Category Archives: Sense and Sensibility

Capable of feeling

"If you can think me capable of ever feeling, surely you may suppose that I have suffered now."

Sense and Sensibility, volume 3, chapter 1

Elinor to Marianne

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Filed under Elinor, Heartbreak, Sense and Sensibility, Sense vs. Sensibility

A sister’s feelings

"You do not suppose that I have ever felt much."

Sense and Sensibility, volume 3, chapter 1

Elinor to Marianne

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Filed under Elinor, Self-command, Sense and Sensibility, Sense vs. Sensibility

Till that instant

. . . in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had never suffered.

Sense and Sensibility, volume 2, chapter 9

Of Marianne, on finally receiving a letter and discovering it is from her mother when she thought it would be from Willoughby

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Filed under Heartbreak, Marianne, Sense and Sensibility, Sense vs. Sensibility

The first smart of the heavy blow

Supported by the conviction of having done nothing to merit her present unhappiness, and consoled by the belief that Edward had done nothing to forfeit her esteem, she thought she could even now, under the first smart of the heavy blow, command herself enough to guard every suspicion of the truth from her mother and sisters. And so well was she able to answer her own expectations, that when she joined them at dinner only two hours after she had first suffered the extinction of all her dearest hopes, no one would have supposed from the appearance of the sisters, that Elinor was mourning in secret over obstacles which must divide her for ever from the object of her love, and that Marianne was internally dwelling on the perfections of a man, of whose whole heart she felt thoroughly possessed, and whom she expected to see in every carriage which drove near their house.

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Filed under Edward Ferrars, Elinor, Heartbreak, Marianne, Self-command, Sense and Sensibility

Rapture of delightful expectation

Elinor, in spite of every occasional doubt of Willoughby's constancy, could not witness the rapture of delightful expectation which filled the whole soul and beamed in the eyes of Marianne, without feeling how blank was her own prospect, how cheerless her own state of mind in the comparison, and how gladly she would engage in the solicitude of Marianne's situation to have the same animating object in view, the same possibility of hope.

Sense and Sensibility, volume 2, chapter 4

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Filed under Elinor, Heartbreak, Love, Marianne, Sense and Sensibility

Elinor weeps

. . . she wept for him, more than for herself.

Sense and Sensibility, volume 2, chapter 1

Of Elinor, on learning of Edward's engagement

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Filed under Edward Ferrars, Elinor, Heartbreak, Sense and Sensibility

Advantageous idleness

” . . . as I might be as dashing and expensive without a red coat on my back as with one, idleness was pronounced on the whole to be most advantageous and honourable . . . ”

Sense and Sensibility volume 1, chapter 19

Spoken by Edward Ferrars, about his difficulty finding a calling that would please both himself and his family

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Filed under Edward Ferrars, Men, Sense and Sensibility, Youth

Properly idle

” . . . a young man of eighteen is not in general so earnestly bent on being busy as to resist the solicitations of his friends to do nothing.”

Sense and Sensibility, volume 1, chapter 19

Spoken by Edward Ferrars

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Filed under Edward Ferrars, Men, Youth

Perfect understanding

“Have we not perfectly understood each other?”

Sense and Sensibility, volume 1, chapter 15

Mrs. Dashwood on what Willoughby’s actions have told her of his love. How little she really understood!

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Filed under Mrs. Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility, Sense vs. Sensibility, Uncertainty in love

Talk vs. action

“I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly.”

Sense and Sensibility, volume 1, chapter 15

Mrs. Dashwood on her assumption that Marianne and Willoughby are engaged, in spite of the fact that they have not told her so

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Filed under Mrs. Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility, Sense vs. Sensibility, Uncertainty in love