Emma quotes

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister’s marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period.

and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s judgment, but directed chiefly by her own.

The real evils, indeed, of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments.

The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.

Weston were to marry her,’ and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are you proud of?

You made a lucky guess; and that is all that can be said.

”

“With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time,” said Mr. Knightley, laughing, “and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better thing.

Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish and the chicken, but leave him to choose his own wife.

Depend upon it, a man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself.”

Woodhouse. The compliments of his neighbours were over; he was no longer teased by being wished joy of so sorrowful an event; and the wedding-cake, which had been a great distress to him, was all eat up.

His own stomach could bear nothing rich, and he could never believe other people to be different from himself.

What was unwholesome to him he regarded as unfit for anybody; and he had, therefore, earnestly tried to dissuade them from having any wedding-cake at all, and when that proved vain, as earnestly tried to prevent anybody’s eating it.

With such an opinion, in confirmation of his own, Mr. Woodhouse hoped to influence every visitor of the newly married pair; but still the cake was eaten; and there was no rest for his benevolent nerves till it was all gone.

There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston’s wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr. Woodhouse would never believe it.

She lived with her single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward circumstances, can excite.

Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married.

Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into outward respect.

A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion.

Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody.

Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard’s school, and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history.

Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouse’s feelings were in sad warfare.

He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome made him rather sorry to see anything put on it; and while his hospitality would have welcomed his visitors to everything, his care for their health made him grieve that they would eat.

Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could, with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to say:

It was quite a different sort of thing, a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the object of a regard which had its basis in gratitude and esteem. Harriet would be loved as one to whom she could be useful.

For Mrs. Weston there was nothing to be done; for Harriet everything.

Her first attempts at usefulness were in an endeavour to find out who were the parents, but Harriet could not tell. She was ready to tell everything in her power, but on this subject questions were vain.

“That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having any idea of his name.

A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity.

The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do. A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other.

“

Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old.

I have seen a great many lists of her drawing-up at various times of books that she meant to read regularly through—and very good lists they were—very well chosen, and very neatly arranged—sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule.

“There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as that,”—said Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and for a moment or two he had done. “But I,” he soon added, “who have had no such charm thrown over my senses, must still see, hear, and remember.

Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family.

At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident.

I think her the very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have. She knows nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing everything. She is a flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned.

Her ignorance is hourly flattery.

How can Emma imagine she has anything to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that she cannot gain by the acquaintance.

“I have not a fault to find with her person,” he replied. “I think her all you describe. I love to look at her; and

I will add this praise, that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies another way.

Mrs. Weston, I am not to be talked out of my dislike of Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both harm.”

“And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not doing them any harm. With all dear Emma’s little faults, she is an excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend?

No, no; she has qualities which may be trusted; she will never lead anyone really wrong; she will make no lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred times.

”

“Be satisfied,” said he, “I will not raise any outcry. I will keep my ill-humour to myself. I have a very sincere interest in Emma. Isabella does not seem more my sister; has never excited a greater interest; perhaps hardly so great.

There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one feels for Emma. I wonder what will become of her!

”

But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love with a proper object.

I should like to see Emma in love, and in some doubt of a return; it would do her good.

But there is nobody hereabouts to attach her; and she goes so seldom from home.”

She played and sang;—and drew in almost every style; but steadiness had always been wanting; and in nothing had she approached the degree of excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to have failed of.

She was not much deceived as to her own skill either as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often higher than it deserved.

There was merit in every drawing—in the least finished, perhaps the most; her style was spirited; but had there been much less, or had there been ten times more, the delight and admiration of her two companions would have been the same.

She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and too simple to have acquired anything herself. At her age she can have no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have any that can avail her.

She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and that is all.

My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connection for him. I felt that, as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better;

“Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me think so too.

Better be without sense, than misapply it as you do.

”

You will puff her up with such ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that, in a little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her.

Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.

Nothing so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high. Miss Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though she is a very pretty girl.

but there was more indistinctness in the causes of hers, than in his. She did not always feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that her opinions were right and her adversary’s wrong, as Mr. Knightley.

He walked off in more complete self-approbation than he left for her.

She was not so materially cast down, however, but that a little time and the return of Harriet were very adequate restoratives. Harriet’s staying away so long was beginning to make her uneasy. The possibility of the young man’s coming to Mrs.

“I cannot make a question, or listen to a question about that. It is a certainty. Receive it on my judgment.

It is a sort of prologue to the play, a motto to the chapter; and will be soon followed by matter-of-fact prose.

”

You and Mr. Elton are by situation called together; you belong to one another by every circumstance of your respective homes. Your marrying will be equal to the match at Randalls.

There does seem to be a something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow.

The course of true love never did run smooth—

The course of true love never did run smooth—

A Hartfield edition of Shakespeare would have a long note on that passage.

”

But take it away, and all appropriation ceases, and a very pretty gallant charade remains, fit for any collection. Depend upon it, he would not like to have his charade slighted, much better than his passion.

A poet in love must be encouraged in both capacities, or neither.

Give me the book, I will write it down, and then there can be no possible reflection on you.”

“That is the case with us all, papa.

One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

”

and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want:

I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband’s house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.

”

This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very much to the taste of everybody, though single and though poor.

Poverty certainly has not contracted her mind: I really believe, if she had only a shilling in the world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it; and nobody is afraid of her: that is a great charm.

”

her compliments to all friends go round and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month.

I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires me to death.

”

They might advance rapidly if they would, however; they must advance somehow or other whether they would or no. She hardly wished to have more leisure for them.

There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.

Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, from having been longer than usual absent from Surry, were exciting of course rather more than the usual interest. Till this year, every long vacation since their marriage had been divided between Hartfield and Donwell Abbey;

“

I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years’ experience, and by not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child.

Come, my dear Emma, let us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now.”

“That’s true,” she cried—“very true.

Little Emma, grow up a better woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited.

Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good intentions went, we were both right, and I must say that no effects on my side of the argument have yet proved wrong.

Elton; a most valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine out wherever he is asked.

What a strange thing love is! he can see ready wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her.

”

“I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr. Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned.

With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works.

”

but she had resolution enough to refrain from making any answer at all.

She could not be complying, she dreaded being quarrelsome; her heroism reached only to silence.

She allowed him to talk, and arranged the glasses, and wrapped herself up, without opening her lips.

“Dreadful!—Exactly so, indeed.—She will be missed every moment.”

This was very proper; the sigh which accompanied it was really estimable; but it should have lasted longer.

Emma was rather in dismay when only half a minute afterwards he began to speak of other things, and in a voice of the greatest alacrity and enjoyment.

The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think and be miserable.

—It was a wretched business indeed!—Such an overthrow of everything she had been wishing for!—Such a development of everything most unwelcome!—Such a blow for Harriet!—that was the worst of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or other;

The first error and the worst lay at her door.

It was foolish, it was wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together.

It was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what ought to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more.

… of continuing or discontinuing the acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing resentment, and avoiding éclat, were enough to occupy her in most unmirthful reflections some time longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully.

To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma’s, though under temporary gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of spirits.

The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy, and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of softened pain and brighter hope.

but a sanguine temper, though forever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression.

It soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again.

For half an hour Mr. Weston was surprised and sorry; but then he began to perceive that Frank’s coming two or three months later would be a much better plan; better time of year; better weather;

“

There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chooses, and that is, his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution.

It is Frank Churchill’s duty to pay this attention to his father. He knows it to be so, by his promises and messages; but if he wished to do it, it might be done.

and it would not have signified whether he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to herself?

No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English.

He may be very ‘amiable,’ have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people: nothing really amiable about him.”

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

A week had not passed since Miss Hawkins’s name was first mentioned in Highbury, before she was, by some means or other, discovered to have every recommendation of person and mind; to be handsome, elegant, highly accomplished, and perfectly amiable: and when Mr.

He might be superseded by another; he certainly would indeed; nothing could be clearer; even a Robert Martin would have been sufficient; but nothing else, she feared, would cure her.

Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always in love.

And now, poor girl! she was considerably worse from this reappearance of Mr. Elton. She was always having a glimpse of him somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once;

“It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,” said he. “Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing.

There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.

”

“And no great harm if it does,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “

The sooner every party breaks up, the better.

”

“

I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.

Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.—It depends upon the character of those who handle it. Mr. Knightley, he is not a trifling, silly young man. If he were, he would have done this differently.

“I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.

Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.

—It depends upon the character of those who handle it. Mr. Knightley, he is not a trifling, silly young man. If he were, he would have done this differently. He would either have gloried in the achievement, or been ashamed of it.

“

Don’t class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like hers, than a lamp is like sunshine.

”

“Those who knew anything about it, must have felt the difference.

The truth is, Harriet, that my playing is just good enough to be praised, but Jane Fairfax’s is much beyond it.

”

quite enough still to stand at the door.

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

She looked down the Randalls road. The scene enlarged; two persons appeared; Mrs. Weston and her son-in-law; they were walking into Highbury;—to Hartfield of course. They were stopping, however, in the first place at Mrs. Bates’s; whose house was a little nearer Randalls than Ford’s;

“My dear, you are too particular,” said her husband. “What does all that signify? You will see nothing of it by candlelight. It will be as clean as Randalls by candlelight. We never see anything of it on our club-nights.”

The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, “Men never know when things are dirty or not;” and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, “Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares.”

One perplexity, however, arose, which the gentlemen did not disdain. It regarded a supper-room. At the time of the ballroom’s being built, suppers had not been in question; and a small cardroom adjoining, was the only addition. What was to be done?

Mrs. Weston proposed having no regular supper; merely sandwiches, etc., set out in the little room; but that was scouted as a wretched suggestion.

A private dance, without sitting down to supper, was pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of men and women; and Mrs. Weston must not speak of it again.

She then took another line of expediency, and looking into the doubtful room, observed,

I could not refuse; and I will keep as much awake as I can; but I would rather be at home, looking over William Larkins’s week’s account; much rather, I confess.—Pleasure in seeing dancing!—not I, indeed—I never look at it—I do not know who does.—

Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward. Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very different.

”

“

Of all horrid things, leave-taking is the worst.

”

“Ah! that ball!—why did we wait for anything?—why not seize the pleasure at once?—

How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

—You told us it would be so.—Oh! Miss Woodhouse, why are you always so right?”

“

Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise.

”

“I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice,” said she.—“In not one of all my clever replies, my delicate negatives, is there any allusion to making a sacrifice.

I do suspect that he is not really necessary to my happiness. So much the better.

I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be more.”

I do suspect that he is not really necessary to my happiness. So much the better.

I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be more.

”

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” said she afterwards to herself. “There is nothing to be compared to it.

Warmth and tenderness of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the clearness of head in the world, for attraction, I am sure it will.

It is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally beloved—which gives Isabella all her popularity.—I have it not—but I know how to prize and respect it.—Harriet is my superior in all the charm and all the felicity it gives.

“

Perhaps she might; but it is not every man’s fate to marry the woman who loves him best.

Miss Hawkins perhaps wanted a home, and thought this the best offer she was likely to have.”

“No, my dear, I never encouraged anybody to marry, but I would always wish to pay every proper attention to a lady—and a bride, especially, is never to be neglected. More is avowedly due to her.

A bride, you know, my dear, is always the first in company, let the others be who they may.

”

“Yes, very soon. He gave me a quiet hint; I told him he was mistaken; he asked my pardon and said no more.

Cole does not want to be wiser or wittier than his neighbours.

”

“I have often thought them the worst of the two,” replied he coolly. “

Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.

”

“I am very sorry to hear, Miss Fairfax, of your being out this morning in the rain. Young ladies should take care of themselves.—

Young ladies are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their complexion.

My dear, did you change your stockings?”

… has not time for them, I do not think they would fare much better with Uncle Knightley, who is absent from home about five hours where she is absent one—and who, when he is at home, is either reading to himself or settling his accounts.”

Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton’s beginning to talk to him.

She liked his open manners, but a little less of open-heartedness would have made him a higher character.—

General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.

—She could fancy such a man. The whole party walked about, and looked, and praised again;

The ball proceeded pleasantly. The anxious cares, the incessant attentions of Mrs. Weston, were not thrown away.

Everybody seemed happy; and the praise of being a delightful ball, which is seldom bestowed till after a ball has ceased to be, was repeatedly given in the very beginning of the existence of this.

Of very important, very recordable events, it was not more productive than such meetings usually are.

Harriet looked white and frightened, and he was trying to cheer her.—The iron gates and the front-door were not twenty yards asunder;—they were all three soon in the hall, and Harriet immediately sinking into a chair fainted away.

A young lady who faints, must be recovered; questions must be answered, and surprises be explained.

Such events are very interesting, but the suspense of them cannot last long. A few minutes made Emma acquainted with the whole.

and he had the pleasure of returning for answer, that they were all very indifferent—which, though not exactly true, for she was perfectly well, and Harriet not much otherwise, Emma would not interfere with.

She had an unhappy state of health in general for the child of such a man, for she hardly knew what indisposition was; and if he did not invent illnesses for her, she could make no figure in a message.

The gipsies did not wait for the operations of justice; they took themselves off in a hurry.

“But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not leave her out.”

Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.

It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw everything into sad uncertainty.

“Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have the table spread in the dining-room.

The nature and the simplicity of gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is best observed by meals within doors.

When you are tired of eating strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house.”

“These are difficulties which you must settle for yourself.

Choose your own degree of crossness. I shall press you no more.

”

“Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted together excessively.” They were laying themselves open to that very phrase—and to having it sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to Ireland by another.

Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any real felicity; it was rather because she felt less happy than she had expected.

She laughed because she was disappointed; and though she liked him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship, admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning back her heart. She still intended him for her friend.

“This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston has done very well for himself; but he must have knocked up everybody else.

Perfection should not have come quite so soon.

”

but quite out of place, in my opinion, when one is exploring about the country in summer. Miss Woodhouse must excuse me. I am not one of those who have witty things at everybody’s service. I do not pretend to be a wit.

I have a great deal of vivacity in my own way, but I really must be allowed to judge when to speak and when to hold my tongue.

Pass us, if you please, Mr. Churchill. Pass Mr. E., Knightley, Jane, and myself. We have nothing clever to say—not one of us.”

but in her view it was a morning more completely misspent, more totally bare of rational satisfaction at the time, and more to be abhorred in recollection, than any she had ever passed.

A whole evening of backgammon with her father, was felicity to it.

There, indeed, lay real pleasure, for there she was giving up the sweetest hours of the twenty-four to his comfort;

Such kind friends, you know, Miss Woodhouse, one must always find agreeable, though everybody seemed rather fagged after the morning’s party.

Even pleasure, you know, is fatiguing⁠—and I cannot say that any of them seemed very much to have enjoyed it.

However, I shall always think it a very pleasant party, and feel extremely obliged to the kind friends who included me in it.”

It was felt as such things must be felt. Everybody had a degree of gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where she would be buried.

Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.

Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill.

Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.

Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowances.

In one point she was fully justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of imaginary complaints.

While poor Mrs. Churchill lived, I suppose there could not have been a hope, a chance, a possibility;—but scarcely are her remains at rest in the family vault, than her husband is persuaded to act exactly opposite to what she would have required.

What a blessing it is, when undue influence does not survive the grave!

—He gave his consent with very little persuasion.”

and without being long in reaching it.—She was most sorrowfully indignant; ashamed of every sensation but the one revealed to her—her affection for Mr. Knightley.—Every other part of her mind was disgusting.

With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody’s feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody’s destiny.

She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and she had not quite done nothing—for she had done mischief. She had brought evil on Harriet, on herself, and she too much feared, on Mr.

‘The consequence,’ said she, ‘has been a state of perpetual suffering to me; and so it ought. But after all the punishment that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct.

Pain is no expiation. I never can be blameless.

I have been acting contrary to all my sense of right; and the fortunate turn that everything has taken, and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me ought not to be.’

but Mr. Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it, and seek no farther explanation.

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken; but where, as in this case, though the conduct is mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material.

—Mr. Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his.

Natural enough!—his own mind full of intrigue, that he should suspect it in others.—

Mystery; Finesse⁠—how they pervert the understanding!

My Emma, does not everything serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each other?”