I am Austenian.

As in Jane Austen.

I have enjoyed her novels for decades — including during my favorite college class focused on all of Austen’s novels (highly recommend!) — and have written about all things Austen for the Register and elsewhere.

But my admiration goes beyond the aesthetic (even though English cottages are simply adorable and always remind me of stepping into an Austen novel, as if fresh-baked scones are waiting — and maybe Mr. Knightley, too — in the quaint kitchen just beyond the entry, preferably bordered in blooms) and the lovely turns of phrase Miss Austen employs throughout her novels.

I am grateful her writing lives on (she died on this day in 1817, and we’ll celebrate the 250th anniversary of her birth next December), offering us timeless characters.

There’s a reason why Austen adaptations continue and Austen story threads abound.

 

Beloved Characters

I so relate to heroines Anne Elliot and Elinor Dashwood and am a forever fan of Mr. Knightley.

Partial to Pride and Prejudice (for obvious reasons) and Persuasion (those love letters between Captain Wentworth to Anne!), I referenced Sense and Sensibility in a college application essay (and was accepted), and that novel contains my favorite Austen line.

“She had an excellent heart.” 

Austen penned it to describe the eldest Miss Dashwood.

It truly encapsulates the aim of the Christian life.

What is an excellent heart? One that looks out for others, as Elinor’s does — that strives to offer solace to a heartbroken sister, to remain hopeful when a hoped-for engagement seems unlikely, and extending charity in all things. 

As a clergyman’s daughter and devout Christian, Miss Austen knew this well.

Most of all, I am drawn to the novels’ study of virtue and good choices that lead to hopeful matches, as Miss Austen would put it.

Pride and Prejudice is a study in self-discovery — and shows that love is a verb (recall how Mr. Darcy saves the day). 

Sense and Sensibility reminds us that life and love require sense and sensibility (emotional sensitivity) — and, it’s a cautionary tale, too: Steer clear of the Willoughbys and seek out the Colonel Brandons!

Persuasion’s theme is essentially “Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13). Reunited, Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth understand love at its core. “I have loved none but you,” he writes her. For Anne, “It was overpowering happiness.”

In Emma, Mr. Knightley lives up to his name via agape love, which compels the heroine to become a better person. 

Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park are not my preferred reads, though I have included lessons from them here that are worth pondering.

 

Poignant Prayers

And Miss Austen’s prayers have aided my own spiritual life, too.

Pray along with her, as I like to do, with these lovely excerpts:

Give us a thankful sense of the blessings in which we live, of the many comforts of our lot; that we may not deserve to lose them by discontent or indifference.

May the comforts of every day, be thankfully felt by us, may they prompt a willing obedience of Thy commandments and a benevolent spirit toward every fellow-creature.

Have mercy, O gracious Father, upon all that are now suffering from whatsoever cause, that are in any circumstance of danger or distress. Give them patience under every affliction, strengthen, comfort, and relieve them.

Teach us, Almighty Father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes, and earnestly strive to make a better use of what Thy goodness may yet bestow on us, than we have done of the time past.

We thank Thee with all our hearts for every gracious dispensation, for all the blessings that have attended to our lives, for every hour of safety, health, and peace, of domestic comfort and innocent enjoyment.

 

Baking Advice

Lest you think all of Miss Austen’s words relate to romance and social commentary, she also was particular about dessert.

“Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.”

I agree (with a side of scones, of course).