The Other Bennet Sister

by Janice Hadlow

‘Perhaps,’ remarked Lizzy, ‘correctness and application are not the only measures of success.’

True beauty, he declared, had nothing to do with outward appearance. It came from within, the product of a well-regulated mind and a properly formed understanding. These qualities, and not a pretty face, are the real measure of a woman’s worth.

In the space of a moment she understood how fervently she longed for affection. She would not say love, for that seemed too much to ask. A spark of fellow feeling would be enough, a little warmth to make the time pass more pleasurably. Her books alone, she realised, would never entirely suffice.

she yearned to meet a man who would put an end to her loneliness, who would not think her awkward and plain, who liked the things she liked and did not think them foolish, a man whom she could love and who would love her back in his turn.

‘Then I should say he tells us it is only through self-knowledge that genuine happiness is to be had. Only when we know ourselves – when we have examined and understood our strengths and weaknesses, when we have been honest enough to admit what we really desire from life – only then do we have any chance at all of attaining it.’

Yet again, she was to surrender her own enjoyments in order to gratify the perceptions of others.

consoled myself with imagining how different life would be when I inherited Longbourn. Then I should have a fine house and a fine wife, for I never doubted the prospect of one would produce the other. And now I have both, and I find myself no less solitary than I was when I had neither.’

she was pleased to discover that she had courage enough to prefer an uncertain future to one she knew would make her unhappy.

‘Our happiness depends on ourselves.’

‘Of course. We women are barred, by custom and a thousand other petty considerations, from attempting such an undertaking alone. But I flatter myself that Mr Gardiner could not have succeeded as he has without my help. He has often told me that my judgement in matters of taste, quality, and prices has been of the utmost use to him.’

‘So yes, like all the best businesses – and, I might say, the best marriages too – Mr Gardiner and I are indeed a partnership.’

I hate to see children crushed and silenced by too much correction. Home should be a pleasant, laughing sort of a place, I always think.

You dress as you do because you do not believe you deserve anything better; and in doing so, you communicate that low opinion of yourself to everyone who sees you.

They did not consider happiness a matter of chance or destiny. Instead they did everything in their power to cultivate it, prizing generosity over petulance, preferring kindness to umbrage, and always encouraging laughter rather than complaint.

All any of us want is a little attention,

The man who declares his affections most readily is not necessarily the man who feels them most profoundly.’

‘But you are a woman, which, as you grow older, you are likely to discover puts you only slightly above the condition of an infant in the eyes of most of the world.’

What she sought was a union of equals, a coming together of like minds and sympathetic intellects.

‘Let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life.’

Perhaps the life of a single woman need not be as miserable and as humiliating as was universally insisted upon. Perhaps much depended on the circumstances and the woman.

She admired Mary’s strength of will. She applauded her bravery. She was relieved to see her no longer so hopelessly, desperately miserable; but for all her dry-eyed fortitude, there was something quashed and doused about her that was painful to watch. Resignation was clearly to be preferred to the alternative, but perhaps only just.

‘Our happiness depends on ourselves.’

would rather tell the truth and risk humiliation than pass up the chance of happiness because I was not brave enough to say honestly what I felt.’

have learned it is not enough simply to experience feeling. You showed me that one must find the courage to act upon it. There are times when happiness must be fought for, if we are to have any chance at all of achieving it.’