Quite awhile ago, I discussed the “is Darcy shy?” debate that invariably crops up every few months. (And no, it’s not all the 2005 version’s fault — my favourite reading of P&P, which dates from the 60s, invokes it as part of his argument. [This would be my least favourite part of it. But Babb is still wonderful and glorious!])

Anyway, that debate has a sort of kid sister: the “does Darcy have Asperger’s?” thing that also seems to crop up — perhaps a little less frequently, but it also has an entire chapter of a book dedicated to it, so I think it’s got to come out about even.

Seriously, though, it does keep coming back. As with the shy thing, it’s not like calling Colonel Fitzwilliam Richard or Mrs Gardiner Madeleine: something that a few people came up with back in the day and then somehow it got adopted by the fandom en masse (i.e., fanon). It’s not fanon. It’s just something that independently strikes a lot of people, while just as many go “hell, no!”

Disclaimer: I am personally leery about diagnosing fictional characters with disorders that were not even conceived of at the time. Yes, it’s possible that a keen-eyed observer like Austen might very well have seen an actual person with actual Asperger’s and integrated her observations into her characterization.

However, that would require her famously nuanced characters to simply be expies of people she knew in real life (per Becoming Jane, which is … no, just no) or for her to be so keen-eyed that she could actually identify the features of the disorder well before anybody else had ever thought of it, separate them out from any non-Asperger’s traits, then essentially import them into her own characterizations. And she’d have to have some reason to do this, because otherwise focusing on the non-female underprivileged, she is not.

On the other hand, unlike many other popular interpretations, I don’t think this one actually contradicts his established character as such. So it’s sort of vaguely valid: I consider it less likely than “Darcy dotes on his sister” (duh) and considerably more likely than “Darcy is a sexual predator of any kind” (wtf?). I also think that the ubiquity of the interpretation comes from exactly one line and, in all probability, would rarely cross anyone’s mind otherwise.

Okay, back to the regularly scheduled programming. Back in June, it came up yet again. This time it was a discussion that I ran across a few weeks after the fact. I thought it looked interesting, so I clicked.

It was a little, I guess. The poster presented her creds: her husband and son have Asperger’s, so she knows all has at least some experience of what it looks like for some people. She was reading the famous piano scene (it might be slightly redundant to refer to any scene in Pride and Prejudice as “the famous one,” but you know what I mean), and stumbled across the line that is always responsible for this connection.

“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,” said Darcy, “of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”

This is generally interpreted as: I’m an introvert, so it’s hard for me to chat with strangers, and I’m an asshat, so I don’t bother trying; I just hate everyone and don’t put in the effort to pretend otherwise.

A more generous interpretation is: I’m introverted and socially inept, so it’s extremely difficult for me to talk with strangers, or pretend that I’m interested in them — which I’m not, because strangers.

This woman, in common with the others on Team Asperger’s, reads it as: I have an as-yet-undiagnosable condition which makes social interactions, especially with strangers, a nightmare. It also makes me miss the tone of their conversations — I know it’s a thing because I see other people catch it all the time, but I can’t. It’s the same with putting fake expressions on my face. I can’t do that, and I can’t work up interest in random strangers, so I’m screwed there too. Also I have numerous other difficulties that I won’t mention just now.

More or less.

Anyway, the OP reads the line and, as with her fellows (and probably any number of therapists), the phrase “cannot catch their tone of conversations” rings every ASD alarm bell in her head. She reads the line to her husband — who, I’ll remind you (yes, this will be important later on!), has Asperger’s himself.

The husband, we’re told, immediately assumes that Darcy is on the spectrum and sympathizes with him. With that tentative confirmation, the OP turns to her comrades in Austen fandom and poses the idea to them.

By and large, they are horrified. Not at the idea that Darcy’s manly perfection might be marred by teh autism — of course not. No, it’s that (1) if Darcy had Asperger’s, his character arc would be about overcoming his disability, not about being a sometime-asshat and mostly stopping it, and (2) he doesn’t have the symptoms anyway, which they know all about because they have children or students or nephews/nieces/second cousins’ roommates who are diagnosed with Asperger’s/autism/something sort of similar.

And you know what? I don’t have children with anything on the autism spectrum, because I don’t have any children and I don’t want to have any children. I don’t have students. I don’t have nephews or nieces, just cousins twenty years younger than me, who don’t have autism spectrum disorders either. Yet I believe that I have every bit as much right to an opinion as these women do, if not more, even though (as far as I know) I don’t have a single relative on the autism spectrum. Because guess what I do have?

Yeah. Asperger’s syndrome.

I know, shocking¹.

So, yeah. I may not have all the learnings (I am a humble psychology minor), but like The Husband, I do have the lived experiences.

Now, you may wonder, “why is she bringing all this up now? This happened all the way back in June.” Do I have an answer for this? Why, yes!

That’s how long it took me to calm down. That is, to calm down to the state you see here: less “FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE” and more “tl;dr ranting.” I was furious.  I very briefly mentioned it and set it aside until I could organize my thoughts into something more coherent than RAAAAAAAAAAAEG.

There’s a lot of fail in Austen fandom — a lot of fail in fandom, period — but this was the first time it felt like it was pointed straight at me. You don’t need to tell me it wasn’t meant that way. I know it wasn’t. I know that these people didn’t go, “hey, how can we marginalize Elizabeth’s experiences today?” I know that they didn’t mean to be offensive towards people with Asperger’s, people on the autism spectrum, non-neurotypical people in general. Not meaning to be offensive, unfortunately, doesn’t mean diddlysquat. (Don’t say, “you’re just looking for reasons to be offended” either. I don’t actually do that. Does anyone do that?)

I’ve seen these same arguments go around plenty of times; this one wasn’t really any different. But it was in my fandom, and in a space I’m familiar with, and I’m tired of the stealth ableism. So I’m going to explain what’s wrong with it. And if you’re one of those nice neurotypical types who makes these arguments on behalf of poor, crazy people like me, I’m probably not talking about you in particular. You don’t need to defend yourself. Please don’t.

I’m going to discuss (2) first, because it’s more straightforward. I’ve already addressed it, a little — the “I know all because I know someone with Asperger’s or something kind of similar.” Frankly, other people in our circle of family-and-friends speaking for us rather than permitting us to speak for ourselves isn’t exactly rare. And that’s what’s going on here.

A number of people were very eager to say “it can’t be, because I have a [fill in the blank] with Asperger’s/autism/whatever and I have all the learnings,” completely ignoring the fact that the guy in the original post had Asperger’s. (I said that would be important!) This is not to say that he was automatically right, or that they were obliged to automatically adopt his perspective. What I found problematic is that all of these people speaking as authorities because of their experiences didn’t even address his authority, as a person who actually lives with it.

Even the awesome person who pointed out a lot of the problematic (by which I mean offensive) elements in their arguments participated in the erasure of actual people with Asperger’s, reinforcing her argument (more or less, “people with ASDs are not ambulatory autism”) with a friendly sort of “amirite, Aspie² parents?”

That’s right. Don’t ask us — what do we know? We’re probably just kids, anyway; autism spectrum disorders are the Trix cereal of the DSM. We disappear at the age of eighteen, or turn into unicorns. We can never speak for our own experiences, certainly not on the Internet. It’s our parents who should be appealed to as the ultimate authorities on our experience of the world.

No. You don’t get to claim trufax lived experience authority, and then blithely ignore others’ considerably greater authority. Maybe he didn’t get the context of the quotation. Maybe his wife was waggling her eyebrows meaningfully. Maybe he didn’t think about it. He can be wrong. I can be wrong. But every single person completely failing to address his authority? Not cool.

Moving on, let’s consider the actual statements made in the argument. I’m trying not to point fingers at anyone in particular, so I’ll just talk about the assertions generally. I’ve heard them dozens of times before, anyway, and I’m trying to criticize the arguments that keep repeating, not the various people who make them.

Completely True Facts About Asperger’s Syndrome and the People Who Have It

(1) We have special interests that we are incapable of shutting up about. Yes, regardless of age, situation, education, or any other particular circumstances.

Do I have the interests? Yes. This post is itself an example! Do I talk about them a lot? Yes, clearly. Am I capable of doing otherwise? Yes. In my day-to-day, meatspace life, I rarely mention my special interests to anyone but my parents. If somebody mentions Jane Austen, I’m most likely to say “oh, I love Austen” — and that’s all. If I’m feeling adventurous, I might add “just the books, though, the movies annoy me a bit. How about you?”

The thing is, the media always seems to treat people with Asperger’s, especially teenagers and adults, as if we just woke up one morning and there it was. It was hiding under our beds the whole time!

Newsflash: it’s not like that. I’m twenty-five years old. I’ve lived with this just about every moment of every day of my entire life. Sure, I didn’t know what it was because I went undiagnosed for most of that time, but I had to find ways to cope with it.

For instance: At some point I realized that other people found my manner of expression to be annoying/hurtful/disturbing/various other unpleasant things. The thing is, it tends to be either far in excess of what’s normative — talking REALLY LOUDLY when I get excited, or laughing long past the point when everyone else has stopped — or far below it. My mother talked about my lack of gratitude or surprise, people would constantly ask me why I didn’t think X was funny, my friends told me that my inexpressiveness made me seem kind of bitchy, blah blah blah.

You know, I got the picture eventually. People seem to think aliens came down, kidnapped all of us, inserted the Autism Data Chip into our brains to control our every moment, and sent us back. No, actually, that never happened.

So no, I didn’t get out of bed one day and bam! Asperger’s. After several years of “what’s wrong with your faaaace” I didn’t go “what is this thing you call a facial expression?” I’d lived among mostly-neurotypical humans for years and I knew what expressions looked like, even if they felt weird on my face and I couldn’t read them very well. So guess what I did?

I found a mirror and started practicing facial expressions. Yes, it was hard, it took forever, I’m still not especially great at it (back then they’d often be ridiculously exaggerated), but I’m no longer expressionless unless I’m really tired and just don’t have the energy. In fact, I’ve done it for so long by now that I don’t usually have to think first.

An adult who’s lived with this for 20+ years is probably going to have found some way to make existing in the social world of human beings a little less painful for themselves. Having Asperger’s is not like being frozen in time with no ability to learn, adapt, or simply fake things.

(2) We never process language normally (or “normally”) and when subjected to complex conversations, require considerable time to formulate responses. That’s just how our brains work and they are stuck there forever.

Fun story: I had mediocre grades in school, for a number of reasons, most of which had much more to do with my immune system than my brain (no, not every single aspect of our lives, experiences, and personalities can be traced back to our “disorder”; more on this later). I only managed a scholarship, university acceptances in the US, and invitation to a summer program abroad³ because I got 800 Verbal.

My life is endless tragedy.

So, in regard to that last point, allow me to repeat: There is no data chip. There are any number of things that are beyond my capabilities, but I am not controlled by the Great Puppetmaster of Autism.

In regard to the general linguistic capacities of people with Asperger’s: no, you’re wrong. This is simply not the case and I don’t really understand why anyone with Google at their disposal would think so. Why? Because the diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s includes the absence of clinically significant delays in language, cognitive development, and adaptive functioning. No, really. It’s in the DSM. (Which sucks, but that’s a discussion for a different day.) If you have Asperger’s, BY DEFINITION you do not have significant linguistic delays.

Moreover, that whole thing about needing time to come up with replies is really odd to me in light of (1). Yeah, when I’m with my friends, not worrying about presenting as normal while they have their complex conversations, I never instantly respond with entire monologues. Nuh-uh. Just ask hlbr and tulina  — they can tell you how much I don’t launch into diatribes at the drop of hat.

But maybe this conversation is just too complex for me and you should give me another ten minutes to think about it.

(3) We lack curiosity and always will.

Wha–?

Apparently, I didn’t annoy everyone I met by asking for explanations for everything (remember that annoying “but whyyyyyyy?” stage? that’s pretty much my entire life). They just imagined this little girl trailing after them demanding to know how the universe worked. Okay!

(4) If someone with Asperger’s is a snobbish jerk, it’s because they have Asperger’s.

And this is where we hit the Unfortunate Implications jackpot. On the face of it, it may seem one of the less offensive remarks, but this is actually the thing that bothers me the most about these discussions, and inevitably always comes up.

See, the basic argument on the Asperger’s side is that Darcy is awkward, withdrawn, inexpressive, has difficulty reading other people’s emotions, diatribes about philosophical questions are his idea of small talk, he uses long, formal words and involved phrasing and is highly articulate, and particularly dislikes, and is naturally bad at social interactions involving (1) dancing, (2) strangers, or (3) both — because he has Asperger’s.

Now frankly, this argument has some pretty severe drawbacks, such as “…so, basically he’s a geek?” I mean, his interests seem to be socially acceptable things, like landscaping and interior design (really: he tells his sister he loves her THROUGH SONG REDECORATING), but other than that, this list could just as easily describe a neurotypical geek.

All of that said, however, what they don’t usually argue is that “Darcy is inconsiderate because he has Asperger’s” or “Darcy is a snob because he has Asperger’s” or “Darcy is selfish because he has Asperger’s” or “Darcy has any-of-his-numerous-personal-flaws because he has Asperger’s.” They’re saying that his canonical difficulties with social interaction come from Asperger’s, not that Asperger’s is the font from which every aspect of his personality and character flows.

It’s their opponents who seem to be saying that, if Darcy has Asperger’s, his arrogance comes from having Asperger’s, his snobbery comes from having Asperger’s, his selfish disdain for the feelings of others comes from having Asperger’s, his everything comes from having Asperger’s. Or, to rephrase, if someone has both Asperger’s and the above traits, and you say that those traits must be traits of the person’s Asperger’s, you’re saying those are traits of Asperger’s.

Maybe not in every case and in every person. Maybe you’re not talking about me, personally. But in a general way, yep, people with Asperger’s are apparently arrogant, snobbish, selfish, inconsiderate jerkasses (with requisite hearts of gold, of course).

So, supposing Darcy has Asperger’s, and does not become less formal, less inclined to four-syllable-words, less inscrutable, less my-way-or-the-highway, less incapable of catching tone, or less remote in uncomfortable situations, but does abandon his snobbery and tries to consider the feelings of others (however stiffly), he is not experiencing personal growth but simply overcoming his mental disorder.

Um. Let’s suppose, as is most likely, that Darcy doesn’t have Asperger’s and is simply a classic INTJ or whatnot. In this scenario, he dislikes dancing and basically anything that involves a bunch of people he doesn’t know. He’s formal, prolix, remote, unfriendly and all of that. He makes bad first impressions, doesn’t catch the tone of conversations and is inexpressive, especially when it comes to emotion he doesn’t actually feel — because he’s an introvert.

Okay. But of course it’s ridiculous to say he’s arrogant, snobbish, and often selfish because he’s an introvert. So he has a number of qualities that are related to his basic temperament, and he has a somewhat smaller number that are related to his being a privileged asshat. It is quite clear that they are separate and at most, his introversion affects the way his arrogance etc expresses itself, not its existence.

Nobody thinks that Darcy ceased to be an introvert — and an introvert of his particular type — after Hunsford. Seriously, nobody. It could not be more blatant. Nobody thinks that the effort he’s making is anything less than a struggle for him, or, as far as I can tell, that it’s even got appreciably easier. The overwhelming consensus that I’ve seen is that the difference is that he’s now making the effort because he no longer thinks everyone is beneath him, however much it personally sucks. Not that he’s overcome his innate introversion.

Therefore, to sum up:

– if Darcy has Asperger’s and is also a jerk, then ceases to be a jerk while retaining the (supposed) signs of Asperger’s, he’s now cured himself of his horrible debilitating disorder.

– if Darcy is an introvert and is also a jerk, then ceases to be a jerk while retaining the signs of introversion, he’s now an introvert who is not a jerk.

No unfortunate implications at all!

(5) Asperger’s is a biological condition that determines our behaviours.

a;kjfal;dkf;adkfja;djkf;akdjfakdjf;adjkf

Look. My entire identity is not consumed in it, nor controlled by it. It’s had a tremendous effect on my life, some of which has been unpleasant and some of which has not. It influences me, but it is not everything I am. Let me put this as clearly as I can:

Nothing singlehandedly determines our behaviour. We don’t need you to strip us of all responsibility and personal agency (poor dears!). We don’t need you to go on about how we’re destined by our biologies to be unlikable, empathy-less arrogant snobs. We don’t need you to talk about us like we’re less able to make choices than your household pets are. Stop it.

————

¹ No, it’s not the “icky” self-diagnosed kind that neurotypical people take such pleasure in vilifying. My latest psychologist noticed it after I went on a rant about Why Social Stuff is Really Really Really Hard For Me that just happened to coincide with almost every known symptom of Asperger’s. Surprise! Only not. Except apparently it is a surprise that we’re out here, hanging around in fandom, having opinions on things to do with Asperger’s. The world, what is it coming to.

² Please don’t call me an Aspie. I don’t know exactly why it bothers me so much, but I don’t like the word and I don’t want it used for me.

³ At Cambridge, if you’re curious. I’ve always wished I could have gone, because it sounded awesome. I, ah, might have kept the letter.

Stereotyping the Hero

The BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is frequently praised as the ultimate, perfect adaptation of any Austen novel. It has no flaws. It cannot possibly be improved upon – despite constantly reinforcing stereotypes of gender and appearance, often in direct contradiction of the original text.

The story is straightforward enough. It’s 1811 – the beginning of England’s Regency, and just about everybody’s favourite period for historical romance. A spirited young woman named Elizabeth Bennet is living on her father’s comfortable estate, along with the rest of her family: said father, her mother, and four sisters. When Mr Bennet dies, however, all five women will face certain poverty – and since women of their class and time are not permitted to work, their only alternative is to marry. Fortunately for them, Charles Bingley, single and nouveau rich, has just rented the nearby estate. Better still, he’s brought with him his friend/mentor: Mr Darcy, a brooding, powerful aristocrat.

Jane Bennet (the Regency’s version of a Disney princess) and Mr Bingley instantly fall in love; Elizabeth, meanwhile, overhears Darcy insult her, and determines to loathe and mock him for eternity; and Darcy struggles with the enormous social gap between them, on one side, and intense sexual attraction on the other. After over a year of quarrels, separations, proposals, and one scandalous elopement, the chastened Elizabeth and Darcy fall in love, finally marrying in a double wedding with Jane and Bingley. They ride off in their carriages, the Bingleys gazing adoringly into one another’s eyes, while Elizabeth laughs and even the otherwise sombre, brooding Darcy smiles before kissing his wife.

Some would say that this adaptation – and all others – should be evaluated on its own merits alone. However, the very act of adapting a work from one medium to another is, by its very nature, an interpretation of the text. Few of us would sit through five hours of romantic comedy if it were not billed as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – the translation of one of literature’s most brilliant and incisive works onto the screen. Therefore this act of interpretation, and the values it reflects, must be considered.

Andrew Davies’ script is what is often called faithful, and in many respects actually is. Almost all the significant divergences are clustered around the character of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride and Prejudice’s notoriously difficult hero. Here, played by Colin Firth, he’s recreated as the original alpha male: forceful, moody, smouldering. He glares out of windows, watching Elizabeth from behind a billiards table or in a bath like a watered-down Heathcliff. Burdened by unwanted passions, he fences, crying, “I shall conquer this!”

Upon returning home to meet with his steward, he postpones matters of business to fling himself into a pond, then wanders about the estate half-dressed and sopping wet. In a crisis, he rushes to action – scribbling his famous letter all through the night, hurrying to London to rescue Elizabeth’s silly sister Lydia. When prodded into drawing rooms, he endures all social encounters with the object of his affection – or obsession – with a scowl, snapping back at her when she dares disagree with him.

All of this, however, contrasts sharply with the Darcy of the novel, who enjoys the “liveliness of [her] mind,” smiles throughout their battles of wits and only falls harder during them. Calmer and more analytical than his celluloid counterpart, Austen’s Darcy first betrays his attraction to Elizabeth by listening to her talk. He’s painfully introverted, though not (as this production insisted) shy, and it takes him at least a week to work up the nerve to actually speak to her. Then, however, he talks to her about everything from human evil to friendship, in some of the most celebrated dialogues this side of Shakespeare.

In the same emergencies faced by the mini-series’ Darcy, Austen’s considers each situation before acting. He doesn’t compose his letter until convinced he’s recovered his usually “sedate” temper, instead waiting through the rest of the day, presumably going to sleep, and finally sitting down to write it at eight o’clock the following morning.

Later in the story, Darcy’s archenemy brings Lydia Bennet dangerously near to a life of prostitution. Darcy not only doesn’t rush away that day (again, it’s the following morning), he comes up with two separate plans for resolving the situation. When the first fails, he falls back to the second. And he is happy to banter with Elizabeth herself, his responses varying between severe moral pronouncements and dry wit – but in either case, he almost always smiles, even as he smiles (unusually for the eighteenth century) in the portrait hanging among his ancestors. Firth’s Darcy rarely moves the muscles of his face at all. He would, perhaps, be more convincing as a Botox victim than the sharp, scheming Darcy.

These variations, small and large, reveal perhaps more about our values, our expectations of a romantic hero, than they do about either Austen or her character. After all, what sort of man waits to rescue the fair maiden until he’s thought about it first? What sort of man responds to the near-seduction of his fifteen-year-old sister by writing a note to the perpetrator? Why would an aristocrat up to his ears in every kind of privilege try to convince a “ruined” girl that she’s better off single than miserably married? When the woman he loves rips him up one side and down the other, how could a proper hero respond with a letter ending, “God bless you”? Why would a young man, falling in in love for the first time, smile and banter with the girl he likes?

The answer, of course, is that while a real person might very well do any of these things, a proper alpha hero most certainly would not. Darcy is an odd, often perplexing forerunner to that hero – by modern standards more like an evil mastermind minus the evil than anything else. He’s plagued everyone from A A Milne (yes, of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) to Lawrence Olivier (saddled with the part in an infamous wartime production) to Davies himself. So he’s got to be changed.

He shouldn’t consider his motivations before acting on them, he shouldn’t wait for all the information before solving a problem, and he certainly shouldn’t have a sense of humour. That’s for sidekicks – and while Darcy and Elizabeth, within the world of the novel, are just sidekicks to the classically good Jane and Bingley, that’s not acceptable for a would-be Byronic hero.

It even goes beyond major issues of characterisation, to the minor and trivial. Austen only describes her characters in vague terms, and never says more about Darcy’s appearance except that he’s young, very handsome in an aristocratic way, and very tall. The producers, however, apparently had a very clear image of what The Hero ought to look like – down to the eyebrows.

Colin Firth’s light brown hair was dyed darker – a Hero, after all, must be tall, dark, and handsome – and curled. So were his eyebrows. He wore heavy mascara and more makeup than his female co-stars. By the end, he bore a striking (if not particularly astonishing) resemblance to Lord Byron.

It’s no surprise, really, that the adaptation is overwhelmingly popular. There’s enough of the original text to keep the purists happy, more or less. Stereotypes – well, they persist for a reason. This production appeals to just about every one of them available, and it works. Reducing the characters to types, the Spunky Young Thing and Brooding Hero – well, that works too, for contemporary audiences. Those are the images of gender and personality that we like, that we approve of, that we expect. They don’t tell us anything about a two-hundred-year-old text that consciously subverts them, but they tell us plenty about ourselves.

When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him.

*yawn*

‘He is just what a young man ought to be,’ said she, ‘sensible, good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!’

Yes, he’s a sweetheart.  And I suspect, the sort of personality which is very attractive in person, but not so much on paper: that is, an actual person like Bingley would be absolutely adorable, but as a character he’s a bit weaksauce.  Sort of the reverse of Jerkass Dissonance, where a character is beloved by people who would hate him/her (but usually him) if they actually met someone who acted that way in RL.

‘He is also handsome,’ replied Elizabeth, ‘which a young man ought likewise to be if he possibly can.  His character is thereby complete.’

And the pink bubble of fluffy romance is popped.  Thank you, Elizabeth!

… that’s pretty much her MO for most of this story.  Which is itself, supposedly, an epic romance.  That said, I’ve never been sure whether Elizabeth would much appreciate being the recipient of the snark she dishes out to everyone else.  When she begins to be attracted to Darcy, it is very Serious Business.

‘I was very much flattered by his asking me to dance a second time.  I did not expect such a compliment.’

Of course you didn’t.

‘Did not you?  I did for you.  But that is one great difference between us.

One of many.

Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never.

Foreshadowing!

What could be more natural than his asking you again?  He could not help seeing that you were about five times as pretty as every other woman in the room.

I am … a little uncomfortable with the emphasis on Jane’s looks.  I mean, I know she’s a perfect angel blah blah, but just about everyone assumes that her beauty is her principal attraction — not just at first (which would be highly probable, of course) but after spending time with her, it’s still the most important thing.  Of course, Elizabeth being Elizabeth, I doubt she’ll play this perfectly straight.

No thanks to his gallantry for that.

Heeeeh.  Elizabeth = awesome.

Well, he certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person.’

I quail at the idea of the less interesting people Jane has liked before.  Also, this sounds weirdly similar to Darcy’s now-notorious line about Bingley, even though Jane hasn’t fallen in love before.

‘Dear Lizzy!’ 

‘Oh, you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life.’

She’ll try to cast this as a compliment, but I think it’s pretty clear that it’s — well, not.  Later, she’ll admit that she’s often disdained Jane’s idealism.

‘I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think.’

Considering her conversation, that’s rather a scary thought — and, I suspect, the reason for the popularity of repressedanger!Jane; she’s not really like that.  Except, um, she is — in her way, she’s just as strong-willed and forthright about her opinions as Elizabeth or Darcy.

‘I know you do; and it is that which makes the wonder. With your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others!

Um.  The compliment’s getting a bit thin there, Elizabeth.  (Jane is honestly blind, of course.  But even if she did notice “follies and nonsense,” she wouldn’t mock them.  In a way, it’s just another permutation of “how can you be different from me?”)

Affectation of candour is common enough; one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design,—to take the good of everybody’s character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad,—belongs to you alone.

That’s a bit more convincing.  Also!  An excellent definition of “candour” in Regencyese.  However, I think what we’ll hear of Darcy re: Bingley applies equally well to Elizabeth and Jane — Jane’s candour endears her to Elizabeth, even though Elizabeth’s personality is completely different, and she doesn’t seem at all dissatisfied with her own. 

And so, you like this man’s sisters, too, do you?  Their manners are not equal to his.’

Er.  Yeah, not quite.

‘Certainly not, at first;

A bit surprising that she admits it so readily, but perhaps the qualifier makes an almost-not-compliment acceptable.

but they are very pleasing women when you converse with them.

Now I’m wondering if they actually do improve on further acquaintance.  Darcy might disagree with that assessment.    But maybe they’re different around people they like for themselves, and not just for money/family/connections.

Miss Bingley is to live with her brother, and keep his house; and I am much mistaken if we shall not find a very charming neighbour in her.’

ha.

However, it’s an interesting snippet re: single brother-sister relationships.

Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced: their behaviour at the assembly had not been calculated to please in general;

I imagine not.  Though they at least danced; presumably they do actually like it, and/or Caroline was hoping Darcy would dance with her again.

and with more quickness of observation and less pliancy of temper than her sister

This line is an interesting parallel to the one we’ll get about Darcy vs Bingley later on — but the differences are rather interesting too.  The narrator does not say that Elizabeth’s mind is more intelligent than Jane’s, but that it’s quicker.  In general, Elizabeth’s rapidity of thought gives her the advantage, but it will also lead her to make mistakes the more careful Jane doesn’t.  However, we’ll also see the opposite, in a way, with Darcy and Bingley — Bingley, who thinks quickly but in general not deeply, would have avoided a fairly serious mistake if Darcy, with his careful, critical intelligence, had not led him astray.

and with a judgment, too, unassailed by any attention to herself

An early hint that the clarity of Elizabeth’s judgment is somewhat contingent on her vanity:  if Caroline had flattered her, she would probably have liked her a good deal better.  And, like the hint last chapter about Darcy’s mood, it’s carefully placed where it will have the least possible impact — just mentioned in passing, between “Elizabeth is quick” and “the Bingley sisters are bitchy.”

The role of flattery is … probably fodder for an entire book.  I do think it interesting that while Darcy comes off as considerably more arrogant than Elizabeth, he is much less influenced by flattery.  Either because of his pride (he already knows how wonderful he is, he doesn’t need anybody else to tell him so), or his standoffishness (he’s just not interested enough in people to care what they think about him), or even his intelligence (it’s just sucking up to the rich guy — and therefore meaningless), or some complicated combination of all three, his attitude towards it varies between indifference and outright repulsion.  Lady Catherine, Lydia, and Mrs Bennet all seem to share Elizabeth’s susceptibility; Mr Bennet, as far as I can tell, doesn’t.

… uh.

she was very little disposed to approve them.

They were, in fact, very fine ladies; not deficient in good-humour when they were pleased, nor in the power of being agreeable where they chose it; but proud and conceited.

Heeeeh.  I know some people have taken this line to show that Caroline isn’t always such a horrible person as we see her, but — um, this is not a ringing endorsement of their characters.  (Also, needless to say, there’s no hint that Louisa is a sekritly nice person under the sway of Caroline’s evil influence, another popular interpretation.)

Also, smooth change of POV.  *admires*

They were rather handsome

Randomly, another thing I liked about the 2005 P&P was the pretty Caroline.  I suspect a late Georgian audience would have found her much more attractive than Keira Knightley, red hair and all.

had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town; had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds

I’ve always assumed that they had twenty thousand pounds a-piece, but they had a fortune of £20,000 makes it somewhat ambiguous — though there may simply be an implied “each” there.

were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank

That rather implies, doesn’t it, that they are not people of rank themselves?  There is a bit of ambiguity about the Bingleys’ consequence — though I think a good deal less than fandom, with its weird obsession with trade, generally seems to think.

and were, therefore, in every respect entitled to think well of themselves and meanly of others.

Ha!

They were of a respectable family in the north of England

And the implication of this, IMO, is that — a generation or two back — the Bingleys were at least minor gentry.  But this part is generally overlooked in favour of…

a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brother’s fortune and their own had been acquired by trade.

ZOMG!!

Seriously, I think this is supposed to make their snobbery somewhat hypocritical — they prefer to focus on the relatively high status of their family of origin, and not the source of the fortune that allows them to live fashionably — but not at all to the level we usually see.

Also, there’s an interesting omission:  we’re never told who acquired it.  Although it’s almost universally assumed that Bingley’s father went into trade, made his fortune, then died (and this is quite possible), it really could have come from his wife/mother, a godparent, an aunt/uncle, etc etc.  We’re never told, though it does seem to have been around long enough to provide all three of his offspring with aristocratic educations.

Mr Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an estate, but did not live to do it.

Again, this actually tells us very little, except that Bingley didn’t earn it himself.  My personal theory is that Daddy Bingley’s death took place quite early in his children’s lives.

Mr Bingley intended it likewise, and sometimes made choice of his county

“Maybe I’ll buy a house in Cornwall.  The weather is very pleasant, I hear — but then, I have a friend who bought a house in Surrey and he says …”

but, as he was now provided with a good house and the liberty of a manor, it was doubtful to many of those who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not spend the remainder of his days at Netherfield, and leave the next generation to purchase.

I feel sure that he would have done exactly that if Mrs Bennet wasn’t so inconveniently near.  (And so immensely irritating, even to Jane and Bingley.)

His sisters were very anxious for his having an estate of his own

Of course!  It must be a terrible burden, not being able to drop “my brother’s estate” into conversations.  (Shades of Mrs Elton and Maple Grove, there?)

but though he was now established only as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no means unwilling to preside at his table; nor was Mrs Hurst, who had married a man of more fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider his house as her home when it suited her.

Heh.

I always assumed that Mr Hurst was the younger son of an aristocratic family (either rich or not), but it’s quite possible that he’s the, er, principal scion himself.  He does have his own house in town — in Grosvenor Street — and apparently little else, which does sound like an Impoverished Patrician.

Mr Bingley had not been of age two years when he was tempted, by an accidental recommendation, to look at Netherfield House.

I wonder how much of Bingley’s life is dictated by accidents and coincidence?

Also, I think the implication (like with Elizabeth, later) is that he has not yet turned twenty-three, but will do so in the near future.  This is … Octoberish?  So probably some time in winter, making him about five months older than Jane.

(Good girls marry older men, y’all.  Even if it’s just by a few months.)

He did look at it, and into it, for half an hour; was pleased with the situation and the principal rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it immediately.

Bingley is weirdly cute.  (And insanely impulsive, but still cute with it.)

Between him and Darcy there was a very steady friendship, in spite of a great opposition of character.

You don’t say.

Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper

I find it mildly interesting that, for all Jane and Bingley’s similarities, the qualities Darcy prizes in him are primarily not those he shares with Jane.  She’s easygoing but reserved.  (As for ductility — ahahaha.)

though no disposition could offer a greater contrast to his own, and though with his own he never appeared dissatisfied.

The “appeared” allows some ambiguity here; I’ve certainly seen it argued that Darcy actually is dissatisfied with his personality — but honestly?  I very much doubt it, given everything we see of him.  And the narrator, apparently not wanting to appear absolutely omniscient, will often qualify statements with a “probably” or “appeared” or whatever.

On the strength of Darcy’s regard Bingley had the firmest reliance

Aw.  Incidentally, I think that this is generally ignored when we look at the Darcy-Bingley dynamic — Bingley, while extremely impulsive, is not indiscriminately persuadable.  If he gets an idea he’ll act on it, but when Darcy’s persuading him it’s not simply being overwhelmed by a stronger personality, as many readers (and Elizabeth) seem to think.  Bingley’s faith in Darcy’s friendship is absolute.  Moreover:

and of his judgment the highest opinion.

So, if Darcy says “Bingley, you should do X because Y”, Bingley does it because he utterly trusts that (1) Darcy is looking out for Bingley’s best interests, and (2) Darcy is a brilliant judge.  Not because he’s a doormat by nature.

In fact, I think there’s one more dimension.

In understanding, Darcy was the superior.

It’s hard to get less ambiguous than that.  (Of course, I have seen people try to argue it away, but — um, fandom.)

IMO, Bingley is perfectly aware of this.  He knows that Darcy is more intelligent than he is, he knows that Darcy is an excellent judge of character, he knows that Darcy is completely loyal to him.  In a way, it’s like having a very close mentor, abrasive but clever and trustworthy.  (Darcy = Bingley’s Obi-Wan?)  And you can bet Darcy takes good care of his open, happy-go-lucky protégé.

So, to sum up, Bingley being persuaded by Darcy (in an important, life-altering matter) is less a direct consequence of Bingley’s own personality than of the whole Darcy-Bingley dynamic.

(I’m not sure how I got around to defending Bingley.  I don’t even like him.  But still, doormat!Bingley is irritating.)

Bingley was by no means deficient

Bingleyhaters:  Bingley is not subnormal in any way.

Bingleyfen:  Bingley is not a MENSA candidate.

but Darcy was clever.

Even the people who try to argue that actually Darcy isn’t clever, he’s just — you know, solid, and Elizabeth is settling for the decent guy because he’s decent and rich and she has to marry someone, after all, have trouble arguing with that.  So they just ignore it.

Interestingly, it’s one of the few definitive statements about Darcy (a few more follow immediately thereafter) in the book, but it’s almost never mentioned in descriptions of him.  I mean, I just randomly took five different copies of P&P off my shelf and read the summaries.  Elizabeth is described as:  good-looking, lively, younger, spirited, vibrant, supremely spirited, attractive, opinionated.  Darcy is described as:  eligible, arrogant and conceited, wealthy and aristocratic, noble and handsome, egotistical, proud, proud.  The novel goes to some length to show the extent of Elizabeth’s vanity, but it is never seen as a defining quality of her personality.  Darcy, the only person the narrator ever describes as “clever,” is apparently defined either by pride, or entirely external qualities.

</rant>

He was at the same time haughty, reserved, and fastidious; and his manners, though well bred, were not inviting.

The “well-bred” is an interesting sort of addendum; the phrase is only used of three other people — Mr Gardiner, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and Mrs Annesley, who are all much less abrasive than Darcy.  In her other novels, though, it includes a wider variety — Lady Middleton and Elizabeth Elliot, for instance.  As far as I can tell, “good breeding” (in the metaphorical usage, obviously) may or mayn’t be good manners, but it’s always proper.  In S&S, Elinor and Marianne don’t like shallow, insipid, icy Lady Middleton, but occasionally they’re glad she’s there just because she manages to smooth over the others’ vulgarity.  So Darcy’s manner is chilly and distant, but relentlessly correct.

His fastidiousness does seem to have been picked up on in general, much more than his intelligence — that is, he’s not always portrayed that way, but you will often see statements beginning “A fastidious man like Darcy…”  It doesn’t seem much expanded upon in the novel, despite general fascination with his sex life.

In that respect his friend had greatly the advantage.  Bingley was sure of being liked wherever he appeared; Darcy was continually giving offence.

Heh.  Also, the popular idea that Bingley’s acceptance is contingent upon his association with Darcy?  Um, not so much.

Also:  since we see Darcy being offensive, and then we’re told that he’s constantly offending people, the natural conclusion is that the previous scene was typical.  We’ll later see that snide, unspecific asides are much more his style than personal insults, but she certainly does her best to obscure the truth.  (You know, I really don’t get the impression that Darcy spends much time swanning around country villages, even at Pemberley.  So those people he’s constantly offending?  Very probably come from his own walk of life, as it were. [I really don't want to say ton.  Ever.  But, you know, the sort of people a middle-range aristocrat would interact with.  In town, given that he has a house there and spends about half the year away from Pemberley.])

The manner in which they spoke of the Meryton assembly was sufficiently characteristic.

Why do I get the feeling I’m going to need popcorn for this?

Bingley had never met with pleasanter people or prettier girls in his life

blah blah blah

No wonder Austen never shows a single conversation between Jane and Bingley.  (Seriously, she doesn’t.  They’re the ultimate Beta Couple, with the emphasis on Beta.  This is possibly why there’s only an infinitesimal amount of shippers.  On the other hand, Marianne and Brandon have no interactions either, and they’re practically a OTP — but I’m inclined to blame/credit the adaptations for that.)  It would be the most insanely boring thing ever.

A. A. Milne did add a few hilarious ones, though.  His script has its flaws, but IMO it’s the best adaptation of P&P, hands down.  His Bingley, in particular, really works — he’s not a ditz by any means, but not Stuish either.  (This is rarer than you’d think, though the 1979/1980 adaptation has an excellent Bingley as well.  And everybody is his fangirl!)

everybody had been most kind and attentive to him; there had been no formality, no stiffness

I bet there wasn’t.

he had soon felt acquainted with all the room; and as to Miss Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more beautiful.

I feel the need to observe that this is totally Bingley’s POV.  None of the Bennets are even there, least of all Elizabeth; yes, Virginia, Austen does show the perspective of other characters.  Of — *gasp* — a MAN.  There is no way that’s the narrator’s voice.

So that’s where the convention of Bingley calling Jane an angel come from.  He doesn’t actually call her one and it’s only the once, but yeah … meh.

Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion,

Fashion = elegance, stylishness, not nice clothes.  There’ll be an interesting counterpoint to this at Pemberley.

for none of whom he had felt the smallest interest

ahahahaha.  Darcy, you are such a bastard.  (I’ve … been that person.  And it was very wrong, I’m sure, but it makes Darcy much more sympathetic than the man who is I LOVE EVERYBODY!!11!)

and from none received either attention or pleasure.

He must have a weird definition of “attention.”  Or maybe it has some obscure Georgian meaning I’m not familiar with.  But pleasure, yeah, I can see it.  Even Elizabeth doesn’t like them.

And not only do we have a man, we have — fanfare, please — Darcy’s POV here.  And we’ll only get more of it!

(No, I don’t know where everybody got the idea that we don’t see his POV, we don’t know what he’s ever thinking, we need other authors to tell us blah blah.  And yes, it’s my soapbox.)

Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty; but she smiled too much.

Darcy himself smiles more often than Jane, even counting this line as smiling!Jane.  Really.  However, that’s probably just because she’s not a protagonist, so we see much less of her.

Also — foreshadowing!  Darcy dislikes that Jane smiles indiscriminately, rather than her smiles themselves.

Mrs Hurst and her sister allowed it to be so; but still they admired her and liked her, and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one whom they should not object to know more of.  Miss Bennet was therefore established as a sweet girl;

Very generous of them!  It does appear to be relatively innocuous though.

and their brother felt authorised by such commendation to think of her as he chose.

That last bit might imply the remnants of some sort of deference?  I definitely have the impression that Bingley is the baby of the family and Caroline and Louisa have been bossing him around for ages, though I know others differ.

I read Regency romances for fun.  They’re mostly horrible, and this amuses me, and some are not, and this makes me happy.  They’ve been my guilty pleasure for about ten years.

Historical accuracy is not exactly their selling point.  Because I’m me, the mistakes annoy me a little, but … come on.  Regency romance isn’t about the Regency.  Generally it’s a rather flanderized … uh … well, to be honest, it’s more like a bizarro world Theme Park version.  Most of the authors do not go for research à la Heyer.

(To clarify:  Heyer =/= research.  Heyer’s research = research like whoa.)

So most of the time I set it aside, and if I’m going to be annoyed by something, I go with the fantastically insane concoction most manage to make of racism, classism, misogyny, misandry and annoying clichés.  However, there are mistakes and then there’s being absolutely and completely wrong.  As in the one that sent me off on this in the first place:

Our heroine is the gently-born daughter of a clergyman-cum-mad-inventor.  Our hero is, of course, an uber-aristocrat.  But also American!  See, Daddy’s a duke but before his father died he was suspected of murder, so he ran off to America, and Made A Name For Himself … under his own name … and married a merchant heiress and had children, and the hero happens to be his firstborn son.  But the charges were dropped and now that the old duke’s dead they have to prove that Daddy is dead — which he isn’t, but his stepmother wants him really dead so her son inherits the title and our hero is mistaken for Daddy and there’s amnesia too.

Anyway, the heroine’s lover naturally wants to marry her.  Being the only sane character in the novel, he doesn’t see any major obstacles to overcome.  ”So, we’re in love.  And your cousin’s a lord or something, so that’s cool.  Money isn’t an issue, I have plenty of money from Mama … what was the problem again?”

But she can’t marry him because she has A SEKRIT LIFE.  As a …

Novelist.

It’s impossible!  Someday he will be a duke, and because this is a book, it will inevitably come out that his duchess has committed this horrible, unspeakable, utterly unprecedented sin against society.  OH NOES!

HERO:  Huh?

HEROINE:  IT WOULD SHAME YOU!

HERO:  But … plenty of women have written novels …

HEROINE:  I’m not that kind of woman!

HERO:  Respectable women!  You know, Jane Austen?  And the other ones nobody remembers…

HEROINE:  NONE OF THEM WERE SECOND COUSINS TO A BARON!!

JAMES BRYDGES:  *cough*

… yeah.  If your plot rests on an entirely arbitrary obstacle you pulled out of your … left shoe, you might want to check Wikipedia first.  Gah.

Alas, your art is so smooth and seamless, so profound, that it’s all but impossible to ignore your occasional gaffe.  I know you like your surprises, but really, why on earth should Robert Ferrars have married Lucy?  Oh, I can see why she’d have accepted him – but Robert?  True, I can think up three different explanations, but it’s not my job.  It’s yours.  At other times, the actions of four or five different characters, all acting entirely true to form, will contribute to a single plot-point – and the motivations, the behaviour, everything, falls together so neatly – usually, you do such a splendid job of it.  Here, there’s no explanation, no justification, no – anything.

I won’t complain about Brandon and Marianne, because I think their marriage – and their happiness – is supposed to be unsettling, à la Reginald de Courcy/Frederica Vernon there (and we both know that there’s no way that wasn’t intentional!).

And there’s this other thing.  You’re not forward-thinking so much as universal.  Some powerful men are brilliant; some are idiots.  Some mothers are efficient, some are utterly incompetent.  You show brothers and sisters and children, sailors and clergymen and gentlemen, as people rather than roles – with one exception.

Women with authority.

Now, mostly you’re fabulously accurate and show women’s lives as they really were – which mostly didn’t involve a lot of personal authority.  But sometimes they did.  Widows like Mrs Ferrars and Lady Catherine exercised power on their own accounts; so could sisters or daughters with easy-going, or impressionable, or passive brothers/fathers, or even wives.  We just know that Caroline Bingley gets away with much more than she would if her brother were more like Darcy or Mr Knightley or even Henry Tilney.  Mrs Bennet, likewise, can only do as much as she does because Mr Bennet has all but abdicated his authority.

But look at them.  Lady Catherine, Mrs Ferrars, Mrs Churchill, Lady Russell, Mrs Norris, Lady Susan, Mrs Bennet.  Overall, they’re varying degrees of awful.  Even Emma Woodhouse‘s attempts to use her authority to help others are treated as ill-conceived at best – since she’s not exactly a brilliant judge of character, it’s easy to see why but – but still.  It’s frustrating, because it starts to look as if they’re not awful so much because they’re awful, but because they’re usurpers of masculine authority.  On the other hand, at least a few of the young, comparatively powerless women will clearly grow into authorities in their own right – in twenty or thirty years, where will Elizabeth Darcy be?  But she’s paired with a coolly rational schemer of a husband who is an excellent judge of character, and whose propensity for cunning plans makes Emma Woodhouse look like a rank amateur.  Left to her own devices – suppose that he dies young (perish the thought!) – would she, too, become another feminine usurper?

Oh, and here’s another thing.  You get a lot of praise – most of it fully deserved – for Persuasion, but seriously, where on earth did Mrs Smith come from?  A TARDIS?  It’s like Lord —- in Northanger Abbey, only then it was a joke.  Mrs Smith is just awkward.  And the revelation of Mr Elliot’s character comes straight out of the 1790s.

Kudos, however, on Wentworth – the only really dashing hero – and the tone, and especially the Crofts.  And while other people complain vociferously about ‘poor Richard,’ I don’t mind that much.

Hoping that you will accept my humble devotion,

Your grateful servant,

Elizabeth

Not all that Mrs Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr Bingley. They attacked him in various ways; with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all; and they were at last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour Lady Lucas.

They’re still pretty much an undifferentiated mass.  Whatever its other flaws, I think I actually prefer P&P3‘s initial approach to them.  It was less Jane-Elizabeth-Mary-Kitty-Lydia than “the Bennet girls.”

Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly with a large party.

Hurrah!

Nothing could be more delightful!  To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively hopes of Mr Bingley’s heart were entertained.

or alternatively, to be fond of dancing is to be fond of dancing.  Personally, I’m convinced that post-P&P Bingley would still love dancing, and post-P&P Darcy would still hate it.

“If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,” said Mrs Bennet to her husband, “and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.”

“and all the others.” AHAHAHAHA.  What actually happens is unlikely enough.

In a few days Mr Bingley returned Mr Bennet’s visit, and sat about ten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained hopes of being admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard much; but he saw only the father.

Oh, Bingley.

The ladies were somewhat more fortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining, from an upper window, that he wore a blue coat and rode a black horse.

I love that Bingley, the ultimate nice, sweet-tempered beta male, has a flashy coat and a black horse.  Stereotypes are pwned!

An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards dispatched and already had Mrs Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her housekeeping when an answer arrived which deferred it all.

oh noes!

Mr Bingley was obliged to be in town the following day, and consequently unable to accept the honour of their invitation, &c. Mrs Bennet was quite disconcerted.  She could not imagine what business he could have in town so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear that he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be.

Naturally his habits should be dictated by the neighbourhood’s convenience.

Lady Lucas quieted her fears a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get a large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr Bingley was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly.

Is there a story where that happened?

The girls grieved over such a large number of ladies; but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing that, instead of twelve, he had brought only six with him from London, his five sisters and a cousin.

still a collective!  Randomly, a number of people seem to have been confused by this passage and think that Bingley actually has five sisters.

And when the party entered the assembly room, it consisted of only five altogether; Mr Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the oldest, and another young man.

Prepare the fanfares!  the drums!  the oboe!  Darcy has just entered the room novel!

Of course, you might have missed it.  Austen introduces him as little more than a second thought, an adjunct to The Great Bingley.  She could only emphasize him less by not mentioning him at all.

Incidentally, I think it’s interesting that Darcy’s very first description is … young.  Not “proud” or “handsome” or even “clever,” but young. Despite fandom’s (…and casting departments‘) emphasis on the age-gap between Bingley and Darcy, Austen doesn’t even mention it — in fact “another young man” rather associates him w/ Bingley, age-wise.  And “young” is the only descriptor (re: age) that he will ever get (ten separate times, IIRC); in fact, until Ch 58 (out of 61!), we can only guess at his actual age from various clues (Wickham would have been at exactly the right age to receive the living two years before he talks to Elizabeth; Darcy is almost the same age as Wickham) — until Wickham’s story, we don’t even know that Darcy’s older than Bingley at all.

Yes, I still want twenty-something Bingley and Darcy.  *sulks*

Mr Bingley was good looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners.

That pretty much covers it.  (He’s rather more complex than Mrs Bennet, but much easier to describe.  I don’t know why this is, except that he’s pretty much the exact opposite of OTT — probably the most normal person in the entire book.)

And yet another motif — gentleman-as-class vs gentleman-as-moral-statement — makes its entrance!  I do wonder if there’s a sort of implication with gentlemanlike though:  the men in this book pretty much run the gamut between not-gentleman classwise, but gentlemanlike morally, to gentleman classwise but completely ungentlemanlike personally.

His brother-in-law, Mr Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year.

Although Hurst’s moral stature is immediately weighed and judged (and dismissed), there’s no attempt with Darcy.  Instead the focus is on, well, his looks.

I think this is the point where we get the first inkling that Darcy, not Bingley, is going to be the hero.  It’s like they’ve had the camera fixed on Bingley this time and suddenly it swivels over to this other guy we’ve never heard of.  His body is hot! and tall! and his face is pretty! and aristocratic! and he’s RICH!!  It’s like Bingley up to eleven.

I suspect I’m the only person who was sympathetic to Darcy from this line. Simply because it’s hard enough to be the centre of attention without being seen as a (pretty) walking pocketbook.

The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr Bingley

Of course he is.

and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.

Of course he’s not.    Apparently hindsight bias is catching.

(That sentence goes on for, like, forever.)

Again, apparently most people read this as primarily — well, serious.  Possibly even Voice of God, though I’ve always thought it more of Cunning Passive Voice.  He was discovered, unworthy to be compared — by whom?  It doesn’t say.  I’m never sure if Austen intended the audience to go “oh, pity he’s a jerk” or “AHAHAHA people are idiots.”  Or both– or either, with the ambiguity built in.

As for preadolescent!me?  I just felt sorry for him.

Mr Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield.

I’ve heard that Bingley, as well as Darcy, has Shyites.  I … do not understand this.

Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves.

Of course it’s far more important that he’s outgoing and likes dancing, than that he’s kind and unaffected.  Extraversion = moral stature, y’all.

What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr Darcy danced only once with Mrs Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party.

TEH EBIL!!

Apparently, the perfunctory dances with Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley make this even worse. Or so I gather — since Mr Knightley habitually refuses to dance with anybody, and that’s fine.  On the other hand, Mr Elton and Captain Tilney are even worse than Darcy, because they’re prepared to dance with other people than the one they reject.

Or so I understand, though I still wonder if it would have been ruder to refuse to dance with his host’s sisters.  Sadly, even when there is a manual, people don’t live by it.

His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again.

I’m not sure if everybody is referring to the assembly, or the assembly referring to themselves with typical hyperbole.  At least Charlotte, we’ll discover, thinks nothing of the kind — nor Jane.

Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs Bennet whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his having slighted one of her daughters.

not Elizabeth, of course:  one of her daughters.

Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two dances; and during part of that time, Mr Darcy had been standing near enough for her to overhear a conversation between him and Mr Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes to press his friend to join it.

“Elizabeth” again!  Also:  Darcy apologists, I get taking the sympathetic reading.  But it’s not her fault they happen to talk about her within her hearing.  What should she have done, clapped her hands over her ears and cried “NANANANANA”?

I don’t subscribe to the idea that this scene is ZOMG EPIC OPPRESSIONS!  However, blaming the victim — no matter how trivial the matter — is always instant fail.

“Come, Darcy,” said he, “I must have you dance.

I always wonder whether this is the 2502555028th time this has happened, which makes Bingley kind of a twit but seems to fit Darcy, or if the situation is actually somewhat atypical and Bingley had no idea that Darcy would respond the way he did.  Which I think fits Bingley’s personality better, but then Darcy has to be constantly offending people in some other scenario.  Though from what we see, he usually manages to offend via silence.

(… that’s kind of weirdly badass.  I mean, any hack can just be obnoxious.  It takes talent to offend by the sheer force of your silences.)

(Though of course, very very wrong.)

I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.”

For your daily dose of Regencyspeak:  stupid = dull, boring.  (It’s closely related to stupor, IIRC.)  He’s not saying “you’re an idiot, Darcy,” he’s saying “it’s a PARTY!  I want you to have FUN!”

Hm, when have I heard that before?  Oh right, about ten thousand times

To avoid a rambling mess containing all the resentment of 10+ years, I’ll leave it at this:

When I read that line, my instinctive reaction isn’t “what a nice friend that Bingley is.”  It’s more like, “oh look, another jerkass well-meaning extravert.”

I’m starting to think that the inability to see beyond one’s own experience of the world — paradigm, I suppose — is as much a motif as pride/vanity, self/society or anything else in this book.

… In all fairness, it’s probably meant to be read as benign and kind anyway; my own Years of Bingley are just blinding me.

Also:  I suspect encouragement is not actually the right tack to take with Darcy, particular when he’s already in a snit.  Fitzwilliam laughs at his dull/boring behaviour at Rosings and Darcy (contrary to general opinion) seems fine with it — the same with Bingley at Netherfield and Elizabeth … um, all the time.  As long as it’s just teasing; I suspect he sees what’s actually friendly encouragement as social pressure by someone who should know better.

“I certainly shall not.

And … he speaks!  *gasp*

You know how I detest it

Ha, I knew it!  Someone who should know better. This is pretty much “WTF Bingley?” in Darcyspeak.

Hm.  If we accept this wholeheartedly, Bingley knows that Darcy hates dancing, they’ve argued about it before, and he’s walking into a conversation they’ve had many times, with Elizabeth right there.  But Bingley is neither careless of people’s feelings nor foolish, so I don’t really think so.  On the other hand, Darcy could simply be wrong:  Bingley does not know he hates dancing, so he innocently encourages him without realising that it’s Darcy’s Berserk Button.  On first glance, that fits their characters better, but … honestly, you’d have to be lobotomised not to realise Darcy hates dancing after about, oh, five minutes in his general vicinity.  He is quite happy to tell anyone who stands still long enough, and he’s known Bingley at least four or five months (and probably much longer).  And again, Bingley is not a fool.

Or Bingley knows, but for some reason or another this particular scenario has never arisen before.  Perhaps it’s less of a Berserk Button than a pet peeve, and Bingley has a sort of extravert privilege:  okay, Darcy only thinks dancing is unpleasant because he hasn’t enjoyed it so far.  But at the assembly — when Darcy is yet again being miserable at a party — its hits Bingley that if he could just get Darcy to dance with the right people, he’d see that it’s actually fun.  Bingley being Bingley, he acts immediately, and it’s just his (and Elizabeth’s) bad luck that Darcy’s in a snit.

</fanwank>

unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner.

Later, he generalises to all dancing.  I don’t know if it’s Characterisation Marches On, or if it’s just that dancing, bad as it generally is, is exponentially worse than he doesn’t know the person he’s dancing with.

At such an assembly as this, it would be insupportable.

Re-reading this, I’m kind of amazed at how ambiguous his early characterisation is.  Even here, where he’s unquestionably being a jerkass:  the obvious interpretation, I think, is that “such as this” refers to this sort of place, with this sort of people.  However, you could also argue that “an assembly such as this” actually refers to a room full of people he doesn’t know — especially considering his very last line.

The debate will get very meta later on, when Darcy himself will make the latter argument.

Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with.”

And again:  Caroline and Louisa are the only women “high” enough for him — or the only women he happens to know.  The latter becomes more probable, IMO, when we actually see him interact with the Bingley sisters (sometimes in Elizabeth’s presence, and sometimes not).

“I would not be so fastidious as you are,” cried Bingley, “for a kingdom! Upon my honour I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life, as I have this evening; and there are several of them, you see, uncommonly pretty.”

*yawn*

That pretty much settled it.  No way is this guy the hero.

“You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,” said Mr Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet.

I suspect this is Darcyspeak for “devastatingly beautiful.”  And also for “hell, no.”  Personally, I suspect it’s the most ready excuse he has — he doesn’t try to dance with Jane even when she is free.  (Or ever.)

“Oh! she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld!

Of course she is, Bingley.  I kind of wonder if all the other girls he fell in love with were the most beautiful creatures in the world, too.

But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I daresay very agreeable.

*wince*

Bingley undoubtedly meant “but there are other pretty girls, too!”  But I suspect that Darcy, being Darcy, heard, “okay, but … hey, you can have second best!”

Do let me ask my partner to introduce you.”

So Darcy and Elizabeth haven’t met at this point.  The next time they interact, however, they’re introduced and have seen each other several times — either Austen always glossed over that time, or she lop’t and crop’t it out of First Impressions.

“Which do you mean?” and turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.

Ouch.

I think part of what makes this so horrible is that, contrary to Darcy’s general prejudices, this is not about her bad connections or insignificant birth or whatever. He doesn’t know about the uncles in trade yet, or really — anything.  It’s entirely personal.

Also, I think there are some interesting implications to the phrase no humour at present. We don’t know exactly what sort of “humour” (=mood) is being referred to, but I think we can safely assume it’s a bad one.  Moreover, at present definitely suggests that it’s a temporary thing — later, we’ll discover that neither direct insults nor moodiness are at all typical for him.  We don’t see anything like this for another thirty-two chapters (and some seven months, in-story), when he thoroughly loses his temper.

However, this line — the only indication that something else is going on, and Darcy doesn’t constantly go around insulting unoffending young women — is neatly embedded between his worst insults, where it will have the least impact.

*admires*

You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”

Mr Bingley followed his advice.

I bet.  He just nearly got his head eaten off.

Mr Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings towards him.

Understatement of the year!

She told the story however with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous.

And this is the moment when you know who’s going to be the heroine:  the girl who can laugh at that.  Of course, it’ll later become evident that her laughter, in this case, is at least partly a sort of self-defence:  by laughing herself, everybody laughs with her — not at her.  She’ll accord the event a great deal more importance than anybody else ever does — certainly more than this line implies.

The evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs Bennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield party. Mr Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been distinguished by his sisters.

So Caroline and Louisa took to her from the first.  Apparently, just because — there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason, except that they like her.

Admittedly, Jane is fairly likable.  It’s an interesting bit of humanity for them, though — I don’t really see any ulterior motives there.

Jane was as much gratified by this as her mother could be, though in a quieter way.

Well, it could hardly be louder.

Elizabeth felt Jane’s pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood; and Catherine and Lydia had been fortunate enough to be never without partners, which was all that they had yet learnt to care for at a ball. They returned therefore, in good spirits to Longbourn, the village where they lived, and of which they were the principal inhabitants.

We never really hear much about Longbourn-the-village, which I suppose is what gives rise to the idea that Meryton is the nearest village to Longbourn-the-estate.  That’s obviously not the case.

It’d be interesting to see what the actual villagers (if it’s something like Highbury, say) think of the Bennets — or how they see the plot of P&P.  But we don’t know, because the famous 3-or-4-families-in-a-village thing is … not P&P.  Of all the story’s action, comparatively little happens in Meryton:  Longbourn, Netherfield, Hunsford, Rosings, Lambton, and Pemberley are all at least as significant, and usually much more so.  It’s more 3-or-4-families-from-all-over-England-visiting-each-other’s-estates.

They found Mr Bennet still up.

So he wasn’t there.  I knew that, I think, but still.  Huh.  He does go to the Netherfield ball, though, so maybe he just skips minor occasions.

Also, I think the gentleman doth protest too much.  He obviously is interested.

With a book, he was regardless of time

Isn’t everyone?  (Aw.)

and on the present occasion he had a good deal of curiosity as to the event of an evening which had raised such splendid expectations.

I thought he might be indulging his inner shipper, but nah.  He just wants to see the tatters of her expectations.

He had rather hoped that all his wife’s views on the stranger would be disappointed; but he soon found that he had a very different story to hear.

I knew it!

“Oh! my dear Mr. Bennet,” as she entered the room, “we have had a most delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there.

Um.  No, you don’t.  It’d be like Darcy on crack.

Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Every body said how well she looked; and Mr Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice. Only think of that my dear; he actually danced with her twice; and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second time.

Hurrah, I guess.  I will admit that Jane/Bingley bores me out of my skull.

First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her; but, however, he did not admire her at all: indeed, nobody can, you know;

This is the daughter of her best friend.  Yikes.

and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going down the dance. So, he enquired who she was, and got introduced, and asked her for the two next. Then, the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the Boulanger –”

(1)  That is … very detailed.  Now I’m seeing Mrs Bennet as a super-sekrit agent or something.

(2)  Remember that, before, Bingley was halfway through dancing with Jane?  From what we see of the timeline, it’s almost certain that it was his second dance with her.  So:  he unwittingly provoked Darcy’s vitriol, finished his dance with Jane, and promptly tracked down Elizabeth and danced with her.

Aw.  Bingley may be mind-numbingly dull, but he is a sweetheart.

“If he had had any compassion for me,” cried her husband impatiently, “he would not have danced half so much! For God’s sake, say no more of his partners.

This is one of, what, five references to God in the whole book?  Interesting that it’s so utterly trivial.

Oh! that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!”

That would be … mildly interesting.  I think I read a story about that once.  Charlotte/Bingley, maybe?  (Although I generally support AUs, that’s not I really see … but meh, it was nice.)

“Oh! my dear,” continued Mrs Bennet, “I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively handsome! and his sisters are charming women. I never in my life saw any thing more elegant than their dresses.

And the non sequiturs strike again.  Of course they’re charming!  They wear pretty clothes!

I dare say the lace upon Mrs Hurst’s gown –”

Here she was interrupted again.

Mr Bennet protested against any description of finery.

Poor Mr Bennet.

She was therefore obliged to seek another branch of the subject, and related, with much bitterness of spirit and some exaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr Darcy.

This is really the first response to him we see in any detail — Elizabeth’s was rather glossed over (it has to be, of course) — but I do think it’s interesting that the “bitterness of spirit” is associated with “exaggeration.”  Faint foreshadowing, perhaps.

“But I can assure you,” she added, “that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great!

Mrs Bennet has a direct line into his mind.  Trufax.

(I love that everybody thought he really was “so very great” until he made himself unavailable.)

Also, random surprise:  the pacing is canon!

Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set downs.

… That would be so meta.  Mrs Bennet herself is usually the target of those (and that indicates that, at least sometimes, she’s aware of what he’s doing).  Mr Bennet will never provide any set downs to Darcy, but the child he most regards as his surrogate, Elizabeth, will; and Darcy himself, who is in many ways similar to him, will do it to Caroline (who neatly parallels Mrs Bennet in that respect) in one of his Crowning Moments of Awesome and, in a weird, indirect way, to Mr Bennet (and all the Bennets but Jane and Elizabeth) in the Letter.

I quite detest the man.”

I wouldn’t have guessed it.  (Also:  only until he becomes the Bennet family’s personal bank.  Then he’s back to tall! hot! rich!)

I never noticed that he didn’t just go, he was one of the first. I’m starting to think he’s less disinterested than he’s usually portrayed — negligent, but not exclusively so.  Perhaps it’s where the capricious thing comes in; sometimes he steps up and sometimes he doesn’t, depending on the day.

He had always intended to visit him,

So the prior discussion was entirely about screwing with Mrs Bennet’s head.  A pity he doesn’t really have an opportunity to use his powers for good.

though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner.

Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her with,— ‘I hope Mr Bingley will like it, Lizzy.’

I think it’s mildly interesting that Elizabeth, in both this chapter and the previous one, is the first of the girls to emerge as a distinctive character.  She’s the first mentioned, they’ve talked about her briefly (Jane and Lydia then emerge in comparison to her) and she’ll be the first to speak.  Yet her first line is … completely uninteresting, actually.  The first time I read P&P, I had no idea she was the heroine until Darcy’s insult — admittedly, I was eleven, but it seems to be a common experience.  The complexity of the Darcy/Elizabeth dynamic extends well beyond their in-story relationship — into the structure itself.  The “camera” focus is foggy right until that moment; but the moment they interact, they each emerge as heroine and hero.

At least they did for me; I had no doubts from that moment on.  Maybe I was just a trope-overdosed preadolescent, though. 

‘We are not in a way to know what Mr Bingley likes,’ said her mother, resentfully, ‘since we are not to visit.’

‘But you forget, Mama,’ said Elizabeth, ‘that we shall meet him at the assemblies, and that Mrs Long has promised to introduce him.’

I do not believe Mrs Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion of her.’

‘No more have I,’ said Mr Bennet; ‘and I am glad to find that you do not depend on her serving you.’

A random detail, but although everybody has called her “Lizzy,” the narrator immediately calls her “Elizabeth.”  IIRC, neither the ON nor Elizabeth herself will ever call her “Eliza” or “Lizzy.”

I sympathise.

Mrs Bennet deigned not to make any reply; but, unable to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters.

Poor Kitty.  I think she’s the entire Bennet family’s official Unfavourite.  At least Austen/the Narrator seemed to consider her the most redeemable of the three, er, “silly” sisters.

‘Don’t keep coughing so, Kitty, for heaven’s sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.’

‘Kitty has no discretion in her coughs,’ said her father; ‘she times them ill.’

‘I do not cough for my own amusement,’ replied Kitty, fretfully.

Again, I say:  poor Kitty.

‘When is your next ball to be, Lizzy?’

‘To-morrow fortnight.’

‘Ay, so it is,’ cried her mother, ‘and Mrs Long does not come back till the day before; so, it will be impossible for her to introduce him, for she will not know him herself.’

‘Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your friend, and introduce Mr Bingley to her.‘

‘Impossible, Mr Bennet, impossible, when I am not acquainted with him myself; how can you be so teasing?’

… That word does not mean what you think it means.

Also, the constant repetitions of “my dear” make Mr and Mrs Bennet’s relationship even squickier.  I do think it’s mildly interesting that the oft-quoted formality extends well beyond marriage; Mrs Bennet calls her best friends “Mrs Long” and “Lady Lucas” without exception.  The younger generation is consistently less formal, even Darcy.

‘I honour your circumspection.

AHAHAHAHAHA

A fortnight’s acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight.

Although he’s being snide, about half the cast could certainly have taken that advice.  Including himself.

But if we do not venture, somebody else will; and after all, Mrs Long and her nieces must stand their chance; and, therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will take it on myself.’

Equal-opportunity objectification for all?

The girls stared at their father.

They largely act in concert at this point, which is part of the reason that Elizabeth doesn’t especially stand out.  However I’m imagining them like those cartoon characters who always look back and forth in perfect unison.  Or Gaston’s Girlfriends from Beauty and the Beast. (…do they have actual names?)

Mrs Bennet said only, ‘Nonsense, nonsense!’

‘What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?’ cried he. ‘Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there.

I love how he randomly talks like Laura’s father in Love and Freindship, though Mr Bennet himself is the parodist.  (I suspect parody is his default setting.)  I do think it’s interesting that all these things he brings up in mock-pedantry — in this case, the importance of manners, form — end up being seriously addressed in the novel, just not by him.  I suspect that he does consider it nonsense.

What say you, Mary? for you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books, and make extracts.’

I am apparently alone in finding Mary a highly irritating, pompous, pseudo-intellectual, archconservative, pretentious pedant with no more real intelligence than her younger sisters.  However, in this scene, I can only say:  poor Mary.

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

I’m not sure if this is simply saying that Mary wanted to say something very sensible to impress her father, but couldn’t think of anything; or that she doesn’t know how to say very sensible things, period; or literally the first with the second implied.

‘While Mary is adjusting her ideas,’ he continued, ‘let us return to Mr Bingley.’

‘I am sick of Mr Bingley,’ cried his wife.

‘I am sorry to hear that; but why did not you tell me so before? If I had known as much this morning, I certainly would not have called on him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we cannot escape the acquaintance now.’

BAM!

The astonishment of the ladies was just what he wished;

So he was screwing with all of them, not just Mrs Bennet.  I’m not sure if he just wanted to create a pleasant surprise, or if it’s a bit less innocuous.

that of Mrs Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the while.

Of course she did.  That entire neighbourhood lives by Hindsight Bias.

‘How good it was in you, my dear Mr Bennet. But I knew I should persuade you at last. I was sure you loved your girls too well to neglect such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am! and it is such a good joke, too, that you should have gone this morning, and never said a word about it till now.’

You really should give your previous rants a decent mourning period before moving to the new ones.  Mrs Bennet leaps around like a crazed Energizer Bunny.

‘Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you choose,’ said Mr Bennet;

heeeh.

and as he spoke, he left the room, fatigued with the raptures of his wife.

I don’t like Mrs Bennet, but seriously, who goes to that much trouble just to get bored/out of patience after four sentences?  I suppose he might have wanted more to give the girls a pleasant surprise than Mrs Bennet, but still.

What an excellent father you have, girls,’ said she, when the door was shut. ‘I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness; or me either, for that matter.

bwuh?

At our time of life, it is not so pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintance every day; but for your sakes we would do anything.

AHAHAHAHA.  Though I actually participated once in a rather amusing discussion with some people who read that as completely serious and not at all hypocritical.

Lydia, my love, though you are the youngest, I daresay Mr Bingley will dance with you at the next ball.’

Does she ever call any of her other daughters “my love?”  I don’t think so.

‘Oh,’ said Lydia, stoutly, ‘I am not afraid; for though I am the youngest, I’m the tallest.’

…?

Maybe there’s a connection there and I’m just missing it.  Or maybe Lydia is just every bit the ditz that her mother is.  (I suspect young Miss Gardiner was simply a less capricious, more beautiful version of Lydia.)

The rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how soon he would return Mr Bennet’s visit, and determining when they should ask him to dinner.

Be honest:  who was convinced at this point that Bingley would be the hero?

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

So, everybody says that single rich men need to get married.

… Or, alternatively, “everybody” consists entirely of the women who need rich men to marry them; the men themselves would disagree.  Or, while the men would disagree and many of the women are out for themselves, they’re still right.

Or not.

Random Note:  Never use this sentence, or any variation of it, in fiction, articles, sequels, posts, or anything else.  Ever.

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 as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

It doesn’t matter what he thinks about it.  Whenever he enters a neighbourhod, everybody there knows the truth.

And that truthiness is that he’s the personal property of every girl in the neighbourhood.  Their parents will make sure of it, unless their parents are Mr Bennet, Sir Walter Elliot, Mr Woodhouse, Mrs Dashwood, the Morlands, Lady Catherine, or Lady Bertram.  (I may have missed someone.  Sorry.)

… Except, when you think about it, they’re actually his potential property.  I mean, if he does marry Daughter, she’ll be his wife with all the associated legal baggage.  On the other hand, in general marriage seemed to be viewed as liberating for women; wives had more authority, more freedoms married than not, unless she was rich and powerful in her own right, as a single woman.  (cf Emma!)

So apparently that means that not only do men objectify women and women objectify other women, women objectify men and so do their fathers/brothers/whatever.  It’s like the Objectification Olympics, and women are always on the losing team.

‘My dear Mr Bennet,’ said his lady to him one day, ‘have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?’

Mr Bennet replied that he had not.

‘But it is,’ returned she; ‘for Mrs Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.’

Mr Bennet made no answer.

‘Do not you want to know who has taken it?’ cried his wife impatiently.

‘You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.’

… Mr Bennet is such a bastard.  I love him. 

This was invitation enough.

Inexplicably, she manages to take this as “yes, dear, it’s all so very fascinating.”

… Mrs Bennet isn’t just ridiculous enough to be amusing, like some random American Idol contestant.  Her idiocy is almost beyond the power of words to describe; you just watch her and marvel that anybody could be that stupid and still manage to order three-course meals.  And she’s always exactly the same, Insane Troll Logic over and over again:  a single joke that never stops being funny.

‘Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.’

‘What is his name?’

‘Bingley.’

Randomly, I’ve always assumed that Bingley’s northern homeland was Yorkshire.  I only just realised it’s because the town of Bingley is in Yorkshire.  A friend once told me that she found a Georgian-era firm of potters with that name.  Also, the hero of some eighteenth-century novel I’ve forgotten was named Charles Bingley.  Heh.

‘Is he married or single?’

… Is that a spark of genuine interest?  Presumably, since he does actually end up visiting him after all.  Maybe for his daughters’ sakes, or maybe out of curiosity.

Or, given who we’re talking about here, maybe just for the lulz.

‘Oh, single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!’

Of course he doesn’t have a wife!  And have I mentioned yet that he’s RICH? Richly rich.  Isn’t that just wonderful for our numerous and penniless daughters?

‘How so? how can it affect them?’

‘My dear Mr Bennet,’ replied his wife, ‘how can you be so tiresome? You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.’

What’s wrong with you?  Of course’s going to marry one of them!  (And provide for the others, when you’re mouldering under the ground.  [And me.])

‘Is that his design in settling here?’

‘Design? nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes.’

‘I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for, as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr Bingley might like you the best of the party.’

‘My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.’

‘In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of.’

Burn.

‘But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood.’

. . .

As I was saying, you need to visit Bingley when he gets here.

‘It is more than I engage for, I assure you.’

No, I shan’t.

‘But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account; for in general, you know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him, if you do not.’

… This would be more sympathetic if I thought she was actually thinking of them, rather than simultaneously providing herself with a future host to live off of in a weird and somewhat creepy symbiotic relationship bragging rights and safety from the hedgerows.

You are over scrupulous, surely. I daresay Mr Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.’

Interestingly, given how often it’s asserted that the entire book is from her POV, this is the first time her existence is even alluded to.

It’s rather interesting that he calls her “little Lizzy.”  Even if she is small, it seems … I don’t know.  But then, I don’t actually think Elizabeth is that short — she’s almost Georgiana’s height, and Georgiana is quite tall.

‘I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others: and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving her the preference.’

… Well, now we know Mrs Bennet’s priorities.  Given that those are the qualities by which she snared Mr Bennet, back in the day, I suspect her daughters’ place in her affections depends almost entirely on their likelihood of marrying well (or at all).  “Almost” because she prefers the less attractive Kitty and Mary to Elizabeth — but that may be more to do with Mr Bennet’s clear preference for her, and Elizabeth’s similarity to him, than anything else.  In a way the Mrs Bennet-Elizabeth dynamic is a direct product of the Mrs Bennet-Mr Bennet one.

(Now I’m wondering how much both see their children as surrogates.)

‘They have none of them much to recommend them,’ replied he: ‘they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.’

… How much of this is winding her up, and how much is what he actually thinks about girls/his daughters/Elizabeth?  I think it’s interesting that although he is fond of Jane, too, he only distinguishes Elizabeth here — but, of course, he’s talking more about wit and intelligence, and, well, Jane is not an idiot by any means, but she’s not winning any prizes either.  And she can veer dangerously near Stupid Good.

‘Mr Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.’

… Does anybody care about her nerves?  The middle one’s pretty spot-on, though.

‘You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.’

I love Mr Bennet.

‘Ah, you do not know what I suffer.’

… ahahahaha.

‘But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a-year come into the neighbourhood.’

‘It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them.’

‘Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them all.’

Mr Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character.

… This description, sans the caprice, actually reminds me more of Darcy than Elizabeth.  She’s much less abrasive and more outgoing than either — though she’s certainly the more whimsical of the two, neither has that on the Mr Bennet level; they’re just too … dutiful, really.  (I’ve always thought of Darcy as Neutral Good, given his, er, idiosyncratic approach to social rules, but honestly he and Elizabeth are both probably just flexible Lawful Good.  And I suspect Mr Bennet is True Neutral.)

Also, aside from telling us about Mrs Bennet’s own colossal stupidity, this passage tells us they’ve been married twenty-three years.  This is August or September:  the following April, Jane is about to turn twenty-three.

… Hm.

Her mind was less difficult to develop.

… No kidding.

She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper.

… That certainly covers it.  Does she have any other characteristics?  Ambition, maybe.  (Totally a Slytherin!)

When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous.

… That would be pretty much all the time.

The business of her life was to get her daughters married: its solace was visiting and news.

She must be scintillating company.

First, I’ll get my general opinions out of the way.

– Prejudice does not equal oppression.  I could be violently prejudiced against US Senators and they would still not be oppressed by me.  Their privileges of class and political power are such that it’s not possible for me to oppress them.  If you consider bigotry as a mathematical function, say, we have prejudice as an input and oppression as a (potential) output.  The constants, I suppose, are the power society allows me to realise my prejudices.  The degree of my prejudice is fairly irrelevant as far as oppression is concerned, if I am not enabled in some degree.

– Prejudice is prejudice is prejudice.  Suppose that I would have all US Senators killed, if only I could; I can’t, so my prejudice doesn’t amount to anything, practically speaking.  Would that make me less prejudiced than, say, my Anglo-American grandparents, who are passively but painfully racist?  No.  Just that I’m not oppressing anybody.

– Not all oppressions are created equal.  For example:  Polygamy jokes stopped being funny before I turned ten.  My best friend calls himself ‘Defender of the Faith’ because when he, a male atheist, talks about the religion I was brought up in, people listen.  But ultimately it’s a small part of my life, I’m not defined by it in most people’s eyes – it’s more of an annoyance, really, I get lots and lots of white privilege, and it can’t begin to approach what POC deal with every day.

– Oppression Olympics are stupid.  Not the phrase – the phrase is awesome – the, er, phenomenon.  ‘My oppression is worse than your oppression because . . .’  Your situation is not any less bad just because somebody else has it worse, even assuming they do.  And if it’s a space to discuss, say, homophobia, a straight woman saying ‘well, at least you don’t have to deal with misogyny’ is spectacularly unhelpful.  (Worse than unhelpful, actually.)

– It’s much easier to dwell on the ways we’re the victims of prejudice than to even acknowledge the ways in which we’re prejudiced against others.

Okay, soapboxing (mostly) over.  Now on to Austen fandom.

The thing is, Austen fandom has it easy in a number of ways, since almost everything is based on Pride and Prejudice.  In P&P, everybody is English.  Almost everybody is upper-class.  (The rest are comfortably middle-class, except for a handful of presumably or explicitly well-treated servants.)  Compared to what we see in most fandoms, the protagonists’ flaws are so minor as to border on the insignificant – mere blips on our moral radar.  After reading HP or DW or LOTR fic, Elizabeth and Darcy’s self-castigating soliloquys come off as, um, a bit excessive.  The vast majority of prejudices confronted – or ignored – by other fandoms don’t even exist for us.

At least . . . they needn’t exist.  The problem is that they do, and not in a good way.

(1)  The big one.  Racial prejudice.  For most Regency ficcers, this is not a problem.  There’s exactly one POC in the Austen canon, the biracial heiress Miss Lambe from Sanditon.  Her racial background is mentioned once in passing, and never again because nobody cares about it (even critics, who can hang an entire reading on a single ambiguous line, pay little attention to this).  The rest of the cast does care about her fortune and accordingly we hear a good deal about that.  Hardly anybody writes Sanditon fic (understandably, what with it being unfinished and all) so this rarely comes up in the first place.

So, if you’re writing P&P fic with any remote resemblance to canon, this will simply never come up.  It’s a sort of get-out-of-fail-free card in that you can completely avoid it without being an utter bastard.  But.

But not all Austen fics are Regency.  More often than not, in fact, they’re retellings set in the modern world – the American modern world, usually.  The authors of these are almost invariably American themselves.

Which means they have no excuse whatsoever for pretending POC don’t exist.  The town I grew up in, sure, was completely – er – homogenous.  But I can count the number of fics set in places like that on one hand.  Most are in major metropolises.  When the entire cast is (1) white, and (2) living in New York City, something is not okay.

There are two notable exceptions to this tendency, sort of.  First, when cultural clashes is used as the analogue to Elizabeth and Darcy’s defensive prejudices in canon, wherein they’re almost exclusively directed towards members of their own country, culture and class.  (Darcy comes from a much higher echelon of their class, but that’s all.)  It’s hard to explain, but I’ve always found something vaguely disturbing about cultural/racial prejudice being equated to class-based snobbery.  It’s – yes, they’re both prejudices – prejudices based on an external factor – prejudices based on birth – but, but, they’re different.  Classism just isn’t, and shouldn’t be, equated to racism.  At all.

The second exception is the inclusion of token minority characters.  With very few exceptions, they are never major characters.

(Somebody recently brought this up, and the Austenfen rushed to reassure each other that of course they’re not racist, it’s because of XYZ and, hey, what’s-her-name wrote a [token minority] character once.)

(All of this said, I tend to think that most ficcers simply transplant the English cast to some modern metropolis and just don’t think of the implications.  Which doesn’t justify them but makes it slightly less fail-worthy than those who write in fandoms originating in the modern world.  White!postHBP!Blaise is … I don’t have words for the fail, but, um, SO MUCH FAIL.)

(2)  Misogyny and misandrism.  Birds of a feather, those, though you wouldn’t expect it.  (Or maybe you would.  I didn’t.)

In the Austen fandom, there are several things you have to understand about Real Men and Real Women.  I’ll list the first – oh – three to spring to mind.

(a)  Real women are emotional, nurturing and above all, personal.  It is, of course, perfectly defensible to write Elizabeth as a person who allows her subjective feelings to overwhelm her reason because – um, yes.  Not because she’s a woman.  To write her as a supernurturer beloved by every child who meets her?  Not so much.  Especially given that the only children she has any contact with in canon, her Gardiner cousins, prefer Jane.  The only reason for this, as far as I can tell, is that she’s the heroine, and sympathetic, and therefore a Real Woman.  Real Women, as we all know, are conflations of Spunky Young Things and Mother-Saints.  If they diverge from either, they’re instantly degraded.

(A sidenote.  Just about every next-generation ficcer in every fandom known to man relies on the Law of Offspring.  The original heroine will always produce a problem child of some kind, almost invariably a rebellious teenage girl.  It applies almost as strongly to men and sons – not quite, because no paternal bond can compare to the awesome force of Mother-Love [cf "Harry Potter"!] – but nearly.  Ultimately, the child will acknowledge his or her ingratitude and they reconcile, often on the parent’s deathbed.  Sometimes it’s the child’s deathbed, and occasionally no death is involved at all.  Anyway, I expected it even more than usual with Elizabeth, given her charmingly difficult personality, and the fact that she went and married someone equally difficult, if more even-tempered, but people flail at the very idea.  Apparently if she is less than perfection as a parent, or if her children are less, or if their relationship is, then it so degrades her perfection as to make her unrecognisable.  Or something.)

What is even less acceptable, IMO, is to write Charlotte Lucas as that type.  The fact that she is actually capable of some feeling (ie, human) doesn’t automatically render her into Spunky Young Thing material.

(b)  Real women do not have institutional prejudices unless they’re evil or brainwashed; in fact, rebelling against The Institution (whatever it may be – it doesn’t actually matter too much, though breastfeeding, caps, and midwives are popular areas of contention) is the ultimate proof of a real woman’s Girl Power, aka spunk.  And if you don’t have spunk, you’re not a Real Woman.

Marginalised non-heroines in the original text – especially the kind I think of as Aluminum Chicks, female foils whose distinguishing trait is their total dissimilarity from the protagonists – are promptly turned into second-rate versions of the heroine (either Sues or pale imitators; or both).  Authors apparently take on these characters as the stars of their own stories for the sole purpose of doing this.

For instance, just about every Georgiana-sequel in creation describes itself as “Georgiana Darcy develops into an assertive, strong-minded woman.”  Develop apparently means “her own personality is utterly destroyed so that she can become a pale shadow of her sister-in-law.”  The Spunky Young Thing is the Ur-woman, and all worthy females will either be like her, or desperately trying to be like her.

I think that these fen (most of them, evidently) are reacting against the idea of saintly Pollyanna-ish Angels of the House as the only acceptable models of womanhood.  Apparently the only possible way to correct this is by forcing all women, including Pollyannas, into a different stereotype, and insisting that Pollyannas, specifically, don’t actually exist.  They’re all just hiding their inner Real Woman.

(c)  Real Men are, to quote tree , complete debauched horndogs.  Er, I mean, sensual creatures with a richly appealing physicality.  Any man who doesn’t think about sleeping with the heroine 24/7 is either gay or repressed.  There is no possibility that he could ever not find her attractive.  However, he will never so much as notice her more conventionally beautiful sister/cousin/best friend/archrival, barring a Moment of Weakness for which he must grovel later (it’s only a Moment of Weakness if it involves someone else, however); effectively, male sexual attraction is heroine-radar.

Usually, they’re also devastatingly – and broodingly – handsome, though sometimes it’s scaled down to sex appeal without good looks.

Darcy is all but invariably painted as the ultimate Real Man.  This is something of an irony, because he doesn’t find Our Heroine remotely attractive at first and says so.  Out loud.  In public.  At a party.  I mean, there is no avoiding this blatant violation of Real Man standards.  Why, it’s almost as if Dear Jane were trying to make him unReal.  (Who’d a thunk it?)  So, of course, it has to be retconned away.  See, he didn’t actually mean that he didn’t find her attractive.  He was just in a bad mood.  Or, what actually happened was that he was overpoweringly attracted to her.  So attracted that it frightened him, so he had to fake the opposite extreme.  Or so attracted that he had to repress it and even he didn’t realise it which (a) explains why he says she’s unattractive in his own inner dialogue, and (b) allows him to have lurid dreams.

Win-win!

I think all Darcyists should have a manifesto, the first line of which should be:

Darcy is NOT Heathcliff. Or Rochester. Or any other of those amoral, self-dramatising Victorian monstrosities.

To expand on that thought, the first and most obvious reasons:

(1) Darcy is a Georgian gentleman.
(2) Heathcliff is a Victorian . . . something. Gentleman somehow doesn’t seem quite the right word.

Which is to say, their social backgrounds are as utterly different as two nineteenth-century Englishmen’s could be.

The actual line of this quiz result was “After all, you like your blokes to be caring and gentle – perhaps because you know those brooding, temperamental types are more trouble than they’re worth! So stuff the Darcys and Heathcliffs”

You know, somehow it would never have crossed my mind to describe Darcy as temperamental or mercurial or whatever. Maybe it’s because Elizabeth thinks of his “usual sedateness”, or maybe because he smiles more than any other character but Elizabeth, or maybe because of how critical he is about Bingley’s impulsiveness (and that’s a far step from ‘temperamental’) — under good regulation is probably the phrase that most describes his ideal of himself. *shudder* And I thought the comparisons of Darcy to Rochester were bad! The only similarity to Heathcliff, psychopathic creep that he is, is nationality and the fact that they were both played by Laurence Olivier.

Honestly, I’m starting to wonder what book these people are reading. It isn’t mine, to be sure. I’m going to indulge in an exhaustive list of Darcyisms (from my version) just to vent:

“You know how I detest [dancing], unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner.”

“Every savage can dance.”

“[Dancing] is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it.”  (I’m sensing a theme here.)

“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”  (Probably his most-quoted line.  I do not know why this is.)

“I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.” (All good heroes ought to be book-collectors.)

“To all this [the accomplished woman] must add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”  (A total Take That to, oh, every conduct manual in existence.  Liberal!Darcy FTW! And Mama Jane, of course.)

“Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.” (Do you suppose bigamy counts?)

“Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again?”  (LOLZ.  *hearts snide!Darcy*)

“What is there very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone . . .?”  (… and dutiful!Darcy)

“You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged.”  (This one would fit strangely well into most Austen flame wars discussions.)

“To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either.”  (Remember Mrs Gardiner’s announcement of his worst fault? Yeah, that.)

“Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?”  (heeeeeeee)

“The wisest and best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.”  (Not Elizabeth, thankfully.  But her father, certainly.)

“I have faults enough, but not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for.–It is, I believe, too little yielding.” (Somehow that doesn’t sound temperamental to me.)

“My good opinion once lost is lost forever.”  (Mrs G continues to win at perception.)

“Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?”  (*g*)

“What think you of books?”  (And books strike again!  *hearts*)

“I am not afraid of you.”  (Fearless!Darcy, heh)

“I am ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers.”

“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I have often seen done.”  (These two lines inspire raging debates about once a fortnight.  One side insists that it means he’s a shy, gentle woobie, the other that he’s an utterly selfish bastard.  Personally, I think all he’s trying to say is that he’s an introvert.)

“We neither of us perform to strangers.”  (Huh?)

“Mr Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife.” (You don’t say.  But really, it’s an interesting construction – I mean, the fortunate/choice thing is practically an oxymoron . . . unless you’re talking about Mr Collins, because his ‘choices’ really are so random and nonsensical that good ones are pure luck.  Making Austen, yet again, a genius.  And Darcy a verbal badass.  *admires*)

“In vain have I 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.” (Not my favourite, but it does have to be included . . . just by the way, that he repressed his feelings for Elizabeth does not mean he’s repressed in general. There is a difference between repressed and reserved.)

“His misfortunes! yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.” (And Darcy finally loses his temper.  Turns out that angry!Darcy is quite a bit like normal snob!Darcy, only colder and more sarcastic and, um, slightly scary.  Which, given that he’s completely blameless in the matter under discussion, only makes him more awesome.  And Elizabeth, irritating as the Wickham thing is, just for not being intimidated.  Go Darcy!  Go Elizabeth!  *fangirls* *ships*)

“This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully.”  (snide!Darcy, yay!)

“But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.”  (another one that’s set off epic wars.  I’d just like to say that hating something doesn’t mean you don’t ever do it.)

“Can you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?”  (Really, Darcy, tell us what you really feel.)

“Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.”  (…Wherein bitter sarcastic resentment meets selfless devotion in a single sentence.  Darcy is so badass.)

“I can only say that I am sorry . . . and farther apology would be absurd.”  (apologetic!Darcy, only not.)

“I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears.”  (You know, he gets frequently lambasted for this line, but it actually seems more or less accurate.  Compared to everybody else, anyway.)

“There is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art . . . perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me.”  (yeah, maybe it was, what with your cunning repetition of that word.  not exactly ebil deceptiveness, hearing from Caroline and opting not to pass the news on, but still.  badly done, Darcy.)

“The vicious propensities — the want of principle … could not escape the observation of a young man [Darcy] of nearly the same age with himself [Wickham].”  (Um, he’s refusing to take pride in being completely right.  Is he ill?  . . . ah, he’s just trying to excuse his father.  That explains it.)

“I rather wished, than believed him to be sincere.”  (thwartedidealist!Darcy.  *sniffle*)

“Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to me at once. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted.”  (Darcy-Georgiana is darling.  Also, yes I can imagine what he felt.  INCANDESCENT RAGE.  so that note he wrote was probably very cutting.  and also terrifying, because Darcy is good at quiet menace when he doesn’t want to rip someone limb-from-limb.)

“I will only add, God bless you.”  (*sob*  also, coming after the Wickham accusations and explanations?  IMPRESSIVE.)

“Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance during your stay at Lambton?”  (and we see humble!Darcy.  or, more likely, tryingreallyhardtobeconsiderate!Darcy.)

“She a beauty!–I should as soon call her mother a wit.”  (To everybody who says Darcy isn’t actually sharp, just staid and honourable:  yeah, this.)

“For it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.”  (smackdown!)

“Good God! what is the matter?”  (concerned!Darcy = genteel swearing.  aw.)

“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.” (This is a tough one to deconstruct. Does he mean that his feelings for Elizabeth only added force to his more primary motivations? Or are they (his feelings for her) the main one? Does he believe he respects them, or believe he thought only of her?)

“I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. … 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 to my own.” (I always wonder about his parents. ‘Left’ to follow, ‘my father particularly’… huh. Fanfic material!)

“I felt nothing but surprise.”  (I bet.  Sadly, this ruins all the theories about his wild despair/lust/hope/etc at that moment.  And really, when you’re really shocked, that it’s exactly what it’s like – your mind is just blank of anything except utter surprise.)

“As I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together.” (I always wonder if they — the Darcys — had a hand in bringing the Bingleys north. It would be ever so much more convenient to run their lives for them from a mere thirty miles’ distance!)

“For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”  (DARCY = WIN)

“A man who had felt less, might [have talked more].” (See Emma.)

“I was determined at once to know everything.”

“I am more likely to want time than courage, Elizabeth.” (One of the reasons I love Jane Austen. Just using her name is more romantic — from him — than mad declarations of love, somehow.)