anybody who can read between lines will not find the lovers’

conversations in the final chapters so frigid as they might have looked

to the Della Cruscans of their own day, and perhaps do look to the Della

Cruscans of this.
And, after all, what is the good of seeking for the reason of

charm?—it is there. There were better sense in the sad mechanic

exercise of determining the reason of its absence where it is not. In

the novels of the last hundred years there are vast numbers of young

ladies with whom it might be a pleasure to fall in love; there are at

least five with whom, as it seems to me, no man of taste and spirit can

help doing so. Their names are, in chronological order, Elizabeth

Bennet, Diana Vernon, Argemone Lavington, Beatrix Esmond, and Barbara

Grant. I should have been most in love with Beatrix and Argemone; I

should, I think, for mere occasional companionship, have preferred Diana

and Barbara. But to live with and to marry, I do not know that any one

of the four can come into competition with Elizabeth.

George Saintsbury.
{xxiv}
{xxv}
List of Illustrations.

 PAGE
Frontispieceiv
Title-pagev
Dedicationvii
Heading to Prefaceix
Heading to List of Illustrationsxxv
Heading to Chapter I. 1
“He came down to see the place”2
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet5
“I hope Mr. Bingley will like it”6
“I’m the tallest”9
“He rode a black horse”10
“When the party entered”12
“She is tolerable”15
Heading to Chapter IV.18
Heading to Chapter V.22
“Without once opening his lips”24
Tailpiece to Chapter V.26
Heading to Chapter VI.27
“The entreaties of several”31
“A note for Miss Bennet”36
“Cheerful prognostics”40
“The apothecary came”43
“Covering a screen”45
“Mrs. Bennet and her two youngest girls”53
Heading to Chapter X.60
“No, no; stay where you are”67
“Piling up the fire”69
Heading to Chapter XII.75
Heading to Chapter XIII.78
Heading to Chapter XIV.84
“Protested that he never read novels”87
Heading to Chapter XV.89
Heading to Chapter XVI.95