Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/201

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ROMANCE AND REALITY.
195

always sensible; but we feel somewhat selfish in making them our code—and her heroines are so prudent, that we quite long for them to commit some little indiscretion. She is an English and dramatic Rochefoucault, developing her axioms by actions; and with, moreover, a point of attack before her. French morality and French sentiment were the alpha and omega of her literary warfare."

Edward Lorraine.—"Surely Miss Burney's heroines get into scrapes enough to satisfy you. To tell you the truth—I hope there is not even a picture of an aunt or grandmother near—I never liked Miss Burney. Her pages are a succession of caricatures—her lovely Miss Anvilles and angelic Miss Beverleys pretty wax dolls—and her Lord Orvilles and Mortimer Delvilles just captivating court-suits. Camilla is the only character with any interest; and even that is lost in her preference of that most prudent young gentleman, Edgar Mandlebert. I never forgive a girl bad taste in her lover. What must she be, when even her idéal of excellence is mean?"

Mr. Morland.—"I prefer Miss Austen's; they are the truest pictures of country life, whose little schemes, hopes, scandals, &c. are