FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93  
94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   >>   >|  
deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which _he_ did when he was wounded. A few days later she is writing again:-- Our party to Ashe to-morrow night will consist of Edward Cooper, James (for a ball is nothing without _him_), Buller, who is now staying with us, and I. I look forward with great impatience to it, as I rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening. I shall refuse him, however, unless he promises to give away his white coat. _Friday._--At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea. Truly the 'prim' little girl of twelve had made considerable progress by the time she was twenty! Unfortunately, there is no further letter to tell us whether Tom made the expected proposal or not; but it is pretty certain that he did not, and indeed there is a good deal of doubt whether it was really expected. Possibly lack of means prevented its ever being a serious matter on his side. They can never have met again on the same intimate terms. If he visited Ashe at all in 1798, the conditions must have been different, for he was by that time tacitly engaged to the lady whom he married in March 1799. Tom Lefroy accordingly disappears from Jane's life, though he never forgot her till his death at the age of ninety. When he was an old man he told a young relation that 'he had been in love with Jane Austen, but it was a boy's love.' As for Jane's feelings, the opinion in the family seems to have been that it was a disappointment, but not a severe one. Had it been severe, either Jane would not have joked about it, or Cassandra would have destroyed the letters. But the day of Jane's one real romance was still to come: a romance which probably affected the flow of her spirits, and helped to disincline her for literary composition, for some time after its occurrence. In this case, as in the other, the author of the _Memoir_ was rather reticent; but shortly after its publication his sister, Caroline Austen, was induced to put down in writing the facts as she knew them. No one could be better qualified to do this, for she was a person of gre
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93  
94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
romance
 

receive

 

Austen

 

Lefroy

 

severe

 
expected
 

writing

 

ninety

 

visited

 

intimate


conditions

 

forgot

 

married

 

engaged

 
tacitly
 

disappears

 

Cassandra

 
publication
 
shortly
 

sister


Caroline
 

induced

 
reticent
 

Memoir

 

author

 

qualified

 

person

 

occurrence

 

disappointment

 

family


feelings

 
opinion
 
destroyed
 

letters

 

helped

 

disincline

 

literary

 

composition

 

spirits

 

affected


relation

 

staying

 

forward

 

Buller

 
impatience
 

expect

 

promises

 
refuse
 
friend
 

evening