Emma
Mr. Elton
The vain young vicar
Highbury's handsome vicar, who flatters everyone and cares about money and rank. Emma picks him for Harriet, but he has other plans.
Philip Elton is the young vicar of Highbury, polite, flattering and fond of his own consequence. He knows how to say what pleases, and he is ambitious socially. Emma likes him at first and decides he is perfect for Harriet.
Underneath the compliments, Mr. Elton is vain and quick to take offense. Mr. Knightley notices early that he knows the value of a good income as well as any man, and Elton shows that he will not marry for love alone.
“Everybody has their level, and I need not look so low as Miss Smith!”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Mr. Elton admires Emma's portrait of Harriet, offers to take it to London to be framed, and leaves a charade in Harriet's album, all of which Emma reads as courtship of Harriet. On the way home from Randalls on Christmas Eve, alone in the carriage, he declares his love to Emma, and says everybody has their level and he need not look so low as Miss Smith.
He goes to Bath and returns engaged to a wealthy Miss Augusta Hawkins. At the Crown Inn ball, he refuses to dance with Harriet, saying his dancing days are over, until Mr. Knightley steps in. Emma sees plainly what he is.
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