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Pride & Prejudice – page 124

JANE AUSTEN

as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and

obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.

Having now a good house and a very sufficient

income, he intended to marry; and in seeking a

reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife

in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters,

if he found them as handsome and amiable as they

were represented by common report. This was his plan

of amendsof atonemen tfor inheriting their father’s

estate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of

eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous

and disinterested on his own part.

His plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet’s

lovely face confirmed his views, and established all

his strictest notions of what was due to seniority;

and for the first evening she was his settled choice.

The next morning, however, made an alteration; for

in a quarter of an hour’s tete-a-tete with Mrs. Bennet

before breakfast, a conversation beginning with his

parsonage-house, and leading naturally to the avowal

of his hopes, that a mistress might be found for it at

Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant

smiles and general encouragement, a caution against

the very Jane he had fixed on. “As to her younger

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