They were irresistible: the books, the soft dreamlike edges of what passed for struggle and suffering in that world—a broken engagement, an elopement, a disinheritance. No one was sick, or if they were, it was romantic, like in Sense and Sensibility when Marianne Dashwood nearly dies from heartbreak. It wasn’t a mundane hindrance, like co-pays or Craigslist or calling strangers on the phone.
