Chapter 3, “Sense and Sensibility and Suffering,” begins from the philosophical writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein on the problem of other minds. Wittgenstein, like Adam Smith, positions suffering and pain as the paradigmatic experiences in discussion of other minds. (Austin’s paradigmatic feeling is anger.) This chapter deploys a flattened point of view in terms of what it means to be “insensible,” particularly in relation to the non-human paper and ink fictional characters in an “early” Austen novel. It also provides close reading of Sense and Sensibility through a Cavellian exploration of the philosophical problems of skepticism and acknowledgment. Cavell presents his own reading of late Wittgenstein as one of an intimate frustration with the workings of criteria. Such an experience models a necessarily and potentially productive frustration that modern novel readers often report with the main character/trait pairings of Sense and Sensibility. The chapter promotes the interest of otherwise flat writing as modeling forms of resiliency. These critical practices are especially vital to reading Austen’s fiction before her great success in writing novels of inwardness.

Chapter 3 argues that Jane Austen revisited themes from her juvenilia in her published novels, especially Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Mansfield Park (1814), both of which were also lightly revised after initial publication in response to readers and reviewers.They display Austen’s concern with improving her texts and using accurate technical language.Austen’s cautionary stance on “sensibility,” especially female sensibility, within Sense and Sensibility was first developed within her juvenilia and functions as a critique of late eighteenth-century sentimental tropes.Austen’s ambiguous stance regarding the wild women of Mansfield Park, especially when interpreted through the lens of her earlier writings, can be read as an implicit criticism of the systems of female education and marriage that produce their immoral behavior.The chapter’s conclusion shows the culmination of Austen’s masterful revision practices in The Watsons (c.1803) and Persuasion (1817), which are linked to clear stylistic improvements and keen social commentary on the condition of women.