10% of British folk think they are moving downstairs after they die and reach the afterlife. So, in tribute to the YouGov survey and accompanying media kerfuffle, I bring you Jane Austen’s Darcy & Elizabeth. No inappropriately indecorous flirting, anachronistic coquettery, and barely concealed gallantry and sexual tension intended.
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Hmph! Now do you believe me, Mr Darcy, I daresay such false humility is scarcely a creditable virtue for such an accomplished gentleman as yourself! 😉
Alas, Elizabeth, I do so very much fear that there is nothing more to be said on the matter. I am, if I may make so bold in such delicate company as this, rather austerely and haughtily Calvinistic in my bearing, and upon my word, it shall bestow upon me none other than the greatest of all the most sublime pleasures of eternity that my dearest mistress Elizabeth shall graciously espy my torments from afar, and glory in the abject humiliation of my woeful burning, for all the wretched ages of eternity to come.
Mr Darcy, now that is surely not pride at all. Indeed, it is but mere vanity! Why, what a charming gentleman you are, when all is said and done! 😉
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Professor Smiggles, of the Social Constructionist String Theory department of Bushmills Metaphysical College, did not let this story go unremarked-upon. The latest commentary from the Meta-Transcendentalist Journal of Crashing Metaphysical Obviousnesses judiciously affirms:
Men who casually flaunt their supposed humility in front of women are only interested in one thing.
One is might perhaps be forgiven for venturing to suspect that it is not money.
Then again, what would I know?
Not a few of the august Professor’s busty undergraduates have responded in a…
Rather peculiar manner.
Anyway, we’ll let him be for now.
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Based on original story at Short Humour.
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Image attribution:
By Unknown – Coloured version of Jane Austen]University of Texas: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/exhibits/portraits/index.php?img=23, Public Domain, Link