Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/123

 contrary, it is much more desirable that there should be a difference.

Edmund Bertram is the only one of his family in whom Fanny finds a really kind friend. He has all his father's sterling qualities, with much more gentleness and tenderness than Sir Thomas ever shows, and, having surprised Fanny in tears one day, he finds out by degrees how readily she responds to any kindness, and how easily she can be made happy by it. He devotes his leisure time to comforting her under the painful sense of her own deficiencies, and bringing her forward as much as possible, for he has discovered that she is very timid and retiring, but has plenty of ability, and is far more really intellectual in her tastes than his accomplished sisters. He interests himself in her pursuits, devises little pleasures for her, directs her taste in readings and, as a reward for the affection and care he bestows upon her through the next five or six years, he makes her by degrees a very lovable and charming compaioncompanion [sic]—far more like a sister to him than the highly accomplished Maria or Julia ever can be.

Edmund Bertram himself is an excellent specimen of a cultivated, thoughtful, right-minded young Englishman, not brilliant, but with plenty of sense, thoroughly good and trustworthy. Jane Austen once said of him that he was very far from being what she knew an English gentleman often was; but it is difficult for us to take this view of him, and, indeed, the only weak point in him is his clerical position, which, we must remember, was looked upon very differently then from now.

When Fanny is fifteen, Mr. Norris dies; and Sir Thomas naturally supposes that Mrs. Norris will