Page 17 of Hard Home

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The evening below was got through by cards, which Elizabeth declined on coming down, taking a book instead, upon which Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment.

"Do you prefer reading to cards?" said he; "that is rather singular."

"Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great reader and has no pleasure in anything else."

"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth; "I amnota great reader, and I have pleasure in many things."

Miss Bingley, having exhausted the subject of her brother's library and the ball he meant to give, arrived by the usual road at Miss Darcy.

"How much of a woman she is grown! Such a countenance, such manners, and so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite."

"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 skreens 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 skreen. 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 be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she mustpossess 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."

"And she must be able to hold a room," added Mrs. Hurst comfortably. "Not by talking. Any woman may talk. I meanholdit — so that when she goes out of it, it is duller, and nobody can say why."

"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 knowingonlysix accomplished women," said Elizabeth. "I rather wonder now at your knowingany."

"Are you so severe upon your own sex, as to doubt the possibility of all this?"

"Inever saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united." She set the book down in her lap. "But that was not my objection, and I think you know it was not. Let us take Mrs. Hurst's article, since it is the honest one. To hold a room. Tell me, sir — can it be learned?"

Mr. Darcy did not answer at once.

"Because the languages may be learned," said Elizabeth, "by anybody, with a master and enough money and a great deal of dull work. And the drawing, and the pianoforte, after a fashion. My sister Mary has practiced one concerto four hundred times and she plays it better than any woman I have ever heard, and when she has finished, the room is exactly as dull as it was before, and everybody talks through it, and she knows they do. She has known it since she was eleven. And you would none of you call her accomplished."

"Lizzy—" said Bingley, distressed.

"You would not. You would call her diligent." Elizabeth's voice was perfectly pleasant. "So I put it to you plainly, and I do not mean it as an impertinence, though I am aware it will be taken as one. When you say that a woman is accomplished, do you mean that she hasdoneanything at all? Or do you only mean that she was born with a thing that cannot be got, and has since been taught to bring it into a drawing-room and set it down where the light falls on it?"

There was a silence.

"Miss Bennet," said Miss Bingley, with a laugh, "is very fond of making little speeches."

"That is a fair hit," said Elizabeth, "and I withdraw nothing."

"Nor should you," said Mr. Darcy.

Everybody looked at him.

He was standing by the fire, and he seemed for a moment on the point of saying something considerable; and then he said, "It is a just distinction, and it is not usually made, and I have nothing to answer to it tonight," and bowed slightly, and took up a candle, and went to the door.