The Dribbling Dart of Love: Redux: Less is not enough

[my response to Nancy Mayer and Cathy Elder's responses to my last previous post on this subject]

I find it fascinating that you prefer an explanation for Catherine's "new idea" [that Catherine fears that Henry has suffered some sort of injury at Woodston] which is not in any way (that I can detect, at least) prepared for by the context of Chapters 26 through 31, over my new explanation, which is extensively prepared for, beginning two chapters earlier in Chapter 26, and which also fits perfectly with the culmination of Henry and Catherine's love, when the General's consent IS finally obtained.

Here are the relevant bits of narration in the paragraphs immediately preceding the exchange between Catherine and Eleanor, which reveal very explicitly and unambiguously what is front and center in Catherine's mind at that very moment, and how urgent and persistent is Catherine's worry that she might not be as beloved of Henry as she loves him:

"Such ease and such delights made her love the place and the people more and more every day; and HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR A DREAD OF ITS SOON BECOMING EXPEDIENT TO LEAVE THE ONE, AND AN APPREHENSION OF NOT BEING EQUALLY BELOVED BY THE OTHER, she would at each moment of each day have been perfectly happy; but she was now in the fourth week of her visit; before the general came home, the fourth week would be turned, and perhaps it might seem an intrusion if she stayed much longer. This was a painful
consideration whenever it occurred; and EAGER TO GET RID OF SUCH A WEIGHT ON HER MIND, she very soon resolved to speak to Eleanor about it at once, propose going away, and be guided in her conduct by the manner in which her proposal might be taken.

Aware that if she gave herself much time, she might feel it difficult to bring forward so unpleasant a subject, SHE TOOK THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY of being suddenly alone with Eleanor, and of Eleanor’s being in the middle of a speech about something very different, to start forth her obligation of going away very soon. Eleanor looked and declared herself much concerned.

She had “hoped for the pleasure of her company for a much longer time — had been misled (perhaps by her wishes) to suppose that a much longer visit had been promised — and could not but think that if Mr. and Mrs. Morland were aware of the pleasure it was to her to have her there, they would be too generous to hasten her return.” Catherine explained: “Oh! As to that, Papa and Mamma were in no hurry at all. As long as she was happy, they would always be satisfied.”

“Then why, might she ask, in such a hurry herself to leave them?”

“Oh! Because she had been there so long.”

“Nay, if you can use such a word, I can urge you no farther. If you think it long — ”

“Oh! No, I do not indeed. For my own pleasure, I could stay with you as long again.”

And it was directly settled that, till she had, her leaving them was not even to be thought of. In having this cause of uneasiness so pleasantly removed, the force of the other was likewise weakened. The kindness, the earnestness of Eleanor’s manner in pressing her to stay, and Henry’s gratified look on being told that her stay was determined, were such sweet proofs of her importance with them, AS LEFT HER ONLY JUST SO MUCH SOLICITUDE AS THE HUMAN MIND CAN NEVER DO COMFORTABLY WITHOUT. She
did — ALMOST ALWAYS — believe that HENRY LOVED HER, and quite always that his father and sister loved and even wished her to belong to them; and believing so far, HER DOUBTS AND ANXIETIES WERE MERELY SPORTIVE IRRITATIONS."
END OF EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 28

My interpretation (which by the way does NOT in any way refer to the shadow story of the novel) takes JA seriously as an author, in that I ascribe to the above all-caps passages a significance, they are not just filler and mood setting passages, but are telling us significant information about Catherine's state of mind at that point in the story.

And the above is IN ADDITION TO the passages in Chapter 26 which I included in my previous message, which similarly show us another aspect of Catherine's "sportive" "doubts and anxieties" about Henry's loving her, and being in a position to obtain his father's consent to his proposing to her. And are in addition to the passages in Chapter 31 where the obtaining of that consent is described.

Whereas....there is absolutely nothing in any of these chapters that I can detect to indicate that Catherine has any worries about Henry being at risk of being physically injured, or of any sort of danger to his body--e.g., there is no indication in the text of the novel that Henry might (as Mrs. Bennet worries about Mr. Bennet) be engaging in a duel with his father or his elder brother.

And...one final point I did not mention previously--JA clearly takes pains in this novel to create situations in which one character is caught by surprise by something that another characters says, and then misinterprets the meaning of what was said. E.g., it happens at Beechen Cliff when Eleanor thinks Catherine is referring to something else when Catherine refers to something horrid coming out in London soon.

If you read the critical literature about NA, as I have, you will see that several commentators have demonstrated in very persuasive ways that one major theme of NA is precisely this "gap" between intended meaning, and understood meaning, how "first impressions" can be erroneous, how we take each other by surprise by what we say to each other, etc.

So it is clear to me that JA deliberately omits any EXPLICIT explanation of what Catherine's "new idea" is which darts into her mind, so as to put the reader to the test of figuring out what it is. And I believe JA expects her reader to be "experimental" in approach to such questions, i.e., to look at the evidence IN THE TEXT, in order to arrive at a reasoned interpretation, rather than seizing upon an explanation that may have the merit of being simple, but which is pulled out of thin air.

So, what I have engaged in is not over-thinking the novel, it is close reading of the novel.

Cheers,
Arnie
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com

P.S.: I had never noticed before that JA wrote the following line near the very beginning of Chapter 28 of NA:

"[The General's] departure [from the Abbey] gave Catherine the first experimental conviction that A LOSS MAY BE SOMETIMES A GAIN."

Of course today this idea is often expressed in the phrase "Less is more".

This happens to bear ironically on our little disagreement about the meaning of Catherine's "new idea", in that you two seem to be suggesting that in this interpretation, "less is more" and that I am complicating things unnecessarily and erroneously. Whereas I would suggest that "Less is more" is not a mandatory rule of interpretation, but instead is a goal to be aspired to when it fits the context of the interpretation. And I claim that in this instance, "Less is not enough."

The Dribbling Dart of Love: Redux

Nine months ago, I wrote a message in this blog in which I collected, and analyzed, several passages from JA's novels which involved the image of a "dart" shooting through the heroine's mind, as being a Cupid-shot dart bearing a sudden certainty (which might or might not be justified by the facts) of true love, of course the most famous one being Emma realizing she loves Knightley.

One of the passages I looked at was in Ch. 28 of NA, and I will repeat it for you all now, before telling you about the certainty (which I claim is justified by the facts) I NOW have as to what the "new idea" was that darted into Catherine's mind:


“My dear Catherine, you must not — you must not indeed — “ were Eleanor’s first connected words. “I am quite well. This kindness distracts me — I cannot bear it — I come to you on such an errand!”

“Errand! To me!”

“How shall I tell you! Oh! How shall I tell you!”

A new idea now DARTED into Catherine’s mind, and turning as pale as her friend, she exclaimed, “’Tis a messenger from Woodston!”

“You are mistaken, indeed,” returned Eleanor, looking at her most compassionately; “it is no one from Woodston. It is my father himself.”


Here's what I wrote last November:

"At that very moment that Catherine imagines that Eleanor is bringing the news that Henry is proposing marriage to Catherine, it turns out that Eleanor is bringing the news that General Tilney is throwing Catherine out of Northanger Abbey! The very opposite of a "proposal"!

In response to my comment, Kathy Elder suggested instead that Catherine had a sudden intuition that something bad had happened to Henry.

What "darted" into MY mind today, as I was rereading Chapter 28 for another purpose, was that BOTH of us were each wrong in a very interesting way, being each half correct, and that the best answer to the question of what Catherine's "new idea" was much funnier, and Austenian, than either of our previous answers! Tell me what you think about my rethinking of this little puzzle, which goes as follows:

The key to my new answer is two chapters earlier, in Chapter 26, where Catherine is obsessing about making sure that Captain Tilney does not propose to Isabella, as Catherine wishes to keep Isabella free to marry James. Eleanor and Henry are too kind to disabuse Catherine of her naive notions about Isabella, and instead seek to reassure her with a good explanation as to why Isabella will never marry Captain Tilney, which is that the General would never give his consent to his heir marrying a portionless girl. It is that "white lie" which has the unintended effect of causing Catherine, who is no dummy, to start worrying that if that is so vis a vis the heir's son, then surely it would be an even bigger obstacle to Henry, the second poorer son, proposing to Catherine herself!!

That is a very disturbing thought indeed, but Catherine tries to bravely carry on at Northanger nonetheless, hoping that the General's partiality toward HERSELF might mitigate her portionlessness. But I now see clearly that JA shows us this train of thought of Catherine, to lay the groundwork for the scene in Ch. 28 which I re-presented above.

When Eleanor comes to Catherine looking very pale and agitated, Catherine's thoughts immediately turn to Captain Tilney and Isabella. But then Eleanor speaks with dread about being sent on "such an errand", and THAT'S when Catherine has her "new idea" about a message from Woodston. What is that idea?

Surely what happens is that, JUST AS SHE DID IN CHAPTER 26, Catherine leaps in her mind from Isabella's portionlessness to her own, and what suddenly terrifies Catherine ten times worse than the fear that James will "lose" Isabella is that she, Catherine, will lose HENRY!

Catherine is attacked by a "poison dart" of Cupid, which is that Henry has designated Eleanor as the deliverer of bad news which he lacks the courage to express to Catherine face to face, which is that he has asked his father for permission to propose to Catherine and has been refused!


So, I was half correct in my November 2009 guess that Henry was using Eleanor as his messenger to propose to Catherine. Indeed, given how we know by Chapter 28 that Catherine is very consciously head over heels in love with Henry by that point, it would be odd for Eleanor OR Catherine to turn pale thinking about such a nice thing!

And Cathy Elder's suggestion, while not incorrect in discerning that it must be something bad that happened to Henry, left out the most important part, which is that the bad thing was (as Catherine imagined it) that the General had nixed Henry's proposal to Catherine!

This would certainly explain Eleanor's paleness and upset, because Eleanor and Catherine had, during the absence of the General, become SO close to each other, to the extent that Eleanor practically begged Catherine to extend her visit at the Abbey.

What do you all think?

Cheers,
Arnie

We are stardust and Jane will rock you

This may sound at first like it is not related to Jane Austen, but it is, at least to my way of thinking. ;)

I just listened today to what is, for me, perhaps the most interesting interview I've ever heard on Fresh Air (or maybe on ANY radio or tv show), with Terri Gross interviewing Brian May, the guitarist of the rock group Queen. This is one for the time capsule, to show the realization of the true potential of radio to inform and give pleasure to a sophisticated listenership.

I knew nothing about May prior to the broadcast (I didn't even know his name), and if you also do not, and want the fun of hearing the broadcast cold, as I did, just go to this link now:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128935865

(the audio will, per that webpage, be available to listen at 5 pm EST)

I mention this here in Austen venues because, as I listened to May giving his witty, intelligent, candid, unscripted reactions to Gross's excellent questions (and I don't always think she asks the best questions, but in this interview, she asked EVERY question I wanted to hear answered!) about audio clips from We Will Rock You and Bohemian Rhapsody, I listened to those old familiar songs with new ears, as a result of the new information I heard regarding their composition, and what May and his deceased groupmate, Freddy Mercury, had in mind as they wrote and recorded them.

The connection to Jane Austen is that it's been a longstanding bone of contention in these groups, especially Janeites, as to whether one can overstudy Jane Austen's novels, and somehow get so lost in erudition and extratextual background that one loses the joy of simply reading the novels. And my reaction to hearing that broadcast of Fresh Air is that I will never again just flip through a Classic Rock radio station,or just listen with one ear, when I hear those two Queen songs, because "I've heard them a thousand times". Instead, I will be listening closely, and hearing them as much more than I imagined they were. And for me, that is what looking at all the allusions, wordplay and other non-obvious aspects of JA's artistry does for my appreciation of the novels themselves--it turns an already rich stereo sound into IMAX quality sound, in terms of my appreciation level!

On top of all that, Brian May is just a joy to listen to, because he is a genuine Renaissance Man. Among other things, he went back to school as an aging Boomer after all his success with Queen, and got his phd in ASTROPHYSICS, and has written a book about the dust that is everywhere in our solar system, and which is falling to earth all the time, and has been for several billion years. It looks like dust to most people, but to him it is a clue to the origins of the solar system.

As he said, when Joni Mitchell sang "we are stardust", she was 100% scientifically accurate.

Cheers, ARNIE

Taking Orders

I've just been mulling over the double meaning of "taking orders" as I see JA using that phrase overtly to refer to becoming a clergyman and covertly to refer to following commands, where the classic example is in the military.

And then I realized how these two seemingly unrelated meanings may have come together in JA's mind in regard to how she perceived the Anglican Church structure in England.

The theory of what it meant to be a clergyman is articulated with great passion and clarity by Edmund Bertram in MP, in his sparring on that subject with the Crawfords, and in his communing on spiritual matters with Fanny. The idealistic image Edmund portrays is a noble one, where the clergyman truly acts as a shepherd to his flock,
teaching by example even more than by advice and counsel, his own daily life intimately wound up with their lives as well.

But look at what actually happens on the ground in MP--Edmund, with his best intentions, is seen, time and again, as a potential force for good who winds up being manipulated and seduced into compromising his noble ideals into a patchwork of rationalizations and ineffectual combat against wrongdoing. In particular, he is utterly helpless in the face of Mary's charms, and he rarely sticks up for Fanny strongly enough to shield her effectively from the likes of Mrs. Norris, and also to some extent from the demands of his father.

Yes, he is kind and attentive to Fanny one on one, that is Edmund at his best, but that's the easy part of the job, if you're not a bad person, and Edmund is not a bad man. But being the pastor of a flock requires a whole lot more in order be effective, and to prevent bad people from having their way with those less powerful.

And Edmund is pretty much the best of the clergymen in JA's fictional worlds. Think about Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton, who just happen to be two characters who, as I have just demonstrated in my prior messages, JA links to the double meaning on taking orders---regardless of their cant and flattery, their behavior tells you what their "missions" are, and that is to garner wealth, suck up to the powerful, and not bother much with the little people, or with true affection in their private lives. Emma sketches a flattering portrait of Harriet, but JA paints an UNFLATTERING
portrait of clergymen in her novels.

And that's precisely where I see the metaphor of "taking orders" taking on a broader meaning in JA's mind. I think she saw the Anglican church as a societal system which in theory was there to implement the Christian message of caring for the poor and the powerless, but which in practice was a vehicle for systematically stifling and ignoring the genuine needs of the poor and the powerless, turning not the other cheek, but a blind eye and deaf ear to injustice, particularly toward women.

And in particular, I believe that JA saw women, even women who were born to economic and social privilege, as being closer in life experience to the economically and socially poor and powerless, because sexism was deeply embedded into the society and the societal structures which implemented and enforced that sexism-and the Anglican church was one of those structures.

And so, regardless of high flown rhetoric in conduct books and sermons, I believe JA saw "taking orders" to become a clergyman as an initiation of a man into the role of "taking orders" from the powers that be, so as to be a foot soldier in the preservation of the status quo, particularly its sexism.

Which is not at all to suggest that JA did not hold strong Christian beliefs. I am certain she did, passionately so, but I think she saw private action by good private lay people of conscience, equally sensitive to the true needs of women as well as men, as the best vehicle for expression of Christian ideals in her real world. She was intensely pragmatic and, as Auden so wisely opined, she was the furthest thing from innocent in terms of seeing the world as it was. She recognized early on that doing good in a world of unfair privileges of all kinds would require great skill, courage, finesse, and, yes, at times, deception and subversion, in order to do justice and kindness to others, and be effective.

Deeds not words shall thunder (where is that line from?) would have been JA's creed, I think.

Cheers,
Arnie

The Duty (and the Beauty) of the Day

"Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day"

Thank you very much, Diana, for pointing us to the above passage from P&P. You got me wondering whether there was a common usage of that phrase "duty of the day" in JA's era, so I consulted ECCO and Google Books and here is what I found:

There were NO usages during the entire 18th century (at least, usages searchable via those two separate databases) which used that phrase. That suggests to me that it was NOT a longstanding idiom with a clear meaning, when JA wrote P&P.

However, there were three usages which popped up during the early part of the 19th century, right around the time P&P was finalized and published, and here they are (I quote at length, partly to give sufficient context, but also because, if you're a Janeite nerd like myself, it's just interesting to read accounts of political, military and clerical subcultural goings-on from JA's time):

MILITARY CONNOTATION:

The 1812 Annual Register (edited by Edmund Burke--but not THE Edmund Burke), a chronicle of significant events, day by day, relating to history and politics, has the following entry (edited down by me to remove apparent extranea) for September 30, 1812 (this book was published sometime in 1813, probably shortly after Jan. 29, 1813, when JA wrote to CEA about lopping and cropping P&P):

"The ceremony of depositing in Whitehall chapel the eagles and colours heroically wrested from the French in Spain, took place this morning. Soon after nine o'clock, the 1st regiment of Guards, WHO WERE TO DO THE DUTY OF THE DAY, formed on the parade facing the Horse guards, with their right resting on the wall of the Treasury. On their left the 2d regiment formed, with side-arms only, their left terminating near the great gun. The 3d regiment, also, with sidearms only, formed with the Admiralty garden in their rear....Soon after ten o'clock, the Duchess of York arrived; her Majesty and the Princesses, in two carriages, soon followed, and were received by the troops with presented arms, the different bands playing " God save the king."...The Prince Regent, on a white charger, came from Carlton house, at half-past ten, accompanied by the Duke of York on foot, the Duke of Kent, Colonels Bloomfield, Congreve, and Torrens, and several other officers on horseback. His Royal Highness, on reaching the parade, was received with the usual honours, and took his station in front.....[After more ceremonial maneuvers were completed,] the Prince Regent, Dukes of York and Kent, &c. proceeded to Whitehall to hear divine service. The concourse of people assembled on the occasion was immense, and the spectacle altogether was of the most gratifying description. It was impossible to view, without feelings of exultation, those trophies which bore witness to the prowess of British soldiers, and which were won from no despicable enemy, but from troops whose military reputation stands so high in Europe....At half-past eleven the procession moved to the chapel, amid the acclamations of many thousand spectators; the Prince Regent continued in front near half an hour, and the troops passed in review order. The Life-guards gave some fine specimens of THE RAPIDITY OF THEIR EVOLUTIONS. At half-past two, the Queen, Princesses, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the Prince Regent, and Dukes of York and Kent, came again on the parade. All the Cabinet Ministers in town were present."

So, this example clearly points to a very contemporary usage in a military context. And we can imagine JA would have been right up to date on military lingo, given that she had two brothers in the navy, another brother who had served in the militia, and all the Austens having numerous friends and family who were in or closely connected to the military.

By the way, I put that later phrase "RAPIDITY..." in ALL CAPS because I was reminded of the following narration from Emma, which Jill Heydt Stevenson took particular note of as having a different connotation:

"Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; -- but when a beginning is made -- when THE FELICITIES OF RAPID MOTION have once been, though slightly, felt -- it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more."

CLERICAL CONNOTATION

The second usage I found was from The Anti-Jacobin Magazine for 1806, a publication I suspect JA was well aware of. It is a review of an 1805 book, The Stranger in Ireland; or a Tour in the Southern and Western Parts of the Country, in the year 1805, by John Carr, Esq., Author of a Northern Summer, &c.

Now, before going to the excerpt from this review, I recognized that name "Carr" and sure enough, here is what JA wrote to CEA in a late January, 1813 letter--again, exactly that same moment when she was lopping and cropping P&P!:

"{Fanny K] has got Sir John Carr's Travels in Spain, and I am reading a Society octavo, an Essay on the Military Police and Institutions of the British Empire, by Capt. Pasley of the Engineers, a book which I protested against at first, but which upon trial I find delightfully written and highly entertaining."

So it seems pretty much definite that JA, who we know read all sorts of travel accounts (which, by the way, is hardly the reading preference of a person who is uninterested in the wider world), would have been very interested in reading a well-written review of a book by this travel author she knew, especially as there would be the added interest that Tom Lefroy was by then an ambitious and upwardly mobile cleric in Ireland:

"Our opinion of Mr. Carr, as a pleasant and instructive traveller, and as an intelligent narrator of his' own tours, has, on former occasions, been sufficiently explained, so as to render any repetition of it here perfectly unnecessary. In his tour, however, through a country, forming a part of his native realm, harassed hy intestine broils, and in which religious and political differences of a serious and even /radical /nature, if we may so say, and productive of the most dire effects, prevail to an alarming extent, we were fully aware, that he would have difficulties to encounter which he had never before experienced, except, perhaps (though in a much inferior degree} in his visit to the Court of St. Clouti, during the dangerous truce of Amiens; and we think we have discovered, in the contents of the volume before us, sufficient grounds for believing that the difficulties to which we allude have, in many instances, given a bias to his opinions.

We shall not attempt to follow our tourist, step by step, nor yet to accompany him in his ^visits to buildings and places which have been described again and again, and which present little that is interesting, and nothing that is novel. But we shall stop with him at such spots as afford him matter for animadversion, and as have any thing either attractive in itself, or rendered so by his view or account of it.....

...The following is a lamentable picture of the defective state of the church establishment in Ireland. There are two thousand four hundred and thirty-six parishes, one thousand and one churches, and only three hundred and fifty-five glebe, or parsonage-houses. The benefices, or union-parishes, amount to one thousand one hundred and twenty ; so that there are [many] parishes without any residences for the clergyman, and [many] parishes without churches/..../Here again is a subject which opens a vast field for discussion, but into which discussion Mr. Carr forbears to enter. When we were first informed of this fact (but a few months ago) we were lost in astonishment; and we laid by the printed paper, containing the statement, with a full intent of animadverting upon it, much at large, as soon as a fit opportunity should occur. We have now looked for it, in order to compare it with Mr. Carr's account; hut unfortunately we cannot find it. We have no doubt, however, of our author's accuracy, and therefore we shall take it for granted that the fact is as he stales it....It cannot be denied that the residence of the clergy is a matter of necessity in every country, but more particularly so, in such a country as Ireland, where so large a portion of the population as three-fifths, are Papists. But, at the same time, it would have been particularly hard to enforce residence, without previously providing a habitation for the clergy. Had Mr. Grattan (of whose abilities as a statesman, and of whose powers as an orator, Mr. Carr thinks much more highly than we do, as will be seen hereafter) built his opposition to the bill in question on this ground, he would have been entitled to credit; but he could have informed Mr. Carr, that a clergyman who does /not /rent a house in his parish, and who has /no /curate to perform the service for him, but who resides in his own mansion at a distance, and gallops over on a Sunday to DO THE DUTY OF THE DAY, earnestly entreated him to oppose the bill, which, he feared, would reduce him to the dire necessity of giving up a living, the revenue of which is small, and no object to him; and that, in point of fact (Mr. G.) did not oppose the bill till so entreated, and therefore it is natural to conclude, that he only opposed it in consequence of such entreaty...."

So here we have a clerical connotation of that phrase, which bears a striking resonance to the passage about ANOTHER horseback-riding clergyman, Tom Chute, which I quoted yesterday from JA's April 1805 letter to CEA.

ANOTHER CLERICAL CONNOTATION:

From Matthew Henry's 1805 Biblical commentary volumes, An Exposition of all the Books of the Old and New Testaments, we have the following short passage, in a commentary on the Book of the prophet Ezekiel:

"Sabbaths, if duly sanctified, are the means of our sanctification: If we DO THE DUTY OF THE DAY, we shall find to our comfort, it is the Lord that sanctifies us ; makes us holy, that is, truly happy, here ; and prepares us to be happy, that is, perfectly holy, hereafter."

What is interesting here is that the duty of the day referenced by Henry is not that of the clergyman leading the service, but of the parishioners ("we") who observe the Sabbath by (as Henry puts it) their "attendance on God in solemn assemblies on sabbath-days, [and thereby] they were made to increase in the knowledge of God..."

And that's it--no other usages from prior to 1830--any patterns of usage subsequent to 1830 would, I am sure you'd agree, be irrelevant to what JA meant by using the phrase.

So, what light do the three above usages shed on our original question of what JA meant by this phrase? I think, a great deal. It shows that contemporary usage of that phrase was comprehensible in BOTH the military AND the clerical realms! And knowing JA for the punster and double meaning hound she was, she would have folded that double meaning into the same metaphorical matrix as "taking orders".

And think about how well that duality of meaning fits the relationship of Mr. Collins to Lady Catherine. If they were an army, is there any doubt that she is the General, and Collins is her slavishly toadyish aide-de-camp, racing around in every direction to assure that every one of Lady Catherine's "orders" is not only performed to the letter, but is anticipated? For Collins, the "duty of the day" in the Anglican church only occurs once per week, but "the duty of the day" in the Church of the All Knowing and All Powerful Our Lady of Rosings Catherine de Bourgh is an EVERYDAY responsibility--but as we see, Collins is up to the task! ;)

And isn't what I've just described the diametric opposite of Wickham's Satanic and unflagging REFUSAL to take orders from Darcy, come hell or Lydia Bennet?

It is the bookend that tells us for 100% certain that this was all as conceived in the orderly, unslovenly metaphorical world of Austen's fiction!

And in light of all of that, don't you now allow for the possibility that the passage I quoted about Tom Chute from JA's 1805 letter was part and parcel of the same sort of word play concealing deeper unspoken meaning trasmitted by sister to sister?

So, you see, Diana, your response, which at first might have seemed to suggest a halt to the line of inquiry I started, actually greatly assisted me in clarifying and deepening my understanding! Discussion of such points with other knowledgeable Janeites is a beautiful thing!

Cheers, ARNIE

Jane's Janes

[This is my response to comments by Tracy Marks in Austen L, shown in quotes, which are so interesting I wanted to respond to them in all the usual venues]

"I wonder how much the Elizabeth/Jane relationship was modelled on the real life Jane Austen/Cassandra relationship. Aand I still remain puzzled why Jane Austen named Jane Bennet after herself. From what I've read, her character was MUCH more like Elizabeth. As a writer, I can't imagine naming a character after myself and then giving her a personality so very different from myself. But then again, I don't have Jane Austen's skill at so fully immersing herself in a variety of very diverse characters <-"

Indeed, Tracy, you are barking up a very promising tree---all of my research on Emma has shown me that Jane Fairfax is named "Jane" precisely because she is the SHADOW heroine of that novel, and is an alter ego of the author, in much more profound ways than Emma is. That is the core "joke" of the novel.

So my short answer to you is that yes, you're entirely correct, Jane Austen did NOT name her fictional Janes after herself without giving them each a great deal of her own personality. To paraphrase Siggy Freud, this line of inquiry is indeed one of the royal roads to a greater understanding of all her novels--we need to bring to ourselves to a consciousness of who her fictional Janes REALLY are. .

And so, yes, that is why I have in the past few months come to also look much more closely at Jane Bennet, who of course is not a shadowy figure in P&P in the same way Jane Fairfax is--and that's also why I posed that question two months ago in these groups about characters who've been given too short shrift by readers, in order to prompt others to do likewise. And now you've rewarded me with an answer which sparks my imagination very strongly!

We read a lot of words spoken BY Jane Bennet in the novel, unlike Jane Fairfax, whom we almost never hear speaking, and surely that is important data in our forming our opinions about who Jane Bennet is, which we don't receive about Jane Fairfax. However, the key point is that while we hear Jane speaking a lot, we are NEVER inside Jane Bennet's head, and so our perspective on Jane Bennet is decisively shaped by the very strong impressions (first AND subsequent) of Jane that are imprinted in our minds by LIZZY's perceptions and opinions about Jane! Lizzy is a VERY strong minded and opinionated student of human personality, and she is also so charming and witty that it is nearly impossible to avoid being seduced into seeing things the way she does. So, it is very hard indeed to overcome Lizzy's "prejudice" about who Jane "really" is, and also, most of what Jane says in the novel is spoken TO LIZZY.

Think about the wisdom you sometimes hear spoken or read in self-help or other psychologizing books, about how dangerous it is to judge a person's entire character by the way that person speaks to, or behaves around, ONE person in the entire world! I think about myself, and realize that I appear as one sort of person when I am talking with my father, another sort of person when I am talking with my male buddies, a third person when talking to my sons, a fourth person when talking to my wife, and a fifth person when talking in these Austen groups! But who am I "really"? Very hard to say, even for me!

By the same logic, flipped, one of the thousand fascinating things about JA's novels is that we actually are in a position to get to know the heroines REALLY well, because we see them speaking to, and behaving around, a BUNCH of very different people. So, if we pay attention, we can make some pretty solid inferences about which aspects of their personalities are stable across different interpersonal settings, versus those aspects of their character which only spring into full force when they are around particular people in their lives. But...we must be careful not to be seduced into adopting the heroine's self-definition--that is as big a sandtrap in regard to judging her personality, as it is in judging the subordinate characters.

Which is why I claim P&P would be a VERY different novel, if it were told from, say, Jane Bennet's point of view. Jane is so discreet, so tactful, so willing to let Lizzy take center stage, so willing to be the best SUPPORTING actor, that we really have no idea what she's like when she's NOT around Lizzy! Maybe those are her moments to really run wild, to go crazy, to let it all hang out and shine on her own. The clues are there in the novel, if we dig for them. The one thing you can be 100% sure of, is that JA had this sort of double vision front and center in her own mind as she wrote her novels.

"For many children, sibling relationships are more impactful than their relationships with parents, and help them cope with the difficulties of childhood and adolescence, as well as provide a primary support throughout adulthood - perhaps moreso for females than male. And often I find, people choose partners who more likely resemble a sibling than a parent."

I also love your above observations about the often neglected impact of sibling relationships on personality development. That may be THE crowning glory of P&P, in its depiction of how five sisters affect and shape each other's development while growing up, and the way that this little family "ecosystem" evolves over the course of 15-20 years of living together under the same roof at close quarters, and the way that each one seems to gravitate toward a "niche" distinct from the niches of each of their other sisters.

It's obvious to me that during the "life" of P&P itself--JA's "darling child"---which was "conceived", as best we can tell, around 1798, but which had a very long gestation and was not finally born until FIFTEEN years later, the novel evolved in JA's mind, and on however many versions she went through on paper. And then, just before "delivery", in a burst of sheer genius (or was she prompted by one of her close friends and family who were giving her advice about the writing?), she took the incredibly bold step of performing RADICAL surgery on it JUST BEFORE it was born!! With all the lopping and cropping, it must have been almost unrecognizable in relation to what it was before the surgery. So that when it burst into the world, its apparent resemblance to its earliest "blastula" was probably almost nil. And yet....perhaps, as Lizzy says, in substance it was perhaps very much the same. And surely a part of what Jane Austen had in mind when she gave those words to Lizzy to speak to Wickham, was the novel itself.

That paradox is at the heart of the holy mystery and miracle of P&P!!!

Thanks for spurring me to think along this very fruitful line of inquiry, Tracy! ;)

Cheers,
Arnie

P.S. re Taking Orders--Oh, Chute!

Six weeks ago, I posted a couple of times about the punning use of the phrase "taking orders" in JA's novels, particularly MP. I have just briefly revisited that subject, with the benefit of six weeks perspective, and have the following points to add, which I believe greatly strengthen my earlier claims that JA was very actively engaged, on multiple levels, with the many meanings of the word "orders".

POINT ONE: First, I now see a very interesting comparison between

(i) young men (including, notably, half of the men who end up marrying the novel's heroine) who end up "taking orders" in the sense of going into the clergy (Henry Tilney, Mr. Collins, Edward, and Edmund) , or NOT going into the clergy (Mr. Wickham conspicuously alone in this category of men who consider entering the clergy, but do not--am I forgetting anybody else?).

AND, on the other side of the gender divide,

(ii) young women who REFUSE to "take orders" in regard to a man's proposal ---think of Lizzy refusing Mr. Collins's proposal, Lizzy refusing Darcy's first proposal, Lizzy refusing Lady Catherine's demand that Lizzy REFUSE Darcy's second (as yet hypothetical) proposal, and finally also Fanny refusing Henry Crawford's sorta proposal (does he actually propose? I am too lazy to check)..

It's interesting to think about the parallels and contrasts between these seemingly unrelated life situations, besides the punning connection via the phrase "taking orders", and my sense is that JA subtly gave considerable attention to this comparison.

By the way, does anyone know the origin of the expression "taking orders" in relation to entering the clergy? I'd be very surprised if its origin was a military metaphor, i.e., becoming a clergyman was equivalent to enlisting to take orders in the battle to win souls. If it had to do with enter a given religious "order", the verb "taking" would not seem a good fit, so much as "entering".

POINT TWO: Second, it occurred to me for the first time to check JA's letters to see whether she ever made reference to "taking orders", and what I found was only one, but WHAT a very interesting one it is!:

In Letter 44 dated 4/21-23/05, the final surviving letter written by JA while living in Bath, JA writes the following to CEA:

"You told me some time ago that Tom Chute had had a fall from his horse, but I am waiting to know how it happened before I begin pitying him, as I cannot help suspecting it was in consequence of his taking orders; very likely as he was going to do Duty or returning from it."

Here's what I found out about Tom Chute-he was an old Steventon friend, who is mentioned in passing in several of JA's letters written when she was in her twenties, but then disappearing. He was three years older than JA, he never married (after living to 53, so that is a noteworthy fact), he served in the Cavalry in his late twenties and was ordained at age 32 and held a couple of local livings till his death...three years before which, at age 50, upon the death of his elder brother William-John, he inherited The Vyne--so I strongly suspect he was an avid hunter and an intimate of James Austen all their mutual lives.

Now, when we factor in all that data (provided by Le Faye, by the way), there is something very very playful about what JA wrote, it's yet another one of her abrupt and brief epistolary veerings away from gossip to a bit of absurdist fantasy, before returning to quotidian gossip once more. Why in the world would JA bring up CEA's having told JA "some time ago" about Tom having fallen from his horse? Tom is not otherwise mentioned in this long letter. And why would his taking orders have anything to do with his falling from a horse? When I read the words "I cannot help suspecting...", I am immediately reminded of Mary Crawford mentioning that she does NOT want to be suspected of a pun, precisely so that everyone listening will be on high alert for the pun she just made!

And note that JA in that same sentence also refers to Tom Chute doing Duty, which, as I checked, seems to refer, as you might expect, to performing military service, which, as we know from the above facts, he did do.

So, what does JA mean by all this? The tone is clearly that of mockery and put-on, as otherwise it would suggest that JA was indulging in some rather mean spirited Schadenfreude--why dredge up the memory of an old accident, just to mock it by giving to the accident victim only conditional sympathy? It would be an especially crazy thing for JA to write if she really meant what she was writing, because only 5 months earlier, a fatal fall from a horse left JA without her dearest female mentor, Madam Lefroy. So, to me, this is black humor, making a joke out of pain, something I believe JA did, a lot.

Otherwise, and relevant to the subject of this entire message, I believe it is safe to assert that JA was also playing with the pun of "taking orders", as relating both to the clerical AND the military realms which the young man Tom Chute straddled. And perhaps the punch line is that it is a hint that Tom was not wishing to "take orders" in the commonplace sense of obeying someone else's commands.

Is it possible, e.g., that JA is hinting that Tom's personal situation involves BOTH of the scenarios I addressed above, ie., while Tom seemed most willing to "take orders" as a clergyman and as a cavalryman, he was NOT amenable to "taking orders" from his parents or much older brother, who were financially substantial folk, to take a more illustrious career path, or to find a wealthy wife---orders which he decided NOT to take?

And just as I wrote those last words, I had a wild thought--did I detect the ghostly presence of the real life Tom Chute in the character of Edward Ferrars, a young man who takes clerical orders despite being pressed by his mother to take a high profile career and a wealthy wife, and who refers to Willoughby as a hunter. And, most relevant of all to the above, the passages late in S&S in which Colonel Brandon gives Elinor the dubious "commission" to tell Edward about Brandon's gift to him of the Delaford living has a distinctly military flavor, exactly analogous in blurring the line between military and domestic realms, to that which I described in my previous message regarding Mr. Elton's "commission" from Emma to get Harriet's portrait framed.

Cheers, ARNIE


P.S. Le Faye has this to say about Tom Chute in a very recent Persuasions article: "...the Reverend Tom Chute might well have been a suitable match for Jane. However, she seems not to have liked the Chute family very much; and in any case Tom later left The Vyne and spent much of his life at another of the Chute estates, in Norfolk, remaining unmarried to his dying day."