Pride and Prejudice

Elizabeth Bennet: Yes, of course, she would wear one — a mask can’t stop her from giving her opinions very decidedly for so young a person.

Charles Bingley: Yes, but it constantly falls below his nose because he keeps laughing uproariously at everything anyone says.

Fitzwilliam Darcy: Of course. A mask cannot stop a person from spotting a pair of fine eyes. And he’s already very good at keeping his distance.

Caroline Bingley: I mean, if it’s the fashion, of course, she’ll be wearing one. With a pearl maskchain. Like they do in London.

Wickham: Nope. He wears masks in public, but everyone knows that you have to take it off when you have a girl over. Plus, teens are less likely to get coronavirus.

Jane Bennet: Certainly. Neither her beauty nor her kindness can be diluted by a mask.

Lydia & Kitty: Um, no!

Mary Bennet: Yes, and she would be so annoying about it that eventually everyone else in her household would stop wearing masks to spite her.

Mrs. Bennet: Why should she? She’s sure she’s already had the virus five times by now, and with her nerves, and under the stress of a pandemic that could very well disrupt the all-important courting of her five daughters, who could ask her to wear such nonsense? No, I think not.

Mr. Bennet: Absolutely. And his advice to his daughters is that their mother will never see them again if they do wear a mask, and he will never see them again if they don’t.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh: Yes, she’s in the at-risk group.

Mr. Collins: Yes (see above for why).

Persuasion

Anne Elliot: Yes, for the entire story, but she eventually throws caution to the wind and takes it off to kiss the heck out of Wentworth. Can you blame her?

Captain Wentworth: Yes, and it conceals his true emotions. Two for one.

Sense and Sensibility

Elinor Dashwood: Ms. Sense herself, do you even have to ask?

Marianne Dashwood: Yes for her sister, then no for a boy, then she gets Covid and Colonel Brandon nurses her back to health, then yes again for her sister AND a boy, i.e., a much older adult man.

Edwards Ferrars: Yes. He promised to wear a mask. So he will wear the mask, even if he no longer wishes to wear that…particular mask. In fact: he prefers another mask!

Willoughby: He puts the mask around his chin because he thinks it doesn’t look cool on.

Mansfield Park

Fanny Price: Yes, she’s the picture of moral fortitude.

Edmund Bertrum: No, until he stops messing around with Mary Crawford and gets with his first cousin Fanny ;)

Northanger Abbey

Catherine Morland: She would never! Everyone knows mask-wearing is a hoax created by the crème de la crème of Bath society to humiliate the gullible and uncultured. At least, that’s how she sees it.

Emma

Emma Woodhouse: Yes, as a leader in society, it’s her duty. Also, she carries extras to hand out whenever she leaves the house… in case there’s an opportunity for “mask-making.”

Henry Woodhouse: He does not wear a mask as he simply never leaves the house, but he does privately opine on how right he was that, “everyone is riddled with disease.”

Harriet Smith: When she is among sensible farmer Robert Martin, she does. When Emma casually mentions that she finds masks, “utterly dreary,” Harriet happens to decide to maybe take hers off.

Miss Bates: Gladly, she wears the one Mrs. Bates knit her, so that she can safely read aloud Jane Fairfax’s letters to anyone who happens to be nearby.

George Knightley: Yes, but only so he can correct Emma for not wearing one outside when she’s practicing archery and no one else is around.

Cher: Yes, but when she goes to a party in the valley, all bets are off. She also donates her Alaïa (a really important designer) dress to be turned into masks for the less fortunate!