The Danger of First Impressions
"How despicably I have acted!" she cried. -"I, who have prided myself on my discernment!-I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blamable mistrust!-How humiliating is this discovery!-Yet, how just a humiliation!-Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.-Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself." (Austen 154) This monologue from Jane Austen's Pride ...