Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters | Page 9

and clever family.' Such was the
room in which the first versions of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and
Prejudice were composed.
We have anticipated somewhat in describing the Rectory as it appeared
after George Austen's reforms, and when his children were growing up
in it. As it appeared to him and his wife on their arrival, it must have
left much to be desired.
The young couple who now entered upon a home which was to be
theirs for thirty-seven years had many excellent and attractive qualities.
George Austen's handsome, placid, dignified features were an index to
his mind. Serene in temper, devoted to his religion and his family, a
good father and a good scholar, he deserved the love and respect which
every evidence that we have shows him to have gained from his family

and his neighbours. His wife's was a somewhat more positive nature:
shrewd and acute, high-minded and determined, with a strong sense of
humour, and with an energy capable of triumphing over years of
indifferent health, she was ardently attached to her children, and
perhaps somewhat proud of her ancestors. We are told that she was
very particular about the shape of people's noses, having a very
aristocratic one herself; but we ought perhaps to add that she admitted
she had never been a beauty, at all events in comparison with her own
elder sister.
If one may divide qualities which often overlap, one would be inclined
to surmise that Jane Austen inherited from her father her serenity of
mind, the refinement of her intellect, and her delicate appreciation of
style, while her mother supplied the acute observation of character, and
the wit and humour, for which she was equally distinguished.
Steventon was not the only preferment in the neighbourhood that
George Austen was to hold. His kind uncle Francis, who had helped
him in his schooling, was anxious to do something more for him. He
would have liked, it is said, to have put him into the comfortable living
of West Wickham in Kent, which was in the gift of his wife; but he
considered that another nephew, the son of a brother older than
George's father, had a prior claim. Francis, however, did the best thing
he could by buying the next presentations of two parishes near
Steventon--namely, Ashe and Deane--that his nephew might have
whichever fell vacant first.
The chances of an early vacancy at Ashe, where Dr. Russell--the
grandfather of Mary Russell Mitford--had been established since 1729,
must have seemed the greater; but fate decided otherwise. Dr. Russell
lived till 1783, and it was Deane that first fell vacant, in 1773.
The writer of the Memoir, who was under the impression that George
Austen became Rector of both Steventon and Deane in 1764, states that
the Austens began their married life in the parsonage at Deane, and did
not move to Steventon till 1771, seven years later. This cannot be quite
correct, because we have letters of George Austen dated from
Steventon in 1770; nor is it quite easy to understand why Mr. Austen

should have lived in some one else's Rectory in preference to his own,
unless we conceive that the Rector of Deane was non-resident, and that
George Austen did duty at Deane and rented the parsonage while his
own was under repair. It seems impossible now to unravel this skein.
The story of the move to Steventon, in 1771, is connected with a
statement that the road was then a mere cart-track, so cut up by deep
ruts as to be impassable for a light carriage, and that Mrs. Austen (who
was not then in good health) performed the short journey on a
feather-bed, placed upon some soft articles of furniture in the waggon
which held their household goods. This story is too circumstantial to be
without foundation, nor is there any reason to doubt the badness of a
country lane; but the particular family-flitting referred to must be left
uncertain.
George Austen was thirty-three years old when he settled down at his
Hampshire living. His wife was some eight years younger. Their means
were not large, but George was able to supplement his income both by
farming and by taking pupils. Life too was simpler in those days; and
we read of Mrs. Austen being without a new gown for two years, and
spending much of the time in a red riding-habit, which even then had
not finished its usefulness, for it was cut up some years later into a suit
for one of her boys. Her time, indeed, was soon busily employed; her
eldest boy, James, was born on February 13, 1765; the second, George,
on August 26, 1766; and the third, Edward, on October 7, 1767. The
Austens followed what was a common custom in those