Bradley, A.C. (1851-1935)

Jane Austen [from Essays and Studies]

Oxford

Clarendon Press

1911

"As for Mr. Woodhouse, whose most famous sentences hang like texts in frames on the four walls of our memories, he is, next to Don Quixote, perhaps the most perfect gentleman in fiction; and under outrageous provocation he remains so."

Emma is a far more mature piece of work. It is the most vivacious of the later novels, and with some readers the first favourite. In plot-interest it is probably the strongest of the six, and, not to speak of the more prominent persons, it contains, in Mr. Woodhouse and Miss Bates, two minor characters who resemble one another in being the object equally of our laughter and our unqualified respect and affection. Jane Austen, who is said to be Shakespearian, never reminds us of Shakespeare, I think, in her full-dress portraits, but she does so in such characters as Miss Bates and Mrs. Allen. As for Mr. Woodhouse, whose most famous sentences hang like texts in frames on the four walls of our memories, he is, next to Don Quixote, perhaps the most perfect gentleman in fiction; and under outrageous provocation he remains so. This, I believe, is the severest thing he says in the story; it was said of Frank Churchill to the young man's stepmother:

'That young man (speaking lower) is very thoughtless. Do not tell his father, but that young man is not quite the thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening, and kee ing them open very inconsiderately. He does not think o' the draught. I do not mean to set you against him, but indeed he is not quite the thing.'
(p. 21)

Architecture::Walls Visual Arts::Frames

Reading

A.C. Bradley, "Jane Austen: A Lecture," Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, vol. 2, H.C. Beeching (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1911). <Link to Google Books>

11/10/2015