The Context of Sense and Sensibility



72 The Rice Institute Pamphlet

fers the picturesque retreat with only a few choice souls for
company, scarcely enters into the doings of the miscellaneous
people who take up much of the story. The social comedy is
not closely connected with her fortunes, and the tensions
within the Dashwood family are not developed in close con-
nection with her situation, except of course that her half-
brother is on general principles in favor of her marrying a
man with a good fortune. The comedy of the John Dash-
woods is almost detachable.

As has been suggested, the two female quixotes Catherine
MorIand and Marianne Dashwood do not have much in
common. For Jane Austen to do her best work, the supposed
quixotism of the heroine must be manifested in and through
the social scene; in
Northanger Abbey this comes about by
Catherine’s docility; she depends entirely on other people for
her attitude toward books and the picturesque, and she is
remarkable for her naïveté rather than her folly. Marianne
as a female quixote is on her own; the setting for her quixot-
ism is not the drawing-room or public place, but first the
family circle in which she cultivates romantic ardor with her
mother, and later the companionship with Willoughby. The
introduction of Willoughby is separated only by a thin
partition from Jane Austen’s early high-spirited burlesques
of the novelist’s manoeuvres. The walk in picturesque
country—the sprained ankle—tire handsome and gallant
stranger. “His person and air were equal to what her fancy
had ever drawn for the hero of a favourite story; and in his
carrying her into the house with so little previous formality,
there was a rapidity of thought which particularly recom-
mended the action to her. Every circumstance belonging to
him was interesting. His name was good, his residence was in
their favourite village, and she soon found out that of all
manly dresses a shooting-jacket was the most becoming.”11



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