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Steven Magee

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“It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "How young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are." "All young ladies accomplished? My dear Charles, what do you mean?" "Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time without being informed that she was very accomplished." "Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished." "Nor I, I am sure." said Miss Bingley. "Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman." "Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it." "Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can really be esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved." "All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." "I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder at your knowing any.”

HumorElizabeth BennetFitzwilliam DarcyCaroline BingleyCharles Bingley
Book:Pride and Prejudice
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“She was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to inquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an inquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

LoveJane AustenFitzwilliam Darcy
Author:Jane Austen
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“I resolutely refuse to believe that the state of Edward's health had anything to do with this, and I don't say this only because I was once later accused of attacking him 'on his deathbed.' He was entirely lucid to the end, and the positions he took were easily recognizable by me as extensions or outgrowths of views he had expressed (and also declined to express) in the past. Alas, it is true that he was closer to the end than anybody knew when the thirtieth anniversary reissue of his Orientalism was published, but his long-precarious condition would hardly argue for giving him a lenient review, let alone denying him one altogether, which would have been the only alternatives. In the introduction he wrote for the new edition, he generally declined the opportunity to answer his scholarly critics, and instead gave the recent American arrival in Baghdad as a grand example of 'Orientalism' in action. The looting and destruction of the exhibits in the Iraq National Museum had, he wrote, been a deliberate piece of United States vandalism, perpetrated in order to shear the Iraqi people of their cultural patrimony and demonstrate to them their new servitude. Even at a time when anything at all could be said and believed so long as it was sufficiently and hysterically anti-Bush, this could be described as exceptionally mendacious. So when the Atlantic invited me to review Edward's revised edition, I decided I'd suspect myself more if I declined than if I agreed, and I wrote what I felt I had to. Not long afterward, an Iraqi comrade sent me without comment an article Edward had contributed to a magazine in London that was published by a princeling of the Saudi royal family. In it, Edward quoted some sentences about the Iraq war that he off-handedly described as 'racist.' The sentences in question had been written by me. I felt myself assailed by a reaction that was at once hot-eyed and frigidly cold. He had cited the words without naming their author, and this I briefly thought could be construed as a friendly hesitance. Or as cowardice... I can never quite act the stern role of Mr. Darcy with any conviction, but privately I sometimes resolve that that's 'it' as it were. I didn't say anything to Edward but then, I never said anything to him again, either. I believe that one or two charges simply must retain their face value and not become debauched or devalued. 'Racist' is one such. It is an accusation that must either be made good upon, or fully retracted. I would not have as a friend somebody whom I suspected of that prejudice, and I decided to presume that Edward was honest and serious enough to feel the same way. I feel misery stealing over me again as I set this down: I wrote the best tribute I could manage when he died not long afterward (and there was no strain in that, as I was relieved to find), but I didn't go to, and wasn't invited to, his funeral.”

United StatesPrejudiceIraqLondonCowardiceImperialismIraq WarJane AustenBaghdadPride And PrejudiceVandalismMendacityGeorge W BushEdward SaidFitzwilliam DarcyThe AtlanticRace CardHouse Of SaudIraqisNational Museum Of IraqOrientalism Book
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“When a gentleman spends quite some time telling me in detail about his father's courtship of his mother, I have to assume there is some moral for me in the tale. Since in this case that courtship consisted primarily of his father insisting repeatedly they were to marry and his mother refusing him almost as often, I take the moral to be that there is very little point in refusing, since it would only lead to the question being repeated until I agreed to it out of sheer exhaustion.”

CourtshipPride And PrejudiceElizabeth BennetFitzwilliam Darcy
Book:The Darcys of Derbyshire: A Pride & Prejudice Variation
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“So, who is it?" Stella is persisting, somewhat suspiciously. "What's his name?" But if I don't tell her the truth, what do I say? My mind draws a blank. I don't want to lie to her- "um..." walking back to the bedroom, I notice the postcard Spike chose for me resting on my top of my dresser. I haven't written that one yet. Absently I pick it up and turn it over. On the back is written "Matthew Macfadyen as Fitzwilliam Darcy." "Fitzwilliam," I blurt. "No, what's his first name?" she asks. "That is his first name.”

Fitzwilliam DarcyPride Prejudice
Book:Me and Mr. Darcy
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“I oughtn’t to have eaten so much,” Richard groaned, laying a hand on his slim midsection. “Not when I am not marching to burn it off.” “You might march, if you wish,” Darcy remarked, from his seat in the corner. “Rise with the rooster and plot a route around the grounds. I shall give Georgiana leave to heckle you, if you are missing regimental life so sorely.” Richard grinned. “Thank you, no. I have been on the receiving end of Georgiana’s heckling before and she is a crueller drill-sergeant than any who wears colours. No, I shall embark on some easier exercise, I think. Perhaps a ride.”

Pride And Prejudice VariationColonel FitzwilliamFitzwilliam DarcyGeorgiana Darcy
Book:Mr Darcy's Summer Surprise
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