The Letters of Jane Austen: Selected from the compilation of her great nephew, Edward, Lord BradbourneAusten, Jane
General
The Letters of Jane Austen: Selected from the compilation of her great nephew, Edward, Lord Bradbourne
Austen, Jane
Austen, Cassandra, 1773-1845; Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 -- Correspondence; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Correspondence
MY DEAR ANNA,--I am quite ashamed to find that I have never answered
some question of yours in a former note. I kept it on purpose to refer
to it at a proper time, and then forgot it. I like the name "Which is
the Heroine" very well, and I dare say shall grow to like it very much
in time; but "Enthusiasm" was something so very superior that my common
title must appear to disadvantage. I am not sensible of any blunders
about Dawlish; the library was pitiful and wretched twelve years ago,
and not likely to have anybody's publications. There is no such title as
Desborough, either among dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, or barons.
These were your inquiries. I will now thank you for your envelope
received this morning. Your Aunt Cass is as well pleased with St. Julian
as ever, and I am delighted with the idea of seeing Progillian again.
_Wednesday_, 17.--We have now just finished the first of the three books
I had the pleasure of receiving yesterday. I read it aloud, and we are
all very much amused, and like the work quite as well as ever. I depend
on getting through another book before dinner, but there is really a
good deal of respectable reading in your forty-eight pages. I have no
doubt six would make a very good-sized volume. You must have been quite
pleased to have accomplished so much. I like Lord Portman and his
brother very much. I am only afraid that Lord P.'s good nature will make
most people like him better than he deserves. The whole family are very
good; and Lady Anne, who was your great dread, you have succeeded
particularly well with. Bell Griffin is just what she should be. My
corrections have not been more important than before; here and there we
have thought the sense could be expressed in fewer words, and I have
scratched out Sir Thos. from walking with the others to the stables,
etc. the very day after breaking his arm; for though I find your papa
did walk out immediately after his arm was set, I think it can be so
little usual as to appear unnatural in a book. Lynn will not do. Lynn is
towards forty miles from Dawlish and would not be talked of there. I
have put Starcross instead. If you prefer Easton, that must be always
safe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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