Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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"Well, I believe, if you will excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if you will not consider me as doing a very rude thing, I shall take Emma's advice and go out for a quarter of an hour. As the sun is out, I believe I had better take my three turns while I can. I treat you without ceremony, Mr. Knightley. We invalids think we are privileged people."
"I leave an excellent substitute in my daughter. Emma will be happy to entertain you. And therefore I think I will beg your excuse and take my three turns— — my winter walk."
"I would ask for the pleasure of your company, Mr. Knightley, but I am a very slow walker, and my pace would be tedious to you; and, besides, you have another long walk before you, to Donwell Abbey."
"So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young— — he wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time." And it always ended in "Kitty, a fair but frozen maid."
"Well, my dears, how does your book go on?—Have you got any thing fresh?"
"Aye, that's very just, indeed, that's very properly said. Very true. 'Woman, lovely woman.' It is such a pretty charade, my dear, that I can easily guess what fairy brought it.—Nobody could have written so prettily, but you, Emma."
"Ah! it is no difficulty to see who you take after! Your dear mother was so clever at all those things! If I had but her memory! But I can remember nothing;—not even that particular riddle which you have heard me mention; I can only recollect the first stanza; and there are several.
Kitty, a fair but frozen maid, Kindled a flame I yet deplore, The hood-wink'd boy I called to aid, Though of his near approach afraid, So fatal to my suit before.
And that is all that I can recollect of it—but it is very clever all the way through. But I think, my dear, you said you had got it."
"Aye, very true.—I wish I could recollect more of it.
Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.
The name makes me think of poor Isabella; for she was very near being christened Catherine after her grandmama. I hope we shall have her here next week. Have you thought, my dear, where you shall put her—and what room there will be for the children?"
"I do not know, my dear—but it is so long since she was here!—not since last Easter, and then only for a few days.—Mr. John Knightley's being a lawyer is very inconvenient.—Poor Isabella!—she is sadly taken away from us all!—and how sorry she will be when she comes, not to see Miss Taylor here!"
"I do not know, my dear. I am sure I was very much surprized when I first heard she was going to be married."
"Yes, my dear, if there is time.—But—
she is coming for only one week. There will not be time for any thing."
"It would be very hard, indeed, my dear, if poor Isabella were to be anywhere but at Hartfield."
"But I do not see why poor Isabella should be obliged to go back so soon, though he does. I think, Emma, I shall try and persuade her to stay longer with us. She and the children might stay very well."
"Aye, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet."
"Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mama. Henry is the eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second, is named after his father. Some people are surprized, I believe, that the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They are all remarkably clever; and they have so many pretty ways. They will come and stand by my chair, and say,
and once Henry asked me for a knife, but I told him knives were only made for grandpapas. I think their father is too rough with them very often."
"And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a very frightful way!"
"Well, I cannot understand it."
"Ah, my dear,"
"poor Miss Taylor— It is a grievous business."
"Pretty well, my dear— I hope —pretty well.—I do not know but that the place agrees with her tolerably."
"Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish."
"Why, to be sure,"
"yes, certainly—I cannot deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs. Weston, does come and see us pretty often—but then—she is always obliged to go away again."
"But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,"
"He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very proper, handsome letter it was. She shewed it to me. I thought it very well done of him indeed. Whether it was his own idea you know, one cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps—"
"Three-and-twenty!—is he indeed?—Well, I could not have thought it— and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother! Well, time does fly indeed!—and my memory is very bad. However, it was an exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept. 28th—and began, 'My dear Madam,' but I forget how it went on; and it was signed 'F. C. Weston Churchill.'—I remember that perfectly."
"My poor dear Isabella,"
"How long it is, how terribly long since you were here! And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early, my dear— and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.—You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel."
"It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air."
"Ah! my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use to any body. I am sure it almost killed me once."
"Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has not time to take care of himself —
he tells me
which is very sad —
I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But then there is not so clever a man any where."
"I hope he will be here to-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes, you had better let him look at little Bella's throat."
"It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use to her—and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have spoken to —
"Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a bad cold about a month ago."
"That has been a good deal the case, my dear; but not to the degree you mention.
Perry says that
"Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off!—and the air so bad!"
"Ah! my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it—but after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different creatures; you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say, that I think you are any of you looking well at present."
"Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley very far from looking well."
"Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a better companion than Harriet."
"Ah!"