I was in Florence last week. Firenze ... you've changed, but you're still the same. I couldn't visit in the manor I'd truly wished, being subject to the whims and needs of a family party (we were together for the first time since the pandemic began!), but I did indulge myself by rereading A Room with a View while there and with some truly wonderful shopping.
Florence has such amazing stores. It was by accident that I stumbled into my favorite discovery of the trip. It says something unsettling about me that I was more thrilled by finding the ugliest bonnet it has ever been my absolute pleasure to behold than by the treasures of the Uffizi, combed over the day before, but what a cappellino!
The store is called Antiquariato il Cancello and is located in the Via dei Fossi, 13/r (www.antiquariatoilcancello.com). It is a tiny place packed to the brim with vintage pieces and, amongst them, some truly historical finds. Something perverse in me prevented my taking pictures, but the particular bonnet in question was so tattered already that I could not bear to subject it to anything more. I suspect it ought to be in a museum collection (if any conservators are in the position to rescue it, you'll find it just inside the shop entrance on your left).
It might be later than I suspect, Italian fashion not being my specialty, but my gut tells me it is an 1820-30 creation. It is a mourning bonnet with a good amount of embellishment, all sadly decaying, and of a poke style that I particularly dislike, close fitting and seeming to reach around the wearer's face like a collar, a la Hannah More above. I have been scouring the internet trying to find an image of something that does it justice with little luck. Instead, I ask the reader to use their imagination:
Cross this bonnet,
with these,
then trim it up like this,
and now give it to a ghost to wear for a century or two.
It was dreadful. Dreadfully magnificent. I do hope someone finds it the right home.
Other treasure stumbled upon include some beautiful parasols and a few late 19th century gowns, but the bonnet brought tears to my eyes. Oh, the things it's seen! Boggles the mind and sparks the imagination.
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Well! Currently at 10,973 words. I think it is very safe to say I will not be "winning" NaNo this year. That's ok. I am going to have a complete rough draft. Finally! I have one more big scene to fill in.
That being said, I haven't written a word since Thursday, when we attended a parent's night at my daughter's school. This was not routine. It was held in response to an ongoing situation in her class. Unfortunately, I did not hear what I needed to from the principal, who pretty much gave the parents the run around. It was very disappointing, and it raised the stakes for this week, when my daughter is visiting a private bilingual school for three days. It is the only school we've found that both fits our requirements and can take her in January. I so hope she likes it, and that they like her.
So this past weekend was totally focused on shoring up the family and doing my best to encourage good spirits in this week ahead. This amidst rising COVID cases (again) and my annual frantic attempt to recreate Thanksgiving abroad. I will be very well satisfied with a completed rough draft, thank you.
Disease and school: when Austen springs to mind upon the flimsiest of excuses, this one screams to be addressed. The good news is that, no matter how acute my daughter's current situation may feel, it is not fatal. Jane Austen's time at school did prove fatal to her aunt, however, which does a great deal to put my current concerns into perspective.
Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School—not of a seminary, or an establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, upon new principles and new systems—and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity—but a real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. - Emma, Chapter Three
Austen went to two different school in her formative years. The first, Mrs. Crawley's school in Oxford, she was sent to in 1782, when only seven years old. Maybe she refused to be parted from Cassandra, also on her way as a companion to their cousin, Jane Cooper, maybe not. This was the explanation Mrs. Austen used to employ when questioned on the subject.
While the three girls attended, the location of the school was relocated to Southampton, due to a measles outbreak in Oxford. But bad luck followed them and a "putrid fever" soon swept through the school. Perhaps this was diphtheria. Jane Cooper wrote home (no communication from Mrs. Crawley 😡), and Mrs. Cooper and Mrs. Austen went to Southampton to rescue their girls. The girls all recovered, but Mrs. Cooper was dead from the infection within the year.
Side note: we now routinely provide diphtheria vaccinations to babies. Isn't that wonderful?
This experience didn't totally sour the Austens on female education, and both girls were sent to another school for a year or so, largely remembered by history for its fraudulent French mistress. This experience proved less dramatic, but the adult Austen expressed a negative opinion of girl's schools and the superficiality of the education obtained at such institutions. Proper education, she repeatedly implies, is gained through extensive reading.
I love it when history puts my own sorry woes into such clear and stark contrast. My daughter will undoubtedly receive an education, a right only recently guaranteed to children, let alone girls, who are still denied this opportunity in too many parts of the world. This is a great blessing, and I never want to take it for granted. My daughter is unlikely to contract a deathly disease while at school, though certainly more likely than she was a few years ago. This is also (mostly) a blessing. Thank goodness for modern medicine! And on that note, I'm going to try and write this last scene. It just so happens to begin in a Regency Era girl's school (it was recommended by Mr. Darcy, so you know it is one of the better examples of this sort of establishment). How perfectly synchronistic! Til next week ...
Hmmm. As of 9:45 AM, Monday morning, I still have no stunning results to share, though I have, at least, passed last year's total. Let's see if I can't make this number slightly less abysmal before this post goes live, shall we? I shall report back. In the meantime, I require inspiration.
Balls, balls, balls. My NaNoWriMo social calendar is excessively full. Most of the scenes needing to be written take place in the ballroom, spanning the 18th and 19th centuries. Maybe I should rename this book Dancing at Pemberley? But no: I want to have the continuity of the Tales of Less Pride and Prejudice name, so it is clear that this is a rewrite. This is, of course, assuming Amazon doesn't give me a hard time about the title. Think it's worth the fight?
But I digress (or procrastinate, take it as you will). I need ballroom inspiration to set the scene through at least three more I'm writing into the book. Most of these are Twelfth Night balls, which I have proclaimed an annual Pemberley tradition. So first things first: what would they be wearing? This is a bit of a mess, for some torturous reason I have set the opening scene in 1791, at a time when fashions were rapidly changing (read more about it here). Just compare these two portraits by George Romney, painted four years apart.
Mrs. Mark Currie, 1791.
Anna Maria Hunt, 1793.
So I am envisioning a mix of styles on this occasion, the older people still in wigs and panniers, while the younger guests have long abandoned powder and voluminous skirts for those styles that are the precursors to the Regency fashions we all love so much. By the time Elizabeth has become Mrs. Darcy and is making her debut in society, her attire might have looked something like this:
La Belle Assemblée, 1811.
Now, what would they have been listening/dancing too? This changed less drastically over the years, though the waltz (which I wrote about here) was becoming fashionable towards the end of my tale. This playlist should keep me in the right mood for a while, at least:
At twenty til noon, I am at 6,936 words. Pretty pathetic, but I did finished the opening ball scene, so I can abandon the 18th century for the far more familiar 19th. That's progress. I really don't think I'll hit the 50,000 word goal. Honestly, if I just walk away with a complete first draft, I will be very well satisfied. But, hypothetically, if I were to write another 43,064 words this month, I would need to clock over 2,800 words every day for the rest of the month. My current average is 455. It's not impossible. I have done it before. Let's see where I am in a week ...
My dryer is broken. First of all, let me acknowledge that it is a bit unusual to have a proper clothes dryer in Switzerland. Some apartments come equipped with a tumbler, but not a dryer, while most utilize shared facilities. It ought not feel a hardship to suddenly have to contend with line drying my clothing, but I am spoiled, and I'm finding the experience pretty darn frustrating.
W. H. Pyne. “Welsh Peasant Washers.” From The Costume of Great Britain. London: William Miller, 1808.
Thank goodness the weather has been good! Still, we don't get a full day of direct sunlight on our small patio, and I've had to be pretty creative in claiming new drying spots in windows and stairwells. I have not often had to think of such matters, but as my days have become regulated by shifting and turning items about, trying to help them dry faster, while watching the weather carefully for stray showers, I have inevitably dwelled on how mundane such thoughts and considerations were to Regency women. One of the most tedious and arduous of all household tasks at the time was doing the laundry, and even the most exalted had to have care and concern for the time and manpower involved.
Jane Austen only really hints at the labor intensity of doing the laundry once in her novels, by my reckoning, in the fragment The Watsons, which I reread for the first time in about a decade this weekend. A recollection that doing the wash was mentioned inspired me. I've always far preferred Sanditon as a fragment and historically found The Watsons almost unbearably depressing. I enjoyed it much more this reading. Maybe the world is more depressing now, so it suits my mood better, or maybe ten years of intense Austen study has allowed me to properly understand the text. I certainly am more familiar with change, upheaval, and loss than I was when last I read it. Nevertheless, or perhaps as a result, the story doesn't seem so hopeless as it used to. I want to read it again and further crystallise my thoughts, so look forward to a proper post on the text.
For my purpose here today, there is just one line I'd like to examine. For those of you unfamiliar with the story (you can read it here), Emma Watson, our heroine, had just returned to her family home after years of privilege and comfort as the ward of her aunt and uncle. When the latter died, the former remarried a fortune hunter, who quickly dismisses Emma back to an already financially strained family. Elizabeth is her eldest sister and manages their meager household. Very early in the story she says to Emma, "Since you have been at home, I have been so busy with my poor father and our great wash that I have had no leisure to tell you anything ...." The modern reader may wonder why Elizabeth would have scheduled the wash for when her sister, unseen for eight years, is finally returning home, but she may have had very little choice. Obviously, the weather was a factor. Especially considering the wet climate in England, housekeepers had to be opportunistic about utilising fair weather. Not only does the sun whiten linens, it also prevented the necessity of having to find a place to dry everything inside the house, further discommoding everyone (particularly, one presumes, the servants). But there was more to it then taking advantage of limited sunshine. Most households would hire washerwomen in advance to come in and manage the process. These were experts in their field, with knowledge of how much soap and chemicals were required on which fabrics, and possessed of the strength to churn, lift, and wring heavy, soaking wet linen and wool. The task was formidable, and the lye soap utilised was disastrous to your hands, so to be avoided at all cost by any woman with pretensions to gentility.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Laundress, 1761.
Oil on canvas. Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
The wash would take at least two whole days to complete. It would begin the day before the washerwomen would arrive, when a servant would be set to guard and tend the fire under the "copper," preparing it for use when the washerwomen arrived. There was then an order of operations to follow regarding what you washed first. A variety of cleansers were used, including urine on some of the more heavily soiled items, and blue dyes to counteract yellowing fabrics. Huge amounts of water were required for boiling and rinsing. It was a project to consume an entire household. Poor Emma must have felt quite out of place and useless to return home to such occupation and disorder.
Of course, this just refers to table linens, bed clothes, undergarments, and corse garments. Fine fabrics and gowns required specialised care. A valuable gown would be disassembled for washing, all buttons removed, and reassembled with an eye to fixing and stretching that may have occurred to the fabric. All of this labor involved in the simple maintenance of clothing heavily reinforced class divides. It was simply impossible to maintain cleanliness without a small army of assistants.
There are several excellent descriptions online of all that was entailed in doing the laundry. You'll find links to a few of my favorite below. I just want to reflect on how fortunate we are to have such an easy time with laundry, even as it still consumes a ton of my time and seems a never ending task (and that's when the dryer works). I am always so grateful to climb into a bed made with fresh sheets. That is a luxury that has never been lost on me. But now I will learn to be grateful for towels that are soft and fluffy instead of hard and crunchy. Indeed, I might be on the verge of down and breaking resorting to fabric softener for the first time in decades. Maybe the repair shop will call soon, and it won't have to come to that. Here's hoping!
The following was originally posted in 2015 and now feels rather dated, but it still makes me smile. I hope it will do the same for you, dear reader.
There is a certain class of people who, upon learning of my Jane Austen obsession, feel the need to explain why the modern world is superior to that of the Regency. “But the 19th century was a terrible place to live! Women didn’t have any rights, most people lived in squalor, and you were lucky to survive your infancy!” Of course I realize that Jane Austen’s world was not just one of manor homes, top boots, and ladies maids (I do spend three months in Portsmouth with the Price family every time I read Mansfield Park). I have a massive appreciation for modern plumbing, medicine (especially the medicine!), electricity, and something resembling gender equality, but that does not mean that there are not ways in which the Regency period was superior to our current era. I am working on a novel entitled Being Mrs. Bennet, in which a modern woman, following a car crash, finds herself inhabiting the body of probably the worst mother Austen ever foisted upon heroine. Alison Bateman finds much of the early 19th century disconcerting, but she also discovers aspects to treasure. One can adapt to almost anything.
I planned this post to be a list of reasons why the Regency remains superior to the modern world. I intend this list to be egalitarian, so it does not include privileges and luxuries that belonged to the upper classes alone, and I confess: it was rather difficult to make. It started out as a top ten, then narrowed to a top eight, etc, until finally levelling out as the top five reasons why I think Jane Austen’s world was superior to ours. Enjoy!
1. Caps
A married woman used to wake up in the morning and plop a frilly cap on her head. Hairdressing done. I call the cap the Regency equivalent to the ponytail in Being Mrs. Bennet, and it is true, but how many of us actually get to wear that ponytail to work? Thanks to makeover shows, a ponytail is derided as boring and lazy, where as a cap could be fashionable and even becoming. Somewhere in the course of women’s liberation, we messed this one up.
2. Custom Shoes
You couldn’t share shoes with your friends and relations back in the day. Each shoe was made for and molded to a particular foot. Today you can buy handmade Italian leather shoes for somewhere in the range of $1000 a pop, but this buttery and luscious feel of slipping your foot into such a concoction used to be much more accessible. Of course men’s boots, those of both the laboring classes and the gentry, would be made of sturdier stuff that needed to be broken in, but once that first round of blisters healed you had a shoe that hugged the contours of your feet perfectly.
3. Cheap Live Entertainment
One need not be a mogul to attend the theater in the Regency Era. Even the most lavish venues had seats cheap enough to accommodate the working classes. Now even our sporting events are beyond the reach of many, television having rendered live entertainment a luxury item. Sigh.
4. Standardized Mourning Rituals
Having been to more than my fair share of funerals lately and experienced mourning rituals ranging over a wide swath of cultural and religious beliefs, I really think it would be nice to have not an imposed period of mourning (that would be far too stifling), but the broadly recognized need for a person to step outside their normal activities and take the time to grieve. I also like the idea of wearing all black, or having some other, external signifier of grief, so that others know to approach you with care, preferably without looking like an overgrown Goth kid. I also like that they had gradations of mourning. Black ribbons in my hair would have been perfectly appropriate for my cousin’s death last year, while my grandfather’s loss made me crave bombazine and a heavily veiled bonnet. Can’t wear that to the supermarket!
5. Etiquette
While some of the imposed social rituals of the 19th century, like calling cards, are archaic in our modern world of cell phones, they represent a code of behavior designed to help humans interact with each other in a peaceful and orderly manner. We’ve lost a lot of that. I could really go on and on with this topic, which would end up being preachy, at best, so I’ll just beg each reader to hold the door for someone, wait for others to exit before you enter, and say excuse me when you step in someone’s path. The world could be such a happier place.
There you have it! What is your favorite thing about the Regency Era? Anything you would gladly trade for today? Or has Jeanna inspired any one else to confess their closely held secrets to the world?
More recycled content, but still a favorite post of mine. I wrote the following in January 2017, hence the recent travel references. Enjoy.
Illustration by Thomas Rowlandson, 1806.
"What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! -- There is nothing like dancing after all. -- I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies."
"Certainly, Sir; -- and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world. -- Every savage can dance."
Mr. Darcy's snide retort to the oblivious Sir William Lucas might have had a different resonance with Austen's contemporaries than it does with modern readers. I always read it in the past with racial overtones, and I think a lot of modern scholars put a post-colonial interpretation on it. The word "savage" undeniably has its colonial implications, yet it is possible Mr. Darcy refers not to the indigenous people of distant continents, but rather to Europe's very own German and Austrian peasantry, spinning about scandalously wrapped in each other's arms. You see, when Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813, Regency society was just being hit with the dance revolution called the waltz. This infiltration from the continent was considered just as libidinous in its time as the pelvic thrusts of Elvis Presley were in his, maybe even more so. Society seems to have had three main objections to the waltz: it required very little training (always dangerously egalitarian), the "closed hold" brought the bodies of dancers together into a heretofore unheard of degree of intimacy, and it eliminated the passing of one's partner to another, keeping a couple anti-socially focused on only each other throughout a set. Jane Austen herself probably never danced a true waltz, being thirty-six and a confirmed spinster when the dance finally made its official debut at Almacks in 1812. Nevertheless, many Austenesque fiction writers can't resist the urge to portray our heroes and heroines engaged in a waltz. We're in good company, as neither can Disney. Admittedly, one can't quite float on air through the steps of a country line dance (nor maintain a solid conversation), but I'm not sure that's enough to explain the unique grasp the waltz has on our imaginations. It takes a very special dance to hold humanity entranced for hundreds of years, and it's ubiquity shows no signs of abating.
I was so fortunate as to spend New Year's Day at the stunningly beautiful Schloss Schönbrunn, the former summer residence of the Hapsburg imperial family. It is hard to visit without having your thoughts turned to the waltz. Walking through the Great Gallery one can vividly imagine the dancers at countless balls across the centuries, twirling about in fabulous gowns and frock coats (they do not allow photography at the Schloss, but you can enjoy an excellent virtual tour of all the rooms open to the public at the Schönbrunn website). This is where the waltz as we know it was born, amidst the dazzling splendor of 18th century Vienna, but its ancestry is far more humble. The Waltzer, a dance for two persons, first developed around the mid-18th century amongst the alpine peasantry in Germany and Austria. At the same, time the Ländler, another couples dance, became popular with peasants across the Alps, from Switzerland to Slovenia (see it performed in The Sound of Music above). Aristocrats, for generations constrained to performing intricate and controlled dances like the minuet and allemande, seem to have developed something like envy for the freedom allowed their underlings, and the gentleman are said to have snuck off to the parties of their servants in order to indulge in the new fad. Eventually a new form of allemande developed in Vienna, backed by the likes of Mozart, melding the traditional court dance with that of the peasantry. The dance had always been characterized by intricate arm formations and hand grasps with one's partner. Now the close hold was introduced. A few more refinements from the dance masters - less stamping, more gliding - and the waltz was well on its way to arguably being the biggest dance craze of all time. By the beginning of the 19th century, everyone in Europe was waltzing except the Brits.
The Napoleonic Wars are certainly much to blame for delaying the waltz's arrival in London, but society in England was also more conservative than that on the Continent. Dances such as the Duke of Kent's Waltz (see it performed above) were popular at the turn of the century, but these received their names from the act of spinning with one's partner in a tight circle and did not incorporate the closed hold. It wasn't until after the Regency officially began that the waltz had its shocking debut. That first waltz at Almack's was still very different from the forms codified a few decades later, possibly resembling the new form of allemande more than anything else. A version of this survives as a traditional folk dance and can provide some notion of what it might have looked like. Compare the video of it below to that of a baroque allemande to get an idea of how the peasant's Waltzer and ländler influenced the dances of the European royal courts.
Whatever it looked like (we will probably never know for certain), the scandal was very real. Even the infamous Lord Byron, no prude by any means, was appalled by the dance and wrote a poem expressing his horror entitled The Waltz in 1813, the same year the world was introduced to Lizzy and Darcy. Here is an excerpt just to give you an idea of how overtly sexual Byron considered the dance:
But ye—who never felt a single thought For what our morals are to be, or ought; Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap, Say—would you make those beauties quite so cheap? Hot from the hands promiscuously applied, Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side, Where were the rapture then to clasp the form From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm? At once love’s most endearing thought resign, To press the hand so press’d by none but thine; To gaze upon that eye which never met Another’s ardent look without regret; Approach the lip which all, without restraint, Come near enough—if not to touch—to taint; If such thou lovest—love her then no more, Or give—like her—caresses to a score; Her mind with these is gone, and with it go The little left behind it to bestow.
1815 print by Henry Meyer after G. Williams, courtesy of The British Museum.
The sanctity of feminine virtue aside, the waltz was in England to stay. The politicos and socialites who flocked to the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815 came home fully enrapt. The danced received the highest sanction in July of 1816, to great uproar. First came the announcement on the 11th of the publication of dance master Thomas Wilson's A Description of the Correct Method of Waltzing, the Truly Fashionable Species of Dancing (which you can view in its entirety here). This codification of the dance for polite society must have been all the Regent was waiting for, as a mere three days later he held a ball at which the waltz was said to be danced for the first time by the royal court (The London Times, 16 July, 1816). Below see an instructional video for the version of the dance as described by Wilson (skip to the very end to watch the steps danced in succession).
For decades to come, the waltz would continue to be condemned for its crudeness and sexuality. Even Queen Victoria's firm advocacy would not completely silence detractors. Would we like the waltz so much if it had? For we cannot deny, even from our jaded, modern perspectives, that the waltz is sexy. It always has been and always will be, even in a world where twerking is de rigueur. Maybe especially in a world with twerking. What would Mr. Darcy say?
Let's end with one last video, this one filmed at Schönbrunn, both in front of the palace and in the Great Gallery. It's a beautiful demonstration of the art and elegance with which this once rustic dance was eventually imbued. The music is the Kaiser Waltz by the waltz master himself, Johann Strauss, and features a ballet interpretation of the music as well as Viennese waltzers. The lead ballerinas are in the guises of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth (better known as Sisi), who ruled the Austrian Empire for most of the 19th century.
For more information on the history of the waltz in England, please read Cheryl A. Wilson's excellent essay, The Arrival of the Waltz in England, 1812, to which this piece owes a great debt. I also relied on this post which provides a broader overview of the history of the waltz.
It's the first day of spring break here (a bit of a pointless event considering my kids have barely had school for the past month), so I'm going to make this post quick, easy, and fun. It is appropriately inspired by my daughter, who spent a good portion of her time in quarantine watching historical fashion videos on YouTube.
It's hard to say no to screen time when your kid shows so much fascination in a favorite subject (maybe she knows this, and that's part of her interest?). Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to actually sit and watch most of the videos with her, at least not to the extent I would like. What I have done is bookmarked a few that looked particularly interesting and relevant to my area of study to go back and watch later, and it's the best of these that I want to share with you today. This first one is just awesome, providing a great overview of the changing female silhouette over the course of the 19th century. Darn it! I wish I could draw (a particularly galling area to be lacking in talent because of what my sister can do). Karolina Zebrowska, to whom we owe this gem, clearly states that she will not be commenting on the political influences that caused these changes (though she does mention the effect of Queen Victoria's reign), a subject I dabbled in for the early decades of the century in my recent post, The Rise and Fall of the Empire(waist). I just want to remind everyone that politics and social change are always reflected in fashion. Enjoy:
This next video is by CrowsEyeProductions, who do a beautiful job depicting accurate historical clothing. Not only is it specifically focused on Regency daywear, but it is also a gorgeous tribute to Jane and Cassandra Austen's sisterhood. Every time I watch this, I cry at the end. I can't help it. I could elaborate on why I do not think Jane would have donned such a gorgeous white gown (very Fanny Price, I think), just to toss a cap on her head and sit down to write, but I'll resist that urge. Instead, I'll dwell for a moment on an obstacle, which this video highlights, that is preventing me from getting my daughter interested in actually wearing accurate historical garb: all the pins. She's terrified of pokey things.
Finally, on a decidedly lighter note, this video from Bernadette Banner (who I could watch all day. She's great. Anyone interested in creating Regency women's garb should watch this video, too). It provides a brief but surprisingly comprehensive history of underwear. If you can't cope with discussions of people's bodily functions, perhaps this isn't the video for you, but I must recommend that you try to get over that. Have fun with this one, everyone, and thanks for stopping by.
Following a series of hot debates last week about clergymen in Austen, particularly the problematic behavior of both Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton, I decided to repost this piece I wrote in 2016, before the Me Too movement. I think my feelings about both characters have hardened since then (dismissing Collins as a buffoon lets him off the hook for some of his more egregious transgressions), but the piece is still quite valuable in understanding Austen's representations of the clergy within her contemporary context and familial circumstances. Enjoy!
David Bamber as Mr. Collins, 1995.
“My dear Miss Elizabeth, I have the highest opinion in the world of your excellent judgment in all matters within the scope of your understanding, but permit me to say that there must be a wide difference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity, and those which regulate the clergy; for give me leave to observe that I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with the highest rank in the kingdom — provided that a proper humility of behaviour is at the same time maintained. You must therefore allow me to follow the dictates of my conscience on this occasion, which leads me to perform what I look on as a point of duty. Pardon me for neglecting to profit by your advice, which on every other subject shall be my constant guide, though in the case before us I consider myself more fitted by education and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young lady like yourself.” - Pride and Prejudice
Ah, Mr. Collins: Austen’s biggest buffoon. Her most famous clergyman does not reflect well on his profession. Based on Pride and Prejudice alone, it would be easy to conclude Austen thought rather poorly of churchmen. After all, the only other character who even considers entering the church is Mr. Wickham. Yet in her other novels she provides several examples of excellence in the calling. Nearly half her heroes are clergymen, and Henry Tilney, Edward Ferrars, and Edmund Bertram are all precisely what one would wish for in a spiritual guide: sincere, compassionate, and capable. In them Austen shows us what a good parish rector ought to be. In contrast, Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton are revealed as thoroughly undeserving of their preferment, a situation that was all too common in her time.
Dan Stevens as Edward Ferrars, 2008.
A man of genteel birth but not enough income to support himself had three options in the Regency world: he could join the military, study law, or take orders. It also happened to be a time in which the duties of the parish rector were being hotly debated. At issue was the custom of pluralism, or the holding of more than one living at a time. A living was the assignment (usually gifted) of a parish to a rector, which included a house and annual salary. There was a shortage of livings, which were typically held for life or until retirement, and the salaries attached to them were often not enough to live upon. About 1/5th of gentlemen in orders would spend their lives as poorly paid curates, while those that held livings often had more than one and still struggled to support their families.* As the daughter of a clergyman and the sister to two more, it is no wonder that Austen voiced her opinion on the subject in her novels.
From left to right: George Austen, his eldest son James, and his 4th son Henry. All artists unknown.
Jane Austen’s father held two livings, as did her eldest brother upon inheriting them. So do Mr. Morland in Northanger Abbey and Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park. While offering no criticism of pluralism, she also clearly sympathizes with the plight of the curate, as illustrated in the struggles of Charles Hayter in Persuasion and, potentially, Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility. However, it is only in Mansfield Park that she explicitly develops the subject. Here Edmund acts as defender of the clergy, while Mary Crawford makes her case against it.
At length, after a short pause, Miss Crawford began with, “So you are to be a clergyman, Mr. Bertram. This is rather a surprise to me.”
“Why should it surprise you? You must suppose me designed for some profession, and might perceive that I am neither a lawyer, nor a soldier, nor a sailor.”
“Very true; but, in short, it had not occurred to me. And you know there is generally an uncle or a grandfather to leave a fortune to the second son.”
Blake Ritson as Edmund Bertram, 2007.
“A very praiseworthy practice,” said Edmund, “but not quite universal. I am one of the exceptions, and being one, must do something for myself.”
“But why are you to be a clergyman? I thought that was always the lot of the youngest, where there were many to chuse before him.”
“Do you think the church itself never chosen, then?”
“Never is a black word. But yes, in the never of conversation, which means not very often, I do think it. For what is to be done in the church? Men love to distinguish themselves, and in either of the other lines distinction may be gained, but not in the church. A clergyman is nothing.”
“The nothing of conversation has its gradations, I hope, as well as the never. A clergyman cannot be high in state or fashion. He must not head mobs, or set the ton in dress. But I cannot call that situation nothing which has the charge of all that is of the first importance to mankind, individually or collectively considered, temporally and eternally, which has the guardianship of religion and morals, and consequently of the manners which result from their influence. No one here can call the office nothing. If the man who holds it is so, it is by the neglect of his duty, by foregoing its just importance, and stepping out of his place to appear what he ought not to appear.”
“You assign greater consequence to the clergyman than one has been used to hear given, or than I can quite comprehend. One does not see much of this influence and importance in society, and how can it be acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves? How can two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair’s to his own, do all that you speak of? govern the conduct and fashion the manners of a large congregation for the rest of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit.” - Mansfield Park
J.J. Field as Henry Tilney, 2007.
Interestingly, the worldly Mary is only restating the very criticisms that the bishops of the English church had been leveling at their underlings for years. If a rector held a plurality of livings and did not live in a parish, he might only see its members on Sundays, and then only on those when the curate wasn’t performing the honors. How can a clergyman be a shepherd to his flock if he never sees it? Concerns for clerical non-residence led to the Residency Act of 1803, which required clergymen to obtain a license in order to hold the living of a parish in which they did not live. The act was amended in 1809 and 1810 to assist bishops in keeping track of resident and non-resident clergy and further distinguishing between those who performed Sunday services and those who did not. Acceptable explanations for holding a plurality of livings included the parsonage being unlivable, the salary of a parish being inadequate to live upon, or the ill-health of the clergyman.* Sense and Sensibility provides examples of the first two cases: the parsonage at Delaford is uninhabitable until Colonel Brandon institutes repairs upon it, and the salary, at only 200 pounds a year, is not enough to support a family. Thus the Colonel estimates how the living might be improved, and promises further patronage (like using his influence to procure Edward an additional living). It is only Mrs. Ferrars’ grudging gift of 10,000 pounds that provides Edward the means to marry Elinor Dashwood.
In Persuasion we have an example in Dr. Shirley, Rector of Uppercross, of how ill-health might permit non-residency. Hopes for the marriage of Charles Hayter and Henrietta Musgrove depend upon the former’s attainment of a living, and the young couple rest their best hopes on Dr. Shirley being so infirm that he will hire Charles as his curate and pay him unusually well. Henrietta even hopes he will be accommodating enough to retire to Lyme, leaving the parsonage available for their occupation. In the end, a better solution arises. Hayter is given the holding of a living until the young man for whom it is intended reaches an age to take orders. By that time, Dr. Shirley will presumably be conveniently dead and the living at Uppercross available.
Blake Ritson as Mr. Elton, 2009.
Two of Austen’s heroes, Edmund Bertram and Henry Tilney of Northanger Abbey, enter the clergy because their families hold livings for which they are destined. Despite this lack of a calling, both are well-suited to the profession and can be expected to prove model clergymen. Edward Ferrars’ decision to enter the church without any expectation of patronage, on the other hand, is extremely risky, perhaps even foolish. Edward is the only character in Austen who appears truly called to serve, and it is only Colonel Brandon’s generosity that saves him from being one of many hungry curates in need of a living. Other clergymen in Austen get lucky, too. We are not told through what means Emma’s Mr. Elton ascends to the living at Highbury (his lack of connection to the area suggests he was appointed by a bishop), but along with his additional “independent property” he is situated well enough to both marry and provide him with an inflated sense of his own importance. Certainly his callous behavior towards Harriet Smith proves he is ill-suited for the clerical life: his ego so in command that he wounds a parishioner to assuage it. Mr. Collins is even worse and even luckier, for at least Mr. Elton shows a degree of competence that can account for his preferment. Mr. Collins, on the other hand, receives ordination with no prospects on his horizon, yet just so happens to come almost immediately to Lady Catherine’s attention and rise to all the glories belonging to the rector of Hunsford, all without doing anything to merit such fortune. That patrons like Lady Catherine had the disposal of livings in their power and would choose to bestow them on sycophants like Mr. Collins was a serious problem. It is no coincidence that the same book gives us an example in Mr. Darcy of the conscientious patron: one who will not leave the moral guidance and care of his tenants to wastrel like Wickham. That Wickham even attempts to secure a living – merely a means to an annual income, with no concern whatsoever for the welfare of the parishioners – illustrates the dangers of the system. I think it safe to assert that Austen thought the appointment of undeserving clergymen to parishes a bigger concern than pluralism.
Mr. Collins makes an impromptu speech at the Netherfield Ball, elucidating for both the readers and all the guests of the house the duties and obligations of a rector, as he understands them:
“The rector of a parish has much to do. — In the first place, he must make such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons; and the time that remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care and improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making as comfortable as possible.” - Pride and Prejudice
Clearly, he does not belong to that category of clergymen receiving that iota of Mary Crawford’s approval for having the sense to not write their own sermons, instead utilizing those widely published by Hugh Blair. The parishioners of Hunsford have my heartfelt sympathy.
Hugh Blair by David Martin, 1775. The famous sermon writer is portrayed wearing the same style of clerical collar sported by Henry Austen and Mr. Elton above.
*For more on this subject please read Celia Easton’s essay “‘The Probability of Some Negligence’: Avoiding the Horror of the Absent Clergyman,” published in 2010 in Persuasions: No. 32. It largely inspired this blog post.
Though this post was composed a few years ago, I can't help but think it has more resonance today, when more and more people are thinking about the politicization of women's bodies. Fashion always has been an expression of a society's state, and monumental shifts in clothing styles inevitably occur in times of massive change. We have yet to see the lasting results of our current upheaval, but fashion already has reflected it, and future historians will analyze our clothing to better understand who we are as a people, what we value, and why we behave the way we do. Enjoy.
The Empire waist gown, the most defining element of women’s fashion during the Regency Era, has political implications far beyond what most Austen fans and period reenactors realize. In truth, it was revolutionary: a sartorial celebration of the times. “Empire” refers to the one built by Napoleon and is the name given in France to this period of history. High-waisted, loose gowns began to be worn in elite French fashion circles prior to the Revolution, largely in response to the philosophies put forth by Jean-Jaques Rousseau, an advocate for society’s return to more a natural state (often premised on idyllic notions of the peasantry), and whose ideas permeate Romantic thought. Yet this uncorseted look that shocked so many was not de rigueur until after the Revolution, when it became a reflection of the values of the new French state: simple fabrics and lines were far more egalitarian than complex court dress, their unrestrictive shapes were literally liberating, and the overall look was evocative of ancient Athens, where Democracy was born. Structured gowns became as passé as the wigs that went with them.
Full dress (Spring, 1799) in the Grecian style.
The earliest examples of this look from the late 18th century still feature trains, but with the beginning of the 19th century the silhouette straightens, emphasizing a woman’s true shape. Thin fabrics left little to the imagination. The English took their initial cues on this new look from the French, but as contact between the two countries diminished over decades of war, the Empire look began to take on a distinctly English flare. Tight fitted spencers and redingotes, while marvels of tailoring, acted to bring the liberated look a bit more in control, as well as providing some much-needed warmth. Many ladies also found that to achieve the desired silhouette, they still required a great deal of confining undergarments. Tudor and military embellishments further increased the structure of the gowns. Notions of simplicity in women’s clothing were soon abandoned, and ornamentation became just as ostentatious as ever. The death of Napoleon in 1821 coincides nicely with the beginning of the waistline’s gradual journey back to, well, the waist (it took less time in France). It wasn’t until the early 1830’s that women’s fashion began to take on truly Victorian dimensions in England, returning to the tight corsets and voluminous skirts of the previous century.
1807 gowns featuring Greek and Roman styling. Left: Full dress and walking dress. Right: Full dress.
Evening dresses from 1816 (left) and 1819 (right) feature helmet-like headdresses reminiscent of Athena’s, the Greek goddess of war.
One need not be an historian to know that the Victorian Era was a period of rigid social conservatism. It is tempting to read the fall of the waistline as a rejection of revolution, but feminist historians are quick to point out that Rousseau’s philosophies and the fashions they inspired were far from liberating. Boys and girls of the era dressed in miniature versions of the gowns grown ladies wore. Boys were “breached” and allowed to grow into men, but girls were kept in a perpetual state of infancy. In Emile, Rousseau’s treatise on education, he describes a vision of womanhood rather chilling to the modern reader. The vast bulk of the book describes the education of Emile, his fictitious pupil, and only contemplates the education of girls in Book Five: Marriage. Here he describes the ideal mate for Emile, one Sophie, and the education she ought to receive to keep her as natural a woman as possible:
Morning and evening dress (1818) showing military influences.
As I see it, the special functions of women, their inclinations and their duties, combine to suggest the kind of education they require. Men and women are made for each other but they differ in their measure of dependence on each other. We could get on better without women than women could get on without us. To play their part in life they must have our willing help, and for that they must earn our esteem. By the very law of nature women are at the mercy of men’s judgments both for themselves and for their children. It is not enough that they should be estimable: they must be esteemed. It is not enough that they should be wise: their wisdom must be recognized. Their honor does not rest on their conduct but on their reputation. Hence the kind of education they get should by the very opposite of men’s in this respect. Public opinion is the tomb of a man’s virtue but the throne of a woman’s.
Walking dress demonstrating both Tudor & military influence, 1821 (left) and 1822 (right).
His words, though rather infuriating, perfectly describe the reality in which Jane Austen lived and wrote. Recall what Mary Bennet has to say on the subject:
“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 — that one false step involves her in endless ruin — that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful, — and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.”
Elizabeth might find such a statement annoying under the circumstances, but Mary correctly conveys the realities of their world. If Wickham did not marry Lydia, the entire Bennet family would have been tarnished by her actions, throwing their very survival into doubt. All this from a lack of active patriarchal protection. Women were entirely at the mercy of public opinion, yet at the same time fashion exposed their bodies in ways unheard of in Europe for centuries past. They were taught to court and relish masculine attention, just like Lydia Bennet, but then were punished for indulging in it. What a double edged sword!
The falling waistline. Left: Walking and dinner dress (1822). Right: Evening dress (Winter, 1826).
Even if Rousseau was not an advocate for any real form of female liberation, his notions undoubtedly influenced philosophers who were, like Mary Wollstonecraft. The ideals of freedom and liberty that marked the period would gradually spread their wings and slowly encompass more and more of the globe, a process that remains hard-fought and ongoing. One truth that can be universally acknowledged is that after a few decades of Victorian austerity, corsets again fell out of fashion, hemlines raised, and a new era of women’s fashion was born. With it came suffrage, women in the work place, and birth control. Pretty revolutionary, wouldn’t you say?
Boy and girls fashions, 1834. The younger boys, like the three on the far left, are still wearing skirts resembling those of the girl the same age (second figure from the right). The older boy standing behind her has been breached.
When posting my Twisted Austen storyI am Lady Catherine way back in 2017, I received a lot of comments regarding a reference to an 18th century beauty treatment called pigeon water. This is indeed a real thing, used by none other than Marie Antoinette, who was said to have bathed her face in it every day. I hunted down the recipe for its preparation in the 1832 text The Toilette of Health, Beauty, and Fashion (read it here). This comprehensive book covers a wide swath of topics, as indicated by its incredibly lengthy subtitle (see the image of the cover page – it’s WAY too long to reproduce). I imagine it was mainly marketed to lady’s maids and valets. I found the history provided of both beauty treatments and fashion very interesting, though I should warn the modern reader that many of the comments are decidedly lacking in political correctness. I was inspired by the interest in pigeon water (see the recipe for Denmark Lotion below) to transcribe a few of the more outlandish preparations for both your amusement and revulsion, many of which are virtually impossible to imagine producing without an army of servants and were certain to wreck havoc on the health. I doubt it needs be said but for forms sake, I ask that you please do not attempt any of these at home.
Note: a drachm is a liquid measurement once used by apothecaries, equal to one eighth of an ounce.
From Chapter VII: Of Hair Ointments, Powders, Oils, Waters, &c.
1.–Ointment for the Hair.
The editors of the “Dictionaire d’Industrie,” from which the following recipe is copied, assert that they have often witnessed the most surprising results from its use.
Take an ounce of beef marrow, to which add an ounce of grease skimmed from unsalted pot liquor, and boil them together in a pipkin. Strain this mixture, and add to it an ounce of the oil of ben. Let this be used occasionally, and the hair well combed and brushed, both before and after its use, to remove the previous scurf, and to work the preparation well into the roots of the hair, and along the tubes.
OBS.–Beef marrow applied moderately to the hair of the head nourishes it, and communicates to it a fine gloss, as may be frequently seen among butchers, who often apply it. Whatever therefore nourishes, strengthens. The marrow also give it a disposition to curl. The oil of ben has long been entered into preparations for making the hair grow, and if a little of the essence of lemon, bergamot, or other other perfume were added, it would, at least, improve its fragrance, and preserve it against rancidity.
From Chapter VIII: Directions for Staining the Hair.
To stain Hair a light Chestnut Colour.
The hair is to be previously cleaned with dry bran, or warm water, in which alum has been dissolved. Then take two ounces of quick lime, which kill in the air; one ounce of litharge of gold, and half an ounce of lead ore. Reduce the hole to a powder, and sift it. Wet a small quantity of this powder with rose water ; rub the hair with it, and let it dry again in the air, and dry it with cloths a little warm. This powder does not stain the skin, like the wash made with aquafortis and assaying silver.
OBS.–It has been asserted that the hair may be stained black by impregnating it with lard, mixed with minium and lime ; but this composition, we apprehend, would produce only the chestnut colour of which we are here speaking. The hair may likewise be turned black by different vegetable substances boiled in wine, with which the hair is to be washed several times a day ; but this operation ought to be continued for some time. The substances usually preferred for the purpose are, leaves of the mulberry, myrtle, fig, senna, raspberry, arbutus, artichoke ; the roots of the caper tree ; the bark of the walnut and pomegranate ; the rinds of walnut, shumac, skins of beans, gall nuts, and cones of cypress. It is also necessary to use a leaden comb. The same object may be obtained by using a comb dipped in extract of lead.
From Chapter IX: On The Removal of Superfluous Hair
Depilatory of Ants Eggs.
A stronger depilatory is composed as follow: —
Take Gun of ivy, one once
Ants’ eggs }
Gum arabic } of each one drachm.
Orpiment }
Reduce these to a fine powder, and make it up into a liniment, with a sufficient quantity of vinegar. In pounding the materials, great precaution must be taken that the dust of the orpiment, which is a preparation of arsenic, be not inhaled.
OBS.–The formic acid, or acid of ants, may more easily be procured at the chemist’s, and will answer the purpose better than ants’ eggs, which are not to be had at all seasons.
To remove Hair from the Nostrils.
Take some very fine and clean wood ashes ; dilute them with a little water, and with the finger rub some of the mixture within the nostrils. The hair will be removed without causing the least pain.
OBS.– The hair of the nostrils, like those of the entrance to the ear, ought not to be removed, unless troublesome or unseemly ; they are the principal safeguards against the intrusion of insects, which might otherwise insinuate themselves into these delicate passages, to the great annoyance and danger of the individual thus invaded.
Portrait of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Oil on canvas, c. 1788. New Orleans Museum of Art.
From Chapter X: Cosmetics.
Denmark Lotion.
Take equal parts of bean-flower, and the water of the four cold seeds–namely, of pompion, melon, cucumber, and gourd, and of fresh cream ; beat the whole up together, adding a sufficient quantity of milk to make a wash, which apply to the face.
OBS.–This recipe is taken from the “Ami de Femmes.” Another writer says, that the cosmetic lotion used by the ladies of Denmark is totally different–it is what is called Eau de Pigeon (pigeon-water). It is composed as follows:–
“Take the juice of water-lilies, of melons, of cucumbers, of lemons, each one ounce; briony, wild succory, lily-flowers, borage, beans, of each a handful ; eight pigeons stewed. Put the whole mixture into an alembic, adding four ounces of lump sugar, well pounded, one drachm of borax, the same quantity of camphor, the crumb of three French rolls, and a pint of white wine. When the whole has remained in digestion for seventeen or eighteen days, proceed to distillation, and you will obtain pigeon-water, which is such an improvement on the complexion.”
A Pomatum to remove Redness, or Pimples in the Face.
Steep in clear water a pound of boar’s check till it becomes tolerably white ; drain it quite dry, and put it into a new glazed earthen pan with two or three hard pippins, quartered ; an ounce and a half of the four cold seeds, bruised, and a slice of veal about the size of the palm of your hand. Boil the whole together in a vapour bath for four hours, then with a string cloth squeeze out your pomatum into an earthen dish, placed upon hot ashes ; add to it an ounce of white bees’ wax and an ounce of the oil of sweet almonds, stir it with a wooden spatula till it becomes cold.
From Chapter XVI: Mouth, Tongue, Throat, Teeth, and Gums.
Another (Dentifrices).
Rub them with nettle or tobacco ashes, or with vine ashes, mixed with a little honey.
From Chapter XIX: Eyes and Nose.
For watery and inflamed Eyes.
Foment frequently with decoction of poppy heads ; when the irritation and inflammation occur, a teaspoonful of cogniac brandy, in four ounces of spring water, may be used three or four times in the course of the day as a strengthening lotion.
From Chapter XXI: Eyelashes.
The growth of the eye-lashes has been promoted, where they have been lost by sore eyes, by the following simple ointment:–
Take ointment of nitric oxyde of mercury; 2 drachms
Hogs lard – – – – – – – – – – 1 drachm
Incorporate the ointment well with the lard, and anoint the edges of the eye-lids night and morning ; washing after each time with milk and water, warm.
From Chapter XXIII: The Hands and Nails.
For Chapped Hands.
Take three drachms of bole ammoniac–three drachms of myrrh, and a drachm of white lead.–Incorporate these with a sufficient quantity of goose-grease ; and with this anoint the parts affected; and wear worsted gloves.
