Tag Archives: Sense and Sensibility

Jane’s Birth

English: Snowy Steventon Taken from a passing ...

English: Snowy Steventon Taken from a passing train, the snow that covered much of south-east of England overnight reached Steventon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On this day, Jane Austen‘s birthday, it is interesting to reflect upon Jane’s birth. She was born in the December cold of 1775, sixteenth of December  in the little village of Steventon, in Hampshire in England. She was her mother’s seventh child and she was born at home, without a doctor but with the help of a sister-in-law. Perhaps surprisingly for us, and our assumptions of the past, and to the delight of today’s breast feeding adherents, she was Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under Childhood

Random Acts of Kindness

Random Thoughts of Kindness Barnstar

Random Thoughts of Kindness Barnstar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the happy recipient of a random act of kindness yesterday, I’m pondering on such acts in the Austen Six. The winner has to be Decent-and-Dependable-Colonel Brandon, who presents a living (in today’s speak a job) to Honourable-Edward Ferrars. Edward was disinherited by his aspirational mother, Ambitious-Matriarch-Mrs Ferrars,  after acting honourably by Lucy Steele.

Colonel Brandon wasn’t friends with Edward; he had just met him a few times and had heard his heartfelt story second hand but wanted to help. In the Austen Six those who act well by their fellow man Continue reading

1 Comment

Filed under Living the Simple Life

Shouldn’t real love just run smooth?

IMG_0785

I often think that love should just happen; that it is a magical quality that just appears from thin air. But it seems more like a good wine, it needs time to mature. And in that time, it needs adversity for it to slowly age and ripen. Indeed the flipside of this maxim is: Beware the Easy Love Affair. It is only in love’s adversities that love’s colours show themselves. Love needs its difficulties, its trials and tribulations to reveal its strength.

In Sense and Sensibility, a young man, Honourable-Edward Ferrars has fallen for an opportunist. Social-Vampire-Lucy Steele captured Edward’s heart quickly and in youth. What a disaster for Edward. While young and far from home he was vulnerable and open to be preyed upon by the artful Continue reading

3 Comments

Filed under Romance and Marriage

Should parents be a friend to their child?

Sometimes parents take the democratic values of equality between parents and children to such an extent that the roles can be reversed; the case of the parentified child shows the pitfalls of this. Should we allow the child to parent the parent? The child is often very independent and might even wake the parent or remind them of their jobs. Sometimes a child will play confidant to their parent’s troubles.

Often children can take on the parenting role when the actual parent has Continue reading

3 Comments

Filed under Childhood