The Wykehamist
“ Jane Austen may have carefully avoided mentioning the industrial revolution, but it’ s coming for you!”
Following a ten-minute intermission, the matrons returned with Cal. Soc. to perform an elegant and well-rehearsed dance. Anna Matthews( G, 2024-) resumed the readings with great clarity and wonderful expression, reading from Mansfield Park about the frugal Mrs Norris. Alexnder Varouxakis delivered a comprehensive presentation on the film adaptations of Austen’ s novels, discussing how Hollywood flamboyance sometimes took over from Austen’ s original words. Mr Eden and friends brought us back to music with a gentle and lovely piano and flute piece. Silas Meredith, with his humour and unashamed distaste for the French, then shared with us the story of Austen’ s younger brothers, the successful navy men, rather independently of their relation to their sister. He presented them as“ men dedicated to their country”.
Jack Dalrymple read a passage about his namesake from Persuasion, after which we returned to Austen’ s family. This time, APD read an imagined letter which had fallen from between the floorboards of the soon opening No. 8 College Street, from Austen’ s father to her, age sixteen. Witty and playful, APD delivered his own writing with his theatrical flair. Vas Stepanov( E, 2020-) gave us his“ reflections on a baronet with great hair”, followed by Edward Thomson, who read steadily and pensively the famous words from Persuasion,“ I am half agony, half hope.” The solemn balance of his reading was reminiscent of the tone in which he read his Dylan Thomas poem for Recitā this year, and won.
Finally, EACR himself delivered a talk, narrating the restoration of No. 8 College
Street, the last place Austen lived in her final weeks, and one of the only places she lived – out of very many – that has not since been destroyed, or changed beyond recognition. Over months, they converted the house that had, by the mid-twentieth century, become a collection of“ insipid whites”, to how it would have been when Austen lived there. Stripping back, carefully, layers of paint and removing its ugly carpeting, they repainted its walls and laid bare its floors to their original early-nineteenth century state.‘ The Jane Austen House’ will open to the public for the first time, this summer, as part of the 250th anniversary of her birth, and we must all visit.
As the night began to draw to a close, JRM’ s familiar and ever-welcome voice talked to us about“ thinking about Austen as the clergyman’ s daughter”. He said he felt a certain kinship with her because of it, being the son of a clergyman himself, and explained the influence it had had on her throughout her life, giving her with a humility and gratitude reflected in her quiet prayers.“ The cadences of the church were her cadences,” he said. He left us with a quotation of hers that he feels represents her faith well –“ let us never underestimate the comfort of believing in something eternal.”
As the penultimate event of the night, JAS, from the Society of Jane Austen Matrons, read a poem which Austen dictated, when in Winchester. And to conclude, the Headmaster, AEH and ECM read, movingly, the final letters written by Austen and her sister, Cassandra, at the time of her death.“ She was the sun of my life … the smotherer of every sorrow,” writes Cassandra. Having indulged in an evening of so much Jane Austen, I am certain that there was not anyone in the audience who could have stayed unmoved, for I think in the sad detail of those last letters, we all felt as though we had lost a remarkable friend anew.
Nevertheless, with the night having ended, it was a thoroughly enjoyable event for everyone – I laughed a lot, learnt a lot, and I certainly renewed my appreciation for the peerless author; I will be one of the first to visit the house once it opens, and will attend the other Austen anniversary celebrations this summer, such as those in the Cathedral, and bid you do so too. Great congratulations are in order for all dons and pupils who participated to such a splendid occasion.
Arun Sharma( Coll:, 2021-)
28