Elizabeth's Persuasion Blog Project: A Letter to a Friend.

My Dearest Friend,
I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. I am in fairly good health and my spirits are both joyful and downtrodden because of two future events. The first is, tea with Sir Walter Elliot, the thought of which, nearly makes me ill. I am not sure if there will be space for me in the same room with him, his daughter, Elizabeth, and both of their very sizable senses of self importance! The discomfort will be undoubtedly doubled by the recent news of Mr. William Elliot and Mrs. Clay running to London together. When first receiving their invitation, I thought I would be bored by talk of Lady Dalrymple, but now I shall hear their outrage of how they were so ill used and how they never saw such misuse coming, and how they are not at fault in the slightest. Personally, I believe they were too enamored with their own reflections to see anyone or anything but themselves. But I suppose I must suffer through that day to continue on till the next. Which is the day, I am very happy to tell you, where the joyous news comes. I have also been asked to tea by Captain Wentworth and his wife, Anne. Their ship happens to be docked in port and I am about to burst from the excitement of seeing them again. They are such a sweet couple who are so very much in love that it is such a pleasure to be around them. I am sure they will tell me of all the adventures they have had, and I will relay the latest gossip from Bath and we will have a capital time. I must go now, but I shall write to you again soon.
Your Ever Devoted Friend

Victoria's Persuasion Project

For my Persuasion project, I decided to use wordle to create two word clouds; one made of words representing Anne at the age of 19, and the other of words representing her at 27. I chose really cute color schemes for the clouds, but unfortunately, when using wordle you can't save the images as JPEG documents and I ended up having to print the images in black and white.

Anne Elliot at 19:

Anne Elliot at 27:

-Victoria

Victoria's Favorite Persuasion Quotes

“...we know how difficult it is to keep the actions and designs of one part of the world from the notice and curiosity of the other...” (Chapter 3)

“Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing; but the age of emotion she certainly had not.” (Chapter 6)

“Her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give.” (Chapter 10)

[Mrs. Croft to her husband while they are driving a carriage] “‘My dear Admiral, that post! we shall certainly take that post.’ But by coolly giving the reins a better direction herself they happily passed the danger; and by once afterwards judiciously putting out her hand they neither fell into a rut, nor ran foul of a dung-cart; and Anne, with some amusement at their style of driving, which she imagined no bad representation of the general guidance of their affairs, found herself safely deposited by them at the Cottage.” (Chapter 10)

(A letter from Mary) “The holidays, however, are over at last: I believe no children ever had such long ones…Mrs Harville must be an odd mother to part with them so long. I do not understand it…(in the same letter) “But perhaps if she were to leave the room vacant, we might not be invited…I do not expect my children to be asked, you know. I can leave them at the Great House very well, for a month or six weeks.” (Chapter 18)

“She [Anne] now felt a great inclination to go to the outer door; she wanted to see if it rained. Why was she to suspect herself of another motive? Captain Wentworth must be out of sight. She left her seat, she would go; one half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other half, or always suspecting the other of being worse than it was. She would see if it rained.” (Chapter 19)

“It was but a card party, it was but a mixture of those who had never met before, and those who met too often; a commonplace business, too numerous for intimacy, too small for variety...” (Chapter 23)

-Victoria

A Pretty Project

We had a beautiful spring-like day for our Conversations with Jane meeting! Why, you might ask, do I mention a beautiful spring-like day? Did we do our meeting outside? No! I was just excited to go out of the house with a light jacket on and not freeze to death and step in snow, so it is worth mentioning. It doesn't take much to excite me. :) So, we met at Sharon's house. She and Robin have the cutest items to display food on! Case in point, the beautiful tier thingy pictured below. Doesn't it look more scrumptious just because it's on this cool little thing?!

Many of us showed up wearing hats (including yours truly). It must have been the spring-like weather *grin*. Hadley was able to join us for tea this time and Miss Sharon set a place at the table for Aly (making her day). Hadley and Sarah have not been able to join us very often of late because of their college schedules. We miss having them.

It was then time to finish our discussion of Persuasion. The books we chose for extra reading have really enhanced our studies. Jane Austen for Dummies, Miniatures and Morals, and What Jane Austen Taught Me About Love and Romance have been full of little tidbits. Often, we have already talked about something that appears in these books. Then there are the times that one of them will point out something we hadn't considered before. Sometimes I find one of the books summing up what I was thinking better than I could have said it. Of course, there are times that I totally disagree, like in Miniatures and Morals when the author is discussing Sense & Sensibility...the guy was hard on Marianne Dashwood, not winning any favors from me LOL. One of my favorite quotes (that we discussed) from Miniatures and Morals about Persuasion was this, "In part, the limits of persuasion depend on what is being persuaded. Anne can be persuaded to end an official engagement, but the heart is much more difficult to persuade out of love once persuaded into love." I, personally, had been so focused on Anne being persuaded out of her engagement that I hadn't stopped to consider that over the years she was still persuaded to be in love with Captain Wentworth.

After discussion and the sharing of their blog projects, we began our Regency activity for this month, making Shoe Roses. As usual, I found the idea here. Now I had read the instructions thoroughly, looked up other step-by-step instructions, and found a You Tube video. This was 10x more difficult that I had anticipated! The girls and I all spent some time trying to get this right, sometimes combining a couple different steps. You can see our attempts below. Stay tuned for the rest of their blog projects and favorite quotes!

Victoria trying a different type of ribbon to see if that will make a difference...

it seemed to be working a little better for her than the wire-edged.

These were the two that I managed to get together. I don't know that I could do this again!

These were the two Elizabeth made. Calleigh and Skyeler's are not pictured. Calleigh left before I could take a picture and I probably thought I would take a picture of Skye's when I got home. I guess I forgot :)

Points of Purpose

"If there is anything disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it."

"I hardly looked at him, I was looking at the horses.'

"She had some feelings which she was ashamed to investigate. They were too much like joy, senseless joy!"

"Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long."

"I can no longer listen in silence. I must speak to you by such means as a re within my reach."

"When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort."

Skyeler

Skyeler's Persuasion Blog Project

For my blog project, I decided to use a quote and surround it with words that included Anne's good qualities. I also used the cover of one of the movies and blended it into the background on Photoshop.

Skyeler

Persuasion Quotes

Admiral Croft to Anne after forgetting Louisa’s name
“I wish young ladies had not such a number of fine Christian names. I should never be out if they were all Sophys, or something of that sort.”

Anne
“She now felt a great inclination to go to the outer door; she wanted to see if it rained. Why was she to suspect herself of another motive? Captain Wentworth must be out of sight. She left her seat, she would go; one half of her should not be always wiser that the other half, or always suspecting the other of being worse that it was. She would see if it rained.”

Captain Wentworth to Anne about Captain Bennet marring Louisa Musgrove
“It seems… to have been a perfectly spontaneous, untaught feeling on his side, and this surprises me. A man like him, in his situation! With a heart pierced, wounded, almost broken! Fanny Harville was a very superior creature, and his attachment to her was indeed attachment. A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman. He ought not – he does not.”

Captain Harville to Anne (this one is really long, but beautiful.)
“’Ah!’ Cried Captain Harville, in a tone of strong feeling, ‘if I could but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look as his wife and children, and watches the boat that he has sent them off in, as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says “God knows whether we ever meet again!” And then, if I could convey to you the glow of his soul when he does see them again; when, coming back after a twelvemonth’s absence, perhaps, and obliged to put into another port, he calculates how soon it be possible to get them there, pretending to deceive himself, and saying, “They cannot be here till such a day,” but all the while hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them arrive at last, as if Heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner still! If I could explain to you all this and all that a man can bear and do, and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his existence!”

Elizabeth

Are You Easily Persuaded?

We entered February reading Jane Austen's Persuasion. A short book for a short month. For me, Persuasion was a breath of fresh air after Mansfield Park. I found myself taking less notes as I was quickly caught up in Anne's story. We met for tea at Robin's. I was slightly under the weather that day, so I snapped very few pictures. The ones I took were less than stellar.

For this novel I found many topics for projects and discussion. There were two sheets of blog projects for the girls to choose from and many discussion questions that didn't make it to the syllabus. Normal discussion ensued regarding how we liked Anne as a heroine, what kind of hero was Captain Wentworth, how did the book compare to the other Jane Austen works we have read. Quotes were shared, the vain Sir Walter was laughed over. The core of Persuasion, however, is persuasion. Good and bad. We then had in-depth discussion about how persuadable each of them might be. In. depth. We had in-depth discussion over whether or not Lady Russell had the right to persuade Anne not to marry Captain Wentworth. In. depth. We had in-depth discussion about the type of person each of them would consider marrying including how important education, economic stability, family background, temperament, race, religion, and ethnicity would be in their decision. In. depth. I would say that this was possibly our most serious discussion to date. Our girls have passionate thoughts and are comfortable expressing them. As the leader of our Conversations with Jane group, I am always pleased to see their minds digging deeper into these ideas that Jane Austen presents. They are smart girls and each personality lends a different perspective for the others to think on. As a mom, it is a joy to have a daughter who is comfortable with her faith and is not afraid to discuss hard topics with her parent. (I think I'm safe in saying that Robin and Sharon feel the same). It was not exactly a light afternoon, but a worthwhile one I am sure.

I look forward to the blog projects that the girls will be posting for Persuasion and their favorite quotes. I know that I am a little behind (well, a lot really) in posting any of mine. Our next Conversations with Jane will meet at Sharon's and we will be learning the art of making ribbon roses.

Tea time: Elizabeth, Skyeler, Victoria, and Calleigh

I believe you can see just how serious our discussions were. Do you see those expressions? :)

--Angel