It is clear that someone with the writerly resources of Austen could have avoided that repetition and chosen cognates and near synonyms for what we might call 'characteristic disposition’, 'dominant mood’, 'general feeling’ , 'personality’ and so on. We need not have recourse to ‘premsia’ and ‘threctia and the universe of Cattell to vary the delineation of temper. That she did not do so is very likely because of its importance to her. It is the natural word. Living in a restricted closed off world as she was, attention to the moods of others and navigation of their reefs and shoals would be a useful skill. On an open tempered, interpretation it might be a loving awareness. I find her acerbic ironies refreshing and I shouldn’t wonder if some of her family found her temper a little sharp betimes.
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