Quotation from: Pride and Prejudice

Written by: Jane Austen


How differently did everything now appear in which he was
concerned! His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence
of views solely and hatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of
her fortune proved no longer the moderation of his wishes, but
his eagerness to grasp at anything. His behaviour to herself
could now have had no tolerable motive; he had either been
deceived with regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying his
vanity by encouraging the preference which she believed she had
most incautiously shown. Every lingering struggle in his favour
grew fainter and fainter; and in farther justification of Mr.
Darcy, she could not but allow Mr. Bingley, when questioned
by Jane, had long ago asserted his blamelessness in the affair;
that proud and repulsive as were his manners, she had never, in
the whole course of their acquaintance--an acquaintance which
had latterly brought them much together, and given her a sort of
intimacy with his ways--seen anything that betrayed him to be
unprincipled or unjust--anything that spoke him of irreligious
or immoral habits; that among his own connections he was
esteemed and valued--that even Wickham had allowed him
merit as a brother, and that she had often heard him speak so
affectionately of his sister as to prove him capable of _some_
amiable feeling; that had his actions been what Mr. Wickham
represented them, so gross a violation of everything right could
hardly have been concealed from the world; and that friendship
between a person capable of it, and such an amiable man as Mr.
Bingley, was incomprehensible.

PREVIOUS GROUP HOME SITE HOME NEXT
Part of the RabbitHoleResearch Project
Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~