A Memoir of Jane Austen

More oxford books @ www.OxfordeBook.com
Fore more urdu books visit www.4Urdu.com
36 Changes of Customs
differed a little from ours, and would have appeared to us more
homely. It may be that useful articles, which would not now be
produced in drawing-rooms, were hemmed, and marked, and
darned in the old-fashioned parlour.° But all this concerned only
the outer life; there was as much cultivation and refinement of
mind as now, with probably more studied courtesy and ceremony
of manner to visitors; whilst certainly in that family literary pursuits
were not neglected.
I remember to have heard of only two little things different
from modern customs. One was, that on hunting mornings the
young men usually took their hasty breakfast in the kitchen. The
early hour at which hounds then met may account for this; and
probably the custom began, if it did not end, when they were
boys; for they hunted at an early age, in a scrambling sort of way,
upon any pony or donkey that they could procure, or, in default
of such luxuries, on foot. I have been told° that Sir Francis Austen,
when seven years old, bought on his own account, it must be
supposed with his father’s permission, a pony for a guinea and a
half; and after riding him with great success for two seasons, sold
him for a guinea more. One may wonder how the child could have
so much money, and how the animal could have been obtained for
so little. The same authority informs me that his first cloth suit
was made from a scarlet habit, which, according to the fashion of
the times, had been his mother’s usual morning dress. If all this is
true, the future admiral of the British Fleet must have cut a
conspicuous figure in the hunting-field. The other peculiarity
was that, when the roads were dirty, the sisters took long walks in
pattens.° This defence against wet and dirt is now seldom seen.
The few that remain are banished from good society, and
employed only in menial work; but a hundred and fifty years ago
they were celebrated in poetry, and considered so clever a contrivance
that Gay, in his ‘Trivia,’ ascribes the invention to a god
stimulated by his passion for a mortal damsel, and derives the
name ‘Patten’ from ‘Patty.’
The patten now supports each frugal dame,
Which from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name.°