r combinations of
feelings, of conversation, of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and
lifelike that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us--the
scene carries us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is
recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselves
so vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginary
scenes, we seem not only to read them, but to live them, to see the
people coming and going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, the
ladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them talking to one
another. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life days and
events follow one another. Last Tuesday does not suddenly start into
existence all out of place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when we
are well on in '21. Countries and continents do not fly from hero to
hero, nor do long and divergent adventures happen to unimportant members
of the company. With Jane Austen days, hours, minutes succeed each other
like clockwork, one central figure is always present on the scene, that
figure is always prepared for company. Miss Edwards's curl-papers are
almost the only approach to dishabille in her stories. There are
postchaises in readiness to convey the characters from Bath or Lyme to
Uppercross, to Fullerton, from Gracechurch Street to Meryton, as their
business takes them. Mr. Knightly rides from Brunswick Square to
Hartfield, by a road that Miss Austen herself must have travelled in the
curricle with her brother, driving to London on a summer's day. It was
a wet ride for Mr. Knightly, followed by that never-to-be-forgotten
afternoon in the shrubbery, when the wind had changed into a softer
quarter, the clouds were carried off, and Emma, walking in the sunshine,
with spirits freshened and thoughts a little relieved, and thinking of
Mr. Knightly as sixteen miles away, meets him at the garden door; and
everybody, I think, must be the happier, for the happiness and certainty
that one half-hour gave to Emma and her 'indifferent' lover.

There is a little extract from one of Miss Austen's letters to a niece,
which shows that all this successful organisation was not brought about
by chance alone, but came from careful workmanship.

'Your aunt C.,' she says, 'does not like desultory novels, and is rather
fearful that yours will be too much so--that there will be too frequent
a change from one set of people to another, and that circumstances will
be some