The New York herald., 1922-10-01

orally takes toward the author of Emma"
and Pride and Prejudice" II you happen
to be one OF those who really get the full
richness of her inimitable pages; if you
catch behind the stodgiest utterance of her
characters the swift twinkle of the au-
| thor's eye and share her perennial amuse-
ment at the foibles and weaknesses of
human nature. you win read Love and
Friendship" with many a delighted chuckle
and tell yourself, How exactly like her.
OF course she would have written that way
at seventeen" But if you are one of that
sadly numerous class that reads Jane
Austen from sense of duty and finds her
dull. you are naturally rather bewildered
by piece OF rampant nonsense-which Mr.
Chesterton in his rarely discriminating
preface has aptly defined as a ''rattling
burlesque"-and helplessly ask yourself
what relation it can possible bear to such
sober works as Mansfield Park and Per-
suasion"
Such bewilderment is betrayed in more
than one attempt already made to draw a
far fetched analogy between Love and
Friendship" and that product of infantile
precocity, THE Young Visitors" The lat
ter is funny because of its unconscious
absIrdities The former after the lapse of
century. is still an abiding joy because of
the deliberate topsyturvyness with which
the romantic Stiffness OF its age and gen.
GRAFTON is parodied. The astonishing thing
about this Juvenile work-never, of course,
intended for publications. the sureness
Of the authors touch, the evidence in every
page that she knew precisely what she was
doing, and delighted like a good boxer, in
putting every ounce of weight behind each
blow. What she was hitting at, as Mr..
Chesterton discerningly points out. was
specifically the cardinal sin of the roman
tics of her day in their "gloriication of in
gratitude to parents. and their easy as
sumption that the old are always wrong. "
And he cites the utterance of the noble
Youth in Love and Friendship" mol
Never shall il be said that l obliged nv
father!"
1t would be pleasant pastime to trace
down through all six well known novels
vealed in the sheer exuberance of these
youthful pages. OF course, the easy and
obvious analogy to draw is with North
anger Abbey" the whole joke of which
turns on its ridicule of the inanities of
The Mysteries of Udolpho" and its like
But in all her stories, even in Emma,
the maturest and most deeply satisfying
of them all. the serious situations. the
trials and perplexities of her heroines are
in most cases traceable to a single origin
tine incurable romanticism of their genera
ton: their assumption that they are wiser
than their elders. their desire to attain
happiness. not sanely and normally. but
extraordinarily through some special
miracle Of destiny
For these reasons Love and Friend
ship" should take an abiding place in all
future editions OF the authors collected
works More than that, it should form part
of the Introductory reading TO any serious
study of Jane Austen. Only in this way
can il be made apparent to the general
reader that Miss Austen was not a staid
middle aged spinster. cleaning sparse en-
tertainment from a narrow environment
but vital. living force that took humanity
when and where she found it and shaped it
into imperishable masterpieces. The diff
ference between her earliest and her latest
works may be summed up by the one word
'self-discipline." 1t is the difference be-
tween the impetuous force of a mountain
stream cleaving its way with the freedom
of youth and the same energy harnessed
and controlled to polish with patient labor