Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/30

 longer than she need have done, and entreats her to write oftener while away, declaring, "I am sure nobody can desire your letters as much as I do;" while every letter she receives from Cassandra is commented on with the same lover-like ardour, and received with the same delight, long after both the sisters had passed the romantic stage of girlhood.

"Excellent sweetness of you to send me such a nice long letter," writes Jane, in 1813, when she was eight and thirty years old; and though doubtless letters were greater treasures then than now, it must be remembered that these and similar expressions are from a woman who was usually anything but "gushing" or "sentimental" in her language. Wherever the sisters were they always shared their bed-room, and if Jane's feeling was the clinging devotion of a younger to an elder sister, Cassandra certainly returned it with an intense sympathy and affection that never diminished in life or in death.

The sisters were educated together chiefly at home. Mr. Austen taught his sons in great part himself, and was well fitted to do so, but the higher education for women had not then been discovered, and the Austen girls were not better instructed than other young ladies of their day. Jane's especial gift was skill and dexterity with her fingers; she was a first-rate needlewoman, and delighted in needlework; she excelled also in any game or occupation that required neat-fingeredness; but she was no artist, and not a great musician, though far from a bad one. Like Elizabeth Bennet, "her performance was pleasing, though by no means capital." She was an excellent French scholar, and a fair Italian one; German was in her day quite an exceptional acquirement for ladies;