Sensibility (3)

Is having sensibility just a matter of having feelings in the way we use the word today? No it isn't. To have sensibility is to respond to something. In our modern sense, feelings are something that come from inside.

Consider the martini obsessive. He is one of the great entertainments for bartender. When I tended bar, it was a rare week not to have someone order a martini and then send it back because it wasn't dry enough. When martini obsessives are particularly obnoxious about it, many bartenders will deliberately make the second martini sweeter to see if they notice. Sometimes, bartenders will give a complainer a martini that is mostly vermouth.

This is all possible, of course, because getting excited about martinis is just an affectation. It's an act people put on to call attention to themselves. It's a way difficult, high maintenance people have of making themselves the centre of attention.

Real sensibility is to have the ability to respond to something outside yourself. You don't need the notice of other people if you have sensibility.

And that is Marianne. She has strong sensibilities and—though she does tend to hector other people about them—she really is responding to the beauties around her. She is not some modern delusional fraud talking about their feelings. She lives more profoundly than most people around her.