Chide me not that I stay up late reading.  I deserve no ridicule for admitting a fondness for Jane Austen’s novels. Nay, I am not a hopeless romantic who longs to regress to 1800 A.D. Here is why I return again and again, to “Emma,” “Sense and Sensibility” or “Pride and Prejudice.” 

The books are written by a woman who knew well how to observe and how to put those observations into witty words.  They are about people who learned to live and survive; nay, thrive in a very narrow corridor of rules and regulations of society. They learned to remain family no matter what, to love, to stay in relationship with knaves, fools, charlatans and an occasional prince of a person. 

“Pride and Prejudice” remains a favorite of mine not because I yearn for tightly laced corsets, petticoats, needlepoint, poultry keeping and absence of hot and cold running water, but because I want to emulate Elizabeth Bennet.  I want to continue loving and respecting my parents even when discovering them to be fools; to love siblings though they pursue a worldview or lifestyle different from mine; and to stay best friends even when a life-long confidant marries unwisely.

Yes, how I would love to be like Elizabeth Bennet; to calmly look imperious naysayers in the eye and say, “I will promise nothing, except to act in a way that I feel will most insure my happiness.”