“Oh! could the originals of the portraits against the wainscot, could the gentlemen in brown velvet and the ladies in blue satin have seen what was going on, have been conscious of such an overthrow of all order and neatness! The portraits themselves seemed to be staring in astonishment.” (Persuasion, Chapter 5)

I find the above passage very amusing. My focus for the group read is to look for passages or situations which remind me of comments in JA’s Letters. This is a comment which does that and below is the passage from Letter #6 of which I was reminded:

“At Nackington we met Lady Sondes’ picture over the Mantlepiece in the Dining room, and the pictures of her three Children in an Antiroom, besides Mr. Scott, Miss Fletcher, Mr. Toke, Mr. J. Toke, and the Archdeacon Lynch.” (#6, Sept 1796, JA’s Ltrs, Le Faye)

During the August group read of JA’s Letters, JulieW said that “Inanimate objects had a rather full life in JA's imaginings” to help explain these types of comments. I must say I am heartily glad that they did because theses comments whether in the letters or in the novels always make me chuckle out loud. Here is a second passage from Persuasion where an inanimate object seems to have a role to play: