Jane Austen :D

So, as a bit of a surprise, we found Jane Austen's tomb in Winchester. :D One of my fav authors, and the topic of one of my tutorials this semester! She died in a house just down the road from the cathedral, and then was buried in the cathedral - in the floor. I would have missed it completely had there not been huge blue arrows pointing to it ... ! And the house (which we saw, but unfortunatley I have no photos at the moment because my battery became "exhausted," but others got pix so I'll get them from them and upload them asap - the pix, not the friends) was quite unimposing as well ... v. cute and little and yellow, with a modest plaque above the door which no one would ever read because Brits all walk with their eyes cast down, minding their own business. But there is really someone living there, just a normal sort of bloke, I've heard, who wears khakis and polos (I wasn't there, but supposedly one of the girls went up to the house and brazenly rang the bell. The forwardness of these Americans ... !) After sort of mumbing an apology, she said, that he said, that it didn't matter, he gets people stopping by all the time ... and well I can believe it, poor fellow - though any man who lives in such a place where such a woman lived ought to consider the amount of heroine-worship which might be thus attached. Though he probably didn't think that all through ... though why it matters, I've no idea.

Anyway, here are three pictures of her tombstone, as it is jolly long and I wanted to get a good enough view so we can actually read what it says. If you can't actually read what it says in that dinky little photo, I can, because I have the original photo which is much bigger. My fav part of it goes something like this:

"... the benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections."

- and, if you look at the last sentence, those words are "soul" and "sight," not "foul" and "fight" - you have to watch for the old letters :)