JANE AUSTEN: Mansfield Park Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Either 7 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: 'You are not serious, Tom, in meaning to act?' said Edmund in a low voice, as his brother approached the fire. 'Not serious! never more so, I assure you. What is there to surprise you in it?' 'I think it would be very wrong. In a general light, private theatricals are open to some objections, but as we are circumstanced, I must think it would be highly injudicious, and more than injudicious, to attempt any thing of the kind. It would show great want of feeling on my father's account, absent as he is, and in some degree of constant danger; and it would be imprudent, I think, with regard to Maria, whose situation is a very delicate one, considering every thing, extremely delicate.' 5 'You take up a thing so seriously! as if we were going to act three times a week till my father's return, and invite all the country. But it is not to be a display of that sort. We mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves, just to vary the scene, and exercise our powers in something new. We want no audience, no publicity. We may be trusted, I think, in chusing some play most perfectly unexceptionable, and I can conceive no greater harm or danger to any of us in conversing in the elegant written language of some respectable author than in chattering in words of our own. I have no fears, and no scruples. And as to my father's being absent, it is so far from an objection that I consider it rather as a motive; for the expectation of his return must be a very anxious period to my mother, and if we can be the means of amusing that anxiety, and keeping up her spirits for the next few weeks, I shall think our time very well spent, and so I am sure will he. It is a very anxious period for her.' 10 As he said this, each looked towards their mother. Lady Bertram, sunk back in one corner of the sofa, the picture of health, wealth, ease, and tranquillity, was just falling into a gentle doze, while Fanny was getting through the few difficulties of her work for her. Edmund smiled and shook his head. 15 'By Jove! this wont do'–cried Tom, throwing himself into a chair with a hearty laugh. 'To be sure, my dear Mother, your anxiety–I was unlucky there.' 'What is the matter?' asked her Ladyship in the heavy tone of one half roused–'I was not asleep.' 'Oh! dear, no Ma'am–Nobody suspected you–Well Edmund,' he continued, returning to the former subject, posture, and voice, as soon as Lady Bertram began to nod again–‘But this I will maintain—that we shall be doing no harm.' 20 'I cannot agree with you–I am convinced that my Father would totally disapprove it.' 'And I am convinced to the contrary. - Nobody is fonder of the exercise of talent in young people or promotes it more than my father, and for any thing of the Acting, Spouting, Reciting kind, I think he has always a decided taste. I am sure he encouraged it in us as boys. How many a time have we mourned over the dead body of Julius Caesar, and to be'd and not to be'd, 25 30 35 40 45 in this very room, for his amusement. And I am sure, my name was Norval, every evening of my life through one Christmas holidays.' 'It was a very different thing. – You must see the difference yourself. My Father wished us, as school-boys, to speak well, but he would never wish his grown up daughters to be acting plays. His sense of decorum is strict.' 'I know all that,' said Tom displeased. 'I know my Father as well as you do, and I'll take care that his daughters do nothing to distress him. Manage your own concerns, Edmund, and I'll take care of the rest of the family.' 50 [from Chapter 13]