"Maria, with only Mr. Rushworth to attend to her, [was] doomed to the
repeated details of his day's sport, good or bad, his boast of his dogs, his
jealousy of his neighbours, his doubts of their [hunting] qualifications, and
his zeal after poachers -- subjects which will not find their way to female
feelings without some talent on one side, or some attachment on the other."
"We had a Miss North and a Mr. Gould of our party; the latter walked
home with me after tea. He is a very young man, just entered of Oxford, wears
spectacles, and has heard that Evelina was written by Dr.
Johnson." [This 1778 novel was actually written by Frances Burney.]
"John Thorpe... was a stout young man of middling height, who, with a
plain face and ungraceful form, seemed fearful of being too handsome unless
he wore the dress of a groom, and too much like a gentleman unless he were
easy where he ought to be civil, and impudent where he might be allowed to be
easy."
"Thorpe's ideas then all reverted to the merits of his own equipage, and
she was called on to admire the spirit and freedom with which his horse moved
along, and the ease which his paces, as well as the excellence of the springs,
gave the motion of the carriage. She followed him in all his admiration as
well as she could. To go before or beyond him was impossible ... she could
strike out nothing new in commendation, but she readily echoed whatever he
chose to assert, and it was finally settled between them without any difficulty
that his equipage was altogether the most complete of its kind in England, his
carriage the neatest, his horse the best goer, and himself the best
coachman."
"...All the rest of his conversation, or rather talk, began and ended
with himself and his own concerns. He told her of horses which he had bought
for a trifle and sold for incredible sums; of racing matches, in which his
judgment had infallibly foretold the winner; of shooting parties, in which he
had killed more birds (though without having one good shot) than all his
companions together; and described to her some famous day's sport, with the
fox-hounds, in which his foresight and skill in directing the dogs had
repaired the mistakes of the most experienced huntsman, and in which the
boldness of his riding, though it had never endangered his own life for a
moment, had been constantly leading others into difficulties, which he calmly
concluded, had broken the necks of many."
"Little as Catherine was in the habit of judging for herself, and unfixed
as were her general notions of what men ought to be, she could not entirely
repress a doubt, while she bore with the effusions of his endless conceit, of
his being altogether completely agreeable. It was a bold surmise, for he was
[her friend] Isabella's brother; and she had been assured by [her brother]
James that his manners would recommend him to all her sex; but in spite of
this, the extreme weariness of his company, which crept over her before they
had been out an hour, and which continued unceasingly to increase till they
stopped in Pulteney Street again, induced her, in some small degree, to
resist such high authority, and to distrust his powers of giving universal
pleasure."
"You must give me leave to flatter myself that your refusal of my
addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for believing it are briefly
these: -- It does not appear to me that the establishment I can offer would
be any other than highly desirable; and you should take it into farther
consideration that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means
certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion
[wealth] is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the
effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must therefore
conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall chuse to
attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the
usual practice of elegant females."