Sense and Sensibility

Fanny:
I am the soul of discretion.

Mrs. Dashwood:
Why so grave? You disapprove her choice?

Marianne:
By no means. Edward is very amiable.

Mrs. Dashwood:
Amiable? But?

Marianne:
There is something wanting. He's too sedate. His reading last night...

Mrs. Dashwood:
Elinor has not your feelings. His reserve suits her.

Marianne:
Can he love her? Can the soul be really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinervere or Heloise...

Mrs. Dashwood:
They made rather pathetic ends, dear.

Marianne:
Pathetic? To die for love? How can you say so? What could be more glorious?

Mrs. Dashwood:
I think that would be taking your romantic sensibilities a little far.

Margaret:
Please don't say anything important 'til I come back.

Elinor Dashwood:
Margaret has always wanted to travel.

Edward Ferrars:
I know. She's heading an expedition to China shortly. I'm to go as her servant. But only on the understanding that I am to be very badly treated.

Fanny:
People always live forever when there is an annuity to be paid them.

Marianne:
Fanny wishes to know where the key to the silver cabinet is kept.

Elinor Dashwood:
Betsy has it I think. What does Fanny want with the silver?

Marianne:
One can only presume she wants to count it. What are you doing?

Elinor Dashwood:
Presents for the servants. Have you seen Margaret by the way? I'm worried about her. She's taken to hiding in the oddest places.

Marianne:
Fortunate girl. At least she can escape Fanny which is more than any of us is able.

Elinor Dashwood:
You do your best. You've not said a word to her in a week.

Marianne:
I have. I've said "yes" and "no".

Mrs. Dashwood:
If you can't think of anything appropriate to say you will please restrict your remarks to the weather.

Edward Ferrars:
My heart is, and always will be, yours.

Elinor Dashwood:
Did he tell you he loved you?

Marianne:
Yes... no. Never absolutely. It was everyday implied but never declared.

Edward Ferrars:
I wish to check the position of the Nile. My sister tells me it is in South America.

Elinor Dashwood:
No. She's quite wrong, for I believe it is in Belgium.

Edward Ferrars:
You must be thinking of the Volga.

Margaret:
The Volga?

Elinor Dashwood:
Of course, the Volga. Which, as you know, starts in...

Edward Ferrars:
Vladivostock, and ends in...

Elinor Dashwood:
Wimbledon.

Edward Ferrars:
Precisely. Where the coffee beans come from.

Margaret:
The source of the Nile is in Abbysinia.

Lucy:
We were talking of London, ma'am, and all its diversions.

Elinor Dashwood:
I do not attempt to deny that I think very highly of him - that I greatly esteem him... I like him.

Marianne:
Esteem him? Like him? Use those insipid words again and I will leave this room this instant.

Elinor Dashwood:
Marianne suffers cruelly. What breaks my heart most is how hard she tries to justify Mr Willoughby. But you know her disposition.

Colonel Brandon:
Miss Dashwood, would you allow me to relate to you some circumstances, which nothing but an honest desire to ease your sister's suffering...

Elinor Dashwood:
You have something to tell me of Mr. Willoughby.

Colonel Brandon:
When I quitted Barton last... no, I must go further back. No doubt... no doubt Mrs. Jennings has apprised you of certain events in my past. The sad outcome of my connection with a young woman named Eliza. What is not commonly known is that twenty years ago, Eliza bore an illegitimate child, the father, whoever he was, abandoned them. As she lay dying, Eliza begged me to look after the child. I had failed Eliza in every other way, I could not refuse her now. I took the child - Beth is her name - and placed her with a family in the country where I could be sure she would be well looked after. I saw her whenever I could. But she grew up so headstrong, and God forgive me, I indulged her. I allowed her too much freedom. A year ago, she disappeared.

Elinor Dashwood:
Disappeared?

Colonel Brandon:
I instigated a search, but for eight months I was left to imagine the worst. Finally, on the day of the Delaford picnic, I received the first news of her. She was with child, and the blackguard who had left her with no hint of his whereabouts...

Elinor Dashwood:
Good God... do you mean Willoughby?

Colonel Brandon:
Before I could return to confront him, Lady Allen had learned of his conduct and turned him from the house. He fled to London.

Elinor Dashwood:
Yes, he left us that morning without any explanation.

Colonel Brandon:
Lady Allen had annulled his legacy, he was left with next to nothing and in danger of losing Combe Magna and all the money that remained to his debtors.

Elinor Dashwood:
So he abandoned Marianne for Miss Grey and her fifty thousand pounds.

Elinor Dashwood:
Is Beth still in town?

Colonel Brandon:
She has chosen to return to the country for her confinement. I would not have burdened you with this, Miss Dashwood, had I not in my heart believed that it would, in time, lessen your sister's suffering.

Colonel Brandon:
I have described Mr. Willoughby as the worst of libertines. But I have since learned from Lady Allen that he did mean to propose that day. And so I cannot deny that his intentions towards Marianne were honourable, and I feel certain that he would have married her. Had it not been...

Elinor Dashwood:
For the money.

Edward Ferrars:
All I want, all I've ever wanted is the quiet of a private life, but my mother wants me distinguished.

John Willoughby:
Brandon is the sort of man everyone speaks well of, but no one remembers to talk to.

Elinor Dashwood:
Marianne, you must change or you will catch a cold.

Marianne:
What care I for colds when there is such a man.

Elinor Dashwood:
You will care very much when your nose swells up.

Marianne:
You are right. Help me, Elinor.

Marianne:
Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Elinor, where is your heart?"

Elinor Dashwood:
What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering. For weeks, Marianne, I've had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hope. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you.

Elinor Dashwood:
Whatever his past actions, whatever his present course... at least you may be certain that he loved you.

Marianne:
But not enough. Not enough.

Colonel Brandon:
What can I do?

Elinor Dashwood:
Colonel Brandon, you have done so much already...

Colonel Brandon:
Give me an occupation, Miss Dashwood, or I shall run mad.

Marianne:
Are we never to have a moment's peace? The rent here may be low but I believe we have it on very hard terms.

Elinor Dashwood:
Mrs Jennings is a wealthy woman with a married daughter, she has nothing to do but marry off everyone else's.

Marianne:
When is a man to be free from such wit if age and infirmity do not protect him?

Elinor Dashwood:
Infirmity?

Mrs. Dashwood:
If Colonel Brandon is infirm then I am at death's door.

Elinor Dashwood:
It is a miracle your life has extended this far.

Marianne:
Did you not hear him complain of a rheumatism in his shoulder?

Elinor Dashwood:
A slight ache was I believe his phrase.

Mrs Jennings:
Oh, you are the loveliest girls that ever I set eyes on. Can you not get them married, Mrs. Dashwood?

Marianne:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment... love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. Willoughby. Willoughby.

Edward Ferrars:
Miss Dashwood... Elinor, I must talk to you - something of great importance I need to tell you - about my education.

Elinor Dashwood:
Your education?

Edward Ferrars:
Yes. It was conducted oddly enough in Plymouth.

Elinor Dashwood:
Indeed?

Edward Ferrars:
Yes. Do you know it?

Elinor Dashwood:
Plymouth?

Edward Ferrars:
Yes.

Elinor Dashwood:
No.

Edward Ferrars:
Ah.

Marianne:
Come, I'm taking you on a walk.

Margaret:
No, I've been on a walk.

Marianne:
You need another.

Margaret:
It's going to rain.

Marianne:
It is NOT going to rain.

Margaret:
You ALWAYS say that, and then it ALWAYS does.

Charlotte Palmer:
She'll be wet through when she comes back.

Mr. Palmer:
Thank you for pointing that out, my dear.

Charlotte Palmer:
Oh, if only this rain would stop!

Mr. Palmer:
If only you would stop.

Sir John Middleton:
And now, Miss Dashwood, it's your turn to entertain us.

Elinor Dashwood:
Oh no, Sir John, I don't...

Sir John Middleton:
And I believe I know what key you will sing in. "F" major.

Elinor Dashwood:
Would you have him treat her even worse than Willoughby has treated you?

Marianne:
No. But nor would I have him marry someone he does not love.

Elinor Dashwood:
You have no confidence in me.

Marianne:
This reproach from you. You who confide in no-one.

Elinor Dashwood:
I have nothing to tell.

Marianne:
Nor I. Neither of us have anything to tell. I because I conceal nothing and you because you communicate nothing.

Marianne:
Is there any felicity in the world superior to this?

Margaret:
I told you it would rain.

Marianne:
There is some blue sky, let us chase it!

Marianne:
Did you see him? He expressed himself well, did he not?

Mrs. Dashwood:
With great decorum and honour.

Marianne:
And spirit and wit and feeling!

Elinor:
And economy, 10 words at most.

Marianne:
Shall we continue tomorrow?

Colonel Brandon:
No, for I must away.

Marianne:
Away? Where?

Colonel Brandon:
That I cannot tell you. It is a secret.

Mrs. Dashwood:
He is certainly not so dashing as Willoughby. But he has a far more pleasing countenance. There was, at times, if you'll remember, something in Willoughby's eyes that I did not like.

Colonel Brandon:
Your sister seems very happy.

Elinor Dashwood:
Yes. Marianne does not approve of hiding her emotions. In fact, her romantic prejudices have the unfortunate tendency to set propriety at naught.

Colonel Brandon:
She is wholly unspoilt.

Elinor Dashwood:
Rather too unspoilt, in my view. The sooner she becomes acquainted with the ways of the world, the better.

Colonel Brandon:
I knew a lady very like your sister - the same impulsive sweetness of temper - who was forced into, as you put it, a better acquaintance with the world. The result was only ruination and despair. Do not desire it, Miss Dashwood.

Marianne:
Is love a fancy or a feeling... or a Ferrars?

Lucy:
If I tell?

Fanny:
I can assure you, I'm as silent as the grave.

Mrs Jennings:
Have you missed me, Pigeon?

Pigeon:
Very much, ma'am.

Mrs Jennings:
Yes, you always say that and I never believe you.

Margaret:
Do you think he'll kneel down when he asks her?

Elinor Dashwood:
Shh!

Margaret:
They always kneel down.

Marianne :
To love is to burn.

He treated her like an ????????

Fanny:
They're all exceedingly spoiled, I find. Miss Margaret spends all her time up trees and under furniture, and I've barely had a civil word from Marianne.

Edward:
My dear Fanny, they've just lost their father. Their lives will never be the same again.

Fanny:
That is no excuse.

Elinor:
You talk of feeling idle and useless. Imagine how that is compounded when one has no hope and no choice of any occupation whatsoever.

Edward:
Our circumstances are, therefore, precisely the same.

Elinor:
Except the you will inherit your fortune. We cannot even earn ours.

Edward:
Perhaps Margaret is right.

Elinor:
Right?

Edward:
Piracy is our only option. What is swabbing exactly?

Mrs. Dashwood:
Colonel Brandon will be sorely missed.

John Willoughby:
Why, when he is the sort of man that everyone speaks well of and no one remembers to talk to?

Edward:
Your friendship has been the most important of my life.

Elinor:
You will always have it.

Elinor:

Do you compare your conduct with his?

Marianne:

No. I compare it to what it ought to have been:
I compare it with yours.

Marianne Dashwood:
Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn, to be on fire. Like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise.