Like Shakespeare Jane Austen knew the inner nature by intuition, and had learned its outward expression by observation. Character not only affects the speech of each one of her men and women, but determines their destiny and shapes the plot of the story. The class she has chosen to represent is the least under the sway of circumstances of any in England. With money for all needs, and leisure for enjoyment, free from obligations which pertain to higher rank, character here develops freely and naturally. Not one of the matchmaking men or women, not even the intelligent Emma, succeeds in changing the life of those whom they attempt to influence. Character is stronger than any outside agency. In this respect, Jane Austen is decidedly at variance with Thomas Hardy or Tolstoi, but she is at one with Shakespeare. In the opening paragraph of each book, character begins to assert itself. If Darcy had been without PRIDE, and Elizabeth had been without PREJUDICE; if Marianne had had her sensibilities under control; if Emma had not been blind; if Captain Wentworth had not been unjust and resentful--there would have been no story to tell, the course of true love would have run so smooth. But all of them are loving and faithful, and these qualities in the end conquer, and bring the stories to a happy conclusion. Edmund Gosse thus writes of her delineation of character: "Like Balzac, like Tourgenieff at his best, Jane Austen gives the reader an impression of knowing everything there was to know about her creations, of being incapable of error as to their acts, thoughts, or emotions. She presents an absolute illusion of reality; she exhibits an art so consummate that we mistake it for nature. She never mixes her own temperament with those of her characters, she is never swayed by them, she never loses for a moment her perfect, serene control of them. Among the creators of the world, Jane Austen takes a place that is with the highest and that is purely her own."