Critical Remarks

I confess to having entertained some doubts as to the publication of the five letters addressed by ‘Aunt Jane’ to my mother in 1814–16—doubts not so much as to the propriety of their publication as to the possible dislike which some of my own family might feel at the dragging to light of items of private history which, seventy years ago, were no doubt secret and sacred to both the writer and the recipient of the letters which contain them. But two considerations have weighed with me above all others, and I trust they will be deemed sufficient, even if the lapse of time since the letters were written did not in itself remove every reasonable objection. The one consideration is that, as regards Jane herself, these five letters are peculiarly interesting, not only because in every line they are vividly characteristic of the writer, but because they differ from all the preceding letters in that they are written, not to an elder sister, but to a niece who constantly sought her advice and sympathy, and whom she addressed, of course, in a different manner, and from a different standpoint. The other and, naturally, to me a consideration even more important, is that, according to my humble judgment, these letters, whilst they illustrate the character of my great-aunt, cannot, when explained, do otherwise than reflect credit upon that of my beloved mother; whilst they prove the great and affectionate intimacy which existed between her and her aunt, and incidentally demonstrate the truth of a remark in one of Cassandra’s letters that there were many points of similitude in the characters of the two. If my mother had preserved more of the thirty or forty letters which she received from ‘Aunt Jane’ during the years 1814–16, it might have been possible for me, if it seemed desirable, to eliminate the portions which related to her own ‘love affairs,’ and to still obtain the illustrations of Jane Austen’s character which her letters to a niece specially afford when compared with her letters to a sister. I am not sure, however, that such an elimination would not have, to a great extent, spoiled, or at least diminished, the interest of the letters; and, when it became a question of omitting altogether these five letters, I thought that their interest was so great that I could not persuade myself to do so. After all the story is very simple, and one which can offend or injure nobody by its relation. My mother was a handsome and agreeable young woman, fond of society, and endowed with a large portion of practical common sense. A friendship sprang up between her and a gentleman of about her own age, whose name it is unnecessary for me to mention. He was a man of high character, the two saw much of each other, and the friendship ripened into an attachment which very nearly became an engagement. There was, however, one point of difference which stood in the way, and prevented this result. The gentleman was of a very serious disposition, and eventually his religious views induced him to think dancing and other social amusements of the same sort things which ought to be eschewed and avoided by Christian people. My mother was of a different opinion. I do not suppose there ever was a woman more profoundly and really religious; throughout the whole of her life she attended assiduously to her religious duties, never a day passed that she did not devote some portion of it to the perusal of some pious author (which she called ‘reading my goodness’), and no one ever strove more earnestly to do her duty and to follow the teaching of the Gospel. But she entertained a strong opinion that this might be done without a severance from the ordinary pursuits and amusements of other people; that a person might live ‘in the world’ without being ‘of the world,’ and that to perform the duties which came before her in life, and set a practical example of a Christian life in her everyday existence, was as likely to be acceptable to God as the withdrawal from pursuits in which everybody else indulged, as if a Christian’s duty required that he should live apart from other people, by which means his influence over them for good must of necessity be diminished. From the entries in her diary, as well as from the letters before me, it is evident that about this time a struggle went on in my mother’s mind upon these points. ‘Plagued myself about Methodists all day,’ and ‘had a nice conversation with Mr. Sherer about Methodists,’ are entries in the autumn of 1814, which evidently bear upon the matter, while other entries throughout this and the early part of the following year testify to the fact that she entertained a strong regard for the gentleman, but that she was in the position which many young women have been in before and since—namely, doubtful whether she cared enough for him to become his wife. This doubt became a certainty in 1815, and I find at the end of her pocket-book for that year, in her usual summary of the principal events of the year, that there were ‘many serious discussions and vexatious circumstances on serious subjects tending nearly to dissolve the intimacy between——and myself.’ I cannot more aptly illustrate my mother’s real feelings upon these matters which she speaks of as ‘serious’ than by a quotation from a letter to her from my father before they were married, which appears to me to speak, in the stronger language of a man, that which was in her woman’s heart. It so happened that immediately after they became engaged my father was summoned to Lincolnshire upon affairs arising out of the death of Sir Joseph Banks, and obliged to be away for more than a fortnight, during which time he wrote daily to my mother, who preserved all these letters—interesting mementoes to her children. In one of them, answering some remarks and enquiries of his correspondent, he writes as follows:—‘In all that I have had to undergo I have been supported by that Power from above without whose aid I must long ago have sunk; but, seriously as I have always regarded every occurrence of life, and attributing as I always do everything that happens to a superintending Power, I have never suffered these considerations to interfere with the duties or even the amusements of life. I have never felt that it could become me to find fault with the conduct of others, and dogmatically prescribe what course it is best to pursue. To act upon a steady and uniform principle, to adhere to what is right and to abstain from what is wrong, to afford the best example in my power, never to obtrude my opinions, but never upon proper occasions to be ashamed or afraid of avowing them—these have been the rules upon which I have acted, and I believe they will bring peace at the last. I dislike everything that savours of levity in matters of religion, and much more do I dislike that affected and presumptuous vanity which dares to censure the innocent amusements of life—which secludes people from the common enjoyments necessary to the comfort of society, and which, clothed in puritanical hypocrisy, affects a superiority to which it has no claim whatever. These are serious subjects; you first mentioned them to me, and I love you too well not to tell you without hesitation what I think and feel. Your own principles as expressed to me are right—grounded on humility, admitting how unequal we are to perform our duties, but resolutely and constantly persevering to the utmost of our ability to discharge them properly—thinking seriously of everything that happens, constantly mixing with the world, but enjoying it more or less according as we meet with similar feelings and kindred spirits, and always hoping that our example and principles will effect some good and receive the respect to which they are entitled.’ It was necessary to the elucidation of these five letters that this insight into my mother’s affairs should be given; her feelings may be gathered from ‘Aunt Jane’s’ remarks upon them, and I might close these prefatory observations by saying that this difference upon ‘serious subjects’ did overcome my mother’s regard for the gentleman in question, that the ‘intimacy’ was ‘dissolved,’ and within a couple of years he found his happiness elsewhere. I am unable, however, to avoid another quotation from one of my father’s letters in 1820, which evidences the frank, fearless, open nature which, in common with ‘Aunt Jane,’ my mother possessed. He writes: ‘I will now reply to that part of your letter which relates to Mr.——. Our meeting, my dearest Fanny, in the library at Godmersham on Friday fortnight we can neither of us ever forget—within ten minutes you mentioned to me the circumstances of this attachment. Of course I felt surprised till you told me all, and then I felt still more surprised, and happy beyond what I can declare, at having, as it were at once, developed to me a mind capable of expressing what I do not believe any other woman in the world would have had courage, or firmness, or candour, or sense enough to have mentioned. Let me say that my esteem for you is not of very recent date, but I hardly know of anything that has raised you higher in my opinion than your frank and sensible avowal in this instance. I would not say this if it were not true, and that you well know.’ The meeting in the library at Godmersham was, of course, that at which my father and mother became engaged, and with the hatred of concealment which was a part of her character, she evidently told him at once and fully of the past, and by so doing confirmed and strengthened his confidence in herself for the future.