6/29/2023 0 Comments Eligible sittenfeld![]() ![]() Pardon me – but you will be limited as to number – only three at once.” “Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. “I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan’t I?” – (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on every body’s assent) – “Do not you all think I shall?” The turning point of Emma and its most shocking moment is Emma’s slight but stinging gibe at poor, talky, tiresome Miss Bates. Of these good-mannered, good-natured women, Emma Woodhouse is the most self-confident, even to the point of self-congratulation, and thereby runs a risk, for her author sees presumptuousness as a fault to which even diffidence is preferable. M ost of her readers would agree, I think, that Jane Austen’s heroines, even the witty Elizabeth Bennet, do not indulge in hateful or spiteful talk. ![]()
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