My Cousin Jane

Vingt-et-un vs Commerce, Cooling Your Porridge, and Irish Airs

What exactly is Vingt-et-un and Commerce? Is the phrase “Keep your breath to cool your porridge” really an old saying? If so, where did it come from? And what are Scotch and Irish airs? Find out the answers to these questions and more, in this episode of My Cousin Jane.

Audio

Show Notes

Note: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. This means that every time you click on one and then buy something, I get paid billions of pounds by a secret organization trying to bring back the Regency period…or I get a few fractions of a cent from a company like Amazon, one or the other.

Books referenced in this episode

Transcript

Note: Transcripts on this site are the scripts I used when preparing to record the show. They may or may not be a 100% faithful representation of the final recording. Audio clips of Pride & Prejudice come from Karen Savage’s narration of Pride & Prejudice, courtesy of LibriVox.org.

Welcome to My Cousin Jane, a podcast about Jane Austen and her works. With your host, Lee Falin. Season 2 – episode 6.

Welcome back to another episode of My Cousin Jane. Each week, we look at what you might think of as the behind the scenes featurettes or deleted scenes of a particular chapter in Austen’s books.

This week, we’re going to talk about Pride & Prejudice Chapter 6.

As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to see it continue, please consider supporting us by going to MyCousinJane.com, signing up for our newsletter, or clicking on the little donate button.

Chapter Summary

Chapter 6 jumps around a bit. We start with a brief blurb about the ladies of Longbourn visiting Netherfield, and the ladies of Netherfield returning the visit.

Sometime after that, Charlotte and Elizabeth discuss how much Mr. Bingley and Jane like each other, and debate whether or not Jane would be better off being more forward about her feelings towards Mr. Bingley.

Charlotte’s thoughts on matrimony here are a bit of a foreshadowing of what is to come later with Mr. Collins.

We then jump to Lucas Lodge, where the Lucas family has invited a large party for an evening get together.

We also discover for the first time that Mr. Darcy is beginning to admire Elizabeth, much to his own surprise. It’s also clear that Darcy is socially awkward, which people could certainly mistake as prideful behavior.

I’m not saying he isn’t guilty of pride, but it’s clear that he (and his sister Georgianna, from things we learn later in the novel), were raised in a somewhat sheltered way that made it difficult for them to converse easily with their peers.

The timing of this chapter is a bit difficult to nail down based solely on what we know so far. We do know that at least two weeks have passed since the first time Mr. Bingley and Jane have danced together.

Now one of the things about Jane Austen’s works is that there are phrases used in them that meant something specific in Regency-era England, that while the general meaning may be somewhat similar to what you think it means today, the actual meaning may have shifted quite a bit since that time period. Or it can have multiple meanings, depending on the context.

I want to discuss three such phrases that Austen uses in this chapter.

Vingt-et-un vs commerce

First, let’s listen to this clip of Elizabeth and Charlotte debating how well Jane knows Mr. Bingley. As always, our audio clips come courtesy of Karen Savage and Librivox.org.

She has known him only a fortnight. She danced four dances with him at Meryton; she saw him one morning at his own house, and has since dined in company with him four times. This is not quite enough to make her understand his character.”

“Not as you represent it. Had she merely dined with him, she might only have discovered whether he had a good appetite; but you must remember that four evenings have been also spent together—and four evenings may do a great deal.”

“Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce; but with respect to any other leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded.”

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6

Here we learn that both Jane and Mr. Bingley like Vingt-un better than Commerce. These are card games that were popular in the 1800s.

Vingt-un

If you know some French, you might recognize that Vingt-un or Vingt-et-un is French for 21. The game is called by its French name because it appears to have come to Britain from France in the late 1700s.

There are a number of modern variations on the rules for this game. In the US, the most popular variation is called Blackjack, while in the UK today, the most common variation is known as Pontoon.

The name Pontoon first appeared sometime during World War I. Card game historians believe this name may have come from a mis-transliteration of what some less educated infantryman heard when an officer talked about playing “Vingt-un”.

Some historians credit the game’s origins to Spain, sometime in the 1600s. This is because it appears in a short story collection written by Miguel Cervantes (of Don Quixote fame) called Novelas ejemplares.

But according to David Parlett, author of The Oxford Guide to Card Games, the game is probably a derivation of Thirty-One, a game that was popular throughout Europe in the 15th century.

Commerce

Commerce, the other game Elizabeth refers to, is one of the many variations of poker that has been played over the years. Commerce itself has had some variations as well, depending on where and when it was played.

Turning again to David Parlett, author of The Oxford Guide to Card Games, Commerce is played by dealing a set number of cards face down to each player (most commonly 3 in regency era England). Then the same number of cards is dealt face up in the center of the table.
Players take turns deciding whether to exchange one or more of their cards for the ones in the center of the table.

What constitutes a good hand depends on the version of Commerce being played, but most commonly they are (in order of precedence): A three of a kind, then a consecutive sequence of three cards in the same suit (such as 4, 5, 6 or J, Q, K), followed by a flush (three cards of the same suit), then a pair, and finally a high card (sometimes called a point card).

But again, historians point out that there are so many variations of poker that go by the same name, it’s really hard to know exactly the version that is being played.

But the three-card version of Commerce I just described is the most likely candidate for the time period.

Keep your breath to cool your porridge

Later in chapter 6, we’re at Lucas Lodge, where Sir William Lucas has gathered a large party for an evening of socializing. Mr. Darcy is talking with Elizabeth and Charlotte, and Charlotte has just invited Elizabeth to play the pianoforte.

Here’s what Elizabeth says in reply:

“You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!—always wanting me to play and sing before anybody and everybody! If my vanity had taken a musical turn, you would have been invaluable; but as it is, I would really rather not sit down before those who must be in the habit of hearing the very best performers.”

On Miss Lucas’s persevering, however, she added, “Very well; if it must be so, it must.” And gravely glancing at Mr. Darcy, “There is a fine old saying, which everybody here is of course familiar with—‘Keep your breath to cool your porridge,’—and I shall keep mine to swell my song.”

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6

I’ve always been curious just how old that “fine old saying” actually is. The phrase “Keep your breath to cool your porridge” or “Save your breath to cool your porridge,” appears relatively frequently in 18th and 19th century literature.

Pride & Prejudice was published in 1813. You can find the phrase used in Sir Walter Scott’s Old Mortality published in 1841, Jonathan Swift’s satirical etiquette book Polite Conversation, which was published in 1738, and in Captain Charles Johnson’s 1736 book, Lives of the Highwaymen.

The Oxford English Dictionary, which maintains an excellent list of English language word origins, states that the phrase first appeared in print in 1694, in the first English language translation of a classic French story, The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel.

It’s the story of a giant named Gargantua and his son Pantagruel, who travel around having adventures that are basically satirical social commentaries, very similar to Gulliver’s travels.

In the English translation, a character named Panurge is having a conversation with a Fryer, and at one point says to him,

“Well, friar, spare your breath to cool your porridge.”

The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel

So thinking that this phrase was originally a French idiom, I tracked down the original French version of the book.

Unfortunately, while the English translator, Peter Anthony Motteux did a great job with his English translation, he is a bit infamous in literary circles for having little concern with adding a great amount of his own material to the translation.

It turns out that the passage where Panurge says “Spare your breath to cool your porridge”, is one of the many places Motteux added his own material. Because while the original French version does a conversation with the fryer, this particular bit of dialogue doesn’t exist there.

But, we still know that this phrase was at least known to the translator as early as 1694, so where in fact did this phrase originate?

Going back just a bit further, there’s one more recorded use of it in 1646 by a British educator named John Clarke. He published a collection of Latin idioms and their English language equivalents. One of the english idioms he uses is, “Save your breath to coole your porridge.”

From his use of it, it’s clear that the phrase has an even earlier origin.

Unfortunately, from there the trail goes cold.

Scotch and Irish Airs

Moving on to our last phrase, after Elizabeth finishes playing the pianoforte, her sister Mary takes over. Let’s listen to what happens next:

Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well; and Mary, at the end of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who with some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in dancing at one end of the room.

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6

I want to spend a minute or two talking about Scotch and Irish airs. The term “air” in music sometimes means different things to different people, and even the generally accepted meaning differs slightly between genres of music and across time periods.

In a very simplified definition that tries to capture all of these meanings, an “air” means a melody from a song. What type of melody is where things get muddled a bit.

According to the BBC Classical Music Magazine, the Italian term “aria” is often translated as air in English, and generally means a solo vocal piece that can be extracted from an opera and performed on its own.

Probably the most well known in this style is the aria from Act III of Rigoletto, “La donna è mobile” (or a Woman is fickle).

Often an aria is performed so often on its own, that it becomes more well known than the opera it came from.

For example, many people could probably recognize the aria Largo al Factotum sung by Figaro from The Barber of Seville.

Or the arias Habanera and Toreador Song from Carmen, without having ever seen (or been aware of) the operas these arias originate from.

However, the term air in Regency-era England could also refer to a song-like vocal composition, such as Air on the G String, a special arrangement of part of a suite written by Bach, or one of the many “airs” that were popularized in France, written primarily for the Lute, but also adapted to other instruments.

So which type of air was Mary playing?

One additional clue is that in the various definitions of musical airs we’ve discussed so far, they explicitly mention that airs are not used for dance music. But according to Austen, that’s exactly what Elizabeth’s friends and family were using them for.

Knowing that, and the additional fact that Mary is playing Scotch and Irish airs points us in another direction.

According to The Companion to Irish Traditional Music by Fintan Vallely, in traditional Gaelic music, the term “air” usually refers simply to the melody of a tune. So instead of saying, “How does Jingle Bells go again?”, you would ask “What’s the air to Jingle Bells?”

But it can sometimes be a synonym for an Irish “slow air”, which Valley defines as:

An open-ended melodic formula…Often a slow air will be simply the air of an existing song…The slow air is played solo, is executed differently on different instruments, and individual players’ interpretations of it vary considerably too.

The Companion to Irish Traditional Music

There are lots of different styles of music that get labeled under the umbrella of “traditional Irish music”, and one of the ironic things is that a lot of these songs were originally composed to tell a story about different battles or rebellions, or revolts that the Irish people had against English rule.

So it’s a little ironic that they would then take those songs and sing them in English assemblies or use them for British dances.

Within those different subgenera, you have things like sean-nós, which is a very distinctive vocal style. You also have Irish jigs, which were probably more inclined towards dance.

Here’s an excerpt of a traditional Irish jig played by Barbara Arens on the piano, which is very similar to what Mary probably would have been playing.

Conclusion

That wraps up episode 6 of season 2 of My Cousin Jane.

As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to help us out, please consider supporting us by heading over to MyCousinJane.com and clicking on the little donate button.

Either way, thanks so much for listening.

Sir William Lucas, Regency Mayors, and Royal House Fires

What exactly was Sir William Lucas’ role as the mayor of a small market town? What’s the difference between The Palace of Westminster, Saint James, and Buckingham? And why should the monarchy invest in fire insurance?  Find out the answers to these questions and more, in this episode of My Cousin Jane.

Audio

Show Notes

Note: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. This means that every time you click on one and then buy something, I get paid billions of pounds by a secret organization trying to bring back the Regency period…or I get a few fractions of a cent from a company like Amazon, one or the other.

Transcript

Note: Transcripts on this site are the scripts I used when preparing to record the show. They may or may not be a 100% faithful representation of the final recording. Audio clips of Pride & Prejudice come from Karen Savage’s narration of Pride & Prejudice, courtesy of LibriVox.org.

Welcome to My Cousin Jane, a podcast about Jane Austen and her works. With your host, Lee Falin. Season 2 – episode 05.

Welcome back to another episode of My Cousin Jane. Each week, we look at what you might think of as the behind the scenes featurettes or deleted scenes of a particular chapter in Austen’s books.

This week, we’re going to talk about Pride & Prejudice Chapter 5.

As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to see it continue, please consider supporting us by going to MyCousinJane.com, signing up for our newsletter, or clicking on the little donate button.

Chapter Summary

In this chapter, we are once again discussing the recent ball, the charming behavior of Mr. Bingley, and the infamous behavior of Mr. Darcy.

Just to set up the timeline a bit, the ball happened in the evening in Chapter 3. Later that night, Chapter 4 finds Elizabeth and Jane discussing the ball. Chapter 5 opens the next morning when the Lucas family drops by for a visit.

There are a lot of names mentioned in this chapter. Sir William Lucas is the head of the family, married to Lady Lucas. They have several children, but the only one that’s important to the story is Charlotte, she’s 27 years-old and a close friend of Elizabeth.

Speaking of Elizabeth and names, she gets called a lot of things in the novel, and while this might be obvious, I think it’s worth mentioning her nicknames, just to clear up any confusion. As we mentioned last week, she is addressed as Miss Elizabeth or Miss Elizabeth Bennet by people outside of her family. She is also called Lizzy by her parents and sometimes by her siblings, and Eliza by her friends.

She’s referred to by Elizabeth, Lizzy, and Eliza all in the course of a single page in this chapter. On one hand, that’s a great example of differentiating character voice, but it could be confusing to new readers.

Also in this chapter we have a few minor characters discussed, such as Mr. Robinson and Mrs. Long. The latter we already heard about in the first chapter, and who will be mentioned again, but neither of these characters are important to the story.

Saint James

There are two things I want to talk about today regarding Sir William Lucas, but let’s start by listening to this clip about his rank, courtesy of Karen Savage and LibriVox.org:

For, though elated by his rank, it did not render him supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St. James’s had made him courteous.

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 5

So first of all, Sir William was presented to the king for knighthood at Saint James.

One interesting pattern you see with the homes of British monarchs is that they get destroyed by fires relatively frequently.

Up until the 1500s, the main resident of English royalty was the Palace of Westminster. But after a fire destroyed the royal apartments in 1512, Henry VIII moved to the nearby Palace of Whitehall. Which was also destroyed by a fire in 1622.

Fortunately, in the 1530s, Henry VIII had purchased an old hospital from Eton College that had been dedicated to Saint James (As an aside, this was not James the son of Zebedee, but the other apostle named James, sometimes known as James, son of Alphaeus).

He had the hospital torn down and built a palace in its place, which was called St. James. After Whitehall burned down, it became the principal residence for the monarchy until 1762 when the newly married King George III decided that it was just too cramped, and purchased a large townhouse called Buckingham House.

Through a series of improvements and additions, this gradually became Buckingham Palace, and though St. James was still the site of many official ceremonies (and is still the official site of the royal court today), but Buckingham gradually became the center of the monarchy.

Then in 1809, the royal apartments at St. James were destroyed by, you guessed it, another fire, and the royal family began living at Buckingham Palace full time. When Queen Victoria took the throne in 1837, she made Buckingham Palace the official residence of the monarchy, which it remains to this day.

However, St. James is still used for many official functions, most notably the Accession Council, a ceremonial group that formally proclaims the successor to the throne upon the monarch’s death. Several members of the royal family have also lived (or currently live) in various apartments associated with St. James.

We can only hope that Buckingham Palace has good fire suppression.

English Mayors

Let’s listen to one more clip about Sir William from this chapter:

Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade in Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the honour of knighthood by an address to the king during his mayoralty.

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 5

From this clip we learn, aside from the fact that Sir William earned his fortune through trade, that he was previously a Mayor of a small market town. But what exactly does that mean? How did one become a mayor in Regency England, and what would your responsibilities be?

One thing to note is that until around the year 2000, there were no directly elected mayors in England. The first time a mayor was directly elected was when Ken Livingstone became the first Mayor of London. (Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan have followed in that office).

Since then, several smaller municipalities have adopted the idea of having mayors directly elected by the people.

I should point out that the directly elected office of Mayor of London, created in 2000, is different from the office of the Lord Mayor of London, which has been around since the 1200s.

The Lord Mayor is elected through a secret ballot process carried out by the Livery Companies and the Court of Alderman. It has a long and colorful history that began with King John (of Robin Hood fame), and if you are interested in British history or political intrigue, I encourage you to read about it.

During regency times, every municipality had a slightly different way of handling local government. Sometimes, local councils (village councils, city councils, borough councils, etc…) had representatives elected by the people. Sometimes those offices were for fixed terms, other times they were life appointments.

The council members would sometimes appoint a mayor to chair the council. Sometimes this post was called “mayor”, sometimes “alderman”. Sometimes the councilors themselves were called aldermen, and sometimes there were a mix of councilors, one or more aldermen, and possibly a mayor.

For example, in Ipswich, local government consisted of Bailiffs and Burgesses; meanwhile, Leeds had a Mayor, Alderman, and Burgesses; and Louth had a “Warden”, assistant warden, and a Court of Six Assistants.

If that sounds confusing to you, you’re not alone.

There were some changes to the old system in the mid 1800s. The first was the Representation of the People Act in 1832, which brought about two major changes.

First, it expanded the right to vote to small landowners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers, and anyone paying rent above a certain amount. Though unfortunately women were still explicitly excluded from voting.
The act also abolished the so-called pocket boroughs (also called “rotten boroughs”). These were small municipal areas that for historic reasons had a right to send two MPs to the House of Commons.

The problem was that some of these boroughs didn’t actually have anyone living in them, and the MPs were essentially selected uncontested by the land owner (and were thus, in his pocket).

Then, in 1833, Lord Grey (who everyone believes Earl Grey tea is named for), had a committee formed to survey the existing systems of local government across England.

The commission found not only large variation in systems, but widespread corruption and dereliction of duty.

Their final report to the King included this fun quote:

… the existing Municipal Corporations of England and Wales neither possess nor deserve the confidence or respect of Your Majesty’s subjects, and that a thorough reform must be elected, before they can become, what we humbly submit to Your Majesty they ought to be, useful and efficient instruments of local government.

Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations, 1835

Now, there is some debate about whether this report was completely objective and honest, as most of the members of the committee were part of a specific political group known as the Radicals, who sought widespread reforms in a variety of areas.

But objective or not, the report resulted in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, which brought about a complete reformation of local government. Local municipalities would be governed by local councils elected by their taxpayers.

There were to be annual elections, and each year one-third of the council seats would come up for election. The council members elected aldermen to serve on the council for six years.

This system has been modified several more times over the years by subsequent legislation.

The point of all of this municipal history is that if you want to understand exactly what Sir William Lucas’ duties were as mayor of a small market town in Regency England, it’s pretty impossible to say.

Not only were there widespread reforms rolling out across England throughout the 1800s, but prior to that reform, there was little uniformity in the various systems of local government.

So for all we know, could have been doing anything, or, if Lord Grey’s committee is to be believed–possibly doing nothing.

Conclusion

That wraps up episode 5 of season 2 of My Cousin Jane.

As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to help us out, please consider supporting us by heading over to MyCousinJane.com and clicking on the little donate button.

Either way, thanks so much for listening.

Private Seminaries, How to Address Women, and Escaping Middle Class

What was a private seminary? What is the proper way to address a gentleman’s daughter? And just what is the story with the Bingley’s fortune? Find out the answers to these questions and more, in this episode of My Cousin Jane.

Audio

Show Notes

Note: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. This means that every time you click on one and then buy something, I get paid billions of pounds by a secret organization trying to bring back the Regency period…or I get a few fractions of a cent from a company like Amazon, one or the other.

Advertisements for Private Women’s Seminaries

Excerpts from The Female Preceptor, essays on the duties of the female sex, conducted by a lady, Volume 2 (1813) and Volume 3 (1814).

Transcript

Note: Transcripts on this site are the scripts I used when preparing to record the show. They may or may not be a 100% faithful representation of the final recording. Audio clips of Pride & Prejudice come from Karen Savage’s narration of Pride & Prejudice, courtesy of LibriVox.org.

Welcome to My Cousin Jane, a podcast about Jane Austen and her works. With your host, Lee Falin. Season 2 – episode 04.

Welcome back to another episode of My Cousin Jane. Each week, we look at what you might think of as the behind the scenes featurettes or deleted scenes of a particular chapter in Austen’s books.

This week, we’re going to talk about Pride & Prejudice Chapter 4.
As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to see it continue, please consider supporting us by going to mycousinjane.com and clicking the little donate button.

Chapter Summary

In the fourth chapter of Pride & Prejudice, we have Jane and Elizabeth discussing the events of the ball, and especially the behaviors and relative merits of Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy.

But then about halfway through the chapter, Austen switches POVs. We move from Elizabeth’s POV to an omniscient POV, where we learn some of the backstory about Mr. Bingley and his family.

Two quick notes about Mr. Bingley’s two sisters:

First we have Caroline Bingley, she’s single and is usually referred to in the novel simply as Miss Bingley, but sometimes as Caroline.

The second is Mrs. Louisa Hurst, who is married to a man known only as Mr. Hurst. Caroline of course is a major antagonist in the novel, though Louisa participates in her scheming occasionally. Mr. Hurst doesn’t play much of a role in the story and is only mentioned in passing a couple of times.

Women’s Titles in Regency

Speaking of Miss and Mrs, let’s talk briefly about the forms of address used with women that did not have titles of nobility.

What we refer to as someone’s first name or given name, was in Regency England, referred to as their Christian name, because it was the name given to them at their Christening.

Their last name or surname would generally be referred to as their family name.

For married women without a title, the address was generally Mrs., followed by their husband’s family name. This was the address used by both men and women outside the family, and even most of the time by the woman’s husband while in public.

One exception was that close female friends might address a married woman by her Christian name.

For unmarried women without title, the rules were a bit more complicated. The eldest unmarried daughter was referred to as Miss. followed by the family name.

For example, references to “Miss. Bennet” refer to Jane, as she is the oldest unmarried Bennet daughter.

The other unmarried daughters of the family were addressed as Miss followed by their Christian and family names, or Miss followed by just their Christian name if people are speaking more casually. But never by just their first name, except in cases of young men who have recently had their proposals accepted.

For example Elizabeth is usually referred to outside her family as “Miss Elizabeth Bennet” or “Miss Elizabeth”.

The rules for untitled men were a bit simpler. To pretty much everyone except their close male friends, they were “Mr.”, followed by their surname. Close male friends would refer to them most often simply by their surname.

Private seminary

Let’s listen to this clip about the Bingley sister’s upbringing:

They were in fact very fine ladies; not deficient in good humour when they were pleased, nor in the power of being agreeable where they chose it; but proud and conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank; and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others.

Pride & Prejudice, Chapter 4

I want to talk a minute about the “seminary” referred to in this clip.

Now we learn a bit later in the chapter that the Bingley fortune was acquired by trade, which essentially means that they weren’t part of the “landed gentry”.

However the idea of appearing as an established family with an estate of their own is evident in the way they “were very anxious for their brother to have an estate of his own.”

However, it’s unclear whether or not the Bingley’s father was the one who acquired his fortune by trade, or whether it was an earlier generation. I mention this because what this private seminary consisted of would vary a bit depending on the circumstance of the Bingley family during their younger years.

It appears from Miss Bingley’s later description of what a “truly accomplished” woman means, that she and her sister would have been educated in, “music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages”.

In the popular women’s journal “The Female Preceptor”, we can find some reviews of private seminaries.

These typically start with a discussion of the merits of the housemistress—the title usually given to a woman in charge of a boarding school. Then a description of the house itself is sometimes provided, followed by the subjects covered and their cost.

You can find copies of some of these period reviews in the show notes for this episode over on MyCousinJane.com. So If you’re interested in reading them, head over there and check it out.

And while you’re there, don’t forget to signup for our awesome newsletter that gives you even more awesome Jane Austen-related news, historical references, behind-the-scenes information and other great stuff

Money Through Trade

Let’s listen to one more clip about the dance itself from Mrs. Bennet:

They were of a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brother’s fortune and their own had been acquired by trade.

Pride & Prejudice, Chapter 4

So we talked about this idea a bit when we discussed the Bingley’s fortune, but the portrait painted of Bingley here is that his father was mostly likely upper middle-class, which isn’t a term you think of a lot connected to the Regency era, but during this time period the idea of an “upwardly mobile middle-class” was relatively common.

First you had well-to-do tradesmen who, like the Bingley family, had earned a relative fortune through trade, enough to allow them to purchase an estate and transition from “tradesman” to “landed gentry”.
This was made easier by the fact that many “old money” families through a combination of mismanaged estates, poor investments, and extravagant children, find themselves so “land rich and cash poor” as Mr. Preston remarks in Wives and Daughters, that they are willing (or at times required) to sell off parts of their estate in order to stay afloat.

We also have soldiers and sailors who became wealthy through the fortunes of war, as was the case with Captain Wentworth (and many of his officer brothers) in Persuasion, which we discussed back in Season one.

We also have respectable (and otherwise) individuals who marry into money, lifting them instantly from the middle (or lower) class into the gentry.

As we discussed, there are some people who looked down upon this “new money” so to speak. One of the ironies Austen highlights about the Bingley sisters is that while they look down upon such individuals, they have conveniently forgotten the origins of their own fortunes.

Conclusion

That wraps up episode 4 of season 2 of My Cousin Jane.

As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to see it continue, please consider supporting us by heading over to MyCousinJane.com and clicking on the little donate button.

Either way, thanks so much for listening.

Mr. Darcy’s Wealth, His Behavior at the Ball, and Regency Dances – Pride & Prejudice Chapter 3

Just how rich was Mr. Darcy? Why was he being so rude at the ball? Why is it such a big deal that Bingley danced with Jane twice? And what exactly is a Boulangere? Find out the answers to these questions and more, in this episode of My Cousin Jane.

Audio

Show Notes

Note: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. This means that every time you click on one and then buy something, I get paid billions of pounds by a secret organization trying to bring back the Regency period…or I get a few fractions of a cent from a company like Amazon, one or the other.

Books referenced in this episode

Transcript

Note: Transcripts on this site are the scripts I used when preparing to record the show. They may or may not be a 100% faithful representation of the final recording. Audio clips of Pride & Prejudice come from Karen Savage’s narration of Pride & Prejudice, courtesy of LibriVox.org.

Welcome to My Cousin Jane, a podcast about Jane Austen and her works. With your host, Lee Falin. Season 2 – episode 03.

Welcome back everyone, or if you’re a first-time listener, thanks for joining us. Though you can of course listen to these episodes in any order, I highly recommend that you listen to each season from the start.

In each episode, we look at what you might think of as the behind the scenes featurettes or deleted scenes of a particular chapter in Austen’s books. And sometimes, I’ll refer back to the content of a previous episode. So be sure to go back and listen to those when you get a chance.

As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to see it continue, please consider supporting us by going to mycousinjane.com and clicking the little donate button.

Chapter Summary

The third chapter of Pride & Prejudice launches us into our first ball. My Darcy makes an appearance, astonishing everyone with what they perceive as his haughty behavior and even insults Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Mr. Bingley pays quite a bit of attention to Jane.

A bit about Darcy

Now, I want to talk a little bit about Mr. Darcy. First of all, the man is extremely wealthy. Beyond belief wealthy to be honest. As we discussed back in the first episode of this season, we can’t just look at what 10,000 pounds a year would be worth in today’s money. We have to take into account a bunch of other socio-economic factors.

Turning again to Katerine Toran’s excellent article “The Economics of Jane Austen’s World”, it’s estimated that Mr. Darcy’s annual income is somewhere between $12,000,000 and $16,000,000 USD per year. But, the article also estimates that his total fortune is somewhere between $250,000,000 and $328,000,000 USD.

Now, there’s no denying that the man is prideful and rude, but later on we learn that he feels uncomfortable around people he doesn’t know well, and doesn’t really like meeting new people. A feeling shared by many an introvert.

Let’s listen to this sequence of events. As always, our clips come courtesy of Karen Savage and Librivox.org:

Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again.

Pride & Prejudice, Chapter 3

When you hear that Mr. Darcy “declined to be introduced to any other lady,” you might picture him snubbing all of these poor young women trying to get his attention.

But remember from last episode how Regency introductions went. Someone acquainted with both Mr. Darcy and the young woman would present Mr. Darcy to the young woman, who would then decide if she wanted to pay any attention to him.

For an introvert, this would be a complete nightmare, no matter how rich you were.

Of course, this is all little comfort to Elizabeth when she overhears Mr. Darcy talking about her to Mr. Bingley.

The Dance

Let’s listen to one more clip about the dance itself from Mrs. Bennet:

…and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice. Only think of that, my dear; he actually danced with her twice; and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her; but, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed, nobody can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going down the dance. So he enquired who she was, and got introduced, and asked her for the two next. Then, the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the Boulanger—”

“If he had had any compassion for me,” cried her husband impatiently, “he would not have danced half so much! For God’s sake, say no more of his partners. Oh that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!”

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 3

A lot of people compare Regency dances to American square dances. And there are some similarities. But depending on the dance, a lot of the time people were standing around waiting for their turn to dance with their chosen partner, which left a lot of time for conversation.

Dances were typically conducted in pairs. So the “two first” that Mrs. Bennet refers to means two separate dances, one after the other. Each dance would have a particular style and arrangement, and one or more figures of movement that the participants moved through.

Each dance could last anywhere between fifteen to thirty minutes. So engaging someone for a set of two meant you might be in their company for close to an hour.

Many of the dances involved people waiting in a line (usually referred to as a set). The couple at the head of the set would dance down through the middle of the lines in different patterns, while the other participants would slowly make their way up the set as they approached their turn.

Now you might think you know how Regency dances are supposed to look, from the many ways they are depicted in films, but according to Susannah Fullerton, former president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, and author of A Dance with Jane Austen, most Austen films stage their dances more for cinematic and story effect, than for accuracy.

If you want a sound understanding of how Regency dance worked, “A Dance with Jane Austen” is an excellent resource.

Three other quick things I want to point out about Regency dance customs.

Most books on dance etiquette advised that except for very special reasons, you were not supposed to keep the same partner for more than a single set. So the fact that Bingley danced with Jane for two sets of dances is pretty significant.

Second, it was considered a major social misstep for a lady to choose not to dance with a man who asked her. Jane Austen brags in a letter to her sister about having done this once in order to avoid having to dance with someone particularly unpleasant.

This point will come up again later in the novel.

Finally, the Boulangere gets a special mention here. Other Austen fans have pointed out that the Boulangere is pretty notable as being the only dance that Austen mentions by name. There have been a lot of different versions of this dance over the years, but when it is danced at a ball, it’s usually the final dance of the evening.

Conclusion

As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to see it continue, please consider supporting us by going to MyCousinJane.com and clicking the little donate button.

Either way, thanks so much for listening.

Regency Fashion Guides, Trimming Bonnets, and More – Pride & Prejudice Chapter 2

Were men and women held to the same standards of fashion during the Regency Era? What exactly did trimming a bonnet entail? How important were social norms to Mrs. Bennet? Find out the answers to these questions and more, in this episode of My Cousin Jane.

Audio

Show Notes

Note: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. This means that every time you click on one and then buy something, I get paid billions of pounds by a secret organization trying to bring back the Regency period…or I get a few fractions of a cent from a company like Amazon, one or the other.

Books referenced in this episode

Transcript

Note: Transcripts on this site are the scripts I used when preparing to record the show. They may or may not be a 100% faithful representation of the final recording. Audio clips of Pride & Prejudice come from Karen Savage’s narration of Pride & Prejudice, courtesy of LibriVox.org.

Welcome to My Cousin Jane, a podcast about Jane Austen and her works. With your host, Lee Falin. Season 2 – episode 2.

Welcome back everyone, or if you’re a first-time listener, thanks for joining us. Though you can of course listen to these episodes in any order, I highly recommend that you listen to each season from the start.
In each episode, we look at what you might think of as the behind the scenes featurettes or deleted scenes of a particular chapter in Austen’s books. And sometimes, I’ll refer back to the content of a previous episode. So be sure to go back and listen to those when you get a chance.

As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to see it continue, please consider supporting us by going to mycousinjane.com and clicking the little donate button.

Chapter Summary

Chapter two is even shorter than chapter one by my estimation, and two important things take place in this chapter. First, we find out that Mr. Bennet secretly visited Mr. Bingley without telling anyone, despite what he told his wife. And second, we meet some of the daughters of the Bennet family and get some hints as to their personalities.

Just so we’re all on the same page when we discuss the family, I want to talk briefly about the five Bennet daughters, even though they’re not all explicitly mentioned in this chapter.

The eldest is Jane. Throughout the book we learn that she is considered the most beautiful, rather shy, and the least judgmental.

The second eldest is Elizabeth, though her father often calls her “Lizzy”. She is our main protagonist, and most of the novel takes place from her point of view.

Third in line is Mary. Austen isn’t very flattering when she talks about Mary. Mary’s defining trait in the novel is that she works really hard to improve herself both in reading and in musical performance, but her opinion of her talent exceeds her actual abilities.

Welcome to the club Mary.

Next is Catherine, known as “Kitty” in the novel. She doesn’t play a very large role in the novel, acting mostly as her younger sister’s comrade in arms so to speak.

Finally, we have Lydia, the youngest sister. Lydia is an impetuous young woman who appears to have little regard for the restrictions of propriety.

Though on the bright side, she is the tallest of the girls.

So, with those introductions out of the way, on to an important topic: Hat Trimming.

Hat Trimming and Fashion

When Mr. Bennet reveals his big surprise to the family, Lizzy is in the middle of trimming a hat. I want to talk about this, because it comes up again later in the book. And fashion was such an important aspect of Regency life.

Just like today, during the Regency era what was considered fashionable was constantly shifting.

Fashion advice at the time pointed out that while it wasn’t easy to judge someone’s talents, learning, or character, your sense of fashion was under constant scrutiny.

Men and women were given similar advice as to fashion trends. In the 1837 Pocket Book of Etiquette, the advice is given that:

Etiquette requires some attention to the prevailing mode, but not a servile imitation of any fashionable idiot.

1837 Pocket Book of Etiquette

Meanwhile, the section on bonnet trimming and construction in the 1853 Ladies’ Self Instructor cautions:

No doubt, in the choice both of material and of colour, considerable defer- ence must be paid to the prevailing fashion. It is well to avoid the two extremes into which some people are very apt to fall. The one is an entire disregard to the prevailing taste, and the other a servile submission to its tyrannic sway. A medium course is the only sensible one, and, in this, good sense will dictate how far to go, and where to stop.

Ladies Self Instructor

There was also a strong sense among some women of the time that rather than having your dress follow the prevailing fashion of modern England, your choice of clothing should be dictated by your body type and complection.

The 1811 fashion guide The Mirror of Graces (written by “A Lady of Distinction” warns:

Some women will actually disguise and disfigure themselves, rather than not appear in the prevailing fashion, which, though advantageous to one character of face, may have the direct contrary effect with another. I hinted at this in the earlier part of this dissertation; now I come closer to my subject, intending to enter into a minute detail of what ought or ought not to be worn by women of different moulds and complexions.

The Mirror of Graces, by A Lady of Distinction

But regardless of this which school of fashion you belonged to, everyone felt the need for a good bonnet. And the Ladies Self Instructor gives extensive details on construction, modification, and trimming of bonnets and a host of other things, claiming:

An acquaintance with the directions here given will soon enable any one to make a bonnet of almost any shape. The principles are the same in all, and details cannot be learned from books. They can only be the result of observation and experience.

Ladies Self Instructor

Maybe one of the reasons details couldn’t be learned from that book is because it has no pictures.

The instructions for reforming a bonnet from an existing foundation state:

Detach the crown from the front, and shape the material by the pattern, tack the lining and the outside to the front and cord, or otherwise secure the edges. Then make the crown, covering the top first ; then put on it the piece of the material that is to go round, in a proper manner, and secure it at the top by a single or double row of cord, fit it as tightly as possible to the frame you had before pre- pared, and fasten it on at the back. You then turn in the edges and set it on the front. The edge of the crown is to be outermost, or over that of the front. You put in the head lining and attach the curtain as in the former examples, and trim it as you choose.
Patience required indeed.

The Mirror of Graces, by A Lady of Distinction

The Next Ball

Leaving fashion behind for now, last episode, we talked about the etiquette of introductions. Mrs. Bennet is determined that in this particular instance, the social norms be properly adhered to.

But this chapter shows us that there’s at least one Regency-era social norm that Mrs Bennet is apparently quite happy to ignore—allowing all of her daughters to be “out”. As shown in this clip, courtesy of Karen Savage and Librivox.org:

Lydia, my love, though you are the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next ball.”

“Oh!” said Lydia stoutly, “I am not afraid; for though I am the youngest, I’m the tallest.”

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 2

Conclusion

That wraps up our second episode of season 2 of My Cousin Jane.

As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to see it continue, please consider supporting us by going to MyCousinJane.com and clicking the little donate button.

Either way, thanks so much for listening.