Jane Austen may be said to have had the happiness of being without a history. No other English woman of letters ever lived a life so entirely uneventful. Its monotony was unbroken by travel, or by acquaintance or even correspondence with other writers. Its placid flow was never interrupted by love, or there is at least no surface-ripple to tell us of the fact. We learn from the memoir by her nephew, the Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh, that she was the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman; she had one sister, very dear to her, and several brothers, one of whom rose to the rank of admiral in the navy. Jane was born on the 16th of December, 1775. In the years 1796 and ’97, before she was twenty-three years old, she wrote the novel Pride and Prejudice; in 1797 and ’98, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey. These works, however, waited fifteen years for a publisher; and Jane, who wrote merely for her own amusement, seems to have possessed her soul in patience. In 1801 the family removed to Bath; in 1805 the Rev. George Austen died, and they again removed to Southampton. In 1809 they settled at Chawton, Hampshire; and in 1811 Jane was at length enabled to publish Sense and Sensibility. It was followed in 1813 by Pride and Prejudice. Mansfield Park appeared in 1814, and Emma in 1816.

Jane Austen died on the 18th of July, 1817. After her death her early novel Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion, a mature work which has the same mellower quality as Emma, together with a pathos peculiarly its own, were published.

From the testimony of her nephew and the internal evidence of her books, we may conclude Jane Austen to have been a decorous English gentlewoman, conservative in temper, essentially feminine; a silent, humorous observer of the most minute details; an affectionate daughter and sister and a delightful aunt; at home “a still, sweet, placid moonlight face, and slightly nonchalant”—abroad, perhaps a trifle chilling. We may eke out the meagre record of her life with many praises, drawn from widely-differing sources. If some of these appear to us extravagant, and we are driven by reaction to complain of a certain superficiality in Miss Austen’s writings, we should be disarmed by the recollection that she is never pretentious. No better example exists of a talent kept within its proper limitations. It has been well said, that her enclosed spot of English ground is indeed little, but never was verdure brighter or more velvety than its trim grass.

As the first twenty-five years, more than half of the brief life of Jane Austen, were spent in the parsonage of Steventon, some description of that place ought to be given. Steventon is a small rural village upon the chalk hills of North Hants, situated in a winding valley about seven miles from Basingstoke.... Of this somewhat tame country, Steventon, from the fall of the ground and the abundance of its timber, is certainly one of the prettiest spots. The house itself stood in a shallow valley, surrounded by sloping meadows, well-sprinkled with elm trees, at the end of a small village of cottages, each well provided with a garden, scattered about prettily on either side of the road.... North of the house, the road from Deane to Popham Lane ran at a sufficient distance from the front to allow a carriage-drive through turf and trees. On the south side the ground rose gently, and was occupied by one of those old-fashioned gardens in which vegetables and flowers are combined, flanked and protected on the east by one of the thatched mud walls common in that country, and overshadowed by fine elms. Along the upper or southern side of this garden, ran a terrace of the finest turf, which must have been in the writer’s thoughts when she described Catharine Morland’s childish delight in “rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.”

Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’ London: Richard Bentley, 1870.

When I knew Jane Austen, I never suspected that she was an authoress; but my eyes told me she was fair and handsome, slight and elegant, but with cheeks a little too full. The last time I think that I saw her was at Ramsgate in 1803: perhaps she was then about twenty-seven years old. Even then I did not know that she was addicted to literary composition.

Sir Egerton Brydges: ‘Autobiography, Times, Opinions and Contemporaries.’ London: Cochrane & M’Crane, 1834.

In person she was very attractive; her figure was rather tall and slender, her step light and firm, and her whole appearance expressive of health and animation. In complexion she was a clear brunette, with a rich color; she had full round cheeks, with mouth and nose small and well-formed, bright hazel eyes, and brown hair forming natural curls close round her face. If not so regularly handsome as her sister, yet her countenance had a peculiar charm of its own to the eyes of most beholders. At the time of which I am now writing [1809] she never was seen, either morning or evening, without a cap; I believe that she and her sister were generally thought to have taken to the garb of middle-age earlier than their years or their looks required; and that, though remarkably neat in their dress as in all their ways, they were scarcely sufficiently regardful of the fashionable, or the becoming. Dearest of all to the heart of Jane was her sister Cassandra, about three years her senior. Their sisterly affection for each other could scarcely be exceeded. Perhaps it began on Jane’s side with the feeling of deference natural to a loving child towards a kind elder sister. Something of this feeling always remained; and even in the maturity of her powers and the enjoyment of increasing success, she would still speak of Cassandra as of one wiser and better than herself. In childhood, when the elder was sent to the school of a Mrs. Latournelle, in the Torbury at Reading, the younger went with her not because she was thought old enough to profit much by the instruction there imparted, but because she would have been miserable without her sister; her mother observing that “if Cassandra were going to have her head cut off, Jane would insist on sharing her fate.” This attachment was never interrupted or weakened. They lived in the same home and shared the same bedroom, till separated by death. They were not exactly alike. Cassandra’s was the colder and calmer disposition; she was always prudent and well judging, but with less demonstration of feeling and less sunniness of temper than Jane possessed. It was remarked in her family that “Cassandra had the merit of having her temper always under command, but that Jane had the happiness of a temper that never required to be commanded.”

Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

The bond of sisterhood, more than any other relation, seems to have influenced Jane Austen in her art. With her own closest life-long friend in her sister Cassandra, the author who so rarely repeats herself in the circumscribed sphere in which she chose to work, again and again draws a pair of sisters, for the most part sharing every joy and sorrow. In two or three cases—those of the Bennets, the Dashwoods, Mrs. John Knightley and Emma Woodhouse, we have the contrast between the milder and more serene elder, and the livelier, more impulsive younger sister, which caused their contemporaries to say that Jane and Elizabeth Bennet stood for Cassandra and Jane Austen. But the author’s nephew pronounced against this conjecture. It is said, indeed, that in gentleness of disposition and tenderness of heart, Jane Austen bore more resemblance to Jane than to Elizabeth Bennet.

Sarah Tytler: ‘Jane Austen and Her Works.’ Cassell & Company.

A friend of mine, who visits her now, says that she has stiffened into the most perpendicular, precise, taciturn piece of “single blessedness” that ever existed, and that, till ‘Pride and Prejudice’ showed what a precious gem was hidden in that unbending case, she was no more regarded in society than a poker or a fire-screen, or any other thin upright piece of wood or iron that fills its corner in peace and quietness. The case is very different now; she is still a poker, but a poker of whom every one is afraid. It must be confessed that this silent observation from such an observer is rather formidable.... After all, I do not know that I can quite vouch for this account, though the friend from whom I received it is truth itself; but her family connections must render her disagreeable to Miss Austen, since she is the sister-in-law of a gentleman who is at law with Miss A.’s brother for the greater part of his fortune.

Mary Russell Mitford: Letter to Sir Wm. Elford, 1815, in the former’s ‘Life,’ by Rev. A. G. L’Estrange. London: Richard Bentley, 1870.

It was the conviction of the Austen family that Jane’s occupation as a novel writer continued long unsuspected by her ordinary acquaintances and neighbors. That may have been, but we cannot imagine that her close study of the characters around her, with her shrewd, humorous conclusions—so extraordinary at the age at which she began to make them—could have been either quite unperceived or wholly approved of by her associates.... Jane Austen was the clear-sighted girl with the sharp pen, if not the sharp tongue, who found in the Steventon visiting-list materials for the dramatis personæ of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ It would have been little short of a miracle, if she could have conducted herself with such meekness, in her remote rural world, or during the visits she paid to the great English watering-place—while she was all the time laughing in her sleeve—so as not to provoke any suspicion of her satire, or any resentment at what might easily be held her presumption.... I have it on excellent authority that, however thoroughly she was able to sympathize with the witty repartees of two of her favorite heroines, in general company she herself was shy and silent; even in more familiar circles she was innocent of speaking sharp words, and was rather distinguished for her tolerant indulgence to her fellow-creatures than for her hard judgments on them. The tolerance belonged, by right, to her breadth of comprehension, and to the humor which still more than wit characterized her genius. The suggestion I make is that, seeing her neighbor’s foibles, as she certainly did see them, she could not, however generously she might use her superior knowledge, conceal it altogether from her neighbors, and this was less likely to be the case when she was a young girl with some share, presumably, of the thoughtlessness and rashness of other girls, than when she was a mature woman, with the wisdom and gentleness of experience.

Sarah Tytler: ‘Jane Austen and her Works.’

Chawton may be called the second, as well as the last home of Jane Austen; for during the temporary residences of the party at Bath and Southampton she was only a sojourner in a strange land; but here she found a real home among her own people. It so happened that during her residence at Chawton circumstances brought several of her brothers and their families within easy distance of the house. Chawton must also be considered the place most closely connected with her career as a writer; for this is the place where, in the maturity of her mind, she either wrote or re-arranged, and prepared for publication the books by which she has become known to the world. This was the home where, after a few years, while still in the prime of life, she began to droop and wither away, and which she left only in the last stage of her illness, yielding to the persuasion of friends hoping against hope. This house stood in the village of Chawton, about a mile from Alton, on the right hand side, just where the road to Winchester branches off from that to Gosport. It was so close to the road that the front door opened at once upon it; but behind it there was ample space for a garden and shrubbery walks.

Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

There is an anecdote of Jane Austen which coincides with her character, and has been widely circulated, though it is not mentioned by Mr. Austen Leigh. If it had a foundation in fact, it must have occurred either during this visit to London [1815], or in the course of that paid not long before. It is said that Miss Austen received an invitation to a rout given by an aristocratic couple with whom she was not previously acquainted. The reason assigned for the invitation was that the author of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ might be introduced to the author of ‘Corinne.’ Tradition has it that the English novelist refused the invitation, saying that to no house where she was not asked as Jane Austen would she go as the author of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ This anecdote is often quoted with marks of admiration for the author’s independence. But even the most honest and honorable independence has its becoming limits. That of Jane Austen, ultra self-sufficing, fastidious, tinged with haughtiness, is just a trifle repellent out of that small circle in which she was always at home. Whether or not Mme. de Staël was consulted about the proposed meeting, she was not an admirer of her sister author. The somewhat grandiloquent Frenchwoman characterized the productions of that English genius—which were the essence of common-sense—as “vulgaires,” precisely what they were not.... Apparently, Jane Austen was not one whit more accessible to English women of letters. There were many of deserved repute in or near London, at the dates of these later visits. Not to speak of Mrs. Inchbald, whom her correspondent, warm-hearted Maria Edgeworth, rejoiced to come to England and meet personally, there were the two Porters, Joanna Baillie—at the representation of whose fine play, ‘The Family Legend,’ Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron had lately “assisted”—and the veteran writer, Mme. D’Arblay, whose creations were the object of Jane Austen’s early and late admiration. But we do not hear of a single overture towards acquaintance between Miss Austen and these ladies, though her works must have left as lively an impression on some of their minds as theirs have done on hers. Men of letters were no better known to her.

Sarah Tytler: ‘Jane Austen and her Works.’

I cannot better describe the fascination which she exercised over children than by quoting the words of two of her nieces. One says: “As a very little girl I was always creeping up to Aunt Jane, and following her whenever I could, in the house and out of it. I might not have remembered this but for the recollection of my mother’s telling me privately, that I must not be troublesome to my aunt. Her first charm to children was great sweetness of manner. She seemed to love you, and you loved her in return. This, as well as I can now recollect, was what I felt in my early days, before I was old enough to be amused by her cleverness. But soon came the delight of her playful talk. She could make everything amusing to a child. Then, as I got older, when cousins came to share the entertainment, she would tell us the most delightful stories, chiefly of Fairyland, and her fairies had all characters of their own. The tale was invented, I am sure, at the moment, and was continued for two or three days, if occasion served.” Very similar is the testimony of another niece.

Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

In her family and among her old friends Jane Austen was unsurpassed as a tender sick-nurse, an untiring confidante, and a wise counsellor.... During her whole life she remained to a great extent engrossed by the interests of her family and their limited circle of old and intimate friends. This was as it should be—so far, but there may be too much of a good thing. The tendency of restricted family parties and sets—when their members are above small bickerings and squabblings—when they are really superior people in every sense, is to form ‘mutual admiration’ societies, and neither does this more respectable and amiable weakness act beneficially upon its victims.... Fondly loved and remembered as Jane Austen has been, with much reason among her own people, in their considerable ramifications, I cannot imagine her as greatly liked, or even regarded with anything save some amount of prejudice, out of the immediate circle of her friends, and in general society.... What I mean is, that she allowed her interests and sympathies to become narrow, even for her day, and that her tender charity not only began, but ended, in a large measure, at home.

Sarah Tytler: ‘Jane Austen and Her Works.’

The style is always clear, and generally animated, while a vein of humor continually gleams through the whole; but the materials may be thought inferior to the execution, for they treat only of the details of domestic life. There is in them no notice of politics or public events; scarcely any discussions on literature, or other subjects of general interest. They may be said to resemble the nest which some little bird builds of the materials nearest at hand, of the twigs and mosses supplied by the tree in which it is placed; curiously constructed out of the simplest matters.... Her letters scarcely ever have the date of the year, and are never signed with her Christian name at full length.

Happy would the compositors for the press be if they had always so legible a manuscript to work from. But the writing was not the only part of her letters which showed superior handiwork. In those days there was an art in folding and sealing. No adhesive envelopes made all easy. Some people’s letters always looked loose and untidy; but her paper was sure to take the right folds, and her sealing-wax to drop into the right place.

Jane Austen was successful in everything that she attempted with her fingers. None of us could throw spilikins in so perfect a circle, or take them off with so steady a hand. Her performances with cup and ball were marvellous. The one used at Chawton was an easy one, and she has been known to catch it on the point above an hundredth time in succession, till her hand was weary. She sometimes found a resource in this simple game, when unable, from weakness in her eyes, to read or write long together.... Her needlework, both plain and ornamental, was excellent, and might almost have put a sewing machine to shame. She was considered especially great in satin-stitch. She spent much time in these occupations, and some of her merriest talk was over clothes which she and her companions were making, sometimes for themselves and sometimes for the poor. There still remains a curious specimen of her needlework made for a sister-in-law, my mother. In a very small bag is deposited a little rolled-up housewife, furnished with minikin needles and fine thread. In the housewife is a tiny pocket, and in the pocket is enclosed a slip of paper, on which, written as with a crow quill, are these lines:

“This little bag, I hope, will prove
To be not vainly made,
For should you thread and needles want
It will afford you aid.

“And as we are about to part,
’Twill serve another end:
For, when you look upon this bag,
You’ll recollect your friend.”

It is the kind of article that some benevolent fairy might be supposed to give as a reward to a diligent little girl. The whole is of flowered silk, and having been never used and carefully preserved, it is as fresh and bright as when it was first made seventy years ago, and shows that the same hand which painted so exquisitely with the pen could work as delicately with the needle.

Jane was fond of music, and had a sweet voice, both in singing and in conversation; in her youth she had received some instruction on the piano-forte; and at Chawton she practised daily, chiefly before breakfast. I believe she did so partly that she might not disturb the rest of the party who were less fond of music. In the evening she would sometimes sing, to her own accompaniment, some simple old songs, the words and airs of which, now never heard, still linger in my memory.

She read French with facility, and knew something in Italian.... In history she followed the old guides—Goldsmith, Hume and Robertson. Critical enquiry into the usually received statements of the old historians was scarcely begun.... Jane, when a girl, had strong political opinions, especially about the affairs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She was a vehement defender of Charles I. and his grandmother Mary; but I think it was rather from an impulse of feeling than from any enquiry into the evidence by which they must be condemned or acquitted. As she grew up, the politics of the day occupied very little of her attention, but she probably shared the feeling of moderate Toryism which prevailed in her family.

Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.

Jane Austen: Letter to Mr. J. S. Clarke, quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by Austen-Leigh.

She was well acquainted with the old periodicals, from the ‘Spectator’ downward. Her knowledge of Richardson’s works was such as no one is likely again to acquire, now that the multitude and the merits of our light literature have called off the attention of readers from that great master. Every circumstance narrated in Sir Charles Grandison, all that ever was said or done in the cedar parlor, was familiar to her; and the wedding-days of Lady L. and Lady G. were as well remembered as if they had been living friends. Amongst her favorite writers, Johnson in prose, Crabbe in verse, and Cowper in both, stood high. It is well that the native good taste of herself and of those with whom she lived, saved her from the snare into which a sister novelist had fallen, of imitating the grandiloquent style of Johnson. She thoroughly enjoyed Crabbe; perhaps on account of a certain resemblance to herself in minute and highly finished detail; and would sometimes say, in jest, that if she ever married at all, she could fancy being Mrs. Crabbe; looking on the author quite as an abstract idea, and ignorant and regardless what manner of man he might be. Scott’s poetry gave her great pleasure; she did not live to make much acquaintance with his novels.

Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

There were twenty dances, and I danced them all, and without any fatigue. I was glad to find myself capable of dancing so much, and with so much satisfaction as I did; from my slender enjoyment of the Ashford balls, I had not thought myself equal to it, but in cold weather and with few couples I fancy I could just as well dance for a week together as for half an hour.

Jane Austen: Letter to her sister, Cassandra, 1799, in ‘Letters of Jane Austen,’ edited by Lord Brabourne. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1884.

Jane Austen was able to write in the midst of a busily-talking roomful of people, her desk sometimes on a table which she shared with others, sometimes at one side of the room, or even upon her knee when there was no other place for it; and under what might seem to many others impossible social conditions or distractions, she wrote ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ ‘Northanger Abbey,’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ all works showing concentration and keen perception. A friend has told us of her manner in writing—the earnest face bent above her page, the keen bright eye suddenly lifted to flash out recognition of something which was said in her presence, showing how entirely possible it was for her to hear and heed as well.

Anon.: in Harper’s Bazar.

The last five years of her life produced the same number of novels with those which had been written in her early youth. How she was able to effect all this is surprising, for she had no separate study to retire to, and most of the work must have been done in the general sitting-room, subject to all kinds of casual interruptions. She was not, however, troubled with companions like her own Mrs. Allen, in ‘Northanger Abbey,’ whose “vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking were such that, as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and therefore, while she sat at work, if she lost her needle, or broke her thread, or saw a speck of dirt on her gown, she must observe it, whether there were any one at leisure to answer her or not.” In that well-occupied female party there must have been many precious hours of silence during which the pen was busy at the little mahogany writing-desk, while Fanny Price, or Emma Woodhouse, or Anne Elliott was growing into beauty and interest. I have no doubt that I, and my sisters and cousins, in our visits to Chawton, frequently disturbed this mystic process, without having any idea of the mischief that we were doing; certainly we never should have guessed it by any signs of impatience or irritability in the writer.

Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

When I was young, it was not thought proper for young ladies to study very conspicuously; and especially with pen in hand. Young ladies (at least in provincial towns) were expected to sit down in the parlor to sew—during which reading aloud was permitted—or to practise their music; but so as to be fit to receive callers, without any signs of blue-stockingism which could be reported abroad. Jane Austen herself, the queen of novelists, the immortal creator of Anne Elliott, Mr. Knightley, and a score or two more of unrivalled intimate friends of the whole public, was compelled by the feelings of her family to cover up her manuscripts with a large piece of muslin work, kept on the table for the purpose, whenever any genteel people came in.

Harriet Martineau: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1877.

I want to tell you that I have got my own darling child [‘Pride and Prejudice’] from London.... Miss B. dined with us on the very day of the book’s coming, and in the evening we fairly set at it, and read half the first volume to her, prefacing that, having intelligence from Henry that such a work would soon appear, we had desired him to send it whenever it came out, and I believe it passed with her unsuspected. She was amused, poor soul! That she could not help, you know, with two such people to lead the way, but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least I do not know.

Jane Austen: Letter to her sister Cassandra, quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by Austen-Leigh.

She certainly took a kind of parental interest in the beings whom she had created, and did not dismiss them from her thoughts when she had finished her last chapter. When sending a copy of ‘Emma’ to a friend whose daughter had been lately born, she wrote thus:—“I trust you will be as glad to see my ‘Emma,’ as I shall be to see your Jemima.” She was very fond of ‘Emma,’ but did not reckon on her being a general favorite; for, when commencing that work, she said: “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” She would, if asked, tell us many little particulars about the subsequent career of some of her people.

She did not copy individuals, but she invested her own creations with individuality of character. Her relations never recognized any individual in her characters; and I can call to mind several of her acquaintance whose peculiarities were very tempting and easy to be caricatured, of whom there are no traces in her pages. She, herself, when questioned on the subject by a friend, expressed a dread of what she called such an “invasion of social proprieties.” She said that she thought it quite fair to note peculiarities and weaknesses, but that it was her desire to create, not to reproduce; “besides,” she added, “I am too proud of my gentlemen to admit that they were only Mr. A or Colonel B.”

Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

Henry [her brother], and I went to the exhibition in Spring Gardens. It is not thought a good collection, but I was very well pleased, particularly with a small portrait of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like her.

I went in hopes of seeing one of her sister, but there was no Mrs. Darcy. Perhaps, however, I may find her in the great exhibition, which we shall go to if we have time.

Mrs. Bingley’s is exactly herself—size, shaped face, features, and sweetness; there never was a greater likeness. She is dressed in a white gown, with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I have always supposed, that green was a favorite color with her. I dare say Mrs. D. will be in yellow.

Monday evening. We have been both to the exhibition and Sir J. Reynolds’s and I am disappointed, for there was nothing like Mrs. D. at either. I can only imagine that Mr. D. prizes any picture of her too much to like it should be exposed to the public eye. I can imagine that he would have that sort of feeling—that mixture of love, pride and delicacy.

Jane Austen: Letter to her sister Cassandra, 1813, in ‘Letters of Jane Austen.’

I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it was indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

Jane Austen: Letter to Mr. J. S. Clarke, quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by Austen-Leigh.

By the bye, my dear E., I am quite concerned for the loss your mother mentions in her letter. Two chapters and a half to be missing is monstrous! It is well that I have not been at Steventon lately, and therefore cannot be suspected of purloining them; two strong twigs and a half towards a nest of my own would have been something. I do not think, however, that any theft of that sort would be really very useful to me. What should I do with your strong, manly, vigorous sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labor?

Jane Austen: Letter to her Nephew, quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by Austen-Leigh.

Read ‘Emma,’—most admirable. The little complexities of the story are beyond my comprehension, and wonderfully beautiful.... She was a glorious novelist.

Harriet Martineau: Journal, in ‘Memorials,’ by Maria Weston Chapman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1877.

I have read eleven times Miss Austen’s ‘Persuasion,’ unequalled in interest, charm, and truth, to my mind.

Harriet Martineau: Letter, published in her biography, by Mrs. Fenwick Miller. (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1885.

Her exquisite story of ‘Persuasion’ absolutely haunted me. Whenever it rained (and it did rain every day that I stayed in Bath, except one), I thought of Anne Elliott meeting Captain Wentworth, when driven by a shower to take refuge in a shoe-shop. Whenever I got out of breath in climbing up-hill, I thought of that same charming Anne Elliott, and of that ascent from the lower town to the upper, during which all her tribulations ceased. And when at last, by dint of trotting up one street and down another, I incurred the unromantic calamity of a blister on the heel, even that grievance became classical by the recollection of the similar catastrophe which, in consequence of her peregrinations with the admiral, had befallen dear Mrs. Croft. I doubt if any one, even Scott himself, have left such perfect impressions of character and place as Jane Austen.

Mary Russell Mitford: ‘Recollections of a Literary Life.’ New York: Harper & Bros., 1852.

She wants nothing but the beau-idéal of the female character to be a perfect novel writer.... By the way, how delightful is her ‘Emma’! the best, I think, of all her charming works.

Mary Russell Mitford: Letters, in her ‘Life,’ by Rev. A. G. L’Estrange.

The delicate mirth, the gently hinted satire, the feminine, decorous humor of Jane Austen, who, if not the greatest, is surely the most faultless of female novelists.... My Uncle Southey and my father had an equally high opinion of her merits, but Mr. Wordsworth used to say that though he admitted that her novels were an admirable copy of life, he could not be interested in productions of that kind; unless the truth of nature were presented to him clarified, as it were, by the pervading light of imagination, it had scarce any attractions in his eyes.

Sara Coleridge: ‘Memoir and Letters,’ edited by her daughter. New York: Harper & Bros., 1874.

Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who, in the point which we have noticed, [the difficult art of portraying characters in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged,] 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.

Lord Macaulay: Essay on Madame D’Arblay, dinburgh Review, January, 1843. ‘Critical and Historical Essays.’ New York: Albert Mason, 1875.

Read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen’s very finely written novel of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements, and feelings, and characters, of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!

Sir Walter Scott: Diary, March, 1826, in ‘Memoirs,’ by J. G. Lockhart. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1871.

A pleasant anecdote, told to us on good authority in England, is illustrative of Miss Austen’s power over various minds. A party of distinguished literary men met at a country-seat; among them was Macaulay, and we believe, Hallam; at all events, they were men of high reputation. While discussing the merits of various authors, it was proposed that each should write down the name of that work of fiction which had given him the greatest pleasure. Much surprise and amusement followed; for, on opening the slips of paper, seven bore the name of ‘Mansfield Park.’

Mrs. R. C. Waterston: ‘Jane Austen,’ in the Atlantic Monthly, February, 1863.

We would say that Fielding and Miss Austen are the greatest novelists in our language.... Miss Austen has been called a prose Shakespeare,—and among others, by Macaulay. In spite of the sense of incongruity which besets us in the words prose Shakespeare, we confess the greatness of Miss Austen, her marvellous dramatic power, seems, more than anything in Scott, akin to Shakespeare.

G. H. Lewes: ‘Recent Novels,’ in Fraser’s Magazine, December, 1847.

Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say that you would rather have written ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ or ‘Tom Jones,’ than any of the Waverley Novels? I had not seen ‘Pride and Prejudice’ till I read that sentence of yours—and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, high-cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.... George Sand is sagacious and profound; Miss Austen is only shrewd and observant.... You say I must familiarize my mind with the fact that “Miss Austen is not a poetess, has no ‘sentiment,’ no eloquence, none of the ravishing enthusiasm of poetry,”—and then you add, I must learn to acknowledge her as one of the greatest artists, of the greatest painters of human character, and one of the writers with the nicest sense of means to an end that ever lived. The last point only will I ever acknowledge. Can there be a great artist without poetry?

Charlotte Brontë: Letter to G. H. Lewes, 1848, in the former’s ‘Life,’ by E. C. Gaskell. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1858.

It was in this year, I think (1865), that Mrs. Cameron wrote an undated letter in which mention is made of Tennyson:

“Alfred talked very pleasantly that evening to Annie Thackeray and L—— S——. He spoke of Jane Austen, as James Spedding does, as next to Shakespeare! I can never imagine what they mean when they say such things.... He said he believed every crime and every vice in the world were connected with the passion for autographs and anecdotes and records—that the desiring anecdotes and acquaintance with the lives of great men was treating them like pigs to be ripped open for the public; that he knew he himself should be ripped open like a pig; that he thanked God Almighty with his whole heart and soul that he knew nothing, and that the world knew nothing, of Shakespeare but his writings; and that he thanked God Almighty that he knew nothing of Jane Austen, and that there were no letters preserved either of Shakespeare’s or of Jane Austen’s.”[8]

Henry Taylor: ‘Autobiography.’ London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1885.