time in which it was
written; how much of its character depends upon the mind and the mood of
the writer. The greatest minds, the most original, have the least stamp
of the age, the most of that dominant natural reality which belongs to
all great minds. We know how a landscape changes as the day goes on,
and how the scene brightens and gains in beauty as the shadows begin to
lengthen. The clearest eyes must see by the light of their own hour.
Jane Austen's literary hour must have been a midday hour: bright,
unsuggestive, with objects standing clear, without much shadow or
elaborate artistic effect. Our own age is more essentially an age of
strained emotion, little remains to us of starch, or powder, or courtly
reserve. What we have lost in calm, in happiness, in tranquillity, we
have gained in emphasis. Our danger is now, not of expressing and
feeling too little, but of expressing more than we feel.

The living writers of to-day lead us into distant realms and worlds
undreamt of in the placid and easily contented gigot age. Our characters
travel by rail and are no longer confined to postchaises. There is
certainly a wide difference between Miss Austen's heroines and, let us
say, a Maggie Tulliver. One would be curious to know whether, between
the human beings who read Jane Austen's books to-day and those who read
them fifty years ago, there is as great a contrast. One reason may be,
perhaps, that characters in novels are certainly more intimate with us
and on less ceremonious terms than in Jane Austen's days, when heroines
never gave up a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hardness of
heart in which some modern types are a little wanting. Whatever happens
they could for the most part speak of quietly and without bitterness.
Love with them does not mean a passion so much as an interest, deep,
silent, not quite incompatible with a secondary flirtation. Marianne
Dashwood's tears are evidently meant to be dried. Jane Bennet smiles,
sighs and makes excuses for Bingley's neglect. Emma passes one
disagreeable morning making up her mind to the unnatural alliance
between Mr. Knightly and Harriet Smith. It was the spirit of the age,
and, perhaps, one not to be unenvied. It was not that Jane Austen
herself was incapable of understanding a deeper feeling. In the last
written page of her last written book, there is an expression of the
deepest and truest experience. Annie Elliot's talk with Captain Benfield
is the touching