Emma, Volume 1

Front Cover
Little, Brown, 1892 - England
As daughter of the richest, most important man in the small provincial village of Highbury, Emma Woodhouse is firmly convinced that it is her right--perhaps even her "duty"--To arrange the lives of others
 

Selected pages

Contents

I
5
II
18
III
25
IV
33
V
46
VI
54
VII
65
VIII
75
XV
163
XVI
176
XVII
184
XVIII
189
XIX
199
XX
210
XXI
219
XXII
234

IX
91
X
110
XI
120
XII
129
XIII
142
XIV
154
XXIII
241
XXIV
252
XXV
262
XXVI
271
XXVII
295
XXVIII
307

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 5 - Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence, and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.
Page 6 - The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself: these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments.
Page 107 - And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a very frightful way.' ' But they like it, papa ; there is nothing they like so much. It is such enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of their taking turns, whichever began would never give way to the other.' ' Well, I cannot understand it.' ' That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
Page 114 - ... marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much to care about. There will be enough of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every fear ; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My nephews and nieces : I shall often have a niece with me.
Page 26 - Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her, into outward respect.
Page 92 - Harriet at present, the only mental provision she was making for the evening of life, was the collecting and transcribing all the riddles of every sort that she could meet with, into a thin quarto of hot-pressed paper, made up by her friend, and ornamented with cyphers and trophies.
Page 113 - ... a very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, -and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross.
Page 113 - If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman's usual occupations of eye, and hand, and mind, will be as open to me then as they are now, or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is...
Page 177 - She had taken up the idea, she supposed, and made everything bend to it. His manners, however, must have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so misled. The picture! How eager he had been about the picture! — and the charade! and an hundred other circumstances ; how clearly they had seemed to point at Harriet! To be sure, the charade, with its "ready wit"— but then, the "soft eyes" — in fact it suited neither; it was a jumble without taste or truth.
Page 176 - The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think and be miserable.— It was a wretched business indeed!— Such an overthrow of every thing she had been wishing for!— Such a development of every thing most unwelcome!— Such a blow for Harriet!— that was the worst of all.

Bibliographic information