1.
We live in a time and place that is unusually charitable,
tolerant, egalitarian, and free. We rightly pride ourselves in these virtues.
But at the same time, our society is unusually materialistic, undisciplined,
disrespectful, and irreligious. And since these sins are committed so
flagrantly and universally, and are often mistaken for our virtues, we have
become blind to them. It's like being in a noisy classroom all day. You begin
to think that all happy children are this noisy, and that other classrooms are
too boring to stand. Not until you've actually experienced a quiet, happy
classroom do you come to realize what you're missing, what is possible.
This is what reading Jane Austen does for me. It's a way to
lose myself in a different way of being, one that is quieter, more respectful,
more disciplined, and ultimately more spiritual. I would not argue that the
English aristocracy of the early 1800's comprised the perfect society, or
anything close to the perfect society. It had many flaws, as all actual
societies do. But its flaws were distinct from ours. And when you have a writer
like Jane Austen who so clearly understands her own society and its flaws, by
contrast with earlier societies that she has read about, can paint such a vivid
picture of what hers was like, and thus allow us to finally see our own from a
clear perspective, what you have is a window into a place that is only a step
away from that perfect society, a place of eternal verity that can exist only
in the imagination, where all these images can be brought synoptically
together.
Austen's work stands, I will argue, as a testament to how
mere fiction can touch on immortal truth.
2.
Jane Austen published four novels in her lifetime: Sense
and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. I would
class all four of these as classics, and I believe I could make my point
discussing any one of them. Recently I've finished reading Mansfield Park,
which is probably the most serious of the four, in the sense that it deals with
the most serious problems, and even has some tragedy at the end.
Don't be alarmed. It's still, for the most part, a happy
ending. There is nothing wrong with tragic endings, but I would say that Jane
Austen's style tends more toward comedy, and this is what we've come to expect
from her. We expect her characters to be flawed, and amusingly so, yet to
somehow find their way to a better place.
Now Jane Austen is commonly mistaken for a Victorian writer.
As a matter of fact, she died two decades before Victoria was even crowned. And
I've heard it claimed that, though popular in her lifetime, Austen's work
wasn't tragic or dramatic enough for the Victorians, and that her writings were
neglected for half a century for that reason. There is something very plausible
about this, especially if you've ever read the Victorians' favorite
philosopher, Thomas Carlyle, who was constantly lamenting how quiet, weak, and
cowardly their age had become. The Victorians didn't believe that Jane Austen
was the medicine they needed, and maybe they were right.
It's tempting to apply similar logic to our own age, and
argue that we too have become too squeamish and need something more potent than
Austen to wake us from our apathetic torpor.
Jane Austen, you might say, is the last thing we need. But I would argue
otherwise. In physical terms, yes, we are weak, quiet, and lazy. We spend too
much time indoors and with our entertainment. And like 19th-century English
society we do indeed need a medicine of courage and adventure like you get from
Homer or Plutarch. In spiritual terms, however, we've diverged from
19th-century England. In place of the hot-headed Thomas Carlyle we've enthroned
the complacent utilitarianism of Peter Singer. In place of Alfred Lord
Tennyson's warlike King Arthur we prefer Vladamir Nabokov's pedophilic Humbert
Humbert. We call James Joyce the greatest writer who ever lived, when his most
famous narrative dwelt solely in the boring mind of a dull protagonist, and we
forget to put J.R.R. Tolkien on our lists of great literature at all, whose Lord of the Rings is infinitely more alive with the spirit of Homer than
Joyce's Ulysses, and who I'm sure the Victorians would have adored. But we
don't think much of Homer anymore and we hate the Old Testament. We've lost
the ability to see anything heroic in the Middle Ages.
Our spiritual torpor is much more serious than our physical
torpor. It's really a compounding of the
disease, a numbness. It started in our limbs and is working its way toward our
heart. At this point it will do little good to repair our limbs, because
without the heart the rest of the body dies. And Jane Austen is medicine for
the heart.
3.
It's fashionable to say that the BBC's Jane Austen is never
the real Jane Austen. But I disagree. Yes, you will get a lot more out of the
books, but the BBC's adaptations, at least the mini-series, are faithful enough
that it will still do you good to watch them.
As for film adaptations of Austen's work, I think these do
usually miss the mark. Most of the story has to be cut out, which means more
interpretation must be done, and this interpretation can't help but be more
modern. Add to this the commercial factor, that movies are more expensive to
make and thus often pander to the "market" and what is popular, and
it's a surprise that that they are ever as good as they sometimes are.
The 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park is especially
bad. The movie's poster is like a quieter, earthy-tone version of that for
Amelie, as if Fanny Price were another quirky introverted protagonist desperate
for a way to break out and let the world know just how quirky she is. This is
the exact opposite of the what the novel is about, and unfortunately the movie
is, on the whole, more faithful to the poster. And where it isn't faithful at
least to this vision, it is even worse.
The reason I want to compare the novel and this bad adaption
of it, is to give us a clearer picture of just where we are most prone to
misunderstand Austen, which is, for this very reason, the place we have most to
learn from her. (In case you're concerned about spoilers, I won't give away any
major plot points that occur past the midpoint of the novel.)
Mansfield Park is not about a shy girl learning to show
her spunk. It's quite the reverse. It's about a virtuous girl who resists every
possible effort the world makes to get her to "come out." This is the
term the character Mary Crawford uses. And there is a running debate in the
book whether "coming out" is a good thing for a young woman to do. By
the end of the story, Jane Austen has made it very clear where she stands on
the question, and to make this very clear is the whole reason she wrote the
novel.
It might be that Mansfield Park fails to clearly
illustrate its point, at least for the modern reader. Since many movies like
the 1999 one exist, evidently it has. But I would not fault Jane Austen for
this. I don't doubt that, for her 19th century audience, her meaning was very
plain. And I have met several other modern readers who understood it well the
first time. But that so many film critics, including Roger Ebert, gave the movie
glowing reviews and called it faithful to Austen, it is clear that there is a
problem. I want to argue that for many of us there are some powerful
ideological obstacles to understanding Austen properly.
Mansfield Park is an interesting case, because Jane
Austen's difficulties in expressing herself to a modern audience are exactly
Fanny Price's difficulties in expressing herself to the increasingly spunky
world she finds herself in. All the ways in which her friends and family
misinterpret her words, her actions, and her silence, are the same as the ways
that we tend to misinterpret them. And the main reason that Jane Austen's
contemporaries understood her and we do not, is that many of the flaws she
portrays in her antagonists, indicating that they are antagonists, we no
longer recognize as flaws. But after a sufficiently careful and thoughtful read
to the end of the novel, I think a modern reader can understand, thanks to Jane
Austen's careful realism, why these flaws--materialism, disrespect, lack of
discipline, lack of religion--are in fact evils.
4.
In defense of Fanny Price's spunkiness in the movie, Ebert
writes, "We are so accustomed to the notion of Austen's wit and perception
that we lose sight of the fact that for her to write at all was a radical break
with the role society assigned her."
Nonsense. By the age of 11 Jane Austen had starting writing
and sharing her work with her family and friends. During adolescence she wrote
stories, plays, poetry, and fragments of essays. Her father supplied her with
writing materials and it was usual for her to read or perform her pieces before
a private group. Many of her works were very satirical. She was given glowing
praise for many of her youthful writings; they were well loved by her close
relations, and have even been preserved to this day. (Google "Jane
Austen's juvenilia.") By the age of 18 she had seriously begun writing
novels.
For a woman to write novels was nowhere near unheard of.
Both Frances Burney and Maria Edgeworth were famous female novelists at the
time. I find it hard to imagine that Jane Austen, who had received so much
encouragement for so many years, had any difficulty in choosing to write.
Ebert concluded his review, "Anyone who thinks it is
not faithful to Austen doesn't know the author but only her plots."
I beg to differ, sir. Calling the 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park faithful to the novel is to understand neither the author nor
her plots.
So let us finally turn from the author and consider her
plots.
When the novel begins, the wealthy Sir Thomas and Lady
Bertram of Mansfield charitably (if somewhat arrogantly) offer to take in their
niece, Fanny Price. Lady Bertram's sister is very poor and has many children,
and agrees to this arrangement because it will give her some financial relief.
So the ten-year-old Fanny Price, homesick, painfully shy, and a little
frightened of her rich, imposing relatives, must get used to her new home. And
the picture that is painted of the rich family there, her aunt, uncle, and four
cousins, is not entirely flattering. The father is strict, but distant and
cold. The mother is nice but lazy and unread, doting on her pug. The two
daughters have been spoiled and are flighty and arrogant. They are cruel to
Fanny and treat her as a lesser being. The oldest of the four children, a son
just reaching adulthood, is already starting to lead a life of drinking and
gambling. The only one of them that is generally humble, kind, intelligent, and
disciplined is the younger son, Edmund. He takes Fanny under his wing and helps
educate her, which means introducing her to both ancient and modern classics,
which she reads and loves discussing with him. Edmund wants to become a priest,
and not just for the money, but because he loves learning about virtue and
teaching it to others.
Edmund's religiousness aside, this is, commercially, the
best opening for a movie you could ask for. Modern audiences love seeing how
arrogant rich people are, especially arrogant rich people with traditional
values. Fanny's cold, stern uncle is the perfect fatherly villain, great for
rebelling against and showing spunk to. The modern imagination will just go to
town on a rich, stupid, lazy woman who loves her pug, or on two spoiled rich
girls who don't like books. Add to it a hero that puts a book in your oppressed
heroine's hand and you have pure Oscar-worthy gold. It really is too bad, in
terms of the bottom line of Miramax Films, that the rest of the story only
lends itself to a rather clumsy, slipshod adaptation that so lacked punch they
had to add in a whole ugly subplot about slavery that in the end didn't quite
give their audiences that warm glow they had probably hoped for from Jane's
latest adaptation. (If you're curious about Jane Austen's attitude toward
slavery, this is a pretty good analysis.)
But lets come back to the point. The weakness of the way the
film introduces all these characters is that it is actually much more black and
white than the novel. Sir Thomas is a great example. In the novel he's a
well-meaning father. His strictness is not the problem; his coldness is. This
is a subtle thing to portray, but Austen pulls it off beautifully. You don't
end the novel hating him, the way you do the movie. Instead, you see him
growing and learning to show more warmth toward his family. There is never an
instance when he tries to impose a rule that Fanny disagrees with and must
rebel against. Rather, it is his failure to reach his flighty daughters and son
that causes much of the conflict of the story. And where his distant sternness
fails, Fanny's warm quietness often succeeds.
The novel is not, to put more it bluntly, a critique of the
authority of fathers. On the contrary, it shows what happens when fathers fail
in their duty. It's because Sir Thomas failed that his daughters have become
spoiled. And the fault is not only his, but his lazy, inattentive wife's. The
novel is not about setting children free, but about disciplining them properly.
When Edmund finally comes to Fanny and introduces her to
books, the point isn't that now she can now make a "radical break with the
role society has assigned to her." The point is to educate her in virtue
and introduce her to society, a job that her uncle and aunt, in their
arrogance, are failing to do.
And all of this sets up the rest of Jane Austen's novel very
nicely. It's a tightly woven tale, and every strand has the fineness and
strength of silk. No character is neglected. Every one is consistent in their
virtues, and suffers realistic consequences of their flaws. The father and
mother are flawed disciplinarians, and as you would expect, they have mixed
results in educating their children. And what is brilliant about the story as
it unfolds is its elegant detailing of the logical evolution of each child's
life as they pass into adulthood.
But none of this is clear from the movie because all it
conveys is what your typically modern eye likes to see: rich, tradition-minded
people being stupid and oppressive.
It's not that rich people don't sometimes oppress in the
novel. As a matter of fact, the evils of greed are one of Jane Austen's major
themes, not only in this novel, but in the rest. But she is also very careful
to argue that wealth is not in itself evil. Many of her wealthiest characters
are also some of her most virtuous. What is dangerous is not wealth, but an
overpowering love of wealth.
5.
Let's turn to the second quarter of the novel. It is here
that Mary Crawford and her brother Henry come into their own as antagonists,
taking full advantage of all the Bertrams' weaknesses we've just learned about.
The main event of this part is the play put on by most of
the young, unmarried adults at Mansfield Park: the siblings Maria, Julia, and
Tom Bertram; their two friends, the brother and sister Henry and Mary Crawford;
Maria's fiance, Mr. Rushworth; and the visiting actor whose idea it was, Mr.
Yates.
The movie has already stumbled in introducing all these
characters, failing to establish that they are anything more interesting than
rich and spoiled. And it is here, during the debate over whether they should even
put on a play while the master, Sir Bertram, is out of the house, that the film
simply falls flat on its face. It never recovers.
In the book, there is a prolonged and lively debate over the
propriety of putting on a play. Much is revealed about each character's sense
of morality, especially when it comes to Fanny, Edmund (the good son who
befriended and educated Fanny), and Tom (the wayward older son). It is made
very clear through Jane Austen's mouthpieces, Edmund and Fanny, the reasons
why it is a bad idea for them to put on a play. And these reasons should
fascinate us moderns, for whom putting on a play is generally considered a very
proper and edifying thing to do.
The reasons a play is a bad idea are this: (1) acting is an
immodest profession, so is not a proper pastime for adult unmarried people of
their social standing, (2) it would be taking liberties that their father, now
absent, would probably disapprove of, and (3) since Maria and Mr. Rushworth are
engaged, any romantic plotlines could cause confused feelings, and it would be
hard to get around this because discussing the matter around the newly engaged
couple would be indelicate.
In spelling these objections out, I've put a few words in
Jane Austen's mouth. The reason for this is that Edmund hardly needs to explain
any of them to Tom. He can merely mention them and Tom knows what he's talking
about. That's because Jane Austen's contemporary readers were familiar with all
the usual objections to the theater. Actors and actresses were flirtatious on
stage, they often had to deliver bold, impudent lines. Someone had to play the
villain, and portray attitudes that are evil. At a time in European history when
entertainment was not seen as for its own sake but solely as a source of
edification, all of these things were important considerations. Above all, a
play should educate the morals of its audience. Plays which did not were
considered dangerous to the moral fabric of society.
Today, we have almost forgotten that people once thought
this way. People who express these opinions are either laughed at or
dismissed as critics of free speech. Today we consider any hindrance to
freedom of expression as a form of totalitarianism.
And this is exactly how the issue is dealt with in the
movie. Nothing at all is mentioned about the delicacy of the fact that Maria
and Mr. Rushworth are engaged. Nothing is mentioned about the immodesty of
acting. In the movie, the only argument that Edmund brings to bear against
Tom's plan to stage a play is that "father would disapprove." And
Edmund delivers this line pale-faced and looking a little scared, as if their
father might come home and beat them senseless for it any minute. All Tom has
to say in the movie is, "Manage your own concerns Edmund, and let me take
care of the rest of the family." He does nothing but pull the Patriarchy
card himself, in a desperate attempt to make him less sympathetic to the
viewers. Poor Edmund just scampers off with his tail between his legs to confess
his fears to Fanny. To sum up, the movie sets up little more than a conflict
between a Patriarch and ... well Edmund's cowardice. When I watched the movie
(which was before reading the book) I hardly noticed the conflict at all, and
went away surprised--since I knew 19th-century attitudes toward the
theater--that Austen wrote a novel where everyone just put on a stage play for
fun.
This whole part of the story makes infinitely more sense in
the book. When the idea of putting on a play is brought up, the two immature
Bertram sisters become eager and insistent. They are hard to reason with
because they lack refinement, and too easily give in to their own whims and
passions. The Crawford siblings, Henry and Mary, have been corrupted by their
womanizing father and their time in London ("the city"), so are also
quick to give in to their fascination with acting. Mr. Rushworth, it turns out,
is not very intelligent, and simply follows the crowd. And in the novel it is
Tom that is the coward, not Edmund. Though Tom is intelligent enough to
understand the objections, and has the capacity for self-control, he lacks the
courage needed to stand up to his friends. He does what he can to trivialize
the matter "We mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves, just
to vary the scene." He weakness is that he's become a socialite, and as
someone who has a weakness for drinking and gambling, this is no surprise. In
the first discussion between Edmund and Tom, it is Edmund that has the last
word and Tom that impatiently retreats to join his friends. There is nothing
frightened about Edmund, only concerned: "Edmund was left to sit down and
stir the fire in thoughtful vexation." It is, as in the movie, a problem
that he is the younger brother and lacks authority to put a halt to it, but it
is not the only problem here. It is no mere issue of "Don't tell
Dad," but rather of what the consequences will be for Maria, her new
engagement, and the other impressionable young people.
What happens next in the novel is exquisite to read. Eventually
we will see Edmund weaken and finally give in, and Fanny come to the foreground
as the last remaining hero. She courageously sticks to her principles while
every other character in the book gives in to the crowd.
Here's how it happens. Though Edmund and Fanny are initially
sitting out because of their principled objections, poor Edmund is put in a
bind by the intrigues of the group. To begin with, their selfish inability to
agree on what play to choose lands them with probably the most controversial
choice they could have made, a play called "Lovers' Vows," which
deals with sex outside marriage and illegitimate birth. But things are further
complicated by everyone's selfish desire to be a lead actor. Maria ends up
playing not opposite of her fiance Mr. Rushworth (who is too stupid for the
lead role), but opposite of the seductive Henry Crawford, who was supposed to
be wooing her younger sister Julia.
We've learned that Henry likes to make young women fall in love with him
for sport. But at the same time he makes 4,000 pounds a year, and the somewhat
materialistic Bertrams have been encouraging his attentions to their daughters
for some time. This is already an explosive situation, and is troubling the
sleep of both Fanny and Edmund, as Edmund tries every possible means to stop
the production, and Fanny puts up every possible defense against being
recruited into the play. (Not wanting to criticize their morals openly, she is
forced to insist, "I can't act.") Then they run into a situation
where they need one more male actor, someone to play opposite of Mary Crawford.
Edmund initially refuses. At this point Mary slyly suggests they find a
neighbor willing to take the part. Finally, not wanting to make the production
public in this way, Edmund agrees to take the part.
Fanny is (internally) shocked, as she should be. Here is the
one person she admires, Edmund, the only one who, through the entire story, has
been standing up for principles, and he's suddenly flip-flopped. He tries to
explain that he has no choice, that the play will become public otherwise.
Fanny correctly stands by the position that this is inconsistent, that he
cannot let their intrigues pull him in, that he must stay aloof. Edmund does
what he can to get Fanny's blessing -- it's clear that he respects her opinion
more than anyone else's -- but she (heroically, I would say, since she's
falling in love with him) refuses to condone his choice, and he is left doing
what he can to rationalize his choice to himself and the others. Even after
Edmund has joined the production, and they continue to press Fanny to be a part
of it, she sticks to her guns and refuses to act. She only goes as far as to
help them with some lines, largely because the production is taking up the
entire house and she can't help being within earshot.
But how is Edmund's weakness explained? We already know that
he is falling in love with Mary Crawford, and these feelings cloud his
judgment more and more as the novel proceeds. She often expresses
anti-religious and mercenary sentiments (for example asking him why he wants to
become a priest, and not do something more lucrative), but he excuses her
transgressions to himself and others, believing he can, over time, educate her
himself.
Speaking of Mary Crawford, she is cast all wrong in the
movie. She doesn't come across as young or innocent enough. She is played by
sexy middle-aged woman with a daring, alluring stare. As she seeks someone to
act opposite her she stands boldly at the head of the room and declares: "What
gentleman among you am I to have the pleasure of making love to?" They all
turn their heads and gulp, their eyes saying "Pick me!"
Yes, Mary Crawford has dark eyes in the novel. Yes, she has
a seductive charm, and an urbane manner. And in fact, she does deliver this
line, if a little more by-the-by. (Of course, the term "make love"
was just another term for "woo" back then.) But she should not seem
so frank about being around the block a few times. It is completely
implausible that a would-be clergyman would try to educate an older woman who
is so blatantly worldly-wise.
What makes Mary work in the book is that she is young and
impressionable. She brings her London ways to the country naively, not
deliberately. At least this is what Edmund must think. In terms of modern
tropes, she's the sweet girl with a dark side. When Fanny realizes that Mary's
the one responsible for Edmund taking a part in the play, she's alone in her
insight, with no way to explain it to anyone without betraying her friendship
to either of them. In the movie, Mary Crawford is plain as day: she's pure evil.
It's modern entertainment that tends to be black and white.
The entire plotline I've explained above takes three very
short scenes in the movie, almost devoid of content. The first is the empty
discussion I described between Edmund and Tom. "Father wouldn't like
it," is all it amounts to. The second is the five second one where Mary
Crawford audaciously asks the crowd of young men who's going to "make
love" to her.
The third is ... bizarre. Edmund is up in Fanny's room
saying he's worried that they're going to make their play public by going to
the neighbors for a man to play opposite of Mary. Fanny just quietly stares at
him as if all this is above her head. Enter Mary. She asks Fanny to practice
some lines with her in front of Edmund and Fanny only manages to murmur two
objections: (1) "To be truthful I have a dread of audiences," and (2,
with an opaque smile) "Oh, no, no."
So Fanny's principled stand become a demure, silent shyness.
And then of course Mary and Fanny practice the lines
together, and as these are supposed to be lines between lovers, you may infer
where modern cinema might go with it. And it does. And this is the argument
that convinces Edmund to join, though I believe he does mumble something about
not wanting the neighbors to know about it. It's absurd.
It's here, as I said, that the movie falls flat on its face.
There is no anticipation of any harm the play may cause, aside from angering
Dear Old Dad. And that's what the rest of the story is supposed to be about,
all the long-term problems that the imprudence of these undisciplined young
people causes. I promised no spoilers, so I'm not going to go into what they
specifically are, but the play has major negative repercussions in the lives of
every one of the young people that takes part it in.
Jane Austen may be accused of a lack of realism here, but I
would argue that it's more a lack a probability than plausibility. That acting
can have these sorts of long-term effects on your life is well-known. I am sure
you can name several famous actors and actresses who have married their lead
partners in a movie, even ones who obtained a divorce to do it. I don't think
anything that follows in the novel is implausible. Maybe certain probabilities
have been exaggerated. But the point stands: entertainment is not merely
entertainment. It affects how we see the world; it affects our values; it
affects our relationships; it affects how our children's minds are formed. And
most of us moderns, it seems, are blind to this. It is no surprise that Hollywood
would miss this point entirely, even adapting a well-crafted novel dedicated to
elaborating on it. We've entirely forgotten the principle that fun is learning,
that entertainment is education, as the young people at Mansfield Park did
when they put on the play, and this has been part of the cultural cycle of
decline of American culture for more than a century. It's something we would do
well to remember again. Maybe we need a Sir Bertram to come home and tell us
that enough is enough. Or maybe we've reached the same point that they did in
the novel before he finally did return: the point where his cold strictness
would do us more harm.
No, it is not another Sir Bertram that is needed now. What is
needed is for us to finally kick out Mary Crawford and start listening to the
shy advice of the poor, modest Fanny Price.
6.
The immortal question Jane Austen touches on here is the
question of education. How does one preserve a culture? More importantly, how
does one raise children who choose good and not evil? These questions have been
puzzled over by philosophers no less capable than Plato, who himself presented
a picture in the Republic of a society where all entertainment was strictly
regulated to ensure that no moral decay could occur. Of course, this picture
was unrealistic, and Plato knew it was. He meant it as a picture of what the
perfect education would look like, a formal definition of what the essence of
education is. In reality, as he admitted, souls are diverse and they are
supposed to be diverse, and to shape each one in an identical, unvarying mould,
would be tyranny of the most radical kind.
In our imperfect world we need love and understanding. The
root cause of all the strife portrayed in Mansfield Park was the arrogance of
the two parents, Sir and Lady Bertram. On the father's side there was too much
distance and authority, and not enough love. He wasn't the foaming, irredeemable
tyrant he was in the movie, but more of the capable yet distant father. He just
needed to spend more time with his children and develop real relationships with
them, so that he could be a part of their amusements and make them edifying
without making them dull. On the mother's side there was simply too much sloth:
she lacked education herself.
And it is to the parents that the story ultimately returns,
and the climax occurs when they see the consequences of their failure to
educate.
To educate, they finally realize (and it doesn't give away
too much to reveal this), means to instill self-control. As Sir Bertram grieves
at the end, "They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but
never required to bring it into daily practice. To be distinguished for
elegance and accomplishments, the authorised object of their youth, could have
no useful influence that way, no moral effect on the mind. He had meant them to
be good, but his cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not
the disposition; and of the necessity of self-denial and humility, he feared
they had never heard from any lips that could profit them."
Self-denial and humility. Here we have the main lessons of
the entire book, the unshakable virtues of Fanny Price herself, the very things lacking in those characters who fall. These are the first lessons of every
perennial philosophy, every flourishing religion. Jane Austen wrote this book
to help show why they are so important.
We live in an age of unbridled entertainment. And
entertainment for entertainment's sake is the opposite of self-denial. It is
the vanity of doing what you like for no reason at all. It is a blindness to
reason, a blindness to principle. Every principle must contradict some selfish
desire--whether money, fun, or sensuality--or it is not a principle. Every
principle requires self-denial. Thus self-denial, the forgoing of entertainment
for its own sake, is the most important lesson of every education.
Fiction unbridled, fiction without principle, as it tends to
be in modern times, is fiction that from truth immortal wanders blind. But
fiction of self-denial, fiction with principle, as you find in Jane Austen, is
fiction that may glimpse truth immortal.
And may sometimes truth immortal touch.