P.S. re Never had the wit of Dr. Johnson been directed in a manner so little agreeable to Jane Austen

My responses to Nancy Mayer's response to me:

[Nancy] "Why do you think Jane Austen was incensed at what Samuel Johnson said? perhaps she just rolled her eyes at the way men deceived themselves. How could intelligent men be so dense?"

Because it was not just a matter of men deceiving themselves, with adverse consequences for themselves. It was about men deceiving themselves, with WOMEN bearing the entire brunt of men's self deception! My interpretations of Sir Thomas in MP are precisely in that vein! Sir Thomas thinks of himself as a fine upstanding moral Christian gentleman. That's the problem!

"I just don't see her wasting her time or energy on things she couldn't change."

And that is precisely what I will be demonstrating in less than a week in Portland--that quite the opposite of wasting of time on things she could not change, she belived that a covert attack was the only feasible and survivable one, and was infintely better than the passive acceptance of cruel and damaging unfairness in law, custom, religious doctrine, and gender politics.

If you were correct, then she would not have done what I have uncovered. THAT would have been the true absurdity, for her to do all of what I have found with no purpose whatsoever.

Cheers, ARNIE