There are two very famous and very memorable
scenes in Pride & Prejudice in
which the pretensions of a man with an unjustified pride in his own abilities
derived from serious studies are subtly ridiculed, providing amusement to the
heroine, Elizabeth Bennet.
The first is in Chapter 11, when Elizabeth,
with her razor-sharp satire, punctures Darcy’s narcissistic self-delusion of having
his pride under good regulation:
"Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed
at!" cried Elizabeth. "That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I
hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many
such acquaintances. I dearly love a laugh."
"Miss Bingley," said he,
"has given me more credit than can be. The wisest and the best of men—nay,
the wisest and best of their actions—may be rendered ridiculous by a person
whose first object in life is a joke."
"Certainly," replied
Elizabeth—"there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them.
I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and nonsense, whims and
inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I
can. But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without."
"Perhaps that is not possible
for anyone. But it has been the STUDY of my life to avoid those weaknesses
which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule."
"Such as vanity and
pride."
"Yes, vanity is a weakness
indeed. But pride—where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be
always under good regulation."
Elizabeth turned away to hide a
smile.
…"There is, I believe, in every
disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a natural defect, which not even
the best EDU CATION can overcome."
"And your defect is to
hate everybody."
"And yours," he replied
with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them."
The second is in Chapter 14, when
Mr. Bennet has a private laugh, shared with his favorite daughter Elizabeth, at
Mr. Collins’s unwitting expense, over the latter’s skill in paying “pleasing
attentions”:
“…I
have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that her charming daughter
seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving
her consequence, would be adorned by her. These are the kind of little things
which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive
myself peculiarly bound to pay."
"You
judge very properly," said Mr. Bennet, "and it is happy for you that
you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these
pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result
of previous STUDY?"
"They
arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I sometimes amuse
myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be
adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as UNSTUDIED an air
as possible."
Mr.
Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had
hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment, maintaining at the
same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and, except in an
occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure….
I
suspect I am not the first reader of P&P to notice the striking parallels
between the above two scenes, particularly because this is far from the only
parallel between Mssrs. Darcy and Collins. Several years ago, I pointed out
several others here:
However
it was only today that I realized that in Chapter 9, shortly before the above
two scenes, Mr. Bingley, of all people, shares a private laugh with his sister
and Mr. Darcy at Elizabeth’s unwitting expense, when he suckers Elizabeth in exactly
the same way that Mr. Bennet plays his little trick on Mr. Collins. I.e.,
Bingley appeals to Elizabeth’s Achilles Heel—her overinflated, unjustified vanity
in her own abilities as what Bingley called a “studier of character” and we
today would call a “psychologist”:
"Whatever I do is done in a
hurry," replied [Bingley]; "and therefore if I should resolve to quit
Netherfield, I should probably be off in five minutes. At present, however, I
consider myself as quite fixed here."
"That is exactly what I should
have supposed of you," said Elizabeth.
"You begin to comprehend me, do
you?" cried he, turning towards her.
"Oh! yes—I understand you
perfectly."
"I wish I might take this for a
compliment; but to be so easily seen through I am afraid is pitiful."
"That is as it happens. It does
not follow that a deep, intricate character is more or less estimable than such
a one as yours."
"Lizzy," cried her mother,
"remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are
suffered to do at home."
"I did not know before,"
continued Bingley immediately, "that you were a STUDIER of character. It
must be an amusing STUDY."
"Yes, but intricate characters
are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage."
"The country," said Darcy,
"can in general supply but a few subjects for such a STUDY. In a country
neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society."
"But people themselves alter so
much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever."
"Yes, indeed," cried Mrs.
Bennet, offended by his manner of mentioning a country neighbourhood. "I
assure you there is quite as much of that going on in the country as in
town."
Everybody was surprised, and Darcy,
after looking at her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who
fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued her triumph.
"I cannot see that London has
any great advantage over the country, for my part, except the shops and public
places. The country is a vast deal pleasanter, is it not, Mr. Bingley?"
"When I am in the
country," he replied, "I never wish to leave it; and when I am in
town it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be
equally happy in either."
"Aye—that is because you have the
right disposition. But that gentleman," looking at Darcy, "seemed to
think the country was nothing at all."
"Indeed, Mamma, you are
mistaken," said Elizabeth, blushing for her mother. "You quite
mistook Mr. Darcy. He only meant that there was not such a variety of people to
be met with in the country as in the town, which you must acknowledge to be
true."
"Certainly, my dear, nobody
said there were; but as to not meeting with many people in this neighbourhood,
I believe there are few neighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with
four-and-twenty families."
Nothing but concern for Elizabeth
could enable Bingley to keep his countenance.
Notice in particular how Mrs. Bennet
tries to shut Lizzy down before she can embarrass herself, but then Bingley “immediately”
hands Elizabeth the forbidden fruit with his flattery about her being “ a
studier of character”, and Lizzy takes the bait hook, line and sinker.
And the final brilliant touch is
that last quoted line---while Elizabeth believes that Bingley cannot keep his
countenance because of her mother’s gauche and strident advocacy for the
supposed sophistication of the limited social circle of the Bennet family, what
Elizabeth does not realize is that Bingley is finally unable any longer to keep
from cracking up at Elizabeth’s cluelessness as to his having made fun of her
to Darcy and his sister without Elizabeth having the slightest inkling of same.
Now, of course I am well aware that
the suggestion that the gentle, kindly, and unassuming Bingley might enjoy—indeed,
might generate—the same sort of unkind humor at the expense of Elizabeth that
Mr. Bennet enjoys at the expense of the pompous Mr. Collins, is likely to shock
pretty much all readers of P&P.
But I believe the parallels between
the above quoted scene in Chapter 9 and those two scenes which follow not long
afterwards, are too strong to be coincidental. Jane Austen meant for those
parallels to be noticed upon rereading (and this is probably the 20th
time I am reading those scenes in P&P). And there is a final, very sharp
Austenian irony in this parallel—i.e., the enjoyment Elizabeth takes in the
zinging of Mr. Darcy and then of Mr. Collins, which we, the readers who
identify with Elizabeth, readily enter into ourselves, is tempered when we realize
that Elizabeth had just been unwittingly hoist on her own satirical petard
right before those memorable scenes.
What a genius Jane Austen was, to
hide this in plain sight for 200 years!
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
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