Austen Said:

Patterns of Diction in Jane Austen's Major Novels

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"Oh, yes, I should like to join you very much, I am very fond of a long walk;"
"I cannot imagine why they should suppose I should not like a long walk,"
"Everybody is always supposing that I am not a good walker; and yet they would not have been pleased, if we had refused to join them. When people come in this manner on purpose to ask us, how can one say no?"
"Ah! You make the most of it, I know,"
"but if it were really so, I should do just the same in her place. If I loved a man, as she loves the Admiral, I would always be with him, nothing should ever separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven safely by anybody else."
"Bless me! here is Winthrop. I declare I had no idea! Well now, I think we had better turn back; I am excessively tired."
"No!"
"No, no!"
his resolution of calling on his aunt, now that he was so near;
the advantage of resting herself a quarter of an hour at Winthrop, as she felt so tired,
"Oh! no, indeed! walking up that hill again would do her more harm than any sitting down could do her good;"
"It is very unpleasant, having such connexions! But, I assure you, I have never been in the house above twice in my life."
Louisa had got a much better somewhere,
Louisa had found a better seat somewhere else, and she would go on till she overtook her.
"And so, I made her go. I could not bear that she should be frightened from the visit by such nonsense. What! would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or of any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it; and Henrietta seemed entirely to have made up hers to call at Winthrop to-day; and yet, she was as near giving it up, out of nonsensical complaisance!"
"She would indeed. I am almost ashamed to say it."
"Mary is good-natured enough in many respects,"
"but she does sometimes provoke me excessively, by her nonsense and pride -- the Elliot pride. She has a great deal too much of the Elliot pride. We do so wish that Charles had married Anne instead. I suppose you know he wanted to marry Anne?"
"Oh! yes; certainly."
"I do not exactly know, for Henrietta and I were at school at the time; but I believe about a year before he married Mary. I wish she had accepted him. We should all have liked her a great deal better; and papa and mamma always think it was her great friend Lady Russell's doing, that she did not.
They think
Charles might not be learned and bookish enough to please Lady Russell, and that therefore, she persuaded Anne to refuse him."
  • Novel: Persuasion
  • Character: Lousia Musgrove speaking as Mr. Musgrove and Mrs. Musgrove
  • Link to text in chapter 10
  • Text ID: 01024
Mary had shewn herself disobliging to him,
"Bless me!"
"it must be our cousin; it must be our Mr Elliot, it must, indeed! Charles, Anne, must not it? In mourning, you see, just as our Mr Elliot must be. How very extraordinary! In the very same inn with us! Anne, must not it be our Mr Elliot? my father's next heir? Pray sir,"
"did not you hear, did not his servant say whether he belonged to the Kellynch family?"
"There! you see!"
"just as I said! Heir to Sir Walter Elliot! I was sure that would come out, if it was so. Depend upon it, that is a circumstance which his servants take care to publish, wherever he goes. But, Anne, only conceive how extraordinary! I wish I had looked at him more. I wish we had been aware in time, who it was, that he might have been introduced to us. What a pity that we should not have been introduced to each other! Do you think he had the Elliot countenance? I hardly looked at him, I was looking at the horses; but I think he had something of the Elliot countenance, I wonder the arms did not strike me! Oh! the great-coat was hanging over the panel, and hid the arms, so it did; otherwise, I am sure, I should have observed them, and the livery too; if the servant had not been in mourning, one should have known him by the livery."
"Of course,"
"you will mention our seeing Mr Elliot, the next time you write to Bath. I think my father certainly ought to hear of it; do mention all about him."
"I am determined I will:"
"She is dead! she is dead!"
"Anne, Anne,"
"What is to be done next? What, in heaven's name, is to be done next?"
He would be as little incumbrance as possible to Captain and Mrs Harville; but as to leaving his sister in such a state, he neither ought, nor would.
Anne, who was nothing to Louisa, while she was her sister, and had the best right to stay in Henrietta's stead! Why was not she to be as useful as Anne? And to go home without Charles, too, without her husband! No, it was too unkind.
Louisa was much the same. No symptoms worse than before had appeared.
A speedy cure must not be hoped, but everything was going on as well as the nature of the case admitted.
"She really left nothing for Mary to do. He and Mary had been persuaded to go early to their inn last night. Mary had been hysterical again this morning. When he came away, she was going to walk out with Captain Benwick, which, he hoped, would do her good. He almost wished she had been prevailed on to come home the day before; but the truth was, that Mrs Harville left nothing for anybody to do."
"What should they do without her? They were wretched comforters for one another."
  • Novel: Persuasion
  • Character: Speaking together Mrs. Musgrove, Mr. Musgrove and HenriettaMusgrove
  • Link to text in chapter 13
  • Text ID: 01355
they would go; go to-morrow, fix themselves at the inn, or get into lodgings, as it suited, and there remain till dear Louisa could be moved. They must be taking off some trouble from the good people she was with; they might at least relieve Mrs Harville from the care of her own children;
  • Novel: Persuasion
  • Character: Narrator as Mr. Musgrove, Mrs. Musgrove and HenriettaMusgrove
  • Link to text in chapter 13
  • Text ID: 01358
They had left Louisa beginning to sit up; but her head, though clear, was exceedingly weak, and her nerves susceptible to the highest extreme of tenderness; and though she might be pronounced to be altogether doing very well, it was still impossible to say when she might be able to bear the removal home; and her father and mother, who must return in time to receive their younger children for the Christmas holidays, had hardly a hope of being allowed to bring her with them.
They had been all in lodgings together. Mrs Musgrove had got Mrs Harville's children away as much as she could, every possible supply from Uppercross had been furnished, to lighten the inconvenience to the Harvilles, while the Harvilles had been wanting them to come to dinner every day; and in short, it seemed to have been only a struggle on each side as to which should be most disinterested and hospitable.
when they dined with the Harvilles there had been only a maid-servant to wait, and at first Mrs Harville had always given Mrs Musgrove precedence; but then, she had received so very handsome an apology from her on finding out whose daughter she was, and there had been so much going on every day, there had been so many walks between their lodgings and the Harvilles, and she had got books from the library, and changed them so often, that the balance had certainly been much in favour of Lyme. She had been taken to Charmouth too, and she had bathed, and she had gone to church, and there were a great many more people to look at in the church at Lyme than at Uppercross;
"Oh! Captain Benwick is very well, I believe, but he is a very odd young man. I do not know what he would be at. We asked him to come home with us for a day or two: Charles undertook to give him some shooting, and he seemed quite delighted, and, for my part, I thought it was all settled; when behold! on Tuesday night, he made a very awkward sort of excuse;
and he had
and he had promised this and he had promised that, and the end of it was, I found, that he did not mean to come. I suppose he was afraid of finding it dull; but upon my word I should have thought we were lively enough at the Cottage for such a heart-broken man as Captain Benwick."
"Now Mary, you know very well how it really was. It was all your doing,"
"He fancied that if he went with us, he should find you close by: he fancied everybody to be living in Uppercross; and when he discovered that Lady Russell lived three miles off, his heart failed him, and he had not courage to come. That is the fact, upon my honour, Mary knows it is."
"Oh! he talks of you,"