Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year • Hacker News Board

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#101

Post by nathan_long » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #54

kirrent wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're being serious or not, but Elizabeth is still being sarcastic here, as is very much in her character, despite Jane's request to the contrary.

It's not simple sarcasm. There's plenty of truth in it, so there's an element of knowing self-deprecation - not just on Elizabeth's part, but also Austen's, because the sentiment that would have been recognised by many of her readers. Austen herself was in the same position as Elizabeth, with a tiny inheritance that provided no financial security. So P&P is as much a fantasy about finding financial safety as it is ab…

Sounds right, but she wasn't purely mercenary like her friend Charlotte, who admitted to marrying Mr. Collins for his money, which filled Elizabeth with horror.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#102

Post by joncrane » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

dsyko wrote: post #68

joncrane wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At The Breakers, all the bathrooms had hot and cold running fresh and salt water. I believe many of the fancy mansions in that area had. I remember visiting on a field trip from nerd sleepaway camp in Massachusetts. As an adult, I could see myself splurging to get running salt water in my seaside mansion. I've always loved salt water.

I'm curious what is the reason for having running salt water? For taking baths?

Originally, probably the combination of supposed health effects of bathing in salt water and to flex on the less wealthy.

Later, to keep up with the Joneses aka Vanderbilts.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#103

Post by nilkn » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #62

nilkn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point (4) strikes me as a bit off because Jane Austen is generally among the easiest classical authors to read. Pride and Prejudice in particular is a simple romance story that can easily be read and appreciated by almost anyone with little to no preparation. Compare this to, say, William Faulkner or James Joyce and calling Austen an example of difficult literature seems almost absurd.

She's very easy to read, but she's not so easy to understand. There are multiple levels of irony and character insight in all of the books. You can take them at face value as superficial and nostalgic proto-Harlequins, and a lot of readers do. She practically invented the surly and arrogant romantic hero who actually loves his mother and is kind to children, small animals, and feudal tenants. But the books are actual…

I still think her work is at most middling in terms of difficulty and likely not even that. Multiple levels of character insight is nothing compared to Ulysses parodying in sequence the entire development of the English language in stream of consciousness mirroring the gestation of a baby in a woman's womb, or the first chapter of The Sound and the Fury which tries to represent the internal experience of a severely mentally handicapped nonverbal 33-year-old man for whom past and present cannot be distinguished and who cannot understand simple phenomena like the movement of a horse-drawn carriage through space, or the second section of that same book which follows Quentin's turbulent and troubled mind through his final moments leading to his suicide. These sections are not just difficult to read, but also look outward from inside a character.

Jane Austen is a great author, and her works can often be appreciated and analyzed on multiple levels. But I just don't think she's a reasonable example of a difficult author when one considers the full spectrum of literature available today.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#104

Post by velcrovan » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

gwern wrote: post #14

jefftk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For someone like Me Darcy income came entirely from wealth. He wasn't working, and someone in his position wouldn't be. So Elizabeth already knew he was extremely wealthy before seeing Pemberley.

I always took that as implying that what she learned was that Darcy had taste . You can have Darcy's much bruited income as a topic of conversation, no doubt about his wealth, but pounds only buy you so much status.

Also coincident with her seeing his grounds was here talking there with tenants, servants and relatives who spoke very highly of his character and generosity.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#105

Post by azernik » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #78

azernik wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that a day laborer in the UK had income and standard of living similar to a lower-income Texan in 2019. It was closer to that of a lower-income Haitian in 2019. EDIT: I was a bit low - BoE's inflation calculator puts a £20 income in 1813 at £1,362.94 in 2018, or about the average income of a Haitian today. So let's say, a lower-income Afghan?

I'm not sure how useful the BoE calculator is for that. It's probably more useful to just look at standard of living qualitatively. Given that a Victorian era lower-class Londoner probably looks more like a lower-class Haitian than a Texan. I'm less sure how to compare from Austen's era, especially outside of a major city. But things like getting any medical care at all or getting enough food to eat suggests ways tha…

I would also caution against focusing on major cities; only around 40% of Brits lived in cities in 1811, and rural poverty was and remains even more grinding than urban poverty.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#106

Post by godelski » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #37

godelski wrote: post #32

So £10000/yr is equivalent to $22.35 million a year. [0] That's quite a bit of money. [0] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10000+1792+british+pou...

Wolfram Alpha is interpreting that as £10000/yr * 1,792. As the top comment notes, according to BoE's inflation calculator [1], that's £680K/yr, or $850K/yr. [1] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in...

Ahhh thanks. I didn't notice that because if you do searches like "100 1950 dollars" it does the inflation calculation for you. Guess it doesn't do well with pounds. I trusted the engine too much. Thanks for the catch.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#107

Post by ouid » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

steve19 wrote: post #42

adamson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was upkeep that expensive? Would you be maintaining the entire estate as a perfectly manicured garden?

What would be the point in buying one and letting the gardens go, not maintaining a stable and all your neighbors laughing behind your back.

that actually sounds like a lot of fun.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#108

Post by pvg » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #75

pvg wrote: post #15

One striking thing about Mr. Darcy's income is you could still survive on it (not inflation-adjusted) in a developed country today. It's right around the individual poverty line. It's also close the median household income worldwide.

Assuming, at a minimum, health care and other social social safety net services. But, yes, Mr. Darcy was very wealthy by the standards of the time and would be today. (Although, as others have pointed out, comparing wealth across such a long time period is difficult in many ways.)

comparing wealth across such a long time period is difficult in many ways.

If it can be done for dance⁷, it can surely be done for wealth.

⁷ Ibid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTchxR4suto

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#109

Post by devchix » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #24

devchix wrote: post #3

Consols schmonsols! The modern prospector such as Mrs. Bennet would want to know how much is that in today's money. Using the Bank of England's trusty inflation calculator and plugging in 1813 (the year Pride and Prejudice was published), Darcy's worth £681K a year and his friend half that. In the Valley or London, what's that, a director level at a FAANG, and a tech lead? Using the annual yield to derive asset, the…

Man I love that stuff. Would love it if you contacted me through my profile, or at least pointed us to the paper you wrote. Right up my alley.

You're kind to ask. The paper was written a long time ago and very thinly sourced, more of a toy of dubious value. As we've agreed in this thread, attempts to directly translate asset values and income from a radically different economy will be frustratingly wrong.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#110

Post by rtkwe » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

devchix wrote: post #3

Consols schmonsols! The modern prospector such as Mrs. Bennet would want to know how much is that in today's money. Using the Bank of England's trusty inflation calculator and plugging in 1813 (the year Pride and Prejudice was published), Darcy's worth £681K a year and his friend half that. In the Valley or London, what's that, a director level at a FAANG, and a tech lead? Using the annual yield to derive asset, the…

Before the advent of modern shipping it's not terribly surprising. Asparagus was once know as 'the food of kings' and has a limited growing period and requires a fairly large amount of land compared to what it produces. There's only really 2 harvests of asparagus possible one in early spring and the other in fall so absent modern refrigeration asparagus in the middle of winter would have been grown in a greenhouse increasing it's cost.

It's easy to forget these days where we're able to get most fruits and vegetables any time of year we please thanks to shipping letting us get summer produce in winter from the opposite hemisphere but produce has definite seasons and it used to be very hard and expensive to get produce out of season.