I too wonder what could have happened if it had worked out for them. I think she believed that you must have love and practicality to be happy and I suppose she never found it. We have her wonderful novels but I think if she had been able to experience life as a wife and mother we might have continued to see more because it is hard to keep that kind of creativity bottled up. I think we can believe that she would not have married a man who expected her to give up her writing—maybe we are lucky that she had brothers who ensured that she would never have to choose a life without writing just to feed herself and her sister and mother though a less than perfect marriage. Who knows, she might have followed Elizabeth and Jane and Eleanor and Marianne into the wilds of womanhood if she had experienced it. I am indeed, grateful for what I have though. : )