@@@@@Opposition was vain; and as to MrsNorris,
he was mistaken in supposing she would wish to make anyShe
started no difficulties that were not talked down in five minutes by
her eldest nephew and niece, who were all-powerful with her; and
as the whole arrangement was to bring very little expense to anybody,
and none at all to herself, as she foresaw in it all the comforts
of hurry, bustle, and importance, and derived the immediate advantage
of fancying herself obliged to leave her own house, where
she had been living a month at her own cost, and take up her abode
in theirs, that every hour might be spent in their service, she was, in
fact, exceedingly delighted with the project
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Jane Austen
CHAPTER XIV
FANNY SEEMED nearer being right than Edmund had supposedThe
business of finding a play that would suit everybody proved to be
no trifle; and the carpenter had received his orders and taken his
measurements, had suggested and removed at least two sets of difficulties,
and having made the necessity of an enlargement of plan
and expense fully evident, was already at work, while a play was still
to seekOther preparations were also in handAn enormous roll of
green baize had arrived from Northampton, and been cut out by
MrsNorris (with a saving by her good management of full threequarters
of a yard), and was actually forming into a curtain by the
housemaids, and still the play was wanting; and as two or three days
passed away in this manner, Edmund began almost to hope that
none might ever be found
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
On the tragic side were the Miss Bertrams, Henry Crawford, and
MrYates; on the comic, Tom Bertram, not quite alone, because it
was evident that Mary Crawford?s wishes, though politely kept back,
inclined the same way: but his determinateness and his power seemed
to make allies unnecessary; and, independent of this great irreconcilable
difference, they wanted a piece containing very few characters
in the whole, but every character first-rate, and three principal
womenAll the best plays were run over in vainNeither Hamlet,
nor Macbeth, nor Othello, nor Douglas, nor The Gamester, presented
anything that could satisfy even the tragedians; and The Rivals,
The School for Scandal, Wheel of Fortune, Heir at Law, and a
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Mansfield Park
long et cetera, were successively dismissed with yet warmer objections
No piece could be proposed that did not supply somebody
with a difficulty, and on one side or the other it was a continual
repetition of, ?Oh no, that will never do! Let us have no ranting
tragediesNot a tolerable woman?s part in the
playAnything but that, my dear TomIt would be impossible to fill
it upOne could not expect anybody to take such a partNothing
but buffoonery from beginning to endThat might do, perhaps,
but for the low partsIf I must give my opinion, I have always thought
it the most insipid play in the English languageI do not wish to
make objections; I shall be happy to be of any use, but I think we
could not chuse worse
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 endFor her own gratification she
could have wished that something might be acted, for she had never
seen even half a play, but everything of higher consequence was
against it
?This will never do,? said Tom Bertram at las
