The Cornhill Magazine Author:James Payn Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " I Did not know that you were a studior of character," says Bingley to Elizabeth. " It must be an amusing study." " Yes, but intricate characters are the mos... more »t amusing. They have at least that advantage." " The country," said Darcy, " can in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society." " But people themselves alter so much," Elizabeth answers, " that there is something new to be observed in them for ever." " Yes, indeed," cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by Darcy's manner of mentioning a country neighbourhood, " I assure yon that we have quite as much of that going on in the country as in town." . . " Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued her triumph." These people belong to a whole world of familiar acquaintances, who are, notwithstanding their old-fashioned dresses and quaint expressions, more alive to us than a great many of the people among whom we live. Wo know so much more about them to begin with. Notwithstanding a certain reticence and self-control which seem? to belong to their age, and with all their quaint dresses, and ceremonies, and manners, the ladies and gentlemen in Pride and Prejudice and its companion novels seem like living people out of our own acquaintance transported bodily into a bygone age, represented in the half-dozen books that contain Jane Austen's works. Dear books ! bright, sparkling with wit and animation, in which the homely heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very bores are enchanting. Could we but study our own bores as Miss Austen must have studied hers in her country village, what a delightful world this might ...« less