completely safe, and get some hint of them—the girls lived with them. Like my neighbors from El Salvador, they were driven by society and situation to need their family and to always be with them. It was certainly not a fair society—women would rarely haveinherited wealth, and it would have been unthinkable for the Knights to bestow their estates on one of the Austen girls. And the girls seem to have lived at the beck and call of their brothers, coming to visit them for months when a new baby arrived, taking care of their children whenever necessary. We could never endure this kind of dependence today, and certainly it led to all kinds of evils in families where there was little love. But with the Austens, there was a great deal of love, however imperfect, and the arrangement, rather than creating resentment, seems to have given them assurance and created their own little world, which, while they lived at Chawton, they had little desire to leave.
There are people who love you.
I think that's another thing all of us want to know. For those of us who are lucky, that begins with our families, whatever kind of irritating grit there may be underneath.
Chawton Great House (now a library for the study of early English women writers) is perfect for ghosts—grand and heavy, with thick oak paneling going back to the Elizabethan era, and stone floors. It just so happens that there are two ghosts, one known for going up and down one of the many sets of stairs. Our tour guide had seen him. I don't particularly ever wish to see a ghost—or an angel for that matter—but there is something delicious about imagining them (which, of course, little Catherine Morland of
Northanger Abbey
would understand).
We have an abundance of ghosts in Virginia from all of our brutal Civil War ground. One of my favorite stories involves a friend of my brother who was housesitting. In the middle of the night, she heardsomething and woke up to find the ghost of a Civil War soldier in her room. He had a beard, and he was blue, I think (which makes it sound very funny. A blue ghost?). She would have thought she was imagining things if the cat and the dog weren't hissing and snarling, hair raised. So she called 911. And he just stood there, smiling an evil grin at her the whole time she called. When her friends got back, they said, “Oh yeah, he only shows up when there's a woman alone in the house.”
I absolutely love this story, until I am alone in my room in the dark and start to fear that my own delicious imaginings could summon the evil smiling soldier, so then I pray that God will surround me with angels to protect me and that I will not have to see any of
them
either.
Jane wrote three evening prayers. In one of them she talks about the blessings of God, thanking him and asking that they will continue, understanding that she was never worthy of them in the first place. She says, “We feel that we have been blessed far beyond any thing that we have deserved; and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.” 12
I read that and felt terribly insecure.
Oh, dear God, you have given abundant blessings. I do not deserve them, and I cannot help but ask for more.
I am sure this is not what Jane intended, but at the moment I do not feel secure in the whims of God. All these blessings—this sense of love and happiness, which I have not felt for so long (not that Jack is the only source of that, far from it)—are they going to continue? I feel a little like I am begging. I do not know how he will respond.
My heart and mind are far from consistent. I will be the first to admit that. As much as I fear God, I have come to expect great gifts from him—and small gifts as well—and feel so assured of encountering them now, on this trip.
The other day I crossed the fields into the village of Deane, where both George and James Austen
There are people who love you.
I think that's another thing all of us want to know. For those of us who are lucky, that begins with our families, whatever kind of irritating grit there may be underneath.
Chawton Great House (now a library for the study of early English women writers) is perfect for ghosts—grand and heavy, with thick oak paneling going back to the Elizabethan era, and stone floors. It just so happens that there are two ghosts, one known for going up and down one of the many sets of stairs. Our tour guide had seen him. I don't particularly ever wish to see a ghost—or an angel for that matter—but there is something delicious about imagining them (which, of course, little Catherine Morland of
Northanger Abbey
would understand).
We have an abundance of ghosts in Virginia from all of our brutal Civil War ground. One of my favorite stories involves a friend of my brother who was housesitting. In the middle of the night, she heardsomething and woke up to find the ghost of a Civil War soldier in her room. He had a beard, and he was blue, I think (which makes it sound very funny. A blue ghost?). She would have thought she was imagining things if the cat and the dog weren't hissing and snarling, hair raised. So she called 911. And he just stood there, smiling an evil grin at her the whole time she called. When her friends got back, they said, “Oh yeah, he only shows up when there's a woman alone in the house.”
I absolutely love this story, until I am alone in my room in the dark and start to fear that my own delicious imaginings could summon the evil smiling soldier, so then I pray that God will surround me with angels to protect me and that I will not have to see any of
them
either.
Jane wrote three evening prayers. In one of them she talks about the blessings of God, thanking him and asking that they will continue, understanding that she was never worthy of them in the first place. She says, “We feel that we have been blessed far beyond any thing that we have deserved; and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.” 12
I read that and felt terribly insecure.
Oh, dear God, you have given abundant blessings. I do not deserve them, and I cannot help but ask for more.
I am sure this is not what Jane intended, but at the moment I do not feel secure in the whims of God. All these blessings—this sense of love and happiness, which I have not felt for so long (not that Jack is the only source of that, far from it)—are they going to continue? I feel a little like I am begging. I do not know how he will respond.
My heart and mind are far from consistent. I will be the first to admit that. As much as I fear God, I have come to expect great gifts from him—and small gifts as well—and feel so assured of encountering them now, on this trip.
The other day I crossed the fields into the village of Deane, where both George and James Austen
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