5. Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen
Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennetts were particularly intimate. Mr William Lucas had been formerly in trade in Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the honour of knighthood by an address to the king during his mayorality. The distinction had perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him a disgust to his business, and to his residence in a small market town: and in quitting them both, he had moved with his family to a house about a mile from Meryton, denominated from that period Lucas Lodge, where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and unshackled business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world. For though elated by his rank, it did not render him supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By nature inoffensive, friendly and obliging, his presentation at St James's had made him courteous. Lady Lucas was a very good kind of wo...