Thirty-Four, Writing

Thirty-Four

Writing

5 June 1824

The meeting on Wednesday last was important to me for another reason besides the prayers, and besides the hymns which, of course, I am learning to love, at least the ones set to Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart.  Mrs. Terry gave me a book, and oh! am I ever so grateful.  I have read Miss Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and I have enjoyed it very much; and now Mrs. Terry has lent me Pride and Prejudice. 

I suppose that the meeting was perhaps the not the best time and place to give me a secular book that has so biting a wit to it, but given that Mrs. Terry rarely has the occasion to see me other than at meetings, she slipped it to me with a quick kiss on the cheek, entreating me to take good care of myself.

For the past two days, I have done little else than read the book.  Oh! I do love it.  Of course, I see many of the parallels between our family and the ones that Miss Austen writes about.  In the instant book, there are five daughters, all unmarried.  Most seem to be concerned about courtship and marriage, while one pretends not to, but of course, she is.

In our family, there are four daughters and five sons.  My older sister, Elizabeth, (there is an Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, too) married young, although perhaps not so young from some perspectives.  I, being four and twenty now, find that everyone who is unmarried as very young, save myself.  I understand that there is a word in Chinese, that I now forget, but it is reserved for women who reach the age of twenty-five and are not yet married.  It translates somehow to "useless".  I have half a year to spare myself of such a description.

It is not as though I am being particularly choosy, such as what we see in Pride and Prejudice.  There just are not very many suitable single young, or even old men in our little corner of the world.  Five years ago, we were among the first white people to settle here, and are the first to build houses for permanent settlement.  We travelled here with cousins, aunts, and uncles, so apart from marrying a cousin, I have been limited somewhat to traders, soldiers, natives, and slaves.  This is only a slight exaggeration.

As each year passes, however, a few more unmarried men are in the region.  They are, however, somewhat of a transient character, and are not settled down, prepared for a wife.  So, unlike Elizabeth Bennet, I am not standing on principle, exactly, when I am not married by a certain age.  And here I note that Miss Bennett was all of twenty and thus not old at all!

As much as I absolutely adore Miss Austen's writings, at least the two books I have now read, I do find them a little contrived.  Under-moneyed, and over-educated, the women in these writings are quite witty and can dance with the best of them.  (And here, an aside.  Dancing is completely not my forte, having not availed myself of polite society, nor of the desire to do so.)  But as much as the primary characters protest that they will not marry, they do.  And of course, they somehow manage to marry into great wealth.  All's well that ends well, sayeth the bard.

Oh, another thing that bothers me.  The two oldest Bennet daughters somehow manage to not only quickly find eligible bachelors, but the two sisters find two men who are best friends, and they have a double wedding!  How contrived!

What fascinates me more about Miss Austen's books is that she, as a woman, is a writer.  This gives me hope, although I understand that she began writing for the entertainment of others whilst very young, and that she wrote all the time.  I, on the other hand, have only been writing constantly this past month or so, and only for myself.

It is largely as a practical matter that I have not been frequently writing, other than correspondence to others, as I had not the means to do so.  But now I have a better supply of quills and ink, the journal in which to write, and the unapologetic use of my time.

I have not thought much before about how it is that I have such free time.  I got up, I ate meals, I performed a chore or two, and the rest of the time was mine.

When I came to the wilds of Alabama, I was the age of nineteen, already educated, and not yet the object of any man's intention.  My sisters and mother cooked the meals, my brother TJ performed the tasks that men were acclimated to, and slaves took care of the rest.  I was pretty much left to my own devices, which primarily was reading. 

Back in South Carolina since the age of sixteen, I was a governess to a large family who lived nearby; I minded the children, and educated them in reading, writing, French, and music.  Funds from this endeavour I was able to keep to myself, as funds for our family household were being provided by Father, and to some extent, by Uncle.

Once we removed to Alabama, I no longer had the governess position, although it fell to me to educate the children who traveled with us for as long as the journey lasted.  Thereafter, there was a bit of a disarray as to who would perform what task, but somewhere in all of this, I was not asked to do much at all.  So it has been until my sisters recently left for Uncle's house.

Now, as I have written, cooking has been taken up by Susie, whom, I suppose, has been cooking for Father all these years.  I rather suspect that instead of waiting for Father to tell her what to do upon his disability, she has found a way to continue to be useful, and to be nearby.  I further suspect that she does not wish to be turned into a field hand, and cooking saves her from such a fate.  Jeremiah's cabin is quite close, and has within it the facilities to easily cook, and thus it is we are able to have our meals, absent my sisters' help.

I have felt a little uneasy about writing, but Pride and Prejudice, or the writing of it, got me to thinking.  Why not pursue writing?  It is quite possible for one to do so, and be taken seriously, although I suppose it was easier for Miss Austen than it is for me, being the daughter of scandalous parents in the wilds of Alabama. 

There are worse things than writing that one could do.