Lady Catherine is not much the inferior (it would have been pleasing to tell her so) of her _protege_ and chaplain.

Of almost all the characters, and of quite the whole book, it is scarcely extravagant to say that it could not have been better on its own scale and scheme--that it is difficult to conceive any scheme and scale on which it could have been better.

And, yet once more, there is nothing out of the way in it--the only thing not of absolutely everyday occurrence, the elopement of Lydia, happens on so many days still, with slight variations, that it can hardly be called a licence.
The same qualities appear throughout the other books, whether in more or less quintessence and with less or more alloy is a question rather of individual taste than for general or final critical decision.

_Sense and Sensibility_, the first actually to appear (1811), is believed to have been written about the same time as _Pride and Prejudice_, which appeared two years later, and _Northanger Abbey_, which did not see the light till its author was dead.

It is the weakest of the three--perhaps it is the weakest of all: but the weakness is due rather to an error of judgment than to a lack of power.