Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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"Pray be quick, sir," —
"I have no time to spare."
"We hope she is."
"Mr. Willoughby, I advise you at present to return to Combe — I am not at leisure to remain with you longer. — Whatever your business may be with me, will it be better recollected and explained to-morrow."
"At Marlborough!" —
"Mr. Willoughby, you OUGHT to feel, and I certainly DO — that after what has passed — your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon my notice, requires a very particular excuse. — What is it, that you mean by it?"—
"Is this the real reason of your coming?"
"If that is all, you may be satisfied already, — for Marianne DOES — she has LONG forgiven you."
"It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me to listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by any thing. — Do not let me be pained by hearing any thing more on the subject."
"You did then,"
"believe yourself at one time attached to her?"
"I have,"
"I have heard it all. And how you will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful business, I confess is beyond my comprehension."
"Your indifference, however, towards that unfortunate girl — I must say it, unpleasant to me as the discussion of such a subject may well be — your indifference is no apology for your cruel neglect of her. Do not think yourself excused by any weakness, any natural defect of understanding on her side, in the wanton cruelty so evident on yours. You must have known, that while you were enjoying yourself in Devonshire pursuing fresh schemes, always gay, always happy, she was reduced to the extremest indigence."
"Well, sir, and what said Mrs. Smith?"
"Why did you call, Mr. Willoughby?"
"a note would have answered every purpose. — Why was it necessary to call?"
"Did you tell her that you should soon return?"
"Well, sir,"
"and this is all?"
"Yes, I saw every note that passed."
"This is not right, Mr. Willoughby. — Remember that you are married. Relate only what in your conscience you think necessary for me to hear."
"Watched us out of the house!"
"We are assured of it."
"But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter; have you any thing to say about that?"
"Your wife! — The letter was in your own hand-writing."
"You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby, very blamable,"
"you ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my sister. You had made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least. She must be attached to you, or she would not have married you. To treat her with unkindness, to speak of her slightingly is no atonement to Marianne — nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience."
"Yes, you have certainly removed something — a little. — You have proved yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed you. You have proved your heart less wicked, much less wicked. But I hardly know — the misery that you have inflicted — I hardly know what could have made it worse."
"I will tell her all that is necessary to what may comparatively be called, your justification. But you have not explained to me the particular reason of your coming now, nor how you heard of her illness."
"Are you going back to town?"
"What do you mean?"
"You are very wrong. She can never be more lost to you than she is now."
"Colonel Brandon's character,"
"as an excellent man, is well established."
"His character, however,"
"does not rest on ONE act of kindness, to which his affection for Marianne, were humanity out of the case, would have prompted him. To Mrs. Jennings, to the Middletons, he has been long and intimately known; they equally love and respect him; and even my own knowledge of him, though lately acquired, is very considerable; and so highly do I value and esteem him, that if Marianne can be happy with him, I shall be as ready as yourself to think our connection the greatest blessing to us in the world. What answer did you give him? — Did you allow him to hope?"
"To judge from the Colonel's spirits, however, you have not yet made him equally sanguine."
"If you could be assured of that, you think you should be easy."
"How then,"
"would you account for his behaviour?"
"Do you compare your conduct with his?"
"Our situations have borne little resemblance."
"You consider the matter,"
"exactly as a good mind and a sound understanding must consider it; and I dare say you perceive, as well as myself, not only in this, but in many other circumstances, reason enough to be convinced that your marriage must have involved you in many certain troubles and disappointments, in which you would have been poorly supported by an affection, on his side, much less certain. Had you married, you must have been always poor. His expensiveness is acknowledged even by himself, and his whole conduct declares that self-denial is a word hardly understood by him. His demands and your inexperience together, on a small, very small income, must have brought on distresses which would not be the LESS grievous to you, from having been entirely unknown and unthought of before. YOUR sense of honour and honesty would have led you, I know, when aware of your situation, to attempt all the economy that would appear to you possible: and, perhaps, as long as your frugality retrenched only on your own comfort, you might have been suffered to practice it, but beyond that — and how little could the utmost of your single management do to stop the ruin which had begun before your marriage? — Beyond THAT, had you endeavoured, however reasonably, to abridge HIS enjoyments, is it not to be feared, that instead of prevailing on feelings so selfish to consent to it, you would have lessened your own influence on his heart, and made him regret the connection which had involved him in such difficulties?"
"The whole of his behaviour,"
"from the beginning to the end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness. It was selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of it, and which finally carried him from Barton. His own enjoyment, or his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle."
"At present,"
"he regrets what he has done. And why does he regret it? — Because he finds it has not answered towards himself. It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now unembarrassed — he suffers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks only that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself. But does it follow that had he married you, he would have been happy? — The inconveniences would have been different. He would then have suffered under the pecuniary distresses which, because they are removed, he now reckons as nothing. He would have had a wife of whose temper he could make no complaint, but he would have been always necessitous — always poor; and probably would soon have learned to rank the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far more importance, even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a wife."
"One observation may, I think, be fairly drawn from the whole of the story — that all Willoughby's difficulties have arisen from the first offence against virtue, in his behaviour to Eliza Williams. That crime has been the origin of every lesser one, and of all his present discontents."