By Elizabeth Jewell
It was a small but fascinating group in Mebane yesterday–here we are: Elizabeth Jewell, with Pamela Hale (if I’m reading her handwriting correctly?) next to me, and Connie Eble across from me, with Carolyn Brown next to her.
We talked about Eudora Welty and linguistics and the 200th anniversary of passenger railroads. And Jane Austen!
One area of discussion was a presentation given (at an AGM? not sure, but I think so) by a British man who speculated that Marianne Dashwood’s illness was actually a miscarriage! He presented his evidence from the text (number of times Marianne and Willoughby were alone, for example) and this led to a divided room. We also talked about how amazing it is that there are constantly new things to be said about Austen despite how long it’s been that the books have been available.
The coffee was quite good, too!