Oxford World’s Classics

by Jane Austen

  140 white Gloves: gentlemen wore white gloves at formal dances.

  hop: ‘A dance; a dancing-party, esp. of an informal or unceremonious kind’ (OED); Lady Greville is belittling Maria, since ‘hop’ was considered a vulgar term.

  a Grocer or a Bookbinder: both are tradesmen and therefore excluded from polite society. As a wine-merchant and a wholesaler, Maria’s grandfather would be a cut above a retailer selling directly to individual customers, but Lady Greville brushes such niceties aside.

  broke: became broke, or bankrupt.

  as poor as a Rat: a more offensive version of the proverbial phrase ‘as poor as a church mouse’.

  141 Kings Bench: King’s Bench Prison in Southwark, south London, took its name from the king’s bench court of law, in which cases of defamation, bankruptcy, and other misdemeanours were heard; primarily a debtors’ prison.

  too saucy: JA revised several parts of this exchange, perhaps because of the uncertainty Maria herself expresses about her possible ‘impertinence’ (see Textual Notes, p. 234).

  umbrella: an insult, since umbrellas were used by those unable to afford carriages, who were therefore compelled to walk in the rain.

  shews your legs: altered by JA from ‘shews your Ancles’; the revised version involves more flesh and is therefore more offensive (see Textual Notes, p. 234).

  142 the history of her Life … what had befallen her: there is a similar appetite to discover the lives and adventures of strangers in ‘Jack & Alice’ and ‘Love and Friendship’ (see notes to pp. 13, 16, 69).

  a relation of Mr Evelyn … her name was Grenville: the names are reminiscent of Burney’s heroine Evelina, and her invented surname Anville (see note to p. 138).

  a whispering Conversation: cf. the whispering scene in JA’s ‘The Mystery’, and note to p. 50.

  Essex … Derbyshire … Suffolk: Essex is much closer to Suffolk than it is to Derbyshire, hence Miss Grenville’s surprise.

  a good dash: a sudden stroke or blow ( Johnson’s Dictionary and OED), perhaps with the added implication of ‘cutting a dash’, or making a showy appearance in company (see also OED).

  143 Perfect Felicity … uninterrupted Happiness: commonplace moralizing that often surfaces in novels; see e.g. ‘To complain, therefore, that man is not capable of a more perfect felicity, is … unreasonable’ (Richard Graves, Columella; or, The Distressed Anchoret. A Colloquial Tale, 2 vols. (1779), i, 82); ‘mortals are not born to perfect felicity!’ (He is Found At Last: or, Memoirs of the Beverley Family, 2 vols. (1775), i, 89); ‘it is not in this life that we are to be truly happy; it is a state of trial, and inconsistent with perfect felicity’ (The Ill Effects of a Rash Vow; A Novel, in a Series of Letters, 2 vols. (1789), ii, 121). Cf. JA’s comment in NA: ‘we are all hastening together to perfect felicity’ (ch. 31).

  144 Musgrove: A name that reappears in P (in which Anne Elliot’s sister has married into the Musgrove family), and very similar to Musgrave, which appears in The Watsons (Tom Musgrave); the ‘T. Musgrove’ in this letter also turns out to be called Tom.

  Sackville St.: a fashionable London street that branches off Piccadilly. In S&S, Marianne and Elinor Dashwood visit ‘Gray’s’, a real jeweller’s in Sackville Street (ch. 33).

  144 toasted: a society beauty could expect to be toasted; that is, to have her health drunk and beauty praised at male gatherings. To be celebrated in this way sometimes compromised a woman’s reputation.

  You are Venus herself: a ludicrously exaggerated compliment; sentimental and novelistic cant. See e.g. Cleanthes and Semanthe. A Dramatic History, 2 vols. (1764): ‘The duke declared, he should have supposed Venus herself might have tempted him in vain’ (ii, 95); The Phœnix; or, the History of Polyarchus and Argenis, 4 vols. (1772): ‘O maid, to whom in beauty’s bloom would yield | Venus herself’ (iii, 72); Blenheim Lodge, A Novel, 2 vols. (1787): ‘throwing himself gracefully at my feet, swearing by all the gods and goddesses I was ten times more beautiful than Venus herself’ (ii, 255). Cf. JA’s dedication of ‘The beautifull Cassandra’: ‘You are a Phoenix’ (p. 37).

  Abandoned: having given oneself up ‘without resistance or restraint to a passion, emotion, unreasoning impulse, etc.’ (OED), rather than having been deserted or forsaken.

  improvable Estate: here, an estate that might yield more revenue if better managed or cultivated, rather than ‘improved’ in the sense that Mr Rushworth intends when he considers paying a landscape gardener to alter the appearance of his grounds (MP, ch. 6).

  145 a pattern for a Love-letter: referring to collections of model letters such as those mentioned in the above notes; see also Samuel Richardson’s Letters written to and for Particular Friends on the Most Important Occasions (1741), a volume reprinted throughout the 18th century which includes many love letters.

  unfeigned Love in one Sheet: suggesting Musgrove’s straitened circumstances; since paper was expensive, even the most lavish expressions of unfeigned love were prudently confined to no more than a single sheet.

  I beleive I shall run mad: cf. Sophia’s advice in ‘Love and Friendship’ to ‘Run mad as often as you chuse; but do not faint’ (p. 90).

  Yours for ever & ever: Henrietta should not be answering the letter at all, let alone in such explicit terms; cf. ‘Amelia Webster’, note to p. 42.

  dab: colloquial term for an expert or ‘an adept’ in any field (Classical Dictionary), as in ‘a dab hand’. Johnson’s Dictionary notes that it is ‘low language’ and ‘not used in writing’.

  146 I would give a farthing for: proverbial language expressing the little value placed on something by the speaker. Henrietta suggests that she would not give even a farthing for any love that was not true (a farthing is a quarter of a penny). Grose cites ‘the common expression, I do not care a dam, i.e. I do not care half a farthing for it’ (Classical Dictionary, ‘dam’).

  an estate of Several hundreds an year: not an impressive income, especially not for a man hoping to marry an heiress. In S&S, the Dashwoods have to live on £500 per year, a figure that (as Fanny Dashwood notes with relish) precludes not only luxury but many home comforts (ch. 2). In 1805, after the Revd George Austen’s death, the widowed Mrs Austen and her two daughters had around £450 per annum to live on.

  147 Yes I’m in love I feel it now … has undone me: alluding to the opening lines of William Whitehead’s song, ‘The Je ne scai Quoi’: ‘Yes, I’m in love, I feel it now, | And cælia has undone me; | And yet I’ll swear I can’t tell how | The pleasing plague stole on me’. The same verse is referred to in MP (ch. 30). It appears in Robert Dodsley’s A Collection of Poems, ii, 265–6. JA owned a copy of this work (see ‘Jack & Alice’, note to p. 15; ‘Ode to Pity’, note to p. 66).

  150 make the pies: well-to-do young ladies would not be expected to make pies; in P&P, Mrs Bennet contrasts her own daughters with Charlotte Lucas, who helps with the mince pies: ‘For my part, Mr Bingley, I always keep servants that can do their own work; my daughters are brought up differently’ (ch. 9).

  [Scraps]

  To Miss Fanny Catherine Austen

  151 Fanny Catherine Austen: Fanny Catherine (Austen) Knight (1793–1882), JA’s first niece, eldest daughter of her brother Edward. The writings dedicated to her are called ‘Scraps’ in the table of Contents for Volume the Second, but not in the text itself (cf. the ‘Detached peices’ dedicated to JA’s niece Jane Anna Elizabeth Austen in Volume the First).

  Rowling & Steventon: Rowling was an estate in east Kent which the Knight family gave to Edward and his wife Elizabeth on their marriage; it was around 100 miles away from JA’s home in Steventon, Hampshire.

  Opinions & Admonitions on the conduct of Young Women: cf. JA’s description of her writings to another niece, Jane Anna Elizabeth Austen, as ‘Treatises for your Benefit’ containing ‘very important Instructions, with regard to your Conduct in Life’. Conduct books or works of advice for young women were popular throughout the 18th century; JA was not the only writer implicitly to criticize or o
vertly to ridicule them. See e.g. Robert Bage, Hermsprong; or, Man as He is Not. A Novel, 3 vols. (1799): ‘indeed, it was not necessary for any one to talk but Mrs. Sumelin, whose collection of admonitions, to render young women prudent, is certainly inexhaustible. Oh! could I but call them to mind just at the time of need, there would not be such another discreet girl in all these parts’ (i, 154).

  The female philosopher

  female philosopher: for many writers of the period, the notion of a female philosopher was inherently absurd; the phrase is deployed scornfully and fearfully in some novels and conduct book literature for women. See e.g. The Exemplary Mother: or, Letters between Mrs. Villars and her Family, new edn (1784): ‘A female philosopher! Defend us from petticoat innovators!’ (i, 98). Those who supported advances in education for women, however, used the term ‘female philosopher’ without satiric or critical intent; see e.g. David Fordyce, Dialogues Concerning Education, 2 vols., 4th edn (1755), ii, 95–6. The target of JA’s work seems primarily to be epistolary and educational collections for young women such as Ideal Trifles. Published by a Lady (1774), in which the commonplace and superficial moralizing of a would-be ‘female Philosopher’ is represented as novel, elegant, and striking, combined with reflections on the fashionable habits of the ‘beau monde’ (90–1).

  151 Sallies, Bonmots & repartées: lively, bold witticisms and clever retorts; a ‘sally’ is a ‘Flight; volatile or sprightly exertion’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary); see ‘Lesley-Castle’, notes to p. 97.

  Sentiments of Morality: moral reflections, typically those expressed in writing and of a proverbial nature, therefore ready to be extracted and repeated (cf. Mary Bennet’s fondness for such ‘sentiments’ and ‘sensible reflections’ in P&P, ch. 2). In The History of Women, from the Earliest Antiquity, to the Present Time, 2 vols. (1779), William Alexander observes that the education of Roman girls ‘had always a tendency … to inspire them with sentiments of morality’ (i, 40).

  152 social Shake, & cordial kiss: a handshake, or ‘social shake’, was usual between male friends; a cordial kiss would be overstepping conventional boundaries, at least between English gentlemen. There are comparable excesses of male affection in ‘Love and Friendship’ (p. 77) and ‘The History of England’ (‘James I’, p. 132).

  instability of human pleasures … examples from the Lives of great Men: for the pat use of such celebrated ‘examples’, cf. Laura’s remarks in ‘Love and Friendship’: ‘ “What an ample subject for reflection on the uncertain Enjoyments of this World, would not that Phaeton & the Life of Cardinal Wolsey afford a thinking Mind!” said I to Sophia as we were hastening to the field of Action’ (p. 87).

  amiable Moralist: cf. John Langhorne’s The Correspondence of Theodosius, and Constantia: From their First Acquaintance to the Departure of Theodosius (1765): ‘is it in my power to return those rich lessons in kind, by which I have been so much delighted—I hope, profited?—Exalted Moralist! amiable and excellent Philosopher! What a loss would constantia suffer, if deprived of your friendship! To you she owes every valuable sentiment, and almost all the little knowledge she can boast’ (80).

  five or six months with us: a ludicrously extended visit.

  Arabella: a fashionable name that reappears in JA’s ‘A Tale’; also the name of the heroine in Lennox’s The Female Quixote.

  The first Act of a Comedy

  Popgun: ‘A gun with which children play, that only makes a noise’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary); by extension, something ineffectual, a joke that misfires (OED). There is a Mr Popgun in Charlotte Smith’s Ethelinde (iv, ch. 2).

  Postilion: see ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, note to p. 6.

  Chorus of ploughboys: the chorus suggests that JA’s drama is a musical comedy or comic opera, a genre that became popular in the late 18th century.

  Strephon: a name conventionally given to pastoral lovers and shepherds (see ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, notes to pp. 4 and 8). Strephon is traditionally paired with Chloe, the last of JA’s cast list, as his female beloved; the couple had already been sent up in e.g. Jonathan Swift’s scatological poem ‘Strephon and Chloe’ (1734).

  Pistoletta: the female form of pistolet or pistoletto: a small gun.

  153 the Lion: the inn’s public rooms have names such as ‘the Lion’, ‘the Moon’, and ‘the Sun’; the bedrooms have numbers.

  bill of fare: menu.

  I wull, I wull: Cook might be Scottish; ‘I wull, I wull’ could therefore be alluding to popular Scottish songs such as ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet’, in which ‘will’ is ‘wull’ throughout. See Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, 2 vols., 2nd edn (1776), ii, 24–8. But JA may simply be rendering phonetically an unspecified dialect, or mimicking the comic rusticity of ‘I wull, I wull’ as it appears in e.g. Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer (act 2).

  My Girl … Strephon: parodying the dramatic convention of relaying necessary information to the audience, information which the characters themselves must already well know.

  it wants seven Miles: there are 7 miles to go.

  Hounslow: a village west of London; the adjacent Hounslow Heath, once used as a military encampment by Oliver Cromwell, was reputedly the haunt of highwaymen and thieves. Novellettes, Selected for the Use of Young Ladies and Gentlemen, 2 vols. (1784) includes a tale by Elizabeth Griffith, ‘The Dupe of Love and Friendship: Or, The Unfortunate Irishman’ which mentions robbery, gambling, Hounslow Heath, pistols, and a woman called Maria (i, 49–91).

  Stree-phon … that will be fun: hyphenated and drawn out in order to stress the rhyme scheme, which is both laborious and imperfect, possibly as a hint to the performer. ‘Fun’ is described as ‘A low cant word’ in Johnson’s Dictionary; Grose defines it as ‘a cheat, or trick’ (Classical Dictionary).

  154 stinking partridge: game birds were hung for at least a few days before being consumed, in order to enrich their tenderness and high, gamey flavour. This partridge has presumably been left too long.

  Staines: another village west of London; a regular staging post with coaching inns.

  bad guinea: a guinea was a gold coin, worth 21s.; a ‘bad’ guinea was counterfeit. Forgery was a capital offence.

  pawn to you an undirected Letter: a letter without an address, lacking in any obvious or commercial value and therefore little use as security for the fee of 18d. (1s. 6d.). Cf. difficulties in paying the coach fare in ‘The beautifull Cassandra’ (see note to p. 39).

  A Letter from a Young Lady, whose feelings being too strong for her Judgement led her into the commission of Errors which her Heart disapproved

  155 feelings being too strong … her Heart disapproved: the language of conduct books and sentimental fiction; cf. ‘he is hurried away by every storm and start of passion, to the commission of a thousand errors. Reason and religion, in vain, exert their voices to bring him back to the path of wisdom’ (The Man of Experience: A Sentimental History, 2 vols. (1780), i, 144); ‘a repentant sinner, one who has been led into the commission of his errors by very bad advice and profligate examples, but whom misfortunes and painful experience have restored to reason’ (Eliza Parsons, The Errors of Education, 3 vols. (1791), ii, 127).

  Ellinor: the spelling is close to that of Elinor in S&S.

  twelve Years: ‘Years’ originally read ‘months’ (see Textual Notes, p. 235): JA’s revision makes Ellinor a far more precocious perjurer.

  Horseguards: the cavalry brigade protecting the royal household; specifically, the elite third regiment of this body, known as the Royal Horse Guards.

  Anna Parker: the surname appears again in Sanditon, which opens with Mr and Mrs Parker’s carriage toppling over.

  A Tour through Wales

  156 A Tour through Wales: JA probably knew Gilpin’s Observations on the River Wye (1782), a work that helped to popularize Wales as a destination for those seeking picturesque scenery; on Gilpin, see ‘The three Sisters’, note to p. 58; ‘Love and Friendship’, notes to pp. 70 and 92; ‘The History of England’, no
tes to pp. 127 and 130. In 1774, four years after Gilpin, Samuel Johnson also undertook a ‘tour to Wales’, with his friends the Thrales, a tour that is discussed in letters reprinted by Boswell in the Life of Johnson (1791), i [1774].

  on the ramble: engaged in rambling, walking or wandering, on a journey or by way of recreation. Johnson published his journal The Rambler from 1750 to 1752.

  last Monday Month: a month ago last Monday.

  galloped … fine perspiration: a comically inappropriate way for three women to travel, sharing one pony between three and forced to run alongside the rider. To mention ‘perspiration’ is inherently very indecorous, so that ‘fine’, attached to a highly unrefined observation, gains in comic force. Cf. ‘those that perspire away their Evenings in crouded assemblies’ in JA’s deleted work ‘A fragment—written to inculcate the practise of Virtue’ (Textual Notes, p. 225).

  capped & heelpeiced: repaired with toe-patches and replacement heels.

  Carmarthen: a town in south-west Wales.

  blue Sattin Slippers: delicate, formal footwear, designed for the evenings; highly inappropriate for galloping or hopping across the countryside.

  hopped home from Hereford: alliteration is similarly deployed in ‘Frederic & Elfrida’ and ‘Collection of Letters’ (see notes to pp. 5 and 134). Hereford, a cathedral city on the river Wye, lies about 16 miles east of the border with Wales.

  Elizabeth Johnson: Samuel Johnson’s wife’s name was Elizabeth (he called her ‘Tetty’); for other allusions to Johnson, see e.g. ‘Jack & Alice’, note to p. 10; ‘Love and Friendship’, note to p. 86; ‘Lesley-Castle’, notes to p. 97.

  A Tale

  A Gentleman … I shall conceal: cf. similar conventional mystifications in ‘Henry & Eliza’, ‘The three Sisters’, and ‘Love and Friendship’.

  Pembrokeshire: a seaside county in south-west Wales.