Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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"Nay, Edward,"
"you need not reproach me. You are not very gay yourself."
"Nor do I think it a part of Marianne's,"
"I should hardly call her a lively girl — she is very earnest, very eager in all she does — sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation — but she is not often really merry."
"I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes,"
"in a total misapprehension of character in some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge."
"But I thought it was right, Elinor,"
"to be guided wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were given us merely to be subservient to those of neighbours. This has always been your doctrine, I am sure."
"No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess, of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their sentiments or to conform to their judgment in serious matters?"
"Quite the contrary,"
"Marianne has not shyness to excuse any inattention of hers,"
"But you would still be reserved,"
"and that is worse."
"Yes, very."
"Do not you know my sister well enough to understand what she means? Do not you know she calls every one reserved who does not talk as fast, and admire what she admires as rapturously as herself?"
"I am afraid it is but too true,"
"but why should you boast of it?"
"I suspect,"
"that to avoid one kind of affectation, Edward here falls into another. Because he believes many people pretend to more admiration of the beauties of nature than they really feel, and is disgusted with such pretensions, he affects greater indifference and less discrimination in viewing them himself than he possesses. He is fastidious and will have an affectation of his own."
"It is very true,"
"that admiration of landscape scenery is become a mere jargon. Every body pretends to feel and tries to describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what picturesque beauty was. I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning."
"I never saw you wear a ring before, Edward,"
"Is that Fanny's hair? I remember her promising to give you some. But I should have thought her hair had been darker."
"A dance!"
"Impossible! Who is to dance?"
"What do you mean?"
"Certainly."
"Oh, Edward! How can you? — But the time will come I hope...I am sure you will like him."
"Hush! they will hear you."
"She is walking, I believe."
"Why should they ask us?"
"The rent of this cottage is said to be low; but we have it on very hard terms, if we are to dine at the park whenever any one is staying either with them, or with us."
"They mean no less to be civil and kind to us now,"
"by these frequent invitations, than by those which we received from them a few weeks ago. The alteration is not in them, if their parties are grown tedious and dull. We must look for the change elsewhere."
His temper might perhaps be a little soured by finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in favour of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly woman, —
this kind of blunder was too common for any sensible man to be lastingly hurt by it. — It was rather a wish of distinction,
which produced his contemptuous treatment of every body, and his general abuse of every thing before him. It was the desire of appearing superior to other people. The motive was too common to be wondered at; but the means, however they might succeed by establishing his superiority in ill-breeding, were not likely to attach any one to him except his wife.
"Certainly,"
"he seems very agreeable."
if they saw much of Mr. Willoughby at Cleveland, and whether they were intimately acquainted with him.
"Upon my word,"
"you know much more of the matter than I do, if you have any reason to expect such a match."
"My dear Mrs. Palmer!"
"You surprise me very much. Colonel Brandon tell you of it! Surely you must be mistaken. To give such intelligence to a person who could not be interested in it, even if it were true, is not what I should expect Colonel Brandon to do."
"And what did the Colonel say?"
"Mr. Brandon was very well I hope?"
"I am flattered by his commendation. He seems an excellent man; and I think him uncommonly pleasing."
"Is Mr. Willoughby much known in your part of Somersetshire?"
"You have been long acquainted with Colonel Brandon, have not you?"
"Did not Colonel Brandon know of Sir John's proposal to your mother before it was made? Had he never owned his affection to yourself?"

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