麻豆社

Earlier this year we had the privilege of hosting in our Georgian house a candlelit one-woman performance of a play about the life of Jane Austen, complied by Cambridge director Stephen Siddall. Like a new biography out on Thursday, this show is also called Jane Austen at Home. As we drank tea, so precious and expensive at Jane鈥檚 own table; ate refreshments, inspired by two books both coincidentally called Tea with Jane Austen; listened to harp and early piano music played by a young girl, such as Jane herself might have enjoyed; and in particular laughed delightedly at jokes she penned as a child and young woman, it was impossible not to wonder what this insignificant girl 鈥� and particularly her bemused family and friends 鈥� would have made of such an occasion. Let alone of a fan base stretching around the world.

A life without incident: so Miss Austen鈥檚 was described on this programme yesterday. How did she craft such lastingly popular stories out of an illegitimate daughter of nobody, Harriet Smith; that unregarded old maid, Miss Bates; the timid and marginalised poor relation, Fanny Price? Famously, Jane never travelled to other lands. Nor dwelt on the Napoleonic wars changing the face of Europe. Nor profoundly pondered the politics and people ruling her country. Nor even attempted significant scenes between men (who made all important decisions) without women present. And yet, as my literary agent heard some years ago across the Pond, Jane Austen is apparently the new Shakespeare.
Who was Shakespeare, anyway? An itinerant player, whose father was disgraced as a shady dealer and probable tax fraud, so William couldn鈥檛 complete his education but had to leave school with 鈥渓ittle Latin and less Greek.鈥� Who died before even close friends considered his plays worth collecting and publishing.

In CS Lewis鈥檚 book The Great Divorce, the narrator sees a highly honoured lady in Heaven of almost unbearable beauty. Who was this important personage? 鈥淪omeone ye鈥檒l never have heard of. Sarah Smith of Golder鈥檚 Green.鈥� The guide continues, 鈥淥ne of the great ones... A thousand liveried angels lackey her.鈥� Why? Because her kindness touched everyone she ever met. She is even revered and followed by the animals: 鈥淓very beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love.鈥�

Who knows, when you throw a stone into a pool, where the waves will end?
The prose poem, One Solitary Life, written in 1926, describes the protagonist, a first century Jew, who never wrote a book, held office, enjoyed formal education, visited a large city, travelled far or even lived long. Never fought a battle or governed a country. And yet all the armies, navies, parliaments, kings and rulers of the world put together have not had the influence in history of this one solitary life.
A life not long enough even for the midlife crisis which hits many of us when it dawns that we haven鈥檛 realised our dreams, achieved our goals or had the success we once hoped for. A disappointment even to ourselves.
But how can we possibly know what influence we might yet have?

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