Have you ever wondered what Mr Bennett did in his room all day?

[CurlewKate]

Obviously he was hiding from his wife and daughters-but what did he actually do all day? He read-but I wonder how many books he would have owned. He had a farm to run-but presumably he had a manager to do most of that. Household accounts? Letters to his brothers in law? Chaucer fanfic?

I expect he had a carefully hidden erotica collection. Fanny Hill, etc

Agreed! And a lot of staring out the window with his hands behind his back.

Or I suppose he was pondering the Roman Empire, if recent discussions are anything to go by. He could have had a world map, moving little placeholders about between countries etc.

He pottered in a mildly scholarly way.

I’m not sure Longbourn would necessarily have had a farm manager, actually (the fact that the same horses are used on the farm and to pull the Bennets’ carriage suggests that, while absolutely they were gentry, Longbourn wasn’t a big or particularly prosperous estate), so I think he would have had to be responsible for giving fairly detailed orders, probably for an hour or two after breakfast daily.

My other theory is that, as the father of the flighty Kitty and Lydia, he knows in his heart he’s likely to have to duel at least one seducer, so he’s taking private lessons in markmanship in the shrubbery. The continual gunshot doesn’t improve Mrs Bennet’s nerves.

(Actually, he shoots game with Bingley doesn’t he, after Jane and Bingley get engaged? So. I imagine in season he spends a lot of time pottering outdoors with a gun and a dog.)

If he's anything like my DH he had a stamp / coin collection, thousands of absurd old books and did an awful lot of staring out the window.

Hehe - I like the image of him staring out the window - deep in impenetrable thoughts. My DH does this sometimes in a morning. Sadly he is not anywhere near as wealthy as Mr Bennett.

@HernesEgg "He pottered in a mildly scholarly way."

A lifestyle I can only aspire to!

i have wondered this from time to time, but I wonder what people (men especially) think about when they are fishing and expect he just did that. Such a shame for him the internet hadn’t been invented yet. Definitely agree on the erotica.

He probably had to write a lot of letters too.

@HernesEgg Are we ever told what sort of carriage they had? Presumably not a barouche-landau.....

@CurlewKate or a Barouche Box!!

Smoked, snoozed.

Great thread.

I’ve often wondered. But my dad used to spend hours in his study (as does DH) so I’d imagine
Reading
Writing
Speaking to employees
staring out the window!

Actually, the carriage is an interesting question. They would have needed the equivalent of a SUV to sit the 7 of them. That's my wormhole for the day!

Wanked

Interesting question. Lots of correspondence, I imagine. Some household accounts? Reading?

I think of him poring over the accounts, trying to work out how he will pay for his extravagant family, and then consoling himself with port and brandy (which he also cannot afford).

You are probably right about the erotica, though. If he'd stuck to that after Jane and Elizabeth, he'd have been a lot better off, and wouldn't have had the annoying younger children.

With all those girls to find husbands for, he probably spent a lot of time studying the Army lists, The Navy Gazette and Debrett's.

What did any of them do? How did the girls not die of boredom? The most exciting thing they seemed to do when socialising was to take a turn of the room.

No wonder they loved matchmaking so much.

@Zonder The lazier ones were probably just painting tables, covering screens and netting purses; the accomplished ones were learning enough to greatly surpass knowledge of music, sing, draw, dance, and speak modern languages. And they were reading extensively. Whilst also working on their air and manner of walking, the tone of their voice, and their address and expressions.

Sounds exhausting.

@Zonder I can sort of relate to the lifestyle of the daughters, born in 1969 in a rambling farmhouse once the home of Nicholas Culpepper the herbalist and pretty much unchanged from his time my childhood was very full.
Until I was 16 we had no phone, tv or radio I do recall the huge excitement of a jumble sale purchase of a gramophone complete with 1930/40's records when I was around 12.

We played instruments piano, cello, violin and various percussion. One of my favourite things was playing music to the cows who were super attentive.
We had a huge amount of high quality art supplies our father lecturing at an art polytechnic would bring home at the end of term.

We boated for hours on the river, wrote letters, gardened etc.
Just surviving kept everyone busy, stacking firewood, any heat or cooking meant lighting the oven.

House bricks were baked to be placed in the bed at night.

All bread was homemade and everything preserved so hours of preparing fruits for jam or kneading dough.

My sister and I dressed up to make believe and acted little plays.

We did go to school reluctantly but didn't fit in very well unsurprisingly.

We also didn't have a mirror in the house until I was 10 so you can imagine the hours of excitement when that first arrived.

This is a bit later and less literary, but DS1 is currently obsessed with the Famous Five books so we have the audio books on repeat and I keep wondering what on earth George's dad, who is apparently a very accomplished scientist 'doing experiments' but works entirely in his study in their house is actually DOING. To be fair, it is a plot point in one of the books that he has an afternoon nap every day...

@Zonder There was a lot of work involved in running a household. Think of all the preserving and cooking and gardening. The washing and drying and sewing. And they weren't well off enough to have a lot of servants. They didn't have a governess, so Elizabeth and Jane would have had quite a lot to do with educating the younger ones. Things took a long time- if Elizabeth wanted to see Charlotte she would have had to walk there and back. "Popping to the shop" would have taken a whole morning. They probably would have had some responsibilities towards the poor and sick in the village. (Emma certainly did) And they did have hobbies.

I can loose days reading so I'm guessing that it was no different then - whilst I will scour the internet, then it would be volumes that came out monthly, the precursor to magazines, newspapers, pamphlets

@stayathomegardener I seem to remember that Jane and her sisters put on plays.

He also had to go to Kirrin island in one of the early books and spent weeks there inc overnight doing experiments. Iirc he took Timmy which upset George. No idea what he did though.