by Jane Austen
[From The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, Manufactures, &c, Vol. XIII (1815), p. 122]
[List of Illustrations]
25. Jane Fairfax will soon appear, and she, and Emma’s less-than-affectionate feelings for her, will play a crucial role in the novel.
26. A stomacher is a small garment designed to be inserted under the front folds of the bodice of a dress and cover the stomach. It was a decorative piece and usually had an elaborate pattern, often in many colors, embroidered in it; this is what Jane would be sending. Stomachers had been popular during the eighteenth century and were still used at this time, but not as frequently. It is possible Miss Bates wishes for a pattern from Jane in order to make a stomacher for her mother, who could be more attached to older styles. For an example of a needlework pattern, see previous page.
27. Garters would be wrapped around the leg, usually just above the knee, to hold up stockings; they were needed because no clothing of this time had much elasticity. For more on the issue of knitting, see note 9.
28. Cottages were typically the dwellings of poorer people, though in this period a vogue for fancier cottages, much larger than normal ones but still exhibiting rustic features, had developed among the wealthy.
29. allow for: make allowances for.
30. Idealization of the poor as possessing greater purity and virtue, due to not being corrupted by the temptations of wealth or the false values of established society, was a theme in some Romantic writings of the time.
31. At this time the poor received little education (for more on the institutions of education, see note 23). Some did not attend any school, and even among the majority who did, the schools offered limited instruction. Their focus was on reading, religious instruction, and practical skills that would be useful for the students’ future working lives; some also taught writing and arithmetic. Limited resources, among other things, usually kept schools for the poor from hiring well-trained teachers. But it also was a conscious choice, for there was a general belief, though one beginning to be challenged, that too much education could be dangerous for the poor, making them discontented and rebellious and rendering them no longer fit to perform their work and follow their established social role.
32. The family would grow food in the cottage garden, a standard practice among the poor. Their meager hedge, tottering step (presumably due to decay and disrepair), and narrow, poorly maintained path all testify to their poverty. Jane Austen usually does not include such physical details and rarely talks of the poor, but this passage indicates that this is not from lack of observation or awareness of how poor houses look.
33. stability: steadiness, firmness.
34. Emma’s statement bears similarities to one in Jane Austen’s letters, in which, commenting on a recent bloody battle involving the British Army, she declares, “How horrible it is to have so many people killed!—And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!” (May 31, 1811). More generally in her letters and novels, she combines a consistent support for charitable feelings and actions—she herself helped the poor in various ways—with a refusal to allow others’ suffering to make one miserable and a rejection of false pretenses of superhuman virtue. The attitude displayed here—by both Emma and the author, for the latter seems in complete sympathy with the character on this point—had long dominated thinking about poverty. It was a combination of acceptance of poverty as an inevitable part of the human condition, which found its strongest expression and justification in the statement by Jesus that “the poor always ye have with you,” with a belief in a strong Christian duty to do what one could to relieve the suffering of the poor. For contemporary pictures of upper-class charity, see this page and this page.
35. Visiting the poor was an important function of the clergy. That Mr. Elton turns back from his visit to accompany Emma and Harriet indicates his lack of zeal for this task—though in general Mr. Elton, even with the personal flaws he reveals, is never described as neglecting or performing badly his basic clerical duties.
36. fall in with each other: come upon each other by chance.
37. scheme: undertaking.
38. The half-boot was a recent fashion for women (prior to that they had not worn any kind of boots). The name came from their going only as high as the ankle, in contrast to the much taller boots worn by men. Their principal use was for the outdoors; shoes were still preferred for general wear. The boots were made of leather or some kind of heavy cotton, often had decorative trimmings, and were laced up, which is what allows Emma to adopt her current expedient. For a picture of a woman wearing a half-boot, see this page.
39. Emma presumably told the family they could procure broth at her house, and the child was then ordered to go fetch it. Poor children normally engaged in chores like this, sometimes working very hard, for their families needed the labor.
40. Stilton cheese, a blue cheese, had become very popular in the eighteenth century. North Wiltshire was another popular variety; it is a hard cheese similar to Cheddar. Improvements in transportation in this period meant that it had become easier for the affluent to enjoy the varieties of cheeses produced in different parts of England.
41. beet-root: beets.
42. That Mr. Elton goes into such detail on his previous night’s dinner shows both his pedantic side and his self-centered character, for it is hard to imagine such details being terribly interesting to another person.
43. interests: is interesting.
44. contrive: manage.
45. He displays greater happiness at the prospect of Emma’s visit than when he was talking alone with Harriet.
46. As the principal servant, the housekeeper would be the one to greet Emma and take charge of helping her. She also would be the one most capable of engaging in conversation with Emma, because her wider range of duties would make her knowledgeable and because housekeepers tended to be more refined and well-spoken than other servants, whether from having a superior social origin or from picking up some of the speech and manners of their employers due to greater contact with them.
47. aspect: appearance.
48. ingenious device: clever trick.
A lady giving money to the poor (the clothing is from a slightly earlier period).
[From Malcolm Salaman, Old English Colour Prints (New York, 1909), Plate XI]
[List of Illustrations]
VOLUME I, CHAPTER XI
1. measures: course of action.
2. As the mistress of the house Emma would be in charge of the various preparations for accommodating guests. This would include ordering additional food and deciding what to serve.
3. These vacations would occur when John Knightley could leave his work. Lawyers followed a schedule of intense activity during the regular sessions of the courts they attended, and periods of relative leisure between sessions. The family’s vacations would not be determined by school holidays: the eldest child, Henry, is only six (see here), and the earliest that children were generally sent off to school was seven.
4. Bathing, or swimming, in the sea had recently become very popular; for more see note 21. Autumn in Britain then typically meant August through October, so they could have gone to the sea when it was still warm.
5. Surry, or Surrey, is the name of the county where the story is set; hence this refers to Emma, Mr. Woodhouse, and Mr. Knightley. The last saw John and Isabella recently in London at least once, for on the day of Mrs. Weston’s wedding he was just returning from a visit (see here).
6. forestalling: anticipating.
7. The size of the party coming to visit, described next, would necessitate two carriages. Since the visitors have only one of their own, they would need to hire an additional one, so having Mr. Woodhouse’s carriage and coachman take over from the hired carriage for the second half would save money. They can help only with the second half because the distance is sixteen miles: after approximately ten miles horses tired and needed to be changed if travelers wished to maintain their speed. These travelers would ha
ve done that with their own carriage; meanwhile, Mr. Woodhouse’s carriage could have arrived at the point of exchange, usually an inn in a town along a main road, earlier in the day and waited, giving the horses time to rest and feed, before the party arrived and they all proceeded to Hartfield. For contemporary illustrations of traveling and stopping at an inn, see this page and this page.
8. Emma mentioned four children when recounting her attempts at making their portraits (see here), but that was during an earlier visit and, as soon appears, they now have a new baby.
9. competent: suitable.
10. Nursery maids would help with raising children, especially little ones. Usually they would assist either a head nurse, if the family hired one, or the mother herself, and perform the more menial child-rearing tasks. The wording suggests at least two nursery maids, and perhaps more. This exceeds the number many families, even those with five children, would employ, but the extreme maternal solicitude of Isabella, soon on display, makes it plausible that she would consider larger-than-normal numbers to be suitable.
11. many nerves: much nervousness.
12. John Knightley is a barrister. He is only ever identified as a lawyer, but someone from his background would certainly have become a barrister, the only kind of lawyer considered genteel; attorneys, the other principal type, could not argue cases in court and had received a limited education. Among landowning families like the Knightleys, the eldest son inherited the family estate, while younger sons entered a genteel profession, principally the clergy, the army, the navy, and the law. Of these professions the law offered some of the best opportunities of achieving great success and fortune; at the same time, it was also very uncertain and difficult, with many never succeeding at all and those who did often forced to endure years of limited employment and remuneration before attaining recognition. John Knightley’s cleverness would be assisting his progress, and he would also be helped by his financial circumstances. He would have received an inheritance from the family estate: the normal settlement allotted a sum to all younger sons and daughters to help the former begin their professional careers and to provide dowries for the latter. The apparent prosperity of the Knightley estate and the absence of other siblings would ensure that John Knightley’s sum was a substantial one. Moreover, once he married Isabella he would have received her very substantial fortune of thirty thousand pounds (this is the sum later identified for Emma, and sisters always received the same amount). All this would have more than paid for his legal education and allowed him to endure the limited work and income that most lawyers experienced in their early years at the bar.
13. A central ideal of Jane Austen is improvement and education through the force of love. She frequently shows people in love benefiting, especially in their moral character, from the example, wisdom, or criticism of the person that they are in love with and marry. This marriage is an example where the limitations of the wife keep this from happening, thus preventing the husband from developing a better character. A case where a husband’s character is positively worsened by his wife arises later in the novel, as in some other Austen novels.
14. He and his wife, though seeming to get along reasonably well, display very different characters, which leads to the question of why they married. A crucial reason would have been the limited marriage opportunities available to the genteel ranks in rural society, due to the few people of that rank in any given area. In this case the Woodhouses and the Knightleys are the only two long-established genteel families in the immediate vicinity, which makes a son and daughter of each family a natural match, even in the case of some personal incompatibilities.
15. It is notable that while concern for herself and preference for flattery motivate Emma, concern for her father is even stronger.
16. Meaning that either the retort or the remonstrance is ill bestowed on Mr. Woodhouse.
17. The air of a place was often the first consideration in evaluating its healthiness. Medical opinion of the time attributed many ailments to bad air, and often explained the spread of contagious disease as the product of noxious forces in the air.
A woman (Countess Grey) and her children.
[From Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, Sir Thomas Lawrence (London, 1900), p. 84]
[List of Illustrations]
18. Emma’s precision suggests that she has kept careful track of their visits from or to the Westons. She has presumably done so for her father’s sake, for he would be likely to fret about not seeing them and an accurate tabulation on her part could help calm him.
19. Isabella has clearly been expressing her worries to her husband. Her doing so indicates both her strong affection for her father and sister and her sharing in his fretful nature.
20. This is the first time Mr. Woodhouse has said “Mrs. Weston” instead of “Miss Taylor.” One reason is that he is responding to others who use the correct designation. He will use “Mrs. Weston” more in the future, a sign of some gradual adjustment to her new status, though he will switch back occasionally to “Miss Taylor.”
21. Emma says this, rather than Isabella, as indicated by John Knightley’s succeeding words.
22. Isabella’s blind devotion to her husband is revealed by her calling his temper as good as any man’s, for as the narrator earlier said and subsequent events will show, he can be out of temper at times.
23. Kite flying was a popular pastime; many pictures from the eighteenth century show a boy with a kite. They were presumably in Highbury in Easter, since it would be a time when John Knightley could leave his work.
24. last September twelvemonth: September of the previous year.
25. Scarlet fever is an infectious disease characterized by severe inflammation of the throat as well as other symptoms; it is now at times defined as “strep throat with a rash.” Sometimes classed with diphtheria, it had been around in England since at least the seventeenth century. Numerous outbreaks of the fever occurred during the eighteenth century and caused deaths numbering at least into the hundreds—though the disease was far from always fatal. The period from 1800 to 1805 witnessed a particular upsurge in the number of cases, which still would have weighed on people at the time of this novel. It was considered to be most virulent during the fall, the time of this incident. Since no organized system existed then to track diseases and alert the public to their spread, people had to depend on personal reports such as this. Cobham is a nearby town in Surrey (see map) close to London, so the state of a fever there could indicate the chances of its spreading to the capital.
26. feeling: tender, compassionate.
27. He is speaking of Frank Churchill and his expected visit to his father on the occasion of the latter’s marriage. John Knightley, in his wording, may be alluding to other occasions when Frank did not come, and thereby implying some criticism of him for neglect. The strictures of his elder brother, Mr. Knightley, on Frank Churchill for this failure to visit will soon appear.
28. Weymouth, on the western part of England’s southern coast, was a popular seaside resort; for more, see note 43. The experiences of Frank Churchill, and another character, at Weymouth will become an important issue later.
29. Mr. Weston turns out to be another member of the whist club already mentioned in connection with Mr. Elton. Whist was especially popular among men; thus a highly sociable man might play it frequently.
30. reflection: critical reflection.
A woman and child at the beach. The woman is wearing a half-boot.
[From The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, Manufactures, &c, Vol. VI (1811), p. 113]
[List of Illustrations]
VOLUME I, CHAPTER XII
1. late: recent.
2. by nature: by the real nature of things.
A woman with an infant.
[From The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, Manufactures, &c, Vol. VII (1812), p. 369]
[List of Illustrations]
3. reason good: for a good reason.
4. A pretty y
oung woman, like a spoiled child, would suffer the disadvantage of never being criticized or having her opinion contradicted.
5. Little Emma is the baby just mentioned. She is the second girl of the family, and, with the first girl named after her mother, she has been named after her next closest female relation, her aunt. She also seems to be the only child present here. Though John and Isabella are affectionate parents, they do not include their children in social gatherings of the adults. This is the usual pattern in Austen’s novels.
6. It is notable that Emma is the one who strives harder for reconciliation.
7. By this period an image of English people, especially English men, as models of reserve and emotional composure and coolness had become very powerful, noted by both the English themselves and foreigners (this image had not been dominant in earlier times). This reserve was usually accompanied, according to most observers, by taciturnity and formality, especially toward strangers, but a strong, even if frequently unexpressed, affection toward one’s domestic circle and intimate friends.
8. conversible: made for conversation.
9. Cards were the normal activity for the evening.
Field being plowed, with a country house (Cusworth, Yorkshire) in the background.
[From John Preston Neale, Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen, Vol. V (1822)]
[List of Illustrations]
10. temper: disposition.
11. A magistrate, or justice of the peace, was the principal legal authority in the local area; he would judge all ordinary cases. The main qualification for the post was an estate worth more than a hundred pounds a year. Most in that category, however, did not actually become magistrates, for being one involved substantial duties, including a significant role in local government. Mr. Knightley’s willingness indicates his active nature and his public spirit. Some cases which came before magistrates could be complex and technical; thus a magistrate might appreciate the opinion of a practicing lawyer. More serious cases would go before the London-based courts presided over by judges, the same courts John Knightley would deal with regularly.