Happy Birthday, Jane Austen

On this day in 1775, Jane Austen was born in Hampshire, England.


"All of this was done by a quiet maiden lady who had merely paper and ink at her disposal; all of this is conveyed by little sentences between inverted commas and smooth paragraphs of point. Only those who have realized for themselves the ridiculous inadequacy of a straight stick dipped in ink when brought in contact with the rich and tumultuous glow of life can appreciate to the full the wonder of her achievement, the imagination, the penetration, the insight, the courage, the sincerity which are required to bring before us one of those perfectly normal and simple incidents of average human life. Besides all these gifts and more wonderful than any of them, for without it they are apt to run to waste, she possessed in a greater degree perhaps than any other English woman the sense of the significance of life apart from any personal liking or disliking; of the beauty and continuity which underlies its trivial stream. A little aloof, a little inscrutable and mysterious, she will always remain; but serene and beautiful also because of her greatness as an artist."

~ Virginia Woolf on Austen