persuasion 105
fool 4
widowed 30
professional class 14
baronet 28
lawyer 14
mode of speech
fid 105
indirect 105
Narrator as Anne Elliot as Mrs Clay 1
Narrator as Lady Russell 42
Narrator as Mr. Musgrove 2
Narrator as Mr. Musgrove and Mrs.Musgrove 4
Narrator as Mr. Shepherd 14
Narrator as Mrs. Clay 3
Narrator as Mrs. Musgrove 9
Narrator as Mrs. Smith 2
Narrator as Sir Walter Elliot 28
the limited remnant of the earliest patents;
Character: Narrator as Sir Walter Elliot
the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy;
remaining single for his dear daughters' sake.
His two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs Charles Musgrove;
Anne,
was nobody
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.
himself and Elizabeth as blooming as ever, amidst the wreck of the good looks of everybody else;
how old all the rest of his family and acquaintance were growing. Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face in the neighbourhood worsting,
the modest drawing-back of youth;
he ought to have been consulted, especially after taking the young man so publicly by the hand;
It had not been possible for him to spend less; he had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot was imperiously called on to do;
No; he would never disgrace his name so far. The Kellynch estate should be transmitted whole and entire, as he had received it.
begged leave to recommend an implicit reference to the excellent judgement of Lady Russell,
Character: Narrator as Mr. Shepherd
independent of his claims as an old acquaintance, an attentive neighbour, an obliging landlord, the husband of her very dear friend, the father of Anne and her sisters, was, as being Sir Walter,
Character: Narrator as Lady Russell
entitled to a great deal of compassion and consideration under his present difficulties.
They must retrench; that did not admit of a doubt.
to have it done with the least possible pain to him and Elizabeth.
could not be put up with, were not to be borne.
nothing would be done without a change of abode.
he could not be trusted in London,
It was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament: he might there be important at comparatively little expense.
to oppose her dear Anne's known wishes. It would be too much to expect Sir Walter to descend into a small house in his own neighbourhood. Anne herself would have found the mortifications of it more than she foresaw, and to Sir Walter's feelings they must have been dreadful. And with regard to Anne's dislike of Bath,
it as a prejudice and mistake arising, first, from the circumstance of her having been three years at school there, after her mother's death; and secondly, from her happening to be not in perfectly good spirits the only winter which she had afterwards spent there with herself.
as to her young friend's health, by passing all the warm months with her at Kellynch Lodge, every danger would be avoided; and it was in fact, a change which must do both health and spirits good. Anne had been too little from home, too little seen. Her spirits were not high. A larger society would improve them. She wanted her to be more known.
spurned the idea of its being offered in any manner; forbad the slightest hint being dropped of his having such an intention; and it was only on the supposition of his being spontaneously solicited by some most unexceptionable applicant, on his own terms, and as a great favour, that he would let it at all.
a friendship quite out of place,
turning from the society of so deserving a sister, to bestow her affection and confidence on one who ought to have been nothing to her but the object of distant civility.
From situation, Mrs Clay was,
a very unequal, and in her character
a very dangerous companion; and a removal that would leave Mrs Clay behind, and bring a choice of more suitable intimates within Miss Elliot's reach, was therefore an object of first-rate importance.
Admiral Croft was a native of Somersetshire, who having acquired a very handsome fortune, was wishing to settle in his own country, and had come down to Taunton in order to look at some advertised places in that immediate neighbourhood, which, however, had not suited him; that accidentally hearing
--(it was just as he had foretold,
Sir Walter's concerns could not be kept a secret,)
-- accidentally hearing of the possibility of Kellynch Hall being to let, and understanding his (Mr Shepherd's) connection with the owner, he had introduced himself to him in order to make particular inquiries, and had, in the course of a pretty long conference, expressed as strong an inclination for the place as a man who knew it only by description could feel; and given Mr Shepherd, in his explicit account of himself, every proof of his being a most responsible, eligible tenant.
his being of a gentleman's family,
Admiral Croft was a very hale, hearty, well-looking man, a little weather-beaten, to be sure, but not much, and quite the gentleman in all his notions and behaviour; not likely to make the smallest difficulty about terms, only wanted a comfortable home, and to get into it as soon as possible; knew he must pay for his convenience; knew what rent a ready-furnished house of that consequence might fetch; should not have been surprised if Sir Walter had asked more; had inquired about the manor; would be glad of the deputation, certainly, but made no great point of it; said he sometimes took out a gun, but never killed; quite the gentleman.
all the circumstances of the Admiral's family, which made him peculiarly desirable as a tenant.
He was a married man, and without children; the very state to be wished for. A house was never taken good care of,
without a lady: he did not know, whether furniture might not be in danger of suffering as much where there was no lady, as where there were many children. A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world. He had seen Mrs Croft, too; she was at Taunton with the admiral, and had been present almost all the time they were talking the matter over.
a more unobjectionable tenant, in all essentials, than Admiral Croft bid fair to be, could hardly offer.
"I have let my house to Admiral Croft," would sound extremely well; very much better than to any mere Mr -- a Mr (save, perhaps, some half dozen in the nation,) always needs a note of explanation. An admiral speaks his own consequence, and, at the same time, can never make a baronet look small. In all their dealings and intercourse, Sir Walter Elliot must ever have the precedence.
a very degrading alliance;
as a most unfortunate one.
Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty, and mind, to throw herself away at nineteen; involve herself at nineteen in an engagement with a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connexions to secure even his farther rise in the profession, would be, indeed, a throwing away, which she grieved to think of! Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched off by a stranger without alliance or fortune; or rather sunk by him into a state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependence! It must not be, if by any fair interference of friendship, any representations from one who had almost a mother's love, and mother's rights, it would be prevented.
the engagement a wrong thing: indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success, and not deserving it.
to see her at twenty-two so respectably removed from the partialities and injustice of her father's house, and settled so permanently near herself.
of his being known, by report, to the Admiral, as a model of good breeding.
the Admiral to be the best-looking sailor he had ever met with,