Posted by Jessamyn on July 27, 1997 at 15:29:15:
In reply to Re: Getting away from it all posted by Kathy F. on July 24, 1997 at 23:09:35
] ] And C) taking her up to town for the season, once her dear old Dad departs after, what is it, two years or so?
]
] ________
]
] I thought that JA said that he lived, and just let them go to Donwell after two years. Did I misread that? (It's been several days since I read it, and it was late at night, so anything is possible, with me.)
________
Actually, according to the book they married pretty promptly and Knightley moved in with the Woodhouses (there's a rather complicated thing about Mr. Woodhouse's chickens being raided and scaring Mr. Woodhouse into thinking it a good idea). I was actually referring to one of those things that Austen apparently told her family to continue the story in later years.
According to the introduction to my (turn-of-the-century) edition of Emma, written by a Mr. Joseph Jacobs,
"Family tradition has even reported several additional incidents about the lives of the characters of "Emma" which would otherwise have not been known to us. Thus the letters placed before Jane Fairfax, which she swept away unread, contained the word P-A-R-D-O-N. We are not altogether surprised to hear that the valetudianarian Mr. Woodhouse only survived Emma's marriage, and kept Knightley away from Donwell, two years."
I think Mr. Jacobs would have enjoyed this board, actually, for he goes on to say:
"Altogether he was much too lucky, was Knightley, for we cannot help speaking of him as if he once lived, and still lives on. . . . Though her characters did not live in reality, they live to her mind and to ours with as full individuality as the most vigorous of taxpayers."