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Barbara Thank you for mentioning me, but I have to say that I am not in complete agreemennt with you!! I agree that perhaps you could say that Emma was a bit more "snobbish" than Mr K but I dont think ti is all that much. as I've said now more than once, in his job as squire he's bound to meet people in their busienss lives more than Emma does... As a lady, she will only encounter teh poor to whom she dispenses charity, the gentry, who are her equals roughly speaking and a few tradespeople whom she buys things from such as the Fords. Whereas Mr K is mingling with lawyers businessmen, tenant farmers etc.. so it is natural that having a wider experience of society and beign perhaps more aware than she is that things are chaning a bit and that there has always BEEN some families coming up in society and some slipping down, he's a bit more tolernat to the nouveaux riches like the Coles who are going up or To Rob Martin who is doing well but problaby wont make it as a "gentleman" jsut yet.. if ever...
Emma does not mix with the "middle sort" all that much and she is inclined (since she hasnt much else to think of) to enjoy the idea of being "queen bee" in the village and of regulating who is to take precedence of whom - the Coles, she does not dislike.. she just wants to feel that they acknolwedge HER as the first lady before they start off with their fancy entertainemnet and inviting her to parties....Similarly she wnats to claim the "patroness's privilege" of bringing forward some girl liek Harriet... and bringing her to notice in "good society"... albeit she has to dress it up with the idea that H is from a gentle family....
However I dont see that she denigrates the "middling" people liek the Martins who are not in need of charity, or grand enough to be her social equals. She simply does not pay much attention to them. She's not saying that Rob M is a bad person in any way... seh's just saying that he's not a gentleman and does not have "genteel manners"... and that's certianly a fact that he's not a gentleman and not socially her equal.. nad his manners may well not be as "genteel" as those of the "real gentlemen".... That's just a fact of life.. I dont see anything snobbish in it in terms of the era. teh problem is that becuase she has gotten a bee in her bonnet about Harriet being genteel and entitled to a gentleman as a husband... and while it COULD happen that some gentleman she knows might take a fancy to H and marry her, it is just as possible that it wont happen....
But it seems to me that Mr K, while he is willing to allow the Coles to "rise in the world", is not really keen on Harriet's doing so.. his attitude is partly kindly and partly condescending. Probaby the best match that H CAN make is with Robert M but she's only 17.. would it be that terrible ot let her have a little time as Emma's protegee and see if she does attract someone else? Has he considered that while men can make their way up in society by making money, a woman can only do so by marriage?
now I have done....
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