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The Novels of Jane Austen - GH Lewes · Timeless Jane Austen Stories

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  Speaker 1: The Novels of Jane Austen by G. H. Lewis, Section one.
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  Speaker 1: For nearly half a century, England has possessed an artist
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  Speaker 1: of the highest rank, whose works have been extensively circulated,
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  Speaker 1: whose merits have been keenly relished, and whose name is
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  Speaker 1: still unfamiliar in men's mouths. One would suppose that great
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  Speaker 1: excellence and real success would inevitably produce a loud reputation.
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  Speaker 1: Yet in this particular case, such a supposition would be
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  Speaker 1: singularly mistaken. So far from the name of miss Austen
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  Speaker 1: being constantly cited among the glories of our literature, there
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  Speaker 1: are many well informed persons who would be surprised to
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  Speaker 1: hear it mentioned among the best writers. If we look
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  Speaker 1: at Hazlit's account of the English novelists in his Lectures
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  Speaker 1: on the Comic Writers, we find Missus Ragcley, if Missus Inchbold,
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  Speaker 1: Missus Opie, miss Burney, and miss Eteworth receiving due honor
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  Speaker 1: and more than his due, but no hint that Miss
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  Speaker 1: Austen has written a line. If we cast a glance
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  Speaker 1: over the list of English authors republished by Bodri, Gannani
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  Speaker 1: and Tarschnitz, we find there writers of the very smallest pretensions,
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  Speaker 1: but not the author of Emma and Mansfield Park. Mention
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  Speaker 1: the name of miss Austen to a cultivated reader, and
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  Speaker 1: it is probable that the sparkle in his eye will
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  Speaker 1: at once flash forth sympathetic admiration, and he will perhaps relate,
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  Speaker 1: as Scott, Waiteley and Macaulay prize this gifted woman and
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  Speaker 1: how the English public has brought her works. But beyond
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  Speaker 1: this literary circle we find the name almost entirely unknown,
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  Speaker 1: and not simply unknown in the sense of having no
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  Speaker 1: acknowledged place among the remarkable writers, but unremembered even in
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  Speaker 1: connections with the very works which are themselves remembered. We
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  Speaker 1: have met with many persons who remember to have read
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  Speaker 1: Pride and Prejudice or Mansfield Park, but who had altogether
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  Speaker 1: forgotten by whom they were written. Miss Austen. Oh, yes,
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  Speaker 1: she translates from the German, doesn't she is not an
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  Speaker 1: uncommon question a vague familiarity, with the name of missus
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  Speaker 1: Austen A wes t I n being uppermost from time
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  Speaker 1: to time. Also, the tiresome twaddle of lady novelists is
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  Speaker 1: praised by certain critics as exhibiting the quiet truthfulness of
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  Speaker 1: Miss Austen.
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  Speaker 2: A wes t I n.
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  Speaker 1: That Miss Austen is an artist of high rank in
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  Speaker 1: the most rigorous sense of the word is an opinion,
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  Speaker 1: which in the present article we shall endeavor to substantiate.
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  Speaker 1: That her novels are very ex extensibly read is not
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  Speaker 1: an opinion but a demonstrated fact. And with this fact
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  Speaker 1: we couple a paradoxical fact of a fine artist. Tis
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  Speaker 1: works are widely known and enjoyed, being all but unknown
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  Speaker 1: to the English public and quite unknown abroad. The causes
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  Speaker 1: which have kept her name in comparative obscurity all the time,
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  Speaker 1: that her works have been extensively read, and her reputation
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  Speaker 1: every year has been settling itself more firmly in the
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  Speaker 1: minds of the better critics, may well be worth an inquiry.
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  Speaker 1: It is intelligible how the blaze of Scott should have
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  Speaker 1: thrown her in the shade at first beside his frescoes.
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  Speaker 1: Her works are but miniatures, exquisite as miniatures, yet incapable
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  Speaker 1: of ever filling that space in the public eye which
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  Speaker 1: was filled by his massive and masterly pictures. But although
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  Speaker 1: it is intelligible why Scott should have eclipsed her. It
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  Speaker 1: does not at first so easy to understand why miss
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  Speaker 1: Edgeworth should have done so. Miss Austen indeed has taken
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  Speaker 1: her revenge with posterity. She will doubtless be read as
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  Speaker 1: long as English novels find readers, whereas miss Edgeworth is
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  Speaker 1: already little more than a name and only finds a
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  Speaker 1: public for her children's books. But contemporaries, for the most
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  Speaker 1: part judged otherwise, and in consequence, miss Edgeworth's name has
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  Speaker 1: become familiar all over the Three Kingdoms. Scott, indeed, and
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  Speaker 1: Archbishop Waitley at once perceived the superiority of Miss Austen
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  Speaker 1: to her more fortunate rival. Footnote see the notices in
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  Speaker 1: Lockhart's Life of Scott and the reviews in the Courtly
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  Speaker 1: number twenty seven by Scott and number forty eight by
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  Speaker 1: doctor Waiteley, and a footnote. But the Courtly tells us
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  Speaker 1: that quote her fame has grown fastest since she died.
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  Speaker 1: There was no a clar about her first appearance. The
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  Speaker 1: public took time to make up its mind, and she,
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  Speaker 1: not having staked her hopes of happiness on success or failure,
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  Speaker 1: was content to wait for the decision of her claims.
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  Speaker 1: Those claims have been long established beyond a question, but
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  Speaker 1: the merit of first recognizing them belongs less to the
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  Speaker 1: reviewers than to the general readers. There is comfort in
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  Speaker 1: this for authors who see the applause of reviewers lavished
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  Speaker 1: on works of gerish effect. Nothing that is really good
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  Speaker 1: can fail at last in securing its audience, and it
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  Speaker 1: is evident that Miss Austen's works must possess elements of
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  Speaker 1: indestructible excellence, since, though never popular, she survives writers who
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  Speaker 1: were very popular, and forty years after her death gains
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  Speaker 1: more recognition than she gained when alive.
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  Speaker 2: Those who like ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: Have read and re read her work several times can
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  Speaker 1: understand this duration and this increase of her fame. But
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  Speaker 1: the fact that her name is not even now a
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  Speaker 1: household word proves that her excellence must be of an
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  Speaker 1: unobtrusive kind, shunning the glare of popularity, not appealing to
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  Speaker 1: temporary tastes and vulgar sympathies, but demanding culture in its admirers.
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  Speaker 1: Johnson wittily says, of somebody, sir, he managed to make
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  Speaker 1: himself public without making himself known. Miss Austen has made
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  Speaker 1: herself known without making herself public. There is no portrait
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  Speaker 1: of her in the shop windows, indeed no portrait of.
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  Speaker 2: Her at all.
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  Speaker 1: But she has cherished in the memories of those whose
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  Speaker 1: memory is fame. As one symptom of neglect, we have
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  Speaker 1: to notice the scantiness of all biographical details about her.
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  Speaker 1: Of Miss Burney, who is no longer read nor much
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  Speaker 1: worth reading, we have biography and despair of Miss Bronte,
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  Speaker 1: whom we fear will soon cease to find readers. There
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  Speaker 1: is also ample biography, but of Miss Austen we have
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  Speaker 1: little information. In the first volume of the edition published
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  Speaker 1: by mister Bentley, five charming volumes to be had for
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  Speaker 1: fifteen shinnings, there is a meager notice from which we
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  Speaker 1: draw the following details. Jane Austen was born on the
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  Speaker 1: sixteenth of December seventeen seventy five at Steventon in Hampshire.
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  Speaker 1: Her father was the rector of the parish during forty years,
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  Speaker 1: and then quitted it for Bath. He was a scholar
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  Speaker 1: and fond of general that returned, probably paid special attention
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  Speaker 1: to his daughter's culture in Bath. Jane only lived four years,
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  Speaker 1: but that was often more than enough for her observing humour,
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  Speaker 1: as we see in Northanger Abbey. After the death of
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  Speaker 1: her father, she removed with her mother and sister to Southampton,
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  Speaker 1: and finally, an eighteen hundred nine, settled in the pleasant
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  Speaker 1: village of Chawton in Hampshire, from whence she issued her novels.
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  Speaker 1: Some of these had been written long before but were withheld,
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  Speaker 1: probably because of her great diffidence. She had a high
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  Speaker 1: standard of excellence and knew how prone self love is
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  Speaker 1: to sophisticate. So great was this distrust that the charming
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  Speaker 1: novel Northanger Abbey, although the first in point of time,
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  Speaker 1: did not appear in print until after her death. And
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  Speaker 1: this work, which the Courtly Review pronounces the weakest of
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  Speaker 1: the series, a verdict only intelligible to us, because in
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  Speaker 1: the same breath Persuasion is called the best, is not
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  Speaker 1: only written with unflagging vivacity, but contains two characters no
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  Speaker 1: one else could have equalled, Henry Tilney and John Thorpe.
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  Speaker 1: Sense and Sensibility was the first to appear, and that
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  Speaker 1: was in eighteen hundred eleven. She had laid aside a
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  Speaker 1: sum of money to meet what she expected would be
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  Speaker 1: her loss on that publication, and quote could scarcely believe
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  Speaker 1: her great good fortunemen had produced a clear profit of
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty pounds. Between eighteen eleven and eighteen
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  Speaker 1: sixteen appeared her three Chay Douv, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park,
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  Speaker 1: and Emma. The applause these met with gratified her, of course,
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  Speaker 1: but she steadily resisted every attempt to quote make a
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  Speaker 1: lion of her, and never publicly avowed her authorship, although
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  Speaker 1: she spoke freely of it in private. Soon after the
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  Speaker 1: publication of Emma, symptoms of an incurable decline appeared. In
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  Speaker 1: the month of May eighteen seventeen. She was removed to
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  Speaker 1: Winchester in order that constant medical advice might be secured.
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  Speaker 1: She seems to have suffered much, but suffered it with resignation.
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  Speaker 1: Her last words were, I want nothing but death. This
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  Speaker 1: was on Friday, the eighteenth of July eighteen seventeen, presently
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  Speaker 1: after she expired in the arms of her sister. Her
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  Speaker 1: body lies in Winchester Cathedral. One might gather from her
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  Speaker 1: works that she was personally attractive, and we are told
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  Speaker 1: in the memoir that this was the case.
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  Speaker 2: Quote.
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  Speaker 1: Her stature rather exceeded the middle height Her carriage and
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  Speaker 1: deportment were quiet but graceful. Her features were separately good.
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  Speaker 1: Their assemblage produced an unrivaled expression of that cheerfulness, sensibility,
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  Speaker 1: and benevolence which were her real characteristics. Her complexion was
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  Speaker 1: of the finest texture. It might, with truth be said
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  Speaker 1: that her eloquent blood spoke through her modest cheek. Her
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  Speaker 1: voice was sweet. She delivered herself with fluency and precision. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: she was formed for elegant and rational society, excelling in
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  Speaker 1: conversation as much as in composition. End, we may picture
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  Speaker 1: her as something like her own, sprightly, natural, but by
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  Speaker 1: no means perfect, Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, one
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  Speaker 1: of the few heroines one would seriously like to marry.
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  Speaker 1: We have no means of ascertaining how many copies of
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  Speaker 1: these exquisite pictures of English life have been circulated, but
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  Speaker 1: we know that the number is very large. Twice or
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  Speaker 1: thrice of the Railway editions been out of print, and
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  Speaker 1: mister Bentley's edition is stereotyped. This success implies a hold
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  Speaker 1: on the public all the more certainly because the popularity
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  Speaker 1: is quote not loud, but deep. We have reread them
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  Speaker 1: all four times, or, rather, to speak more accurately, they
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  Speaker 1: have been read aloud to us, one after the other.
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  Speaker 1: And when it is considered, what a severe test that is?
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  Speaker 1: How the reading aloud permits no skipping, no evasion of weariness,
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  Speaker 1: but brings both merits and defects into stronger relief by
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  Speaker 1: forcing the mind to dwell upon them. There surely is
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  Speaker 1: something significant of genuine excellence when both reader and listener
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  Speaker 1: finish their fourth reading with increase of admiration. The test
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  Speaker 1: of reading aloud applied to Jane Eyre, which had only
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  Speaker 1: been read once before, very considerably modified our opinion of
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  Speaker 1: that remarkable work, and to confess the truth, modified it
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  Speaker 1: so far that we feel as if we should never
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  Speaker 1: open the book again. The same test applied to such
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  Speaker 1: an old favorite as Tom Jones was also much more
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  Speaker 1: damaging than we should have anticipated, bringing the defects and
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  Speaker 1: shortcomings of that much overrated work into very distinct prominence
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  Speaker 1: and lessening our pleasure in its effective But on the
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  Speaker 1: whole course, Painting Fielding has greater vigor of mind, greater experience,
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  Speaker 1: greater attainments, and a more effective miss on Sen than
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  Speaker 1: Miss Austen, But he is not only immeasurably inferior to
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  Speaker 1: her in the highest department of art, the representation of
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  Speaker 1: a character, but is also inferior to her, we think
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  Speaker 1: in real humor, and in spite of his construction, of
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  Speaker 1: which the critics justly speak in praise, he is inferior
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  Speaker 1: to her in the construction and conduct of his story.
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  Speaker 1: Being more commonplace and less artistic. He has more invention
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  Speaker 1: of situation and more vigor, but less truth and subtlety.
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  Speaker 1: This is, at any rate, our individual judgment, which the
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  Speaker 1: reader is at liberty to modify as he pleases. In
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  Speaker 1: the course of the fifteen years which have elapsed since
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  Speaker 1: we first read Emma and Mansfield Park, we have outlived
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  Speaker 1: many admirations, but we have only learned to admire Miss
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  Speaker 1: Austen more. And as we are perfectly aware of why
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  Speaker 1: we so much admire her, we may endeavor to communicate
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  Speaker 1: these reasons to the reader. End of Section one. If
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  Speaker 1: there's probably fuel dispute, the art of the novelist be
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  Speaker 1: the representation of human life by means of a story,
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  Speaker 1: And if the truest representation effected by the least expenditure
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  Speaker 1: of means constitutes the highest claim of art. Then we
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  Speaker 1: say that Miss Austen has carried the art to a
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  Speaker 1: point of excellence, surpassing that reached by any of her rivals.
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  Speaker 1: Observe we say the art. We do not say that
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  Speaker 1: she equals many of them in the interest excited by
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  Speaker 1: the art. That is a separate question. It is probable,
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  Speaker 1: nay certain, that the interest excited by the Antigony is
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  Speaker 1: very inferior to that excited by Black Eyed Susan. It
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  Speaker 1: is probable that Uncle Tom and Dread surpassed an interest
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  Speaker 1: to the Antiquary or Ivanhoe. It is probable that Jane
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  Speaker 1: Ey have produced a far greater excitement than the vigor
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  Speaker 1: of Wakefield. But the critic justly disregards these fervid elements
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  Speaker 1: of immediate success and fixes his attention mainly on the art,
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  Speaker 1: which is of eternal substance. Miss Austen has nothing fervid
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  Speaker 1: in her works. She is not capable of producing a
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  Speaker 1: profound agitation in the mind. In many respects. This is
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  Speaker 1: an imitation of her powers, a deduction from her claims.
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  Speaker 1: But while other writers have had more power over the emotions,
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  Speaker 1: more vivid imaginations, deeper sensibilities, deeper insight, and more of
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  Speaker 1: what is properly called invention. No novelist has approached her
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  Speaker 1: in what we may style the economy of art by
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  Speaker 1: Witch is meant the easy adaptation of means to ends,
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  Speaker 1: with no aid from extraneous or superfluous elements. Indeed, paradoxical
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  Speaker 1: as the juxtaposition of the names may perhaps appear to
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  Speaker 1: those who have not reflected much on the subject, we
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  Speaker 1: venture to say that the only names we can place
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  Speaker 1: above miss Austen in respect of this economy of art
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  Speaker 1: are Sophocles and Moliere in le missentropes. And if any
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  Speaker 1: one had examined the terms of the definition, he will
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  Speaker 1: perceive that almost all defects in works of art arise
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  Speaker 1: from neglect of this economy. When the end is the
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  Speaker 1: representation of human nature in its familiar aspects, moving amid
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  Speaker 1: every day's scenes, the means must likewise be furnished from
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  Speaker 1: every day life. Romance and improbabilities must be banished as
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  Speaker 1: rigorously as the grotesque exaggeration of peculiar characteristics or the
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  Speaker 1: representation of abstract types. It is easy for an artist
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  Speaker 1: to choose the subject from every day life, but it
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  Speaker 1: is not easy for him so to represent the characters
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  Speaker 1: in their actions, that they shall be at once lifelike
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  Speaker 1: and interesting. Accordingly, whenever ordinary people are introduced, they're either
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  Speaker 1: made to speak a language never spoken out of books
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  Speaker 1: and to pursue conduct never observed in life, or else
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  Speaker 1: they are intolerably wearisome. But miss Austen is like Shakespeare.
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  Speaker 1: She makes her very noodles inexhaustibly amusing yet accurately real.
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  Speaker 1: We never tire of her characters. They become equal to
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  Speaker 1: actual experiences. They live with us and form perpetual topics
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  Speaker 1: of comment. We have so personal the dislike to missus
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  Speaker 1: Elton and Missus Norris, that it would gratify our savage
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  Speaker 1: feeling to hear of some calamity befalling them. We think
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  Speaker 1: of mister Collins and John Thorpe with such a mixture
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  Speaker 1: of ludicrous enjoyment and angry contempt, that we alternately long
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  Speaker 1: and dread to make their personal acquaintance. The heroines, at
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  Speaker 1: least Elizabeth Emmer and Catherine Morland are truly lovable flesh
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  Speaker 1: and blood young women, and the good people are all
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  Speaker 1: really good without being Goody her reverend critic in the
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  Speaker 1: Quarterly says quote, she herself compares her productions to a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of ivory two inches wide, worked upon the
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  Speaker 1: brush so fine that little effect is produced with much labor.
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  Speaker 1: It is so her portraits are perfect likenesses, admirably finished,
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  Speaker 1: many of them gems. But it is all miniature painting,
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  Speaker 1: and having satisfied herself with being inimitable in one line,
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  Speaker 1: she never essayed canvas and oils, never tried to hand
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  Speaker 1: at a majestic daub unquote.
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  Speaker 2: This is very true. It at once.
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  Speaker 1: Defines her position and lowers her claims. Whom we said
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  Speaker 1: that in the highest department of the novelist's art, namely
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  Speaker 1: the truthful representation of character, miss Austen was without a
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  Speaker 1: superior We ought to have added that in this department
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  Speaker 1: she did not choose the highest range. The truth and
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  Speaker 1: felicity of her delineations are exquisite, but the characters delineated
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  Speaker 1: are not of high rank. She belongs to the great dramatists,
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  Speaker 1: but her dramas are of a homely common quality. It
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: is obvious that the nature of the thing representabile determine
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: degrees in art. Raphael will always rank higher than Tenua Sophocles,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: and Shakespeare will never be lowered to the rank of lope,
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  Speaker 1: de vager and screabe. It is a greater effort of
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  Speaker 1: genius to produce a fine epic than a fine pastoral,
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  Speaker 1: a great drama than a perfect lyric. There is far
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: greater strain on the intellectual effort to create a brutus
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  Speaker 1: or an Othello than to create a vigor of Wakefield
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  Speaker 1: or a squire Western. The higher the aims, the greater
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  Speaker 1: is the strain, and nobler is success. These, it may
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  Speaker 1: be said, are truisms, and so they are. Yet they
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: need restatement from time to time, because men constantly forget
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  Speaker 1: that the dignity of a high aim cannot shed luster
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  Speaker 1: on an imperfect execution, though to some extent it may
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  Speaker 1: lessen the contempt which follows upon failure. It is only
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  Speaker 1: a success which can claim applause. Any fool can select
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  Speaker 1: a great subject, and in general it is the tendency
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  Speaker 1: of fools to two subjects which the strong feel to
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  Speaker 1: be too great. If a man can leap a five
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  Speaker 1: barred gait, we applaud his agility. But if he attempt
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  Speaker 1: it without a chance of success, the mud receives him,
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  Speaker 1: and we applaud the mud. This is too often forgotten
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  Speaker 1: by critics and artists in their grandiloquence about high art.
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  Speaker 1: No art can be high that is not good. A
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  Speaker 1: grand subject ceases to be grand when its treatment is feeble.
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  Speaker 1: It is a great mistake, as has been wittily said,
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  Speaker 1: to fancy yourself a great painter, because you paint with
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  Speaker 1: a big brush, and there are unhappily too many big
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  Speaker 1: brushes in the hands of incompetence. Poor Hayden was the
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  Speaker 1: type of the big brush school. He could not paint
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  Speaker 1: a small picture because he could not paint at all,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and he believed that in covering a vast area of
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  Speaker 1: canvas he was working in the grand style. In every
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: estimate of an artist's rank, we necessarily take into account
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the nature of the subject and the excellence of the execution.
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  Speaker 1: It is twenty times more difficult to write a fine
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: tragedy than a fine lyric, but it is more difficult
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  Speaker 1: to write a perfect lyric than a tolerable tragedy. And
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  Speaker 1: there was as much sense of sarcasm in Baranchet's reply
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  Speaker 1: when the tragic poet Vienna visited him in prison and suggested,
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  Speaker 1: and of course there would be volume of songs as
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  Speaker 1: the product of this leisure. Do you suppose, said baronet,
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  Speaker 1: that chanson are written as easily as tragedies. To return
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  Speaker 1: to Miss Austen, her delineation is unsurpassed, but the character
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: is delineated and never of a lofty or impassioned order,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and therefore make no demand on the highest faculties of
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the intellect. Such genius as hers is excessively rare, but
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: it is not the highest kind of genius. Marilla's peasant
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: boys are assuredly of far greater excellence than the Infant
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Christ's painted by all other painters except Raphael. But the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: divine children of the Madonna di San Sisto are immeasurably
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: beyond anything Marilla has painted. Miss Austen's two inch bit
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: of ivory is worth a gallery of canvas by eminent
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: r rays. But it is only a bit of ivory.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: After all, her two inches of ivory continues. The critic
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: recently quoted just describes their preparations for a tale in
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: three volumes. A village, two families connected together, three or
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: four interlopers, out of whom a to spring a little
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: trecasfri and by means of village or country town visiting
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and gossiping. A real plot shall think, and its rear
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: of darkness never be scattered till six pages off venus ellipses.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: The work is all done by half a dozen people.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: No person's scene or sentence is ever introduced needless to
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the matter in hand. No catastrophes, or discoveries or surprises
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: of a grand nature are allowed. Neither children nor fortunes
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: are found or lost by accident. The mind has never
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: taken off the level surface of life. The reader breakfasts, dines, walks,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and gossips with the various worthies till a process of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: transmutation takes place in him, and he absolutely fancies himself
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: one of the company ellipses. The secret is Miss Austin
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: was a thorough mistress in the knowledge of human character,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: how it is acted upon by education and circumstance, and how,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: when once formed, it shows itself through every hour of
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: every day and in every speech of every person. Her
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: conversations will retiresome but for this and her personages.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: The fellows whom.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: You may meet in the streets or drank tea with
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: a half an hour's notice, would excite no interest. But
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: in Miss Austen's hands we see into their hearts and hopes,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: their motives, their struggles within themselves, and a sympathy is
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: induced to which, if extended to daily life and the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: world at large, would make the reader a more amiable person.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: And we must think it that reader's own fault who
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: does not close her pages with more charity in his heart,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: towards unpretending, if prosing worth, with a higher estimation of
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: simple kindness and sincere good will, with a quickened sense
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of the duty of bearing and forbearing instic intercourse, and
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: of the pleasure of adding to the little comforts, even
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: of persons who are neither wits nor beauties.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: End of quote.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: It is worth remembering that this is the deliberate judgment
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of the present Archbishop of Dublin, and not a careless
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: verdict dropping from the pen of a facile reviewer. There
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: are two points in it to which a special attention
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: may be given, First the indication of Miss Austen's power
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: of representing life, and secondly, the indication of the effect
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: which her sympathy with ordinary life produces. We shall touch
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: on the latter point first, and we do so for
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the sake of introducing a striking passage from one of
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the works of mister George Eliot, a writer who seems
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to us inferior to Miss Austen in the art of
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: telling a story, and generally in what we have called
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the economy of art, equal in truthfulness, dramatic ventriloquism and humor,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and greatly superior in culture, in reach of mind and
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: depth of emotional sensibility. In the first of the scenes
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: of clerical life, there occurs this apology to the reader
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: quote the Reverend Amos Bartan, whose sad fortunes I have
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: undertaken to relate was you perceive in no respect and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: ideal or exceptional character. And perhaps I am doing a
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: bold thing to bespeak your sympathy on behalf of a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: man who was so very far from remarkable, a man
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no undertake
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: to crime within his breast, who had not the slightest
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably commonplace.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: He was not even in love, but it had that
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: complaint favorably many years ago. And not only un interesting character.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I think I hear a lady reader exclaim Missus Farthinger,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction, to whom
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery and murder and comedy. The
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: adventures of some personage is quite a character. But my
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: dear Madam, it is a very larger majority of your
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: fellow countrymen who are of this insignificant stamp. At least
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: eighty out of one hundred of your adult male fellow
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Britons returned in the last senses, are neither extraordinarily silly,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise. Their eyes are neither
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: They probably had no hair breadth escapes or thrilling adventures.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: of a volcano. They are simply are men of complexions,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: more or less money, whose conversation is more or less
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people, many of them,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: do the painful right. They have their unspoken sorrows and
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: their sacred joys, their hearts have perhaps gone out towards
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: their firstborn, and they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Nay, is there not a pathos.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: In their very insignificance, in our comparison of their dim
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that human
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: nature which they share. Depend upon it, you would gain
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: unspeakably if it would learn with me to see some
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: comedy lying in the experience of a human soul that
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: looks out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: a voice of quite ordinary tones.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: End of quote.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: But the real secret of miss Austen's success lies in
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: a having the exquisite and rare gift of dramatic creation
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: of character. Scott says of her, she had a talent
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: which is to me the most wonderful I ever met.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: With the big bow wow strain, I can do myself
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: like anyone now going. But the exquisite touch which renders
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the description and the sentiment, is denied me. What a
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: pity such a gifted creature died so early, unquote generously said,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: But high as the praise is, it is as much
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: below the real excellence of Miss Ostin, and as the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Big Baooi Strain is below the incomparable power of the
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Waverley novels. Scott felt, but did not define the excellence
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: of Miss Austen. The very word describing is altogether misplaced
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: and misleading. She seldom describes anything, and is not felicitous
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: when she attempts it. But instead of description, the common
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: and easy resource of novelists, she has the rare and
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: difficult art of dramatic presentation. Instead of telling us what
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: her characters are and what they feel, she presents the
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: people as they reveal themselves. In this she has never
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: perhaps been surpassed, not even by Shakespeare himself. If ever
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: living beings can be said to have moved across the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: pages of fiction as they lived, speaking as they spoke,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and feeling as they felt. They do so in bright
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: and prejudice, Emma in Mansfield Park, What incomparable noodles she
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: exhibits for our astonishment and laughter, What silly, good natured women,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: What softly selfish men, what lively, amiable, honest men and
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: women whom one would rejoice to have known.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: End of section two.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: But all her power is dramatic power. She loses her
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: holdness directly she ceases to speak through the persona. She
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: is then like a great actor off the stage. When
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: she is making men and women in her mouthpieces, she
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: is exquisitely and inexhaustibly humorous. But when she speaks in
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: her own person she is apt to be commonplace and
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: even prosing. Her dramatic ventriloquism is such that, amid out
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: tears of laughter and sympathetic exasperation at folly, we feel
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: it almost impossible that you did not hear those very
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: people utter those very words.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: In many cases this was doubtless the fact.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: The best invention does not consist in finding new language
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: for the characters, but in finding the true language for them.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: It is easy to invent a language never spoken by
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: any one out of books, but it is so far
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: from easy to invent, that is, to find out the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: language which certain characters would speak and did speak that.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: In all the thousands of volumes written since Richardson and Fielding,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: every difficulty is more frequently overcome than that if the
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: reader fails to perceive the extraordinary merit of Miss Austen's
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: representation of character, let him try himself to paint a
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: portrait which shall be at once many sided and interesting,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: without employing any but the commonest colors, without calling in
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: the aid of eccentricity, exaggeration, or literary effects. Or let
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: him carefully compare the writings of miss Austen with those
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: of any other novelist, from Fielding to Thackeray. It is
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: probably this same dramatic instinct which makes the construction of
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: her stories so admirable. And by construction we mean the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: art which selecting what is useful and rejecting what is
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: superfluous renders our interest on flagging. Because one chapter evolves
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the next, one character is necessary to the elucidation of another.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: In what is commonly called plot, she does not excel.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Her invention is wholly in character and motive, not in situation.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Her materials are of the commonest, every day occurrence. Neither
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: the emotions of tragedy nor the the exaggerations of us
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: seem to have the slightest attraction for her. The reader's
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: pulse never throbs, his curiosity is never intense, but his
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: interest never wanes for a moment. The action begins. The
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: people's speak, feel, and act. Everything that is said, felt,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: or done tends towards the entanglement or disentanglement of the plot,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: and we are almost made actors as well as spectators
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: of the little drama. One of the most difficult things
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: in dramatic writing is so to construct the story that
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: every scene shall advance the denoumon by easy evolution, yet
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: at the same time gives scope to the full exhibition
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: of the characters. In dramas, as in novels, who almost
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: always see the action stand still while the characters are
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: being exhibited, and the characters are in abeyance while the
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: action is being unfolded. For perfect specimens of this higher
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: construction demanded by art, we would refer to the jealousy
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: scenes of Othello and the great scene between Ceenimen and
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Us in way in limisent rope. There is not in
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: these two marvels of art a verse which does not
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: exhibit some nuance of character, and thereby, at the same
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: time tends towards the full development of the action. So
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: entirely dramatic and so little descriptive is the genius of
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: miss Austen that she seems to rely upon what her
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: people say and do for the whole effect they are
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: to produce on our imaginations. She no more thinks of
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: describing the physical appearance of her people than the dramatist does,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: who knows that his persons are to be represented by
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: living actors. This is a defect and a mistake in art,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: a defect because although every reader must necessarily counterrupt to
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: himself a vivid image of the people whose characters are
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: so vividly presented, yet each reader has to do this
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: for himself without aid from the author, thereby missing many
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of the subtle connections between physical and mental organization. It
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: is not enough to be told that a young gentleman
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: had a fine countenance and an air of fashion, or
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: that a young gentlewoman was handsome and elegant. As far
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: as any direct information can be derived from the authoress,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: we might imagine that this was a purblind world, when
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: nobody ever saw anybody except in a dim vagueness which
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: obscured all peculiarities. It is impossible that mister Collins should
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: not have been adoubted by nature with an appearance in
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: some way heralding the delicious folly of the inward man.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Didn't we hear of this fatuous?
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Curate? Is that quote?
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: He was a tall, heavy looking young man of five
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: and twenty. His air was grave and stately, and his
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: manners were very formal. Balzac or Dickens would not have
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: been content without making the readers see this, mister Collins.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Miss Austen is content to make us know him, even
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: to the very intricacies of his inward man. Is not
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: stated whether she was shortsighted, but the absence of all
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: sense of the outward world, either scenery or personal appearance,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: is more remarkable in her than in any writer.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: We remember.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: We are touching here on one of her defects, which
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: helped to an explanation of her limited popularity, especially when
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: coupled with her deficiencies in poetry and passion. She has
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: little or no sympathy with what is picturesque and passionate.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: This prevents her from painting what the popular eye can
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: see and the a heart can feel. The struggles, the ambitions,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: the errors and sins of energetic life are left untouched
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: by her, and these form the subjects most stirring to
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: the general sympathy. Other writers have wanted this element of popularity,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: but they have compensated for it by a keen sympathy
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: with and power of representing the adventuress, the romantic, and
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the picturesque. Passion and adventure are the sources of certain
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: success with the mass of mankind. The passion may be
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: coarsely felt, the romance may be ridiculous, but there will
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: always be found a large majority whose sympathies will be
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: awakened by even the coarsest daubs. Emotion is, in its
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: nature sympathetic and uncritical. A spark will ignite it. Types
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: of villainy never seen or heard of out of books,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: are off the stage. Types of hair wisom and virtue
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: not less hyperbolical. I eagerly welcomed and believed him by
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: a public which would pass over without notice the subtlest
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: creations of genius, and which would even resent the more
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: truthful painting as disturbing its emotional enjoyment of hating the
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: bad and loving the good. The nicer art, which mingles
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: goodness with villainy and weakness with virtue, as in life
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: they are always mingled, causes positive distress to young and
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: uncultivated minds. The mass of men never ask whether a
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: character is true or the events probable. It is enough
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: for them that they are moved, and to move them strongly,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: black must be very black and white without a shade.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Hence it is that caricature and exaggeration of all kinds,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: inflated diction and door being delineation are and always will
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: be popular, a certain breadth and massiveness of effect being
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: necessary to produce a strong impression on all but a
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: refined audience. In the works of the highest genius, we
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: sometimes find a breadth and massiveness of effect which make
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: even these works popular, although the qualities most highly prized
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: by the cultivated reader are little appreciated by the public.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: The Iliad, Shakespeare and Moliere, don Quixote, and Faust effect
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: the mass powerfully. But how many admirers of Homer would
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: prefer the naivete of the original to the epigrammatic splendor
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: of Pope. The novelist, who had no power of broad
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and massive effect can never expect to be successful with
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the great public. He may gain the suffrages of the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: highest minds, and in the course of time, become a classic.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: But we all know what the popularity of a classic
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: means Miss Austen is such a novelist. Her subjects have
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: little intrinsic interest. It is only in their treatment that
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: they become attractive. But treatment and art are not likely
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: to captivate any except critical and refined tastes. Every reader
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: will be amused by affectures because their very truth carries
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: them home to ordinary experience and sympathy. But this amusement
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: is of a tepid nature, and the effect is quickly forgotten.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Partridge expressed the general sentiment of the public when he
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: spoke slightingly of Garrick's Hamlet, because Garrick did just what
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: he Partridge would have done in presence of a ghost.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Whereas the actor who performed the King powerfully impressed him
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: by sonorous elecution and emphatic gesticulation that was acting quiet art.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: The other was natural and not worth alluding to the
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: absence of red Picturesqueness and passion will also limit the
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: appreciating audience of Miss Austen to the small circle of
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: cultivated minds, and even these minds are not always capable
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: of greatly relishing her works. We have known very remarkable
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: people who cared little for her pictures of everyday life.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: And indeed, it may be anticipated that those who have
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: little sense of humor, or whose passionate and insurgent activities
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: demand in art or reflection of their own emotions and struggles,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: who find little pleasure in such homely comedies. Courrabelle may
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: be taken as a type of these. She was utterly
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: without her sense of humor, and was by nature fervid
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and impetuous. In a letter publish in her memoirs, she writes,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: why do you like miss Austen so very much? I
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: am puzzled on that point ellipses. I had not read
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Pride and Prejudice till I read that sentence of yours,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: and then I got the book. What did I find?
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: An accurate, de geratyped portrait of a commonplace face, a
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, No open country,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beg. I
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: should hardly like to live with her elegant ladies and
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses. The critical reader
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: will not fail to remark the almost contemptuous indifference to
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the art of truthful portrait painting which this passage indicates,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: and you will understand, perhaps how the writer of such
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: a passage was herself incapable of drawing more than characteristics,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: even in her most successful efforts. Jane Eyre Rochester and
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Paula Manuel are very vigorous sketches. But the reader observes
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: them from the outside. He does not penetrate their souls.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: He does not know them. What is said respecting the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: want of open country, Blue Hill and Bonnie Beck is
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: perfectly true. But the same point has been more felicitously
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: touched by Scott in his review of Emma upon the Whole.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: He says, the turn.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Of this author's novels bears the same relation to that
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: of the sentimental and romantic caste that cornfields at the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: cottages and meadows bear to the highly adorned grounds of
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: a show mansion or the rugged sublinities of a mountain landscape.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: It is neither so captivating as the one, nor so
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: grand as the other, but it affords those who frequent
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: it a pleasure nearly allied to the experience of their
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: own social habits.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: Unquote.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Scott would also have loudly repudiated the notion of Miss
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Austen's characters being mere de geratypes. Having himself drawn both
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: ideal and real characters, he knew the difficulties of both,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: and he well says quote. He who paints from le
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Beau ideal, if his scenes and sentiments are striking and interesting,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: is in a great measure exempted from the difficult task
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: of reconciling them with the ordinary probabilities of life. But
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: he who paints a scene of common occurrence places his
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: composition within that extensive range of criticism which general experience
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: offers to every reader. Ellipses, something more than a mere
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: de sign post likeness is also demanded. The portrait must
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: have spirit and character as well as resemblance, and being
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: deprived of all that, according to Bays, goes to quote
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: elevate and surprise, it must make amends by displaying depth
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: of knowledge and dexterity of execution, while defending our favorite
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: and giving critical reasons.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: For our liking.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: We are far from wishing to impose that preference on others.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: If anyone frankly says, I do not care about these
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: pictures of ordinary life. I want something poetical or romantic,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: something to stimulate my imagination and carry me beyond the
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: circle of my daily thoughts. There is nothing to be answered.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Many persons do not admire Wordsworth and cannot feel their
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: poetical sympathies aroused by Wagoners and Potters.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: There are many.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: You find no enjoyment in the Flemish pictures, but are
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: rapturous over the frescoes at Munich and Berlin. Individual tastes
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: do not admit of dispute. The imagination is an imperious
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: faculty and demands gratification. And if a man be content
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: to have this faculty stimulated to the exclusion of all
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: other faculties, or if only peculiar works are capable of
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: stimulating it, we have no right to object. Only when
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: a question of art comes to be discussed. It must
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: not be confounded with the matter of individual feeling, and
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: it requires a distinct reference to absolute standards. The art
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of novel writing, like the art of painting, is founded
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: on general principles, which because they have their psychological justification
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: because they are derived from tendencies of the human mind,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: and not, as absurdly supposed, derived from models of composition
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: are of universal application. The law of colour, for instance,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: is derived from the observed relation between certain colours and
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: the sensitive retina. The laws of construction, likewise, are derived
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: from the invariable relation between a certain order and succession
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: of events and the amount of interest excited by that order.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: In novel writing, as a mechanics, every obstruction is a
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: loss of power, Every superfluous page diminishes the artistic pleasures
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: of the whole. Individual tastes will always differ, but the
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: laws of the human mind are universal. One man would
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: prefer the humorous, another the pathetic. One will delight in
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: the adventures, another in the simple and homely, But the
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: principles of art remain the same for each. To tell
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: a story well is quite another thing from having a
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: good story to tell. The construction of a good drama
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: is the same in principle, whether the subject be antigony,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: the misanthrope, or Othello, and the real critic detects this
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: principle at work under these various forms. It is the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: same with the delineation of character, However, various the types,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: whether a Jonathan old Buck, the Doctor Primrose of Litel,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: or a false Starve ideal or real, The principles of
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: composition are the same. Miss Austen has generally but an
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: indifferent story to tell, but her art of telling it
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: is incomparable. Her characters never ideal, are not of an
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: eminently attractive order, but her dramatic ventriloquism and power of
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: presentation is little less than marvelous. Macaulay declares his opinion
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: that in this respect she is second only to Shakespeare
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: quite among the writers, he says, who, in the point
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: we have noticed, have approached nearest the manner of the
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: great Master. We have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: given us some multitude of characters, all in a certain
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: sense commonplace, all such as we meet every day. Yet
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: they all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: they were the most eccentric of human beings ellipses. And
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: all this is done by touches so delicate that they
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: allude analysis, that they defy powers of description, and that
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: we only know them to exist by the general effect
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: to which they have contributed. And the art of the
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: novelist consists in telling the story and representing the characters.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: But besides these there are other powerful, low extraneous sources
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: of attraction often possessed by novels, which are due to
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: the literary talent and culture of the writer. There is,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: for example, the power of description, both of scenery and
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: of character. Many novels depend almost entirely on this for
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: their effect. It is a lower kind of power, and
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: consequently much more frequent than what we have styled the
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: art of the novelist. Yet it may be very present
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: in the hands of a fine writer gifted with a
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: real sense of the picturesque. Being very easy, it has
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: of late become the resource of weak writers, and the
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: prominent position it has usurped has tended in two ways
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: to produce weariness, first by encouraging incompetent writers to do
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: what is easily done, and secondly by seducing writers from
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: the higher and better method of dramatic exposition. Another's source
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: of attraction is the general vigor of mind exhibited by
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: the author in his comments on the incidents and characters
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: of his story. These comments, when proceeding from a fine
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: insight or a large experience, give additional charm to the
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: story and make the delightful novel a delightful book. It
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: is almost superfluous to add that this also has its obverse.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: The comments, too often pain for the exhibit a weakness
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: of mind. Doctor Johnson refused to take tea with someone because,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: as he said, sir, there is no vigor in his talk.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: This is the complaint which must be urged against the
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: majority of novelists. They put too much water in their ins.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: And even when the talk is good, we must remember
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: that it is, after all, only one of the side
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: dishes of the feast. All the literary and philosophic culture
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: which an author can bring to bear upon his work
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: would tend to give that work a higher value, but
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: it will not really make it a better novel. To
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: suppose that culture can replace invention or literary to do
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: instead of character is as erroneous as to suppose that
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: archaeological learning and cynical splendor can raise poor acting to
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: the level of fine acting. Yet this is the common
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: mistake of literary men. They are apt to believe that
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: mere writing will weigh in the scale against artistic presentation,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: that comment will do duty for dramatic revelation, that analyzing
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: motives with philosophic skill will answer all the purpose of creation.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: But whoever looks closely into this matter will see that literature,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: that is, the writing of thinking and accomplished men, is
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: excessively cheap compared with the smallest amount of invention and creation.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: And it is cheap because more easy of production and
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: less potent in effect. This is apparently, by no means
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: the opinion of some recent critics, who evidently consider their
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: own writing of more merit than humor and invention, and
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: who are annoyed at the notion of mere serialists without
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: solid acquirements being regarded all over Europe as our most
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: distinguished authors. Yet it may be suggested that writing such
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: as that of the critics in question can be purchased
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: in abundance, whereas humor and invention are among the rarest
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: of products. If it is a painful reflection that genius
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: should be esteemed more highly than solid acquirements, it should
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: be remembered that learning is only the diffused form of
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: what was once invention. Solid acquirement is the genius of wits,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: which has become the wisdom of reviewers. Be this as
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: it may, we acknowledge the great attractions which a novel
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: may receive from the general vigor and culture of the author,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: and acknowledge that such attractions form but a very small
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: element in Miss Austen's success. Her paters have no sudden illuminations.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: There are neither epigrams nor aphorisms, neither subtle analyzes nor
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: eloquent descriptions. She is without grace or felicity of expression.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: She has neither fervid nor philosophic content. Her charm lies
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: solely in the art of representing life and character, and
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: that is exquisite. End of Section three. We have thus
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: endeavored to characterize in general terms the qualities with her
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: works display. It is less easy to speak with sufficient
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: distinctness of the particular work, since unless our readers have
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: these vividly present to memory, in which case our remarks
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: would be superfluous, we cannot hope to be perfectly intelligible.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: No adequate idea of them can be given by a
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: review of one, because the specimen brick which the Noodle
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: and Hiericals thought sufficient, and which really does suffice in
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: the case of many a modern novel, would prove no
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: specimen at all. Her characters are so gradually unfolded their
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: individuality reveals itself so naturally and easily in the course
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: of what they say and do, that we learn to
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: know them as if we had lived with them, but cannot,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: by any single speed or act, make them known to others.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Aunt Norris, for instance, in Mansfield Park, is a character
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: profoundly and variously delineated. Yet there is no scene in
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: which he exhibits herself to those who have not the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: pleasurable disgust of her acquaintance, while to those who have
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: there is no scene in which it does not exhibit herself.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Mister Collins making an offer to Elizabeth Bennett, formerly stating
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: the reasons which induced him to marry and the prudential
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: motives which have induced him to select her, and then adding,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: nothing now remains for me but to assure you in
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: the most animated language of the violence of my affection
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: to fortune. I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: demand of that nature and your father, since I am
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: well aware that it could not be complied with, and
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: that one thousand pounds in the four per cents, which
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: will not be yours till after your mother's decease, is
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: all that you may ever be entitled to on that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: head therefore, I shall be uniformly silent, and you may
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: assure yourself that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: When we are married, and after her refusal, persisting in
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: accepting this refusal is only what is usual with young
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: ladies who reject the addresses of the man they secretly
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: mean to accept. I am, therefore, by no means discouraged
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: by what you have said, and shall hope to lead
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: you to the altar ere long. This scene, ludicrous as
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: it is, out, receives its exquisite flavor from what has
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: gone before. We feel morally persuaded that so mister Collins
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: would speak and act the man who, on taking leave
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: of his host, formerly assures him that he will not
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: fail to send a letter of thanks on his return,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: and does send it. It's just the man to have
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: made this declaration. Missus Elton in Emma is the very
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: best portrait of a vulgar woman we ever saw. She
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: is vulgar in soul, and the vulgarity is indicated by
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: subtle yet unmistakable touches, never by coarse language or by
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: caricature of any kind. We will quote here a bit
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: of her conversation in the first interview she has with
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Emma Woodhouse, in which she endeavors to be very fascinating.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: It should be premised that she is only just married
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and this is the wedding visit. She indulges in quote
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: raptures about Hartfield, the seat of Emma's father, and Emma
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: quietly replies, when you have seen more of this country,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid you will think you have overrated Hartfield. Surrey
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: is full of beauties. Oh yes, I am quite aware
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: of that. It is the garden of England. You know,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Surrey is the garden of England his But we must
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: not rest our claims on that distinction. Many counties, I believe,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: are called the garden of England as.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Well as Surrey.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: No I fancy not, replied Missus Elton with a most
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: satisfied smile. I never heard of any county but Surry called.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: So Emma was silenced. My brother and sister have promised
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: us a visit in the spring or summer at father's
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: continued Missus Elton. And that will be our time for exploring.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: While there are with us, we shall explore a great deal.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: I dare say they will have their barouche landor, of course,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: which holds four perfectly, and therefore, without saying anything of
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: our carriage, we shall be able to explore the different
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: beauties extremely well. They would hardly come in their shares,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: I think at that season of the year. Indeed, when
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their bringing
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: the barouche landor. It be so very much preferable. When
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Miss Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: as possible, and mister Suckling is extremely fond of exploring.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: We explored the King's West and twice last summer in
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: that way most delightfully, just after their first having the
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: barouche Landor. You have many parties of that kind here,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: I suppose Miss Woodhouse every summer. No, not immediately. Here
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: we are rather out of distance of the very striking
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: beauties which attract the sort of parties you speak of.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: And we are a very quiet set of people, I believe,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: who are disposed to stay at home then engage in
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: schemes of pleasure.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: Ah, there is.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: Nothing like staying at home for real comfort. Nobody can
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: be more devoted to home than I am. I was
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: quite a proverb for it at Maple Grove. Many a
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: time has Sanina said, when she's been going to Bristol,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: I really cannot get this girl to move from the house.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: I absolutely must commy myself thy hate being stuck up
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: in the barouchial landor without a companion. But Augusta, I believe,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: with her own good will, would never stir beyond the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: park paling. Many a time has she said so. Yet.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: I am no advocate for entire seclusion. I think on
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: the country, when people shut themselves up entirely from society,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: it is a very bad thing, and that it is
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: much more advisable to mix in the world in a
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: proper degree without living in it, either too much or
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: too little. I perfectly understand your situation. However, miss Woodhouse.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Looking towards mister Woodhouse, your father's state of health must
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: be a great drawback. Why does he not try bath? Indeed,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: he should let me recommend bath to you. I assure
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: you I have no doubt if it's during, mister Woodhouse,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: good my father tried it more than months formerly, but
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: without receiving any benefit. And mister Perry, whose name I
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: dare say is not unknown to you, does not conceive
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: it would be at all more likely to be useful. Now, Ah,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: that's great pity, for I assure you, Miss Woodhouse. Where
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: the waters do agree. It is quite wonderful the relief
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: they give in my bath life. I have seen such
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: instances of it, and it is so cheerful a place
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: that it could not fail of being of use to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: mister Woodhouse's spirits, which I understand are sometimes much depressed,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: And as to its recommendations to you, I fancy I
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: need not take much pains to dwell on them. The
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: advantage is a bath to the young are pretty generally understood.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: It will be a charming introduction for you, who have
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: lived so secluded a life, and I could immediately secure
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: you some of the best society in the place. A
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: line from me would bring you a little host of acquaintance,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: and my particular friend, missus Partridge, the lady I have
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: always resided with when in bath, will be most happy
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: to show you any attentions, and will be the very
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: person for you to go in to public with. It
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: was as much as Emma could bear without being impolite.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: The idea of her being indebted to missus Elton for
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: what was called an introduction of her going into public
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: under the auspices of a friend of missus Elton's, probably
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: some vulgar, dashing widow who, with the help of a boarder,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: just made a shift to live. The dignity of missus
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: Woodhouse of Hartfield was sunk. Indeed, she restrained herself, however,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: from any of the reproofs she could have given, and
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: only thanked missus Elton coolly. But their going to bath
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: was quite out of the question, and she was not
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: perfectly convinced that the place might suit her better than
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: her father. And then, to prevent farther outrage and indignation,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: changed the subject directly. I do not ask whether you
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: are musical, missus Elton. Upon these occasions a lady's character
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: generally precedes her, and Highbury has long known that you
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: are a superior performer. No, indeed, I must protest against
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: any such idea a superior performer, very far from it.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: I assure you consider from how partial a quarter your
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: information came. I am dotingly fond of music, passionately fond,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: and my friends say I am not entirely devoid of
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: taste that as do anything else upon my honor by
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: performance is mediocre to the last degree. You, miss Woodhouse,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: I well know play delightfully, I assure you. It has
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: been the greatest satisfaction, comfort, and delight to me to
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: hear what a musical society I am got into. I
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: absolutely cannot do without music. It is a necessary of
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: life to me, and having been always used to a
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: very musical society, both at maple Grove and de Bath,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: it would have been a most serious sacrifice. I honestly
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: said as much to mister e when he was speaking
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: of my future home and expressing his fears lest the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: retirement of it should be disagreeable, and the inferiority of
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: the house too, knowing what I had been accustomed to.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: Of course, he was not wholly without apprehension when he
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: was speaking of it in that way. I honestly said
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: that the world I could give up parties, balls plays,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: for I had no fear of retirement. Blessed with so
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: many resources within myself, the world was not necessary to me.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: I could do very well without it. To those who
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: had no resources, it was a different thing. But my
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: resources made me quite dependent. And as to smaller size,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: of rooms that I have been used to. I really
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: could not give it a thought. I hope I was
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: perfectly equal to any sacrifice of that description. Certainly I
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: have been accustomed to every luxury at Maple Grove. But
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: I did assure him that two characters were not necessary
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: to my happiness, nor with spacious apartments. But said I,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: to be quite honest, I do not think I can
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: live without something of a musical society. I condition for
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: nothing else, but without music, life would be a blank
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: for me. We cannot suppose, said Emma, smiling, that mister
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: Elton would hesitate to assure you of there being a
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: very musical society in Highbury. And I hope you will
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: not find tears out to step to the truth more
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: than may be pardoned in consideration of the motive. Indeed,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: I have no doubts at all on that head. I
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: am delighted to find myself in such a circle. I
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: hope we shall have many sweet little concerts together.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: I think Miss Wood.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: Has you and I must establish a musical club and
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: have regular weekly meetings at your house or ours. Will
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: it not be a good plan if we exert ourselves.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: I think we shall not belong in want of allies.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: Something of that nature will be particularly desirable for me
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: as an inducement to keep me in practice. For married women,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: you know, there is a sad story against them. In general.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: They are but too apt to give up music. But you,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: who are so extremely fond of it, there can be
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: no danger. Surely I should hope not. But really, when
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: I look around among my acquaintance, I tremble. Selina has
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: entirely given up music, never touches the instruments, though she
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: played sweetly. And the same may be said of Missus
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: Jeffery's Clara Partridge that was, and of the two Milmans
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: now missus Bird and missus James Cooper. And more than
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: I can enumerate upon my word, it is enough to
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: put one in a fright. I used to be quite
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: angry with Sanina, but really I begin now to comprehend
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: that a married woman has many things to call her attention.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: I believe I was half an hour this morning shut
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: up with my housekeeper. What everything of that kind? Said Emma,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: would soon be in so regular a train, Well, said
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: Missus Elton, laughing. We shall see our limits force us
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: to break off in the middle of this conversation. But
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: the continuation is equally humorous, quite as good in another
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: way as Miss Bates with her affectionate Toaddle. But as
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: we have said before, the characters reveal themselves, and in
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: general reveal themselves only in the course of several scenes,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: so that extracts would give no idea of them. The reader,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: who has yet to make acquaintance with these novels is
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: advised to begin with Pride and Prejudice or Mansfield Park,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: and if these do not captivate him, he may fairly
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: leave the others unread. In Pride and Prejudice there is
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: the best story and the greatest variety of character. The
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: whole Bennett family is inimitable. Mister Bennett caustic, quietly, indolently, selfish,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: but honorable and in some respects amiable. His wife the
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: perfect type of a gossiping, weak headed, fussy mother, Jane
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: a sweet creature, Elizabeth a sprightly and fascinating flesh and blood.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: Heremine Lydia, pretty but vain and giddy girl. And Mary
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: plain and pedantic, studying thorough base and human nature. Then
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: there is mister Collins and Sir William Lucas, and the proud,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: foolish old Lady Catherine de Burgh, and Darcy Bingley and
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: Wickham all admirable. From the first chapter to the last,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: there is a succession of scenes of high comedy, and
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: the interest is unflagging. Mansfield Park is also singularly fascinating.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: That the heroine is less of a favorite with as
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: the Miss Austen's heroines usually are, But Aunt Norris and
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: Lady Bertram are perfect, and the scenes at Portsmouth, when
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: Fanny Price visits her home after some year's residence of
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: the park, are wonderfully truthful and vivid. The private theatricals,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: too are very amusing, and the day spent at the
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: Rushworths is a masterpiece art. If the reader has really
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: tasted the flavor of these works, he will need no
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: other recommendation to read and reread the others. Even Persuasion,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: which we cannot help regarding as the weakest, contains exquisite
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: touches and some characters no one else could have surpassed.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: We have endeavored to express the delight which Miss Osten's
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: works have always given us, and to explain the sources
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: of his success by indicating the qualities which make her
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: a model worthy of the study of all who desire
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: to understand the art of the novelist. But we have
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: also indicated what seemed to be the limitations of her genius,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: and to explain why it is that this genius, moving
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: only amid the quiet scenes of everyday life, with no
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: power over the more stormy and energetic activities which I
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: invent even in every day life, can never give her
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: a high rank among great artists. Her place is among
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: great artists, but it is not high among them. She
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: sits in the house of peers, But it is a
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: simple baron. The delight derived from her pictures arises from
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: our sympathy with ordinary characters, our relish of humor, and
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: our intellectual pleasure in art for art's sake. But when
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: it is admitted that she never stirs the deeper emotions,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: that she never fills the soul with a noble aspiration
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: or brightens it with a fine idea. But at the utmost,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: and he teaches us charity for the ordinary failings of
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: ordinary people, and sympathy with their goodness, we have admitted
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: an objection which lowers her claims to rank among the
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: great benefactors of the race sufficiently explains why, with all
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: her excellence, her name has not become a household word.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: Her fame, we think, must endure such art as hers,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: can never grow old, never be superseded. But after all,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: miniatures are not frescoes, and her works are miniatures. Her
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: place is among the immortals. But the pedestal is erected
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: in a quiet niche of the Great Temple. End of
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: section four, end of the Novels of Jane Austen by G. H.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: Lewis