It is
difficult to know whether he is most agreeable when talking to his wife,
or when putting Mr
Let us flatter ourselves that_ I _may be the survivor;” and his inquiry
to his colossal cousin as to the compliments which Mr
Bennet we have
glanced at, and it is not easy to say whether she is more exquisitely
amusing or more horribly true
With Mary, Miss Austen has
taken rather less pains, though she has been even more unkind to her;
not merely in the text, but, as we learn from those interesting
traditional appendices which Mr
Austen Leigh has given us, in dooming
her privately to marry “one of Mr
It is at any rate difficult not
to extend to her a share of the respect and affection (affection and
respect of a peculiar kind; doubtless), with which one regards Mr
Collins, when she draws the moral of Lydia’s fall
I sometimes wish
that the exigencies of the story had permitted Miss Austen to unite
these personages, and thus at once achieve a notable mating and soothe
poor Mrs
Only genius could have made Charlotte what she is, yet
not disagreeable; Wickham what he is, without investing him either with
a cheap Don Juanish attractiveness or a disgusting rascality
It has sometimes, I believe, been urged that his pride is
unnatural at first in its expression and later in its yielding, while
his falling in love at all is not extremely probable
Here again I
cannot go with the objectors
Nothing in
even our author is finer and more delicately touched than the change of
his demeanour at the sudden meeting in the grounds of Pemberley
Had he
been a bad prig or a bad coxcomb, he might have been still smarting
under his rejection, or suspicious that the girl had come
husband-hunting
His being neither is exactly consistent with the
probable feelings of a man spoilt in the common sense, but not really
injured in disposition, and thoroughly in love
Elizabeth of course belongs to the_
allegro _or_ allegra _division of the army of Venus
Elizabeth can give
at least as good as she gets when she is attacked; but she never
“scratches,” and she never attacks first
Then
too she is a perfectly natural girl
She does not disguise from herself
or anybody that she resents Darcy’s first ill-mannered personality with
as personal a feeling
Though not in the least “impudent and mannish grown,”
she has no mere sensibility, no nasty niceness about her
There were better sense in the sad mechanic
exercise of determining the reason of its absence where it is not
Their names are, in chronological order, Elizabeth
Bennet, Diana Vernon, Argemone Lavington, Beatrix Esmond, and Barbara
Grant
I should have been most in love with Beatrix and Argemone; I
should, I think, for mere occasional companionship, have preferred Diana
and Barbara
1

“He came down to see the place”                                        2

Mr
Bennet                                                    5

“I hope Mr
22

“Without once opening his lips”                                       24

Tailpiece to Chapter V
Bennet and her two youngest girls”                              53

Heading to Chapter X
60

“No, no; stay where you are”                                          67

“Piling up the fire”                                                  69

Heading to Chapter XII
84

“Protested that he never read novels”                                 87

Heading to Chapter XV
95

“The officers of the ----shire”                                       97

“Delighted to see their dear friend again”                           108

Heading to Chapter XVIII
113

“Such very superior dancing is not often seen”                       118

“To assure you in the most animated language”                        132

Heading to Chapter XX
139

“They entered the breakfast-room”                                    143

Heading to Chapter XXI
146

“Walked back with them”                                              148

Heading to Chapter XXII
209

“He never failed to inform them”                                     211

“The gentlemen accompanied him”                                      213

Heading to Chapter XXXI
221

“Accompanied by their aunt”                                          225

“On looking up”                                                      228

Heading to Chapter XXXIV
235

“Hearing herself called”                                             243

Heading to Chapter XXXVI
318

“To make herself agreeable to all”                                   321

“Engaged by the river”                                               327

Heading to Chapter XLVI
Darcy with him”                                                 404

“Jane happened to look round”                                        415

“Mrs
Long and her nieces”                                           420

“Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak to you”                             422

Heading to Chapter LVI
Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that
Netherfield Park is let at last?”

Mr
“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs
Long has just been here, and she
told me all about it.”

Mr
“Do not you want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife, impatiently
“_You_ want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”

[Illustration:

“He came down to see the place”

[_Copyright 1894 by George Allen._]]

This was invitation enough
“Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs
A single man of large fortune; four or
five thousand a year
What a fine thing for our girls!”

“How so
how can it affect them?”

“My dear Mr
Bennet,” replied his wife, “how can you be so tiresome
You
must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.”

“Is that his design in settling here?”

“Design
But it is very likely that he
_may_ fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as
soon as he comes.”

“I see no occasion for that
