‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen    (1818) – 236 pages

Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion’, like ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’, is all about finding a suitable husband for the daughter and a suitable wife for the son. What could be more important than that?

The focus of ‘Persuasion’ is on Anne Elliot, the middle daughter of Sir Walter Elliot who is described as “a conceited silly father” who is excessively proud of his title as baronet. The older daughter Elizabeth is her father’s favorite, “very handsome and very like himself”. The younger daughter has already married, so Anne is left at home, ignored by the rest of her family even though she is most helpful to the people around her. She is 27 years old and unmarried.

When Anne was twenty, she had been courted by a Captain Frederick Wentworth.

“He was, at that time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit, and brilliancy; and Anne, an extremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling.–Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly anybody to love; but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted rapidly and deeply fell in love.”

Captain Wentworth proposed to Anne. But of course Anne’s father didn’t believe that Captain Wentworth was good enough for the daughter of a baronet like himself, and her best friend and mentor Lady Russell opposed the match and persuaded Anne to break off the engagement.

Now it is seven years later and now Captain Wentworth has returned from his ship at sea to spend some time in his old neighborhood. Anne meets him while visiting their neighbor.

“His cold politeness, his ceremonial grace, were worse than anything.”

Anne is a young woman of sharp opinions of those around her but she would never say them out loud. It’s like she has a finely tuned scale that she uses to measure the precise qualities and worth of the people she knows. One suspects that these are the opinions of Jane Austen also.

“Mr. and Mrs. Musgrave were a very good sort of people, friendly and hospitable, not much educated and not at all elegant.”

“Charles Musgrave was civil and agreeable; in sense and temper he was undoubtedly superior to his wife (Anne’s sister Mary).”

The readers know exactly where Anne and probably Jane Austen stand with each character. No one escapes the precise, often critical, judgments of Anne Elliot or Jane Austen, except Captain Wentworth.