Most unwilling was she to awaken from such a dream of felicity, to comprehend all the unhappy truths which attended the affair, and for some time she refused to submit to them. As to an additional servant, the expence would be a trifle; mama, she was sure, would never object to it; and any horse would do for him ; he might always get one at the Park; as to a stable, the merest shed would be sufficient. Elinor then ventured to doubt the propriety of her receiving such a present from a man so little, or at least so lately known to her. This was too much. Fanny's brother, Edward Ferrars, visits Norland for several weeks and develops a strong attachment to Elinor Dashwood. Edward is the eldest son of a man who died very rich; now his entire fate depends upon his mother's will. Although he is shy and not particularly handsome, he has an open, affectionate heart. His mother and sister want him to distinguish himself and earn prestige, but Edward is a simple man, who longs only for domestic comfort.

Moreover, some individuals are fundamentally more empathetic than others, and in humans scientists have linked these differences to brain activity. When someone who doesn’t feel empathy hears about or sees another person in pain, the brain areas associated with empathy do not light up, and in extreme cases of psychopathy, the brain’s pleasure centers might even become active. As soon as Marianne's leg healed, the private balls began at Barton Hall. Willoughby and Marianne "were partners for half the time; and when obliged to separate for a couple of dances, were careful to stand together, and scarcely spoke a word to anyone else." Marianne was ecstatically happy, but Elinor was lonely, finding no one congenial in the company. Mrs. Jennings was too voluble, and Lady Middleton insipid: "In Colonel Brandon alone, of all her new acquaintances, did Elinor find a person who could in any degree claim the respect of abilities, excite the interest of friendship, or give pleasure as a companion." Yes, yes, we can guess where he is; at his own house at Norland to be sure. He is the curate of the parish I dare say."The cornea is the transparent outer layer of your horse’s eye and is the first part of their eye that light passes through. Iris New tastes follow the same sensory pathway as your horse’s sense of smell. So, horses can instantly get important information about any new tastes and store it for the future (like filing away the memory of, say, poisonous plants or wormer, and avoiding those tastes – as best they can – from that moment on!). Sight Studies show that while mutually grooming another horse, your horse’s heart rate lowers – which helps them feel calm. Grooming is a behaviour that enables horses to form strong bonds with each other, too. The way your horse’s sense of taste works is just like yours; chemical messages from their tongue are sent to the brain to be processed. However, your horse uses their sense of taste slightly differently… Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate;—and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.

Six months after Fanny installs herself as mistress at Norland, Mrs. Dashwood receives a letter from her cousin Sir John Middleton, inviting her and her daughters to reside at Barton Cottage on his property in Devonshire. Eager to distance herself from Fanny's rudeness and insensitivity, Mrs. Dashwood immediately accepts the invitation and sends three servants ahead to Barton to prepare the house for their arrival. She informs John and Fanny of their imminent departure and encourages Edward Ferrars to come visit them at Barton. Following Marianne's tearful goodbye to their home at Norland, the family sets out for Barton Cottage. Analysis In her discussions with her mother and her older sister, Marianne Dashwood expresses her disappointment that Edward is not a more striking, artistic, poetic man. She can tell that Elinor has feelings for Edward but becomes frustrated when Elinor concedes only that she "likes" and "esteems" him; Marianne longs to hear her sister profess her passionate devotion. However, Elinor remains timid because she is still unsure that Edward reciprocates her affection; such things are not usually openly expressed until after the engagement. Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims. She was born to overcome an affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give her hand to another!—and THAT other, a man who had suffered no less than herself under the event of a former attachment, whom, two years before, she had considered too old to be married,—and who still sought the constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat! Although beautifully colourful, the iris has an important job! The iris is responsible for controlling the amount of light that enters your horse’s pupil. Pupil Participants who cannot afford a modest instructor fee may apply for a scholarship through the instructors, forms available upon request. Donations may be specifically directed to scholarship funding.

Taste

Elinor and Colonel Brandon's discussion of "second attachments" is ironic in light of the eventual developments of the novel, for nearly every character except Elinor will ultimately fall in love more than once: Marianne has fallen for John Willoughby but will grow to love the more sensible and constant Colonel; the Colonel loves Marianne because, as we will soon learn, she reminds him of a woman he loved before; Edward Ferrars will marry Elinor only after a long engagement to Lucy Steele; John Willoughby professes his devotion to Marianne but then marries the wealthy Miss Sophia Grey; and even Mr. Henry Dashwood had two wives. In her discussion with the Colonel, Elinor seems to have no problem with second attachments, yet it is only she who marries the very first man she knows and loves. The capacity for empathy is a general psychological mechanism that plays a fundamental role in cooperative, prosocial behavior.³ The degree to which an individual feels empathy in response to another’s pain or pleasure depends on the situation. Empathy seems to be stronger when the other is socially close or similar and inhibited when the other is a competitor, a stranger, or different. Such a highly developed olfactory apparatus indicates that information from odors is important to horses, but despite being a central sensory modality, research on olfaction is relatively scarce for this species. Only a handful of studies have examined the role of olfaction in horses, and these have mainly focused on reproduction and social recognition. Marinier et al. ( 82) found that stallions did not differ in their response to the odor of urine and vaginal secretions of a mare in estrus as compared to when that same mare was not in heat. Later, Briant et al. ( 83) and Jezierski et al. ( 84) supported those findings by showing that stallions could not differentiate feces of mares in estrus from those in diestrus. We know that odorant differences exist between these equine feces types, as male rats are able to distinguish between them by smell alone ( 85). From an evolutionary perspective, the ability to use odors for estrus detection may have been lost (or never existed) in horses, as stallions either lead a predominantly female harem or belong to an all-male group of younger horses. When surrounded by mares, odors may be unnecessary for estrus detection as only mares in estrus will allow a stallion to mount her. Stallions thus rely on the mare's behavioral responses when determining whether or not she is ready for mating. The sensory abilities of horses differ from those of humans in a number of aspects. Equine vision is similar to that of red-green color-blind humans and horses see better in low light than humans. Horses can see almost a full circle around themselves and have a broad rather than a centralized focus They can hear sound frequencies that humans cannot, but unlike most other large land mammals, they hear higher but not lower frequency sounds compared with humans. In addition, horses have a highly developed sense of smell, which is often overlooked, both in equine research as well as training. Horses are very sensitive to touch, but their tactile sensitivity has been very sparsely studied, despite it being used extensively in horse training and handling. The sensory abilities of individual horses may be a stable personality trait, with equine perception affected also by breed, age and in some cases even coat color, highlighting the need to differentiate the care and management of individual horses. There may be unexploited potential of using sensory enrichment/positive sensory stimulation to improve the welfare of horses in various situations e.g., using odors (or signature mixtures), touch or sound to enrich their environment or to appease horses. Although the effects of sound and music on horses are understudied, the anecdotal assumption that horses can spontaneously move to a musical beat is widespread among horse riders and trainers (personal communication), although scientific evidence of this ability is sparse, if not absent. From an evolutionary perspective it would seem an unlikely phenomenon that would entail the recruitment of higher mental processes than those so far found to be possessed by horses. Bregman et al. ( 77) investigated horses moving to music and noted the footfall and the beats of the music to analyze if horses possessed the ability of synchronizing their tempo to a musical beat. The preliminary results (based on one horse) suggest that a horse may be able to spontaneously follow a rhythm, but more studies with larger sample sizes than in Bregman et al. ( 77) are needed to refine the method and confirm the findings.

After a proper resistance on the part of Mrs. Ferrars, just so violent and so steady as to preserve her from that reproach which she always seemed fearful of incurring, the reproach of being too amiable, Edward was admitted to her presence, and pronounced to be again her son. Although Willoughby ultimately marries for money, he seems oblivious to all practical concerns in the early days of his relationship with Marianne. He offers her the gift of a horse even though, as Elinor reminds her sister, there is no way the Dashwoods can afford its upkeep. The horse is named Queen Mab, a reference to the fanciful "fairies' midwife" from Romeo and Juliet (Act I Scene 4), who supposedly rides her chariot across lovers' brains to create their magical dreams. These dreams, however, according to Shakespeare's Mercutio, are "begot of nothing but fantasy" and are "more inconstant than the wind," just as Marianne's dream of owning the horse can never come true and her Willoughby will prove a mercurial and inconstant lover. Given Willoughby's unfaithfulness, it is ironic that he insists that Mrs. Dashwood promise never to alter a single stone in Barton Cottage; a man who abandons one lover for another has hardly the right to demand that a building remain unchanged.

Contents

The sensibility of Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood manifests itself in their excessive mourning over the deaths of the two men, in contrast to Elinor's more silent grief. Not only are they overcome by sadness at the loss of first Old Mr. Dashwood and then Henry, but they then carry on dramatically about having to leave Norland and move to the smaller cottage. Before departing, Marianne wanders the grounds of Norland uttering a histrionic elegy: "Dear, dear Norland... Oh! happy house... And you, ye well-known trees!" Elinor, however, experiences a far more subdued depression--though she is leaving behind not just her home but also a man she has grown to deeply care for and admire. The capacity for empathy is thought to be a fundamental psychological mechanism of prosociality, the hallmark of which is taking a personal risk to help another in distress. This targeted helping requires the mental ability to take another’s perspective and is rare in nonhuman animals; it has been documented in great apes, dolphins, and elephants³ but probably does not occur in horses. Take-Home Message

Indeed, this tension is already apparent in the characters of Elinor and Marianne, between the older sister's "sense" and the younger sister's "sensibility," the duality which the novel's title refers to. Elinor, age nineteen, is described as having a "strength of understanding" and "coolness of judgment", as well as the ability to govern and control her feelings. She modestly states that she "greatly esteems" Edward Ferrars, a remark typical of her rational, sensible attitude. In contrast, her younger sister Marianne, who more closely resembles their mother, is "everything but prudent." She longs for a man with taste, grace, spirit, and fire in his eyes, and considers her sister cold-hearted in her calm and tempered regard for Edward Ferrars. Their younger sister Margaret, age thirteen, also shares Marianne's excessive romanticism. Elinor thus stands out in her family as the only sensible and rational woman.

Smell

Most grateful did Elinor feel to Lady Middleton for observing at this moment, "that it rained very hard," though she believed the interruption to proceed less from any attention to her, than from her ladyship's great dislike of all such inelegant subjects of raillery as delighted her husband and mother. The idea however started by her, was immediately pursued by Colonel Brandon, who was on every occasion mindful of the feelings of others; and much was said on the subject of rain by both of them. Willoughby opened the pianoforte, and asked Marianne to sit down to it; and thus, amidst the various endeavours of different people to quit the topic, it fell to the ground. But not so easily did Elinor recover from the alarm into which it had thrown her. A horse’s hearing is similar in range and tone to that of humans. Horses’ ears can rotate about 180 degrees, however. This unique anatomical feature allows horses to focus on the direction from which the sound is coming, isolate it, and run the other way. With such a confederacy against her—with a knowledge so intimate of his goodness—with a conviction of his fond attachment to herself, which at last, though long after it was observable to everybody else—burst on her—what could she do? One day while visiting Barton Cottage, Willoughby proclaims his utter fondness for the little house and makes Mrs. Dashwood promise that she will never change a single inch of stone in the structure. The Dashwood women invite him to come to dinner the next day, and he agrees. However, when Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood return home that afternoon, they discover Marianne in tears and Willoughby on his way out the door. Willoughby informs them that he has been sent to London on business and will probably not return to Devonshire for the rest of the year. Mrs. Dashwood, suspecting that he and Marianne are secretly engaged, tries to convince herself that Willoughby had to leave so that Mrs. Smith would not learn of the attachment, but Elinor remains more skeptical and reminds her mother that they do not know if there is any such understanding between the two. Marianne, meanwhile, remains overcome by grief and cannot speak or eat. Analysis Panksepp, J. and Panksepp, J.B. (2012). Toward a cross-species understanding of empathy. Trends in Neuroscience 36(8), 489-496 .