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"Most beloved Emma — tell me at once, say, 'No' if it is to be said." (Vol. 2, p. 279)
Charles Edmund Brock
1898, 1906
13 by 8. cm (5 by 3 ¼ inches), framed
Jane Austen's Emma, Part II, facing p. 278.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression of his eyes overpowered her.
“My dearest Emma,” said he, “for dearest you will always be, whatever the event of this hour’s conversation, my dearest, most beloved Emma — tell me at once. Say ‘No,’ if it is to be said.” — She could really say nothing. — “You are silent,” he cried, with great animation; “absolutely silent! at present I ask no more.”
Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most prominent feeling. [Chapter 49, p. 279]
. . . where, as in this case, though the conduct is mistaken; the feelings are not, it may not be very material. Mr. Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his. [282]
As both text and illustration leave the reader in doubt at this moment, Austen compels us to read on. Both characters are misinterpreting each other initially, for while Emma believes that Knightley, just returned from London, is in love with Harriet, he mistakenly believes that Emma is heartbroken over Frank Churchill's having led her on in order to disguise his true feelings for Jane Fairfax — for the sudden death of his controlling aunt has now enabled Frank to acknowledge his secret engagement to Jane. Thus, Emma and Knightley must both overcome their misimpressions before cementing their engagement. By the time that they have returned from their second walk through the garden and are about to enter the house, upper left, they have resolved the novel's chief romantic problem in the dramatic scene realised. Now they must jointly announce their engagement over tea to Mr. Woodhouse.
In a subsequent letter forwarded to Emma from Mrs. Weston, Frank Churchill makes clear his subterfuge in pretending to be romantically interested in Emma in order to maintain the secrecy of his engagement to Jane Fairfax, made all those months ago at Weymouth. All matters involved in that secondary romantic plot Austen resolves in the subsequent chapters. For the moment, the illustrator is concerned with clarifying Emma's fresh understanding of Knightley's appreciation of her, and of her being quite mistaken about his romantic interest in Harriet.
Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. R. Brimley Johnson. With coloured illustrations by C. E. and H. M. Brock. The Novels and Letters of Jane Austen. 2 vols. New York & Philadelphia: Frank S. Holby, 1906.
Austen, Jane. Emma: An Annotated Edition. Ed. Bharat Tandon. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard U. P., 2012.
Created 8 April 2026