The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After (53 page)

3
See Chapman, op. cit., “Indoor games, on the other hand, were a much larger part of domestic life than they are today.”

4
From Jane Austen’s unfinished novel
The Watsons
: “The Edwards were people of fortune who lived in town and kept their coach; the Watsons inhabited a village about three miles distant, were poor, & had no close carriage; & ever since there had been Balls in the place, the former were accustomed to invite the Latter to dress, dine, & sleep at their House, on every monthly return throughout the winter.” For a dramatization of the humiliation that accepting this kind of favor could involve, see “Letter the third: From a young Lady in distress’d Circumstances to her friend” from
Volume the Second
of Jane Austen’s juvenilia.

5
See Emma and Mr. Knightley’s discussion—on the subject of which, more in the next chapter—of whether Frank Churchill should come pay his respects to his new stepmother even if it might offend the rich aunt and uncle on whom he’s financially dependent: “It might not be so easy to burst forth at once into perfect independence, and set all their claims on his gratitude and regard at nought.”

6
Thank you, Lionel Yaceczko, for this important insight, not to mention for teaching Billy all that Latin.

7
Partly because we
do
have to be so buttoned up at the office.

8
A husband wouldn’t expect to have a say about the flower garden, or manage the household servants; a wife wouldn’t expect to help get the hay in, or decide on the family investments. See Chapman, op. cit., especially pp. 509–10, but more, Jane Austen’s novels themselves.

9
Interestingly, it’s of Mary Crawford that Jane Austen says “her attention was all for men and women.” But it’s true about Jane Austen herself, too: “Mary and I, after disposing of her father and mother, went to the Liverpool Museum and the British Gallery, and I had some amusement at each, though my preference for men and women always inclines me to attend more to the company than to the sight.” April 18, 2011, letter to Cassandra.

10
“She had no separate study to retire to, and most of the work must have been done in the general sitting-room, subject to all kinds of casual interruptions. She was careful that her occupation should not be suspected by servants, or visitors, or any persons beyond her own family party. She wrote upon small sheets of paper which could easily be put away, or covered with a piece of blotting paper. There was, between the front door and the offices, a swing door which creaked when it was opened; but she objected to having this little inconvenience remedied, because it gave her notice when anyone was coming.... I have no doubt that I and my sisters and cousins, in our visits to Chawton, frequently disturbed this mystic process, without having any idea of the mischief that we were doing; certainly we never should have guessed it by any signs of impatience or irritability in the writer.” James Edward Austen-Leigh’s
Memoir
of his aunt.

11
Jane Austen herself said of being the author of
Pride and Prejudice
: “What a trifle it is, in all its bearings, to the really important points of one’s existence, even in this world.”

12
Okay, I plead guilty.

13
She was quite sharp, for example, about how little her own comfort and convenience were considered in the move with her parents to Bath from the Steventon rectory where she had grown up. (Her father was retiring in order to make way for his eldest son James at Steventon.) “You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, & my Mother has shewn me exactly the same attention, but as I do not chuse to have Generosity dictated to me, I shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to Anna till the first thought of it has been my own.” The miserable bustle of Anne Elliot’s unwelcome move from Kellynch to Bath has something of the flavor of Jane Austen’s life at this time: “My father’s old Ministers are already deserting him to pay their court to his Son; the brown Mare, which as well as the black was to devolve on James at our removal, has not had patience to wait for that, & has settled herself even now at Deane.... & everything else I suppose will be seized by degrees in the same manner. Martha & I work at the books every day.”

14
“In short, if I live to be an old Woman, I must expect to wish I had died now; blessed in the tenderness of such a Family, & before I had survived either them or their affection,” she wrote in her final illness. May 22, 1817, letter to Anne Sharpe.

1
She was only Emma’s governess and the Woodhouses’ live-in companion. “Had she been a person of consequence herself, he would have come I dare say; and it
would not have signified whether he did or no. Can you think your friend behind-hand in these sort of considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to herself?” Mr. Knightley argues to Emma.

2
“No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English. He may be very ‘aimable,’ have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people: nothing really amiable about him.”

3
When people in Jane Austen’s day said
nature
, they sometimes meant “rocks and mountains,” trees and animals, and so forth. But sometimes they were thinking more along the lines of “human nature.” Newton had discovered natural laws that governed the physical universe, and people tended to think in a similar way about the principles that human beings should live by. They thought of rules for “right conduct” as part of another kind of natural law, which could also be discovered by applying reason to our observations from nature. Except that the nature to be observed in this case was the behavior of human beings, not of falling objects. And the laws you could derive from those observations were the principles by which men and women ought to conduct their lives, not the laws of gravity or inertia.

4
Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805.

5
Not
that they believed in some kind of “prosperity gospel,” where if you get into God’s good graces all your problems will melt away and you’ll be made instantly rich and happy. (Or that everything was “all for the best in the best of all possible worlds,” the philosophy formulated by Gottfried Leibniz and embodied in the character of Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s
Candide
.) They didn’t see the connection between right conduct and happiness as a crude
quid pro quo
—you do what God wants and He rewards you with success—so much as an expression of a natural relationship between doing the right thing and being right with God, other people, and the world in general.

6
A modern natural law philosopher, J. Budziszewski, does a good job of explaining what it means for certain moral principles to be axiomatic. There are some things, he points out, that you “can’t not know.” Just the same way that you
can’t not know
that 2+2=4, you
can’t not know
that injustice is wrong, or that courage
is good. We can argue about what counts as injustice, or about whether or not someone was really being brave or foolish in a particular case. But no one can actually look down on another person for having courage (only for showing off, or being stupid, or for something else other than the actual bravery). And we can’t really approve of unfairness, either, or admire cheating for its own sake. (We only make excuses for it, or do it because we think the end justifies the means, or admire a cheater’s cleverness.) Unfairness always needs justifying by something, while fairness is self-justifying. J. Budziszewski,
What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide
(Ignatius Press revised and expanded edition, 2011).

7
The “natural light” of her mind, in the absence of good example or good principles from her parents.

8
One more example: Mrs. Bennet sends Jane to Netherfield on horseback on a rainy day, hoping she’ll catch a cold and have to stay for a few days, so that propinquity will bring the rich Mr. Bingley to an early proposal of marriage. And Mr. Bennet doesn’t step in to put a stop to her scheming. Instead, when Jane really does get sick, he indulges his wit at his wife’s expense, as usual: “Well, my dear... if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness, if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders.” When Jane recovers faster than her mother hopes and Mrs. Bennet, “who had calculated on her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which would exactly finish Jane’s week,” won’t send the carriage to pick them up, Jane asks Mr. Bingley to lend her his and goes home as soon as she’s well, rather than taking every advantage of the opportunity to ply Mr. Bingley with her charms. Jane Austen’s commentary on Jane’s resistance to her mother’s manipulations: “Jane was firm where she felt herself to be right.”

9
For example, “While politics and Mr. Elton were talked over, Emma could fairly surrender all her attention to the pleasantness of her neighbour” and, in
Northanger Abbey
, “Henry suffered the subject to decline ... he shortly found himself arrived at politics; and from politics, it was an easy step to silence.”

10
Though her heroes and heroines do think it’s part of their duty to be both fair and charitable to people in need.

11
When Captain Tilney wrecks her brother’s engagement, Catherine is willing to see the whole situation fairly, instead of judging everything by “family partiality, or a desire for revenge.”

12
Fanny hesitates to tell Edmund her real opinion of his pursuit of Mary Crawford even when he asks her to, partly because she’s afraid that as an “interested” party—being in love with Edmund herself—she can’t be an impartial advisor. That’s her scrupulous sense of justice. She thinks it wouldn’t be right to pose as a disinterested friend while giving advice that can’t help but be tainted by her interest in Edmund.

13
As Edmund says, “Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all, and we had better do any thing than be altogether by the ears.”

14
À la Uriah Heep in Dickens’s
David Copperfield
, to drag in Victorian unpleasantness one last time.

1
Catherine is “My dearest creature” to Isabella “after an acquaintance of eight or nine days.” “I quite doated on you the first moment I saw you,” she tells her.

2
“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends, I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not in my nature.”

3
“Nothing, she declared, should induce her to join the set before her dear Catherine could join it too: ‘I assure you,’ said she, ‘I would not stand up without your dear sister for all the world; for if I did we should certainly be separated the whole evening.’ Catherine accepted this kindness with gratitude, and they continued as they were for three minutes longer, when Isabella, who had been talking to James on the other side of her, turned to his sister and whispered, ‘My dear creature, I am afraid I must leave you, your brother is so amazingly impatient to begin; I know you will not mind my going away.’”

4
Isabella is shamelessly using Catherine in pursuit of Catherine’s brother James, under a misapprehension that he’s rich. In pursuit of her own plan for a drive to Clifton (during which she’s hoping James will propose to her), Isabella uses everything—argument, peer pressure, “expos[ing Catherine’s] feelings to the notice of others” (in front of both their brothers she accuses Catherine of putting
interest in Henry Tilney and his sister ahead of friendship with herself), cold resentment, and even turning Catherine’s brother against her—to persuade Catherine to break her second engagement for a walk with the Tilneys on a false excuse. What Isabella is trying to talk Catherine into doing would be an act of rudeness so appalling on Catherine’s part that her acquaintance with the Tilneys could never recover from it. And Isabella knows how much Catherine likes Henry. She just doesn’t care.

5
For who she is: “Open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions, knowing no disguise.”

6
They can’t talk about Mr. Collins—Charlotte knows exactly what Elizabeth thinks about him, and about her for marrying him. And they can’t talk about Elizabeth’s life either. If they did, everything Elizabeth said about men or her own marriage prospects would be a tacit criticism of Charlotte; Elizabeth would be reminding her friend that her own standards are so much higher. The last completely honest thing Elizabeth says to Charlotte is when Charlotte first announces her engagement and Elizabeth can’t help “crying out, ‘Engaged to Mr. Collins! my dear Charlotte,—impossible!’”