One of the delights of affect theory is formulating definitions of obscure emotions and adjectives, such as “arch”:

“ “Archness” is sort of the sentimentality of the terminally ironic: forcing and over-signaling an irony and expecting your interlocutor or reader to be just as thrilled with it as you are.” (anonymous prof)

I am crestfallen! Since my, oh, let’s say fifth reading of Pride and Prejudice, my behaviour has sporadically been shaped by a particular sentence of Austen’s: “There was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody” (202). So I fell in love with Elizabeth Bennett and immediately tried to imitate her as often as I thought of it. Alas, insofar as I’ve been successful, I fear I’ve indulged a “narcissistic infatuation with [my] own fabulous taste and/or sensitivity to irony” (AP). I will console myself with the fact that there’s no way I’ve managed to approach Austen’s archness, as embodied in Elizabeth. To quote another (wise, prophetic) critic, whose first name may have been Michael: “Personally, I find it improbable that anyone, at any age, wrote Pride and Prejudice.”

While we’re on the subject to P&P, which we aren’t often enough by the way, here’s an opposing take on the book, provided in the interest of fair and balanced reporting:
“It’s a loathsome story. In my mind, a 15-year-old girl is abducted and raped by a oldier [sic], and her family pays him to marry her. It's all about selling your useless female children” (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/style/tmagazine/t_b_2089_2090_keira_.1.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=10f0f18945ba288a&ex=1130385600).

Well….yes, I suppose so. But isn’t the delight of Austen partly located in her stolid insistence that personal responsibility lies squarely within each individual’s unambiguously free will? Born and bred in the same environment, no two people were ever more unlike than Elizabeth and the intolerable Lydia. Of course, having been raised in a compassionate, liberal household, in any context where I am free from Austen’s persuasion, I would never hold Lydia in the least responsible for Lydia’s “seduction.” I’d blame parental negligence, Wickam, sexism, patriarchy. But when Austen hints that one has the power to choose to be either like Elizabeth or like Lydia, with the caveat that one accept full responsibility for not only one’s character and actions, but also all that happens in one’s life… I’m inclined to apply the exacting standard of judgment to myself. But, then, such inclination reeks of narcissism.

A final note on individual moral responsibility. In “Wealth of Nations,” Adam Smith famously creates capitalism on the basis that all humans act out of self-interest. In “Theory of Moral Sentiments,” he claims that sympathy is natural to those same humans. What a seeming contradiction! 19th century German philosophers apparently referred to it as “das Adam Smith Problem.” Would I could be so concise.