The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After (27 page)

But Elizabeth recovers from her mistake, does her evaluation of her next serious romantic prospect in the right order, and ends up with a man who’s most definitely not “her type”—but who’s nevertheless perfect for her. With Darcy, she
first
notices that he’s a trustworthy human being (when she has to acknowledge the truth of the claims in his letter); that she can respect him (at Pemberley, when she learns how his self-control, his liberality to the poor, and his care for his sister have impressed the people closest to him); and that he’s a man truly worth admiring (when she observes that he’s been inspired by her rejection to overcome his pride). Only
then
does she start to ask herself whether she can love him.
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Well, we all know how it ends. Elizabeth decides that she wants to make Darcy happy—and that being with him will be bliss for her. And her hopes for “rational” and “permanent” happiness with him are grounded firmly in her knowledge of his character. She has chosen real quality over cheap chemistry.

(They’re More Useful Than Any
Compatibility Test)

 

 

SO HOW DO YOU RECOGNIZE A GUY WHO’S REALLY great? What exactly are you looking for? Jane Austen heroines have a well-stocked toolbox of categories for analyzing men—a kind of informal checklist of discrete qualities, starting with height and hair color and going all the way to the most important features of a guy’s “real character.”

“First impressions”
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naturally start with looks and what Jane Austen calls “manner.” Just as naturally, the qualities that matter most are harder to see. But Jane Austen makes it a lot easier. She’s got a whole vocabulary—concepts long ago lost to us in the waves of Romanticism and Victorian reaction that swept away her clear-eyed eighteenth-century approach to love, sex, and marriage—for analyzing a man’s temperament and mental qualities: his “address”; his “feeling” or “sensibility”; his “education,” “information,” and “understanding”; his “principles”; his “temper”; and so forth. Jane Austen heroines are just as likely to sit around discussing whether some man has a “calm, decided temper” or one “open to dangerous impressions” as they are to talk about his appearance. More so, in fact.

Not that Jane Austen ever pretended looks and sex appeal don’t matter. She wanted us to see those things clearly, too. It can’t be emphasized enough how much stock Jane Austen put in
seeing men as they really are.
That means not deceiving ourselves in any way—whether it’s about a guy’s appearance, his manners, or his innermost beliefs.

Jane Austen was deeply suspicious of anything that makes us forget what’s in front of our eyes. She knew all about jaundiced views and rose-colored glasses. And she expected her heroines to correct for them—to realize when their perceptions were being skewed or their judgment about anything, even something as superficial as a guy’s looks, was being bought off. Thus it’s evidence of Elinor Dashwood’s self-awareness and competence to manage her own love life that she realizes Edward is looking more physically attractive to her as she gets to know and like him better.
²
Seeing things in perspective doesn’t mean ceasing to see them at all.
³

But what precisely
are
the more important qualities we need to be able to recognize in a man? Of all Jane Austen’s skeleton keys for unlocking a man’s real potential, the two most important are “temper” and “principles.”
⁴
Those are the qualities it’s most important to look for when you’re considering a guy as a potential mate. If he doesn’t qualify in either of those two categories, scratch him off your list. For Jane Austen, temper and principles are not negotiable. Why? Because they’re what make a man ultimately admirable, worthy of respect, and possible to trust with your happiness. Temper and principles are what divide the Mr. Darcys and the Captain Wentworths from the Wickhams and Mr. Elliots of this world. They’re the most important qualities that ensure you you’re getting a man of real quality.

What Jane Austen means by “principles” are those self-evident (though often ignored) rules of right conduct written into human nature. A man with good principles understands that you’re obligated to be honest, treat other people the way you’d like to be treated, not take more than your fair share, respect other people’s rights and feelings, and so forth. A man with
bad principles—or no principles at all—is the kind of person who doesn’t pay attention to those self-evident rules. He’s a sure bet to make any woman who loves him very unhappy.

So how can you tell if a guy doesn’t have good principles? Well, some people will come right out and admit to their bad principles, or even to not having any at all. But most unprin cipled guys aren’t going to say straight out that that’s what they are. They don’t sing that they’re “gonna break, break, your, break, break, your heart.”
⁵
You have to discern that fact from their behavior, and from the indirect hints they drop in their conversation. If they brag about things they ought to be ashamed of—getting ahead at work by screwing colleagues or customers, making fools of their friends or stiffing them, treating women in a callous way, blowing off the people who depend on them—then you know what you’re dealing with. But lack of principles isn’t always so easy to discern.

The best evidence, of course—much better than anything he says about himself—is direct observation of a man’s behavior. That’s where Fanny is lucky; it happens that she was a bystander when Henry Crawford callously charmed her two cousins, deliberately gave Maria reason to believe that he was in love with her, and then abruptly said good-bye just when she expected him to propose. Through the whole affair, Henry showed no sign of having any principle that might make him hesitate for a second to break a woman’s heart for his own entertainment. So Fanny happens to know
⁶
that Henry has no principles when it comes to women. There are points in the novels when Jane Austen holds out hope that people of bad character will reform. But there aren’t any real successes at a complete turnaround—such as Henry’s case would have been, if Jane Austen had listened to Cassandra and let him marry Fanny.
⁷
True to past form, Henry gets entangled with Maria again and screws up everything with Fanny—ironically, even
after his appreciation of Fanny has taught him the importance of principles. Because of Fanny, Henry Crawford is coming to understand that being a person with principles means you can be trusted.
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Unfortunately, he’s not that kind of person.

It’s rare that you get a bird’s-eye view of your current romantic prospect’s past, as Fanny does.
⁹
That’s why the rest of Jane Austen’s careful heroines are detectives when it comes to men’s principles. In
Sense and Sensibility
, Elinor plays Sherlock Holmes for her sister Marianne’s sake, trying to dig up any clues to Willoughby’s character wherever she might be able to find them, asking Mrs. Palmer about his reputation in his own neighborhood in Somersetshire. In
Persuasion
, Anne pursues the same kind of curiosity about Mr. Elliot’s true character. Even before she realizes that her friend Mrs. Smith has information to fill in the gaps in what she knows about his past, Anne has worked out—by very careful attention to any hint he gives in conversation with her about how he spent his youth—that there’s a conflict between the principles Mr. Elliot now professes and the way he must have actually behaved in the past.
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