Solved cryptogram
You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, chapter 56.
The passage it comes from
The quotation is marked in the paragraph it sits in, with the prose either side of it for company.
"The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles we planned the union; and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished, is their marriage to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family? Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends - to his tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say, that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?"
"Yes; and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?"
"Because honour, decorum, prudence - nay, interest - forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us."
Text from the Project Gutenberg edition, which is in the public domain in the United States.
Solve it yourself
This quotation is a cryptogram here: 76 letters over 18 different ones, graded easy.
- Written byJane Austen
- Taken fromPride and Prejudice
- Difficultyeasy
- Length76 letters, 18 of them different
Nearby in the book
The puzzles either side of this one in the novel.
- Chapter 55easy, 62 letters
- Chapter 56easy, 93 letters
- Chapter 56hard, 62 letters
- Chapter 56easy, 64 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- Chapter 24easy, 73 letters
- Chapter 46easy, 83 letters
- Chapter 39easy, 77 letters
- Chapter 58easy, 80 letters
Every Pride and Prejudice cryptogram · About the collection · More by Jane Austen