re2035juvenal

@@@@@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 115 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 116 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