My
post yesterday about the subtle cleverness of Eliza Bennet’s lively wit (in her
absurdist attribution of one man’s worth of merit in Darcy and Wickham, and one
woman’s worth of compassion in herself and Jane) got me thinking again about that
mysterious something in P&P---especially in Eliza’s memorable utterances---that
makes it JA’s most popular novel among Janeites, and arguably the most popular
novel by any author. I start from Ground Zero, i.e., Jane Austen’s own famous
and witty words that she wrote to sister Cassandra right after P&P was
first published: “The work is rather
too light, and bright, and sparkling; it wants shade; it wants to be stretched
out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of
solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story; an essay
on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte, or
anything that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased
delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style.”
How
many Janeites have been taken in by the serious tone of this self-critique, which
is actually one of Jane’s greatest put-ons! It’s written in exactly the sort of mock serious
tone which Darcy calls out, when he shows Eliza that he’s totally aware of the
danger of taking her words at face value: "…you could not really believe me to
entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your
acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally
professing opinions which in fact are not your own." Elizabeth “laughed heartily at this picture of
herself”, and then promptly gave an encore, with “I am particularly unlucky in
meeting with a person so able to expose my real character, in a part of the
world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit….”
But it’s
much more than just the love of a great put-on that gives endless pleasure to
Janeites in the sophisticated comedy of P&P. The dictionary tells us an
epigram is a short proverbial saying which often crosses the reader’s
expectations up at the end, sometimes with paradox. In Eliza’s bon mots, and in many of Darcy’s as
well, there is a deep love of paradox and contradiction--the joy and
enlightenment delivered via a shock of surprise; which jolts the passive reader
into awareness of unexamined assumptions.
There’s
then more than a little of Socrates and Zen masters in Eliza Bennet and Mr.
Darcy, and in that spirit I’ve collected some famous epigrammatical passages from
P&P, accompanied by my analyses of their paradoxical genius. It’s fitting
to begin with the most famous words of Lizzy’s first and most influential teacher
of picturesque and provocative self-expression: her father, the elegant epigrammatist:
"Come
here, child," cried her father as she appeared. "I have sent for you
on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has made you an offer
of marriage. Is it true?" Elizabeth replied that it was. "Very
well—and this offer of marriage you have refused?" "I have, sir."
"Very
well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your accepting it. Is
it not so, Mrs. Bennet?" "Yes,
or I will never see her again."
"An
unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a
stranger to one of your parents. – Your mother will never see you again if you
do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do’”
We
can readily imagine that Mr. Bennet was many times similarly put through his
rhetorical paces by his philosophy tutor at Oxford or Cambridge, and so he delights
in providing a similar but informal education to his precocious daughter, who’d
have manifested an early affinity for inspired play of wit. And we also can
imagine the same game as a regular feature of real life at Steventon when Jane
Austen was a girl; such that she, at age 23---the very age she wrote First Impressions---would’ve found it
second nature to toss off epigrammatic epistolary gems like the one that caught
the eye of new author L.M. Montgomery when she
was writing Anne of Green Gables:
“Miss Blackford is agreeable enough. I do not want people to be very agreeable,
as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great
deal.“
So, here
are some of the passages in P&P in which we witness Lizzy’s (and Darcy’s) dazzling
skill and delight in producing utterances which exhibit that unique and
extraordinary blend of wordplay, rhetoric and epistemology, which helps motivate
Janeites to reread this novel countless times. It only occurs to me now that
the great joke hidden behind JA’s above-quoted epistolary mock self-critique is
that the deepest meanings of the novel are transmitted directly into the reader’s
heart and mind via that same subtle epigrammatism! Austen, like her great
model, Shakespeare, was “unwilling to speak, unless [she] expect[ed] to say
something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with
all the eclat of a proverb.". And
we are that very same posterity, so prepare to be properly amazed:
“…If
I may so express it, he has a right to be proud."
"That
is very true," replied Elizabeth, "and I could easily forgive his
pride, if he had not mortified mine."
Is it
not often the case that our powers of empathy for and understanding of the
foibles of others tend to be disabled when we are attacked on the very same
vulnerability?
"What
a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like
dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished
society."
"Certainly,
sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished
societies of the world. Every savage can dance."
There
is sharp, compelling irony in Darcy, the unabashed elitist, being the puncturer
of Sir William’s pretentious blather. And if we consider more deeply, we also
hear Jane Austen herself, the Audenesque cynic, exposing the clueless hypocrisy
of a society founded on unspeakable economic, social savagery---most of all, colonial
slavery and exploitation of the domestic poor.
"And
so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There has been
many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered
the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!"
"I
have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy.
"Of
a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong
already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced
that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."
How
does one convey love in words? Eliza cynically exposes the fine line between insincere
overblown words of love, and honest expression of feeling.
"Miss
Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great
reader, and has no pleasure in anything else."
"I
deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth; "I am
not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things."
What trial lawyer wouldn’t want to
have Eliza as their star witness, when she demonstrates such lightning fast
agility in dodging leading questions, and then tossing them back with interest?
"All
this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet
add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."
"I
am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I
rather wonder now at your knowing any."
What is particularly apt and lovely
about Elizabeth’s riposte, is that she implicitly demonstrates (to sharp elves,
at least) “the improvement of her mind by extensive reading”, without needing
to make it explicit. And Darcy later shows that he received that message loud
and clear, later, at Rosings, when he says, “You are perfectly right. You have employed your time
much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can think anything
wanting.”
And consider then how JA’s own skill
at conveying ideas to her readers without being explicit, is subliminally contrasted
to Bingley’s style of writing:
"My
ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them—by which means my
letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents."
"Your
humility, Mr. Bingley," said Elizabeth, "must disarm reproof."
And there’s another interesting,
timeless question---does/should humility disarm reproof? In particular, what should we make of Jane
Austen’s own false humility about her own skilled writing that she so famously
minimized in her letters?
"To
yield readily—easily—to the persuasion of a friend is no merit with
you."
"To
yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either."
Eliza and Darcy have quickly gotten
to the heart of the argument---how does one determine when showing proper tact
and delicacy toward the feelings of a friend ends, and paying the compliment of
rational disagreement beings?
"This
walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the avenue."
But
Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them, laughingly
answered:
"No,
no; stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear to uncommon
advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth.
Good-bye."
Once again displaying remarkable
intellectual flexibility, Eliza makes an off the wall yet very suggestive
connection between the seemingly unrelated fields of visual aesthetics an;d interpersonal dynamics –this
being a particularly witty form of proverb-tweaking--saying, in so many words, that
when it comes to both landscapes and shrubbery strolls, “Three’s company, four’s
a crowd”!
"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.
"Your examination of Mr. Darcy
is over, I presume," said Miss Bingley; "and pray what is the
result?"
"I am perfectly convinced by it
that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it himself without disguise."
Here
Bingley has astutely characterized the repartee between Eliza and Darcy as a
scene in an Oxford classroom, which perhaps will surprise those who are quick
to see Bingley as a dull elf. And then Eliza, with the skill of an experienced
don, in effect reframes Darcy’s self-justification as the indirect boast that
it really is. Game on, Darcy:
"No,"
said Darcy, "I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, but
they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is,
I believe, too little yielding—certainly too little for the convenience of the
world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor
their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every
attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good
opinion once lost, is lost forever."
"That
is a failing indeed!" cried Elizabeth. "Implacable resentment is
a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I really cannot laugh
at it. You are safe from me."
And
here Eliza has once again landed a palpable hit on the not-quick-enough
Darcy---she has led him into a trap, and he walks right into it, admitting his
implacable resentment, an even nastier side of his character, which she once
again has brilliantly induced him to reveal. Again, your move, Darcy?:
"There
is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a
natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."
"And
your defect is to hate everybody."
"And
yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand
them."
But here we have the thrillingly brilliantly
climax of this joust---is Eliza willfully misunderstanding him? Or does she use
her exquisite sense of paradox to provoke him into repeatedly hoisting himself
on his own rhetorical petard? Or both?
And then they resume their jousting
at Rosings:
"You
mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? I will
not be alarmed though your sister does play so well. There is a
stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of
others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."
Again,
a paradox: courage encouraged, not discouraged, by intimidation. Is this perhaps
the very scene that Aldous Huxley picked up on, for the scene in his 1939
P&P screenplay, to show us a Darcy who has (shockingly) sent Lady Catherine
to go and try to intimidate Eliza, precisely so as to activate her courage?
And now
that you’re primed, I will leave it to you to provide your own commentary on
the Merry War of (the) Rosings that begins with Darcy rationalizing...
"Perhaps
I should have judged better, had I sought an introduction; but I am
ill-qualified to recommend myself to strangers."
…but ends
with Darcy confessing…
"You
are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted
to the privilege of hearing you can think anything wanting. We neither of us
perform to strangers."
I’ll cut to the end, past the scene
with Lizzy’s conceit on the limited quantities of merit and compassion, and on
to another dialog between Lizzy and Jane, which includes the most enigmatic and
suggestive epigram in the entire novel, one so strange that it never makes it
into any of the P&P films:
"…
I am perfectly satisfied, from what [Bingley’s] manners now are, that he never
had any design of engaging my affection. It is only that he is blessed with
greater sweetness of address, and a stronger desire of generally pleasing, than
any other man." "You are very cruel," said her sister, "you
will not let me smile, and are provoking me to it every moment." "How
hard it is in some cases to be believed!" "And how impossible in others!" "But
why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more than I acknowledge?" "That is a question which I hardly know
how to answer. We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not
worth knowing. Forgive me; and if you persist in indifference, do not make me
your confidante."
The core
paradox of this most philosophical of novels, epitomized in Lizzy’s koan-like
utterance, is that Jane Austen loved to instruct, and she transcended the
paradox by invented a way of teaching what is
worth knowing, by that extraordinarily powerful “non-teaching” tool, her posterity-amazing
epigrams.
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
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