Quotes From Mansfield Park

Jane Austen is undoubtly a very quotable author, and within the 500+ pages of her third published novel, Mansfield Park, I found some of my new favourite quotes.

Mr and Miss Crawford are extremely important characters that like to cause a bit of trouble. Mr Crawford being a flirt almost breaks up Maria Bertram's highly advantageous engagement, and when he leaves Mansfield he puts her in an unfortunate position:

“Henry Crawford had destroyed her happiness, but he should not know that he had done it; he should not destroy her credit, her appearance, her prosperity too. He should not have to think of her as pining in the retirement of Mansfield for him, rejecting Sotherton and London, independence and splendour for his sake. Independence was more needful than ever; the want of it at Mansfield more sensibly felt. She was less and less able to endure the restraint which her father imposed. The liberty which his absence had given was now become absolutely necessary. She must escape from him and Mansfield as soon as possible, and find consolation in fortune and consequence, bustle and the world, for a wounded spirit. Her mind was quite determined and varied not. (236)"

A great qoute about nature. You get a feeling of true amazement from the speaker, Fanny Price, and through her Austen herself:

“‘- The evergreen! - How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! - When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! - In some countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing, that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence. You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors, especially when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strain. One cannot fix one’s eyes on the commonest natural production without finding for a rambling fancy.’ (244).”

Mostly likely the most well known quote from Mansfield Park, a lady likes to dream:

“‘I mean to be too rich to lament or to feel any thing of the sort. A large income is the best recipé for happiness I ever heard of.’ (248)”

After the ball held at Mansfield, I like to imagine them all coming down from the rush of excitment from the past days and after experiencing a sort of 'after-party high':

“Last night it had been hope and smiles, bustle and motion, noise and brilliancy in the drawing-room, and out of the drawing-room, and every where. Now it was langour, and all but solitude (332)."

The best thing about Austen's novels is that no matter the story, in the end every character gets what they deserve. Here we step outside of the narraitive and get her voice coming through as the writer, and she confesses herself:

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore every body, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerate comfort, and to have done with all the rest. (545)”

Finally there are two quotes that I do not have the page numbers for but they are too good not to include:

“But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them.”

“Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions”

All of the page numbers for the quotes are taken from the Vintage Classics edition of Mansfield Park with an introduction by Amanda Vickery.