And in Austen news ...

[anghraine]

This fails in so many ways that I almost don't know where to begin.  Hm, let's see.

(1)  The Rice portrait:  This work by British painter Ozias Humphry is the only known oil painting of Jane Austen, believed to be aged about 14.

Known?  Oh, you mean the part where that one guy said that somebody else had said that it was said to be Jane Austen?  Family gossip does not an authentication make.  Maybe it's her, but it's certainly not 'known.'  The only authenticated pictures of Austen are the watercolour and the drawing.

(2)  It is a truth universally acknowledged ...  

Please stop using that line.  Please.

(3)  "If you think about TB [tuberculosis], which was rife in Jane Austen's day, statistically speaking, [the cause of death] was far more likely to have been TB from unpasteurized milk rather than an obscure condition like lymphoma," White said.

That would definitely explain why her siblings lived into their eighties.  Oh, wait.

(4) Her last completed novel, "Persuasion," is "a far more sad and autumnal book than any of the others," he said.

True.  Why, Sanditon is positively cheery in comparison.  Seriously, people, if you're going to talk about where Austen's art was going when she died, you really shouldn't ignore the book she was writing when she died.  

(5)  In fact, Austen's papers show she considered another ending in which the heroine did not marry the man she loved.

...

Huh?

Oh, you mean this: 

It was a silent, but a very powerful dialogue; -- on his side, supplication, on her's acceptance. -- Still a little nearer -- and a hand taken and pressed -- and "Anne, my own dear Anne!" -- bursting forth in the fullness of exquisite feeling -- and all suspense and indecision were over. -- They were re-united. They were restored to all that had been lost. They were carried back to the past, with only an increase of attachment and confidence, and only such a flutter of present delight as made them little fit for the interruption of Mrs Croft, when she joined them not long afterwards.

Yes.  The stuff of epic tragedy, that.

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Also!  Poor Darcy has, yet again, lost to Rochester in the romance sweepstakes:  http://lauragerold.blogspot.com/2009/12/most-romantic-character-in-literature.html.  And, um, while I sympathise with the whole 'but Rochester's a jerk!' thing, I'd just like to observe that 'most romantic hero' does not mean 'the best husband material' or even 'the most badass' - and certainly not 'my favourite hero in anything which might be termed a romantic story, kind of.'  On the other hand, this:

Also, in defense of Mr. Rochester, he was tricked into marrying that first wife. He didn't know that madness ran in the family. Then once he discovered her insanity, he didn't abandon her, but took her into his home and provided care. Poor man. He lied to Jane, yes, but for understandable reasons. Wasn't the loss of his eyesight punishment enough?

...

So, losing his eyesight - which he later regains - is supposed to make up for tricking a defenceless girl into bigamy?  How are these things even related? 

Also, I'm not sure "locking your wife in the attic" counts as "providing care."  Even for nineteenth-century England.