I have read Pride and Prejudice more than a dozen times and I must confess I still hold my breath as I watch Darcy swallow his pride and Elizabeth her prejudice enough to realize how they love and need each other. Sigh... Theirs is a love story that almost didn't happen, an against-all-odds tale that is neither dramatic nor pathetic, but straightforward and reasonable, simply a case of misunderstanding and false impressions corrected by the truth finally coming out in the open. As mundane as it might sound, the story is made sophisticated and fragrant not only by the delicate intricacies that pepper the "commonplace" lives of ordinary people and the twisted snobbery of the sophisticate culture of the Victorian era, but more importantly by the elegant writing of the story's creator, Jane Austen.
I share this in my blog today because I am in the midst of reading "Jane Austen: A Life" by Carol Shields and am once again in the process of being delighted by this woman who, despite being many cultures and generations away from my own, seem to speak my thoughts for me, and conjecture the theories in my head out loud in her novels. I was quite amazed to know that she was self-taught and lived a socially confined life. Anyway, I'll probably write more about her in the days to come as there are many many reasons why I love her work. These are quotes from Jane Austen in my reason #1 for loving Jane Austen: the love-hate-confused-misunderstood-accepting-and-finally-enlightened relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters." - the opening lines of Pride and Prejudice.
"She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men." - Darcy's first remark regarding Elizabeth, when he was asked to dance with her when she appeared to be without a partner at a ball.
"Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying." - Darcy realizes how attracted he has become to Elizabeth.
"In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." - Darcy struggles against his own principles to propose his love to Elizabeth.
"I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration." - Elizabeth's response to Darcy's proposal
"And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance." - Darcy's appeal
"I might as well inquire," replied she, "why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?" -- Elizabeth
"...Disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?" - Darcy, the "Pride" in Pride and Prejudice
"Unfortunately an only son, I was spoilt by my parents, who allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased." - Darcy, coming to his senses, after which a storybook wedding follows, in a very Austen-like manner
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