Mansfield Park
this is totally distinct from giving his sense as you gave it. To know
him in bits and scraps is common enough; to know him pretty thoroughly
is, perhaps, not uncommon; but to read him well aloud is no everyday
talent.”
“Sir, you do me honour,” was Crawford’s answer, with a bow of mock
gravity.
Both gentlemen had a glance at Fanny, to see if a word of accordant
praise could be extorted from her; yet both feeling that it could not
be. Her praise had been given in her attention; _that_ must content
them.
Lady Bertram’s admiration was expressed, and strongly too. “It was
really like being at a play,” said she. “I wish Sir Thomas had been
here.”
Crawford was excessively pleased. If Lady Bertram, with all her
incompetency and languor, could feel this, the inference of what her
niece, alive and enlightened as she was, must feel, was elevating.
“You have a great turn for acting, I am sure, Mr. Crawford,” said her
ladyship soon afterwards; “and I will tell you what, I think you will
have a theatre, some time or other, at your house in Norfolk. I mean
when you are settled there. I do indeed. I think you will fit up a
theatre at your house in Norfolk.”
“Do you, ma’am?” cried he, with quickness. “No, no, that will never be.
Your ladyship is quite mistaken. No theatre at Everingham! Oh no!” And
he looked at Fanny with an expressive smile, which evidently meant,
“That lady will never allow a theatre at Everingham.”
Edmund saw it all, and saw Fanny so determined _not_ to see it, as to
make it clear that the voice was enough to convey the full meaning of
the protestation; and such a quick consciousness of compliment, such a
ready comprehension of a hint, he thought, was rather favourable than
not.
The subject of reading aloud was farther discussed. The two young men
were the only talkers, but they, standing by the fire, talked over the
too common neglect of the qualification, the total inattention to it,
in the ordinary school-system for boys, the consequently natural, yet
in some instances almost unnatural, degree of ignorance and uncouthness
of men, of sensible and well-informed men, when suddenly called to the
necessity of reading aloud, which had fallen within their notice,
giving instances of blunders, and failures with their secondary causes,
the want of management of the voice, of proper modulation and emphasis,
of foresight and judgment, all proceeding from the first cause: want of
early attention and habit; and Fanny was listening again with great
entertainment.
“Even in my profession,” said Edmund, with a smile, “how little the art
of reading has been studied! how little a clear manner, and good
delivery, have been attended to! I speak rather of the past, however,
than the present. There is now a spirit of improvement abroad; but
among those who were ordained twenty, thirty, forty years ago, the
larger number, to judge by their performance, must have thought reading
was reading, and preaching was preaching. It is different now. The
subject is more justly considered. It is felt that distinctness and
energy may have weight in recommending the most solid truths; and
besides, there is more general observation and taste, a more critical
knowledge diffused than formerly; in every congregation there is a
larger proportion who know a little of the matter, and who can judge
and criticise.”
Edmund had already gone through the service once since his ordination;
and upon this being understood, he had a variety of questions from
Crawford as to his feelings and success; questions, which being made,
though with the vivacity of friendly interest and quick taste, without
any touch of that spirit of banter or air of levity which Edmund knew
to be most offensive to Fanny, he had true pleasure in satisfying; and
when Crawford proceeded to ask his opinion and give his own as to the
properest manner in which particular passages in the service should be
delivered, shewing it to be a subject on which he had thought before,
and thought with judgment, Edmund was still more and more pleased. This
would be the way to Fanny’s heart. She was not to be won by all that
gallantry and wit and good-nature together could do; or, at least, she
would not be won by them nearly so soon, without the assistance of
sentiment and feeling, and seriousness on serious subjects.
“Our liturgy,” observed Crawford, “has beauties, which not even a
careless, slovenly style of reading can destroy; but it has also
redundancies and repetitions which require good reading not to be felt.
For myself, at least, I must confess being not always so attentive as I
ought to be” (here was a glance at Fanny); “that nineteen times out of
twenty I am thinking how such a prayer ought to be read, and longing to
have it to read myself. Did you speak?” stepping eagerly to Fanny, and
addressing her in a softened voice; and upon her saying “No,” he added,
“Are you sure you did not speak? I saw your lips move. I fancied you
might be going to tell me I ought to be more attentive, and not _allow_
my thoughts to wander. Are not you going to tell me so?”
“No, indeed, you know your duty too well for me to—even supposing—”
She stopt, felt herself getting into a puzzle, and could not be
prevailed on to add another word, not by dint of several minutes of
supplication and waiting. He then returned to his former station, and
went on as if there had been no such tender interruption.
“A sermon, well delivered, is more uncommon even than prayers well
read. A sermon, good in itself, is no rare thing. It is more difficult
to speak well than to compose well; that is, the rules and trick of
composition are oftener an object of study. A thoroughly good sermon,
thoroughly well delivered, is a capital gratification. I can never hear
such a one without the greatest admiration and respect, and more than
half a mind to take orders and preach myself. There is something in the
eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled
to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect
such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long
worn threadbare in all common hands; who can say anything new or
striking, anything that rouses the attention without offending the
taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one
could not, in his public capacity, honour enough. I should like to be
such a man.”
Edmund laughed.
“I should indeed. I never listened to a distinguished preacher in my
life without a sort of envy. But then, I must have a London audience. I
could not preach but to the educated; to those who were capable of
estimating my composition. And I do not know that I should be fond of
preaching often; now and then, perhaps once or twice in the spring,
after being anxiously expected for half a dozen Sundays together; but
not for a constancy; it would not do for a constancy.”
Here Fanny, who could not but listen, involuntarily shook her head, and
Crawford was instantly by her side again, entreating to know her
meaning; and as Edmund perceived, by his drawing in a chair, and
sitting down close by her, that it was to be a very thorough attack,
that looks and undertones were to be well tried, he sank as quietly as
possible into a corner, turned his back, and took up a newspaper, very
sincerely wishing that dear little Fanny might be persuaded into
explaining away that shake of the head to the satisfaction of her
ardent lover; and as earnestly trying to bury every sound of the
business from himself in murmurs of his own, over the various
advertisements of “A most desirable Estate in South Wales”; “To Parents
and Guardians”; and a “Capital season’d Hunter.”
Fanny, meanwhile, vexed with herself for not having been as motionless
as she was speechless, and grieved to the heart to see Edmund’s
arrangements, was trying by everything in the power of her modest,
gentle nature, to repulse Mr. Crawford, and avoid both his looks and
inquiries; and he, unrepulsable, was persisting in both.
“What did that shake of the head mean?” said he. “What was it meant to
express? Disapprobation, I fear. But of what? What had I been saying to
displease you? Did you think me speaking improperly, lightly,
irreverently on the subject? Only tell me if I was. Only tell me if I
was wrong. I want to be set right. Nay, nay, I entreat you; for one
moment put down your work. What did that shake of the head mean?”
In vain was her “Pray, sir, don’t; pray, Mr. Crawford,” repeated twice
over; and in vain did she try to move away. In the same low, eager
voice, and the same close neighbourhood, he went on, reurging the same
questions as before. She grew more agitated and displeased.
“How can you, sir? You quite astonish me; I wonder how you can—”
“Do I astonish you?” said he. “Do you wonder? Is there anything in my
present entreaty that you do not understand? I will explain to you
instantly all that makes me urge you in this manner, all that gives me
an interest in what you look and do, and excites my present curiosity.
I will not leave you to wonder long.”
In spite of herself, she could not help half a smile, but she said
nothing.
“You shook your head at my acknowledging that I should not like to
engage in the duties of a clergyman always for a constancy. Yes, that
was the word. Constancy: I am not afraid of the word. I would spell it,
read it, write it with anybody. I see nothing alarming in the word. Did
you think I ought?”
“Perhaps, sir,” said Fanny, wearied at last into speaking—“perhaps,
sir, I thought it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well
as you seemed to do at that moment.”
Crawford, delighted to get her to speak at any rate, was determined to
keep it up; and poor Fanny, who had hoped to silence him by such an
extremity of reproof, found herself sadly mistaken, and that it was
only a change from one object of curiosity and one set of words to
another. He had always something to entreat the explanation of. The
opportunity was too fair. None such had occurred since his seeing her
in her uncle’s room, none such might occur again before his leaving
Mansfield. Lady Bertram’s being just on the other side of the table was
a trifle, for she might always be considered as only half-awake, and
Edmund’s advertisements were still of the first utility.
“Well,” said Crawford, after a course of rapid questions and reluctant
answers; “I am happier than I was, because I now understand more
clearly your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the
whim of the moment, easily tempted, easily put aside. With such an
opinion, no wonder that—But we shall see.—It is not by protestations
that I shall endeavour to convince you I am wronged; it is not by
telling you that my affections are steady. My conduct shall speak for
me; absence, distance, time shall speak for me. _They_ shall prove
that, as far as you can be deserved by anybody, I do deserve you. You
are infinitely my superior in merit; all _that_ I know. You have
qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in
any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you beyond
what—not merely beyond what one sees, because one never sees anything
like it—but beyond what one fancies might be. But still I am not
frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. That is
out of the question. It is he who sees and worships your merit the
strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a
return. There I build my confidence. By that right I do and will
deserve you; and when once convinced that my attachment is what I
declare it, I know you too well not to entertain the warmest hopes.
Yes, dearest, sweetest Fanny. Nay” (seeing her draw back displeased),