How was elizabeth pride in Pride and Prejudice?

We meet Darcy in the third chapter, at the assembly ball, as a wealthy and very handsome man. He very quickly proves himself not interested in the people around him. He does not dance, except with Bingley's sisters, even though there are not enough gentlemen for all the ladies to dance with. He talks to no one, aside from those of his own group. Adding insult to injury, he pronounces Elizabeth, "tolerable; but not not handsome enough to tempt me..." And finally, he says he is "in no humor to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men," an odd statement indicating a young lady like Elizabeth would be given more social importance by dancing with him, but she has been slighted by others because she is sitting this dance out. How proud can a man be?

But Elizabeth does not respond as a rational young lady, which she naturally is, but irrationally, by becoming prejudiced against Darcy. From this point, her view of him is blinded by prejudice, until she gets the letter he sends after she rejects his first offer of marriage.

Jane Austen never tells us, but it is clear that his attraction for her is stimulated by her unwillingness to show any response to his attractions. Her prejudice makes him overcome his pride, but not enough to keep him from botching his first marriage proposal. He has to reflect, in his pain, over what went wrong, and in the course comes to realize her family is probably as respectable as his own. Elizabeth's mother is nowhere near as bad as Lady Catherine. The scandal Lydia brought to the Bennet family would have involved Darcy's family instead, but for the happenstance of Darcy discovering Georgiana's intended elopement with Wickham before it happened. So in the scene of the second, successful, proposal, he can talk positively of the respect he has for her family. And she, having been made to see her own folly in the passing of time, is ready to accept. And thank goodness. They have overcome their problems, and we have a sense that the marriage can be successful.