Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters Read Free Page A

manufacture and sale of sterling-silver lobster tongs; and some might have repressed it from motives of prudence, for 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 hers that difference of fortune should keep any couple asunder who were attracted by resemblance of disposition; life wastoo short, and too many dangers lurked under every sea-slimed rock, to act otherwise. Of course, that Elinor’s merit should not be acknowledged by everyone who knew her was impossible to comprehend.
    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. 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 government, perhaps, or into aquatic engineering on the great freshwater canals of Sub-Marine Station Beta. Mrs. John Dashwood wished it likewise, but in the meanwhile it would have quieted her ambition to see him managing a gondola fleet.
    But Edward had no turn for great men or gondolas; his ambition was more modest. All his wishes centered in domestic comfort and the quiet of private life. He was an avid scholar who had spent many years elaborating a personal theory of the Alteration. Edward Ferrars was skeptical of the poison-stream theory, which had seduced Mr. Henry Dashwood to set off, with such tragic results, in search of the mythic headwaters; he believed the calamity’s origins could be located in the time of the Tudors, when Henry VIII turned his back on the Holy Church. God in his vengeance, thought Edward, had smote the English race for this impertinence and set the beasts of the sea against them.
    Such scholarly theorizing was dismissed by Fanny and their mother as a waste of time and potential; fortunately Edward 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. She was, at that time, in suchaffliction as rendered her careless of surrounding objects. When at last she noticed him, she saw only that he was quiet and unobtrusive, and she liked him for it. He did not disturb the wretchedness of her mind with ill-timed conversation.
    She was called to observe and approve Edward further 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 Mrs. Dashwood, as they sat at the breakfast table one morning, “to say that he is unlike Fanny. It implies everything amiable. I love him already.”
    “I think you will like him,” replied Elinor, “when you know more of him.”
    “Like him!” replied her mother with a smile. “I can 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 Edward Ferrars. Her manners were attaching and soon banished his reserve. She speedily comprehended all his merits; the persuasion of his regard for Elinor perhaps intensified the natural process of her affection, were slightly less unsettling when she knew his heart was warm and his temper affectionate.
    No sooner did she perceive any symptom of love in his behaviour