What does it mean to rent vs let? Why couldn’t Sir Walter move to London? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this episode of My Cousin Jane.
Hey everybody, welcome back to My Cousin Jane. Today we’re going to be looking at Persuasion, Chapter 2. Again, our approach is not a formal literary analysis, but more along the lines of a sort of deleted scenes, bonus features approach of Jane Austen’s life and works.
Retrenching
Let’s jump right in. At the start of Chapter 2, we are dealing with the problem of how to get Sir Walter out of debt, and they have a couple of different ideas.
First of all, Lady Russell, who we didn’t talk about last time but who was introduced in chapter one, is an important friend of the family. She goes to Anne and presents the problem and says, hey, you probably have noticed your father’s deeply in debt. What do you think we should do? What can we do to retrench? In other words, what can we do to fix your father’s budget so he’s not spending more than he takes in?
Anne has very strong feelings about that. This reveals a lot about her character. We’re going to listen to a clip. Like I said last time, this clip comes from Karen Savage’s public domain audiobook version of Persuasion, courtesy of LibriVox.org. Let’s take a listen to that and hear what Anne’s feelings on debt are:
This was the principle on which Anne wanted her father to be proceeding, his friends to be urging him. She considered it as an act of indispensable duty to clear away the claims of creditors with all the expedition which the most comprehensive retrenchments could secure, and saw no dignity in anything short of it. She wanted it to be prescribed, and felt as a duty. Persuasion, Chapter 2
She comes up with this huge list of things to cut, all the expenses that she thinks are unnecessary, and wants all the focus to be on how dishonorable it is to be so deeply in debt. I don’t think her views would have been mirrored in most of the aristocracy at the time. Debt was a big problem, not just for Sir Walter, but in general for the landed gentry.
She gives the list of recommendations to Lady Russell, who’s like, whoa, we can’t do all that. Your father will never go for it. She trims it down a little to try to make it more palatable. Even this version doesn’t fly with Sir Walter. Let’s hear his opinion, which is going to become very important here in a second:
“What! every comfort of life knocked off! Journeys, London, servants, horses, table—contractions and restrictions every where! To live no longer with the decencies even of a private gentleman! No, he would sooner quit Kellynch Hall at once, than remain in it on such disgraceful terms.” Persuasion, Chapter 2
Quit and Let
All right, quit Kellynch Hall. This becomes the inciting incident of the novel, if you will. Mr. Shepherd hears this and says, great idea. Let’s quit Kellynch Hall.
What this means is we’re going to move out. We think that, Sir Walter, your best option is to move out of Kellynch Hall, which is the seat of his family, so to speak, and rent it out to another family.
The terms we use for this: we don’t say we’re going to move out. We say we’re going to quit it. We’re going to quit Kellynch Hall. We don’t say rent, because rents were the money that you brought in from leasing land to tenant farmers. It would be your rents.
This is what we’re going to say, and they still use this term in the UK today: we’re going to let Kellynch Hall. Essentially, we’re going to let someone else live there. Letting is used both how we use rent in the United States in modern language today: we’re going to let our house, and I’m going to let the house from someone else. It’s used both by the landlord and by the tenant to denote what we’re doing with the property.
Established Usages
One of the things that are brought up in the next chapter: Sir Walter gets concerned about what the tenant would be allowed to do. Mr. Shepherd assures him that there are “established usages” for the types of things that you can do when you are a tenant of a property. This is actually still true today.
When we were living in the United Kingdom, we were going to let a house, and we found this pretty house. It was an old manor house and it had been subdivided up into different townhouses. We had five kids. When we were talking to the agent about it, he said, oh, one thing you should know is that the owner doesn’t want anyone walking on the lawn.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had children. If you can imagine having a big yard and saying, by the way, kids, you’re not allowed to walk on the grass. We knew that wasn’t going to fly. We didn’t rent that one. It’s interesting that, especially with these manor houses, there are still these established usages, so to speak.
Town
We transition to the next part, where Sir Walter’s being convinced, unbeknownst to him, that everyone’s moving in this direction. Yes, let’s rent out your house. They’re trying to decide where to go. They talk about three options: London, Bath, or another house in the country.
One of the things that’s interesting in Jane Austen novels in that time period is the use of the word town. Whenever people talk about town, in the singular sense, they’re almost always referring to London specifically. I have a house in town: that almost always means London. If they say the town, or the town of Bath, for example, then they’re referring to a specific place.
It’s like how we would use the term president. If you were to say, I’m talking to President so-and-so, or the president of whatever. However, if we say, I saw a conference today with the President, we’re talking about the President of the United States. The one singular person.
That’s how they use the term town in this time period. Whenever we talk about going to town or a house in town, or Elizabeth mentions how her father hates town, they’re specifically talking about London.
When they’re debating about this, Sir Walter at first thinks London would be the greatest option. Elizabeth likes this idea too, because of all the social opportunities.
However, Mr. Shepherd, who’s overseeing the financial aspects of this, knows that moving to London would be a horrible idea, because Sir Walter’s rank is such that he’s at the bottom of this aristocracy that we talked about last time. Maintaining the appearance of social dignity, and what he would imagine as being his due, would be pretty expensive in London. Even back then, London was expensive. Especially if you’re trying to spend your time with the nobility, which is what he would be trying to do. Mr. Shepherd doesn’t want London to be an option.
Bath
Meanwhile, we have everyone pulling for Bath, except for Anne, our protagonist, who mentions how much she doesn’t like Bath.
This is an interesting parallel, because Jane Austen also, at some point, had to leave her country home, move to Bath. Depending on which sources you read, she either was indifferent to Bath or hated Bath.
It’s pretty interesting, because the Jane Austen Historical Society, the Jane Austen Centre, is located in Bath, and they make a big deal about Bath as being Jane Austen’s home. However, most people agree that Jane did not like Bath at all. She’d grown up in the country and had this beautiful land and all the scenery. She was not very flattering in the way she described Bath and its people and environs.
It’s interesting, the protagonist in Persuasion, in contrast to the protagonist in Northanger Abbey, which also takes place in Bath, and she actually likes Bath. Here, in Persuasion, which was written later, we find that Anne is not looking forward to going to Bath.
Lady Russell thinks it’s because of some things that happened to Anne. Her mother had passed away and she was a lonely schoolgirl at the time they lived in Bath last time. She thinks it’s all in Anne’s head, that it’ll be fine. That’s because Lady Russell’s point of view is colored by the fact that she likes the society of Bath and likes that hustle and bustle of the big city, so to speak.
The other option they talk about is another house in the country, which is what Anne’s hoping for, so she doesn’t have to move very far from the area that she likes. However, Lady Russell points out that this would be embarrassing for Sir Walter.
It’s like if you had, imagine you lived in a neighborhood and you had this fancy house, the best house in the block, and you lost your job. Your only option was to move. You decide, I’m going to rent out my house, and I’m going to go live in this little shack on the corner, and I’m going to rent that while I rent my house out. It’d be a come down.
This is what Lady Russell is thinking, that maybe this is not the option for your father. As you know, if you’ve read the book, we’re going to end up in Bath.
Mrs. Clay
The last thing I want to talk about is who they decide to bring with them. Because in this chapter, we’re also introduced to Mrs. Clay, who is Mr. Shepherd’s daughter.
What’s interesting about Mrs. Clay is, as the daughter of a land agent—Mr. Shepherd would not be considered at the time what we call a private gentleman, because he has to work for his money. He’s a tradesman, essentially. He’s managing the estate of Sir Walter.
The term gentleman becomes very important, and we’ll talk about this more in the next chapter. The term gentleman, depending on who you talk to at the time, meant some very specific things. In general, what we’ll say is that in Sir Walter’s eyes, and much of the aristocracy, the term gentleman meant someone who owned land and did not have to work for his money.
We’re not told much about Mrs. Clay’s husband, her former husband, but at this time she is presumably living with her father and she’s got a couple of kids. She is close friends with Elizabeth, the oldest daughter of Sir Walter.
Lady Russell does not think that this is a good idea for Mrs. Clay and Elizabeth to be friends. It’s an interesting parallel, because it’s a lot like what’s going on in Emma with Emma Woodhouse. In this case, we have Mrs. Clay with her designs on Sir Walter. We’re going to see how important that is later, especially when we introduce Mr. Elliot.
Esquire
In chapter one, it was mentioned that the heir presumptive of Kellynch Hall is William Walter Elliot, Esquire. Throughout the rest of the novel, we refer to him as Mr. Elliot. The heir presumptive meant that unless Sir Walter had a son, a male heir, the next in line in the family tree, the next male who could inherit the estate and the title of baronet, would be Mr. Elliot.
His name, the suffix on his name, is interesting, the Esquire, because it was a term that meant, I don’t have an official rank, but I’m really cool and I deserve one. I’m going to call myself Esquire. It technically means a rank of unknown status.
It’s like Ms. You’re not saying you’re Mrs. You’re not saying you’re Miss. You don’t want to say. Its meaning today is a little bit different, I guess, but back then this is what it meant.
The only people who used Esquire were people who didn’t have a rank. It wasn’t a big secret if you were Esquire. It’s not like, oh, I wonder if he’s secretly a Duke. No, you were an unranked landed gentry person. You were probably a private gentleman, but of no rank in the aristocracy.
Conclusion
That wraps up this episode of My Cousin Jane. As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to help support us, please consider clicking the little donate button or subscribing to our newsletter. Either way, thanks so much for listening.
