Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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“Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know anyone 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
“Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,”
“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.”
“Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.”
“All this she must possess,”
“and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”
“Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?”
“Undoubtedly,”
“there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.”
Mr. Jones's being sent for immediately;
every possible attention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister.
“Removed!”
“It must not be thought of. My sister, I am sure, will not hear of her removal.”
“Whatever I do is done in a hurry,”
“and therefore if I should resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five minutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here.”
“You begin to comprehend me, do you?”
“I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through I am afraid is pitiful.”
“I did not know before,”
“that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study.”
“The country,”
“can in general supply but a few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.”
“When I am in the country,”
“I never wish to leave it; and when I am in town it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be equally happy in either.”
“Did Charlotte dine with you?”
“She seems a very pleasant young woman.”
“I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,”
“I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement; and when your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing when she is ill.”
“You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.”
“It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours.”
“I have already told her so once, by your desire.”
“Thank you — but I always mend my own.”
“Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At present I have not room to do them justice.”
“They are generally long; but whether always charming it is not for me to determine.”
“That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline,”
“because he does not write with ease. He studies too much for words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?”
“My style of writing is very different from yours.”
“My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them — by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.”
“Nothing is more deceitful,”
“than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”
“And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of modesty?”
“The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.
When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning that
you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourself — and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or anyone else?”
“Nay,”
“this is too much, to remember at night all the foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, I believe what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless precipitance merely to show off before the ladies.”
“I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that you would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as dependent on chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were mounting your horse,
a friend were to say,
you would probably do it, you would probably not go — and, at another word, might stay a month.”
“I am exceedingly gratified,”