‘This comfort you might have had sooner,Fanny,had you sought it.But how could you possibly suppose me against you?How could you imagine me an advocate for marriage without love?Were I even careless in general on such matters,how could you imagine me so where your happiness was at stake?’
‘My uncle thought me wrong,and I knew he had been talking to you.’
‘As far as you have gone,Fanny,I think you perfectly right.I may be sorry,I may be surprised-though hardly that,for you had not had time to attach yourself;but I think you perfectly right.Can it admit of a question?It is disgraceful to us if it does.You did not love him-nothing could have justified your accepting him.’
Fanny had not felt so comfortable for days and days.
‘So far your conduct has been faultless,and they were quite mistaken who wished you to do otherwise.But the matter does not end here.Crawford's is no common attachment;he perseveres,with the hope of creating that regard which had not been created before.This,we know,must be a work of time.But’(with an affectionate smile)‘let him succeed at last,Fanny,let him succeed at last.You have proved yourself upright and disinterested,prove yourself grateful and tender-hearted;and then you will be the perfect model of a woman,which I have always believed you born for.’
‘Oh never,never,never;he never will succeed with me.’And she spoke with a warmth which quite astonished Edmund,and which she blushed at the recollection of herself,when she saw his look,and heard him reply,‘Never,Fanny,so very determined and positive!This is not like yourself,your rational self.’
‘I mean,’she cried,sorrowfully,correcting herself,‘that I think,I never shall,as far as the future can be answered for-I think I never shall return his regard.’
‘I must hope better things.I am aware,more aware than Crawford can be,that the man who means to make you love him (you having due notice of his intentions),must have very uphill work,for there are all your early attachments,and habits,in battle array;and before he can get your heart for his own use,he has to unfasten it from all the holds upon things animate and inanimate,which so many years'growth have confirmed,and which are considerably tightened for the moment by the very idea of separation.I know that the apprehension of being forced to quit Mansfield will for a time be arming you against him.I wish he had not been obliged to tell you what he was trying for.I wish he had known you as well as I do,Fanny.Between us,I think we should have won you.My theoretical and his practical knowledge together,could not have failed.He should have worked upon my plans.I must hope,however,that time proving him (as I firmly believe it will),to deserve you by his steady affection,will give him his reward.I cannot suppose that you have not the wish to love him-the natural wish of gratitude.You must have some feeling of that sort.You must be sorry for your own indifference.’
‘We are so totally unlike,’said Fanny,avoiding a direct answer,‘we are so very,very different in all our inclinations and ways,that I consider it as quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy together,even if I could like him.There never were two people more dissimilar.We have not one taste in common.We should be miserable.’
‘You are mistaken,Fanny.The dissimilarity is not so strong.You are quite enough alike.You have tastes in common.You have moral and literary tastes in common.You have both warm hearts and benevolent feelings;and Fanny,who that heard him read,and saw you listen to Shakespeare the other night,will think you unfitted as companions?You forget yourself:there is a decided difference in your tempers,I allow.He is lively,you are serious;but so much the better;his spirits will support yours.It is your disposition to be easily dejected,and to fancy difficulties greater than they are.His cheerfulness will counteract this.He sees difficulties nowhere;and his pleasantness and gaiety will be a constant support to you.Your being so far unlike,Fanny,does not in the smallest degree make against the probability of your happiness together:do not imagine it.I am myself convinced that it is rather a favourable circumstance.I am perfectly persuaded that the tempers had better be unlike;I mean unlike in the flow of the spirits,in the manners,in the inclination for much or little company,in the propensity to talk or to be silent,to be grave or to be gay.Some opposition here is,I am thoroughly convinced,friendly to matrimonial happiness.I exclude extremes of course;and a very close resemblance in all those points would be the likeliest way to produce an extreme.A counteraction,gentle and continual,is the best safeguard of manners and conduct.’
Full well could Fanny guess where his thoughts were now Miss Crawford's power was all returning.He had been speaking of her cheerfully from the hour of his coming home.His avoiding her was quite at an end.He had dined at the parsonage only the preceding day.
After leaving him to his happier thoughts for some minutes,Fanny feeling it due to herself,returned to Mr Crawford,and said,‘It is not merely in temper that I consider him as totally unsuited to myself;though in that respect,I think the difference between us too great,infinitely too great;his spirits often oppress me-but there is something in him which I object to still more.I must say,cousin,that I cannot approve his character.I have not thought well of him from the time of the play.I then saw him behaving,as it appeared to me,so very improperly and unfeelingly,I may speak of it now because it is all over-so improperly by poor Mr Rushworth,not seeming to care how he exposed or hurt him,and paying attentions to my cousin Maria,which-in short,at the time of the play,I received an impression which will never be got over.’