{{prxprp319.jpg}} || PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 319 ||

[ shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed

you in any possible way, that would induce you to accept me.'

'Oh! do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will

not do at all. I assure you, that I have long been most heartily

ashamed of it.'

Darcy mentioned his letter. 'Did it,' said he, 'did it soon make

you think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit

to its contents?'

She explained what its effect on her had been, and how

gradually all her former prejudices had been removed.

'I knew,' said he, 'that what I wrote must give you pain, but

it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There

was one part, especially the opening of it, which I should dread

your having the power of reading again. I can remember some

expressions which might justly make you hate me.'

'The later shall certainly be burnt, \{ you believe it essential

to the preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason

to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope,

quite so easily changed as that implies.'

'When I wrote that latter,' replied Darcy, 'I believed myself

perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was

written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit.'

'The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so.

The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The

feelings of the person who wrote and the person who received it,

axe now so widely different from what they were then, that every

unpleasant circumstance attending it, ought to be forgotten. You

must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as

its remembrance gives you pleasure.'

'I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your

retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the content'

ment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much

better, of ignorance. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollect

tions will intrude, which cannot, which ought not to be repelled.

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in

principle. As a child, I was taught what was right, but I was

not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles,

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