How is a lady beautiful at 18, but ugly by 26? I know we are to believe the years had been hard on Anne, but they had not been physically hard on her. She was well cared for (in a financial sense at least), did not physically labor, presumably ate nutritiously, had neither gained nor lost significant weight. So what can Austen mean?

If she’s speaking from a purely internal/emotional perspective, well, sad people can be beautiful too. What does she mean? This is bothering me a bit on this reread, maybe because I’m now in my 30s and it is outrageous to think a woman could lose her youth by 26 without some type of physical illness or addiction issue coming into play.