Sense and Sensibility, Volume the Second, Chapters Ten and Eleven

In which everyone is outraged about Willoughby, the Misses Steele return and continue basically unpleasant, and John Dashwood returns, convinced that everyone should bestow money upon his sisters, other than himself of course.



After the sadly illustrationless last installment  — SPUNGING HOUSE OR NOTHING — we've got rather an embarrassment of riches this time around with four (two of which illustrate something someone was talking about, but which wasn't actually seen in the text itself, but I suppose you can only illustrate people talking to each other in a parlor so many times).

6:56 - Offered him one of Folly's puppies.

Here, Sir John was bemoaning how he had been taken in by Willoughby to the point of offering him one of his dog's puppies, little knowing that Willoughby was the real father.

12:17 - A very smart beau.

And here of course we see the Misses Steele (Miss Steeles?) and the "smart beau" that brought them into town. Right now, he's trying not to look at Lucy's muff.

19:29 - Introduction to Mrs. Jennings.

And this illustration is followed oddly closely by the next one, as they refer to events only separated by a sentence or two. I guess Mr. John Dashwood paying respects to Mrs. Jennings is so stirring we needed to see it twice in quick succession?

19:47 - Mrs. Jennings assured him directly that she should not stand upon ceremony.

And then of course there are a couple of notes: at 18:01, Mr. Dashwood states that he took his son to see the beasts at the Exeter Exchange, a building on the north side of the Strand in London where there was a menagerie from 1773-1829.

More importantly, around 16:43 we heard the absolutely delightful term "puppyism." According to Merriam-Webster, who apparently didn't dig too deeply in researching this definition, it means only "the quality or state of being a puppy," which... seems like a term that might not be needed very often? More to the point, though, is The Free Dictionary, offering the definition as "extreme meanness, affectation, conceit, or impudence," which seems to more accurately describe our toothpick-case nit-picker. They even quote this very passage as an example! Along with a separate passage from Emma. I guess Austen liked this word. I do have to wonder, though, what in the world the etymology is here. I mean, is it really supposed to compare the person to a puppy? Were... were puppies in 1811 viewed as being mean, affected, conceited, and impudent? Is this why Sir John was giving away Folly's puppies? OH GOD IT ALL MAKES SENSE.


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg, and high-res copies of the Thompson illustrations can be found in the British Library's Flickr stream. No reading ahead, though!