Austen’s letters 87 & 88, Wed-Thurs, 15-16 Sept 1813, Henrietta St to Chawton

I was particularly disappointed at seeing nothing of Mr Crabbe. I felt sure of him when I saw that the boxes were fitted up with Crimson velvet … & I must say that I have seen nobody on the stage who has been a more interesting Character than that compound of Cruelty and Lust [Don Juan, even in a farce].

The little girls teeth I can suppose in a critical state, but I think he [the dentist] must be a Lover of Teeth & Money & Mischeif [sic] to parade about Fannys. –- I would not have had him look at mine for a shilling a tooth & double it. –- It was a disagreable [sic] hour …

We then went to Wedgwoods where my Brother & Fanny chose a Dinner Set. — I beleive the pattern is a small Lozenge in purple, between Lines of narrow Gold; — & it is to have the Crest — from the close of 16 September, after dinner — J. Austen

Wedgewood china: the set of Wedgewood china bought by Edward and Fanny Austen during their London visit

Dear friends and readers,

Austen reading Crabbe, suggesting dates with him at the theater, dentists there for the money, shopping. Warren Hastings sends her a note praising P&P. For this week we have two separate letters, but the second was written after dinner and on the same final day as the first. In truth, Jane Austen was keeping a journal (in effect) while in London and sending Cassandra installments.

Jane has been with Henry in London on-and-off since April when she came as Eliza was dying (see letter 85, 24 May 1813); she went home to Chawton during the summer precisely during the time his trip to Matlock with his nephew occurred (and her letter to Frank was written from Chawton, 86, 13 July 1813) and then returning with Edward and his daughters when Henrietta St quarters is set up. They are keeping him company for this first stretch of his widower period, even if business demands (probably good for him) that he run about all day and travel here and there. She’s there when he returns and then she’s there with his familiar brother and nephews and nieces. On and off it’s a 6 month stretch thus far. She keeps him company, goes out with him, is there as he begins to make his move from Sloane Street and again as the life of Henrietta St (above his shop as it were) begins.

These letters are of interest for their vignettes of the life a woman of her type (gentry, upper middle class) would live while in London. Jane reports, delightedly, the high praise P&P was garnering (including a written note or letter from Warren Hastings), and her attitudes toward this, some allusions or uses of language which remind us she’s writing MP and may have begun Emma, and we get some insight into her attitudes towards the theater (Don Juan in particular), dentistry (she is sensible), shopping and servants. She may be reading Crabbe’s poetry.

On the subject of the way Austen presents Henry’s behavior in her letters after Eliza’s death, in his close study of Austen’s letters and novels Pierre Goubet (JA: Etude psychologique de la romanciere) points out that Elizabeth Austen died 8 October 1808, and within 2 weeks (Austen’s letter 59, 16 October 1808) she is already talking of how Fanny, the daughter should “soon” we may hope exert herself by duty out of grief. Edward she gives up on for now, but observe in the very first sentence she is saying Edward will (she hopes) soon moderate: Edward’s grief must be terrible … these are too easy days indeed to think of moderation.” But she is thinking of it. Her lack of affliction is often put down to Austen not liking Elizabeth. I’d put down her concession to Edward because of 12 children, also he caused the pregnancies (and in another letter it’s suggested he did not remarry because he didn’t want to put himself or any woman through that again), but Austen’s behavior and tone is very like that of her towards Henry upon his grief.

Austen is glad to think Henry bouncing back not because she values bouncing back quickly so much but because that’s the way she behaves. Emma Woodhouse makes a point of saying to Harriet you do what you can for the poor, to feel bad beyond this is useless. Let us dismiss it from our minds now. And Austen backs her up by her language letting us know Harriet has been posing to be charitable and feelingful anyway. “Oh dear yes.” Where there is a change is for Anne Elliot in Persuasion. Benwick no. His grief is presented as partly self-fed, like arianne; anyway he gets over it rather quickly once a new target is presented.

This mentality of Austen’s is an element in her make-up I have not pointed to before. You may justify it or not. A tight reign on one’s experience of loss and an expectation all around her should try to do likewise. Only this way can we have an interior peace and not be over-run by our strength of feeling (those of us who do have that). Harriet must put aside her grief or others will see her vulnerability, respect her less and she will be less safe from other people.

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87: Wed-Thurs, 15-16 Sept 1813, from Henrietta St, Wednesday … 1/6 past 8 [she records when she began the letter]

Miss Austen Regrets: the movie dramatizes a later visit to Henry by Jane (and has just Fanny there), but it captures something of the atmosphere of Henry’s flat

Here I am, my dearest Cassandra, seated in the Breakfast, Dining, sitting room, beginning with all my might. Fanny will join me as soon as she is dressed & begin her Letter. We had a very good journey — Weather & roads excellent — the three first stages for 1 (shilling) 6 (pence) & our only misadventure the being delayed about a qr of an hour at Kingston for Horses, & being obliged to put up with a P’ belonging to a Hackney Coach & their Coachman, which left no room on the Barouche Box for Lizzy, who was to have gone her last stage there as she did the first; — consequently we were all 4 within, which was a little crowd; — We arrived at a quarter past 4 — & were kindly welcomed by the Coachman, & then by his Master, and then by William,l & then by Mme Perigord, who all met us before we reached the foot of the Stairs. Mde Bigeon was below dressing is a most comfortable dinner of Soup, Fish, Bouillee, Partridges & an apple Tart, which we sat down to soon after 5, after cleaning & dressing selves & feeling that we were most commodiously disposed of. — The little adjoining Dressing-room to our apartment makes Fanny & myself very well off indeed, & as we have poor Eliza’s bed our space ample every way. — Sace arrived safely about 1/2 past 6. At 7 we set in a Coach for the Lyceum — were at home again in about 4 hours and 1/2 — had Soup & wine & water, & then went to our Holes. Edward finds his quarters very snug & quiet. — I must get a softer pen. — This is harder. — I am in agonies. — I have not yet seen Mr Crabbe. — Martha’s letter is gone to the Post.

I am going to write nothing but short Sentences. There shall be full stops in every Line. Layton and Shear’s is Bedford House. We mean to get there before breakfast if it’s possible. For we feel more & more how much we have to do. And how little time. This house looks nice. It seems like Sloane St moved here. I believe Henry is just rid Sloane St — Fanny does not come, but I have Edward seated by me beginning a Letter, which looks natural.

Henry has been suffering from the pain in the face which he has been subject to before. He caught cold at Matlock, & since his return has been paying a little for past pleasure. — It is nearly removed now, — but he looks thin in the face – -either from the pain, or the fatigues of his Tour, which must have been great.

Diana: “The journey: we may notice that she is starting to use the language of Emma, for her description of the coach, with 4 within, “which was a little crowd,” is rather like what she will have Frank Churchill exclaim about: “A crowd in a little room — Miss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures in a few words. Exquisite, quite exquisite!” After being welcomed by another crowd, this time of servants, the “comfortable dinner” with its apple Tart, sounds extremely Hartfieldian. Yet there is a sad note amidst the coziness: “as we have poor Eliza’s bed our space is ample in every way.”

We really had not emphasized enough this is a diary and that for a long first bout Edward is sitting next to Austen, reading over her shoulder perhaps — in this part of the letter we see him react directly to what Austen has just written down.

Miss Austen Regrets uses a later one of Jane and Fanny’s trips to Henry’s flat (1914 when Henry finally fell ill and Dr Hadden, an apothecary was called in). The film succeeds in recreating the atmosphere of this and the next letter (except the father was left out), the companionableness with the servants, a milieu rich and redolent of French culture partly because of Mme Bigeon’s presence. They traveled from Godmersham in style — because Edward is there — and Jane does not really like to “put up with a hackney coach.” One niece wanted to be on the barouche box. Jane pays attention to the servants, we get the French food. The time together in the room captured very well in the film The relationship between Fanny and her aunt was encouraged by Edward. They went out to the Lyceum and saw a play. As usual we are not told what she saw. It often really seems not to have mattered to Jane Austen (though she does offer one real insight into Don Juan later in this letter).

A mid-20th century edition which contains all George Crabbe‘s poems that Austen alluded to in her novels (though not all that she read)

For years I’ve quoted Austen’s joke about how she’s Mrs Crabbe, or is willing to be as a serious joke about how much she loved the poetry, how she felt Crabbe was a fellow spirit, which the family wanted to dismiss altogether: it at least shows how much Crabbe’s profoundly pessimistic verse set in the lower orders of their day meant to her. David Selwyn shows a poem from the Parish Register tells a closely analogous story of an orphan Fanny Price, with “Procrastination in The Borough having a darkly ironic parallel moral as Persuasion (JA and Leisure, 203-8). So perhaps she was reading Crabbe while in London just as she was writing MP. The family tries to downplay this remark, perhaps because in this small world of the gentry it was known that Crabbe came to London to nurse his dying wife, and the joke (a little later) about being willing to replace her but not take her children is in questionable taste. Halperin’s comment about Austen’s detachment in the letters is germane here. So her too hard pen, Crabbe and then Martha. That she loves Crabbe makes a natural association to Martha to whom Jane was so strongly attached still.

A parody of simple style. Perhaps Austen has been bothered by someone who told her that her novels (or her letters) have too involved sentences, too hard to read, or challenged to write this way, so she deflects this by making fun of it and “writing in short sentences. This is another place where we may take it her authorship of S&S and P&P was getting about. Layton and Shears was a millinery establishment at 9 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. After the death of his wife, Henry Austen moved into chambers … Bedford House? a square.

Henry’s pain in his face. He had been traveling. He is also characterized as very thin (lost weight), looking tired. He’s suffering still from the death — and the tensions of his occupation. He’s not a gentleman like Edward who can sit beside the sister and write letters – or pretend to (Jane’s idea). Henry has thought that without Eliza he ought to save and so moved. Moving is traumatic. And probably the strains of this business where he is really making money by floating the aristocrats he had to cultivate and endure count for something. Perhaps he know how tenuous his business was. (In the next letter an important partner-associate dies.) His surface nonchalance was a sort of performance accepted by the family as easy to take; this also later made it easy to blame him. Let’s recall Sir Thoma coming home from Antigua: fagged, weary. The illness that was to come in next year’s visit was the result of letting himself get run down.

Drawing of 18th century phantasmagoria — these were shown at the Lyceum

Lady Roberts is delighted with P&P — and really was so as I understand before she knew who wrote it — for, of course, she knows now. — He told her with as much satisfaction as if it were my wish. He did not tell me this, but he told Fanny. And Mr Hastings — I am quite delighted that such a Man writes about it. — Henry sent him the Books after his return from Daylesford — but you will hear the Letter too.

Let me be rational & return to my two full stops.

I talked to Henry at the Play last night. We were in a private Boxe — Mr Spencer’s — Which made it much more pleasant. The Box is directly on the Stage. One is infinitely less fatigued than in the common way — But Henry’s plans are not what one could wish. He does not mean to be at Chawton till t 29. — He must be in town again by Oct 5 . — His plan is to get a couple of days of Pheasant Shooting and then return directly; his wish was to bring you back with him. I have told him your scruples. — He wishes you to suit yourself as to time. And if you cannot come till later, will send for you at any time, as far as Bagshot. — He presumed you would not find difficulty in getting so far. I could not say you would. He proposed your going with him into Oxfordshire. It was his own thought at first. I could not but catch at it for you.

We have talked of it again this morning (for now we have breakfasted), and I am convinced that if you can make it suit in other respects you need not scruple on his account. If you cannot come back with him on the 3d or 4th therefore, I do hope you will contrive to go to Adlestrop. — By not beginning your absence till about the middle of this month I think you may manage it very well. But you will think all this over. One could wish he had intended to come to you earlier, but it cannot be helped. I said nothing to him of Mrs H[eathcote]. & Miss [Althea] Bigg that he might not suppose Difficulties. Shall not you put them into our own Room? This seems to me the best plan — & the Maid will be most conveniently near.

The delighted tone of the letter comes from the praise of people like Lady Roberts and Warren Hastings. She will mentions Hastings’s praise and letter (to her? again (in connection with Eliza): she just can’t get over it that such a man should like her book. Not only was he intelligent but powerful; that he should take the time to write about it. This letter too Cassandra destroys (!) We see another psychological reason for her not wanting others to know it’s her. She wanted to listen in, free also of any accountability and involvement, need not be afraid what anyone will think of her. Her delight the stronger when she can have this feeling too. We can see just how “top of the world” all this is to Jane by the last remark: “Let me be rational & return to my two full stops.”

This is another Henry letter. His presence is just everywhere, repeatedly coming back, on her mind, even if during the day he is off to work and she says she is “not seeing much of him.” The subject is again this business of the difficult these two now grown women have of going anywhere. Cassandra needs Henry to take her to Godmersham and he has his own schedule to worry about first. His plans take precedence over any help he might offer his sister. He will of course send for her any time but note the dates he insists on. Surely she can get to Bagshot by herself. (Maybe she could; maybe he gets irritated with all this fuss about their class position, and threatened chastity alone — it could be that.) Note how tactful Jane tries to be. She is not frank with him. “I could not but catch at it for you.” He’s the man, she’s defers. She brings it up again in the morning (making me remember Lady Middleton reminding Sir John six times a day). So she now hopes Cassandra can contrive Adlestop. (Maybe she should walk, get wings, or maybe just take a public vehicle.) They also want him to visit but fear if they say their good friends the Biggs are going to be there, he’ll not come.

And then their arrangements for their single women friends. Means a lot to them. Austen does delight in a box, so “much more pleasant.” Mr Spencer one of Henry’s friends who live in the finer part of London (see LeFaye for addresses)

Oh, dear me, when I shall ever have done? We did go to Layton & Shear’s before Breakfast. Very pretty English poplins at 4.3-Irish at 6.0 — more pretty certainly — beautiful. — Fanny & the two little girls are gone to take Places for to-night at Covent Garden; Clandestine Marriage & Midas.” The latter will be a fine show for L. & M.[the younger nieces] — They revelled last night in Don Juan whom we left in Hell at at half past 11. — We had Scaramouche & a Ghost =- and were delighted; — I speak of them; my delight was very tranquil, & the rest of us were sober-minded. Don Juan was the last of 3 musical things; — Five hours at Brighton, in 3 acts – -of which one was over before we arrived, none the worse — & The Beehive, rather less flat & trumpery.

I have this moment received £5 from kind, beautiful Edward. Fanny has a similar Gift. I shall save what I can of it for your better leisure in this place. My: Letter was from Miss Sharpe. — Nothing particular. — A letter from Fanny Cage this morning.

Shadwell’s Libertine is a serious play, dealing with the amorality and libertinism (behavior supposed to be based on atheism) of a macho male promiscuous aristocrat. Perhaps Austen had read Shadwell. Here it’s a question of a farce adapted from Shadwell. I wish for her sake that she had for her own sake have seen Mozart, for it’s there the character is fully laid out in the way she grasps. This also gives us some insight into perhaps the way she would’ve seen Lovelace and thus Henry Crawford (partly modeled on such a figure as Fanny’s scene with Sir Thomas has elements in it of Clary refusing her father).

Shopping: she has the money to buy pretty things, but is still limited. They go to a fashionable milliners. Jane notes exact prices She admits the more expensive is “more pretty certainly — beautiful.” But if she bought we do not know. Let’s recall she said that Edward was sitting next to her while she is writing. Perhaps looking over her shoulder. So she this moments get 5 pounds from him. He knows she didn’t buy. and he gets a “kind, beautiful.” if anyone is reading this, notice he’s there. This is a dramatic letter written to the moment with Edward next to her acting in response; she’s using the letter to tell him too.

Two more women friends. How I wish we had that letter from Miss Sharpe too (along with Hastings’s note). Then the paragraphs about the play and how different was Austen’s response to that of her young female relatives (see above).

I should say to anyone who’s not read it Colman and Garrick’s Clandestine Marriage is a very good play, still done today; I’ve seen it twice and my younger daughter loved it. It’s worth reading as a real text to read; the mode is like that of P&P — depth of feeling within comic caricatures; I’ve seen the actress who played the squire’s sister in the version I saw also hit off Mrs Bennet brilliantly in a (otherwise poor tepid) play version of P&P.
Midas, an afterpiece, the traditional fable updated.

4 o’clock.. — We are just come back from doing Mrs Tickars, Miss Hare, and Mr Spence. Mr Hall is here; & while Fanny is under his hands, I will try to write a little more. Miss Hare had some pretty caps, and is to make me one like one of them, only white sattin instead of blue. It will be white sattin and lace, and a little white flower perking out of the left ear, like Harriot Byron’s feather.” I have allowed her to go as far as £1-16. My Gown is to be trimmed everywhere with white ribbon plaited on, somehow or other. She says it will look well. I am not sanguine. They trim with white very much.

I learnt from Mrs Tickars’s young Lady, to my high amusement, that the stays now are not made to force the Bosom up at all; — that was a very unbecoming, unnatural fashion. I was really glad to hear that they are not to be so much off the shoulders as they were.

Going to Mr Spence’s was a sad Business & cost us many tears, unluckily we were obliged to go a 2d time before he could do more than just look: — we went I at 1/2 past 12 and afterwards at 3. Papa went with us each time — &, alas! we are to go again to-morrow. Lizzy is not finished yet. There have been no Teeth taken out however, nor will as I believe, but he finds hers in a very bad state, & seems to think ill of their Durableness. — They have been all cleaned, hers fled, and are to be filed again. There is a very sad hole between two of her front Teeth.

Austen went to a hair-curler, hated it, but was silenced by “my companions” who admired it. It was in the midst of these (artificial) curls that the bit of velvet went (so what is done to actresses in 18th century costume dramas is just what was done then). The real adventures in pain in this era of going to a dentist, but dentistry had taken its first steps into modern treatments (including cosmetic and unnecessary early pulling of teeth): did you know rich people paid poor people and some masters and mistresses pressured their servants into having their teeth pulled so they could have them put in their mouths. Eighteenth-Century Life 28.1 (2004) 21-68. They go twice, the pain being too much to take all at once. (A favorite quote from her Catherine or The Bower:

I wish there were no such things as Teeth in the World; they are nothing but plagues to one, and I dare say that People might easily invent something to eat with instead of them. —Jane Austen, Catherine, or the Bower

Gentle reader, you thought push-up bras are a modern invention. Think again and I’ll quote this passage twice: “stays are not now made to force the bosom up at all”. I’m glad to say Jane Austen disliked that too but does not seem keen on the recent fashion of looking flat-chested; however she makes do with the idea that the corset will at least be more comfortable.

A favorite line often quoted out of context is Austen remembering what Harriet Byron wore to the masquerade and seeing herself as looking like Harriet. Equally interesting are all the remarks on the family.

Mr Hall is a hairdresser who comes to the house. Very expensive. Miss Hare a milliner. Austen knows she is old and age will not be hidden by girlish ornament. Not fooled. And today dentists too do make-work and in my experience don’t respect one’s real teeth that much. So they made their money making replacements then too. Edward goes both times. To pay maybe. He would have the money himself. Or to make sure not too much was done to them. Maybe to protect them? Doctors were not yet the gods who decreed expensive treatments just like this and then parents pay (like today).

This not seeing much of Henry. I have just seen him however for 3 minutes, & have read him the Extract from Mrs F.A’s Letter — & he says he will write to Mr F A. A. all about it, & he has no doubt of being attended to as he knows they feel themselves obliged to him. — Perhaps you may see him on Saturday next. He has just started such an idea. But it will be only for a couple of days.

Thursday morning 1/2 past 7. — Up & dressed and downstairs in order to finish my Letter in time for the Parcel. At 8 I have an appointment with M de B[igeon]. 12 who wants to show me something downstairs. At 9 we are :set off for Grafton House & get that over before breakfast. Edward so kind as to walk there with us. We are to be at Mr Spence’s again at11 & from that time shall be driving about I suppose till 4 0′ clock at least. We are if possible to call on Mrs Tilson, Henry’s partner’s wife.

Mr Hall was very punctual yesterday & curled me out at a great rate. I thought it looked hideous, and longed for a snug cap instead, but my companions silenced me by their admiration. I had only a bit of velvet round my head. I did not catch cold however. The weather is all in my favour. I have had no pain in my face since I left you. We had very good places in the Box next the stage box-front and 2nd row, the three old ones behind of course. — I was particularly disappointed at seeing nothing of Mr Crabbe. I felt sure of him when I saw that the boxes were fitted up with Crimson velvet.” The new Mr Terry was Lord Ogleby, & Henry thinks he may do; but there was no acting more than moderate; & I was as much amused by the remembrances connected with Midas as with any part of it. The girls were very much delighted, but still prefer Don Juan — & I must say that I have seen nobody on the stage who has been a more interesting Character than that compound of Cruelty and Lust.”

At first she doesn’t bother say what play she saw. It’s really not important to her until the others begin to speak of them and then we learn it was a part farcical adaptation of a Don Juan play by Thomas Shadwell (the last of 3 musical things — so the theater really souped up whatever it was they saw — the equivalent of watching commercial TV today). She only begins to talk of what they saw when Fanny and her sisters come home and start to spout what she does not agree with. For once she here bothers to offer a sound view — she is for once not involved, her own pride satisfied for a time. She was herself bored at the Don Juan when they went the first time (the way it was done, which delighted the mindless). Here she does drop a real view: she’s seen “nobody on the stage who has a more interesting Character than that compound of Cruelty and Lust.”

Mr Hall is a hairdresser who comes to the house. Very expensive. Miss Hare a milliner. Austen knows she is old and age will not be hidden by girlish ornament. Not fooled. And today dentists too do make-work and in my experience don’t respect one’s real teeth that much. So they made their money making replacements then too. Edward goes both times. To pay maybe. He would have the money himself. Or to make sure not too much was done to them. Maybe to protect them? Doctors were not yet the gods who decreed expensive treatments just like this and then parents pay (like today).

Henry may be at work during the day but he is never far from her mind. Three minutes snatched (like some wife darting out as her husband rushes off) to read aloud to him an extract from Frank’s wife’s letter. So something important there which Henry acknowledges and promises to attend to. LeFaye thinks it might be Francis Motley but whoever it is, Henry is prepared to pressure the person to do what’s wanted. As this line is not often quoted I’ll quote it separately here: “he has no doubt of being attended to as he knows they feel obligated to him” Jane has to make an appointment with Mme de Bigeon in order to get to see her.

In Miss Austen Regrets Jane (Oliva Williams) talks with Mme Bigeon (Sylvie Herbert) over a fire late at night

Dentist again.

The theater. Again the possibly distasteful jokes about Crabbe. Maybe Austen didn’t know his wife was dying: she says she was expecting to see him at the theater because “the boxes were fitted up with crimson velvet”(maybe she has a specific line in mind as she often does for Cowper, showing a real working knowledge). Apparently Austen made some personal application to Midas: LeFaye declines to guess; I’ll guess it had something to do with how poor she was — she no longer feels so poor or dependent and refers to her money in this letter both directly and indirectly (when she’s spending). The pain in her face now gone. Was it sympathetic for Henry’s pain? And the trips to the theater, once again to see Don Juan, with some intelligent commentary: She watches for decent acting. She observes that the older people give way, the better seats to the young and more enthusiastic (or determined).

The last part of the letter has to do with their plans for leaving Henry: Edward’s pressuring him to come to Godmersham — he didn’t need much pressure before when Eliza was still alive — curious that, but maybe business is pressing. She speaks of Henry coming to Cassandra briefly. Alton was where one of his stores (so to speak) were so he could drop off at Chawton from there. More on her books probably about proofing for the 2nd edition; shopping and Henry’s business activities (and things are not going that well) — with sudden jumps to Hastings and Eliza. Then three paragraphs about the miseries of Bath. I read just the other day some article insisting that Nokes was right and Jane Austen loved Bath. The author cannot have read her letters with any attention.

Distributing books, shopping, Henry’s business:

I heard Edward last night pressing Henry to come to Godmersham & I think Henry engaged to go there after his November collection. Nothing has been done as to S&S. The Books came to hand too late for him to have time for it, before he went. Mr Hastings never hinted [underlined, emphatic] at Eliza in the slightest degree. Henry knew nothing of Mr Trimmer’s death. I tell you these things, that you may not have to ask them over again.

There is a new Clerk sent down to Alton, a Mr Edmund Williams, a young Man whom Henry thinks most highly of — and he turns out to be a son of the luckless Williamses of Grosvenor Place. I long to have you hear Mr Hastings’ opinion of P&P. His admiring my Elizabeth so much is particularly welcome me to me. Instead of saving my superfluous wealth for you to spend, I am going to treat myself with spending it myself. I hope at least that I shall fin some poplin at Layton & Shears that will tempt me to buy it. If I do. it shall be sent to Chawton, as half will be for you; for I depend upon your being so kind as to accept it, being the main point. It will be a great pleasure to me. Don’t say a word. I only wish you could choose too. I shall send 2o yards.

In context again it may be that Henry was carrying books to specific people. She is just tickled pink over Hastings’s note. Since Henry visited Hastings as a person attached to Eliza, the silence was deafening. I’ve said this before but left out that last sentence. In the case of S&S Austen is answering Cassandra, here about Trimmer, Eliza and Hastings she brings the topic up herself. This might not be liked. They are not to discuss Eliza at all. So she explains why: she knows her sister wants to know.

Trimmer’s death. A serious loss for Henry. An important partner, a family with money and connections. He doesn’t want to be lending money unless he’s got some and he was (remember this) the 4th son with nothing but what’s left from Eliza’s dowry. That’s the sort of thing Hastings did not want to hear about.

The new clerk. The “luckless Williamses” are connected to the Biggs. The sense is this young man will bring nothing (no funds, no connections)

She goes on about Elizabeth in P&P. For each novel in her mind she is writing a heroine’s text and it’s that heroine who counted for her as she wrote. That’s what she thought about. The heroines is the central element in each book. Her character as conceived by Austen makes the novel what it is.

Then the moderately rich lady wants to give her sister a present. She herself has no expenses for real — no rent, no money for daily transportation, no children, nothing so all her money is “superfluous” –meaning that it’s disposable income would be our phrase.

Now for Bath. Poor F[anny]. Cage has suffered a good deal from her accident. The noise of the White Hart was terrible to her. — They will keep her quiet, I dare say: She is not so much delighted with the place as the rest of the Party; probably, as she says herself, from having been less well, but she thinks she should’ like it better in the season. The Streets are very empty now, & the shops not so gay as she expected. They are at No. 1 Henrietta Street, the corner of Laura Place; and have no acquaintance at present but the Bramstons.

Lady B. drinks at the Cross Bath, her son at the Hot, and Louisa is going to Bathe. Dr Perry seems to be half starving Mr Bridges; for he is restricted to much such a Diet as James’s Bread, Water and Meat, & is never to eat so much of that as he wishes; — & he is to walk a great deal, walk till he drops, I believe, Gout or no Gout. It really is to that purpose; I have not exaggerated.

Charming weather for you & us, and the Travellers, & everybody. You will take your walk this afternoon & … [end of letter missing]

Fanny Cage was another spinster friend. Noise just terrible. Austen does not like noise any more than Fanny Price .The rest of her party so delighted, but not she. Yet making the best of a bad situation politely: “she thinks she should like it better … ”

Reduced to the Bramstons says Austen. LeFaye tells us these were west country people, and she quotes a letter which shows the lead female to be “an artful worldly woman, with a notable self-sufficient capacity” (networker, performer eho thinks the world of herself and that she does not need anyone) and very stupid son (“blockhead”)

Bath is where sick people went and they found there doctors who could do nothing for them.

But charming weather for them and then Jane went onto another topic and we are confronted with Cassandra’s scissors. There was something there that to Cassandra’s mind that was revealing of what must be kept hidden.

For Letter 88 (Wednesday after dinner), see comments.

Ellen