Rebecca Smith - Miss Jane Austens Guide to Modern Lifes Dilemmas: Answers to Your Most Burning Questions About Life, Love, Happiness (and What to Wear) from the Great Jane Austen Herself

MISS JANE AUSTENS GUIDE
TO MODERN LIFES DILEMMAS

MISS JANE AUSTENS GUIDE
TO MODERN LIFES DILEMMAS

Answers To Your Most Burning Questions
About Life, Love, Happiness (and What To Wear)
from the Great Novelist Herself

REBECCA SMITH

JEREMY P. TARCHER / PENGUIN
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
New York

I will always maintain the
importance of aunts. This is
for my very dear aunts and
great aunts.

Follies and nonsense,
whims and inconsistencies,
do divert me,
I own, and I laugh at them
whenever I can.

ELIZABETH BENNET IN
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN

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Text copyright Rebecca Smith 2012

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ISBN: 978-1-101-60191-4

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IS HE THE ONE? SHOULD I MAKE A MOVE? WILL HE CHANGE? DO AGE GAPS MATTER? SOUND FAMILIAR? JUST SOME OF THE MANY PERENNIAL DILEMMAS SUFFERED IN THE NAME OF LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS. NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED SINCE JANE AUSTENS DAY (WELL, APART FROM THE HATS AND DANCE STEPS), SO WHY NOT LET HER WIT, WISDOM, AND CHARACTERS HELP YOU SORT OUT YOUR LOVE LIFE?

CAN A MAN REALLY CHANGE?

Q YOU KNOW THAT NO ONE IS PERFECT AND THAT ANY MAN, NO MATTER HOW WONDERFUL, COULD DO WITH SOME IMPROVEMENT. YOU WOULDNT MIND SO MUCH IF THE FLAWS REMAINED HIDDEN FROM VIEW, BUT THE SAD FACT IS, YOUR BOYFRIEND EMBARRASSES YOU IN PUBLIC. THE OBNOXIOUS WAY HE SHOVELS FOOD INTO HIS MOUTH, THE RUDE COMMENTS, AND THE SLIGHTLY INAPPROPRIATE PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION MEAN YOU CRINGE WHEN HE UTTERS THE WORDS LETS EAT OUT TONIGHT. IS HE A LOST CAUSE OR COULD HE LEARN TO BEHAVE?

Mr. Rushworth was an inferior young man, as ignorant in business as in books, with opinions in general unfixed, and without seeming much aware of it himselfindifference was the most favorable state they could be in. Her behavior to Mr. Rushworth was careless and cold. She could not, did not like him.

MANSFIELD PARK

A Your boyfriend isnt a lost cause, but your relationship might be. There will be somebody out there to appreciate him for what he is, but that person isnt you. If he makes you cringe now, how will you react in a few months or years? Of course nobodys perfect, and even Mr. Darcy needed improvement before Lizzy Bennet could marry him, but if your boyfriend makes you cringe, he shouldnt be your boyfriend. If it were just one little thing, you could ask him to alter it, but your troubles are clearly more serious.

Could you say that of your boyfriend? Jane says that Tom has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely removeit is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. She may not like his choice of coat, but he, like her, is a great reader and dancer. It could be love.

Perhaps the most touching lines of any of Janes surviving letters are these, written the day before a ball, when she thinks that Tom will propose: I look forward with great impatience to it, as I rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening. I shall refuse him, however, unless he promises to give away his white coat.

One suspects that even the light-color coat could have been livable if finances had made the match acceptable to their families, but the couple had no money and the proposal was never made.

Jane would advise you to ask yourself some questions and listen to your good sense and your heart. Why are you with your boyfriend? Is it because you just want a boyfriend, any boyfriend? Could it be his money? This is the catastrophic mistake that Maria Bertram makes in Mansfield Park. Maria realizes that Mr. Rushwood is stupid and annoying, but she is tempted by his money and she doesnt want to be left on the shelf. She avoids him and is embarrassed by him. Sound familiar? If you notice the noise a man makes when hes eating, you are not in love. Are you bothered by a coat in the wrong color or something more fundamental? Act accordingly.

WHY AM I STILL SO INTIMIDATED BY THE BARBIES OF THE WORLD?

Q IT SEEMS THAT YOURE SURROUNDED BY IMAGES OF UNREALISTICALLY BEAUTIFUL WOMENGLOSSY MAGAZINES FULL OF PHOTOSHOPPED STARS AND MUSIC VIDEOS PARADING SUPERTONED BODS ARE DOING THEIR PART TO SAP YOUR CONFIDENCE. YOU KNOW THAT KIND OF PERFECTION IS IMPOSSIBLE, BUT DEEP DOWN YOU CANT HELP BUT MEASURE YOURSELF AGAINST ITAND YOURE AFRAID THAT EVERYBODY ELSE JUDGES YOU THAT WAY, TOO. HOW CAN YOU STOP WORRYING AND LEARN TO LOVE YOURSELF FOR WHO YOU ARE?

A Stop consuming so much trash and start reading books and watching shows that will make you happier. These perfect women dont existthey really dont. You must stop thinking of yourself as inferior and start living as the heroine of your own life. You dont need to start out looking like Barbie to have a happy ending. Consider Catherine Morland: No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroinethe Morlands [] were in general very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without color, dark lank hair, and strong features