Mr. Darcy, striving to find a topic for conversation while dancing with Elizabeth at Netherfield, asks this question. Elizabeth, who at the moment does not like Mr. Darcy, replies that she is certain they never read the same books, or at least not with the same feelings. Why does she say this? Why would he mention books as a topic?
Books in Austen's day were not what they are now. Then, they were valuable, and unless you had your own, difficult to access. Although the novel speaks of libraries - Lydia remarks about a library, and Mr. Collins declines to read a book which appears to be from a library, these are not libraries in the sense that we think of them. They are more like bookstores, and bookstores with a very limited selection. Books were so valuable that when someone died and a list was made of their possessions, as part of probate, books would be individually listed. Thus, only the wealthy would have them. Mr. Bennet spends much of his time in his library, and Mr. Darcy is adding to his as he feels is his duty "in times like these." That is a comment somewhat mysterious to me. What is it about the novel's present that particularly encourages or requires keeping his private library up to date. After all "it is the work of generations."
I think that the same facts lie behind times like these and Elizabeth's comment about their differing tastes. The novel was written in a time of intellectual ferment. The enlightenment had caused many aspects of life and reality to be examined, and new discoveries about the nature of the universe, and how we should live in it in light of these discoveries, were being published. Not only science and religion were advancing, for romantic poetry and novels were being written. Austen's people related to nature through poetry. Recall Anne Elliott in Persuasion, walking across the meadows with a family party, thinking of quotations about autumn, or the younger sister in Sense and Sensibility decrying the hero's unfeeling reading of poetry as a mark of a problem with his soul. People had the idea that in books, especially in current books, a bold new world was unfolding, and they were excited by it. Thus Col. Fitzpatrick can entertain Elizabeth at Rosings by speaking of music and new books in an evening in which she found the most enjoyment of any of her visits there.
I was struck by Elizabeth's behavior at Netherfield while staying there to nurse Jane. One evening she finds the party playing cards. She is invited to join but "suspecting them of playing high" declines and takes up a book. Bingley confesses that his library is not large but he seldom reads the books in it. "I am a lazy fellow." Caroline, always flattering Darcy, mentions his library at Pemberly. Then came the surprising part. Elizabeth, caught up in the conversation, closes her book and moves over to join the party. What was that all about? They are discussing Darcy's family library, hardly a topic a modern reader would expect would attract Elizabeth to the company of people she really doesn't like. But it does. It is the first interest she has taken in Mr. Darcy. The novel does not go further into her motives, but I'm suspecting this was a signal to the reader who understood books that there may be something to Darcy after all other than pride and arrogance. Another time in this visit the topic of the accomplishments of women arises, and Caroline speaks of a number of aspects of superior female accomplishment, all of which have to do with display - her air, her tone of speech, her ability to play music, draw, and speak the "modern languages" (unlike Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which men learned so they could read the classics) - and Darcy agrees with her, but adds "she must improve her mind by extensive reading."
More later.
