Pride and Prejudice

the remarks and ejaculations of Mrs. Allen, whose vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking were such, that as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and, therefore, while she sat at her work,4 if she lost her needle or broke her thread, if she heard a carriage in the street,5 or saw a speck upon her gown, she must

Her awareness of these attitudes also appears in a letter discussing a subscription to a local library, in which she writes, “As an inducement to subscribe Mrs. Martin tells us that her Collection is not to consist only of Novels, but of every kind of Literature, &c. &c—She might have spared this pretension to our family, who are great Nove

Miss Morland is not used to your odd ways.” “I shall be most happy to make her better acquainted with them.” “No doubt;—but that is no explanation of the present.”

she seemed capable of being young, attractive, and at a ball, without wanting to fix the attention of every man near her, and without exaggerated feelings of extatic delight or inconceivable vexation on every little trifling occurrence.