True Bliss is a Confident Heart

"...having written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turn around & entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection".

So wrote Jane Austen in a letter to her niece Fanny who had written and requested advice about a serious relationship she was in.

Jane would never marry; instead, she wrote about the social standards of the day and how women were expected to follow proper etiquette and make a 'good match', thereby securing their family comfort and resources in their old age.

Jane had once met and flirted with a young Irish gentlemen named Tom Lefroy who was a nephew of her nearby neighbors. She later wrote to her sister Elizabeth Cassandra, '..."I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together."'

Though there may have been sparks, it was not to be; for both parties lacked good connections and money. He was dependent on a great-uncle in Ireland for finances to fund his education and couldn't risk losing that funding by carrying on with Jane. His family later intervened by sending him away and when he did later come to visit family, he was kept away from the Austen's.

After that brief flirtation, Jane had only one proposal of marriage in her lifetime. She and her sister Elizabeth Cassandra were visiting old friends, Alethea and Catherine Bigg. Their younger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither had just completed his schooling at Oxford and had returned home. Harris reportedly was not attractive and there were descriptions of him as being: 'a large, plain-looking man who spoke little, stuttered when he did speak, was aggressive in conversation, and almost completely tactless.'

He soon proposed and Jane accepted. The match was a good one as Harris was financially secure, could guarantee her family a life of comfort and stability and they had know each other as children. However, by the following morning, she had mulled it over in her mind and broke off the engagement because she couldn't sacrifice her heart for the greater good of all.

It is amazing to me that all of her novels dealt with the aspect of marriage and the social norms of the day and for the most part generally ended well for the heroine who either married well and/or married happily.

Though she herself never married, she stuck to her guns when it came down to love. Because she never met someone who had both good connections and who could spark love in her heart, she never committed to anyone. I often wonder if it was a lonely life for her, but by all accounts, she was surrounded by family and friends and never seemed to regret having never married.

If you read the backgrounds of a lot of classic authors, you'll find that many have interesting true life stories themselves. Take Beatrix Potter {The Tale of Peter Rabbit}, J.M. Barrie {Peter Pan} and the sad life history of Sylvia Plath {The Bell Jar}.

Something causes a writer to begin writing- and in most instances, it's the little tidbits of a person's life all wrapped up in enigmatic characters and full bodied plots that make for one fascinating story.

Going back to Jane, I consider myself fortunate that todays' society doesn't force woman into loveless marriages by detailing what a woman should and shouldn't do socially anymore. We are free to love whomever we choose and to marry{as Jane Austen may once have dreamed of} someone whom we will love and cherish instead of tolerate and abhor for the rest of our lives {and even into the eternities}.

Witty and funny, talented and articulate, Jane was ahead of her time in affairs of the heart. She herself who didn't have many suitors flawlessly wrote wonderful romantic characters like Fitzwilliam Darcy and Edmund Bertram. Though romance today isn't always as plotted out as you might find in her books, her stories are a good escape from the toil and humdrumness of our everyday life; which is what Jane herself probably needed from time to time in her own life. On my bedside table rests 'Emma', waiting to be cracked open and read, and I too will relish the escape into a world not quite my own.

So the next time you read a book that touches you to the quick, take a moment to look up a little about the author and see if you can discover what may have motivated them to write the story that they did. You just might find a story infinitely more interesting than the one you just set down.

Happy reading.