Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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Henry’s astonishing generosity and nobleness of conduct, in never alluding in the slightest way to what had passed,
“’Tis only from James, however,”
herself as much attached to me as ever,
a wish of being of use or comfort to her.
Perhaps, if particularly questioned, she might just give an idea — just distantly hint at it — but not more. To expose a friend, such a friend as Isabella had been to her — and then their own brother so closely concerned in it!
she must waive the subject altogether.
“No bad news from Fullerton, I hope? Mr. and Mrs. Morland — your brothers and sisters — I hope they are none of them ill?”
“No, I thank you”
“they are all very well. My letter was from my brother at Oxford.”
“It contained something worse than anybody could suppose! Poor James is so unhappy! You will soon know why.”
“I have one favour to beg,”
“that, if your brother should be coming here, you will give me notice of it, that I may go away.”
“Yes; I am sure I should be very sorry to leave you so soon, but something has happened that would make it very dreadful for me to be in the same house with Captain Tilney.”
“How quick you are!”
“you have guessed it, I declare! And yet, when we talked about it in Bath, you little thought of its ending so. Isabella — no wonder now I have not heard from her — Isabella has deserted my brother, and is to marry yours! Could you have believed there had been such inconstancy and fickleness, and everything that is bad in the world?”
“It is very true, however; you shall read James’s letter yourself. Stay — There is one part — “
“No, read it yourself,”
“I do not know what I was thinking of”
“James only means to give me good advice."
“Her mother is a very good sort of woman,”
“What was her father?”
“A lawyer, I believe. They live at Putney.”
“Are they a wealthy family?”
“No, not very. I do not believe Isabella has any fortune at all: but that will not signify in your family. Your father is so very liberal! He told me the other day that he only valued money as it allowed him to promote the happiness of his children.”
“But,”
“would it be to promote his happiness, to enable him to marry such a girl? She must be an unprincipled one, or she could not have used your brother so. And how strange an infatuation on Frederick’s side! A girl who, before his eyes, is violating an engagement voluntarily entered into with another man! Is not it inconceivable, Henry? Frederick too, who always wore his heart so proudly! Who found no woman good enough to be loved!”
“Such a sister-in-law, Henry, I should delight in,”
“But perhaps,”
“though she has behaved so ill by our family, she may behave better by yours. Now she has really got the man she likes, she may be constant.”
“You think it is all for ambition, then? And, upon my word, there are some things that seem very like it. I cannot forget that, when she first knew what my father would do for them, she seemed quite disappointed that it was not more. I never was so deceived in anyone’s character in my life before.”
“My own disappointment and loss in her is very great; but, as for poor James, I suppose he will hardly ever recover it.”
“No,”
“I do not — ought I? To say the truth, though I am hurt and grieved, that I cannot still love her, that I am never to hear from her, perhaps never to see her again, I do not feel so very, very much afflicted as one would have thought.”
She was as insignificant, and perhaps as portionless, as Isabella; and if the heir of the Tilney property had not grandeur and wealth enough in himself, at what point of interest were the demands of his younger brother to rest?
the effect of that particular partiality, which, as she was given to understand by his words as well as his actions, she had from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the general;
some most generous and disinterested sentiments on the subject of money, which she had more than once heard him utter, and which tempted her to think his disposition in such matters misunderstood by his children.
But as it was not to be supposed that Captain Tilney, whenever he made his application, would give his father any just idea of Isabella’s conduct,
highly expedient that Henry should lay the whole business before him as it really was, enabling the general by that means to form a cool and impartial opinion, and prepare his objections on a fairer ground than inequality of situations.
“But he will tell only half of it.”
“Go away!”
“And why?”
“Oh! Not seriously!”
“But how can you think of such a thing, after what the general said? When he so particularly desired you not to give yourself any trouble, because anything would do.”
“I am sure it is quite unnecessary upon your sister’s account and mine. You must know it to be so; and the general made such a point of your providing nothing extraordinary: besides, if he had not said half so much as he did, he has always such an excellent dinner at home, that sitting down to a middling one for one day could not signify.”
That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be understood? Who but Henry could have been aware of what his father was at?
From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now to be without Henry.
and Captain Tilney’s letter would certainly come in his absence; and Wednesday
would be wet.
Her brother so unhappy, and her loss in Isabella so great; and Eleanor’s spirits always affected by Henry’s absence! What was there to interest or amuse her?
What a revolution in her ideas! She, who had so longed to be in an abbey! Now, there was nothing so charming to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of a well-connected parsonage, something like Fullerton, but better: Fullerton had its faults, but Woodston probably had none. If Wednesday should ever come!

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