CHAPTER L

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INTRODUCTION

With the title of _Sense and Sensibility_ is connected one of those minor problems which delight the cummin-splitters of criticism. In the _Cecilia_ of Madame D'Arblay--the forerunner, if not the model, of Miss Austen--is a sentence which at first sight suggests some relationship to the name of the book which, in the present series, inaugurated Miss Austen's novels. 'The whole of this unfortunate business'--says a certain didactic Dr. Lyster, talking in capitals, towards the end of volume three of _Cecilia_--'has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE,' and looking to the admitted familiarity of Miss Austen with Madame D'Arblay's work, it has been concluded that Miss Austen borrowed from _Cecilia_, the title of her second novel. But here comes in the little problem to which we have referred. _Pride and Prejudice_ it is true, was written and finished before _Sense and Sensibility_--its original title for several years being _First Impressions_. Then, in 1797, the author fell to work upon an older essay in letters _a la_ Richardson, called _Elinor and Marianne_, which she re-christened _Sense and Sensibility._ This, as we know, was her first published book; and whatever may be the connection between the title of _Pride and Prejudice_ and the passage in _Cecilia_, there is an obvious connection between the title of _Pride and Prejudice_ and the _title of Sense and Sensibility_. If Miss Austen re-christened _Elinor and Marianne_ before she changed the title of _First Impressions_, as she well may have, it is extremely unlikely that the name of _Pride and Prejudice_ has anything to do with _Cecilia_ (which, besides, had been published at least twenty years before). Upon the whole, therefore, it is most likely that the passage in Madame D'Arblay is a mere coincidence; and that in _Sense and Sensibility_, as well as in the novel that succeeded it in publication, Miss Austen, after the fashion of the old morality plays, simply substituted the leading characteristics of her principal personages for their names. Indeed, in _Sense and Sensibility_ the sense of Elinor, and the sensibility (or rather _sensiblerie_) of Marianne, are markedly emphasised in the opening pages of the book But Miss Austen subsequently, and, as we think, wisely, discarded in her remaining efforts the cheap attraction of an alliterative title. _Emma_ and _Persuasion, Northanger Abbey_ and _Mansfield Park_, are names far more in consonance with the quiet tone of her easy and unobtrusive art.

_Elinor and Marianne_ was originally written about 1792. After the completion--or partial completion, for it was again revised in 1811--of _First Impressions_ (subsequently _Pride and Prejudice_), Miss Austen set about recasting _Elinor and Marianne_, then composed in the form of letters; and she had no sooner accomplished this task, than she began _Northanger Abbey_. It would be interesting to know to what extent she remodelled _Sense and Sensibility_ in 1797-98, for we are told that previous to its publication in 1811 she again devoted a considerable time to its preparation for the press, and it is clear that this does not mean the correction of proofs alone, but also a preliminary revision of MS. Especially would it be interesting if we could ascertain whether any of its more finished passages, _e.g._ the admirable conversation between the Miss Dashwoods and Willoughby in