Jane Austen

by Catherine Reef

  Willoughby rescues Marianne in an illustration from an early edition of Sense and Sensibility.

  Marianne spends so much time with Willoughby and the pair is so intimate that Elinor wonders if they are secretly engaged. While Marianne’s behavior invites speculation, Elinor’s hides her most cherished feelings: she secretly loves Edward Ferrars, the brother of her sister-in-law, Fanny Dashwood, and hopes he cares for her in return.

  Lady Middleton’s sister, Charlotte Palmer, pays a visit and turns out to be the empty-headed product of a girls’ school. Her husband cannot bear her foolishness. He buries himself in a newspaper and looks up only to make rude remarks. Elinor thinks that Mr. Palmer was captivated by his wife’s beauty and discovered too late that “he was the husband of a very silly woman.” Two wheedling sisters, Nancy and Lucy Steele, visit as well. They fawn over the Middletons’ spoiled children to gain the parents’ favor. Greed, stupidity, bad manners, ambition: Austen portrayed a harsh society that is quick to pass judgment.

  Conniving Lucy Steele tells Elinor that she is secretly engaged to Edward Ferrars, and this news cuts Elinor to the heart. She suffers inwardly, but “though her complexion varied, she stood firm ... and felt in no danger of an hysterical fit, or a swoon.”

  The action moves to London, where Marianne hopes to see Willoughby again. The longed-for meeting takes place at a party, where Willoughby tries his best to ignore Marianne. When this becomes impossible, he addresses her formally, and he escapes as fast as he can. Soon afterward, Marianne learns the reason for his coldness: Willoughby is engaged to someone else, a young woman with money. Marianne, predictably, collapses in grief. Yet Colonel Brandon then tells Elinor that things have turned out for the best, because Willoughby is a scoundrel, the man who seduced a young woman under his guardianship.

  An unhappily married couple like Mr. and Mrs. Palmer was a source of humor for artists and writers in many periods of history including Austen’s.

  While in London, Nancy Steele reveals the secret of her sister’s engagement. Instead of being happy for her son, Edward Ferrars’s overbearing mother disapproves of the match and is furious. She disinherits Edward and makes her younger son, Robert, her heir. The engagement was a youthful mistake on Edward’s part, but Lucy refuses to release him from his promise, and he is duty-bound to honor it.

  On their way home to Barton, the sisters stop at the country home of addle-brained Charlotte Palmer and her rude husband. There, Marianne walks outdoors in bad weather, carelessly risking her health, and falls gravely ill. Colonel Brandon shows his fine character by traveling to Barton to fetch Mrs. Dashwood, but before they return, Willoughby shows up. He tells Elinor a long story of his past errors: how lavish spending and a small income landed him in debt; how he behaved wrongly toward Colonel Brandon’s ward yet believed she was not free of blame; how he meant only to toy with Marianne’s affection but fell in love with her. He admits to Elinor that although he is married to someone else, he still loves Marianne.

  Emma Thompson played sensible Elinor Dashwood, and Kate Winslet was the more emotional Marianne, in the 1995 film Sense and Sensibility.

  Jane Austen’s handwritten versions of Sense and Sensibility were lost, so they cannot be compared to the printed book. It is impossible to know how she shaped her work over time. Willoughby’s lengthy speech sounds artificial—more like something written than spoken. It reminds readers that Austen first wrote this novel as a series of letters. Most likely everything Willoughby says was written in a letter in an earlier version.

  The plot resolves neatly for both sisters. Marianne is recovering when her mother arrives. Being ill has given her time to think. Having learned to rein in her emotions, she sees the worth of Colonel Brandon, who has loved her all along, and agrees to be his wife. Marianne “was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her own conduct, her most favourite maxims,” Austen concludes. “She was born to overcome an affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and ... voluntarily to give her hand to another!” The other was a man “she had considered too old to be married,—and who still sought the constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!” Marianne has grown up.

  Elinor is resigned to disappointment when she learns that “Mr. Ferrars is married,” but she soon gets a happy surprise. Lucy Steele has schemed to marry Robert Ferrars, the younger brother, who is in line to inherit his mother’s fortune. Edward, freed from his obligation to Lucy, proposes marriage to Elinor. Old Mrs. Ferrars feels a morsel of tenderness toward her older son and gives him some money—just enough to wed. Married to men of good character, the sisters live out their lives in contentment.

  Even Willoughby lives happily ever after. He recalls Marianne with regret, but Austen cautions her readers against thinking that “he fled from society, or contracted an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart.” Willoughby, she states, “lived to exert, and frequently to enjoy himself.”

  Sense and Sensibility received two good reviews in the press. One book critic praised the author’s “intimate knowledge of life.” He recommended the novel to “female friends,” because it might teach them “many sober and salutary maxims for the conduct of life.” The other critic noted that the book “is well written; the characters are in genteel life, naturally drawn, and judiciously supported. The incidents are probable, and highly pleasing, and interesting; the conclusion such as the reader must wish it should be....”

  The Countess of Bessborough, a member of stylish society, disagreed on the last point. “It is a clever Novel,” she commented. “And tho’ it ends stupidly I was much amus’d by it.” The countess never described the ending she would have liked better.

  Austen’s book found at least one fan in the royal family. “‘Sence and Sencibility’ I have just finished reading; it certainly is interesting, & you feel quite one of the company,” wrote sixteen-year-old Princess Charlotte to her close friend, Miss Mercer Elphinstone. “Maryanne & me are very like in disposition.” The princess’s careless spelling tried the patience of her grandfather, King George III, who had sat on the throne while Britain lost the American Revolution. The king had gradually been slipping into insanity, and in January 1811, Charlottes father, the future King George IV, began ruling in his place as the Prince Regent.

  Concluding her first published book, Austen wrote that “Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate.” But was Austen’s own fate any less remarkable? Thomas Egerton had sold every copy of Sense and Sensibility by summer 1813, and Austen had earned 140 pounds. For the first time, she had money to spend. The novel’s success so delighted Egerton that he offered to print another book by the same author—and this time it would cost her nothing. In fact, he paid her 110 pounds for First Impressions. Another book with this title had come out in 1801, so Austen’s book was published in January 1813 as Pride and Prejudice.

  The public adored Princess Charlotte. When she died in childbirth at age twenty-one, all of England mourned. “From the highest to the lowest, this death was felt as a calamity that demanded the intense sorrow of domestic misfortune,” recalled the writer Harriet Martineau.

  six

  LIGHT, BRIGHT, AND SPARKLING

  Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

  —PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE opens with one of the most famous sentences ever written: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” With these words, Jane Austen announced to her readers that they were about to meet such a man and the people eager to marry him off. What was more, they were going to have fun. The dark cynicism of Sense and Sensibility was largely gone, blown away by a clean, fresh wind.

  The action begins when the young man, Mr. Bingley, rents a country house called Netherfield. His coming is good news for his neighbor Mrs. Bennet, whose husband has a small income. She has five daughters, and find
ing them husbands is “the business of her life.”

  The Bennets encounter Mr. Bingley at a local ball, which he attends with his sisters and his friend, Fitzwilliam Darcy. Each young man makes a strong impression. Bingley pleases with his looks and manners, and he endears himself to Mrs. Bennet by dancing with her oldest daughter, Jane. Bingley and Jane quickly fall in love. But, like Elinor Dashwood, Jane is expert at hiding her feelings.

  Aloof Mr. Darcy, handsomer and even richer than his friend, gets off to a bad start by declining to ask Elizabeth Bennet to dance. He sums her up as “tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me.” Elizabeth overhears this remark and instantly dislikes proud Mr. Darcy, later amusing her friends with the story of Darcy’s snub. She cannot know that Darcy spoke too quickly. No sooner did he pass judgment on her looks than he began to find her face “rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes.”

  Lizzy Bennet is easily the most captivating character in all Jane Austen’s books. She is outspoken, witty, and smart enough to learn from experience. “Elizabeth has a thousand faults,” noted a critic in 1898. She “is often blind, pert, audacious, imprudent; and yet how splendidly she comes out of it all! Alive to the very tips of her fingers.” Like Austen, Elizabeth studies human nature. “People themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever,” she says. Her creator felt fond of Elizabeth, too. “I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print,” Austen admitted. “How I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.”

  “She Is tolerable”: Darcy looks down on Elizabeth Bennet In this Illustration from an 1894 edition of Pride and Prejudice.

  By the novels end, Elizabeth will have taught Darcy to quell his pride, and she will have overcome her wrong first impression. She and Darcy both will discover that ill will can mask attraction. They will learn to understand the contents of their hearts, but this kind of learning takes time.

  Elizabeth, like many young people, is embarrassed by her family. She has good reason to be uneasy. Her younger sisters talk of nothing but soldiers and balls; her mother speaks and acts without thinking. Even her father lacks social graces. A man with a dry wit, Mr. Bennet amuses himself by making fun of his wife and daughters. He hides in his library rather than offer his family guidance.

  People like the Bennets and Bingleys entertained one another by making music, although some performed better than others. Here two girls show off their musical accomplishments to guests who are less impressed than their parents.

  When soldiers are quartered in a nearby town, Elizabeth feels drawn to one of them, the dashing but penniless Wickham. Mr. Wickham is quick to confirm her first impression of Darcy, whom he has known since boyhood. He tells her that Darcy’s father was his godfather. The older Mr. Darcy had promised to make Wickham the pastor of a church on his estate, but after the old man died, young Darcy spitefully gave the living to someone else. Darcy resented his father’s love for his godson, Wickham says. Still smarting, perhaps, from Darcy’s insult, Elizabeth is all too ready to believe the charming Wickham.

  Another young man turns up as well. This one is a humorous buffoon who lacks brains but is full of self-importance. After all, he is the clergyman on the estate of rich, pompous Lady Catherine de Bourgh—who happens to be Mr. Darcy’s aunt. This guest, Mr. Collins, is a cousin of Elizabeth’s father. Because of the laws that governed inheritance, he stands to take possession of the Bennets’ home when Mr. Bennet dies. Lady Catherine has decided that Mr. Collins should marry, so he visits the Bennets to find a wife. Almost immediately, he proposes to Elizabeth.

  She turns him down, and no matter what she says, he refuses to believe that her no means no. “It is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour,” Mr. Collins declares. Elizabeth repeats her refusal but cannot make herself understood. At last, in frustration, she asks, “Can I speak plainer?” But Collins merely calls her charming.

  Collins is stunned and briefly insulted when he finally understands that Elizabeth has rejected him. Soon it is Elizabeth’s turn to be shocked, though, because Collins promptly asks her friend Charlotte Lucas to marry him. Charlotte is twenty-seven and possesses neither money nor beauty, so when Collins offers her a chance to have a home and family, she grabs it. The wrong choice for Elizabeth is the right one for Charlotte.

  At this point, things start to go wrong. Not only does Wickham transfer his attention to a girl with a large inheritance, but Bingley suddenly leaves for London. Elizabeth suspects that his sisters and Darcy want to keep him away from Jane.

  Elizabeth visits her newly married friend, Charlotte, and meets the high-and-mighty Lady Catherine, who likes minding other peoples business. Elizabeth also bumps into Mr. Darcy, who is staying with his aunt. Before long, Darcy gives Elizabeth the surprise of her life when he confesses that he loves her. He proposes marriage, although his judgment reminds him that she is inferior. She rejects the offer and angrily accuses Darcy of hurting Jane by spoiling her chances with Bingley, and of doing wrong to Wickham.

  In 1940’s Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine de Bourgh (actor Edna May Oliver) gives unwanted advice to Elizabeth Bennet (played by Greer Garson).

  In the world of Jane Austen’s novels, characters write letters to relate what they cannot say in person. Darcy writes a letter—a very long one—to Elizabeth, hoping to explain himself. He admits that he separated Bingley from Jane, but he had watched Jane and concluded that she had formed a weak attachment to his friend. He hoped to save Bingley from “a most unhappy connection.” He objected to “the total want of propriety” displayed by Elizabeth’s mother, her younger sisters, and, at times, her father.

  Darcy also sets the record straight about Wickham. Elizabeth learns that Wickham is a good-for-nothing on a par with Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility. He had tried to seduce Darcy’s sister, Georgiana, and rightly earned the family’s scorn.

  Darcy’s letter makes Elizabeth furious—at first. Then it makes her think, and she reads it again after she has calmed down. This time, she concludes that what Darcy wrote about Wickham must be true, and her opinion of Darcy starts to change. He seems proud, but Bingley, who knows him well, holds him in high regard. How could Bingley be wrong? Elizabeth feels shame at the way Darcy described her family, but she admits that his words are just.

  Her first impression of Darcy was wrong, and Elizabeth is ashamed of herself for speaking ill of him. “How despicably I have acted!” she cries out. “I, who have valued myself on my abilities!” This is a key point in the novel. It is painful for Elizabeth to see her own faults, but she is wiser for doing so. “Till this moment, I never knew myself,” she says, and she is right.

  Elizabeth welcomes the chance to travel in the country with her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. English people on holiday commonly toured fine country houses, and Mrs. Gardiner wants to see Darcy’s estate, Pemberley. Elizabeth agrees to go along only when she learns that Darcy is away from home. But seeing the miles of beautiful woodland that surround the great house and the lofty, elegant rooms within causes her regret. Elizabeth thinks that “to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!” She and the Gardiners bump into the master of Pemberley unexpectedly when he returns a day early. He is a changed man, a different Darcy, one who generously offers them hospitality.

  Austen’s visits to great homes like Edward’s Hampshire estate, Chawton House, helped her describe Pemberley.

  Then, suddenly, a catastrophe befalls the Bennet family The no-good Wickham has run up huge debts and taken off with Lydia Bennet, a sister of Jane and Elizabeth. This couple must be found. To have a sister living with a man, unmarried, will ruin the reputations of all the Bennet girls and destroy their chances of marrying well. Luckily for everyone, Mr. Gardiner tracks down the couple in London, persuades Wickham to marry Lydia, and settles his debts—or
so the Bennets believe. Flighty Mrs. Bennet is thrilled to have a married daughter, regardless of how the match came about.

  When Lydia comes home in triumph with her husband, she lets it slip to Elizabeth that Darcy attended her wedding. Elizabeth appeals to her aunt for information, but Mrs. Gardiner expresses surprise. Didn’t Elizabeth know that it was really Darcy who found the runaway couple, paid off Wickham, and arranged the wedding? Weren’t Elizabeth and Darcy soon to be engaged?

  If only they were! Elizabeth now knows that if Darcy proposed again, she would gratefully accept. “She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man, who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her,” Austen wrote. Sadly, marriage to Darcy is now out of the question, Elizabeth believes.

  More surprising things happen, though. Bingley returns to Netherfield, promptly calls on the Bennets, and proposes to Jane. Next, arrogant Lady Catherine turns up and demands to speak privately with Elizabeth. She insists, strangely, that Elizabeth must never marry Darcy, whom she intends to be the husband of her daughter. Her plan is not to be thwarted by “the upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune.” Elizabeth defends her right to marry Darcy, even though she has no hope that such a marriage will take place: “He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.” “True. You are a gentleman’s daughter,” the great lady replies. “But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts?” An enraged Lady Catherine leaves in a huff, having shown herself to be cruder than the lower-born Mrs. Bennet.