by Jane Austen
After what had passed to wound and alienate the two families, the continuance of the Bertrams and Grants in such close neighbourhood would have been most distressing; but the absence of the latter, for some months purposely lengthened, ended very fortunately in the necessity, or at least the practicability, of a permanent removal. Dr. Grant, through an interest on which he had almost ceased to form hopes, succeeded to a stall in Westminster, which, as affording an occasion for leaving Mansfield, an excuse for residence in London, and an increase of income to answer the expenses of the change, was highly acceptable to those who went and those who stayed.
Mrs. Grant, with a temper to love and be loved, must have gone with some regret from the scenes and people she had been used to; but the same happiness of disposition must in any place, and any society, secure her a great deal to enjoy, and she had again a home to offer Mary; and Mary had had enough of her own friends, enough of vanity, ambition, love, and disappointment, in the course of the last half-year, to be in need of the true kindness of her sister's heart, and the rational tranquillity of her ways. They lived together; and when Dr. Grant had brought on apoplexy and death by three great institutionary dinners in one week, they still lived together; for Mary, though perfectly resolved against ever attaching herself to a younger brother again, was long in finding among the dashing representatives, or idle heir-apparents, who were at the command of her beauty and her PS20,000, any one who could satisfy the better taste she had acquired at Mansfield whose character and manners could authorise a hope of the domestic happiness she had there learnt to estimate, or put Edmund Bertram sufficiently out of her head.
Edmund had greatly the advantage of her in this respect. He had not to wait and wish with vacant affections for an object worthy to succeed her in them. Scarcely had he done regretting Mary Crawford, and observing to Fanny how impossible it was that he should ever meet with such another woman, before it began to strike him whether a very different kind of woman might not do just as well--or a great deal better; whether Fanny herself were not growing as dear, as important to him, in all her smiles and all her ways, as Mary Crawford had ever been; and whether it might not be a possible, a hopeful undertaking to persuade her that her warm and sisterly regard for him would be foundation enough for wedded love.
I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that every one may be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as to time in different people. I only entreat everybody to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire.
With such a regard for her, indeed, as his had long been, a regard founded on the most endearing claims of innocence and helplessness, and completed by every recommendation of growing worth, what could be more natural than the change? Loving, guiding, protecting her, as he had been doing ever since her being ten years old, her mind in so great a degree formed by his care, and her comfort depending on his kindness, an object to him of such close and peculiar interest, dearer by all his own importance with her than any one else at Mansfield, what was there now to add, but that he should learn to prefer soft light eyes to sparkling dark ones? And being always with her, and always talking confidentially, and his feelings exactly in that favourable state which a recent disappointment gives, those soft light eyes could not be very long in obtaining the pre-eminence.
Having once set out, and felt that he had done so, on this road to happiness, there was nothing on the side of prudence to stop him or make his progress slow; no doubts of her deserving, no fears from opposition of taste, no need of drawing new hopes of happiness from dissimilarity of temper. Her mind, disposition, opinions, and habits wanted no half-concealment, no self-deception on the present, no reliance on future improvement. Even in the midst of his late infatuation, he had acknowledged Fanny's mental superiority. What must be his sense of it now, therefore! She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement from her should be long wanting. Timid, anxious, doubting as she was, it was still impossible that such tenderness as hers should not, at times, hold out the strongest hope of success, though it remained for a later period to tell him the whole delightful and astonishing truth. His happiness in knowing himself to have been so long the beloved of such a heart must have been great enough to warrant any strength of language in which he could clothe it to her or to himself; it must have been a delightful happiness. But there was happiness elsewhere which no description can reach. Let no one presume to give the feelings of a young woman on receiving the assurance of that affection of which she has scarcely allowed herself to entertain a hope.
Their own inclinations ascertained, there were no difficulties behind, no drawback of poverty or parent. It was a match which Sir Thomas's wishes had even forestalled. Sick of ambitious and mercenary connections, prizing more and more the sterling good of principle and temper, and chiefly anxious to bind by the strongest securities all that remained to him of domestic felicity, he had pondered with genuine satisfaction on the more than possibility of the two young friends finding their mutual consolation in each other for all that had occurred of disappointment to either; and the joyful consent which met Edmund's application, the high sense of having realised a great acquisition in the promise of Fanny for a daughter, formed just such a contrast with his early opinion on the subject when the poor little girl's coming had been first agitated, as time is for ever producing between the plans and decisions of mortals, for their own instruction and their neighbours' entertainment.
Fanny was indeed the daughter that he wanted. His charitable kindness had been rearing a prime comfort for himself. His liberality had a rich repayment, and the general goodness of his intentions by her deserved it. He might have made her childhood happier: but it had been an error of judgment only which had given him the appearance of harshness, and deprived him of her early love; and now, on really knowing each other, their mutual attachment became very strong. After settling her at Thornton Lacey with every kind attention to her comfort, the object of almost every day was to see her there, or to get her away from it.
Selfishly dear as she had long been to Lady Bertram, she could not be parted with willingly by her. No happiness of son or niece could make her wish the marriage. But it was possible to part with her, because Susan remained to supply her place. Susan became the stationary niece--delighted to be so!--and equally well adapted for it by a readiness of mind and an inclination for usefulness, as Fanny had been by sweetness of temper and strong feelings of gratitude. Susan could never be spared. First as a comfort to Fanny, then as an auxiliary, and last as her substitute, she was established at Mansfield, with every appearance of equal permanency. Her more fearless disposition and happier nerves made everything easy to her there. With quickness in understanding the tempers of those she had to deal with, and no natural timidity to restrain any consequent wishes, she was soon welcome and useful to all; and after Fanny's removal succeeded so naturally to her influence over the hourly comfort of her aunt, as gradually to become, perhaps, the more beloved of the two. In her usefulness, in Fanny's excellence, in William's continued good conduct and rising fame, and in the general well-doing and success of the other members of the family, all assisting to advance each other, and doing credit to his countenance and aid, Sir Thomas saw repeated, and for ever repeated, reason to rejoice in what he had done for them all, and acknowledge the advantages of early hardship and discipline, and the consciousness of being born to struggle and endure.
With so much true merit and true love, and no want of fortune or friends, the happiness of the married cousins must appear as secure as earthly happiness can be. Equally formed for domestic life, and attached to country pleasures, their home was the h
ome of affection and comfort; and to complete the picture of good, the acquisition of Mansfield living by the death of Dr. Grant occurred just after they had been married long enough to begin to want an increase of income, and feel their distance from the paternal abode an inconvenience.
On that event they removed to Mansfield; and the parsonage there, which, under each of its two former owners, Fanny had never been able to approach but with some painful sensation of restraint or alarm, soon grew as dear to her heart, and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as everything else within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park had long been.
THE END
Endnotes
1 (p. 20) The living was hereafter for Edmund: A "living" was a position as parish vicar or rector in the Church of England; the church was one of the few professions (the law, army, and navy were others) considered respectable for gentlemen. The clergy was for the most part understood to be less a vocation than a source of income; the value of a living came from the tithes given by the neighboring farmlands--nearly a thousand pounds a year at Mansfield. In Austen's day, the majority of livings were under the control of the great landowners, who could sell the rights to them, as Sir Thomas does here, or reserve them for their younger sons, as he would have preferred to do. Had Sir Thomas retained Mansfield as well as Thornton Lacey, Edmund would have been tempted by the possibility of "pluralism," the relatively common but increasingly criticized practice of holding more than one living while hiring a curate to perform the duties at one or all of the parishes.
2 (p. 46) that friend having recently had his grounds laid out by an improver: The friend has hired a landscape gardener, such as English landscape designer Humphry Repton (1752-1818), a practice then very much in vogue. See the introduction for a more extensive discussion of improvement (pp. xxvi-xxix) .
3 (p.49) their acquaintance had begun in dilapidations: When a living passed from one incumbent to the next, the successor could charge his predecessor for failing to keep the house and grounds in good repair. That the Norrises were charged for dilapidations contradicts Mrs. Norris's claim to have been "'always doing something"' for the Mansfield parsonage.
4 (p.54) Of Rears, and Vices, I saw enough: On a literal level, Mary is referring here to the Rear and Vice Admirals of the Royal Navy, but she may be making bawdier references as well. The word "rear" had in Austen's day the same connotations as in ours, and the word "vice" referred to sexual intercourse, in much the same way that we now use the word "screw." The critic D. A. Miller, in Narrative and Its Discontents (p. 32), sketches the continuum of Mary's possible meanings, from most innocent to most knowingly sexual: I have seen Rear and Vice Admirals; I have seen Rears (Admirals) indulging in (moral) Vices; I have seen Rear (ends) and (moral) Vices; or I have seen Rear (ends) being screwed.
5 (p. 156) the alarm of a French privateer was at the height: Sir Thomas was traveling from Antigua at a time when the French navy was attempting to blockade British possessions in the West Indies; his journey was dangerous, therefore, not simply because of weather, but also because of war.
6 (p. 325) speculations upon prize-money: Whenever an enemy ship was captured, its cargo was divided by the victorious ship according to rank. Naval prize-money created new social mobility in a nation that had long been tied to the land, a phenomenon Austen explored most fully in Persuasion.
7 (p. 346) found its way to a circulating library: Books were often prohibitively expensive, but free lending libraries were very rare. For this reason, most literate Britons subscribed by annual fee to a circulating library. These libraries, such as that of Charles Edward Mudie during the period 1842-1894, exerted enormous influence over the kinds of books that could be published, an influence that began to wane only in the 1890s.
Inspired by Mansfield Park
WHIT STILLMAN'S METROPOLITAN
Jane Austen and the spirit of Mansfield Park pervade Whit Stillman's film Metropolitan (1990), a comedy of manners set among college-age New York City socialites. Austen's Fanny Price appears in the character of Audrey Rouget, a sensitive young woman surrounded by a licentious circle of friends. She develops a crush on Tom Townsend. An outsider, in that he's from the Upper West Side rather than the Upper East Side, Townsend cares about the less fortunate yet can't afford a good winter coat for himself. Like Edmund Bertram, Tom falls in love with, and is rejected by, a shallow Mary Crawford figure, the temptress Serena Slocum.
In Metropolitan, as in Mansfield Park, the young adults' trials occur in the total absence of parental supervision. In the film, fathers reside upstate with evil stepmothers, work impossible hours, or--as in the case of Tom--move to New Mexico without notifying their offspring. This absence of parenting only encourages the woeful behavior of the young people, who drink until sunrise, take mind-altering drugs, and play games of Truth and strip poker, the purpose and consequences of which are reminiscent of the play staged in Mansfield Park.
Audrey defends Mansfield Park to humorous effect. Tom calls it "a notoriously bad book," though he has never read it, and notes that even Lionel Trilling, one of Austen's biggest supporters, condemns as "simply absurd" the "novel's premise--that there's something immoral in a group of young people putting on a play." But Audrey dismisses Trilling's opinion as "very strange": "He says that 'nobody' could like the heroine of Mansfield Park. I like her. Then he goes on and on about how 'we' modem people, today, with 'our' modem attitudes 'bitterly resent' Mansfield Park because its heroine is virtuous. What's wrong with a novel having a virtuous heroine?" Tom responds that "everything Jane Austen wrote seems ridiculous from today's perspective," but Audrey keeps the upper hand: "Has it ever occurred to you that today, looked at from Jane Austen's perspective, would look much worse?"
Metropolitan was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991 for Best Original Screenplay. In interviews Stillman often speaks of his admiration for Jane Austen, whose influence can also be seen in his Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998).
PATRICIA ROZEMA'S MANSFIELD PARK
Patricia Rozema reinterpreted Austen's novel in an ambitious film adaptation, Mansfield Park (1999), that bewildered some critics and delighted others. In this version Fanny, played by Frances O'Connor, aspires to be a writer. She reads her work--adapted from the juvenilia of Austen--directly to the camera. The film takes on a life of its own, glossing over the fact that Austen was fiercely private about her writing and published it anonymously. Playwright Harold Pinter is Sir Thomas Bertram and Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting) plays Edmund Bertram.
Rozema's Mansfield Park also expands on topics to which Austen only alludes, such as the slave trade. At one point a book of graphic illustrations depicting the atrocities of slavery in Antigua horrifies the characters, although in the novel Austen's characters never discuss such social issues. While some critics have complained that these alterations spoil the true spirit of Austen, others believe they add another degree of complexity to her work.
While O'Connor's Fanny is ostentatious in a manner unimaginable in her novelistic counterpart, the decor and staging of the film are marvelously understated. Mansfield Park looks properly noble in its austerity: Rooms have little decoration and bare floors, avoiding the garishness of some costume dramas. The slow-dance scene is filmed in slow-motion with thoughtful close-ups, adding a graceful choreographic touch. With vivid, likable acting, Rozema's Mansfield Park pays homage to one extraordinary writer by creating another out of one of her immortal characters.
Comments& Questions
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the work's history. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Jane Austen's Mansfield Park through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of t
his enduring work.
COMMENTS
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who, in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the manner of the great master we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom--Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class. They have all been liberally educated. They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They are all young. They are all in love. Not one of them has any hobby-horse, to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have contributed.