On this day in 1813, England’s most beloved novel was published. Pride and Prejudice has become the quintessential tale of a supremely suitable marriage joined to dazzling wealth, but it also remains, 212 years later, a relevant blueprint for social virtues and moral self-examination.
“Vanity and pride are different things,” says Mary Bennet, “though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” This distinction—an exalted opinion of oneself as opposed to relying on the opinion of others—happens to have a good etymological basis. The Latin word vanum means “empty,” “void,” “untrustworthy”—like a nut that is all shell and no meat, or an army that looks good but disperses in battle, or an opinion without any substance behind it. Prud in Old English, meanwhile, has connotations of bravery and excellence.
Pride and Prejudice contains much meditation on both qualities. Mr. Darcy is confident of his inner superiority to the point of being haughty and disdainful. Miss Bingley is vain, certain that her exterior qualities—looks, elegance, manners, and money—put her above others. Pride, with its inner orientation to worth, can be taught the worth of others: Mr. Darcy can be redeemed. But vanity is empty. The novel ends without any redemption for Miss Bingley.
Austen’s is a world of moral education: Our manners—and with them our character—can be improved, deepened, and refined. This is the kind of education that I, as a parent, take most seriously. In particular, I find myself thinking about my children’s pride and my children’s vanity. I believe—especially when it comes to a prospect of marriage—that they should have a certain amount of pride and learn to reserve themselves for someone worthy. Vanity I wish entirely to defeat, especially in this age of social media. In its worst forms, social media is the technology of vanity, an electronic global network dedicated to “what we would have others think of us.” It separates the kernel from the husk and prizes the husk.
Its negative effects have now become obvious. TikTok’s own research notes that, for teenagers, “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.” Everything Jane Austen would have us cultivate—systematically undermined by corporate greed and a generation of parents too supine to respond.
My kids ask me when they can get phones, and the answer I give them is, of course, “When I’m dead.” But it is not enough to keep them away from smartphones. Every day we work to build a culture of inner worth, an independence from the opinions of others.
Austen herself noted that reading has a role to play: While reviewing the usual requirements of an education—knowledge of music, art, foreign languages, personal elegance, and so forth—Mr. Darcy adds, “And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.” Reading cultivates interiority, while developing in us a sensitivity to the emotions of others. It is no surprise that Austen depicts her characters reading books and building libraries: Reading is one of the foundations of her culture. “I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these,” says Mr. Darcy.
We do more than read, though. This past weekend our bookshop organized its first ever Pride and Prejudice Ball, where more than 150 members of our community, including many children and teenagers, learned English country dances and met and mingled. Excellent music, fine manners, extending one’s circle of acquaintance, exercise, the sense of beauty in order, elegance in dress and food—so many fine things converge in a ball. We intend it to be annual, but it was so successful we may need to do it more often than that. Before the ball, we invited Julia Yost, author of Jane Austen’s Darkness, to discuss Austen’s work, modeling the kind of sensitive engagement with literature that extensive reading can deliver.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the event was that people were not on their phones, not even to take pictures of their lovely costumes. They were fully present, learning dance steps, remembering new names, checking their dance cards. And they were having fun. Everyone wanted to do it again. There are plenty of obstacles to overcome: To make it affordable (we charged $15 per person and $35 for families) we relied on too much volunteer labor, and volunteer labor tends to burn out. But we know this is the kind of culture we wish to raise our children in. We can feel its power. It’s strong enough to drive young people off their phones, to make them look each other in the eye, to make the selfies stop, even on a night when everyone looked particularly pretty.
This year marks 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth in 1775. There will be events celebrating her all over the world. It is a fine time to reacquaint ourselves with her virtues—analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, self-sufficiency, and so forth, all the attainments social media use depresses. Today’s enduring interest in Jane Austen signifies more than just wanting to wear pretty dresses in grand houses: It indicates a hunger for the kind of nourishment that can restore our sick and lonely society to health.
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