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"I prefer walking": Jane Austen and "the pleasantest part of the day". (The Country and the City).

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From: Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal
Date: 20010101
Author:Palmer, Sally

"JANE AUSTEN'S WORLD is one of interiors," asserts David Selwyn (89). This observation is only partially true. Although Regency women of the gentry were largely confined to home and carriage, to Austen herself, as well as to her fictional heroines, the most enjoyable and significant moments of life were spent not indoors but "walking out." In contrast to the immobility of female life inside four walls, the daily walk, whether sociable or solitary, is shown in Austen's letters and novels to be a valuable, even treasured, habit. Austen would contend that walking has a salutary, ...

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