“‘With my hand and heart full of your sister, I was forced to play the happy lover to another woman, ... Marianne, beautiful as an angel, on one side ... and Sophia, jealous as the devil, on the other hand.’” He then goes on to say that the letter sent in his name, which had cut poor Marianne to the heart, was dictated by his wife. “‘What do you think of my wife’s style of letter writing?—delicate—tender—truly feminine—was it not?’” and in excuse for his marriage, “‘In honest words her money was necessary to me.’” After this even Elinor feels bound to rebuke him, saying: “‘You have made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least.’” “‘Do not talk to me of my wife,’” he replies. “‘She does not deserve your compassion. She knew I had no regard for her when we married.’” In this book also there is a serious blot of another sort, a violation of probabilities, which suffices to score a heavy mark against it. In _Pride and Prejudice_ there is certainly improbability in the fact that two portionless girls like Jane and Elizabeth Bennet should find such husbands as Bingley and Darcy, but the improbability is lessened by the fact that the pair of men were friends, and so one match contributes to the other; but in _Sense and Sensibility_ the weak subterfuge for getting rid of Lucy Price, to whom Edward holds himself in honour bound, is hardly credible. There is no rational explanation of the obliging conduct of Robert Ferrars, Edward’s brother; to make a man so vain and selfish marry a woman who could bring him nothing, and whose charms were not great, is a poor means of escaping from an undesirable deadlock. There remain a few other points for comment. We have in Mrs. Dashwood one of the silly though fond mothers that Jane Austen delights to describe. In Mrs. Jennings we have the comic relief, not so clever as that supplied by Mr. Collins in _Pride and Prejudice_ or by Miss Bates in _Emma_. A little too coarse for many people, but still true enough to the times, when the fact of a man’s paying any attention to a girl at all was sufficient to make the gossips discuss their marriage and settlement in life with all openness. The second chapter, often quoted, is one of the finest scenes in the whole book; here John Dashwood, mindful of his promise to his dying father, suggests giving each of his sisters a portion of one thousand pounds out of the magnificent estate which has come to him under the entail, but by the insidious arguments of his wife he at last settles it with his conscience to afford them such assistance “as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things, and sending them presents of fish and game and so forth, whenever they are in season.”