Responding to my post yesterday
about Henry Austen’s letter to JEAL, in which I wrote, in relevant part…
“JEAL, in his 1870 Memoir,
intentionally and deceptively suppressed evidence of JA’s satire of dark
chapters in Austen family history; then RAAL, in both his 1911 JA’s Life &
Letters and his later Austen Papers, sought to atone for his grandfather JEAL’s
editorial sins by revealing
what JEAL had concealed or
obfuscated…”
…Nancy Mayer wrote the following
rebuttal in Janeites:
“JEAL was writing the life
of Jane Austen and selected the parts that affected her. He wrote of her father
but not uncles and great uncles. His focus was on Jane and not the
ancestors….JEAL was writing a Memoir -- a short biography of his aunt and not a
long family saga.”
Nancy, I’m glad you made
your case so clearly, because it allows me to easily demonstrate that your
claim is patently and completely inaccurate, as follows:
First, I’ve already
established that JEAL chose not to include the first 300 words of Henry’s
letter to JEAL, a passage that would
have given JEAL’s readers an entertaining, informative snapshot of the life of
Old Francis Austen, who was the closest
thing to a patriarch of the family that JA was born into. Plus, that pithy, witty
excerpt would have had the added bonus of being written with a subtle irony that
was, as Diane pointed out, strikingly reminiscent of JA’s writing its elf. An editorial no-brainer, in other words.
Instead, JEAL chose to
cherry pick and then clunkily rewrite a few tidbits from Henry’s introductory
section , and weave them into a generally misleading paragraph about Revd.
Austen’s beginnings. But then, in direct contradiction of your claim, JEAL
immediately segued into a 600-word passage (i.e., twice as long as the introductory
excerpt from Henry’s letter), a long passage providing all manner of trivia
about Theophilus Leigh, who was…..JA’s maternal ANCESTOR! (that scent you now detect
is the aroma of your claim about no ancestors going up in smoke).
But it’s even worse. To add editorial insult to injury, shortly
thereafter JEAL launched into a 1,200-word passage (i.e., four times as long as
the Henry Austen excerpt JEAL shunned) that mostly has absolutely nothing to do
with JA’s own life, and only two fleeting and oblique touches on her writing. I reproduce that
1,200 word passage, below, in full, to illustrate just how much precious space
in the Memoir JEAL was more than happy to devote to trivia and social background
remote from JA’s own life.
But, as I also realized overnight---I
could have predicted that JEAL’s perverse editorial strategy would dictate JEAL
taking a pass on Henry’s brilliant summary re Francis Austen. Why? Because the last thing JEAL was
going to include in the Memoir was a letter written by Henry Austen---not only
because it broadly hinted at family secrets, but also because, as I posted only
a few months ago, JEAL knew he was going be setting his Uncle Henry up later in
the Memoir as the fall guy whose 1816 bankruptcy was the “true” cause of JA’s
serious health relapse, instead of the actual main cause (as per JA’s own
words), which was the disinheritance of the Austen women by Uncle Leigh Perrot,
in favor of JEAL’s father James, and, ultimately behind James, JEAL himself:
So, in summary, let’s call
JEAL’s editorial choices for what they are, and not sugar-coat and rationalize his many serious
editorial frauds—even though his Memoir was written nearly a century and a half
ago, it continues to exert a strong influence on current thinking about JA’s
life and writing—an influence that needs to be nullified, so that truth can
emerge from the shadows.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
FULL TEXT OF JEAL’S 1,200
WORD ‘TRIVIAL PURSUIT”
“I am tempted to add a
little about the difference of personal habits. It may be asserted as a
general truth, that less was left to the charge and discretion of servants, and
more was done, or superintended, by the masters and mistresses. With
regard to the mistresses, it is, I believe, generally understood, that at the
time to which I refer, a hundred years ago, they took a personal part in the
higher branches of cookery, as well as in the concoction of home-made wines,
and distilling of herbs for domestic medicines, which are nearly allied to the
same art. Ladies did not disdain to spin the thread of which the household
linen was woven. Some ladies liked to wash with their own hands their
choice china after breakfast or tea. In one of my earliest child’s books, a little girl, the daughter of a gentleman, is taught by
her mother to make her own bed before leaving her chamber. It was not so
much that they had not servants to do all these things for them, as that they
took an interest in such occupations. And it must be borne in mind how
many sources of interest enjoyed by this generation were then closed, or very scantily
opened to ladies. A very small minority of them cared much for literature
or science. Music was not a very common, and drawing was a still rarer,
accomplishment; needlework, in some form or other, was their chief sedentary
employment.
But I doubt whether the
rising generation are equally aware how much gentlemen also did for themselves
in those times, and whether some things that I can mention will not be a
surprise to them. Two homely proverbs were held in higher estimation in
my early days than they are now—’The master’s eye makes the horse fat;’ and,
‘If you would be well served, serve yourself.’ Some gentlemen took
pleasure in being their own gardeners, performing all the scientific, and some
of the manual, work themselves. Well-dressed young men of my
acquaintance, who had their coat from a London tailor, would always brush their
evening suit themselves, rather than entrust it to the carelessness of a rough
servant, and to the risks of dirt and grease in the kitchen; for in those days
servants’ halls were not common in the houses of the clergy and
the smaller country gentry. It was quite natural that Catherine Morland
should have contrasted the magnificence of the offices at Northanger Abbey with
the few shapeless pantries in her father’s parsonage. A young man who
expected to have his things packed or unpacked for him by a servant, when he
travelled, would have been thought exceptionally fine, or exceptionally
lazy. When my uncle undertook to teach me to shoot, his first lesson was
how to clean my own gun. It was thought meritorious on the evening of a
hunting day, to turn out after dinner, lanthorn in hand, and visit the stable,
to ascertain that the horse had been well cared for. This was of the more
importance, because, previous to the introduction of clipping, about the year
1820, it was a difficult and tedious work to make a long-coated hunter dry and
comfortable, and was often very imperfectly done. Of course, such things
were not practised by those who had gamekeepers, and stud-grooms, and plenty of
well-trained servants; but they were practised by many who were unequivocally
gentlemen, and whose grandsons, occupying the same position in life, may
perhaps be astonished at being told that ‘such things were.’
I have drawn pictures for
which my own experience, or what I heard from others in my youth, have supplied
the materials. Of course, they cannot be universally applicable.
Such details varied in various circles, and were changed very gradually; nor can I pretend to tell how much of what I have said is
descriptive of the family life at Steventon in Jane Austen’s youth. I am
sure that the ladies there had nothing to do with the mysteries of the stew-pot
or the preserving-pan; but it is probable that their way of life differed a
little from ours, and would have appeared to us more homely. It may be
that useful articles, which would not now be produced in drawing-rooms, were
hemmed, and marked, and darned in the old-fashioned parlour. But all this
concerned only the outer life; there was as much cultivation and refinement of
mind as now, with probably more studied courtesy and ceremony of manner to
visitors; whilst certainly in that family literary pursuits were not neglected.
I remember to have heard
of only two little things different from modern customs. One was, that on
hunting mornings the young men usually took their hasty breakfast in the
kitchen. The early hour at which hounds then met may account for this;
and probably the custom began, if it did not end, when they were boys; for they
hunted at an early age, in a scrambling sort of way, upon any pony or donkey
that they could procure, or, in default of such luxuries, on foot. I have
been told that Sir Francis Austen, when seven years old, bought on his own
account, it must be supposed with his father’s permission, a pony for a guinea
and a half; and after riding him with great success for two seasons, sold him
for a guinea more. One may wonder how the child could
have so much money, and how the animal could have been obtained for so
little. The same authority informs me that his first cloth suit was made
from a scarlet habit, which, according to the fashion of the times, had been
his mother’s usual morning dress. If all this is true, the future admiral
of the British Fleet must have cut a conspicuous figure in the
hunting-field. The other peculiarity was that, when the roads were dirty,
the sisters took long walks in pattens. This defence against wet and dirt
is now seldom seen. The few that remain are banished from good society,
and employed only in menial work; but a hundred and fifty years ago they were
celebrated in poetry, and considered so clever a contrivance that Gay, in his
‘Trivia,’ ascribes the invention to a god stimulated by his passion for a mortal
damsel, and derives the name ‘Patten’ from ‘Patty.’
The patten now supports
each frugal dame,
Which from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name.
Which from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name.
But mortal damsels have
long ago discarded the clumsy implement. First it dropped its iron ring
and became a clog; afterwards it was fined down into the pliant galoshe—lighter
to wear and more effectual to protect—a no less manifest instance of gradual
improvement than Cowper indicates when he traces through eighty lines of poetry
his ‘accomplished sofa’ back to the original three-legged stool.
As an illustration of the
purposes which a patten was intended to serve, I add the following epigram, written by Jane Austen’s uncle, Mr. Leigh Perrot, on reading in
a newspaper the marriage of Captain Foote to Miss Patten:—
Through the rough paths of
life, with a patten your guard,
May you safely and pleasantly jog;
May the knot never slip, nor the ring press too hard,
Nor the Foot find the Patten a clog.”
May you safely and pleasantly jog;
May the knot never slip, nor the ring press too hard,
Nor the Foot find the Patten a clog.”
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