................................................................................................
................................................................................................
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS
by Fanny Caroline Lefroy (1883)
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
Author, niece (/grandniece?) of Jane Austen, discourses on letter writing, and mentions her Jane Austen's writing, novels and letters.
................................................................................................
"It has been said that Jane Austen's books are wanting in pathos. It is true they have none of the hysterical sentimentality, none of the morbid love of all that is painful, which are so common in the novels of the present day. Yet it can scarcely be denied that the character of Anne in 'Persuasion' is treated with a great tenderness, and drawn by a very delicate hand. This character is all the more touching for its reticence, for its modest self-control, and Anne is as womanly in her yieldingness as she is in her constancy. There has been a conjecture that Anne is Jane Austen herself, and that the story of the heroine was possibly that of the writer—only with a different ending. It is easy to believe that this may be true, although proofs are wanting. We find in Miss Austen's own letters to her family the same sweet traits, the same gentle affection, the same quiet depth of feeling that we have loved in the heroine of 'Persuasion;' and towards the end, when her health failed her, we read between the lines still more clearly, her pure unselfish nature.
""Thanks to the kindness of your father and mother" (she writes to her nephew, when she was moved to Winchester for further medical advice), "in sending me their carriage, my journey hither on Saturday was performed with very little fatigue, and had it been a fine day, I think I should have felt none; but it distressed me to see Uncle Henry and William Knight, who kindly attended us on horseback, riding in the rain almost the whole way."
"And again:—
""As to what I owe her" (her sister Cassandra), "and the anxious affection of all my beloved family on this occasion" (her illness), "I can only cry over it, and pray God to bless them more and more.""
................................................................................................
"It has been said, and I think unfairly, that with the introduction of the penny post, died the art of letter-writing. But as long as there are people with literary instincts, and with a facility of expression; as long as there is daily life to be chronicled in all its pleasant triviality; as long as there are friends divided by thousands of miles and land and sea; so long, and this will probably be to the end of time, will letter-writing deserve to be cultivated as a fine art."
One has to wonder about the first part; but of course, now, one knows when letter writing died - when everyone could afford to call, to begin with, and later, internet, cell phones and chat killed even language!
................................................................................................
" ... And here are letters with strange postmarks, and foreign stamps, letters closely written on thin paper, that have travelled thousands and thousands of miles to tell you that the writer still thought of you and loved you. And there is that last one, too, over which you have shed so many tears, and which arrived after the news of his death—a simple garrulous letter winding up with "there is no news to tell you, but I shall be home again, please God, next summer," or some such phrase, which cuts you still to the heart. And so on, and so on, until you are forced to own that these poor old letters have a charm of their own that time and change can only heighten, and around which death even can but set a halo."
This happened at least twice to Austen family, and related to the same cousin - Elizabeth, daughter of aunt Philadelphia nee' Austen, whose husband died in India of illness while his wife and child were in England; and then Elizabeth married a French Count Feuillade who was guillotine during the revolution while Elizabeth and her son were in England.
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................
................................................
September 14, 2021 - September 14, 2021.
................................................
................................................
http://www.mollands.net/etexts/other/bundle.html
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
