Mr. Elton
As readers of the novel “Emma” we first hear of Mr. Elton, The vicar of Highbury, in the very opening chapter when Emma declares her intention of finding suitable wife for him. Emma expresses an excellent opinion about him in the course of her conversation with her father, and her father agrees with her, saying: Mr. Elton is a very pretty young man to be sure, and a very good young man, and I have a great regard for him.
Subsequently we again find Emma expressing a very favourable opinion about Mr. Elton. She thinks him to be “a remarkable handsome young man, with most agreeable manners”. She also thinks that Mr Elton would surely fall in love with Harriet: she feels strengthened in this belief because he often talks of Harriet and praises her warmly, “when Mr. Elton offers to go to London in order to get Harriet’s portrait framed, it seems to Emma that he is definitely in love with Harriet now.
Mr. Knightley has, however, a different opinion of Mr. Elton from that held by Emma. Mr. Knightley thinks Mr. Elton to be a worldly-wise man who would marry for money and not solely for merit. When Emma speaks to Mr. Knightley about her desire that Mr. Elton should marry Harriet, this is what Mr. Knightley say to her “Depend upon it, Elton will not do. Elton is a very good sort of man, and a very respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make an imprudent match. He knows the value of a good income as well as anybody. Elton may talk sentimentally, but he will act rationally.” However, Emma persists in her efforts to bring about the marriage between Mr. Elton and Harriet, and she feels further encouraged to do so by the charade which Mr. Elton brings at Harriet’s invitation, because the solution to the Charade is the word “courtship”.
Mr. Elton really proves to be a worldly-wise man because, while Emma thinks him to be a possible husband for Harriet, he himself has been harbouring an ambition to marry Emma herself. While returning from Randalls in a carriage in the company of Emma Mr. Elton surprises her by making an ardent declaration of love and saying that he would be ready to die if Emma refuses him. When the shocked Emma tells him that he is supposed to be in love with Harriet, he denies the suggestion vehemently. Thus, Mr. Elton has never entertained any notion whatever of marrying that girl. It now becomes clear to Emma that Mr. Elton wants to marry a woman who can bring him a rich dowry: “He only wanted to aggrandize and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield, the heiress after thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss somebody else with twenty or with ten”.
After his rejection by Emma, Mr. Elton goes to Bath for a holiday and there gets engaged to Miss Augusta Hawkins. He returns from Bath as a very happy man: “He had gone away rejected and mortified. He came back gay and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse, and defying Miss. Smith.” Mr. Elton is happy to be engaged to a woman who will bring him a dowry of ten thousand pounds.
Mr. Elton proves himself to be a mean fellow when he insults Harriet Smith on the occasion of the ball that is held at the Crown Inn, the hosts being Mr. and Mrs. Westen. He rejects a suggestion by Mrs. Weston that he should ask Harriet to dance with him. Emma is much perturbed by this low action of Mr. Elton’s. She had been thinking him to be an amiable, obliging gentleman, but he has proved to be mean and contemptible. Emma then says to Mr. Knightley: “I do own myself to have been completely mistaken in Mr. Elton. There is a littleness about him which you discovered and which I did not.
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