Jane Austen’s Feelings in April

Welcome to All Things Austen in April!

What did the month of April mean to Jane Austen? Something mercurial, as the month is ever famed to be. A month of declarations, of stormy emotion, of disappointment in love, and of activity of all kinds…


Emma illustration

 

“If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once,” begins Mr. Darcy, in one of the most famous and anticipated speeches in English literature, “My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.”

Mr. Darcy’s first proposal, the one that took place in Hunsford in April, certainly constitutes a stormy scene if ever there was one, and so we learn, once again, how Jane Austen attended to details in everything she did in her art!

If April is an emotionally stormy month in Pride and Prejudice, in Emma it is a month of activity, as epitomized by Mrs. Elton. “Here is April come!” she tells Jane Fairfax, eager to obtain for her a position as governess. “I get quite anxious about you. June will soon be here.”

In Sense and Sensibility, April is also a time of activity, when people go a-traveling. It is when Elinor and Marianne leave London after Marianne’s disappointment in Willoughby, and travel to stay with Mrs. Jennings. Here is the passage:

“Very early in April, and tolerably early in the day, the two parties from Hanover Square and Berkeley Street set out from their respective homes, to meet, by appointment, on the road. For the convenience of Charlotte and her child, they were to be more than two days on their journey, and Mr. Palmer, travelling more expeditiously with Colonel Brandon, was to join them at Cleveland soon after their arrival.”

Although Marianne sheds many tears, Elinor is pleased to be going, as after the visit they will head home, and “she looked forward with hope to what a few months of tranquillity at Barton might do towards restoring Marianne’s peace of mind, and confirming her own.”

For Fanny in Mansfield Park, April brings her considerable torment and the discomfort of neglect:

“The ensuing spring deprived her of her valued friend, the old grey pony; and for some time she was in danger of feeling the loss in her health as well as in her affections; for in spite of the acknowledged importance of her riding on horse–back, no measures were taken for mounting her again, “because,” as it was observed by her aunts, “she might ride one of her cousin’s horses at any time when they did not want them,” and as the Miss Bertrams regularly wanted their horses every fine day, and had no idea of carrying their obliging manners to the sacrifice of any real pleasure, that time, of course, never came. They took their cheerful rides in the fine mornings of April and May; and Fanny either sat at home the whole day with one aunt, or walked beyond her strength at the instigation of the other.”

The following April Fanny is at Portsmouth, and it is a time of waiting:

“Easter came particularly late this year, as Fanny had most sorrowfully considered, on first learning that she had no chance of leaving Portsmouth till after it. It came, and she had yet heard nothing of her return—nothing even of the going to London, which was to precede her return. Her aunt often expressed a wish for her, but there was no notice, no message from the uncle on whom all depended. She supposed he could not yet leave his son, but it was a cruel, a terrible delay to her. The end of April was coming on; it would soon be almost three months, instead of two, that she had been absent from them all, and that her days had been passing in a state of penance, which she loved them too well to hope they would thoroughly understand; and who could yet say when there might be leisure to think of or fetch her?”

Also in Mansfield Park, Jane Austen gives us one of her fine word-pictures of season, of weather, of outdoor pleasures, in the scene where Henry Crawford walks with the Price family on the Ramparts at Portsmouth:

“The day was uncommonly lovely. It was really March; but it was April in its mild air, brisk soft wind, and bright sun, occasionally clouded for a minute; and everything looked so beautiful under the influence of such a sky, the effects of the shadows pursuing each other on the ships at Spithead and the island beyond, with the ever–varying hues of the sea, now at high water, dancing in its glee and dashing against the ramparts with so fine a sound, produced altogether such a combination of charms for Fanny, as made her gradually almost careless of the circumstances under which she felt them.”

Turning from her fiction to her letters, it is surprising to find how few of them Jane Austen wrote during the month of April. Perhaps it was a time of year when she was too busy with visits. But between April 8 and 11th in 1805, she wrote a cheerful letter to Cassandra, from Bath. “Did Bath or Ibthorp ever see a finer 8th of April? – It is March & April together [see the similarity of phrase she uses in MP nearly a decade later!], the glare of one & the warmth of the other. We do nothing but walk about.” In her next letter, still in April (21st to 23rd), she writes: “Yesterday was a busy day with me, or at least with my feet & my stockings; I was walking almost all day long.”

In 1811 there are again two April letters, written from Sloane Street. The weather is warm: “I think Edward will not suffer much longer from heat; by the look of Things this morning I suspect the weather is rising into the balsamic Northeast.” [Wonderful phrase, but I cannot discover what balsamic means in this context. Balmy?] “It has been hot here, as you may suppose, since it was so hot with you, but I have not suffered from it at all, nor felt it in such a degree as to make me imagine it would be anything in the Country. Everybody has talked of the heat, but I set it all down to London.” She is correcting proofs of Sense and Sensibility, as well as a heavy social round of dinners and music and plays, as she is staying with Henry and Eliza. “Your Lilacs are in leaf, ours are in bloom,” she tells Cassandra. “I had a pleasant walk in Kensington Gardens on Sunday with Henry, Mr. Smith & Mr. Tilson – everything was fresh & beautiful.”

The next April letter is not until 1816, April 1, in the midst of the Prince Regent and James Stanier Clarke incident, when she has to acknowledge the Prince’s thanks for the copy of Emma she had been directed to send him, and makes polite demurrals to his suggestion she write an Historical Romance founded on the House of Saxe-Cobourg. She wrote a business letter to her publisher James Murray the same day, and on the 21st, a short letter to her young niece Caroline.

Her last two April letters are in 1817, near the end of her life. On 6 April she writes to her brother Charles. She is already ill, with what she calls a “Bilious attack, attended with a good deal of fever. A few days ago my complaint appeared removed, but I am ashamed to say that the shock of my Uncle’s Will brought on a relapse…I am the only one of the Legatees who has been so silly, but a weak Body must excuse weak Nerves.”

Her very last April letter, of Sunday, 27 April, 1817, is, starkly, her last Will and Testament, written in the form of a letter to her sister.

More cheerfully, at the other end of Jane Austen’s life, we learn from Deirdre Le Faye’s Jane Austen A Family Record that Jane Austen was actually christened in April:

“The cold weather did continue, and the winter of 1775-76 was one of the bitterest for many years, so it is not surprising that, after her private baptism on 17 December, the new baby was not taken out to the freezing little Steventon church for her public christening till 5 April 1776. She received just the single name of Jane, and her godparents were her great-aunt Jane, wife of Mr. Francis Austen of Sevenoaks; Mrs. Jane Musgrave, wife of Mrs. Austen’s cousin the rector of Chinnor; and Revd. Samuel Cooke, vicar of Great Bookham in Surrey and husband of another of Mrs. Austen’s cousins – her namesake Cassandra, daughter of the Master of Balliol.”

So what did the month of April mean to Jane Austen? Something mercurial, as the month is ever famed to be. A month of declarations, of stormy emotion; commonly of disappointment in love (for Mr. Darcy, Fanny, Marianne). Of changing weather, a time for energetic activity, walking, travel, social life; and for Jane Austen herself, a month of sacrament at the beginning of her life and at its ending – her christening and her last will and testament.

 

 

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    • Maureen C on April 12, 2016 at 6:25 am
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    Wow! I never really thought about the significance of April happenings in Jane’s writing. Very interesting!

    1. I never did before either, Maureen, but it was interesting to make the connections! Thank you for commenting.

    • Maggie on April 12, 2016 at 7:13 am
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    What fun to research something like this. Thank you for the April study.

    1. Truer words never spoken, Maggie – it really was enormous fun to research. And it’s even more fun knowing you enjoyed it. Thanks!

    • Theresa M on April 12, 2016 at 8:35 am
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    Thank you!

    • Eva E on April 12, 2016 at 9:22 am
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    I must confess that I had not thought about April in Jane Austen’s novels. Thank you for this research as it has been very interesting.

    1. I’d never thought of it either, but researching was quite rewarding! Thanks for your comment.

    • Laura H on April 12, 2016 at 9:27 am
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    Thank you for this interesting post. I had not thought of April as a time of energetic activity, probably due to April usually being a bit on the snowy or rainy side here.
    Thanks again!

    1. I’m only speculating, Laura – but it would seem likely that after the cold weather, ice and frost of winter (as seen in Emma), people probably were more willing to venture out on trips when the weather started growing milder, in April. Even if it wasn’t as sunny and warm as June yet, it was less cold. On the other hand, April could be rainy and muddy! Thanks for your thoughts…

    • Madenna on April 12, 2016 at 12:05 pm
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    Thank you for the lovely April study. I can only imagine that after being cooped up all winter indoors that April & spring weather brings such activity. It is interesting to see how things don’t really change.

    1. That’s it exactly, Madenna – some things don’t change and that’s how we can project our feelings and imagine what things were like then. Glad you enjoyed it!

  1. Such a lovely exploration of a lovely month! Thank you for drawing all of this information together for us.

    Warmly,
    Susanne 🙂

    1. Truly my pleasure, Susanne. Thanks for reading and commenting!

    • Carole in Canada on April 12, 2016 at 2:39 pm
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    I wonder how many of the letters that Cassandra destroyed were written in April? As for the ‘balsamic Northeast’, I think of vinegar…but it could very well be balmy as it is more what we use today!

    1. We’ll never know…but Shakespeare called it the cruelest month!
      Vinegar, good suggestion, I hadn’t thought of that!
      Thanks for your comment.

    • melati1021 on April 12, 2016 at 5:01 pm
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    That was a lot of thoughtful research. I’ve never known that April could be so significant for Jane Austen. Thank you for sharing your research for us.

    1. My pleasure, and I’m so glad you liked it!

    • Susan Kulasekara on April 12, 2016 at 6:03 pm
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    April is my favorite month, and it’s also the month of my birthday! Thank you for the interesting article!

  2. My son’s birthday too, Susan – April 22! And Shakespeare’s. Happy birthday to you!

  3. I enjoyed reading all about the happenings in April in Jane’s books and in her life!

    1. Thanks, Susan. It was really fun looking it all up!

  4. Very stimulating – the point of view and method could yield accurate thought about Austen’s texts.

    Austen keeps so close to the calendar in her novels and keeps us aligned with time so carefully that yes one could delve what she presents in a given month, but then which months? does she have equivalent sets of observations about other months so that (say) if we googled and looked for comments on say November (I have an idea November is a month she comments upon — as autumnal, gloomy, melancholy, leafless or with dead leaves about). Here passages from Persuasion might mount up and Sense and Sensibility. Here is a perspective that could yield yet more about the tone and qualities of the different novels.

    Alas the ruthless destruction of Austen’s letters (so few survive and hardly any not to Cassandra) leaves us with perhaps unrepresentative fragments. That we can see that is interesting. People often say oh it doesn’t matter that so much was destroyed because what is left is representative. Well looking at the letters from the point of view of the months mentioned, it appears not so.

    The seasons was a popular topic in 18th century art: it rips us away from a God-shaped world into a secular natural environment and you bring home to us how we can fit Austen’s novels in with Thomson’s Seasons or Vivaldi.

    Her attitude towards April is not surprising but it is intense at moments. She really feels a lift of spirits for real (this is not cant or cliched language) and uses language sincerely. It is particularly richly felt on behalf of Fanny Price. Emma is a semi-spoilt woman. You’d think Elizabeth would rejoice in April but she is a more grave character than people realize (why I liked the film Death comes to Pemberley as Anna Maxwell Martin was led to catch that).

    1. Hi Ellen, I knew you’d have some interesting thoughts on this subject! Good reminder of the 18th century theme of seasons and JA feeling the lift of spirits. Thanks for looking in.

    • ELAINE F. PIGEON on April 13, 2016 at 11:40 am
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    Fascinating! If April is one of the busiest of months and marks important beginnings and endings, what is Austen’s favourite month, or the one most often mentioned? Great topic!

  5. Ah, that’s another research project, Elaine – and hard to resist! Thanks for commenting.

    • Sheila L. M. on April 13, 2016 at 6:29 pm
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    I am impressed by all the data you researched and shared. Thanks. I always had it in my mind that the visit to Rosings was at Easter time. But I don’t pay a lot of attention to remembering dates mentioned. I do not the weather and how it keeps Elizabeth from walking, etc. So to note all of this is interesting. Poignant to read of its significance to her own life.

    1. You’re right, the visit to Rosings does take place at Easter. If P&P is set in 1811, Easter Sunday took place on April 14, so there you are! I was quite surprised to find April’s significance in Jane Austen’s own life – christening and will. Makes chills, doesn’t it?

    • Pam Hunter on April 14, 2016 at 12:08 pm
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    Wow! I had not realized how the month of April was so instrumental in Jane’s life as well as her works. Very interesting! As an April baby, I heartily concur that it is a beautiful month!

      • Diana Birchall on April 14, 2016 at 3:36 pm
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      My son is an April baby too. Happy birthday, Pam, and thanks for commenting!

    • Jennifer Redlarczyk on April 14, 2016 at 9:01 pm
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    I love April since in the USA-Indiana,its the beginning of Spring. Loved the info!

    1. Oh, yes, Jennifer, flowers and budding trees are really springing to life in the midwest now, aren’t they! I’m in California, where there ARE seasons of a sort, hard to notice, but the purple jacaranda trees are just poised to burst into their gorgeous but messy bloom right now! Cheers!

    • Anji on April 16, 2016 at 11:09 am
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    Very interesting piece, Diana, thank you. I’m currently reading a book containing a selection of Jane Austen’s surviving letters and fascinating reading it is, too.

    I wish the weather would become more typically April and spring-like here in Yorkshire. It looks great through a window but the wind is still soooo cold.

    1. That’s the thing about Jane Austen’s letters, Anji…best perused a bit at a time, you notice more that way. I could use a bit of Yorkshire coolness, we’re having a spring heat wave in Los Angeles where I live. But I’m coming to England in May. My play about Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte is being put on as part of the Bronte Centennial conference at Chawton House Library, and I’m super excited! Wish I could get to Yorkshire this trip – I love it. I have visited Haworth in the past. Take care and thanks for commenting!

  1. […] Traduciamo oggi un articolo di Diana Birchall apparso su Austen Variations il 12 aprile 2016, nell’ambito della rassegna All Things Austen in April, dal titolo Jane Austen’s Feelings in April. […]

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