Sir John Middleton Offer

On chapter IV of this book, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood express their contrasting points of view about Edward Ferrars.  For the eldest Sister, Edward Ferrars was close to be her ideal man, good-looking and with well-informed mind. Despite his disability of drawing or playing some musical instrument, he had great pleasure in seeing, appreciating and evaluating performances of other people, so that he was “by no means” deficient in natural taste, he only had not the opportunities of learning to make some kind of art. Otherwise for Marianne, Edward´s character was only amiable and worthy indeed but with completely lack of taste and opinion in a lot of things. We could assume the compatibility of characters between Ferrars and Elinor Dashwood, both have similar tastes, and they do not show their feelings openly because of the external pressures and the economic and social situation of sisters Dashwood.

At the end of the chapter, Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters received an offer of a small house to live, a cottage at Barton Park, owned by a gentleman named Sir John Middleton. This is one of the places where the story will be developed from now on.