This was a wonderful day of Jane Austen friends and . . . I'll say friendship. Each time I'm with these ladies I am enlightened, brightened, humbled by their collective wisdom and education, and energized. These women (no men so far, but they are welcome if they'd only care to show up) are accomplished in ways that have little to do with the prescribed female attributes of Jane's time. Even so, they are all so very genteel that I delight in their company if for no other reason than that. Is genteel the right word? Polite? Well-bred? It could be that it is difficult to find the right word for a twenty-first century woman with both sense and sensibility and decent manners. So many young women as well as young men have a distressing courseness about them. Surely there is a happy medium between the woman molded to her man's specifications that Rousseau advocated and Lady Gaga (who is a lady in pseudonym only).
Saturday, July 23, 2011
A Company of Women
This was a wonderful day of Jane Austen friends and . . . I'll say friendship. Each time I'm with these ladies I am enlightened, brightened, humbled by their collective wisdom and education, and energized. These women (no men so far, but they are welcome if they'd only care to show up) are accomplished in ways that have little to do with the prescribed female attributes of Jane's time. Even so, they are all so very genteel that I delight in their company if for no other reason than that. Is genteel the right word? Polite? Well-bred? It could be that it is difficult to find the right word for a twenty-first century woman with both sense and sensibility and decent manners. So many young women as well as young men have a distressing courseness about them. Surely there is a happy medium between the woman molded to her man's specifications that Rousseau advocated and Lady Gaga (who is a lady in pseudonym only).
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