Sense and Sensibility
Robert Ferrars
Edward’s vain younger brother
A frivolous dandy who spends hours choosing a toothpick case and ends up with Lucy Steele.
Robert Ferrars is Edward’s younger brother and Fanny’s brother. He is extremely vain, frivolous and self-absorbed, conceited and obsessed with fashionable nonsense. He cares more for his toothpick case than for anyone’s feelings.
His mother favors him, and when Edward is disowned he becomes the heir. He is polite to a point, but he is always the most interesting person in his own conversation. He talks about his clothes, his accessories and his taste, and he has little sense of how little others care. It is a comic portrait of a man who has never had to do anything.
“Quite so, Mother! It took me three full hours at Gray's to choose this toothpick case. True taste cannot be rushed!”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
At the London party Robert boasts that it took three full hours at Gray’s to choose his toothpick case, adding that true taste cannot be rushed. Mrs. Ferrars gives him Edward’s estate.
Lucy Steele sees that he is now the wealthier brother and drops Edward to marry him. Robert’s vanity and Lucy’s ambition, as Edward says, bring about the Dashwoods’ happiest ending.
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