and Mrs. John Dashwood among the really happiest

94



Her Contemporaries and Herself

of Miss Austen's achievements. Compare them, to
take an example, with Mrs. Norris in ' Mansfield
Park,' who is quite as sordid as were the John Dash-
woods. Yet who rises from reading of Mrs. Norris
with a bitter taste in his mouth, and who does not
rise with such a taste in his mouth from reading of
the John Dashwoods ? It would appear — at least it
appears to me — that, when she wrote ' Sense and
Sensibility,' Miss Austen had not fully developed
that fine, that exquisite sense of humour which
makes us more than tolerate in fiction the self-
revelations of people whose characteristics in real
life would annoy or shock, or both. Prince Hal
when he came to his own would no more of Falstaff.
Yet what reader is there who does not always retain
a sneaking kindness for fat Jack? One has, of
course, in that sense no sneaking kindness for Mrs.
Norris, who is frankly detestable if you look into her
character as you might into that of a person whom
you were liable to meet any and every day. Yet,
again, can you find a more amusing companion than
she is in Miss Austen's pages? The fact, in other
words, would seem to be that the John Dashwoods
suffered from excess of realism — a word, I think, not
invented or current in Miss Austen's day, but it
serves well to express what I mean.
