Shannon McDermott’s Reviews > Emma > Status Update

"The stain of illegitimacy, unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed."

I wouldn't know where to start or end with this. Just ... not good.

"Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without difficulty, upon Mrs Elton's beginning to talk to him."

"She doubted whether she had not transgressed the duty of woman by woman, in betraying her suspicions of Jane Fairfax's feelings to Frank Churchill."

You did, honey.

It is nice to see Emma take a break from complaining that Jane Fairfax is reserved in order to spread rumors that Jane Fairfax is in love with her best friend's husband.

"She wished him very well ... and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most satisfaction."

I have felt this way about people.

This is the second Jane Austen novel I have read in the past year, and the second that features a minister who spends a great deal of time flitting off to Bath and hanging about dinner parties, and I wonder if being a minister of the Church of England does not involve work.