Jane Austen was born at Steventon on December 16, 1775, the youngest of seven children. She received her education—scanty enough, by modern standards—at home. Besides the usual elementary subjects, she learned French and some Italian, sang a little, and became an expert needle-woman. Her reading extended little beyond the literature of the eighteenth century, and within that period she seems to have cared most for the novels of Richardson and Miss Burney, and the poems of Cowper and Crabbe. Dr. Johnson, too, she admired, and later was delighted with both the poetry and prose of Scott. The first twenty-five years of her life she spent at Steventon; in 1801 she moved with her family to Bath, then a great center of fashion; after the death of her father in 1805, she lived with her mother and sister, first at Southampton and then at Chawton; finally she took lodgings at Winchester to be near a doctor, and there she died on July 18, 1817, and was buried in the cathedral. Apart from a few visits to friends in London and elsewhere, and the vague report of a love affair with a gentleman who died suddenly, there is little else to chronicle in this quiet and uneventful life.
But quiet and uneventful though her life was, it yet supplied her with material for half a dozen novels as perfect of their kind as any in the language. While still a young girl she had experimented with various styles of writing, and when she completed “Pride and Prejudice” at the age of twenty-two, it was clear that she had found her appropriate form. This novel, which in many respects she never surpassed, was followed a year later by “Northanger Abbey,” a satire on the “Gothic” romances then in vogue; and in 1809 she finished “Sense and Sensibility,” begun a dozen years before. So far she had not succeeded in having any of her works printed; but in 1811 “Sense and Sensibility” appeared in London and won enough recognition to make easy the publication of the others. Success gave stimulus, and between 1811 and 1816, she completed “Mansfield Park,” “Emma,” and “Persuasion.” The last of these and “Northanger Abbey” were published posthumously.
The most remarkable characteristic of Jane Austen as a novelist is her recognition of the limits of her knowledge of life and her determination never to go beyond these limits in her books. She describes her own class, in the part of the country with which she was acquainted; and both the types of character and the events are such as she knew from first-hand observation and experience. But to the portrayal of these she brought an extraordinary power of delicate and subtle delineation, a gift of lively dialogue, and a peculiar detachment. She abounds in humor, but it is always quiet and controlled; and though one feels that she sees through the affectations and petty hypocrisies of her circle, she seldom becomes openly satirical. The fineness of her workmanship, unexcelled in the English novel, makes possible the discrimination of characters who have outwardly little or nothing to distinguish them; and the analysis of the states of mind and feeling of ordinary people is done so faithfully and vividly as to compensate for the lack of passion and adventure. She herself speaks of the “little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work,” and, in contrast with the broad canvases of Fielding or Scott, her stories have the exquisiteness of a fine miniature.
Jane Austen, Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction 3: Laurence Stern, Jane Austen, ed. William Allan Neilson (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1917), 145–147.
During her first night at Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland’s imagination gets the better of her. In the old, dark, and drafty house, with a storm raging outside, it doesn’t take much for the fanciful Catherine to lose her nerve. When she goes to her chamber at the end of the evening, she enters “her room with a tolerably stout heart.” However, once her fire dies down and her candle goes out, Catherine’s bravery quickly dissolves.
This portion of Jane’s prayer is a prayer of intercession. In it, Jane prays on behalf of “all” who are suffering or are “in any circumstance of danger or distress.” Her words reflect her confidence in God’s ability to strengthen us during times of pain and trial, comfort us in our seasons of deepest need, provide us with his tangible help and presence in life’s hardest moments, and give us “patience under every affliction.”
In Mansfield Park, Fanny experiences distress on a daily basis. She has no voice, her opinions are misunderstood, and her wishes are disregarded. Her little attic room and her conversations with Edmund are her only refuge. She exists in a kind of middle-world between servant and family member, “carrying messages, and fetching” what others want. She suffers from various causes of loneliness and heartache throughout much of the novel.
By all accounts, Jane did embody a “benevolent spirit toward every fellow-creature,” in her relationships with her friends, acquaintances, and family. She was particularly loving toward her nieces and nephews. It doesn’t appear that Jane’s writing schedule or personal agenda ruled her life or her days or that she was annoyed by the talk, play, or presence of small children. In fact, quite the reverse seems true. Jane was generous with her time and her talents.
Austen family letters and memoirs show that Jane was a loving and affectionate aunt who enjoyed family life and entertained the children in her family with “the most delightful stories, chiefly of Fairy-land,” in which “her fairies had all characters of their own.” And though she wrote quite prolifically in the latter part of her life, she still spent time with her family and was reportedly “the general favourite with children; her ways with them being so playful, and her long circumstantial stories so delightful.” Continue reading “A Benevolent Spirit”