All Products forMarianne Dashwood ~ Sense & Sensibility ~ Jane Austen

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The despondent Marianne has refused breakfast and is heartbroken over her returned letters and love

tokens from the cad, Willoughby.

This is my contest entry for the "Life in a Jane Austen Novel" contest. I chose the character of Marianne Dashwood, surely one of Austen's most overwrought but ultimately charming characters. I have chosen a scene from Sense and Sensibility wherein Marianne has refused breakfast (symbolized by the tea tray) and subsequent meals while she weeps over the returned letters from her suitor (or so she thought), Mr. Willoughby. He is represented in the silhouette so popular at the time. (It is actually my husband!) She has penned him three indiscreet letters (symbolized by my painting of her with pen in hand, looking pensively by candlelight). Insult to injury is the returned love token of a lock of her hair. Silly thing! Colonel Brandon is already in love with you! Perhaps he was the one that left the lone flower blossom on your doorstep.... All artwork is original and completely created by myself. The font is actually a licensed font based on Jane Austen's own handwriting. I based the ring on an actual ring of Jane's that was up for auction recently. I hope my fellow members of the Jane Austen Tea Society approve! Here is a link to a trailer for a film version... Here is the abridged excerpt: In her earnest meditations on the contents of the letter, on the depravity of that mind which could dictate it, and probably, on the very different mind of a very different person, who had no other connection whatever with the affair than what her heart gave him with every thing that passed, Elinor ... returned to Marianne, whom she found attempting to rise from the bed, and whom she reached just in time to prevent her from falling on the floor, faint and giddy from a long want of proper rest and food; for it was many days since she had any appetite, and many nights since she had really slept; and now, when her mind was no longer supported by the fever of suspense, the consequence of all this was felt in an aching head, a weakened stomach, and a general nervous faintness. A glass of wine, which Elinor procured for her directly, made her more comfortable, and she was at last able to express some sense of her kindness, by saying,... "Oh! Elinor, I am miserable, indeed," before her voice was entirely lost in sobs. ... The contents of her last note to him were these: - "What am I to imagine, Willoughby, by your behaviour last night? Again I demand an explanation of it. I was prepared to meet you with the pleasure which our separation naturally produced, with the familiarity which our intimacy at Barton appeared to me to justify. I was repulsed indeed! I have passed a wretched night in endeavouring to excuse a conduct which can scarcely be called less than insulting; but though I have not yet been able to form any reasonable apology for your behaviour, I am perfectly ready to hear your justification of it. You have perhaps been misinformed, or purposely deceived, in something concerning me, which may have lowered me in your opinion. Tell me what it is, explain the grounds on which you acted, and I shall be satisfied, in being able to satisfy you. It would grieve me indeed to be obliged to think ill of you; but if I am to do it, if I am to learn that you are not what we have hitherto believed you, that your regard for us all was insincere, that your behaviour to me was intended only to deceive, let it be told as soon as possible. My feelings are at present in a state of dreadful indecision; I wish to acquit you, but certainty on either side will be ease to what I now suffer. If your sentiments are no longer what they were, you will return my notes, and the lock of my hair which is in your possession. "M.D." That such letters, so full of affection and confidence, could have been so answered, Elinor, for Willoughby's sake, would have been unwilling to believe. But her condemnation of him did not blind her to the impropriety of their having been written at all; and she was silently grieving over the imprudence which had hazarded such unsolicited proofs of tenderness, not warranted by anything preceding, and most severely condemned by the event, when Marianne, perceiving that she had finished the letters, observed to her that they contained nothing but what any one would have written in the same situation. "I felt myself," she added, "to be as solemnly engaged to him, as if the strictest legal covenant had bound us to each other." "I can believe it," said Elinor; "but unfortunately he did not feel the same." "He DID feel the same, Elinor - for weeks and weeks he felt it. I know he did. Whatever may have changed him now, (and nothing but the blackest art employed against me can have done it), I was once as dear to him as my own soul could wish. This lock of hair, which now he can so readily give up, was begged of me with the most earnest supplication. Had you seen his look, his manner, had you heard his voice at that moment! Have you forgot the last evening of our being together at Barton? The morning that we parted too! When he told me that it might be many weeks before we met again - his distress - can I ever forget his distress?"

tokens from the cad, Willoughby.

This is my contest entry for the "Life in a Jane Austen Novel" contest. I chose the character of Marianne Dashwood, surely one of Austen's most overwrought but ultimately charming characters. I have chosen a scene from Sense and Sensibility wherein Marianne has refused breakfast (symbolized by the tea tray) and subsequent meals while she weeps over the returned letters from her suitor (or so she thought), Mr. Willoughby. He is represented in the silhouette so popular at the time. (It is actually my husband!) She has penned him three indiscreet letters (symbolized by my painting of her with pen in hand, looking pensively by candlelight). Insult to injury is the returned love token of a lock of her hair. Silly thing! Colonel Brandon is already in love with you! Perhaps he was the one that left the lone flower blossom on your doorstep.... All artwork is original and completely created by myself. The font is actually a licensed font based on Jane Austen's own handwriting. I based the ring on an actual ring of Jane's that was up for auction recently. I hope my fellow members of the Jane Austen Tea Society approve! Here is a link to a trailer for a film version... Here is the abridged excerpt: In her earnest meditations on the contents of the letter, on the depravity of that mind which could dictate it, and probably, on the very different mind of a very different person, who had no other connection whatever with the affair than what her heart gave him with every thing that passed, Elinor ... returned to Marianne, whom she found attempting to rise from the bed, and whom she reached just in time to prevent her from falling on the floor, faint and giddy from a long want of proper rest and food; for it was many days since she had any appetite, and many nights since she had really slept; and now, when her mind was no longer supported by the fever of suspense, the consequence of all this was felt in an aching head, a weakened stomach, and a general nervous faintness. A glass of wine, which Elinor procured for her directly, made her more comfortable, and she was at last able to express some sense of her kindness, by saying,... "Oh! Elinor, I am miserable, indeed," before her voice was entirely lost in sobs. ... The contents of her last note to him were these: - "What am I to imagine, Willoughby, by your behaviour last night? Again I demand an explanation of it. I was prepared to meet you with the pleasure which our separation naturally produced, with the familiarity which our intimacy at Barton appeared to me to justify. I was repulsed indeed! I have passed a wretched night in endeavouring to excuse a conduct which can scarcely be called less than insulting; but though I have not yet been able to form any reasonable apology for your behaviour, I am perfectly ready to hear your justification of it. You have perhaps been misinformed, or purposely deceived, in something concerning me, which may have lowered me in your opinion. Tell me what it is, explain the grounds on which you acted, and I shall be satisfied, in being able to satisfy you. It would grieve me indeed to be obliged to think ill of you; but if I am to do it, if I am to learn that you are not what we have hitherto believed you, that your regard for us all was insincere, that your behaviour to me was intended only to deceive, let it be told as soon as possible. My feelings are at present in a state of dreadful indecision; I wish to acquit you, but certainty on either side will be ease to what I now suffer. If your sentiments are no longer what they were, you will return my notes, and the lock of my hair which is in your possession. "M.D." That such letters, so full of affection and confidence, could have been so answered, Elinor, for Willoughby's sake, would have been unwilling to believe. But her condemnation of him did not blind her to the impropriety of their having been written at all; and she was silently grieving over the imprudence which had hazarded such unsolicited proofs of tenderness, not warranted by anything preceding, and most severely condemned by the event, when Marianne, perceiving that she had finished the letters, observed to her that they contained nothing but what any one would have written in the same situation. "I felt myself," she added, "to be as solemnly engaged to him, as if the strictest legal covenant had bound us to each other." "I can believe it," said Elinor; "but unfortunately he did not feel the same." "He DID feel the same, Elinor - for weeks and weeks he felt it. I know he did. Whatever may have changed him now, (and nothing but the blackest art employed against me can have done it), I was once as dear to him as my own soul could wish. This lock of hair, which now he can so readily give up, was begged of me with the most earnest supplication. Had you seen his look, his manner, had you heard his voice at that moment! Have you forgot the last evening of our being together at Barton? The morning that we parted too! When he told me that it might be many weeks before we met again - his distress - can I ever forget his distress?"

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