If you are not a fan of Jane Austen, nor familiar with her acute observations of character and
virtue, then this dive into the depiction of temperance in Austen novel Sense and Sensibility
and may not immediately appeal to you. But bear with me!
If you to scour Austen’s novels for a lack of temperance – in other words, a lack of self-
restraint or self-discipline – then poor Marianne Dashwood is your girl. Much of the narrative
tension in this novel is due to her lack of temperance. She wears her heart on her sleeve,
her obvious tender for John Willoughby and disinclination to follow societal norms because
of the strength of her affection leads to a societal humiliation upon his engagement to an
heiress.
It is only later, after her public humiliation and ensuing period as an invalid, that she begins
to exercise more temperance. Something her older sister Elinor had in spades, as is
humorously recounted in the following exchange upon learning of Edward Ferrar’s secret
engagement:
“’At these words, Marianne’s eyes expressed the astonishment, which her lips could not
utter. After a pause of wonder, she exclaimed, ‘Four months! Have you known of this for four
months?’
Elinor confirmed it.
‘What! While attending me in all my misery, has this been on your heart? – and I have
reproached you for being happy!’
‘It was not fit that you should then know how much I was the reverse.’”
It is a delightful sign of Marianne’s character learning the true value of temperance when,
just a page or two later Austen writes: “She performed her promise of being discreet, to
admiration. She attended to all the Mrs Jennings had to say upon the subject, with an
unchanging complexion, dissented from her in nothing, and was heard three times to say,
‘Yes, ma’am.’…such advances towards heroism in her sister, made Elinor feel equal to
anything herself.”
Advances towards heroism
As Austen observed, any advances in virtuous living are beneficial both to ourselves and
others. Marianne’s growth in virtue, which required a heroic effort on her part, was
advantageous both to herself and to her sister Elinor.
When we don’t exercise temperance, explains Dr Edward Sri in his excellent book The Art of
Living, we fill up on the starters or entrée and do not have enough appetite to consume the
main meal. In other words, if we do not moderate the our enjoyment of the pleasures of life –
be they food, alcohol, sexual intimacy – then we are too full of self-indulgence, too
concerned with pleasure, to “enjoy the ‘main course’ in life – that is, life’s highest goods,
such as truth, goodness, beauty, friendship and love.”
To return to our Austen example, Marianne Dashwood was too concerned with the pleasure, then
her extreme displeasure, derived from her love for Willoughby to notice much of what
happened around her. The more she concerned herself with chasing after the pleasure of being romantically involved in one relationship, she neglected the other more crucial relationships around her.
We can do that too. And often we don’t realise we’re doing it. Are we binge consuming any
media – Netflix series, book series – at the expense of any human interaction, especially
with those who live in our house?
Are our portions of food too generous, are we constantly snacking away? Once we open a
block of chocolate or a tub of ice cream do we finish it all in one sitting, or can we stop at a
more temperate amount?
It is not selfish to exercise self-restraint, or self-discipline, in fact it is the opposite.
Temperance is about protecting our self, our true God given identity, so that we don’t fill up
on the entrée – or worse, eat our fill by consuming our dessert first – when the main course is
the epitome of what makes us truly ourselves.
Like the other cardinal virtues, temperance is about right ordering. In this case, its rightly
ordering pleasure, which in and of itself is not bad, so that we have the ability to appreciate
and partake in the foretaste of Heavenly delight.
Written by Emily Shaw
VM Writer and Graphic Designer. Wife of one, mother of 8. Tackling growth in virtue one (baby) step at a time.