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 | SENSE AND SENSIBILITY Ebook | |
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 | |  | | E-book Category: Classic, Romance
E-book Title: SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Author: Jane Austen
Book Description: CHAPTER 1
The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex.
Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park,
in the centre of their property, where, for many generations,
they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage
the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance.
The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived
to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life,
had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister.
But her death, which happened ten years before his own,
produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss,
he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew
Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate,
and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it.
In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children,
the old Gentleman's days were comfortably spent.
His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention
of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded
not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him
every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive;
and the cheerfulness of the children added a relish
to his existence.
By a former marriage, Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son: by his
present lady, three daughters. The son, a steady respectable young man,
was amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had
been large, and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age.
By his own marriage, likewise, which happened soon afterwards,
he added to his wealth. To him therefore the succession to
the Norland estate was not so really important as to his sisters;
for their fortune, independent of what might arise to them from
their father's inheriting that property, could be but small.
Their mother had nothing, and their father only seven thousand
pounds in his own disposal; for the remaining moiety of his first
wife's fortune was also secured to her child, and he had only a
life-interest in it.
The old gentleman died: his will was read, and like almost
every other will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure.
He was neither so unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave
his estate from his nephew;--but he left it to him on
such terms as destroyed half the value of the bequest.
Mr. Dashwood had wished for it more for the sake of his wife
and daughters than for himself or his son;--but to his son,
and his son's son, a child of four years old, it was secured,
in such a way, as to leave to himself no power of providing for
those who were most dear to him, and who most needed a provision
by any charge on the estate, or by any sale of its valuable woods.
The whole was tied up for the benefit of this child, who,
in occasional visits with his father and mother at Norland,
had so far gained on the affections of his uncle, by such attractions
as are by no means unusual in children of two or three years old;
an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his
own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise,
as to outweigh all the value of all the attention which,
for years, he had received from his niece and her daughters.
He meant not to be unkind, however, and, as a mark of his
affection for the three girls, he left them a thousand pounds
a-piece.More... | 
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