“He is a rogue, of course, but a civil one”: “The Restoration” of “Filthy” Innuendo to Jane Austen’s Letter 121 (and also to Letters 57 & 63)

 Letter 121: “Mr. Murray’s letter is come. He is a rogue, of course, but a civil one. He offers £450 but wants to have the copyright of Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility included. It will end in my publishing for myself, I daresay. He sends more praise, however, than I expected.”

The above famous passage in Letter 121 caught my eye today with the epigrammatical wit of “He is a rogue, of course, but a civil one.” Past experience has taught me to suspect a veiled allusion in such instances, and sure enough, Google quickly led me through a trail that begins with a heretofore unrecognized but significant literary allusion by Jane Austen, and ends with some of her filthiest (and I use that specific word for a playful but scholarly reason) sexual innuendo, once again demonstrating her deep but largely unrecognized affinity with the rakish, subversive, sexy wit of Restoration comedy.

This post will be a tad long, only because I will be quoting  a few play scenes so that you don’t need to follow links to read the actual textual evidence. But I swear to you, the payoff, in terms of proof of my claims about Jane Austen, will be well worth it!

Specifically, I will by the end of this post ascribe a very unexpected meaning to the following line in Letter 63:

“I shall not tell you anything more of Wm. Digweed's china, as your silence on the subject makes you unworthy of it."

But first, to “the Restoration” part of my argument:

WILLIAM WYCHERLEY’S FAMOUS PLAYS: THE PLAIN DEALER & THE COUNTRY WIFE

When I searched Google Books for “civil & rogue” prior to 1816, I found myself reading the following scene from Act 2, Scene 1 of William Wycherley’s The Plain Dealer, in which the hero, Captain Manly, is eavesdropping on his mistress Olivia as she gossips about Manly with “Novel, a pert railing Coxcomb, and an admirer of novelties, makes love to Olivia”:

Olivia. I heard of his fighting only, without particulars, and confess I always loved his brutal courage, because it made me hope it might rid me of his more brutal love.

Manly. What's that? [Aside.]

Olivia. But is he at last returned, d'ye say, unhurt?

Novel. Ay, faith, without doing his business; for the rogue has been these two years pretending to a wooden leg, which he would take from fortune as kindly as the staff of a marshal of France, and rather read his name in a gazette--

Olivia. Than in the entail of a good estate.

Manly. So! [Aside.]

Novel. I have an ambition, I must confess, of losing my heart before such a fair enemy as yourself madam; but that silly rogues should be ambitious of losing their arms, and--

Olivia. Looking like a pair of compasses.

Novel. But he has no use of his arms but to set 'em on kimbow, for he never pulls off his hat, at least not to me, I'm sure; for you must know, madam, he has a fanatical hatred to good company: he can't abide me.

Lord Plausible. O, be not so severe to him, as to say he hates good company: for I assure you he has a great respect, esteem and kindness for me.

Manly. THAT KIND, CIVIL ROGUE has spoken yet ten thousand times worse of me than t'other. [Aside.]

Olivia. Well, if he be returned, Mr. Novel, then shall I be pestered again with his boisterous sea-love; have my alcove smell like a cabin, my chamber perfumed with his tarpaulin Brandenburgh; and hear volleys of brandy-sighs, enough to make a fog in one's room. Foh! I hate a lover that smells like Thames Street!

Manly. [Aside.] I can bear no longer, and need hear no more.--[To Olivia.] But since you have these two pulvillio boxes, these essence-bottles, this pair of musk-cats here, I hope I may venture to come yet nearer you.

Olivia. Overheard us then!

Novel. I hope he heard me not. [Aside.]     END QUOTE

So, Captain Manly uses the phrase “civil rogue” to describe a man who says flattering, nice things to your face, but then stabs you in the back when you’re not around. And that certainly informs our understanding of what Jane Austen is saying, in code, about John Murray to Cassandra, which is that he’s a flatterer  (“He sends more praise, however, than I expected”) whom you can’t trust farther than you can throw him!

And if that were all the benefit gained from my curiosity about a witty phrase of Jane Austen’s, then that would be enough….but there’s much much more, so please keep reading!

What alerted me to keep digging was the following description of William Wycherley:

Wikipedia, edited down by me: “The Plain Dealer is a Restoration comedy by William Wycherley [first performed in] 1676...based on Moliere’s Le Misanthrope, and is generally considered Wycherley's finest work along with The Country Wife. The play was highly praised by John Dryden and John Dennis, though it was equally condemned for its obscenity by many. Throughout the 18th century it was performed in a bowdlerized version by Isaac Bickerstaffe. The title character is Captain Manly, a sailor who doubts the motives of everyone he meets except for his sweetheart, Olivia, and his friend, Vernish. When Olivia jilts him and marries Vernish, he attempts to gain revenge by sending a pageboy (who, unknown to him, is a girl in disguise and is in love with him) to seduce Olivia. When the truth of the page's identity is discovered, Manly marries her instead.”

Aside from recognizing the obvious debt Wycherley owed to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night as well as to Moliere, I was intrigued, dug some more, and found this:

1911 Britannica:  “Scarcely inferior to The Country Wife is The Plain Dealer-- a play of which Voltaire said "I know not of a single comedy of either the ancients or the moderns where there is so much wit." This comedy had an immense influence, as regards manipulation of dialogue, upon all subsequent English comedies of repartee….[alluded to by Burns and Sterne]…it is in the fourth and fifth acts that the coruscations of Wycherley's comic genius are the most dazzling; also, it is there that the licentiousness is the most astonishing….Being less humorous than Vanbrugh's scenes, they are more terribly and earnestly realistic; therefore they seem more wicked.”  

So Wycherley’s somewhat notorious influence and reputation had clearly survived well into the 18^th century, but it also remained highly visible in the 20^th as well:

James Branch Cabell (1919): “For the comedy of Gallantry took its cue from the Court of Charles the Second, where morality was strictly conformable to the standards of spinsters whose inexplicable children were viewed with a peculiar tenderness by the king. And these Carolan arbiters—the Duchess of Cleveland, the Duchess of Portsmouth, the Duchess of Richmond, and other ladies of the bedchamber, were not duchesses of Lewis Carroll's creation, intent on finding a moral in everything. . . One of these dainty iniquities had, indeed, bestowed considerable and even profoundly personal favors on Wycherley, in return for verses in praise of her ancient calling: and the dramatist, remembering it was the Duchess of Cleveland who had lifted him to fame and participation in royal privileges, felt perhaps that common gratitude demanded of him a little rough treatment of virtues any general practise of which would involve the destitution of his benefactress. Whatever his motives, Wycherley manifested scant respect for the integrity of the Seventh Commandment, or in fact for any sort of integrity. This, of course, was very reprehensible. Yet the plays of this William Wycherley make rather more than interesting reading, for there is in his wit a genuine vigor that withstands the lapse of time and the distraction of explanatory notes. One may yet smile over the clever things said in his comedies, without being profoundly in sympathy with the speakers. For Wycherley's priapeans are, when you view them closely, in nothing an improvement upon actual human beings. They have forsaken blank verse for something very like the real speech of unusually quick-witted persons in social intercourse: and their behavior springs from no more exalted motives than people ordinarily bring into a drawing-room. In depicting character, and in his dialogue, Wycherley was the first of English writers to attempt anything like sustained "realism": and it is a quaint reflection that JANE AUSTEN IS HIS LITERARY GRANDDAUGHTER.”

At this point, I was REALLY intrigued about Wycherley as a covert allusive source for Jane Austen’s own covertly ribald wit. I, like Cabell, sensed an affinity, and I also knew well of Jane Austen’s special interest in the peccadillos of the rich and famous, like the real life ladies of honour whom Wycherley had lampooned in his plays. So I dug still further, and struck gold, it turns out, when I came across the following 1989 critical commentary on The Country Wife in The London Theatre Record:

“Notorious scenes in the play include "the china scene", a sustained double entendre dialogue mostly heard from off stage, where Horner is purportedly discussing his china collection with two of his lady friends. The husband of Lady Fidget and the grandmother of Mrs. Squeamish are listening front stage and nodding in approval, failing to pick up the double meaning which is obvious to the audience. Lady Fidget has already explained to her husband that Horner "knows china very well, and has himself very good, but will not let me see it lest I should beg some. But I will find it out, and have what I came for yet" (IV.iii.110). Dialogue such as this made "china" a dirty word in common conversation, Wycherley later claimed.”

And now, here’s “the china scene” from The Country Wife, with my added capitalizations to bring out the bawdy meanings—it’s easy to see why this scene became emblematic of the sexual double entendre:

Horner. Stay here a little, I'll ferret her out to you presently, I warrant.

[Exit Horner at the other door. Sir Jasper talks through the door to his wife, she answers from within.]

Sir Jasper. Wife, my Lady Fidget, wife, HE IS COMING IN TO YOU THE BACK WAY.

Lady Fidget. LET HIM COME, AND WELCOME, WHICH WAY HE WILL.

Sir Jasper. He'll catch you, and use you roughly, and be too strong for you.

Lady Fidget. Don't you trouble yourself, LET HIM IF HE CAN.

Quack. [Behind.] This indeed I could not have believed from him, nor any but my own eyes.

[Enter Mrs. Squeamish.]

Squeamish. Where's this woman-hater, this toad, this ugly, greasy, dirty sloven?

Sir Jasper. So, the women all will have him ugly; methinks he is a comely person; but his wants make his form contemptible to them; and 'tis e'en as my wife said yesterday, talking of him, that a proper handsome eunuch was as ridiculous a thing, as a gigantic coward.

Squeamish. Sir Jasper, your servant: where is the odious beast?

Sir Jasp, HE’S WITHIN IN HIS CHAMBER, WITH MY WIFE; she's playing the wag with him.

Squeamish. Is she so? and he's a clownish beast, he'll give her no quarter, he'll play the wag with her again, let me tell you. Come, let's go help her—What, the doors locked?

Sir Jasper. Ay, my wife locked it—

Squeamish. Did she so? let us break it open then.

Sir Jasper. No, no, he'll do her no hurt.

Squeamish. No.But is there no other way to get in to them; whither goes this? I will disturb them. [Aside.]

[Exit Squeamish at another door. Enter Old Lady Squeamish.]

……

[Enter Lady Fidget with a piece of CHINA in her hand, and Horner following]

Lady Fidget. And I have been toiling and moiling, for the prettiest piece of CHINA, my dear.

Horner. NAY, SHE HAS BEEN TOO HARD FOR ME, DO WHAT I COULD.

Squeamish. Oh, lord, I'll have some CHINA too, good Mr. Horner; don't think to give other people  CHINA, and me none? come in with me too.

Horner. UPON MY HONOUR, I HAVE NONE LEFT NOW.

Squeamish. Nay, stay, I HAVE KNOWN YOU DENY YOUR CHINA BEFORE NOW; but you shan't put me off so come-

Horner. THIS LADY HAD THE TEST THERE.

Lady Fidget. YES INDEED, MADAM TO MY CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE HE HAS NO MORE LEFT.

Squeamish. OH, BUT IT MAY BE HE MAY HAVE SOME YOU COULD NOT FIND.

Lady Fidg. WHAT D’YE THINK IF HE HAD HAD ANY LEFT, I WOULD NOT HAVE HAD IT TOO? FOR WE WOMEN OF QUALITY NEVER THINK WE HAVE CHINA ENOUGH.

Horner. Do not take it ill; I CANNOT MAKE CHINA FOR YOU ALL; but 1 WILL HAVE A ROLL-WAGGON FOR YOU, TOO, ANOTHER TIME.

Squeamish. Thank you, dear toad  [To Horner aside]

Lady Fidget. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT PROMISE?

Horner. ALAS, SHE HAS AN INNOCENT, LITERAL UNDERSTANDING.  [Apart to Lady Fidget.]

END QUOTE

And…(it gets better and better)…a little more digging still on my part revealed that Wycherley could not resist revisiting his by then notorious  “china” joke in his next play, which happened to be The Plain Dealer—but what’s amazing from an Austenian perspective is that his self-referential reprise happens to be within a page or two of the very same passage I quoted above as having been Jane Austen’s source for calling John Murray a “civil rogue”—which means that Jane Austen would have certainly have read the following explicit decoding and debriefing of “the china scene” in the following scene!:

Lord Plausible. Mrs. Hoyden! a poor, affable, good-natured soul. But the divine Mrs. Trifle comes thither too. Sure her beauty, virtue, and conduct, you can say nothing to.

Olivia. No.

Novel. No!--Pray let me speak, madam.

Olivia. First, can any one be called beautiful that squints?

Lord Plausible. Her eyes languish a little, I own.

Novel. Languish! ha! ha!

Olivia. Languish--Then, for her conduct, SHE WAS SEEN AT THE COUNTRY WIFE after the first day. There's for you, my lord.

Lord Plausible. But, madam, she was not seen to use her fan all the play long, turn aside her head, or by a conscious blush discover more guilt than modesty.

Olivia. Very fine! Then you think a woman modest that sees the hideous COUNTRY WIFE without blushing or publishing her detestation of it? D'ye hear him, cousin?

Eliza. Yes, and am, I must confess, something of his opinion; and think, that as an over-conscious fool at a play, by endeavouring to show the author's want of wit, exposes his own to more censure, so may a lady call her own modesty in question, by publicly cavilling with the poet's. For all those grimaces of honour and artificial modesty disparage a woman's real virtue, as much as the use of white and red does the natural complexion: and you must use very, very little, if you would have it thought your own.

Olivia. Then you would have a woman of honour with passive looks, ears, and tongue, undergo all the hideous obscenity she hears at nasty plays.

Eliza. Truly, I think a woman betrays her want of modesty, by showing it publicly in a playhouse, as much as a man does his want of courage by a quarrel there; for the truly modest and stout say least, and are least exceptions, especially in public.

Olivia. O hideous, cousin! this cannot be your opinion. But you are one of those who have the confidence to pardon THE FILTHY PLAY.

Eliza. Why, what is there of ill in't, say you?

Olivia. O fy! fy! fy! would you put me to the blush anew? call all the blood into my face again? But to satisfy you then; first, THE CLANDESTINE OBSCENITY IN THE VERY NAME OF HORNER.

Eliza. Truly, 'TIS SO HIDDEN, I CANNOT FIND IT OUT, I confess.

Olivia. O horrid! Does it not give you the rank conception or image of a goat, or town-bull, or a satyr? nay, what is yet a filthier image than all the rest, that of an eunuch?

Eliza. What then? I can think of a goat, a bull, or a satyr, without any hurt.

Olivia. Ay: but cousin, one cannot stop there.

Eliza. I can, cousin.

Olivia. O no; for when you have those FILTHY creatures in your head once, the next thing you think, is what they do; as their defiling of honest men's beds and couches, rapes upon sleeping and waking country virgins under hedges, and on haycocks. Nay, farther--

Eliza. Nay, no farther, cousin. We have enough of your comment on the play, which will make me more ashamed than the play itself.

Olivia. O, believe me, 'tis a FILTHY PLAY! and you may take my word for a filthy play as soon as another's. But the filthiest thing in that play, or any other play, is--

Eliza. Pray keep it to yourself, if it be so.

Olivia. No, faith, you shall know it; I'm resolved to make you out of love with the play. I say, the lewdest, filthiest thing is his CHINA; nay, I will never forgive the beastly author his CHINA. He has quite taken away the reputation of poor CHINA itself, and sullied the most innocent and pretty furniture of a lady's chamber; insomuch that I was fain to break all my defiled vessels. You see I have none left; nor you, I hope.

Eliza. You'll pardon me, I cannot think the worse of my CHINA for that of the playhouse.

Olivia. Why, you will not keep any now, sure! 'Tis now as unfit an ornament for a lady's chamber as the pictures that come from Italy and other hot countries; as appears by their nudities, which I always cover, or scratch out, whereso'er I find 'em. But CHINA! out upon't, filthy CHINA! nasty debauched CHINA!

Eliza. All this will not put me out of conceit with CHINA, nor the play, which is acted to-day, or another of the same beastly author's, as you call him, which I'll go see.

Oliv. You will not, sure! nay, you sha' not venture your reputation by going, and mine by leaving me alone with two men here: nay, you'll disoblige me for ever, if-- [Pulls her back.]

Eliza. I stay!--your servant. [Exit.]   END QUOTE

JANE AUSTEN’S SEXUAL INNUENDO RIFFING OFF WYCHERLEY’S CHINA SCENE:

Without further ado, I will now present you with passages from JA’s Letter 57 and 63, respectively, written within a scant three months of each other in late 1808, which, I assert, clearly are winking very broadly and very lewdly at Wycherley’s “china scene”:

Letter 57: “I am afraid the Webbes have lost a great deal-more perhaps from igno­rance or plunder than the Fire; — they had a large stock of valuable CHINA, & in order to save it, it was taken from the House, & thrown down anywhere. “

Letter 63:  “I shall not tell you anything more of Wm. Digweed's CHINA, as your silence on the subject makes you unworthy of it."

I have previously opined on a number of occasions that Letter 57 is the Rosetta Stone of Jane Austen’s surviving letters, filled with fictitious happenings (storms blowing down chimneys and wood houses, a la The Three Pigs) and false names (like Mr. Floor). So it is in that same fantastical spirit that the Webbes (a family name JA used in both her Juvenilia and her novels) would have a “large” stock of “china” that was “thrown down anywhere”—a very droll image, when “china” is read in a Wycherleyian sense.

But the capper is the veiled Wycherley allusion in Letter 63. Unless you are, like Lady Squeamish in The Country Wife, inclined to an “innocent, literal understanding”, I think you’ll agree that “Wm. Digweed’s china” is not referring to his kitchenware, but to a rather significant part of his body!

And, as if further proof were needed, recall in this regard the following famous discussion of the Digweed brothers in RAAL’s 1913 bio, JA’s Life & Letters:

" So hasty, indeed, did Mr. Austen's decision appear to the Perrots that they suspected the reason to be a growing attachment between Jane and one of the three Digweed brothers. There is not the slightest evidence of this very improbable supposition in Jane's letters, though she does occasionally suggest that James Digweed must be in love with Cassandra, especially when he gallantly supposed that the two elms had fallen from grief at her absence."

So, JA already has a well-established habit of teasing Cassandra about a romantic connection with a Digweed brother. Then, what better way of even more teasing than for JA to take special delight in teasing Cassandra about a prudish silence about this embarrassing subject, than by winking (for the second time in three months) at Wycherley’s notorious “china scene”.

Anyone so innocent and literal as to reject this conclusion is perhaps not to be trusted to read Jane Austen.

Cheers, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

P.S.: If anyone can find out whether there were any performances of The Country Wife and/or The Plain Dealer that Jane and/or Cassandra might have actually attended in London, I’d be very grateful!

Mrs. Jennings’s “Monstrous” Biblical Clue about Michaelmas in Sense & Sensibility: Her Three Accurate Prophecies That a St. Michael Would Cast Lucy-Fer Out…but She Climbed Back to Heaven Anyway!

Michaelmas (Sept. 29) was this past Sunday, and, as has been observed by a few list participants this week, Jane Austen had a “thing” about Michaelmas. Michaelmas is more or less the date when the action begins in Pride & Prejudice and Emma, and Michaelmas is also the date when the leasing of Kellynch to the Crofts begins (Michaelmas being a customary starting date for English leases of that era) in Persuasion.

But what got me thinking about Michaelmas as a “code word” for something interesting lurking just beneath the surface of Sense & Sensibility was Diana Birchall’s blog post (actually on Michaelmas)...

http://austenauthors.net/the-sweets-of-autumn

…in which Diana quoted the following passage from Ch. 50 of S&S…

“The first month after their marriage was spent with their friend at the Mansion-house, from whence they could superintend the progress of the Parsonage, and direct everything as they liked on the spot; could chuse papers, project shrubberies, and invent a sweep. Mrs. Jennings’s prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled; for she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their Parsonage by Michaelmas.”

…and then Diana asked an excellent question:

“Now, Michaelmas occurs on 29 September in England, but here is a problem:  the Autumnal Equinox in Jane Austen’s day usually fell on 23 or 24 September. So how could Mrs. Jennings visit Elinor and Edward on Michaelmas after a month of marriage if they were married in “early autumn”?  Is this a rare instance of an Austenian stumble?  It would seem to be far more likely a misunderstanding of the Equinox on my part, than a mistake by Jane Austen…”

Diana then went on to report the answer I came up with from some quick research, which was that the first day of JA’s autumn was almost certainly September 1 (for reasons explained in her post), which would mean JA made no mistake after all in the above passage.

However, in researching that answer, I came across something striking in S&S that I had never noticed before, which is that Mrs. Jennings seemed to be obsessed with Michaelmas as a kind of prophetic, mysterious, marital deadline.  

First, in Chapter 32, we find Mrs. Jennings abandoning the expectation that Colonel Brandon would marry Marianne, but instead beginning to expect that the Colonel would marry Elinor instead, and, furthermore, would do it right after Michaelmas:    

“…Mrs. Jennings…who knew only that the Colonel continued as grave as ever, and that she could neither prevail on him to make the offer himself, nor commission her to make it for him, began, at the end of two days, to think that, instead of Midsummer, they would not be married till MICHAELMAS, and by the end of a week that it would not be a match at all. The good understanding between the Colonel and Miss Dashwood seemed rather to declare that the honours of the mulberry-tree, the canal, and the yew arbour, would all be made over to HER; and Mrs. Jennings had, for some time ceased to think at all of Mrs. Ferrars.”

Then, in Chapter 37, Mrs. Jennings reports to Elinor that Mrs. Ferrars has disinherited Edward, and in Chapter 40 Mrs. Jennings learns that Elinor and Colonel Brandon are not actually planning to marry as Mrs. Jennings mistakenly believed. As Mrs. J and Elinor discuss the impending marriage of Edward and Lucy, we read the following:

[Mrs. J] “…It seems quite ridiculous. But, my dear, we must touch up the Colonel to do some thing to the parsonage, and make it comfortable for them, before Lucy goes to it."

[Elinor] "But Colonel Brandon does not seem to have any idea of the living's being enough to allow them to marry."

[Mrs. J] "The Colonel is a ninny, my dear; because he has two thousand a-year himself, he thinks that nobody else can marry on less. Take my word for it, that, if I am alive, I shall be paying a visit at Delaford Parsonage before MICHAELMAS; and I am sure I shan't go if Lucy an't there."

Elinor was quite of her opinion, as to the probability of their not waiting for any thing more.

So now Mrs. Jennings has returned to her Michaelmas refrain for a second time, but this time it is to predict that Edward and Lucy will be at the Parsonage by Michaelmas.

Mrs. Jennings is then echoed in this expectation in Chapter 41 by Lucy herself:

“Edward, having carried his thanks to Colonel Brandon, proceeded with his happiness to Lucy; and such was the excess of it by the time he reached Bartlett's Buildings, that she was able to assure Mrs. Jennings, who called on her again the next day with her congratulations, that she had never seen him in such spirits before in her life.

[Lucy’s] own happiness, and her own spirits, were at least very certain; and she joined Mrs. Jennings most heartily in her expectation of their being all comfortably together in Delaford Parsonage before MICHAELMAS. So far was she, at the same time, from any backwardness to give Elinor that credit which Edward WOULD give her, that she spoke of her friendship for them both with the most grateful warmth, was ready to own all their obligation to her, and openly declared that no exertion for their good on Miss Dashwood's part, either present or future, would ever surprise her, for she believed her capable of doing any thing in the world for those she really valued. As for Colonel Brandon, she was not only ready to worship him as a saint, but was moreover truly anxious that he should be treated as one in all worldly concerns; anxious that his tithes should be raised to the utmost; and scarcely resolved to avail herself, at Delaford, as far as she possibly could, of his servants, his carriage, his cows, and his poultry. “

And finally, in Chapter 50, after Edward and Elinor are married, Mrs. Jennings’s prediction is strangely fulfilled:

“The first month after their marriage was spent with their friend at the Mansion-house; from whence they could superintend the progress of the Parsonage, and direct every thing as they liked on the spot;—could chuse papers, project shrubberies, and invent a sweep. Mrs. Jennings's prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled; for she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their Parsonage by MICHAELMAS, and she found in Elinor and her husband, as she really believed, one of the happiest couples in the world. They had in fact nothing to wish for, but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne, and rather better pasturage for their cows.”

Indeed, Mrs. Jennings’s prophecies “though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled”, and we may wonder why we are reminded of the ironic prophecies regarding Oedipus in Oedipus Rex, where the true significance of a similarly cryptic prophecy is not understood till it is fulfilled (in Sophocles, tragically, but in S&S, happily).

Two weeks ago, I was discussing with game theorist Michael Chwe & others in the Janeites group about Lucy as s secret schemer who (I was the first to claim, over a decade ago) deliberately sets up the dominoes to fall in such a way as to leave her ultimately in firm control of the Ferrars family, with a career as a Lady Catherine de Burgh in her future. At that time, Michael and I had the following exchange:

Michael: "I am not saying that Mrs. Jennings is in on it, of course."

Me: “But what if she is indeed in on it? Don't rule it out till you test the hypothesis empirically! I think she is....”

Well, I am here today with some hard empirical evidence, hiding in plain sight in the text of S&S for over 2 centuries!  I say that Mrs. Jennings is not a latter day Tiresias, she does not have the gift of prophecy, but the reason she was able to make a mostly accurate prediction of the outcome of the marital quadrille in S&S, is precisely because she must have been a co-conspirator all along with Lucy Steele, to bring this outcome about!

And the best part is, the biggest clue to Mrs. Jennings’s involvement in Lucy’s scheme is Mrs. Jennings’s repeated references to Michaelmas. In what way? My Subject Line has already given you a monstrous big (as Mrs. Jennings would have put it)  hint, but now I’ll spell it out in short order.

MICHAELMAS: THE BACKSTORY

Here is the essence of Michaelmas in a single sentence:

http://projectbritain.com/calendar/September/Michaelmas.html
"Michaelmas Day is the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, celebrated on 29 September. St. Michael is the patron saint of the sea and maritime lands, of ships and boatmen, of horses and horsemen. He was the Angel who hurled Lucifer (the devil) down from Heaven for his treachery."

There are, apparently, two Biblical sources for this understanding about St. Michael.

First, in Jude 1:7-9, we read:

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

And second, in Revelation 12: 1-11

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

So now I understand exactly what Mrs. Jennings was saying, Tiresias-like, with her constant prophecies about a Michaelmas deadline for marital bliss. It’s so simple and yet powerful, it is definitely in the running for Jane Austen’s crowning glory of hiding-in-plain-sight.  Here’s my syllogism.

What I've been saying since 2002 is that Lucy Steele tricks Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny Dashwood into disinheriting Edward, only when Lucy already knows that she's got Robert in her pocket.

That’s the precise moment when Lucy Steele (soon to be Lucy Ferrars or Lucy-Fer) stages her own eviction from "heaven" (i.e., Fanny's London residence) by prompting her bigmouth sister into blabbing about Edward and Lucy. 

So in effect, Lucy turns Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny D into comic parodies of St. Michael, because they hurl Lucifer down from Heaven.

But then, after a short time below, Lucifer climbs right back up and within a short time establishes herself not just as the favorite, but as the ruler of "heaven"!

But Lucy is not actually evil, because the ripple effect of her scheme is to leave Elinor married to Edward and Marianne married to Colonel Brandon—so she has, beneficently, taken care of Elinor and Marianne just as much as she has taken care of herself!

So we see that the scheming by Lucy which I first noted in 2002, and the Lucy-fer word game which I first noted in 2005, and now the Michaelmas allusion to St. Michael which I just noted now, are all part of one elegant package, courtesy of Jane Austen’s infinitely brilliant mind.

And I reiterate—Mrs. Jennings has so accurately predicted Michaelmas as a deadline for all this to come to pass, because Mrs. Jennings, who is also a good person, has assisted Lucy every step of the way, in order to bring about this happy ending for all.

I conclude by pointing out that this subversive deployment of Christian scripture is hardly the work of a pious, devout, meek, conservative reader of the Bible. Obviously, it is the work of an audacious, subversive, independent, self-directed genius of both observation and writing. JA shows that she understands that sometimes the only way to achieve justice and mercy in a situation is to engage in audacious, persistent deceit in order to defeat the real “dragon” in S&S, which is the sexist suppression of women’s rights and desires. Mrs. Jennings and Lucy-fer turn out to be the “good angels” in this morality tale.

Cheer, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

Jane Austen Mistress of Poop & The Parallel to Masters of Sex on SHO

Today in Janeites, the comment was made about my recent series of posts about poop (both horse and, now that Diane has enlightened me, also human) on the streets of poor neighborhoods of English cities in Jane Austen's time, that my accent on this subject was a bit juvenile.

I replied as follows:

I am confused. Are you saying that it was juvenile of Jane Austen to make a repeated subliminal point about these horrible living conditions suffered by the likes of Miss Bates and Mrs. Smith and their neighbors in Highbury and Bath?  Or is it juvenile of me to be bringing forward all the relevant evidence I can find in JA's novels, to support the claim that this was clearly an important issue to JA, or else she would not have kept returning to it, even into the last year of her life?

I happen to find the humor funny--so would most people who enjoy clever R-rated humor, and there are quite a lot out there, including a lot of women.  But as I emphasized, this is a kind of gallows humor on JA's part, because the laugh comes with a bitter aftertaste, when you realize that Jane Austen herself must have at times lived in such conditions while in Bath!

So, would it be adult, and honorable, to keep quiet about Jane Austen's evident passion about this subject, just because it is unseemly?




It was also suggested that Austen's readers would have  known about the conditions of the streets but would have been  experienced in avoiding  such nuisances.

I replied---yes, and a lot of good that did those poor people who had to endure such dreadful conditions every day of their lives. Did you read that passage I quoted the other day from Reeve's history of Bath? It sounds to me like there was no avoiding the omnipresent poop in the Lower Town of Bath, if you lived there.

Let me step back one pace and put this in a larger context.

Last night, my wife and I really enjoyed watching the first episode of the new Showtime series, Masters of Sex, about the pioneering research of Masters & Johnson from the Fifties to the present, which forever shattered so many destructive myths about female sexuality, and demolished the taboos which allowed those myths to survive for more than a century after medical science could have eliminated them. In the episode, Masters encounters shocked and horrified responses when he (a dedicated humanitarian doctor) urges his hospital to support his planned research into human sexuality.

There is an eerie resonance of that historical pattern in the way that delicate subjects like sex and poop in the streets have been addressed in Austen circles.

If we want to really understand what life was like in Jane Austen's world, we're not going to get to the core of it by watching even the best documentary about, e.g., Regency Era dance---JA clearly felt it of vital importance to include in her fictional worlds all the ugliness, brutailty, unfairness, and tragedy that most ordinary people endured, so that the Darcys of that world could have their Pemberleys.

So I will continue to honor Jane Austen's memory, and her passion, by bringing forward all sides of her world, as she depicted it.

Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

Miss Bates's Solicitude for their Shoes & Jane Fairfax's Declaration about Thick Shoes: The Poop of Highbury

In Austen L and Janeites, Diane Reynolds responded to all my Austen poop posts as follows:

"Yes, I agree with Arnie and Diana about the poop. In Lizzie's case it is probably horse poop. In  Emma, and in Persuasion, in Bath especially, in a poor section, it could be human poop and probably was, as sanitation was hardly sophisticated. One of the issues that comes up in Victorian novels--ie, by Mrs. Gaskell-- was what was called "stepping in ashes" in the poor parts of big cities--the "ashes" were human feces, covered over in ashes and Gaskell was calling out the living conditions. People lived in increasingly crowded conditions (JA is at the cusp of these changes), there are no flush toilets, no trash removal ... these are problems. The smell must have been horrid."

That fits perfectly, doesn't it? I only wonder whether Gaskell, who of course knew Austen's writing very well indeed, picked up on this subtext of urban poop in Persuasion and Emma?

And now I would like to add what I believe will be my final evidence in support of this subtext, which is the curious preoccupation with shoes at various “random” places in the text of Emma.

First in Chapter 15, we have Isabella being surprisingly pragmatic and flexible about doing whatever it takes to get back to Hartfield from Randalls as the snow begins to fall:

"You had better order the carriage directly, my love," said [Isabella]; "I dare say we shall be able to get along, if we set off directly; and if we do come to any thing very bad, I can get out and walk. I am not at all afraid. I should not mind walking half the way. I could change my shoes, you know, the moment I got home; and it is not the sort of thing that gives me cold."

Sure it could be snow that would make it desirable to take off her shoes as soon as she got home, but I wonder whether it might be a very unpleasant cocktail of snow and horse poop that would be trebly nasty to get on one’s shoes!

 Then in Chapter 19, we have narration describing Miss Bates’s extreme hospitality when visited by Emma and Harriet:

“The house belonged to people in business. Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate sized apartment, which was every thing to them, the visitors were most cordially and even gratefully welcomed; the quiet neat old lady, who with her knitting was seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to Miss Woodhouse, and her more active, talking daughter, almost ready to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit, solicitude for their shoes....”

It can’t be wet shoes that Miss Bates expresses solicitude for, because it hasn’t been raining—”Emma and Harriet had been walking together one morning…They were just approaching the house where lived Mrs. and Miss Bates….” So, it’s clear that Miss Bates is no fool, and is obsequiously acknowledging to Emma in particular the “condescension” that Emma shows by being willing to walk through poop and sacrifice her shoes’s cleanness in order to get to the Bates residence.

And then in Chapter 27, Miss Bates adopts yet another strategy to blunt the effect of walking through poop from Ford’s over to the Bates residence—nonstop talking, as a distraction, which begins precisely when they reach the street, and ends precisely when they get inside the Bates residence!:

"What was I talking of?" said she, beginning again when they were all in the street.

Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix.

"I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.—Oh! my mother's spectacles….[a LOT of talking!]… I wanted to keep it from Jane's knowledge; but, unluckily, I had mentioned it before I was aware."

Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door; and her visitors walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to, pursued only by the sounds of her desultory good-will.”  

And finally, perhaps the best of all in this short series, in Chapter 38:

“As the door opened she was heard, "So very obliging of you! No rain at all. Nothing to signify. I do not care for myself. Quite thick shoes. And Jane declares -- Well!...”

Here Emma hears Miss Bates arrive at the ball at the Crown Inn, and of course we hear first about her “thick shoes” (the better to keep wet poop mush away from one’s feet). But Miss Bates, with her big mouth, starts to let everyone know what Jane declares about the efficacy of thick shoes to keep out mushy poop, and I think you’ll agree, Jane did not have something very positive to declare on that disgusting subject. So Miss Bates, as she always does, stops in midsentence, and then pauses with “Well!” before launching in another verbal direction entirely.

Just as the dog that doesn’t bark (which is an insight that Sherlock Holmes stole from Homer’s Odysseus) is very revealing, so too is the Miss Bates sentence that doesn’t get finished.

Cheers, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter