JANE AUSTEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 272, 16 November 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

JANE AUSTEN.

Readers who want sensation, highflown sentiment, an exciting or intricate plot will not bo interested in this little iirticlo on one of England's best-loved authoresses, i'or .Tane Austen wrote of none of theso tilings. But her work is touched with gentleness and humour, and quite often also with a biting sarcasm for the little pettiness and the foolishness of her day.

Born at tlio rectory of Steventon, Hampshire, in 1775, she passed the first twenty-five years of her life with little variation in that secluded village. There about the year 1701J she wrote "Pride awl Prejudice," the most popular and delightful of her works. Next came "Senso and Sensibility" and "Northanger Abbey." This latter was a cleverlywritten satire on the style of Mrs. liadclifl'e, an authoress who had preceded Jane, and whose books were full of an over-emotional terror.

In 1801, Mr. Austen left Steventon, and the family spent the next eight years of their life in more varied circumstances, mainly at Bath, and then once again resumed seclusion in a cottage at (Jhawton. Hero "Emma," "Mansfield Park" and "Persuasion" were written. Soon after the completion of the latter, Jane Austen's health began to fail, and sho died the following year at Winchester, where a tablet in the Cathedral commemorates her. Jane Austen, who wrote only of the lifo which she knew intimately, gives xis a picture of tho thoughts and ways of the English gentlefolks at the end of the eighteenth century that is faithful in drawing and delightful in its quiet humour. It has been said that Jane Austen has but a few types of character in her stories. Tho men and women in any one story are much like those of any .other story, but with their circumstances and immediate aims somewhat changed. That was likely to be when a comparatively narrow round of country life was being portrayed, with no sensational characters or incidents introduced. But her human material being so ordinary makes the quality of her skill the more conspicuous when she sustains our interests and imparts to the story a vivid sense of reality.

Jane Austen fully understood her own limitations and never tried to do what was beyond her power. Her fame is of a quiet but steady nature, and shows the quality of a bright and patient art. Sir Walter Scott spoke truly when he called her style "the exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of tho description and tlio sentiment."