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.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Elinor saw, with great uneasiness the low spirits of her friend.His visit afforded her but a very partial satisfaction,while his own enjoyment in it appeared so imperfect.It was evident that he was unhappy;she wished it were equally evident that he still distinguished her by the same affection which once she had felt no doubt of inspiring; but hitherto the continuance of his preference seemed very uncertain; and the reservedness of his manner towards her contradicted one moment what a more animated look had intimated the preceding one.
He joined her and Marianne in the breakfast-room the next morning before the others were down; and Marianne, who was always eager to promote their happiness as far as she could, soon left them to themselves. But before she was half way upstairs she heard the parlour door open, and, turning round, was astonished to see Edward himself come out.
“I am going into the village to see my horses,” said he,“as you are not yet ready for breakfast;I shall be back again presently.”
Edward returned to them with fresh admiration of the surrounding country;in his walk to the village,he had seen many parts of the valley to advantage;and the village itself,in a much higher situation than the cottage,afforded a general view of the whole,which had exceedingly pleased him.This was a subject which ensured Marianne’s attention,and she was beginning to describe her own admiration of these scenes,and to question him more minutely on the objects that had particularly struck him, when Edward interrupted her by saying, “You must not enquire too far, Marianne—remember I have no knowledge in the picturesque, and I shall offend you by my ignorance and want of taste if we come to particulars. I shall call hills steep, which ought to be bold; surfaces strange and uncouth, which ought to be irregular and rugged; and distant objects out of sight, which ought only to be indistinct through the soft medium of a hazy atmosphere. You must be satisfied with such admiration as I can honestly give. I call it a very fine country—the hills are steep, the woods seem full of fine timber, and the valley looks comfortable and snug—with rich meadows and several neat farm houses scattered here and there. It exactly answers my idea of a fine country, because it unites beauty with utility—and I dare say it is a picturesque one too, because you admire it; I can easily believe it to be full of rocks and promontories, grey moss and brush wood, but these are all lost on me. I know nothing of the picturesque.”
“I am afraid it is but too true,” said Marianne;“but why should you boast of it?”