Jane Austen For Dummies (27 page)
Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
Letters in Austen's day looked like little books of folded paper containing four pages. On page 4, the back page, the writer left a rectangular space blank for the address, also known as the direction. People used goose-quill pens and ink to write. Just as people today have preferences for pen point type, so did writers who used quill pens; they shaped and repaired the nib of the quill with a pen knife. To relay as much as possible, folks often used cross writing, or turning the letter around at a right angle and writing either across the original or writing between the lines. Obviously, this is hard to read! Jane Austen, herself, commented to her sister that their brother Charles used red ink when he crossed to contrast with the black ink originally on the page (Letter, November 6â7, 1813). When the letter was complete, the writer then sealed the letter with wax or a wafer (a thin disk of dried paste used to seal a document). If using wax, the writer let the wax melt over the fold to seal it; a signet ring or seal pressed into the wax secured the paper seal.
Mail was usually sent from and delivered to a post office. But in the country, where Austen's novels are mainly set, the post office wasn't always the official building that we think of today. So people had letters delivered in other ways:
The post office was frequently located in an inn or tavern in town. When Jane Austen's family lived in Steventon, they collected and sent their mail at the nearby Wheatsheaf Inn.
Some people sent their letters and parcels via friends or employees who were traveling the direction of the mail. Austen, herself, advised her sister against this practice: “It is throwing a Letter away to send it by a visitor, there is never convenient time for reading itâ& Visitor can tell most things as well” (Letter to Cassandra, October 26, 1813).
Private messengers were also enlisted to deliver particularly important pieces of mail.
Unlike today, the addressee paid the postage due on the letter. The exception to this was in London, which had a Penny-Post service requiring the sender to pay the postage. In 1801, the cost rose, and the service became the Two-Penny Post.
Members of Parliament were the only folks who until 1840 were allowed to frank a letter to send it for free (so they could carry on Parliamentary business by mail at no personal cost).
Franking
involved writing the MP's name and the date by the address of a letter weighing no more than an ounce. But this privilege often was abused â even by (take a big breath) Jane Austen herself. In six of her letters, she mentions either securing a frank or seeking a frank for a letter she wished to send. But even the greatest defender of postal laws would not prosecute the penniless, 10-year-old Fanny Price for accepting her cousin Edmund's offer to have his father frank her letter to her equally penniless brother William, also a child (MP 1:2). Franking, however, was abused by people who did not have the excuse that Fanny Price had.
The limited opportunities for conversation between ladies and gentlemen made every chance to communicate important. Thus, they frequently expressed themselves with looks. Subtle smiles in Austen's works often serve as communication between her heroes and heroines. Sometimes the smiles are so subtle that they even fail to register with the person to whom they're aimed. Likewise, the conversations between the hero and heroine are sometimes misleading because they don't sound anything like what we would take to be emotionally-charged words of love. But frequently the witty banter shows that the banterers are meant to be together, for who else could keep up with one's verbal skills and cleverness except the other, who's equally skilled and clever?
When people in Austen's day used the phrase “making love,” it had no physical or sexual overtones. The phrase simply meant verbal flirting or flashing interested looks at the other person. Yet when Mary Crawford enters the room at
Mansfield Park,
wondering who will play the male part opposite hers in a play they're doing, and asks, “âWhat gentleman among you am I to have the pleasure of making love to?'”, the next line reads, “For a moment no one spoke” (MP 1:15). Her bluntness shocks her auditors, comprised of mixed company.
Austen also uses the phrase “making violent love” in
Emma,
when Emma, alone in a carriage with Mr. Elton, finds herself the object of his amorous overtures, “actually making violent love to her” (1:15). But while Elton is talking up a storm of passion, he goes no further than seizing her hand. He then drops it and tries to take her hand again, but fails. This is
not
an X-rated carriage ride! So again, “making violent love” simply means that Mr. Elton is telling Emma how much he loves her, and so on.
Having to express one's romantic interest in another without the possibility of using verbal communication wasn't conducive to spoken intimacy. So a lot had to be communicated between a couple by looks, smiles, and blushes flashed across the room. Smiles between potential lovers in Austen's novels vary in character. Smiles can convey sincere romantic interest.
Pride and Prejudice
's Darcy smiles at Elizabeth Bennet quite a bit. The reader knows these aren't scornful smiles because when Elizabeth observes the “âfiner, larger picture'” of Darcy in the family portrait gallery, she beholds “a striking resemblance of Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face, as she remembered to have sometimes seen, when he looked at her'” (PP 3:1). What if the young woman was too modest to flash those pearly whites? She could lose her man. In
Pride and Prejudice,
Jane Bennet, uniting “a composure of temper and a uniform cheerfulness of manner, which would guard her from the suspicions of the impertinent,” unfortunately also prevented Bingley from seeing her real feelings for him (PP 1:6). While looking lovingly across the room at a gentleman might seem sappy, looks were frequently the only way that young women could convey their interest in a gentleman, given the limited chances they had to talk alone. And of course, a proper young lady or gentleman wouldn't flash those looks to a stranger. The looks would come after the couple had been formally introduced.
Body language may seem a modern phenomenon, but it was as common in Austen's day as it is in ours. Frequently, her characters misread such language, leading to mistaken ideas about romantic feelings. For example, Emma observes Mr. Elton observing her sketching Harriet Smith. He moves closer to Emma's easel and positions himself “where he might gaze and gaze again” (E 1:6). The problem arises because Emma misreads Mr. Elton's body language, assuming that he is gazing at Harriet and Harriet's portrait. However, he is really gazing at the artist, Emma. Another misreader of body language is Darcy, who admits to discouraging Bingley's romantic interest in Jane Bennet because he saw only that “Her looks and manners were open, cheerful and engaging . . . but without any symptom of peculiar regard” for Bingley (PP 2:12). Darcy's observation of Jane Bennet's body language reminds the reader that earlier in the novel, Charlotte Lucas said of Jane's composed, placid temperament and demeanor that “âa woman had better shew
more
affection than she feels'” (PP 1:6).
With other characters, however, body language is obvious and unmistakable as they work to attract one another. Fanny Price, an astute observer of those around her, sees that Maria Bertram's eyes are “sparkling with pleasure” and hears her speak “with great animation” when Henry Crawford comes near with his partner â even though Maria is dancing with her fiancé, Rushworth (MP 1:12).
Jane Austen's true lovers are plain-speaking men and women who speak from the heart and brain. Frequently, their conversations are witty, showing that their marriage will be a marriage of people who truly belong together. Being able to engage in lively repartée may not sound romantic, but in
Pride and Prejudice,
Austen shows how this works in the same way that playwright William Congreve did in
The Way of the World,
a play Austen knew well. (See Chapter 4 on writers who influenced Austen.) Austen perfectly matches the verbal skills of Elizabeth and Darcy to the dismay of Miss Bingley but to the delight of readers
,
who witness
Darcy and Elizabeth conversing together at length, while Miss Bingley grows “tired of a conversation in which she ha[s] no share” (PP 1:11).
Having Darcy and Elizabeth matching wits is Austen's way of showing their psychological compatibility. This novel
presents two highly articulate young people, Elizabeth and Darcy, who show that they belong together through their language. They are the only couple who converse aloud (we never hear Jane and Bingley in conversation), and they are an intellectual match. Ironically, the reader senses this before Darcy and Elizabeth do! Elizabeth is known for her intellectual “quickness,” and Darcy is “clever” and naturally enjoys “conversation” (1:1, 1:4, 1:6). So when they talk to each other at Netherfield Park (or anywhere else, for that matter), their conversation speeds along briskly with each capping the other's statement.
Capping
means to follow up with something good or better in a conversation. While Darcy is attracted to Elizabeth physically â he notices her “beautiful . . . dark” eyes, her pretty and “intelligent” face, and even her body size (he compares his sister's height to Elizabeth's after only knowing her for a short time!) â he also admits that he admires her “For the liveliness of [her] mind'” (PP 3:18). Austen reminds her readers that compatibility can work in many areas: physical, emotional, and intellectual. And all of these can lead to love.
Even nonwitty couples managed to get to know if they were compatible, but Austen portrays these characters as secondary. While the reader never hears the quiet and modest Jane and Bingley in a conversation of any substance, we do read that during the supper at the Netherfield Ball, they sit together talking “very composedly” (PP 1:18). And as the Bennets await the arrival of their carriage at the end of the ball, Elizabeth sees “Mr. Bingley and Jane . . . standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other.” They share no witty banter the way Elizabeth and Darcy do, which makes them the secondary characters of the novel.