Re: Of cabbages and kings....

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This doesn’t answer why you say she is sometimes naïve. Maybe it is because you take her to be showing characters acting virtuously in forgiving others?

I've tried to explain this several times as an opinion, Amy. Jane Austen wrote stories and created characters. This does not make her free of making errors in her views of those characters, or indeed sometimes being wrong in those views. There has never a writer been born that hasn't had criticism or disagree ment of their views. Charlotte Bronte was hardly Jane Austen's biggest fan.

It's almost as if J.A lets some characters off from just being really bad-eggs by softening the blows of just saying it. Have you ever met a real-life Jane Bennet; someone who just cannot/will not see faults in others? Jane is almost unreal in her naivety where faults are concerned and we immediately are struck by the unreality of that. In real life a Willoughby would be shunned by anyone knowing his history; Jane Austen has Elinor almost forgiving and feeling sorry for him. That's what I mean by her naivety. Would Mr Bennet ever let William Collins darken his door again after the letter he wrote about Lydia's actions? That these things occur is the reason for my comment on J.A's Christian atitude. It is delightful in essence and completely impractical in reality.