CHAWTON, Thursday (February 4).
MY DEAR CASSANDRA,--Your letter was truly welcome, and I am much obliged
to you for all your praise; it came at a right time, for I had had some
fits of disgust. Our second evening's reading to Miss B. had not
pleased me so well, but I believe something must be attributed to my
mother's too rapid way of getting on: though she perfectly understands
the characters herself, she cannot speak as they ought. Upon the whole,
however, I am quite vain enough and well satisfied enough. The work is
rather too light and bright and sparkling: it wants shade; it wants to
be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it
could be had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense, about something
unconnected with the story,--an essay on writing, a critique on Walter
Scott, or the history of Buonaparte, or something that would form a
contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness
and epigrammatism of the general style. . . . The greatest blunder in
the printing that I have met with is in page 220, v. 3, where two
speeches are made into one. There might as well be no suppers at
Longbourn; but I suppose it was the remains of Mrs. Bennet's old Meryton
habits.