The eldest of the Bennet sisters, Jane is widely regarded as the sweetest and prettiest. Mrs. Bennet speaks of her daughter having “the sweetest temper I have ever met with.” At the Meryton ball Mr. Bingley describes her at “the most beautiful creature I ever beheld.”
Jane is more reserved and less critical of other people and the way they act than her sister Elizabeth. The gentle and kind-hearted Jane looks for the best in others.
Elizabeth tells Jane: “To take the good of everybody’s character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad – belongs to you alone.”
But Jane’s blindness to other people’s faults comes back to hurt her, as in the case of her false friend Caroline Bingley. Jane fails to see through the manipulative Caroline’s efforts to split her brother Charles from Jane.
Jane has a very close and loving relationship with Elizabeth and they support and confide in each other.
Five important quotes with analysis that give an insight into the kind-hearted Jane with her incorruptible good nature:
“He is just what a young man ought to be,” said she, “sensible, good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! – so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!”
“He is also handsome,” replied Elizabeth, “which a young man ought likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.”
“Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in your life.”
“I would not wish to be hasty in censuring anyone; but I always speak what I think.”
“I know you do; and it is that which makes the wonder. With your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others! Affectation of candour is common enough – one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design – to take the good of everybody’s character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad – belongs to you alone. And so you like this man’s sisters, too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his.”
“They have both,” said she, “been deceived, I dare say, in some way or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, without actual blame on either side.”
“He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance, but that is all. I have nothing either to hope or fear, and nothing to reproach him with.”
“Do anything rather than marry without affection.”