Persuasion Wentworth Quotes

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Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
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.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
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.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
How she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case, was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth: and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be his forever. Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men, than their final separation.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
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 forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you 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.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly any body to love." (of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, Persuasion)
Jane Austen
Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth. "When once married people begin to attack me with,--`Oh! you will think very differently, when you are married.' I can only say, `No, I shall not;' and then they say again, `Yes, you will,' and there is an end of it.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Dopo questo discorso il volto del Capitano Wentworth assunse per un'attimo un'espressione particolare...ma si trattò di un solo breve attimo di intima ironia e non venne colto dai nessuno dei presenti che lo conoscevano meno di lei.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
My favorite book has always been Jane Austen's Persuasion and it's been the comfort blanket of my life which I know sounds a bit dramatic but, if ever I'm feeling fed up, it's my novel of choice. What I've always done when I can't face the world is to retreat into its pages and spend some time with Captain Wentworth.
Jane Odiwe (Searching for Captain Wentworth)
A few months more, and he, perhaps, may be walking here.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Time is but a shadow; Too slow, too swift, But for those who love, Time does not exist.
Jane Odiwe (Searching for Captain Wentworth)
I saw goats. A party can’t be all bad when you have goats,” Lucy said.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
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.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
More than seven years were gone since this little history of sorrowful interest had reached it's close; and time had softened down much, perhaps nearly all of peculiar attachment to him,- but she had been to dependent on time alone; no aid had been given in change of place, or in novelty or enlargement of society.- No one had ever come within the Kellynch circle, who could bear a comparison with Frederick Wentworth, as he stood in her memory.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
It was as easy as breathing to go and have tea near the place where Jane Austen had so wittily scribbled and so painfully died. One of the things that causes some critics to marvel at Miss Austen is the laconic way in which, as a daughter of the epoch that saw the Napoleonic Wars, she contrives like a Greek dramatist to keep it off the stage while she concentrates on the human factor. I think this comes close to affectation on the part of some of her admirers. Captain Frederick Wentworth in Persuasion, for example, is partly of interest to the female sex because of the 'prize' loot he has extracted from his encounters with Bonaparte's navy. Still, as one born after Hiroshima I can testify that a small Hampshire township, however large the number of names of the fallen on its village-green war memorial, is more than a world away from any unpleasantness on the European mainland or the high or narrow seas that lie between. (I used to love the detail that Hampshire's 'New Forest' is so called because it was only planted for the hunt in the late eleventh century.) I remember watching with my father and brother through the fence of Stanstead House, the Sussex mansion of the Earl of Bessborough, one evening in the early 1960s, and seeing an immense golden meadow carpeted entirely by grazing rabbits. I'll never keep that quiet, or be that still, again. This was around the time of countrywide protest against the introduction of a horrible laboratory-confected disease, named 'myxomatosis,' into the warrens of old England to keep down the number of nibbling rodents. Richard Adams's lapine masterpiece Watership Down is the remarkable work that it is, not merely because it evokes the world of hedgerows and chalk-downs and streams and spinneys better than anything since The Wind in the Willows, but because it is only really possible to imagine gassing and massacre and organized cruelty on this ancient and green and gently rounded landscape if it is organized and carried out against herbivores.
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
Well it seems to me that there are books that tell stories, and then there are books that tell truths...," I began. "Go on," she said "The first kind, they show you life like you want it to be. With villains getting what they deserve and the hero seeing what a fool he's been and marrying the heroine and happy ending and all that. Like Sense and Sensibility or Persuasion. But the second kind, they show you life more like it is. Like in Huckleberry Finn where Huck's pa is a no-good drunk and Jim suffers so. The first kind makes you cheerful and contented, but the second kind shakes you up." "People like happy ending, Mattie. They don't want to be shaken up." "I guess not, ma'am. It's just that there are no Captain Wentworths, are there? But there are plenty of Pap Finns. And things go well for Anne Elliot in the end, but they don't go well for most people." My voice trembled as I spoke, as it did whenever I was angry. "I feel let down sometimes. The people in the books-the heroes- they're always so...heroic. And I try to be, but..." "...you're not," Lou said, licking deviled ham off her fingers. "...no, I'm not. People in books are good and noble and unselfish, and people aren't that way... and I feel, well... hornswoggled sometimes. By Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott. Why do writers make things sugary when life isn't that way?" I asked too loudly. "Why don't they tell the truth? Why don't they tell how a pigpen looks after the sow's eaten her children? Or how it is for a girl when her baby won't come out? Or that cancer has a smell to it? All those books, Miss Wilcox," I said, pointing at a pile of them," and I bet not one of them will tell you what cancer smells like. I can, though. It stinks. Like meat gone bad and dirty clothes and bog water all mixed together. Why doesn't anyone tell you that?" No one spoke for a few seconds. I could hear the clock ticking and the sound of my own breathing. Then Lou quietly said, "Cripes, Mattie. You oughtn't to talk like that." I realized then that Miss Wilcox had stopped smiling. Her eyes were fixed om me, and I was certain she'd decided I was morbid and dispiriting like Miss Parrish had said and that I should leave then and there. "I'm sorry, Miss Wilcox," I said, looking at the floor. "I don't mean to be coarse. I just... I don't know why I should care what happens to people in a drawing room in London or Paris or anywhere else when no one in those places cares what happens to people in Eagle Bay." Miss Wilcox's eyes were still fixed on me, only now they were shiny. Like they were the day I got my letter from Barnard. "Make them care, Mattie," she said softly. "And don't you ever be sorry.
Jennifer Donnelly (A Northern Light)
Louisa seemed the principal arranger of the plan; and, as she went a little way with them, down the hill, still talking to Henrietta, Mary took the opportunity of looking scornfully around her, and saying to Captain Wentworth, ‘It is very unpleasant, having such connexions! But I assure you, I have never been in the house above twice in my life.’ She received no answer, other than an artificial, assenting smile, followed by a contemptuous glance, as he turned away, which Anne perfectly knew the meaning of.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity of her manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction was at least very agreeable, he had no farther scruples as to her being left to dine alone, though he still wanted her to join them in the evening, when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her to let him come and fetch her; but she was quite unpersuadable and this being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them set off together in high spirits. They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem; as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps ever likely to be hers. She knew herself to be of the first utility to the child; and what was it to her, if Frederick Wentworth were only half a mile distant, making himself agreeable to others!
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
But if I am to speak in earnest, what I desire above all in a wife is firmness of character - a woman who knows her own mind." --Captain Frederick Wentworth
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
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.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
...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.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty." (Anne to Captain Wentworth)
Jane Austen
Her sensations on the discovery made her perfectly speechless. She could not even thank him. She could only hang over little Charles, with most disordered feelings. His kindness in stepping forward to her relief – the manner— the silence in which it had passed – the little particulars of the circumstance – with the conviction soon forced on her by the noise he was studiously making with the child, that he meant to avoid hearing her thanks, and rather sought to testify that her conversation was the last of his wants, produced such a confusion of varying, but very painful agitation, as she could not recover from, till enabled by the entrance of Mary and the Miss Musgroves to make over her little patience to their cares, and leave the room. She could not stay. It might have been an opportunity of watching the loves and jealousies of the four; they were now all together, but she could stay for none of it. It was evident that Charles Hayter was not well inclined towards Captain Wentworth. She had a strong impression of his having said, in a vext tone of voice, after Captain Wentworth’s interference, ‘You ought to have minded me, Walter; I told you not to teaze your aunt;’ and could comprehend his regretting that Captain Wentworth should do what he ought to have done himself. But neither Charles Hayter’s feelings, nor any body’s feelings, could interest her, till she had a little better arranged her own. She was ashamed of herself, quite ashamed of being so nervous, so overcome by such a trifle; but so it was; and it required a long application of solitude and reflection to recover her.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
How she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case, was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth; and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be his for ever. Their
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
the fact that I'd really like to be reading Persuasion right now instead of latticing pies, the fact that I never seem to get past Anne’s first reunion with Captain Wentworth lately, because Jake interrupts, the fact that all the older kids were the same, the fact that I have to hide out like Anne Frank almost, to read anything, the fact that I should have a little closet to go to, with a chair, a lamp, and a lock on the door, the fact that I guess it’s called a bathroom,
Lucy Ellmann (Ducks, Newburyport)
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 with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
e Anne Elliot não estava ausente de seus pensamentos quando ele descreveu com grande seriedade a mulher que gostaria de conhecer. 'Uma mente decidida e modos doces', tal era o início e o fim de sua descrição. - É essa a mulher que eu quero - disse ele.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Now I have done,” cried Captain Wentworth. “When once married people begin to attack me with—‘Oh! you will think very differently, when you are married.’ I can only say, ‘No, I shall not;’ and then they say again, ‘Yes, you will,’ and there is an end of it.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Presently, struck by a sudden thought, Charles said-- "Captain Wentworth, which way are you going? Only to Gay Street, or farther up the town?" "I hardly know," replied Captain Wentworth, surprised. "Are you going as high as Belmont? Are you going near Camden Place? Because, if you are, I shall have no scruple in asking you to take my place, and give Anne your arm to her father's door. She is rather done for this morning, and must not go so far without help, and I ought to be at that fellow's in the Market Place.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth. "When once married people begin to attack me with,--'Oh! you will think very differently, when you are married.' I can only say, 'No, I shall not;' and then they say again, 'Yes, you will,' and there is an end of it.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
No, it was not regret which made Anne's heart beat in spite of herself, and brought the colour into her cheeks when she thought of Captain Wentworth unshackled and free. She had some feelings which she was ashamed to investigate. They were too much like joy, senseless joy!
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Her eye half met Captain Wentworth’s, a bow, a curtsey passed; she heard his voice; he talked to Mary, said all that was right, said something to the Miss Musgroves, enough to mark an easy footing; the room seemed full, full of persons and voices, but a few minutes ended it.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
It’s just a party. You eat some food and drink a beer and pretend you don’t want to be crawdad fishing,” Angie said. “No, it’s an echo chamber of sycophants and I can’t listen to some bimbo recite her newest purchases while pretending I don’t want to throw myself from the roof.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
If I truly loved a man, his fortune or lack of one would not make any difference to me. In any case, we cannot always choose with whom we fall in love. When it happens, it is not something we can just dismiss on a whim or tell to go away. There is no rhyme nor reason in matters of the heart.
Jane Odiwe (Searching for Captain Wentworth)
How she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case, was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth; and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be his for ever. Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men, than their final separation.
Jane Austen (Persuasion (Penguin Classics))
It was evident that the gentleman, (completely a gentleman in manner) admired her exceedingly. Captain Wentworth looked round at her instantly in a way which shewed his noticing of it. He gave her a momentary glance, a glance of brightness, which seemed to say, "That man is struck with you, and even I, at this moment, see something like Anne Elliot again.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Captain Wentworth, without saying a word, turned to her, and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage. Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition towards her, which all these things made apparent. This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
This isn't the first time you two are meeting, is it?" He didn't answer that. That wasn't his to tell. Ashna would tell her family and China in her own time, if at all. He just had to do this. China dropped into a chair, then jumped up again. A whole new wave of understanding suffusing her face. "That's why you asked to be on the show. Oh God, you're Frederick Wentworthing her." He shouldn't know what that meant but he totally did. "I'm half agony, half hope, Ms. Dashwood." He tried to shrug, but she looked in his eyes and her whole face turned into a giant awwww. She pressed her hands into her face. "You can't do that to me. You can't quote Persuasion to me." It was his mother's favorite book. It's where his name had come from. "Listen. I'm not going to force her to do anything. I'm just going to ask, and if she says no, I won't pressure her. I promise." "Why do I get the feeling you're pretty sure she won't say no?" "As I said, half agony, half hope.
Sonali Dev (Recipe for Persuasion (The Rajes, #2))
a thousand feelings rushed on Anne, of which this was the most consoling, that it would soon be over. And it was soon over. In two minutes after Charles's preparation, the others appeared; they were in the drawing-room. Her eye half met Captain Wentworth's; a bow, a curtsey passed; she heard his voice - he talked to Mary; said all that was right; said something to the Miss Musgroves, enough to mark an easy footing: the room seemed full-full of persons and voices - but a few minutes ended it.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Captain Wentworth, without saying a word, turned to her, and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage. Yes, -- he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition towards her which all these things made apparent. This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She understood him. He could not forgive her, -- but he could not be unfeeling.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Lucy gripped her chilled glass of orange and raspberry juice. When Rebecca talked about Austen, she’d mostly mentioned Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley. She hadn’t really thought of the doe-eyed, pale-skinned heroines. On the screen, Anne Elliot walked down a long hallway, glancing just once at covered paintings, her mouth a grim line. Lucy thought Jane Austen would start the story with the romance, or the loss of it, but instead the tale seemed to begin with Anne’s home, and having to make difficult decisions. Maybe this writer from over two hundred years ago knew how everything important met at the intersection of family, home, love, and loss. This was something Lucy understood with every fiber of her being.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Anne, satisfied at a very early period of Lady Russell's meaning to love Captain Wentworth as she ought, had no other alloy to the happiness of her prospects than what arose from the consciousness of having no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value. There she felt her own inferiority very keenly. The disproportion in their fortune was nothing; it did not give her a moment's regret; but to have no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing of respectability, of harmony, of good will to offer in return for all the worth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers and sisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could well be sensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity. (Persuasion, Chapter 24)
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Linnie. And this Winnie.” They wore identical smiles, their bright black eyes sparked with curiosity. “Are you the doctor?” “No, I’m just volunteering.” “I knowed that, too.” Winnie gave her an exaggerated shake of the head. “Girls is never the doctor. They’s the nurses.” “Oh no, what about Dr. Clare? Huh? The lady doctor who took care of Grammy in the hospital when she broke her hip bone?” Linnie asked. “Yeah, but she was a white lady. They can be doctors.” Winnie looked at Lucy. “Right? There are white lady doctors. I seen ‘em.” Lucy felt her eyes go wide. Were there children who still believed your gender or color dictated your career? “There are white lady doctors, black lady doctors, white man doctors, black man doctors.” They stared at her. She thought for a moment. “And there are white man nurses and black man nurses, too.” “Now you’re just bein’ silly,” Linnie said and let out a laugh.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Once she did contrive to push him away, but the boy had the greater pleasure in getting upon her back again directly. "Walter," said she, "get down this moment. You are extremely troublesome. I am very angry with you." "Walter," cried Charles Hayter, "why do you not do as you are bid? Do not you hear your aunt speak? Come to me, Walter, come to cousin Charles." But not a bit did Walter stir. In another moment, however, she found herself in the state of being released from him; some one was taking him from her, though he had bent down her head so much, that his little sturdy hands were unfastened from around her neck, and he was resolutely borne away, before she knew that Captain Wentworth had done it." Her sensations on the discovery made her perfectly speechless. She could not even thank him. She could only hang over little Charles, with most disordered feelings. His kindness in stepping forward to her relief -- the manner -- the silence in which it had passed -- the little particulars of the circumstance -- with the conviction soon forced on her by the noise he was studiously making with the child, that he meant to avoid hearing her thanks, and rather sought to testify that her conversation was the last of his wants, produced such a confusion of varying, but very painful agitation, as she could not recover from, till enabled by the entrance of Mary and the Miss Musgroves to make over her little patient to their cares, and leave the room. She could not stay.
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
Lucy rubbed her back, a feeling of panic tightening her chest. She was the last person to give love advice. She hadn’t done anything but pine for Jem since he’d gone, and done nothing but pine for him since he’d returned. She hadn’t taken her love for him and put it anywhere at all. Alda looked up, eyes red. “I need to take that love and spread it around. What a waste to just keep it tucked inside.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
I’m not Janessa. I want to celebrate my wedding, with friends and family, while having a really good time. If someone spills punch on my dress, I’m not going to cry about it.” Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I may cry just a bit but it’s only because it’s an Austen-era reproduction and anybody would feel the pain of destroying something so lovely.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
My cousin Rebecca teaches comparative English literature at Midlands College. She’s always seeing Austen in the world around her.” “Exactly.” Theresa beamed. “Life is easier to understand when you think of it in terms of Pride and Prejudice. And all the others.” “I didn’t realize there were that many others.” She thought for a moment. “Wait, I think I saw a bit of Emma on the BBC one year.” “Wasn’t it amazing?” Theresa gripped her hand, blue eyes bright with excitement. “What was your favorite part? The dance? Or the proposal?” She searched her memory for any bit of the plot line but came up empty. “I… I liked the hats,” she said. Theresa stared for a moment, then burst into laughter. Lucy felt her face warming as curious guests turned to watch. “You liked the hats. Oh, girl.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Let’s get this movie started. There’s nothing like a little Austen to soothe the wounded soul,” Theresa said.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Maybe I should have got some chili-slaw dogs from Shorty’s. Everybody loves those.” “Buddy,” Lars said, dropping his shoes to the deck with a thump, “sit yourself down and stop fussing. You’re reminding me of my Aunt Glynna with all this temperature takin’ and foil tuckin’. This food is fine.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Her face crumpled and he felt her pain as if it was his own. He wanted to take it back, but just like that memory, it was always going to be there. She worked to get control over her features, then said, “I’m sorry I didn’t defend you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell them you were my guest.” Jem hadn’t thought he cared anymore, not really, but her words were tugging loose the hard, painful knot in his chest. “It’s okay.” She shook her head. “It’s not. It wasn’t.” He reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand. He didn’t know what else to say and all he wanted was to touch her skin, let her know that he wasn’t that boy anymore and that she wasn’t that girl.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Her face crumpled and he felt her pain as if it were his own. He wanted to take it back, but just like that memory, it was always going to be there. She worked to get control over her features, then said, “I’m sorry I didn’t defend you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell them you were my guest.” Jem hadn’t thought he cared anymore, not really, but her words were tugging loose the hard, painful knot in his chest. “It’s okay.” She shook her head. “It’s not. It wasn’t.” He reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand. He didn’t know what else to say and all he wanted was to touch her skin, let her know that he wasn’t that boy anymore and that she wasn’t that girl.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Ah, a romantic.” Danny leaned back, threading his fingers behind his head. “I used to be one, until my wife died. And then I was just pathetic.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Lucy saw the delighted expressions of the guests and knew they looked like something out an Austen movie. Well, at least Jem did. She giggled a little and cleared her throat. “Something funny?” he murmured out of the corner of his mouth. “Just thinking how you’re just like Captain Wentworth and I’m just like Tina Turner.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
I have a bad feeling about this,” she said. “We’ll fake it. And if push comes to shove, we can just sing Goober Peas and waltz around.” “Rebecca might not find that very funny.” “Rebecca is a Northerner. You can tell because there aren’t any cheese straws on the snack table.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Thank you. There were three of us kids, all right together. I’m the oldest, she was the knee-baby, and my brother Henry came last. Funny, I miss her all the time, but I miss her most when I’m reading Austen. We’d been fans since we were in the seventh and eighth grade, two Creole girls gigglin’ about marriage proposals gone bad. Our daddy teased us about reading each other passages during a Fourth of July crawfish boil, so he named the biggest one Mr. Darcy and threw him in the pot.” She looked up, a smile fighting the tears in her eyes. “We refused to eat him.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Her beauty was classic, timeless. Just the line of her neck, the curve of her cheek, the way the dress draped her hips, was enough to stop the room. When she’d turned away to look at something on the table and he’d seen the back of the dress, he thought he might have to sit down. The smooth skin of her back looked impossibly soft and he ached to reach out, just for a moment, and splay his hand against it.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
No, I went to the bar to ask for a mojito and that guy Johnny said he didn’t make mojitos. Then he offered to make me a mint julep, in one of those silver cups and everything.” “Did you know say the true cause of the Civil War was some Northerner adding nutmeg to a mint julep?” Lucy asked.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
Lucy paused, hands full of green beans, her memory flashing back to the giant pots of crawfish on the stove. Her Mama’s green eyes would squint into the steam, hair pulled back, a frown of concentration on her face. The salted water was flavored and ready to receive the “mudbugs” out of their burlap sacks. Other than an onion or maybe an ear of corn, if it wasn’t alive when you threw it in, then it shouldn’t be in the pot, she’d say. Did her Mama mind that Lucy didn’t cook those old family recipes? Was she turning her back on her culinary heritage as surely as Paulette was? She snapped the ends of the beans faster, glancing at the clock. This whole dinner was breaking her Mama’s cardinal rule: don’t hurry. She thought if a cook was in a hurry, you might as well just make a sandwich and go on your way.
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
I’d read Persuasion, about Anne Elliot, who, unmarried at twenty-seven, veers perilously close to an economically and socially unmoored fate before being saved from the indignity of spinsterhood by Captain Wentworth. I’d read about Hester Prynne and Miss Havisham and Edith Wharton’s maddening, doomed Lily Bart. These were not inspiring portraits. Collectively, they suggested that women who remained unmarried, whether by choice or by accident, were destined to wear red letters or spend their lives dancing in unused wedding dresses or overdose on chloral hydrate. These characters might not have wed, but their lack of husbands constrained and defined them, just as surely as marriage would have.
Rebecca Traister (All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation)
Sometimes, you just needed a friend to sit on your couch and watch your favorite movie. They
Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))