Austen Said:

"with all and every thing belonging to it; — in no one convenience or INconvenience about it, should the least variation be perceptible. Then, and then only, under such a roof, I might perhaps be as happy at Combe as I have been at Barton."

"There certainly are circumstances,"

"which might greatly endear it to me; but this place will always have one claim of my affection, which no other can possibly share."

"How often did I wish,"

"when I was at Allenham this time twelvemonth, that Barton cottage were inhabited! I never passed within view of it without admiring its situation, and grieving that no one should live in it. How little did I then think that the very first news I should hear from Mrs. Smith, when I next came into the country, would be that

and I felt an immediate satisfaction and interest in the event, which nothing but a kind of prescience of what happiness I should experience from it, can account for. Must it not have been so, Marianne?"

"And yet this house you would spoil, Mrs. Dashwood? You would rob it of its simplicity by imaginary improvement! and this dear parlour in which our acquaintance first began, and in which so many happy hours have been since spent by us together, you would degrade to the condition of a common entrance, and every body would be eager to pass through the room which has hitherto contained within itself more real accommodation and comfort than any other apartment of the handsomest dimensions in the world could possibly afford."

"You are a good woman,"

"Your promise makes me easy. Extend it a little farther, and it will make me happy. Tell me that not only your house will remain the same, but that I shall ever find you and yours as unchanged as your dwelling; and that you will always consider me with the kindness which has made everything belonging to you so dear to me."

"I hope not,"

"It is I who may rather expect to be ill — for I am now suffering under a very heavy disappointment!"

"Yes, for I am unable to keep my engagement with you. Mrs. Smith has this morning exercised the privilege of riches upon a poor dependent cousin, by sending me on business to London. I have just received my dispatches, and taken my farewell of Allenham; and by way of exhilaration I am now come to take my farewell of you."

"Almost this moment."

"You are very kind, but I have no idea of returning into Devonshire immediately. My visits to Mrs. Smith are never repeated within the twelvemonth."

"You are too good."

"My engagements at present,"

"are of such a nature — that — I dare not flatter myself"—

"It is folly to linger in this manner. I will not torment myself any longer by remaining among friends whose society it is impossible for me now to enjoy."

"I did myself the honour of calling in Berkeley Street last Tuesday, and very much regretted that I was not fortunate enough to find yourselves and Mrs. Jennings at home. My card was not lost, I hope."

"Yes, I had the pleasure of receiving the information of your arrival in town, which you were so good as to send me,"

"Bond Street, January. "MY DEAR MADAM,

"I have just had the honour of receiving your letter, for which I beg to return my sincere acknowledgments. I am much concerned to find there was anything in my behaviour last night that did not meet your approbation; and though I am quite at a loss to discover in what point I could be so unfortunate as to offend you, I entreat your forgiveness of what I can assure you to have been perfectly unintentional. I shall never reflect on my former acquaintance with your family in Devonshire without the most grateful pleasure, and flatter myself it will not be broken by any mistake or misapprehension of my actions. My esteem for your whole family is very sincere; but if I have been so unfortunate as to give rise to a belief of more than I felt, or meant to express, I shall reproach myself for not having been more guarded in my professions of that esteem. That I should ever have meant more you will allow to be impossible, when you understand that my affections have been long engaged elsewhere, and it will not be many weeks, I believe, before this engagement is fulfilled. It is with great regret that I obey your commands in returning the letters with which I have been honoured from you, and the lock of hair, which you so obligingly bestowed on me.

"I am, dear Madam, "Your most obedient "humble servant, "JOHN WILLOUGHBY."

"Miss Dashwood, for half an hour — for ten minutes — I entreat you to stay."

"Had they told me,"

"that Mr. Palmer and all his relations were at the devil, it would not have turned me from the door. My business is with you, and only you."

"Sit down, and I will be both."

"Your sister,"

"is out of danger. I heard it from the servant. God be praised! — But is it true? is it really true?"

"For God's sake tell me, is she out of danger, or is she not?"

"Had I known as much half an hour ago — But since I AM here," —

"what does it signify? — For once, Miss Dashwood — it will be the last time, perhaps — let us be cheerful together. — I am in a fine mood for gaiety. — Tell me honestly" —

"do you think me most a knave or a fool?"

"I understand you,"

"yes, I am very drunk. — A pint of porter with my cold beef at Marlborough was enough to over-set me."

"Yes, — I left London this morning at eight o'clock, and the only ten minutes I have spent out of my chaise since that time procured me a nuncheon at Marlborough."

"I mean,"—

"if I can, to make you hate me one degree less than you do NOW. I mean to offer some kind of explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma — from your sister."

"Upon my soul it is," —

"Has she?" —

"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. — NOW will you listen to me?"

"I do not know,"

"how YOU may have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me. — Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me, — it is worth the trial however, and you shall hear every thing. When I first became intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other view in the acquaintance than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly than I had ever done before. Your sister's lovely person and interesting manners could not but please me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first, was of a kind — It is astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what SHE was, that my heart should have been so insensible! But at first I must confess, my vanity only was elevated by it. Careless of her happiness, thinking only of my own amusement, giving way to feelings which I had always been too much in the habit of indulging, I endeavoured, by every means in my power, to make myself pleasing to her, without any design of returning her affection."

"I insist on you hearing the whole of it,"

"My fortune was never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since my coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet that event being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a woman of fortune. To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not a thing to be thought of; — and with a meanness, selfishness, cruelty — which no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss Dashwood, can ever reprobate too much — I was acting in this manner, trying to engage her regard, without a thought of returning it. — But one thing may be said for me: even in that horrid state of selfish vanity, I did not know the extent of the injury I meditated, because I did not THEN know what it was to love. But have I ever known it? — Well may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to avarice? — or, what is more, could I have sacrificed hers? — But I have done it. To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost every thing that could make it a blessing."

"To have resisted such attractions, to have withstood such tenderness! — Is there a man on earth who could have done it? — Yes, I found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her when I felt my intentions were strictly honourable, and my feelings blameless. Even THEN, however, when fully determined on paying my addresses to her, I allowed myself most improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment of doing it, from an unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my circumstances were so greatly embarrassed. I will not reason here — nor will I stop for YOU to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than absurdity, of scrupling to engage my faith where my honour was already bound. The event has proved, that I was a cunning fool, providing with great circumspection for a possible opportunity of making myself contemptible and wretched for ever. At last, however, my resolution was taken, and I had determined, as soon as I could engage her alone, to justify the attentions I had so invariably paid her, and openly assure her of an affection which I had already taken such pains to display. But in the interim — in the interim of the very few hours that were to pass, before I could have an opportunity of speaking with her in private — a circumstance occurred — an unlucky circumstance, to ruin all my resolution, and with it all my comfort. A discovery took place,"—

"Mrs. Smith had somehow or other been informed, I imagine by some distant relation, whose interest it was to deprive me of her favour, of an affair, a connection — but I need not explain myself farther,"

"your particular intimacy — you have probably heard the whole story long ago."

"Remember,"

"from whom you received the account. Could it be an impartial one? I acknowledge that her situation and her character ought to have been respected by me. I do not mean to justify myself, but at the same time cannot leave you to suppose that I have nothing to urge — that because she was injured she was irreproachable, and because I was a libertine, SHE must be a saint. If the violence of her passions, the weakness of her understanding — I do not mean, however, to defend myself. Her affection for me deserved better treatment, and I often, with great self-reproach, recall the tenderness which, for a very short time, had the power of creating any return. I wish — I heartily wish it had never been. But I have injured more than herself; and I have injured one, whose affection for me — (may I say it?) was scarcely less warm than hers; and whose mind — Oh! how infinitely superior!"—