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Pride & Prejudice – page 141

Pride and Prejudice

Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and

thought him handsomer than ever as he expressed

them.

“But what,” said she, after a pause, “can have been

his motive? What can have induced him to behave so

cruelly?”

“A thorough, determined dislike of mea dislike

which I cannot but attribute in some measure to

jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me less, his

son might have borne with me better; but his father’s

uncommon attachment to me irritated him, I believe,

very early in life. He had not a temper to bear the sort of

competition in which we stoodthe sort of preference

which was often given me.”

“I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as thisthough

I have never liked him. I had not thought so very

ill of him. I had supposed him to be despising his

fellow-creatures in general, but did not suspect him of

descending to such malicious revenge, such injustice,

such inhumanity as this.”

After a few minutes’ reflection, however, she

continued, “I do remember his boasting one day, at

Netherfield, of the implacability of his resentments, of

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