{{prxprp061.jpg}} || 61 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ||

Chapter XV

Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of

Nature had been but little assisted by education or society; the

greatest part of his life having been spent under the guidance of

an illiterate and miserly father; and though he belonged to one

of the universities, he had merely kept the necessary terms, without

forming at it any useful acquaintance. The subjection in which

his father had brought him up had given him originally great

humility of manner, but it was now a good deal counteracted

by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in retirement, and the

consequential feelings of early and unexpected prosperity. A

fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de

Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect

which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as

his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of

his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him

altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance

and humility.

Having now a good house and very sufficient income, he

intended to marry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the

Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to chuse

one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable

as they were represented by common report. This was his plan

of amends -- of atonement -- for inheriting their father's estate; and

he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness,

and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part.

His plan did not vary on seeing them. -- Miss Bennet's lovely

face confirmed his views, and established all his strictest notions

of what was due to seniority; and for the first evening she was his

settled choice. The next morning, however, made an alteration;

for in a quarter of an hour's tete^tete with Mrs. Bennet before

breakfast, a conversation beginning with his parsonage^house,

and leading naturally to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress

6i

 [[061]]