“What are men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport we shall spend! And when we do return, it shall not be like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of any thing. We will know where we have gone—we will recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations….”

—from Pride and Prejudice, Volume 2, Chapter 4

Last week I spent a couple of hours in Banff, Alberta, and naturally I thought of what Elizabeth Bennet says about mountains in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice when she accepts an invitation to travel with her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, possibly as far as the Lakes.

Today is the 199th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death. She died in Winchester, at the age of 41, on July 18, 1817.