{{prxprp041.jpg}} || PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 41 ||

'Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on

the harp; and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with

her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely

superior to Miss Grantley's.'

'Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write

again? -- At present I have not room to do them justice.'

'Oh! it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But

do you always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?'

'They are generally long; but whether always charming, it is

not for me to determine.'

'It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter,

with ease, cannot write ill.'

'That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline,' cried

her brother -- 'because he does not write with ease. He studies

too much for words of four syllables. -- Do not you, Darcy?'

'My style of writing is very different from yours.'

'Oh!' cried Miss Bingley, 'Charles writes in the most careless

way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest.'

'My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them

-- by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all

to my correspondents.'

'Your humility, Mr. Bingley,' said Elizabeth, 'must disarm

reproof.'

'Nothing is more deceitful,' said Darcy, 'than the appearance

of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and

sometimes an indirect boast.'

'And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of

modesty?'

'The indirect boast; -- for you are really proud of your defects

in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a.

rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not

estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of

doing anything with quickness is always much prized by the

possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of

the performance. When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning,

that if you ever resolved on quitting Netherfield you should be

gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of

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