Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply.
Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has a good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will pa tronize in vain,--which taste cannot tolerate,--which ridicule will seize.
Without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business.
Do you dance, Mr. Darcy?" Darcy: "Not if I can help it!" Sir William: "What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies." Mr. Darcy: "Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world; every savage can dance.
Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm.
I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter in all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both.
What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it.
'My fingers,' said Elizabeth, 'do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many woman's do. They have not the same force of rapidity and do not possess the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault - because I would not take the trouble of practicing. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution.'
Darcy smiled and said, 'You are perfectly right.'
The longer they were together the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard, and sometimes for a few painful minutes she believed it to be no more than friendship
The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits; for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time.