Jane Austen discussion
The Tea Tray
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Intro
I have concocted a recipe which to me speaks of summer: I use cherry tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic salt, and tostitos or fritos, and just plunk the chips for my roughing it salsa. I also love watermelon, don't think it is in season yet. The weather here is raining and I hear thunder in the distance. Not your usual balmy island day.
Yum!I am waiting for the "good" green grapes myself....
I'm off to Washington, DC for JASNA. Is anyone else going?
I am already in Washington, staying with my sister. Planning to be at the AGM
Does anyone have instructions for the proper way to make a good cup of English tea? I would love to graduate from the bags and use loose tea. With thanks!
Barbie wrote: "Does anyone have instructions for the proper way to make a good cup of English tea? I would love to graduate from the bags and use loose tea. With thanks!"It depends on the type of tea and how strong you like it. Ideally you want to boil your water first but I cheat and heat it in the microwave. Then you need a filter or a muslin tea bag. I brew black tea for 5 minutes because I like my tea strong. Add milk or sugar to taste.
Tea is best if you bring the water just to the boiling point but don’t let it boil any length of time. Using a tea scoop or tea spoon, use one scoop of loose tea per person “and one for the pot” (an extra scoop); you can put the leaves directly into the pot or buy a tea ball (tidier but some people don’t like the taste as much). This will make a strong cup if you steep it five minutes or longer. For me, three minutes is enough.
I am partial to an Indian tea, Darjeeling, which has a light, clean taste and is not floral.
The leaves should be whole, not crumbled into little bits the way they are in tea bags—that’s junk tea. Have fun with it, Barbie!
I like either earl grey or matcha tea... they're strong and flavorful. The other varieties seem just too weak for me. Like jasmine, I steeped the teabag in for at least a quarter of an hour and it was still weak. I'm sorry for fans of jasmine, it's just not my cup of tea (lol lol lol the pun tho it's as weak as my least favorite tea).
It’s great to invest in an electric kettle. If you don’t have a good tea shoppe in your community, there are several on-line resources. Some places will allow you to buy just one or two servings if you want to test what you like. My morning tea is always Lapsang Souchong. There’s nothing like the taste of stale ashtray to awaken one.
My grandmother always drank Lapsang Souchong, too! It’s an unusual taste, for sure. She liked it weak with nothing added.
Hey if any of you are interested writing. I have a group called Christian Writer's Inspiration Club that really needs members.
Hi everyone, I just published ebook and paperback "PRIDE AND INTENTIONS"
(Clean sentimental romance!)
If you like "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, I'm sure you'll like this book as well
Hi I’m Clara. I’m 17, am homeschooled, and from the USA. I’ve read most of JA’s books with my favorite being Sense and Sensibility. My least favorite is Emma.
Anna wrote: "Hey if any of you are interested writing. I have a group called Christian Writer's Inspiration Club that really needs members."Could you please invite me to that group? I’m so interested.
Welcome, Clara! I’m with you, my least favorite is Emma too, though I do appreciate its clever construction.
Abigail wrote: "Welcome, Clara! I’m with you, my least favorite is Emma too, though I do appreciate its clever construction."Same here! I love it’s “clever construction “ too but not Emma as a character until she changed…
Exactly, though to my mind she didn’t change enough! She reminds me vividly of the kind of snob I was at her age, and I can’t forgive her for that.
Abigail wrote: "Exactly, though to my mind she didn’t change enough! She reminds me vividly of the kind of snob I was at her age, and I can’t forgive her for that."Haha yes!
Hello everyone! I know this might not be the ves platform to share this stuff but I’ve recently learned that Jane Austen’s house in Chawton (a museum today) it’s on great danger on being closed forever. There’s more information and an explanation of how you can help. Please share! https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/j...
Maria wrote: "Hello everyone! I know this might not be the ves platform to share this stuff but I’ve recently learned that Jane Austen’s house in Chawton (a museum today) it’s on great danger on being closed for..."Love this! Maria, thank you ! What a great thing to share and make us aware of! 👏🤩😢🙏🙏
Glad you did this, Maria, thanks! I donated.
Mod
Emma is also my least favorite of Austen's novels.
Thanks for that link, Maria!
Rachel wrote: "WELCOME, Clara! Emma is also my least favorite of Austen's novels.
Thanks for that link, Maria!"
Thank you☺️😌
The snobbery issue is tricky, I think. I think Austen makes it clear that Emma's attitude towards Robert Martin is definitely unwarranted and not acceptable - and stupid, too, as Mr Knightley makes it clear he things RM an intelligent man, reading agricultural journals and so on, and that he has sound principles and a generous heart (and that, in fact, he deserves a more intelligent wife than Harriet!). So think that Emma does make the essential journey that all Austen heroines either have to make, or have already arrived at, of having 'right feelings' about people and the world they live in.That said, I suspect, from our 21stC perspective, it would be impossible for us to truly approve of the attitudes prevalent in those days. Yes, for example, one of Austen's 'good' characters (eg, Mr Knightly) (who is already 'sound', as in, he doesn't really change his outlook during the course of the book, unlike, by contrast Darcy, who owns he has had faults of pride and criticalness which he's now addressed), might well have not wanted the poor to be destitute, but would they have invited them to dinner as social equals? (That said, would we??????!!!!). Would they have been willing not to have had servants to wait on them hand and foot, and think it OK for people to be put into the world to do just that!
So, I fear that some degree of what we would now regard as 'snobbery' would still be identifiable in all the Austen 'good' characters, in their attitude to 'the lower orders'.....??
I was just thinking....one of the reasons I don't like Emma as much as the other novels, is that her behaviour makes me squirm with embarrassment for her (the scene where the deluded Mr Elton proposes is the ultimate!). Yet last night I was watching the final episode of the Colin Firth P and P which the BBC are reshowing as a treat during lockdown, and Mrs Bennet behaves with excruciating embarrassment (to us) towards Mr Darcy when he visits with Mr Bingley (supremely unaware it is thanks to him that her daughter Lydia has not been cast off and condemned as a fallen woman!), and then the other scene where she gets Lizzie, Mary and Kitty out of the room so that Bingley can propose to Jane. Both are embarrassing, but area actually enjoyable to watch - unlike Emma's squirmy moments. I wonder if that is because Mrs B is clearly a humourous character we laugh at 'anyway', whereas Emma is the heroine and we want to root for her and hate that she is embarrassing her self so much??
It's extraordinary how often people leap to the assumption that others are judging a book by modern social standards. Emma's devotion to her own social status goes way beyond looking down on Mr. Martin. There's her stressing about whether to accept an invitation from the nouveau riche families in the town. There's her blithe assumption that in her relationship with Miss Smith she is conferring all the favor. There is her feeling free to be publicly unkind to Miss Bates. And so on. She is an embodiment of self-involved entitlement.In all these areas,, Mr. Knightley presents a striking contrast. He is affable with all these people and shows them thoughtfulness. He's not some radical trying to erase the social strata, he's simply showing by example that you can occupy your given place in the world without making other people feel bad about themselves. He takes his role as squire as a network of obligations to be embraced, and while Emma takes on some of her duties in the community, she does it only in a Lady Bountiful spirit. Mr. Knightley is probably of much older family than the Woodhouses, who don't have deep roots in the community, and he is trying to teach Emma the proper spirit of noblesse oblige within the existing social ideology. (In my reading, Emma is Austen's most socially conservative book, the one that least questions the social conditions of her world.)
Despite all Mr. Knightley's efforts, I don't find Emma a very apt student. At the end of the book, I feel she has understood a few specific lessons about specific people, but hasn't had a transformation of the heart (except, of course, where Mr. Knightley himself is concerned).
As you can perhaps see, my critique is rooted in an understanding of the era (in fact, I have been studying the late 18th and early 19th century in Britain, literature and history, for more than forty years), and I am not judging it based on modern standards. Not looking to "approve," just to analyze.
Maria wrote: "Hello everyone! I know this might not be the ves platform to share this stuff but I’ve recently learned that Jane Austen’s house in Chawton (a museum today) it’s on great danger on being closed for..."Huzzah! They met 100% of their goal. Sadly, I am an out of work museum employee myself so I was unable to donate but kudos to all of you who did it! I'm happy they met their goal.
QNPoohBear wrote: "Huzzah! They met 100% of their goal. Sadly, I am an out of work museum employee myself so I was unable to donate but kudos to all of you who did it! I'm happy they met their goal."Oh some good news to wake up to today :) Thank you Maria for drawing our attention to it!
I think in respect of Emma herself, we should give her some slack. Of all the Austen heroines she has been, I think, the worst parented (bad/absent/inadequate parenting is a constant theme in her novels, and perhaps, from a structural point of view, essential, as it creates the necessary 'vulnerable' heroine to drive the plot forward and create narrative and dramatic tension as we read their stories.)Emma is only 21 (same age as Lizzie Bennet??), her mother died (at birth? Certainly early childhood), and her father is effectively 'useless' as providing any fathering other than, in his defence, devoted love (unlike, say, the dreadful Sir Walter Eliot in Persuasion). Her mother substitute is Miss Taylor, who has also been utterly uncritical of her, providing almost no moral guidance (unlike, say, in Persuasion, Lady Russell - Anne's substitute mother - whose moral guidance is very clear, if of course emotionally flawed).
So Emma has been left to grow up without any effective parenting, and has had to find her own way, make her own judgements and so on, and has been, even worse, overly-indulged by her father and Miss Taylor.
Mr Knightley really is her 'father substitute' and the only person to give her any robust moral guidance.
So, overall, as I say, I think Emma deserves a bit of slack about her faulty attitudes, as she really hasn't been raised with any clear guidance about 'right feelings'.
I also pity her enormously for having been 'saddled' with her father - her older sister has escaped into marriage, but poor Emma has been 'dumped' with her father - she is his carer, and, speaking as someone who has been a carer themselves, believe me, it's an intolerable burden - especially to place on a young woman who has all her life ahead of her.
In many ways, Emma makes the best of a life that has not been that kind to her (other than in making her handsome, clever and rich!). I think we should take that famous opening sentence with a sense of double irony - not just the famous 'very little to trouble or vex her' as indicative of a sublimely ignorant young woman sailing headfirst into a storm she has no idea awaits her because of her high-handed actions, but the added layer of irony in that actually she DOES have quite a lot to trouble and vex her - ie, she has no parents (only a dependent, role-reversed 'child-father') and no freedom or hope of freedom anyway. (I think it's revealing she declares she'll never marry......as if she knows, grimly, that she can never abandon her father....)(and, of course, only a Mr Knightley steps up to the mark and moves into Hartfield to share the burden of her care of her father.) (Would Frank Churchill have done that? Or even Mr E? I doubt it!)
QNPoohBear wrote: "Maria wrote: "Hello everyone! I know this might not be the ves platform to share this stuff but I’ve recently learned that Jane Austen’s house in Chawton (a museum today) it’s on great danger on be..."Yay! That makes me so happy!
Beth-In-UK wrote: "I think in respect of Emma herself, we should give her some slack. Of all the Austen heroines she has been, I think, the worst parented (bad/absent/inadequate parenting is a constant theme in her n..."Agreed❤️🙌
I think Austen makes clear that the old Victorian warning 'The devil finds work for idle hands!' is very true for Emma. She really has 'nothing to do' with her life, and nothing much to look forward to either, so interfering (disastrously!) in other people's lives is her substitute or vicarious 'work'.I would say that because Emma knows that because of her father's emotional dependency on her that she 'can't' marry (even if she wanted to), she therefore hasn't got the 'work' that, say, the Bennet girls have (ie, their 'careers' are husband hunting....whether overtly or not, what else can rescue them from their impending poverty once their father has died, except a sufficiently prosperous marriage?).
If, as we may suspect, Hartfield does not have an agricultural estate attached to it, Emma is also denied the other 'career' that is open to her as the daughter of the house, namely being Lady Bountiful to the cottagers etc etc.
She's certainly got nothing to do at Hartfield in terms of looking after it (as opposed, again, to the Bennet girls, who do seem to do things like sewing and working in the still room)(though that might just have been on TV!)
Boredom is very obviously Emma's main problem, and the opening chapters lay that out, with the doleful, and really quite chilling, references to the extremely dull evening that Emma is now facing once Miss Taylor has left, with her father falling asleep after dinner....(only 'saved' by the timely arrival of Mr K)
It's also revealing, I think, that Emma hasn't been anywhere - has she even been to London to stay with her sister (who has young children, so has been there a while). With a less clingy father, one might expect Emma to have had a 'season' of sorts in London, at the very least, as, after all the two Dashwood girls do when they go to London with Mrs Jennings, and go to parties and so on. Emma doesn't even get to do that....
So, really, in that sense, annoying and presumptious (and snobby!) as she is, she is also pretty pitiable as well, 'cribbed cabined and fined' by her role as her loving-but-clingy father's 'daughter-at-home'.
(Thinking about it, I may be wrong about her not being able to be Lady Bountiful - doesn't she go about with Harriet dispensing baskets of food or whatever, and calling on Miss Bates etc with similar.)
Beth-In-UK wrote: "(Thinking about it, I may be wrong about her not being able to be Lady Bountiful - doesn't she go about with Harriet dispensing baskets of food or whatever, and calling on Miss Bates etc with simil..."Yes I think so
Beth-In-UK wrote: "I think Austen makes clear that the old Victorian warning 'The devil finds work for idle hands!' is very true for Emma. She really has 'nothing to do' with her life, and nothing much to look forwar..."Agree with you! Those were issues that I was upset about that Emma had!
I think it's hard for us in the 21stC to imagine a life that is 'privileged but pointless', if that is a way of describing upper class 'young ladies' who just don't have anything to do except to look ornamental.I wonder if Austen was thinking of what her own life might have been like had her father been richer?? (Not that he was as 'clingy' as poor Mr Wodehouse, plus she had her mother)(and all the siblings too!). In a way, Austen was herself 'saved' from Emma's fate not just because she had money worries, but because of her writing talent. That was her 'career', even if she couldn't carry it out untrammelled (no 'room of her own'....).
Being bored 'all your life' is a pretty grim fate, even if it's boredom in huge physical comfort. I used to think the worst fate possible would be to be dumped in a harem, with absolutely NOTHING to do all your life....hideous and terrifying.
Beth-In-UK wrote: "I think it's hard for us in the 21stC to imagine a life that is 'privileged but pointless', if that is a way of describing upper class 'young ladies' who just don't have anything to do except to lo..."Same, agree with all your words!
Beth-In-UK wrote: "I wonder if Austen was thinking of what her own life might have been like had her father been richer?? ."Perhaps she was thinking of her brother Edward's daughters. They were a large family but motherless and rich, like Emma. Marianne never married and stayed with her father until he died. First Fanny, then Marianne, managed the household, oversaw the care of the poor in the parish. Jane didn't know that though before she died but I'm sure she could imagine what would happen if one of the girls never married.
QNPoohBear wrote: "Beth-In-UK wrote: "I wonder if Austen was thinking of what her own life might have been like had her father been richer?? ."Perhaps she was thinking of her brother Edward's daughters. They were a..."
Neat thoughts that I didn’t know before
Interesting about Austen's 'rich' nieces! I guess it does raise the issue of what 'rich women' actually did (when they weren't out and about making morning visits, buying clothes and going to dinners/parties etc!)(just like modern rich women can!!!!), and what might constitute a 'career' or at least a 'satisfying life'.Would Austen still have written novels had she been richer? I would suspect yes, as she seems to have had the writing bug (and the genius!!) to probably NOT to have able NOT to write....
With writing novels with a view to publication, and therefore earning money (when one needed it or not!), that would have immediately made a woman a 'professional', in contrast say, to a woman who, say, wrote poetry (without a view for publication)(or, perhaps, to commercial publication, rather than just vanity publishing her own poems!), or who painted 'for her own amusement'.
I don't doubt that actively managing a 'great house' took a degree of organisational ability, though that might depend on the quality of the housekeeper/butler. Similarly, of course, a landowner could pass all the responsibility for managing his estate on to a hired estate manager, while he went off hunting, shooting and fishing, or built a political career, or whatever took his fancy.
Looking after the 'deserving poor' was probably about the only real alternative 'career' if one wasn't writing/painting 'for money' (ie, commercially/professionally), and of course loads of 'idle rich' women did just that, both on their own estates and in their own villages, and perhaps nationally took in campaigns of one kind and another.
Doing anything truly professionally (ie, commercially for money) was tricky, as 'ladies' were not supposed to 'work' (or, of course 'have' to work! Their role was to prove their menfolk were sufficiently rich to keep them idle!).
In a way, I suppose, Emma's predicament makes us ponder what we ourselves might do, in our era, were we, too, 'handsome clever and rich'. Would we, deprived (if it's a deprivation!) of the obligation to earn a living, what would we actually DO with our lives?? Good works? Politics? Make more money for ourselves by commercial activities? Academic research? Artistic endeavours? Or, even, try and get all our singleton chums married off to each other!!!!
Beth-In-UK wrote: "I think Austen makes clear that the old Victorian warning 'The devil finds work for idle hands!' is very true for Emma. She really has 'nothing to do' with her life, and nothing much to look forwar..."These are all terrific points as to Emma's situation in life. But I also thought the book hints at her lack of ambition. Doesn't Mr. Knightly say that Emma has been intending to read more since she was twelve years old? To me, this implies that she has not taken the opportunity to 'improve her mind through extensive reading' as Mr. Darcy defines an accomplished woman. And the only mention of masters furthering a lady's education in Emma is in reference to Jane Fairfax's superiority over Miss Campbell and (presumably) Emma herself. So, yes I absolutely think Emma was tied to her house and her village, but I also think she lacked ambition.
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Interesting about Austen's 'rich' nieces! I guess it does raise the issue of what 'rich women' actually did (when they weren't out and about making morning visits, buying clothes and going to dinne..."❤️❤️❤️You’re an JA expert!
Shana wrote: "Beth-In-UK wrote: "I think Austen makes clear that the old Victorian warning 'The devil finds work for idle hands!' is very true for Emma. She really has 'nothing to do' with her life, and nothing ..."Yep, she was an idle, meddling procrastinator
Yes, very true that Emma lacks focus, ambition and self-discipline - as per the killing comment by Mr K about her meaning to read more and never doing so (but drawing up lots of very neat lists of the many books she means to read!!!)Again, I would put that down to lack of good parenting, both by her father (whom Austen makes clear is, sadly, not very clever - some remark early on to say that his company was not equal to Emma's, as in, she couldn't talk to him about anything except trivialities)(and, that, of course, she has to spend her time endlessly endlessly reassuring him about everything he endlessly endlessly worries about!) (These days we might say he has Generalised Anxiety Disorder....)…..and by Miss Taylor, who never checked her at all. Again, Mr Knightley says to Miss Taylor's face after she's married Mr Weston that now she has only one person to please, not two (ie, only her husband, not Mr and Miss Woodhouse) - and of course, that is tacit criticism that she was a failure as a teacher for only wanting to 'please' her own pupil Emma (which was NOT good for Emma!).
So, yes, I don't defend Emma as to what she was (idling, meddling procastrinator - guess so!), but I do defend her in that she had no upbringing to help her be otherwise.
Which, I suppose, raises the eternally thorny issue of just how responsible we are, or are not?, for the way we've turned out as adults, depending on how we were raised???
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Yes, very true that Emma lacks focus, ambition and self-discipline - as per the killing comment by Mr K about her meaning to read more and never doing so (but drawing up lots of very neat lists of ..."Yes we are responsible for our actions, not how our parents acted or raised us!
I think if we are raised in a society in which 'good values' are espoused, championed, recommended and approved of, then I would agree with you.Because 'society' (and 'societal norms') therefore becomes almost a substitute for lack of good parenting.
But what if you're brought up in a society that does not promote or abide by such 'good values'??
We're seeing that hugely at the moment with all the BLM protests about what historical figures thought, or didn't think, about black slavery.....is it fair to judge them by the values of our own society, etc etc? (Or, perhaps, at the least, the values of some of their own society, eg, abolitionists?)
And what should we now be judged by? Maybe in generations to come we'll be deplored for having tolerated poverty in the third world, let alone the nightmare of modern slavery - or, even that we all merrily slaughtered millions of hapless animals to feed ourselves when we didn't have any biological need to do so!
But it's a big, big, big moral question, and not easily answered or resolved.....
Beth-In-UK wrote: "I think if we are raised in a society in which 'good values' are espoused, championed, recommended and approved of, then I would agree with you.Because 'society' (and 'societal norms') therefore..."
I’m agreeing to disagree with you on your most recent comments
It does rather beg the question about how we develop morality in the first place! Personally, I'd like to think humans have an 'inbuilt' morality, that derives, fundamentally, from a sense of 'empathy' with others (including animals) a kind of innate 'seeing others as ourselves' (and therefore not wanting to be cruel or unfeeling towards them). (But, good parenting, can certainly identify that to children, and encourage it in them - whereas bad parenting achieves the reverse.)But we are getting into very deep philosophical and perhaps even 'biological' waters here (let alone potentially theological!)
Coming back to Emma (!), I do think that she has been 'encouraged' (as in, not 'discouraged') to think highly of herself, because her father has only ever praised her, and it seems ditto for Miss Taylor.
I believe Mr Knightly, very early on, points out that because Emma is, undoubtedly, cleverer than her own father (and Isabella her sister?), this has (fatally!) allowed her to think that she knows better than others.
I do think, that however much harm she does (eg, ruining Harriet's chance of a happy marriage with Robert Martin), we have to give her credit for at least 'meaning well' (though perhaps she illustrates that the road to hell is indeed lined with good intentions!)
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