8 Persuasion Read By Stephanie Poppins

In 1813, 54-year-old widower Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall, Somerset 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.

In this episode, Anne reflects on the real happiness that could have been hers, as she and Captain Wentworth were once perfectly suited in temperament and sentiment. Admiral and Mrs. Croft are the only other model match, which indicates that Austen considers true matches to consist of equal understanding and character and practicality.

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.

That's it.

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 8 From this time,

Catherine Wentworth and Anne Elliot were repeatedly in the same circle.

They were soon dining in company together at Mr.

Morton's house.

They were soon dining in company together at Mr.

Musgrove's,

For the little boy's state could no longer supply his aunt with a pretense for absenting herself.

And this was but the beginning of other dinings and other meetings.

Whether former feelings were to be renewed must be brought to the proof.

Former times must undoubtedly be brought to the recollection of each.

They could not but be reverted to.

The year of the engagement of Anne and Captain Wentworth could not but be named by him in the little narratives or descriptions which conversation called forth.

His profession qualified him,

His dispossession led him to talk and that was in the year six,

That happened before I went to sea in the year six,

Occurred in the course of the first evening they spent together.

And though his voice did not fault her,

And though Anne had no reason to suppose his eye wandering towards her while he spoke,

She felt the utter impossibility from her knowledge of his mind that he could be unvisited by remembrance any more than herself.

There must be the same immediate association of thought,

Though she was very far from conceiving it to be of equal pain.

They had no conversation together,

No intercourse,

But what the commonest civility required.

Once they had meant so much to each other and now nothing.

There had been a time when,

Of all the large party now filling the drawing-room at Uppercross,

They would have found it most difficult to cease to speak to one another.

With the exception,

Perhaps,

Of Admiral and Mrs.

Croft,

Who seemed particularly attached and happy,

There could have been no two hearts so open,

No taste so similar,

No feeling so in unison,

No countenances so beloved.

Now they were strangers,

Nay,

Worse than strangers,

For they could never become acquainted.

It was a perpetual estrangement.

It was a perpetual estrangement.

When he talked,

She heard the same voice and discerned the same mind.

There was a very general ignorance of all naval matters throughout the party,

And he was very much questioned,

And especially by the two Miss Musgroves,

Who seemed hardly to have any eyes but for him,

As to the manner of living on board,

Daily regulations,

Food,

Hours,

Etc.

,

And their surprise at his accounts,

At learning the degree of accommodation and arrangement,

Which was practicable,

Drew from him some pleasant ridicule,

Which reminded Anne of the early days when she too had been ignorant,

And she too had been accused of supposing sailors to be living on board without anything to eat.

From thus listening and thinking,

Anne was roused by a whisper of Mrs.

Musgroves,

Who,

Overcome by fond requests,

Could not help saying,

Ah,

Miss Anne,

If it had pleased heaven to spare my poor son,

I dare say he would have been just such another by this time.

Anne suppressed a smile and listened kindly,

While Mrs.

Musgroves relieved her heart a little more,

And for a few minutes,

Therefore,

Could not keep pace with the conversation of the others.

When at last she could let her attention take its natural course,

She found the Miss Musgroves just fetching the navy list,

And sitting down together to pawl over it,

With a professed view of finding out the ships that Captain Wentworth had commanded.

Your first was the Asp,

I remember.

We'll look for the Asp.

You will not find her there,

Quite worn out and broken up.

I was the last man who commanded her,

Hardly fit for the service then,

Reported fit for home service a year or two,

And so I was sent off to the West Indies.

The girls looked all amazement.

The Admiralty,

He continued,

Entertained themselves now and then with sending a few hundred men to sea in a ship not fit to be employed.

But they have a great many to provide for,

And among the thousands that may just as well go to the bottom as not,

It is impossible for them to distinguish the very set who may be the least missed.

What stuff these young fellows talk!

Never was a better sloop than the Asp in her day.

For an old built sloop,

You would not see her equal.

Lucky fellow to get her,

And he knows there must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her at the same time.

Lucky fellow to get anything so good,

And he knows there must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her at the same time.

Lucky fellow to get anything so soon with no more interest than his.

I felt my luck,

Admiral,

I assure you,

Replied Captain Wentworth seriously.

I was as well satisfied with my appointment as you can desire.

It was a great object with me at that time to be at sea.

A very great object.

I wanted to be doing something.

To be sure you did.

What should a young fellow like you do ashore for half a year altogether?

If a man had not a wife,

He soon wants to be afloat again.

But Captain Wentworth,

Cried Louisa,

How vexed you must have been when you came to the Asp to see what an old thing they'd given you.

I knew pretty well what she was before that day,

He said,

Smiling.

He said,

Smiling.

I had no more discoveries to make than you would have as to the fashion and strength of any old police which you had lent among half your acquaintance ever since you could remember,

And which at last on some very wet day is lent back to yourself.

She was a dear old Asp to me.

She did all I wanted.

I knew she would.

I knew we would soon either go to the bottom together or she would be the making of me.

And I never had two days of foul weather all the time I was at sea in her.

I had the good luck in my passage home the next autumn to fall in with a very French frigate I wanted.

I brought her into Plymouth and there another instance of luck.

We'd not been six hours in the sound when a gale came on which lasted four days and nights and which would have done for the poor old Asp in half the time.

Four and twenty hours later,

I should only have been a gallant Captain Wentworth in a spool paragraph at one corner of the newspapers and being lost in only a sloop.

Nobody would have thought about me.

Anne's shudderings were to herself alone but the Miss Musgroves could be as open as they were sincere in their exclamations of pity and horror.

And so then I suppose,

Said Mrs Musgrove in a low voice as if thinking aloud.

So then he went away to the Laconia and he met with our poor boy.

Charles,

My dear,

She said beckoning to her son.

Do ask Captain Wentworth when it was he first met with your poor brother.

I always forgot.

It was at Gibraltar,

Mother,

I know.

Dick had been left ill at Gibraltar with a recommendation from his former captain to Captain Wentworth.

Oh,

But Charles,

Tell Captain Wentworth he need not be afraid of mentioning poor Dick before me for it would be rather a pleasure to hear him talked of by such a good friend.

Charles,

Being somewhat more mindful of the probabilities of the case only nodded in reply and walked away.

The girls were now hunting for the Laconia and Captain Wentworth could not deny himself the pleasure of taking the precious volume into his own hands to save them the trouble.

And once more read aloud the little statement of her name and rate and present non-commissioned class observing over it that she too had been one of the best friends man had ever had.

Ah,

Those were pleasant days when I had the Laconia,

Said he.

How fast I made money in her.

A friend of mine and I had such a lovely cruise together off the Western Islands.

You know how much he wanted money worse than myself.

He had a wife too,

Excellent fellow.

I shall never forget his happiness.

He felt it all so much for her sake.

I wish for him again the next summer when I still had the same luck in the Mediterranean.

And I'm sure,

Sir,

Said Mrs Musgrove,

It was a lucky day for us when you will put Captain into that ship.

We shall never forget what you did for our son.

Her feelings made her speak low and Captain Wentworth hearing only in part and probably not having dick to hear all his thoughts looked rather in suspense as if waiting for more.

My mother,

Whispered one of the girls,

Is thinking of our brother,

Poor Richard.

Poor dear fellow,

Continued Mrs Musgrove.

He was grown so steady and such an excellent correspondent when he was under your care.

It would have been a happy thing if he'd never have left you.

I assure you,

Captain Wentworth,

We're very sorry he ever left you.

There was a momentary expression in Captain Wentworth's face at this speech,

A certain glance of his bright eye and curl of his handsome mouth,

Which convinced Anne that instead of sharing Mrs Musgrove's kind wishes as to her son,

He had probably had been at some pains to get rid of him,

But it was too transient an indulgence of self-amusement to be detected by anyone who understood him less.

Than herself.

In another moment,

He was perfectly collected and serious and almost instantly afterwards coming up to the sofa on which she and Mrs Musgrove were sitting.

He took a place by the latter and entered into conversation with her in a low voice about her son,

Doing it with so much sympathy and natural grace as showed the kindest consideration for all that was real and unabsurd in the parents' feelings.

They were actually on the same sofa.

Mrs Musgrove had most readily made room for him.

They were divided only by her.

It was no insignificant barrier indeed.

Mrs Musgrove was of a comfortable,

Substantial size,

Infinitely most fitted by nature,

To express good cheer and good humour than tenderness and sentiment.

And while the agitations of Anne's slender form and pensive face may be considered as very completely screened,

Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which he attended to her large,

Fat sighings over the destiny of a son whom alive nobody had cared for.

Personal sighs and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions.

A large,

Bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction as the most graceful set of limbs in the world.

But fair or not fair,

There are unbecoming conjunctions which reason will patronise in vain,

Which taste cannot tolerate,

Which ridicule will seize.

The Admiral,

After taking two or three refreshing turns about the room,

Being called to order by his wife,

Now came up to Captain Wentworth,

And without any observation of what he might be interrupting,

Thinking only of his own thoughts,

Began,

If you had been a week later at Lisbon last spring,

Frederick,

You would have been asked to give passage to Lady Mary Grierson and her daughters.

Should I?

Captain Wentworth replied.

I'm glad I was not a week later then.

The Admiral abused him for his want of gallantry.

Captain Wentworth defended himself,

Though professing he would never willingly admit any labels on board a ship of his,

Excepting for a ball or a visit,

Which a few hours might comprehend.

But if I know myself,

Said he,

This is from no want of gallantry towards them,

It's rather from feeling how impossible it is,

With all one's efforts and one's sacrifice,

To make the accommodations on board such as women ought to have.

There can be no want of gallantry.

Admiral,

In rating the claims of women to every personal comfort,

I,

And this is what I do,

I hate to hear of women on board,

Or to see them on board,

And no ship under my command shall ever convey a family of ladies anywhere,

If I can help it.

This brought his sister aboard.

This brought his sister upon him.

Oh,

Frederick,

Said Mrs Croft,

I cannot believe it of you.

All idle refinement.

Women may be as comfortable on board as in the best house in England.

I believe I've lived as much on board as most women,

And I know nothing superior to the accommodations of a man at war.

I declare I have not a comfort or an indulgence about me,

Even at Kellynch Hall,

Beyond what I always had in most of the ships I've lived in,

And they have been five altogether.

Nothing to the purpose,

Replied Captain Wentworth.

You were living with your husband,

And you were the only woman on board.

But you yourself brought Mrs Harville,

Her sister,

Her cousin,

And three children round from Portsmouth to Plymouth.

Where was this superfine,

Extraordinary sort of gallantry of yours then?

All merged in my friendship,

Sophia.

I would assist any brother's officer's wife I could,

And I would bring anything of Harville's from that world's end if he wanted it,

But do not imagine I did not feel it an evil in itself.

Depend upon it.

They were all perfectly comfortable.

I might not like them the better for that,

Perhaps.

Such a number of women and children have no right to be comfortable on board.

My dear Frederick,

You're talking quite idly.

Pray,

What would become of us poor sailor's wives,

Who often want to be conveyed on one port or another,

After our husbands,

If everybody had your feelings?

My feelings,

You see,

Did not prevent my taking Mrs Harville and her family to Plymouth.

But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman,

And as if women were all fine ladies instead of rational creatures.

We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.

Ah,

My dear,

Said the Admiral,

When he's got a wife,

He'll sing a different tune.

When he's married,

If we have the good luck to live another war,

We shall see him do as you and I,

And a great many others have done.

We shall see him very thankful to anybody that will bring him his wife.

Ay,

That we shall.

Now I have done,

Cried Captain Wentworth,

When once married people begin to attack me with,

Oh,

You will think very differently when you're married.

I can only say,

No,

I shall not.

Then he got up,

Then he got up,

And moved away.

Reviews

Hmm, not a very promising meeting…we shall see!
Thank you!❤️🙏🏽

Ohhh, so close and yet...? Hopeful! 🧡

Curious ending with Captain Wentworth stating no he shall not marry....
Was there anything i missed after that line? Emptiness for a minute before the closing music.