Another Time and Place

I've decided something.

If I could live anywhere, at any time, I would live in England when Jane Austen did.

Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen

The past couple of weeks have reaffirmed this to me as I've been rereading my favorite book, Pride and Prejudice, as well as watching Emma (just as a side note, Mr. Knightley really is the perfect man!) and many other of "those type" of movies.

There is something so beautiful about the way they talk and how they express themselves.  I would love to go to dinner parties often and have balls with structured dances that everyone knows.  Although, I'll admit I probably would have had a difficult time, like Austen did, because my independent personality would not go over well with society.

Still, as I become enthralled again with the world the Elizabeth, Emma, and Elinor lived in, I want it for my own.  

Often I feel cheesy when my response to the inquiry of my favorite book is Pride and Prejudice.  It's a classic and one that most people would expect all girls to like.  Which naturally makes me want to change my answer because I despise being what people stereotype me to be.  But I can't help it.  It is my favorite.  I love the language, syntax, and even the punctuation.  I love the romance and the passion.  I love that Elizabeth is so headstrong and stupid, actions that are unfortunately not foreign to me. 

I also love the comedy in it.  I think I might start a collection of some of my favorite lines.  My new favorite conversation is one between Elizabeth and her aunt Mrs. Gardiner as they are discussing the deteriorated relationship between Jane and Bingley.  

Elizabeth: "It does not often happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a few days before."

Mrs. Gardiner: "But that expression of 'violently in love' is so hackneyed, so doubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little idea.  It is often applied to feelings which arise only from a half hour's acquaintance as to a real, strong attachment.  Pray, how violent was Mr. Bingley's love?"

Elizabeth: I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her.  Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable.  At his own ball he offended two or three young ladies by not asking them to dance; and I spoke to him twice myself without receiving an answer.  Could there be finer symptoms?  Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"

Mrs. Gardiner: "Oh yes! of that kind of love which I suppose him to have felt."

"Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"  Cracks me up every time.  So clever.  And true.

Someday perhaps I will have acquired the amount of wisdom necessary to write such classics as Jane Austen.  Until then, I guess I'll have to be satisfied with my tradition of immersing myself in her world every summer. 

All this talking about it makes me want to watch the movie.  Good thing it's summer and I can go home and do just that!