that Emma is just as human as most of us. :-)

I can't speak for all, but I suspect that most of us human beings, whether we would admit or not, when we look deep down inside, we do feel jealous of those who are more accomplished, more polished, more well-liked than ourselves.

It is easier to share other's sorrows in their failures than their joy in their success. But this doesn't mean that most of us are not compassionate, or are incapable of being understanding and kind, it only means that we have some learning and growing to do, much like Emma herself. I have always believed that Miss Austen's Emma was through and through a very lovable heroine (and I’m glad to have found that Walter Herries Pollock who wrote “Jane Austen, her contemporaries and herself, an essay in criticism” also felt the same), her faults are the common faults of most human beings, the fact that we get to privy her thoughts through the narrator had accentuated the magnitude of her flaws, but if we were to given the chance to privy into the thoughts of other characters, for example Jane Fairfax, I am certain that we'll also find her to be a faulty creature, and the same can be said about most other characters, and even most real human beings.

Miss Austen purposely wrote a heroine that some readers would find difficult to like, but I believe she also deliberately gave us many clues of how lovable this heroine truly was – and the biggest clue, to this reader in particular, is imbedded in the love of the most upright man of all her heroes. Mr. Knightley, the intelligent, kind, just, and astute gentleman would never have fallen in love with a spoiled, heartless, jealous, and prideful brat! He saw most qualities in Emma that Miss Austen purposely hid from us the readers - and yes, he also saw her faults, which just made it so much the more obvious that he must have seen far more good qualities in Emma than meet the eyes!