Nancy:
"Jane Austen was quoted as saying that hand kissing should be left to
foreigners. Anyone know the place or when she said this?"
Nancy, I checked online and in my files, and I could
find no such quotation anywhere. So, I could be wrong, but my guess is that you
are not remembering something JA wrote explicitly in a letter or a novel, but that
you are instead subconsciously extrapolating that inference from two famous
passages in Emma.
First,
here is Knightley dissing Frank:
“…No,
Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English. He
may be very 'amiable,' have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he
can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people: nothing
really amiable about him."
So
Knightley is quite dismissive of Frank’s manners, which would probably include flattery
of women via kissing their hands. And it turns out, I claim, that such
statement by Knightley is a bookend to
the second passage I will now quote, which occurs when Knightley shows up at
Hartfield to tell Emma he is leaving for London:
“Emma's
colour was heightened by this unjust praise; and with a smile, and shake of the
head, which spoke much, she looked at Mr. Knightley.—It seemed as if there were
an instantaneous impression in her favour, as if his eyes received the truth
from hers, and all that had passed of good in her feelings were at once caught
and honoured.— He looked at her with a glow of regard. She was warmly
gratified—and in another moment still more so, by a little movement of more
than common friendliness on his part.—He took her hand;—whether she had not
herself made the first motion, she could not say—she might, perhaps, have
rather offered it—but he took her hand, pressed it, and certainly was on the
point of carrying it to his lips—when, from some fancy or other, he suddenly
let it go.—Why he should feel such a scruple, why he should change his mind
when it was all but done, she could not perceive.—He would have judged better,
she thought, if he had not stopped.—The intention, however, was indubitable;
and whether it was that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or
however else it happened, but she thought nothing became him more.—It was with
him, of so simple, yet so dignified a nature.—She could not but recall the
attempt with great satisfaction. It spoke such perfect amity….”
Now, the
conventional interpretation of that passage, I think it safe to say, is that from
Emma’s perspective, it turned out to be even more romantic for Knightley to
take her hand and almost kiss it, than for him to actually kiss it. But, the hidden beauty of this scene is that JA
subtly clues us in every step of the way that Emma is actually making a rapid
fire series of assumptions about what Knightley is thinking or feeling, without
any evidence to support any of her inferences.
Notice
in particular that Emma at first thinks he took her hand, only to grudgingly admit
to herself a second later that she actually proffered her hand to him! And
then, similarly, she imagines that he doesn’t kiss her hand, because he has
felt some sudden scruple. So, how wonderful that the simplest, most plausible
reading of this passage is actually that Knightley neither took her hand, nor,
after she tendered it to him, ever intended to kiss it—regardless of how “indubitable”
his intentions might have seemed to Emma!
Viewed
in that sensible light, Emma can then be seen to be rationalizing, in deciding
that his (imaginary) attempt to kiss her hand, and then his (imaginary) scrupling
not to, are even more romantic than an actual kiss of the hand! Rationalization
piled up to the sky! I.e., Emma, in Chapter 45, is still constructing elaborate
imaginary interpretations of other people’s behavior, and of her own for that matter,
just as much as she was in Chapter 1---the idea that her wild imagination is
tempered and chastened by Box Hill is not supported by subtle passages like
these.
And
my apparent digression is, I will now show, directly responsive to your
original question, Nancy. I.e., I suggest it would be very dangerous to
extrapolate from these passages in Emma the
inference that Jane Austen herself thought that hand-kissing was overrated in
the heartstring-pulling department, and that she preferred the Knightleyesque unromantically
romantic method of almost kissing, but then thinking better of it, out of the
kind of “English delicacy” that Knightley advocated for earlier.
We
only know from the above passage, as I laid
out, that Emma rationalized things that way.
And by
the way, it also occurs to me that the following passage is actually related to
the above discussion:
"Harriet
kissed [Emma's] hand in silent and submissive gratitude."
Of
course, this is a few chapters before Emma imagines Knightley’s almost kissing
her hand, and it is, I suggest, Emma's fantasy that Harriet’s kissing Emma’s
hand is an expression of submissive gratitude. I think that is Emma’s fantasy, because I
believe Harriet knows full well at that moment that Emma thinks Harriet is
talking about Harriet's deserving Frank's love, when in reality Harriet
believes she deserves Knightley's love.
But it’s
another sign of the gossamer web of interconnection that unites the entire text
of Emma, that perhaps Emma
subconsciously was prompted to offer her hand to Knightley in Chapter 45,
thereby unwittingly seeking to repeat the gratification that Harriet’s
hand-kiss provided to Emma a few chapters
earlier.
Before
concluding this post, I will pass along two other Austen nuggets having to do
with hand-kissing.
First,
I never noticed an oddity in Admiral Croft narration of the passing parade to
Anne Elliot as they stroll around Bath:
"...There
comes old Sir Archibald Drew and his grandson. Look, he sees us: he kisses his
hand to you; he takes you for my wife. Ah! the peace has come too soon for that
younker..."
I
wonder exactly how a gentleman would “kiss his hand” to a woman --- my best
guess is that this is an archaic linguistic ancestor of what we today call
"throwing a kiss", where the inside of the middle fingers is kissed,
and then the hand is waved outward. Do you agree?
And
the other tidbit I offer, without further commentary, is a passage I found in
Burney’s Camilla which was identified
many years ago in Janeites as a possible source for the Knightley-Emma
almost-hand-kiss scene. I think that identification is spot-on, although I don’t
claim to know Camilla well enough to
explain why JA would have covertly
alluded to it. Here it is:
“As
they rode into the park, and while he was earnestly endeavouring to form some
palliation, by which he, might exculpate what seemed to him so guilty in the
strange meeting and its strange circumstances, he perceived Camilla herself,
walking upon the lawn. He saw she had observed him, and saw, from her air, she
seemed irresolute if to re-enter the house, or await him.
Jacob,
significantly pointing her out, offered to shew the effect he could produce by
what he could relate; but Edgar, giving him the charge of his horse, earnestly
besought him to retire in quiet, and to keep his opinions and experiments to
himself.
Each
now, separately, and with nearly equal difficulty, strove to attain fortitude
to seek an explanation. They approached each other; Camilla with her eyes fixed
upon the ground, her air embarrassed, and her cheeks covered with blushes;
Edgar with quick, but almost tottering steps, his eyes wildly avoiding hers,
and his complexion pale even to indisposition.
When
they were met within a few yards, they stopt; Camilla still without courage to
look up, and Edgar striving to speak, but finding no passage for his voice.
Camilla, then, ashamed of her situation, raised her eyes, and forced herself to
say, 'Have you been into the house? Have you seen my cousin Lynmere?'
'No .
. . madam.'
Struck
with a cold formality that never before, from Edgar, had reached her ears, and
shocked by the sight of his estranged and altered countenance, with the cruel
consciousness that appearances authorised the most depreciating suspicions, she
advanced, and holding out her hand, 'Edgar,' she gently cried, 'are you ill? Or
only angry?'
'O
Camilla!' he answered, 'can you deign to use to me such a word? can you distort
my dearest affections, convulse my fairest hopes, eradicate every power of
happiness . . . yet speak with so much sweetness. . . yet look at me with such
mildness? Such softness. . . I had almost said . . . such kindness?'
Deeply
affected, she could hardly stand. He had taken her offered hand, but in a
manner so changed from the same action the preceding day, that she scarce knew
if he touched while he held it, scarce felt that he relinquished, as almost
immediately she withdrew it.
But
her condescension at this moment was rather a new torment than any solace to
him. The hand which she proferred, and which the day before had received as the
token of permanent felicity, he had now seen in the possession of another, with
every licence, every apparent mark of permitted rapture in which he had been
indulged himself. He knew not to whom it of right belonged; and the doubt not
merely banished happiness, but mingled resentment with misery.
'I
see,' cried she, after a mortified pause; 'you have lost your good opinion of
me . . . I can only, therefore. . . .' She stopt, his melancholy silence was a
confirmation of her suggestion that offended her into more exertion, and, with
sensibility raised into dignity, she added, 'only hope your intended tour to
the Continent may take place without delay!'
She
would then have walked on to the house; but following her, 'Is all over?' he
cried, 'and is it thus, Camilla, we part?'
'Why
not?' said she, suppressing a sigh, yet turning back.
'What
a question! cruel Camilla! Is this all the explanation you allow me?'
'What
other do you wish?'
'All!
. . . every other! . . . that meeting . . . those letters. . .'
'If
you have any curiosity yet remaining . . . only name what you desire.'
'Are
you indeed so good?' cried he, in a voice that shewed his soul again melting;
'those letters, then . . . .'
'You
shall have them . . . every one!' she cried, with alacrity; and instantly
taking out her pocket-book, presented him with the prepared packet.
Penetrated
by this unexpected openness and compliance, he snatched her hand, with intent
to press it to his lips; but again the recollection he had seen that liberty
accorded to Sir Sedley, joined to the sight of his writing, checked him; he let
it go; bowed his thanks with a look of grateful respect, and attempting no more
to stop her, walked towards the summer house, to peruse the letters.”
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
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