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beyond youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and

simpleness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that

universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite': words

scarcely becoming an elder sister of a silly girl still in her teens.

And when her foolish infatuation for the graceless Wickham over--

steps the frontiers of conventional morality, the callous judgment, alike

of the novelist and the novel'persons, becomes positively cruel in its

indifference towards the girl herself, if only the ugly opening to her

married life, with its poor promise of happiness or even respectability,

can be covered over and buried within the circle of neighbours and

intimates from whom, in the flurry of its first unfolding, no details had

been hid. Darcy alone -- whose conduct herein reveals almost un^

paralleled evidence of deep and understanding love with a really liberal-'

minded attitude towards morality -- endeavours to be her true friend.

Others are only concerned to contrive that 'the satisfaction of prevailing

on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be her

husband should rest in its proper place.'

And we are shocked to find that, once this desirable consummation

is achieved, Miss Austen does not hesitate to find, in Lydia's subsequent

conduct, in Wickham's complacent acceptance of benefits conferred

where they are least deserved, and above all, in Mrs. Bennet's disgusting

airs of triumph over a daughter married at sixteen -- further occasion for

humorous dialogue coloured by cool contempt. Only youth could be

so hard on one who failed to satisfy its own standards of character and

conduct.

I have, elsewhere, suggested that Lydia, Collins, and Lady Catherine

are in fact fiction'types lifted from the class of novels burlesqued in Love

and Friendship in the spirit of sheer comedy which animates the hilarious

nonsense of these delightful tales; to whom -- because she is only con--

cerned with their place in the plot -- Jane Austen does not attempt to

give the humanity that is elsewhere given with rare sympathy and under-'

standing to all her characters, however slightly sketched. Mr. Wood'

house and Miss Bates are no less absurd than Lady Catherine and

Mr. Collins : they too are slightly exaggerated in the service of wit.

But they are gently handled from the first; their friends, the novelist

herself and her readers, are all compelled to affection, even to respect,

as they laugh. The punishment inflicted on Maria Bertram is severe

indeed; but it is an act of justice -- punishment inflicted with regret,

not with indifference or contempt. The character of the sinner is

natural and human: her sin is explained, if not excused: the respon-'

sibility -- of others -- is placed where it belongs.

 [[vii]]