Work Text:
10 April 1812
Rosings Park, Kent
—At an hour when rational men are asleep
and fools are writing letters they ought to destroy
I have resolved, for the preservation of what remains of my dignity, to abstain from any further contemplation of that wretched draft, which now lies, most inconveniently, within my immediate view as I commit these thoughts to paper. It is fully composed; it shall be fairly copied when I rise, provided I am granted even a moment’s sleep on this accursed night; and it shall be delivered to her in the grove where she takes her morning walks, which I had, in my folly, once fancied to be a pleasure privately shared between us. And, upon my honour, that shall be the end of it! I shall not torment myself by repeatedly dissecting what ought, for my peace, to be forgotten with haste.
Yet, determined as I am, and despite every endeavour to obtain the rest so justly due after the ordeal I endured scarce five hours past, I find myself wholly unequal to the task of mastering my composure. I am plagued, both in mind and in heart, by a question which affords me no relief.
What, in Heaven's name, did she mean by pronouncing me the last man in the world whom she could ever be prevailed upon to marry? To her, I am not only disagreeable—no; I am, it seems, the man least deserving of her approbation.
It is nearly comical, the extent of her extravagance—for extravagance it must be! And yet I feel a most perverse compulsion—whether born of wounded pride at so severe a charge, or of a desire to prove her in error, I cannot say—to indulge in the hyperbole she so liberally employed.
Reflecting on the declaration, I cannot but envision the entire male population of the British Empire—nay, the world!—set in a line, ranked according to her preference. At its head—men of sense, of easy dispositions, of handsome countenances, of respectable connections, and of large fortunes; indeed, I would not contest my exclusion, for I make no claim to all these advantages, nor would I object to their rightful precedence, had Wickham not somehow slithered into that company. But I must not dwell on such trifling details; proceeding downward—men of narrow judgement, of merely civil manners, of unremarkable appearance, and of small consequence; further still—fools, sycophants, coxcombs and upstarts; lower—every species of public nuisance; and then—all sorts of proper villains. Finally, at the hindmost point, placed there with deliberate care—myself; beneath the very dregs of society and, of course, beneath that practiced deceiver who preys upon the innocent—her favourite, Wickham, who ought to, in fact, occupy the same station as Satan himself. That he should stand before me in her estimation! It is an inversion so complete that it would be laughable, were it not so perfectly injurious.
Her own little version of the Inferno¹ is, without a doubt, a rather bold arrangement, yet I cannot but admire the impertinence required to assert it—it is, I confess, what first intrigued me about her. That she is uncommonly handsome, no man, in good conscience and in possession of all his faculties, could ever deny; yet what truly distinguishes her is the way she seizes an opinion and carries it beyond all expectation—her quick wit and cutting tongue, her teasing air and arch smile; each a vivid token of her lively spirit… and what if, for the sake of argument, I were to follow her example and pursue this particular notion to its logical extremity? Surely I could succeed in contradicting it... though I suspect the victory would hardly bring me any satisfaction. Nevertheless, her exaggeration must be opposed—it cannot be permitted to exist unchallenged.
Let us suppose that some calamity were to remove every man before me in the formidable column. Perhaps, a pestilence might sweep across the globe; or a great war might take such casualties as to desolate the face of the earth; or a far-reaching catastrophe, akin to the deluge described in the Book of Genesis,² might annihilate all but the peaks of Derbyshire and Pemberley; in short, anything that would, unfortunately for her, make me the sole survivor of my sex. Would she then, with the same strength of conviction, persist in her avowals? Would she gaze upon the barren wasteland before her and, in a display of sheer obstinacy, condemn mankind to total extinction? Certainly, even she must falter in such a predicament. She would be obliged to consider me, and then her prejudice would reluctantly—but steadily!—begin to collapse… Or would she succumb to a more unorthodox solution—that is, pray that some strange race from a distant quarter of the heavens might descend and rescue her from the misery of my abhorrent presence?
But the experiment need not depend upon an apocalypse; it may be framed in terms more sober and grounded in reality. Let us, therefore, picture both of us aboard a vessel bound for the Continent—she attending her uncle and aunt from London on matters of trade, and I travelling for the improvement of my understanding—and ultimately doomed to founder, stranding the two of us on a deserted island with no prospect of ever returning to civilization. Obviously, at the outset, she would reject any partnership—I can easily see her stubbornness sustaining her through a fortnight of harsh weather and a fare composed mainly of bitter roots, but soon her condition would become dire. Here my involvement commences—in the interim, I would have constructed a rude but serviceable hut and grown proficient in the use of the spear for sustenance; moved by Christian charity, I would offer my assistance. Would she spurn it and insist upon perishing instead? Would she cling to the hope, however impossible, of being restored to England until her inevitable demise? Irrefutably, even she must waver in so dreadful a situation. She would be forced to cooperate with me, and her former disdain would grudgingly—but firmly!—start to crumble… Or would I note her usually vivacious self gradually declining under hardship, and then—detesting my weakness—yield my shelter to her, lie out in the rain, and contract an inflammation of the lungs only to receive a single look of concern from her?
But all these circumstances are too exceptional, and any softening of sentiment would be imposed by necessity rather than sincere affection—it would, I believe, be wiser to examine the limits of her grand claim through the prism of the impulses that govern every human creature.
So, let us conceive that next winter in town, I should choose to bestow my attentions upon a lady of discernment, of amiable temper, of striking beauty, of eminent alliances, and of ample portion—someone beyond the reproach of even the most fastidious critics. I would accompany her to various events and one day, in a crowded drawing-room of a mutual acquaintance, Elizabeth would arrive—already repentant of her cruelty after having read my correspondence. She would be arrested at the sight of me engaged in conversation with the aforementioned paragon of elegance. Beholding a woman who would appear genuinely captivated by every syllable I utter, she would recall her unparalleled insolence… and experience the sudden, sharp sting of well-merited mortification. She would venture near to greet me in an attempt to apologize—but her voice would be stripped of its playful defiance, and her eyes would flash not with amusement, but with regret. Indeed, this would be a most gratifying retribution… but I am afraid that it is even more fantastical than the previous cases, in which she was pressured by fate and supernatural phenomena to reconsider her answer; for the humiliating truth is that I am a contemptible hypocrite. Were she to glance at me with even a fraction of that imagined tenderness, the invented rival and any lingering resentment would be instantly forgotten, and I would throw myself, once again, at her mercy.
This is degrading; absurd even! And this journal shall be burnt on the morrow, for it contains too many shattered dreams—wishes the last man in the world has no license to harbour. Time, I have heard, provides a cure for such disappointments; at present, however, I cannot comprehend how the only woman in my world is ever to be banished from it.