ee gets into a mortal's bonnet than the buzzing thought that God is
jealous of the affection we have for our loved ones. If we are ever
damned, it will be because we have too little love for our fellows, not
too much.

But, egad! brother, it's no small delight to be sixty and a little stooped
and a trifle rheumatic, and have your own blessed daughter, sweet and
stately, comb your thinning gray locks, help you on with your overcoat,
find your cane, and go trooping with you, hand in hand, down the lane on
merciful errand bent. It's a temptation to grow old and feign sciatica;
and if you could only know that, some day, like old King Lear, upon your
withered cheek would fall Cordelia's tears, the thought would be a solace.

So Jane Austen began to write stories about the simple folks she knew. She
wrote in the family sitting-room at a little mahogany desk that she could
shut up quickly if prying neighbors came in to tell their woes and ask
questions about all those sheets of paper! And all she wrote she read to
her father and to her sister Cassandra. And they talked it all over
together and laughed and cried and joked over it. The kind old minister
thought it a good mental drill for his girls to write and express their
feelings. The two girls collaborated--that is to say, one wrote and the
other looked on. Neither girl had been "educated," except what their
father taught them. But to be born into a bookish family, and inherit the
hospitable mind and the receptive heart, is better than to be sent to
Harvard Annex. Preachers, like other folks, sometimes assume a virtue when
they have it not. But George Austen didn't pretend--he was. And that's the
better plan, for no man can deceive his children--they take his exact
measurement, whether others ever do or not--and the only way to win and
hold the love of a child (or a grown-up) is to be frank and simple and
honest. I've tried both schemes.

I can not find that George Austen ever claimed he was only a worm of the
dust, or pretended to be more or less than he was, or to assume a
knowledge that he did not possess. He used to say: "My dears, I really do
not know. But let's keep the windows open and light may yet come."

It was a busy family of plain, average people--not very rich, and not very
poor. There were difficulties to meet, and troubles to share, and joys to
divide.

Jane Austen was born in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five; "Jane Eyre" in
Eighteen Hundred Sixteen--one ye