Jane Austen and LeisureJane Austen's novels portray a leisured society of gentlemen and ladies who do not need to work. Even the minority of clergymen, soldiers and sailors - men with professions - are almost never seen working. Jane Austen herself, despite responsibility for some domestic tasks, wrote as a woman of leisure. Yet leisure, the distinguishing mark of a gentleman, was not meant to be an excuse for idleness. The proper use of leisure to fulfil duties, to read and to think, and above all to pursue social relations in a world where family and marriage for the propertied was of central importance, was a vital test of character. |
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Page viii
... Thoughts upon Hare and Fox Hunting . ( British Library ) 15 Finding the Hare , engraving by J. Wheeble , 1796 , in Peter Beckford , Thoughts upon Hare and Fox Hunting . ( British Library ) 16 Children's spelling alphabet , bone , c ...
... Thoughts upon Hare and Fox Hunting . ( British Library ) 15 Finding the Hare , engraving by J. Wheeble , 1796 , in Peter Beckford , Thoughts upon Hare and Fox Hunting . ( British Library ) 16 Children's spelling alphabet , bone , c ...
Page xvii
... thought old enough to profit much by the instruction there imparted , but because she would have been made miserable without her sister ; her mother observing that ' if Cassandra were going to have her head cut off , Jane would insist ...
... thought old enough to profit much by the instruction there imparted , but because she would have been made miserable without her sister ; her mother observing that ' if Cassandra were going to have her head cut off , Jane would insist ...
Page 4
... thought that she was engaged in letter - writing , just as any lady might be - and indeed as she often was . To understand how people disposed of their time in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries , it is necessary to bear in ...
... thought that she was engaged in letter - writing , just as any lady might be - and indeed as she often was . To understand how people disposed of their time in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries , it is necessary to bear in ...
Page 15
... thought of me . I would not stay for the servant.39 The breathless style and the immediacy of the scene underline the fact that at times formality must give way to frankness . Catherine has learnt how these things are done ; more ...
... thought of me . I would not stay for the servant.39 The breathless style and the immediacy of the scene underline the fact that at times formality must give way to frankness . Catherine has learnt how these things are done ; more ...
Page 19
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amusement assemblies aunt Austen-Leigh ball Bath Bennet brother Captain Wentworth cards Cassandra characters charade Charles Chawton Country Dancing course daughter delightful Donwell Edmund eighteenth century Elton Emma Emma Watson Emma's Fanny Burney feel Frank Churchill gardens give Godmersham Harriet Henry heroine Highbury hunting Ibid James Edward Jane Austen Jane Austen Society Jane Fairfax John kind Knightley Knightley's Lady Bertram later Lefroy leisure letter lived London look Lord Lybbe Powys Lyme Mansfield Park Marianne marry Martha Lloyd Mary Crawford Mary Lloyd Miss Bates moral needlework never niece night Northanger Abbey novel party perhaps pianoforte play pleasure poem popular Pride and Prejudice resort Sanditon scene seaside Sense and Sensibility sister social Steventon taste theatre theatricals thing Thomas Tilney Tom Bertram verse Weston wife woman Woodhouse writing young ladies