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 dullness, Emma is not dull. On the contrary, she is remarkably engaging; less vivacious than Elizabeth Bennet, but infinitely more agreeable. She puts us into a good humour with ourselves, she "produces delight." The secret of her potency is that she has grasped the essential things of life, and let the non-essentials go. There is distinction in the way she accepts near duties, in her sense of balance, and order, and propriety. She is a normal creature, highly civilized, and sanely artificial. Mr. Saintsbury says that Miss Austen knew two things: humanity and art. "Her men, though limited, are true, and her women are, in the old sense, absolute." Emma is "absolute." The possibility—or impossibility—of being Mr. Knightley's intellectual competitor never occurs to her. She covets no empty honours. She is content to be necessary and unassailable.

Mr. Chesterton has written a whim-