“My winter walk”
Echoing a phrase from the poetry of William Cowper, one of Jane Austen’s favourite poets, Mr. Woodhouse tells Mr. Knightley that he intends to go out and “take my three turns—my winter walk” (Emma, Volume 1, Chapter 8). I thought of Mr. Woodhouse and his winter walk when I “took a turn” about Point Pleasant Park the other day.
In The Task, Cowper says that winter smiles, “resigning all its rage / And has the warmth of May.” Although our weather here in Nova Scotia did not have the “warmth of May” that day, I think the season still seemed to be smiling.
Today I also want to share a link to a recent blog post by my friend Sheila Johnson Kindred, author of Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister: The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer Austen. In “Captain Charles Austen: Agent of British Diplomacy in South America,” Sheila tells the story of Jane’s youngest brother, Charles (husband of Fanny Palmer Austen), receiving a ceremonial sword as a gift from General Simon Bolivar in 1827.
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Here are the links to the last two posts, in case you missed them:
“That sea of wonders” (Edith Wharton’s birthday)
Unexpectedly Austen (a series of tributes to Jane Austen on the JASNA website, co-edited by Liz Philosophos Cooper and me)
Read more about my books, including St. Paul’s in the Grand Parade, Jane Austen’s Philosophy of the Virtues, and Jane Austen and the North Atlantic, here.
Copyright Sarah Emsley 2025 ~ All rights reserved. No AI training: material on http://www.sarahemsley.com may not be used to “train” generative AI technologies.
