That day I almost cut off all ties with the one and only brother; the reason being — he failed to get that currency note, that £10 bill, the one that had Jane Austen on it! He blurted out: “So many people queued up in the bank for that note, just to auction the bill on eBay, later on. This is sheer madness! I really don’t have the time for these idiosyncrasies of yours!” I disconnected, miffed thoroughly by the insensitivity meted out towards an Austen fan! Somebody had just pricked the Austenian pride with his prejudice towards the likes of me!
Well, as an Austen fan I had always taken up cudgels against them who never understood how anybody could love the conceited Mr Darcy or fall for the “silly” Emma! We, a group of ladies, had stitched together an Austen Club, a kind of book club that discussed Austen and her writings over tea, hot scones and muffins! The club was a blessing as it swept us away to another world, from the din and bustle of chaotic domesticity to maybe Pemberley (Mr Darcy’s estate) or Austen’s picturesque town of Bath.
We got together to celebrate the release of the currency bill, to commemorate the bicentenary of her death. However, this joy was tempered by our irritation over the quotation chosen for the note: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”
If you aren’t intimately acquainted with Pride and Prejudice, that might seem a perfect quotation to honour an author. But we the Austen connoisseurs cringed because we abhorred the source: The shallow Caroline Bingley trying to impress Mr Darcy. She had no real interest in books. Austen is being honoured with an insincere statement by a character who doesn’t read! Our group hated such giddy-headed dames, dripping with frivolous ideas!
If you Google, “Jane Austen quotes”, this quotation sprouts, often without reference to the particular book or speaker so I suspect that’s how it ended up on the note. The Bank of England governor suggested that it was a “nod to Austen’s characteristic irony”.
Our next exercise during our ‘Austen Girls’ Meet’ was to come up with a suitable Austenian quotation about ‘books and reading’. It was then that we began a frenzied search for an ideal quote for the note.
Mr Bennet of Pride and Prejudice “was regardless of time” when reading, and his daughter Mary “should infinitely prefer a book” to giddy companionship. But neither of the Bennets was a role model deserving to be featured on the note. Then we focused on the impeccably behaved Anne Elliot of Persuasion, who was sincerely interested in reading. She recommends to Captain Benwick, who has been reading poetry as he grieves his late fiancee that “a larger allowance of prose in his daily study might render him less emotional”. Not a pithy phrase, we concluded.
The passionate Marianne Dashwood of Sense and Sensibility says that the “beautiful lines” of the poet William Cowper have “frequently almost driven me wild”. Why celebrate poetry on a bank note honouring a novelist?
An Austen quote that frequently appears on tote bags, coffee mugs, and other commercial items is “ ... if a book is well written, I always find it too short”. It’s from her juvenilia, but not her well-known novels. In Emma, Mr Knightley bemoans the fact that Emma draws up very good reading lists, but doesn’t have the “industry and patience” to read the books. What could we do with that? “Don’t be like Emma”?
In Mansfield Park, Edmund guides Fanny’s reading. He “recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours ... made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise”. Too long, and you’d have to identify Fanny and Edmund.
In Northanger Abbey, hero Henry Tilney says: “The person, gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” This wouldn’t resonate with anti-intellectuals.
Later in Northanger Abbey, however, Tilney hits the mark, praising novels at a time when they were still not widely accepted as real literature: “It is only a novel ... only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed ...”. Too bad those words wouldn’t fit on the bank note.
But what might have gone on that note? Something to do with money and wealth?
“Everything is to be got with money.” — From Mansfield Park? Too crass, as is the character who speaks it, Mary Crawford. “Money can only give happiness when there is nothing else to give it,” from Sense and Sensibility (Marianne Dashwood again)? Might make people think twice about spending, and that’s not the goal.
Was a quote really needed? We pondered. The presence of Austen on it was more than enough to reinforce the love of reading ... and thus continued the meet of the Austen Girls, mulling over the ‘cents’ and sensibility of it all!
Navanita Varadpande is a writer based in Dubai.
