With delicate, true touches such as these, and in easy conversation, Miss Austen builds up her characters. By the time we have finished the story, we know Mr. Woodhouse intimately, and Emma, and Mrs. and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, and many others. Is it not true that you know a good deal about Mr. Woodhouse only from hearing him speak of what food his guests should eat? Mr. Bennet in _Pride and Prejudice_ is a father of a different character. He has five daughters, but he is fondest of Elizabeth, or Eliza as she is {156} often called. Mrs. Bennet, his wife, is unfortunately rather a silly person. Miss Austen is able to explain Mrs. Bennet's character just by letting her talk, and Mrs. Bennet talks a great deal. Mrs. Bennet says to her husband, for instance, that he has no compassion on her poor nerves. Mr. Bennet answers: "You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least." One would say that Mr. Bennet was, perhaps, not very considerate himself, a little inclined to be satirical with his foolish wife. But here is part of a conversation of his with Eliza, when she has told him at the end of the second book that she was going to be married, which shows Mr. Bennet in a better light. "Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy." How easy and simple it all seems, and yet to write naturally and simply, with such entire truth to nature, is one of the most difficult arts for any novelist. Miss Austen wrote six novels altogether, _Pride and Prejudice_, _Sense and Sensibility_, _Emma_, _Persuasion_, _Mansfield Park_, and _Northanger Abbey_. She lived and wrote a little more than a hundred years ago, but her books are read and admired to-day perhaps more than at any previous time. There is something very charming and interesting in Miss Austen's reticence, truthfulness, strength of character, crystal purity and delightful {157} humour. Her field is narrow, she is not eloquent or sublime, but her work in its own way is perfect. When Miss Austen wrote, it was not the fashion for ladies to write, and she often used to hide her manuscript beneath a bit of sewing, or place it hastily in a drawer when a door near where she wrote creaked on its hinges. We know from some letters written by her family that there was such a creaking door.