Interior Decoration

As for ourselves we’re very well;

As unaffected prose will tell. –

Cassandra’s pen will paint our state,

The many comforts that await

Our Chawton home, how much we find

Already in it, to our mind;

And how convinced, that when complete

It will all other Houses beat

That ever have been made or mended,

With rooms concise, or rooms distended.

You’ll find us very snug next year,

For now it often does delight us

To fancy them just over-right-us. –

Jane Austen in a letter to her brother Francis Austen, 26 July 1809