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is always present on the scene; that figure is always pre-

pared for company...

Some books and people are delightful, we can scarce

tell why; they are not so clever as others that weary and

fatigue us. It is a certain effort to read a story, however

touching, that is disconnected and badly related. It is like

an ill-drawn picture, of which the coloring is good. Jane

Austen possessed both gifts of color and drawing. She

could see human nature as it was -- with near-sighted eyes,

it is true; but having seen, she could combine her picture

by her art, and color it from life...

It is difficult, reading the novels of succeeding gen-

erations, to determine how much each book reflects of

the time in which it was written; how much of its char-

acter depends upon the mind and mood of the writer. The

greatest minds, the most original, have the least stamp of

the age, the most of that dominant natural reality which

belongs to all great minds. We know how a landscape

changes as the day goes on, and how the scene brightens

and gains in beauty as the shadows begin to lengthen.

The clearest eyes must see by the light of their own hour.

Jane Austen's hour must have been a midday hour --

bright, unsuggestive, with objects standing clear without

relief or shadow. She did not write of herself, but of

the manners of her age. This age is essentially an age

of men and women of strained emotion, little remains of

starch, or powder, or courtly reserve. What we have lost

in calm, in happiness, in tranquillity, we have gained in

intensity. Our danger is now, not of expressing and feel-

ing too little, but of expressing more than we feel...

Miss Austen's heroines have a stamp of their own. They

have a certain gentle self-respect and humor and hard-

ness of heart in which modern heroines are a little want-

ing. Whatever happens they can for the most part speak

of gayly and without bitterness. Love with them does not

mean a passion so much as an interest -- deep, silent, not

quite incompatible with a secondary flirtation. Marianne

Dashwood's tears are evidently meant to be dried. Jane

Bennet smiles, sighs, and makes excuses for Bingley's neg-

lect. Emma passes one disagreeable morning making up

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