Baby Austen
J. W. M. THOMPSON
For anyone who hasn't read Emily Eden (and that must mean almost everyone) this volume will be a happy surprise. It would not be quite right to call her a discovery, since she has had her modest following for years and indeed has already undergone one 'discovery' back in the nineteen- twenties. On the other hand, when one thinks of the vast armies of Jane Austen's readers, those of Emily Eden appear miserably few. Yet it is safe to say that anyone who has enjoyed a novel by Jane Austen will enjoy these two by Emily Eden. There is no need to labour comparisons between the two writers. The one had a tremendous talent and a humdrum private life in which to develop it, the other flew far higher socially and produced her few books by way of an amusing pastime. But both relished similar kinds of irony and possessed an amused insight into human attitudes and characters.
Emily Eden's novels provide sparklingly clear pictures of nineteenth century Whig high life. She was nicely placed to observe what was going on in the upper strata of society. Her father was the first Lord Auckland, friend and colleague of William Pitt; her brother George was a member of Lord Melbourne's cabinet find a governor- general of India. Also, she was unmarried.
There had been, evidently, a disappoint- ment over Mr Perceval, son of the prime minister, who read aloud to her from
Paradise Lost but proved fickle in the end. Miss Eden thereupon passed some months in suitable melancholy, resorting to fre-
quent application of leeches to restore her spirits, and emerged braced for the pros- pect of spinsterhood. It was not, in her case, at all a dull prospect. Since her brother was also unmarried they set up house together and settled down to enjoy the varied pleasures of the haute poll- tique.
That Emily's brother became a governor- general whose tenure of office is remember- ed chiefly for its disastrous consequences is neither here nor there. What matters to the reader today is that the Edens were a comfortable and assured family, firmly fixed in the governing class of the time; and that Emily was a woman of wit, per- ception and amused common sense.
Thirty years separated the writing of her two novels. The Semi-Attached Couple was written in the heyday of her brother's career and put away in a drawer to be more or less forgotten. Then, in the late eighteen-fifties, when he was dead and her life had become quiet and secluded, she wrote The Semi-Detached House and had it published. This was such a success that she brought out her earlier manuscript and that, too, at last saw print. Both books were very popular for a time. The later novel has more sureness of construction
but the qualities of the two are much the same, even though the world had moved on a long way between their writing, so that n publishing her earlier work Emily Eden could characteristically introduce it with a note hoping that it would appeal to the young as 'a strange Chronicle of the Olden Time.'
In 1928 the young Anthony Eden wrote an appreciative essay on his kinswoman which is reprinted in this volume (which belongs to a useful series edited by Martin Seymour-Smith). As he remarks, in the days of which she wrote a few families i*absorbed the political life and influence of England'. From their places in the two houses. of parliament and from their country houses, in which parties of them might stay together for a month or more at a time, they virtually ruled Britain. Being at the centre of this ruling circle by birth- right, Emily Eden saw the whole process; and being by nature a humorous and clever observer, she delighted in its aspect.
There is in The Semi-Attached Couple an enchanting chapter on the election ,•hustings in a country town before the days of the secret ballot. (When Lord Beau- fort appeared, there was an attempt made at silence, with such success that several words and the half of one sentence were distinctly heard; and Lady Eskdale had tears in her eyes when she thought that such eloquence would perhaps be lost to the House of Commons.') There is a country house visit from the great states- man of the day. (Mr G. arrived, of course too late for dinner; but as it was some years since he had seen either soup or fish in their best and hottest state of culinary excellence, he was quite satisfied—made the slightest possible apology for sitting down to dinner in his travelling dress, and looked like a gentleman and a well dressed man.') There is a gallery of minor political portraits, for example Mr Fisherwick, the perfect private secretary, suffering endless discomforts loyally for his master. (Fisher- 'wick looked horrid: he was, from- his sedentary habits, averse to an open carriage, even in the dog days; and the afternoon had been wet and foggy, so- he was chilly to the last degree; and he always turned bright yellow tipped with blue when the fresh country air blew for any length of time on his worn-out Downing-street frame . . . He had the air of an exhausted ink-bottle.') All this is intertwined with neighbourly rivalries, a Mrs Bennet-like mamma, a troubled passage between a young husband and wife, and more; and it is all carried off with verve.
The Semi-Detached House is placed by contrast in genteel Victorian suburbia, where the young wife of Lord Chester takes a house with her sister while her husband is abroad on government business. She is alarmed at the prospect of meeting deplorable neighbours and the tale is wittily told and elegantly contrived. There is even a full-blown villain in the Baron Sampson, a sinister figure from the City. 'I should not wonder if the Baron were a stock-jobber, whatever that may be,' Lady Chester's sister permits herself to say; and even this dark fear is justified, and worse besides. But virtue triumphs in a comprehensive and satisfactory way in the end. Miss Eden always saw to that. One puts down the book feeling that in real life as in fiction she nourished a brisk and invincible deter- mination to keep human affairs buoyant, humane and amusing.
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