Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 11

Lit­tle had Mrs. Dash­wood or her daugh­ters imag­ined when they first came in­to De­von­shire, that so many en­gage­ments would arise to oc­cu­py their time as short­ly pre­sent­ed them­selves, or that they should have such fre­quent in­vi­ta­tions and such con­stant vis­itors as to leave them lit­tle leisure for se­ri­ous em­ploy­ment. Yet such was the case. When Mar­ianne was re­cov­ered, the schemes of amuse­ment at home and abroad, which Sir John had been pre­vi­ous­ly form­ing, were put in­to ex­ecu­tion. The pri­vate balls at the park then be­gan; and par­ties on the wa­ter were made and ac­com­plished as of­ten as a show­ery Oc­to­ber would al­low. In ev­ery meet­ing of the kind Willough­by was in­clud­ed; and the ease and fa­mil­iar­ity which nat­ural­ly at­tend­ed these par­ties were ex­act­ly cal­cu­lat­ed to give in­creas­ing in­ti­ma­cy to his ac­quain­tance with the Dash­woods, to af­ford him op­por­tu­ni­ty of wit­ness­ing the ex­cel­len­cies of Mar­ianne, of mark­ing his an­imat­ed ad­mi­ra­tion of her, and of re­ceiv­ing, in her be­haviour to him­self, the most point­ed as­sur­ance of her af­fec­tion.

Eli­nor could not be sur­prised at their at­tach­ment. She on­ly wished that it were less open­ly shewn; and once or twice did ven­ture to sug­gest the pro­pri­ety of some self-​com­mand to Mar­ianne. But Mar­ianne ab­horred all con­ceal­ment where no re­al dis­grace could at­tend un­re­serve; and to aim at the re­straint of sen­ti­ments which were not in them­selves il­laud­able, ap­peared to her not mere­ly an un­nec­es­sary ef­fort, but a dis­grace­ful sub­jec­tion of rea­son to com­mon-​place and mis­tak­en no­tions. Willough­by thought the same; and their be­haviour at all times, was an il­lus­tra­tion of their opin­ions.

When he was present she had no eyes for any one else. Ev­ery thing he did, was right. Ev­ery thing he said, was clever. If their evenings at the park were con­clud­ed with cards, he cheat­ed him­self and all the rest of the par­ty to get her a good hand. If danc­ing formed the amuse­ment of the night, they were part­ners for half the time; and when obliged to sep­arate for a cou­ple of dances, were care­ful to stand to­geth­er and scarce­ly spoke a word to any body else. Such con­duct made them of course most ex­ceed­ing­ly laughed at; but ridicule could not shame, and seemed hard­ly to pro­voke them.

Mrs. Dash­wood en­tered in­to all their feel­ings with a warmth which left her no in­cli­na­tion for check­ing this ex­ces­sive dis­play of them. To her it was but the nat­ural con­se­quence of a strong af­fec­tion in a young and ar­dent mind.

This was the sea­son of hap­pi­ness to Mar­ianne. Her heart was de­vot­ed to Willough­by, and the fond at­tach­ment to Nor­land, which she brought with her from Sus­sex, was more like­ly to be soft­ened than she had thought it pos­si­ble be­fore, by the charms which his so­ci­ety be­stowed on her present home.

Eli­nor’s hap­pi­ness was not so great. Her heart was not so much at ease, nor her sat­is­fac­tion in their amuse­ments so pure. They af­ford­ed her no com­pan­ion that could make amends for what she had left be­hind, nor that could teach her to think of Nor­land with less re­gret than ev­er. Nei­ther La­dy Mid­dle­ton nor Mrs. Jen­nings could sup­ply to her the con­ver­sa­tion she missed; al­though the lat­ter was an ev­er­last­ing talk­er, and from the first had re­gard­ed her with a kind­ness which en­sured her a large share of her dis­course. She had al­ready re­peat­ed her own his­to­ry to Eli­nor three or four times; and had Eli­nor’s mem­ory been equal to her means of im­prove­ment, she might have known very ear­ly in their ac­quain­tance all the par­tic­ulars of Mr. Jen­ning’s last ill­ness, and what he said to his wife a few min­utes be­fore he died. La­dy Mid­dle­ton was more agree­able than her moth­er on­ly in be­ing more silent. Eli­nor need­ed lit­tle ob­ser­va­tion to per­ceive that her re­serve was a mere calm­ness of man­ner with which sense had noth­ing to do. To­wards her hus­band and moth­er she was the same as to them; and in­ti­ma­cy was there­fore nei­ther to be looked for nor de­sired. She had noth­ing to say one day that she had not said the day be­fore. Her in­si­pid­ity was in­vari­able, for even her spir­its were al­ways the same; and though she did not op­pose the par­ties ar­ranged by her hus­band, pro­vid­ed ev­ery thing were con­duct­ed in style and her two el­dest chil­dren at­tend­ed her, she nev­er ap­peared to re­ceive more en­joy­ment from them than she might have ex­pe­ri­enced in sit­ting at home;– and so lit­tle did her pres­ence add to the plea­sure of the oth­ers, by any share in their con­ver­sa­tion, that they were some­times on­ly re­mind­ed of her be­ing amongst them by her so­lic­itude about her trou­ble­some boys.

In Colonel Bran­don alone, of all her new ac­quain­tance, did Eli­nor find a per­son who could in any de­gree claim the re­spect of abil­ities, ex­cite the in­ter­est of friend­ship, or give plea­sure as a com­pan­ion. Willough­by was out of the ques­tion. Her ad­mi­ra­tion and re­gard, even her sis­ter­ly re­gard, was all his own; but he was a lover; his at­ten­tions were whol­ly Mar­ianne’s, and a far less agree­able man might have been more gen­er­al­ly pleas­ing. Colonel Bran­don, un­for­tu­nate­ly for him­self, had no such en­cour­age­ment to think on­ly of Mar­ianne, and in con­vers­ing with Eli­nor he found the great­est con­so­la­tion for the in­dif­fer­ence of her sis­ter.

Eli­nor’s com­pas­sion for him in­creased, as she had rea­son to sus­pect that the mis­ery of dis­ap­point­ed love had al­ready been known to him. This sus­pi­cion was giv­en by some words which ac­ci­dent­ly dropped from him one evening at the park, when they were sit­ting down to­geth­er by mu­tu­al con­sent, while the oth­ers were danc­ing. His eyes were fixed on Mar­ianne, and, af­ter a si­lence of some min­utes, he said, with a faint smile, “Your sis­ter, I un­der­stand, does not ap­prove of sec­ond at­tach­ments.”

“No,” replied Eli­nor, “her opin­ions are all ro­man­tic.”

“Or rather, as I be­lieve, she con­sid­ers them im­pos­si­ble to ex­ist.”

“I be­lieve she does. But how she con­trives it with­out re­flect­ing on the char­ac­ter of her own fa­ther, who had him­self two wives, I know not. A few years how­ev­er will set­tle her opin­ions on the rea­son­able ba­sis of com­mon sense and ob­ser­va­tion; and then they may be more easy to de­fine and to jus­ti­fy than they now are, by any body but her­self.”

“This will prob­ably be the case,” he replied; “and yet there is some­thing so ami­able in the prej­udices of a young mind, that one is sor­ry to see them give way to the re­cep­tion of more gen­er­al opin­ions.”

“I can­not agree with you there,” said Eli­nor. “There are in­con­ve­niences at­tend­ing such feel­ings as Mar­ianne’s, which all the charms of en­thu­si­asm and ig­no­rance of the world can­not atone for. Her sys­tems have all the un­for­tu­nate ten­den­cy of set­ting pro­pri­ety at nought; and a bet­ter ac­quain­tance with the world is what I look for­ward to as her great­est pos­si­ble ad­van­tage.”

Af­ter a short pause he re­sumed the con­ver­sa­tion by say­ing,–

“Does your sis­ter make no dis­tinc­tion in her ob­jec­tions against a sec­ond at­tach­ment? or is it equal­ly crim­inal in ev­ery body? Are those who have been dis­ap­point­ed in their first choice, whether from the in­con­stan­cy of its ob­ject, or the per­verse­ness of cir­cum­stances, to be equal­ly in­dif­fer­ent dur­ing the rest of their lives?”

“Up­on my word, I am not ac­quaint­ed with the minu­ti­ae of her prin­ci­ples. I on­ly know that I nev­er yet heard her ad­mit any in­stance of a sec­ond at­tach­ment’s be­ing par­don­able.”

“This,” said he, “can­not hold; but a change, a to­tal change of sen­ti­ments–No, no, do not de­sire it; for when the ro­man­tic re­fine­ments of a young mind are obliged to give way, how fre­quent­ly are they suc­ceed­ed by such opin­ions as are but too com­mon, and too dan­ger­ous! I speak from ex­pe­ri­ence. I once knew a la­dy who in tem­per and mind great­ly re­sem­bled your sis­ter, who thought and judged like her, but who from an in­forced change–from a se­ries of un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances”– Here he stopt sud­den­ly; ap­peared to think that he had said too much, and by his coun­te­nance gave rise to con­jec­tures, which might not oth­er­wise have en­tered Eli­nor’s head. The la­dy would prob­ably have passed with­out sus­pi­cion, had he not con­vinced Miss Dash­wood that what con­cerned her ought not to es­cape his lips. As it was, it re­quired but a slight ef­fort of fan­cy to con­nect his emo­tion with the ten­der rec­ol­lec­tion of past re­gard. Eli­nor at­tempt­ed no more. But Mar­ianne, in her place, would not have done so lit­tle. The whole sto­ry would have been speed­ily formed un­der her ac­tive imag­ina­tion; and ev­ery thing es­tab­lished in the most melan­choly or­der of dis­as­trous love.