Vol. I Chapter XI
Introducing Mrs. and Mr. John Knightley
Mrs. John Knightley, Isabella, Emma’s sister:
- Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet manners, and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate; wrapt up in her family; a devoted wife, a doting mother, and so tenderly attached to her father and sister that, but for these higher ties, a warmer love might have seemed impossible . . . She was not a woman of strong understanding or any quickness . . .
Mr. John Knightley, Emma’s brother-in-law:
- Mr. John Knightley was a tall, gentleman-like, and very clever man; rising in his profession, domestic, and respectable in his private character; but with reserved manners which prevented his being generally pleasing; and capable of sometimes being out of humour. He was not an ill-tempered man, not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a reproach; but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects in it should not be increased.
Stayed up until the wee hours, reading. Find Emma to be a hilarious character, or at least the way Jane Austen writes her is hilarious. She is so naive in her goals, and so incorrigibly snobbish.
Stay tuned.
