by Jane Austen
39. amiable: benevolent, pleasing, worthy of being loved. The word had a broader and stronger meaning then than now.
40. difficult: exacting, fastidious.
41. “A proper number” would confirm, to the couple and to the rest of the world, that they had become sufficiently acquainted for an engagement.
42. Nosiness and gossip about neighbors’ affairs, especially those of elite families, is a pervasive feature of this society. Respect for rank and wealth would lead to a general approval of marriage between two people from such families.
43. There was regular mail service between Britain and its colonies in the West Indies, but it took a considerable amount of time. For more, see this page, note 2.
44. cordial: sincere, heartfelt.
45. He means that Mr. Rushworth would be regarded as very stupid without that fortune. Social and economic snobbery has distorted judgment of his true character and abilities. This revelation of his income, and the earlier statement that it is larger than Sir Thomas’s, gives some sense of the latter (which is never specified). It is probably not a lot below twelve thousand, considering how comfortably the Bertrams live, even with recent losses in the West Indies and the need to provide for four children and a niece. Some commentators have guessed ten thousand a year.
46. alliance: marriage.
47. interest: party, faction, interest group. This could refer broadly to what was called “the landed interest,” which both families belong to; to a political party (though these were fairly loose associations then); or to a narrower local alliance.
48. conditioned: stipulated.
49. This marks the beginning of the main action of the novel. From this point forward events will be narrated in far greater detail. This action will transpire over approximately one year, the same length as in all of Austen’s longer novels.
50. Norfolk is a coastal county in eastern England; see map. It is not far from Northampton.
51. This is a great deal more than Mrs. Grant’s five thousand, or the seven thousand of Lady Bertram and her sisters. Among the landowning class, women’s fortunes came in the form of lump sums; men’s, in contrast, in the form of annual incomes, as in Mr. Rushworth’s twelve thousand a year. The latter were generally much greater. Thus, while Miss Crawford’s twenty thousand, as normally invested, would yield a thousand a year, we later learn that her brother’s estate gives him four thousand a year. This gender disparity is also why Miss Crawford and her brother, with the same mother as Mrs. Grant but different fathers, can be so much richer than Mrs. Grant. High death rates made such second marriages fairly common in this society.
52. As with the Bertram children and with Fanny, their upbringing will manifest itself in their characters over the course of the book. They are like the Bertrams in having been indulged, but unlike them in having been brought up within a fashionable London world with somewhat different customs and standards.
53. He could have retained Mary as the new mistress to manage the household. Most single men had a female relative, if one was available, live with them for this purpose. Many wealthy men in London, where there was a wide availability of women, had mistresses, but most conducted these affairs discreetly. Admiral Crawford’s open arrangement would be regarded as even worse than a clandestine affair because of its overt defiance of conventional morality. Jane Austen comments at two points in her letters on aristocratic men who have a mistress.
54. resources: sources or means of relaxation and amusement.
55. Poultry was the particular province of the woman of the family, including in genteel households (see the picture on this page for an example). Jane Austen’s mother raised poultry, and in a letter, written when the family was preparing to move, Austen mentions that a “party of fine Ladies” visited them with a view to possibly purchasing the family’s hens (Jan. 14, 1801). Many women in Austen’s works, including Fanny Price later, are shown liking plants. In a couple of letters Austen refers to her sister Cassandra’s plants.
56. She worries that her sister is living in a less grand fashion, since she has a lower income and is removed from the fancy shops of London, and that she is socializing with less genteel people, since there are fewer in a rural area and Mrs. Grant lacks the resources to travel far afield to visit other genteel families. (Mrs. Grant’s anxieties seem to stem from the lack of the vast array of amusements available in London.) In an early work of Austen’s, Lady Susan, which also contrasts the mores of London and those of the country, the fashionable title character expresses bitter regret at having to live in the country rather than in London.
57. article: matter.
58. Social mores dictated that an unmarried young woman must live with someone. Were Henry Crawford to establish a permanent household at his country house, his sister could live there and function as its mistress.
59. He needs to escort her because it was considered improper for women to travel alone. Jane Austen often needed to arrange with one of her brothers to accompany her when she traveled.
60. preciseness: rigid propriety, prudishness.
61. fitted up: furnished.
62. air: a stylish or impressive manner and appearance.
63. countenance: composure, confidence.
64. manners: outer behavior, especially in relation to others. “Manners,” a term used frequently in Austen’s novels, had a wider connotation than today. Here it refers to the overall conduct of the Crawfords, a complement to the description of their looks and demeanor in the first part of the sentence.
65. Austen switches to “Mary” because she is relating the thoughts and reactions of Mrs. Grant, who would call her sister by her first name.
66. waited: waited for. Austen frequently omits a preposition that would be used in current English.
67. consequence: social rank or importance.
68. To “marry well” is to marry someone of wealth and high status.
69. Tom, living a life of pleasure and associating with a great variety of friends, probably spends a lot of time in London.
70. Henry is the one character in the novel who bows on a number of occasions. This indicates his background in polite London society, where manners were more formal. Bowing had been more common in earlier times, but had gradually declined due to an overall relaxation of formality. This bow may be an ironic response to his sister’s proposal, or a way to deflect it without rudeness.
71. “Allied to” could express close relationships of various kinds, including sisterly ones.
72. Marrying their daughters off was a prime vocation for mothers; the mother of the heroine in Pride and Prejudice goes to great lengths in this pursuit.
73. address: skill, dexterity.
74. The prevailing English view of the French at the time was of a people devoted to, and skillful at, the arts of clever conversation, refined etiquette, and the pleasing of others, all of which could make a French person adept at persuading or managing someone. This view was often accompanied by an idea of France as a country of surface charms that was inferior to England in the more solid moral virtues, a negative verdict bolstered in this period by the long war against France. Mary’s more positive perspective reflects her background in fashionable London society, which was more cosmopolitan and often looked to France as a source of style, elegance, and culture.
75. abilities: mental powers, cleverness.
76. A male “flirt” would be someone who wooed and tried to attract women, without ever intending marriage. This behavior would be generally disapproved, given the importance of marriage for women.
77. In fact, Henry will display great confidence and boldness in many areas, but he will be careful when it comes to a definite marital commitment.
78. He is quoting John Milton’s Paradise Lost (book V, line 19). The words are used by Adam in the Garden of Eden to describe Eve (the earlier, inferior gifts are the other living things in the garden). “Last” is not emphasized in the original, but is the point of Henry’s joke
here.
79. The admiral’s example, considering his conduct and the lack of harmony in his marriage, would tend to convince his nephew of the greater desirability of having a mistress than a wife.
80. By “throw themselves away” she means marry someone who is not desirable from a social and economic point of view.
VOLUME I, CHAPTER V
1. Good manners dictated that people should not become intimate until they had come to know each other well. Overly rapid intimacy could lead to giving an untrustworthy person access to one’s secrets and social circle. Young, unmarried women especially needed to be on guard against men who might attempt to charm them without serious intentions of matrimony.
2. This means she had a darker, but not actually brown, complexion. One reason for this terminology—similar to the later description of her brother as “black”—is that at this time there were few people in England who were not white, so even slightly darker skin tones would be noticeable.
3. full formed: endowed with a larger figure (and probably more buxom). A contemporary guide to beauty contrasts the “full-formed woman” with the slender one, and not with a view of disparaging the former, since the prevailing ideal of beauty was a median between fat and thin.
4. People were often judged by their teeth, for the poor quality of dentistry meant that many had very bad teeth.
5. Etiquette dictated that the first interview, or meeting, between people of different households should be a brief daytime introductory visit, followed by a similar return visit. For the third meeting one party could invite the other for dinner.
6. Ideally sisters should marry in order of seniority. Now that Maria is engaged, Julia can properly expect that she should be the intended target of any eligible man.
7. A woman was supposed to wait for the man to indicate that he had fallen in love with her, protecting her from flirtatious men who had no matrimonial intentions. In practice, of course, this did not always happen, and the reaction of Julia, as well as her sister, to this new arrival suggests an inclination to fall in love without waiting. But Julia, whatever her feelings, knows how matters should go and allows herself to imagine them occurring only in the proper sequence.
8. He must take care not to fall for her, since her engagement ensures that she would refuse him. She, like her sister, will always call him “Mr. Crawford,” as will the narrator in the next sentence (in contrast to other places where his own sister, and the narrator, echoing his sister, calls him “Henry”). Women were always supposed to use the title “Mr.” for a man outside the family (just as men were supposed to use “Miss” or “Mrs.”). A character in Emma signals her vulgarity and offends the heroine by calling an unrelated man by his last name only.
9. A man of sense and temper (or composure) would appreciate that if he had no intention of falling in love with and becoming engaged to a woman—what is meant by his not meaning “to be in any danger”—he should avoid any conduct that might stir her feelings toward him. Henry is not being sufficiently careful on that point.
10. He is speaking to Mrs. Grant, not Mary (whom he calls by her first name). “Sister” is more formal, a sign of lesser intimacy and probably greater respect, since Mrs. Grant is married and is older than he is.
11. The introduction of Henry Crawford to the Miss Bertrams, along with the mutual attraction now developing, marks a critical development in the plot. This is a standard pattern in Austen novels. In all but one, the story is prompted by the arrival into a rural neighborhood of one or more unmarried young men who proceed to attract, and be attracted to, one or more unmarried young ladies residing there (in the one exception, Northanger Abbey, the heroine initially visits the resort town of Bath, where numerous eligible young people of both sexes are to be found). This pattern reflects a basic reality of the society in which the novels are set. Those who are genteel can socialize only with others of the same level, but only a small number of families of this status exist within a given rural neighborhood, and slowness of travel meant that those farther afield could be visited only occasionally. This meant that unmarried young people had few opportunities for regular contact with potential mates, an especially severe limitation for young women because they could not travel on their own. Hence, for them the arrival of an eligible young man into a rural locale was a significant occasion, which in Austen’s novels quickly leads to romantic interests on one or both sides.
12. Were she to exercise these powers while unengaged, the suspicion would arise that she is aiming for an engagement.
13. taken in: deceived, tricked.
14. This use of “my dear” or “dear” (or “dearest,” as below) occurs regularly in Austen’s novels and has no special meaning.
15. Hill Street is where Admiral Crawford lives. It is an appropriate address for a wealthy man, in the Mayfair district of London, which was developed at what was then the western edge of town during the first half of the eighteenth century and soon became the most fashionable area of the city. Most characters in Austen’s novels who are in London, whether as residents or visitors, live in Mayfair or in the similar, adjoining Marylebone district. For pictures from the time, of two of Mayfair’s leading landmarks, see this page and this page.
16. At this time “maneuver” often referred particularly to stratagems involving trickery or deception.
17. Later Mary will provide some details on the marital difficulties of these friends—see this page.
18. That is, if they were more committed to seeing the positive side of marriage, she would not have the frequent pain of listening to their complaints.
19. As a wealthy young man with no profession, Henry has complete freedom to go where he likes. This freedom will play a major role in the plot, and, as will be demonstrated, it has played an important role in shaping his character.
20. Claret was the English name for red wine from the Bordeaux region of France. It had long been popular in England and was considered an especially fine wine (in contrast to the cheaper and more widely consumed port). Dr. Grant’s preference for it indicates his love of fine food and drink, and the presence of a guest furnishes a good excuse for serving it. Moreover, as the custom was for women to withdraw at the end of dinner and men to remain to drink, a second man means Dr. Grant has an excuse to consume additional wine, with the agreeable presence of a companion.
21. London would have the men of the highest social rank, and of the most polished and fashionable manners.
22. gallantry: courtesy and attention to women.
23. It is her way because the eldest son inherits the family property.
24. The “endowments of a higher stamp” would be serious moral and intellectual qualities, which are not found in the list of Tom’s merits.
25. The “reversion” is the right of succeeding as heir to the property.
26. A “modern-built house” was one built within the last fifty to a hundred years. During the eighteenth century a new, more spacious and comfortable style of architecture for grand houses in England emerged, inspired by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. Many landowning families would still have much older houses, due to the considerable expense of building anew, so a modern house would be a notable asset.
27. Newer houses were placed in higher positions than older homes traditionally were, which made them look more striking and provided better views of the surrounding park and countryside. Parts of their exterior were screened by trees, which could attractively frame the house for onlookers and block less attractive views, such as those of nearby functional buildings.
28. Books containing high-quality engravings of grand houses, along with brief descriptions, were popular. Many illustrations in this book come from a leading example of the genre, John Preston Neale’s Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen; it extended to many volumes.
29. She probably feels the house’s furnishings, especially the furniture, are too old. Families often retained pieces for generations, whether du
e to respect for ancestors and their possessions or due to the high cost of buying newer pieces.
30. Presumably, in the wake of Tom’s earlier losses and debts, Sir Thomas has extracted a promise from his son to refrain from substantial gaming (gambling). He may have done this while they were both in the West Indies and made Tom’s agreeing a condition of being allowed to return earlier.
31. Tom will become “Sir Thomas” when his father dies. His wife will then be “Lady Bertram,” a fact that is undoubtedly a consideration for Mary.
32. Horse racing had grown steadily in popularity during the eighteenth century and would continue to grow in the nineteenth. Races large and small existed all over England, so there would be no need to specify a particular one (Jane Austen uses this technique of a blank name on other occasions). Many men, especially wealthy ones, raced their own horses, which were frequently the objects of great care and selective breeding.
33. Women often attended races, which were major social events. Jane Austen occasionally discusses them in her letters; she could have attended while visiting her brother Edward, who took his family to local races. In this case, however, Mary Crawford, in addition to possibly preferring to remain with her sister at Mansfield, would face the barrier of needing someone suitable to accompany her there, and someone to reside with once she arrived. Tom, an unrelated young man who was also a potential suitor, would definitely not qualify for either function.
34. The narrator returns to Fanny with these questions because, though the heroine of the novel, she operates almost purely as an observer in the early part of the story.
35. Fanny’s conduct here is the same she will exhibit later: forming firm, independent judgments while not expressing them and remaining outwardly diffident and quiescent.
36. Formally coming out into society, a standard practice among the wealthier strata of society, was a critical event for a young woman, occurring when she reached maturity (though the exact age could vary). She moved from a life confined to her own family or to other young girls to being able to socialize with a broad range of strangers at events like balls and, most important, to meet and talk to eligible young men. Men, observing this freer behavior, would know that she was now available to be courted.