EMMA. From the time of its publication in 1816, this has been one of the most highly re garded of the novels that Jane Austen wrote. It is the fruit of matured artistry, meditated observation and ripened judgment. The plot involves rather more strands than is customary in her work, but the main line of action is simple. Emma Woodhouse, the youthful hero ine, is much given to matchmaking. Having married off her governess before the opening of the story, she sets herself to bring about other marriages among her friends and ac quaintances. But the men and women around her are not mere pawns; they act in unantici pated ways; unsuspected factors alter situa tions; and in the resulting comedy of errors Emma eventually awakens to the fact that she herself has fallen in love. Difficulties and mis understandings are smoothed away and she is happily married. The easy, natural develop ment of the action, by means of incidents and conversations so normal in aspect as to con ceal the artistry of their conception, is espe cially noteworthy. Plot, however, is subsidiary to characterization. The book abounds in living personalities: the aggressive, vulgar Mrs. El ton; the valetudinarian father of Emma, with his taste for thin gruel; the immortally loqua cious, tender-hearted Miss Bates; the admi rable, thoroughly sensible Knightley; and Emma herself. It is one of the triumphs of Miss
Austen's art that, despite the writer's fears- al am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like,'" she had observed— Emma is one of her most fascinating creations-, the girl is fundamentally generous, sincere and affectionate; her obvious faults but serve to make her more richly human and appealing: In recounting the experiences of these• delight fully normal but highly individualized
acters, the author has presented us with an account of English village life remarkable for vitality, wholesomeness and unassuming in sight, related with amused tolerance and unob trusive irony, in a style easy, limpid and abso lutely adequate. The novel is not a complete picture of life. The awe and mystery of the world, the stormy passions of men, have no place here. But what is done is done su premely well. The ordinary occurrences of ordinary lives are transmuted into the pure gold of literature. Consult Howells, W. D., 'Heroines of Fiction' ; Cornish, Francis Ware,