The Morgan itself owns the largest collection of Jane Austen letters in the world. Unfortunately, her sister burned most of them, so the relatively few that remain are treasures, indeed. The letters show that Austen, like Jane Fairfax in Emma used cross-writing to save paper. If you view the digitized version on the site, you can zoom in to decipher one of her letters for yourself.
The detailed description on the letter says:
Writing over the course of three days, Austen acknowledges receiving another letter from Cassandra in the meantime: "You are very amiable & very clever to write such long Letters; every page of yours has more lines than this, & every line more words than the average of mine. I am quite ashamed—but you have certainly more little events than we have." The letter is full of little events: "Mr Waller is dead, I see;—I cannot grieve about it, nor perhaps can his Widow very much," and "I want to hear of your gathering Strawberries, we have had them three times here." She reports that she is not enjoying Walter Scott's newest creation Marmion, an epic poem about a sixteenth-century battle between the English and the Scots, although she suspects she should be.
I do consider these letters a wonderful image for Austen's novels and her characters. The first read reveals something, but it takes another read from another angle to get a deeper understanding about the heart of the matter. In Persuasion, for example, Anne Elliot finds her cousin to be all that is sensible, amiable, and charming but has her friend's revelation about his ruthless selfishness assure her that he was dissembling all along. The reverse is true of Mr. Darcy, who makes a terrible first impression but later proves himself -- in a letter, no less -- to be the very best of men.
It is really a wonderful experience to see the author's own handwriting, and it's fully legible without any cross-writing challenges. Back in the day when I had to look up an Oscar Wilde typescript for an assignment, I had to go to the library and handle it with gloves. Now one can just summon a manuscript at home on demand.
Note: Jane Austen fans can purchase the pen and necklace pictured here, among other gift items at Totally_Jane_Austen
A full eight years ago I wrote about introversion in Jane Austen's heroines here: Jane Austen's heroines. What was left out of that perspective was a consideration of introverted heroes. They include both Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility. But the most beloved introvert hero of all is Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice.
Mr. Darcy exhibits such extreme introverted behavior in the earlier parts of the book that some readers interpret it as signs of being on the spectrum. I first came across that theory in a YouTube video.
To be fair, it doesn't quite claim that Mr. Darcy is autistic but that what defines his comfort zone, as well as his way of thinking and responding to social and conversational cues really resonates with those who are neuroatypical.
A few days after I happened across that video, I found the source of theory of Darcy as autistic in Deborah Yaffe's book Among the Janeites. It stems from a speech therapist named Phyllis Ferguson Bottomer. Her inspiration was not the book itself but the A&E adaptation that she watched in 2002. She zeroed in on the important interaction in Ch. 31 in which Elizabeth relays her point of view of Mr. Darcy's rudeness, and he explains himself:
“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,” said Darcy,“of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”
Bottomer seized on the parallel between this explanation and how Temple Grandin explained her experienced her experience as an autistic in her autobiography: "I have always have a hard time fitting in with this rhythm."
I haven't read Bottomer's book, but I have read quite a number of books on introversion (see links below). I'm also an introvert myself and do understand the reluctance to make small talk and throw oneself into a dance when one is feeling not truly connected to those around one.
Perhaps one would argue that introverts have some autistic tendencies, but one could just as well say that autistics have some introvert tendencies. In a Venn diagram, there would be an overlap between the two. Bearing that in mind, one need not conclude that anyone with those shared tendencies is necessarily on the spectrum, or that perhaps we should really normalize what is considered neuroatypicalas typical because introverts do make up a substantial number of the population, as much as half, according to Laurie Helgoe.
Whether one attributes Mr. Darcy's standoffishness to autistic tendencies or to a natural proclivity for introversion, the assumption Jane Austen and Elizabeth make is that it can be countered. In this key exchange, she likens conversational social skills to playing an instrument and so gently chides him by way of analogy:
“My fingers,” said Elizabeth, “do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I will not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman’s of superior execution.”
Darcy takes this as her seeing a point of commonality between them, which makes him feel more at ease in her presence. Notice how often he responds to what she says with a smile, and this is one of those instances:
Darcy smiled and said, “You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can think anything wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers.”
He takes this to mean she understands them, but in truth she doesn't yet. That will take more time and more opening up on his end, risking vulnerability, which many introverts find extremely difficult. But that is the key to their whole relationship: Darcy has to overcome his natural inclination to connect with Elizabeth, and she has to let go of her extrovert assumption that she can take a full and accurate read on others instantly. They are the paradigm of a successful marriage of opposites.
