What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety and Glow?
Letter, December 16, 1816, to her nephew, J. Edward Austen. Jane Austen
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What fine weather this is! Not very becoming perhaps early in the morning, but very pleasant out of doors at noon, and very wholesome-at least everybody fancies so, and imagination is everything. To Edward, however, I really think dry weather of importance. I have not taken to fires yet.
Letter, November 17, 1798, to her sister, Cassandra. Jane Austen
viewWithout thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small for tune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.
Here and there, human nature may be great in times of trial, but generally speaking it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a sick chamber.
Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.