Category Archives: sister Cassandra

June 19, 2008 · 2:10 pm

Upon the Sopha

I’m afraid this has become the daily-when-I’m-healthy-enough-to-post quote. I hope it will be back to daily soon. Tuesday I used all my available energy to see the D.C. premiere of the new Lyme documentary Under Our Skin. It’s fabulous. I was exhausted and too emotionally wrung out when I got home to be much good. Yesterday was a couch day, due to nausea from a new med. I’ve bravely ventured out to a coffee shop today, hoping said nausea will stay at bay.

A little from Jane in one of her last letters:

“I am gaining strength very fast. I am now out of bed from 9 in the morning to 10 at night-Upon the Sopha t’is true-but I eat my meals with Aunt Cass: in a rational way, & can employ myself, & walk from one room to another.”

letter to her nephew James Edward
May 27, 1817 [160]

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Filed under Austen family, Health, Letters, nephew James Edward, sister Cassandra

September 4, 2007 · 11:12 am

The Beautifull Cassandra

Yesterday was Labor Day here in the States — a day in which, in honor of work (or, rather, in honor of the common laborer), everyone takes the day off. 😉

More from Jane’s Juvenilia today. This is her introduction to her sister for the story “The Beautifull Cassandra.” This is from Volume the First (there are three in all), so Jane was somewhere between 12 and 15 when she wrote this.


Dedication

“Madam
You are a Phoenix. Your taste is refined, your Sentiments are noble, and your Virtues innumerable. Your Person is lovely, your Figure, elegant, and your Form, magestic. Your Manners are polished, your Conversation is rational and your appearance singular. If therefore the following Tale will afford one moment’s amusement to you, every wish will be gratified of
Your most obedient
humble servant
The Author”

I love this — “Madam You are a Phoenix.” Is that really a compliment? You certainly see Jane’s spirit here.

Thanks to Pemberley.com for the silhouette of Cassandra Austen.

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Filed under Austen family, Juvenilia, On being a lady, sister Cassandra, The Beautifull Cassandra