To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances;
to seek Him, the greatest adventure;
to find Him, the greatest human achievement.

Saint Augustine

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Why We Need Jane Austen

This is so awesome I just had to share it.

Why We Need Jane Austen, or How to be a Gentleman with Examples Good and Bad

A couple quotes to interest you in reading it (it isn't long at all):

I want to suggest that Austen provides something for which young people—even the jaded ones—secretly long. While the world she depicts is in many ways foreign to us, it is only just different enough to bring our own pathologies into clearer relief. In short, Austen reminds us of the largely forgotten categories of the lady and the gentleman. It is her genius to make us aspire to these roles even in a world where such notions are strange and often ridiculed.

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Austen teaches her readers the nobility of restraint, the goodness of decorum, and that sexuality is a wonderful mystery within the context of a marriage founded on both love and good sense. That is a lesson every generation ignores at its own peril.