Sophie Ross: Jane Austen's Billets-Doux
The recent atrocities in Paris have led to a rush of
articles, opinion pieces and cartoons on a common theme; that the pen is
mightier than the sword. Given that this is a blog about books and reading and
all things literary it is tempting to follow that theme and pen something
profound about the social and cultural significance of that phrase.
But it is February, the month ‘when a young man’s fancy
turns to thoughts of love’ (I’d need to look that phrase up to find its
derivation) and it’s that theme which I turn to this month.
Rowan Pelling has picked up both
theme of love and the importance of writing in her column in the Daily
Telegraph (Tuesday 3 February). She writes:
‘Love letters are the time
machines that transport readers to pure moments of radiant intensity. A recent
story in the US told of a woman with dementia who was reunited with letters
from her first husband. The act of re-reading her sensual history helped
restore her memory because the proof of desire was there.’
As befits the former editor of
‘The Erotic Review’, some of her examples are little too fruity to quote fully
here, but she points out that we know more about relationships between some of
history’s most famous lovers from their letters than celebrity magazines and
social media tell us about current celebrity couples. She ends her piece with
the following words (having described how the Vatican described Richard Burton
and Elizabeth Taylor’s affair as ‘erotic vagrancy’)
‘But if there’s any bad behaviour
I’d urge others to copy, it would be to get their yearnings down on paper. Passion is
fleeting but great love letters are eternal.’
Coming from a family who doesn’t
believe anything unless it’s written in a book (the jury is out on whether
Kindles, Twitter, Facebook or for that matter blogs count) the idea of writing
your love is particularly appealing. However, as Rowan Pelling acknowledges,
I’m not sure my written (or spoken) words would be quite up to the job; as she
writes ‘…the major part of my unease comes from the sure knowledge that my own
hidden stash of billets-doux couldn’t
possibly withstand the glare of public exposure’.
So if not my words, whose would I
chose to use? In her final novel, Persuasion
(published after her death in 1817) Jane
Austen provides, to my mind, one of the best ever descriptions of a couple in
love when she sets the scene for the reconciliation of Anne Elliot and Captain
Wentworth (although I might be over-influenced by the 1990s BBC TV version,
starring Ciarran Hinds and Amanda Root):
‘And there, as they slowly paced
the gradual ascent, heedless of every group around them, seeing neither
sauntering politicians, bustling housekeepers, flirting girls, nor nursery maids
and children, they could indulge in those retrospections and acknowledgements,
and especially in those explanations of what had directly preceded the present
moment, which were so poignant and so ceaseless in interest. All the little
variations of the last week were gone through; and of yesterday and today there
could scarcely be an end.’
But although all Jane Austen’s
novels end with at least one marriage, if not more, they are surprisingly
lacking in sincere protestations of love and even proposals. In Northanger Abbey, despite her heroine,
Catherine Norland’s love of romantic novels, she gives is very little detail
about the manner of her lover, Henry Tilney’s proposal, other than
‘…..his first purpose was to
explain himself; and before they reached Mr Allen’s grounds he had done it so
well, that Catherine did not think it could ever be repeated too often.’
Although there is lots of detail
about the circumstances of their engagement and the obstacles to be overcome,
there is no indication of what the lovers actually said to each other.
Similarly, in Sense and Sensibility, Edward Ferrars’ engagement to Elinor
Dashwood is dealt with in a brief paragraph, thus
‘This only need be said: - that
when they all sat down to table at four o’clock, about three hours after his
arrival, he had secured his lady, engaged her mother’s consent, and was not only
in the rapturous profession of the lover, but in the reality of reason and
truth, one of the happiest of men.’
Again, there are lots of detail
about the potential obstacles to the match (usually parental disapproval and
money) and lots about the characters and their feelings but virtually nothing
about how they expressed their feelings to each other.
In Persuasion Captain Wentworth’s proposal to Anne comes in the form
of a note which reads
‘…I can hardly write. I am every
instant hearing something that overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can
distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others…..I must
go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither or follow your party, as
soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your
father’s house this evening, or never.’
This is probably the most direct
of Jane Austen’s proposals and virtually the only time the reader experiences
one in the character’s own voice.
‘…then she found her subject cut
up – her hand seized- her attention demanded, and Mr Elton actually making
violent love to her: availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring
sentiments which must be already well known, hoping-fearing-adoring-ready to
die if she refused him; but flattering himself that his ardent attachment and
unequalled love and unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect,
and, in short, very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as
possible.’
In Pride and Prejudice the obsequious Mr Collins’ proposal to Lizzie
Bennett takes up several hundred words but he still fails to convince, despite
his flattery
‘"You are uniformly charming!"
cried he, with an air of awkward gallantry; "and I am persuaded that, when
sanctioned by the express authority of both your excellent parents, my
proposals will not fail of being acceptable"’
But neither of these suitors is in love and both have
ulterior motives for wishing for their respective marriages. Perhaps Jane
Austen found it easier to write in the voice of these insincere characters than
she did of their more sincere, and ultimately more successful, rivals. Maybe
the fact that she never married herself is the cause of this or maybe, unlike
Rowan Pelling, she felt such things should remain private.
Jane Austen’s novels are all about the importance of
marriage, especially to women, in the early 19th Century. However,
they don’t really pack the sort of impassioned punch I was looking for; I’ll
have to keep searching.
(to be continued…)
Sophie Ross
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