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- pride-and-prejudice
- text
- bear no comparison. But from the severity of that blame which was last
night so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance, I shall hope
to be in future secured, when the following account of my actions and
their motives has been read. If, in the explanation of them which is due
to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which may be
offensive to yours, I can only say that I am sorry. The necessity must
be obeyed, and further apology would be absurd. I had not been long in
Hertfordshire before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley
preferred your elder sister to any other young woman in the country. But
it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any
apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment. I had often seen him
in love before. At that ball, while I had the honour of dancing with
you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas’s accidental
information, that Bingley’s attentions to your sister had given rise to
a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain
event, of which the time alone could be undecided. From that moment I
observed my friend’s behaviour attentively; and I could then perceive
that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed
in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open,
cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar
regard; and I remained convinced, from the evening’s scrutiny, that
though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite
them by any participation of sentiment. If _you_ have not been mistaken
here, _I_ must have been in an error. Your superior knowledge of your
sister must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled
by such error to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been
unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of
your sister’s countenance and air was such as might have given the most
acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart
was not likely to be easily touched. That I was desirous of believing
her indifferent is certain; but I will venture to say that my
investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or
fears. I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it; I
believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason.
My objections to the marriage were not merely those which I last night
acknowledged to have required the utmost force of passion to put aside
in my own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to
my friend as to me. But there were other causes of repugnance; causes
which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both
instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not
immediately before me. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The
situation of your mother’s family, though objectionable, was nothing in
comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost
uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and
occasionally even by your father:--pardon me,--it pains me to offend
you. But amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations,
and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give you
consolation to consider that to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid
any share of the like censure is praise no less generally bestowed on
you and your eldest sister than it is honourable to the sense and
disposition of both. I will only say, farther, that from what passed
that evening my opinion of all parties was confirmed, and every
inducement heightened, which could have led me before to preserve my
friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy connection. He left
Netherfield for London on the day following, as you, I am certain,
remember, with the design of soon returning. The part which I acted is
now to be explained. His sisters’ uneasiness had been equally excited
with my own: our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered; and, alike
sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we
shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. We accordingly
went--and there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my
friend the certain evils of such a choice. I described and enforced them
earnestly. But however this remonstrance might have staggered or delayed
his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have
prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance, which
I hesitated not in giving, of your sister’s indifference. He had before
believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal,
regard. But Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger
dependence on my judgment than on his own. To convince him, therefore,
that he had deceived himself was no very difficult point. To persuade
him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been
given, was scarcely the work of a moment. I cannot blame myself for
having done thus much. There is but one part of my conduct, in the whole
affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I
condescended to adopt the measures of art so far as to conceal from him
your sister’s being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss
Bingley; but her brother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might
have met without ill consequence is, perhaps, probable; but his regard
did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some
danger. Perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me. It is
done, however, and it was done for the best. On this subject I have
nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. If I have wounded your
sister’s feelings, it was unknowingly done; and though the motives which
governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not
yet learnt to condemn them.--With respect to that other, more weighty
accusation, of having injured Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by
laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he
has _particularly_ accused me I am ignorant; but of the truth of what I
shall relate I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity.
Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years
the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good conduct in
the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service
to him; and on George Wickham, who was his godson, his kindness was
therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and
afterwards at Cambridge; most important assistance, as his own father,
always poor from the extravagance of his wife, would have been unable to
give him a gentleman’s education. My father was not only fond of this
young man’s society, whose manners were always engaging, he had also the
highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be his profession,
intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is many, many years
since I first began to think of him in a very different manner. The
vicious propensities, the want of principle, which he was careful to
guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the
observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who
had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy
could not have. Here again I shall give you pain--to what degree you
only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham has
created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from unfolding
his real character. It adds even another motive. My excellent father
died about five years ago; and his attachment to Mr.