Austen Said:

“No — I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did.”

“But you will know it, when I tell you what happened the very next day.”

“This will not do,”

“you never will be able to make both of them good for anything. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied with only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Mr. Darcy's; but you shall do as you choose.”

“I do not know when I have been more shocked,”

“Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! Dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the knowledge of your ill opinion, too! and having to relate such a thing of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it so.”

“Oh! no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be as light as a feather.”

“Poor Wickham! there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner!”

“There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.”

“I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the appearance of it as you used to do.”

“And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot always be laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.”

“Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat the matter as you do now.”

“Indeed, I could not. I was uncomfortable enough. I was very uncomfortable, I may say unhappy. And with no one to speak to about what I felt, no Jane to comfort me and say that I had not been so very weak and vain and nonsensical as I knew I had! Oh! how I wanted you!”

“How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they do appear wholly undeserved.”

“Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There is one point on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I ought, or ought not, to make our acquaintances in general understand Wickham's character.”

“Surely there can be no occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your own opinion?”

“That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me to make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular relative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to myself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to anyone here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out, and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At present I will say nothing about it.”

“You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for ever. He is now, perhaps, sorry for what he has done, and anxious to re-establish a character. We must not make him desperate.”

Here was knowledge in which no one could partake;

nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last encumbrance of mystery.

“And then,”

“if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!”

Jane was not happy.

a very tender affection for Bingley.

“I do not believe he will ever live at Netherfield any more.”

“No, nothing at all.”

“It was a subject which they could not mention before me.”

“And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do me a great deal of good,”

the justice of Mr. Darcy's objections; and never had she before been so much disposed to pardon his interference in the views of his friend.

“I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask me as well as Lydia,”

“Though I am not her particular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older.”

as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter;

detestable as such a step must make her were it known,

secretly advising her father not to let her go.

all the improprieties of Lydia's general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home.

“If you were aware,”

“of the very great disadvantage to us all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and imprudent manner — nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you would judge differently in the affair.”

“Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself or her family ridiculous; a flirt too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty also is comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace?”

a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility of earthly happiness.

the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with officers.

herself the object of attention, to tens and to scores of them at present unknown.

all the glories of the camp — its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and, to complete the view,

herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once.

in the very gentleness which had first delighted her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary.

the reproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever cause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified, and her preference secured at any time by their renewal.

Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three weeks at Rosings,

if he was acquainted with the former.

“Nearly three weeks.”

“Yes, almost every day.”

“Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves upon acquaintance.”