Pride and Prejudice

It is a truth that nearly everyone accepts: a single man with a large fortune must be looking for a wife.So whenever such a man moves into a neighbourhood, the families nearby soon begin to see him as a husband for one of their daughters.One day Mrs. Bennet came to her husband with exciting news: Netherfield Park, the big house nearby, had been rented at last.

“Don’t you want to know who has taken it?” she asked, because her husband said nothing.“You want to tell me,” he answered calmly, “and I have no objection to hearing it.”That was invitation enough, and Mrs. Bennet happily told him everything.

The new neighbour was a young man named Mr. Bingley, from the north of England, and he was very rich.He had an income of four or five thousand pounds a year, and best of all, he was single.“What a fine thing for our girls!” cried Mrs. Bennet.

“How can that affect them?” asked Mr. Bennet, though he understood her meaning very well.“You know I am thinking of his marrying one of them,” she said, “so you must call on him as soon as he arrives.”In those days, the women of a family could not meet a new gentleman until the father had visited him first.

Mr. Bennet liked to tease his wife, so he pretended he had no wish to go.“Send the girls on their own,” he said, “or go with them yourself — though you are so handsome that Mr. Bingley may like you best of the party.”“You take delight in vexing me,” she replied. “You have no pity for my poor nerves.”

“You mistake me, my dear,” he said gently. “I have great respect for your nerves. They have been my old friends for twenty years.”Mrs. Bennet’s one purpose in life was to see her daughters married; her clever, quiet, joking husband had puzzled her for three-and-twenty years.