Page:Austen Lady Susan Watson Letters.djvu/271

LETTERS OF JANE AUSTEN remained so long unpublished, but at all events this proves that it was no hasty production, but one which had been well considered, and submitted to the judgment of others long before it was given to the public. Jane changed the name of another novel also between composition and publication, "Sense and Sensibility" having been at first entitled "Elinor and Marianne."

In the same letter there is an observation about "Mrs. Knight's giving up the Godmersham estate to Edward being no such prodigious act of generosity after all," which was certainly not intended seriously, or if so, was written under a very imperfect knowledge of the facts. I have seen the letters which passed upon the occasion. The first is from Mrs. Knight, offering to give up the property in the kindest and most generous terms, and this when she was not much above forty years of age, and much attached to the place. Then comes my grandfather's answer, deprecating the idea of her making such a sacrifice, and saying that he and his wife were already well enough off through Mrs. Knight's kindness, and could not endure that she should leave for their sakes a home which she loved so much. Mrs. Knight replies that it was through her great affection for my grandfather that her late husband had adopted him, that she loved him as if he was her own son, that his letter had Rh