35 D2



Jane Austen

Now this is very far from being an unfair or
exaggerated instance of the ludicrously and unplea-
santly impossible fashion in which the character ol
Lewiston is imagined and drawn throughout. And
yet he occurs in the same book with the inimitable
Miss Pratt and Lord Rossville, who are equal and
like to some of Miss Austen's characters in that,
intolerable bores in their different ways, they are yet
a source of never-failing delight to readers.
We may be very sure that if Miss Austen had
introduced an American into any of her novels the
character would have been studied from life, though
not as a portrait of any one individual. She may
probably never have come across any Americans :
she certainly would not have played, as Miss Ferrier
has done, the fabled German philosopher's camel-
trick. Here is one point of superiority both to Miss
Ferrier and to Miss Burney. There are absolutely no
monsters of impossibility or even any characters of
improbability, from Sir Thomas Bertram down to
Knightley's bailiff, a person whom we know well,
although we never actually meet him, in all the novels.
Miss Burney errs but comparatively seldom in this
regard. Yet it must be admitted that Lionel Tyrold
in ' Camilla ' is fully as improbable a character, though
the improbability is not so obviously extravagant as
is Miss Ferrier's Lewiston. The intention clearly was
to give an illustration of 'Video meliora proboque,.
