In
my previous two posts, I began to explore Harriet Beecher Stowe’s surprising
and intriguing coded textual hints, which convey Stowe’s savvy recognition of
Jane Austen’s veiled allusion to Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I speculated
that Stowe, in her Key to Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, quoted from one specific passage in Gibbon which contained the
phrase “pride and prejudice”, in order to alert her sharp readers that Jane
Austen had, in her most popular novel, deliberately pointed to Gibbon’s
discussion of slavery in the Roman Empire, as part of Austen’s own theme of women
in England as being subjected to pernicious forms of unofficial or metaphorical
slavery.
I’ve
given some further thought to the significance of Jane Austen’s allusion to
Gibbon’s History in P&P, and
Stowe’s recognition of same, and now I see that both Stowe and Austen had another
major purpose, which was to address the eternal question in any quest for
truth--- what constitutes knowledge and impartiality in writing the history of
any events, whether they be events on a global scale, such as the decline and
fall of the Roman Empire or the institution of slavery in America, both over a
period of centuries; or on a tiny human scale, re the seemingly less weighty questions
about character and marriageability in Regency Era England which are enacted so
tellingly in P&P and JA’s other novels.
History
is history, and it turns out that in P&P JA provides exactly the sort of
imaginative history that the sophisticated and wise Eleanor Tilney enjoyed
reading:
"Historians,
you think," said Miss Tilney, "are not happy in their flights of
fancy. They display imagination without raising interest. I am fond of
history—and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the
principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and
records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as anything that does
not actually pass under one's own observation; and as for the little
embellishments you speak of, they are embellishments, and I like them as such.
If a speech be well drawn up, I read it with pleasure, by whomsoever it may be
made—and probably with much greater, if the production of Mr. Hume or Mr.
Robertson, than if the genuine words of Caractacus, Agricola, or Alfred the
Great."
Jane
Austen was actually up to her ears in history from a young age. In her parodic absurdist
1791 History of England, the 15 year
old Jane Austen playfully referred to herself as “a PARTIAL, PREJUDICED, & IGNORANT Historian.” In Northanger
Abbey, as I noted just above, Jane Austen includes the famous discussion of
the pros and cons of history among Henry Tilney, Eleanor Tilney and Catherine
Morland. But, to the best of my knowledge, Pride
& Prejudice has NOT been considered in the same light, even though Jane
Austen hid an allusion to her youthful History in plain sight in P&P, when
Elizabeth Bennet, in the process of a radical reversal of opinion about Darcy
and Wickham, thinks to herself:
“She
grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she
think without feeling she had been blind, PARTIAL, PREJUDICED, absurd. "How despicably I have
acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I,
who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous
candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust!
How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in
love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity, not love, has
been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect
of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted
prepossession and IGNORANCE, and driven reason away, where either were
concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself."
It
turns out, upon examination, that the theme of partiality and prejudice in
history has been hidden in several places in P&P, as the following passages
demonstrate:
Ch. 16:
“Allowing for the common demands of the game, Mr. Wickham was therefore at
leisure to talk to Elizabeth, and she was very willing to hear him, though what
she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be told—the HISTORY of his
acquaintance with Mr. Darcy…."I have no right to give my opinion,"
said Wickham, "as to his being agreeable or otherwise. I am not qualified
to form one. I have known him too long and too well to be a fair judge. It is
impossible for me to be IMPARTIAL. But I believe your opinion of him would in
general astonish—and perhaps you would not express it quite so strongly
anywhere else. Here you are in your own family."
Ch. 17:
"I can much more easily believe Mr. Bingley's being imposed on, than that
Mr. Wickham should invent such a HISTORY of himself as he gave me last night;
names, facts, everything mentioned without ceremony. If it be not so, let Mr.
Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was TRUTH in his looks."
Ch. 18:
"No," replied Jane, "I have not forgotten him; but I have
nothing satisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of his HISTORY,
and is quite IGNORANT of the circumstances which have principally offended Mr.
Darcy…”
…"Both,"
replied Elizabeth archly; "for I have always seen a great similarity in
the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition,
unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole
room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb."
"This is NO VERY STRIKING
RESEMBLANCE of your own character, I am sure," said he. "How near it
may be to mine, I cannot pretend to say. You think it a faithful
portrait undoubtedly."
Ch. 21:
“…My brother admires her greatly already; he will have frequent opportunity now
of seeing her on the most intimate footing; her relations all wish the
connection as much as his own; and a sister's PARTIALITY is not misleading me,
I think, when I call Charles most capable of engaging any woman's heart. With all
these circumstances to favour an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I
wrong, my dearest Jane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the
happiness of so many?"
Ch. 36:
But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr. Wickham—when she read
with somewhat clearer attention a relation of events which, if true, must
overthrow every cherished opinion of his worth, and which bore so alarming an
affinity to his own HISTORY of himself—her feelings were yet more acutely
painful and more difficult of definition. Astonishment, apprehension, and even
horror, oppressed her. She wished to discredit it entirely, repeatedly
exclaiming, "This must be FALSE! This cannot be! This must be the grossest
FALSEHOOD!"—and when she had gone through the whole letter, though
scarcely knowing anything of the last page or two, put it hastily away,
protesting that she would not regard it, that she would never look in it again…..She
put down the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be IMPARTIALITY--deliberated
on the probability of each statement—but with little success. On both sides it
was only assertion….She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy
nor Wickham could she think without feeling she had been blind, PARTIAL, PREJUDICED,
absurd….
And
now, when we turn to Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
we find that Stowe is concerned with exactly the same question that so
engrossed Jane Austen. How to demonstrate that she has not been a “blind, partial, prejudiced, and absurd
historian”, when all the Southern states had risen up as one to denounce her
novel as (in Lizzy’s words) “the grossest falsehood”. So, it’s no accident that
Stowe should obliquely refer to P&P (with its central concern about the
truthfulness of personal history) via Gibbon in her Key, because Stowe makes her stated purpose in writing the Key quite
clear and right upfront in Chapter 1 thereof:
“At different
times, doubt has been expressed whether the scenes and characters pourtrayed in
“Uncle Tom's Cabin” convey a fair representation of slavery as it at present
exists. This work, more, perhaps, than any other work of fiction that ever was
written, has been a collection and arrangement of real incidents, of actions
really performed, of words and expressions really uttered, grouped together with
reference to a general result, in the same manner that the mosaic artist groups
his fragments of various stones into one general picture. His is a mosaic of
gems—this is a mosaic of facts.
Artistically
considered, it might not be best to point out in which quarry and from which
region each fragment of the mosaic picture had its origin; and it is equally
unartistic to disentangle the glittering web of fiction, and show out of what
real warp and woof it is woven, and with what real colouring dyed. But the book
had a purpose entirely transcending the artistic one, and accordingly
encounters at the hands of the public demands not usually made on fictitious
works. It is treated as a reality—sifted, tried, and tested, as a
reality; and therefore as a reality it may be proper that it should be
defended.
The
writer acknowledges that the book is a very inadequate representation of
slavery; and it is so, necessarily, for this reason—that slavery, in some of
its workings, is too dreadful for the purposes of art. A work which should
represent it strictly as it is would be a work which could not be read; and all
works which ever mean to give pleasure must draw a veil somewhere, or they
cannot succeed.”
And…I have saved the best
for last---it turns out that both Stowe and Austen had Gibbon on their
respective radar screens, in part because they both knew that Gibbon’s own
monumental History had itself been
subjected to a fierce attack by critics who claimed that Gibbon himself had
been a PARTIAL historian about certain topics.
Check
out the following passage in a letter written by George Travis, Archdeacon of
Chester, to Gibbon, which mainly excoriated Gibbon for supposedly betraying a
deist/pagan anti Christian prejudice in his History.
I’ve put in ALL CAPS the excerpts which make it clear that Jane Austen was very
much interested in Gibbon’s coming under such fierce attack—you tell me what
the odds are that in one page of one letter in a book published in England
several times when Jane Austen was a girl and teenager, we should find the
phrases “impartial historian”, “truths universally acknowledged” and “pride and
prejudice” in such very close proximity?
I’ll
you the odds—a zillion to one! It’s obvious that Jane Austen meant to point to
this specific letter when she wrote P&P:
“Let
me in the next place, Sir, but still more briefly, remark on these extracts,
that they convey NO VERY FAVORABLE IDEA of YOUR IMPARTIALITY AS A HISTORIAN.
You have in them brought forward Mr. Emlyn on the subject of this verse,
because he is your fellow-advocate. And you have consigned even the name of Mr.
Martin, his respectable antagonist, to deep silence— no friendly Note to
tell where his work lies—because his opinions were directly adverse to yours,
and because he has overthrown many of Emlyn's misrepresentations. But,
Sir, is this the part of an IMPARTIAL HISTORIAN? To state authorities, and to
urge arguments, on one side of a question alone, is but barely tolerable
in a hired advocate. A HISTORIAN who acts in this manner is----- but his
description will be best give in your own words. “Whatever subject he has chosen, whatever persons he introduces, be owes to himself, to the
present age, and to posterity, a just and perfect delineation of all that may be praised, of all that may be excused, and of all that must be censured. If he fails in the discharge of his important office, he
PARTIALLY violates the sacred obligations of truth."
But,
Sir, this is not all. Let me in the third, and last place remark, that the
extracts in question supply the most palpable proof of your PARTIALITY AND PREJUDICE,
in respect to the great question of the authenticity of this verse of St. John.
They shew you to be capable even of forging authorities in a matter
which bears no more than a collateral, or rather an implied relation to it. You
have wilfully (for your reference is too exact to allow you shelter under any
supposed inadvertence) misrepresented both Petavius and Gennadius, in
the last of those extracts.
[Latin
quotation, then] May it not be suspected, Sir, from this quotation, that, by
fondly studying Dr. Benson you have imbibed no small portion of his
spirit? You have, in your HISTORY, confidently placed this assertion, as to the
expressions of Gennadius among CERTAIN
TRUTHS WHICH YOU AFFIRM TO BE NOW UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED. Let me
beseech you to compare the real expressions of Gennadius with your own
account of them, and then to inform the world, whether you mean to repeat the
assertion. Is it not practicable for you to utter truth, even whilst you have
its sacred name in your mouth? Surely, Sir, "this seemeth to argue a bad
cause, or a bad conscience, or both." Is there any physical, or moral
impossibility for those who deny the authenticity of this verse to quote
fairly, to argue candidly, and to speak truly? Is there any reason in nature
for such hard hearts? Those reasons, such as they are, can only be
found (but they may be there plentifully found) in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. If a
false tenet, or opinion is to be defended at all events, to what auxiliaries
must it look for assistance? Not to truth;-—for she is all fair and artless,
uniform and consistent, simple and sincere.
….In
fine---The defence of this text of the three (heavenly) Witnesses, which
you affirm to have been profanely introduced into the scriptures by rash and
sacrilegious hands, hath been thus attempted with, at least, upright intentions,
and a serious persuasion of its originality, the result of much patient, and,
as I believe, IMPARTIAL investigation. This defence, fixing its foundation upon
the impeachments alledged against the text in a part of your HISTORY, hath,
almost necessarily, produced a counter-charge against yourself. This general
defence on the one hand, and this particular accusation on the other, are now
both laid before the tribunal of an IMPARTIAL and discerning Public…..” END QUOTE
And
so ends my history of the covert allusion by Jane Austen to Edward Gibbon’s
great History, and Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s covert allusion to Austen alluding to Gibbon!
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
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