The second essential, which is fulfilled in every case of the principal characters in the novels, is that the marriages are real unions, not those accidental associations which are based on imagination. Her men and women get to know each other thoroughly by constant intercourse, until the faults and virtues, the defects and abilities, are clear and plain. Jane knew that real love may begin by attraction, but must be built upon knowledge. In not a single case is a pretty face or a handsome person the reason for a man’s or woman’s falling in love. Darcy considers Elizabeth Bennet only “tolerable” when he first sees her, it is when he begins to care for her that he notes her “fine eyes.” Though Catherine Morland was a pretty girl, it was not that which won Henry Tilney, but her naïve adoration of himself, and her sweet sincerity. Edmund Bertram runs after Miss Crawford for a time, but it is the excellence of Fanny’s mind which gives him his life’s happiness, and so on through all. The third essential in Jane’s mind was evidently that the love of the two should be mutual. In every case her heroine is genuinely in love before she gives her consent to marriage. Fanny Bertram of course knew her own love for Edmund long before his eyes were opened to the need he had for her. Anne Elliot had bitterly regretted for many weary years the fatal compliance with the wishes of her friends which had separated her from the man she loved, and when he returns only to pay attentions to another, and she imagines she has lost him for ever, she still never swerves in her loyalty to him. Poor Elinor has the mortification of hearing from the lips of a rival that Edward Ferrars is engaged to her, but still her choice never falters. For women of this kind, women of fine character, marriage without love is impossible; in the abstract it is not a necessity, as it often seems to be to a man; if they cannot have the one man they love, they will infinitely prefer to remain single. We must admit that, as Anne Elliot says, the power of loving longest remains with women, only we should amend to the extent of saying with the noblest women.