“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. It is a second truth that he shall have her, for she will have little say in the charming affair, being but chattel in his eyes, and also he shall most likely be her cousin.”
“She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet. Surely to blame was the fact that of what little education women of her rank were fortunate enough to receive, almost none of it extended past doily-making and fortepiano-playing. Neither of which, she would soon come to realize, would save her when the dreaded scarlet fever hit the country estate just two months later. Alas! Alas!”
“Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair, and Elinor, expecting every moment to see her faint, tried to screen her from the observation of others, while reviving her with lavender water. This was quite soon after followed by Marianne’s most tragic passing, for unbeknownst to Elinor, the lavender water had been drawn from the Thames, and was infested with plague, abominable cholera, and traces of human corpse.”
“A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number. If there is a dearth of those limbs, it is likely because the dear child was overrun by a horse while working long hours sweeping the dangerous streets of London. Pray the poor family survives the winter! The wolves! The wolves circle ever closer!”
“‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?” chuckled Mr. Bennet. ‘Speaking of which, Lizzie, my darling, pass me that abominable-looking pile of rags sitting on the Chesterfield. I am going to London for the slumming party, and must look the part. Oh, how we shall laugh as we marvel at the depths to which our wretched urban neighbours have descended!’”
“‘I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh,’ Elizabeth Bennet wrote to her aunt, knowing full well that Jane no longer had the energy to laugh after being struck with typhoid just days prior. ‘I very much admire sweet Jane, dear aunt, and hope she shall overcome the intestinal bleeding and survive her first month of marriage to the charming Mr. Bingley.’”
“‘He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman’s daughter. So far we are equal,’ said Lizzie stubbornly, blissfully ignorant of the fact that once she and Darcy were wed, her beloved wealth, freedoms, and autonomy, so kindly granted by her father, would become the sole property of a disagreeable man she barely knew, who undoubtedly viewed her as little more than a middle-class vessel for children, as was tradition at the time.”
“‘Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort,” exclaimed Mrs. Elton to Miss Woodford. “How lucky you are to have a beloved father clever enough to have been born into the landed gentry! Why, just the other day, I sent my servant Thomas into London, and he was immediately murdered by starving thieves. Aren’t the poor just extraordinary in their perseverance!’
The two women tittered, richly.”