Part 1 of 2
LADY Dalrymple had acquired the name of ‘a charming woman,’ because she had a smile and a civil answer for everybody. Miss Carteret, with still less to say, was so plain and so awkward, that she would never have been tolerated in Camden Place but for her birth.
When Anne ventured to speak her opinion of them to Mr Elliot, he agreed to their being nothing in themselves, but still maintained that, as a family connexion, as good company, as those who would collect good company around them, they had their value.
Anne smiled and said, “My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”
“You are mistaken,” said he gently, “that is not good company; that is the best.”
Précis
Anne Elliot shares with her cousin her frustration at being asked to spend time with a rather empty-headed relation, Lady Dalrymple, simply because she and her daughter Miss Carteret are aristocrats. Anne’s cousin tries to reconcile her to it, by suggesting that Anne’s expectations of ‘good company’ are too exacting. (50 / 60 words)
Part Two
“GOOD company requires only birth, education, and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well.
“My cousin Anne shakes her head. She is not satisfied. She is fastidious. My dear cousin” (sitting down by her), “you have a better right to be fastidious than almost any other woman I know; but will it answer? Will it make you happy? Will it not be wiser to accept the society of those good ladies in Laura Place, and enjoy all the advantages of the connexion as far as possible?
“You may depend upon it, that they will move in the first set in Bath this winter, and as rank is rank, your being known to be related to them will have its use in fixing your family (our family let me say) in that degree of consideration which we must all wish for.”
“Yes,” sighed Anne, “we shall, indeed, be known to be related to them!”
Précis
Mr Elliot enlarges on his opinion that ‘good company’ requires little more than social status and civilised behaviour. He urges Anne not to shun her father’s colourless aristocratic relations, as their patronage will be noticed favourably in Bath. Anne, however, does not wish to be known as one of the Dalrymples’ hangers-on. (52 / 60 words)