By a Lady - Chawton, UK

When I was 15 years old, I absorbed the entire works of a brilliant author. Her time period infiltrated my thoughts and I felt that my being in the 20th century must have been a mistake.

She spent most of her prolific time at this house in Chawton, Alton.

"I will not say that your mulberry-trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive." -A letter to her sister Cassandra

"It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do."   -Sense & Sensibility 

Today I felt charmed to walk on the creaky dark wood floorboards where she had strolled, thinking about the suffering of her love-stricken characters. I gazed on her little round table where she wrote my personal favorite, "Mansfield Park", and peered out the very same window to a road which horses pulled carriages, and women walked in their long dresses.

The donkey cart

"There is hardly any personal defect which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to." - Persuasion

"You must be the best judge of your own happiness."   -Emma





Jane had a routine. She played the piano before breakfast, then wrote. A long walk in the afternoon, then embroidery and drawing in the evenings.  I couldn't resist myself in the giftshop. I bought a quill and ink and stationery, and two postcards. One of the famous portrait by her sister Cassandra, and the other a picture of her little round table....for inspiration.

Gate to the back gardens

      

   "There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not in my nature." - Northanger Abbey

          "Expect a most agreeable letter, for not being overburdened with subject (having nothing at all to say), I shall have no check to my genius from beginning to end." -a letter to her sister