Jane Austen “Persuasion” – Thu, Apr 25, 10:00 AM
4March 31, 2013 by Ayman Fadel
Persuasion by Jane Austen is the next book in the Maxwell Book Club. Join us on Thursday, April 25, at 10:00 AM at the Maxwell Branch Library.
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Maxwell Book Club 
This web page has public domain audio files (one for each chapter) that you can play:
http://librivox.org/persuasion-by-jane-austen-2/
Also, this web site has many ‘Persuasion’ and other great Jane Austen resources:
http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/jane-austens-novels-juvenilia-novel-fragments-and-letters/
I finished “Persuasion” this morning (reading and listening via Librivox), and enjoyed the second half much more than the first, especially the final chapters replete with passages such as this:
“A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want.”
Now, who else writes like that?
Also, this great writing is in the second to the last chapter:
“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.
I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.”
– Jane Austen (‘Persuasion’)
And- just in time for poetry month, something to think about:
“she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.”
– Jane Austen – (‘Persuasion’)