Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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her unwillingness that he should be taking them out of doors against his own inclination, under a mistaken idea of pleasing her;
“I believe it will be wisest to take the morning while it is so fine; and do not be uneasy on my father’s account; he always walks out at this time of day.”
Why was Miss Tilney embarrassed? Could there be any unwillingness on the general’s side to show her over the abbey? The proposal was his own. And was not it odd that he should always take his walk so early? Neither her father nor Mr. Allen did so. It was certainly very provoking.
She was all impatience to see the house, and had scarcely any curiosity about the grounds.
If Henry had been with them indeed! But now she should not know what was picturesque when she saw it.
“No, not at all. Mr. Allen did not care about the garden, and never went into it.”
“Mr. Allen had only one small hot-house, which Mrs. Allen had the use of for her plants in winter, and there was a fire in it now and then.”
“This is so favourite a walk of mine,”
“that I always think it the best and nearest way. But perhaps it may be damp.”
“I am particularly fond of this spot,”
“It was my mother’s favourite walk.”
“I used to walk here so often with her!”
“though I never loved it then, as I have loved it since. At that time indeed I used to wonder at her choice. But her memory endears it now.”
“And ought it not,”
“to endear it to her husband? Yet the general would not enter it.”
“Her death must have been a great affliction!”
“A great and increasing one,”
“I was only thirteen when it happened; and though I felt my loss perhaps as strongly as one so young could feel it, I did not, I could not, then know what a loss it was.”
“I have no sister, you know — and though Henry — though my brothers are very affectionate, and Henry is a great deal here, which I am most thankful for, it is impossible for me not to be often solitary.”
“To be sure you must miss him very much.”
“A mother would have been always present. A mother would have been a constant friend; her influence would have been beyond all other.”
“Was she a very charming woman? Was she handsome? Was there any picture of her in the abbey? And why had she been so partial to that grove? Was it from dejection of spirits?”
The general certainly had been an unkind husband. He did not love her walk: could he therefore have loved her? And besides, handsome as he was, there was a something in the turn of his features which spoke his not having behaved well to her.
“Her picture, I suppose,”
“hangs in your father’s room?”
“No; it was intended for the drawing-room; but my father was dissatisfied with the painting, and for some time it had no place. Soon after her death I obtained it for my own, and hung it in my bed-chamber — where I shall be happy to show it you; it is very like."
Here was another proof. A portrait — very like — of a departed wife, not valued by the husband! He must have been dreadfully cruel to her!
the nature of the feelings which, in spite of all his attentions, he had previously excited; and what had been terror and dislike before, was now absolute aversion.
Yes, aversion! His cruelty to such a charming woman made him odious
She had often read of such characters, characters which Mr. Allen had been used to call unnatural and overdrawn; but here was proof positive of the contrary.
“This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did not speak a mind at ease, or a conscience void of reproach.”
It was very noble — very grand — very charming! —
they were to return to the rooms in common use, by passing through a few of less importance, looking into the court, which, with occasional passages, not wholly unintricate, connected the different sides;
Yet this was an abbey! How inexpressibly different in these domestic arrangements from such as she had read about — from abbeys and castles, in which, though certainly larger than Northanger, all the dirty work of the house was to be done by two pair of female hands at the utmost. How they could get through it all had often amazed Mrs. Allen;
she would rather be allowed to examine that end of the house than see all the finery of all the rest.
Something was certainly to be concealed; her fancy, though it had trespassed lately once or twice, could not mislead her here;
“I was going to take you into what was my mother’s room — the room in which she died — “
It was no wonder that the general should shrink from the sight of such objects as that room must contain; a room in all probability never entered by him since the dreadful scene had passed, which released his suffering wife, and left him to the stings of conscience.
her wish of being permitted to see it, as well as all the rest of that side of the house;
to attend her there, whenever they should have a convenient hour.
the general must be watched from home, before that room could be entered.
“It remains as it was, I suppose?”
“Yes, entirely.”
“And how long ago may it be that your mother died?”
“She has been dead these nine years.”
And nine years,
was a trifle of time, compared with what generally elapsed after the death of an injured wife, before her room was put to rights.
“You were with her, I suppose, to the last?”
“No,”
“I was unfortunately from home. Her illness was sudden and short; and, before I arrived it was all over.”

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