Actually, ok. Now I'm really being serious. Maybe this is why, as far as Jane Austen, I prefer Sense and Sensibility over Pride and Prejudice. Because, in Sense and Sensibility, Elinor is all about appearances and propriety, and she maintains cordial, rigid friendship with Edward Ferrars through most of the book while at the same time castigating Mariane for her unrestrained libido, caprice, and flights of passion. And the friendship between Elinor and Edward is all very sweet and quite beautiful in its own way, and it is seemingly enough for them... until it isn't. And the reason we still read the book and love it today is that it's all the more beautiful when the friendship turns into something much more, and Elinor and Edward realize that they've been pining for each other all along. The takeaway: if Elinor and Edward had remained friends all the way to the end, no one would know the book today. The book is still read today, and it's great, because they transcended their friendship.
