A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Appendix
to his house is gone. Part of it nearly fell on the building, & it was
necessary to remove the rest for fear of worse mischief. He has an
abundance of well kept walks through hedgerows, all about his
fields.
6. Letters to James Edward Austen-Leigh (HRO, MS
23M93/86/3). Caroline Austen to JEAL, undated apart from
‘Saturday’, but annotated in a different hand at the end ‘July
1871’ (23M93/86/3b item 73°).
Saturday
My dear Edward
I received yesterday from Anna, y r . despatch to her, & I dare
say you wish to have the copies returned of L d . Stanhope’s letter,
& your’s to him–– I am rather sorry that L d . S. should be raising a
hue & cry after those ‘lines, replete with vigour & fancy’––to
which unluckily Uncle Henry alluded more than half a Century
ago°–– Nobody felt any curiosity about them then–– but see what it
is to have a growing posthumous reputation! we cannot keep any
thing to ourselves now, it seems.–– I quite approve of y r . letter to
Lord S.–– I suppose it will bring a rejoinder–– Tho’ there are no
reasons ethical or orthodox against the publication of these
stanzas, there are reasons of taste–– I never thought there was
much point in them–– they were good enough for a passing
thought, but if she had lived she would probably soon have torn
them up–– however there is a much stronger objection to their
being inserted in any memoir, than a want of literary merit–– If
put in at all they must have been introduced as the latest working
of her mind–– They are dated July 15 th –– her death followed on
the 18 th [‘8’ written over ‘7’]–– Till a few hours before she died,
she had been feeling much better, & there was hope of amendment
at least, if not of recovery–– she amused herself by following
a harmless fancy suggested by what was passing near her–– but
the joke about the dead Saint, & Winchester races, all jumbled up
together, would read badly as amongst the few details given, of
the closing scene–– If I were to meet with it in any other biography,
it would jar at once on my feelings, & I should think the
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