Reading the Regency

Accomplishments

"...last winter, when I was at Bath, she was hawked about every where, and the aunt was puffing her with might and main. You heard of nothing, wherever you went, but of Belinda Portman, and Belinda Portman's accomplishments: Belinda Portman, and her accomplishments, I'll swear, were as well advertised as Packwood's razor strops."
[Chapter 2, Belinda by Maria Edgeworth]

What the Regency world called Accomplishments were simply the skills and knowledge that people thought were most important or useful within their social rank. A dressmaker would be accomplished at needlework and a coachman could be accomplished at handling horses, but readers of Regency-set stories are probably most familiar with those accomplishments that were considered useful to a young lady in good society who was hoping to catch a wealthy husband.

Miss Bingley described what may be one of the most recognised lists of requirements:

"No one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."

"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."
[Chapter 8, Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen]

A man with ten thousand a year and a house in town would have a different list of requirements than a country gentleman who is happy socialising with his neighbours and has no interest in London society. So while there were a number of skills you could learn, young ladies (or their mothers) would concentrate on those that would be most useful to them. Where parents spent money on masters to teach a particular accomplishment, they would have only invested in the knowledge and accomplishments they thought would be helpful at their level of society. Children of wealthy businessmen would also strive to learn some of these skills, as would young ladies and gentlemen of the gentry and the higher levels of society, in order to attract a suitable partner.

Men could also be described as accomplished. Many of the skills most admired in ladies applied equally to gentlemen:

"He was tall, slender and handsome, and, like most young British officers of late years, had picked up various small accomplishments on the continent—could talk French and Italian—draw landscapes—sing very tolerably—dance divinely; but, above all, he had been wounded at Waterloo:—what girl of seventeen, well read in poetry and romance, could resist such a mirror of chivalry and perfection!"
[The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, Volume 2, By Washington Irving, pub 1819]

The following list covers some of the skills that were most admired by the educated classes during the Regency era.

The Art of Conversation

"There is one female accomplishment, however, on which I shall take the liberty to make a few remarks, and this is a talent for conversation. I believe I shall not err in placing it at the head of all attainments with respect to its attractive powers."
[The Athenaeum: A Magazine of Literary and Miscellaneous Information, Volume 3, by John Aitken, pub 1808]

To be able to talk to different people with ease was a skill that needed no teacher, just practice, confidence and good examples to follow. Despite the sentiment quoted above, the ability to hold a conversation was an important requirement for both men and women. In her letters, Jane Austen often described new gentlemen she met by how easy or difficult it was to talk to them. Writing In February 1813, she wished one man had been "less anxious and fidgety, and more conversable" while another man in 1816 was described as having "good manners and clever conversation". It's unsurprising that when she wanted to give Mr Darcy a failing, she gave him a difficulty in speaking to new people: