The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-07-18
IN MEMORY OF JANE AUSTEN

One year from today will mark the centenary of the death of Jane Aus ten and to commemorate this date a movement has been started in Eng land, and has been taken up in Amer lea, to raise fund to be used as an endowment for poor governesses. This seems rather a strange way to honor her memoty, but we are assured by those in charge of the project for celebrating Miss Austen's "centenary of immortality that the gifted author entertained a peculiar fondness and warm sympathy for governesses. Ger tainly the woman of this arduous pro- fession stand in need of sympathy, and it is to be hoped that the en- dowment funnd will reach large pro- portions.
 In these days it is to be feared that Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility'' are to be listed among those classics which everybody buys, because it is the thing to have them on the bookshelves, but which very few read. That Miss Austen's works give a charming picture of the Eng fish country life of her period is not to be denied, but they are as tram quill and quiet and very nearly as void of thrilling incident as was the life of the authoress.
 'She is capital as far as she goes," wrote Edward Fitzgerald the immor- tai translator of ''The Rubaiyat," "but she never goes out of the parlor. If but Magnus Troll, or Jack Bunce, or even one of -Fielding's brutes would but dash in upon gentility, and swear round oath or two!"
 The "geptility" of which the Oma- rian complains was to be expected of woman who was the daughter of a country clergyman. and whose youth was spent in the subdued atmosphere of an English rectory. Her father superintended her education, and it may be safely assumed that it did not embrace any knowledge of "a round oath or two."
 Miss Austen was twenty-one when she began her first and most famous important literary work, Pride and Prejudice,"i and she completed it in and "Northanger Abbey" were writ ten soon after but were not publish ed for several years. She was forty one at the time of her death, which occurred on July IS. 1917.
 One >of the best estimates of Miss Austen's literary style was that writ ten by Sir Walter Scott in bis diary, about decade after her death: Read again. for the third time at least, Miss Austen's finely written Pride and Prejudice That young lady has talent for describing the in- volvements and feelings and charac- ters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big Bow Wow strain can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordi- nary commonplace things and charac- ters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is de- nied to me-"
 For half century after Miss Aus ten's death little was written about her, but, since the Memoir" of J. E. Austen Leigh, published in 1870 there have been numerous biographies and innumerable articles dealing with her life and works. The full appreciation of Miss Austen's genius came only af- ter her death, and in England and some parts of America it has reached the proportions of cult The cen tenary of her death is likely to bring about a widespread interest in her novels, and it quite possible that the average reader will have his curios- ity so pfqued as to actually read her works,