Episode 15 - Too Much Wine

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant
Episode 15: "Too Much Wine"
Published on January 5, 2021

Note: This transcript was generated by Otter.ai with light human correction

Kathryn Gehred 

Hello, and welcome to Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. This is a Women's History podcast where we feature eighteenth and early nineteenth century women's letters that don't get as much attention as we think they should. I am your host, Katherine Gehred. This week, I have a special guest joining us all the way from London. This is Sasha Sienna, who is the host along with one of their friends, Jessica Law with a podcast called The Jane Austen Austentations. So, fans of your most obedient and humble servant might have heard me and many of my guests talk about how these letters all feel like Jane Austen novels. Well, this week, we're actually going to be reading a Jane Austen letter. Sasha, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Sasha Sienna

Thank you very much for having me.

Kathryn Gehred 

 Sasha hosts a podcast called Jane Austentations, where they and their cohosts Jessica law are planning on watching and reviewing every Jane Austen adaptation ever filmed? 

Sasha Sienna

Yep, pretty. It's a slow project. It's a long term thing.

Kathryn Gehred 

What What inspired you to start this project?

Sasha Sienna

Well, I started writing a little blog, because I just really love Jane Austen adaptations, and I started writing up my thoughts about the ones that I'd watched on a little blog, which I call Jane Austentations. And I have a friend Jess, who is very much one of those people where it took me about five years of actually knowing Jess very well to fully get it through my head that she's not a fictional character. She's just, she's very, like idiosyncratic, and just a wonderful person to know. She read one of my blog posts about the 1986 version of Northanger Abbey and said that it was the most entertained she'd been in years. So, when she came to stay with me shortly after that, I asked if she wanted to watch an adaptation with me, and Jess knows nothing about Jane Austen has never read a novel has had never seen an adaptation before, and it was the most fun I had had in my life. She just asked all the best questions like, 'my he's a bit of a cad, isn't it?' And, it was just brilliant. So, I slowly laid some groundwork to try and get her to join me in a podcast venture, which she did.

Kathryn Gehred 

It's one of my favorite podcast, sort of conceits is having somebody who knows a lot about a subject and somebody who knows less about a subject, talk about it and have conversations, and I think that's something that's really fun about your podcast is you really do have a very good rapport. And some of her observations about the Jane Austen adaptations are really hysterical. So have you been a Jane Austen fan for a long time?

Sasha Sienna

Yeah, since I was about 13, or 14, and I found an annotated copy of Pride and Prejudice in on my parents bookshelf, which neither of them owned. I don't know where it came from, but I just fell head over heels.

Kathryn Gehred 

Oh, that's so annotated. Did it tell you about Jane Austen did tell you about the book or no, it was a mysterious annotator. So, it was clearly somebody's like "A" level copy or something. And "A" level being I think equivalent of God, it's like the last two years of high school. So, somebody in blue by row had just written all these notes on the text in like little shorthand and 'see f with page this, that and the other' or little exclamation marks where they found something funny. It was really lovely. Yeah, I love that, and I have a real appreciation for like really bonded with this stranger, this mystery person.

Kathryn Gehred 

Um, so before coming on to the podcast, or starting your own. Did you have a lot of background knowledge about Jane Austen as a person as a historical figure? Or was it mostly knowledge of the books?

Sasha Sienna

Um, it definitely started as knowledge as the of the books. That's definitely where I got into Jane Austen. And then around University, I got very stubborn about being into Jane Austen and started looking more into her as a person. I definitely would say I don't, I'm not a historian, so my knowledge of her is very limited to things that I personally have been interested in, to find out. And, mostly the things that I've been interested in are kind of her position in the society that she's in kind of economically and socially, and her relationships with her family, especially Cassandra, and also all the gossip about her flirtations.

Kathryn Gehred 

What I learned when I was trying to research her for this podcast is there's a lot of sort of mythology around Jane Austen. There's like the stories that everybody will tell about like her short engagement, and that certain ball with Mr. Lacroix that everybody talks about, it seems like, but then some of the details are a little harder to pin down. And also, I'm used to reading like historical biographies of people that are very like focused on like, who's where and when, but so much of Jane Austen's biographies are about her books and when she's writing the books and what's inspiring her for writing these books, so that was sort of a different side for me. So it's kind of fun to do the research for this one.

Sasha Sienna

I'm always really impressed with how in your podcast, you always know who everyone is, and I have to say reading a Jane Austen letter is just like a wash of names going straight over my.

Kathryn Gehred 

Well, that's I had to give up on this one because like, I identify, every person that she lists in this letter, that's going to be the entire podcast is me just like reading biographies because it's just name after name after name. So, I figured for this one, I'm just gonna sort of blanket say she's going to, you're going to be hearing a lot of names. And someone out there is going to know everything about every person that is listed in this letter, and they're going to be furious that I'm not going into more detail about it. But just the context I'd like to set up is that she is still writing from what is basically been her childhood home and her childhood society. And, she's listing people in this letter that her sister knows, and there's a large cast of characters that she's just sort of giving her sister an update on. But these are people that she's grown up with that she's known that a part of the society at this particular moment. And this is right before a point in Jane Austen's life, where her father is about to not sell the house, but give the house that they've grown up into her brother, and move the family to Bath. And is it "Bath" or "Bath?"

Sasha Sienna

I don't depends if you're from the north or the south of England.

Kathryn Gehred 

All right, well, from the midwest of America, I'm gonna say however you want to say it, really, but the family is about to move. So it's a big sort of social shift for her. But at this point, this is she's still writing from a fairly familiar cast of characters that her sister will know who she's talking about. And these are not necessarily the upper upper crust, but this is sort of the Genteel Society of Hampshire. Does that. Does that sound about right to you?

Sasha Sienna

Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah. I think I've heard them called "Pseudo Gentry" before.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah. And so from Virginia Gentry society, that's what I mostly studied with, like people like Thomas Jefferson. That generally means like, owning land and slaves. But I imagined Gentry in English society is more about owning land.

Sasha Sienna

Well, actually, it's interesting that you bring this up, because in England, I don't know about in the US at the moment, but in England, there's definitely a real theme at the moment in public discourse about the place of the slave trade in British history, because let's be absolutely real, our riches as a country were largely built on the slave trade.

Kathryn Gehred

Right.

Sasha Sienna

And there's been pushed to acknowledge that, certainly, with things like our great historical houses, a lot of the time they have been built based on the profits of slave owning families, but who were profiting off the work of enslaved people in other countries, not within the borders of the UK. And so polite society kind of pretends it isn't happening. So there's been a push to acknowledge that that's what's been going on. And there's kind of a counter push from certainly right wing and the more upper middle class establishment, claiming that that is rewriting history, which I feel like his wild because you're not rewriting history to acknowledge history. 

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah, yeah. That's how it always goes. But yeah, like, Where did that money come from?

Sasha Sienna

Mansfield Park is actually I think, a really good example of how families that were profiting off the slave trade actually related to that income and to that money, because it isn't something that's explicitly delved into in the books, but it is very much an undercurrent, a very, a very real theme of that book, because Fanny Price, who is the poor relation goes to stay with this slave owning family, and their concerns in the West Indies are a real sort of, like, sub theme of the book, undercurrent of what's going on within the family.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Sasha Sienna

So, it definitely definitely happened. It was just we don't talk about that here or in Britain don't you know.

Kathryn Gehred 

Right? It's it is removed, compared to America where we're still trying to whitewash and not talk about slavery or have the mythology of this beautiful plantation society that just functioned in this. What's the word is a peculiar institution, as they call it? Okay, so you said you were interested in Jane Austen and her relationship with her sister had you read some of her correspondence before?

Sasha Sienna

I had. I'd got really interested in particular and there's this period of her life where Cassandra's burned all her letters, and it's because she wanted to keep something about Jane Austen from Gossip, so that after Jane Austen died, Cassandra burned these letters from I think it's like 1801 to 1804, or something like that. What happened? What was it that she needed to keep out of public knowledge? I know that during that time, Jane Austen got engaged, and that is something that's kind of documented. But that can't have been the whole three years worth of stuff to talk about. Right?

Kathryn Gehred 

Has it changed the way that you look at Jane Austen's fiction from reading a little bit more of her letters?

Sasha Sienna

This suddenly aspects of Jane Austen's letters that have, I don't know, whether impacted 100% or complimented kind of a deeper understanding of her as not this kind of prude super polite, this kind of ideal, stereotypical Regency British lady that exists in a lot of people's imaginations. There's certainly things in her books and in her letters, more concretely, sometimes that are quite, I don't want to sound like a 45 year Aunt but saucy. And, I think really mean sometimes.

Kathryn Gehred 

As I was excited to find this one because there's some some of the more famous, heavily quoted Austin letters. She's talking about things like her own flirtations, and this one has a little bit of that she's describing a ball in great detail, but what I think where I think this letter is really interesting is the way she's writing about the people at the ball, which I just particularly enjoyed, but yeah, okay, so brief sort of background of context of what's going on at the time of this letter, and Jane Austen's life. Jane Austen was born to as we say, as we mentioned earlier, it's Gentry society. So, her family is able to take part in sort of the high society, Gentry culture, visiting each other's houses, they have a reputation and they're, they're the sort of people who are part of society, but they don't have a lot of money. Her father was the Rector of this small sort of town of Dean in Steventon, near Basingstoke, Hampshire. So, it wasn't a massive estate with like a large income. She had seven brothers and a sister, and one of her brothers, the family actually sort of adopted out, he took, they didn't, they didn't have enough money to raise this entire large family and have everybody be set up with the sort of estate that they could make a living off of, so they had to sort of get creative in certain ways. So, her brother ends up being adopted by a more wealthy family, he takes their last name, two of her brothers end up joining the Navy where they can make living on their own. And Jane and her sister are in the sort of business of trying to find a husband. But they don't have a lot of dowry, they don't have a lot of really connection. So, if they're going to get husband, it might be it was going to sort of have to be a match of, a love match. Or she is just so impressive and beautiful and charming and wonderful that she's able to trick somebody with a lot of money into marrying her, but that doesn't end up happening for either Jane or Cassandra. Cassandra was engaged briefly. In a while, she actually had a long engagement in her early 20s, but her fiance was never able to make enough money to get enough property to support a family and he ended up dying of yellow fever in the Caribbean in 1797. The letter that we're reading today is dated November 20, 1800. So this is sort of a turning point in Jane Austen's life. Her youth, she was well educated. She grew up with a family that was able to sort of ship her out that she could spend time with more wealthy family members and less wealthy family members. She sort of ran the gamut of that sort of Gentry society that she's visiting, but she's been sort of living in the same area, taking part in the same society for most of her life. But, her father is just about to sell the house and move. So, this is kind of a turning point. This is the end of her sort of youth in Steventon. She's been writing. She's actually finished a lot of her more famous novels at this point. She hasn't published anything yet in 1800, but she's been writing her whole life and writing plays and putting things on for her family. She's written some epistolary novels and things like that, but nothing's been published just yet at this point. At this point, Jane is 25 years old. Cassandra is 27. Cassandra is visiting with their brother Edward at Godmersham Park in Kent. So, Godmersham Park is big fancy house compared to where Jane's actually living. And their older brother Edward was 43 years old. He's the one who was adopted by the the Knight family, so his last name was Knight at this point. And sometimes he would invite Cassandra and Jane to come visit, and they're sort of like the governesses for his kids. Basically, at this point, Jane's writing a letter to talk about the balls that are happening in society and to just keep Cassandra in the loop of what's going on with gossip. Before I read the letter, as I said, there's too many people I'm not gonna even try to identify all of them, but I do want to tell you about her brothers because she mentioned just about every brother in this letter. Her oldest brother, James, went to Oxford eventually took over the vicarage Steventon. He He had been married for eight years at this point, and lived close by at a house called "Dean." So, Jane kind of blames her brother for kicking them out of their house in Steventon and making the move to Beth. She thinks that his wife wanted that house, and so that's why she and her family had to sort of downgrade into the smaller households at Bath. George is your next older brother. He's really interesting. Depending on which sources you'll read wildly varying things about George, you'll he might have been developmentally disabled. He might have been deaf, he might have been mute. I read something that said he was an epileptic. But some. If you look at blogs, sometimes they'll be like, "Oh, Jane Austen's invisible brother, the brother that's never mentioned." But, he's mentioned in this letter, so I think it wasn't that he just didn't exist or wasn't part of the family. I already mentioned her brother Edward, who her sister's visiting. There's also her brother Henry, who was very close with Jane Austen. He eventually becomes a London merchant sort of London banker, and he helps the family out later when they have more economic troubles, but so Henry is sort of James buddy, her friend, her brother Frank, and her brother, Charles John, have both joined the Royal Navy Academy and they're in the Navy. So if you could read at least the first section of the letter.

Sasha Sienna

Okay,

"Steventon: Thursday, November 20 1800.

Your letter took me quite by surprise this morning; you are very welcome, however, and I am very much obliged to you. I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand to-day. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error.

Naughty Charles did not come on Tuesday, but good Charles came yesterday morning. About two o'clock he walked in on a Gosport hack. His feeling equal to such a fatigue is a good sign, and his feeling no fatigue in it a still better. He walked down to Deane to dinner; he danced the whole evening, and to-day is no more tired than a gentleman ought to be.

Your desiring to hear from me on Sunday will, perhaps, bring you a more particular account of the ball than you may care for, because one is prone to think much more of such things the morning after they happen, than when time has entirely driven them out of one's recollection.

It was a pleasant evening; Charles found it remarkably so, but I cannot tell why, unless the absence of Miss Terry, towards whom his conscience reproaches him with being now perfectly indifferent, was a relief to him. There were only twelve dances, of which I danced nine, and was merely prevented from dancing the rest by the want of a partner. We began at ten, supped at one, and were at Deane before five. There were but fifty people in the room; very few families indeed from our side of the county, and not many more from the other. My partners were the two St. Johns, Hooper, Holder, and very prodigious Mr. Mathew, with whom I called the last, and whom I liked the best of my little stock."

Kathryn Gehred 

I like the way she talks about her little stock. Alright, so I'm gonna pause here quite briefly. I like that this is a hungover Jane Austen.

Sasha Sienna

Yeah, I really like that. It's a very different side of her than is often presented.

Kathryn Gehred 

Right. And when you I guess, different adaptations of different Jane Austen novels showed that drinking that's happening in different ways. I like that she's teasing her younger brother about possibly, well, let's see towards him. His conscience approaches him with being now perfectly indifferent. So he was flirting with a Mis Carrie, but he seems to have changed his mind about that. 

Sasha Sienna

Yeah, and I really love the phrasing there. I feel like it's really elegant and telling. It tells you a lot about the dynamics of that little social set, just from half a sentence.

Kathryn Gehred 

I wonder if some of the rogues in her books were based off some of her brothers. 

Sasha Sienna

Oh, that's actually this, so in Mansfield Park, there is actually a character called Henry who has a cad and is quite widely thought of as being at least partially based on her brother Henry, and then there's a lovely line that he said he read the book and then I think Jane Austen asked him what he thought of Henry, and he said something like, "Oh, I like him perfectly well, you know, in the way of a sort of intelligent and pleasant fellow."

Kathryn Gehred 

Alright, so well, we can go into the next section, if you don't mind.

Sasha Sienna

"There were very few beauties, and such as there were were not very handsome. Miss Iremonger did not look well, and Mrs. Blount was the only one much admired. She appeared exactly as she did in September, with the same broad face, diamond bandeau, white shoes, pink husband, and fat neck. The two Miss Coxes were there: I traced in one the remains of the vulgar, broad-featured girl who danced at Enham eight years ago; the other is refined into a nice, composed-looking girl, like Catherine Bigg. I looked at Sir Thomas Champneys and thought of poor Rosalie; I looked at his daughter, and thought her a queer animal with a white neck. Mrs. Warren, I was constrained to think, a very fine young woman, which I much regret. She [words omitted in Brabourne edition: "has got rid of some part of her child, and"] danced away with great activity [words omitted in Brabourne edition: "looking by no means very large"]. Her husband is ugly enough, uglier even than his cousin John; but he does not look so very old. The Miss Maitlands are both prettyish, very like Anne, with brown skins, large dark eyes, and a good deal of nose. The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Maitland the jaundice. Miss Debary, Susan, and Sally, all in black, but without any stature, made their appearance, and I was as civil to them as circumstances [Unexpurgated original: "their bad breath"] would allow me.

They told me nothing new of Martha. I mean to go to her on Thursday, unless Charles should determine on coming over again with his friend Shipley for the Basingstoke ball, in which case I shall not go till Friday. I shall write to you again, however, before I set off, and I shall hope to hear from you in the meantime. If I do not stay for the ball, I would not on any account do so uncivil a thing by the neighbourhood as to set off at that very time for another place, and shall therefore make a point of not being later than Thursday morning.

Mary said that I looked very well last night. I wore my aunt's gown and handkerchief, and my hair was at least tidy, which was all my ambition. I will now have done with the ball, and I will moreover go and dress for dinner."

Kathryn Gehred 

So what's what's your perspective of this section?

Sasha Sienna

I just love the way that she talks about the other people at the ball here. I mean, it's it's mean, it's cutting, but I feel like you get such a picture of these people. It's almost like she's drawing caricatures of them.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yes. Well, and I don't. Where is it? Her husband is ugly enough? 

Sasha Sienna

Yes. "I'm not so very old or charitable of you."

Kathryn Gehred 

I definitely get an Emma feel from this of sort of giant drawing sort of assumptions, and also this is a letter that she's writing to her sister like this is she's in a very safe space. She is just writing exactly what she thinks, and she's doing it in a way that she's purposefully writing to be funny. And to get a reaction out of her sister. I think from that perspective, it's less of like somebody being really mean to all these people and just like the way people talk and gossip. I love that her focus on people's necks.

Sasha Sienna

Yes, I have to assume that's because that's so much of what you can see of them in an empire line dress.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yes, that's, that's a great point. Because this is right when like that plunging neckline is very popular and nothing else was shapely about these dresses.

Sasha Sienna

You didn't have a lot of choice for what else to focus on.

Kathryn Gehred 

White shoes, pink husband, and fat neck is just a fantastic sentence. We mentioned there's one bit that was crossed out with unexpurgated original, she was talking about somebody's bad breath, but so that means that Jane crossed out their bad breath like that was getting to mean for Jane Austen, she must have crossed that out herself, but later printed versions of these books cut out that section about Mrs. Warren where it says "she has got rid of some part of her child and danced away with great activity. Looking by no means very large." So I don't know exactly what's going on in that section. It sounds like maybe she's had a child and she's losing the baby weight.

Sasha Sienna

That's definitely how I read it. But the fact that they took it out, I'm never sure whether that's because they thought oh, well, that's just too mean, or whether it's hinting at something else. But I felt like it can't it must be the baby weight thing. 

Kathryn Gehred 

Exactly. "But has got has got rid of some part of her child." I can see somebody the Victorian era reading that and being like, nope, cross that right out. It's not going in the book, but yeah, so this is the original read, but I also like her little bit of modesty at the end where she says that her hair was at least tidy, which was all my ambition. Okay, so now, what's happened here is Jane Austen has finished the section of the letter, and then she's continuing it on another day, which I always enjoy when letters span multiple days, which happens quite a bit in these 18th century correspondences, but so we can start dive right into the next section.

Sasha Sienna

Okay.

"Thursday evening. -- Charles leaves us on Saturday, unless Henry should take us in his way to the island, of which we have some hopes, and then they will probably go together on Sunday.

The young lady whom it is expected that Sir Thomas is to marry is Miss Emma Wabshaw; she lives somewhere between Southampton and Winchester, is handsome, accomplished, amiable, and everything but rich. He is certainly finishing his house in a great hurry. Perhaps the report of his being to marry a Miss Fanshawe might originate in his attentions to this very lady -- the names are not unlike.

Summers has made my gown very well indeed, and I get more and more pleased with it. Charles does not like it, but my father and Mary do. My mother is very much resigned to it; and as for James, he gives it the preference over everything of the kind he ever saw, in proof of which I am desired to say that if you like to sell yours Mary will buy it.

We had a very pleasant day on Monday at Ashe, we sat down fourteen to dinner in the study, the dining-room being not habitable from the storms having blown down its chimney. Mrs. Bramston talked a good deal of nonsense, which Mr. Bramston and Mr. Clerk seemed almost equally to enjoy. There was a whist and a casino table, and six outsiders. Rice and Lucy made love, Mat. Robinson fell asleep, James and Mrs. Augusta alternately read Dr. Finnis' pamphlet on the cow-pox, and I bestowed my company by turns on all.

On inquiring of Mrs. Clerk, I find that Mrs. Heathcote made a great blunder in her news of the Crookes and Morleys. It is young Mr. Crook who is to marry the second Miss Morley, and it is the Miss Morleys instead of the second Miss Crooke who were the beauties at the music meeting. This seems a more likely tale, a better devised imposture."

Yeah, I feel like I get such a picture of this party from her description of the people there.

Kathryn Gehred 

Just something about the the dining room uninhabitable because of the storms blowing down the chimney. So there's like in the wreckage.

Sasha Sienna

Such a funny image.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yes! They have to move to a different place. So, this is very much the like 'the news section' who's in love with who? Who's courting who? I like that. Sir Thomas's to Marissa Miss Emma webshop. But they've been hearing rumors of him courting Miss Fanshawe, but it might just be the same person. And she's handsome, accomplished, amiable, and everything but rich.

Sasha Sienna

I still like that line so much out of a novel that she might have written.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yes. And and now that I know a little bit more about her. She would be very aware of that, because that's sort of her as well.

Sasha Sienna

Yes, very much.

Kathryn Gehred

I can see being hyper aware of the people in a similar situation who are getting married, and the little bit about the gown. That's why I like reading the full letters and not just little excerpts of them. I just like the descriptions of who's making the gowns, what they're supposed to look like. But then the idea that her sister might just sell her gown.

Sasha Sienna

Yeah, well, no, I like it's the fact that she said "I am desired to say that you'd like to sell yours" suggest that there's absolutely no indication that Cassandra would want to sell hers. I just really love How cheeky James and Mary are being here.

Kathryn Gehred 

I didn't pick up on that, but that's totally right. I did want to mention, again, I tried to look up little things that are mentioned by name. I tried to find Dr. Finnis's pamphlet on the cow pox, just because I can this is what I do, but actually, the cow pox pamphlet was about this smallpox and whether you can use cow pox inoculations to make yourself immune from smallpox. So I've heard many people describe this party as being so boring that somebody's reading from the pamphlet on the cow pox, but my my historical take is this might have actually been very exciting.

Sasha Sienna

I think that's really exciting, too, I would be so thrilled to go to a party where someone suddenly starts telling me all about how, 'Hey, maybe we can vaccinate ourselves with cows.'

Kathryn Gehred 

That's my, that's my, um, dramatic now copyrighted take that this was actually an exciting thing, reading at this party. And I'm sure she is very interested in it. In the context of there's social gatherings that are like a massive ball that'll have fifty families, but then the smaller social gatherings where people would be reading aloud, I just think that's a really cool insight into the time, and also something that a lot of these letters that people are writing to each other were fully intended to be read out loud to families.

Sasha Sienna

Yes.

Kathryn Gehred

At gatherings like this. And I think this is sort of evidence of that. Okay, let's go into the next section.

Sasha Sienna

"The three Digweeds all came on Tuesday, and we played a pool at commerce. James Digweed left Hampshire to-day. I think he must be in love with you, from his anxiety to have you go to the Faversham balls, and likewise from his supposing that the two elms fell from their grief at your absence. Was not it a gallant idea? It never occurred to me before, but I dare say it was so.

Hacker has been here to-day putting in the fruit trees. A new plan has been suggested concerning the plantation of the new inclosure of the right-hand side of the elm walk: the doubt is whether it would be better to make a little orchard of it by planting apples, pears, and cherries, or whether it should be larch, mountain ash, and acacia. What is your opinion? I say nothing, and am ready to agree with anybody.

You and George walking to Eggerton! What a droll party! Do the Ashford people still come to Godmersham church every Sunday in a cart? It is you that always disliked Mr. N. Toke so much, not I. I do not like his wife, and I do not like Mr. Brett, but as for Mr. Toke, there are few people whom I like better.

Miss Harwood and her friend have taken a house fifteen miles from Bath; she writes very kind letters, but sends no other particulars of the situation. Perhaps it is one of the first houses in Bristol.

Farewell; Charles sends you his best love and Edward his worst. If you think the distinction improper, you may take the worst yourself. He will write to you when he gets back to his ship, and in the meantime desires that you will consider me as

Your affectionate sister, J. A."

Kathryn Gehred 

We can we can pause there, so she she doesn't quite finish the letter just yet. She talks about the two elms falling over. I love the grief that Cassandra left in the two elms just fell over, but it's from the same storm that knocked over the chimney. And the other residents, they've just had a really bad storm blow through that knocked all these trees down at this time.

Sasha Sienna

Or the chimney was also just devastated at Cassandra's leaving. Which I really loved that Jane Austen and a lot of her letters, she's always talking about men being in love with Cassandra, she's just so willing to assume that everybody is in love with Cassandra. So I feel like that wouldn't be too far a stretch.

Kathryn Gehred 

There's every every single book on Jane mentions the quote that she says if Cassandra got her head cut off, Jane wanted to have her as cut off as well, clearly adored her sister.

Sasha Sienna

I think this bits actually kind of really sad, because, of course, she's about to move to Bath, and she doesn't actually know that at this point. I don't think it was quite a surprise to her.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Sasha Sienna

And so I feel like her talking about the plans to improve Steventon and grow things where she's living now, knowing as we do now that she was about to leave, but it's really sad. And it really reminds me of this one bit and Sense and Sensibility where Marianne is about to leave her childhood home, and is walking around saying goodbye to the trees, and it's presented as Marianne being incredibly self indulgent, you know, and kind of wallowing. But it was definitely something that Jane Austen said she, she saw herself in Marianne when she was younger, and I think it's really interesting, because she's actually already written that bit when she's now.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Sasha Sienna

Doing this thing that mirrors it in real life.

Kathryn Gehred 

That's really, that's a really great point, and I do like that she has forgotten that. You're the one who disliked Mr. N. Toke.

Sasha Sienna

Yes.

Kathryn Gehred

I love Mr. N. Toke.

Sasha Sienna

I'm the one that doesn't like his wife

Kathryn Gehred 

Oh, that is the way I talked to my sister too. That is all very realistic. Okay, so now there is a postscript that she writes even after signing it, beginning off it.

Sasha Sienna

"Friday. -- I have determined to go on Thursday, but of course not before the post comes in. Charles is in very good looks indeed. I had the comfort of finding out the other evening who all the fat girls with long noses were that disturbed me at the 1st H. ball. They all prove to be Miss Atkinsons of En---- [illegible].

I rejoice to say that we have just had another letter from our dear Frank. It is to you, very short, written from Larnica in Cyprus, and so lately as October 2. He came from Alexandria, and was to return there in three or four days, knew nothing of his promotion, and does not write above twenty lines, from a doubt of the letter's ever reaching you, and an idea of all letters being opened at Vienna. He wrote a few days before to you from Alexandria by the "Mercury," sent with despatches to Lord Keith. Another letter must be owing to us besides this, one if not two; because none of these are to me. Henry comes to-morrow, for one night only.

My mother has heard from Mrs. E. Leigh. Lady Saye and Seale and her daughter are going to remove to Bath. Mrs. Estwick is married again to a Mr. Sloane, a young man under age, without the knowledge of either family. He bears a good character, however.

Miss Austen, Godmersham Park,
Faversham, Kent."

Kathryn Gehred 

So this bit, I mean, this feels like news that I can find in other sources. When she's talking about Frank writing from Larnaca in Cyprus. I looked up what the English navy was doing in Cyprus at this point, and this was a part of the French Revolutionary Wars, and in response to the French invasion of Egypt, of 1798 through 1801, which was led by Napoleon. So, he Larnaca in Cyprus was sort of an English Naval base, and that's what he's doing there, and it's very much war time. So, he's writing his letters, but as she says, she's not sure she has all of them. She's not sure if this is the most recent one. And obviously, none of them are to her, so they must be missing some. But that's another thing that comes up quite a bit in these eighteenth century letters is you send a letter, but you don't know when the person is going to receive it, and particularly writing from so far away.

Sasha Sienna

I like in this section, how it's detailed, kind of the long journey of how the letter got to them. Yeah. Because I really like having these little things in letters, and they're kind of like everyday sources because that's sort thing just isn't generally considered important enough to have put in the history books of that time. But I think gives you such an insight into what it was actually like to live there. It's like, okay, so he's written this letter, and then he's put it on this boat, to give to this guy who's obviously sent it when it got to England.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yes. And the name of the boat is more important that that's something I learned in the research I was doing, you can find the names of these boats in all the newspapers. So, you'd be writing people because you don't know what's going to get there first, and then they'd have to check the newspapers to see which boats with which captains are at different ports, so that you can follow up and see where your letters are, where your things were.

Sasha Sienna

Oh! That's really fascinating.

Kathryn Gehred

That's something that nobody really thinks about, but that was like just part of day to day life. Everybody would be aware of that that would be writing letters at this time to sum up, was there anything that you read in this particular letter that sort of changed the way that you thought about Jane Austen?

Sasha Sienna

I think this is one where the stuff I was talking about about her being actually quite nice and quite cutting really comes up a lot, especially in her descriptions of other people. I know you've already talked about that being well, this is the letter to her sister. It's not like she was broadcasting this in her novels about real people, but,

Kathryn Gehred

It is still mean.

Sasha Sienna

Yeah, it's still been definitely mean. And, and I think the way that the way Jane Austen talks about herself, at parties is really telling, especially when contrasted with the way that other people talk about her. Let her contemporaries talk about her in society, her contemporaries talk about her as being really awkward, a lot of the time, especially when she's younger, and I love though, the way she talks about herself as I bestowed my company on all that turns as if she's this incredibly gracious, charismatic person, just gifting people with a word here and there, it's, I think it's such a two sides of the same thing.

Kathryn Gehred 

Obviously, Jane Austen has a has a large fan base. But I do think that she really speaks to people who are a little bit more socially awkward, and who views social situations, in a more not just like, this doesn't come naturally, you have to study social situations, to see how they function, and doesn't necessarily come naturally. And that's why she can describe it so well is because...

Sasha Sienna

Oh, yeah,

Kathryn Gehred

...really watching this and seeing how people are supposed to interact with each other.

Sasha Sienna

But there's this really brilliant exchange and Pride and Prejudice, where Darcy is saying, I don't have the ability and the talent that some others possess of, you know, following the tone of voice to catch somebody's meaning, or making small talk with people. And Lizzy says, Well, I don't play this instrument that this piano as well as I might, but I think that's my own fault, because I didn't take your own answer and some practice.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Sasha Sienna

And I feel like there's so much of Jane Austen herself there and that I don't feel like she has this. I say I don't feel like the sources suggest she doesn't have this as a talent, but I think it's also quite clear that she is she has been practicing.

Kathryn Gehred 

She can be so funny and mean when she's describing socially awkward people like Mr. Collins or the Miss Bates, because I think she's she, she could be that person. She's working not to be that person. 

Sasha Sienna

Yeah. I guess I think she's often done that thing that a lot of naturally shy or awkward people do of observing other people really closely. Because you have to study them to know what's going on, and I think that really shows in the way that she writes about other people.

Kathryn Gehred 

Well, again, I think we should publish this as a as a thesis. I think we made a really good breakthrough today. As sort of a sum up, is there anything, I think we've sort of talked about this a little bit, but is there anything really compelling? A compelling modern takeaway for a modern reader from this historical letter, something that's really relatable. 

Sasha Sienna

I love the way that she and Cassandra are clearly gossiping about the people that they know it, there's just something so relatable in the way that they talk to each other as sisters who are also best friends.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Sasha Sienna

I think that's really lovely, and I think it's one of the things that I really love about podcasts like yours and about looking at things like every day source material, because I think, if you're looking only at the big, major things about history, then you're missing all of the actual context in which those big major things happened, which makes it just lifeless to me and pointless, and it means that you don't take away what's relevant. From then to now you don't see the undercurrents of social transitions, and I think looking back at stuff like this and seeing like, I would talk about someone like this, so I would write this letter to my sister. It feels good. But also I think it gives that added context. 

Kathryn Gehred 

So, thank you. I'm glad that that was something you got out of the podcast, because that's what I'm hoping for.

Sasha Sienna

Oh, well, if you've enjoyed this letter of Jane Austen's you might enjoy Jane Austentations, my podcasts where we watch and review all the Jane Austen adaptations ever filmed. You can find it on any of your podcast apps, wherever you are right now. You can probably find it there.

Kathryn Gehred 

And also I would recommend, I've been Following Sasha on Jane Austen Book Club on Twitter. Sahsa reads various Jane Austen novels out loud with a really lovely group of people in the chat.

Sasha Sienna

Yeah, they're really lovely and they make such great comments. I really wanted it to feel like when I first read that Pride and Prejudice novel with all the marginalia in the comments of somebody else, and I wanted it to feel like that, and it does.

Kathryn Gehred 

Highly recommend. I'll put a link to both of those things in my show notes. This was a delight. Thank you so much for talking with me. Thank you very much for having me. To all my listeners. I will have the text of the letter as well as show notes from some of the sources that I looked up as always in the show notes of the episode. And thank you very much for listening, and I am as ever, your most obedient and humble servant. Thank you very much.