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.
I have always defended Jane Austen’s knowledge of human passion.Austen is often judged rather too poised and mannered when compared to such emotional heavyweights as Emily and Charlotte Bronte. Such judgments seem to ignore the visceral moments of passion which break through secret fissures in the elegantly knowing structures of Austen’s narratives. These moments are looming in their intensity and perfectly capture the distilled essence of romantic attraction.
For example Darcy’s provocative vulnerability in Pride and Prejudice when he challenges Elizabeth Bennett to ‘despise me if you dare’ celebrates the art of teasing whilst opening himself to love. The alliterative union of ‘despise’ and ‘dare’ carry both wit and erotic challenge. Vulnerability is the gateway to tenderness and Darcy dares to admit his fascination with Elizabeth(and TO Elizabeth) even when he is striving to fathom her willfully perverse behaviour.
In Austen’s later novel Persuasion, second chances take on a more mature aspect and Captain Wentworth’s letter to Anne Elliot makes one of the most moving yet succinct declarations of love I have ever read.’ You pierce my soul.’ How could any woman resist such an admission which goes beyond the human realm of the heart and anchors love to the spirit, to the soul, which being eternal must endure forever?
sThe power of the utterance lies in its simplicity. The balance of the designated ‘ you’ pronoun with the drama of cupid’s verb ‘pierce’ is then expanded into the hyperbolic, eternal promise of ‘soul’ . Simply wonderful.
