Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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"How long it is, how terribly long since you were here! And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early, my dear— and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.—You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel."
"It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air."
"Ah! my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use to any body. I am sure it almost killed me once."
"Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has not time to take care of himself —
he tells me
which is very sad —
I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But then there is not so clever a man any where."
"I hope he will be here to-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes, you had better let him look at little Bella's throat."
"It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use to her—and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have spoken to —
"Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a bad cold about a month ago."
"That has been a good deal the case, my dear; but not to the degree you mention.
Perry says that
"Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off!—and the air so bad!"
"Ah! my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it—but after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different creatures; you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say, that I think you are any of you looking well at present."
"Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley very far from looking well."
"Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a better companion than Harriet."
"Ah!"
"I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn, instead of coming here."
"And, moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been to South End. South End is an unhealthy place.
Perry
"You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere.—Perry was a week at Cromer once, and
he holds it
he says,
And, by what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from the sea— a quarter of a mile off— very comfortable. You should have consulted Perry."
as Perry says,
This is just what Perry said.
"my son,"
"Frank,"
"my son,"
"We want only two more to be just the right number. I should like to see two more here,—your pretty little friend, Miss Smith, and my son—and then I should say we were quite complete. I believe you did not hear me telling the others in the drawing-room that we are expecting Frank. I had a letter from him this morning, and he will be with us within a fortnight."
"He has been wanting to come to us,"
"ever since September: every letter has been full of it; but he cannot command his own time. He has those to please who must be pleased, and who (between ourselves) are sometimes to be pleased only by a good many sacrifices. But now I have no doubt of seeing him here about the second week in January."
"Yes, she would be, but that she thinks there will be another put-off. She does not depend upon his coming so much as I do: but she does not know the parties so well as I do. The case, you see, is—(but this is quite between ourselves: I did not mention a syllable of it in the other room. There are secrets in all families, you know)—The case is, that a party of friends are invited to pay a visit at Enscombe in January; and that Frank's coming depends upon their being put off. If they are not put off, he cannot stir. But I know they will, because it is a family that a certain lady, of some consequence, at Enscombe, has a particular dislike to: and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point. I have not the smallest doubt of the issue. I am as confident of seeing Frank here before the middle of January, as I am of being here myself: but your good friend there
has so few vagaries herself, and has been so little used to them at Hartfield, that she cannot calculate on their effects, as I have been long in the practice of doing."
"Yes —I have some right to that knowledge; though I have never been at the place in my life.—She is an odd woman!—But I never allow myself to speak ill of her, on Frank's account; for I do believe her to be very fond of him. I used to think she was not capable of being fond of any body, except herself: but she has always been kind to him (in her way — —allowing for little whims and caprices, and expecting every thing to be as she likes). And it is no small credit, in my opinion, to him, that he should excite such an affection; for, though I would not say it to any body else, she has no more heart than a stone to people in general; and the devil of a temper."
"What is to be done, my dear Emma?—what is to be done?"
"He was afraid they should have a very bad drive. He was afraid poor Isabella would not like it. And there would be poor Emma in the carriage behind. He did not know what they had best do. They must keep as much together as they could;"
"Ah! Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay at home like poor Mr. Elton?"
"No, my dear,"
"that I am sure you are not. There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are. If any thing, you are too attentive. The muffin last night —if it had been handed round once, I think it would have been enough."
"I hope every body had a pleasant evening,"
"I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much; but then I moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me. Miss Bates was very chatty and good-humoured, as she always is, though she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs. Bates too, in a different way. I like old friends; and Miss Jane Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady, a very pretty and a very well-behaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma."
"It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a great pity indeed! and I have often wished —but it is so little one can venture to do —small, trifling presents, of any thing uncommon —Now we have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg; it is very small and delicate— Hartfield pork is not like any other pork—but still it is pork—and, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried, without the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear roast pork— I think we had better send the leg— do not you think so, my dear?"
"That's right, my dear, very right. I had not thought of it before, but that is the best way. They must not over-salt the leg; and then, if it is not over-salted, and if it is very thoroughly boiled, just as Serle boils ours, and eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip, and a little carrot or parsnip, I do not consider it unwholesome."
"We consider our Hartfield pork,"
"indeed it certainly is, so very superior to all other pork, that Emma and I cannot have a greater pleasure than —"
"He is very young to settle,"
"He had better not be in a hurry. He seemed to me very well off as he was. We were always glad to see him at Hartfield."
"How d'ye do?—how d'ye do?—We have been sitting with your father— glad to see him so well. Frank comes to-morrow— I had a letter this morning —we see him to-morrow by dinner-time to a certainty— he is at Oxford to-day, and he comes for a whole fortnight; I knew it would be so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have staid three days; I was always glad he did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall enjoy him completely; every thing has turned out exactly as we could wish."
"I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield,"