Emma by Jane Austen (free ereaders txt) 📕
Description
Emma is one of Jane Austen’s best-loved novels. Its eponymous heroine, Emma Woodhouse, is described in the very first paragraph as “handsome, clever, and rich … and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” In other words, she has lived a pampered, protected life and consequently is somewhat unrealistic in her regard for herself and her own abilities.
She befriends Harriet Smith, a young woman of dubious parentage and no money and determines to improve her prospects. As part of this project, Emma decides to become a matchmaker between Harriet and the Reverend Mr. Elton, a vicar in the nearby town. Things, however, do not go as smoothly as she had imagined.
The novel provides an insight into the distinctions in the rigid class structure of England in the Regency period, and the social barriers to marriage between persons considered to be of superior and inferior rank.
Emma was published in 1815, the last of Austen’s novels to be published while she still lived. It received a generally very positive reception, and was well reviewed (though anonymously) by Sir Walter Scott. Criticisms of the novel, such as they were, centered around its supposed lack of plot, though its treatment of character was recognized and applauded. Today it is regarded as one of Austen’s best works. The novel has been adapted many times for theater, movies and television.
Read free book «Emma by Jane Austen (free ereaders txt) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Jane Austen
Read book online «Emma by Jane Austen (free ereaders txt) 📕». Author - Jane Austen
“Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of his own business? He does not read?”
“Oh yes!—that is, no—I do not know—but I believe he has read a good deal—but not what you would think anything of. He reads the Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lay in one of the window seats—but he reads all them to himself. But sometimes of an evening, before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor The Children of the Abbey. He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but he is determined to get them now as soon as ever he can.”
The next question was—
“What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?”
“Oh! not handsome—not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know, after a time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and then, and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston. He has passed you very often.”
“That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do. A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But a farmer can need none of my help, and is, therefore, in one sense, as much above my notice as in every other he is below it.”
“To be sure. Oh yes! It is not likely you should ever have observed him; but he knows you very well indeed—I mean by sight.”
“I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man. I know, indeed, that he is so, and, as such, wish him well. What do you imagine his age to be?”
“He was four-and-twenty the 8th of last June, and my birthday is the 23rd just a fortnight and a day’s difference—which is very odd.”
“Only four-and-twenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is perfectly right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable as they are, and if she were to take any pains to marry him, she would probably repent it. Six years hence, if he could meet with a good sort of young woman in the same rank as his own, with a little money, it might be very desirable.”
“Six years hence! Dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old!”
“Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry, who are not born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine, has his fortune entirely to make—cannot be at all beforehand with the world. Whatever money he might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and so forth; and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised anything yet.”
“To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no indoors man, else they do not want for anything; and Mrs. Martin talks of taking a boy another year.”
“I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does marry;—I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife—for though his sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected to, it does not follow that he might marry anybody at all fit for you to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a gentleman’s daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by everything within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who would take pleasure in degrading you.”
“Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield, and you are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what anybody can do.”
“You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently well connected, and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd acquaintance as may be; and, therefore, I say that if you should still be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn in by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife, who will probably be some mere farmer’s daughter, without education.”
“To be sure. Yes. Not that I think Mr. Martin would ever marry anybody but what had had some education—and been very well brought up. However, I do not mean to set up my opinion against yours—and I am sure I shall not wish for the acquaintance of his wife. I shall always have a great regard for the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth, and should be very sorry to give them up, for they are quite as well educated as me. But if he marries a very ignorant, vulgar woman, certainly I had better not visit her, if I can help it.”
Emma watched her through the fluctuations of this speech, and saw no alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer, but she trusted there was no other hold, and that
Comments (0)