by Jane Austen
21. fine: fancy or ornate. Fanny may have Mrs. Norris’s strictures in mind, or may simply be expressing her usual humility.
22. White was the most popular color for female gowns in this period. In a letter Jane Austen says two women’s gowns “look so white and so nice” (May 21, 1801). One reason was the influence, in both fashion and interior design, of classical antiquity; white was associated with ancient dress because of the absence of surviving color on ancient statues. In addition, muslin, a light cotton from India that became the leading fabric for gowns, could be rinsed to a purer whiteness than other fabrics. It could also be washed more easily, meaning white clothing now suffered less from the problem of keeping it clean than in earlier times. For examples of muslin gowns, see this page and this page.
23. The plainness of white muslin gowns encouraged the addition of decorative adornments, usually created by embroidering colored figures, often of a shinier material. “Spots” could refer to a variety of such figures.
24. The coach-house is a building where carriages are kept, near to the stable. Both buildings were probably there before the Grants moved in, for they are never described as using a carriage and horses, except for one occasion when Henry dropped off Mrs. Grant at Mansfield Park using his own carriage.
25. distinguish: perceive clearly or distinctly. Carriages had a window, i.e., “side-glass,” on each side, which could be opened by sliding it down.
26. protest: declare. The barouche was previously identified as Crawford’s vehicle, and it is probably the only barouche around, since they were expensive and fashionable carriages. Edmund may also recognize certain distinctive features, which carriages, being custom-made, often had.
27. These are his two servants, who would accompany him when he traveled. One may be a valet, the other his carriage driver.
28. aweful: awful, i.e., fearful.
29. Henry has changed into evening clothes for dinner, and has joined others in the drawing room before they proceed into the dining room.
30. As indicated shortly, Henry’s ultimate destination is his home in Norfolk, and a traveler going from Bath to Norfolk would not veer much off the route by stopping in Northampton (see map).
31. Meaning that her own strong sense of what is right and proper leads her to understand, despite Mrs. Norris, that she, as the sole female guest, must be the principal lady.
32. Hunting, which meant the pursuit of land animals, especially foxes, was the other main outdoor sport engaged in by gentlemen. While shooting began early in the autumn, hunting’s main season was late autumn and winter.
33. This signals that he was heading to Norfolk for the hunting. Now he is leaning toward sending for his hunters, i.e., horses for hunting, and pursuing the sport here instead.
34. open weather: weather free of frost. Excessive cold, or heavy snow, would end the hunting season.
35. Their business is church business, which would naturally engage both; for more on its specifics, see this page, note 47.
36. After the men left the dinner table and rejoined the ladies in the drawing room, tea was usually served. This was a task normally performed by ladies of the house, especially the hostess.
37. Mary’s twice referring to Fanny may partly result from Mary’s manners, which dictate that Fanny, as the principal lady of the gathering, should not be left out of the conversation.
38. Julia probably writes to her mother, but her mother would show the letters to Sir Thomas or relate their contents.
39. Actually, the others involved in the play seemed too absorbed in their own parts and other personal concerns to notice Fanny much, except when she might assist them. It was also stated that they wished to have as little to do with Mr. Rushworth as possible. That Henry did notice, and remembers it now, despite being involved with his flirtation with Maria, indicates his perceptiveness. It also indicates his interest in complimenting her, whether from general politeness or from a particular wish to please her, perhaps because she is the only woman here besides his sisters.
40. coloured: blushed.
41. His love of the activity, and his focus particularly on how fully it occupied his mind and absorbed all his attention, even with annoyances, suggests the character of his life. With plenty of money, and no responsibilities or need to pursue a career, he has lived a life of pure leisure and pleasure, and has clearly become somewhat bored and sated. Hence any busy activity, even one as unremarkable as rehearsing for a private theatrical production, stands out for engaging all his faculties in a way that his normal pleasures do not. This same search for variety, and a purposeful task, stimulate the significant resolution he announces in the next chapter.
42. mind: inner character.
43. The autumnal equinox, the day when the sun is directly over the equator and in consequence the duration of night and day is equal throughout the globe, occurs on September 22 or 23. Since Sir Thomas left Antigua in September (and not at the very end, since he was originally going to leave on a scheduled September packet boat and ended up departing earlier) and arrived home in mid-October, he would have been at sea during the equinox.
44. tremendous: terrible, dreadful.
45. Since all ships then traveled by sail, a contrary wind would slow one considerably. A calm would be even worse, preventing a ship from moving at all (in a contrary wind, a ship could make incremental progress by tacking back and forth). At the same time, a calm would not be dangerous, so it would only delay Sir Thomas. Henry would know about such matters due to having lived long with his uncle, the admiral, and heard the conversations between his uncle and other navy men.
46. As he indicates in the next chapter to his sister, he expected, based on past experience with other women, that his charm and gallantry would affect her favorably. His surprise at his failure then leads to consideration of his next move, followed by a change to a more serious tone.
47. Dr. Grant’s advice centers around improving the revenue of the living (that is what Henry means by turning “a good income into a better,” which he would have heard them discussing while all the men were still at the dinner table). To do so he could make his glebe land more productive, or try to raise his tithes by proving he was not receiving the correct amount, often because the tithes did not reflect recent improvements in the productivity of the land. Jane Austen’s father improved his clerical income by this latter procedure, and she expresses her hope in a letter that he can attain six hundred pounds a year through this means (Jan. 3, 1801). In another letter she wonders whether someone else’s meager living “may be improvable” (Jan. 21, 1799).
48. His calling him “Bertram” twice in this paragraph, and elsewhere, was standard practice among men who knew each other well. Edmund called Henry “Crawford” when he was arriving and saw the barouche. In contrast, women refer to other women by their first names, if intimate or related, or by the more formal “Miss/Mrs.” This latter practice is also followed when women refer to men, or men refer to women.
49. make ducks and drakes with: squander, use idly or recklessly. The phrase originated from its being the name for skipping flat stones across water, a symbol of idle activity (hence also the reference to aquatic fowl).
50. menus plaisirs: little or daily pleasures. It is a French phrase, particularly likely to be used by denizens of fashionable London society like Henry and Mary.
51. Henry assumes that Edmund will hire a curate to perform the regular duties of his position. Such a curate would cost some money, but not a lot, and Edmund would save money on housekeeping by living at Mansfield Park.
52. The favoring of the oldest son was a long-standing and generally accepted custom, though Henry’s own comfort with the principle is obviously assisted by his being such a son himself, and his having inherited a large estate.
53. cadet: younger son or brother.
54. She means his renouncing marriage with her, since, as her reflections below indicate, she is determined not to have him if he does become a clergym
an.
55. Henry focuses on the style of a sermon rather than the substance.
56. A tablet was a small item used for writing notes or memoranda; it usually consisted of two stiff surfaces, of varying material, that were joined by a hinge and could be folded together. This allowed it to fit into a pocket, and made it ideal for carrying places. A pencil was the common accompaniment to a tablet, for it was easy to pull out and use in any situation. In contrast, pens of the time required the accompanying presence of a bottle of liquid ink, which took up space and could spill if not on a flat, secure surface.
57. Edmund has shown that he likes Henry very much, but he has also perceived that Henry, like his sister, treats lightly moral and religious principles that Edmund regards seriously. He therefore would hate to see that side of Henry’s character emerge, and spoil his opinion of his friend.
58. The table, or set of four players necessary for the game, includes Henry, Edmund, and Dr. and Mrs. Grant.
59. The friend is Fanny, who is not part of the card game and also has no taste for participating in whatever conversation occurs during intervals in the game.
60. situation: position in life.
61. In her recent conversation with Edmund in the Grants’ shrubbery, as well as previously at Sotherton, she demonstrated clearly her disapproval of his intention to take orders and be a clergyman, and she is disappointed and angry that her words had such little effect.
VOLUME II, CHAPTER VI
1. Henry may write to Admiral Crawford from a general habit of keeping him informed of his whereabouts. It is also possible the admiral was planning to join Henry at his estate, perhaps for the hunting.
2. Hunting could be rigorous exercise, for it meant riding a horse fast over miles of countryside and jumping obstacles, such as fences and streams (see the illustration).
3. His words derive from Proverbs 31, verse 27, part of a famous passage listing the attributes of a virtuous woman: “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.” Henry, and almost certainly his listener, would know this passage from regular attendance at church.
4. In announcing his plan Henry places himself in the ranks of one of Jane Austen’s most familiar male character types, the potential seducer of the heroine. All her six completed novels contain a young man, figuring prominently in the plot, who courts the heroine but who also has serious flaws or vices that she is ignorant of initially. In all but one, Northanger Abbey, he is also a charming and intelligent man who genuinely attracts the heroine. In one case, Willoughby of Sense and Sensibility, he makes the heroine (one of two in that novel) fall deeply in love with him before cruelly abandoning her; in two cases, Wickham of Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Elliot of Persuasion, he attracts her more moderately and then turns out to be unscrupulous and mercenary; in the last, Frank Churchill of Emma, he is more irresponsible and thoughtless than villainous and mostly flirts idly with the heroine. Of all these figures Henry Crawford plays the largest role in his story, and he is also the most complex character, so much so that his true nature and his final actions and fate remain in doubt until the very end. Moreover, he is a rare case of someone whom many readers and critics of the novel have felt could or should have acted differently and met a different fate; even the author herself, at the very end, asserts that he came close to following an alternative course that would have created an entirely different denouement to the story.
5. He left a few days after Sir Thomas’s arrival, which was mid-October or a little before (see chronology, this page).
6. In England at that time, autumn usually meant the period from August through October.
7. air: outward character, demeanor.
8. tout ensemble: general appearance, overall or complete effect. Once again Henry Crawford employs a French phrase; it had become somewhat common in England but was by no means a standard part of the language.
9. Thus Mary indicates her knowledge of Henry’s irresponsibility, but, as with his behavior toward Maria and Julia Bertram, she makes no attempt to persuade him to act otherwise.
10. His words show how much he has made a career of conquering female hearts—though there is never any indication he has gone further in his conduct. A French commentator on Jane Austen, Léonie Villard, calls him a platonic Don Juan.
11. Mary may be alluding to the words “plung’d me deep in woe” from a song by the leading Scottish poet of the time, Robert Burns—though similar phrases are found occasionally in other contemporary writings.
12. He actually achieved this effect, or something close to it, with Maria, and seems now to feel no remorse about it. The previous night he lamented to Fanny that Maria was too good for Mr. Rushworth, but without ever seeming to trouble himself about his role in the whole affair.
13. scruples: hesitations.
14. should: would.
15. manner: polished or distinguished air or deportment.
16. Many novels of the time contained heroines (or heroes) who are extreme paragons of virtue, and this formed one of the main objects of Jane Austen’s satire. She includes several ludicrous examples of excessive virtue in short humorous pieces she wrote as an adolescent, and in Northanger Abbey, which focuses on satirizing common fictional conventions, she makes a point at the beginning of relating her heroine’s lack of extraordinary talent or virtue, adding at one point in the description, “What a strange, unaccountable character!” She returned to the theme again toward the end of her life, with a “Plan of a novel” that caricatures various fictional absurdities; it includes a heroine and hero who are faultless, with the heroine receiving “repeated offers of Marriage—which she always refers wholly to her Father, exceedingly angry that he shd not be first applied to.”
17. By taste she means an ability to appreciate artistic beauty of various kinds, cultivated manners, and, more generally, harmony and elegance in any aspect of life. This is a quality Jane Austen often evokes in her novels as an important attribute and always gives to her heroines, with the partial exception of the untutored heroine of Northanger Abbey. At the same time, taste is never as important for her as moral virtue and benevolence: a kind but vulgar person is preferable to a polished but callous one, if that is the choice.
18. heart-whole: with an undamaged or unengaged heart.
19. improved: cultivated, refined.
20. Thus Henry has appealed, as predicted, to Fanny’s taste, even as he has not altered her more significant condemnation of his moral character.
21. Since Fanny came to Mansfield she has only once seen William, when he visited her for a week just before he joined the navy. That was eight years ago (see chronology).
22. The Antwerp, William’s ship, sailed up the English Channel from the Atlantic, and headed toward Portsmouth, Britain’s largest naval base, in the center of the channel. It stopped in Spithead, the body of water just outside Portsmouth Harbor that served as anchorage: since its harbor could not contain the numerous ships using the base, Spithead provided a place for ships to wait before docking, as is happening here, or to assemble and wait prior to sailing out to sea. Once at anchorage the Antwerp would send a small rowboat from the ship to inform the base of its arrival and to perform other errands, including in this case the dispatch of letters from the crew.
23. William was earlier described as having sent Fanny a picture, from the Antwerp in the Mediterranean, four years ago. The Mediterranean was a critical center of operation for the British navy, due to France’s having major naval bases on its coast there and to Spain’s and Italy’s being important areas of conflict. The navy had two bases in the Mediterranean, at Malta and Gibraltar (for the latter, see also this page, note 40). A posting of four years or more in the same area was not unusual for a ship. William’s having been with the same ship at least that long is a sign of his lack of promotion, an abiding concern of his (see later in this chapter and the next chapter).
24. Once back in London he could ask his uncle, who would know
people with important positions in the navy, to find the information.
25. Newspapers often printed stories relating to the navy, with naval battles being a major news item. Most papers also had a section called “Ship News,” containing information regarding ships’ arrivals and departures in England or ships lost at sea; this assisted families curious about their loved ones, as well as merchants interested in the fate of their vessels.
26. Midshipmen were boys and young men preparing to be officers, so their continued presence would not be vitally important to the captain. Ordinary sailors could also have difficulty obtaining leave, due to fear of desertion, but this would not apply to midshipmen or officers.
27. direct: immediate.
28. The ship will probably remain in Portsmouth awhile for repairs, so he will have opportunities then to see the main part of his family.
29. watching: waiting, being on the alert. The term then could also mean looking out for, but here she is “watching” for a sound.
30. “Lobby” could refer to a hall or corridor, but here it probably means an open area at the top of the stairs, a common feature of grand houses. It is used in that way a little later (see this page).
31. exquisite: intense, exalted.
32. The servants would open the doors to each room as they passed through them. Servants were supposed to be invisible and were often regarded as so, though in fact they would hear much that happened and relate the gossip eagerly to other servants (and from there it often passed outside the house).
33. A young man who had spent his adolescence in the navy would usually not have acquired the formal and polished manners of someone bred continually in genteel society like the denizens of Mansfield Park. On this page, William’s “warm hearted, blunt fondness” is mentioned, and Persuasion contains several passages in which the friendly, sincere, and spontaneous manners of navy men are evoked, generally in a positive sense.
34. feeling: sensitive.
35. complacency: pleasure, satisfaction.
36. peculiar: particular.