Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas

There is nothing like a bit of ink to bring reason to the most disordered mind.

The novelist’s perception of motive and character is equally suited to the penetration of human deceit. I am determined never to apologise for my talents in either.

The little fever of envy, once caught, is the ruin of all happiness.

I was treated once more to a novelist's valuable lesson, however—in apprehending that one's perception of plot and character are influenced entirely by one's own experience. To hear Mary tell the story of our Christmas at The Vyne, one would have thought that she was hounded by violence from first to last—perceived more than anybody of the nature of the probable murderer—and barely escaped with her life. It was a lesson in writerly humility. We are each the heroines of our own lives.

As it was, I constrained myself to say only what was both honest and inoffensive—and thus, said very little at all.

Topsy-turvy is the only order of the day—or night, as it happens—on the Eve of the Epiphany. My brother is not far wrong in seeing Twelfth Night as a threat to decency. For women are expected to dress as men, and men, as women. Children hold court at the Children’s Ball, with their parents as toad-eating subjects. Servants are permitted to sauce their masters. Grooms may kiss the Lady of the Manor—provided they present a sprig of mistletoe.

As the parlour clock began to strike twelve, I opened the kitchen door to let the Old Year out. Then I hurried along the passage to the parsonage hall, and on the stroke of twelve, threw wide the front door to let the New Year in.

Novelists, I reflected, are rather apt to pass in silence over the rigours of travel. Our heroines are generally accommodated in private carriages, complete with fur lap robes, enormous muffs, and hot bricks to their feet; they travel post, with private teams of horses at every stage; and invariably are pursued by a rogue so handsome and dangerous as to render them insensible for the better part of the journey.