5.

   I see her here with all her smiles benign,
      Her looks of eager love, her accents sweet,
   That voice and countenance almost divine,
      Expression, harmony, alike complete.

   6.

   Listen!  It is not sound alone, ’tis sense,
      ’Tis genius, taste, and tenderness of soul: 
   ’Tis genuine warmth of heart without pretence,
      And purity of mind that crowns the whole.

   7.

   She speaks!  ’Tis eloquence, that grace of tongue,
      So rare, so lovely, never misapplied
   By her, to palliate vice, or deck a wrong: 
      She speaks and argues but on virtue’s side.

   8.

   Hers is the energy of soul sincere;
      Her Christian spirit, ignorant to feign,
   Seeks but to comfort, heal, enlighten, cheer,
      Confer a pleasure or prevent a pain.

   9.

   Can aught enhance such goodness? yes, to me
      Her partial favour from my earliest years
   Consummates all:  ah! give me but to see
      Her smile of love!  The vision disappears.

   10.

   ’Tis past and gone.  We meet no more below,
      Short is the cheat of Fancy o’er the tomb. 
   Oh! might I hope to equal bliss to go,
      To meet thee, angel, in thy future home.

   11.

   Fain would I feel an union with thy fate: 
      Fain would I seek to draw an omen fair
   From this connection in our earthly date. 
      Indulge the harmless weakness.  Reason, spare.

The loss of their first home is generally a great grief to young persons of strong feeling and lively imagination; and Jane was exceedingly unhappy when she was told that her father, now seventy years of age, had determined to resign his duties to his eldest son, who was to be his successor in the Rectory of Steventon, and to remove with his wife and daughters to Bath.  Jane had been absent from home when this resolution was taken; and, as her father was always rapid both in forming his resolutions and in acting on them, she had little time to reconcile herself to the change.

* * * * *

A wish has sometimes been expressed that some of Jane Austen’s letters should be published.  Some entire letters, and many extracts, will be given in this memoir; but the reader must be warned not to expect too much from them.  With regard to accuracy of language indeed every word of them might be printed without correction.  The style is always clear, and generally animated, while a vein of humour continually gleams through the whole; but the materials may be thought inferior to the execution, for they treat only of the details of domestic life.  There is in them no notice of politics or public events; scarcely any discussions on literature, or other subjects of general interest.  They may be said to resemble the nest which some little bird builds of the materials nearest at hand, of the twigs and mosses supplied by the tree in which it is placed; curiously constructed out of the simplest matters.