Pride and Perjury Quotes

“And all because of the master’s fatal flaw – the flaw of his character, as in Shakespeare.’ I knew nothing of Shakespeare’s flaws – but, of course, Mr Spencer’s father had taught him a good deal. ‘What flaw do you mean, Mr Spencer?’ I asked at last, for he was still staring into the fire, and his pipe quite gone out. He said, ‘It is the quality that brings down the principal player, in every tragedy. In Macbeth ’tis ambition. In Othello – of course –’tis jealousy. But in Mr Bennet’s case, it is indolence. Miss Lydia wanted discipline – wanted it badly – but her own father only bestirred himself enough to laugh at her.’ I could not defend him, for had not Bessy always said the same? But I could not help asking, ‘But surely – it is the mother’s duty to correct her daughter?’ He sat looking into the fire for a terrible long time, while I feared he could not disapprove me more, or else that he was falling asleep over his pipe, as had happened once before. But finally he said, ‘You are a very wise woman, Mrs Hill.’ ⸎”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“I longed to ask if some camomile tea might set her to rights, but it did not seem respectful, what with her dying – though, to be sure, she was not.”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“London always seems a place of possibilities,”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“But a thousand things could keep a man in London beyond a love child, for gentlemen quite often keep houses there and who can say what else they might find in town to attend to, or on which to waste their idle hours?”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“the rich never see themselves as we do – they will compare themselves to the Bingleys and the Darcys, instead of to everyone else in England!”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“Most English people do not have manors, but work for a living, instead.”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“I cannot believe, Hill, that any person, in the history of mankind, ever had more burdens to bear than I! An eldest daughter – so lovely, so gentle – still unmarried! A second daughter as cross and contrary as Lizzy is! A third with no talent to console her cousin, a sulky fourth, and a fifth who finds losing her home a source of humour!”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“We have got into a custom of sitting by the fire, putting the world to rights, me with my knitting, and he with the Bard”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“Into the silence, the new butler said, ‘If I may say so, I still believe that Miss Bennet looked uncommonly well as they set off, and such as any young man might request an introduction to. ’Twould be the salvation of the family should she marry high, for then it might not signify whether the master had one son or fifty!’ I suspected that fifty sons would be a worse affliction than the five young ladies the master was already plagued with, but I did not say so.”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“Well, the new master of Netherfield has called at last and is very fine-looking indeed. A face as open as a puppy’s – a fine, fluffy, cream-coloured puppy with wide eyes and a shock of fair curls.”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“surely she need not sacrifice her young life to oblige her family! After all, the days of forcing young ladies into wedlock are – I am glad to say – long since passed.”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice

“It is beyond my poor skill to describe how irritating Mr Collins could be, for he is neither stupid, nor ugly, nor rude. As Spencer said by the fire that night, he ‘lacked the gift of seeing himself as others saw him’. His self-satisfaction in his patroness’s wealth, in his humble abode, in his person altogether – is beyond bearing.”
― Alice McVeigh, Pride and Perjury: Twelve Short Stories Inspired by Pride and Prejudice