12 DECEMBER 1925, Page 24

Mr. R. Briknley Johnson has -made a selection from The

Letters of Jane Austen (Bodley Head). They are full of small gossip—and suffer aAittic from the smallness of_ the gossip; for we hear news, -at times, of Such-and-such a person that demands acquaintance before it can be interesting. None the less there is all the shreivdness that we should expect, ea, and ngreat deal of playfulness and nonsense. And she sets an eXcelleirt model for private -correspondence..,In- one letter

slie writes :— " I have now attained the _true art of letter writing, Which wo are always told is to express on paper atactly what one would say to the same person by word of month. have been talking to you 'almost as fast as I could the whole 'of this letter."