#Prophet Remark Row

[thedragonagelesbian]

WIP - A Lesson in Drowning with Prophet Delilah Dubois

Adelaide knelt down beside the wooden box of tea lights set in small glass bowls arranged in three tiered rows. Only a few of the candles were lit, each a pinprick prayer glinting above a puddle of grey wax. If Madame Tilly was aware of her presence, she didn’t acknowledge it. She kept her head bowed low and her eyes shut as she recited a familiar prayer in a low, hoarse mumble.

“That I may grant my own salvation, I bequeath upon myself a clear mind and a strong heart. That I may shoulder my own burdens, carry my own weight, and discipline the limits of my own desires, such that I never exceed the boundaries of restraint and propriety. That I may survive the oncoming storm, I pray for clarity, fortitude, and tenacity…”

“And in so praying,” Adelaide finished, feeling the words as deep and reluctant as her marrow, “I grant upon myself such virtues as foreseen by our lady prophet.”

For the first time, Madame Tilly paused and lifted her head blinking. Upon seeing who had interrupted her prayer, she smiled, slow and indulgent.

“Little Addie,” she murmured, gums stretched wide. “How are you?”

“Surviving by someone’s grace.” Adelaide didn’t know if it was her own or her father’s or Delilah’s herself. Probably wasn’t her own. “How ’bout yourself?”

“All is as we will it.”

Typical Order of Dubois bullshit response. Adelaide smiled back.

“Well, it looks like dinner’s up, if you’re hungry.”

“Oh, no, I can’t stop praying. There’ll be time to feed myself later, but Harborview needs my prayers now. It is as our lady prophet says.” Madame Tilly tapped her forehead with the second knuckle of her right pointer finger, tracing a loose oval between her brows. “‘In seeing clearly, might all the Earth resolve itself in perfect and accurate order.’ Worship is the only way to a clear mind’s eye, and a clear mind’s eye is the only way to a righteous world.”

Righteousness seemed a terribly inappropriate framework for understanding a natural disaster, but Adelaide had enough lingering self-restraint of her own not to argue with an old woman. Instead, she picked up one of the lit prayer candles and tilted it forward. The melted wax pooled to one side, threatening to drown the pinpoint of light flickering frantically inside the glass. When she narrowed her eyes, the flame expanded, blurring and burning in a thin white line across her vision. Its expansion was an optical illusion, she knew, but if she focused hard enough, she could trick herself into thinking that the glass was heating up, cracking, splintering, shattering…

“We could all use some clarity just about now,” Adelaide remarked as she spun the bowl, watching the silvery wax swirl like wine.

“Don’t I know it… You seeking clarity yourself, little Addie? I haven’t seen you around here in a while.”

“Y’know how it is.” Eyes open, eyes closed, flame thinning and widening and winking like blinding starlight, glass hotter and hotter against the pads of her fingers. “One day, you’re suddenly an adult, and you gotta take some time to figure things out.”

“I’ve been an adult for quite a while, dearie. I did all my figuring out long ago. She,” Madame Tilly gestured at the oil painting of Delilah Dubois, “simplified things a good bit. For whatever it may be worth to you, I’d recommend coming back, giving it all a second chance.”

Adelaide’s grip on the bowl tightened.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

[nerdandahalf]

a year of library holds

I put thirty-six books on hold and suspended the holds, so that each month, three will come up on the holds shelf at the library. I'm super excited, so here's most of the list (a couple got cut off).

DiLouie, Craig: Episode thirteen

Ramírez, Tita: Tell it to me singing

Moore, Liz: The god of the woods

Khan, Shubnum: The Djinn waits a hundred years

Chandrasekera, Vajra: The saint of bright doors

Chang, Abraham: 888 love and the divine burden of numbers

Akbar, Kaveh: Martyr!

Lynch, Paul: Prophet song

Shattuck, Ben: The history of sound: stories

Brooks, Geraldine: Horse

Choo, Yangsze: The fox wife

Patchett, Ann: Tom Lake

Catton, Eleanor: Birnam Wood

Awad, Mona: Bunny

White, Tyriek: We are a haunting

Kingsolver, Barbara: The poisonwood Bible

McConaghy, Charlotte: Migrations

Stringfellow, Tara M: Memphis

Reeves, Cynthia: Last whaler

Kim, Angie: Miracle Creek

Nagamatsu, Sequoia: How high we go in the dark

James, Tania: Loot

Woodson, Jacqueline: Red at the Bone

Miller, Chanel: Know my name

Park, Ed: Same bed different dreams

Díaz, Hernán: Trust

Rowe, Christopher: The navigating fox

Cosby, S. A.: Razorblade tears

Winterson, Jeanette: Night side of the river: ghost stories

Chambers, Becky: A psalm for the wild-built

Mason, Daniel: North woods

Van Pelt, Shelby: Remarkably bright creatures

Jiles, Paulette: News of the world

[breaking-news-portal]

Hyderabad: Police Arrest Activist Kashaf Who Raised 'Sar Tan Se Juda' Slogan Against BJP MLA

Hyderabad: Police Arrest Activist Kashaf Who Raised ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ Slogan Against BJP MLA

New Delhi: Hyderabad Police on Thursday arrested Syed Abdahu Kashaf, the city-based self-proclaimed social and civil rights activist, for raising the ‘sar tan se juda’ slogan during a protest against suspended BJP MLA Raja Singh over the latter’s alleged derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad, news agency IANS reported. According to the report, the cyber-crime also registered a case against…

[rudrjobdesk]

"आओ नरेंद्र मोदी कलमा पढ़ो...," मौलाना तौकीर रजा ने मोदी और शाह को दी दावत

“आओ नरेंद्र मोदी कलमा पढ़ो…,” मौलाना तौकीर रजा ने मोदी और शाह को दी दावत

Image Source : FILE PHOTO IMC Chief Maulana Tauqeer Raza Highlights यूपी के बरेली में तौकीर रजा का बड़ा बयान प्रधानमंत्री मोदी को कलमा पढ़ने को कहा “हम इस हुकूमत को नहीं, UNO में ज्ञापन देंगे” Maulana Tauqeer Raza: पैगम्बर मोहम्मद पर टिप्पणी के खिलाफ विरोध प्रदर्शन अभी थमे नहीं हैं। उत्तर प्रदेश के बरेली में इस्लामिया ग्राउंड में इत्तेहाद-ए-मिल्लत काउंसिल (IMC) प्रमुख मौलाना तौकीर रजा ने…

[newsupdatesbykiara]

Another case against Nupur Sharma in Prophet remark row in Maharashtra

Maharashtra's Beed police have registered a case against suspended BJP functionary Nupur Sharma in connection with her alleged derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammad, an official said on Thursday.

Sharma is already facing similar cases in Mumbai, Thane and some other places in Maharashtra.

An advocate, Sayyed Azim, had complained to the Beed police, alleging that Sharma's remarks made during a TV debate hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims, the official said.

Based on the complaint, the Beed city police on Wednesday registered a case against Sharma under Indian Penal Code Sections 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 505(2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes), the official said.

[don-lichterman]

Iran's Foreign Minister Raises Concerns Over Prophet Remark Row On His First Visit To India, NSA Doval Assures Action

Iran’s Foreign Minister Raises Concerns Over Prophet Remark Row On His First Visit To India, NSA Doval Assures Action

New Delhi: India and Iran discussed ways to improve cooperation in connectivity, commerce, and counter-terrorism on Wednesday, as visiting Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian brought up two former BJP spokespersons’ controversial statements about Prophet Mohammed. Hossein Amir Abdollahian, the visiting Iranian Foreign Minister, expressed satisfaction with the Indian government’s…

[news-trust-india]

Prophet remark row: नुपुर शर्मा को बड़ी राहत,19 जुलाई तक गिरफ्तारी पर रोक

Prophet remark row: नुपुर शर्मा को बड़ी राहत,19 जुलाई तक गिरफ्तारी पर रोक

नई दिल्‍ली। Prophet remark row: सुप्रीम कोर्ट (Supreme Court) ने बुधवार को पैगंबर मोहम्मद पर विवादित बयान के मामले में नुपुर शर्मा को बड़ी राहत प्रदान की। सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने नूपुर शर्मा के खिलाफ हुई सभी प्राथमिकियों को एकसाथ क्‍लब करने और उन्‍हें दिल्ली स्थानांतरित करने का निर्देश दिया है। यही नहीं समाचार एजेंसी पीटीआइ की रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक सुप्रीम कोर्ट (Supreme Court) ने जांच पूरी होने तक नूपुर…

[krazyshoppy]

कन्हैया लाल के कारीगर ने बताई घटना की आंखों देखी, बताया कैसे बची उसकी जान

कन्हैया लाल के कारीगर ने बताई घटना की आंखों देखी, बताया कैसे बची उसकी जान

Udaipur Murder Case: उदयपुर में मंगलवार को कन्हैया लाल (Kanhaiya Lal) नाम के एक टेलर की गला रेत कर हत्या कर दी गई. कन्हैया लाल की हत्या इसलिए की गई, क्योंकि उन्होंने नूपुर शर्मा (Nupur Sharma) के समर्थन में सोशल मीडिया पर एक स्टेटस डाला था. जिसकी वजह से मोहम्मद रियाज और गौस मोहम्मद ने कन्हैया लाल की धारदार हथियार से गला रेत कर उनकी हत्या कर दी. आरोपी कपड़े सिलवाने के बहाने उनकी दुकान में घुसे और…

[bharatlivenewsmedia]

Prophet Remarks Row: भाजपच्या महिला मुस्लिम नगरसेवकाचा राजीनामा, म्हणाल्या- कार्यकर्त्यांवर नाही पक्षाचे नियंत्रण

Prophet Remarks Row: भाजपच्या महिला मुस्लिम नगरसेवकाचा राजीनामा, म्हणाल्या- कार्यकर्त्यांवर नाही पक्षाचे नियंत्रण

Prophet Remarks Row: भाजपच्या महिला मुस्लिम नगरसेवकाचा राजीनामा, म्हणाल्या- कार्यकर्त्यांवर नाही पक्षाचे नियंत्रण कोटा – नुपूर शर्मा यांनी मोहम्मद पैगंबर यांच्यावर केलेल्या वक्तव्याच्या निषेधार्थ राजस्थान भाजपच्या एका महिला नगरसेवकाने पक्षाचा राजीनामा दिला आहे. … Prophet Remarks Row: भाजपच्या महिला मुस्लिम नगरसेवकाचा राजीनामा, म्हणाल्या- कार्यकर्त्यांवर नाही पक्षाचे नियंत्रण आणखी वाचा The post…

[globalcourant]

Prophet row live updates | Nupur Sharma, Naveen Jindal summoned by Maharashtra police

Prophet row live updates | Nupur Sharma, Naveen Jindal summoned by Maharashtra police

As the Uttar Pradesh Government intensified its crackdown against the Muslim protestors on June 11, several members of the ruling BJP, including its state president Swatantra Dev Singh, endorsed using bulldozers to demolish the properties of the accused persons. The family members of two persons who succumbed to gunshot wounds during Friday’s protests in Ranchi against controversial remarks on…

[technewstoday24]

Taslima Nasreen On Prophet Remark Controversy: 'কেউ সমালোচনার ঊর্ধ্বে নন', পয়গম্বরকে নিয়ে মন্তব্য বিতর্কে লিখলেন তসলিমা

Taslima Nasreen On Prophet Remark Controversy: ‘কেউ সমালোচনার ঊর্ধ্বে নন’, পয়গম্বরকে নিয়ে মন্তব্য বিতর্কে লিখলেন তসলিমা

নিজস্ব প্রতিবেদন: মহম্মদ পয়গম্বরকে নিয়ে সাসপেন্ডেড বিজেপি নেত্রী নূপুর শর্মার ‘বিতর্কিত’ মন্তব্য। যা নিয়ে দেশ-বিদেশে প্রবল সমালোচনা শুরু হয়েছে। এবার এই বিতর্কে মুখ খুললেন প্রখ্যাত সাহিত্যিক তসলিমা নাসরিন (Taslima Nasreen)। মহম্মদ পয়গম্বরকে নিয়ে নূপুর শর্মার করা মন্তব্যের জেরে আন্তর্জাতিক মহলে বেশ চাপে ভারত। ইরান, ইরাকের মতো দেশ ইতিমধ্যে ভারতীয় রাষ্ট্রদূতদের সমন পাঠিয়েছে। উষ্মা প্রকাশ করেছে আরও…

[breaking-news-portal]

Nupur Sharma did not appear before the police, Mumbai Police will soon decide on the action

Nupur Sharma did not appear before the police, Mumbai Police will soon decide on the action

Prophet Remarks Row Latest News: Suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma did not appear before Mumbai Police on Saturday to record her statement in connection with the case registered against her for allegedly making objectionable remarks against Prophet Mohammad. An FIR was registered against Sharma at the Pydhuni police station on May 28 and the police had sent summons to him through email, an…

[rudrjobdesk]

पाकिस्तान से हमले की अपील... अल-अक्सा मस्जिद पर हिंदुओं के खिलाफ नफरती भाषण वायरल

पाकिस्तान से हमले की अपील… अल-अक्सा मस्जिद पर हिंदुओं के खिलाफ नफरती भाषण वायरल

Image Source : TWITTER VIDEO GRAB Hate speech against Hindus and India at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem Prophet Row: पैगंबर मोहम्मद पर विवादित टिप्पणी से उठा बवाल भारत की सीमाओं से बाहर जाकर खूब तूल कपड़ र��ा है। नूपुर शर्मा के बयान पर पहले कई अरब देशों की प्रतिक्रिया के बाद अब यरुशलम में भी विरोध के सुर सुनाई दे रहे हैं। दरअसल बी��ेपी नेताओं की पैगंबर मोहम्मद पर आपत्तिजनक टिप्पणियों के विरोध में…

[newsupdatesbykiara]

Prophet remark row: 'Objectionable' Facebook post lands UP man in jail

Police in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr on Monday arrested a man who had allegedly shared an objectionable video on social media connected with the ongoing controversy related to certain remarks made against Prophet Mohammad, officials said.

The police have also cautioned the public against posting or sharing content on social media platforms that could lead to communal disharmony.

Nadeem Ansari, a resident of Khanpur town, had made an objectionable post on his Facebook account. The cognizance of the matter was taken immediately and an FIR was lodged at the local police station after which Ansari was arrested, Police Circle Officer (Syana) Vandana Sharma said.

[sleepysera]

6.29.22 Headlines

WORLD NEWS

India: Udaipur state on alert after Prophet Muhammad row (BBC)

“The murder of a Hindu man in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan has sparked religious tensions in the area. The victim, a tailor named Kanhaiya Lal, was killed in Udaipur district on Tuesday by two Muslim men, who filmed the act and posted it online. They claimed the act was in retaliation for the victim's support for controversial remarks made by a politician on the Prophet Muhammad. The government has suspended internet services and banned large gatherings.”

Mexico: Journalist is shot to death; 12th so far this year (AP)

“A journalist was shot to death Wednesday in northeastern Mexico as he was leaving his house with his 23-year-old daughter, who was seriously injured, according to state prosecutors and the newspaper that employed him.”

Japan: Swelters in its worst heatwave ever recorded (BBC)

“Japan is sweltering under the hottest day yet of its worst heatwave since records began in 1875. The blistering heat has drawn official warnings of a looming power shortage, and led to calls for people to conserve energy where possible. But the government is still advising people to use air conditioning to avoid heatstroke as cases of hospitalisation rise with the heat. Weather officials warn the heat is likely to continue in the coming days.”

US NEWS

Ukraine: US boosting military presence in Europe amid Russia threat (AP)

“President Joe Biden said Wednesday the U.S. will significantly expand its military presence in Europe, the latest example of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped plans for the continent’s security and prompted a reinvestment in NATO.”

Immigration: Slow effort to ID San Antonio migrant dead, toll rises to 53 (AP)

“Victims have been found with no identification documents at all and in one case a stolen ID. Remote villages lack phone service to reach family members and determine the whereabouts of missing migrants. Fingerprint data has to be shared and matched by different governments.”

Abortion: Clinics scramble to divert patients as states ban abortion (AP)

“The ruling has set off a travel scramble across the country, with a growing number of states mostly banning the procedure. Clinics operators are moving, doctors are counseling crying patients, donations are pouring into nonprofits and one group is dispatching vans to administer abortion pills.”

[dwellordream]

“Just as Elizabeth Bennet once remarked with teasing affection to her sister Jane that a young courting man ought to be "handsome . . . if he possibly can" (PP, 14), so Elizabeth's creator might have said that a satirical woman novelist should be born to intelligent parents as irreverent about most pseudo-pieties as her own father and mother, "if she possibly can." The Austen children were all encouraged to develop talents to amuse the family circle, and among Austen's scribbling, sketching, and painting siblings, her own wildly hyperbolic juvenilia may not have seemed as savage as it actually was. Far from complaining about her modest proposals, which attacked not only every sort of patriarchal abuse but the very principles of patriarchy itself, her family was delighted when she began to amuse the world of Steventon and St. John's College with her bleak imitations of Augustan satire. 

When Austen was born, her father accepted the birth of a second daughter with none of the apparent contempt that Edgeworth's fictional misogynist displayed to the fictional father. Austen's own experienced father thanked "God" that his wife had once again been spared the horrors and the dangers of childbirth, and was now "pure well of it," and he prophetically consigned the baby "Jenny" to her sister as "a plaything," and to her older brother Henry as the male tutor frequently assigned to baby girls at birth to teach them their subordinate place in the universe (LL, 22). In a large family, then and now, a potential woman writer should arrange to be born near the end of the sibling row, if she can, so that she will not be prematurely forced into the role of "free nurse or a kind of mobile upper servant," as one parent or well-to-do Austen brother or another expected of the unmarried sisters throughout their lives. Readers owe Austen's correspondence with Cassandra to this customary exploitation of spinsters, since one sister or the other, usually Cassandra, was so often functioning as free housekeeper in some brother's house. 

Mr. Austen's most important gift to the one genius among his children was his choice of his genial, intelligent, and affectionate son Henry as her male mentor. James, the eldest son, despised his second wife and his two daughters. Edward, the next brother, was no scholar and no reader, and he was already adopted by rich relatives in need of a male heir, before Austen was out of the schoolroom. Witty, charming, and self-indulgent Henry was the perfect choice as a male definer of women's limitations; he was as indulgent with her as with himself. If it had not been for Henry, there might well have been no Sense and Sensibility "By a Lady," nor the other five published novels that followed it. After Mr. Austen's death, Henry successfully took over his heretical father's attempts to publish his daughter's fiction, since women rarely conducted their own business. It is no wonder that Austen loved Henry dearly, despite his usual indifference to his sisters' needs in most other respects. 

Austen's correspondence and the family biographies all stress how serviceably the Austens' talents for family living spread from themselves to relatives in shock or trouble. A cousin lost a husband to the guillotine; she found refuge at Steventon. A relative's daughter lost her father just before her marriage. She was brought to the rectory to be soothed and to be married from there shortly afterward. A sickly young ward of Mr. Austen's was nursed by Mrs. Austen, who grieved when he died. James's wife died leaving a two-year-old daughter, who lived and played with her two older girl cousins for several years until her father remarried and reluctantly summoned her home, perhaps initiating her scribbling aunt's life-long preoccupation with the double theme of women's vulnerability to summary exile or prolonged incarceration. A brother's ailing wife died and he came to his sisters for consolation. Edward's prolific wife died after her eleventh child was born. Both unmarried sisters then took their turn soothing the shocks and meeting the needs of a dozen or more family members. 

For weeks after the death of her sister-in-law in child-birth, Austen begged to have two of the boys sent to her for consolation. When they finally arrived, Austen's reception of her two small motherless nephews is one of the most touching revelations of her deeply affectionate heart and her confident intelligence. She knew her Ecclesiastes and she knew that with children, and especially with grieving children, as with everybody else, uncritical love has its seasons; she also knew that judgment and gentle discipline have their seasons too. She comforted these motherless nephews with her effective combination of maternal tenderness and bracing care—a healthy crispness toward children then considered impossible or unfashionable in women. Of one of the newly motherless Austen-Knight girls, Austen wrote: "Your account of Lizzy is very interesting. Poor child! One must hope the impression will be strong, and yet one's heart aches for a dejected mind of eight years old" (Letters, 221). 

There speaks the writer for whom even the most wracking grief is "very interesting"; and there also speaks the loving aunt, and the Christian, conscious of suffering as a vale of soul-making. Austen's description of her grieving nephews' visit indicates how thoroughly acquainted she herself was with grief, and how tactfully she could minister to it. First she looked and listened: "George sobbed aloud, Edward's tears do not flow as easily." Then she consulted another spinster whose sex assigned her to the care of small children: "Miss Lloyd, who is a more impartial judge than I can be, is exceedingly pleased with them." Above all, she consulted her own extensive experience with her brothers' small children: "They behave extremely well. .. showing as much feeling as one wishes to see"—but not too much—and "speaking of their father with the liveliest affection." 

And then, after looking, listening, consulting, and calling upon experience, she devised a splendid program designed to begin her nephews' healing process without denying them the need for mourning. She was interested that George was equally unabashed on board a river ferry, "skipping" and "flying about from one side to the other," as he was in his grief, while Edward, the heir to his father's estate, could neither weep nor play with as much spontaneous abandonment (Letters, 225-227). Soon Austen got the boys outdoors to play "bilboacatch, at which George is indefatigable, spillikins, paper ships," and then she urged them indoors again for a change of pace, so that they could play "riddles, conundrums, and cards," while from a window they could be archetypally soothed, "watching the flow and ebb of the river," and stretch their muscles and ease their grief "with now and then a stroll out," so that altogether Austen reported that all these activities "keep us well employed." 

But if there is a time for grief, there is a time for light-hearted play: "In the evening we had the Psalms and Lessons, and a sermon at home, to which they were very attentive; but you will not expect to hear that they did not return to conundrums the moment it was over. .. . While I write now, George is most industriously making and naming paper ships, at which he afterwards shoots with horse-chestnuts, brought from Steventon on purpose; and Edward equally intent over the 'Lake of Killarney,' twisting himself about in one of the great chairs" (Letters, 227-229). A few days before the boys left for home, their aunt achieved a trip for them upstream on the river: "it proved so pleasant and so much to the satisfaction of all that.. . we agreed to be rowed up the river; both the boys rowed a great part of the way, and their questions and remarks, as well as their enjoyment, were very amusing. George's enquiries were endless, and his eagerness in everything reminds me of his Uncle Henry" (Letters, 228).

Austen's own artless "eagerness in everything" to do with warmhearted, attractively brought up children appears at its finest in Pride and Prejudice: "As they drove to Mr. Gardiner's door, Jane was at a drawing room window waiting their arrival.. .. On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls, whose eagerness for their cousin's appearance would not allow them to wait in the drawing-room, and whose shyness, as they had not seen her for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower. All was joy and kindness." Once again the Gardiner children became symbols of domestic equality between the parents, and therefore of family felicity and of sensible parental discipline: "The little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing on the steps of the house, as they entered the paddock; and when the carriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their faces, and displayed itself over their whole bodies, in variety of capes and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome" (PP, 152, 286).

Elizabeth Bennet witnessed both these delightful family scenes, which Austen has placed with infinite craft between scenes where two young men have betrayed two of the Bennet daughters, one with and one without the daughter's active collusion. In the first scene, where "all was joy and kindness," the principled but duped Jane Bennet was visiting the Gardiners and trying to recover from the shock of Charles Bingley's casual courting and equally casual disappearance. In the second scene describing the Gardiner children's appealing capers and frolics, Elizabeth and the Gardiner parents have just discovered George Wickham's perfidy in his elopement with the unprincipled Lydia Bennet. The shocking disjunction between loving couples with happy children and irresponsible courtships is no accident. 

Post-Enlightenment parents were particularly confused between Pauline injunctions; the feminists stressed that "we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of the other," and that in Christ, "there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female." The male conduct-book writers, on the other hand, emphasized St. Paul's patriarchal corollary: that "as we have many members in one body.. . all members have not the same office." Wollstonecraft described the customary acceptance of Paul's modification as purely opportunistic, based on a male principle of female "utility" shaped always by male "convenience" (Vindication, 51). For all Mr. Austen's reputation for kindness, he was spending his funds and training his boys for "the widely differing professions and employments into which private advantage and public good require that men be distributed" (Gisborne, Duties of the Female Sex, 2), whereas from their earliest childhood, the two Austen sisters were taught that they "had not the same office" as their brothers, nor the same needs, and that they therefore did not require the same resources. 

Elizabeth Bennet once remarked that well-to-do men enjoyed "great pleasure in the power of choice" (PP, 183), a luxury that almost no women could command. And Eleanor Tilney's sad comment to Catherine Morland— "you must have been long enough in this house to see that I am but a nominal mistress of it, that my real power is nothing—" is true of all Austen's heroines and all her chaste yet witty minor women characters (NA, 225). Throughout her life, in all matters to do with education, funds, travels, books, pen and paper, clothing, or any other personal property, Austen and her sister were severely deprived compared with their brothers. But despite the clear bitterness that these deprivations bred in both Austen's fiction and her correspondence, all her writing displays the spontaneous wit and affection that she poured into her own family. She performed the same chaste yet witting and even passionate service for her fictive heroines and heroes, struggling to mature under very harsh and artificial assumptions about marriage and gender distinctions. 

One of her most admirable traits, both as a novelist and as a member of a close-knit family, was her refusal to demand too much of fallible and suffering humanity, and an equally discerning refusal to demand too little. She wrote of a despondent Henry: "I hope he comes to you in good health, and in spirits as good as a first return to Godmersham can allow. With his nephews he will force himself to be cheerful, till he really is so" {Letters, 244). From Enlightenment sources she had clearly learned that responsible habits and desires can produce responsible conduct fully as much as innate talents and temperament—a desperately necessary acknowledgment for a member of a sex often considered intellectually and morally defective from birth. A brilliant girl-child in training to become a satirist ought to be born to a witty mother, "if she possibly can," a rare feat among the daughters and granddaughters of Anglican clergymen, which Austen managed to accomplish. 

Her great uncle on her mother's side was Theophilus Leigh, Master of Balliol, whose reputation for slightly irreverent wit "and agreeable conversation extended beyond the bounds of the university" (Memoir, 6). This great-uncle was certainly one founder of the Austenian school of wits, who served as inadvertent tutor to his niece, Cassandra Leigh; and her fiction-writing daughter matriculated in the same school. Whatever outrageously self-important received opinions amused Austen were also likely to amuse her mother, in her daughter's fiction and elsewhere. The "strong common sense," the "lively imagination," and the "epigrammatic force and point," in Mrs. Austen's "writing and conversation" were legendary, even before her daughter became famous. When she was dying and in pain, she remarked to a great nephew, "Ah, my dear, you find me just where you left me—on the sofa. I sometimes think that God Almighty must have forgotten me, but I dare say He will come for me in his own good time" (Memoir, 11-12). 

Nonetheless, all family accounts suggest that Mrs. Austen was jealous of her precocious daughter. Austen's increasingly irritated comments about her mother imply that she suffered keenly from the covert maternal jealousy that mothers are often taught to inflict upon their most intelligent daughters. This daughter was usurping the male privilege of writing—with the father's tacit encouragement, too—which he would hardly have sanctioned in his wife. There was apparently no gross abuse, but all the evidence suggests that as Austen matured and began to publish, she did not receive the critical yet unresentful support in her feminine ghetto that writers need. There is a sting in Austen's life-long comments that she has commanded her mother to get well or stay well, and that she fully expects her mother to follow her commands, so that she can finish a chapter, make a dearly desired visit, or allow herself some badly needed respite.”

- Alison G. Sulloway, “The Author’s Province.” in Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood