I know that Mr Woodhouse means well and has everyone's best interests at heart, but in this chapter I find him more exasperating than amusing, and by the end of it I have a good deal of sympathy with John Knightley's irritation.

I have experienced the frustrations of coping with a much loved elderly relative with an obsession about health matters, diet and so on, and I have a lot of respect for the patience and tact with which Emma manages her father's foibles - In this she is a better woman than I am.