Mansfield Park and Bush again, and Jane Austen

Here I had a little fun with a few sentences of Mansfield Park. I never got around to making a(n even) better comparison:

Mrs. Rushworth, a well–meaning, civil, prosing, pompous woman, who thought nothing of consequence, but as it related to her own and her son’s concerns [...]

puts one in mind of Barbara Bush's comment

But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer.

Also,

It is quite settled. I am to leave Mansfield Park, and go to the White House, I suppose, as soon as she is removed there.

is amusing.


Also I should note that the last section of Chapter 11 is as beautifully-written a passage as I've read anywhere - the characterization and description are just perfect. It's with some mortification that I recognize this, having failed to on two previous readings. Jane Austen only grows deeper.