March 22 - Saint Jane of the Bourgeois Supremacy

When Rev. Addison G. Fitzwilliam entered the ballroom, Maria leaned over to her sister and whispered, He’s got it all¾a Stilton carriage, ten thousand a year, a home as beautiful as Prince George, and a Cambridge degree.  I bet he’ll ask you to dance.  Lizzy B. blushed.  It’s not as if she weren’t attracted to these attributes, even succumbing during her solitary nights to the common temptation of composing elaborately developed conjugal fantasies, in which repartee and evenings of music filled a house built from camaraderie, respect and laughter, but that these longings in themselves seemed insufficient; it was as if nature had placed within her not only the respectable ambitions of any normal woman, but something else she couldn’t quite name, as indefinable as the first soft thoughts that gently pull a dreaming sleeper into the day’s routine.  Could Addison Fitzwilliam be so extraordinary as to fulfill these more intangible longings?

It is a truth grudgingly acknowledged that a man in almost any situation, assuming he’s negotiated the rage of youth, his upbringing and temperament incline him, his sexual orientation and spiritual convictions permit him, the cultural context in which he was formed encourages it, depending on his particular configuration of sadism and masochism, whether or not his fate is so constructed, if he tends to believe the romantic education society carefully instills within him, perhaps even based on his degree of fame, fortune, luck, fortitude and manner of diet, will want a good wife.  A woman, on the other hand, while she also has the urge, it rests on a different foundation¾his is for the dark necessity and hers is for the convenience and the game.  She sees marriage as a pleasant plant on the windowsill of a living room; he sees it as the cornerstone of his identity.

So it was that Addy, as he was called by friends, initially resisted the edifice of monogamous charm, wearing the fashion of arrogance instead of tact and confidence, while Lizzy followed the rules for uncaught brides, seeming to be disinterested while during the entire courtship pining after him to such an extent she’d see mirages of him in her milk.  But things being what they are and time known to be parsimonious with the only gift it has, the two lovers achieved a wedded state and from this most fortuitous union brought into society on December 16 1775 a daughter, whom they named St. Jane after a medieval martyr they had heard about from the vicar’s uncle.  The product of this particularly well constituted consummation grew up seeking a husband who was as intelligent, witty, talented, attractive, astute and self-sufficient as herself, and remained a spinster until she died.

She departed this Life on July 18 1817, after a long illness supported with the impatience and compulsions of a Christian.  The detached indifference of her heart, the perspicacity of her wit, and the amused causticity of her mind obtained the regard or fear of all who knew her and the warmest envy of her intimate connections.  They knew their loss to be irreparable, but in their deepest affliction were consoled by a dubious hope that this pretty, silly, affected, husband-hunting butterfly wrung more drama out of morality than most other saints get from terrorism, murder or mayhem.  St. Jane was buried in Winchester Cathedral and raised to sainthood on March 22 1845.  Let us honor the saint today with our souls and flesh.