Chapter 57

Pride and Prejudice

Mountaineers · 10th–12th

Copywork

“Yes, that is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man it would have been nothing; but his perfect indifference and your pointed dislike make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins’s correspondence for any consideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law.

It was necessary to laugh when she would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her by what he said of Mr. Darcy’s indifference; and she could do nothing but wonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that, perhaps, instead of his seeing too little, she might have fancied too much.

Read both passages aloud, and stress the words in italics. In each passage, what is set against what?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences: Mr. Bennet’s answer when Elizabeth calls the report “so strange,” and the two sentences that close the chapter. The first passage is Mr. Bennet at his most fluent. “Yes, _that_ is what makes it amusing” stresses one word to take up hers. The second sentence opens on a condition (“Had they fixed on any other man”), turns on a semicolon and “but,” and sets two stressed possessives side by side, “_his_ perfect indifference and _your_ pointed dislike,” before it lands on “so delightfully absurd!” The joke needs both halves of that pair. The third and fourth sentences are built on the same concession, “Much as I abominate writing” and “much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy”: each grants one thing in order to prize another. The second is the sly one, because it treats a son-in-law’s faults as a collector’s pleasure, and the “Nay” that opens it raises the stakes of the joke. The second passage answers in the narrator’s quiet voice. Its first sentence is the chapter’s plainest antithesis, laugh against cry, in eleven words. The last sentence is periodic and turns twice, on “or fear that, perhaps,” and on “instead of,” before it ends on its own stressed pair, “too _little_” and “too _much_.” For mechanics, students practise the edition’s underscores, which they copy as underlining or italics; the opening quotation mark with no closing mark, because Mr. Bennet’s speech runs on; the semicolon before “but” and before “and” where each clause could stand alone; the comma after an opening “Much as” clause; the comma pair around “perhaps”; and the apostrophes in “Collins’s” and “Darcy’s.” For the talk prompt, students usually find his/your in the first passage (Darcy’s supposed indifference against Elizabeth’s supposed dislike) and little/much in the second (his seeing against her fancying). Some also hear “_that_” as Mr. Bennet seizing her word “strange,” or hear the two “much as” clauses set what he hates against what he enjoys. Some say the second pair undoes the first; others say it only asks who has seen wrongly, and does not answer. Leave that open. The words “abominate” and “impudence” are taught in the vocabulary. Leave what Elizabeth means by “strange” to the talk, what Mr. Bennet’s pleasure in Collins and Wickham is worth to the first written question, why he cannot see what she feels to the second, and whether his laughter is harmless to the last.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in a few sentences. Begin with the hours after the visit, when Elizabeth can think of little else, and end with her laugh in the library. Then choose the one sentence that matters most, and say why it matters more than the rest.

1. Elizabeth thinks the Lucases only called “almost certain and immediate” what she “had looked forward to as possible at some future time.” What is she admitting to herself?Inference

2. Elizabeth knows just what she will do if Darcy sends Bingley an excuse, but she says nothing of what she will do if none comes. Why does she plan only for bad news?Character

3. Before he names the man, Mr. Bennet twice stops reading to ask Lizzy if she can guess who is meant. What does he want from her?Character

4. When her father asks, “Are you not diverted?” Elizabeth answers, “Oh, yes. Pray read on.” Why does she ask him to keep reading?Inference

Make a Connection Think of a book, or a time you remember, when someone laughed along at a joke they did not find funny. What stops a person from saying so?

Vocabulary

discomposure The discomposure of spirits which this extraordinary visit threw Elizabeth into could not be easily overcome; nor could she for many hours learn to think of it less than incessantly.

sagacity Young ladies have great penetration in such matters as these; but I think I may defy even your sagacity to discover the name of your admirer.

missish You are not going to be missish, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report.

abominate Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins’s correspondence for any consideration.

impudence Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law.

Critical thinking

1. Mr. Bennet laughs at Mr. Collins’s advice to forgive Lydia and Wickham “as a Christian” but never to see them. Is he judging Mr. Collins, or enjoying him?

Thesis

Objection

Revision

2. Mr. Bennet sees Elizabeth blush, and later he sees that she is not enjoying the letter. What keeps him from seeing what she feels?

Thesis

Objection

Revision

3. Mr. Bennet says we live "to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn." Is his laughter in this scene harmless?

Thesis

Objection

Revision