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.
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
65
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 18
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
66
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 be, “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.