"It is a truth universally acknowledged..."

I have spent the better part of my summer immersed in Austen. Anyone who knows me knows of my admiration and appreciation for the literary works of this fine lady. I have devoted many an hour to film and television adaptations of Jane's work, scouring libraries for copies of those which I had not yet seen. Shorter intervals of time have seen me tearing through the pages of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. I simply could not put them down. I have yet to read Mansfield Park and Emma, er, begin Emma again - I had started it once several years back, but never finished it for one reason or another. Ahh, but this summer I have reveled in the sweet, playful affection Henry Tilney bestowed upon Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey and claimed Anne Elliot of Persuasion as my favorite of all Austen heroines. I found myself relating to Anne in many ways; however, I am not suffering of a lost love eight years in duration. I will admit to my total girlishness by sharing that the rekindling of Anne and Captain Frederick Wentworth's romance is by far my favorite of Austen's plots (that concerning Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars of Sense and Sensibility is an extremely close second). The letter that Wentworth writes to Anne in Chapter 23 gets me every time. Every single time.

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. 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 ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. 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
F. W."

"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."

Even now my insides are squealing with joy. Calm down, E, you know it isn't real, but... but...!! Is it silly of me to be so delighted in a proclamation of literary love? To take refuge in a world that exists now only on paper peppered with wit and satire?

My answer is "no."