Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?

[BeaAndBen]

I’ve been enjoying P&P yet again, and reached the absolute delight of Chapter 56.

Lady Catherine’s visit to Longbourn is something I look forward to each time. She’s so utterly ghastly, and Elizabeth so resolute and devastating in her replies, that I grin through the entire section.

Are there bits of favourite books that particularly stand out to people?

Miss Pettigrew getting her makeover -“England expects….” makes me laugh every time - or maybe Anne Elliot reading Captain Wentworth’s letter?
The concept of Angels as explained to Moist von Lipwig?

Have started to reread after this thread... laughing already! So many quotable bits in the first chapter alone.

'It would be absurd to pretend that either of us can feel for the other any of those passions which are ordinarily to be looked for in betrothed couples but -

Oh yes, it would! agreed Eustacie'

😂

Sarah is game as a pebble

Rule and Horry are ridiculously adorable. So glad he managed to get used to the eyebrows.

Also the fight at the Inn is damn sexy

Strap and jewel work, repeated Miss Thane, committing it to memory...

Oh goodness yes, the fight! And his secretary noticing the handkerchief tied round his arm!

swoon

Rule is absolutely swoonworthy!

I'm so glad everyone loves MMA by Dorothy L S. The poignant difficulties of actually making a living, and the freedom for the clever writers and artists, rings so true. Gaudy Night is also a rich cake of a book that never fails to satisfy. You need it at the end of the long story of Harriet and Peter, and you need it to be drawn out.

Anyone can have the harmony if they will leave us the counterpoint - is still one of the most romantic ideas I can think of for a marriage.

You're surely not going to tell me that eels find you more entertaining than I do?

Oh, every now and then I remember a short story by Dick Francis - the title story of a collection. Can't really quote without a risk of spoiling, but the title says it all "It's all right, m'sieur..."

@Youcalyptus that; and the one in Guards! Guards! when Vimes' musing on Lady Sybil is all tied up with his rant at the beginning of the book

The city was a wossname... thingy... woman, that was it.

and then - the woman was a city.

It's beautiful.

Certainly not Miss Charlotte Winwood. I have it on excellent authority that nothing would induce Miss Charlotte to marry me.

Good God, my Lord!

Thank you Arnold. You comfort me.

(Must George be vulgar?)

(Spoiler alert)
In A Handful of Dust when Brenda Last is informed that "John" has died and her relief that it is her young son John Andrew and not her lover John Beaver.

Nancy Mitford, can't remember if it is Love in a Cold Climate or another in the series, when the younger sisters (Jassy and ??) are hiding in the linen cupboard driving everyone mad by singing out the newspaper headlines 'Man's Lift Agony' - It really made me laugh, it reminded so much of my younger sisters and cousins.

I had the pleasure of meeting the highwayman, of course, but I was not aware that Pomeroy's great-aunt had interested herself in the affair

The Corinthian?

Indeed. A slightly dodgy book in retrospect (mind you, Rule and Horry too) but some fab lines.

Horrible, Ricky, horrible!

Of course, a young gentleman in his tutor's charge would be travelling on the common stage.

You're Ricky's past, that's what you are!

No. 1 is Lamb to the Slaughter - I read it at school!

Loving all the Georgette Heyer quotes. Thank you @merryhouse and everyone else who has posted.

I don't find the age gaps problematic where the heroine has agency, independence of thought and intelligence.

I find the ones where they are manipulated, vulnerable and/or trying to be loved (April Lady?) problematic.

Most of her books are about the relationship of equals, whatever their age/experience

After all, Richard was about to be manipulated into marriage with Melissa Brandon, and giving in to it.

Pen was being pressured into marriage with cousin Geoffrey, and responded by climbing out of the window (because Pug would have barked if she had gone out the door).

In some ways he was much older, but in others she was more independent and self confident

The scene near the beginning if A Tale of Two Cities where the barrel of wine falls from the wagon and breaks over the cobbles. The carnival of everyone running into the street to get what they can, stemming the rivulets between the cobbles with the dust if the street then scooping the red mud into their mouths to enjoy every drop. The children laughing.
I wasn't a Dickens fan, but that scene and all it conveyed about the poverty and the resilience of the people and the joy derived from the chaos is so so good.

The disinterment scene in Tom Sharpe's Wilt while the assessment team from CNAA are looking out from the FE college room where the lunch buffet has been laid out. I can't remember the name if the lecturer with the dry wit who essentially narrates the whole debacle but I have laughed until I cried many times over the years at that chapter.

The chapter in Right Ho, Jeeves when Jeeves describes a drunk Gussie Fink-Nottle at the school prize giving,

Also Ferdy and ‘that Greek fellow’.

Larry’s various visitors in My Family and Other Animals.

The box of Christmas gifts in What Katy Did At School.

This is mine too. Glorious!

I'm not a great re reader excepting reading aloud to my children & each of them has squealed during the Chrestomani series when the ever so special spell turns out to be "Chrestomanci" 😁 we're rereading again & my 10yr is already gleefully anticipating.

I always look forward to Betsey and the donkeys in David Copperfield.