A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Life at Steventon
She was a clever woman, and highly accomplished, after the
French rather than the English mode; and in those days, when
intercourse with the Continent was long interrupted by war, such
an element in the society of a country parsonage must have been a
rare acquisition. The sisters may have been more indebted to this
cousin than to Mrs. La Tournelle’s teaching for the considerable
knowledge of French which they possessed. She also took the
principal parts in the private theatricals in which the family several
times indulged, having their summer theatre in the barn, and
their winter one within the narrow limits of the dining-room,
where the number of the audience must have been very limited.
On these occasions, the prologues and epilogues were written by
Jane’s eldest brother, and some of them are very vigorous and
amusing.° Jane was only twelve years old at the time of the earliest
of these representations, and not more than fifteen when the last
took place. She was, however, an early observer, and it may be
reasonably supposed that some of the incidents and feelings
which are so vividly painted in the Mansfield Park theatricals are
due to her recollections of these entertainments.
Some time before they left Steventon, one great affliction came
upon the family. Cassandra was engaged to be married to a young
clergyman.° He had not sufficient private fortune to permit an
immediate union; but the engagement was not likely to be a hopeless
or a protracted one, for he had a prospect of early preferment
from a nobleman with whom he was connected both by birth and
by personal friendship. He accompanied this friend to the West
Indies, as chaplain to his regiment, and there died of yellow fever,
to the great concern of his friend and patron, who afterwards
declared that, if he had known of the engagement, he would not
have permitted him to go out to such a climate. This little
domestic tragedy caused great and lasting grief to the principal
sufferer, and could not but cast a gloom over the whole party. The
sympathy of Jane was probably, from her age, and her peculiar
attachment to her sister, the deepest of all.
Of Jane herself I know of no such definite tale of love to relate.
Her reviewer in the ‘Quarterly’ of January 1821° observes, concerning
the attachment of Fanny Price to Edmund Bertram: ‘The