The uncomfortable correction
Till this moment, I never knew myself.
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice · Volume II, chapter XIII (chapter 36 in continuous numbering)
Original English. 1813. Elizabeth Bennet speaking in the novel; not a statement from Austen’s personal correspondence.
Elizabeth Bennet has encountered evidence that unsettles the account she had made of other people and herself. The discomfort is part of the insight. Austen shows how intelligence and confidence can coexist with selective attention, especially when pride or attraction is involved. Recognizing an error does not mean that every earlier judgment was worthless. It means that a particular judgment needs revision and its causes deserve examination. In ordinary life, a correction may arrive through a letter, a conversation, or a fact we had dismissed. The harder task is allowing it to change something after the first feeling of embarrassment passes.
A question for today
What recent correction deserves more than a quick acknowledgment?
