"Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point ...I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of bright vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck . I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but defined houses."
             Charlotte Bronte's dissatisfaction was thus expressed in a letter she wrote in 1848. Her criticism impels us to examine the continuing allure of Jane Austen's books Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. Austen's novels continue to be applicable to the reader because of their relevance to human nature and are thus worthy of literary merit. In Sense and Sensibility Austen explores the qualities that are important in relationships and how one must have both reason and emotion in their life. In Pride and Prejudice she demonstrates the importance of overcoming both prejudice and pride.
             The novel Sense and Sensibility centers on the two main characters Elinor and Marianne and begins with the death of their father, Mr. Henry Dashwood. He could not leave his estate to his daughters so instead he wills it to his first wife's son who abandons and evicts his stepmother. The widowed Mrs. Dashwood then moves to a cottage in Barton Park. Elinor is reluctant to leave their house at Norland because she has become very fond of her half-brother's brother-in-law, Mr. Edward Ferrars. Nevertheless the sisters make new acquaintances, such as Colonel Brandon, whom falls in love with Marianne, however, Marianne prefers the young John Willoughby after he rescues her in the rain. They court each other and flaunt their love until one day he announces he must leave for London immediately on a business matter. Marianne cries hysterically for a while an...