Jane Austen's Persuasion, Part III

Previously: Persuasion, parts I and II.

LOUISA MUSGROVE: I’m just like you and always have been

CAPTAIN WENTWORTH: I hope you will always be steadfast, and that you will teach your sister to be firm…like this hazelnut here

LOUISA MUSGROVE: Captain Wentworth says Lyme is beautiful this time of year and that a woman should hold fast to the courage of her convictions

so frankly unless I can use the carriage to visit Lyme — a decision I have already made — you are asking me to live according to a totally unacceptable ethical compromise

MRS. MUSGROVE: Well, if that’s what you’d like to do, of course you can take the carriage

but there’s not going to be anyone there

I still think it makes more sense to wait until the summer to visit the ocean

LOUISA MUSGROVE: the fact that no one is going to be there only strengthens my point

it’s the right thing to do, Mother, and in your own heart you must know it

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CAPTAIN WENTWORTH: Allow me to introduce my dear friend Captain Benwick

— He lost his fiancée Fanny Harville last summer, and has retreated here to mourn

ANNE ELLIOT [to herself]: I’ll bet he’s not as sad as I am

nor as old

I’m the saddest and oldest creature that ever crawled out of a sea-cave

CAPTAIN WENTWORTH: He is twenty-seven, just like you, Anne

I think you might even have the same birthday

ANNE ELLIOT [to herself]: well he’s younger in unhappiness

I’ve been sadder for longer which makes me spiritually older than him

and all men are young

being a man takes six years off your age at least