See if you can guess which excerpt is from Pride and Prejudice, which from Eclipse, and which from US magazine:

Ever since I said goodbye to Jacob in the forest, I'd been plagued by a persistent, uncomfortable intrusion of a specific mental picture. It popped into my thoughts at regular intervals like some annoying alarm clock set to sound every half hour, filling my head with the image of Jacob's face crumpled in pain. This was the last memory I had of him.

As the disturbing vision struck again, I knew exactly why I was dissatisfied with my liberty. Because it was incomplete.

Sure, I was free to go anywhere I wanted - except La Push; free to do anything I wanted - except see Jacob. I frowned at the table. There had to be some kind of middle ground.

"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy.

"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes which is strong already. But it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."

"The best possible thing you can get out of a relationship is that you're with somebody who encourages you to be...the best version of yourself."

I think the operative words above are be yourself. If you prefer vegetables over chicken, then the person should be able to accept that; if you have a compulsion to clean the sink everyday, that's ok too; and if you like to be choked out and bleepity bleep bleep, then that should be very well indeed. But hey, therapy will "fix" that right? A little mental neutering.

Pride and Prejudice is slightly hard reading. There are quite a few words and complex sentences that make me stumble. Thank goodness someone gave me a dictionary recently. I have the heavy two parts sitting by my chair, reaching for them all too often.

I read one chapter three times to understand the nuances of Darcy and Lizzie's conversation. I knew it would be important at the end. Sometimes it's the pronunciation, sometimes it's the meaning. Here's a small list from just the first 60 or so pages:

mien

effusion

propitious

implacable

iniquitous

obsequiousness

supercilious

One finds a bit of truth about human nature in Austen's work:

"Affectation of candor is common enough; - one meets it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design.....is rare indeed."