Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 4

“What a pity it is, Eli­nor,” said Mar­ianne, “that Ed­ward should have no taste for draw­ing.”

“No taste for draw­ing!” replied Eli­nor, “why should you think so? He does not draw him­self, in­deed, but he has great plea­sure in see­ing the per­for­mances of oth­er peo­ple, and I as­sure you he is by no means de­fi­cient in nat­ural taste, though he has not had op­por­tu­ni­ties of im­prov­ing it. Had he ev­er been in the way of learn­ing, I think he would have drawn very well. He dis­trusts his own judg­ment in such mat­ters so much, that he is al­ways un­will­ing to give his opin­ion on any pic­ture; but he has an in­nate pro­pri­ety and sim­plic­ity of taste, which in gen­er­al di­rect him per­fect­ly right.”

Mar­ianne was afraid of of­fend­ing, and said no more on the sub­ject; but the kind of ap­pro­ba­tion which Eli­nor de­scribed as ex­cit­ed in him by the draw­ings of oth­er peo­ple, was very far from that rap­tur­ous de­light, which, in her opin­ion, could alone be called taste. Yet, though smil­ing with­in her­self at the mis­take, she hon­oured her sis­ter for that blind par­tial­ity to Ed­ward which pro­duced it.

“I hope, Mar­ianne,” con­tin­ued Eli­nor, “you do not con­sid­er him as de­fi­cient in gen­er­al taste. In­deed, I think I may say that you can­not, for your be­haviour to him is per­fect­ly cor­dial, and if THAT were your opin­ion, I am sure you could nev­er be civ­il to him.”

Mar­ianne hard­ly knew what to say. She would not wound the feel­ings of her sis­ter on any ac­count, and yet to say what she did not be­lieve was im­pos­si­ble. At length she replied:

“Do not be of­fend­ed, Eli­nor, if my praise of him is not in ev­ery thing equal to your sense of his mer­its. I have not had so many op­por­tu­ni­ties of es­ti­mat­ing the min­uter propen­si­ties of his mind, his in­cli­na­tions and tastes, as you have; but I have the high­est opin­ion in the world of his good­ness and sense. I think him ev­ery thing that is wor­thy and ami­able.”

“I am sure,” replied Eli­nor, with a smile, “that his dear­est friends could not be dis­sat­is­fied with such com­men­da­tion as that. I do not per­ceive how you could ex­press your­self more warm­ly.”

Mar­ianne was re­joiced to find her sis­ter so eas­ily pleased.

“Of his sense and his good­ness,” con­tin­ued Eli­nor, “no one can, I think, be in doubt, who has seen him of­ten enough to en­gage him in un­re­served con­ver­sa­tion. The ex­cel­lence of his un­der­stand­ing and his prin­ci­ples can be con­cealed on­ly by that shy­ness which too of­ten keeps him silent. You know enough of him to do jus­tice to his sol­id worth. But of his min­uter propen­si­ties, as you call them you have from pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances been kept more ig­no­rant than my­self. He and I have been at times thrown a good deal to­geth­er, while you have been whol­ly en­grossed on the most af­fec­tion­ate prin­ci­ple by my moth­er. I have seen a great deal of him, have stud­ied his sen­ti­ments and heard his opin­ion on sub­jects of lit­er­ature and taste; and, up­on the whole, I ven­ture to pro­nounce that his mind is well-​in­formed, en­joy­ment of books ex­ceed­ing­ly great, his imag­ina­tion live­ly, his ob­ser­va­tion just and cor­rect, and his taste del­icate and pure. His abil­ities in ev­ery re­spect im­prove as much up­on ac­quain­tance as his man­ners and per­son. At first sight, his ad­dress is cer­tain­ly not strik­ing; and his per­son can hard­ly be called hand­some, till the ex­pres­sion of his eyes, which are un­com­mon­ly good, and the gen­er­al sweet­ness of his coun­te­nance, is per­ceived. At present, I know him so well, that I think him re­al­ly hand­some; or at least, al­most so. What say you, Mar­ianne?”

“I shall very soon think him hand­some, Eli­nor, if I do not now. When you tell me to love him as a broth­er, I shall no more see im­per­fec­tion in his face, than I now do in his heart.”

Eli­nor start­ed at this dec­la­ra­tion, and was sor­ry for the warmth she had been be­trayed in­to, in speak­ing of him. She felt that Ed­ward stood very high in her opin­ion. She be­lieved the re­gard to be mu­tu­al; but she re­quired greater cer­tain­ty of it to make Mar­ianne’s con­vic­tion of their at­tach­ment agree­able to her. She knew that what Mar­ianne and her moth­er con­jec­tured one mo­ment, they be­lieved the next–that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to ex­pect. She tried to ex­plain the re­al state of the case to her sis­ter.

“I do not at­tempt to de­ny,” said she, “that I think very high­ly of him–that I great­ly es­teem, that I like him.”

Mar­ianne here burst forth with in­dig­na­tion–

“Es­teem him! Like him! Cold-​heart­ed Eli­nor! Oh! worse than cold-​heart­ed! Ashamed of be­ing oth­er­wise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this mo­ment.”

Eli­nor could not help laugh­ing. “Ex­cuse me,” said she; “and be as­sured that I meant no of­fence to you, by speak­ing, in so qui­et a way, of my own feel­ings. Be­lieve them to be stronger than I have de­clared; be­lieve them, in short, to be such as his mer­it, and the sus­pi­cion–the hope of his af­fec­tion for me may war­rant, with­out im­pru­dence or fol­ly. But far­ther than this you must not be­lieve. I am by no means as­sured of his re­gard for me. There are mo­ments when the ex­tent of it seems doubt­ful; and till his sen­ti­ments are ful­ly known, you can­not won­der at my wish­ing to avoid any en­cour­age­ment of my own par­tial­ity, by be­liev­ing or call­ing it more than it is. In my heart I feel lit­tle–scarce­ly any doubt of his pref­er­ence. But there are oth­er points to be con­sid­ered be­sides his in­cli­na­tion. He is very far from be­ing in­de­pen­dent. What his moth­er re­al­ly is we can­not know; but, from Fan­ny’s oc­ca­sion­al men­tion of her con­duct and opin­ions, we have nev­er been dis­posed to think her ami­able; and I am very much mis­tak­en if Ed­ward is not him­self aware that there would be many dif­fi­cul­ties in his way, if he were to wish to mar­ry a wom­an who had not ei­ther a great for­tune or high rank.”

Mar­ianne was as­ton­ished to find how much the imag­ina­tion of her moth­er and her­self had out­stripped the truth.

“And you re­al­ly are not en­gaged to him!” said she. “Yet it cer­tain­ly soon will hap­pen. But two ad­van­tages will pro­ceed from this de­lay. I shall not lose you so soon, and Ed­ward will have greater op­por­tu­ni­ty of im­prov­ing that nat­ural taste for your favourite pur­suit which must be so in­dis­pens­ably nec­es­sary to your fu­ture fe­lic­ity. Oh! if he should be so far stim­ulat­ed by your ge­nius as to learn to draw him­self, how de­light­ful it would be!”

Eli­nor had giv­en her re­al opin­ion to her sis­ter. She could not con­sid­er her par­tial­ity for Ed­ward in so pros­per­ous a state as Mar­ianne had be­lieved it. There was, at times, a want of spir­its about him which, if it did not de­note in­dif­fer­ence, spoke of some­thing al­most as un­promis­ing. A doubt of her re­gard, sup­pos­ing him to feel it, need not give him more than in­qui­etude. It would not be like­ly to pro­duce that de­jec­tion of mind which fre­quent­ly at­tend­ed him. A more rea­son­able cause might be found in the de­pen­dent sit­ua­tion which for­bade the in­dul­gence of his af­fec­tion. She knew that his moth­er nei­ther be­haved to him so as to make his home com­fort­able at present, nor to give him any as­sur­ance that he might form a home for him­self, with­out strict­ly at­tend­ing to her views for his ag­gran­dize­ment. With such a knowl­edge as this, it was im­pos­si­ble for Eli­nor to feel easy on the sub­ject. She was far from de­pend­ing on that re­sult of his pref­er­ence of her, which her moth­er and sis­ter still con­sid­ered as cer­tain. Nay, the longer they were to­geth­er the more doubt­ful seemed the na­ture of his re­gard; and some­times, for a few painful min­utes, she be­lieved it to be no more than friend­ship.

But, what­ev­er might re­al­ly be its lim­its, it was enough, when per­ceived by his sis­ter, to make her un­easy, and at the same time, (which was still more com­mon,) to make her un­civ­il. She took the first op­por­tu­ni­ty of af­fronting her moth­er-​in-​law on the oc­ca­sion, talk­ing to her so ex­pres­sive­ly of her broth­er’s great ex­pec­ta­tions, of Mrs. Fer­rars’s res­olu­tion that both her sons should mar­ry well, and of the dan­ger at­tend­ing any young wom­an who at­tempt­ed to DRAW HIM IN; that Mrs. Dash­wood could nei­ther pre­tend to be un­con­scious, nor en­deav­or to be calm. She gave her an an­swer which marked her con­tempt, and in­stant­ly left the room, re­solv­ing that, what­ev­er might be the in­con­ve­nience or ex­pense of so sud­den a re­moval, her beloved Eli­nor should not be ex­posed an­oth­er week to such in­sin­ua­tions.

In this state of her spir­its, a let­ter was de­liv­ered to her from the post, which con­tained a pro­pos­al par­tic­ular­ly well timed. It was the of­fer of a small house, on very easy terms, be­long­ing to a re­la­tion of her own, a gen­tle­man of con­se­quence and prop­er­ty in De­von­shire. The let­ter was from this gen­tle­man him­self, and writ­ten in the true spir­it of friend­ly ac­com­mo­da­tion. He un­der­stood that she was in need of a dwelling; and though the house he now of­fered her was mere­ly a cot­tage, he as­sured her that ev­ery­thing should be done to it which she might think nec­es­sary, if the sit­ua­tion pleased her. He earnest­ly pressed her, af­ter giv­ing the par­tic­ulars of the house and gar­den, to come with her daugh­ters to Bar­ton Park, the place of his own res­idence, from whence she might judge, her­self, whether Bar­ton Cot­tage, for the hous­es were in the same parish, could, by any al­ter­ation, be made com­fort­able to her. He seemed re­al­ly anx­ious to ac­com­mo­date them and the whole of his let­ter was writ­ten in so friend­ly a style as could not fail of giv­ing plea­sure to his cousin; more es­pe­cial­ly at a mo­ment when she was suf­fer­ing un­der the cold and un­feel­ing be­haviour of her near­er con­nec­tions. She need­ed no time for de­lib­er­ation or in­quiry. Her res­olu­tion was formed as she read. The sit­ua­tion of Bar­ton, in a coun­ty so far dis­tant from Sus­sex as De­von­shire, which, but a few hours be­fore, would have been a suf­fi­cient ob­jec­tion to out­weigh ev­ery pos­si­ble ad­van­tage be­long­ing to the place, was now its first rec­om­men­da­tion. To quit the neigh­bour­hood of Nor­land was no longer an evil; it was an ob­ject of de­sire; it was a bless­ing, in com­par­ison of the mis­ery of con­tin­uing her daugh­ter-​in-​law’s guest; and to re­move for ev­er from that beloved place would be less painful than to in­hab­it or vis­it it while such a wom­an was its mis­tress. She in­stant­ly wrote Sir John Mid­dle­ton her ac­knowl­edg­ment of his kind­ness, and her ac­cep­tance of his pro­pos­al; and then has­tened to shew both let­ters to her daugh­ters, that she might be se­cure of their ap­pro­ba­tion be­fore her an­swer were sent.

Eli­nor had al­ways thought it would be more pru­dent for them to set­tle at some dis­tance from Nor­land, than im­me­di­ate­ly amongst their present ac­quain­tance. On THAT head, there­fore, it was not for her to op­pose her moth­er’s in­ten­tion of re­mov­ing in­to De­von­shire. The house, too, as de­scribed by Sir John, was on so sim­ple a scale, and the rent so un­com­mon­ly mod­er­ate, as to leave her no right of ob­jec­tion on ei­ther point; and, there­fore, though it was not a plan which brought any charm to her fan­cy, though it was a re­moval from the vicin­ity of Nor­land be­yond her wish­es, she made no at­tempt to dis­suade her moth­er from send­ing a let­ter of ac­qui­es­cence.