Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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“I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight. But if we do not venture somebody else will; and after all, Mrs. Long and her daughters must stand their chance; and, therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will take it on myself.”
“Nonsense, nonsense!”
“What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?”
“Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books and make extracts.”
“While Mary is adjusting her ideas,”
“let us return to Mr. Bingley.”
“I am sick of Mr. Bingley,”
“I am sorry to hear that; but why did not you tell me that before? If I had known as much this morning, I certainly would not have called on him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we cannot escape the acquaintance now.”
it was what she had expected all the while.
“How good it was in you, my dear Mr. Bennet! But I knew I should persuade you at last. I was sure you loved your girls too well to neglect such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am! and it is such a good joke, too, that you should have gone this morning and never said a word about it till now.”
“Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you choose,”
“What an excellent father you have, girls!”
when the door was shut. “I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness; or me, either, for that matter. At our time of life it is not so pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintances every day; but for your sakes, we would do anything. Lydia, my love, though you are the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next ball.”
“Oh!”
“I am not afraid; for though I am the youngest, I'm the tallest.”
“If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,”
“and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.”
he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be.
“Oh! my dear Mr. Bennet,”
“we have had a most delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there. Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how well she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice! Only think of that my dear; he actually danced with her twice! and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her! But, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed, nobody can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going down the dance. So, he inquired who she was, and got introduced, and asked her for the two next. Then the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the Boulanger—”
“If he had had any compassion for me,”
“he would not have danced half so much! For God's sake, say no more of his partners. O that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!”
“Oh! my dear, I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively handsome! and his sisters are charming women. I never in my life saw anything more elegant than their dresses. I dare say the lace upon Mrs. Hurst's gown —”
“But I can assure you,”
“that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man,”
“You began the evening well, Charlotte,”
“You were Mr. Bingley's first choice.”
“Oh! you mean Jane, I suppose, because he danced with her twice. To be sure that did seem as if he admired her — indeed I rather believe he did — I heard something about it — but I hardly know what — something about Mr. Robinson.”
“Upon my word! Well, that is very decided indeed — that does seem as if — but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know.”
“I beg you would not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his ill-treatment, for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him.
Mrs. Long told me last night that
“Aye — because
she asked him at last
and he could not help answering her; but she said he seemed quite angry at being spoke to.”
“I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it was; everybody says that he is eat up with pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to the ball in a hack chaise.”
“Another time, Lizzy,”
“I would not dance with him, if I were you.”
“Pride,”
“is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”
“Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought,”
“and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle directly.”
she would,
“From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.”
her admiration of Captain Carter,
her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the next morning to London.
“I am astonished, my dear,”
“that you should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of anybody's children, it should not be of my own, however.”
“If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it.”
“Yes — but as it happens, they are all of them very clever.”
“This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish.”