Love's Avowal

Sadie Stein takes on the proposal in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a scene she says she can never read without being surprised. Darcy's words, "you must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you," have become mug shorthand for romantic devotion. Stein's argument is that, read whole, with everything that came before, the speech is genuinely insulting: Elizabeth has just endured weeks of bad treatment from his family and friends and has watched, at the Collins house, what marrying for security costs.

Then the letter, the first time we see Darcy in his own words. He comes out more human and more thoughtful than the narrator has let on; his love for his sister is plain, and his refusal to publicly disgrace Wickham shows the strength in his reserve. The detail Stein lingers on is Elizabeth's response. She may despise him for what he did to Jane, but she doesn't question his account, much as she likes Wickham. She trusts him, and that seems important.