Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 60

Jane Austen · Mountaineers 10th–12th

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Copywork

The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused and interested you, because I was so unlike them.

Mrs. Philips’s vulgarity was another, and, perhaps, a greater tax on his forbearance; and though Mrs. Philips, as well as her sister, stood in too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley’s good-humour encouraged; yet, whenever she did speak, she must be vulgar. Nor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all likely to make her more elegant.

Read both passages aloud. Elizabeth says Darcy was tired of people who tried too hard to please him. Mrs. Philips stands in awe of him, yet she still tests his patience. Is she one of the people Elizabeth meant, or a different kind of trouble?

For the educator Two passages, five sentences. The first is Elizabeth’s, the start of her own account of Darcy’s love, given after he has called her impertinence “the liveliness of your mind.” The second is the narrator’s, from the close of the chapter, where Darcy meets her relations. Elizabeth’s passage opens on a confident formula, “The fact is, that,” and builds two lists: three phrases led by “of” (“of civility, of deference, of officious attention”), then three verbs joined by a repeated “and” (“speaking, and looking, and thinking”). Her last sentence is short and turns on one contrast, “so unlike _them_.” The narrator’s first sentence is long and careful. It stacks qualifications (“another, and, perhaps, a greater tax”), grants a point with “though” (Mrs. Philips is too much in awe to be familiar), and takes it back with “yet”: “whenever she _did_ speak, she must be vulgar.” The second sentence is a neat antithesis: her respect made her “more quiet” but not “more elegant.” Elizabeth speaks for Darcy with certainty; the narrator leaves him silent and lets the sentences do the judging. For mechanics, students practise commas in a series with a repeated word, the comma after “The fact is,” commas around a word set off for weight (“and, perhaps,”), semicolons between long clauses, the possessive “Mrs. Philips’s,” and the edition’s underscores, which they copy as underlining or italics. For the talk prompt, some students hear a different trouble: what taxes Darcy is her “vulgarity,” not flattery, and her “awe” and “respect” make her quieter, not fawning. Others hear her awe as one more kind of deference, the very thing Elizabeth said he was sick of. Either way the student is testing Elizabeth’s account against the narrator’s. Leave it open. The words “approbation” and “forbearance” are taught in the vocabulary. Keep whose comfort Elizabeth is guarding for the fifth discussion question, and which name is truer, impertinence or liveliness, for the last written question.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in a few sentences. Begin with Elizabeth asking Darcy, “How could you begin?” End with her looking forward to Pemberley. Then choose the one sentence that matters most, and say why the chapter needs it.

Elizabeth says Darcy knows “no actual good” of her, and he names one at once: her care of Jane at Netherfield. Why won’t she let him praise her plainly? Character
Darcy says his “real purpose” was to see Elizabeth, but the reason he gave himself was Jane and Bingley. How can a man not know his own reason? Inference
Elizabeth writes to her aunt, “I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.” What is she laughing at? Theme
Mr. Bennet tells Mr. Collins to “stand by the nephew. He has more to give.” How much of that is a joke? Tone
Elizabeth tries to shield Darcy from Sir William and Mrs. Philips and to keep him “to herself.” Whose comfort is she guarding? Moral reasoning

Make a Connection Think of two people, from a book or from life, who can now laugh about the mistakes that once kept them apart. What had to happen before the laughing was possible?

Vocabulary

approbation: You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. Approval, especially the approval a person seeks from someone whose opinion counts (Latin approbare, to approve). In Elizabeth’s account, the women around Darcy lived for his approbation alone. Her theory is that he was drawn to the one woman who did not.
unjustifiable: Lady Catherine’s unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts. Impossible to defend as right or fair (from justify, to show to be right). Darcy uses it of his aunt’s efforts to part them, in the same sentence that credits those efforts with removing his doubts.
obsequious: At such a moment, the arrival of her friend was a sincere pleasure to Elizabeth, though in the course of their meetings she must sometimes think the pleasure dearly bought, when she saw Mr. Darcy exposed to all the parading and obsequious civility of her husband. Too eager to please, fawning on someone more important (Latin obsequi, to give way to). The narrator gives the word to Mr. Collins’s manner with Darcy. It is the kind of attention Elizabeth said Darcy was sick of, and here he has to sit through it.
forbearance: Mrs. Philips’s vulgarity was another, and, perhaps, a greater tax on his forbearance; and though Mrs. Philips, as well as her sister, stood in too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley’s good-humour encouraged; yet, whenever she did speak, she must be vulgar. Patient self-control; holding back what one could fairly say or show (from forbear, to hold back). The narrator calls Mrs. Philips a “tax” on Darcy’s forbearance, as if his patience were a store she draws down. The word names what he now practises among Elizabeth’s relations.

Critical thinking

Darcy says their happiness came not from Elizabeth’s broken promise but from Lady Catherine’s “unjustifiable” attempt to part them. Is that moral any fairer than the one she feared?
Jane is “not deceived” by Miss Bingley, yet she writes back “a much kinder answer than she knew was deserved.” Is Jane’s answer a kind of lie?
Elizabeth decides Darcy loved her for her "impertinence," but he calls it "the liveliness of your mind." Which name is truer?