Jane Austen Bedtime Stories
Friday Favorites: Emma - Mr. Elton's Proposal: The Aftermath
08 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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The hair was curled and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think and be miserable. It was a wretched business indeed. Such an overthrow of everything she had been wishing for. Such a development of everything most unwelcome. Such a blow for Harriet. That was the worst of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation of some sort or other.
But compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light, and she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken, more in error, more disgraced by misjudgment than she actually was, could the effects of her blunders have been confined to herself. If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have borne anything. He might have doubled his presumption to me, but poor Harriet.
How she could have been so deceived. He protested that he had never thought seriously of Harriet. Never. Never. She looked back as well as she could, but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed, and made everything bend to it. His manners, however, must have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so misled. The Picture
How eager he had been about the picture and the charade, and an hundred other circumstances. How clearly they had seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its ready wit, but then the soft eyes. In fact, it suited neither. It was a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such thick headed nonsense?
Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to herself unnecessarily gallant. But it had passed as his way, as a mere error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others that he had not always lived in the best society, that with all the gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting."
But till this very day, she had never for an instant suspected it to mean anything but grateful respect to her as Harriet's friend. To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying that those brothers had penetration.
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Chapter 2: What happens after Mr. Elton's unexpected proposal to Emma?
were enough to occupy her in most unmirthful reflection some time longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully. To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma's, though under temporary gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of spirits.
The youth and cheerfulness of mourning are in happy analogy and of powerful operation. And if the distress be not poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of softened pain and brighter hope.
Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to depend on getting tolerably out of it.
It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to disappoint him, that Harriet's nature should not be of that superior sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive.
and that there could be no necessity for anybody's knowing what had passed except the three principles, and especially for her father's being given a moment's uneasiness about it. These were very cheering thoughts. and the sight of a great deal of snow on the ground did her further service, for anything was welcome that might justify their all three being quite asunder at present.
The weather was most favourable for her, though Christmas Day she could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas.
the ground covered with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting into freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse with Harriet possible but by note. No church for her on Sunday any more than on Christmas Day.
And no need to find excuses for Mr Elton's absenting himself. It was weather which might fairly confine everybody at home.
And though she hoped and believed him to be really taking comfort in some society or other, it was very pleasant to have her father so well satisfied with his being all alone in his own house, too wise to stir out, and to hear him say to Mr. Knightley, whom no weather could keep entirely from them, Ah, Mr Knightley, why do not you stay at home like poor Mr Elton?
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Chapter 3: How does Emma reflect on her role in Harriet's feelings for Mr. Elton?
Harriet bore the intelligence very well, blaming nobody. and in everything testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to her friend. Emma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost, and all that was amiable, all that ought to be attaching, seemed on Harriet's side, not her own.
Harriet did not consider herself as having anything to complain of. The affection of such a man as Mr Elton would have been too great a distinction. She never could have deserved him, and nobody but so partial and kind a friend as Miss Woodhouse would have thought it possible. Her tears fell abundantly.
But her grief was so truly artless that no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyes. And she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and understanding, really for the time convinced that Harriet was the superior creature of the two. and that to resemble her would be more for her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could do.
It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant, but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of her life, Her second duty now, inferior only to her father's claims, was to promote Harriet's comfort and endeavour to prove her own affection in some better method than by matchmaking.
She got her to Hartfield and showed her the most unvarying kindness, striving to occupy and amuse her, and by books and conversation, to drive Mr. Elton from her thoughts.
The time she knew must be allowed for this being thoroughly done, and she could suppose herself but an indifferent judge of such matters in general, and very inadequate to sympathize in an attachment to Mr. Elton in particular, but it seemed to her reasonable that at Harriet's age, and with the entire extinction of all hope,
Such a progress might be made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton's return as to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of acquaintance without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing them.
Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the non-existence of anybody equal to him in person or goodness, and did, in truth, prove herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen. But yet it appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an inclination of that sort unrequited, that she could not comprehend its continuing very long in equal force.
If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do, she could not imagine Harriet's persisting to place her happiness in the sight or the recollection of him. Their being fixed, so absolutely fixed in the same place, was bad for each, for all three
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