by Jane Austen
23. Anne’s thinking the woman, in fact the nurse, might be the maid indicates the low status of nurses then, for people’s social level at the time was indicated by their dress and manner. That even such a generous person as Anne took little notice of her also indicates how much servants, for persons of Anne’s class, existed in the background, taken for granted and only occasionally the object of serious attention, unless one was the mistress of a household, responsible for supervising their labor.
24. Marlborough-buildings: the residence of the Wallises. See also note 21.
25. Mrs. Wallis has already been identified as the wife of Mr. Elliot’s friend. At the time Anne arrived in Bath, she was about to give birth. That nurse Rooke “came away … only on Sunday” means that she stopped attending Mrs. Wallis only then. It was standard for wealthy women giving birth to hire a monthly nurse, someone who arrived just before the delivery and attended the mother through her confinement. For Mrs. Wallis and confinement, see note 37. It is now approximately a month and a half since Anne arrived in Bath (see chronology), so Mrs. Wallis’s confinement has been around five weeks, a normal period. Its end will be marked by her appearance, in a few days, at a party of the Elliots (see this page).
26. This means that Mrs. Smith heard this before she expressed doubt about the continuation of her friendship with Anne (this page), for that occurred on the day of the concert (a Wednesday—see chronology).
27. natural: normal.
28. Mrs. Smith’s language is highly melodramatic, an appropriate beginning for what is certainly the most melodramatic part of the novel.
29. allow: make allowance.
30. While “dear” is used in many contexts in Jane Austen’s novels, this is the only time it is prefixed to “husband” or “wife.” Mrs. Smith’s usage may be an attempt, conscious or unconscious, to reaffirm her affection for him, for she is telling a story that does not reflect well on his judgment or on the position he left her in after his death.
31. town: London.
32. This means he was attending either the Inner Temple or the Middle Temple; they, along with Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn, constituted the four Inns of Court that qualified people for the bar, i.e., to be practicing barristers. Each Inn required five years’ attendance, or three years for university graduates. The only specific requirement during that time was to go to a minimum number of dinners held at the Inn: the idea was that this would give the student a chance to associate with others in the legal world, including established barristers connected with the Inn. Otherwise students were on their own to pick up what knowledge they could, either by reading or by observing and assisting practicing lawyers.
33. At this time a gentleman would be distinguished by significant external characteristics. The most obvious would be the quality of his clothing: it was expected that a gentleman, like a lady, would always dress in a manner marking his status. A gentleman was also expected to live in a luxurious home in a good part of town, to have servants to attend him, to travel in carriages rather than by foot, and to spend money freely and generously. Those who failed to do these things would quickly be identified and, if they were too derelict, be scorned socially.
This would be a problem for those studying the law, for many were in pinched circumstances. Enrollment at one of the Inns required a fee, and living in London cost even more. Mr. Elliot’s circumstances suggest that, while he may have inherited or received some money from his parents, it was not a large amount. This could help account for the ambition he displays.
34. A farthing is the smallest unit of English money. It is one-fourth of a pence, which in turn is one-twelfth of a shilling, or one–two hundred and fortieth of a pound. In Jane Austen’s novels it is mentioned only as part of expressions like these, in which it signifies the smallest possible sum.
35. purse: monetary funds or resources.
36. Mrs. Smith came from a genteel background. She could not otherwise have attended a boarding school that Sir Walter would let one of his children attend. This meant she would not have socialized with someone of significantly lower status, for while current mores urged courtesy and affability between people of different levels, they discouraged real intimacy.
37. Mr. Elliot’s decision first to pursue and then to abandon the law would make sense given both his own character and the nature of a legal career then. The bar, meaning the upper reaches of the law, was probably the most popular of the genteel professions for those, like Mr. Elliot, interested in wealth, for some who pursued it attained great riches, along with a corresponding fame and prestige. Moreover, while connections would be helpful, success could be attained purely through talent.
Yet this success was highly uncertain. The law was often depicted as a lottery, for barristers were largely on their own to drum up business, and many failed completely. Even those who succeeded might have to endure a long period of deprivation first. Aspiring lawyers like Mr. Elliot, if they wished to have a decent chance of success, also needed to master large amounts of material that even successful lawyers admitted to be dry and tedious, and to do so without formal teaching or institutional guidance. They did this while residing in London, which meant they were constantly being tempted away from work by the extraordinary array of diversions the city offered. All this could operate as a powerful spur for a man like Mr. Elliot to opt for a different path to affluence.
38. independance: financial independence. A marriage with Elizabeth would have given him a dowry of ten thousand pounds (that is the amount later identified as Anne’s dowry, this page, and daughters were almost always given the same dowry). That would be a good sum, but not enough by itself to provide a truly affluent income. It is also probable that he would have been required, before the marriage, to sign a settlement giving an annual sum to his wife for her own private expenses, called pin money, and a guarantee of money to be given to any children of his. These were standard parts of marriage agreements among the landed classes.
Mr. Elliot ultimately married a woman from a commercial family, which normally did not use strict settlements. This meant he would not be bound by such restrictions, and that the father of the bride, unlike many landowners, could endow her with as great a sum as he wished and ensure it was in readily available cash. This made such brides more attractive to many men of the time seeking fortunes (for more, see note 45).
39. Mrs. Smith knows that Anne would be distressed to hear her sister disparaged, however much Anne herself would be aware of its just nature.
40. in the world: in fashionable society.
41. low: of inferior social rank; or coarse and vulgar in her behavior and culture. The usual assumption in this society was that the two meanings went together.
42. grazier: someone who grazes and feeds cattle for the market.
43. A butcher was a humble profession. In contrast, a grazier, who owned cattle, would have some wealth. Thus the father had already risen relative to the grandfather, though, logically, in the same general business of beef.
44. fine: very good-looking.
45. The history of this woman and her family exhibits a standard process of social climbing in this society. Earlier generations have advanced economically, to the point that the family could afford to send a daughter to a fine school, where she would acquire higher-class education, manners, and speech—and possibly friendships in that sphere. She could then be introduced to someone from a high-ranking family who needed money and was willing to overlook her origins for the sake of an ample dowry. This process happened most often with a wife from a lower background, for while money could come from either spouse, social standing came principally from the husband, since a wife took on his status, as would any children of theirs. The main anomaly in this case is the speed of the family’s rise: usually one’s poorer ancestors needed to be more generations in the past before one could truly be accepted or considered as a marriage partner. Only Mr. Elliot’s desperation for money made him overlook her immediate origins, whil
e others, like Anne and Mrs. Smith here and Sir Walter earlier, show an acute awareness of them.
46. Frequently the fortunes of potential marriage partners were widely known. Throughout Jane Austen’s novels characters speak openly, and knowledgeably, of the precise fortunes of others, especially those who are unmarried. But in this case, unlike others, the bride was from a completely different social circle, so her situation was less likely to be known. Mr. Elliot may have attempted not only to find out what her father intended to settle on her, but also to persuade that father, under threat of not marrying her, to increase the amount. Marriage normally involved a detailed legal agreement about the financial contributions and benefits of each side, and hard bargaining about the exact terms could precede the agreement.
47. The Elliot arms and motto were part of their listing in the baronetage (this page); high-ranking families would generally have them (for more on arms, see note 44). Liveries were also specific to families (see note 39).
48. Mary’s being called only by her first name indicates she is a servant; Mrs. Smith’s residence was earlier described as having one (note 17). As for ringing, Mrs. Smith could be referring to a pulley attached by wires to bells in the servants’ quarters, as existed in better houses (see note 44), or, in such a modest rooming house, she could simply mean a bell sitting on a table.
49. An inlaid box had ornamentation of some type embedded in its surface. Putting such ornamentation on boxes was a standard decorative activity of genteel ladies, the sort that Mrs. Smith might have been taught in the school she attended with Anne.
Portable locked boxes—and Mrs. Smith is shortly described as unlocking this one—were widely used at this time for storing valuables and personal items. They were especially common for those renting lodgings, who needed to worry not only about theft but also about the inquisitiveness of the landlady or landlord and other lodgers.
50. A closet then usually meant a small room.
51. Mrs. Smith may speak of other men also being careless as a way of deflecting blame from her husband, whom she obviously cherishes despite the distress that his folly and negligence have brought upon her.
52. memorandums: notes and records, especially to help remember things.
53. Esquire is an informal title often assumed by gentlemen (see note 4).
54. Tunbridge Wells is a town south of London, named for wells supplying mineral waters considered beneficial for health. By the eighteenth century it had developed into one of the most popular spa and resort towns in England, one that was particularly favored by the nobility. Mr. Smith’s being there—and at the height of its summer season, when it was noted for its high prices—gives proof of the heedless life of pleasure Mrs. Smith has already mentioned, one that led to her current poverty.
55. This sentence neatly summarizes Mr. Elliot’s attitude to his friend.
56. Miss: Miss Elliot, i.e., Elizabeth. The abbreviated usage is probably meant to be derogatory.
57. surveyor: someone who examines houses, land, or other property in order to calculate their value.
58. bring it … to the hammer: sell it by auction (the phrase comes from a small hammer used by auctioneers to indicate a sale). Thus his plan is not to destroy the property but to sell it, once he learns how he can obtain the best price. Usually the heir to a landed estate was prevented from selling by the strict settlement governing the estate. But such a settlement needed to be renewed each generation, by having the current holder and the next in line, once the latter came of age, unite to break the entail dictating the succession and form a new one. This usually happened automatically when the heir was a son, bound to his father by both natural deference and current financial dependence. But a more distant heir like Mr. Elliot would not be so bound, especially if, as is certainly true here, he feels contempt for the current holder. Moreover, such an heir was less likely to feel beholden to the family traditions urging the preservation of its patrimony, and thus more willing to sell the estate for the sake of immediate gain. In Mr. Elliot’s case, having procured a fortune by other means and become recently interested in the title he is to inherit, he may have abandoned by now his plan to sell Kellynch.
59. The reversion is Mr. Elliot’s inheritance of the Kellynch estate, if Sir Walter dies without a male heir. If Sir Walter did marry and produce a son, he would supersede Mr. Elliot, thereby depriving the latter of the estate.
60. It is certainly very convenient that Mrs. Smith happens to possess a letter that so fully reveals Mr. Elliot’s opinions of Sir Walter and Elizabeth. One might question the plausibility of this letter. It certainly reveals a different Mr. Elliot from the calm, careful, calculating man who has appeared so far, and who spoke of his concern for gentility even when young (note 52). But it is possible to imagine that during those years Mr. Elliot was not always worried about gentility, especially in the face he showed to a close friend, and that, harboring strong feelings about Sir Walter, he was happy to express them to this friend with great frankness, perhaps inspired further by some youthful bravado in exhibiting contempt for his high-ranking relations and indifference to his possible inheritance. Moreover, his overwhelming focus on his immediate financial needs could make him somewhat heedless of any money he was likely to receive only after many years have passed.
61. The two women, despite their sympathy with each other, still have different thoughts aroused by the letter, Anne thinking of its strictures against her father and Mrs. Smith of what it reveals about the writer’s insincerity toward her husband.
62. Anne’s mortification demonstrates the power of family feeling in this society: despite knowing the good reasons for such a low opinion of her father, it still shocks and pains her to see them openly expressed.
63. Such laws would dictate not spying into other people’s private communications without their permission. The good characters in Jane Austen are extremely scrupulous about such matters. For example, the heroine of Pride and Prejudice purposefully leaves the room to avoid being exposed to information that is supposed to remain a secret, even though this information would be of great importance to her.
64. Her recovery from childbirth. A woman at this time would have even stronger reasons than now for “overflowing spirits” (i.e., exuberance). First, she and her baby had survived: cases in which one or both died were a regular occurrence (Jane Austen refers to both in letters). Second, since women were valued for procreation more than anything, a successful mother gained social prestige and, in many cases, greater approval from her husband and other members of her family.
65. For the nurse, and childbirth and recovery, see note 25.
66. romancing: exaggerating or inventing in the manner of romances. A “romance” at the time meant a story that was remote from ordinary life, whether in its setting, in the incidents of its plot, or in the nature of its characters; it did not necessarily mean a story centered around love, though love was frequently an important element. For centuries most works of imaginative literature had been, broadly speaking, romances of this type. The rise of the novel in the eighteenth century introduced large numbers of stories set in current society, with characters such as one might normally meet and plots that could plausibly happen in ordinary life. Commentators of the time remarked on the novelty and importance of this literary development. At the same time, romances still existed and were often popular.
Jane Austen always preferred stories that were not romances. She did, however, receive a suggestion to write one. James Stanier Clarke, librarian to the Prince Regent, who had corresponded with her about dedicating Emma to the prince (the latter was a great fan of her novels), mentioned in a subsequent letter that he had been appointed secretary to the Prince of Cobourg, and he suggested for her next publication that “any Historical Romance illustrative of the History of the august house of Cobourg, would just now be very interesting.” Jane Austen, after thanking him politely, wrote, “I am fully sensible that an Historical Romance founded on the House of Saxe Cobo
urg might be much more to the purpose of Profit or Popularity, than such pictures of domestic Life in Country Villages as I deal in—but I could no more write a Romance than an Epic Poem.—I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my Life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first Chapter” (April 1, 1816). When Clarke persisted in offering suggestions for a future novel her response was to compose, for her own amusement, a “Plan for a Novel” that ridicules his suggestions by sketching a story in which the various absurdities of romances are taken to ridiculous extremes.
One irony of the use of the term “romancing” at this juncture is that Mrs. Smith’s tragic story of her husband and Mr. Elliot, and the coincidence of her knowing him and being able to share such thorough information with Anne, brings this episode closer to the implausible contrivances of a romance than almost anything else in Jane Austen’s novels.
67. plausible: ingratiating, pleasing, agreeable.
68. situation: this could be referring to her social position, which would make a marriage with Sir Walter such an advancement, or to her situation in his household, which gives her the opportunity to win his affections.
69. manner: behavior, demeanor (toward Sir Walter).
70. Elizabeth would be in particular danger because a wife of Sir Walter would displace Elizabeth as mistress of the house, the one who manages its affairs and has the power of deciding who is invited there. It also would displace her as the leading person in her father’s affections.
71. sensible: aware, cognizant.
72. This would be plausible given the small scale of Bath society (see this page especially for further indications of this).
