Lectures on Literature

by Nabokov, Vladimir

  Mrs. Norris is a grotesque character, a rather vicious busybody, a contriving woman. She is not completely heartless, but her heart is a coarse organ. Her nieces Maria and Julia are for her the rich, healthy, big children she does not have, and in a way she dotes upon them while despising Fanny. With subtle wit Miss Austen notes, at the start of the story, that Mrs. Norris "could not possibly keep to herself" the disrespectful things concerning Sir Thomas that her sister, Fanny's mother, had said in a bitter letter. The character of Mrs. Norris is not only a thing of art in itself, it has also a functional quality, for it is because of her meddlesome nature that Fanny is finally adopted by Sir Thomas, a point of characterization that grades into structure. Why was she so eager to have Fanny adopted by the Bertrams? The answer is: "every thing was considered as settled, and the pleasures of so benevolent a scheme were already enjoyed. The division of gratifying sensations ought not, in strict justice, to have been equal; for Sir Thomas was fully resolved to be the real and consistent patron of the selected child, and Mrs. Norris had not the least intention of being at any expense whatever in her maintenance. As far as walking, talking, and contriving reached, she was thoroughly benevolent, and nobody knew better how to dictate liberality to others: but her love of money was equal to her love of directing, and she knew quite as well how to save her own as to spend that of her friends.... Under this infatuating principle, counteracted by no real affection for her sister, it was impossible for her to aim at more than the credit of projecting and arranging so expensive a charity; though perhaps she might so little know herself, as to walk home to the Parsonage after this conversation, in the happy belief of being the most liberal-minded sister and aunt in the world." Thus, though she had no real affection for her sister Mrs. Price, she enjoys the credit of arranging Fanny's future without spending one penny and without doing anything more for the child whom she forces her brother-in-law to adopt.

  She calls herself a woman of few words, but torrents of triteness come from the good woman's big mouth. She is a very loud person. Miss Austen devised a way to render this loudness with especial force. Mrs. Norris is having a conversation with the Bertrams concerning the plan to bring Fanny to Mansfield Park: " 'Very true,' cried Mrs. Norris,‘[these] are both very important considerations: and it will be just the same to Miss Lee, whether she has three girls to teach, or only two—there can be no difference. I only wish I could be more useful; but you see I do all in my power. I am not one of those that spare their own trouble....' " She goes on a while, then the Bertrams speak, and then again Mrs. Norris: " 'That is exactly what I think,' cried Mrs. Norris, 'and what I was saying to my husband this morning.' " Somewhat earlier, in another bit of conversation with Sir Thomas: " 'I thoroughly understand you,' cried Mrs. Norris; 'you are every thing that is generous and considerate....' " By this repetition of the verb cried, Austen suggests the noisy way this unpleasant woman has, and one may note that poor little Fanny when she does come to Mansfield Park is especially distressed by Mrs. Norris's loud voice.

  By the time the first chapter is over, all the preliminaries have been taken care of. We know talkative, fussy, vulgar Mrs. Norris, stolid Sir Thomas, sulky, needy Mrs. Price, and we know indolent, languorous Lady Bertram and her pug. The decision has been made to fetch Fanny and have her live at Mansfield Park. Characterization in Miss Austen often grades into structure.[*] For example, it is the indolence of Lady Bertram that keeps her in the country. They had a house in London, and at first, before Fanny appeared, they would spend the spring—the fashionable season—in London; but now "Lady Bertram, in consequence of a little ill-health, and a great deal of indolence, gave up the house in town, which she had been used to occupy every spring, and remained wholly in the country, leaving Sir Thomas to attend his duty in Parliament, with whatever increase or diminution of comfort might arise from her absence." Jane Austen, we must understand, needs this arrangement in order to keep Fanny in the country without complicating the situation by journeys to London.

  Fanny's education progresses, so that by the age of fifteen the governess has taught her French and history, but her cousin Edmund Bertram, who takes an interest in her, has "recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours; he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment; he made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise." Fanny's heart becomes divided between her brother William and Edmund. It is worth noticing what education was given to children in Austen's day and set. When Fanny first arrived the Bertram girls "thought her prodigiously stupid, and for the first two or three weeks were continually bringing some fresh report of it into the drawing-room. 'Dear mamma, only think, my cousin cannot put the map of Europe together—or my cousin cannot tell the principal rivers in Russia—or she never heard of Asia Minor—or she does not know the difference between water-colours and crayons!—How strange!—Did you ever hear anything so stupid?' " One of the points here is that picture puzzles—jigsaw puzzles, maps cut into pieces—were used to learn geography. And that was one hundred and fifty years ago. History was another solid study of the time. The girls continue: " 'How long ago it is, aunt, since we used to repeat the chronological order of the kings of England, with the dates of their accession, and most of the principal events of their reigns!'

  " 'Yes,' added the other; 'and of the Roman emperors as low as Severus; besides a great deal of the Heathen Mythology, and all the Metals, Semi-Metals, Planets, and distinguished philosophers.' "

  Since the Roman Emperor Severus lived at the beginning of the third century, "as low as Severus" means low in the scale of time, that is, old.

  The death of Mr. Norris brings on an important change in that the living falls vacant. It had been reserved for Edmund when he should take orders, but Sir Thomas's affairs are not going well and he is forced to install not a temporary incumbent but a permanent one, an action that will materially reduce Edmund's income since he will be forced to rely on only one living, nearby in Thornton Lacey, that is also in Sir Thomas's gift. A word or two may be useful about the term living in connection with the Mansfield Park parsonage. An incumbent is a parson who is in possession of a benefice, of an ecclesiastical living, also termed a spiritual living. This incumbent clergyman represents a parish; he is a settled pastor. The parsonage is a portion of lands with a house for the maintenance of the incumbent. This clergyman receives an income from his parish, a kind of tax, the tithe, due from lands and certain industries within the limits of the parish. In culmination of a long historical development the choice of the clergyman became in some cases the privilege of a lay person, in this case of Sir Thomas Bertram. The choice was subject to the Bishop's approval, but such approval was nothing more than a formality. Sir Thomas, by the usual custom, would expect to receive some profit from the gift of the living. This is the point. Sir Thomas needs a tenant. If the living remained in the family, if Edmund were ready to take over, the income from the Mansfield parish would go to him and would therefore take care of his future. But Edmund is not yet ready to be ordained, to become a clergyman. Had not Tom, the elder son, been guilty of debts and bets, Sir Thomas might have given the living temporarily to some friend to hold until Edmund's ordination, with no profit to himself. But now he cannot afford such an arrangement, and a different disposal of the parsonage is necessary. Tom only hopes that Dr. Grant will soon "pop off," as we learn from a reported speech which characterizes Tom's slangy manner and also his light carelessness for Edmund's future.

  As for the actual figures involved, we know that Mrs. Norris upon marrying Mr. Norris wound up with a yearly income very little short of one thousand pounds. It we assume for the sake of the argument that her own property was equal to that of her sister Bertram, or seven thousand pounds, we may assume that her own share of the Norris family income was about two hundred and fifty pounds, and that of Mr. Norris, derived from the parish, about seven hundred a year.

  We come to another example of the way a writer introduces cert
ain events in order to have his story move on. Parson Norris dies. The arrival of the Grants to the parsonage is made possible by the death of Mr. Norris, whom Grant replaces. And Grant's arrival in its turn leads to the arrival into the vicinity of Mansfield Park of the young Crawfords, his wife's relatives, who are to play such a large part in the novel. Further, Miss Austen's plan is to remove Sir Thomas from Mansfield Park in order to have the young people of the book overindulge their freedom, and her plan, secondly, is to bring back Sir Thomas to Mansfield Park at the height of the mild orgy that occurs in connection with the rehearsal of a certain play.

  So how does she proceed? The eldest son, Tom, who would inherit all the property, has been squandering money. The Bertram affairs are not in good shape. Miss Austen removes Sir Thomas as early as the third chapter. The year is now 1806. Sir Thomas finds it expedient to go to Antigua himself for the better supervision of his affairs and expects to be away nearly a year. Antigua is a far cry from Northampton. It is an island in the West Indies, then belonging to England, one of the Lesser Antilles, about five hundred miles north of Venezuela. The plantations would have been worked by cheap slave labor, the source of the Bertram money.

  The Crawfords thereupon make their entrance in Sir Thomas's absence. "Such was the state of affairs in the month of July, and Fanny had just reached her eighteenth year, when the society of the village received an addition in the brother and sister of Mrs. Grant, a Mr. and Miss Crawford, the children of her mother by a second marriage. They were young people of fortune. The son had a good estate in Norfolk, the daughter twenty thousand pounds. As children, their sister had been always very fond of them; but, as her own marriage had been soon followed by the death of their common parent, which left them in the care of a brother of their father, of whom Mrs. Grant knew nothing, she had scarcely seen them since. In their uncle's house they had found a kind home. Admiral and Mrs. Crawford, though agreeing in nothing else, were united in affection for these children, or at least were no farther adverse in their feelings than that each had their favourite, to whom they showed the greatest fondness of the two. The Admiral delighted in the boy, Mrs. Crawford doted on the girl; and it was the lady's death which now obliged her protégée, after some months' further trial at her uncle's house, to find another home. Admiral Crawford was a man of vicious conduct, who chose, instead of retaining his niece, to bring his mistress under his own roof; and to this Mrs. Grant was indebted for her sister's proposal of coming to her, a measure quite as welcome on one side as it could be expedient on the other... One may note the tidy way Miss Austen keeps her monetary accounts in this sequence of events that explain the Crawfords' advent. Practical sense combines with the fairy-tale note, as often happens in fairy tales.

  We may new skip to the first actual pain that newly established Mary Crawford caused Fanny. It involves the theme of the horse. A dear old gray pony which Fanny had been riding for her health since she was twelve, now dies in the spring of 1807 when Fanny is seventeen and still needs exercise. This is the second functional death in the book, the first having been that of Mr. Norris. I say functional because both deaths affect the development of the novel and are introduced for structural purposes, purposes of development. [*] Mr. Norris's death had brought in the Grants, and Mrs. Grant brings in Henry and Mary Crawford, who very soon are to provide the novel with a wickedly romantic tinge. The death of the pony in chapter 4 leads, in a charming interplay of characterization involving Mrs. Norris, to Edmund's giving Fanny to ride one of his three horses, a quiet mare, a dear, beautiful, delightful creature as Mary Crawford calls her later. This is all preparation on Austen's part for a wonderful emotional scene that develops in chapter 7. Pretty, small, brown-complexioned, dark-haired Mary Crawford graduates from harp to horse. It is Fanny's new horse that Edmund lends Mary for her first lessons in riding, and he actually volunteers to teach her himself—nay actually touches Mary's small alert hands while doing so. Fanny's emotions while watching the scene from a vantage point are exquisitely depicted. The lesson has extended itself, and the mare has not been returned for her daily ride. Fanny has gone out to look for Edmund. "The houses, though scarcely half a mile apart, were not within sight of each other; but by walking fifty yards from the hall door, she could look down the park, and command a view of the parsonage and all its demesnes, gently rising beyond the village road; and in Dr. Grant's meadow she immediately saw the group—Edmund and Miss Crawford both on horseback, riding side by side, Dr. and Mrs. Grant, and Mr. Crawford, with two or three grooms, standing about and looking on. A happy party it appeared to her—all interested in one object—cheerful beyond a doubt, for the sound of merriment ascended even to her. It was a sound which did not make her cheerful; she wondered that Edmund should forget her, and felt a pang. She could not turn her eyes from the meadow, she could not help watching all that passed. At first Miss Crawford and her companion made the circuit of the field, which was not small, at a foot's pace; then, at her apparent suggestion, they rose into a canter; and to Fanny's timid nature it was most astonishing to see how well she sat. After a few minutes, they stopt entirely, Edmund was close to her, he was speaking to her, he was evidently directing her management of the bridle, he had hold of her hand; she saw it, or the imagination supplied what the eye could not reach. She must not wonder at all this; what could be more natural than that Edmund should be making himself useful, and proving his good-nature by any one? She could not but think indeed that Mr. Crawford might as well have saved him the trouble; that it would have been particularly proper and becoming in a brother to have done it himself; but Mr. Crawford, with all his boasted good-nature, and all his coachmanship, probably knew nothing of the matter, and had no active kindness in comparison of Edmund. She began to think it rather hard upon the mare to have such double duty; if she were forgotten the poor mare should be remembered."

  Nabokov's notes on Fanny's horse rides

  But the development does not stop. The theme of the horse leads to another subject. We have already met Mr. Rushworth, who is going to marry Maria Bertram. We have met him, in fact, about the same time as we met the horse. The transition now comes from the horse theme to what we shall call the Sotherton escapade theme. In his infatuation with Mary, the little amazon, Edmund has almost completely deprived poor Fanny of that unfortunate mare. Mary on the mare and he on his roadster go for a long ride to Mansfield common. And here is the transition: "A successful scheme of this sort generally brings on another; and this having been to Mansfield common, disposed them all for going somewhere else the day after. There were many other views to be shewn, and though the weather was hot, there were shady lanes wherever they wanted to go. A young party is always provided with a shady lane." Rushworth's estate, Sotherton, is further than Mansfield common. Theme after theme opens its petals like a domestic rose.

  The subject of Sotherton Court has already been raised by Mr. Rushworth's praises of the "improvement" of a friend's estate and his avowed determination to hire the same improver for his own grounds. In the discussion that follows it is gradually decided that Henry Crawford should look over the problem, instead of a professional, and that they all should accompany him in a party. In chapters 8 through 10 the inspection takes place and the Sotherton escapade begins its full cycle, which in turn will prepare for the next escapade, that of the play rehearsal. These themes are gradually developed, are engendered and evolved one from another. This is structure.

  Let us return, now, to the beginning of the Sotherton theme. This is the first big conversational piece in the book, one in which Henry Crawford, his sister, young Rushworth, his fiancee Maria Bertram, the Grants, and all the rest are shown in speech. The subject is the improvement of grounds, which means landscaping—the alteration and decoration of houses and grounds on principles more or less "picturesque," which from the age of Pope to the age of Henry Crawford was a chief amusement of cultivated leisure. Mr. Humphrey Repton, then the head of his profession, is introduced by name. Miss Austen must have
seen his books on drawingroom tables in the country houses which she visited. Jane Austen misses no opportunity for ironic characterization. Mrs. Norris elaborates all that they would have done in improvements to the parsonage if it had not been for Mr. Norris's poor health. " 'He could hardly ever get out, poor man, to enjoy any thing, and that disheartened me from doing several things that Sir Thomas and I used to talk of. If it had not been for that, we should have carried on the garden wall, and made the plantation to shut out the churchyard, just as Dr. Grant has done. We were always doing something, as it was. It was only the spring twelvemonth before Mr. Norris's death, that we put in the apricot against the stable wall, which is now grown such a noble tree, and getting to such perfection, sir,' addressing herself then to Dr. Grant.

  " 'The tree thrives well, beyond a doubt, madam,' replied Dr. Grant. 'The soil is good; and I never pass it without regretting, that the fruit should be so little worth the trouble of gathering.'

  " 'Sir, it is a moor park, we bought it as a moor park, and it cost us—that is, it was a present from Sir Thomas, but I saw the bill, and I know it cost seven shillings, and was charged as a moor park.'

  " 'You were imposed on, ma'am,' replied Dr. Grant; 'these potatoes have as much flavour of a moor park apricot, as the fruit from that tree. Ic is an insipid fruit at the best; but a good apricot is eatable, which none from my garden are.' "

  Thus this inedible apricot, nicely corresponding to the late sterile Mr. Norris, this bitter little apricot is all that Mrs. Norris's long voluble speech about her improvement of the grounds and all her late husband's labors are able to produce.

  As for Rushworth, the young man becomes puzzled and mixed up in his speech, a point of style rendered obliquely by the author through an ironic description of what he is trying to say. "Mr. Rushworth was eager to assure her ladyship of his acquiescence [about planting shrubbery], and tried to make out something complimentary; but, between his submission to her taste, and his having always intended the same himself, with superadded objects of professing attention to the comfort of ladies in general, and of insinuating, that there was one only whom he was anxious to please, he grew puzzled; and Edmund was glad to put an end to his speech by a proposal of wine." This is a device found elsewhere in the novel, as in Lady Bertram's talking of the ball. The author does not give the speech but devotes a descriptive sentence to it. And now comes the point: not only the contents of that sentence but its own rhythm, construction, and intonation convey the special feature of the described speech.