Did you look yourself in the mirror this morning? Did you take a good look? This coming chapter is for everyone! Don't always look at the word "women", if you are a guy and reading this, please take it for yourself as well!
Chapter IV. Check Yourself, Dear
It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
I make no apologies for my heroine's vanity. If there are young ladies in the world at her time of life more dull of fancy and more careless of pleasing, I know them not. - Sanditon (1817)
Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
One is apt, I believe, to connect assurance of manner with coquetry, and to expect that an impudent address will naturally attend an impudent mind.- Lady Susan (1794)
Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief. - Emma (1815)
Pictures of perfection as you know, make me sick and wicked. - Letters
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken. - Emma (1815)
Sense will always have attractions for me. - Sense and Sensibility (1811)
I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.- Northanger Abbey (1817)
Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. - Emma (1815)
Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run, will certainly have the laugh on her side.- Letters
[She] is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own... But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of, and give her a sort of distinction among her companions. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
All the privilege I claim for my own sex... Is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone. - Persuasion (1817)
Her character depends on upon those she is with, but in good hands, she will turn out a valuable woman. - Emma (1815)
In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
She denied none of it aloud and agreed to none of it in private. - Emma (1815)
I hate to hear you talking... As if women were all fine ladies instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days. - Persuasion (1817)
A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world.- Persuasion (1817)
It sometimes happens that a woman is more handsome at twenty-nine than she was ten years before. - Persuasion (1817)
The woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
Give a girl an education and introduction her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody. - Mansfield Park (1814)
She was sensible and clever but eager in everything; her sorrow, her joys, could have no moderation. - Sense and Sensibility (1811)
She was determined, as she felt it be her duty, to try to overcome all that was excessive. -Mansfield Park (1814)
She felt that she could so much more depend on upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped. - Persuasion (1817)
Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart. -Pride and Prejudice (1813)
The enthusiasm of a woman's love is even beyond the biographer's. - Mansfield Park (1814)
See you next chapter... Which seems to be more for women, sorry, but please come and read!
"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings." -
~Bella
Welcome back for more wisdom from Jane Austen!
It's rather amazing how we can learn so much from a British author! I'm amazed!
At her time a female writer wouldn't be consider writing at all, but her father helped the best he could for his bright daughter's success. Without him we wouldn't be here, today, reading her wonderful work!
III. Mistress of myself
No one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do... Nature has given them so much that they never find it necessary to use more than half. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused and interested you because I was so unlike them. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman. - Mansfield Park (1814)
As for admiration, it was always very welcome when it came, but she did not depend on it. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions. - Mansfield Park (1814)
I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. - Emma (1815)
Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
There are people who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. - Emma (1815)
It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do. - Sense and Sensibility (1811)
If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
We all have our best guides within us, if only we would listen. - Mansfield Park (1814)
I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct. - Mansfield Park (1814)
There is hardly any personal defect which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy. - Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Those who have not more must be satisfied with what they have. - Mansfield Park (1814)
I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Let your conduct be the only harangue. - Mansfield Park (1814)
My being charming... Is not quite enough to induce me to marry; I must find other people charming- one other person at least. - Emma (1815)
Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away... Till this moment I never knew myself. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself. -Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint. - Mansfield Park (1814)
Chapter IV will be for everybody, so keep up with me as I read along the little book given to me by my mum.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to love one of my favorite authors much more everytime I read her piece of work.
" There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. "
~Bella
Here comes the time to write about chapter II of the little book "What would Jane do?"
I've been eager to write about it for a while now, and this time, the chapter is more for ladies than men! Don't be judgmental, Jane Austen is a woman so obviously she writes more for ladies... But it doesn't mean you can't read what I'm about to write! Please keep reading...
II. Good Impressions for Great Ladies
Every neighborhood should have a great lady. - Sanditon (1817)
One can never have too large a party. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
You are never sure of a good impression being durable. - Persuasion (1817)
Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way- Emma (1815)
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn? - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
We do not look in great cities for our best morality. - Mansfield Park (1814)
My idea of good company... Is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company. - Persuasion (1817)
Those who do not complain are never pitied. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
There are some people who cannot bear a party of pleasure. - Sense and Sensibility (1811)
One-half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. - Emma (1815)
I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London... I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage. - Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Every man is surrounded by neighborhood of voluntary spies.- Northanger Abbey (1817)
It was a delightful visit; -perfect, in being much too short. - Emma (1815)
It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first. - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves. - Mansfield Park (1814)
Sometimes one if guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge. - Sense and Sensibility (1811)
From politics, it was an easy step to silence. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
I have frequently thought that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I am so little at my ease among strangers of gentility!- Sense and Sensibility(1811)
I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, Impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort. - Mansfield park (1814)
But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way. - Northanger Abbey (1817)
We are sent into this world to be as extensively useful as possible, and where some degree of strength of mind is given, it is not a feeble body which will excuse us- or incline us to excuse ourselves. - Sanditon (1817)
Hope you understood every single meaning as it could be challenging at times. Old English and their old saying... We won't be able to change that!
The more I read what she wrote, the more I love how she express herself. Hopefully, I won't pick up on anything, I can deal with the British accent but not the writing!
Next chapter will also be more for ladies... Mistresses... Keep checking for the next interesting chapter!
" The more I know the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love."
~Bella
If you don't know me, you won't know about my birthday... Well, I'm posting this on a Thursday as Friday is my birthday! Yes, I'm turning 20, sounds exciting, indeed, but somehow it isn't! At least not for me!
When you are young, birthdays are fun, you grow up, you have a little party with other kids your age, and you just don't care about anything, to be honest. It's perfect, probably your favorite holiday, you get gifts, a birthday cake... So yes you are extremely happy!
On my birthdays, around the age of 5 to 8 maybe, I would invite friends, the close ones, mum would bake a cake, and we would have fun play outside, dance around with loud music... It would be a nice time for everyone including myself. You all expect to have fun, you know, but I'm the girl that is stubborn enough to make someone cry or be honest make it worse, so each time, after everyone leaves, I would get screamed at. I'm not blaming my father for it or my mother for that matter. It was me, someone would cross me and I would react, not the best thing to do at that age. Kids don't really get the message behind phrases and they would end up crying. After a while, you tend to just dislike birthdays in general, it reminded me that each birthday, I would either say something I regret or something would turn terribly wrong. I was right about that one!
Now each year, there's something going the wrong way! My 13th or 14th birthday, it wasn't mine at all, it was my stepmother's back in France even though she is the 9th of July and not the 8th like me. I had to just move on from my birthday. My 15th birthday, surprise party, I realized that I didn't love my boyfriend at all... My 18th in Mexico, I ended up having a "talk" which was more an argument. Last year, I almost told my mother to just ignore it because I didn't even receive a birthday wish from my grandparents nor my aunt. I'm used to not hear my father say it, but them... I got hurt! I mean I could tell you all the things that went wrong each single year. And this year, my mother isn't here. I made it a little 'tradition' that she would always be here on it. But I'm growing old and she is leaving slowly. Not the worst thing, but it's painful to not have her around, and have a huge hug. I'm too sentimental...
Birthdays come once a year for everyone! Some ignore it, move on, while others have to have a party and enjoy it.
For me, I'm not sure about it. I have little gatherings and seeing people that I care about, but I don't like them anymore. It's not as fun as it used to. I'm growing up, I'm not a child, and I have responsibilities now. It's scary! A part of me just wants to go back and redo things I didn't get a chance to do...
But I have to admit that my dear mother has been around on each of my birthdays, except this year. She is gone, so I hate 20th birthday. She did invite people over last Friday and I enjoyed it a lot... Got to see people I care about, my little monsters that I love, and enjoy every minute of my early birthday! I've got a few gifts and I love them all as well as the time they spent with me last week.
After reading quotes and wondering why so many people dislike it, I actually learn it's just a day to celebrate yourself. You can be 50 years old and still think like a 30 years old person. It's your decision to grow up, not the year, the age, the birthday! All birthday does it reminds you of how many years you spent on this planet, and remind you that you are as special as anyone else. Make the best out of it!
"Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional." - Walt Disney
~Bella
