The above sketch is the closest thing we have to a real portrait of English writer Jane Austen. It was drawn by Jane’s sister, Cassandra Austen (c.1810). It is an unfinished pencil-and-watercolour sketch and it shows Jane seated, looking away, with a rather serious expression. It is considered the only portrait known to have been drawn from life.
Welcome again to my Wednesday literature segment, which features the second and final extract from Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Despite finishing the book a month ago, it still lingers in the recesses of my mind. I point you to my previous article on the book, The Navy (Jane Austen), for a more detailed breakdown of my connection with it.
As an aside, one of my favourite gifts is a bookmark I received from my family here in Colombia. You may have seen it sticking out of my books in some of the images I’ve shared before. I thought I’d show it to you because it’s just so sweet, while also being uplifting and encouraging.
Now back to today’s very short 2 page excerpt from Persuasion, about the turning point in the novel where Louisa Musgrove takes a fall from a ‘cobb‘ – which, if you were wondering like me, is a stone harbour wall. It’s a serious fall too. She strikes her head and is left badly injured and unconscious.
The fall comes about because she is flirting with Captain Frederick Wentworth and asks him to catch her as she jumps down from the harbour wall. It causes particular heartache for the novel’s protagonist and heroine, Anne Elliot, because she still loves Wentworth. In fact, the novel tells the story of their delicate and tentative reunion after Wentworth returns from years of naval service.
We learn that eight years earlier Anne and Wentworth had been engaged, but Anne is persuaded not to marry him by her close family friend and former governess, Lady Russell, who believes the match is imprudent because Wentworth has little fortune or position at the time. Hence the title of the book – Persuasion.
Also, this was Austen’s final completed novel before she succumbed to an undiagnosed illness in 1817 at just forty-one years of age. Austen herself remained unmarried and childless throughout her life, and in light of Anne Elliot’s frustrations and regrets at being once so close, yet so far from the love of her life because of societal pressure, it’s easy to see why many readers have felt there are echoes of Austen’s own circumstances in the story. It makes the novel all the more poignant.
Without further ado, I present to you ‘Louisa’s Fall’ from Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Below that you can find the film adaptation from Persuasion (2007) of the incident and its immediate aftermath.
