SIR, - 1 am surprised that Mr. Kingsley Amis, in his article
on Jane Austen, should have made a notable misstatement. He claims that Edmund (in Mansfield Park) was shocked by Mary Crawford's reference, in company, to her uncle's alteration to a cottage and consequent spoiling of a garden. Not even an Edmund would have been shocked by this. What did shock Edmund—and very rightly—was Mary's comment on admirals : 'Of Rears and Vices I saw enough. Now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat you.'
As Mary's uncle, the admiral, was well known to prefer his mistress to his wife, the implication was un- mistakable, and certainly it was a remark in the very worst of taste, more especially as the admiral had given his niece a home.
I hope few of us will blame Fanny excessively—as Mr. Amis seems to do—for being ashamed of her
home. Any girl, brought up as Fanny had been in the Mansfield Park environment, and suddenly trank ferred at eighteen to her former home, would hal! been a saint if she had not been ashamed of tilia' home: a coarse, dirty, loud-mouthed father, a vica'. willed and incompetent mother, ill-mannered children and a slovenly household—truly the change fr°111 Mansfield Park must have been overwhelming. In° fact that Fanny hid her feelings is very much to ha credit.—Yours faithfully,
MARGARET W. ORO 44 Montague Road, Richmond, Surrey ROME AND THE SARACENS
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