It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in
possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice with a then boyfriend in Alaska, I was shocked to hear him say that Mrs Bennett reminded him of me. Needless to say, the relationship didn’t last long. Mind you, I’ve never quite fallen out of love with Mr Darcy – and truth be told, I’d quite happily watch Colin Firth paint a wall.

In Jane Austen country recently,  I was reminded yet again of my life-long wish to immerse myself in that era. And while I know she set two of her novels in Bath – Northanger Abbey and Persuasion – Pride and Prejudice will always be my favourite. I have no problem at all imagining myself as Elizabeth Bennett, complete with bonnet, lace parasol, and razor-like wit, out for a stroll with old Fitzy on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

I think that when Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, she had me in mind…

A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

Yep, I’ve been there!

 I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?

Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. 

..for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him. 

She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.

You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them. 

My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be.

We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb. 

It sometimes is a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him.

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.