The Pre-Victorian Blogger

For my birthday yesterday I received a delightful book called Voices from the World of Jane Austen. Among all the authors that I have loved and revered and indulged in, Jane Austen remains the constant favorite for her irrepressible wit and social commentary, heightened by conflicting sometimes with her heartfelt desire to be a moral, just, and good.

I knew, of course, that a woman such as Austen -- in her social position and period -- would have spent a great deal of time writing letters. It was the only mode of communication for people who did not have the money to travel far or frequently, and Austen had a large and scattered family. I read a passage last night that described her and her favorite sister Cassandra corresponding every single day if they were in different places, and I wondered idly of what they wrote about. Bits of Jane's humor infuse her letters, her ability to see the absurdities of others people, but that is the character of the letters. Their content is of course what you'd expect: clothes, social engagements, daily activities, progress on the piano or with a book, changes in fashion, family news ... in short, the very thing that blogs today are made of.

I am new to the blogging world, and have been discovering many excellent blogs (which I prefer to call columns or journals or even diaries in the very old-fashioned sense of the word) and some very tedious ones. It amazes me that people get up every day to tell their friends and strangers the minutia of their lives--activities, thoughts, interactions, trials, annoyances, hobbies, and discoveries--in short, the very things that letter-writers in the pre-telephone age might have composed on a daily basis.

I needn't even go so far back. I think one of the reasons I decided to start a blog is that all my pen-and-paper correspondents have fallen by the wayside. Ten years ago, when I moved overseas, when the Internet was less accessible and the telephone prohibitively pricey, probably my favorite activity was sitting in a coffee shop with blank paper and a nice, fat letter to respond to. I loved writing letters. I still do, in fact. But all my friends gradually stopped responding, many of them switching to email and some disappearing altogether.

For some reason email can't fully replace the sweep of ink across the page for me. My entire tone is different when I write an email, my thoughts less profound and my observations more shallow. The contact is certainly fleeting in a way that it wasn't when I and a correspondent made a commitment to set aside time to write a letter and put a stamp on an envelope. I miss it.

A blog isn't the perfect medium for me, either, but it allows a freedom that isn't entirely accessible when writing a different email to every person I happen to correspond with. Most of my few entries I have, in fact, started with pen to paper, as I do most of my writing. And, given the lack of people who would ever write letters back to me if I sent them, a blog is an ideal medium for an introvert, where I can muse without engaging in the high-strung jumpiness of modern social contact.

It's nice to think, though, that Jane Austen, despite all she would have deplored in modern life, would probably have adapted to and delighted in this outlet for thought, creativity, and contact with the world both near and far.