Austen Break

While on a business trip last week I listened to Sense and Sensibility. Well, I started listening on the plane because I was too sleepy to read and I sorta fell asleep listening. Before I dozed, I had some thoughts:

You Know You’re An Austen Addict When

… you’re listening to an unabridged recording and you realize the reader has skipped a word.

People Don’t Really Change, Do They?

Mrs. Jennings, while relating the story of Willoughby and Miss Grey’s fifty thousand pounds, “But that won't do now-a-days; nothing in the way of pleasure can ever be given up by the young men of this age." So, basically, some people want what they want when they want it.

Once Marianne Knows The Truth

“She felt the loss of Willoughby's character yet more heavily than she had felt the loss of his heart…”

Because she felt the loss of her own instincts and trust; in short, her sensibilities. They began to shrivel when she realized how wrong she had been. She believed in him implicitly and he deceived her mightily. She loved unreservedly and it was a mistake. Yet how could she know? She could not, at the time of their going into Devon, have behaved like Elinor any more than Elinor could have behaved like Marianne. I suppose that is why we have two Dashwood girls, isn’t it? I do hope that married Elinor was able to love Edward with some of Marianne’s abandon.

As always, I hear Jane Austen telling us to make wise choices in matters of the heart.