VIII. To Jane Austen - Page 2

his fancy with their match-makings and the
conduct of their affections, when so many daring and dazzling heroines
approach and solicit his regard?

Here are princesses dressed in white velvet stamped witla golden fleurs-de-lys
--ladies with hearts of icc and lips of fire, who count their roubles by the
million, their lovers by the score, and even their husbands, very often, in
figures of some arithmetical importance. With these are the immaculate
daughters of itinerant italian musicians, maids whose souls are unsoiled
amidst the contaminations of our streets, and whose acquaintance with the art
of Phidias and Praxiteles, of Daedalus and Scopas, is the more admirable,
because entirely derived from loving study of the inexpensive collections
vended by the plaster-of-Paris man round the corner. When such heroines are
wooed by the nephews of Dukes, where are your Emmas and Elizabeths? Your
volumes neither excite nor satisfy the curiosities provoked by that modern and
scientific fiction, which is greatly admired, I learn, in the United States,
as well as in France and at home.

You erred, it cannot be denied, with your eyes open. Knowing Lydia and Kitty
so intimately as you did, why did you make of them almost insignificant
characters? With Lydia for a heroine you might have gone far; and, had you
devoted three volumes, and the chief of your time, to the passions of Kitty,
you might have held your own, even now, in the circulating library. How Lyddy,
perched on a corner of the roof, first beheld her Wickham; how, on her
challenge, he climbed up by a ladder to her side; how they kissed, caressed,
swung on gates together, met at odd seasons, in strange places, and finally
eloped: all this might have been put in the mouth of a jealous elder sister,
say Elizabeth, and you would not have been less popular than several
favourites of our time. Had you cast the whole narrative into the present
tense, and lingered lovingly over the thickness of Mary's legs and the
softness of Kitty's cheeks, and the blonde fluffiness of Wickham's whiskers,
you would have left a romance still dear to young ladies.

Or again, you might entrance your students still, had you concentrated your
attention on Mrs. Rushworth, who eloped with Henrv Crawford. These should have
been the chief figures of 'Mansfield Park.' But you timidly decline to tackle
Passion. 'Let other pens,' you write, 'dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such
odious subjects as soon as I can.' Ah, _there_ is the secret of your failure!
Need I add that the vulgarity and narrowness of the social circles you
describe impair your popularity? I scarce remember more than one lady of
title, and but very few lords (and these unessential) in all your tales. Now,
when we all wish to be in