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Instead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy with him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine's visit. The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat in momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of walking. Mary could never spare time, but the remaining five set off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy were to entertain each other. Very little was said by either: Kitty was too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate resolution; and, perhaps, he might be doing the same.
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- The arrears with Lady Catherine were paid by her visit.
- The arrears with Collins were dissolved by his letter.
- Her own misgiving made her think of giving up.
- Now the coast is clear negatively.
- Darcy comes. She expresses gratitude. He proposes again. The story ends here. She is shy of her past actions. He is overflowing with love and acknowledges his transformation. He achieves the impossible because he is determined to make her love him
- Now we can look at the story from the points of view of Life and its rules. Most of them are:
- What makes a man achieve is not his capacity, his circumstances, etc. but his goal and aspiration.
- Selfishness passes for goodness.
- Good principles serve good causes only when delivered through good attitudes.
- Every exalted state require a complement from its opposite.
- Those in the penumbra of a great light can fully acquire its brilliance in appearance while the core is dark and evil.
- Praise of the coterie is not the acid test.
- A motherless girl needs protection.
- Charm is organised falsehood shedding true light.
- One cannot hide his truth from his constant companions.
- Adults can be taken in by the submissiveness of youth.
- High outer polish is indicative of high hidden evil.
- Good will achieves.
- Achievement is determined by the personality.
- Education abridges ages.
- Master evokes loyal admiration from a servant.
- Wealth is a repository of culture.
- Sincerity is finally rewarded.
- Human love is falsehood rewarded.
- Heart that loves, loves forever.
- To Wickham more than money, the connection with Pemberley is important. Prestige moves where money fails.
- Love of a common rogue unites. Georgiana and Elizabeth both love Wickham.
- Wealth alone does not generate culture.
- Culture remains to be cultivated.
- Smallness of mind delights in details and expresses authority.
- Marriage is a mirror of the subconscious.
- Sisters do not like brother’s marrying.
- Submissiveness is not everlasting.
- One’s complements are aware of one’s movements.
- Population lives on news.
- Good news travels fast in good places.
- Social authority is final.
- Tragedies open the eyes of our inner consciousness.
- Human choice matters.
- The Englishman has character and is honourable.
- Decision can change the social environment.
- To accomplish a work all positives must be in place and all negatives must withdraw.
- Status reconciles. Age has authority.
- Education makes a clown out of stupidity.
- Even to offer good will one has to have the strength of status.
- If you hate a person, life compels you to serve him.
- Any desire however unrighteous it is, is capable of realising itself at some time, in some measure.
- Rumour is utterly unreliable. Essentially rumour will be true.
- Sarcasm is psychological inability.
- Shyness is mistaken to be pride.
- The weak seeks the full intensity of defeat.
- Ruse never works. It works for people below ruse.
- Submissiveness protects.
- The low seeks to rise by service.
- You can give up people, not status or property.
- Gardiner’s wish for fishing made Elizabeth meet Darcy. A small event becomes significant.
- Related people come instantaneously. Unrelated people leave instantaneously.
- Things press upon us in a positive atmosphere.
- Human initiative is always rebuffed by life.
- Attraction to charm can never be disenchanted.
- Hot words have to be swallowed later.
- Adult authority is effective authority.
- Man imposes his needs on another.
- Anything comes back; unsavoury sarcasm inevitably comes back.
- Partiality in the parent is unpardonable; but it is real.
- Capacity has no claim in other matters.
- There is no one who has not an aim in life.
- No man will do what may benefit others.
- Cough is subconscious assertion.
- Education gives information, age gives knowledge.
- Parental neglect is cruelty intolerable.
- The subordinate values the boss in the measure of his own control over him.
- The last child is a physical extension of the mother.
- Secrecy is the success of denial.
- Those who seek to astonish others, meet with unpleasant surprises in life.
- Exclusivity is the superiority of the small.
- A man who loves a girl and abhors her family does not know her whole family is in her and he is going to live with it in future.
- Vanity is the wisdom of the folly.
- Adversity teaches a better lesson than experience. Charlotte is wiser about marriage than Mr. Bennet.
- Discretion should rule the rule of secrecy.
- Romance lies in discovering more of the spouse constantly.
- Marriage with or without affection will remain marriage.
- Dancing physically activates joy.
- Irretrievable virtue is the surety for family culture.
- Mortification of the form leads to another form.
- Civility denied in a connection that cannot be snapped must be given later with compensation.
- Interference recoils without fail.
- Form cannot serve substance.
- A proposal works only when the lady has already ‘proposed’.
- Life demands the appreciation of the abhorrent.
- Human perception never fails to perceive character.
- Man always evaluates himself at his best.
- He who successfully deceives everyone will deceive himself at the end.
- Ill digested experiences live in the memory.
- Success is vociferous; failure is silent.
- Each man thinks his joy is the greatest, a character of infinity.
- Prudence need not be selfish.
- Security of happiness heeds a little foundation of insensibility.
- Snobs love to be tyrannised over.
- Courtship opens the personality.
- Perverse mischance reminds you of your own perversity.
- There is perversity in life, but not mischance.
- Longbourn vastly benefitted socially as they were open to the future of the society.
- The inner feelings that well up show the coming events.
- Incapacity for desponding helps complete the work.
- The first waking thought is significant
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They walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon Maria; and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when Kitty left them she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed; and, while her courage was high, she immediately said --
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- Kitty is too much afraid of him to talk.
- It is the same position of Elizabeth as well as Darcy.
- He has rushed to see if there is hope.
- She is desperate in every sense of the word.
- It is significant they walked towards the Lucases. It is the good will of the father and daughter that has brought Darcy to Elizabeth. Vacillation now renders them a source of disturbance.
- The opening Elizabeth takes represents all these strands without fail.
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"Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family, I should not have merely my own gratitude to express."
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- I am a selfish creature.
- At least in her relationship with him it is true of her.
- For the sake of giving relief to my feelings.
- She speaks truly and asks him in the language of a wife not to care how much he is wounded.
- Your unexampled kindness to my poor sister.
- Apt description.
- She could have as well said unexampled kindness to my poor self.
- She is anxious she must acknowledge it.
- More than feeling the emotion of gratitude, she is concerned with the acknowledgement of it.
- She does not openly saying how accidentally she knew it.
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"I am sorry, exceedingly sorry," replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise and emotion, "that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted."
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- ‘In a mistaken light given you uneasiness’.
- He takes for granted that the Gardiners have spoken.
- The Gardiners never wanted the false glory. So it came out through Lydia who breaks out myths.
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"You must not blame my aunt. Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them."
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- Had she not known it, his proposal now would have been richer from his point of view. Life has robbed him of that surprise. With Jane it was preserved. He, being a strong character, is not allowed to have the joy of disclosing at a later date.
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"If you will thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you."
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- Let me thank you.
- Her emotions overpower her. So the words have become flat.
- She is still unsettled on her own issue.
- It is too much of suspense.
- His reply too was dull, lifeless and flat.
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Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever."
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- You are too generous to trifle with me.
- It is too true, he feels it.
- The risk he is now taking is the greatest risk he has ever taken.
- ‘One word from you will silence it’
- He means it.
- His proposal, her accepting it are flat if not awkward in the extreme till both of them spoke out not knowing what is in store a minute ahead.
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Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced was such as he had probably never felt before, and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eyes, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight diffused over his face became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable.
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- ‘To receive with gratitude and pleasure’.
- She is receiving it with the whole being of hers open enough to include all the family.
- It is significant she is not overpowered with joy and delight.
- It is not blossoming of LOVE; it is reversing vituperation into vicarious gratitude.
- This para “Elizabeth feeling all …….more valuable” deserves a full discussion with their entire background before us.
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They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding to the efforts of his aunt, who did call on him in her return through London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on every expression of the latter which, in her ladyship's apprehension, peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance, in the belief that such a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise from her nephew which she had refused to give. But, unluckily for her ladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise.
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- She could not even see his happy face.
- They walked on without knowing in what direction.
- They were beside themselves.
- Walk and talk were unrelated.
- Neither of them had overcome the embarrassment.
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"It taught me to hope," said he, "as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain, that had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly."
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- ‘I had scarcely allowed myself hope’.
- To live without hope is to be a living dead body.
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Elizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, "Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations."
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- Even to his aunt she had not told him her opinion.
- That opinion is Darcy’s life
- Wrong accusations can have right results.
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"What did you say of me that I did not deserve? For, though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence."
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- He recognises the inappropriate tone, voice, expectation of his.
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"We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening," said Elizabeth; "The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable. But since then we have both, I hope, improved in civility."
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"I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I then said -- of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it -- is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: 'Had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.' Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me; though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice."
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- ‘Had you behaved in a more gentleman-like way’
- For an Englishman, it is the ultimate abuse.
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"I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way."
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- He felt her genius in abusing.
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"I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling; I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me."
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"Oh! Do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at all. I assure you, that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it."
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- ‘The turn of your countenance…’
- It was the vigour of defence of self-righteousness.
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Darcy mentioned his letter. "Did it," said he, "did it soon make you think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its contents?"
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- The letter mattered to him. It was the letter that changed her.
- He was anxious to know what she thought of his letter.
- He sees the results of his letter, but wants to listen to her.
- More than the positive result, her opinion matters.
- The first part was devastating, but anything less than that would not have stirred her.
- It was possible to rewrite it positively, but she had no opening to such cultured appeal.Darcy even in writing those abuses wanted her to see the strength of his passion for her.
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She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed.
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"I knew," said he, "that what I wrote must give you pain; but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part, especially the opening of it, which I should dread your having the power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me."
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- I hope you have destroyed the letter.
- It can be returned, not destroyed. Destroying the letter would physically injure their relationship.
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"The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily changed as that implies."
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"When I wrote that letter," replied Darcy, "I believed myself perfectly calm and cool; but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit."
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"The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness; but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote and the person who received it are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it, ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure."
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- Felt calm and cool, but it was bitterness of spirit.
- A great insight into the difference between what one feels and what one thinks
- Her philosophy of forgetting the past is used a second time.
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"I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of ignorance. But with me it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude, which cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child, I was taught what was right; but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately, an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), 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 shewed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased."
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- Perfect yogic transformation.
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"Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?"
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"Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be wishing, expecting my addresses."
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"My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure you. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me wrong. How you must have hated me after that evening!"
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- Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity?
- It is difficult for one to realize this.
- It is impossible for a lover to speak it to his lady love.
- He is extraordinarily sincere to please her.
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"Hate you! I was angry, perhaps, at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction."
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- How you must have hated me that evening?
- I was angry perhaps.
- The distinction between hatred and anger in this context shows his emotions.
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"I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me when we met at Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?"
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"No, indeed, I felt nothing but surprise."
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"Your surprise could not be greater than mine in being noticed by you. My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I confess that I did not expect to receive more than my due."
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- Similarly the difference between blame and surprise.
- When someone dearest to you is trying to poison you, should you feel surprise, it means your heart is incapable of suspicion or bitterness – an extraordinary distinction.
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"My object then," replied Darcy, "was to shew you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves, I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you."
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He then told her of Georgiana's delight in her acquaintance, and of her disappointment at its sudden interruption; which naturally leading to the cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must comprehend.
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- I was not so mean as to resent the past – This brings about the transition in terms of the emotion of thought.
- To lessen your ill opinion –
- Only a LOVER can have this view.
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She expressed her gratitude again; but it was too painful a subject to each to be dwelt on farther.
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- How soon other wishes introduced themselves --
- Is the experience of five births.
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After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home.
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- Georgiana’s delight and the sudden disappointment.
- — Disappointment mentioned now is alright, not on the day of their departure.
- The basic selfishness that is insensible to others’ human emotions is fully brought out here.
- Has no cultural sensitivity or culture.
- Resolution before he quitted the inn.
- — Acts from the Mind, not from feelings.
- Gravity and thoughtfulness there.
- — His identification with her is complete.
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"What could have become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!" Was a wonder which introduced the discussion of their affairs. Darcy was delighted with their engagement; his friend had given him the earliest information of it.
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- It was too painful
- — To know that the family needed help there is self-awareness that she is Mrs. Bennet’s daughter who is incapable of shame. In place of shame the energies there are in dynamism to achieve.
- Only the watch knows the Time.
- There is full sincerity more than joy. It was mainly relief.
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"I must ask whether you were surprised?" Said Elizabeth.
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"Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen."
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"That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much."
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- Bingley has no separate existence by himself. If not Darcy, he will be lead by another strong person, like the liquid that takes the shape of the vessel.
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And though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much the case.
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"On the evening before my going to London," said he, "I made a confession to him which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together." Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend.
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- I made a confession to him.
- — People like Bingley will love Darcy for the injury he gives.
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"Did you speak from your own observation," said she, "when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?"
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"From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits which I had lately made her here, and I was convinced of her affection."
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"And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him."
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"It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine made everything easy. I was obliged to confess one thing which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter -- that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now."
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Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful friend -- so easily guided, that his worth was invaluable; but she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laught at, and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted.
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- Elizabeth longed to observe ….checked herself.
- — It is wisdom. That is a sore point.
- To be laughed at
- — It requires broadness of mind that makes light of issues against the person.
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