Like DJ and Vianne, and many others, I'm enjoying the luxury of a slow read, and I've been struck by the mastery of JA's second sentence:

Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance.

There are those wonderfully ambiguous words 'respectable' and 'general good opinion' nestled in there. If it is, indeed, the duty of a family, first and foremost, to be thought well-of by one's neighbours, well, the Dashwoods seem to have succeeded thus far at the opening of the novel. However, JA doesn't define the nature of this respectability, nor whether the Dashwoods are deserving of their acquaintances' good opinion - or conversely, whether the 'general good opinion' of the neighbours is worth having.