What Mr. Darcy Read

Another, more minor, character illustrates similarly inappropriate, ill-judging attitudes toward reading. That is Mary, the bookish daughter, who has so small a part in the book that one may even wonder why she is there at all, having little role in the drama; but she too serves as an example of injudicious reading, and like her father, her reading fails to to make her wise. Where Elizabeth is her father’s daughter in one way, inheriting his wit, Mary is his daughter in another, and her intemperate reading takes her on a barren path, repeating empty platitudes without displaying any of that quality Jane Austen calls “understanding.”

But what, we ask, does Darcy’s reading tell us about him? Here, Jane Austen tantalizingly leaves out specifics, although she can be specific when it suits her. We know exactly what certain of her characters read, such as Fanny Price’s book about travels in China, or Anne Elliot’s favorite poets, or Catherine Moreland’s clutch of “horrid” novels.  Even another hero, Henry Tilney of Northanger Abbey, talks eagerly and specifically about his reading (“I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and most of them with great pleasure. The Mysteries of Udolpho, when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again; I remember finishing it in two days — my hair standing on end the whole time”). Not so with Mr. Darcy.  Instead, his reading is shown in action, as a comic device in the scene at Netherfield, when “Darcy took up a book; Miss Bingley did the same.” Jane Austen most amusingly shows us how the craven Miss Bingley tries in vain to charm Darcy through her reading maneuvers:

“Miss Bingley’s attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy’s progress through his book, as in reading her own; and she was perpetually either making some inquiry, or looking at his page. She could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her question, and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, “How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

What was the book? It seems impossible to guess. Was it a novel? Novels were often published in three volumes, but Darcy remains “inflexibly studious” when Miss Bingley walks to try to attract his attention, which doesn’t seem like reading a light novel. She herself we have seen as “exhausted” by the book. Perhaps he was reading Johnson, a favorite writer of Austen’s own – I have often thought Darcy’s balanced, deliberate cadences had something Johnsonian about them. However, the point isn’t what the book was. Miss Bingley would have behaved the same whether it was Udolpho or Fordyce!

Darcy reveals more about himself as a reading man in conversation. When at Netherfield, Mr. Hurst is surprised to find Elizabeth prefer reading to cards, Miss Bingley jumps on the remark to put her rival in an unflattering light:

“Miss Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, “despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else.”

“I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,” cried Elizabeth; “I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.”

We may read this with some surprise, thinking that this intelligent girl, close to her father and his fine library, must surely be a great reader. Indeed, later when Elizabeth tells Lady Catherine about her education, we have another indication that she spent a good deal of her youth reading: “such of us as wished to learn never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle, certainly might.” However, Elizabeth knows only too well from the examples of her father and sister Mary, that being known as a “great reader” may make her seem pedantic or otherwise a wrong-headed person who cares for nothing but books. Perhaps this is why she refutes the accusation with such unexpected energy, which is a very naturalistic detail in her characterization.

Miss Bingley turns to complimenting Darcy about his library at Pemberley, and while he replies tersely (not wanting to encourage her), his answers are revealing and characteristic:

“‘It ought to be good,’ he replied; ‘it has been the work of many generations.'”  This brief description conjures all the glory of the library at Pemberley before us.  Then, when Miss Bingley compliments him on always buying new books, he rather sententiously states in his formal style, “I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.” Meaning that the wealth of fine books being published at this period, positively requires him to add to the glories of the Pemberley library.

At the Netherfield ball, Darcy mentions books to Elizabeth, at a somewhat incongruous moment, while they are dancing. Elizabeth, still in a state of high prejudice against him, nevertheless charms him with her arch conversation, and says, “We have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we are to talk of next I cannot imagine.”

   “What think you of books?” said he, smiling.

“Books — Oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings.”

“I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.”

Even though it’s still a long way until their happy ending together, this speech does seem to foretell a happy future of book discussions at Pemberley, doesn’t it?