The first paragraph of "Persuasion"

This is the first paragraph of Jane Austen's Persuasion as it appears in the Norton Critical Edition that I am using with my students:

A

            Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt. As he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century – and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed – this was the page at which the favourite volume always opened:

And this is the first paragraph as it appears in various online versions that I have come across, including whatever version it was I downloaded a few years ago for me and my students to work with:

B

            Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This was the page at which the favourite volume always opened:

The anaphora with "there" is much more effectively handled in B than in A, in which the last "there" is not part of the previous list of constructions beginning with "there".

The Norton Critical Edition says it is based on the first edition, but it makes me wonder about the punctuation of the first edition! And it also makes me wonder where B comes from!

Still, to my mind, the pattern of the words in this paragraph points towards punctuation along the lines of B, whose rhetorical structure is much more like Austen than A is.

Austen, Baldwin, Commas

            In the introduction of Elinor Dashwood in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, her "coolness of judgment" is said to "counteract" her mother's "eagerness of mind" in a sentence whose forward motion is itself counteracted by punctuation: "Elinor, this eldest daughter, whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence." The ten commas here punctuate the first 43 words and make them a representation of the careful thinking Elinor always engages in, while after the last of those commas, the final 14 words describe Mrs. Dashwood's "eagerness of mind" in a comparative rush of unpunctuated words. Elinor's mode of thinking is thus also a mode of writing and even of reading: a slow reading of the novel (and of novels) is needed to "counteract" the haste of an "imprudent" reading. "Eager" immersion in the novel may be pleasurable, but "effectual" interpretation demands the careful parsing of the novel's language.

            The same effect of punctuation can be found in a sentence in the first part of James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain. At the end of the visit to the cinema with which John Grimes celebrates his fourteenth birthday in 1935, he confronts the absolute opposition between salvation and eternal damnation: "Either he arose from this theater, never to return, putting behind him the world and its pleasures, its honors, and its glories, or he remained here with the wicked and partook of their certain punishment." The five commas here punctuate the first 22 words and make them a representation of the "narrow way" of salvation that John has been raised to believe in, while after the last of those commas, the final 13 words describe the "broad way" of damnation in another comparative rush of unpunctuated words (and John had walked down Broadway before going to the movies). However, while one of the opposed terms in Austen's sentence "counteracts" the other and is thus privileged, Baldwin's sentence presents its opposition as an either-or alternative, a "cruel choice," as it is called a few lines later, between salvation and damnation. Salvation may require effort, as Elinor's "coolness of judgment" does, but it remains open whether it can successfully "counteract" its opposite.

"To be sure" in "Emma"

And here are many of the appearances of "to be sure" in Austen's Emma. I really wonder about how to interpret this expression. It's quite slippery. Suggestions?

To be sure

            "That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do. A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But a farmer can need none of my help, and is, therefore, in one sense, as much above my notice as in every other he is below it."

            "To be sure. Oh yes! It is not likely you should ever have observed him; but he knows you very well indeed—I mean by sight."

*

            "You could not have visited me!" she cried, looking aghast. "No, to be sure you could not; but I never thought of that before. That would have been too dreadful!—What an escape!—Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for any thing in the world."

*

            "Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the foolish girl about?"

            "Oh! to be sure," cried Emma, "it is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her."

*

            "Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply it as you do."

            "To be sure!" cried she playfully. "I know that is the feeling of you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every man delights in—what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his judgment. Oh! Harriet may pick and chuse. Were you, yourself, ever to marry, she is the very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just entering into life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at because she does not accept the first offer she receives? No—pray let her have time to look about her."

*

            The picture!—How eager he had been about the picture!—and the charade!—and an hundred other circumstances;—how clearly they had seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its "ready wit"—but then the "soft eyes"—in fact it suited neither; it was a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such thick-headed nonsense?

*

            Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her.

            "Ah!—well—to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr. Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend."

*

            "Harriet!" cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely—"Let us understand each other now, without the possibility of farther mistake. Are you speaking of—Mr. Knightley?"

            "To be sure I am. I never could have an idea of any body else—and so I thought you knew. When we talked about him, it was as clear as possible."

Compliments in "Emma"

Compliment

            Mr. Frank Churchill was one of the boasts of Highbury, and a lively curiosity to see him prevailed, though the compliment was so little returned that he had never been there in his life. His coming to visit his father had been often talked of but never achieved.

*

            "I am glad you think so; and the good hands, I hope, may not be wanting."

            "Come," said he, "you are anxious for a compliment, so I will tell you that you have improved her. You have cured her of her school-girl's giggle; she really does you credit."

*

            "There is so pointed, and so particular a meaning in this compliment," said she, "that I cannot have a doubt as to Mr. Elton's intentions. You are his object—and you will soon receive the completest proof of it."

*

            Emma perceived that the nature of his gallantry was a little self-willed, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of dancing with her; but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest.

*

            "Insufferable woman!" was her immediate exclamation. "Worse than I had supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley!—I could not have believed it. Knightley!—never seen him in her life before, and call him Knightley!—and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her caro sposo, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery. Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady.

*

            "So I remember to have heard. He will find an addition to the society of Highbury when he comes again; that is, if I may presume to call myself an addition. But perhaps he may never have heard of there being such a creature in the world."

            This was too loud a call for a compliment to be passed by, and Mr. Weston, with a very good grace, immediately exclaimed,

            "My dear madam! Nobody but yourself could imagine such a thing possible. Not heard of you!—I believe Mrs. Weston's letters lately have been full of very little else than Mrs. Elton."

*

            "A very fine young man indeed, Mr. Weston. You know I candidly told you I should form my own opinion; and I am happy to say that I am extremely pleased with him.—You may believe me. I never compliment."

*

After a good many compliments to Jane on her dress and look, compliments very quietly and properly taken, Mrs. Elton was evidently wanting to be complimented herself—and it was, "How do you like my gown?—How do you like my trimming?—How has Wright done my hair?"—with many other relative questions, all answered with patient politeness.

*

            "Miss Fairfax's compliments and thanks, but is quite unequal to any exercise."

*

            "John enters like a brother into my happiness," continued Mr. Knightley, "but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to have, likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes."

She read and re-read with the closest attention

In chapter 36 of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet ponders the letter she receives from Mr. Darcy after she rejected his marriage proposal. After defending his actions in ending Bingley's courtship of Elizabeth's sister Jane, Mr. Darcy's letter tells her the full story of himself and Mr. Wickham in response to remarks of Elizabeth's (which had been based on Wickham's version of the story to her). Despite her initial rejection of Darcy's claims, Elizabeth finds it impossible not to reread the letter, especially "all that related to Wickham"; she makes herself "examine the meaning of every sentence." Her re-reading shows her that, until the death of Darcy's father, "each recital confirmed the other," but the two men's stories about the late Mr. Darcy's will are so different that one of the two must be lying: "it was impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the other." If she first "flattered herself that her wishes did not err," her reading and re-reading "with the closest attention" is an attempt to eliminate her own prejudices from her interpretation of the letter, and she is finally "forced ... to hesitate": 

She put down the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be impartiality--deliberated on the probability of each statement--but with little success. On both sides it was only assertion. Again she read on; but every line proved more clearly that the affair, which she had believed it impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to render Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a turn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole.

With two statements that are "only assertion," Elizabeth eventually finds herself having to concede that the story she would have liked to reject—Wickham infamous, Darcy blameless—is actually quite possible. Here, then, the ideal of interpretation (of Darcy's letter, and not of the two contradictory versions of events) is a process of re-reading that aims to eliminate the interpreter's desire. The interpreter does not look for confirmation of her first reading but instead calls that reading into question, as a means of testing it. And she does so by what amounts to close reading—the closest possible reading—of every detail of Darcy's letter. At least in this passage, a close re-reading is the privileged mode of interpretation.

Opinion and Situation

In Chapter 24 of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Bennet finds out that Bingley, who had been courting her, will now stay in London and not return to Hertfordshire anytime soon. Jane's sister Elizabeth responds to this letter with reflections that amount to a theory of interpretation:

It was a subject, in short, on which reflection would be long indulged, and must be unavailing. She could think of nothing else; and yet whether Bingley's regard had really died away, or were suppressed by his friends' interference; whether he had been aware of Jane's attachment, or whether it had escaped his observation; whatever were the case, though her opinion of him must be materially affected by the difference, her sister's situation remained the same, her peace equally wounded.

Even she knows that is "unavailing," Elizabeth cannot help obsessively pondering two questions about Bingley: Why has his regard for Jane disappeared? And how aware was he that Jane was in love with him? The answers to these two questions may make a difference in "her opinion of him," but they do not change "her sister's situation" in any way. In other words, interpretation can change what one thinks about someone or something, but it cannot change what has happened. From the perspective of this passage, interpretation of the novel that focuses on one's "opinions" of the characters is beside the point; instead, interpretation should address the situations the characters find themselves in—or, to put it more strikingly, the "wounds" that they inflict upon on each other.

Rereading in England; rereading Eugenides

Others can say whatever they like about these survey results; I'm going to say this: it is fantastic that three of the top ten re-read books in the survey of readers in Britain are Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights. Let's hear it for Jane and the Brontës, authors of some of the greatest novels ever written. Admittedly, I re-read Jane regularly, but I hope to get to Wuthering Heights again sometime soon (which I have read at least twice), and someday I will re-read Jane Eyre as well.

Right now, though, I am re-reading Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, a book I was hugely impressed by when I first read it a few years ago. Here's what I wrote back then in an email recommending the book to friends:

"A book for Deadheads, hermaphrodites, runaways, people born in Detroit, people of Greek descent, San Franciscans, hitchhikers, lovers of silk, owners of Cadillacs, people who went to private schools, smugglers of bootleg liquor, sexologists, anyone who has ever declared bankruptcy, directors of horror movies, Ted Kennedy, future actresses, owners of topless bars, clarinetists, Stanford grads, Berliners, installation artists, career diplomats, anyone nervous about second dates, signalmen, people who were finally able to beat their Dads at ping pong, would-be kidnappers, obscure objects of desire, and everyone who has ever used a thermometer to try to influence the sex of a baby."

It's still all true, but it's not a great second read: the plot is not rich enough to drive the book on a second read (that is, JE's plotting does not stand up to Rowling's), and the proliferating details, so hugely entertaining on a first read, just seem like distractions on a second read. On a second read, in other words, JE's project of combining mainstream fiction with sophisticated post-modern fiction does not seem to come off as well as it did the first time around.

That said, I will finish it, since I have to mark a thesis on it that a student is handing in at the beginning of next month!