"No, no, it is not man's nature. I will not allow it to be more man's

nature than woman's to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or

have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe in a true analogy

between our bodily frames and our mental; and that as our bodies are

the strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough

usage, and riding out the heaviest weather."

"Your feelings may be the strongest," replied Anne, "but the same

spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most

tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived;

which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments.

Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have

difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You

are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship.

Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health,

nor life, to be called your own. It would be hard, indeed" (with a

faltering voice), "if woman's feelings were to be added to all this."

"We shall never agree upon this question," Captain Harville was

beginning to say, when a slight noise called their attention to Captain

Wentworth's hitherto perfectly quiet division of the room. It was

nothing more than that his pen had fallen down; but Anne was startled

at finding him nearer than she had supposed, and half inclined to

suspect that the pen had only fallen because he had been occupied by

them, striving to catch sounds, which yet she did not think he could

have caught.

"Have you finished your letter?" said Captain Harville.

"Not quite, a few lines more. I shall have done in five minutes."

"There is no hurry on my side. I am only ready whenever you are. I am

in very good anchorage here," (smiling at Anne,) "well supplied, and

want for nothing. No hurry for a signal at all. Well, Miss Elliot,"

(lowering his voice,) "as I was saying we shall never agree, I suppose,

upon this point. No man and woman, would, probably. But let me

observe that all histories are against you--all stories, prose and

verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty

quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do not think I

ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon

woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's

fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."




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