Their means
were as different as their objects, and equally suited
to the advancement of each.
Elinor sat down to her drawing-table as soon as he
was out of the house, busily employed herself the whole day,
neither sought nor avoided the mention of his name,
appeared to interest herself almost as much as ever in the
general concerns of the family, and if, by this conduct,
she did not lessen her own grief, it was at least prevented
from unnecessary increase, and her mother and sisters
were spared much solicitude on her account.
Such behaviour as this, so exactly the reverse
of her own, appeared no more meritorious to Marianne,
than her own had seemed faulty to her. The business
of self-command she settled very easily;--with strong
affections it was impossible, with calm ones it could
have no merit. That her sister's affections WERE calm,
she dared not deny, though she blushed to acknowledge it;
and of the strength of her own, she gave a very striking proof,
by still loving and respecting that sister, in spite
of this mortifying conviction.
Without shutting herself up from her family,
or leaving the house in determined solitude to avoid them,
or lying awake the whole night to indulge meditation,
Elinor found every day afforded her leisure enough
to think of Edward, and of Edward's behaviour, in every
possible variety which the different state of her spirits
at different times could produce,--with tenderness,
pity, approbation, censure, and doubt.
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