Jane Austen. The amusing parlour-game of Jane Austen topography is always being played somewhere., A few years ago there was a correspondence in the Literar7j Supple'ment about the precise posi- tion of Emma's Highbury on the map. Some Austenites voted for Esher, others for Cobham, others agaiin for Bookharn. Now there is another correspondence about Mansfield Park. Lady Vaux of I-arrowden " identifies " it with Easton Neston near Toweester. Sir Francis Darwin and the Master of Downing are for Easton in Huntingdonshirc. People have consulted Pater- son's Roads about it. Mr. Mackinnion, K.C., points out that it must have been about four miles north of Northampton. But I like him best when lie says, "I do not suppose any actual park was in Jane Austen's mind." Briga- dier, vous avez raison ! I do not suppose any actual place was in Jane Austen's mind when she assigned hef' personages a home or a lodging. You might-eas well try to fix the number of the house in Gracechurch-strcet where Elizabeth's uncle lived. Are we not shown. the " real " Old Curiosity Shop ? And the " real " Bleak House 7 And Juliet's tomb at Verona ? And the exact point of the Cobb where Louisa Musgrove fell ? It is easy to see why Jane Austen lends her- self more readily than most vwriters to this topo- graphical game. She was very fond of topo- graphical colour, giving not only real place- names to the neighbourhood of the fictitious honmes, but exact distances in miles. It was so many miles fronm fighbury to Kingston mark-et- place, and so many to Box Hill. Yet she was always vagute about the exact spot from which these distances were calculatecl. For there her imagination had its home, it was her private Paradise of Dainty Devices, she wanted a free hand there, unhampered by maps, road books, and other intrusions from the actual.world. In fact, she did with real places just what Scott, say, did with historical people, kept them to surround. the imaginary centre of the tale. You can " identify " Charles Edward, but not WVaverley. lYou can " identify " Nottingham, but not Mansfield Park. It is a mercy that Jane Austen never describes houses-never describes them, I mean, with the minute (and tedious) particularity of a Balzac- or the topographical game w ould have been sup- plemented by an architectural one, and we should have had the " real " Mansfield Park pointed out to us from its description, like Haw- thorne's House of the Seven Gables. Indeed, she never, in the modern sense, describes any- thing, never indulges in' description for its ow-n sake. (A distinguished novelist mentioned this to me the other day, and expert testimony is always valuable, but in common, I suppose, with most readers of Jane Austen, I have noticed it for myself.) She never even expatiated on the beauties of nature, takinjg them for giranted and indeed, on ,at least one famous occasion-when strawberries were being picked while the apple- trees were still in bloom at Donwell Abbey- rather mixing them up. 'Her descriptions always had a practical purpose. If it rained in Bath, it was in order that Anne might, or might not, mneet Captain Wentworth. We know that Sir Tlhomnas's " own dear roomr" at Mansfield Park was next to the billiard-room, because the novelist wanted us to know how he came plump upon the ranting 31r. Yates. But that detail, thank goodness, won't enable us to "identify" Mansfield Park. Doesn't it irgtic a rather niatter-of-fact frame of nmind-I say it with all respect tb the corre- spondents of thec Litcrary Supplement-t his persistent tendency to " identify " the imaginary witlh the actual, the geographical,the historical ? Thlere is a notable instance of it in the recently- published Letters of Henry James. The novlcist had described in " Thc Bostonians " a certain veteran philanthropist. " Miss Birdseyc." Forth- vitb all Boston identified the imaginary Miss Birdseye with a real Miss Peabody. " I am quite appalled," writes Ilenry James to his brother WVilliam, " by your note in which you assault iiie on the subject of my having painted a 'por- trait from life' of Miss. Peabody I I was in some measure prepared for it by Lowell's (as I found the other day) taking it for granted that sbe had been my model, and an allusion to 'the same effect in a note from Aunt Kate. Still, I didn't expect the charge to come from you. I lhold that I have done notlhing to deserve it. Miss Birdseye was conceived entirely from my moral consciousness, like every otlher person I have ever drawn." It is odd that a mian like William James, a professed' student of the human mind and its workings, should have made such a mistake. I rernember a saying attributed, years ago, to Jowett about the two brothers: one, he remarked, was a writer of fiction and the other a psychologist, and the fiction was all psychlology and the psychology all fiction. Anyhow, I think if anyone had written to Jane Austen to tax her with High- bury being Esher or Mansfield Park Easton Neston, she would have been able to reply that theoy were conceived entirely from her moral con- sciousness. And I fancy she would have smiled at her little trick of giving the exact mileage from her imaginary centre to real places having " sold" so many worthy people. Very likely| sho would have brought the topographical game into the Hartfield famnily circle, as a suitable alternative for Mr. Elton's enigmas, charades, conundrums, and polite puzzles, or for MNr. Woodhouse's " Kitty, a fair but frozen maid," w'hich made him think of poor Isabella-wlho was very near being christened Catherine, after her grandmamma. The truth, surely, is that this place-huniting, tjmis seeking to-:" identify " the iniaginary with' the actual map-marked spot, is only a part of tIme larger misconception of iniaginative work- the misconception -vhich leads to a perpetuat search for the "originals " of an author's person- ages, especially when these personages bave a full, vivid life of their own. Jaime Austen hlas often been compared to Shakespeare, ever since Macaulay set the fashion. Well, it is naturally upon 'Shakespeare tliat this nuisconceptioii has vreaked its worst. Commetntators have gravely presented lls with the " original " of Falstaff, of Sir Toby Beleh, of Dogberry-niay, of' Iago. Surely. thle only "originials" of these people' wvere Shakespeare himbnself ? What wero they but certain Shakespearian nuwods, liumnours, intimate experiences, temptations felt but re- sisted, iinpulses coutr6Ued 'in actual life but allowed free play in imaginative reverie ? No one that I know of lias been foolish enough to -hiarge Jaine Austen witlh " copying " any of her characters fromn actual individuals. but, if you are in quest of " identifications," is it not possible tQ "'identify" many' of thein, the women at any ratt-for of course her women bear the stamp (if authentic reality iullch mlore plainly than her imen-is it not possible to identify them with sides, tendencies, moods of Jane Austen herself ? ]lere, I know, I anm at variance with a dis- tinguished authority, frommi whoin it is always rash to differ. Professor Raleigh says :-" Symn- pathly with her characters she frequently lias, if4ontity never. Not in the high-spirited Eliza- beth Betmet, not in that sturdy young patrician Enmma, not even in Am-t Elliot of 'Persuasion,' is the real Jane Austen to be found. Shle stands for ever aloof." Pass, for Emma and Elizabeth I B1ut the "even" in ihe case of Anne' gives me courage. WVe are not, of course, talking of identity in regard to external circumstances. Jane Austen was not the daughter of a Somerset- shire baronet and did not marry a captain in the Navy. But that Jane only " sympathized " with tho heart and mind of Anne Elliot is to my thinking absurdly short of the truth.. That the adventures of Anne's soul, her heart-beatings, misgivings aiid intimate reassurances about Wentworth's feeling for her had been Jane' Austen's own is to. mne as certain as though we had thme confession under her own hand and seal. The woman l who drew Anne's timid, doubting, wondering love must have been in love herself and in that way. One short sentence settles (Continued at hoot cZ1rst column.) that for me. 'the con sciousness of love disposes Alne " to pity every one, as being less happy than herself." What lover does not know that secret feelinig ? Anid if he had never loved, would he have guessed it by " sympathy " ? (You will find, by the way, thle very same secret divulged by Balie in QUoneof his love-letters to Mime. Hnnska-smong the feelings she inspires him with is " I know not wvhat disdain con- templating other men.") In the face of this, wvhat need to go ransacking Jane Austen's Letters or Memoir for evidence that she had a love affair ? No, it is because there is most of Jane Austen's spiritual " identity " in Anne that "Persuasion " is the sweetest, tenderest, and truest of her books. I apologize for having wanidered from Mansfield Park and Easton Neston and the other efigs.ging futilities of the narlour-ranie. A. B. IV. , JANE AUSTEN. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL GAME. A WORD ON '$ PERSUASION."
