Jane Austen meets Julian of Norwich

Last evening after dinner, J and I each took up the Jane Austen novels we're reading (Emma and Persuasion, respectively). It's more fun to read these novels if you're Anglican, I'd think, as Austen's writings mention Michaelmas often!

I found these lines, from Captain Wentworth: "'Here is a nut,' said he, catching one down from an upper bough. 'To exemplify, -- a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn. Not a puncture, not a weak spot any where. -- This nut,' he continued, with playful solemnity, -- 'while so many of its brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel-nut can be supposed capable of.'" -- Austen, Persuasion

Meanwhile, I tried to recall these lines from Dame Julian: "And in this he showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed to me, and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought: What can this be? I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that because of its littleness, it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God." --Julian of Norwich, Showings

And all manner of things shall be well.