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sent away as Austen was left to invent her cover of joculat indifference. All the while, she was collecting and copying out Irish songs, perhaps for the time when he might return by invitation or otherwise. Her time would have been better spent doing other things. And she did better things; she wrote the first draft of the novel that you and I know as the Pride and Prejudice. It is a story about a young man who, as his housekeeper would relate was always kind and affectionate as a boy and as a man. Not many would guess that, because he was the kind of man that displayed a hauteur caused by great shyness. An hauteur like that got him into great trouble because it led him to make such a terrible and misleading first impression. This was the Austen character who was too silent in unfamiliar company and would only show his wit when challenged to deal deadly debate by the women he loved. This was Fitzwilliam Darcy. Darcy was not the perfect copy of Jane’s Irish friend Tom because she decided to liberate this copy by bestowing upon him a great personal fortune. In this way, Darcy was given independence and freedom-of-action that Tom was never to possess. At this time, since Austen and Tom’s match was impossible, we would not condemn Mrs. Lefroy’s interference. She was Austen’s friend actually, like Elizabeth’s Aunt Gardiner in Pride and Prejudice. Who can observe the divorce rates, domestic cruelty, and the alienated sexes of our generation and then imagine that the current culture has anything usefully to offer on these matters? The truth is that the choice of a marriage partner is one of the most important and more difficult tasks that any of us attempt. And, we are called to this task at a very early age. We can only hope to do this well if we at least listen tothe observations of our friends and, surely, we should heed the advice of the wiser, more experienced members of our family and community, still, while we have our divorce rates, those in Jane Austen’s circle would have their heartbreaks. Madame Lefroy would have been conscious of that and the realization must have brought her the greatest pain. Perhaps she could make some compensation? It appears that she tried to provide Austen some compensation by making a good match for her young, dearest friend. She had a young male friend who was a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. But the question is Austen was not fond of him although he was not bad. Emotion cannot be reluctant. Although she had no chance to marry Tom, she did not want to marry anyone whom she did not love. She accepted the cruel fact meanwhile she did not despair although she did have some time feeling upset as anyone would have. But after that, she faced her life courageously, wrote novels and gained her reputation. She did live cheerfully. Why? Because she acted according to both her sense and sensibility. She preferred to be single rather than marry reluctantly. This is a choice by both reason and emotion. A marriage without true love equals to irreasonal failure. The sensibility told her not to act against her own feelings, and the sense told her to accept and face the fact. True love would live in her heart forever and once is enough so that she can live quietly and cheerfully in her rest of her life. According to Pythagoras, “Virtue is harmony.” She has already found the balanced way to deal with her feelings, sense, and the social fact, a way to make oneself to be part of the society, to live harmoniously and