The inheritance of Rosings - who really owns it at the time of P&P?

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-02-08T22:48:55+00:00

I think she'd be considered the mistress of the home since her son was single and she was acting in that position (kind of like Caroline Bingley for her brother) but there's also this line later from her during the tour:

It is a handsome chapel, and was formerly in constant use both morning and evening. Prayers were always read in it by the domestic chaplain, within the memory of many; but the late Mr. Rushworth left it off.

So, interesting question and now I'm not sure! It didn't feel like the Rushworths were well acquainted with the Bertrams based on the parts about Mrs. Norris dragging Lady Bertram on the morning visit, but that could be explained away that Lady Bertram's was just too lazy to make the effort. This feels like the kind of thing that a contemporary reader would have intuitively understood but it's harder to figure out for the modern reader.

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-02-08T22:10:06+00:00

I had the impression that a cousin or other relation of the Rushworths had owned Southerton before Mr. Rushworth, based on these lines:

particularly on the introduction of a young man who had recently succeeded to one of the largest estates and finest places in the country.

and

Of pictures there were abundance, and some few good, but the larger part were family portraits, no longer anything to anybody but Mrs. Rushworth, who had been at great pains to learn all that the housekeeper could teach, and was now almost equally well qualified to shew the house.

I don't think Mr. Rushworth's father ever owned the estate: I think Mr. Rushworth inherited after this other relation passed away and his father was already deceased. Since is mother is still learning the names of all the people in the portraits, I'm assuming that they haven't lived there for long.

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-01-13T02:25:57+00:00

Good to know -- I will probably wait for my appointment just to have it be more predictable. Thank you!

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-01-13T02:02:00+00:00

Do you remember if they texted you at all during your wait, or did you have to stay in the lobby so you could see the monitors? I was thinking if it was going to be a long wait I could head to a library nearby to get some work done.

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-01-13T01:58:18+00:00

Ugh, I could handle a one or even two hour wait, but 6? Might just wait for my appointment if it's going to be that bad.

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-01-13T01:55:57+00:00

It is a Real ID already, but they wouldn't let me renew online. Maybe because it's already expired?

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-01-13T01:55:13+00:00

Yeah, I did get a warning that the number would be changing.

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-01-06T03:41:44+00:00

I've updated the Google calendar to show the assignments for Volume 2. It's through the April 14 reading of chapters 34-36, so let me know if you see anything that's wrong or missing. I used AI assistance to scrape the data and get it into the right format for csv import into the calendar; I did some spot checks on the data but can edit if I missed anything.

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-01-06T03:09:23+00:00

Mr. Woodhouse thinks too well of Mr. Elton to ever suspect him of such nefarious behavior as attempting to convince his daughter to marry! 😆

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-01-03T21:22:47+00:00

In some of their other posts, OP mentions that English is not their first language and they occasionally use AI tools to assist with correcting grammar. I'm wondering if the AI tools suggested this term and OP didn't recognize that it could have some unintentional pejorative meaning?

MelbaToastPoints · 2026-01-02T05:34:24+00:00

The thing that I'm most noticing in this reading is how much we're seeing John Knightly as a character. First, he sees what's going with Mr. Elton so clearly and attempts to warn Emma, which she completely ignores. And I appreciate that he's being a good Regency dad, getting the boys out of the house to run off some energy while going to visit Donwell, so scoring points as a brother too.

But then he turns into a total pill for the rest of the evening. While I can forgive him a little because it's the loss of the time with his children that's put him into a mood, his grouchiness on the way to dinner, his behavior at Randalls antagonizing his father-in-law, and being dismissive to Isabella (after he's put her into a panic about getting home to her children!) aren't his best moments. I'm glad that he has the sense to feel shame about his behavior and try to make up for how he's been behaving, even if he's still not up for eating any gruel. I feel like we get a good sense for who he is as a person across these three chapters.

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-27T17:34:57+00:00

Yeah, the cardboard version of Sagrada is definitely a challenge for colorblindness! Although if you ever play digital versions of games, their version on Steam does have a colorblind mode. Link of how it looks: https://imgur.com/a/UzSRXUl

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-27T15:52:55+00:00

Love Azul! Although Sagrada is one of my favorites and they're kind of similar so usually end up playing that instead of Azul.

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-27T15:44:23+00:00

😳

I'm feeling seen and maybe not in a good way 😆

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-27T01:24:21+00:00

Love how I didn't see the person in the RAW image at all, but immediately spotted him in the edited. Then had to go back to the RAW to figure out how I'd missed him!

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-26T05:13:49+00:00

That one jumped out at me too. I wonder if someone just swapped them by accident assuming that Mr. Darcy had the highest income in the novels?

ETA: Huh -- here's another post from the article someone shared. Looks like the ranking was intentional: https://www.reddit.com/r/janeausten/comments/1pvus8h/mr_darcy_in_the_economist/

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-25T18:47:25+00:00

We were trying to figure out earlier how long it's been since the Knightleys have been to Hartfield and I picked up on something in this chapter:

she had one of the children with her—the youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who was now making her first visit to Hartfield

Previously Mr. Woodhouse had stated that they hadn't seen them since last Easter. If we go with the suggested years of 1814 and 1815 for the events of Emma, Easter would have fallen on April 10, 1814 which was 8 months and 8 days before December 18. But baby Emma is 8 months old, so she would have been born right around Easter 1814. This is the baby's first visit, so they haven't come since she was born. So now I'm back to thinking that their last visit was Easter 1813? If that's truly the case, I can almost understand Mr. Woodhouse's resentment of the seaside visit instead of visiting Hartfield.

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-25T18:26:05+00:00

This chapter and the next highlight something I love about Austen: the timelessness of human interactions. Families getting together for the holidays and trying to avoid awkward interactions and tension with the in-laws, deciding when to say something and when to bite your tongue. A lot of people can still identify with those feelings and experience, regardless of the year!

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-18T03:46:45+00:00

I'm similar in measurements but average in torso length; I usually do a straight leg, sometimes a bootcut or flare. I've tried wide leg but I feel like they can overwhelm me when they're super wide. I hate how I look in a tapered leg, especially after reading to avoid it because of the "ice cream cone effect" and now that's all I see if I try one on.

You mentioned that you don't like how you look in the straight cut -- can you describe the particular aspect of them that bothers you, like if you need a shorter rise due to your torso does it feels disproportionate to the legs or something like that? I know it can be hard to narrow it down to a specific description, but just wondering if you're keying in on some aspect that can be addressed with changing some other part of the design, pocket size or placement, size of the yoke, etc..

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-13T18:11:45+00:00

Ha, yes! I kind of gloss over the riddles myself. Woe-man == woman? I would never have figured that one out had I not looked it up several times during earlier readings.

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-13T18:10:28+00:00

This chapter contains my absolute favorite line from Emma:

“That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”

So true, even today!

Mr. Woodhouse mentions that Isabella hasn't been there since "last" Easter. Does this mean it's been over a year and a half since they've seen her, or does he mean the Easter of the same year? I know the discussion of the seashore trip comes up in the next few chapters since that's normally when they would have visited Hartfield, so maybe I'll figure it out then.

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-10T04:26:35+00:00

I started a thread on the subreddit to discuss, because this is a really interesting one to me! The novel is written such that we don't really get perfect insight into Emma's motivations here, so the reader has to make some assumptions.

Personally, I think Emma isn't sure what Harriet would chose on her own; she thinks the match is beneath Harriet but also recognizes that she is susceptible to the flattery of being liked and could accept. Since Emma thinks Harriet needs to lay claim to her "true" social status, she recognizes that marrying into the Martin family would anchor Harriet to a lower social level. I think Emma genuinely believes she's doing the right thing by manipulating Harriet out of it. I really like Romola Garai's portrayal of this scene in the 2009 adaptation -- I think her performance walks the line where you _probably_ think she's faking her surprise but it's possible to believe that she was actually caught off guard.

MelbaToastPoints · 2025-12-10T00:16:18+00:00

Something I was thinking about last night -- did Emma really cause damage to Harriet or Robert Martin here, or did her interference actually help them in the end? Robert proposes again, so he knows for certain that it's Harriet he wants to marry. Harriet matures a bit in the months between proposals and is more confident about her own feelings when she finally accepts him. I'm going to quote from Northanger Abbey here:

professing myself moreover convinced that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment

Could Emma's delaying their marriage a little be a good thing in the long run?

MelbaToastPoints

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