"Persuasion" - The awakening of Frederick Wentworth

 

'Persuasion' - Jane Austen's tale about the stiflingly dull life of Anne Elliot, who at nineteen gave up her engagement to satisfy the strict and snobbish ideas of her class-obsessed father.

Eight years later, faded and quiet, what future does she have?

The pain of what might have been is made worse when Captain Wentworth returns and she has to see him apparently falling in love with a much younger girl.

But events make Frederick Wentworth realise how much he still values and admires Anne, and suddenly, he realises he still loves her. Only - is it now too late for him?

He pours out his feelings in a hastily scribbled letter, often considered the most romantic letter in all English literature.

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.”

― Jane Austen,   Persuasion