\paperw3360 \margr0\margl0\ATXph16380 \plain \fs20 \f1 \fs22 The novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817), noted for her domestic novels of manners, chose as her settings the confines of
middle-class provincial society. Her skill at drawing characters and situations with delicate irony is evident in the following excerpt from \i Pride and Prejudice\i0 , written when she was just twenty-one, and revised for publication in 1813. Clearly
Brighton conjured up images of considerable moral ambiguity to the likes of sensible Elizabeth Bennet:\par
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\i ôIf one could but go to Brighton!ö observed Mrs Bennet.\par
ôOh yes! - If one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so disagreeable.ö
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ôA little sea-bathing would set me up for ever.ö\par
ôAnd my aunt Philips said it would do me a great deal of good,ö added Kitty.\par
Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through Longbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be divert
ed by them; but all sense of pleasure was lost in shame; ...this invitation was far so from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death-warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter; and d
etestable as such a step must make her were it known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go. She represented to him all the improprieties of LydiaÆs general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship
of such a woman as Mrs Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home.\par
