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Sanditon and The Watsons
Austen's Unfinished Novels
Jane Austen
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Sanditon and The Watsons
Austen's Unfinished Novels
Jane Austen
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Praised by critics and studied by scholars, Jane Austen's novels endure because of their popularity with readers. The author's witty and astute observations elevate her tales of parties, gossip, and romance into matters of captivating drama, offering an evocative portrait of everyday life in the towns and countryside of Regency England. Austen's premature death at the age of forty-two curtailed her legacy, and her devotees have eagerly read and re-read her handful of books. This collection features two of her unfinished novels, an often overlooked pair of gems that enrich our appreciation of Austen’s storytelling gifts.
These writings first appeared posthumously, when Austen's nephew included the texts in an 1871 memoir of his celebrated relative. The Watsons unfolds in a familiar domestic milieu, in which a spirited heroine finds her marriage opportunities narrowed by poverty and pride. In contrast, Sanditon ventures into markedly different territory. Set at a seaside resort, among a cast of hypochondriacs and speculators, it suggests that Austen's work might have taken some unexpected new directions. Even if these incomplete stories had been of little intrinsic value, they would have been of interest as literary records and curiosities. As it happens, they are of high quality and worthy of reading for their own sake, for pleasure as well as study.
These writings first appeared posthumously, when Austen's nephew included the texts in an 1871 memoir of his celebrated relative. The Watsons unfolds in a familiar domestic milieu, in which a spirited heroine finds her marriage opportunities narrowed by poverty and pride. In contrast, Sanditon ventures into markedly different territory. Set at a seaside resort, among a cast of hypochondriacs and speculators, it suggests that Austen's work might have taken some unexpected new directions. Even if these incomplete stories had been of little intrinsic value, they would have been of interest as literary records and curiosities. As it happens, they are of high quality and worthy of reading for their own sake, for pleasure as well as study.
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Sanditon
CHAPTER 1
A GENTLEMAN & a lady travelling from Tunbridge towards that part of the Sussex coast which lies between Hastings & E. Bourne, being induced by business to quit the high road, & attempt a very rough lane, were overturned in toiling up its long ascent half rock, half sand.âThe accident happened just beyond the only gentlemanâs house near the laneâa house, which their driver, on being first required to take that direction, had conceived to be necessarily their object & had with most unwilling looks been constrained to pass byâ. He had grumbled and shaken his shoulders so much indeed, and pitied & cut his horses so sharply, that he might have been open to the suspicion of overturning them on purpose (especially as the carriage was not his masterâs own) if the road had not indisputably become considerably worse than before, as soon as the premises of the said house were left behindâexpressing with a most intelligent portentous countenance that beyond it no wheels but cart wheels could safely proceed. The severity of the fall was broken by their slow pace & the narrowness of the lane, & the gentleman having scrambled out & helped out his companion, they neither of them at first felt more than shaken & bruised. But the gentleman had in the course of the extrication sprained his footâ& soon becoming sensible of it, was obliged in a few moments to cut short, both his remonstrance to the driver & his congratulations to his wife & himselfâ& sit down on the bank, unable to stand.ââThere is something wrong here, said heâputting his hand to his ancleâBut never mind, my dearâ(looking up at her with a smile)âit cd not have happened, you know, in a better place.âGood out of evilâ. The very thing perhaps to be wished for. We shall soon get relief.âThere, I fancy, lies my cureââpointing to the neat-looking end of a cottage, which was seen romantically situated among wood on a high eminence at some little distanceââDoes not that promise to be the very place?ââHis wife fervently hoped it wasâbut stood, terrified & anxious, neither able to do or suggest anythingâ& receiving her first real comfort from the sight of several persons now coming to their assistance. The accident had been discerned from a hayfield adjoining the house they had passedâ& the persons who approached, were a well-looking, hale, gentlemanlike man of middle age, the proprietor of the place, who happened to be among his haymakers at the time, & three or four of the ablest of them summoned to attend their masterâto say nothing of all the rest of the field, men, women & childrenânot very far off.âMr Heywood, such was the name of the said proprietor, advanced with a very civil salutationâmuch concern for the accidentâsome surprise at any bodyâs attempting that road in a carriageâ& ready offers of assistance. His courtesies were received with good-breeding & gratitude & while one or two of the men lent their help to the driver in getting the carriage upright again, the travellor saidââYou are extremely obliging, sir, & I take you at your word.âThe injury to my leg is, I dare say, very trifling, but it is always best in these cases to have a surgeonâs opinion without loss of time; and as the road does not seem at present in a favourable state for my getting up to his house myself, I will thank you to send off one of these good people for the surgeon.â âThe surgeon, sir!âreplied Mr HeywoodâI am afraid you will find no surgeon at hand here, but I dare say we shall do very well without him.âââNay sir, if he is not in the way, his partner will do just as wellâor rather betterâ. I wd rather see his partner indeedâI would prefer the attendance of his partner.âOne of these good people can be with him in three minutes I am sure. I need not ask whether I see the house; (looking towards the cottage) for excepting your own, we have passed none in this place, which can be the abode of a gentleman.ââMr H. looked very much astonishedâ& repliedââWhat, sir! are you expecting to find a surgeon in that cottage?âWe have neither surgeon nor partner in the parish I assure you.âââExcuse me, sirâreplied the other. I am sorry to have the appearance of contradicting youâbut though from the extent of the parish or some other cause you may not be aware of the fact;âStayâCan I be mistaken in the place?âAm I not in Willingden?âIs not this Willingden?â âYes, sir, this is certainly Willingden.â âThen, sir, I can bring proof of your having a surgeon in the parishâwhether you may know it or not. Here, sirâ(taking out his pocket bookâ) if you will do me the favour of casting your eye over these advertisements, which I cut out myself from the Morning Post & the Kentish Gazette, only yesterday morng in LondonâI think you will be convinced that I am not speaking at random. You will find it an advertisement sir, of the dissolution of a partnership in the medical lineâin your own parishâextensive businessâundeniable characterârespectable referencesâwishing to form a separate establishmentâYou will find it at full length, sir,ââoffering him the two little oblong extracts.ââ Sir,âsaid Mr Heywood with a good humoured smileâif you were to shew me all the newspapers that are printed in one week throughout the kingdom, you wd not persuade me of there being a surgeon in Willingden,âfor having lived here ever since I was born, man & boy 57 years, I think I must have known of such a person, at least I may venture to say that he has not much businessâTo be sure, if gentlemen were to be often attempting this lane in post-chaises, it might not be a bad speculation for a surgeon to get a house at the top of the hill.âBut as to that cottage, I can assure you, sir that it is in factâ(in spite of its spruce air at this distanceâ) as indifferent a double tenement as any in the parish, and that my shepherd lives at one end, & three old women at the other.â He took the pieces of paper as he spokeâ& having looked them over, addedââI believe I can explain it, sir.âYour mistake is in the place.âThere are two Willingdens in this countryâ& your advertisements refer to the otherâwhich is Great Willingden, or Willingden Abbots, & lies 7 miles off, on the other side of Battelâquite down in the weald. And we sirâ(speaking rather proudly) are not in the weald.âââNot down in the weald, I am sure sir, replied the traveller, pleasantly. It took us half an hour to climb your hill.âWell sirâI dare say it is as you say, & I have made an abominably stupid blunder.âAll done in a moment;âthe advertisements did not catch my eye till the last half hour of our being in town;âwhen everything was in the hurry & confusion which always attend a short stay thereâOne is never able to complete anything in the way of business you know till the carriage is at the doorâand accordingly satisfying myself with a brief enquiry, & finding we were actually to pass within a mile or two of a Willingden, I sought no farther . . . My dearâ(to his wife) I am very sorry to have brought you into this scrape. But do not be alarmed about my leg. It gives me no pain while I am quiet,âand as soon as these good people have succeeded in setting the carge to rights & turning the horses round, the best thing we can do will be to measure back our steps into the turnpike road & proceed to Hailsham, & so home, without attempting anything farther.âTwo hours take us home, from HailshamâAnd when once at home, we have our remedy at hand you know.âA little of our own bracing sea air will soon set me on my feet again.âDepend upon it, my dear, it is exactly a case for the sea. Saline air & immersion will be the very thing.âMy sensations tell me so already.ââIn a most friendly manner Mr Heywood here interposed, entreating them not to think of proceeding till the ankle had been examined, & some refreshment taken, & very cordially pressing them to make use of his house for both purposes. ââWe are always well stocked, said he, with all the common remedies for sprains and bruisesâ& I will answer for the pleasure it will give my wife & daughters to be of service to you & this lady in every way in their power.ââA twinge or two, in trying to move his foot disposed the traveller to think rather more than he had done at first of the benefit of immediate assistanceâ& consulting his wife in the few words of âWell, my dear, I believe it will be better for us.ââturned again to Mr H & saidââBefore we accept your hospitality sir,â& in order to do away with any unfavourable impression which the sort of wild goose-chase you find me in, may have given rise toâallow me to tell you who we are. My name is Parker.âMr Parker of Sanditon; this lady, my wife Mrs Parker.âWe are on our road home from London;âMy name perhapsâthoâ I am by no means the first of my family, holding landed property in the parish of Sanditon, may be unknown at this distance from the coastâbut Sanditon itselfâeverybody has heard of Sanditon,âthe favouriteâfor a young & rising bathing-place, certainly the favourite spot of all that are to be found along the coast of Sussex;âthe most favoured by nature, & promising to be the most chosen by man.âââYesâI have heard of Sanditon. replied Mr H.âEvery five years, one hears of some new place or other starting up by the sea, & growing the fashion.âHow they can half of them be filled, is the wonder! Where people can be found with money or time to go to them!âBad things for a country;âsure to raise the price of provisions and make the poor good for nothingâas I dare say you find, sir.â âNot at all, sir, not at allâcried Mr Parker eagerly. Quite the contrary I assure you.âA common ideaâbut a mistaken one. It may apply to your large, overgrown places, like Brighton, or Worthing, or East Bourneâbut not to a small village like Sanditon, precluded by its size from experiencing any of the evils of civilization, while the growth of the place, the buildings, the nursery grounds, the demand for every thing, & the sure resort of the very best company, those regular, steady, private families of thorough gentility & character, who are a blessing everywhere, excite the industry of the poor and diffuse comfort & improvement among them of every sort.âNo sir, I assure you, Sanditon is not a placeâââ âI do not mean to take exceptions to any place in particular sir, answered Mr H.âI only think our coast is too full of them altogetherâBut had we not better try to get youââââOur coast too fullâ repeated Mr P.âOn that point perhaps we may not totally disagree; at least there are enough. Our coast is abundant enough; it demands no more.âEvery bodyâs taste & every bodyâs finances may be suitedâAnd those good people who are trying to add to the number, are in my opinion excessively absurd & must soon find themselves the dupes of their own fallacious calculations.âSuch a place as Sanditon, sir, I may say was wanted, was called for.âNature had marked it outâhad spoken in most intelligible charactersâThe finest, purest sea breeze on the coastâacknowledged to be soâexcellent bathingâfine hard sandâdeep water 10 yards from the shoreâno mudâno weedsâno slimey rocksâNever was there a place more palpably designed by nature for the resort of the invalidâthe very spot which thousands seemed in need of.âThe most desirable distance from London! One complete, measured mile nearer than East Bourne. Only conceive, sir, the advantage of saving a whole mile, in a long journey. But Brinshore, sir, which I dare say you have in your eyeâthe attempts of two or three speculating people about Brinshore, this last year, to raise that paltry hamlet, lying, as it does between a stagnant marsh, a bleak moor & the constant effluvia of a ridge of putrefying sea weed, can end in nothing but their own disappointment. What in the name of common sense is to recommend Brinshore?âA most insalubrious airâroads proverbially detestableâwater brackish beyond example, impossible to get a good dish of tea within 3 miles of the placeâ& as for the soilâit is so cold & ungrateful that it can hardly be made to yield a cabbage.âDepend upon it, sir, that this is a faithful description of Brinshoreânot in the smallest degree exaggeratedâ& if you have heard it differently spoken ofâââ âSir, I never heard it spoken of in my life before, said Mr Heywood. I did not know there was such a place in the world.â âYou did not!âThere, my dear,â(turning with exultation to his wife)âyou see how it is. So much for the celebrity of Brinshore!âThis gentleman did not know there was such a place in the world.âWhy, in truth, sir, I fancy we may apply to Brinshore, that line of the poet Cowper in his description of the religious cottager, as opposed to VoltaireââShe, never heard of half a mile from home.âââWith all my heart, sirâapply any verses you like to itâBut I want to see something applied to your legâ& I am sure by your ladyâs countenance that she is quite of my opinion & thinks it a pity to lose any more timeâAnd here come my girls to speak for themselves & their mother. (two or three genteel looking young women followed by as many maid servants, were now seen issueing from the house)âI began to wonder the bustle should not have reached them.âA thing of this kind soon makes a stir in a lonely place like ours.âNow, sir, let us see how you can be best conveyed into the house.ââThe young ladies approached & said every thing that was proper to recommend their fatherâs offers; & in an unaffected manner calculated to make the strangers easyâAnd as Mrs Pâwas exceedingly anxious for reliefâand her husband by this time, not much less disposed for itâa very few civil scruples were enoughâespecially as the carriage being now set up, was discovered to have received such injury on the fallen side as to be unfit for present use.âMr Parker was therefore carried into the house, and his carriage wheeled off to a vacant barn.â
CHAPTER 2
THE acquaintance, thus oddly begun, was neither short nor unimportant. For a whole fortnight the travellers were fixed at Willingden; Mr P.âs sprain proving too serious for him to move sooner.âHe had fallen into very good hands. The Heywoods were a thoroughly respectable family, & every possible attention was paid in the kindest & most unpretending manner, to both husband & wife. He was waited on & nursed, & she cheered & comforted with unremitting kindnessâand as every office of hospitality & friendliness was received as it oughtâas there was not more good will on one side than gratitude on the otherânor any deficiency of generally pleasant manners on either, they grew to like each other in the course of that fortnight, exceedingly well.âMr Parkerâs character & history were soon unfolded. All that he understood of himself, he readily told, for he was very openhearted;â& where he might be himself in the dark, his conversation was still giving information, to such of the Heywoods as could observe.âBy such he was perceived to be an enthusiast;âon the subject of Sanditon, a complete enthusiast. âSanditon,âthe success of Sanditon as a small, fashionable bathing place was the object, for which he seemed to live. A very few years ago, & it had been a quiet village of no pretensions; but some natural advantages in its position & some accidental circumstances having suggested to himself, & the other principal land holder, the probability of its becoming a profitable speculation, they had engaged in it, & planned & built, & praised & puffed, & raised it to something of young renownâand Mr Parker could now think of very little besides.âThe facts, which in more direct communication, he laid before them were that he was about 5 & 30âhad been married,âvery happily married 7 yearsâ& had 4 sweet children at home;âthat he was of a respectable family, & easy though not large fortune;âno professionâsucceeding as eldest son to the property which 2 or 3 generations had been holding & accumulating before him;âthat he had 2 brothers and 2 sistersâall single & all independentâthe eldest of the two former indeed, by collateral inheritance, quite as well provided for as himself.âHis object in quitting the high road, to hunt for an advertising surgeon, was also plainly stated;âit had not proceeded from any intention of spraining his ankle or doing himself any other injury for the good of such surgeonânor (as Mr H. had been apt to suppose) from any design of entering into partnership with himâ; it was merely in consequence of a wish to establish some medical man at Sanditon, which the nature of the advertisement induced him to expect to accomplish in Willingden.âHe was convinced that the advantage of a medical man at hand wd very materially promote the rise & prosperity of the placeâwd in fact tend to bring a prodigious influx;ânothing else was wanting. He had strong reason to believe that one family had been deterred last year from trying Sanditon on that accountâ& probably very many moreâand his own sisters who were sad invalids, & whom he was very anxious to get to Sanditon this summer, could hardly be expected to hazard themselves in a place where they could not have immediate medical advice.âUpon the whole, Mr P. was evidently an amiable, family-man, fond of wife, childn, brothers & sistersâ& generally kind-hearted;âliberal, gentlemanlike, easy to please;âof a sanguine turn of mind, with more imagination than judgement. And Mrs P. was as evidently a gentle, amiable, sweet tempered woman, the properest wife in the world for a man of strong understanding, but not of a capacity to supply the cooler reflection which her own husband sometimes needed, & so entirely waiting to be guided on every occasion, that whether he were risking his fortune or spraining his ankle, she remained equally useless.âSanditon was a second wife & 4 children to himâhardly less dearâ& certainly more engrossing.âHe could talk of it for ever.âIt had indeed the highest claims;ânot only those of birthplace, property, and home,âit was his mine, his lottery, his speculation & his hobby horse; his occupation his hope & his futurity.âHe was extremely desirous of drawing his good friends at Willingden thither; and his endeavours in the cause, were as grateful & disinterested, as they were warm.âHe wanted to secure the promise of a visitâto get as many of the family as his own house wd contain, to follow him to Sanditon as soon as possibleâand, healthy as they all undeniably wereâforesaw that every one of them wd be benefited by the sea.âHe held it indeed as certain, that no person cd be really well, no person, (however upheld for the present by fortuitous aids of exercise & spirits in a semblance of health) could be really in a state of secure & permanent health without spending at least 6 weeks by the sea every year.âThe sea air & sea bathing together were nearly infallible, one or the other of them being a match for every disorder, of the stomach, the lungs or the blood; they were anti-spasmodic, anti-pulmonary, anti-septic, anti-billious & anti-rheumatic. Nobody could catch cold by the sea, nobody wanted appetite by the sea, nobody wanted spirits, nobody wanted strength.âThey were healing, softening, relaxingâfortifying & bracingâseemingly just as was wantedâsometimes one, sometimes the other.âIf the sea breeze failed, the sea-bath was the certain corrective;â& where bathing disagreed, the sea breeze alone was evidently designed by nature for the cure. His eloquence, however could not prevail. Mr & Mrs Hânever left home. Marrying early & having a very numerous family, their movements had been long limited to one small circle; & they were older in habits than in age.âExcepting two journeys to London in the year, to receive his dividends, Mr H. went no farther than his feet or his well-tried old horse could carry him, and Mrs Heywoodâs adventur-ings were only now & then to visit he...