Me and Catherine Morland - Out at the ball game

My eldest son begins his very first little league baseball season today. Compared to other boys today, his age is quite advanced for a beginner - he's already NINE. What an old man, in baseball years.

In honor of the two games he'll play this weekend and the subsequent lack of reading I'll be doing, here's my all-time favorite baseball literary quote. (Incidentally, it may also be the very first)

...it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books  

- from the opening paragraphs of Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

How I love Catherine Morland! How we all love Henry Tilney!

Austen at her saucy best

I just finished reading Jane Austen's Lady Susan for the first time.  I've read all the major ones (Emma, S&S, P&P, Mansfield, etc.) many times but had never read this one.  LS seems to me a complete departure.  This heroine is completely unlikable for anything except her infamous schemes and flirtations.  How unlike Lizzy, Emma and Elinor!  Lady Susan has many very funny lines but this one seems to best sum up her character and motivations:

"Where there is a disposition to dislike, a motive will never be wanting." - Lady Susan, letter 5, Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson

She has determined to make Mr. DeCourcey like her simply because he seems determined no to do so.  And boy, does she!

Summertime (or Summer Time)

I cannot keep a schedule this summer. Every day there is either too much fun to be had to keep my time well planned or we're so exhausted from our fun that I just want to do nothing.

From Jane Austen's Mansfield Park:

"Oh! Do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch." 

Oh, Miss Crawford, a rare moment that I agree with you!

Forgiveness without Forgetfulness

From Volume 3, Chapter 15 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:

Mr. Collins writes of Mr. and Mrs. Wickham: "You ought certainly to forgive them as a christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing."

Mr. Collins, the esteemed rector of Hunsford, gives such an amazing illustration of his notion of Christian forgiveness.  Thou shalt forgive, but apparently, never forget.  This brought to my mind a great post on the Texas Faith blog: What is the sin in your faith?  Read all the responses: very powerful, challenging stuff.

Rapid Passion vs. Slowly Building Affection

To me, this is a common theme in so many Austen novels.  The happiest couples are the ones who do not rush into a passionate affair, but take their time in getting to know the character of their partners.  Think, in this instance, of Lydia and Wickham vs. Lizzy and Darcy.  Or Mr. and Mrs. Collins vs. Jane and Bingley.

And in the midst of the Wickham/Lydia elopement, Lizzy has this thought in chapter 50 of Pride and Prejudice:

"But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture."

Lovely Chapter 14

Chapter 14 of Northanger Abbey holds two of my very favorite Jane Austen quotes.  So much brilliance in one little chapter!

Catherine takes a walk in the country with Mr. and Miss Tilney.  First they discuss novels.  Surely Mr. Tilney does not like novels as Catherine does.  He has more important things to read.  Mr. Tilney answers thus:

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."

I pull this one out of my brain to use against people as often as possible.

Also, this one:

"A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

Folks unfamiliar with Austen assume that her writing is stiff, archaic, formal.  This last line proves what I love best about her.  When her tongue is planted in cheek, she is at her best. To me, she is as valuable for her wit as she is for her romance.

More wine!

From Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey: 

"There is not the hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to be." - John Thorpe

And there we have the one and only admirable thought spoken by John Thorpe in the entire novel.

the fate of Marianne

From Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility:

"Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate.  She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her own conduct, her most favourite maxims."


I have just finished re-reading Sense and Sensibility.  I haven't read it as many times as Pride and Prejudice, maybe only twice before.  But these sentences never shouted out to me before as they did during this recent reading.

These sentences appear in the closing paragraphs of the novel; but to me, they could easily stand on their own at the beginning of an entirely different story: one whose heroine is Marianne, not Elinor.  These words remind me so much of the opening of P&P.  You know the words by heart, I'm sure:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." 

Just as this opening of P&P tells the entire story in one sentence, so these lines from S&S give us Marianne's journey in a few simple words.  Magical!

Courage in the Face of Intimidation

“My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”

When Elizabeth Bennet utters this phrase in Pride and Prejudice, she fully illustrates for so many readers, her most admirable characteristic.  She is easy-going, even in the face of an intimidating social situation.  How many times I've wished I had a little Eliza in my veins!

Rocks and Mountains

In the same chapter as the previous post, Elizabeth Bennet further professes her opinion of men.  (At least her current opinion in this point in the novel.)  When her aunt invites her to tour the lake country with her, Elizabeth's effusive response includes this little Pride and Prejudice gem:

“What are men to rocks and mountains?”

Men worth knowing

I don't think this quote of Eliza Bennet's needs any explanation about how truly funny and how wittily true it is.

"Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all." - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

General Incivility

From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:

Elizabeth Bennet: "Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"

 Today demands a Pride and Prejudice quote.  Today, the greatest film adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel is re-released on DVD in a restored condition.  Mine shipped last night.  I cannot wait to get it, play it on our big flatscreen and revel in its very Firth-ness!  (And the price is pretty incredible too!)

books and dancing

I love Elizabeth Bennet. I'm re-reading Pride and Prejudice, for the hundredth time, with a group of friends who have never read it. We're on Chapter 18 of the first volume and I'm already telling them this is my favorite chapter. Of course, I'll likely tell them another is my favorite and have probably already told them that a previous was a favorite too.

But when Lizzy and Darcy dance together for the first time at the Netherfield ball, their conversation is fire and ice, electricity, fireworks...amazing. I could copy the whole conversation here but instead I'll just pull one of my favorite Lizzy one-liners. This one proves that sometimes she allows herself to just be a young girl, enjoying the company of handsome men.

"I cannot talk of books in a ball-room; my head is always full of something else."

Long letters

From chapter 10 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:

"...a person who can write a long letter, with ease, cannot write ill."

I have loved this quote for so long. We are a modern people who love all things concise. I've never been able to write anything but long so I'm very happy to have Ms. Austen's approval. I suppose this approval actually comes from Miss Bingley, but I'll take what I can get!

Complete truth

Emma by Jane Austen

"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken."

Complete truth...what's that? Between out-and-out lies, deception, white lies, agenda, bad information, bending the truth, softening-the-blow and propaganda; I'm very sure Miss Austen was right.