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I forgot to add my most important point about propriety vs. love.



Is there any scene in literature more thrilling than when Elizabeth stands
up to Lady Catherine’s brazen attempt to intimidate Elizabeth into giving
Darcy up? And yet, it is the entry in the dictionary, so to speak, for love
and morality trumping decorum and status. Elizabeth’s stand prompts Lady
Catherine to go back and try to harass Darcy, which is what boomerangs on
her but good – if Elizabeth had observed proper decorum, and had knuckled
under to her social superior, there would be no romantic happy ending
between her and Darcy.



So, if violating decorum for love is good thing – no, a great thing ––
there, why would it be any different if Mr. Bennet went to London to bring
a letter to Bingley like the one I wrote, and then to meet with him, if the
letter hit its mark?



I think the reason many Janeites would resist my argument in this instance,
is that it makes what Elizabeth actually did on Jane’s behalf –– which is
nothing –– look bad, like Elizabeth valued her own prospects with Darcy so
much, that she kept as silent with him about this as she was vocal to Lady
Catherine about that.



ARNIE

On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 6:15?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

NANCY: "It just wasn't done to tell a man that one's daughter was in love
with him."

Just wasn't done sounds to me like empty propriety. I'm asking for a
discussion of how to balance propriety with morality. Sometimes a good
person breaks rules of decorum for a higher moral purpose - in this, for
love (his daughter's love of a good man).

NANCY: "What one could do, is see the man and tell him that after he had
shown Jane such distinction, had raised hopes in the breasts of Jane and
her family, and by his attention, deterred other gentlemen and then ask if
he was just trifling with his daughter's affections. Bingley wasn't a cad
just not a snob like Darcy."

Interesting take.

This is the letter I came up, feel free to suggest how you might word it
differently, if you agree with the concept:



Mr. Charles Bingley

London, England



My dear Mr. Bingley,



My dear sir, be not be alarmed to receive this letter from me out of the
blue, after many months since we were last in company in Meryton. Please be
assured from the start that I am, fortunately, not the bearer of any bad
news of a medical or financial nature. All the members of my family are in
good health, thankfully, and my income remains stable. I hope the same is
true of yours.



Nonetheless, the matter I am writing to you about is of a delicate,
personal, and urgent nature, and so I beg your indulgence to hear me out, I
will be as brief as possible. I write to you in the sincere belief that I
am delivering to you intelligence that may well be of the greatest
importance to you.



To begin, after what seemed to everyone in Meryton to be a very promising
beginning of a courtship by yourself of my eldest daughter Jane this past
Fall, we Bennets have been disappointed that you have since the end of
November made no attempt to contact or see her.



In particular, I personally vouch to you that Jane, despite her efforts to
put on a brave face, has never ceased over these several months to feel
great sadness over the sudden end of your connection to you.



However, I am writing to you now, because some surprising and concerning
news of a reliable nature has come to my attention very recently, to wit –
that you are very likely completely unaware that Jane was so determined to
see you again that she came to visit with her aunt and uncle Gardiner in
London in January and stayed for a period of weeks, calling at your
residence and leaving notes requesting that you be alerted to her presence
in London - until finally it was made clear to Jane that you were no longer
interested in her, but you had, in fact, set your cap at another young
lady.



In that regard, let me now pause and reassure you of a critical point –
neither I nor anyone else in my family is suggesting that you are, or ever
were, obligated, by law or honor, to continue your courtship of Jane – we
all know that you were never engaged to her. Therefore, if this news I am
now delivering to you is not meaningful to you, then just say the word to
me by return message, no further explanation required on your part, and you
will never hear from me again. The last thing I wish to do to such an
agreeable young man like yourself is to make you feel guilty; or, even
worse, to feel obliged to reopen your connection to Jane solely or
primarily out of sympathy for her. No marriage based on mutual love should
be based on such a shaky foundation.



However, I write to you in real hope that your reaction to this news will
be very different than that, and that the warm affection you seemed to feel
for Jane last Fall has never waned. To wit, I am hoping that this news will
not mortify, but instead electrify, you. If so, as some might put it, “Go
to it, young man”. Your relationship with Jane was kindled when I came on a
secret welcoming embassy at Netherfield last Fall, and I sincerely hope
that my current embassy will have a similar effect.



Please take your time and give this letter, which I hope has not come as
too much of a shock to you, as much consideration you wish. I will remain
at my temporary lodgings at _________ till ______ __. One way or the other,
please honor me with your reply when you are ready. If I haven’t heard back
from you by that date, then I will assume a negative response, and return
to Longbourn, knowing that I did what any father would do for a beloved
daughter, but it was for naught.


As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.



Sincerely,



_______ Bennet, Esq.

.


On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 8:28?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

Beginning with Elizabeth Bennet’s stroll with Colonel Fitzwilliam, and

then

continuing during Darcy’s botched first proposal, and then in his

letter

to

Elizabeth, Elizabeth Bennet comes to learn that Bingley has been kept

in

the dark by Miss Bingley and Darcy since leaving Meryton about Jane’s
continuing interest in him, which is what brought Jane to London a few
months after he left.



Elizabeth is thus uniquely situated by Chapter 36 in her knowledge that
Bingley may still be romantically interested in Jane, and she already

knew

all along that Jane was definitely still romantically interested in
Bingley. It’s an old romantic trope, the two lovers who each don’t

realize

that the other is still in love with them.



I suggest that once Elizabeth has this unique knowledge (the only other
character who also knows is Darcy, but he has made it clear,

arrogantly,

that he stands by his actions to keep Bingley in the dark about Jane),

she

does absolutely nothing to try to somehow let each of the lovebirds

know

about the other, which might cause Bingley to wake up and (as Darcy

puts

it

in the 1996 miniseries, “go to it”). When she does think about telling
Jane, she decides that it would only make Jane even sadder, since, so

her

thinking seems to go, it would be a fool’s errand, it would not bring
Bingley back.



I advocate for Elizabeth to persuade her father to covertly seek out
Bingley in London, and inform Bingley of this crucial fact that Jane

still

loves him. I am not suggesting that Elizabeth tell Jane directly, not
unless and until her father was successful.



Two counterarguments to mine come to mind:



FIRST:

Mr. Bennet is indolent, not a responsible diligent father, so even if
Elizabeth asked, he would refuse to intervene. But, given the stakes

for

Jane, shouldn't Elizabeth give it a try with him anyway, what does she

have

to lose? It would be for Jane’s sake, so it would be the generous thing

for

Elizabeth to do. But this possibility never even occurs to Elizabeth.

Also,

in Chapter 41, Elizabeth does try to get her father to stop Lydia and

Kitty

from going to Brighton. But she doesn’t ask him to do something he

already

did, in a different way, at the beginning of the novel, which is to go

on a

secret romantic mission to Bingley!



And…. last but not least, Elizabeth doesn’t even think the thought of
asking her father, it never even occurs to her. Her mind is totally
occupied, I would suggest, with increasingly obsessive thoughts and

regrets

about Darcy, so it appears there’s no room for thoughts about Jane.



Even when she is at Pemberley with her aunt and uncle, and Darcy’s

being

so

nice to them and to her – it never occurs to her even then that she

might

ask him to reconsider about Jane and Bingley. No, that would risk him
getting angry at her, and sending her on her way home.



SECOND: I actually made up a hypothetical letter that Mr. Bennet could
arrange to have delivered to Bingley in London without being detected

by

either Caroline Bingley or Darcy. The letter doesn’t threaten Bingley,

it

doesn’t try to make him feel guilty, it recognizes the delicacy of the
situation, and it makes Mr. Bennet’s good intentions perfectly clear,

and

gives Bingley an easy out if he is not interested, for any reason, in
restarting with Jane.



Would that be “improper” for Mr. Bennet to write such a letter? But

why

would it be improper for a respectable gentleman like Mr. Bennet if he
wrote a carefully worded, non-threatening letter of information to

another

gentleman, about a matter of great personal interest to both of them,

and

to the woman they both share affection for – Jane? Why would that be

more

improper than Mr. Bennet going over to Netherfield at the beginning of

the

novel to introduce Bingley to the Bennet family and all his daughters,
which everyone thought was a great move by him.



More important, though, this got me thinking deeply about the

distinction

between “propriety” and “morality”. Even if hypothetically, someone

could

argue that it was not normal Regency Era decorum for Mr. Bennet to
intervene in this way, I would think that everyone would agree that

this

was a very moral thing for Mr. Bennet to do. It would be a mission of
mercy, a mission of love, with pure motives and a possibility it could

lead

to the righting of a very bad wrong – two people who love each other

having

been separated for no good reason at all.



I don't believe Jane Austen valued propriety and protocol over true

love.

Isn't such propriety what Austen ridicules strongly when Mr. Bennet

reacts

to Mr. Collins’s letter:

“I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from
declaring my amazement, at hearing that you received the young couple

into

your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of

vice;

and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have
opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but

never

to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in

your

hearing.’ That is his notion of Christian forgiveness!”



Mr. Bennet would, I conclude, find a mission to Bingley to be a mission

of

charity and generosity. He would risk looking improper, out of love for

his

daughter Jane.



What do you all think, about any of the above?



ARNIE

NANCY: "It just wasn't done to tell a man that one's daughter was in love
with him."

Just wasn't done sounds to me like empty propriety. I'm asking for a
discussion of how to balance propriety with morality. Sometimes a good
person breaks rules of decorum for a higher moral purpose - in this, for
love (his daughter's love of a good man).

NANCY: "What one could do, is see the man and tell him that after he had
shown Jane such distinction, had raised hopes in the breasts of Jane and
her family, and by his attention, deterred other gentlemen and then ask if
he was just trifling with his daughter's affections. Bingley wasn't a cad
just not a snob like Darcy."

Interesting take.

This is the letter I came up, feel free to suggest how you might word it
differently, if you agree with the concept:



Mr. Charles Bingley

London, England



My dear Mr. Bingley,



My dear sir, be not be alarmed to receive this letter from me out of the
blue, after many months since we were last in company in Meryton. Please be
assured from the start that I am, fortunately, not the bearer of any bad
news of a medical or financial nature. All the members of my family are in
good health, thankfully, and my income remains stable. I hope the same is
true of yours.



Nonetheless, the matter I am writing to you about is of a delicate,
personal, and urgent nature, and so I beg your indulgence to hear me out, I
will be as brief as possible. I write to you in the sincere belief that I
am delivering to you intelligence that may well be of the greatest
importance to you.



To begin, after what seemed to everyone in Meryton to be a very promising
beginning of a courtship by yourself of my eldest daughter Jane this past
Fall, we Bennets have been disappointed that you have since the end of
November made no attempt to contact or see her.



In particular, I personally vouch to you that Jane, despite her efforts to
put on a brave face, has never ceased over these several months to feel
great sadness over the sudden end of your connection to you.



However, I am writing to you now, because some surprising and concerning
news of a reliable nature has come to my attention very recently, to wit –
that you are very likely completely unaware that Jane was so determined to
see you again that she came to visit with her aunt and uncle Gardiner in
London in January and stayed for a period of weeks, calling at your
residence and leaving notes requesting that you be alerted to her presence
in London - until finally it was made clear to Jane that you were no longer
interested in her, but you had, in fact, set your cap at another young lady.



In that regard, let me now pause and reassure you of a critical point –
neither I nor anyone else in my family is suggesting that you are, or ever
were, obligated, by law or honor, to continue your courtship of Jane – we
all know that you were never engaged to her. Therefore, if this news I am
now delivering to you is not meaningful to you, then just say the word to
me by return message, no further explanation required on your part, and you
will never hear from me again. The last thing I wish to do to such an
agreeable young man like yourself is to make you feel guilty; or, even
worse, to feel obliged to reopen your connection to Jane solely or
primarily out of sympathy for her. No marriage based on mutual love should
be based on such a shaky foundation.



However, I write to you in real hope that your reaction to this news will
be very different than that, and that the warm affection you seemed to feel
for Jane last Fall has never waned. To wit, I am hoping that this news will
not mortify, but instead electrify, you. If so, as some might put it, “Go
to it, young man”. Your relationship with Jane was kindled when I came on a
secret welcoming embassy at Netherfield last Fall, and I sincerely hope
that my current embassy will have a similar effect.



Please take your time and give this letter, which I hope has not come as
too much of a shock to you, as much consideration you wish. I will remain
at my temporary lodgings at _________ till ______ __. One way or the other,
please honor me with your reply when you are ready. If I haven’t heard back
from you by that date, then I will assume a negative response, and return
to Longbourn, knowing that I did what any father would do for a beloved
daughter, but it was for naught.


As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.



Sincerely,



_______ Bennet, Esq.

And so now I celebrated with a blog telling how we three (me, Laura,
Izzy) gained two new family members (Fiona Elinor) in the last couple
of weeks:



Ellen

It just wasn't done to tell a man that one's daughter was in love with him.
What one could do, it see the man and tell him that after he had shown
Jane such distinction, had raised hopes in the breasts of Jane and her
family, and by his attention, deterred other gentlemen and then ask if he
was just trifling with his daughter's affections.
Bingley wasn't a cad just not a snob like Darcy.
Nancy
.


On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 8:28?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

Beginning with Elizabeth Bennet’s stroll with Colonel Fitzwilliam, and then
continuing during Darcy’s botched first proposal, and then in his letter to
Elizabeth, Elizabeth Bennet comes to learn that Bingley has been kept in
the dark by Miss Bingley and Darcy since leaving Meryton about Jane’s
continuing interest in him, which is what brought Jane to London a few
months after he left.



Elizabeth is thus uniquely situated by Chapter 36 in her knowledge that
Bingley may still be romantically interested in Jane, and she already knew
all along that Jane was definitely still romantically interested in
Bingley. It’s an old romantic trope, the two lovers who each don’t realize
that the other is still in love with them.



I suggest that once Elizabeth has this unique knowledge (the only other
character who also knows is Darcy, but he has made it clear, arrogantly,
that he stands by his actions to keep Bingley in the dark about Jane), she
does absolutely nothing to try to somehow let each of the lovebirds know
about the other, which might cause Bingley to wake up and (as Darcy puts it
in the 1996 miniseries, “go to it”). When she does think about telling
Jane, she decides that it would only make Jane even sadder, since, so her
thinking seems to go, it would be a fool’s errand, it would not bring
Bingley back.



I advocate for Elizabeth to persuade her father to covertly seek out
Bingley in London, and inform Bingley of this crucial fact that Jane still
loves him. I am not suggesting that Elizabeth tell Jane directly, not
unless and until her father was successful.



Two counterarguments to mine come to mind:



FIRST:

Mr. Bennet is indolent, not a responsible diligent father, so even if
Elizabeth asked, he would refuse to intervene. But, given the stakes for
Jane, shouldn't Elizabeth give it a try with him anyway, what does she have
to lose? It would be for Jane’s sake, so it would be the generous thing for
Elizabeth to do. But this possibility never even occurs to Elizabeth. Also,

in Chapter 41, Elizabeth does try to get her father to stop Lydia and Kitty
from going to Brighton. But she doesn’t ask him to do something he already
did, in a different way, at the beginning of the novel, which is to go on a
secret romantic mission to Bingley!



And…. last but not least, Elizabeth doesn’t even think the thought of
asking her father, it never even occurs to her. Her mind is totally
occupied, I would suggest, with increasingly obsessive thoughts and regrets
about Darcy, so it appears there’s no room for thoughts about Jane.



Even when she is at Pemberley with her aunt and uncle, and Darcy’s being so
nice to them and to her – it never occurs to her even then that she might
ask him to reconsider about Jane and Bingley. No, that would risk him
getting angry at her, and sending her on her way home.



SECOND: I actually made up a hypothetical letter that Mr. Bennet could
arrange to have delivered to Bingley in London without being detected by
either Caroline Bingley or Darcy. The letter doesn’t threaten Bingley, it
doesn’t try to make him feel guilty, it recognizes the delicacy of the
situation, and it makes Mr. Bennet’s good intentions perfectly clear, and
gives Bingley an easy out if he is not interested, for any reason, in
restarting with Jane.



Would that be “improper” for Mr. Bennet to write such a letter? But why
would it be improper for a respectable gentleman like Mr. Bennet if he
wrote a carefully worded, non-threatening letter of information to another
gentleman, about a matter of great personal interest to both of them, and
to the woman they both share affection for – Jane? Why would that be more
improper than Mr. Bennet going over to Netherfield at the beginning of the
novel to introduce Bingley to the Bennet family and all his daughters,
which everyone thought was a great move by him.



More important, though, this got me thinking deeply about the distinction
between “propriety” and “morality”. Even if hypothetically, someone could
argue that it was not normal Regency Era decorum for Mr. Bennet to
intervene in this way, I would think that everyone would agree that this
was a very moral thing for Mr. Bennet to do. It would be a mission of
mercy, a mission of love, with pure motives and a possibility it could lead
to the righting of a very bad wrong – two people who love each other having
been separated for no good reason at all.



I don't believe Jane Austen valued propriety and protocol over true love.
Isn't such propriety what Austen ridicules strongly when Mr. Bennet reacts
to Mr. Collins’s letter:

“I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from
declaring my amazement, at hearing that you received the young couple into
your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice;
and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have
opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never
to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your
hearing.’ That is his notion of Christian forgiveness!”



Mr. Bennet would, I conclude, find a mission to Bingley to be a mission of
charity and generosity. He would risk looking improper, out of love for his
daughter Jane.



What do you all think, about any of the above?



ARNIE

Beginning with Elizabeth Bennet’s stroll with Colonel Fitzwilliam, and then
continuing during Darcy’s botched first proposal, and then in his letter to
Elizabeth, Elizabeth Bennet comes to learn that Bingley has been kept in
the dark by Miss Bingley and Darcy since leaving Meryton about Jane’s
continuing interest in him, which is what brought Jane to London a few
months after he left.



Elizabeth is thus uniquely situated by Chapter 36 in her knowledge that
Bingley may still be romantically interested in Jane, and she already knew
all along that Jane was definitely still romantically interested in
Bingley. It’s an old romantic trope, the two lovers who each don’t realize
that the other is still in love with them.



I suggest that once Elizabeth has this unique knowledge (the only other
character who also knows is Darcy, but he has made it clear, arrogantly,
that he stands by his actions to keep Bingley in the dark about Jane), she
does absolutely nothing to try to somehow let each of the lovebirds know
about the other, which might cause Bingley to wake up and (as Darcy puts it
in the 1996 miniseries, “go to it”). When she does think about telling
Jane, she decides that it would only make Jane even sadder, since, so her
thinking seems to go, it would be a fool’s errand, it would not bring
Bingley back.



I advocate for Elizabeth to persuade her father to covertly seek out
Bingley in London, and inform Bingley of this crucial fact that Jane still
loves him. I am not suggesting that Elizabeth tell Jane directly, not
unless and until her father was successful.



Two counterarguments to mine come to mind:



FIRST:

Mr. Bennet is indolent, not a responsible diligent father, so even if
Elizabeth asked, he would refuse to intervene. But, given the stakes for
Jane, shouldn't Elizabeth give it a try with him anyway, what does she have
to lose? It would be for Jane’s sake, so it would be the generous thing for
Elizabeth to do. But this possibility never even occurs to Elizabeth. Also,

in Chapter 41, Elizabeth does try to get her father to stop Lydia and Kitty
from going to Brighton. But she doesn’t ask him to do something he already
did, in a different way, at the beginning of the novel, which is to go on a
secret romantic mission to Bingley!



And…. last but not least, Elizabeth doesn’t even think the thought of
asking her father, it never even occurs to her. Her mind is totally
occupied, I would suggest, with increasingly obsessive thoughts and regrets
about Darcy, so it appears there’s no room for thoughts about Jane.



Even when she is at Pemberley with her aunt and uncle, and Darcy’s being so
nice to them and to her – it never occurs to her even then that she might
ask him to reconsider about Jane and Bingley. No, that would risk him
getting angry at her, and sending her on her way home.



SECOND: I actually made up a hypothetical letter that Mr. Bennet could
arrange to have delivered to Bingley in London without being detected by
either Caroline Bingley or Darcy. The letter doesn’t threaten Bingley, it
doesn’t try to make him feel guilty, it recognizes the delicacy of the
situation, and it makes Mr. Bennet’s good intentions perfectly clear, and
gives Bingley an easy out if he is not interested, for any reason, in
restarting with Jane.



Would that be “improper” for Mr. Bennet to write such a letter? But why
would it be improper for a respectable gentleman like Mr. Bennet if he
wrote a carefully worded, non-threatening letter of information to another
gentleman, about a matter of great personal interest to both of them, and
to the woman they both share affection for – Jane? Why would that be more
improper than Mr. Bennet going over to Netherfield at the beginning of the
novel to introduce Bingley to the Bennet family and all his daughters,
which everyone thought was a great move by him.



More important, though, this got me thinking deeply about the distinction
between “propriety” and “morality”. Even if hypothetically, someone could
argue that it was not normal Regency Era decorum for Mr. Bennet to
intervene in this way, I would think that everyone would agree that this
was a very moral thing for Mr. Bennet to do. It would be a mission of
mercy, a mission of love, with pure motives and a possibility it could lead
to the righting of a very bad wrong – two people who love each other having
been separated for no good reason at all.



I don't believe Jane Austen valued propriety and protocol over true love.
Isn't such propriety what Austen ridicules strongly when Mr. Bennet reacts
to Mr. Collins’s letter:

“I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from
declaring my amazement, at hearing that you received the young couple into
your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice;
and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have
opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never
to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your
hearing.’ That is his notion of Christian forgiveness!”



Mr. Bennet would, I conclude, find a mission to Bingley to be a mission of
charity and generosity. He would risk looking improper, out of love for his
daughter Jane.



What do you all think, about any of the above?



ARNIE

They are adorable. You will have so much fun with them. As you will also
come to remember, young kittens /cats can be terrors as well. Have them
listen to Austen audible books.
Nancy


On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 6:47?PM Ellen Moody via groups.io <ellen.moody=
[email protected]> wrote:

2 new family members: Fiona, white & grey spots; sister Elinor
(Dashwood), Ellie-cat, grey & white, same litter; females born early
August. In cat bed; with foster mom; thru carrier mesh; in cat stack
w/holes for climbing in and out in Izzy's room. Born early 8/2024.
Thou mett'st w/things dying (beloved Ian & Clary), I w/things newborn
(Winter'sTale) Callooh callay she chortled in her joy

Ellen

2 new family members: Fiona, white & grey spots; sister Elinor
(Dashwood), Ellie-cat, grey & white, same litter; females born early
August. In cat bed; with foster mom; thru carrier mesh; in cat stack
w/holes for climbing in and out in Izzy's room. Born early 8/2024.
Thou mett'st w/things dying (beloved Ian & Clary), I w/things newborn
(Winter'sTale) Callooh callay she chortled in her joy

Ellen

Obviously, Nancy, you disagree with the author of that article, and even
more so with me. His rant may have been against imagining English husbands
murdering or confining their wives - but I say it was also,
ventriloquistically, Jane Austen's rant about what English husbands did
every to their wives, which was just as bad (especially the "confining"
part).


ARNIE

On Sun, Oct 6, 2024 at 1:28?PM Nancy Mayer via groups.io <regencyresearcher=
[email protected]> wrote:

Henry's rant wasn't about marriage. It was about riots. It was written
while the Gordon Anti-Papist riots were still remembered by older people.
I do not find women isolated in spooky castles very threatening even
considering the times, It fails in such symbolism for me. Much more
pertinent are some of the court cases where a wife is trying to separate
from her husband because of his cruelty, or male employers and sometimes
their male servants attack female servants. Maria or the Wrongs of Women
is much more frightening.
Nancy

On Sun, Oct 6, 2024 at 1:37?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

Ellen,

This is scholarly writing about literature that is on a much higher
standard than I typically see in this sort of mainstream media article
about Austen (or Austen-related)

The best part of Ferguson's article for me is this section:

"The heroines are often imprisoned in remote, atmospheric locations where
supernatural events appear to take place. “That gives us a real sense of
terror,” said Wright. “It’s quite psychological, before psychology was
invented. She uses the image of the decayed castle or crumbling convent

to

explore the precarious and outmoded issue of marriage laws in England,
where coverture meant a woman’s legal identity and her property

effectively

disappeared when she married. So she shows young women in distress, in
really exciting, action-packed narratives, with the aim of showing the
precarious nature of a young female’s existence who has no protection in
蝉辞肠颈别迟测.”

By empowering her heroines with the strength and resilience they need to
escape and marry the men they choose, Radcliffe is “very staunchly”

showing

that women can successfully resist domination, Wright said.

“There is a sense of Radcliffe critiquing patriarchy and men who think

they

can dictate to women precisely what we should do and what we should give

to

them in marriage. So in many ways it is feminist literature, on a par

with

what Mary Wollstonecraft was arguing in *A Vindication of the Rights of
Women
<

*

.”

At one point, a Radcliffe villain tells his victim: “You speak like a
heroine, let us see if you can suffer like one.”

Wright added: “There’s always a happy ending and a good resolution. But
there’s a sense of a heroine being able to manoeuvre that resolution.”

END QUOTE FROM FERGUSON ARTICLE

However, even Ferguson fails to take the final step in her chain of

logic,

which is that it's not just some "men who think they can dictate to

women"

- that domination was baked into the patriarchal system of marriage - and
the central, most insidious part of that domination was the wife's lack

of

control in "normal" marriage over her own body - hence serial pregnancy

and

death in childbirth as "normal".

As I've said 1000 times, Henry Tilney's rant about what couldn't happen

in

a Christian nation is the epicenter of Jane Austen's critique of marriage
in Northanger Abbey - YES IT COULD, AND DID, HAPPEN, all the time, and

yet,

no clergyman, politician, or male public intellectual was railing against
this plague.

Catherine's theories about General Tilney may have been wrong in

specifics,

but she was spot-on in essentials - and Jane Austen pretty much says

that,

in code, at the end of the novel.


ARNIE

Henry's rant wasn't about marriage. It was about riots. It was written
while the Gordon Anti-Papist riots were still remembered by older people.
I do not find women isolated in spooky castles very threatening even
considering the times, It fails in such symbolism for me. Much more
pertinent are some of the court cases where a wife is trying to separate
from her husband because of his cruelty, or male employers and sometimes
their male servants attack female servants. Maria or the Wrongs of Women
is much more frightening.
Nancy

On Sun, Oct 6, 2024 at 1:37?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

Ellen,

This is scholarly writing about literature that is on a much higher
standard than I typically see in this sort of mainstream media article
about Austen (or Austen-related)

The best part of Ferguson's article for me is this section:

"The heroines are often imprisoned in remote, atmospheric locations where
supernatural events appear to take place. “That gives us a real sense of
terror,” said Wright. “It’s quite psychological, before psychology was
invented. She uses the image of the decayed castle or crumbling convent to
explore the precarious and outmoded issue of marriage laws in England,
where coverture meant a woman’s legal identity and her property effectively
disappeared when she married. So she shows young women in distress, in
really exciting, action-packed narratives, with the aim of showing the
precarious nature of a young female’s existence who has no protection in
蝉辞肠颈别迟测.”

By empowering her heroines with the strength and resilience they need to
escape and marry the men they choose, Radcliffe is “very staunchly” showing
that women can successfully resist domination, Wright said.

“There is a sense of Radcliffe critiquing patriarchy and men who think they
can dictate to women precisely what we should do and what we should give to
them in marriage. So in many ways it is feminist literature, on a par with
what Mary Wollstonecraft was arguing in *A Vindication of the Rights of
Women
<

*

.”

At one point, a Radcliffe villain tells his victim: “You speak like a
heroine, let us see if you can suffer like one.”

Wright added: “There’s always a happy ending and a good resolution. But
there’s a sense of a heroine being able to manoeuvre that resolution.”

END QUOTE FROM FERGUSON ARTICLE

However, even Ferguson fails to take the final step in her chain of logic,
which is that it's not just some "men who think they can dictate to women"
- that domination was baked into the patriarchal system of marriage - and
the central, most insidious part of that domination was the wife's lack of
control in "normal" marriage over her own body - hence serial pregnancy and
death in childbirth as "normal".

As I've said 1000 times, Henry Tilney's rant about what couldn't happen in
a Christian nation is the epicenter of Jane Austen's critique of marriage
in Northanger Abbey - YES IT COULD, AND DID, HAPPEN, all the time, and yet,
no clergyman, politician, or male public intellectual was railing against
this plague.

Catherine's theories about General Tilney may have been wrong in specifics,
but she was spot-on in essentials - and Jane Austen pretty much says that,
in code, at the end of the novel.


ARNIE

Ellen,

This is scholarly writing about literature that is on a much higher
standard than I typically see in this sort of mainstream media article
about Austen (or Austen-related)

The best part of Ferguson's article for me is this section:

"The heroines are often imprisoned in remote, atmospheric locations where
supernatural events appear to take place. “That gives us a real sense of
terror,” said Wright. “It’s quite psychological, before psychology was
invented. She uses the image of the decayed castle or crumbling convent to
explore the precarious and outmoded issue of marriage laws in England,
where coverture meant a woman’s legal identity and her property effectively
disappeared when she married. So she shows young women in distress, in
really exciting, action-packed narratives, with the aim of showing the
precarious nature of a young female’s existence who has no protection in
蝉辞肠颈别迟测.”

By empowering her heroines with the strength and resilience they need to
escape and marry the men they choose, Radcliffe is “very staunchly” showing
that women can successfully resist domination, Wright said.

“There is a sense of Radcliffe critiquing patriarchy and men who think they
can dictate to women precisely what we should do and what we should give to
them in marriage. So in many ways it is feminist literature, on a par with
what Mary Wollstonecraft was arguing in *A Vindication of the Rights of
Women
<>*
.”

At one point, a Radcliffe villain tells his victim: “You speak like a
heroine, let us see if you can suffer like one.”

Wright added: “There’s always a happy ending and a good resolution. But
there’s a sense of a heroine being able to manoeuvre that resolution.”

END QUOTE FROM FERGUSON ARTICLE

However, even Ferguson fails to take the final step in her chain of logic,
which is that it's not just some "men who think they can dictate to women"
- that domination was baked into the patriarchal system of marriage - and
the central, most insidious part of that domination was the wife's lack of
control in "normal" marriage over her own body - hence serial pregnancy and
death in childbirth as "normal".

As I've said 1000 times, Henry Tilney's rant about what couldn't happen in
a Christian nation is the epicenter of Jane Austen's critique of marriage
in Northanger Abbey - YES IT COULD, AND DID, HAPPEN, all the time, and yet,
no clergyman, politician, or male public intellectual was railing against
this plague.

Catherine's theories about General Tilney may have been wrong in specifics,
but she was spot-on in essentials - and Jane Austen pretty much says that,
in code, at the end of the novel.


ARNIE

Ellen,

You and I have disagreed about a thousand things over nearly 25 years, but
on this point, we are in 100% agreement - I've cited her line a hundred
times or more about hating the Prince Regent because he treated his wife so
abominably for so long.

I have been a board member of Advance Gender Equity (AGE) for nearly 8
years. Read about the great work that AGE's young diverse team is doing
here in Portland:



Those of you reading this post who admire AGE's mission, please donate!

ARNIE


On Sun, Oct 6, 2024 at 8:58?AM Ellen Moody via groups.io <ellen.moody=
[email protected]> wrote:

I have to say that after all for me at this point in my life while I
can discover new genres or (to me) male authors I like for real, my
driving desire and interest is to read books & essays by women.

I remain amazed how I discover so many women seem indifferent to this
important gender divide. I see those who care on the few places
dedicated to some form of women's art, but outside that, no. They look
surprised when I say most of the time I prefer women's writing. They
seem not to realize the central messages or interpretations found in
male books are male centered, male aesthetics. It's denied; maybe not
on the level of the sentence or paragraph or chapter but on the level
of a whole work of art. Many women do try hard to write versions of
male books and especially male movies (There's money in that.) Selling
themselves for centuries but now one does not have to.

In the US men are trying to make pregnancy compulsory, but having made
a miscarriage or anything going wrong in pregnancy, now life
threatening, the cruelty and drive to dominate women of many is
backfiring ...

I'm with Austen on Queen Caroline: she was on her side because she was a
woman

Ellen

I have to say that after all for me at this point in my life while I
can discover new genres or (to me) male authors I like for real, my
driving desire and interest is to read books & essays by women.

I remain amazed how I discover so many women seem indifferent to this
important gender divide. I see those who care on the few places
dedicated to some form of women's art, but outside that, no. They look
surprised when I say most of the time I prefer women's writing. They
seem not to realize the central messages or interpretations found in
male books are male centered, male aesthetics. It's denied; maybe not
on the level of the sentence or paragraph or chapter but on the level
of a whole work of art. Many women do try hard to write versions of
male books and especially male movies (There's money in that.) Selling
themselves for centuries but now one does not have to.

In the US men are trying to make pregnancy compulsory, but having made
a miscarriage or anything going wrong in pregnancy, now life
threatening, the cruelty and drive to dominate women of many is
backfiring ...

I'm with Austen on Queen Caroline: she was on her side because she was a woman

Ellen

A new edition the occasion of this review with links to other essays
on Radcliffe. I am chuffed because what is said about her and her
books is precisely my view and I agree she was ridiculed and written
out because she was a woman





Austen's remarks in NA quoted. To me the absurdity of attributing the
gothic craze to apple's shallow burlesque a way of excluding the real
starts: Lee's The Recess and Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest

Ellen

Some would bet on everything including which raindrop would get to the
bottom of the window first. Two people could bet on a game even if others
wouldn't. It really depended on the people.
Nancy

On Mon, Sep 23, 2024 at 8:22?PM Mary Cantwell via groups.io <Mary=
[email protected]> wrote:

Do any of you know whether gambling was a common practice with billiard
games played in private homes/clubs in Regency Era?

I'm intrigued since this is where John Thornton and General Tilney met up,
i.e., billiards.

I Googled what I could, but I know that this group has members with
specialized knowledge of the Regency Era, and I'm interested in finding out
what you all know.

Thank you

-Mary

Do any of you know whether gambling was a common practice with billiard games played in private homes/clubs in Regency Era?

I'm intrigued since this is where John Thornton and General Tilney met up, i.e., billiards.

I Googled what I could, but I know that this group has members with specialized knowledge of the Regency Era, and I'm interested in finding out what you all know.

Thank you

-Mary

I have never denied Jane Austen's disdain for serial pregnancy. She isn't
really pleased with pregnancy at all. I have never agreed that Austen put
this into any book and particularly not NA where the Morland family of many
hopeful children is thriving and the mother is still alive. There are many
dead mothers in Austen's works. It is rather a trope in fiction that the
heroine has to be without a mother, have a worthless mother, or be away
from a sensible mother in order to have an adventure. There is not a
single mother who died of multiple pregnancies, if by multiple, is meant
more than 4, In fact, Mrs. Price and Mrs. Moreland are mothers with the
most children and they are still very much alive. The dead Mrs. Tilney had
3 children. The dead Lady Eliot had 3 children. Mrs. Fairfax and Mrs.
Weston had one child each. Mrs. Woodhouse had two children. The Musgrove's
had four children and the mother is still alive to endure grandchildren. I
think Austen expressed her opinions about pregnancy in her letters but not
in her novels.
We might as well think that Mrs. Tilney died from being beaten by her
husband. That is much more likely. There is as much proof of that means of
death as any other.
Nancy

On Mon, Sep 23, 2024 at 12:30?AM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

Thank you Nancy. Actually another article about Pamela's pregnancy that
actually outlines her "career" as a pregnant wife is this one:

The Pregnant Pamela: Characterization and Popular Medical Attitudes in the
Eighteenth Century

by Dolores Peters Eighteenth-Century Studies , Summer, 1981, Vol. 14, No.
4 pp. 432-451


I

Given my assertion since 2008 (that you always deny, Nancy, in our eternal
dance here in Janeites) that this theme of serial pregnancy and death in
childbirth is a major subtext of *Northanger Abbey *vis a vis Mrs.
Tilney*,* I
believe this is the first time I have ever found these fears explicitly
described or enacted in fiction that we *know *Jane Austen read, and read
closely. How ironic and sad if Pamela was the only book she ever read that
made explicit what so many married Englishwomen of that era feared during
their entire childbearing married years.


ARNIE



On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 3:46?PM Nancy Mayer via groups.io
<regencyresearcher@...> wrote:

Mr. B was definitely the father.
I found the article on JSTOR South Atlantic Review N.1 1993
The Edible Woman: Eating and Breast-Feeding in the Novels of Samuel
Richardson
Laura Fasick
<

On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 5:17?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

NANCY: "I think Mr. B is referring to a baby Pamela is carrying. A part

of

the book that is less published mentions that Pamela had a baby son and
that Mr. B thought that her nursing the baby herself would remind

people

that he married some one from a much lower class. ( of course, class

wasn't

used then.) According to the author of an essay, husbands of the 18th
century had a great deal to say about whether the wife nursed the child

or

not."

Interesting, Nancy, thanks!

Do you mean that there were multiple editions of Pamela, and in some of
them it mentions Pamela having been pregnant, but in others not?

Was Mr. B the father, or was that unclear?

If you can point me to where in Pamela that is mentioned without
inconvenience, that would be wonderful

Thanks, ARNIE

At the end of Richardson’s *Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded*, after Mr.

B

has

married Pamela, he reveals to Pamela the story of his illegitimate
daughter, Miss Goodwin. He does this in a back-handed way, by first
introducing Pamela to Miss Godwin, whom he had placed in a boarding

school

nearby, without revealing her true relationship to him. Then, after

Pamela

begins to suspect that he is more than an “uncle” to the girl, he

tells

Pamela that she is in fact his daughter, and how that came about.

Pamela

warmly accepts the little girl, whom they will then take into their

new

marital home.

Then we read this statement by the buoyant Pamela in her letter to

her

parents:

“Yesterday we set out, attended by John, Abraham, Benjamin, and

Isaac,

in

fine new liveries, in the best chariot, which had been new cleaned,

and

lined, and new harnessed; so that it looked like a quite new one.

But I

had

no arms to quarter with my dear lord and master’s; though he

jocularly,

upon my taking notice of my obscurity, said, that he had a good

mind

to

have the olive-branch, which would allude to his hopes, quartered

for

尘颈苍别.”

Wikipedia informed me thusly as to the meaning of “arms to

辩耻补谤迟别谤”:

“a heraldic term that refers to the practice of dividing a shield

into

four

or more sections, or compartments, to display multiple coats of

补谤尘蝉”.

My question is, does Mr. B mean by that reference to the

olive-branch

to

symbolize his hopes that Pamela will continue to accept his

daughter

as

if

she were her own; and moreover, to accept his reformation from

predatory

rake to faithful husband as bona fide.

Of course, a few of you have been reminded by the above of the

references

by Mr. Collins to olive-branches, and in particular the baby he

hints

Charlotte is carrying – it's interesting to think of them as

allusions

to

the above passage in *Pamela.*

ARNIE

Thank you Nancy. Actually another article about Pamela's pregnancy that
actually outlines her "career" as a pregnant wife is this one:

The Pregnant Pamela: Characterization and Popular Medical Attitudes in the
Eighteenth Century

by Dolores Peters Eighteenth-Century Studies , Summer, 1981, Vol. 14, No.
4 pp. 432-451


It is indeed clear from the moment they get married during the first
*Pamela* novel, that Mr. B wants her to become pregnant right away. - he
hints at it at least a couple of times, as Peters explains. So when he
speaks about the olive-branch at the very end of the first *Pamela* novel,
he either knows she is pregnant, or fervently hopes she is. That makes the
likelihood that Mr. Collins's final wink about Charlotte being pregnant was
Austen's wink at this line in *Pamela *that much greater.


The above-cited article also discusses Pamela's fears of dying in
childbirth, and her Austen-like chagrin at being serially pregnant since
her marriage, as expressed in the fourth from the last letter in the second
*Pamela* novel ("Mr. B. kindly accompanied me, apprehending that his
presence would be necessary, if the recovery of them both [Pamela's sick
parents], in which I thankfully rejoice, had not happened; *especially as a
circumstance I am, I think, always in, added more weight to his
apprehensions*.")


Given my assertion since 2008 (that you always deny, Nancy, in our eternal
dance here in Janeites) that this theme of serial pregnancy and death in
childbirth is a major subtext of *Northanger Abbey *vis a vis Mrs. Tilney*,* I
believe this is the first time I have ever found these fears explicitly
described or enacted in fiction that we *know *Jane Austen read, and read
closely. How ironic and sad if Pamela was the only book she ever read that
made explicit what so many married Englishwomen of that era feared during
their entire childbearing married years.


ARNIE



On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 3:46?PM Nancy Mayer via groups.io
<regencyresearcher@...> wrote:

Mr. B was definitely the father.
I found the article on JSTOR South Atlantic Review N.1 1993
The Edible Woman: Eating and Breast-Feeding in the Novels of Samuel
Richardson
Laura Fasick
<

On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 5:17?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

NANCY: "I think Mr. B is referring to a baby Pamela is carrying. A part

of

the book that is less published mentions that Pamela had a baby son and
that Mr. B thought that her nursing the baby herself would remind people
that he married some one from a much lower class. ( of course, class

wasn't

used then.) According to the author of an essay, husbands of the 18th
century had a great deal to say about whether the wife nursed the child

or

not."

Interesting, Nancy, thanks!

Do you mean that there were multiple editions of Pamela, and in some of
them it mentions Pamela having been pregnant, but in others not?

Was Mr. B the father, or was that unclear?

If you can point me to where in Pamela that is mentioned without
inconvenience, that would be wonderful

Thanks, ARNIE

At the end of Richardson’s *Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded*, after Mr. B

has

married Pamela, he reveals to Pamela the story of his illegitimate
daughter, Miss Goodwin. He does this in a back-handed way, by first
introducing Pamela to Miss Godwin, whom he had placed in a boarding

school

nearby, without revealing her true relationship to him. Then, after

Pamela

begins to suspect that he is more than an “uncle” to the girl, he

tells

Pamela that she is in fact his daughter, and how that came about.

Pamela

warmly accepts the little girl, whom they will then take into their

new

marital home.

Then we read this statement by the buoyant Pamela in her letter to

her

parents:

“Yesterday we set out, attended by John, Abraham, Benjamin, and

Isaac,

in

fine new liveries, in the best chariot, which had been new cleaned,

and

lined, and new harnessed; so that it looked like a quite new one.

But I

had

no arms to quarter with my dear lord and master’s; though he

jocularly,

upon my taking notice of my obscurity, said, that he had a good mind

to

have the olive-branch, which would allude to his hopes, quartered for
尘颈苍别.”

Wikipedia informed me thusly as to the meaning of “arms to 辩耻补谤迟别谤”:

“a heraldic term that refers to the practice of dividing a shield

into

four

or more sections, or compartments, to display multiple coats of

补谤尘蝉”.

My question is, does Mr. B mean by that reference to the olive-branch

to

symbolize his hopes that Pamela will continue to accept his daughter

as

if

she were her own; and moreover, to accept his reformation from

predatory

rake to faithful husband as bona fide.

Of course, a few of you have been reminded by the above of the

references

by Mr. Collins to olive-branches, and in particular the baby he hints
Charlotte is carrying – it's interesting to think of them as

allusions

to

the above passage in *Pamela.*

ARNIE

Mr. B was definitely the father.
I found the article on JSTOR South Atlantic Review N.1 1993
The Edible Woman: Eating and Breast-Feeding in the Novels of Samuel
Richardson
Laura Fasick
<>



On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 5:17?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

NANCY: "I think Mr. B is referring to a baby Pamela is carrying. A part of
the book that is less published mentions that Pamela had a baby son and
that Mr. B thought that her nursing the baby herself would remind people
that he married some one from a much lower class. ( of course, class wasn't
used then.) According to the author of an essay, husbands of the 18th
century had a great deal to say about whether the wife nursed the child or
not."

Interesting, Nancy, thanks!

Do you mean that there were multiple editions of Pamela, and in some of
them it mentions Pamela having been pregnant, but in others not?

Was Mr. B the father, or was that unclear?

If you can point me to where in Pamela that is mentioned without
inconvenience, that would be wonderful

Thanks, ARNIE

At the end of Richardson’s *Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded*, after Mr. B

has

married Pamela, he reveals to Pamela the story of his illegitimate
daughter, Miss Goodwin. He does this in a back-handed way, by first
introducing Pamela to Miss Godwin, whom he had placed in a boarding

school

nearby, without revealing her true relationship to him. Then, after

Pamela

begins to suspect that he is more than an “uncle” to the girl, he tells
Pamela that she is in fact his daughter, and how that came about.

Pamela

warmly accepts the little girl, whom they will then take into their new
marital home.

Then we read this statement by the buoyant Pamela in her letter to her
parents:

“Yesterday we set out, attended by John, Abraham, Benjamin, and Isaac,

in

fine new liveries, in the best chariot, which had been new cleaned, and
lined, and new harnessed; so that it looked like a quite new one. But I

had

no arms to quarter with my dear lord and master’s; though he jocularly,
upon my taking notice of my obscurity, said, that he had a good mind to
have the olive-branch, which would allude to his hopes, quartered for
尘颈苍别.”

Wikipedia informed me thusly as to the meaning of “arms to 辩耻补谤迟别谤”:

“a heraldic term that refers to the practice of dividing a shield into

four

or more sections, or compartments, to display multiple coats of 补谤尘蝉”.

My question is, does Mr. B mean by that reference to the olive-branch

to

symbolize his hopes that Pamela will continue to accept his daughter as

if

she were her own; and moreover, to accept his reformation from

predatory

rake to faithful husband as bona fide.

Of course, a few of you have been reminded by the above of the

references

by Mr. Collins to olive-branches, and in particular the baby he hints
Charlotte is carrying – it's interesting to think of them as allusions

to

the above passage in *Pamela.*

ARNIE

I think most editions of Pamela are abbreviated and the part of their life
after marriage left out.
I don't remember the name of the journal in which I found the article. It
was the journal of a language association which held a conference in
Atlanta around 1989.
If I can find the reference I will tell you.
Nancy

On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 5:17?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:

NANCY: "I think Mr. B is referring to a baby Pamela is carrying. A part of
the book that is less published mentions that Pamela had a baby son and
that Mr. B thought that her nursing the baby herself would remind people
that he married some one from a much lower class. ( of course, class wasn't
used then.) According to the author of an essay, husbands of the 18th
century had a great deal to say about whether the wife nursed the child or
not."

Interesting, Nancy, thanks!

Do you mean that there were multiple editions of Pamela, and in some of
them it mentions Pamela having been pregnant, but in others not?

Was Mr. B the father, or was that unclear?

If you can point me to where in Pamela that is mentioned without
inconvenience, that would be wonderful

Thanks, ARNIE

At the end of Richardson’s *Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded*, after Mr. B

has

married Pamela, he reveals to Pamela the story of his illegitimate
daughter, Miss Goodwin. He does this in a back-handed way, by first
introducing Pamela to Miss Godwin, whom he had placed in a boarding

school

nearby, without revealing her true relationship to him. Then, after

Pamela

begins to suspect that he is more than an “uncle” to the girl, he tells
Pamela that she is in fact his daughter, and how that came about.

Pamela

warmly accepts the little girl, whom they will then take into their new
marital home.

Then we read this statement by the buoyant Pamela in her letter to her
parents:

“Yesterday we set out, attended by John, Abraham, Benjamin, and Isaac,

in

fine new liveries, in the best chariot, which had been new cleaned, and
lined, and new harnessed; so that it looked like a quite new one. But I

had

no arms to quarter with my dear lord and master’s; though he jocularly,
upon my taking notice of my obscurity, said, that he had a good mind to
have the olive-branch, which would allude to his hopes, quartered for
尘颈苍别.”

Wikipedia informed me thusly as to the meaning of “arms to 辩耻补谤迟别谤”:

“a heraldic term that refers to the practice of dividing a shield into

four

or more sections, or compartments, to display multiple coats of 补谤尘蝉”.

My question is, does Mr. B mean by that reference to the olive-branch

to

symbolize his hopes that Pamela will continue to accept his daughter as

if

she were her own; and moreover, to accept his reformation from

predatory

rake to faithful husband as bona fide.

Of course, a few of you have been reminded by the above of the

references

by Mr. Collins to olive-branches, and in particular the baby he hints
Charlotte is carrying – it's interesting to think of them as allusions

to

the above passage in *Pamela.*

ARNIE

NANCY: "I think Mr. B is referring to a baby Pamela is carrying. A part of
the book that is less published mentions that Pamela had a baby son and
that Mr. B thought that her nursing the baby herself would remind people
that he married some one from a much lower class. ( of course, class wasn't
used then.) According to the author of an essay, husbands of the 18th
century had a great deal to say about whether the wife nursed the child or
not."

Interesting, Nancy, thanks!

Do you mean that there were multiple editions of Pamela, and in some of
them it mentions Pamela having been pregnant, but in others not?

Was Mr. B the father, or was that unclear?

If you can point me to where in Pamela that is mentioned without
inconvenience, that would be wonderful

Thanks, ARNIE