Saturday 21 June 2008

Jane Austen Quote - Week Nine


This week my quote is from Fanny Price, in Mansfield Park. There are so many amazingly quotable quotes from MP that I'm planning on using one next time, too. :)

Mansfield Park, Penguin Red Classics 2006, volume II, page 216.

"If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out."

Oh yes! I just love this quote - it gives me a serious case of the "warm fuzzies". Memory can be both a blessing and a curse, but this time I'm going to dwell on the positive side since I'm currently having a Pollyanna-esque love-affair with my own memory ... Oh! Memory is a fickle thing. I love how pointedly Fanny expresses her deeper thoughts about memory (once again, Jane at her finest, understanding humanity/life) - "so retentive ... so obedient" and yet also "weak ... and beyond control" Oh brother, yes! I have just come out the other side of the examination room, and I can vouch for the hair-raisingness of my own somewhat "bewildered" memory, and yet at the very same time, I can nurse my favourite memory, which never dulls, and which makes me glow with happiness every time I recall the scene and face ... oh yes, I love my memory. It is a wonderful gift.

Pic: Frances O'Connor as Fanny Price from: JASA

5 comments:

Michelle said...

And yes, the double Fanny's are a style statement. :p

Icha said...

Ha! I love your style statement, Michelle! Thanks a lot for the post!

And yes, memory is too amazing, that often it overrules us. Yes, Master Yoda said that we must be aware of our memories, my dear Padawan...
(Wait, that's a different universe... not Jane universe. Haha!)

Anonymous said...

Ladies, just wait til you get to be my age; you will certainly cherish every "memory" that you are able to remember! For instance, just a few minutes ago, I was remembering my visit with Jane from 5 years ago. My how time flies, but thank goodness for my memories.

Linda the Librarian

Icha said...

Mwahahaha! Just wait, Linda, in twenty years or so I will report back to you what I feel then with those fond memories.

But don't get me wrong, I also don't want to have amnesia; uh, God, no thanks...

mamma jakeline said...

Lovely choice of quote! Jane is truly the best. No questions! ;)

Here I am growing by the day. Seriously I'm only 13 weeks in and I do look really pregnant now! how shall it end? Anyways, I do try to update my blog with pregnancy news for any who is interested...

/tata from Maria and Peanut.