That is ship-plain as it can be.Now for the cream.
But ah!united (courtship,you know),what reverse we have!
Man's boasted power and freedom,all are flown:
Lord of the earth and sea,he bends a slave,
And woman,lovely woman,reigns alone.
A very proper compliment!and then follows the application which I think,my dear Harriet,you cannot find much difficulty in comprehending.Read it in comfort to yourself.There can be no doubt of its being written for you and to you.’
Harriet could not long resist so delightful a persuasion.She read the concluding lines,and was all flutter and happiness.She could not speak.But she was not wanted to speak.It was enough for her to feel.Emma spoke for her.
‘There is so pointed and so particular a meaning in this compliment,’said she,‘that I cannot have a doubt as to Mr Elton's intentions.You are his object-and you will soon receive the completest proof of it.I thought it must be so.I thought I could not be so deceived;but now it is clear;the state of his mind is as clear and decided as my wishes on the subject have been ever since I knew you.Yes,Harriet,just so long have I been wanting the very circumstance to happen which has happened.I could never tell whether an attachment between you and Mr Elton were most desirable or most natural.Its probability and its eligibility have really so equalled each other!I am very happy.I congratulate you,my dear Harriet,with all my heart.This is an attachment which a woman may well feel proud in creating.This is a connection which offers nothing but good.It will give you everything that you want-consideration,independence,a proper home-it will fix you in the centre of all your real friends,close to Hartfield and to me,and confirm our intimacy for ever.This,Harriet,is an alliance which can never raise a blush in either of us.’
‘Dear Miss Woodhouse!’and ‘Dear Miss Woodhouse!’was all that Harriet,with many tender embraces,could articulate at first;but when they did arrive at something more like conversation,it was sufficiently clear to her friend that she saw,felt,anticipated,and remembered just as she ought.Mr Elton's superiority had very ample acknowledgement.
‘Whatever you say is always right,’cried Harriet,‘and therefore I suppose,and believe,and hope it must be so;but otherwise I could not have imagined it.It is so much beyond anything I deserve.Mr Elton,who might marry anybody!There cannot be two opinions about him.He is so very superior.Only think of those sweet verses-“To Miss-.”Dear me,how clever!Could it really be meant for me?’
‘I cannot make a question,or listen to a question about that.It is a certainty.Receive it on my judgement.It is a sort of prologue to the play,a motto to the chapter;and will be soon followed by matter-of-fact prose.’
‘It is a sort of thing which nobody could have expected.I am sure,a month ago,I had no more idea myself.The strangest things do take place!’
‘When Miss Smiths and Mr Eltons get acquainted-they do indeed-and really it is strange;it is out of the common course that what is so evidently,so palpably desirable-what courts the prearrangement of other people-should so immediately shape itself into the proper form.You and Mr Elton are by situation called together;you belong to one another by every circumstance of your respective homes.Your marrying will be equal to the match at Randalls.There does seem to be something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right direction,and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow.
The course of true love never did run smooth-
A Hartfield edition of Shakespeare would have a long note on that passage.’
‘That Mr Elton should really be in love with me-me,of all people,who did not know him,to speak to him at Michaelmas.And he,the very handsomest man that ever was,and a man that everybody looks up to,quite like Mr Knightley.His company so sought after,that everybody says he need not eat a single meal by himself if he does not choose it;that he has more invitations than there are days in the week.And so excellent in the Church!Miss Nash has put down all the texts he has ever preached from since he came to Highbury.Dear me!When I look back to the first time I saw him!How little did I think!The two Abbots and I ran into the front room,and peeped through the blind when we heard he was going by,and Miss Nash came and scolded us away,and stayed to look through herself;however,she called me back presently,and let me look too,which was very good-natured.And how beautiful we thought he looked!He was arm-in-arm with Mr Cole.’
‘This is an alliance which,whoever-whatever your friends may be,must be agreeable to them,provided,at least,they have common sense;and we are not to be addressing our conduct to fools.If they are anxious to see you happily married,here is a man whose amiable character gives every assurance of it;if they wish to have you settled in the same country and circle which they have chosen to place you in,here it will be accomplished;and if their only object is that you should,in the common phrase,be well married,here is the comfortable fortune,the respectable establishment,the rise in the world which must satisfy them.’
‘Yes,very true.How nicely you talk!I love to hear you.You understand everything.You and Mr Elton are one as clever as the other.This charade!If I had studied a twelvemonth,I could never have made anything like it.’
‘I thought he meant to try his skill,by his manner of declining it yesterday.’
‘I do think it is,without exception,the best charade I ever read.’
‘I never read one more to the purpose,certainly.’
‘It is as long again as almost all we have had before.’
‘I do not consider its length as particularly in its favour.Such things in general cannot be too short.’
Harriet was too intent on the lines to hear.The most satisfactory comparisons were rising in her mind.
