Austen’s Letters: 81-84, 2 to Cassandra (9 Feb & 20 May ’13), 1 each to Martha (16 Feb) & Frank (17 Feb, missing)

Her [Fanny’s] liking Darcy & Elizabeth is enough. She might hate all the others, if she would — Jane to Cassandra, 9 February 1813

Old Philmore is got pretty well, well enough to warn Miss Benn out of her House. His son is to come into it — Poor Creature! … She will have 3 months before her — & if anything can be met with, she will be glad enough to be driven from her present wretched abode — Jane to Martha, 16 February 1813

If it had not been for some naked Cupids over the Mantelpiece, which must be a fine study for Girls, one would have never smelt instruction — Jane visiting the 15 year daughter of a friend of Henry’s acquaintance — Jane to Cassandra, 20 Mary 1813

Putti or erotic cupids from a Poussin ceiling (rather more decorous than many in this era)

Italian figurine of Cupid (rather more masculine than most)

Dear friends and readers,

Almost a full month since I last wrote about Jane Austen’s letters (79-80, Fri 29 Jan, Thurs 4 Feb ’13, Chawton to Steventon, Jane to Cassandra). Much has happened in our time (the NYC JASNA AGM, a Burney conference, & a local JASNA-DC luncheon). But something much more momentous — tragic — happened in the Austen world: Eliza Austen turned very ill, in very bad pain, and slowly died: on a Saturday night, April 10th, 1813, to be precise with Jane and Henry at bedside. As it happens in our time here on this blog I’ve just written portraits of Henry and Eliza intended to correct or reshape to some extent the commonly-received distorted ones. The second of Jane’s letters to Cassandra is a letter in which Henry, mostly silent, is a central presence as Jane has come to London or is in London, and they go on a day-trip, partly (it’s clear) to distract themselves with some needed comfortable routine together. We have in Jane Austen’s letters no notice of Eliza’s death (true to form everything that counts has been eliminated by Cassandra), but the Austen papers and diary entries by others (and research by modern scholars) have defeated Cassandra’s determined obliteration.

Let us recall P&P has just been published and to real acclaim (well as far as one could have it in this era of small printings, high price and thus elite readers and their servants) and Jane is working on MP. These are part of the content of the first letter.

As a “set” of four (however serendipitous) they are telling; the first echoes one 2 years earlier, same terms, same tone. Surrounding Eliza’s death we have the trusted figures Martha and Frank, and Henry (who does not like to write and does not say much) the focus of her first letter written just after his wife’s death. People love to quote a later passing sentence where Austen appears to record and half-blame or find something wanting of depth in how Henry’s getting over it, and how he doesn’t have it in him to grieve (it’s implied) but they overlook this letter and the purpose of Jane in London. It’s not stated explicitly you see. I think the distorted conventional portrait of Henry accounts for these choices. And instinctively, intuitively, perhaps cautiously, Miss Austen Regrets completely omits Martha, Frank and Eliza too.

Miss Austen Regrets (2008, Gwyneth Hughes): Jane caring for Henry, her strength is what he relies upon

The same film, next scene: It’s implied that the apothecary Mr Hadon (!) engineered the trip to the Prince regent’s librarian, when it seems to have been either Clarke himself after reading Mansfield Park or Henry together with Murray

We are allowed to see only a hesitant, then ill Henry and finally incompetent apologetic Henry and the over-loving (it’s implied) Cassandra, perhaps driven by unacknowledged lesbian eroticism (in the last scene of them alone together in Miss Austen Regrets before Jane’s death).

In the actual letters (one of those before us) we see a long day-trip for the two of them, beautifully described by Jane, but also enabled and paid for by Henry.

How Cassandra went after these letters too comes out too. Jane’s to Frank destroyed, only a record that there was one. That we have not one, NOT ONE to Jane by anyone who knew her intimately. The one to survive is by Edward Cooper and how ironic: it’s said she disliked him; if so he is totally unaware of it so his letter is worthless as a reflection of what she is. These letters to Cassandra as I’ve said as nauseam as a group tell us as much or more about Cassandra than Jane, what Cassandra thought would do credit to her sister (!) at any rate no harm her. But not one to Jane by anyone who knew her for real (as say Henry) allowed to survive. In his Austen Papers Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh remarks on it. He had sought high and low for his 1913 Life and Letters.

Finally how Austen’s letters show us a single woman’s world. They are filled with women, young and old, and alone. Sometimes aging and near homeless (Miss Benn), sometimes still at home or school and being shaped for the task of finding a husband while remaining chaste; Austen retreats from her defense of the Princess of Wales’s adultery, but only in part, and the servants are there, felt presences. Mrs Perigord who has left her husband (much relieved) and her mother, Mme Bigeon. (See Emma Donoghue and lesbian spinsterhood.)

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Jane Austen’s Letter 81, 9 Feb 1813, Chawton to Manydown, Jane to Cassandra

Darcy’s first visit alone to Hunsford Parsonage — again he engages her in conversation this time more pointed (1995 BBC P&P)

This is a bright and lively letter; the barbs are swallowed up, fueled by a buoyancy which carries across the letter. Much of the letter reminds me of Jane’s tone in a letter to Cassandra two years earlier (Letter 74, Fri, 31 May 1811) “I will not say your Mulberry trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive.” This is captured most strongly in her last line about compliments to Mrs Freeman if she should happen to be above ground (not dead).

Austen continually tells of of devastating things: Mrs Heathcote and her daughter are to be forced out of Manydowne; Mr Harwood cannot marry Mrs Heathcote as (referred to in the last letter) he has unexpectedly found himself broke, indeed in debt, with two dependent females beyond that. (Wills are rarely fun for all.) “Althea must marry him, or where [is] he to look for happiness” is Jane’s response. Servants ill, Sackree violently so, and a new governess whose name is the subject of jokes. Uncle Perrot broken something so he cannot walk, with chilblains (now I know that is not fun), even Jane herself has a cold. She increases it “by walking out & cure[s] it by staying within.” Lady W into her “usual tricks” of ill health too, she is off to friends, and perhaps may make them sick also. (Implication? we may hope?, rather she doesn’t believe the woman is ill but using this as an excuse to go visiting someone — she believes her own colds, no? )These terribly dull readings going on at Manydown (much better Pasley’s ruthless exuberance to do all in), mead not in a good state, and raining furiously.

And of course Cassandra “may kill poor Mrs Slater if you like it, while you are at Mandown.” How she does not suggest.

What matter? Her P&P is being read aloud and she is at work on MP. I’ve been reading critical essays on Austen’s juvenilia today and one by Halperin compares them to the letters: striking (says Halperin) for their “cold detachment” and (taken with Juvenilia) “continued hostility” to much in the world.

In a few hours Cassandra will be transported to Manydowne “and then for Candour & Comfort & Coffee & Cribbage,” but also it may be Cassandra’s “last visit there” (at least on these friendly terms,” right now she has Anna by her side and still has not told her that P&P is by Aunt Jane. Jane says she will relent & tell when she sees Anna. We may imagine the girl’s feeling of left-out-ness, doubtless I concede part and parcel of her experience of life among these people.

But everyone is waiting for the passages on P&P; in this letter they have dwindled to less than a quarter of our text:

I am exceedingly pleased that you can say what you do, after having gone thro’ the whole work-& Fanny’s praise is very gratifying;-my hopes were tolerably strong of her, but nothing like a certainty. Her liking Darcy & Elizbeth is enough. She might hate all the others, if she would. I have her opinion under her own hand this morning, but your Transcript of it which I read first, was not & is not the less acceptable.- To me, it is of course all praise — but the more exact truth which she sends you is good enough.

Elizabeth found herself meeting Darcy again and again while staying with Charlotte; he would turn round, walk with her, engage her in conversation (shot from 1979 BBC P&P, Part 3)

Fanny’s letter destroyed — we do have notes Jane Austen made herself on what various people she knew said or were said to have said of her characters (see Cambridge edition of Later Manuscripts). We have not one letter to Jane Austen that bespeaks any real knowledge of her. I know there is one in the Austen papers from her cousin, Edward Cooper whose understanding of her may be gauged by his clearly not knowing she is said to have disliked him. This very is odd — letters _to_ people who others are intimate with reveal a lot. Not one got through to us. We may take it of course that Fanny knows who wrote P&P.

The passage about MP is very brief (we are returning to the norm):

— I have been applied to for information as to the Oath taken in former times of Bell Book & Candle-but have none to give. Perhaps you may be able to learn something of its Origin & Meaning at Manydown. — Ladies who read those enormous great stupid thick Quarto Volumes, which one always sees in the Breakfast parlour there, must be acquainted with everything in the World. — I detest a Quarto. — Capt. Pasley’s Book is too good for their Society. They will not understand a Man who condenses his Thoughts into an Octavo.

We learned in a previous letter that Jane was an admirer of this strongly pro-imperial policy militarist.

The barbs flow now thick and fast: It seems “The Clements are at home and reduced to read.” They “have got Miss Edgeworth” [Tales of Fashionable Life]. Jane does not hold that against them as she was able <a href="https://reveriesunderthesignofausten.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/austens-letters-letter-78-sun-24-jan-1813-to-cassandra-at-steventon-from-chawton/to unload more of Anna Grant's letters to Mrs Digweed who she feels sure will not read them:

I have disposed of Mrs Grant for the 2d fortnight to Mrs Digweed; — it can make no difference to her, which of the 26 fortnights in the Year, the 3 volumes lay in her House.

So much for her genuine rivals.

We close on illness (after the mead in a bad state): “If Mrs Freeman is anywhere above ground” (i.e., not dead), “give my best Comps to her.” The Freemans were related to the Hamptons and Walkers — that’s Austen’s father’s first wife’s descendents.

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Mr Collins as seen through Charlotte’s eyes; Eliza seeing what Charlotte is seeing, a rare POV from Charlotte (1995 BBC P&P)

Charlotte either looking at Mr Collins a second later, putting a brave bright face on it or watching Eliza drive away (see Some Thoughts on Charlotte Lucas)

Jane Austen’s letter 82, Tues, 16 February 1813, Chawton to wherever Martha Lloyd is at the moment

Seven days have passed. There is a change in tone from those to Cassandra, though in this one less obviously than some of the others. Jane is no longer openly reaching out with love to Martha as she did in the first series (just before the she was told they must leave Steventon), and she is not half-angry as in a couple of the letters about Martha in Southampton (where the arrangement had fallen apart, mostly probably due to Mary Gibson Austen who did not fit in and felt threatened by these women’s ties to Frank). (For links see Who destroyed Jane’s letters to Martha.) Diane R calls it more sincere; I find it more direct. Jane is less guarded, less games put in the way, whether because Martha and she don’t live together so she need not worry at offending her that much, or she is just more sure that her letters to Martha will not prompt any open objection hard to say.

This directness continues for all of the first paragraph except for the comment on the weather, and while that comments starts out as witty it’s an introduction to Jane’s mother’s ill health at this cold and raw weather (February in England) and that Jane’s lament that she has not been able to go out. It really was expected of women that they sit with sick people — only modern medicine which teaches us what counts is the antibiotic and women’s circumstances that has stopped this.

To begin, Jane’s very glad to receive Martha’s letter and it was so good she will write in reply; this is a second so Martha was writing in response to one of Jane’s

Your long Letter was valued as it ought, & as I think it fully entitled to a second from me, I am going to answer it now in an handsome manner before Cassandra’s return; after which event, as I shall have the benefit of all your Letters to her, I claim nothing more. —

Martha has spoken positively of Anna Austen — unlike Jane whom we have become accustomed to hearing askance-like and critical remarks from. Jane says (averring) she has indeed great pleasure to hear that Anna is getting on, but notice the qualification: “I only wish there were more stability in the character of their two constitutions.” By this point Jane has taken the family’s views on board wholesale and when Anna is not there does not miss a chance to criticize her. Anna not stable you see. This is more than obtuse in Austen as she ought to remember what her niece suffered living with the step-mother. She exulted in one letter over what Anna settles for at an assembly and what she knew. Why she had this change towards the niece I don’t know. She did hide it from her for a long while, though in some of her letters about the novel she’s writing there creeps in a feeling her aunt is not liking this book and does not appreciate being sent parts. Jane then says oh I do like it &c&c (see Jane Austen’s letters to her niece, Anna)

She’s been a prisoner for the time of her mother’s ill health, but then she thinks of how Martha must’ve suffered in the cold raw damp too (cold in the UK goes into your bones)

I will not say anything of the weather we have lately had, for if you were not aware of its’ being terrible, it would be cruel to put it in your head. My Mother slept through a good deal of Sunday, but still it was impossible not to be disordered by such a sky, & even yesterday she was but poorly. She is pretty well again today, & I am in hopes may not be much longer a Prisoner. —

That’s why she probably talks of being all alive when Edward’s boys (her nephews on their way to school) come as well as their age and type — by contrast. She’s glad for the break in the monotony and yet will be relieved when they’ve gone:

We are going to be all alive from this forenoon to tomorrow afternoon; –it will be over when You receive this, & you may think of me as one not sorry that it is so. — George, Henry & William will soon be here & are to stay the night — and tomorrow the 2 Deedes’ & Henry Bridges will be added to our party; — we shall then have an early dinner & dispatch them all to Winchester

Nowhere in this letter do we have a direct peep about Mansfield Park (!). I hope when she stayed home in that room with her mother she had her writing desk with her. Indeed I assume so. In Miss Austen Regrets she’s presented writing as she sits by Henry’s sick bed, and novels and memoirs show women did that — or read or sewed.

Yes Eliza is dying now and in great pain. The diplomatic general comment manages to indicate that to someone who knows and leave everyone else (meaning us or whoever else chances to come across this writing) out.

We have no late account from Sloane Street & therefore conclude that everything is going on in one regular progress, without any striking change. —

Henry did travel about on banking business. But now we have a telling comment about Frank. Since leaving Southampton, he and Mary have been on the move constantly:

— Henry was to be in Town again last Tuesday. — I have a Letter from Frank; they are all at Deal again, established once more in fresh Lodgings. I think they must soon have lodged in every house in the Town.-We read of the Pyramus being returned into Port, with interest-& fear M” DD. will be regretting that she came away so soon. —

Why Martha’s employer should be regretting she came away so soon we are not told. I might think it’s that Martha regrets not seeing Frank but not Mrs Dundas. The tricks of the sea is a cold way to put this.

Then something that would seem more good-natured were it not tagged with Austen’s idea it’s just as well for a young woman “to be shy and uncomfortable in front of strangers.” This is the hard & distrustfu, a mood that gives rise to the moralitsm people find in Mansfield Park:

There is no being up to the tricks of the Sea. — Your friend has her little Boys about her I imagine. I hope their Sister enjoyed the Ball at Lady Keith-tho’ I do not know that I do much hope it, for it might be quite as well to have her shy & uncomfortable in such a croud of Strangers.

The one indirect mention of MP. We see her evince a similar anxiety towards Frank when she wants to name one of William’s ships in MP after Frank’s. I that one to Frank she anxiously says if he does not like it, she will change the name.

I am obliged to you for your enquiries about Northamptonshire, but do not wish you to renew them, as I am sure of getting the intelligence I want from Henry, to whom I can apply at some convenient moment “sans peur et sans reproche“

But the “sans peur et sans reproche” can refer to Martha’s position too. She could be saying if Martha is having a hard time (Austen is “obliged to her”) by having to ask people who don’t like to be bothered (especially a half-servant), not to worry. She, Jane, will ask Henry. The meaning here may be that Martha’s asking question can elicit unpleasant comments from those around her.

1983 BBC Mansfield Park: in the event most film-makers skip all hedgerows & rightly emphasize the house and ground views in general

Then yes the famous comments on how Austen sides with the Princess of Wales despite the accusations of adultery:

— I suppose all the World is sitting in Judgement upon the Princess of Wales’s Letter,” Poor Woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman, & because I hate her Husband — but I can hardly forgive her for calling herself “attached & affectionate” to a Man whom she must detest — & the intimacy said to subsist between her & Lady Oxford is bad. — I do not know what to do about it;-but if I must give up the Princess, I am resolved at least always to think that she would have been respectable, if the Prince had behaved only tolerably by her at first. —

But paying attention to all the details and context we can see more. Jane Austen backtracks. Martha has been sending something moralizing and critical, specifically about some intimacy between the princess and Lady Oxford. So Lady Oxford had a “bad” reputation. (This gossiping is distasteful.) Jane then says she will give up the princess if she must. People prefer not to pay attention to that. Maybe she didn’t mean it and this is just to soothe Martha. I suggest in other words too much is made of Austen’s empathy here.

The poignant story of the niggardly landlord (half-broke himself — or would he put his son in the place) pressuring Miss Benn to leave a wretched cottage (see J. Hurst, Jane Austen Collected Reports, 6 (2001):230-32 for full details of this hard man).

Old Philmore is got pretty well, well enough to warn Miss Benn out of her House. His son is to come into it. — Poor Creature! –You may imagine how full of cares she must be, & how anxious all Chawton will feel to get her decently settled somewhere. — She will have 3 months before her — & if anything else can be met with, she will be glad enough to be driven from her present wretched abode: -it has been terrible for her during the late storms of wind & rain. —

2009 Emma by Sandy Welch: rather than have Miss Bates living above a store as the 1972 and two 1996 Emmas do, Welch chose to place them in a decrepit cottage (among many autobiographical allusions in this film): Miss Bates will be next seen stoking up the fire

Miss Benn was a continual real (sometimes grating) presence in Austen’s life – and her imagination. She clearly lies behind Miss Bates.

Cassandra not freezing, not hit by wind, not in danger of homeless, but she’s not been having a good time at Manydowne even if rich place either:

Cassandra has been rather out of luck at Manydown — but that is a House, in which one is tolerably independent of weather. — The Prowtings perhaps come down on Thursday or Saturday, but the accounts of him do not improve

And it’s to be made worse by the Prowtings. Accounts of him do not improve. LeFaye does not enlighten us here.

A joke was supposed to end the letter — coming back to the opening about how Jane will write in reply what she has gotten, reciprocate to her close friend:

— Now I think I may in Quantity have deserved your Letter. My ideas of Justice in Epistolary Matters are you know very strict. — With Love from my Mother, I remain very affectionately yours …

But news about the ruined Harwoods has come to her desk before she makes her envelope.

Poor John Harwood — One is really obliged to engage in Pity again on his account; where there is a lack of money, one is on pretty sure grounds. — So after all, Charles, that thick-headed Charles is the best off of the Family. I rather grudge him his 2,500£. —

Again how she identifies (as did the other Austens — Caroline mentions the events in her later memoir too), writes from a narrowly partisan point of view and is no sentimentalist. LeFaye gives exact details in her notes. The enemies of happiness as well as promise threatened this milieu of people continually.

The last utterance is a great puzzle unless she’s talking for the above people, pretending to be one of them.

My Mother is very decided in selling Deane — And if it is not sold, I think it will be L. clear that the Proprietor can have no plan of marrying, C

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Jane Austen’s letter 83, Wed, 17 February 1813, from Chawton to whereever Frank is

This letter was probably destroyed well before the final conflagration. We cannot tell what was in it, but perhaps Austen spoke more openlyg and frankly about what was happening in Henry and Eliza’s Sloane Street apartment.

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Modern sketch of hog’s-back, Guildford

What one may see in Guildford area from this high vantage point

Austen’s Letters: 84, Thurs, 20 May 1813, from Sloane St, to Cassandra at Alton, Hampshire: in the aftermath of Eliza’s death

Letters are documents out of real life. The first thing to ask is why is Austen in Sloane Street, has she taken this trip with Henry, and why is Cassandra at Alton. Austen has had to put down MP, Cassandra left her mother and Anna at Steventon. To look at the letters just before and after. And now to add from LeFaye’s collection of documents concerning and Eliza’s letters (however dimly put together):

Letters by Fanny Knight register Eliza’s worsening (Henry keeps up his visits to Godmersham), and in April 1813 one of the Knight sons (Fanny’s brother) escorted Jane Austen to Sloane Street; on April 13th Fanny recorded Eliza’s hard death (“a very bad account”) “on Saturday night” (p. 171).

Henry’s apartment, Henry’s place of business. So Eliza had been dying for over a year, a long drawn out process, and Jane was called suddenly to be there the last few days at the death. Eliza did not go easily into that night; hers was the same experience as her mother’s. This letter is preceded by a letter before the agon, to who else but Frank? Her one correspondent among her brothers. The complete text has been destroyed. The letters in LeFaye’s edition and Austen Papers all testify to missive about Eliza around this time, the stages of death.

So the trip is an attempt to soothe Henry and get him out of himself. It does seem he needs some help after all. And Cassandra has moved herself to where Henry often is too, doing something there for him, in his place while he gets over the immediate memories and shock. He didn’t like to write he tells us in the Loiterers so nothing from him. The letter has several real interests too: Mrs Perigord has arrived. That’s Mme Bigeon’s daughter who marriage has gone bad. She has been invited back to help as someone who knows the family. And Charlotte, a young girl, family connection, her home near Henry’s rooms. “A fine study for girls” the naked cupids Austen coyly suggests.

Austen may have had a quietly lesbian relationship with Martha (however consummated physically nor not) and Austen is indulging herself and Cassandra in some “naughty” defiance of the repressive techniques of these girls’ schools (part of the point). The next letter continues the thread on art and they go to an exhibition.

So to again to paraphrase, Jane to Cassandra abruptly. This time to emphasize the whole feel of the trip (for Henry stays silent) I print Jane’s headlong paragraph:

Before I say anything else, I claim a paper full of Halfpence on the Drawingroom Mantlepeice; I put them there myself & forgot to bring them with me.-I cannot say that I have yet been in any distress for Money, but I chuse to have my due as well as the Devil. — How lucky we were in our weather yesterday! — This wet morning makes one more sensible of it. We had no rain of any consequence; the head of the Curricle was put half-up three or four times, but our share of the Showers was very trifling, though they seemed to be heavy all round us, when we were on the Hog’s-back; & I fancied it might then be raining so hard at Chawton as to make you feel for us much more than we deserved. — Three hours & a quarter took us to Guildford, where we staid barely two hours, & had only just time enough for all we had to do there, that is, eating a long comfortable Breakfast, watching the Carriages, paying Mr Herington & taking a little stroll afterwards. From some veiws [sic] which that stroll gave us, I think most highly of the situation of Guildford. We wanted all our Brothers & Sisters to be standing with us in the Bowling Green & looking towards Horsham.

A modern (20th century) ad meant to allure tourists to Horsham

— I told Mr Herington of the Currants; he seemed equally surprised & shocked, & means to talk to the Man who put them up. I wish you may find the Currants any better for it. — He does not expect Sugars to fall. — I was very lucky in my gloves, got them at the first shop I went to, though I went into it rather because it was near than because it looked at all like a glove shop, & gave only four Shillings for them;-upon hearing which” every body at Chawton will be hoping & predicting that they cannot be good for anything, & their worth certainly remains to be proved, but I think they look very well. — We left Guildford at 20 minutes before 12 — (I hope somebody cares for these minutiae) & were at Esher in about 2 hours more. — I was very much pleased with the Country in general ; between Guildford & Ripley I thought it particularly pretty, also about Painshill & every where else; &

Again 20th century photo: a canal boat along Ripley

[Cont’d] from a Mr Spicer’s Grounds at Esher which we walked into before our dinner, the veiws were beautiful. I cannot say what we did not see, but I should think there could not be a Wood or a Meadow or a Palace or a remarkable spot in England that was not spread out before us, on one side or the other. — Claremont is going to be sold, a Mr Ellis has it now; — it is a House that seems never to have prospered.- – At 3, we were dining upon veal cutlets & cold ham, all very good-; & after dinner we walked forward, to be overtaken at the Coachman’s time, & before he did overtake us we were very near Kingston. —

The next sentence tells us all this took “a 12 hours business” and they were glad to get home again and the horses were more more than “reasonably tired.” Austen is again paying attention to the horses. She did that time Eliza jumped out of the carriage and the horses were prodded (not nice) to go again; Austen made a sympathetic remark about the horses then (Letter 71, 25 April 1811).

So, paraphrasing:

The half pence on the mantelpiece is hers. Send it. Jane not exactly rich. Remember the money for P&P not forthcoming as yet and she paid big for her out of her savings for S&S.

Not that she’s been in any distress, but she will have her due.

What great weather they had yesterday. Let’s look at this. No rain of any consequence, they needed only to put up the roof 3 or 4 times at most. Trifling. Really? Admittedly all around her and Henry were getting drenched. So when they went out on that ridge (a hog’s back is ridge allowing them to see far and wide) they might not have gotten to see much. She thought about how much harder it must be raining in Chawton.

Rochefoucauld comes to mind: there’s something in the misery of others …

Three hours and a quarter and they got to Guildford. It does seem to have stopped raining farther from their space. The two hours included “a long comfortable breakfast’ (in a paper on Jane and food I pointed out how she likes to eat & drink and is not ashamed of either in the least). They wished their other siblings to have been there to look out at the landscape. (A nice thought there, a nice moment probably. They are fed, dry, looking about.

I have to guess or speculate on the currants business altogether. It seems that Jane was displeased because the tradesman professed himself “equally surprized and shocked” and will talk to the man who put them up. Maybe they have lousy currants at Chawton, for Jane now hopes (after this man comes?) Cassandra “will find the currants better for it. They cared about their garden. They did use if for food seriously. Mr Herrington does not expect the sugars to fall — fail? fall in price?

Now gloves. She gave only 4 shillings. It didn’t look like a glove shop so she was lucky. I hope she was not hard on the man like her aunt ever was. Then she sounds like Lydia: she knows she will be abused for these (cheap?) gloves, and “everyone will be predicting that they cannot be good for anything” “but I think they look very well.”

So there.

Then they left Guildford at 20 minutes before 12 (I like this kind of minutiae, Jane, not to worry) I don’t find this “chirpy”. She’s recording the visit like a good traveler. She says in the person of Elizabeth Bennet when she is planning her glorious hoped-for summer travel to the Lake Distrist that when they travel they will not come back and talk vaguely, they will have precise content. It does matter how long Henry and Jane spent and it took another 2 hours to get to Esher.

It was a day in the country. A day seeking relief. It’s a month after Eliza’s death.

Very pretty countryside, she is much pleased, especially Painshill, views beautiful. They seemed to be high up and all spread out before them. No wood or meadow they could not see. We are in the picturesque here and in the archive of her mind, deep embedded as Chomsky would say are lines like Pope’s, Windsor Forest perhaps, the Horatian odes where in 10 syllables an intensity of widening vision is before us.

But her mind reverts to practicalities. Clermont is to be sold, alas. Mr. Ellis. (Perhaps he will enclose it?) It was a house that never prospered. How in this world the tiny elite knew one another’s business. Jane knows the story.

But at 3 it’s time for dinner and they dine again:’ “veal cutlet and cold ham, all very good,” and after dinner back and forth walking, to be overtaken by the Coachman. They might not care when they get home might not be eager to get back or he has a schedule to keep. Working man from another class. So the coach came up to them and they jumped on — having almost missed it — good of him to stop but then they are gentry: “He did overtake us very near Kingston.”

So Henry was a good walker too.

Let us hope he enjoyed himself. She says nothing of him nor does he make his presence felt. (One reason this letter is ignored when people discuss Henry’s reaction to Eliza’s death). When she walks with Frank she often says that he did not enjoy the scenery as she had wished. Here it seems Henry had no objection and I take it needed to be out on such a day.

She was comforting this man this way, and getting day out herself seeing the world through half-poetic and half-pragmatic and certainly humanly needful (eating, buying stuff, keeping track of the time). She is also keeping her own memory of that house and what has happened in it recently at bay.

When they get back Mme Bigeon is there to greet them let us recall.

Sylvie Herbert as Mme Bigeon there to greet them when they return (2008 Miss Austen Regrets)

For the rest of the letter, the next day and two visits that must be paid, see comments.

Ellen