Jane Austen rarely describes a man or woman as possessing qualities which are not justified by the evidence she offers. Almost the only notable exceptions are Mrs. Dashwood, of whom we are told that "a man could not very well be in love with either of her daughters, without extending the passion to her," but who does not herself give us any reason to regard her as other than an affectionate, well-meaning, and injudicious person, and Captain Wentworth, who is stated to have been witty, but who usually manages to restrain his wit when we happen to meet him.
The many parsons of the novels are at once too steady and too prosperous to be in accord with either of the types of eighteenth-century clergy most frequently conveyed by the literature of their period. They may not have done much for their parishioners beyond preaching to them once or twice a week, and sending them soup occasionally, but they set them good examples by conducting themselves decently and soberly. Of { 189} their "views" we know little. Indeed, few things are more remarkable in these novels, in the light of later fiction, than that almost complete absence of any reference to dogmatic religion to which attention has already been drawn. You may hunt through them all and hardly find two definite statements that, except to see what the vicar's bride was like, any of the characters went to church. We know that the parsons preached, but whether there was any one to hear their sermons we are usually left in doubt. In fact, as Dr. Whately puts it, the author's religion is "not at all obtrusive." His favourable view of Jane Austen's influence may be contrasted with Robert Hall's of Maria Edgeworth's: "In point of tendency I should class her books among the most irreligious I ever read.... She does not attack religion nor inveigh against it, but makes it appear unnecessary by exhibiting perfect virtue without it."
It has frequently been said that the atmosphere of Jane Austen's books is "Church of England," and this is in a sense true. She assumes that the squires of whom she writes are adherents of Church and State, much as a provincial { 190} clergyman wrote quite recently in his Parish Magazine: "It is generally taken for granted that Church is the only possible religion for an English gentleman." We meet with no Romish priests or Methodist preachers, not so much as a member of the Society of Friends, but, on the other hand, we meet with no one who talks against faith. It was a period when the Church itself had become apathetic, when pluralists abounded, and when many rectors lived comfortably on their great tithes, far from the parishes which they left to the care of curates who were often worse off than gamekeepers. A young man went into the Church, if there was a good living to be had, just as he went to the Bar if his uncle was a flourishing attorney, or into the navy if his friends had influence with the Board of Admiralty. Many parsons, if they were well-to-do and fond of society, did not even wear any distinctive dress. One meets vicars and curates to-day, in summer-time, wearing green ties and grey tweed suits, and even a bishop has been known to abandon his episcopal uniform when he was away on a holiday. But, to take an instance from the novels, Catherine Morland, who has met Henry { 191} Tilney at a dance in Bath, and meets him again at the Pump-room or elsewhere, does not know he is a clergyman until she is told. The Church was merely a profession for most of those who entered it. "Did Henry's income depend solely on his living," says General Tilney, "he would not be well provided for. Perhaps it may seem odd, that with only two younger children, I should think any profession necessary to him; and certainly there are moments when we could all wish him disengaged from every tie of business." The most conscientious clergyman in the Austen Comedy is Edmund Bertram, who really seems to have wished to do his duty, and thereby damaged his chance of marrying Mary Crawford.