Thank you for this fine post laying out Elinor's plight.

Your post reminded me of chronic pain. No I don't mean it was a pain to read. :-) When you mentioned the bass line analogy, it remind me of sufferers of chronic pain. There are good days and bad days (days of acute pain). Edward's coldness when he visits, Lucy's revelations at first acquaintance and her parting shot, the publicity of the engagement are all moments of acute pain. Good days consist of not freedom from pain, but a dull ache that is there always and the sufferer has become used to it. There is no use complaining about it, because it won't go away, and you'd be complaining every day. It's no wonder Elinor is always assuring people she is just fine thank you very much.

I'm glad when she lets rip on her brother a bit after Mrs. Ferrars throws Edward off.

I know Mrs. Dashwood's failings as a mother have been discussed as regards her lack of guidance of Marianne, but I can't help feeling a little sorry for her where Elinor is concerned. At the end of ch. 47 after they think Edward has married Lucy Mrs. Dashwood feared to hazard any remark, and ventured not to offer consolation. She now found that she had erred in relying on Elinor's representation of herself;...
She found that she had been misled by the careful, the considerate attention of her daughter, to think the attachment, ... much slighter in reality .... She feared that under this persuasion she had been unjust, inattentive -- nay, almost unkind, to her Elinor:...that in Elinor she might have a daughter suffering almost as much, certainly with less self-provocation, and greater fortitude.
I pity Mrs. Dashwood a bit, because even now that she knew she was wrong and now understands fully Elinor's pain, she still doesn't know HOW to comfort her.

But poor Elinor how she suffers throughout. I thought it pretty amusing in S&S3, when she drank that fine constantia wine down in one gulp, poor girl.

My hubby's favorite part of S&S2 is when Emma Thompson finally breaks down at the end, and the way the family just looks at each other and they hurriedly leave the room.