Austen Said:

"No, sir."

"But of his principles I have";

"I am very sorry,"

"I am very sorry indeed."

"If it were possible for me to do otherwise"

"but I am so perfectly convinced that I could never make him happy, and that I should be miserable myself."

"I must be a brute, indeed, if I can be really ungrateful!"

"Heaven defend me from being ungrateful!"

"Indeed, sir,"

"I am very sorry that Mr. Crawford should continue to know that it is paying me a very great compliment, and I feel most undeservedly honoured; but I am so perfectly convinced, and I have told him so, that it never will be in my power —"

"My dear aunt, you cannot wish me to do differently from what I have done, I am sure. You cannot wish me to marry; for you would miss me, should not you? Yes, I am sure you would miss me too much for that."

"No,"

"No, indeed, you know your duty too well for me to— even supposing —"

"Pray, sir, don't; pray, Mr. Crawford,"

"How can you, sir? You quite astonish me; I wonder how you can—"

"Perhaps, sir,"

"perhaps, sir, I thought it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well as you seemed to do at that moment."

"If you hear of it from everybody, cousin, there can be nothing for me to tell."

"I am afraid we think too differently for me to find any relief in talking of what I feel."

"Oh no! But I thought you blamed me. I thought you were against me. This is such a comfort!"

"My uncle thought me wrong, and I knew he had been talking to you."

"Oh! never, never, never! he never will succeed with me."

"I mean,"

"that I think I never shall, as far as the future can be answered for; I think I never shall return his regard."

"We are so totally unlike,"

"we are so very, very different in all our inclinations and ways, that I consider it as quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy together, even if I could like him. There never were two people more dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be miserable."

"It is not merely in temper that I consider him as totally unsuited to myself; though, in that respect, I think the difference between us too great, infinitely too great: his spirits often oppress me; but there is something in him which I object to still more. I must say, cousin, that I cannot approve his character. I have not thought well of him from the time of the play. I then saw him behaving, as it appeared to me, so very improperly and unfeelingly— I may speak of it now because it is all over— so improperly by poor Mr. Rushworth, not seeming to care how he exposed or hurt him, and paying attentions to my cousin Maria, which —in short, at the time of the play, I received an impression which will never be got over."

"As a bystander,"

"perhaps I saw more than you did; and I do think that Mr. Rushworth was sometimes very jealous."

"Before the play, I am much mistaken if Julia did not think he was paying her attentions."

"I am persuaded that he does not think, as he ought, on serious subjects."

"I would not engage in such a charge,"

"in such an office of high responsibility!"

"Was Mrs. Grant in the room, then?"

"It is above a week since I saw Miss Crawford."

"I knew she would be very angry with me."

"And Mrs. Grant, did she say —did she speak; was she there all the time?"

"I should have thought,"

"that every woman must have felt the possibility of a man's not being approved, not being loved by some one of her sex at least, let him be ever so generally agreeable. Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself. But, even supposing it is so, allowing Mr. Crawford to have all the claims which his sisters think he has, how was I to be prepared to meet him with any feeling answerable to his own? He took me wholly by surprise. I had not an idea that his behaviour to me before had any meaning; and surely I was not to be teaching myself to like him only because he was taking what seemed very idle notice of me. In my situation, it would have been the extreme of vanity to be forming expectations on Mr. Crawford. I am sure his sisters, rating him as they do, must have thought it so, supposing he had meant nothing. How, then, was I to be— to be in love with him the moment he said he was with me? How was I to have an attachment at his service, as soon as it was asked for? His sisters should consider me as well as him. The higher his deserts, the more improper for me ever to have thought of him. And, and—we think very differently of the nature of women, if they can imagine a woman so very soon capable of returning an affection as this seems to imply."

"You were near staying there?"

"You spent your time pleasantly there?"

"The Miss Owens— you liked them, did not you?"

"But you are only going from one set of friends to another. You are going to a very particular friend."

"Do you mean, then, that your brother knew of the necklace beforehand? Oh! Miss Crawford, that was not fair."

"I will not say,"

"that I was not half afraid at the time of its being so, for there was something in your look that frightened me, but not at first; I was as unsuspicious of it at first—indeed, indeed I was. It is as true as that I sit here. And had I had an idea of it, nothing should have induced me to accept the necklace. As to your brother's behaviour, certainly I was sensible of a particularity: I had been sensible of it some little time, perhaps two or three weeks; but then I considered it as meaning nothing: I put it down as simply being his way, and was as far from supposing as from wishing him to have any serious thoughts of me. I had not, Miss Crawford, been an inattentive observer of what was passing between him and some part of this family in the summer and autumn. I was quiet, but I was not blind. I could not but see that Mr. Crawford allowed himself in gallantries which did mean nothing."

"I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of."

"Oh! yes. How very, very kind of him."

"What have you got there, my love?"

"come and shew it to me."