A Memoir of Jane Austen

More oxford books @ www.OxfordeBook.com
Fore more urdu books visit www.4Urdu.com
Explanatory Notes 227
the intense fictional creativity of the later 1790s and may also have
inclined Cassandra to destroy its evidence in letters; and that, on the
contrary, these years propelled JA into a social whirl and a life of external
stimulus which itself left no time for writing. The real point is that we
simply do not know. (Cf., for instance, the divergent views of two recent
biographers, Tomalin, Jane Austen, 173–5, and Nokes, Jane Austen,
350–2.)
Extract from a letter . . . to her Sister: no. 39 in Letters; bequeathed by
Cassandra to Charles Austen’s family. The extract is heavily and silently
edited, omitting family news and gossip and some topics and expressions,
presumably in the interests of good taste. For example, of the family
housekeeping at Lyme, JEAL prints: ‘[I] keep everything as it was under
your administration’, but JA wrote: ‘[I] give the Cook physic, which she
throws off her Stomach. I forget whether she used to do this, under your
administration.’
not seeing the Royal Family: George III, the Duke of Gloucester, and
other members of the royal family were staying at Weymouth in September
1804 at the same time as Cassandra Austen.
60 offices: the part of a house in which the domestic work was carried on––
kitchen, pantries, dairy, etc.
But do not mention: JA wrote ‘But I do not mention’ (Letters, 94).
61 Letter from Jane Austen . . . Cassandra: added in Ed.2. The letter is no. 43
in Letters, and was probably bequeathed by Cassandra to Caroline
Austen. It is again heavily edited.
riding-house . . . Miss Lefroy’s performance: ‘There were two riding-houses
(i.e. riding-schools combined with livery stables) in Bath’; Miss Lefroy
here is ‘Lucy, now Mrs Henry Rice’ (Letters, 382, n. 2).
62 affidavits: literally, a written declaration or oath; but JA is referring jokingly
to visiting-cards.
as the exit we have witnessed: Mrs Lloyd died at Ibthorpe on 16 April
1805. Her daughter Mary, referred to later in this letter, had married
James Austen as his second wife in 1797. Her eldest daughter Martha
now joined forces with JA, Cassandra, and Mrs Austen. Presumably the
‘peaceful and easy’ end recently witnessed was that of JA’s father on 21
January 1805.
hack postchaise: an enclosed four-wheeled carriage, hired from stage to
stage of a journey.
63 rambles . . . last summer: when the Austens, with Henry and Eliza Austen,
visited Lyme Regis.
From the same to the same: extracts from a long letter, written over several
days from the lodgings in Gay Street, Bath, temporarily occupied by JA
and her mother, to Cassandra then on an extended visit to Martha Lloyd
at Ibthorpe. It is no. 44 in Letters, where it is dated Sunday 21–Tuesday