Hello.
Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,
Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.
Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.
But before we begin,
Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
Chapter Seven Amidst the sweet and jubilant sights and sounds of an English May and June in the old grey cathedral town,
The great English novelist Jane Austen was fast passing away.
She had always been such a sweet-tempered,
Contented woman,
And all that was best and noblest in her nature and her faith came out in the patience,
Humility and thankfulness with which she met her last enemy.
I will only say further,
Are her loving words in one more letter,
That my dearest sister,
My tender,
Watchful,
Infatigable nurse,
Has not been made ill by her exertions.
As to what I owe her and the anxious affection of all my beloved family on this occasion,
I can only cry over it and pray God to bless them more and more.
The sister who had lived together with Jane in their home,
Who had been with her waking and sleeping for forty-two years,
Who had served the little girl as a model,
Who had held the office of the young author's sole confidante beforehand as to her characters and plots,
Who had rejoiced and suffered with her,
Stood by her and soothed her at her deathbed,
Was Cassandra.
Two of Jane's brothers,
Whom she had so cherished in her faithful affection,
Both clergymen living near,
Were also frequently with her.
They administered the consolations and services of their church,
As well as testifying their constant regard.
Jane was fully acquainted with her danger,
Although she continued hopeful,
For she had much to bind her to life.
We may well believe,
Said Mr.
Austin Lee,
Her nephew and biographer,
That she would gladly have lived longer,
But she was enabled,
Without dismay or complaint,
To prepare for death.
She was a humble,
Believing Christian.
And Jane was strengthened to rule her spirit to the last.
Her sweetness of temper never failed.
She was always considerate of and grateful to those who attended on her,
And at times when she felt a little better,
The ruling spirit of playfulness revived,
And she amused her companions,
Even in their sadness.
She sank rapidly in the end.
On being asked whether there was anything she wanted,
Her reply was,
Nothing but death.
These were her parting words.
In quietness and peace,
Records Jane Austin's nephew,
She breathed her last on the morning of July 18th,
1817,
At the age of 42 years.
She was buried on the 24th of July in Winchester Cathedral,
Near the centre of the North Isle,
Opposite the tomb of William of Wycombe.
A slab of black marble marks the place.
The words with which Mr Austin Lee concludes the memoir are full of simple pathos.
Her own family only attended the funeral,
He said.
Her sister returned to her desolated home,
There to devote herself to the care of her aged mother,
And to live much on the memory of her lost sister,
Till called many years later to rejoin her.
Her brothers went back sorrowing to their several homes.
They were very fond and very proud of their sister Jane.
They were attached to her by her talents,
Her virtues and her engaging manners,
And each loved afterwards to fancy a resemblance,
In some niece or daughter of his own,
To the dear sister Jane,
Whose perfect equal they yet never expected to see.
Surely to be thus prized and mourned by her nearest and dearest was beautiful and good in one's sense best,
While it need not have interfered with wider interests and influences.
And doubtless to be so cherished was the meek reward of Jane Austen's faithful performance of the home duties,
From which no literary career,
However arduous and distinguished,
Absolved her,
And of her unswerving loyalty to the domestic affections which form the inner citadel of all true natures.
For charity or love must always begin at home,
And reign paramount there,
Wherever it may end,
Though the extremities of the earth may own its way.
Jane Austen's mother survived her ten years,
Dying at the great age of eighty-eight.
Cassandra Austen lived nearly twenty years after her mother's death,
Nearly thirty years after the death of Jane,
Dying at the age of seventy.
On the death of Cassandra,
Chorton Cottage was suffered to fall far down in the city.
It was divided into tenements for labourers.
The rooms continued to be so used,
While the walls were still standing,
Nine or ten years ago.
The study of Jane Austen's novels is in some respects a liberal education.
The proper appreciation of these stories has been suggested as a gauge of intellect.
But though the verdict of the best judges,
Including the earnest,
Well-nigh reverential approbation of Sir Walter Scott,
And the boundless enthusiasm of Lord Macaulay,
Who has pronounced Jane Austen,
In her more limited walk next to Shakespeare,
The test is unfair so long as men and women's minds,
No less than the schools of fiction,
Are in two major,
In addition to many minor,
Divisions.
Of course,
Where authors are concerned in rare and great instances,
As in that of Shakespeare,
The divisions are united,
And we have a comprehensive many-sided genius.
But these exceptions are few and far between,
Like stars of the first magnitude.
There is a cast of inventive intellect,
And a school of writing,
Which deal exclusively with human nature in the mass,
Choosing to work with common materials,
And to make them valuable by the penetrating fidelity,
And nice perception and adaptation of the workmanship.
There is another order of genius,
And of wit,
Which selects an extraordinary,
Sometimes an abnormal,
Subject,
With a man or woman,
Story or surroundings,
And by the sheer power and the passionate insight which are shown in the treatment,
Compel our comprehensions and sympathy for what would otherwise be strange,
Perhaps repugnant to us.
These minds and schools are,
And always must be,
In natural antagonism to each other.
The disciples of the one have rarely such breadth of faculty and taste as to be the disciples of the other.
Among women,
Jane Austen may be taken as the representative of the first class,
Charlotte Bronte of the second.
The fervent,
Faithful followers of the one genius are apt,
More or less,
To condemn and slight the other.
It is more than questionable whether the two women,
Had they been contemporaries,
Could have sympathised strongly.
Of course,
The opportunity was not granted to Jane Austen,
But in the case of Charlotte Bronte,
Who stands here for what is,
After all,
The narrowest score,
Though its inspiration may be deeper,
She was perplexed and annoyed by the recommendation of a critic,
To whom she paid deference,
That she should read and re-read Miss Austen.
Jane Austen's work was tame and domestic,
If not peddling to Charlotte Bronte.
After dismissing the unfair insistence on a universal acknowledgement of the surpassing qualities in her own line of Jane Austen,
It is still true that they are as nearly as possible perfect.
Great variety of character,
Though in one class and amidst the same surroundings,
Which rendered the achievement of such variety the more remarkable.
Lively interest excited by the most legitimate means.
The artistic cunning with which everyday events are handled.
The keen irony.
The delicate,
Exquisite humour which never fails.
The greatest capacity for selecting and grouping her materials.
Where shall we find these attractions in an equal degree to that in which they are to be met in Jane Austen's novels?
Above all,
Every story is as wholesome and sweet,
Without cloyness,
As English wheat fields,
Repaying the cultivation of generations,
And the roses,
Set in hardy prickles,
Of English gardens.
