Tumblr crosspost (9 January 2021)

[anghraine]

tree responded to this post:

i can’t remember the wording, but someone (mrs gardiner?) even comments on the significance of such a recommendation of his character by an intelligent servant.

I replied:

It’s in the narration, but yes!

The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs Reynolds was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people’s happiness were in his guardianship!—how much of pleasure or pain was it in his power to bestow!—how much of good or evil must be done by him!f

The text is emphatic that the judgment of Mrs Reynolds and those in roughly similar positions to her is immensely important as an indicator of Darcy’s (or anyone’s) true character. I think people do tend to treat it as "trifling," unfortunately—nice, but not terribly weighty, despite Austen underscoring its importance here and Elizabeth suddenly grasping that Darcy’s character is best understood by those who are directly subject to his power.

I actually find that moment super interesting in general, because I think the implication is that Elizabeth had not before understood this. It’s not that she never thought about it before because she didn’t have access to the people under Darcy’s power, IMO, but because she wasn’t thinking of his power in those terms. So it’s doing interesting work with Elizabeth’s characterization, too, but still gets relegated to an afterthought. :\