Nodiver d.o.o. · Pride & Prejudice · page 538 of 640

Pride & Prejudice – page 538

JANE AUSTEN

“How should you have liked making sermons?”

“Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as

part of my duty, and the exertion would soon have been

nothing. One ought not to repine;but, to be sure, it

would have been such a thing for me! The quiet, the

retirement of such a life would have answered all my

ideas of happiness! But it was not to be. Did you ever

hear Darcy mention the circumstance, when you were

in Kent?”

“I have heard from authority, which I thought as

good, that it was left you conditionally only, and at the

will of the present patron.”

“You have. Yes, there was something in that; I told

you so from the first, you may remember.”

“I did hear, too, that there was a time, when

sermon-making was not so palatable to you as it

seems to be at present; that you actually declared your

resolution of never taking orders, and that the business

had been compromised accordingly.”

“You did! and it was not wholly without foundation.

You may remember what I told you on that point, when

first we talked of it.”

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