You mean, I didn't convince you last time, Barb ? ;-)

Seriously, though, I do still believe that Mr and Mrs Austen would have let the young Jane read almost anything. And if she didn't read these, then they were read in evening et-togethers, and discussed amongst the family.

The other day, I was flipping through a copy of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and found his description of "Pride" under "the Virtues". He basically explores Pride from every angle, including the cases where pride is necessarily a good thing, especially for great men. I could hear Lizzy Bennet saying, "Indeed he has no improper Pride!" as I finished it. JA must have been familiar with this- if not in the original Greek, then from family discussions, her brothers' homework, and from the moralistic and sermonizing writers of the day. I truly do believe that her education was very wide indeed, if only second-hand.