by Jane Austen
4. “Please make me the happiest of men” was a standard formulation for proposing, but here it is more than just a phrase.
5. triumph: exultation.
6. His security with Elinor, i.e., secure possession of her hand in marriage, was something that, from the time he began to desire it, he had despaired of ever obtaining.
7. The typical lover would go only from some degree of uncertainty about his acceptance, or perhaps only a need to wait to ask, to the happiness of being accepted; Edward has reached the latter state after having suffered miserably from a positive conviction that happiness was forever denied him.
8. spoken: revealed, indicated.
9. As a student at Oxford, Edward would have been in the group known as “gentleman commoners,” to distinguish them from the small number of noblemen above them and the larger number below of simple commoners who were not from wealthy backgrounds. Gentleman commoners often enjoyed ample sums to spend and were notorious for devoting most of their time and attention to various leisure pursuits. They could pursue serious studies if they wished, but the university imposed few requirements on them, and most knew that their academic attainments would have little affect on their future. The many who stood to inherit property often left before even finishing a normal degree. Those planning on a career in the church, the principal profession a university education led to, did need to finish and did study more, but if from a wealthy background their personal and family connections would probably be decisive in securing them a position. Moreover, the social segregation of gentleman commoners from other students meant that someone like Edward, even with his professed discomfort among those of gentility, would spend his time with other wealthy, and therefore idle, students.
10. Edward earlier spoke of his general shyness and discomfort with genteel company (this page). Lucy, who was from a humbler background, was probably less intimidating, especially after he had spent time in the same house with her. Her interest in securing someone of his wealth and status would have made her, calculating as she is, do everything in her power to encourage and make him comfortable, which could have had a powerful effect on him.
Oxford.
[From A. D. Godley, Oxford in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1908), frontispiece]
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11. To express fulsome thanks for his release from Lucy would implicitly belittle her, and this could offend Edward’s delicacy, since Lucy is the woman to whom he was engaged for a long time and the current wife of his brother.
12. Marianne compares her own situation with Elinor’s, just as Elinor earlier compared her situation to Marianne’s. Each is genuinely devoted to the other and joyful to see her sister happy, but both are human enough to think of themselves, even when something significant happens to the other.
13. spirits: vigor, animation (such as might spur her to speak).
14. oppressed: overwhelmed.
15. Elinor is striving for calmness as always, though here the struggle takes a particularly long time.
16. fixed: settled.
17. Robert has consistently demonstrated an overweening vanity, while Lucy has just as consistently demonstrated an assiduous willingness to flatter anyone in a position to confer benefits on her.
18. This indicates Lucy’s care and calculation. She would not do anything to mar her relationship with Edward until she was completely sure of someone else.
19. For the first time, she openly acknowledges Edward’s affection for Elinor, even though her awareness of this affection has long been obvious to Elinor and has spurred much of Lucy’s conduct throughout the novel.
20. She expects a match between Edward and Elinor. Her conclusion that he will not do her any ill offices, or harm, is ironic in light of her deliberately malicious deception of the Dashwoods about her supposed marriage to Edward (for more on this, see note 27).
21. When Elinor mentioned her residence in Devonshire on first meeting Robert, he spoke of Dawlish and seemed to consider it the only place of significance in the county. Since it was a popular seaside resort, his wealthy friends may have been there and spoken of it. Lucy would be happy to oblige his interest in going, because a visit to the area where she used to live would serve purposes of her own (see note 25).
22. Elinor, who probably can say nothing sincere about the letter that is not critical, prefers to remain silent, perhaps because she will soon be sister-in-law to Lucy’s husband.
23. He struggles with the appropriate word to describe his entanglement with Lucy.
24. independence: financial independence.
25. His jealousy of Colonel Brandon appeared in the scene when Elinor conveyed Colonel Brandon’s gift of the Delaford living (see this page), though it was not identified explicitly then.
26. According to the conventions of proposing, a man should express great doubt about the woman’s answer, regardless of what he really felt about his probable reception. This would be a sign of respect, since it suggested that her charms were such that she could expect many worthy offers of marriage. In Pride and Prejudice the heroine becomes incensed by the hero’s first proposal because of his smug assurance, which he cannot help displaying, that she will accept him.
27. Lucy’s malice was principally directed against Edward rather than Elinor. The reason would be her anger that he came to prefer another. She may have thought that making Elinor unhappy would be a way of inflicting harm on Edward, or that Elinor’s false belief about his marriage would lead her to actions or words that would injure Edward or create difficulties for him. The deception also shows the malice of Robert, who had no cause to hurt Edward or Elinor, for it required him to remain quiet and hidden away in the carriage, a reversal of his normal behavior, and allow Thomas to believe that he was Edward.
28. scruple: hesitation.
29. discovery: disclosure.
30. Edward could have ended the engagement, but considered himself bound in honor to uphold it because of his belief in her fundamental decency and her affection for himself: to break an engagement to such a woman would be cruel.
31. His feelings made him wish to give her the option of dissolving the engagement, after his mother renounced him, because he had long hoped to end it. But he also believed it was his duty, since the engagement now threatened to bind her to a life of poverty.
32. Since married women had far higher status than single women, being engaged would add a little to Lucy’s stature in the eyes of other women. Also, an engagement to a man of much higher rank was probably more than any of her friends could boast.
33. As Jane Austen wrote in a letter, “Single Women have a dreadful propensity for being poor” (March 13, 1817). Marriage offered the great majority of women greater income and financial security. It also gave a woman social position and the opportunity to be the mistress of a household, instead of having to spend her life as a dependent and powerless guest in others’ homes. The foolish desperation of Lucy’s elder sister regarding the doctor and other supposed “beaux” is a fate that Lucy would be eager to avoid.
34. She means his inconstancy to Lucy.
35. was to: was likely or bound to.
36. was got: had gotten.
37. Elinor shakes her head in outward disapproval of his behavior, which was wrong, as he admitted. But she smiles because the entire reason his behavior was wrong was that he failed to recognize how much his attraction to her would override his prior commitment to Lucy and was too enamored to tear himself away from her even after he did sense his peril.
38. Edward’s ungracious reception of Colonel Brandon’s gift would have been spurred by his jealousy of the latter’s supposed amorous relationship with Elinor, perhaps supplemented by mixed feelings about a gift that would advance his marriage to Lucy.
39. The glebe was the land given to the holder of a living to raise his own crops and livestock. The garden, right next to the house, could also provide food for him and his family. When Jane Austen’s father held his livi
ng, he and his wife grew vegetables, fruit, and herbs in their garden, maintained a dairy farm, engaged in beekeeping, and raised pigs, sheep, and various types of fowl (this did not mean they did all the work themselves, for hired farm labor was inexpensive).
40. The size of the parish and condition of the land would, like the rate of tithes, affect their income, in addition to affecting his pastoral duties.
41. Elinor’s being chosen as Colonel Brandon’s agent in this transaction ends up proving very useful.
42. The living is worth two hundred pounds a year. Edward’s two thousand pounds and Elinor’s one thousand would produce, at the prevailing 5% rate of return on investments, one hundred fifty pounds a year.
43. dependence: confidence, expectation.
44. This is the difference between his age and Marianne’s.
45. transport: overwhelming emotion.
46. wonderful: astonishing.
47. Miss Steele’s fearfulness of offending those who were wealthy and powerful appeared earlier, when she worried that Mrs. Jennings and Lady Middleton might be angry after learning of Lucy’s engagement to Edward (this page).
48. There was a seven-shilling coin at the time, since seven shillings was a third of a guinea (a coin worth a pound and a shilling).
49. five guineas: this would be a little more than five pounds (see above note).
50. Mrs. Burgess is probably the friend or relative with whom both Miss Steeles were staying when Sir John and Mrs. Jennings ran into them in Exeter and invited them to stay at Barton Park.
51. A woman who married would often be accompanied after the wedding by her sister; a character in Mansfield Park does that. As for Anne Steele’s pursuit of Dr. Davies, Jane Austen’s nephew J. E. Austen-Leigh, who wrote a memoir of Jane Austen based on the memories of himself and other family members, said that his aunt would often speak of her characters’ later fates, and “Miss Steele never succeeded in catching the Doctor.”
52. Mrs. Jennings’s zeal for matchmaking, along with her continued belief in an impending marriage between Elinor and Colonel Brandon, leads her to think immediately of coupling Edward and Marianne.
53. sensibility: acute feeling.
54. This is a sign of their unreasonableness, for Lucy, unlike Robert, owed no duty to them, especially after Fanny had cruelly ejected her from her house and they had denounced her as completely unworthy of Edward.
55. John Dashwood’s advice is actually an example of real benevolence on his part. A narrower self-interest could make him glad that both Edward and Robert are out of Mrs. Ferrars’s favor, for then she might leave all her money to Fanny. But that has apparently been overridden by a genuine wish to maintain harmonious family relations, something he has generally exhibited, as well as perhaps a belief in the rightness of an eldest son receiving his inheritance and being treated justly (he had spoken with sincere pity of Edward’s seeing his younger brother supplant him on this page).
56. Robert’s breach of honor was stealing his own brother’s fiancée.
57. He has offended by entering and maintaining an engagement without his mother’s consent. Prevailing norms would consider this wrong.
58. mean: undignified, low.
59. candour: inclination to think favorably of others.
A magnificent cottage, such as Robert Ferrars would draw plans for—see following chapter.
[From The Repository of arts, literature, fashions, manufactures, &c, Vol. IX (1813), p. 53]
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VOLUME III, CHAPTER XIV
1. amiable: kind, friendly, good-natured.
2. publication: promulgation, announcement.
3. turn: change, including an attack of illness.
4. carry him off: kill him (that is, as a son in Mrs. Ferrars’s eyes).
5. enforced: bolstered, urged further.
6. A private gentleman was one who did not occupy a leading social position, as someone with a title would, and therefore did not play a prominent public role.
7. representation: argument, remonstrance.
Contemporary wallpapers and borders.
[From MacIver Percival, Old English Furniture and Its Surroundings (New York, 1920), Plate XI]
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8. Normally the elder son received the principal family inheritance, and the younger son entered a profession. The two hundred and fifty mentioned here is higher than the two hundred a year previously specified as the income of the living. But the living was also stated to be “capable of improvement” (this page), which would mean raising the tithes and hence the income. The words “at the utmost” suggest the lack of precision about how much the tithes could be raised.
9. She knows how much more the elder son normally received than younger sons or daughters. Also, the ten thousand is far less necessary to Fanny and her husband, because of John Dashwood’s ample fortune, than it is to Edward and Elinor.
10. The ten thousand pounds would produce five hundred a year in income. Combined with the two hundred and fifty just mentioned for the living, and the one hundred and fifty from the three thousand Edward and Elinor already have, their income would be nine hundred a year. In her earlier discussion of money with Marianne, at which Edward was present, Elinor stated one thousand a year to be the wealth she considered essential to happiness (this page). Thus she has come very close to her imagined sum.
11. Colonel Brandon is especially eager to accommodate Elinor since, once she is at the parsonage, Marianne will be able to visit her.
12. The words “as usual” are probably meant to suggest that brides are usually more eager for a marriage.
13. Edward proposed to Elinor in May (see this page), so they have not waited very long. Since the main action of the novel began in the summer of the preceding year, when the attraction between Edward and Elinor was noticed at Norland and Mrs. Dashwood decided to leave, approximately a year has passed. Jane Austen’s longer novels transpire over a similar period of time (her shortest novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, take place over approximately half a year).
14. Papers means wallpapers, a popular feature of interior decoration at this time; for a picture of designs from the time for wallpapers and borders, see the preceding page. Shrubberies were standard features of gardens. A sweep was a curved carriage drive leading to a house.
15. She had prophesied that Colonel Brandon and Elinor would be married by Michaelmas, September 29 (this page).
16. They would raise cows on their glebe land, and this would be a basic part of their income. The passage suggests how quickly they have become absorbed in the humdrum practicalities of married life.
17. Visiting a new couple was a standard courtesy. John Dashwood had earlier congratulated Elinor on avoiding much of the expense of the trip home because she was traveling partway with Mrs. Jennings, and is presumably mindful of such costs for himself, even though they would represent a small portion of his income.
18. He is disappointed that she has not married the wealthier Colonel Brandon.
19. A hanging wood was one on a steep hillside, so Delaford Hanger is presumably such a wood on Colonel Brandon’s property. Since Norland was mentioned as possessing valuable woods (this page), John Dashwood may have a particular interest in timber. This is further suggested by his comparison with the timber of other places in Dorsetshire. He had earlier spoken of not knowing Dorsetshire, and his only exposure has been in his voyage here. He presumably observed the features of the land as they passed and carefully assessed the value of any woods he saw.
20. altogether: on the whole.
Cows grazing.
[From Humphrey Repton, The Art of Landscape Gardening (Boston, 1907; reprint edition), p. 42]
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21. Robert’s assumption reflects both his contempt for affection as an important factor in determining people’s actions and his confidence in his own powers of persuasion, a confidence he earlier proclaimed (this page).
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22. In other words, he was right to consider affection no significant barrier, at least in this case, and right to believe he could persuade Lucy to renounce Edward. He erred only in thinking he could accomplish this quickly.
23. It became evident to her as soon as she saw she had a chance to catch him, a man whose new fortune made him a far more desirable target than his brother, and it became evident to him as soon as she displayed this interest in him (his vanity and her adroitness probably kept him from perceiving its mercenary nature).
24. If Robert is under twenty-one (his age is not specified) his mother would be in a position to prevent a marriage by withholding her consent when the clergyman providing the license asked her for it. The ways to circumvent this were to go to Scotland, where it was possible to get married immediately without a parent’s consent and still have a marriage that was valid, or to find a parish in London where the growth in population meant the clergy were unable to check the qualifications of all the people seeking permission to marry. Even if he were twenty-one, he would still be circumventing the social custom dictating parental consent.
25. By cutting them, or refusing to acknowledge their acquaintance, Lucy would be establishing her superiority over those she knew earlier, as well as getting revenge for any perceived slights they had inflicted on her. This would give her a reason for happily consenting to Robert’s plan of going to Dawlish, since it would put her in proximity to those she knew when living in Devonshire.
26. Robert had expressed his taste for fancy cottages to Elinor (this page); the incongruous phrase “magnificent cottages” suggests the absurdities of the current fashion. Drawing up plans would be a natural pastime for Robert—many wealthy people at the time functioned as their own amateur architects. For an example of a contemporary picture and plan of a cottage, showing the grand heights such cottages could reach, see this page.
