Jane Austen’s Letters: Letter 52, Wed-Fri, 15-17, June 1808, from Godmersham to Castle Square

There are things that happen and leave no discernible trace, are not spoken or written of, though it would be very wrong to say that subsequent events go on indifferently, all the same, as thought such things had never been.– A. S. Byatt, Possession

Olivia Williams as the older Jane Austen at Chawton Cottage (2008 Miss Austen Regrets)

Dear Friends and Readers,

It’s four months since Letter 51 and either Jane and Cassandra have been swapped by their families or themselves chosen to swap themselves. I find something odd or wanting explanation about this periodic change of place and long periods apart. Jane says “to be without you at Godmersham is also odd” but from our vantage of these letters, it’s the norm. Of course I’m ignoring that the statement does not refer to Jane being “without” Cassandra; in the context it means the people at Godmersham being without Cassandra: “You are wished for, I assure you.” Elizabeth was felt to need someone to help her, and it’s the brisk conventional Cassandra whom Elizabeth and her daughter, Lizzy, want, but as can be seen by the self-deprecatory remarks in the letter and Jane’s description of what she does, that she does hardly anything to take care of the children. She “tenders” her services to read to the children when Louise Bridges goes, but does not think she will be necessarily accepted “in her stead.” She’s “languid,” “solitary,” (actually she often makes up the number of the people in a room), “an incumbrance.”

I don’t mean her tone is melancholy or unhappy. On the contrary, she is self-controlled and when ironic, far more accepting of her situation than she has been thus far in the correspondence. Things which would call forth irritation and annoyance are treated with a flatter non-acid way. For Anna (apparently making a fool of herself in her over-enthusiasms), Jane says: “Tell her, with my love, that I like her for liking the quay.” When she mentions people’s assertion of their happiness, she is ironic but not vengeful (as she could be in the earlier letters). People act “very kindly”. She’s not the less aware she is a dispatchable extra in these lives’ dramas (see second to last sentence of letter), but she’s living with it better. It’s even “a pleasure” to see Edward. These memories are so strong: last letter was 9 years ago, now she remembers 14 years ago with clarity. Her recent world of women in kept up in her mind as memories and awareness of Miss Sharpe.

We see more of this pinpointing of a specific number of years in the later letters. I am willing to credit the fragmentary story of Austen’s sea-spa romance one summer, a young man who died before they could meet again. This would be when they were living in Bath and traveling around the coast in summer. (Tomalin, p. 178). In the present letters she has stopped the incessant bitterreferences to pregnancies and dead babies; she is no longer threatened by this fate a now older, poor, and too smart probably. We do get her pity for women burdened with endless children and poverty. But in the last letter (51) she said of an actor’s wife she should go and live with him (give up her business). A new sense of attachment that counts there.

So, now Cassandra in Castle Square, and Jane at Godmersham. This letter shows a growth in self-control; there is a poignancy in the story of Anna left out and cutting off her hair; Austen has her usual ironies: “Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first; You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.” Not that she doesn’t care if her trunk doesn’t arrive: “Would you believe my trunk is come already; and what completes the wondrous happiness, nothing is damaged” (!). Not like what happened at Bath in 1797, She tries to make herself useful, but doesn’t manage it; the same problems of getting in the way when others want to travel and they have no room for her (“an incumbrance” that’s what she is). But she is more cheerful from her time at Southampton and enjoys Godmersham’s landscape and luxuries more than last time. We hear of Cassandra’s doings too: who she visited, and how she took Anna to the Isle of Wight, and about EAK and Elizabeth’s children compared to James and Mary’s little JEAL and Caroline. My epigraph signals I do think important things are occurring offstage, like much re-writing and writing of novels.

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Cassandra (Gretta Scacchi) bidding adieu to Jane who is on her way to Godmersham, Mrs Austen (Phyllida Law) in background (2008 Miss Austen Regrets)

So, first the trip to Godmersham: Jane had been in London with Henry. They were at the Bath Hotel, and Henry saw them off. “Them” is Mary Lloyd Austen and Jane. James, her elder brother, went first. This suggests that Jane had been visiting Henry and Eliza and either James and Mary came too or they met up. If they met up, it’s a sort of avoidance.

Where shall I begin? Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first? At half after seven yesterday morning Henry saw us into our own carriage, and we drove away from the Bath Hotel; which, by the bye, had been found most uncomfortable quarters-very dirty, very noisy, and very ill provided. James began his journey by the coach at five. Our first eight miles were hot; Deptford Hill brought to my mind our hot journey. into Kent fourteen years ago; but after Blackheath we suffered nothing, and as the day advanced it grew quite cool. At Dartford, which we reached within the two hours and three-quarters, we went to the Bull, the same inn at which we breakfasted in that said journey, and on the present occasion had about the same bad butter. At half-past ten we were again off, and, traveling on without any adventure reached Sittingbourne by three.

Since reading Daphne Philips’s useful book, The Story of Reading, I’ve been aware of the conventional set of traveled roads and routes all these genteel type people took. (The title is misleading; it’s about how people journeyed in the UK in Austen’s era. Thus it’s no surprise that they take the same road, go to the same Inn with the same “bad butter.” Austen is so aware of food. Nokes goes over the particular circumstances surrounding this visit of Jane’s to Godmersham (on pp. 322-23) of his book. Jane had been at Brompton with Henry and Eliza, in a house designed by a Polish count who rebuilt the opera house; nearby were Miss Pope (No 17), Mrs Billington (singer, No 15), Mr Liston (comedian, No 46). I wonder what is the proof that Eliza and Henry knew these people. Nokes writes as if it’s Mary who makes the complaints and Jane recording them; as I read the letter it’s Jane who is caviling.

What really interests me is this sudden memory of 14 years ago; that would be 1794, before the letters begin. This is the time of Eliza’s flirtation with Henry; Cassandra staying in Rowling with Edward and Elizabeth. Again it’s Nokes who describes this time (pp 145-52).

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Mr Knightley (Mark Strong) greeting a servant, asking servant how his family is (1996 Emma by Andrew Davies)

The same servant mentioned earlier; and Austen treats him equably; I noticed that her tone here is much friendlier all around. Our brothers are now James and Edward. Jane really seems pleased and the way she talks of Edward and Elizabeth startling unless we are to take her comments as sarcastic ironic: “a very affectionate welcome. That I received such from Edward I need not mention; but I do, you see, because it is a pleasure”. This is not the same woman who wrote of Bath in 1797.

Daniel was watching for us at the door of the George, and I was acknowledged very kindly by Mr and mrs Marshall (the landlords), to the latter of whom I devoted my conversation, while Mary went out to buy some gloves. A few minutes of course did for Sittingbourne, and so off we drove, drove, dorove, and by six o’clock were at Godmersham.

Our brothers’ were walking before the house as we approached, as natural as life.

I think her genius comes out now and again. Diane points to the above places as Jane gets into the coach (drove, drove, drove) and then upon arrival. She’s now writing to the moment in the Yellow room is how she might describe herself (from Richardson).

Fanny and Lizzy met us in the Hall with a great deal of peasant joy; we went for a few minutes into the breakfast parlour, and then proceeded to our rooms. Mary has the Hall chamber. I am in the Yellow room — very literally — for I am writing in it at this moment. It seems odd to me to have such a great place all to myself, and to be at Godmersham without you is also odd.

Then family news

You are wished for, I assure you: Fanny, who came to me as soon as she had seen her Aunt James to her room, and stayed while I dressed, was as energetic as usual in her longings for you. She is grown both in height and size since last year, but not immoderately, looks very well, and seems as to conduct and manner just what she was and what one could wish her to continue. Elizabeth, who was dressing when we arrived, came to me for a minute attended by Marianne, Charles, and Louisa, and, you will not doubt, gave me a very affectionate welcome. That I had received such from Edward also I need not mention; but I do, you see, because it is a pleasure. I never saw him look in better health, and Fanny says he is perfectly well. I cannot praise Elizabeth’s looks, but they are probably affected by a cold. but they are probably affected by a cold. Her little namesake has gained in beauty in the last three years, though not all that Marianne has lost. Charles is not quite so lovely as he was. Louisa is much as I expected, and Cassandra I find handsomer than I expected, though at present disguised by such a violent breaking-out that she does not come down after dinner. She as charming eye and a nice open countenance, and seems likely to be very lovable. Her size is magnificent. I was agreeably surprised to find Louisa Bridges still here. She looks remarkably well (legacies are very wholesome diet), and is just what she always was. John is at Sandling. You may fancy our dinner party therefore; Fanny, of course, belonging to it, and little Edward, for that day. He was almost too happy, his happiness at, least made him too talkative. It has struck ten; I must go to breakfast.

The child Cassandra has had some allergic reaction. By size I suppose Austen means robust as well as tall. Austen does not lose her caustic undercurrent: legacies (which she doesn’t get) make Louisa fat. The Bridges again connect us to Goodnestone Farm, the brouhaha about the invitations and Edward Bridges (Letter 46). I can see why Gwyeth Hughes invented the romance of Miss Austen Regrets. This little Edward is again the boy who favored Austen so; their congeniality continues. He is so happy to see her

The tete-a-tete with Edward in the next section again puts me in mind of Miss Austen Regrets and the depiction of Jane’s relationship with Edward. I suggest again (I wrote and published a paper on the calender underlying S&S) that Chapters 1-6 of S&S were first written in the wake of the Austens going to and at Bath when the early bitterness and left over feelings from the later 1790s were so vivid; it seems now Austen’s feelings have undergone decided change.

Edward and Jane tete-a-tete at Godmersham (2008 Miss Austen Regrets)

So after breakfast the “tete-a­tete with Edward in his room:” he wanted to know James’s plans and mine, and from what his own now are I think it already nearly certain that I shall return when they do, though not with them. Edward will be going about the same time to Alton, where he has business with Mr. Trimmer, and where he means his son should join him; and I shall probably be his companion to that place, and get on afterwards some­how or other. I should have preferred a rather longer stay here cer­tainly, but there is no prospect of any later conveyance for me, as he does not mean to accompany Edward6 on his return to Winchester, from a very natural unwillingness to leave Elizabeth at that time. I shall at any rate be glad not to be obliged to be an incumbrance on those who have brought me here, for, as James has no horse, I must feel in their carriage I am taking his place.

Again this incessant (never ceasing) problem of getting from A to B; her sensitivity to herself as the extra, the not-needed, the burden. She withes at this position, but note she never thinks to buck or defy it. She now lacks the right to a space; she is demurring to the behavior of a 3 year old, feeling perhaps ridiculous in the boa

We were rather crowded yesterday though it does not become me to say so, as I and my boa were of the party, and it is not to be supposed but that a child of three8 years of age was fidgety. I need scarcely beg you to keep all this to yourself, lest it should get round by Anna’s means. She is very kindly inquired after by all, her friends here, who all regret her not coming with her father and mother.

I did notice that Anna was left behind; Anna’s friends who miss her would not include Mary Lloyd Austen the stepmother. We see that Cassandra tries to make this up to the child by reading from Jane’s letters

I left Henry, I hope, free from his tiresome complaint, in other respects well, and thinking with great pleasure of Cheltenham and Stoneleigh. The brewery scheme is quite at an end: at a meeting of the subscribers last week it was by general, and I believe very hearty, con­sent dissolved.

Henry has turned 37, an age when people do begin to be troubled by organ malfunctions and there is no modern medicine. In 1816 this will come near to killing him or severely constraining his activities. I’m not sure what is meant by the brewery scheme. My guess is an investment which Henry decided against. He is ever having to think of how to make money. Jane has not forgotten the adventure of Stoneleigh, the money near relatives fought over; it seems that Henry had some scheme to make money through going into business and it has been dropped. Now I’m not sure what is meant by the brewery scheme. My guess is an investment which Henry decided against. He is ever having to think of how to make money.

A simple sentence which means much:

The country is very beautiful. I saw as much as ever to admire in my yesterday’s journey.

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Anne Hathaway as the young Jane at Steventon (Becoming Jane, 2008), hurt, left out

A break and then Thursday. We see how hurt and left-off Anna felt, and how Austen understood this. Cassandra was taking her to Southampton as if that was sufficient treat – at least she was freed of a resentful mother.

I am glad to find that Anna was pleased with going to Southampton, and hope with all my heart that the visit may be satisfactory to everybody. Tell her that she will hear in a few days from her mamma, who would have written now but for this letter.

Then the vignette of the leisured life of the rich which she has temporary enjoyment of:

Godmersham today (a photo)

Yesterday passed quite a la Godmersham: the gentlemen rode about Edward’s farm, and returned in time to saunter along Bentigh with us; and after dinner we visited the Temple Planta­tions, which, to be sure, is a Chevalier Bayard of a plantation. James and Mary are much struck with the beauty of the place. To-day the spirit of the thing is kept up by the two brothers being gone to Canterbury in the chair.

I cannot discover, even through Fanny, that her mother is fatigued by her attendance on the children. I have, of course, tendered ; my services, and when Louisa is gone, who sometimes hears the little girls read, will try to be accepted in her stead.

Cassandra may have been urging Jane to make herself useful and Jane doesn’t see where there is an opening. She will not be here many days long. The Moores are partly expected to dine here tomorrow or Saturday.

I feel rather languid and solitary — perhaps because I have a cold; but there years ago we were more animated with you and Harriot and Miss Sharpe. We shall improve I dare day as we go on.

Here she is trying hard and here we do have evidence of her feeling out of it, restless, and very different from the others. Without her occupation? writing perhaps. I guess Austen wrote several hours a day; in a couple of places in the Bath letters there was the long morning before she went out visiting, shopping, where-ever.

Then she remembers and longs for Miss Sharpe, Harriot (Bridges) and Cassandra as they were at Godersham 3 years ago (1805 — from the tantalizing missing years).

Edward and Elizabeth have had a new carriage made (these were expensive) and all is liked but “the lining, which does look rather shabby.”

Then we hear of two other women who may be will: Mrs Whitfield and Mrs Knight. Broadstairs is the Isle of Thanet, a seaside resort.

Miss Sharpe has now hired herself out as a lady’s companion, Miss Bailey and they are to go to Tenby (Wales). What a life Miss Sharpe must’ve had.

Then a new laundress: widow Kennet. Jane’s trunk redux (she had much fear over it and her clothes on her 1797 trip to Bath):

Would you believe my trunk is come already; and what completes the wondrous happiness, nothing is damage. I unpacked it all before I went to bed last night, and when I went down to breakfast this morning presented the rug, which was received most gratefully, and met with universal admiration. My frock is also given, and kindly accepted.

Pathetic gifts. They made that rug and probably the frock too. She leaves off here. I can see why.

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Sponge cake

Friday: I have received your letter, and I think it gives me nothing to be sorry for but Mary’s cold, which I hope is by this time better. Her approbation of her child’s hat makes me very happy. Mrs J. A. bought one at Gayleard’s for Caroline, of the same shape, but brown and with a feather. I hope Huxham is a comfort to you; I am glad you are taking it. I shall probably have an opportunity of giving Harriot your message to-morrow; she does not come here, they have not a day to spare, but Louisa and I are to go to her in the morning. I send your thanks to Eliza by this post in a letter to Henry. Lady Catherine is Lord Portmore’s daughter. I have read Mr Jefferson’s case to Edward, and he desires to have his name set down for a guinea and his wife’s for another

That Cassandra does not wish for more than one copy of the work by the Rev. Jefferson.

Your account of Anna gives me pleasure. Tell her, with my love, that I like her for liking the quay. Mrs J.A. seems rather surprised at the Maitlands drinking tea, but that does not prevent my approving it. I hope you had not a disagreeable evening with Miss Austen and her niece. You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me

Much irony when she returns, such as the approbation of the new baby’s cap (Mary is Mary Gibson Austen). That it’s the same fashion as the one Mary bought for Caroline. I assume Jane bought this one for this baby.

On the pamphlet by Jefferson, see the 1989 Jane Austen Society report by W.A.W. Jarvis.

Again an affinity, a congeniality of tastes and minds with Anna Austen who enjoyed the quay. Jane meets hardly anyone who appreciates the natural world and landscape, seascape around them.

A reference “Miss Austen and her niece”, tea-drinking & the Maitlands. Arnie Perlstein explained this as follows:

This Miss Austen is Harriet Lennard Austen, the middle child of Harry Austen, who was Revd. Austen’s first cousin. So Harriet Lennard Austen, who never married and was 7 years older than JA, was JA’s second cousin, is the “Miss Austen” JA refers to. Harriet Lennard Austen lived in Southampton with her elder sister, ELizabeth-Matilda Harrison, and her husband, John Butler Harrison. That married couple had a daughter also named Elizabeth-Matilda who in 1814 married her second cousin, William Austen, from the Francis Austen/Francis-Motley Austen branch of the Austen family. Elizabeth-Matilda Harrison is therefore the “niece” to whom JA refers. It sounds to me like CEA got along pretty well with her second cousin, and that CEA would have had a nice evening with her and the teenaged niece.

Ellen wrote: “I see James’ first wife’s father is related…and why Mary Austen should disapprove I can’t think but her old jealousy of any connection James had with any one before her. Her resentment.” Ellen, Mrs. Maitland was the identical twin_sister of James Austen’s first wife who died as we know in 1796! So of course Mary Austen, with her special issues having to do with smallpox facial scarring, would have been extremely jealous of the “ghost” of her husband’s dead first wife!

To which I add Austen’s well-known comment about the sponge-cake may refer to what the relatives ate and be a kind of mock on the nature of the conversation they had. They discussed sponge-cakes.

As Austen stopped here again.

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Scissors cutting a lock of blonde hair

While it’s very hard to sum up a woman of as many folds in her mind and tones as Austen is in these letters, if I were to try for what differentiates these later ones from those at Bath and those at Steventon I’d call it “self-control.” Austen is exhibiting self-control in these letters. The last phrase of this letter shows this in spades. There are several incidents referred to which in the earlier letters would have provoked biting kinds of satire, or sudden outbursts of irritation or scorn which here Austen does mock but in a controlled distant fashion or in such a way as to keep herself out of the sentence by phrasing what she is thinking more impersonally.

This is seen at the close of the letter: again Jane is in the way. If she is taken along to Bookham (which from previous letters we know she enjoys) she will inconvenience or perhaps threaten the plan altogether.

Mrs Cooke has written to my brother James to invite him and his wife to Bookham (in their way back, which, as I learn through Edward’s means, they are not disinclined to accept, but that my being with them would render it impracticable, the nature of the road affording no conveyance to James. I shall therefore make them easy on that head as soon as I can.

Note the avoidance of the active voice in the first sentence, the roundabout abstraction gerundive phrasing.

She thinks Sackree silly and absurd in her eager boasting and wanting others to know that wow she’s been in the palace. But the way she suggests this is gentle:

I told Sackree that you desired to be remembered to her, which pleased her; and she sends her duty, and wishes you to know that she has been into the great world. She went on to town after”taking”‘to William to Eltham and, as well as myself, saw the ladies go to Court on the 4th. She had the advantage indeed of me in being in the Palace.

I can just hear the imitation of Sackree’s excited tones. Compare this to the send-ups of those thrilled to ‘be in the world” in Austen’s Juvenilia.

I’m one of those who think the Juvenilia while brilliant are juvenilia and the mature books (starting in 1811 with Sense and Sensibility) the works of fulfilled capacious genius. I agree with Deborah Kaplan that this adult woman did leave some equal fragments (The Watsons, Lady Susan) and more unfinished (Sanditon) and uneven (Catherine, or The Bower), but one has to admit they are not finished. And Woolf and Q. D. Leavis are right to say the genius of the texts is in the endless polish and rewriting.

This last part of the letter tells of a walk — common enough in these letters where Austen as ever in her world of women criss-crosses a landscape with one friend-relative companion to meet others:

I am now just returned from Eggerton; Louisa and I walked to­gether and found Miss Maria at home. Her sister we met on our way back. She had been to pay her compliments to Mrs. Inman, whose chaise was seen to cross the park while we were at dinner yesterday.

Eggerton was a house owned by the Cuthbert family and Mrs Elizabeth Knight; LeFaye says Edward pulled it down in later years because he did not like “strangers” to be so close to Godmersham. He wanted to control all the space and was the owner of the land so could kick them out. Mrs Inman a neighboring tenant too. Maria is Maria Cuthbert. The sister’s name was Elizabeth (LeFaye’s note).

I had thought the Louisa mentioned was not EAK’s daughter and find that here LeFaye agrees with me. She thinks the references are to Louisa Bridges — this would explain why Austen can write of her that she’s “not so handsome as expected.” The habit of naming everyone the same small set of names before the 20th century makes identification problematic continually. The first Louisa is a child, and this is the adult woman friend.

The incident of Anna’s cutting off her hair comes up. We have seen that Mary Austen deliberately excluded this girl; that she was hurt; that Cassandra was trying to make it up to her by taking her on a trip. Young people will cut off their noses to spite their faces, and they will rebel where they want strongly when they are hurt otherwise. After all what has she got to lose? So Anna cut her hair. I can see this intense passion. Alas that she destroyed her novel when she was depressed later in life.

Austen is again controlled in the way she discusses it:

Anna will not be sur­prised that the cutting off her hair is very much regretted by several of the party in this house; I am tolerably reconciled to it by considering ‘t k that two or three years may restore it again.

I suggest this is also a way of siding with Anna. By not making such a huge fuss, she suggests they leave the girl alone. She suffers enough. And it will grow back. so what? Austen sensible here.

EAK and Elizabeth’s children can be a rowdy bunch in later letters; there are so many of them. I feel they are reflected in the denseness of the Bertram children to their visitor, Fanny. Both Caroline and Edward were sensitive adults and children. Jane is reporting therefore on how they are doing to her sister who gets this:

Edward and Caroline seem very happy here; he has nice playfellows in Lizzy and Charles. They and their attendant have the boys’ attic

I speculate on the next one from the earlier context of this letter: Cassandra is trying to compensate to Anna for not being at Godmersham. LeFaye tells us Captain Bulmore was a mariner who lived in Southampton. LeFaye imagines him as skipper of the ferry service over to the Isle of Wight. But the reference also includes a hotel. Something funny also happened for the reference is to Cassandra’s keeping her dignity up. Maybe then this is a reference to an adventure (sort of) that Cassandra and Anna had together. Mrs Craven is repeatedly (by a number of witnesses) said to have been a total bitch and so her “approbation” would be of course to anyone who kept up a phony (=dignified) surface and Austen tells her sister she will get her reward for her distress and sustaining a role if she gets to see her this way (I see “pleasant” as ironic).

She ends on her mother’s worry that their gift was accepted and big enough: My mother will be glad to be assured that the size of the rug does perfectly well. It is not to be used till winter.

Also the love to everybody that Mr Knightley denies has any reality in Emma but feels real enough here to me. Those at Godmersham are missing Cassandra and wish she were with them.

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Opening scene of Diana Fairfax as Mrs Dashwood and Tracey Childs as Marianne excluded from their home, left with meagre options

Irene Richards as Elinor reasoning (1981 BBC Sense and Sensibility)

The learning about Austen we gain from these letters is indirect. In the first letters from Southampton we still see how mortified she is when driven to compare herself to others – by visiting them! — who are much richer, higher in rank than she. We see in these early ones again how sincere or real is her dislike of social hypocrisies, both the accepted rituals and the break-down (as continually can happen) of unwritten social rules. This tells us important realities in her mind when she frames her novels, gives us her perception of experience: how important rank, money, position are in her novels.

I account for this the way I did last week: she’s achieved a modicum of space, control of her time, a modus vivendi which contains part of her original plan (Martha) and I think she’s writing away, even at Godmersham. Marianne remembered years later Austen went round with her writing desk in which she kept manuscripts. In this letter she is consciously admitting the Richardson method: she is writing to the moment: “I am in the Yellow room — very literally — for I am writing in it at this very moment.” There are two other places in the letter where she reminds her reader and herself she is writing to the moment.

I had really no idea how much autobiography is found in the novels, transmuted but there all the same. And for me we are getting to the best ones: those where she talks of what she reads and finally (in the last section) her writing, for that’s what she cares about, and at the end of her life had found peace insofar as she could and did write. She expressed her turmoil, her feeling at having been excluded, left with few resources, marginalized, not allowed to live the life she might really have wanted, and her regrets (yes regrets for what she had not known) in her books.

“My Jane Austen.” This is a phrase that Cindy Jones has many fans in her My Jane Austen Summer use and she herself uses it. On Austen-l a couple of people wrote about who is their Jane Austen. When today — or just now — I think of who is “my Jane Austen,” she’s the woman who opened her first publication, which she paid for herself (or tried to, mostly) and on the second page told her reader that the older man who her major character has spent ten years of their lives catering to, comforting, helping,
living with, left most of his estate to a young child because he was amused by a series of mindless shallow antics:

it was secured, in such a way, as to leave to himself no power of providing for those who were most dear to him, and who most needed a provision by any charge on the estate, or by any sale of its valuable woods. The whole was tied up for the benefit of this child, who, in occasional visits with his father and mother at Norland, had so far gained on the affections of his uncle, by such attractions as are by no means unusual in children of two or three years old–an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise–as to outweigh all the value of all the attention which, for years, he had received from his niece and her daughters …

Yes that’s my Jane Austen and why I’ve carried on reading her all these years.
Just this past week I had an experience of a similar aging person acting
similarly ungratefully to a depth of care and preferring shallow gestures and
antics. Austen never fails me; she is ever relevant from page 1 on.

Amanda Root as Anne Elliot ejected from Kellynch (1995 BBC Persuasion)

Letters 43, 44; 45, 46, 47, and 48, 49, 50, 51

Ellen