by Jane Austen
But so it was. Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible passion, as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting, instead of remaining even for ever with her mother, and finding her only pleasures in retirement and study, as afterwards in her more calm and sober judgment she had determined on,—she found herself at nineteen submitting to new attachments, entering on new duties, placed in a new home, a wife, the mistress of a family, and the patroness of a village.
Colonel Brandon was now as happy as all those who best loved him believed he deserved to be: in Marianne he was consoled for every past affliction: her regard and her society restored his mind to animation, and his spirits to cheerfulness; and that Marianne found her own happiness in forming his, was equally the persuasion and delight of each observing friend. Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband as it had once been to Willoughby.
Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; and his punishment was soon afterwards complete, in the voluntary forgiveness of Mrs. Smith, who, by stating his marriage with a woman of character as the source of her clemency, gave him reason for believing that had he behaved with honour towards Marianne he might at once have been happy and rich. That his repentance of misconduct, which thus brought its own punishment, was sincere, need not be doubted; nor that he long thought of Colonel Brandon with envy, and of Marianne with regret. But that he was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or contracted an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must not be depended on—for he did neither. He lived to exert, and frequently to enjoy himself. His wife was not always out of humour, nor his home always uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs, and in sporting of every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of domestic felicity.
For Marianne, however, in spite of his incivility in surviving her loss, he always retained that decided regard which interested him in every thing that befell her, and made her his secret standard of perfection in woman; and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him in after-days as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon.
Mrs. Dashwood was prudent enough to remain at the cottage without attempting a removal to Delaford; and, fortunately for Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, when Marianne was taken from them, Margaret had reached an age highly suitable for dancing, and not very ineligible for being supposed to have a lover.
Between Barton and Delaford there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate; and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that, though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.
THE END.
Endnotes
1 (p. 4) a life interest in it: Henry Dashwood has only a life interest in the income of Norland. After his death it becomes the property of his son, Mr. John Dashwood, leaving the Dashwood sisters without any legal claim to Norland or its surrounding properties.
2 (p. 14) barouches: A barouche is a fashionable four-wheeled carriage with a hood that can be raised or lowered. The driver sits in the front, and there are seats inside for two couples to sit facing each other.
3 (p. 15) Cowper: William Cowper (1731-1800), a poet known for his attention to landscapes and melancholy subjects, was one of Austen’s favorite writers. Marianne’s admiration of Cowper ties her to eighteenth-century literary tastes and to Austen’s own interest in poetry.
4 (p. 28) it was moonlight: Sir John refers here to the preference for scheduling social engagements during moonlit evenings, when the natural light made it easier to travel on dark country roads.
5 (p. 32) flannel waistcoats: Waistcoats were sleeveless garments for the upper body, usually worn under a suit coat or other outer garment; an essential item in every eighteenth-century gentleman’s wardrobe, they were mostly made of silk or finely woven wool or cotton. Colonel Brandon’s flannel item makes him seem old-fashioned and drab next to the dashing Willoughby.
6 (p. 40) Cowper . . . Scott... Pope: Marianne’s affinity for the emotion and beauty of Romantic poetry is illustrated by her gravitation toward Cowper (see note 3 above) and the poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), as compared to the satiric wit of Alexander Pope (1688-1744), an important Augustan poet whom Austen also admired.
7 (p. 43) nabobs, gold mohrs, and palanquins: Nabobs were Indian government officials who returned to England with large sums of money. Gold mohrs were gold coins used in British India. Palanquins were lavishly decorated covered carriages that were carried by several men. Austen’s brother Francis served in the East Indies from 1788 to 1793; she may have learned these terms from him.
8 (p. 49) Queen Mab: Willoughby’s reference is to the fairy midwife who appears in Mercutio’s speech to Romeo about the nature of dreams in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. His use of Shakespeare here suggests his ties to the theater and also foreshadows the direction of his relationship with Marianne.
9 (p. 71) Hamlet: Willoughby’s reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet with Marianne links his character to acting and indecision, and allies Marianne with Ophelia, who in the play goes mad from grief.
10 (p. 76) Thomson: James Thomson (1700-1748), author of The Seasons (1726-1730), an epic poem in four parts, is another example of Marianne’s interest in writers of sensibility who were particularly concerned with the poet’s relationship to the natural world. Thomson is considered to have anticipated the thematic concerns of the Romantics.
11 (p. 80) What picturesque beauty was: In his essay “On Picturesque Beauty” (1792), the English Romantic writer William Gilpin (1724-1804) develops a system for evaluating and describing the natural world using artistic categories and concepts. Marianne often echoes Gilpin’s admiration for rustic cottages, rug -ged trees, and broken ground. Austen’s use of Gilpin’s terminology is a reference to eighteenth-century aesthetic concerns.
12 (p. 85) As for the navy: Austen’s brothers Francis and Charles served in the Royal Navy; another brother, Henry, was a captain in the Oxford Militia. In England boys began their naval training at the age of twelve.
13 (p. 85) Columella’s: Mrs. Dashwood refers to the title character of Columella, or, the Distressed Anchoret (1779), by Richard Graves (1715-1804). It is the story of a father who, while never having worked in a profession himself, has a variety of professional aspirations for his sons.
14 (p. 94) frank for me. A member of Parliament could send letters for free by signing his name to the back of the envelope.
15 (p. 168) Eliza: Austen’s cousin Eliza de Feuillide (1761-1813) may have been the inspiration for the Eliza characters in the novel. Born in India, she later married Jean François de Feuillide, who was guillotined in 1794 in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Subsequently Eliza married Austen’s brother Henry. She is mentioned frequently in letters around the time of Sense and Sensibility’s first publication.
16 (p. 169) procured my exchange: Colonel Brandon negotiated an exchange from one regiment to another.
17 (p. 192) screens: The type of screen referred to here is a frame covered with paper or cloth, often decorated with painting or embroidery, with a handle by which a person may hold it between her face and the fire.
18 (p. 271) My paper reminds me to conclude: Lucy refers to the fact that letters were written on one side of a sheet of paper, which was then folded and sealed with wax. The address was written on the other side.
19 (p. 292) Drury Lane: The Theatre Royale on Drury Lane was one of the most famous theaters in London. Legendary actors and actresses such as David Garrick, Sarah Siddons, Fanny Kem ble, Maria Malibran, and Edmund Keane performed there.
Inspired by Sense and Sensibility
FILM ADAPTATIONS
The year 1995 saw three of Austen’s novels made into films: Clueless, a modernization of Emma; the BBC’s period production of Persuasion; and finally, Sens
e and Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee (The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).
Sense and Sensibility opens amid the gloom caused by the recent death of Henry Dashwood. Marianne (played by a pouty but beautiful Kate Winslet) is coaxing a funereal air from the piano. When Elinor (the sensible Emma Thompson) asks her to play something a little cheerier, Marianne descends into an even darker dirge. Their witty repartee sets the stage for a production the director keeps light, bubbly, and fun, driven by an Oscar-winning screenplay written by Thompson herself. The setting features charmingly appointed salons, topiary gardens, simple and elegant fashions, and sumptuous music; the characters engage in rehearsed conversations and carefully observe the manners and conventions of courting. But it is the talented ensemble cast that makes Sense and Sensibility so enjoyable and relevant to today’s world of equally confused romances. Besides the Dashwood sisters, portrayed by Winslet and Thompson, there is Hugh Grant as Edward Ferrars, played with charm and a stammer; Alan Rickman as the stodgy and stalwart Colonel Brandon; and Greg Wise as the dashing and impetuous Willoughby, who incites Marianne’s passion. James Fleet as the gutless John Dashwood and Harriet Walter as his irritating and selfish wife, Fanny, further the gentle social satire of the film while adding to its overall comedy.
In addition to Emma Thompson’s Oscar for Best Screenplay, Sense and Sensibility was nominated for several Academy Awards—Best Film, Best Actress (Thompson), Best Supporting Actress (Winslet), Cinematography, Costume Design, and Original Score.
AUSTEN SEQUELS
The perennial popularity of Jane Austen has given rise to many imitators. At the end of the twentieth century a rash of “Janeite” fiction emerged, including several sequels to Sense and Sensibility. These novels, the best of which are discussed below, strive to reenter Austen’s near-mythologized world and give readers more of the characters they love. However, more often than not they ride on Austen’s coattails but fail to deliver her inimitably drawn characters and superb dramatic structure. Such books generally lack ambition, imagination, and authenticity, and are thus largely ignored by critics; even those for whom they are written—Austen’s cultish worshipers—often reject these attempted imitations.
Brightsea (1988), by Jane Gillespie, is not so much a sequel as a spin-off dealing with the minor characters of Sense and Sensibility. Lucy (Mrs. Robert Ferrars) and Nancy Steele are the main players, supported by Mr. and Mrs. Palmer. Nancy, now forty years old, still exasperates those she visits. Eventually she is whisked away to the seaside resort of Brightsea, scene of most of the novel’s events, including a visit by Lucy and her children. Eliza’s Daughter (1994), by Joan Aiken, seems to undo many elements of Austen’s original: Colonel Brandon dies in a military campaign; Willoughby, as a callous father, loses his charm; Elinor and Edward’s marriage is a dreadfully unhappy one; Marianne joins a Catholic convent in Italy; and Eliza, it turns out, is not really dead. The novel attempts to generate sympathy for its title character Eliza, the illegitimate daughter of Austen’s Willoughby and Eliza. An oft-shuffled ward and incorrigible tomboy, Eliza eventually discovers her astounding singing voice and inherits the fortune of a duke to whom her mother had served as mistress when she was supposedly dead. Aiken also wrote a novel from Jane Fairfax’s perspective, thereby extending the narrative of Emma, and another Austen sequel, Mansfield Revisited.
Two sequels to Sense and Sensibility emerged in the wake of the successful film. Emma Tennant’s Elinor and Marianne (1996) borrows its title from Austen’s first draft of Sense and Sensibility. Tennant, who has also written sequels to Austen’s Emma (Emma in Love, 1996) and Pride and Prejudice (Pemberley, 1993), as well as to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, composed her novel as a series of letters, primarily between the sisters Dashwood. Though Tennant excels at capturing Austen’s wit and language, in her treatment the characters have all grown to regret everything they did, and they often read as bitter and empty shells of the originals. Also in 1996, Julia Barrett published The Third Sister, about Dashwood’s youngest sister, Margaret, who is now seventeen. Learning from her older siblings’ romantic foibles and fairy tales, Margaret must choose between the presumptuous Lieutenant William du Plessay and the gentle George Osbourne, and in so doing arrive at her own balance of sense and feeling. Set in Devonshire and Dorset, The Third Sister continues the narrative of a character all but dismissed by Austen, and thus Barrett steps on as few toes as possible. She has also authored a sequel to Pride and Prejudice entitled Presumption: An Entertainment (1993).
Comments & Questions
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of Perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout history. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter, jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of this enduring work.
COMMENTS
FRASER’S MAGAZINE
It is in the dramatic power with which her characters are exhibited that Miss Austen is unapproachable. Every one says the right thing in the right place and in the right way. The conservation of character is complete. We can never exactly predict what a particular person will say; there are no catch words or phrases perpetually recurring from the same person; yet we recognise as soon as spoken the truthful individuality of everything that is made to fall from each speaker. In this kind of genius she is without a rival....
Sense and Sensibility was the first published of Miss Austen’s novels. It has perhaps more of movement than its successors, and in no other is there a character of so much passionate tenderness as belongs to Marianne. It is not, however, as a whole, equal to her later works; yet it may be as often resorted to with advantage as any of them, and it is full of the author’s genius....
To Miss Austen all subsequent novelists have been infinitely indebted. She led the way in the return to nature; she again described individuals instead of classes or nationalities; she re-indicated and worked the inexhaustible mines of wealth for the writer of fiction which everywhere lie beneath the surface of ordinary life.
—January 1860
ROWLAND GREY
Miss Austen was criticised at some length in 1815 in the Quarterly Review. It is said by no less an authority than Mr. Murray that Sir Walter Scott was the writer of an article which never perceived her to be humorous at all! By the light of the entries in his journal the thing seems incredible.
That Dickens should have been as blind as this clumsy critic is astonishing, but it is a blot on his scutcheon, not on hers. To deny women humour was ungrateful of Dickens, when they so loved his own books; to commit them without calling the writer of Emma as chief witness for the defence, was an act of scandalous injustice.
George Henry Lewes was such an adorer of Miss Austen that he showed his odd lack of critical acumen by asking Charlotte Brontë to imitate her, as who should bid a heavy-scented hon eysuckle flinging cream-coloured blossoms over a green hedge in perfumed luxuriance, to change itself by magic into a charming gold-laced, brown velvet polyanthus, sitting primly, yet with its own quaint fascination, in the tidiest of garden borders. Mr. Lewes raves about Jane’s “mild eyes” to fiery Charlotte; he tells her to “learn to admire Miss Austen as one of the greatest artists, the greatest painters of human character.”
Yet it was neither of these who really expressed clearly why the Austenite of to-day can, undaunted even by the Encyclopædia, take up her books again and again, as Tennyson’s life told us was his common custom. A short time after the untimely death of Miss Austen, who certainly achieved literary immortality in her brief thirty-eight years, a second notice in the Quarterly, by Archbishop Whateley, did her thorough justice, because it pointed out that her humour was her strongest, her impregnable point.
“Like
Shakespeare,” he said, “she shows as admirable a discrimination in the character of fools as people of sense, a merit which is far from common. To invent, indeed, a conversation full of wit or wisdom requires that the writer should himself possess ability; but the converse does not hold good. It is no fool that can describe fools well.”
—from Fortnightly Review (July 1901)
FERRIS GREENSLET
It is, indeed, not wholly fanciful to affirm that the relation of Jane Austen to the romance of sensibility is very much the same as that of Cervantes to the books of chivalry, or of Heine to German romanticism. She is at once its satirist and its best exponent; her work is its apotheosis and siderealization.
—from The Atlantic Monthly (April 1902)
WILBUR L. CROSS
While the philosophers were teaching that a man should enlighten his generation without pay, and in the meantime were publishing expensive editions of their novels, Jane Austen quietly went on with her work, making no great effort to get a publisher, and, when a publisher was got, contenting herself with meagre remuneration and never permitting her name to appear on a title-page. She is one of the sincerest examples in our literature of art for art’s sake....
Jane Austen’s novels have their momentum mostly in conversation, with which is combined narration in little patches. Description, too, does not stand by itself for more than a few sentences, but is knit into the narrative. Letters are frequently employed, usually serving the same purpose as the monologue or the soliloquy of the stage. This dilated drama moves forward slowly, but it always moves, for the reason that so little is introduced for its own sake. After a breakfast-table conversation, a visit, a walk, or an excursion, and by means of them, the characters are shifted about, new light is thrown upon them, and a step has been taken toward the final issue....
