It says something of both our education system and my own laziness that a man can flaunt a doctorate in English Literature without ever having had the stamina to finish reading a Jane Austen novel. This has been rectified and I will confess that it was at times a chore - Austen is just not my cup of tea. I spent a good part of Sense and Sensibility merely wishing that the worthy Elinor would give her sister Marianne a good slap.
However it is the way of these things that you get to the very end of a book (Chapter Fifty in this case) and a paragraph leaps off the page and assaults you with its concise beauty. This is writing of luminescence and the journey is worth the toil:
Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resuscitation of Edward, she had one again.
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