the
days when she was no longer there. She goes to London once or twice.
Once she lives for some months in Hans Place, nursing a brother through
an illness. Here it was that she received some little compliments and
messages from the Prince Regent, to whom she dedicated 'Emma.' He thanks
her and acknowledges the handsome volumes, and she laughs and tells her
publisher that at all events his share of the offering is appreciated,
whatever hers may be! We are also favoured with some valuable suggestions
from Mr. Clarke, the Royal librarian, respecting a very remarkable
clergyman. He is anxious that Miss Austen should delineate one who
'should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, something
like Beattie's minstrel, entirely engaged in literature, and no man's
enemy but his own.' Failing to impress this character upon the authoress,
he makes a fresh suggestion, and proposes that she should write a
romance illustrative of the august house of Coburg. 'It would be
interesting,' he says, 'and very properly dedicated to Prince Leopold.'

To which the authoress replies: 'I could no more write a romance than an
epic poem. I could not seriously sit down to write a romance under any
other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me
to keep it up, and never relax into laughing at myself or other people,
I am sure I should be hung before the first chapter.'

There is a delightful collection of friends' suggestions which she has
put together, but which is too long to be quoted here. She calls it,
'Plan of a Novel, as suggested by various Friends.'

All this time, while her fame is slowly growing, life passes in the same
way as in the old cottage at Chawton. Aunt Jane, with her young face and
her mob-cap, makes play-houses for the children, helps them to dress up,
invents imaginary conversations for them, supposing that they are all
grown up, the day after a ball. One can imagine how delightful a game
that must have seemed to the little girls. She built her nest, did this
good woman, happily weaving it out of shreds, and ends, and scraps of
daily duty, patiently put together; and it was from this nest that she
sang the song, bright and brilliant, with quaint thrills and unexpected
cadences, that reaches us even here through near a century. The lesson
her life seems to teach us is this: Don't let us despise our nests--life
is as much made of minutes as of years; let us complete the daily
duties; let