Exbury House in Hampshire, a privately-owned historic house and gardens open to the public: see Exbury Gardens. The eighteenth-century house and estate were purchased and substantially renovated by the Rothschild family in 1919. Later, they played a key role in the Second World War; it was here that much of the planning and training for The Normandy Landings in 1944 took place.
IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.*
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
“My dear Mr Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”
Mr Bennet replied that he had not.
“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”
Mr Bennet made no answer.
“Do you not want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently.
“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”
This was invitation enough.
So famous is this, that no self-respecting TV adaptation can be without it. The BBC’s 1995 version quoted it almost exactly; ‘Bride and Prejudice’ (2004) placed it on Lalita’s lips as ‘All mothers think that any single guy with big bucks must be shopping for a wife,’ thus subtly missing Austen’s point. For Lalita, mothers and their daughters suppose any rich man has come with the intention of finding a wife, whereas in Austen’s mind mother and daughters neither know nor care about his intentions: Mr Bingley is the hunted, not the hunter. Note that ‘in want of’ does not mean ‘desires’; it means ‘lacks, needs.’
