|
|
|
|
|
History of Literature

Jane Austen
"Pride and Prejudice"

|
|
Jane Austen

|
|
Jane Austen
English novelist
born Dec. 16, 1775, Steventon, Hampshire, Eng. died July 18, 1817, Winchester, Hampshire
Main English writer who first gave the novel its distinctly modern character
through her treatment of ordinary people in everyday life. Austen
created the comedy of manners of middle-class life in the England of her
time in her novels, Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice
(1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), and Northanger Abbey and
Persuasion (published posthumously, 1817).
Life Jane Austen was born in the Hampshire village of Steventon, where her
father, the Reverend George Austen, was rector. She was the second
daughter and seventh child in a family of eight: six boys and two girls.
Her closest companion throughout her life was her elder sister,
Cassandra, who also remained unmarried. Their father was a scholar who
encouraged the love of learning in his children. His wife, Cassandra
(née Leigh), was a woman of ready wit, famed for her impromptu verses
and stories. The great family amusement was acting.
Jane Austen’s lively and affectionate family circle provided a
stimulating context for her writing. Moreover, her experience was
carried far beyond Steventon rectory by an extensive network of
relationships by blood and friendship. It was this world—of the minor
landed gentry and the country clergy, in the village, the neighbourhood,
and the country town, with occasional visits to Bath and to London—that
she was to use in the settings, characters, and subject matter of her
novels.
Her earliest-known writings date from about 1787, and between then
and 1793 she wrote a large body of material that has survived in three
manuscript notebooks: Volume the First, Volume the Second, and Volume
the Third. These contain plays, verses, short novels, and other prose
and show Austen engaged in the parody of existing literary forms,
notably sentimental fiction. Her passage to a more serious view of life
from the exuberant high spirits and extravagances of her earliest
writings is evident in Lady Susan, a short novel-in-letters written
about 1793–94 (and not published until 1871). This portrait of a woman
bent on the exercise of her own powerful mind and personality to the
point of social self-destruction is, in effect, a study of frustration
and of woman’s fate in a society that has no use for woman’s stronger,
more “masculine,” talents.
In 1802 it seems likely that Jane agreed to marry Harris Bigg-Wither,
the 21-year-old heir of a Hampshire family, but the next morning changed
her mind. There are also a number of mutually contradictory stories
connecting her with someone with whom she fell in love but who died very
soon after. Since Austen’s novels are so deeply concerned with love and
marriage, there is some point in attempting to establish the facts of
these relationships. Unfortunately, the evidence is unsatisfactory and
incomplete. Cassandra was a jealous guardian of her sister’s private
life, and after Jane’s death she censored the surviving letters,
destroying many and cutting up others. But Jane Austen’s own novels
provide indisputable evidence that their author understood the
experience of love and of love disappointed.
The earliest of her novels, Sense and Sensibility, was begun about
1795 as a novel-in-letters called “Elinor and Marianne,” after its
heroines. Between October 1796 and August 1797 Austen completed the
first version of Pride and Prejudice, then called “First Impressions.”
In 1797 her father wrote to offer it to a London publisher for
publication, but the offer was declined. Northanger Abbey, the last of
the early novels, was written about 1798 or 1799, probably under the
title “Susan.” In 1803 the manuscript of “Susan” was sold to the
publisher Richard Crosby for £10. He took it for immediate publication,
but, although it was advertised, unaccountably it never appeared.
Up to this time the tenor of life at Steventon rectory had been
propitious for Jane Austen’s growth as a novelist. This stable
environment ended in 1801, however, when George Austen, then aged 70,
retired to Bath with his wife and daughters. For eight years Jane had to
put up with a succession of temporary lodgings or visits to relatives,
in Bath, London, Clifton, Warwickshire, and, finally, Southampton, where
the three women lived from 1805 to 1809. In 1804 Jane began The Watsons
but soon abandoned it. In 1804 her dearest friend, Mrs. Anne Lefroy,
died suddenly, and in January 1805 her father died in Bath.
Eventually, in 1809, Jane’s brother Edward was able to provide his
mother and sisters with a large cottage in the village of Chawton,
within his Hampshire estate, not far from Steventon. The prospect of
settling at Chawton had already given Jane Austen a renewed sense of
purpose, and she began to prepare Sense and Sensibility and Pride and
Prejudice for publication. She was encouraged by her brother Henry, who
acted as go-between with her publishers. She was probably also prompted
by her need for money. Two years later Thomas Egerton agreed to publish
Sense and Sensibility, which came out, anonymously, in November 1811.
Both of the leading reviews, the Critical Review and the Quarterly
Review, welcomed its blend of instruction and amusement. Meanwhile, in
1811 Austen had begun Mansfield Park, which was finished in 1813 and
published in 1814. By then she was an established (though anonymous)
author; Egerton had published Pride and Prejudice in January 1813, and
later that year there were second editions of Pride and Prejudice and
Sense and Sensibility. Pride and Prejudice seems to have been the
fashionable novel of its season. Between January 1814 and March 1815 she
wrote Emma, which appeared in December 1815. In 1816 there was a second
edition of Mansfield Park, published, like Emma, by Lord Byron’s
publisher, John Murray. Persuasion (written August 1815–August 1816) was
published posthumously, with Northanger Abbey, in December 1817.
The years after 1811 seem to have been the most rewarding of her
life. She had the satisfaction of seeing her work in print and well
reviewed and of knowing that the novels were widely read. They were so
much enjoyed by the Prince Regent (later George IV) that he had a set in
each of his residences; and Emma, at a discreet royal command, was
“respectfully dedicated” to him. The reviewers praised the novels for
their morality and entertainment, admired the character drawing, and
welcomed the homely realism as a refreshing change from the romantic
melodrama then in vogue.
For the last 18 months of her life, she was busy writing. Early in
1816, at the onset of her fatal illness, she set down the burlesque Plan
of a Novel, According to Hints from Various Quarters (first published in
1871). Until August 1816 she was occupied with Persuasion, and she
looked again at the manuscript of “Susan” (Northanger Abbey).
In January 1817 she began Sanditon, a robust and self-mocking satire
on health resorts and invalidism. This novel remained unfinished owing
to Austen’s declining health. She supposed that she was suffering from
bile, but the symptoms make possible a modern clinical assessment that
she was suffering from Addison’s disease. Her condition fluctuated, but
in April she made her will, and in May she was taken to Winchester to be
under the care of an expert surgeon. She died on July 18, and six days
later she was buried in Winchester Cathedral.
Her authorship was announced to the world at large by her brother
Henry, who supervised the publication of Northanger Abbey and
Persuasion. There was no recognition at the time that regency England
had lost its keenest observer and sharpest analyst; no understanding
that a miniaturist (as she maintained that she was and as she was then
seen), a “merely domestic” novelist, could be seriously concerned with
the nature of society and the quality of its culture; no grasp of Jane
Austen as a historian of the emergence of regency society into the
modern world. During her lifetime there had been a solitary response in
any way adequate to the nature of her achievement: Sir Walter Scott’s
review of Emma in the Quarterly Review for March 1816, where he hailed
this “nameless author” as a masterful exponent of “the modern novel” in
the new realist tradition. After her death, there was for long only one
significant essay, the review of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in the
Quarterly for January 1821 by the theologian Richard Whately. Together,
Scott’s and Whately’s essays provided the foundation for serious
criticism of Jane Austen: their insights were appropriated by critics
throughout the 19th century.

Cassandra Austen (1773-1845). Portrait of Jane Austen (c. 1810).
Novels Jane Austen’s three early novels form a distinct group in which a strong
element of literary satire accompanies the comic depiction of character
and society.
Sense and Sensibility tells the story of the impoverished Dashwood
sisters. Marianne is the heroine of “sensibility”—i.e., of openness and
enthusiasm. She becomes infatuated with the attractive John Willoughby,
who seems to be a romantic lover but is in reality an unscrupulous
fortune hunter. He deserts her for an heiress, leaving her to learn a
dose of “sense” in a wholly unromantic marriage with a staid and settled
bachelor, Colonel Brandon, who is 20 years her senior. By contrast,
Marianne’s older sister, Elinor, is the guiding light of “sense,” or
prudence and discretion, whose constancy toward her lover, Edward
Ferrars, is rewarded by her marriage to him after some distressing
vicissitudes.
Pride and Prejudice describes the clash between Elizabeth Bennet, the
daughter of a country gentleman, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a rich and
aristocratic landowner. Although Austen shows them intrigued by each
other, she reverses the convention of “first impressions”: “pride” of
rank and fortune and “prejudice” against Elizabeth’s inferiority of
family hold Darcy aloof; while Elizabeth is equally fired both by the
“pride” of self-respect and by “prejudice” against Darcy’s snobbery.
Ultimately, they come together in love and self-understanding. The
intelligent and high-spirited Elizabeth was Jane Austen’s own favourite
among all her heroines and is one of the most engaging in English
literature.
Northanger Abbey combines a satire on conventional novels of polite
society with one on Gothic tales of terror. Catherine Morland, the
unspoiled daughter of a country parson, is the innocent abroad who gains
worldly wisdom: first in the fashionable society of Bath and then at
Northanger Abbey itself, where she learns not to interpret the world
through her reading of Gothic thrillers. Her mentor and guide is the
self-assured and gently ironic Henry Tilney, her husband-to-be.
In the three novels of Jane Austen’s maturity, the literary satire,
though still present, is more subdued and is subordinated to the comedy
of character and society.
In its tone and discussion of religion and religious duty, Mansfield
Park is the most serious of Austen’s novels. The heroine, Fanny Price,
is a self-effacing and unregarded cousin cared for by the Bertram family
in their country house. Fanny emerges as a true heroine whose moral
strength eventually wins her complete acceptance in the Bertram family
and marriage to Edmund Bertram himself, after that family’s disastrous
involvement with the meretricious and loose-living Crawfords.
Of all Austen’s novels, Emma is the most consistently comic in tone.
It centres on Emma Woodhouse, a wealthy, pretty, self-satisfied young
woman who indulges herself with meddlesome and unsuccessful attempts at
matchmaking among her friends and neighbours. After a series of
humiliating errors, a chastened Emma finds her destiny in marriage to
the mature and protective George Knightley, a neighbouring squire who
had been her mentor and friend.
Persuasion tells the story of a second chance, the reawakening of
love between Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wentworth, whom seven
years earlier she had been persuaded not to marry. Now Wentworth returns
from the Napoleonic Wars with prize money and the social acceptability
of naval rank; he is an eligible suitor acceptable to Anne’s snobbish
father and his circle, and Anne discovers the continuing strength of her
love for him.

Jane Auste
Assessment Although the birth of the English novel is to be seen in the first half
of the 18th century in the work of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and
Henry Fielding, it is with Jane Austen that the novel takes on its
distinctively modern character in the realistic treatment of
unremarkable people in the unremarkable situations of everyday life. In
her six novels—Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield
Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion—Austen created the comedy
of manners of middle-class life in the England of her time, revealing
the possibilities of “domestic” literature. Her repeated fable of a
young woman’s voyage to self-discovery on the passage through love to
marriage focuses upon easily recognizable aspects of life. It is this
concentration upon character and personality and upon the tensions
between her heroines and their society that relates her novels more
closely to the modern world than to the traditions of the 18th century.
It is this modernity, together with the wit, realism, and timelessness
of her prose style; her shrewd, amused sympathy; and the satisfaction to
be found in stories so skillfully told, in novels so beautifully
constructed, that helps to explain her continuing appeal for readers of
all kinds. Modern critics remain fascinated by the commanding structure
and organization of the novels, by the triumphs of technique that enable
the writer to lay bare the tragicomedy of existence in stories of which
the events and settings are apparently so ordinary and so circumscribed.
Brian C. Southam
|

|
Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen
1775-1811
Like her other novels, this is a marriage plot: its principal
protagonists are all, eventually, united with the partners they
deserve. Important as this resolution is, however, it is not
where the principal satisfaction of Austen's narrative lies.
Elinor and Marianne, the two sisters at its center, may well
correspond to the sense and sensibility of the novel's title,
but a simple identification of reason and passion as their
enduring qualities would be unwise. The creation of perspective,
the transition between apparent extremes, is achieved primarily
through language, in the precise placement and patterning of
phrase, clause, and sentence to create character. As a result,
her prose charts exactly the movement between the distortions
and blindness of passion, and the reasonable good sense that
always seems to succeed it. Sense and Sensibility was developed
from an earlier novel in letters called Elinor and Marianne, but
it was only by abandoning the epistolary form of her
eighteenth-century precursors that Austen was able to achieve
such analytical precision. Her shift in titles is instructive:
we no longer move from one viewpoint to another, but remain
within a common syntax that propagates the implications created
by patterns of ideas. The novelist now writes with one voice,
but in doing so she speaks for all the voices she creates.
|
|
|
|
|

|
Mansfield Park
Jane Austen
1775-1817
One of Austen's more sober novels, Mansfield Park deals with her
trademark themes—marriage, money, and manners. It tells the
familiar story of a young woman, Fanny Price, and her pursuit of
the right husband. Fanny is the archetypal poor relative, who is
"rescued" from her large and impoverished family to be raised in
her aunt's household, the seat of Sir Thomas Bertram, Mansfield
Park. Effectively orphaned and an outsider, Fanny is variously
tolerated and exploited, and suffers excruciating humiliations
at the hands of her other aunt, the mean-spirited Mrs Norris.
Her cousins, with the exception of the warm and principled
Edmund, are shallow characters who court the attentions of any
visiting gentry, such as the rakish Crawfords, with disastrous
consequences. Fanny, by contrast, is stronger on virtue than
vice, and her sterling qualities are steadily revealed, although
readers sometimes find her conventional femininity off-putting.
Typically, Austen mocks the pretensions of the rich and
idle—their double standards, their condescension, and indeed
their claims to moral legitimacy. Also typical are Austen's
allusions to the darker side of the Mansfield Park idyll, made
through a few strategically placed details. The Bertram family
fortune, it turns out, comes—on the backs of slaves—from
plantations in Antigua. Intriguingly, how much attention we must
give Jane Austen's attention to these details has recently
placed the novel at the center of bitter critical dispute.
|
|
|
|
|

|
Persuasion
Jane Austen
1775-1817
The last book Austen was to complete, Persuasion is about
second chances, and the triumph of true love over social
obstacles, snobbishness, and other people's selfish concerns. If
her earlier novels tended to champion the claims of the social
over the individual, her last work redresses the balance a
little. Its twenty-seven-year-old heroine, Anne Elliot, seems to
have missed out on her opportunity for romantic fulfilment,
having at the age of nineteen been persuaded by her mentor, Lady
Russell, against marrying Captain Wentworth, on the grounds of
his impecunity and poor prospects. Now older and capable of
judging for herself, she is thrown once more into his company;
and the novel conveys, with great intensity, her heightened
consciousness in his presence, and her alert charting of the
signs of his reawakening love for her. The course of this love
does not run smooth. The now-wealthy and socially-acceptable
Wentworth finds himself unwillingly committed to Louisa
Musgrove, whose failure to listen even to
sensible"persuasions"has cataclysmic consequences, manifested in
the novel's best-known scene, in which she jumps and falls from
the Cobb at Lyme Regis.
The political sensibility of Persuasion is perhaps more liberal
than that of Austen's earlier works, the meritocracy of the Navy
and the simple good sense of the maritime characters being
championed over the effete indulgences of a delinquent and
self-regarding aristocracy. In literary terms, too, the novel
charts a liberal middle-way: while Anne sensibly recommends that
the melancholy Captain Benwick read more of the work of prose
moralists, the novel's own frequent references to the poetry of
Scott and Byron declare also its allegiance to the Romantic
literary tradition.
|
|
|
|
|

|
Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen
1775-1817
Catherine Morland, the heroine of Northanger Abbey, is a plucky
tomboy longing for the kind of adventures that she fervently
consumes in the popular gothic novels of the day. She is whisked
off to Bath with her friends, the Aliens, for her first foray
into society. It is a time and place of rigid social decorum,
where an ambiguously phrased salutation or a damp afternoon can
cause as much seismic anxiety and dread as a blood-stained
dagger or an imprisoned governess in one of her favorite books.
In Bath she meets Henry Tilney and promptly falls forever in
love as, she believes, a proper heroine should. Henry's appeal
is immediate: he is an iconoclast, mocking conventions of
mannerly conversation and conduct and is therefore a perfect
match (though perhaps less for Catherine than for the equally
ironic narrator of the book). Catherine is continually thwarted
in her desires for dark adventures—by Austen's playful authorial
intrusions as much as by a decided lack of dungeons and evil
squires. "Remember the country and age in which we live, "
Tilney cautions her," does our education prepare us for such
atrocities?" Catherine learns some hard lessons. She leaves a
world created by her fancy, whose parameters are drawn by
romance novels. She must take her place in a world where she
learns that real evil is not ill-treated wives locked away in
cloisters, or drops of blood in dark secret chambers but rather
in the rigid strictures of class and in the small-mindedness of
society.
Written first and published last, Northanger Abbey is often
likened to Austen's juvenilia. Certainly the wit is less subtle,
less honed, than in her later works: here her blade is exposed
and gleefully wielded. Northanger Abbey is not just a curiosity
for the Austen scholarzit is a delight in itself.
|
|
|
|
|

|
Emma
Jane Austen
1775-1817
Austen said of her fourth published novel that it would contain
a heroine no one would like but herself—and as if to prove her
wrong, generations of readers have warmed to the flawed
protagonist of Emma, a young woman used to ruling over the small
social world of the village of Highbury.The comedy as well as
the psychological interest of the novel lies in seeing what
happens when people fail to act as she hopes and ordains. She
attempts to pair her protegee Harriet Smith with two unsuitable
candidates, and completely fails to read the true direction of
the men's affections. She also fails to decipher, until it is
almost too late, the nature of her own feelings for Mr Knightley.
Some recent readers view the novel as dangerously paternalistic
for its moral education, but it should be said that Emma is less
concerned to teach a lesson than to explore the mortifying
effects of learning one.
Austen's trademark blending of an omniscient and ironic
third-person narrative voice with a more indirect style that
renders individual points of view here comes into its own. A
form suited both to the novel's concerns with individual,
solipsistic desires and to its overarching moral commitment to
the importance of frankness and mutual intelligibility, it
points the way toward later nineteenth-century works of
novelistic realism.
|
|
EMMA
Type of work: Novel
Author: Jane Austen (1775-1817)
Type of plot: Social comedy
Time of plot: Early nineteenth century
Locale: Surrey, England
First published: 1816
In this novel about a headstrong, snobbish, intellectually proud
young woman, Austen's genius for ironic comedy is displayed at its peak.
The plot involves finding the proper husband for the heroine, but behind
the deceptively simple and everyday events lies the author's moral
vision of a world in which social responsibility and familial obligation
are key virtues, and compromise a necessary response to the
irreconcilable opposites encountered in life.
|

|
Principal Characters
Emma Woodhouse, the younger daughter of the wealthy owner of Hartfield
and the most important young woman in the village of Highbury.
Good-hearted, intelligent, but spoiled, she takes under her protection
Harriet Smith, a seventeen-year-old girl of unknown parentage, who is at
school in the village. Given to matchmaking, Emma breaks up the love
affair between Harriet and Robert Martin, a worthy farmer, because she
thinks Harriet deserves better, and persuades her to fall in love with
the vicar, Mr. Elton. To her dismay, Elton proposes to her rather than
to Harriet and is indignant when she refuses him. Next, Emma becomes
interested in Frank Churchill, an attractive young man who visits his
father in Highbury, and thinks him in love with her; but it develops
that he is secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax. Emma had never really cared
for Churchill, but she thinks him a possible match for Harriet. She
becomes really concerned when she discovers that Harriet's new interest
is in Mr. Knightley, an old friend of the Woodhouse family, She now
realizes that Knightley is the man she has always loved and happily
accepts his proposal. Harriet marries her old lover, Martin, and the
matrimonial problems are solved.
George Knightley, a landowner of the neighborhood, sixteen years Emma's
senior, and an old family friend. Honorable, intelligent, and frank, he
has always told Emma the truth about herself. When she thinks that he
may marry someone else, she realizes that she has always loved him and
accepts his proposal.
John Knightley, George's brother, married to Emma's older sister.
Isabella Knightley, nee Woodhouse, John Knight-ley's wife and Emma's
sister, a gentle creature absorbed in her children.
Henry Woodhouse, father of Emma and Isabella, kindly and hospitable but
an incurable hypochondriac.
Mr. Weston, a citizen of Highbury who has married Anne Taylor, Emma's
former governess.
Anne Weston, nee Taylor, Emma's former governess, a sensible woman whom
Emma regards highly.
Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston's son by a former marriage. He has been
adopted by and taken the name of his mother's family. His charm attracts
Emma briefly, but she is not seriously interested. He is secretly
engaged to Jane Fairfax.
Jane Fairfax, a beautiful and accomplished orphan, who visits her family
in Highbury. Emma admires but cannot like her, finding her too reserved.
The mystery of her personality is solved when it is learned that she is
engaged to Churchill.
Mrs. Bates and Miss Bates, grandmother and aunt of Jane Fairfax. Poor
but worthy women, they are intolerably loquacious and boring.
Harriet Smith, the illegitimate daughter of a tradesman. Young, pretty,
and impressionable, she is taken up by Emma Woodhouse, rather to her
disadvantage, for Emma gives her ideas above her station. She is
persuaded to refuse the proposal of Robert Martin and to believe that
Mr. Elton, the vicar, is in love with her. When Elton proves to be
interested in Emma, Harriet is deeply chagrined. After considering the
possibility of Harriet as a match for Churchill, Emma finds to her
dismay that Harriet is thinking of Knightley. This discovery makes Emma
realize how much she has always loved him. After Emma and Knightley are
engaged, Harriet is again proposed to by Robert Martin; she happily
marries him.
Robert Martin, the honest young farmer who marries Harriet Smith.
The Rev. Philip Elton, vicar of the parish. A conceited, silly man, he
proposes to Emma Woodhouse, who has thought him in love with Harriet
Smith. Emma's refusal makes him her enemy.
Augusta Elton, nee Hawkins, the woman Elton marries after being refused
by Emma. She is vulgar, pretentious, and officious.
|

|
The Story
A rich, clever, and beautiful young woman, Emma Woodhouse was no more
spoiled and self-satisfied than one would expect under such
circumstances. She had just seen her friend, companion, and former
governess, Miss Taylor, married to a neighboring widower, Mr. Weston.
While the match was suitable in every way, Emma could not help sighing
over her loss, for now only she and her father were left at Hartfield,
and Mr. Woodhouse was too old and too fond of worrying about
trivialities to be a companion for his daughter.
The Woodhouses were the great family in the village of Highbury. In
their small circle of friends, there were enough middle-aged ladies to
make up card tables for Mr. Woodhouse, but there was no young lady to be
a friend and confidante to Emma. Lonely for her beloved Miss Taylor, now
Mrs. Weston. Emma took under her wing Harriet Smith, the parlor boarder
at a nearby boarding school. Although not in the least brilliant,
Harriet was a pretty seventeen-year-old girl with pleasing, unassuming
manners and a gratifying habit of looking up to Emma as a paragon.
Harriet was the natural daughter of some mysterious person; Emma,
believing that the girl might be of noble family, persuaded her that the
society in which she had moved was not good enough for her. She
encouraged her to give up her acquaintance with the Martin family,
respectable farmers of some substance though of no fashion. Instead of
thinking of Robert Martin as a husband for Harriet, Emma influenced the
girl to aspire to Mr. Elton, the young rector.
Emma believed from Mr. Elton's manner that he was beginning to fall in
love with Harriet, and she flattered herself upon her matchmaking
schemes. The brother of a London lawyer married to Emma's older sister
and one of the few people who could see Emma's faults, Mr. Knightley was
concerned about her intimacy with Harriet. He warned her that no good
could come of it for either Harriet or herself, and he was particularly
upset when he learned that Emma had influenced Harriet to turn down
Robert Martin's proposal of marriage. Emma herself suffered from no such
qualms, for she was certain that Mr. Elton was as much in love with
Harriet as Harriet—through Emma's instigation—was with him.
Emma suffered a rude awakening when Mr. Elton, finding her alone, asked
her to marry him. She suddenly realized that what she had taken for
gallantries to Harriet had been meant for herself; he had taken what
Emma had intended as encouragement to his suit of her friend as
encouragement to aspire for her hand. His presumption was bad enough,
but the task of breaking the news to Harriet was much worse.
Another disappointment now occurred in Emma's circle. Frank Churchill,
who had promised for months to come to see his father and new
stepmother, again put off his visit. Churchill. Mr. Weston's son by a
first marriage, had taken the name of his mother's family. Mr. Knightley
believed that the young man now felt superior to his father. Emma argued
with Mr. Knightley, but found herself secretly agreeing with him.
Although the Hartfield circle was denied Churchill's company, it did
acquire an addition in the person of Jane Fairfax, niece of the
garrulous Miss Bates. Jane rivaled Emma in beauty and accomplishment;
this was one reason why, as Mr. Knightley hinted, Emma had never been
friendly with Jane. Emma blamed Jane's reserve for their somewhat cool
relationship.
Soon after Jane's arrival, the Westons received a letter from Churchill
setting another date for his visit. This time he actually appeared, and
Emma found him a handsome, well-bred young man. He frequently called
upon the Woodhouses and also upon the Bates family, because of prior
acquaintance with Jane Fairfax. Emma rather than Jane was the recipient
of his gallantries, however, and Emma could see that Mr. and Mrs. Weston
were hoping that the romance would prosper.
About this time, Jane Fairfax received the handsome gift of a
pianoforte, anonymously given. It was presumed to have come from some
rich friends with whom Jane, an orphan, had lived, but Jane seemed
embarrassed with the present and refused to discuss it. Emma wondered if
it had come from Mr. Knightley, after Mrs. Weston pointed out to her his
seeming preference and concern for Jane. Emma could not bear to think of
Mr. Knightley's marrying Jane Fairfax; after observing them together,
she concluded to her own satisfaction that he was motivated by
friendship, not love.
It was now time for Frank Churchill to end his visit, and he departed
with seeming reluctance. During his last call at Hartfield, he appeared
desirous of telling Emma something of a serious nature; but she,
believing him to be on the verge of a declaration of love, did not
encourage him because in her daydreams she always saw herself refusing
him and their love ending in quiet friendship.
Mr. Elton returned to the village with a hastily wooed and wedded bride,
a lady of small fortune, extremely bad manners, and great pretensions to
elegance. Harriet, who had been talked into love by Emma, could not be
so easily talked out of it; but what Emma had failed to accomplish, Mr.
Elton's marriage had, and Harriet at last began to recover. Her recovery
was aided by Mr. Elton's rudeness to her at a ball. When he refused to
dance with her, Mr. Knightley, who rarely danced, offered himself as a
partner, and Harriet, without Emma's knowledge, began to think of him
instead of Mr. Elton.
Emma began to think of Churchill as a husband for Harriet, but she
resolved to do nothing to promote the match. Through a series of
misinterpretations, Emma thought Harriet was praising Churchill when she
was really referring to Mr. Knightley.
The matrimonial entanglement was further complicated because Mrs. Weston
continued to believe that Mr. Knightley was becoming attached to Jane
Fairfax. In his turn, Mr. Knightley saw signs of some secret agreement
between Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill. His suspicions were finally
justified when Churchill confessed to Mr. and Mrs. Weston that he and
Jane had been secretly engaged since October. The Westons' first thought
was for Emma, for they feared that Churchill's attentions to her might
have had their effect. Emma assured Mrs. Weston that she had at one time
felt some slight attachment to Churchill, but that time was now safely
past. Her chief concerns now were that she had said things about Jane to
Churchill which she would not have said had she known of their
engagement, and also that she had, as she believed, encouraged Harriet
in another fruitless attachment.
When she went to break the news gently to Harriet, however, Emma found
her quite unperturbed by it; after a few minutes of talking at
cross-purposes, Emma learned that it was not Churchill but Mr. Knightley
upon whom Harriet had now bestowed her affections. When she told Emma
that she had reasons to believe that Mr. Knightley returned her
sentiments, Emma suddenly realized the state of her own heart; she
herself loved Mr. Knightley. She now wished she had never seen Harriet
Smith. Aside from the fact that she wanted to marry Mr. Knightley
herself, she knew a match between him and Harriet would be an unequal
one, hardly likely to bring happiness.
Emma's worry over this state of affairs was soon ended when Mr.
Knightley asked her to marry him. Her complete happiness was marred only
by the fact that she knew her marriage would upset her father, who
disliked change of any kind; she was also aware that she had unknowingly
prepared Harriet for another disappointment. The first problem was
solved when Emma and Mr. Knightley decided to reside at Hartfield with
Mr. Woodhouse as long as he lived. Harriet's problem, however, still
remained; but when Mr. Knightley was paying attention to her, he was
really trying to determine the real state of her affections for his
young farm tenant. Consequently, Mr. Knightley was able to announce one
morning that Robert Martin had again offered himself to Harriet and had
been accepted. Emma was overjoyed that Harriet's future was now assured.
She could always reflect that all parties concerned had married
according to their stations, a prerequisite for their true happiness.
|

|
Critical Evaluation
Jane Austen had passed her fortieth year when her fourth published
novel, Emma, appeared in 1816, the year before her death. Although Pride
and Prejudice has always been her most popular novel, Emma is generally
regarded as her greatest. In this work of her maturity, she deals once
more with the milieu she preferred: "3 or 4 Families in a Country
Village is the very thing to work on." The seventh of eight children of
a learned clergyman, she had grown to womanhood in her native Hampshire
village of Steventon. She spent the remainder of her life, except for
brief intervals in Bath and Southampton, in another Hampshire village,
Chawton, and was thoroughly familiar with the world she depicted.
The action of Emma cannot be properly considered apart from the setting
of Highbury, a populous village only sixteen miles from London. Its
physical attributes are presented in such circumstantial detail that it
becomes a real entity. London seems far away, not because of the
difficulty of travel but because of the community's limited views. It is
a village where a light drizzle keeps its citizens at home, where Frank
Churchill's trip to London for the alleged purpose of getting a haircut
is foppery and foolishness, where the "inconsiderable Crown Inn" and
Ford's "woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher's shop united"
dominate the main street. Emma's view of the busiest part of town,
surveyed from the doorway of Ford's, sums up the life of the village:
Mr. Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at
the office door, Mr. Cole's carriage horses returning from exercise ...
a stray letter boy on an obstinate mule . . . the butcher with his tray,
a tidy old woman . . . two curs quarreling over a dirty bone, and a
string of dawdling children round the baker's little bow-window.
The novel concerns the interrelationship between such an inconsequential
place and Emma Woodhouse, a pretty and clever young lady almost
twenty-one years old, who is rich and has few problems to vex her.
Ironically, her world is no bigger than the village of Highbury and a
few surrounding estates, including her father's Hartfield; nevertheless,
in that small world, the Woodhouse family is the most important one. As
the author states, the real dangers for Emma are "the power of having
rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too
well of herself."
Moreover, these dangers are unperceived by Emma. Thus, in the blind
exercise of her power over Highbury, she involves herself in a series of
ridiculous errors, mistakenly judging that Mr. Elton cares for Harriet
rather than for herself; Frank Churchill for herself rather than for
Jane Fairfax; Harriet for Frank rather than for Mr. Knightley; and Mr.
Knightley for Harriet rather than for herself. It is the triumph of
Austen's art that however absurd or obvious Emma's miscalculations, they
are convincingly a part of Emma's charming egotism. The reader finally
agrees with Mr. Knightley that there is always "an anxiety, a curiosity
in what one feels for Emma."
Emma's vulnerability to error can in part be attributed to inexperience,
her life circumscribed by the boundaries of Highbury and its environs.
Although Emma's only sister lives in London, no mention is made of
visits there. She has never been to the seacoast, nor even to Box Hill,
a famous scenic attraction nearby. She is further restricted by her
valetudinarian father's gentle selfishness, which resists any kind of
change and permits a social life limited to his own small circle,
exclusive to the degree of admitting only four people as his closest
acquaintances and only three to the second group.
Nevertheless, Emma's own snobbery binds her to the conclusion that she
has no equals in Highbury. Mr. Knightley well understands the underlying
assumption of superiority in Emma's friendship for Harriet Smith: "How
can Emma imagine she has anything to learn herself, while Harriet is
presenting such a delightful inferiority?" Emma fears superiority in
others as a threat. Of the capable farmer Robert Martin, Harriet's
wooer, she observes: "But a farmer can need none of my help, and is
therefore in one sense as much above my notice as in every other way he
is below it." Her resolution to like Jane Fairfax is repeatedly
shattered by the praise everybody else gives Jane's superior
attractions.
While Emma behaves in accordance with her theory that social rank is too
important to be ignored, she fails to perceive that she is nearly alone
in her exclusiveness. Indeed, the Eltons openly assume airs of
superiority, and Jane Fairfax snubs Emma. Emma's increasing isolation
from Highbury is epitomized in her resistance to the Cole family, good
people of low rank who have nevertheless come to be regarded socially as
second only to the Wood-house family. Snobbishly sure that the Coles
will not dare to invite the best families to an affair, she finds only
herself uninvited. Therefore, ironically, she images her power in
Highbury to be flourishing even as it is already severely diminished.
Emma's task is to become undeceived and to break free of the limitations
imposed by her pride, by her father's flattering tyranny, and by the
limited views of Highbury. She must accomplish all this without
abandoning her self-esteem and intelligence, her father, or society. The
author prepares for the possibility of a resolution from the beginning,
especially by establishing Mr. Knightley as the person who represents
the standard of maturity that Emma must assume. Emma is always half
aware of his significance, often putting her folly to the test of his
judgment.
There are brief, important occasions when the two, united by instinctive
understanding, work together to create or restore social harmony;
however, it is not until Harriet presumes to think of herself as worthy
of his love that Emma is shocked into recognition that Mr. Knightley is
superior to herself as well as to Harriet.
Highbury itself, which seems so confined, also serves to enlarge Emma's
views simply by proving to be less fixed than it appears. As John
Knightley observes: "Your neighbourhood is increasing, and you mix more
with it." Without losing her desire for social success, Emma
increasingly suffers from it. She is basically deficient in human
sympathy, categorizing people as second or third rank in Highbury or
analyzing them to display her own wit. She begins to develop in
sensitivity, however, as she experiences her own humiliations. While
still disliking Jane, she is capable of "entering into her feelings" and
granting a moment of privacy. Her rudeness to Miss Bates is regretted,
not only because Mr. Knightley is displeased but also because she
perceives that she has been brutal, even cruel to Miss Bates.
Despite her love of small schemes, Emma shares an important trait with
Mr. Knightley, one which he considers requisite for a prospective
wife—an "open temper," the one quality lacking in the admirable Jane.
Emma's disposition is open, her responsiveness to life counteracting the
conditions in herself and her circumstances, which tend to be
constricting. Her reaction to news of Harriet's engagement to Robert
Martin is characteristic: she is "in dancing, singing, exclaiming
spirits; and till she had moved about, and talked to herself, and
laughed and reflected, she could be fit for nothing rational." Too ready
to laugh at others, she can as readily laugh at herself. Impulsive in
her follies, she is quick to make amends. She represents herself
truthfully as she says, in farewell to Jane, "Oh! if you knew how much I
love everything that is decided and open!"
A fully realized character who develops during the course of the action,
Emma is never forced by the author to be other than herself, despite her
new awareness. Once Harriet is safely bestowed upon Robert Martin, she
complacently allows their friendship to diminish. The conniving to keep
her father reasonably contented is a way of life. If he wishes to marry
her, Mr. Knightley is required to move into Hartfield. Serious
reflection upon her past follies is inevitably lightened by her ability
to laugh at them—and herself. The novel is complete in every sense, yet
Emma is so dynamic a characterization that one shares Mr. Knightley's
pleasure in speculation: "I wonder what will become of her!"
|

|
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
1775-1817
Pride and Prejudice is the second of four novels that Jane
Austen published during her lifetime. As widely read now as it
was then, Austen's romance is indisputably one of the most
enduringly popular classics of English literature. Written with
incisive wit and superb character delineation, Pride and
Prejudice tells the story of the Bennett family, its ignorant
mother, negligent father, and five very different daughters, all
of whom Mrs. Bennett is anxious to see married off. Set in rural
England in the early nineteenth century, its major plot line
focuses on the second eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and her
turbulent relationship with the handsome, rich, but abominably
proud Mr. Darcy. Slighted by him when they first meet, Elizabeth
develops an instant dislike of Darcy, who, however, proceeds to
fall in love with her, despite his own better judgement.
Subsequent to a disastrous and rejected marriage proposal, both
Elizabeth and Darcy eventually learn to overcome their
respective pride and prejudice.
Although the novel has been criticized for its lack of
historical context, the existence of its characters in a social
bubble that is rarely penetrated by events beyond it is an
accurate portrayal of the enclosed social world in which Austen
lived. Austen depicts that world, in all its own narrow pride
and prejudice, with unswerving accuracy and satire. At the same
time, she places at its center, as both its prime actor and most
perceptive critic, a character so well conceived and rendered
that the reader cannot but be gripped by her story and wish for
its happy denouement. In the end, Austen's novel remains so
popular because of Elizabeth, and because of the enduring appeal
to men and women alike of a well-told and potentially
happily-ending love story.
|
|
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Type of work: Novel
Author: Jane Austen (1775-1817)
Type of plot: Comedy of manners
Time of plot: Early nineteenth century
Locale: Rural England
First Published: 1813
In this masterpiece, Austen follows an empty-headed mother's
scheming to find suitable husbands for her five daughters. With gentle
irony, the author re-creates in meticulous, artistic detail the manners
and morals of the country gentry in a small English village, focusing on
the intelligent, irrepressible heroine Elizabeth. Major and minor
characters are superbly drawn, the plot is beautifully symmetrical, and
the dazzling perfection of style shows Austen at her best.
|

|
Principal Characters
Elizabeth Bennet, a spirited and intelligent girl who represents
"prejudice" in her attitude toward Fitzwilliam Darcy, whom she dislikes
because of his pride. She is also prejudiced against him by Mr. Wickham,
whose false reports of Darcy she believes, and hence rejects Darcy's
haughty first proposal of marriage. But Wick-ham's elopement with her
sister Lydia brings Elizabeth and Darcy together, for it is Darcy who
facilitates the legal marriage of the runaways. Acknowledging her
mistake in her estimation of Darcy, she gladly accepts his second
proposal.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, the wealthy and aristocratic landowner who represents
"pride" in the story. Attracted to Elizabeth Bennet in spite of her
inferior social position, he proposes marriage but in so high-handed a
manner that she instantly refuses. The two meet again while Elizabeth is
viewing the grounds of his estate in Derbyshire; she finds him less
haughty in his manner. When Lydia Bennet and Mr. Wickham elope, Darcy
feels partly responsible and straightens out the unfortunate affair.
Because Elizabeth now realizes his true character, he is accepted when
he proposes again.
Jane Bennet, the oldest and most beautiful of the five Bennet sisters.
She falls in love with Mr. Bingley, a wealthy bachelor. Their romance is
frustrated, however, by his sisters with the help of Mr. Darcy, for the
Bennets are considered socially undesirable. As a result of the change
in the feelings of Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet toward each other, Jane
and Bingley are finally married.
Mr. Bingley, a rich, good-natured bachelor from the north of England. He
falls in love with Jane Bennet but is easily turned against her by his
sisters and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who consider the Bennets vulgar and
socially beneath them. When Darcy changes his attitude toward Elizabeth
Bennet, Bingley follows suit and resumes his courtship of Jane. They are
married at the end of the story.
Mr. Bennet, an eccentric and mildly sarcastic small landowner. Rather
indifferent to the rest of his family, he loves and admires his daughter
Elizabeth.
Mrs. Bennet, his wife, a silly, brainless woman interested only in
getting her daughters married.
Lydia Bennet, the youngest daughter, a flighty and uncontrolled girl. At
the age of fifteen she elopes with the worthless Mr. Wickham. Their
marriage is finally made possible by Mr. Darcy, who pays Wickham's
debts, but the two are never very happy.
Mary Bennet and Catherine (Kitty) Bennet, younger daughters of the
family.
Mr. Wickham, the villain of the story, an officer in the militia. He has
been brought up by the Darcy family and, having a certain charm,
attracts Elizabeth Bennet, whom he prejudices against Mr. Darcy by
misrepresenting the latter's treatment of him. Quite unexpectedly, he
elopes with fifteen-year-old, flirtatious Lydia Bennet. Darcy, who has
tried to expose Wickham to Elizabeth, feels responsible for the
elopement and provides the money for the marriage by paying Wickham's
debts. Wickham and Lydia soon tire of each other.
William Collins, a pompous, sycophantic clergyman, distantly related to
Mr. Bennet and the heir to his estate, since the Bennets have no son. He
proposed to Elizabeth. After her refusal he marries her friend,
Charlotte Lucas.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's aunt and the patron of Mr.
Collins. An insufferably haughty and domineering woman, she wants Darcy
to marry her only daughter and bitterly resents his interest in
Elizabeth Bennet. She tries to break up their love affair but fails.
Anne de Bourgh, Lady Catherine's spiritless daughter. Her mother has
planned to marry her to Mr. Darcy in order to combine two great family
fortunes.
Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth Bennet's closest friend. Knowing that she
will have few chances of marriage, she accepts the pompous and boring
Mr. Collins shortly after Elizabeth has refused him.
Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, Mr. Bingley's cold and worldly sisters.
They succeed for a time in turning him against Jane Bennet.
Mr. Gardiner, Mrs. Bennet's brother, a London merchant. Mrs. Gardiner,
his sensible and kind wife.
|

|
The Story
The chief business of Mrs. Bennet's life was to find suitable husbands
for her five daughters. Consequently, she was elated when she heard that
Netherfield Park, one of the area's great houses, had been let to Mr.
Bingley, a gentleman from the north of England. Gossip such as Mrs.
Bennet loved reported him a rich and eligible young bachelor. Mr. Bennet
heard the news with his usual dry calmness, suggesting in his mild way
that perhaps Bingley was not moving into the country for the single
purpose of marrying one of the Bennet daughters.
Mr. Bingley's first public appearance in the neighborhood was at a ball.
With him were his two sisters, the husband of the older, and Mr. Darcy,
Bingley's friend. Bingley was an immediate success in local society, and
he and Jane, the oldest Bennet daughter—a pretty girl of sweet and
gentle disposition—were attracted to each other at once. His friend,
Darcy, however, seemed cold and extremely proud and created a bad
impression. In particular, he insulted Elizabeth Bennet, a girl of
spirit and intelligence and her father's favorite. He refused to dance
with her when she was sitting down for lack of a partner; Elizabeth also
overheard him say that he was in no mood to prefer young ladies slighted
by other men. On future occasions, however, he began to admire Elizabeth
in spite of himself. At a later ball, she had the satisfaction of
refusing him a dance.
Jane's romance with Bingley flourished quietly, aided by family calls,
dinners, and balls. His sisters pretended great fondness for Jane, who
believed them completely sincere. Elizabeth was more critical and
discerning; she suspected them of hypocrisy, and quite rightly, for they
made great fun of Jane's relations, especially her vulgar, garrulous
mother and her two illbred, officer-mad younger sisters. Miss Caroline
Bingley, who was eager to marry Darcy and shrewdly aware of his growing
admiration for Elizabeth, was especially loud in her ridicule of the
Bennet family. Elizabeth herself became Caroline's particular target
when she walked three muddy miles to visit Jane, who was sick with a
cold at Netherfield Park after a ride through the rain to accept an
invitation from the Bingley sisters. Until Jane was able to be moved
home, Elizabeth stayed to nurse her. During her visit, Elizabeth
received enough attention from Darcy to make Caroline Bingley long
sincerely for Jane's recovery. Her fears were not ill-founded. Darcy
admitted to himself that he would be in some danger from the charm of
Elizabeth, if it were not for her inferior family connections.
Elizabeth now acquired a new admirer in Mr. Collins, a ridiculously
pompous clergyman and a distant cousin of the Bennets, who would someday
inherit Mr. Bennet's property because that gentleman had no male heir.
Mr. Collins' patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, had urged him to
marry, and he, always obsequiously obedient to her wishes, hastened to
comply. Thinking to alleviate the hardship caused the Bennet sisters by
the entail which gave their father's property to him, Mr. Collins first
proposed to Elizabeth. Much to her mother's displeasure and her father's
joy, she firmly and promptly rejected him. He almost immediately
transferred his affections to Elizabeth's best friend, Charlotte Lucas,
who, twenty-seven years old and somewhat homely, accepted at once his
offer of marriage.
During Mr. Collins' visit and on one of their many walks to Meryton, the
younger Bennet sisters, Kitty and Lydia, met a fascinating new officer,
Mr. Wickham, stationed with the regiment there. Outwardly charming, he
became a favorite among the ladies, even with Elizabeth. She was willing
to believe the story that he had been cheated out of an inheritance left
to him by his godfather, Darcy's father. Her suspicions of Darcy's
arrogant and grasping nature deepened when Wickham did not come to a
ball given by the Bingleys, a dance at which Darcy was present.
Soon after the ball, the entire Bingley party suddenly left Netherfield
Park. They departed with no intention of returning, as Caroline wrote
Jane in a short farewell note which hinted that Bingley might soon
become engaged to Darcy's sister. Jane accepted this news at face value
and believed that her friend Caroline was telling her gently that her
brother loved someone else and that she must cease to hope. Elizabeth,
however, was sure of a plot by Darcy and Bingley's sisters to separate
him and Jane. She persuaded Jane that Bingley did love her and that he
would return to Hertfordshire before the winter was over. Jane almost
believed her until she received a letter from Caroline assuring her that
they were all settled in London for the winter. Even after Jane told her
this news, Elizabeth remained convinced of Bingley's affection for her
sister and deplored the lack of resolution that made him putty in the
hands of his scheming friend.
About that time, Mrs. Bennet's sister, Mrs. Gardiner, an amiable and
intelligent woman with a great deal of affection for her two oldest
nieces, arrived for a Christmas visit. She suggested to the Bennets that
Jane return to London with her for a rest and change of scene and— so it
was understood between Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth—to renew her
acquaintance with Bingley. Elizabeth was not hopeful for the success of
the plan and pointed out that proud Darcy would never let his friend
call on Jane in the unfashionable London street on which the Gardiners
lived. Jane accepted the invitation, however, and she and Mrs. Gardiner
set out for London.
The time drew near for the wedding of Elizabeth's friend, Charlotte
Lucas, to the obnoxious Mr. Collins. Charlotte asked Elizabeth to visit
her in Kent. In spite of her feeling that there could be little pleasure
in such a visit, Elizabeth promised to do so. She felt that in taking
such a husband Charlotte was marrying simply for the sake of an
establishment, as was indeed the case. Since she herself could not
sympathize with her friend's action, Elizabeth thought their days of
real intimacy were over. As March approached, however, she found herself
eager to see her friend, and she sent out with pleasure on the journey
with Charlotte's father and sister. On their way, the party stopped in
London to see the Gardiners and Jane. Elizabeth found her sister well
and outwardly happy, although she had not seen Bingley and his sisters
had paid only one call. Elizabeth was sure Bingley had not been told of
Jane's presence in London and blamed Darcy for keeping it from him.
Soon after arriving at the Collins' home, the whole party was honored,
as Mr. Collins repeatedly assured them, by a dinner invitation from Lady
Catherine de Bourgh, Darcy's aunt and Mr. Collins' patroness. Elizabeth
found Lady Catherine a haughty, ill-mannered woman and her daughter
thin, sickly, and shy. Lady Catherine was extremely fond of inquiring
into the affairs of others and giving them unasked advice. Elizabeth
circumvented the meddling old woman's questions with cool indirectness
and saw from the effect that she was probably the first who had dared to
do so.
Soon after Elizabeth's arrival, Darcy came to visit his aunt and cousin.
He called frequently at the parsonage, and he and Elizabeth resumed
their conversational fencing matches. His rather stilted attentions were
suddenly climaxed by a proposal of marriage; the proposal, however, was
couched in such proud and condescending terms that Elizabeth indignantly
refused him. When he requested her reason for such an emphatic
rejection, she mentioned his part in separating Bingley and Jane and
also his mistreatment of Wickham. He was angry and left abruptly; the
next day, however, he brought a letter answering her charges. He did not
deny his part in separating Jane and Bingley, but he gave as his reasons
the improprieties of Mrs. Bennet and her younger daughters and also his
sincere belief that Jane did not love Bingley. As for his alleged
mistreatment of Wickham, he proved that he had in reality acted most
generously toward the unprincipled Wickham, who had repaid his kindness
by attempting to elope with Darcy's young sister. At first incensed at
the proud tones in which he wrote, Elizabeth was at length forced to
acknowledge the justice of all he said, and her prejudice against him
began to weaken. Without seeing him again, she returned home.
She found her younger sisters clamoring to go to Brighton, where the
regiment formerly stationed at Meryton had been ordered. When an
invitation came to Lydia from a young officer's wife, Lydia was allowed
to accept it over Elizabeth's protests. Elizabeth was asked by the
Gardiners to go with them on a tour, which would take them into
Derbyshire, Darcy's home county. She accepted, reasoning that she was
not very likely to meet Darcy merely by going into the same county with
him. While they were there, however, Mrs. Gardiner decided they should
visit Pemberly, Darcy's home. Elizabeth made several excuses, but her
aunt was insistent. Then, learning that the Darcy family was not at
home, Elizabeth consented to go.
At Pemberly, an unexpected and embarrassing meeting took place between
Elizabeth and Darcy. He was more polite than Elizabeth had ever known
him to be, and he asked permission for his sister to call upon her. The
call was duly paid and returned, but the pleasant intercourse between
the Darcys and Elizabeth's party was suddenly cut short when a letter
came from Jane telling Elizabeth that Lydia had run away with Wickham.
Elizabeth told Darcy what had happened, and she and the Gardiners left
for home at once. After several days, the runaway couple was located and
a marriage arranged between them. When Lydia came home as heedless as
ever, she told Elizabeth that Darcy had attended her wedding. Suspecting
the truth, Elizabeth learned from Mrs. Gardiner that it was indeed Darcy
who brought about the marriage by giving Wickham money.
Soon after Lydia and Wickham left, Bingley came back to Netherfield
Park. Darcy came with him. Elizabeth, now more favorably inclined to him
than ever before, hoped his coming meant that he still loved her, but he
gave no sign. Bingley and Jane, on the other hand, were still obviously
in love with each other, and they became engaged, to the great
satisfaction of Mrs. Bennet. Soon afterward, Lady Catherine paid the
Bennets an unexpected call. She had heard it rumored that Darcy was
engaged to Elizabeth. Hoping to marry her own daughter to Darcy, she had
charged down the stairs with characteristic bad manners to order
Elizabeth not to accept his proposal. The spirited girl was not to be
intimidated by the bullying Lady Catherine and coolly refused to promise
not to marry Darcy. She was far from certain she would have another
chance, but she had not long to wonder. Lady Catherine, unluckily for
her own purpose, repeated to Darcy the substance of her conversation
with Elizabeth, and he knew Elizabeth well enough to surmise that her
feelings toward him had greatly changed. He returned to Netherfield
Park, and he and Elizabeth became engaged. Pride had been humbled and
prejudice dissolved.
|

|
Critical Evaluation
In 1813, her thirty-eighth year, Jane Austen became a published novelist
for the second time with Pride and Prejudice. She had begun this work in
1796, her twenty-first year, calling it First Impressions. It had so
delighted her family that her father had tried, without success, to have
it published. Eventually putting it aside, she returned to it probably
at about the time that her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility,
appeared in 1811. No longer extant, First Impressions must have been
radically altered; for Pride and Prejudice is not an apprenticeship
novel, but a mature work, and it continues to be the author's most
popular novel, perhaps because readers share Darcy's admiration for the
"liveliness" of Elizabeth Bennet's mind.
The original title, First Impressions, focuses upon the initial errors
of judgment from which the story develops, whereas the title Pride and
Prejudice, besides suggesting the kind of antithetical topic that
delighted rationalistic eighteenth century readers, indicates the
central conflict involving the kinds of pride and prejudice that bar the
marriages of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy and Jane Ben-net and Bingley but
bring about the marriages of Charlotte Lucas and Collins and Lydia
Bennet and Wickham.
As in all of Austen's novels, individual conflicts are defined and
resolved within a rigidly delimiting social context, in which human
relationships are determined by wealth and rank. Therefore, the
much-admired opening sentence establishes the societal values that
underlie the main conflict: "It is a truth universally acknowledged,
that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a
wife." Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's opening dialogue concerning the eligible
Bingley explores this truth. Devoid of individuality, Mrs. Bennet is
nevertheless well attuned to society's edicts and therefore regards
Bingley only in the light of society's "truth." Mr. Bennet, an
individualist to the point of eccentricity, represents neither personal
conviction nor social conviction. He views with equal indifference both
Bingley's right to his own reason for settling there and society's right
to see him primarily as a potential husband. Having repudiated society,
Mr. Bennet cannot take seriously either the claims of the individual or
the social order.
As the central character, Elizabeth, her father's favorite child and her
mother's least favorite, must come to terms with the conflicting values
implicit in her parents' antithetical characters. She is like her father
in her scorn of society's conventional judgments, but she champions the
concept of individual merit independent of money and rank. She is,
indeed, prejudiced against the prejudices of society. From this premise,
she attacks Darcy's pride, assuming that it derives from the causes that
Charlotte Lucas identifies: "with family, fortune, every thing in his
favour ... he has a right to be proud."
Flaunting her contempt for money, Elizabeth indignantly spurns as mere
strategy to get a rich husband or any husband Charlotte's advice that
Jane ought to make a calculated play for Bingley's affections. She
loftily argues, while under the spell of Wickham's charm, that young
people who are truly in love are unconcerned about each other's
financial standing.
As a champion of the individual, Elizabeth prides herself on her
discriminating judgment, boasting that she is a student of character.
Significantly, it is Darcy who warns her against prejudiced conclusions,
reminding her that her experience is quite limited. Darcy is not simply
the representative of a society that primarily values wealth and
consequence—as Elizabeth initially views him—but he is also a citizen of
a larger society than the village to which Elizabeth is confined by
circumstance. Consequently, it is only when she begins to move into
Darcy's world that she can judge with true discrimination both
individual merit and the dictates of the society that she has rejected.
Fundamentally honest, she revises her conclusions as new experiences
warrant, in the case of Darcy and Wickham radically altering her
opinion.
More significant than the obviously ironic reversals, however, is the
growing revelation of Elizabeth's unconscious commitment to society. For
example, her original condemnation of Darcy's pride coincides with the
verdict of Meryton society. Moreover, she always shares society's regard
for wealth. Even while denying the importance of Wickham's poverty, she
countenances his pursuit of the ugly Miss King's fortune, discerning her
own inconsistency only after she learns of his bad character. Most
revealing, when Lydia Bennet runs off with Wickham, Elizabeth
instinctively pronounces the judgment of society when she states that
Wickham would never marry a woman without money.
Almost unconsciously, Elizabeth acknowledges a connection between wealth
and human values at the crucial moment when she first looks upon
Pemberley, the Darcy estate:
She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where
natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They
were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt
that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!
She is not entirely joking when she tells Jane that her love for Darcy
began when she first saw his beautiful estate.
Elizabeth's experiences, especially her discoveries of the well-ordered
Pemberley and Darcy's tactful generosity to Lydia and Wickham, lead her
to differentiate between Charlotte's theory that family and fortune
bestow a "right to be proud" and Darcy's position that the intelligent
person does not indulge in false pride. Darcy's pride is real, but it is
regulated by responsibility. Unlike his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh,
who relishes the distinction of rank, he disapproves less of the Bennets'
undistinguished family and fortune than he does of the lack of propriety
displayed by most of the family. Therefore, Elizabeth scarcely
overstates her case when, at the end, she assures her father that Darcy
has no improper pride.
Elizabeth begins by rejecting the values and restraints of society as
represented by such people as her mother, the Lucases, Miss Bingley, and
Lady Catherine, upholding instead the claims of the individual,
represented only by her whimsical father. By the end of the novel, the
heart of her conflict appears in the contrast between her father and
Darcy. She loves her father and has tried to overlook his lack of
decorum in conjugal matters, but she has been forced to see that his
freedom is really irresponsibility, the essential cause of Jane's misery
as well as Lydia's amorality. The implicit comparison between Mr.
Bennet's and Darcy's approach to matrimony illustrates their different
methods of dealing with society's restraints. Unrestrained by society,
having been captivated by the inferior Mrs. Bennet's youth and beauty,
Mr. Bennet consulted only his personal desires and made a disastrous
marriage. Darcy, in contrast, defies society only when he has made
certain that Elizabeth is a woman worthy of his love and lifetime
devotion.
When Elizabeth confronts Lady Catherine, her words are declarative, not
of absolute defiance of society but of the selective freedom which is
her compromise, and very similar to Darcy's: "I am only resolved to act
in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness,
without reverence to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with
me." Austen does not falsify the compromise. If Elizabeth dares with
impunity to defy the society of Rosings, Longbourne, and Meryton, she
does so only because Darcy is exactly the man for her and, further,
because she can anticipate "with delight . . . the time when they should
be removed from society so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort
and elegance ... at Pemberly." In a sense, her marriage to Darcy is a
triumph of the individual over society; but, paradoxically, Elizabeth
achieves her most genuine conquest of pride and prejudice only after she
has accepted the full social value of her judgment that "to be mistress
of Pemberley might be something!"
Granting the full force of the snobbery, the exploitation, the
inhumanity of all the evils which diminish the human spirit and which
are inherent in a materialistic society, the novel clearly confirms the
cynical "truth" of the opening sentence. Nevertheless, at the same time,
without evading the degree of Elizabeth's capitulation to society, it
affirms the vitality, the independent life that is possible at least to
an Elizabeth Bennet. Pride and Prejudice, like its title, offers
deceptively simple antitheses that yield up the complexity of life
itself.
|
|
"PRIDE AND PREJUDICE"
|

|
Chapter 1
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that
a single man in possession of a large fortune
must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of
such a man may be on his first entering a
neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in
the minds of the surrounding families, that he
is considered the rightful property of someone
or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him
one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park
is let at last?"
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
"But it is, returned she; "for Mrs. Long has
just been here, and she told me all about it.
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
"Do you not want to know who has taken it?"
cried his wife impatiently.
"YOU want to tell me, and I have no objection
to hearing it."
This was invitation enough.
"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says
that Netherfield is taken by a young man of
large fortune from the north of England; that he
came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see
the place, and was so much delighted with it,
that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that
he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and
some of his servants are to be in the house by
the end of next week."
"What is his name?"
"Bingley."
"Is he married or single?"
"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single
man of large fortune; four or five thousand a
year. What a fine thing for our girls!"
"How so? How can it affect them?"
"My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how
can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am
thinking of his marrying one of them."
"Is that his design in settling here?"
"Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But
it is very likely that he MAY fall in love with
one of them, and therefore you must visit him as
soon as he comes."
"I see no occasion for that. You and the
girls may go, or you may send them by
themselves, which perhaps will be still better,
for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr.
Bingley may like you the best of the party."
"My dear, you flatter me. I certainly HAVE
had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to
be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has
five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over
thinking of her own beauty."
"In such cases, a woman has not often much
beauty to think of."
"But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr.
Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood."
"It is more than I engage for, I assure you."
"But consider your daughters. Only think what
an establishment it would be for one of them.
Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go,
merely on that account, for in general, you
know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must
go, for it will be impossible for US to visit
him if you do not."
"You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say
Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I
will send a few lines by you to assure him of my
hearty consent to his marrying whichever he
chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a
good word for my little Lizzy."
"I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is
not a bit better than the others; and I am sure
she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so
good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always
giving HER the preference."
"They have none of them much to recommend
them," replied he; "they are all silly and
ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has
something more of quickness than her sisters."
"Mr. Bennet, how CAN you abuse your own
children in such a way? You take delight in
vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor
nerves."
"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high
respect for your nerves. They are my old
friends. I have heard you mention them with
consideration these last twenty years at least."
Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick
parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice,
that the experience of three-and- twenty years
had been insufficient to make his wife
understand his character. HER mind was less
difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean
understanding, little information, and uncertain
temper. When she was discontented, she fancied
herself nervous. The business of her life was to
get her daughters married; its solace was
visiting and news.
|
|
Chapter 2
Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley.
He had always intended to visit him, though to
the last always assuring his wife that he should
not go; and till the evening after the visit was
paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then
disclosed in the following manner: --Observing
his second daughter employed in trimming a hat,
he suddenly addressed her with:
"I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy."
"We are not in a way to know WHAT Mr. Bingley
likes," said her mother resentfully, "since we
are not to visit."
"But you forget, mamma," said Elizabeth,
"that we shall meet him at the assemblies, and
that Mrs. Long promised to introduce him."
"I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such
thing. She has two nieces of her own. She is a
selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no
opinion of her."
"No more have I," said Mr. Bennet; "and I am
glad to find that you do not depend on her
serving you."
Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply,
but, unable to contain herself, began scolding
one of her daughters.
"Don`t keep coughing so, Kitty, for Heaven`s
sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You
tear them to pieces."
"Kitty has no discretion in her coughs," said
her father; "she times them ill."
"I do not cough for my own amusement,"
replied Kitty fretfully. "When is your next ball
to be, Lizzy?"
"To-morrow fortnight."
"Aye, so it is," cried her mother, "and Mrs.
Long does not come back till the day before; so
it will be impossible for her to introduce him,
for she will not know him herself."
"Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of
your friend, and introduce Mr. Bingley to HER."
"Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I
am not acquainted with him myself; how can you
be so teasing?"
"I honour your circumspection. A fortnight`s
acquaintance is certainly very little. One
cannot know what a man really is by the end of a
fortnight. But if WE do not venture somebody
else will; and after all, Mrs. Long and her
daughters must stand their chance; and,
therefore, as she will think it an act of
kindness, if you decline the office, I will take
it on myself."
The girls stared at their father. Mrs. Bennet
said only, "Nonsense, nonsense!"
"What can be the meaning of that emphatic
exclamation?" cried he. "Do you consider the
forms of introduction, and the stress that is
laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree
with you THERE. What say you, Mary? For you are
a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and
read great books and make extracts."
Mary wished to say something sensible, but
knew not how.
"While Mary is adjusting her ideas," he
continued, "let us return to Mr. Bingley."
"I am sick of Mr. Bingley," cried his wife.
"I am sorry to hear THAT; but why did not you
tell me that before? If I had known as much this
morning I certainly would not have called on
him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually
paid the visit; we cannot escape the
acquaintance now."
The astonishment of the ladies was just what
he wished; that of Mrs. Bennet perhaps
surpassing the rest; though, when the first
tumult of joy was over, she began to declare
that it was what she had expected all the while.
"How good it was in you, my dear Mr. Bennet!
But I knew I should persuade you at last. I was
sure you loved your girls too well to neglect
such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am!
and it is such a good joke, too, that you should
have gone this morning and never said a word
about it till now."
"Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you
choose," said Mr. Bennet; and, as he spoke, he
left the room, fatigued with the raptures of his
wife.
What an excellent father you have, girls!"
said she, when the door was shut. "I do not know
how you will ever make him amends for his
kindness; or me, either, for that matter. At our
time of life it is not so pleasant, I can tell
you, to be making new acquaintances every day;
but for your sakes, we would do anything. Lydia,
my love, though you ARE the youngest, I dare say
Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next
ball."
"Oh!" said Lydia stoutly, "I am not afraid;
for though I AM the youngest, I`m the tallest."
The rest of the evening was spent in
conjecturing how soon he would return Mr.
Bennet`s visit, and determining when they should
ask him to dinner.
|
|
Chapter 3
Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five
daughters, could ask on the subject, was
sufficient to draw from her husband any
satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They
attacked him in various way-- with barefaced
questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant
surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all,
and they were at last obliged to accept the
second-hand intelligence of their neighbour,
Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable.
Sir William had been delighted with him. He was
quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely
agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to
be at the next assembly with a large party.
Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of
dancing was a certain step towards falling in
love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley`s
heart were entertained.
"If I can but see one of my daughters happily
settled at Netherfield," said Mrs. Bennet to her
husband, "and all the others equally well
married, I shall have nothing to wish for."
In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr.
Bennet`s visit, and sat about ten minutes with
him in his library. He had entertained hopes of
being admitted to a sight of the young ladies,
of whose beauty he had heard much; but he saw
only the father. The ladies were somewhat more
fortunate, for they had the advantage of
ascertaining from an upper window that he wore a
blue coat, and rode a black horse.
An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards
dispatched; and already had Mrs. Bennet planned
the courses that were to do credit to her
housekeeping, when an answer arrived which
deferred it all. Mr. Bingley was obliged to be
in town the following day, and, consequently,
unable to accept the honour of their invitation,
etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted. She
could not imagine what business he could have in
town so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire;
and she began to fear that he might be always
flying about from one place to another, and
never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be.
Lady Lucas quieted her fears a little by
starting the idea of his being gone to London
only to get a large party for the ball; and a
report soon followed, that Mr. Bingley was to
bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him
to the assembly. The girls grieved over such a
number of ladies, but were comforted the day
before the ball by hearing, that instead of
twelve he brought only six with him from
London-- his five sisters and a cousin. And when
the party entered the assembly room it consisted
of only five altogether-- Mr. Bingley, his two
sisters, the husband of the eldest, and another
young man.
Mr. Bingley was good-looking and
gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance,
and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were
fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His
brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the
gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew
the attention of the room by his fine, tall
person, handsome features, noble mien, and the
report which was in general circulation within
five minutes after his entrance, of his having
ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced
him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies
declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley,
and he was looked at with great admiration for
about half the evening, till his manners gave a
disgust which turned the tide of his popularity;
for he was discovered to be proud; to be above
his company, and above being pleased; and not
all his large estate in Derbyshire could then
save him from having a most forbidding,
disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to
be compared with his friend.
Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted
with all the principal people in the room; he
was lively and unreserved, danced every dance,
was angry that the ball closed so early, and
talked of giving one himself at Netherfield.
Such amiable qualities must speak for
themselves. What a contrast between him and his
friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs.
Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being
introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest
of the evening in walking about the room,
speaking occasionally to one of his own party.
His character was decided. He was the proudest,
most disagreeable man in the world, and
everybody hoped that he would never come there
again. Amongst the most violent against him was
Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general
behaviour was sharpened into particular
resentment by his having slighted one of her
daughters.
Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the
scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two
dances; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy
had been standing near enough for her to hear a
conversation between him and Mr. Bingley, who
came from the dance for a few minutes, to press
his friend to join it.
"Come, Darcy," said he, "I must have you
dance. I hate to see you standing about by
yourself in this stupid manner. You had much
better dance."
"I certainly shall not. You know how I detest
it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my
partner. At such an assembly as this it would be
insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and
there is not another woman in the room whom it
would not be a punishment to me to stand up
with."
"I would not be so fastidious as you are,"
cried Mr. Bingley, "for a kingdom! Upon my
honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls
in my life as I have this evening; and there are
several of them you see uncommonly pretty."
"YOU are dancing with the only handsome girl
in the room," said Mr. Darcy, looking at the
eldest Miss Bennet.
"Oh! She is the most beautiful creature I
ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters
sitting down just behind you, who is very
pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me
ask my partner to introduce you."
"Which do you mean?" and turning round he
looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching
her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said:
"She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to
tempt ME; I am in no humour at present to give
consequence to young ladies who are slighted by
other men. You had better return to your partner
and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your
time with me."
Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy
walked off; and Elizabeth remained with no very
cordial feelings toward him. She told the story,
however, with great spirit among her friends;
for she had a lively, playful disposition, which
delighted in anything ridiculous.
The evening altogether passed off pleasantly
to the whole family. Mrs. Bennet had seen her
eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield
party. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice,
and she had been distinguished by his sisters.
Jane was as much gratified by this as her mother
could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth
felt Jane`s pleasure. Mary had heard herself
mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most
accomplished girl in the neighbourhood; and
Catherine and Lydia had been fortunate enough
never to be without partners, which was all that
they had yet learnt to care for at a ball. They
returned, therefore, in good spirits to
Longbourn, the village where they lived, and of
which they were the principal inhabitants. They
found Mr. Bennet still up. With a book he was
regardless of time; and on the present occasion
he had a good deal of curiosity as to the events
of an evening which had raised such splendid
expectations. He had rather hoped that his
wife`s views on the stranger would be
disappointed; but he soon found out that he had
a different story to hear.
"Oh! my dear Mr. Bennet," as she entered the
room, "we have had a most delightful evening, a
most excellent ball. I wish you had been there.
Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it.
Everybody said how well she looked; and Mr.
Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced
with her twice! Only think of THAT, my dear; he
actually danced with her twice! and she was the
only creature in the room that he asked a second
time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was
so vexed to see him stand up with her! But,
however, he did not admire her at all; indeed,
nobody can, you know; and he seemed quite struck
with Jane as she was going down the dance. So he
inquired who she was, and got introduced, and
asked her for the two next. Then the two third
he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth
with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane
again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the
BOULANGER--"
"If he had had any compassion for ME," cried
her husband impatiently, "he would not have
danced half so much! For God`s sake, say no more
of his partners. O that he had sprained his
ankle in the first place!"
"Oh! my dear, I am quite delighted with him.
He is so excessively handsome! And his sisters
are charming women. I never in my life saw
anything more elegant than their dresses. I dare
say the lace upon Mrs. Hurst`s gown--"
Here she was interrupted again. Mr. Bennet
protested against any description of finery. She
was therefore obliged to seek another branch of
the subject, and related, with much bitterness
of spirit and some exaggeration, the shocking
rudeness of Mr. Darcy.
"But I can assure you," she added, "that
Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting HIS
fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid
man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so
conceited that there was no enduring him! He
walked here, and he walked there, fancying
himself so very great! Not handsome enough to
dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear,
to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite
detest the man."
|
|
Chapter 4
When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious
in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed
to her sister just how very much she admired
him.
"He is just what a young man ought to be,"
said she, "sensible, good-humoured, lively; and
I never saw such happy manners!-- so much ease,
with such perfect good breeding!"
"He is also handsome," replied Elizabeth,
"which a young man ought likewise to be, if he
possibly can. His character is thereby
complete."
"I was very much flattered by his asking me
to dance a second time. I did not expect such a
compliment."
"Did not you? I did for you. But that is one
great difference between us. Compliments always
take YOU by surprise, and ME never. What could
be more natural than his asking you again? He
could not help seeing that you were about five
times as pretty as every other woman in the
room. No thanks to his gallantry for that. Well,
he certainly is very agreeable, and I give you
leave to like him. You have liked many a
stupider person."
"Dear Lizzy!"
"Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know,
to like people in general. You never see a fault
in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable
in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a
human being in your life."
"I would not wish to be hasty in censuring
anyone; but I always speak what I think."
"I know you do; and it is THAT which makes
the wonder. With YOUR good sense, to be so
honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of
others! Affectation of candour is common
enough-- one meets with it everywhere. But to be
candid without ostentation or design-- to take
the good of everybody`s character and make it
still better, and say nothing of the bad--
belongs to you alone. And so you like this man`s
sisters, too, do you? Their manners are not
equal to his."
"Certainly not-- at first. But they are very
pleasing women when you converse with them. Miss
Bingley is to live with her brother, and keep
his house; and I am much mistaken if we shall
not find a very charming neighbour in her."
Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not
convinced; their behaviour at the assembly had
not been calculated to please in general; and
with more quickness of observation and less
pliancy of temper than her sister, and with a
judgement too unassailed by any attention to
herself, she was very little disposed to approve
them. They were in fact very fine ladies; not
deficient in good humour when they were pleased,
nor in the power of making themselves agreeable
when they chose it, but proud and conceited.
They were rather handsome, had been educated in
one of the first private seminaries in town, had
a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, were in the
habit of spending more than they ought, and of
associating with people of rank, and were
therefore in every respect entitled to think
well of themselves, and meanly of others. They
were of a respectable family in the north of
England; a circumstance more deeply impressed on
their memories than that their brother`s fortune
and their own had been acquired by trade.
Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount
of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his
father, who had intended to purchase an estate,
but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley intended
it likewise, and sometimes made choice of his
county; but as he was now provided with a good
house and the liberty of a manor, it was
doubtful to many of those who best knew the
easiness of his temper, whether he might not
spend the remainder of his days at Netherfield,
and leave the next generation to purchase.
His sisters were anxious for his having an
estate of his own; but, though he was now only
established as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no
means unwilling to preside at his table-- nor
was Mrs. Hurst, who had married a man of more
fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider
his house as her home when it suited her. Mr.
Bingley had not been or age two years, when he
was tempted by an accidental recommendation to
look at Netherfield House. He did look at it,
and into it for half-an-hour-- was pleased with
the situation and the principal rooms, satisfied
with what the owner said in its praise, and took
it immediately.
Between him and Darcy there was a very steady
friendship, in spite of great opposition of
character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the
easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper,
though no disposition could offer a greater
contrast to his own, and though with his own he
never appeared dissatisfied. On the strength of
Darcy`s regard, Bingley had the firmest
reliance, and of his judgement the highest
opinion. In understanding, Darcy was the
superior. Bingley was by no means deficient, but
Darcy was clever. He was at the same time
haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his
manners, though well-bred, were not inviting. In
that respect his friend had greatly the
advantage. Bingley was sure of being liked
wherever he appeared, Darcy was continually
giving offense.
The manner in which they spoke of the Meryton
assembly was sufficiently characteristic.
Bingley had never met with more pleasant people
or prettier girls in his life; everybody had
been most kind and attentive to him; there had
been no formality, no stiffness; he had soon
felt acquainted with all the room; and, as to
Miss Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more
beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a
collection of people in whom there was little
beauty and no fashion, for none of whom he had
felt the smallest interest, and from none
received either attention or pleasure. Miss
Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty, but she
smiled too much.
Mrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to be
so-- but still they admired her and liked her,
and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one
whom they would not object to know more of. Miss
Bennet was therefore established as a sweet
girl, and their brother felt authorized by such
commendation to think of her as he chose.
|
|
Chapter 5
Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets
were particularly intimate. Sir William Lucas
had been formerly in trade in Meryton, where he
had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the
honour of knighthood by an address to the king
during his mayoralty. The distinction had
perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him
a disgust to his business, and to his residence
in a small market town; and, in quitting them
both, he had removed with his family to a house
about a mile from Meryton, denominated from that
period Lucas Lodge, where he could think with
pleasure of his own importance, and, unshackled
by business, occupy himself solely in being
civil to all the world. For, though elated by
his rank, it did not render him supercilious; on
the contrary, he was all attention to everybody.
By nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging,
his presentation at St. James`s had made him
courteous.
Lady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, not
too clever to be a valuable neighbour to Mrs.
Bennet. They had several children. The eldest of
them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about
twenty-seven, was Elizabeth`s intimate friend.
That the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets
should meet to talk over a ball was absolutely
necessary; and the morning after the assembly
brought the former to Longbourn to hear and to
communicate. "YOU began the evening well,
Charlotte," said Mrs. Bennet with civil
self-command to Miss Lucas. "YOU were Mr.
Bingley`s first choice."
"Yes; but he seemed to like his second
better."
"Oh! you mean Jane, I suppose, because he
danced with her twice. To be sure that DID seem
as if he admired her-- indeed I rather believe
he DID-- I heard something about it-- but I
hardly know what-- something about Mr.
Robinson."
"Perhaps you mean what I overheard between
him and Mr. Robinson; did not I mention it to
you? Mr. Robinson`s asking him how he liked our
Meryton assemblies, and whether he did not think
there were a great many pretty women in the
room, and WHICH he thought the prettiest? and
his answering immediately to the last question:
Oh! the eldest Miss Bennet, beyond a doubt;
there cannot be two opinions on that point.` "
"Upon my word! Well, that is very decided
indeed-- that does seem as if-- but, however, it
may all come to nothing, you know."
"MY overhearings were more to the purpose
than YOURS, Eliza," said Charlotte. "Mr. Darcy
is not so well worth listening to as his friend,
is he?-- poor Eliza!-- to be only just
TOLERABLE."
"I beg you would not put it into Lizzy`s head
to be vexed by his ill-treatment, for he is such
a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a
misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me
last night that he sat close to her for
half-an-hour without once opening his lips."
"Are you quite sure, ma`am?-- is not there a
little mistake?" said Jane. "I certainly saw Mr.
Darcy speaking to her."
"Aye-- because she asked him at last how he
liked Netherfield, and he could not help
answering her; but she said he seemed quite
angry at being spoke to."
"Miss Bingley told me," said Jane, "that he
never speaks much, unless among his intimate
acquaintances. With THEM he is remarkably
agreeable."
"I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If
he had been so very agreeable, he would have
talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it was;
everybody says that he is eat up with pride, and
I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long
does not keep a carriage, and had come to the
ball in a hack chaise."
"I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long,"
said Miss Lucas, "but I wish he had danced with
Eliza."
"Another time, Lizzy," said her mother, "I
would not dance with HIM, if I were you."
"I believe, ma`am, I may safely promise you
NEVER to dance with him."
"His pride," said Miss Lucas, "does not
offend ME so much as pride often does, because
there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder
that so very fine a young man, with family,
fortune, everything in his favour, should think
highly of himself. If I may so express it, he
has a RIGHT to be proud."
"That is very true," replied Elizabeth, "and
I could easily forgive HIS pride, if he had not
mortified MINE."
"Pride," observed Mary, who piqued herself
upon the solidity of her reflections, "is a very
common failing, I believe. By all that I have
ever read, I am convinced that it is very common
indeed; that human nature is particularly prone
to it, and that there are very few of us who do
not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the
score of some quality or other, real or
imaginary. Vanity a pride are different things,
though the words are often used synonymously. A
person may be proud without being vain. Pride
relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity
to what we would have others think of us."
"If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy," cried a
young Lucas, who came with his sisters, "I
should not care how proud I was. I would keep a
pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine a
day."
"Then you would drink a great deal more than
you ought," said Mrs. Bennet; "and if I were to
see you at it, I should take away your bottle
directly."
The boy protested that she should not; she
continued to declare that she would, and the
argument ended only with the visit.
|
|
Chapter 6
The ladies of Longbourn soon waited on those of Netherfield. The visit
was soon returned in due form. Miss Bennet`s
pleasing manners grew on the goodwill of Mrs.
Hurst and Miss Bingley; and though the mother
was found to be intolerable, and the younger
sisters not worth speaking to, a wish of being
better acquainted with THEM was expressed
towards the two eldest. By Jane, this attention
was received with the greatest pleasure, but
Elizabeth still saw superciliousness in their
treatment of everybody, hardly excepting even
her sister, and could not like them; though
their kindness to Jane, such as it was, had a
value as arising in all probability from the
influence of their brother`s admiration. It was
generally evident whenever they met, that he DID
admire her and to HER it was equally evident
that Jane was yielding to the preference which
she had begun to entertain for him from the
first, and was in a way to be very much in love;
but she considered with pleasure that it was not
likely to be discovered by the world in general,
since Jane united, with great strength of
feeling, a composure of temper and a uniform
cheerfulness of manner which would guard her
from the suspicions of the impertinent. She
mentioned this to her friend Miss Lucas.
"It may perhaps be pleasant," replied
Charlotte, "to be able to impose on the public
in such a case; but it is sometimes a
disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman
conceals her affection with the same skill from
the object of it, she may lose the opportunity
of fixing him; and it will then be but poor
consolation to believe the world equally in the
dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in
almost every attachment, that it is not safe to
leave any to itself. We can all BEGIN freely-- a
slight preference is natural enough; but there
are very few of us who have heart enough to be
really in love without encouragement. In nine
cases out of ten a women had better show MORE
affection than she feels. Bingley, likes your
sister, undoubtedly; but he may never do more
than like her, if she does not help him on."
"But she does help him on, as much as her
nature will allow. If I can perceive her regard
for him, he must be a simpleton, indeed, not to
discover it too."
"Remember, Eliza, that he does not know
Jane`s disposition as you do."
"But if a woman is partial to a man, and does
not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it
out."
"Perhaps he must, if he sees enough of her.
But, though Bingley and Jane meet tolerably
often, it is never for many hours together; and,
as they always see each other in large mixed
parties, it is impossible that every moment
should be employed in conversing together. Jane
should therefore make the most of every
half-hour in which she can command his
attention. When she is secure of him, there will
be more leisure for falling in love as much as
she chooses."
"Your plan is a good one," replied Elizabeth,
"where nothing is in question but the desire of
being well married, and if I were determined to
get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I
should adopt it. But these are not Jane`s
feelings; she is not acting by design. As yet,
she cannot even be certain of the degree of her
own regard nor of its reasonableness. She has
known him only a fortnight. She danced four
dances with him at Meryton; she saw him one
morning at his own house, and has since dined
with him in company four times. This is not
quite enough to make her understand his
character."
"Not as you represent it. Had she merely
DINED with him, she might only have discovered
whether he had a good appetite; but you must
remember that four evenings have also been spent
together-- and four evenings may do a great
deal."
"Yes; these four evenings have enabled them
to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better
than Commerce; but with respect to any other
leading characteristic, I do not imagine that
much has been unfolded."
"Well," said Charlotte, "I wish Jane success
with all my heart; and if she were married to
him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a
chance of happiness as if she were to be
studying his character for a twelvemonth.
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of
chance. If the dispositions of the parties are
ever so well known to each other or ever so
similar beforehand, it does not advance their
felicity in the least. They always continue to
grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have
their share of vexation; and it is better to
know as little as possible of the defects of the
person with whom you are to pass your life."
"You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not
sound. You know it is not sound, and that you
would never act in this way yourself."
Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley`s
attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from
suspecting that she was herself becoming an
object of some interest in the eyes of his
friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed
her to be pretty; he had looked at her without
admiration at the ball; and when they next met,
he looked at her only to criticise. But no
sooner had he made it clear to himself and his
friends that she hardly had a good feature in
her face, than he began to find it was rendered
uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful
expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery
succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though
he had detected with a critical eye more than
one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he
was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light
and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that
her manners were not those of the fashionable
world, he was caught by their easy playfulness.
Of this she was perfectly unaware; to her he was
only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere,
and who had not thought her handsome enough to
dance with.
He began to wish to know more of her, and as
a step towards conversing with her himself,
attended to her conversation with others. His
doing so drew her notice. It was at Sir William
Lucas`s, where a large party were assembled.
"What does Mr. Darcy mean," said she to
Charlotte, "by listening to my conversation with
Colonel Forster?"
"That is a question which Mr. Darcy only can
answer."
"But if he does it any more I shall certainly
let him know that I see what he is about. He has
a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by
being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow
afraid of him."
On his approaching them soon afterwards,
though without seeming to have any intention of
speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to
mention such a subject to him; which immediately
provoking Elizabeth to do it, she turned to him
and said:
"Did you not think, Mr. Darcy, that I
expressed myself uncommonly well just now, when
I was teasing Colonel Forster to give us a ball
at Meryton?"
"With great energy; but it is always a
subject which makes a lady energetic."
"You are severe on us."
"It will be HER turn soon to be teased," said
Miss Lucas. "I am going to open the instrument,
Eliza, and you know what follows."
"You are a very strange creature by way of a
friend!-- always wanting me to play and sing
before anybody and everybody! If my vanity had
taken a musical turn, you would have been
invaluable; but as it is, I would really rather
not sit down before those who must be in the
habit of hearing the very best performers." On
Miss Lucas`s persevering, however, she added,
"Very well, if it must be so, it must." And
gravely glancing at Mr. Darcy, "There is a fine
old saying, which everybody here is of course
familiar with: `Keep your breath to cool your
porridge`; and I shall keep mine to swell my
song."
Her performance was pleasing, though by no
means capital. After a song or two, and before
she could reply to the entreaties of several
that she would sing again, she was eagerly
succeeded at the instrument by her sister Mary,
who having, in consequence of being the only
plain one in the family, worked hard for
knowledge and accomplishments, was always
impatient for display.
Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though
vanity had given her application, it had given
her likewise a pedantic air and conceited
manner, which would have injured a higher degree
of excellence than she had reached. Elizabeth,
easy and unaffected, had been listened to with
much more pleasure, though not playing half so
well; and Mary, at the end of a long concerto,
was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by
Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her
younger sisters, who, with some of the Lucases,
and two or three officers, joined eagerly in
dancing at one end of the room.
Mr. Darcy stood near them in silent
indignation at such a mode of passing the
evening, to the exclusion of all conversation,
and was too much engrossed by his thoughts to
perceive that Sir William Lucas was his
neighbour, till Sir William thus began:
"What a charming amusement for young people
this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like
dancing after all. I consider it as one of the
first refinements of polished society."
"Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage
also of being in vogue amongst the less polished
societies of the world. Every savage can dance."
Sir William only smiled. "Your friend
performs delightfully," he continued after a
pause, on seeing Bingley join the group; "and I
doubt not that you are an adept in the science
yourself, Mr. Darcy."
"You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe,
sir."
"Yes, indeed, and received no inconsiderable
pleasure from the sight. Do you often dance at
St. James`s?"
"Never, sir."
"Do you not think it would be a proper
compliment to the place?"
"It is a compliment which I never play to any
place if I can avoid it."
"You have a house in town, I conclude?"
Mr. Darcy bowed.
"I had once had some thought of fixing in
town myself-- for I am fond of superior society;
but I did not feel quite certain that the air of
London would agree with Lady Lucas."
He paused in hopes of an answer; but his
companion was not disposed to make any; and
Elizabeth at that instant moving towards them,
he was struck with the action of doing a very
gallant thing, and called out to her:
"My dear Miss Eliza, why are you not dancing?
Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this
young lady to you as a very desirable partner.
You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure when so
much beauty is before you." And, taking her
hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy who,
though extremely surprised, was not unwilling to
receive it, when she instantly drew back, and
said with some discomposure to Sir William:
"Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention
of dancing. I entreat you not to suppose that I
moved this way in order to beg for a partner."
Mr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested to
be allowed the honour of her hand, but in vain.
Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at
all shake her purpose by his attempt at
persuasion.
"You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza,
that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of
seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes
the amusement in general, he can have no
objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one
half-hour."
"Mr. Darcy is all politeness," said
Elizabeth, smiling.
"He is, indeed; but, considering the
inducement, my dear Miss Eliza, we cannot wonder
at his complaisance-- for who would object to
such a partner?"
Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her
resistance had not injured her with the
gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some
complacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley:
"I can guess the subject of your reverie."
"I should imagine not."
"You are considering how insupportable it
would be to pass many evenings in this manner--
in such society; and indeed I am quite of you
opinion. I was never more annoyed! The
insipidity, and yet the noise-- the nothingness,
and yet the self-importance of all those people!
What would I give to hear your strictures on
them!"
"You conjecture is totally wrong, I assure
you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have
been meditating on the very great pleasure which
a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty
woman can bestow."
Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on
his face, a desired he would tell her what lady
had the credit of inspiring such reflections.
Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity:
"Miss Elizabeth Bennet."
"Miss Elizabeth Bennet!" repeated Miss
Bingley. "I am all astonishment. How long has
she been such a favourite?-- and pray, when am I
to wish you joy?"
"That is exactly the question which I
expected you to ask. A lady`s imagination is
very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love,
from love to matrimony, in a moment. I knew you
would be wishing me joy."
"Nay, if you are serious about it, I shall
consider the matter is absolutely settled. You
will be having a charming mother-in-law, indeed;
and, of course, she will always be at Pemberley
with you."
He listened to her with perfect indifference
while she chose to entertain herself in this
manner; and as his composure convinced her that
all was safe, her wit flowed long.
|
|