I spent the eve of Valentine’s Day watching the BBC Miniseries version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet.  It was love at first read for me and this Jane Austen novel.   It was my perfect love story back in high school, and it’s still my perfect love story to this day.  Mr. Darcy’s declaration of love was probably the most flawed and the most perfect at the same time – and that is why I love it.

Fitzwilliam Darcy was the first and the ultimate leading man in my dream world.  A man so proud yet so kind and generous, and yes, even a little shy.  A man who would quietly do anything for the woman he loves.  A man who hides so much more goodness underneath a stern exterior and, though he struggles, refuses to let his station in life and the conventions of society dictate his heart.

Though many women want “sensitive” men to show more of their “soft”, vulnerable side, I find myself still weak in the knees for men with a touch of Darcy.  I know that he is just a character in a novel, but my dreamer of a heart still believes that a man like him could actually exist in the real world.

A happy Valentine’s to you all, and may we all experience love in any form not only today, but every day of our lives.