"Nay," said Edmund, who began to listen with alarm.
"Let us do nothing by halves. If we are to act, let it be in
a theatre completely fitted up with pit, boxes, and gallery,
and let us have a play entire from beginning to end; so as it
be a German play, no matter what, with a good tricking,
shifting afterpiece, and a figure-dance, and a hornpipe,
and a song between the acts. If we do not outdo Ecclesford,
we do nothing."

"Now, Edmund, do not be disagreeable," said Julia.
"Nobody loves a play better than you do, or can have gone
much farther to see one."

"True, to see real acting, good hardened real acting;
but I would hardly walk from this room to the next to
look at the raw efforts of those who have not been
bred to the trade: a set of gentlemen and ladies,
who have all the disadvantages of education and decorum
to struggle through."

After a short pause, however, the subject still continued,
and was discussed with unabated eagerness, every one's
inclination increasing by the discussion, and a knowledge
of the inclination of the rest; and though nothing was settled
but that Tom Bertram would prefer a comedy, and his sisters
and Henry Crawford a tragedy, and that nothing in the world
could be easier than to find a piece which would please
them all, the resolution to act something or other seemed
so decided as to make Edmund quite uncomfortable. He was
determined to prevent it, if possible, though his mother,