Posted by greg on August 25, 1997 at 22:09:21:
In reply to Re: mr. weston: "poor miss taylor"? posted by Laraine on August 25, 1997 at 13:24:29
He's the kind of person who will invite dozens of people to help him make decisions about how the arrangements can be made for the ball at the Crown, no matter that it simply gives his wife more people she must listen to and endeavour to please. He's the kind of person who will invite his son to Mr. Knightley's strawberry picking, no matter that Mr. Knightley didn't want Frank there. He's the kind of person who, knowing his wife and Emma are planning a trip to Box Hill and Mrs. Elton is planning one, will insist that the two parties combine, no matter that Emma and Mrs. Elton cannot stand each other.
] Yes, he's a good person, and people like him because he's quite likable. But he's so amiable that he often isn't capable of seeing that other people don't agree about "the more the merrier". Living with someone like this can be a trial.
thanks, laraine, i'm starting to see mr. w a little more like you do now. especially the part about the preparations for the ball; when i came across that part in the book again saturday, where mr. w invites miss bates' counsel(read "approval") concerning the crown, i thought, he is a bit of a twit, isn't he? and then when actually at the ball, "emma perceived that her taste was not the only taste on which mr. weston depended, and felt that to be the favourite and intimate of a man who had so many intimates and confidantes, was not the very first distinction in the scale of vanity ... general benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be. she could fancy such a man."
Regarding John Knightley ... he's very intelligent and perceptive; he catches on to the Elton problem straight off and he values Jane Fairfax very much. Mr. Knightley obviously thinks he's worth consulting about delicate and perplexing matters such as marrying Emma. Would I like to be married to him? That's completely subjective--but I'd rather put up with his faults than Mr. Weston's, I think...
good points, also, i think. but i won't go so far as to believe that jk is the type of man emma was thinking she "could fancy". that was obviously an(unconscious) description of his brother. and i think this notion of "fancying" is very appropos to the comparison of mr. w/jk: it seems to come down to one's own "subjective" preferences.
Posting followups to old messages is disabled; instead go to the main index and post a new message which mentions this one.