again, Emma
had none of Mr. Woodhouse's qualities, and we must suppose her to be a
repetition of her mother. Unless, indeed, her general kindliness came
from her father, and possibly also the stupidity which wrecked her
matrimonial agency. We must, I think, believe that Mrs. Woodhouse had
been a managing woman, who probably insisted on Mr. Woodhouse marrying
her; thus her instinct for matrimonial scheming was confined (we may
fancy) to her own interests. It is too fanciful to suggest that Mrs.
Woodhouse had a tinge of hardness in her which came out in Emma's
celebrated rudeness to Miss Bates. At any rate, it is certain that it
was not a heritage from her father. I knew a lady who could never
forgive this slip of poor Emma. And the vividness of this feeling was
not a symptom of that want of literary sense which makes the gallery hiss
the villain on the stage, but must be taken as a proof of the vitality of
the character. Isabella Woodhouse is obviously of her father's type,
with hardly a mental feature to remind us of Emma.

In the Bertram family the inheritance is not very clear; the Miss
Bertrams seem to show the hard narrowness of Mrs. Norris, and none of the
sheep-like good nature and futility of Lady Bertram. I suspect that in
Mrs. Norris, hardness and business tendency were an inheritance from her
uncle, the Huntingdon solicitor, for we know that he made the harsh and
commercial statement that his niece was at least 3000 pounds short of any
equitable claim to the hand of Sir Thomas. We do not know anything of
the parents of Lady Bertram, but we may suspect that her Ladyship
inherited from her mother the soft and cushiony character of which she is
a great example. Mrs. Price, with her small income and large family, was
unfortunately of the same easy and futile temper. Edward Bertram is
obviously his father the Baronet over again, with all his kindness and
extreme respectability, while what will ultimately grow into Sir Thomas'
pomposity is like the delicate tissues of the sucking pig in Charles
Lamb's essay, not to be described by the gross terms applicable to the
adult, "Oh, call it not fat! but an indefinable sweetness growing up to
it," etc. The elder brother, Tom, who began life as a cheerful,
irresponsible person, falls under the family curse in consequence of a
mysterious fever, so that he doubtless inherited the fatal tendency from
Sir Thomas, together with a certain insouciance and want of heart,