f the
late Charles James Fox. That you may not be too
much elated at this morsel of praise, I shall add
that he did not appear to like _Mansfield Park_ so
well as the two first, in which, however, I
believe he is singular.[345]

We may compare this account with the quotation given in the
_Memoir_[346] from Sir Henry Holland's _Recollections_:--

I have the picture before me still of Lord Holland
lying on his bed, when attacked with gout; his
admirable sister, Miss Fox, reading aloud--as she
always did on these occasions--some one of Miss
Austen's novels, of which he was never wearied.

It is as difficult to follow the various stages of Jane's illness as it
is to understand the exact nature of her complaint. She must have begun
to feel her malady early in the year 1816; for some friends at a
distance, whom she visited in the spring, 'thought that her health was
somewhat impaired, and observed that she went about her old haunts and
recalled the old recollections connected with them in a particular
manner--as if she did not expect ever to see them again.'[347] This is,
however, almost the only indication that we have of any diminution of
vigour at that time; for the three letters to Fanny Knight, given by
Lord Brabourne as written in 1816, must be transferred to 1817[348]; and
so must the two short extracts[349] on pp. 150, 151 of the _Memoir_, as
they evidently refer to a family event which occurred in the March of
the later year. The tone of her letters through the remainder of 1816,
and at the beginning of the next year, was almost invariably cheerful,
and she showed by the completion of _Persuasion_ that she was capable of
first-rate literary work during the summer of 1816. The fact is that, as
to health, she was an incurable optimist; her natural good spirits made
her see the best side, and her unselfishness prompted the suppression of
anything that might distress those around her. Nothing, for instance,
could be more lively than the following letter to Edward Austen, written
while he was still at Winchester School, but had come home for his last
summer holidays.

Chawton: July 9, 1816.

MY DEAR EDWARD,--Many thanks. A thank for every
line, and as many to Mr. W. Digweed for coming.
We have been wanting very much to hear of your
mother