#miss darcy

[sunkillerlovechild]

"It gives me pain to speak ill of a Darcy" yet youve been doing nothing but for the last five pages

[montaigness]

One tiny crime would be wiped out by thousands of good deeds.

[dimity-lawn]

[blessyouhawkeye]

the fact that we as a society have the muppets and they are not everywhere in our cultural consciousness is appalling. why aren't the muppets hosting the oscars. why aren't the muppets commentating the olympics. why aren't the muppets coming to a theatre near me every year with a new adaptation of a classic novel. genuinely what are we doing.

[earl-ofnewshire]

My favorite ship dynamic of all time, ever, is a little something I like to call anxiety x audacity

Examples:

[bambi-in-headlights]

Pride and Prejudice is such a funny book because imagine hating on someone you’ve never met right in front of them and then like a day later being like oops actually I like your eyes.

[anghraine]

Speaking of the social context of P&P and Austen in general, and also just literature of that era, I'm always interested in how things like precisely formulated hierarchies of precedence and tables of ranked social classes interact with the more complex and nuanced details of class-based status and consequence on a pragmatic day-to-day level. I remembered reading a social historian discussing the pragmatics of class wrt eighteenth-century English life many years ago and finally tracked down the source:

"In spite of the number of people who got their living from manufacture or trade, fundamentally it was a society in which the ownership of land alone conveyed social prestige and full political rights. ... The apex of this society was the nobility. In the eyes of the Law only members of the House of Lords, the peerage in the strictest use of the word, were a class apart, enjoying special privileges and composing one of the estates of the realm. Their families were commoners: even the eldest sons of peers could sit in the House of Commons. It was therefore in the social rather than in the legal sense of the word that English society was a class society. Before the law all English people except the peers were in theory equal. Legal concept and social practice were, however, very different. When men spoke of the nobility, they meant the sons and daughters, the brothers and sisters, the uncles and aunts and cousins of the peers. They were an extremely influential and wealthy group.

"The peers and their near relations almost monopolized high political office. From these great families came the wealthiest Church dignitaries, the higher ranks in the army and navy. Many of them found a career in law; some even did not disdain the money to be made in trade. What gave this class its particular importance in the political life of the day was the way in which it was organized on a basis of family and connection ... in eighteenth-century politics men rarely acted as isolated individuals. A man came into Parliament supported by his friends and relations who expected, in return for this support, that he would further their interests to the extent of his parliamentary influence.

"Next in both political and social importance came the gentry. Again it is not easy to define exactly who were covered by this term. The Law knew nothing of gentle birth but Society recognized it. Like the nobility this group too was as a class closely connected with land. Indeed, the border line between the two classes is at times almost impossible to define ... Often these men are described as the squirearchy, this term being used to cover the major landowning families in every county who were not connected by birth with the aristocracy. Between them and the local nobility there was often considerable jealousy. The country gentleman considered himself well qualified to manage the affairs of his county without aristocratic interference.

"...The next great layer in society is perhaps best described the contemporary term 'the Middling Sort'. As with all eighteenth-century groups it is difficult to draw a clear line of demarcation between them and their social superiors and inferiors. No economic line is possible, for a man with no pretensions to gentility might well be more prosperous than many a small squire. There was even on the fringe between the two classes some overlapping of activities ... The ambitious upstart who bought an estate and spent his income as a gentleman, might be either cold-shouldered by his better-born neighbours or treated by them with a certain contemptuous politeness. If however his daughters were presentable and well dowered, and if his sons received the education considered suitable for gentlemen, the next generation would see the obliteration of whatever distinction still remained. The solid mass of the middling sort had however no such aspirations, or considered them beyond their reach.

"...This term [the poor] was widely used to designate the great mass of the manual workers. Within their ranks differences of income and of outlook were as varied as those that characterized the middle class. Once again the line of demarcation is hard to draw..."

—Dorothy Marshall, Eighteenth Century England (29-34)

(There's plenty more interesting information in the full chapter, especially regarding "the poor," and the chapter itself is contracted from a lengthier version published earlier.)

[sandwichsapphic]

“an exceedingly pleasant and amiable young gentleman but… mentally he is negligible - quite negligible” is the Jeeves and Wooster equivalent of “she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me”

[shmoo06]

x

[3rdwheelforpolin]

The list of fictional men who are the reason I will never get married because they set the standard too high (in order of when I discovered them):

1. Mr. Darcy

2. Peeta Mellark

3. Jamie Fraser

AAAANNND THE NEWEST TO THE LIST

4. Show!Colin Bridgerton

(I realized that all these men are written by women 😭)

[aimeegbbs]

You’ve befriended the school lesbians.

[beheworthy]

closer and closer

[purpletrashcans]

rereading heartstopper just reminds me of how sad i am that Aled isn't in the show, like i love Isaac don't get me wrong, but i still wish Aled was there as well

[didanagy]

Pride and prejudice (1995)

dir. simon langton

[onefootin1941]

Georgine Darcy "Miss Torso" and James Stewart on the set of "Rear Window" - 1954

[divaatrait]

Why does it look she realized she's in a simulation? 😭😭

Side note: her face card is unbeatable!