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Dashwood remained at Norland several months; not from any disinclination to move when the sight of every well known spot ceased to raise the violent emotion which it produced for a while; for when her spirits began to revive, and her mind became capable of some other exertion than that of heightening its affliction by melancholy remembrances, she was impatient to be gone, and indefatigable in her inquiries for a suitable dwelling in the neighbourhood of Norland; for to remove far from that beloved spot was impossible.
Her heart was devoted to Willoughby, and the fond attachment to Norland, which she brought with her from Sussex, was more likely to be softened than she had thought it possible before, by the charms which his society bestowed on her present home. Elinor's happiness was not so great. Her heart was not so much at ease, nor her satisfaction in their amusements so pure.
Such things had happened before for the Norland was never more than one stage distant from famine; and in the old days there had been but a single remedy. Food and wealth must be won from a foray overseas. It was years since Ironbeard had ridden Egir's road to the rich lowlands, and the Bearsarks were growing soft from idleness.
The house, too, as described by Sir John, was on so simple a scale, and the rent so uncommonly moderate, as to leave her no right of objection on either point; and, therefore, though it was not a plan which brought any charm to her fancy, though it was a removal from the vicinity of Norland beyond her wishes, she made no attempt to dissuade her mother from sending a letter of acquiescence.
"And how does dear, dear Norland look?" cried Marianne. "Dear, dear Norland," said Elinor, "probably looks much as it always does at this time of the year the woods and walks thickly covered with dead leaves." "Oh," cried Marianne, "with what transporting sensation have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind!
I'm sure there's a vast many smart beaux in Exeter; but you know, how could I tell what smart beaux there might be about Norland; and I was only afraid the Miss Dashwoods might find it dull at Barton, if they had not so many as they used to have. But perhaps you young ladies may not care about the beaux, and had as lief be without them as with them.
One would like to think of the lengthened tide-flux of pedestrian citizens facing South-westward, as being drawn by devout attraction to our nourishing luminary: at the hour, mark, when the Norland cloud-king, after a day of wild invasion, sits him on his restful bank of bluefish smack-o'-cheek red above Whitechapel, to spy where his last puff of icy javelins pierces and dismembers the vapoury masses in cluster about the circle of flame descending upon the greatest and most elevated of Admirals at the head of the Strand, with illumination of smoke-plumed chimneys, house-roofs, window-panes, weather-vanes, monument and pedimental monsters, and omnibus umbrella.
A silly hussy I wished to marry her, by the left hand, to my forester, but she kept on moping and looking at the idiotical bridegroom, and died a poor fool." "Ah! we've grown dull since those merry times," said Hasket of Norland, looking, round the empty hall, and then towards Reginald, as if reproaching him with the absence of the ancient joviality.
Off Cape Wrath I picked up a paper from a small schooner. "Wheat, 84; Maize, 60; Barley, 62." What were battles and bombardments compared to that! The whole coast of Norland was closely blockaded by cordon within cordon, and every port, even the smallest, held by the British.
And at such times my father almost ran as he passed the door of the infant school and thought of the follies which were being committed within. "Samplers," he was wont to mutter, "samplers when they might be at their Ovid!" My mother Gracie Lyon that was had none of the stern blood of her Cameronian forebears, nor yet my father's tempestuous Norland mood. It is like velvet!"
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