Austen Said:

“For my own part,”

“I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose wants character — there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine, I could never see anything extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all; and in her air altogether there is a self-sufficiency without fashion, which is intolerable.”

“I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all were to find that she was a reputed beauty; and I particularly recollect your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, 'She a beauty! — I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time.”

“I saw you look at me to-day, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present report; and I know I appeared distressed. But don't imagine it was from any silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that I should be looked at. I do assure you that the news does not affect me either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes alone; because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of myself, but I dread other people's remarks.”

“The men shan't come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them; do we?”

“It has been a very agreeable day,”

“The party seemed so well selected, so suitable one with the other. I hope we may often meet again.”

being still quite as handsome as ever,

her approach to the years of danger,

being properly solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two.

extremely agreeable,

only in him a proper match for Sir Walter Elliot's eldest daughter.

The disgrace of his first marriage might, perhaps, as there was no reason to suppose it perpetuated by offspring, have been got over, had he not done worse; but he had,

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.

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.

what could be done,

to cut off some unnecessary charities, and to refrain from new furnishing the drawing-room;

their taking no present down to Anne,

independent of his claims as an old acquaintance, an attentive neighbour, an obliging landlord, the husband of her very dear friend, the father of Anne and her sisters, was, as being Sir Walter,

entitled to a great deal of compassion and consideration under his present difficulties.

They must retrench; that did not admit of a doubt.

to have it done with the least possible pain to him and Elizabeth.

as an act of indispensable duty to clear away the claims of creditors with all the expedition which the most comprehensive retrenchments could secure,

saw no dignity in anything short of it.

it to be prescribed, and felt as a duty.

there might be little more difficulty in persuading them to a complete, than to half a reformation.

the sacrifice of one pair of horses would be hardly less painful than of both,

A small house in their own neighbourhood, where they might still have Lady Russell's society, still be near Mary, and still have the pleasure of sometimes seeing the lawns and groves of Kellynch,

it agreed with her;

to oppose her dear Anne's known wishes. It would be too much to expect Sir Walter to descend into a small house in his own neighbourhood. Anne herself would have found the mortifications of it more than she foresaw, and to Sir Walter's feelings they must have been dreadful. And with regard to Anne's dislike of Bath,

it as a prejudice and mistake arising, first, from the circumstance of her having been three years at school there, after her mother's death; and secondly, from her happening to be not in perfectly good spirits the only winter which she had afterwards spent there with herself.

as to her young friend's health, by passing all the warm months with her at Kellynch Lodge, every danger would be avoided; and it was in fact, a change which must do both health and spirits good. Anne had been too little from home, too little seen. Her spirits were not high. A larger society would improve them. She wanted her to be more known.

a friendship quite out of place,

turning from the society of so deserving a sister, to bestow her affection and confidence on one who ought to have been nothing to her but the object of distant civility.

From situation, Mrs Clay was,

a very unequal, and in her character

a very dangerous companion; and a removal that would leave Mrs Clay behind, and bring a choice of more suitable intimates within Miss Elliot's reach, was therefore an object of first-rate importance.

as a most unfortunate one.

Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty, and mind, to throw herself away at nineteen; involve herself at nineteen in an engagement with a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connexions to secure even his farther rise in the profession, would be, indeed, a throwing away, which she grieved to think of! Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched off by a stranger without alliance or fortune; or rather sunk by him into a state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependence! It must not be, if by any fair interference of friendship, any representations from one who had almost a mother's love, and mother's rights, it would be prevented.

the engagement a wrong thing: indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success, and not deserving it.

to see her at twenty-two so respectably removed from the partialities and injustice of her father's house, and settled so permanently near herself.

She did not blame Lady Russell, she did not blame herself for having been guided by her;

were any young person, in similar circumstances, to apply to her for counsel, they would never receive any of such certain immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good.

under every disadvantage of disapprobation at home, and every anxiety attending his profession, all their probable fears, delays, and disappointments, she should yet have been a happier woman in maintaining the engagement, than she had been in the sacrifice of it;

this,

had the usual share, had even more than the usual share of all such solicitudes and suspense been theirs,

it was folly,

of the past being known to those three only among her connexions, by whom no syllable,

would ever be whispered, and in the trust that among his, the brother only with whom he had been residing, had received any information of their short-lived engagement.