First off, don’t worry that I’ll try to persuade you here of what I suggested earlier today. The sooner we can both forget my misguided idea, which you obviously found so repulsive, the better for both of us. That said, I’m compelled to clarify a few points regarding Jane and Jasper Wick. I realize that some of what I say might offend you further, and that’s not my intent, but if it’s a by-product of stating the truth, so be it.
I was, of course, aware that Chip had fallen for your sister. In fact, his feelings for her seemed deeper than for any woman I’d observed him with before. However, although Jane is always a polite person, I wasn’t convinced that she reciprocated his interest. The night of Chip’s dinner party, I heard Jane tell you that she didn’t think she should keep the bike Chip had bought her because of her doubts about their relationship. Granted, I already didn’t think your family was the ideal one for Chip to marry into—I know you won’t want to hear this, but, beyond your mother’s pushiness and preoccupation with social climbing, I find Lydia and Kitty’s indifference to basic manners mind-boggling. And remember that I have a sister close in age to them. I didn’t think such shallow, pampered egotists existed except on reality television…which brings me to my next point. Regardless of my reservations about Jane (reservations Caroline shared, by the way), I couldn’t have convinced Chip to leave Cincinnati and join the Eligible reunion. Frankly, I assume he used Jane’s pregnancy as an excuse to do what he already wanted to, which was take a break from medicine.
You know your sister better than I do, and I’m willing to concede that I may have been wrong about her feelings for Chip. But if she is or was smitten with him, I didn’t see the evidence. Nevertheless, I genuinely like Jane, and if I’ve caused her to suffer, I’m sorry.
As for your accusation that I mistreated Jasper Wick, it’s more difficult to refute because I’m not sure precisely what you think I’ve done. However, I’ll tell you the facts, and if you want corroboration, multiple articles ran at the time in the Stanford newspaper.
I knew Jasper only by name for most of our time on campus and didn’t have an opinion about him. When we were seniors, he took a creative writing class (again, this is all part of the public record) and he turned in a story written from the perspective of a guy in Sigma Alpha Epsilon. I’m sorry to say that because of the charges eventually brought against him, and because I was part of the judicial affairs board, I had the unpleasant experience of reading this story, and I’m confident it was the worst possible version (if there’s any version that’s not bad) of frat-boy lit. Jasper’s crimes against the English language weren’t the reason he got into trouble, though. I wasn’t in the class (I suspect you’ll be neither surprised nor impressed when you hear that the only English course I took in college was to fulfill a requirement), but apparently the discussion of the story was very acrimonious, and the instructor, who was a woman named Tricia Randolph, sided with students who said they found the story offensive.
Ms. Randolph, who had come to Stanford for a two-year writing fellowship, lived in a ground-floor studio in an on-campus graduate student complex. That night, she returned to her apartment to find that a window screen had been removed and there were puddles of urine all over the papers on her desk and the keyboard of her laptop computer. People had seen Jasper loitering outside the building, obviously drunk, and during questioning with campus police, he confessed to being the culprit. It was clearly a case of intentional property damage, and there was question as to whether, because Ms. Randolph was black, it was also a hate crime, though that charge was ultimately dismissed. I always had the impression that Jasper saw urinating on Ms. Randolph’s desk as a silly prank and viewed himself as a victim of rising political correctness, but to me his transgression absolutely had a racial component; whether or not he himself was aware of it, I doubt he’d have been so blatantly disrespectful to a white instructor. Again, though, when the judicial panel voted unanimously to expel him, it was for the property damage charge. Presumably, the sting of expulsion was exacerbated by the fact that it happened a couple weeks before our graduation, thus denying him a college degree, but my take is, if you want to graduate from Stanford, don’t piss on people’s desks. Clearly, you and I have different impressions of Jasper, and I hope this will shed light on why I’m not a fan. It would be nice to think a person can evolve, but I’m not sure I believe it. In any case, to reiterate what I told you yesterday: Whatever the parameters of your relationship with Jasper, you’re much too good for him. And please don’t think that in making such a declaration, I’m suggesting myself as the alternative. Your opinion of me is abundantly clear.
I was tempted to tell you all of this today, but due to the unsettling nature of our conversation, I didn’t trust myself to relate the information in a coherent way. While I’m not even sure you’ll read this letter, I find the misapprehensions you’re under troubling enough that I’m nevertheless moved to try setting them straight.
I wish you luck back in New York.
Best,
Fitzwilliam Darcy