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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
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counteract this. He sees difficulties no where; 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 favorable
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."
"My dear Fanny," replied Edmund, scarcely hearing her to the end, "let us not, any of us, be judged by
what we appeared at that period of general folly. The time of the play, is a time which I hate to recollect.
Maria was wrong, Crawford was wrong, we were all wrong together; but none so wrong as myself.
Compared with me, all the rest were blameless. I was playing the fool with my eyes open."
"As a by-stander," said Fanny, "perhaps I saw more than you did; and I do think that Mr. Rushworth
was sometimes very jealous."
"Very possibly. No wonder. Nothing could be more improper than the whole business. I am shocked
whenever I think that Maria could be capable of it; but if she could undertake the part, we must not be
surprised at the rest."
"Before the play, I am much mistaken, if Julia did not think he was paying her attentions."
"Julia! I have heard before from some one of his being in love with Julia, but I could never see anything
of it. And Fanny, though I hope I do justice to my sisters' good qualities, I think it very possible that they
might, one or both, be more desirous of being admired by Crawford, and might show that desire rather
more unguardedly than was perfectly prudent. I can remember that they were evidently fond of his
society; and with such encouragement, a man like Crawford, lively, and it may be a little unthinking, might
be led on to There could be nothing very striking, because it is clear that he had no pretensions; his
heart was reserved for you. And I must say, that its being for you, has raised him inconceivably in my
opinion. It does him the highest honor; it shows his proper estimation of the blessing of domestic
happiness, and pure attachment. It proves him unspoiled by his uncle. It proves him, in short, everything
that I had been used to wish to believe him, and feared he was not."
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