Pride and Prejudice Read online

  Miss Bingley’s congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere. She wrote even to Jane on the occasion, to express her delight, and repeat all her former professions of regard. Jane was not deceived, but she was affected; and though feeling no reliance on her, could not help writing her a much kinder answer than she knew was deserved.

  The joy which Miss Darcy expressed on receiving similar information, was as sincere as her brother’s in sending it. Four sides of paper were insufficient to contain all her delight, and all her earnest desire of being loved by her sister.

  Before any answer could arrive from Mr. Collins, or any congratulations to Elizabeth, from his wife, the Longbourn family heard that the Collinses were come themselves to Lucas lodge. The reason of this sudden removal was soon evident. Lady Catherine had been rendered so exceedingly angry by the contents of her nephew’s letter, that Charlotte, really rejoicing in the match, was anxious to get away till the storm was blown over. At such a moment, the arrival of her friend was a sincere pleasure to Elizabeth, though in the course of their meetings she must sometimes think the pleasure dearly bought, when she saw Mr. Darcy exposed to all the parading and obsequious civility of her husband. He bore it however with admirable calmness. He could even listen to Sir William Lucas, when he complimented him on carrying away the brightest jewel of the country, and expressed his hopes of their all meeting frequently at St. James’s, with very decent composure. If he did shrug his shoulders, it was not till Sir William was out of sight.

  Mrs. Philips’s vulgarity was another, and perhaps a greater tax on his forbearance; and though Mrs. Philips, as well as her sister, stood in too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley’s good humour encouraged, yet, whenever she did speak, she must be vulgar. Nor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all likely to make her more elegant. Elizabeth did all she could, to shield him from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse without mortification; and though the uncomfortable feelings arising from all this took from the season of courtship much of its pleasure, it added to the hope of the future; and she looked forward with delight to the time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at Pemberley.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley and talked of Mrs. Darcy may be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many of her children, produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible, amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and invariably silly.

  Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her drew him oftener from home than any thing else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected.

  Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to his easy temper, or her affectionate heart. The darling wish of his sisters was then gratified; he bought an estate in a neighbouring county to Derbyshire, and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other.

  Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally known, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a temper as Lydia, and, removed from the influence of Lydia’s example, she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid. From the farther disadvantage of Lydia’s society she was of course carefully kept, and though Mrs. Wickham frequently invited her to come and stay with her, with the promise of balls and young men, her father would never consent to her going.

  Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet’s being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still moralize over every morning visit; and as she was no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters’ beauty and her own, it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without much reluctance.

  As for Wickham and Lydia, their characters suffered no revolution from the marriage of her sisters. He bore with philosophy the conviction that Elizabeth must now become acquainted with whatever of his ingratitude and falsehood had before been unknown to her; and in spite of every thing, was not wholly without hope that Darcy might yet be prevailed on to make his fortune. The congratulatory letter which Elizabeth received from Lydia on her marriage, explained to her that, by his wife at least, if not by himself, such a hope was cherished. The letter was to this effect:

  “MY DEAR LIZZY,

  “I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so rich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us. I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help. Any place would do, of about three or four hundred a year; but however, do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not.

  “Your’s, &c.”

  As it happened that Elizabeth had much rather not; she endeavoured in her answer to put an end to every intreaty and expectation of the kind. Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice of what might be called economy in her own private expences, she frequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an income as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in their wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to their support; and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or herself were sure of being applied to, for some little assistance towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the restoration of peace1 dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference; her’s lasted a little longer; and in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her.

  Though Darcy could never receive him at Pemberley, yet, for Elizabeth’s sake, he assisted him farther in his profession. Lydia was occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself in London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently staid so long, that even Bingley’s good humour was overcome, and he proceeded so far as to talk of giving them a hint to be gone.

  Miss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy’s marriage; but as she thought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she dropt all her resentment; was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as attentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility to Elizabeth.

  Pemberley was now Georgiana’s home; and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each other, even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with an astonishment bordering on alarm, at her lively, sportive, manner of talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect which almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open pleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen in her way. By Elizabeth’s instructions she began to comprehend that a woman may take liberties with her husband, which a brother will not always allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself.

  Lady Cather
ine was extremely indignant on the marriage of her nephew; and as she gave way to all the genuine frankness of her character, in her reply to the letter which announced its arrangement, she sent him language so very abusive, especially of Elizabeth, that for some time all intercourse was at an end. But at length, by Elizabeth’s persuasion, he was prevailed on to overlook the offence, and seek a reconciliation; and, after a little farther resistance on the part of his aunt, her resentment gave way, either to her affection for him, or her curiosity to see how his wife conducted herself; and she condescended to wait on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had received, not merely from the presence of such a mistress, but the visits of her uncle and aunt from the city.

  With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.

  FINIS.

  Appendix: Original Penguin Classics

  Introduction by Tony Tanner

  Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point…I had not seen Pride and Prejudice till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.

  Thus Charlotte Brontë expressed her dissatisfaction with one of the most enduringly popular of all English novels, in a letter to G. H. Lewes written in 1848. I will return to the terms of her criticism later, and the significance of their connotations, but the directness of her negative response prompts us to reconsider the reasons for the lasting appeal of the novel and what relevance, if any, it can still have for people living in very different social conditions. In this introduction I want to suggest various approaches to the novel, which may help to clarify its achievement in terms of its own time and also suggest why the form of that achievement could become distasteful to a Romantic like Charlotte Brontë. I also hope that by showing the different ways we may look at the novel, its abiding relevance for all of us may become more readily apprehensible.

  It is indeed possible to call its relevance to the society of the time into question, for during a decade in which Napoleon was effectively engaging, if not transforming, Europe, Jane Austen composed a novel in which the most important events are the fact that a man changes his manners and a young lady changes her mind. Soldiers do appear but in the marginal role of offering distractions to young girls, which in one case goes as far as to produce an elopement. The overall impression given by the book is of a small section of society locked in an almost timeless present in which very little will or can change. For the most part the people are as fixed and repetitive as the linked routines and established social rituals which dominate their lives. Money is a potential (never an actual) problem, and courtship has its own personal dramas; but everything tends towards the achieving of satisfactory marriages – which is exactly how such a society secures its own continuity and minimizes the possibility of anything approaching violent change. In such a world a change of mind – an act by which consciousness demonstrates some independence from the patterns of thought which have predetermined its readings of things – can indeed come to seem a fairly momentous event, an internal modification matched in this novel by an external modification in an individual’s behaviour. Let me put it this way. For the first two parts of the book Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet believe that they are taking part in an action which, if turned into a fiction, should be called Dignity and Perception. They have to learn to see that their novel is more properly called Pride and Prejudice. For Jane Austen’s book is, most importantly, about pre-judging and re-judging. It is a drama of recognition – re-cognition, that act by which the mind can look again at a thing and if necessary make revisions and amendments until it sees the thing as it really is. As such it is thematically related to the dramas of recognition which constitute the great tradition of Western tragedy – Oedipus Rex, King Lear, Phèdre – albeit the drama has now shifted to the comic mode, as is fitting in a book which is not about the finality of the individual death but the ongoingness of social life.

  I am not forgetting the immense charm of Elizabeth Bennet which has so much to do with the appeal of the book:

  I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least I do not know…

  wrote Jane Austen in a letter; and indeed her combination of energy and intelligence, her gay resilience in a society tending always towards dull conformity, would make her a worthy heroine in a Stendhal novel, which cannot be said for many English heroines. But at this point I want to suggest that a very important part of the book is how it touches on, indeed dramatizes, some aspects of the whole problem of knowledge. Eighteenth-century philosophers had, of course, addressed themselves to what Locke called ‘the discerning faculties of a man’ with unusual analytic rigour, considering not only the question what do we know, but the more reflexive matter of how we know what we know, and the limits set on knowledge by the very processes and instruments of cognition. John Locke asserted at the start of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding that it was

  worth while to search out the bounds between opinion and knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our assent and moderate our persuasion.

  And he added, in a caveat which is important for understanding much eighteenth-century literature, ‘Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.’ Locke pointed out how, because of ‘settled habit’, often ‘we take that for the perception of our sensation which is an idea formed by our judgement’. This fairly accurately sums up Elizabeth’s earlier reactions to Darcy. She identifies her sensory perceptions as judgements, or treats impressions as insights. In her violent condemnation of Darcy and the instant credence she gives to Wickham, no matter how understanding the former and excusable the latter, Elizabeth is guilty of ‘Wrong Assent, or Error’, as Locke entitled one of his chapters. In it he gives some of the causes of man’s falling into error, and they include ‘Received hypotheses’, ‘Predominant passions or inclinations’ and ‘Authority’. These are forces and influences with which every individual consciousness has to contend if it is to make the lonely struggle towards true vision, as Elizabeth’s consciousness does; and the fact that whole groups and societies can live in the grip of ‘Wrong Assent, or Error’, often with intolerably unjust and cruel results, only helps to ensure the continuing relevance of this happy tale of a girl who learned to change her mind.

  The first title Jane Austen chose for the work which was finally called Pride and Prejudice was First Impressions and I think this provides an important clue to a central concern of the final version. We cannot know how prominently ‘first impressions’ figured in the first version since it is lost. There has, needless to say, been a great deal of scholarship done on the putative evolution of the novel, and I will here quote from Brian Southam’s Jane Austen’s Literary Manuscripts since his research in this area is well in advance of my own. He suggests that the book may have started out as another of Jane Austen’s early burlesques, though adding that little remains in the final form to indicate such an origin.

  The object of the burlesque is hinted at in the title, for the phrase ‘first impressions’ comes directly from the terminology of sentimental literature, and Jane Austen would certainly have met it in Sir Charles Grandison, where its connotations are briefly defined. She would have known a more recent usage in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), where the heroine is told that by resisting first impressions she will ‘acquire that steady dignity of min
d, that can alone counter-balance the passions’. Here, as commonly in popular fiction, ‘first impressions’ exhibit the strength and truth of the heart’s immediate and intuitive response, usually love at first sight. Jane Austen had already attacked this concept of feeling in ‘Love’ and ‘Friendship’, and in Sense and Sensibility it is a deeply-founded trait of Marianne’s temperament…There is a striking reversal of this concept in Pride and Prejudice, yet in circumstances altogether unsentimental.

  He is referring to Elizabeth’s ‘first impressions’ of Darcy’s house, Pemberley, which are, as it were, accurate and authenticated by the book. She is also right, we might add, in her first impressions of figures like Mr Collins, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh. But she is wrong in her first impressions of Wickham; and her first impressions of Darcy, though to a large extent warranted by the evidence of his deportment and tone, are an inadequate basis for the rigid judgement which she then erects upon them.1

  Mr Southam suggests that ‘the original title may have been discarded following the publication of a First Impressions by Mrs Holford in 1801’, and he repeats R. W. Chapman’s original observation that the new title almost certainly came from the closing pages of Fanny Burney’s Cecilia. This book also concerns a very proud young man, Mortimer Delvile, who cannot bring himself to give up his family name, which is the rather perverse condition on which alone Cecilia may inherit a fortune from her uncle. The relationship between this book and Jane Austen’s novel has also been explored by other critics and it will suffice here to quote from the wise Dr Lyster’s speech near the end of the book.

  ‘The whole of this unfortunate business,’ said Dr Lyster, ‘has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE. Your uncle, the Dean, began it, by his arbitrary will, as if an ordinance of his own could arrest the course of nature!…Your father, Mr Mortimer, continued it with the same self-partiality, preferring the wretched gratification of tickling his ear with a favourite sound, to the solid happiness of his son with a rich and deserving wife. Yet this, however, remember: if to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you owe your miseries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you will also owe their termination.’