Jane Austen Made Me Do It Read Free Page A

met an hour ago,” explained Elinor, nodding towards the establishment behind them, “and already we have become fast friends. We discovered that we have a great deal in common.”
    â€œYou are indeed very much alike,” agreed I with a smile, pleased by the notion of their new friendship. “I have dearly loved you both since the moment of your inception.”
    â€œYou see?” said Fanny quietly, darting a meaningful look at her companion.
    Elinor nodded gravely but remained silent.
    A foreboding feeling came over me. “Is any thing the matter?” asked I.
    â€œNot a thing,” said Elinor.
    â€œThe weather is very cold and damp,” observed Fanny, “do not you think?”
    I knew them both too well to be taken in by the polite composure on their faces. “You need not keep any secrets from me. If there is something you wish to say, please speak freely.”
    â€œWell,” said Fanny reluctantly, “we do not mean to complain. It is just that—” She could not go on.
    â€œIt is about our characters,” interjected Elinor quickly.
    â€œYour characters?” answered I. “But what is wrong with your characters? You are both excellent, intelligent women, with sincere and affectionate dispositions, strength of understanding, calmness of manner, and coolness of judgment.”
    â€œPrecisely,” stated Fanny.
    â€œYou made us
too
perfect,” said Elinor.
    â€œToo perfect?” cried I. “How can any one be too perfect?”
    â€œI always behaved with the utmost of propriety,” said Elinor,“no matter how difficult or oppressive the circumstance. At only nineteen years of age, I was required to be the model of patience, perseverance, and fortitude, obliged to keep my entire family financially and emotionally afloat, and to conceal my pain beneath a façade of complete composure, even when my heart was breaking.”
    â€œYes, and you are
admired
for your strength of character, Elinor,” insisted I.
    â€œAdmired perhaps, but not
liked
. No one likes a character who is flawless, Miss Austen.”
    â€œIt was the same for me,” remarked Fanny. “How I succeeded in maintaining even a modicum of self-respect in such a hostile, belittling, and unfeeling environment as Mansfield Park is purely due to God’s grace and your pen. You made me sit timidly by while the man I loved chased after another woman, had me refuse a charming man because you deemed him insincere, and would not even allow me to participate in a private play, insisting that it was indelicate and wrong! How I disliked myself! No one is fond of a shy, priggish, and passive character, Miss Austen. No one!”
    â€œ
I
am very fond of you,” returned I emphatically. “Henry and Mary liked you. And Edmund
loves
you.”
    â€œOnly because you made him just as good and virtuous as I.”
    â€œThe book has oft been praised for its morality and sound treatment of the clergy!” insisted I a little desperately.
    â€œThat may be so,” said Fanny, “and please correct me if I am wrong, but your own mother finds me insipid, your niece Anna cannot bear me, and the reading public at large finds Edmund and I both annoying and as dull as dishwater.”
    To my mortification, I could not refute her statement.
    â€œPeople love strong, outspoken characters,” said Elinor, “who will not allow themselves to be trampled on by others—characters who have flaws but overcome them. Yet in
our
books, you implythat by being consistently patient, good, and silent, a woman can rise above difficult circumstances.”
    â€œSurely this message controverts everything you told us about life in that
other
book,” said Fanny.
    â€œWhat other book?” asked I.
    â€œWhy, the book that is everyone’s favorite,” answered Elinor with a tight little smile. She then said good-day, and after Fanny made a final comment