Dear Santa, Love Jane

Chez Miss Ball, we have a long history with the Christmas wish list.  After Thanksgiving—and by December 1 at the latest—there’s a certain amount of familial pressure to inventory our needs and desires, type up the ones that can realistically be satisfied with a credit card and some fancy footwork by the USPS, and distribute the results. Woe and irrelevant gift cards to the family member (except apparently my father, who mostly abstains and then sometimes gets weird presents, Dad) who fails to furnish a list.

The Jane-verse is, of course, jammed with characters and their desires, from prettier hat ribbons to lifelong love and just a little bit of respect—and the subject’s just ripe for a game. Below, check out the anonymous Christmas wish lists—then guess their authors. Leave your answers in the comments!

1. Dear Mr. Claus,

I’ve been mostly good this year—and when I haven’t, it’s mostly been my sister’s fault. Perhaps she deserves a double helping of coal? I, of course, hope to receive only nice things, including an inhaler and a will of my own.

2. Dear Saint Nicholas,

If I must make a supplication to a saint so beloved by children, I’d like a new flannel waistcoat and the love of a pretty girl, preferably of an inappropriately young age. Bonus points if accessories include a scoundrel of her own generation.

3. Santa!

As always, I want books. Lots and lots and lots of books. Also, please send common sense and a cute boy whose dad definitely isn’t a murderer. XOXOXO!

4. My Esteemed Mr. Claus,

I already have nearly everything I need, and anything else my father can and will buy for me. Instead, I’d prefer that you conferred upon my friends and family the shared realization that I am always right, and not bossy in the least. This action would help me out a great deal.

5. Dear Most Kind and Generous Sir,

I ask from the bottom of my humble heart for a stairwell half so elaborate and expensive as my neighbor’s, and also the esteem of that same neighbor…though I do believe she likes me already!

What do you think, readers?

Write at the Museum: A Woman’s Wit, Take 2

My Christmas vacation was mostly about spending time with my nieces and nephews. But my gift to myself was a day in Manhattan to visit with two old friends—college roommate and artist extraordinaire Kelly, and Jane Austen. The exhibit A Woman’s Wit is still up at the Morgan Library.

I loved the letter Jane Austen wrote to her niece: Each word was spelled backward. I had to buy the postcard just to be able to spend quality time deciphering it with my oldest nephew. He looked at me a little suspiciously when I told him to expect all correspondence from me in the future to be written backward.

As with any exhibit of any artist that I am enthralled with, I was amazed to simply be standing there breathing in particles that a great artist touched. With letters, it’s a different sort of experience than paintings. Sure, you’re viewing something behind glass on a wall . . . and I, for one, love to see handwriting. But instead of just viewing and absorbing what we were seeing, we craned our necks and stood around focusing on the words, trying to read Jane’s (sometimes awful) handwriting. There were words scratched out, funky old-school spelling and writing oddities (like the letter “s” looking like an “f”), sentences criss-crossing . . . what a mess! I’ve never given a thought to how much paper costs, but looking at the way Jane scribbled sideways or crammed in corners of the paper, you really do get a different sense of how having paper was something of a luxury. I really wish they had a folded and sealed letter so you could experience the feeling of opening up a letter the way you open a much-anticipated gift!

For me, the highlight of the exhibit was not actually a letter written by Jane Austen, but one written by her sister Cassandra describing Jane’s last days. The letter expressed the raw emotions of someone who lost her closest companion.

I have lost a treasure, such a sister, such a friend as never can have been surpassed. She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow; I had not a thought concealed from her, and it is as if I had lost a part of myself. I loved her only too well—not better than she deserved, but I am conscious that my affection for her made me sometimes unjust to and negligent of others; and I can acknowledge, more than as a general principle, the justice of the Hand which has struck this blow.

—Excerpt from a letter from Cassandra Austen to her niece Fanny

Heartbreaking. It reminded me of my Aunt Helen (my grandmother’s sister) after my grandmother died. The two of them taught in the same school, lived three houses away from each other, and had tea together every afternoon. After my grandmother’s funeral, it hit me that my aunt had buried all of her siblings. Though stoic, she looked a little lost sitting in the church, knowing that she wouldn’t have her sister to talk to and drink tea with every day. I imagine that Cassandra felt the same way—though losing her sister at a much earlier age would be even more devastating.

I was expecting to simply enjoy the humor in Jane’s writing. The humor was there, but I ended up walking away with thoughts of Cassandra’s loss and a new appreciation for the art of correspondence and the depth of feelings conveyed on paper.

Photo credits: ©2009 Christine Osborne. All rights reserved.

Quote Unquote: No Check to My Genius

On February 14, 1998, I bought a card because it had an enchanting quote from Jane Austen on the front:

“Expect a most agreeable letter, for. . . having nothing at all to say, there shall be no check to my genius from beginning to end.”

I still have this card. (I also have the receipt, which is how I know the date.) For 11 and a half years, I’ve been looking for the right occasion to send it! But there is something so intimidating about having to follow this essentially Austen opening bid, shall we say, that I never have. Clearly, ironically, an ordinary occasion would not be good enough. One can’t claim to have nothing to say, then cheerily write “Happy Birthday! Love, Mrs. Fitzpatrick” as if nothing had happened. Assuming one likes one’s friends and wants to keep them, I mean.

So it would need to be an occasion of love or friendship only: where you were writing to the person solely for the enjoyment of their conversation; because they love you and they’ll laugh at your jokes. And the good old tradition of writing nothing-saying notes about what happened in church yesterday, and who was wearing what, and why, has moved almost completely to email, texting, and IM-ing. (I’m too old to convert Jane’s fillip of inspiration to lol-speak, but any readers who can have my full support.) So I could see this as the opening line in an email I wrote to my best friend at 1 A.M. But generally speaking, I only write lettery cards at Christmas, when someone gives me something, and to relatives of a certain generation. These are not witty letters (shame on me). I feel, and here is the nub of the situation, that my ability to write “mere lively chat” has been sadly underused and diminished of late. I mean, you’d have to sit up all night to be witty enough to follow Jane! (Not that, AHEM, that doesn’t stop a lot of people from trying!) Alas, do we now only write about serious or boring things in our own hand? I want to say, “No!” but who has the time for writing witty nonsense? Or, ha, there’s the rub, rather than confining our wit to one close friend, we blog it out for the world to see. The strangely public lives we lead. . .

I am now convinced that this card is nearly useless, but that the quote could be adapted to a wide range of situations. Really, “Having nothing to say, there shall be no check to my genius from beginning to end.” might be the mantra of modern times. I mean that in a completely good way, of course.

Special Halloween note: Check out our limited-time-only Halloween header! (You may have to refresh or clear your cache to see it.) Zombies, man? You are so old-school! Clones is where it’s at for the horror this year! Would Jane kill Jane? We’ll never know for sure.

Photo credit: ©2009 by Heather Dever. All rights reserved.