Two Interviews

The interviews with Lucy and Willoughby

Posted: 1 March 2008 (printer-friendly permalink)

The Chilling Chat

The Interview: Willoughby and Rousseau

Two of the key passages in Sense and Sensibility are Elinor’s interview with Lucy Steele and Willoughby before and after the London visit.  Lucy and Willoughby are important because they profit in a worldly sense from the abuse of sense and sensibility, and Elinor spends much of the three volumes trying to detach their malign influence from Edward and Marianne who have failed to understand their characters.  Thanks to Lucy’s perfect management there is little she can do but wait for Lucy to finish with Edward.  The problems on the sentimental side are more diffuse and subtle; Elinor doesn’t know that Willoughby is a cad, but she quickly picks up on his selfishness,[1] and knows that they don’t know enough about Willoughby to place the kind of trust that Marianne is placing in him.

In parallel with their effect in the plot, in pulling the wool over the eyes of the protagonists, Lucy and Willoughby also function in a similar way for the reader, obscuring the character of the heroine with some remarkable things being said by the critics about both scenes.

The Chilling Chat

Elinor’s self-control is contingent, dependent upon her control of others.  The difference between her chilling chat with Lucy and Catherine Morland’s sincere exchange of commonplaces with Eleanor is Tilney in the Pump-room at Bath suggests the difference between the views of human nature and human relations in Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey.  As Lucy ‘confesses’ so as to steer Elinor away from Edward, in an effort to get him back, and Elinor seeks to find out the hurtful truth while convincing Lucy of her perfect serenity and propriety, the young women use what looks like an intimate exchange to strengthen the facades that conceal and serve their opposing purposes.

Rachel Brownstein, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, p. 44

Being an action novel rather than a discovery novel (as Northanger Abbey is) Sense and Sensibility has a somewhat darker social backdrop as the heroine comes under pressure from without and this contrast is reflected in Brownstein’s example scenes.  While Elinor Dashwood and Eleanor Tilney are indeed alike, it is difficult to imagine two characters as dissimilar as Catherine Morland and Lucy Steele, and the dialogues differ accordingly.  For sure Elinor would rather be guiding a Catherine Morland with sisterly advice but she has a Lucy Steele to deal with and there isn’t a great deal of point in wishing it were otherwise.

Elinor sets up the interview with Lucy just after she has had the stuffing knocked out of her when ambushed by Lucy and tricked into a confidence concerning Lucy’s engagement to Edward.  Lucy has correctly realised that Elinor presents a formidable obstacle to her gold-digging enterprise and has lighted on the perfect stratagem for neutralising her.

While Elinor has understood this she is determined not to descend to Lucy’s game and refuses to compromise her principles, knowing that Lucy is exploiting this fact.  Yet Austen provides us with a scene in which Elinor ‘exploits Lucy’s own method without hesitation’, all the while drawing favourable comparisons with Marianne’s refusal to have anything to do with ‘dissimulation, no longer distinguishable from courtesy, becom[ing] a positive pleasure, sanctified by custom and most useful in social emergencies’ (Mudrick (1952), pp. 73-4).

Elinor comes dangerously close to flirting with her own good sense, her stoical comprehension, and denaturing into something vicious.  We can see this in her second long interview with Lucy about Edward Ferrars, an interview that Elinor has sought (pp. 108-12),  She tortures herself with her own strength here, in a kind of perverse self-admiration, and she has an inner unholy glee in provoking all Lucy’s vulgarity.

Margaret Anne Doody, Introduction to Sense and Sensibility, pp. xviii-xix

There is nowhere any evidence that Elinor has any ‘self-admiration’ or ‘inner unholy glee’ but, having succeeded in picked herself up off the floor it isn’t wholly unreasonable that she should show some signs of satisfaction in being able to handle Lucy without ‘denaturing into something vicious’.  Later in the novel Elinor receives a letter from Lucy immediately after Nancy forces on Elinor the news of Lucy’s continuing to play a cynical game in holding Edward to his engagement after the disinheritance.

The next morning brought Elinor a letter by the two-penny post from Lucy herself.  It was as follows:

                     “Bartlett's Building, March.

      “I hope my dear Miss Dashwood will excuse the liberty I take of writing to her; but I know your friendship for me will make you pleased to hear such a good account of myself and my dear Edward, after all the troubles we have went through lately, therefore will make no more apologies, but proceed to say that, thank God! though we have suffered dreadfully, we are both quite well now, and as happy as we must always be in one another's love.  We have had great trials, and great persecutions, but however, at the same time, gratefully acknowledge many friends, yourself not the least among them, whose great kindness I shall always thankfully remember, as will Edward too, who I have told of it.  I am sure you will be glad to hear, as likewise dear Mrs. Jennings, I spent two happy hours with him yesterday afternoon, he would not hear of our parting, though earnestly did I, as I thought my duty required, urge him to it for prudence sake, and would have parted for ever on the spot, would he consent to it; but he said it should never be, he did not regard his mother's anger, while he could have my affections; our prospects are not very bright, to be sure, but we must wait, and hope for the best; he will be ordained shortly; and should it ever be in your power to recommend him to any body that has a living to bestow, am very sure you will not forget us, and dear Mrs. Jennings too, trust she will speak a good word for us to Sir John, or Mr. Palmer, or any friend that may be able to assist us.—Poor Anne was much to blame for what she did, but she did it for the best, so I say nothing; hope Mrs. Jennings won't think it too much trouble to give us a call, should she come this way any morning, 'twould be a great kindness, and my cousins would be proud to know her.—My paper reminds me to conclude; and begging to be most gratefully and respectfully remembered to her, and to Sir John, and Lady Middleton, and the dear children, when you chance to see them, and love to Miss Marianne,

                                       “I am, &c.”

As soon as Elinor had finished it, she performed what she concluded to be its writer's real design, by placing it in the hands of Mrs. Jennings, who read it aloud with many comments of satisfaction and praise.

Vol. III, Ch. II (38.29)

Lucy is being Lucy, but she can obviously use some help and support from Mrs Jennings and Elinor isn’t going to get in the way.  People who are ‘denaturing into something vicious’ don’t behave like this towards their enemies, not even slightly.  The key is, of course, her motivation for the interview.

Much as she had suffered from her first conversation with Lucy on the subject, she soon felt an earnest wish of renewing it; and this for more reasons than one.  She wanted to hear many particulars of their engagement repeated again, she wanted more clearly to understand what Lucy really felt for Edward, whether there were any sincerity in her declaration of tender regard for him, and she particularly wanted to convince Lucy, by her readiness to enter on the matter again, and her calmness in conversing on it, that she was no otherwise interested in it than as a friend,[2] which she very much feared her involuntary agitation, in their morning discourse, must have left at least doubtful.   That Lucy was disposed to be jealous of her appeared very probable[. …]  What other reason for the disclosure of the affair could there be, but that Elinor might be informed by it of Lucy's superior claims on Edward, and be taught to avoid him in future?  She had little difficulty in understanding thus much of her rival's intentions, and while she was firmly resolved to act by her as every principle of honour and honesty directed, to combat her own affection for Edward and to see him as little as possible; she could not deny herself the comfort of endeavouring to convince Lucy that her heart was unwounded.  And as she could now have nothing more painful to hear on the subject than had already been told, she did not mistrust her own ability of going through a repetition of particulars with composure.

vol. II, ch. I (23.8)

Elinor is resolved on having as little to do with Lucy as she can, knowing perfectly well that she and Lucy are never likely to be sincere friends.  Part of the reasons she is determined to keep Lucy at arm’s length is itself illustrated by the scenes and by the critic’s reactions to them, highlighting as they do our tendency to take on the qualities of the people we spend our time with, and Elinor has resolved, justly, that Lucy’s manipulativeness, selfishness and meanness, ‘the thorough want of delicacy, of rectitude, and integrity of mind, which her attentions, her assiduities, her flatteries at the Park betrayed’,[3] that Lucy must be kept at a distance if Elinor is not to take on Lucy’s colouration in the way that Marianne starts to take on Willoughby’s attributes.[4]

When Elinor says she wishes to prove herself a friend of Lucy this isn’t meant ironically but unsentimentally.

6. a. As opposed to enemy in various senses: One who is on good terms with another, not hostile or at variance; one who is on the same side in warfare, politics, etc.

The Oxford English Dictionary, entry for friend

Although Lucy’s jealousy won’t allow her to accept Elinor’s determination to avoid hostility, and to stay out of the way, she does hold to this despite much provocation.

Elinor’s reasons for the rematch are essentially two-fold.  In the first place she needs to repair the damage done when Lucy sprung her surprise, it making no sense at all to leave the clever, unprincipled and jealous Lucy with this kind of power over her given that both of them are set to be in the same social circle for the duration.  Elinor needs to show Lucy that she is neither jealous nor wounded by Lucy’s attack, and she also needs to better understand Lucy’s relationship with Edward in order to set her own expectations and guide her actions.  This is only sensible.  Honan (1997) has likened Elinor mentally to a member of a crack military unit and it isn’t for the fainthearted, as reflected in the squeamishness and horrified comments.

Elinor’s strength is grounded by her good heart, her resolve to be a ‘friend’ of Lucy’s, and her principles, allowing her to keep her bearings throughout the tête-à-tête.  On the surface it does look as if Elinor has become just like another Lucy—this is what our sentiments are telling us and it would surely be Marianne’s judgement.  The passage needs to be read with Elinor’s resolution borne in mind to avoid being wrong footed (and enjoy the comic fireworks when Marianne’s piano playing hits a piano patch).

Elinor was soon called to the card-table by the conclusion of the first rubber, and the confidential discourse of the two ladies was therefore at an end, to which both of them submitted without any reluctance, for nothing had been said on either side to make them dislike each other less than they had done before; and Elinor sat down to the card table with the melancholy persuasion that Edward was not only without affection for the person who was to be his wife; but that he had not even the chance of being tolerably happy in marriage, which sincere affection on her side would have given, for self-interest alone could induce a woman to keep a man to an engagement, of which she seemed so thoroughly aware that he was weary.

From this time the subject was never revived by Elinor, and when entered on by Lucy, who seldom missed an opportunity of introducing it, and was particularly careful to inform her confidante, of her happiness whenever she received a letter from Edward, it was treated by the former with calmness and caution, and dismissed as soon as civility would allow; for she felt such conversations to be an indulgence which Lucy did not deserve, and which were dangerous to herself.

vol. II, ch. II (24.41)

Here we see more evidence (and in the above interview[5]) that Elinor is capable of being frank with Lucy when the occasion requires it, and of not putting up with any more of her nonsense than she has to.

Some have seen the conclusions that Elinor draws from the interview as evidence of her cynicism[6], but this is a strange charge to level at Elinor.  We have the benefit of hindsight and can know Lucy’s character but Elinor isn’t in this position and has to find the information so that she can better protect herself from Lucy’s machinations, and Elinor draws the correct conclusions.  (If Lucy’s character were otherwise, the interview would have taken a different track, clearly.)  The discussion between Elinor and Lucy illustrates the importance of making enquiries, even if the investigation may turn up things that aren’t pretty, and it is the kind of knowledge that Edward and Marianne have failed to acquire, creating much distress for themselves and their friends.

Willoughby and Rousseau

Just as Elinor appears to take on Lucy’s attributes when she contrives a rematch under the guise of Marianne’s piano playing, so Elinor appears to take on Willoughby’s colours after he makes is dramatic reappearance as Marianne is pulling out of her near-terminal illness.

When Willoughby leaves at last, sped by Elinor’s good wishes, he leaves Elinor to a “croud of ideas,” (SS 333) most of them astonishingly imprudent for a protagonist of sense:

She felt that his influence over her mind was heightened by circumstances which ought not in reason to have weight; by that person of uncommon attraction, that open, affectionate, and lively manner which it was no merit to possess; and by that still ardent love for Marianne, which it was not even innocent to indulge.  But she felt that it was so, long, long before she could feel his influence less. (SS 333)

Marvin Mudrick, Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery, p. 84

According to this school of thought Elinor is herself thawing and coming under Willoughby’s spell, absolving Marianne of responsibility, either by succumbing to the charms of sensibility and coming round to Marianne’s way of thinking and becoming less conventional and more warm-hearted or by showing she, herself, is quite susceptible to the charms of the Willoughbys of this world.  We also find out, of course, that Willoughby (says that he) did (briefly) intend to marry Marianne before his ‘dread of poverty’ intervened.

Marianne’s very breach of decorum thwarts Willoughby’s ruthless designs and almost brings about a conversion experience that would lead him to renounce his worldly “dread of poverty” (SS 323).

Claudia Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel, p. 62

Her first moral reflection is really a vindication of Marianne:

Elinor made no answer.  Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper. (SS 331)

Doubtless; and it was this potential Willoughby—made actual for a time by excitement and love—that Marianne saw quite clearly, that her sensibility, far from blinding her, helped her to see clearly.

Marvin Mudrick, Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery, p. 83-4

Hanging the vindication of Marianne entirely on the fact that she managed to excite in Willoughby a return of her affections is of course very reminiscent of the ethics of that arch proponent of sensibility, Jean Jacques Rousseau.

The Rousseauistic idea that innate human impulses are good and that it is society that obstructs or corrupts these has certainly reached Marianne, and she too would be happy to ‘tear away’ much of that ‘system of opinions and observances’ which more sober spirits like Elinor (and indeed Mill himself) see as the necessary ‘collateral influences’ on good conduct.  Marianne is a woman of whom it may be said that ‘her motives are just her passions’ as Henry James said of Hedda Gabler; the point is that she also believes that the feelings that well up spontaneously inside a person are inherently moral and therefore the best possible motives for action.

Tony Tanner, Original Penguin Classics Introduction to Sense and Sensibility, p. 377

Rousseau has been described as the father of modern Romanticism,[7] so it is interesting to look a little further at his ethics, as Marianne’s philosophy is ‘all romantic’[8] and the main focus of the novel’s critique.  Rousseau’s philosophy has always been controversial and remains so.

It is interesting to find Mackenzie himself in later life also complaining in slightly different terms because this great record of experience lacks an ethical dimension.  ‘Autobiography, the confession of a person he himself instead of the priest,—generally gets absolution too easily.  Rousseau without virtue, but having all the eloquence of virtue.’[9]

Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, p. 52

Rousseau's biography was related by himself in his Confessions in great detail, but without any slavish regard for truth.  He enjoyed making himself out a great sinner, and sometimes exaggerated in this respect; but there is abundant external evidence that he was destitute of all the ordinary virtues.  This did not trouble him, because he considered that he always had a warm heart, which, however, never hindered him from base actions towards his best friends.

Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, p. ?

Rousseau’s autobiographical Confessions have themselves been influential in shaping the debate on the ethics of sensibility and there is one episode in the Confessions that Rousseau identifies as formative—indeed, a motivation in itself for writing the Confessions.  It is also shares some remarkable similarities with Willoughby’s own confession. 

Would I had finished what I have to say of my living at Madam de Vercellis's.  Though my situation apparently remained the same, I did not leave her house as I had entered it: I carried with me the long and painful remembrance of a crime; an insupportable weight of remorse which yet hangs on my conscience, and whose bitter recollection, far from weakening, during a period of forty years, seems to gather strength as I grow old.  Who would believe, that a childish fault should be productive of such melancholy consequences?  But it is for the more than probable effects that my heart cannot be consoled.  I have, perhaps, caused an amiable, honest, estimable girl, who surely merited a better fate than myself, to perish with shame and misery.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book II

The pathos is quite something and the centre of attention remains firmly throughout the sufferings of one Jean Jacques Rousseau, though it requires some effort to keep this in mind.

In the process of breaking up the establishment Rousseau steals a ribbon but when he is accused of this he accuses the cook.

Marion was not only pretty, but had that freshness of colour only to be found among the mountains, and, above all, an air of modesty and sweetness, which made it impossible to see her without affection; she was besides a good girl, virtuous, and of such strict fidelity, that everyone was surprised at hearing her named. […]

I am ignorant what became of the victim of my calumny, but there is little probability of her having been able to place herself agreeably after this, as she laboured under an imputation cruel to her character in every respect.  The theft was a trifle, yet it was a theft, and, what was worse, employed to seduce a boy; while the lie and obstinacy left nothing to hope from a person in whom so many vices were united.  I do not even look on the misery and disgrace in which I plunged her as the greatest evil: who knows, at her age, whither contempt and disregarded innocence might have led her?—Alas! if remorse for having made her unhappy is insupportable, what must I have suffered at the thought of rendering her even worse than myself.  The cruel remembrance of this transaction, sometimes so troubles and disorders me, that, in my disturbed slumbers, I imagine I see this poor girl enter and reproach me with my crime, as though I had committed it but yesterday.  While in easy tranquil circumstances, I was less miserable on this account, but, during a troubled agitated life, it has robbed me of the sweet consolation of persecuted innocence, and made me woefully experience, what, I think, I have remarked in some of my works, that remorse sleeps in the calm sunshine of prosperity, but wakes amid the storms of adversity.  I could never take on me to discharge my heart of this weight in the bosom of a friend; nor could the closest intimacy ever encourage me to it, even with Madam de Warrens: all I could do, was to own I had to accuse myself of an atrocious crime, but never said in what it consisted.  The weight, therefore, has remained heavy on my conscience to this day; and I can truly own the desire of relieving myself, in some measure, from it, contributed greatly to the resolution of writing my Confessions.

I have proceeded truly in that I have just made, and it will certainly be thought I have not sought to palliate the turpitude of my offence; but I should not fulfil the purpose of this undertaking, did I not, at the same time, divulge my interior disposition, and excuse myself as far as is conformable with truth.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book II

Rousseau is perfectly aware of the consequences of what he has done—to himself and the cook—and puts it to excellent use in burnishing his reputation for sensitivity and honesty.  What he says next caught Russell’s attention[10] and is revealing.

Never was wickedness further from my thoughts, than in that cruel moment; and when I accused the unhappy girl, it is strange, but strictly true, that my friendship for her was the immediate cause of it.  She was present to my thoughts; I formed my excuse from the first object that presented itself: I accused her with doing what I meant to have done, and as I designed to have given her the ribbon, asserted she had given it to me.  When she appeared, my heart was agonized, but the presence of so many people was more powerful than my compunction.  I did not fear punishment, but I dreaded shame: I dreaded it more than death, more than the crime, more than all the world. […] It had one good effect, however, in preserving me through the rest of my life from any criminal action, from the terrible impression that has remained from the only one I ever committed; […] Thus have I disclosed what I had to say on this painful subject; may I be permitted never to mention it again.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book II

‘Never was wickedness further from my thoughts’.  If Sense and Sensibility could have been written to explore one idea then it would be this one.  What reason is there for a concept of ‘wickedness’ other than in guiding us in deciding whether to carry out an action or not? — ff blaming an innocent defenceless  girl for something one has done is ‘wicked’ then don’t do it; if it is virtuous then do it.  In the heat of the moment poor judgements are often made, but on mature reflection, after expounding on all the selfishness and weakness of character that gave rise to an action, and enumerating its likely horrific consequences to self and others, to then say ‘never was further from my thoughts’ suggests that something is fundamentally broken with Rousseau’s notion of ‘wickedness’.  It is of course a complete reliance upon sentiment to determine right from wrong; Rousseau believes that because he didn’t feel any malice towards Marion his action wasn’t wrong, thereby repeating the trick he pulled off when caught with the ribbon in his Confessions of throwing the blame off onto an even more immediate object than Marion, his own weak character, and it worked a treat, as we saw from Mackenzie’s own reflections when he starts to notice that something is wrong but still can’t see it—‘Rousseau without virtue, but having all the eloquence of virtue.’[11]

If someone of Mackenzie’s intelligence has difficulty penetrating Rousseau’s sentimental spin then it is not surprising that a young woman can succumb, for a while, to the histrionic self-absorbed ranting of a John Willoughby, especially given she has been worried ragged nursing a beloved younger sister in her care for five days, brought her back from the point of death and had no sleep for around 36 hours.  While being helped in practical matters by Mrs Jennings, Elinor has also been subtly undermined by her; like their mother Mrs Jennings has a penchant for romantic fantasies and has concluded that Marianne, like all beautiful heroines crossed in love, has nothing else to do but die.

Mrs. Jennings had determined very early in the seizure that Marianne would never get over it, and Colonel Brandon, who was chiefly of use in listening to Mrs. Jennings's forebodings, was not in a state of mind to resist their influence.

Vol. III, Ch. VII (43.7)

Moreover, affliction which testifies to Willoughby's power and Marianne's loyalty serves to reproach the not adequately sensitive Elinor for having underestimated the seriousness of her sister's grief and “trifled with so many days of illness” (SS 312).

Claudia Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel, p. 68

The author has used Marianne’s illness and near-death experience to not only transform her into the more thoughtful post-illness Marianne, but also bring about a temporary transformation in her nurse, making Elinor, through sheer mental and physical exhaustion, tired and emotional, and as her feelings come to the fore and operate relatively unchecked we are brought closer to them.  The effects are indeed quite disorienting to us as well as to Elinor.

Even the arrival of her anguished mother at Marianne’s bedside hardly diverts these musings.  Elinor, in a state of agitation, as much erotic as compassionate, cannot drive “Willoughby, ‘poor Willoughby’ as she now allowed herself to call him” (SS 334) from her thoughts long enough to fall asleep.

… she would not but have heard his vindication for the world, and now blamed, now acquitted herself for having judged him so harshly before.  But her promise of relating it to her sister was invariably painful.   She dreaded the performance of it, dreaded what its effect on Marianne might be; doubted whether after such an explanation she could ever be happy with another; and for a moment wished Willoughby a widower.  Then, remembering Colonel Brandon, reproved herself, felt that to his sufferings and his constancy far more than to his rival's, the reward of her sister was due, and wished any thing rather than Mrs. Willoughby's death. (SS 334f.)

So, in her persistent vicarious lover’s revery, she wishes Mrs. Willoughby dead and Willoughby Marianne’s husband, before she can even spare a thought for her former favorite, Colonel Brandon, for “his sufferings and his constancy.” (SS 335)  When her mother, relieved by Marianne’s recovery and bursting with the news of Colonel Brandon’s profession of love for Marianne, declares that the Colonel will in any case be a better husband for her than Willoughby would have been, Elinor—though silently—“could not quite agree with her” (SS 338); and their conversation is interrupted,

… Elinor withdrew to think it all over in private, to wish success for her friend, and yet in wishing it, to feel a pang for Willoughby.  (SS 339)

This is Elinor’s last pang for her sister’s lover; and, while the story is being tidied up into its prudent conclusion, we tend to forget the contradiction of attitudes, explicit and implicit, here involved.  Elinor is her author’s conscience: she clearly and frequently directs the reader towards the judgments he must make, she establishes the moral atmosphere, the right of sense against her sister’s wrong of sensibility, and she—unlike all the other characters in the novel—is totally shielded from her author’s irony or social disapproval.  Yet as surely as we are intended to condemn Willoughby after his disclosure, we must nevertheless at this point observe Elinor—and presumably the author—almost in love, and quite amorally in love, with him.  Not only does irony fail here for the moment, but the conscience of the novel, the formal conscience of the rural gentry, becomes embarrassingly transparent; and through the flagrant inconsistency of her heroine Jane Austen is herself revealed in a posture of yearning for the impossible and lost, the passionate and beautiful hero, the absolute lover.

Marvin Mudrick, Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery, p. 83-4

Which all underlines the importance of keeping one’s mental faculties alert and not paying too much attention to every thought and feeling that erupts, especially if there is reason to believe that emotional instability may be undermining judgement.  The judgements of a tired and emotional Elinor need not be given any more undue weight than a sober Marianne that is, as a matter of policy, refusing to do anything other than abandon herself to her emotions.  Effort needs to be applied in response to emotional challenges.

“Your uncle!”

“Yes; Mr. Pratt.  Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?”

“I think I have,” replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, which increased with her increase of emotion.

Vol. I, Ch. XXII (22.24-26)

In the same way the author is testing the reader’s judgement with the curve-balls of sentimental fiction.  Others critics have seen signs of an erotic response in Elinor[12] so it is worth having a look at the passages in question.

Elinor made no answer.  Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper.  The world had made him extravagant and vain—Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish.  Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed.  Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment.  The attachment, from which against honour, against feeling, against every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery, was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more incurable nature.  From a reverie of this kind she was recalled at the end of some minutes by Willoughby, who, rousing himself from a reverie at least equally painful, started up in preparation for going[.]

Vol. III, Ch. VIII (44.71)

Elinor, for some time after he left her, for some time even after the sound of his carriage had died away, remained too much oppressed by a crowd of ideas, widely differing in themselves, but of which sadness was the general result, to think even of her sister.

Willoughby, he, whom only half an hour ago she had abhorred as the most worthless of men, Willoughby, in spite of all his faults, excited a degree of commiseration for the sufferings produced by them, which made her think of him as now separated for ever from her family, with a tenderness, a regret, rather in proportion, as she soon acknowledged within herself—to his wishes than to his merits.  She felt that his influence over her mind was heightened by circumstances which ought not in reason to have weight; by that person of uncommon attraction, that open, affectionate, and lively manner which it was no merit to possess; and by that still ardent love for Marianne, which it was not even innocent to indulge. But she felt that it was so, long, long before she could feel his influence less.

[…]

Mrs. Dashwood would sit up with her all night; and Elinor, in compliance with her mother's entreaty, went to bed. But the rest, which one night entirely sleepless, and many hours of the most wearing anxiety seemed to make requisite, was kept off by irritation of spirits. Willoughby, “poor Willoughby,” as she now allowed herself to call him, was constantly in her thoughts; she would not but have heard his vindication for the world, and now blamed, now acquitted herself for having judged him so harshly before.  But her promise of relating it to her sister was invariably painful.  She dreaded the performance of it, dreaded what its effect on Marianne might be; doubted whether after such an explanation she could ever be happy with another; and for a moment wished Willoughby a widower.  Then, remembering Colonel Brandon, reproved herself, felt that to his sufferings and his constancy far more than to his rival's, the reward of her sister was due, and wished any thing rather than Mrs. Willoughby's death.

Vol. III, Ch. IX (45.1-5)

The passages have been quoted at length so that the reader can scan them[13] for signs of erotic undercurrents but, to  the author at least, they show signs of a mind disordered by ‘one night entirely sleepless, and many hours of the most wearing anxiety’.  Under the circumstances, it is hardly wildly improbable that Elinor should feel ‘that his influence over her mind was heightened by circumstances which ought not in reason to have weight’, but in due course they do assume their proper weight.  All the signs are that Elinor is (temporarily) succumbing to an overly-sentimental compassion for Willoughby brought on by tiredness, the shock of dealing with her sister’s illness, her own emotional trauma and absorbing the impact of Willoughby’s confession and the responsibility that goes with it, but this is a subjective judgement.  The point of the episode is that transient mental phenomena ought not to be given undue weight; in general, sound judgement requires reflection.

Willoughby’s lurid interview with Elinor during Marianne’s sickness reveals the conventionalized pattern that the romance of Marianne and Willoughby has assumed.  Of Marianne’s letter, Willoughby comments ‘Every line, every word was—in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here, would forbid—a dagger to my heart.  To know that Marianne was in town was—in the same language—a thunderbolt.—Thunderbolts and daggers!—what a reproof would she have given me!’ (p. 235)  Marianne despises the verbal cliché, but she has actualized the patterns of literature and turned her life into a cliché.  Nevertheless her passion – and Willoughby’s to a great extent – is genuine. 

Everett Zimmerman, Admiring Pope No More Than Is Proper: Sense and Sensibility, p. 117

Much has been made of Marianne’s ‘genuine passion’, and that Willoughby claims that he transiently intended to marry Marianne, but this is not the point, though it understandably helped Marianne to restore mental peace.[14]  Nor is there anything wrong with strong passions—strong healthy passions abound throughout the novel—between Elinor and Marianne, between the sisters and their mother, between Elinor and Edward, and ultimately Colonel Brandon’s passion for Marianne.  The issue is whether that passion is intelligent—whether or not it is intelligently integrated into the context in which it has to subsist.  Like any useful power, it needs careful handling to avoid consuming everything it touches, and the same is equally true of Lucy’s heartless prudence, which, to be ultimately useful, needs the context of a good heart.

The tender and warm loving feelings that Marianne and Elinor’s grandfather felt towards his great-grandson will be just as genuine as Willoughby’s ‘love’ of Marianne, if not rather more so, and the indifference towards his granddaughters will be just as genuine as Marianne’s contemptuous disdain of almost everyone; Fanny Dashwood’s feelings of love towards her son is surely more real and enduring, and her dislike of her poor sisters-in-law is likely quite mutual, but the reader can’t help but feel that in allowing such ‘genuine passion’ to dominate their deliberations they were doing wrong.  Whether it be Rousseau, Marianne, Willoughby or the Dashwood sister’s propertied relations, allowing feelings to entirely dominate judgement is as selfish as it is unwise and will lead (quickly) to confusion, disharmony and injustice.  The only person who truly understands that a wise head and a good heart are indivisible—two sides of the same coin—and therefore successfully integrates judgement and feeling, sense and sensibility, throughout the three volumes is the heroine; but Edward and Colonel Brandon come close, Mrs Jennings is closer than we thought, and Marianne and her Mother (and therefore Margaret), having seen the problems with their disastrous philosophy are set fair.

Copyright © 2007 Chris Dornan
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