Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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"Ah! Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good thoughts. Well,
I hope it may be allowed that if compassion has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves."
"To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,"
"to meet in a charitable scheme; this will bring a great increase of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else."
"This would soon have led to something better, of course,"
"any thing interests between those who love; and any thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I could but have kept longer away!"
"Part of my lace is gone,"
"and I do not know how I am to contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I hope I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop at your house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of ribband or string, or any thing just to keep my boot on."
"Cautious, very cautious,"
"he advances inch by inch, and will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure."
"Ah, my dear,"
"poor Miss Taylor— It is a grievous business."
"Pretty well, my dear— I hope —pretty well.—I do not know but that the place agrees with her tolerably."
"Oh! no—none in the least. I never saw Mrs. Weston better in my life— never looking so well. Papa is only speaking his own regret."
"Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish."
"Oh! papa, we have missed seeing them but one entire day since they married. Either in the morning or evening of every day, excepting one, have we seen either Mr. Weston or Mrs. Weston, and generally both, either at Randalls or here—and as you may suppose, Isabella, most frequently here. They are very, very kind in their visits. Mr. Weston is really as kind as herself. Papa, if you speak in that melancholy way, you will be giving Isabella a false idea of us all. Every body must be aware that Miss Taylor must be missed, but every body ought also to be assured that Mr. and Mrs. Weston do really prevent our missing her by any means to the extent we ourselves anticipated —which is the exact truth."
"Why, to be sure,"
"yes, certainly—I cannot deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs. Weston, does come and see us pretty often—but then—she is always obliged to go away again."
"It would be very hard upon Mr. Weston if she did not, papa.—You quite forget poor Mr. Weston."
"He has not been here yet,"
"There was a strong expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in nothing; and I have not heard him mentioned lately."
"But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,"
"He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very proper, handsome letter it was. She shewed it to me. I thought it very well done of him indeed. Whether it was his own idea you know, one cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps—"
"My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes."
"Three-and-twenty!—is he indeed?—Well, I could not have thought it— and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother! Well, time does fly indeed!—and my memory is very bad. However, it was an exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept. 28th—and began, 'My dear Madam,' but I forget how it went on; and it was signed 'F. C. Weston Churchill.'—I remember that perfectly."
"What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces. As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different; but with regard to these children, I observe we never disagree."
"If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women, and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with them, as you are where these children are concerned, we might always think alike."
"To be sure— our discordancies must always arise from my being in the wrong."
"Yes,"
"and reason good. I was sixteen years old when you were born."
"A material difference then,"
"and no doubt you were much my superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal nearer?"
"Yes— a good deal nearer."
"But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we think differently."
"I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years' experience, and by not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma, let us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now."
"That's true,"
"very true. Little Emma, grow up a better woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited. Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good intentions went, we were both right, and I must say that no effects on my side of the argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that Mr. Martin is not very, very bitterly disappointed."
"A man cannot be more so,"
"Ah!—Indeed I am very sorry.—Come, shake hands with me."
"John, how are you?"
"My poor dear Isabella,"
"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."
"Come, come,"
"I must beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserable;—I who have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear Isabella, I have not heard you make one inquiry about Mr. Perry yet; and he never forgets you."
"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."