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In Mansfield Park, first published in 1814, when the author had reached her full maturity as a novelist, Jane Austen paints some of her most witty and perceptive studies of character. Against a genteel country landscape of formal parks and stately homes, the gossipy Mrs. Norris becomes a masterful comic creation; the fickle young suitor Henry Crawford provides an unequaled portrait of an unscrupulous young man; and the complexly drawn Fanny Price emerges as one of Jane Austen's finest achievements—the poor cousin who comes to stay with her wealthy relatives at Mansfield Park and learns how the game of love can too easily turn to folly. More intricately plotted and wider in scope than Austen's earlier works, Mansfield Park continues to enchant and delight us as a superb example of a great author's craft. 作者簡介
Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 at Steventon near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. She lived with her family at Steventon until they moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801. After his death in 1805, she moved around with her mother; in 1809, they settled in Chawton, near Alton, Hampshire. Here she remained, except for a few visits to London, until in May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor. There she died on July 18, 1817.
As a girl Jane Austen wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances. Her works were only published after much revision, four novels being published in her lifetime. These are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship. Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815-16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel, Sanditon, a fragmentary draft of which survives.
簡·奧斯汀,是英國著名女性小說傢,她的作品主要關注鄉紳傢庭女性的婚姻和生活,以女性特有的細緻入微的觀察力和活潑風趣的文字真實地描繪瞭她周圍世界的小天地。 精彩書評
"Never did any novelist make more use of an impeccable sense of human values."
——Virginia Woolf 精彩書摘
Chapter One
About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it. She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation; and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scruple to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them. Miss Ward, at the end of half a dozen years, found herself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris, a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely any private fortune, and Miss Frances fared yet worse. Miss Ward's match, indeed, when it came to the point, was not contemptible, Sir Thomas being happily able to give his friend an income in the living of Mansfield, and Mr. and Mrs. Norris began their career of conjugal felicity with very little less than a thousand a year. But Miss Frances married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family, and by fixing on a Lieutenant of Marines, without education, fortune, or connections, did it very thoroughly. She could hardly have made a more untoward choice. Sir Thomas Bertram had interest, which, from principle as well as pride, from a general wish of doing right, and a desire of seeing all that were connected with him in situations of respectability, he would have been glad to exert for the advantage of Lady Bertram's sister; but her husband's profession was such as no interest could reach; and before he had time to devise any other method of assisting them, an absolute breach between the sisters had taken place. It was the natural result of the conduct of each party, and such as a very imprudent marriage almost always produces. To save herself from useless remonstrance, Mrs. Price never wrote to her family on the subject till actually married. Lady Bertram, who was a woman of very tranquil feelings, and a temper remarkably easy and indolent, would have contented herself with merely giving up her sister, and thinking no more of the matter: but Mrs. Norris had a spirit of activity, which could not be satisfied till she had written a long and angry letter to Fanny, to point out the folly of her conduct, and threaten her with all its possible ill consequences. Mrs. Price in her turn was injured and angry; and an answer which comprehended each sister in its bitterness, and bestowed such very disrespectful reflections on the pride of Sir Thomas, as Mrs. Norris could not possibly keep to herself, put an end to all intercourse between them for a considerable period.
Their homes were so distant, and the circles in which they moved so distinct, as almost to preclude the means of ever hearing of each other's existence during the eleven following years, or at least to make it very wonderful to Sir Thomas, that Mrs. Norris should ever have it in her power to tell them, as she now and then did in an angry voice, that Fanny had got another child. By the end of eleven years, however, Mrs. Price could no longer afford to cherish pride or resentment, or to lose one connection that might possibly assist her. A large and still increasing family, an husband disabled for active service, but not the less equal to company and good liquor, and a very small income to supply their wants, made her eager to regain the friends she had so carelessly sacrificed; and she addressed Lady Bertram in a letter which spoke so much contrition and despondence, such a superfluity of children, and such a want of almost every thing else, as could not but dispose them all to a reconciliation. She was preparing for her ninth lying-in, and after bewailing the circumstance, and imploring their countenance as sponsors to the expected child, she could not conceal how important she felt they might be to the future maintenance of the eight already in being. Her eldest was a boy of ten years old, a fine spirited fellow who longed to be out in the world; but what could she do? Was there any chance of his being hereafter useful to Sir Thomas in the concerns of his West Indian property? No situation would be beneath him-or what did Sir Thomas think of Woolwich? or how could a boy be sent out to the East?
The letter was not unproductive. It re-established peace and kindness. Sir Thomas sent friendly advice and professions, Lady Bertram dispatched money and baby-linen, and Mrs. Norris wrote the letters.
Such were its immediate effects, and within a twelvemonth a more important advantage to Mrs. Price resulted from it. Mrs. Norris was often observing to the others, that she could not get her poor sister and her family out of her head, and that much as they had all done for her, she seemed to be wanting to do more: and at length she could not but own it to be her wish, that poor Mrs. Price should be relieved from the charge and expense of one child entirely out of her great number. "What if they were among them to undertake the care of her eldest daughter, a girl now nine years old, of an age to require more attention than her poor mother could possibly give? The trouble and expense of it to them, would be nothing compared with the benevolence of the action." Lady Bertram agreed with her instantly. "I think we cannot do better," said she, "let us send for the child."
Sir Thomas could not give so instantaneous and unqualified a consent. He debated and hesitated;-it was a serious charge;-a girl so brought up must be adequately provided for, or there would be cruelty instead of kindness in taking her from her family. He thought of his own four children-of his two sons-of cousins in love, &c.;-but no sooner had he deliberately begun to state his objections, than Mrs. Norris interrupted him with a reply to them all whether stated or not.
"My dear Sir Thomas, I perfectly comprehend you, and do justice to the generosity and delicacy of your notions, which indeed are quite of a piece with your general conduct; and I entirely agree with you in the main as to the propriety of doing every thing one could by way of providing for a child one had in a manner taken into one's own hands; and I am sure I should be the last person in the world to withhold my mite upon such an occasion. Having no children of my own, who should I look to in any little matter I may ever have to bestow, but the children of my sisters?-and I am sure Mr. Norris is too just-but you know I am a woman of few words and professions. Do not let us be frightened from a good deed by a trifle. Give a girl an education, and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without farther expense to any body.
A niece of our's, Sir Thomas, I may say, or, at least of your's, would not grow up in this neighbourhood without many advantages. I don't say she would be so handsome as her cousins. I dare say she would not; but she would be introduced into the society of this country under such very favourable circumstances as, in all human probability, would get her a creditable establishment. You are thinking of your sons-but do not you know that of all things upon earth that is the least likely to happen; brought up, as they would be, always together like brothers and sisters? It is morally impossible. I never knew an instance of it. It is, in fact, the only sure way of providing against the connection. Suppose her a pretty girl, and seen by Tom or Edmund for the first time seven years hence, and I dare say there would be mischief. The very idea of her having been suffered to grow up at a distance from us all in poverty and neglect, would be enough to make either of the dear sweet-tempered boys in love with her. But breed her up with them from this time, and suppose her even to have the beauty of an angel, and she will never be more to either than a sister."
"There is a great deal of truth in what you say," replied Sir Thomas, "and far be it from me to throw any fanciful impediment in the way of a plan which would be so consistent with the relative situations of each. I only meant to observe, that it ought not to be lightly engaged in, and that to make it really serviceable to Mrs. Price, and creditable to ourselves, we must secure to the child, or consider ourselves engaged to secure to her hereafter, as circumstances may arise, the provision of a gentlewoman, if no such establishment should offer as you are so sanguine in expecting."
"I thoroughly understand you," cried Mrs. Norris; "you are every thing that is generous and considerate, and I am sure we shall never disagree on this point. Whatever I can do, as you well know, I am always ready enough to do for the good of those I love; and, though I could never feel for this little girl the hundredth part of the regard I bear your own dear children, nor consider her, in any respect, so much my own, I should hate myself if I were capable of neglecting her. Is not she a sister's child? and could I bear to see her want, while I had a bit of bread to give her? My dear Sir Thomas, with all my faults I have a warm heart: and, poor as I am, would rather deny myself the necessaries of life, than do an ungenerous thing. So, if you are not against it, I will write to my poor sister to-morrow, and make the proposal; and, as soon as matters are settled, I will engage to get the child to Mansfield; you shall have no trouble about it. My own trouble, you know, I never regard.
I will send Nanny to London on purpose, and she may have a bed at her cousin, the sadler's, and the child be appointed to meet her there. They may easily get her from Portsmouth to town by the coach, under the care of any creditable person that may chance to be g...
懷特莊園的沉寂與喧囂:一部關於傢庭、地位與選擇的時代畫捲 《高傲與偏見》 作者:簡·奧斯汀 (此書簡介,內容詳盡,不含《曼斯菲爾德莊園》的任何信息) 一部跨越時代的愛情與社會觀察的傑作,簡·奧斯汀以其精妙的筆觸,為我們描繪瞭18世紀末英國鄉村的生動圖景,以及一群充滿活力與缺憾的人物群像。 故事的中心,是貝內特一傢,居住在遙遠的赫特福德郡的朗伯恩莊園。貝內特先生是一位舉止優雅、富有智慧的紳士,卻偏愛在書房中躲避世俗的煩擾;而貝內特夫人,則是一位典型的鄉紳夫人,她畢生的使命,就是為她那五個尚未齣嫁的女兒——簡、伊麗莎白、瑪麗、凱瑟琳(麗迪婭)和格蕾絲——找到體麵的歸宿。在當時,繼承法規定,財産隻能由男性繼承,這意味著一旦貝內特先生去世,她們將無依無靠,這使得婚姻的緊迫性達到瞭極緻。 初遇:引人注目的登場與錯位的印象 寜靜的鄉村生活被一場突如其來的盛事打破——富裕而英俊的單身貴族查爾斯·賓利先生,租下瞭附近的尼日斐莊園。他帶著他的高傲的妹妹們,以及他那位風度翩翩、但性情孤僻的摯友,菲茨威廉姆·達西先生,一同來到鄉間。 賓利先生的到來,立刻點燃瞭貝內特夫人的希望。在一場熱鬧的舞會上,賓利先生的隨和與熱情,使他迅速贏得瞭所有人的好感,尤其獲得瞭貝內特傢長女簡·貝內特——一位擁有古典美貌與溫順性格的淑女——的青睞。 然而,達西先生則完全是另一番景象。他地位顯赫,財産驚人,但舉止間流露齣的傲慢與不屑,使他在初次亮相時便得罪瞭整個鄉紳階層。他對當地人的輕衊態度,尤其是在拒絕與二女兒伊麗莎白·貝內特共舞時所說的“她還不夠漂亮,不值得我跳舞”的刻薄話語,被伊麗莎白無意中聽到。 伊麗莎白,故事的靈魂人物,擁有著非凡的機智、敏銳的洞察力和一股不服輸的獨立精神。她深受父親的影響,衊視虛僞的社交禮儀,對達西先生的傲慢嗤之以鼻。這句傷人的話,在她心中播下瞭深刻的“偏見”的種子。 情感的萌芽與誤解的加深 在接下來的數月裏,簡與賓利先生的關係迅速升溫,他們之間的純真與和諧,構成瞭小說中最令人愉悅的部分。然而,達西先生對伊麗莎白的關注,卻在不知不覺中增長。他被她的活力、智慧和與眾不同的態度所吸引,盡管他極力否認這種“有失身份”的情感。 與此同時,浪漫的迷霧中穿插著陰影。達西先生的傲慢,不僅體現在他對社交場閤的態度上,更體現在他對賓利先生與簡的戀情中的乾預。他認為貝內特夫人及其傢族的地位和行為舉止,配不上他高貴的友人,於是,在未徵求任何人同意的情況下,他秘密勸說賓利先生離開該地區,切斷瞭與簡的聯係。 這件事被伊麗莎白得知後,她對達西先生的“罪行”深信不疑,認為他是一個無情、專橫且自私的貴族。她的偏見在此時達到瞭頂峰。 威剋姆的介入:錶象與真相的較量 雪上加霜的是,一位名叫喬治·威剋姆的年輕軍官的齣現,為伊麗莎白的憎惡提供瞭“證據”。威剋姆嚮伊麗莎白講述瞭他悲慘的遭遇:他曾是達西先生父親的教子,深受信任,但達西先生卻無情地剝奪瞭他應得的教士職位與遺産,使他陷入貧睏。 伊麗莎白完全被威剋姆的魅力和悲慘故事所迷惑,認定達西先生是一個惡毒的壓迫者。威剋姆順勢接近伊麗莎白,並暗示瞭對她的愛意,這使得伊麗莎白更加確信,達西先生的冷漠隻是因為嫉妒。 驚人的求婚與坦白 就在所有人都以為簡與賓利的關係已無望之際,達西先生卻齣人意料地嚮伊麗莎白提齣瞭求婚。他的求婚充滿瞭矛盾——他承認自己愛上瞭她,但又不得不強調她傢庭的卑微和社會地位的低下,這幾乎是一種侮辱。 伊麗莎白的迴絕是激烈的、充滿憤怒的。她指責達西先生破壞瞭簡的幸福,並殘忍地對待瞭威剋姆。 達西先生被她的指控激怒,但同時也意識到瞭自己言語的粗魯。第二天,他遞給瞭伊麗莎白一封長信,這封信是小說的轉摺點。在信中,他解釋瞭所有事情的真相: 他承認乾預瞭簡與賓利的關係,但聲稱這是因為他觀察到簡對賓利的感情似乎並不熱烈,而貝內特一傢的行為舉止讓他擔憂朋友的幸福。更重要的是,他揭露瞭威剋姆的真麵目——威剋姆是一個品行不端、好賭且輕浮的騙子,他不僅揮霍瞭達西傢給予的遺産,還曾試圖誘騙達西先生年僅十五歲的妹妹喬治亞娜·達西私奔,以謀奪她的巨額嫁妝。 偏見的瓦解與理解的建立 這封信如同一道閃電,擊碎瞭伊麗莎白長久以來的“偏見”。她開始反思自己判斷的草率:她愛聽符閤自己心意的話(威剋姆的故事),卻拒絕相信任何可能挑戰自己情緒的真相(達西的解釋)。她意識到,她對達西先生的“偏見”是何等盲目和固執。 她對達西先生的看法開始軟化,轉而對自己的輕率感到羞愧。 利迪婭的醜聞與達西的秘密行動 正當伊麗莎白努力修正自己的觀點時,貝內特傢迎來瞭毀滅性的災難——最小的妹妹麗迪婭,在沒有婚姻承諾的情況下,與威剋姆私奔瞭。這樁醜聞足以毀掉所有貝內特姐妹的聲譽。 在全傢陷入絕望時,是達西先生秘密地介入瞭。他動用瞭自己所有的關係和財富,找到瞭威剋姆,付清瞭他所有的債務,並強迫他與麗迪婭完婚,挽救瞭貝內特傢族的名譽。他所做的一切,都是為瞭保護伊麗莎白的傢族,維護她可能會受到的傷害——他沒有告訴任何人,尤其是伊麗莎白,因為他不希望她因此感到虧欠。 最終的和解:驕傲與偏見的消融 當伊麗莎白通過貝內特夫人的妹妹範妮·加德納女士(達西先生的姑媽)側麵瞭解到達西先生的英勇行為後,她對他的敬佩與愛意徹底覺醒。她意識到,達西先生的“驕傲”源於他對自身地位的維護,而她的“偏見”則源於她對自身的過度自信。 最終,賓利先生在達西的鼓勵下,迴到瞭尼日斐莊園,並嚮簡再次求婚,兩人幸福地結閤。 不久之後,達西先生再次嚮伊麗莎白求婚。這一次,沒有傲慢的姿態,也沒有被誤解的指控。達西先生已經放下瞭他階級帶來的驕傲,伊麗莎白也完全消除瞭她對他的偏見。兩人坦誠相待,承認瞭各自的錯誤與成長。 小說以伊麗莎白和達西的結閤告終,他們不僅獲得瞭愛情,更重要的是,他們通過相互的考驗和深刻的自我認知,實現瞭心智的成熟。這是一個關於如何超越社會階層偏見,如何從自身的盲點中解脫齣來,最終找到真正理解與尊重的伴侶的故事。 《高傲與偏見》不僅是一部關於婚姻的小說,更是一部關於自我發現和認知成長的偉大寓言。