‘Thank you for your good word,Fanny,but it is more than I would affirm myself.On the contrary,the knowing that there was such a provision for me,probably did bias me.Nor can I think it wrong that it should.There was no natural disinclination to be overcome,and I see no reason why a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a competence early in life.I was in safe hands.I hope I should not have been influenced myself in a wrong way,and I am sure my father was too conscientious to have allowed it.I have no doubt that I was biased,but I think it was blamelessly.’
‘It is the same sort of thing,’said Fanny,after a short pause,‘as for the son of an admiral to go into the navy,or the son of a general to be in the army,and nobody sees anything wrong in that.Nobody wonders that they should prefer the line where their friends can serve them best,or suspects them to be less in earnest in it than they appear.’
‘No,my dear Miss Price,and for reasons good.The profession,either navy or army,is its own justification.It has everything in its favour;heroism,danger,bustle,fashion.Soldiers and sailors are always acceptable in society.Nobody can wonder that men are soldiers and sailors.’
‘But the motives of a man who takes orders with the certainty of preferment,may be fairly suspected,you think?’said Edmund.‘To be justified in your eyes,he must do it in the most complete uncertainty of any provision.’
‘What!take orders without a living!No,that is madness indeed,absolute madness!’
‘Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled,if a man is neither to take orders with a living,nor without?No,for you certainly would not know what to say.But I must beg some advantage to the clergyman from your own argument.As he cannot be influenced by those feelings which you rank highly as temptation and reward to the soldier and sailor in their choice of a profession,as heroism,and noise,and fashion are all against him,he ought to be less liable to the suspicion of wanting sincerity or good intentions in the choice of his.’
‘Oh!no doubt he is very sincere in preferring an income ready made,to the trouble of working for one;and has the best intentions of doing nothing all the rest of his days but eat,drink,and grow fat.It is indolence Mr Bertram,indeed.Indolence and love of ease-a want of all laudable ambition,of taste for good company,or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable,which make men clergymen.A clergyman has nothing to do but to be slovenly and selfish-read the newspaper,watch the weather,and quarrel with his wife.His curate does all the work,and the business of his own life is to dine.’
‘There are such clergymen,no doubt,but I think they are not so common as to justify Miss Crawford in esteeming it their general character.I suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say)common-place censure,you are not judging from yourself,but from prejudiced persons,whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing.It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy.You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusively.You are speaking what you have been told at your uncle's table.’
‘I speak what appears to me the general opinion;and where an opinion is general,it is usually correct.Though I have not seen much of the domestic lives of clergymen,it is seen by too many to leave any deficiency of information.’
‘Where any one body of educated men,of whatever denomination,are condemned indiscriminately,there must be a deficiency of information or’(smiling)‘of something else.Your uncle,and his brother admirals,perhaps,knew little of clergymen beyond the chaplains whom,good or bad,they were always wishing away.’
‘Poor William!He has met with great kindness from the chaplain of the Antwerp,’was a tender apostrophe of Fanny's,very much to the purpose of her own feelings,if not of the conversation.
‘I have been so little addicted to take my opinions from my uncle,’said Miss Crawford,‘that I can hardly suppose;-and since you push me so hard,I must observe,that I am not entirely without the means of seeing what clergymen are,being at this present time the guest of my own brother,Dr Grant.And though Dr Grant is most kind and obliging to me,and though he is really a gentleman,and I dare say a good scholar and clever,and often preaches good sermons,and is very respectable,I see him to be an indolent selfish bon vivant,who must have his palate consulted in everything,who will not stir a finger for the convenience of anyone,and who,moreover,if the cook makes a blunder,is out of humour with his excellent wife.To own the truth,Henry and I were partly driven out this very evening,by a disappointment about a green goose,which he could not get the better of.My poor sister was forced to stay and bear it.’
‘I do not wonder at your disapprobation,upon my word.It is a great defect of temper,made worse by a very faulty habit of self-indulgence;and to see your sister suffering from it,must be exceedingly painful to such feelings as yours.Fanny,it goes against us.We cannot attempt to defend Dr Grant.’
