Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 4

When Jane and Eliz­abeth were alone, the for­mer, who had been cau­tious in her praise of Mr. Bin­gley be­fore, ex­pressed to her sis­ter just how very much she ad­mired him.

“He is just what a young man ought to be,” said she, “sen­si­ble, good-​hu­moured, live­ly; and I nev­er saw such hap­py man­ners!–so much ease, with such per­fect good breed­ing!”

“He is al­so hand­some,” replied Eliz­abeth, “which a young man ought like­wise to be, if he pos­si­bly can. His char­ac­ter is there­by com­plete.”

“I was very much flat­tered by his ask­ing me to dance a sec­ond time. I did not ex­pect such a com­pli­ment.”

“Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great dif­fer­ence be­tween us. Com­pli­ments al­ways take YOU by sur­prise, and ME nev­er. What could be more nat­ural than his ask­ing you again? He could not help see­ing that you were about five times as pret­ty as ev­ery oth­er wom­an in the room. No thanks to his gal­lantry for that. Well, he cer­tain­ly is very agree­able, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupi­der per­son.”

“Dear Lizzy!”

“Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like peo­ple in gen­er­al. You nev­er see a fault in any­body. All the world are good and agree­able in your eyes. I nev­er heard you speak ill of a hu­man be­ing in your life.”

“I would not wish to be hasty in cen­sur­ing any­one; but I al­ways speak what I think.”

“I know you do; and it is THAT which makes the won­der. With YOUR good sense, to be so hon­est­ly blind to the fol­lies and non­sense of oth­ers! Af­fec­ta­tion of can­dour is com­mon enough–one meets with it ev­ery­where. But to be can­did with­out os­ten­ta­tion or de­sign–to take the good of ev­ery­body’s char­ac­ter and make it still bet­ter, and say noth­ing of the bad–be­longs to you alone. And so you like this man’s sis­ters, too, do you? Their man­ners are not equal to his.”

“Cer­tain­ly not–at first. But they are very pleas­ing wom­en when you con­verse with them. Miss Bin­gley is to live with her broth­er, and keep his house; and I am much mis­tak­en if we shall not find a very charm­ing neigh­bour in her.”

Eliz­abeth lis­tened in si­lence, but was not con­vinced; their be­haviour at the as­sem­bly had not been cal­cu­lat­ed to please in gen­er­al; and with more quick­ness of ob­ser­va­tion and less pli­an­cy of tem­per than her sis­ter, and with a judge­ment too unas­sailed by any at­ten­tion to her­self, she was very lit­tle dis­posed to ap­prove them. They were in fact very fine ladies; not de­fi­cient in good hu­mour when they were pleased, nor in the pow­er of mak­ing them­selves agree­able when they chose it, but proud and con­ceit­ed. They were rather hand­some, had been ed­ucat­ed in one of the first pri­vate sem­inar­ies in town, had a for­tune of twen­ty thou­sand pounds, were in the habit of spend­ing more than they ought, and of as­so­ci­at­ing with peo­ple of rank, and were there­fore in ev­ery re­spect en­ti­tled to think well of them­selves, and mean­ly of oth­ers. They were of a re­spectable fam­ily in the north of Eng­land; a cir­cum­stance more deeply im­pressed on their mem­ories than that their broth­er’s for­tune and their own had been ac­quired by trade.

Mr. Bin­gley in­her­it­ed prop­er­ty to the amount of near­ly a hun­dred thou­sand pounds from his fa­ther, who had in­tend­ed to pur­chase an es­tate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bin­gley in­tend­ed it like­wise, and some­times made choice of his coun­ty; but as he was now pro­vid­ed with a good house and the lib­er­ty of a manor, it was doubt­ful to many of those who best knew the eas­iness of his tem­per, whether he might not spend the re­main­der of his days at Nether­field, and leave the next gen­er­ation to pur­chase.

His sis­ters were anx­ious for his hav­ing an es­tate of his own; but, though he was now on­ly es­tab­lished as a ten­ant, Miss Bin­gley was by no means un­will­ing to pre­side at his ta­ble–nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had mar­ried a man of more fash­ion than for­tune, less dis­posed to con­sid­er his house as her home when it suit­ed her. Mr. Bin­gley had not been of age two years, when he was tempt­ed by an ac­ci­den­tal rec­om­men­da­tion to look at Nether­field House. He did look at it, and in­to it for half-​an-​hour–was pleased with the sit­ua­tion and the prin­ci­pal rooms, sat­is­fied with what the own­er said in its praise, and took it im­me­di­ate­ly.

Be­tween him and Dar­cy there was a very steady friend­ship, in spite of great op­po­si­tion of char­ac­ter. Bin­gley was en­deared to Dar­cy by the eas­iness, open­ness, and duc­til­ity of his tem­per, though no dis­po­si­tion could of­fer a greater con­trast to his own, and though with his own he nev­er ap­peared dis­sat­is­fied. On the strength of Dar­cy’s re­gard, Bin­gley had the firmest re­liance, and of his judge­ment the high­est opin­ion. In un­der­stand­ing, Dar­cy was the su­pe­ri­or. Bin­gley was by no means de­fi­cient, but Dar­cy was clever. He was at the same time haughty, re­served, and fas­tid­ious, and his man­ners, though well-​bred, were not invit­ing. In that re­spect his friend had great­ly the ad­van­tage. Bin­gley was sure of be­ing liked wher­ev­er he ap­peared, Dar­cy was con­tin­ual­ly giv­ing of­fense.

The man­ner in which they spoke of the Mery­ton as­sem­bly was suf­fi­cient­ly char­ac­ter­is­tic. Bin­gley had nev­er met with more pleas­ant peo­ple or pret­ti­er girls in his life; ev­ery­body had been most kind and at­ten­tive to him; there had been no for­mal­ity, no stiff­ness; he had soon felt ac­quaint­ed with all the room; and, as to Miss Ben­net, he could not con­ceive an an­gel more beau­ti­ful. Dar­cy, on the con­trary, had seen a col­lec­tion of peo­ple in whom there was lit­tle beau­ty and no fash­ion, for none of whom he had felt the small­est in­ter­est, and from none re­ceived ei­ther at­ten­tion or plea­sure. Miss Ben­net he ac­knowl­edged to be pret­ty, but she smiled too much.

Mrs. Hurst and her sis­ter al­lowed it to be so–but still they ad­mired her and liked her, and pro­nounced her to be a sweet girl, and one whom they would not ob­ject to know more of. Miss Ben­net was there­fore es­tab­lished as a sweet girl, and their broth­er felt au­tho­rized by such com­men­da­tion to think of her as he chose.