ritten _Pride and Prejudice_.[213] There is, indeed, no
lack of humour in the earlier work--the names of Mrs. Jennings, John
Dashwood, and the Palmers are enough to assure us of this; but the
humorous parts are not nearly so essential to the story as they become
in her later novels: the plot is desultory, and the principal characters
lack interest. We feel, in the presence of the virtue and sense of
Elinor, a rebuke which never affects us in the same way with Jane
Bennet, Fanny Price, or Anne Elliot; while Marianne is often
exasperating. Edward Ferrars is rather stiff; and Colonel Brandon is so
far removed from us that we never even learn his Christian name.

Mr. Helm[214] makes some acute remarks on the freedom which Elinor shows
in talking of embarrassing subjects with Willoughby, and on her
readiness to attribute his fall to the world rather than to himself. We
are to imagine, however, that Elinor had been attracted by him before,
and felt his personal charm again while she was under its spell: all the
more, because she was herself in a special state of excitement, from the
rapid changes in Marianne's condition, and the expectation of seeing her
mother. Her excuses for Willoughby were so far from representing any
opinion of the author's, that they did not even represent her own after
a few hours of reflection. It is one of the many instances which we have
of Jane Austen's subtle dramatic instinct.

On the whole, there is great merit in the book, and much amusement to be
got from it; but it seems natural to look upon it as an experiment on
the part of the author, before she put forth her full powers in _Pride
and Prejudice_. We are glad, by the way, to hear from Jane herself that
Miss Steele never caught the Doctor after all.

We must now accompany the author to London, whither she went in April
1811 to stay with her brother Henry and his wife (who had moved from
Brompton to 64 Sloane Street), having been preceded by her novel, then
in the hands of the printers.

Cassandra had in the meanwhile gone to Godmersham.

Sloane Street: Thursday [April 18, 1811].

MY DEAR CASSANDRA,-- . . . The badness of the
weather disconcerted an excellent plan of
mine--that of calling on Miss Beckford again; but
from the middle of the day it rained incessantly.
Mary[215] and I, after disposing of her father and
mother, went to the Liverpool Museum[216]