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