Virtue in Jane Austen’s 'Mansfield Park'

'This essay is the first in the monthly series "Forgotten Classics."'

Felix James Miller at The European Conservative.

"[Scottish Catholic philosopher Alasdair] MacIntyre believes not only that Jane Austen’s work is concerned with the virtues, but that she is the expositor par excellence of a specific virtue: that of constancy. This virtue, which might also be called ‘integrity,’ is concerned with ensuring unity to one’s life such that each action shows forth one’s true (and upstanding) character. A man or woman who possesses constancy lives a coherent life, speaking honestly and avoiding giving false impressions. In a word, the constant man is concerned with being, and not with seeming."

See Austen, Emma, in Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 46.