Lydia Bennet Quotes

Yes, yes they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there are two things that I want every much to know – one is, how much money your uncle has laid down, to bring it about; and the other is, how I am ever to pay him.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 49. Mr. Bennet responds to Mr. Gardiner’s letter stating that Wickham and Lydia have been persuaded to marry if Wickham has his debts paid and receives a small yearly stipend. Mr. Bennet suspects that Mr. Gardiner has already paid Wickham a great deal of his own money and he dislikes the idea of being indebted to his brother-in-law. Wickham is being paid to wed Lydia.

To know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 49. Mrs. Bennet can hardly contain herself on hearing that Wickham is essentially being bribed to marry Lydia – "her joy burst forth," we learn. She is totally unconcerned about her youngest daughter’s happiness, nor is she bothered by any memories of her scandalous misbehavior. Mrs. Bennet’s only focus is on marrying off her daughters.

Well! I am so happy! In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! – how well it sounds! And she was only sixteen last June.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 49. After her previous regrets and lamentations about Lydia’s elopement and hurling invectives against the "villainous" Wickham, Mrs. Bennet is now in raptures over her daughter marrying him. Mrs. Bennet flip flops a lot between ecstacy over her schemes to get husbands for her daughters and lamentations about her personal suffering when these don’t work. After receiving her brother Mr. Gardiner’s letter that Lydia is to be wed to Wickham and her reputation saved, Mrs. Bennet suddenly reverses her opinion on the character of the fortune-hunting Wickham. Now he is fit to be her son-in-law. Here again the shallow, foolish, tiresome and vacuous Mrs. Bennet makes us laugh – but at her! The passage is another example of Austen’s fine use of ironic humor. Mr. Gardiner’s letter explains that Wickham will wed Lydia if Mr. Bennet pays Wickham a small sum of money annually to Wickham – the Bennets suspect that Mr. Gardiner has also already paid Wickham a good deal. The fuller quote of Mrs. Bennet’s reaction to this news from her brother: "It is all very right; who should do it but her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children must have had all his money, you know; and it is the first time we have ever had anything from him, except a few presents. Well! I am so happy! In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well it sounds!"

The marriage of a daughter, which had been the first object of her wishes since Jane was sixteen, was now on the point of accomplishment, and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those attendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and servants.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 50. Instead of concerning herself with her youngest daughter Lydia’s moral behavior, Mrs. Bennet worries about carriages and servants and expensive wedding outfits – without regard to whether Lydia and Wickham can afford all this.

Had Lydia’s marriage been concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a family where, to every other objection would now be added, an alliance and relationship of the nearest kind with the man whom he so justly scorned.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 50. Elizabeth is concerned that Lydia’s marriage to Wickham will push Darcy further away from her. She cannot see him wanting to connect with a family that has made an alliance with the man he rightly scorned. To Elizabeth, she and Darcy appear even more separated now by Lydia’s marriage.

From such a connection she could not wonder that he would shrink. The wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a blow as this. She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 50. After Elizabeth learns that Lydia will marry Wickham, she takes the opportunity to think more deeply about her feelings for Darcy. While her rival for Darcy’s affections Caroline Bingley is jealous of her, Elizabeth is only jealous of winning Darcy’s admiration. She longs for him and wants to hear of him. But she is fearful that his feelings for her in Derbyshire will not survive the scandal with Lydia. Now that Wickham has married into the Bennet family, she expects that Darcy will keep his distance from her. Is Elizabeth at last realizing that she is hopelessly in love with Darcy?

How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 50. The narrator warns of the dangers involved in allowing passions overrule virtue. This refers to Lydia’s whirlwind affair with George Wickham when the boy-crazy fifteen-year-old elopes with the military officer to go to Gretna Green. This is a place in Scotland where fast weddings were performed for eloping couples. But it turns out that the pair don’t go there and instead went to a love nest in London.

Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet was shocked. Lydia was Lydia still – untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless. She turned from sister to sister, demanding their congratulations; and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly round the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and observed, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been there.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 51. Arriving back to Longbourn after her marriage to Wickham, Lydia still has the capacity to shock Elizabeth and Jane with her behavior. They view her as wild and untamed and completely unabashed by what she had done – run off with Wickham, unmarried.

Oh! Mamma, do the people hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not; and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the side glass next to him, and took off my glove and let my hand just rest upon the window-frame, so that he might see the ring; and then I bowed and smiled like anything.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 51. On her wedding day when Lydia returns home to Longbourn, she remains oblivious to the family consternation and embarrassment she has caused. Amid the distress of a number of family members, Lydia chooses to ignore this and prattles on about being married to Wickham that day and how anxious she is to make everybody in the locality aware of the news.

What do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 51. After a forced marriage to Wickham and putting her family through a form of hell, an unrepentant Lydia returns to Longbourn. She sees no fault in her behavior and jokes about her luck in finding a husband in Brighton. With great irony she hopes her sisters get half as lucky in finding a good husband in Brighton. Lydia is unaware that Wickham had to be paid to marry her.

"And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters behind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the winter is over."
"I thank you for my share of the favour," said Elizabeth; "but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 51. When newly married Lydia makes a flippant remark about getting husbands for her sisters, Elizabeth puts her in her place. Lydia boasts about how she successfully found a husband, while her sisters are still single, but little does she realize how difficult it was to get Wickham to marry her. The irony is that Wickham had to be bribed to wed her.

Wickham’s affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it – not equal to Lydia’s for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 51. Here Elizabeth is thinking about the elopment of Wickham and Lydia. She figures out that Wickham did not elope and marry Lydia out of true love but because of "distress of circumstances" (he owed a lot of money locally) and "an opportunity of having a companion" (he is a serial sexual predator). The elopement was also driven by Lydia’s strong infatuation for Wickham.

Oh, yes! He was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 51. Giddy over her marriage to Wickham, Lydia recounts to her family all the details of her wedding, including the revelation that there was one unexpected guest there – Mr. Darcy! She had blurted it out before she realized it was meant to be a secret.

She cared for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear of leaving Wickham; she was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never been his design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment on account of some debts of honour which were very pressing; and scrupled not to lay all the ill consequences of Lydia’s flight on her own folly alone.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 52. Mrs. Gardiner’s letter to Elizabeth tells how Darcy tracked down Lydia and Wickham in London and tried to persuade her to "quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends." But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. So Darcy determined to negotiate a marriage between the two, discovering that this had never been Wickham’s plan and he had left Brighton because of gambling debts there.

The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run way, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. After Jane’s engagement to Bingley is announced, the Bennets are seen as the luckiest family in the world. But after the good news, bad news is about to comes knocking at their front door once more – in the shape of Lady Catherine de Bourgh gunning for Elizabeth.

You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57. Mr. Collins advises Mr. Bennet in his letter that Lydia and Wickham should be shunned, after they ran away together and were finally forced to marry. He notes that they were received at Longbourn following the marriage and hopes that the family will never receive them again. For a clergyman Mr. Collins has an unusual interpretation of Christian forgiveness. Of course he is being ironic without realizing it – his idea of forgiveness is not forgiveness at all. It is also a good example of Mr. Collins being used by Austen as a satirical figure.

She went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed, and, while her courage was high, she immediately said:
"Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and, for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. During a walk in the country Elizabeth finds herself alone with Mr. Darcy. She gathers up her courage to thank him for helping her sister Lydia during their family crisis.

"If you will thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. When Elizabeth thanks Mr. Darcy for helping her sister Lydia after she ran away with Wickham, Darcy declares his affection for Elizabeth. He did it all for her, he reveals.

I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so rich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us. I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help. Any place would do, of about three or four hundred a year; but however, do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 61. In the novel’s last chapter, the author gives me a glimpse of what the future might be for all the characters. Here in Lydia’s congratulatory letter to Elizabeth on her marriage, we have Austen’s final word on Lydia and Wickham. It comes as no surprise that Lydia is asking for money, and for Darcy to help Wickham get a place and an income at court. Lydia’s request is almost certainly manipulated by the mercenary and fortune-seeking Wickham, who has a track record of using women to get money and is targeting his now wealthy sister-in-law and her husband Darcy.

They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference: her’s lasted a little longer; and in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 61. After the marriages of Elizabeth and Darcy and Jane and Bingley, we learn that their lives progress happily, but this is not the case with Lydia and Wickham. They lead unsettled lives, moving from place to place. With Lydia married to a waster, they continue to squander money and live beyond their means. Like the money, their affection towards each other also soon disappears.
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