who wrote the letter that mrs. ansley believed was from mr. slade twenty years earlier
Roman Fever In the opening pages of the story, the two women compare their daughters and reflect on each other's lives. Eventually, Alida reveals a secret about a letter written to Grace on a visit to Rome many years ago. The letter was purportedly from Alida's fiancÃ©, Delphin, inviting Grace to a rendezvous at the Colosseum. In fact, Alida forged the letter in an attempt to send Grace on a fruitless outing and expose her "delicate throat" to the "deathly cold." Mrs. Ansley is upset at this revelation, but explains that she was not left alone at the Colosseum; she responded to the letter, and Delphin arrived to meet her. Mrs. Ansley then says that she feels sorry for Mrs. Slade, repeating her earlier thoughts. Mrs. Slade states that, while she was "beaten there," Mrs. Ansley ought not to feel sorry for her, because she "had [Delphin] for twenty-five years" while Mrs. Ansley had "nothing but that one letter that he didn't write." Mrs. Ansley responds, in the last sentence of the story, "I had Barbara," implying that Barbara is Delphin's daughter.
Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen wrote the first draft of the novel in the form of a novel-in-letters (epistolary form) perhaps as early 1795 when she was about 19 years old, or 1797, at age 21, and is said to have given it the title Elinor and Marianne. She later changed the form to a narrative and the title to Sense and Sensibility.[4] The title of the book, and that of her next published novel, Pride and Prejudice (1813), may be suggestive of political conflicts of the 1790s, as well as the movement from the Neoclassic to the Romantic Era (Elinor representing the Neoclassic, and Marianne representing the Romantic).[5][clarification needed]