Waistcoats in old age: Sense & Sensibility Again

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

published 1811

Set mid-1790s 

 

 

 

Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility could not be contained in just the one post (last week - here) and I had to try to illustrate the waistcoats….

Marianne Dashwood claims that Colonel Brandon is too old for love, and that his wife would be nothing more than a nurse.

Elinor says: “I must object to your dooming Colonel Brandon and his wife to the constant confinement of a sick chamber, merely because he chanced to complain yesterday (a very cold damp day) of a slight rheumatic feel in one of his shoulders."

"He talked of flannel waistcoats," said Marianne; "and with me a flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with aches, cramps, rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble."

Above is a collection of waistcoats (going forward in time): and here is an actual flannel waistcoat or gilet from a later era:

 

Sense and Sensibility is a most entertaining book, with lots of funny moments – though I think this one is treated unfairly by critics:

"I wish," said Margaret, striking out a novel thought, "that somebody would give us all a large fortune apiece!"

"Oh that they would!" cried Marianne, her eyes sparkling with animation, and her cheeks glowing with the delight of such imaginary happiness.

Margaret is 13 and Marianne 17: it is seen as naïve and charming but silly of the sisters to think like this. But really – this kind of thing does happen in books all the time, unexpected bequests arrive when it suits the author… (see Miss King in Pride and Prejudice ‘The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most remarkable charm of the young lady.’) And it's quite normal to say 'If only I could win the lottery.'

The Dashwoods become great friends with another family, subject of much satire. Mrs Jennings (rather low socially, but well-off) has married her daughter Charlotte off to Mr Palmer. This exchange is typical:

"You and I” said Mrs. Jennings, "should not stand upon such ceremony."

"Then you would be very ill-bred," cried Mr. Palmer.

"My love you contradict every body," said his wife with her usual laugh. "Do you know that you are quite rude?"

"I did not know I contradicted any body in calling your mother ill-bred."

"Ay, you may abuse me as you please," said the good-natured old lady, "you have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back again. So there I have the whip hand of you."

Charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get rid of her; and exultingly said, she did not care how cross he was to her, as they must live together. It was impossible for any one to be more thoroughly good-natured, or more determined to be happy than Mrs. Palmer.

Blimey. This is quite the conversation to be having in company, however good-naturedly.

And Jane Austen hasn’t finished with Charlotte: the Dashwood sisters are invited to stay in Mrs Jennings’ house in London, and there is this almost unnoticeable put-down:

...the young ladies were immediately put in possession of a very comfortable apartment. It had formerly been Charlotte's and over the mantelpiece still hung a landscape in coloured silks of her performance [ie her making], in proof of her having spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect.

In general, Austen is very disparaging about education and schools,  - you can't see her thinking girls should have science lessons, and she never says (as Charlotte Bronte does) that women should have more and better opportunities. In Emma there is a passing sideswipe at schools where “young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity” – though this is not Mrs Goddard’s school in the book. The most recent adaptation of Emma has that weird reference to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale  - the boarders march along in their red cloaks and bonnets. I find it very hard to know what Jane Austen thinks about learning and education for women, and would welcome views.

Elinor reading and educating herself?

Still in Mrs jennings’ house, and Marianne is ill AGAIN.

Elinor was soon joined by Mrs. Jennings, with a wine-glass, full of something, in her hand. "My dear," said she, entering, "I have just recollected that I have some of the finest old Constantia wine in the house that ever was tasted, so I have brought a glass of it for your sister. My poor husband! how fond he was of it! Whenever he had a touch of his old colicky gout, he said it did him more good than any thing else in the world. Do take it to your sister."

"Dear Ma'am," replied Elinor, smiling at the difference of the complaints for which it was recommended, "how good you are! But I have just left Marianne in bed, and, I hope, almost asleep; and as I think nothing will be of so much service to her as rest, if you will give me leave, I will drink the wine myself."

Elinor, as she swallowed the chief of it, reflected, that though its effects on a colicky gout were, at present, of little importance to her, its healing powers, on a disappointed heart might be as reasonably tried on herself as on her sister.

I like the idea of Elinor knocking back her sister’s wine, there’s a touch of the Bridget Jones in the whole scene, you could just hear our favourite singleton saying that she might as well drink it rather than let it go to waste.

A great moment in a highly enjoyable book – Austen never fails you.

Waistcoats from a French encyclopaedia

Fashion plate NYPL.