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- [00:08]
Meg Wolitzer
We've all been introduced at school, at the movies, or by accident, to a world as far from our own as seems. Carriages, bonnets, large estates. A lot of this is the doing of Jane Austen, the irresistible author of works including Pride and Prejudice. But there's also a reason why she's not only a great read, but a proto feminist. And we're about to show you why. Have a cup of tea and stay with me. Meg Wolitzer. Jane Austen turned 250 on December 16, 2025. She was a woman of modest means who lived in an era known as the Regency Era, with sharp social divides that she both endured and reflected brilliantly in her work. In her short life, she died at 41. She created works with a lasting legacy, both artistic and social. Her six books have been adapted numerous times into radio programs, miniseries and films. Many writers have devoted followings, but Austen has a huge fan base of people who want to inhabit as well as read about her world. There are, of course, Jane Austen societies with annual conferences, but for her 250th, they went all out with balls, parades and exhibits. But the thing is, Austen was not just a writer of romances. She was a social critic with an ear attuned to social ambition, hypocrisy called cant in her day, and the ways in which women were forced into foolishness and bad marriages. So on this program, we give you a glimpse of the many sides of a great writer. Imagine that you are at one of the crowded salons she depicts so acutely and that you have the good fortune to take a stroll around the room with her. She might mention the youthful work that is our first story. Note without vanity that she has the ear of an advisor to the regent, to whom she has recently written with a quill pen, and confide that she has an idea for a new story about the way social pressures detach women from their true feelings. I don't think she'd know quite what to do with our parody by T.C. boyle. La sir, you presume she might say. Our host for the Austin evening was Hugh Dancy, an actor who joins us as often as he can from a crowded calendar that has included Hannibal on television and more recently, the reboot of Law and Order. He's comfortable in period pieces with a resume that includes the television miniseries Elizabeth I and Downton Abbey. Here he is introducing the program from the stage at Symphony Space.
- [02:48]
Hugh Dancy
Thank you very much. Welcome everybody, to selected shorts and to this evening dedicated to the work of Jane Austen. Austen was born in Steventon Hampshire, England in 1775. If you don't care for addition and you somehow didn't see any of the publicity material surrounding this evening, I am here to tell you that 2025 is the 250th annivers of Jane Austen's birth.
- [03:17]
Wyatt Cenac
So.
- [03:21]
Hugh Dancy
With that perfect excuse in mind, tonight we celebrate the wit, the charm and the erudition of one of the most enduring writers in the English language. To introduce myself a little. My name is Hugh Dancey. I'm an actor. Thank you. I've lived and worked here in this city for going on 20 years. It's also true that my surname is one consonant away from being Mr. Darcy, which you're going to have to take my word for this. But if that happens to be true of your name and you happen to be a British actor of a certain age and you happen to have appeared in, I don't know, let's say, a couple of costume dramas, that fact will have been brought to your attention. Because it turns out that headline writers, even from the glorious land of my birth, don't all have the wit of Jane Austen. It's also true that I have my own professional connection to Jane. I acted in one of many films peripherally about her and her work as part of, I don't know what we can call it, the Jane Austen Military Industrial Complex or the Austin Verse Big Austen. I was in a movie called the Jane Austen Book Club, which contains the immortal line, reading Jane Austen is a fucking minefield, which we thought about printing out and putting on a large banner at the back of the stage tonight, but it seems like it might not have helped, so we're just going to try and disprove it instead. Anyway, if reading Jane Austen is a minefield, how about reading Jane Austen as out loud as we are going to continue to do tonight? Well, I have been an enthusiastic participant here at Selected Shorts for years now. The reason being that for me personally, nothing illuminates an author's work and maybe the particular idiosyncratic intelligence behind it than trying to figure out how to share that work with you with a live audience. And that can be the experience of hearing somebody bringing a new story to life for you. And equally, it can be listening to someone read something that you think you're familiar with and suddenly hearing a line or a word or a choice that is completely fresh. And I've had both those experiences as a reader and as an audience member, and I hope that you might tonight.
- [05:53]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Hugh Dancy speaking from the stage. At Symphony Space. Our first story, Edgar and Emma, is one of Austen's earliest works. Reader Anne Harada is best known for playing Christmas Eve in the Broadway and London productions of Avenue Q, and she has appeared on television in Schmigadoon and Smash. We're happy to have her back at shorts reading Edgar and Emma by Jane Austen.
- [06:27]
Anne Harada
Edgar AND Emma CHAPTER the first I cannot imagine, said Sir Godfrey to his lady, why we continue in such deplorable lodgings as these in a paltry market town, while we have three good houses of our own, situated in some of the finest parts of England, and perfectly ready to receive us. I am sure, Sir Godfrey, replied Lady Marlowe, it has been much against my inclination that we have stayed here so long, or why we should ever have come at all, indeed has been to me a wonder, as none of our houses have been in the least want of repair. Nay, my dear, answered Sir Godfrey, you are the last person who ought to be displeased with what is always meant as a compliment to you, for you cannot but be sensible of the very great inconvenience your daughters and I have been put to during the two years we have remained crowded in these lodgings in order to give you pleasure. My dear, replied Lady Marlowe, how can you stand and tell such lies, when you very well know that it was merely to oblige the girls and you, that I left a most commodious house, situated in a most delightful country, and surrounded by a most agreeable neighborhood, to live two years cramped up in lodgings 3 Pair of stairs high, in a smoky and unwholesome town, which has given me a continual fever, and almost thrown me into to a consumption, as, after a few more speeches on both sides, they could not determine which was the most to blame, they prudently laid aside the debate, and having packed up their clothes and paid their rent, they set out the next morning with their two daughters for their seat in Sussex. Sir Godfrey and Lady Marlowe were indeed very sensible people, and though, as in this instance, like many other sensible people, they sometimes did a foolish thing, yet in general their actions were guided by prudence and regulated by discretion. After a journey of two days and a half, they arrived at Marlhurst in good health and high spirits, so overjoyed were they all to inhabit again a place they had left with mutual regret. For two years they ordered the bells to be rung, and distributed ninepence among the ringers. CHAPTER II the news of their arrival, being quickly spread throughout the country, brought them in a few days visits of congratulation from every family in it. Amongst the rest came the inhabitants of Wilmot Lodge, a beautiful villa not far from Marlhurst. Mr. Wilmot was the representative of a very ancient family, and possessed, besides his paternal estate, a considerable share in a lead mine and a ticket in the lottery. His lady was an agreeable woman. Their children were too numerous to be particularly described. It is sufficient to say that in general they were virtuously inclined and not given to any wicked ways. Their family being too large to accompany them in every visit, they took nine with them alternately. When their coach stopped at Sir Godfrey's door, the Miss Marlow's hearts throbbed in the eager expectation of once more beholding a family so dear to them. Emma, the youngest, who was more particularly interested in their arrival being attached to their eldest son, continued at her dressing room window in anxious hopes of seeing young Edgar descend from the carriage. Mr. And Mrs. Wilmot, with their three eldest daughters first appeared. Emma began to tremble. Robert, Richard, Ralph, and Rudolphus followed. Emma turned pale. Their two youngest girls were lifted from the coach. Emma sunk breathless on a sofa. A footman came to announce to her the arrival of company. Her heart was too full to contain its afflictions. A confidant was necessary in Thomas she hoped to experience a faithful one for one she must have, and Thomas was the only one at hand. To him she embosomed herself without restraint, and after owning her passion for young Wilmot, requested his advice in what manner she should conduct herself in the melancholy disappointment under which she labored. Thomas, who would gladly have been excused from listening to her complaint, begged leave to decline giving any advice concerning it, which, much against her will, she was obliged to comply with. Having dispatched him, therefore, with many injunctions of secrecy, she descended with a heavy heart into the parlor, where she found the good party seated in a social manner round a blazing fire. Chapter the Third Emma had continued in the parlor some time before she could summon up sufficient courage to ask Mrs. Wilmot after the rest of her family and when she did, it was in so low, so faltering a voice, that no one knew she spoke. Dejected by the ill success of her first attempt, she made no other till on Mrs. Wilmot's desiring one of the little girls to ring the bell for their carriage, she stepped across the room and, seizing the string, said in a resolute manner, Mrs. Wilmot, you do not stir from this house till you let me know how all the rest of your family do, particularly your eldest son. They were all greatly Surprised by such an unexpected address, and the more so on account of the manner in which it was spoken. But Emma, who would not be again disappointed, requesting an answer, Mrs. Wilmot made the following eloquent oration. Our children are all extremely well, but at present most of them from home. Amy is with my sister Clayton, Sam at Eton, David with his uncle John, Jem at will at Winchester, Kitty at Queen Square, Ned with his grandmother Hetty and Patty in a convent at Bussell's, Edgar at college, Peter at nurse, and all the rest except the nine here at home. It was with difficulty that Emma could refrain from the tears on hearing of the absence of Edgar. She remained, however, tolerably composed till the Wilmots were gone. When, having no check to the overflowings of her grief, she gave free vent to them, and, retiring to her own room, continued in tears the remainder of her life.
- [13:14]
Meg Wolitzer
Anne Harada read Edgar and Emma by Jane Austen. I'm Meg Wolitzer. We spoke with Harada backstage at Symphony Space.
- [13:23]
Anne Harada
You can really see her sort of digging into her comedic style and her tongue in cheekiness about kind of the lovesickness of Emma. It's quite interesting. It's obvious that she's such a great observer of human nature and just how the little comments that she's making about not only the people that her protagonists are speaking of or thinking about, but also how they're expressing themselves. It's so obvious, you know, that she's really given a lot of thought to how ridiculous humans are. I can't imagine what it was like to have been her and to have been thinking these thoughts and putting them down. It seems very bold, but I think it's fantastic. I mean, I think that's why we all love her so much.
- [14:13]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Anne Harada backstage at Symphony Space. There is a good deal of subtle satire in Austen's novels, but in this delicious miniature, it's outright almost as if Austen were satirizing herself. In fact, it's Juvenalia, written when she was a teenager, or what passed for a teenager in 1790. She sensed that the already exhausted form, the romance, needed resuscitating by her. It's pretty amazing to read Jane Austen's early writings and then, well, compare it with your own. I did just that and it was not pretty. She wrote, yes, in general, their actions were guided by prudence and regulated by discretion. While I, in my high school creative writing class, wrote, life is an hourglass and the sand keeps pouring through. Jane Austen was just so much more sophisticated and witty than I or any of my high school friends. I don't know. Maybe it was those empire waisted dresses she wore while they tightly squeezed the midsection, maybe they also sort of concentrated the mind and the genius rose to the top. Our next work is a letter by Austen to James Stanier Clark, an influential novelist who is also the Prince Regent's librarian. Reader. Sophie Carmen Jones, making her selected shorts debut, has appeared on Broadway in Chicago and Moulin Rouge, and film credits include Kiss of the Spider Woman and a forthcoming work by Steve Spielberg. And here she is speaking to us from Jane Austen's writing table.
- [15:46]
Sophie Carmen Jones
To James stanier Clarke. Monday, 11th December 1815 Dear sir, my Emma is now so near publication that I feel it right to assure you of my not having forgotten your kind recommendation of an early copy for Carlton House, and that I have Mr. Murray's promise of its being sent to His Royal Highness undercover to you three days previous to the work being really out. I must make use of this opportunity to thank you, dear sir, for the very high praise you bestow on my other novels. I am too vain to wish to convince you that you have praised them beyond their merit. My greatest anxiety at present is that this fourth work should not disgrace what was good in the others. But on this point I will do myself the justice to declare that whatever may be my wishes for its success, I am very strongly haunted by the idea that to those readers who have preferred Pride and Prejudice it will appear inferior in wit, and to those who have preferred Mansfield park very inferior in good sense, such as it is. However, I hope you will do me the favor of accepting a copy. Mr. M will have directions for sending one. I am quite honoured by your thinking me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you have the sketch of in your note of November 16th. But I assure you I am not the comic part of the character I might be equal to, but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary. Such a man's conversation must at times be on subjects of science and philosophy, of which I know nothing, or at least be occasionally abundant in quotations and allusions, which a woman who, like me, knows only her own mother tongue and has read very little in, that would be totally without the power of giving a classical education, or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern, appears to me quite indispensable for the person who would do any justice to your clergyman. And I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress. Believe me, dear sir, your obliged and faithful humble servant, J A.
- [18:29]
Meg Wolitzer
Sophie Carmen Jones Read Jane Austen's Letter to James Stanier Clark. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Austen was a prodigious letter writer. If she was alive today, you'd be receiving a text every 10 minutes. Letter writing served an important function in a world in which travel was time consuming and perilous. And what better medium for an author of such nuanced intimacy? When we return, the unlikely pairing of T.C. boyle and Jane Austen and Hugh Dancy persuades us. You're listening to Selected Shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide. Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. On this week's program, we're celebrating Jane Austen on the occasion of her 250th anniversary. We thought about holding a cotillion, but it seemed like a lot of work. So much easier to honor Austen's spirit, her humor, her honesty, her great characters by reminding you that many of our Shorts authors are her literary heirs, and you can find their great stories on our website, selectedshorts.org, along with our current podcast, past episodes, and information about our performances both at home at Symphony Space and on tour. Be sure to book your coach and four. Our third work, paying tribute to Jane Austen, is by the contemporary master of short stories and Fiction and T.C. boyle. He has published 19 novels, including World's End and the Tortilla Curtain, and 12 collections of short stories from which Selected Shorts has drawn often. A man who can reinvent Lassie and create the longest baseball match in history is certainly capable of taking on Jane Austen. Reading I Dated Jane Austen is comic Wyatt Cenac, known for his HBO series Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas and is a former Daily show correspondent. And you can hear him on animated series from BoJack Horseman to Fanboy and Chum Chum. But here he is to confess I dated Jane Austen.
- [21:09]
Wyatt Cenac
I dated Jane Austen. Her hands were cold. She held them out for me as I stepped into the parlor. Mr. Boyle announced the maid, and Jane was rising to greet me, her cold white hands like an offering. I took them, said my good evenings, and nodded at each of the pairs of eyes ranged round the room. There were brothers, smallish and large of head, whose names I didn't quite catch. There was her father, the reverend, and her sister, the spinster. They stared at me like sharks on the verge of a feeding frenzy. I was wearing my pink boots, my Great Disasters T shirt, and my Tiki medallion. My shoulders slumped under the scrutiny. My wit evaporated. Have a seat, son, said the Reverend, and I backed onto a settee between two brothers. Jane retreated to an armchair on the far side of the room. Cassandra, the spinster, plucked up her knitting. One of the brothers sighed. I could see it coming with the certainty and illogic of an aboriginal courtship rite, a round of polite chitchat. The Reverend cleared his throat. So what do you think of Mrs. Radcliffe's new book? I balanced a glass of sherry on my knee. The Reverend, Cassandra, and the three brothers revolved tiny spoons around the rims of teacups. Jane nibbled at a croissant and focused her huge, unblinking eyes on the side of my face. One of the brothers had just made a devastating witticism at the expense of the Lyrical Ballads and was still tittering over it. Somewhere cats were purring and clocks ticking. I glanced at my watch. Only 17 minutes since I'd stepped in the door. I stood. Well, Reverend, I said, I think it's time Jane and I hit the road. He looked up at the doomed Hindenburg blazing across my chest and smacked his lips. But you've only just arrived. There really wasn't much room for Cassandra in the Alfa Romeo, but the Reverend and his troupe of sons insisted that she come along. She hefted her skirts, wedged herself into the rear compartment, and flared her parasol while Jane pulled a white cap down over her curls and attempted to joke about the Phaetons and the winds of Aeolus. The Reverend stood at the curb and watched my fingers as I helped Jane fasten her seatbelt, and then we were off with a crunch of gravel and a billow of exhaust. The film was Italian, in black and white, full of social acuity and steamy sex. I sat between the two sisters with a bucket of buttered popcorn. Jane's lips were parted and her eyes glowed. I offered her some popcorn. I do not think I care for any just now. Thank you, she said. Cassandra sat stiff and erect, tireless and silent like a mileage marker beside a country lane. She was not interested in popcorn either. The story concerned the seduction of a long legged victim village girl by a mustachioed adventurer who afterward refuses to marry her on the grounds that she is impure. The girl, swollen with child, bursts in upon the nuptials of her seducer and the daughter of a wealthy merchant and demands her due. She is turned out into the street. But late that night, as the newlyweds thrash about in the bridal bed, it was at this point that Jane took hold of my arm and whispered that she wanted to leave. What could I do? I fumbled for her rap. People hissed at us. Great new thighs slashed across the screen, and we headed for the glowing exit sign. I proposed a club. Oh, do let's walk, jane said. The air is so frightfully delicious after that close. Odious theater, don't you think? Pigeons flapped and cooed. A panhandler leaned against the fender of a car and drooled into the gutter. I took Jane's arm. Cassandra took mine. At the Moon Calf we had our wrists stamped with luminescent ink and then found a table near the dance floor. The waitress fingernails were green daggers. She wore a butch haircut and three inch heels. Jane wanted punch. Cassandra, tea. I ordered three margaritas. The band was recreating the fall of the Third Reich. Amid clouds of green smoke and flashing lights. We gazed out at the dancers in their jumpsuits and platform shoes as they bumped bums, heads, and genitals in time to the music. I thought of Catherine Moreland at Bath and decided to ask Jane for a dance. I leaned across the table. Wanna dance? I shouted. Beg your pardon? Jane said, leaning over her margarita. Dance. I shouted, miming the actions of holding her in my arms. No, I'm very sorry, she said. I'm afraid not. Cassandra tapped my arm. I'd love to, she giggled. Jane removed her cap and fingered out her curls as Cassandra and I got up from the table. She grinned and waved as we receded into the crowd. Over the heads of the dancers. I watched her sniff suspiciously at her drink and then sit back to ogle the crowd with her black satiric eyes. Then I turned to Cassandra. She curtsied, grabbed me in a foxtrot sort of way, and began to promenade around the floor. For so small a woman, her nose kept poking at the moribund Titanic listing across my lower ribcage. She had amazing energy. We pranced through hustlers and bumpers like kitties round a maypole. I was even beginning to enjoy myself when I glanced over at our table and and saw that a man in fierce black sideburns and a mustache had joined Jane. He was dressed in a ruffled shirt, antique tie, and coattails that hung to the floor as he sat. At that moment a fellow terpsichorean flung his partner into the air, caught her by the wrist and ankle, and twirled her like a toreador's cape. When I looked up again, Jane was sitting alone, her eyes fixed on mine through the welter of heads. The band concluded with a crunching metallic shriek, and Cassandra and I made our way back to the table. Who was that? I asked Jane. Who was who? That Mustachioed murders apprentice you were sitting with. Oh, she said. Him. I realized that Cassandra was still clutching my hand. Just an acquaintance. As we pulled into the drive at Steventon, I observed a horse tethered to one of the palings. The horse lifted its tail, then dropped it. Jane seemed suddenly animated. She made a clucking sound and called the horse by name. The horse flicked its ears. I asked her if she liked horses. Hmm, she said, already looking off towards the silhouettes that played across the parlor curtains. Oh, yes, yes, very much so, she said, and then she released the seatbelt, flung back the door, and tripped up the stairs into the house. I killed the engine and stepped out into the dark drive. Crickets sawed their legs together in the bushes. Cassandra held out her hand. Cassandra led me into the parlor, where I was startled to see the mustachioed ne' er do well from the Moon Calf. He held a teacup in his hand. His boots shone as if they'd been razor stropped. He was talking quietly with Jane. Well, well, said the Reverend, stepping out of the shadows. Enjoy yourselves. Oh, immensely, Father, said Cassandra. Jane was grinning at me again. Mr. Boyle, she said. Have you met Mr. Crawford? The brothers, with their fine bones and disproportionate heads, gathered round. Crawford's sideburns reached nearly to the line of his jaw. His mustache was smooth and black. I held out my hand. He shifted the teacup and gave me a firm handshake. Delighted, he said. We found seats. Crawford shoved in next to Jane on the love seat. I wound up on the settee between Cassandra and a brother in naval uniform, and the maid served tea and cakes. Something was wrong, of that I was sure. The brothers were not their usual witty selves. The reverend floundered in the midst of a critique of Coleridge's cult of artifice. Cassandra dropped a stitch in the corner. Crawford was holding a whispered colloquy with Jane. Her cheeks, which tended toward the flaccid, were now positively bloated and flushed with color. It was then that it came to me. Crawford, I said, getting to my feet. Henry Crawford. He sprang up like a gunfighter summoned to the OK Corral. That's right, he leered. His eyes were deep and cold as crevices. He looked pretty formidable until I realized that he couldn't have been more than five, three or four, give or take an inch for the heels. Suddenly I had hold of his elbow. The tiki medallion trembled at my throat. I'd like a word with you outside, I said. In the garden, the brothers were on their feet. The reverend spilled his tea, and Crawford jerked his arm out of my grasp and stalked through the door that gave onto the garden Night. Sounds grated in my ears. The brothers murmured at my back, and Jane, as I pulled the door closed, grinned at me as if I'd just told the joke of the century. Crawford was waiting for me in the ragged shadows of the trees, turned to face me like a bayed animal. I felt a surge of power. I wanted to call him a son of a bitch, but in keeping with the times, I settled for cad. You cad, I said, shoving him back a step. How dare you come sniffing around her after what you did to Maria Bertram in Mansfield Park. It's people like you, corrupt, arbitrary, egocentric, that foment all the lust and heartbreak of the world and challenged the very possibility of happy endings. Ha, he said. Then he stepped forward and the moon fell across his face. His eyes were like the birth of evil in his hand. A riding glove. He slapped my face with it. Tomorrow morning at dawn, he hissed beneath the bridge. Okay, wise guy, I said. Okay. But I could feel the Titanic sinking into my belt. A moment later, the night was filled with the clatter of hoofs. I was greeted by silence in the parlor. They stared at me, sated, as I stepped through the door, except for Cassandra, who mooned from behind her knitting, and Jane, who was bent over a notebook, scribbling away like a court reporter. The reverend cleared his throat and Jane looked up. She scratched off another line or two and then rose to show me out. She led me through the parlor and down the hall to the front entrance. We paused at the door. I've had a memorable evening, she said, and then glanced to where Cassandra had appeared at the parlor door. Do come again. And then she held out her hands. Her hands were cold.
- [34:25]
Meg Wolitzer
Wyatt Sinak performed I Dated Jane Austen by T.C. boyle I'm Meg Wolitzer. Boyle is an author who likes to kick it up a notch and is clearly having fun here. With the collision of 18th century mores and and clueless 20th century dating protocols, you can always count on T.C. boyle to do something you haven't heard before. This mashup of real world writer and one of that writer's invented characters, all of it thrust into modern Life provides a neat trick and a fanfic pleasure. The witty language of the whole enterprise keeps it from feeling slight. Our final work honoring Jane Austen is an excerpt from her novel Persuasion. The reader is our host, Hugh Dancy, who you heard from earlier in the show. Here he is closing the show.
- [35:13]
Hugh Dancy
Finally tonight, something from Austen's last completed work, Persuasion. It's often considered her most mature work insofar as it's about second chances. Also, her central character, Anne Elliot, is older than Austen's other heroines and nearly beyond marriageable age. That's right. She's 27. Several years prior to the action of the book, she took the advice of a family friend and refused the hand of a man whom she loved, a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. The Elliot family's economic difficulties bring Anne and Frederick into one another's orbits again, and the novel forces them to consider one another anew. What we will hear is the emotional crux of the story, the turning point that will change everything between Anne and Frederick. So now an excerpt from Persuasion. Oh, dear Mrs. Croft. Cried Mrs. Musgrove. There's nothing I so abominate for young people as a long engagement. It is what I always protested against for my children. It's all very well, I used to say, for young people to be engaged if there is a certainty of their being able to marry in some six months, or even in 12. But a long engagement? A yes, dear ma', am, said Mrs. Croft. Or an uncertain engagement, an engagement which may be long to begin, without knowing that at such a time there will be the means of marrying, I hold to be very unsafe and unwise, and what I think all parents should prevent as far as they can. Anne found an unexpected interest here. She felt its application to herself, felt it in a nervous thrill all over her, and at the same moment that her eyes instinctively glanced towards the distant table. Captain Frederick Wentworth's pen ceased to move. His head was raised, pausing, listening, and he turned around the next instant to give a look, one quick, conscious look at her. The two ladies continued to talk, to re urge the same admitted truths, and to enforce them with such examples of the ill effect of a contrary practice as had fallen within their observation. But Anne heard nothing distinctly. It was only a buzz of words in her ear. Her mind was in confusion. Captain Harville, who had in truth been hearing none of it, now left his seat and moved to a window, and Anne stood, seeming to watch him, though it was from thorough absence of mind, became gradually sensible that he was inviting her to join him where he Stood. He looked at her with a smile and a little motion of the head which expressed, come to me, I have something to say. And the unaffected, easy kindness of manner, which denoted the feelings of an older acquaintance than he really was, strongly enforced the invitation. She roused herself and went to him. The window at which he stood was at the other end of the room from where the two ladies were sitting, and though nearer to Captain Wentworth's table, not very near as she joined him. Captain Harville's countenance reassumed the serious, thoughtful expression which seemed its natural character. Look here, said he, unfolding a parcel in his hand and displaying a small miniature painting. Do you know who that is? Certainly, Captain Benwick, yes. And you may guess who it is for. But in a deep tone, it was not done for her. Miss Elliott, do you remember our walking together at Lyme and grieving for him? I little thought then, but no matter. This was drawn at the Cape. He met with a clever young German artist at the Cape and in compliance with a promise to my poor sister, sat to him and was bringing it home for her. And I have now the charge of getting it properly set for another. It was a commission to me, but who else was there to employ? I hope I can allow for him. I am not sorry indeed to make it over to another. He undertakes it looking towards Captain Wentworth. He's writing about it now. And with a quivering lip he wound up the whole by adding, poor Fanny. She would not have forgotten him so soon. No, replied Anne in a low feeling voice, that I can easily believe. It was not in her nature she doted on him. It would not be the nature of any woman who truly loved. Captain Harville smiled as much as to say, do you claim that for your sex? And she answered the question, smiling also. Yes. We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is perhaps our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other to take you back into the world immediately. And continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions. Granting your assertion that the world does all this so soon for men, which, however, I do not think I shall grant it does not apply to Benwick. He has not been forced upon any exertion. The peace turned him on shore at the very moment, and he's been living with us in our little family circle ever since. True, said Anne, very true. I did not recollect but what shall we say now, Captain Harville? If the change be not from outward circumstances, it must be from within. It must be nature, man's nature, which has done the business for Captain Benwick. No, no, it is not man's nature. I will not allow it to be more man's nature than woman's, to be inconstant and forget those they do love or have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe in a true analogy between our bodily frames and our mental, and that as our bodies are the strongest, so are our feelings capable of bearing most rough usage and riding out the heaviest weather. Your feelings may be the strongest, replied Anne, but the same spirit of analogy will authorize me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he's not longer lived. Which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you if it were otherwise. You have difficulties and privations and dangers enough to struggle with. You're always laboring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home country friends all quitted neither time nor health nor life to be called your own. It would be hard indeed with a faltering voice, if woman's feelings were to be added to all this. Oh, we shall never agree upon this question, Captain Harville was beginning to say, when a slight noise called their attention to Captain Wentworth's hitherto perfectly quiet division of the room. It was nothing more than that his pen had fallen down, but Anne was startled at finding him nearer than she'd supposed, and half inclined to suspect that the pen had only fallen because he had been occupied by them, striving to catch sounds which yet she did not think he could have caught. Have you finished your letter? Said Captain Harville. Not quite. A few lines more. I shall have done in five minutes. There's no hurry on my side. I'm only ready whenever you are. I'm in very good anchorage here, smiling at Anne, well supplied and want for nothing. No hurry for a signal at all. Well, Miss Elliot? Lowering his voice, as I was saying, we shall never agree, I suppose, upon this point, no man and woman would. Probably. But let me observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you 50 quotations in a moment. On my side the argument. I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of Woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say these were all written by men. Perhaps I shall. Yes. Yes, if you please. No reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree. The pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything. But how shall we prove anything? We never shall. We never can expect to prove anything upon such a point. It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof. We each begin probably with a little bias towards our own sex, and upon that bias build every circumstance in favor of it which has occurred with within our own circle, many of which circumstances, perhaps those very cases which strike us the most, may be precisely such as cannot be brought forward without betraying a confidence, or in some respects saying what should not be said. Their attention was called towards the others. Mrs. Croft was taking leave here. Frederick, you and I part company, I believe, said she. I'm going home. And you have an engagement with your friend tonight. We may have the pleasure of all meeting again at your party. Turning to Anne. We had your sister's card yesterday. And understand Frederick had a card too, though I did not see it. And you are disengaged, Frederick, are you not as well as ourselves? Captain Wentworth was folding up a letter in great haste and either could not or would not answer fully. Yes, said he. Very true. Here we separate. But Harville and I shall soon be after you. That is Harvl, if you're ready. I am in half a minute. I know you'll not be sorry to be off. I shall be at your service in half a minute. Mrs. Croft left them, and Captain Wentworth, having sealed his letter with great rapidity, was indeed ready, and had even a hurried, agitated air which showed impatience to be gone. Anne knew not how to understand it. She had the kindest. Good morning. God bless you. From Captain Harville. But from him not a word nor a look. He had passed out of the room without a look. She had only time, however, to move closer to the table where he'd been writing, when footsteps were heard returning. The door opened. It was himself. He begged their pardon, but he had forgotten his gloves. And instantly crossing the room to the writing table, he drew out a letter from under the scattered paper, placed it before Anne with eyes of glowing entreaty fixed on her for a time, and hastily collecting his gloves, was again out of the room almost before Mrs. Musgrove was aware of his being in it. The work of an instant. The revolution which one instant had made in Anne with was almost beyond expression. The letter, with a direction hardly legible to Ms. AE was evidently the one which he had been folding so hastily. While supposed to be writing only to Captain Bennick, he had been also addressing her. On the contents of that letter depended all which this world could do for her. Anything was possible, anything might be defied. Rather than suspense, Mrs. Musgrove had little arrangements of her own at her own table, to their protection she must trust. And sinking into the chair which he had occupied, succeeding to the very spot where he had leaned and written her eyes devoured the following words. I can no longer listen in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I'm half agony, half hope. Tell me that I'm not too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been. Weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes I had not waited even these 10 days? Could I have read your feelings as I think you might? Must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. Oh, you sink your voice. But I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature. You do us justice. Indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men? Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating. In FW I must go, uncertain of my fate. But I shall return hither or follow your party as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never. Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from. Half an hour's solitude and reflection might have tranquilized her. But the 10 minutes only which now passed before she was interrupted with all the restraints of her situation, could do nothing towards tranquility. Every moment rather brought fresh agitation. It was overpowering happiness. And before she was beyond the first stage of full sensation, Charles, Mary, and Henrietta all came in. The absolute necessity of seeming like herself produced then an immediate struggle. But after a while she could do no more. She began not to understand A word, they said, and was obliged to plead indisposition and excuse herself. They could then see that she looked very ill, was shocked and concerned, and wouldn't stir without her for the world. This was dreadful. Would they only have gone away and left her in the quiet possession of that room? It would have been her cure. But to have them all standing and waiting around her was distracting, and in desperation she said she would go home. By all means, my dear, cried Mrs. Musgrove. Go home directly and take care of yourself that you may be fit for the evening. I wish Sarah was here to doctor you. But I'm no doctor myself. Charles, ring and order a chair. She must not walk. But the chair would never do worse than all to lose the possibility of speaking two words to Captain Wentworth in the course of her quiet, solitary progress up the town, and she felt almost certain of meeting him could not be borne. Anxious to omit no possible precaution, Anne struggled and said, I'm afraid, ma', am, that it's not perfectly understood. Pray be so good as to mention to the other gentlemen that we hope to see your whole party this evening. I'm afraid there's been some mistake and I wish you particularly to assure Captain Harville and Captain Wentworth that we hope to see them both. Oh, my dear, it's quite understood. I give you my word, Captain Harville has no thought but of going. Do you think so? But I'm afraid, and I should be so very sorry. Will you promise me to mention it when you see them again? You will see them both this morning, I dare say. Do promise me to be sure. I will, if you wish it. Charles, if you see Captain Harville anywhere, remember to give Miss Anne's message. But indeed, my dear, you need not be uneasy. Captain Harville holds himself quite engaged. I'll answer for it, and Captain Wentworth the same, I dare say. Anne could do no more, but her heart prophesied some mischance to damp the perfection of her felicity. It could not be very lasting. However, even if he did not come to Camden Place himself, it would be in her power to send an intelligible sentence by Captain Harville. Another momentary vexation occurred. Charles, in his very real concern and good nature, would go home with her. There was no preventing him. This was almost cruel, but she could not be long ungrateful. He was sacrificing an engagement at a gunsmith's to be of use to her, and she set off with him with no feeling but gratitude apparent. They were on Union Street When a quicker step behind a something of familiar sound gave her two moments preparation for the sight of Captain Wentworth, he joined them, but as if irresolute whether to join or to pass on, said nothing, only looked. Anne could command herself enough to receive that look, and not repulsively. The cheeks which had been pale now glowed, and the movements which had hesitated were decided. He walked by her side. Presently, struck by a sudden thought, Charles said, captain Wentworth, which way are you going? Only to Gay street or farther up the town. I hardly know, replied Captain Wentworth, surprised. Are you going as high as Belmont? Are you going near Camden Place? Because if you are, I shall have no scruple in asking you to take my place and give Anne your arm to her father's door. She's rather done for this morning and must not go so far without help. And I hope to be at that fellow's in the marketplace. He promised me the sight of a capital gun he's just going to send off. He said he would keep it unpacked to the last possible moment that I might see it, and if I do not turn back now, have no chance. By his description, it's a good deal like the second size double barrel of mine which you shot with one day round winter. There could not be an objection. There could only be the most proper alacrity, a most obliging compliance for public view and smiles reined in and spirits dancing in private rapture. In half a minute Charles was at the bottom of Union street again, and the other two proceeding together, and soon words enough had passed between them to decide their direction towards the comparatively quiet and retired gravel walk, where the power of conversation would make the present hour a blessing indeed and prepare it for all the immortality which the happiest recollections of their own future lives could bestow. There they exchanged again those feelings and those promises which had once before seemed to secure everything, but which had been followed by so many, many years of division and estrangement. There they returned again into the past, more exquisitely happy perhaps, in their reunion than when it had been first projected. More tender, more tried, more fixed in a knowledge of each other's character, truth and attachment, more equal to act, more justified in acting of what he had then written, nothing was to be retracted or qualified. He persisted in having loved none but her.
- [55:45]
Meg Wolitzer
Hugh Dancy read from Jane Austen's Persuasion. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Dancy is an Austin fan, and we spoke to him backstage at Symphony Space.
- [55:55]
Hugh Dancy
I think part of the job is to. Is to try and Normalize the language. It's obviously heightened in times. Some of that is because of her particular voice. And of course you want to do that justice, and some of it is just because of the period that she was writing in. So I think you need to find. To find the moments that are simple and human and ring true now as much as they would have then, and the other moments that are more elevated, if you. I mean, as long as there's a yearning for romance. I suppose the danger is that in the fascination and the industry surrounding Jane Austen that it becomes a little bit set in stone or amber or something. But reading these passages for myself in readiness for tonight, I'm still struck by the really powerful expressions of yearning. For example, that felt very human to me, or the sense of jumping ahead into the supposed. And I'm here to tell you real joys of matrimony. You know, that that feels relevant to me, and I just don't know that anybody has necessarily done it better.
- [56:59]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Hugh Dancy backstage at Symphony Space. Persuasion, published in 1818, was Austen's last book, and in some ways it's her most emotionally devastating. Outright evil is easy to recognize for what it is, but the deadliness of good intentions and snobbery are harder to track. It can be gratifying to inhale a writer's early and late work in close succession. Critics write of the maturity of this novel and that of its writer, who was a Methuselah alike, 40 years old at the time and very near the end of her life. What's thrilling to me is more than experiencing evidence of her range or even growth, it's that regardless of the subject matter, what is often apparent throughout this writer's career is something very specific. In fact, it's a word that appears in the title of another Jane Austen novel. I'm talking about sensibility. You've hardly touched your cucumber sandwiches. But perhaps that was because you were devouring our four very different ways of celebrating Jane Austen. On the occasion of her 250th anniversary, we've heard an earlier work that just hints at her ability to prick the bubbles of pretense. We got a glimpse of her as a professional woman writing to a patron, a delicate balance of humility and ambition. We've heard her hilariously reimagined by T.C. boyle and listened to a vivid passage from the novel Persuasion. In it, the heroine, Anne Elliot, observes that women are easily forgotten. How astonished her creator would be to find herself remembered still. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Thanks for joining me for Selected Shorts. Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimkin, Vivienne Woodward, and Magdalene Robleski. The readings are recorded by Myles B. Smith. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles are recorded by Phil Richards. Our mix engineer for this episode was Jennifer Nolson. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Dierdorf Petersen Group. Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space. Hey, if you've ever wanted to do Selected Shorts in your own home, I have a suggestion. I have a novel coming out for kids and since kids do like to be read too, maybe you could read aloud to them from this book. I co wrote it with my son Charlie Panick and it's one of those scavenger hunt books with a lot of really cool clues in it. Great for ages 7 to 11. That's found sound. Read it aloud, let your kid read it, let your grandkid read it, let adults read it, whatever.