9/29/00 Ashton - Response

Dear Linda,

At the end of your update, you ask, "I wonder if dear Jane ever heard such advice." The reference being Lady Bertram's advice to Fanny to marry Crawford. I can think of two possible instances. Those would be Jane Austen's reaction to the suit of Samuel Blackall, and her traumatic rejection of the marriage proposal of Harris Bigg-Wither. The latter was the younger brother of two women who were our Lady's best friends outside the family, and a large-land owner in the bargain.

I notice that the focus in your selections is on Fanny Price. To me, some of the more passionate passages involve Mary Crawford. I am thinking, for example, of Mary's rescue of Fanny from the lacerations of Tom and Aunt Norris (see the latter portion of this passage.) Also, I was touched by Mary's pain at Edmund's absence when, in fact, he was staying at a friend's home purposely to avoid Mary and to calm his love for her.

9/25/00 Laurie - [l_mease@hotmail.com] RE: Purple Pemberley Passages

Excellent update!  It makes me want to read Pride and Prejudice yet again.  My parents couldn't understand why I couldn't leave for college without a new copy of P&P, but now I'm glad I brought one.  I guess that will be my next project - as soon as I finish reading Dickens' Bleak House!  I'm taking a freshman seminar on Victorian London, which is a little after JA's time, but still very interesting.  We actually ended up having a big conversation about Emma the other day.  Some of the guys had no clue what we were talking about, which made it especially fun.

9/25/00 Ashton - Thank you and a suggestion

Dear Laurie,

It's great to hear from you again!

If you want to do the guys a favor, don't start them with Emma - start them with Pride and Prejudice - soften them up a bit. Oh, and as long as you are in the Victorian, give my second favorite author a chance - that would be Thomas Hardy.

9/23/00 laura - [l.rothwell@student.canberra.edu.au] Anne Elliot and Persuasion

Hello,
I'm currently writing an essay on Persuasion  - on Anne's journey of self-discovery and personal growth. I was wondering if anyone would know of any interesting or useful sources on this heroine.
Thanks!

9/23/00 The Meister - Reply

Dear laura,

You might take a glance at Linda's treatment of the novel. You will likely find Henry Churchyard's treament useful. Of course, it will be worth your time to browse at the Republic Of Pemberley. I strongly recommend the biography Jane Austen by Elizabeth Jenkins, (1938, 1972), because Jenkins always gives complete and intelligent reviews of the novels.

9/22/00 Ashton - A response to Dave and Linda on John Bunyan and Jane Austen

Dear Linda and Dave,

I mentioned that I had read The Pilgrim's Progress in search of Jane Austen's morality. C.S. Lewis declared for Samuel Johnson, but I don't think so for reasons I have explained. I think our Lady's morality strong, sweet, true, and coherent - and worthy of study.

I seems that the two of you have much to say matter on this subject, and I hope to engage you further. I don't think that John Bunyan's vision is anything like Jane Austen's, and I think I can be quite explicit about that. The Jesus of The Pilgrim's Progress seems to me to be much like the Old Testament God - he is jealous, vengeful, and unyielding. This is not the gentle, forgiving, mentoring Christ of the New Testament - the one I imagine, the one that seems implicit in Jane Austen's novels.

The only commonality I can barely perceive is this: to John Bunyan's Christians, the human soul is born tainted and salvation can be obtained only through an active effort. Now, one can see a little something of that in the experiences of Emma Woodhouse.

9/25/00 Dave Payton - [HITZ53@aol.com] It's all in what you bring to it

Admittedly, it's been about two years since I last read The Pilgrim's Progress, but I do not remember the representation of Jesus being as you describe. This may be due to the fact that I've read a bunch o' Bunyan and have been influenced in my reading of Pilgrim's Progress by his other works such as Grace Abounding and The Holy War.

The Pilgrim's Progress is a sterner work than one usually finds in Christian literature today, but so much of Christian literature today is full of what some call sloppy agape. The Pilgrim's Progress is as much a cautionary tale about antinomianism as it is about being saved. The Puritans took seriously St. James' admonition, and I paraphrase, "Show me your faith without works and I'll show you my faith through works." They took their faith seriously and tried to live it as best they could as they understood the Scriptures.

What one gets out of The Pilgrim's Progress depends on what one brings to it. If one were to read the book only after a lifetime of hearing the "gentle Jesus meek and mild" message, the book would seem hard. On the other hand, if one has read the book after a close study of the New Testament, especially St. Paul's epistles, the story is a joyous one of a man, who despite his stumblings, has attained the Celestial City. Remember, Jesus said more about Hell than he did about Heaven, and the Christ portrayed in The Revelation is not reluctant to use the sword.

Do you remember Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon, A Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God? In high school speech class there was usually some future politician or actor (the same things, really) who would give an oral interpretation of the speech as if he were some sort of junior Elmer Gantry or half pint Billy Sunday. Invariably the recreation would be a fire and brimstone pulpit pounder with a lot of shouting and drooling. It would be given as a bat over the head presentation. But, eyewitness accounts of Edwards' preaching of the sermon (and he gave the sermon several times during the Great Awakening) state that Edward's gave the sermon in a quiet and heartbreakingly mournful manner. It was presented as much as a eulogy for the unsaved as a warning. The same holds true for Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. It's usually read almost as if it were a high school football cheer, but people who heard Tennyson read the poem record that Tennyson read it slowly and mournfully. The way that these works are read today is based on the way that modern popular opinion sees the worlds from which these works came. Modern media sees much of religious faith as wild eyed fanatical and cavalry charges as noble heroic.

The same holds true for The Pilgrim's Progress.

What does this have to do with Jane Austen? Probably not a lot. But Miss Austen lived a lot closer to the world of John Bunyan than do we. She probably knew descendants of the old English Puritans and was aware of their reading of the Scriptures. Being the daughter of what I assume was an orthodox Anglican clergyman (as opposed to a Latitudinarian), she was familiar with homilies that warned and homilies that drew, and she probably sang one or two of Bunyan's hymns several times a year. Bunyan's influence on her was probably not unlike that of the Declaration of Independence on us. We don't actively think about it, but is something that is reflected in our behavior and our writing. It is something that remains quietly in the background and works like the trim tab on the rudder of a supertanker. John Bunyan was probably not so much an influence on Miss Austen's writing (although I still sometimes see Fanny as a version of Christian in The Pilgrim's Progress, narrowly avoiding pitfalls and temptations) as he was on her life. Miss Austen didn't write allegories and she didn't write overtly Christian novels, but she apparently did live the life of a some or less middle class, believing Christian during a time when, and a place where, the body of literature common to the average reading Christian was made up of the Bible, The Book of Common Prayer and The Pilgrim's Progress.

Finally, in defense of the Puritans, one of which I am not, I would like to say that they were not dour and humorless despite what Mencken wrote. They enjoyed life. They were, as one writer said, earthly saints. They looked heavenward for their salvation, but had their feet planted firmly on the ground. They drank ale and whiskey. They smoked. They laughed. They loved nature, and a short study will show that they were probably the best natural scientists of their time. They philosophized; Jonathan Edwards is often called America's only truly original philosopher. They were educated. The Plymouth Colony had the highest concentration of Oxford scholars than anywhere in the world except Oxford. Look at the portraits of Bunyan, John Owen, Richard Baxter or Sibbes. These were not men who were haunted by an angry, vengeful God. These were men who experienced God's Grace and love and felt (or knew) that they were Heaven bound and wanted as many others to join them as they could direct there.

9/17/00 sixls - Jane's death

Dear Meister,

I was reading one of your postings on Jane's death....does anyone know why they considered it Addison's disease? What did they think at the time? The fact that she died so young, with the possibility of other great writings, reminded me of Margaret Mitchell.

9/17/00 The Meister - on "Jane's death"

Dear sixls,

Some doctor published that theory about one hundred and fifty years after Jane Austen's death. Since few people question authority, that has become the orthodox way of describing our Lady's last illness. (Always question authority!) However, you can find an intelligent challenge to the orthodox view in Appendix i of Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen: A Life (1997)

For me, the moving part of that story is the way that the Austen family came together in those last moments. What a great contrast - as always seems to be the case - we read in the death of Mary Wollstonecraft.

9/20/00 Cheryl - another opinion on Jane Austen's death

Dear Male Voices,

I usually try to avoid this sort of thing, but I finally gathered and presented the data to the Spousal Unit, MD for his opinion.

"Bilious attack" is taken to mean nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.  Often jaundice is included, but there's no direct mention in the letters (that I saw).  Recurring attacks with high fevers and increasing weakness suggests hepatitis which can be caused by anything that would interfere with liver function-- from Hepatitis A to various cancers, to physical injury, to alcoholism."

In letter # 155 JA says:

"I have had a good deal of fever at times & indifferent nights, but am considerably better now, & recovering my Looks a little, which had been bad enough, black & white & every wrong colour."

The "black & white" no doubt is why some suspect Addison's' disease as hyperpigmentation is one of the signs, along with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, high fever/night sweats (due to the TB).  The question is how to interpret the "black & white" statement -- Jane could be referring to the bruising associated with being bled, or easy bruising associated with a number of illnesses.

The spousal unit suggests pancreatitis secondary to hepatitis or, more likely, gall bladder disease, to which women of British extraction seem particularly prone. Unfortunately for the Meister, as bad ways to go, pancreatitis beats Addison's all to hell.  Abdominal pain, ranging from mild to "incapacitating"  is the major symptom, but back pain (particularly from gall stones) and chest pain are common.   There's also nausea, vomiting, and abdominal distention due to "hypomotility" (slowing down of alimentary functions.) Weight loss and weakness due to malabsorption. Chemical  peritonitis and spontaneous bruising may occur due to increased vascular permeability.

As with most acute infections, pancreatitis is usually self-limiting, but "increasing age" is listed as one of the primary adverse factors of surviving an attack.

"...'Cullen's sign'... is a faint blue discoloration around the umbilicus, and 'Turner's sign' a blue-red-purple or green-brown" discoloration of the flanks... are seen in severe necrotizing pancreatitis and make me wonder about the '...and every wrong colour' remark."

In letter 159 JA says

"... I can sit up in my bed & employ myself ... & really am equal to being out of bed, but that the posture is thought good for me."

A half-reclining position, with the knees drawn up is often the only position a person with severe peritonitis can tolerate.

Looking at the timing of her last illness and her death, a pancreatic abscess seems possible, even likely.  Letter 155 is dated March 23-25, her death came on July 18, after a brief apparent recovery.

"The characteristic signs of abcess are fever, leukocytosis, ileus, (acute intestinal obstruction) and rapid deterioration in a patient initially recovering from pancreatitis .. the mortality rate for undrained pancreatic abscess approaches 100 percent."

Not a pretty picture, I'm afraid, and explains the current penchant for yanking gall bladders out of women at the slightest excuse.  And as a final FYI, chronic pancreatitis can be a hereditary disease and is also associated with cystic fibrosis.  Genetic testing on any descendants might prove interesting.
Cheryl

From the Meister: jee-eeze Cheryl,
you're a real barrel of laughs today!

9/21/00 Linda - Thank you, Cheryl

Dear Cheryl,

... and your Spousal Unit, MD - very well done indeed!  I didn't know we had a doctor in the house.  I knew it could be done.

I took a quick look "on line" at Jane's Letters that she wrote at the end of her life and did not come across anything you mention.  All I found was a letter dated Sept. 8, 1816 where Jane mentioned having "back pain" and "agitation" (walking, I believe) was painful.  This information adds to your findings on pancreatitis where you said, "... but pack pain (particularly from gall stones) and chest pain are common."

I can agree with your statement - "The spousal unit suggests pancreatitis secondary to hepatitis or, more likely, gall bladder disease, to which women of British extraction seem particularly prone." - because I have 2 Aunts (British extraction) who have had their gall bladders yanked.  In that same family line there is a history of diabetes - another result of a pancreas not functioning (genetics).

Ash: in defense of Cheryl, and as a woman, I have no problem with her notion about how doctor's "treat" women.  I have not seen that "treatment" exactly, but my experiences leave no doubt in my mind but that it could be so.  The word "treatment" covers a multitude of sins.  If your wife has had no such experience, she should consider herself very lucky.

Cheryl, you said, "Here's a way in which Jane Austen thought differently from myself: she thought God created the world and that after death she would go to heaven or hell. I agree we share motivations: the desire to know where we came from and where we're going, but I'd hazard a guess that JA would have been just as appalled to think someone with half a brain could doubt such things as I am to think someone could believe them."

My time is short and it is getting difficult to sort out all the "he saids" and "she saids" on this subject but let me see if I have the gist of what Cheryl originally said.

Start with this statement: "... JA would have been just as appalled to think someone with half a brain could doubt such things ..."  Surely, she knew there were educated people with half a brain (as Ash mentioned) who doubted in her day just as I recognize that there are educated people today who doubt it.  For example, she read all kinds of books (written by educated people) who - if they believed as she did and lived accordingly - would have written books quite differently, as did our dear Jane.

So what I am saying is that I disagree with your statement that Jane would have been appalled. I cannot speak for her, but hopefully, she would have felt as I do - very sorry for them - because she finally recognized the importance of evangelicals who saw the need to convert the world.  Jane understood very well the importance of religious education and surely, noticed the lack of religious education in some people.

Then to finish your statement "... as I am to think someone could believe them."  Let me go half way with you.  "... she thought God created the world" - that I also believe.  "... and that after death she would go to heaven or hell."  After much study, I no longer believe that part. What does happen is another story.

So maybe that gives me three quarters of a brain, you think? :-)

What I found out is that we have been lied to and misled in religion just as women have be lied to and misled ("mistreated") about themselves.

That is my two cents, anyway.  And again thank you for the research on her death.
Linda

9/23/00 Cheryl - A clarification, I hope

Dear Linda,

I used the religious example with JA because it's the easiest one to use.  I could have done some research into scientific thinking or geographical knowledge of her time, but I was just too lazy. So don't take the example personally.

What I was trying to say was that we all tend to feel -- no matter how "liberal" (in JA's sense) our thoughts are and no matter how well read and how aware of the other viewpoints in the world -- that those people we admire and like will think pretty much the way we do.  And this is particularly true when it comes to beliefs and thoughts we've come to in a rational way. Questioning strengthens faith, whether it's religious faith or faith in a political candidate, or faith in a particular interpretation of history.

One example I've seen would be the difference between public comment meetings on issues such as logging and dam breaching.  The nastiest, most foul-mouthed, violent meetings are not those between the environmentalists and the commercial interests, but between two groups of environmentalists who have opposing views.  The warring environmental groups are contemptuous of the commercial interests, but their true hate is reserved for their own kind who willfully refuse to accept the One True Way.  Another example, would be that small group of feminists who despise only one thing more than men: an intelligent woman who doesn't.

Now obviously, these are some rather extreme examples, and I'm not suggesting for a moment that JA would have called someone an idiot for not thinking exactly as herself.  But look at Elizabeth Bennet's reaction to Charlotte Lucas' marriage.  Could JA have portrayed Elizabeth's disappointment and feelings of betrayal so well if she never felt it herself?  Possibly, but I can't help but think that just like the rest of us, Jane had to swallow the occasional disappointment of discovering a flaw, even in her favorite people.
Cheryl

9/25/00 Linda - Clarified!

Dear Cheryl,

So don't take the example personally.

Thank you, I won't.

...but their true hate is reserved for their own kind who willfully refuse to accept the One True Way.

That is why we have so many "denominations"!  Not all, but too many times a new church is started because someone(s) in a church got angry - for whatever reason, spiritual or temporal. And these people are supposed to be Christians, mind you.  (Sorry, my "Southernese" slipped out.)

Now obviously, these are some rather extreme examples, and I'm not suggesting for a moment that JA would have called someone an idiot for not thinking exactly as herself.

Whew!

Thanks, for "holding me by the hand".  It is clearer now.  My problem is not so much lazy as it is that my brain is shutting down after all these years.
Linda

9/14/00 Linda - Retraction on Rousseau

Dear Ashton,

In Jane Austen and the Clergy by Irene Collins in the chapter on "Worship and Belief", she describes the "restraint" found in the Church of England.  Now I quote:

"In spite of all this, Jane Austen was a deeply religious woman.  It is unlikely that she ever thought of the morality which she advocated in her novels as anything other than an essential part of Christianity.  She was no doubt aware that a number of formidable theorists of the time preferred to base morality on reason.  To writers of the stamp of Rousseau, who wished to reform society morally without giving greater power to the church, it was convenient to argue that an individual achieves goodness not by following religious teaching but by living as a responsible member of a community, carrying out a proper role in the fundamental relationships of society such as the family, the workplace, the neighbourhood and the nation.   Even John Locke thought that mere common sense was enough to convince people of the need to recognize each other's needs and rights.  This approach was vigorously attacked by the Rev. Thomas Gisborne, an Evangelical writer whose work impressed Jane favourably once Cassandra had managed to persuade her to read it.  Not that she needed the guidance of any such writer on the matter, for she had derived her morality in the first place not from political theorists but from the catechism which she had learnt as a child and from the commandments which seventeenth-century tradition had caused to be painted on the walls of many of the churches she attended.  In this context, honour to parents, respect for other people's property, honesty in word and deed and, on a more positive note, love for one's neighbour as for oneself were seen not as substitutes for religion but as expressions of it in daily life.  Archbishhop Secker in his Lectures on the Catechism of the Church of England, a work known to Jane Austen, described "the common duties of common life" as "the greatest part of what our Maker expects of us".  The very word "neighbour", which Jane Austen so frequently used, had a characteristically biblical ring.

...Thomas Sherlock, a mid eighteenth-century divine whose sermons Jane Austen said she "preferred to almost any other", pointed out in one of his better known passages that God had sent His Son into the world not to show people how to be good, which they knew already, but to show that goodness was often rejected.  Prior to Christ's coming, Sherlock argued, there could be no rational ground for believing that God required mankind to be virtuous, for as well as supplying men with reason He had given them freewill, and the result was that vice often flourished whilst virtue was trodden under foot.  Christ, however, taught people that there is a life after death, in which such apparent injustices are put right - a life in which Christ Himself sits on the throne of judgement and metes out rewards and punishments in proportion to behaviour in this world.  Jane Austen was for the most part willing to leave the characters in her novels to this divinely appointed reckoning.  John Dashwood and General Tilney are thwarted in some of their schemes but they continue on their acquisitive path  Mr. Elliot remains the heir to Kellynch Hall  Wickham continues to leave gambling debts behind him wherever he goes. Only at the end of Mansfield Park is some sort of earthly punishment devised for the main offender.  It is hardly convincing."

As you can see I was grossly mistaken about what Ms. Collins wrote on the subject of Rousseau.  She did say that the Rev. Thomas Gisborne, Archbishop Secker and Thomas Sherlock did have some influence on you Dear Lady’s life, and thereby her works.  After the passage I quote she mentions the effect of the "Evangelicals" though Jane was not one of them.

Dave:  Your post on the Puritans hit the nail on the head!  I'm glad you did your homework - I was depending on my limited memory.

9/16/00 Cheryl - culture shock

Dear Meister,

Who's been sniffing the compost now??

First of all, I didn't suggest Jane's doctor had told her family she had Addison's disease, I suggested that even if her doctor knew exactly what was wrong with her, he may not have discussed it with her directly.  I can tell you for a fact that this was common in the US well into the 70's.  Some doctors would refuse to even see a married woman unless she was accompanied by her husband, and a large number of them would send the woman to the waiting room after her visit while he talked to her husband in private.  Certainly those men were motivated by the belief they were doing what was best for the patient, but I defy your claim that a modern doctor "thinks" the same way under the same motivation.

I can certainly imagine that Jane Austen was not the only person living at the time who had personal strength and integrity -- interpret that as you will.  As for the "bile problem" it all depends on whether we're talking about the four humours bile or real bile,  so I guess that's a dead-end street.

As for your final sentence, it sounds good, but you should look at your own words from last month (see Sterne and anti-Semitism).  Here's a way in which Jane Austen thought differently from myself:  she thought God created the world and that after death she would go to heaven or hell. I agree we share motivations: the desire to know where we came from and where we're going, but I'd hazard a guess that JA would have been just as appalled to think someone with half a brain could doubt such things as I am to think someone could believe them.
Cheryl

9/16/00 Ashton - reply to Cheryl

Dear Cheryl,

Your reading of my last sentence is fair because I was overly cryptic and otherwise obscure. I am not going to make myself clear on this point because it not worth my effort or your time. It's a piddling point - of meager value at best. Instead, I want to respond to more interesting parts of your posting, because they must be important to anyone who would better understand Jane Austen and her times.

My basic premise - very controversial - is that people are pretty much the same anywhere in space and any instance in time. At any given time, there is a wide diversity of opinion on all matters; but, I believe that the nature and the extent of that diversity is the much the same in other places and at other times as well. For example, for any religious persons - you suggested Jane Austen - there were as many irreligious; for example, we have the famous and celebrated atheists like Shelley and Thomas Paine. Jane Austen must have thought them to have at least "half a brain."

This is an example of the sorts of things I have noticed. I have a very good East-Indian friend. (Who, incidentally, went absolutely ballistic when he learned of my fascination with an English author.) My young family once traveled a great distance to visit for a few weeks with his young family. They were vegetarian, I was not at the time. His marriage was arranged, my wife and I got married in a fever. Also, as we walked about a famous American city, his wife walked ten paces behind him and me - and, amusingly, kept my wife with her the whole time. Culture shock? I don't think so. It became crystal clear that the wife decided where they were to live and, so, what jobs he would take. In our conversations, the wife was dominant; she told him how to dress; she carefully monitored his manners and selected their friends; she was a successful business woman. In other words, my friend's marriage was identical to my own. That outward form of taking a subservient position on the side walk is absolutely meaningless, except to a feminist theorist. Now you may say that no American is subservient in this way, to which I reply with the question, 'does your husband open your doors? Does he walk on your outside?'

My wife and I had already been married thirteen years in 1970, so I find it difficult to believe your suggestion of the way that doctors treated with women to that time. Why do you believe that?

9/17/00 Cheryl - my notions

Dear Ashton,

Yes, people are motivated by the same things: love, hate, hunger, etc.  I even agree that many people who do evil are motivated by the thought they know what's best for everyone.  But don't ever tell me I don't think "much differently" than Hitler, or John Paul II, or Richard Butler.  I don't mean to be rude, but I confess I'm waiting with 'bated breath to hear how suttee is really about female empowerment or something.