Some notions of sensibility in the 18th century
http://librivox.org/sense-and-sensibility-by-jane-austen/
Sense and Sensibility
by Jane Austen (1775-1817)The two eldest Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, one of whom (Elinor) embraces practicality and restraint [SENSE] while the other (Marianne) gives her whole heart to every endeavor [SENSIBILITY]. When the Dashwoods – mother Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor, Marianne, and youngest sister Margaret – are sent, almost impoverished, to a small cottage in Devonshire after the death of their father and the machinations of their brother’s wife, they accept their new circumstances with as much cheer as they can muster even though their brother and his wife have taken over the family estate and fortune. Marianne finds herself falling in love with the dashing Willoughby, who ends up being not all that he appears. Elinor, the more sensible of the two, falls for Edward Ferrars, a match that seems much more suitable. All of these pleasant connections are, however, soon disrupted. Willoughby leaves and ignores Marianne. Elinor finds out an unexpected secret about Ferrars that puts her on her caution in pursuing their relationship. As these complications develop, Marianne soon finds herself distraught despite having attracted another suitor, the reliable, but older, Colonel Brandon. Elinor steps into the breach to try to help her sister regain her equilibrium. Both learn what a broken heart can feel like and adjust in their own separate ways.
Since this is an Austen novel and a romance, be assured that all comes right in the end.
(Summary by Michelle Crandall
Janet Todd, "Reason and Sensibility in Mary Wollstonecraft's The Wrongs of Women," Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies 5.3 (1980): 17-20.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3346504?uid=3739256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101351776327
OED definitions #4 and following highlight 18th-century uses best:
4.
a. Emotional consciousness; glad or sorrowful, grateful or resentful recognition of a person's conduct, or of a fact or a condition of things.
1751 Earl of Orrery Remarks Swift
(ed. 5)
iii. 21
The treatment was thought injurious, and Swift expressed his
sensibility of it in a short, but satyrical copy of verses entitled The Discovery.
1768 H. Brooke Fool of Quality III. xiii. 38,
I am very sensible..of your friendship.., and that sensibility constitutes..my happiness.
1776 Johnson Let. 1 Apr.
(1992)
II. 315,
I was on Saturday at Mrs. Montague's who expressed great sensibility of your loss.
1779 T. Forrest Voy. New Guinea 250,
I expressed my sensibility of his many marks of favour to myself.
1779 J. Duché Disc. II. xvii. 363
A sensibility of our own weakness.
1818 Lady Charleville in Lady Morgan Passages from Autobiogr.
(1859)
244,
I will only speak of my real sensibility of Sir Charles's kind politeness.
†b. pl. A person's feelings of gratitude. Obs.
1753 S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison
(1781)
IV. xxii. 168,
I cannot speak my grateful sensibilities.
†c. A mark of appreciation or consideration; a delicate attention. Obs.
1795 J. Dalrymple Let. to Admiralty 9
Every sensibility that we can shew to our brave Officers and Seamen..is too little for what they do for us.
5.
a. Quickness and acuteness of apprehension or feeling; the quality of being easily and strongly affected by emotional influences; sensitiveness. Also, with const., sensitiveness to, keen sense of something.
1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 231. ¶7
Modesty..is a kind of quick and delicate feeling in the
Soul... It is such an exquisite Sensibility, as warns a woman to shun
the first appearance of every thing which is hurtful.
1741 D. Hume Ess. i. 2
There is a certain Delicacy of Passion, to which some People are
subject, that makes them extremely sensible to all the Accidents of
Life... And when a Person, that has this Sensibility of Temper, meets
with any Misfortune, his Sorrow or Resentment takes intire Possession of
him.
1759 E. Burke Philos. Enq. Sublime & Beautiful
(ed. 2)
Introd. 34
It frequently happens that a very poor judge, merely by force of a
greater complexional sensibility, is more affected by a very poor piece,
than the best judge by the most perfect.
1781 Johnson Philips in Pref. Wks. Eng. Poets VIII. 20
He had great sensibility of censure.
1794 W. Godwin Caleb Williams I. xii. 281
My life has been spent in the keenest and most unintermitted sensibility to reputation.
1799 R. Sickelmore Agnes & Leonora II. 9
Her feelings, which had been so acutely wounded..as almost to hurry
sensibility to madness, now assailed her with renovated force.
1810 W. Wilson Hist. Dissenting Churches III. 50
He discovered great sensibility and grief on this occasion.
1816 J. Austen Emma II. vi. 108
More acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings.
1822 W. Hazlitt Table-talk 1st Ser. ix. 192
That trembling sensibility which is awake to every change and every modification of its ever-varying impressions.
1827 J. Bentham Rationale Judicial Evid. V. x. iii. 655
A man's sensibility to pecuniary influence.
1832 W. Irving Alhambra I. 203,
I have often remarked this sensibility of the common people of Spain to the charms of natural objects.
1843 J. Ruskin Mod. Painters I. 409
A sensibility to colour..being very different from a sensibility to form.
a1859 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng.
(1861)
V. xxiv. 197
From Charles neither the remains of his mother nor those of his grandfather could draw any sign of sensibility.
1874 W. T. Sherman Mem.
(1875)
II. xxiv. 395,
I would define true courage to be a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to incur it.
b. pl. Emotional capacities; †instincts of liking or aversion.
1634 W. Tirwhyt tr. J. L. G. de Balzac Lett. 36
It is fitting that reason convince our Sensibilities, causing us to agree to what is otherwise distasteful unto us.
1858 O. W. Holmes Autocrat of Breakfast-table xii. 329
Something intensely human, narrow, and definite pierces to the seat
of our sensibilities more readily than huge occurrences and
catastrophes.
1892 A. Bierce In Midst of Life 109
Doubtless this feeling was due to his unusually acute
sensibilities—his keen sense of the beautiful, which these hideous
things outraged.
c. sing. and pl. Liability to feel offended or hurt by unkindness or lack of respect; susceptibilities.
1767 T. Gray Let. 17 Dec. in Corr.
(1971)
III. 980,
I wish, he would not give too much way to his own sensibilities;
& still less (in this case) to the sensibilities of other people.
1778 J. Laurens in J. Sparks Corr. Amer. Revol.
(1853)
II. 203
The Count's sensibility was much wounded.
1806 J. Beresford Miseries Human Life I. vii. 161
Grating the sensibility, the prepossessions, the self-love, the
vanity &c. of the person to whom you are speaking, by some unguarded
words.
1855 W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Philip II I. ii. i. 381
The sensibilities of a commercial people.
6. In the 18th and early 19th c. (afterwards somewhat rarely): Capacity for refined emotion; delicate sensitiveness of taste; also, readiness to feel compassion for suffering, and to be moved by the pathetic in literature or art.
1756 J. Warton Ess. on Pope I. v. 252
The force of the repetition of the significant epithet foreign, need not be pointed out to any reader of sensibility.
1762 W. Cowper To Miss Macartney 68
Oh! grant, kind heav'n, to me, Long as I draw ethereal air, Sweet Sensibility.
1768 L. Sterne Sentimental Journey II. 182
Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows!
1807 Byron To Romance v,
Where Affectation holds her seat, And sickly Sensibility.
1827 T. Carlyle in Edinb. Rev. June 188
Unless seasoned and purified by humour, sensibility is apt to run wild.
1843 W. H. Prescott Hist. Conquest Mexico I. iii. v. 430
Those monuments of Oriental magnificence, whose light, aërial forms
still survive after the lapse of ages, the admiration of every traveller
of sensibility and taste.
1848 Thackeray Vanity Fair lxii. 561
This lady had the keenest and finest sensibility, and how could she be indifferent when she heard Mozart?
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