Persuasion 19-21: “A Generous Pour of Tea”
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Certain characters really leaned into the episode theme of "generosity"... Anne is finally trusting her own intuitions while we enthusiastically cheer her on. Plus, Italian translation and a little Swiftie moment (accidentally anticipating the week's news again, oops!).
Transcipt
Reclaiming Jane S5E7 | Persuasion 19-21: “A Generous Pour of Tea”
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 19 through 21 of Persuasion through the lens of generosity.
Emily: At the risk of being a broken record, generosity was such an excellent theme for this section, we got like both sides of it.
Lauren: And we have so much to dig into.
Emily: Wow. Do we ever!
Lauren: What a packed three chapters of information.
Emily: Lauren texted me earlier today and said, just so you know, like heads up, chapter 21 is a doozy.
I was like, you were not kidding, either in length or in content.
Lauren: Nope, not at all.
Emily: But we'll get there.
Lauren: You know, I just wanted to give you a heads up just to be able to plan your reading time in case you thought that you were going to be able to speed through these three chapters. nope.
Emily: Not this time.
Lauren: Not possible.
Emily: It was, it was a hefty chunk.
Lauren: Yes, it was. And you get to recap it first.
Emily: Yes, I do.
Lauren: Are you excited?
Emily: So excited.
Lauren: Okay. This might be one of the recaps where we end up filling in the gaps for one another because I think it is humanly impossible to fit all of the events of these three chapters into 30 seconds.
Emily: Yeah, my notes are very reduced, so we'll see how I do.
Lauren: I didn't even take notes because I listened to this, in audiobook form this time around because I was simultaneously doing my hair and I needed to multitask.
Emily: My God.
Lauren: So I have no notes.
Emily: Best of [00:02:00] luck.
Lauren: I'm gonna need it. Yeah. Okay. For you?
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: Are you ready to do your very best to recap 19 through 21 of Persuasion?
Emily: I am ready to do my very best.
Lauren: Okay. Three, two, one, go.
Emily: Captain Wentworth is in town. Anne runs into him and it's extremely awkward, but he does say some, very interesting and kind of telling things in conversation.
the whole Camden Place gang hits up a music concert given by, someone, that Lady Dalrymple patronizes, Wentworth is there and they have a little conversation, but Elizabeth and Walter do not seem overly pleased. And then Mr. Elliot makes himself a parasite and flirts with Anne, which she does not like.
And then she visits Mrs. Smith and finds out that Mr. Elliot is actually a CAD!
Lauren: Done! Done.
Emily: I had so many more words to describe him, but I had to cut it down to cad.
Lauren: Yep.
That -- a good one syllable word.
Emily: Yeah. I'm glad that I always have that one locked and loaded. Like CAD is just always in my head.
Lauren: It's a wonderful word.
Emily: It is. All right. Are you ready to make your un notated attempt at recapping?
Lauren: I'm trying to decide if I'm gonna pick up where you left off or if I'm going to try and recap. I think I'm just gonna try and recap and we're just gonna, we're just gonna roll the dice and see what happens, and we'll go with the flow.
Yep.
Emily: All right. Three, two, one, go.
Lauren: Anne runs into Wentworth. It's super awkward, but she also figures out that he's definitely still into her, which is very interesting. She sees him again at a music concert that the whole gang goes to. they're kind of trying to catch each other's eye, but not really. And Mr. Elliot's all up in her space. And also implies that he would like to marry her. She goes to speak to Mrs. Smith the day after that and they have this conversation about how she thinks Mr. Elliot's going to marry her, Anne asks her why, Mrs. Smith has been getting tons of information from these undisclosed sources and she tells her all about how Mr. Elliot actually sucks and Anne should stay away from him because he just wants nothing good for them.
Emily: That was pretty good.
Lauren: Yes!
Emily: You were able to get more into the conversation with Mrs. Smith than I did.
Lauren: That conversation goes on for forever.
Emily: It really does.
Lauren: It's like 20 pages.
Emily: Yeah. I just like, like I put a note at the top of [00:04:00] it and had started highlighting and then kind of flipped a couple pages.
And was like, oh no, I can't, I'm gonna run out of highlighter.
Lauren: Yep. There. Okay. So before we dive too much into the conversation with Mrs. Smith, let's go back to chapter 19 and that initial run in that Anne has with Captain Wentworth.
Emily: Yeah, so the, like the very first thing mentioned is that the Crofts were going to write to him, or Mrs. Croft was going to write to him and say, you should come to town. But before she can even put pen to paper, he has arrived unexpectedly.
Lauren: Surprise!
Emily: Yeah. Surprise. And he's just apparently out and about at the same time that Anne is out and about with her sister and Mrs. Clay and Mr. Elliot, of course, the persistent presence.
And it's raining, and Wentworth happens to pop into the same shop that Anne is taking shelter in because of course the other ladies have been invited to be driven home by Lady Dalrymple and her barouche can only fit four and herself and her daughter are already there. There's a whole argument about who's going to take the last spot, and eventually they argue Mrs. Clay into taking it.
Mr. Elliot is going to walk Anne home. But Anne and Wentworth run into each other while Mr. Elliot is out on some other errand, and it's super awkward and he is completely astonished to see her, tries to offer to walk her home, tries to offer her his umbrella, which is very gallant of him.
But like Elizabeth sees him and doesn't acknowledge him, and Anne is just, she just has this feeling of dread, like this isn't, It's not gonna be good. And she at this point has acknowledged to herself that like she's still in love with him.
Lauren: And she also does pick up on the fact that Wentworth seems quite flustered, maybe more than he should be, given the fact that this is not their first time becoming reacquainted.
It's just a surprise. And she does allow for the fact that she was able to be a bit calmer in her demeanor when they actually come [00:06:00] face to face because she had the advantage of seeing him through the window first. So she already knew that he was going to be coming into the building. He did not know that she was going to be within the building, so he's obviously more flustered than she is, but it's like, a suspicious amount of like nervous energy for him to be completely indifferent to her, which she does start to pick up on, but it's kind of colored by the fact that, Mr. Elliot is swooping in to say that he has quite good care of the lady in mind, and he will be able to walk Anne home without any any issue.
Emily: Anne is definitely beginning to sour on Mr. Elliot. She is not really a fan of the way that he's always around. As they're walking home, she's thinking to herself like, 'can he just not talk this whole way?' Despite their points of agreement, the concerns that she had raised in the last section about how he's just a little too perfect are starting to grate some.
Lauren: What also cracked me up was, because Anne has had some time to collect herself before Wentworth comes in. She's calmer when he gets there. However, that does not account for her inner monologue before he got there because she sees him through the window and then the narration says, "she now felt a great inclination to go to the outer door. She wanted to see if it rained. Why was she to suspect herself of another motive?"
Emily: It was so funny.
Lauren: It's not a big deal. I really, I just wanna see if it's still raining, so I know if it's going to be a very miserable walk back home or if it's nice enough to venture outside. I have no possible ulterior motive for going to the window. None at all.
Emily: It's okay, Anne. We know.
Lauren: And of course when she moves to the door, that's right when Wentworth walks in.
Emily: So she's made their meeting even more abrupt. Didn't even give him a chance to like see her across the room.
Lauren: Nope.
Emily: Right there.
Lauren: You're right in the doorway.
Emily: Surprise, bitch.
Lauren: I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.
Emily: Now that [00:08:00] Anne knows he's in town though, she's living in this kind of perpetual anxiety about. When is she gonna see him? Where is she gonna see him? Who is she gonna be with?
Lauren: Who is he gonna be with?
Emily: Who is he gonna be with? And it does finally happen, they pass on opposite sides of the street one day while she's with Lady Russell.
And immediately she's like, Lady Russell's gonna see him. What is her reaction gonna be? And she's trying so hard to both track where Wentworth is and keep track of what Lady Russell is doing and thinking. And Lady Russell just doesn't notice, doesn't notice, doesn't notice. And then they're, they're drawing so close to one another, and Lady Russell's head turns and her attention is focused for so long, and Anne is like, just in absolute despair because Lady Russell's just looking silently and Anne can't tell what her reaction is and doesn't want to look over and draw more attention to herself.
And then Lady Russell turns back and says, I was trying to figure out what house long here has the curtains that someone was telling me about.
Peak comedy. Sorry Anne, but that was too funny.
Lauren: That cracked me up. It's like all this angst and anxiety and all she was doing was just looking for some curtains.
Emily: Yep. That was all.
Lauren: Didn't even pick up on it.
Emily: Didn't see Wentworth at all.
Lauren: No.
Emily: And Anne also doesn't know if Wentworth saw them because she was trying so hard not to look. But really there's not that many places that Anne thinks she would see Wentworth because he frequents more public areas. He goes to the rooms and things like that, and her family are increasingly in these, what she describes as stupid little engagements.
Lauren: And they consider the rooms as beneath them?
Emily: Yes, because they're associated with the Dalrymples now.
Lauren: Who also, mind you, are Irish nobility. And the Irish nobility isn't even considered as high class as, of course the English nobility because you have all those [00:10:00] English/Irish prejudices there, but they are determined to hitch their wagon to the Dalrymple family.
And if they're not going to do something, nor will the Elliots, but Lady Dalrymple decides that she's going to go to the rooms, which means that they can go to the rooms.
Emily: And so go they do, because one of Lady Dalrymple's patronages is giving a concert that is generally agreed to be like, it's going to be very good, apparently.
And so Anne is actually kind of looking forward to it, but also knows that if she's going to run into Wentworth anywhere, he's going to be there because he goes to events like that.
Lauren: And sure enough, they're waiting in one of the, one of the rooms for Lady Dalrymple to arrive. And Wentworth walks in and he's going to like, walk past her and not really make a big deal out of it.
But Anne stops to ask how he's doing. And so then they're engaged into conversation and it ends up being a very telling conversation.
Emily: What a conversation this is.
Lauren: What a conversation, talk about double meetings hidden in every word.
Emily: Seriously. Anne, of course, has to bring up the topic of Louisa Musgrove and Captain Benwick and be like, did you, did you know about this?
And trying to feel out what his reaction is because she's heard from the Crofts that like he wasn't cut up about it. But that's very different from asking someone in person and he really doesn't seem bothered. He is surprised that they would go for each other for the same reasons that we brought up last episode.
They're just very different personalities, but he does not seem to regret Louisa at all. His primary concern is how quickly Benwick seems to have moved on from Fannie Harville. Because apparently they were very deeply in love, and as Wentworth says, "a man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman. He ought not. He does not. Either from the consciousness, however, that his friend had recovered or from some other consciousness, he went no farther."
Lauren: "And Anne, who, in spite of the agitated voice in which the latter part had been uttered, and in [00:12:00] spite of all the various noises of the room, the almost ceaseless slam of the door and ceaseless buzz of persons walking through, had distinguished every word." Anne is hanging on to every single syllable that leaves Wentworth's mouth because she understands what he's saying and what he's not saying, and it's like the rest of the room ceases to exist.
It's like the scene of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice where everybody else is gone from the ballroom and it's just Elizabeth and Darcy staring at one another. Wentworth and Anne are locked into this conversation. The rest of the people no longer exist in their universe.
Emily: Yeah, Anne is no longer able to pretend to herself that Wentworth hates her and doesn't feel anything about her anymore.
Lauren: But of course, she can't say anything about this, so they just divert back to small talk and you know. 'Oh, you were at Lyme for a while.' 'Yeah, you know, I was there for a fortnight.' 'Oh, I'd like to go back.'
but even in that small talk, Anne is still continuing to just endear herself to Wentworth all over again because even in discussing such a normal place as Lyme, especially when compared to all the different places that Wentworth must have seen on his travels with the Navy, Anne is able to speak of it with like, warmth and feeling despite the very dramatic circumstances in which she departed Lyme, and you can tell that this is continuing to help her grow in Wentworth's esteem. Not like she needed to because he already is head over heels in love with her. But this is just deepening what he feels for her because he's being reminded of just what type of person Anne is.
Emily: There's also, I mean this book is cover to cover bangers, but one of the lines that jumped out to me is Wentworth, you know, expressing his concern that Anne wouldn't have thought fondly of Lyme given the traumatic head injury, but like she admits that that sucked, but then says, "when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a place the less for having [00:14:00] suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering."
Just that 'when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure,' just right in the heart. Jane Austen.
Lauren: What a line.
Emily: Queen.
Lauren: But of course as they're having this conversation, then Lady Dalrymple arrives and Anne is obliged to turn from that conversation to go greet her family and is drawn into conversation and says that, "she was divided from Captain Wentworth. Their interesting, almost too interesting, conversation must be broken up for a time."
Emily: However, as they're turning away and resettling their groups, she does notice that Sir Walter sort of condescends to acknowledge Wentworth. When she had initially turned to have a conversation with him, she could hear Elizabeth and her father like whispering about something and could only assume what they were talking about.
But, you know, it's not much, it's certainly not warm. But Sir Walter doesn't, you know, pretend that he's not there. So.
Lauren: Baby steps.
Emily: Baby steps.
Lauren: We'll take it. But Anne is in high spirits. This is the best she's felt all book from my estimation. She's having the time of her life. She's like, this is great. He's still in love with me.
Oh my God, what am I gonna do? But then it's subdued over the course of the night.
Emily: Yeah. Not helped at all by Mr. Elliot continually sticking to her side because she's just kind of over his shit now and wishes that he would leave her alone to her own little private happiness.
Lauren: And she's being polite to him.
You know, she's helping him translate the Italian in the songs that they hear and is making polite conversation because it's Anne. And her polite conversation is also quite animated because she's really happy about this other thing, not because of anything that's going on with Mr. Elliot. And she also is only half paying attention because every spare second is spent trying to look for where Wentworth is in the crowd.
Emily: Unfortunately, Mr. Elliot takes advantage of their proximity to continue talking to Anne and trying to [00:16:00] endear himself and eventually, right before they're like sort of interrupted, he says, "the name of Anne Elliot has long had an interesting sound to me. Very long has it possessed a charm over my fancy. And if I dared, I would breathe my wishes that the name might never change."
Lauren: Hint, hint.
Emily: That's not even a hint. That's like a billboard painted, "hey girl, I'm gonna try to propose to you."
But this is also preceded by him telling her that apparently he had heard a lot about her before they even met accidentally in Lyme when they didn't know who the other was.
And she is very intrigued by this, but he won't give up any information. So she's like, okay, someone who knew me years previously who would speak warmly of me. She's like, I don't see how they would've met, but maybe it was Wentworth's curate brother. I don't know. She just kind of makes a guess and then is still like sort of preoccupied with this.
Because he was so weird about telling her that.
Lauren: And she's even preoccupied after he makes the declaration pretty much that he intends on marrying her. And it registers, but not really because once again, her attention has been caught by the mention of Wentworth because now Sir Walter's actually talking about him to Lady Dalrymple, and she is desperate to hear the details of this conversation.
Emily: Yes Sir Walter calls him "a well looking man, a very well looking man," and Lady Dalrymple agrees, "a very fine young man indeed. More air than one often sees in Bath. Irish, I dare say."
Lauren: Of course you would think he's Irish.
Emily: Of course. "No, I just know his name. A bowing acquaintance. Wentworth, Captain Wentworth of the Navy. His sister married my tenant in Somersetshire. The Croft who rents Kellynch.
Lauren: Of course, he has to distinguish him by saying that his sister married his tenant.
Emily: Of course.
Lauren: Just, just to make sure Lady Dalrymple knows where he thinks Wentworth fits in the hierarchy of his life. [00:18:00]
Emily: Of course. But still, this is a positive and even flattering word toward Wentworth.
And so that, you know, ignites a little flutter of hope in Anne's heart too.
Lauren: And we know, Sir Walter places a high importance in how you look.
Emily: Oh yes.
Lauren: A well looking young man, indeed.
Emily: That's just about the most important thing you can have going for you in his opinion.
Lauren: Pretty much, yeah. Anne is still trying to catch Wentworth's eye. And it's really not-- they keep missing each other. it seems like as soon as Anne turns and finds him, his eyes are turning away from her. It's that awkward. Like as soon as you realize the other person is turning towards you, you turn away really quickly so that they don't realize that you've also been staring at them.
Emily: The most subtle thing to do.
Lauren: Oh, 100%.
Emily: They do, eventually, like Anne manages to scoot herself all the way to the end of the bench so that she's easily accessible for conversation and he sort of passes on his way out apparently, even though the show is not completely over. And Anne sort of asks like, why he's going and he says, "there is nothing worth me staying for."
And just like beats it, he's out. And it occurs to Anne immediately, to her credit, that Wentworth has probably been watching her interact pleasantly with Mr. Elliot all evening and he's jealous. So, you know, 10 out of 10 to Anne on her insight for this, you know, she was falling down a little bit earlier in the book, but now, like, I think she's, she's got it locked.
Lauren: Her instincts and her perception in this chapter have been on point.
Emily: Absolutely.
Lauren: No second guessing this time. She's, she's nailed it. He's still in love with her and he's jealous. And we are still only through two chapters, y'all. We haven't even made it to chapter 21. We are just beginning.
Emily: Chapter 21 is so much.
Lauren: It's, it's doozy.
Emily: It's so much. It is a doozy.
Lauren: Yeah. So Anne was originally supposed to meet with Mrs. Smith the night that they [00:20:00] all went to the concert and she very last minute changed those plans so that she could go and promises to call on her the next morning.
And Mrs. Smith is like, 'oh, please do. You know, something tells me that after this night, you know, you won't be calling on me quite so often anymore.' And Anne kind of gives her a look like girl, okay. And like keeps it pushing. Like, I don't know what you're talking about, but I'll see you tomorrow. And so she goes to call on Mrs. Smith the next day as promised. And Mrs. Smith has many questions about the concert and who was there because she knows, you know, the names of pretty much everyone of consequence in Bath.
And she keeps asking if so-and-so was there and if so-and-so was there. And Anne is like, 'I really can't tell you, I don't know. I think they were there. I must have just been distracted. I think my attention was elsewhere.'
Emily: And Mrs. Smith takes this as a preoccupation with Mr. Elliot, and so she starts asking some very pointed questions about him and insinuating that Anne is basically engaged or expects very soon to be proposed to, and even takes Anne's rejection as like, you know, that little quietness of like, oh, you know how we women are, we'll say no, just to be polite.
Lauren: And Anne--
Emily: Mr. Collins's behavior.
Lauren: Exactly. And Anne, despite the fact that Mr. Elliot did make it very clear to her the night before that he intended on marrying her, is saying, absolutely not.
We're not engaged. I'm not going to marry him. He has not proposed to me. That's not where we are at all. Where are you getting this from? Like why are you so intent on finding out if I'm engaged to Mr. Elliot?
Emily: And Mrs. Smith finally lays out where she gets all her information and what her particular interest is in Mr. Elliot because she makes some really weird comments when she is making these insinuations about an upcoming engagement. Saying like, if it were coming from you, he would never deny me any favors. And like, she has never made any indication that she has any connection whatsoever with Mr. Elliot, except through [00:22:00] Anne.
So it's like, okay girl, what's, what's going on?
Lauren: Where is this coming from?
Emily: Where is this coming from? And then it finally all comes out and it's a lot. Oh my god.
Lauren: Mrs. Smith eventually says that she's been hearing things. Basically, the staff talk. So Mr. Elliot has a friend whom he tells most everything to.
This friend tells everything to his wife. His wife is a loud mouth. His wife talks to everyone. But even if she weren't saying this in like, mixed company, she is speaking in front of the servants and this is where it becomes like this really great commentary on like, this is what happens when you treat people as wallflowers and not as people because your servants are listening to everything you say, and they're also going and reporting it out elsewhere, including to people like Mrs. Smith who are just collecting this information for their personal use.
Emily: But yeah, basically Mrs. Smith has gotten all this information about Mr. Elliot's, you know, progress with Anne through a whole grapevine of people.
Lauren: Which Anne kind of takes with a grain of salt. She's like, okay, well you heard from a friend who heard from a friend who heard from a friend.
Like, how true can this information really be? And then Mrs. Smith gives her concrete examples of things like, didn't Mr. Elliot do XYZ? And Anne says, oh, Okay. Maybe I'll take you seriously. I think your information actually might be correct.
Emily: Yeah. But even more credible than that is Mrs. Smith's own personal experiences with Mr. Elliot, because it turns out that he had been a very close friend of her late husband. And potentially one of the reasons, or a contributor to, his eventual financial ruin.
Lauren: Yeah. The first words that she uses to describe Mr. Elliot after she has kind of taken the filter off, we'll say, and she's no longer pretending with Anne because Anne has kept pressing her for, what is it that she means?
What do you mean? You've known him before and known him intimately? [00:24:00] And she says, "I think you ought to be made acquainted with Mr. Elliot's real character. Mr. Elliot is a man without heart or conscience. A designing, wary, cold blooded being who thinks only of himself, who for his own interest or ease would be guilty of any cruelty or any treachery that could be perpetrated without risk of his general character.
He has no feeling for others, those whom he has been the chief cause of leading into ruin. He can neglect and desert without the smallest compunction. He is totally beyond the reach of any sentiment of justice or compassion. Oh, he is black at heart, hollow and black!"
And Anne is like. What?!
Emily: Girl, five minutes ago you were telling me that he would make a pretty good husband.
Lauren: Right?
And she's like, wait, wait, wait. You were just speaking of him very complimentary before saying that he had a wonderful character and isn't he so nice, and now you've just flipped the switch and said that he's awful with a black heart and where, where is this coming from?
Emily: Yeah. It turns out that back in Mr. Elliot's, more dissolute days when he had never had any money. Mrs. Smith and her husband, well, her husband, would basically just like give him money. He always had a place to stay with them, but he never like tried to reform his ways or anything. Then, you know, there was the whole thing with Elizabeth that we kind of vaguely know about, but, he apparently, was pretty down on the title of Baronet.
He did not want anything to do with the rest of that family. And then this little rich girl comes along who's absolutely obsessed with him, and he's like, yeah, I could use the money and marries her. And they were apparently absolutely miserable. He was cruel to his wife. Oh boy.
Lauren: Mrs. Smith apparently had had multiple conversations with him about the pros and cons of this relationship before they even made it down the aisle.
And of course, he decided that he was going to marry for money. And even Mrs. Smith says, you know, he's not the first man to ever marry for money on this earth, but the ways in which he went [00:26:00] about this, especially, she takes offense to the fact that his wife, you know, did not come from the right type of family, but.
It just was a poor choice all around except for the fact that now he has money. And more money than the Smiths do and continues to encourage her husband to spend well beyond his means.
Emily: And then he was also named the executor of Mr. Smith's will and refused to do anything about it, functionally leaving Mrs. Smith in poverty as she became disabled and like there's some property that she thinks she might be able to get some money out of, but like she can't do anything about it without a lawyer.
Lauren: Also, mind you, this was the one note that I made, but she was like, 'oh yeah, you know, there's a little property in the West Indies that I might be able to get something out of.'
I was like, not Mrs. Smith using slavery to pull herself back up the social ladder.
Emily: Evidently.
Lauren: It's like aht aht! You don't fool me. I know what a little property in the West Indies is, miss ma'am, you don't just have a cute little house.
Emily: Mm-hmm. You're not renting it out as an Airbnb.
Lauren: Exactly. But it also turns out that Mrs. Smith was the one who Mr. Elliot had been speaking to who had been praising Anne so highly all those years before, which Anne figures out and says like, wait a second. Did you sometimes speak of me to Mr. Elliot? And, Mrs. Smith says, "to be sure I did, very often. I used to boast of my own Anne Elliot and vouch for you being a very different creature from--" and then she stops herself like, oh, let me not insult people, but--
Emily: Elizabeth.
Lauren: Exactly. But she was the one who had been, you know, speaking super highly of Anne's character before, who Mr. Elliot had referenced the previous night at the concert.
Emily: But man, that rift between the family is, is apparently much deeper on Mr. Elliot's side than we realized because Mrs. Smith pulled out an old letter that he had written to her husband that just didn't get destroyed in the intervening years.
Oh, the, the whole [00:28:00] letter is just like, absolute irritation with Sir Walter and Elizabeth and being like, dear God, rid me of these people. And the final paragraph is, "I wish I had any name but Elliot. I am sick of it. The name of Walter I can drop, thank God. And I desire you will never insult me with my second W again, meaning for the rest of my life to be only yours truly, William Elliot."
But his tune evidently has changed and he's now all about being a baronet.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Emily: Which brings some interesting depth to his opinion of Mrs. Clay.
Lauren: And it turns out, because Anne is still trying to figure out why he ended up in Bath in the first place, because she's listening to Mrs. Smith and she's saying, okay, you know, these pieces are falling into place.
I'm believing what you're saying, but that doesn't account for why he suddenly has tried to re ingratiate himself with my family, because it can't just have been for me, because by the time I got here, he had already become reacquainted with my father and my sister. So there, there had to have been another reason.
And Mrs. Smith says, well, he did kind of change his mind about wanting to inherit that land, because ya boy needs some money. And so he--
Emily: the prestige won't hurt.
Lauren: Exactly. The prestige won't hurt. If anything, he is driven by enriching himself, and he heard through the grapevine that there was someone who may have had a design on your father.
And if your father remarries, and if he has a child and an heir, then that means that Mr. Elliot is out of an inheritance of Kellynch Hall and he can't have that. So he came to Bath to kind of suss out the situation, see what was going on and take it upon himself to make sure that Mrs. Clay and Sir Walter do not get married, which does account for the weird feeling Anne had in the back of her mind when they were discussing their mutual disapproval of Mrs. Clay, but she did not really like the language that Mr. Elliot was using [00:30:00] to describe the whole situation. Her intuition was right. She just couldn't figure out why.
Emily: In one chapter, he's gone from mildly undesirable love interest to absolute villain.
Lauren: Yep. The hidden villain of the whole story.
Emily: Yeah. I love when we have one of those.
Lauren: It's always so good.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: Then, as Mrs. Smith says, his designs became twofold because he saw Anne in Lyme, didn't realize who she was, but then when he realized that the pretty woman who he'd seen in Lyme was the Anne Elliot, who he'd heard so much about, he started to form a different plan, something that would be very agreeable to everyone, something that maybe would help him truly secure that inheritance.
Emily: He can get a good, steady, convenient wife who is also directly connected with the legacy of Kellynch even if she couldn't inherit it herself.
Lauren: Well liked, well respected.
Emily: Two birds, one stone. If he can prevent Sir Walter from marrying Mrs. Clay and get Anne on his arm at the same time, perfect.
Lauren: That's a win-win.
Emily: All coming up Elliot. Conniving bastard.
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: I think that basically wraps up our description.
Lauren: Yeah, I think so. The last thing is that, Anne has determined that Lady Russell should no longer be deceived. And one of the concluding things that Anne and Mrs. Smith talk about is that Anne has full liberty to tell all of this to Lady Russell.
So we close the chapter with Anne on her way to spill the tea because Lady Russell needs to know everything that she just learned.
Emily: And I mean, hopefully Lady Russell can have some sway because we know that Sir Walter respects her opinion very highly. Thank God.
Lauren: He has to listen to somebody other than Elizabeth because Good lord.
And those are our three chapters.
Emily: Yeah. So that brings us around to all of the shades of generosity. And lack thereof in these chapters. [00:32:00] One of my very first thoughts before we got into everything was that, especially in comparison to the rest of her family, Anne seems to have gotten all of the generosity of spirit that her mother seems to have had.
She's kind and she's patient, and she's willing to give almost everyone the benefit of the doubt to a certain extent. It's clearly tested when she gets all this information about Mr. Elliot and she, she does, she has a reasonable line. She's not endlessly incredulous. She will cut it off at a certain point, thank goodness.
Lauren: And she's even generous in trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.
And I think some of that is just general astonishment at what Mrs. Smith is saying to her. So some of it is like a, 'no, this can't be true.' But she's also trying to create allowances for the behavior of all the people who Mrs. Smith mentions throughout the course of her story. And I think it is part of her generosity of spirit that she keeps trying to find the best in people and to assume the best in everyone's intentions until she's presented with enough evidence to believe, oh, there is, there is no good intent behind this action at all.
Emily: But of course we're also faced with lots of examples of lack of generosity or competing generosity and non generosity. I don't know what an antonym -- selfishness?
Lauren: Yeah.
Emily: Yeah. Because you know, we have all these little like, arguments over, oh, who's going to ride in the carriage? And things like that. the unbelievable selfishness of everything Mr. Elliot has done. I mean, we can also talk about shades of selfishness, of like Wentworth potentially trying to protect his own feelings in like leaving the concert when he's getting jealous of, of Anne and Mr. Elliot.
Lauren: Is that selfish? I, okay. Maybe it's both. Cause I think it's selfishness, but then maybe also selfish in his short response to [00:34:00] Anne, cuz that is venting his feelings a little bit. But generosity in, let me not stay here looking like a dark cloud. If you are happy, I'm going to try and remove myself from the situation and let you be happy.
But I'm not going to like it.
Emily: Yeah, now that you mentioned happiness. That was also something that occurred to me after their earlier conversation at the rooms, when she is in such a good mood and she's just willing to be anything to anyone. Was wondering like in a very philosophical way, are we more inclined to be generous when we are happy already? And I think in some ways yes, but in others there's sort of a core generosity that like whatever level of generosity you're at, I guess that's not necessarily likely to change. What do you think?
Lauren: Yes, I think both things are true. I think maybe each person has like a baseline level of generosity that they're going to default to, but then you can improve upon that baseline when you're in a really good mood.
Cause I do think that it's more likely that we are more generous when we're already in a good mood. It's the same thing of like, You know, like that very classic manipulation tactic you learn when you're a kid. Ask Mom for something when she's gonna be a good mood, because then she'll say yes. You know what I mean?
Emily: Right.
Lauren: Like you're, you're more generous when you're happy because you're like, sure, everything's coming up roses, why not have this thing? And then when you're in a terrible mood, you're more likely to cling onto the things that you already have, and you're maybe less likely to be generous. Not that it's completely removed, because sometimes like you're in a terrible mood and being generous, like, lifts your mood a little bit, and so you decide to do something nice.
Emily: Yeah. It's definitely not black and white.
Lauren: Yeah. But I do think that you're more likely to be generous when you're already happy and in good spirits because everything's coming up roses. So why not?
Emily: Yeah, that was just a little side thought that I had.
Lauren: Yeah, I would agree with that. [00:36:00] Do we also read gallantry as generosity?
Emily: I think that has to be judged on the underlying motivation of the gallantry because like Wentworth's gallantry reads as generous. Mr. Elliot's reads as very self-serving.
Lauren: Mm-hmm. Like I'm thinking of the competing offers to walk Anne home in chapter 19 and Wentworth's offer of the umbrella is actually like generous and gallant in which he doesn't really care where he was supposed to be going before. He will walk in the opposite direction, five miles, holding the umbrella over Anne's head if it means that she gets home and is safe.
Whereas Mr. Elliot's the exact same action of like, walking Anne home with an umbrella is more self-serving and less generous. Still gallant, but not quite the same.
Okay. At the risk of this becoming a two hour long episode, Shall we move to historical topics?
Emily: Let's go ahead and do that. So it's not really related to generosity. This was, this was kind of a tricky section for finding historical topics because we kind of like glossed past so many contextual things that I, I kind of felt like that Emma episode where I talked about strawberries.
Just like I am trying to clinging onto anything that I can talk about. So, I was struck by Anne's knowledge of Italian.
Lauren: Ooh, goodie, okay.
Emily: Yeah, and the structures and practices that led to her knowing enough Italian to be translating it from a program at a concert, according to her, not well, but I don't know any Italian.
So.
Lauren: The fact that you can do it at all is a measure of skill, right? You might not be conversationally fluent, but...
Emily: so we know that Anne went to a private boarding school. This is where she met Mrs. Smith. That's where she was after she lost her mother. these institutions were usually run by unmarried or widowed women who obviously had no formal training or qualifications to [00:38:00] teach, but there might be specialist tutors or these masters who could cover certain subjects that were beyond the ken of genteel ladies, the basic subjects that seemed to be taught according to certain like, period advertisements for these schools. English grammar and writing, geography, arithmetic, history. And then for the more polished vein, you get into things like foreign languages, which seem to be mostly French and Italian, dancing, drawing, music.
There was one that advertised that teaches mythology. Which, okay, sure. I guess if you're a Georgian aristocrat, why not have a good knowledge of mythology?
Lauren: Just, you know, Zeus can be very entertaining.
Emily: They really can. modern languages joined school curriculum in the 18th century. Really previous to that language learning was, at least in school, focused on ancient languages, Latin, Greek. Stuff like that. If you learned modern languages, it was just kind of informally through interaction.
I, I am certain that there were exceptions to that. You know, royalty gets tutors, whatever, leave me alone. But in these early introductions to school curriculum, modern languages were mostly studied in pretty much the same like grammar translation method as ancient languages like Latin.
You just memorized grammatical rules, you did translation exercises. There wasn't a lot of oral work, cuz you know, you're not really out here being conversational in Latin. There's no reason to because no one speaks it natively anymore. don't take that as an invitation to do experiments with your children. That's unethical.
During the 18th century though, there were advocates, scholars like Johann Gottfried von Herder, who came up with different approaches, more similar [00:40:00] to the kinds of things that we use in language classrooms today. It included conversation with native speakers and having conversational fluency as a more prominent goal.
During this period towards the end of the 18th century, a typical textbook might consist of like a grammar section. There would be bilingual dialogues. so like you'd have it in the target language on one side and the teaching language on the other so that you'd have those points of comparison. There would be translation passages, definitely.
And then depending on what the textbook was, where it was being taught, like what its purpose was. There might also be like some model letters or vocabulary lists, or even like idioms and stuff. But for young ladies, the goal wasn't necessarily like practical proficiency. It was more like another tally in that ledger of accomplishments.
So they certainly were not working it hard on this kind of like immersion concept.
Lauren: You mean they weren't studying abroad in Italy?
Emily: They were not studying abroad in Italy. But speaking of Italy, the language choices of focus fluctuated over time according to whatever certain interests were, like politically, commercially, culturally.
and it kind of makes sense that Neoclassical England would have ended up in Italian being an option for young Anne at her private boarding school.
Lauren: I love that journey. Thank you.
Emily: I'm so glad you enjoyed it cuz I was like having to pull myself back from reading academic articles.
Lauren: I did not major in linguistics, but I remain a language nerd, so I was very entertained.
Emily: Everyone should be a language nerd. It's amazing. So yeah, that's, that's my little language tangent.
Lauren: Thank you. I have nothing to do with languages for my pop culture connection.
Emily: What does your pop culture collection have to do?
Lauren: So I also avoided the theme of generosity because I've been trying to connect my pop culture connections to the theme, and it's been really stifling my creativity.
And so I decided that we weren't going to do that this time.
Emily: Set yourself free. [00:42:00] Although I just off the top of my head, thought of a pop culture connection with generosity, but--
oh, what is it? the like massive like, high profile public giveaways of like, 'Ooh, we're gonna, we're putting a million dollars towards sending people to college.'
Yeah. And then it's all like publicized? Yeah. We could go into the, the philosophy of that for sure.
Lauren: Better. Oh my gosh. Okay, yeah. I will not go on this tangent, but that did just remind me of a Mr. Beast video that's been in the discourse.
Emily: That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking about.
Lauren: Beautiful. Okay. So that was not my pop culture connection. I now feel like it should have been. But--
Emily: too late. Go ahead.
Lauren: Too late. I have had Taylor Swift on the brain lately, both because she has been in the news for her association with Matty Healy of the 1975, but also because I'm going to the Eras tour and so I'm very excited. A little less excited because,Taylor Swift's been showing her whole ass, and it's kind of ticking me off, but whatever. Today we're going to focus on Taylor Swift as a lyricist and not Taylor Swift as the bastion of white feminism that she continues to prove herself to be. so what I wanted to do was connect. Taylor Swift lyrics and songs to characters in Persuasion.
And the reason that I thought of this was from that scene in chapter 20 where Anne is like scooting her way over to the end of the bench so that she can be perfectly placed for Wentworth to come and speak to her if he gets away. And all I could hear in my head was like, 'didn't they tell you I'm a mastermind?' from that Taylor Swift song.
Emily: Now, unsurprising to our audience. Lauren is significantly more familiar with Taylor Swift's catalog than I am. But I do know Taylor Swift.
Lauren: So luckily for you, I have not just songs but lyrics written down.
Emily: Excellent.
Lauren: Because I'm also assuming that not everybody in our audience is familiar with Taylor Swift.
Okay. I'll read the characters who I have chosen lyrics for, and then you tell me which one we should start with. We have Mrs. Clay, Anne, Elizabeth, Wentworth. Sir Walter and Mr. Elliot.
Emily: I wanna know Sir Walter.
Lauren: Sir Walter of [00:44:00] course, is Gorgeous because what else could he be? That's also some of Taylor Swift's worst lyrics and that also feels appropriate for the anti-intellectual, Sir Walter.
Emily: All right, gimme some lyrics cause I'm not familiar with this one.
Lauren: Okay. "You are so gorgeous. I can't say anything to your face cuz look at your face." And this is of course, him speaking to himself.
Emily: Of course. This is him in the mirror.
Lauren: Yeah, exactly.
Emily: Impeccable. Perfect. I love it. No notes.
Lauren: Okay. New character.
Emily: Elizabeth.
Lauren: Okay. Elizabeth. I chose, Bejeweled, which is off of Taylor Swift's Midnights album. And I'm thinking of this specifically in her time being out in society. So every time she goes back to London in the spring and she goes back to be at the balls and to be on the marriage market, but she keeps coming back like every single year, and so the lyrics I chose for that one were, "best believe I'm still bejeweled when I walk in the room. I can still make the whole place shimmer."
Emily: Oh my God. Again, this is Elizabeth just talking to herself.
Lauren: Exactly. Yeah. She's like, oh, I still got it. I'm still hot. I can control the whole room. Whether or not she actually can, you know, remains to be seen, but she thinks that she can.
Emily: Mm-hmm. All right. Let's do Mr. Elliot next.
Lauren: Okay. Mr. Elliot is, I Did Something Bad.
Emily: Little on the nose.
Lauren: It was, it was too perfect. And then the lyrics to that fit as well. So we could just stick with the song title and we would be done. But the lyrics also work, at least the ones that I chose. So it is, "I never trust a narcissist, but they love me, so I play 'em like a violin and I make it look, oh, so easy."
Emily: Oh my God.
Lauren: And then the beginning of the chorus is "they say I did something bad. Then why does it feel so good?"
Emily: He's in his villain era. What can he say?
Lauren: He's in his villain era. Okay, I will, I will warn you that Anne and Wentworth are both like a little heart achy. So do we wanna end on heart achy or do we wanna end on like, funny?
Emily: Let's end on [00:46:00] funny. Okay. So I think that makes Anne and Wentworth next and then Mrs. Clay last.
Lauren: Correct.
Emily: Okay.
Lauren: Okay. I'll do Wentworth first. that one is Forever and Always, which I think is off of Fearless.
Emily: Okay.
Lauren: That one is, "once upon a time, I believe it was a Tuesday when I caught your eye and we caught onto something, I hold onto the night you looked me in the eye and told me you loved me. Were you just kidding? Because it seems to me this thing is breaking down. We almost never speak. I don't feel welcome anymore. Baby, what happened? Please tell me."
Emily: Oh, that is heartache-y. Oh no, I'm having Wentworth feelings.
Lauren: But is that not so perfect?
Emily: It is.
Lauren: It's like, dang.
Emily: Just like the insecurity and the longing.
Lauren: Down to the fact, I remember what day it was when we locked eyes for the first time and now you won't look at me anymore. What's going on?
Emily: You know that man had it marked in his diary.
Lauren: Oh, he 100% did.
Emily: Oh my God. All right. What heartache do we have for Anne?
Lauren: Okay. I had the one I thought of first, and then I have an alternate.
Emily: Okay.
Lauren: The first one that I thought of is The One, which, haha! That one is from folklore and that's also just like, just stick a knife in my heart and twist it. But "we were something, don't you think so? Roaring twenties tossing pennies in the pool. And if my wishes came true, it would've been you. In my defense, I have none for never leaving well enough alone. But it would've been fun if he would've been the one."
Emily: Oh my God.
Lauren: It's just so, ah, I hate it. I love it so much.
Emily: I'm pulling out the book again because at the very top of chapter 21, in like the second paragraph, Anne thinking about Wentworth from the night before says, "their union she believed, could not divide her more from other men than their final separation."
Lauren: See?
Emily: Oh my God. All right. What's your alternate for Anne?
Lauren: Okay. My alternate is Back to December. The lyrics are, "and then the cold came, the dark days when fear crept into my mind. You gave me all your love [00:48:00] and all I gave you was goodbye."
Emily: Oh, ouch.
Lauren: As many problematic things as Taylor Swift has done, the girl can write.
Okay. Like.
Emily: I'll give her that.
Lauren: Her pen can't be denied. Except on Gorgeous.
Emily: So sometimes it can.
Lauren: Those, those, those Gorgeous lyrics are terrible. I don't know what was going on.
Emily: Also, whatever song has the thing about the sexy baby. That seemed like not great.
Lauren: Oh, Anti Hero. Yeah, that was a little bit weird.
And ME! I need Me to be stricken from her discography, like immediately. I never wanna hear that song again. Ever in my life. I don't know what she was thinking. Cruel Summer deserved to be a single. I will die on that hill.
Emily: All right. Our final character, we've, we've gotta lift the mood a little bit after the pain.
So what do you have for Mrs. Clay?
Lauren: You belong with me.
Emily: Oh my God. Incredible choice.
Lauren: Thank you. Thank you.
Emily: Unparalleled. What were your specific lyrics for this?
Lauren: Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time.
Emily: Baby. He wasn't even looking. He was looking at himself in the mirror.
Thank you so much for that.
Lauren: You are so welcome.
Emily: Oh my God, that was very fun. I'm glad you got to bring your little swiftness in just in time for the Eras tour.
Lauren: Thank you. I'm very excited. Also my bonus that you guys can look up. I'm not gonna say the lyrics, but if you want to just like have a good little catharsis moment.
A good Wentworth/Anne song is invisible string.
Emily: Okay. Noted. I'll have to listen to that on way home.
Lauren: Listen to it after you finish the book.
Emily: Oh, after the book?
Lauren: Yeah.
Emily: Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I Do you have a pencil? I'm gonna write it down on the last page.
Lauren: All right. Have we come to the end?
Emily: I think we have. And you're--
Lauren: we come to final takeaways.
Emily: You're up first.
Lauren: I think my final takeaway is that generosity is not always meant kindly or done with positive intent.
Emily: Interesting.
Lauren: Yeah. I think just because so much of these three chapters were taken up by Mr. Elliot, I'm thinking of what [00:50:00] can be read and received as generosity and what the true intent is behind those actions.
Yeah, I think, I think that's my takeaway. Not everything is as it seems. What about you?
Emily: I think kind of picking off of yours, mine is that like, true unselfish generosity has ways of making itself known, or maybe it's the inverse, that selfishly motivated generosity can be found out?
Lauren: Mm, yeah. I agree.
Emily: Okay. I hope that wasn't just exactly the same takeaway as yours.
Lauren: I'll allow it.
Emily: Okay. Just different enough. I paraphrased. It's not plagiarism.
Lauren: Hey, you can copy, but don't make it obvious.
Emily: All right. Our next card is the three of clubs, which has some lovely illustrations of period instruments.
Lauren: The three of clubs is preparation.
Emily: Ooh!
Lauren: Accomplished ladies and gentlemen must play well. Practice makes perfect.
Emily: All right, all right, all right, all right.
All right--
all not to be Matthew McConaughey on this Jane Austen podcast.
Lauren: Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time, we'll be reading the final chapters of Persuasion with a [00:52:00] focus on preparation.
Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find the fullback 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: We'll see you next time, nerds.
Emily: That's always one of my favorite, like plot points in sort of like, class-stratified fiction is where someone's like, talk to the servants! People let them melt into the background and they're there the entire time.
Lauren: I'm also, I'm thinking, did you watch Queen Charlotte?
Emily: No, I haven't watched it.
Lauren: Oh my God. Okay. Well there is, this is not a spoiler, but there's like one scene where, there was like a very, I guess like, intimate moment happening, and all the servants are just standing there in the, in the room and looking at each other like, can we leave? Like, do we have to stay here?
Emily: Amazing.