To Everybody,

'Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery' - I would like to explore a question that has intrigued me for some time: how did such a diverse group of people, as we are, come from such different places, to a common appreciation and delight in one author? Who can remember how 'the pleasing plague' first stole upon them? I know how it happened in my case - but how about the rest of you?
Julie

To peoples of multi and not so multi cultures,

Okay, after a few days of lurking at the water's edge I'm wading in.  Thank you to Julie for providing a tide pool to paddle about in.  I just want to tell everyone how much I have enjoyed reading your opinions on various things, even the stuff I disagree with. Ash, I intend to look up the word "romance" to see if Trollope meant it in the sense we understand it today, but I haven't been able to get to the library yet.  Gotta have that OED.

Incidentally, I live only an hour from our great undefended border, and I usually remain blissfully ignorant of the thrills and spills of being an American except if kids shoot each other. And I've heard the name Monica, but that's when I generally do the dishes or bathe the kid.  I'd ask if any of that has been resolved yet, but if I really cared, I'd already have the answer.  So much for the whole world caring about what goes on in the states.  What's wonderful about Austen is, her novels did not reflect the huge convulsions of her day, except references to a war in Persuasion perhaps.  Maybe that's what I love about her.  The last time I watched the world news segment I saw an innocent man shot to death and slowly die while the camera panned in on him.  I cannot get that image out of my mind, and that was a good 15 or 20 years ago. Excuse me if I'd rather not know.  And if you're bringing back the guillotine and public viewing of same in use, I take your point and except we have banned capital punishment.  I guess it takes a while before the benefits of living without it begin to kick in.  Not that we don't have our share of criminals, but...

Now, on the subject of when I first read Austen (who, by the way, you have to read a biography on to find out what her political leanings were and what church she went to): I was in my late teens, and tiring of Agatha Christie.  I remember having this vague idea that I should attempt to work my way through the local library book by book, but when I got there, I scanned the shelves at "A" and decided to skip to Austen because Pride and Prejudice looked like a scholarly title and I had heard of it somewhere.

In university I learned many things.  Among them, if you love something, don't take a course on it.  However, Austen held up admirably.

I have read with interest how Ash (I think it was his posting - they're starting to meld together) couldn't figure out what Austen was looking for in Burney's novels.  I read Burney.  I even read Richardson's Clarissa, and a couple of Edgeworth's, ummm, things.  Have you read her children's stories?  Not Dr. Seuss, but a step up from the sad stories of pious children remaining pious on their deathbeds as they wither away from consumption, or naughty children who are consumed in flames.  I think we have to look not just at the "famous" stuff that Austen would have read and admired, but particularly the pulp, which makes Richardson and Edgeworth seem downright marvelous and fascinating by comparison.  Even so, I couldn't wait until Clarissa bit the big one.  And the novel continued on and on and on after that.  Something like this posting. I'm shutting up now.

To Everybody,

Are you a Canadian, Heather?  I'm sitting here trying to think of how many undefended borders there might be between the U.S. and the rest of the planet, and I'm not having much luck.  If you are Canadian, then I must confess that you live in one of the very few parts of the world that I could wish to visit - I would love to see  a really, truly winter some day.  I absolutely agree with you about not wishing to know - well, that's not true, really, because anybody with the intellect of a newt would have to KNOW about guilt, and misery, in the world - but is it necessary to dwell, wallow, and be entertained by it?  Not as far as I'm concerned, anyway.  Have you ever seen a moose?
Julie

From the Meister: Heather, Julie lives in Tasmania.

Dear Heather,

Welcome to the community. I don't know what it is, but you seem like our kind o' guy. So, you're a Canadian, eh?

About the use of the word "romance", the Oxford Companion to English Literature has this to say

Apparently, the OED. is unequivocal while the OCEL. is not. - (Typical of the Commonwealth!) Incidentally, the Oxford dictionary is riddled with misspellings and so I recommend that you switch to Webster's. You will find a far more satisfactory - more complete treatment of "romance" in that more authoritative reference.

I believe that Jane Austen herself used that word in the dictionary sense when she wrote her famous letter explaining that she would laugh at herself should she ever attempt to write a "romance". That is clear from the context of the letter. However - not so fast! - it seems that our Lady used the same word in the modern sense in a famous passage in Pride and Prejudice (1813). That was the passage when the incredulous Elizabeth Bennet rushed to the side of her friend, Charlotte Lucas, upon hearing of the latter's engagement to Mr. Collins. In the course of her explanation, Charlotte says this "... I am not a romantic you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins's character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state." I always hated that woman.

You demonstrated an understanding of HTML, do you have a webpage?

To All,

To Julie: I read Pride and Prejudice when I was 23 years old (or so) and travelling in Mexico. It was one of the few English books in the library in San Miguel de Allende. I liked it so well that I read the other five novels within the next six months.

I agree with your conclusions about the death penalty, but not your reasoning. You might just as easily outlaw incarceration saying, "If it's wrong to imprison, it's wrong to imprison."  I really do believe in public punishment. I think speeders should spend a day in the stocks (or some more humane (but equally public) equivalent) rather than paying a fine. Of course it will never happen, because the local governments want the money raised from fines.

To Ashton: I don't think that it is necessarily a contradiction to be pro abortion rights (a better phrase than the idiotic "pro choice") and anti-death penalty (or visa versa). What is interesting is that conservatives, who supposedly want to get the government out of people's lives, are anti abortion rights.

To Cheryl:  As a grad student, I taught Introduction to Anthropology courses at a university. The first day of class, I'd describe some gruesome custom (like the suttee) and ask the class what they thought of it. Inevitably, I'd get a response like, "I don't think we can really judge the customs of another culture." Of course, I disagreed, to the shock of my students. They only answered as they did assuming that it was the answer I was looking for.

Dear Julie,

My interest in Jane Austen was brought about strangely enough by a visit to the home of the Bronte sisters. While looking at the various editions of their works I was trying to put their novels, plots and characters into some kind of order. It occurred to me that through the years I had let the plots and characters of the Brontes and Jane Austen run together into a giant collection of characters and plots that I could not separate clearly. While wandering through the Bronte home I was trying to name off the novels of Jane Austen in my mind and to my surprise, found that I could not do it. The next thing that came to me, as I passed through the nursery, was that I could not recall whether it was Wickham or Willoughby in P&P.

In short, I was not fit to move about in civilized society. Since that rather scary day in Yorkshire, I have returned with a vengeance to reading Jane Austen and can hold my head high again.

Our lady really speaks to me now. She is my constant companion and I owe it all to the Brontes.

All of this serious and meaningful talk going on around here makes me feel (as George Gobel said one night on the Johnny Carson show) like a brown suit in a room full of tuxedos.

Dear Ray,

So, you own a suit do you? I once owned a suit; I may still have it for all I know. At this moment, I am sitting here in my usual Meister costume - Levi's, a Berkeley T-shirt, and a 49^er cap. Umm - is that a mixed metaphor? I wear my cap backwards because I was the catcher on my high school team. I wonder if those girls remember me at all? Especially that one with the long, dark hair? She would sit in the stands and wear that hair over one shoulder so that it could "roll and flow all down her breast". The daughter of the Judge, what was her name?

B__, B__ - did you say B__, B__ - excuse me, did you say B__, B__ ... Actually, I shouldn't tease about that because Julie has explained to me that Thomas Hardy is my Charlotte B__, B__ ... I think Julie is right about that. I hate that - when Julie is right about things, I mean.

Dear Ray,

Wheeeee!!!!  Bronte, Bronte, Bronte.  I'm afraid this site is becoming littered with such obscenities, isn't it!  If you are at all interested in this fascinating family (shut up, Ashton), then I must recommend to you a book I found recently:  The Brontes, by Juliet Barker, published by Phoenix Giants.  It is an extraordinary work, which not only places the Bronte family in a much clearer, saner light than many biographies are apt to do, but, by virtue of the detail in which Mr Bronte's professional life is studied, gives a wonderfully clear picture of the life of a perpetual curate in the early to mid nineteenth century.  It was quite an interesting, and a very political, position - at least, it was from Mr Bronte's perspective. Absolutely the antithesis of the complacent country parson of earlier times.

As nobody has asked me, I suppose I should tell anyway how I became interested in Jane Austen. She is one of a group of authors that I have admired and read since I was about thirteen years old.  The whole thing probably started off as a bit of adolescent snobbery - I just loved the Penguin Classics (you know, the ones with either a red or a black spine), and would buy and read anything they published.  I had done Austen, Brontes, Hardy, Eliot and a whole swag of French and Russian authors by the time I was sixteen - not necessarily understanding what I read, but thinking myself pretty bloody crash hot for doing it, anyway!  I was probably rather like Mr Thorpe - while my friends were reading popular fiction, or watching T.V., I had my prissy little nose in the air declaring, 'I have something else to do.'  Now, many years later, I am still reading the same works, but now sometimes I actually begin to understand them.

I've never owned a suit.
Julie

To Everybody,

The trouble with you foreigners is that you are so parochial! (Small pause here, while the cat strolls among the pigeons). None of the comments I am about to make applies to the people who submit to this list, I suspect, because of your obvious intelligence, but, tell me, does 'America' as a whole - assuming such a beast exists - ever grasp the fact that it is not the hub of the whole world? Does it realise that its comedies (Clinton) and its tragedies are greeted by many, many other inhabitants of this planet with a shrug of the shoulders, raised eyebrows and the comment, 'what else do you expect from America?' I really heard the comment to end them all today, and it came from your President, who said he thought it might be quite a good idea, really, if children were not allowed to buy hand guns. Well, keeping his trousers up must have improved the blood supply to his brain, because he certainly got that one right.  As an outsider looking in, I wonder if 'the American dream' only ever existed in the minds of the dreamers? It did not, and does not, look like a dream to a lot of other people on the planet. I can remember my mother saying to me when I was fifteen, 'Just stop thinking you're the hub of the whole world, that's all!' It's such a pity that a country that produces so many, many valuable human beings, is held cheap in the mind of the global community because of the way it is portrayed by its media and its MacDonald's. I'm SO glad my particular patch of Earth is unimportant!

Read on for unasked opinions on various subjects:
The death penalty: If it is wrong to kill, then it is wrong to kill. The state, as the embodiment of its citizens, has no more right to commit murder than does any individual. If the state does, then it is no better, and no different, than the murderer it sets out to punish. In order to prove itself above the level of a common murderer, the state must show that grace, dignity and compassion that a murderer does not. Otherwise, why not just round 'em up, line 'em up, and shoot them down!

Dear Julie,

The reason Americans think they're the center of the world is that people half way around the world not only know what the American president is saying, they apparently care what he is saying, and take it seriously.  You couldn't find 10 people in Seattle who know that Australia was subject to a political coup back in the 80s or who know that Tony Blair lost a cabinet minister for soliciting male prostitutes.  Or that there's serious worry because the world's longest running single family monarchy (Japan, 1500 years) is currently without an heir presumptive.  So the only way to get Americans to stop thinking everyone else cares about goes on in the US is for everyone else to stop caring what goes on in the US.

And just a FYI:  if Clinton said it would be a good idea to make it illegal for children to buy handguns, he's a few years too late.  The young men involved in the Littleton killings did not obtain their handguns legally.

Dear Julie and Bruce,

I know a number of Americans who insist that abortion is a good thing while capital punishment is bad. How did that come to be? How did we decide that it was good to kill the innocent and spare the guilty? I should understand this principle because it has been explained to me often enough. I especially remember one heated explanation given to me while the lecturer cut her steak. I am beginning to come up with my own explanations; I think it has to do with the fact that no one hears the fetus scream or ever looks into its face; and, I think it has to do with the fact that no one hears the victim's scream or ever looks into his face. I hasten to add that I respect and honor the Catholic nun, and others, who would spare both the fetus and the criminal. I cannot be so kind.

I was a meat eater all my life and relished the dish. I hated--hate vegetables. Yet, ten years ago I made the commitment to become a vegetarian. It's a day-to-day thing, but I make it because I can always make myself remember how the "meat" is produced. I never shed a tear for Ted Bundy - far from it, although I felt no joy on that day. I did shed a tear when, in Far From the Madding Crowd, Gabriel Oak shot his dog. I could understand the man and forgive the act, but I grieved for the dog.

Still, these are sentiments that cannot be communicated, so, instead, I will point to one practical aspect of capital punishment that, as far as I know, no one has ever mentioned. I would have you think about the Montagues and the Capulets; the Campbells and the McDonalds; the Martins and the Coys; the Lakota and the Blackfoot; and, the Germans and the English-French alliance. How can we deny that murders will be revenged and each revenge will be followed by a retaliation in kind? There is only one way to break the cycle of revenge and that is if we, as a society, take it upon ourselves to take on the task of punishment and execution. Only in that way can the responsibility for the execution be made diffuse and not entail a retaliation. That is the practical reason for capital punishment. If you doubt this, witness the executions in America. It usually takes about fifteen years after sentence before execution; that is the time given for orderly appeal. And yet, after all that time, the execution is always well attended by family of the victim - always. They are never happy or glad, but they are never sorry either and they talk in sad, relieved tones of "closure". Imagine that! - After all that time. What do you think would be the result if those feelings were to be frustrated?

Dear Cheryl,

I think your posting excellent although that may be because it parallels some recent thoughts of my own. I want to tell you about some things that I saw happen, interpret them, and then see if you agree that you and I have hold of different parts of the same elephant.

Nowadays, when people talk about the "sixties" they seem to be referring to the late sixties and early seventies which I would suggest was quite another time than the good sixties - the first half of the sixties. I believe it was Karl Marx who said that "history repeats itself, first as a tragedy and then as a farce". The first half of the sixties was the tragedy and the second half was the farce.

Let's do some arithmetic: If someone were a college student during the early sixties, he would have been in his formative years during the fifties. Contrary to what you hear, the fifties was a time of rampant idealism and liberality. To a large measure, this was because people were naive, especially about Americans and our American contradictions. It was a naivete and a blindness that allowed us to be wildly optimistic about and confident of American democracy and liberalism. Don't ask me about the psychology of all this because I am clueless. Think about some things that happened in the fifties. The Supreme Court put an end to legal segregation; the first great movements to effect social change were led by Dr. King; and, public debates were begun over the health effects of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. There are many other examples. By the early sixties, young people were energized to complete the task of the "integration" of all Americans into society. "Integration" and "non-violence" were the watchwords of this great period in our democracy. That meant black-voter registration in the south, among other things, and many of my classmates risked their lives to do just that. I greatly admired those people then and I honor them now - Bravo! Some of those young peoples were murdered for their efforts, and when the others returned to campus, some racist administrators declared civil-rights workers could not collect funds or recruit registrars because it was a "political activism" that was not to be allowed. The American campus came undone and the period of riotous campus demonstration began.

That was the tragedy - Then came the farce.

Someone who was a college student in the second half of the sixties lived his formative years in the first half. What a difference! A new, alien, and terrible species took over. God, those people were grotesque. Not only would they needlessly confront the leaders of universities and government, they began to cannibalize the leaders of liberal movements. "Nonviolence" was replaced by "off the pigs" and "integration" was seen as "assimilation" and something to be resisted. Martin Luther King and his like were sent to the margins and were replaced by Malcolm X, the Weatherman, the Black Panthers, and the Symbionese Liberation Army.

The greatest tragedy was that liberals were publicly ridiculed as "part of the problem". The liberal movement never recovered from this fratricide so that I can say, with confidence, that you have never actually beheld a true liberal in your entire short life. Well, the movement could not hold together and so a split occurred and the result was the splinter hippie-movement. If the progressive movement was to be taken over by these missionaries of violence who were no better than official masters of war, then a new way must be found. Taking a clue from the by then ancient beat-generation, that way was to be found in a drug dream. It was all farce. We can judge all of those people now; nearly all have been failures. The founder of the Black Panthers was killed during a drug deal. Others committed suicide or died of overdose or, if lucky, lived out mediocre careers. The only success is Bill Clinton, the anti-war activist who, during his administration, has ordered attacks of Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Serbia. Well, there is one other area of success - when an opinion of the "sixties" is to be purchased, only someone prominent during the Farce is asked on the show.

Now for my interpretation and, hopefully, your response. Let us revive liberalism, the spirit of Dr. King. "Integration" does not mean "assimilation", it means blending. It could be a painless process in which no individual is required to lose his own cultural identity; the blending would be done by future generations. If someone resists because he thinks he can pass on his own culture to his children, then he is a fool and knows little of children. I say express your views and your values (God knows that we hear too little of that in any case) and trust to the sense and human spirit of our offspring to select all the proper ingredients for their blended culture. Meanwhile, let us boldly express values, utopian views, and aspirations; let us not be afraid to speak clearly about justice, right, and wrong. Let us be timely with our criticism of government, media, and even our children as well as ourselves. And let us not resist the inevitable integration.

Dear Ashton,

If I understand the last paragraph of your response to my posting, I can say I whole-heartedly agree.  I will even go so far as to say the cliché which I was brought up with (and not so recently I might add--I was born in 1960) of the "melting pot" is as good an ideal as any.  What defined "American" in the past is the ability to take the best of immigrant cultures and leave the ethnic, racial, and religious strife behind.  Eventually.  Thomas Nast's anti-Irish and anti-Catholic cartoons demonstrate just how little white Americans had in common 140 years ago.

That's the good news.  As for the rest of your post, well...The idea that the liberal movement ever has been "non-violent" is frankly laughable.  The Wall Street bombing, multiple bombings by early labor unions, serious plots for the violent overthrow of the US govt. defined the liberal movement from 1901 to the 1930s.  The liberal movement likes to forget that it supported eugenics and tacitly, Hitler's execution of the "biologically unfit" during his early years in power.  The liberal movement defended Stalin's Soviet Union despite daily evidence that he was in the process of killing 30 millions of his fellow citizens.  Generally speaking, the liberal movement in the US has supported, especially by its refusal to speak out against "idealists" doing evil, more worldwide death than any group of people I can think of.

The hippie liberals and their hell-spawn have just taken liberalism in America to its logical conclusion:  don't believe anything you don't want to  don't do anything you don't want to the rules don't count for me.  They've raised their children in these beliefs which, as you might notice leaves no room for real human  compassion or tolerance, no self restraint, no sense of personal responsibility.  So when their kids start shooting people they say video games or rock music or rap music or wearing black trench coats or getting picked on in school is the culprit. Anything to deny not only their own responsibility but the entire concept that a human being is responsible for his/her own actions.  So now we're back to the dark ages and invisible beings who regulate our existence.

Dear Cheryl,

You say many intelligent things but some of them are only partially informed. (Except that the suggestion that liberals were ever supportive of the eugenics movement is - well - inventive.) Dr. King's movement was explicitly nonviolent; any young person that would volunteer to participate with him was first required to attend an extensive course of instruction in nonviolent political action. There seems to be some confusion about that these days. In part that is because we can only look back at that period through the distorting lens of the late sixties. In part it is due to an unholy alliance between the conservative element and the radical elements in our country to confuse the role of liberalism in the recent history of our country. Conservatives want to plaster liberals with the label of radical and the radicals want to take credit for the accomplishments of liberals. - Liberals are the enemies of conservatives and the rivals of radicals.

Your post clearly demonstrates the great success of this unholy alliance. You associate liberals with anarchists, liberals with dedicated communists, and even liberals with fascists. In my day, no one ever called Gus Hall a liberal. It is true that liberals supported the civil rights of communists and even joined the party for a short time during the 30s; however, that subgroup left the party during the Stalin purges. It was precisely this issue that divided liberals like George Orwell (Animal Farm) from the radical elements of the party. It is also true that insincere radicals like Pete Seger would hide behind a mask of liberalism - nothing could be done about that.

If you want to know more about true liberalism, then learn the truth about people like Dr. King, Hubert Humphrey, and Thurgood Marshall and learn to distinguish them from people like Malcolm X and Timothy Leary. Incidentally, no one ever called a hippie a "liberal"; they were "hippies". Hippies were not liberal minded, they had a shared dogma. Several conservatives evolved into some of the most important liberals of our century, now I am thinking of Earl Warren, Lyndon Johnson, and Justices Black and Brennan. Aging sometimes brings wisdom.

You and everyone else may not want to believe me, but I saw it happen. I saw American liberalism crushed between two opposing, malignant forces. All that is left now are a few pathetic and discredited webmeisters but I don't care - that may enough to revive the movement.

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