face" and that "she does as regarded persons or things; but she her business of delineating the surface never played with its serious duties of the lives of genteel English people or responsibilities, nor did she ever curiously well; there is a Chinese turn individuals into ridicule." (p. fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the 92) Yet, this same Jane Austen is painting."(7) In commending Jane Aus• capable of the following extremely ten's novels to our attention, Austen- personalized piece of cynicism about a Leigh emphasizes mainly the good char• bereavement. "The Debaries persist in acter of the author and the remarkable being afflicted at the death of their fact that they were composed so cas• Uncle, of whom they now say they saw a ually by an ordinary woman as she sat great deal in London."(8) Of the same in her drawing room continually inter• family, she also says "I was as civil rupted by the demands of her family. to them as their bad breath would allow Fragile as his plea may seem to be, it me." (p. 92) Jane Austen's comments has satisfied not only the Janeites about the Barnwalls, whom she met at who irritated Henry James and amused Lyme Regis, are scarcely more chari• Rudyard Kipling, but also increasing table, since she describes them as "the numbers of modern readers, the most son and son's wife of an Irish vis• enthusiastic of whom have given their count, bold queer-looking people, just cult official status in the shape of fit to be quality at Lyme." (p. 142) the Jane Austen Society. However, far worse than any of the above, because it is gratuitously I would like to challenge the Janeite cruel (whereas they are honest, if un• approach in two ways, first, by sugges• kind) , is her remark that, "Mrs. Hall, ting that Jane Austen was not entirely of Sherborne, was brought to bed yes• a "dear" person, and second, by arguing terday of a dead child, some weeks be• that her novels are remarkable as far fore she expected, owing to a fright. more than examples of what a secluded I suppose she happened unawares to spinster could produce out of limited look at her husband." (p. 24) experience and difficult compositional circumstances. Aunt Jane may have loved her little nephews and nieces. However, as she In order to create his dear Aunt Jane, reveals in her novels, her view of Austen-Leigh ignores some of the ex• children was not quite the sentimen• tremely sharp and often unkind things talized one that Austen-Leigh leads us to believe. Whenever children appear, for tho' repeatedly assured that an• which is rare because Jane Austen other in the same party was the She, I keeps them mostly off-stage, they dis• fixed upon the right one from the play much of the same selfishness, first." (p. 127) A similar freedom cunning and stupidity as adults. Lady from prudishness is apparent in other Middleton's children in Sense and letters. Of a lady with too many Sensibility serve as good examples: children, Jane Austen comments "Good "Lady Middleton seemed to be roused to Mrs. Deedes.'—I hope she will get the enjoyment only by the entrance of her better of this Marianne, & then I wd four noisy children after dinner, who recommend to her & Mr. D the simple pulled her about, tore her clothes, regimen of separate rooms."(p. 480) and put an end to every kind of dis• And, of a visit to a fashionable course except what related to them• boarding school, she says, "The appear• selves. "(9) And later, Jane Austen ance of the room, so totally unschool- comments on little Annamaria's like, amused me very much . . . , if response to attempts to quell her cry• it had not been for some naked Cupids ing: "She was seated in her mother's over the Mantlepiece, which must be a lap, covered with kisses, her wound fine study for the Girls, one should bathed with lavender-water, by one of never have smelt instruction." (p. the Miss Steeles, and her mouth 309) stuffed with sugar plums by the other. With such a reward for her tears, the Jane Austen's novels are rarely as ex• child was too wise to cease crying. plicit as this, probably because the She still screamed and sobbed lustily, increasing influence of the Evangeli• kicked her two brothers for offering cals imposed many restrictions on the to touch her, and all their united subject matter of fiction. It was in soothings were ineffectual."(Vol. I, 1804, for instance, that Thomas Bowd- p. 121) ler, from whom the word bowdlerize de• rives, produced his Family Shakespeare, The real Jane Austen, however, perhaps in which the plays were expurgated "in deviates most from her nephew's idea• the interests of decency and delicacy." lized and very Victorian portrait, in (10) Her only obvious dirty joke is to her obvious, frank and very eighteenth- be found in Mansfield Park when Mary century interest in sexual matters. Crawford, in the course of a conversa• Her account of attempts to identify tion about Admirals, admits that she the notorious Miss Twisleton at a has seen too much of "Rears, and Bath ball, for example, suggests a Vices." (Vol. Ill, p. 60) Neverthe• delighted curiosity rather than moral less, had Kipling's mess-waiter looked outrage: "I am proud to .say that I harder he would have found far more have a good eye for an Adulteress, than this which is "smutty." Alice Chandler, in her essay "'A Pair of term for sexual intercourse.(12) Fine Eyes': Jane Austen's Treatment of Sex," makes an attempt at tracking Similarly, Willoughby's offer of down all of Jane Austen's sexual horse, Queen Mab, to Marianne Dashwood references. Some of Chandler's in Sense and Sensibility contains examples seem a little far-fetched, within it an acknowledgement of his but sufficient of them are based on a underlying sexual ambitions, for Queen firm foundation for us to accept her Mab in A Midsummer Night's Dream is contention that Jane Austen was inter• the "fairies midwife:" This is the ested in chronicling the "disruptive hag when maids lie on their backs/ and disorderly force of sex."(11) That presses them and learns them first to bear." In Emma, for example, many references are made to the charade or riddle, The sexuality in Jane Austen's novels "Kitty, a Fair but Frozen Maid," which is not always buried within allusions, is usually ascribed to David Garrick, but is sometimes embedded in her sym• but it is never quoted. This is bolism. For example, the incident of probably because it is obscene. Thus, the locked gate at Sotherton in Mans• Alice Chandler says: field Park, with its references to Read with a knowledge of gates, keys, gardens, wildernesses, eighteenth-century slang, the pointed spikes and torn dresses, is first stanza reveals itself to be laden with hints as to the implica• about a man who has contracted tions of Maria Bertram's desire to go venereal disease ("a flame I yet exploring with Henry Crawford. deplore") from patronizing "frozen kitty" (a "forward kit- However, unless we read Jane Austen tie ," as in some versions, would through the tinted spectacles of a be a bold prostitute). Having Janeite, we do not need to delve into cured himself in the omitted the subtleties of allusions and sym• second stanza, he relates how he bolism to discover that she recognized now derives pleasures from fre• the sexual basis of human relation• quenting only the virginal Fanny. ships. In her novels, she repeatedly The reference in the last 3 lines demonstrates that the sexual impulse —"some willing victim bleeds"— is strong enough to drive people out• is literally hymeneal. The solu• side the boundaries of conventional tion to the final stanza, "a morality. Willoughby, in Sense and chimney sweep," must have been Sensibility, turns out to have been productive as much drawing-room the seducer of Colonel Brandon's ward, mirth. . . because "chimney Eliza; Wickham, in Pride and Preju• sweeping" was a well-known cant dice , attempts to seduce Georgiana Darcy and elopes with Lydia Bennet to rounded portrayal of Jane Austen, but London, where it turns out that his rather to suggest that she is a much intentions are not matrimonial; Mary more complex person than the Janeites Crawford, in Mansfield Park, makes would admit. In fact, that she is frequent allusions to the loose moral• complex enough to have written novels ity of London society, and her brother, that are far more than accurate por• Henry caps his sexual adventures by trayals of certain character types and eloping with the married Maria Rush- of the manners of the gentry. worth; Harriet Smith, in Emma, is il• legitimate; and William Elliot, in In order to establish what kind of Persuasion, seduces Mrs. Clay to pre• novels Jane Austen actually did write, vent her marrying his uncle. I would now like to examine her chosen subject—the courtship problems and Jane Austen's heroes and heroines do manners of three or four genteel fam• not, of course, give in to their sex• ilies in a village—because I believe ual urges. However, this is not to that rather than defining her limita• say that there is not an element of tions, it provides the key to an un• sexual attraction in their relation• derstanding of the breadth of her con• ships, and any sensitive reader of cerns. Essentially, I am trying to Pride and Prejudice, in which Darcy's elaborate on George Saintsbury's com• relationship with Elizabeth Bennet is ment that "if her world is a micro• full of sparkling eyes, glowing com• cosm, the cosmic quality of it is at plexions, significant glances and least as eminent as the littleness." fumbling conversations, will recognize (13) My analysis will focus on two the falsity of Charlotte Bronte's main topics—Jane Austen's concentra• claim that "the passions are unknown" tion on the gentry and her concern to Jane Austen. Indeed, unless we with manners and the role of women. recognize the sexual energy which flows between Elizabeth and Darcy, The fact that Jane Austen writes al• their relationship has no basis be• most entirely about the gentry, and cause, for much of the novel, they only occasionally concerns herself consciously dislike each other, and it with either the higher reaches of the is only a physical attraction which aristocracy or the lower of the middle draws them together. class and the common people, has fre• quently been cited as evidence of her In trying to contradict the image of limitations as a social novelist. This "dear Jane" I have undoubtedly over• notion that a writer's subject matter stated her cynicism, misanthropy and in itself allows us to make assump• sexual interests. However, my inten• tions about the value of his work tion has not been to produce a well- strikes me as dubious. Few novelists in fact possess the kind of scope man. Of the two leisured classes, the which Jane Austen is condemned for aristocracy and the gentry, the latter lacking, and if she is to be seen as was felt to be the likelier to possess deficient so must Evelyn Waugh be for moral integrity because, lacking the writing mainly about the English upper temptation to indulge in the decadent classes, William Faulkner for dealing life of the court, its members stayed with the rural South and James Joyce in their country houses and executed for locating his novels in Dublin. the duties they owed to their families, Conversely, writers like James Michen- tenants and villagers. The gentry, er and Leon Uris, whose pulp epics then, provided eighteenth-century Eng• range over broad expanses of time and land with its moral heartbeat, and the place, should be accorded greater writer, like Jane Austen, who monitors prestige. We do not, of course, pre• this heartbeat can truly claim to be fer Michener to Faulkner or Uris to dealing with issues, the ramifications Joyce, because in these cases we ex• of which are extremely wide-ranging. amine not merely the writer's subject but what he does with it. If we ap• However, those who believe her to be proach Jane Austen in the same way limited would argue that, even allowing rather than automatically assuming the importance of the gentry/ Jane Aus• that her vision is limited, we can see ten still fails because she does not that she chose to write about the gen• fully examine the life of this class. try, not because she was not interested Jane Austen, they would claim, only in the rest of society, but because, shows us the gentry engaged in the in seeking a vantage point from which leisure pursuits of dancing, eating, to view her world, she decided to move visiting and talking, and, out of an to the centre of it. Eighteenth- ignorance of such topics, completely century English morality was based on ignores its involvement in estate the code of the gentleman which de• management, military affairs (even fined that the individual's social re• though she wrote during the Napoleonic sponsibility consisted of demonstrating Wars), the administration of justice a concern for and an ability to serve and the church. This charge in fact the needs of others. While all ranks is not entirely true. Jane Austen was were supposed to pursue this ideal it certainly aware of all the above as• was felt that some were better quali• pects of the life of a gentleman and fied to achieve it than others. The mentions them from time to time. Mr. middle and lower classes were con• Knightley, in Emma, is frequently pre• sidered morally doubtful because, as a occupied with his estate and the exe• result of working for a living, they cution of justice, the war with did not have the time needed to culti• France enters into Pride and Prejudice vate the proper virtues of the gentle• and plays a very central role in Per- suasion, and Edmund Bertram, in Mans• the assumption that society is a field Park, engages in serious discus• divine creation in which things are so sions of his duties as a clergyman. beautifully ordered that each person (14) Nevertheless, it must be dealt living in it is a microcosm of the with because, whether from choice or whole. Thus, although some have ignorance, Jane Austen did largely greater roles to play than others, the concern herself with the polite func• conduct of every member has a direct tion of the gentry and can be accura• bearing on the health of the total tely defined as a novelist of manners. organism. Consequently, we find in the eighteenth-century a great inter• As was the case with the issue of Jane est in the individual's moral per• Austen's restricted social range, we formance, which, since this is a very must be careful of making any a priori formal society, frequently manifests assumptions that literature which itself in a display of manners. By deals with social rituals and formal• behaving politely, the individual is ity is necessarily limited. Lionel considered to be carrying out the Trilling, for example, has gone so single most important social function far as to argue that an examination of of demonstrating an awareness of, and the manners of an age is as good a an ability to serve, the needs of route as any to uncovering its signifi• others. The act of opening a door for cance : "the great novelists knew that a lady is thus, in a sense, as vital manners indicate the largest inten• to the preservation of English society tions of men's souls as well as the as serving in Parliament or adminis• smallest and they are perpetually con• tering justice. Indeed, since the cerned to catch the meaning of every demands of the code of politeness are dim implicit hint."(15) In Jane Aus• subtle, unremitting and enter into ten's case, however, we do not have to every aspect of life, it could be rely on any general justification of argued that displays of good manners the novel of manners because, if we are more important than the perform• consider eighteenth-century Conserva• ance of the larger social duties, tive attitudes towards manners, we can which make infrequent and obvious de• see that at this time manners were mands. The link between manners and considered to be inextricably linked social stability is made explicit by with morals and ultimately with the Edmund Burke, the most important ex• survival of the nation. To understand pounder of Conservatism: "Manners are this we must digress briefly and look of more importance than laws. Upon at some aspects of Conservative them, in a great measure, the laws de• thought. pend. . . . They give their whole form and colour to our lives. Accor• ding to their quality, they aid morals, The Conservative vision springs from they supply them, or they totally des• ten's novels, the society discovers, troy them."(16) in the course of educating the heroine, that it too must correct defects. That Jane Austen granted a similar significance to manners is made clear In Emma, for example, both Emma and in one of her early stories, "Catha• her community, the village of Highbury, rine." In reply to Catharine's claim are in need of improvement. Before that, "I have done nothing this even• she can be considered a mature adult ing that can contribute to overthrow Emma must learn to modify her egotis• the establishment of the kingdom," her tical approach to experience, and to aunt replies "You are Mistaken Child; accord things outside of herself theijr . . . the welfare of every Nation de• true value, rather than trying to man• pends upon the virtue of its individ• ipulate them to fit her own needs. And uals, and any who offends in so gross Highbury must come to recognize that a manner against decorum and propriety unless it rouses itself from its con• is certainly hastening its ruin." tented slumber, and accepts the re• (Vol. VI, pp. 232-33) sponsibility of adapting and changing, it will inevitably die. This process Once the reader recognizes the larger of mutual education, which constitutes implications of manners, much that in• the main theme of Emma, is worked out. itially seems trivial in Jane Austen's entirely at the level of manners. & novels grows in importance. The hero• Emma's egotism is reflected in re• ines, for example, are not in fact peated lapses in good manners, culmin• primarily engaged in mindless husband- ating in her inexcusable rudeness to hunts as they attend their balls and Miss Bates at Box Hill, and the mori• dinners and make visits, but are being bund nature of Highbury is indicated initiated into the manners and hence most clearly by the fact that the for• the morals of their society. The mar• mal social occasion, which is the most riages into which they finally enter important vehicle for an expression of do not serve simply as convenient cli• politeness, has been allowed to lapse. maxes to conventional romance plots There are no longer dances at the but are symbolic of the heroine1s Crown and Highbury's main families achievement of maturity and of her rarely entertain formally. Emma ul• worthiness to be admitted into the timately gains maturity by recognizing adult world. Moreover, this education the implications of her bad manners, in manners is not a one-way process particularly of her rudeness to Miss because, as it strives to deal with Bates. And Highbury is forced by the the needs of the initiate, so the so• demands of the emerging Emma and the ciety must re-examine its own moral newcomers Frank Churchill and Mrs. condition. In almost all of Jane Aus• Elton to revive its formal social life. This results in a renewal of intense Since Kellynch is to pass into the polite contact between its inhabitants hands of William Elliot, an even more and provides a vehicle for the reas- corrupt man, for whom manners are sertion of what is morally good and neither a moral guide nor merely empty the rejection of what is bad. Having show, but a means of masking the real demonstrated the ability of manners to self and its selfish goals, there correct deficiencies in both heroine seems little hope for a revival of the and community, Jane Austen is able to gentry. Therefore, Sir Walter's conclude her novel with an image of daughter, Anne, the only character in social harmony as Emma marries Mr. the novel who lives up to the stand• Knightley and is admitted into the ards of the old world, has to seek be• adult world. yond her home for a sphere of action. This she eventually finds amongst the The larger social function of manners "new men" of the Navy. However, Anne is nowhere more evident than in Per• discovers that in this new world her suasion , a novel in which Jane Austen manners are of no more use as a means at last seems to have lost faith in of moral communication than they were the essentially hierarchical, agrarian in the old. For, whereas in the old and gentlemanly world which she de• they have degenerated into empty dis• fended throughout her earlier works. play or a means of self-concealment, The main representative of the gentry in the new, they are simply not under• in Persuasion is Sir Walter Elliot, a stood. The world of the Navy has a man for whom external show has re• pristine quality about it, but it is placed a sense of duty. This is re• also unsophisticated, and has not flected in his manners which are aimed developed any sense of the nuances of entirely at the glorification of the polite behavior. Thus, the individual self and which have thus lost their must prove himself entirely through function of reinforcing the ideal of useful action and is deprived of the service to others. Lacking the opportunity to repeatedly demonstrate sound moral guidance of good manners, his potential fqr such action through Sir Walter proves willing to rent out the medium of good manners.(17) his estate at Kellynch, rather than cut back his expenditure on "Journeys, By the time she wrote Persuasion, Jane London, servants, horses, table." Austen seemed to have become so tired (Vol. V, p. 13) Yet, the gentleman is of the old order that she found the nothing without his estate because it crudity of the new refreshing. Never• represents his sphere of duty and pro• theless, she does indicate that, in a vides him with the chance to attend society which lacks a coherent system to the needs of others. of manners, it is much harder for in• dividuals, particularly women, to prove their worth. Captain Wentworth universally accepted system of manners, demonstrates his utility in the war. it was able to offer the worthy indiv• However, the novel repeatedly stresses idual an assurance that his value the extent to which even the best of would be recognized and that an appro• men are dependent on getting the right priate place would be found for him. ship, the right weather and the appro• Ironically, then, Jane Austen makes priate timing of declaration of peace the larger social implications of and renewals of hostility. Anne politeness most clear in a novel that Elliot's task is still more difficult charts its breakdown. because, as a woman lacking a house• hold, she has little opportunity for With the exception of Persuasion, Jane active demonstration of the excellence Austen generally defends her society she repeatedly shows in her manners. and its Conservative vision. Neverthe• As events turn out she is fortunate less, she was no mere apologist for and Louisa Musgrove's fall from the the status quo, and in one area, at Cobb at Lyme gives her a chance to least, her concern with manners leads demonstrate her worth and wins her the her to take a stance that places her respect of the inhabitants of her new outside the mainstream of her age. world. Nevertheless, the reader is Through her examination of the woman's left at the end of Persuasion with role in the polite world, Jane Austen a profound sense that, had she not comes to conclusions about her sex been lucky, Anne Elliot might have that were at odds with most contempor• remained isolated and unrecognized. ary opinion.

Although Jane Austen avoids locating Our main sources of information about her new men in their proper sphere, attitudes to women in the eighteenth the world she is describing in Per• century are the conduct-books, which suasion is clearly the modern world of were intended to instruct young ladies the entrepreneur and the industrialist, about their proper social role. We and she finds much of value in it. find a rather contradictory attitude Captain Wentworth, for example, is to women in these books. On the one obviously admired for his ability to hand they accorded women great pres• rise through individual iniative tige as arbiters of manners and house• rather than family connections and the hold managers, both functions of con• novel accepts that his new prestige siderable importance in a society will be gauged by wealth rather than which, as we have already seen, title. Nevertheless, if only by im• granted such significance to manners, plication, Jane Austen does tell us and which regarded the family as a that the old world was superior be• microcosm of the larger society: "A cause, operating as it did around a man has been termed a microcosm; and every family might also be called a ten endeavours to arrive at a more co• state."(18) On the other hand, how• herent definition of the feminine ever, writers like the Rev. James nature and social role. Fordyce, Thomas Gisborne, Hannah More Granted her belief in the importance and Dr. Gregory all agreed that women of manners, it is not surprising that are the mental inferiors of men, that Jane Austen was willing to accept that they should not receive an equal edu• women could achieve fulfilment as cation and that they should cultivate arbiters of manners. As I have al• the virtues of submissiveness and ready tried to demonstrate, her novels meekness. Fordyce, for example, propose that, by receiving an educa• writes, "Nature appears to have formed tion in manners, the heroines perform the faculties of your sex for the most a vital social function and are ac• part with less vigour than those of corded a worthy position in adult so• ours" and then says of feminine edu• ciety. There is also evidence that cation that "I do not wish to see [the Jane Austen, then, emerges as a much female world ] abound with metaphysic• more formidable person and writer ians, historians, speculative philoso• than the "dear Jane" stereotype would phers, or learned ladies of any kind. allow. Far from being a sweet, pious I should be afraid, lest the sex spinster who knew little of the world should lose in softness what they beyond her Steventon and Chawton gained in force."(19) Dr. Gregory de• homes, she was a strong-minded woman, fines the virtuous woman thus: "One of who possessed a keen understanding of the chief beauties in a female charac• the structure of her society and of ter, is that modest reserve, that re• the position of her own sex within it. tiring delicacy, which avoids the pub• The fact that critics have only begun lic eye, and is disconcerted even by to realize this in the last twenty the gaze of admirers."(20) years, and that most general readers still do not recognize it, perhaps Given this low opinion of women, we merely provides evidence of the ten• might question how sincere the writers acity with which even the most out• of conduct-books are in claiming sig• moded literary myths can retain their nificance for the woman's rather re• grip. However, in this case, we must stricted realms of manners and the suspect that the failure to acknow• home. Unless, perhaps, they simply ledge the full extent of Jane Austen's did not recognize the contradictions greatness is intimately linked with implicit in ascribing a vital social the unwillingness of both nineteenth role to a second-rate person. What• and twentieth century readers to ques• ever the reasons for these contradic• tion the reality of an image which tions, the conduct books are unsatis• accorded so perfectly with their gen• factory and, in her novels, Jane Aus• eral view of women. Jane Austen accepted the contemporary Elizabeth Bennet wins far more credit attitude to household management, in when she ignores decorum and tramples that she frequently stresses the link across muddy fields to visit her sick between the well-managed household and sister Jane than does the young Fanny the healthy nation. We have already Price when she creeps timidly around seen how Sir Walter Elliot's failure Mansfield Park. Similarly, marriages to hold on to his estate is indicative are successful in Jane Austen's novels of the decline of the gentry, and it only when the woman assumes equal re• is significant in our present context sponsibility with the man, as is the that the degeneration of Kellynch be• case with Admiral and Mrs. Croft in gan with the death of Lady Elliot who Persuasion. exercised "method, moderation, and economy, which had just kept him [sir Persuasion provides evidence that Jane Walter ] within his income." (Vol. V, Austen only accepted the woman's re• p. 9) stricted social role because she thought it satisfying. In a world However, Jane Austen's arguments for where manners no longer serve a sig• the significance of these functions nificant function we find Jane Aus• acquires far more credibility than ten's women beginning to intrude into those of her contemporaries because, masculine domains. Mrs. Croft, who at the same time, she claims that argues fiercely for women to be con• women have the abilities necessary to sidered "rational creatures" (Vol. V, fulfil them. If any women in her p. 70) is the main example of this new novels are less intelligent and type of woman. She is physically rational than men it is because they strong, and is described as possessing have been subjected to an inferior "vigour of form;"(Vol. V, p. 48) she education. Wherever her female char• accompanies her husband, the Admiral, acters have enjoyed a proper education on most of his voyages, and, when on they prove to be the equals of men. land, rides recklessly around the Elizabeth Bennet, for example, re• countryside with him; and she readily peatedly outwits Darcy who is an ex• joins in male conversations: "[Anne tremely clever man; and Anne Elliot was] delighted to see the Admiral's turns out to be much more rational, hearty shake of the hand when he en• logical and decisive than any of her countered an old friend, and observe male companions during the crisis fol• their eagerness of conversation when lowing Louisa Musgrove's accident. occasionally forming into a little Rather than praising submission and knot of the navy, Mrs. Croft looking timidity, Jane Austen advocates that as intelligent and keen as any of the women be assertive and active. Thus, officers around her." (Vol. V, p. 168) NOTES 13. Quoted from Mary Lascelles, Jane Austen and Her Art (London: Oxford University Press, 1939), pp. 135-136. 1. "The Lesson of Balzac," in The House of Fiction, ed. Leon Edel (London: Hart-Davis, 1957), pp. 62-63. 14. For a full discuss ion of the breadth of Jane Austen' s concerns, see Donald Greene, "The Myth of Limitation," in Jane Austen Today, ed., 2. James, p. 62. Joel Weinsheimer (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975), pp. 142-75. 3. James, p. 63.

15. Lionel Trilling, "Manners, Morals and the Novel," in The Liberal 4. "Gustav Flaubert," in The House of Fiction, p. 206. Imagination, by Lionel Trilling (Hew York: Viking, 1955), pp. 211-12.

5. "The Janeites," in Debits and Credits (New York: Scribners, 1926), 16. "First Letter of a Regicide Peace," in The Works of Edmund Burke p. 188. Subsequent references to "The Janeites" are cited in the text (London: G. Bell, 1903-1910), V, p. 208. of my article.

17. For a full discussion of this topic, see David Monaghan, "The 6. Memoir of Jane Austen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), p. 2. Subse• Decline of the Gentry: A Study of Jane Austen's Attitude to quent references to Memoir are cited in the text of my article. Formality in Persuasion," Studies in the Novel, 7 (Spring, 1975) , pp.73-87.

7. "Charlotte Bronte on Jane Austen, 1848, 1850," in Jane Austen: The 18. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (New York: Critical Heritage, ed. B.C. Southam (London: Routledge and Kegan Norton, 1967), p. 264. Paul,.1968), p. 126.

19. James Fordyce, Sermons to Young Women (London: Millar and Cadell, 8. R.w. Chapman, ed., Jane Austen's Letters (London: Oxford University

1767), I, Pp. 271-72 and I, pp. 201-02. Press, 1952), p. 81. Subsequent references to Jane Austen's Letters are cited in the text of my article. 20. Legacy to His Daughters, in Angelica's Ladies Library or Parents and Guardians Present (London: S. Hamilton, 1794), p. 10. 9. R.W. Chapman, ed., The Hovels of Jane Austen (London: Oxford Univer• sity Press, 1933), I,p.34. Subsequent references to The Hovels of Jane Austen are cited in the text of my article. Volumes I-V were pub• lished in 1933, and volume Vt in 1954.

10. Muriel Jaeger, Before Victoria (London: Chatto and Hindus, 1956), p. 119.

11. "'A Pair of Fine Eyes': Jane Austen's Treatment of Sex," Studies in the Hovel, 7 (Spring, 1975), pp. 88-103.

12. Chandler, p. 92.