Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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“I shall not say that you are mistaken,”
“because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own.”
“Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky in meeting with a person so well able to expose my real character, in a part of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire — and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too — for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear.”
“I am not afraid of you,”
“You shall hear then — but prepare yourself for something very dreadful. The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, was at a ball — and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances! I am sorry to pain you — but so it was. He danced only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact.”
“I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly beyond my own party.”
“True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball-room. Well, Colonel Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders.”
“Perhaps,”
“I should have judged better, had I sought an introduction; but I am ill-qualified to recommend myself to strangers.”
“Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?”
“Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?”
“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,”
“of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”
“My fingers,”
“do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault — because I will not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution.”
“You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can think anything wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers.”
he might have been just as likely to marry her, had she been his relation.
for his intrusion
he had understood all the ladies were to be within.
“How very suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr. Darcy! It must have been a most agreeable surprise to Mr. Bingley to see you all after him so soon; for, if I recollect right, he went but the day before. He and his sisters were well, I hope, when you left London?”
“Perfectly so, I thank you.”
“I think I have understood that
“I have never heard him say so; but it is probable that he may spend very little of his time there in the future. He has many friends, and he is at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually increasing.”
“If he means to be but little at Netherfield, it would be better for the neighbourhood that he should give up the place entirely, for then we might possibly get a settled family there. But, perhaps, Mr. Bingley did not take the house so much for the convenience of the neighbourhood as for his own, and we must expect him to keep it or quit it on the same principle.”
“I should not be surprised,”
“if he were to give it up as soon as any eligible purchase offers.”
“This seems a very comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr. Collins first came to Hunsford.”
“I believe she did — and I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object.”
“Mr. Collins appears to be very fortunate in his choice of a wife.”
“Yes, indeed, his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding — though I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the wisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however, and in a prudential light it is certainly a very good match for her.”
“It must be very agreeable for her to be settled within so easy a distance of her own family and friends.”
“An easy distance, do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles.”
“And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance.”
“I should never have considered the distance as one of the advantages of the match,” cried Elizabeth. "I should never have said Mrs. Collins was settled near her family.”
“It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Anything beyond the very neighbourhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far.”
he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and Netherfield,
“I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expenses of travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the case here. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not such a one as will allow of frequent journeys — and I am persuaded my friend would not call herself near her family under less than half the present distance.”
“You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. You cannot have been always at Longbourn.”
“Are you pleased with Kent?”
there was less captivating softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners,
he might have the best informed mind.
all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought,
it was a favourite haunt of hers.
How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third.
It seemed like wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal inquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her.
he was asking some odd unconnected questions — about her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness;
of Rosings and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying there too.
His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel Fitzwilliam in his thoughts?
if he meant anything, he must mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter.
“I did not know before that you ever walked this way.”