“The Dying Christian to His Soul” by Alexander Pope
VITAL spark of heav'nly flame! Quit, O quit this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, O the pain, the bliss of dying! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life.
Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister Spirit, come away! What is this absorbs me quite? Steals my senses, shuts my sight, Drowns my spirits, draws my breath? Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The world recedes; it disappears! Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears With sounds seraphic ring! Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O Grave! where is thy victory? O Death! where is thy sting?
In Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, the passionate Romantic Marianne does not seem to care much for the 18th-century poet Alexander Pope: her sister teases her, “You have already ascertained Mr. Willoughby’s opinion in almost every matter of importance. You know what he thinks of Cowper [a popular poet] and Scott [a popular novelist]; you are certain of his estimating their beauties as he ought, and you have received every assurance of his admiring Pope no more than is proper.”
Pope was a satirist of the Augustan era of literature (ending in the 1740s). The Augustans valued “common sense, moderation, [and] reason over emotion” (source), as well as empiricism. Romanticism (beginning in about 1798 for Britain) was all about intense emotions, the idealization of nature, and suspicion of science and industrialization. While the Augustans and the Romantics could agree on some things, the Romantics rejected the Augustans’ insistence on moderation and reason, just as Austen’s Marianne rejects Elinor’s cold common sense.
However, this poem is anything BUT cold and measured. It’s intense, an epiphany, an inspiration. The speaker is LITERALLY “carried away” by his experience of the ecstasy of death. It’s a socially acceptable ecstasy, clothed in a religious theme, but it’s ecstatic nonetheless. Even Marianne Dashwood could enjoy this particular poem by Pope.
An answer to an AskHistorians question about first names in Jane Austen! From the question text: At home, Elizabeth is called ‘Lizzie’ by her family. Her friends and acquaintances (same gender) sometimes call her Miss Elizabeth Bennett, sometimes Miss Eliza Bennett, and in Charlotte’s case, just plain Eliza. Mr Darcy never calls her Elizabeth until he proposes the second time (Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth). I figured that was to do with permissible familiarity. But Elizabeth’s parents never refer to each other by first name. Is that because they’re in the presence of their children, or is it an indication of the (lack of) warmth in their relationship? That’s without even getting into 'Emma’, and the affront around Knightley and Mr E.
I just want to make a bit of a correction - Elizabeth’s family calls her “Lizzy”, and “Eliza”/“Miss Eliza Bennet” are used specifically by the Lucas family, and Caroline Bingley. Mr Darcy’s second proposal, in the original text, is simply:
You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.
First names were highly familiar, and not to be used lightly. To use someone else’s first name was to show that you were extremely close - which didn’t necessarily mean there was a long acquaintance. By the second chapter of Isabella Thorpe’s appearance in Northanger Abbey,
… they passed so rapidly through every gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly no fresh proof of it to be given to their friends or themselves. They called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned up each other’s train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of dirt and wet, and shut themselves up, to read novels together.
On the other hand, in Pride and Prejudice the Lucases are the Bennets’ closest and long-time associates in the immediate neighborhood, so it makes sense that the families are on close enough footing for the Lucases as a whole to refer to the Bennet daughters by their first names.
However, it was certainly possible to be over-familiar - and many travelogues by English people who’d gone abroad contain a shocked description of how people in America, Spain, Germany, etc. jump so quickly to a first name basis. From this perspective, Caroline Bingley’s use of “Eliza” can be seen as having been likely intended to be presumptuous, highlighting the unpleasantness of her character: she is neither a long acquaintance like Charlotte and Maria Lucas, nor is she abruptly becoming Elizabeth’s best friend.
The rules were slightly different for men. While family members would use their first names (as the Dashwood sisters do for their brother-in-law Edward Ferrars), the “friendship name”, generally just used between two men, was instead the last name - as in Emma, with Mrs. Elton calling Mr Knightley just “Knightley”. Just like Caroline Bingley, she is written as doing this so we can see her presumption - although while Caroline’s presumption is condescending (“see, I can be over-familiar and you can’t do anything about it”), Mrs. Elton is, on the contrary, trying to put herself up on Mr Knightley’s level and show everyone else that she’s on such terms with the preeminent landowner of the area.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet” is a special case. In a family with multiple sons or daughters, the first would be “Miss Bennet” or “Mr Bennet”, and the younger ones would be “Miss Elizabeth Bennet” or “Mr Charles Bennet”. In direct address, however, a simple “Miss Bennet” or “Mr Bennet” would still be appropriate for a younger daughter or son. The main point of all of this was just for the purpose of clarity - if Jane were to have gotten married early on in the book, for instance, there would have been no need for anyone to refer to Elizabeth’s first name in this kind of title, as she would obviously be the “Miss Bennet”.
As far as married couples go, both first names and Mr/Mrs seem to have been somewhat normalized - neither was actually notable or strange in the period, but yes, would reflect the level of formality/intimacy between the couple, as well as where they are. In Sense and Sensibility, John Dashwood calls his wife “Fanny”, and in Persuasion, Mary calls her husband “Charles”; but as you noted, the Bennets call each other Mr/Mrs, and so do the Palmers in Sense and Sensibility. However, we only really see first-naming between husbands and wives in fairly private settings - in a domestic group, or just between each other. In public, it was not seen as appropriate to be too informal. As a result, the general public wouldn’t know if a couple were not on the closest footing because they would never have been witness to a married couple using their first names.
Transgressions would likely not be punished in a real sense, but would result in negative consequences of the “two red minus signs above the sim’s head” sense. When Caroline calls Elizabeth “Eliza”, it makes Elizabeth dislike her. When Mrs. Elton calls Mr Knightley “Knightley”, she makes the people around her think less of her.
You’ll find more of this kind of Regency etiquette nitpickery in Dandies & Dandyzettes!
Marianne entered the house with an heart swelling with emotion from the consciousness of being only eighty miles from Barton, and not thirty from Combe Magna; … She quitted it again, stealing away through the winding shrubberies, now just beginning to be in beauty, to gain a distant eminence; where, from its Grecian temple, her eye, wandering over a wide tract of country to the south-east, could fondly rest on the farthest ridge of hills in the horizon, and fancy that from their summits Combe Magna might be seen.
In such moments of precious, of invaluable misery, she rejoiced in tears of agony to be at Cleveland; and as she returned by a different circuit to the house, feeling all the happy privilege of country liberty, of wandering from place to place in free and luxurious solitude, she resolved to spend almost every hour of every day while she remained with the Palmers, in the indulgence of such solitary rambles.
Just got a test print through for this Jane Austen one.
It’s a good reminder just how good Giclee printing looks on quality paper it kind of halves my profit to use all the most expensive options and an ethical print shop but it does look lovely.
’“Esteem him?” “Like him?” Use those insipid words again and I shall leave the room this instant.’
“But I thought it was right, Elinor,” said Marianne, “to be guided wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were given us merely to be subservient to those of neighbours. This has always been your doctrine, I am sure.”
“No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess, of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their sentiments or to conform to their judgment in serious matters?”
