“Where shall we see a better daughter or a kinder sister or a truer friend? . . . She will make no lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred times.”
Such words of praise for Emma from Mrs. Weston
Emma, volume 1, chapter 5
I only hope that none of my blunders will be lasting.
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Filed under Emma, Emma Woodhouse, Family, Friendship, Miss Taylor - Mrs. Weston
[Mrs. Weston] “She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she?”
“I have not a fault to find with her person,” he replied. “I think her all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise, that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how handsome she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies another way.”
Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley on Emma’s beauty and faults
Emma, volume 1, chapter 5
Filed under Beauty, Emma, Emma Woodhouse, Miss Taylor - Mrs. Weston, Mr. Knightley, Pride
I love this little bit:
“Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. I have seen a great many lists of her drawing up at various times of books that she meant to read regularly through-and very good lists they were-very well chosen and very neatly arranged-sometimes alphabetically and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew up when only fourteen-I remember thinking it did her judgement so much credit that I preserved it some time; and I dare say she may have made out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to anything requiring industry and patience and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding.”
Mr. Knightley discussing Emma’s faults with Mrs. Weston, who will not admit them
Emma, volume 1, chapter 5
I think I have made various reading lists of my own over the years…
Filed under Education, Emma, Emma Woodhouse, Miss Taylor - Mrs. Weston, Mr. Knightley, Patience, Reading
One of my dear friends was married this weekend, in a lovely tiny old church with a Gregorian choir. Here, tongue in cheek of course, are Mr. Woodhouse’s thoughts on marriage:
“Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable; . . . he was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield.”
Emma, volume 1, chapter 1
Thanks to Molland’s for the illustration
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Filed under Emma, Marriage, Miss Taylor - Mrs. Weston, Mr. Woodhouse
The Jane Austen Guide to Life: Thoughtful Lessons for the Modern Woman (May, 2012)
A Walk with Jane Austen: A Journey into Adventure, Love, and Faith