Beauty

Isabella's beauty is not anything to sneer at as her younger sisters and Catherine readily appreciate. Beauty is, of course, partly genetic and that is to say unearned in modern terms. The ancients did not see it that way. Beauty to them meant blessed by the gods and fate and they admired such people.

We moderns do so as well but we are hypocrites about it and affect not to until a beautiful young woman or man walks into the room.

But beauty is also an achievement and I think we can credit Isabella with improving on what her genes have given her as demonstrated by Austen's remark that her less attractive sisters have done well by imitating her.

In terms contemporary to Austen, the beautiful was often contrasted with the sublime. The source of the distinction was Burke and he associated the beautiful with the feminine, with curves and with all that inclined us to fall in love. As much as he liked the beautiful, he rated it below the sublime which he associated with the masculine, with what is jagged and powerful and, if we get too close, dangerous. Nine million people before me have used the Alps as an example of the sublime and I see no reason to break with tradition on this.

From some distance, however, the sublime was not only safe but inspiring and morally healthful. One example of this pertinent to Austen herself is Ellena in Ann Radcliffe's The Italian. While held prsioner and threatened with possible death or forced acceptance of the veil, Ellena is shored up, fortified because she can see the sublime majesty of the mountains around the monastery.

Austen to some extent reverses this. She picks the beautiful over the sublime and her heroines get sustenance from exposure to good manners and domestic beauty. A big part of what we might, for lack of a better term, call Austen's feminism is tied up in her emphasis on the beautiful in contrast to the masculine sublime.

So the bad news is, as much as we want to start hating Isabella as quickly as possible, her beauty is a real virtue in Austen's eyes just as it was for the ancients; all beauty especially female beauty is a positive thing to Austen.