The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSense and SensibilityThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Sense and SensibilityAuthor: Jane AustenCommentator: Austin DobsonIllustrator: Hugh ThomsonRelease date: June 15, 2007 [eBook #21839]Most recently updated: December 29, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Fritz Ohrenschall and Sankar Viswanathan*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SENSE AND SENSIBILITY ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Sense and SensibilityAuthor: Jane AustenCommentator: Austin DobsonIllustrator: Hugh ThomsonRelease date: June 15, 2007 [eBook #21839]Most recently updated: December 29, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Fritz Ohrenschall and Sankar Viswanathan
Title: Sense and Sensibility
Author: Jane AustenCommentator: Austin DobsonIllustrator: Hugh Thomson
Author: Jane Austen
Commentator: Austin Dobson
Illustrator: Hugh Thomson
Release date: June 15, 2007 [eBook #21839]Most recently updated: December 29, 2020
Language: English
Credits: Fritz Ohrenschall and Sankar Viswanathan
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SENSE AND SENSIBILITY ***
Transcriber's Note:The Table of Contents is not part of the original book. The illustration on page 290 is missing from the book. The Introduction ends abruptly. Seems incomplete.
Transcriber's Note:
The Table of Contents is not part of the original book. The illustration on page 290 is missing from the book. The Introduction ends abruptly. Seems incomplete.
Mr. Dashwood introduced him.—P. 219.Mr. Dashwood introduced him.—P. 219.
First Edition with Hugh Thomson's Illustrations1896
With the title ofSense and Sensibilityis connected one of those minor problems which delight the cummin-splitters of criticism. In theCeciliaof Madame D'Arblay—the forerunner, if not the model, of Miss Austen—is a sentence which at first sight suggests some relationship to the name of the book which, in the present series, inaugurated Miss Austen's novels. 'The whole of this unfortunate business'—says a certain didactic Dr. Lyster, talking in capitals, towards the end of volume three ofCecilia—'has been the result ofPrideandPrejudice,' and looking to the admitted familiarity of Miss Austen with Madame D'Arblay's work, it has been concluded that Miss Austen borrowed fromCecilia, the title of her second novel. But here comes in the little problem to which we have referred.Pride and Prejudiceit is true, was written and finished beforeSense and Sensibility—its original title for several years beingFirst Impressions. Then, in 1797, the author fell to work upon an older essay in lettersà laRichardson, calledElinor and Marianne, which she re-christenedSense and Sensibility.This, as we know, was her first published book; and whatever may be the connection between the title ofPride and Prejudiceand the passage inCecilia, there is an obvious connection between the title ofPride and Prejudiceand thetitle of Sense and Sensibility. If Miss Austenre-christenedElinor and Mariannebefore she changed the title ofFirst Impressions, as she well may have, it is extremely unlikely that the name ofPride and Prejudicehas anything to do withCecilia(which, besides, had been published at least twenty years before). Upon the whole, therefore, it is most likely that the passage in Madame D'Arblay is a mere coincidence; and that inSense and Sensibility, as well as in the novel that succeeded it in publication, Miss Austen, after the fashion of the old morality plays, simply substituted the leading characteristics of her principal personages for their names. Indeed, inSense and Sensibilitythe sense of Elinor, and the sensibility (or rathersensiblerie) of Marianne, are markedly emphasised in the opening pages of the book But Miss Austen subsequently, and, as we think, wisely, discarded in her remaining efforts the cheap attraction of an alliterative title.EmmaandPersuasion, Northanger AbbeyandMansfield Park, are names far more in consonance with the quiet tone of her easy and unobtrusive art.
Elinor and Mariannewas originally written about 1792. After the completion—or partial completion, for it was again revised in 1811—ofFirst Impressions(subsequentlyPride and Prejudice), Miss Austen set about recastingElinor and Marianne, then composed in the form of letters; and she had no sooner accomplished this task, than she beganNorthanger Abbey. It would be interesting to know to what extent she remodelledSense and Sensibilityin 1797-98, for we are told that previous to its publication in 1811 she again devoted a considerable time to its preparation for the press, and it is clear that this does not mean the correction of proofs alone, but also a preliminary revision of MS. Especially would it be interesting if we could ascertain whether any of its more finished passages,e.g.the admirable conversationbetween the Miss Dashwoods and Willoughby in chapter x., were the result of those fallow and apparently barren years at Bath and Southampton, or whether they were already part of the second version of 1797-98. But upon this matter the records are mute. A careful examination of the correspondence published by Lord Brabourne in 1884 only reveals two definite references toSense and Sensibilityand these are absolutely unfruitful in suggestion. In April 1811 she speaks of having corrected two sheets of 'S and S,' which she has scarcely a hope of getting out in the following June; and in September, an extract from the diary of another member of the family indirectly discloses the fact that the book had by that time been published. This extract is a brief reference to a letter which had been received from Cassandra Austen, begging her correspondent not to mention that Aunt Jane wroteSense and Sensibility.Beyond these minute items of information, and the statement—already referred to in the Introduction toPride and Prejudice—that she considered herself overpaid for the labour she had bestowed upon it, absolutely nothing seems to have been preserved by her descendants respecting her first printed effort. In the absence of particulars some of her critics have fallen to speculate upon the reason which made her select it, and notPride and Prejudice, for her début; and they have, perhaps naturally, found in the fact a fresh confirmation of that traditional blindness of authors to their own best work, which is one of the commonplaces of literary history. But this is to premise that shedidregard it as her masterpiece, a fact which, apart from this accident of priority of issue, is, as far as we are aware, nowhere asserted. A simpler solution is probably that, of the three novels she had written or sketched by 1811,Pride and Prejudicewas languishing under the stigma of having been refused by one booksellerwithout the formality of inspection, whileNorthanger Abbeywas lyingperduin another bookseller's drawer at Bath. In these circumstances it is intelligible that she should turn toSense and Sensibility, when, at length—upon the occasion of a visit to her brother in London in the spring of 1811—Mr. T. Egerton of the 'Military Library,' Whitehall, dawned upon the horizon as a practicable publisher.
By the timeSense and Sensibilityleft the press, Miss Austen was again domiciled at Chawton Cottage. For those accustomed to the swarming reviews of our day, with their Babel of notices, it may seem strange that there should be no record of the effect produced, seeing that, as already stated, the book sold well enough to enable its putter-forth to hand over to its author what Mr. Gargery, inGreat Expectations, would have described as 'a cool £150.' Surely Mr. Egerton, who had visited Miss Austen at Sloane Street, must have later conveyed to her some intelligence of the way in which her work had been welcomed by the public. But if he did, it is no longer discoverable. Mr. Austen Leigh, her first and best biographer, could find no account either of the publication or of the author's feelings thereupon. As far as it is possible to judge, the critical verdicts she obtained were mainly derived from her own relatives and intimate friends, and some of these latter—if one may trust a little anthology which she herself collected, and from which Mr. Austen Leigh prints extracts—must have been more often exasperating than sympathetic. The long chorus of intelligent approval by which she was afterwards greeted did not begin to be really audible before her death, and her 'fit audience' during her lifetime must have been emphatically 'few,' Of two criticisms which came out in theQuarterlyearly in the century, she could only have seen one, that of 1815; the other, by ArchbishopWhately, the first which treated her in earnest, did not appear until she had been three years dead. Dr. Whately deals mainly withMansfield ParkandPersuasion; his predecessor professed to reviewEmma, though he also gives brief summaries ofSense and SensibilityandPride and Prejudice. Mr. Austen Leigh, we think, speaks too contemptuously of this initial notice of 1815. If, at certain points, it is half-hearted and inadequate, it is still fairly accurate in its recognition of Miss Austen's supreme merit, as contrasted with her contemporaries—to wit, her skill in investing the fortunes of ordinary characters and the narrative of common occurrences with all the sustained excitement of romance. The Reviewer points out very justly that this kind of work, 'being deprived of all that, according to Bayes, goes "to elevate and surprise," must make amends by displaying depth of knowledge and dexterity of execution.' And in these qualities, even with such living competitors of her own sex as Miss Edgeworth and Miss Brunton (whoseSelf-controlcame out in the same year asSense and Sensibility), he does not scruple to declare that 'Miss Austen stands almost alone.' If he omits to lay stress upon her judgment, her nice sense of fitness, her restraint, her fine irony, and the delicacy of her artistic touch, something must be allowed for the hesitations and reservations which invariably beset the critical pioneer.
To contend, however, for a moment that the present volume is Miss Austen's greatest, as it was her first published, novel, would be a mere exercise in paradox. There are, who swear byPersuasion; there are, who preferEmmaandMansfield Park; there is a large contingent forPride and Prejudice; and there is even a section which advocates the pre-eminence ofNorthanger Abbey. But no one, as far as we can remember, has ever putSense and Sensibilityfirst,nor can we believe that its author did so herself. And yet it is she herself who has furnished the standard by which we judge it, and it is by comparison withPride and Prejudice, in which the leading characters are also two sisters, that we assess and depress its merit. The Elinor and Marianne ofSense and Sensibilityare only inferior when they are contrasted with the Elizabeth and Jane ofPride and Prejudice; and even then, it is probably because we personally like the handsome and amiable Jane Bennet rather better than the obsolete survival of the sentimental novel represented by Marianne Dashwood. Darcy and Bingley again are much more 'likeable' (to use Lady Queensberry's word) than the colourless Edward Ferrars and the stiff-jointed Colonel Brandon. Yet it might not unfairly be contended that there is more fidelity to what Mr. Thomas Hardy has termed 'life's little ironies' in Miss Austen's disposal of the two Miss Dashwoods than there is in her disposal of the heroines ofPride and Prejudice. Every one does not get a Bingley, or a Darcy (with a park); but a good many sensible girls like Elinor pair off contentedly with poor creatures like Edward Ferrars, while not a few enthusiasts like Marianne decline at last upon middle-aged colonels with flannel waistcoats. George Eliot, we fancy, would have held that the fates of Elinor and Marianne were more probable than the fortunes of Jane and Eliza Bennet. That, of the remaining characters, there is certainly none to rival Mr. Bennet, or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, or the ineffable Mr. Collins, ofPride and Prejudice, is true; but we confess to a kindness for vulgar matchmaking Mrs. Jennings with her still-room 'parmaceti for an inward bruise' in the shape of a glass of old Constantia; and for the diluted Squire Western, Sir John Middleton, whose horror of being alone carries him to the point of rejoicing in the acquisition oftwoto the population of London.Excellent again are Mr. Palmer and his wife; excellent, in their sordid veracity, the self-seeking figures of the Miss Steeles. But the pearls of the book must be allowed to be that egregious amateur in toothpick-cases, Mr. Robert Ferrars (with his excursus in chapter xxxvi. on life in a cottage), and the admirably-matched Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood. Miss Austen herself has never done anything better than the inimitable and oft-quoted chapter wherein is debated between the last-named pair the momentous matter of the amount to be devoted to Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters; while the suggestion in chapters xxxiii. and xxxiv. that the owner of Norland was once within some thousands of having to sell out at a loss, deserves to be remembered with that other memorable escape of Sir Roger de Coverley's ancestor, who was only not killed in the civil wars because 'he was sent out of the field upon a private message, the day before the battle of Worcester.'
Of local colouring there is as little inSense and Sensibilityas inPride and Prejudice. It is not unlikely that some memories of Steventon may survive in Norland; and it may be noted that there is actually a Barton Place to the north of Exeter, not far from Lord Iddesleigh's well-known seat of Upton Pynes. It is scarcely possible, also, not to believe that, in Mrs. Jennings's description of Delaford—'a nice place, I can tell you; exactly what I call a nice old-fashioned place, full of comforts and conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered with the best fruit-trees in the country; and such a mulberry tree in one corner!'—Miss Austen had in mind some real Hampshire or Devonshire country house. In any case, it comes nearer a picture than what we usually get from her pen. 'Then there is a dovecote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a very pretty canal; and everything, in short, that one could wish for; and, moreover,it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike-road, so 'tis never dull, for if you only go and sit up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all the carriages that pass along.' The last lines suggest those quaint 'gazebos' and alcoves, which, in the coaching days, were so often to be found perched at the roadside, where one might sit and watch the Dover or Canterbury stage go whirling by. Of genteel accomplishments there is a touch In the 'landscape in coloured silks' which Charlotte Palmer had worked at school (chap, xxvi.); and of old remedies for the lost art of swooning, in the 'lavender drops' of chapter xxix. The mention of a dance as a 'little hop' in chapter ix. reads like a premature instance of middle Victorian slang. But nothing is new—even in a novel—and 'hop,' in this sense, is at least as old asJoseph Andrews.
The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. 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. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old Gentleman's days were comfortably spent. His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the children added a relish to his existence.
By a former marriage, Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son: by his present lady, three daughters. The son, a steady respectable young man, was amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had been large, and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age. By his own marriage, likewise, which happened soon afterwards, he added to his wealth. To him therefore the succession to the Norland estate was not so really important as to his sisters; for their fortune, independent of what might arise to them from their father's inheriting that property, could be but small. Their mother had nothing, and their father only seven thousand pounds in his own disposal; for the remaining moiety of his first wife's fortune was also secured to her child, and he had only a life-interest in it.
The old gentleman died: his will was read, and like almost every other will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure. He was neither so unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave his estate from his nephew; but he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the bequest. Mr. Dashwood had wished for it more for the sake of his wife and daughters than for himself or his son; but to his son, and his son's son, a child of four years old, it was secured, in such a way, as to leave to himself no power of providing for those who were most dear to him, and who most needed a provision by any charge on the estate, or by any sale of its valuable woods. The whole was tied up for the benefit of this child, who, in occasional visits with his father and mother at Norland, had so far gained on the affections of his uncle, by such attractions as are by no means unusual in children of two or three years old; an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh all the value of all the attention which, for years, he had received from his niece and her daughters. He meant not to be unkind, however, and, as a mark of his affection for the three girls, he left them a thousand pounds a-piece.
Mr. Dashwood's disappointment was, at first, severe; but his temper was cheerful and sanguine; and he might reasonably hope to live many years, and by living economically, lay by a considerable sum from the produce of an estate already large, and capable of almost immediate improvement. But the fortune, which had been so tardy in coming, was his only one twelvemonth. He survived his uncle no longer; and ten thousand pounds, including the late legacies, was all that remained for his widow and daughters.
His son was sent for as soon as his danger was known, and to him Mr. Dashwood recommended, with all the strength and urgency which illness could command, the interest of his mother-in-law and sisters.
Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at such a time, and he promised to do every thing in his power to make them comfortable. His father was rendered easy by such an assurance, and Mr. John Dashwood had then leisure to consider how much there might prudently be in his power to do for them.