But if the open air and adventure m

But if the open air and adventure mean everything to Defoe they mean nothing to Jane Austen. Hers is the drawing room and people talking and by the many mirrors of their talk revealing their characters. And if when we have accustomed ourselves to the drawing room and its reflections we turn to Hardy we are once more spun around. The moors are round us and the stars are above our heads. The other side of the mind is now exposed—the dark side that comes uppermost in solitude not the light side that shows in company. Yet different as these worlds are each is consistent with itself. The maker of each is careful to observe the laws of his own perspective and however great a strain they may put upon us they will never confuse us like lesser writers so frequently do by introducing two different kinds of reality into the same book.