“It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter with

ease cannot write ill.”
“That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline,” cried her

brother, “because he does not write with ease.{62} He studies too much

for words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?”
“My style of writing is very different from yours.”
“Oh,” cried Miss Bingley, “Charles writes in the most careless way

imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest.”
“My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them; by which

means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.”
“Your humility, Mr. Bingley,” said Elizabeth, “must disarm reproof.”
“Nothing is more deceitful,” said Darcy, “than the appearance of

humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an

indirect boast.”
“And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of modesty?”
“The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in

writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of

thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you

think at least highly interesting. The power of doing anything with

quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any

attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs.

Bennet this morning, that if you ever resolved on quitting Netherfield

you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of

panegyric, of compliment to yourself; and yet what is there so very

laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business

undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or anyone else?”
“Nay,” cried Bingley, “this is too much, to remember at night all the

foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, I

believed what I{63} said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this

moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless