“She was without any power, because she was without any desire of command over herself.”
~Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

I have loved the story of Sense and Sensibility for a long time, before I quite knew who Jane Austen was, even before I had come to love Pride and Prejudice. I encountered it first when I was ten and watched the movie, explained so patiently by my babysitter. I loved it as I loved all movies then: for its romance, its mystery, and its happy ending. And there was a book. A book with more detail, a book to play comparison, a good thick book to tumble into and wander. I read it through and loved the story more.

I've read the story twice more since, and each time, I've found it deeper and more nuanced. Part of this is the growing-up spaces between readings; part of this is the sheer depth and complexity of Jane Austen's writing. She writes to mirror life, and life is neither one-sided nor extreme, although people often are. Sense and Sensibility seemed to me, the first time, to be a story of one or the other. That satisfied me when I was ten, and I decided, in being naturally like Marianne, to try to be a little more like Elinor.

But even as I tried to be more like Elinor (and forgot very soon after I finished the book), I could not have been all sense - not even Elinor is quite that. She has incredible self-command, but without feelings at all, there is nothing to command. Only when I read the story again, years later, did I begin to understand that it isn't a story of one or the other, but of intertwining characteristics. Marianne's natural sensibility must be tempered by sense, and Elinor's sense is valuable because of the depth of her feelings.

Sense and Sensibility puzzled me when I was younger as my own feelings puzzled me. My mother, being wise and perceptive, has always been helpful in interpreting them - she sees so clearly the difference between the truth and emotions, and has tried to teach me to do the same. I've only begun to recognize what it means when your feelings are your lens - that the truth is easily distorted, and that feelings are fickle, not to be depended upon.

My appreciation for my mother's wisdom and Sense and Sensibility have grown simultaneously, for they are deeply related. Marianne's fault is not having feelings - it's her lack of command over them. She is helpless against them, ruled by them, which brings her only deeper misery. Marianne makes the same mistake I have often made in my own life: she fears that to practice sense, as her sister does, is to sacrifice her feelings altogether.

But that isn't true. I've been learning that more and more these days, as I realize that reason and my feelings are an act of balance. It's a kind of freedom. The way I feel does not have to define my reality, even if my feelings do not disappear. Elinor's self-control of her feelings when she is disappointed in love helps her to live day to day. But when the circumstances change and her love is returned after all, she is no less happy for having kept control of her feelings.

And there you have the happy ending I loved when I was ten - and the lesson I'm learning these days that created the happy ending.