‘What are men to rocks and mountains?’, Elizabeth Bennet exclaims with a touch of sarcasm at the prospect of a scenic tour that will end not as planned at the Lakes, but in Derbyshire, and in the company of Darcy. But if the picturesque initially holds the promise of satire (154, 53), this expectation soon ranks high among the novel's misleading first impressions. Elizabeth may glance mischievously at Gilpin's veto on groups of four, but the itinerary of her progress north follows one of his most famous travelogues to the letter. And the Pemberley estate that works so powerful a sea change on her attitude to Darcy turns out to be modelled on the best Gilpinesque principles, chat about which fills an awkward gap in the long-awaited scene of their re-encounter. If the picturesque proves to be as deeply founded in the novel as are Elizabeth and Darcy's feelings for each other, it is because Jane Austen extends it to embrace not merely rocks and mountains but men and women also.

The aesthetics of the movement were reapplied in this extensive way by several authors during the 1790s, and we shall see how closely many of Austen's conceptions tally, in particular, with those of Uvedale Price. Yet it is clear from the juvenilia that Jane in her teens was already making her own intuitive extrapolations from the original visual theory, some of which pre-date the formulations of the treatise-writers.