“Will you tell me how long you have loved him?”
“It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”
Elizabeth confesses her feelings for Mr Darcy to Jane, her sister (Pride & Prejudice, Chapter. 59)
Today is a special day. It marks 250 years since the birth of the English novelist Jane Austen. Jane Austen’s novels are a rite of passage. They shape cultural ideals for love and allow us to conjure up grand imaginations of what life could be. But Jane had eyes and lived in a time very much like ours where money did (and still does) talk.
If you think it’s just about the size of his pockets, you’d be missing the point. Mr Darcy has wonderful qualities that made us fall in love with him too. But referring to the money, it’s not how much he has, but what he does with it that captures her heart.
Pemberley: Being above The Status Game
“The eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste.”
Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 43
The 2005 film adaptation is better (or at least closer to what Jane had in mind). The 2005 film adaptation portrays Chatsworth House as Pemberley, in line with the long-held suspicion that Jane was thinking about Chatsworth House when describing Pemberley in the book. Her visit to the house aligns with the publish date and characters in the novel have similar names to members of the Devonshire family who Chatsworth belonged to.
Passing by her house in Winchester earlier this year, I can see why the outdoors had such an impact on her personally. Just down the street we caught glimpses of two deer, and geese enjoying the sunshine. In a world of grand interiors, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Nature’s design is easy and unimposing—a world where rank matters very little.
Owning Your Budget & Narrative
With that, it’s clear that the appeal of Pemberley is its humility. When venturing into flashy noble homes, I often feel a sense of overwhelm. I once visited Pitti Palace in Florence and Napoleon’s gild-it-all approach gave me a headache. He’d displayed so much gold framed art in the rooms that people were walking past a Botticelli painting as they passed into the next room, completely unaware that they were seeing art from the same man who created The Birth of Venus and Primavera. The design lesson? When you want people to see everything, people see nothing.
This book shows us that the aesthetic isn’t purely superficial. Whether we like it or not, the design we surround ourselves with signals something about us. It vindicated Mr Darcy. For us, it’s something we can use to shape the way we’re perceived. We should all style our homes with this in mind, with or without a Pemberley budget.
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