Obama’s personality limned almost 200 years ago in a Jane Austen novel

Although I can’t track it down now, I vividly remember reading a New York Times story about Obama in which a colleague said that Obama had the knack, at meetings, of making everyone in the room think that he agreed with them, even if the meeting was divisive. That is, he mouthed banalities with such conviction that each person ascribed to them a meaning that wasn’t there, and took that meaning as an endorsement of his or her own point of view. It is a quality that makes people like one in the short-term, but that doesn’t work when, as now, the person possessing that quality is in an actual decision-making role.

Other things I read about Obama during the campaign were that he was intelligent, even-tempered, knowledgeable, polished and an all around good sort with compassion to spare for an entire nation. As for me, I worried about the fact that he had no friends, that we knew nothing about him, and that his vaunted intelligence, smooth temperament, morals, knowledge and polish were only as deep as the TV cameras. I think time is proving me right.

There’s a reason for my little extended meditation on Obama’s personality as it first appeared and as it actually is. For my own pleasure, I’ve been rereading Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which stands second only to Pride & Prejudice in my estimation.  P&P is a youthful work about first chances.  Persuasion, which was Austen’s last book, is a mature work about second chances.

Austen makes clear, though, that not all people are deserving of second chances.  An important character in the book, although he doesn’t fully make an appearance until about halfway through is a Mr. Eliot, a cousin to the heroine, and the heir to her father, a baronet.  Early in the book, Jane Austen explains that, in his 20s, this Mr. Eliot rudely ignored any family claims on him and, showing disrespect to the title in a class conscious age, married a “low born” woman simply for her money.  Later in the book, he reappears in his 30s, ostensibly a changed character.  All are charmed — except for Anne, the heroine, who does not trust him.  Her suspicions prove to be true, when she learns from a reliable source that he was and is a debauched, immoral and cruel man.

What struck me so much when I re-read the book, one I’ve read many times before although not in the past several years, was Austen’s description of Mr. Eliot at the mid-point in the book, when all are charmed, but for the suspicious, decent, and moral Anne:

Though they had now been acquainted a month, she could not be satisfied that she really knew his character. That he was a sensible man, an agreeable man, that he talked well, professed good opinions, seemed to judge properly and as a man of principle, this was all clear enough. He certainly knew what was right, nor could she fix on any one article of moral duty evidently transgressed; but yet she would have been afraid to answer for his conduct. She distrusted the past, if not the present. The names which occasionally dropt of former associates, the allusions to former practices and pursuits, suggested suspicions not favourable of what he had been.  She saw that there had been bad habits; that Sunday travelling had been a common thing; that there had been a period of his life (and probably not a short one) when he had been, at least, careless in all serious matters; and, though he might now think very differently, who could answer for the true sentiments of a clever, cautious man, grown old enough to appreciate a fair character?  How could it ever be ascertained that his mind was truly cleansed?

Mr Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open.  There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection.  Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others.  Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.

Mr Elliot was too generally agreeable. Various as were the tempers in her father’s house, he pleased them all. He endured too well, stood too well with every body. He had spoken to her with some degree of openness of Mrs Clay; had appeared completely to see what Mrs Clay was about, and to hold her in contempt; and yet Mrs Clay found him as agreeable as any body.

Taking aside details unique to the book and the time period, isn’t that a perfect picture of candidate Obama?  Here, let me strip the description of those same period and book details so that it’s just the bare bones about the character:

Though they had now been acquainted a month, she could not be satisfied that she really knew his character. That he was a sensible man, an agreeable man, that he talked well, professed good opinions, seemed to judge properly and as a man of principle, this was all clear enough. He certainly knew what was right, nor could she fix on any one article of moral duty evidently transgressed; but yet she would have been afraid to answer for his conduct. She distrusted the past, if not the present. The names which occasionally dropt of former associates, the allusions to former practices and pursuits, suggested suspicions not favourable of what he had been.  *** [T]hough he might now think very differently, who could answer for the true sentiments of a clever, cautious man, grown old enough to appreciate a fair character?  How could it ever be ascertained that his mind was truly cleansed?

Mr Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open.  There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection.  Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others.  Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.

Mr Elliot was too generally agreeable. Various as were the tempers in her father’s house, he pleased them all. He endured too well, stood too well with every body.

Jane Austen may have lived more than two hundred years ago, but human nature has not changed that much.  Narcissists are a recurring theme in history and literature, and her intelligent and acid pen knew precisely how to describe one.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News