October 21, 2025 • 12 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter forty. Ferny was right enough and not expecting to
hear from Miss Crawford now at the rapid rate in
which their correspondence had begun. Mary's next letter was after
a decidedly longer interval than the last. But she was
not right in supposing that such an interval would be
felt a great relief to herself. Here was another strange
(00:21):
revolution of mind. She was really glad to receive the
letter when it did come. In her present exile from
good society and distance from everything that had been wont
to interest her, a letter from one belonging to the
set where her heart lived, written with affection and some
degree of elegance, was thoroughly acceptable. The usual plea of
(00:42):
increasing engagements was made an excuse for not having written
to her earlier. And now that I have begun, she continued,
my letter will not be worth your reading, for there
will be no little offering of love at the end.
No three or four lines passnet from the most devoted
h C in the world. For Henry is in Norfolk.
Business called him to Everingham ten days ago, or perhaps
(01:05):
he only pretended the call for the sake of being
traveling at the same time. That you were. But there
he is, and by the way, his absence may sufficiently
account for any remissness of his sister's writing, For there
has been no Well Mary, when you write to Fanny,
is not it time for you to write to Fanny?
To spur me on? At last? After various attempts at meeting,
(01:27):
I have seen your cousins, Dear Julia and dearest Missus Rushworth.
They found me at home yesterday, and we were glad
to see each other again. We seemed very glad to
see each other, and I do really think we were
a little We had a vast deal to say. Shall
I tell you how Missus Rushworth looked when your name
was mentioned. I did not used to think her wanting
(01:47):
in self possession, but she had not quite enough for
the demands of yesterday. Upon the whole, Julia was in
the best looks of the two, at least after you
were spoken of. There was no recovering the complexion from
the moment that I spoke of Fanny and spoke of
her as his sister should. But Missus Rushworth's day of
good looks will come. We have cards for her first
(02:09):
party on the twenty eighth. Then she will be in beauty,
for she will open one of the best houses in
Wimpole Street. I was in it two years ago when
I was at Lady Laselle's, and prefer it to almost
any I know in London. And certainly she will then
feel to use a vulgar phrase that she has got
her pennyworth for her penny Henry could not have afforded
(02:30):
her such a house. I hope she will recollect it
and be satisfied as well. She may with moving the
queen of a palace, though the king may appear best
in the background, And as I have no desire to
tease her, I shall never force your name upon her again.
She will grow sober by degrees from all that I
hear and guess. Baron Wildenhaim's attentions to Julia continue, but
(02:52):
I do not know that he has any serious encouragement.
She ought to do better. A poor honorable is no catch,
and I cannot imagine any liking in the case for
take away his rants, and the poor baron has nothing.
What a difference a owl makes if his rents were
but equal to his rants. Your cousin Edmund moves slowly,
(03:12):
detained by chance by parish duties. There may be some
old woman at Thornton Lacey to be converted. I am
unwilling to fancy myself neglected for a young one. Adieu,
my dear sweet Fanny. This is a long letter from London.
Write me a pretty one in reply to gladden Henry's
eyes when he comes back, and send me an account
(03:32):
of all the dashing young captains whom you disdain for
his sake. There was great food for meditation in this letter,
and chiefly for unpleasant meditation. And yet with all the
uneasiness it supplied, it connected her with the absent. It
told her of people and things about whom she had
never felt so much curiosity as now, And she would
(03:53):
have been glad to have been sure of such a
letter every week. Her correspondence with her aunt Bertram was
her own concern of higher interest, As were any society
in Portsmouth that could at all make amends for deficiencies
at home. There were none within the circle of her
father's and mother's acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction.
(04:13):
She saw nobody in whose favor she could wish to
overcome her own shyness and reserve. The men appeared to
her all course, the women all pert, and everybody under bread,
and she gave as little contentment as she received from introductions,
either to old or new acquaintance. The young ladies, who
approached her at first with some respect in consideration of
(04:35):
her coming from a baronet's family, were soon offended by
what they termed heirs, for as she neither played on
the pianoforte nor wore fine pelisses, they could, on father observation,
admit no right of superiority. The first solid consolation which
Fanny received for the evils of home, the first which
her judgment could entirely approve, and which gave any promise
(04:58):
of durability, was in a better knowledge of Susan and
a hope of being of service to her. Susan had
always behaved so pleasantly to herself, but the determined character
of her general manners had astonished and alarmed her, and
it was at least a fortnight before she began to
understand a disposition so totally different from her own. Susan
(05:19):
saw much that was wrong at home, and wanted to
set it right. That a girl of fourteen, acting only
on her own unassisted reason, should err in the method
of reform was not wonderful, and Fanny soon became more
disposed to admire the natural light of the mind, which
could so early distinguish justly, than to censure severely the
(05:40):
thoughts of conduct to which it led. Susan was only
acting on the same truths and pursuing the same system
which her own judgment acknowledged, but which her more supine
and yielding temper would have shrunk from. Asserting, Susan tried
to be useful where she could only have gone away
and cried. And that Susan was useful. She could perceive
(06:01):
that things bad as they were, would have been worse
but for such interposition, and that both her mother and
Betsy were restrained from some excesses of very offensive indulgence
and vulgarity. In every argument with her mother, Susan had,
in point of reason, the advantage, and never was there
any maternal tenderness to buy her off the blind fondness
(06:23):
which was forever producing evil around her. She had never known.
There was no gratitude for affection past or present to
make her better bear with its excesses to the others.
All this became gradually evident and gradually placed Susan before
her sister as an object of mingled compassion and respect.
That her manner was wrong, however at times very wrong,
(06:46):
her measures often ill chosen and ill timed, and her
looks and language very often indefensible. Fanny could not cease
to feel, but she began to hope that they might
be rectified. Susan, she found, looked to her and wished
for her good opinion, and knew as anything like an
office of authority was to Fanny, knew as it was
(07:07):
to imagine herself capable of guiding or informing any one.
She did resolve to give occasional hints to Susan and
endeavor to exercise for her advantage the juster notions of
what was due to everybody and what would be wisest
for herself, which her own more favored education had fixed
in her. Her influence, or at least the consciousness and
(07:27):
use of it, originated in an act of kindness by Susan, which,
after many hesitations of delicacy, she had last worked herself
up to. It had very early occurred to her that
a small sum of money might perhaps restore peace forever
on the Sore's subject of the silver knife, canvassed as
it now was continually, and the riches which she was
in possession of herself, her uncle having given her ten
(07:51):
pounds at parting, made her as able as she was
willing to be generous. But she was so wholly unused
to confer favors except on the very poor, so unpracticed
in removing evils or bestowing kindnesses among her equals, and
so fearful of appearing to elevate herself as a great
lady at home, that it took some time to determine
(08:11):
that it would not be unbecoming in her to make
such a present. It was made. However, at last a
silver knife was brought for Betsy, and accepted with great
delight its newness, giving it every advantage over the other
that could be desired. Susan was established in the full
possession of her own, Betsy handsomely declaring that now she
had got one so much prettier herself, she should never
(08:33):
want that again. And no reproach seemed conveyed to the
equally satisfied mother, which Fanny had almost feared to be impossible.
The deed thoroughly answered a source of domestic altercation was
entirely done away, and it was the means of opening
Susan's heart to her and giving her something more to
love than to be interested in. Susan showed that she
(08:54):
had delicacy, pleased as she was to be mistress of
property which she had been struggling for at least too years.
She yet feared that her sister's judgment had been against her,
and that her reproof was designed for her for having
so struggled as to make the purchase necessary for the
tranquility of the house. Her temper was open. She acknowledged
her fears, blamed herself for having contended so warmly, and
(09:17):
from that hour, Fanny, understanding the worth of her disposition,
and perceiving how fully she was inclined to seek her
good opinion and refer to her judgment, began to feel
again the blessing of affection, and to entertain the hope
of being useful to a mind so much in need
of help and so much deserving it. She gave advice,
advice too sound to be resisted by a good understanding,
(09:39):
and given so mildly and considerately as not to irritate
an imperfect temper, And she had the happiness of observing
its good effects not unfrequently. More was not to be
expected by one who, while seeing all the obligation and
expediency of submission and forbearance, saw also with sympathetic acuteness
of feeling all that must be hourly grating to a
(10:01):
girl like Susan. Her greatest wonder on the subject soon
became not that Susan should have been provoked into disrespect
and impatience against her better knowledge, but that so much
better knowledge, so many good notions, should have been hers
at all, and that brought up in the midst of
negligence and error, she should have formed such proper opinions
(10:22):
of what ought to be she who had no cousin
Edmund to direct her thoughts or fix her principles. The
intimacy thus begun between them was a material advantage to each.
By sitting together upstairs, they avoided a great deal of
the disturbance of the house. Fanny had peace, and Susan
learnt to think it no misfortune to be quietly employed.
(10:43):
They sat without a fire, but that was a privation
familiar even to Fanny, and she suffered the less because,
reminded by it of the east room. It was the
only point of resemblance in space, light, furniture, and prospect.
There was nothing alike in the two apartments, and she
often heaved a sigh at the remembrance of all her
books and boxes and various comforts. There By degrees, the
(11:07):
girls came to spend the chief of the morning upstairs,
at first only in working and talking, But after a
few days the remembrance of the said books grew so
potent and stimulative that Fanny found it impossible not to
try for books again. There were none in her father's house,
but wealth is luxurious and daring, and some of hers
found its way to a circulating library. She became a subscriber,
(11:31):
amazed at being anything improper at her sona amazed at
her own doings in every way, to be a renter,
a chooser of books, and to be having any one's
improvement in view and her choice. But so it was,
Susan had read nothing, and Fanny longed to give her
a share in her own first pleasures and inspire a
taste for the biography and poetry which she delighted in herself.
(11:54):
In this occupation, she hoped moreover to bury some of
the recollections of Mansfield, which were too apt to seize
her mind. If her fingers only were busy, and especially
at this time, hoped it might be useful in diverting
her thoughts from pursuing Edmond to London, whither on the
authority of her aunt's last letter, she knew he was gone.
She had no doubt of what would ensue. The promised
(12:17):
notification was hanging over her head. The postman's knock within
the neighborhood was beginning to bring its daily terrors, and
if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour,
it was something gained. End of Chapter forty
Chapter forty. Ferny was right enough and not expecting to
hear from Miss Crawford now at the rapid rate in
which their correspondence had begun. Mary's next letter was after
a decidedly longer interval than the last. But she was
not right in supposing that such an interval would be
felt a great relief to herself. Here was another strange
(00:21):
revolution of mind. She was really glad to receive the
letter when it did come. In her present exile from
good society and distance from everything that had been wont
to interest her, a letter from one belonging to the
set where her heart lived, written with affection and some
degree of elegance, was thoroughly acceptable. The usual plea of
(00:42):
increasing engagements was made an excuse for not having written
to her earlier. And now that I have begun, she continued,
my letter will not be worth your reading, for there
will be no little offering of love at the end.
No three or four lines passnet from the most devoted
h C in the world. For Henry is in Norfolk.
Business called him to Everingham ten days ago, or perhaps
(01:05):
he only pretended the call for the sake of being
traveling at the same time. That you were. But there
he is, and by the way, his absence may sufficiently
account for any remissness of his sister's writing, For there
has been no Well Mary, when you write to Fanny,
is not it time for you to write to Fanny?
To spur me on? At last? After various attempts at meeting,
(01:27):
I have seen your cousins, Dear Julia and dearest Missus Rushworth.
They found me at home yesterday, and we were glad
to see each other again. We seemed very glad to
see each other, and I do really think we were
a little We had a vast deal to say. Shall
I tell you how Missus Rushworth looked when your name
was mentioned. I did not used to think her wanting
(01:47):
in self possession, but she had not quite enough for
the demands of yesterday. Upon the whole, Julia was in
the best looks of the two, at least after you
were spoken of. There was no recovering the complexion from
the moment that I spoke of Fanny and spoke of
her as his sister should. But Missus Rushworth's day of
good looks will come. We have cards for her first
(02:09):
party on the twenty eighth. Then she will be in beauty,
for she will open one of the best houses in
Wimpole Street. I was in it two years ago when
I was at Lady Laselle's, and prefer it to almost
any I know in London. And certainly she will then
feel to use a vulgar phrase that she has got
her pennyworth for her penny Henry could not have afforded
(02:30):
her such a house. I hope she will recollect it
and be satisfied as well. She may with moving the
queen of a palace, though the king may appear best
in the background, And as I have no desire to
tease her, I shall never force your name upon her again.
She will grow sober by degrees from all that I
hear and guess. Baron Wildenhaim's attentions to Julia continue, but
(02:52):
I do not know that he has any serious encouragement.
She ought to do better. A poor honorable is no catch,
and I cannot imagine any liking in the case for
take away his rants, and the poor baron has nothing.
What a difference a owl makes if his rents were
but equal to his rants. Your cousin Edmund moves slowly,
(03:12):
detained by chance by parish duties. There may be some
old woman at Thornton Lacey to be converted. I am
unwilling to fancy myself neglected for a young one. Adieu,
my dear sweet Fanny. This is a long letter from London.
Write me a pretty one in reply to gladden Henry's
eyes when he comes back, and send me an account
(03:32):
of all the dashing young captains whom you disdain for
his sake. There was great food for meditation in this letter,
and chiefly for unpleasant meditation. And yet with all the
uneasiness it supplied, it connected her with the absent. It
told her of people and things about whom she had
never felt so much curiosity as now, And she would
(03:53):
have been glad to have been sure of such a
letter every week. Her correspondence with her aunt Bertram was
her own concern of higher interest, As were any society
in Portsmouth that could at all make amends for deficiencies
at home. There were none within the circle of her
father's and mother's acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction.
(04:13):
She saw nobody in whose favor she could wish to
overcome her own shyness and reserve. The men appeared to
her all course, the women all pert, and everybody under bread,
and she gave as little contentment as she received from introductions,
either to old or new acquaintance. The young ladies, who
approached her at first with some respect in consideration of
(04:35):
her coming from a baronet's family, were soon offended by
what they termed heirs, for as she neither played on
the pianoforte nor wore fine pelisses, they could, on father observation,
admit no right of superiority. The first solid consolation which
Fanny received for the evils of home, the first which
her judgment could entirely approve, and which gave any promise
(04:58):
of durability, was in a better knowledge of Susan and
a hope of being of service to her. Susan had
always behaved so pleasantly to herself, but the determined character
of her general manners had astonished and alarmed her, and
it was at least a fortnight before she began to
understand a disposition so totally different from her own. Susan
(05:19):
saw much that was wrong at home, and wanted to
set it right. That a girl of fourteen, acting only
on her own unassisted reason, should err in the method
of reform was not wonderful, and Fanny soon became more
disposed to admire the natural light of the mind, which
could so early distinguish justly, than to censure severely the
(05:40):
thoughts of conduct to which it led. Susan was only
acting on the same truths and pursuing the same system
which her own judgment acknowledged, but which her more supine
and yielding temper would have shrunk from. Asserting, Susan tried
to be useful where she could only have gone away
and cried. And that Susan was useful. She could perceive
(06:01):
that things bad as they were, would have been worse
but for such interposition, and that both her mother and
Betsy were restrained from some excesses of very offensive indulgence
and vulgarity. In every argument with her mother, Susan had,
in point of reason, the advantage, and never was there
any maternal tenderness to buy her off the blind fondness
(06:23):
which was forever producing evil around her. She had never known.
There was no gratitude for affection past or present to
make her better bear with its excesses to the others.
All this became gradually evident and gradually placed Susan before
her sister as an object of mingled compassion and respect.
That her manner was wrong, however at times very wrong,
(06:46):
her measures often ill chosen and ill timed, and her
looks and language very often indefensible. Fanny could not cease
to feel, but she began to hope that they might
be rectified. Susan, she found, looked to her and wished
for her good opinion, and knew as anything like an
office of authority was to Fanny, knew as it was
(07:07):
to imagine herself capable of guiding or informing any one.
She did resolve to give occasional hints to Susan and
endeavor to exercise for her advantage the juster notions of
what was due to everybody and what would be wisest
for herself, which her own more favored education had fixed
in her. Her influence, or at least the consciousness and
(07:27):
use of it, originated in an act of kindness by Susan, which,
after many hesitations of delicacy, she had last worked herself
up to. It had very early occurred to her that
a small sum of money might perhaps restore peace forever
on the Sore's subject of the silver knife, canvassed as
it now was continually, and the riches which she was
in possession of herself, her uncle having given her ten
(07:51):
pounds at parting, made her as able as she was
willing to be generous. But she was so wholly unused
to confer favors except on the very poor, so unpracticed
in removing evils or bestowing kindnesses among her equals, and
so fearful of appearing to elevate herself as a great
lady at home, that it took some time to determine
(08:11):
that it would not be unbecoming in her to make
such a present. It was made. However, at last a
silver knife was brought for Betsy, and accepted with great
delight its newness, giving it every advantage over the other
that could be desired. Susan was established in the full
possession of her own, Betsy handsomely declaring that now she
had got one so much prettier herself, she should never
(08:33):
want that again. And no reproach seemed conveyed to the
equally satisfied mother, which Fanny had almost feared to be impossible.
The deed thoroughly answered a source of domestic altercation was
entirely done away, and it was the means of opening
Susan's heart to her and giving her something more to
love than to be interested in. Susan showed that she
(08:54):
had delicacy, pleased as she was to be mistress of
property which she had been struggling for at least too years.
She yet feared that her sister's judgment had been against her,
and that her reproof was designed for her for having
so struggled as to make the purchase necessary for the
tranquility of the house. Her temper was open. She acknowledged
her fears, blamed herself for having contended so warmly, and
(09:17):
from that hour, Fanny, understanding the worth of her disposition,
and perceiving how fully she was inclined to seek her
good opinion and refer to her judgment, began to feel
again the blessing of affection, and to entertain the hope
of being useful to a mind so much in need
of help and so much deserving it. She gave advice,
advice too sound to be resisted by a good understanding,
(09:39):
and given so mildly and considerately as not to irritate
an imperfect temper, And she had the happiness of observing
its good effects not unfrequently. More was not to be
expected by one who, while seeing all the obligation and
expediency of submission and forbearance, saw also with sympathetic acuteness
of feeling all that must be hourly grating to a
(10:01):
girl like Susan. Her greatest wonder on the subject soon
became not that Susan should have been provoked into disrespect
and impatience against her better knowledge, but that so much
better knowledge, so many good notions, should have been hers
at all, and that brought up in the midst of
negligence and error, she should have formed such proper opinions
(10:22):
of what ought to be she who had no cousin
Edmund to direct her thoughts or fix her principles. The
intimacy thus begun between them was a material advantage to each.
By sitting together upstairs, they avoided a great deal of
the disturbance of the house. Fanny had peace, and Susan
learnt to think it no misfortune to be quietly employed.
(10:43):
They sat without a fire, but that was a privation
familiar even to Fanny, and she suffered the less because,
reminded by it of the east room. It was the
only point of resemblance in space, light, furniture, and prospect.
There was nothing alike in the two apartments, and she
often heaved a sigh at the remembrance of all her
books and boxes and various comforts. There By degrees, the
(11:07):
girls came to spend the chief of the morning upstairs,
at first only in working and talking, But after a
few days the remembrance of the said books grew so
potent and stimulative that Fanny found it impossible not to
try for books again. There were none in her father's house,
but wealth is luxurious and daring, and some of hers
found its way to a circulating library. She became a subscriber,
(11:31):
amazed at being anything improper at her sona amazed at
her own doings in every way, to be a renter,
a chooser of books, and to be having any one's
improvement in view and her choice. But so it was,
Susan had read nothing, and Fanny longed to give her
a share in her own first pleasures and inspire a
taste for the biography and poetry which she delighted in herself.
(11:54):
In this occupation, she hoped moreover to bury some of
the recollections of Mansfield, which were too apt to seize
her mind. If her fingers only were busy, and especially
at this time, hoped it might be useful in diverting
her thoughts from pursuing Edmond to London, whither on the
authority of her aunt's last letter, she knew he was gone.
She had no doubt of what would ensue. The promised
(12:17):
notification was hanging over her head. The postman's knock within
the neighborhood was beginning to bring its daily terrors, and
if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour,
it was something gained. End of Chapter forty
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