CHAPTER XXIII

JANE AUSTEN--GEORGE ELIOT--THE BRONTES

Jane Austen is very much like herself, and like no one else. Most of us find people of this description interesting. It is true, that the more we know of Miss Austen, the more interesting we find her.

The characters in her novels are so real that no one has ever been able to find any fault with the way in which she created them.

Is it possible for us to discover how it was that she made her characters so real? Mr. Woodhouse is one of the people in Miss Austen's novel called _Emma_. Emma is Mr. Woodhouse's daughter. He is rather an invalid; at least, he thinks he is an invalid. Emma is a kind, good-hearted, managing young lady, who takes good care of her father, and who, since Mr. Woodhouse does not want to be troubled about anything, has all the responsibility of a large household. This arrangement suits Emma perfectly.

Emma often arranges a little tea party to amuse her father. He likes company, and quiet, sociable conversation. He wants his guests to eat, but he is afraid that what they eat will not be good for them. On one occasion, Emma had provided minced chicken and scalloped oysters, for their guests. Her father would take only a {155} little thin gruel. Poor Mr. Woodhouse urges the ladies to partake of his hospitality in this fashion.

"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg better than anybody. I would not recommend an egg boiled by anybody else,--but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see--one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart,--a very little bit. Ours are all apple tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a glass of wine,--a small half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could disagree with you."

But Emma took care that their guests had plenty to eat.

Mr. Woodhouse also was very particular about his horses. He kept horses and a coachman, but he seldom thought that the horses ought to be taken out.

With delicate, true touches such as these, and in easy conversation, Miss Austen builds up her characters. By the time we have finished the story, we know Mr. Woodhouse intimately, and Emma, and Mrs. and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, and many others. Is it not true that you know a good deal about Mr. Woodhouse only from hearing him speak of what food his guests should eat?

Mr. Bennet in _Pride and Prejudice_ is a father of a different character. He has five daughters, but he is fondest of Elizabeth, or Eliza as she is {156} often called. Mrs. Bennet, his wife, is unfortunately rather a silly person. Miss Austen is able to explain Mrs. Bennet's character just by letting her talk, and Mrs. Bennet talks a great deal.

Mrs. Bennet says to her husband, for instance, that he has no compassion on her poor nerves. Mr. Bennet answers: "You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least."

One would say that Mr. Bennet was, perhaps, not very considerate himself, a little inclined to be satirical with his foolish wife. But here is part of a conversation of his with Eliza, when she has told him at the end of the second book that she was going to be married, which shows Mr. Bennet in a better light.

"Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy."

How easy and simple it all seems, and yet to write naturally and simply, with such entire truth to nature, is one of the most difficult arts for any novelist.

Miss Austen wrote six novels altogether, _Pride and Prejudice_, _Sense and Sensibility_, _Emma_, _Persuasion_, _Mansfield Park_, and _Northanger Abbey_. She lived and wrote a little more than a hundred years ago, but her books are read and admired to-day perhaps more than at any previous time. There is something very charming and interesting in Miss Austen's reticence, truthfulness, strength of character, crystal purity and delightful {157} humour. Her field is narrow, she is not eloquent or sublime, but her work in its own way is perfect.

When Miss Austen wrote, it was not the fashion for ladies to write, and she often used to hide her manuscript beneath a bit of sewing, or place it hastily in a drawer when a door near where she wrote creaked on its hinges. We know from some letters written by her family that there was such a creaking door.

Mr. Kipling has written a poem in praise of Jane Austen which you will find in his book called _Debits and Credits_. He pictures Miss Austen being met at heaven's gate by some of the great novelists: Good Sir Walter, you know who that is; Henry, this is a great English novelist whose name was Henry Fielding; Tobias, another English novelist, Tobias Smollett; Miguel of Spain, this is Cervantes. From this short poem you can judge how highly other writers rank Jane Austen.

Tom and Maggie Tulliver are brother and sister. They appear in George Eliot's novel _The Mill on the Floss_. Tom and Maggie serve, perhaps, as the best known instance in fiction of a study of the relations between brother and sister. Certainly, we often think of Tom and Maggie, and always we think of them as boy and girl, brother and sister.

Tom is very much of a boy. He is an important person in the family, and he is to succeed his father at Dorlcote Mill, which is on the river Floss.

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Is not this a beautiful description of Dorlcote Mill? George Eliot must have been writing of a mill that she knew and loved:

"And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at,--perhaps the chill damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above."

Maggie Tulliver is a wonderful study of a girl, later of a young woman. No one surely can help loving Maggie, who adored Tom with all her heart, who was often in disgrace with her mother, as for instance, when she cut off her hair, who spent a great part of her time reading books, and who was her father's favourite. Tom was rather hard on Maggie. When they grew up there was a sad time when Tom refused to have anything to do with her. Yet Maggie always loved Tom best. At the end of the story, there is a flood. {159} The river rises so high that everyone's life is in danger. And Maggie comes alone by herself in a boat to rescue Tom.

It is probable, indeed it is certain, that George Eliot was writing of her own girlhood, and of her feelings for her brother, when she created with the power of genius Maggie Tulliver. Such depth of understanding, tenderness, and poignancy of feeling, are only possible when one knows people very, very well. George Eliot knew Maggie Tulliver perfectly.

George Eliot, of course, is only a pen name. The author's real name was Mary Ann Evans. She lived in the country, like the Tullivers, and her many novels abound with striking characters among country people. One of the most successful of them is Mrs. Poyser in the novel _Adam Bede_. Mrs. Poyser is famous for her clever sayings, full of pithy truth and wit. It was she who said of some one for whom she did not care, that it was a pity he could not be hatched over again and hatched different. Sayings of this kind generally are spoken by clever people who are not educated, as most of us understand education, but who have learned a great deal about life and human nature. This power of inventing wise, amusing sayings is called mother wit.

George Eliot was a learned woman, and spent her later life in London. But her country books are probably her best. She wrote a little later than Jane Austen, and some time before Hardy. Another of her stories that you are likely to enjoy is _Silas Marner_. Others, besides _The Mill on {160} the Floss_, and _Adam Bede_, are _Romola_, _Felix Holt_, _Middlemarch_, and _Daniel Deronda_.

We come now to the story of two of the most romantic figures in English literature. Early in the nineteenth century, a clergyman who was of Irish descent and whose name was Patrick Brontë, had a family of children most of whom were remarkably gifted. Those whom we know best are Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and a brother Branwell, who was born after Charlotte and before Emily. Branwell might have been an artist, but his life was not successful or happy. Anne wrote pleasing stories, but Charlotte and Emily Brontë are sisters whom we associate with an atmosphere of strange romance and rich endowment.

Most of their lives was spent in Yorkshire, amidst wild and romantic scenery. They were poor and had few possessions. Charlotte was a governess. She studied in Brussels in Belgium, and her younger sister Emily was with her. Charlotte was influenced by French literature, Emily by all that was strange and mysterious in German literature. Charlotte's best known book is _Jane Eyre_. Emily's masterpiece is _Wuthering Heights_. Wuthering Heights means a high place where great winds blow most of the time.

_Jane Eyre_ is a romantic, extravagant story of a girl who was a governess, and of the strange people she met. The story is not even always well-written; yet it is exciting and thrilling. Few novels had such depth of feeling, passion and elevated thought. No one can read Charlotte Brontë's novels without tingling with a {161} feeling that here one has met an extraordinary personality.

Emily Brontë was more highly gifted even than her sister Charlotte. Everything that is true of _Jane Eyre_ is more true of _Wuthering Heights_. It is a stranger, and more romantic story. At times, one would even say that there is something hard and cruel in _Wuthering Heights_. But there is also natural genius. Emily wrote a few remarkable poems which are more highly esteemed now than they were when she died. One does not say that these two sisters were possessed of the highest creative power. But Charlotte and Emily Brontë are among the most interesting and unforgettable of English novelists. Barrie said not long ago of Emily Brontë that she was our greatest woman, meaning that he believed her to be the greatest among English-speaking women writers. This sense of greatness you will experience for yourselves in the words which end _Wuthering Heights_. The story is tragic; but the ending is happy and tranquil, although at first it may seem sad.

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

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PART VI

HISTORY, POLITICS, BIOGRAPHY, TRAVEL

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