Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 11

Jane Austen · Mountaineers 10th–12th

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Copywork

I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.

“There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.” “And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.” “And yours,” he replied, with a smile, “is wilfully to misunderstand them.”

Read both passages aloud. In the first, Elizabeth says what makes her laugh. When she names Darcy’s defect in the second, is she still laughing?

For the educator Two passages, five sentences: Elizabeth’s account of what she laughs at, and the exchange of charges that ends the conversation a little later. Elizabeth’s first sentence is short, hedged (“I hope”) and ends on a pair, “wise or good”. Her second makes its subject two pairs of nouns, each pair joined by “and” (“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies”), stresses its verb with an emphatic “_do_”, sets a short admission between commas (“I own”, meaning I admit), and adds a second clause with “and”, ending on “whenever I can”. In the second passage Darcy’s sentence is long and grave. A hedge sits between commas (“I believe”), “a tendency to some particular evil” is restated in apposition as “a natural defect”, and a relative clause saves its strongest words for the end: “not even the best education can overcome.” Elizabeth answers in one short sentence that takes his word “defect” and hands it to him, with the italic _your_ to point it. Darcy answers in her own build: “And yours” matches “And _your_”, and “yours” does the work of her “_your_ defect”, so the noun need not be said again. For mechanics, notice the underscores that mark italics. Elizabeth’s passage sits inside a speech that began before it and goes on after it, so it has no quotation marks at all. In the second passage each speech is its own paragraph, and Darcy’s last is split by a dialogue tag set off by commas (“he replied, with a smile,”), so the quotation closes after “yours,” and opens again; the comma after “yours” goes inside the closing mark. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who hears a tease, answered “with a smile”; and one who hears the talk turn grave, after Darcy’s talk of “some particular evil”, so that her charge is meant as a charge. Either may lean on what she says just before the passage: “I really cannot _laugh_ at it.” Neither may say that her charge is true of him, or his of her.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in a few sentences, from Elizabeth bringing Jane down to the drawing-room to the pianoforte being opened.

The narrator follows Miss Bingley’s evening move by move, down to “the desperation of her feelings”. How sorry are we meant to feel for her? Tone
Darcy tells the two women he can admire them “much better as I sit by the fire.” How should that line sound when you read it aloud? Tone
Miss Bingley wishes balls had conversation in place of dancing, and later that evening she gets something close to it. Why does she have no share in the talk? Character
Darcy says his feelings are not “puffed about with every attempt to move them”, and he has just sat through an evening of attempts. How far does the evening prove him right? Character

Make a Connection Think of someone, in a book or in life, whom no one would dare to tease. What does it do to a person when nobody will laugh at them?

Vocabulary

diffuseness: He addressed himself directly to Miss Bennet with a polite congratulation; Mr. Hurst also made her a slight bow, and said he was “very glad;” but diffuseness and warmth remained for Bingley’s salutation. A free, overflowing spread, as of words or feeling poured out at length (from Latin diffundere, to pour out, the root of diffuse). Darcy gives Jane “a polite congratulation” and Mr. Hurst a bow and “very glad”; “diffuseness and warmth” are left for Bingley. The word measures his welcome by how far it spills past the polite minimum.
insufferably: “I should like balls infinitely better,” she replied, “if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. So much that it cannot be borne (from Latin in-, not, and sufferre, to bear, the root of suffer). Miss Bingley finds “something insufferably tedious” in an ordinary ball. The strong word suits the hint she has just dropped, which her brother takes to mean Darcy, that for some of the party a ball would be “rather a punishment than a pleasure”.
inflexibly: Her figure was elegant, and she walked well; but Darcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious. In a way that will not bend or give way (from Latin in-, not, and flectere, to bend, the root of flexible). Through Miss Bingley’s whole walk Darcy stays “inflexibly studious”. A little later he calls his own temper “too little yielding”, and the reader can set the narrator’s word beside his.
propensity: “And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.” A natural leaning toward some way of acting (from Latin propendere, to hang forward, to lean). Darcy has just said every disposition has “a natural defect”, and Elizabeth hands him his: “a propensity to hate everybody”. The weighty word makes her tease sound like a diagnosis.
wilfully: “And yours,” he replied, with a smile, “is wilfully to misunderstand them.” On purpose; by one’s own choice, knowing what one does (from will, in its old sense of wish or purpose). Darcy does not say Elizabeth misunderstands people. He says she does it “wilfully”. The one word turns a mistake into a decision, which is a harder charge to answer.

Critical thinking

Bingley’s sisters “laugh at their acquaintance with spirit”, and later Elizabeth says she hopes never to laugh at “what is wise or good.” Is her laughter really different from theirs?
Bingley sits down by Jane and talks “scarcely to anyone else”, yet at the end Darcy begins to feel “the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.” Why does one man give his attention freely, while the other feels it as a danger?
Darcy says that where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will always be kept under control. Is that a wise distinction, or is it pride talking?