This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of that “magnum opus,” and I hope you’ll celebrate with me! Starting this summer, I’m going to write a series of posts about The Custom of the Country and I hope you’ll join the conversation here about the novel Wharton considered one of her best. To make sure you don’t miss these posts, you can follow my blog or subscribe by e-mail, if you aren’t already doing so.

In honour of Wharton’s controversial heroine, Undine Spragg of Apex, U.S. of A., who is determined to conquer America from the Midwest to Maine, Virginia, and New York, I’m planning to launch the series on the 4th of July.

In the meantime, I’ll wrap up my series on rereading Pride and Prejudice with posts on “Pleasure, Pain, and the Past” (next week) and “How to Write a Happy Ending” (the week after), and I’ll share with you some of the highlights from the first issue of The New Compass, the on-line literary journal I founded and co-edited. Michael DiSanto and I launched The New Compass ten years ago next month—I’m finding it hard to believe it’s a decade ago that we dreamed up this project and brought together the many wonderful writers who contributed essays, fiction, poetry, and reviews to the journal.

The quotations from Wharton’s letters are from Letters of Edith Wharton, ed. R.W.B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis (New York: Macmillan, 1989).

At some point in its long history (there’s no date given), the hotel produced an edition of Jane Austen’s most famous novel. My copy was a gift from a friend who was delighted by the idea that the hotel made Pride and Prejudice available to guests either instead of, or in addition to, the Bible. She found this copy in the Bryn Mawr Bookstore in Cambridge, MA.

Do any of you have more information about this unusual edition? If you do, please share in the comments below.

What’s your favourite edition of Pride and Prejudice? When I reread the novel, I usually turn to the 1990 Oxford World’s Classics edition (an old favourite), Robert P. Irvine’s Broadview edition (the one I’ve used most often when teaching the novel), or the beautiful and useful Harvard University Press annotated edition by Patricia Meyer Spacks (which I reviewed for Open Letters Monthly a couple of years ago). I confess I’ve never read the text of the Hotel Taft edition, but if I were ever stuck in a hotel room with nothing to read, I’d certainly be happy if the hotel offered P&P on the bedside table. Please tell me about your favourites.

The advertisements inside the Hotel Taft edition are charming:

“Hotel Taft, ‘Adjoining the Roxy Theatre,’ 7th Ave. at 50th St., New York City”

“Swim in Sparkling Natural Salt Water, Bask in Healthful Sun Rays, $1 includes swim, sun, and suits”

“Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins’s correspondence for any consideration,” says Mr. Bennet to Elizabeth just after Lady Catherine has visited Longbourn to insist that Elizabeth promise not to marry Mr. Darcy. From the first mention in Volume 1, Chapter 13 of the “olive branch” that Mr. Collins offers in the letter that announces his intention to visit the Bennets and make “every possible amends” for the entailment of the estate, to the parallel reference in Volume 3, Chapter 15 to his wife Charlotte’s “situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch,” these letters play an important role in Pride and Prejudice, amusing the reader as well as Mr. Bennet, and revealing a great deal about the characters who interpret the letters as well as about Mr. Collins himself.

When Mr. Bennet reads the first letter aloud to his family, their responses illuminate their characters. Mrs. Bennet and Jane are ready to think the best of Mr. Collins’s wish to make amends, though Jane wonders how he expects to do so, while Mary makes a tentative attempt to judge the letter’s style, Kitty and Lydia show no interest in a clergyman because all they can think of is men in “scarlet coat[s],” and Elizabeth is the only one to note that “There is something very pompous in his stile,” and to question whether he is a “sensible man.” I’ve written more about their responses in the chapter on Pride and Prejudice in my book Jane Austen’s Philosophy of the Virtues.

In contrast to the scene in which the Bennets read this first letter, however, there is no response given at all when Jane, opening her father’s mail while he is in London looking for Lydia, reads the letter and Elizabeth reads it over her shoulder (in Volume 3, Chapter 6). This is the letter Mr. Collins writes to “condole” with Mr. Bennet on the loss of Lydia’s virtue and reputation, saying, “The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this.” He congratulates himself on having escaped marrying into the Bennet family, “for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace.” What could Elizabeth and Jane say to such a letter? There is no need for them to say anything, because the letter’s absurdities are so extreme. Yet Mr. Collins does speak for “society” here, a society that believes a woman who has lost her virtue brings shame on all her family and would be better off dead. Mary Bennet preaches this belief as well: “Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable” (Volume 3, Chapter 5).

Elizabeth leans over to read with Jane, because she “knew what curiosities his letters always were,” but there is no entertainment to be found in this letter. Even Mr. Bennet would surely have trouble laughing at this one. Elizabeth knows already that Lydia’s behaviour reflects on her sisters and injures—perhaps even destroys—their prospects for making good marriages. In this letter, she has to endure not only Mr. Collins’s condemnation of her sister and family, but also criticism from her dear friend Charlotte Lucas, now Charlotte Collins. For it seems that Charlotte does speak confidentially to her pompous, impossible husband.

Earlier in the book, it’s possible to see her as enjoying her position as mistress of the house while maintaining a degree of separation from her husband. When Elizabeth visits the newly-married Charlotte at Hunsford (Volume 2, Chapter 5), Austen gives us her reaction to the parsonage: “When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really a great air of comfort throughout, and by Charlotte’s evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten.” However, either Charlotte has confided to her husband that Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have spoiled Lydia, or he has chosen to ascribe this opinion to her. Mr. Collins betrays Charlotte’s opinion:

there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter, has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence, though, at the same time, . . . I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age.

Charlotte Collins, how could you say such a thing about your friend Elizabeth’s family—even if it is true? Elizabeth herself believes her parents have indulged her sister’s “wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia’s character,” and has warned her father about the consequences of allowing her to behave in this way: “If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, . . . she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment” (Volume 2, Chapter 18). Instead of protecting her friend from gossip, however, Charlotte appears to be comfortable enough in her marriage that she will discuss the Bennets’ parenting strategies with her husband. The idea of her having intimate conversations with Mr. Collins is a sobering one.

Of course she is intimate with him in other ways, too, which we know because she’s expecting that new “young olive-branch.” (You can read Ruth Perry’s excellent essay on the topic of “Sleeping with Mr. Collins” in Persuasions 22.) It’s possible Mr. Collins has put forward the idea that the Bennets have indulged Lydia and Charlotte has done no more than betray by her expression that she is inclined to agree. But it’s nevertheless clear that for all her efforts to keep some independence in her marriage, and whether she is speaking to him about the Bennets or simply listening, Charlotte is aligned with her husband and his views now, as society expects her to be.

Mr. Collins writes to Mr. Bennet, “you are grievously to be pitied, in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter, will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others, for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family.”

As Elizabeth and Jane read his letter, they find themselves and their family the victims of that other truth “universally” acknowledged, that a single woman who has lost her sexual virtue would be better off dead. As I “read, and re-read” Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Collins’s letters “with the closest attention,” as the novel itself teaches me to do, I’m finding that any shreds of sympathy I had for Mr. Collins have vanished.

My page Pride and Prejudice at 200 collects all the posts in this series on rereading the novel, along with links to other essays and articles on P&P.

Elizabeth Bennet doesn’t take Lady Catherine’s advice about practising the piano, but she learns to practise something else, and that is the habit of close reading. It doesn’t bother her that she doesn’t play as well as some women do, and she doesn’t realize at first that she’s been equally careless about the way she judges character. When she reads Mr. Darcy’s letter in Volume 2, Chapter 13, however, she discovers that to be a more accurate judge of character, she needs to practise reading words and actions more attentively.

Her first impression of the letter is that it must be full of lies: “His belief of her sister’s insensibility, she instantly resolved to be false.” She reads quickly, carelessly, “with a strong prejudice against everything he might say,” certain that she already understands what Darcy did in separating Mr. Bingley from her sister Jane. It’s all too easy to skim the letter. She finds that “from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might bring,” she is “incapable of attending to the sense of the one before her eyes.” (It almost sounds as if she’s scrolling through Facebook posts or reading a Twitter feed….)

I think it’s really interesting in this scene that Austen says Elizabeth is “too angry to have any wish of doing him justice,” because it suggests she’ll only be able to get at the truth if she’s willing to look for it, even if that search has to be slow and careful. As Mr. Bennet says of her in the very first chapter, Elizabeth is quick: “Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.” It sounds as if her father is praising her intelligence, and he is, yet she turns out to be too quick—to quick to judge, too quick to laugh, too quick to condemn. She has to learn to slow down in order to be both quick and accurate.

It’s only when she begins to read what Darcy has to say about Wickham that she starts to read more slowly, and from here on, the chapter is a lesson in the importance of close reading. It’s hard to understand something when you read so fast that you move on to the second sentence before you know what the first one says—it hardly counts as reading at all. She reads about Wickham “with somewhat clearer attention,” although paying attention to the contrast between Darcy’s story and Wickham’s own history of himself at first makes her think Darcy must be telling her “the grossest falsehood!” This is a more careful reading, but it’s still only a first reading, and she jeopardizes her chances of learning the truth when she puts the letter away and vows never to read it again.

First readings, even careful ones, can deceive. Fortunately, the unresolved questions from her first reading prompt Elizabeth to open the letter again “in half a minute,” and in her even more careful second reading, she “commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence.” She tries to make Wickham’s story win out over Darcy’s, “flatter[ing] herself that her wishes did not err”—but another reading persuades her it’s impossible for Wickham to be the innocent one. Jane Austen stresses that it’s when Elizabeth “read, and re-read with the closest attention,” when “she weighed every circumstance,” when “Again she read on,” that she learns to understand the situation and the characters of both men—as well as learning something new about her own character and her previous pride in her “discernment.”

This question of how to read properly is an important one, and it’s worth noting that Austen’s model of close reading in this chapter resembles what St. Augustine says in Book 11 of the Confessions about the act of reciting a psalm. St. Augustine says,

I am about to repeat a Psalm that I know. Before I begin, my expectation is extended over the whole; but when I have begun, how much soever of it I shall separate off into the past, is extended along my memory; thus the life of this action of mine is divided between my memory as to what I have repeated, and expectation as to what I am about to repeat; but “consideration” is present with me, that through it what was future may be conveyed over, so as to become past. Which the more it is done again and again, so much the more the expectation being shortened, is the memory enlarged; till the whole expectation be at length exhausted, when that whole action being ended, shall have passed into memory.

In an essay on The Pilgrim’s Progress, C.Q. Drummond discusses this passage from the Confessions and writes about how “It is impossible to come to a text without expectations.” While Austen tells us that Elizabeth, on receiving Darcy’s letter, “had formed no expectation at all of its contents,” we also know that she has formed many expectations about the character of its author. (And while I’m rereading and writing about Pride and Prejudice in this series of blog posts without talking – much – about the pop culture that surrounds it, I don’t imagine that I can recapture the experience of reading the novel for the first time.) As Drummond writes of St. Augustine’s experience, in the case of each reading, “‘consideration’ is present”: “what is future may be conveyed over so as to become past,” and “what is expectation may become memory, even as memory determines expectation.” The present moment is informed by the past, and the past is informed and “enlarged” by the present reading, and thus Elizabeth’s close reading of the letter – “consideration” – transforms her prejudices.

In the days to come, we learn in the next chapter, Elizabeth “studied every sentence” of the letter, until she is “in a fair way of soon knowing [it] by heart.” She has learned that quickness has its dangers as well as its virtues, after she finds that “Widely different was the effect of a second perusal.” Whether she’s thinking of Lady Catherine’s advice about music or not, she’s finding that it’s important to practise constantly.

For further reading:

C.Q. Drummond, “Sequence and Consequence in The Pilgrim’s Progress” (In Defense of Adam: Essays on Bunyan, Milton and Others, ed. John Baxter and Gordon Harvey [Edgeways, 2004] 230-7).

My page Pride and Prejudice at 200 collects all the posts in this series on rereading the novel, along with links to other essays and articles on P&P.

– from the first chapter of The Unfinished Child, by Theresa Shea, published this month by Brindle and Glass

I reviewed The Unfinished Child for Publishers Weekly, and you can read the full (very short) review online. Set in Edmonton, Alberta, the novel is a powerful meditation on the life and death of Carolyn Harrington, a girl with Down syndrome. Shea moves skillfully back and forth between what happened to Carolyn in the middle of the 20th century, and what happens to the friendship between two women, Marie and Elizabeth, more than fifty years later, when Marie becomes pregnant and learns that the baby has Down syndrome – just after Elizabeth has finally given up trying to have a baby. The Unfinished Child is a thoroughly-researched, thoughtful, deeply moving examination of pregnancy and infertility, friendship, and changes in the way people with Down syndrome have been treated over the past several decades. I recommend the book highly.

If you’re in Edmonton, you should definitely go to the book launch this Sunday, April 7th, at 1pm at The Upper Crust Café (10909 86th Ave). You can follow Theresa Shea on Twitter: @SheaTheresa.

“It was funny, really, how the mind could entertain two such drastic thoughts simultaneously – There is something wrong with the baby and Everything will be okay.”

“The closer you look, the more you see,” writes John Mullan in What Matters in Jane Austen? Elizabeth Bennet learns this lesson in Pride and Prejudice when she reads and rereads Mr. Darcy’s letter “with the closest attention” to understand why he separated Bingley from Jane and why he doesn’t trust Wickham. Mullan’s compelling analysis of detail in Jane Austen’s novels persuades us that “Little things matter.” In a series of chapters on what he calls “puzzles,” he asks questions about details and discusses how and why they matter. In the process, he demonstrates that the popular pastime of answering quizzes about the novels is not necessarily trivial, but can lead us to a deeper understanding of Jane Austen’s careful craftsmanship and her innovative contributions to the history of fiction.

You can read the full review at Austenprose.com.

“If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.” Lady Catherine de Bourgh has many great lines in Pride and Prejudice, and this line (in Volume 2, Chapter 8) is one of my favourites. It’s debatable whether 10,000 hours of practice will make you an expert, but it’s true that no one becomes “a great proficient” without making an attempt to learn a particular skill.

Lady Catherine admits she isn’t a musician, yet she claims to be an expert in appreciating music: “There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste.” She is confident about her skill in dispensing advice, a skill she has practised for a long time, and she tells Mr. Darcy to pass on her advice to his sister Georgiana about her music: “pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel, if she does not practise a great deal.” Ignoring her nephew’s assurance that Georgiana “does not need such advice” because “She practises very constantly,” Lady Catherine insists, “when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account.” Her opinion is that “It cannot be done too much.”

“We neither of us perform to strangers.” Illustration by Elizabeth Baxter

I’ve written before about the way Darcy takes Elizabeth’s advice to practise talking with strangers, and works hard to show her he’s capable of talking with the Gardiners at Pemberley. This earlier scene at Rosings is fascinating because it shows how Elizabeth’s advice to him is influenced by Lady Catherine’s advice to her. Lady Catherine says, “I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in music is to be acquired, without constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well, unless she practises more.” Later in the evening, Elizabeth passes on the advice. She says she is not an expert at playing the piano, and effectively tells Darcy that if she had practised more, she “should have been a great proficient.” She acknowledges it is her “own fault—because I would not take the trouble of practising,” and implies that he ought to practise the art of conversation. She doesn’t seem to have any intention of taking Lady Catherine’s advice herself—at least, not with music.

Darcy defends himself by saying he lacks this specific “talent,” “of conversing easily with those I have never seen before.” Elizabeth suggests it isn’t a matter of talent, it’s a matter of spending time and effort practising. Then at the end of the chapter, Lady Catherine adds her advice that in addition to practising, what Elizabeth needs is the benefit of studying music with “a London master.” It’s comical that she insists her daughter Anne’s musical taste, like her own, is superior to Elizabeth’s, even though neither she nor Anne has ever practised or studied music, with or without a “master.”

If you put all her advice together, Lady Catherine would sound quite sensible: to be an expert, one needs “true enjoyment,” “natural taste,” constant practice, and good teachers. But it’s much more entertaining to listen to the contradictions inherent in her attitude toward music and its practitioners. And to watch Elizabeth catch her criticism and throw it at Darcy.

My page Pride and Prejudice at 200 collects all the posts in this series on rereading the novel, along with links to other essays and articles on P&P.

Jane Austen doesn’t tell us whether Mr. Collins reads novels any more than Shakespeare tells us, in the words of the famous 1933 essay by L.C. Knights, “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?” Knights was criticizing interpretations of Shakespeare’s plays that treated literary characters as if they were real people, rather than focusing on the plays as poetry. We can’t ever know if Mr. Collins reads novels, and I recognize there are limits to what we can infer about literary characters, but I raise the question because I’m interested in what Austen does tell us about his interest in fictions of various types, despite his professed preference for non-fiction.

Mr. Collins reads sermons to his parishioners and to the Bennet sisters, but he also composes “delicate compliments” for Lady Catherine de Bourgh, her daughter, and other ladies. As he tells Mr. Bennet, “you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her.”

Thus, although he claims to read only serious non-fiction such as Fordyce’s Sermons, he is clearly a writer of little fictions designed to increase his own reputation by flattering his patroness. In search of further entertainment from his “absurd” cousin, Mr. Bennet asks if he thinks of these compliments in the moment, or prepares them in advance. Mr. Collins confesses not all of them are spontaneous, but that “though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible.” Whether he writes them down or memorizes them, he’s composing fiction.

The idea that pompous, humourless Mr. Collins writes fiction complicates his character. On earlier readings of Pride and Prejudice, I didn’t look at him in this way. I thought he was funny and awful, both a joke (for Mr. Bennet, Elizabeth, and the reader) and a nightmare (for Charlotte Lucas). He writes these little fictions to flatter and to please. He is a nervous writer and performer, concerned to make his work look effortless, while striving to express himself with elegance. When he insists he doesn’t read novels, he’s protesting too much.

Hugh Thomson’s 1894 illustration of Mr. Collins: “He protested that he never read novels.”

He doesn’t just say he prefers sermons to novels. He agrees to read to the ladies, but then when the book is “produced” and “every thing announced it to be from a circulating library,” he actually “started back, and begging pardon, protested that he never read novels.” This reaction is exaggerated, as is the “monotonous solemnity” with which he proceeds to read the first three pages of Fordyce’s Sermons, before Lydia interrupts him. Mr. Collins is playing the role of the solemn clergyman, wanting Mr. and Mrs. Bennet to see him as a serious man, a potential husband for one of their daughters.

On this reading, I was struck by the link between this well-known Fordyce’s Sermons passage and the even more famous scene in which he proposes to Elizabeth and is rejected. He sees himself as the hero of the story, the single young man in possession of a good position, with good prospects, and a generous disposition because he’s chosen to look for a wife in the Bennet family, instead of bestowing his future inheritance on someone outside the family. No wonder he makes such a long, self-important speech when he proposes to Elizabeth. He feels he understands how this story ought to unfold, and as the future beneficiary of the entailed estate, he is at the very centre of the story. As a “clergyman in easy circumstances” who will eventually inherit Longbourn, as a man in pursuit of his own happiness, and as a man fortunate enough to call Lady Catherine de Bourgh his patroness, Mr. Collins is in want of a wife.

He outlines this story to Elizabeth when he lists his reasons for marrying, and then, because he knows no courtship plot is complete without love, he makes an effort to assure her “in the most animated language of the violence of [his] affection.” Just as he played the role of the serious, intellectual clergyman, he now throws himself into the role of the romantic hero who rescues a beautiful young woman from poverty and elevates her to a secure social position, adding the promise of ultimately being able to give her back her family home. The way he describes his reasons for being “in want of a wife” makes me think he is composing the story of his life in a way that will parallel other courtship plots he has read.

But it’s when he responds to Elizabeth’s refusal that he betrays his familiarity with the conventions of romantic fiction. “‘I am not now to learn,’” he says, “with a formal wave of the hand, ‘that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time.’” How does he know what to expect from young ladies? Does this information come from Lady Catherine, or from the perusal of tales of romance? “I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said,” he insists to Elizabeth, maintaining that he continues to “hope to lead you to the altar ere long.”

He’s determined that the story will end the way he has imagined it, and he doesn’t make any allowance for other interpretations. Elizabeth’s refusal is, he says, “merely words of course.” He knows how the story is supposed to end when an eligible single man offers a poor woman money and position. Mr. Collins is a misguided reader and a misguided writer. Whether he reads novels from the circulating library or not, he has his own ideas about how a courtship story ought to unfold, and he makes an effort to play the role of the hero. When the plot doesn’t work out the way he has tried to write it, however, he doesn’t learn from the past.

There’s no “Till this moment, I never knew myself” scene for Mr. Collins. He simply fixes on a new heroine, one who will comply with the demands of his courtship plot, and marries Charlotte Lucas. He doesn’t know himself any better, and he continues to compose fictions about his marriage, his patroness, and his vocation as a clergyman. Poor Mr. Collins. I’ve laughed at him; I’ve found him repulsive. I never had much sympathy for him. Yet when I see him as a writer who can’t revise, and a reader who can’t learn, I do feel some sympathy. I hope I know myself better now. Even the most impossible characters, in fiction or in life, deserve a measure of understanding.

My page Pride and Prejudice at 200 collects all the posts in this series on rereading the novel, along with links to other essays and articles on P&P.

The mock trial involves Darcy suing Wickham for defamation of character. Star performers include Bill Wood from PicnicFace, author and King’s professor Laura Penny, Schulich School of Law professors Geoff Loomer and Diana Ginn, and the Honourable Judge Jamie Campbell of the Nova Scotia Provincial Court.

The event begins at 7pm on Thursday, March 7th, at the King’s College Alumni Hall. You can buy tickets ($12, or $8 for students) in advance from the University of King’s College Bookstore, or at the door (cash only).

You can also buy raffle tickets, and, while the jury is deliberating after the trial, the results of the raffle will be announced at a reception. Artwork from Litographs is included in the donations to the raffle.

If you want to support Halifax Humanities 101, but are unable to attend the fundraiser, you can make a donation through halifaxhumanities101.ca by clicking on “Donate now through CanadaHelps.ca.” You can find the event page for the fundraiser on Facebook, and you can follow Humanities 101 on Twitter: @HalHum101.

“Darcy is still the ultimate sex symbol” is the title of a recent article by Katy Brand in The Telegraph. The article features a photograph of Colin Firth and his famous wet shirt from the 1995 A&E/BBC Pride and Prejudice series. I can’t reproduce the image here, because I’ve promised to try very hard not to talk about the “white noise” of popular culture that surrounds Pride and Prejudice.

But now that I have your attention, I want to ask for your help in identifying what it is that makes Mr. Darcy so attractive — in the novel.

Hugh Thomson’s 1894 illustration of Mr. Darcy

He’s first mentioned as simply “another young man,” who accompanies Mr. Bingley to the first assembly. Within a few lines, however, he does become a “sex symbol,” with his “fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance of his having ten thousand a year.” He’s attractive because he’s handsome and rich. The men at the assembly judge him to be “a fine figure of a man,” while “the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley.”

Elizabeth’s prejudice against Darcy, after he has refused to dance with her, stops her from seeing other things about him that she might find attractive. Like her, he is a reader, who values books and libraries. As Miss Bingley says of him, he is “always buying books.” He thinks highly of women who improve their minds “by extensive reading.” He is also open to taking advice from Elizabeth. At the end of their argument at Netherfield about whether it’s wise “to yield readily – easily – to the persuasion of a friend,” Elizabeth offers advice – and Darcy takes it. She has only to say, “Mr. Darcy had much better finish his letter,” and he does as she asks: “Mr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter.”

One of my favourite passages in the novel is the scene in which Darcy meets Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner for the first time at Pemberley, and both Elizabeth and the reader gradually realize that through his behavior to the Gardiners, he is showing that again he has listened to Elizabeth’s advice – this time about practising talking to people he doesn’t know. At Rosings, in response to Darcy’s claim about not having the “talent” of “conversing easily with those I have never seen before,” Elizabeth has argued it’s her own fault she doesn’t play the piano very well, “because I would not take the trouble of practising.” At Pemberley, Darcy demonstrates that he has learned from her metaphor, and that he is practising.

Yes, he later rescues her sister’s reputation and her family’s reputation. He does have a large estate, “his beautiful grounds at Pemberley,” and enough money to give Elizabeth, in her mother’s words, “pin-money,” “jewels,” “carriages,” “A house in town!” and “Every thing that is charming!” According to his housekeeper, “He is the best landlord, and the best master … that ever lived.” He’s handsome, and he can offer Elizabeth social status – in Mrs. Bennet’s words again, “how rich and how great you will be!” All these things make him attractive, but I would argue that one of the main things Elizabeth finds attractive is that he listens to her, and learns from her. He does so early on, when he finishes his letter, and he does so at Pemberley, when he shows he can learn how to talk to new acquaintances – and how to respect people whose social status is not equal to his own.

I can’t leave the famous Pemberley chapter behind without looking at what happens, in Austen’s own words, when Darcy suddenly appears and catches Elizabeth by surprise. There’s no description of a clinging wet shirt, but there is certainly sexual tension in the scene:

As they walked across the lawn towards the river, Elizabeth turned back to look [at Pemberley] again; her uncle and aunt stopped also, and while the former was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables.

They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immoveable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility. (Volume 2, Chapter 1)

We now live in a world that relies heavily on visual images, which is part of why “Colin Firth in a wet shirt” signifies passion and desire in Pride and Prejudice. Yet in the novel, Austen makes clear that this moment is significant not because Elizabeth is looking at Darcy and admiring his handsome face or figure, but because there is such a strong connection between the two of them already that “their eyes instantly met,” and they simultaneously blush at meeting in such circumstances. They’re looking at each other. It isn’t that the heroine and readers or audience are gazing at Darcy. Colin Firth as Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth look at each other, too, but that isn’t the main part that viewers remember after watching this scene.

Is Darcy “the ultimate sex symbol” in the novel as well as in pop culture, or is it impossible to separate his reputation in Austen’s novel from the way he has been represented by Laurence Olivier, David Rintoul, Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, and others on film, on stage, and in pop culture generally? See how hard it’s been for me in this post to talk about Pride and Prejudice without bringing in comparisons from outside the novel?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

My page Pride and Prejudice at 200 collects all the posts in this series on rereading the novel, along with links to other essays and articles on P&P.