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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.

- Chapter 10, Persuasion (Jane Austen)

- Persuasion (1995, Roger Michell)

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In the 1995 adaptation of Persuasion, Anne plays the same tune that Wentworth playfully played in an earlier part of the film. This little detail suggests that Wentworth learned it from Anne, who plays piano regularly, years ago.

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Frederick & Anne | Sun & Moon

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.”  - Persuasion, Jane Austen

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'[Scholar Judy van Sickle Johnson] teases out themes of passion, sex, and anticipation in what she calls [Persuasion] Austen’s most physical book.

Persuasion’s physical reactions and interactions create a novel Johnson calls “surprisingly vibrant and seductive, though understated.” As in Austen’s other books, she uses the eyes and hands to create a world that is “physically stimulating, if not sexually suggestive”—a world of shy glances, chance meetings, and cramped spaces that throw its heroine and hero together again and again.

Johnson explores Austen’s use of blushes, beating hearts, physical gestures, and almost-contact—devices that weave a web of physicality around Anne and Wentworth. “Little circumstances—when eyes just miss, or when hands touch, whether by accident or intent—are interspersed among more dramatic scenes in which a man and woman feel acutely each other’s physical presence,” she writes. Johnson finds deep significance in these tiny gestures, and analyzes moments of physical intimacy between Elliot and her suitors.

For some readers, Persuasion is unsatisfying, a novel of stifled passions and unspoken desires. But Johnson finds pleasure and passion in its physicality, which she argues is the strongest in all of Austen’s novels. Though it is subtle, she writes, “Persuasion is more than a slight acknowledgment that men and women have physical needs and desires for closeness and contact.”’

-  ‘The Physical Pleasures of Jane Austen’s Persuasion’ by Erin Blakemore

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Frederick & Anne | Tall & Small

- Persuasion (1995)

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“Thank you for your kindness, but you cannot know the depth of my despair.”

Persuasion, Jane Austen

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Anne Elliot | Reacting to Wentworth

‘When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering-’

Persuasion, Jane Austen

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The evening ended with dancing. On its being proposed, Anne offered her services, as usual, and though her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she sat at the instrument, she was extremely glad to be employed, and desired nothing in return but to be unobserved.

- Persuasion, Jane Austen

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Ciarán Hinds as Captain Frederick Wentworth | Navy Man

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‘I have loved none but you. [...] For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? [...] could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine.’

- Persuasion (1995)

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‘There could have never been two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved.’ - Persuasion, Jane Austen

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Captain Wentworth | Reacting to Anne

‘You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.’

Persuasion, Jane Austen

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Anne and Frederick | D i s t a n c e

‘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.’

Persuasion, Jane Austen

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“The party from Uppercross passing down by the now deserted and melancholy looking rooms, and still descending, soon found themselves on the sea-shore; and lingering only, as all must linger and gaze on a first return to the sea, who ever deserve to look on it at all . . .”

- Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 11, Jane Austen

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Anne Elliot & Frederick Wentworth | G l a n c e

Johnson explores Austen’s use of blushes, beating hearts, physical gestures, and almost-contact—devices that weave a web of physicality around Anne and Wentworth. “Little circumstances—when eyes just miss, [...] whether by accident or intent—are interspersed among more dramatic scenes in which a man and woman feel acutely each other’s physical presence,”

-  ‘The Physical Pleasures of Jane Austen’s Persuasion’ by Erin Blakemore

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Ciarán Hinds as Captain Frederick Wentworth in Persuasion (1995)

‘Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.’