Day 74 - MISSED; DONE WITH EMMA (AUSTEN)! - Favourite Quotes (some)
02 May 2017 100daysofwriting · austen · books · emmaThis is long overdue now. This post was supposed to be out two days ago.
I took 1 month and 5 days to read that book! It was 450 pages. THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE. Softening my stane a little bit though, considering how much stuff happened in the past two months (BTP Presentation, End term exams, looking for an internship) it isn’t too bad.
The book was GREAT. I get why Amy Dunne wanted everyone to read Austen. I am going to wing it for this post and put in some of my favourite quotes from Emma. This involves me (painfully) scrolling through my Kindle and reading the stuff I have highlighted. Especially in Volume 3, when the story was drawing to a climax there were a very high number of lines worth quoting right away.
Emma was aware that great must be the difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a Miss Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages, natural and domestic, she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude.
Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into outward respect. ***
real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies.
This one is especially worth noticing. Austen goes out of her way to rub this in. ***
What say you to Mr. Weston and Mr. Elton? Compare Mr. Martin with either of them. Compare their manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent. You must see the difference.”
This is representative of Emma’s outlook in the first volume of the book. She was a first rate snob.
And ever since she was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her mother’s talents, and must have been under subjection to her.”
Emma is really attached to her father, and this is definitely the only significant reference to her mother. This is in Volume 1 and after this, no mention of her mother anywhere throughout the book! Not even in memories, or otherwise.
Men of sense, whatever you may chuse to say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be very fond of connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity—and most prudent men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed.
“My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry; I must find other people charming— one other person at least. And I am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all.”
“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.
This is the defining Emma Volume 1 quote. It’s also extremely famous, and is quoted everywhere.
I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public!
This isn’t outdated, I feel.
things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other, depending, I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his comforts, that is, upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing whist with his neighbours five times a week, than upon family affection, or any thing that home affords.”
She also more hated John Knightley, her brother in law.
it will be a small party, but where small parties are select, they are perhaps the most agreeable of any.
half an hour’s uninterrupted communication of all those little matters on which the daily happiness of private life depends, was one of the first gratifications of each.
Soon after undertaking this endeavour, I realised that it will take me an unreasonable amount of time to go through all my quotes and mark the favourite ones! This is the PDF of my quotes, generated by the Kindle. It has some profane language and all opinions that are truly mine.
POST #74 is OVER