Product Synopsis

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ...a share. She united strong common sense with a lively imagination, and often expressed herself, both in writing and in conversation, with epigrammatic force and point. She lived, like many of her family, to an advanced age. During the last years of her life she endured continual pain, not only patiently, but with characteristic cheerfulness. She once said to me, "Ah, my dear, you find me just where you left me, --on the sofa. I sometimes think that God Almighty must have forgotten me; but I dare say he will come for me in his own good time." She died and was buried at Chawton, January 1827, aged eighty-eight. Her own family were so much, and the rest of the world so little, to Jane Austen, that some brief mention of her brothers and sister is necessary, in order to give any idea of the objects which principally occupied her thoughts and filled her heart, especially as some of them, from their characters or professions in life, may be supposed to have had more or less influence on her writings; though I feel some reluctance in bringing before public notice persons and circumstances essentially private. Her eldest brother James, my own father, had, when a very young man, at St. John's College, Oxford, been the originator and chief supporter of a periodical paper called "The Loiterer," written somewhat on the plan of the "Spectator " and its successors, but nearly confined to subjects connected with the University. In after life he used to speak very slightingly of this early work, which he had the better right to do, as, whatever may have been the degree of their merits, the best papers had certainly been written by himself. He was well read in English literature, had a correct taste, and wrote readily and happily, both in prose and verse. He was...