Sense and Sensibility: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

Mrs. Jennings was a widow with two married daughters, who now had “nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world.” She quickly realized that Colonel Brandon was in love with Marianne and thought this would be an excellent match. Marianne, though, thought that this would be a ridiculous match, because of Colonel Brandon’s age. She told Elinor and her mother, “thirty-five has nothing to do with matrimony.”

Elinor told Marianne that it would be fine for Colonel Brandon to marry a 27 year-old woman, but Marianne said that a woman of that age could “never hope to feel or inspire affection again,” and that she would think of any marriage with a woman that old as nothing but “a compact of convenience,” and “a commercial exchange.”

Alone with her mother at their cottage, Marianne told her that she worried Edward might be sick, because he had not yet visited them at Barton. Mrs. Dashwood, though, was not expecting Edward to visit anytime soon. Marianne was exasperated at Elinor’s lack of sadness or melancholy at being separated from Edward and at his not coming to visit.