In my
previous two posts, I have dug deeper and deeper into the subtext of Letter 74,
demonstrating, when I left off, that Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
was covertly alluded to by JA in Letter 74 to CEA. And I further speculated
that JA was thereby linking herself to the forbidden love of the tragic heroine
Thisby in the play within a play in MND,
and also perhaps to the tragic plight of Ariel prior to his release by Prospero from tree-bound torture in The
Tempest.
While
running errands after I sent my second post re Letter 74, I dimly recollected
seeing a reference to mulberry trees somewhere in one of JA’s novels, and so
when I returned home, I quickly searched to see if my memory had served me
well---and it turned out that it had, and had, in fact, led me to the center of
the onion of Letter 74, as I will now explain.
What
I found was that there are _two_ references to a mulberry tree in JA’s fiction,
and _both_ are made by the voluble Mrs. Jennings, in fairly rapid succession,
as follows, to the same mulberry tree!:
Ch.
30: Delaford is a nice place, I can tell
you; exactly what I call a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and
conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered with the
best fruit-trees in the country: and SUCH A MULBERRY TREE IN ONE CORNER! Lord!
how Charlotte and I did stuff the only time we were there! Then, there is a
dovecote, some delightful stewponds, and a very pretty canal; and everything,
in short, that one could wish for: and, moreover, it is close to the church,
and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike-road, so 'tis never dull, for if
you only go and sit up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all
the carriages that pass along. Oh! 'tis a nice place! A butcher hard by in the
village, and the parsonage-house within a stone's throw. To my fancy, a
thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they are forced to send three
miles for their meat, and have not a neighbour nearer than your mother. Well, I
shall spirit up the Colonel as soon as I can. One shoulder of mutton, you know,
drives another down. If we can but put Willoughby out of her head!"
Ch.
32: Colonel Brandon's delicate unobtrusive inquiries were never unwelcome to
Miss Dashwood. He had abundantly earned the privilege of intimate discussion of
her sister's disappointment, by the friendly zeal with which he had endeavoured
to soften it, and they always conversed with confidence. His chief reward for
the painful exertion of disclosing past sorrows and present humiliations, was
given in the pitying eye with which Marianne sometimes observed him, and the
gentleness of her voice whenever (though it did not often happen) she was
obliged, or could oblige herself to speak to him. These assured him that
his exertion had produced an increase of good-will towards himself, and these
gave Elinor hopes of its being farther augmented hereafter; but Mrs. Jennings,
who knew nothing of all this -- who knew only that the Colonel continued as
grave as ever, and that she could neither prevail on him to make the offer
himself, nor commission her to make it for him -- began at the end of two days
to think that, instead of Midsummer, they would not be married till Michaelmas,
and by the end of a week that it would not be a match at all. The good
understanding between the Colonel and Miss Dashwood seemed rather to declare
that THE HONOURS OF THE MULBERRY-TREE, the canal, and the yew arbour, would all
be made over to her ; and Mrs. Jennings had for some time ceased to
think at all of Mr. Ferrars.
I did
some quick searching in Janeites and Austen L and found that Anielka, with her
usual acute sensitivity to JA’s word usage, had commented a few months ago in Austen L
that JA was “very keen to number and name trees”, and Anielka had specifically mentioned
those same two references by Mrs. Jennings. But at the time, Anielka gave no explanation
for what this curious repetition by Mrs. Jennings might mean. Well, now I would like to suggest a very
compelling meaning.
In
some fashion, I suggest that Mrs. Jennings is pointing the reader back to
Midsummer Night’s Dream (and did you notice her reference to “Midsummer” in that
Chapter 32 excerpt?), and also to Shakespeare’s ancient source for that
mulberry tree, which is none other than the story of Pyramus & Thisby in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses!
And while
I’m at it, I would also like to bring forward yet another, much more
contemporary literary source for Mrs. Jennings’s winking reference to the
Delaford mulberry tree, which I just found--a work with which, it is already
well established, JA was familiar with---Oliver Goldsmith’s 1771 play, She
Stoops to Conquer.
Here
is the relevant excerpt from Act 5 of She Stoops, a dialog between Mr. & Mrs. Hardcastle:
Mrs.
Hardcastle: Mr. Hardcastle, as I’m alive! My fears blinded me. But who, my
dear, could have expected to meet you here, in this frightful place, so far
from home? What has brought you to follow us?
Mr.
Hardcastle.
Sure, Dorothy, you have not lost your wits? So far from home, when you are
within forty yards of your own door! [To son Tony]
This is one of your old tricks, you graceless rogue, you. [To
her.] Don’t you know the gate, and the MULBERRY-TREE; and don’t you
remember the horse-pond, my dear?
Mrs.
Hardcastle.
Yes, I shall remember the horse-pond as long as I live; I have caught my death
in it. [To TONY.] And it is to you, you graceless
varlet, I owe all this? I’ll teach you to abuse your mother, I will.”
Let
me immediately point out that I do not hang my claim of an allusion by JA to
this speech merely upon Mr. Hardcastle’s reference to a mulberry tree, there
are two other clues which seal the deal. First note also that Hardcastle emphasizes
the “horse-pond”, just as Mrs. Jennings refers to “stewponds”; but second, and
best of all, there is another key character involved in that climactic scene in
She Stoops, and he is named _Hastings_! And for JA, that name had special significance
in the subtext of S&S, which I have previously described in detail here:
In
short, I now see that Mrs. Jennings’s obsession with that mulberry tree is a
huge additional wink in the direction of _Warren_ Hastings, master of _Delafield_, who, I suggest, is
represented in S&S by Colonel Brandon, master of _Delaford_!
And
now we come to the best part of all---because seeing these allusions in Letter
74 pointing to S&S and _its_ allusive sources, made me realize, with the greatest
satisfaction, that there was a reason why these allusions would appear in
Letter 74—and that reason is revealed in Letter 71, written five weeks earlier,
which includes the following famous passage:
“No
indeed, I am never too busy to think of S & S. I can no more forget it,
than a mother can forget her sucking child; & I am much obliged to you for
your enquiries. I have had two sheets to correct, but the last only brings us
to W.s first appearance. Mrs K. regrets in the most flattering manner that she
must wait till May, but I have scarcely a hope of its being out in June.-Henry
does not neglect it; he has hurried the Printer, & says he will see him
again today.-It will not stand still during his absence, it will be sent to
Eliza.-The Incomes remain as they were, but I will get them altered if I can.”
So, given
that JA, as of April 25, has only corrected two sheets, and has only gotten up to
Willoughby’s first appearance in the beginning of Chapter 9, it makes perfect sense,
chronologically, that JA would have just read the proofs for Chapters 30-32 (which
contain the “mulberry tree” references of Mrs. Jennings) while writing Letter
74 dated 05/31/11!
And
so I suggest we must reread all the veiled allusions in Letter 74 to Midsummer
Night’s Dream in light of the crucial fact that JA was proofreading from
S&S at the same time! At that moment, JA was alluding to a rich vein of
allusive subtext that included Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Goldsmith’s She Stoops to
Conquer, and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And then, intoxicated with what must have
been the nearly unbearable anticipation of the imminent birth of her first “sucking
child”, S&S, JA could not resist alluding to it all in Letter 74, to the
one audience who would understand all the layers of meaning without the
necessity of explicit explanation—CEA.
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
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