Austen Said:

whether he did not think there were a great many pretty women in the room, and which he thought the prettiest?

and his answering immediately to the last question —

'Oh! the eldest Miss Bennet, beyond a doubt; there cannot be two opinions on that point.'”

“Upon my word! Well, that is very decided indeed — that does seem as if — but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know.”

“My overhearings were more to the purpose than yours, Eliza,”

said Charlotte.

“Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend, is he? — Poor Eliza! — to be only just tolerable.”

“I beg you would not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his ill-treatment, for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him.

Mrs. Long told me last night that

he sat close to her for half-an-hour without once opening his lips.”

“Are you quite sure, ma'am? — is not there a little mistake?”

said Jane. —

“I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her.”

“Aye — because

she asked him at last

how he liked Netherfield,

and he could not help answering her; but she said he seemed quite angry at being spoke to.”

“Miss Bingley told me,”

said Jane,

“that

he never speaks much, unless among his intimate acquaintances. With them he is remarkably agreeable.”

“I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it was; everybody says that he is eat up with pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to the ball in a hack chaise.”

“I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long,”

said Miss Lucas,

“but I wish he had danced with Eliza.”

“Another time, Lizzy,”

said her

mother,

“I would not dance with him, if I were you.”

“I believe, ma'am, I may safely promise you never to dance with him.”

“His pride,”

said Miss Lucas,

“does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud.”

“That is very true,”

replied Elizabeth,

“and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”

“Pride,”

observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections,

“is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

“If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy,”

cried a young Lucas, who came with his sisters,

“I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine a day.”

“Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought,”

said Mrs. Bennet;

“and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle directly.”

The boy protested that

she should not;

she continued to declare that

she would,

and the argument ended only with the visit.