Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The best of them all

I think we shall let the story speak for itself.....


She is tolerable, I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.
Pride and Prejudice
Mr. Darcy to Mr. Bingley about Elizabeth Bennet, Chapter 3.


I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.
Pride and Prejudice
Darcy to Miss Bingley, Chapter 6.



She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man.
Pride and Prejudice
Elizabeth about Darcy fixing his eyes on her, Chapter 10.



Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.
Pride and Prejudice
Chapter 10.



More than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought, and, to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first that it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal inquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her.
Pride and Prejudice
Chapter 33.



"In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."
Pride and Prejudice
Chapter 34.



There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original, that she had ever felt in the height of their acquaintance.
Pride and Prejudice
Elizabeth's changing relationship with Darcy on first visit to Pemberley, Chapter 43.



But that was only when I first knew her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.
Pride and Prejudice
Darcy on Elizabeth, Chapter 45.



You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.
Pride and Prejudice
Darcy to Elizabeth, Chapter 58.



They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.
Pride and Prejudice
Elizabeth and Darcy, Chapter 58.



Do they really meet...? Elizabeth and Darcy....? Through it all? In spite of the odds? In spite of themselves and who they are and where they are and what they are? Will they really meet....? Elizabeth and Darcy....? Will they....

Monday, June 28, 2010

The last of Jane Austen

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature." 
 Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
And with this I end my exploration of Jane Austen which is as far as I will go. I fear I will ever get the time or the inclination to actually read any of the books. Though if I must read I will definately read 'Pride and Prejudice' which I think was her best work ever yet. Even the characters she created in it infinitely superior to all the others let alone the story and the plot itself.
Anyways I just finished watching Northanger Abbey in quick succession of Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. Honestly quite disappointing especially after Pride and Prejudice. I still haven't fully gotten over that one.
But one thing I must say, what i liked most of all, was Kathy. So innocent almost childlike. In the movie she looked only ten instead of the eighteen she is supposed to be. 
But I wonder if people like her exist in this world anymore or if they do, exist long enough?! Or are they hurt into silence or driven to despair or worse yet moulded into the world around them. I identified with her trusting again and again, being misunderstood, and being wronged again and again.
As one wise person, who ironically went on to break my heart, once told me, 'never love people Lydia more than they would love you'. And as Conner of the movie 'the ghost of girlfriends past' would say, 'the power in a relationship lies with the one who cares less'. How very true and yet how very sad.

Emma

"I cannot make speeches, Emma . . . If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."
And thus begins Mr. Knightley's proposal to the woman he loved all his life.
Is it true? Is it really true that if a man really loved a woman he would talk or do less about it than if he dint care at all....? And thus we could explain the great lengths to which men go in pursuing their flirtations but hardly lift a finger for the woman they would spend the rest of their life with.
But is this really true or just another way women explain and forgive off their men for the way they treat them and make them feel. And so comes the popular quote... "My dear! He is doing all this because deep inside he really likes you....!"
And so begins another very controversial film 'He's not that into you'.
I really don't know. All I can say is why can't he make both women feel special?! Why should one woman feel wanted and the other not? Why should one woman feel like dirt and the other infinitely loved? No one has the right to do that... to make a woman feel like her affections have been wasted.... to make her feel she was not worth loving.... that she was not worth wanting..... No one has the right to hurt... If he truly loved her he would know that.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

The lost art of romance

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W. 

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never. 

Captain Wentworth to Anne Elliot" 
— Jane Austen (Persuasion)

And such was the beginning of the most awaited marriages of Austen's books.
One of the greatest downsides of technology adding to the rest, is the shallowness if i must say so, or the nonchalancy it renders to all our relationships. Gone are the days when one takes out the time and the effort to sit down to write a letter, contemplate over it and formulate it and the beautiful anticipation of awaiting its reply. Now we can simply just send a text message or post a scrap and expect an instantaneous reply. 
Gone are the days when a man actually spent years observing and then courting a woman only to marry her later. Now we can just date and 'see where it goes'.... Gone are the days when a man would write or say such words to a woman that its readers years later could actually feel and experience his agony and pain to have to live with his unrequitted love."A man does not recover from such devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not." Now most relationships i know start with "...so...wassup?!!" Or a woman for that matter spends a lifetime pining for one man just because he was the only one who made her feel like a woman."All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!" 
Not that i have any ill feelings to the above mentioned occurences, i for one being most frequent with it all. But where if i may ask is the depth... where has our depth gone? Have we now sunk so low as to treat our relationships with the same feelings that we dish out to our 'two minute noodles'?!! Where are the sentiments and the graces gone now... the courting... the romance...? Are they to be banished as the events of a bygone era to be read about only in books or seen only in period dramas? Have we lost them forever as an accepted casualty of mordernization and advancement?
I hope not... oh dear... i do hope not...

hello world

hello there!!!
and such begins my entry into the world of blogging....
brought on by a need for an outlet or nothing better to do or one of my impulses in my current sleep deprived state (it is 12 night btw....)
but whatever it is it'll be mine...
am posting one of my favourite pieces just for good luck!!!
ps-hopefully this improves my typing skills as well ;)