Miss Austen Regrets: Olivia Williams as Austen back at Chawton writing Persuasion, reads it aloud to Gretta Scacchi as Cassandra
Dear friends and readers,
Austen has been forced to go home: if she wanted to stay to oversee the publication of Emma and second edition of Mansfield Park, she could not. Henry’s act-game as banker was over. We see her at home from a scrap saved by Anna Lefroy and a poignant letter to a friend of the new dead Miss Benn and a partially performing letter to her niece, Caroline Austen, now growing up and reading the same books Austen did as a girl, but as intelligent and perhaps more daring with her aunt, Caroline protests against the repressive morals of these older books with their “good girl” messages. Austen understands but makes a joke of it. Will not discuss with openness the cruelty of Genlis’s stories. Maybe does not want to see it.
Austen is also now giving away copies of Emma — one copy she kept aside for a special person, and it’s good to realize that giving a copy to Miss Benn, the single woman living in hovels, meant more to her than one to the Prince Regent. Books; she lives among books, for Genlis’s Les Veilles du Chateau connects to Emma. She is writing Persuasion and perhaps rewriting Susan: soon to be referred to as Miss Catherine; the title Northanger Abbey is apparently posthumous. But it hurts no longer to be the star. Her comments that the copies of Emma are not wanted here suggest Gwyneth Hughes’s reading of her time in 1816 around the publication of Emma is accurate: Austen is again put in her place. A single woman with little income and less practical power. It hurts a little after the flattery and excitement of the prince’s librarian’s interest in her and aristocrats with some understanding like the Countess of Morley.
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Miss Austen Regrets: imagined scene of baptism where Jane offers her Emma and almost drops Jemima, and then dismissed by Mrs Austen for incompetence … who cares for a novel?
135. To Anna Lefroy. ?Dec 1815 – Jan 1816, no address
As I wish very much to see your Jemima, 1 I am sure you will like to see my: Emma, & have therefore great pleasure in sending it for your perusal. Keep it as long as you chuse; it has been read by all here.- …
We learn Anna had given birth to her first child, oldest surviving daughter on 20 October 1815, but Lefaye suggests roads and winter weather were such, Austen had not yet visited her. She also might not have been in a great hurry. She again likens her books to having a child: “As I very much wish to see your Jemima I am sure you will like to see my Emma. She can keep the books as long as she chuses; everyone has read it here. Suggests a lack of continuing enthusiasm …
A fragment of a letter saved by Anna when Jane congratulated her upon Jemima — an odd one as Jemima was born in October and (whatever justifications and explainings away LeFaye thinks up in her notes) the weather cannot have kept Jane from Anna’s baby if she wanted to see it in the month and half she’d been home. The letter did go on but Anna chucked all but the comparison of her baby to Austen’s novel Emma that Austen was then sending her a copy of — as it’s certainly not wanted here she says. This suggests where Gywneth Hughes got the tone right in her depiction of the baptism. Perhaps the rest of the letter was about the hurt Austen was feeling or some other family matters painful to Anna or what she knew the relatives would be horrified at if published. Henry goe bankrupt, huge sums lost, what people said to one another — some of which is dramatized in Miss Austen Regrets (a much better film that people allow).
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Emma (2009): Tamsin Grieg as Miss Bates, character partly modeled on Miss Benn
136. To Catherine Anne Prowting. …. ?early 1816
My dear Miss Prowting
Had our poor friend! lived these volumes would have been at her service, & as I know you were in the habit of reading together & have had the gratification of hearing that the Works of the same hand had given you pleasure, I shall make no other apology for offering you the perusal of them, only begging that, if not immediately disposed for such light reading, you would keep them as long as you like, as they are not wanted at home.
Yours very sincerely
J. Austen
Sunday Night
[No address]
Austen’s only letter to Catherine Prowting, who is mentioned only in passing once before: so not a close friend. As usual in her note, LeFaye misses the point: she gives us a history of this middle class family in the area: fair enough, this explains why Prowting might be able and want to read Emma, but the real connection and importance of the letter is first Miss Benn. Miss Benn, that single woman reduced to moving from one hovel to another, coming for tea in order to get some, is dead, age 46. Jane would have sent this copy to her — I like to think far more gladly than to the prince or a countess she hardly knew. She is trying to reach Miss Benn and cannot so goes for the next person near Miss Benn. The woman doesn’t exist anymore, so Jane remembers that Miss Prowting used to like to read with Miss Benn and Jane has heard that Miss Prowting enjoyed works by “same hand.” So perhaps she will like this “light reading.” She makes no other apology for sending them; not to worry, keep them as long as she likes, they “are not wanted at home.”
A copy saved for Miss Benn. There is no way to date this letter for real: LeFaye calls it early 1816 because she knows Jane is back and giving copies of Emma away. Tomalin doesn’t mention Prowting, but Nokes has three mentions: she lived in a large house; she was unmarried. So the second connection is Miss Prowting is part of the community of unmarried women Austen was continually trying to keep together. We see a fragment of the circle of women Jane yearned for — and still concocts in her mind by sending this book.
She has certainly come down from the high of London now.
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Modern facsimile of book Austen handing out among her nieces
137. To Caroline Austen
Wednesday 13 March 1816, from Chawton, to Steventon
My dear Caroline
I am very glad to have an opportunity of answering your agreable little Letter. You seem to be quite my own Neice in your feelings towards Mde de Genlis. I do not think I could even now at my sedate time of Life, read Olimpe et Theophile without being in a Rage. It really is too bad!-Not allowing them to be happy together, when they are married. — Don’t talk of it, pray. I have just lent your Aunt Frank the 1st vol. of Les Veillees du Chateau, for Mary Jane to read. It will be some time before she comes to the horror of Olympe. – -We have had sad weather lately, I hope you have liked it. —
Our Pond is brimfull & our roads are dirty & our walls are damp, & we sit wishing every bad day may be the last. it is not cold however. Another week perhaps may see us shrinking & shivering under a dry
East Wind.I had a very nice Letter from your Brother not long ago, & I am quite happy to see how much his Hand is improving. — I am convinced that it will end in a very gentlemanlike Hand, much above Par.– We have had a great deal of fun lately with Post-chaises stopping at the door; three times within a few days, we had a couple of agreable Visitors turn in unexpectedly-your Uncle Henri & Mr Tilson, Mrs Heathcote & Miss Bigg, your Uncle Henry & Mr Seymour. Take notice, that it was the same Uncle Henry each time.
I remain my dear Caroline
Your affec: Aunt J. Austen
Steventon
The third letter whole and complete — to Caroline Austen and of interest for understanding not just Austen’s immediate milieu but what is the attitude towards books and writing around Austen at Chawton. Caroline is 11, an impressionable age, and Austen is over-speaking — she is half serious here. The child has been disappointed in one of the Veillees du Chateau. The title really means Evening Meetings at the Chateau and they are very well described in Ellen Moers’s chapter on governess literature in her Literary Women. Diane the other day was dismayed to discover many of her students asked to read Emma did not know what a governess was — much less the whole contex. For a full account of Genlis’s life and works, see my biography and evaluation of Genlis’s works (especially under the theme of education) at Under the Sign of Sylvia I.
Genlis at 50 by Pulcherie (or Caroline?), her daughter by Sillery-Genlis (her husband)
Modern students who do not read older books (like say Jane Eyre) will not know about governesses (there is no governess at Downton Abbey note — not a familiar figure any more) will not grasp what it meant to be a governess; and certainly will probably will not recognize the connection of Emma to Genlis’s_Adele et Theodore and miss altogether Holcroft’s translation of Les Veilles du Chateau. Thus the probable critic made of Mrs Weston’s educational methods (wanting) when Austen likens her to Baronness d’Almane taking care of the Countess of Ostalis – an older child in the house whom the Baroness is supposed to have not controlled or shaped sufficiently strictly at all — is missed altogether. Mr Knightley says to Emma’s allusion yes Mrs Weston will probably indulge her daughter even more than she did you. Of course we know that Mrs Weston was at the same disadvantage she endures as a wife: little power because not much status and dependent on the kindness of the husband or pupil. Mr Knightley says since Mr Weston will be all kindness there will be little merit in making him a good wife. We know MR Knightley is over-optimistic at least as regards Frank: Mrs Weston is expected to think super-well of Frank and go along with all her husband’s optimisms or remain silent.
There are worse tyrannies I suppose.
So what is this story of Olimpe and Theophile – it’s a novella in the second volume of the 4 volume set which even if Austen is half-mocking it was obviously sent to Caroline to read from another of Genlis’s works, which can bring to mind Emma: after all Mr Knightley and Emma are to live with Mr Woodhouse at the end of the book, and thus be if not under the control. at least heeding this elderly parent. Austen has now also sent volume 1 to Frank’s wife to give her to older girl, mary Jane to read. What Austen is doing is pretending not to pay attention to the morals inculcated because perhaps she intuitively realizes how hard (and I’d add mean) they really are. The Tales of the Castle (Holcroft’s translation) is a disciplinary book (as is Adele and Theodore), much more so if that’s possible: the mother tells all the tales, the mother controls all the children utterly (as she doesn’t in the Adele and Theodore altogether). There are several stories that bring to mind Emma: Delphine even has French lines that are redolent of lines in Emma (Moers agrees) – the lines in Emma feel like loose paraphrases almost.
Why are poor Olimpe and Theophile not to be happy; it’s really a dreadful story. A long internecine twisting one where originally they are bethrothed, but Olimpe’s parents die so she has no dowry; Theophile’s father is determined he shall marry someone else. Theophile refuses to comply. The father uses rumor to destroy Olimpe’s reputation: it seems she has left a convent she was placed in to live with a friend who is said to be disreputable; the father claims at one point she has married. No such thing. Olimpe remains utterly virtuous, is waiting for Theophile who eventually reaches her; they flee and marry and live in Scotland but they do not have much happiness. They are so poor and she dies. A long coda of discussion led by the mother showing where the young couple went wrong! They are selfish not because they have disobeyed anyone and married in defiance of their parents but rather that the young couple has done wrong because parents must be obeyed – or atleast heeded — once you have promised something you are bound to go through with it. All things promised must be done no matter what. The mother’s moral includes the idea that the bride is to blame for not controlling herself more and being imprudent; how Austen felt about that in 1816 I don’t know but obviously at 11 Caroline did not like this moral. Austen says even now she does not think she could read the book without being in a rage, which implies she was in a rage when she first read it. But is she still? She says that Olympe’s death doesn’t bear thinking about. Then why give the book to the child? The only book around? (What did this translation get into print anyway? Holcroft did not spend his life writing radical tracts and great books because he first needed money and then in the 1790s was terrorized, bullied and threatened and repressed by the trials and rumor mongering of the 1790s.
Austen might have rented the set from her circulating library, but it was first printed in 1785 (Holcroft’s translation printed in that year) I guess she owned this book — as good reading for growing up girls as she once was. She sent vol1 to Mary Jane and Caroline had Vol 2. Delphine is on yet another of the 4 volumes. I suspect Austen was more in sympathy with Genlis than she likes to let her niece or others know — we can see that in the alignment of Mr Knightley’s remarks with the narrator’s allusion to Adele and Theodore. So, better to talk of the weather than such tooks: “Don’t talk of it, pray.”
I find myself remembering The Mill on the Floss and how angry I was at the end of the novel when Eliot has the sister, Maggie bow down before the brother Tom who has ruined her life for years; instread of (As I thought she should do) stab him to the heart, she drowns herself.
Moers also brings Austen’s works under the purview of governessing and books as teaching moral lessons from women teachers. Scheherazade belongs to this genre too — it can be erotic. Dinesen, Gaskell. Austen hedges by saying she could not even now read without being angry and then does not discuss the tale at all (Genlis does discuss details): that implies the adult reaction is tempered. Women did regard novels as forms of dialoguing with one another and teaching moral lessons. One of Radclliffe’s early novels – Sicilian Romance opens with the chief older woman a sort of governess in character very like Mrs Western by the way, powerless, meaning to do good but not able to do all she would want or even much. The motif was part of the period’s assumptions and found in women’s novels.
Austen then talks of the weather – safe topic. Here of interest is they don’t live in comfortable housing which can keep them warm Surely today a few of us will identify here. Damp wall, and another week they can add shivering and shrinking when the east wind hits the house.
Apparently James Edward Austen-Leigh’s handwriting is improving: it will end “in a very gentlemanlike hand.” Necessary for genteel status (the super rich have never had to write clearly). And then references to uncles arriving,Henry and his business partner Mr Tilson. Two of Austen’s women friends who we have seen mean so much to her, especially the endlessly pregnant Mrs Bigg (married to a much older man and I hope we all remember Austen’s poem upon that occasion).
She ends with a dig at Henry: Take notice, that was the same Uncle Henry each time.” She keeps up the myth of his mercurial not-to-be trusted somewhat shallow character – let’s laugh at this you see. It’s a way of reading him which refuses to recognize the man’s seriousness. It was at this time he began to contemplate turning poor curate. What else was there? He was trying to dig himself out – Mr Seymour comes with him in one instance (the lawyer) but the sums were huge and he was a fourth son.
I maintain there is a sly mockery of Henry in the final line of her letter to Caroline: Jane entered into the family’s way of dismissing Henry’s real agons in trying to be a worldly success while the fourth son of a vicar with few funds and only one big connection — and that through his sister’s illegimate relationship with Hastings — it was a friend of Hastings Mr Austen called on for his sons going into the navy. Will this be the same or a different Henry. Ho ho, see how he changes — probably he did try to put different faces on all he was enduring, he brings different partners with him who are also sinking and not amused.
Understanding Austen is hard — if you want really to get her full meaning and that means reading the books she read and trying to understand the true relationship of her books to them.
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Amanda Root as Anne Elliot (1995 Persuasion)
Let us think of her getting on with Persuasion. The two brothers, Frank and Henry bought back Catherine from Crosby in 1816: we know of the incident from JEAL’s memoir and the time generally — after the publication of Emma. Alas not the precise date. Since she told Crosby she had kept a copy, she could have begun work on revising Susan now become Miss Catherine but it would be useful to know when it was brought back as that probably (?) would have been instigated by her and (I imagine) something she might do while rewriting so that her rewriting (she might hope) could be published by her and reach others.
It makes a difference whether she had copyright and control over what she had written. Imagine the frustration (demoralizing feel) to work on a copy of your own book someone else is said to own now and be able to prevent you from publishing. I am myself not impressed by the power copyright has given authors: if they have made money using it that was the circumstances surrounding their relationship with the publishers enabled them to use it as a weapon, not in itself. Here it is a weapon against her – as it sometimes happens when an author gives up her copyrights, sometimes out of need for immediate money.
How different are they from Tales of the Castle (say) or Jane West’s A Gossip’s Story (often cited as a “source” for S&S) or Emma from Brunton’s Discipline (an text analogous to Emma it’s said). Austen recognized the affinity of her books to West’s and Brunton’s. In Deborah O’Keefe’s Good Girl Messages, a study of girls’ books whose basic outlook is hostile to women having any autonomy or individual life apart from or which have nothing to do with what Mason identifies as the four great episodes of women’s lives. The 4 “ms”: menstruation, marriage, motherhood, and menopause. ” Genlis’s differed from these where the emphasis is on contemporary sex partners, encourageing “girls to enact a death wish [Olimpe], be passive, submissive, self-distrustful, and sexy (but of course hard-to-get) around males; Genlis wants her daughters and step-daughters to be obedient to parents. While Persuasion is version of what may go wrong when you obey, Austen has Anne qualify and justify Lady Russell; that the idea about parents versus children is in Austen’s mind is seen in its famous mock ending: “I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.” We may be meant to see that Catherine’s reading in gothics was bad for her rather than alerting her to the gothic horrors she sees in realistic mode in the abbey — a view I would prefer and have argued for in a published paper.
Felicity Jones as Catherine intently absorbed by her romance novel by Anne Radcliffe (2007 NA)
See comments for other readings of these letters.
Ellen
Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two 
Diane:
Ellen reminds us that we are falling behind again on the letters. I do want to keep going, as we are nearing the end and as the several years we have spent on these (I believe we began in early 2010) have been very rich indeed. Despite all the gaps, I have a much better sense of who Austen is now that I have looked at most of the letters closely. The London letters have been especially helpful in dispelling the myth of Austen as a country recluse.
I have not done justice to 132, Clarke’s letter to Austen thanking her for the advance copy of Emma. Partly this is because I have not had time to go through Arnie’s response to the letter carefully, but I recognize he sees Clarke as a second-rate writer who JA thinks is a pompous ass. On a surface reading, however, Clarke does seem to be treating JA with a great deal of respect and deference, and his offer of the chance to stay with him (with a maid properly on hand!) if she needs a place to write sounds sincere–if a bit Gothic with his talk of Cells and hideaways. Again, she has come, if not a long way, at least some way, from the poor relation treated disdainfully by her extended family.
As Ellen noted, the letters take us from London in advance of Henry’s bank collapse back to Chawton. The first letter in this set of very short letters–notes really–is to Haden, returning some books he had lent. She is on the brink of her departure. She doesn’t seem to have time for a leisurely letter but does “depend upon your giving us some part of this Even.” This would be a Thursday evening; she says she leaves London on Saturday. As I look at Le Faye’s notes this letter is described as a “scrap–perhaps cut from an octavo leave.” As it seems like an entire letter and was found in the album of the granddaughter of a protege of Sir Walter Scott (Le Faye’s info), I assume the granddaughter cut away the blank parts of the page–unless there was a post-script somebody expunged, but that seems unlikely as this note seems not to have been in the hands of the Austen family.
The next letter, 2 weeks later, is from the Countess of Morley, thanking JA for the advance copy of Emma. It’s a very polite letter, saying she has “already become intimate in the Woodhouse family” and feels they will amuse her as much as the Bertrams, Bennetts, etc; “I can give them no higher praise.” How sincere she is is hard to guess–she is extremely polished.
The next two notes are from Chawton, almost identical copies of the same note from JA to the Countess of Morley. The only differences I see are some caps lowered in the second note “State of Doubt” to “state of doubt” and one lower case capped: “Obliged.” She conveys the same worry about Emma’s reception that she communicated to Clarke, writing that in her “present state of doubt as to her reception in the world” she is especially gratified at her “Ladyship’s approbation.” JA worries her winning streak will end, noting that almost every “Writer of Fancy” sooner or later will have “overwritten” herself. It’s interesting how unsure she is of the reception of this masterpiece.
The next letter, 135, Le Faye also describes as a “scrap.” This undoubtedly part of a longer letter to Anna. What we have is Austen again understanding her novels as her children: “As I wish very much to see your Jemima, I am sure you will like to see my Emma.” (Jemima was Anna’s baby, born as Le Faye tells us, on Oct 20). I am wondering again if there’s a bit of dismissal or one-upmanship in the careless, “Keep it as long as you chuse; it has been read by all here.” The exact date of this letter is unclear, but apparently Anna wasn’t on the short list to get the book first.
This too is a short note, accompanying the sending of the three volumes of Emma to Miss Catherine Ann Prowting. Prowting gets these volumes because “our poor friend,” identified by LeFaye as Mary Benn, who had just died on January 3rd, age 46. Le Faye describes her as very poor; I believe I remember Ellen writing eloquently of her poverty. Mary Benn is a character we remember from these letters; I’m sure JA felt very sorry for her death and felt that there but for the grace of God (and the ability to publish some novels and a brother offering a house) went she. Actually, JA would die soon enough, but not in poverty. I get the sense that JA is reaching out in the best way she knows how in a sad circumstance–sharing her darling child with a friend of her friend. What dearer gift could she offer. Perhaps she felt sad that Mary Benn wouldn’t get to enjoy Miss Bates, a poor unmarried woman wiser than she seems.
JA sounds kinder in this note than the previous one to Anna. She offers Emma to Prowting because she knew Prowting and Benn were “in the habit of reading together,” and in fact, of reading some of JA’s novels together. She recognizes that Prowting may be grieving and so “not immediately disposed for such light reading.” She urges Prowting “to keep them as long as you like, as they are not wanted at home,” kinder wording to my mind than “it has been read by all here.”
Le Faye speculates that perhaps JA sent these volumes once they were returned by Anna. My surmise would be that JA is making the most heartfelt gesture she can as a response to Mary Benn’s death.
Diana:
March 1816! How quickly time is marching toward the end, the end our letters, and the end of Jane. But still unaware of her approaching end, Jane takes time to write another of her charming letters to young Caroline, who is nearly eleven. Some censures of Madame de Genlis, which Ellen has helpfully expanded upon, showing how passionate JA gets upon literary matters: “I do not think that even now, at my sedate time of Life, read Olimpe et Theophile without being in a Rage. It is really too bad! – Not allowing them to be happy together, when they are married. Don’t talk of it, pray.’ A genuine shudder.
Her descriptions on the weather are only too apropos for right now (though not here in California!). A very, very characteristically English weather-grumble, this is: “We have had some sad weather lately, I hope you have liked it. – Our Pond is brimfull & our roads are dirty & our walls are damp, & we sit wishing every bad day may be the last. It is not cold however. Another week perhaps may see us shrinking & shivering under a dry East Wind.” (Shades of Mary Poppins! which some have been reading.)
JA comments politely on the improved handwriting of Caroline’s brother, the young JEAL, and then provides an amusing sketch of the visitors who have appeared in Post-chaises and stopped at the door lately. In such muddy weather too, for much traveling. Her spirits have evidently been enlivened by the visitors, for she writes, “We have had a great deal of fun lately” – a rather modern locution, or perhaps a bit gaily Lydia-like. “Your Uncle Henry & Mr. Tilson, Mrs. Heathcote & Miss Bigg, your Uncle Henry & Mr. Seymour. Take notice, that it was the same Uncle Henry each time.” A typical Austen-jest.
Ellen says < No one bothered to reply to my query did any one know the precise month or day that Frank or Henry bought back NA.
Not a matter of "not bothering." It's not knowing!
As for a map of Highbury, I know there's been one, but I saw it or read about it many years ago – so perhaps it did not make its way online. Here's something about the subject on the JASNA website. The book mentioned put out by JASA, Where’s Where in Jane Austen . . . and What Happens There, by Patrick Wilson, may be helpful:
http://www.jasna.org/info/maps.html
Diana
To sum up: Austen’s 3 letters just after the publication of Emma, after Henry’s bankruptcy and she’s returned to Chawton. Fragment of one to Anna likening her book to Anna’s first child; one to single woman, friend of Miss Benn as Miss Benn now dead cannot get her reserved copy of Emma; one to Caroline, aged 16, Austen makes joke of harsh morality in Tales of Castle. We may presume she is working on Persuasion & NA.
Might I just comment that Maggie Tulliver does not DROWN HERSELF. (Suicide is a sin as well as a crime at this period.) There is a flood (Shades of today!! – Winter 2013-14) and she takes a rowing boat down the Floss to the Mill where Tom is living. She rescues him (yes they are reconciled), but the boat is overturned when it is caught up in other debris in the river and they are BOTH drowned – it’s a tragic accident. From the Christian perspective – and George Eliott was writing for a generally Christian readership, forgiving other people who had harmed you was a prerequisite for a Good Death. This applies to BOTH Tom (who was offended by Maggie’s conduct) and Maggie (who was hurt by Tom’s attitude). Deathbed reconcilations matter and theirs is a “deathbed” reconciliation although neither of them realise it at the time!
By going out there with him, she is obeying a suicidal impulse. This suicidal impulse is seen in Hetty, it emerges in Romola (where indeed the heroine does not die) and is seen in Gwendolyen Harleth. If she didn’t literally drown herself, she acted in a way that threatened her life after her brother had spent his ruining and destroying her in every way possible. A more mean and cruel individual I cannot think of. I am talking from a modern decent perspective, and one George Eliot professed as an implicit atheist by her life. In her fictions she betrays the reader and herself — Genlis is yet worse because she’s was a hypocrite in life, herself totally corrupt, a thieving hanger-on.
Aren’t you confusing the sacrificial with the suicidal ? Surely Maggie’s intention was to rescue Tom, not to die with him ? And can this not be read as a piece of wish-fulfillment on the part of Evans who was never (IIRC) reconciled to her own brother who disapproved of her liaison with Lewis ? Evans may have renounced the Christian faith but she was deeply imbued with Evangelical morality. (Had she been a High Church Anglican she might have been more relaxed!) Dorothea is also a sacrificial heroine although she survives that dire marriage, but I always think Ladislaw was a dreadfully second rate hero. And isn’t “triumphant” suicide a very Romantick [sic] notion ? Evans was writing at a later date and a far more realistic fiction.
Well from my point of view you are ignoring the obvious. The man was a horror and instead of trying to rescue him (and lose her life, risk it), she should have stabbed him to the heart’ barring that as illegal, if she was so lucky to get rid of him by natural means, pissed on his grave and said good riddance. It’s what he deserved — he’s a simulacrum of her brother of course. In real life she did not immolate herself. Instead she hitched her star to a version of Ladislaw (Lewes) who enabled her to write and publish great novels.
In a published paper on George Eliot’s fiction I wrote:
In Eliot’s stories her intelligent and sensitive heroes and heroines are thwarted and punished, and are made to submit to the desires of dense and passionate characters who far from earning any right to ask for submission, have maimed and will probably continue to maim these heroes and heroines because she despaired of finding any other way for them to achieve a peaceful integration into an ordered world. In her fiction, she articulates this idea in words which show she came to it through giving in to painful imperceptive pressure, and she urges the reader to see this kind of pressure as rooted in irremediable weakness which moral strength should yield to:
The stronger will always rule, say some, with an air of confidence which is like a lawyer’s flourish, forbidding exceptions or additions. But what is strength? Is it blind wilfulness that sees no terrors, no many-linked consequences, no bruises and wounds of those whose cords it tightens? Is it the narrowness of brain that conceives no needs differing from its own, and looks to no results beyond the bargains of to-day; that tugs with emphasis for every small purpose, and thinks it weakness to exercise the sublime power of resolved renunciation? There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness (Felix Holt 78).
Eliot’s stories are shaped to show that characters who subject themselves to others by overriding vitally-felt obligations to themselves or others also get something of pragmatic value in return. The rewards include gratification because the group professes admiration and respect for the individual, a highly compromised or grudging and grateful love, and safety (Middlemarch 586-87, 664-66; “The Antigone and Its Moral,” Byatt and Warren 365-66).
It is the great merit of Eliot’s imaginative work that she poses questions of serious and large import with which we are today only beginning to deal frankly. It may be its great defect that she repeatedly opts for dramatic resolutions which cruelly deprive her exemplary characters of some natural fulfillment or worthy goal on the grounds that it is right for them to violate their instincts. However, when she does this she provides an earnest agonized record of what was lost: Daniel Deronda’s mother unrepentantly puts before her son how her father egoistically used the patriarchical norms for a mother and daughter to pervert humane obligations between individuals and to repress her talents and nature as an individual (e.g., Daniel Deronda 535-48;Wilt).
It is true that Eliot’s stories occasionally end shockingly with an immolation of what is estimable, humane, and productive of genuinely beneficial decency, sometimes on behalf of an egoistic illusory tribal nationalism (The Spanish Gypsy). The Mill on the Floss ends on Maggie’s semi-suicidal act on behalf of a brother who has throughout the novel been as repugnant, narrow-minded, and vindictive as she has been pleasing, open-minded, and forgiving.8 More frequently, though, her endings are consolatory. At long last her characters find themselves in, or create a situation where one of them or the situation itself permits a dramatic resolution which defies the materialism, genetic tribalism, and the sheer cruelty and stupidity of unjust social arrangements rooted in human nature.
I see the ending Silas Marner in this light, and Dorothea’s choice. As for your sneer at Ladislaw, would you prefer someone aggressive, successive at any price: I prefer the noble well-lived out life from ideals every time. The true shit in the story is Rosamond Vincy.