Free Jane Austen by Elizabeth Jenkins Page A

rebuff as that; even a timid author might have persevered at least until he found a publisher who would go so far as to tell him that his work was useless. Such was not Jane Austen's way; when, after her death, Henry tried to give some account of his famous sister's manner of work, he said that "though in composition she was equally rapid and correct" she had "an invincible distrust of her own judgment." It is as if when she had the pen in her hand she reigned undisputed; but when daily life returned upon her she was no more bold and unerring, but modest, reflective, attentive to anything that might be said. But had she merely

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    accepted in silence Cadell's refusal to read her novel, however unusual, it would not have been of particular significance; the latter, it is true, prevented her doing anything further with First Impressions , but to herself it made no difference at all. The novel had been refused in November of 1797; before the year was out she was deeply engrossed in a second one. She called it Sense and Sensibility .
    The year 1797 had brought disappointment to both sisters, but had Jane's been severer than it was, she would have despised herself if it had caused her more than a passing pang, when Cassandra's was so heavy. In the preceding February, Thomas Fowle had caught the
    yellow fever in San Domingo, and was dead.
    Eliza said: "This is a very severe stroke to the whole family, and particularly to poor Cassandra, for whom I feel more than I can express. . . . Jane says that her sister behaves with a degree of resolution and propriety which no common mind could evince in so trying a situation." This is not Jane's language, but one can recognize beneath it the warmth of sympathy and distress, and the loving admiration, increased tenfold, of the strength of mind that was controlled in grief and not morose but silent.
    Thomas Fowle had left his betrothed a thousand pounds. Lord
    Craven was greatly distressed, and said had he known that Fowle was an engaged man, he would never have taken him abroad; a
    tragic consequence of discretion.

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6
    THE METHOD in which Jane Austen first three novels were
    produced makes it a matter of uncertainty to decide the order in which they should be considered. The schoolgirl's sketch, Elinor and Marianne , was followed by the youthful but mature First Impressions ; First Impressions by Elinor and Marianne rewritten as Sense and Sensibility ; Sense and Sensibility by Northanger Abbey ; then, after an interval of eight years, Sense and Sensibility was
    "prepared for the press," and immediately after that First Impressions was arranged for publication and renamed Pride and Prejudice .
    Our ignorance as to how much rewriting was involved in this
    preparation for the press, must make any method of arranging the first three novels on a chronological plan a question of personal opinion. A good case could be made out for placing Northanger Abbey at the head of the list, as the earliest example of a completed work; for though, with Persuasion , it was actually published the last of all the finished works, we know that it had not been retouched to any extent because the preface apologizes to readers of 1817 for anything that may seem out of date in a story written in 1803. Of the other two, one cannot but feel that, whatever

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    its origins, Pride and Prejudice is the product of the time at which the author published it; spontaneous, topical, inspired no less by present enthusiasm than by earnest craftsmanship, and that it is Sense and Sensibility that, even more than Northanger Abbey , represents the early work. It was obviously prepared for the press when Jane Austen's powers were approaching their zenith, and there is one indication at least of later workmanship. In La Belle
    Assemblêe for March 1810, on the page headed Remarkable
    Occurrences, Deaths and Marriages, the following announcements occur under "Hampshire": "At Ringwood, William Dyke Esquire of Vernham to