however, into these deeper recesses of the heart must be given, when we
come to speak of her death.




CHAPTER VI.


_Habits of Composition resumed after a long interval--First
publication--The interest taken by the Author in the success of her
Works_.

It may seem extraordinary that Jane Austen should have written so little
during the years that elapsed between leaving Steventon and settling at
Chawton; especially when this cessation from work is contrasted with her
literary activity both before and after that period. It might rather
have been expected that fresh scenes and new acquaintance would have
called forth her powers; while the quiet life which the family led both
at Bath and Southampton must have afforded abundant leisure for
composition; but so it was that nothing which I know of, certainly
nothing which the public have seen, was completed in either of those
places. I can only state the fact, without assigning any cause for it;
but as soon as she was fixed in her second home, she resumed the habits
of composition which had been formed in her first, and continued them to
the end of her life. The first year of her residence at Chawton seems to
have been devoted to revising and preparing for the press 'Sense and
Sensibility,' and 'Pride and Prejudice'; but between February 1811 and
August 1816, she began and completed 'Mansfield Park,' 'Emma,' and
'Persuasion,' so that the last five years of her life produced the same