[Jane Austen] Mini-Bio; #2

Jane is described as tall, slender, and
remarkably graceful; she was a clear bru-
nette with a rich color, hazel eyes, fine
features, and curling brown hair. Her
domestic relations were delightful, and
she was specially attractive to chiildren.
A vague record is preserved of an attach-
ment for a gentleman whom she met at the
seaside, and who soon afterwards died
suddenly. But there is no indication of any
serious disturbance of her habitual serenity.
--Leslie Stephen, 1885, Dictionary of
National Biography, vol. II, p. 259.

All the time that she was writing her
three best novels she had no private study:
she wrote in the general sittingroom at
her little mahogany desk, and when visitors
interrupted, a handerchief or a news-
paper was thrown over the tell-tale MSS.
Very often her nephews and nieces rushed
in, and she was always ready to break off
from her writing to tell them long delight-
ful fairy stories. . . . She was essentially
a womanly woman. Everything that she
did with her fingers was well done. She
wrote a clear, firm hand, as easy to read
as print. --Catherine J. Hamilton, 1892,
Women Writers, First Series, pp. 203,204.