"Jane's fictional world was so perfectly, minutely and solidly constructed that it took another brilliant and unusual writer, Charlotte Brontë, a generation later, to pull it down. Brontë memorably described Pride and Prejudice as 'a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers - but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy - no open country - no fresh air - no blue hill - no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.' She concludes her demolition job with 'these observations will probably irritate'. Yes, Charlotte Brontë, they do irritate, as you could hardly have written Jane Eyre unless Jane Austen had previously constructed something worthy of demolition."
From Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley (a most enjoyable read).
