When Darcy first meets Elizabeth, the heroine of _Pride and Prejudice_, he shuns her and her family as vulgar. Elizabeth is so prejudiced against him that she cannot forget his insulting arrogance. But Darcy's love cannot be stemmed. Other heroes have plunged into raging floods to rescue the fair heroine. Darcy does more. For love of Elizabeth he accepts the whole Bennet family, including Mrs. Bennet, who always says the silly thing, and Lydia, who had almost invited Wickham to elope with her and was indifferent as to whether or not he married her, until Darcy compelled him to do so--a bitter humiliation for a man whose greatest fault was overweening pride of birth. At last, Elizabeth comprehends the extent of his generosity, his superior understanding and strength of character, and Darcy is rewarded by the hand of the sunniest heroine in all fiction. Who but Elizabeth with her independent spirit, quick intelligence and lively wit could curb his family pride! They marry, and we know they will be happy. _Sense and Sensibility_ works out a problem for lovers. Like many romantic girls, Marianne asserts that a woman can love but once. "He never loved that loved not at first sight" is also part of her creed. But after her infatuation for Willoughby has been cured, she contentedly marries Colonel Brandon, although she knows that he frequently has rheumatism and wears flannel waistcoats. Marianne will be much happier as the wife of a man of mature years who loves her impulsive nature and can control it than she would have been with the gallant who won her first love. In the piquant satire of _Northanger Abbey_ there is another problem suggested. This book is distinctly modern. Man is the pursued; woman the pursuer. Bernard Shaw has treated this momentous question in a serious manner in many of his plays. Jane Austen regards it with a humorous smile. Did Henry Tilney ever know why he married Catherine Morland? Or was this daughter of a country parsonage, without beauty, without accomplishments, and without riches, aware that on her first visit to Bath she used feminine arts that would have put Becky Sharp to shame--who, by the way, was a little girl at that time--and would have made Anne, the knowing heroine of _Man and Superman_, green with envy? Yet her arts consisted simply in following the dictates of her heart. She fell in love with Henry Tilney; looked for him whenever she entered the pump-room; was unhappy if he were absent and expressed her joy at his approach; saw in him the paragon of wisdom and looked at every thing with his eyes. From first ignoring her, he began to seek her society, and learn the true excellence of her character. And then Jane Austen explains: