To be fond of dancing was a certain step to falling in love.
Jane loved to dance and often mentions dancing at balls in her novels as a way of romantically bringing couples together. It was a form of courtship to dance with a partner and was one of the only times a couple could speak and touch one another.
Jane was born and spent the first twenty-five years of her life in Steventon, a small village near the town of Basingstoke. The Austens had many friends their own age that lived locally and they often went to dinners where the carpet was rolled up afterwards for dancing.
The most popular types were known as country dances, and in 1790, they were at the height of popularity. The dance started with a long line of couples dancing up and down the group with light skipping steps, most common in Pride and Prejudice. Easy to learn and ideal for homes with a long drawing room, like the Vyne.
It was such an important social event during the Georgian and Regency eras that girls and boys practiced dancing with teachers and learned the rules of ballroom etiquette.
The characteristic of an English country dance is that of gay simplicity. The steps should be few and easy, and the corresponding motion of the arms and body unaffected, modest , and graceful. ~ The Mirror of Graces (1811)
For houses where the drawing room was square, like at Ashe House, which was made larger by drawing back the partition. It was more suitable for Cotillon, which consisted of four couples dancing in a square set. The first and third, then the second and fourth, couples executed various series of geometric figures.”
Dancing with Jane’s own Mr Darcy
It was at a ball at Ashe House where Jane met and fell in love with Anne’s nephew, Tom Lefroy. Jane joked in a letter to her sister beforehand, “I rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening. I shall refuse him, however, unless he promises to give away his white coat.”
The following day Jane told a different story, “At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, & when you receive this it will all be over.”.
She fell in love, although her status and lack of fortune meant it would never be a match, and he was sent away to continue his studies, marrying a short time after returning to Ireland.
First Impressions
Jane’s father bought her a travel writing slope for her 19th birthday, and she took it everywhere she went. Pride and Prejudice was written around this time, and some say Tom Lefroy inspired Jane’s Mr Darcy. Others say he came from Kent, as she often visited her brother Edward who had been adopted by wealthy cousins, which opened up a whole new world for Jane’s creativity.
There is no doubt the scenes of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy were played out at balls Jane attended in Kent. “We were at a Ball on Saturday. We dined at Goodnestone and in the Evening, danced two Country Dances and the Boulangeries. I opened the Ball with Edwd Bridges.”
The Boulanger was typically a dance at the end of the night as it was low energy. Couples moved around a circle so they could talk and touch in a romantic way.
It is the only dance that Jane Austen mentions by name in Chapter 3 of Pride and Prejudice.
So he enquired who she was and got introduced, and asked her for two next. Then the two third he danced with Miss King and the two fourth with Maria Luca, and two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the Boulanger.
The upper echelons of Kent
The balls were so much more luxurious at Kent with the upper classes in attendance. Mrs Bennet gives her husband an account of the ball at Netherfield,
Oh! my dear Mr. Bennet …we have had a most delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there. Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Every body said how well she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice.
Jane also wrote the first drafts of Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey around this time. In Sense and Sensibility, Marianne dances with Willoughby and has a somewhat silent attachment with him through the evenings. It is later on in the novel when Jane shows Marianne that she can mend her broken heart through attending balls and filling her social calendar.
“When Marianne was recovered, the schemes of amusement at home and abroad, which Sir John had been previously forming, were put into execution. The private balls at the park then began, and parties on the water were made and accomplished as often as a showery October would allow.”
Written quite differently than the lightness of Sense and Sensibility is Jane’s novel Northanger Abbey, a gothic novel which was a popular genre at that time.
Jane sets part of the novel in the city of Bath, where she often visited her aunt, Mrs Austen’s sister. The city, crowded with people was a world away from the village Steventon.
The upper and lower Assembly Rooms are large and were very popular, with the ballroom rules clearly posted on the walls. The heroine Catherine Moreland is escorted by Mrs Allen who has no acquaintances to ask Catherine to dance. As a gentleman had to be introduced to a lady before he could ask her to dance, Catherine had to sit on the side until the Master of Ceremonies introduced her to Mr Tilney. No doubt Jane went through a similar experience as she was a stranger in Bath when the Austen family moved there in 1801.
Coming home
In later years, Jane returned to Hampshire and lived at Chawton Cottage where she rewrote her first three novels and wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion in their entirety. She spent time in London and attended a huge ball thrown by Eliza (and her brother Henry) with royalty in attendance that made the papers.
There is no doubt though that Catherine Moreland mirrors Jane’s thoughts most closely when she writes after a ball, “Her spirits danced within her, as she danced in her chair all the way home.”
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REGENCY DANCING AND BALLS QUIZ
- Where do Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy first dance in Pride and Prejudice?
- In Northanger Abbey, who introduces Catherine to Henry Tilney so they can dance?
- In Emma, who rescues Harriet Smith from sitting on the side by asking her to dance at the Crown Inn?
- Who is Jane writing about in Sense and Sensibility? “They were partners for half the time; and when obliged to separate for a couple of dances, were careful to stand together and scarcely spoke a word to any body else.”
- How is Mr Collins dancing described in Pride and Prejudice?
- In Northanger Abbey, what reason does Catherine give to John Thorpe when he asks her to “jig it together again” in the upper rooms?
- Who asks Emma for the first two dances at the Crown Inn?
- Who is Jane describing in Sense and Sensibility? “In winter his private balls were numerous enough for any young lady who was not suffering under the insatiable appetite of fifteen.”
Click here for the QUIZ ANSWERS
TAGS: Jane Austen dancing, Regency balls, Dance Like Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice Netherfield Ball, The Crown, English Country Dance, Boulangeries, rules at the Assembly Rooms, Regency era, Regency dancing, partners.
As a side note, Ashe House is due for demolition. Read more here.
