Austen wrote nothing save some fragments of 'Lady Susan' and 'The
Watsons,' neither of them of great importance. In 1809 the lessened
household, composed of the mother and her two daughters only, removed to
the village of Chawton, on the estate of Mrs. Austen's third son; and
here, in a rustic cottage, now become a place of pilgrimage, Jane Austen
again took up her pen. She rewrote 'Pride and Prejudice.' She revised
'Sense and Sensibility,' and between February 1811 and August 1816 she
completed 'Mansfield Park,' 'Emma,' and 'Persuasion.' At Chawton, as at
Steventon, she had no study, and her stories were written on a little
mahogany desk near a window in the family sitting-room, where she must
often have been interrupted by the prototypes of her Mrs. Allen, Mrs.
Bennet, Miss Bates, Mr. Collins, or Mrs. Norris. When at last she began
to publish, her stories appeared in rapid succession: 'Sense and
Sensibility' in 1811; 'Pride and Prejudice' early in 1813; 'Mansfield
Park' in 1814; 'Emma' in 1816; 'Northanger Abbey' and 'Persuasion' in
1818, the year following her death. In January 1813 she wrote to her
beloved Cassandra:--"I want to tell you that I have got my own darling
child 'Pride and Prejudice' from London. We fairly set at it and read
half the first volume to Miss B. She was amused, poor soul! ... but she
really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that _I_ think her
as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be
able to tolerate those who do not like _her_ at least, I do not know." A
month later she wrote:--"Upon the whole, however, I am quite vain
enough, and well satisfied enough. The work is rather too light, and
bright, and sparkling: it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here
and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of
solemn, specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story;
an essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of
Bonaparte, or something that would form a contrast, and bring the reader
with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the
general style!"

Thus she who laughed at everybody else laughed at herself, and set her
critical instinct to estimate her own capacity. To Mr. Clarke, the
librarian of Carlton House, who had requested her to "delineate a
clergyman" of earnestness, enthusiasm, and learning, she replied:--"I am
quite honored by your thinking me capable of drawing such a cler