Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/89

 "Chawton, "Thursday, February, 4th (1813).

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"Your letter was truly welcome, and I am much obliged to you for all your praise; it came at a right time, for I had had some fits of disgust. Our second evening's reading to Miss B had not pleased me so well; but I believe something must be attributed to my mother's too rapid way of getting on. Though she perfectly understands the characters herself, she cannot speak as they ought. Upon the whole, however, I am quite vain enough, and well satisfied enough. The work is rather too light and bright and sparkling; it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense about something unconnected with the story; an essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte, or something that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style There might as well be no suppers at Longbourn, but I suppose it was the remains of Mrs. Bennetts old Meryton habits."

We may all rejoice that Jane Austen did not improve Pride and Prejudice in the way she half ironically suggests; but it is wonderful that she avoided doing so, for in her day a novel was invariably thought to require some such "padding," and it was one of her boldest strokes to depart from this established rule. None of the great trio of her sister writers—Miss Burney, Miss Edgeworth, or Miss Ferrier—ventured to omit the moralising which our ancestors considered necessary to counteract the baleful effects of being amused, and their works, in consequence, are little read