As I work my way through the Jane Austen oeuvre once again I’m finding that I like Emma Woodhouse more than I used to do. She is not an admirable character and the author was correct when she said no one else would like her. I used to feel superior. I would never make those wrong assumptions. I would never get myself into such a fix.

Part of the reason she is so annoying is not just that she is headstrong, but that nobody can do anything about it because she is the most important social figure in the neighborhood. When she nourishes an inappropriate friendship with Harriet Smith only Mr Knightly dares to say anything to her about its inadvisability.

But she doesn’t always listen to him, and so she is deserving of the embarrassment of Mr Elton’s attentions. But she doesn’t learn from it – she goes right on assuring herself that she knows better than anyone what’s appropriate. Until she gets tripped up in her own petticoat ribbons and realizes suddenly how wrong she has been and how much hangs on her blundering.

I was interested to note this time as I read the book that although Emma is very wealthy – or her father is – Mr Knightly is not. He is a large landholder and Mr Woodhouse’s estate is a pie-shaped piece cut out of Donwell. He has the land but she has the money. Emma criticizes Mr Knightly for using his carriage so seldom (always a bad sign in Austen whose really noble characters prefer to walk.) In a throwaway phrase the author mentions that he doesn’t have the money to keep carriage horses.

Austen’s novels are ever-new. On now to Persuasion, I think.