scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These

bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater

policy, concealed my struggles, and{241} flattered you into the belief of my

being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by

reflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.

Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just.

Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your

connections?—to congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose

condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?”
Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to

the utmost to speak with composure when she said,—
“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your

declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the

concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a

more gentlemanlike manner.”
She saw him start at this; but he said nothing, and she continued,—
“You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way

that would have tempted me to accept it.”
Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an

expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on,—
“From the very beginning, from the first moment, I may almost say, of my

acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest

belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the

feelings of others, were such as to form that groundwork of

disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immovable a

dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the

last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.{242}”
“You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your

feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been.

Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best