Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 3

Mrs. Dash­wood re­mained at Nor­land sev­er­al months; not from any dis­in­cli­na­tion to move when the sight of ev­ery well known spot ceased to raise the vi­olent emo­tion which it pro­duced for a while; for when her spir­its be­gan to re­vive, and her mind be­came ca­pa­ble of some oth­er ex­er­tion than that of height­en­ing its af­flic­tion by melan­choly re­mem­brances, she was im­pa­tient to be gone, and in­de­fati­ga­ble in her in­quiries for a suit­able dwelling in the neigh­bour­hood of Nor­land; for to re­move far from that beloved spot was im­pos­si­ble. But she could hear of no sit­ua­tion that at once an­swered her no­tions of com­fort and ease, and suit­ed the pru­dence of her el­dest daugh­ter, whose stead­ier judg­ment re­ject­ed sev­er­al hous­es as too large for their in­come, which her moth­er would have ap­proved.

Mrs. Dash­wood had been in­formed by her hus­band of the solemn promise on the part of his son in their favour, which gave com­fort to his last earth­ly re­flec­tions. She doubt­ed the sin­cer­ity of this as­sur­ance no more than he had doubt­ed it him­self, and she thought of it for her daugh­ters’ sake with sat­is­fac­tion, though as for her­self she was per­suad­ed that a much small­er pro­vi­sion than 7000L would sup­port her in af­flu­ence. For their broth­er’s sake, too, for the sake of his own heart, she re­joiced; and she re­proached her­self for be­ing un­just to his mer­it be­fore, in be­liev­ing him in­ca­pable of gen­eros­ity. His at­ten­tive be­haviour to her­self and his sis­ters con­vinced her that their wel­fare was dear to him, and, for a long time, she firm­ly re­lied on the lib­er­al­ity of his in­ten­tions.

The con­tempt which she had, very ear­ly in their ac­quain­tance, felt for her daugh­ter-​in-​law, was very much in­creased by the far­ther knowl­edge of her char­ac­ter, which half a year’s res­idence in her fam­ily af­ford­ed; and per­haps in spite of ev­ery con­sid­er­ation of po­lite­ness or ma­ter­nal af­fec­tion on the side of the for­mer, the two ladies might have found it im­pos­si­ble to have lived to­geth­er so long, had not a par­tic­ular cir­cum­stance oc­curred to give still greater el­igi­bil­ity, ac­cord­ing to the opin­ions of Mrs. Dash­wood, to her daugh­ters’ con­tin­uance at Nor­land.

This cir­cum­stance was a grow­ing at­tach­ment be­tween her el­dest girl and the broth­er of Mrs. John Dash­wood, a gen­tle­man-​like and pleas­ing young man, who was in­tro­duced to their ac­quain­tance soon af­ter his sis­ter’s es­tab­lish­ment at Nor­land, and who had since spent the great­est part of his time there.

Some moth­ers might have en­cour­aged the in­ti­ma­cy from mo­tives of in­ter­est, for Ed­ward Fer­rars was the el­dest son of a man who had died very rich; and some might have re­pressed it from mo­tives of pru­dence, for, ex­cept a tri­fling sum, the whole of his for­tune de­pend­ed on the will of his moth­er. But Mrs. Dash­wood was alike un­in­flu­enced by ei­ther con­sid­er­ation. It was enough for her that he ap­peared to be ami­able, that he loved her daugh­ter, and that Eli­nor re­turned the par­tial­ity. It was con­trary to ev­ery doc­trine of her’s that dif­fer­ence of for­tune should keep any cou­ple asun­der who were at­tract­ed by re­sem­blance of dis­po­si­tion; and that Eli­nor’s mer­it should not be ac­knowl­edged by ev­ery one who knew her, was to her com­pre­hen­sion im­pos­si­ble.

Ed­ward Fer­rars was not rec­om­mend­ed to their good opin­ion by any pe­cu­liar graces of per­son or ad­dress. He was not hand­some, and his man­ners re­quired in­ti­ma­cy to make them pleas­ing. He was too dif­fi­dent to do jus­tice to him­self; but when his nat­ural shy­ness was over­come, his be­haviour gave ev­ery in­di­ca­tion of an open, af­fec­tion­ate heart. His un­der­stand­ing was good, and his ed­uca­tion had giv­en it sol­id im­prove­ment. But he was nei­ther fit­ted by abil­ities nor dis­po­si­tion to an­swer the wish­es of his moth­er and sis­ter, who longed to see him dis­tin­guished–as–they hard­ly knew what. They want­ed him to make a fine fig­ure in the world in some man­ner or oth­er. His moth­er wished to in­ter­est him in po­lit­ical con­cerns, to get him in­to par­lia­ment, or to see him con­nect­ed with some of the great men of the day. Mrs. John Dash­wood wished it like­wise; but in the mean while, till one of these su­pe­ri­or bless­ings could be at­tained, it would have qui­et­ed her am­bi­tion to see him driv­ing a barouche. But Ed­ward had no turn for great men or barouch­es. All his wish­es cen­tered in do­mes­tic com­fort and the qui­et of pri­vate life. For­tu­nate­ly he had a younger broth­er who was more promis­ing.

Ed­ward had been stay­ing sev­er­al weeks in the house be­fore he en­gaged much of Mrs. Dash­wood’s at­ten­tion; for she was, at that time, in such af­flic­tion as ren­dered her care­less of sur­round­ing ob­jects. She saw on­ly that he was qui­et and un­ob­tru­sive, and she liked him for it. He did not dis­turb the wretched­ness of her mind by ill-​timed con­ver­sa­tion. She was first called to ob­serve and ap­prove him far­ther, by a re­flec­tion which Eli­nor chanced one day to make on the dif­fer­ence be­tween him and his sis­ter. It was a con­trast which rec­om­mend­ed him most forcibly to her moth­er.

“It is enough,” said she; “to say that he is un­like Fan­ny is enough. It im­plies ev­ery­thing ami­able. I love him al­ready.”

“I think you will like him,” said Eli­nor, “when you know more of him.”

“Like him!” replied her moth­er with a smile. “I feel no sen­ti­ment of ap­pro­ba­tion in­fe­ri­or to love.”

“You may es­teem him.”

“I have nev­er yet known what it was to sep­arate es­teem and love.”

Mrs. Dash­wood now took pains to get ac­quaint­ed with him. Her man­ners were at­tach­ing, and soon ban­ished his re­serve. She speed­ily com­pre­hend­ed all his mer­its; the per­sua­sion of his re­gard for Eli­nor per­haps as­sist­ed her pen­etra­tion; but she re­al­ly felt as­sured of his worth: and even that quiet­ness of man­ner, which mil­itat­ed against all her es­tab­lished ideas of what a young man’s ad­dress ought to be, was no longer un­in­ter­est­ing when she knew his heart to be warm and his tem­per af­fec­tion­ate.

No soon­er did she per­ceive any symp­tom of love in his be­haviour to Eli­nor, than she con­sid­ered their se­ri­ous at­tach­ment as cer­tain, and looked for­ward to their mar­riage as rapid­ly ap­proach­ing.

“In a few months, my dear Mar­ianne.” said she, “Eli­nor will, in all prob­abil­ity be set­tled for life. We shall miss her; but SHE will be hap­py.”

“Oh! Mam­ma, how shall we do with­out her?”

“My love, it will be scarce­ly a sep­ara­tion. We shall live with­in a few miles of each oth­er, and shall meet ev­ery day of our lives. You will gain a broth­er, a re­al, af­fec­tion­ate broth­er. I have the high­est opin­ion in the world of Ed­ward’s heart. But you look grave, Mar­ianne; do you dis­ap­prove your sis­ter’s choice?”

“Per­haps,” said Mar­ianne, “I may con­sid­er it with some sur­prise. Ed­ward is very ami­able, and I love him ten­der­ly. But yet–he is not the kind of young man–there is some­thing want­ing–his fig­ure is not strik­ing; it has none of that grace which I should ex­pect in the man who could se­ri­ous­ly at­tach my sis­ter. His eyes want all that spir­it, that fire, which at once an­nounce virtue and in­tel­li­gence. And be­sides all this, I am afraid, Mam­ma, he has no re­al taste. Mu­sic seems scarce­ly to at­tract him, and though he ad­mires Eli­nor’s draw­ings very much, it is not the ad­mi­ra­tion of a per­son who can un­der­stand their worth. It is ev­ident, in spite of his fre­quent at­ten­tion to her while she draws, that in fact he knows noth­ing of the mat­ter. He ad­mires as a lover, not as a con­nois­seur. To sat­is­fy me, those char­ac­ters must be unit­ed. I could not be hap­py with a man whose taste did not in ev­ery point co­in­cide with my own. He must en­ter in­to all my feel­ings; the same books, the same mu­sic must charm us both. Oh! ma­ma, how spir­it­less, how tame was Ed­ward’s man­ner in read­ing to us last night! I felt for my sis­ter most severe­ly. Yet she bore it with so much com­po­sure, she seemed scarce­ly to no­tice it. I could hard­ly keep my seat. To hear those beau­ti­ful lines which have fre­quent­ly al­most driv­en me wild, pro­nounced with such im­pen­etra­ble calm­ness, such dread­ful in­dif­fer­ence!”–

“He would cer­tain­ly have done more jus­tice to sim­ple and el­egant prose. I thought so at the time; but you WOULD give him Cow­per.”

“Nay, Mam­ma, if he is not to be an­imat­ed by Cow­per!– but we must al­low for dif­fer­ence of taste. Eli­nor has not my feel­ings, and there­fore she may over­look it, and be hap­py with him. But it would have broke MY heart, had I loved him, to hear him read with so lit­tle sen­si­bil­ity. Ma­ma, the more I know of the world, the more am I con­vinced that I shall nev­er see a man whom I can re­al­ly love. I re­quire so much! He must have all Ed­ward’s virtues, and his per­son and man­ners must or­na­ment his good­ness with ev­ery pos­si­ble charm.”

“Re­mem­ber, my love, that you are not sev­en­teen. It is yet too ear­ly in life to de­spair of such a hap­pi­ness. Why should you be less for­tu­nate than your moth­er? In one cir­cum­stance on­ly, my Mar­ianne, may your des­tiny be dif­fer­ent from her’s!”