Persuasion Read-Along: Chapter 24

We finished!!! On the 28th of February!!!!!

And first, thank you all so much for enthusiastically joining in here and making it all such a thoroughly splendid success!! :) (As a note, don’t worry if you’re still finishing up… There’s no rush. Feel free to read and comment whenever you can! ;))

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In this chapter Austen wraps everything up so wonderfully. Realistically (without happy tidiness in every direction), but with resolution and a good amount of cheerful spirit spread into the corners—and with deep happiness for the people we love most. 

(Oh, my…. I do love Persuasion so much! But I mentioned something about that in my last post, didn’t I? ;))

Next week there will be a celebratory giveaway and I’m also hoping to do a post on Wentworth and Anne—so keep visiting! 

Favorite lines/quotes:

“Sir Walter, indeed, though he had no affection for Anne, and no vanity flattered, to make him really happy on the occasion, was very far from thinking it a bad match for her. On the contrary, when he saw more of Captain Wentworth, saw him repeatedly by daylight, and eyed him well, he was very much struck by his personal claims, and felt that his superiority of appearance might be not unfairly balanced against her superiority of rank; and all this, assisted by his well-sounding name, enabled Sir Walter at last to prepare his pen, with a very good grace, for the insertion of the marriage in the volume of honour.” pg. 244

“There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal, and Lady Russell had been less gifted in this part of understanding than her young friend. But she was a very good woman, and if her second object was to be sensible and well-judging, her first was to see Anne happy. She loved Anne better than she loved her own abilities; and when the awkwardness of the beginning was over, found little hardship in attaching herself as a mother to the man who was securing the happiness of her other child.

“Of all the family, Mary was probably the one most immediately gratified by the circumstance. It was creditable to have a sister married, and she might flatter herself with having been greatly instrumental to the connexion, by keeping Anne with her in the autumn…” pg. 245

“Anne, satisfied at a very early period of Lady Russell's meaning to love Captain Wentworth as she ought, had no other alloy to the happiness of her prospects than what arose from the consciousness of having no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value. There she felt her own inferiority very keenly. The disproportion in their fortune was nothing; it did not give her a moment's regret; but to have no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing of respectability, of harmony, of good will to offer in return for all the worth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers and sisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could well be sensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity.” pg. 247

“Captain Wentworth, by putting her (Mrs. Smith) in the way of recovering her husband's property in the West Indies, by writing for her, acting for her, and seeing her through all the petty difficulties of the case with the activity and exertion of a fearless man and a determined friend, fully requited the services which she had rendered, or ever meant to render, to his wife.” pg. 247

“She (Mrs. Smith) might have been absolutely rich and perfectly healthy, and yet be happy. Her spring of felicity was in the glow of her spirits, as her friend Anne's was in the warmth of her heart. Anne was tenderness itself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth's affection.” – pg. 248

Possible discussion question/s:

~ What do you think of the final revelation of Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay’s characters?

~ Do you think everyone and everything is well resolved?

~ Have you enjoyed Persuasion?