Free Emma (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Jane Austen Page B

irregular, with many comfortable and one or two handsome rooms. It was just what it ought to be, and it looked what it was (p. 325).
    In this representation of a portion of the civilized world in which appearance and reality seem as closely allied as they are ever likely to be, Mrs. Elton characteristically introduces contradictory impulses and discordant tendencies. Gotten up “in all the apparatus of her happiness,” she leads the way in the ritual ceremony of gathering strawberries.
    “The best fruit in England—every body’s favourite—always wholesome.... Delightful to gather for one’s self—the only way of really enjoying them. Morning decidedly the best time—never tired.... delicious fruit—only too rich to be eaten much of—inferior to cherries—currants more refreshing—only objection to gathering strawberries the stooping—glaring sun—tired to death—could bear it no longer—must go and sit in the shade” (p. 326).
    The rhythmic trajectory of ideas in this virtuoso passage moves from inflated expectations of pleasure to disappointment, frustration, distress, and complaint. And what happens immediately thereafter is similar, or analogous, but in reverse. Mrs. Elton has just received word of an available “situation” for Jane. She is “in raptures.”
    Delightful, charming, superior, first circles, spheres, lines, ranks, every thing: and Mrs. Elton was wild to have the offer closed with immediately. On her side, all was warmth, energy, and triumph (p. 326).
    Mrs. Elton’s ecstatic expressiveness might be right out of Songs of Experience, as she exults in her power to exploit the misery and pain of another human creature and finds her happiness in this form of antagonistic cooperation.
    The morning is hot and still, and the party scatters and disperses itself out of the gardens and
    to the delicious shade of a broad short avenue of limes, which, stretching beyond the garden at an equal distance from the river, seemed the finish of the pleasure grounds. It led to nothing; nothing but a view at the end ... which seemed intended ... to give the appearance of an approach to the house, which never had been there ... it was in itself a charming walk, and the view which closed it extremely pretty. The considerable slope, at nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with wood; and at the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the Abbey-Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and handsome curve around it.
    It was a sweet view—sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being oppressive (p. 327).
    And the Abbey-Mill Farm itself is viewed, “with all its appendages of prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in blossom, and light column of smoke ascending” (p. 328) .
    Throughout this scene, and through its shifting field of view, we are solicited to perceive the harmonious elements in a complex, irregular conceptual and material group of structures—culture and comfort resonate and consort equably together. xviii Donwell Abbey itself remains true to its historical identity—its unmodern yet becoming siting, “low and sheltered,” its unplanned and rather hap-hazard development through time—its avenue of limes and pleasure grounds leading to “nothing,” and an “approach to the house, which never had been there.” Knightley is both a “preserver” and an “improver.” The improvements are clearly focused on what has been done to improve the use of the land—including its appearance. The owner has taken advantage of recent advances in science and agricultural technology: with meadows going down to the water and rich pastures and the river coming around and through the estate, there has had to be