1 Persuasion - Abridged By Stephanie Poppins

In 1813, 54-year-old widower Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall, reviews his entry in the list of nobles in order to take his mind off his troubles. He has overspent his income and is deep in debt. His daughter Mary is insulated from the crisis because she is married but it impacts the lives of his unmarried daughters, Elizabeth and Anne. Sir Walter dotes on Elizabeth but ignores Anne.

In this episode, Sir Walter asks the family lawyer and Mrs. Russell, a close family friend, for help in settling his debts.

Transcript

Hello.

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.

Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.

But before we begin,

Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Persuasion by Jane Austen Chapter One Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire was a man who,

For his own amusement,

Never took up any book but the Baronetage.

There he found occupation for an idle hour and consolation in a distressed one.

There his faculties were roused into admiration and respect by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents.

There any unwelcome sensations arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the endless creations of the last century.

And there,

If every other leaf were powerless,

He could read his own history with an interest which never failed.

Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character,

Vanity of person and of situation.

He had been remarkably handsome in his youth and at fifty-four was still a very fine man.

Few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did,

Nor could the valet of any new-made lord be more delighted with a place he held in society.

He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy,

And the Sir Walter Elliot who united these gifts was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion.

His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment,

Since to them he must have owed a wife of very superior character to anything deserved by his own.

Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman,

Sensible and amiable,

Whose judgment and conduct,

If they might be pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot,

Had never acquired indulgence afterwards.

She had humoured or softened or concealed his failings and promoted his real respectability for seventeen years,

And though not the very happiest being in the world herself,

Had found enough in her duties,

Her friends and her children,

To attach her to life and make it no matter of indifference to her when she was called on to quit them.

Three girls,

The two eldest sixteen and fourteen,

Was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath,

An awful charge rather to confide to the authority and guidance of a conceited silly father.

She had,

However,

One very intimate friend,

A sensible deserving woman who had been brought by strong attachment to herself,

To settle close by her in the village of Kellynch,

And on her kindness and advice Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help and maintenance of the good principles and instruction which she had been anxiously giving her daughters.

This friend and Sir Walter did not marry,

Whatever might have been anticipated on that head by their acquaintance.

Thirteen years had passed away since Lady Elliot's death,

And they were still near neighbours and intimate friends,

And one remained a widower,

The other a widow.

That Lady Russell of steady age and character and extremely well provided for should have no thought of a second marriage,

Needs no apology to the public,

Which is rather apt to be unreasonably discontented when a woman does marry again and when she does not,

But Sir Walter's continuing in singleness requires explanation.

Be it known then that Sir Walter,

Like a good father,

Having met with one or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications,

Prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughter's sake.

For one daughter,

His eldest,

He would really have given up everything which he was not very much tempted to do.

Elizabeth had succeeded at sixteen to all that was possible of her mother's rights and consequence,

And being very handsome and very like himself,

Her influence had always been great and they had gone on together most happily.

His two other children were of very inferior value.

Mary had acquired a little artificial importance by becoming Mrs Charles Musgrove,

But Anne,

With an elegance of mind and sweetness of character which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding,

Was nobody with either father or sister.

Her word had no weight,

Her convenience was always to give way.

She was only Anne.

To Lady Russell,

Indeed,

She was most dear and highly valued goddaughter,

Favourite and friend.

Lady Russell loved them all,

But it was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again.

A few years before,

Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl,

But her bloom had vanished early.

Even in its height,

Father had found little to admire in her,

So totally different were her delicate features and mild,

Dark eyes from his own.

There could be nothing in them,

Now that she was faded and thin,

To excite his esteem.

He had never indulged much hope,

He had now none of 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 to have therefore given all the honour and received none.

Elizabeth would,

One day or another,

Marry suitably.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before,

And generally speaking,

If there's been neither ill health nor anxiety,

It is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost.

It was so with Elizabeth,

Still the same handsome Miss Elliot that she had been thirteen years before,

And Sir Walter might be excused,

Therefore,

In forgetting her age,

Or at least be deemed only half a fool for thinking himself and Elizabeth as blooming as ever,

Amidst the wreck of the looks of everybody else,

For he could plainly see how old all the rest of his family and acquaintance were growing.

Anne haggard,

Mary coarse,

Every face in the neighbourhood worsening,

And the rapid increase of the crow's foot about Lady Russell's temples had long been a distress to him.

Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment.

Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall presiding and directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have given the idea of her being younger than she was.

For thirteen years she had been doing the honours and laying down the domestic law at home,

And leading the way to the chaison four,

And walking immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and dining-rooms in the country.

Thirteen winters revolving frosts had seen her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighbourhood afforded,

And thirteen springs shone their blossoms as she travelled up to London with her father for a few weeks' annual enjoyment of the great world.

She had the remembrance of all this,

She had the consciousness of being nine and twenty to give her some regrets and apprehensions.

She was fully satisfied of being quite still as handsome as ever,

But she felt her approach to the years of danger and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet blood within the next twelve months or two.

Then might she again take up the book of books with as much enjoyment as in her early youth,

But now she liked it not.

Always to be presented with the date of her own birth and see no marriage follow,

But that of a youngest sister,

Made the book an evil,

And more than once,

When her father had left it open on the table near her,

Had she closed it with averted eyes and pushed it away.

She had had a disappointment,

Moreover,

Which that book,

And especially the history of her own family,

Must ever present the remembrance of.

The heir presumptive,

The very William Walter Eliot Esquire,

Whose rights had been so generously supported by her father,

Had disappointed her.

She had,

While a very young girl,

As soon as she had known him to be,

In the event of her having no brother,

The future baronet,

Meant to marry him,

And her father had always meant that she should.

He had not been known to them as a boy,

But soon after Lady Eliot's death,

Sir Walter had sought the acquaintance,

And though his overtures had not been met with any warmth,

He had persevered in seeking it,

Making allowance for the modest drawing back of youth,

And in one of their spring excursions to London,

When Elizabeth was in her full bloom,

Mr.

Eliot had been forced into the introduction.

He was at that time a very young man,

Just engaged in the study of the law,

And Elizabeth found him extremely agreeable,

And every plan in his favour was confirmed.

He was invited to Kellynch Hall,

He was talked of and expected all the rest of the year,

But he never came.

The following spring he was seen again in town,

Found equally agreeable,

Again encouraged,

Invited and expected,

And again he did not come,

And the next tidings were that he was married.

Instead of pushing his fortune in the line marked out for the heir of the House of Eliot,

He had purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman of inferior birth.

Sir Walter resented it.

As the head of the House,

He felt he ought to have been consulted,

Especially after taking the young man so publicly by the hand.

For they must have been seen together,

He observed,

Once at Tattersall's and twice in the lobby of the House of Commons.

His disapprobation was expressed,

But apparently very little regarded.

Mr.

Eliot had attempted no apology and shown himself as unsolicitous of being longer noticed by the family,

As Sir Walter considered him unworthy of it.

All acquaintance between them had now ceased.

This very awkward history of Mr.

Eliot was still,

After an interval of several years,

Felt with anger by Elizabeth,

Who had liked the man for himself,

And still more for being her father's heir,

And whose strong family pride could see him a proper match for Sir Walter Eliot's eldest daughter.

There was not a baronet from A to Z whom her feelings could have so willingly acknowledged as an equal.

Yet so miserably had he conducted himself,

That though she was at this present time,

The summer of 1814,

Wearing black ribbons for his wife,

She could not admit him to be worth thinking of again.

The disgrace of his first marriage might,

Perhaps,

As there was no reason to suppose it was perpetuated by offspring,

Have been got over,

Had he not done worse.

But he had,

As by the customary intervention of a kind friend,

They had been informed,

Spoken most disrespectfully of them all,

Most slightingly and contemptuously of the very blood he belonged to,

And the honours which were hereafter to be his own.

This could not be pardoned.

Such were Elizabeth Eliot's sentiments and sensations,

Such the cares to alloy,

The agitations to vary,

The sameness and the elegance,

The prosperity and the nothingness of her scene of life,

Such the feelings to give interest to a long,

Uneventful residence in one country's circle,

To fill the vacancies,

Which there were no habits of utility abroad,

No talents or accomplishments for home to occupy.

But now another occupation and solicitude of mind was beginning to be added to these.

Her father was growing distressed for money.

She knew that,

When he now took up the baronetage,

It was to drive the heavy bills of his tradespeople and the unwelcome hints of Mr Shepherd,

His agent,

From his thoughts.

The Kellynch property was good,

But not equal to Sir Walter's apprehension of the state required in its possessor.

While Lady Eliot lived,

There had been method,

Moderation and economy,

Which had just kept him within his income,

But with her had died all such right-mindedness,

And from that period he had been constantly exceeding it.

It had not been possible for him to spend less.

He had done nothing but Sir Walter Eliot was imperiously called on to do,

But blameless as he was,

He was not only growing dreadfully in debt,

But was hearing of it so often that it became vain to attempt concealing it longer,

Even partially,

From his daughter.

He had given her some hints of it the last spring in town.

He had gone so far even as to say,

Can we retrench?

Does it occur to you that there is any one article in which we can retrench?

And Elizabeth,

To do her justice,

Had,

In the first order of female alarm,

Set seriously to think what could be done,

And had finally proposed these two branches of economy to cut off some unnecessary charities,

And to refrain from new furnishing the drawing-room,

To which expedient she afterwards added the happy thought of their taking no present down to Anne,

As had been the usual yearly custom.

But these measures,

However good in themselves,

Were insufficient for the real extent of the evil,

The whole of which Sir Walter found himself obliged to confess to her soon afterwards.

Elizabeth had nothing to propose of deeper efficacy.

She felt herself ill-used and unfortunate,

As did her father,

And they were neither of them able to devise any means of lessening their expenses without compromising their dignity or relinquishing their comforts in a way not to be born.

There was only a small part of his estate that Sir Walter could dispose of,

But had every acre been alienable,

It would have made no difference.

He had condescended to mortgage as far as he had the power,

But he would never condescend to sell.

No,

He would never disgrace his name so far.

The Kellynch estate should be transmitted whole and entire as he had received it.

Their two confidential friends,

Mr Shepherd,

Who lived in the neighbouring market-town,

And Lady Russell,

Were called to advise them,

And both father and daughter seemed to expect that something should be struck out by one or the other to remove their embarrassments and reduce their expenditure,

Without involving the loss of any indulgence of taste or pride.

Reviews

Entering another new world… you make insomnia more bearable, Steph, thank you❤️🙏🏽

Persuasion, whoohoo! ✨🎉✨My second favorite Austen novel. I’m looking forward to the rest of the story. Thank you, Stephanie!🙏🏻🌟😊