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Thread: Austen and A Life Of Disappointment

  1. #1
    Mr RonPrice Ron Price's Avatar
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    Arrow Austen and A Life Of Disappointment

    PASSED AND UNPASSED TESTS

    We are informed by the author on page one of this latest biography of Jane Austen, the great nineteenth century British novelist, that she was “pretty”, “attractive”, “both in appearance and personality.” We are also informed in the preface that Austen had “a life of disappointment and frustration.” We are also told why this was so. -Ron Price with thanks to Valerie Grosvenor Myer, Obstinate Heart: Jane Austen A Biography, Michael O’Mara Books Ltd., 1997, Preface and p.1.


    Price, too, had a life of disappointment and frustration which he has described in the several genres of his autobiographical work Pioneering Over Three Epochs and which any reader can read about in their periodic and not infrequent occurances over his life. But there is little question that in overview he also enjoyed “a fundamentally assured and happy way of life.”1 Of course, it was a life not without anxieties, disappointments, trials, tests and periods of deep grief and depression. But in retrospect, in viewing the totality of his days he clearly indicated on many occasions that he had had a happy and confident life experience. In achieving this there had been many keen spiritual tests, only some of which he had passed. -Ron Price with thanks to the 1Universal House of Justice, Wellspring of Guidance, p.18.

    Sometimes one sits in the cool of the garden
    at peace with the world and oneself.
    A jet may pass slowly, silently, through the
    distant blue sky. One feels at ease with its
    smallness, its small angular place on the horizon.
    Then there are the heart-rendering shocks
    of depression, of anxiety, of unfullfilled desires,
    of a broken marriage, of anticipations in fear and
    tension. Such a vast collection of moments and
    hours, days and years, of deep grief, pleasure and
    joy, of tests passed and unpassed, in these transition
    years of a life left behind and now its traces, traces,
    its days gone swiftly by swift as the twinkling of an eye,
    with celestial blessings1 to come, in an ocean of light2.

    Ron Price
    3 June 1999

    1 Universal House of Justice, Ridvan Message BE156.
    2 ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Memorials of the Faithful, USA, 1970, p.23.
    Ron Price is a Canadian who has been living in Australia for 42 years(in 2013). He is married to a Tasmanian and has been for 37 years after 8 years in a first marriage. At the age of 69 he now spends most of his time as an author and writer, poet and publisher. editor and researcher, online blogger, essayist, journalist and engaging in independent scholarship. He has been associated with the Baha'i Faith for 60 years and a member for 53 years.cool:

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    Were you in a literary profession or do you just dabble in it? I am a student of science who was content reading Agatha Christie's before I discovered other books and fell in love with some of them. One of them is by an Indian author (my fellow countryman) called The God of Small Things, which I would recommend to any reader. Another is The Man Within by Graham Greene. I live in Canada, btw, and am an expatriate like you.

  3. #3
    Mr RonPrice Ron Price's Avatar
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    Sorry for taking nearly two years to reply.let me answer your question by posting a little background of the last 20 years about myself(if you still are on this site).-Ron
    _________________
    1999-2007-Writer/Poet/Retired Teacher: George Town Tasmania
    2002-2005-Program Presenter, City Park Radio, Launceston
    1999-2004-Tutor and/or President: George Town School for Seniors Inc
    1988-1999 -Lecturer in General Studies and Human Services
    West Australian Department of Training
    1986-1987 -Acting Lecturer in Management Studies and Co-ordinator of
    Further Education Unit at Hedland College in South Hedland, WA.
    Ron Price is a Canadian who has been living in Australia for 42 years(in 2013). He is married to a Tasmanian and has been for 37 years after 8 years in a first marriage. At the age of 69 he now spends most of his time as an author and writer, poet and publisher. editor and researcher, online blogger, essayist, journalist and engaging in independent scholarship. He has been associated with the Baha'i Faith for 60 years and a member for 53 years.cool:

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