Crockham Hill February 2025 Newsletter - Flipbook - Page 24
Jane Austen
Marnie Woodward
Surely, we are all familiar with author, Jane Austen (1775-1817)? Most
famous for 6 completed novels set amongst the English gentry, she now
appears on our £10 note. Name the novels (answers below*). In the main,
her characters are among the upper middle classes: landed gentry;
clergyman; military officers; with the occasional aristocrat or baronet in the
mix. They focus on young men and women of marriageable age who are
educated members of society; some well-to-do, others quite poor.
She wrote a few poems too, mainly in jest for family and friends, and not
great literature. She may have written many more, possibly destroyed by
her sister Cassandra, along with much apparently sensitive
correspondence. The poem below is about a farm labourer, not your
typical Austen character at all. I hasten to deny any relevance to our village
life or to Holy Trinity Church. Note the clever rhyme scheme.
Happy the lab'rer in his Sunday clothes!
In light-drab coat, smart waistcoat, well-darn'd hose,
And hat upon his head, to church he goes.
As oft, with conscious pride, he downward throws
A glance upon the ample cabbage rose
That, stuck in buttonhole, regales his nose,
He envies not the gayest London beaux.
In church he takes his seat among the rows,
Pays to the place the reverence he owes,
Likes best the prayers whose meaning least he knows,
Lists to the sermon in a softening doze,
And rouses joyous at the welcome close.
*Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma,
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
Oscar Wilde quotes
I am not young enough to know everything.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
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