The Lakes

The Lakes, the celebrated Lake District of northern England, appear in Pride and Prejudice as a projected destination for a summer tour that Elizabeth Bennet plans with her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. The scheme is first proposed by Mrs. Gardiner near the end of Elizabeth's stay in Kent, after the disappointment of Wickham's defection to Miss King. Elizabeth's response is rapturous: "Oh! what hours of transport we shall spend!" she cries, declaring that she and her aunt will not return "like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of anything" but will instead remember precisely where they have gone and what they have seen. The Lakes thus enter the novel as a symbol of untroubled pleasure, intellectual curiosity, and the kind of romantic sensibility that Elizabeth, for all her practical intelligence, freely indulges.

The Tour as Consolation and Anticipation

After the departure of the militia from Meryton and the consequent dullness of life at Longbourn, Elizabeth's thoughts fix on the Lakes tour as her "best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable." She reflects that a scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful, and that general disappointment is only warded off by some little peculiar vexation—in this case, Jane's absence from the party. The Lakes thus function as a mental refuge, a point on which her wishes and hopes may be fixed while she endures the present. The anticipation itself becomes a form of happiness, and Elizabeth consciously uses it to console herself for the present and prepare for another disappointment.

The Abandonment of the Plan

When the time for the tour approaches, a letter from Mrs. Gardiner arrives that at once delays its commencement and curtails its extent. Mr. Gardiner's business prevents him from setting out until a fortnight later in July, and he must be in London again within a month, leaving too short a period for the party to go as far as the Lakes and see them with the leisure and comfort they had planned. They are obliged to give up the Lakes and substitute a more contracted tour, going no farther northwards than Derbyshire. Elizabeth is "excessively disappointed," having set her heart on seeing the Lakes, but her temper is to be happy, and she soon reconciles herself to the change.

The Shift to Derbyshire and Its Consequences

The substitution of Derbyshire for the Lakes proves to be the novel's pivotal geographical decision. Mrs. Gardiner has a peculiarly strong attraction to Derbyshire, where she formerly passed some years of her life, and the town of Lambton, where she once lived, lies within five miles of Pemberley. Elizabeth, on learning that the tour will now take them through Derbyshire, reflects that she may enter Darcy's county "with impunity" and rob it of a few petrified spars without his perceiving her. The irony is profound: the very destination that was to have been a carefree escape from the complications of Hertfordshire and Kent becomes the setting for the most consequential encounters of Elizabeth's life. At Pemberley she sees Darcy's portrait, hears the housekeeper's praise of his character, meets him unexpectedly, and witnesses his transformed manners—all of which begin the process of revising her judgment. The Lakes, never visited, remain an unrealized ideal; Derbyshire, the substitute, becomes the ground of reality and reconciliation.

Thematic Significance

The Lakes function in the novel as a counterfactual—a road not taken that, had it been taken, would have preserved Elizabeth's ignorance of Darcy's true nature and prevented the series of encounters that lead to their eventual union. The abandonment of the Lakes tour is thus structurally necessary: it brings Elizabeth to Pemberley, and Pemberley brings her to a new understanding of Darcy. The Lakes also represent a kind of romantic tourism that Elizabeth, for all her liveliness, must set aside in favor of a more serious engagement with the world of real people and real moral choices. The tour that was to have been all pleasure becomes, in its altered form, the occasion for growth, humility, and love.