Jane Austen and the Art of Conversation

Fiction is a vehicle for virtue

Landscape with wooded hill, perhaps Box Hill, William Turner

If manners maketh the man, conversation marks the gentleman. Manners have a moral dimension, not simply a social one, and this is particularly evident in Jane Austen. Reading her, particularly Emma, I’m always reminded of how central dialogue is to her plots and characters, revealing someone’s inner and outer life. One may be kind but lacking in conversation, or charming in light conversation but rotten to the core. The true gentleman, rare in Austen’s novels, is both adept at conversation and well-meaning in his intentions.

Conversation in the Regency Era distinguished one’s education and background. Good manners included the knowledge to converse across a range of topics (business, politics, art, etc.), involving everyone in a group conversation, avoiding crude language, complimenting indirectly, enquiring tactfully about personal affairs, deploying irony or double entendre, and countless other subtle graces.

If refined conversation was once marked by subtlety and convention, conversation today often lacks ritual or structure. It is usually a means to an end rather than an inherent good to enjoy. But the more pressing issue is how little we even practice the conversational muscle.

Dinner parties where these skills can be honed are a luxury good, while people increasingly live alone, work from home, avoid settling in one place, shop online, struggle with close friendships, marry late, have smaller families, and do everything possible to remove the fundamental inconvenience of other people. The only place I still see conversation demonstrated well is podcasting, but Joe Rogan is primarily a conversation for the boys.

Similarly, men in Jane Austen’s novels would talk business and politics with each other; an enduring social norm. But given the books are written from the female perspective it is a whole realm of conversation with which Austen’s female protagonists rarely engage. In Emma, the Knightley brothers would frequently discuss “some point of law…some curious anecdote…; and as a farmer…what every field was to bear next year…The plan of a drain, the change of a fence, the felling of a tree, and the destination of every acre for wheat, turnips, or spring corn.” Clearly, conversations with the boys have not changed much in 200 years.

However, Austen’s tongue in cheek list of mundane male talking points only accentuates the gulf between men’s esoteric discussions and the art of public conversation. The otherwise laconic John Knightley springs into life when engaged in conversation by his charming older brother, George, which demonstrates how adept a conversationalist Mr George Knightley is. John Knightley, quiet, serious and direct, is less of a gentleman for his artlessness. When men are together there is no shame discussing the minutiae, but different rules apply for wider life.

Austen uses conversation as the primary vehicle to exhibit Mr George Knightley’s virtue. More than his wealth or status, his thoughtfulness for others stands out. Despite being the busy estate landowner, he enquires after Mr Woodhouse’s - Emma’s hypochondriac father’s - health each time he visits, then talks about the estate, local affairs, and whatever else Mr Woodhouse the elderly widower desires. He eventually [spoiler] wins over Emma through his consistent manners and companionship. Emma in a moment of shock realises “that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!”

Mr Knightley models conversation with everyone in the social hierarchy, and here again he has much to teach us. He is patient with the loquacious Miss Bates to a fault, conscious that “she is poor; she has sunk from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must probably sink more.” He concludes to Emma that “her situation should secure your compassion.” Mr Knightley still acknowledges her to be a serial yapper, equal parts comical and vexing for it, but he takes it in his stride as a true gentleman.

In the infamous Box Hill scene we see the dangers of artless words deployed in public conversation. If enduring a chatterbox seems difficult, it is far worse to use one’s own words to cut them down. In direct contrast to Knightley, Emma has a sharp and untamed tongue which she uses to humiliate Miss Bates.

Emma and a wider group are on a walk playing a game of words. Each walker is asked for “one thing very clever…two things moderately clever–or three things very dull indeed”. The ever-attentive, self-deprecating Miss Bates laughs and says “That will just do for me…I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan’t I…Do you not all think I shall?”

Emma, not content with Miss Bates’s own humbling, adds “Ah! Ma’am but there may be one difficulty. Pardon me–but you will be limited as to number–only three at once.” To add insult to injury, Miss Bates is “deceived by the mock ceremony” of Emma’s words, before she eventually cottons on to the jibe. And though “it could not anger her, a slight blush showed that it could pain her.”

The whole of Emma hinges on this scene and the subsequent reprimand Knightley gives Emma, where he calls her out for “laughing at her, humbling her...in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment…and before others”, too.

Emma’s retort was witty and concise – in that sense she is demonstrating adept conversation – but when at the expense of others it is never permissible. Austen is critiquing the worst excesses of conversational repartee, suggesting wit is not the final measure of good conversation. In this Austen is a public theologian with a clear idea of Christian virtue.

This moment is Emma’s great awakening, her own humbling moment, where she realises she is not as kind or wise as she once thought. Her inner life is revealed in her public words, her worst traits are exposed to the world and to herself. In public conversation both speaker and spoken-to are exposed, hence for Emma:

“Never had she felt so agitated, mortified, grieved. As she reflected more, she seemed but to feel it more. She never had been so depressed…Emma felt the tears running down her cheeks almost all the way home.”

Words in public conversation matter because through them we honour or demean someone’s dignity. As Knightley points out, Emma’s sin lay in speaking so publicly when “many of whom present (certainly some,) would be entirely guided by [her] treatment of Miss Bates”. In conversation people are constantly altered by our speech or by our silence.

This is evident also in the preceding conversation, when the brash words of one man lead to Emma’s own folly. Her coup de grace is initially spurred on by Frank Churchill’s artless confidence, when he playfully entertains Emma in a fit of boredom on the Box Hill walk:

He leans in and comments “our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They shall talk. Ladies and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is, presides) to say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking of?”

Frank is witty and fun, even more so when Emma is around, but Austen shows the painful consequences of when we speak to impress. The art of conversation includes an awareness of everyone present, and it works for all, not just for a few.

Throughout Emma, Frank’s playful words consistently create confusion and heartbreak, despite being done with the best of intentions. Austen’s lesson is not that one must be as stiff as a piece of wood in conversation. Henry Tilney, the likeable protagonist in Northanger Abbey, is similarly playful but much more thoughtful with his words. It is a call to look past the charm or wit and see the real substance of a person. Wickham and Willoughby are Austen’s archetypal cads, charming, handsome and chatty gentlemen without the character to match; they are a warning of judging only the outward appearance.

Like the wisdom literature in Scripture, Jane Austen’s novels are full of people living wisely or foolishly. Public conversation is central to this distinction. A good conversationalist aligns inner motives with outward skill to make wise choices. It means, as with Mr Knightley, looking out for others and giving everyone the time of day, no matter their station. It means embracing education and wider culture to speak confidently on many subjects, but never at the expense of our broader moral formation. Emma has powerful examples of conversation at its best and worst, but Austen’s books in general are full of lessons in the art of conversation. For a trustworthy guide to the virtuous and chivalrous life, they are an excellent place to start.