Percents and sensibility

摘要

"Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! 'Tis as good as a lord." Mrs Bennet's reaction to her daughter Elizabeth's engagement to Mr Darcy is telling. "Pride and Prejudice", like all of Jane Austen's books, is about sex and money. But Miss Austen's emphasis on each is different from that of today's chick-litterateurs. Her characters never touch, let alone kiss. And their wealth and income are at least as important in the calculus of courtship as personal tastes and sex appeal.