tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1436417288060370638.post1501862449181583383..comments2024-01-29T03:20:32.291-05:00Comments on ...... SHARP ELVES SOCIETY ...... Jane Austen's Shadow Stories: The Connected Zen Buddhist Aphorisms of Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde & HL MenckenArnie Perlsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01720424361279466002noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1436417288060370638.post-85221362724539375282017-05-21T12:02:43.897-04:002017-05-21T12:02:43.897-04:00A week ago I finished Siddhartha by Herman Hesse a...A week ago I finished Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and it hit me that maybe Jane Austen was aware of the Buddhist philosophy and the concept of knowing yourself once you understand your surroundings/people who surround you. <br />In chapter 36 Elizabeth Bennet receives a letter written by Darcy explaining his reasons to separate Bingley and Jane and the reasons for his grudge with Wickham. After she reads the letter she says: <br />“How despicably have I acted!” she cried; “I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable distrust. How humiliating is this discovery! yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself.” <br />The last sentence, she has put aside her ego and has empathised with Darcy's problems. She can begin to understand herself because she understands the other.<br />We don't know for sure if she read any Buddhist text, but it looks like she did. If not, she was in possession of an outstanding emotional intelligence, which, as you have mentioned in your post, could be seen in more than one novel. She was generous even with those characters who were not ready to grow emotionally. Rousihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02497093120367436550noreply@blogger.com