I've often wondered, reading novels from that period or watching adaptations, if people back then were really that open about their feelings and so quick to fall in love with each other? Characters who are able to speak of their feelings for pages on end and who often appear to fall in love with each other after just one glance or in a matter of days... Was it common back then to act like this? I don't know, maybe life was shorter and more uncertain so people were more immediate... Or were these novels conceived and seen as just a more dramatized version of real life, similarly to how we may see today's romance or young adult novels?