Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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This indulgence,
being favoured beyond every other human creature, in friends and fortune, circumstance and chance. Everything seemed to cooperate for her advantage. By the kindness of her first friends, the Allens, she had been introduced into scenes where pleasures of every kind had met her. Her feelings, her preferences, had each known the happiness of a return. Wherever she felt attachment, she had been able to create it. The affection of Isabella was to be secured to her in a sister. The Tilneys, they, by whom, above all, she desired to be favourably thought of, outstripped even her wishes in the flattering measures by which their intimacy was to be continued.
She was to be their chosen visitor, she was to be for weeks under the same roof with the person whose society she mostly prized — and, in addition to all the rest, this roof was to be the roof of an abbey!
It was wonderful that her friends should seem so little elated by the possession of such a home, that the consciousness of it should be so meekly borne. The power of early habit only could account for it. A distinction to which they had been born gave no pride. Their superiority of abode was no more to them than their superiority of person.
her astonishment at such a charge,
her innocence of every thought of Mr. Thorpe’s being in love with her, and the consequent impossibility of her having ever intended to encourage him.
she should join Mrs. Allen,
their walking.
Captain Tilney was falling in love with Isabella, and Isabella unconsciously encouraging him; unconsciously it must be, for Isabella’s attachment to James was as certain and well acknowledged as her engagement. To doubt her truth or good intentions was impossible; and yet, during the whole of their conversation her manner had been odd.
Isabella had talked more like her usual self, and not so much about money, and had not looked so well pleased at the sight of Captain Tilney. How strange that she should not perceive his admiration!
give her a hint of it,
put her on her guard, and prevent all the pain which her too lively behaviour might otherwise create both for him and her brother.
That he should think it worth his while to fancy himself in love with her
Isabella talked of his attentions; she had never been sensible of any; but Isabella had said many things which she hoped had been spoken in haste, and would never be said again;
Isabella could not be aware of the pain she was inflicting;
He might be jealous of her brother as a rival, but if more had seemed implied, the fault must have been in her misapprehension.
his brother’s evident partiality for Miss Thorpe,
him to make known her prior engagement.
Henry Tilney must know best.
never to think so seriously on the subject again.
the inquietude of his mind, on Isabella’s account, might, by keeping him long sleepless, have been the real cause of his rising late.
he could not propose anything improper for her;
a curricle was the prettiest equipage in the world; the chaise and four wheeled off with some grandeur, to be sure, but it was a heavy and troublesome business,
Henry drove so well — so quietly — without making any disturbance, without parading to her, or swearing at them:
so different from the only gentleman-coachman whom it was in her power to compare him with!
And then his hat sat so well, and the innumerable capes of his greatcoat looked so becomingly important! To be driven by him, next to being dancing with him, was certainly the greatest happiness in the world.
her attention had been fixed without the smallest apprehension of really meeting with what he related.
“Miss Tilney, she was sure, would never put her into such a chamber as he had described! She was not at all afraid.”
An abbey! Yes, it was delightful to be really in an abbey!
To be sure, the pointed arch was preserved — the form of them was Gothic — they might be even casements — but every pane was so large, so clear, so light!
to lose no time in particular examination of anything, as she greatly dreaded disobliging the general by any delay.
If not originally theirs, by what strange events could it have fallen into the Tilney family?
she had never seen so large a room as this in her life.
She had nothing to dread from midnight assassins or drunken gallants. Henry had certainly been only in jest in what he had told her that morning. In a house so furnished, and so guarded, she could have nothing to explore or to suffer, and might go to her bedroom as securely as if it had been her own chamber at Fullerton.
Miss Tilney slept only two doors from her,
“She should take her time; she should not hurry herself; she did not care if she were the last person up in the house. But she would not make up her fire; that would seem cowardly, as if she wished for the protection of light after she were in bed.”
though there could be nothing really in it, there was something whimsical, it was certainly a very remarkable coincidence!
It was not absolutely ebony and gold; but it was japan, black and yellow japan of the handsomest kind; and as she held her candle, the yellow had very much the effect of gold. The key was in the door,
not, however, with the smallest expectation of finding anything, but it was so very odd, after what Henry had said.
but how strangely mysterious! The door was still immovable.
“never from the first had the smallest idea of finding anything in any part of the cabinet, and was not in the least disappointed at her ill success thus far, it would be foolish not to examine it thoroughly while she was about it.”
To close her eyes in sleep that night, she felt must be entirely out of the question. With a curiosity so justly awakened, and feelings in every way so agitated, repose must be absolutely impossible. The storm too abroad so dreadful! She had not been used to feel alarm from wind, but now every blast seemed fraught with awful intelligence. The manuscript so wonderfully found, so wonderfully accomplishing the morning’s prediction, how was it to be accounted for? What could it contain? To whom could it relate? By what means could it have been so long concealed? And how singularly strange that it should fall to her lot to discover it! Till she had made herself mistress of its contents, however, she could have neither repose nor comfort; and with the sun’s first rays she was determined to peruse it.
they could ever have been closed, on objects of cheerfulness; her fire was already burning, and a bright morning had succeeded the tempest of the night.
Could it be possible, or did not her senses play her false? An inventory of linen, in coarse and modern characters, seemed all that was before her!
a farrier’s bill!
To suppose that a manuscript of many generations back could have remained undiscovered in a room such as that, so modern, so habitable! — Or that she should be the first to possess the skill of unlocking a cabinet, the key of which was open to all!
How could she have so imposed on herself? Heaven forbid that Henry Tilney should ever know her folly! And it was in a great measure his own doing, for had not the cabinet appeared so exactly to agree with his description of her adventures, she should never have felt the smallest curiosity about it.
no untoward accident might ever bring them forward again, to disgrace her even with herself.
Why the locks should have been so difficult to open, however, was still something remarkable,
In this there was surely something mysterious,