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Chapter 56
‘But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in.’
In Chapter 56, Lady Catherine de Bourgh arrives at Longbourn to confront Elizabeth about a rumor she has heard that Elizabeth and Darcy are to be married. Elizabeth initially refuses to say whether it is true, and Lady Catherine accuses her in this quote of seducing Darcy to the point of forgetting about the Bennet family’s lack of propriety and social standing. The proper thing for him to do, according to Lady Catherine, is marry her daughter, as both are of similar wealth.
‘In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal.’
During Elizabeth and Lady Catherine’s conversation in Chapter 56, Lady Catherine criticizes Elizabeth’s family connections. Elizabeth counters that, despite her family’s lack of social graces and her mother’s family’s inferiority, her father is as much a part of the landed gentry as Darcy.
I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.
Near the end of her confrontation with Elizabeth in Chapter 56, Lady Catherine is satisfied that Elizabeth and Darcy are not engaged. However, when she attempts to force Elizabeth to promise she will never enter into an engagement with him, Elizabeth refuses. She tells Lady Catherine she has no interest in deferring to anyone on the subject of her own happiness, particularly someone like Lady Catherine with whom she has no connection. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Theme: Integrity (the third quote).
Chapter 58
Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.” Elizabeth feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances.
As foreshadowed by the abrupt arrival of Lady Catherine earlier, Darcy proposes to Elizabeth once more in Chapter 58. This time humbled by her previous rejection, he offers assurances that he will not ask again if she doesn’t return his affections in the same breath that he professes his continued love for her. His proposal juxtaposes Mr. Collins’s; where Mr. Collins did Elizabeth the disservice of not taking her at her word, Darcy respects Elizabeth’s choice. Read more about this quote in Famous Quotes Explained.
But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote and the person who received it are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten.
In Chapter 58, following Darcy’s confession of love for Elizabeth, he admits that he wrote the letter in “dreadful bitterness of spirit,” and feels sorry that it may have caused her pain. Elizabeth, however, tells him to think nothing of it, indicating a willingness to move on from the past that she did not previously possess. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Character: Elizabeth Bennet (the fifth quote).
By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.
In Chapter 58, Darcy admits to Elizabeth that her rejection forced him to look inward and realize his pride worked against him. He may have all the reason in the world to be proud, but his wealth and status were not enough to win her over, and he set about improving his behavior. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Character: Fitzwilliam Darcy (the fifth quote),
She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin.
During a conversation between Elizabeth and Darcy in Chapter 58, Elizabeth wishes to make a joke at Darcy’s expense, but checks the impulse. Though Darcy is beginning to show a sense of humility, he still has a certain amount of pride that she doesn’t think could withstand her teasing. At least, not yet.
Chapter 59
‘My dearest sister, now be serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him?’
‘It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.’
This exchange between Jane and Elizabeth in Chapter 59 describes the moment Elizabeth knew she was in love with Darcy. Having confessed that Darcy has proposed to her, Elizabeth admits to her sister that the first moment she began to feel love for him was at Pemberley, when all her assumptions about him fell away and she was able to see him for the man he truly was, with an open mind and heart. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Symbol: Pemberley (the fifth quote).
‘I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about.’
In Chapter 59, after Darcy asks Mr. Bennet for permission to marry Elizabeth, Mr. Bennet consults his favorite daughter, unsure whether Darcy is a suitable match. Having refused to entertain the idea of a marriage between Elizabeth and the absurd Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet expresses concern that she will be unhappy in a marriage where she is her husband’s intellectual superior. He knows from firsthand experience what it means to marry someone you don’t respect, and he doesn’t want Elizabeth to suffer the same fate as him. It’s a rare moment of vulnerability for Mr. Bennet that speaks to the depth of his relationship with his daughter. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Character: Mr. Bennet (the fourth quote).
‘Oh, my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have! Jane’s is nothing to it—nothing at all. I am so pleased—so happy.’
In Chapter 59, Mrs. Bennet’s reaction to Elizabeth’s acceptance of Darcy’s proposal confirms she is a static character. Throughout the narrative, she has remained steadfast in her wishes to marry her daughters off. As with Lydia and Wickham, and Jane and Bingley, Mrs. Bennet has no qualms about disregarding her dislike of Darcy once she realizes he will make her daughter very rich. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Character: Mrs. Bennet (the fifth quote).
Chapter 60
‘I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.’
In a letter to her aunt, Mrs. Gardiner, in Chapter 60, Elizabeth describes the depth of her love for Darcy while playfully invoking the differences in her and Jane’s personalities. While Jane is known for her smiles, Elizabeth is known for her propensity to laugh, and Elizabeth here jokes that she is even happier than the happiest person she knows by using their known dispositions as a measure of her feelings.
