P&P 1-6

"The manner in which they spoke of the Meryton assembly was sufficiently characteristic. Bingley had never met with pleasanter people or prettier girls in his life; every body had been most kind and attentive to him, there had been no formality, no stiffness, he had soon felt acquainted with all the room; and as to Miss Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion, for none received either attention or pleasure. Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty, but she smiled too much(Austen 11)

This passage is interesting as it relays the personalities of two characters who are close to each other, and yet do not seem to have much in common. Mr. Bingley acted cordial and friendly and saw nothing but praiseworthy people. Mr. Darcy, despite being the closest friend to Mr. Bingly, does not share his view. Instead, Darcy keeps a pessimistic attitude throughout the night and is met with no one appealing to his interests. These two characters serve as foils for each other, which makes it all the more interesting that they are such good friends.

"'His pride,' said Miss Lucas, 'does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has the right to be proud.'"(13)

This passage shows the basic opinion of the society in which the novel takes place that pride can be overlooked so long as the one guilty of it has something to be proud of. What is odd about that is that pride cannot exist without something to be proud of. Therefore, I believe what Miss Lucas was trying to say(or avoided saying) was that 'someone can be proud as long as they are wealthy'. Also, it seems that those deemed worthy of pride in this novel are those born into their reason for being proud, rather than those who worked for it.