Tags
Jane Austen, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Marlon Brando, Pride and Prejudice, soccer, sports, World Cup
“There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to play. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully.” -Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice
Edna May Oliver as Lady Catherine (1940)
The wisdom of Lady Catherine de Bourgh has always been a great comfort to me. With her help, I have convinced myself that
- If I had ever learned jazz piano, I would now be cutting records with Blue Note.
- If I had ever gone to cooking school, I would have been the one to invent molecular gastronomy.
- If I had ever learned astronomy, I would be hosting Cosmos.
To say nothing of what I could have accomplished, had I learned calculus, Chinese, HTML, juggling, or necromancy. Such wasted potential!
Similar to the De Bourgh Principle is the Contender Principle, which is applied when someone shows early promise but is cruelly deprived of a chance at greatness.
Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront” (1954)
The Contender Principle, I have noticed, is mainly invoked by men in sporting contexts. Thus a friend of mine recently told me that, based on his performance in third grade, he could have led the Dutch Eleven to a World Cup victory in 1978, if only he hadn’t been forced to move to America in the early 1960s, where nobody had heard of soccer.
Ah, well.
Linnet Moss 
My favorite book, the only celebrity whom I do an impression of, and a post I greatly enjoyed. Thank you!
You are very welcome! It was a pleasure for me to include a photo of the great Edna May 😉
Lady Catherine and her unfanthomable ego 😉
Italy (talking about Cannavaro holding the world cup 😉 ) is literally packed with men [suffering] the Contender Principle. In their case the cruel Atropos of their fate is not a transoceanic move, but some bastardo that “broke” (when in reality he just got a sprain) his ankle in the secondary school’s backyard. 🙂
Ah yes! I’ve heard that story too! But here in the States it is usually something about baseball and the sad ruin of a once-promising pitcher’s arm…
I never knew it had a name…! The things I learn from your blog…
It is my gift to you for teaching me the phrase “camel toe.”
Also known as ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda’. (Should have, would have, could have.) The De Bourgh Principle is a much classier way of describing this phenomenon.
Thanks! It’s one of those truisms of human nature, I suppose 😉
Great post, Linnet! I can think of ample examples where each one of these principles could be applied to my life. Chances are, if asked, I am a great disappointment to any one of my teachers and most likely my folks to boot.
Ah well, I plod along. Happily and blindly not quite reaching potential. 🙂
It’s the wisdom of Lady Catherine! Why put in all those precious hours of work when we can effortlessly invoke the Principle and be unrealized masters of every talent? I think she was on to something… though perhaps the magic doesn’t work unless you are an aristocrat with supreme self-confidence.