MANSFIELD PARK
497
by his early transgressions. We cannot understand how any age could
have been interested in Patient Griselda. We admire Milton only if
we believe with Blake that he was of the Devil's party, of which we
are fellow-travelers; the paradox of the
felix culpa
and the "fortunate
fall" appeals to us for other than theological reasons and serves to
validate all sins and all falls, which we take to be the signs of life.
It does not reconcile us to the virtue of Fanny Price that it is
rewarded by more than itself. The shade of Pamela hovers over her
career. We take failure to be the mark of true virtue and we do not
like
it
that, by reason of her virtue, the terrified little stranger in
Mansfield Park grows up to be virtually its mistress.
Even more alienating is the state of the heroine's health. Fanny
is in a debilitated condition through the greater part of the novel.
At a certain point the author retrieves this situation and sees to
it
that Fanny becomes taller, prettier, and more energetic. But the first
impression remains of a heroine who cannot cut a basket of roses
without fatigue and headache.
Fanny's debility becomes the more striking when we consider
that no quality of the heroine of
Pride and Prejudice
is more appeal–
ing than her physical energy. We think of Elizabeth Bennet as in
physical movement; her love of dancing confirms our belief that
she moves gracefully. It is characteristic of her to smile; she likes
to tease; she loves to talk. She is remarkably responsive to
all
attrac–
tive men. And to outward seeming, Mary Crawford of
Mansfield
Park
is another version of Elizabeth Bennet, and Mary Crawford is
the antithesis of Fanny Price. The boldness with which the antithesis
is contrived is typical of the uncompromising honesty of
Mansfield
Park.
Mary Crawford is conceived-is calculated-to win the
charmed admiration of almost any reader. She
is
all pungency and
wit. Her mind is as lively and competent as her body; she can bring
not only a horse but a conversation to the gallop. She is downright,
open, intelligent, impatient. Irony is her natural mode, and we are
drawn to think of her voice as being as nearly the author's own as
Elizabeth Bennet's is. Yet in the end we are asked to believe that
she
is
not to be admired, that her lively mind compounds, by very
reason of its liveliness, with the world, the flesh, and the devil.
This strange, this almost perverse, rejection of Mary Crawford's
vitality in favor of Fanny's debility lies at the very heart of the
