The Other Bennet Sister

by Janice Hadlow

“Well, I’m very sorry for the girl. It cannot be easy to be the only ugly duckling amongst so many swans.”

I will not stand in the way of any member of this family who seeks to diminish the amount of stupidity in this house.

“For me, that is one of their chief recommendations. I do not care to be told what to think at every turn of a page. And I do not agree that they have nothing to tell us. Is Charles Grandison to be thus dismissed? Tristram Shandy? Tom Jones? Works in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature is displayed? The greatest powers of the mind described? No, I cannot sit by and leave the novel undefended.”

“I suppose all enquiry is a mixture of the intellectual and the personal. How can we know where one begins and the other ends?

If I don’t have the genius to create a thing of beauty myself, at least I have the judgement to appreciate the art of others.

“No, you would not see it,” replied Mr. Hayward, “but I do. And as you aren’t accustomed to acknowledging your most attractive qualities, I consider it my duty to remind you of them from time to time.”