Free Ten Novels And Their Authors by W. Somerset Maugham Page B

years ago, Mr. Peter Quennell published in The Cornhill a letter which Fanny, by this time Lady Knatchbull, many years later wrote to her younger sister, Mrs. Rice, in which she spoke of her famous aunt. It is so surprising, but so characteristic of the period, that, having received permission from the late Lord Brabourne to do so, I here reprint it. The italics mark the words the writer underlined. Since Edward Austen in 1812 changed his name to Knight, it may be worth while to point out that the Mrs. Knight Lady Knatchbull refers to is the widow of Thomas Knight. From the way the letter begins, it is evident that Mrs. Rice was uneasy about some things she had heard that reflected on her Aunt Jane’s gentility, and had written to enquire whether they were by any frightful chance true. Lady Knatchbull replied as follows:
    ‘Yes my love it is very true that Aunt Jane from various circumstances was not so refined as she ought to have been from her talent, and if she had lived fifty years later she would have been in many respects more suitable to our more refined tastes. They were not rich & the people around with whom they chiefly mixed, were not at all high bred, or in short anything more than mediocre & they of course tho’ superior in mental powerscultivation were on the same level as far as refinement goes – but I think in later life their intercourse with Mrs. Knight (who was very fond & kindto them) improved them both & Aunt Jane was too clever not to put aside all possible signs of “commonness” (if such an expression is allowable) & teach herself to be more refined at least in intercourse with people in general. Both the aunts (Cassandra and Jane) were brought up in the most complete ignorance of the World & its ways (I mean as to fashion etc.) & if it had not been for Papa’s marriage which brought them into Kent, & the kindness of Mrs. Knight, who used often to have one or other of the sisters staying with her, they would have been, tho’ not less clever and agreeable in themselves, very much below par as to good society and its ways. If you hate all this I beg yr’ pardon, but I felt it at my pen’s end & it chose to come along & speak the truth. It is now nearly dressing time …
    ‘… I am ever beloved Sister yours most affec.
    ‘F.C.K.’
    This letter has excited the indignation of Jane’s devotees, and they have claimed that Lady Knatchbull was senile when she wrote it. There is nothing in the letter to suggest that; nor, surely, would Mrs. Rice have written to make the enquiry had she thought her sister in no condition to answer it. It has seemed to the devotees dreadfully ungrateful that Fanny, whom Jane doted on, should have expressed herself in such terms. There they show themselves ingenuous. It is regrettable, but it is a fact, that children do not look upon their parents, or their relations belonging to another generation, with the same degree of affection as their parents, or relations look upon them. Parents and relations are very unwise to expect it. Jane, as we know, never married, and she gave Fanny something of the mother-love she would, had she married, have bestowed on her own children. She was fond of children, and was a favourite with them; they liked her playful ways and the long circumstantial stories shetold them. She and Fanny became fast friends. Fanny could talk to her in a way that perhaps she couldn’t with her father, occupied with the pursuits of the country squire that he had become, or with her mother, who was continuously giving birth to offspring. But children have sharp eyes, and are apt to judge cruelly. When Edward Austen inherited Godmersham and Chawton, he rose in the world, and his marriage allied him with the best families of the County. We know nothing of what Jane and Cassandra thought of his wife. Dr. Chapman tolerantly suggests that it was her loss which made Edward feel ‘that he ought to do more for his mother and sisters, and induced him to offer them