《理智與情感》是英國著名女作家簡·奧斯汀的處女作。埃莉諾和瑪麗安兩姐妹生在一個體面的美國鄉紳家庭，姐姐善于用理智來控制情感，妹妹卻往往情感毫無節制，因此在戀愛中碰到挫折時，她們做出了不同的反映。小說以兩位女主角曲折復雜的婚事風波為主線，通過“理智與情感”的幽默對比，提出了道德與行為的規范問題。
簡·奧斯汀（Jane Austen，1775年12月16日－1817年7月18日），19世紀英國小說家，世界文學史上最具影響力的女性文學家之一，其最著名的作品是《傲慢與偏見》和《理智與情感》，她的作品主要關注鄉紳家庭女性的婚姻和生活，以女性特有的細致入微的觀察力和活潑風趣的文字真實地描繪了她周圍世界的小天地。
“Exert yourself, dear Marianne,” she cried, “if you would not kill yourself and all who love you. Think of your mother; think of her misery while you suffer; for her sake you must exert yourself.”
“I cannot, I cannot,” cried Marianne; “leave me, leave me if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! But do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those who have no sorrow of their own to talk of exertion! Happy, happy Elinor, you cannot have an idea of what I suffer.”
“Do you call me happy, Marianne? Ah! if you knew! And can you believe me to be so, while I see you so wretched!”
“Forgive me, forgive me,” throwing her arms round her sister’s neck; “I know you feel for me; I know what a heart you have; but yet you are—you must be happy; Edward loves you—What, oh! what can do away such happiness as that?”
“Many, many circumstances,” said Elinor solemnly.
“No, no, no,” cried Marianne wildly, “he loves you and only you .You can have no grief.”
“I can have no pleasure while I see you in this state.”
“And you will never see me otherwise. Mine is a misery which nothing can do away.”
“You must not talk so, Marianne. Have you no comforts? No friends? Is your loss such as leaves no opening for consolation? Much as you suffer now, think of what you would have suffered if the discovery of his character had been delayed to a later period, if your
engagement had been carried on for months and months, as it might have been, before he chose to put an end to it. Every additional day of unhappy confidence on your side would have made the blow more dreadful.”
“Engagement!” cried Marianne, “there has been no engagement.”
“No engagement!”
“No, he is not so unworthy as you believe him. He has broken no faith with me.”
“But he told you that he loved you?”
“Yes—no—never absolutely. It was every day implied, but never professedly declared. Sometimes I thought it had been, but it never was.”
“Yet you wrote to him?”
“Yes—could that be wrong after all that had passed? But I cannot talk.”
Elinor said no more, and turning again to the three letters which now raised a much stronger curiosity than before, directly ran over the contents of all. The first, which was what her sister had sent him on their arrival in town, was to this effect..
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