CHAPTER XVII.
Mrs. Dashwood was surprised only for a moment at seeing him; for his
coming to Barton was, in her opinion, of all things the most natural. Her joy
and expression of regard long outlived her wonder. He received the kindest
welcome from her; and shyness, coldness, reserve could not stand against
such a reception. They had begun to fail him before he entered the house,
and they were quite overcome by the captivating manners of Mrs.
Dashwood. Indeed a man could not very well be in love with either of her
daughters, without extending the passion to her; and Elinor had the
satisfaction of seeing him soon become more like himself. His affections
seemed to reanimate towards them all, and his interest in their welfare again
became perceptible. He was not in spirits, however; he praised their house,
admired its prospect, was attentive, and kind; but still he was not in spirits.
The whole family perceived it, and Mrs. Dashwood, attributing it to some
want of liberality in his mother, sat down to table indignant against all
selfish parents.
“What are Mrs. Ferrars’s views for you at present, Edward?” said she,
when dinner was over and they had drawn round the fire; “are you still to be
a great orator in spite of yourself?”
“No. I hope my mother is now convinced that I have no more talents than
inclination for a public life!”
“But how is your fame to be established? for famous you must be to
satisfy all your family; and with no inclination for expense, no affection for
strangers, no profession, and no assurance, you may find it a difficult
matter.”
“I shall not attempt it. I have no wish to be distinguished; and have every
reason to hope I never shall. Thank Heaven! I cannot be forced into genius
and eloquence.”
“You have no ambition, I well know. Your wishes are all moderate.”
“As moderate as those of the rest of the world, I believe. I wish as well as
every body else to be perfectly happy; but, like every body else it must be
in my own way. Greatness will not make me so.”
“Strange that it would!” cried Marianne. “What have wealth or grandeur
to do with happiness?”
“Grandeur has but little,” said Elinor, “but wealth has much to do with
it.”
“Elinor, for shame!” said Marianne, “money can only give happiness
where there is nothing else to give it. Beyond a competence, it can afford no
real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned.”
“Perhaps,” said Elinor, smiling, “we may come to the same point. Your
competence and my wealth are very much alike, I dare say; and without
them, as the world goes now, we shall both agree that every kind of external
comfort must be wanting. Your ideas are only more noble than mine. Come,
what is your competence?”
“About eighteen hundred or two thousand a year; not more than that.”
Elinor laughed. “two thousand a year! one is my wealth! I guessed how it
would end.”
“And yet two thousand a-year is a very moderate income,” said
Marianne. “A family cannot well be maintained on a smaller. I am sure I am
not extravagant in my demands. A proper establishment of servants, a
carriage, perhaps two, and hunters, cannot be supported on less.”
Elinor smiled again, to hear her sister describing so accurately their
future expenses at Combe Magna.
“Hunters!” repeated Edward—“but why must you have hunters? Every
body does not hunt.”
Marianne coloured as she replied, “But most people do.”
“I wish,” said Margaret, striking out a novel thought, “that somebody
would give us all a large fortune apiece!”
“Oh that they would!” cried Marianne, her eyes sparkling with
animation, and her cheeks glowing with the delight of such imaginary
happiness.
“We are all unanimous in that wish, I suppose,” said Elinor, “in spite of
the insufficiency of wealth.”
“Oh dear!” cried Margaret, “how happy I should be! I wonder what I
should do with it!”
Marianne looked as if she had no doubt on that point.
“I should be puzzled to spend so large a fortune myself,” said Mrs.
Dashwood, “if my children were all to be rich without my help.”
“You must begin your improvements on this house,” observed Elinor,
“and your difficulties will soon vanish.”
“What magnificent orders would travel from this family to London,” said
Edward, “in such an event! What a happy day for booksellers, music-
sellers, and print-shops! You, Miss Dashwood, would give a general
commission for every new print of merit to be sent you—and as for
Marianne, I know her greatness of soul, there would not be music enough in
London to content her. And books!—Thomson, Cowper, Scott—she would
buy them all over and over again: she would buy up every copy, I believe,
to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every
book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree. Should not you,
Marianne? Forgive me, if I am very saucy. But I was willing to show you
that I had not forgot our old disputes.”
“I love to be reminded of the past, Edward—whether it be melancholy or
gay, I love to recall it—and you will never offend me by talking of former
times. You are very right in supposing how my money would be spent—
some of it, at least—my loose cash would certainly be employed in
improving my collection of music and books.”
“And the bulk of your fortune would be laid out in annuities on the
authors or their heirs.”
“No, Edward, I should have something else to do with it.”
“Perhaps, then, you would bestow it as a reward on that person who
wrote the ablest defence of your favourite maxim, that no one can ever be in
love more than once in their life—your opinion on that point is unchanged,
I presume?”
“Undoubtedly. At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not
likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them.”
“Marianne is as steadfast as ever, you see,” said Elinor, “she is not at all
altered.”
“She is only grown a little more grave than she was.”
“Nay, Edward,” said Marianne, “you need not reproach me. You are not
very gay yourself.”
“Why should you think so!” replied he, with a sigh. “But gaiety never
was a part of my character.”
“Nor do I think it a part of Marianne’s,” said Elinor; “I should hardly call
her a lively girl—she is very earnest, very eager in all she does—sometimes
talks a great deal and always with animation—but she is not often really
merry.”
“I believe you are right,” he replied, “and yet I have always set her down
as a lively girl.”
“I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes,” said Elinor,
“in a total misapprehension of character in some point or other: fancying
people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really
are, and I can hardly tell why or in what the deception originated.
Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very
frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to
deliberate and judge.”
“But I thought it was right, Elinor,” said Marianne, “to be guided wholly
by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were given us
merely to be subservient to those of neighbours. This has always been your
doctrine, I am sure.”
“No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of
the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the
behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess, of
having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with greater
attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their sentiments or to
conform to their judgment in serious matters?”
“You have not been able to bring your sister over to your plan of general
civility,” said Edward to Elinor, “Do you gain no ground?”
“Quite the contrary,” replied Elinor, looking expressively at Marianne.
“My judgment,” he returned, “is all on your side of the question; but I am
afraid my practice is much more on your sister’s. I never wish to offend, but
I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back
by my natural awkwardness. I have frequently thought that I must have
been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I am so little at my
ease among strangers of gentility!”
“Marianne has not shyness to excuse any inattention of hers,” said Elinor.
“She knows her own worth too well for false shame,” replied Edward.
“Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If
I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful,
I should not be shy.”
“But you would still be reserved,” said Marianne, “and that is worse.”
Edward started—“Reserved! Am I reserved, Marianne?”
“Yes, very.”
“I do not understand you,” replied he, colouring. “Reserved!—how, in
what manner? What am I to tell you? What can you suppose?”
Elinor looked surprised at his emotion; but trying to laugh off the subject,
she said to him, “Do not you know my sister well enough to understand
what she means? Do not you know she calls every one reserved who does
not talk as fast, and admire what she admires as rapturously as herself?”
Edward made no answer. His gravity and thoughtfulness returned on him
in their fullest extent—and he sat for some time silent and dull.
