Jane Austen was writing about boring people with desperately limited lives. We forget this because we've seen too many of her books on screen.
“Vertigo, it was thought at the time, could only be caused by a disease of the cerebellum. He observed this kind of patient for years and saw absolutely no symptoms of brain disease.”
“I think we're all good and bad, but good's not funny. Bad is funny. Suppress the good and let the bad out, and then you can be funny.”