Ch. 58 is a very important chapter in which Darcy proposes
to Elizabeth the second time and on this occasion Elizabeth agrees to marry
Darcy:
Elizabeth feeling all the more than common
awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately,
though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so
material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with
gratitude and pleasure his present
assurances.
One of the
reasons why Elizabeth had rejected Darcy the first time he proposed marriage to her was
that she was convinced that Darcy was responsible for preventing Bingley from marrying
her sister Jane:
do you think that any consideration would tempt
me to accept the man, who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness
of a most beloved sister?''
[ch.34].
In Ch.35 Darcy
explains to her that it was not he but Jane who by being inhibited and withdrawn was
responsible for his advising his friend Bingley not to marry
Jane:
Your
sister [Jane] I also watched. -- Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging
as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced from the
evening's scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not
invite them by any participation of
sentiment.
In the same letter
[Ch.35] he accepts the fact that while they were at London during the Christmas season
he had managed to convince Bingley against marrying Jane because of her "indifference"
and that he had hid the fact from him that Jane was also in London and that she had
tried to meet him at his house:
I readily engaged in the office of
pointing out to my friend, the certain evils of such a choice. -- I described, and
enforced them earnestly. -- But, however this remonstrance might have staggered or
delayed his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have prevented the
marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance, which I hesitated not in giving, of
your sister's indifference. He had before believed her to return his
affection with sincere, if not with equal, regard. -- But
Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgment than
on his own. -- To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived
himself, was no very difficult
point.
Darcy
meanwhile to prove that he truly loves Elizabeth makes Wickham marry Lydia and also
convinces Bingley to marry Elizabeth.
In chapter 58, after
Elizabeth has accepted Darcy's marriage proposal she asks Darcy how he had managed to
convince Bingley to change his opinion concerning Jane and making him marry Jane -
because only four months ago he had advised Bingley not to marry
Jane.
To which Darcy replies that, that had never been a
problem because Bingley was completely under his
control:
His
diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case,
but his reliance on mine made every thing
easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which for a time,
and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister
[Jane} had been in town three months last winter, that I had known it, and purposely
kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he
remained in any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now.''
[ch.58]
It is then that this
quotation, which is actually the 'thought' of Elizabeth occurs. Elizabeth is tempted to
make a sarcastic remark concerning Darcy's power and control over his friend Bingley
who rejects Jane because Darcy asked him to and then within a matter of a few months
again accepts her because Darcy asks him to.
But Elizabeth
is a prudent girl and she decides not to make any sarcastic remark just when Darcy is so
happy that she has agreed to marry him. She decides quite rightly that it would be too
premature to find fault with him on this issue.
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