Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

“I have every reason in the world to think ill of you.

“I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success.

Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham.

“You have reduced him to his present state of poverty—comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him.

It was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong an affection.

With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, Elizabeth opened the letter,

Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told he need not stay. Lydia laughed, and said:

“Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia’s character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself or her family ridiculous; a flirt, too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty also is comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace?”

What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people’s happiness were in his guardianship!—how much of pleasure or pain was it in his power to bestow!—how much of good or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character, and as she stood before the canvas on which he was represented, and fixed his eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of gratitude than it had ever raised before; she remembered its warmth, and softened its impropriety of expression.

They had nothing to accuse him of but pride;

He then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself.

never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain.

The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this.

But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.

Wickham’s affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia’s for him.

She was disappointed, and angry with herself for being so.

Miss Lucas is married and settled. And one of my own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have seen it in the papers. It was in The Times and The Courier, I know; though it was not put in as it ought to be.

He scarcely needed an invitation to stay supper;

Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her favourite child.

“You are then resolved to have him?” “I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”

My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.” Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do.

They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.

Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;—though

The turn of your countenance I shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me.”

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

and Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather knew that she was happy than felt herself to be so;

Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally known, her improvement was great.

His affection for her soon sunk into indifference; hers lasted a little longer;