It is a curious circumstance, taken in conjunction with this, that all the mothers of Jane’s heroines, when living, are described as fools or worse. It is not intended to hint that she drew such characters from the home circle or from her mother’s friends, but it is plainly to be seen that she did not look for, or expect from women of this standing, the wit and sense she found elsewhere. Indeed, when one thinks of the bringing up of women in those days, their narrowness of education and extraordinary ignorance of the world, it is wonderful how many did possess keen sense and mother wit. The most notable of the examples in point in the books is Mrs. Bennet in _Pride and Prejudice_, who, with her foolish indulgence of her younger children, her mad desire to get her daughters married to anyone who could furnish a home of whatever sort, is the worst specimen of her kind. “‘Oh, Mr. Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make Lizzie marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him; and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have her.’” Mr. Bennet’s subsequent calm rebuke in his admonition to his daughter, “‘An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do,’” heightens the effect of his wife’s folly. Mrs. Bennet’s fatuous self-complacency, selfishness, and want of sense might have been almost too painful to cause amusement even in a book, had they not been set off by her husband’s sardonic humour, just the touch that Jane Austen knew so well how to give. But Mrs. Bennet is not the only one. Mrs. Jennings, in _Sense and Sensibility_, is “a good-humoured, merry, fat, elderly woman, who talked a great deal, seemed very happy and rather vulgar.” She is perpetually making the Dashwood girls wince with her outspoken allusions, and seems altogether deficient in taste and sense, though extremely kind-hearted. As for Mrs. Dashwood senior, in the same book, in her belief in the charming but double-faced Willoughby, she is, if possible, one degree more credulous than her most foolish daughter. Lady Bertram of _Mansfield Park_ is kind enough to her niece in her own way, but “she did not go into public with her daughters. She was too indolent even to accept a mother’s gratification in witnessing their success and enjoyment at the expense of any personal trouble.” “Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband leave her; but she was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety or solicitude for his comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous or difficult or fatiguing to anyone but themselves.”