Elizabeth Bennet Quotes

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.

You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

I am excessively diverted.

She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.

Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.

They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.

There’s always that one guy who gets a hold on you. Not like your best friend’s brother who gets you in a headlock kind of hold. Or the little kid you’re babysitting who attaches himself to your leg kind of hold. I’m talking epic. Life changing. The “can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do your homework, can’t stop giggling, can’t remember anything but his smile” kind of hold. Like, Wesley and Buttercup proportions. Harry and Sally. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The kind of hold in all your favorite ’80s songs, like the “Must Have Been Love”s, the “Take My Breath Away”s, the “Eternal Flame”s—the ones you sing into a hairbrush-microphone at the top of your lungs with your best friends on a Saturday night.

Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.” -Elizabeth Bennet

I've read hundreds of novels in my life, most of them claiming that love was the center of the universe. That it could heal any damage inside of us. That it was what we need to survive. From Darcy to Heathcliff I tought they were fools. That love was something fictional, only found in worn pages of a book. But all that has changed since I met my Elizabeth Bennet. I never thought I would find myself completely and utterly consumed by another until her. She took my hand and lead me out of the darkness and showed me that, whatever our souls are made for hers and mine are the same. You once asked me who I loved most in this world, it's you.

It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.

She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both: by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.

Vanity, not love, has been my folly.

You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.

This is it--what all the hoopla is about, what Wuthering Heights is about--it all boils down to this feeling rushing through me in this moment with Joe as our mouths refuse to part. Who knew all this time I was one kiss away from being Cathy and Juliet and Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Chatterley!?

Well, my dear," said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note aloud, "if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness—if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders.

Elizabeth Bennet: And that put paid to it. I wonder who first discovered the power of poetry in driving away love? Mr. Darcy: I thought that poetry was the food of love. Elizabeth Bennet: Of a fine stout love, it may. But if it is only a vague inclination I'm convinced one poor sonnet will kill it stone dead Mr. Darcy: So what do you recommend to encourage affection? Elizabeth Bennet: Dancing. Even if one's partner is barely tolerable.

Have you any other objection than your belief of my indifference?

What on earth did you say to Isola? She stopped in on her way to pick up Pride and Prejudice and to berate me for never telling her about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Why hadn't she known there were better love stories around? Stories not riddled with ill-adjusted men, anguish, death and graveyards!

Elizabeth Bennet, will you do me the great honor of not going to prom with me?

My object then," replied Darcy, "was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew it had begun.

I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!- Elizabeth Bennet

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

I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty women can bestow.' Miss Bingley immediately fixated her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied: 'Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

Miss Bennet, I am quite aware of your superior talent for cutting down the Lord's forsaken flock. I merely mean to spare your gown.' Thank you,' said Elizabeth, composing herself, 'but I should rather my gown be soiled than my honor.

It is always easy to question the judgement of others in matters of which we may be imperfectly informed.

You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your refusal of my addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for believing it are briefly these: -- It does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections with the family of De Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are circumstances highly in its favor; and you should take it into farther consideration that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall chuse to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females. (Mr. Collins, after proposing to Elizabeth Bennet and being refused, in Pride and Prejudice.)

Like so many of the other books I read, it never seemed to me like a book, but like a place I had lived in, had visited and would visit again, just as all the people in them, every blessed one – Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jay Gatsby, Elizabeth Bennet, Scarlet O'Hara, Dill and Scout, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot – were more real than the real people I knew.

Elizabeth and Darcy merely looked at one another in awkward silence, until the latter reached both arms around her. She was frozen-"What does he mean to do?" she thought. But his intentions were respectable, for Darcy merely meant to retrieve his Brown Bess, which Elizabeth had affixed to her back during her walk. She remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to him. "Your balls, Mr. Darcy?" He reached out and closed her hand around them, and offered, "They belong to you, Miss Bennet." Upon this, their colour changed, and they were forced to look away from one another, lest they laugh.

Elizabeth Bennet: I'm very fond of walking. Mr. Darcy: Yes... yes I know. (from Pride & Prejudice, the movie)

It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.

When left alone with her, I ignored her and kept my eyes on my book, though I confess I turned over more pages than I read.

—¿Prefieres leer a jugar? —La señorita Elizabeth Bennet es una gran lectora y no encuentra placer en nada más.

Um, Mindy is much less like Elizabeth Bennet than she is a combination of Carrie Bradshaw and Eric Cartman.

It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "How young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are." "All young ladies accomplished? My dear Charles, what do you mean?" "Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time without being informed that she was very accomplished." "Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished." "Nor I, I am sure." said Miss Bingley. "Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman." "Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it." "Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can really be esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved." "All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." "I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder at your knowing any.

One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it

Hubiera podido fácilmente perdonar su orgullo, si no hubiera sido porque se metió con el mío" Elizabeth Bennet.

And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's concern-- and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.

A naive, excitable teenaged reader is a beautiful thing. Someone who's never heard of Elizabeth Bennet or Jay Gatsby, until you tell him. And they all still believe in truth. That's the fun of it.

It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him.

Elizabeth’s tears had wrung my heart: I longed to enfold her in my arms, to comfort her, but I knew it would be infamous indeed to take such advantage of her distress.

It is doubtful whether Mrs Bennet missed the company of her second daughter, but her husband certainly did. Elizabeth had always been his favourite child.

What made you so shy of me, when you first called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did you look as if you did not care about me?" "Because you were grave and silent, and gave me no encouragement." "But I was embarrassed." "And so was I." "You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner." "A man who had felt less, might.

...she herself loved the character of Elizabeth Bennet. "I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

The more I see of the world, the more I am dissatisfied with it; - Elizabeth Bennet (Volume 2, chapter 1)

Elizabeth Bennet, will you do me the great honor of not going to prom with me? ... Will you instead avoid prom with me and let me take you on a date ? ♥ - Will Darcy in Prom & Prejudice ☺

As for Elizabeth Bennet, our chief reason for accepting her point of view as a reflection of her author's is the impression that she bears of sympathy between them--an impression of which almost every reader would be sensible, even if it had not the explicit confirmation of Jane Austen's letters. Yet, as she is presented to us in Pride and Prejudice, she is but a partial and sometimes perverse observer.

Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all.

I am not afraid of you," said he, smilingly.

Most ardently

Elizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some music-books that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed on her.

I must forever imagine myself comparing every man I meet to Mr. Darcy and finding the otherwise worthy gentleman wanting.

Elizabeth was excessively disappointed...but it was her business to be satisfied — and certainly her temper to be happy; and all was soon right again.

Mr. Darcy was the perfect example of a man used to being eminently in control, and then within seconds of meeting Elizabeth Bennet, finding himself so at the mercy of his passion for her that he starts doing the very things he condemns and prohibits in everyone else. Terrified by his human vulnerability, Darcy proceeds to do everything to push Lizzie away except accuse her of some unspecified crime and having her carted off.

walking across the moors made me feel as if I’d stepped primly out of a Jane Austen book or an Impressionist painting. But I bet even Elizabeth Bennet had never punted a rabbit before, and my current count was 137.

Elizabeth Bennet would no doubt be shocked by such indelicacy. But then, Elizabeth Bennet really should have boxed Mr. Darcy’s ear halfway through chapter three. Just as Emma Woodhouse should have shut the door in Mr. Knightley’s condescending face and Fanny should have slapped some sense into Edmund then gone off to London to get herself a decent education. Having now experienced various degrees of communion with a man, Charlotte was of the opinion that Jane Austen’s heroines were ninnies. Maybe from here on she ought to read Mary Wollstonecraft instead.

You are the love of my life, Elizabeth Bennet. So I ask you now…” A brief pause separates these words from his next. “Half in anguish… half in hope…” He ends his speech with the glorious words Lizzy has been wishing to hear spoken from Fitzwilliam Darcy, “Will you do me the great honor of taking me for your husband?” Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

A few of the guests, who had the misfortune of being too near the windows, were seized and feasted on at once. When Elizabeth stood, she saw Mrs. Long struggle to free herself as two female dreadfuls bit into her head, cracking her skull like a walnut, and sending a shower of dark blood spouting as high as the chandeliers. As guests fled in every direction, Mr. Bennet's voice cut through the commotion. "Girls! Pentagram of Death!" Elizabeth immediately joined her four sisters, Jane, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia in the center of the dance floor. Each girl produced a dagger from her ankle and stood at the tip of an imaginary five-pointed star. From the center of the room, they began stepping outward in unison - each thrusting a razor-sharp dagger with one hand, the other hand modestly tucked into the small of her back.

Elizabeth was not playing for the sake of exhibiting her virtuosity: she played for joy.

Mrs. Bennet's morals were indeed much better than Miss Bingley's, as the matron never prompted anything truly underhanded, she merely wished to see her girls well settled.

- I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love! - I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love - said Darcy. - Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away. - Elizabeth Bennet

Aunque me dieras cuarenta hombres como él, nunca sería tan feliz como tú. Mientras no posea tu buen carácter, tu bondad, no podrá embargarme esa dicha. No, no, déjame a mi aire; y, tal vez, si me acompaña la suerte, con el tiempo pueda encontrar a otro señor Collins.

My dear, dear aunt,' she rapturously cried, what delight! what felicity! You give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport we shall spend! And when we do return, it shall not be like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of any thing. We will know where we have gone -- we will recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations; nor, when we attempt to describe any particular scene, will we begin quarrelling about its relative situation. Let our first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of travellers.

But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude. -- Gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister.

We are connected, Elizabeth. Of that there can be no doubt. It is something akin to your love of nature, of soil and roots and water and sunlight. Your seedlings could not thrive without one of these components…as I could not thrive without you.

Elizabeth laughed and pushed her father's shoulder. "Go, Papa, and be kind to him. I love him so. And it would be to your advantage to be on his good side." Mr. Bennet raised his eyebrows. "Oh, and why is that?" Because I have seen both his libraries in London and at Pemberley, Papa." Interested and amused, Mr. Bennet said, "Ahh, and are they very grand, Lizzy?" A more exquisite sight you will not see," she assured him.

As for your Elizabeth's picture, you must not have it taken for what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?" "It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be copied.

This is the second time she has turned me down, and with an apparent attempt to affront me. How does she manage to disappoint and intrigue simultaneously?

The more I see of the world, the more I am dissatisfied with it

Mr. Bennet’s eyes flickered to where Elizabeth stood beside Miss Bennet. “Am I going to require a second for this meeting?

I imagine it’s the kind of dress Elizabeth Bennet would have worn when she married Mr Darcy.

If you will thank me,” he replied, “let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.

You judge very properly," said Mr. Bennet, "and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?" "They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and thought I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible." Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped, and he listened with the keenest enjoyment, maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure.

In Darcy, Elizabeth would have a husband who would adore her, but who was stubborn enough to refuse to give in to her. Elizabeth would have a husband she respected and loved, if she could ever bend her stiff neck enough to confess to it. Bennet could not have wished for anything more for his daughter.

—Bueno, querida —dijo el señor Bennet, cuando Elizabeth leyó la misiva en voz alta—, si tu hija enferma gravemente, si acaba muriendo, será un consuelo saber que todo fue para pescar al señor Bingley, y siguiendo tus órdenes

He could not believe his luck. He was already out the door, determined to make haste. Miss Jane Bennet, by far the most beautiful of all the women he had intended to court and possessing a far more docile spirit, would be his.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Or so I thought. My opinion forever changed the day I met a very peculiar man by the name of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, “You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. You cannot have been always at Longbourn.” Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of feeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and glancing over it, said, in a colder voice: “Are you pleased with Kent?

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice should create in the discerning male reader a deeply rooted concupiscence for Elizabeth Bennet that springs not from her vivacity or from her wit but from her unerring instinct to follow the deeply moral directives of her own character even against the influences and arguments of society, of convention, of seeming necessity, and of her friends and family. Properly read, Austen should be a form of pornography for the morally and spiritually discriminating man.

Had it been your uncle's doing, I must and would have paid him; but these violent young lovers carry everything their own way. I shall offer to pay him to-morrow; he will rant and storm about his love for you, and there will be an end of the matter.

In essentials I believe Mr. Darcy is very much what he ever was. When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that either his mind or manners were in a state of improvement. But that from knowing him better his disposition was better understood.

São muito poucas pessoas que eu realmente amo, e ainda menos as que tenho em alta conta. Quanto mais conheço o mundo, mais insatisfeita fico com ele; todo dia confirma minha crença da inconsistência de todo caráter humano, e na pouca confiança que se pode ter na aparência tanto do mérito quanto da razão.

When a gentleman spends quite some time telling me in detail about his father's courtship of his mother, I have to assume there is some moral for me in the tale. Since in this case that courtship consisted primarily of his father insisting repeatedly they were to marry and his mother refusing him almost as often, I take the moral to be that there is very little point in refusing, since it would only lead to the question being repeated until I agreed to it out of sheer exhaustion.

His reason for coming strengthened his resolve, and without further delay, his words spilled out. "Mr. Bennet, I request a private audience with Miss Bennet." The room was thick with silence. Elizabeth blinked several times, trying to convince herself she had heard him correctly. The heaviness that had settled over her heart lifted, and her mouth turned up into a small smile. Before her father could respond to Mr. Darcy's request, they heard her mother blurt, "Good Lord! It is about time!

There is seldom a physical description of a character or scene in Pride and Prejudice and yet we feel that we have seen each of these characters and their intimate worlds; we feel we know them, and sense their surroundings. We can see Elizabeth's reaction to Darcy's denunciation of her beauty, Mrs. Bennet chattering at the dinner table or Elizabeth and Darcy walking in and out of the shadows of the Pemberley estate. The amazing thing is that all of this is created mainly through tone—different tones of voice, words that become haughty and naughty, soft, harsh, coaxing, insinuating, insensible, vain. The sense of touch that is missing from Austen's novels is replaced by a tension, an erotic texture of sounds and silences. She manages to create a feeling of longing by setting characters who want each other at odds.

She had tried when she turned sixteen to think of herself as a woman, like Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet or the multitudes of heroines who lived in her books, but in her head she wasn't there. They were all older than her, and had all, even Jane, seen more of life. And yet she was too old to be Sara Crewe or Alice or Wendy Darling either. She was a liminal person, trapped between a world she'd grown out of and another that wouldn't let her in. It was one reason why she wanted to leave the island so badly--- the hope that leaving the place she'd grown up would help her leave her childhood behind. Not forever, not yet. But for a visit, to see what it was like.

A fire was licking at the fringe of one of the drapes that hung from the four posters of Mr. Rochester's bed. It cast a warm light through the gloom, illuminating his face while he slept. The glow became him; as the fire danced, its darting light softened the severe lines of his brow and lip. "Please fall in love with me," Jane whispered. It shouldn't be totally out of the realm of possibility. After all, Mr. Darcy fell in love with the nearly destitute Elizabeth Bennet. It could be like one of those stories Charlotte and the other girls at Lowood were always telling - the ones with rich, handsome suitors, not the ones about murder. Wait. Murder. The bed was still on fire.

You would choose a man you do not love to spite the one you do.

Hopefully, my dearest Jane, you can muster some of Elizabeth’s headstrong manner and mix it with a bit of Lydia’s boldness and suggest Sir Wesley take a long walk off a short pier.

I will kill him.” Darcy spat as he stood and began to walk towards the door.

IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged that a brilliant idea, conceived and executed by a clever young woman, must be claimed by a man.

Miss Darcy shot a quick glance to where her brother shared a conversation with the Gardiners. Elizabeth

But there too fine cooking would become inescapably French. Its greatest proselytiser was Julia Childs, who had an infectious passion for sauce. Her book of 1961, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her TV show, The French Chef, encouraged the ‘servantless American cook’ to abandon all concern for ‘budgets, waistlines, time schedules’ and ‘children’s meals’ in order to throw him- or herself into ‘producing something wonderful to eat’. Elizabeth Bennet would have been horrified.

Elizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. "How could you begin?'' said she. "I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?'' "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.'' "My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners—my behaviour to you was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?'' "For the liveliness of your mind, I did.'' "You may as well call it impertinence at once.

The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by a manoeuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene. Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of "Lord, how tired I am!" accompanied by a violent yawn.

Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour, which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments.

Had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing opinion of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly of their vice. He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given. Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents, which, rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife.

out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley's way." Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal; yet was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an epithet. As soon as they entered, Bingley looked at her so expressively, and shook hands with such warmth, as left no doubt of his good information; and he soon afterwards said aloud, "Mrs. Bennet, have you no more lanes hereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again to-day?" "I advise Mr. Darcy, and Lizzy, and Kitty," said Mrs. Bennet, "to walk to Oakham Mount this morning. It is a nice long walk, and Mr. Darcy has never seen the view." "It may do very well for the others," replied Mr. Bingley; "but I am sure it will be too much for Kitty. Won't it, Kitty?" Kitty owned that she had rather stay at home. Darcy professed a great curiosity to see the view from the Mount, and Elizabeth silently consented. As she went up stairs to get ready, Mrs. Bennet followed her, saying: "I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that disagreeable man all to yourself. But I hope you will not mind it: it is all for Jane's sake, you know; and there is no occasion for talking to him, except just now and then. So, do not put yourself to inconvenience." During their walk, it was resolved that Mr. Bennet's consent should be asked in the course of the evening. Elizabeth reserved to herself the application for her mother's. She could not determine how her mother would take it; sometimes doubting whether all his wealth and grandeur would be enough to overcome her abhorrence of the man. But whether she were violently set against the