53 4 / JANE AUSTEN
arranged our expenses for two months (for we expected to make the nine hundred pounds last as long), we hastened to London and had the good luck to spend it in seven weeks and a day, which was six days sooner than we had intended. As soon as we had thus happily disencumbered ourselves from the weight of so much money, we began to think of returning to our mothers, but accidentally hearing that they were both starved to death, we gave over the design and determined to engage ourselves to some strolling company of players, as we had always a turn for the stage. Accordingly, we offered our sendees to one and were accepted; our company was indeed rather small, as it consisted only of the manager, his wife, and ourselves, but there were fewer to pay and the only inconvenience attending it was the scarcity of plays, which for want of people to fill the characters we could perform?. We did not mind trifles, however?. One of our most admired performances was Macbeth, in which we were truly great. The manager always played Banquo himself, his wife my Lady Macbeth. I did the three witches, and Philander acted all the rest. To say the truth, this tragedy was not only the best, but the only play we ever performed; and after having acted it all over England and Wales, we came to Scotland to exhibit it over the remainder of Great Britain. We happened to be quartered in that very town, where you came and met your grandfather?. We were in the inn-yard when his carriage entered and, perceiving by the arms1 to whom it belonged, and, knowing that Lord St. Clair was our grandfather, we agreed to endeavour to get something from him by discovering the relationship?. You know how well it succeeded?. Having obtained the two hundred pounds, we instantly left the town, leaving our manager and his wife to act Macbeth by themselves, and took the road to Sterling, where we spent our little fortune with great eclat.2 We are now returning to Edinburgh to get some
preferment3 in the acting way; and such, my dear cousin, is our history.'
I thanked the amiable youth for his entertaining narration, and after expressing my wishes for their welfare and happiness, left them in their little habitation and returned to my other friends who impatiently expected me.
My adventures are now drawing to a close, my dearest Marianne; at least for the present.
When we arrived at Edinburgh, Sir Edward told me that, as the widow of his son, he desired I would accept from his hands of four hundred a year. I graciously promised that I would, but could not help observing that the unsympathetic baronet offered it more on account of my being the widow of Edward than in being the refined and amiable Laura.
I took up my residence in a romantic village in the Highlands of Scotland, where I have ever since continued, and where I can, uninterrupted by unmeaning visits, indulge, in a melancholy solitude, my unceasing lamentations for the death of my father, my mother, my husband, and my friend.
Augusta has been for several years united to Graham, the man of all others most suited to her; she became acquainted with him during her stay in Scotland.
Sir Edward, in hopes of gaining an heir to his title and estate, at the same time married Lady Dorothea?. His wishes have been answered. Philander and Gustavus, after having raised their reputation by their per
1. The coat of arms painted on the side of a noble- success. man's or noblewoman's carriage. 3. Advancement. 2. French: literally, brilliant display; conspicuous
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PLAN OF A NOVEL / 535
formances in the theatrical line at Edinburgh, removed to Covent Garden, where they still exhibit under the assumed names of Lewis and Quick.'1 Philippa has long paid the debt of nature;5 her husband, however, still continues to drive the stage-coach from Edinburgh to Sterling:?
Adieu, my dearest Marianne. Laura
1790 1922
Plan of a Novel, According to Hints from Various Quarters1
Scene to be in the country, heroine the daughter of a clergyman, one who after having lived much in the world had retired from it, and settled in a curacy,2 with a very small fortune of his own.?He, the most excellent man that can be imagined, perfect in character, temper, and manners?without the smallest drawback or peculiarity to prevent his being the most delightful companion to his daughter from one year's end to the other.?Heroine a faultless character herself?, perfectly good, with much tenderness and sentiment, and not the least wit?very highly accomplished, understanding modern languages and (generally speaking) everything that the most accomplished young women learn, but particularly excelling in music?her favourite pursuit?and playing equally well on the piano forte and harp?and singing in the first stile. Her person, quite beautiful?dark eyes and plump cheeks.?Book to open with the description of father and daughter?who are to converse in long speeches, elegant language?and a tone of high, serious sentiment.?The father to be induced, at his daughter's earnest request, to relate to her the past events of his life. This narrative will reach through the greatest part of the first volume? as besides all the circumstances of his attachment to her mother and their marriage, it will comprehend his going to sea as chaplain to a distinguished naval character about the court, his going afterwards to court himself, which introduced him to a great variety of characters and involved him in many interesting situations, concluding with his opinion of the benefits to result from tythes being done away, and his having buried his own mother (heroine's lamented grandmother) in consequence of the high priest of the parish in which she died, refusing to pay her remains the respect due to them. The father to be of a very literary turn, an enthusiast in literature, nobody's enemy but his own3?at the same time most zealous in the discharge of his pastoral
4. William Thomas Lewis and John Quick were well-known actors of the late 18th century. Covent Garden: one of the two London theaters licensed by royal patent. 5. I.e., she has died. 1. 'Plan of a Novel. According to Hints from Various Quarters,' Austen's teasing account of the novel she would write if she took to heart the advice people gave her about what her fiction ought to be, is another manuscript preserved by her family. It was first published in her nephew James Austen-Leigh's Memoir of Jane Austen (1870). In the original manuscript, Austen supplied marginal glosses, mainly omitted here, indicating the source of each 'hint' the 'Plan' incorporates. Her would-be advisors included, in addition to the Reverend James Stanier Clarke (the librarian to the prince regent), neighbors; family members, most prominently her niece Fanny Knight, a parson, J. G. Sherer, who had been displeased, Austen reported, with her 'pictures of clergymen'; and William Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review as well as the advisor who had read Emma for the publisher John Murray.
2. I.e., settled in the position of curate, the assistant (often badly paid) to the incumbent priest of the parish. 3. For this summary of the clergyman's tale that will fill up her novel's projected first volume, Austen lifts a number of phrases directly from Clarke's letters. Clarke wished to see Austen address the benefits of the abolition of tithes (the taxes sup
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