‘Deeply occupied about her spectacles’ for Jane Austen's "Emma" (1905) by Hugh Thomson (P. 213, Chapter XXVIII)

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Deeply occupied about her spectacles

Hugh Thomson

1905

Photomechanical reproduction of a pen-and-ink drawing

13.5 by 7.5 cm (5 ½ by 3 inches), vignetted

Jane Austen, Emma, facing page 212.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Mr. Frank Churchill repairs Miss Bates's spectacles.

The appearance of the little sitting-room as they entered, was tranquillity itself; Mrs. Bates, deprived of her usual employment, slumbering on one side of the fire, Frank Churchill, at a table near her, most deedily occupied about her spectacles, and Jane Fairfax, standing with her back to them, intent on her pianoforte.

Busy as he was, however, the young man was yet able to shew a most happy countenance on seeing Emma again.

“This is a pleasure,” said he, in rather a low voice, “coming at least ten minutes earlier than I had calculated. You find me trying to be useful; tell me if you think I shall succeed.”

“What!” said Mrs. Weston, “have not you finished it yet? you would not earn a very good livelihood as a working silversmith at this rate.”

“I have not been working uninterruptedly,” he replied, “I have been assisting Miss Fairfax in trying to make her instrument stand steadily, it was not quite firm; an unevenness in the floor, I believe. You see we have been wedging one leg with paper. This was very kind of you to be persuaded to come. I was almost afraid you would be hurrying home.” [Chapter XXVIII, 212]

Related Material

Bibliography

Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. Austin Dobson. With forty pen-and-ink illustrations by Hugh Thomson. The Novels of Jane Austen. London: Macmillan, 1896, rpt. 1905.

Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. R. Brimley Johnson. With coloured illustrations by C. E. Brock. The Novels and Letters of Jane Austen. 2 vols. New York & Philadelphia: Frank S. Holby, 1906.

Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. George Justice. 4th edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011.

Austen, Jane. Emma: An Annotated Edition. Ed. Bharat Tandon. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard U. P., 2012.

Last modified 4 May 2026