In
childhood, when the elder was sent to the school of a Mrs. Latournelle,
in the Forbury at Reading, the younger went with her, not because she was
thought old enough to profit much by the instruction there imparted, but
because she would have been miserable without her sister; her mother
observing that 'if Cassandra were going to have her head cut off, Jane
would insist on sharing her fate.' This attachment was never interrupted
or weakened. They lived in the same home, and shared the same bed-room,
till separated by death. They were not exactly alike. Cassandra's was
the colder and calmer disposition; she was always prudent and well
judging, but with less outward demonstration of feeling and less
sunniness of temper than Jane possessed. It was remarked in her family
that 'Cassandra had the _merit_ of having her temper always under
command, but that Jane had the _happiness_ of a temper that never
required to be commanded.' When 'Sense and Sensibility' came out, some
persons, who knew the family slightly, surmised that the two elder Miss
Dashwoods were intended by the author for her sister and herself; but
this could not be the case.
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