Jane Austen Quote Week 195

We should have posted a quote last Saturday/Sunday, but because of a miscommunication on my part, it was delayed. My apologies, dear friends. Here's something from Emma (at the end of Chapter 19) to remind us to stay healthy (because I'm writing this with - excuse me - runny nose and annoying headache). Miss Bates was reading a letter from her niece Jane Fairfax (while Emma was stiffling her yawn):

"Jane caught a bad cold, poor thing! so long ago as the 7th of November, (as I am going to read to you,) and has never been well since. A long time, is not it, for a cold to hang upon her? She never mentioned it before, because she would not alarm us. Just like her! so considerate!—But however, she is so far from well, that her kind friends the Campbells think she had better come home, and try an air that always agrees with her; and they have no doubt that three or four months at Highbury will entirely cure her—and it is certainly a great deal better that she should come here, than go to Ireland, if she is unwell. Nobody could nurse her, as we should do."

Had I not been living abroad, away from the tropics, I would be wondering why a cold can be such a fuss. But apparently, it is so in temperate countries. I had my first Australian cold in 2003, and I was bed-ridden for almost two weeks. Afterwards, reading Jane Austen's fussing about cold makes more sense. It seems that it's more difficult to recover from cold when you're living in a temperate climate.

So what do you do, dear friends, when you have the unfortunate illness? Do you stay in bed with hot chocolate and Jane Austen to read? Or taking camomile tea and as much vitamins as you can get?

I think I will curl down with hot coco cereal and watch Emma tonight (after I finish a short assignment I actually had to hand over yesterday)...I suddenly long to see Jonny Lee Miller's Mr Knightley leaning against the door as he watched Emma talking.

Pic: Tamsin Greig as Miss Bates, from Emma 2009