It’s Nothing to Pemberly

Pride and Prejudice is a book a real men are not supposed to appreciate.  But, I appreciate it, nevertheless.  I also enjoy the 1995 version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, which is the only version worth spending much time with… but I digress.

In the opening scene, Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcey are looking at an estate from a hilltop.  Bingley says, “Oh, it’s nothing to Pemberley, I know, but I must settle somewhere. Have I your approval?”

Later, when Elizabeth is visiting Pemberley, the house keeper takes her to a window saying, “And there’s a fine prospect from that window down towards the lake.”

It’s nothing to Pemberley is one of those phrases that sticks in my head.  Unfortunately, those in close company with me, hear me repeat things, incessantly.  The year before I married Ruth, I lived with Jim Gaden.  Jim taught me to play the piano.  Jim was a musician and a piano tuner.  A quasi famous tuner in the area was Frances Mehaffey.  Jim liked a phrase that rolled off the tongue as well as the next person and the name Frances Mehaffey was too much for him.  He could not get over a man named Frances and Mehaffey was the icing on the cake.  Jim would be working on a piano, in the living room, and say, “Frances Mehaffey” every now and then.

It’s nothing to Pemberley.

We have decided that in our effort to not become decrepit too soon, we will walk to the mail box.  No fair stopping the car as we come in.  No, we will walk.  After getting the two pieces of junk mail, I stopped to look at two liquid ambers growing off to the side.  Ruth said, “There will be a third.  Mrs. Mitchell always planted in threes.”  Sure enough, there it was in the overgrown bushes and trees, the third liquid amber.  We walked up the drive and I went out into the meadow to start one of the rain birds.  We stopped at a favorite spot and remarked that we liked the view toward the house from there.  You can’t really see the house, but it is a fair prospect.

Thinking of the words a fair prospect put me in the mood.  I reminded Ruth of our picnic lunches in the park near the capitol in Sacramento during conference.  There, they had camellias that were the size of trees and beautiful trees.  Looking across the meadow toward the rock wall and trees I had to say it, “Of course it was nothing to Graestone.”
As we turned the bend in the drive, we came upon another triangle, with a low rock wall.  The area has two redwoods and then, of course, camellias.  (Yes, there is a third redwood across the drive leading to the side of the red barn.)  Thinking of the park in Sacramento, I had to say it again, “Of course it is nothing to Graestone.”

But, it’s nothing to Pemberley, I know.