You have to judge carefully here. As with principles, you’re going to be a much better judge of temper if you’ve got a good one yourself—though for a different reason. We’re all in competition with the people close to us for the same emotional space. For those of us who don’t have very good tempers ourselves,
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it’s all too easy to mistake a failure—on the part of your friends, or your roommate, or your boyfriend—to cater to your own bad temper for a bad temper, if you see what I mean. In fact, expecting other people to kowtow to our psychological comfort all the time is the essence of bad temper as Jane Austen saw it. Her concern that a heroine steer clear of men with bad tempers does not authorize us to expect that the men in our lives will never frustrate or annoy us in any way—much less to hector them on the subject of their insufficient attention to our emotional needs.
Those of us with less than perfect tempers ourselves are hardly in a position to demand a perfect temper in a man. (Though, as Jane Austen points out, “nobody minds having what is too good for him.”) But we can learn from Jane Austen to understand the value of the kind of self-command that allows us to live in harmony with someone we love, and to be honest with ourselves about the disadvantages, for our happiness, of loving a man with an “uncertain temper.”
Jane Austen uses “temper” in two different but related senses.
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Sometimes she means the command of ourselves that’s absolutely necessary to other people’s comfort. That’s what we’ve been discussing up to this point. “Temper” in that sense is an open-and-shut proposition, something you get right or wrong. “Uncertain” is simply the wrong kind of temper to have; your self-command should be dependable.
But at other times Jane Austen uses “temper” to mean something less absolute, about which it’s possible to have legitimately different preferences. “Temper” in the second sense is more or less equivalent to what we might call
temperament
; Jane Austen sometimes calls it “disposition.”
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Her heroes and heroines talk about people who have a temper that’s “open,” versus one that’s “reserved.”
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We’ve already seen that Anne found the “clever, cautious” Mr. Elliot hard to trust. But it’s not only villains who have reserved tempers in Jane Austen novels. Think of Edward Ferrars, Edmund Bertram, and Mr. Darcy. Think of Jane Fairfax, whom the discerning Mr. Knightley talks about with enormous respect and admiration.
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He essentially says that Jane is perfect in every way, except one. She lacks “the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife.”
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Beyond Jane Austen’s really non-negotiable, one-size-fits-all skeleton keys—beyond “the sterling good of principle and temper”—there are a whole range of valuable qualities that are still quite useful for evaluating your romantic prospects, even if those qualities don’t give you a 100 percent clear Yes or No about a man. “Temper” in the sense of temperament is one
of those qualities. Honest forthrightness is of real value, and so are prudence and self-control. Thus there’s value in both “open” and “reserved” tempers. Under the right circumstances, most of us could probably get really excited about either kind of temperament. We could be wowed by the manly openness of a Captain Wentworth, or thrilled by the impressive self-command and moral force of an Edmund Bertram.
But individual preferences can play a legitimate role here, in contrast to the realm of principles and temper (in that first, absolute sense).
Nobody
is going to end up happier picking an unprincipled man, or one with a really bad temper. But some of us might possibly be happier with a guy with an “open” or “firm” temper rather than a “reserved” or “yielding” temperament—or vice versa. Noticing what kind of temperament a man has won’t in itself tell you whether to cross him off your list, but it will give you some very useful information about him. It can be a more valuable insight into whether you could be happy with him than the usual data points we gather: his taste in music, the style he dresses in, his politics, the causes he’s passionate about.
Besides “principles” and “temper” in its two different senses, what are the rest of Jane Austen’s criteria for value in human beings? I count “feeling,” “affections,” or “warmth of heart” (a.k.a. “sensibility”), which is related to the question of whether a man is “amiable” or not. There’s also “fancy” (or “imagination”). “Taste” and “talent” play a role in her character evaluations, too. Then there’s the whole constellation of qualities that Jane Austen’s heroes and heroines discuss under the labels “sense,” “understanding,” “information,” “education,” and “judgment.” And finally there are the qualities that she calls “manners” and “address.”
“She Knew His Heart to Be Warm and His Temper Affectionate”
“Feeling,” unlike “principle,” is something you can have either too much or too little of. Emotional intensity pretty obviously fits into Anne Elliot’s rule that all “qualities of the mind” should have their “proportions and limits.”
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Clearly, Marianne Dashwood overdoes sensibility, while Lucy Steele’s cold-hearted scheming demonstrates that it’s also possible to have too
little
feeling. Looking at the question from a woman’s point of view, you
don’t want a man who’s a quivering bundle of emotions—who’s going to expect you to pour all your energy into the unnecessary drama he’s perpetually creating. But you don’t want a cold fish like John Dashwood, either.
When it comes to romantic love, of course we want to know whether a man is acting out of real love or from some colder, more calculating motive.
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But it’s also really important to a lot of women to know whether the guy we’re considering as a possible romantic prospect is capable of passion, or not. This may possibly be less important to some women than to others.
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But judging from the number of us who resort to romance novels to supply what we’re missing in our real-life relationships, it would seem that passion is something a lot of women have a deep desire for.
T
IP JUST FOR JANEITES
In Jane Austen (and in life),
when it comes to human beings,
past performance is an excellent
predictor of future results.
So how do you know if a guy is capable of being a passionate lover? Looking at the question from a man’s perspective for a minute, it’s interesting to see how Henry Crawford—who has an awful lot of experience with women—thinks he can find out the capacity for passion in the woman he’s in love with. He appeals to the warmth and intensity of Fanny’s relationship with her brother as evidence that, however shy and reserved she is with Henry himself, she’s no cold fish: “Her affections were evidently strong. To see her with her brother! What could more delightfully prove that the warmth of her heart was equal to its gentleness?—What could be more enouraging to a man who had her love in view?” Henry reasons that if Fanny truly loves her brother with such warmth and enthusiasm, then she’s not really as prim as she seems to be. If Henry could only persuade her to love him, all that emotional warmth would be at his disposal; he could look forward to a marriage of real passion. And he’s right.
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Once again, Jane Austen’s characters understand something that it’s all too easy for us recovering Romantics to forget: what you get, if your love is successful, is essentially
the other person
, with all her—in our case, with all
his
—inherent capacities or defects. And it’s quite possible to observe those
qualities from the outside, when you’re first getting to know a man. In fact, as we’ll see, you’re actually in a better position to make these observations
before
you’ve really fallen for him.
“Sense” and “Understanding,” “Talent” and “Taste”
Besides valuing a warm heart, Jane Austen also puts a lot of stock in a cool head. Her heroes have “sense,” “understanding,” and “judgment.” “Education” and even general “information” are also qualities she values in men. As are “taste” and “talent.”
But is this really fair? We democratic twenty-first-century Americans can’t help being a little squeamish about an intelligence requirement for love. Are Jane Austen heroines intellectual snobs? Would they unfairly reject a man because of a lack of education that wasn’t his fault? After all, not everybody has the same opportunities for mental development.
Well, Jane Austen’s heroines
can
be snobs—but not when they’re living up to Jane Austen’s standards. Emma is certainly acting the snob when she manipulates Harriet into rejecting Robert Martin on the grounds that no farmer could possibly be good enough to marry her own “intimate friend.”
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In reality, Robert Martin is an intelligent young man who has made the best of every opportunity to improve his mind, as well as his farm; he’s extraordinarily competent at his job, and he has managed to acquire a respectable amount of book-learning as well. He’s no Mr. Knightley, but Mr. Knightley commends his intelligence: “I never hear better sense from anyone than Robert Martin.”
The men Jane Austen suggests
do
deserve contempt for their ignorance are just the
opposite
of Robert Martin. They’re rich fools who’ve managed to preserve their self-satisfied stupidity despite every opportunity for self-improvement afforded them by expensive educations and extensive leisure. The fabulously wealthy Mr. Rushworth, for example, is “an inferior young man, as ignorant in business as in books, with opinions in general unfixed, and without seeming much aware of it himself.” Rushworth can hardly be blamed for not being the sharpest knife in the drawer; what Jane Austen calls “nature” (we might think “DNA” or “heredity”) seems not to have blessed
him with much native intelligence. But if that were his only defect, we could feel compassion for him. Unfortunately, Mr. Rushworth’s vanity, laziness, and selfishness make him a lot dumber than he has to be. In the memorable phrase of Forrest Gump’s mother, “Stupid is as stupid does.” When Rushworth married Maria Bertram, “she had despised him, and loved another—and he had been very much aware that it was so. The indignities of stupidity, and the disappointments of selfish passion, can excite little pity.”
Stupidity isn’t just a low I.Q. If Jane Austen classes someone as lacking in sense, that person is likely guilty of serious mental laziness. An absence of “sense,” “understanding,” “talent,” and even of “information” very often turn out to be the result—as well as the further cause, in a kind of vicious circle—of a narrow, selfish outlook on life. Jane Austen can seem a bit harsh with her ignorant characters. She makes Harriet look really silly for knowing no geography,
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and Lucy Steele contemptible because of her poor grammar.
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We’re ashamed to laugh at this sort of thing, but, once again, Jane Austen is being realistic. People who haven’t bothered to learn about the world beyond what immediately interests and directly benefits them are less interesting and less worthy of our respect than people who have taken that trouble.
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And education really does broaden your mind, as Elinor Dashwood thinks when she mulls over the mismatch between Lucy and Edward Ferrars.
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Edward has spent his early twenties expanding his horizons—growing from an unformed boy into an educated, well-informed man. Meanwhile, Lucy, who’s far from unintelligent,
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has been learning nothing but how to get ahead by “pursuing her own interest in every thought” and “courting the favour” of every wealthy acquaintance who might possibly do anything for her.
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As always, Jane Austen is the ultimate realist. Just as good looks inspire admiration and desire, intelligence naturally earns our respect. A woman can be “too ignorant and giddy for respect.”
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And a man can be too stupid to take seriously. Sir Thomas told himself his daughter Maria could be happy with Rushworth “if she could dispense with seeing her husband a leading, shining character.” That’s a really big
if
. How many women can do without admiring the mind of the man they love? He doesn’t have to be in Mensa; he doesn’t have to display a flashy brilliance. We don’t all want “a clever man, a reading man.”
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A lot of us can respect a man of “simple taste”
and “diffident feelings” like Edward Ferrars. But
not
a guy who seems to us to be stupid. If a man can’t “meet” us “in conversation, rational or playful,” he won’t seem like a real match. A “disparity, too great a disparity, and in a point no less essential than mind” is going to be a deal-breaker for a lot of women. Or worse, a deal spoiler, after the deal is done.
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Jane Austen’s characters also take note of the different styles of “manners,” “air,” or “address” with which men habitually meet the world.
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And she shows us a range of men with very different ways of relating specifically to women, ranging from the plain, blunt Mr. Knightley, whose “manners had in general so little gallantry,” to the insinuating Henry Crawford, whose habitual address tends “to make girls a little in love with him.” Jane Austen heroines think a man has good manners when he can converse “pleasantly,” with “readiness and ease.” A man of truly good breeding doesn’t make the other person do all the work. But he doesn’t monopolize everyone’s attention, either.
Mr. Darcy, Edward Ferrars, and (you could argue) Edmund Bertram deviate from this golden mean in one direction.
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And Mr. Palmer, with his deliberately rude “inattention” to other people, goes even farther off course. Robert Ferrars and John Thorpe fall off the horse on the other side. They’re two different examples of men whose vanity is large enough to suck all the oxygen out of any room they’re in.
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Good
manners in a man range from gentle to blunt, but they’re inevitably marked by “sense, sincerity, and good-humour.” Apart from the extremes, we’ve all got our own mental picture of the ideal “air” and “address” in a man. Jane Austen tells us at the end of
Northanger Abbey
, when she has occasion to mention that Eleanor Tilney married “the most charming man in the world,” that “any further definition of his merits must be unnecessary; the most charming young man in the world is instantly before the imagination of us all.” Of course our imaginations won’t all coincide. But whatever you’re picturing in your dreams—and however the manners of the men you meet either measure up to those dreams, or fail to—it’s worth thinking about the question in Jane Austen’s
terms. Which means first noticing that every man approaches social situations with a certain “address,” and then analyzing what elements his “manner” consists of. How much attention does he pay other people? What kind of attention? How much vanity and affectation are there in the way he relates to people, and especially to women? How much sincerity?