Persuasion 16-18: “Everything In Moderation”

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Transcript

Reclaiming Jane S5E6 | Persuasion 16-18: “Everything In Moderation”

Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.

Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers.

Emily: And I'm Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: And today, we're reading chapters 16 through 18 in Persuasion through the lens of moderation.

Emily: So I was totally right in my prediction that moderation would be a fascinating topic for this episode.

Lauren: Oh, 100%. There are many, many things that we're gonna be able to discuss.

Emily: We just cannot miss in Persuasion. This is so good.

Lauren: Honestly, you know what? I don't know how many episodes we we had so far, but we are whatever for whatever. Five for five. What episode is this?

Emily: This is six.

Lauren: Six for six.

Emily: Let's keep up that streak.

Lauren: Let's keep it going. Let's keep it up. This'll be great. And also the prediction about certain characters not knowing the meaning of moderation, also correct.

All right. Are you ready to kick us off with your recap of these three chapters of Persuasion in 30 seconds?

Emily: Totally prepared.

Lauren: All right. On your mark. Get set. Go.

Emily: So in Bath Anne is even more concerned about Sir Walter being in love with Mrs. Clay than she is with Elizabeth and Mr. Elliot, especially when Sir Walter starts giving some very pointed personal compliments. She's also just not super hot on Mr. Elliot, even though Lady Russell thinks that he's got his eye on her. some new cousins, the Dalrymples show up and they, there has to be a reconciliation because they're just too fashionable to like, be left out, Anne catches up with an old school friend and then the Crofts come into town with some shocking news.

Lauren: Well done. You're done. Thank you. [00:02:00]

Emily: I didn't quite get everything, but that's all right. That's why we have two recaps, right?

Lauren: Exactly.

Emily: It's not a competition, it's to fill in each other's gaps.

Lauren: It's a competition.

Emily: Are you ready to recap?

Lauren: Yes.

Emily: 3, 2, 1. Go.

Lauren: Anne is settling in in Bath and to no one's surprise, Sir Walter and Elizabeth are still just as ridiculous as they were before.

Anne gets to know more of Mr. Elliot and he doesn't really have anything super suspicious, but she still doesn't really trust him very much. She meets up with an old school friend who has fallen on hard times and decides not to spend as much time with the new cousin they just found out, which is very confusing to Sir Walter and to Elizabeth.

The Crofts come back in town and Mary also writes with news that Louisa and Captain Benwick are married.

Emily: I am so glad you had the time at the end to give that emphasis. Also, they're not married, they're engaged.

Lauren: Okay, whatever, they're getting there.

Emily: Sorry. I know it's, it's in poor form to critique a thirty second recap, but I just had to say that.

Lauren: This is a valid correction. They are not yet married. They have not walked down the aisle. However, it is imminent.

Emily: But we can get to that later.

Lauren: Yes.

Emily: Yeah. So right off the bat we are plunged into Anne's concerns about the connections that her family might be forming. First on her mind is whether Sir Walter is in love with Mrs. Clay, which she was worried about well before they went to Bath.

She does not like Mrs. Clay's potential designs.

Lauren: No, and I think she was less worried about Sir Walter being in love with her before they left, but more worried about Mrs. Clay's designs for making him fall in love with her and now that she has the chance to see them interact, now she's really worried that those designs have been working and Sir Walter may have actually been falling for it.

And she's very concerned.

Emily: He even compliments Mrs. Clay's complexion.

Lauren: And he does not give compliments.

Emily: He does not give compliments.

Lauren: Sir Walter gives compliments to his own complexion, not to those of other people.

Emily: Absolutely not.

Lauren: Granted, it also does come after he says that a certain lotion that he's recommending to Anne really improved Mrs. Clay's freckles, [00:04:00] which Anne does not see at all, but you know. It's Sir Walter.

Emily: It's Sir Walter.

Lauren: But the, the danger of Mrs. Clay is very real, and Elizabeth yet again seems determined not to see anything remiss.

Emily: Because Elizabeth is pretty well caught up in Mr. Elliot.

Lauren: As is most of the house, honestly. He's continuing to come by. He's been nothing but charming and a good conversationalist, and no one can really find any fault in him. Even Lady Russell, who usually has harsh and accurate -- sometimes -- judgments of people, really, really likes him. She thinks he's great. And of course he would come back at this time to reconnect with the family.

It was something that is, is good and right and what a young man should do.

Emily: But that's kind of the problem that Anne sees is that he's a little too perfect. She says that, "Mr. Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped." So he's just a little too guarded for her. She sees this as a facade.

Lauren: And the reason everyone likes him to Anne is because he's very calculated in how he presents himself to everyone.

So for example, Mr. Elliot and Anne have a little side conversation about how they both share a distaste for Mrs. Clay and don't believe that she would be a good fit for Sir Walter, nor does she need to be part of the Elliot family at all. Anne feels a type of way when Mr. Elliot is expressing this to her, because on the one hand, she's glad that somebody else shares her opinion, but on the other, it seems a little bit mean-spirited.

And she also [00:06:00] realizes after the fact in relation to, you know, 'he's just too good and he's too perfect,' that although they shared the same distaste of Mrs. Clay, Mrs. Clay also does not have anything bad to say about Mr. Elliot, and he's perfectly fine and cheerful and complimentary to her, but Anne knows those are not his true emotions that he shares regarding Mrs. Clay because he told her that.

Emily: Yeah, and normally that wouldn't necessarily be a red flag that you can dislike someone, but not you know, have them dislike you. But Anne also notes that he is very socially conscious. He kind of has Sir Walter's awareness of social standing throughout their society, and Anne doesn't really appreciate that.

Lauren: I think she's able to pick up on the subtleties of Mr. Elliot in a way that the rest of the people around her are not.

Emily: They're too busy being pleased by him. That particular disagreement with Lady Russell though does lead to a line that made me just scream internally a little bit. It says, "it was now some years since Anne had begun to learn that she and her excellent friend could sometimes think differently."

It's been eight years, right?

Lauren: We know exactly how many years. Anne does too, but she's not gonna say it.

Emily: No. Just some years.

Lauren: Just some time, I don't know. Undisclosed amount of time unrelated to any specific traumatic event in my life. Though, speaking of traumatic events, poor Anne's school friend has just really fallen on some hard times.

Emily: Poor Mrs. Smith. Part of her tragedy is that she was fond of the husband whom she married young, and then he misused their funds and left her destitute after his death a couple years ago, and then she became physically disabled in addition to being poor. And yet, she is one of the most contented people that Anne knows.

Lauren: Yeah. She is kind of at peace with [00:08:00] her situation, and she freely says to Anne that that was not always the case. She was very upset. She was depressed. She, you know, went through the range of emotions that one would expect after you lose your husband, you lose your social standing, you lose your physical ability to do things the way that you used to be able to.

There's going to be a very natural sense of, of loss and frustration and sadness. But these days she is, she has a very healthy viewpoint about it, and she has things that she's grateful for, that she's contented about. she's very grateful for the nurse who took care of her and was able to help nurse her back to health.

She's very happy that she's able to spend time with Anne. She's very focused on like, okay, these situations are out of my control, but here are the things that are still in my life that I can be happy about. And so I'm choosing to be happy for these things instead of focusing on the, the various negative things in my life.

Emily: Yeah, she stands in very stark contrast with especially Sir Walter, who will always find something to be discontent with, despite the fact that he has basically everything and the things he lacks are his own fault.

Lauren: Yeah, this has happened to Mrs. Smith through no fault of her own. Sir Walter, on the other hand, tends to bring misfortune down upon himself.

Emily: And of course he and Elizabeth are not at all pleased about Anne spending so much time with this destitute school friend when she could be climbing the social ladder, although they wouldn't put it that way. visiting with Lady Dalrymple and her daughter, Miss Carteret.

Lauren: Who is, a cousin of theirs whose acquaintance has lapsed because when there was a death in their family, you know, through some fault or another, they just forgot to send a condolence letter about a major death in the family. And so then when Lady Elliot passed away, they didn't send a condolence letter either because they, you know, were returning the slight of, you've paid no respects to us, so we're paying no respects to you. And then it just kind of seemed like the, [00:10:00] the door of that acquaintance was closed.

And now that they're in Bath, sir Walter and Elizabeth are determined to renew this acquaintance. And Anne, even Mr. Elliot, has some ideas about what the opening should be if they're going to be determined to renew this acquaintance, which Sir Walter immediately throws out the window and writes his own letter, which isn't great, but it does get the response and the renewal of the acquaintance that they wanted. So, sure.

And in the midst of this, Sir Walter, Is very unhappy with Anne for going to see this destitute widow in Westgate because why on earth should a Miss Elliot be seen in Westgate of all places lowering herself to be in such company when she could be elevating herself to be with Lady Dalrymple?

And, in the process of saying this, is going on and on about a poor widow, barely able to live between 30 and 40, you know, just an everyday person, she has no connections, blah, blah, blah. Why should you go over there? And then it says, "Mrs. Clay, who had been present while all this passed, now thought it advisable to leave the room. And Anne could have said much and did long to say a little in defense of her friend's not very dissimilar claims to theirs, but her sense of personal respect to her father prevented her. She made no reply. She left it to himself to recollect that Mrs. Smith was not the only widow in Bath between 30 and 40 with little to live on and no surname of dignity."

Emily: This whole section, like every three pages, something had me screaming.

Lauren: Dude, you do realize that you were deriding the description of the very woman who you seem to be paying particular compliments to. Has that not crossed your mind at all?

Emily: No, of course not. I mean, Mrs. Clay is in reputable acquaintance, obviously.

Lauren: Oh, of course.

Emily: She's staying with the Elliots in Camden Place, so she must be worth something because he has bestowed that upon her. But Mrs. Smith has nothing. She is nothing.

Lauren: Anne cannot bestow that on anyone. It also just [00:12:00] shows how fickle society is too, because it's not as though she was born poor and was raised poor, and they were always in a different social sphere. It's very similar to the Bates in Emma where they previously were of a higher social standing, but they've fallen on hard times, and so their interactions with the other people in their circle have to shift because their social standing has changed.

Same thing with Mrs. Smith. She was not always somebody who was doomed to be in the dreaded Westgate. She married really well. She was in school with Anne. She was raised to be a lady, a gentleman's daughter, a gentleman's wife, and now that that's been removed from her, to some people, that means that she's no longer worthy of knowing or interacting with, but not to Anne.

Emily: Some people a little more worthy of interacting with, though.

My favorite people show up towards the end of the section. The Crofts have come to Bath for the Admiral's gout. Poor guy.

Lauren: Sad for him. Good for Anne.

Emily: I know. So she is of course delighted that she'll have the opportunity to meet with them again, even though Sir Walter is pretty skeptical about this whole associating with Naval people thing.

Lauren: He is not convinced that the Crofts will be able to keep the same type of company that the Elliots do. And he is very intent on saying that, you know, 'they'll hang out with the naval sorts, but they wouldn't be able to hang out with the type of society that we keep.' You're not that special. I need you to calm down.

Emily: They do at least, bring some news of consequence, which is that during her convalescence at Lyme, Louisa Musgrove has gotten very close with one Captain Benwick, who was flirting with Anne just a few chapters ago.

Lauren: And Mary Musgrove also makes sure to point out in her letter to Anne, which is conveyed by the Crofts, that this means that he surely could not have been paying special attention to her, as she must now realize because he's engaged to Louisa. So in case you had any ideas about feeling like you were special, you shouldn't. XOXO, [00:14:00] your sister Mary.

Emily: Mary is just always doing way too much.

Lauren: I can't, and even just, it was such a good character study that letter, because there's also a piece ,where, once she realizes that Mrs. Croft will take the letter for her instead of posting it, she goes, 'oh, now I can say as much as I want because postage was about to be expensive, but it doesn't matter. So now I can continue filling up pages. I have more news for you by the way.'

She also changes her opinion of the Crofts after they offer to take this letter. At first, she is very irritated with the Crofts and she says, "I do not think they improve at all as neighbors. We see nothing of them, and this is really an instance of gross inattention."

And then she goes on later, there was a second part to her letter and she says, you know, "I had a note from Mrs. Croft yesterday offering to convey anything to you. A very kind, friendly note indeed addressed to me, just as it ought. I shall therefore be able to make my letter as long as I like." And then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then she says, "our neighborhood cannot spare such a pleasant family." Girl. One page ago you just said, I don't think they improve at all as neighbors. It's ink in black and white.

Emily: God, as much as I wanna strangle her a little bit, Mary does crack me up.

Lauren: She's hilarious. The comic relief alone makes her one of the best characters here.

She's terrible, but she's so funny.

Emily: That's youngest sibling energy.

Lauren: Like I just, I can't with her. But yeah, Louisa and Captain Benwick.

Emily: That is a fascinating, development.

Lauren: I must know. Did you see this coming?

Emily: No.

Lauren: I didn't know how you would've, honestly.

Emily: Yeah, no, definitely interesting and I, I concur with in-book observations that it's unexpected that someone is outgoing and lively as Louisa Musgrove would get along so well with someone as subdued and melancholy as Captain Benwick.

But I think that does fit quite well into [00:16:00] our theme of moderation.

Lauren: It does!

Emily: Because they apparently sort of moderate each other?

Lauren: Balance each other out.

Emily: Opposites attract?

Lauren: Yep. In this case they do.

Emily: Mm-hmm. But this does also mean that, a certain other player is still on the field.

Lauren: And doesn't really seem to be too crushed about the news of this latest engagement.

Everyone's kind of waiting to hear what Captain Wentworth is going to say because it was so clear that he and Louisa were flirting for months. So they were just kind of waiting to see what was going to happen with that and he just, you know, sends his best wishes to Captain Benwick. Doesn't seem any kind of way about it, and really hasn't been visiting anyone in their acquaintance for weeks now.

Emily: Yeah. When Anne happens to see Admiral Croft just out and about on the street, she's very careful in asking, basically like, 'How is Captain Wentworth doing about this?' Like, is he injured by his friend stepping in and, you know, sweeping away this girl that he'd been flirting with?

And Admiral Croft kind of seems to maybe misapprehend the question a couple of times, but it, in the end it's clear that Wentworth doesn't really have any strong feeling one way or another. Like he had been in Lyme initially, but then went off to see somebody else and then went to visit his brother, and he hasn't seen Louisa or any of the Musgroves or the Harvilles or Benwick in quite a while now and isn't broken up about it, and basically has just like sent his mild well wishes.

Lauren: Man's chilling.

Emily: He's chilling. And Anne much as she is loathe to admit it, is joyous.

Lauren: She's secretly thrilled. Wentworth is back on the market. This is great news. Like I'm glad he doesn't seem broken up about it because now I don't have to pretend to be sad if I see him again. Not like she's going to do anything about it, but can she, she can still be privately happy.

Emily: So yeah, that, is quite a [00:18:00] turn of events. and I'm sure the Crofts are not too broken up either. From the conversations we've seen, they didn't really think that much of Louisa Musgrove.

Lauren: Not really. No.

Emily: They had their sights set elsewhere for their brother.

Lauren: A loftier place, one might say.

What also cracked me up about about the interaction was how much needling Anne has to do to get Admiral Croft back on the topic, because he starts by saying, 'oh, Anne, there was something I've been meaning to tell you.' And then promptly gets distracted because he has to greet everybody he sees in the street. And then after he comes to the end of the street, then maybe he'll come back into the topic and Anne tries to ask him again, 'now, what was that thing you were going to tell me about?'

And he goes, 'oh yes, that, oh wait, hold on one second.' And it, it's like he's just sees a squirrel. And then goes off topic again. And meanwhile, Anne is trying not to die of suspense. Like, what was the news you were going to tell me??

Emily: I love him so much. Our topic moderation was so poignant for this because there's, there's so little moderation in, in some quarters, and then fully embracing moderation in others.

Lauren: I really love that we had, Mrs. Smith's story, especially in this section, to talk about moderation, because otherwise we would mostly be left to analyze the lack of moderation from the people with whom Anne spends most of her time.

But Mrs. Smith has had moderation forced upon her. And has decided that she's going to find a way to be content with that. Like she's learned to knit and that makes her really happy and she has her little small pleasures that she looks forward to and that seems to be enough for her right now.

Emily: It seems like Anne is even, I don't wanna say grateful, but maybe relieved to have this example of someone who can actually just appreciate what they have and is very vocal about that because, I, I feel like we get an [00:20:00] air of appreciation from the Crofts, and from certain of the Musgroves as well.

Not that like any of them are limited in their means, but someone who has so little and still like verbatim says that she is contented with that and that she is happy, must be such a breath of fresh air for Anne, who's been stuck among all these people who are perpetually dissatisfied with their lot.

Lauren: Yeah, and it is really refreshing for Anne to have just someone else to speak to who seems to have the same level of sensibility and reason that she does rather than being constantly put down for the thoughts and opinions that she holds.

Emily: Plus someone who's unabashedly happy to see her.

Lauren: That goes a long way for Anne.

Emily: Mm-hmm. Lady Russell, of course, but Lady Russell is also just delighted to be in Bath. She loves the city and Anne doesn't feel that way.

Lauren: And Lady Russell is a social butterfly and she has plenty of people to see and so she always, you know, drives Anne to Westgate. And the two of them are often in each other's company, so it's not as though Anne doesn't see her.

But Lady Russell also has other friends and acquaintances and so she can't be Anne's primary companion all the time. Meanwhile, on the other end of the scale, we have the Elliots.

Emily: We have the Elliots.

Lauren: Surprise surprise.

Emily: Oh my God. Just so obsessed with being in the correct company and being seen to, to have and do and be everything that is right and proper for their station, which is just exhausting to think about.

Lauren: And that's what got them into this mess to begin with!

Their lack of moderation is why they are in Bath, because they were trying to keep up with the Joneses and bleeding money.

Emily: Lack of moderation is the inciting incident of this book!

Lauren: They don't learn. And even outside of money, there's a lack of moderation in how they interact with other people. Like in trying to [00:22:00] renew the acquaintance with the Dalrymples, that could have used maybe a touch of tact. A hint of subtlety, perhaps, none of which applies to Sir Walter at all.

And yet he is the one who's writing the communication that somehow gets a very terse reply. Like, it works, but it's not like it's received very warmly.

Emily: But Sir Walter wouldn't know subtlety if it smacked him in the face.

Lauren: Ever. You have to wonder what those interactions are like between Sir Walter and Lady Dalrymple.

Cause we don't really see like conversation between the two of them or Elizabeth, we hear about what has happened secondhand from the Elliots. But I cannot imagine that the way that they are fawning over that family is really turning into any kind of genuine renewing of the acquaintance.

Emily: Yeah, I did find it very interesting. The, the particular time that Anne turns down the invitation to see the, the Dalrymples, Lady Dalrymple is ill and can't go out visiting anyone, but invites the Elliots anyway, and then they are kind of enlisted to go around and pick up all of her other friends. So it definitely seems like she's sort of taking advantage of their tendency towards fawning to get other things that she wants accomplished.

Lauren: It's like, 'if they're going to insist that they come back into my life, I can at least use this to my advantage.' Do I actually want to talk to you? No. Are you family and are we in the same city? Sure. So I guess we'll figure this out.

Emily: It's a very interesting dynamic there. And of course, Sir Walter and Elizabeth are going to be utterly ignorant of the fact that they're being used in this way.

Lauren: Elizabeth is excited that they were tasked with picking up people. She doesn't see it as an imposition at all. She sees it as they were entrusted with doing something for Lady Dalrymple instead of Lady Dalrymple realizing that she could use something to her advantage.

Insight, maybe not her [00:24:00] strong suit.

Emily: Possibly not. But I'm also super interested in the shades of moderation that we see in Mr. Elliot who is apparently, very self-regulating in that he will never say an incorrect or mistaken thing to anyone. He is just perfectly pleasant in such a way that to a close observer, it seems calculated to be that way.

Lauren: His entire personality is moderation. Never anything to an extreme in either direction.

Emily: And he's admitted to those kinds of mistakes in his past and is aware of that. But now he is just unassailable. There's not a hair out of place. Nothing to be criticized.

Lauren: Suspicious.

Emily: Mm-hmm. Red flags. Red flags. Red flags!

Lauren: It's too perfect.

Emily: Yep.

Lauren: It's, it can't be real. I'm also interested in the way that Louisa and Captain Benwick moderate each other, like you mentioned earlier, and what that budding relationship will look like, or even what it's looked like over the course of Louisa's recovery. Because obviously this has been going on for, you know, at least some time before they become engaged and the news of the engagement reaches the rest of their acquaintance.

So I'm wondering how that's affected both of their behaviors already and what the effects might be on their respective personalities. You know, like there wouldn't be any drastic changes. This is still something that's very early, and so you're, the essence of who you are is obviously going to be the same, but I imagine at least in the ways that they interact with each other, you can start to see some of the shifts.

Emily: From what little we know of each of them, I feel like it could be a pretty solid relationship because Louisa isn't like out of control, flighty the way like the youngest Bennet sisters were. She's not Lydia. She's just energetic and not always the most sensible, but there's no indication that she doesn't have a good head on her shoulders underneath that. [00:26:00] And Benwick, as we saw when he was talking to Anne and was sort of drawn out of his shell, can be encouraged into being more forthcoming. So I get the sense that they would actually be pretty good for each other.

Lauren: I think so. Like Louisa's, bright, and happy and playful, and clearly Captain Benwick needs some of that because he can rise to begin to match that energy, but he won't necessarily provide it on his own. And so I think he needs somebody to kind of like tug him out of his shell a bit in a way that Anne started to do, at least with her conversation of poetry and of literature, and that Louisa would be able to do in a completely different way to really like, boost his emotions.

Emily: I hope we get to see the two of them together.

Lauren: Yeah. Think they'd be cute.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Lauren: I ship it.

Emily: Same. Were there any other points of moderation or lack thereof that you wanted to talk about?

Lauren: I don't think so. I think that covers it. What about you?

Emily: I think we got everything.

Lauren: All right. That means we get to move to historical context.

Emily: We do indeed.

Lauren: What you got?

Emily: So historical context, more than usual was, it wasn't really motivated, but it made me think of something in my own life. So I get one of those, the little subscription things where they send you like, samples of beauty products and one of the ones that I got last week had a little sample of like, a retinol alternative and I was like, absolutely not.

I'm never gonna use that. Because one of my things is just like on principle, I don't use anything that's specifically like anti-aging. I don't want to do that. I use sun protection so that I don't get cancer, but I'm not gonna do like retinol or anti wrinkle or anything like that. And then Sir Walter kept bringing up Gowland's lotion.

Lauren: I was so hoping you were going to do something on the beauty cream. Yes. [00:28:00]

Emily: How could I not? And. I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave the specifics of Gowland's to the end of this, but it's, wow. Yeah. So skincare and beauty in general, like, what was the significance of that at this point of time and among this class of people?

There was a general emphasis on like natural beauty, which just gives me shades of like the no makeup, makeup look. It was definitely idealizing, like, a pale and delicate complexion that you could really only hope to achieve if you were a young person of an upper class, if you like, didn't go out in the sun and you could afford products to like keep your skin glowing, stuff like that.

It was very valuable to have a youthful appearance, as Sir Walter drills into everyone's head. This concept of bloom that is constantly mentioned. I believe The Thing About Austen has talked about that from a couple different angles, but, there's a quote here from the Mirror of Graces published in 1811 about, this sort of ideal.

It says, "the preservation of an agreeable complexion, which always presupposes health, is not the most insignificant of exterior charms, the frequent and sudden changes from heat to cold by abruptly exciting or repressing the regular secretions of the skin. Roughen its texture, injure its hue, and often deform it with unseemly, though transitory eruptions. All this is increased by the habit ladies have of exposing themselves, unveiled and frequently without bonnets, in the open air. The head and face have no defense against the attacks of the surrounding atmosphere, and the effects are obvious."

Lauren: They're not wrong, but how dramatic!

Emily: So dramatic.

Lauren: Exposed with no bonnet. The horror.

Emily: I know. So [00:30:00] obviously something was understood of like, the importance of avoiding the sun and environmental factors, but that absolutely does not preclude cosmetics and their use to varying degrees of acceptability.

So basically everything we use today, they were also using in some other form. There were foundations and powders to, like, even out your complexions, there were both liquid and powder versions of rouge mascara, eyeliner and brow products were, kind of the most frowned upon.

But I think that's probably because it's the most obvious when those are used. If you're not extremely subtle about them.

Lauren: Have you looking like a harlot.

Emily: I know. And then just lip salves, which were basically just like a lip balm, sometimes with a tint or something like that. There were both commercial products and copious recipes for homemade versions, like a cold cream.

This one's published in a book, I guess, called How to Cook in 1810. It says, "Take two ounces of oil of almonds, one half ounce of spermaceti," which is from sperm whales, "two ounces of white wax and one half pint of water. Melt them in a new pipkin and when all is melted, whip it till cold, then let it lay in a little rosewater until you put it in pots."

That sounds, you know, pretty reasonable. Some people go all out with, you know, just outrage about old recipes and how horrible they are, but a lot of 'em were just pretty benign.

Lauren: Not everything has to be awful.

Emily: Yeah. Almond oil, wax put together, like yeah, that's fine.

But it is, it was definitely this attitude toward, and maybe sometimes shading into obsession with, like, skincare and anti-aging, reflected a sort of general belief in individualized control over [00:32:00] aging.

So I did read an article by June O, titled "Aging Faces and Gowland's Lotion in Austen's Persuasion," which I'll make sure to link in our show notes and, talks about how historians have sort of identified "the enlightenment faith in scientific progress in understanding the human body generated a health enthused public that believed in its agency over physical wellbeing," which we see all over the place in Austen. Every time we talk about like a health topic or you know, Mr. Woodhouse's obsession with eating right and staying out of drafts very much reflects this more scientific attitude toward, oh, there's things we can do to control this.

But then that of course, shades into, you have to do things, to prevent aging or to make yourself look good, stay young. so there's, there's all kinds of complexities to that. By the Regency era, prevention was in focus more than like, reversal. You have a little less of people being like, oh yeah, you know, you have all those sunken wrinkles, we can just get rid of them.

but it, it hadn't disappeared, of course. And we see exactly the same thing today because, humans are always humans, and society is society.

Lauren: Now it's just on beauty YouTube.

Emily: Mm-hmm. But this definitely meant that the market was ripe for commodification and for exploitation like we see with Gowland's lotion.

It's such an interesting, very specific point of inclusion for Sir Walter to be recommending this stuff. A quart bottle could cost the equivalent of 330 pounds in London. Modern pounds. It was like 10 shilling something.

Lauren: Still.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. And like a quart isn't a, not insignificant [00:34:00] amount, but 330?! Yeah. The, the outrageous marketing for it claimed that it could cure things including dryness, freckles, eruptions, so like zits, coarseness, paleness, redness, shingles, and scurvy.

What? I don't think a topical lotion is gonna cure your scurvy. I think you need to eat an orange.

Lauren: It's also not going to cure your shingles.

Emily: Yeah. It's also not going to get rid of freckles.

Lauren: And also it fixes both redness and paleness.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: How does that work?

Emily: I don't know. But on top of making all these wild claims and being insanely expensive. the recipe also contains stuff like lead and mercury.

Lauren: Oh, no.

Emily: Yeah, so, well, you did have some of these perfectly innocuous, little homemade recipes. There were also people who were just charlatans and putting whatever they wanted in a bottle and talking it up in marketing, which again, we see today.

Lauren: Yeah. I'm just thinking of how, you know, putting, putting lead and mercury on your face, of course, is going to have the opposite effect that you want, which then causes you to continue buying more of the face cream because you're like, oh, my face keeps getting worse. I need to buy more of the cream. No.

Stop putting mercury on your face.

Emily: Yeah. So with all of that, it's, it's not surprising that Sir Walter has the opinions he does, considering how image obsessed he is. but it's also kind of a miracle that he apparently looks so good.

Lauren: Truly. And I question how good he actually looks. I don't know, good enough for him to continue looking at himself in the mirror.

I think I wouldn't be surprised if any perceived flaws he is very aware of and would fix. So I think with all the mirrors he has in any given house, he thinks very highly of himself. I don't know what other people think of his appearance or if it's as great as he thinks it [00:36:00] is, but he is clearly content with it, so.

Emily: Well. Mr. Elliot has also complimented the way that he looks, so that must be perfectly sincere and not an attempt of flattery.

Lauren: Not at all. That was 100% accurate. And Sir Walter wishes he could repay the compliment.

Emily: You know, Mr. Elliot probably doesn't use Gowland's.

Lauren: To his own detriment, I'm sure.

Emily: Evidently.

Lauren: His complexion would be much improved. I don't know what needs to be fixed about his complexion, but something does.

Emily: So that is our unmoderated history topic. The obsession with anti-aging and the ways that, the people tried to do something about it.

Lauren: I like it. People gonna people.

Emily: People gonna people. What do you have for pop culture today?

Lauren: A rather meandering moderation connection, but a connection nonetheless.

Emily: All right.

Lauren: So I was thinking, in my brain, I associate moderation with conserving things because I mean, by definition it's eliminating or lessening extremes. which calls to my mind like keeping things together, conserving things, and then I was thinking of conservatism and for whatever reason, I also just had in my brain that I wanted to connect Downton Abbey to this somehow because I, it just also felt like it fit with moderation.

So I found an article. That was, 'Downton Abbey reminds us what conservatism really means,' in the Washington Post. It's by Max Boot. It's an opinion piece from like four years ago. This man identifies as a conservative, was really frustrated with the way the conservatism looks like in the United States in 2019, given who the leader of the country was at that time and was saying, you know, Downton Abbey is just such a great example of what conservatism should be.

This opinion piece was expanding upon the virtues of like the upper class characters and the like the upstairs, downstairs characters of Downton Abbey and how they both are working together to uphold the social structure, and that is part of what conservatism looks like. Even though there are, you know, multiple competing opinions within that social structure, you're all [00:38:00] working together to uphold the same thing.

I was thinking about how moderation looks different for every character in that situation. So for example, Tom is chauffer, who's hired by the Crowley family who live in Downton Abbey and are the family of the home, he is an Irish nationalist who later falls in love with their daughter, and they think it's a horrendous match. But his Irish nationalism was considered the most extreme of extremes at the time. That was a radical, dangerous idea to have, and clearly not something that was encouraged by either their family or anyone else in their social standing. But now, if you fast forward, you know, a hundred and some odd years, an independent Ireland is just a reality.

And there are still tensions between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and what does it mean to be Irish, but an independent Ireland is a reality that we have in our society today and believing that Ireland should be its own independent country is not a radical idea anymore. It just, it is its own independent country.

That's a fact. And then on the other hand, you have the Dowager Countess of Grantham excellently played by Maggie Smith, of course. And she represents everything about the social structure that Tom is fighting so hard against, she is more conservative than even other members of her family. She is very intent upon preserving things the way that they are and keeping things the way that they used to be.

And she would consider herself like just traditional or moderate, but to other people, her conservatism is very extreme. So looking at how even within this group of people who are all like, very notably holding up what we would now see as kind of like an outdated social structure, and even that was a bit more of like a conservative institution.

I suppose that kind of institution was standard at the time, but also represented a very conservative way of living and life of having that very specific social structure in place where everyone had a role to [00:40:00] play. And even if you did not directly benefit from that social structure, you were still doing your part in upholding it because that was how you survived and that was how you could get ahead in some way.

And so then I was thinking about what does extreme look like to each of the Persuasion characters? Because just as it is completely different for Tom the Chauffeur and the Dowager Countess Grantham, it's also different for the Persuasion characters who we have in these three chapters and the entire book.

So for example, Sir Walter and Elizabeth would consider their current lifestyle to be very moderate, even though they are still finding excess in any potential avenue. And their definition of moderation is very, very different from Anne and Lady Russell's definition of moderation, which is part of why they're now in Bath.

And so the question I would like to ask is, it seems as though Anne is the only character who does not need any kind of moderation. But if we're thinking of this as there's always some place to moderate, or everyone has different perspectives on. What is extreme, what is moderate, et cetera. Where could our sensible Anne use some moderation?

Emily: That's a really hard question.

Lauren: I know. And it can be perceived or actual. So we'll, we'll give ourselves a little bit of a loophole by saying it doesn't have to actually be real. It can be where people perceive her to need some moderation.

Emily: I mean, if we're talking about perceived areas where she could moderate, which was always where we were going go with this.

Lauren: I had to build in an out, otherwise it would just be, I don't know.

Emily: Yeah. I'm sure Mary thinks that she needs to moderate her intake of gothic literature.

Lauren: I was going to say that Mary was going to moderate Anne's interactions with her and increase them because they weren't high enough. She was too extreme on the 'you don't talk to me enough' end. She needed to pull it up.

Emily: Love that we both went for Mary, because Mary is the one who, well, I can't say that she's the most [00:42:00] critical of Anne because obviously Sir Walter wins that prize, but. She's the most vocal in how she personally is being wronged by the way Anne is.

Lauren: I think Sir Walter and Elizabeth would also perceive Anne as being like extremely dull.

 And needing to have a little bit more of like Mary's personality or Elizabeth's personality, but moderating her boring, in their interpretation, personality.

Emily: I mean, in certain ways you could compare her to Mr. Elliot, who is so perfectly moderate. Anne is also perfectly moderate.

Lauren: Yeah, I didn't really have a very like strong case study or anything like that.

I just really wanted to talk about Downton Abbey. Cause I think there are interesting things you can talk about with regards to moderation in Downton Abbey and connect that to Persuasion in some way. I like it. Any, any excuse to think about Maggie Smith's delivery of any given line in Downton Abbey?

Emily: Well, does that bring us to a close?

Lauren: I think it does.

Emily: Would you like to deliver your final takeaways?

Lauren: No, but I will. I think that my final takeaway is everything does not have to be in moderation. Sometimes it's okay to go to either extreme and it might even be necessary.

Emily: Interesting.

Lauren: Which might be the opposite of what this section is really saying, but I'm thinking of Mr. Elliot specifically and how Anne says that he never really has any spikes of emotion in either way, and that is sometimes evidence of being too tightly controlled. So you don't always have to be perfectly moderate in your behavior, sometimes it's okay to let loose and go to those extremes as long as you don't live in either extreme.

That's my final takeaway. What about you?

Emily: I think similarly my takeaway is that intentional moderation is always going to be a little bit artificial. There are some people like [00:44:00] Anne, I think, who are, you know, kind of moderate by nature, but if you are moderating yourself or moderating something, that's, I mean, just the, that description of intentional moderation.

Yeah. Obviously. Yeah.

Lauren: Makes sense.

Emily: Okay. I'm glad. It makes sense.

Lauren: I follow, I follow. I have not followed everything this episode, but that one I did.

Emily: As long as we got that.

Lauren: We got it. Okay. I think it's time for a tarot card. Hmm. Okay. I'm hoping that this is not a spoiler illustration cause I don't know who this is.

King of diamonds.

Emily: Ah, it's not a spoiler. King of diamonds is generosity. Mr. Knightley is a mature character in Emma who gives wise advice and takes care of others.

Lauren: Excellent. Going from moderation to generosity should be fun.

Emily: Absolutely.

Lauren: Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time, we'll be reading Chapters 19 through 21 of Persuasion with a focus on generosity.

Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find the full back catalog and links to our social media.

Lauren: If you'd like to support us and gain access to exclusive content, you can join our Patreon at Reclaiming Jane Pod.

Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis Hale. Our music is by Latasha Bundy, and our show art is by Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: [00:46:00] See you next time, nerds.

Emily: I don't know why I latch onto like these secondary, middle-aged male characters in Austen, but like Sir John Middleton. Yep. And,Uncle Gardiner in Pride and Prejudice. Yep. yeah, they're just like, Who are these guys? They're just out here living their lives unconcerned in their lanes.

Lauren: I feel like with Admiral Croft and Mr. Gardiner, they both have hobbit energy to me, and you are demonstrably a hobbit, so that might be it.

Emily: I'm gonna take that as a compliment.

Lauren: It is a compliment!

Emily: Okay.

Lauren: You self, self-described as a hobbit. Otherwise, I wouldn't have come up with that description anyway.

Emily: I love it. I'm perfectly happy to be lumped into the Hobbit category with Admiral Croft and Mr. Gardiner.

Lauren: Yes, Mr. Sir John Middleton, not so much, but I, he is just good vibes.

Emily: I feel like he's such a force of hospitality that also gives me hobbit vibes.

Lauren: Mm. I could see it. Yeah. He does love a good, love a good party, loves a good meal.

Emily: Yes.

Lauren: Maybe I should lump him back in. There we go. There was, there was the hypothesis.

Emily: I'm just finding all of the Austen Hobbits is what I'm doing and declaring that I adore them.

Lauren: Like, yes, you, you will be my fixation.