I was an English professor. I taught a Brit Lit survey course that forced me to teach one of her novels. I taught Emma, because that is the only one I could stand.

She was a great stylist, like Henry James, another of the unreadables. Alas, she never had a thought that left her neighborhood. She lived in and created a microcosm of a microcosm. She wrote beautiful sentences that raised dullness to art. No one has ever said more, and said it better, about less.

I’ll be happy when this bicentennial rhapsody is over. :)