Class field trip at Fort Cascades, Washington
“Dear, dear Norland,” said Elinor, “probably looks much as it always does at this time of year. The woods and the walks thickly covered with dead leaves.”
“Oh!” cried Marianne, “with what transporting sensations have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight.”
“It is not every one,” said Elinor, “who has your passion for dead leaves.”
~from Sense and Sensibility, chapter xvi
Austen enjoys laughing at the irrepressible Marianne, the stalwart disciple of the new Romantic literary movement who takes herself rather too seriously. Usually I connect more with the common-sense, wry Elinor, but in this particular passion for dead leaves I have to sympathize with her sister. (These are not the red ones with crisp “fall colors,” mind you, but the brown ones piling up like soggy cornflakes on the path.) Back when my husband Frank and I were just dating, I spent a year as a National Exchange Student at the University of Oregon in Eugene while he was still studying at Montana State. I had never seen such a proliferation of interesting fall foliage, nor such huge leaves as the ones that fell from the bigleaf maples. I mailed dried samples back to Frank so often that for Christmas he gave me a Black Hills gold necklace with a little pink-gold rose and two perfect gold leaves. He still smiles and shakes his head about my choice of romantic correspondence.
Frank doesn’t get my dedication to Austen’s writings, either; he’s happy for me to pursue my interests, but if one of her movies happens to be on, he inevitably falls asleep. He prefers to see some kind of action-driven plot with things happening, which he feels is a “guy thing.” Maybe it is. Personally, I feel that if the story is all plot with no depth of character, there is nothing really “happening.” The internal plots hold my interest better, and of course, the internal action is where Jane Austen excels. It’s a good thing we have other interests to pursue together besides our taste in movies.
The picture above is from a recent field trip where our son and his middle school classmates visited the Bonneville Dam, then the Fort Cascades trail on the Washington side of the Columbia, and finally the Bonneville Fish Hatchery on the Oregon side. Most of them were not passionate about the ginormous electric turbines, even if they were mildly interested in the fish ascending the fish ladder. They were happy to wander among the dead leaves and see the former site of Fort Cascades if only as a chance to escape being cooped up inside the bus. The 11-foot, 500 pound, prehistoric-looking “Herman the Sturgeon” elicited some surprise but inspired no rapturous odes. Not many students shared in their teacher’s passion for clean energy and environmental conservation, but at this age they weren’t expected to. They were learning to respect the importance of these issues, which was the main point of the excursion.
A shark-sized sturgeon at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery
It is noteworthy that Marianne feels such pangs of interest for the fallen leaves when the human counterparts hold neither her interest nor her sympathy. She thinks of Colonel Brandon, for one, as aging and infirm, certainly a leaf soon to fall (though he’s only thirty-five…); one would think she’d be particularly touched by the “Romantic” story of the loss of his former love interest. Part of her internal growth in the novel is to learn some empathy and appreciation for other people in different circumstances. And even though Elinor does not share all of her sister’s passions and did find her enthusiasm for decaying plant life rather excessive, she still makes sure to look out for Marianne’s best interests throughout their ups and downs together.
A Jane Austen Connection 