Jane Austen
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Jane Austen’
Henry Tilney teases a bewildered Catherine Morland for her lazy vocabulary.
Catherine Morland has been invited for a walk near Bath by Eleanor Tilney and her brother, the Revd Henry Tilney. Henry finds Catherine’s artless simplicity irresistible, but cannot help teasing her; and after she praises her favourite novel, ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’, with a tame adjective, Henry is merciless.
Emma tries to reconcile her father to the unaccountable tastes of his nearest and dearest.
Mild Mr Woodhouse cannot quite forgive Mr John Knightley for carrying off his daughter Isabella as bride, even though he dotes on his little grandchildren Henry and John. It is left to Isabella’s sister Emma to calm his fear that the boys’ father is altogether too rough-and-tumble with them.
Louisa Musgrove thought she had hit on a sure method of winning Captain Wentworth’s affections.
Anne Elliot has no expectation that Captain Wentworth will ever forgive her for turning down his proposal of marriage eight years before. Nonetheless, the Captain’s attentions to young Louisa Musgrove have been noted, and events on the promenade at Lyme in Dorset complicate matters further.
Jane Austen wrote as a Christian, but all the better for doing so unobtrusively.
Jane Austen’s novels are not fluffy romances, but profound modern fables, leaving the reader amused but also thinking about serious subjects. Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, was one of the first reviewers to recognise what Jane was hoping to achieve, and appreciate her way of achieving it.
For Jane Austen, the best education a father can give to his child is to befriend her.
Sir Thomas Bertram has lost both his daughters to unhappy marriages, and now has the unwelcome leisure to reflect on where he went wrong. He gave them a progressive education, he laid down the law; but what he should have done was to get to know them, and to win their trust.
Anne Elliot is mortified to hear Frederick Wentworth’s opinion of her, but manages to find comfort in his words.
Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wentworth meet again seven years after Anne rejected Frederick’s proposal of marriage, under pressure from a trusted friend. A chance remark by the Captain, repeated by Anne’s sister Mary, leads them both to convince themselves that love is dead – and that they are happier that way.