in my opinions or
good wishes; but I do not carry on what is called a regular
correspondence with anybody except with one or two of my very
nearest relations; and it is best to tell the plain truth that my
father particularly dislikes my writing letters, so I write as few
as I possibly can.

XI.

While Maria Edgeworth was at work in her Irish home, successfully
producing her admirable delineations, another woman, born some eight
years later, and living in the quiet Hampshire village where the elm
trees spread so greenly, was also at work, also writing books that
were destined to influence many a generation, but which were meanwhile
waiting unknown, unnoticed. Do we not all know the story of the brown
paper parcel lying unopened for years on the publisher's shelf and
containing Henry Tilney and all his capes, Catherine Morland and all
her romance, and the great John Thorpe himself, uttering those valuable
literary criticisms which Lord Macaulay, writing to his little sisters
at home, used to quote to them? 'Oh, Lord!' says John Thorpe, 'I never
read novels; I have other things to do.'

A friend reminds us of Miss Austen's own indignant outburst. 'Only a
novel! only "Cecilia," or "Camilla," or "Belinda;" or, in short, only
some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, the
most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its
varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to
the world in the best-chosen language.' If the great historian, who
loved novels himself, had not assured us that we owe Miss Austen and
Miss Edgeworth to the early influence of the author of 'Evelina,' one
might grudge 'Belinda' to such company as that of 'Cecilia' and
'Camilla.'

'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published about the
same time as 'Patronage' and 'Tales of Fashionable Life.' Their two
authors illustrate, curiously enough, the difference between the national
characteristics of English and Irish--the breadth, the versatility, the
innate wit and gaiety of an Irish mind; the comparative narrowness of
range of an English nature; where, however, we are more likely to get
humour and its never-failing charm. Long afterwards Jane Austen sent one
of her novels to Miss Edgeworth, who appreciated it indeed, as such a
mind as hers could not fail to do, but it was with no such enthusiasm
as that which she felt for other more ambitious works, with mo