Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family RecordAusten-Leigh, William
General
Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family Record
Austen-Leigh, William
Austen, Jane, 1775-1817; Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 -- Family; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Family relationships
grandmother) in consequence of the High Priest of
the parish in which she died refusing to pay her
remains the respect due to them. The father to be
of a very literary turn, an enthusiast in
literature, nobody's enemy but his own; at the
same time most zealous in the discharge of his
pastoral duties, the model of an exemplary parish
priest.[323] The heroine's friendship to be sought
after by a young woman in the same neighbourhood,
of talents and shrewdness, with light eyes and a
fair skin, but having a considerable degree of
wit[324]; heroine shall shrink from the
acquaintance. From this outset the story will
proceed and contain a striking variety of
adventures. Heroine and her father never above a
fortnight together in one place[325]: he being
driven from his curacy by the vile arts of some
totally unprincipled and heartless young man,
desperately in love with the heroine, and pursuing
her with unrelenting passion. No sooner settled in
one country of Europe than they are necessitated
to quit it and retire to another, always making
new acquaintance, and always obliged to leave
them. This will, of course, exhibit a wide variety
of characters, but there will be no mixture. The
scene will be for ever shifting from one set of
people to another; but all the good[326] will be
unexceptionable in every respect, and there will
be no foibles or weaknesses but with the wicked,
who will be completely depraved and infamous,
hardly a resemblance of humanity left in them.
Early in her career, in the progress of her first
removal, heroine must meet with the hero[327]--all
perfection, of course, and only prevented from
paying his addresses to her by some excess of
refinement. Wherever she goes somebody falls in
love with her, and she receives repeated offers of
marriage, which she always refers wholly to her
father, exceedingly angry that _he_[328] should
not be first applied to. Often carried away by the
anti-hero, but rescued either by her father or the
hero. Often reduced to support herself and her
father by her talents, and work for her bread;
continually cheated and defrauded of her hire;
worn down to a skeleton, and now and then starved
to death. At last, hunted out of civilised
society, denied the poor shelter of the humblest
cottage, they are compelled to retreat into
Kamschatka, where the poor father, quite worn
down, finding his end approaching, throws himself
on the ground, and, after four or five hours of
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