Quotes

Lol, as photos of the man have been posted…..”Yes, here I am, Sophia, quite ready to make a foolish match. Any body between fifteen and thirty may have me for asking. A little beauty, and a few smiles, and a few compliments to the navy, and I am a lost man. Should not this be enough for a sailor, who has had no society among women to make him nice?”-Captain Wentworth….the narrator continues “He said it, she knew, to be contradicted. His bright, proud eye spoke the happy conviction that he was nice…..”

“If I am to speak in earnest, what I desire above all in a wife is firmness of character. A woman who knows her own mind. I cannot abide timidity or feebleness of purpose. A weak spirit which is always open to persuasion, first one way and then the other, can never be relied upon.” Persuasion 2007

“In a country there was a shire, in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was a house, and in that house there was a room, and in that room there was a bed, and in that bed there lay a little girl…” -Elizabeth Gaskell “Wives and Daughters”

“He is the best landlord, and the best master,” said she, “that ever lived; not like the wild young men nowadays, who think of nothing but themselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but will give him a good name. Some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw anything of it. To my fancy, it is only because he does not rattle away like other young men.”

“There had been three alternatives, London, Bath, or another house in the country. All Anne’s wishes had been for the latter. A small house in their own neighbourhood, where they might still have Lady Russell’s society, still be near Mary, and still have the pleasure of sometimes seeing the lawns and groves of Kellynch, was the object of her ambition”. -Persuasion

“In her satirical sketch “Plan for a Novel”, she images a novel that is the antithesis of what she values; among its features are that ‘All the Good will be unexceptionable in every respect-and there will be no foibles or weaknesses but with the Wicked, who will be completely depraved & infamous, hardly a resemblance of Humanity left in them’ “.-The Annotated Persuasion by Jane Austen Annotated and Edited by David M. Shapard