Persuasion, Twitter Version: Chapter 23 (part 2)

[Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root zeroing in for a kiss in the glorious 1995 film version of Persuasion, directed by Roger Michell.]

PERSUASION tweets continue: When last we left Anne, she was reading Capt. Wentworth's words in his letter: "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…."

 "A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

 Next up on PERSUASION, Twitter version: Anne must find a way to send word to Capt W : "a word, a look," but not a text or tweet.

 "Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from…Every moment...brought fresh agitation. It was overpowering happiness."

 Charles, Mary, & Henrietta arrive. "She began not to understand a word they said, and was obliged to plead indisposition."

 Their concern & hovering makes things worse. If only they would let her go home alone so she can run into Capt W…

Anne does run into Capt W—but Charles is with her. How can she manage "a word, a look" on the DL?

Thankfully Charles has to run & asks Capt W to take Anne home—she can barely refrain from doing a happy dance on the spot.

 & so Anne & Capt W "exchanged again those feelings and those promises which had once before seemed to secure everything."

 Yet those feelings and promises "had been followed by so many, many years of division and estrangement."

 "They returned again into the past, more exquisitely happy...in their re-union, than when it had been first projected."

 They were now "more tender, more tried, more fixed in a knowledge of each other's character, truth, and attachment."

 They could now "indulge in…explanations of what had directly preceded the present moment…"

 She was right; jealousy of Mr. Elliot had held him back. "It had been vanquished at last" by her talk w/Captain Harville.

 And so " he had seized a sheet of paper, and poured out his feelings….nothing was to be retracted or qualified."

 "He persisted in having loved none but her… He never even believed himself to see her equal."

 He admits "he had been constant unconsciously, nay unintentionally…he had meant to forget her, and believed it to be done."

 "He had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry…he had been unjust to her merits, because he had…suffere[d] from them."

 This bit of Regency self-help is brought to you by Jane Austen, "ahead of her time since 1775." Persuasion, Twitter version, continues soon…

 "Her character was now fixed on his mind as perfection itself, …the loveliest medium of fortitude and gentleness…"

 But "only at Uppercross had he learnt to do her justice, and only at Lyme had he begun to understand himself."

 "At Lyme…the passing admiration of Mr. Elliot had…roused him, and the scenes on the Cobb…had fixed her superiority."

 Full of "angry pride," he had tried "to attach himself to Louisa Musgrove," but "he had not cared, could not care, for Louisa."

After the accident, he saw "the perfect excellence of the mind with which Louisa's could so ill bear a comparison…"

And he realized "the perfect unrivalled hold" which Anne's mind "possessed over his own."

He could now "distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will…"

He now saw the difference "between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind."

He saw "everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost."

And he "deplore[d] the pride,…the madness of resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain her." About time, dude!

Capt W's "penance had become severe." Even worse, says he, ""I found…that I was considered by Harville an engaged man!"

Realizing that Louisa's family & Louisa might feel the same, Capt W saw that he was "hers in honour if she wished it."

"I had been unguarded…I had been grossly wrong, and must abide the consequences." [Ah, if only we had consequences 2day]

And so Capt W did what any man would do: he fled. "meaning after a while to return...and act as circumstances might require."

Capt W visited his bro, who asked if Anne had changed, "little suspecting," says Capt W, "that to my eye you could never alter."

Anne smiles. "It was too pleasing a blunder" and she felt "it to be the result, not the cause of a revival of his…attachment."

Capt W had remained w/his bro,"lamenting…till at once released from Louisa by the astonishing…intelligence of her engagement."

And so Capt W did what any man would do: he went to the woman he loved. Got jealous. Made assumptions. & nearly quit the field.

But now all is well. Anne arrives home and enjoys "an interval of meditation, serious and grateful." Ah, yes. Regency Xanax.

Later Anne tells Capt W that tho' Lady Russell's advice to her @ age 19 turned out to be wrong, Anne was right to have listened.

 "I was…right in being guided by the friend whom you will love better than you do now." Capt W looks at Lady R & says: "Not yet."

Yet he cannot help but wonder: "whether there may not have been one person more my enemy even than that lady? My own self."

He asks if he had proposed again when he returned in 1808 w/a few grand and a posting on a ship, would she have then said yes?

"'Would I!' was…her answer…'Good God!' he cried, '…It is not that I did not think of it, or desire it…but I was…too proud...'"

"This…recollection…ought to make me forgive every one sooner than myself. Six years of…suffering might have been spared."

Persuasion, Capt. Wentworth, cont'd: "I have been used to the gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I enjoyed."

 "'Like other great men under reverses, he added, with a smile. 'I must endeavour to subdue my mind to my fortune.'"

 "I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."

 
This Twitter presentation of PERSUASION is brought to you by Jane Austen, "showing us our better guide since 1811." 

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