Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/197

 more than Anne could combat. Young and gentle as she was, it might yet have been possible to combat her father's ill-will, though unsoftened by one kind word or look on the part of her sister; but Lady Russell, whom she had always loved and relied on, could not, with such steadfastness of opinion and such tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain. She was persuaded to believe the engagement a wrong thing: indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success, and not deserving it. But it was not a merely selfish caution under which she acted in putting an end to it. Had she not imagined herself consulting his good even more than her own, she could hardly have given him up. The belief of being prudent and self-denying, principally for his advantage, was her chief consolation under the misery of a parting, a final parting; and every consolation was required, for she had to encounter all the additional pain of opinions on his side, totally unconvinced and unbending, and of his feeling himself ill-used by so forced a relinquishment. He had left the country in consequence of it. A few months had seen the beginning and the end of their acquaintance; but not with a few months ended Anne's share of suffering from it. Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth, and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect." The words which follow are almost like a sigh breathed from Jane Austen's own heart—

"How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been, how eloquent, at least, were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment and a cheerful confidence in futurity against that over-anxious caution which seems