Mansfield Park

He knew her to be clever, to have a quick apprehension as well as good sense, and a fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education in itself.

he made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise.

There is no reason in the world why you should not be important where you are known. You have good sense, and a sweet temper, and I am sure you have a grateful heart, that could never receive kindness without wishing to return it. I do not know any better qualifications for a friend and companion.

Mrs. Norris is much better fitted than my mother for having the charge of you now. She is of a temper to do a great deal for anybody she really interests herself about, and she will force you to do justice to your natural powers.

In everything but disposition they were admirably taught. Sir Thomas did not know what was wanting, because, though a truly anxious father, he was not outwardly affectionate, and the reserve of his manner repressed all the flow of their spirits before him.

To the education of her daughters Lady Bertram paid not the smallest attention. She had not time for such cares. She was a woman who spent her days in sitting, nicely dressed, on a sofa, doing some long piece of needlework, of little use and no beauty, thinking more of her pug than her children, but very indulgent to the latter when it did not put herself to inconvenience, guided in everything important by Sir Thomas, and in smaller concerns by her sister.

The necessity of the measure in a pecuniary light, and the hope of its utility to his son, reconciled Sir Thomas to the effort of quitting the rest of his family, and of leaving his daughters to the direction of others at their present most interesting time of life.

He could not think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them, or rather, to perform what should have been her own; but, in Mrs. Norris’s watchful attention, and in Edmund’s judgment, he had sufficient confidence to make him go without fears for their conduct.

Their vanity was in such good order that they seemed to be quite free from it, and gave themselves no airs; while the praises attending such behaviour, secured and brought round by their aunt, served to strengthen them in believing they had no faults.

She regarded her cousin as an example of everything good and great, as possessing worth which no one but herself could ever appreciate, and as entitled to such gratitude from her as no feelings could be strong enough to pay.

The return of winter engagements, however, was not without its effect; and in the course of their progress, her mind became so pleasantly occupied in superintending the fortunes of her eldest niece, as tolerably to quiet her nerves.

Maria was indeed the pride and delight of them all—perfectly faultless—an angel; and, of course, so surrounded by admirers, must be difficult in her choice: but yet, as far as Mrs. Norris could allow herself to decide on so short an acquaintance, Mr. Rushworth appeared precisely the young man to deserve and attach her.

He could allow his sister to be the best judge of her own happiness, but he was not pleased that her happiness should centre in a large income;

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done.

With all due respect to such of the present company as chance to be married, my dear Mrs. Grant, there is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry.

if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere

I would rather have an inferior degree of beauty, of my own choice, and acquired progressively. I would rather abide by my own blunders than by his.

You would not write to each other but upon the most urgent necessity in the world; and when obliged to take up the pen to say that such a horse is ill, or such a relation dead, it is done in the fewest possible words.

it is natural and amiable that Miss Crawford should acquit her aunt entirely. I do not censure her opinions; but there certainly is impropriety in making them public.

She is perfectly feminine, except in the instances we have been speaking of. There she cannot be justified.

There was a charm, perhaps, in his sincerity, his steadiness, his integrity, which Miss Crawford might be equal to feel, though not equal to discuss with herself.

Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure.

A successful scheme of this sort generally brings on another; and the having been to Mansfield Common disposed them all for going somewhere else the day after.

Nothing of this would have happened had she been properly considered; but she had been left four days together without any choice of companions or exercise, and without any excuse for avoiding whatever her unreasonable aunts might require.

She was a little surprised that he could spend so many hours with Miss Crawford, and not see more of the sort of fault which he had already observed, and of which she was almost always reminded by a something of the same nature whenever she was in her company; but so it was.

She had none of Fanny’s delicacy of taste, of mind, of feeling; she saw Nature, inanimate Nature, with little observation; her attention was all for men and women, her talents for the light and lively.

The mind which does not struggle against itself under one circumstance, would find objects to distract it in the other, I believe; and the influence of the place and of example may often rouse better feelings than are begun with.

The obligation of attendance, the formality, the restraint, the length of time—altogether it is a formidable thing, and what nobody likes; and if the good people who used to kneel and gape in that gallery could have foreseen that the time would ever come when men and women might lie another ten minutes in bed, when they woke with a headache, without danger of reprobation, because chapel was missed, they would have jumped with joy and envy.

Your lively mind can hardly be serious even on serious subjects.

The greater length of the service, however, I admit to be sometimes too hard a stretch upon the mind. One wishes it were not so; but I have not yet left Oxford long enough to forget what chapel prayers are.

The politeness which she had been brought up to practise as a duty made it impossible for her to escape; while the want of that higher species of self-command, that just consideration of others, that knowledge of her own heart, that principle of right, which had not formed any essential part of her education, made her miserable under it.

A clergyman is nothing.

No one here can call the office nothing. If the man who holds it is so, it is by the neglect of his duty, by foregoing its just importance, and stepping out of his place to appear what he ought not to appear.

We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is not there that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most felt.

The manners I speak of might rather be called conduct, perhaps, the result of good principles; the effect, in short, of those doctrines which it is their duty to teach and recommend; and it will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.

I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without striking it out.

to sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment.

It is generally allowed to be the greatest bore in the world, and Miss Price has found it so, though she did not know it.

You had better not go.

I and my gown are alive and well, and so good-bye.

The sort of dread in which Fanny now sat of seeing Mr. Rushworth prevented her thinking so much of their continued absence, however, as she might have done.

It would probably be the middle of November at least; the middle of November was three months off. Three months comprised thirteen weeks. Much might happen in thirteen weeks.

Where any one body of educated men, of whatever denomination, are condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information, or (smiling) of something else.

A man—a sensible man like Dr. Grant, cannot be in the habit of teaching others their duty every week, cannot go to church twice every Sunday, and preach such very good sermons in so good a manner as he does, without being the better for it himself.

He has no faults but what a serious attachment would remove.

I believe it often happens that a man, before he has quite made up his own mind, will distinguish the sister or intimate friend of the woman he is really thinking of more than the woman herself.

If you look at them you may see they are so many couple of lovers—all but Yates and Mrs. Grant—and, between ourselves, she, poor woman, must want a lover as much as any one of them.

I feel as if I could be anything or everything; as if I could rant and storm, or sigh or cut capers, in any tragedy or comedy in the English language.

We want no audience, no publicity. We may be trusted, I think, in chusing some play most perfectly unexceptionable; and I can conceive no greater harm or danger to any of us in conversing in the elegant written language of some respectable author than in chattering in words of our own.

Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all, and we had better do anything than be altogether by the ears.

There could be no harm in what had been done in so many respectable families, and by so many women of the first consideration; and it must be scrupulousness run mad that could see anything to censure in a plan like theirs

the charm of acting might well carry fascination to the mind of genius

There were, in fact, so many things to be attended to, so many people to be pleased, so many best characters required, and, above all, such a need that the play should be at once both tragedy and comedy, that there did seem as little chance of a decision as anything pursued by youth and zeal could hold out

Fanny looked on and listened, not unamused to observe the selfishness which, more or less disguised, seemed to govern them all, and wondering how it would end

If a part is insignificant, the greater our credit in making anything of it

It is only Count Cassel and Anhalt

The many laughs we have had together would infallibly come across me, and Frederick and his knapsack would be obliged to run away

she was slighted, Maria was preferred; the smile of triumph which Maria was trying to suppress shewed how well it was understood

I am sure I would give up the part to Julia most willingly, but that though I shall probably do it very ill, I feel persuaded she would do it worse

You must not, indeed you must not

It is not at all the part for her. She would not like it. She would not do well. She is too tall and robust. Amelia should be a small, light, girlish, skipping figure. It is fit for Miss Crawford, and Miss Crawford only. She looks the part, and I am persuaded will do it admirably

Simplicity, indeed, is beyond the reach of almost every actress by profession. It requires a delicacy of feeling which they have not. It requires a gentlewoman—a Julia Bertram

Do not be afraid of my wanting the character

I am not to be Agatha, and I am sure I will do nothing else; and as to Amelia, it is of all parts in the world the most disgusting to me. I quite detest her. An odious, little, pert, unnatural, impudent girl. I have always protested against comedy, and this is comedy in its worst form

There should always be one steady head to superintend so many young ones.

I hate such greediness—so good as your father is to the family, employing the man all the year round!

You must get a brown gown, and a white apron, and a mob cap, and we must make you a few wrinkles, and a little of the crowsfoot at the corner of your eyes, and you will be a very proper, little old woman.

I do not like my situation: this place is too hot for me,

the excessive intimacy which must spring from his being admitted among us in this manner is highly objectionable, the more than intimacy—the familiarity.

There is but one thing to be done, Fanny. I must take Anhalt myself. I am well aware that nothing else will quiet Tom.

She never appeared more amiable than in her behaviour to you last night.

She was safe; but peace and safety were unconnected here.

Her heart and her judgment were equally against Edmund’s decision: she could not acquit his unsteadiness, and his happiness under it made her wretched.

They were two solitary sufferers, or connected only by Fanny’s consciousness.

The inattention of the two brothers and the aunt to Julia’s discomposure, and their blindness to its true cause, must be imputed to the fullness of their own minds.

Everybody had a part either too long or too short; nobody would attend as they ought; nobody would remember on which side they were to come in; nobody but the complainer would observe any directions.

She did not believe they had yet rehearsed it, even in private.

She worked very diligently under her aunt’s directions, but her diligence and her silence concealed a very absent, anxious mind

She believed herself to feel too much of it in the aggregate for honesty or safety in particulars

She was properly punished

Her agitation and alarm exceeded all that was endured by the rest, by the right of a disposition which not even innocence could keep from suffering

The ruin of the play was to them a certainty: they felt the total destruction of the scheme to be inevitably at hand

He had never been so kind, so very kind to her in his life. His manner seemed changed, his voice was quick from the agitation of joy; and all that had been awful in his dignity seemed lost in tenderness

She had been almost fluttered for a few minutes, and still remained so sensibly animated as to put away her work, move Pug from her side, and give all her attention and all the rest of her sofa to her husband

Mrs. Norris felt herself defrauded of an office on which she had always depended, whether his arrival or his death were to be the thing unfolded

she was vexed by the manner of his return. It had left her nothing to do

It was like treading old ground again.

She never ceased to think of what was due to you.

He was not a man to be endured but for his children’s sake,

The hand which had so pressed hers to his heart! the hand and the heart were alike motionless and passive now!

so ended all the hopes his selfish vanity had raised in Maria and Julia Bertram.

She heard it at dinner, and felt it a blessing.

In himself he was wearisome, but as the friend of Tom and the admirer of Julia he became offensive.

There was little intercourse with the Parsonage. Sir Thomas, drawing back from intimacies in general, was particularly disinclined, at this time, for any engagements but in one quarter.

They seem to belong to us; they seem to be part of ourselves.

I believe our evenings are rather returned to what they were, than assuming a new character. The novelty was in their being lively.

Your uncle thinks you very pretty, dear Fanny—and that is the long and the short of the matter.

You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at. You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman.

She was in a state of mind to be glad that she had secured her fate beyond recall: that she had pledged herself anew to Sotherton; that she was safe from the possibility of giving Crawford the triumph of governing her actions, and destroying her prospects;

Henry Crawford had destroyed her happiness, but he should not know that he had done it; he should not destroy her credit, her appearance, her prosperity, too.

The preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and spring, when her own taste could have fairer play.

It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed; the two bridesmaids were duly inferior; her father gave her away; her mother stood with salts in her hand, expecting to be agitated; her aunt tried to cry; and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant.

Since rivalry between the sisters had ceased, they had been gradually recovering much of their former good understanding; and were at least sufficiently friends to make each of them exceedingly glad to be with the other at such a time.

Their departure made another material change at Mansfield, a chasm which required some time to fill up.

Becoming, as she then did, the only young woman in the drawing-room, the only occupier of that interesting division of a family in which she had hitherto held so humble a third, it was impossible for her not to be more looked at, more thought of and attended to, than she had ever been before;

The value of an event on a wet day in the country was most forcibly brought before her.

She played till Fanny’s eyes, straying to the window on the weather’s being evidently fair, spoke what she felt must be done.

South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not set forward while it is so threatening.

There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences.

The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!

We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.

I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich.

I do not mean to be poor. Poverty is exactly what I have determined against.

Honesty, in the something between, in the middle state of worldly circumstances, is all that I am anxious for your not looking down on.

I must look down upon anything contented with obscurity when it might rise to distinction.

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

By moderation and economy, and bringing down your wants to your income, and all that. I understand you—and a very proper plan it is for a person at your time of life, with such limited means and indifferent connexions.

Be honest and poor, by all means—but I shall not envy you; I do not much think I shall even respect you.

You ought to be in parliament, or you should have gone into the army ten years ago.

there are distinctions which I should be miserable if I thought myself without any chance—absolutely without chance or possibility of obtaining—but they are of a different character.

Mrs. Grant’s shewing civility to Miss Price, to Lady Bertram’s niece, could never want explanation.

The only surprise I can feel is, that this should be the first time of its being paid.

Fanny was perfectly right in giving only a conditional answer. She appears to feel as she ought.

I can see no reason why she should be denied the indulgence.

Simple as such an engagement might appear in other eyes, it had novelty and importance in hers,

She had neither sympathy nor assistance from those who ought to have entered into her feelings and directed her taste;

Mrs. Norris had now so ingeniously done away all Mrs. Grant’s part of the favour, that Fanny, who found herself expected to speak, could only say that she was very much obliged to her aunt Bertram for sparing her,

people are never respected when they step out of their proper sphere.

Remember, wherever you are, you must be the lowest and last;

It is as a dream, a pleasant dream!

I never was happier.

It was more pleasant than prudent.

I want nothing more.

With all the security which love of another and disesteem of him could give to the peace of mind he was attacking,

Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connexions can supply

Fraternal love, sometimes almost everything, is at others worse than nothing

Too often, alas! it is so. Fraternal love, sometimes almost everything, is at others worse than nothing

Fraternal love, sometimes almost everything, is at others worse than nothing

it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connexion can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived

With spirits, courage, and curiosity up to anything, William expressed an inclination to hunt

He was no longer in doubt of the capabilities of her heart. She had feeling, genuine feeling

I am not born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it shall not be from not striving for it

You think with me, I hope

He knows that human nature needs more lessons than a weekly sermon can convey; and that if he does not live among his parishioners, and prove himself, by constant attention, their well-wisher and friend, he does very little either for their good or his own.

The issue of all depended on one question. Did she love him well enough to forego what had used to be essential points? Did she love him well enough to make them no longer essential?

He knew his own mind, but he was not always perfectly assured of knowing Miss Crawford’s.

the whirl of a ballroom, perhaps, was not particularly favourable to the excitement or expression of serious feelings.

It is to be a family remembrancer. The sister is not to be in your mind without bringing the brother too.

I have no pleasure in the world superior to that of contributing to yours. No, I can safely say, I have no pleasure so complete, so unalloyed. It is without a drawback.

The enthusiasm of a woman’s love is even beyond the biographer’s. To her, the handwriting itself, independent of anything it may convey, is a blessedness.

She was one of his two dearest—that must support her.

To think of him as Miss Crawford might be justified in thinking, would in her be insanity. To her he could be nothing under any circumstances; nothing dearer than a friend.

She never has danced with a clergyman, she says, and she never will.

She sat and cried con amore as her uncle intended, but it was con amore fraternal and no other.

To Fanny’s mind, Edmund’s absence was really, in its cause and its tendency, a relief.

He is their lawful property; he fairly belongs to them.

She is the very impossibility he would describe, if indeed he has now delicacy of language enough to embody his own ideas.

The gentleness and gratitude of her disposition would secure her all your own immediately.

I will make her very happy, Mary; happier than she has ever yet been herself, or ever seen anybody else.

your regard for him has blinded you; but, in my estimation, your marrying early may be the saving of you.

To have seen you grow like the Admiral in word or deed, look or gesture, would have broken my heart.

I care neither what they say nor what they feel. They will now see what sort of woman it is that can attach me, that can attach a man of sense.

Now she is dependent, helpless, friendless, neglected, forgotten.

He had previously made her the happiest of human beings, and now he had insulted—she knew not what to say, how to class, or how to regard it.

There was wretchedness in the idea of its being serious; there was perplexity and agitation every way.

Everything natural, probable, reasonable, was against it; all their habits and ways of thinking, and all her own demerits.

She would not have him be serious, and yet what could excuse the use of such words and offers, if they meant but to trifle?

You think only of yourself, and because you do not feel for Mr. Crawford exactly what a young heated fancy imagines to be necessary for happiness, you resolve to refuse him at once, without wishing even for a little time to consider of it, a little more time for cool consideration, and for really examining your own inclinations

You have shewn yourself very, very different from anything that I had imagined

The advantage or disadvantage of your family, of your parents, your brothers and sisters, never seems to have had a moment’s share in your thoughts on this occasion

You are not to be judged by the same rule. You do not owe me the duty of a child

He knew her to be very timid, and exceedingly nervous; and thought it not improbable that her mind might be in such a state as a little time, a little pressing, a little patience, and a little impatience, a judicious mixture of all on the lover’s side, might work their usual effect on

She had no doubt that her note must appear excessively ill-written, that the language would disgrace a child, for her distress had allowed no arrangement

He had vanity, which strongly inclined him in the first place to think she did love him, though she might not know it herself; and which, secondly, when constrained at last to admit that she did know her own present feelings, convinced him that he should be able in time to make those feelings what he wished.

He was in love, very much in love; and it was a love which, operating on an active, sanguine spirit, of more warmth than delicacy, made her affection appear of greater consequence because it was withheld, and determined him to have the glory, as well as the felicity, of forcing her to love him.

Love such as his, in a man like himself, must with perseverance secure a return, and at no great distance; and he had so much delight in the idea of obliging her to love him in a very short time, that her not loving him now was scarcely regretted.

She found that he did mean to persevere; but how he could, after such language from her as she felt herself obliged to use, was not to be understood.

He knew not that he had a pre-engaged heart to attack. Of that he had no suspicion. He considered her rather as one who had never thought on the subject enough to be in danger; who had been guarded by youth, a youth of mind as lovely as of person; whose modesty had prevented her from understanding his attentions, and who was still overpowered by the suddenness of addresses so wholly unexpected, and the novelty of a situation which her fancy had never taken into account.

Must it not follow of course, that, when he was understood, he should succeed? He believed it fully.

A little difficulty to be overcome was no evil to Henry Crawford. He rather derived spirits from it.

She found that he did mean to persevere; but how he could, after such language from her as she felt herself obliged to use, was not to be understood.

He knew not that he had a pre-engaged heart to attack. Of that he had no suspicion. He considered her rather as one who had never thought on the subject enough to be in danger; who had been guarded by youth, a youth of mind as lovely as of person; whose modesty had prevented her from understanding his attentions, and who was still overpowered by the suddenness of addresses so wholly unexpected, and the novelty of a situation which her fancy had never taken into account.

Must it not follow of course, that, when he was understood, he should succeed? He believed it fully.

A little difficulty to be overcome was no evil to Henry Crawford. He rather derived spirits from it.

He was, in fact, entirely on his father’s side of the question.

Crawford had been too precipitate. He had not given her time to attach herself. He had begun at the wrong end.

Fanny was worth it all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, every exertion of mind, but he did not think he could have gone on himself with any woman breathing, without something more to warm his courage than his eyes could discern in hers.

She seemed determined to be interested by nothing else. But taste was too strong in her. She could not abstract her mind five minutes: she was forced to listen;

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.

It is felt that distinctness and energy may have weight in recommending the most solid truths;

There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour.

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.

It is he who sees and worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return.

You have given the name such reality of sweetness, that nothing else can now be descriptive of you.

A counteraction, gentle and continual, is the best safeguard of manners and conduct.

the very circumstance of the novelty of Crawford’s addresses was against him.

You have proved yourself upright and disinterested, prove yourself grateful and tender-hearted; and then you will be the perfect model of a woman

I know that the apprehension of being forced to quit Mansfield will for a time be arming you against him.

Some opposition here is, I am thoroughly convinced, friendly to matrimonial happiness.

He was to be describing and recommending matrimony to me.

When two sympathetic hearts meet in the marriage state, matrimony may be called a happy life.

I have not the least inclination to go near her. I can think only of the friends I am leaving:

You all give me a feeling of being able to trust and confide in you, which in common intercourse one knows nothing of.

There never was anything quite like it.

You should come to London to know how to estimate your conquest.

Innocent and quiet as you sit here, you cannot have an idea of the sensation that you will be occasioning,

I have not so much to say for my friend Flora, who jilted a very nice young man in the Blues for the sake of that horrid Lord Stornaway,

It is you, only you, insensible Fanny, who can think of him with anything like indifference.

I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman’s feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of.

his fault, the liking to make girls a little in love with him, is not half so dangerous to a wife’s happiness as a tendency to fall in love himself,

If any man ever loved a woman for ever, I think Henry will do as much for you.

The recollection of what had been done for William was always the most powerful disturber of every decision against Mr. Crawford;

She might love, but she did not deserve Edmund by any other sentiment.

A residence of eight or nine years in the abode of wealth and plenty had a little disordered her powers of comparing and judging.

Her father’s house would, in all probability, teach her the value of a good income;

to be at peace from all mention of the Crawfords, safe from every look which could be fancied a reproach on their account.

At a distance, unassailed by his looks or his kindness, and safe from the perpetual irritation of knowing his heart, and striving to avoid his confidence, she should be able to reason herself into a properer state;

She was of use to no one else; but there she might be missed to a degree that she did not like to think of;

she could not acknowledge any necessity for Fanny’s ever going near a father and mother who had done without her so long, while she was so useful to herself.

She had probably alienated love by the helplessness and fretfulness of a fearful temper, or been unreasonable in wanting a larger share than any one among so many could deserve.

The vicissitudes of the human mind had not yet been exhausted by her.

She had tears for every room in the house, much more for every beloved inhabitant.

She clung to her aunt, because she would miss her; she kissed the hand of her uncle with struggling sobs, because she had displeased him;

Would they but love her, she should be satisfied.

she had nothing to do, and was glad to have the light screened from her aching head, as she sat in bewildered, broken, sorrowful contemplation.

The elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony, and perhaps, above all, the peace and tranquillity of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance every hour of the day, by the prevalence of everything opposite to them here.

The instinct of nature was soon satisfied, and Mrs. Price’s attachment had no other source.

She might have made just as good a woman of consequence as Lady Bertram, but Mrs. Norris would have been a more respectable mother of nine children on a small income.

If tenderness could be ever supposed wanting, good sense and good breeding supplied its place;

Whatever was wanted was hallooed for, and the servants hallooed out their excuses from the kitchen.

though Mansfield Park might have some pains, Portsmouth could have no pleasures.

Good sense, like hers, will always act when really called upon

wealth is luxurious and daring

She was willing to allow he might have more good qualities than she had been wont to suppose

He had gone, had done even more good than he had foreseen, had been useful to more than his first plan had comprehended

To be the friend of the poor and the oppressed! Nothing could be more grateful to her

She was sorry, really sorry; and yet in spite of this and the two or three other things which she wished he had not said, she thought him altogether improved since she had seen him;

Nature had given them no inconsiderable share of beauty, and every Sunday dressed them in their cleanest skins and best attire. Sunday always brought this comfort to Fanny, and on this Sunday she felt it more than ever.

It often grieved her to the heart to think of the contrast between them; to think that where nature had made so little difference, circumstances should have made so much,

The loveliness of the day, and of the view, he felt like herself.

I know Mansfield, I know its way, I know its faults towards you. I know the danger of your being so far forgotten, as to have your comforts give way to the imaginary convenience of any single being in the family.

Your judgment is my rule of right.

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.

She was so little equal to Rebecca’s puddings and Rebecca’s hashes, brought to table, as they all were, with such accompaniments of half-cleaned plates, and not half-cleaned knives and forks, that she was very often constrained to defer her heartiest meal till she could send her brothers in the evening for biscuits and buns.

The idea that returned the oftenest was that Miss Crawford, after proving herself cooled and staggered by a return to London habits, would yet prove herself in the end too much attached to him to give him up.

Those parts of the letter which related only to Mr. Crawford and herself, touched her, in comparison, slightly.

I am more and more satisfied with all that I see and hear of him. There is not a shadow of wavering. He thoroughly knows his own mind, and acts up to his resolutions: an inestimable quality.

The loss of Mary I must consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and of Fanny.

So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were little more than nothing.

An attachment, originally as tranquil as their tempers, was now become a mere name.

That was now the home. Portsmouth was Portsmouth; Mansfield was home.

To be losing such pleasures was no trifle; to be losing them, because she was in the midst of closeness and noise, to have confinement, bad air, bad smells, substituted for liberty, freshness, fragrance, and verdure, was infinitely worse

It was so long since Fanny had had any letter from her, that she had some reason to think lightly of the friendship which had been so dwelt on.

Varnish and gilding hide many stains.

It was a foolish precipitation last Christmas, but the evil of a few days may be blotted out in part.

She had only learnt to think nothing of consequence but money.

There was neither health nor gaiety in sunshine in a town.

the sun’s rays falling strongly into the parlour, instead of cheering, made her still more melancholy, for sunshine appeared to her a totally different thing in a town and in the country.

It was too horrible a confusion of guilt, too gross a complication of evil, for human nature, not in a state of utter barbarism, to be capable

the greatest blessing to every one of kindred with Mrs. Rushworth would be instant annihilation.

Never had Fanny more wanted a cordial. Never had she felt such a one as this letter contained.

Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy, and her occupations were hopeful.

She had not time to be miserable.

The happiness she was imparting, too, happiness very little alloyed by the black communication which must briefly precede it—the joyful consent of her father and mother to Susan’s going with her—the general satisfaction with which the going of both seemed regarded, and the ecstasy of Susan herself, was all serving to support her spirits.

The affliction of the Bertrams was little felt in the family.

if she could help rejoicing from beginning to end, it was as much as ought to be expected from human virtue at fourteen.

the state of his own mind made him find relief only in motion.

He was gone again; glad to get away even from Fanny.

It made her melancholy again; and the knowledge of what must be enduring there, invested even the house, modern, airy, and well situated as it was, with a melancholy aspect.

To be listened to and borne with, and hear the voice of kindness and sympathy in return, was everything that could be done for her.

Her affections were not acute, nor was her mind tenacious. After a time, Fanny found it not impossible to direct her thoughts to other subjects, and revive some interest in the usual occupations; but whenever Lady Bertram was fixed on the event, she could see it only in one light, as comprehending the loss of a daughter, and a disgrace never to be wiped off.

The case admitted of no comfort.

She thought he did, but she wanted to be assured of it.

He yielded, but it was with agonies which did not admit of speech.

It was the imprudence which had brought things to extremity, and obliged her brother to give up every dearer plan in order to fly with her.

She would have fixed him; she would have made him happy for ever.

Hers are faults of principle, Fanny; of blunted delicacy and a corrupted, vitiated mind.

Too late he became aware how unfavourable to the character of any young people must be the totally opposite treatment which Maria and Julia had been always experiencing at home,

He had meant them to be good, but his cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not the disposition;

They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice.

He had felt her as an hourly evil, which was so much the worse, as there seemed no chance of its ceasing but with life;

She had despised him, and loved another; and he had been very much aware that it was so.

Curiosity and vanity were both engaged, and the temptation of immediate pleasure was too strong for a mind unused to make any sacrifice to right:

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