Jane Austen and the sin of pride

Murdoch reminds me of Austen yet again when she considers the possibility of M's "reluctance to think of (her son) as unfortunate or mistaken." Such reluctance, though motivated by love, is not praiseworthy, for a properly loving view of the world and the people in it must also be a realistic one. Otherwise the love is not just.

[Miss Taylor] had been a friend and companion such as few possessed, intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself [i.e., Emma], in every pleasure, every scheme of her's; [sic]-one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault. (2)

Such an affection, it goes without saying, is immeasurably preferable to the contempt with which Anne Elliot's family treats her. But just as Sir Walter's treatment of Anne, motivated by too little an appreciation of her merits, does little to advance her happiness, so Mrs. Taylor's treatment of Emma, motivated by excessive appreciation of her merits, does equally little to advance this heroine's moral education.

Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew it would be much less so to her father, that she would not have him really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by every body. (5-6)

A less forgiving affection like Knightley's is preferable, in the long run, even to Miss Taylor's affection. It constitutes the "intelligent love" which critics from Simpson to Trilling have recognized as an Austenian ideal. Knightley, above, is interested in the truth; Emma, in disguising the truth from her father. Vain concern for her own reputation-even in a society of three-masks itself as concern for his comfort. She sees her father much as Austen sees Miss Taylor, and as Murdoch sees M: as someone whose love blinds him to the truth about his beloved. Only in the light of egocentric motives could such blindness appear as a desirable quality. Knightley's integrity, in contrast to such blindness, puts him in a position for moral activity, or struggle: how can he reconcile his love of Emma with his perception of her shortcomings? From such a tension the moral life is born.

Austen's novels look forward to Murdoch's christian atheism (with a self-consciously lowercase "c"), just as Murdoch's essays look admiringly back to Austen's milieu, which privileged reflection, and encouraged moralizing of a supple kind. The suppleness grows from an honest and thoroughgoing exploration of human psychology. Ambivalence, partial knowledge, confused sexual longing, egocentrism: these are the given materials with which we have to work. Love, justice, truthfulness-or, in the classical, Dr. Johnsonian vein, good sense, courage, fortitude-these are the ideals toward which to strive. Total success is impossible. But in the attempt nothing less than nobility is gained.