《The Letters of Jane Austen 》：PR

Selected from the compilation of her great nephew,Edward,Lord Brodboune

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Jane Austen,A great writer

THE recent cult （狂热，热潮） for Miss Austen, which has resulted in no less than ten new editions of her novels within a decade and three memoirs by different hands within as many years, have made the facts of her life familiar to most readers.

It was a short life, and an uneventful （平静无波的）one as viewed from the standpoint of our modern times, when steam and electricity have linked together the ends of the earth, and the very air seems teeming （丰富，拥挤）with news, agitations （煽动，鼓动，搅乱）, discussions.

We have barely time to recover our breath between post and post;and the morning paper with its statements of disaster and its hints of still greater evils to be, is scarcely out-lived, when, lo!

in comes the evening issue, contradicting the news of the morning, to be sure, but full of omens （征兆，预兆）and auguries （占卜，预言）of its own to strew （撒满，散播）our pillows with the seed of wakefulness.