Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

thousand pounds was enough to make Mr. Bennet settle his
marriage. He looked forward to raising his family.
What man foresees only daughters? As we meet Mr.
Bennet, we know he wishes with blinding hindsight that he
had either resettled his estate in fee simple (taken off
the entail) in conjunction with his father when he
married, or that he had laid by an annual sum rather than
spend his whole income (249). His deprecation of himself
was not unshared. Even his favorite daughter Elizabeth
had a difficult time forgiving him. She had never been
"so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a
direction of talents; talents which rightly used, might
at least have preserved the respectability of his
daughters" (194) .
Elizabeth cannot excuse what she considers to be an
oversight by her father, but she also cannot understand
the pressures of settlement he was dealing with when he
married, and to which he now so desperately regrets
giving in. Habbakuk sheds light on Mr. Bennet' s guilt,
observing that when "the eldest son in a landed family
entered into a new settlement by which his own interest
was-like that of his father and grandfather before
hiwlimited to that of life tenant," he was allowing the
estate to be "entailed in turn to the eldest son" (2).