to practice it,
but beyond that--and how little could the utmost of your single
management do to stop the ruin which had begun before your marriage?
beyond _that_, had you endeavoured, however reasonably, to abridge
_his_ enjoyments, is it not to be feared, that instead of prevailing
on feelings so selfish to consent to it, you would have lessened your
own influence on his heart, and made him regret the connection which
had involved him in such difficulties?"

Marianne's lips quivered, and she repeated the word "Selfish?" in a
tone that implied, "do you really think him selfish?"

"The whole of his behaviour," replied Elinor, "from the beginning to
the end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness. It was
selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which
afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession
of it, and which finally carried him from Barton. His own enjoyment,
or his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle."

"It is very true. _My_ happiness never was his object."

"At present," continued Elinor, "he regrets what he has done. And why
does he regret it?--Because he finds it has not answered towards
himself. It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now
unembarrassed--he suffers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks
only that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than
yourself. But does it follow that had he married you, he would have
been happy?--The inconveniences would have been different. He would
then have suffered under the pecuniary distresses which, because they
are removed, he now reckons as nothing. He would have had a wife of
whose temper he could make no complaint, but he would have been always
necessitous--always poor; and probably would soon have learned to rank
the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far
more importance, even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a
wife."

"I have not a doubt of it," said Marianne; "and I have nothing to
regret--nothing but my own folly."

"Rather say your mother's imprudence, my child," said Mrs. Dashwood;
"_she_ must be answerable."

Marianne would not let her proceed;--and Elinor, satisfied that each
felt their own error, wished to avoid any survey of the past that
might weaken her sister's spirits; she, therefore, pursuing the first
subject, immediately continued--

"One observation may, I think, be fairly drawn from the whole of the
st