The Spirit of Jane Austen lives on.
New Novels Jane Austen might have written.

About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.

For those of Mr Petrie’s acquaintance who were not on intimate terms with him, had they been asked to describe him in one word, that word would be enough: clever enough to leave Oxford with honours; industrious enough to secure a good income, and charming enough to win the hand of a young lady of sufficient fortune for his maintaining the necessary appearances of gentility.

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

From the time Susan Cardew was capable of lucid speech, her readiness to speak her mind was apparent to parents and household alike. Amazed by her grasp of practical matters, such as how best to drain a field or to polish the silverware, both steward and housekeeper were loud in their praise, with the proviso – quietly put by the latter to [her mother] – that she needed a firm hand.

Having been daily in each other’s company since birth, neither Miss Fawcett nor Miss Warren, now aged eighteen, could remember a time when they did not call each other by their first names nor share their every thought.

The family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance.

The effort of composition enabled calmer reflection to succeed the worst of her emotion, and to set aside the one possibility that would absolutely have sunk Mr Jarvis: that he kept a mistress. To a man capable of that, a mistress was no impediment to his taking a wife, and no business in his eyes of the wife so taken. From such infamy, she acquitted him.

At first it was downright dulness to [her]. She had never seen [him] so silent and stupid. He said nothing worth hearing — looked without seeing — admired without intelligence —listened without knowing what she said. While he was so dull, it was no wonder that Harriet should be dull likewise; and they were both insufferable.

Though he had no prepared speech, he assured her that the matter had long been at the forefront of his mind. If other matters had brought them together today, there could be no better place than the church in which to articulate the sublimity of his feelings. Long had he admired the quality of her mind and the nobility of her spirit. Her quiet manner, her constant serenity fitted her entirely to be Mistress of the Rectory, if she would but do him the singular honour of accepting the role. Sinking to his knees, he seized her hand and pressed it to his lips.

“I have no patience with him. Mrs.Taylor told me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular friend of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I should not have believed it; and I was almost ready to sink as it was. Well, I said, all I can say is, that if it is true, he has used a young lady of my acquaintance abominably ill, and I wish with all my soul his wife may plague his heart out.”

If Susan was disturbed by the encounter with her father, his discomfort was scarcely less. Never, in previous disagreements, had his daughter refused so absolutely to accept the merit of his concerns, nor scorned his authority as a parent to express them. Angry and oppressed as he felt, the force of her rage had shaken the certainty that his standing as a father ought to command. To be wrong perhaps when on principle and by seniority he must be right restored his anger, which promptly reminded him of hers, to the revival his doubts. Thus he turned from fury to contrition and back again without cease.

[I]f Charlotte had not been considerably the taller of the two, Miss Brereton’s white ribbons might not have fallen within the ken of her more observant eyes. – Among other points of moralising reflection which the sight of this tête-à-tête produced, Charlotte could not but think of the extreme difficulty which secret lovers must have in a proper spot for their stolen interviews. Here perhaps they had thought themselves so perfectly secure from obversation! ---Yet here she had seen them. They were really ill-used.

Elizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in the commission of the peace for the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed tobe quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty.

“This he found strange, he lamented, since in general talking came easily to him. In business or law, he had little difficulty in marshalling his facts and arguing his case persuasively. If he was not intimidated by a man as difficult as Sir Anthony, why was he so often unnerved by Miss Fawcett, who was in contrast quietly spoken and gentle in her manner?