From: Julian Pilkington-Sterne
To: Maja Jović
My dear Miss Jović,
I have reflected carefully upon your last message, and while I accept, readily and without reservation, your superior command of literary classification, I find myself compelled to make a modest defence. You suggest Persuasion as the ideal expression of feeling restrained, postponed, and dignified by patience. I admire this greatly. Truly.
Yet I cannot help but wonder whether such restraint, however elegant, risks becoming a kind of emotional abdication. The Brontës, Emily in particular, understood something rather different: that passion, once felt, does not always submit to civility; that it may rage, misunderstand, and wound before it ever redeems. It is untidy. It is excessive. But it is honest.
I hope you will forgive me if I confess that I find such honesty… compelling.
Yours,
Julian Pilkington-Sterne
Re: Literary Observances (Further Thoughts)
From: Maja Jović
To: Julian Pilkington-Sterne
Mr Pilkington-Sterne,
I appreciate your candour, though I must gently resist the implication that emotional restraint is a failure of courage. Austen does not deny feeling; she disciplines it. She recognises that unchecked passion may be sincere, yes—but sincerity alone does not render it wise, nor kind. Emily Brontë’s characters burn brightly, but they also leave devastation in their wake. One might admire the flame while still declining to place one’s hand in it. You speak of honesty as though it were synonymous with intensity. I would argue that true honesty often lies in knowing when not to speak.
Respectfully,
M. Jović
Re: Literary Observances (A Clarification)
From: Julian Pilkington-Sterne
To: Maja Jović
Miss Jović,
I fear we are no longer speaking solely of books. You are right: the Brontës scorch the earth. But Austen’s world, however refined, depends upon silence so carefully maintained that one wonders how many truths perish quietly in its keeping. Is it always virtuous to wait? Or does waiting sometimes become a means of self-protection masquerading as principle? I ask this not as a provocateur, but as someone who has often erred on the side of saying too much, too soon—yet who wonders whether that failing is preferable to never speaking at all.
Forgive my frankness.
I assure you it is not lightly offered.
J.P-S
Re: Literary Observances (And Their Limits)
From: Maja Jović
To: Julian Pilkington-Sterne
Mr Pilkington-Sterne,
You are correct. We are no longer speaking solely of books. You admire the Brontës because their characters announce themselves without apology. I admire Austen because her characters understand the cost of doing so. It is easy to mistake urgency for truth, and volume for depth. What you describe as silence, I would call discernment. Not every feeling demands an audience. Not every impulse improves by being aired. And yet (you see how easily one concedes ground when conversation strays from novels) there are moments when restraint becomes its own kind of fear. I suspect we differ not in what we feel, but in how safe we believe it is to reveal it.
Yours,
Maja
Re: Literary Observances (One Last Thought)
From: Julian Pilkington-Sterne
To: Maja Jović
Maja,
If that is so, if our difference lies not in feeling, but in courage, then I find myself wondering whether the question is not Austen or Brontë, but rather:
Who is brave enough to speak first, and who must decide whether they wish to listen?
I will say no more on the matter, lest I prove your point by excess.
But I hope you will not think less of me for preferring a storm to a calm whose price is silence.
With sincerity,
Julian
(Maja begins to type a reply. She stops. Deletes it. Starts again.)
(She does not send anything that night.)
“Tennis belongs to the individualistic past – a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.” (Jacques Barzun)
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