Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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"How can you think of dirt, with such objects before you?"
"How strange!"
"No, not all,"
"we could not be more unfortunately situated."
"Marianne,"
"how can you say so? How can you be so unjust? They are a very respectable family, Mr. Ferrars; and towards us have behaved in the friendliest manner. Have you forgot, Marianne, how many pleasant days we have owed to them?"
"No,"
"nor how many painful moments."
"Strange that it would!"
"What have wealth or grandeur to do with happiness?"
"Grandeur has but little,"
"but wealth has much to do with it."
"Elinor, for shame!"
"money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it. Beyond a competence, it can afford no real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned."
"Perhaps,"
"we may come to the same point. YOUR competence and MY wealth are very much alike, I dare say; and without them, as the world goes now, we shall both agree that every kind of external comfort must be wanting. Your ideas are only more noble than mine. Come, what is your competence?"
"About eighteen hundred or two thousand a year; not more than THAT."
"TWO thousand a year! ONE is my wealth! I guessed how it would end."
"And yet two thousand a-year is a very moderate income,"
"A family cannot well be maintained on a smaller. I am sure I am not extravagant in my demands. A proper establishment of servants, a carriage, perhaps two, and hunters, cannot be supported on less."
"But most people do."
"Oh that they would!"
"We are all unanimous in that wish, I suppose,"
"in spite of the insufficiency of wealth."
"You must begin your improvements on this house,"
"and your difficulties will soon vanish."
"I love to be reminded of the past, Edward — whether it be melancholy or gay, I love to recall it — and you will never offend me by talking of former times. You are very right in supposing how my money would be spent — some of it, at least — my loose cash would certainly be employed in improving my collection of music and books."
"No, Edward, I should have something else to do with it."
"Undoubtedly. At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them."
"Marianne is as steadfast as ever, you see,"
"she is not at all altered."
"Nay, Edward,"
"you need not reproach me. You are not very gay yourself."
"Nor do I think it a part of Marianne's,"
"I should hardly call her a lively girl — she is very earnest, very eager in all she does — sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation — but she is not often really merry."
"I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes,"
"in a total misapprehension of character in some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge."
"But I thought it was right, Elinor,"
"to be guided wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were given us merely to be subservient to those of neighbours. This has always been your doctrine, I am sure."
"No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess, of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their sentiments or to conform to their judgment in serious matters?"
"Quite the contrary,"
"Marianne has not shyness to excuse any inattention of hers,"
"But you would still be reserved,"
"and that is worse."
"Yes, very."
"Do not you know my sister well enough to understand what she means? Do not you know she calls every one reserved who does not talk as fast, and admire what she admires as rapturously as herself?"
"I am afraid it is but too true,"
"but why should you boast of it?"
"I suspect,"
"that to avoid one kind of affectation, Edward here falls into another. Because he believes many people pretend to more admiration of the beauties of nature than they really feel, and is disgusted with such pretensions, he affects greater indifference and less discrimination in viewing them himself than he possesses. He is fastidious and will have an affectation of his own."

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