Charles Bingley Quotes

I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he offended two or three young ladies, by not asking them to dance; and I spoke to him twice myself, without receiving an answer. Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 25. Elizabeth speaks about Mr. Bingley’s love for Jane. She believes that it was a very real and deep love, not something fleeting as Elizabeth’s aunt Mrs. Gardiner has suggested. She cites Bingley’s behavior at his own ball in Netherfield, where he was totally engrossed by Jane and ignoring the other young ladies.

This letter gave Elizabeth some pain; but her spirits returned as she considered that Jane would no longer be duped by the sister at least. All expectation from the brother was now absolutely over. She would not even wish for any renewal of his attentions. His character sunk on every review of it; and as a punishment for him, as well as a possible advantage to Jane, she seriously hoped he might really soon marry Mr. Darcy’s sister, as by Wickham’s account, she would make him abundantly regret what he had thrown away.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 26. Jane has written from London to Elizabeth saying that she hasn’t heard from Charles Bingley since he left Netherfield. Elizabeth is pained by her sister’s situation, but her spirits lift when she considers that Jane will no longer be duped by Caroline Bingley. She hopes that Mr. Bingley ends up marrying Georgiana Darcy, a match that Caroline has been trying to bring about.

I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his friend’s inclination, or why, upon his own judgment alone, he was to determine and direct in what manner that friend was to be happy.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 33. Elizabeth speaks out against Mr. Darcy’s unwarranted interference in his friend Charles Bingley’s love life and future with Jane. She tells Colonel Fitzwilliam that Darcy didn’t have the right to alone decide how his friend was to be happy.

He was the cause, his pride and caprice were the cause, of all that Jane had suffered, and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while every hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the world; and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 33. Elizabeth lays the blame for the romantic breakup of Charles Bingley and her sister Jane entirely at the feet of Mr. Darcy and his pride. By intervening to stop their marriage, Darcy ruined the hope of happiness for the most loving and generous heart in the world, she believes. Elizabeth clearly loves Jane very much and is very upset that Darcy would do such a thing.

From that moment I observed my friend’s behavior attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard; and I remained convinced from the evening’s scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by participation of sentiment. If you have not been mistaken here, I must have been in an error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert that the serenity of your sister’s countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched. That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certain; but I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 35. Darcy in his letter to Elizabeth explains his part in the breakup of Jane and his friend Charles Bingley. He states that he believed Jane did not love Bingley – he interpreted Jane’s reserve as indifference as a lack of love. He now admits that his first impressions of Jane were mistaken.

Elizabeth, on her side, had much to do. She wanted to ascertain the feelings of each of her visitors; she wanted to compose her own, and to make herself agreeable to all; and in the latter object, where she feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she endeavoured to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favour. Bingley was ready, Georgiana was eager, and Darcy determined, to be pleased.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 44. Elizabeth is surprised when Mr. Darcy, Georgiana and Charles Bingley show up for a visit at the inn at Lambton where she is staying with her aunt and uncle. Initially nervous at their sudden appearance a day before they were expected, she soon regains her self-confidence as they meet face to face. Anxious to please her company, Elizabeth need not have worried. For Austen describes beautifully how Elizabeth finds them "prepossessed in her favour" with each in turn "ready," "eager" and "determined" to be pleased – three words that sum up the mood of her visitors. Any barriers that may have existed before, including those of class and misunderstanding, appear to have melted away. They meet as equals. Elizabeth goes on to observe that Bingley and Georgiana are not romantically interested in each other, proving Caroline Bingley’s claim a fiction. She also finds that Mr. Darcy continuing to show good manners.

Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no other view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming there with his friend’s permission, or being bold enough to come without it.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 53. After reports that Charles Bingley is returning to Netherfield, Jane claims to be unaffected by the news, but Elizabeth thinks that Bingley still has feelings for Jane. She also wonders if Bingley is coming with the "permission" of his friend Darcy, or is brave enough to come without it.

No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised, if I went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool’s errand again.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 53. Mr. Bennet refuses when Mrs. Bennet instructs him to visit Charles Bingley as soon as he returns to Netherfield. But Mr. Bennet makes clear that he will not visit Bingley because he didn’t marry his daughter Jane. However three days after Bingley’s arrival to Netherfield he comes to the Bennets’ home with Darcy.

Mrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine there that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did not think anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man on whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride of one who had ten thousand a year.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 53. Mrs. Bennet, who is proud of her good table, invites Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy to dinner at Longbourn in a few days time. She wants to impress the man she has designs on her daughter Jane – Bingham – and also his ten thousand a year friend Darcy. That means pulling out all the stops with no less than two courses.

On opening the door, she perceived her sister and Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in earnest conversation; and had this led to no suspicion, the faces of both, as they hastily turned round and moved away from each other, would have told it all. Their situation was awkward enough; but hers she thought was still worse.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. Elizabeth describes walking in on her sister Jane and Charles Bingley at an intimate and awkward moment. While readers are provided with a front row seat to Mr. Collins’s and Mr. Darcy’s proposals, this is all we get of Mr. Bingley’. Elizabeth adds two and two together to intepret what she sees.

Jane could have no reserves from Elizabeth where confidence would give pleasure; and instantly embracing her, acknowledged with the liveliest emotion that she was the happiest creature in the world.
"’Tis too much!" she added, "by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh! why is not everybody as happy?"

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. Jane is overcome with emotion after Charles Bingley proposes marriage to her. She embraces her sister Elizabeth and says that she is the happinest creature in the world.

"And this," said she, "is the end of all his friend’s anxious circumspection! of all his sister’s falsehood and contrivance! – the happiest, wisest, most reasonable end!"

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. Elizabeth is delighted and relieved that after months of "suspense and vexation" Mr. Bingley and Jane have got engaged. For her it is a happy ending to Darcy’s "anxious circumspection" about the match and Caroline Bingley’s "falsehood and contrivance" in her deception towards Jane.

I have not a doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. When Mr. Bennet’s good-natured eldest daughter Jane gets engaged to the very likeable Mr. Bingley, he congratulates her. But he has a funny way of saying it. Here he makes an attempt at misplaced irony, joking about the similarity of their tempers, their servants cheating them, and being so generous they will exceed their income. But Mr. Bennet is never good at expressing his feelings, he is either unable to do so or unwilling.

They shook hands with great cordiality; and then till her sister came down, she had to listen to all he had to say, of his own happiness, and of Jane’s perfections; and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his expectations of felicity, to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. Charles Bingley asks for Elizabeth’s best wishes on his engagement to Jane. Elizabeth is happy for both of them. She believes that Bingley’s hopes of their happiness together is based not just on love, but on reason also. She refers to their compatibility, shared tastes and Jane’s "super-excellent" temperment. Elizabeth has learned the lesson of the dangers of a marriage based solely on passion from the disastrous example of her young sister Lydia’s blind infatuation for Wickham. Elizabeth also doesn’t share Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s view on marriage, that it should be arranged within your class to promote the material prosperity of the families, with no regard to the individuals involved. We gain this insight into the aristocratic lady’s thinking on marriage in the next chapter in the famous battle of wills between her and Elizabeth. For Elizabeth a good marriage is best achieved with a mix of love and reason. This very considered view on love and marriage is what makes Jane Austen so much more than a simple romance novel writer. She satirizes the conventional romantic novel, exposing the risks of "love at first sight" and promoting a love that grows from a knowledge of the other’s character.

This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend; for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. Jane is understanding of Mr. Bingley for initially abandoning her and taking off to London, and she praises his shyness and modesty. Elizabeth is relieved that her sister doesn’t know the role Darcy had in Bingley’s departure, otherwise the usually forgiving Jane would be prejudiced against him.

If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. This is Elizabeth’s response when Jane gets engaged to Bingley and wishes that there could be a man made perfectly for Elizabeth, just like Bingley! Here Elizabeth holds Jane up as a example of moral goodness, as she does throughout the novel, and jokes about finding another Mr. Collins.

She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. After learning that Darcy effectively gave "permission" to Charles Bingley to propose to Jane, Elizabeth longs to tease Darcy about his easily persuadable "friend". But she stops herself because she doesn’t want to hurt her future husband’s feelings. Darcy is not ready to be laughed at yet, she decides. Darcy admits twice interfering in Bingley’s relationship with Jane, once to separate them because he thought she didn’t love Bingley, then to bring them back together. The quick-witted Elizabeth finds irony in the fact that Bingley is such a good friend of Darcy’s and yet a good friend is so easily influenced. However, she decides to keep her ironic wit under control on this occasion. Here is the expanded quote: "Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingly, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the conversation till they reached the house."
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