First Impressions

Sadie Stein gets to the scene everyone waits for in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: the local dance where Elizabeth Bennet meets Mr. Darcy. She tracks how fast the room turns on him, twice as rich as Bingley and therefore even more attractive at the top of a paragraph, arrogant and not even that good-looking by the end of it. Then the line itself, "tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me," which Elizabeth turns into a joke for her friends.

Stein's point is that Austen leaves no room for a misunderstanding. She's at pains to show the refusal is ungentlemanly, and the block of arrogant dialogue allows for no ambiguity. She then pairs the Bennet sisters' debrief with the one at Netherfield: Darcy is the smart one like Elizabeth, Bingley the kind one like Jane. The thing to notice is how little Austen tells you about faces. Darcy is tall, Elizabeth petite, Jane a local beauty, and the rest you draw yourself. Watch whether your picture changes.