Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made!
And while the stones of Winchester, or Milsom Street, remain,
Glory, love and honor unto England's Jane.
Rudyard Kipling, 1924
``Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say that you would rather have written Pride and Prejudice or Tom Jones, than any of the Waverley novels?
"I had not seen Pride and Prejudice till I had read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerrotyped [photographed] portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck [stream]. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses. These observations will probably irritate you. but I shall run the risk.
"Now I can understand admiration of George Sand [Lucie Aurore Dupin]...she has a grasp of mind which, if I cannot fully comprehend, I can very deeply respect: she is sagacious and profound; Miss Austen is only shrewd and observant.''
Charlott Bronte (in a letter to George Lewes)
I guess that it's a good thing we're not reading Pride and Predjudice. Apparently it's insipid and dull.... :)
2 comments:
Man. That was definitely a bit harsh there Charlotte. I have to admit, while I have always liked Austen, I myself have reflected on whether she is given a bit too much attention and more credit than she is due. But, I just keep telling myself that if Willa Cather and Virginia Woolf admire her and set her apart, then I need to keep reading her until I see what they see. (Virginia Woolf called her "the most perfect artist among women . . . ." http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c/chapter12.html).
Wow! I think Miss Bronte must be a little jealous, Jane Austens books are light and pleasant to read, on does not have to dragged down to the depths of human misery to find admirable qualities in her heroines.
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