Nicolson further argued that a character like Mr. Darcy reflects changes in British life as the Romantic age was a time when "What mattered was authentic, self-generated worth". In this regard, the novel says "Of this she was perfectly unaware; to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with". Darcy is attracted to Elizabeth early on, but he sees her as unfit socially as a wife; however his feelings for her are such that he decides to forgo convention to marry the woman he loves, fitting him into the mould of a Romantic hero. After Darcy gets over his prejudices against marrying the middle-class Elizabeth, the scholar Bernard Paris wrote that Darcy "becomes the most romantic figure in the book" while at the same time upholding traditional British values as "he uses his great power in the service of both order and desire". Darcy is equally opposed to the "anarchistic tendencies" of Wickham and the "tyranny" of Lady Catherine on the other. The scholar Alison Sulloway noted that Darcy has little patience for polite society with its false courtesies and superficial talk, and much prefers to be running Pemberley or to be outdoors. Darcy's heroic stance is shown by the way he pursues Elizabeth despite her repeated rejections of his offers of marriage, showing the depth of his feelings that he often has trouble expressing properly. Even though Darcy is sometimes clumsy at expressing his love for Elizabeth, his tendency to speak only what he really feels stands in marked contrast to the polished words of Wickham who never means what he says. The scholar Josephine Ross wrote that the picture today of Darcy as asexual says more about the standards of our time rather than of the Romantic era, noting when Elizabeth tells him that Wickham has seduced her sister Lydia, he can only "observe her in compassionate silence" despite clearly wanting to touch Elizabeth he does not as that would not be proper for a gentleman. Ross wrote: "Had he taken her in his arms and covered her with kisses, the atmosphere of that critical scene could not have been more thrillingly charged".