Mud, Mirth, and Mess: Jane Austen’s Signs of Spring

It is officially mud season here, and the world is a glorious wet mess. The kind of mess that spills mud into roads, fills potholes with puddles (making them more invisible, ugh), and yet makes the world so green I can hardly believe it. Naturally, I thought of Jane Austen.

(If you had flooding this past week–I am so sorry, and my prayers are with you! We got a lot of rain, but I know the flooding was worse further south.)

Now mud made think of Jane Austen, but not because she herself was particularly muddy (though she might’ve been—we just don’t have the laundry records), but because she had such a keen eye for the way seasons sneak into our lives. Spring, in Austen’s world, is not all daffodils and birdsong. It’s a little messy. A little chaotic. And a little romantic.

In Pride and Prejudice, spring arrives with a fresh dose of humiliation and wet weather, as Lizzy Bennet treks on foot across muddy fields to visit Jane at Netherfield. She famously arrives with her petticoat “six inches deep in mud,” shocking the elegant Miss Bingley. It’s a triumph of practicality over propriety—a very Austenian spring gesture.

Even in her letters, Austen can’t resist a little seasonal sass. Writing from Godmersham in May, she notes:
“Flowers are very sweet, and the dung very abominable.”
Which sums up spring rather neatly, I think.

She also had a painter’s eye for gardens in full show. In another letter, she reports with pleasure:
“The whole country about Camberwell was very beautiful—very green and springlike, with the trees coming out in full leaf.”
You can almost feel the sun on her bonnet and the squish of grass underfoot—assuming the bonnet was not already blown off by the wind.

And then there are the flowers. Jane Austen didn’t spend much time on floral symbolism—which I appreciate, as that is really not my thing—but she noticed them. In Northanger Abbey, the heroine Catherine Morland enters springtime Bath full of hope and innocence. It is said of her that:
“From the first moment of her entrance on the Pump-room, she had been seized with a passion for flowers.”

My husband is actually more likely to be seized with the passion than I am, but I understand it is a common springtime affliction. I’m learning that in WV, friends don’t let friends plant before Mother’s Day, which seems crazily late to me! I’m still used to Los Angeles, where you plant in October after the heat dies down.

In Persuasion, Anne Elliot walks through the grounds at Uppercross, and we get a heroine alone with her thoughts, in a place where the “hedgerows were rich in autumnal flowers.” Yes, it’s autumn, not spring—but you get that seasonal change. Anne thinks she is in the autumn of her life, but there is a fresh spring coming.

The truth is, Austen knew that spring is never just about beauty. It’s about transition. About awkward starts and messy in-betweens. A little like love, and a little like writing.

So, as I squelch around my neighborhood, I like to imagine Jane Austen doing something similar—lifting her skirts, stepping carefully, and laughing quietly at all of us who think we can get through life without a little dirt on our hems.

Happy spring, friends. May your flowers or vegetables thrive, your shoes dry out, and your enjoyment of the blooming outweigh the mud.

—Corrie