The story of Jane Austen's life

Front matter

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Preface

THE present volume, appearing so soon after * the lives of Miss Austen by Mrs. Maiden and Prof. Goldwin Smith, would have little excuse for existence if constructed on precisely the same lines as its predecessors. But Jane Austen the novelist is too well known to the literary world to need much more said concerning her; while Jane Austen the woman is, I am compelled to believe, still a stranger to most of those who read her books. To place her before the world as the winsome, delightful woman that she really was, and thus to dispel the unattractive, not to say forbidding, mental picture that so many have formed of her is the purpose of the chapters that follow. With what success the task here attempted has been achieved is for readers to determine.

The summer of 1889 was spent by the writer in visiting all the localities once familiar to Jane

2 PREFACE.

Austen ; and the descriptions of Bath, Steventon, Chawton, and other places can therefore be said to have the merit of accuracy at least. It was originally designed to insert a number of views of localities mentioned ; but the difficulty of satisfactorily reproducing these reluctantly obliged the author to forego this intention. The work was begun and partly completed at Winchester, almost in the shadow of its great cathedral; and the opening chapters were read and approved by one of Jane Austen's grandnephews, Reverend Edward Cracroft Lefroy, now, alas ! as these lines are written, just dead in the fulness of his powers as a poet, after a long illness.

The writer has received much valued assistance from the Austen kindred and from others interested in his work, and takes occasion here to express his obligations in this respect to Lord Brabourne ; Augustus Austen-Leigh, Provost of King's College, Cambridge University; Montagu G. Knight, Esq. of Chawton House, Alton, Hants ; and Reverend J. Morland Rice, of Bramber Rectory, Steyning, Sussex, — all grandnephews of Jane Austen. Also to the Very Reverend G. W. Kitchin, Dean of Winchester ; Thomas W. Shore, Esq., of Southampton, Hants ; R. E. Peach, Esq., of Bath ; Mrs. Harris, of Steventon Manor, Whit-

PREFACE. 3

church, Hants ; and Miss Charlotte M. Yonge, of Otterbourne, Hants.

In May of the present year, a number of these chapters were read by the author to the late Hon. James Russell Lowell, at the latter's request, in the study at Elmwood ; and more than one friendly criticism then received has been heeded in the final revision. Mr. Lowell took a warm interest in the work ; and the author had hoped to have the happiness on one of these autumn days of placing the published book before him. But this was not to be ; for just as the first pages were going to press, the summons came, and under the trees of Elmwood their owner passed for the last time.

Oscar Fay Adams.

Felton Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Oct 12, 1891.

NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.

IN this edition the author has followed out his original intention of inserting illustrations of scenes more or less closely connected with the life of Miss Austen ; and it is hoped that the volume will possess an added interest thereby. Several of the illustrations are taken from photographs made expressly for the work in the summer of 1889, and the letter of Miss Austen's, of which a fac-simile is presented, was given to the author for that purpose by the late. Lord Brabourne. The portrait of Rev. Edward Austen Leigh, her nephew and first biographer, is from a photograph given by his son, A. Austen Leigh, M.A., the Provost of King's College, Cambridge.

The Hermitage,

Boston, Massachusetts, November 25, 1896.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Prelude 9

II. Childhood at Steventon 16

II. Childhood At Steventon

"POLDED securely away in a valley among the * low chalk downs of North Hampshire is a straggling thatch-roofed village, with little to" distinguish it, except perhaps to one who knows it well, from countless other hamlets hidden in sheltered coombes of southern England. The Southwestern Railway crosses the valley on a high curved embankment which shuts off the view to the west ; but so insignificant is the village considered by the railway authorities that no station has ever been built for its accommodation. Winchester, fourteen miles south, and Basingstoke, some six or seven northwest, are the nearest towns known to any but the Hampshire world ; and the traveller to this quiet valley, approaching it from Winchester, has before him a walk or drive of four miles after leaving the train at Micheldever, and one of about the same distance if he leaves it at Overton, in the opposite direction.

The highroad to Deane turns sharply to the left at the end of the village, and disappears under the embankment ; and it is along this road, for the distance of half a mile preceding the turn, that the

CHILDHOOD AT STEVENTON. iy

dozen or fifteen houses of the neighborhood are situated, several being of distinctly recent date. Opposite one which seems from its appearance the oldest of them all, the road to North Waltham turns off to the east ; and just north of this, approached through a small bit of thicket, is the rectory, a cheerful two-storied mansion, at the top of a wellkept, sunny lawn. From here the view widens : to westward distant meadows, bordered by broad lines of hedgerow, spread themselves out upon the swelling downs, and patches of woodland thrust their dark masses between. South of the sloping lawn, and across the road last mentioned, is a small field, shaded at one end by large elms. A disused pump here, and a depression which must once have been a cellar, are now all the signs remaining to mark the spot where the rectory of Steventon stood, seventy years ago. Along the eastern side of this small meadow a very broad hedgerow path leads up the slope to the church, less than half a mile to the south. Here, beyond the end of the hedgerow path, surrounded by a small churchyard and shaded on the north by a great hollow yew of dateless antiquity, is the church of St. Nicholas, seven centuries old. Close at hand are the spacious and carefully trimmed lawns of a large modern manor-house ; and south of this, across an exquisitely soft stretch of green turf, is the former manor, a long grey stone facade of the early Tudor period, and, save for its western end, nearly hidden by shining ivy leaves and the sweeping branches of 2 ancient trees. From the broad lawns and gardens here, the tiny village along the shaded highway cannot be seen ; and the eye ranges beyond its green tree- tops over sunny slopes covered with fertile fields, some of which, no doubt to the farmer's disquiet, are blazing with scarlet poppies. A peaceful, pastoral landscape it is, with no very strong features, but one possessing many charms, and of which a real lover of Nature would not easily tire.

Thus looks Steventon and its vicinity to-day. The lapse of a century cannot have made any great changes in its aspect. Remove from the scene the modern manor-house of red brick, the stunted spire that crowns but does not adorn the tower of St. Nicholas's church, and at least a third of the houses in the village ; take away the railway and the present rectory, and in the field beneath it replace its predecessor under the tall elms, — and then, with some minor changes in the disposition of gardens and hedgerows, we have the Steventon which Jane Austen's eyes looked upon a hundred years ago : then, as now, a handful of homes wholly withdrawn from the turmoil of the outside world.

To this same Steventon came to live, in 1771, the Reverend George Austen, then between thirty-five and forty years of age. Left an orphan at the age of nine, he had been cared for and educated by his uncle, Francis Austen, a lawyer of Tunbridge. From Tunbridge Grammar School he received one of its Oxford scholarships, and entered St. John's i x it

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CHILDHOOD AT STEVENTOIV. jg

College, where he subsequently obtained a fellowship. As a. young man he was known at Oxford as " the handsome proctor ;" and when living at Bath, after having passed his seventieth year, his clearlycut, refined features and snowy hair made him a centre of observation in all companies. No portrait of him remains, if indeed one were ever painted ; but at Chawton House I saw, in the possession of his great-grandson, a full-length silhouette likeness of him, in which his elegant figure and scholarly profile are very observable. He is here represented as one of a group, and holds by the hand his son James, who was apparently at that period a lad of eight or nine years.

In 1764, being then in orders, he had come into the possession of two adjoining Hampshire livings, Steventon and Deane, — the latter the gift of his uncle, who had purchased it for his nephew, the former the gift of his second cousin, Mr. Knight of Chawton and Godmersham. In the same year that he obtained these preferments he married Cassandra Leigh, the youngest daughter of Reverend Thomas Leigh of Henley-on-Thames, whose elder brother, Dr. Theophilus Leigh, was Master of Balliol for more than fifty years. At the beginning of their married life, Mr. and Mrs. Austen had charge of a little son of Warren Hastings, committed to the care of Mr. Austen some three years before his marriage, most probably, as Miss Austen's earliest biographer suggests, through the influence of the clergyman's sister, Mrs, Hancock, whose husband was an officer in Hastings's Indian command. This lad, George Hastings, died young, to the great grief of the Austens, to whom he had become very dear.

At Deane the three eldest children of the Austens were born, James, Edward, and Henry Thomas ; and not long after the birth of their third son, in 1 771, they removed, as has been stated, from Deane to Steventon, which remained their home for thirty years. The journey was a brief one, less than two miles, but the road, now so well kept, was then but a cart-path furrowed by deep ruts ; and Mrs. Austen, who had not yet recovered her strength, was placed upon a feather bed laid upon the softest household articles in the wagon, that she might make the short trip in comparative comfort.

The house to which the Austens now came with their three young children, the oldest a lad of six, though somewhat better than many country rectories at that time, could not be said to have been anything more than fairly commodious and comfortable ; and it was certainly greatly inferior to the handsome stone rectory which looks down upon the site of its predecessor. In front a carriagedrive, or "sweep," as Jane would have styled it, wound under the elms from the gateway ; and at the back, on the southerly side, the gentle upward slope was occupied by a moderately large flower and kitchen garden ; and above this was a terrace of close green turf. Perhaps this terrace, as Miss Austen's nephew and biographer pleasantly assumes, may have been in the mind of the novelist when, in the opening chapter of " Northanger Abbey," she describes the heroine's childish joy in " rolling down the greensward at the back of the house." On the east line of the garden was a thatched mud wall, counterparts of which may still be seen in many a Hampshire village, while the terrace merged itself to westward in a hedgerow path which bounded the rectory meadows on the south. Seats were placed at intervals along this shaded path, which to the Austens was known as " The Wood Walk." On the farther side of the garden a broader hedgerow path led then, as now, up the slope to the church and manor-house, which in the Austens' time and for generations later was occupied by the Digweed family. In the field beyond this path was a small pond, or " duck-pool," which has long since disappeared.

It was a pleasant nook of which all these were the outward features, — a spot which the Austens came to love very dearly ; yet we are told that when Mrs. Austen was still Miss Leigh and was being shown the scenery of the locality, she expressed some disappointment, missing no doubt the lovely river views of her Henley home. However this may have been, the seven years' residence at Deane had by this time accustomed her to the waterless Hampshire landscapes ; and whatever regrets she may once have felt had long passed away when she came to Steventon to live.

In the summer of i88q, I was shown some of the parish registers at the Steventon rectory. One of the earlier records contains a careful copy of the entries originally made by Mr. Austen's predecessor in the neat handwriting of Mr. Austin, who signs his own name as copyist. Then follow in the same neat hand the dates of the baptisms, marriages, and burials throughout the long years of his ministry, the careful penmanship growing a little less firm in the closing years of the century. Here is one of the early entries which has an interest for us.

" Cassandra Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev'd Mr George Austen, Rector of the Parish, and Cassandra, his Wife, was privately Baptiz'd Jan? 9th, 1773. Rec'd into the church Janf 25th the same year."

The records are not of frequent occurrence in the register, for neither births nor deaths followed hard upon each other in this small village, and marriages were few and far between. We have but to turn a leaf, then, to find an entry made nearly three years later, which recorded an event of great subsequent importance to the world of letters.

" Jane, daughter of the Rev'd Mr George Austen, Rector of this Parish and Cassandra, his Wife, was privately Baptized Dec. 17 th , 1775. Rec'd into the church April 5th, 1776."

The date of Jane Austen's birth, which was December 16, preceded the private baptism by one day only ; but the birth and baptism of the elder sister occurred on the same day.

Our knowledge of the childhood of Jane Austen must remain, owing to the scanty information to be obtained respecting it, very largely inferential. It was her mother's custom to put out her children to be nursed at a cottage in the village ; and Jane was probably no exception to this rule. Mr. and Mrs. Austen paid daily visits to the cottage in behalf of the infant's welfare, and it was frequently brought to the rectory by the nurse ; but until old enough to run about freely and to talk with some approach to clearness, the cottage and not the rectory was the child's home, probably for the first two years of her life. Whatever may now be thought of the practice, it was common enough in English homes a hundred years ago ; and the Austens in following it were therefore doing nothing unusual.

The Steventon rectory was already full of young life when Jane's year or two with her cottage nurse came to an end. Her eldest brother James was now a lad of twelve ; and between these two were Edward, who was not far from nine, Henry, a boy of six, and Cassandra and Francis, with a difference of less than a year in their ages, and about three and a half and four and a half years respectively. A year or two later, Charles, the youngest member of all, was added to the circle. With so large a number of children, among whom too were included several pupils of Mr. Austen's who were boarded in the family, we cannot have reason to suppose that the rectory was at any time a dull place to live in. The Austens' nearest neighbors were the Digweed family at the manor-house ; and the intercourse between the two houses was frequent and friendly. At Ashe, two miles away, lived the Lefroy family, with whom the inmates of the Steventon rectory were especially intimate. Mr. Lefroy held the living of Ashe, and his wife was a sister of Sir Egerton Brydges, the writer. He was a regular visitor at Ashe, and in his autobiography, published in 1834, occurs the earliest existing personal notice of Jane Austen, which reads as follows : - —

" The nearest neighbors of the Lefroys were the Austens of Steventon. I remember Jane Austen, the novelist, as a little child. She was very intimate with Mrs. Lefroy and much encouraged by her. Her mother was a Miss Leigh, whose paternal grandmother was sister to the first Duke of Chandos. Mr. Austen was of a Kentish family, of which several branches have been settled in the Weald of Kent, and some are still remaining there. When I knew Jane Austen, I never suspected that she was an authoress ; but my eyes told me that she was fair and handsome, slight and elegant, but with cheeks a little too full."

Surely the hobby of a lover of genealogies was never more perversely brought to the front. We are longing for personal details of one who was of vastly more importance to the world in general

CHILDHOOD AT STEVENTON.

2 5 than the garrulous Sir Egerton had ever been, and he suddenly cuts off his tale and talks of her greatgrandmother !

At the Ashe rectory were the two boys, John and Benjamin ; and no long period was suffered to lapse in which the young Austens and the young Lefroys were not in each other's company. Many years later, Benjamin, the youngest boy at Ashe, married the oldest daughter of James Austen, thus strengthening the bond between the families. Two cousins of the Austens, Edward and Susan Cooper, the children of Mrs. Austen's oldest sister, were in the habit of paying long visits at Steventon, much to the delight of the children at the two rectories.

The Steventon household contained when Jane was about thirteen another inmate, in the person of the young Countess de Feuillade, the daughter of Mr. Austen's sister, Mrs. Hancock. Her husband had been guillotined during the French Revolution ; and after that event she was for some years a member of her uncle's family, in which she had often been a visitor previously. Many years later she became the second wife of her cousin Henry Austen. The countess was a brilliant, highly accomplished young woman, used to the most polished and brilliant society in France ; and what a resource such a person must have been in a country home full of unsophisticated young people can easily be imagined. It is not improbable that she assisted her cousins Cassandra and Jane in their study of French, for her knowledge, of that Ianguage was so perfect that she passed everywhere in France for a native of the country. But however much she may have contributed to their education, she certainly took an active part in the amusements of her cousins. Private theatricals were in high favor at Steventon, the young people's summer theatre being the barn, and the family dining-room constituting their winter one. The principal feminine roles in these representations were always taken by the countess ; and the prologues and epilogues were written by James Austen, whose son declares them to have been exceptionally vigorous and amusing. The first of these dramas was acted, before a very limited audience, we must believe, when Jane was not far from twelve years old, and the last when she was fifteen. It is not improbable that she may have taken parts of more or less prominence in the casts of some of the latest of these plays ; and we know that she certainly acted in parlor theatricals in later life. The late Sir William Heathcote of Hursley remembered being with her at a Twelfth Night party when he was a little boy, on which occasion she, having drawn the part of Mrs. Candor, acted it with appreciation and spirit. Undoubtedly the realistic descriptions of the amateur rehearsals in " Mansfield Park" had their source in the author's recollections of the Steventon dramas of her early girlhood.

It will readily enough be seen from what has been said of Steventon rectory, its inmates and neighbors and frequent visitors, that remote as it

CHILDHOOD AT STEVEN TON.

was from towns, its young people did not of necessity lead either a cramped or monotonous life. Their active, ingenious minds devised many plans for amusement, and their studies were always intelligently superintended. Mrs. Austen was a person of much native ability and quick imagination, and could express herself with ease and elegance in writing as well as in speaking. From her it is probable that Jane inherited her imaginative temperament and her lively sense of humor, the latter an inheritance which was shared with her brother Henry. Mr. Austen was a man of scholarly tastes and acquirements, and besides preparing his sons James and Henry for the university, directed the studies of his younger children in addition to those of his pupils, and the many pastoral cares which fall to the lot of a country clergyman.

Nearly eleven years intervened between Jane and her oldest brother James, born at Deane rectory Feb. 13, 1765. He, while still a very young man at Oxford, was esteemed one of the ablest writers among the undergraduates, being particularly well versed in English literature. In the opinion of his son, James Austen directed the reading of Jane and Cassandra, and was instrumental in forming their literary tastes. This seems not at all unlikely. A bright, studious fellow, fresh from the university, and returning full of enthusiasms respecting his favorite authors, would no doubt find it a particularly congenial task to impart those same enthusiasms to his young sisters, neither of them old enough to question his opinions or call for a reversion of his judgments.

Of her second brother, Edward, born at Deane Oct. 7, 1768, Jane saw much less in her childhood than of James, for when quite a young lad, he was adopted by his third cousin, Thomas Knight of Godmersham Park, Kent, and Chawton House, Hants. He inherited his cousin's estates in 1794, and in 181 2 took the family name of his generous relative. In later life, as will be seen in these pages, Jane was much in the company of this brother, and seems to have been rather fonder of him than of James, though perhaps not consciously so.

Henry Thomas, the third brother, born at Deane in 1 771, seems to have inherited very much of his father's eager, joyous spirit, and to have notably excelled in conversation. As a delightful companion for young and old he was unequalled ; but unfortunately his ease of manner and adroitness in adapting himself to any society were not supplemented with that singleness of purpose which insures success. He was always full of schemes and plans which usually came to nought, and at which his brothers and sisters learned to smile good-humoredly, and perhaps, as years went on, a little sadly, foreseeing the probable result of each in its turn.

Francis, the fourth brother, was born at Steventon near the close of 1 773, and to him the firmness and decision so much needed in the character of

CHILDHOOD AT STEVENTON.

Henry seem to have been given in double measure. He entered the navy, where his talents soon gained him promotion. As an officer he was a strict disciplinarian, rigid in demanding the respect due from others to his office, and punctilious in according the proper amount of deference from himself to others. His religious convictions were exceedingly strong ; and he was never wanting in the courage of his opinions, at one time being known in the navy as " the officer who kneeled in church," from which we may infer a certain laxity of religious deportment on the part of his naval contemporaries. His disposition was a happy and contented one ; and the precision and deliberation so characteristic of his later life must have been admirably set off in the home-life at the rectory by the sanguine impetuosity of his next older brother.

Charles, born in 1778, and the youngest of the seven, is said to have greatly resembled his sister Jane in sweetness of temper and lovable disposition, and to have had the good fortune throughout his long life of attaching others strongly to himself. Like his brother Francis, he entered the navy, and soon made his way upward from the ranks of the midshipmen, winning as easily by means of his warm-hearted, generous temperament the unstinted affection of his comrades in the service as he had that of his brothers and sisters.

It was this same affectionate gentleness of disposition, noticeable in every individual of the Austen

3 o JANE AUSTEN'S LIEE.

family, and reaching perhaps its strongest development in Charles Austen, the youngest of thern all, which bound its members so closely together. All, with the possible exception of Henry Austen, were persons of strong domestic tastes, by no means averse to frequent contact with the world, but finding, as children, their chief enjoyments among themselves, and as men and women, their highest pleasures in their own family circles.

Of Cassandra Austen we shall hear much in the course of this narrative ; but a few words at this point may be said of what she was in their childhood to her sister Jane, to whom she was always dearer than any one else in the whole world. The elder of the two by three years, she, who had been the one girl among so many boys, must have had, as soon as the small Jane was transferred from the cottage- nursery to the rectory, a peculiar affection for the longed-for sister. From the very first they shared the same room, and whatever pains or pleasures fell to the portion of one were sympathetically those of the other also. Outwardly there was probably more demonstration of affection on the part of Jane, Cassandra's nature being less impulsive in this respect ; but I am inclined to believe that the affection Cassandra gave was no less than that she received, although she may have found more difficulty in its expression. Still, as we possess none of her letters to Jane, it is not possible to speak positively on this latter point. That hers was the stronger personality may perhaps

be inferred from the fact of Jane's sisterly deference to her through their whole life, although the difference in age may to some extent account for this, and from the general opinion of the family that while "Cassandra had the merit of having her temper always under command, Jane had the happiness of a temper that never needed to be commanded." In other words, the amiability of the younger was constitutional, the serenity of the older the result of the exercise of self-discipline.

When it became evident that the home instruction could not longer suffice in all ways for the needs of a rapidly growing girl, Cassandra was sent to Mrs. La Tournelle's school at Reading, and thither Jane accompanied her. It was not expected that at Jane's tender age she would be able to derive much benefit from the instruction at Reading ; but she was allowed to go because if left at home she would have been utterly miserable without her chief companion, for, as Mrs. Austen used sometimes to say, " if Cassandra were going to have her head cut off, Jane would insist upon sharing the same fate." It was not in all respects a strong, self-reliant nature of which such a remark could be made, however lightly, but one which nevertheless was capable of intense feeling and boundless self-abnegation.

" So they grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet a union in partition."

III. Life At Steventon; First Visit To Bath; Earliest Attempts At Writing

PRECISELY how old the sisters were at the time of their being sent to school at Reading does not anywhere appear in the family records ; - but we may safely assume the event to have been, in Jane's case at least, the first going away from home. After that date, whenever it may have been, Jane and Cassandra were from time to time welcome visitors in Bath, at the house of their mother's brother, Mr. Leigh Perrot, and at the house of her sister, who, with her husband, Dr. Cooper, the Vicar of Sonning, near Reading, resided in Bath. One of these visits, quite possibly the earliest, must have been paid by Jane in 1791, on which occasion a portrait was painted of her by the then popular artist, ZofTani, representing her as a sweet faced girl of not more than fifteen. This portrait was long in the possession of Colonel Austen, of Kippington, who is said to have been Jane's godfather, and it was therefore most probably painted at his desire. The present owner, Reverend John Morland Rice, of Bramber Rectory, Steyning, Surrey, a grand nephew of the original of the portrait, was bequeathed it

Jane Austen at Fifteen.

FROM A PAINTING IN POSSESSION OF THE REV. MORLAND RICE, OF BRAMBEF

FIRST VISIT TO BATH.

by Dr. Harding Newman (late Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford), whose stepmother had received it from Colonel Austen.

No particulars concerning this visit have been preserved ; but very probably the sisters were together when it took place, since their correspondence, when separated, was frequent and regular, and it was Cassandra's custom to retain all her sister's letters. That no letters of her own to Jane exist, is no doubt owing to her having destroyed whatever letters of hers she may have found among her sister's papers after the death of the latter. Supposing her to have done this, we cannot but regret the fact, for without question they would, if we had them, add much to our knowledge of these two lives which were so much to each other.