Needlework and word-games
David Nokes
JANE AUSTEN AND LEISURE by David Selwyn The Hambledon Press, £25, pp. 352 Ideclare,' cries Miss Bingley, 'there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!' Which perfectly true observation is only spoiled when, having twirled over a few pages in a demonstration of her utter delight, Miss Bingley yawns, looks bored, and casts around the room 'in quest of some amusement'. For all one knows, David Selwyn's book might have been treated to a similar fate, but that would have been quite unmerited; for, with its assiduous devotion to needlework, music, dancing etc, it is a perfect boon for those long, dull afternoons when reading about these things is so much less fatiguing than doing them.
Yet there are perhaps a few places where one might query an observation, or quibble with an aside. When Selwyn writes that Cassandra kept 'some' of Austen's letters `merely to give as mementoes to her nieces' and with 'no thought that there would ever be any public interest in them' one might possibly raise an eyebrow. Did the family really have no thought that there would be public interest in this remarkable woman (of whom, in the initial tribute to her in Winchester Cathedral, there was no men- tion of the awkward fact that she wrote novels)? And if a polite neglect was really all that was anticipated, how unfortunate it was that some of her letters came to be burned while others were judiciously cen- sored.
Selwyn mentions that Jane, together with her mother and sister, lived in Southamp- ton between 1806 and 1809 and that Jane `seems to have liked it'. That may be true, but is not really the general impression gained from her letters. She frequently complained about being forced, against her will, into the role of an impecunious host- ess. 'Our acquaintance increase too fast,' she protests at the rapid succession of Footes, Berties and Lances, all expecting legs of mutton (not underdone), rice pud- dings and apple dumplings. While Cassan- dra was at Godmersham in Kent, enjoying the civilised pleasures of their brother Edward's lavish estate, she was frequently treated to Jane's outbursts of abusiveness, which she apologised for, but explained she did it 'for want of subject, having really nothing to say'. It should be remembered that Southampton was the place where, as a little girl, Jane almost died of typhoid fever, and it was ever afterwards commem- orated in her youthful story 'Love and Freindship' [sic] as the place for 'stinking fish'.
Happily, such minor criticisms affect the first half of the book only, for thereafter Selwyn's gaze rises from Jane's surround- ings to her work, and to the worlds which truly engaged her, of books, the theatre and of minor verse charades. The chapter on books is almost 60 pages long and full of piquant details; for example the fact that Fanny Price (of Mansfield Park) is 'bor- rowed' from Fanny Price in George Crabbe's Parish Register, while not new in itself, introduces numerous interesting pos- sibilities. Crabbe, after all, was an object of admiring discussion among Jane Austen and her female friends; on being told by Cassandra that Mrs Crabbe had died (up till then she had not known there was a Mrs Crabbe) Jane promptly replied that she would 'comfort him as well as I can', but warned, 'I do not undertake to be good to her children' so 'she had better not leave any'. All such pronouncements were uttered with the deadpan style of a supreme ironist and had a most unsettling effect at Chawton. Her aunt was 'a great admirer of Crabbe,' reported Caroline Austen uncertainly. Really they need not have worried, for Jane had already promised herself to the Reverend Mr Papillon, the Rector of Chawton. Mrs Knight had been busy making unsubtle advances which Jane thought it would be cruel to refuse. 'I owe her', she reported with utmost gravity, 'much more than such a trifling sacrifice.'
But it is in its last two chapters on `Toys and Games', and 'Verses, Riddles and Puzzles' that this book really triumphs. Selwyn reveals himself as a dedicated games-player who believes that games `reveal much about the characters who play or observe them'. This phrase, a catch-all comment linking cricket and crib, is easily dismissed, until one finds that it is in fact extremely accurate. Selwyn examines Emma from the standpoint of the games, charades, riddles that it contains, and the chapter is a remarkable tour de force. One starts it mildly amused, knowing that, for example, Mr Elton and Frank Churchill appear great ones for charades, which are used as excuses for their flattery. But, on reading further, one is drawn into the games themselves, and what began simply as description develops riddle upon riddle and intrigue upon intrigue, until almost all the characters are involved in deception and concealment. The heroine's name may be represented as a complex figurative piece as Selwyn examines the works of the moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson to reveal that M/A or M=A function as formula- ic representation of the connection between virtue and benevolence, and that when Emma does not act for the public good, 'the letters m and A do not express perfection'. Even Mr Knightly is not immune to the catching quality of this infection.
David Selwyn has written a stealthy book which creeps up on the reader unnoticed. It starts out saying conventional things about the role of needlework in Jane Austen's writings, but ends up with a com- plex arrangement of narrative theories, arguing that Emma, probably her best novel, is also 'one extended word-game'. Such a book is worthy of its subject, who can slide effortlessly in her correspondence from a discussion of ladies' fashions to a nice ironic aside: 'Only think of Mrs Hold- er's being dead! Poor woman, she has done the only thing in the World she could possi- bly do to make one cease to abuse her.'
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