Persuasion
by Jane Austen
CHAPTER 1
Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in
Somersetshire, was a man who, for his
own amusement, never took up any
book but the Baronetage; there he
found occupation for an idle hour, and
consolation in a distressed one; there
his faculties were roused into
admiration and respect, by
contemplating the limited remnant of
the earliest patents; there any
unwelcome sensations, arising from
domestic affairs changed naturally into
pity and contempt as he turned over the
almost endless creations of the last
century; and there, if every other leaf
were powerless, he could read his own
history with an interest which never
failed. This was the page at which the
favourite volume always opened:
"ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL.
"Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760,
married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth,
daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of
South Park, in the county of Gloucester, by
which lady (who died 1800) he has issue
Elizabeth, born June 1, 1785; Anne, born
August 9, 1787; a still-born son,
November 5, 1789; Mary, born November
20, 1791."
Precisely such had the paragraph originally
stood from the printer's hands; but Sir Walter
had improved it by adding, for the information
of himself and his family, these words, after
the date of Mary's birth—"Married, December
16, 1810, Charles, son and heir of Charles
Musgrove, Esq. of Uppercross, in the county
of Somerset," and by inserting most
accurately the day of the month on which he
had lost his wife.
Then followed the history and rise of
the ancient and respectable family, in
the usual terms; how it had been first
settled in Cheshire; how mentioned in
Dugdale, serving the office of high
sheriff, representing a borough in three
successive parliaments, exertions of
loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the
first year of Charles II, with all the
Marys and Elizabeths they had married;
forming altogether two handsome
duodecimo pages, and concluding with
the arms and motto:—"Principal seat,
Kellynch Hall, in the county of
Somerset," and Sir Walter's handwriting
again in this finale:—
"Heir presumptive, William Walter
Elliot, Esq., great grandson of the
second Sir Walter."
Vanity was the beginning and the end
of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of
person and of situation. He had been
remarkably handsome in his youth;
and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine
man. Few women could think more of
their personal appearance than he did,
nor could the valet of any new made
lord be more delighted with the place
he held in society. He considered the
blessing of beauty as inferior only to the
blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir
Walter Elliot, who united these gifts,
was the constant object of his warmest
respect and devotion.
His good looks and his rank had one fair
claim on his attachment; since to them he
must have owed a wife of very superior
character to any thing deserved by his
own. Lady Elliot had been an excellent
woman, sensible and amiable; whose
judgement and conduct, if they might be
pardoned the youthful infatuation which
made her Lady Elliot, had never required
indulgence afterwards.
She had humoured, or softened, or concealed
his failings, and promoted his real respectability
for seventeen years; and though not the very
happiest being in the world herself, had found
enough in her duties, her friends, and her
children, to attach her to life, and make it no
matter of indifference to her when she was
called on to quit them. Three girls, the two
eldest sixteen and fourteen, was an awful
legacy for a mother to bequeath, an awful
charge rather, to confide to the authority and
guidance of a conceited, silly father.
She had, however, one very intimate
friend, a sensible, deserving woman, who
had been brought, by strong attachment to
herself, to settle close by her, in the village
of Kellynch; and on her kindness and
advice, Lady Elliot mainly relied for the
best help and maintenance of the good
principles and instruction which she had
been anxiously giving her daughters.
This friend, and Sir Walter, did not marry,
whatever might have been anticipated on that
head by their acquaintance. Thirteen years had
passed away since Lady Elliot's death, and they
were still near neighbours and intimate friends,
and one remained a widower, the other a
widow.
That Lady Russell, of steady age and
character, and extremely well provided for,
should have no thought of a second
marriage, needs no apology to the public,
which is rather apt to be unreasonably
discontented when a woman does marry
again, than when she does not; but Sir
Walter's continuing in singleness requires
explanation. Be it known then, that Sir
Walter, like a good father, (having met with
one or two private disappointments in very
unreasonable applications), prided himself
on remaining single for his dear daughters'
sake.
For one daughter, his eldest, he would
really have given up any thing, which he
had not been very much tempted to do.
Elizabeth had succeeded, at sixteen, to all
that was possible, of her mother's rights
and consequence; and being very
handsome, and very like himself, her
influence had always been great, and they
had gone on together most happily. His
two other children were of very inferior
value.
Mary had acquired a little artificial
importance, by becoming Mrs Charles
Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of
mind and sweetness of character, which
must have placed her high with any
people of real understanding, was nobody
with either father or sister; her word had
no weight, her convenience was always to
give way—she was only Anne.
To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear
and highly valued god-daughter, favourite, and
friend. Lady Russell loved them all; but it was
only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to
revive again.
A few years before, Anne Elliot had
been a very pretty girl, but her bloom
had vanished early; and as even in
its height, her father had found little
to admire in her, (so totally different
were her delicate features and mild
dark eyes from his own), there could
be nothing in them, now that she
was faded and thin, to excite his
esteem. He had never indulged
much hope, he had now none, of
ever reading her name in any other
page of his favourite work.
All equality of alliance must rest with
Elizabeth, for Mary had merely connected
herself with an old country family of
respectability and large fortune, and had
therefore given all the honour and
received none: Elizabeth would, one day
or other, marry suitably.
It sometimes happens that a woman is
handsomer at twenty-nine than she was
ten years before; and, generally speaking,
if there has been neither ill health nor
anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely
any charm is lost.
It was so with Elizabeth, still the same
handsome Miss Elliot that she had begun
to be thirteen years ago, and Sir Walter
might be excused, therefore, in forgetting
her age, or, at least, be deemed only half
a fool, for thinking himself and Elizabeth
as blooming as ever, amidst the wreck of
the good looks of everybody else; for he
could plainly see how old all the rest of his
family and acquaintance were growing.
Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face in
the neighbourhood worsting, and the rapid
increase of the crow's foot about Lady
Russell's temples had long been a distress
to him.
Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in
personal contentment. Thirteen years had
seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding
and directing with a self-possession and
decision which could never have given the
idea of her being younger than she was. For
thirteen years had she been doing the
honours, and laying down the domestic law
at home, and leading the way to the chaise
and four, and walking immediately after Lady
Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and
dining-rooms in the country.
Thirteen winters' revolving frosts had seen her
opening every ball of credit which a scanty
neighbourhood afforded, and thirteen springs
shewn their blossoms, as she travelled up to
London with her father, for a few weeks' annual
enjoyment of the great world.
She had the remembrance of all this, she
had the consciousness of being
nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets
and some apprehensions; she was fully
satisfied of being still quite as handsome
as ever, but she felt her approach to the
years of danger, and would have rejoiced
to be certain of being properly solicited
by baronet-blood within the next
twelvemonth or two. Then might she
again take up the book of books with as
much enjoyment as in her early youth,
but now she liked it not.
Always to be presented with the date
of her own birth and see no marriage
follow but that of a youngest sister,
made the book an evil; and more
than once, when her father had left it
open on the table near her, had she
closed it, with averted eyes, and
pushed it away.
She had had a disappointment, moreover, which
that book, and especially the history of her own
family, must ever present the remembrance of.
The heir presumptive, the very William Walter
Elliot, Esq., whose rights had been so
generously supported by her father, had
disappointed her.
She had, while a very young girl, as soon
as she had known him to be, in the event
of her having no brother, the future
baronet, meant to marry him, and her
father had always meant that she should.
He had not been known to them as a boy;
but soon after Lady Elliot's death, Sir
Walter had sought the acquaintance, and
though his overtures had not been met
with any warmth, he had persevered in
seeking it, making allowance for the
modest drawing-back of youth; and, in one
of their spring excursions to London, when
Elizabeth was in her first bloom, Mr Elliot
had been forced into the introduction.
He was at that time a very young man, just
engaged in the study of the law; and
Elizabeth found him extremely agreeable,
and every plan in his favour was
confirmed. He was invited to Kellynch Hall;
he was talked of and expected all the rest
of the year; but he never came. The
following spring he was seen again in
town, found equally agreeable, again
encouraged, invited, and expected, and
again he did not come; and the next
tidings were that he was married.
Instead of pushing his fortune in the
line marked out for the heir of the
house of Elliot, he had purchased
independence by uniting himself to a
rich woman of inferior birth.