The Annotated Sense and Sensibility

by Jane Austen

  9. The idea that one’s possessions should correspond to one’s income and social position was a common one then, used especially to justify the purchase of fancy items by those of high income and position. Few, however, would apply the principle in as petty a fashion as Mrs. John Dashwood; most would also make extra allowances for Mrs. Dashwood because she has come down from a high social position.

  10. Meaning to select her servants.

  11. This would both gain her money from the sale and save her the expenses of maintaining a carriage. Such expenses would include frequent repairs, due to the damage produced by the rough roads of the time, and the cost of a servant to drive the carriage, for women did not drive themselves. At the same time, owning a carriage was the only means of traveling regularly beyond the immediate radius of one’s home, and it was a critical mark of genteel status, so Mrs. Dashwood was naturally reluctant to part with hers. A similar need to economize was presumably the reason for the earlier sale of their horses; she could have continued to use her carriage without owning horses, by renting them when required.

  12. establishment: organized staff or servants.

  13. A book of the time stated “three females and a boy” to be the appropriate staff for someone with Mrs. Dashwood’s income, five hundred a year. (Samuel and Sarah Adams, The Complete Servant, page 16). Since adult male servants cost considerably more than either women or boys, her staff roughly follows the recommendation. The much larger size of the Dashwoods’ staff at Norland would make it easy to select three among them. Servants often stayed with the same employers, though in this case the servants would have been agreeing to move far away from their homes (and the cost of travel would keep them from returning to see family or friends). Mrs. Dashwood, who would certainly be a generous and kind employer, may have found it easier to persuade servants to accept her offer than most people would have.

  14. They would have been sent off via public coaches, an elaborate network of which spanned England. Their preparations would have included unpacking and arranging the household possessions, cleaning the house, and buying food and other essentials. People of the Dashwoods’ class would generally not perform such mundane tasks themselves.

  15. give over: give up, abandon.

  16. A man of consequence, or importance, especially if a prominent landowner, was expected to fulfill certain social duties, including charity to the local poor and hospitality to the neighborhood. But those expenses would not be that onerous for someone with John Dashwood’s income. His own greed undoubtedly makes him feel their sting more than most, while the general wish he consistently manifests of being respectable and avoiding any obvious breach of his obligations would keep him from simply disregarding such demands.

  17. Marianne’s speech expresses the love for and idealization of nature found in much Romantic writing. It also replicates the fulsome encomiums uttered by the heroines of various novels of the time, such as the very popular ones by Ann Radcliffe, whose sentimental and melodramatic excesses are satirized in Northanger Abbey.

  VOLUME I, CHAPTER VI

  1. court: courtyard, enclosure.

  2. demesne: land in front of a house. The term was normally applied to land occupied by the owner, and often when speaking of wealthy and high-ranking people. Hence the term here, for the Dashwoods’ humble rented cottage, is probably meant ironically.

  3. neat: well-made; attractive but simple.

  4. wicket gate: small gate for people on foot to enter a field or enclosure.

  5. This is irony at the expense of the common Romantic celebration of irregular, rustic cottages. For more on such ideas, and their popularity in this period, see note 35).

  6. sitting room: living room. The term could be applied to any room for general use. Two sitting rooms were considered an absolute minimum for decent social life: one room would be the best room, in which company would be received and entertained, and the other would be the everyday room for the family itself.

  7. offices: rooms or parts of the house devoted to necessary household tasks, such as the kitchen, pantry, laundry room, and cellar.

  8. many years: many years ago.

  9. Devonshire is one of the rainiest counties in England, thanks to the moist air coming from the nearby ocean. Its rainiest seasons are autumn and winter, which is why its being “very early in September” makes it more likely to be dry. They will soon experience many wet days.

  10. situation: position, location.

  11. downs: expanse of elevated land, especially treeless lands used for pasture, a prominent feature of the countryside around Barton. Devonshire, like the rest of western England, was dominated at this time by open pasture, in contrast to eastern and south central England, which consisted primarily of land planted with crops. Jane Austen, who came from a crop-growing county, Hampshire, could have noticed the different nature of the Devonshire terrain when she visited there. In her first trip there, she stayed at the seaside resort of Sidmouth, which, like her fictional Barton, is close to Exeter (though in the opposite direction), and the countryside near it contained rolling hills, topped by open commons (probably used for pasture).

  12. prospect: view.

  13. apartments: rooms.

  14. parlours: the sitting rooms already mentioned. “Parlour” was mostly used for a small room of that type; a more spacious and luxurious one would be called a drawing room. Mrs. Dashwood is probably using the term, rather than the more all-inclusive “sitting room,” from her consciousness of how much these rooms differ from the equivalent ones at Norland. Thus she proceeds in the same sentence to complain of the rooms’ smallness, and to speak of adding a drawing room. For a picture of a drawing room, see this page.

  15. parties: social gatherings, especially at a private home. The term then could refer to even the smallest or quietest gathering.

  16. snug: comfortable. The word was used more generally as a term of praise then, but it also had the current connotation of coziness in a small space, in which case Mrs. Dashwood’s thinking the cottage will be snug after such sizable expansions is a little silly. But from her perspective as the former mistress of a grand country house, even such an expanded cottage might seem snug in this sense, as well as more generally comfortable.

  17. handsome: decent-sized, reasonably large. The stairs are later described by Elinor as dark and narrow (this page).

  18. am before-hand: have more than sufficient means or extra money.

  19. Five hundred a year would be a pitiful amount for making such extensive alterations, especially since much of it would have to go toward daily living expenses. Even very wealthy landowners could run into serious debt from the cost of improvements to their houses, though their construction would be on a much grander scale.

  Jane Austen would have an excellent sense of how much Mrs. Dashwood could afford, for in the last part of her life, the time when this and other novels were published, she was in a very similar situation. She and her mother and sister inhabited a house of comparable size, also called a cottage, and enjoyed around the same level of wealth, having a little less than five hundred a year in income but also not having to pay rent on the house (since it was owned by Jane Austen’s brother). For a picture of the cottage they inhabited, see this page.

  20. pianoforte: piano. Pianoforte was the original name for a piano. By this time it had become the most popular of all musical instruments, and young ladies who learned to play an instrument were most likely to choose the piano. Jane Austen learned to play, and normally practiced on it every morning. For a picture of a pianoforte, see this page.

  21. The Dashwoods had moved from Stanhill to Norland ten years before the death of old Mr. Dashwood (see this page). Since the oldest of the Miss Dashwoods, Elinor, is nineteen, they would have all been young at the time of Sir John’s visit.

  22. stuff: produce.

  23. Sir John, who is soon revealed to be a zealous hunter, would be likely to have game to spare. At the same time, his bringing them g
ame, as well as produce, on the first day of their arrival contrasts favorably with John Dashwood’s vague intention of “sending them presents of fish and game, and so forth, whenever they are in season” (this page).

  24. Regular mail service had become a standard part of English life by this time. But outside of London there was no home delivery, so people had to send or receive mail at the local post office. Here that would likely be in the local village, which would be a walk up the adjacent hills for the carriageless Dashwood family.

  25. Newspapers had also become a common feature of English life, but they were expensive. It was not unusual for neighbors to share their newspapers to save money: during Jane Austen’s youth a more affluent neighbor of the Austens shared his with the family.

  26. waiting on: visiting.

  27. Their reciprocal notes represent standard etiquette of introduction. Lady Middleton is consistently shown to be very conscious of proper etiquette.

  28. address: outward bearing and manner.

  29. well-bred: polite, courteous.

  30. wanted: lacking.

  31. Formal visits of introduction followed a strict etiquette, which included a fifteen-minute time limit. The consciousness of this limit, along with the participants’ lack of familiarity with one another, tended to make conversation rather banal, so a “provision for discourse,” that is, something supplying material for discussion, would be very useful.

  32. This indicates the difference between Sir John and his wife. He was earlier mentioned as carrying his friendly entreaties “to a point of perseverance beyond civility.” The same spirit now leads him to press them to return the visit, rather than inviting them back in the formal manner employed already by Lady Middleton.

  A picnic; the clothing is from a slightly earlier period.

  [From Joseph Grego, Rowlandson the Caricaturist (London, 1880), Vol. II, p. 316]

  [List of Illustrations]

  VOLUME I, CHAPTER VII

  1. sportsman: man who hunts. The principal forms of sport were hunting land animals, especially foxes and hares, with horses and dogs, and shooting game birds such as partridges and pheasants. Only the former was called “hunting” in current parlance, which is why the next sentence says he “hunted and shot.” These activities were extremely popular among English country gentlemen like Sir John, though not all were as fervently devoted to them as he is.

  2. resources: means of relaxation or entertainment.

  3. Shooting was legal from September 1 to January 31; hunting was restricted to certain periods, usually late fall and winter, by custom.

  4. abroad: outside one’s house; out of doors.

  5. In discussing people’s character, Jane Austen consistently emphasizes the importance of both nature and education, with the latter often meaning general upbringing as well as formal schooling.

  6. piqued: prided.

  7. Eating out of doors had become increasingly popular. The term “picnic” (used in Emma) first appeared during the mid-eighteenth century and gradually attained wider circulation along with what it designated. For a picture of a late eighteenth-century picnic, see the preceding page.

  Shooting a pheasant.

  [From William Henry Scott, British Field Sports (London, 1818), p. 232]

  [List of Illustrations]

  8. private balls: balls occurring in a private residence. Public balls were ones held in assembly rooms, which had become a standard feature of English towns by this time. Public balls simply required the purchase of a ticket or a subscription. This made them less exclusive than private balls, and thus less desirable in some people’s eyes.

  9. Fifteen was generally the age at which a young lady would be permitted to go to balls. The wording suggests the strong desire of young ladies for dancing, something exhibited at various points in Austen’s novels.

  10. “Unaffected,” usually with a particular connotation of unpretentious, is a common term of praise in Jane Austen.

  11. A manor is a unit of land with tenants on it. At this time the term was used particularly in connection with the right to shoot game. By law this right was restricted to men owning an estate worth at least a hundred pounds a year; however, any lord of the manor, i.e., landowner with tenants, could authorize another person to kill game on his land by conferring on him the deputation of gamekeeper. Thus, were Sir John to rent the cottage to a genteel family including men he would face a dilemma. While he would not be legally obligated to grant shooting rights to the men, it would be awkward and seem discourteous to refuse, since shooting was such a basic pastime of gentlemen. But other sportsmen within his domain would compete with Sir John for the available supply of game birds. This had become an important issue during this time, thanks to improved methods of killing game, including better guns. Dedicated sportsmen had responded by establishing preserves where birds could breed more easily, and by taking various steps to prevent animals, poachers, or other gentlemen from killing the birds. Even still, any particular landowner’s property would contain a finite supply.

  Women rarely participated in outdoor sports then, and never shot, so they would present no difficulty along these lines.

  12. smart: fashionable, especially in being well dressed and clever or witty in conversation.

  13. This means it was at or near the full moon, a time when people were far more likely to have evening engagements. The reason was that the moon was the only good source of light for traveling after dark. There were no streetlights, and in the countryside there would be only occasional light coming from houses or other buildings; carriages had lamps and people could carry torches, but both of these provided only limited illumination. In a letter Jane Austen speaks of walking home from a ball, and not needing a lantern, “as the Moon was up” (Sept. 14, 1804).

  14. One reason for these sharp differences could be the limited social opportunities of genteel people. They would socialize only with others of their class, and since most of them made their money from owning large parcels of land, there would rarely be dense concentrations of them in the rural areas in which they mostly lived. Moreover, social life in each rural area was limited by the slowness and discomfort of carriages, especially over the often poorly maintained local dirt roads. All this restricted people’s frequent contacts to a small number of nearby families, the situation consistently depicted by Jane Austen. With few to choose among, they might often befriend, or marry, someone very different in tastes and personality.

  The lack of resemblance of Mrs. Jennings and her daughter is more puzzling, and has led to some questioning by critics. They do share the trait of limited intelligence. As for their almost opposite manners, one reason could be something Jane Austen noted in a letter: “Like other young Ladies she is considerably genteeler than her Parents” (Sept. 14, 1804). This happened partly because young ladies were increasingly sent to fashionable schools where elegant manners and tastes were taught and encouraged. This could produce a particularly large gap between parent and child in the case of someone like Lady Middleton, whose father was a merchant (see this page), an occupation not considered genteel at all, and whose mother’s likely similar origin is indicated by her less polished behavior. The money Mr. Jennings made probably inspired social ambitions for his children and, in a common procedure, led him to send them to expensive schools, where they could learn more genteel ways and form friendships with those of higher rank. Mrs. Jennings’s other daughter attends such a school (this page), and Lady Middleton probably did as well, where she could have imbibed her very different standards and behavior.

  15. In contrast to the other new characters just presented, Colonel Brandon is given only a brief description, and one focused on his appearance. This keeps him mysterious and sets the stage for later, and often surprising, revelations concerning him and his past.

  16. repulsive: repellent. The term had a less harsh meaning then.

  17. The children would have been with a servant, most likely their nursery maid, whose job was
to supervise children, especially very young ones. The spoiled character of the Middleton children will appear consistently.

  18. The instrument is the pianoforte; the term, often used, signals the piano’s popularity. Because pianos of the time were fragile and easily damaged, they would often be kept closed, or even locked. In the case of the Middletons, locking would be desirable, since their children could open an unlocked one and tinker with it. See next page for a picture of a pianoforte.

  19. The songs would be pieces of printed music. There was a great deal of printed music for sale then, either in single sheets or larger volumes, while many people, because of the cost of this music, copied pieces themselves. Jane Austen had a large collection of songs and other pieces, including many she had copied. That Marianne goes through the chief, i.e. greater part, of Lady Middleton’s collection in one evening suggests it is not very large. At the same time, Marianne’s ability to play, and to sing at the same time, a series of songs that she presumably has not seen previously, and without any apparent time to study them, suggests a great deal of musical talent.

  20. Playing music was a skill often taught to young ladies, especially at the sort of girls’ school that Lady Middleton probably attended. It was an accomplishment considered good in itself, but it was also valued as being attractive to men. Hence it was not unusual for ladies to give up music after marriage: Emma contains a character who speaks of how she will be forced to do this now that she has been wed, even though she also professes her great love of music. In a youthful story, “Catharine, or the Bower,” Jane Austen, in speaking of a fashionable young lady, says that, “twelve Years had been dedicated to the acquirement of Accomplishments [including music] which were now to be displayed and in a few Years entirely neglected.” Lady Middleton’s abandonment of music would be another reason for their pianoforte to remain locked.