that when the problem of Mr. Woodhouse's name was propounded to
my mother, she solved it at once, and as though it were a question too
simple to be asked. Nor does it seem to us trivial that the word given
by Frank Churchill to Jane during the "word-game" at Hartfield was
'Pardon.' This was traditionally known in the author's family, indeed
Mr. Austen Leigh {66} says that she was always ready to reveal such
valuable facts as that Mrs. Norris' "considerable sum" given as a present
to William in _Mansfield Park_ was one pound; that Miss Steele never
caught the Doctor, and that Mary Bennet married an unfortunate clerk of
her uncle Philip's. These revelations lend an air of history to her
romance, they give the exciting quality of treasure-trove to the secrets
she shares with us. "And here," as children's books say, "a very pretty
game may be played by each child saying" what question he would put to
the ghost of Jane Austen. For myself I believe I should ask, "Would
Fanny Price really have married Crawford if he had not eloped with Miss
Bertram?" If in the words of Captain Price there had not been "the devil
to pay" in Wimpole Street. Then, too, I should have liked some eugenic
information about Elizabeth's (Mrs. Darcy's) children. Because if there
was reversion to the type of Lydia it would have been serious. One can
fancy Elizabeth retorting that if he said another word about the Lydia
type she would pray for an infant possessing all the qualities of Lady
Catherine de Burgh, a gift well within the powers of the gods who rule
heredity.

I doubt whether Jane Austen consciously painted the results of heredity;
rather, I suppose that her memory working instinctively, made, for
instance, the Bennet family consist of types recalling the father or
mother. She could hardly have known of the questionable theory that the
eldest child is commonly inferior to the second, and nevertheless she
makes Jane Bennet inferior in capacity to Elizabeth, although so greatly
superior to the younger children of Mrs. Bennet's type.

There are other cases of heredity among her characters; for instance, in
_Persuasion_, the snobbery and selfishness of Miss Elliott clearly
reproduces her father, while Anne, as we know from Lady Russell, was a
true child of her mother. I like to fancy that the querulousness and
weakness of Mary (Mrs. Charles) was a perverted gentleness coming from
her mother, while her vulgarity came from Sir Walter. Then