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Persuasion by Jane Austen (1818)




Chapter 1


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 almost 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. This was the page at which
the favourite volume always opened:

"ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL.

"Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth,
daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of
Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth,
born June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son,
November 5, 1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791."

Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood from the printer's hands;
but Sir Walter had improved it by adding, for the information of
himself and his family, these words, after the date of Mary's birth--
"Married, December 16, 1810, Charles, son and heir of Charles
Musgrove, Esq. of Uppercross, in the county of Somerset,"
and by inserting most accurately the day of the month on which
he had lost his wife.

Then followed the history and rise of the ancient and respectable family,
in the usual terms; how it had been first settled in Cheshire;
how mentioned in Dugdale, serving the office of high sheriff,
representing a borough in three successive parliaments,
exertions of loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year
of Charles II, with all the Marys and Elizabeths they had married;
forming altogether two handsome duodecimo pages, and concluding with
the arms and motto:--"Principal seat, Kellynch Hall, in the county
of Somerset," and Sir Walter's handwriting again in this finale:--

"Heir presumptive, William Walter Elliot, Esq., great grandson of
the second Sir Walter."

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
the 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 any thing deserved by his own. Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman,

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