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Criticism/Interpretation III, W.F. Pollock

Miss Austen never attempts to describe a scene

or a class of society with which she was not her-

self thoroughly acquainted. The conversations of

ladies with ladies, or of ladies and gentlemen together,

are given, but no instance occurs of a scene in which men

only are present. The uniform quality of her work is one

most remarkable point to be observed in it. Let a volume

be opened at any place: there is the same good English,

the same refined style, the same simplicity and truth. There

is never any deviation into the unnatural or exaggerated;

and how worthy of all love and respect is the finely dis-

ciplined genius which rejects the forcible but transient

modes of stimulating interest which can so easily be em-

ployed when desired, and which knows how to trust to

the never-failing principles of human nature! This very

trust has sometimes been made an objection to Miss Austen,

and she has been accused of writing dull stories about

ordinary people. But her supposed ordinary people are

really not such very ordinary people. Let anyone who is

inclined to criticise on this score endeavor to construct

one character from among the ordinary people of his own

acquaintance that shall be capable of interesting any reader

for ten minutes. It will then be found how great has

been the discrimination of Miss Austen in the selection

of her characters, and how skillful is her treatment in the

management of them. It is true that the events are for

the most part those of daily life, and the feelings are

those connected with the usual joys and griefs of familiar

existence; but these are the very events and feelings upon

which the happiness or misery of most of us depends; and

the field which embraces them, to the exclusion of the

wonderful, the sentimental, and the historical, is surely

large enough, as it certainly admits of the most profitable

cultivation. In the end, too, the novel of daily real life

is that of which we are least apt to weary: a round of

fancy balls would tire the most vigorous admirers of

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