Although Elizabeth develops a strong prejudice against Darcy when she overhears him say she is "tolerable" but not worth the effort to dance with, after he proposes to her and she turns him down, she comes to realize that he might not be as bad as she had been led to believe. Wickham, who charmed her with his good looks and good manners, told Elizabeth that Darcy cheated him, but Darcy then sent Elizabeth a letter offering his side of the story. Upon her return home, Elizabeth defended him to Jane, which meant exposing Wickham:
What a stroke this was for poor Jane, who would willing have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind, as was here collected in one individual.
But when Jane tries to "clear" both Darcy and Wickham, Elizabeth defends Darcy:
There is but such quantity of merit between them to make one good sort of man ... For my part I am inclined to believe it is all Darcy's ....
Later, after the second marriage proposal in which Elizabeth accepts Darcy, her father is astonished, still believing in Elizabeth's assessment of Darcy as a proud, insufferable person. Here she has to persuade father otherwise, for he says:
Lizzy ... are you out of your senses to be accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?
Lizzy regrets her former harsh words but responds
I love him. He has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not know what he really is ...
Not only does Elizabeth have to get over her prejudice, she, like Darcy, must swallow her pride in admitting she had judged wrongly.
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