``And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.''
``I might as well enquire,'' replied she, ``why, with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man, who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?''
As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion was short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she continued.
``I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted there. You dare not, you cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind.''
She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse. He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity.
``Can you deny that you have done it?'' she repeated.
With assumed tranquillity he then replied, ``I have no wish of denying that I did every thing in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself.''
Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection, but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate, her.
``But it is not merely this affair,'' she continued, ``on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? or under what misrepresentation, can you here impose upon others?''
``You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns,'' said Darcy in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour.
``Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an interest in him?''
``His misfortunes!'' repeated Darcy contemptuously; ``yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.''
``And of your infliction,'' cried Elizabeth with energy. ``You have reduced him to his present state of poverty, comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages, which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life, of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule.''
``And this,'' cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, ``is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps,'' added he, stopping in his walk, and turning towards her, ``these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the 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 flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination -- by reason, by reflection, by every thing. 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?''
This passage comes from the dramatic proposal of Darcy to Elizabeth and its equally dramatic rejection by the latter. It is one of my favourite passages in the book as it is very ironic. In this passage we can see that Austen do not satirize characters such as Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet alone but also her main protagonists Darcy and Elizabeth.
It is ironic that Darcy should be rather agitated at the way Elizabeth rejected him "with so little endeavour at civility" when he himself did not seem civil with the way he confessed his love for her. It shows us that Darcy truly believes that there is nothing uncivil about telling Elizabeth how inferior her family is to his social standing. In fact it shows us that Darcy believes with all his heart that he is being romantic by telling her that despite her social status he is willing to marry her.
It is also ironic that one of Elizabeth's objection with him lies in the fact that he ruined the chances of Bingley and Jane getting together, believing that he is doing his friend a great favour; yet he himself now seeks to have a connection with the Bennet family. Indeed Darcy seem to understand the irony of it when he says that "towards him (Bingley) I have been kinder than towards myself". This sentence shows us the conflicting desires Darcy has and that is the desire to be kind to himself by avoiding a connection with Elizabeth thereby taking good care of his social reputation, and the desire to be married to the woman he has fallen in love with even if that mean he is doing himself much unkindness.
The real irony in this passage is when we, readers, realise that Mr.Darcy, someone that we always take seriously, has some similarity with Mr.Collins, one who is a rather comical character in the book. Indeed the fact that both of them were rejected by Elizabeth is the most apparent similarity, but the more significant one is their shared ignorance of how to woo a lady. Both of them proposed to Elizabeth with the full confidence of being accepted, never fully knowing what kind of lady Elizabeth is: that she is not like any other lady of her time. By placing some similarity in Darcy's proposal to Collin's proposal, Austen satirizes the arrogance and ignorance of someone like Darcy who grew up thinking that he can always have what he wants because of his money and social standing.
There is also much irony placed on Elizabeth's character. It is ironic that she should be deeply insulted with Darcy's criticisms of her family when she herself knows that the criticisms are not based on unfound facts, she having witnessed many of her family's disgraceful conducts during the Netherfield ball. Indeed it can be said that her anger, her retaliation, roots from her own shame of her family; and this retaliation is her attempt at criticizing Mr.Darcy back and pointing that he does not have the right to criticize anyone as he has many follies himself. This attempt shows us that Elizabeth is not able to face criticisms and would readily criticize back the person who attempts to do so. Indeed we are left to wonder whether what Darcy said in the last paragraph is true: that she would have overlooked the two objections she has had Darcy put forth his proposal in a different manner.
This passage says a lot about the pride and prejudice of both Darcy and Elizabeth. The obvious transformation of the scene from the polite exchange in the beginning to the dramatic ending where Darcy "walked with quick steps across the room"; and the obvious change in tone of Darcy from gentle ("I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected") to scandalized ("``And this,'' cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, ``is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me!") shows us how the exchange between them got worse and worst, reminding us of an exchange between children, which lacks maturity and understanding, and all because both of them are full of pride and prejudice.
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